An Agent's Inbox #3

Dear Ms. Marini,

A humanlike girl with an affinity to plants arrives on Earth to defend our garden from invasion. To learn English, she deciphers Dr Seuss and christens herself, Sam I Am. Each day here, she ages a year. Trillions of neurotransmitters inside her stomach, called Logic Cells, give advice inside her head. Bad enough these gut feelings never shut up, but they can also override her motor functions, guaranteeing Sam complies with the planned airborne immunization of humans against alien mind-control. At eighteen-days-old her Logic Cells will release pheromones to seduce a male to pollinate her spores before Sam’s dispersal sack explodes and she wilts, giving duel meaning to her plant teen response--that blows.

But at day-fourteen, soldiers with Yertle the Turtle shells on their heads discover her landing pod. Sam escapes, helped by Brooke, a teenage girl with leukemia. Attracted to Brooke’s brother Dylan, Sam hopes her Logic Cells intervene because at three days (years) younger than him, he avoids her like he might catch a dose--of poison ivy. This changes after Sam saves Dylan from an alien attack, because his thankyou kiss helps her realize, allowing Logic Cells to manipulate humans makes her no better than the invading tree reapers. Now prior to completing her mission, Sam hopes to give Dylan what he desires before her Logic Cells play Chemical Cupid. A cure for the disease circulating in Brooke’s red sap--even if she has to cut out her own stomach to do it.

PLANTED (I CAN WATER MYSELF) is a standalone 83,000-word young adult science fiction with series potential. I was the founder and president of Strategy First, a worldwide publisher of entertainment software for twenty years. Our franchise titles, Disciples, a fantasy, and Jagged Alliance, an adventure role-playing release, sold over one million copies worldwide respectively and were geared to a young adult audience.

Sincerely,
D.M.


PLANTED (I CAN WATER MYSELF)

I struggled with the onslaught of moisture in my eyes, fearing my Logic Cells would ask questions. Breathe…I needed to breathe and not think about the box. Think…think about something else…the first mutilation I deciphered in the dead forest named library. Its words helped me respond to a worker who had asked my name.

“Sam I am,” I said.
She laughed. “Where’s your mother, Sam?”
I pointed upward.
She touched my limb. “You poor dear.”
I almost forgot--never reveal Mother orbited Earth.

No, thinking of the genocide called books did not help. It made me want to grow thorns on my twigs and drop from the tree to mount a rescue, but knowing my Logic Cells would interfere--tears fell instead of me.
You are wasting fluids. What is wrong? my Logic Cells asked.
I refused to respond.

My permanent stomachache growled again. If you cannot speak, because someone may hear. Signal us with your twigs.
How about I manifest into a giant redwood and stomp my stumps while shouting ‘Fee-fi-fo-fum, I smell the blood of a human,’ but no, that ability along with Logic Cells helping remained a fairy tale. So I knotted all my twigs into a fist except one and gave my Logic Cells the middle twig. One signaled human warriors. Two, the Swarm.
Branches snapped. Humans dressed in green paraded through the forest. Sunlight glinted from the barbs attached to their weapons as they stabbed bushes. They had the box--now they wanted me.