Now the apartment smelled like stale beer, and every device seemed nonfunctional. Hannah showered, dressed, and gathered her belongings. She had no intention of going back there before tonight’s show. She’d just go to the office and enjoy the Saturday solitude. Maybe she’d update her acting résumé. Maybe she’d send some e-mails. Maybe she’d scan the local apartment listings. Or maybe not so local. In her mind, all the recent annoyances gathered into a clump, like tea leaves. They predicted a bleak future unless she made changes. Maybe it was finally time to consider Los Angeles.
By the time Hannah stepped outside, the sky had turned from misty gray to fluorescent white, a disturbingly uniform glaze that looked less like a mist sheet and more like an absence. To Hannah, it seemed as if God, Buddha, Xenu, whoever, simply forgot to load the next slide in the great heavenly projector. It didn’t help her nerves that the temperature was ten degrees cooler than it should have been for Southern California in July.
She wasn’t alone in her anxiety. As she walked down Commercial Street, an old man urgently fiddled with his radio, testing its many squeals and crackles. A teenage girl shook her cell phone as if it had overdosed on downers. A middle-aged woman tried to control her German shepherd, which hysterically barked at everything and nothing. A young jogger launched a futile cry at a fast-moving police car. “Hey. HEY! What’s going on?”
Nearly three dozen people congregated at the train stop. Hannah opted to walk to work. Two lithe young women broke away from the crowd and nervously followed her.
“Excuse me,” said one. “Can you help us? We’re not from around here.”
That much was obvious. One of the pair was dressed as Catwoman, whip and all. The other was decked out in a blond wig and white-leather corset ensemble, clearly some other super-antiheroine that Hannah didn’t recognize. She did, however, know exactly where both women were going. All veteran San Diegans were familiar with Comic-Con, the annual gathering of sci-fi, fantasy, and funny-book enthusiasts that occurred downtown for four days in July. No doubt these gals were shooting for an easy surplus of leers from the geek contingent.
Hannah smirked at them. “Let me guess. You’re trying to get to the convention center.”
Catwoman snickered. “Yeah. Bingo.”
“I don’t know what’s going on with the train. If you think your heels will hold up, you’re probably better off walking. I’m going that way. You can come with me.”
“Oh thank you,” said the fake blonde, rubbing her arms for warmth. “The power went out at the place we’re staying. Our phones don’t work. We’re totally screwed up right now.”
After twelve blocks and twenty minutes, Hannah regretted her decision to serve as vanguard for the vixens. The women were maddeningly slow in their clacking heels, and their worried chatter made her increasingly tense. Not that they lacked cause for concern. As they moved closer downtown, they could see thick plumes of smoke rising up above the buildings. Soon Hannah spotted the edge of a vast rubbernecker pool, hundreds of people gathered at the base of some tumult.
They rounded the corner, turning north onto 13th Street. Just one block away, beyond all the cordons and emergency lights, stood the broken tail cone of a jumbo jet. The buildings around it were devastated with ash and debris. One apartment complex had crumbled to rubble.
Hannah covered her mouth. “Oh my God.”
More than a hundred thousand planes, jets, and helicopters had been up in the air seven hours ago, when all the world’s engines fell still. A third of them plummeted into water. Another third hit the hard empty spaces between human life. The final third just hit hard. San Diego had suffered twenty-two crashes within its borders.
Hannah gaped at the tall gray clock tower of the 12th & Imperial Transit Center, just a hundred yards away. It was a local landmark, one she’d passed a thousand times on her way to work. Now it had been de-clocked, decapitated. Every window on the south side of the building was shattered, with burn marks all over the frame.
All around her, people fretfully chattered. A stringy blond teenager brandished a transistor radio, declaring to anyone willing to listen that he’d heard voices through the static. People in other cities were talking about the same things.
“This is happening all over,” he insisted. “Everywhere!”
Agitated bystanders shouted at him. Hannah took an anxious step back. Perhaps it was time to stop playing Sherpa for the Comic-Con chicks and move on to a much nicer elsewhere.
“Keep your head,” said a cool voice from behind.
She turned around and lost her breath at the sight of the pale and handsome stranger, as tall as any she’d ever seen. He wore a sharp gray business suit without a tie and sported deep blue eyes that nearly blinded her with their intensity. Most striking of all was his neatly trimmed hair, which was chalk-white and achingly familiar. Hannah blinked at him in stupor.
“You remember me, child?” he calmly inquired.
She shook her head, even as old recollections came flooding back. She was just a little girl when she first laid eyes on the white-haired man. Seventeen years and the guy hadn’t aged a day. Hannah was almost certain he was wearing the same suit.
“I don’t . . . know you.”