Environment Bug's Arc

Chapter 6 of 7

Bug left the lodge at dawn and followed the dead vegetation strip uphill, past the new fence. He carried his probe and a notebook. The strip narrowed near a patch of cracked earth. In the center sat a heavy metal disc, half-buried, etched with old geometric patterns. He dug around its edge with his probe. The soil beneath stank of chemicals. He pried the disc up. A shaft dropped into darkness, lined with old pipe. The pipe ran sideways, not down. Bug followed its direction across the ridge, through brush, until he reached a clearing he had never mapped. A rusted shipping bin sat there, packed with leaking barrels marked with hazard symbols. The pipe fed straight into the ground beneath it. Bug climbed onto the bin and found a weathered logbook wedged behind the barrels. The pages listed dumping dates going back nine years. The header showed a faded logo from a closed drive-in theatre down the valley. The university had not caused this. Neither had any recent crew. The drive-in's old operators had buried their waste here and walked away. Bug photographed every page, then climbed down and sealed the bin with his warning tape. The site was no longer a research puzzle. It was a crime, with a name attached. He tucked the logbook into his pack and started back toward the lodge to file a new report — this time to someone with the authority to act.