Sink: The Lost World Read Free

“It’s only the biggest, most important presentation of your life. What’s to worry about?”
    “Thanks,” Zoe said. “I’d almost forgotten about it. What would I do without you to remind me of these things?”
    Zoe closed her eyes and tried to pick up her presentation where she had left off, only she couldn’t remember. She glared at Gavin, who was too busy admiring Rosetta’s profile to notice. It was the most important meeting in Environment Solutions’ recent history. She had met with Bryan Angelo nine months earlier to provide analyzes of various worksites across the state. Angelo Industries wanted to build a drilling site using modern equipment. Fracking was a relatively new process of drilling. The system was often cited in the newspapers for causing earthquakes, sinkholes and landslides. It was Zoe’s job to ascertain whether these were genuine concerns on the sites Angelo Industries was interested in using. Zoe was chosen because she had made a name for herself as among the first to allay public concerns over genetically modified food. Although it would take time for the truth to trickle down to the public, opinions were already beginning to change.
    Her argument to the FDA went like this: “We’ve been modifying plants and animals for our own benefit for thousands of years. The only difference is now we’re better able to harness technology and do it in a more effective, safe, and cost-effective way.”
    Zoe had gained a reputation as honest, vocal and hardworking. Now society had a problem with fracking. It was a relatively new industry, with plenty of room for growth, at least that was what Bryan Angelo was counting on.
    The elevator hummed as they ascended at an unconscionable speed, their ears popping like they were in a rising airplane. At each floor they stopped at they saw the title of a new division of Angelo Industries: Advanced Robotics , Aerospace, Electronics, etc .
    They got off at Resource Management . This was the division Angelo had started his company with almost twenty-five years earlier, the division that was closest to his heart and still provided him with the most profit. How Bryan began his company was the stuff of legend in business circles.
    The story went that a local farmer discovered a large oil well under his land, but refused to let anyone drill and destroy the view out of his bedroom window. Many companies had come to him, requesting permission to drill in his back yard, often making outrageous offers, but the farmer had flat-out refused. He did not need the money, he said, and preferred to keep the beautiful view out of his bedroom untainted with pumps. The oil companies moved on, concluding the old man had a screw loose. More than one company made a note in its files to pursue the farmer’s children once the old man was out of the picture.
    But Bryan Angelo had another approach. At the age of eighteen, Angelo went to see the farmer with a plan of how to build a pump without spoiling the view. The farmer carefully looked over the young man’s designs and asked him if it would really work.
    “There’s only one way to find out,” Bryan had said. “But I give you my word the structure will never breach the height of the sycamore trees on your land.”
    The farmer took to Bryan immediately. He’d worked in the farmer’s fields before, during the summer months, picking fruit and vegetables to pay for his college education. As a rule, the farmer did not work with those he did not know, a benefit Bryan exploited to his benefit. Bryan began building the very next day, with a skeleton crew handpicked from his group of friends.
    There were some issues. The reason pumps are so tall and ungainly is because they require the movement to generate enough pressure to pull the oil up from deep within the earth. But Bryan had come up with a complicated combination of wheels and pulleys that had the same effect, but required less vertical space to do it. It looked like something