INFLECTION POINT EXCERPT
Bogoslof Island, Aleutian Islands – Seven Years Ago
The sea around Bogoslof was the color of forged iron, slick and heavy. The inflatable skiff pitched hard as it nosed through the fog, spray biting at Susan Shore’s cheeks. Wind tore the hood from her head. In front of them, the island loomed like a mount rising out of the Bering Sea, black cliffs steaming in the cold, gulls wheeling through sulfur mist. The air reeked of rot and brimstone.
“Still think this is better than the lab?” Sam shouted over the outboard’s growl. Her husband and partner had a point, but she’d never admit it.
Susan grinned into the wind, her short pixie cut whipping. “You’d rather stare at numbers while the Earth talks to us?”
“I’d rather we weren’t landing on a live volcano!”
But he throttled forward anyway. The outboard whined as the skiff fought through the chop. Spray stung his face, cold as ice bits. The GPS on the console flickered—AVO Alert: Level 2 – Volcanic Unrest—a reminder flashing in orange that this place wasn’t just hostile, it was dangerous.
Vapor ghosted off the island ahead, blurring the jagged ridge line. Every few seconds, a dull thud echoed from beneath the waves, as if the earth were clearing its throat.
“Still think it’s stable enough?” he called.
Susan didn’t look back. Her dark eyes were fixed on the smoldering cliffs, her gloved hands clutching the bow rope. “We get the readings today, or we lose the chance. The signals are spiking again. I’m not waiting for someone else to figure this out.”
He muttered something, but the wind stole it away. His wife had made up her mind, and once Susan set her course, nothing short of a full eruption could stop her. Sam tightened his grip on the tiller. He wasn’t about to let her face a volcano alone.
When the skiff grounded on the cinder beach, Susan jumped out first, boots sinking into ash-soft sand. The broken side of the crater opened ahead, and walls of basalt jutted above them, streaked with yellow sulfur and fresh scabs of glassy rock. Gray clouds hissed from vents like the breath of the island. Above, sea birds squawked, their calls echoing across the rookery. Dozens of murres and kittiwakes clung to the cliffside, their wings flashing white in the gloom.
Grateful that he was a muscular guy, Sam hauled the gear across the sloped throat of the giant bowl. He checked the tripods, sensors, and gravimeters, his breath ragged in the freezing wind. “This place looks worse every year,” he told her. “I bet half this island didn’t exist before the last eruption.”
“That’s why it’s perfect,” Susan said. Her eyes jumped to the trembling needle on her handheld seismograph, picking up signals from the few pieces of equipment still working that they had planted last time. “It’s pulsing again. Same frequency I saw in the Kurile Trench.”
He gave her a look. “Your pulse theory.”
“Our pulse theory,” she corrected. “You helped build the models.”
He snorted, but his lips twitched. “I built the math. You’re the one chasing echoes.”
They picked their way into the hollow overlooking the crater lake, a glassy pool the color of mercury, rimmed with fresh igneous spatter. Haze rose in slow ribbons, coiling into the colorless sky. Behind them, sea lions barked from the shore, their slick bodies glinting against the surf. A few lifted their heads as if scenting something strange on the wind. Suddenly, as one, they slipped into the ocean with barely a splash.
Susan unpacked the sensor array with quick, sure hands. “If we catch another harmonic wave, it’ll be one more piece of proof that the mantle’s sending energy through the arc. Tonga to Kamchatka, Alaska to Chile, one long chain of fire.”
Sam set up the transceiver, his gloved fingers stiff with cold. Facing into the strong wind, he was glad he had grabbed his trapper hat to keep his head warm. Pulling off his heavy coat, he dumped it on the sand, increasing his mobility, but he hoped it wouldn’t be for long. The gusts were frigid.
“And if it’s just noise?” he asked.
She smiled. “Then I’ll owe you a drink. But it’s not noise.”
The island answered her with a low, rolling growl.
Both froze. The lake rippled. Black rubble rattled loose from the crater wall and clattered into the water.
“Susan—”
“Just a small pulse,” she said, scanning the readouts. “No magmatic surge on the scanner.”
The air thickened with static. A sharp metallic scent filled her lungs. Birds screamed, lifting off the cliffs in a torrent of wings.
Then the island moved.
A blast split the air. Deep, percussive, like the world cracking in half. The island lurched. Susan went down hard, the recorder skidding from her hands. Sam lunged for her, catching her arm just as a fissure ripped through the substrate between them, spitting smoke and charred bits.
“Run!” he yelled.
Abandoning everything, they ran through an increasing swirl of ash, the seconds speeding up as they reached the shore. All the sea lions were gone, replaced by boiling surf and sulfur rain. Back in the basin, volcanic ash erupted in a pillar of fire and black glass, a fountain of scorching debris that dimmed the daylight.
A boulder the size of a truck slammed into a slope above them, spraying fragments. One struck Susan across the temple, spinning her sideways onto the sand. Sam threw himself over her, dragging them both behind an outcrop, using his body to protect hers. Meager cover, but it saved their lives. A blast of heat seared across his back and thighs as a hot flow tore past them, carrying steam, cinders, and the terrible howl of the volcano waking up. Pulling the trapper hat tight to cover his face and head, he cried out but didn’t let go.
Minutes later, he found his feet. Pulling Susan up, he hauled her toward the shore. It was still unbearably hot. Blinded in the ash, the world was a blur of orange and gray. “Susan!” he shouted. “Stay with me!”
Her fingers twitched in his. Her mouth formed words he couldn’t hear over the roar. The air shimmered with heat. They reached the skiff, and he practically threw her in. Hunched down, protecting her still form with his body, he gunned the outboard engine. They flew over the boiling sea. One glance back and all he could see was white against black cinder, before another explosion covered the island in steam clouds.
He ignored the tears running down his face, ignored the pain flaring from his burns, and drove like a madman. Skipping the surface of the restless ocean, he headed towards their ship, vowing to never set foot on Bogoslof Island again.