Sea of a Thousand Words

by Christine C. Wallace

  The shaking stopped almost as abruptly as it began. Evie held her breath as she listened to the bridge’s support beams groan and crackle. All around her, people moaned—screams emanated from several cars that hung over the edges of the broken overpass. A cacophony of noises rang from the town below—explosions, car alarms and shattering glass coalesced into white noise inside Evie’s head. She held the binoculars to her eyes, and saw a sailboat aground on Front Street—one of the city garbage trucks lay on its side on top of Mason’s Pharmacy. Sewage sprang from the street in front of the Cannery Restaurant. The cruise ship was now completely engulfed in smoke and flames. Passengers scrambled away from the docks as crew leapt from the upper decks two hundred feet into the shallow mud. To Evie, life took on a slow-motion, surreal quality. She closed her eyes and pressed her forehead into the cold steel rails.

  Several minutes passed and she heard footsteps as a number of survivors gathered near the railing. People filed past her as they looked for a way off the piling. She heard them talking and then all at once, four men climbed onto the rail. She watched them descend the steel girders. The space between the beams was over five feet in some places; even more where the beams had broken off or been crumpled by the quake. As they fought their way down the hundred-foot structure, those who remained on the bridge shouted encouragement. At last, the four men reached the bottom. They scrambled over slimy rocks and mud to find firm ground. Waving at the six others on the bridge, they yelled, “Come on—climb on down!”

  Evie stared as the people climbed over the rails. They called down to the men below for instructions. “Where do I put my foot?” “…I can’t see the next step—where should I go next?”

  Her radio beeped. It was Brock’s voice. “Evie, are you still there?”

  She held the radio close to her cheek and replied, “Yes—are you okay, Dad?”

  “Still hangin’ in there, Buttercup. How are you?”

  “Daddy, there are some people climbing down the steel beams. Do you think I should follow them?”

  “Evie, no. Don’t leave the bridge right now—not now. This is important. Promise me that you will stay put.”

  “I promise Dad, but… but don’t you think I should get down there and find Mom?”

  “Evie, it’s not over yet, honey. There’s going to be a big wave pretty soon—a really big one. You’ll have to stay up there where it can’t get you. Understand me?”

  Evie frowned and tilted her head. “Dad… are you talking about a tsunami?”

  “Yeah babe, a tsunami.”

  “But if it could get me way up here…”

  “Evie.”

  “Yes?”

  “You are going to hold onto that railing and… Please. Just do it.”

  Evie stared at her father’s distant fish boat while they spoke. She imagined he was sitting there next to her, his arm around her shoulder. As she looked toward Nomad, she noticed a white wall on the horizon. It covered the entire ocean as far as Evie could see. She placed the binoculars to her eyes and said, “Dad—there’s a huge cloud or something right near the water.”

  “Hang on a sec.”

  Brock stepped on deck and walked to the stern. His crew sat on fish crates and smoked, staring at the white wall across the sea. “Get below guys, let’s have this old girl fired up and ready to roll once there’s some more water under her keel.”

  “It’s gonna be a wild ride huh, boss?”

  “It’s gonna be somethin’, that’s for sure.”

  “Well, Yippee-Ki-Yay, then says I.”

  Brock returned to the wheelhouse and picked up the mic. “Calling station Buttercup-Buttercup, this is fishing vessel Nomad. Do you copy?”

  Evie smiled and returned the formal hail, “Nomad, this is Buttercup. I copy you loud and clear. Over.”

  “Buttercup, it looks as if we’ll be heading in to town real soon here. Thinkin’ I might be a little busy for the next hour or so… Maybe I could use an extra pair of hands after that. What say we transmit our coordinates once this little ride is over and meet up?”

  “Nomad, I copy. I’ll be waiting for your call. Over.” Evie sighed and smiled, then pressed the transmit button again, “Nomad?”

  “Buttercup, this is Nomad.”

  “You should’ve taken me with you like I asked.”

  “Yeah, well I sure could use an extra pair of hands in the wheelhouse at this point. You may just be right about that. I’m sorry I didn’t listen.”

  “I really love you, Dad. I’ll see you in a little while, OK?”

  “See you soon sweet girl—what did I say about staying put?”

  “You said, ‘hold tight—don’t let go’ Daddy. I swear I won’t move.”

  “That’s my gal! I love you. Don’t ever forget it. This is Nomad signing out.”

  “Buttercup, out.” Evie gulped and set her radio in the backpack. She grabbed the bars of the railing and shook them with all her might. Then with a sigh, she bowed her head and waited.

  Ten minutes passed, and then ten more. Evie dozed off a little and when at last she opened her eyes, the white wall had reached the mouth of the Columbia. The wave spanned the entire horizon, reaching up to sixty feet above the ocean’s surface. A thunderous roar echoed from the shores of the Columbia River. The river’s current, shallow as it had become, now ran backward—toward the Cascade mountains. The tsunami forced the water in front, overtook it and assimilated it into the furious mass of destruction.

  Evie was fixated on the wave’s sheer size. She stared at the towering cliff of water for some time in disbelief. Her gaze moved toward what lay ahead in the tsunami’s path and she saw Nomad; it looked so tiny now. Its keel was no longer embedded in the mud, the boat—like many others—was motoring at full throttle upriver, attempting to outrun the calamity behind them.

  Nomad powered forward at thirteen knots of speed. The extra push of the receding river gave them several knots advantage, but Brock knew that the pursuing wave traveled much faster than his engine could turn. “Arrrrgh! Move forward, you bitch!” He shouted at the controls and pushed the throttle to the dashboard. The ocean’s roar boomed all around them. He dared not look over his shoulder for risk of losing his nerve. His deckhands stood behind him and clung to the doorway—their life jackets strapped on tightly. A large shadow suddenly blocked the sun across Nomad’s port windows. Brock leaned forward and looked up toward the sky. One of the freighters careened sideways toward them. The broadside of the freighter’s hull filled the entire window. As the ship bore down on Nomad, Brock looked over at his crew and said, “Fellas, this is it.”

  From her perch atop the bridge piling, Evie stared across the Columbia as Nomad disappeared underneath the freighter’s keel. The tsunami came upon them and swallowed both vessels. She held tightly to the railing and clutched the handheld radio against her chest, whimpering, “Daddy, Daddy… Daddy don’t go. Please, come back.”

  The wall of water consumed the town’s waterfront. It broke over seawalls, flooded roads and forced everything in its path into a raging torrent of debris. People were swept into the crush as they grasped street posts and doorways. Evie spotted a couple clinging to a restaurant balcony, then suddenly, the woman vanished. The people who had climbed down from the bridge were devoured where they stood—sucked underneath the filthy whitecaps. Nothing remained but the surging sea. Astoria and the Columbia belonged to the Pacific Ocean now.

  The crippled cruise liner, still ablaze, was lifted and deposited on top of the Old Cannery Mall. The building collapsed into splinters as the sea carried away its beams and walls. Bodies poured out of the wreckage and were swept into the current. Evie screamed and hugged the railing as the tsunami roared around the base of her feeble pillar. She felt the entire structure vibrate, heard the metal creak and felt the damp air rise from the energy of the wave. At last, when she had no voice left, she squeezed her eyes and silently mouthed, I love you.

  For the next
four hours the tsunamis returned, as if each new surge meant to claim what its predecessors had been unable to destroy. Evie sat alone on the bridge’s sidewalk and hugged her little section of rail, dully observing the water’s progress and retreat. Her radio that lay across her lap now transmitted only a low static. Suddenly, the entire piling shuddered. Evie jumped, the radio slipped off her lap and tumbled ninety-feet into the water. She gripped the hand rail and peered below. Pinned against the side of the piling was an old fishing schooner. The current had pulled it close to the shoreline as the last wave receded. Its bow was now lodged between the bridge and the rocks but its hull was intact. From where Evie stood, she could make out the name on its transom: The Dottie Rose. Evie stared at the boat for some time, wondering if she could reach its deck from her precarious location.

  An aftershock threw her to the pavement as the ground trembled. The damaged trusses began to crumple as the vibrations continued. Sounds of sheering metal reverberated through the asphalt. Evie realized that the time for escape was now or possibly never. She threw her leg over the side and without looking down, reached for the beam and placed her weight on it. Step by step, she crawled down the framework. The last two supports were missing, torn away by the tsunami’s rampage. She drew a big breath and looked beneath her feet—there was a twelve to fifteen-foot drop to the deckhouse roof on the fishing vessel. If she miscalculated, or if the boat shifted, she would be engulfed in the flood.

  Evie shut her eyes and let go.

  8 The Cleaner

  Residence of Kim Chen. Jun 6. 2033

  22°17'07.7"N 114°08'20.6"E

  Apartment number ten-fifteen on Ma Tau Chung Street overlooked Sai Ying Pun’s attractive cityscape. Situated midway down the brightly lit hallway, the one-bedroom unit faced the building’s high-speed glass elevators. A bamboo mat bearing the characters 欢迎, lay askew on the threshold and the front door was ajar. Inside the flat, a tall bookshelf lay face down with its contents strewn across the Maple veneer flooring. The desk belonging to Kim Chen had been systematically disassembled, Chen’s papers, books and electronics were tossed nearby. A rhythmic drip, drip, drip came from the kitchenette as melting ice trickled from an open freezer door. Kim’s mattress lay on the bedroom carpet—its stuffing removed through ragged slashes that ran diagonally across the cover. The apartment complex’s manager Eunice Lee, sat slumped against the entryway console, a cardkey lay in her lap and a bullet hole punctuating the center of her forehead.

  HighTower Corporate, Denver CO. Jun 7. 2033

  39°45'13.2"N 104°59'55.4"W

  Trip Ashfield tapped his finger on the rim of his cup and stared at the concentric ripples forming on the surface of his coffee. The split-screen conversation on Trip’s monitor had devolved into a shouting match as his employer Nelson Banks, debriefed U.S. Secretary of State Maureen Gorton on the current Hong Kong crisis.

  “So, what I’m not getting here Nelson, is how in the year 2033, there can possibly be something as archaic as laptops and hardcopy emails just lying around a top-secret laboratory? Because, it seems to me at least—and I am no scientist here—but it seems like that would be an incredibly asinine protocol to have in place.”

  “Maureen, you’re preaching to the fucking choir, believe me. Allow me to have Mr. Ashfield describe—Trip—are you still there? Explain this all to Madame Secretary for me. I still can’t fathom the logic behind it.”

  Trip cleared his throat and sat forward in the chair. “Madame Secretary, it goes something like this: When companies or individuals deal with sensitive material and if data breach is of high concern, they will typically opt for lower-tech methods. That is to say, they’ll use their own air-gapped systems, randomized operating systems on older models of computers. They tend to build in personal encryptions, combined with a variety of other security protocols. They will keep everything off the cloud so that hackers would have difficulty accessing the information. It’s not impossible, mind you—it can be hacked—but it becomes much more complicated to get inside.”

  “Yes, thank you Mr. Ashfield, I believe I have a pretty firm grasp of espionage counter measures. But I am referring specifically to the emails right now. This doesn’t begin to explain the existence of the goddamn emails. I mean, who in blazes even prints out paper copies anymore?”

  “Well Ma’am, I’m afraid that the weak link appears to be on HighTower’s…”

  “Now, wait a minute here—I can assure you, Maureen…” Banks interrupted.

  “Quiet Nelson. Please proceed, Mr. Ashfield.”

  “Yes, of course. It appears that one of Huang’s scientists—a Zhao Xu—used a separate account when he corresponded with HSA’s contact. As I understand it, Mr. Xu was paid to pass along certain components of the human genome editing experiment covertly to HSA, dubbed ‘Project Revelations.’ My supposition is that the printed emails were sort of a C.Y.A. measure. Archaic? Yes. But in some circumstances—and with some types of people, still a highly-regarded back-up plan.”

  Maureen interrupted, “What in the hell is C.Y.A.?”

  “My apologies—a protection measure—he was ‘covering his ass,’ you might say.”

  “Ahhh—go ahead.”

  “Now, Huang’s lead researcher—this individual named Chen—was unaware of Xu’s relationship with HSA concerning the weaponized variation. Chen apparently kept these documents that he discovered and, after he destroyed the lab’s air-gapped system, has added another layer of encryptions to the remaining data. We are working to crack his new codes of course, however as Xu’s personal computer was lost in the fire, so were the only existing copies of those downloaded files.”

  “I see. And, Mr. Ashfield, how exposed would you say we are at this moment?”

  “Well Madame Secretary, I can inform you that, at this moment, Mr. Xu is no longer a factor in our equation. My operatives have assured me that the other scientist—the Mr. Chen—should be in HighTower’s custody within the day. Cleanup is occurring as we speak… so my opinion is that our exposure risk is minimal.”

  “There… So you see, Maureen,” said Banks, “we’ve put a tight lid on this matter, like I told you—the whole…”

  “I have no interest in hearing about a lid, Nelson. There is not going to be any ‘put a fucking lid on it.’ Do you get my meaning, here? Am I being succinct enough for you? I want this entire matter to be dealt with… Disappeared, dissolved, dissipated—dis-effing-owned.”

  “I hear you loud and clear Madame Secretary. Loud and cl…”

  “…And furthermore, I am informing you that as of right now, the Administration has no knowledge of this Revelations project—absolutely none. We’re catching a lot of heat from people like Raj Kaleka and his organization about the whole immigrant thing. We cannot handle any more negative press—or god forbid, a scandal. So, if there’s any blowback, it will be your heads that swing—and only yours. The buck stops with HighTower, Nelson.”

  “Maureen, I am acutely aware of this. Thank you for reminding me.”

  Trip leaned back in his chair and folded his hands behind his head. Their chatter was beginning to give him a headache. He yawned and stretched his neck until the vertebrae popped, then returned his attention to the conversation.

  “Gentlemen, I have to go down the hall now and debrief the President about your situation. Did you hear me say that— your situation? I can assure you that he will not be pleased in the least to hear this news. So now, is there anything else that I should know about before we end our conversation?”

  “Only that Trip has been given full authority to clean this mess up using any means necessary—quickly and efficiently. And that by the next time we talk Maureen, this project will be concluded—history.”

  “What project would that be, Nelson?”

  “Right… Yes. Exactly, Madame Secretary.”

  “Oh, and gentlemen… do I need to remind you that this matter must never reach the Prime Minister’s ears? It must be
contained—correct?”

  “That goes without saying.”

  “Fine. I trust you’ll have some good news for me in the next twenty-four hours, Nelson. And thank you for your time, Mr. Ashfield. Good afternoon.”

  “Thank you, Maureen.” Banks replied.

  “My pleasure, Madame Secretary.” Trip pressed the escape key and the spit screen vanished. His mobile buzzed.

  “Yes?”

  “That is the absolute last ass-whooping I plan to receive from that obnoxious bitch—you got that?”

  “I’m reasonably certain that I understand your meaning.”

  “Excellent, as long as we are clear on that particular issue. So, what have you got on this missing celestial?”

  “The search of Chen’s apartment yielded nothing. Two operatives are paying a visit to his associate—a woman named Jiang Lui—she’s one of the other researchers in Huang’s lab, apparently, she was pretty tight with Chen. They’re currently interrogating her; I’ll receive a call once they’ve sifted out anything relevant.”

  “Sift her fine, Trip. We need some solid results soon.”

  “They know what’s expected of them. Look Nelson, we’ve got analysts checking scanners at all airports and docks. This guy’s going to turn up on our radar soon—there’s no other way around it.” Trip stood up and walked over to the plate-glass window with his cup. His reflection off the mirrored glass was clearly visible—golden hair, a deep-set brow with steel blue eyes glared coolly back at him as he sipped the lukewarm coffee and said, “We’re not leaving any crumbs behind on the trail.”

  “Good, good. You know the consequences on this one.”

  “Understood.”

  “Listen—Trip—In the event that this intel should fall into the hands of a terrorist organization... Well, how soon would we know about—would we have the time…?”