Hot Times in Magma City

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It’s seven in the morning and the big wall-screen above Cal Mattison’s desk is beginning to light up like a Christmas tree as people start phoning Volcano Central with reports of the first tectonic events of the day. A little bell goes off to announce the arrival of each new one. Ping! and there’s a blue light, a fumarole popping open in somebody’s back yard in Baldwin Park, steam but no lava. Ping! and a green one, minor lava tongue reaching the surface in Temple City. Ping! again, blue light in Pico Rivera. And then come three urgent pings in a row, bright splotch of red on the screen, big new plume of smoke must be rising out of the main volcanic cone sitting up there on top of the Orange Freeway where the intersection with the Pomona Freeway used to be.

“Busy morning, huh?” says Nicky Herzog, staring over Mattison’s shoulder at the screen. Herzog is a sharp-faced hyperactive little guy, all horn-rimmed glasses and beady eyes, always poking his big nose into other people’s business.

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