“What is that?” I asked, pointing behind the man.
It looked like a rusted, bicycle-sized white box resting on two fat wheels. The top and sides of it were green with leafy hanging plants. As it slowly, steadily scaled the sand dune, heading right toward us, a narrow white funnel shot up from it, reaching high into the sky. It made a loud whoooooosh! and the air around us grew comfortably cool. The contraption had a capture station collecting water. I laughed. This was why the green plants on it stayed healthy; they had an easy, constant source of water.
“That’s a planter, isn’t it?” DNA asked, grinning.
I looked around. Planters were the property of Ultimate Corp, and Ultimate Corp always monitored its equipment.
“Relax,” the man said. “They actually don’t monitor planters. That’s how rich Ultimate Corp is. They hire us. They pay us if we send invoices. They record how many plants we plant. And they’re so confident in our desperation and so rich that they don’t bother checking on us if we go rogue, as I have.”
“You don’t plant?” DNA asked.
“Oh I did for a year or two, then I decided it was time to go. I know you think I’m touched, but I don’t need money.”
DNA shook his head. “I don’t think you’re, uh, touched. Out here, money isn’t everything.”
The man nodded. He squinted at the cat rubbing itself against his legs. Then he looked at us and held out a hand to DNA, “I’m Gold. Who are you?”
DNA looked at me, and I shrugged. He took the man’s hand and shook it. “DNA.”
I held out my left hand and he took it without hesitation and shook it firmly. “Ah, you must have walked away from Ultimate Corp, too,” he said to me, smiling.
I frowned. “Why do you say that?”
He motioned toward me. “Because you’re part made from their stock, and you’re out here.”
“I’m not part . . . I was born . . .” I frowned and shook my head. “I’m not a . . . a product of Ultimate Corp.”
He chuckled. “Suit yourself,” he said patting me on the shoulder. “I didn’t mean to offend, my dear. I think you’re amazing.” He looked beyond me. “Pepper has made friends with your steer.”
I looked back, then I laughed loudly. The dog stood on Carpe Diem’s back and the steer didn’t seem to mind at all. DNA, however, looked irritated. “Don’t worry,” Gold said. “Relax. We are all happy and healthy.” He put two fingers in his mouth and blew a brief sharp whistle. The dog leaped down and came running. “He was raised around cattle,” Gold said. “He’s used to herding them.”
“Well, my steer aren’t inanimate objects,” DNA snapped.
“They didn’t mind, though,” Gold said. “Pepper knows how to tread lightly. Anyway, come, let’s break bread. I have fresh roasted goat meat and fried plantain and I’m happy to share.” He also had a giant red tent he could pitch in seconds that provided us with solid shade and a solar fan. The whole set-up was comfortable and the food he shared was delicious. I hadn’t eaten since the peanuts I’d had yesterday, and with each bite, I felt more like myself. I was about to take a third helping of the goat meat. Instead, I hesitated.
“Eat, eat,” he said. “I’m coming from my sister’s wedding two nights ago. They packed my planter’s cabinet with too much food. Even with the cold of the capture station, it’s so much food that it’ll spoil before I can finish it all.”
I took another piece of goat meat. “Have you always traveled alone?” I asked.
“No,” he said. “My best friend, she used to travel with me. Then she decided she wanted to settle down and start a farm.” He paused and looked at the content cat sleeping in his lap. “That was when I decided to stop planting for Ultimate Corp.”
DNA laughed and nodded.
“What? I don’t get it,” I said.
“This your friend is not from around here,” Gold said to DNA.
“No,” DNA said. “And she hasn’t been here for more than twenty four hours.”
“Miss AO, you will think I’m touched and that is okay. I still explain am to you. You go listen?”
I rolled my eyes at his dramatics. “I go listen,” I said.
“Okay. Miss AO, I’m out here because I have to bear witness to what used to be here. My lady didn’t want to, but that’s above me now. I know I must. I was out here before Ultimate Corp ran everything and everyone out into the desert and into the Red Eye. Then they hired many of us nomads to leave our way of life to earn a salary by planting. We were fools.
“We let them convince us that we had nothing and our lands were useless. If it cannot make money, then it is worthless. That is not our culture, that is capitalism. Yet we still listened. We saw their big cities, we wanted all their nonsense things, we respected their big talk. We learned to prize money over things far more valuable.
“This led to farmers’ letting Ultimate Corp buy their land. They were convinced they were getting something for nothing, the nothing being the land they’d been told was worthless. There was an element of fear, too. Fear of the big people from big faraway places. Goddamn, it was like rolling over and dying. The farmers sold their land, but they stayed to farm it. Where else were they going to go? They were given high tech equipment for farming which made them abandon their old ways. How can you go back to the labor of working the land when now you simply had to press buttons to make the machines do it? Now Ultimate Corp really has them. It’s a mess. My friend, she married one of those farmers. At least with me, she was free.”
He threw his piece of goat meat to his dog who sniffed at it and then slowly began to eat it. Pepper was a well fed dog.
“Everyone who works for it, hates it,” DNA said.
Gold nodded. “But they collect a salary from it. They shop from it. They hate what it does, yet Ultimate Corp continues doing it. It’s something more than human, by Allah. It’s the beast, a djinn. Fire and air, insubstantial, but very real. Human beings created it, but they will never control it.”
We were all quiet after that, except for the sound of Pepper politely gnawing on his piece of goat meat, the cat curled nearby in a most peaceful nap.
* * *
—
Hours after Gold had moved on and we’d walked goodness knew how many more miles, I was still thinking about all he’d said. He took one look at me and thought I was an actual product of Ultimate Corp. I mean, maybe my parts came through them, I thought. But everything came through them. I stopped walking. Did everything come through Ultimate Corp? “Maybe,” I muttered, pinching my chin. I’d never really thought much of it.
“What?” DNA asked.