Desolation

Melanie scrambled around wondering how to fix what an earthquake had just ruined. A third of the buildings along Grand had collapsed to some extent, some completely. It was a miracle that their capacitor bank, resting on the vacant lot at 3^rd and Grand, sustained no damage, and neither did its cables. However, the metal plates they had so carefully arranged were tossed about like a discarded deck of cards, the rails strewn around like a giant-sized pick-up sticks game. There was no time to fix this, as now she could see the other group of men, unabated, turning onto Grand from 1^st Street.

Many of the townspeople congregated out on Grand and 3^rd around them. Even Tex wandered out with the dazed crowds to view the destruction, seemingly unaware of the far greater threat only minutes away.

Melanie heard Frank running down 3^rd Street behind her, yelling “Flip the switch! Flip the damn switch!” When he reached Melanie, he stopped, dumbfounded, shoulders wilting like a flower in the heat of day.

They looked left to the Sherman tank and men coming from the east and right to the cannons and men coming from the west. Melanie noticed something else: water. Everywhere, on all sides of them, water was flooding much of Grand Avenue.

“Frank, the water. Where is it coming from?”

Tex beat Frank to the punch. “Yep, it’s the way we first set up all the wat’r tanks on the buil’n’s. Their valves and openin’s point toward the street for easy access.” He paused and looked around.

Frank finished the explanation. “It looks like every unreinforced building with a water tank on top collapsed. That’s what you’re seeing.”

“But, it’s dry here, where we are, and flooded everywhere else,” Melanie continued.

“Yep, that water tower in front of us, because it’s bigger, is on a steel reinforced building.” Tex pointed, as if she needed the help to see it.

Frank erupted. “Melanie, what the hell does that have to do with anything? We are about to be kill—“

“Frank, any chance that lucky grenade on that Batman-belt works?” She looked between him and the water tower.

“Yes, but what the hell does that… Holy shit, you’re a damned genius.” He pulled out the grenade he had been saving for a special purpose. This was perfect. He shouted to everyone around them, “All right everyone, fall back north on 3^rd Street! On the double!”

Frank and Tex exchanged a look. “I got this one, Tex.” They both nodded in agreement.

He looked at Melanie, “You too, missy.”

“I’m not going to let you do this—“

“Bullshit. Your husband needs you. Stop wasting time we don’t have.”

“You know what to d—”

“Of course, I’ll flip the switch. I know what’ll happen and I’m at peace with it. Please, just go!”

She kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you… for everything.” And with that, she sprinted after Tex.

Frank watched everyone run up 3^rd Street, with Melanie and Tex directing them further.

He pulled the pin, let the spoon flip off arming the fuse, ran two steps forward and then heaved it, aiming for the bottom of the water tank on top of the roof, thirty-five feet above and across the street. One-thousand-one.

It clinked off of the very bottom corner of the tank, landing on the roof, coming to rest a foot away. Perfect throw, he thought. One-thousand-two. Turning back, he ran to the vacant lot with the capacitor banks. While he ran, he called out, “one-thousand-three, one-thousand-four, one-”

The explosion was perfectly placed, tearing a large lateral gash that exploded up and then outward with the water. A tidal wave hit the street down both sides of Grand and 3^rd. The blast of water crashed against Frank, knocking him on his back, and pushed him away from the capacitor bank. Like a fish from an upended aquarium, he flopped around in the raging current, struggling to right himself back up, before finally being able to trudge back through the deluge, which was already subsiding. He reached the capacitor bank, and flipped down the lever by each capacitor, until he had his hand on the final outermost lever, and waited for the right moment.