The old voice on the radio broke with a tremor:
"I deeply wish I didn't have to say this—but my models are projecting a magnitude of 9.5. It may go higher. California, along with the entire San Andreas Fault system, is undergoing a massive structural transformation. I urge everyone to begin self-rescue and mutual aid immediately. I call on the federal government to mobilize relief forces without delay... May God protect us all..."
The signal died before he could finish. Only static remained.
Silence settled heavily over the car. Even Bella—tough as she was—sat with her jaw clenched. Magnitude 9.5. An unimaginable catastrophe. How many people would that kill?
Natasha, every inch the elite operative, pulled herself together faster than anyone. She let out a slow breath. "Don't bleed for strangers just yet. Focus on us first. We're right in the heart of the quake zone."
The Camaro flew through the streets—reversing on one-way roads, mounting sidewalks, cutting through office building lobbies when it had to. There were people everywhere. Blood-streaked faces. Tailored suits caked in dust and debris. Designer clothing soaked through with mud. Voices screaming at them from every direction, begging to be picked up—and Bumblebee didn't slow down for a single second.
"Bee! Bee!" A voice cut through the chaos from somewhere to the right—sharp, desperate, and strangely familiar.
Charlie and Samantha didn't catch it. They were holding themselves together by the thinnest thread, projecting a calm they absolutely did not feel. But Bella and Natasha both heard it.
Who else knows that name? Very few people did. Bella placed the voice instantly and looked over—and there was Heather, bouncing toward them at full speed, waving at them with everything she had.
"Ball—Ball!" Bumblebee's voice synthesizer was still malfunctioning. In the chaos, the best he could produce to identify Heather was a single-word descriptor.
"Wow, Bee—didn't know you were like that." Bella gave him a look of profound disappointment. But she still called for the stop.
Natasha looked too. She and Bella were practically inseparable—she'd had no idea Bumblebee existed fifteen minutes ago—so someone who could shout that name on sight had her full attention.
Her vision wasn't quite at Eagle Vision level, but post-enhancement she was well past human baseline. One look at Heather running toward them, and she understood immediately why the visual commanded attention. Some things were simply hard to overlook. Big. Seriously big.
Natasha considered herself fairly confident about her own attributes. She regularly weaponized that confidence to deflate Bella's baffling ego. But even she had to admit—standing next to the girl sprinting toward them right now, she felt like a middle schooler.
Women really do understand women.
In under half a second, she'd done a full scan from head to toe.
Face: average. Figure: catastrophically good.
Bella had already stopped analyzing. Heather was her friend—a good friend—and that was all that mattered. Plus she was Bumblebee's friend too. Everyone knew each other here.
"Get in! Hurry!" The Camaro screeched to the curb.
They were already packed with five people, but Bumblebee wasn't a normal car. He wasn't bound by standard Earth vehicle dimensions. With a series of mechanical clicks and whirs, the two-row, five-seat Camaro stretched and reconfigured into a three-row, seven-seater. The chassis extended by a full section.
Several people in business suits—men and women—spotted the newly opened space in the back and piled in without asking.
"Get out of that seat. Move to the back. I'll drive." A middle-aged man in a tailored suit and gold-rimmed glasses addressed Bella like she was his housekeeper.
His tone brooked no argument. He carried the air of someone conferring a great favor by bothering with her at all.
"Move it!" When Bella just stared at him with that unsettling calm, he decided his dignity had been insulted. "What are you waiting for? Don't you understand what's happening? Use your head!"
"Get the hell out of my car." Bella didn't do entitled. She drove her foot into his shin.
Crack. A clean break. The man stood there for two full seconds, confused, before the screaming started. He crumpled to the roadside.
Bella smiled—sharp, and a little ruthless.
People who use psychic powers—Professor X, Legion, the White Queen, all of them—every single one has some kind of psychological damage. There's not a healthy, well-adjusted mind in the bunch.
Her original self had been the same. So was she, if she was honest. The difference was that she usually held herself to a high moral standard, channeled the aggression out through scripture and meditation.
But a catastrophe this size generated new darkness, no matter who you were. She wasn't going to take it out on her family. A random stranger who jumped out to pick a fight? Completely valid target.
You provoke me—that's the cause. I break your leg—that's the effect. Whether you can escape a magnitude-9 earthquake with one working leg? Not my problem.
The remaining passengers were less aggressive. They scrambled for the back-row seats.
"Everyone. Out. Now." Natasha drew her sidearm and leveled it at the back row.
Cold expression. Cold eyes.
She would have already pulled the trigger if Charlie weren't watching—and if she didn't feel like cleaning blood out of the upholstery in the middle of an apocalypse.
When they still didn't move, Charlie produced his own weapon and pressed the barrel to one man's forehead.
"I said get out."
Samantha hadn't brought her service gun—she'd come to San Francisco to have a baby, not conduct cross-jurisdictional law enforcement. But she drew a combat knife and pressed it toward the remaining passengers.
"Lunatics!" They scrambled out and ran without looking back.
Bella and Natasha let the urge to follow them go.
With the car clear, Heather finally reached them, gasping for breath. Bella made quick introductions all around.
Natasha immediately slid into the back seat next to Heather. The smile she turned on was pure warmth.
"So you're Bella's classmate?"
"I am."
"Her roommate? The one who cooks?"
Heather had been running hard enough to see stars. Her lungs were burning, her mind blank—she answered on autopilot. "Yeah, I cook pretty well. Come over sometime and I'll make dinner for everyone."
"Then you—" Natasha leaned in, clearly on the opening line of a very thorough investigation. Bella grabbed her arm and physically relocated her to the front seat, wearing her sternest expression.
"Can anyone reach home?" Bella's voice shifted. "That silly kid Sakura is still in LA... and I've got friends there too..."