Extinction Level Event (16 page)

Port of Long Beach, Los Angeles

As the second-busiest port in the United States, the
Port of Long Beach receives a huge amount of traffic in and out of
its harbor every day. With over 80 ship berths, the port handles
over $100 billion in exports and imports annually and provides jobs
for over 300,000 people in the state of California. A massive
quantity of containers is processed at the port every day,
primarily from Taiwan, China, South Korea, and Japan. Long Beach
serves as a major seaport gateway for U.S.- Asia trade, and as such
thousands of items such as cars, electronics, furniture, toys, and
home appliances are shipped in every day. U.S. exports flowing
through Long Beach to Asian destinations include, amongst other
things, a significant quantity of lactose, horticultural, and
seafood products.

During the daytime the port is a bustle of hundreds
of dockworkers, ship crews, cranes, trains, and trucks rushing to
designated positions in order to unload their cargo and pick up new
cargo. The docks are full of a multi-colored array of boxes stored
in neat rows throughout the vast concrete decks adjacent to the
docked ships. Huge cranes, both onboard the ships and on shore,
move the crates to and from the cargo holds and decks onto awaiting
trucks.

During the nighttime the buzz of activity quiets down
but does not cease entirely. The third shift is as active as the
first and second despite having less dockworkers and staff on hand
than the first two. Miguel Sanchez is one of the supervisors during
third shift at the Port. Waking up at 8:30pm every day he usually
arrives at work at 9:45pm to begin work at ten. It is a grueling
shift where workers must rely on light from flashlights, lights
from hardhats, overhead lights, and other artificial light sources.
During 2-4am most people feel groggy, extremely tired, and ready to
fall asleep, despite it only being 4-5 hours into the workday.
Scientists have referred to this period of the 24-hour cycle as the
“zombie hour”. Determined not to let this deter him, Sanchez makes
sure that he has his usual two cups of coffee around 1am while on
the job. He duties include making sure that all the shipping crates
carrying are safely packaged and secure for transport, and make
sure that those under his supervision do their work properly.

Many of the third shift dock crews drink coke, Red
Bull, and other caffeinated drinks to keep them on edge during this
part of the night. Looking over a crate labeled “McGreenery”,
Sanchez identifies the item as a crate full of olives bound for
Shanghai, China. Ordering his workers to get the case onto the
container ship, he fails to notice the slight crack at the bottom
of the wooden crate. Tiredly, he watches a forklift pick up the
crate and haul it to a crane operated by a worker before focusing
on the next crate. The crane picks up the crate and loads it onto
the waiting cargo ship, illuminated only by a small quantity of
work lights. Neither Sanchez nor anyone else looks the crate again
as it is put into the cargo deck and subsequently covered by a
hundred more identical crates. If Sanchez were to look closer at
the small opening however, he would have seen the teeming mass of
earthworms inside the crate, ready for their journey across the
world’s largest ocean to the world’s largest continent. . . .

Los Angeles, California

Krishnan's plane lands at LAX International during
the mid-afternoon, giving Krishnan plenty of time to rent a car and
drive himself over to the LA office. As he walks out into the
Arrivals section Krishnan notices a man in the crowd holding a sign
with his name written on it, "Dr. V K Krishnan". Walking over to
the man in business casual attire, Krishnan identifies himself and
asks him name. "Jacobs", replies the man, producing a USDA ID from
his button-up's breast pocket. "I'm here to take you to Mr. LaJoy.
He's waiting at our office." Krishnan follows the man out to the
street and to the car. The drive to the USDA LA office on 360 E 2nd
Street takes thirty minutes through heavy Los Angeles rush-hour
traffic. Once they reach the gleaming skyscrapers and concrete
office towers of downtown LA, "Jacobs" drives into Little Tokyo and
next to the local Federal building. Surrounded by one-story shops
on South Central Ave, the USDA offices are housed in an adjacent
ten-story glass and concrete tower. "Jacobs" leads Krishnan through
the sliding doors and into one of the building's elevators.

After exiting on the third floor Krishnan and
"Jacobs" are welcomed by a mayhem of USDA staff, clerks,
secretaries, scientists, and others all engaged in two or more
simultaneous activities. Shouting into phones, heated arguments
over reports, shouting instructions to people across the room
defines the atmosphere of the numerous cubicles scattered around
the room. Leading him through the maze to the back of the second
floor, Jacobs pushes open a door left barely open by the room's
occupant. The room, surrounded by soundproof glass, offers the
occupant a very tangible privacy for discussion if it is desired.
Opening the door, Jacobs steps back motioning for Krishnan to
enter. Inside the office two men are seated. The one sitting behind
the desk is a tall, lanky, balding figure in his early sixties
while the one sitting with his back turned to Krishnan is a
shorter, stockier man of whom Krishnan only sees the large black
fro of hair on his head. The tall, balding man stand up and
introduced himself as "Peter LaJoy", while the second swivels his
chair to reveal a swarthy, shorter fellow with moustache and a
short goatee. "Mr. Krishnan, this is Dr. Gonzalo Rodriguez, a
resident expert on earthworms from UC Berkeley", says LaJoy while
pointing at the man with the Afro-styled hair. "Pleasure to meet
you, Dr. Krishnan.", utters Rodriguez. Krishnan, wearing in smart
casual, would never have guessed otherwise that this odd-looking
character would have been a professor at Berkeley had not LaJoy
told him so. "Now, that we've all been introduced, shall we get
down to business?", inquires LaJoy, motioning for Krishnan to take
a seat on one of the remaining three chairs.

Krishnan closes the door and sits down. "As you can
see, we are just getting set up here. A major investigation has
been launched and we have started cooperation with both the Dept.
of Homeland Security and FEMA. We have just been discussing how
important earthworms are to industries and business in southern
California. Most importantly of all, to agriculture. As you know,
California relies on agriculture as major component of the state's
economy. Hundreds of millions of dollars in airborne exports,
hundreds more counting rail and truck transport. California's
central valley is basically a $40 billion dollar economy, and
without the earthworms Dr. Rodriguez believes that we may see
significant problems arise, and quickly." Rodriguez continues
LaJoy's discussion. "As I have been explaining to Peter here,
earthworms are an integral aspect of farming. We like to call them
ecosystem engineers
. They regulate soil processes such as
structure, organic matter decomposition, nutrient cycling, plant
growth, and so forth. While biological factors such as the type of
vegetation or particular species of earthworms in an area affect
the engineering efficiency of the earthworms, in agriculture it is
abundantly clear that they are invaluable, to say the least."

"So what are we looking at here in California?"
"Well, as I said, their engineering depends on things like
vegetation, regional climate and soil type. Which is why I
theorized that a microclimate change could be doing this to the
worms, or a change in the soil composition. In the soil, the worm
drops castings which create organic matter for plants to feed on,
and the castings also absorb nutrients which are then taken by the
plants. Their burrows in the soil allow better root penetration by
plants, and they also increase microbial activity of microorganisms
such as mycorrhizl fungi which promote plant growth. The burrows
also creates macro and micropores throughout the soil, which lead
to better water-holding capacity and aeration. All these activities
are crucial to helping plants grow healthy and strong. Most
agricultural plants are dependent on having good, fertile soil in
which to grow- this means plenty of soil nutrients, water, and
aeration. Soil richness can even be measured by the number of
earthworms in it- good farmland can hold numbers up to eight
hundred worms per square meter. There are millions of earthworms
and hundreds of species in every acre of land."

Krishnan takes the cue. "So you're saying that soil
quality in California is going to go down by a lot?. I mean, since
soil richness is indicated by earthworms per hectare in a sense, we
could be looking at a major bump to the agricultural sector,
within, perhaps a matter of weeks?" "That may be the case, Doctor."
"Rodriguez, if we were to lose all the earthworms in the central
valley, what would that cost the economy?", asks LaJoy. Rodriguez
takes a moment to think before responding. "hmm, the cost would be
pretty big, to say the least. Earthworms decrease levels of plant
pathogens and parasites in the soil. For example, soil lesions
occur much less frequently where earthworms are abundant. Parasitic
nematodes are reduced by microorganisms that are brought in or
benefit from earthworms. Worms help denitrify the soil. When we
fertilize agricultural soil we add huge quantities of artificial
and natural nitrogen to the soil. Earthworms reduce that through
their castings, but, with the worms out of the equation the
nitrogen levels in the soil would certainly increase. It will take
longer for the nitrogen to recycle back into the atmosphere."

LaJoy looks surprised. "That shouldn't be so bad,
maybe our farmers will benefit by having to use less artificial
fertilizers for their fields." "I don't think so, Peter. Excessive
nitrogen levels can be as detrimental to crops and plants in
general as too little nitrogen. Nitrogen over the optimum levels
does not increase crop yield. In fact, excessive nitrogen causes
toxicity in plants which could be passed to second-level consumers
of that plant. It will also make the plants weak are more
susceptible to disease, parasites, and possibly death. We should
run Illinois soil-nitrogen tests to determine the levels of
nitrogen in the central valley over the next several weeks."

"No benefits to the farmers at all.", states LaJoy.
"and the worse part of it is this thing is spreading. Which is
where you come in, Dr. Krishnan. We've already disproven
Rodriguez's theory that the worms are being affected by
microclimate or soil change. I seriously doubt it, but the theory
of pathogenic transmission still has to be disproven. The guys at
MalSanto seem to like it, but I want answers. Dr. Krishnan,
everything that we have collected from around the state is waiting
for you in our lab at UCLA. And our first official who witnessed
this, Michael McCarthy from our Stockton office, should be arriving
back here today." Krishnan nods. "That should be fine. I've never
seen anything like this before though. In my career I've seen many
large epidemics throughout Africa's interior, looked at the
potential damage they could do. If you look at the history of
epizootics, I don't remember anything that could cause earthworms
to die in these numbers. Earthworms suppress plant diseases, not
receive them." "So far, that's all we know, Dr. Krishnan. I wish I
could say more, but. . . " Rodriguez trailed off. Krishnan stood,
shook hands with Rodriguez and LaJoy and headed to UCLA.
This is
going to be a long, and interesting, day. . .

St. Louis

After six hours everyone at the MalSanto Headquarters
from both the government and the biotechnology company reconvene in
a large, non-descript meeting room on the second floor of the
building housing the GroundupLab. Owing to its non-Arthurian round
nature, the company's executives sit on one side of the conference
table while the USDA and EPA representatives sit opposing them,
giving an aura of some secret Cold War negotiations. Onassis,
seated at the table's end and being the senior government official
present, starts once everyone is present. "Our analysis by
McCarthy, Jones, and La Cruz working with Dr. LoSchiavo's team
clears the slate. No active or inactive ingredient in SuperPower
Grounduphas been determined to be the cause of earthworm deaths,
and no such ingredient is believed to be affecting the populations
of earthworms in any way. Testing using control earthworm specimens
in isolated environments seem to confirm this. I ask that Dr.
LoSchiavo continue." Dr. LoSchiavo looks around the table; taking
note of a the dozen pairs of eyes moving in her direction. "We have
tested each substance individually on over a dozen earthworm
species with no results. Not a single earthworm has died due to
exposure to any of the compounds used in SuperPower. The control
worms were also unharmed. La Cruz, Jones, and myself will continue
to run the experiment for several days to account for temporal
exposure, but we are nearly one hundred percent confident that
SuperPower is not having any effect on any of the major dozen
earthworm species, each individually tested." LoSchiavo pauses,
looking at McCarthy, Jones, and La Cruz for acknowledgement,
knowing that they have the sway of the USDA. All three nod slowly
in Onassis' direction, giving their unspoken support to LoSchiavo's
speech. McCarthy interjects, "I believe that the tests so far are
conclusive- and that SuperPower isn't the cause of the earthworms
dying out. We know for sure the effect isn't immediate. That's why
I think La Cruz and Jones should stay for a few days and follow up
with LoSchiavo and her Groundup research team. Otherwise,
everything looks clear." Onassis blinks. "You are sure about this?"
"Absolutely. In three days’ time we should be one hundred percent
certain. Every affected area in California had no more than three
days between use of SuperPower and the symptoms setting in."
Onassis nods. "That settles it then. I am heading back to
Washington. Until I get that report three days from now, SuperPower
stays off the market in recall. A weel from now it can head back to
the market, if the tests are all negative. La Cruz and Jones will
stay and continue to administer the tests." Jones and La Cruz nod
in silence. Onassis stands up, signaling the end of the meeting.
Walter shakes hands talking to Onassis, the rest of the boards
members pack laptops and get up while McCarthy goes over testing
details with La Cruz and Jones. "Do all of the experiments over
again. Keep the temporal controls the way they are, have them
monitored twenty-four-seven. And of course, update Onassis every
several hours." La Cruz and Jones nod before walking off and
mingling with the other executives.