Charles Sharps called to the reporters. “Big shock coming! Get everyone outside!” He recognized the New York Times man. “Get them out!” Sharps called.
He turned to see that Forrester was on his feet and moving rapidly toward the back of the parking lot, away from the cars. He was walking as fast as Sharps had ever seen him move. “Hurry!” Sharps called to the others.
Men and women were spilling out of all the JPL buildings. Some came toward Sharps and the parking lot. Others milled about in areas between buildings, wondering where to go. Sharps gestured viciously, then looked at Forrester. Dan had reached a clear area, and was sitting down…
Sharps turned and ran toward Forrester. He reached him and sprawled onto the asphalt. Nothing happened for a moment.
“First shock… was the ground wave… from the Death Valley strike,” Forrester huffed. “Then… the Pacific strike. Don’t know how long until it triggers—”
The earth groaned. Birds flew into the air, and there was an electric feeling of impending doom. Down at the end of the parking lot a group had just come to the top of the stairs and were moving toward Forrester and Sharps.
The earth groaned again. Then it roared.
“San Andreas,” Forrester said. “It will let go completely. Way overdue. Hundred megatons of energy. Maybe more.”
Half a dozen people had cleared the stairwell. Two came toward Sharps and Forrester. The rest sought their own cars. “Get them out of there,” Forrester huffed.
“Get into the clear!” Sharps screamed. “And clear off that stairwell! Get off!”
A TV camera appeared at the top of the stairs. A man was carrying it, followed by a woman. There was a knot of people behind them. The TV crew started across the parking lot—
And the earth moved. There was time for them to curl up hugging their knees in the two or three seconds it took the quake to build strength. The earth roared again, and again, and there were other sounds, of people screaming, of falling glass and crashing concrete, and then the sound lost all form and became the shapeless chaos of nightmare. Sharps tried to sit erect and look back toward JPL, but nothing was solid. The asphalt rippled and ripped. The hot pavement slid gratingly away, throwing Sharps into a double somersault, then heaved and bucked once more, and the world was filled with sound and roaring and screams.
Finally it was over. Sharps sat and tried to focus his eyes. The world had changed. He looked up toward the towering Angeles mountains, and their skyline was different, subtly, but different. He had no time to see more. There was sound behind him, and he turned to see that part of the parking lot was gone, the rest tilted at strange angles. Many of the cars were gone, tumbled over the precipice that had developed between him and the stairs — only there weren’t any stairs. They, too, had tumbled onto the lower parking lot. The remaining cars butted each other like battling beasts. Everywhere was sound: cars, buildings, rocks, all grinding together.
A Volkswagen rolled ponderously toward Sharps, like a steel tumbleweed, growing huge. Sharps screamed and tried to run. His legs wouldn’t hold him. He fell, crawled, and saw the VW tumble past his heels, a mountain of painted metal. It smashed itself half flat against a Lincoln… and now it was only Volkswagen-sized again.
Another small car was on its back, and someone was under it, thrashing. Oh, God, it was Charlene, and there wasn’t a hope of anyone getting to her. Abruptly she stopped moving. The ground continued to tremble and groan, then thrashed. More of the parking lot separated, dipped, slid slowly downhill, carrying Charlene and her killer car. Now Sharps no longer heard the roar. He was deaf. He lay flat on the shuddering ground, waiting for it to end.
The tower, the large central building of JPL, was gone. In its place there was a crumpled mass of glass, concrete, twisted metal, broken computers. The Von Karman Center was similarly in ruins. One wall had fallen, and through it Sharps saw the first unmanned lunar, the metal spider that had gone to the Moon to scoop up its surface. The spacecraft was helpless under the falling roof. Then the walls collapsed as well, burying the spacecraft, and burying the science press corps.
“End! When will it end?” someone was screaming. Sharps could barely hear the words.
Finally the quake began to die. Sharps stayed down. He would not tempt the fates. What remained of the parking lot was tilted downslope and bulged in the middle. Now Sharps had time to wonder who had been on the stairway behind the cameramen. Not that it mattered; they were gone, the camera people were gone; everyone who had been within fifty feet of the stairwell had vanished into the mass below, covered by the hillside and the mangled remains of cars.
The day was darkening. Visibly darkening. Sharps looked up to see why.
A black curtain was rolling across the sky. Within churning black clouds the lightning flared as dozens, scores, hundreds of flashbulbs.
Lightning flared and split a tree to their right. The instantaneous thunder was deafening, and the air smelled of ozone. More lightning crashed in the hills ahead.
“Do you know where you’re going?” Tim Hamner demanded.
“No.” Eileen drove on, speeding through empty, rainwashed streets. “There’s a road up into the hills here somewhere. I’ve been up it a couple of times.”
To their left and behind them were more houses, mostly intact. To the right were the Verdugo Hills, with small side streets penetrating a couple of blocks into them, each street with its “Dead End” sign. Except for the rain and lightning, everything seemed normal here. The rain hid everything not close to them, and the houses, mostly older, stucco, Spanishstyle, stood without visible damage.
“Aha!” Eileen cried. She turned hard right, onto a blacktop road that twisted its way along the base of a high bluff, a protruding spur of the lightning-washed mountains ahead. The road twisted ahead, and soon they saw nothing but the hill to the right, the brooding mountains looming above and a golf course to their left. There were neither cars nor people.
They turned, turned again, and Eileen jammed on the brakes. The car skidded to a halt. It stood face-to-face with a landslide. Ten feet and more of flint and mud blocked their way.
“Walk,” Tim said. He looked out at the lightning ahead and shuddered.
“The road goes a lot further,” Eileen said. “Over the top of the hills, I think.” She pointed to her left, at the golf course protected by its chain link fence. “Tear a hole in the fence.”
“With what?” Tim demanded, but he got out. Rain soaked him almost instantly. He stood helplessly. Eileen got out on the other side and brought the trunk keys.
There was a jack, and a few flares, and an old raincoat, oil-soaked as if it had been used to wipe the engine. Eileen took out the jack handle. “Use that. Tim, we don’t have much time—”
“I know.” Hamner took the thin metal rod and went over to the fence. He stood helplessly, pounding the jack handle into his right hand. The task looked hopeless. He heard the trunk lid slam, then the car door. The starter whirred.
Tim looked around, startled, but the car wasn’t moving. He couldn’t see Eileen’s face through the driving rain and wet glass. Would she leave him here?
Experimentally he put the jack handle between the wire and a fence post and twisted. Nothing happened. He strained, throwing his weight onto the handle, and something gave. He slipped and fell against the fence, and felt his wet clothing tear as a jagged point snagged him. It cut him, and the salt on his clothes was in the wound. He hunched his shoulders against the pain and hopelessness, and stood, helpless again.
“Tim! How are you doing?”