Story code: ST-001191
Part 3: The Bio-Hazard
Marcus backed away from the folding table. Richard Vance didn’t even pause his recitation of the community pool’s pH balance levels. The board members kept their eyes firmly glued to their printed agendas, pretending the man whose house they had just surrendered to a software program was already a ghost.
Marcus pushed through the heavy wooden doors of the meeting room, marched down the carpeted hallway, and burst out into the cool night air. His phone felt like a hot coal in his hand. Fourteen days. In two weeks, a sheriff’s deputy would show up to forcibly remove him over a mechanical hallucination.
He jogged the three blocks back to his house. The motion-sensor lights on his garage clicked on, illuminating the front yard. The drought-tolerant xeriscape he had painstakingly designed sat perfectly still in the artificial glare. The red yucca stood tall. The blue fescue formed neat, intentional tufts. The agave spread its thick, jagged leaves.
“Dead weeds,” Marcus muttered.
He walked to the side gate, unlatched it, and dragged out his heavy steel wheelbarrow. He grabbed a flathead shovel from the garage wall. He didn’t bother changing out of his clean jeans and jacket. He drove the steel blade of the shovel directly into the center of the blue fescue, slicing through the nutrient-rich topsoil he had hauled in by the bagful.
He heaved the massive clump of earth and living roots into the wheelbarrow. He moved to the agave, ignoring the sharp spines that scraped the back of his wrist as he dug under its base. He tossed it in, followed by three heavy, decorative river rocks, a mound of red yucca, and three massive scoops of the dark, damp soil. The wheelbarrow groaned under the weight.
Marcus gripped the wooden handles. He pushed the wheelbarrow down his driveway and out into the street. The single rubber tire squeaked rhythmically against the asphalt. He marched down the center of the road, pushing the mountain of dirt and living desert flora through the pristine, cookie-cutter stillness of Oakridge Estates.
When he reached the clubhouse, he didn’t bother using the accessibility ramp. He shoved the wheelbarrow straight up the concrete steps. The front tire slammed against the risers, jolting his shoulders, but he muscled it onto the landing.
He hit the automatic door button with his elbow. The double glass doors slid open. He pushed the squeaking, mud-caked metal cart onto the flawless cream-colored tile of the lobby, leaving a thick trail of loose potting soil in his wake.
He reached the heavy wooden doors of the main meeting room. He spun the wheelbarrow around, pressed his back against the wood, and shoved them open with his full body weight.
The doors banged against the interior walls. The meeting room went dead silent.
Richard Vance was in the middle of a PowerPoint presentation about standardized mailbox fonts. He froze, his mouth hanging open, the microphone whining with a faint hiss of feedback. The dozen residents in the folding chairs twisted around, their eyes widening at the sight of Marcus standing in the doorway, breathing heavily, gripping a rusted wheelbarrow overflowing with dirt and jagged plants.
“Mr. Hayes!” Richard shouted, his voice cracking over the PA system. He bolted upright, knocking his plastic chair backward. “What is the meaning of this? You are trespassing! I am calling security!”
“You don’t have security,” Marcus said, his voice carrying easily to the back wall. “You fired them to buy OmniTract.”
Marcus pushed the wheelbarrow down the center aisle. The rubber tire left a thick brown stripe across the industrial carpet. Residents scrambled out of their chairs, pressing themselves against the walls to get out of his way.
“Stop right there!” Evelyn shrieked, clutching her cardigan tightly around her neck. “You cannot bring exterior debris into the clubhouse!”
“It’s not debris,” Marcus said.
He reached the folding table. He didn’t slow down. He gripped the wooden handles, braced his boots against the carpet, and heaved upward with everything he had.
The wheelbarrow tipped forward. The front lip caught the edge of the folding table. A hundred pounds of dark topsoil, jagged agave, river rocks, and sprawling blue fescue cascaded across the tabletop.
The dirt buried Richard’s budget reports. A heavy river rock smashed into the plastic pitcher of ice water, shattering it and sending a wave of water across Evelyn’s legal pads. The microphone let out a deafening screech as a mound of damp soil swallowed it whole.
Richard scrambled backward, brushing wet dirt off his polo shirt, his face purple with rage. “Are you insane? You’re paying for this! You are paying for all of this!”
“Evaluate it!” Marcus yelled over the ringing microphone feedback. He pointed at the mound of earth on the table. “Look at it! Use your human eyes! Is it dead brown space? Is it?”
Above them, a high-pitched electronic chime echoed from the ceiling.
Marcus looked up. Mounted in the corner of the room was a sleek, black OmniTract surveillance dome-the exact same automated hardware that patrolled the neighborhood from the sky. A ring of LED lights around the lens shifted from a passive blue to a flashing, urgent red. The motorized camera swiveled downward, locking its lens directly onto the massive pile of dirt and agave covering the board’s table.
A synthetic, pre-recorded voice dropped from the ceiling speakers, cutting through the chaos.
*”Alert. Interior Bio-Hazard detected. Unsanitary organic matter present in sterile zone.”*
Richard froze, looking up at the blinking red light. “No, no, it’s just dirt-”
*”Quarantine protocol initiated,”* the automated voice stated flatly.
At the back of the room, the heavy wooden doors swung shut on their own. A heavy electronic *CLACK* echoed through the room as the magnetic locks engaged, sealing the exits.
Evelyn rushed to the side door, rattling the brass handle. “It’s locked! Richard, open the doors!”
“I can’t!” Richard yelled, frantically swiping at the screen of his tablet. “The clubhouse is on the OmniTract system! It’s fully automated! I don’t have the admin password to override a bio-hazard quarantine!”
*”Contaminant suppression activated,”* the voice droned.
Directly above the folding table, three circular fire sprinklers popped open with a sharp mechanical snap. A torrent of foul-smelling, stagnant black pipe-water erupted from the ceiling, raining down in a heavy, conical spray directly onto the board members.
Evelyn screamed as the freezing water soaked her hair and instantly ruined her cardigan. Richard threw his hands over his head, frantically trying to shield his tablet, but the pressurized water blasted the screen, shorting it out and rendering it completely useless.
Marcus stood just outside the blast radius, listening to the panic. He watched the elected board of Oakridge Estates cower beneath the indoor storm, helplessly trapped behind locked doors by the very machine they had trusted to rule them.