The Compendium (15 page)

Chapter 19

The hour of the night saved the Bay Area from total chaos in the wake of the earthquake. I rode with Cole this time, cradling Jonah’s head on my lap in the back seat. I’d put a beach blanket on my legs first even though I wore full-length jeans. I wasn’t taking any chances of draining any hydration or energy from him.

I pulled out my phone and searched ‘San Francisco’ and ‘earthquake’ and tapped ‘News’ in the results. The Bay Area had suffered a five point five earthquake. No risk of tsunami. Authorities continued to assess the damages, but residents and visitors alike were strenuously encouraged to stay put. Instructions were to find a stable building and wait for further announcements.

We didn’t have the luxury of remaining in one place. We still saw city lights across the Bay, so we headed back the way we’d come, south on Highway 101 through Sausalito. Glancing around at the moonlit landscape, San Francisco didn’t look much different.
There isn’t really any damage
, I told myself, until we hit traffic backed up at Lime Point.

“Check it out. The Golden Gate Bridge is packed to the gills with gridlock,” said Cole as the tip of the Bridge came into view on the horizon. Jonah sat up, energized with adrenaline like Cole and me.

“Why are these people lined up here, waiting?” said Jonah.

“I don’t know, but turn around now, before we get trapped. Josh will follow.” I tried to imagine what Faith and Ilya were saying in Josh’s Jeep. As the thought entered my mind, I concentrated the traffic jam, thinking hard at Ilya, holding the picture in my mind. My phone jingled. Faith wrote.
What the hell is this?

I tapped back,
Earthquake panic probably. We’re turning back. There’s another bridge to the north. Have you heard back from Nellie?

Faith replied,
No, nothing yet.

I wrote furiously.
Tell them to meet us at Berkeley. Cole wants to go to NCEDC. He thinks they can help.

Faith answered,
Will do. Josh says we’ll follow you north. It’s called the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge. Check to make sure it’s moving! I can’t find anything on it yet.

I replied,
Keep going anyway. If it’s blocked, we’ll deal with it then.

“Faith says the bridge to the north is the Richmond-San Rafael. She can’t find anything online saying it’s open or closed,” I said.

“We might as well go anyway. It’s not like we’ve got any choice.” The tension in Cole’s voice ratcheted up my own anxiety. If we got bogged down in San Francisco, how could we possibly hope to catch Ivan?

“How far do you think Ivan and Tatiana got?” I asked.

“You said they were waiting on Tatiana because she could fly them out on a helicopter, right?” said Jonah.

“I’m sure they went as far as a chopper could take them on a single tank of fuel,” said Cole.

“Wait, let me try my cards again,” I said, mostly to myself.

I fished my cards out of my backpack and eased them out of the pack. I took the first card off the top and ran my fingers across the faded diamond pattern on the back. I flipped it over and frowned at the image.

The Sun. It displayed upside down, so I rotated it for a better look. A personified pale yellow sun looked at me sternly, overseeing an androgynous naked human on horseback. The artistry of the cards still caught me off guard at times. I ran my fingertips firmly across the surface, thinking more about serum than strange old art. I thought about Ivan’s face, the cast on his arm, and then the fresh image of Thorn’s frightening visage popped into my mind.

Cole’s car fell away around me and I stood in a dusty desert at night. Ivan and Tatiana were camping again, alone. As I watched, they toasted opaque camp mugs, the liquid inside dark under the desert night sky. Thorn walked into view, dressed in greasy overalls and a dingy brown T-shirt, his matted hair pulled back into something resembling a ponytail. His arms hung savagely at his sides, tipped with filthy claws as always. Instinctively repelled, I dropped the cards and Cole’s car reappeared around me.

“They’re in a desert. It looks like they had a campsite all prepared and waiting for them,” I said.

“Probably the Mojave or the Sonoran. They couldn’t have gone much farther,” said Cole.

“Never mind Ivan for now. Irina, look for Nellie and the others. If she’s not answering Faith, they could be in trouble. They could be trapped in the Sutro cave for all we know,” said Jonah.

“Of course. Sorry,” I said, fumbling my cards back into my hand.

I repeated the strategy, fingering and flipping cards over in my hands. I came to rest on an image of a compass with strange characters on it, hoisted into the clouds by a pair of angels, another pair of angels below, pointing up. The Wheel of Fortune.

I touched it and in a flash, I stood in the parking lot above the Sutro Baths. Adelaide’s van remained where she’d left it. She sat behind the wheel, with Nellie in the passenger seat. I concentrated on shifting my view and floated around in front of the windshield. Sure enough, Ralph and Bruno were in the back of the van.

“Is it charged yet?” said Bruno.

Nellie picked up her tablet, connected to a cord, plugged into Adelaide’s console. She removed her glasses and rubbed the bridge of her nose. “You’ll be the first to know when it’s got enough juice.”

I concentrated again to float high above Adelaide’s van for a view of the Baths. The ruins had been demolished. Only rubble remained. They couldn’t possibly have been in the cave when the earthquake hit. In a lucky turn, it looked like most of the drill’s damage had been above ground in its immediate vicinity.

I dropped my cards again and texted Faith.
They’re all right. They’re in Adelaide’s van above the Baths. Nellie’s tablet is dead. Keep going to Berkeley and tell Nellie to follow as soon as you hear from her. It won’t be long now.

We reached the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge and hit more gridlock. We had no choice but to push through. It took us an hour of tedious, mind-numbing stops and starts before we were back in the city.

Traffic had thinned in the late hour and we moved freely onto Highway 80 south into Berkeley.

We found University Avenue and made our way to the Berkeley campus. Josh’s Jeep kept up behind us. The gate I recognized from my vision was perfectly intact, exactly as I’d seen it. I smiled, foolishly hopeful.

“It’s down this street here.” I pointed at the next turn. “The entrance has Roman-style pillars on either side.”

“Nobody will be there at this time of night,” said Jonah.  Cole parked in a lot across the street from the building I thought housed the NCEDC. Josh parked next to us. I looked up at the brick and pillar structure. It held all my hopes for quelling Ivan’s seismic arm of
the Compendium
.

“I don’t have any connections at the NCEDC even if they were open. We’re going to need to win them over,” said Cole.

“Ivan and Thorn are long gone. We’re safe here, unless that clock tower falls on us. From the lack of damage so far, it’s a safe bet everything is still structurally sound. I say we wait to regroup with everyone in Adelaide’s van and come up with our next move after this,” said Jonah.

“First we’ll say our piece to the seismic guys. They probably won’t believe us, but we all we can do is warn them that this is just the start. If we can establish a shred of credibility, they’ll know just as well as we do that a serious quake will bring a wall of water hundreds of feet high to add to the destruction,” said Cole.

“Then what? A chase into one of two California deserts?” I said as I got out of the car with Cole and Jonah behind me.

“Adelaide is on her way. You were right - again. Nellie’s tablet died,” said Faith.

“I’m glad you’re still expecting me to screw up,” I said through a crooked smile.

“Nobody thinks you’re going to screw up, but we know it’s a matter of getting the timeline right,” said Ilya.

“Speaking of a timeline, we were trying to think of what our next move should be, after we give our spiel to the NCEDC. Even if they do believe us, there’s nothing more we can do here,” said Cole. “We could try to find the Innoviro office in San Francisco. If they were expecting it to be buried in an earthquake, they might have been careless about leaving evidence.”

“San Francisco was the only other office working on genetics, as far as I knew,” said Jonah.

I quickly picked up his meaning. The cure for his genetic degeneration might be here. “Then we have to try. Even if we find nothing but notes or files. I’ll settle for salvaging a hard drive.”

“I’m starving. We need to restock our cars with food. It’s been hours since I had a freakin granola bar,” said Faith.

“I’m hungry too,” I said.

“Let’s go. We’ll empty our bags and get as much as we can carry,” said Faith.

Cole opened the trunk of his car. Faith took out her backpack while I got mine from Josh’s Jeep.

“I’ll come with you. More hands are better on a food run,” said Ilya.

We left Cole, Jonah, and Josh to wait for someone to come or go from the NCEDC building.

“It’s three o’clock in the morning. The best we’re going to get is a convenience store,” said Faith.

“And those stores will be swamped. Under the circumstances, I think we need to be a little more flexible,” said Ilya.

“What do you mean, steal?” I said.

“I mean we could take advantage of a little chaos and efficiently get a few bare essentials.”

We got back outside the Berkeley campus and found a street echoing with anger. A handful of people were yelling around an ambulance and fire truck at the scene of a fresh car crash. The collision was about two blocks farther down the road. Had we been passing by twenty minutes later than we did, we would have been stuck waiting behind the accident.

In the other direction, we saw a convenience store with a line outside the door. Several apartment buildings nearby were completely dark.

“Is this what you do in the middle of the night after an earthquake? Run down to the corner store to panic shop?” said Ilya while gesturing at the people around us as though serving a platter.

“People are stupid,” said Faith, shaking her head in disgust.

“Well, we’re trying to shop in the middle of an earthquake. That’s not too bright,” I said.

“We’re different. We’re in the middle of this mess for a reason,” said Faith.

“Reason or not, there’s no way we’re getting even a chocolate bar out of that store,” said Ilya as he pointed to the convenience store sign.

“Should we keep going farther? We might find another store,” I said hopefully.

“Another store on the verge of being overrun,” said Faith.

“We passed a closed supermarket. We can be back there, inside, and out, before anyone catches us. If we set off the alarm, it’ll be passed over as looting damage.” Ilya’s eyes were less certain than his words.

“However they take it, let’s hope the cops are too busy dealing with disaster drama to come after us for stealing food.” Faith kicked a soda can out of her way.

“I hate this plan.” I wasn’t bothered by the idea of taking profit from a corporately owned supermarket chain. What bugged me was the idea of being caught. The time Faith and I got locked up in Victoria was enough jail for a lifetime.

“Walk, don’t run. When we get there, we’ll go in the back if it’s safe,” said Ilya.

“Lead the way.” Faith hip-checked my brother with a mischievous smile.

Chapter 20

We reached the supermarket in about half an hour. The large plastic and florescent Albertson’s sign over the entrance flickered and the building was dark.

“Looks like the power is out. Alarm is probably down too then,” said Faith.

“Let’s hope so.” Ilya evaluated the building’s exterior.

No damage could be seen, but my lungs worked overtime fueled by adrenaline nonetheless. The prospect of a supermarket roof collapsing on my head nearly nailed my feet to the ground. I forced one foot in front of the other watching Ilya and Faith marching ahead of me.

My eyes adjusted to the dark as we searched for the household goods aisle. Ilya found a flashlight and batteries. He ripped open the packages and popped the batteries into the back of the flashlight. I watched with raw fascination. It hadn’t taken much to dissolve the social barrier which would normally prevent me from walking into a supermarket and brazenly taking things.

But, here we were, scavenging in a supermarket in the middle of the night after an earthquake. It felt like a post-apocalyptic movie. Little did the already panicked San Franciscans outside know, the end of the world was literally on the horizon if we couldn’t stop my father from completing his Compendium projects.

“We should look for food that doesn’t spoil easily and doesn’t need cooking. The lighter and smaller, the better,” said Ilya.

“I keep forgetting how long you spent out on Sombrio Beach.” Faith smiled, grabbed Ilya’s hand, and drew him in for a kiss.

“I told myself all my self-reliance would come in handy one day,” said Ilya.

“What, specifically, should I grab?” I asked.

“Crackers, dried fruit, nuts, granola, or cereal. Canned pasta and vegetables, but not too much. Cans get heavy fast. And beef jerky.”

“What about bottled water?” said Faith.

“We’ve still got a couple of flats in the back of Cole’s car. We can get more bottled water from a gas station,” said Ilya.

“Might be able to get all the other stuff from a gas station too,” I said.

“Maybe, maybe not,” said Ilya.

“We’re here now. Let’s get our food and get out before we get caught,” said Faith.

“We should split up to go faster. We’ll meet back at the front door when we’re done. First person at the front is the lookout,” said Ilya.

“I’ll take dried fruit and nuts. I’m the smallest and weakest of us. Carrying cans is going to be impossible fast,” I said.

“I’ll hit cans,” said Ilya.

“I guess that leaves me on crackers and cereal,” said Faith.

I found the snack food isle. The packages were hard to read in the dark and I kicked myself for not stealing a flashlight of my own. My eyes adjusted further and the light spilling in from the street became enough for me to read “Trail Mix” and “Hickory Smoked Almonds” along with granola bars and meal replacement energy bars.

I stuffed my backpack until almost full. I saved room for a handful of chocolate bars and wedged them in last. They would make a nice surprise for everyone when we got a chance to regroup.

Jonah, Josh, and Cole were right where we left them in front of the NCEDC when we got back mid-morning. The students and staff of Berkeley were milling about aimlessly, nothing like the flow of people I’d seen in the campus from my vision.

“Have they opened up yet?” said Ilya.

“We’ve already been in and out. Nobody cares what we have to say,” said Cole angrily.

“They told us to come back later,” said Jonah.

“Did you tell them there’s gonna be more earthquakes later?” said Faith.

“We have nothing to give them but a story,” said Josh.

“Didn’t you give them a thumb drive with a copy of everything?” I said to Cole.

“I got out-voted on that one.” Cole glared back and forth between Jonah and Josh.

“We can’t turn over material that got someone killed if we can’t get them to pay attention to the consequences of having it in their possession,” said Jonah.

“We could have popped open a laptop and added a letter, a file titled IMPORTANT or MUST READ,” said Cole with his hands in the air mimicking a sign.

“I saw the looks on their faces too. They didn’t know who we were and didn’t take us seriously. They’re still scrambling to get their own data together. I doubt they’d read anything we gave them anyway, liability or otherwise,” said Josh.

“Well, we need to tell someone. We need help!” said Cole.

“There’s no help!” I took a deep breath, before I shouted at everyone. “For our documents to make sense, they need the big picture. We don’t understand the whole thing ourselves, so how can we explain it to an academic group who doesn’t know about variants? The only way we got Wong to believe us quickly was a private demonstration of everyone’s abilities. Does anyone here feel like putting on a show in close proximity to actual lab rats?”

“This was our chance to put a dent in this Compendium thing. We can’t do this alone!” said Cole.

“So what’s our next move then, cops? The FBI? TV? Bloggers? Another journalist? Irina’s right though, we’d have to provide demonstrations to anyone we bring onboard,” said Ilya.

“This is a waste of time,” said Faith.

“I agree,” said Josh.

“Okay, say we go back to going it alone. Where do we go from here? We failed to stop the earthquake. We were lucky this time, but what about the next target? We have no real idea where Ivan and Tatiana are. Even if we had
The Compendium
and knew the big picture, we wouldn’t necessarily know where their next stop is,” said Cole.

“We would at least know what’s coming. And with
The Compendium
, we might have enough to turn it over to authorities. We can back it up by revealing ourselves. We can prove variants exist by showing off our abilities,” I said.

“Shit. I’m not ready for that,” said Josh.

“Well, get ready,” said Cole.

“We can still try to find the Innoviro office here in San Francisco. They had working computers and hard copy files and specimens last time I saw it in a vision. Ivan might not have gutted the place if he expected the earthquake to do the work for him,” I said.

“What about Nellie, Bruno, Ralph, and Adelaide?” said Jonah.

“We could keep going.” Ilya looked at me and my stomach twisted.

“That’s pretty cold,” said Cole.

“They’ve got Adelaide’s van.” I briefly considered letting everyone else in on the betrayal only Ilya and I knew could be –no, most certainly would be– in store for us courtesy of Ralph and Adelaide. Thorn’s attack on us in the woods might have been the result of getting a tip somehow. I couldn’t know for sure. I needed another vision.
Ilya, you need to listen to Adelaide and find out if they’ve already sold us to Thorn.

“We’re not ditching anyone. Nellie is my friend. I vouched for all of us to get her to come,” said Faith.

“Fair enough.” Ilya looked at me and I knew he’d heard my thoughts.

Faith’s phone chimed and she fished it out of her bag. “Nellie’s got service. They’re on their way here now.”

“Then we’ll wait for them,” said Cole.

“We all need to sleep,” said Josh.

“This is too out in the open. Let’s find a parking garage, somewhere Adelaide and Ralph can walk around,” I said.

Faith tapped, swiped, and tapped her phone. “There’s a garage between us and the Bay. Can I text Nellie we’ll meet them there?”

“Underground spaces might not be safe right now. I’m thinking of aftershocks,” said Jonah.

“And you should be. We’re at risk as long as we stay anywhere near the Bay Area. If we’re going to hook up with the others and stick around to find the Innoviro office, we could be in for another earthquake. Aftershocks can happen for weeks, months, even years. They can even be bigger quakes, making the first event a foreshock,” said Cole.

“Great. But we still need to regroup. Everyone back in the cars. We’ll make this meet-up an express stop,” said Josh.

Ilya and Faith hopped into Cole’s car. Jonah gestured towards Josh’s Jeep. I smiled and beat him to the back seat.

The parking garage Faith found through her phone mocked us with a CLOSED sign when we got there. A yellow and black barrier arm blocked the entrance.

We waited until Adelaide’s van rounded the corner. Josh waved to get her attention. Cole got out of his car and discreetly pulled up the arm. I heard the hinge mechanism inside the arm’s joint squeee and crack. I looked up and down the street. We hadn’t drawn any attention.

Cole drove through, followed by Josh and Adelaide. Ilya ran back to the arm and pulled it down behind us. I hoped the closed sign would work in our favor long enough to let us plan our path to Innoviro and then out of the city.

Josh found a secluded corner of the bottom level one floor underground. We had room to park in a semi-circle closing in the corner. No sooner than we shut off our engines, the ground began to vibrate. The sounds of glass tinkling and car alarms wailing drifted down from the surface. The world continued to rumble and rumble and rumble. Cole’s words about the duration of an earthquake rang in my ears. The shaking kept going and my chest constricted. Acid swirled in my guts. Fear wrapped around my throat. And the shaking kept going. I ran out of between Cole’s car and Josh’s Jeep as the ceiling ahead of me began to rain dust and crumbs of concrete. Suddenly a giant slab of the roof came down with a CRACK-SLAP between our corner and the path back out of the parking garage. More pieces of concrete trickled down through the dust.

“In the corner! NOW! Everyone!” shouted Cole.

I stood for a moment, watching the dust clear, watching the wall of rubble take shape in front of me. We were trapped. I snapped out of it and ran into the corner where my friends huddled, disoriented and terrified.