Free Zodiac by Neal Stephenson Page A

guy in the moon suit nor the diver ever showed his face, so they didn’t know which one was Sangamon Taylor. This samplingwasn’t just for show, or so they thought. All of this shit was going to be analyzed, and embarrassing facts were going to be, shall we say, splattered across the newspapers.
    That had started the day before, with an article in the sports section by well-respected journalist/sportsman, Red Grooten, who detailed, with surprising sophistication, the effects of this swamp’s toxins on sports fishing. Next to it had been a shocking picture of a dead flounder. GEE authorities were quoted as speculating that this entire estuary might have to be closed to fishing.
    In half an hour, the
Blowfish
would pull into view, and earnest GEE employees would begin examining the riverbanks downstream for signs of toxicity. If they were lucky they’d find a two-headed duck. Even if they found nothing, the fact that they went looking would be reported.
    Tom and I were converging, slowly and quietly, on the real objective.

7
    Much of New Jersey’s coast is protected from the ocean by a long skinny barrier beach that runs a mile or two offshore. In some places it joins to the mainland, in some it’s wide and solid, and in other places (off Blue Kills, for example) it peters out into islands or sandbars.
    â€œKill” is Dutch for “creek.” What we have here is a short, fat river that spreads out into a network of distributaries and marshes when it reaches the sea. The kills are braided together along an estuary that’s supposed to be a wildlife refuge.
    The estuary was north of us. The town of Blue Kills and the little principality of Blue Kills Beach were built on higher and dryer ground on its south side. The whole area was semiprotected from the Atlantic by a dribble of isles and sandbars. We were out on the toxic lagoon enclosed behind them.
    I’d been studying my LANDSAT infrared photos so I knew where to find a shrub- and tree-covered island pretty close to our target, about a mile off Blue Kills Beach. We beached the Zodiac among the usual clutter left behind by teen beer-chugging expeditions. Tom checked his gear and climbed into the Darth Vader Suit.
    Normally divers wear wet suits, which are thick and porous. Water gets through them, the body warms the water up, they insulate you. But you wouldn’t be caught dead wearing something like that when you are screwing around with toxic waste. So the Darth Vader Suit was built around a drysuit, which is waterproof. I’d addeda facemask made from diving goggles, old inner tubes, a patching kit, and something called Tennis Shoe Repair Goo. When you wrestled it down over your face, the scuba mouthpiece fit into the proper orifice and there was kind of a one-way valve over your nose so you could breathe out. When it was put on correctly, it would protect you from what you were swimming through, at least for a little while.
    Tom didn’t like drysuits but he wasn’t arguing. Before he put it on, we protected the parts of his skin that would be uncomfortably close to leaks or seams in the Darth Vader Suit. There’s a silicone sealant that’s made for this kind of thing—Liquid Skin. Smear it on and you’re semiprotected. The suit goes on over that. We equipped him with a measuring tape, a scuba notepad, and an underwater 8-mm video camera.
    â€œJust one thing. What’s coming out of this sucker?”
    â€œAmazing things. They’re making dyes and pigments back in there. So you have your solvents. You have your metals. And lots of weird, weird phthalates and hydrazines.”
    â€œMeaning what?”
    â€œDon’t drink it. And when you’re done, take a nice swim out here, where the water’s cleaner.”
    â€œThis kind of shit always bugs me.”
    â€œLook at it this way. A lot of toxins are absorbed through the lungs. But you’ve got a clean air supply in those tanks. A