The Geologist’s Report
The earth keeps its own kind of record.
Science || Evidence || Earth || Proof
Dr. Piet Saro spent three weeks with ground-penetrating radar and bore-core samples before producing a ninety-page report that confirmed everything Vane’s schematic had suggested and added something it had not proven: the flooding of the Canal District had demonstrably altered the water pressure on the crystalline formation below the hill. The floodwater, channeled through the artificial tunnel network, had been used to apply hydrostatic pressure to the formation at specific points, increasing its electromagnetic output by an estimated forty percent above natural baseline. They had not merely been protecting the chamber. They had been optimizing it. The eleven-year flood had been an eleven-year enhancement — a deliberate modification of a geological system to increase its commercial value at the direct expense of the twenty thousand people living above it. The enhancement had been worth, by the commission’s financial estimate, an additional two hundred million euros in enhanced field output sold to clients over eleven years. Two hundred million euros. Twenty thousand displaced people. The arithmetic was not complicated. It was simply monstrous, stated plainly in two numbers, and Mara sat with those two numbers for a long time before turning to the next page.