Page 23 of Afflicted

“You're lucky. I had my eye on yours once I'd made it through this bad boy.” He shoved some more pizza into his mouth and I rolled my eyes. I wouldn't be surprised if he did order more food, he never seemed to stop eating.

Hawker gave me a knowing smile over her own food. Her mousy hair was held

back in a long braid as usual and her piercing blue eyes surveyed me with a little too much scrutiny.

“How are you doing Walsh?” she asked, her tone far from casual.

I shifted uncomfortably under her gaze and picked up a slice of pizza before answering. “Fine. I'm looking forward to getting back but I guess I've got a lot to keep me busy. Where's Santos?” I asked, trying to shift her attention off of me.

“Behind you,” Santos said happily as she threw her arms around me. I laughed as I pulled her close for a second before she dropped into the booth beside me. “You need to hurry back Walsh, Kai is trying to take over without you standing in his way.”

I laughed again as Kai beamed. “It's been forty eight hours, you've got a few weeks to get through yet. I'll have to trust the two of you to keep him in check.”

“You can't hold me back,” Kai replied, his mouth full of pizza. “I was just born to lead.”

Hawker rolled her eyes and I relaxed as I felt her attention moving on. She was too good at reading people and I really didn't need to be psycho-analysed while I was trying to work through the turmoil of my past.

“So you said you knew something about the water being switched off?” I asked as I started shovelling food down. I hadn't realised how hungry I was.

“That's confidential information,” Hawker said quickly as she eyed the other patrons of Donny’s Pizza Palace.

“As if anyone is listening to us,” Santos replied, rolling her eyes.

Kai glanced around, clearly uncomfortable ignoring Hawker’s advice entirely but also willing to tell me if he thought we couldn't be overheard. We were well away from anyone else and there was plenty of noise in the restaurant to cover anything we might discuss.

“It's fine, no one’s near enough to eavesdrop,” he said.

Hawker pursed her lips, clearly disagreeing but not strongly enough to offer further objection.

“There's been a bit of an issue with some of the farms,” Kai said in a low voice.

“Farms?” I asked with a frown. “I thought we'd be talking about terrorism-“

“No this is more of an accidental issue. With contamination.”

“So the farms have contaminated the water? With what?” I asked.

“It's the chemicals they've been using to bump up the crops,” Santos said loudly. Hawker shushed her, glancing about nervously.

“It turns out the food crisis has actually gotten a lot worse than they made out on the news,” Hawker said, taking over the explanation. She'd always been the best at remembering details.

“You're talking about the grain shortages from the last few years?” I asked feeling out of step with the turn of the conversation. I'd thought we'd be discussing covert ops against terrorists not farm issues.

“Yes. It turns out it was a lot worse than they admitted. We were dropping dangerously close to unsustainable population to food ratios. There's a real risk that there's going to be a food shortage.”

“So what does this have to do with the water?” I asked, feeling like I was missing something.

“She's getting to it,” Santos said dramatically.

Kai finished his pizza and reached for a slice of mine. I slapped his hand away and he laughed as he sat back in his seat.

“So in order to avoid a food shortage,” Hawker continued. “They decided to tamper with nature a bit.”

“Like genetic engineering?” I asked, my knowledge on the subject was limited at best and she was already losing me.

“Exactly. They came up with this new kind of genetic engineering which seemed to produce bumper crops. The plants could grow ten times faster than usual and produce at least five times the amount of food.”

“This all sounds like a good thing so far,” I said as I finished my pizza and sat back like Kai.