"I think you're making a big deal out of nothing." Mr. Robertson said. Dismissing my concerns with a casual ease that I found enviable.

I blinked. Genuinely wondering if he'd finally started to go senile.

"Really? You don't think it's a big deal that the food we're exporting by the truckload is giving people digestive issues? Or that it makes people balloon in size? You know you're charging money for this right? You don't think whomever munches down on one of our very-obviously mutated apples is going to have a few questions when they realize they haven't gone to the toilet in days?"

The older, stick-like man gave me and odd look. Then he swept his gaze along the fields and over all the people currently working them or running around them. His eyes glinting like deep-blue sapphires as the morning sun struck them.

There was a manic vibrancy to those eyes. A beauty and a power that made the old coot seem fifty years younger. And when he took a few purposeful steps forward, his strides reminded me of Elsie and the cat-like grace with which she carried herself.

He took in a lungful of air then. Savoring the oxygen given off by all the plant life that surrounded us. It was as if he could also taste the magic. The loving, gentle embrace of the outdoors that made my own heart throb when I worked the soil.

The early September breeze was cool as it washed over both of us. Still not quite cold enough to be uncomfortable in any way. So that the high winds felt like a gentle massage as they struck my skin.

"No." He confirmed. "If anything, I'm starting to think we aren't charging people enough."

He walked over to one of the Sequoias. Caressing the colossal tree's bark with his old wrinkled fingers.

"I grant you that we haven't been selling for long, but all the signs are looking up. None of the other people who've been consuming your products throughout the world in all the stores that we've stocked up have shown any signs of constipation. Quite the contrary. Almost all the feedback we've been getting has been overwhelmingly positive."

"Almost?" I clarified.

He sighed dramatically. His few remaining tufts of white hair bobbing up and down as he did so.

"Yes. Almost. No matter how much good you do or how many people you feed, you're bound to run into some critics. A few special interest groups have been crying about how all this genetically-modified produce is leading to as-of-yet unknown health problems. All without any proof, of course."

He shrugged.

"It was within our expectations. You can't really start selling melons the size of cows without someone raising the alarm. A few government agencies in Europe have even gone so far as to accuse us of irradiating our crops. None have started official inquiries into the matter but I figure it'll happen within the year. Maybe within a few months."

I stared at him. Wide-eyed.

"And you're not worried?"

He barked out a laugh. His eyes now looking at me as if I were wearing a big conical hat with "Dunce" written along its side.

"Oh Cecil. Why would I be worried about what some overstuffed no-name bureaucrat says to justify their bloated salary? What are they gonna do? Pull our produce from stores? When no actual consumers have complained? When our stuff is half the price of anything else in the stores? While also being bigger?"

He shook his head in obvious amusement. A little bit of derision leaking into each motion.

"If that's what they want, they're more than welcome to do so. Doesn't make any difference to me. Matter of fact, it would solve a lot of problems. Our main issue right now is that, despite how much you've done in these past few weeks, you're simply not growing the feed fast enough. We have more demand than we can handle in all the stores we've sold to and the stores we haven't sold to are blowing up our office's phones with requests. Besides, our most loyal customers aren't going to be in those countries that are turning up their noses at our giant turnips."

He wagged a finger in front of me.

"No sir. Our real customers all live in places where a toothless donkey would be considered a suspiciously extravagant gift. The people we really want to reach are mostly rural, mostly illiterate and, for lack of a better word, poor as shit. The kind of people who were burning down their cities just a couple of weeks ago because they were starving and wanted their local banana republics or two-bit dictators to do something about it. Those people aren't going to say anything bad about apples as big as their heads because they're too busy stabbing their neighbors to get into the stores to buy them."

I blinked at that. Several times in quick succession.

"Did you just say people were stabbing their neighbors?"

"For your apples. Yes. I did say that. Because they are doing that. And worse. The queues in some stores stretch around several blocks. I've got videos."

I did another round of blinking.

"Anyway, as I was saying; the people aren't going to complain because they're too busy crying out for more and the governments in those places aren't going to say anything because they want their peons working instead of rioting. You can only have so much misery at any given time before your own armed forces turn on their masters after all."

I did yet another round of blinking.

"Just imagine, for a second, that you're a third-world dilatant. You've got your hot young wife. Your hot young mistresses. A mansion so large that all your serving staff have their own rooms and a basement bunker so deep it could weather a couple of nuclear strikes without a problem. All of it surrounded by three or four layers of electrified fences, barbed wire and minefields. Now think. What is the biggest threat to your security? Sloppy Joe on the street pushing his hotdog stand? Sleepy Paul manning the desk at the DMV? No! Of course not! You've got yourself a well-funded, well-trained gaggle of secret enforcers."

He jabbed a finger at my chest.

"Think Stasi or Gestapo, but with less fashionable outfits. They make sure any dissidents that get too loud never get the chance to say anything bad about you ever again. Then the people who mysteriously disappear get to serve as examples for those who remain. Sure, you could try and overthrow the government, but is it really worth the risk of having your tippy toes tied to car battery and your organs flogged for pennies on the dollar?"

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

He rolled his eyes in an exaggerated manner. Moving one of his arms over my shoulder and patting me on the back.

"No! Of course not! Which means no one with any brains between their ears is going to be brave enough to stand out in the crowd under most circumstances. Which means the mobs that do form when things reach a tipping point will end up as leaderless collections of rabble that inevitably burn down their own cities. Mr. Dictator doesn't care about that! Not until one of those starving Joes just happens to be the dear old papa of one of their enforcers that is. Should that happen even once, the dictators, the competent ones at least, get real spooked. If that happens a couple more times... well. Let's just say that the CIA doesn't have a monopoly on coup-d'états."

He chuckled drily.

"Which means that even the most jaded, bloodthirsty maniacs out there have a vested interest in keeping their people generally content. And nothing brings forth more discontent than rampant, nation-wide starvation. The kind of starvation where even the rats have been devoured and the roaches flee for their lives. The kind where no amount of money will buy you a single egg, let alone a chicken. The kind where cute little children start fainting in the streets and old grannies start to look rather tasty. You lose your most rabid, loyal followers, and you've got a problem. You lose the rank and file of the army, and you've got a catastrophe. You lose even a couple of members of your inner circle, and you better hope they kill you quickly. The alternatives tend to be ugly, to say the least."

He drew back.

"All the smart leaders know this. For most of them, it's how they came to power in the first place. Which means they can appreciate a golden ticket when it shows up at their doorstep. Believe you me, I've made a lot of friends in the past two days alone. Their only concern is getting their grubby mitts on more of our trucks and getting them as fast as humanly possible. I'm keeping prices low on purpose to avoid the kind of world-wide refugee crisis I saw during my first run-through but all our stuff flies off the shelves faster than we can rip it off the ground. As I said, we simply aren't growing the stuff fast enough to make up for the shortfall in natural produce."

Mr. Robertson donned a sardonic smile.

"And the good news don't stop there! We're making money hand over fist! It doesn't matter how cheap we make the stuff because we aren't paying our farmers! It's all profit baby!"

That.

That was too much.

"You shouldn't be bragging about using slave labor!"

"Cecil! Cecil! What are you saying? We aren't using slave labor. We're giving these people something money can't buy. Magic and the power to determine their own future. And food. Don't forget about the food part. See Shortround over there? Her ribs aren't poking through her shirt anymore are they? Why, she's even starting to look her own age! That's a miracle in and of itself! You think she's not grateful? You think she minds working the fields? Of course not! None of these people are unhappy! Take it from me. I'm a mind-reader."

He paused for a second.

"That, and I can speak the language."

"Exactly! You can speak the language and I can't."

He lowered his voice and whispered something under his breath.

"Well actually... mind... bleeding... English....."

"What was that?"

"Nothing." He said casually. "Don't you worry your little head about the language thing. I have it all under control."

"Uh. No. I think I will worry about the language thing! How do I know these people aren't begging me to let them go!?"

Mr. Robertson stared at me for a second. Then, with a voice that boomed like thunder. He laughed in my face. He laughed and laughed until his own wrinkled face started turning apple red.

"HAHAHAHAHAHA!" He sucked in a breath. "HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Nice one!"

He paused once more.

"Oh wait. You were serious! Let me laugh even harder! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!"

He sucked in another breath.

"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!! HAAAAAA!!!!"

He patted my back again while I stood there. Aghast.

"Cecil! Look around! Use your eyes! Do you see any fencing anywhere? Any guard dogs? Any watchtowers? Do you see angry men with guns making the rounds? Do you see drones flying overhead?"

I considered it.

"No?"

"Exactly! And do you know why I haven't bothered to put any of that in place?"

I took his meaning at once.

"Because you think you don't need it." I answered.

"No Cecil. It's because I KNOW I don't need it. These people aren't just grateful to be here. Tell them you can only keep half of them around and you'll have a stabbing match before you can fucking blink. Desperate folks literally gutting their friends just for a chance to stay here!"

Mr. Robertson came close.

His face almost touching mine as he grabbed both my shoulders.

"In all seriousness Cecil. You cannot imagine what the hunger does to people. How it twists their minds, as well as their bodies. You don't know what it's like. You can't know what it's like. Not really. But I do."

His grip tightened. His voice turning to steel.

"I was captured by the Japanese during world war 2. I was at the camps. I knew what it was like to wake up, work and go to sleep without a single crumb in your stomach. It starts as mere discomfort. Then it turns to pain. To fear. To paranoid desperation. And that is just within the first week. Soon, before you even know it, food becomes all you can think about. All your mind conjures. The mere idea of food invades both your dreams and your nightmares. It consumes the memories of home and of your family. It is like a weighed net. Dragging you down and down and down."

His grip tightened further. And for a second, I knew the weight of all those levels. His nails digging into my arms until it became painful.

"You breathe and think of food. You blink and think of food. You hurt. All the time. As if someone had stabbed you in the belly and left behind a massive, gaping hole that aches and aches and aches. Then comes the weakness and the delirium. You start seeing things. Imagining things. You start to forget who you are. Who you were before the hunger. The lack of food becomes your world. Your whole identity. The mere idea of movement begins to hurt and the thought of death becomes as tempting as it is frightening."

His eyes were hard now. Both of them staring. Not at me, but at some other place far, far away. The two unshakable gems drawn back into the past.

"Them towards the end, you feel yourself becoming less. Less than human. You turn into the animal your captors think you are. A beast that cares not for what is moral or just or right. You become a rabid dog that will do anything. Anything. For the smallest scraps. The hunger isn't something you feel at that point. It is something you are. As big a part of you as your parents or your friends. As your country or your religion. It is everything that you are and everything you will be."

His nails dug into my skin. Becoming more painful. I tried to shake them off, but found that I was being strangled by a vice. Completely helpless in the face of overwhelming power. That power, that magic, now washed over me. Crushing me under the depths of an entire ocean.

"You are an ignorant, vain, vapid little pig boy! Coddled and cuddled so much that you cannot even imagine what the people we're feeding are going through! What they will be going through in another month! In another year! If it weren't for our efforts here!"

His fingers drew blood.

"I had given up on them this time too. Because I didn't have any way to help them before you arrived. Before you got your core. I had cut my losses like a coward. Telling myself that I would at least save those who could be saved this time around! You didn't see the things I saw, Cecil. You didn't see the distended bellies. The little children laying on the floor. In the streets. You didn't see the mercy killings. The mass suicides. The dead, hopeless pits in people's eyes! You didn't see the lengths men would go to in order to feed their wives, their mothers, their little daughters! You've never seen a communal cooking fire and known damn well what was in the pots!"

The intensity in his gaze told me he was seeing those fires again. As if he was back there with them.

"You don't know how much good you're doing. How important your core is! You're out here wasting time with ridiculous moralism! When you should be either training or with girls making more...!"

He blinked once and suddenly found himself in the present once more. He seemed to realize then, even without me saying a word. He let go of my shoulders and took a couple of steps back.

"Sorry about that." He said. His voice so faint that I almost couldn't make it out.

"I forgot myself. You didn't need to hear that."

He coughed into his hand before repeating himself.

His voice then took on a deeply caring tone as he said that. His hands going to is chest, before moving to his pockets.

"And don't think I don't appreciate my number one employee! Here!"

He handed me a rather large bulge of hundred-dollar bills.

"Some spending money to have on you. Consider it a tip in addition to all the money I'll be putting into your local account later today. Should be enough to get your own mitts on whatever your heart desires."