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“The ones that were boiled alive?”
“That’s speculation.”
“Have you ever been to Yellowstone?”
“No, but I read Frommer’s Yellowstone National Park travel guide. It’s more than two million acres of boiling hot sulfuric springs, bubbling mud pots, vast lakes of brilliant blue, red, and yellow, huge geysers, and massive canyons and waterfalls. The entire Yellowstone National Park is an active volcano rumbling beneath the visitors’ feet. It has the potential for a magnitude eight eruption.”
“And if one of these magnitude eight eruptions happened now?”
“It’s an extinction-level event. The amount of ash expelled into the atmosphere would trigger massive climate change and could be the end of the human race. Most scientists predict that Yellowstone will erupt again in about sixty thousand years.”
“Wow, only sixty thousand years.”
“It’s a ticking time bomb,” Emerson said. “In 2013, scientists discovered a humongous blob of magma stored beneath Yellowstone. If that blob was released, it could fill the Grand Canyon eleven times over, but no one is predicting that will occur anytime remotely soon. Yellowstone is extremely stable, for an active volcano.”
The planetarium was starting to empty. Vernon was one of the last to leave.
“That was a real good show,” Vernon said to Emerson and Riley. “I hardly slept at all.” He looked down at Riley’s bloody knee. “What the heck happened to you?”
“A maniac threw me off the balcony.”
“No kidding. Are you all right?”
“Yes. Fortunately I fell onto a plane that was hanging from the ceiling.”
Even as she said it she realized the whole thing sounded ridiculous. It was almost as if she’d dreamed it.
“Did they catch the guy?” Vernon asked.
“Yes and no. He sort of flew over the second-floor railing, smashed onto the ground floor, and died,” Riley said. “At least we think it was the same guy.”
“What did this guy look like?” Vernon asked.
Wayan Bagus joined them. “I took a picture with my iPad. It was accidental but the quality is actually quite good. I was taking a picture of a plane when the unfortunate man came up behind me. After he fell I leaned over the balcony to see him, and my iPad snapped another picture.”
Wayan Bagus brought the picture up on his iPad and showed it to Vernon.
“Oh man,” Vernon said. “That’s awful. His head exploded. There’s brains all over the place. And I think I see guts squishing out of him. Did he poop himself? I bet he pooped himself. Dead guys always do that. ’Specially if you crush them. I mean I don’t know firsthand, but it seems reasonable, right? This is making me sick. I might hurl. I feel faint. I gotta sit down.” He did some deep breathing. “Okay, I feel better now. Anyone want an ice cream sandwich? If I hurry I might get to the snack bar before it closes.”
“We’ll meet you outside the front entrance,” Emerson said.
Vernon ran off to get ice cream, and Emerson studied the photo on
the iPad.
“Interesting,” Emerson said. “Very interesting.” He enlarged a part of the picture to show Riley. “You have to see this.”
“I don’t want to look if there are brains or guts,” Riley said. “I haven’t totally got it together. My heart is still skipping beats, and my stomach is queasy. It was awful to get thrown off the balcony. Seeing a dead guy with an exploded head isn’t going to help my stomach.”
“I want you to look at a close-up of his hand,” Emerson said.
Riley looked at Wayan’s iPad.
“He has the same tattoo as Tin Man,” she said. “Two crossed sabers and a number one above them.”
“It’s a symbol for the 1st Volunteer Cavalry Division in the United States Army.”
“So, they’re both military?”
