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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EPILOGUE

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HEMODIENAMICS

‘El Toro’ and I have been on Interstate 80 — for more than a day now: we left New Venice shortly after my dialysis session in our main Voyager facility. The song ‘Jacksonville’ is playing on the radio: this playlist is the one I created when I thought I had to travel several days to Florida for a liver transplant.

Different regions of the United States — distribute ‘deceased donor’ livers within that region. Livers can only survive a limited period after the death of the host, so they need to be within relatively short travel times: they need to be in a new host within 24 hours. So there is not a national liver bank because a liver in Boston couldn’t make it to Palo Alto in time. Each deceased donor’s liver has a destination within about a 12-hour travel-perimeter for a patient that is prepped for the transplant upon the helicopter flying it in. Human organs travel in style.

Within a region, liver transplants are not based on a first-comefirst-served or a highest-bidder model. Instead it is based on how needy a patient is, which is calculated as a MELD (Model for Endstage Liver Disease) score. The higher the score, the more and sooner you need a liver. The lower the score, the more time you potentially have before death. It is a little more complicated in that if you get too sick, you can’t handle the transplant. Not exactly a catch-22, but requires luck or sophistication to play the transplant game optimally.

California and Arizona are in Region-5 — so all livers ‘produced’ within that region are distributed to patients within that region, with the transplant priority based on the patient’s MELD score, compatibility, ability to be ready for surgery, covid test result, and a few more aspects. Most of these aspects a patient cannot control, or ideally they are making ‘worse’ (as in dropping their MELD score). If you get in better health, your MELD score can

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drop significantly. So for some there is no hope of getting a liver in Region-5.

My playlist was created — when I thought moving to Jacksonville, Florida (Region-3) would dramatically improve my chances of getting a liver. The balance of donors to recipients is dramatically different in Region-3, potentially due to the lack of helmet laws. Turns out crashing a motorcycle into an 18-wheeler rarely harms the liver, nor do lesser injuries like simply tipping your bike over and hitting your head on the curb. To get to Florida would take several days by land, and I expected to drive ‘El Toro’ so I could continue to do hemodialysis along the way, and would have a car when I arrived. It was a 72-hour playlist, so was perfect for any significant road trip.

Then I became a vampire.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mark L. Fussell lives (or lived) with his wife Rebecca, and two daughters Maya and Katrina, in Palo Alto, California. He makes a living through consulting for companies including Apple, Intel, Sony, and HP. He makes a life through the loving relationships he has with family, friends, and even mere acquaintances. He was a little strange before this adventure, and now he is even more so.