Apart from Cleetus, no one else in the pursuit line was particularly athletic. It was a welcome sight for me when Dr. Snively, finally tired out, dropped to his knees. His grip now loosened, Boom-Boom easy jumped free from his clutches. I didn't last much longer after him, though- I too was soon kneeling, Boom-Boom rubbing against my sore ankles. Detective LaLouf remained standing, but she held her sides and looked exhausted.

Dr. Snively then let loose a long fart- albeit involuntarily- that did little to help the rest of us catch our breaths.

Cleetus, barely breaking a sweat, caught up to us. He crinkled his nose slightly at the smell now in the air but otherwise seemed unaffected. "We done chasing now?" he asked the group, though was facing the doctor.

"Yes..." Dr. Snively panted back, "I had...to take extreme...measures...to get you all...to come investigate with me..."

"Sherman," said LaLouf, slightly more composed, "I should arrest you for this. If only because you made us run..."

"I...I had to..." the doctor reasoned again, "we have to...investigate the form before we lose it again..."

"You stole a cat, Sherman. There's other ways to convince people to help you." LaLouf looked over at Boom-Boom. "You planning to press charges, Cole?"

"Nah-" I began but froze. On the ground not far from us was a long slick line of black goo. It seemed to go on ahead, almost along the same trajectory we had just seen the unknown form follow. The others, noticing me, had also picked up on the substance.

"Is...is it oil?" LaLouf asked, crouching down for a closer look.

"So, what?" Cleetus pondered aloud, "did a car come this way?" He kept one fierce eye on me as he scoured the nearby terrain. "I don't see any tire tracks. They're leaking real bad, though."

For some reason, I suddenly remembered something from the night before.

"There was a squealing," I said, and everyone stared at me for clarification. "When I saw the form, when it was overheard. There was a squealing, or squeaking, ir whatever. I thought it was like when brake pads wear out, but it could have been, like..."

Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

"-The squeak of something that needs oil," finished Dr. Snively. He pounded his fist onto the palm of his hand. "That's it!"

"So, wait," Cleetus said, noticably confused, "this form squeaks and drops oil but isn't a car. Is it a plane?"

"The initial studies of Mars in preparation for terraforming years ago, long before the first settlers came, showed no signs of life, right?" Snively was talking out his theory to no one in particular.

"Yeah," answered Cleetus, "that's what all the reports released the government said. And the US government never lied." He shot me a death glare, presumably to remind me he still knew I was the one who blew up his beloved country on his beloved planet.

"Well, but if the lifeforms here were machine or at the very least inorganic, they wouldn't appear on any of the tests! That's why scientists- so many brilliant minds- insist Mars has no life besides humans and that I'm crazy for thinking I saw otherwise! But the forms- there IS something alive here!"

Cleetus remained perplexed. "But if this planet is populated by machines, does that mean they were built by Martians? Or were they built by people?"

Dr. Snively looked like he was deep in thought. " I don't know. This theory has just come to me now and is in its infant stages. Perhaps there are factors at play here we don't know. This warrants further research before anything can conclusivelybe stated."

While the doctor spoke I followed the path of black goo with my eyes as it went up and over the mountain. It seemed as if it were like an arrow, pointing us directly towards the form should we want to see it more clearly. Of course, I was a little hesitant of such actions- I had watched the form burn a building in a matter of seconds not even twenty four hours ago. I hoped the plan wasn't to blindly chase after it, if I would be able to give my two cents.

Detective LaLouf had been quiet. As if the three others of us suddenly realized this, we looked over to her. She was vigoriously texting on her cellphone. Incidentally, she was quite a speedy typist.

"Everything okay, Lola?" Asked Dr. Snively. The detective let out a sigh.

"Yes...you've won, Sherman. You'll have your way."

"Oh? What do you mean?"

"I just reached out to Laurence. Sent him our GPS coordinates. He'll be here shortly to help us."

A smile quickly crossed the doctor's face. "Oh? He's going to help us? And will Laurence be bringing out any of the Super Labs equipment?"

"Whatever he deems necessary," LaLouf replied, "but no, I don't know specifically what so don't waste your time asking."

That the detective had little information didn't seem to bother Dr. Snively. Like an excited child he began to jump up and down with glee.

"Oh, marvelous! Marvelous! Marvelous!" He exclaimed over and over. With each 'marvelous' there was a slight tooting sound and the almost cleared air once again was full of sulferic stink.

We were all adults, but the smell was hard to ignore. I did my best to be polite, so I averted my eyes down to Boom-Boom. She was not at all interested in the trail of black gold, it seemed. Instead, she seemed to be amusing herself by battling pebbles with her tiny paws.

Ah, to be a cat, I thought as I watched her, and to be oblivious of the noxious odors of humanity.