Нил Стивенсон - Termination Shock

Which went some way toward explaining why at this moment they, the Americans, were getting their asses handed to them by a meticulously planned invasion originating on the other side of the world. Because that seemed to be the timeless doom of fierce independent-minded tribespeople. The world just didn’t fucking like them. And if you were too disorderly for too long, and it started to cause problems for people, then order was going to be imposed. White people had done it to Indians by slaughtering all the bison. Indians from India were doing it to Americans now by wiping out their electronic devices.

All this passed through his head as he was riding up the valley trying to make sense of what was going on with the eagles. Back in the day, his Indian ancestors hadn’t had walkie-talkies or GPS or drones. They’d been forced to figure things out by watching the world around them, which was mostly a natural world. They’d had to make surmises about what was going on. Like the guys up in the crow’s nests on the Pequod , interpreting far-off whale spouts, sensing the direction of the wind and the waves.

He was a far cry from any of those dudes but some things were clear even to a guy like him: the falconers up on the ridge had released Skippy. Maybe they’d seen Piet through the binoculars or maybe it was just a lucky hunch. Then they’d let Nimrod out too. Skippy had taken to the air and recognized Piet. Which seemed damned near impossible at such a distance. But if Rufus had picked up one thing about eagles it was that “eagle eye” actually meant something, their powers of vision were simply unreal. So of course Skippy had picked out the lone human figure walking toward the Bunkhouse, which Rufus had needed a telescope to see. And if she didn’t recognize Piet instantly, she did so pretty damn soon. She flew toward Piet. She saw drones flying around Piet. And apparently fucked them up though it was difficult for Rufus to make out details. Nimrod came along a minute later and went after some other targets—extra drones, maybe, that were trying to reinforce the first batch?

Piet then changed course and began moving in the direction from which he knew Rufus and the others would be approaching. When the drones had been escorting him, he had been moving as slowly as he could get away with. But now he came on fast. He’d found a dirt road along the valley floor, a terrible road by any standard, but for him a racetrack compared to what he’d been picking his way across for the last few hours. Rufus could track his progress by watching Skippy, who was running combat air patrol above him. Nimrod was headed back toward her girl Carmelita, somewhere up above the road.

“I talked to him!” Piet shouted when he guessed he was in range.

“Big Fish?”

Piet nodded. He talked in bursts, hands on knees, breathing fast but controlled. “Unless there is more than one turban-wearing Hercules in these mountains.”

“Headed for . . . ?”

“The gun.”

“Sure.”

“Red. Listen.”

“Okay. I’m listening.”

“I have to tell you something.”

“Shoot.”

“He’s carrying something on his back. Strapped to a frame. Quite heavy.”

“How do you know?”

“The way it moved. When he swung it down off his back.”

“Okay. Any markings or . . .”

Piet shook his head. “Of course not. Red, I think it’s bad. Very bad.”

Rufus exhaled and gazed off into the distance. There were more questions he could have asked. But there was no need. He just knew without hesitation, without doubt, that Piet was right. Because that one detail made everything else about this make sense. How else were they expecting to put the gun out of commission? They couldn’t bomb it from the air. It was all underground. They had to physically insert some kind of team to get down to the bottom of the shaft and damage the fancy shit. But that would be open war. But if they could just send in one guy . . .

“Well then!” Rufus exclaimed. “I am gonna just ride down there and put a stop to this. I suggest you go up and find the others and tell them what you told me and get you gone. Get the mountains between you and Pina2bo, head upwind, keep moving. Upwind being the important part.”

Piet shook his head. “It’s too late,” he said. “Big Fish must be there already.”

Pegleg startled as a trickle of rocks and sand came down a nearby slope. It was a tiny avalanche touched off from somewhere above. Rufus looked up to see the rest of their party descending. Thordis, Carmelita, and Tsolmon were all dismounted, loosely holding the reins of Bildad, Trucker, and Patch, who were sure-footedly picking their way down through the stones and the cactus. They’d be here in a few minutes and then they’d be looking at a pretty direct gallop along the road in one direction or another. Into the fight, or away from it.

“I got no time to debate the matter,” Rufus said. “Y’all decide amongst yourselves which way y’all want to go. Pick you a direction. Ride fast, either way. I got no choice.”

The look on Piet’s face said that he had no idea what Rufus was talking about. Rufus had never sat down with him and explained matters. Never told the story about Snout and Adele. About how his big Ahab moment had been spoiled by Saskia’s airplane coming out of the sky and doing most of the job for him. And how that had somehow gotten him into this. He was feeling now like time had stopped when that jet airplane had hit Snout on the runway. Like hitting the pause button on a video. He’d enjoyed the night he’d spent with Saskia, the sojourn at the marble mine. But now the video was running full speed again. Rufus drew gently on the rein that aimed him toward the Biggest Gun in the World and got Pegleg moving down the road at a walk. But before he’d covered too much distance he turned around in the saddle and said, “I ain’t gonna lie. Thordis and Piet, I know you have a special relationship with Saskia.”

“Are you referring to Princess Frederika!? The former Queen of the Netherlands!?” Piet exclaimed. It was just like that guy to get hung up on the protocol.

“Yeah. She’s down there. Might need our help.”

Thordis and Piet turned their heads and stared at each other.

“Well, fuck!” Thordis said and mounted up on Bildad.

Rufus turned to face the enemy and let Pegleg know it was time to cut loose.

It seemed that she was waking up every five minutes, which gave Saskia the idea that very little time was passing. But when she came awake for good, and threw off the emergency blanket she’d been using to keep the light from her eyes, and gazed up through the multiple layers of gridded catwalks above her, she saw more light—a lot more—filtering down the mine shaft. So convinced was she that it was still the middle of the night that she imagined, at first, that they were being attacked or rescued. But when she ascended the ladder to Level Zero and looked at the wall clock, she saw that it was morning. The light coming down the shaft was that of the sun.

Conor and Jules had bunked down on opposite sides of Level Zero. Jules was curled up under a table, Conor had simply leaned back in an office chair and propped his feet up on a desk. On her way up the ladder, she’d passed a human-sized bundle of blankets on Minus One that must have been T.R. They all woke up over the course of about fifteen minutes and took turns using the toilet. They then had what in other circumstances would be called a stand-up meeting, drinking bottles of water and eating energy bars and wishing someone had bothered to install a coffee maker. Above, it seemed perfectly quiet. They decided it would make sense for Jules to ascend nearer to the surface. If he had to come back down in a hurry, he could slide down the ropes. He’d found three of them, each 60 meters long. From Level Zero to the surface was 215 meters. The ropes would cover 180 meters of that, leaving a gap of 35. The idea then was for Jules to climb about 95 meters up from Level Zero, anchor a rope there, and let it dangle. Then he’d climb up another 60 meters and anchor a second rope, hanging to the level where he’d anchored the first. Beyond that, another 60-meter ascent would bring him near the surface, where he could anchor the top rope. He’d keep his harness clipped to that and do some reconnoitering. At the first sign of trouble he could trust his fate to the rope and drop 60 meters below the ground in a few seconds. By transferring to the other ropes he could then get down to a point 35 meters above Level Zero almost as quickly. By that point, hopefully, he’d have enough of a head start on anyone or anything pursuing him that he’d be able to scamper down the ladder before it caught up with him.