Excerpt: Paleomancer

The phrase "cognitive dissonance" flashed through Niko's mind as he stood in front of the full-length mirror on the back of his bathroom door. My god, he thought as he examined the clothes he had reluctantly put on, I'm wearing a government uniform. That simple fact still amazed him every time he looked in the mirror. The pants and shirt were two different shades of brown, and his new boots, which were in a style that he didn't like, still squeaked when he walked in them. His name had been too long to fit on the patch that was supposed to go over the shirt pocket. Evidently, the Bureau hadn't anticipated having employees with names such as "Nikolaus Paakkolanvaara". They had given him a cheap plastic pin-on tag instead, and the letters on the tag were so small as to be almost unreadable. A patch on his left shoulder had "PA Bureau of Remining" around the edge, and their logo in the middle; it featured an abstract human figure doing something inexplicable with several black dots that presumably represented chunks of coal. Niko found none of it surprising. At least he'd be spending most of his time in the field rather than behind a desk. His new beat was Somerset County, PA: coal country.

Weary of urban life, he had found a house to rent on the outskirts of Meyersdale. The property had a lot more space than he needed, but he was willing to pay extra in order to regain the level of privacy that he found comfortable. The population of Meyersdale had been slowly dwindling as the mines closed; it was exactly the sort of place that Governor Hanson wanted to bring back to life.

On weekends he went biking on the Allegheny Highlands Trail. Part of it passed through an old railroad cut which had exposed layers of sandstone, limestone, and coal. A seven-mile stretch of the trail was used as an outdoor classroom, where students were able to learn about geological formations first-hand and collect small fossils that fell right out of the cliff. He had spent much of his childhood in such places, and he always returned home with his pockets full of rocks.

Niko's new job involved locating abandoned mines and determining which ones would be good candidates for reworking and reclamation. He spent hours poring over old maps from the U.S. Geological Survey and the National Mine Map Repository. Many of the old mines were difficult to get to, but it didn't matter to him as long as he was beating up the Bureau's vehicles rather than his own. He also took water samples near the sites he inspected. Contamination from mine runoff could be troublesome and expensive to eliminate, and mining companies wanted to know what they would be getting into.

All Bureau employees were expressly forbidden to go into the mines, and most of the entrances had been blocked up anyway. Not that Niko would have been afraid to go in, if he had been required to do so -- his latent death-wish made him immune to such fears. He would have strolled into the most dangerous mine in the world and sat cross-legged on the floor, playing his flute and daring the mountain to come down on him.

As he finished dressing, his mind wandered away again. It was one of those days when he felt like a cosmic abortion, and he tried to figure out who had wielded the coat hanger.

With his dual citizenship, he could have returned to the clinic in Helsinki, but he refused to give his dad the satisfaction of pinning one more supposed failure on his eldest son. His dad had always taken all the credit for his brilliant boy's achievements while putting all the blame for Niko's shortcomings squarely on Niko himself. It had been that way ever since he could remember.

Niko had dutifully paid a visit to his parents before he had gone to stay at his brother's house. As he had expected, the first thing his dad had said was, "I suppose you need money." Niko had quickly pointed out that he had his unemployment checks and savings to live on until he found a job. His dad had then informed him that he couldn't have lost a job in California if he had stayed at his post in Helsinki. Niko had gritted his teeth but remained silent through the lecture. He suffered through a tense family dinner, and when the ordeal was over, he used his brother as an excuse to leave; he would rather sleep in his car than stay under his dad's roof for even one night.

The old man was such a bastard . . .

With a shake of his head, Niko brought himself back to the present, and he frowned as he began to comb what was left of his hair. Bureau regulations had forced him to get it cut. He felt more naked without his long hair than he did with no clothes on. Even women had been envious of his red mane, and now it was gone.

He pulled his regulation boots on, climbed into his regulation truck, and took off for his next assignment: an abandoned mine that was labeled "Cummins #4" on his map.

Tom Cummins and his crew had been so bold, or so insane, that their deeds lived on in local folklore. They had removed coal from the most improbable places while using the most unorthodox methods, and somehow they had managed not to get killed while they were doing it. Niko had heard some of the stories, and he was intrigued by the combination of engineering, acrobatics, and sheer brass balls that Cummins and his boys had demonstrated time and time again.

His respect for the legendary miners increased when he tried to get to one of their mines. He crept along back roads in low gear while trying not to get lost. Some of the "roads" were no more than overgrown tracks that weren't on any map. Several times, he needed to use a chain saw to clear fallen trees from his path. The trail he was following eventually led to a ravine. A wooden trestle, which may have been built by Cummins and his gang of daredevils, spanned the gap. There was no way the decrepit wooden structure would support the weight of his truck, so he parked the vehicle and walked across. There was a flat area on the other side of the trestle where the miners had blasted away part of the hillside so they would have room to maneuver their carts. A steep, rubble-strewn trail led up from the landing to the mine's entrance. This is a suicidal place to try to put a mine, he thought as he turned in a complete circle while surveying the whole scene.

The slope was fairly steep, with loose rock and fallen trees strewn all the way down to the stream at the bottom of the valley. The crew had constructed a sturdy barrier around the entrance to protect it from rockfalls. Time and weather had brought the barricade down, and the tunnel was mostly blocked by debris. Niko reckoned that the edge of the coal seam had been visible when the miners first arrived, which was probably why they had been willing to risk life and limb to get to it.

According to the information that Niko had obtained from the USGS, there was another and much thicker coal seam below the one that had been mined out. The second seam was buried so deeply that even Tom Cummins might have had second thoughts about trying to mine it, if he had even known that it was there. It wasn't too deep for modern equipment to reach, however, and the deposit appeared to be substantial enough to be worth the trouble it would take to extract it -- especially since mounting geopolitical concerns had caused an increased demand for domestic sources of energy.

Niko did a thorough inspection of the area around the mine, making notes and taking pictures. Then he followed a deer path down the hill to the stream. The water was thick with several types of algae, which was a bad sign near a mine; it usually meant that the water was contaminated by drainage from the mine. He took a dozen samples of water and put them in his knapsack to take back to the truck. The Bureau had given him a decent water-testing kit, and he was able to do a fairly accurate assessment of the samples right on site.

He returned to the truck, took the testing kit out of its case, and began to check the water samples for some of the most common contaminants: lead, iron, aluminum, arsenic, sodium, potassium, and several others. When he had double-checked his results and made more notes, he put the kit away and took his lunch out of a cooler. During the last several weeks his diet had deteriorated, and today's fare consisted of a turkey-and-swiss sandwich, a bag of corn chips, and two cans of Mountain Dew. He had become hooked on caffeine and sugar and had developed a formidable tolerance for large amounts of them.

When his official duties were done for the day, he did a bit of exploring, poking through the rubble that littered the slope to see what he could find. The most recent landslide had brought small chunks of coal down from the cliff above the mine. He shaded his eyes with his hand and squinted up at the face of the cliff, where there was a thin and barely-visible black streak. Apparently, there was a third coal seam within the mountain. After scribbling a note on the pad he kept in his pocket, he picked up some of the pieces of coal to see if they contained any fossils. His attention sharpened when he found a bone embedded in one of the chunks. Further down the slope, he found several more bones scattered among the debris. After carefully placing the bones in a pile on the landing, he did a more careful search, moving slowly back and forth as he worked his way down toward the stream. Then he continued the pattern along one side of the mine entrance.

By he time he was done, he had collected enough bones to fill his knapsack. The larger ones had been clustered near the entrance; apparently, they were heavy enough to have stayed right where they had fallen, while most of the smaller ones had been washed down the slope by heavy rains.

Niko was annoyed that he hadn't found a skull, or even fragments of one. It could be further up the hill or still hidden in the cliff. Heedless of the danger posed by the loose, treacherous footing, he began to pick through the debris on the steeper slope above the entrance.

It began to get dark, and Niko decided to sleep in the truck so he could continue his investigations in the morning. He would have stayed overnight at the mine anyway, because it would be impossible for him to find his way through the maze of back roads in the dark. In case of emergencies, he always traveled with a sleeping bag and extra food, and he even brought his flute along.

He carefully wrapped all of the bones in clean scraps of rag and placed them in a plastic bin. Then he retrieved his camping stove from behind the seat of the truck and heated a big can of beef stew for dinner.

As the stars came out, he wrapped himself in his sleeping bag and played his flute for the owls and coyotes who added their calls to his melodies. They made music together for a couple of hours, until Niko brought the concert to an end by dozing off.