Fall; or, Dodge in Hell - Neal Stephenson Page 0,111

cut scene depicting an all-out, no-holds-barred global thermonuclear exchange. They turned off onto the two-laner that would take them the last thirty or so miles into Moab and almost immediately passed between the two competing truther establishments, which, compared to their advertising, looked despicable and forlorn, swallowed up in gravel parking lots lightly peppered with RVs and school buses.

Half a mile farther along was the Nest of Lies, a newish prefab building sporting a lot of bullet holes. Or to be precise, dents, since it seemed, on closer viewing, to be bolted together out of something with a lot of layers, a materials science tour de force that could stop most rounds in common use. A single car, a sensible sport-utility vehicle, was parked where it would be shaded by a photovoltaic panel during the hottest part of the day. At the moment, though, it was exposed to low late-afternoon sunlight. Out of some sense that the place was worthy of their patronage, Sophia overrode the car’s nav program and guided it into a spot near the sport-ute. That vehicle’s license plates were not issued by Utah but by the Municipal Authority of Moab. And Sophia—who had been reading about this—already knew why. The Utah state legislature had been taken over by Moab truthers who insisted that Moab had been obliterated by nuclear terrorism twelve years ago. From which it followed that anyone claiming to actually live there was a troll, a crisis actor in the pay of, or a sad dupe in thrall to, global conspirators trying to foist a monstrous denial of the truth on decent folk. In recognition of, and indignation over, which they had passed a law ordering the state licensing bureau to stop accepting motor vehicle paperwork from Moab. Unable to register vehicles in Utah, the people of Moab had begun printing their own plates, which had actually become a status symbol and desirable swag item in faraway places and produced revenue for the town until being buried under knockoffs. Anyway, the owner of this sport-ute lived in Moab.

They got out of the car, stretched, toddled around on stiff legs, made use of a portable toilet. Sophia approached the front door of the main building and heard it being buzzed open.

“Welcome to the Nest of Lies!” said the sole occupant, a woman in her—forties? No, probably mid-to-late thirties and simply not interested in any of the available technologies around hair, attire, skin, and makeup that might cause her to look younger. She had a short haircut that she might have done herself. She wore glasses of the old school, which is to say that they were nothing more than corrective lenses. Through them, she was reading a novel printed on paper.

“Thanks,” Sophia said.

“Is it your intention to keep driving south into town?”

“You mean Moab? Yes.”

“Then you know it exists.”

“Yeah, I’ve actually been there a few times.”

“Did you drive in or fly in, those times?”

“Flew.”

“Okay. Well, as you drive in, you’re going to see roadblocks. One or two, depending on time of day. They’re not real. You don’t have to stop. Just turn off your autopilot and drive slowly through them and ignore the bros with guns waving their arms.” The woman recited all of this in the intelligent, matter-of-fact tones of a park ranger explaining what to do if you saw a bear. “They’ll get out of your way and they won’t actually fire on you or anything like that. If there’s any trouble, here’s how to communicate.” And the woman licked her finger and pulled a sheet of paper from the top of a stack of printouts, then used a pair of scissors to cut off a strip about two inches high. She slid it across the counter to Sophia. It listed strings of codes and characters. Other than that and the book in the woman’s hands—a recent translation of Beowulf—there was no other paper in the place. The walls were equipped with literature racks, and a couple of spinning racks stood like broken columns in the middle of the floor, but all were empty.

Seeming to read Sophia’s mind, the woman said, “If you put your glasses back down over your eyes you’ll see the equivalent of brochures for tourists.”

“Got it,” Sophia said. “We’re just going to drop off a passenger though.”

“Well, welcome to Moab,” the woman said, “and have a safe drive.”

“Is there any reason we wouldn’t?”

“No, it’s just a polite expression.”

It came to pass just as the woman said: five miles farther