Chapter Sixty-One
The Cascadia evacuation was something else, but we collectively got it done, just. People were mostly trying to be good-natured and patient, but crawling along highways for miles saps sanity, and as children get cranky tempers fray. People are also amazingly capable of stupidity, and despite clear advice for months about what to pack, including my Public Service Announcements, they still failed to have spare gas or sufficient water, and to get cars serviced. By the Friday it was clear that my most useful contribution was as a roving gas station and hit mechanic, using the cloak and a squad including Zee, Tad, Irpa and Vanna, and Ramona with a bunch of Freed. If whatever had gone wrong could be fixed it was, and if not wolves and trolls moved dead vehicles out of everyone's way, while the stranded were collected by PDs, handed sizeable bills, and seen to safety inland. Anywhere east of I5 should be survivable away from anything that could fall on you, but people headed all over by air and road, as well as packing every motel for a thousand miles, and many were taking advantage to stage family and other reunions.
Campaigning was suspended, but my hit squad meant a running interface with PDs and caught media attention. As airports emptied for the final time and fell silent, focus shifted to epic traffic congestion and the oddity of seeing all lanes eastbound, interspersed with final tie-downs of major museums and the like. And as luck would have it there was a crew filming near the site of a chain fender bender on I10 that left half-a-dozen cars locked together across two lanes, drivers shouting pointless recriminations until Irpa and Vanna separated all cars with brisk yanks, folded a couple of detached fenders in half and half again, handed them to owners with troll smiles, and politely suggested everyone note insurance details and get moving again, more carefully. There was honking applause from backed-up vehicles, and I gave an interview about keeping traffic moving so people could be somewhere safe in time that annoyed Senator Less Stupid, who'd secured his party's nomination and grumbled about a breach of the moratorium, but no-one else minded.
My other rivals had dropped out one-by-one with funding problems, among others, and Senator Snake Oil managed to cap his political suicides by losing a one-horse race. He went to his party's conference assuming the nomination was his only to find they refused to endorse him, preferring — as a New England delegate remarked — not to vote now for a damned fool they wouldn't be supporting in November. Basin-state governors moved a refusal to nominate, which to the National Committee's horror passed. The Man had a purer sense of schadenfreude, and was clear it couldn't have happened to anyone more deserving, but I was better pleased by the consequences. Failing to nominate was a radical step, and rather than going home many delegates stayed, talking and honest-to-God thinking. The Man and I were increasingly happy with grassroots activism in both parties, and the way green consciousness and demands for stronger engagement with new realities were pushing at entrenched corporate and financial controls was heartening, however there remained a long road to anything workable.
It left a large burden on Senator Less Stupid, and as I thought an election should be a contest it seemed wise to be as helpful as I could. The Man with ostentatious fairness invited us both, with running mates, Washington, Oregon, and California, to the Ground Zero command centre at an Air Force Base in southern Oregon, combining USGS seismology with the Pentagon's satellite resources, which would broadcast primary assessments in real time. Adam and Jesse came but stayed off-camera with Rachel, which Frank and I couldn't, and Skuffles didn't want to. Medicine Wolf came by to say hello soon after I arrived, warning us it would be invisible during its labours and for an unknown while thereafter, wholly absorbed in the task, but not, it promised with a wolf grin, intending any further nap in its depths. Then it girded its loins, more or less, gave me a look when I wished it luck, and vanished, leaving us to endure a nervy wait.
After all the reassurances to camera we could muster coverage went back to the USGS explaining the Cascadia Subduction Zone, vastly improved modelling Medicine Wolf made possible, and infinite uncertainties that remained. With the camera off others could join us, and Jesse saved me and the Man any amount of polite small talk by engaging Senator Less Stupid about policies affecting kiddos, scrupulously not assuming any November outcome by basing what she said on the probability of her intranets continuing throughout her senior year, and (without mentioning Georgetown) the need for Others 201 and research degrees. Initially wary, the Senator was drawn in by genuine interest and swiftly charmed, even before Jesse deftly widened the conversation to include everyone. Doing intranets had taught her a lot, or made real things she'd understood from Adam and me in theory. There were reasons Adam was a very successful businessman, as coyote dancing had taught me all sorts of odd steps, and somewhere along the hard path she'd had to take Jesse had stitched it together in a style all her own. Not many seventeen-year-olds with green hair make the cover of Time, and she was showing us why when alarms rang.
The trigger was a swarm of deep, increasingly powerful 'quakes that had USGS people hopping as they ran models, and sixteen minutes later the Cascadia Subduction Zone did some overdue subducting, first at its northern end and six minutes later the southern — two major 'quakes registering 7.9 and 8.1, that made the floor slap feet hard and rattled the building, followed by three more in the 5s and a tremble of lesser aftershocks. Separate seismic activity at Yellowstone suggested Ol' Manitou River had done something, but that had to wait because there were three more mid-7s much further south, on the White Wolf, Garlock and San Andreas faults, aftershocks declining into 3s.
There were bad moments, but the tenor of USGS commentary held down alarm. With nothing above 8.1 most buildings were safe, though windows were broken and rooftiles dislodged, but more than one stretch of elevated freeway collapsed, and the coast was another story because the land dropped almost fifteen feet in some places, and at least four all the way from SF to Vancouver. Beaches and oceanfront houses went, far more on the outer Pacific coast of Washington and Vancouver Island than on Puget Sound, to Seattle's relief, and over the next day tsunamis would do damage around the Pacific, though it was hoped with little loss of life as everyone else had done some evacuating too.
As aftershocks subsided USGS commentary built into deeply positive appreciation. They said flat-out they'd be analysing what had happened for years, but what they were seeing was a highly abnormal pattern that had bled off critical energy from the first big 'quake, at once dissipating it down into the mantle, reducing the mass that was hung up, and inducing a crabwise advance that divided the main 'quake. Without all that their best guess was that a single event would have hit maybe 8.8 or .9, turning major urban areas into debris fields, and releases on the San Andreas system had eliminated a chunk of deficits, sheared a dozen highways, and moved another section of coast three feet west. Magma was confirmed as flowing away from Yellowstone, heading down, and the main chamber had lost a measurable fraction of its reservoir. It was all amazingly better than not, despite a multi-billion-dollar bill for repairs and real estate.
As coverage of the new coastline from USN and USAF assets began to occupy airtime, the Man went national, congratulating everyone on an optimal outcome, saluting Medicine Wolf with the nation's heartfelt gratitude, and telling citizens to stay firmly put while massed state and federal agencies, with tens of thousands of service personnel, did their things, clearing debris, dealing with hazards, mapping new coastline, and closing or reopening roads. He also took the chance to remind everyone, as if they needed it, that the whole wise insanity had been born of a question I'd asked Medicine Wolf while scrambling to whack Cantrip yet keep everything else non-violent, and Sawyer's immediate grasp of possibility. Finally he signed off, wishing his fellow Americans a peaceful and greatly relieved good night. Off-air I welcomed back Adam, Jesse, and Rachel, and heaved a long sigh. Washington quirked an eyebrow.
"As bad as all that, Ms Hauptman?"
"Just relief, sir. There were no guarantees on this one, but it looks like Medicine Wolf gets an A+ in earthquake wrangling." I was sorry about the coast, but the whole problem was that land had risen over three centuries as snagged plate buckled, so it was always going to drop. "It's really let us dodge a bullet."
"Oh yeah. I was braced for worse. But you've been so very confident."
"That's leadership." The Man rolled his head. "I take out the small change in a stiff neck and headaches. But damn, it was worth it." He tipped me a salute. "I ought to give you another medal."
"Oh hush." He grinned, and as the Presidential Medal of Freedom he'd given me on Independence Day had come with Presidential Citizen Medals for Adam, Jesse, Irpa, Vanna, Jill, Joel, and Coyote, citing Gateway Park, I only flapped a hand. "It was very kind of you, sir, and goes nicely on my Corps of Engineers blouson, but this wasn't valorous. Give the medal to Medicine Wolf."
He laughed. "If only. God knows it's deserved. And how do we reward a great manitou, other than keeping its basin clean and rivers undammed?"
"Don't ask me. I have the same problem with the oak that got di Ragusa. It's thinking about whether it would like a name, apparently, but beyond that I'm stumped. And Medicine Wolf has never asked for anything except people to read and a cell phone. Even meals are out, that form not being equipped to digest." I brightened. "Mind you, I could ask it to manifest in a form that is, and do some serious cooking."
Amid more laughter, Senator Less Stupid, observing with taut interest and as happy as everyone with the outcome, leant forward.
"I've wondered about the manitous each having only one avatar, Ms Hauptman. Is there anything you can tell me about that?"
"Of course, Senator, but the one's just what you see. The manitous I've met all have multiple forms. Even Guayota couldn't wholly leave Mount Teide, only split a part of itself off, which was one reason it was so unstable. How many forms it has on Tenerife I have no idea, but Medicine Wolf has many avatars at any given time, in different forms, doing business with itself and whomever. Ol' Manitou River too, as far as I know — and we might see a different avatar when bison get roaming. But I had a talk with Medicine Wolf early on about multiple manifestations, and we decided that just one to interface with humans would work better."
He blinked. "You could have asked it to bring on its dire-wolfpack?"
I grinned. "Pretty much. I thought having one fifteen-foot dire wolf to ask not to murder me was plenty."
"Huh. We agree about something preternatural, Ms Hauptman." He shook his head. "And you're going to beat me like a drum in November, aren't you? I'm not really running at all, just taking one for the team."
I winced. "Maybe. I can't honestly say I'm sorry, but I have a great deal more respect for you than for Senator Snake Oil, while honest defeat is no dishonour. And you have fewer constraints than you would in a … normal election. Some interesting freedom." I hesitated, but he'd opened the door. "I have noticed your restraint in using attack ads."
"What would be the point, Ms Hauptman? I've seen on the stump that I can disagree with your priorities, and regret some of your … style, but I cannot question your sincerity or insult you without being told to cease and desist, in no uncertain fashion." He shrugged. "You've given people a dream I can't begin to match, and don't especially want to impugn, however I think business-owners are going to be left deeper in your green lurch than their employees."
"That depends, Senator. If you mean the fattest cats of big whatever, you bet. But people lower down, not if I can help it." I made a decision. "Keep your campaign clean, and if I win and you're at a loose end a door will be open to you to help make sure I can."
He stared at me. "You're serious?"
"Why not? You make a valid point. There's a question about co-operation and competition, and how we do one without letting lack of the other raise prices needlessly. Capitalism works really well for some things, and not at all for the planet, so we have to change, but babies, bathwater."
The Man spoke softly. "She means it, and she's completely straight despite all the strange, if you haven't worked that out." He looked at me. "I intend to sleep for a year and a day, and do a great deal of kicking back and turning music up, but with the do-not-crowd-successors rule there's also the always-take-their-calls rule. What you need, you'll get."
I absorbed that. "Are you retiring, or just recuperating?"
"The latter. Job offers entertained, though preferably not like the one you made Excalibur."
"Hey! That was down to you, sir, as much as anyone. You pushed me to run, and everything else came from that."
"Yeah, I know. I'm still trying to process. Light the blue touch paper, they say, and stand well back." He looked at the Senator. "I was fairly sure the missing preternatural kind was vamps, and hoped she might find a way forward, because Fae and Wolves clearly had a problem I only half-understood, if that, but since then I've been … hah, flabbergasted. I've wanted to use that word for years." I couldn't stop a laugh. "Right, but I mean it, Ms Hauptman." His gaze returned to the Senator. "Can you maybe do something about this? I implied, hoping she could nudge someone, and she came back with a global plan that had Fae, Wolf, and Elder Spirit support and minimised probable casualties on all sides. A little later I realised she'd made herself into walking bait on a rational assessment of the chances and everyone's behalf. Insanely dangerous pie-in-the-sky. Except she delivered, three times over. What's a man to do?"
"I hear you, Mr President." The senator frowned. "It's clear elected representatives need to keep preternatural issues in mind, but there's no system for ensuring data is shared, and it involves restricted matters."
I sat up. "Right. House and Senate Preternatural Liaison Oversight Committees? There are things humans have neither rights nor need to know, but also things that should get proper scrutiny."
That took us into what might work and was necessary or desirable from one or other perspective. We were beginning to wonder about food when an excited Skuffles interrupted to tell us things were happening. A Coast Guard cutter looking at Astoria's new waterfront, and noting a substantial increase in the force of the current that would affect navigation in the Columbia Bar, had witnessed Medicine Wolf's return, on a grand scale. Still recognisably the same animal, the dire wolf that rose from the main channel was enormous — several hundred feet tall and glowing with energy as it saw the cutter and a gaping reporter onboard repeated its words.
My apologies for startling you. I had to be unusually concentrated to control the plates' readjustment, and have absorbed a lot of their energy. Is all as well as may be on the land?
Assured it was, Medicine Wolf said stronger current was unavoidable until it had done some eroding, but would scour a straighter main channel, before adding it had things to do with its abundance of energy, wishing the Coast Guard well, and loping off up the Columbia. Seven-league boots might have been faster, but not by much, and cameras in Skamokawa, Cathlamet, Westport, and Clatskanie barely had time to swivel as it passed. But at Longview it left the river, heading for Mount St Helens as scrambled choppers started providing coverage, and my heart fluttered.
"Uh oh."
The Man gave me a look. "Problem, Ms Hauptman?"
"Who knows, sir? A way oversize great manitou on an earthquake-wrangling high is new to me too." Honesty tugged as I watched Medicine Wolf Magna climb the south slope in a bare minute to stand on the rim, towering into the sky. "But Coyote did have an idea about Lawetlat'la, Mount St Helens, and he might have sold Medicine Wolf on it."
"What sort of idea?"
"Um …"
"The Mount Rushmore sort, sir." Jesse grinned. "But it was your idea to have some Elder Spirits on a proper scale, Mom."
This I have to see.
Skuffles vanished, reappearing seconds later beside Medicine Wolf Magna, who looked down and said hi, with who knew what else. Skuffles seemed pleased and the chopper gave a circling panorama of the two, ridiculously mismatched but undeniably fine as they contemplated the rock before them.
"How does Skuffles do that?"
The Man sounded quite plaintive.
"She goes via Underhill, sir. I was wearing the cloak when I made her, and it came with the deal."
No-one else said anything because Medicine Wolf Magna was moving towards the thicker, more jagged eastern part of the horseshoe rim, Skuffles trotting behind, and stopped again on Dog's Head Peak, just short of the dip in the middle. Rock began to move instead — not falling, but compacting, shrinking, smoothing itself to shape, and darkening as it became denser. It was, I supposed numbly, not so different a process from tunnelling, but on a far larger scale. What snow cover there was melted fast, and I felt some relief as a rounded back emerged, then flanks and from the further rise the great head, turned north-east towards Cowlitz. As the rear was completed I was also relieved to see it was lying down, tail neatly tucked — that much rock supported on narrow legs would have been very uncomfortable to look at, whatever the physics of direwolfite — but by the head another began to emerge, then a third, and I sighed. Sculpting me was catching on. If the main statue was of the normal fifteen-foot version of Medicine Wolf I'd be to scale, wearing the cloak and Excalibur, one hand on Manannán's Bane — and watching rock compact itself that much made me wince — but I was still most of a hundred feet tall, and on my other side eighty feet of Skuffles was sitting up, head and fully detailed ruff level with my shoulder as we all gazed to the far horizon. The real Skuffles was skittering excitement, and Medicine Wolf Magna had shrunk as it used energy, though still way too big. Eventually the thing was complete, and the artists in crime trotted down to sit in front of themselves with satisfied approval. I knew Adam was stifling laughter, Jesse wearing the widest grin, and everyone else was very quiet indeed, even TV commentators having no idea what to say.
"Well, it takes care of the present problem, I suppose." The Man sounded reflective. "And makes medals look very small beer."
"Dear God." Senator Less Stupid drew a juddering breath. "Did you know this was coming, Ms Hauptman?"
I shook my head, but Jesse laughed joyously.
"Mom actually really dislikes heroic statues of her, sir, and she'd have headed this one off at the pass if she'd had the chance. Skuffles has more vanity — comes with the ruff-do, I think."
The Man narrowed his eyes. "How does she know she dislikes heroic statues of herself? What did I miss?"
Jesse dimpled. "You'll have to ask her, sir — spilling those beans is more than my life's worth — but for my money Medicine Wolf just cast the vote it doesn't have."