Heartless • Evan Buckley

Earthquake

"You ever feel like you missed your calling, Cap?" Chim spoke up eating the omelette Bobby made, "What are you thinking? Michelin-rated restaurant or short order cook?"

"I was thinking TV chef. I mean, what you do, it's like performance art" Chim looked at the food, "Does Chanel cook as good as you? Might have to get the other Nash"

"Mm-hmm, and much like watching cooking on TV, we never get to taste anything. Usually by the time it hits the table, the bell goes off. Also, we're all gonna ignore that cause we all know Buck and Chanel have something going on"

"All right, speed round. If you werent doing this, what would you be doing?" Bobby looked at the two, "Fighter pilot. Topgun. Call sign:Shogun" Chim replied making Hen laugh

"What about you, Hen?"

"Editorial cartoonist, The New Yorker" she said sitting down, "I have a lot to say" she added seeing their faces

"You draw?"

"No, it's a dream. It's not supposed to be attainable. Topgun? You can barley drive, you rebar head"

"Hey" Chim gasped as Buck and Chanel walked over to the three, "All right, Chanel and Buckaroo. If you were not a member of the LAFD, what would you be doing?"

"Mm, id be a doctor" Chanel smiled before fake gasping, "Oh wait, i already am one"

"Mm, i dont know. Im not getting fired, am i?" Buck asked, his eyes widening in worry, "That's inevitable"

"He'd be a golden retriever" Chanel chuckled, "No, a bartender. No, no, no, bouncer at a bar"

"A bouncer at a strip club" Hen whispered making her and Chim high five, "Uh... he would not be working at a strip club. He'd definitely be my little sugar baby" Chanel joked

"So, how'd Maddie setteling in?" Bobby asked looking at Buck, she had gotten a new job at being a dispatcher, "Well, she's a Buckley. Practically running the place" he smirked, Hen, Chim and Chanel looked at each other before getting up and leaving

Everyone began to look around as the whole building began to shake, "That's at least a six" Chim spoke up

"Seven" Hen added, people began to fall, glass began to break and thing's beagn to move around

"Get out! Get out!" Hen yelled quickly grabbing onto Eddie, the glass in the locker room shattered making Chanel and Buck duck

The tanks fell over making them break, smoke beginning to fill the garage, "Anybody else back there!" Bobby called out as Chanel and Buck made their way over

"No" Chanel shook her head, Bobby grabbed her arm seeing the smoke slowly block her and Buck's view

The group was in the fire truck and driving around, trees were knocked over, glass of building's were shattered, some building's had even fell down

"Is everything okay?" Chanel asked looking at Eddie, "Yeah. There's no service. Text wont even get through"

"Who you trying to get ahold of? Tryna get a flight out of here?" Chanel joked making him smile and shake his head, "No, um.. im trying to reach my son"

"Woah, you got a kid?" Buck looked at him, "Christopher. He's seven" Eddie said showing them a picture of him

"Why didnt you tell me, you traitor. I love kids. He's adorable" Chanel smiled looking at the picture, "I love this one. Im all he's got. His mother's not in the picture"

"He at school?" Buck asked making Eddie nod, "Hey, im sure he's fine"

The group had finally arrived at the hotel that had tilted over, "How does this even happen?" Chanel muttered getting out of the truck, the hotel bottom was sturdy, the half top was tilted over

"You guys ever deal with anything like this before?" Eddie asked looking at the building, "No"

Chanel looked over seeing a lady screaming and crying, "No, no! No, you have to let me back in there! My baby's in there"

"Please, our daughter is still inside! She's eight years old!" the dad yelled trying to move past the cops, "No, my daughter's inside! Kat. Her name is Kat!"

"You have to let me in there! She's all alone!"

"They seriously think that's gonna hold it up?" buck asked looking at other firefight's setting up stuff to try and holding the building up

"Let's go find the incident commander" Bobby said walking off, the group following, "Any word from Athena?"

"Havent been able to get ahold of her. What about you? Karen? Denny?" Bobby glanced at Hen, "Same. Cell phones are toast everywhere. The system must be overloaded"

"Captain. Chief Williams, incident commander" she shook his hand, "Captain Bobby Nash. How can we help you?"

"Hotel manager said they were between checkout and check-in when the quake hit, so they were light on guest. We have made contact with most of those. Multiple evac operations in progress. All but 12 of the 68 staff have been accounted for. It's been pretty chaotic"

"Hi, sorry. Um, there's a family back there said their girl is still missing. She's only eight" Chanel spoke up, "As long as it's still safe to do so, we'll be looking for any survivors"

"What do your engineers have to say?" Bobby asked, they all stopped in front of the hotel layout, "Look's like we had a brittle failure in the prestressed concrete section of the building's underground parking garage, causing it to pancake at an angle. Right now the reinforced steel is the only thing keeping it from completely collapsing. One good aftershock... "

"And the whole thing could come down" Bobby let out a breath staring at the building

"A high-rise is supposed ot be the safest place to be when an earthquake hits" Buck looked at her, "Not when you're built right on top of a fault line. This quake was a 7.1"

"Northridge was just a 6.7" Hen spoke up, "7.1- that makes the largest in SoCal in 20 years. And the last one was in Joshua Tree" Chim added

"How many crews do you have in there?" Bobby asked looking at Williams, "Not enough. We've put in a request for Heavy Rescue 3, but they're on their way to a freeway collapse. We can use every hand we can get"