Chapter 15

“So, as you can see, this facility is completed and ready to begin bringing in candidates to work here.” The business owner, James Gleason, was conducting a tour for Sharra Anderson and a few others, most of whom were representatives from the US Department of Agriculture. The inspections had all been completed at the end of the previous week, and the USDA was here to perform final signoff so Gleason could start recruiting.

“And how were the financial issues resolved?” Sharra asked.

“Well, you know there was some pushback from the local bank because of the nature of the business,” Gleason said calmly and with a solemn look on his face. “But in the end, we were able to successfully argue that blocking financing for no valid reason was a violation of the PCA, and the bank was in violation of the law. The bank’s board of directors were forced to vote, and they approved the loan unanimously. It was inevitable, really, because of the threat to place the bank into Federal receivership and dig through their books endlessly until regulators discovered whatever they didn’t want anyone to know. That got them moving, and less than a week later it was done. They will also be handling our business banking needs as well.”

Sharra looked around the main operations floor at the spotless tile floors, the bright super-efficient lights above, the worktables where dismemberment would occur, the overhead track that had been put in place to move bodies from station to station, and the wheeled racks where trays of meat would be placed after removal from the bodies. There were several large walk-in freezers in back with doors large enough to admit the tall meat racks as they were pushed in to be frozen.

“What is the cold storage capacity of the freezer units?”

“Right now, it is at about twenty-six hundred pounds. It can be extended up to eight thousand pounds without expanding into the rest of the building. We have some open space between the housing area and the processing area that can be allocated to either.”

“So, you have freezer storage for sixty-five women, with as much as two hundred women in storage. How much housing can you handle?”

“Not that much. The USDA think that twenty to thirty overnight is the max we should house on site. More than that and we will be looking at significant sanitation issues, and that could cause disease and contamination. Personally, I don’t want to house more than five to ten at the very most, if at all. I think it’s inhumane. If they aren’t being processed the day they walk in the door, I think that’s a problem. I just hope the local PMB lets us ramp up slowly initially.”

Sharra nodded at James. “I’m glad you have that mindset.”

“Listen, I have five daughters. I plan on treating anyone that comes in the door as well as possible, given that my girls might end up here one day. I hope not, but it is possible. I want to get things off on the right foot.”

“Commendable,” Sharra said. But she knew that no plan survives contact with the enemy, and how the selectees were treated would depend almost entirely on the employees he was able to recruit and train, and how they behaved when he wasn’t around.

“Are you planning to work the processing floor initially?”

“Yes. I don’t want to, but I will. It is a necessary evil. I have to figure out how the systems and processes work, and I can’t do that if I hide in my office, as much as I might want to.”

“It’s been almost a month since you signed up for this. How does your family feel about it? Have you told them?”

James looked at Sharra for a moment as he tried to decide how forthcoming he was going to be, then mentally shrugged.

“Three of my daughters won’t speak to me anymore. They picture me driving around a truck of horrors and snatching women off the street and out of their homes from in front of their screaming children to take them back here and torture them to death. My wife still loves me, but she is having a hard time with it. My youngest and my second oldest daughter understand that I need an income to support them, and that I will do my best to be as compassionate as possible. They don’t like it, but they are quite pragmatic and logical.”

“I saw the lobby up front. You have space for a lot of chairs, and a check-in window next to the secure door. Is that how you want it?”

James shrugged. “Until we are in operation, we don’t really know how it all will work. So, we went with what the builder put together. There is money in the budget to change things around, including expanding the freezer capacity and the housing. We will just have to see.”

“Any pushback against you personally from the community?”

“Not really. We kept to the advice of the USDA and didn’t tell anyone what I’m doing. That will help. Security through obscurity is a good idea. That is also why we don’t have any signage out front, except for the address number block.”

“I expect that to change when the ads go up for employees.”

“Do you know when the first medical equipment will get here?”

“I checked before today’s meeting. The majority of the order, including the test machines themselves, are no more than a week out. The rest, some additional supplies and consumables, will be coming within a week after that. We were able to get you a newer machine, the 300. It just came out. The difference in cost will be covered by the initial funding grant, so no worries there.”

“That’s great. I was hoping it would be out in time so we could start up with that in place. I’ll read up on it soon.”

Questions and conversations flowed for a while longer as the tour continued, and eventually the tour ended back in the front lobby again.

“Alright, I think that about covers everything. Let your USDA inspector know if you need anything. In the meantime, I will report back to the national PCA admin board that you are ready to begin staffing up.”

“Thank you, Ms. Anderson. We have the ads ready to go. We will see how well they work out.”

“Keep me informed.”

“I will. Thanks again.”

“So, any past slaughterhouse experience? Or work of that nature?”

Kenny nodded. “Yes. I worked on my uncle’s farm for several years in the summers. He had a hog operation, and we would slaughter and butcher hogs for the local markets – restaurants, grocery stores, that sort of thing.”

“Ah. Good. So, do you have any idea what we are going to be doing here?”

“I would assume hogs or cows. Still, this place is a lot cleaner than I would have expected. The tile floors almost look like a hospital or something. That’s different.”

James thought carefully on how to ask the next question. The way it was presented was going to be important, he knew.

“Well, not exactly. Have you been paying attention to the news recently? About the PCA?”

“PCA? What’s that?” Kenny looked confused.

“How would you feel about working in a human slaughterhouse?”

Kenny’s mouth fell open. “Say what now? Human what?”

“This is going to be a location where human females will report to be legally terminated and their bodies butchered for meat.” He paused, knowing that letting candidates work through it on their own was really the only way to let it happen. His first four candidates were out the door almost as soon as he had finished telling them what his business was going to be doing.

A war of emotions flashed over Kenny’s face before he could ask another question.

“You’re shittin’ me, right? Is this some kind of joke?”

“No, it’s no joke.”

“Well, how is that legal? I mean, killing women?”

James sighed internally. This one was going to walk soon. But then again, maybe not.

“The Population Control Act was passed into law at the national level some months ago. It involves curtailing the population growth and providing additional food for the rest of us, in the form of human meat. Cannibalism, but highly regulated and controlled. You can’t just grab some woman and kill and eat her. The women are going to be randomly chosen by lottery, and they are terminated at a licensed and approved slaughterhouse under the auspices of the US Department of Agriculture.

“The meat will be sold alongside beef and pork. But given the current prices for beef and pork, and that the USDA is planning on severely lowering the limits on slaughter in cows and pigs soon to retain as much genetic diversity in the herds as possible, human meat will be less than half the cost.”

“This is completely insane. I guess I should watch or read the news once in a while.” Kenny was still trying to come to terms with what he was just told.

“So, are you still interested in a job here?”

“Uh, maybe? What would be involved? Would I be killing women?”

Okay, this was starting to look more hopeful. James didn’t want to get his hopes up, though.

“Were you slaughtering hogs, or just butchering them afterwards?”

“The first year I was only butchering, but I got good enough with that that my uncle taught me how to use a stunner and cut them to bleed them out. So, the last three years I have been doing both.”

“Yes, then you would be slaughtering. That pays a little more. We think there will be a union involved, since there are unions for commercial slaughterhouse operations. We don’t know if the existing unions will come over eventually, or if the employees form a new one. Frankly, it doesn’t matter either way. Our business model has allowances for unionization.”

“Never been in a union before, so I have no idea if that’s good or bad. You going to use stunners or just kill them awake?”

“We hope to use stunners. Which kind did you use, electric shock or mechanical bolt?”

“Mechanical. Air powered, actually. It’s a bolt thing. Put the bolt against the back of the head below the skull, pull the trigger, and they go right out like a light. They never wake up, either. Which is good. An eight-hundred-pound boar is a pretty scary thing when it’s pissed off.”

“We don’t know which we will end up with. We know that the mechanical ones kill the brain stem, which can stop the heart if done right. But they kick like a mule, I guess. The electric ones cause less stress on the operator, but they have to be recharged. If we go that way, we will get several for each station so they can be recharging while another is in use.”

Kenny stopped for a minute as he considered. “It’s so weird thinking that I might be hired to kill women. I don’t know how I feel about that. But I need the job. Work has been hard to find lately, with the economy so bad. This will pay well, and will probably have benefits, right?”

James nodded, but didn’t speak up right away to let him think about it. Hopefully Kenny would ask questions if he had them. That was also part of the interview. Would he speak up and get help if he needed it, or would he go off on a tangent and try to figure out something? That was potentially a huge problem in this.

James, for his part, also thought that the whole thing was bizarre. He had wrestled for days about the whole question of if he wanted to be part of the industry that would treat women as meat animals. In the end, he had no real choice, economically.

“I know what you mean, Kenny,” he eventually said quietly. “This has been difficult for me to wrap my head around. But at the same time, I need a source of income, and this is a task that someone needs to perform. And if there is going to be someone in this state that will be legally killing women for their meat, I would want it to be someone who does it as humanely and as compassionately as possible. I have a wife, and I also have five daughters in the selectee age range. If, God forbid, one of them gets chosen, I don’t want their last moments of life to be terror and pain.

“That is what I would expect of you if you sign up to work here. I would want you to treat every woman who comes in the door as a beloved sister of yours. Can you do that?”

Kenny looked at James seriously while he considered. Would he want to be involved in this? Killing people for a living? He had three older sisters himself, two of whom were under thirty-five years old. His parents had been one of the few lucky ones that had had a boy, and they had raised him to be respectful.

But both of them had passed in a car accident recently, and he needed the work. He looked back at James and nodded.

“I’ll do it, if you’ll have me, Mr. Gleason,” he said with a firm nod.

“Just call me James, Kenny. And, are you sure you don’t want to think about it for a few days? This is a big thing. It’s not like working at a regular slaughterhouse. This could make you an outcast, even in your own family. It did for me. Three of my daughters won’t speak to me anymore.”

“I need the work. And, if my sisters have issues with it, I hope they love me enough to talk it out with me. If they do, I will tell them just what you said: that someone has to do it, and better to be someone who cares about people than someone who doesn’t. Still, if it’s alright with you, I would like to take a day or two to mull it over. Can I call you on Monday and let you know for sure?”

“Yes. Call the same number you saw in the ad. It rings on my cell for now until we get the business lines up and have a receptionist or someone else hired to do phones.”

“Got it. Thanks for your time, James. Talk to you Monday.”

“Thanks for coming in, Kenny.”

“James, I have another candidate for you. His name is Markus Peterman.” Sharra’s call was out of the blue.

She had talked to Markus about it, and he had decided that, given the state of the livestock slaughterhouse industry and the USDA’s plans to shut them down in six months to a year to preserve genetic diversity in the herds and what was left of the herds themselves, if he wanted to keep earning an income, he had to work in the human slaughterhouse side. It wasn’t too bad, he decided.