Danielle drove her car along the rural highway, passing a fortified fence topped with razor wire. She spotted the entrance to the facility up ahead, and slowed down to turn right into the driveway. After showing her credentials to the guard, the gate opened, and she continued driving along the timeworn paved road leading to the sewage treatment plant. She blanched as she perused the unimaginative industrial architecture. “Don’t I get the glamorous jobs,” she muttered to herself.
Parking her car in a visitor’s spot, she gripped the handle and braced herself. She flung the door open and sniffed tentatively. Her brow furrowed as she took a few larger sniffs. Finally, she exited the car and drew in a large lungful of air. Danielle broke out into a smile as two employees approached her from the front entrance.
“I was expecting a much worse stench!” she declared. “Is this really the sewage treatment plant?”
“It is!” proclaimed one of the employees; her badge declared her name to be Suzanne. “But all the smelly parts are contained; otherwise, we wouldn’t be able to collect and divert the output.”
“Well, I for one am grateful,” Danielle laughed. “I loathed having to come here today, but I see I didn’t need to. Sorry if that sounds insulting.”
“Not at all,” chimed the other employee, whose badge identified him as Tom. After a round of formal introductions, they all walked into the building.
“We were surprised to hear we had a guest today,” remarked Suzanne. “We don’t get a lot of visitors, especially not from headquarters.”
“Most of the time, our reports, and the occasional phone call, are enough to keep everyone happy,” Tom concurred. “While we’re grateful for the attention, we don’t know what prompted it.”
“It was two of your recent requests,” explained Danielle. “You wanted funding to stand up another waste treatment plant, closer to the farmlands in the outskirts; anything that expensive has to be approved from high up. But the real trigger was your plan to begin industrial-scale mining of existing landfills. An odd request like that doesn’t go unnoticed.”
Suzanne laughed. “We assure you, our reasons are completely sound. But you may have to look at what we do here to understand why.” They passed through a set of double-doors and continued walking along the hallway, deeper into the facility.
“And for the first time today, I’m looking forward to that!” Danielle laughed. She sniffed the air again. “I can’t believe it smells perfectly normal in here.”
“If it didn’t, that would mean our gas reclamation wasn’t working right,” Tom pointed out. “And we wouldn’t stand for that. Not only would that mean our tech was faulty, but I doubt any of us would want to work under such conditions.”
“I can believe that!” Danielle chimed. “But how is it possible?”
Suzanne smiled as they reached a set of thick, metal double doors. “Let us show you.”
The doors opened to reveal a sealed catwalk with transparent walls, overlooking a field of large, shallow, cylindrical tanks. The glass roof let in natural sunlight; a series of ventilation ducts crisscrossed the ceiling. In the distance, on the other side of see-through walls, were a series of other structures, their purpose industrial but otherwise unclear.
“Welcome to ‘the farm’!” Tom announced.
Danielle marveled as she followed a sealed catwalk over the tanks; Suzanne and Tom hovered behind her. Danielle pointed up ahead. “What are all the bright colors I see in the settlement pools?”
“Those are plastics,” Suzanne explained. “We don’t just recycle wastewater here; these tanks reclaim garbage too. Depending on the material, there are three stages that the waste can pass through.”
“How do you reclaim plastic?” Danielle asked.
“With bacteria!” Tom declared. “We drilled into existing landfills, extracted core samples, and tested what we found against various materials. We found bacteria that had evolved to consume the abundantly available resources. We didn’t have to breed them to be so useful; they did the work all by themselves! And now, those same bacteria devour our garbage, and turn it into sludge.”
Danielle stared at the tanks with fascination. “What do you produce from it?”
“Several things,” Suzanne related. “The bacteria liberate methane and carbon dioxide; we collect those gases for our own use. The broken-down plastic eventually enters the tanks you see at the far end of the facility, where it, and the sludge from wastewater, are subjected to hydrothermal liquefaction.”
Tom continued. “That involves pressures around 3000 psi, temperatures near 600 degrees, and up to 30 minutes, but the result is biocrude, which can be refined into all the normal petroleum products.”
Danielle’s eyes narrowed skeptically. “You’re not really making gasoline from it, are you?”
“And kerosene, and diesel fuel, and aviation fuel,” Suzanne revealed. “The heavier plastics that aren’t reclaimed by this process can be mixed with the thicker biocrude extracts to produce something similar to asphalt.”
Danielle’s brow furrowed. “Why isn’t that mentioned in any of the reports I’ve seen?”
“Because it’s not a profit item,” Tom explained. “We use it to defray costs, so it’s not broken out into its own top-level summary. Our biocrude output isn’t competitive with traditional sources yet, but at least it’s not losing money. Before we got involved, the waste would just go into a landfill, which not only isn’t sustainable, but costs money. What we do is an improvement on that. And we continue to experiment!”
“I see,” Danielle acknowledged. “I guess we’ll have to change how you report your results.”
“We’ve been asking for that for some time,” Suzanne pointed out. “But no one at headquarters seemed to understand why. Hopefully that’ll change.”
“I’ll make it a priority!” Danielle chirped, typing something into her cell phone.
“And yes, we can refile our previous reports with those numbers broken out into their own summary,” Tom assured. “We’ve got them ready to go.”
“I’d appreciate that.” Danielle stared out over the vast expanse. “You said you produce carbon dioxide too. Where does that go?”
Suzanne pointed into the distance. “You can barely see it from here; it’s all sent to that large green building on the far side. What say we check it out?”
As they traversed the crisscrossing catwalks, Tom continued to explain. “Once the plastics are dissolved, anything left behind is removed and sorted; it’s mostly metal and glass.” Tom smiled. “I don’t know who in the company is developing the artificial intelligence, but it’s been a godsend! We produce collections of scrap metal, and glass sorted by color, ready for further recycling. Only a small amount must be smelted from scratch, as if it were ore. And as the sorting gets better, so does the value of the scrap! Metal extraction is closer to being a moneymaker than anything else we’re producing right now.”
They walked for several minutes, finally arriving at the far wall. On the other side was a greenhouse-like structure that appeared to contain an unruly, formless jungle. Suzanne pointed to the pipes leading into the area. “The carbon dioxide gets pumped in here, as does the sterile water left over from hydrothermal liquefaction. Algae grows very well in that environment, as do some cyanobacteria; we pump out the excess and send it straight back into crude oil production.”
“The algae certainly seem to be doing really well,” Danielle observed. “Why don’t you try growing food like this?”
“Garbage contains too many contaminants to make that possible,” Tom revealed. “Although heavy metals tend to settle at the bottom of the liquefaction tanks, not all of it does. Many of them are toxic. So anything we grow with that water isn’t suitable for food production.”
“That’s too bad,” Danielle lamented. “The algae are thriving.” She shook her head. “This is all really amazing. Why hasn’t it been tried before?”
“It has,” Suzanne expounded. “But it couldn’t compete with traditional methods. That’s not a problem here; we’re not trying to make money on it, just defray costs and divert waste.”
“The other problem has been government subsidies,” Tom continued. “Forty percent of the nation’s corn production presently goes to biodiesel and ethanol. It was never an efficient solution; it was simply the one chosen by the politicians, and then a whole corrupt industry grew up around it. What we do doesn’t have that kind of arbitrary support, so we went back to work on sustainable fuel, and have come up with much better methods, ones that work on truly renewable and plentiful sources, such as waste.”
“The science already existed to make this possible, but it wasn’t funded, nor was it popular with the powers that be,” Suzanne pined. “But here in Millenniaburg, it finally has a chance.”
“I’m glad it does!” Danielle trilled. She narrowed her eyes as she perused the vast field of biocrude production tanks, taking up much of the area outside the back wall, surrounding the greenhouse. “Those machines look really sophisticated. I can’t imagine they were cheap.”
“Surprisingly, they were,” Tom explained. “We were able to get most of it through bankruptcy; Big Oil does a lot to suppress the nascent industry. So oddly, it’s lucky for Unlimited Partners that the energy industry employs such relentlessly short-term thinking when trying to protect their business.”
“Stupidity is the true growth industry,” Danielle jested. “We’re fortunate to find a way to take advantage of it!” They all shared a laugh.
“Even universities seem to have a blind spot when it comes to this,” Suzanne lamented. “The techniques aren’t that exotic, so colleges have no interest in researching them further, because they don’t think they’ll be able to patent any of it. And the rest of their reasons, frankly, seem to be condescending and puerile.”
“I’ve heard of this problem from others,” Danielle concurred. “It’s hard to believe scientists act this way.”
“They do,” Tom grimaced. “They’re human beings too, and can be just as jealous as anyone else. As the old saying goes, science advances one funeral at a time.”
Danielle let out a hollow laugh. “That’s awful. But at least we can turn it to our advantage here!” She sighed happily. “I wonder just how many scientific advances are waiting for us to find, if they weren’t being hushed up.”
Tom and Suzanne exchanged uncomfortable glances. Danielle noticed. “What…?”
“Well…” Tom began, before sighing heavily.
“We’ve run into something that defies conventional explanation,” Suzanne revealed. “Something big.” She looked at Tom hesitantly; he simply winced and shrugged his shoulders. Suzanne continued. “I guess it’s time to tell you about it. After all, it’s likely you’ll approve our grand designs once you hear this.”
Danielle looked bemused. “I can’t wait to find out what you’re talking about.”
Tom sighed heavily again. “So…remember when we said the metal extraction is close to being a moneymaker? Well…it already is. By a very large margin.”
“From scrap metal?” Danielle sounded incredulous.
Tom looked down. “No…from what settles to the bottom of the hydrothermal liquefaction tanks. We mentioned heavy metal pollution in the water, but it’s not just the usual suspects, like lead, mercury, and cadmium. It’s…well…most of it is precious metals. Gold. Silver. Platinum. Even vanadium.”
Danielle was taken aback. “Where does it come from?”
“That’s just it,” Suzanne chimed. “The presence of such things in human waste have been known for a long time. The source, however, has been unclear. The conventional wisdom is that it’s coming from body care products, such as shampoos and detergents. But that’s always seemed ludicrous.”
“Then…?” Danielle began.
Tom threw his hands up in the air. “This is going to sound crazy, and we’re not going to defend this if anyone asks, but…given the amounts we’re extracting…it has to be coming from living creatures.”
“How?” Danielle looked unsettled.
Suzanne shrugged. “We have no idea. And we’re not saying the human body somehow produces these metals. Maybe it’s really coming from household products, but that seems really unlikely. The sheer amount of material we’re collecting, though, suggests some really wild theories. Like…”
“Like alchemy,” Tom finished. “As if life itself is inherently capable of this.” Tom motioned toward the greenhouse. “The algae seem to produce an unearthly amount of vanadium. Some types of ocean algae are known to incorporate vanadium in their enzymes, but…for reasons we don’t understand…it’s like they’re producing their own.”
“Ultimately, we don’t know the source,” Suzanne conceded. “But the volume of it made us really nervous. So we’ve been keeping quiet. We were afraid people would think we’re crazy. But the numbers have held up, and are too large to ignore.”
“What gets us is, every wastewater treatment plant in the world has to know about this,” Tom pointed out. “There’s no way they couldn’t. And yet they all stay quiet about it. That takes some heavy suppression and coordination. You must understand, this revelation left us completely unnerved.”
“I guess I can’t blame you,” Danielle agreed. “And I think we should stay quiet about this. I’d like corrected reports from you, but only for the eyes of senior management and the board of directors.”
Tom let out a relieved sigh. “That sounds perfect.”
“So, just how large are the numbers we’re talking about?” Danielle asked.
Suzanne’s smile beamed. “We’ve actually been profitable for a long time. We can fund our own expansion. We can pay for standing up new waste treatment facilities, and for industrial-scale mining in existing landfills.”
“Well, that’ll make the board happy,” Danielle trilled. “And they’ll be much more likely to forgive your transgression.”
Tom faced his palms forward, in a pleading motion. “No subterfuge was intended, we assure you! We were terrified of stumbling upon such a significant game-changer.”
“I don’t blame you,” Danielle agreed. “I’m shaking just thinking about it!”
“And it’s not the only technological marvel we have to share with you today,” Suzanne hinted.
Danielle chuckled. “This visit has turned out so different than what I expected. Show me what else you have!”
They headed down the catwalk, toward the opaque side walls. Reaching a door, they went inside. “Welcome to our labs!”
Danielle marveled at the rows of cubicles, filled with busy people. “I was starting to think you were the only two that worked here,” she laughed.
“Of course not!” Suzanne chuckled. “It’s just that most of us don’t spend our days gazing into the settlement pools.”
They walked along the main corridor for some time, finally turning down a passage. At the end, they passed through a door leading to a laboratory. Computers and viewscreens filled the two side walls; ahead of them was a thick-looking transparent window, showing a room with smaller cylindrical tanks, and several robots moving between them.
Suzanne and Tom walked up to one of the occupied workstations, Danielle trailing behind. “Hi, Roger,” Suzanne greeted. “Why don’t you show our guest what we do here?”
Roger turned around and read Danielle’s badge. “Oh! My goodness. Yes, ma’am.” Roger moved the controls on his workstation fluidly; the view grew closer to one of the tanks, then rose in the air to peer over the edge. Now it was clear that several leathery-looking orbs, some as large as a basketball, floated in the murky fluid. Metallic arms extended towards one, then raised the ball out of the swamp and brought it closer.
“We call these ‘food eggs’,” Suzanne explained. “They’re actually pretty brilliant. Can you cut this one open?”
“Sure,” Roger agreed. “It looks like it’s ripe.” The view from the robot left the tank and trundled towards a table set up for washing and dissection.
“These are grown from bacteria, reprogrammed by a synthetic virus to become an egg. Once put into the sterilized soupy biowaste you see in these tanks, they absorb raw biological material and grow, forming a rubbery-skinned orb. That skin can then be peeled, to reveal what’s grown inside, keeping it fresh and sterile until then!”
Danielle marveled as Roger carefully split open the orb. Several small, bright yellow spheres poured out. “What are those?”
“It’s our version of corn,” Roger explained. “We’ve eliminated the cob, so they simply grow inside the egg, making it swell until it’s ready to harvest.” He looked back at Danielle and smirked. “We call them ‘corn peas’.”
“And it tastes like corn?” Danielle asked.
Roger shrugged. “We believe so. They have all the chemical signatures of corn, and in theory, should taste and feel like the real thing. We’ve fed the contents of these eggs to lab animals, and we haven’t encountered a bad reaction in a really long time. But we have a lot more research to do before we let something like this come into contact the outside world.”
“We’re messing with some really heady laws of nature here,” Tom confessed. “Seriously, it’s a synthetic virus modifying a bacterium to make it into a completely novel life form. And until we understand all of it really well, these and the lab animals have to stay inside of a sealed biocontainment chamber. All the eggs, the water, the animals — even the gases in this chamber — are sent straight to hydrothermal liquefaction. We don’t want to risk any of this touching the outside world until a lot more study has occurred.”
“That’s very reassuring,” Danielle agreed. “The last thing we need is to set off a pandemic.”
“But once this works…can you imagine?” Suzanne gushed, a twinkle in her eyes. “We have eggs that become meat, fruits, vegetables, grains…even dairy! And they grow in biowaste! Once we work out all the issues…you’re looking at the farm of the future.”
Danielle shook her head. “I never knew biowaste could be so fascinating!” That set off a round of laughter across the lab.
The viewscreen showed the robot approach a cage, containing a squirrel, with the corn peas. As they were poured in, the squirrel began to feast on the offered food. Roger pointed to the screen. “We haven’t been doing this long enough for true long-term toxicity tests, but this squirrel has been with us for three months, and shows no sign of health problems.”
Danielle waved at the squirrel on the screen. “Good luck, little guy.”
The visitors said their goodbyes and left the lab.
All three strolled down the catwalk, heading back to the main entrance. “I’m really impressed by what I’ve seen here today,” Danielle trilled. “Working here must be really rewarding.”
They slowly became aware of a thick thrumming sound, growing louder. A small shadow above the see-through roof grew in size, heading towards the other end of the settlement pools. Suzanne grimaced. “It has its days.”
Danielle shuddered. “Oh, heck…I’ve heard of these, but never saw one in person.”
“We said there were three stages of waste treatment.” Tom sadly pointed to the approaching shadow. “This is the third one.”
A multi-propellered drone, the size of a standard shipping container, slowed its descent as it reached a hatch in the roof. It stood up on end; as it became vertical and touched down, the roof retracted to accommodate it. The drone’s floor opened, and out fell several indistinct, but clearly humanoid, shapes. They plummeted downwards and hit a settlement pool with a splash.
“We try to find a place for all our exiles,” Danielle explained. “But the government-run cities don’t take every one…especially if we’re up front about their criminal acts.”
“Can we talk about this?” lamented Suzanne. “The staff is pretty unified in its extreme discomfort.”
“You’re seeing the worst of the worst,” Danielle divulged. “By and large, these people were caught red-handed doing something vile. Very clear surveillance footage, usually with audio. Trials for them would be time-wasting formalities.”
“How can you know that?” Tom grieved. “Do you actually look into this?”
“I have access to conviction records at any time,” Danielle revealed. “Why don’t we look at a few of them?”
Tom and Suzanne exchanged uneasy glances. “I think we’d really appreciate that,” Suzanne piped up.
Danielle continued tapping on her phone. “It shouldn’t be difficult to find that drone; there aren’t any others in the…yes, there it is. Let me get the prisoner manifest…there were seven. And I was right, all of them come with surveillance footage.” She looked at the two scientists grimly. “I’ll show this to you, but I warn you, it’s likely to be really shocking.”
“We want to see it,” Tom assured. “We have to know.”
The first mug shot dissolved into outdoor surveillance footage, showing an elderly lady suddenly get grabbed by a shadowy figure in an alley. The camera changed to one from inside the alley, showing the assailant beat his victim mercilessly. As she stopped moving, he grabbed her purse, began to walk away, then turned around and gave her one final swift kick; she didn’t react to it. He then left.
“The rest are likely to be just as bad,” Danielle said grimly. “Want to continue?”
“A few more, I guess,” Suzanne demurred.
The next mug shot cut away to a camera inside an apartment, where an older woman appeared to drown a young child in a filthy toilet. “OK, enough of that,” Suzanne blanched.
Danielle swiped to a different mug shot; the video showed a hairy, corpulent man repeatedly punching a pregnant woman in the stomach.
Tom turned away; he was pale and sweaty. “OK, OK…no more.” Suzanne leaned weakly against the wall, gagging softly. Danielle closed the app and smiled grimly. “Every one I’ve ever looked at has been that bad, and that blatant. Those drones are truly carrying the worst of the worst.”
Tom cleared his throat and tried to stand up straight. “Thank you for that. We’ll tell the others what we saw. I’m sure we’ll all feel better about this…eventually.”
“Unless this is a sore subject,” Danielle probed, “why is there a third stage? What happens there?”
“Oh…mostly, separating out personal electronics,” Suzanne explained. “Anything with batteries. Those can explode under high temperatures and pressures.”
There was an uncomfortable silence for several seconds. “If it helps,” Danielle offered, “just recall how the city was only a few months ago. You could literally be beaten to death in the streets by masked thugs, simply for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. And somehow, they never seemed to get caught. That had to stop. And good can triumph over evil…but sometimes, good has to be more violent and even nastier than evil.”
Tom and Suzanne stared at her with haunted expressions. “I certainly don’t envy your job,” Tom confessed.
Danielle smiled grimly. “Everyone thinks they want to be the boss. Everyone wants to be in charge.” She paused, looking them straight in the eye. “Until they find out what’s really involved.”
She wistfully stared into the sky. “Don’t I get the glamorous jobs.”
