Fred screamed. Charlie didn’t turn. He went on until he reached the end of the cellblock, then he went out and down the stairs.
Fred was alone.
Eric Larsen looked to neither the right nor the left. He walked in long strides. He stepped around the dead and the injured, and ignored pleas for help. He could have helped them, but he was driven by a terrible urgency. His cold eyes and the carelessly carried shotgun discouraged anyone from getting in his way.
He saw no other policemen. He barely noticed the people around him, that some were helping the injured, some were disconsolately staring at the ruins of their homes and shops and stores, some were running aimlessly. None of it mattered now. They were all doomed, as Eric Larsen was doomed.
He might have taken a car and driven away into the hills. He saw cars race past him. He saw Eileen Hancock in an old Chrysler. If she’d stopped he might have gone with her, but she didn’t, and Eric was glad, because it was tough enough to keep his resolve.
But suppose he wasn’t needed? Suppose it was a fool’s errand? There was no way to know.
But I should have taken a car, he thought. I could have finished it and had a chance. Too late now. There was the station house, City Hall, and the jail. They seemed deserted. He went into the jail. There was a dead policewoman under the wreckage of a huge cabinet that had stood against the wall. He saw no one else, living or dead. He went through, behind the booking cage and up the stairs. The cellblocks were quiet.
It was a fool’s errand. He was not needed. He was about to go back down the stairs, but he stopped himself. No point in coming this far without being sure.
There’d been talk of a tidal wave following Hammerfall. There were people in the Burbank Jail, people that Eric Larsen had put there. Drunks, petty thieves, young vagrants who said they were eighteen but looked much younger. They couldn’t be left to drown like rats in forgotten jail cells. They didn’t deserve that. And Eric had put them there — it was his responsibility.
The barred door at the top of the stairs stood open. Eric went through and used his big flash in the near darkness. The cell doors stood open. All but one.
All but one. Eric went to the cell. Fred Lauren stood with his back to the corridor. His left arm was cradled in his right. Lauren stared out the window, and he didn’t turn when Eric flashed the light on him. Eric stood watching him for a moment. No one deserved to drown like a rat in a cage. No human did. The thieves and drunks and runaways and…
“Turn around,” Eric said. Lauren didn’t move. “Turn around or I’ll shoot your kneecaps out. That hurts a lot.”
Fred whimpered and turned. He saw the shotgun leveled at him. The policeman was holding the light off to one side, almost behind himself, so that Fred could see.
“Do you know who I am?” the policeman asked.
“Yes. You kept the other policeman from beating me last night.” Fred moved closer. He stared at the shotgun. “Is that for me?”
“I brought it for you,” Eric said. “I came to turn the others loose. I couldn’t let you loose. So I brought the shotgun.”
“It’s the end of the world,” Fred Lauren said. “All of it. Nothing will be left. But…” Fred whimpered deep in his throat. “But when? Would… please, you’ve got to tell me. Wouldn’t she be dead now? Already? She couldn’t live through the end of the world. She’d have died and I’d never have talked to her—”
“Talked to her!” Eric brought the shotgun up in rage. He saw Fred Lauren standing calmly, waiting, and he saw the bed and the ruins of a young girl, and the closet with the pathetically small wardrobe. There was a smell of copper blood in his nostrils. His finger tightened on the trigger, then relaxed. He lowered the shotgun.
“Please,” Fred Lauren said. “Please—”
The shotgun came up quickly. Eric hadn’t known it would kick so hard.
Hot Fudge Tuesdae: Two
Static roared in the crowded room. Random blobs and colors filled the large TV, but twenty men and women stared at the screen where they had watched lights blaze and die above the Atlantic, above Europe, Northwest Africa, the Gulf of Mexico. Only Dan Forrester continued to work. The screen above his console held a computer-drawn world map, and Forrester laboriously called up all the data received at JPL, plotting the strikes and using their locations as input for more calculations.
Charles Sharps felt that he ought to be interested in Forrester’s calculations, but he wasn’t. Instead he watched the others. Open mouths, bulging eyes, feet thrusting them back into their chairs. They cringed back from their blinded consoles and screens, as if these were the danger. And still Forrester typed instructions, made precise movements, studied results and typed again…
“Hammerfall,” Sharps said to himself. And what the hell do we do about it? He couldn’t think of anything, and the room depressed him. He left his station and went to the long table against one wall. There were coffee and Danish there, and Sharps poured himself a cup. He stared into it, then lifted it in a mock salute. “Doom,” he said. He kept his voice low. The others began to rise from their stations.
“Doom,” Sharps repeated. Ragnarok. And what use now was man’s proud civilization? Ice Age, Fire Age, Ax Age, Wolf Age… he turned to see that Forrester had left his station and was moving toward the door. “What now?” Sharps asked.
“Earthquake.” Forrester continued to walk rapidly toward the exit. “Earthquake.” He said it loudly, so that everyone could hear, and there was a rush toward the door.
Dr. Charles Sharps poured his cup almost full. He took it to the tap and ran a splash of cold water into it. It was Mocha-Java made less than an hour ago with a Melitta filter and kept in a clean Thermos. A pity to water it; but now it was just cool enough to drink. How long would it be before ships crossed major oceans again? Years, decades, forever? He might never taste coffee again. Sharps drained the cup in four swallows and dropped it onto the floor. The heavy china bounced and rolled against a console. Sharps went outside at a run.
The others had passed Forrester in the hall; the glass doors at the entrance were just closing behind him. That urgent waddle: Dan Forrester had never been athletic, but surely he could move faster than that? Did they have time to spare, then? Sharps jogged to catch up.
“Parking lot,” Dan puffed. “Watch it—”
Sharps stumbled, recovered. Dan was dancing on one leg. The ground had jerked, emphatically, once. Sharps thought: Why, that wasn’t bad. The buildings aren’t even harmed—
“Now,” Forrester said. He continued toward the parking lot. It was at the top of a long flight of concrete stairs. Dan stopped near the top, blowing hard, and Sharps got a shoulder under his armpit and managed to half-carry him the rest of the way to the top. There Dan lay down and rolled over. Sharps watched him with concern.
Forrester puffed, tried to say something and failed. He was too winded. He lifted one arm and gestured with palm down. Sit.
Too late. The ground danced under his feet, and Sharps sat down too hard, then found himself rolling toward the stairs. This time there was the sound of breaking glass, but when Sharps looked over the JPL complex he didn’t see any obvious damage. Down below, the reporters were beginning to stream out of the Von Karman Center, but many paused after the mild quake, and some went back inside.
“Tell them…” puff puff. “Tell them to get out,” Forrester said. “The worst one is coming—”