Venice » Mark

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.

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Further, you develop that 350 acres of human-livable space out of the 1400 acres esthetically and with environmental-awareness. It can’t be ugly. It can’t dump human waste into the water. You have all ‘the best’ treatment facilities and rules for minimizing the human impacts.”

“To make environmentalists and our children’s children happy? OK. The only issue is that development will cost a lot of money. Maybe equal to the value of the land.”

“If you can’t convince people to put in the money for obviously good causes, then you should get out of the game. ”

“OK. Valid point. ”

“Finally, you make sure your development will not flood when sea levels rise. Say: your development can handle an eight-foot rise.”

“An eight-foot rise? As in a ultra-modern Venice? Or effectively a floating city?”

“Yes. We would not like the PR of «35,000 Bay Area residents died during the tidal peak of 2040» ”

“Done.”

“Done?”

“Yes… done. That is a fair offer: a fair contract. It may take me a while getting the vampires to come back, but I suspect you have a bit of work to do on your side as well. But I commit to fulfilling my side of the contract. Consider it an unbreakable vow.”

“You seem to treat everything that way.”

“You know me too well doctor. We can put into the press release: ‘I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship’ “

“We already know each other. And you plagiarized that line”

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“I am pretty sure no vampire has said it publicly before me… although there are rumors about him being one of the first. Are they true?”

“Above our pay grade”

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