Time to start bringing it home!
Things came to a head, as it were, thanks to my slightly irregular audit of the off-the-book books. There were no obvious embezzlements going on; but I had noticed that, about a month previously, Farmer Pierce had abruptly stopped supplying us with raw product. He had apparently come around and began supplying us with more and more of his goo-enhanced crops, until it seemed like he was supplying us with his farm’s entire product. But we weren’t paying him for that anymore — and yet, there was no period where production faltered. What was going on?
The quick answer was, he had been bought out last month. A little bit of research even found me his new number; I am not sure why I wanted to contact Pierce. Perhaps I was afraid of what he said — it seems strange to write it out that way, as if to be afraid of something also means to be fascinated by it. Which is absurd.
And yet.