Lola LaLouf's husband, Dr. Laurence LaLouf, was a large man. If he had ever needed a marketing slogan or a superhero name, he could have advertised himself as "The Sizable Seismologist". As he approached us in his open-top jeep loaded down with all manner of scientific equipment I wondered if there would not have been a bigger, more practical vehicle he could have used instead.

" Hello, darling!" He said as he pulled up beside us.

"Laurence, thanks for coming." Detective LaLouf motioned to Dr. Snively. "Sherman's here too."

"Sherman! My pal!" Laurence seemed quite happy to see Snively, though like all of us gave pause as he stiffed the air around him. "Still on the bean diet, are you?"

"Beans are the cleanest eating," replied Dr. Snively, trying to peer into the jeep to see what scientific toys Laurence had brought.

"And the dirtiest out." The still-employed scientist's eyes fell on the oil slick line and grew wide. "Say, this is a lot of oil. Clean oil. Not seen oil this clean since being on Mars, in fact."

"Yes, I noticed that," said Detective LaLouf, "that's why I texted."

"Really, this is..." Laurence just stared.

"Okay, so it's a lot of oil," remarked Cleetus, "is there something special about it?"

"Well, that's the thing," confessed Laurence as he slowly embarked from his vehicle, his eyes not leaving the black trail. "Oil is a fossil fuel. In order to have fossils, you have to have life. But there IS no sign of life on Mars, at least not before our arrival, so where can so much oil have come from?"

"Inorganic life!" volunteered Dr. Snively. "It's a new theory I'm working on to explain the forms I've seen." He motioned to me. "And that Cole's seen," and motioned to Detective LaLouf, " and that Lola's seen."

Laurence cocked an eyebrow. "Honey, now you're believing in Sherman's crazy form sightings?"

LaLouf looked down at her feet. "I'm not...I'm not saying it's a form, but yes, something did sink behind this mountain. And all this oil, like you said, there's no easy explanation."

Laurence looked up at the mountain before us. "Honey, which mountain is this again?"

"GPS says Euripus Mons."

The seismologist gave a half grin. "Well then, that explains that. There's a perfectly logical, or at least probable, explanation."

"That there's inorganic lifeforms on this planet?" stated Dr. Snively again.

"No, that one of the construction trucks has a serious oil leak."

We all stared at him.

"'Construction truck'?" Repeated Cleetus.

"Sure," Laurence continued, "on the other side of this mountain they're building the new mega casino. Vice Villa, I believe it's called. It by Euripus Mons somewhere."

I blinked. "Being a hermit, I've heard nothing about this business venture. But why would Mars need a mega casino? There's not that many people to visit."

"Just how you like it," mutter Cleetus under his breath.

Dr. Snively had a different reaction. "That casino is STILL under contruction? But it was being build eight years ago when I left society."

Laurence shrugged. "It's a mega casino. These things take time. They had to delay the build for a period too after the small earthquakes at the site. Something strange about how they were blowing up the rocks there."

My eyes perked up. "They're using explosives?"

"I mean, best they can. No one on contruction to my knowledge is an explosives expert but with so few people left where would they find someone trained in that?"

I said nothing of the fact that explosions were totally my background. Cleetus stayed quiet too but I could feel his gaze burning into me.

"Anyway, I go out to check on things out there fairly often since then. They want to make sure no more earthquakes are likely to happen. This project's too far underway to stop now. Typically, I get there a different route, though. Not sure why you all chose to come this way, nothing's out here."

"We were following the form," said Dr. Snively, "surely the construction teams have seen a form! It just flew over this mountain!"

"Sherman, buddy, I love you, but drop the form stuff. There's nothing here. I've just given you the explanation."

Snively looked to Detective LaLouf. "But you DID see something! In the sky! There was a form!"

"Well..." LaLouf began but stopped.

"Honey, you know there's no life on Mars," Laurence said, "If you saw something, maybe it was just a trick of the light. Mars isn't like Earth. Things are slightly different. Be logical."

"But Cole, tell him," Snively continued, "you saw it last night too!"

"In the dark, yeah," I replied. Laurence shook his head.

"You probably just were unfamiliar with the constellations from here compared to what they were on Earth."

It was now my turn to shake my head. "No, it then went on to start a fire."

"What?"

"Ignore him," Detective LaLouf held up her hand. "He's all but been caught for arson and has been using that excuse. Sorry, dear, it's been a long shift. I'll tell you more later."

"I saw it too, though," stated Cleetus. He looked very serious. "Your explanations are truthfully pretty weak. If this were our first week on Mars, maybe. But we've all lived on Mars at least fifteen years. What trick of the light don't we know now? What constellations are we still unfamiliar with? Dr. LaLouf, is there some reason you don't want to believe the possible existence of a form? Of the possibility of inorganic life on this planet?"

I gotta say, I was thoroughly impressed with Cleetus's speech. Laurence, however, was not as he sputtered to counter.

"Look, it just doesn't make sense," he said, "first off-"

Suddenly, we all heard the hiss once more of Boom-Boom. She had wandered along the oil line a bit of a ways but had frozen and arched her back as before. I looked quickly to the sky but saw nothing- the cat had a gift for sensing things but in this case, it didn't appear to be anything visable to us.

"Is that cat alright?" Laurence asked with an almost careless tone.

Then, in the air, we heard it- it was the sounds of people in the distance screaming, as if in pain. Accompanying the screams was the slight sound of metal rubbing together.

Laurence now had nothing to say.