Page 4 of Milk
“Yes,” he said evenly. “How long can we expect this to take?”
“The process takes between six to twenty hours per subject…”
“That’s a large range,” Carter observed.
“Yes,” she agreed tonelessly, “Let’s call it twelve hours per subject. The device can handle about twenty at a time.”
The tapping stopped. After just a couple of seconds of humming contemplation, she continued.
“Two to three and a half days for it to be completed,” Susan stated, and the tapping resumed, “Assuming we don’t run out of any primaries, like caustic soda, in the meantime.”
“What’s our supply like?”
“Appears to be sufficient, but with no wiggle room.”
Carter nodded, even though she could not see him, and he began to turn around to let her continue her work undisturbed. However, as he was reaching for the blast door, her voice echoed again from behind the device.
“It was the right thing,” she said, unprompted.
“Pardon?”
“What we did ... it was the right thing to do.”
Carter’s hands tensed. His face was unchanged but his fingers closed and opened, creaking the leather of the gloves for a moment, before he dipped his head. He said, without a hint of doubt in his voice. “Yes. If we had to end it. It was the greatest mercy we could give them.”
“This sounds highly irregular,” the secretary’s voice on the other side of the line said skeptically.
“I don’t know what to tell you, ma’am. That’s how it works. I’m no more excited to do my job than you are. The sooner we can get this done, the sooner we can move on.”
“Well, I understand that, Miss Auble.”
“Agent,” I corrected.
“Sorry, yes. Of course… I understand that, Agent Auble. But Sunshine Sanctuary facilities operate under very strict visitation protocols to protect our trade secrets and the peace of our animals. Even for an inspection, we require an advance notice of fourteen days.”
“This is a surprise inspection. As you can guess, advance warning would defeat the purpose. I feel like I’m already being accommodating by not demanding to be let in right now,” I said, before calming my frustration. I continued with a tone ofrenewed purpose, “If you’d rather decline the inspection, you are within your rights to do so. However, that will count as an automatic failure and you’ll need to shut down activities in the facility and reapply for your Food Facility Registration, Pasteurization Permit, and Dairy Plant licenses before you can resume production.”
There was silence on the other end of the line for a solid three seconds before the secretary answered. “Give me a moment, M- Agent Auble.”
And the waiting music began. I started losing hope, figuring she was trying to figure out a quick way to verify if the FDA credentials I had provided her were legit. They weren’t, of course. I wasn’t an FDA agent. I was part of the Children of Gaia non-governmental organization, and Sunshine Sanctuary had been in our sights for a while. Their allegedly cruelty-free, all-organic milk had been a success since it hit the markets a few months before, but the company running it was closed tighter than a nun’s legs; nobody seemed to know anything about their production chain.
The most we were able to do was to track down some distribution routes to their main production center, which combined a farm and a dairy plant. While the government didn’t seem very interested in doing any oversight, the Children of Gaia suspected that the ‘cruelty-free’ part of their label wasn’t true. If we could get video proof from inside the facility of animals being kept in poor conditions, then we could throw those videos all over the internet and take down the company. The only thing worse than a company abusing animals for profit was a company doing it while claiming that they weren’t.
If Sunshine Sanctuary had nothing to hide, why did all of their employees have such strict NDAs? Why weren’t non-employees allowed to go into their facilities? Why did they buildsuch tall, opaque metal fences around their compound? We all knew something there stunk, we just needed details and proof.
“Hello, agent?” The other woman’s voice came back to the line.
“Yes, I’m here,” I replied, startled out of my thoughts.
“We can fit in your inspection tomorrow at five. Someone will guide you through the facility.”
“Well, I expected to be seen today,” I said, honestly.
It was still early in the afternoon and, in theory, I was calling this was supposed to be immediate.
“I understand, but in order to allow you access to every part of the facility, we will need to ensure there’s spare, clean safety equipment. I’m sure a Federal Agent understands we can’t let someone visit an industrial plant without proper safety gear.”
Had she said, ‘every part of the facility?’ I couldn’t believe my ears. That was better than what I had hoped for. Having to wait a little longer for such a chance was worth it.
