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Joe shook his head

“It’s an open-pit copper mine in Montana It flooded when thein fro rock Took years to fill up, but at last check the water was nine hundred feet deep and rising The e It’s so toxic that a flock of geese landed there a few years ago and never took off again, pro from exposure to the poisons”

“Interesting,” Joe said “But we’re not in Montana anymore, Toto”

“No, we’re not, Dorothy But as it turns out, here in Oz the Aussies have a few open-pit mines of their own The outback is full of them And some of them appear to be filled ater”

Joe nodded, he seeh to cause the bends?”

“Some are deeper than the Berkeley Pit”

“Maybe you’re onto so,” Joe said “But even if you are, why on earth would so in a poisoned lake?”

“Not sure,” Kurt said “But Bradshaw told uys were a threat to Australian national security And a flooded, toxic htto such conspirators”

“And those are?”

“For one thing,” Kurt said, “people stay away froas And for another, they’re hard to see through”

“You think they’re hiding so in the lake,” Joe said

“Hiding it very effectively from a world filled with satellites”

Joe nodded “Technically, it’s a world surrounded by satellites But I get your drift”

Kurt alenius I’”

After two hours on an es and cruising a secondary dirt road They hadn’t seen another soul for the last ninety minutes