The Inspection

Scott Kline eased his car up to the lowered security bar, came to a stop, and rolled down his window.

He offered his ID to the stone-faced security guard who looked down at him from the booth.

“Scott Kline with the EPA. Here for the…”

“Just need ID,” the guard said, taking the card and sealing himself back inside with a hard snap of glass.

“Okay,” Kline muttered and blew an exasperated breath over his bottom lip.

He drummed his fingers lightly on the steering wheel and watched the guard from the corner of his eye.

While talking to someone on the phone, the guard noticed Kline watching him and turned his back.

After another minute of waiting, the guard hung up, opened the window, and handed the ID back to Kline along with a printed parking pass.

“Guest parking’s at the front.”

“Thank…”

The window shut.

“...you.”

The gate lifted. Kline drove through.

CelluCrop Labs stood in the pines like a monolith. Gunmetal walls. Mirrored glass. Solar panels flush with the flat roof. Every bit of its geometry was a sharp reminder of its cold modernity.

Kline parked, clipped his ID to his belt, gathered his things, and locked the car with a chirp as he walked toward the entrance.

The receptionist eyed him coldly as he approached.

“Good morning,” Kline began.

“You can have a seat, Mr. Kline,” she interrupted and raised the phone receiver to her ear. Never taking her eyes off of Kline, she pressed a button, careful not to clack her shiny green and purple acrylic nails against the plastic. “The inspector’s here, sir. Yes, sir.”

She hung up.

“Mr. Kallister will be with you in a moment.”

“Thank you,” Kline said with a polite smile.

She didn’t smile back.

Kline slowly walked the lobby and read the framed, glossy posters declaring “Our Mission,” “Our History,” and “Our Vision.”

“Inspector Kline?”

He turned.

Reginald Kallister, CEO of CelluCrop Labs, stood in the doorway, offering a well-practiced smile and extended hand..

“Mr. Kallister,” Kline said, shaking it.

“Please. Call me Reginald.”

Kline nodded once.

“Apologies for the confusion,” Kallister said. “We expected Donaldson, as he’s handled the last three inspections.”

“There was a scheduling conflict,” Kline replied. “We didn’t want to delay the inspection, and I got tagged.”

“Ah, yes,” Kallister gestured toward the inner door. “Every six months is quite more often than usual.”

“Suppose it comes with the territory when you’re this heavily subsidized.”

“I suppose it does,” Kallister smiled again, though his eyes still did not.

Kallister led Kline to the factory floor, where rows of fruits and vegetables grew in plexiglass garden beds. Thin tubes snaked from consoles into the soil, pulsing with slow, rhythmic injections of colored fluids.

On the other side of the factory, synthetic meat grew in large petri dishes.

The workers, lips in hostile frowns, side eyed Kline as he began to walk the rows and used his PID to take readings and a few soil samples to stow within his clipboard.

He approached one of the nutrient pumps and, since the worker refused to move, had to contort his body as he hunched down to take more readings.

He opened his clipboard to jot a few notes, only to catch a worker leaning over to try and read over his shoulder.

Kline angled the board away.

The worker scoffed and walked away.

Finished with his notes, Kline crossed over the synthetic meat section.

A woman with dark hair met his eyes and offered the faintest of sympathetic smiles.

More readings.

More notes.

More silent disdain.

Kline closed his clipboard and returned to Kallister.

“Let’s take a look from above,” Kallister said before Kline could speak, already heading for the metal stairs.

On the observation walkway, Kallister laughed lightly.

“Did we pass?”

“Initial observations seem fine,” Kline said. “Though your people don’t seem too pleased to see me.”

“They are just worried that biases and fear will influence inspection results. Plus, they were used to Donaldson. Familiarity breeds comfort. And, well, there was an… understanding… between us and Donaldson.”

“I’m assuming that understanding helped Donaldson afford his new car.”

Kallister chuckled but didn’t deny it.

“Still,” he said, “you must admit there’s a lot of misinformation about companies like ours.”

“People are understandably wary of genetically modified food.”

“Ah, but we aren’t modifying, Mr. Kline. We’re enhancing. Taking natural properties to their logical conclusion. Imagine it, Mr. Kline. Enhancing the anti-inflammatory properties of broccoli, for instance. What would those suffering from chronic pain say if they could eat a single floret and their suffering would cease? This evolution, progress, will be worth it in the end.”

“Mr. Kallister...”

“Reginald.”

“I’m not here to judge. Neutrality is part of the job. But I can’t complete the inspection until I’ve seen everything. Including the sublevel.”

Kallister paused. “Sublevel?”

“I reviewed the blueprints before coming.”

“Commendable.”

“I’ll be frank,” Kline continued. “Given certain factors, and the last three clean reports, the worst outcome here is a recommendation and a deadline. But I can’t sign off until I’ve inspected every area.”

Kallister inhaled, preparing a response, when an employee hustled up and whispered something into his ear.

“If you’ll excuse me, Mr. Kline. There’s an urgent call from Tokyo that I must take. I’m sure you understand. I’ll be back as soon as I am able, and we can continue this discussion.”

He and the employee descended the stairs, heads close, voices low, and disappeared into an office.

Kline waited.

He watched the workers below, bounced his foot, drummed the underside of his clipboard, and then checked his watch several times.

He finally stepped back from the railing, just as someone bumped into him.

The dark-haired woman pressed something into his hand and leaned close.

“Elevator behind the wall,” she whispered, a slight tremor in her voice. “Four six three one.”

“Sorry about that,” she said louder before walking off.

Kline stared at the key card in his palm and, ensuring no one was watching, made his way to the far wall.

The card reader blinked from red to green. The elevator doors slid open.

Kline pressed -1, entered the code, and felt the car begin its descent.

He drummed his fingers on the clipboard again, the rhythm growing tighter, until the elevator shuddered to a stop and the doors parted.

Kline stepped out onto the lower balcony and rounded the corner.

Vertigo, sharp and nauseating, struck him. He blinked hard, pressing a hand to his temple as his stomach churned.

Below, four workers in blue hazmat suits hovered over consoles, completely absorbed in their work.

Static filled his ears, and the walkway beneath his feet appeared to bend and distort before snapping back.

Kline moved farther along the railing. Then he saw it.

A sphere, twenty feet in diameter, hung in the center of the chamber.

Synthetic flesh was wrapped around it in uneven bands. Between the strips, eyes of mismatched sizes twitched and rolled, searching.

Tubes ran from the creature into machines, pumping fluids in and out.

Kline staggered, bending forward, palm pressed to his throbbing skull.

░▒▓Prepare▓▒░

░▒▓Theosis▓▒░

░▒▓Embrace▓▒░

Words branded on his brain.

He saw five-faced beings with seven wings flayed open and strung up between towering obelisks beneath a black-rose sun in a blood-red sky.

He saw beasts birthing themselves from their own glistening flesh, rising malformed and triumphant in the light of a fallen star.

░▒▓Becoming▓▒░

░▒▓Anguish▓▒░

░▒▓Glorious▓▒░

Kline’s scream tore itself out of him like an animal.

The workers below snapped their heads upward just in time to see his body quake, split, and his flesh rip apart in a spray of blood and shafts of black-rose light.