Free Depth by Lev AC Rosen Page A

attempt to recreate the original building’s shape, but which had ended up becoming a rusted shadow of its former glory, forever crusting over with moss and barnacles no matter how often it was cleaned.
    But the mainland hadn’t shown much interest in the museums before Dustin Meers. Caroline theorized at the time that their interest developed because the world had stabilized and people had become used to living on the water. The decades since the flood had been all about learning to live again, about making technology that worked in the wet and salt, and the world had done that. Now, the mainland wanted to get back to restoring America’s glory, and that apparently meant art. And New York was where they’d kept the good stuff. So they dispatched Meers to find some of that good stuff from the flooded city, buy it, and send it home where it would be appreciated by “true” American citizens.
    Simone had gotten the call from Caroline minutes after Meers had left the mayor’s office the first time. She didn’t trust him, she told Simone, and since she knew Simone and trusted her, hiring her to find out if Meers was on the level seemed like a good investment. It wasn’t that Caroline doubted he was official; she’d seen the paperwork and gotten messages and calls confirming he was there for what he said he was there for. But Caroline had good instincts, and she didn’t like him.
    It had been a fairly long case. Simone had gotten herself hired as part of Meers’ small staff, working as a secretary to one of his “scouts”—the three people he’d hired to find art and confirm it was pre-flood. It wasn’t as close as she would have liked, but it gave her access to the small office he’d set up. Once everyone had gone home, she’d call Caroline over, and together they’d dig through files. Caroline had insisted on being part of the investigation, which Simone hadn’t minded. She understood the bureaucracy in the papers better than Simone did. But for the first month, they found nothing incriminating. True, Meers hadn’t bought any art to send back to the mainland yet, but he hadn’t been stealing art, or embezzling, either. He just didn’t seem to be very good at his job.
    “Okay,” Simone said. “So a month and a half in, he bought his first painting, something the Guggenheim had but wasn’t displaying. And he sent out a press release showing how the mainland was taking back lost treasures and what a boon it was for Boro-Baptism and everything.”
    “I remember. He used the phrase ‘momentous undertaking’ six times on one page.”
    “But the shipping crate that he sent back to the mainland was ten times larger than the piece itself. I filled out the manifest.”
    “Well, sure, it needed to be packed.”
    “Not that much. Even with all the packaging and foam and whatever, it was too big and too heavy.”
    “That’s how you knew he was smuggling. I get that.”
    “That and the amount of porn on his touchdesk.”
    Caroline barked a laugh. “What did that have to do with anything? I mean, it was funny. What was that one site he loved . . . GMILFs and their Doggy Boys?”
    “GrandmasNaughtyDogTraining.com,” Simone said, laughing with Caroline and remembering their mutual horror and amusement at finding the site on Meers’ touchdesk.
    “It was disgusting,” Caroline said, the laughter dying down. “But what did that have to do with the smuggling?”
    “It was a specific fetish. People with fetishes that specific often seek out others with similar fetishes—especially on the mainland, where all pornography is strictly illegal. If you want to find something, you have to find the person who has it. That, combined with the budget for ink that the foundation was running up . . .”
    “He was printing out Internet porn and shipping it back home to friends on the mainland?” Caroline asked. “I thought he was smuggling other art, or maybe documents he’d compiled on the mayor.”
    “No,”