The foundation of the UCSF Medical Center crumbled under the force of the quake. The power propagated outward through every wall, every ceiling—the ground floor went first.
The patient with the crippled leg, crushed by a thousand-pound slab of ceiling—that wasn't the end. It was only the beginning.
BOOM—BOOM—BOOM—
A continuous, bone-deep rumble rolled up from somewhere far below. Everyone felt the ground moving under their feet, swaying like a rollercoaster that couldn't decide which way to fall.
"Everyone out! Get out now—jump if you have to!" Bella watched the entire ground floor sink into the earth. Survivors on the second and third floors were still stupidly diving under desks. She reached out with her psionic power, weaving a subtle compulsion into her voice.
Then she let the strangers go, wrenched the car door open, and shoved Samantha and Charlie inside.
Natasha, still holding the baby, had fallen behind. The cracks were spreading faster than anyone had predicted.
She took one step—and found nothing underfoot. No time to adjust. She launched off her back foot with everything she had, throwing herself upward, trying to clear the gap that had already split to thirty meters wide.
Bella saw it from inside the car and her heart lurched. Natasha had jumped in a panic. With a baby in her arms. Thirty meters, no room to use any of her techniques. That wasn't a sure thing.
"Natasha! I've got you!" She'd just gotten in. Now she threw herself back out.
Mid-air, she caught Natasha's wrist—then twisted from her core and hurled her toward the Camaro.
"Bee—catch them!"
Bumblebee didn't need to be told twice. He shifted to robot mode in an instant, planting his feet into the crumbling ground, one hand locked around Charlie and Samantha, the other arm sweeping wide to catch Natasha and baby Kitty.
Then he shifted back to Camaro.
Charlie and Samantha sat there, stunned. What just—am I seeing things?
Natasha had no time for any of that. Her eyes were locked on Bella, who was falling.
She forced herself calm, picked her angle, and fired her wrist grapple.
The hook bit into a far wall. Bella caught the cable as she dropped, ran along it, and landed clean on top of Bumblebee's roof.
"Get in! Bella, get in!"
Her parents reached out from inside the car.
She wanted to. There was no time.
The Camaro was already flying down what remained of the road. Cracks raced across the pavement in every direction. Billboards and high-rises were toppling. Screams rose from the streets as people vanished under collapsing buildings.
The fissures moved impossibly fast. Bumblebee couldn't slow down—even a fraction of hesitation and he'd go in too.
"Bee—keep going! Don't worry about me!" Bella shouted toward the cabin.
She flattened herself against the roof and held on. Seat belts weren't even an option. The Camaro shot forward like an arrow.
The car's top speed under normal conditions was around 150 mph. Right now it was pushing 250.
Charlie and Samantha watched the driverless Camaro threading through obstacle after obstacle and felt their hearts trying to exit their bodies.
"Bee—shoot it!" A falling billboard was coming down directly ahead. No way to dodge.
Bumblebee's right arm extended from beneath the chassis, morphed into a laser cannon, and blasted the sign apart in one shot. Bella used that split-second gap to scramble inside.
"All communications from LA to San Francisco are down," Natasha said the moment Bella was through the door—she'd been on the phone before Bella had even fully landed, with no attention to spare for anything else. "I managed to reach a ship, but they might not wait for us."
Bella thought for a second. "A ship works. We head for the port. If there's no crew, it doesn't matter—I can sail it myself. Bee, the port!"
"Who are you talking to?" Charlie had been sitting on the question long enough. "And who's driving?"
Bee. What kind of—
"Hey, watch out—!" Before Bella could answer, a car skidded and flipped across the road ahead. The Camaro threaded through the gap with centimeters to spare.
The entire city was in chaos. Two earthquakes, and San Francisco was already suffering damage beyond imagination. Civilians flooded every street—ordinary people who didn't know seismology, but understood one thing: open ground and empty stadiums were safer than high-rises.
The roads were completely gridlocked. One stalled car, and everything behind it died.
"Side streets!" Bella had screened enough disaster films and run enough mental rehearsals over the past two days to know exactly what to do.
Bumblebee cut off the main road and tore down a sidewalk.
There was no hiding it anymore. She made the introductions.
"This is Bumblebee. He's from Cybertron—a good friend of mine. We've known each other for years. In Earth terms, he's silicon-based life—different from us carbon-based types, but he has his own civilization and his own beliefs, just as real as ours."
Bella knew Cybertronians hated being called robots by humans, so she kept it thorough.
"Bumblebee—these are my family. Charlie, Samantha, Natasha, and that tiny one is Kitty."
Natasha gave Bella a flat look, then dropped her head and started plotting their escape route. The baby's opinion was not a factor. The two adults sat in the front with their mouths slightly open.
Aliens? Robots?
The shock faded fast. When your life was on the line, you adapted.
These two were tougher than most—their reaction was ten times better than the Witwicky family would have managed.
Charlie even got a greeting out and thanked Bumblebee for saving them all.
"Thank you. You're a friend of the Swans—come over for a barbecue sometime. You drink beer?"
Samantha elbowed him in the ribs. Let him drive.
Bella clicked on the car radio. Through a wall of static, a voice came through—barely, but clear enough.
"...this is a live report from Los Angeles... We have a specialist with us from Caltech's Seismological Laboratory, Dr. Hayes..."
"In seismological terms, what we are witnessing is a seismic swarm event. The entire geological structure of California—beginning at San Francisco Bay—has undergone a significant displacement shift..." The voice was elderly, measured—and deeply, unmistakably grim. "...There is one critical thing I need everyone listening to this broadcast to understand and remember."
"...The earthquakes are far from over. This is not an aftershock sequence. I repeat—this is not an aftershock sequence. San Francisco—and even the whole of California—will experience another earthquake. Larger than what you've just felt. My models place the magnitude at 9.5..."