Note: You can change font size, font face, and turn on dark mode by clicking the "A" icon tab in the Story Info Box.
You can temporarily switch back to a Classic Literotica® experience during our ongoing public Beta testing. Please consider leaving feedback on issues you experience or suggest improvements.
Click here
"Pardon Bryce, folks... his prostate has swollen to the size of a small melon and sometimes that affects his manners. I've been yelling at him and his bosses at Littlejohn Geo-Exploration for months, if not a couple years to finish hauling out the rest of the crap that they left behind when they leased the place out to us. Mr. Hobbs here, if I haven't already made this quite apparent, doesn't actually work for us... that is, Poravuvu Silk, Ltd. He's an employee of Littlejohn, from whom we rent out portions of this property, so he's their resident caretaker of this abandoned ghost town. These faculties, including the old legacy mining operation and quite a few remaining ore carts are all Littlejohn property as well. They haul stuff out of here regularly, or whenever I make a big enough fuss about tripping over the remaining crap... like old railcar hoppers just rusting away all full of paving rock." For illustration I bent over and grabbed a few rocks from the ground where the hoppers had been and handed them to the lovely Miss Jackson for appraisal. She was quickly unimpressed... as well she ought to have been.
"Brecca. Also definitely bits of shock metamorphic crap and bits of impact ejecta with obvious traces of impact melt from the original meteor strike." She tossed the rocks back to the ground and casually examined a few other random samples but remained unimpressed. "Just Brecciated rock," she announced to Nancy, much to her obvious displeasure, "superheated and shocked rock resulting from the compression and heat of a substantial meteor strike, which is exactly what ought to be present here. Tons and tons of the stuff... basically only good for road bed or filling in a ditch somewhere. No commercial or industrial value... none." She firmly declared. I could have kissed her right on the spot. That was as close to a guarantee as I was going to get that she was going to make up her own mind about us based upon factual evidence, and not a golden handshake.
Sensing that her divine will had been somehow thwarted and determined that it would never happen again, Ms. Whitehurst then demanded that we unlock the crater wall mining gate to allow her to inspect the mine entrance. Bryce started to have a conniption again, but I was willing to give them access... but for a rather contrary reason.
"Actually, your court order won't permit that, at least not here. Your 'Cause for Inspection' states specifically that Poravuvu Silk is the sole entity being investigated, but this mining access gate remains the restricted property of Littlejohn. I can demonstrate this fact right here, as it's specifically stated under line item 67 of our lease agreement. I don't even have security access to this door... and I'm the boss! Now perhaps, maybe, Bryce here might be willing to permit you entry here, but I'm sure he'd strongly recommend against this. From this access gate, it's a very, very long trip down the rail access tunnel to get to even the first level of the mine itself, let alone the start of Poravuvu leased space down on Levels Two and Three."
"A VERY long walk." Bryce insisted glaring at the EPA inspector hard enough to almost, but not quite, make her back down. "I'd suggest you take the mining elevator in Operations. It's fast and easy." And also very likely the way that Bryce was smiling, certain to miss and entirely avoid anything worth seeing. He wasn't subtle and Linda fell for the trap at once... if we didn't want her to go in a certain direction, then that was exactly where she wanted to be taken!
It was all too easy. Bryce, with extreme reluctance and with a great many warnings opened the security door into the mine and allowed our intrepid crew of investigators access into the tunnels below. Technically this was the start of Level One, but really was a very, very long walk indeed to get to anything of actual interest. Miles and miles of nothing but a gentle 3-degree slope spiraling downwards in a mile-wide matrix circuit following endless tracks of small-gauge mining rail car rails.
The EPA Bitch naturally was the first one to tire, just a bare mile or two into the mine, and already needed to take a long breather, and she leaned herself against a handy parked mining cart that was about half full of rock. Freddi examined another couple of handfuls of the cargo at random and pronounced them to be 'more crap', specifically Suevites and Pseudotachylites... or in other words more impact related metamorphic jumble.
"That's why it's all still sitting here. It's not in our lease are or in the way so it's Littlejohn's problem, but I doubt it's worth the cost of hauling it the rest of the way out of here so it's likely to keep sitting." Probably so. This, and the one or two hundred or more similar mining dump cars parked up here in this upper stretch of the mine were just full of junk that had been dug out in the past waiting to be gotten rid of... eventually, when it was worth the time and the effort involved. While moving our crap earlier in the week we'd pulled most of these out to the crater surface and parked them on a siding to get them out of the way so that we could rail transport our heavier stuff out from loading on the train. When we finished, we just re-parked these carts back down here once more for effect, just another distraction to waste time and keep idle curious hands and eyes busy.
"Just how much further?" Ms. Whitehurst asked, a few minutes after we started on our way downhill once more. It was clear that her borrowed boots were already starting to give her blisters. The Bureau of Mines guy wasn't looking any too happy to be back on his feet either.
"Right now? I'd say we've done about a mile and half total down the main rail tunnel, so that leaves us with about five miles left to go to get to the center of this level, where the elevator from Operations would have taken us in about seven minutes. From there, it's about another five miles or so in a slightly wider downward spiral to get down to Level Two... unless of course you'll be wanting to take the elevator?" Oh my... if looks could have killed!
It took them at bit over three hours to complete the hike to get to the elevator and actually Ms. Whitehurst only just survived the journey just out of sheer orneriness. It was the Mines bureaucrat Mr. Pollock that I was certain was about to keel over first with a heart-attack. He was a two-pack a day smoker and this very long hike through clean, but stale fresh air hadn't done him the least bit of good. Miss Jackson was doing fine, barely breaking a sweat. Periodically, while waiting for the others to take increasingly frequent rests she'd examine random walls to determine their mineral content. It all remained impact related Breccia, down nearly as far as Level Two, I advised her, and she didn't dispute that.
The EPA Bitch (hereafter my name for her) was nearly exhausted and certain that I must be hiding something from her on the next stretch of rail past the elevator down to Level Two, but she couldn't prove it... and even the thought of another six mile walk down more gloomy tunnels was enough to provoke a full revolt from all three of her crew. Her assistant was more than ready to brain her with the next handy rock if they didn't take the elevator... so they did. That was good actually... just past my sleeping quarters here on this level down the next section of rail downwards to Two was where we'd parked a decent amount of low-priority equipment that hadn't yet made it out by rail. With luck it was all going out next Tuesday night on the next train, and now, thanks to a multitude of foot blisters, I didn't need to explain what it was and what it was doing there. Good... that was a fat collection of lies that I could save and use later on, if needed.
On the elevator trip downwards to Level Two was relatively swift, taking just over six minutes to complete, which gave me time to tell the tourist and contract employee version of how and why Poravuvu Silk was here. Most of the story was even true!
**********************
"Something in the ballpark of between 1.6 and 2.2 million years ago a meteor came down right here. It was a pretty decent sized chuck of rock, enough to create a crater rim about a kilometer wide. This sort of thing happens all of the time, a rock of about that size falls about every 5000 years or so, but here on earth normal geological forces, not to mention natural erosion by wind, rain and what-have-you cause most craters to pretty much weather away and vanish relatively quickly, at least from a surface perspective. Here in West Texas there were relatively fewer sources of geological weathering, so the crater walls and rim haven't quite settled down as much as they would have, and faster, in a wetter or more active environment. As it was, this crater was eroded down enough that it's really only visible as such from an aerial photo. That's how Littlejohn found this place to begin with and why they bought out the ranch and the land surrounding it.
"Littlejohn, if you aren't aware of them, specializes in Geo-Exploration, and by that I mean that they're not terribly concerned with issues of short term profitability. They're a family-owned business, three-generations, with no stockholders to appease. In fact, they're maybe the closest thing in the business to a 'geologic non-profit', well at least in spirit. Their focus is finding unusual bits of rock and turning them over to see what's underneath. Sometimes that's profitable, but other times it's done for just the sheer whim of scientific discovery. That's really why they dug here in the first place.
"Starting about twenty years ago, Littlejohn recognized the growth of the modern electronics industry, and especially the growing need for what are called 'rare earth' minerals. As Miss Jackson can tell you, the term rare earth is really a misnomer. They're not particularly rare... but they are a pain in the ass to extract, separate and purify. Frankly, for most producers past and even present, dealing with the radioactive trace elements usually present often becomes a very legitimate environmental concern. Mining for them is now currently illegal in the United States and vast majority of the world's supply comes from China or Australia, each of whom have growing environment concerns about their waste products.
"Littlejohn wondered, just in theory mind you, if at a large meteor strike crater location like this one, deep under the so-called Monomicaly Brecciated Basement of the impact zones, that deeper layers of the Lithosphere, or the earth's crust would be forced upwards by the reverse shockwave that formed the central uplift of the crater. Deposits of perhaps rare earth elements that now had been brought up closer to the surface as a result of the impact, perhaps also perhaps purer and with less radioactivity, and certainly easier to mine!
"So, Littlejohn dug away, reaching the edge of the Basement more or less around Level Two and then they dug deeper, sampling Pre-Cambrian and deeper crust layers beneath, down to a final depth of over 5000 meters. That's deeper into the earth than the height of Pike's Peak. Unofficially, I think this makes the Hines Ranch Crater Mine one of the ten or twenty deepest mines in the world, but portions of Level Three and all of Level Four are all natural caverns, and since no actual mining ever occurred there, that makes the claim moot. As for the deepest known caverns in the world, I don't think we'd make the top ten list, but very little of Level Four has been officially explored... and it's largely entirely off limits to our staff, for safety reasons that you'll soon understand.
"Anyway, Littlejohn dug and tunneled away here merrily for over a decade and found a bunch of geologically interesting things, but nothing that was really of commercial mining value. Some rare earths were discovered but exploitation was considered impractical and not profitable. Also, as of about the time they ceased operations, US mining of rare earths was essentially forbidden by the EPA, again for probably reasonable environmental concerns... and Littlejohn complied. Three years ago they leased certain finite portions of the mine to us, Poravuvu Silk, Limited, a foreign owned corporation involved entirely in the silk business. Sounds crazy doesn't it... but it really isn't.
"The soil around the crater rim was perfect for growing White Mulberry trees, the only food that silkworms will eat and the deep artesian well water here was especially suited for promoting strong silk fibers. That's why we're here, as a test project to verify under real silk production conditions some earlier published research that showed that silk worms were healthier raised deep underground and grew to cocoon stage faster, and produced stronger silk threads. Other independent research papers have also promoted the use of various electronic fields and special lighting conditions that were difficult to precisely achieve above ground, but could be potentially realized on a smaller industrial production scale here under extremely controlled circumstances and conditions, as I will now start to show you. Again, this is just an operational test site, sort of a pilot program for the overall feasibility of assessing these independent published academic theories in a practical applied, but limited, production environment."
We'd arrived now at Level Two, which for us was largely quality control laboratories and bulk storage. This gave the inspectors something tangible to evaluate, like lots of large rolling bins of silkworm cocoons waiting to be taken up the freight elevator for shipment, bags of processed Mulberry leaves, tank substrate for the developing worms and even a series of large 'free-range' screened enclosed moth habitats, for naturally perpetuating the normal life-cycle, all very organic looking and organized. All very interesting, but clearly nothing hazardous.
It was easy to guide the inspectors to see just what I wanted them to see by the expedient of encouraging trips down certain tunnels and appearing to discourage them from wanting to go down other pathways. Invariably this would annoy the EPA Bitch enough to pick the seemingly discouraged and 'forbidden' route... always leading her to something harmless that I wanted them to see, and invariably wasting lots of precious time in the process. Not to mention ripening a fresh crop of foot blisters!
"No... there's nothing really down that end," I'd say with a shake of my head, "It goes for about half a mile or so and most of the side passages are closed off by rock falls. Then that main passage eventually meets our old friend the railcar line heading down to Level Three. That's a very long trip with some steep downward slopes in the path. It's also very damp down there with seepage... real easy to slip and fall there and maybe slide ride into something big and hard. Not really safe... I wouldn't recommend it!" Naturally, that was just where she wanted to go and it was another wonderful waste of about two hours of the inspectors' time.
By the time we crawled our way back up again to the main areas of Level Two, and the next elevator downwards, nearly everyone was exhausted, bruised and more than a little angry... mostly at the EPA Bitch, the obvious source of their misfortunes. After a short ride down to Level Three, where most of our actual silkworm production occurred, even her imperial highness was tired and footsore to the point of apathy and she mostly kept herself restrained for my simple guided tour down here.
I didn't even complain when she grabbed a couple of fresh silkworm cocoons to take back with her for later analysis. That was harmless. All of our interesting silkworms had all been moved off elsewhere down other side tunnels or relocated out of the mine entirely and were on their way right now to Mexico. Her later chemical analysis would show these did have a stronger silk thread structure, but not significantly such. Perhaps only about 15% stronger on average, Peggy calculated; interesting but not a huge industrial secret. Again, this related to long-published findings by other scientists... results that anyone could read about and duplicate, given the appropriate facilities.
By now, even the EPA Bitch was starting to look bored. Her best hope for a real Class A infraction was to find some sort of environment cross contamination from our operations down here to the local entirely natural cavern formations around us on this level. She looked in vain. There were no leaking noxious chemicals. No waste water leaks (we'd built very special barriers to prevent that) and no silkworm caterpillars or moths running lose wreaking havoc on the otherwise pure natural virgin caves of our facility. We'd taken every conceivable precaution... and it obviously showed.
My passive-aggressive tour guiding backfired on me just once while we were getting ready to leave Level Three. Fredi asked about a rather well marked and lit side corridor with a sharp deep grade down into the mine fairly near the elevator that led to Level Four. I shrugged and told her that this passage was steep and prone to flooding, but if they were careful the first mile or so wasn't too hairy. That didn't discourage her one bit and she started right down that natural passage. Even in the relatively dim overhead lighting our geologist could sense that the rocks were starting to get more interesting. This naturally perked up the attention of the EPA Bitch and soon she was back out in front taking the lead, the pain of her blisters soon forgotten.
This steep passage had been a water channel at some point in the geologic past and Littlejohn had enlarged it just enough to follow a rather interesting vein of minerals for the better part of a mile, on a fairly steep constant slope downhill with lots of twists and turns. As promised, the passage became increasingly damp with oozing ground water from the walls and ceiling and even with hiking boots the ground was getting fairly slippery. I couldn't suggest that this would be a very good time to turn around now, because that would just motivate the bitch to encourage her rock-hound to keep steamrolling ahead to find whatever sort of contraband I was undoubtedly trying to hide down here.
In truth, we had a rather delicate secret exposed just another hundred yards or so down this increasingly wet tunnel, which did end as I'd stated in a flooded out and impassible channel of water that extended all the way down to Level Four as far as I was aware.
I prayed for the bitch to turn her fat ass around, but she followed the passage right to its watery end. After a long frustrated moment of silence she huffed and started her way back up the wet passage... slipping nearly at once and almost sliding her fat ass right down into the flooded water pit at the end of the passageway. That could have gotten ugly! Her assistant and Mr. Pollock stopped their own egress to help her to her feet and help guide her upward out of the more slippery mine floor just as Fredi's professional interest was immediately peaked by an otherwise uninteresting seam of dark black rock running downward the side of the tunnel and into the water.
Shit! Now we were fucked!
"Graphite," she muttered quietly to herself, probably too quietly for the others to notice as they started to walk back up the tunnel leaving us behind alone. A moment later she had her rock hammer out and she was taking a small sample and trying to examine it close under the light of her mining helmet and my lantern.
"Definitely graphite... but very fine and probably highly compressed due to shock concussion from the meteor strike. That's commercially viable... there's only one other graphite mine in Texas, and that's in Burnet County, way away from here. This also seems purer and much richer." She fingered the very fine black powdery rock again and then her eyes went wide open.
