Нил Стивенсон - Termination Shock

Carlos gave Rufus due credit for never having a dull moment in his life and promised to look into it. This had taken a little longer than expected because Carlos had had to reach out to attorneys in his firm who knew about things like the Federal Aviation Administration. But yesterday Carlos had called him back and briefed him.

“Legality-wise,” Rufus began.

“A contract should come through with your name on it,” Tatum said with a shrug. “Not my department.”

“Of, of course not, sir, that’s understood.”

“Then what is your question?” Tatum asked.

Rufus stuck his tongue out briefly, then remembered his manners and pulled it back in. “In terms of T.R.’s overall strategy here—which has a bearing on our jobs, yours and mine—as I understand it . . .” And at this point all he could do was repeat what Carlos Nooma had told him over the phone. “There’s no actual law against what T.R. is doing here.”

“If you have ever met a legislator in the flesh . . .” Tatum began.

“I have not had that honor.”

“Let’s just say it is not in their nature to even conceive of something like Pina2bo. Much less concoct a law making it illegal.”

“Right. Understood,” Rufus said. Again quoting Carlos Nooma: “And if they did? It would be a bill of attainder.”

“I have no idea what that means, Red.”

“According to my lawyer friend, Congress can’t just pass a law targeted specifically at one person. That’s called a bill of attainder and it’s unconstitutional. They’d have to pass a general law against certain activities. And even then, T.R. could argue that it’s just a thinly veiled bill of attainder.”

Tatum made his hand into a blade and whooshed it past his head, indicating total lack of comprehension and total lack of fucks. “Sounds great. What are you worried about?”

“Well, but T.R. is violating FAA regulations on airspace and whatnot.”

“He actually did apply for a permit, believe it or not.”

“Like with the model rocket club launches.”

“Yes, and the FAA granted it.”

“Because they didn’t know what he was actually going to do,” Rufus said. “But now that they know . . .”

“It’s probably just a matter of time before they cancel the permit,” Tatum agreed. “After that, further operation of the Pina2bo facility will constitute a violation of FAA regulations.”

“Understood, sir. But according to my lawyer friend—who was looking into it—the FAA enforces those rules by imposing fines.”

“What I have been told,” Tatum said, “is that they—the FAA—have no boots on the ground capability whatsoever. They can bring an enforcement action through the courts, and levy a fine if that is successful. There are limits on how high the fine can go. And my understanding is that T.R. has got lawyers who have been keeping their powder dry for this eventuality. They have got ways to slow the process down and drag it out in the courts for years. If the fine gets upheld in the court, T.R. could simply write a check for the full amount.”

“Just part of the cost of doing business.”

Tatum nodded. “But by that point Pina2bo will have been up and running for a couple of years and its beneficial effects will be known.”

“And the bullets ain’t gonna hit no planes because—”

“Because the gun don’t move. What pilot in his right mind would fly over the muzzle of that thing? The FAA will just put out a warning—declare it a no-fly zone.”

Rufus nodded, momentarily distracted by the thought of what one of those shells would do to an airplane. “So as far as our duties are concerned—”

“First of all, everything you and I are gonna do is strictly legal,” Tatum said, “in case that’s what you are worried about. We’re not pulling the trigger on the Pina2bo gun. We are just securing a piece of private property. Second, the worst-case scenario is that the feds levy a huge fine against T.R. and he goes bankrupt a few years from now and stops paying us. We go out and get other jobs. And the thing is, Red . . .” Tatum held his hands out, palms up.

“Shit happens,” Rufus said.

“Exactly.”

During the first week, Rufus kept his trailer parked at Bunkhouse, near the gun, but slept in a sound-insulated berth that happened to be available inside. This left him free to drive anywhere on the ranch where his truck was capable of going. Ranch roads—some barely discernible—ran all over the place. The only way you could follow some of them was by shifting into first gear, proceeding at about pedestrian speed, and keeping a close eye on the nav system, which kept insisting that you were on a road even when all evidence was to the contrary. But then you’d come up out the other side of a dry wash or top a stony ridge and see it before you, like a giant had dragged a sharp stick across the desert six months ago.

Such was Old Marble Mine Road, which he followed up into the mountains between Pina2bo and the river one day, for no other reason than he liked the sound of its name. According to the nav system it would eventually terminate in a sort of box canyon just below the crest of the range. Without the nav, Rufus never would have been able to follow it, or even known that it was there. The overall direction of movement was a little west of due south, but along the way it managed to veer through every other point of the compass.

He was penetrating a valley between two spurs flung out from the northern slope of the mountains. Lower down it was chock-ablock with breadloaf-sized rocks that had washed down out of the higher places. The tires of his truck just had to feel their way over those. But beyond a certain point he was driving on smoother terrain that just consisted of exposed bedrock. He passed into the shade of the spur on his right, or west. Sun still shone on the opposite face of the canyon, making the sedimentary layers obvious. One of those layers was white. At first it was high above him, but over the next few miles he gained altitude and rose up to its level. That was where the road ended, in a shady cul-de-sac with a flat floor strewn with rusty old hulks of mining equipment: most notably a rock crusher. The surrounding wall consisted entirely of that white stratum of rock, and the obvious assumption was that it was marble. You could keep driving beyond that point but you’d be driving into the mountain. A hole in the rock face, obviously man-made, served as the mine’s entrance.

The map claimed that another road joined up at the same place. Rufus could see it clearly, headed down a distinct watershed in the next valley off to the west. Such a road would have to exist for this mine ever to have been viable; heavy equipment wouldn’t be able to come up the way he’d just done. Inevitably this was labeled as New Marble Mine Road. Tire tracks indicated that someone had been here within the last few months. On the peak that loomed over the mine entrance, perhaps a hundred feet above, was a new steel tower with solar panels and electronics enclosures. That was probably why.

Rufus got out of his truck and was pleased to discover that it wasn’t hellishly hot. The altitude was something like a mile above sea level and this box canyon almost never received direct sunlight. After making sure that his iffy was working, he strolled a few yards into the mine. It was not one of your narrow claustrophobic tunnels. He could easily have driven his truck into the place for some distance. There was bat shit—there was always bat shit—but not that much of it; this wasn’t one of those guano-choked holes housing millions of bats like you saw in East Texas. Stood to reason; there weren’t enough bugs for them to subsist on. The whiteness of the natural stone made it seem clean. Rufus knew very little of mining, but it was plain to see the structural logic at work: to keep the ceiling from falling in, they had to give it a domed roof, and they had to bolster that with pillars of stone. These were as fat as they were high. They were simply carved out of the rock. So the pillars didn’t just dive into the ground but funneled broadly outward as they merged without any clear seam into the floor or the ceiling. The whole thing sloped generally downward.