A color coded calendar was in front of me.
It was neat and clearly tabulated because I had not been the one that made it. My sole contribution was suggesting swapping around the colors. Deck I set to gold, and the rest I chose based on hair color. Green, Red, and Blue.
The calendar looked like a schedule, yet shared none of a schedule’s gentle inaccuracy.
You see, a schedule is a plan. A loose, vague plan unbound and unaccounting for the messy realities of the day to day.
A schedule might allot a mere hour and a half for dinner per say, naively believing in a graceful transition into the next homework slot. A schedule believes in you. It does not consider how you might chill for an extra thirty minutes from the resulting food coma, or the fact that a new game came out that day at 7. A schedule believes you go to class every single day.
In other words, a schedule is an optimist.
However, as established, the thing in front of me was decidedly not a schedule. It was a related but distinctly separate species. It was a calendar, and as such, it possessed all of the cold clinical accuracy of the maid that created it.
In front of me, tabulated in neat little boxes, I could see exactly how many minutes Deck spent getting ready in the morning, how Sarah had skipped lunch on Tuesday, and how often Lene left the gym (basically never).
It was a bit creepy really. Governments probably recruited based off of this kind of flagrant disregard for privacy.
I pulled out my own personal calendar that I had been working off of prior to this moment.
My version was scribbled into one of my school notebooks. All I had were three big squares that said CLASSES. Deck had a square that said WORK OUT? in some span during Tuesdays and Thursdays which I bordered in squiggly lines to signify the squiggly nature of that information. Lene simply had a giant rectangle simply labeled GYM.
I placed the calendars side by side. My scribbled mess next to digital perfection. I nodded with satisfaction. They agreed at least.
“They match,” I said. “That’s a good sign right?”
I turned to the maid beside me who was regarding my crinkled mess of a calendar. Her nose, likewise, was crinkled with disgust.
“Are you quite serious?” she asked. “This is all you gathered in a day?”
“There’s been a lot going on.” I said, trying my best to sound authoritative. I smoothed out the page the best I could, but the corners insisted on flopping back up like a dog’s ear.
I didn’t take it to heart. I figured I was doing pretty well for just one dude. It wasn’t like I could just pump out drones and detectives and cameras on demand.
Still, as I stood over the calendars with the maid, I couldn’t help but feel the first twinges of doubt. For there was a trend laid out in the calendars before me. A chaotic element that ran roughshod through all of the neat little boxes like a bull slathered in baby lotion.
“You know,” I began. “I’m not sure how useful this is going to be.”
The maid turned her frowny energy from the calendar to my personage.
“Whatever do you mean?”
Her tone communicated an abject disregard for my opinion. Which, I mean, fair enough. It wasn’t like my calendar was winning any prizes. But still, it was annoying. Anyone with parents can corroborate— it’s hard to communicate with someone who is sure you have nothing useful to offer.
“We have a basis for their behavior now,” said the maid.”
She pushed my calendar gently aside.
“An accurate basis, mind. All that remains is to extrapolate outwards and plan around their future actions.”
She said it smugly. Like it’d be that simple.
“Sure,” I said. “And believe me, I get what you mean, in theory. I get that after we know that, I dunno, Claire likes to drink tea after lunch like five times a week, we can reasonably assume that she’ll probably be drinking tea today after lunch. Or using the bathroom soon after. Whatever.”
The maid did not seem to like my choice of example. “Your point?”
“Look, under normal circumstances, this would probably be all we needed. We could use all of this creepy information to try and reasonably predict behavior. There are probably companies or analysts who make entire careers out of it. You know a guy’s take-out history, you know most of his favorite foods. You know how often he eats them. You know his general food budget. You can probably even nudge him by throwing him a targeted coupon or something. I get it, really I do.”
I took a breath, pausing for emphasis. The maid said nothing, waiting for me to continue. I took it as a good sign. Hopefully that was enough of a prelude for her to believe I got where she was coming from.
“There’s only one problem. Our calendar isn’t going to be predictive. At least not for planning purposes. You’re missing a crucial factor.”
I pointed at the salient detail. A vein of gold that zig-zagged through the otherwise ordered calendar with no rhyme or reason. It was like a toddler running through mud, or a bulldozer that had finally had enough.
Deck.
I began to read out the relevant minutes.
M: 7:00-8:30 AM
Deck sidetracked on the way to school by an elderly woman who needed help crossing the street.
M 8:30-3:00 PM
Deck continues to offer aid to said lady who requires assistance with public transportation, shopping, and taxes.
M 3:00-5:00 PM
Deck escorts elderly lady to campus. Takes her to her final task of the day, a meeting with Claire. It turns out she was an alumni planning to cease her sizable donation after her husband passed. Pledges to renew endowment in light of the campus’s part in raising ‘such a respectable young man’.
Tu: 12:30-1:00 PM
Rather than eat lunch Deck follows a bee that landed on his soda can over to a nearby grove where he discovers a hidden hive inside the maintenance box for the school power grid.
Tu: 1:00-2:00 PM
Rather than call animal control or the relevant campus department, Deck decides to try and relocate the hive himself after consulting some beekeeping videos on youtube.
Tu: 2:00- 4:00 PM
Pandemonium throughout the school as the power goes out and a horde of drugged angry bees chase students across campus. Lene is drawn out as part of the festivities, possibly seeing the chaos as an opportunity for exercise.
Tu: 4:00-5:00 PM
Situation is resolved with Sarah and members of the Horticultural club managing to draw the bees into the greenhouse hive sector.
Tu: 5:00-6:00 PM
Deck gains the approval of Horticultural Club President (Daughter of Haroshin Industries) when he reveals his motivation for the whole affair was the fear that the campus authorities would simply kill the bees rather than relocate them (he was right).
I looked back up at the maid. She was doing an admirable attempt at suppressing that shellshocked bemused expression that was familiar to anyone who had spent any time around Deck.
“That was just the last two days,” I pointed out.
The maid frowned.
“This has to be temporary,” she said. “It’s just first week of school chaos, no? A fresh environment. An exploratory phase. He’ll settle down with time.” The maid looked up at me. “Won’t he?”
My mind flashed through all of the events that had transpired over the last couple of days. My internal estimate clocked it at chapters worth of outrageous harem hijinks. All non-canonical too.
“I don’t think so,” I said. “Not Deck.”
“Well what do you propose then?”
I picked up my bag and made for the door.
“Where do you think you are going? As you pointed out, we have a problem to be solved.”
“Research,” I replied. “I’m gonna go learn from the one person who knows Deck and all his craziness best of all.”
*
The Horticultural Club took the form of a large steel tower within a vast glass greenhouse.
True to form, Hielgard Academy expressed its wealth by taking the ‘quality’ and ‘scale’ sliders and pulling them to the max. Where a regular school might allot a classroom for class activities, or a richer school a wholly dedicated room, Hielgard Academy assigned whole buildings to its clubs.
I understood now why Sarah had been excited to come here. It was more than a little insane.
As far as I could tell, it seemed that the Horticultural Club had taken a long hard look at traditional historic farming as well as the more modern slick vertical technological farms, and rather than choose one over the other, simply decided it would do both.
The greenhouse part of the structure went wide. It was like a never ending snow globe. As I walked along the edges looking for a way in, I saw entire rice paddies, rows of orchards, and even what looked like a medieval water wheel milling grain or something.
The steel tower on the other hand, went tall. I could hear the whir and buzz of ambient electricity from the mechanical edifice. All I could make out from outside was the occasional tufts of green and misty sprays of water. Just for a moment I saw a bright yellow mechanized arm spin out of the building, dropping an orange crate into the open air. It was promptly hooked out of the sky by a passing drone, which disappeared into the distance.
Around the edges were smaller glass extensions that looked like the greenhouse was some organism that just bubbled outwards whenever it needed more space.
Most of the actual club members inside seemed to be clustered around where the greenhouse met the steel tower. Half were clad in green shirts and the other in black. Both halves faced each other and seemed to be in active discussion.
This signified unity obviously.
In the middle of it all I saw Sarah, standing nervously next to a bespectacled important looking girl who had a look that screamed Club President.
I waved at someone at the periphery of the crowd and mimed a door. The green shirter rolled their eyes and pointed somewhere to my left where I noticed the thinnest of outlines indicating a door made entirely of glass.
As I opened the door I was met with a cacophony of sound.
“We need those bees in the paleolithic district!” shouted a green shirt. “Those are natural bees and they belong in natural spaces. It’s what they’re used to.”
“Oh please,” scoffed a black shirt. “As if there’s anything natural about your weird time capsule farms. These bees are a novel strain that should be studied closely. It stands to reason that they should fall under the aegis of the Science branch of the Horticultural Club.”
“Fall under the aegis? Do you hear yourself?”
Angry inarticulate shouting drowned out what reasonable replies might have been made by both parties.
The Club President beamed through it all. She nodded evenly to both sides as if hearing reasonable points instead of insensate shouting, then clapped her hands together.
“Alright, shut up everybody!” she said cheerfully.
The crowd quieted, but you could tell it was reluctant.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
“We settle this like we settle everything else in the Horticultural Club.” She struck a pose. “Athens style!”
The crowd groaned.
“She solves everything Athens style,” someone muttered.
The Club President continued on, undeterred.
“When the great city of Athens had to be named, Athena and Posieden both wanted the brand. They settled this not through senseless shouting, or hours of tedious discussion, but through simple civilized competition. Both sides provided a gift, and the one judged better got the naming rights.”
She pointed at the crowd.
“What we got here are two sides and one coveted thing. So go on. Shoo. Produce a horticultural marvel and meet back here in a week. Until then I assign Sarah to watch over the bees, because this whole thing is kinda her friend’s fault.”
She smiled. “I declare this issue resolved!”
The crowd dispersed, though it had to be said, the green shirts dispersed faster, not being elevator and stair-locked.
I walked over to Sarah once the crowd thinned. Her eyes grew wary as I approached.
Once again I got the impression that those green eyes saw right through me.
“Hey,” I said. “Nice bees.”
“Mhmm.” Sarah looked tired. “What do you want?”
I frowned. That was abrupt. I tried to rally, flashing her a smile.
“First, ouch. And second, can’t I just come to visit a friend?”
Sarah sighed
“Hero, you don’t talk to anyone on your own unless you’re interested in something or want something. I know you’re not interested in the Horticultural Club, so we might as well just get it over with. What do you want?”
I felt a bit offended despite the sheer accuracy.
“I could be interested in the bees.”
“Oh really.” said Sarah. “Name one thing you know about bees.”
“They buzz.”
“They buzz. Really Hero.”
“Okay, so I’m not interested in bees.” I shrugged. “”What’s school for if not for learning?”
Sarah was not impressed. “Hero please, if you have any sympathy for me at all, just get to the point.”
“Alright,” I said, hands raised. “Look, I did come to ask you about something. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t also want to stop by and see you as a friend. It sucks if you’re stressed or upset. I want to help with that, not make it worse.”
Sarah softened a bit at that.
“Sure.” She hesitated. “And sorry. Didn’t mean to bite your head off.” She gestured vaguely towards the bees. “It’s just one thing after another, you know?”
“I caught some of that meeting towards the end.” I nodded at the bees. “So those bees Deck found the other day are special?”
Sarah sighed. “Of course they’re special. Deck found them. Apparently they’re some sort of rare super virile mega bees. Unique, so far as anyone can figure.”
I glanced over at the hive. The natural buzz of bees harmonized with the mechanical buzz of electricity coming from the metal tower. They were, of course, colored gold.
“That sounds like Deck alright.”
Sarah let out a noise of exasperated agreement.
I decided the time was as good as any.
“I wanted to ask you about Deck actually,” I began. But before I could go on, we were interrupted.
The bespectacled Club President inserted herself between the two of us. She wore a sensible gardening looking tan jacket with boots and thick gloves, and stepped forward with all the confidence of someone who wears a spade in a holster and owned it.
“You must be Hero,” she declared with conviction.
“Uh yes,” I said. It was weird having someone you didn’t know recognize you. “Just swung by to see Sarah.”
“I see, I see.” Her eyes glittered. “Well, since you’re here, why not a tour?”
Her hand descended on my back, gently pushing me forward.
“Oh, uh, I wanted to talk to Sarah about something I needed help with actually.”
The hand on my back maintained its pushing me forward campaign.
“And what better way to think than on your feet? I find that the solutions to even the toughest of problems come to me when I walk about.”
“I’d really rather—”
But it was too late. Rather than get into some kind of physical contest with the Club President, I let her hand push me forward. Sarah, on her part, followed evenly, with the smooth unruffled look of someone used to being dragged about.
“I’m Anna by the way,” said the pushy President. “Anna Garland. Club President.”
“You don’t say.”
“I do say.”
Anna set us away from the mechanical tower and along a winding footpath through what would be called a Botanical Garden if Botanical Gardens were allowed to sprawl out for miles.
“Marvelous isn’t it?” said Anna fondly.
“There are a lot of plants.” I answered, still rather put out by the whole situation.
“So many!” Anna agreed. She kept looking at me so I went on.
“Some of them are quite large.” I said.
“Very large!” Anna leaned forward conspiratorially. “We have small ones too.”
I looked at Sarah for help. I knew almost nothing about plants. She just shrugged.
“Lots of...photosynthesizing going on here.”
The Club president nodded at my words in rapt attention. It was strange to say the least. I felt uncomfortable with the idea that someone was paying so much attention to what I was saying. I barely paid attention to what I was saying at the best of times.
“Plants,” I said.
“Plants.” she agreed. It would have felt condescending if it wasn’t so earnest.
I stopped walking.
“I’m sorry, but did you, uh, need something from me or something?”
Anna laughed.
“No, no. Nothing like that,” she said. “Call it curiosity.”
I considered recent events. As far as I could figure, I had done nothing so public as to demand curiosity from my fellow students.
“Why?” I asked.
She leaned forward.
“You are the third in our Sarah’s little triad of childhood friends are you not? That alone makes you interesting. Deck has already brought us lovely mutant bees and Sarah is shaping up to be a right little green prodigy. It stands to reason you too will have some fresh new marvel to offer.”
Ah. So it was ambient interest then.
Deck’s pure Deckness was so powerful that I was becoming interesting by association.
“Sorry to disappoint you,” I said, “But I’m more of the ‘normal’ in our group. Horticulturally speaking.” I considered my words. “Generally speaking too.”
Anna’s eyes glittered. “Well, we shall see, shan’t we?”
“We probably shan’t.”
I nodded towards Sarah.
“Now, not to be rude, but I really did want to ask Sarah something in private.”
Anna’s smile flickered. But like a candle, it never quite went away.
“Of course, of course. How rude of me. One final thing then.”
We came to a sudden stop.
Anna gestured a clump of flowers planted under some topiary hedges cut into the shape of monkeys. She nodded towards Sarah who was looking at the display with obvious distaste.
“Sarah, if you would describe this for our guest?”
Sarah hesitated. Anna patted Sarah on the head fondly. She was still wearing her gloves, which meant more than a little dirt was left behind on Sarah’s hair.
“I remind you that part of our club duties is offering tours to the rest of the student body. If students like our young Hero here are uninterested in Horticulture, it is incumbent on us to make them aware of what is interesting around them.”
Sarah stiffened, then began speaking.
“What we have here...are primarily geraniums, a few reds and pinks, poinsettias, and chrysanthemums, all of which are surrounded by some phlox, zinnias, salvia, gladioli, begonias, dahlias, fuchsias, and petunias.”
“Stop there,” said Anna. She turned towards me. “Thoughts?”
I opened my mouth to ask one last time if I could just talk to Sarah alone, then reconsidered. Sarah was giving me the mother of all warning looks. Plus, there was a weird tension in the air.
I decided to answer seriously.
I thought back to Sarah’s words.
“Sarah made a point of saying some of those flowers were surrounded by other flowers. So there’s some kind of distinction. I’m guessing it’s some kind of flower language thing?”
“Well done.” Anna beamed. “Luckily, we need not consult an esoteric book on flower meanings today. The message here is quite simple.”
She gestured towards the display.
“Certain flowers due to rarity or grandeur or simple elegance are favored by those of, shall we say, a more affluent class. Others due to availability or garishness are thought of as common.”
Anna paused, as if unsatisfied with her own explanation.
“Well, actually common flowers tend to last a single season, while higher class flowers last for seasons, but require maintenance and can even save money in the long run... but I digress.”
I hadn’t known that. It was actually pretty interesting.
Anna pointed towards the outer rim of flowers.
“Lesser flowers.”
Anna pointed to the inner ring.
“Greater flowers.”
She turned to me for my reaction.
“Thoughts?”
It was a bunch of noble flowers separated from common flowers. I got it.
“So, it’s a classist thing.”
Suddenly the topiary monkeys above the displays seemed less comical and more mocking.
I noticed a bronze plaque near my feet. It read: The Proper State of Things.
“Not particularly subtle,” I said, despite totally missing the point till a moment ago.
“No,” Anna agreed. “It’s not meant to be.”
She leaned down, plucking a single Dahlia from the outer common ring of flowers.
“Hero, a lesson for you.”
She spoke cheerfully in the same animated tone she had kept to since I’d met her.
“We do not suffer lesser strains here at Hielgard. Those you see around the edges of this display will always remain at the edges of the display.”
Anna made a show of scrutinizing the Dahlia, twirling the stem in her gloved fingers.
“Unless... and this is the only exception really,” Anna examined the plucked Dahlia, then nodded with satisfaction. “We find a particularly promising or notable strain.”
Anna stepped over the first ring of flowers and planted the common Dahlia among the inner ring of flowers. The lone Dahlia stood taller, looking almost garish against the softer flowers.
“Any who wish to cross over are welcome to try. We do not sterilize them. We do not build some arbitrary physical barrier. All we do is maintain a watchful eye.”
Something seemed to have caught her eye. I watched as she leaned down, gently brushing some flowers aside to reveal a bud that had been hidden below.
“As for what happens if you are found wanting,” Anna continued. “Well.”
She pinched off the bud in one quick motion, tossing it over her shoulder to land on the pavement beside us. It landed without a sound, rolling a couple of times before coming to a stop.
“In any case, it’s best to appear promising and helpful, hmmm?” Anna smiled, giving me a friendly pat on the back. “Do you understand?”
I looked down at the little bud near my feet. I found myself in the weird position of feeling sympathy for a plant. Something about it just looked vaguely sad to me. Like a dragonfly with its wings torn off.
My mouth felt dry.
“President,” Sarah said. “It looks like a club member is calling out for you over there.”
A black shirt waved in the distance.
Anna frowned. “So he is. Well then it appears I must ta-ta. Matters need attending to and all.” She gave me a cheerful wave. “If something catches your fancy, do be sure to let me know, Hero.”
Anna gave me a pat on the back
She bobbed away cheerfully, moving at a brisk pace that seemed to be her equivalent of walking.
A butterfly fluttered by.
“Wow,” I said, when she was far enough away. “That was at once extremely classist, yet oddly meritocratic.”
“They do walk that line here,” said Sarah.
“You handled her well,” I said. “She kinda bulldozed all over me.”
Sarah shrugged.
“Experience,” she said. “With people like her, you have to pick your moments.”
Sarah leaned down and picked up the discarded bud. She held it tenderly, before slipping it into her pocket.
“You said you wanted to ask me about something right?” she asked as she rose. “Let’s go. We can talk in my garden.”
“You have a garden?” I asked, trying to keep up.
Sarah was walking rather fast. Which made sense. She had to be fast to be able to follow Deck around everywhere. Still, it felt weird to see Sarah of all people moving fast without being dragged along.
“If you join the Music Club, you get a studio. If you join the Art Club, you get an atelier. I joined the Horticultural Club, so I got a garden.” said Sarah. “Now come, hurry.”
Sarah took me over to the smaller snowglobe looking extensions I had seen earlier. There were rows of them, probably also organized by some class structure or hierarchy I did not comprehend.
Each was outfitted with a personalized door like a secured glass igloo, and each seemed to be specialized in some way. One orb contained what looked like jars full of pickled and fermented products, another was filled to bursting with watermelons of all kinds of shapes, colors, and sizes, and one was filled with what I was pretty sure was just cannabis.
Sarah took us to one of the smallest of the bunch. Her orb was dark. The walls were lined with wide leaved vines that draped along the contours of the inside. What few gaps remained were covered by an artfully placed pot or planter.
Sarah opened the door, and hurried me inside. I blinked as my eyes tried to adjust to the relative darkness.
Sarah shuffled somewhere in front of me, fiddling with some kind of toolbox.
“Give me a second.”
As my eyes finished getting used to the darkness, it seemed Sarah found what she wanted. She moved towards one of the vine covered walls, and took out the sad little bud that Anna had tossed earlier.
Sarah took some plier looking tool and cut into the stem of the bud. Then, she took a second set of pliers and cut into one of the vines draped along the sides of the workshop.
Together the two tools cut the edges in such a way that the ends were shaped like puzzle pieces that slotted together. Sarah pressed the two pieces together until they locked in place, then bandaged them together with some waxy translucent tape.
When she was done, Sarah patted the little bud fondly.
“There,” she said as if what she’d done was perfectly normal. “That should do.”
“You—you just cut and taped two plants together.”
Sarah sighed at my incredulity.
“It’s called grafting,” she said by way of explanation. “You attach plants together and heal them at the seam. It’s used to produce genetic clones, induce fruiting, or, in this case, save a bud.”
“Wait, that works? They’re not even the same kind of plant!”
“Yes, it works,” said Sarah as she put away her plant first aid kit. “With luck it works.”
It was downright Frankensteinian was what it was. Like some kind of weird plant chimera.
She poked the little nub fondly.
“Plants are resilient,” she said. “They have to be, in order to take everything the world throws at them and stay in one place.”
Sarah moved over to the center of the room where I could make out a small round table and two wicker chairs.
Sarah settled herself down on one of the chairs. She leaned back, relaxing with her hands clasped over the tendrils that made up the thick arms. In the darkness of the garden it was hard to tell where she ended and the chair began.
“Come sit.”
I shuffled over to the other chair and sat down.
Sarah looked comfortable in the soft shade of the garden. In fact, I realized, Sarah looked comfortable for pretty much the first time since I’d met her. Not dragged about or anxious or suspicious. Just still. Like all the tension and guard she usually wore as a mantle had bled out of her.
Only her eyes were bright in the dull shade. They gleamed as if possessing their own soft light.
“So,” she said, her voice cool and content. “You wanted to talk about Deck?”