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Part 1

May Flowers: A Meh-rathon

Maureen was glad she wore her good boots. Even though the storm had died down long before she’d shown up for work at the garden, the ground was still very wet.

They hadn’t gotten that much rain in a long time. Her wife, Gloria, had slept right through it, of course. Not that Gloria was a heavy sleeper; on the contrary, Maureen had noticed that it could be any time of night and she could say anything at any volume, and Gloria would respond as if she heard it perfectly. Still, the storm didn’t seem to wake her.

Maureen, on the other hand, couldn’t get any sleep. It wasn’t that it was too loud. She was just too excited to see the effect of so much water on the plants.

And she noticed it right away, as she went about pruning, weeding, and generally looking after the flowers whose names she did not know because they had no names: some had sprung up an inch, others more, one in particular, many more.

She was observing one particular orchid-like plant when suddenly, it was as if a cloud passed over the early morning sun.

She found herself standing in the shadow of what looked somewhat like a tree.

But there was no tree behind her. At least, there had not been just a moment ago.

“Carl?” Maureen called. “Is that you?”

Gloria opened the door to leave for her mid-morning run and found a tall man in a black suit and mirrored sunglasses standing on her front porch.

“Gloria Hamstead?” the man said.

“Yes?” Gloria said.

“Would you mind if I come in?” the man said.

“I was just leaving,” Gloria said.

“I’m afraid your run will have to wait,” said the man.

“Excuse me?” Gloria said.

“I’m sorry to be so presumptuous,” the man said. “But I think you’ll want to hear this. I’m afraid it has to do with your wife.”

Inside, Gloria sat across the breakfast table from the man who identified himself as Agent Flecks.

“What do you know about your wife’s employment?” Agent Flecks asked.

“She works for Fair Flower Farms,” said Gloria. “The flower catalog. She’s got an amazing green thumb. She can grow anything.”

“And did she mention anything about her transfer two months ago?” Agent Flecks asked.

“Transfer?” Gloria said. “No. I did notice she started talking about a new coworker of hers, though. Carl?”

“What did she say about this Carl?” Agent Flecks asked.

“I can’t think of anything specific,” Gloria said. “She’s just referred to him is all. The only reason I mention it is that I hadn’t heard his name before a couple of months ago. But wait, why am I telling you all this? You haven’t even explained why you’re here. What’s going on?”

“Mrs. Hamstead,” Agent Flecks said. “There isn’t a Carl that works at Fair Flower Farms to my knowledge. And if there is one, it’s nearly impossible he works alongside your wife. Maureen has worked alone since her transfer. To the EFU.”

“The EFU?” Gloria said.

“The Experimental Flowers Unit,” Agent Flecks said.

“I don’t understand,” Gloria said. “Fair Flower Farms is growing experimental flowers for their catalogs?”

“No,” said Agent Flecks. “They’re growing them for us.”

Agent Flecks explained: each year the CIA paid Fair Flower Farms a large sum of money to grow and monitor some of their flowers.

“I didn’t know the CIA had a thing for flowers,” Gloria said.

“We don’t,” Agent Flecks said. “We have a thing for weapons.”

The flowers in the EFU were highly dangerous new varieties: poisonous, exceptionally thorny, sometimes even downright carnivorous.

“Like a Venus flytrap?” Gloria said.

“Pretty much,” Agent Flecks said. “Only, with an eye for prey a bit larger than your standard fly.”

“Horseflies?” Gloria said.

“Still technically a fly,” Agent Flecks said.

“Something dragonfly-size?” Gloria asked.

“Larger than that,” Agent Flecks said.

“Birds,” Gloria guessed.

“I’m talking about people, Mrs. Hamstead,” Agent Flecks said. “A flower capable of eating people.”

“Good god,” Gloria said.

“Generally, it’s just gardening,” Agent Flecks said. “But you’re familiar with the phrase, ‘April showers bring May flowers?’”

“Of course,” Gloria said.

“Well, after last night’s heavy rain,” Agent Flecks said, “we’re a little worried there might be a few too many May flowers. And they might be hungry if you catch my drift.”

“You mean the flowers that my wife works with might be hungry,” Gloria said. “For people.”

“You’ve caught my drift!” Agent Flecks said.

“Usually the phrase ‘catch my drift’ is used to imply something,” Gloria said, “rather than, you know, directly state it.”

“Mrs. Hamstead, this is no time to argue semantics,” Agent Flecks said.

“Sorry,” said Gloria. “So Maureen is trapped in that garden? Filled with dangerous flowers?”

“Yes, but there’s more,” Agent Flecks said. “We lost all surveillance this morning. It could be that the plants themselves took down our cameras. If so, may God help us. But it also might mean the presence of third-party operatives. Arms dealers and weapons sellers interested in what the EFU is growing.”

Gloria thought to point out that it was redundant to say arms dealers and weapons sellers, but Agent Flecks was right: this was no time for a semantic argument. Instead, she shook her head and said, “Oh, Maureen. I had no idea she was doing such dangerous work. I can’t believe she wouldn’t tell me.”

“Those working at the EFU are sworn to secrecy,” Agent Flecks said. “Which is something you’ve had plenty of experience with, isn’t it, Mrs. Hamstead?”

Gloria’s whole body went tense. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“So Maureen doesn’t know,” said Agent Flecks, “about your past?”

“What’s there to know?” Gloria said. “I started a small telecommunications company in the early 2000s, sold it at a major profit, and have been living off the money since.”

“Telecommunications?” Agent Flecks said. “Is that the new code name? For Justice Force?”

Gloria sighed and looked down at the table. “How’d you know?”

“Mrs. Hamstead, you have to understand,” Agent Flecks said, “in my position, I have access to everyone’s file. That’s why I’m here today. To offer you an opportunity at one more mission. To save your wife.”

“It’s been a long time,” Gloria said, “since I was in the field.”

“Four years is a long time?” Agent Flecks said,

Gloria nodded, stoically. “It is after living your life one second at a time.”

“You’re out of practice,” said Agent Flecks. “I get it. But you have to understand, I’ve shared classified information, and so I can’t just leave and hope you don’t speak out of turn…”

Agent Flecks reached into his coat pocket but before he could pull anything out, Gloria had leaped out of her seat and pirouetted over the table.

The gun from inside his suit pocket was in pieces on the floor, and Agent Flecks found himself suddenly in a punishing headlock. Still, he managed to laugh.

“Don’t seem too out of practice to me,” he wheezed.

“I guess I’m not,” she said. She reached her foot out and stepped on a piece of the pistol. It cracked under her foot. Plastic, a decoy. To ensure she remembered her training.

She released Agent Flecks who gasped for air.

“So?” he said once he’d recovered.

“I guess I’m going to need an official briefing,” she said. “I need to know the layout of this garden, and I’ll need a crash course on the dangerous flowers I might run into inside.”

“That won’t be necessary,” Agent Flecks said. “Because you’re not going in alone.”

Gloria didn’t understand it. Why did a CIA field office have a petting zoo for a basement? At least, that was her first thought upon seeing all of the animals gathered in it. There were monkeys, mini goats, a number of songbirds perched on artificial trees, even an alligator in a kiddy pool.

But, on second thought, it was nothing like a petting zoo. First off, all of the animals were loose, no cages in sight. Amazingly, though, none of them bothered any of the others. They moved around each other efficiently.

And they didn’t make any noise at all, which struck Gloria as more disconcerting than if the room had been a cacophonous pit of chaos.

“Are these animals all yours?” Gloria asked Agent Flecks.

“These,” Agent Flecks said, “are CIA agents.”

Agent Flecks, as it turned out, had a hand in many of the agency’s more experimental divisions.

“Each of these animals is trained to have a special skill set,” Agent Flecks said, “and knowledge base. And we’re sending one of our best with you.”

“Which one?” Gloria asked.

“The one right behind you,” Agent Flecks said.

Gloria spun around quickly.

And found herself facing a blank wall.

“Is this some sort of joke?” Gloria said.

“Look closer,” said Agent Flecks.

Slowly the outline of a lizard revealed itself on the gray cinder block wall.

“This is Cuppy,” Agent Flecks said. “He’s a chameleon with unmatched stealth properties. Plus, he’s been fully briefed on every flower in the whole EFU.”

“Really?” Gloria said, crossing her arms. “A lizard? Has been briefed about the Experimental Flower Unit? And how is he supposed to communicate with me?”

“I read lips and blink morse code,” blinked Cuppy.

“Whoa!” Gloria took a step back. “It looked like that lizard just blinked at me in morse code and said ‘I read lips and blink morse code.’”

“He did,” Agent Flecks said.

“Seriously,” Cuppy blinked, “if you’re reading someone’s morse code blinks, and it seems like they’re saying, ‘I’m blinking at you in morse code,’ they’re probably blinking at you in morse code.”

“You should know,” Agent Flecks said, “that Cuppy has a bit of an attitude problem.”

“You should hear the stuff I blink about you when you’re not around,” Cuppy blinked.

“Oh, and Mrs. Hamstead?” Agent Flecks said, looking at his watch. “You should know: you two are already late for your flight.”

It seemed unnecessary, flying to a garden that her wife commuted to every morning by car, but Agent Flecks insisted. The EFU was deep within the Fair Flower Farms corporate garden, which was itself expansive, and they didn’t need any hold-ups with clearance at the gate and what not. Besides, they needed to get there quickly.

Which is how Gloria found herself parachuting out of a propeller plane with a chameleon named Cuppy strapped to her chest in what felt like a military-grade Baby Bjorn.

They landed next to some brilliant red and yellow flowers.

“Careful with those,” Cuppy blinked. “Lean down for a sniff and it’ll put you out for 24 hours.”

“What’s the deal with these flowers?” Gloria asked, looking down at Cuppy.

Cuppy blinked in a way that could only be a sigh. “If this is gonna work, you’re gonna actually have to look at me.”

“Sorry,” Gloria said. “Of course.”

But then something got her attention: a rustling in the nearby bushes.

Gloria cast a glance towards it and then back at Cuppy. Or where Cuppy had been. Only, now, it was just a patch of bare ground. “Cuppy?” Gloria whispered.

The bushes continued to rustle.

On the short flight, Cuppy had blinked to her about a number of the dangerous plants: the vines that could strangle a person, the flowers that looked like daffodils but shot naturally poisonous darts, all manner of terrifying flowers.

Gloria had no idea which would emerge out of the bushes, but she got down in her combat stance nonetheless.

Only, no plant emerged. Instead, a gaunt sun-burned man stepped forward from the growth.

And he carried with him a set of incredibly sharp shears.

Before he could say a word, though, the shears were dismantled and Gloria had him pinned to the ground.

“Aw man,” he said. “I borrowed those shears!”

“I can disassemble you just as efficiently,” Gloria said, “if you don’t tell me who you are and why you were sneaking up on me.”

“My name is Gary Hogan,” the man said, “and I wasn’t sneaking up on you. I was just, well, sneaking around, checking out the flowers.”

“So,” Gloria said, “you’re not supposed to be here?”

“Of course not,” Gary said. “I’m an arms dealer.”

“What does selling weapons and munitions have to do with sneaking around a garden?” Gloria asked.

“Who said anything about weapons and munitions?” Gary said.

“You did,” Gloria said.

“I said I’m an arms dealer,” Gary said. “As in, I sneak into high profile gardens, cut off an arm or two of a rare plant, propagate them, and then sell them on the green market.”

“The green market?” Gloria said.

“The horticultural black market,” Gary clarified.

Gloria stood, releasing her hold on Gary.

“So it was you who took down surveillance?” Gloria asked.

Gary shook his head. “The surveillance? No, that wasn’t me. But that’s why I’m here. Got an anonymous tip that today’s the day to sneak into the EFU. For an arm’s dealer like me, this is a jackpot!”

“Don’t be too sure,” Gloria said. “Whoever–or whatever–did might be more dangerous than getting caught on candid camera.”

But Gary wasn’t listening. He stood, dusting himself off. Only, as he moved to brush the front of his shirt, his hand bumped into something he couldn’t see.

“What the heck!” Gary cried. “There’s something on me!”

Gary smacked violently, knocking what looked like a piece of his shirt off onto the ground. A piece of his shirt that looked strikingly like a lizard of some kind.

“Cuppy?” Gloria said. “Is that you?”

“No,” Cuppy blinked, once his camouflage faded. “It’s the other chameleon here in this garden.”

“You were here all along?” Gloria said.

“I literally blinked, ‘hey, there’s some rustling in the bushes. I’m going to go dark for a minute but I’ll be close by,’” Cuppy blinked.

“I guess I wasn’t looking,” Gloria said.

“Yeah,” Cuppy blinked, “I friggin’ noticed.”

“That’s your chameleon?” Gary asked.

“Yes,” Gloria said, just as Cuppy blinked, “I belong to no one but myself.”

“So,” Gary said, “is that your snake over there too?”

“Snake?!” Gloria cried. “No! I don’t have a snake!”

“Sorry, it’s not a snake,” Gary said, pointing down the row of the garden.

“Oh, good,” Gloria said, relieved.

“As in,” Gary went on, “it’s not one snake, singular. It’s many snakes. Like, at least twenty. And they look poisonous. And they’re coming straight towards us!”

The three of them–Gloria, Gary, and Cuppy–took off running.

“It’s the work of a Charmer Lily,” Cuppy blinked. “Basically, it’s a flower that lures in venomous snakes with its sweet nectar. But the nectar contains parasitic spores that essentially rot the snake’s brain, turning it into a mindless thug that only lives to serve the flower. Specifically, it goes after anything it perceives as a threat. Like, for example, us.”

“Cuppy,” Gloria called out, glancing down at him as they ran. “What do you think the deal is with these snakes?”

“Are you kidding me with this shit?” Cuppy blinked.

“What? No, of course, I’m not kidding!” Gloria cried.

“Learn to blink morse code, they said,” Cuppy blinked to himself. “It’ll be fun, they said. Everyone will know to look at you, they said.”

“I’m sorry, Cuppy,” Gloria said. “But it’s hard to look at you and run. I could run straight into something!”

And that’s exactly when the three of them ran straight into a clearing and were quickly surrounded by four men with rifles.

“You calling us snakes?” said one of the men. “How dare you?”

“You calling us snakes?” said one of the men. “How dare you?”

“Yeah, just because we’re guys with rifles doesn’t mean we don’t have feelings,” said another of the men.

“This just ruined my day,” said the third, “being called a snake like that by someone who doesn’t even know me.”

“Remember what they said at the seminar, Doug,” said the fourth. “The words other people use to describe you don’t have to define you.”

“No,” Gloria said. “There are snakes coming!”

But it was too late. The snakes were upon them. A number of them slithered up each man’s legs. They fired their rifles into the air but were quickly disarmed.

Gary, Gloria, and Cuppy took off running again, several snakes still in pursuit.

“Whoa!” Gary cried, struggling to stop when they came to the gulch. Across it, on a lower plane, the EFU stretched ahead. Behind them, the ground was alive with venomous predators.

One of them slithered up Gloria’s leg. And it was just that moment that her Justice Force training kicked back in.

She quickly pulled the snake off of her, holding it so it couldn’t bite her. A few more surged towards her, and these too, she snatched up, tying them head to tail until she had a long enough rope to reach the tree just across the gulch.

She swung it and lassoed a high branch. The other end, she tied to a sturdy bush.

“Take hold of me,” Gloria said, grabbing another snake.

Gary hugged her, and Cuppy latched onto Gary’s back.

With them in tow, Gloria swung the snake in her hands over the rope of snakes and they zip lined across the gulch to safety, the snakes hissing as they went.

Once across, she detached the snake rope and heaved it back, along with the snake she’d used for zip-lining.

The snakes managed to detangle themselves and slithered along the edge of the gulch, looking for a way across.

“That was amazing,” Gary said.

“It’s just what I do,” Gloria said.

“We probably want to destroy the footbridge,” Cuppy blinked, “to keep the snakes from coming over it.”

“What footbridge?” Gloria said, looking down at Cuppy.

“The one just over there,” Cuppy blinked, gesturing with my head.

Sure enough, maybe fifty feet away was a sturdy wooden footbridge.

“Why didn’t you tell us there was a bridge?” Gloria said.

“I literally blinked, ‘there’s a bridge right over there’ five times while you were making the rope out of snakes,” Cuppy blinked.

“Oh,” Gloria said. “Well, how should we destroy the bridge?”

“Maybe I can help,” came a voice from behind them. They turned to see a very tan man, a bazooka over his shoulder. “Just duck.”

Gloria and Gary leaped to the ground. Even Cuppy got as low as he could.

The man fired the bazooka, a perfect shot. The bridge went up in flames.

“Now tell me,” he said, as the others got to their feet, “what happened to the four men with rifles I sent over it?”

“They definitely got eaten by snakes,” Gary said.

The man laid down his bazooka and shook his head. “Eaten by snakes in a garden full of dangerous flowers. Ain’t that just a metaphor for life.”

“But the snakes might have something to do with one of the flowers,” Gloria explained. “We’re just not sure.”

“You are friggin’ killing me,” Cuppy blinked.

“Now, I have a couple questions for you,” Gloria said. “Who are you, and what are you doing here in this garden of experimental flowers with a bazooka?”

“Name’s Roy,” said the man. “And I’m here with a bazooka because bazookas are pretty easy to come by for someone in my line of work. You see, I’m a buyer and seller of weapons and munitions.”

“Like an arms dealer,” Gloria said.

The man shook his head. “No, I’ve never been much of a gardener, and I generally stay away from the green market.”

“Then what are you doing here?” Gary said.

Roy gestured to the flowers around them. “Because these flowers are weapons, in a way. And I got an anonymous tip that surveillance was down today. So I thought, ‘hey, why not get the team together–may they rest in peace–and take a look around.’ After all, I’ve got clients around the world who might be interested in the kinds of experimental flowers the CIA is growing.”

“Well, they’re not the only ones who are curious,” Gary said, pointing. “It looks like that plant’s interested in what you brought in here.”

Sure enough, vines from a nearby plant had taken hold of the bazooka.

“Hey, that’s mine,” Roy said. But when he went to retrieve his weapon, another vine shot out and sucker-punched him, knocking him to the ground.

To be continued