by Read, John
“Everyone OUT OUT OUT!” Johnson yelled from the nearest stairwell. He held open the door as people rushed out.
Nicolas and I rushed into the stairwell as the power went out, stumbling down the thirteen floors in the dark.
We made it to the lobby as the first shockwave hit L.A. The sky darkened as debris filled the air. There was a loud boom and the sound of shattering glass resonated through the building. We stayed in the building until the glass stopped falling.
Nicolas and I struggled to maintain our balance as an earthquake shook the lobby. People from the control room pooled around us as we rushed to get outside. On the street, traffic was at a standstill. Members of the press were waiting for us, ready to bombard NASA employees with questions. Another earthquake hit, and we used the distraction to avoid the press. Outside, people were running away from any structure that might collapse, avoiding burst water mains and broken glass.
Another tremor rocked the ground, this one much more intense than the last. I looked back from where we’d come. The pillars of NASA’s Watney building swayed to the left, then to the right, before snapping like matchsticks. The building crumbled to the ground.
We ran towards the hills a mile away, hoping that the lack of infrastructure would provide safety from the collapsing buildings.
Maintaining balance was tricky as we ran across the shaking ground. The earth continued to shake and giant cracks formed in the road. I was a runner, but my legs ached with the extra effort. I had Nicolas by the arm and was dragging him forward. Chunks of roadway the size of busses collapsed into the sewers, while dirt and grime shot into the air. The structures on either side of us shook off their foundations, and the rubble continued to tremble.
We ran up the hill and reached the Roosevelt Golf Course. The irrigation lines had burst, and pools of water covered the fairways.
Another shockwave hit, an air shock and earthquake all at once. The air shock blew me off my feet and onto my back. I slid across the green, looking up in time to see Griffith Observatory blown to pieces. The three astronomical domes flew into the air while the bricks, mortar, dirt and debris blew down off the hillside towards us.
I leapt to my feet, surrounded by sinkholes as pieces of the observatory rained down.
“Nicolas!” I yelled.
People scattered all over the fairway. Nicolas lay nearby, stunned. I grabbed his arm, using all my strength to raise him to his feet. We continued our sprint across the greens as chunks of the observatory rained down, leaving basketball-sized holes in the muddy ground.
I saw it out the corner of my eye, but it was too late. A cinder block punched Nicolas in the back at two hundred miles per hour, driving his body deep into the mud. He disappeared into the sludge. I tried to pull him out, digging with my hands as mud and gunk pooled in around my knees.
My arms ached, but I kept digging, reaching into the muck trying to grab an arm or piece of clothing to drag his body to the surface.
The debris no longer rained down. I looked about, realizing I was up to my waist in dark brown water. Nicolas was gone. I could feel the adrenaline shooting through my veins. I’d never witnessed anyone die before, and I was surprised that I didn’t feel grief, only anger.
I looked around at all the people. Some had serious injuries, while some carried their injured friends. Some just looked stunned. I unclicked my phone from my watch. The screen was caked with mud. I tried my best to wipe it clean, dipping it in the water. The phone was waterproof, but I had no bars. I put it back.
I climbed northward, higher into the hills. Tears streamed down my face. I turned around to face the city, slouched down and took in the view. The sky was a pinkish brown, with patches of black. Smoke billowed from a thousand fires and the air was thick with the smell of burning plastic and raw sewage. A gas line burst into flames and then fizzled out. I could see Los Angeles International Airport in the distance. A pile of double decker A380s and part of the terminal lay jumbled at the bottom of a sinkhole.
Not a single building stood more than a few stories high in all of downtown L.A., and Santa Monica was underwater. The city resembled a trash heap in a third world country. I watched as fires burned only to be extinguished by rising sewer water. A siren blared in the distance and then stopped. For the moment, all was silent in Griffith Park.
I looked at my watch. It was only six p.m. and sunset wasn’t for a few more hours, but the sky had grown dark. I contemplated using my phone’s flashlight, but I wanted to conserve power on the off chance we got signal back. I paced around the park near the observatory, trying to work out my options. Going back down into the city was far too dangerous. Several people were already on the hill, probably tourists visiting the observatory and freelivers who had been enjoying their ample free time in the park.
I walked from person to person, asking if anyone needed help, and administered first aid where I could. Most people just wanted to be alone.
I slept, or at least took shelter that night, in the remains of the observatory. What else was I supposed to do?
I awoke early the next morning to the sound of horns blaring in the distance, the sound a ship makes when it comes into port. I got up and looked towards the ocean. Aircraft carriers lined the shore. They must have arrived from San Diego. A squadron of helicopters and other vertical takeoff and landing aircraft swarmed over the city, picking people off mounds of rubble, taking the survivors back to the ships. I could see thousands of men and women in military uniform searching through the debris.
A large military helicopter landed on the plateau where Griffith Observatory used to be. I recognized the helicopter; NASA had a few of them for recovering spacecraft that landed at sea. The helicopter was the Sikorsky Super Stallion, which, in its current configuration, could carry seventy-five passengers in airline-type seats. I boarded the helicopter with about fifty or sixty others through the large hatch at the rear.
I went to the front and leaned into the cockpit, the co-pilot’s seat was unoccupied. They must be short on pilots, I thought.
“Hey,” I said to the captain. “I’m a pilot. Mind if I join you up here?”
“Have a seat, boss,” he said. “Commander Avery Garcia, call me Avro.” He reached out and shook my hand. He looked to be younger than me by five or six years, and though he was seated, I guessed he was a few inches taller as well, but maybe that was just the helmet.
“Avro,” I said, repeating the call-sign and committing it to memory. “John Orville.”
Avro then leaned out of his seat, looking back into the cabin. His straps were loose and wires dangled from his helmet. The wires connected his radio transmitter and helmet-mounted heads up display to the console. He pressed a black button on the control stick, activating the helicopter’s PA system.
“Find a seat and strap the hell in,” he said over the PA. He then hit another set of switches. The tail ramp retracted and the helicopter’s turbofan engines spooled up. The sound of gyros filled the cockpit as the instruments came online. A second later, the first rotor whooshed overhead. After another rotation, the rotors spun so fast they were invisible, and the sound of the gyros was replaced by the chop, chop, chop sound that gave helicopters their nickname.
“Here’s the deal,” said Avro through the PA system. “I’m taking you to the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise III. From there, you’ll get a connecting flight to Denver, Seattle, Phoenix, Dallas, or Las Vegas.
“Once we land, go to one of the computer terminals on the deck and log in. List any family members you believe were on the West Coast. The computer will select the destination where you will most likely be reconnected with any survivors. You can either take the computer’s recommendation, or choose one of the five cities on your own. Please direct any questions to the officers on deck when we reach the Enterprise.”
Avro clicked off the PA as he piloted the aircraft toward the sea. “So where are you from?” he asked.
“Washington, D.C. I’ve been working at AMES near San
Francisco.”
“NASA. Shit man, you’re not going to be very popular.”
“No kidding,” I responded. I needed to remind myself to stop telling people that. Maybe I needed an alternative identity. Maybe I could say I sold life insurance? No one, absolutely no one, wants to hear about life insurance. “My wife and son were in San Francisco, I told them to drive north. Do you have any idea how hard that area was hit?”
“Smart,” Avro said, “San Fran’s in worse shape than L.A. There’s trouble up north, I can tell you that.”
“What kind of trouble?” I asked, feeling a lump in my throat.
“The Cartel thinks the impact was intentional, like it was a government plot or something. The rescue helicopters are taking small arms fire. We’ve been able to approach the downtown cores of L.A. and San Fran, but we’re taking hits from everywhere else.”
“I thought the Cartel was contained—I had no idea they had influence near the coast.”
“They didn’t until now. Conspiracy theories are powerful things,” Avro said. “I guess they mobilized a number of sympathizers and are paying folks to stick around and act as human shields.”
I knew the Cartel had money and lots of it. The government had reinvigorated the War on Drugs, driving up the market price of street drugs. This provided a massive influx of cash for the Cartel. Governments never seem to learn from history; this was exactly how the Cartel got started back in the twenty-twenties.
“I told my wife to meet me in Vegas.”
“Log in like everyone else, buddy. You’ll be in Vegas later today. Your family will meet you there.”
“Thanks,” I said, not convinced it could be so simple.
“You said you’re a pilot?” Avro asked.
“Private pilot,” I said. “IFR rated.”
“After you connect with your family, call me,” Avro said, “We could use your help with SAR.”
“I will,” I said, pretty sure I was out of a job.
After a two-hour flight on a large military jump jet, I arrived in Vegas. A data terminal at McLaren Airport indicated that Marie hadn’t checked in. I leaned against the wall, staring at the floor and frozen with grief.
“Hey,” said a voice over my shoulder. “There’s an app for that.”
“Huh?” I responded, turning around to see a young man in a blue vest. The man must have been an airport employee.
“An app, for connecting with your family,” he said. “FEMA set it up. Same database as those terminals.”
“Thanks,” I said. Looking at my phone, I realized it had a signal again. I told it, “Download FEMA app.” The Federal Emergency Management Agency’s logo appeared on the screen. The application asked permission to access all my social media accounts, including location identifiers. I said, “Yes” to the all the messages.
The app contained more information than the kiosk. It let me know that my wife had not accessed social media and was not using her phone’s location services. I stumbled towards the wall and slid to the airport floor, my gut wrenching with grief and worry. Other people sat along the walls crying. Some just walked down the aisles as if it were a normal day at the airport.
Airport security walked the halls, telling people to “move along.” I had to get to the hotel anyway, so I followed orders.
The auto-car system in Vegas functioned without issue and I summoned a ride to the hotel. Leaving the airport, I realized that Las Vegas was relatively unaffected by the impact. Granted, they had experienced earthquakes, but nothing over the sixth magnitude. I noticed large cracks in the roadways and dozens of broken windows, but this was Vegas; it could have been like that before the impact.
I looked out the car’s window and saw the theme park over the New York, New York Casino. It reminded me of Branson. This was another place I’d promised I’d take my family someday. I stopped looking outside and I tried to focus on something else. In my head, I estimated how many people had escaped from L.A. There were hundreds of helicopters and a few dozen jump jets, but L.A. had millions of people. It was clear that this disaster was the worst in the nation’s history. I gave up on the calculations as the car pulled up to the Bellagio.
I’d been to Vegas before, and stayed here at the Bellagio once with Marie. The lobby was exquisite, with grand arches and contemporary art. I was surprised the staff let me in. I looked like shit, mud caked all over my body. Fortunately, I wasn’t the first evacuee to come looking for a hotel room.
“Sir, Sir?” said a bellboy, “Can I help you?”
“I…” I almost said no. “I could use some clothes. Here.” I handed him two hundreds. “Thirty-four waist, medium shirts.”
The bellman took the bills and looked at them. I kept them in my wallet for emergencies. No one used cash anymore, but it was still legal tender and stores had to accept it.
At the front desk, I asked the hotel manager if he’d seen my wife. It was improbable that she had arrived before me, but I asked anyway.
I tapped my phone on the desk and booked the last vacant room.
I sat down on the bed and pulled off a shoe. The bellboy appeared at the door carrying a bag with “GAP” printed on the side.
“A hundred eighty dollars,” the young man said.
“Keep the change,” I said. Twenty dollars wasn’t much of a tip. The kid probably didn’t make much more than a freeliver’s wage. What was that, fifty bucks an hour? At least twenty could buy him a beer. The bellboy nodded thanks, excused himself and walked back down the hall.
I opened the plastic bag and pulled out the first item, a shirt, still warm from the printer. Its light blue coloring and oriental design was moderately tasteful. A navy blue sports jacket and blue jeans completed my new wardrobe. In the bottom of the bag, I found two pairs of socks and two pairs of underwear. The items smelled of hot polyester so I placed them on the bed to air out while I took a shower.
After the shower I sat on the bed and transferred the phone’s FEMA application to the hotel’s holovision. There were no recent notifications; Marie and Branson were either still driving, or they were... I couldn't finish the thought.
Thirty-eight million people were listed in the database, with only twenty million people accounted for. Of these, two hundred thousand were listed as “deceased.”
Two hundred thousand. Good God, I thought. I searched for Nicolas Francis. A relative had listed him as missing. I selected “Edit” from a menu and entered the following information:
Last known location: Roosevelt Golf Course, East Los Angeles.
Last known health status (drop down box): Deceased.
Cause of death: Sub menu (drop down box): Blunt force trauma.
Relation (drop down box): Co-worker
I closed Nicolas’s record, hoping someone would recover the body. I reloaded the previous menu, watching as the casualty count creeped upward. I wanted to throw up. I wondered if my mother had checked this. If she did, she’d find out that I was alive, but that Marie and Branson were missing. Mom was still pissed I’d joined NASA, an organization she believed was a waste of her tax dollars. I didn’t bother calling her. I was already too pissed off.
Google owned several satellites that provided high quality images of Earth. The images were live, but as I zoomed in to California, thick brown clouds rendered the images useless.
The news coverage was sporadic, but one report showed a steady flow of helicopters taking survivors out of San Francisco.
It was painful to surf social media. Without cell coverage in the affected areas, the posts were limited to people in the same situation as me. People posted photos of missing loved ones, or images of their evacuation, but that was it. #NASASFAULT was trending.
I spent an hour looking for updates from Sonoma County. This was my best guess as to where Marie and Branson were at the time of the impact. From what I gathered from people’s location tags, most of the roads were impassable due to avalanches and sinkholes. If Marie and Branson were on their way to Vegas, it was
n’t by car.
By evening, cell coverage had returned to some of the affected areas and there was a new trend on social media. The Cartel was preventing people from leaving, preventing them from evacuating. People posted videos of armed men standing in rows across stretches of crumbling pavement.
My depression turned to rage.
My body started shaking from the anxiety. I was angry with NASA for screwing up the mission. I was angry with myself for being a part of it. Most of all, I was angry at the Cartel for being, well, the Cartel, for being stupid enough to think this catastrophe was intentional and for putting my family’s lives in danger. Was there anything I could do?
I remembered what Avro had said; they needed search and rescue pilots. I sent him a text.
“No sign of family. Sign me up for SAR.”
When he texted back, the message read. “Meet me at Nellis AFB tomorrow at 0730. BYO aircraft.”
Bring my own aircraft? I thought. Shit.
I called Henderson airfield and asked if they had aircraft for rent. It was late and a Turing operator took my call. Officially, all the aircraft had been rented. But the operator said I could stop by the flight club and talk to the pilots, so I grabbed an auto-car and headed to the airfield.
Several pilots sat in the flying club’s lounge. When I approached the group, they were talking about California.
“It’s a mess,” said a female pilot. She looked exhausted. The four bars on her shoulder meant that she was captain. Another pilot seated nearby wore a similar uniform with three bars; he must have been the copilot.
“Past Death Valley, ain’t nothing but death,” said an older man seated at the lounge’s bar. I told the room I was looking for a plane. Everyone stopped their conversations to listen to my plea. It was embarrassing. I felt like a beggar on the metro telling some sob story and asking for cash.
The old man at the bar motioned for me to talk to him. Apparently, a prospector named Eddie Rizzo owned an electro-glider he’d used for surveying. Electro-gliders are like flying hybrid-electric cars. But while hybrid cars recharged their batteries while braking, electro-gliders recharged while descending or by flying through rising air. Eddie stored the aircraft in a hangar nearby and if I bugged him, he just might let me borrow it, for a fee.