The Prisoner - Carlos J. Cortes [113]
Floyd nodded at the swift change of subject and followed Antonio to a twin set of doors that slid sideways when they approached, opening to a six-by-six cubicle with another set of doors ahead. Before entering; Floyd arrested his step. The floor was flooded with an inch of water.
“Well, go ahead.” Antonio waved when Floyd looked back at him. “No other way in for visitors. You’ll have to get your shoes wet. We don’t want soil bacteria entering.” He gave Floyd a gentle push.
Floyd splashed into the building. As soon as both men were in, the outer doors closed and the ones facing them opened with a gentle hiss. Obviously the setup worked like an air lock. The hangarlike building was enormous—endless concrete corridors flanked on both sides by steel pens and brightly lit with powerful lamps disappearing in a misty haze. The cacophony of grunts was deafening. Everything was wet.
“These are our guests. The pigs are constantly monitored and fed automatically. We control temperature through ventilation and water spray misting.”
“You keep them wet all day?”
“At night we turn off the mist and douse the lights. They’re delicate—in particular, pink-skinned animals like these. Here they don’t have mud to wallow in and adjust their temperature, so we do it for them. Our systems are now replicated all over the nation, and I suppose the world.”
The mist explained Antonio’s soaked clothes. Floyd ran a hand over his face and eyed his moisture-laden palm; it was shaking. He pushed his hands into the overalls’ pockets and fisted his fingers, the void in his stomach deepening. “What about dead animals?”
Antonio cocked an eyebrow. “What about them? Fortunately we don’t have many.”
“And the ones you do have?”
“We’d better get out of here,” Antonio said.
Once outside, Floyd raised his face to the sun. “You didn’t answer my question.”
“Those other buildings over there house sow stalls and farrowing crates.”
Floyd choked a sharp retort and glanced at three smaller sheds in the direction Antonio had pointed. So Antonio didn’t want to talk about dead pigs. “I thought those were banned.”
“Only in Florida and Arizona.”
“Why the crates?” Floyd tried to remember what he’d read about the cruelty of sow stalls, where the animals couldn’t move.
“Sows will often crush their piglets. In farrowing crates, we separate them in adjacent compartments. The mother can feed her young but not harm them.”
“Hey, guys!”
Floyd turned to see Laurel hurrying down the lane. Dressed in similar overalls—two or three sizes too big and cinched at the waist by a piece of cord—she was far removed from the sorry figure he’d first encountered in the sewer. Even the wide-brimmed Stetson suited her.
“Having fun without me?” She drew level and threaded her arm through Floyd’s, as if it belonged there. “I thought hog farms smelled.” Laurel gave him a peck on the cheek. “You’re all scratchy.”
Antonio smiled. “Most do, but here everything is controlled. We send the manure from the piggeries into a sealed underground concrete pit. From there we pump it to those green tanks over there. That’s a two-stage, low-solids digester. The smaller ones on the left are balance tanks, and the squat big guys are sequencing batch reactors.”
Laurel gripped Floyd’s arm harder. “Sounds complicated. How does it work?”
“It isn’t, really. In anaerobic digestion, microorganisms stabilize organic matter and release methane and carbon dioxide.”
The green tanks, Floyd realized, were much larger than they seemed at first—huge metal cylinders pierced by a network of large and small pipes and tubes.
Antonio continued his explanation. “The result is biogas—mostly methane and carbon dioxide, with a small amount of hydrogen and trace hydrogen sulfide.”
“At Nyx we use plenty—” Floyd muttered, and then he could have kicked himself for his lack of tact at bringing hibernation into the conversation.
“Hydrogen sulfide? What on earth for?” Antonio frowned. “It’s horrible stuff.”
“It’s one of the gases we use to lower patients into