Chapter 27 - I've Got A Cellar Full Of Sunshine

The bomb which ripped Hunter's stomach to shreds was not intended for her. It was wired up to a long-range RFID scanner and strapped inside a plastic recycling bin. The RFID scanner was tuned to the specific frequencies of passport chips and the microcontroller ingested all their data looking for patterns. When each person passed the bin, the bomb checked them out and analysed them against the list of targets. The primary target was a mid-ranking politician who was taking bribes from an odious autocrat. Exorcising this tumour on democracy was, so the Utilitarian Terrorists thought, both necessary and sufficient for good governance of their country. Other targets included the autocrat himself, an oil baron, and the designer of a social media algorithm which was predicted to sow unlimited discord.

Hunter was none of these people. She was a cleaner in the airport. The passport was one of many items of crap she swept up on a daily basis. Sweet wrappers, discarded ticket stubs, passports - she wasn't paid enough to care about any of them. She certainly wasn't chasing after the rich-looking twat who tumbled it out of his back pocket while scratching his corpulent arse. It went in the dustpan, and the dustpan was emptied into her bin, and her bin autonomously followed her like a lumbering puppy chasing after its mistress. If the robot bin had been any faster, the injury could have been fatal.

She swept her way past the recycling station with her robot bringing up the rear. The bomb in the bin felt joy as its long search was over at last! The corrupt politician was finally here and the mission was complete. Time to die. The Utilitarians had calibrated the bomb so as not to cause significant collateral damage. Instead, chunks of shrapnel tore through Hunter's side, obliterating her guts, and leaving a scorch mark on the ceiling. Hunter would never eat food again.

The Utilitarians felt bad for her, of course. It went against their credo to hurt innocent bystanders. True, the felicific calculus is an imprecise science, but it was pretty clear on not maiming cleaning ladies. However, all was not lost! It is unlikely, they reasoned, that a cleaner would have much impact on the long term future of the world. It would be much more effective, and much more altruistic, if she became a test-bed for experimental medical procedures. That would serve greater utility. Think of the future!

Hunter was not consulted about this as she was unconscious. The doctors were keeping her in a coma and, truth be told, barely keeping her alive. The airport didn't have any listed next-of-kin for their outsourced cleaning staff and were disinclined to look for anyone who might sue the airport for negligence. It had cost enough to repair the robot; they didn't want to be on the line for yet another lawsuit. When the Benthamites came calling and asked to take over Hunter's care, everyone looked the other way. One less person on the books to worry about.

As part of their ongoing efforts to colonise Mars, the Philosophers were considering how best to feed the pioneers. Martian soil is inhospitable to life and, except for the frozen poles, there's a distinct lack of water. The one mission they'd managed to successfully land had sent back depressing photos of its cargo of potatoes withering away to nothing. Carrying food and water was also unlikely to provide a suitable solution. Supplies are heavy and prone to rotting, resupply missions would eat up all of the expected profit, and none of the sponsors wanted to risk giving food poisoning to the crew. There really was only one logical choice left.

Hunter was painfully aware of the bright lights shining above her bed and threw her arm over her eyes. Tattered memories resurfaced of pain and surgery and more pain and then... nothing. She knew there was something frighteningly wrong with her body - there was absolutely no sensation from below her chest. Her toes didn't wriggle, her bladder didn't feel full, her stomach muscles couldn't tense. Even the psoriasis on her legs, a constant companion for half her life, no longer itched. She raised her hand, cracked open her eyes, and waited for her pupils to adjust to the intensity of the ceiling LEDs. Wait. No. Something was wrong. Her hand. Her hand shouldn't look like that. What had they done? What had they done to her? Why the fuck was her hand green?

"Ms Hunter? You're awake! Excellent! I'm Doctor Rupert, PhD."

The doctor started an inane explanation of how he "wasn't that sort of doctor! Goodness me! Oh no! The other kind!" and went off on a tangent about the Latin origin of the terms. After a few minutes of this, Hunter finally had run out of patience. She carefully opened her jaw to see what sort of sounds would come out. Apparently a raspy whistle which, after a few practice goes, finally attracted Dr Rupert's attention.

"What's that, my dear?"

"...green...?"

"Oh! Yes, of course. Tell me, what do you know about the protistan process of releasing glucose from the air? No? Perhaps you've heard of photosynthesis?

"...ph..syn..sis...?"

Dr Rupert launched into an undergraduate lecture on eukaryotic nanostructures and DNA infusement coming together. It included a seminar on the growth of bio-compatible chlorophyll and the ability to synthesise thylakoids. After close to an hour of uninterrupted speech, he realised that she wasn't perhaps the brightest student he'd ever taught. He was used to dozy undergraduates, still drunk from the night before, but it was as if this woman didn't even have a rudimentary grasp of how a chloroplast worked! How could he explain this in words of one syllable?

"You hurt in bomb. Yes? Your tummy very bad. OK? You no eat any more. We mix you with plant. You eat sunshine now. OK? Good?"

Satisfied that he had provided a comprehensive explanation, he left the hospital room and made his way down to the nurses' station so he could explain to those angels some of the thoughts he'd had about how to improve their efficiency.

Hunter stared at the ceiling and wept. Sticky sap leaking from her eyes and staining the pillowcase.

Over the next few weeks, she gradually regained her strength. The artificial sunlight being pumped into her was remarkably effective. It left her feeling satiated and energised. Before she knew it, she was walking again, and able to shuffle around her room with ease. Even though she didn't need to eat any more, she still got phantom pains from where her alimentary canal used to be. A nurse helped her to a commode until the feeling passed. She didn't dare look at the crater where her stomach and intestines once inhabited. The hospital had removed all the mirrors, but she could see that her fingers were becoming webbed with what looked like leaves and her legs were gnarled like thick tree trunks.

One morning, after her pseudodefecation, a nurse accidentally left a make-up compact on the side of the sink. Hunter eagerly grabbed it and examined her face. She had never been attractive, she knew that, but now she was a monster. Her short cropped hair was riddled with moss, her eyes yellow with sap, and her face a mottled and leathery green. She hadn't needed to eat for several months - but she barely considered this to be living. Her howls of pain and rage sent the nurse scuttling back into the bathroom. The nurse was conflicted; this wasn't what she'd signed up for. It had seemed so idealistic, the thought of serving humanity like this. But the experiment was clearly doing more harm than good. She held Hunter in an embrace for several minutes - listening to her wail at the terror which was her existence.

The nurse straightened up, smoothed down her uniform, and dried her own tears. Then she held out a hand to Hunter. "Come with me if you want to die."

Hunter's leafy hand held tight to the nurse's as they slowly climbed the stairs to the roof. The nurse badged open the door and led Hunter into the sunlight.

It was delicious. It had an intensity that showed the LEDs as being a pale imitation of the mighty sun. Hunter could feel her sap rising, her body involuntarily turned to face the sun, clouds of oxygen steaming off her. This was bliss.

"We don't have much time," said the nurse, "They'll have noticed you missing by now and the All-Seeing Eye will have traced our route via its cameras. We're about 27 stories up. If you want to jump, now's your chance. They'll be here soon."

But Hunter didn't want to jump. She fell on her back and ripped off her hospital gown, exposing her entire body to the rays of the yellow sun. She closed her eyes in ecstasy. She could feel her whole body changing, repairing, growing. Her ears sprouted tiny flowers which attracted a cluster of nearby bees. Her ovaries seemed to swell with ripening fruit. As she ate up the sun, whispy root tendrils began to extend from her feet. Heaven. After so long, she was finally in heaven.

A cloud passed in front of the sun, temporarily dimming its brightness. No. Not a cloud. Her eyes flew open. Dr Rupert was standing over her along with a phalanx of hospital guards. He gestured and they threw a burlap sack over Hunter and bundled her up. They dragged her down, bouncing her mercilessly against every concrete step, until she passed out from the pain.

The dank cellar smelled of damp soil, untouched by sunlight for many a year. Hunter was hunched over in a corner rocking back and forth. It was dark in here and she was slowly starving. Her body missed the sunshine. More than that, it craved it. She could feel the starchy compounds developing inside her. The tang of solanine gas seeped from her pores. Little nodules began to form and, over the next few days, her roots began to sprout. Slowly they grew, creeping through the cellar and worming their way into any crack they could find. Eventually one of them would emerge into the sunlight - and then Hunter would finally be free.

Thanks for reading

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You can read the complete set of short stories in order.