A SUPERIOR STATE of AFFAIRS

It is January, 2017. The Copper Country, on the shores of Lake Superior, is socked in by the biggest blizzard of the century. Beneath a heavy blanket of snow, the simmering separatist movement in Michigan's Upper Peninsula (the U.P.) is coming to a boil. Ever since the United States merged with Canada and Central America and formed the new "North American Federation", the state government had given scant attention to the problems of its northern outpost. Digger Puttonen is a freelance geologist who grew up poking around the old copper mines. Possessed of an uncanny ability to "find" things, he and two other Michigan Tech graduate students formed a small partnership called the Midnight Mining Company and developed a radically new technology based on an enhanced understanding of the laws of physics.

George Frederick Sherman, a ruthless Chicago industrialist, gets wind of the tiny company through his computer people. He quickly sees how important it is, and decides that he must gain control of it before the government does, at any cost. The only flaw in his scheme seems to be a couple of his own employees, Steve Sanders and Eileen Donovan, a pair of computer geeks who have fallen in love with each other and seem to be just too damned smart for their own good. Kicked out of his own laboratory by Sherman's machinations, Digger Puttonen is trying to drown his sorrows in beer at a local tavern when he meets Arne Harjaala, an old-time miner down on his luck. Arne tells Digger an unbelievably tall tale of a mine disaster, yet Digger's sixth sense tell him the story is true, no matter how impossible it seems. Digger's quest to find out what happened to Arne leads in unexpected directions.

As a struggle for control of the new technology erupts explosively upon and below the pristine snowbound landscape, even hard-boiled government agents, political extremists, and corporate assassins find that; with the fate of the world at stake, sometimes the most potent weapon you can have is a clean heart.

Like one of the main characters in this book ,Tom Maringer graduated with a degree in Geology from Michigan Technological University and spent many days rockhounding and exploring the many abandoned mines in the Copper Country region of  Michigan's Upper Peninsula. He has pursued careers as a pizza cook, knifemaker, cartographer, coinmaker, and teacher.  His interests include solar energy, teaching natural science, geomorphology, sustainable living, exploring caves and mines, philately, numismatics and early coining technologies.  He currently resides in Northwest Arkansas with his wife of many years and their youngest daughter where he works part-time as a natural science field instructor for a 5^th grade program, and part-time as sole proprietor of Shire Post Mint, making fantasy coins. 

Digger reached a small alcove in the wall, a comfortable spot some two hundred meters north of the shaft. Beyond this they would have to go around a buttress, an irregularity in the footwall, and their lights would be easily visible to any who were trying to follow. Digger pulled Joan into the alcove, and made sure she had found a stable position, then he reached up and turned off her light, followed by his own. For a few moments the lovers caught their breath and let their eyes get used to the darkness, then they peered out and looked back towards the entrance. A pale gray gleam could dimly be seen drifting down from the shaft in the distance. The flickering beams of four flashlights punctuated the gloom, showing clearly in the thick moist air. They shone randomly about, then focused on the narrow part of the ledge.

A voice shouted out of the gloom, magnified and echoing eerily. "Hey, we just want to talk to you."

Digger whispered to Joan. "It's warm in here. We'd better take off our coats here, If we end up coming back out this way, we'll pick them up." They helped each other in the confined space of the alcove. Digger climbed up a few feet and jammed the coats into a crack in the rock, where the followers would be unlikely to find them.

The voice shouted again. "We know you're in here. Come on out and talk. I swear we won't hurt you."

He squatted down next to Joan. Every once in a while a light dimly flashed on a nearby point of rock. Digger cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted. "Go back! Go back or you will die here." Then he turned to Joan and spoke softly. "I'm hoping they'll give up. If not, we may have trouble. Just around this buttress the ledge ends, we have to go down to another ledge about ten meters lower. There's another rope there to help us, but we'll be exposed during part of that descent."

"Where are we going?" Joan asked.

"To the north and down, until we reach the water level." Digger answered. "This is the path I made to get to one of my datolite pockets. I come here sometimes to chisel out new pieces. The ledges were here, but I cleaned off the gravel and mud, and I put in the masonry bolts and the rope handhold for the tricky parts. Hopefully, with that rope behind us cut, it will prove a little trickier for them than it was for us."

The voice came again, echoing in the darkness. "We know you're in here. There's no way out. You may as well talk to us."

Digger peered around the corner. He spoke softly to Joan. "Two of them are on the rope." He held his breath, had he cut it through deeply enough? Suddenly he jumped up, switched on his light and yelled. "Hey there, what do you want to talk about?" The lead man crossing the roped section looked up, startled, one foot slipped. He put his weight on the rope and without warning it snapped. He toppled backward, holding the line, he buckled his knees to stay close to the wall, but slipped down the steep slope holding the line. When it came taut the line was too thin and wet to hold on. He slid with an agonized screech along it, until the bitter end slipped through his hands. He bounced once and sailed out into the open space, his flashlight spinning crazily, his scream cut off abruptly. The noise of his fall included not only the occasional thud of the body, but also the chattering of small stones that accompanied him. The echoes lasted nearly twenty seconds, and ended with a deep throaty sploosh as the body hit the water some two hundred meters below. Digger and Joan looked up to see the other man that had been on the rope, still struggling to hang on. This one had been closer to one of the anchor bolts when the line had snapped, and was able to hang on to the rope. He made it back to the ledge with some difficulty. Digger saw that their chance to move had come now that the three remaining men were obviously concerned with their own problems for the moment. Digger motioned to Joan to follow him. "Keep your light shining away from them at all times. If you turn back to look, turn the light off first okay?" She nodded.

He led the way, twenty more meters along the ledge out around a bulge. A thick knotted rope hung there, attached to two bolts set in the rock. Digger turned his lamp off for a moment, then looked back at the men still struggling to cope with the narrow ledge. They were trying to rethread and tie the safety rope as they went along. They had almost certainly discovered by now that the rope had been cut. "Now's our chance Joan. keep your head turned away and they may not see us. He grabbed the knotted rope, and putting his feet against the steep basalt wall, started walking backward using the knots on the rope as handholds and small irregularities in the rock for footholds. He quickly reached another ledge some ten meters below, motioned for Joan to follow, and switched off his lamp. She took the rope with some concern, but found the process to be not as difficult as she feared. Still, she was nearly to the lower ledge when someone yelled. "There they are!" A shot rang out, the sound reverberating ominously. Joan heard the bullet strike the rock a foot above her hand, and felt the sting of rock chips pelting her face. It took all of her willpower to stay focused on the difficult climbing and not panic into a mistake. The very last bit was vertical, down onto the wide ledge where Digger stood. Joan felt Diggers hands helping her as she reached it, then pressing her against the rock. They stood on a flat shelf about a meter wide. If they remained flat against the rock, the bulge above prevented them from being seen.

Digger spoke quietly. "Go on down this ledge until you reach the end of it, a couple hundred meters, I'll be right behind you." Joan moved slowly along the ledge, keeping her balance by using her right hand on the wall, and carefully placing her feet to guard against a slip. Digger reached up as high as he could with his knife and again cut the rope nearly all the way through, two knots above the bottom. That would make it very awkward for any followers to reach the ledge. He hurried along and found her waiting, holding a hanging rope. Five meters away the ledge continued, but the space between was smooth and void of hand or footholds, a trickling stream of water ran down through the middle of it. A rope hung down from above with a fixed loop in the end.

"Here's the pendulum." He said. "I fixed the anchor away up there about twenty meters, you sit in this loop and run across until you  reach the ledge on the other side. Turn off your light for a second." When both their lights were off he looked back towards the pursuers. The men could not be seen, but their lights occasionally played out into the darkness. "Okay now look up for a minute." Joan looked and it seemed there was a tiny postage stamp of dim light above.

"What is that?"

"We're crossing below old the number five shaft. This is where the rails used to run."

"You mean, that's the sky? It looks so bright!"

"Compared to this, it is." Digger looked back. "Okay, those guys are getting too close for comfort, we need to cross the shaft now. I'll go first if you want. Just slip this loop over your head, and sit in it. See? It's strong enough, I promise. Now like this... run across the wall... over to... unnh... this side." He slipped out of the loop. "Okay here it comes, catch."

Digger threw the rope to Joan, who caught it and repeated the procedure. Once Joan joined him across the pendulum Digger looped the rope around a projecting rock, to deny the convenience to their pursuers. "This won't stop them, they'll still be able to climb up to get the rope, but it will slow them down. Besides, they may not be as trusting of my ropes after that first incident." He said nothing about notching the second one.

"So, you think that guy is dead?" asked Joan.

"The one that fell?" She nodded. "Yes, I'm afraid so. Not many people could survive a fall of a hundred and fifty meters bouncing down steep slope into water. Come on, let's keep going." Joan looked down, she couldn't see anything more than a few meters down. Maybe it was better that way.

"What about the second rope, the one coming down the slope?" asked Joan.

Digger hesitated. "They could have some trouble on that one too."

Joan decided the answer told her enough and decided not to press the issue. They continued along the narrow ledge, which now began angling downward perceptibly, leaving the sounds of their pursuers further and further behind. Ahead in the gloom there loomed a tremendous pillar of rock connecting the footwall with the hanging wall, the first they had seen. As they stepped onto it, Digger let out a sigh of relief. "Okay, we're past the worst part."

A terrified shriek punctuated the gloom echoing from the distance behind them. The sounds echoed and reverberated around them with a frightening quality. They dimly heard a thumping, followed by another distant splash. Joan shivered, but not from cold. "What was that?" she asked, though she already knew the probable answer.