Monday, March 06, 2006 Touched by Fire
By Bonnie Calhoun at 12:12 AM Friday, March 03, 2006


CHAPTER ONE


12 April

The Earth appeared to have developed a heartbeat.

Montana Sinclair released the half-wound spool of seismic tape. It clattered back to the floor, spewing a trail of stark white ribbon paper in its wake. The seismic pen drew a straight line down the tape for about fifteen seconds. Then it jumped in a high spike. That pattern repeated as far as she could see down the length of unrolled paper.

Her eyes darted across the workspace. Multicolored folders and bulging files lay in haphazard stacks piled a foot high on every conceivable work surface. She reached behind the pile closest to her, grabbed the cable and connected the interface, linking her laptop to the seismograph computer. With rapid keystrokes, she coupled the system data to the diagnostic software she created. She blinked, and then stared at the screen.

"Huh? That's my...this is impossible!"

Montana typed several com¬mands for verification. "How can this signal be coming from the moon?"

Her arms prickled with excitement as she popped a CD in the lab computer to burn a data copy. The finely honed instincts she developed over the last ten years had felt as though they were dissolving like wet cotton candy. Now...a grin spread across her lips.

"I've got you, McKay!"

She reached for her glass of soda water. The surface of the water vibrated in miniscule concentric waves. Her mouth went slack. She pulled back her hand and glanced behind her.

The rumble came from deep within the bowels of the earth, working its way up, jerking and separating the strata layers as it came.

Montana turned, unconsciously thinking she'd be able to see the source of the echoing growl. Temblors were a normal, unpleasant fact in California.

Slipping from the stool, she grabbed her light jacket and stepped into the adjoining office doorway. Her analytical mind reasoned that by the time she reached the arch, the shaking would subside.

The still evening air exploded. Shockwave percussion rolled through the seismology station with a deafening crescendo. Montana jerked her head. Glass splintered. Metal crashed. Computers jolted off shelves.

"What in the..."

Evacuation sirens screamed to life, punctuating the rumbles.

Black and white checkered ceramic floor tiles in the lab erupted as the floor twisted like a rope of licorice. Montana stared, not comprehending.

Her feet caught up to her brain. She hop scotched over heaved sections of tile and sprinted for the front door at the other end of the long laboratory. Plaster silt floated down from the vibrating beams.

Under the rumble, the earth groaned, like a tremendous grinding of splintering wood. The steel equipment rack opposite Montana's station jack-hammered itself loose from the anchor bolts, and hung precariously at a forty-five degree angle.

"...the disk!" She skidded to a halt before the front exit and darted back down the aisle to her station. In between the piercing shrieks of the siren, came shouts of people yelling to evacuate.

Behind her, at the exit, a tall bookcase crashed across the aisle, hanging up on a desk as it fell. A chain of dull thuds and plops emitted from the rows of books sliding from the tilting shelves. Equipment smashed to the floor. Knobs and dials scattered under the desk, rolling across the aisle.

Montana skidded to a stop in front of the computer. She fumbled with the CD tray. It wouldn't open. Repeatedly pushing the eject button, she frantically pried at it with her fingers.

The near end of a five-foot fluorescent light fixture swung down from it mooring on the ceiling. She jumped out of the way just in time. It crashed to the floor. Still attached by wires to the ceiling, the light danced like a marionette in the trembling room. The acrid smell of fluorescent ballast drifted up from the smashed end of the fixture.

"Open! Open!" She clawed at the tray, pounding on the front. Seconds felt like minutes. It slid open. She grabbed the disk, shoving it into her jacket pocket.

The ceiling buckled. Another light fixture smashed to the floor. Elec¬tricity arced from the dangling wires.

She ran toward the toppled bookcase blocking the path to the door. Among the thunderous growling, an ominous cracking sound rolled along the length of the room. Welds on the roofing sections were snapping as the rafters twisted free.

Montana dove under the canted bookcase blocking the doorway, and crawled through the debris of books and equipment. Emerging on the other side, she scrambled for the open door as she heard the ceiling roar down behind her. A billowing cloud of cement dust filled the room, trailing her out the door.

Hugging the wall, she felt her way down the long, darkened hallway. Her perception of where she stood was skewed by the fallen partitions and wiring. She had only been at this facility for a few weeks and the layout still felt unfamiliar.

Montana coughed and wheezed, gasping for air. Her lungs filtering only small wisps of oxygen from the enveloping dust cloud.

She tripped, lurching forward with her arms spread out to cushion the fall. Her palms skidded across the rubble-strewn floor, as her chest slammed into the hard surface, knocking her precious, little wind out of her.

Montana lay there disoriented, her brain fogging from lack of oxygen. Suddenly a pair of arms wrapped around her waist and jerked her to her feet.

"I've got you ma'am." A tense voice rose above the din.

Montana stumbled, then faltered. An explosion of pain tore through her ankle, renewing her senses as the man guided her out of the crumbling building.

The Air Force personnel cleared the immediate area as the fault yawned like an awakened giant. Its gaping maw searched for sustenance. The Air Force Seismology building collapsed in on itself and slipped unceremoniously into the open throat of the Rose Canyon Fault.

A few more creaks and a couple of groans and the episode ended. The earth had eaten its fill. The tremor abruptly subsided.

The airman's strong hands guided Montana a safe distance from the disaster, then released her. She bent over, hands on her knees, coughing and gasping great gulps of sweet fresh air, trying to get the blood to return to her brain and stop the dizziness.

The ferocious growl of Mother Nature changing positions again ripped through the night air. Just as Montana and the group turned to flee, the ground ceased shaking.

The airman who helped Montana from the building, stared at the open trench. "Wow, everything is just, gone!"

"Not everything." Reaching into her pocket, she extracted the disk and clutched it in the dusty palm of her right hand. "Is everyone accounted for, airman?" She surveyed the group of rattled technicians.

The airman counted heads. Drops of sweat rolled down his forehead, creating clean paths in the clinging grime. "Yes, Ma'am, they're all here."

"Good. Who does that Jeep belong to?" Montana pointed to a row of vehicles on the blacktopped lot that now looked strangely alone and out of place.

"It's mine, ma'am." One of the lab technicians stepped forward, his lip quivering.

"Think you're in good enough shape to get me over to the airfield in one piece?" Montana shook the grit out of her hair.

"Yes, ma'am."

"Let's go...I've got a plane to catch." She had to get this disk to General McKay.


By Bonnie Calhoun at 1:51 PM