Freedom TM

and chemicals, to break it down into processed food additives. We’re up to our eyeballs in corn here in Iowa and we can’t even feed ourselves.”
    “I gather that’s the plan.”
    Fossen nodded. “Damned right. Big business was screwing over farmers in the 1890s, too, and my grandfather’s father didn’t put up with it back then, either. There was an uprising. You might not thinkit, but it was always the farmers who raised hell in this country. They worked for themselves, were self-reliant, and weren’t about to take shit from anybody. But then some clever bastard figured out how to make crops inedible. My family’s been doing industrial farming for forty years and all it produces is debt, pollution, and water shortages. It ruins the land and the people on it.”
    Ross nodded to the uniform fields out the window. “You think these other farmers will change?”
    “They’ll have no choice. Gas is, what—eighteen bucks a gallon now? Industrial farming and the global supply chain gobble up fossil fuel.” He peeled off each item with his fingers. “Natural gas in the fertilizers, petroleum-based pesticides, fuel for the tractors, more fuel for transport to food processors, fuel to process the raw crops into food additives, then to manufacture them into products, and then to transport the products across the country or world to be consumed—thirteen hundred miles on average.”
    “What made you finally change?”
    Fossen stopped for a moment then laughed. “When I started educating myself on why farming no longer made sense. We basically used oil and aquifer water to temporarily boost the carrying capacity of the land, all for economic growth demanded by Wall Street investors. It’s a crazy system that only makes sense when you foist all the costs onto taxpayers in the form of crop subsidies that benefit agribusiness, and defense spending to secure fossil fuels. We’re basically paying for corporations to seize control of the food supply and dictate to us the terms under which we live.”
    They continued down the gravel road, sending up a cloud of white dust behind them. The road curved up toward a slight rise on the horizon. They came over it, and a dramatic shift in the scenery occurred.
    Now, in the fields on either side was a patchwork of crops and fences, along with rows of saplings, the occasional chicken coop,and a few cows grazing in a meadow. It was, in fact, the first sizeable area of prairie grass Ross had seen in many miles.
    Before long Hank slowed the truck and came to a halt at the intersection with a paved road. He pointed to their right. “Greeley’s down that way about a quarter mile.”
    Ross could see a wooden sign alongside the road. It read WELCOME TO GREELEY with Rotary Club and Kiwanis Club badges bolted just below. Above that, floating in D-Space, glowed a virtual sign that read:
Iowa’s first darknet community.
Ross knew it meant that all of the town’s civic functions and officials were darknet-based. Judging from the widespread construction going on in the countryside, they might have been the most advanced, too.
    “Our place is up ahead a few miles. You interested in a tour, or should I take you straight into Greeley?”
    Ross nodded across the road. “I’d love to get a tour.”
    Hank nodded and brought them across the road and down the gravel lane beyond. After a few minutes Ross saw barns, outbuildings, a traditional farmhouse, and a new-looking prefab house among some trees up ahead. There were also a couple of shipping containers and a few modern turbines turning in the breeze a ways off.
    Fossen nodded to the view. “This is ours.”
    Fossen turned into the farm’s long gravel driveway. There was an ornate D-Space 3-D object in the shape of a cornucopia bursting with vegetables and fruits hanging above the entrance. It was labeled
Fossen Farm
.
    Dogs with D-Space call-outs above them ran out, barking to greet the truck. Two of them were black Labs named
Blackjack
and
Licorice,
and the third was a Golden Retriever named
Hurley.
    Ross smiled. “That’s clever.”
    “Well, they’re always getting into trouble. This way we know where they are.” He stopped the truck near the barn, and the Fighters in back quickly hopped out.
    Ross looked around just as a woman called from the porch ofthe white clapboard farmhouse. She was a stout-looking woman in her forties or fifties in work clothes and a garden hat. She had no call-out or HUD glasses. “Everything go