Page 45 of Carmine

“I know. Carmine’s fine. He’s out doing what he has been trained to do. All of Rage are taught search and rescue. That’s a requirement for joining. Carmine is perfectly safe and with Gunner and Savage. Axel is monitoring the teams with the police liaison. Should anything happen, we’d be told pretty quickly,” Phoe replied.

“That’s reassuring.”

“How are you feeling? That was quite a raw interview with Lara,” Phoe asked.

“Honestly, I’ve not really had a chance to sit down and rethink it. I just hope they leave Carmine alone now.”

“Not you?”

With some bitterness, I laughed. “There’s lava running down the Black Hills in South Dakota. Guess I’m not a crank or a nut after all. That there is my vindication. But if they’d listened three years ago, who knows what we might have accomplished? Small actions like redirecting water can make a difference, but it’s too late. We possibly might have changed the course of the flow.”

Sadly, I shook my head.

“And all because people said it couldn’t happen,” Phoe agreed.

“There’ll be so much lost, people’s lives will be devastated. I’m furious with Dr White and everyone else who laughed at me. They’re not here seeing this.”

“That makes you a good person, Molly.”

“And an angry one, too,” I replied.

I stared at the TV. It was showing images of homes being buried in lava and burning. That was someone’s home, their entire life, and it was destroyed. They could rebuild, but the precious items they kept there, mementos, pictures, memories,were all gone now. Burned away by a slow-moving stream that couldn’t be stopped.

“Yes, I’m most definitely angry at the injustice of this. We could have save people a great deal of pain and misery. But I can’t change the past,” I replied.

“What would happen to lava when rain touches it?” Phoe asked.

That was a strange question. “Sorry?”

“If rain hits lava, what happens?”

“Normal rain flow would evaporate. The lava is that hot it would just turn to vapour. But in the case of a big storm, it would cool the lava. It wouldn’t stop it, but it would cool the surface down, which would bring its own problems,” I answered.

“What issues?” Phoe inquired.

“Well, with the outer layer hardened, the lava needs somewhere to go. It would either go over the top or find weak areas and break out in different directions. That means a narrow swathe of lava could suddenly become much wider and more dangerous.”

“Houston, we have a problem,” Phoe muttered as she looked at her phone.

“What?”

“There’s a huge storm predicted tomorrow night. Will the lava have stopped flowing?”

“Hate to say it, Phoenix, but I’ve got no idea. We’ve no clue how big the magma chamber is or how much it needs to expel. This could end in the next ten minutes or carry on for days. Because we only had basic information and we didn’t get to run detailed scans, we’re flying blind,” I replied.

“The storm isn’t the boon I expected?” Phoe asked.

“No. Not at all. It’s going to cause more trouble unless the flow stops.”

“Susan said it has slowed down,” Phoe pointed out.

“Yes, we reckon it’s moving at about five miles an hour. Which makes me believe that there isn’t a big a magma chamber to empty. Otherwise, it would be travelling much faster. This gives me hope it won’t run too long and should hopefully be stopped when this storm hits.”

“There’s always hope.”

“A futile thing, but yes, Phoe, there is,” I agreed and shoved a sandwich in my mouth. There was a lot of work to do.

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