When Totems Fall (7 page)

The plane had entered from the north. As she did her wings sheared off and she skidded past the lower-rise structures of Belltown, catching both vehicles and pedestrians in her wake. Even at this, Zeb knew, the toll should have been much higher. Collateral damage before final impact and explosion had been mercifully lessened by an exceptionally focused path down Western Avenue. Almost like a bowling ball constrained by the limits of a lane, the crash lumbered forward, reserving its heaviest blow for the market itself.

Dalton's mind went into overdrive, calculating angles, trajectory, mass, and energy.

The giant, interactive representation in his head showed lines of reasoning that most supercomputers would struggle to process. His fertile mind was churning out unbelievable amounts of data but he couldn't see everything. What he didn't see, what Zeb could not know, were the events unfolding just prior to the jet's ghastly entrance into the city core.

The FAA's official report would fill in the rest of that tragic tale.

Only forty minutes earlier
American 2132, non-stop out of Vancouver, B.C., was on schedule with an expected arrival at SeaTac International of 9:42 am PST. As was usual for a weekday morning the manifest listed a significant number of business travelers and vacationers as well as others visiting family in both joyful and difficult circumstances.
The trajectory from YVR to SEA tracks along one of the most beautiful inland coastlines in the world. Taking off from Vancouver's Sea Island and passing over the islands and waters of the central Puget Sound area, the flight path takes in a close look at the city before proceeding south to the airport.

Breathtaking.

Seattle's urban fringe is bounded on the east by the untamed majesty of the Cascade Mountains. With peaks topping out at 14,000 feet the landscape flows down from there to meet the graceful waters of Puget Sound. Heading westward are the shorter yet still formidable heights of the Olympic Range, a barrier of snow and wilderness guarding against the unbounded Pacific. On approach the view is stunning to either the left or the right. And if the crew is in a good mood you might just get a glimpse of both.

Add in a gleaming skyline of steel, glass, and brick—one of the most attractive, yet unseen city-sights in America—and upon first glance many travelers are spellbound, speechless.

To be fair, during much of the calendar year these views lie obscured in gray mist and behind low cloud ceilings. Mornings like this one, though, more than make up for it, leaving Seattleites with a sort of collective amnesia about those long months when the sun made nothing more than a token appearance. Many days, notably mid-January, are quite forgettable.

Today was not one of those days.

Today was glorious.

The city came into full view and everyone stopped what they were doing, turning their attention instead to the captivating sights beyond their small, oval portals. Even ever-focused businessmen set aside the demands of their workloads to stare for a moment. 2132's cabin crew closed up the final round of beverage service as the cockpit reported nominal winds and prepared for an uneventful landing before refueling, food service, and connection at their terminus—San Francisco—later in the afternoon.

It was as routine and enjoyable a trip down the coastline as they could've asked for. It would not remain this way for long. This moment of beauty and calm would soon transform into a whirlwind of chaos and destruction in which the apparent safety of modern life gives way to its brutal frailties.

TEN

"Seattle Control, this is American 2132, inbound, track Delta 4. Do you copy? We are experiencing system anomalies and require assistance."

"Affirmative, American 2132.
This is Seattle Control. We read you fine. Go ahead."

"Control, we're experiencing inconsistencies in navigation and airspeed data. Secondary systems and visual flight rules initiated."

"2132, check. VFR initiated. We are re-routing tracks around you and can walk you in from here."

"
Good Lord…
"

Captain
Brian Rhemus
was the best of the best, the guy every major airline puts forward as their poster child for professionalism, competence, and courage. With more hours in this type of airliner than ninety percent of his colleagues, Rhemus was the man you wanted in the seat as often as FAA personnel rules would allow.
In the end it didn't matter. It was all too sudden to imagine. Certainly too sudden to do anything about.

The captain fought back the multiplicity of failures with every trick and technique in his senior aviator's tool bag. Still, the situation unraveled faster than the pace of his already racing mind and heart could track with. No more words were broadcast from Rhemus to the tower. The furious nature of the chair he occupied allowed none in these last, heroic attempts to save those he was entrusted to protect.

Alarms screeched in the small space occupied by Rhemus and the copilot as the Airbus 310 lost every tracking, guidance, and control system it had, even multiple redundancies built in for these very circumstances. Transformed into a flying rock, 2132 hit hard, very hard, ambling another five city blocks as entire sections of the fuselage came apart with helpless human cargo attached to each spiraling chunk. The blast of heat and explosive energy spread everywhere, slicing its way pitilessly through the busy city space.

When the black box was finally recovered SEA Control's last transmission revealed their frantic attempts at guiding the wayward plane in from over twenty miles away.

"American 2132, please repeat. We have you losing altitude over Seattle core. 2132. 2132 please respond.
2132
…"

The shocked hush from the tower resonated more like a vacant, soundless scream of despair as the electronic signature of the inbound plane vanished off their scopes.

Gone.

Zeb looked on the carnage
in dismay.

An initial wave of first responders began appearing on scene, navigating the formidable, disorganized barriers of aluminum, steel, and flame in search of casualties. The disdainful work of triage—choosing who would live and who would not—became their primary, sordid task. By day's end these selfless rescuers would join the grieving themselves, a number of their brethren lost in the battle against injury and death.

Utterly powerless.

Dalton hated this feeling with every single fiber of his being. Though personally spared the primary concussion of the plane's entrance, the horror of what unfolded before him gnawed at him, would not relent.

Breathe. Just breathe.

Zeb knew Pike Place was a multi-level structure built into a steep hillside above the waterfront district, a space that could be occupied at times by upwards of 5,000 people. Below street-level, beyond the public face of buskers, artisans, and entrepreneurs, another layer of life existed: a small community of 500 full-time residents, many low-income and elderly. And now these lower level passages had transfigured into a mass of awkwardly meandering wounded. The primal urge to surface led them upward through flame-engulfed passageways, from there out into the open turmoil of the Stewart Street entrance. All of it resembled a scene from a bad zombie movie.

Clear my head. Help someone.

Come on, Zeb. Do something.

"Please. Please, someone.
She's still in there!"

He saw her, upright but weakened, leaning against what remained of the green metal framework of the market portico. She reached out toward the undead crowd with her bloodied right arm. No one responded.

"Please,
please!
"

Her words, though more emboldened with every syllable, became choked off by the damaging effect of smoke on her vocal chords.

Zeb moved in.

"Who? Where?"

"My friend, Sasha. She is old. I could not free her. She is still alive. I heard her cry..."

The young woman's voice and courage were returning.

Beneath matted hair, drywall dust, and grease mixed with bloodstains on clothing, it was still clear she was beautiful and strong. Her accent: Balkan, Eastern European; possibly Russian or Czech.

Zeb understood. This woman was heading back into the inferno with or
without
his help. The compelling picture of selflessness, unnecessary for him to act, was nonetheless inspiring. He would respond. He always did, as in moments like this his middle name seemed an inescapable barometer of his character.

Mordecai.

In the biblical storyline of the Book of Esther, Mordecai is not obviously heroic. Instead, he appears to be standing by as his people, exiled into Ancient Persia, face the unthinkable possibility of complete genocide. For those who look deeper into the text, though, something more surfaces. A man at work under the glaring eye of evil all around him. A man sizing up the times and circumstances of his fate and acting with courage, while also prodding others into bravery.

Zebulon
Mordecai
Dalton.

The moniker had given him grief more than once on the playgrounds of his youth, as it was unusual for a middle-class, Baptist American set of parents to choose a singularly Jewish name for one of their children. Yet when it came down to it, in choosing this name his mom and dad knew something about him. Whether a product of parental instinct or divine insight, Dalton himself would uncover its aptness only in time and through trial.

It was no surprise then that Zeb took those first steps against and into the rushing tide of the injured and dying. His outlook on life had swerved hard toward the cynical and sarcastic as of late, this much was true. Yet it was also true that too much soldier remained in him to turn his back on the horrors unfolding in his city today. The first order of business was this woman's stranded friend. If Sasha had survived, Dalton would do his best to get her to safety. At the very least he would bring her corpse out for a proper burial.

Everyone else was leaving the market complex.

Zeb headed in.

The air became unbreathable as the building's construction materials fed on a lethal cocktail of jet engine fuel and other readily-available flammables. The quickly narrowing passageways shrunk even further by virtue of the super-heated fumes clinging to walls and ceiling. Zeb was running, crawling, squeezing his medium build through whatever openings remained unblocked by debris and bodies. He was not the prototypical military guy, relying more on the special skills of his mind than precisely-honed physical abilities. Still, Dalton had been around more than enough danger to be comfortable with this kind of thing. As it turns out, firefights and building fires share much in common.

Zeb's mind had cleared even more now, another release of life-preserving chemicals fueling his body. Yet something didn't add up. Sasha's apartment should be right in front of him. From the directions he was given, her friend's one-bedroom apartment would be on the second floor below street level, halfway down the corridor.

Three-A. Three-A.

You should be here. Right here.

One more step forward through the haze, with sparks from still-active electrical lines leaping wildly and Zeb came upon what he didn't expect, and didn't want to see. Such extensive physical damage to a structure still standing. The engineer side of his training thought it impossible.

Unbelievable.

A cavernous gap in the room lay jaggedly open, easily twenty feet long by fifteen wide. Shattered pieces of former two-by-twelve flooring joists hung limp, like frayed splinters of a giant toothpick. Fractured lines seeped their remaining liquid contents into the void and downward a hundred feet below, silent as they landed due to the distance in between. The streets beneath the market lay exposed, the unlikely space carved out by the crashing hulk of mass and energy. The reality of the circumstances hit him, slamming full force.

This was Sasha's apartment. At least, it had been.

Zeb backed up and dropped to the floor.

Defeat had served as Dalton's infrequent yet cruel companion, teacher, and enemy in his three and some decades of life. Zeb never agreed to its demands, never attempted a reconciliation with its claims. Instead, he shook his fist at the unfairness of scenarios in which a flawless solution had emerged and it all still went to hell anyways.

For a moment Zeb considered not coming out as preferable to having to admit again that he'd failed, that he'd miscarried the weight of someone counting on his help. This moment passed and the ever-present, internal drive to live propelled him back out among the crumpled, confused, and pain-ridden crowds.

Once surfaced, Dalton meandered across the street and stood motionless beside the littered remains of the building that had housed the first Starbucks.

Emotions overtaking him, he wept quietly.

The next few hours
passed frantically in caring for the wounded, assessing damage, and asking that biggest of questions: why?
Initial news reports and preliminary phases of the investigation began sizing up the crash as an unlikely, tragic occurence. No one to blame. Life and death as it has gone on for millennia.