Flood by Stephen Baxter

hesitated, looking at the younger children—“let’s say half an hour to the stations, Westcombe Park or Charlton, and they’ll be laying on special trains to take you off.” Off where? Amanda wondered. How do we get home? “That’s all. If you’d like to form up into a column, I’ll follow at the rear . . .”
    As the people gathered obediently into a crocodile, Amanda pushed her way through to the policewoman. “My daughter. Kristie Caistor. She’s got lost.”
    “I’ll put a call out,” the policewoman said.“We’ve a contact system in place, Mrs. Caistor. I’m sure—”
    “I’ll wait,” Amanda said desperately. “She might come here. She’s bound to be frightened.”
    “It’s much better if you move on. We have to get the whole site cleared.”
    Amanda snarled, “That’s what they’ve been saying to me since I was kicked out of that stupid arena by a fucking kid.”
    The WPC blanched, wet, tense. She fingered the radio button at her lapel.
    Benj plucked at Amanda’s sleeve, horribly embarrassed.“Mum, please.”
    Somebody screamed, one of the kids. “My feet are wet!”
    And suddenly Amanda was aware that her feet were colder, too, and her ankles, her shins. She glanced down. Water, cold and full of muck, was washing over her shoes. She looked to her left, toward the pier. Water gushed over the retaining wall, a steady stream of it, pouring out over the flat surface of the car park. For a heartbeat or two, the people just watched the water rising around their shins, pelted by the rain.
    Then there was a surge, and a wave topped the wall and rushed down toward them. Children screamed, and parents broke and ran, dragging their kids away from the water. Amanda reached for Benj.
    Then it was on them like a tide coming in, a wave of water that reached Amanda’s knees, and then another pulse came that soaked her to her waist and made her stagger.
    The policewoman was yelling, “Go that way, the way I told you! Go on toward the flyover! Keep together!”
    The party struggled in that direction. But the water continued to pour over the bank wall, spreading eagerly over the car park. The current was surprisingly strong for such shallow water, and it was difficult to walk through it. One little girl went under. The policewoman and her mother helped her up; she surfaced, coughing, soaked to the skin. And still the water poured over the wall.
    Amanda tried to stay standing, staring wildly about. “Kristie. Kristie!”
    “She’s safe!” It was Lily, running up out of nowhere, in a wetsuit and heavy orange coat, splashing toward her. And Kristie was with her, holding Lily’s hand, her pink backpack bright.
    Amanda grabbed her daughter gratefully. Even Benj let Kristie bury her face in his coat.
    Amanda said, “Lily, where the hell did you come from?—Never mind. Where did you find her?”
    “She couldn’t get back to you, and she couldn’t make it here, so she went to a police missing-persons point. They’re all over the peninsula. Smart kid. They logged her in, I found her there, came for you—”
    A fresh wave came over the wall, and they all jumped.
    Lily grabbed Kristie’s hand. “Come on, we need to get out of here. The chopper’s waiting.”
    “What chopper?”
    “AxysCorp.”
    Benj said, “What about everybody else?”
    “We can’t take everybody,” Lily said grimly. “I’m sorry, Benj.”
    Amanda asked, “Lily, how can all this be happening?”
    “I don’t know,” Lily said. “For now I just want to get us out of here. Now come on. Hang onto me . . .”
    Clinging to each other, they struggled through the increasingly powerful currents that swept across the car park, heading for the chopper.

15

    S o this was Millwall, heart of the east end, a tough old community that stretched around the western shore of the Isle of Dogs, with the dock cut through its heart. Piers had never been here before. with the dock cut through its heart. Piers had never been here
    The boom that