Gold Mining Trash

The heat did not just sit on the skin. It pressed. It was 2036, and the sun felt like a physical weight, a heavy blanket soaked in hot water. Inspector Grettin stood on the edge of the Red Lake public beach, his boots sinking into the sand that was too hot to touch with bare feet. He looked at the water. It was not blue. It was not green. It was a vibrant, aggressive shade of teal that looked like it belonged in a highlighter pen. It looked fake. It looked like a rendering error in a video game.

He wiped sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. His skin felt gritty. The air did not smell like the lake. It did not smell like fish or rot or pine. It smelled like a high-end department store. It smelled like sandalwood and bergamot and expensive, synthetic masculinity. It was the smell of a man who spent four hundred dollars on a haircut. It was the smell of the rich fleeing the flooded coasts for the Boreal Sanctuaries of the north.

"It’s pretty, right?" a voice said.

Grettin did not turn. He knew the voice. It was high, fast, and carried the practiced cadence of someone who spent too much time talking to a camera lens. He looked at the water instead. A dead pike floated near the shore. Its scales were coated in the teal film. It looked like a piece of plastic jewelry.

"It’s toxic," Grettin said.

"It’s content," Tiff replied. She stepped up beside him, holding a gimbal with a smartphone attached. Her hair was dyed a faded shade of pink that had been bleached by the sun. She wore oversized sunglasses and a vintage t-shirt that was probably worth more than Grettin’s truck. She was twenty-four and lived in her parents' basement three blocks away. She had half a million followers two years ago. Now she had forty thousand and a desperate need for a viral hit.

"Get that thing out of my face," Grettin said.

"I’m not filming you. I’m filming the vibe. The disaster-core aesthetic is peaking right now. People love a beautiful apocalypse. Look at the saturation on that water. No filter needed. It’s insane."

"People are going to get sick, Tiff."

"They already are. Mrs. Gable’s dog drank some this morning. It’s at the vet. The vet says its tongue turned blue. Like, neon blue. This is the biggest thing to happen in Red Lake since the mine closed."

Grettin looked past the beach. The town was a collection of tired buildings and cracked asphalt, but the hills beyond were changing. Large, angular structures of glass and carbon fiber were beginning to sprout among the pines. The ultra-rich were moving in, bringing their money and their problems. They called it 'climate-securing.' Grettin called it an invasion.

"Where’s it coming from?" Tiff asked, her thumbs moving across her screen with mechanical efficiency.

"Upstream," Grettin said. "The Gilded Shaft."

"Brinte’s place? The tech guy?"

"The tech guy."

"I heard he has a subterranean penthouse that goes down twelve levels. Like a reverse skyscraper. He’s got an indoor forest and a pool filled with filtered rainwater. Deadass, he’s living in the future while we’re melting."

Grettin pulled his radio from his belt. It was an old model, the plastic worn smooth at the edges. "Dispatch. This is Grettin. I’m at the beach. The leak is confirmed. It’s heavy. We need to close the perimeter. Get the environmental boys down here. And tell the mayor we’re going to have a problem with the sanctuary owners."

Static popped. "Copy that, Inspector. Mayor’s on a call with Toronto. He says to keep it quiet."

"Hard to keep a neon lake quiet," Grettin muttered. He looked at Tiff. She was launching a drone from a small pad on the sand. The machine buzzed like a giant hornet, its four blades blurring into gray circles. It rose quickly, its camera tilting down to capture the plume of teal liquid pumping out of a drainage pipe a hundred yards away.

"Look at that," Tiff said, showing him the screen. "The plume is coming straight from the hill. It’s like an artery opened up."

"Don't fly that over private property," Grettin warned.

"Public water, public rights. Besides, Brinte doesn’t believe in privacy. He says data wants to be free. I’m just helping it along."

Grettin watched the drone disappear over the tree line. He felt a dull ache in his knees. He was too old for this. He was too old for the heat and the influencers and the billionaires who thought they could buy the weather. He looked at the teal water again. It was beautiful in a way that felt like a threat. It was a mirror that didn't reflect the sky, only the garbage humans put into it.

"We’re going up there," Grettin said.

"We?" Tiff asked, her eyes lighting up. "You mean a ride-along? For the vlog?"

"I mean I need someone who can operate that drone without crashing it into a tree, and you’re the only one here with the hardware. But you stay in the truck. You don't film me. You don't post anything until I say."

"Bet," Tiff said. She didn't mean it. Grettin knew she didn't mean it. But he also knew he couldn't get close to the Gilded Shaft without seeing what was behind the gates first. The billionaire had more security than the local police department. He had sensors, AI-driven cameras, and legal teams that could bury Grettin in paperwork before he even reached the front door.

They walked back to his truck. The interior smelled like old coffee and stale tobacco. The seat was hot enough to burn through his trousers. He started the engine, and the AC wheezed, blowing out a puff of lukewarm air that did nothing to break the humidity.

"This truck is ancient," Tiff said, wrinkling her nose. "It’s iconic, but it’s ancient."

"It works."

"Barely. You should get an EV. The rebates are huge."

"I don't want a rebate. I want a truck that doesn't have a motherboard that can decide to lock the doors and drive me into a ditch if it gets a bad software update."

They drove up the winding road that led away from the town and into the dense forest. The trees here were thick, their needles a deep, dark green that felt out of place in the forty-degree heat. Every few miles, they passed a gated driveway marked with signs warning of private security and automated defense systems. Red Lake was no longer a mining town. It was a gated community for the end of the world.

"There it is," Tiff said, pointing at the screen of her controller. "The Gilded Shaft. Look at the gate. It’s got facial recognition. I can see the scanners moving."

Grettin slowed the truck as they approached a massive gate made of matte black steel. It was set into a wall of reinforced concrete that looked like it could stop a tank. There were no windows, no guards, just a single camera lens that tracked the truck with cold, mechanical precision.

"Stay here," Grettin said.

"I’m already recording," Tiff whispered.

Grettin stepped out of the truck. The heat hit him again, a wall of dry, baking air. He walked to the gate and waited. A speaker hidden somewhere in the wall crackled to life.

"State your business," a voice said. It was smooth, neutral, and entirely devoid of human emotion.

"Inspector Grettin. Red Lake Police. I’m here to discuss an environmental violation originating from this property."

There was a long silence. The camera lens zoomed in on Grettin’s face. He could see his own reflection in the glass—tired, sweaty, and unimpressed.

"Mr. Brinte is in a deep-focus session," the voice said. "He is not to be disturbed."

"Tell Mr. Brinte that the lake is turning teal and it smells like his cologne. If he doesn't open this gate, I’m coming back with a warrant and a hazmat team."

Another silence. Then, the sound of heavy machinery. The matte black gates began to slide open, retreating into the concrete walls with a low, rhythmic hum. Grettin walked back to the truck.

"We’re in?" Tiff asked.

"We’re in," Grettin said. "Keep that drone low. If they see it, they’ll jam it."

"They can try," Tiff said, her fingers dancing over the controls. "I’ve got an anti-jamming patch. I’m built different."

They drove through the gates and onto a driveway made of polished stone. The forest fell away, replaced by a perfectly manicured landscape of drought-resistant grasses and modern sculptures. In the center of the clearing sat a small, unassuming glass pavilion. It was the only thing visible above ground. Everything else—the servers, the living quarters, the 'Boreal Sanctuary'—was buried deep in the rock, built into the bones of the old silver mine.

Jeff Brinte was waiting for them in the pavilion. He was wearing a white linen suit that looked impossibly crisp in the heat. He was holding a glass of clear liquid with a sprig of mint in it. He looked like he was in a commercial for a life Grettin would never understand.

"Inspector," Brinte said, his voice a perfect match for the one on the speaker. "You’re early. I was told the leak wouldn't reach the beach for another two hours."

Grettin stopped the truck and got out. He didn't wait for Brinte to offer a hand. He just walked up to the pavilion, the heat shimmering off the polished stone at his feet.

"So you knew about it," Grettin said.

"I knew we were conducting a scheduled infusion," Brinte said, taking a sip of his drink. "It’s a bio-hack for the lake. A mineral-rich infusion designed to optimize the ecosystem’s resilience against rising temperatures. The color is just a tracer. It’s harmless."

"The pike at the beach are dead, Jeff. And the water smells like a locker room in a tech startup."

Brinte smiled. It was a small, tight smile that didn't reach his eyes. "Adaptation is a violent process, Inspector. Some organisms won't make the transition. That’s just nature. But the teal? That’s progress."

"It’s sewage," Grettin said. "Artisanal, high-end sewage. And you’re going to turn it off."

"I’m afraid it’s not that simple," Brinte said. "The system is integrated. You can't just flip a switch on a living machine."

Tiff’s drone hovered just outside the glass, its camera lens fixed on Brinte. Grettin could see the billionaire’s eyes flicker toward it. The mask of calm was beginning to slip.

"Is that a drone?" Brinte asked. "In a restricted airspace?"

"It’s a witness," Grettin said. "And it’s staying right where it is."

The Gilded Shaft

The interior of the glass pavilion was silent. The air conditioning was so efficient that Grettin felt a sudden chill, a sharp contrast to the baking heat outside. Brinte sat on a chair that looked like it was grown from white coral. He didn't look like a man who was polluting a lake. He looked like a man who was curating a gallery.

"You don't understand the scale of what we’re doing here, Inspector," Brinte said. He set his glass down on a glass table. It made no sound. "Red Lake was a dying town. A hole in the ground that the world forgot. I’ve turned it into the most secure data and residential node in North America. My servers run the infrastructure for half the smart cities on the coast. If I go offline, people lose power in Boston. Hospitals in New York lose access to their patient records. I am the stability this world needs."

"You’re a guy in a hole who’s making the water turn blue," Grettin said. He took a step closer, his heavy boots leaving faint scuffs on the pristine floor. "I don't care about Boston. I care about the people down the hill who can't drink their tap water because you’re flushing your cooling loops into the aquifer."

"It’s not flushing," Brinte corrected. "It’s a closed-loop system with a secondary discharge phase. The heat from the servers needs to go somewhere. Water is the most efficient medium. We treat it, we infuse it with nutrients, and we return it to the environment. It’s a gift."

"The gift is killing the fish," Tiff’s voice came from the truck, amplified by her phone’s speaker. She had rolled down the window. "And it’s making the rocks look like they’re covered in blue spray paint. My comments are blowing up. People are calling you the 'Cyanide King.'"

Brinte’s jaw tightened. He looked at the truck, then back at Grettin. "Your associate is misinformed. Social media is a fever dream. It’s not reality."

"The reality is the fine I’m about to write you," Grettin said. "And the injunction I’m going to file to shut down your discharge pumps. Give me the schematics for the cooling system."

"No."

"I have a right to inspect any facility suspected of environmental contamination under the Provincial Mining Act of 1906. This is still a mine, Jeff. You’re just using it to mine data instead of silver. The laws still apply."

Brinte stood up. He was taller than Grettin, but thinner. He looked like he hadn't seen the sun in months. "The Mining Act didn't anticipate the Boreal Sanctuaries. This is a private residence and a sovereign data center. You have no jurisdiction inside the shaft."

"We’ll see about that," Grettin said. He turned and walked back to the truck.

Inside, Tiff was staring at her screen. "I’m getting some weird readings from the drone. There’s a massive heat signature coming from the old ventilation shaft on the north side of the hill. It’s way hotter than it should be for a 'residential' bunker. It’s like a furnace down there."

"Can you get the drone inside?" Grettin asked.

"The vents are covered with mesh. But wait... look at this. The water level in the lake. It’s dropped six inches in the last week. In this heat, you’d expect some evaporation, but not that much. The lake is being sucked dry."

"He’s using the lake water to cool his servers," Grettin realized. "And then he’s pumping the hot, chemical-laden waste back into the discharge pipes. He’s not just polluting the water. He’s stealing it."

"And he’s doing it to power Eco-Coin," Tiff said, her fingers flying across the screen as she pulled up a news feed. "Brinte just launched a new green-certified crypto. He claims it’s the first 'carbon-negative' currency because it’s powered by 'natural thermal exchange' in the Boreal region. He’s mining crypto in our basement and charging us the bill in dead fish."

Grettin looked at the pavilion. Brinte was gone. The glass doors had slid shut, and the interior was dark. The billionaire was retreating.

"We need to get into that shaft," Grettin said.

"The gate is locked again," Tiff said, pointing at the truck’s side mirror. The matte black steel had closed behind them. "We’re trapped in the driveway."

"He thinks he can wait us out," Grettin said. He reached into the glove box and pulled out a heavy, rusted iron key. It was a relic from his father’s time as a foreman at the mine. "The Gilded Shaft has three entrances. Brinte only modernized two of them. The third one is at the bottom of the old slag heap. It’s buried under thirty years of pine needles and rot."

"Are we going to break in?" Tiff asked. She looked nervous, but she didn't stop filming. "That’s like, super illegal, right?"

"I’m the Inspector," Grettin said. "I’m not breaking in. I’m conducting a surprise safety audit. And you’re my technical consultant."

He put the truck in reverse and backed down the driveway, ignoring the warning sirens that began to blare from the gate. He didn't stop at the main entrance. He drove the truck off the shoulder and into the brush, the old engine roaring as it pushed through the undergrowth. Branches scraped against the paint, a sound like fingernails on a chalkboard.

"My drone!" Tiff screamed as she pulled the machine back toward the truck. "Watch the trees!"

They bounced over rocks and fallen logs until they reached the base of the hill. The air here was even hotter, the smell of the 'cologne' sewage stronger. It was coming from the ground itself, seeping through the cracks in the rock.

"There," Grettin said, pointing at a mound of gray stone overgrown with moss. "The secondary air intake. If the servers are running that hot, the intake will be sucking in air like a jet engine."

They got out of the truck. The sound was deafening—a low, rhythmic thrumming that vibrated in the soles of their boots. It wasn't the sound of nature. It was the sound of a machine that was too big for its skin.

"Look at the grass," Tiff said. She pointed at a patch of weeds near the intake. They weren't green. They were a scorched, brittle brown, even though they were in the shade. "The heat coming out of there is insane. It’s like standing behind a bus."

Grettin walked to the base of the mound and began to clear away the debris. He found a heavy iron grate, rusted but solid. He slid the old key into the lock. It didn't turn at first. He leaned his weight into it, his shoulder protesting. With a sharp clack, the mechanism gave way.

"Help me with this," he said.

Tiff set her gimbal down and grabbed the edge of the grate. Together, they pulled. The iron groaned, resisting, then swung open with a screech that echoed off the trees. A blast of hot, dry air hit them, carrying the scent of ozone and scorched plastic.

"It’s a long way down," Tiff whispered, peering into the darkness.

"Stay behind me," Grettin said. "And keep your phone light on. We’re going to find out exactly how much of our lake is in Jeff Brinte’s basement."

The Sludge Pit

The descent was a slow crawl through a nightmare of concrete and cable. The old mine walls had been sprayed with a thick, white polymer that made the tunnel feel like the inside of a bone. Every few yards, a flickering LED strip provided just enough light to see the floor, which was slick with a fine mist of condensation. The air was thick, heavy with the hum of the servers. It felt like walking into a fever.

"This is too much," Tiff whispered. She was holding her phone out like a shield, the camera capturing the endless rows of black server racks that began to appear as the tunnel widened. "He’s not just running a data center. This is a factory. Look at the cooling lines."

Thick, translucent pipes ran along the ceiling, filled with the same vibrant teal liquid they had seen at the beach. It pulsed through the tubes, a rhythmic heartbeat that felt alien and wrong. Grettin touched one of the pipes. It was hot—not warm, but painfully hot.

"He’s bypassing the filtration units," Grettin said, pointing to a series of massive, dormant tanks in the corner of the room. "He’s running the raw lake water straight through the server blocks to save on energy costs. The teal color? That’s not a tracer. It’s a chemical reaction between the lake’s mineral content and the copper in the cooling fins. It’s turning into a toxic sludge before it even leaves the building."

"He’s literally liquidating the lake to mine Eco-Coin," Tiff said. She was filming a row of blinking lights on a control panel. "The energy consumption is off the charts. Grettin, he’s not just using the lake. He’s draining the town’s aquifer to keep the backup generators cool. Look at the pressure gauges."

Grettin looked. The needles were in the red. The town of Red Lake was sitting on a ticking bomb of dry wells and poisoned earth, all so a billionaire could have a 'carbon-neutral' portfolio.

"We need to get to the main pump room," Grettin said. "If I can get a sample of the liquid before it hits the discharge pipe, I can prove it’s not an 'infusion.'"

They moved deeper into the facility. The architecture changed from industrial to luxury. The server racks were hidden behind panels of brushed aluminum. The floors were polished marble. They passed an indoor garden where tropical plants were wilting in the artificial heat. The smell of the cologne was overpowering here, pumped through the vents to mask the smell of the machinery.

"Wait," Tiff said, stopping suddenly. "Do you hear that?"

Grettin listened. Above the hum of the servers, there was a sound of rushing water. It wasn't the rhythmic pulse of the pipes. It was a heavy, splashing sound, like a waterfall hitting a pool of mud.

"The discharge pit," Grettin said.

They followed the sound to a massive, circular chamber. In the center was a deep pit, filled with a swirling vortex of teal sludge. It was thick, viscous, and bubbling with a foul-smelling gas. This was the source. This was where the 'artisanal sewage' was born.

"I need a shot of this," Tiff said. She stepped toward the edge of the pit, her gimbal held high. "This is the 'money shot.' This is what kills his brand."

"Tiff, get back from the edge," Grettin warned. "The floor is slick."

"I’ve got it, I’ve got—"

Her foot slipped. It was a small movement, a tiny loss of friction, but it was enough. She let out a short, sharp yelp as she tumbled forward. Grettin lunged for her, his hand catching the strap of her backpack, but the weight of her momentum pulled him down to one knee.

Tiff didn't fall into the center of the pit. She slammed into the concrete lip and slid into the shallow edge of the sludge. The teal liquid splashed up, coating her legs, her arms, and the side of her face. She scrambled back, her breath coming in ragged gasps, her eyes wide with terror.

"My phone," she sobbed. "It’s in there."

"Forget the phone," Grettin said, hauling her up by her arms. "We need to get that stuff off you. It’s caustic."

Tiff looked down at herself. The vibrant teal liquid was already beginning to irritate her skin. It didn't look like a 'pretty' disaster anymore. It looked like a chemical burn. Her 'aesthetic' was gone, replaced by the raw, ugly reality of environmental poisoning.

"It burns," she whispered. "Grettin, it really burns."

"Use your water bottle," he commanded. "Wash it off. Now."

He watched as she poured her expensive mineral water over her arms, the teal sludge stubborn and thick. She was shaking. The irony of the situation wasn't lost on him, but he didn't have time for a lecture. He looked at the pit. The sludge was rising.

"He’s increasing the flow," Grettin said. "He knows we’re here."

Suddenly, the lights in the chamber turned a harsh, clinical white. A voice boomed over the speakers, no longer neutral, but sharp and aggressive.

"You’re trespassing on a critical infrastructure site," Brinte said. "Your presence has caused a thermal imbalance in the cooling loop. For your own safety, you must remain where you are until security arrives."

"The imbalance was here before we arrived, Jeff!" Grettin shouted at the ceiling. "You’re red-lining your servers and you’re dumping the heat into the town!"

"I am saving the world, Inspector!" Brinte’s voice was distorted by the speakers. "A few dead fish and a dry well are a small price to pay for the future of decentralized finance. You’re a relic. You’re a man who still carries a physical key. You don't get to tell the future how to breathe."

"The future is going to be very thirsty," Grettin said. He looked at Tiff. She had managed to wash most of the sludge from her face, but her eyes were red and streaming. "Can you walk?"

"I think so," she said, her voice trembling. "But my phone... all the footage... it’s gone."

"No, it’s not," Grettin said. He pointed to the drone, which was still hovering near the ceiling. Tiff had left it in 'auto-follow' mode. Its camera was still rolling, and its internal storage was syncing to the cloud via the bunker’s own high-speed Wi-Fi.

"The drone is still live?" Tiff asked, a spark of her old self returning.

"It’s live. And it’s seeing everything. Now, let’s get out of here before he decides to lock the vents."

They ran. They didn't go back the way they came. Grettin knew the mine’s layout better than Brinte did. He knew that the pump room had an emergency overflow pipe that led directly to the old tailing pond on the far side of the hill. It was a tight squeeze, and it was filled with the smell of the 'cologne' sewage, but it was the only way out.

They crawled through the pipe, the heat pressing in on them, the sound of Brinte’s security teams echoing in the tunnels behind them. When they finally emerged into the open air, the sun was setting, casting a long, blood-red glow over the forest.

Grettin sat on a rock, his lungs burning. Tiff collapsed onto the grass beside him, her ruined clothes a testament to the day’s work. She looked at the drone as it landed softly on the grass.

"Did we get it?" she asked.

"We got enough," Grettin said. He pulled a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket. It was a copy of the original 1906 land deed for the Gilded Shaft. "And I found what I was looking for. Brinte’s deed is for 'mineral extraction and processing' only. There is no provision for residential use or data storage. He’s been living and working here illegally for five years."

"So we can shut him down?"

"We’re going to do more than that," Grettin said, a cold smile crossing his face. "We’re going to give him a taste of his own medicine."

Mining Law 1906

The town of Red Lake did not move quickly, but when it did, it moved with the weight of a century of hard labor. Grettin didn't go to the mayor. He went to the fire department. He went to the old miners who still lived in the clapboard houses near the lake. He showed them Tiff’s drone footage—the boiling teal pit, the scorched grass, the dead fish. He showed them the pressure gauges on the aquifer pumps.

By midnight, the town was awake.

"He’s stealing our water?" one man asked, his face lined with coal dust and years of resentment. "To make fake money?"

"And he’s giving us his trash in return," Grettin said. "The law says this land is for the people of Red Lake. Brinte is a squatter with a billion dollars."

They didn't wait for a court order. They didn't wait for the province to send a representative. They gathered every water truck, every garden hose, and every industrial pump in the county. They drove up the hill in a convoy of rusted metal and determination.

When they reached the gates of the Gilded Shaft, Brinte’s security drones buzzed overhead, but they didn't fire. They weren't programmed to attack a mob of three hundred angry locals.

"Open the gate, Jeff!" Grettin shouted into the intercom. "Or we’re going to open it for you!"

There was no answer. The gates remained shut.

"Fine," Grettin said. He signaled to the lead water truck. "Aim for the intake vents. If he likes the teal water so much, let’s see how his servers like it."

They had spent the last three hours pumping the sludge from the edge of the lake into the trucks. It was a disgusting, dangerous job, but nobody complained. They aimed the high-pressure nozzles at the massive air intake vents on the side of the hill.

"Fire!" Grettin commanded.

A torrent of vibrant teal sludge erupted from the hoses, slamming into the mesh grates of the intake system. The sound was a wet, heavy thud. The fans, designed to suck in cool forest air, began to pull the thick, chemical-laden liquid deep into the heart of the bunker.

Inside, the alarms began to wail. Grettin could hear them from the gate.

"He’s going to overheat," Tiff said, her eyes fixed on her tablet. She was streaming the whole thing live. Her numbers were skyrocketing. She wasn't just 'disaster-core' anymore. She was the revolution. "The server temperatures are spiking. The cooling loop is failing. He’s losing the farm."

Ten minutes later, the matte black gates slid open.

Jeff Brinte emerged from the pavilion. He wasn't wearing his linen suit anymore. He was wearing a t-shirt and shorts, his face pale and covered in sweat. He looked small. He looked like a man whose world had just crashed.

"Stop!" he screamed, his voice cracking in the heat. "You’re destroying billions of dollars of infrastructure! You’re committing a federal crime!"

"I’m enforcing the Mining Act of 1906," Grettin said, stepping forward. "The air intake was not properly maintained, leading to an accidental ingestion of local environmental matter. It’s a safety violation, Jeff. I’m shutting you down for the protection of the public."

Brinte looked at the crowd. He looked at the hoses, still pumping the teal sludge into his sanctuary. He looked at Tiff, who was holding her camera inches from his face.

"You’re ruined," he whispered. "The legal fees alone will destroy this town."

"We’ve got the footage, Jeff," Tiff said. "And we’ve got your server logs. People don't like 'carbon-negative' crypto that kills the water supply. Your stock is tanking as we speak. Ratioed, deadass."

Brinte slumped against the concrete wall. The heat of the night was forty degrees, and without his cooling system, the bunker was becoming an oven. He was forced to watch as the townspeople dismantled his perimeter fence, reclaiming the land that had never been his to begin with.

The lake remained teal for three weeks. It took a team of specialists from the university to find a way to neutralize the chemical reaction. But the water eventually cleared. The sandalwood smell faded, replaced by the scent of pine and wet earth.

Grettin and Tiff sat on the porch of the local tavern, a single lightbulb flickering above them. The air was still hot, but the humidity had broken. They each had a bottle of local beer, the glass frosted with condensation.

"You're going to be rich," Grettin said, nodding toward her phone.

"The settlement is going to be massive," Tiff said. "But I’m not keeping it. We’re building a new water treatment plant. And a park. A park with no high-end sculptures and no drones."

"You're still going to film it?"

"Maybe. But I think I’m done with the 'disaster-core' vibe. It’s too messy in real life."

Grettin took a sip of his beer. His knee didn't hurt as much as it used to. He looked out at the lake, which was finally reflecting the stars again.

"It’s a good start," he said.

"Wait," Tiff said, her phone buzzing. She looked at the screen, her expression turning cold. "Grettin, look at this."

She handed him the phone. It was a news alert from a satellite feed.

"What is it?"

"Brinte’s company just filed for bankruptcy," she said. "But he didn't sell the server hardware. He moved it. All of it. To a new 'Boreal Sanctuary' fifty miles north, in the middle of a provincial park."

Grettin looked at the map on the screen. There was a new teal plume forming on a different lake, deep in the wilderness where there were no roads and no townspeople with hoses.

He set his beer down and stood up. He reached for his truck keys.