Overgrowth

Chapter 6: Warning Signs

Laughter broke out across the classroom.

From the reaction, Jo Ji-won might have asked something too foolish for any sensible person to consider.

“If anyone knew why plants mutate, would people still be dying?” a young man called out. “Stop wasting time.”

Ji-won did not turn to see who had spoken. Her attention remained fixed on Kang Ahn-joo at the front of the room.

The instructor had entered in pain and clearly wanted to end the lesson quickly. The moment Ji-won asked her question, Kang’s brows drew together and her expression worsened.

The laughter faded.

Students looked toward Ji-won, who appeared to have angered their injured instructor. Blame and irritation surfaced in many of their faces.

“Why did you ask it that way?” Kang Ahn-joo said.

Ji-won met her gaze. “I want to know whether a plant shows identifiable changes before mutation.”

Kang narrowed her eyes and studied Ji-won for several seconds.

“That belongs in the next lesson, but since someone asked, I’ll explain it now. A mutant plant is one that undergoes an abnormal transformation. Plants weakened by disease or insect damage are the most susceptible. Regardless of the cause, the final mutation follows the same pattern: explosive growth and active predation on animals.”

Animals clearly included humans.

“Healthy plants don’t mutate?” Ji-won asked.

She had searched her wrist terminal for information on mutant flora, but the results were almost completely blank, as though access to the subject had been deliberately restricted.

“Seed used inside the bases has been screened by the Central Institute,” Kang said. Her gaze remained on Ji-won before sweeping across the class. “Under normal cultivation conditions, healthy plants are highly unlikely to mutate.”

She ended the subject there.

“Now we’ll distribute your seed. This is your end-of-term assessment.”

Perhaps she feared falling behind schedule. In any case, Kang Ahn-joo had no intention of discussing mutation further.

Ji-won sat down.

Min-jae immediately leaned closer.

“You asked what warning signs appear. You didn’t ask whether there are any warning signs. You sounded certain that mutations have precursors.”

The two questions rested on different assumptions. The first assumed warning signs existed but were unidentified. The second questioned their existence.

Ji-won paused, surprised by his sensitivity to language.

“Everything has a cause,” she said. “I assumed mutations would leave signs too.”

It was little more than professional instinct.

Plant disease worked the same way. Sometimes nothing on the surface revealed the cause, but once the plant was pulled up, the roots told the whole story.

“I see.” Min-jae looked thoughtful. “You sound like you know a lot.”

“Not enough to call it knowledge.”

Ji-won had never considered herself an expert on everything. Plants were too numerous and complicated. When she traveled with her adviser, some unfamiliar species was always waiting to astonish her and remind her what nature could create.

“Ji-won, let’s be neighbors,” Min-jae said suddenly.

She turned to him.

“After we receive the seed, each of us gets a plot.” He opened a map and enlarged the western cultivation zone. “First-year plots are two meters long and one meter wide.”

“We choose them ourselves?”

“First come, first served.”

Kang Ahn-joo had already left the room. Two upper-year students entered in her place. One carried a box of cultivation packets while the other recorded distributions on a wrist terminal.

They stopped at the rear row and dropped two packets onto Ji-won and Min-jae’s desk.

Each packet was a small resealable plastic bag with a paper label. Ten seeds rested inside.

Ji-won lowered her gaze.

The seeds were flat, with fine hairs along the edges.

Tomato.

Min-jae turned both packets label-side up.

Daejeo Tomato

“Tomato seed.” He lifted one bag close to his face. “Tomatoes are expensive. I’ve only eaten one in my life.”

A catalog of tomato diseases immediately unfolded in Ji-won’s mind. She did not yet know how severe an infection or infestation had to become before it triggered mutation.

In her old world, diseased tomatoes could be treated. If treatment failed, the plants could be removed.

Here, a sick tomato plant might eventually kill the person growing it.

The second upper-year student raised his wrist, scanned Min-jae’s face and Ji-won’s, and asked, “Which free seed are you choosing?”

He meant the one-time selection offered to every new student.

“Can we sell what we grow from it?” Ji-won asked.

The question did not surprise him.

“Do whatever you want with it.”

“Lettuce,” Ji-won said.

Lettuce grew quickly and was relatively easy to cultivate. The first-year meal benefit would not last forever. She needed to earn points as soon as possible.

“Lettuce for me too,” Min-jae said immediately.

The upper-year student recorded their choices and moved on.

Once every packet had been distributed and every free selection registered, the two students announced the plot assignment and led the class toward the field zone.

Agronomy C was not alone. First-year classes from across the eighteenth floor descended in waves, left the inner tower, and boarded buses under upper-year supervision.

“Ji-won!”

Dong Ha-neul spotted her as soon as she came outside.

Ji-won looked back and instinctively slowed, allowing her roommate to push through the crowd. Min-jae stopped as well.

“I asked an upper-year student,” Ha-neul said excitedly. “The base has Rainbow Climber seed. Only one, but she checked the record and said its viability is good.”

“Rainbow Climbers are hardy.”

At times, Ha-neul reminded Ji-won of her former adviser. Both possessed an apparently limitless love for plants, even if Ha-neul’s passion currently centered on a single rose.

“My bus is leaving. I’ll tell you the rest tonight.”

Ha-neul waved and hurried toward her class.

The Ninth Agricultural Research Base was divided into an urban zone and a field zone.

The three residential rings and the inner tower formed the urban section, where students lived and studied. The field zone contained open plots, greenhouse districts, and large areas of land that had never been cleared.

The first-years received outdoor plots.

Three thousand students required a substantial area. Every academic program had its own section, but individual plots within that section had to be claimed.

The moment the students left their buses, they scattered, searching for the best ground and marking it with flags bearing their names.

The flags had been distributed on the buses.

Ji-won glanced at the tomato seed in her hand, picked up her flag, and headed toward higher ground.

Min-jae hesitated before following.

“That’s too close to the edge,” he warned. “Half the land out there hasn’t been cleared. The farther out we go, the rougher it gets. They only spray suppression solution on a schedule. There could be mutant weeds.”

Ji-won looked back.

Most students were indeed rushing toward the center.

The western field zone was not flat. The terrain rose and fell, and only the areas cleared for first-years had been leveled. The middle plots were the most regular and appeared easy to cultivate.

Ji-won shook her head.

“The center is too low. Rainwater will collect there.”

If the weather followed the same seasonal pattern as the Korea she remembered, the summer monsoon would bring sustained rain from late June into July. In low ground, standing water combined with heat would make tomato disease far more likely.

Ji-won made no effort to conceal her reasoning. Several classmates nearby heard her, but none paid attention.

“We agreed to be neighbors.” Min-jae gritted his teeth and followed. “As long as the base sprays on schedule, mutant weeds shouldn’t be a problem.”

Ji-won selected a plot at the far edge of Agronomy C’s section. Uncultivated land began a short distance away, separated from the cleared fields by wire fencing.

She planted her name flag at the head of the plot.

Min-jae placed his in the adjoining one.

“We’re officially neighbors now.”

Ji-won was already crouching in the soil. She picked up a handful, compressed it between her fingers, and watched the particles fall through the gaps. Then she turned her palm and shook the rest away.

Two meters by one meter.

Ten Daejeo tomato plants would fit, though barely.

“Jo Ji-won. Ha Min-jae.”

Once the first-years finished staking their claims, an upper-year student arrived carrying another box.

“Your selected seed.”

The lettuce came in the same small resealable bags, but this time the seed filled nearly one-third of each packet.

That was a great deal of lettuce.

Ji-won looked at her plot.

It would not all fit.

She asked Min-jae what students usually did with extra seed.

“We can order pots and soil through the Central Base market.” He opened the site on his terminal and showed her. “See? Pots are cheap. A small one is only ten points. A bag of sterilized, pest-free soil is ninety-nine.”

Ji-won stared at the price.

She could not afford one bag of dirt.