Talara

“So this is copé?” Perusina asked.

Under a glass dome lay a black, shiny lump. It looked like a stone that had melted in the sun and then hardened again.

“That’s what the Tallanes called naturally occurring oil residues,” explained the exhibition director, Señora Vega. “They used the material long before modern refineries.”

Behind her rose a huge model of the Talara refinery. Towers, tanks, and silver pipes filled an entire hall. Transparent conduits showed the path crude oil took during processing.

Franz pressed his nose against the glass dome.

“Does it smell like banana?” Perusino asked.

“No. But one must investigate thoroughly.”

Franz sneezed.

The copé lump glowed.

A black drop floated through the glass dome, even though it was tightly sealed. It hit Franz on the tip of his nose. A vortex of light raced through the hall.

Perusina, Perusino, and Franz shrank.

Within seconds, they were no bigger than screws. A fan caught them and flung them through the open hatch of the refinery model.

“Don’t touch it!” Señora Vega cried.

But the three had already vanished.

They plunged through a transparent pipe. Beneath them, a black liquid surged.

“We’re in crude oil!” Perusina cried.

“I just wanted to smell it,” Franz whined.

A metallic voice boomed through the model.

“Demonstration process starting in ten minutes.”

The pipe split.

Perusina was pulled upwards. Perusino disappeared to the right. Franz fell straight down.

“We’ll meet at the exit!” Perusino shouted.

“Which exit?” Franz bellowed back.

Perusina landed in the distillation tower. Warm vapors rose past her. Numbers for different temperatures glowed on the walls.

Beneath her, the black liquid bubbled.

“Crude oil is heated,” she murmured. “Different components rise to different heights.”

A steam bubble lifted her. Perusina jumped from one metal platform to the next. The higher she got, the cooler it became.

Suddenly, a side pipe opened.

The steam bubble burst.

Perusina slid into the pipe and raced away headfirst.

Meanwhile, Perusino clung to a round maintenance ball. It shot through a silver pipe, bounced off curves, and accelerated.

“Finally, a vehicle without Franz at the wheel!”

A closed valve blinked in front of him.

Perusino pulled a small lever.

Nothing happened.

The maintenance ball hurtled directly towards it.

At the last moment, Perusino jumped off. The ball crashed into the valve, opening it. A gust of air propelled him through the next pipe.

Franz was less fortunate.

He was stuck up to his belly in a viscous black mass.

“Help! I’m turning into a parking lot!”

Above him, Perusino’s face appeared in a viewing window.

“These are heavy residues. Asphalt can actually be made from them.”

“Knowledge later! Pull now!”

Perusino wrapped a thin maintenance cable around Franz’s waist. He braced both feet against the pipe and pulled.

Franz didn't move an inch.

The metallic voice announced: “Five minutes left.”

Then Perusina shot out of an upper pipe. She landed on Perusino, dragging him with her. Together, they pulled Franz out of the mass.

With a loud plop, the fox flew through the air.

His tail was black and sticky, hard as a rock.

“Nobody says anything,” he growled.

A massive chamber opened before them. Red warning lights blinked. A pipe system was depicted on a sign.

“Flexicoking,” Perusina read. “This is where especially heavy residues are processed further.”

The chamber began to vibrate. Hot air rushed through the pipes. The floor beneath the three friends folded away.

They fell.

Perusino caught a chain. Perusina held onto his leg. Franz bit into Perusina’s bag.

Beneath them, a mighty airflow swirled.

“My head is getting long!” Perusino cried.

“That’s your face!” Franz replied with a full mouth.

Perusina spotted a green maintenance hatch on the other side. It began to swing.

“We jump with the next gust of air!”

“That’s not a plan,” Franz said.

“Yes, it is.”

“Then it’s a bad one!”

The gust of air came.

The three let go, flew across the chamber, and crashed together through the green hatch. Behind it was the model’s control center.

The countdown blinked on a screen.

One minute left.

In the middle lay the same glowing copé drop that had shrunk them. It floated behind a row of valves.

Perusina recognized the pipe pattern.

“We have to reverse the path.”

She turned down the temperature controls. Perusino jumped onto a large handwheel and ran in it like a hamster in a wheel. Franz bit into the red emergency lever and hung with all his weight.

Ten seconds.

The last valve opened.

A powerful suction caught them.

They shot through pipes, past the distillation tower, and back to the entrance hatch. The black drop burst into golden light.

The three friends landed, normal-sized, in front of Señora Vega.

The exhibition director stared at them.

Perusina’s hair stood on end. Perusino’s sweater was smoking slightly. Franz’s tail was black and as stiff as a broom.

“You were only gone for twelve seconds,” Señora Vega said.

Franz looked at his tail.

“Then I was asphalt for twelve seconds.”

Perusino grinned. “Very resilient.”

“One more word,” Franz said, “and I’ll park on your foot.”