goddamned thing was reared up so high he could still see it anyway, soaring off toward space somewhere beyond the skyline of the ranges. That was bad enough, but what they’d told him about the effect of this “wave” had drilled a cold, dead finger bone into his heart. Hundreds of millions of people, gone. Whole cities, close enough to the whole country, empty. Ships plowing into ports and exploding. Cars just veering off the road, uncontrolled, crashing into each other because nobody was behind the wheel. Planes falling out of the sky, as he’d seen with his very own eyes earlier that day. It’d been happening all over. Still was, in fact. The Air National Guard had jets up right now, waiting for half a dozen flights whose tracks were due to take them over Seattle. They’d been authorized to shoot them down well short of the city.
Kipper caught himself obsessively twisting and wrenching one of the straps on his backpack as he tried to imagine what had happened, what bizarre correlation of physical forces might have done such a thing. He couldn’t think of a single explanation. He was a civil engineer, a good one, but he maintained a professional interest in related fields, and indeed in most of the hard sciences. As a young boy he’d wanted to be an astronaut—who hadn’t?—but he wasn’t one for uniforms and taking orders and sucking upa lot of chickenshit nonsense. So he’d refused to go down the path his old man had been pushing him toward, a career in the air force. He loved building things, not blowing them up. He’d never quite gotten the bug out of his system, though, and a lot of his downtime consisted of reading the sort of scientific journals to which he might have contributed had he pulled on a space suit for real, instead of just in his dreams.
But nothing he’d ever read or learned or seen in his private or professional experience went one inch toward explaining what the hell had happened while he’d been off on his precious fucking nature walk.
As the C-130 dropped toward the tarmac with a dense, industrial roar, Kipper shook himself out of his thoughts like a dog throwing off pond water. The plane touched down on a patch of concrete apron north of the control tower, affording him a good view of both runways and the terminal complex. He could see right away that things weren’t normal. There was an unusually large number of planes on the ground, and none taking off. In one glance he could make out the logos of half a dozen stranded carriers. Midwest. JetBlue. Frontier. China Airlines. They all had flights parked by terminals they wouldn’t normally use. A bunch of 737s and MD-80s from Alaska Airlines had huddled together, a bit like an old wagon train, down near the fire station, while a collection of jumbos and long haulers from overseas had gathered at the southern end of the airport. As his plane rumbled along the tarmac, a United Airlines Airbus aborted a landing with a scream of turbines and a building roar as she heaved herself back into the sky again. Kipper craned out of the cabin to see if he could spot whatever had gone wrong, but the guardsmen were already popping harnesses and hurrying him out of the aircraft.
“This way, sir,” a woman in a Nomex flight suit yelled at him, pressing a firm hand on his shoulder. “Follow me.”
Kipper did as he was told, crouching slightly for no good reason. It just seemed appropriate. The airport was a thunderbowl of screaming engines, jet exhaust, and speeding vehicles, all of it controlled in some vague, chaotic way by hundreds of scurrying, shouting men and women in coveralls and earphones. There were a lot more military uniforms than he was used to seeing, as well. The engineer allowed himself to be led across to a waiting pickup with city markings, where Barney Tench, a huge unkempt figure in khaki drill pants and a faded blue shirt, was waiting for him, looking worried.
Tench came forward, holding out his hand, shaking his
Kipper caught himself obsessively twisting and wrenching one of the straps on his backpack as he tried to imagine what had happened, what bizarre correlation of physical forces might have done such a thing. He couldn’t think of a single explanation. He was a civil engineer, a good one, but he maintained a professional interest in related fields, and indeed in most of the hard sciences. As a young boy he’d wanted to be an astronaut—who hadn’t?—but he wasn’t one for uniforms and taking orders and sucking upa lot of chickenshit nonsense. So he’d refused to go down the path his old man had been pushing him toward, a career in the air force. He loved building things, not blowing them up. He’d never quite gotten the bug out of his system, though, and a lot of his downtime consisted of reading the sort of scientific journals to which he might have contributed had he pulled on a space suit for real, instead of just in his dreams.
But nothing he’d ever read or learned or seen in his private or professional experience went one inch toward explaining what the hell had happened while he’d been off on his precious fucking nature walk.
As the C-130 dropped toward the tarmac with a dense, industrial roar, Kipper shook himself out of his thoughts like a dog throwing off pond water. The plane touched down on a patch of concrete apron north of the control tower, affording him a good view of both runways and the terminal complex. He could see right away that things weren’t normal. There was an unusually large number of planes on the ground, and none taking off. In one glance he could make out the logos of half a dozen stranded carriers. Midwest. JetBlue. Frontier. China Airlines. They all had flights parked by terminals they wouldn’t normally use. A bunch of 737s and MD-80s from Alaska Airlines had huddled together, a bit like an old wagon train, down near the fire station, while a collection of jumbos and long haulers from overseas had gathered at the southern end of the airport. As his plane rumbled along the tarmac, a United Airlines Airbus aborted a landing with a scream of turbines and a building roar as she heaved herself back into the sky again. Kipper craned out of the cabin to see if he could spot whatever had gone wrong, but the guardsmen were already popping harnesses and hurrying him out of the aircraft.
“This way, sir,” a woman in a Nomex flight suit yelled at him, pressing a firm hand on his shoulder. “Follow me.”
Kipper did as he was told, crouching slightly for no good reason. It just seemed appropriate. The airport was a thunderbowl of screaming engines, jet exhaust, and speeding vehicles, all of it controlled in some vague, chaotic way by hundreds of scurrying, shouting men and women in coveralls and earphones. There were a lot more military uniforms than he was used to seeing, as well. The engineer allowed himself to be led across to a waiting pickup with city markings, where Barney Tench, a huge unkempt figure in khaki drill pants and a faded blue shirt, was waiting for him, looking worried.
Tench came forward, holding out his hand, shaking his
Similar Books
