The next morning was Saturday, Christina’s day at La Brea. Things had settled down at the tar pits—no more asphalt geysers—and Linda had called to tell her that the volunteers were working Pit 91 again. Christina planned to go, and when the alarm woke her she saw no reason to change her mind.
She poured a bowl of cereal and sliced some strawberries. The silent emptiness of the apartment was oppressive; she turned on some music. She’d spent a restless night agonizing over her moral dilemma. That Mickey was involved in an environmental activist group, she knew. She didn’t think his group was affiliated with any larger organization. It was more a gang of buddies who instead of tossing down beers at a bowling alley preferred to disrupt government hearings about new coal-fired power plants. Christina had met some of the guys before, but she couldn’t remember a “Neil.” Maybe he was new, or maybe he was part of another group. Either way, he must be a lot more radical than Mickey and his pals.
At least, that’s what she hoped. She didn’t want to believe that Mickey himself was mixed up with explosives and industrial sabotage. That stuff sounded like a felony conviction, and Mickey wasn’t a felon. A pinhead maybe, but not a felon.
What am I going to tell Dr. Chen?
Dr. Chen needed to know that the tar sand experiment didn’t explode on its own. The energy harvesting technology might be safe to use after all. Maybe they could convince CaliPetro to sponsor a new field test.
But how could she explain what she knew without revealing how she knew it? If Christina ratted, the police would investigate. What if they figured out who was responsible and arrested her cousin? What if the trail led them to back to her, and she was implicated? After all, Neil learned the crucial information about the test site (indirectly) from her.
Despite a full night of contemplation, the answers to these questions eluded her.
To make matters worse, her motivations were confused. While cursing their actions, she fretted about River and Mickey, felt sorry that she’d forced them out, wondered if they’d made it safely to Mickey’s place. Around midnight she nearly got out of bed to call and make sure, but decided that would send the wrong message. She loved them, but that didn’t let them off the hook.
She cleaned the kitchen and wheeled her bike to the door for the combination bus/bicycle ride to Hancock Park. Some manual labor in the tar pit would be good for her; it might help her think.
A wide perimeter around the Lake Pit was closed to visitors, but the rest of Hancock Park was open. The day was sunny but Christina noticed fewer people strolling about than usual. That was understandable. No adequate explanation had been offered for the giant gas bubble eruption, so no one could predict whether it might happen again. Christina vowed not to go anywhere near Lake Pit.
Linda was already at work in Pit 91. Christina waved at her, and Linda smiled a greeting.
“I’ll join you in a sec,” Christina said, ignoring the usual sulfurous odor.
She changed clothes in the shed and donned a large pair of fireman’s boots before descending into the pit.
“Watch your step,” Linda said. “The tar’s a little slippery today.”
Christina noticed it right away. The tar, which normally was heavy and thick, felt thinner, more watery. That made the floor of the pit slick and oily rather than sticky and goopy.
“What’s up with that?” Christina asked as she gingerly stepped across the coated planks.
“I don’t know, maybe it’s the heat?” Linda said. She gestured toward a tray of small bones next to the base of the ladder. “Take a look at those. The dig leader uncovered them yesterday. They may be skull fragments from a Merriam’s Terratorn. See the beak part?”
Christina examined the fossils. Merriam’s Terratorn was an extinct bird of massive size. Specimens from La Brea suggested it had a twelve-foot wingspan, making it even larger than modern-day condors. Fossils from this organism were rare; if she and Linda excavated more of the skeleton today, it would be exciting.
The bones were stained the usual rich, varied brown color imparted by the tar to all the fossils preserved in it. Christina picked up the beak fragment to observe it more closely. Then she dropped it with a start.
“Linda, did you say these were dug up yesterday?”
“Yes. Quite a find, eh?”
“When were they cleaned?”
“Cleaned?”
“Yeah. The asphalt coating’s been removed from these bones. Normally everything we dig up has to be treated with solvent at the museum laboratory to make it look like this.”
Linda set down her tools at the grid section where she was excavating and half-walked, half-skidded over to Christina.
“Huh, you’re right. I swear they weren’t that clean when I got here an hour ago.”
Christina felt a vague sense of unease growing in her gut.
“Do you think it has something to do with the tar being more liquid today? Like, it just dripped off?” she said.
“Maybe. I can test that,” Linda said, skating back to the open pool of tar.
A small bubble broke the surface of the tar. Christina turned to watch Linda’s experiment and noticed that despite the relative fluidity of the tar today, the bubble left a hole in the surface of the tar. She thought the hole was even making a small sound, like a tiny teapot whistle.
What the…
When the faint smell of vinegar reached Christina’s nose, her scattered thoughts suddenly fell into place.
“Linda, wait—“
But even as the words left her mouth, Linda was picking up her chisel and file. The small metal tools clinked together.
And Linda’s outstretched arm burst into flames.
“NO!”
The fire spread so quickly that Christina never saw Linda’s expression change from surprise to fear. The surface of the tar ignited, engulfing Linda. Then the oil slick which covered the wood floor Christina was standing on also caught fire. Flames licked her feet and the air in the pit thickened with black petroleum smoke.
“Linda!” Christina screamed, but it was already too late. If she hesitated another second, she wouldn’t escape.
Ascending the ladder out of the pit was treacherous under the best conditions. Now, she was fleeing for her life, climbing blind through acrid smoke. She reached for the rung above her head and grasped it tightly while raising one clunky boot.
The tar-encrusted boot was on fire.
Summoning every ounce of self-discipline she possessed, she planted one burning foot after the other and rose above the inferno without slipping. The skin around her knees seared in pain where the flames danced over the top of the boots. She reached the lawn, collapsed on the grass and rolled away, kicking off the boots. Screaming and crying, she crawled back to the pit. The heat and smoke formed a virtual wall that rose parallel to the pit’s edge. She could not penetrate it, and though she sat ready to extend a hand and pull her friend to safety, the ladder remained empty.