Sedulity 2: Aftershock (Sedulity Saga) (16 page)

Kevin nodded,
speechless. Professor Farnsworth spoke up, saying, “
The water
prevailed and increased greatly upon the Earth, and the ark floated on the
surface of the water.”
 
No one took their
eyes off the television, but heads were nodding and the captain noticed several
of his officers cross themselves and mumble prayers too.

The wave carrying the
Queen
Mary
had almost reached downtown Los Angles by then, smashing its way up
the Harbor Freeway. It must have traveled more than ten miles inland by now, showing
no sign of stopping. While it had diminished in height, the churning water was
still engulfing every building in its path, even mid-rise apartments and
condominiums.
 
Everyone sat speechless as
the wave carried the old ocean liner across Interstate 10 and straight towards
the skyscrapers of the city.

There were collective gasps in the dayroom, as there were
among viewers around the world, when it became clear that the old ship was on a
collision course to hit the 55 story JS Marriott and Ritz Carlton hotel complex
that towered above LA Live and the Staples Center on the edge of downtown.
Amidst all the death and destruction enveloping the city, the cameraman on the
helicopter zoomed in on the skyscraper and the wave-borne ship bearing down on
it. A large military helicopter had just lifted off from the rooftop helipad,
presumably packed with a final batch of evacuees, but other people had been
left behind on the roof. Some were frozen with fear, staring at the wave and
ocean liner closing in on them. Others scurried like ants, darting back inside
the building with slim hope for survival. A ring of bodies could be seen
scattered on the helipad, indicating that the soldiers had to open fire to keep
from being swamped by the panicked mob when the last helicopter was full.

The churning wave was little more than five hundred feet high
when it smashed into the skyscraper. The top of the moving mountain of water
hit about ten floors down from the roof, but it splashed up and over the top of
the building, clearing the helipad of living and dead alike, before parting to
flow around the tower and roar on into downtown Los Angeles. The
Queen Mary
, on the other hand, rammed
squarely into the building at about the 40
^th
floor. The old ship
speared straight through a dozen floors of multi-million dollar Ritz Carlton condominiums,
shattering the remaining glass walls, and then the bow smashed out the opposite
side of the skyscraper.
 

Then something truly amazing happened. While millions
watched, waiting for the building to collapse and the ship to get pulled under
the raging water, it didn’t. The water receded slightly after the initial wave
passed, leaving the former ocean liner firmly lodged through the entire width
of the building, with several hundred feet of the ship protruding on either
side of the massive structure. It reminded Kevin of a giant rock he had seen in
New Mexico, balanced on a thin pillar after millions of years of flooding had
eroded the rest of its support. Impossible as it seemed, the
Queen Mary
had impaled herself straight
through the top of an LA skyscraper and the building was still standing for the
moment, as raging waters inundated the rest of the city. That image, captured
from several angles by helicopters and cameras broadcasting from hilltop
locations, would become the iconic symbol of the destruction sweeping around
the world that day.
 

After a few amazing seconds, the massive hotel complex
collapsed under the combined stress of supporting a thousand foot long ocean
liner piercing its upper floors, the intense pressure of the tsunami gutting
the floors below, and structural damage sustained in the massive earthquake
earlier that day. The tower fell towards the Staples Center, which was already
fully submerged, bringing the
Queen Mary
down to strike the churning water on her port side. The big ship struggled to
stay afloat, holding the top of the building out of the water for a few more
agonizing seconds, before being pulled under by the weight of the skyscraper
and the water that flooded into her upper decks. If anyone had been aboard the
legendary ocean liner on her last epic voyage into downtown LA, they wouldn’t
live to tell the tale.

Fox Rusher sputtered excited commentary in the background
while the waves continued on to ravish the city. As Fox had feared, many of the
high rise structures in the city center had indeed suffered too much earthquake
damage to withstand being hit by a five hundred foot high wall of water. They
trembled, tottered and fell into their neighbors, causing a domino effect across
portions of the skyline. The progress of the wave could also be measured by the
number of fires it snuffed out as it tore through the earthquake ravaged
city.
 
The waves converged on the city
from the south and west, channeled by the Santa Monica Mountains and Hollywood
Hills, to engulf nearly the entire Los Angeles Basin with water hundreds of
feet deep. Meanwhile, back at the coastline, the tsunamis marched north in a
non-stop wave of destruction.

Chapter: 8

Two elderly gentlemen stood atop a large rock overlooking
Malibu and the Santa Monica Bay on a mountain vantage point above Piuma Road.
It had taken them all day to hike up to this spot after abandoning their car in
a traffic jam on Malibu Canyon Road. They had pressed on to reach this peak because
it offered a view of the whole coastline, and they hoped that it would be high
enough to remain unscathed by the approaching tsunamis. These two men had a very
good idea of what to expect, having researched the probable effects of a
similar hypothetical event four decades previously.

They were neither surprised nor shocked to see the horizon
swell into the sky, far out to sea. It was a clear day and they were able to
see the first wave strike Catalina Island with a massive plume of whitewater
and mist. Both men carried binoculars and followed the progress of the colossal
walls of water hurtling towards the mainland. The incredible waves broke over
the Palos Verdes Peninsula to sweep down upon Redondo Beach, El Segundo, and
LAX. Details of the disaster became clearer when the waves destroyed Santa
Monica and traveled up the coast of Malibu.

Neither man spoke. They didn’t need to. Decades of working
together on dozens of projects had developed the type of empathy, nearly telepathy,
normally only granted to twins and married couples. They could feel each
other’s pain, suffering, and overwhelming awe in the face of this natural
disaster. The fact that they had researched and described a similar
hypothetical event didn’t detract from the shocking impact of witnessing it
unfold before their eyes. Their horror at the loss of human life and
destruction of their city was only matched by their respect for the unbridled
power of nature.

The water receded along the beach and they saw the endless
line of mountainous waves build higher and higher as they reached the
shoreline. Multi-million dollar beachfront homes were pulverized in rapid
succession. Massive waves crashed against the coastal mountains, wiping away
homes perched many hundreds of feet above the shore and charging up every
canyon and seam of the foothills. Malibu Pier was gone in an instant, the town
of Malibu an instant later, and the waves tore up Malibu Canyon without pause.
A wall of water hundreds of feet high rushed inland towards Calabasas and Agoura
Hills. Thankfully, the water remained hundreds of feet lower than the mountain
crest where the two men stood, but they could feel the Earth tremble from the
force of the waves’ impact, while the sounds and images of the cataclysm were heart
wrenching and nearly overwhelming. They stood speechless for several minutes,
gazing through the mist at the churning water that continued to fill the canyon
below.

“Is it what you expected, Larry?” asked one of the men.

“No, Jerry,” the other replied with deep sadness. “It’s far
worse than we imagined, isn’t it?”

“Yes, and I’m afraid this is only the beginning of what’s in
store for the world. We’ll need to find a good place to hole up and prepare
before the rain gets here. We should have a couple of days, since the impact
was down near the equator. And it will be weeks before the snow gets to
Southern California.”

“I’m pretty sure our homes are gone, Jerry, and I know my car
just got swept away down there in the canyon. The earthquakes and these
tsunamis have destroyed all the highways. Where do you suggest we go?”

“Well, Larry,” he replied, pointing his finger down the
ridgeline, “we could start by knocking on the door of that house and explaining
the situation to whoever is there.” He indicated a walled mansion perched on
the mountaintop a quarter mile away. “That looks like a good enough spot to
ride out Noah’s flood and the first stages of an ice age.”

“What makes you think the owner will let us stay there?”

 
“We’ll just have to
prove that we’ll be useful to have around.”

“Two old men? How could we be useful?” Larry asked
skeptically.

Jerry hoisted his backpack onto his shoulder and said, “I
brought my Kindle and a solar charger.”

“So what? We’re going to read them our books?” Larry asked
sarcastically.
 

“Maybe, if they get bored,” Jerry smiled. “But I also
downloaded a full encyclopedia, an almanac, the SAS Survival Manual, the
Anarchist’s Cookbook
, and an unabridged
edition of
The Way Things Work.
”

“Brilliant!” Larry beamed. The smiles and good humor faded as
their attention returned to the destruction taking place below, but they had
survived the first phase of the apocalypse and had a plan to survive whatever
came next. Knowing what to expect and possessing the knowledge of how to
overcome it would put them far ahead of most survivors. The men turned and
walked slowly towards the closest hilltop estate.

*****

Kevin Summers sat in stunned silence after watching the
destruction of his home, the television studio where he worked, and the city
where he lived. The split screen coverage of the Fall of LA included a view
from a helicopter following the waves up the coastline. The water did indeed
roar up Topanga Canyon, wiping out the Summers’ house along with all the rest.
The force of the wave was so strong, focused as it was in the canyon, that
water spilled over the crest of the pass to pour down into the San Fernando
Valley too. That sequence of events was only shown for a moment on television
as the helicopter followed the path of destruction further up the coast, though
it was enough for Kevin to know that there was no home left for his family to
return to. This came as no surprise, but was nonetheless heartbreaking to
witness and confirm.

He rose from the couch in the captain’s dayroom without
saying a word and went through the bridge to the staff captain’s dayroom on the
other side of the ship. The television was turned off there and he found Amanda
telling Emily a story about dinosaurs in an apparent attempt to get their child
to take a nap on the couch. Kevin didn’t interrupt them. He stood there
quietly, treasuring this moment of normalcy in a world gone mad.

Mandy’s story was about a stegosaurus named Sammy who wanted
to play with other dinosaurs, but the others were afraid of the spikes on
Sammy’s head and tail. Kevin smiled at the voices and sounds that Mandy used to
imitate Sammy and was pleased to see Emily smile and hear her laugh. However,
he couldn’t help thinking about the extinction event that killed off all of
Sammy’s kind. An asteroid did that, just as this asteroid had destroyed their
own home and taken millions of human lives. Kevin feared for mankind’s future
in the wake of this event, his only comfort being that his family had survived
the initial phase of the cataclysm.

Amanda noticed Kevin standing there and gave him a
questioning look. He tried to smile, but ended up simply shaking his head in
sadness. He didn’t need to tell her that their home was gone, that most of their
friends had just been killed, and that there was nothing left for them to
return to in California. The single tear running down his cheek was enough to
impart the magnitude of their loss.

*****

A steady trickle of passengers were exiting the ship’s
theater, unable to handle the endless images of utter destruction displayed on
television. Hank Donner, while sickened himself, decided to remain until his
new roommates discovered the fate of their homes in Santa Barbara. It wouldn’t
be long now.
 
The waves had wiped out
Port Hueneme and the entire coastal plain of Oxnard and Camarillo before
inundating Ventura. Now the tsunami was crashing against the coastal mountains
between Ventura and Santa Barbara.

The helicopter filming this portion of the apocalypse had
swung out over the Santa Barbara Channel in a failing attempt to keep pace with
the waves and beat them to Santa Barbara. A panoramic view showed the tsunamis
striking the Channel Islands and spilling between them as mountainous bulges
that spread out and kept coming. Over a dozen oil drilling platforms, several
of which Hank had worked on, were ripped apart as the waves closed in on the
mainland. Hank hated to think how much crude oil would pour into the ocean
there, if the wellhead safeties failed. That was the sort of disaster that he
and his Armadillo would have been called in to address, if it had been an
isolated event – which this clearly wasn’t.

Hank glanced over at Romy and her pathetic boyfriend. They
were holding hands and it looked like Romy’s grip was making Fed wince. It was
hard to tell though, considering how terrified he appeared. Hank wasn’t a very
compassionate man, especially since his wife Joan had fallen victim to cancer
and passed away, but had to admit that he felt sorry for Fred. He felt worse
for Romy, of course, since she seemed like a survivor and he hoped the next few
minutes wouldn’t traumatize her too severely.

Hank thought he could handle watching a wave like this wipe
out Galveston and Houston. He was a hardened oilman and widower who had lost
everything more than once before in his life. Seeing his home be destroyed
couldn’t be any worse than watching his wife succumb to the cancer, he mused.
Thankfully, Hank’s home was not in the path of destruction this time, but he
felt a rare twinge of compassion for Romy and all the others aboard the ship who
were not so lucky.

“You might not want to see this,” Hank said softly to the
couple seated beside him. “It looks like Santa Barbara will take a direct hit.”

“That’s not possible!” Fred blurted. “It’s insane! This can’t
be happening!” He looked crazed with fear and denial. Romy shrank away from him
and looked towards Hank for support, or protection. Others nearby in the
theater glanced over at Fred, recognizing his anguish and unstable mental
state. Hank frowned and second guessed his decision to invite the man to share
his suite. He studied Fred closely for a moment, noting the wild-eyed
expression on his face. After a moment Fred’s eyes glazed over and he stared at
the television. Romy began to cry and turned to bury her face in Hank’s
shoulder when the tsunamis struck their hometown.

GNN was showing a split screen of the tsunami closing in on
Santa Barbara and the aftermath of its impact on Los Angeles. The helicopter
chasing the wave across the Santa Barbara Channel offered a different
perspective from behind the massive swell. It grew larger as it approached
land, blocking out their view of the city in front of it. Then it crashed upon
the shoreline and turned into a roiling maelstrom of white water that must have
torn the picturesque city to shreds. It was hard to see from that angle. Hank
thought that was probably a blessing for his two companions. One moment the
famous vacation destination was there, and then it was gone, replaced by a
violent surge of water.

As Hank had predicted, the wave took out virtually all of
Santa Barbara and the surrounding communities of Montecito, Carpentaria, and
Goleta, but didn’t rise much higher than the foothills of the coastal mountain
range behind them. The Channel Islands had blunted some of the force of the
tsunami, though not enough to save the city and coastline. The helicopter
caught up to the devastation seconds later and broadcast the immediate
aftermath, focusing on swirling wreckage and whole houses being torn from hillsides
to be swept back out to sea with the receding flood. Then the camera panned up
to the crest of the foothills and coastal mountain range where it zoomed in to
show thousands of people standing in shocked horror, staring down at what had
become of their homes.

Hank said, “It looks like lots of survivors made it up into
the hills. Let’s hope most of the people you know are among them.” Romy was
crying openly now, sobbing on Hank’s shoulder. Fred was too shocked to react at
all, except for his white knuckled grip on the seatback in front of him.
   
   

On the television Fox Rusher had lost the ashen look of
terror that had clouded his face while the tsunamis raced towards his
mountaintop perch at the Griffith Observatory overlooking Los Angeles. As soon
as it became clear that his vantage point was indeed safe from the killer waves,
his demeanor shifted back to something approaching business as usual. You could
still hear the horror underlying his running commentary on the destruction of
Southern California, though now it was seasoned with relief that he had
survived it.

“
Debris choked water
continues to flow through Griffith Park, swirling around the lower slopes of
Mount Hollywood. The water has flowed around this mountain to flood Glendale
and up the LA River bed to inundate the San Fernando Valley too, but I believe
it’s already starting to recede towards the coastline. Yes, I’m seeing the tops
of more hills and what’s left of buildings starting to emerge down below. I see
no sign of survivors in the water, but it’s hard to tell with all the wreckage
floating around down there.
 

“Tens of thousands of people have
survived by climbing this mountain and are gathered around the observatory.
Many others didn’t make it high enough and were swept away by the waves. We can
see survivors gathered on top of other hills that escaped the flood. This is
small consolation, compared to the millions that lived in this city, but we can
hope that many more people were able to escape farther inland during the hours
before the waves arrived.”