Chapter 5

Zandra and Randell transported from the hospital to Miranda's office. The older woman was expecting them.

"You won't believe what those idiots have done," she said, as soon as they appeared.

"What have they done now?" Zandra asked, exasperated.

"It's not so much what they have done as what they haven't done," Miranda told her. "They have only evacuated an area for a mile and a-half around those two sites."

"NO!" Zandra replied in shock. "I told them twenty miles in radius. What's wrong with them?"

"They probably didn't believe you," Miranda said.

"But that's preposterous!"Zandra exclaimed in amazement. "Why wouldn't they believe me?"

"You heard the President and his Science Adviser when you spoke to them," Miranda told her. "They think you're too young to know what will happen and their 'Experts' don't have a clue of what the magnitude of those things are. So they have only evacuated a small area. Are you sure the release of those fields will be as violent as you told him?"

"I'm not certain. There is no way to know exactly how much material has accumulated in each of those fields. They will have pulled in the material from the original building and anything else in the vicinity that is loose. How much will be pulled in from the surrounding shaft as they sink is an unknown. It will depend on conditions in the surrounding material. Loosely packed, fractured or porous material will be pulled into the field and added to the mass. There is no way to determine how much that will be, but the mass's diameter will grow larger as it sinks and acquires more material. Its density will also increase and it will sink faster as that happens, but there is no way to monitor that at present," Zandra explained.

"When those fields collapse, that mass is going to rebound and try to return to its original size and density. Those masses are already exerting pressure on the area of the North American plate under Greater Washington and Indianapolis. When they rebound that will add to the pressure. It may make some of the fracture zones in the area slip causing an earthquake.

"Additionally, that material is going to be going straight up that shaft it has created, as that will be the area of least resistance. Only it will now be bigger than the hole it made and moving very rapidly up it. It's going to shoot out of there like a bullet from a gun - a very large gun - and it will go up into the atmosphere and keep expanding until it runs out of energy and velocity.

"At that point, it is going to come back under the control of Earth's gravity, and it's going to come back down in large chunks over a very large area as the remaining energy will have spread things out," Zandra finished.

"Yes, gravity is a real bitch," Randell said with a grin.

"There is going to be a real disaster from falling debris in addition to any from earthquakes," Zandra added.

"What should we do?" Randell asked.

"Call the President back and reiterate the size and seriousness of the danger," Miranda suggested.

"Yes, let's try that, and see if he will listen to us," Zandra said, but not hopefully. It required nearly half an hour to get a call through to the President, and he was more than a little grumpy when they finally got through to him.

"Good morning, Mister President," Zandra said, sweetly.

"Yes, yes," he answered, grumpily. "It's past noon here already. What do you want Madam President?"

"We have been watching the news. You have only cleared a small area around those two sites. I wanted to reiterate that an area twenty miles in radius needs to be cleared around those sites to protect the people living there," Zandra told him.

"Yes, well my advisers have assured me that the area we have cleared is sufficient to avoid any danger from those sites. The populations are too large to clear an area the size that you mentioned," the President told her.

"Mr. President, I can only emphasize that a much larger area will be effected and anyone that remains there will be in considerable danger," Zandra told him again, patiently.

"Yes, well we have taken what we believe to be adequate precautions, Madam President. Thank you for your concern," the President said before breaking the connection.

"Those fools!" Zandra shouted, as the screen went blank. "They think they know what will happen, but they don't have a clue just how bad it will be."

"They have been warned - twice actually," Randell told them.

"Was all of this recorded?" Zandra asked.

"Yes, both calls were routinely recorded," Miranda told her, "Why?"

"We may need them for evidence," Zandra answered. "The merde is going to hit the ventilateur when those things run out of power, and they are going to blame it all on us. I want to be sure that we have something to answer with."

"You think it will be that bad?" Miranda asked.

"I'm not sure. There are so many variables that could come into play and I'm not a geologist, but things could get very exciting before long," Zandra told them.

At 6:06 PM Central time that evening, the batteries powering the gravity bomb in Indianapolis ran out of power and the fields collapsed. The huge density of the five foot diameter ball of material at the bottom of the 1500 foot deep well it had created was already creating strains along the Wabash and New Madrid fault zones.

The rebound and consequent escape of the confined material caused the delicately balanced Wabash fault to slip which caused the New Madrid fault to slip in turn and the resulting 7.2 magnitude earthquake along their combined length was felt as far away as Colorado, Montreal, New York, Georgia, and New Orleans.

The Mississippi River boiled and sent waves upstream from Memphis to St. Louis and beyond. Large sections of Memphis collapsed and other cities and towns in the quake area were affected in various ways depending on the underlying rock formations.

Meanwhile, the material that shot out of the well traveled like a bullet up to about 70,000 feet before running out of velocity. It had been spread out by the remaining energy, as it ascended. Gravity reasserted itself when the material ran out of velocity, and it began its plunge back to Earth, smashing into anything under it as it came down, destroying homes, stores, roads, bridges, and anything else it hit. It covered an area thirty some miles in diameter around the initial site.

Time: 6:30 PM Central time that evening.

Location: Indianapolis Disaster Preparedness Center.

"Mister President, I've never seen anything like this," the Chief Counter Terrorist Adviser, Mr. Harris, said over the video phone. "Material vomited out of that hole at a tremendous speed for over a minute. It just kept going straight up and spreading out. The Air Force tells me that most of it went up to 70,000 feet before starting back down. It was like being bombed here. There were chunks of material falling out of the sky for several minutes, but it has all stopped now.

"Of course that was when the earthquakes started along the fault lines out here, and some places not on the fault lines. I haven't gotten much in the way of reports except for here in the city, as most of the electric and communications systems are out. Water and gas lines have also been ruptured by the quakes, and fires are rampant. I can tell you though that when those two go off in Washington, it's going to be worse than here."

"Yes!" the President answered in disgust. "My Science Adviser has fucked up royally. My administration may not survive this for long. Keep my people advised. We need to see what can be done here in the next hour and a-half,"

"It's at least as bad as you predicted," Miranda told Zandra, as they watched the pictures of the Central States from their satellite covering that area. There were also news reports on other monitors in the Operations Center.

"What will the results be in Washington?" she asked next.

"There aren't the large fault zones in the Washington area like there are along the Mississippi. There will still be a lot of falling debris, however," Zandra told her.

Time 7:45 PM Eastern Time that same evening.

Location: The area surrounding the Homeland Security Offices in Greater Washington.

"Sir, many of these people refuse to move," the Army Captain said over his radio.

"Get them out as best you can, Captain," the General told him from his command trailer. "Use force as necessary, but don't delay overly long, This area is going to be a disaster in a short while. We have to get as many people out of here as possible. If they're too resistant, pass them by and heaven help them when those things go off."

"Yes, sir," the Captain replied and waved his people on to the next block. It was too little effort too late. The roads were jammed with those trying to leave. Their hurry caused accidents that blocked things up even more. Eventually, the Army had to take charge and direct traffic to keep things moving. Stalled vehicles or accidents were simply pushed off to the side to keep things moving. Quite a number of people got out in time, but not everyone, even those that wanted to.

Time: 9:45 PM Eastern time that night

Location: A sandbagged command trailer five miles from ground zero at the Homeland Security Headquarters's buildings.

"Mr. President," the National Security Adviser (NSA) said over the video phone, "it looks like the bombardment is finally over. We were hit by two pieces of debris. One end of the trailer is totally crushed and there are at least four dead. One of them was the General in Command here. We're carrying on."

"A patrol was sent out fifteen minutes ago to check conditions at ground zero. They are expecting to have video from them shortly."

"All right," a thoroughly depressed President told him. "Keep me advised on the situation there."

"I was going to leave here shortly, Mr. President, to return to the White House, so I can get an overall impression of how things are going. Would that be all right?"

"Yes. Leave someone there to report what they find. Things are only hectic here. I'm having all of the reports coming in classified and time stamped so you and others can follow the sequence they were received in," the President informed him tiredly before he broke the connection.

"We're getting the first pictures in from the patrol, Mr. Adviser," a Lieutenant Colonel told him and the NSA joined him and a communications sergeant at the monitor.

"This series of pictures is of their approach to the buildings, sir," the Sergeant informed him as a series of shots with the ruins of the buildings in the background appeared on the screen.

"Are these stills?" the NSA asked.

"Yes, these are, sir. They'll begin transmitting live video as soon as they are close enough. You can see all of the debris on the approach," the Sergeant told him. "Here come the live video now," he finished.