Read Online Untitled Agenda 21 Sequel (9781476746852) by Glenn Beck - Free Book Online Page B

the Compound. Even though we’ve been walking for three nights, our path has been along the stream and it meanders. And we can’t cover much distance in the dark. I don’t think we’re all that far from where we started.”
    My heart sank. All that painful walking! My bones shouted out to me as though angry at what I’d put them through.
    David leaned close to my ear and whispered. “They’re picking the food used to make the nourishment cubes.”
    Food! My mouth watered.
    David pulled some clumps of grass and did his best to shake the dirt off them. He handed it to Micah and Micah chewed it eagerly, bits of green sticking to his teeth. David gave some to me; I chewed and swallowed, then chewed some more until it was pulpy and put it on the end of my finger. Elsa, still asleep, sucked my finger. Green drool ran down her chin.
    David whispered again. “Quick, while their backs are to us—” He motioned with his head toward some bigger, thicker shrubs a shortdistance away. We scurried toward them quickly, like I’ve seen animals scurry through the woods.
    We sat there, behind the shrubs, watching the farmworkers. At the far side of the field was a bus-box, filled one basket at a time by workers who’d reached the end of their row. Six men in the orange uniforms of the Transport Team stood in their harnesses, standing straight and stiff, just as Father had when he was on the Transport Team back in our Compound.
    When the bus-box was full, they strained forward, their harness straps tight against their chests and shoulders, and moved the bus-box forward with a little puff of dust. I guessed they were taking the produce to the Nourishment Center, where it would be dehydrated and condensed into nourishment cubes. I remembered the brown taste of those cubes, gritty against my tongue. I hated them at the time but what I wouldn’t give for one now. Another bus-box pulled up, waiting to be filled.
    â€œThe train. Do you see it?” David asked me.
    I squinted and saw a row of old rusty train sections, connected, but motionless and useless. Faded letters on the sides of the cars read P & LE RR . Beneath the train were parallel tracks that had become overrun with small trees that had sprouted up in front of and behind the train. It was trapped by neglect.
    â€œI see it.”
    â€œThey used to transport the food, people, and lots of other things by train a long while ago. Then they switched to bus-boxes because trains need energy and that energy has to be drilled or dug out of the Earth. The Earth had to be protected,” David whispered to Micah.
    Clearly, the train and its tracks had been mismanaged by the Authorities and their policies. It was as useless as the bus-box with the broken wheel in our Compound that had never been fixed.
    The bell rang and the workers stopped picking, stood, and repeated the ritual of bending, stretching, and moving their arms in circles, until the whistle blew again. On that signal, they bent and began picking.When they reached the end of their rows, they marched single file to new rows and resumed picking, heading back in our direction. We kept our heads down and stayed below the top of the shrubs.
    Confined to a small area, we found no bugs to eat that morning. By noon, we’d consumed most of the grass around us, but we were still hungry and too close to being detected to sleep. David stroked Micah’s thin back. How much weight had the child lost? David’s face was gaunt, his cheeks sunken, and my hip bones felt sharp. Even though I had eaten little, I was almost always nauseous.
    Yet, on the other side of the stream on that flat piece of land, food was growing. Food that would be dried, condensed, and molded into nourishment cubes. Control the food, control the people . I heard Mother’s voice in my head.
    David rummaged through our little bag of treasures that Mother had saved and pulled out The Little Prince . Micah