The Prisoner - Carlos J. Cortes [116]
The Argo progressed slowly to enter a mass of vegetation. Floyd reached over to let a long leaf slide through his fingers. “And these are …?”
“Typha, phragmites, and Eichhornia crassipes—water hyacinth,” Antonio said.
“But where did you get all this water from?” Laurel asked.
“The river.”
“You buy water?”
“On the contrary; they pay us.” Tyler chuckled. “We return most of the water we use, but much cleaner—almost drinking water.”
“The plants?”
A nod from Antonio. “These absorb most of the nasty stuff from the effluent water—metals and the like. Every so often we run a floating reaper to keep the plants under control.”
Floyd grinned. “Don’t tell me, and you feed the plants to the pigs.”
“That wouldn’t be a good idea. These plants are fibrous. After drying, we shred them. A company buys the product to make insulation panels for buildings.”
Tyler turned around as Antonio edged the Argo toward another incline on the pond’s opposite side. “This is his baby.” He patted Antonio’s shoulder. “He dreamed it up and built it.”
Once on dry land, Antonio maneuvered once more between tall trees to a clearing.
“Wow!” Floyd pointed to a row of huge hangarlike buildings covered in blinding white polymer.
“We pump the water from the lagoon into these greenhouses,” Antonio said, glancing at Tyler and winking an eye.
Inside, the building looked like the hold of a gigantic space station but for the floor, which was carpeted in green. Overhead, a line of pipes held hundreds of arms capped with what seemed like lawn sprinklers spanning the width of the construction.
“Duckweed,” Antonio said. “These plants further purify the water before pouring it back into the river, and, yes, these plants we feed to the pigs, with other proteins and feed-grain crops from the farmland.”
Floyd frowned. “Proteins? I thought you only had pigs.” A few yards away, the carpet of greenery rippled. Floyd looked attentively to discover that it rippled in multiple points. “What the fuck are you growing here?”
Tyler laughed. “Fish by the ton; also in the lagoons.”
“And other things too,” Antonio said.
“Go on.” Laurel shook her head in wonder.
“When we dredge the ponds, we use the sludge, mixed with compost and some of the fibers from the water hyacinth, to raise worms. We also grow mushrooms, but those we sell.”
After a sharp beep, Tyler slapped his hand to his shirt pocket and produced a pager. He toggled it, then pivoted on his heel toward the green house’s entrance. “Russo is awake, and he’s hungry.”
chapter 38
17:12
After a long day punctuated by the absence of news of the breakout and an impromptu press conference convened without warning by Odelle Marino, Genia Warren left the office early and returned to her house for a sinful bath of piping hot water laced with half a jar of salts. Just before meeting the press, she’d joined Odelle outside the DHS conference room for a barrage of clipped instructions. Make that orders, Genia thought. After the farce, where Odelle had dangled her poisoned bait before the cameras, she’d marched past Genia, her head high as a galleon’s figurehead, without so much as a glance.
On her way to the bathroom, Genia picked up a dish of crudités and a small bowl of the chocolate dip that Herminia, her resident housekeeper, had left in the fridge before adjourning to her cottage at the far edge of the backyard. Thus prepared, she abandoned herself to the caress of fragrant water up to her neck, while happily munching celery, cucumber, and carrot sticks covered in the dark sauce.
Thirty minutes later, Genia padded to her office, nursing a glass of Riesling. She tucked behind her desk and initiated her computer by staring at a dimple over its screen until its IR laser locked in and identified her iris’s signature. On the rugged slate mantelpiece to one side of the room, a compact grandmother clock chimed six-fifteen. Unless something drastic