Uh-oh
"I'm sorry," said Pierce, as the elevator doors closed, "but Star Trek Discovery is not set in the prime universe. I don't consider it canon."
Fox began to open his mouth.
"Ah!" Pierce snapped. "There is nothing you can say that will convince me otherwise. I just spent my entire week-long vacation watching every single season. It's completely different."
"It's not different," Fox argued. "It's called a visual reboot," he said, raising his fists to his chest. "You can't have the original series look for today's audience. Flashing jelly beans just don't work anymore."
"Whatever," Pierce said, waving his hand. "It's to serialized for me anyways."
"Better than the Abrams movies…"
Pierce chuckled as a computerized voice announced they had arrived at their floor. "I'll give you that one."
"So," Fox said, stepping aside to let Pierce exit the elevator first. "What is it you want to show me? You've been hyping this experiment up for the last two months."
"It's something," Pierce grinned, rubbing his hands together excitedly. "I'm anxious to see what has become of my experiment."
"And that is…"
Pierce stopped. He looked left down the hallway, and then right. No one was there. He tugged Fox's lab coat over to the glass wall of Umoja Tower that overlooked Base Tranquility from eleven stories up. The day was beautiful and the sun strong.
"Look," Pierce pointed to the BLOC Section's titanic greenhouses and growing fields.
"What?" Fox muttered, not seeing where Pierce was pointing.
Pierce smacked his lips. "The greenhouses…" he pressed. "The food! It's all about our food crisis… And, from solving this crisis, the answer to another." Pierce intensely stared at Fox. "Our carbon emissions."
"You didn't," said Fox, putting together what his friend was suggesting. "You made a super plant…"
"Precisely!" Pierce exclaimed. "One that can grow triple the yields we see today in a warmer climate all while simultaneously scrubbing up orders of magnitude more anthropogenic carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. UNIRO won't have to keep building all this costly sequestration infrastructure and convert decommissioned nuclear plants into enormous air scrubbers." Pierce held up his finger. "With my work, all we need to do is literally plant a seed."
"Well, lets see it." Fox said, gesturing for them to move. Pierce nodded his head and took off speed walking towards his lab.
"I genetically modified the photosynthesis process of a species of fast growing vine - "
"Which kind?"
Pierce looked over his shoulder at the trailing Fox. "That’s proprietary."
Fox laughed. "Proprietary? UNIRO is a public agency, nothing is proprietary."
"Whatever," Pierce said. "I want to keep that a secret for now, okay?"
"Fine."
"Now, I planted three plants from seed exactly eight days ago under a grow light in a closed loop hydroponics system. If my calculation are correct the plants should be five to six feet tall by now."
"Woah," Fox gasped. "That’s insane."
"Yeah, well I still have to see if…"
Pierce stopped when he saw his labs door. He was astounded to see small leaves protruding a few inches from underneath it growing along the white hallway floor.
"Five to six feet," Fox said, glaring over at Pierce. "Tell me you planted those vines right next to the door?"
"No," Pierce mumbled, both confused and shocked. "No, I actually planted them on the opposite side of my lab… At least twenty feet away from that door."
"Hmm… Open the door," Fox urged.
"Me?" Pierce nervously questioned.
"Yeah, it's your lab. Only your glass tag will open it."
"Right," Pierce said, nodding his head.
He slowly approached the door, took off his glass tag from around his neck, and inserted it into a small slot over the door’s handle. The slot blinked green and the lock disengaged. Pierce grabbed the handle and pushed. The door did not open.
"Open it," Fox urged again.
"I am," Pierce insisted, pushing harder on the handle. "The door won't open."
"Here," Fox said, moving Pierce out of the way. "I'll open it."
Fox turned the handle and pushed as hard as he could. The door still didn't move. He backed up a few steps and then smashed his left his shoulder into the jammed door. After shoving his body weight twice, Fox gave up.
"Okay, we're calling security," he said, rubbing his aching shoulder.
Five minutes later an ISAF guardsman showed up.
"So you're telling me," the guardsman said, pointing to the door, "that you can't open this because you think a plant has grown over the back of it."
"…Yes," Pierce said hesitantly.
The guardsman bit his lip. "Mhmm. Do you mind if I, uh…" He stepped towards the door.
"Please," Pierce asserted, standing back.
The guardsman forcefully smashed himself into the door. Nothing.
"What the hell," he muttered in amazement. He looked at Pierce and Fox. "Let me make a call."
Ten minutes later two more guardsmen arrived, one carrying an electric chainsaw.
"Stand back," she said as she started the machine. Its metal teeth quickly blurred to life.
"Hey, wait!" Pierce cried. "Can't you guys just, I don't know, take the door off its hinges or something? You're going to destroy my lab’s door."
The guardsman flashed Pierce a deadpan look as she put on some safety glasses. "No," she said.
"Why not?"
"The hinges are on the inside…" she motioned with chainsaw, chewing away on some gum. Soon, the chainsaw’s teeth were devouring the hard wooden door, throwing shavings and sawdust onto the floor.
"What subgroup are you two in?" asked the guardsman who had first arrived.
"Oh we're not in a subgroup, sir," answered Fox. "We're just - "
"We're just civilian scientists working for UNIRO. We're working on new geoengineering techniques."
"That include making plants?"
Fox and Pierce looked at each other, then back to the guardsman.
"No," Fox admitted.
"Yes," Pierce said seconds later.
"You guys know how to keep mangos alive?" asked the guardsman, adjusting his Kevlar vest.
Pierce and Fox were a little surprised by the question.
"Umm, maybe," Pierce replied uncomfortably.
"Damn thing just won't seem to grow," said the guardsman. "I like mangos, especially mango sherbet, you know? Some people don't like it cause its got the little hairs in it; gets in your teeth and caught in your throat. I don't mind."
"Do you… Do you water it enough?" Pierce asked.
"Yeah, I've got this rain barrel that feeds - "
"I got it!" shouted the guardsman, cutting through the door. "I'm almost through," she said, nearly completing the arch she was making. "Stand back!"
Sawing through the last bit of door, the cut section fell to floor, brushing sawdust away with a loud whoosh.
All three guardsmen turned on LED flashlights and shined them into the darkened lab. Pierce and Fox pushed through them trying to see.
"ISAF Headquarters…" one guardsman called into his radio. "Yeah, get me a science team to my position stat as well as a maintenance team."
"What's the problem?" someone radioed back.
"Um, well," the guardsman stuttered, scratching his face. "We've got a uh, uh, a bit of weed problem here."
Pierce and Fox pushed their way through the three guardsmen crowding the door.
"What? What is it?" Pierce asked worryingly.
He looked inside his lab to find every square inch of it covered in thick, green vines. They were growing through electrical outlets, into the air vents in the ceiling above, and were nearly smothering the long pink glow lamp he had left for his three seeds. His mouth dropped.
"Uh-oh..."