Chapter 47

BELLANA
(Thursday 1/5)

Toro, Janet and I had a weeknight sleepover last night. We'd gotten all our chores done as fast as we could after Inner Circle study, tormented Blake and Louise a while then retired to Toro's bedroom with lots of water and towels. We then carefully proceeded to screw our brains out!

We'd done a couple round-robins and a few other things Janet had dreamed up -- plus some threesome-alterations to several of the Kamasutra positions! My stomach was still sore from coming so hard, and I felt Janet was a bit sore -- both front and back. We had the well-fucked look in the morning.

Lunch time. Natalie and George were off in Los Angeles somewhere on some required-for-graduation field trip which an administrator somewhere dreamed up, so it was just the seven of us at the table.

Toro had his head down on his arms, moaning about how tired he was. Bob grinned at us. "Warrior-Heart, you need to get about three more guys in your group even to hope to keep up with those two succubuses -- or is that suck-you-bi?"

Janet and I smiled smugly, waved our hard-tipped tits in the air and pumped out more pheromones for the pleasure of the general cafeteria population.

Toro groaned and pretended to collapse. Janet and I patted his head and consoled him while each of us tried to push a tit through his arm.

All of us linked lightly with Natalie and George to see how they were doing on their "great adventure."

George: "We're down in the bowels of the earth somewhere in the middle of L.A. Something like the third sub-level of the library archives. Remember Verne's 'Journey to the Center of the Earth'? That's what it's like."

Sunshine: "Moldy books, mainly. We had to walk about a mile through three different tunnels, all dripping wet; climb down fifty miles of staircases and climb up forty miles. I feel like Ms. PacMan wandering around a maze. We didn't bother keeping track of where we are, so we're lost -- and my feet are sore."

Lucia: "Maybe some kind man will offer to rub them when you get home."

Bob: "Wonder where she can find a kind man on such short notice."

Lucia: "It was probably a long bus ride down there and will be a long one back. Bet your butt will be sore..."

Sunshine: "It will be. Those damn seats are hard!"

Bob: "I'm sure some kind man will offer to massage the hurt away. Being as I have access to a large network of talent, I'm sure I can find a man willing to get his hands on your butt ... maybe Mr. Duane? However, everyone's pretty busy right now, so I may have to take an emergency shift and fill in. I'm sure I can remember how to massage a beautiful lady's butt." Big grin.

Sherry: "Bet her boobs'll be sore, too. Those buses don't have very good springs."

Bob: "Well I could be persuaded to handle any sore body parts -- and maybe try to make some other parts sore." Leer.

Sunshine: "Pervert! Pant, pant!"

Toro suddenly sat up without a bit of joking. In a deadly-calm voice he announced, "FOLKS, THIS IS AN ALERT! There's an earthquake coming in about a minute and it feels really nasty."

We scrambled to the floor by the table. Steven bent over to cover Lucia, Bob covered Sherry and me while Henry bent over Janet. We heard the roar faintly and as it built up we grabbed onto the table and held on.

It hit us! We bounced at least a foot, and we could see and feel the cafeteria floor rolling in long waves. I heard lots of screaming around us, but we held on.

I felt stuff falling on us, but Bob bounced it off, whatever it was. Things shook and vibrated for at least two minutes while the air vibrated with a roar so loud it almost deafened us.

Finally it settled down and we could look around. The cafeteria floor had some cracks in it, there was a small hole in one wall and it looked like most of the acoustic ceiling tile had shaken loose down on us.

George: "Hey, was the Wild Bunch up to something?"

Sunshine: "It must have been them; I definitely felt the earth move."

Bob: "You two all right? We're okay here. All the parents are okay."

Sunshine: "Despite the fact I peed my pants, we seem okay. Most of the Californians seem a bit amused, but we furriners have some real issues with this type of goings-on."

George: "We had a few rocks fall from the tunnel roof, and there are some big cracks. I didn't pee my pants, but the back side feels very squishy. I think we'd better haul ass outta here."

Don and Rose Baer joined us. Bob let them know what was going on with the field trip party. Don and Rose joined us physically at the table, looking worried.

Henry: "Fuck! ALERT! ANOTHER ONE!"

This one started with a big jolt which knocked several of us off our seats. The whole place shook like a pull toy in a dog's mouth. The lights went out, and other students screamed again; the darkness didn't bother us since we were all outside anyway. The shaking went on for at least two minutes.

George: "Shit! This whole fucking place just fell down around our ears. Sunshine and I are holding up what feels like a couple hundred thousand tons of building."

Sunshine: "STAY AWAY from our bodies. There's MAJOR pain."

Bob: "Ana?"

Ana: "I'll get my R.N. hat on. One second and I'll be there." She told us later she just let her body flop over the kitchen table at home -- fuck comfort.

Five seconds passed while we waited. Steven asked, "Should we be helping?"

Bob, grimly: "Let Ana do her job first. Sunshine, George, you still with us?"

Sunshine: "Yeh. We're both fully outside. I'm not going near my body."

George: "Me neither. Biggest owie I've ever had."

Ana was back. With deadly calm, "Of the twelve, seven are dead. Of the living, the least injury is a crushed pelvis and legs with major shock. She'll be dead in less than two minutes.

"George's back and neck are broken, other bones crushed or broken. Lots of shock and getting worse.

Tears through the calm. "Natalie's crushed from the waist down. Major head trauma -- the skull's cracked and the brain's exposed. Major shock."

Bob: "We could blast them all out of there within three seconds."

Ana, with more tears but still deadly calm, "No doubt, but even if you could get them to a hospital emergency room in ten seconds, I give only a one in a thousand chance of any surviving more than ten minutes. There's simply too much trauma."

Bob choked out, "Then we need to terminate it now."

Sunshine: "I agree. George, we need to pull the plug."

George: "Yes. There's agonizing pain and an extremely poor prognosis. Let's end it."

Sunshine: "Okay. On three, let it all collapse. One, two, three."

We felt the rumble as the building collapsed on them the rest of the way.

Ana, with tears and shock, "Natalie's still alive!"

Sunshine, fiercely calm, "Fuck! MY RESPONSIBILITY, no one else's." She severed Natalie's spinal cord at the base of the brain then crushed the brain and heart.

Ana, weeping, "Natalie's gone now too. They're all gone."

BOB

We wept huge sobs of grief. Natalie was gone! Her blazing smile, her blue eyes so full of life, her hard/soft body against mine -- all gone forever. George, my oldest friend, my best buddy, was gone.

Sunshine and George joined us, embracing us all and giving each a fierce spirit-hug.

Sunshine wrapped herself around and through me. "Bob, I'm still here. You know I'll always be here for you, my Sorcerer."

George: "I'm still here. Sherry, hang in there."

Grief and loss. "Sunshine, I feel guilty. I feel I could have done something or could have foreseen it."

"Whisht! Even our Warrior-Heart only had a minute's warning. You're not God, you know, even if you are a god in bed." Grin.

"It feels as if I'd lost a part of me, Sunshine."

"Yeh. I know exactly how you feel. Something we cherished and treasured and now it's gone." Grief.

She and George cursed steadily; Sunshine ended up, " ... all that hard work and training down the drain -- and I started getting laid just a month ago. Fuck!

"Okay. We know this will eventually calm down. If this quake was as big as I think it was, the Sorcerer's gonna to have a lot of work to do, so let's get at it!"

Yes. Others probably needed help. "Sunshine, how about you and George take a scout around the school. When we've got that under control, we'll branch out from there. I'll check with Father and see what he's got going on."

George and Sunshine took off and the rest of us got to work. We pulled tables and equipment off people (we didn't bother hiding the spirit-touches much) and made sure the outside entrances were open.

We yanked open a couple jammed doors and gave first aid to at least twenty people. Funny how Bellana managed to carry the 100-pound emergency first-aid kit around with her! It always happened to be there when she needed it.

Ana appeared and started a triage. I ensured the parking lot was clear for emergency traffic -- I had to push a few cars and people out of the way and fill in some pretty big cracks but ended up with a serviceable access lane in about ten minutes.

I sent Sunshine and George out on a general scan of the county; they could get the data faster than anyone else, and it would be accurate, too. They popped back in a few minutes, and we hooked up with Father.

George: "Pretty widespread. The Earthquake Center is placing the epicenter right under downtown Los Angeles. The library archives are about three blocks from there."

Sunshine: "That building is a pile of rubble about a story high. There are some other buildings with major damage, but it appears there's no further danger of anything collapsing."

George: "First pass seems there are about fifty fatalities, including us. Lots of less-critical trauma. One fire in Pasadena, but it's surrounded by firemen."

Sunshine: "Lots of homes with broken windows. Downed trees, cracked roads, driveways, walls and pipes. Looks like the reno business is gonna be pretty lively the next couple months."