Watermind

 

Praise for
Watermind

 

“An exciting novel of technological and scientific detection and combat, in the course of which Buckner brings to life the diked, leveed, dammed machinery with which technological intervention has tamed the Mississippi, or at least tried to.”

—
Asimov's Science Fiction

 

“A bold idea. Well-drawn characters. A gripping tale. M. M. Buckner's
Watermind
is a first-class novel.”

—Ben Bova, author of
The Aftermath

 

“An understatedly eco-conscious novel, based on a cool concept . . .
Watermind
's ending is in the same category as the ending of H. G. Wells's
The War of the Worlds
.”

—
Sci Fi Weekly

 

“The action comes crisp and smart in this fast-moving novel, rich in ideas. I liked it a lot.”

—Gregory Benford, author of
Beyond Human

 

“A fast-paced, amusing thriller that affords a clever look at the implications of what casual disregard for trash might leave lying around.”

—
Booklist

 

“Part techno-thriller, part speculative science, and all quality.” —Mike Resnick, author of
Starship: Mercenary

 

“Part B-movie horror, part Philip K. Dick dystopian adventure, this SF adventure/suspense by the author of the award-winning
War Surf
belongs in larger SF collections.”

—
Library Journal

“Suspense and nonstop action.”

—
Publishers Weekly

 

“What lurks in that polluted little creek you pass every day? In
Watermind
, Buckner takes a cold, scary look at what might be brewing in that toxic spew of pollution we pay so little attention to. Her characters are vivid and engaging, and her story rips along like a river in flood. Here's a riveting look at the fruits of our pollution that charges along like a nonstop car chase.”

—Mary Rosenblum, author of
Horizons

 

 

 

 

 

M. M. BUCKNER

 

 

 

 

 

A TOM DOHERTY ASSOCIATES BOOK
NEW YORK

 

 

 

 

 

NOTE: If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

 

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

 

WATERMIND

 

Copyright © 2008 by M. M. Buckner

 

All rights reserved.

 

A Tor Book

Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC

175 Fifth Avenue

New York, NY 10010

 

www.tor-forge.com

 

Tor
^®
is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.

 

ISBN 978-0-7653-5990-2

 

First Edition: November 2008

First Mass Market Edition: August 2009

 

Printed in the United States of America

 

0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

 

 

 

 

 

For Jack, always

 

and

 

For Bonnie and Larry

 

 

 

 

 

In researching the unusual events described in this book, I have drawn on numerous books, articles, websites, and eyewitness accounts. However, most names in this story, some dates, and a few locations have been changed to protect individual privacy.

 

Loving thanks go to my spouse and soul mate, Jack Lyle, for constantly believing in me. I also owe tremendous gratitude to many friends and colleagues whose patient advice and kind support made this book possible. In alpha order, some of these many friends include: Mary Helen Clarke, Lionel Currier, Joe DeGross, Mary Bess Dunn, Susan Eady, Steve Edwards, Joel Hinman, Skip Jacobs, Rob Karwedsky, Jan Keeling, Cindy Kershner, Thomas Longo, Bonnie Parker, Nathan Parker, Wil Parker, Martha Rider, Robert J. Sawyer, Bobbie Scull, Jason Sizemore, Carole Stice, and Ava Weiner.

 

Earnest thanks go to my editor, David G. Hartwell, for his keen insights and guidance. And deepest appreciation goes to my agent, Richard Curtis, whose wisdom and unflagging confidence in this project have kept me buoyant through crashing waves.

 

 

 

 

 

He maketh the deep to boil like a pot;
he maketh the sea like a seething mixture.

 

—Job 41:31

 

 

 

 

 

watermind

 

 

 

 

 

As the twenty-first century dawned over western Canada, three grad students saw their weather experiment ruined when their expensive “mote” computers washed away in a storm. The students were devastated. Their elegant motes! Each tiny device represented an epiphany of microengineering—with waterproof sensors, memory, processors, and radio transceiver—a complete weather station no larger than a diamond chip.

Linked in a wireless network and powered by a mere fractional watt of sunlight, the 144 miniscule units could have lasted a hundred years, parsing climate data in Alberta's old-growth forest. Instead, the costly pinheads washed out of the trees, sluiced over the mossy ground, dribbled into the rain-swollen Milk River, and dashed away South.

For miles, they swam in sync through lambent Canadian waters, then whooshed over the U.S. border in a tight little pack. After surging into the jade-green Missouri, they recirculated for nine weeks at the confluence of the Yellowstone, accosted by fertilizer, engine oil, and genetically modified wheat germ. Eventually, 139 washed free and siphoned through the intake of the Garrison Hydroelectric Plant, where they blasted down a power tunnel, whirled manically through a turbine, then drooled out to the tailwaters below. Their circuits crackled with new information.

For a month, they quizzed a crate of tractor diagnostic chips dumped in Lake Oahe. Near Sioux City, they passed a landfill spewing rotted fragments of eggshells, coffee grounds, old desktop computers, and human estrogen. One full week, they rumbled with a broken Game Boy. From there, the Missouri cut straight and deep through the heartland, till they plunged into the rust-red Mississippi, the fifth largest river in the world.

The Father of Waters bedazzled them. Within its fluent grip streamed nearly 400,000 tons of refuse from half the continental U.S. and part of Canada. The motes waltzed along with pacemakers, depth-finders, baby monitors, and electronic car keys. They relayed signals from lost hearing aids and sunken memory cards. GPS channel buoys lent them guidance. As they snapped up data, their shared memory burgeoned.

South of St. Louis, three motes got trapped in a plastic grocery bag, but the survivors whisked onward, quizzing sputum, jism, and Pentium chips. Where the Ohio River boiled in, they conferred with a roaming cell phone, tossed by its desolate owner from a bridge in Ithaca, New York. The Arkansas brought them methamphetamine and strontium-90.

Yet despite their speed and curiosity, their willingness to seek out strange new worlds, only one mote made it all the way to the Gulf of Mexico—where, cut off from its network, it quickly overloaded and fried. As for the remaining 117 pinheads, the river marooned them at Baton Rouge.

Almost one year from the day their journey began in Canada, less than two hundred river miles from the sea, the motes landed in a foul riverside marsh of petrochemicals, burned-out cars, trashed appliances, and mud. Within this addled broth, frogs grew humps and appendages, bacteria colonized battery cells, and active chips migrated from their motherboards to populate clouds of algae. The water stirred with signals and ring tones. And the motes formed new bonds.

The place was called Devil's Swamp.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wednesday, March 9

10:55
AM

 

“Ooh. Sexy rhythm.” CJ Reilly stood knee-deep in orange mud, gyrating her slender hips to the music pulsing through her iPod. “You wrote this song?”

“Eh oui.”
Max Pottevents slapped a mosquito and shifted his shovel to his other hand.

“Tell me everything about zydeco,” she said, twirling and swinging her bucket.

Around them, the broiling marsh stank of dead fish, and black rainbows marbled the oil-slick pools. Chemical waste sizzled among the reeds. Flush against the river, Devil's Swamp foamed like a wet sponge.

Max squinted through his goggles at a distant field where their coworkers were cleaning up a spill of hazardous toluene. “Zydeco? It come from
la musique Creole.
Little bit French, Spanish, African. Throw in some hip-hop, reggae. Pinch of blues. Zydeco mix up like gumbo.”

As they pushed deeper into the swamp, the ground heaved and sucked beneath their feet, and the insides of their coveralls dripped with sweat. Both of them wore heavy hip boots, goggles, and gloves, and both—for separate reasons—were finding the conversation difficult.

CJ turned up her iPod. “I hear accordions, right? What else?”

“Eh la. Accordión.” Max suspected his pretty coworker was patronizing him. “Guitar, bass, drum. I play
frottior
. That the corrugated rubboard. Make the sweet sound.”

CJ liked his accent, almost French but not quite. He wore a red bandana tied over his curly black hair like a pirate. He called it a
paryaka.