Chapter 13: The Prophet Nobody Believes

Chapter 13: The Prophet Nobody Believes

The drive to the Pinyon Ridge Pipeline site was a journey into the heart of the enemy's territory. The further Leo drove, the more the natural landscape gave way to the brutal geometry of industry. Warning signs peppered the roadside: "DANGER: BLASTING ZONE," "AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY." The air grew hazy with dust and smelled of diesel fumes, a chemical stench that coated the back of his throat. He could feel a low, deep vibration through the steering wheel, a constant thrumming that resonated in his bones—the relentless grinding of the drill.

He clutched the medicine pouch hanging beneath his shirt. It was a strange, desperate comfort, a piece of ancient wisdom in a world of roaring steel. His scientific mind, now a tool reforged in the fires of the sweat lodge, saw the situation with chilling clarity. He wasn't going to fight monsters. He was going to plead with the architects of a plague to stop poisoning the well.

He was stopped at a temporary security checkpoint, a small trailer with a swing arm gate blocking the gravel access road. A burly guard with a bored expression ambled out.

“Can I help you?” the guard asked, his eyes scanning Leo’s beat-up car and his haggard appearance with open suspicion.

“I need to speak to the site foreman,” Leo said, forcing a calm he didn't feel into his voice. “It’s an emergency.”

“Emergency? What kind of emergency?”

How could he possibly explain? Your drill is angering a geological consciousness that perceives you as a disease. The words would get him a police escort to a padded room. He had to try another angle.

“It’s about geological instability,” Leo said, the lie tasting like ash. “My field is archeology, but I’ve been studying the local strata. Your deep-core drilling is causing micro-fractures in the rock. It’s… unpredictable. Dangerous.”

The guard grunted, unimpressed. “The engineers know what they’re doing, kid. This ain’t a place for college projects. Turn around.”

“No, you don’t understand!” Leo’s voice cracked, the desperation leaking through. “People are going to get hurt. The whole mountain is unstable!”

His frantic tone was a mistake. The guard’s hand drifted toward the radio on his hip. “I’m not going to tell you again. This is private property.”

Suddenly, a heavy-duty pickup truck rumbled up behind the gate, wanting to exit. The man behind the wheel, broad-shouldered with a weathered face and a stained hard hat on his dashboard, rolled down his window and yelled, “What’s the hold-up, Gary?”

“Got some local kid here talkin’ crazy about the mountain falling down, Mr. Hargrove,” the guard called back.

Hargrove, the site foreman. This was his chance. Leo got out of his car, ignoring the guard’s shout of protest.

“Mr. Hargrove,” Leo said, approaching the truck’s window. “My name is Leo Vance. I need to talk to you. The drilling has to stop.”

Hargrove squinted at him, a flicker of recognition in his eyes. “Vance? You’re the kid from the cave-in, right? Thomas Vance’s brother?”

The mention of his brother’s name was a gut punch, but it had bought him an audience. “Yes. What happened in that cave is connected to what you’re doing here. You’ve woken something up.”

Hargrove’s expression softened, but not in the way Leo wanted. It was pity. “Son, I’m real sorry for your loss. I heard what you went through was… rough. A real trauma.” He nodded toward the guard. “Gary, let me handle this.”

The foreman got out of his truck, a wall of a man who smelled of coffee and machine oil. He led Leo a few paces away from the gate, his tone that of an adult placating a hysterical child.

“Look, son. I know you’ve been through hell. But we’ve got a team of the best geologists and engineers in the country on this project. This ridge is solid granite. We’ve done the surveys, the seismic tests. Nothing is unstable.”

“Your tests can’t measure what’s down there,” Leo insisted, his voice raw. “It’s not just rock. The legends my people have, the stories about the Deep Dwellers—they’re not myths. They’re ecological warnings, geological truths passed down through generations. They speak of a life in the earth that sleeps, and that it is death to wake it. Your drill is a spear in a sleeping giant’s side.”

He could see the exact moment he lost him. Hargrove’s patient, pitying expression hardened. The man crossed his thick arms over his chest.

“A sleeping giant,” he repeated, his voice flat and devoid of warmth. “Right. And I suppose the sheep that got killed over at the Miller place was this giant’s breakfast?”

“It was a warning!” Leo said, stepping closer, his hands gesturing wildly. “A territorial marker! It’s an immune response! Can’t you see? The entity, the consciousness in the earth, it perceives your drill as a wound, an infection. And it’s sending out its antibodies—the Chatterlings—to sterilize the threat. That means you. It means all of us!”

The corrupted text in his vision flickered, a broken, staticky mess. [COMM..UNICATION F-f-failed. T-t-translating… CONCEPT: INCOMP..REHENSIBLE.]

“That’s enough,” Hargrove said, his voice now cold steel. He took a step back, positioning himself between Leo and the sprawling worksite behind him. The thrumming of the drill seemed to grow louder, a monstrous heartbeat. “I don’t know what kind of hallucination you cooked up in that cave, but you’re done here. You’re upset, you’re grieving, and you’re trespassing.”

“I’m not grieving, I’m warning you!” Leo shouted, his last thread of control snapping. “You’re going to get everyone killed!”

“Gary!” Hargrove bellowed, not taking his eyes off Leo. “Get him off my site. Now.”

The security guard was on him in an instant, grabbing his arm in a bruising grip. “You heard the man. Let’s go.”

Leo struggled, a futile, desperate act. “You have to listen! It’s not a story!”

“Get in your car, or the next people you’ll be talking to are the sheriffs,” Hargrove said, his face a mask of stone. He looked at Leo not as a prophet, but as a liability, a loose cannon who posed a threat to his operation. A dangerous lunatic.

The guard strong-armed him back toward his car, the gravel crunching under his feet. He was shoved unceremoniously against the driver’s side door. “Get in. And don’t come back. We’ll have you arrested for trespassing, you understand?”

Leo could only stare past them, at the massive, articulated arm of the drilling rig that scarred the horizon. It was a monument to their ignorance, a tombstone for them all. He had come armed with a terrifying, cosmic truth, and they had swatted him away like a fly. He had followed their rules, tried their language, and failed utterly.

He got into his car, his body trembling with a mixture of rage and despair. He watched in his rearview mirror as the swing arm of the gate closed, sealing him out. The foreman got back in his truck, said a final word to the guard, and drove away. The great machine on the mountain continued its relentless work, digging, wounding, provoking.

He was powerless. A prophet nobody believes is just a madman.

He slammed his fist against the steering wheel, a choked sob of frustration catching in his throat. In the soul-crushing silence that followed, a final, definitive verdict scrolled across his vision. The System’s text was still broken, still corrupted, but the message was brutally, perfectly clear.

[STATUS: IGNORED.]