Neal Stephenson - Zodiac. The Eco-Thriller

The navy mine exploded and sent up a waterspout and a shock wave that nearly swatted the chopper out of the air. Pretty soon the ship started to list-or was that me? I looked up to wave goodbye to the snipers, but the water tower wasn't there anymore. The Everett River Bridge was above me. The derelicts were down there raising a couple of McDonald's pseudoshakes, toasting my health, cheering me on. Brothers in arms.

JOE GALLAGHER HAULED US DOWNthe river into a sprawling media dawn. Everyone had come out. Tanya was the first on board; she and Bart climbed up on top of the bridge and hoisted the Toxic Jolly Roger. Tanya was perfect because she was a victim, she knew some things about chemistry, and she was pissed. The putrescine was a definite problem, but journalists who knew how to hold their noses could get down into the belly of the Basco Explorer and find incredible things.

It was all tremendously illegal, the evidence would have been useless in court-if we had been cops. We weren't. And if a noncop gets some evidence, even through a criminal act, you can use it to prosecute.

Of course, even when you have legally correct evidence, corporations rarely suffer in this country. Look at any big government contractor for the Pentagon or NASA. They can get away with murder.

In the media, it's a different story. Three hundred years ago, in Massachusetts, criminals were put in stocks in the public square and mocked. Today, we can't send those executives to jail, but we can kick them out of civilized society,

put them through unendurable emotional stress, and that's just as effective. So Fleshy and Laughlin were being kicked out of civilized society while Boone and I were being taken to the trauma center on a chopped ambulance.

I was suffering from several pissant flesh wounds. Dr.J. gave me that disappointing news. Boone had a sucking chest wound, which I hadn't noticed because I couldn't hear it, and because I was distracted by other things. He'd been able to roll onto his back and press .the forearm of his rubber suit against the wound, lubricating the seal with his own blood. That didn't seal it completely but it got a little more air into that lung, kept him from passing out. He had to have half his lung and a good chunk of his liver taken out. No big deal, livers grow back if you don't booze them to death.

When I woke up, Debbie was sitting there in a bathrobe, holding my hand. Yes, we were talking guilt. Guilt and happiness. She was doing pretty well. Organophosphates are not bioaccumulative. If you survive the dose, they go away and you're back to normal.

The explosion of the mine threw Tom Akers way over to the far side of the railway and they didn't find him until the next day. They did an autopsy, because there were so many possible causes of death, and discovered that he was riddled with cancer. We got in touch with his doctor in Seattle and found out that he'd known of the problem for a couple of months; long enough, I guess, to build up a pretty intense hatred for Alvin Fleshy.

Now we're into the part where we sort out all the legal responsibility. Maybe I'll go to jail, who knows. Basco would have to spend lost of money on lawyers to really nail me, and they just declared bankruptcy.

Which sounds kind of satisfying, but it isn't, because bankruptcy is just another ploy, a way to get out of their union contracts and reorganize the company into a lean, mean, litigating machine. I've bought a lot of BMWs for a lot of corporate lawyers.

On the other hand, they're in huge trouble and eventually they really are going to pay. Dolmacher's evidence was suppressed for a few days but now it's out, and it's the mediapathic goods. The attorney general announced that any corporate execs who participated in the contamination of Dolmacher's body are going to be charged with attempted murder. I hear they have lots of weight machines at the State Penitentiary.

Eventually, Basco's going to eat shit and die. So, when they let me out of the hospital, I picked up a magic marker at an office supply store, went down to the yacht club and drew Basco's logo onto the nose of our new Zodiac. This one was donated by the employees of a software company on Route 128.

Then I went for a spin around the Harbor. On my way out of the club, I blew by a nice fifty-foot yacht that was going out for an afternoon cruise. All the well-dressed people grinned, pointed, raised their glasses. I smiled, gave them the finger, and throttled her up.