Author's notes - Koulagirl, good to see you're back :). Yeah, I always planned to stop at a certain point, and 'Vigilante' is a story that I had to tell. And yeah, I should've made it clearer that the earthquake was happening on Earth, but it's pretty much a constant throughout the story. Anyway, enjoy the first interlude...
Interlude One
"...to which the Prime Minister responded by crossing the parliament floor and braining the hapless minister with his shoe. To international news now, and recapping our major story of the day, the search and rescue mission continues in the city of Taloqan, after an earthquake measuring 8.6 on the Richter scale rocked the region and left the town in ruins. Our international correspondent Vinod Kurup is on the scene now. Vinod, are you there?"
"Thanks Traci. As you can see, I'm standing beside what used to be an apartment complex on the city's west side, although it really could've been anything. The devastation here is unimaginable. Barely a building was left standing after the initial quake, and everybody's now bracing themselves for aftershocks."
"So can we expect the death toll to rise as high as that quake in Iran four years ago?"
"Well that's the thing Traci. All accounts from both the UN and the Red Cross suggest the greatest percentage of survivors in a disaster of this magnitude in recent decades. If you just follow me across the street, you can probably see behind me the Power Rangers working alongside UN rescue teams to free trapped survivors. The team of superheroes were first on the scene yesterday afternoon, and have been working their way through the city ever since."
"Were any other towns in the region affected?"
"No, Taloqan seems to have taken the full brunt of the quake. Russian seismologists traced the epicenter of the earthquake to a previously hidden fault in the Earth's crust about a kilometre south of here, but no other town seems to have been hit anywhere near as badly. Three neighbouring villages - Afaqi, Shur Cha, and Andarabiya - reported some minor property damage, but that appears to be about all."
"Thanks Vinod. Okay, we'll continue to cross live to the rescue mission in Taloqan in our ten thirty, midday and six o'clock bulletins. In other news, a trade disagreement in western Europe has led to..."