The Year of the Flood

Ren recalls one of the nights in the Sticky Zone, remembering it in thorough detail, including what she had for dinner: ChickieNobs, which weren’t technically meat because they grew on stems and didn’t have faces. After dinner, she looked in on the Snakepit again and noticed three new clients—men from Painball. Judging from their appearance and the little tattoos on their thumbs, they had just recently been released.

At Scales and Tails there were usually a couple of CorpSeCorps representatives accompanying the Painball vets, since they tended to get angry and cause damage. That’s why the club policy was to feed them as much alcohol and drugs as possible. Since Ren had been locked in the Sticky Zone, they had also started using a new drug called BlyssPluss, which guaranteed “hassle-free sex, total satisfaction, blow you right out of your skin, plus 100 percent protection” (155). Although the Scales girls were usually not allowed to take drugs on the job, Mordis made an exception, because if the workers took BlyssPluss, they didn’t have to wear a protective Biofilm Bodyglove, and many customers paid extra for that. Scales was only testing the drug, but Ren couldn’t wait to try it.

Scales girls received a lot of tips on Painball nights, but they often weren’t asked to do what Ren described as “plank duty” with the vets because Mordis did not want to suffer loses in case the men harmed the girls. So for this kind of job, temporary workers were called, “smuggled Eurotrash or Tex-Mexicans or Asian Fusion or Redfish minors” (155). These girls were treated as disposable material, and Ren never saw them twice.

Ren saw two clients being entertained by two Scales girls, Savona and Starlite. One of the men seemed familiar to her; his head was bold on top, and he had a ponytail at the back, so she assumed he had probably been to Scales and Tails before. Since the evening was uneventful, Ren called Amanda, but she didn’t answer.

Ren recollects the period when Amanda first came to live with her and how her life changed during that time. She was 13 then, and Amanda a bit older, and they shared a room in Ren’s home.

That year, on Monday of Saint Euell’s Week, Amanda and Ren were preparing to look for plants and fungi with other children. It was early morning, so Zeb was singing in the shower, while Lucerne was making breakfast, which was quite unusual for her. Ren assumed that she was making an effort because things between her and Zeb were not going well lately, and they fought a lot. Amanda and Ren often heard Lucerne accusing Zeb of seeing someone else, but he just brushed off her words.

For breakfast that morning, Lucerne made fried black beans and boiled pigeon’s eggs, saying she wanted to make sure they ate well before eating “old roots and mice” (160) for the rest of the week. Lucerne told everyone that she wouldn’t be joining them because she had a migraine. Before bidding farewell to Lucerne, Zeb promised to ask Toby to stop by their house with her medicine.

Ever since Amanda came into Ren’s life, Bernice had to accept that she wasn’t Ren’s best friend anymore. The three girls still walked to and from school together, but Amanda was now Ren’s main confidant and a big authority in her eyes. They both wanted to quit the Gardeners but were afraid of Adam One’s reaction.

Amanda and Ren were on their way to the Buenavista Compound to pick up Bernice, when Amanda said that she found out that Burt the Knob, Bernice’s father, and Nuala go to the Vinegar Room together two nights a week between five and six, when no one is supposed to be there. Ren found it amusing that Amanda treated sex as something to be ridiculed, acting as if “you could snigger at it or trade it or both, but you couldn’t respect it” (164).

At first, Ren couldn’t believe Amanda’s words, but either way, she was sure they could not tell Bernice about it. When the two friends climbed the stairs of the Buenavista Compound, they caught a strong smell of weed. Ren knew that Amanda was an expert in those things, but no matter how much Ren begged Amanda to let her try drugs, she wouldn’t agree to it, saying that Ren was still a baby.

Amanda suspected that the building was a gro-op—a concealed indoor marijuana plantation—but this was unlikely since the Gardeners owned it. As they reached the fourth floor, they heard men’s voices. At first the men seemed to be arguing, then fighting. Amanda told Ren that it was probably “some trade going bad” (165), and the two quickly ran away up the stairs.

When they reached Bernice’s apartment, and she opened the door for them, they were surprised to notice that Veena “was looking at [them] as if she actually saw [them]” (165).

The week started with the Outdoor Classroom Predator-Prey demonstration, led by Zeb, in which he explained how to kill and skin an animal. Then the children spent the afternoon at the Tree of Life Natural Minerals Exchange held in the Heritage Park. The event wasn’t just for the Gardeners; other groups sold their produce and handmade items there. Locals still preferred to buy fruit and vegetables grown by the Gardeners because it was “the real thing” (169).

Ren, Amanda, and Bernice were supposed to help Toby at the mushroom booth. There, Ren could take a closer look at their customers, many of whom were “overloaded with expensive skin—alligator slingbacks, leopard minis, oryx-hide handbags” (171). She wondered what it must be like to feel “another creature’s skin right next to your own” (171).

After some time selling mushrooms, the two friends were told to help Nuala at the vinegar booth. Every time Nuala bent over to get a bottle, Amanda and Ren made wiggly motions and chuckled. After a while, Bernice got angry that they weren’t letting her in on a joke, and when Amanda went to the violet biolet, Bernice twisted Ren’s arm two ways and demanded that they tell her why they were laughing. At first Ren resisted, but then she told Bernice about Nuala and Burt going to the Vinegar Room together. Angry, Bernice accused her of lying. Nuala noticed that Bernice’s eyes were very red and, thinking that she’d had an allergic reaction to something, allowed her to go home early.

A teenage boy came to the booth. He was a bit older than Ren and Amanda, and unlike other customers, he was wearing plain black clothes. He told them he needed to see Pilar about a jar of honey he bought because it wasn’t good. Ren knew that honey didn’t go bad, so she suspected that this was not the real reason he came. Seeing the boy, Zeb came over and instructed Ren and Amanda to take him to Pilar, who wasn’t feeling well and had stayed back. Zeb introduced the boy as Glenn and seemed to know him well.

On their way to the Edencliff Rooftop Garden, Glenn hardly said anything, walking a little behind Amanda and Ren. When they arrived, they found Pilar in the Fallows Hut; her eyes were closed, and she looked ill. But when she saw Glenn, she welcomed him as if she had been expecting him.

Pilar asked Amanda and Ren to bring her a glass of water, and as much as Ren wanted to stay behind and listen to their conversation, she and Amanda had to leave. Amanda suspected that Glenn was from the Compounds, where people who worked for the Corps lived, “all those scientists and business people Adam One said were destroying old Species and making new ones and ruining the world” (176). When they brought Pilar the glass of water, she said goodbye to Glenn, and the three of them returned to Heritage Park, exchanging just a few words.

The following day, when Ren and Amanda came to pick up Bernice from her apartment, Veena opened the door and told them to go away. She didn’t seem Fallow and was very angry at them. On that day they were supposed to go to Heritage Park to forage mushrooms with Pilar and Toby, but since Pilar was sick, they had the Wild Botanicals class with Burt the Knob behind Scales and Tails.

Burt made them draw the plants he was showing with chalk so that they would memorize them better. He described a wild plant called purslane, but the children didn’t pay much attention to his words or want to draw anything, so he got furious.

Suddenly, Burt directed his attention at something behind the children. When they turned around, they saw Veena and Bernice, accompanied by two CorpSeMen with sprayguns. Ren felt “all the blood drain out of [her] face” (180). One of the CorpSeMen told Burt that he was being arrested for “illegal growing of marijuana for black-market profit” (181). When Burt approached Veena, she told him she knew all about his illegal trade and affair with Nuala.

Adam One came through the gap in the fence as if he sensed that something was going on. Veena accused Adam One of failing to notice “a major gro-op in the Buenavista, right under [their] sacred Gardener noses” (182). Adam One only commented that money was a great temptation. No matter how much Burt justified himself, the CorpSeMen arrested him. Later on, Amanda told Ren that Veena probably reported Burt: CorpSeCorps encouraged people to report on each other, sometimes they even paid for it.

Afterward, Adam One told everyone to go back home, and Ren felt very bad for what had happened. She wanted to tell Adam One what they’d done, but Amanda warned her that this would only bring them more trouble. Afraid to disappoint Amanda, Ren agreed not to tell anyone.

The following day, Amanda promised Ren that she had a surprise that was bound to cheer Ren up. She took her to the Sinkhole mallway, where Ren, Amanda, Shackie, and Croze all crammed into a kind of photo-booth. Since it was designed to fit only two people, the four of them stood really close to each other; Ren felt someone’s hand on her butt, but she didn’t say anything.

The surprise turned out to be the superweed Burt was growing in the Buenavista; the two boys had snuck in without CorpSe people noticing them and stolen some of it. Ren had heard from Amanda about how drugs make you feel, and she wasn’t sure if she trusted Shackie and Croze enough to do drugs with them, so she refused to smoke. But Amanda insisted, saying that she “traded a lot” (186) to get her this surprise, and Ren gave in. Before she could try it herself, Shackie rolled the leaves, put his mouth down to Ren’s, and blew smoke into her mouth. Ren felt dizzy then sick, so she threw up, hitting all of them, and passed out.

When she woke up, they were still in the mallway, but she already felt better. Shackie and Croze demanded payment from Amanda—she had promised to sleep with each of them in exchange for the weed. Amanda refused to pay back her debt, saying that their weed didn’t make Ren happy. The boys were disappointed, while Ren couldn’t believe that Amanda was willing to do so much for her; she knew that Amanda used to trade for food when she was fleeing from Texas, but she hated it. That Amanda was willing to experience that again for Ren made Ren feel very special.