Нил Стивенсон - Termination Shock

“They’re waiting for you,” Rufus said as he put it into gear. He drove for no more than thirty seconds along the gravel road before it descended slightly into a flooded parking lot. Beyond, parked on a right-of-way just above the flood, was an immaculate black SUV the size of four typical Dutch cars welded together. Condensation beading up and trickling down its windows spoke of ice-cold air-conditioning within.

The difference in elevation between the flooded parking lot, across which Rufus’s truck made a spreading V-shaped wake, and the road was probably more than one meter and less than two. Less than the height of a man. And yet it was everything. The placement of the road—more generally, the engineering of the levee along which the road ran—was all quite deliberate. People above the water drove around in clean vehicles and might live their whole lives unaware that the sea, globally, was coming for them. Those who found themselves just the height of a man closer to the earth’s center found themselves inundated from time to time, according to the weather’s whims, and either had to stew in shantytowns or, like the Cajuns, become masters of an amphibious lifestyle.

The occupants of the SUV—an African American driver and a Latino in the shotgun seat—did not take the rash step of opening the doors until Rufus had parked next to them and set his parking brake. Both of the men had the physique of soccer players. Both wore loose khakis with untucked shirts. Saskia had seen enough discreetly armed security personnel in her day to recognize the type. Amelia, their direct counterpart, exchanged credentials with them. They set about transferring the baggage into the back of the SUV. The driver came round to the side of the truck, opened Saskia’s door, and extended a hand to help her down off the wet running board. “Dr. Schmidt welcomes you to his hometown, Your Majesty.”

Saskia was at a loss for words. From the moment she had entered the cockpit of the jet in the Netherlands, she had not been a queen. She had largely forgotten about it. But the world hadn’t forgotten about her.

“It is good to be here” was the best she could manage.

“Dr. Schmidt apologizes for not being here in person, but he thought you and your party might want a few moments to freshen up after your adventure.”

Saskia looked down at her grubby feet, thrust into a pair of flip-flops Willem had scored at a Walmart. “That is most considerate of T.R.,” she said. For Theodore Roosevelt Schmidt, Ph.D., was the real name of the man who appeared in television commercials and billboards, across the South, as T.R. McHooligan, quasi-fictitious founder and proprietor of a vastly successful regional chain of family restaurants-cum-mega-truck-stops.

“My instructions are to convey Your Majesty and her party to his estate, unless you express a different preference.”

“That will be fine, thank you.”

“And—so that I can make sure all is in readiness—the size of your party is five?”

She thought about it. “Six,” she decided.

He looked slightly befuddled and checked a list on the screen of a tablet. “Your Majesty, Willem Castelein, Fenna Enkhuis, Captain Amelia Leeflang, Dr. Alastair Thomson, and—?” His eyes strayed toward the only one here who could bring the total up to six.

“Rufus,” Saskia said, nodding at him. “Mr. Rufus Grant, Esquire. He probably has a military rank. I forgot to take down that information.”

The driver nodded, taking in Rufus.

“I imagine he’ll drive his own vehicle. With him, it’s all about mobility.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

The first part of the drive took them through mile after mile of classically American strip development landscape. They got on an elevated highway that was the largest she’d seen outside of China and drove east for a while past a district of mid- and high-rise office buildings, many of which bore the names of oil companies. This wasn’t downtown, though; much larger buildings loomed in the distance. Her internal GPS, calibrated for the Low Countries, told her that they were driving from Amsterdam to Rotterdam, or Rotterdam to Antwerp, but of course nothing of the sort was happening—they were just moving around between different parts of Houston, a metropolitan area the size of Belgium.

A few miles short of the downtown high-rise district, the caravan ducked off the freeway and dropped into the valley of a river that snaked right through the middle of the city. It was canopied with big mature trees beneath which sheltered expensive homes. Buffalo Bayou, as this watercourse was called, was of course flooded. Many of the streets were blocked, so the caravan had to take a circuitous route through the neighborhood. Saskia didn’t mind, since she enjoyed seeing some of the fine homes that wealthy Texas families had built here.

The destination was a hotel and spa complex that had been created by merging a few adjoining properties. The hotel proper had been the mansion of some great Texas dynasty. To this a pair of wings had been discreetly added, reaching back into the woods, adding capacity without altering the look.

T.R.’s residence was so nearby as to seem almost an extension of the same complex, and indeed one of her hosts mentioned that, were it not for the flood, one could travel between the two properties by walking along a cool path through the forest. Today, you’d need a canoe.

Of the four “distinguished guests” whom T.R. had invited, Frederika Mathilde Louisa Saskia had the highest social rank, as such things were calibrated in books of old-school etiquette. She would be lodged in his home as a personal guest, while others were relegated to the hotel. Alastair and Rufus, as less essential staff, got off at the hotel, while Saskia, Willem, Fenna, and Amelia stayed in the car for a sixty-second drive to T.R.’s place. En route the vehicle passed through deep fords of running floodwater. It was the first time, in Saskia’s experience, that Americans’ absurd attachment for gigantic, high-off-the-ground SUVs had actually served any useful purpose.

T.R.’s residential compound rose above the waters of Buffalo Bayou on a sort of artificial mesa; he had jacked the buildings up off their original foundations, put new supports under them, then filled it all in with water-resistant soil called levee clay. There was a mansion in Tudor Revival style, and, out back of it, a guesthouse with seven bedrooms and as many baths. This was where Saskia and the others finally came to rest after a journey from Huis ten Bosch that had ended up taking the better part of a week.

And given some of what had happened en route, one might have thought it perfectly reasonable to lock oneself in and do nothing but recuperate for the next week. Their hosts had the good taste to leave them alone; both T.R. and his wife, Veronica Schmidt, sent their handwritten regrets that they couldn’t be there to say hello in person and left them in the hands of staff members who clearly knew that being unobtrusive was part of the job description. Yet, perhaps because of that hands-off policy, Saskia found that after she had spent twenty minutes drowsing in a bathtub, washing away the Brazos grime and taking inventory of her bug bites, she was of a mind to put on some clean clothes and go back to the hotel for a drink. Some kind of optional social hour was listed on the schedule.

About half of her luggage had been salvaged from the jet crash. Willem and Fenna had made arrangements for more clothes to be plucked from her wardrobe at home and express-shipped here. She called Fenna, rousing her from what sounded like deep slumber—no surprise given the nature of her activities last night with Jules. Wrapped in a huge plush terry robe monogrammed with T.R.’s family crest, she glided into Saskia’s suite like a somnambulating figure skater, profoundly relaxed and satisfied. Quite obviously Jules had been the cure for the case of jitters she had picked up in the jet crash. “One, I think,” Saskia said. Fenna opened up the cosmetics case and applied Face One, a scheme that went well with the outfit Saskia had picked out: blue jeans with a nice blouse and vest, chosen to disarm people who might have inflated expectations of what a queen would look and act like, but with enough fancy bits that it wouldn’t seem downright insulting. In truth Saskia could do Face One without assistance, but her hair had sustained some damage and needed a bit of chemical and mechanical help. Before long, Fenna was able to pad back to her room and fall into bed to have sweet dreams of Jules while Saskia, looking every inch the modern, norMAL, unpretentious monarch, met Amelia and Willem in the foyer for the quick drive back to the hotel and its capacious bar.