Ch. 2 after Diner

Hugo is heading home, when he sees his neighbor, Terence, waving him down

SSYR 2:
As much as he wanted to let sleeping dogs lie, Hugo couldn't shake the day's events. Something was telling him this wasn't over. He needed to call his family, check up on where they stood on leaving Chesterfield & returning home. He hoped they were calling the farm home again. As he stoically drove down the long, flat stretch of road leading back to his farm, he began mapping out the rest of his day. How was he going to divulge this bru-ha-ha w/o alarming them? His wife, Charise, was sending mixed signals. With Charise so unsure, he knew winning the kids over would likely be the casting die that brought them back into his life. The main problem was that between them, the kids were every bit as divisive as Hugo & Charise were. This last year had split the Denaris family right down the middle. Every major decision or plan was one way or another. 
He knew that Sean didn't need convincing: He was truculent, but accepting. After all, you don't get to choose your parents, or how they make ends meet. He figured that when you're born into this world, you best learn how to live with the decisions of your parents; no amount of complaining would change it. Besides, he was a kid. It's not like he had any brighter ideas.
Alicia on the other hand, wouldn't want to come back. Even if he turned the farm into a veritable Eden & Piedmont into Heaven itself she could care less. For one, Alicia lacked Sean's empathy & Protean character. From the first move when she was 3 she developed a distaste for uprooting. It became obvious to her that it was going to be a theme, to which she had little power over. As she developed into adolescence it became the ominous, dark cloud on the horizon, the bane of any burgeoning social status or reputation. Her interests ostensibly lay in extracurricular activities & the social benefits that they offer. 
They had delineated to both their children how their primary source of income, real estate, worked. How flipping houses & living on the go put food on the table. There was a balance to their authority however. Hugo had a particular penchant for considering his children's views as a sort of premonition, often to the point of argument w/Charise. Drama from navigating their unconventional lifestyle often was their primary source of familial friction. He took Alicia--who’d been the twinkle in the corner of his eye the moment she was born"and her venomous disdain for moving to heart much deeper than he let on to any of them. For some inexplicable reason, he had this nagging insistence that her attitude toward moving was an omen from his deceased father, who’d passed before the children were born due to cirrhosis from alcoholism. It became the primary motivation for Hugo to stay on the wagon, find a piece of land, settle down and sport some roots. Despite Piedmont being a backwater, honky-tonk town, Alicia, after months of arguing, screaming about how unbearable her family was, had finally found some content in the change of scenery. She finally felt like a part of a community, rather than a drifter, opportunistically pouncing & leaving when the going got good. The happy home didn’t last; fights between Charise & Hugo escalated. He began to concede, Charise's arguments were valid, more with each passing day. The farm was in shambles; the town was economically & socially bereft of opportunities. After many nights of heated arguments and empty dining rooms, sending the kids to town for dinner became a household norm. One hot, muggy September evening, Hugo and Charise began discussing the terms of separation. Charise cited that in the best interest of the children, she should return to the city, kids in tow. At first, Hugo’s protests had Charise in a corner. Their kids weren’t young or naïve, they could figure out a hiatus would send their nuclear family into nuclear holocaust. Charise offered consolation in the form of open communication. Surely today’s technology could be of some use, keep the adhesive elements in the family from eroding completely. She also scored points by placing extra responsibility on Hugo; come down and visit as often as you can. Finally, there was no other way around it.

He put the farm on the market, praying for a miracle to get him back, be the breadwinner, and restore the family schism.
Meanwhile, Sean & Alicia were told they had to pack it up, again. Despite reasoning with them both, telling them, no matter what, change was lying in wait, a few short spans down their dusty farm road. Piedmont's student populace would have to transfer over to Springs, which meant an hour commute, both ways, every day. For Alicia, moving to Chesterfield was the last straw. Hugo surmised that proving this was only a slight bump, a mere hiccup in the promise he made one year ago, would take time, particularly for his baby girl. He knew that once she saw the way things were moving now that Meta was the scene, she'd come around.
The town was boiling over, alive with new faces & activities. Meta was leaving no quarter to rest: They were setting up picnics, events, discussing with both private business contractors & the larger governing bodies about proposed expansions of infrastructure, organizing town meetings, even arranging to have Piedmont refranchised. Everything would be up & running in no time. Judging by the population surge, Piedmont was going to become a modern day boom-town, which, given the tightening shackles economics is trickling-down these days is a rare sight to behold. In a similar font to the 1800s gold rush, Meta was turning this little nowhere into a bustling hub with every strata of socio-economic class clamoring for a piece of the action.
Hugo wasn't without fears or reservations. True to their name, Meta seemed to have their finger in every slice of the town pie. Their acquisitions had more than the faintest whiff of monopolization. It seemed like a dubious, yet quaint little corner to form and host their own micro-government, based on its corporate agenda. So far, Meta had been nothing but a boon to anyone lucky enough to get in on the ground floor. The problem he couldn't avoid seeing in the near future was exactly how things would look once this initial transition was finalized. He read between the lines enough to know that Meta hadn't merely bought a town, they, using some legally gray tactics & language in their contracts, had bought the townspeople as well. Also, why wasn't Meta being forthright about their plans in entirety? Everyone who was willing to discuss their private contracts had the same basic, vague outlining. Very little was disclosed past the initial phases: Whether or not they'd be involved in the use & production of their own land, how they'd be affiliated w/Meta, who, & how often field researchers, production analysts, or the myriad other names & titles would show up; he'd even heard rumors of researchers & analysts quartering with property owners. Hugo didn't like the idea of living with a bunch of strangers, writing & testing every minutiae of his daily life. Imagine how his family, who was already unsure of returning, would feel. All these questions had yet to be answered publicly.

 Hugo tried to get answers from Raul. His line returned only vague uncertainties & optimistic euphemisms in response. This shadier side to Meta's dealings w/ the town led to increasing rumors & speculations. In a small town, that could lead to some very outlandish assumptions, while some could be closer to the truth than most were comfortable believing, including Hugo. 
Some of the farmers he talked to sparked his theory about an autonomous plutocracy, a term Hugo had learned during his discussions & while researching the situation. He was learning a lot about government and politics, especially for a humble farmer. Then there were, what Hugo believed @ least, far more wild theories. The main buzz was that Piedmont was becoming some sort of massive, extremely controlled & observed, genetic experiment. He knew Meta used GMO crops, hence the contracts & patent-rights & the endless list of other documents he signed, outlining his adherence to comply with all of Meta's terms & policies concerning their use. The documents were so exhaustive he gave up reading through all of them. He also wasn't entirely educated about the ethical or biological controversies surrounding such practices & products. From what he'd read most of the science was not only proven safe, but an important bridge to feeding an ever-increasing human population. The wilder discussions he'd picked up online & around town centered around what these products would do to our genetic traits. People purporting hysterical theories about horrible mutations, or awakening unnatural characteristics, not only in the crops, but in the people as well. 
It wasn't entirely out of the scope of possibility, but Hugo had to dismiss some of the crazier talk. For one, he as an integral part of it & there was no backing out. Signed, sealed, delivered; he was in the hands of Meta. He couldn't fathom taking part in some scientifically untested & ethically controversial mass experiment, so it was best to be curt and dismissive with the naysayers. Besides, there was no way the government would allow such a radical mass project w/o approval, or @ least some level of transparency & consent from the population. If the government was keeping it under raps, the media would certainly would have gotten their hands on it. He'd been directed to some blurbs on the internet about the acquisition. Piedmont wasn't alone. Meta was a global hand, extending increasingly outward to many lands. That cute little rhyme was mentioned in a cheeky article concerning the "dangers of the corporate giant"; they would come into windfall land grabs from economically disadvantaged corners of the globe, with little to no resistance by the governments that oversaw everything. It went on to theorize that such fortuitous opportunism could be attributed to Meta's political tactics: They'd lobby governments, manage to get former Meta employees into elected office, be the sight & scene @ nearly every major political rally. Some cited nefarious accusations included staging coups to emplace corporate dictatorships in more tumultuous areas, particularly in the Northern & Eastern territories. Maybe Charise had been doing her own research without discussion, making her reluctant to return. Then again, Hugo didn't see any roadblocks around town. No one was being held captive. People could come & go as they pleased. 
He pulled off the main byway onto a small side road. Only two properties shared the winding gravel stretch, which ended @ Hugo's farm. About a 1/4 mile before that the road forked, where his neighbor, Terence, was waving him down. "Hu, was that you down @ the JuneBug? What sort of mess you gotten into now?" Hugo sighed, already exasperated with the event. He knew he was going to rehash this story @ least a dozen times. Between his family, the town gossips & the cops (who'd likely be banging on his door soon) he figured that estimate would suffice. Now he knew, with Terence asking less than an hour after the incident, that he'd grossly underestimated that figure. He sighed, subtly hinting to Terence this wasn't the most opportune moment to ask. "Long story short, Candy & Laredo aired their grievances concerning their recent familial indiscretions." As soon as he said it, Hugo belied that he was being way too vague. This wasn't going to be a long story short conversation. Terence digested that for a moment, then chuckled. "Yeah, figured it'd only be a matter of time before they got to it. Never figured it'd be Candy though. Always had a picture of Marvin roping Laredo to a tree in Concordia Park. Everyone in town knew Miss Bee was going to land in the family bonnet sooner or later. Got pretty gruesome then eh? Saw the cops, & Bee. Didn't see Candy though. Where'd she head?" Terence wasn't letting Hugo off the hook. "She flew @ Laredo like superman & squashed him like a bug. He played possum though, waited until she got up, then he kicked her legs out from underneath her. She crashed down, hard. Smashed her chin, her jaw. Even bit through her tongue, clean through." Terence's face could've been the prototypical Greek theatre masks for shock & surprise. His long face stretched to cartoonish exaggeration. His eyes were bulging, his mouth hung agape. "God Hu; she gonna make it?" "Figure if Meta wouldn't have been there before the ambulance from Springs, then no. Now, I think she'll make it. Benson's worried Marv's going to lose it. Bee wanted to pin the whole thing on Ben & me. I might lose some sleep tonight, keeping watch out my window." "I'll let you know if I see anyone hauling down our road Hu." Terrence reconciled him. "You know I got a view all the way to the main road." Hugo smiled, feeling somewhat relieved. "Thanks Terrence. You've been a good neighbor." 
Despite the moment of shared mirth, Hugo wanted to get gone, try to get some work done on the farm. This micro-catastrophe, given normal circumstances, would’ve been the apex of his day, setting him down on his recliner, rotting his mind with the b**b tube. Now, such proclivity was out of the question. Too much to do, not enough time to do it, even without a scuffle at the diner. On top of that, while he was trying to calm his nerves by popping on the FM, he'd caught that a nasty storm was brewing over the next few days, straight from the NorthWest, where the nastiest storms usually fronted. He needed to batten down the hatches & stay ahead of the Meta proposal deadline. "Ok Hu, no worries. I just want to know if there's anything else I can do; you know, to help." Hugo scratched his head. "With this, it’s out of our hands, now that Meta & the authorities are involved. What would help is an extra set of hands setting up this drip irrigation system on the 10 acres I've got to have linked together by Friday." Terrence wagged a finger @ him. "Let's not go down that rabbit hole again Hu. You know how I feel about these Meta geeks & freaks. Now, you'll come around soon. You'll see. We're going to have a real fiasco on our hands. That's why I'm getting my farm all set up. Completely sustainable, off-grid living." Hugo knew he'd get Terrence riled up by switching to anything remotely related to Meta. "When you're ready Hu, come talk to me. I may have room for that family I keep hearing about too. Longer you wait though-" "Alright Terrence. Thank you. Look, I got to get home. If I keep dragging my feet with this initial phase, you'll never meet 'that family of mine’, as you put it." Hugo revved his engine; partially because he was emphasizing his point, wanting to scram, but also because the early 90's pickup tended to drop idle. It needed a carburetor adjustment. Another project he didn't have time for.

 Yet, he couldn't so easily dismiss his neighbor’s candor or hospitality. "Tell you what, I get finished by Friday, you & yours should come by. I could use a visitor, get my mind off the grind. I'll even fill you in with all the juicy details concerning today and the June Bug. Then we can hit the town & celebrate." Terrence kicked some rocks on the ground, and looked into Hugo’s eyes. He saw a hint of loneliness and desperation. He beamed his corn-cob tobacco stained toothy smile magnanimously, forcing Hugo to crack a warm grin back. "Well, that'd be great. Almost makes me want to lend that hand you need.” Terence paused, hoping Hugo caught the sarcasm. He didn’t. “Almost." Terrence winked surreptitiously. Hugo returned with another grin, this one painted with sarcasm rather than mirth. "Call if you need anything Hu. That is, anything that doesn't require I get my hands into that Meta mess. I'm likely to give you nothing but trouble with that. But, Jada's always hounding me, wanting to make sure you're not in over your head." Hugo felt another pang of separation as Terence mentioned the love of his life. "Like I said Terrence, Friday. But if I'm hard pressed, I may take Jada up on that call." Hugo rolled up his window & waved goodbye, heading down the road "Into the fire" Hugo mumbled to himself as his farm & it's demands came into focus over the horizon.
Although Meta's work was labor focused, there were intensive managerial & administrative aspects to handle as well. He was dealing with an extremely detail oriented, 100% results driven and ta hell with the rest, multinational agri-business. They didn't make their billions by taking unnecessary risks or leaving expensive contracts to chance. Every day, he was to check his online Meta account inbox. It was here that he reported daily progress, received important news, read how-to manuals, tips for success, get on community & global Meta-forums & if needed, could pull up a live online rep for any reason, 24/7. He couldn't deny the interactive aspect was a tremendous help. It wasn't remote to say that without the online support network, he would've had to take option B.
Option B, the last reserve for individuals who couldn't or wouldn't maintain a working Meta farm. In the case that Meta purchased such property, they would bring in their version of sharecroppers or farmhands to run the operation from the ground-up. Although it was ascribed as a distinct alternative, Option B was implemented in varying strengths & measures, depending on the purchase & the workability of the farm prior to Meta stepping in. The consequence of Option B was threefold: One, the initial contract value was severely diminished. Offers reduced by as much as 80% weren't unheard of. Two, depending on the amount of assistance needed from Meta in installing & up keeping your property you had to parcel out a certain portion of your land for Meta's team to live on. Meta was adamant about workers maintaining a living status with the land they worked. Something Hugo couldn't get his mind around. Three, your bonus--which was substantial if you met the criteria--was opted to forfeit if any increment of option B was accepted. After many painstaking hours of poring over the logistics of his land & what the contract required, also after discussing, often to the point ad-nauseum, with other Meta contractors in forums, he buckled down & decided the cost of Option B far outweighed any benefits. With the online progress & prediction analysis, he calculated his moves with a strategist’s precision. Every step until the next phase was carefully mapped out. If he worked overtime, the bonus was easily in his grasp. There was also an ace up his sleeve which wasn't in the projections he'd drawn up: His family. Once they showed up, they could take some of the load off him.