Extinction Level Event (3 page)

Back at the Williams’ home, five days after
the original outbreak of worms Michelle steps outside of her house
and once again sees the same nightmare. Worms by the hundreds are
all over her front yard, and this time she knows that they will
probably soon die. Michelle spins around and heads into her home.
In the living room she grabs a phone by the armchair and dials 911.
“Hello 911 here. How may we help?” “Hi, this is Michelle Williams.
This isn’t an emergency, but I need help. I have worms crawling all
over my yard and they are dying by the hundreds. Whom do I call? I
need help really badly. I want to know what’s going on”. “You need
to call the Department of Agriculture. They should be able to help
you. You can reach them at the following number." The lady provides
Michelle with a contact. “Thank you for your time. I’ll call them
right away”, replies Michelle curtly as she sets down the
phone.

“Good Morning, US Dept. of Agriculture. If
you wish to leave a message, press one. If you wish to refer to our
seed policy, press two. If you wish to speak to a service
representative, press three”. Punching three, Michelle is greeted
by the usual melodramatic orchestra of telephone waiting music.
“Our customer service representatives are all busy right now.
Please wait, and one will be with you shortly”. Seven minutes later
into the conversation, a representative picks up his end of the
line. “Good Morning. US Department of Agriculture, Stockton
Office”.

“Hi. This is Michelle Williams from
California. I recently have had a huge number of worms come out of
the ground and die in my yard. Do you know what might have caused
this? “Sorry, could you repeat that? A huge number of worms came
out of the ground and died?” “Yes”. The representative pauses for a
second, trying to make sense of the information that he had just
received, “Did they all come out at the same time?” “Yes, all out
one morning and dead the next, really”. “And you say you don’t know
the cause?” “Not off the top of my head, no”. “Did you notice any
unusual activity beforehand”. “No, not that I can remember”. “Hold
please.” “Sure”. Michelle hears a hand come over the other phone’s
speaker as the representative talks to another person in the
agency.

“Hello? Mrs Williams?” “Yes, I’m here.” “Ok,
we’re sending someone over to your place. Your address is?” “It is
16 Lake Road, Oakridge, California”. “Very well. They should be
over in about three hours. Have a great day”. “Thanks, you too!”,
replies Michelle before hanging up.
Listen to the irony of that-
have a great day! Even if my tire is flat, my taxes still have to
be paid, and there are dead worms in my yard, what should I do?
Have a great day!
Michelle turns around and walks over to the
fridge to get some orange juice. “What was that all about babe?”
Mike walks in, to drink his daily coffee cup before heading off to
work. “We’ve got the worms outside again hun”. “AGAIN? What the
hell is going on? I thought we took care of that two days ago!”
shouts Mike, more than a little irritated. “I don’t know honey, but
they’re out there, and I’ve call the Department of Agriculture so
they can come over and take a look. We can’t do this on our own”.
“The Department of Agriculture is coming over? When?” asks Mike,
now curious, while sipping on his coffee. “In about three hours, he
said”, replies Michelle. “Ok fine. I guess that should be a good
thing. Tell them about all the problems we had with those things
for the last three days. You going to work today?” “Actually, I’m
probably going to be late at the very least. Maybe I should take a
day off. But I don’t have too many more of those I can take”,
states Michelle matter-of-factly. “Just take it. You could
definitely use a break, especially with this. Take it easy. Make
sure those Agriculture guys get every detail. I want this problem
fixed.”, With that said, Mike finishes his coffee and walks heads
to the garage. Michelle hears the car start, and after a minute of
warm-up Mike pulls out of the garage onto Lake Road and heads off
to work.

Michelle decides to wash the dishes and dust
the shelves in the living room before the Agriculture specialist
shows up. After changing into something more comfortable, even
though by this time her work clothes
were
getting
comfortable; Michelle washes the breakfast dishes, puts a new cloth
on the kitchen table, and sets up the kids’cereal. She then starts
to dust the tops of the book shelf and the glass silverware table
in the living room. After thirty minutes, Mike Jr, 8, comes slowly
down the stairs, “Mom?” “Yes dear, I’m here. Mommy’s not going to
work today. Breakfast is ready in the kitchen.” “Sweet!”. Mike Jr.
goes over to the kitchen and pours himself a bowl of honey-nut
Cheerios!
. “Mom, when are we going to get Frooty-Loops? I’m
getting sick of Cheerios”. “Baby, you’re getting them after we
finish those Cheerios. I’m not going to go over this again. We
already bought way too many cheerios last time at the supermarket
after you asked for them”. “Oh, whatever. It’s so unfair”, remarks
Mike Jr, in the very usual way kids remark that everything is
“unfair”. That though seemingly out of his mind, he quietly goes
back to eating the cereal.

Mike Jr. then goes over to the living room
and turns on the television. After ten minutes, “Mike, get up and
start showering or you’re going to be late for the bus. I’m not
driving you to school”. “Ok, Mom!”. Stabbing the remote and turning
off the television, Mike Jr. hurries upstairs. Michelle soon hears
the shower turn on, and she gets back to cleaning the flower vase.
Carefully removing the turquoise flowers out of the vase and
placing them in a different one, she turns the vase around and
sprays it. Cleaning it carefully, she then takes it and dumps the
water into the sink. Filling it with fresh water, she replaces the
flowers into the vase and puts it back in its normal resting
place.

After fifteen minutes, Mike Jr. comes
hurrying down the stairs with his backpack on his back and carrying
a notebook between his elbow and body. “Hurry on. The bus should be
here any minute now” “I know, Mom”. Mike runs out the front door
and within a minute Michelle hears the school bus’s familiar engine
noise as it rumbles down the road. After it stops briefly and then
continues going, Michelle feels she can get back to work.
Well,
that’s kind of enough work for right now. Lets rest a little.
What should I do now?
She picks up a cooking book from the
bookshelf and starts to look through it for any new recipe that may
seem interesting.
Maybe not that. How about this?
Putting
down the first cook book, she picks up another- Southeast Asian
Home Recipes.
Perhaps something a little more exotic?
The
delicious aromas of fried rice and seafood pop out from the book
and entice her to continue reading when the phone rings.

“Hello?”. “Hi, this is Peter LaJoy. I’m from
the Department of Agriculture. I just wanted to tell you that I
should be at your house in approximately ten minutes”. “Sure, no
problem”. “See you then”. The connection breaks.

After ten more minutes, a black Ford Taurus
pulls into the driveway. A slightly balding, thin man with
spectacles comes out. The man carries a camera around his neck, and
is wearing a pair of casual dress-pants with a button-up white work
shirt. Michelle sees the car and comes out of her door. Extending
his hand to her, he introduces himself, “Hi, I’m Peter LaJoy with
the Department of Agriculture. Pete for short. Pleased to meet
you”. “Michelle Williams. You got here a little early”. “The
traffic conditions weren’t too bad, this morning most of the
traffic was going the other way. Lucky for me. So, what seems to be
the problem? You said the worms were coming out of the ground and
dying all over the yard?”, inquires Pete. “Yes, exactly that. I’ll
show you”. Michelle, followed closely by Peter, go around the house
along the asphalt path to the garden. “Yeah, I definitely see what
you’re talking about now. This is odd. Really odd. All over the
place.”, comments Peter, while taking out a paper and pen. Michelle
stops near the garden and points to all the dead worms that are
littered over the yard. Peter nods in response, while scribbling
notes down on his notepad.

“Do you use any pesticide, or herbicide for the
garden over there?”, asks Peter. Thinking for a moment, Michelle
remembers the new herbicide that she only recently used, “Uhh, yes
actually. My husband Mike bought Groundup SuperPower a few days
ago. We used it at the end of last week to try it out. Do you think
it’s responsible for this mess?” answered Michelle to Pete’s
inquiry. “Well, I don’t know for sure. But now that you mention
GroundupII. . . who makes that product?” “I could get the can. I
think its MalSanto”. “Yes, please get it. I need to have a closer
look at this product”, replies Pete as he continues to walk around
the garden taking notes and trying to take in every little
detail.

Michelle goes back into the garage and finds the
empty can of GroundupII.
Yup, definitely MalSanto.
Grabbing
it, she brings it out to the yard and hands it to Peter, who is
snapping close photos of the lawn and garden. Peter takes a look at
the can now in his hand, and starts scanning every label on its
side. Michelle stands by and watches. Pete takes out his cell
phone. “I have to call the department. I may need to get a team of
specialists here to look into this. Sorry if there’s an
inconvenience”. “Not a problem, we’ll manage. Is it a big
problem?”, asks Michelle. Peter is not listening. He is waiting for
someone to pick up at the other end of the line.

Michelle was listening to every word that came out of
his mouth when he got through. “This is Peter LaJoy. I’m working on
a possible field contamination of a herbicide product. I don’t know
how widespread an area has been contaminated. . . what? Yes, the
central California worm case. Wait, what?- another case? Where? A
farm half a mile from here? Did you send someone over? You were
about to ask me to go over there? What's the address?”, Michelle
sees Peter scribble down an address on top-right corner of his
notepad and notices that it belongs to a farm in the area. “I’ll
get on it right away. Make sure to send someone over here”, and he
hangs up.

“What's going on?” asks Michelle to Peter. “I’m going
over to check out another site. It seems to have the same problem
you’re having. This could be more widespread than I thought.
Someone’s coming over here, though, with equipment and so forth. I
have to leave- it was a pleasure meeting you”. “Same here”, replies
Michelle while shaking hands. Peter then heads back to his car,
parked in the driveway. Michelle heads back into her house.
Well
that was quick. How bad is this going to get?,
wonders Michelle
as she watches Peter back out of the driveway and head down Lake
Road.

At the Miles Farm, Greg Miles paces
impatiently around his red farmhouse.
This guy is five minutes
late. I’m probably gonna lose a lot of money with this, and this
problem just darned sucks!
Seeing a black Ford pull into the
long, dusty driveway to his farmhouse, he quits his self-indulged
thoughts and goes down to greet the visitor. Peter LaJoy gets out
of his car and is greeted by the suspendered jeans-wearing plump
figure known to his few friends as Greg Miles. After greeting each
other, Miles explains the situation that occurred over the past
several days to LaJoy. Pete immediately notices that the situation
is very similar, if not identical, to the one at the Williams’
house and says so to Miles.

“So, you think this worm problem is not mine
alone? Lots of people have it?”,asks Miles when he hears this. “We
don’t know for sure at the moment. All we know is that it is not
unique to your land. But we don’t know how far or how wide the
conflagration is. Did you use any pesticide or herbicide on your
crops recently?”, inquires LaJoy. “Yeah, used Groundupto kill the
weeds and some atrazine or something combo for the bugs. Keeps the
plants growing smoothly. Why?”. “Well, we also had that same
herbicide, Cleanup, used in other cases. Did you use Groundup
SuperPower?” “Yes, just came out like a week or so ago” replies
Greg. Peter takes note and scribbles several notes in his notepad.
“Very well. We’ll see what we can do, but I’m afraid we’re going to
need more information. We may have to send a team over here as
well”.

“A team? To my farm?” “Yes, again we need
more information. We’re going to have to acquire some soil samples,
run a few tests. . . basically we need some time. You can
definitely continue working while they’re doing all these things”
replies LaJoy somewhat appeasingly, sensing a rising sense of
urgency in Miles. Miles looks slightly more flushed than before.
“Anything else that I should know about?” Miles thinks for a
moment, “Not really. Nothing I can come up with”. “Very well”,
replies Peter, “Its been a pleasure, sir. Take care”. “You too.”
The two men shake hands, and Peter soon afterwards takes off in his
pickup truck.. Miles is left there standing like a stone statue.
Pondering the history of his farm, he remembers the disaster he had
only a few years back and cannot help but anxiously gnash his teeth
and wonder:
Another problem on my farm? No way! Shit. This
business keeps getting worse all the time.

03 THE AGENCIES

Stockton, California

Working for the United States Department of
Agriculture may sound like an easy, laid-back job for some. But for
Michael McCarthy, working for the Department is fast-paced,
exciting job that has no limits. A Farm Inspector for the Animal
and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), a subdivision of the
Department of Agriculture, his job routinely involves fieldwork on
farms; constantly on the lookout for anything from genetically
engineered invasive species to agricultural bioterrorism. The
primary objectives of the Animal and Plant Health Inspection
service are a broad spectrum from protecting animal health and
well-being to regulating new biotechnology. It is a busy job that
must keep in pace with the changing times. In addition, job rules
and regulations are oftentimes complicated by collaboration with
the U.S. Customs and Borders Protection, which started in 2003.
Overall, Mike believes that little tweak simply adds to the
excitement, and occasional general confusion that accompanies the
action.