VENICE » MARK Cargil ‘mines’ salt — from enormous salt flats spread throughout the Bay Area, especially two locations: Redwood City and Newark. “We will give you Cargil” Dr. A says with abrupt succinctness. “You will give us the Cargil salt flats across the 101 highway from where we are standing?” “Yes, we will give you the Redwood City salt flats to put your homeless people on, in exchange for certain quid-pro-quos” “You will give us 1400 acres of salt flats, worth a few billion dollars, in exchange for certain quid-pro-quos? What are these ‘quids’?” “First, the vampires come back to work in California. We will work out how they can both work for us and also do what you call ‘cave dialysis’ if they want, so they do not feel they are slaves to our dialysis clinics. They are simply choosing to work for our clinics in exchange for payment, the enjoyment of helping others, and the wonderful company of their coworkers.” “OK. And?” “Second, you and the other vampires don’t mention anything about being vampires, how dialysis works, the details of this transaction, and so on. Consider yourselves under a ‘gag order’. “ “OK. And?” “Third, you develop Cargil yourselves. No more favors (‘quos’) from the government or the health system. Further, you can utilize only 25% of the land/salt/water as part of that development. We need that for environmental appeasement ‘by the numbers’. You only use about a quarter of the area and preserve the rest. - 161 -