Page 40 of Crash Course
"You got something?"
He glanced over at Rohan eyeing him from the other side of the table.
"Speaking of sludge."
"What about it?"
Thinking, Cruz rocked back in his chair. Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. "There’s an article here. It’s in South Carolina, but a water reclamation company treats the sewage, turns it to sludge, and gives it to farmers."
"Sounds like a win-win. They get rid of the muck and the farmer saves money."
"Except," Cruz got up, wandered to the whiteboard, uncapped a marker, and wrote PFOA. "Perfluorooctanoic acid. It’s a chemical compound used to make heat and stain resistant coatings."
"Yeah. That much I know."
"It’s now banned, along with PFOS. They’re highly toxic. PFAS is the new version. It’s not banned yet, but all are forever chemicals that don’t break down in the environment. Or in people or animals. It literally stays in the body forever."
Rohan shrugged. "What does that have to do with sludge?"
Cruz walked back to his seat and spun the laptop. "Think about it. Forever chemicals stay in the body. What happens when you take a shit?"
"Uh,human waste?"
"Human waste that has chemicals from your body in it. We take a dump, it gets flushed, and sewage systems pump it to a water reclamation facility that removes contaminants. Except, the treatment doesn’t filter out forever chemicals." Cruz pointed at his laptop. "According to this article, it does the reverse. It concentrates the chemicals in the sludge."
Rohan considered that for a second, then narrowed his gaze. "You’re saying this sludge is contaminated and the water reclamation company is giving it to farmers asfertilizer?"
"That’s exactly what I’m saying. They spread the sludge, the crops grow and now the fucking plants are contaminated too." Cruz nudged the laptop. "One guy mentioned in this article was an organic farmer. He lost everything because the previous owners used sludge and he didn’t know it. When he realized he had forever chemicals in his soil, he did the research. Sludge had been used years before on the property."
"Wow. He’s an organic farmer selling contaminated vegetables."
Cruz grabbed the laptop, took his seat again, and started typing. "Let’s find the water treatment plant for Morgan. We’ll pretend to be farmers and ask if they give away sludge."
"And if they do?"
Cruz met his eye.
Rohan—Mr. Super-Ethical—understood exactly where this was going. He just didn’t want to admit it.
"Come on, Ro. You know what I’m gonna say."
"You want me to hack into a water reclamation company?"
"It would save time. But I know how you are with stuff like this."
His brother’s head snapped back as if Cruz, for the millionth time, had offended him with a comment.
Cruz threw up his hands. "Whoa. Don’t get pissy. All I’m saying is you have a higher moral bar than me. You need to be convinced there’s a solid reason to hack someone. Me?" Cruz grinned. "I’m not nearly that honest."
"There’s a line," Ro shot back. "Boundaries we need to set."
Cruz shrugged. "Do we? I mean, if we don’t get caught and it gets us where we need to be, what’s the problem? It’s not like we’re leaking confidential docs. We’re just looking."
"What if the Russians said that?"
Christ.Wouldn’t be the first time they’d debated this. Wouldn’t be the last. "Just trying to move us along. And maybe figure out if people are being poisoned by contaminated sludge."
That comment earned him a sigh and Cruz grinned again.
