It's damp outside.

 Wade tapped his foot: one,two,three, the tune was a trance grass favorite: Jen on the bass Banjo, Lucky thumping on the big acoustic Bass, and Wade on the Dobro.  The three were sitting around a cylindrically shaped amplifier that Wade had tweaked to cancel out,or dampen, parts of the electromagnetic spectrum (radio), most acoustic waves, and high frequency gravitational waves, ([H.F.G.W.] *reportedly, the recently infected, had no E.M.I. interference with their link, it had been theorized the machine had evolved to use that communications spectrum) and with each instrument keyed into the amps receiver -- the musicians only heard a perfectly balanced audio landscape of what they were playing, no link interference, no outside audio interference, and the strange effects of the H.F.G.W. damping field.  It was a long tune, Jen played a quick riff, "evidently the send pass code, was for me to play my dashboard like a pair of bongo's, embarrassing.  That kid in the pit walked up to see why I hadn't taken off, took one look, gave a thumbs ups, walked back and started drumming out a tune on the side of the bed,  saved our ass".

Cascade

Jen hit the juice, the electric motor thumped up an and the hydraulic drive whined as the truck went forward as fast as it could.  Nobody tried butting in line, but she wasn't going to let anybody have second thoughts.  Into the shadow of the towering elevator enveloped by a cloud of dust, and though the pit one entry bay; clank and bump over the grate, a kid in the dust slid buy.  Pressing back in the seat, looking though the side mirrors until he held out his hand, palm forward, and she stopped, and lifted the bed.  Looked over to Vogt, he had dropped his case, left foot twitching, eye's glazed and slobbering.  Yelled "HEY" loud enough for the kid at the gate to faintly hear it over the electric motors blowing air through the heaters and up though the drying bin exactly over their head.  Threw the rest of her water at him, he twitched, "then I tried slapping, shaking,pinching and pulling on his arm, and he wouldn't come to.  During all this the corn had run out, that kid clanked the gate shut and was waiting for me to pull out; when I didn't - he started ah walking up to the window.  Here's this guy, this company man, dying in the passenger seat - I could not remain calm - and guess I triggered that encrypted emergency alert, and from what you guys have told me, it must've triggered over and over.  She peeped over the potted plant, Mrs. Starr was in the kitchen making her famous boiled chicken dinner, Mr. Starr was asleep in his chair, and door to the deck they were on was shut.      

E.M.I. Shielding Afterthoughts

       There were ten pits and number one was the dryer pit,  Jen thought they must of tested wet and would be docked: Lucky, it's coming in wet or their tester is off.  {Lucky}I'm []esting []in[].. we'r[] [][]n[] ha[]t[] di[]p[][][].  Lucky,you're dropping out I'm right by the dryer.  {L[][][][]} [][][].. and she broke off contact. The grain drier was a high voltage electric mess of heaters and very large motors, causing all kinds of interference.  A truck pulled out of the pit area and the rig beside her started off only to be beaten to the pit by very large rig.  " that guys not going to get a candy".   Vogt stammered out a "yes"? so unusual she took a hard look at him again, and he seem to almost be in that catatonic state,  flickering in and out of it.

   

Connection Lost

        Took a swig out of her water bottle, poured a tiny bit in the palm of her hand, then used the hand to flick it at him.  He inhaled deeply, his eye's opened more than seemed possible, and he whispered, "my M-corp connection seems to have been dropped".  She pursed her lips, squinted and briefly had a thought about the tragedy of game addiction, "you don't have make excuses, people are too hard on gamers, they need to give you're kind, a break, it's an addiction, a disease, maybe a chronic condition, I just hope you're in a recovery program".  Vogt seemed to try to speak but just let out air, she flung more water at him; he closed his eyes, inhaled deeply, and forced out, "no connection" she turned the dash fan toward him, "sure like I told ya, the Tunnel Authority is down right iron fisted when the traffic snarls like this, it's got all the bandwidth tied up, emergency only.  Is it emergency?" in the mean time, the truck had started moving faster and before long they could see daylight at the end of the tunnel, the radio came back on, and control was given over fifty feet on the other side.  She glanced sideways, and Vogt seemed to be in the land of the living once again.

   

Bibs: For Air Circulation

       The red truck was not Jen's favorite, the air ride system right down to her seat was flat, and if she hit a big bump she would bottom out with a clunk.  It looked as though the seat could be slid back further than it did, which pissed her off, she could have used the extra leg room.  The steering wheel was too close, and no matter how they were adjusted, the vents always seem to blow in her face, requiring her to put on quite a bit of moisturizer, that facilitated the adhesion on dirt, resulting in a thorough pumice cleansing every night that left her so skin raw that a special night time moisturiser had to be used.  The sun beating through the driver side window tended to just affect one side of her body: she wore thin white leather gloves, a long sleeve canvas shirt, and a soft long sleeve under garment; bibs: for air flow, a wide brim hat with the side tied down on windy days, and pair of goggles that were disguise as stylish sunglasses.

 

Information Black Hole

       Jen had made two more left turns and was on the black top; Vogt was already in a deep thought about his next question, most likely consulting M-corp,when she felt she ought to slow down while going past a large patch of ivy. 

"Ya know their dad controlled quite a bit of land.... before the Ivy"

Vogt couldn't help but look at that mess of unnatural life.

"that's one of his fields right there" she pointed at the ivy for a little too long.

"but he could tell you all about this place"

The ivy infestation rolled away but Vogt still was looking out the window.  "Maybe there is someone else?"

"Sure there is, you could head down to Edwards and see if you could get any of those Amish to fill ya in".

Vogt seemed to latch on to that.  The Amish had always been a information black hole to M-corp, and not only might they be able to tell him what pipeline was run through here in 1953, but why it had be so easily forgotten.

"Yes, at least I could fill in a few blanks".

Jen had turned on to 36 and a long few minutes had passed

"So you must have found out what caused it"

Vogt had been thinking about the possibility of a secretive Amish organization.

"no, I had to call in a specialist, and will need to stay a few days" Jen let off juice a little, adjusted the mirrors, turned on the radio,roll the window down then back up, raise her seat,yawned, and had sent Wade an encrypted heads up about an emergence of an extended investigation.

Map 1953 {exit} | {quit} | {off}

        He was getting used to the ghost of 1953, but it was making it hard to concentrate.  The auger wagon was smack dab over where the septagonal house used to be, he noticed that there was faint outline of a stoop in the middle of every side, "were those seven corner houses multi-family?" The combine had just started taking in it's auger and LJ had set the wagon to auto,"hang on!" it took off with a snap, and the question was so out of the blue that LJ was caught off guard. "ya.. most of them" LJ watched him as he tracked a spot on the ground, "sometimes the family would get big enough,  n'take over the whole thing" Vogt was now looking out the back window at a spot about forty yards through the bin "early on though it was just the Quakers, ya know".  LJ tried finding just exactly what on the bin he was looking at when he figured he must have an overlay on. "whatcha lookin at"..."ya got overlay on or what?" Vogt started a bit that he knew, but then again why wouldn't he.  Map 1953 was clearly a driver to M-corp, a key, and probably a closely held asset.  "I was consulting a weather map"  

  

The Septagon

        Lucky looked straight ahead, he knew that old seven corner house had been close to their position, dared not to call up, Map 1953, or even think about it.  Vogt, looking at the seven corner house overlay,"I remember going on a field trip to one",
"that would'a been the old settlers village in park", lucky shook his head in nervous disappointment "smashed to pieces, the combine rebellion, those bots threw some low punches".
"Are there any examples I could tour". Lucky saw his opening to divert the questioning, "I think you can arrange ta go through one down around Edwards", and tried to change the subject, "you know, those Amish still drive around in horse and buggies".  Vogt seemed to take the bait, "yes, the M-corp file on that population is thin, not something we like to admit, but their refusal or should I say inability to be infected is troubling".  The auger wagon had roared up and was turning around behind the combine, positioning the low side of the wagon towards lucky.  Vogt watching for the right moment to hop out, said one last thing, "I'd like to know who lived here back in fifties, maybe they're still around?"  And he opened the door to a great rush of sound,wind,and dust, leaving Lucky trying to layer the calm.

Dancing with the Dust Devil.

       A dust devil used the harvesters heat column and profile as a leverage to gain strength,definition and mass; vacuumed up the dust that had some how settled on the harvester, and took aim for Vogt.  Stopped, astonished, looked up the length of it, looked down the row, then looked back where he had just came from; a conundrum, he walk as fast as he could one way and it seemed as though the thing had changed course to cut him off, he ran back the other way, slowed a bit to look over his shoulder and the damn thing was shadowing him.  In a perfect state helplessness, he sat down and gave up, waiting for it to suck him up and spit him out.  Swirling, and scouring the ground as it approached, the colossal dust devil danced around him in a primitive ceremonial ritual preparing him as the sacrificial offering; he lay down on his stomach, gripping the stalks on either side, digging his toes into the dirt waiting for the end.  The crashing sound moved over him and although he fully expected to be flung up into the sky, he was only pelted with dirt,chaff, and other debris.  No torn limbs, just thoroughly impregnated with grime.  Sat up, and watched it dance off,  doing what only could be described as cross between the Hokey Pokey, and the Twist, he even thought he heard a tune in the crashing wind.

   

Exhale Delta Waves

Vogt was lost, looking over at that ivy, a massive field of it.  The combine made the turn at the other end, the auger wagon roared to the truck with a full load.  One or two nights in Agropolis would be a trip down memory lane, a regular tangle of recollections he had never wanted to collect, M-corp could be in for a feast. As a rule: Vogt operated on a superficial level, denying a deeper connection to M-corp, moving around from place to place; a rootless, unsettled way of life, that made sure every day was new, and when he eventually started to develop a familiarity with a location, he would request a transfer.  M-corp had caught on to this strategy that was employed by quite a few of its associates and a mass involuntary separation occurred. 
 At the time he had been embroiled in project that had become a bag of snakes, and separation would've left the snake problem to one the true 'bleeds chartreuse' M-corp executives, and that kind of admistrivia was not in her job description.  It was mess, but in avoiding that large purge, it had afforded him an immunisation of a sort: he was allowed to keep some memories from loading into M-corp, in exchange for becoming a snake charmer, and was usually rushed in a moments notice to put out the figurative fire.  It seemed a good trade off, he didn't have to go through the human resource bureaucracy for a transfer, and in-fact was constantly on the move, a dream job at M-corp.  
  He pulled up the probe, packed away the seismic device, transit, scanner,and tripods; only slightly recognizing that he seemed to have gotten the best of M-corp, and that he had never heard of anybody or thing, coming out ahead on a negotiation with that behemoth.  He started for the wagon, walking down the long straight row, trying not to go there, but he did, and subconsciously triggered a delta wave message, that started with 'Dear, M-corp', as is only proper, and ended correctly with 'sincerely Ward Vogt'.

LiL' Gene Splicers Kit

       Soon, he had his spliced vine growing, and grabbing, and it took over their back yard.  His parents notified the proper authorities and it was sprayed with a herbicide, most of it died; but secretly a bit had survived, a tiny shoot growing in hidden spot. He dug it up, and took it out, way outside of town, and planted it in the overgrown lawn of an abandoned grain bin.  Soon that plant had grown enormous taking over the old bin and most of the lot before somebody spotted it, alerted the authorities, who sprayed it yet again.  But this time it didn't die, it was affected though, the herbicide was like holy water for the twisted leprous arborific parasite, and it grew and mutated into the Ivy.  Of course the authorities knew of his devious meddling in the genetic code of such dangerous plants, he was brought before the juvenile court, sentence to behavioral therapy and the "LiL' Gene Splicers Kit" was taken off the market, litigation is still ongoing     

Phenomenally Breezy

       Vogt was lying on his side, propped up on one elbow, looking through a transit, fixed on top of a short tripod, while a scanner did it's own thing twenty feet away.  Opened his closed eye and peered over the instrument,  the subsidence ran in a straight line, the width stayed within ten or twenty feet, depth from zero to.. Lucky had made his turn and was coming back on the row where the deepest depression started.  He wouldn't really know how deep it was until the corn had been cut.  Closed one eye and peered into the scope, flipped the 4X extender, the image was a little blurry, too much wind, a big gust blew a bunch of husks, chaff, and lose stalks into the air; it all seemed to fly at him at once, he squinted, ducked down little, grabbed the transit as it was hit and tipping over, just in time to witness the optical phenomenon of apparent size when scanner will fall over onto the combine eating it's way to the subsidence.

   

Urgent: Delta Wave Alert Link {Activate}.

  The entity inside his head, lucky had started to think of as the "Other Lucky" and it had been monitoring the map 1953 when a chronological anomaly occurred.  The time code had diverged into two separate streams one just seconds ahead of the other.  It ran a check on Lucky, "Ya feelin ok". "Sure", lucky trying to achieve a calm through the repetition of the corn slaughter, wasn't really into this intrusion from a suspect reality, expand calm, then Other Lucky interrupted and broke any expanding calm that had developed, "there was an anomalous chronological event that has... ta tell truth... baffled me".  Luckies anxiety leveled up one notch.  "I don't want cha ta worry, but I thought I should just let ya know.  Ya know?"  Lucky triggered an anxiety threshold, and sent another delta wave alert cast.  The next instant: "{Dad}: your mom's going to be there soon, layer calm",out of astonishment Lucky forgot where he was at for second, his dad was not one to send messages, he was very old and mostly likely had to wake up out of his mid-morning nap, to message him, and his mom was just a few years younger and in no way should be out driving around by feel, in the country.  Amazing, it's like he was in middle school again.

A Wall of Bright

 Both sets of eye watched the march of the corn plants to certain doom -- hypnotic, plant after plant, the wind picked up, and blew across the tops of the stalks in a wave, hit the side of the combine and blew the piled up chaff into a swirling cloud; that converged with the sun, at ten in the morning, with not a cloud in the sky, into a massive wall of light to one side and in front of the combine.  Lucky slowed a bit, poor visibility, a strong gust hit, snapped the tops off from just above the ear; roared through the mirrors, antennas, cameras, and other dangles; and blew the amorphous wall of bright away.  Vogt snapped out of it and " do you have the latest survey maps of the subsidence".  blurted out, with out a check.  Lucky slowed even more,"thought I had the latest, but I don't have any survey marks". Just as he said it an external thought germinated, just breaking the through the surface realty, "just watch it kid": It was his neural I.D., so he was not being hacked into, not that such a thing had ever been done.  Was it even possible?  Just watch it kid?  Watch what?  Then it clicked, a bulb went on, a light came from within and illuminated this particular situation, and a thought formed of his own will: this guy is not a soil scientist and I do know him.  Then  the unsettling: the other Lucky faintly chimed in "you got it, now follow the breadcrumbs" 

Do Not Hand Feed the Reaper.

  "I have always been a soil scientist".  Expecting more in the way of a reply, Lucky settled in the chair, closed the standing well, looked out past Vogt to the trickle of grain coming out of the auger arm, shut down the P.T.O.(power take off) that stopped the auger, fold | ramp two thousand R.P.M, the massive electric motor made a few octave changes, flipped the safety switch that started the head,feeder,separator,thresher,knives,and other auxiliary reaping armaments; pushed the stick gently forward and started cutting.  Stalks twitched, violently slurped into the head, gnawing them down, chewing them up, and in a chronic explosive defecation event, ejected out the back.  Lucky concentrated on keeping the speed just right, the distance between the ground and the head was regulated by sensor, but only roughly, debris interference occurred.  Vogt look past Lucky into the unharvested field, map overlay on: a red outline with short regularly placed perpendicularly lines appeared about fifty yard to the left and forward,  it looked like he would be riding for a while.

Working at the Foundation Nut and Seed.

Lucky had been watching the journey from the wagon to the combine, and thought he recognized the guy.  He couldn't quite place him though. Just on the short end of average height, dark hair, slightly balding, kinda muscly, thin face , and he was wearing a watch, --weird-- nobody wore a watch.  An implanted or infected person always could call up the time.  In fact Lucky had to conditioned him self to not check the time, he had a habit before the implant, that armchair psychiatric types might have said was obsessive-compulsive clock watching.  He was sure it was a learned behavior, developed on the job counting modified hazel nuts that were all individually given an I.D..  A small team of workers, numbered one through four, (he was number three) counted the nuts.  Each plant had a number, each nut was grouped into lots of six sets, of seven seeds: so 201-50-5-1-P5, would denote bush 201,lot 50,set 5,seed 1, Pyramid 5(the owner of the plot).  All this had to be done in a set amount of time, not under or over by two minutes, if the time frame was blown that bush's nut's would go to the end of the line and have to be counted again.  lucky wasn't sure how all that fit into the genetic engineering of nuts, and years later became suspicious when he was implanted and became aware through his monthly bandwidth tracker, of how much he used to called up the time, usually a very low data consumer.  Could it have been a psychology experiment?  If it was what exactly was the purpose?  Was his fixation with time the intended result or just an artifact?  After the cognitive restructuring he went to P5 Foundation Nut and Seed, to see his old team leader, he no longer worked there, almost every one who worked with him at Foundation Nut,(that's what everyone call it) had moved on.  His team, he only new as One,Two and Four;...!...He's number Four, just a kid at the time, how he got the job he didn't know, he didn't look ,more than ten years old.

A Corporate Spook

       Vogt quickly got up the rest of the ladder, sat in the ride along seat, and pulled the door closed trapping the corn chaff in the cab.  Wade turned the fan to high in an effort to filter the dust out, turned down the music, and the steering wheel turned on it's own.  He didn't suspend the auto function of the wagon,  the corporate gooks were were all about autonomous function, and he might as well make the right impression.     

Time Trials with Mass and Momentum.

L.J., standing in the cab of the auger wagon, tunes thumping out the dust, going over the commodity report, taking a sip of tea, when the auto drive was triggered by the harvester and the wagon took off like a jerk.  Auto wagon suspend, and he took over the wheel, slowed down, put the cup in a holder, snapped shut the lid, wiped off his face with the bottom of his shirt and made a wide ark, angling in with the rows, positioning the wagon exactly underneath where the harvesters unfolding auger arm would soon be, auto wagon engage. When both the wagon and the harvester synced speed, the harvester's auger started up with a high raspy sound, multitudes of kernels being forced through the arm by the rotating auger.  Splat, just like a giant bean bag had been pitched into the wagon, made the whole rig whence, and dance a jig till it was too full, and had to sit down for the night.  L.J. turned the cab about ten minutes to right to take a look at dusty gold being barfed out of that tube. Wait for.. last trickle, auto wagon suspend, and take off like a yak out of hell.  Fly down the row at twenty M.P.H. with around forty tons of grain in the back.  At the end, slow, make the turn, hop and bounce until lined up with the end row.

Pharmacological Games

  In the tunnel the trucks gain speed and shoot out into the midmorning light as colored streaks of dusty noise, one after the other dispersed into the grid, targeting there destination with scatter shot accuracy.  Bouncing along in the air suspended seat while bouncing with the air suspended cab that was bouncing on the air suspended frame connected to the high flotation tires, you would think would be a smooth ride, and it was, just a floating motion more or less.  The air was on, Jen turned on news talk, and the flat corn desert stretch out like the great dirt sea it is.  Vogt had that glazed look of some one that had internalized, a gamer, Jen was sure she remembered Vogt being a zombie as a kid.  His parent's were pretty well off and he was sure to have been one of the first people with the implant, and it was years before it was implicated in that condition.  Jen glanced over at him - addicted - he was probably on a prescribed game, withdrawals could be deadly, mind breaking events.  So what would've been a promising event for Jen, turned out to be a very quiet ride down 36, strait, flat, corn husks blowing across the road, when the turn at eight hundred east seemed to bounce him out of the coma.  "Close to the site" he said with out moving a muscle. blinking, or seemingly moving his mouth.  Jen call the map up and confirmed.