Cracks in a Sidewalk

"What's wrong, Gene?" Debra asked, but Didi answered before he could.

"The jet is out of fuel and in a glide. It will not make the runway," she added unnecessarily, because now it was quite obvious the huge jet was too low and too slow to even make the beach.

"Bud, you got your radio handy?" Sherman asked Kurzweil.

"On it," the cop said, taking his radio out of its holster. "Two VictorPaul to all units vicinity LAX, looks like an inbound A380 is going to land in the water." Since the solar flares and magnetic anomalies of the day before, LAX had been closed so the tower and fire services were unmanned, and that meant that the county's emergency services would have to respond...

And as everyone looked on, the A380s drooping left wingtip sliced into the water about a half mile short of the beach, and horrified now, they looked on helplessly as the aircraft started spinning towards the breaking surf. Sherman pointed the bow at the disintegrating airliner and pushed the throttle to full power while Kurzweil started giving updates to responding units from both the fire and police departments. One doorway up the right side's forward upper deck opened and the emergency slide deployed, just as the entire left side of the airliner slipped beneath the waves.

"Looks like the port wing spar snapped," Sherman said, "but it's still partially attached to the fuselage, so it's pulling the passenger cabin down!" And as he spoke the right wing started rising higher and higher, until it was pointing almost straight up into the midday sky. People started climbing up and out of the lone open doorway and onto the side of the fuselage, and Kurzweil kept sending updates to emergency responders all the while. A couple of firetrucks appeared but as very few vehicles had been repaired after all the recent geomagnetic anomalies, it looked like the response would be inadequate, at best...

"Better break out the Zodiac," Sherman said to no one in particular. "Deb, you'd better take the helm while we get it ready to go."

"Got it," she said, and then: "Gene, have you been keeping an eye on our depth?"

He nodded. "Yeah. It's gonna be tight. When we get to fifteen feet indicated turn away from the beach and circle around."

It took about five minutes but get the inflatable boat in the water and running, and Sherman ran Kurzweil over to the fuselage. The aft end of the airliner had sunk rapidly so people had moved that way, to where the water met the fuselage, and because he was still in uniform Kurzweil's gun and badge prevented panic from overtaking the crowd. They loaded five injured passengers the first time and ferried them to just outside the surf line, where paramedics and firefighters were standing by to carry the injured to shore. Two more sailboats arrived and soon two more Zodiacs joined the operation, and between the three inflatables everyone was evacuated from the Airbus within two hours.

And by that point it was obvious no hydrogen bombs were on their way, so Sherman looked around and asked everyone on aquaTarkus what they wanted to do. And everyone wanted to go back to the marina.

"Well, Hell, that was an interesting day," he said as he pointed the boat at the breakwater and added power.

Then Darius came up to him and showed him his iPhone. Turned out he had captured the A380s approach and water-impact on his phone and he smiled. "Betcha I get a million hits on YouTube!" he beamed.

+++++

Debra had gone to the hospital and visited the woman with the black aura more than once in the days just before the two-day war, and she soon came to a startling realization. The woman remembered nothing about her life, nothing at all, and her physician expressed concern about her neurological condition.

"Her short term memory should be impaired, perhaps permanently, but this toxin has no reputation for affecting long-term memory."

"So," Debra said, looking at the young Vietnamese woman, "something else is going on?"

"Every test we've run is negative, even her fMRI came up negative."

Debra looked at the woman through a window; her aura was still a swirling obsidian mass, and she still felt her father's malign presence when she walked closer to the woman, but how on earth could she relay this information to a neurologist? "Could this be a mental disorder, I mean like some kind of psychotic episode?"

The physician shook her head. "No evidence of that."

"Idiopathic," Debra sighed. "That just doesn't fit," she added.

"Fit what, exactly?"

"Next time you talk with her, ask her if she's been to Argentina recently."

"Argentina? What do you think's going on?"

But Debra shook her head. "Just a hunch," she said -- quietly. "But ask her about Argentina. And see if she responds to the name Ted Sorensen."

"Sorensen? The movie guy?"

Debra nodded, but she was upset. She looked at the woman again, studied her aura and recoiled when she felt her father still reaching out to her, but after a minute more of that she turned and walked from the hospital. Darius was waiting for her at the Land Rover, and he could tell something was wrong as he watched her approaching -- but he knew that look, knew not to push her.

"Father Gene, he needs us to to get more of them TB drugs, he said the starter paks if they still have 'em."

She nodded. "Okay. That means over to La Cienega. Feel like driving?"

"Yeah, sure," he said, helping her in then walking around to get behind the wheel. "Ain't much traffic out yet?"

She sighed. "No more solenoids, no more motherboards. A lot of people are going to have to learn to like public transit."

"Radio was sayin' they got no power from the Bay Area all the way up to Vancouver. A hundred and eighteen in Portland today, too."

She turned on the air conditioner and basked in the cool air -- when the sky turned unnaturally bright and the engine died. She saw people out on sidewalk cover their eyes but within a few seconds they started falling to the pavement, then her eyes were drawn to the Land Rover's hood -- because the paint was beginning to sizzle and crack. She picked up her iPhone but it wouldn't turn on, and when she looked outside the car again all she saw was bodies writhing on the pavement.

And the sky turned an impossibly bright white for a few seconds and spidery cracks appeared all over the windshield -- then everything went back to 'normal' -- whatever that was. She opened the door and stepped out onto the pavement but her tennis shoes seemed to melt into the concrete so she jumped back into the Rover.

Darius experimentally held his hand up and placed it on his door's glass window -- but he quickly yanked it back and whistled in startled pain as the intense heat registered. "Must be a hundred and fifty out there," he said as he looked at the skin on his fingers. "What happened?"

"Probably another solar flare. Now we need to wait for the temperature to stabilize."

"Then whatta we do?" Darius asked.

"We get the folding bikes down and head for the marina...but we'll have to wait for the pavement to cool down some." She pulled out her iPhone and it wouldn't 'wake up' and she shook her head. "Looks like this is fried too," she sighed. She held her hand up to the glass and she too quickly pulled it away, now astonished that people were getting up and making there way to any shade they could find.

But after a few minutes sitting there in the line of stalled traffic, the temperature inside the Rover was rising quickly, and Darius was beginning to sweat profusely.

"Okay," she said, "let's get the bikes and see if we can make it down to the boat."

Once the bikes were down and unfolded, she tentatively rolled the tires and the moved freely now so they took off down Venice Boulevard, weaving between stalled cars and around dazed people wandering around in the streets until they made it to Lincoln. She heard someone screaming then, and saw flames coming out of a building, then people smashing glass storefronts and grabbing anything of value before they took off down the street.

"We best hurry along now, Miss Debbie," Darius said -- just before a huge fireball erupted at the Chevron station they'd just passed. The concussive explosion knocked them both to the ground, and when Debra stood she saw that Darius was having a hard time just sitting up so she went to his side. He'd tried to stop his fall with an outstretched arm, and she could see that both the radius and ulna were fractured, their disjointed forms stretching the skin above his wrist, and he appeared to be in a good deal of pain. She helped him stand but he was looking at her like he really didn't know what to do, so she picked up his bike and before she reached for hers, but he still seemed confused.

"What's wrong, Darius?"

"I ain't no good now, Miss Debbie. Can't protect you, can't drive you nowhere..."

"Don't you worry about that," she said, watching his aura wilt before her eyes, turning from deep blue to silver gray as his depression came back for him. "Come on, let's go...we've only got a few blocks to go."

They pushed their bikes along, watching as their world went mad all around them. More windows shattered and television sets disappeared down alleyways. Someone tried to rob a liquor store and the owner chased the robbers out into the street, shooting at them as they ran between cars and completely oblivious to the danger he was himself creating. A house was on fire a couple of blocks away and a huge column of black smoke was rising into the cloudless sky, joining the fire and smoke from the blazing gas station behind them, then she saw smoke coming from the marina -- a lot of it, too. She picked up their pace a little, suddenly wondering where Gene had been when the solar flare hit -- and if he was okay now.

As they got closer to the marina she could dozens of boats fully engulfed in fuel-soaked flames, but most appeared to be on the far side away from where aquaTarkus was tied up. She turned and looked back towards downtown and was shocked to see dozens of columns of black smoke rising into the afternoon sky, but what was most surprising was the utter silence of the scene. No cars, no airplanes or helicopters, and most worrying of all, no sirens. No cops. No firefighters and no paramedics.

When they made it to the pier where her boat was tied off she saw Gene and Bud Kurzweil were already there and waiting for them, and as they pushed the bikes out the pier Gene came out to meet them, stopping when he saw Darius's wrist -- then nodding his head in understanding.

"Get him down to his cabin," Sherman said. "I'll get to him after we pass the breakwater."

"So, you got the engine running?" Deb asked.

"Yup. You and Bud need to stow the bikes after we cast off the lines."

She stared at him for a moment -- as she was not quite sure what she was seeing in his aura -- but whatever it was he seemed seriously alarmed, so she helped Darius into his berth and told him they'd be with him soon, then she went topsides, in time to help coil and stow the lines Gene and Bud had just pulled aboard.

Gene went to the helm and backed out of the slip -- again, and this time he took note of the mass of other boats entering the fairway. "Lot of people having the same idea," he said to Debra as she came and sat by him. "How bad is out there," he asked.

"People were looting within a half hour, and I think people were trying to steal gas by cutting the nozzles from their hoses. That's what caused the Chevron station to go up, I think. Knocked us right on our asses."

Sherman shook his head as he listened, then he watched as kids in a Zodiac took off from a nearby pier and headed for the closest boat to them -- which happened to be aquaTarkus. Then he realized the guy in front of the little boat had an assault rifle. "Bud," he said, "you see what I see?"

"Yup. On it," Kurzweil sighed, keeping his right side out of view as he unsnapped his holster.

When the Zodiac was about fifty feet away the kid with the rifle brought it up to his shoulder but Kurzweil drew down and fired first; this kid fell back into the inflatable and the other boy in the boat picked up the rifle and started to aim at Kurzweil; two more shots and this kid went down only now it was obvious both were badly wounded and writhing in pain.

Sherman backed off the power and circled around to the boys' boat -- just as automatic weapons fire erupted from Chase Park -- causing instant havoc in the marina. Bud jumped down into the inflatable and he found the boy in the back was already dead, while the first boy was wounded and crying out now as he went into shock.

Sherman tossed a line to Bud and as soon as the boy was hoisted onboard and the little dinghy tied off, Sherman moved away from the gunfire at full throttle. As aquaTarkus motored out the breakwater he could see the large homeless encampment by the North Jetty and he flipped a button on the plotter and looked at the current outside air temperature.

"One eighteen," he sighed, "and that's down here at the beach." Bud lifted the wounded boy into the cockpit and Sherman looked at Deb and pointed at the wheel. She nodded and he went below to grab an IV setup and his go-bag, and he dropped in to check on Darius.

"How're you doin' down here, Amigo?" he asked, and when Darius shook his head Sherman took out an pre-filled morphine syringe and shot him in the arm.

"Did I hear shootin' up there, Doc?" Darius asked.

"Yup. Things are breaking down fast now. No cops, no fire department, so I'd guess the next thing will be troops. I don't think we want to be around for that."

Darius nodded. "Thanks for taking care of me, Doc."

Sherman nodded. "Darius, you've been taking care of me for years. It's about time I returned the favor, you know? We got a kid in the cockpit with a gunshot wound, and as soon as I'm done up there I'll try and set your arm." Darius nodded and Sherman turned to go topsides -- and there in front of him was Didi Goodman.

He jumped back, completely startled. "How'd you get here?" he asked, looking her over suspiciously.

Yet true to form she simply shrugged away his question with an enigmatic little flip of her hand, then she turned and walked to the companionway. She picked up Sherman's equipment then walked up -- only to have to face down the shocked expressions from Deb and Bud Kurzweil. But she ignored those adroitly by turning to the boy with the gunshot wound in his belly -- and she sighed when she saw the damage in his upper right quadrant.

"Let me guess," Goodman said sarcastically, "hollow points...right?"

"45 ACP, Silvertips," Kurzweil nodded with satisfaction. "Great stopping power," he added -- unnecessarily.

"Yes, you stopped him, alright," she said as she leaned over and palpated his belly. The boy writhed in agony and Kurzweil turned away and walked forward, leaving Goodman and Sherman alone to deal with the consequences. "He might survive a day," she said to Sherman, "even in a well equipped hospital. But he's going to need a transplant, Gene. What do you want to do? Drop him over the side, maybe?"

Sherman recoiled from the question. "We can give him morphine, I think..."

"And just how much do you have, Gene? Enough to help Darius and this kid? Because that's what it's going to come down to, and you know it."

Sherman turned and looked shoreward, as if there was a morphine store right around the next corner -- but the sharp-edged reality of the situation came into hard relief as he looked at the surreal number of coiling back clouds now rising over the city. "It's all coming undone," he whispered -- more to himself than to anyone else. "I thought we'd have longer, ya know?"

"Maybe it was all just a house of cards," Debra said as she turned and looked at whole blocks of houses and condos being consumed by walls of towering flames.

"That doesn't matter now," Goodman said stoically. "What matters is this kid. What are you going to do for him right now?"

Sherman caught the tone in her voice as he turned and looked at her, his eyes full of wonder: "Why is it that I get the impression we're being judged?"

"What makes you think that you aren't?" Goodman said with the faintest smile on her face -- yet in the next moment her form wavered a little before it disappeared.

Sherman turned and looked skyward, then he stared into his bag of tricks before he turned and started to work on the boy.

Part IV

Debra Sorensen had watched Sherman's exchange with his companion -- because that's what she, it, really was -- her heart filling with cold running dread. This -- things -- aura was still confounding to her; it looked less like a fluid field than an electric field, and as such what she saw had always been meaningless. But now Didi Goodman's shimmering aura looked malevolent, and ominously so. The 'aura' looked like a pulsing electro-magnetic field hovering over it's skin, the field the color of a raging fire -- yet the entire structure seemed lined with oozing blackish-blue plasma -- but Debra simply couldn't make sense of the shifting patterns. Even as she spoke -- "What makes you think that you aren't?"

Debra watched as the thing disappeared, then she turned to Sherman -- and he seemed almost too stunned to think. Even as he turned to examine the wounded boy's belly. She watched as, without thinking, he took a syringe of morphine and jabbed it into the boy's arm, then she felt a sense of wonder as he ran his fingers through the boy's hair, speaking words of comfort as the morphine broke over the boy, and as his breathing slowed.

Bud Kurzweil came back to the cockpit and looked down at the boy, the disgust in his eyes in an instant turning to empathy, then compassion -- and Debra watched this transubstantiation with a growing sense of understanding. Humans, she realized, were chemical beings. They responded to the ebbs and flows of hormones, yet they couldn't control their reactions. When a certain kind of stimulus washed through them a prescribed chain of responses began to take form, yet this response was -- almost -- impossible to stop once the reaction started. It was like a lightning bolt still in it's cloud, all limitless potential before energy coalesced in branching arcs.

"What would you do, Gene," she asked as she watched him watching the boy, "if you could change what had just happened?"

He shook his head, then he looked at Bud Kurzweil's pistol and Deb understood.

In the next instant they were back in the marina fairway and the boys were approaching aquaTarkus again. Bud was slow to draw his pistol and the boy got off a clear shot -- that struck Sherman in the chest. He felt searing pain as he fell over the wheel and in the next instant he was back leaning over the boy as he lay dying...

"What the fuck just happened?" Kurzweil moaned.

And Sherman turned and looked at Deb. "Don't do that again," he growled. "You promised."

And in the next instant Sherman and Kurzweil and Debra were on the summit of the Matterhorn, watching as Beth led Betty and Father Pete along the knife-edge back to him. He knew the massive gust was coming and he tried to yell out a warning but he watched helplessly as they were picked up like leaves and scattered on the wind, only to begin their fall -- again. He saw Hans and turned away, only to find he was back in the cockpit, still leaning over the boy. Kurzweil was covered in snow and he appeared wordlessly terrified.

"Stop it, Deb," Sherman snarled.

"I didn't do anything, Gene," she whispered.

"What? What do you mean?"

"You did that, Gene," she sighed. "Only you."

Kurzweil's body twitched into deep spasm as understanding fell away, and Sherman took a deep breath and stood again, but he reached out for the binnacle as if he was unsure of his footing and needed to steady himself. "What are you saying, Debra. What are you telling me?"