Invictus et al.

The Declassification Hearing

"Professor, please. Would you tell us what is going on here?"

The old man removes his cap and sets it on the witness stand. He opens his palms to the ceiling.

"You now know about as much as I do, I'm afraid."

"Well, would you care to to reiterate the findings of these proceedings? We're well-aware that this entire matter, from its germination, has been under your jurisdiction."

The old man winces. It's true. His lab produced this monstrosity. The four grad students that had assisted him were all suffering bouts of severe psychotic guilt and were "recovering" in the Sierras on the other side of the country, reading John Muir and smoking cannabis. There's wholesome redwood research to be done out there, far from all this, he thinks. Good for them.

"In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks." the old man recites.

The senator stares at the professor, unblinking and unamused. He widens his eyes and the professor coughs and begins again.

"We were testing the variability of rhizome strength in a common invasive grass—Cogon grass, Imperata cylindrica, the subject of today's hearing."

The old man reaches toward his hat, plucks something off of it, flicks it to the ground, and continues.

"We spliced in a gene to see if we could alter the behavior of the rhizomes, and we picked a trait that would be easy to observe—aggressiveness.

A separate population was spliced with a regenerative gene found in starfish. The idea was to create a positive growth feedback that would burn out the plant's growth pathways.

And then..."

The professor trails off, gazing toward the senator's chair with an empty expression.

The professor's eyes follow a hairline fracture beneath the chair that bisects the ground between the senator's feet, slowly expanding toward the giant flag on the chamber's back wall.

The professor's eyes snap open and he launches to his feet, desperately pointing at the ground and exclaiming in strange contorted syllables that no one can understand, pleading madly.

"HE— AH-G— e EH, R-r— OH, c-c-CO—" the professor stutters, panicking.

The senator cocks his head in perplexity. This botanist has lost his marbles.

The ground beneath the senator's chair shifts slightly and he looks down confused. He hears a high-pitched crack beneath him.

"R—R—RHIZOME BURST!!!!!"

The old man finally manages to scream as hundreds of blades of neon cellulose erupt from beneath the panel.

The senator sits with his arms and hands spread wide open and mouth agape, a blade of grass coming up out of the ground beneath him, stabbing through his soft-palate and sticking out the top of his head. Blood slowly runs down the base of the stem.

The senator's aid shrieks in agony as a blade cuts through her left foot. She throws her right hand behind her to catch her balance and a blade erupts, impaling her right wrist and leaving her twisted and trapped, screaming to no avail, like a bug on a pin.

The senator's eyes, rimmed with glowing red, are popping out of their sockets, silently screaming with the horror of the unknown. He doesn't know what has happened to him. He recalls faintly the words "rhizome burst", but has no idea what the sounds mean.

His eyes glaze over. His mind begins to stumble and fall into itself. The words echo in his mind without form as he falls into a static of darkness.

"Rhizome burst... rhizome burst... rh... rhizome... burst..."

The senator's heart stops.

The old man, staring at the scene in horror, begins to shake. He inhales sharply and grabs his cap, placing it on his head and cinching up the neck-strap.

He turns toward the audience in the chamber.

"RUN!!!" He screams, hopping over the wooden gate in front of him.

When he reaches the exit doors, he turns back. Two dozen bodies remain on the stage, impaled in grotesque postures. The senator's aid and two others on the stage are wriggling with life, moaning for relief. The rest, exhibiting no more than random muscle spasms, are dead.

He exits the building into the brightness of midday and shields his eyes. He hears the chaotic frenzy of voices all around him. Some are communicating with emergency personnel, others with employers or associates. He hears fear in each voice, and feels it in his own stomach.

"Oh my..." He mutters to himself hurrying down the chamber steps.

"Oh my...oh my..."