Chapter 4
Hiro quickly surveyed his shaken surroundings in his Aunt's cafe to fully grasp the severity of the situation. The shakng had fortunately stopped from the earthquake. The power was also out, making it darker toward the back of the cafe. The others closer to the front with Wasabi had received a few cuts and scrapes from losing their balance during the shakeup. A few had counted their lucky stars for not running outside, as they might have been struck with the falling roof tiling.
The mother of the two boys by Hiro did well in comforting them, and their cries were not as loud. Steve approached them with a first aid kit, and provided the mother with tweezers, gauze, and wet wipes to at least help her oldest boy feel better. Hiro still looked around, wondering when Baymax was going to get here.
Aunt Cass and Fred had been checking on the other patrons, and helped them gather their belongings. Hiro also started to feel a little better knowing that there weren't any major injuries there. Without any windows now, the audible sounds of sirens from different areas in the city began to fill the room.
"Baymax! Where are—" Hiro turned away to whisper into his watch-comm, only to be cut off by the sound of wood splintering and other sounds of destruction coming from the back of the cafe. A large robotic red arm and a leg came through the hole first, pulling the rest of Baymax's body through.
Needless to say, Aunt Cass's drop jaw expression matched the mental anguish Hiro felt when he knew he would be held responsible for that, even though it was an emergency and that the garage door really could be blocked. However, his robot was also capable of recognizing his fault, and had paused momentarily to acknowledge it.
"My apologies if my actions may have caused you any distress, ma'am." Baymax told her, before continuing to the front.
"I'll be okay. Thank you, Baymax," she smiled, weakly.
Of course, almost everyone else in the cafe fell silent upon seeing the large red robot carefully make his way around the toppled furniture and other items on the floor.
"Whoa! Is that Baymax?" One college kid finally asked. The heroic robot had made headlines a couple times earlier, so he was becoming a more recognizable figure among many. On the flip-side, Hiro and the others had to act like they did not know him, since they were out of uniform and otherwise did not want to reveal who they were.
"It's a robot!" The little blonde haired boy with Hiro stood up as wonder filled his eyes. The cuts on his face and arms were quickly forgotten at this point.
"Hello Ben," Baymax looked to the boy before returning his gaze to the others. "Hello everyone, I am your personal healthcare companion. I have scanned all of you for injuries."
"He knows my name! How does he know my name?" The boy started talking excitedly.
Baymax continued his usual dialogue, which at this point focused on the discussion of signs rather than symptoms, another detail Hiro had tweaked so that Baymax would be more considerate of others privacy when talking to a group of new people. The armored healthcare robot turned to the mother and her children first, as they were pining for the most attention.
Hiro became further distracted from the situation when GoGo had paged him on his watch-comm, her voice sounding very agitated. "Where are you guys?"
Hiro quickly moved to the back of the cafe, and slipped through the door that went upstairs so he could talk out of sight. "At the Lucky Cat. Wasabi, Fred, and I are here. The earthquake shook this place up real bad. Baymax is-"
"Are you guys okay?" Her voice softened slightly.
"Yeah, we're okay, but-" He spoke into the comm-link on his wrist as he looked down, being careful to not step on fallen pictures and more broken glass on the floor. The young team leader was becoming faintly aware of the smell of natural gas too.
"Then hurry up and get down here!"
"Wait, where are you?" Hiro just realized neither one of them got see any information about the alert because of the earthquake. And from the way she was talking, it sounded like there was more. "Your alert, it wasn't about the earthquake, was it."
"Of course not!" she explained quickly. "I was on my delivery route when I saw a burglary in progress at one of the art shops. No one else did anything, so I took pursuit. Then the f'n earthquake hit and I lost 'em!"
"Where are you?" He asked again, using his foot to push some of the debris on the floor aside. He didn't have the time to go looking for his tablet to see the coordinates in the alert.
"Bayside, on the north beach by Ryoshi's Wharf." GoGo explained. "Now go!"
"But what happened? Are you okay?" Hiro tried to stay calm, and to think out the next steps of action. And to not jump to ridiculous conclusions that she was also hurt, but not telling him for whatever reason.
"Relax Hiro, I'm okay," her voice reassured him, quickly, before explaining further. "But there are others here who are trapped and hurt, so please.. hurry! The first responders are even having trouble getting through."
"Okay, okay! Going," Hiro turned, clenching his jaw as he thought quickly about how to get his super suit and leave without attracting attention. But the door to the cafe slammed into him when Fred and Aunt Cass opened it suddenly.
"Oh, sweetie! I'm sorry!" Aunt Cass apologized, once they got over their shock of running into each other.
"I'm okay," Hiro mumbled, despite the fact he was rubbing his arm.
"What's up, buddy?" Fred asked, still noticing the worried look about Hiro. "You disappeared."
"Not good," Hiro scratched his neck in thought as he pointed in the direction of the bay. "We gotta head out to the street markets up by the Bay. They need lots of help there."
"Oh, no. How bad?" Aunt Cass wondered. She also was surveying the mess caused by the earthquake in that area of her house.
"GoGo said there's a lot of people trapped. The buildings there aren't all that structurally sound." Hiro frowned, glancing to his aunt. "I'm sorry, Aunt Cass..."
"It's okay, Hiro," the brunette looked to him, running a hand through her nephew's hair to better see his worried face, then gripping his arms. "I can handle this. Go help those who need it."
He nodded and turned to leave, when Fred interrupted. "Hey, I'll stay here to help clean-up and fix stuff, if that's okay."
Hiro stopped, holding the door open. That just seemed a little odd that he didn't want to go this time. "You sure?"
"Just to give you peace of mind, Hero, buddy," Fred slapped his hand on his teammate's back. "It's what friends do."
"Oh, you're too much," Aunt Cass also gushed, squeezing Fred briefly as her way to say thank you, then also gave Hiro a quick hug before she stepped back out to the cafe.
"I'll keep in touch," Hiro nodded with a small smile, then paused another second before leaving. "Oh, there's a gas leak here too, so no flames, okay Freddie?"
The fanboy smirked, catching on to Hiro's subtle humor. He crossed his arms, indignantly. "Well, yeah. Honey's the one who likes explosions!"
But as soon as Fred said that, he smacked his hand on his mouth. If GoGo was there, she most likely would be knocking him upside the head for possibly making Hiro think about his house going up in a fiery explosion. "Totally sorry," he said as he followed the teen out.
Hiro didn't say anything though, as he had too much else on his mind.
The misty patches of fog filtering the light of the late morning sun in the bay area was the best part about flying over San Fransokyo. It felt like a whole other fantasy world one would see in a movie, or a video game. But the clouds hid from sight the calamity the earthquake had caused below.
Baymax dipped sharply to the right as he flew closer to their destination by the popular tourist area. He also had the coordinates and knew exactly where to land and find GoGo.
"Ow," Hiro muttered again, when Wasabi nervously knocked into him to use Hiro's leg and knee as a foothold. The larger college student was clinging tightly to Baymax's left wing, and the sharp bank to the right as they descended caused him to panic, for the fifth hundred time.
"Wasabi, I will not let you fall. Deep breaths." Baymax reassured him, again.
"Oh man, oh man..." Wasabi tried to take deeper breaths in a renewed attempt to get a grip on his fears. He decidedly kept his eyes shut now, as he held his face down again so the wind didn't take his breath away. The coolness of the misty clouds hit his face as it whipped over him during the descent. This was just his third time flying on Baymax, but it could as well been the first time due to the extent of his fear of heights and flying.
They landed on the slanted, crumbling road next to the largest pier, Ryoshi's Wharf, and Baymax knelt down so the two could slide to the ground.
"Whoo!" Wasabi gasped, hands on his knees and otherwise resisting the urge to just kiss the questionably solid asphalt ground. "Sorry about all that, man."
"You'll get the hang of it," Hiro tried to reassure him. His attentions quickly shifted to surveying the damage of the area along the street by the pier. Due to the extent of the damage, the first responders appeared to be spread thin as they tried to help the harder hit areas first. While the buildings of the city had been rebuilt to endure the shaking ground after the great earthquake of 1906, there was no foolproof way to safeguard these smaller buildings by the Bay from the liquefaction of the earth. Further down the way, a police car with its lights still flashing was stopped at where the road had completely sunk down to the water level. Waves also were crashing over the furthest end of the long pier a mile or so down.
Before the question came to Hiro's lips about where GoGo was, the speedster zipped up to them and screeched to a halt. She had her street clothes on, but also wore her yellow gauntlets and boots with her disks, and her helmet.
"About time!" That was how she greeted them, before noticing they were one short. "Where's Fred?"
"Back at the Lucky Cat, helping out," Hiro explained. Although, it did confuse him as to why she was dressed the way she was. "Um.. Do you usually wear your disks when doing deliveries?"
"No," GoGo sighed, looking as if she didn't have time for a question like that. "I built my suit into my bicycle, in the event of emergencies like this."
"Now follow me," she pointed down the way. It had looked like a good part of that section of the coastline by the bay had sunken down.
"Oh," Hiro rose an eyebrow, impressed by her ingenuity. That was all she had to say, as he already began to visualize the disks being inset into the wheels, the gauntlets and boots being magnetized to the frame, and the electromagnetic motors being shared by the bicycle. The young leader shook his head, reminding himself to focus again. It was his tendency to escape into concrete things that did make sense when everything else around him did not.
Wasabi had started to ask something, when the ground abruptly shifted a few more times. An aftershock. He had adopted a low horse-riding type of stance, his wary eyes checking with the others to make sure that was that, before he straightened up a little more.
"Yeah, where's Honey Lemon?" Wasabi finally asked.
"Down there, in the restaurant she works-" GoGo paused a moment to explain.
"She's one of the trapped?" Hiro gasped, catching her drift. He was right about that funny feeling that she was hiding something. "Why didn't you tell me?!"
"We need you to stay calm, Hiro," she simply told him, turning to coast in the direction of the larger buildings, next to were the land had dropped a few feet down.
"I am calm!" Hiro all but yelled, running after her. He was left wondering who the boss really was again. "Where is her restaurant?"
She didn't say more, as Baymax was again attracting the attention of the other people on the street. It just wouldn't look very cool for them to be seen fighting amongst themselves about trivial matters. More sirens also began to echo in the distance as help tried to move into the area. A helicopter from a news channel also flew a respectable distance overhead to survey the bay there.
"There," GoGo stopped by what had been a beachside seafood restaurant that had sunken down and now had waves crashing up against one side of it.
"My scanners indicate that there are many people are inside," Baymax confirmed. "And many have received injuries."
"Wasabi, work with Baymax to cut and remove the structures and cinder blocks out of the way to gain access," Hiro told the two, not wasting any time.
He was about to say something more when GoGo showed him a new text from Honey on her phone.
[HLemon] The team here? Getting really worried... gas leak too
Hiro took the phone to text her his response real quick before jumping in.
[GoGoTomago] This is Hiro. We r here... Hang on!
[HLemon] TY!
Hiro was about to give the phone back to GoGo, when an alert pop-up on the screen from the Emergency Alert System caught his attention.
[Tsunami Warning has been issued... Waves expected to reach the southern coast of SF by 11:23 am. Waves expected to reach 30 feet above sea level.]
"Really?" Hiro groaned, talking to himself. "Where was the epicenter?" He could only assume the severity must have been a 6.5 or higher, to merit this level of destruction. They were on the north side of the city, whereas the waves would hit the south side. However, it would still come through the Golden Gate and raise the levels of the bay. It didn't sound like a huge wave, but it was still concerning as they had less than thirty minutes.
"We got to hurry!" he tossed the phone to GoGo, before climbing down the landslide. This had to be there first search and rescue type of mission. While he had been secretly equipping Baymax for this type of work, he still was drawing blanks as how he and GoGo could effectively use their super suit tech for this.
"That's what I've been telling you!" GoGo couldn't resist that jab. She also had worn her disks long enough to be able to maneuver down sideways through the rubble after him.
The water level was actually starting to recent a little bit now, but Wasabi stopped his work when he hit some live wires. "Hot damn! Stand back, guys!" He jumped out of the water. "Be careful, Baymax!"
AN: So.. life happened. And lots of work. Blah. Sorry for leaving you guys hanging. (and then, I leave ya hanging some more!) ;p
EchidaPower – I give you the award for picking up on those subtleties that GoGo's not telling Hiro. ;D Yes, GoGo likes him, but she's still struggling with the age difference. And yes, she wants him to at least not look so boyish!
Sarnakh the Sunderer – Possibly Ruff n Tuff. Or… *makes a face trying to think of any other current examples* eh… yeah, I just dated myself, I'm afraid. (Or... Scooby and Shaggy? No...Phineas and Ferb! Yeh! )
Thank you again, everyone!
