Water-table in Perdition Contaminated by Mining Operations. Hanover industries maintains that the contamination is naturally occurring and much more limited than environmentalists allege.

HatCats are Hep! HatCats are becoming fashionable in Haven, despite being too warm for the climate. A HatCat is a genetically engineered catlike animal that clings to the owners head and purrs in a friendly way.

Jenny determines that despite her amazing ability to control network lag as a communication channel, it will never work because no one has a corresponding ability to listen!

On 150.101, "George" calls for Whitney. He's obviously another one of those simulations, and quickly admits to calling from the lava tubes under the bay! Jenny and Pilot find that there is a strangely organic cable tapping into their satellite uplink station and thence into the local network. The aborigines have even grabbed a set of local addresses. Jenny goes into full freaking out mode.

Meanwhile, Whitney discusses things with the aborigines. They say that since Buckman charters knows so much, they feel they should tell more and have a different relationship, in which the more knowledgeable Buckman Charters team does more direct work for them. Also, they repeatedly warn Whitney that no one may tell outsiders about the aborigines. They admit to modifying Whitney and the villages for greater pheremonal/empathic links with the environment. They hope to make the natives both more linked to the environment and stronger, so that native humans can drive out other humans who will ruin Poseidon's environment. Whitney tells them that their modifications to the village have gone wrong, and they talk about feedback and human emotions. They promise to create and antidote that will undo the modifications and deliver it to Whitney in a few weeks.

Also that day, Samo contracts with Jenny to break into twenty computer systems for 20K. The systems range from trivial to extremely challenging. Samo will pay for partial completion, but not if Jenny gets caught.

By 154.101 Jenny has the first ten easy systems done, and the team receives a distress call. The GenDiver ore processing platform off Santa Elena needs evacuation! They get promised 1000 in GenDiver scrip per evacuation trip. Did we mention there is a minor hurricane in progress at the site?

When the team gets there, they discover that most personnel have already been evacuated - they will be moving equipment, mostly. The platform is being battered by great whites, who are inexplicably attacking the support pylons. There are seven or more of the normally solitary giants at work on the platform, and the engineers think it will only last a couple of days. The team completes one trip easily despite the rough weather, but as they are loading for the second terrorists start shooting surface to air missiles at departing planes and the platform.

Pilot tries twice to skim the plan over the deck so as to avoid being shot by a missile while departing, but clips things on the platform both times, the second time ruining one of the plane's two engines. Finally he is forced to pop straight up with the remaining engine, a tricky maneuver normally and almost impossible in a hurricane. The plane is hit by a missile, but luckily in the damaged engine rather than the good one. Pilot is able to get the plane five kilometers to land near Santa Elena, but no further. Luckily no more missiles are wasted on the damaged plane either.

The next day the weather breaks and Pilot is able to get the plane to Santa Elena proper. Repairs cost 16K in GenDiver credits and take five days of Jenny working with Pilot and Whitney assisting. (Dive and Regina were lucky enough to miss this trip.) During that time, Whitney visits the platform but decides not to get too close as the whites are still battering it. Later on it actually collapses.

Pilot realizes that the missiles that were being shot at the plane might actually have been the same missiles that Buckman Charters delivered to the Northwest Territories a few months prior.