𝗖𝗛𝗔𝗣𝗧𝗘𝗥 𝗧𝗪𝗘𝗟𝗩𝗘
"7.1"
𝗔drienne was busy in the kitchen helping Bobby cook breakfast for the crew. She flips an omelette on to a plate, hands it off to Bobby, who hands it off to Chimney.
"You ever feel like you missed you calling, Cap?" Chimney asked.
"What are you thinking? Michelin-rated restaurant or short order cook?" Bobby replied, taking a peek at the ingredients Adrienne was adding to a freshly poured omelette.
"I was thinking TV chef," Chimney says, "I mean, what you do, it's like performance art."
"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," Hen added.
She walked over to Adrienne while holding out her plate for an omelette. Adrienne flips the one she was currently cooking, and slides it on to Hen's plate.
"All right, speed round. If you weren't doing this, what would you be doing?" Bobby asked.
"Fighter pilot. Top gun. Call sign: Shogun," Chimney replied after taking a bite of food.
"What about, Hen? What would you be doing?"
"Editorial cartoonist, The New Yorker," Hen replied. She sat down at the kitchen island beside Chimney. Everyone gave her a confusing, but surprised look.
"I have a lot to say," She says.
"You draw?" Bobby asked.
"No, it's a dream. It's not supposed to be attainable," Hen explains, turning to Chimney, "Topgun? You can barely drive, you rebar head."
Buck walks up to the counter and grabs an apple. He took one glance at Adrienne, who poured more raw eggs to a sizzling pan.
"Hey. All right, Buckaroo. If you were not a member of the LAFD: what would you be doing?" Chimney asked.
"Uh, I don't know. I'm not getting fired, am I?" Buck replied.
"That's inevitable," Adrienne mumbled, earning a scolding glance from Bobby. She rolled her eyes and continued cooking food.
"He'd be a golden retriever," Hen says.
"No, a bartender. No, no, no, bouncer at a bar," Chimney suggests.
"A bouncer at a strip club," Hen joked. Chimney and Hen fives each other.
Adrienne couldn't help but agree with the two, it fits Buck's personality anyways. She slides an omelette on to a place and walks away from the stove. Bobby ended up taking over the cooking so she could eat.
"What about you, Adri? What would you be doing?" Hen asked. Adrienne was just about to stuff her face with a piece of omelette.
"I haven't really though about it. Maybe, uh, Veterinarian? I always liked animals," Adrienne replied.
"Fits you," Buck says.
"Thanks, I guess," Adrienne replied. Buck seemed a little standoff-ish... like his mind was somewhere else.
"What's going on with you, kid?" Bobby asked.
"Just traffic sucks in this town unless you're driving ten tons of engine with sirens," Buck sighed, "It took me almost two hours to get from Abby's place to the call center downtown, then back over here. Just told Maddie she needs to start Ubering."
"How's your sister settling in down there?"
"Well, she's a Buckley. Practically running the place," Buck replied. Chimney, Hen, and Adrienne all gave Buck a look before grabbing their plates and leaving the table.
⁂
Adrienne was in the kitchen washing dishes when the quake began. Pots, pan, and blenders were sliding off of the counter. At least four plates broke, and all four thankfully didn't touch Adrienne.
She struggled to get down the steps as the ground continues to shake beneath her. She ended up missing one step and crashing down on the floor headfirst.
"Shit," She muttered to herself. Adrienne only felt a few seconds of pain. She learned to build up a tolerance due to her line of work. Just as she finally got off of the ground, she heard calls of her name.
"I'm here!" She shouts back. Hen and Bobby came running up to her.
"What was that? Like a six or seven?" Adrienne asked.
"I'm thinking the same thing," Hen replied.
⁂
The team was on their way to their first call of the day. Adrienne noticed that Eddie was frantically typing on his phone.
He was trying to get in contact with his son, Christopher, just to make sure that he was okay. Adrienne was going to do the same with Estelle, but she unfortunately got stuck with sitting next to Buck. They soon arrived at a luxury hotel building that split in half.
"You guys ever dealt with anything like this before?" Eddie asks the group.
"Nope," Bobby replied.
There was a couple being escorted out of the building. They were shouting out for their eight year old daughter, Kat, who was apparently still trapped in the building. Bobby leads the crew to find the incident commander.
"Captain. Chief Williams, incident
commander," A brown-haired woman introduced.
"Captain Bobby Nash. How can we help you?" Bobby replied, shaking the Chief's hand.
"Hotel manager said they were between checkout and check-in when the quake hit, so they were light on guests," Williams explains, "We've made contact with most of those. Multiple evac operations are in progress. All but 12 of the 68 staff have been accounted for. It's been pretty chaotic."
"The family back there said their little girl is still missing," Adrienne says. Chief Williams leads the team through the triage center where injured survivors where being tended to.
"As long as it's still safe to do so, we'll be looking for survivors," Williams replied.
"What do your engineers have to say?" Bobby asked. They stop at a map displayed about the structure of the building.
"Looks 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," Williams replied. She leads them away from the mail and shows them the collapsed side of the building at a date distance.
"Right now the reinforced steel is the only thing keeping it from completely collapsing. One good aftershock...," She continued.
"And the whole thing could come down," Bobby says, cutting off Williams.
"A high-rise is supposed to be the safest place to be when an earthquake hits," Buck says.
"Not when you're built right on top of a fault line. This quake was a 7.1," Williams informed.
"Northridge was just a 6.7," Hen says.
"7.1– that makes the largest in SoCal in 20 years. And the last one was in Joshua Tree," Chimney added.
"How many crews do you have in there?" Bobby asked. Adrienne was prepared to put herself forward to help if she needed to. Chief Williams didn't have enough people out to help. Williams was pulled away by another firefighter.
"Okay, listen up. Here's how you make it to the end of the day. You don't worry about the things that you can't do anything about," Bobby says, turning to address the team, "Focus on one task at a time. I can't order you guys to go inside that building, and I'm not gonna judge you if you decide not to."
"Hen, you got a kid, so..." Chimney says.
"Yeah. And I'd hope if someone whose job it was to save him had the chance, they'd do it. No matter what," Hen replied.
"Where do you want us?" Eddie asked.
⁂
She didn't know how it happened, but Adrienne ended up working with Eddie and Buck to rescue a man trapped against a glass wall on the twelfth floor. Halls were slanted due to the collapse.
The three pushed themselves down the hall, leaning against the wall until they reached a spot where they weren't slanted.
"Hello! Hello! LAFD!" Adrienne calls out.
"In here! In here!"
There was a faint voice of a woman calling back out to them. Adrienne lands on a door and presses her ear against it. She heard faint movements coming from the other side.
"This one right here," Adrienne says. Buck pulls out the saw and uses it against the door. Eddie uses a hatchet to swing the door open.
"Hello! LAFD!" Eddie shouts.
"We're in here," A male and female voice shouts. Adrienne was the first to step into the room.
She slid down a bit, and stops herself on a closet handle. The woman attempts to crawl out of the spot she was in.
"Whoa, whoa, ma'am, I need you to just sit tight. I will come and I will get you," Adrienne says, then motions for Buck and Eddie to make their way down.
"Uh, no offense, but I think this might be a situation where "women and children first" does not apply," A muffled male voice says.
"Did you just say "no offense"? Everything about you is offensive," The woman questions.
"First date?" Adrienne asked.
"Yeah, God, he wishes. Amazingly, that sweaty, fat, pock-marked pig is married with five kids.
Didn't stop him from asking me to shower with him," The woman replied.
"Man, have you not watched the news at all over the past year?" Adrienne calls out, referring to the man. Eddie gives her a pat on the back after securing hooks to her grappling gear.
"Seriously, catch up with the times," Eddie sighed. Eddie went down closer to the man, while Adrienne handled the woman.
"I'm gonna throw you a rope, okay?" Adrienne instructed, "I'm gonna need you to secure yourself."
Adrienne tosses rope down to the woman. The glass the man was pressed against started creaking. The situation became worse when the glass started to crack underneath him.
"Oh, God. Please don't let this be this end," The man groaned as the glass rapidly started to crack even more. Suddenly, the ground started to shake.
"Aftershock! Aftershock!" Adrienne shouts. Unfortunately for the man, it was his end. Once the aftershock passes through, the glass completely shatters, and goes flat on the concrete below.
The rope slips from the woman, sending her sliding for the broken window. She almost met the same fate as the man and would've if Eddie hadn't caught her in time.
Adrienne just knew this was going to be a long night.