The ground buckled.
Marcus—Michael—jerked awake as his cot launched sideways into the tenement wall. Plaster rained down.
The building groaned like a wounded animal, wooden beams shrieking against each other as the entire structure swayed.
Earthquake.
The knowledge hit him in two waves. Michael Brennan's memories supplied basic recognition—tremors happened sometimes in California.
Marcus Chen's modern education provided the terrifying context: April 18th, 1906, 5:12 AM. The San Andreas Fault rupturing along three hundred miles of coastline.
He rolled off the cot as the ceiling cracked overhead. A chunk of plaster smashed where his head had been seconds earlier.
Around him, other construction workers shouted in confusion and fear, stumbling in the pre-dawn darkness as their boarding house disintegrated.
Mission parameters flooded his consciousness like someone downloading files directly into his brain:
𝙋𝙍𝙄𝙈𝘼𝙍𝙔 𝙊𝘽𝙅𝙀𝘾𝙏𝙄𝙑𝙀𝙎:
- Save Patrick Murphy and family (1,000 RP)
- Protect Dr. James Chen (800 RP)
- Assist Fire Chief William Sullivan (1,200 RP)
- Survive 72 hours (500 RP)
𝘽𝙊𝙉𝙐𝙎 𝙊𝙋𝙋𝙊𝙍𝙏𝙐𝙉𝙄𝙏𝙄𝙀𝙎:
- Additional lives saved: 100 RP each
- Prevent major fires: Variable rewards
- Organize relief efforts: 500-2,000 RP
The information felt natural, like remembering something he'd always known. But underneath the tutorial briefing, his modern knowledge screamed warnings.
The earthquake would kill three thousand people. The fires would consume eighty percent of the city.
This wasn't a training exercise—it was mass disaster with a game overlay.
The shaking stopped. Temporary lull before aftershocks.
Marcus grabbed his work boots and sprinted for the stairs. The stairwell tilted at a crazy angle, but the wooden frame held.
Behind him, other workers cursed and stumbled through debris. Someone screamed from the floor above—injured, not dead.
Outside, chaos ruled. The narrow alley between tenements had become a canyon of broken brick and twisted metal.
Gas lamps lay shattered, their flames spreading across pools of leaked fuel. People staggered through the rubble in nightclothes, calling names, searching for family members.
A woman's voice cut through the noise. "Tommy! Katie! Where are you?"
Mary Murphy. Had to be. The accent matched Michael Brennan's memories of Irish neighbors.
She stood in the doorway of a partially collapsed building three doors down, blood streaming from a gash on her forehead.
Marcus ran toward her, stepping carefully over debris. Glass crunched under his boots. The smell of gas and dust filled his nostrils.
"Mrs. Murphy?" He reached her side as she swayed on her feet. Head injury, probably concussion. "Where's your family?"
"Patrick took the children to the basement when the shaking started." She pointed at her building. "They're trapped. The stairs collapsed."
The tenement leaned drunkenly against its neighbor, held up by luck and structural debris. Smoke drifted from broken gas lines.
One spark and the whole block would ignite.
Marcus studied the wreckage. The front entrance was blocked, but a side window had blown out completely.
He could climb through, assuming the floor didn't give way. The basement would be accessible if the support beams held.
"How many children?"
"Two. Tommy's eight, Katie's six." Mary grabbed his arm. "Please, they're all I have."
First test. Save the family or move on to higher-value objectives.
Dr. Chen worked in Chinatown—twenty blocks away through a disaster zone. Fire Chief Sullivan would be coordinating from downtown.
The Murphy family offered the lowest RP reward but immediate need.
Marcus made his choice.
"Stay back," he told Mary. "If this building shifts, run."
He climbed through the blown window, testing each foothold. The floor groaned but supported his weight.
Inside, the tenement looked like a bomb had gone off. Furniture lay scattered, walls had cracked, and dust hung thick in the air.
The basement door stood partially open, jammed against debris. Marcus wedged his shoulder against it and shoved.
The door scraped open enough for him to squeeze through.
"Patrick? Tommy? Katie?"
"Here!" A man's voice, strained with pain. "We're trapped."
Marcus felt his way down the broken stairs. His eyes adjusted to the darkness, revealing a small basement space where three figures huddled against the far wall.
Patrick Murphy, a stocky man in his thirties, sat with his arm around two small children. A wooden beam had fallen across his legs, pinning him in place.
"Can you move your feet?" Marcus asked.
Patrick grimaced. "Left leg's numb. Think it's broken."
Marcus examined the beam. Solid oak, maybe two hundred pounds. Too heavy for one man to lift safely, but he could use leverage.
A crowbar lay among the scattered tools nearby—probably Patrick's, since he worked construction.
"Kids, I need you to move to that corner." He pointed to the far side of the basement. "Your dad's going to be fine, but I need space to work."
Tommy and Katie scrambled away, eyes wide with fear but trusting adult authority. Good kids.
Their survival would mean something beyond RP rewards.
Marcus positioned the crowbar under the beam's center point and found a solid piece of foundation for his fulcrum. Basic physics—force multiplied by distance.
He'd done similar calculations for robotics projects at MIT.
"When I lift this, pull yourself out," he told Patrick. "Don't try to help, just slide backward."
Marcus threw his weight against the crowbar. The beam rose six inches, enough clearance.
Patrick bit back a scream and dragged himself free. Blood soaked through his pants leg, but he was mobile.
"Can you climb stairs?"
"With help."
Marcus got Patrick's arm over his shoulders and started up. The injured man weighed more than expected—construction work had built serious muscle mass.
They climbed slowly, Patrick gritting his teeth with each step.
Behind them, Tommy and Katie followed quietly. Scared but disciplined.
They'd seen their father injured but trusted the stranger helping him.
At the top, the building groaned ominously. A new crack had appeared in the wall, and smoke smell was stronger.
Gas fire somewhere nearby, spreading fast.
"Out the window," Marcus said. "Now."
He helped Patrick through first, then lifted the children out to their father's waiting arms. As he climbed out himself, the building shuddered.
A support beam snapped somewhere inside, and part of the second floor sagged downward.
Mary Murphy grabbed her family, tears streaming down her face. "Thank God. Thank God."
A notification appeared in Marcus's peripheral vision, like text overlay in a video game:
𝙊𝘽𝙅𝙀𝘾𝙏𝙄𝙑𝙀 𝘾𝙊𝙈𝙋𝙇𝙀𝙏𝙀𝘿: 𝙎𝙖𝙫𝙚 𝙋𝙖𝙩𝙧𝙞𝙘𝙠 𝙈𝙪𝙧𝙥𝙝𝙮 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙛𝙖𝙢𝙞𝙡𝙮
𝙍𝙀𝙒𝘼𝙍𝘿: 1,000 𝙍𝙋
𝘽𝙊𝙉𝙐𝙎: 𝙎𝙬𝙞𝙛𝙩 𝙘𝙤𝙢𝙥𝙡𝙚𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣 (+200 𝙍𝙋)
The points felt anticlimactic compared to the relief on Mary Murphy's face. Real people, real fear, real gratitude.
The Game mechanics were just scoring system for genuine heroism.
Patrick gripped Marcus's hand. "I owe you everything."
"Get your family to Golden Gate Park," Marcus said. "Away from the gas lines. There's going to be fires."
He turned away before they could ask questions he couldn't answer without revealing impossible knowledge.
Two objectives down, two to go. But Dr. Chen was in Chinatown, and the sun was rising over a city about to burn.