Page 62 of Omega’s Fold

“Oh yeah, definitely. How is the project going?”

He waves a hand. “It’s going. The county zoning board’s hearing an objection in December. We’ll roll over them. We always do.”

“What’s the substance of the objection?”

“They usual. They don’t like the dewatering. They want more compensation. They’ve been after compensation since day one. Some of them took the first offer, some of them held out for a higher one, and now there’s a small group of holdouts who think if they make enough noise they can squeeze us for more.”

“Right.”

“Honestly, between us, I feel for them a little bit. It’s not a lot of money. But the thing is, it was never a lot of money, because it was never a lot of land. Have you driven that road? The valley between the highway and the ridge?”

“I have.”

“It’s just miles of dust, my man. It was never worth what they think it was worth. The mineral rights are zero. The ranching is marginal. Half of them are running cattle on land their grandfathers ran on at half the carrying capacity. We’re paying them above market. Above market. They know that and we know that. The ones still kicking up a fuss are the ones who think Linden has bottomless pockets and they can hold out for a bigger number.”

“Right.”

I don’t think that’s what’s happening, but I don’t say so.

“Well,” I say carefully, “Sounds like you’ve got it all in hand, one way or the other. Richard was asking me about it, and suddenly I was reminded of the place all over again.”

He chuckles. “Poor you. Pity we can’t excise trauma directly from our skulls. And living in that place is enough to give you serious PTSD.”

I’m reminded that Payley and I were never that close. He always was a bit of a dick.

I stand and we shake hands again. He claps me on the shoulder on the way past.

“Don’t be a stranger upstairs. I’ve been hearing about your parents’ Christmas drinks for nine years and I have not had an invitation yet, Duffield. That is a stain on our friendship.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

“You do that. Congratulations again.”

I walk back along the corridor. My office is at the far end. I close the door behind me.

I take the partnership letter out of my jacket pocket.

The yokels will always find something to complain about.

Wyatt is a weird guy. There’s that shyness that Donna told me about and he barely has a word to say for himself, but he does have genuine cause to complain. I also doubt he’s holding out for more money just for the sake of it.

But then what did I expect Brent to say? I know how these developments work. Yes, they build more much-needed houses. Yes, they bring in much-needed jobs, but they do come at a cost. That’s what the compensation is for. The company isn’t completely without empathy.

Still. I open my laptop. I navigate, slowly, into the project drive. I have not opened the project drive for years. The environmental impact assessment is in its own folder, separate from the rest.

There are two versions. There’s the one that the company has done, and then the one that it has shared publicly. There’s nothing wrong with that. All companies keep sensitive information back. Besides the full report is almost four hundred pages long.

I had skimmed it once at schematic stage, or I thought I had. I may have only read the executive summary.

And let’s be honest, I hadn’t understood half of it.

I open it now and start reading.

On page sixteen of the hydrogeology appendix, it says that the projected water drawdown is permanent. It extends across the entire south-east quadrant of the development radius for the operating window of the project, and the operating window of the project is forty years.

I am pretty sure that the published summary did not say that. I navigate to the published version and click on it.

The phone on the desk rings. I look at the display. The display has a Parish Ridge code. I look at the display for a full second before I pick up the receiver.