“They were supposed to add sulfur to this batch, but they didn’t. So you won’t smell it. It won’t make you cough or your eyes water. It’ll just be lights out. Good night. You got me?”
“Did you not hear me? Don’t even look at that thing without your mask on.” He takes a breath, calmer now that I’ve lowered my hands. “Look, the first solution—it’s fine. It’s keyed to the plant itself and just opens its cells up for whatever solution we put on it. You could drink the stuff. But that second? The orange vial? Don’t even put it in the mister without your mask on. It dissipates quickly, so you’re good once you’re done spraying, but not a second before.”
He looks around, then leans in. “They were supposed to add sulfur to this batch, but they didn’t. So you won’t smell it. It won’t make you cough or your eyes water. It’ll just be lights out. Good night. You got me?”
I nod again as I grab the mask I hadn’t noticed before. This time when I thank him, I mean it.
It takes me an hour to find the first plant, and when I do it’s beautiful. Lush pink on the inside and dark green on the outside, it looks hearty and primitive. Almost Jurassic. I can see why it’s only in the sewers now: it would be too easy to spot and destroy aboveground in the sea of concrete.
After putting on my mask, I activate the mister and then stand back as it sprays the plant with poison. Nothing happens. I remember the prepping solution and switch the cartridges to coat it in that first. The next time I try the poison, the plant wilts instantly, browning and shrinking like a tire deflating. I was wrong. Plants this size don’t die silently. It makes a wheezing sound, a deep sigh. By the third time I’ve heard it, I swear I can make out the word Please.
HENRY HORENSTEIN
When I get home, LeeLee’s locked herself in the bathroom, which doesn’t surprise me. I heard that they moved to acid for rats, and the smell of a corpse dissolving is impossible to get used to and even harder to get out of your hair. I eat dinner, read, change for bed, and she’s still in the bathroom. I brush my teeth in the kitchen.
The next morning, I have to take a transport to the plant’s habitat on the other end of the city, so I spend the time looking through the file that came with the assignment. Under “Characteristics,” some city government scientist has written, “Large, dark. Resource-intensive. Stubborn.”
I stare at the last word. Its own sentence, tacked on like an afterthought. Stubborn. The same word that was written in my file when I got sent from school to the facility where I met LeeLee and Jordan. Large, dark, stubborn, and condemned. I’ve never been called resource-intensive. But I have been called a waste.