HE KEEPS RUNNING.
"But—" I say to no one in particular.
We're inland. We're almost twenty kilometers inland. The sea is to our west. And the comet hit so far to our east it—it shouldn't be able to … Impacts of this magnitude cause quakes and eruptions and tsunamis, yes, but not for us, not here. We're nowhere near a fault line, and the North Sea is too shallow to build tsunamis.
There can't be a wave here.
But there is.
I snap out of it. I have to go. The airport buildings are unstable enough after the air blast—a wave could knock them down.
And the airport itself is over four meters below sea level.
I scramble to run. The crowbar clatters to the floor. I leave the backpack behind. Leap over debris, almost crack an ankle.
Mom doesn't know. Neither do Max and Mirjam and the others. This man—if he goes straight for the ship, he'll completely miss the wing Mom and the others are in. How long do we have? He said the fire had gone out. Mom had talked about a wildfire in the west, at the horizon. If the tsunami has only just snuffed it out, it must still be far away. It's all fields and farms to our west for several kilometers—the horizon can't be close. Except, wouldn't the dust mean the fire had to be close for Mom to see it? Or would the darkness mean you could see any light from afar? And how fast are tsunamis on land? I should know that, should've prepared like I did for the wildfires and air blast and debris—
I run faster. I slip over wet leaves, slam onto my face. Tears fill my eyes, more from shock than anything else. I crawl up. Keep going. Where were the others? Down the stairs, and then—Wait, I don't recognize these walls, shit, shit, I'm in the wrong hallway. I double back.
There—finally—the cleaning closet. Max left a bunch of bottles right outside the door. Farther away, a backpack leans against the wall. Max is rummaging through it.
"Tsunami!" I scream. I'm almost there. "We've got to go! Tsunami!"
Max looks up. "What? No."
"It's coming—someone from the ship upstairs—"
Max tilts his head. "Moroccan? Beard?"
"I—yeah—"
"Captain's brother." Max turns and bellows, "We leave! Now!"
"My mother!"
"We saw her. She's in the offices. Go! Run!"
The others are already jogging out. Fatima and Sanne. Mirjam. The twins. They're hauling on their backpacks, coming toward Max, but not as fast as they should.
"What is it?" Mirjam demands.
"Tsunami," Max says, already turning to run. "Drop your bags!"
"Will—will they let—" I can't get the words out.
"Denise, if they don't let you on, I'll demolish the ship with this very crowbar," Mirjam says.
Then we're running. I go fast—almost slip once, but catch myself on the wall—and I'm shouting for Mom the moment we're close enough to the offices. "Backpacks! Mom, grab the backpacks! We have to run! There's a wave!"
The loot doesn't matter, but our backpacks are all we have.
For three seconds that feel like so much longer, there's nothing. Then Mom blasts out the door, her backpack around her shoulder. Fatima's flashlight catches on her face. She hasn't been using. I thank God for that.
Mom darts into my office and comes out holding my backpack by a strap. I grab it. Max yanks it from my hands, hauls it around one shoulder. We're running again before I process what he's doing. How long since I heard about the wave? One minute? Five?
My breath starts to catch. My lungs burn. I feel like a child, the clumsy way my feet move, the way I gasp for air and almost want to yell for the others to wait up. My fingertips ache with cold: I never put my gloves back on. I push harder. I gain. We focus our flashlights in front of us, a single broad, shaky beam warning us of rubble and metal and casting wild shadows. I think of Iris, wherever she is now, and beg, Please survive this, please survive this.
"They'll be—" Mirjam says from the back of the group, gasping. "Lockdown—don't know if—lockdown."
Outside. The wind is like a slap to the face. We run between the two buildings, into the black, until the air shimmers and shudders and—like mist dissipating—the Nassau's cloaking fades. Within seconds, the ship is fully visible and fully massive. I'm taken aback all over again by how huge it is.
"No ramp." Panic hitches in my voice. "There's no ramp!" My fingers clutch my flashlight so tight the skin is taut and painful, but I don't let go.
"Lockdown," Mirjam says. "I'll check—" Then she's gone, running underneath the ship.
"I was too slow. I got lost." The air is so cold, my throat hurts. Our tabs start going off with emergency proximity messages now that we're close enough to the ship to pick up the signals.
Fatima grabs Sanne and shoves her and Max toward the ship. "Climb up the scaffolding! Up there—there're doors!" Nothing's left of the silent girl I met before. Iris would do the same thing: laugh one moment, take charge the next, and never hesitate in between. Fatima spins and points my mother at a different set of ladders. "Take those!"
Mom breaks into a run.
"The rest of us. The viewing windows." Fatima pants. "Get their attention."
"Got it." The twins run toward the nearest window arching at the bottom of the ship.
Fatima grabs my sleeve and pulls me along. I follow, gulping down cold air, pumping my shaking legs harder. We go around the ship, then underneath. On my far right, in my peripheral vision, I see movement that almost stops my heart—the tsunami.
But it's not. Lights skitter across the lot. People are running toward us. They must've come from the hangars. They shout, "What's going on?"
Fatima shouts back, "Tsunami!" and "Hurry up!"
We find a broad, curved window, easily two meters overhead. My eyes frantically seek out any kind of movement. There. Three faces huddle around the glass. They must be watching for the water.
We wave our arms and run to enter their sight. "Here!" we scream at the top of our lungs. They only notice us when we're close. We shout again, but they gesture at their ears, shake their heads. One of them is Anke, Max's mother, who showed me around. Her eyes are huge, staring down at us.
Fatima gestures wildly. "Open!" she shouts, and, "Ramp!"
They're still shaking their heads. I remember what Els told me: Lockdown means we can't get out without the captain's permission. All the individual door locks are overridden. "Captain!" I hold my thumb and pinky finger to my face in an old-fashioned phone gesture. My tab is still chirping with the emergency proximity messages. "Call the captain! He can open the doors!"
The engineers who came running toward us are making the same gestures a couple of windows to our right, or are climbing up ladders to bash on the doors. It won't be any use until they call Captain Van Zand. In a situation like this, he should be on the bridge or in command central or—or—whatever they call it on board the Nassau. It shouldn't take so long to reach him.
I push my knuckles to my lips. Els's words sing through my skull. Can't get out. Individual door locks overridden. Captain's permission.
In the distance sounds a dull roar.
I grind my fist against my lips until it hurts. Fatima is still making pleading gestures. Farther off, the others bang on doors that won't open. The ship looks calm and smooth and safe. Panic burns behind my eyes. I'm going to die so close to escape that I could reach out and touch it.
Not all of the ship is smooth. My eyes lock on to a line running around the bottom of the ship. It stretches as far as I can see, a sort of edge or crease marring the bowl. It's like the lowermost part isn't even attached to the rest of the ship.
I drop my fist and let out a cry. Because the other thing Els said was this: The only way out is through the emergency shuttles.
I yank at Fatima's sleeve and point. "Is that an escape shuttle?"
"Yeah, I—Yes!"
"It's not part of the lockdown!"
Fatima swirls to face the engineers. "We can get in through the shuttle. Call the others. Get them down there!"
