Chance & Hazards
Chapter One
Voice Recognition Journal, Record #2070-803, 3/19/70, 02:12 hours
I'm too tired to sleep. Doesn't make sense, does it? I'm sure there's a few in the world that would understand the dichotomy, and I know there's some in this house that would get it. Honestly, I wish I didn't.
Things were easier five years ago.
I can't get the images out of my head. There's no way to compartmentalize yesterday and with the ready light still on orange, it won't go away no matter how much I drink. We could get another callout to Mexico any minute now, or, it could be days. All I can do is drink this one lousy glass and record here how things have come down so far.
Duck and cover. That's what every school kid's taught, really, and usually before they learn their alphabets. Duck and cover. Nothing else, not even a hint about the strengths and weaknesses of the building they're in, no practical knowledge of potentially safe void sites within the structure, and practically nothing about the hazards of the land they call home. Just duck and cover--
Son of a Bitch!
And that's how Scott and I found them too, all those kids with their outdated textbooks, their crayons, their favorite toys. They had done what they were trained to do, ducked under their termite-bored and salvaged desks, and were crushed to death under the weight of their jerry-rigged schoolroom roof when the quake hit: a 7.9, triggered off the Guerrero Seismic Gap and aimed directly at Mexico City, an artificial Aztec-constructed punchbowl of alluvial soil that amplifies seismic waves faster than I can throw this bottle of Scotch through my plate-glass windows.
I've tried reading, tried listening to music, tried to paint, but I can't get past any of this: the drained faces of the impoverished parents who'd been transported from the Evac Centers to search for their children; the ragged soldiers, doing their best to keep order while they moved debris out of the way so we could land our birds; the sleep-deprived EMT's who'd fought their way through the rubble, the spot fires, and the cadaver-choked streets, waiting by their trucks with guarded hope in their shadowed eyes, gripping the med kits they wouldn't need...
And God, oh God, the little broken bodies, pupils dilated and cloudy, stiffening to rigidity, and most so bereft of food they hadn't even soiled their clothes when the end came. All of them nameless, all of them twisted, all of them gone from this world and those who loved them in one terrifying, ghastly moment of deafening noise and staggering chaos.
I must tell you this, whoever you are who'll be reading this journal after I'm gone. There is no silence as piercing as that of the aftermath of a natural disaster when there are no survivors to save. It lasts but a fraction of a second, a horrific eternity of vacuum, without sound, without breath, without humanity, and its filled with dust and ash and dissipating sweat-drenched fear. Then, it gets worse. After that silence comes the monstrous emotional wave that emanates from vigil-holders and searchers alike, a gut-twisting agonized spiral of shock, despair, shattering denial and irredeemable, irrevocable loss that breaks over your helmet, rips the canvas off your chest, and leaves you choking and wishing you could break apart too and lose yourself in the psychic maelstrom so you can forget what you've seen, forget you didn't get there in time, forget that in the end, you couldn't make a damn bit of difference.
Maybe I can't do this anymore.
Duck and cover...
We have to do better than that. We have to. The world isn't what it was and humanity is losing ground fast, headed to its own self-fulfilled annihilation. We have to do better, we must!
Holy God, I can't believe I wrote this down. Maybe now I can sleep? Should I even try?
Maybe.
Maybe not.
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3/20/70, 14:17 hours, Mission 70-41, Day 2
Alan's brow furrowed over his nose as he pulled his headset aside. "Virg? You okay?"
His older brother shrugged, scanned Thunderbird 2's Head's Up Display, sank deeper into his command chair and pulled his headset mike in closer to his mouth. "Didn't get much sleep last night but I'm good."
"Sure," Alan tossed a glance at his brother Gordon, seated behind them at the navigational station. Gordon silently shook his head and looked away. "Just checking."
Ignoring his brothers but achingly aware of their wordless exchange, Virgil turned his head, stared out the window, cleared his throat and tapped his comm link. "IR Station, T2 Rescue Heavy."
"T2 Rescue Heavy, go."
"Cruise level achieved, vector's locked, auto's engaged. Brief in 15?"
Alan looked upwards at the HUD expecting to see John's image, but Virgil had cut the comm link to voice-only transmission. It wasn't standard protocol, but all things considered, Alan let it slide.
"T2 Rescue Heavy, copy all," John's voice was subdued but consummately professional, "Am reading your position 32 out with prelim mission briefing in 15. Verify?"
Virgil checked his proximity scanner, his GPS, then answered slowly. "Affirmative IR Station, and thanks. Please advise on T1's ETA."
"T1 declared final approach 2.6 minutes ago. Touchdown Mexico City in 4, over."
"Understood... John?" Virgil's voice lowered, he fiddled with his mike, and Alan strained to hear what came next. After a moment Virgil paused, listened without expression, and then reverted back to business. "Copy that, Station. T2 Rescue Heavy out."
T2's pilot unclipped his belts, pulled off his headset, and jerked to his feet. "Al, you've got her for a few. Have to hit the head. Gordy, toss a couple of espresso shots in my coffee?"
Gordon tucked a strand of ginger hair behind an ear and reached for a nearby cabinet. "Yep, I'm on it. Hey," He caught Virgil's arm as his brother eased around his station, hesitated, and then patted it roughly. "Thanks for letting me in on this."
Virgil glanced down, smiled briefly and moved on past, but his smile hadn't reached his smudged mahogany eyes; catching it, Gordon let his brother leave the flight deck without another word, but as soon as the cabin door shut he swiftly turned his attention to Alan and hit his intercom.
"What did he say to John? I couldn't quite catch it."
Alan unlocked his flight chair and swiveled it around. "He asked John if any of the relatives were onsite. According to the local IC, they are."
"After yesterday, maybe we should--"
"No. You know Virg, he'll work it out on his own. Scott'll keep him on his game, just like always."
"But you didn't see--"
"It's cool, Gordy. Mix him his fix and let it alone. He'll come out of it once he's working the scene."
"If you say so," Gordon muttered, returning his regard to his screens. "Weather's looking iffy, by the way. Think there's a monsoon flow coming in, bigger than the one you guys dealt with yesterday. Could be a bumpy ride getting under it, and a real mess onsite."
"Nothing we can't handle," Alan replied absently, returning to the main controls and locking his chair back in place, "'Sides, you like a lot of water. Keeps the gills open and hydrated."
Gordon chuckled under his breath. "Yeah it does," he responded quietly, making a show of studying his meteorological reads while he considered calling Scott about Virgil on the personal comm link. He thought about it hard, and then discarded the idea; Scott would instantly get where his Second's head was at and know how to handle it. That was a plus. Another plus for the day was they'd been told that the subjects of this sortie were definitely still alive when IR had launched, so it had to have a more positive outcome than yesterday's mission, right? Law of Averages...
Still, he'd better keep an eye on his big brother, just to be sure, and that was a potential problem. And another down-side? The clock had ticked way past the Golden Hour for those trapped beneath the cathedral rubble. Could the survivors hold out long enough for their rescuers to get to them?
Gordon fervently hoped for everyone's sake that they would.
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