How she loved her city. She looked at the Hernando-Desoto Bridge spanning the beautiful fast-moving Mississippi from Memphis, Tennessee to West Memphis, Arkansas; it was still early enough in the morning that the 200 sodium vapor lights which lined its M-shaped arches were lit. Combined with the twitter of songbirds, it lent an air of mystery to the river that had her feeling like she was the only person for miles. The sight never failed to take her breath away.

Her eyes moved to the muddy waters of the river itself, seemingly alive as they swirled lazily along on a mission to reach the Gulf of Mexico. So much had been written about its majesty in fiction and poetry. So much history along its banks. And here on the concrete pathways that allowed bicyclists, roller-bladers and skaters, dogs and pedestrians to stroll along, she could take in all the sights relatively undisturbed at five-thirty in the morning.

At twenty-eight years of age, Ellie Johnson had lived here her entire life. From her humble beginnings as one of twelve kids, living with mother and grandmother in a small, rundown house near the railroad tracks in the Raleigh neighborhood, to winning a full four-year university scholarship from the African-American Scientific League, Ellie had come a long way. And she firmly believed that this city – its people, unique history, culture and the Beale Street Blues atmosphere that made it Memphis – deserved credit for what she had achieved so far.

Success had come to Ellie via the Infectious Diseases department at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. She'd held her current entry-level job as a Research Technologist since graduating from medical school, and loved what she did. Already Ellie had been told three times by the supervising doctor of Infectious Diseases that she was going to be on the fast-track since she was already an MD. It was only a matter of time until the right position opened up, sending her career skyrocketing.

Her mother was proud of her, to be sure. And her grandmother had been, too, until her death three years earlier. But over time, as Ellie had finished undergraduate school and then gone on to pursue her career in medicine, most of her siblings had fallen away one by one. Her brother Kevan, four years older than her, had died in gang-related shootings before she was even out of high school. The rest of her brothers and sisters were in jail, couldn't work for various medical reasons, or held jobs at the dollar store, a fast food restaurant, in construction or lawn care. Her eldest brother Gamahl wandered the streets of her beloved city, choosing to be homeless rather than work for 'the man.'

By this time, there were only five of her eleven siblings who were doing well for themselves; who'd managed to rise from the depths of poverty into some sort of halfway decent life. To date, Ellie had gone the farthest. But she had high hopes for her youngest sister Leitha, who was making straight A's in high school and wanted to follow the same path Ellie had. She encouraged her however she could, even taking her to tour St. Jude's every weekend so she could meet the child patients and their families; could really grasp how much good she could do trying to help eradicate infectious diseases, like Ellie did, or cancer, which killed far too many people each year. The courage each of those disease-ridden kids at St. Jude showed on a daily basis always gave Ellie that little extra bit of oomph whenever she was feeling down, and Leitha had begun to feel it, too.

Yes, she loved her life and she loved her job and she loved her city. Glancing toward the bluff upon which expensive homes were crowded close together, Ellie noted that it was overcast, and decided to head back to the farthest of the river walk's three parking lots from where she currently stood. Sighing contentedly as she smoothed the sides of her hair back to where a red scrunchie gathered it into a curly ponytail that hung to the nape of her neck, she slowly began to make her way back to her car.

Breathing heavily, sweat pouring down his neck, back and sides, Scott grinned as the ball sailed past John, causing his younger brother to throw his racket down to the polished wooden court floor in frustration.

"How the hell do you make that shot?" John asked, taking a towel from a pile in the corner and tossing it Scott's way. He then picked up another and began mopping his forehead and neck.

Grabbing the towel in mid-air, Scott took a swipe at his own damp face. "Nobody can beat me in racquetball, and the reason is this: I don't give my secrets away!"

John grumbled good-naturedly, throwing Scott a bottle of water from the bag he'd brought with him. The two men downed their bottles in one long guzzle, recapping them and tossing the empties back into John's bag.

"So, what do you say?" Scott needled mischievously. "Best ten out of fifteen?"

Snorting at him, John replied, "Yeah, because I'm a glutton for punishment."

"That's the spirit!" Scott said, twirling his racquet in hands and grinning wickedly.

"Just you wait. One of these days I'll figure it out," John advised, picking up his racquet and grabbing his soaked tee shirt to pull it away from his chest. Back and forth and back and forth, letting his skin breathe.

"Fat chance," Scott countered as he retrieved the ball. "You ready?"

"As I'll ever be," John lamented.

Just as Scott was gearing up to start their eleventh game, Thunderbird Five's automated alarm cut through the air, echoing madly around the forty-by-twenty-foot court.

"Raincheck," Scott said, his clipped voice all business now. He dropped his racquet and the ball, just as John's racquet clattered to the floor. Lickety-split they were out the door and running for the elevator that would deliver them to the nerve center of International Rescue: the main office in the villa.

Ellie stumbled as she passed the first parking lot just before the central Landing building at the T intersection of Beale Street and Riverside Drive. Frowning, she stopped and looked down at her comfortable black Skechers sneakers to see if one had come untied; if it'd been a shoelace that'd tripped her up. But no, the laces of both shoes were still in their snug rabbit-ear knots. She looked around to see if her clumsiness had been noticed. Luckily the only souls out this early with her were an older man walking his bulldog and a young woman on a bicycle who'd passed her just moments earlier. Both were facing away from her. She thanked her stars that she hadn't embarrassed herself, and started walking again.

The ground beneath her feet seemed to bounce. Before she could process what had actually happened, the whole section of path she was on lurched upward, throwing her to the grass between it and the river. Landing on her right arm with a grunt, Ellie rolled to her back and sat up, only to have a stronger jolt hit that sent her sprawling backwards. Her purse flew off her shoulder, its top flying open. She could hear her cell phone, makeup case, wallet, pens and various other contents scatter on the nearer edge of sidewalk surrounding Beale Street Landing. And then the camel-hump-shaped building itself made a noise that produced an involuntary shiver in her.

The earth continued to shake. Heart in her throat, Ellie tried desperately to get to her feet but couldn't gain her balance no matter how many clumps of grass she grabbed trying to do so. Sure, she was aware of the New Madrid Seismic Zone; if you grew up in Memphis, you knew about it. But there hadn't been any earthquakes here worth mentioning since the early 1800s! "This can't be happening," she whispered, shaking with fright.

Then to her absolute horror, Ellie realized that the ground was moving again...actually tilting her toward the Mississippi. "No!" she hollered, eyes darting everywhere. There had to be something she could grab hold of!

The bench.

The bench!

Lining the entirety of the river walk were green benches bolted to the concrete pathways. And there was one barely a foot away from Ellie. She rolled onto her stomach, the continued shaking of the ground making her feel like throwing up. She scooted to the sidewalk, now completely cracked width-wise, and then an even larger bump-up launched her a few inches in the air. She smacked down chest-first on the grass just the other side of the pathway, the wind knocked out of her. Her mind spun in circles as she gasped, trying to gulp oxygen into her lungs. She was thrown to her left and then back to the right as the Beale Street Landing building groaned.

Ellie's right hand swung out above her and connected with something hard. She cried out in pain, looked to where it was...and saw the bench she'd been after. Quickly she dug her heels into the ground and shoved herself toward it just enough that she could grasp its black iron leg.

The shriek of metal being ripped apart and imploding glass deafened her. Her jaw dropped in disbelief as the Beale Street Landing building collapsed in on itself. Car alarms and house alarms were blaring up and down the tall hill just the other side of tree-lined Riverside Drive from her. Twisting her head to look every which way, she froze as all the expensive houses on the bluff started breaking apart and falling down to the street below. Dust and debris filled the air; screams of panic and pain competed with a roar that could only be all the old brick buildings downtown as they split, toppled and crumbled to their deaths amidst brown and red dust and smoke.

And then something that, above and beyond the great crashes and screeches and honking horns and sounds of Armageddon, shot desperate fear to the very core of her being. Just as Ellie managed to get her left hand to join her right on the bench leg, an ear-splitting CRACK rose above all other sounds of mayhem, even as the earthquake continued trying to toss her around like so much detritus.

When she looked down toward the river, she knew exactly what that sound had been. All she could do as she watched the newly-created fissure in the ground travel her way, was scream.

"Okay, everyone, it's going to be all hands on deck," Jeff announced as John and Scott raced into the lounge. Their father sat behind the International Rescue desk looking very grim indeed.

"What've we got?" Alan asked, breathless and soaking wet from the swim he'd been sharing with Gordon. The two men dripped everywhere until Kyrano appeared with towels and handed them over.

"Memphis, Tennessee is registering an 8.3 on the Richter scale," Jeff told them, eyes riveted to his computer.

"Oh, shit," Scott whispered.

"Exactly," Jeff nodded. "Tin-Tin, you're active duty on Two. You and Alan get Pod Five ready for casualties. Brains, I want you in the pod lab for analysis."

Nodding, Tin-Tin, Brains and Alan raced toward the hallway elevator that would ferry them to the floor of Two's hangar where they could access the pod.

"Gordon, John, you're riding second with Virgil in Two. Be careful, boys."

The three men nodded. Virgil backed up against the floor-to-ceiling painting of the rocket his father had taken to the Moon. It upended him into his chute even as John and Gordon ran to follow in Tin-Tin's, Brains' and Alan's footsteps.

"Dad, Memphis isn't built to withstand earthquakes," Scott said quietly as Kyrano moved to stand beside Jeff. "Not like Southern California."

Jeff's eyes met his son's as Scott backed up to the wall beside his desk. "I know. This is going to be really bad."

With a single nod, Scott used his thumb to press the button on the lamp that started his wall turntable.

Jeff's heart ached for those he knew were already dead. For those who were mortally injured, that no one would be in time to save. He felt keenly the fear of those who were still alive but would perish when the aftershocks came.

Kyrano placed his hand on his friend's shoulder and closed his eyes. There would only be so much International Rescue could do on this one. He knew it. Jeff knew it. All those getting ready to take off in their Thunderbirds knew it.

But even one life saved was worth it.

A chasm tore the ground apart next to her left leg, as though a giant zipper were being pulled back by an invisible hand. Ellie scrambled toward the bench. It sounded like the world's largest tree was splitting in two. The ground upon which she was precariously perched kept shaking and shaking. It seemed as though the constant movement would never cease. She watched the crack open wider...wider...come nearer to her...nearer.

"God, please don't let me die!" she cried, tears creating tracks down the filth and grime covering her face. "Please, let someone hear me," she sobbed more quietly, pulling herself closer to the bench and grasping its seat with both hands.

And then, as though her prayers had been answered that quickly, all movement ceased.

The silence that followed felt like the somber beginnings of an endless funeral. Here and there car alarms blared in the distance. Now and then something large gave up the ghost and toppled, unable to remain in place any longer. Pulling herself up to the bench, she got behind it, hands tightly curled around the top green slat of its back. There wasn't a soul in sight. Not the man who'd been walking his bulldog, not the young woman on her bicycle. There were no boats on the Mississippi, and no way could vehicles get through on Riverside Drive or Beale Street even if they wanted to.

She could see from her vantage point that not a single house was left standing on the bluff. Turning to look at the bridge, she was shocked to find that while its lights had gone out, it was still standing. And there seemed to be vehicles moving on it.

So not everyone was dead.

"Mom," she whispered, knowing that today her mother was supposed to have been getting ready for an early doctor's appointment. And Leitha would still have been in bed, her alarm not yet having gone off for her to get ready for school.

She had to get to their house. She had to find out if they were still alive.

Then she looked down at the ground. It shook just a bit and she gripped the bench more tightly. Another large CRACK, and as her eyes zeroed in on where it'd come from, right at the edge of the river, a thunderous crescendo of sound louder than an approaching freight train filled the air. Instinctively her hands slapped over her ears to block it out, but no sooner had she done that than the mighty Mississippi reared up like a bucking bronco, and then splashed down into the crevasse. It was as though the river had just realized a new pathway had been created for it and was now rushing forward with so much urgency that the water splashed four feet over each side of it.

It hit Ellie like a miniature tidal wave, soaking her head to toe. She just barely had time to grab the back of the bench again as it smacked into her and lifted her off her feet. She landed hard on her legs, yanking at her arms and shoulders where she refused to let go of the bench. Crying out and dripping wet, she struggled to her feet, used one hand to wipe the water from her eyes and just stared.

The roughly two-mile wide Mississippi wasn't going all one way anymore. The abyss right next to the bench was widening...widening...the ground beneath her jerking as it helped make the opening bigger...bigger. And the more of the river that slammed into its new avenue, the more the earth was pushed apart. Her head whipped around to her right, and suddenly it was clear that Ellie hadn't just gotten stuck next to a deep hole in the earth; she was, literally, on a new little island.

For the splitting hadn't only occurred to her left. The entirety of the concrete-and-grass patch where the bench sat was completely separated from the rest of the land around her, and becoming more separated as more water pushed its way into the two fissures that came up from the river bank. One was at least fifty feet across, the other maybe half as wide. Beyond her at the T intersection, the entire road was gone. Debris from surrounding buildings had fallen into the hole as the two smaller crevasses converged into one. Up the Beale Street hill that led from the river walk to downtown Memphis, there was no road either. No ground at all, in fact. Just a gigantic chasm at least a hundred feet wide, filling up with brown, muddy water at an alarming rate.

"Oh, my God," Ellie sobbed as her little island jolted her nearly off her feet. "I'm gonna die!"

"Base, I will arrive at Danger Zone in twenty-seven minutes."

"FAB. Virgil reports estimated time of arrival one point three hours."

"FAB. Okay, Brains," Scott said, brow furrowed in concentration as he peered at the data being fed from Thunderbird Five to Thunderbird One via Jeff's desktop, "what do we have?"

From Thunderbird Two's lab, Brains activated his communications console. "Well, ah, Scott, it's exactly what we feared: the, ah, New Madrid Seismic Zone has not only become active, but it would, ah, appear that the 8.3 earthquake was centered under, ah, downtown Memphis. Specifically the seismologists at CERI...that's the, ah, Center for Earthquake Research and I-Information at the, ah, University of Memphis...believe they have pinpointed the epicenter to four-and-one-half miles beneath Beale Street. That's, ah, roughly four blocks east of the, ah, Mississippi River."

Scott's teeth ground together. The only saving grace they would be looking at, was that the earthquake had hit at 5:39am local time, when the majority of downtown workers wouldn't have actually gotten to their offices yet. News helicopters from Mississippi and Arkansas were showing feeds that basically told everyone downtown Memphis had been leveled.

"All those brick buildings," Scott muttered. "Unbelievable. Why the hell didn't they do retrofits?"

"Well, ah, experts have been predicting the big one would hit there since the, ah, 1990s, Scott," Brains explained. "But since nothing has happened for over two hundred years, it was never, ah, high on their priority list, according to some early reports coming from East Memphis, Arkansas."

"If the downtown buildings weren't earthquake-proof," Jeff offered from Tracy Island, "I can only guess that none of the houses were, either."

"Guys, we have one other problem," John chimed in. "Memphis is home to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital as well as other large hospitals for both children and adults."

The airwaves were silent, heavy thoughts of all those listening filling the air. Finally, Scott asked, "Had any of them taken any structural precautions?"

A few beats passed before John replied. "According to their website, St. Jude was retrofitted to withstand 7.7 max. Same with the Hernando-Desoto bridge that spans the Mississippi. I can't find anything on the other hospitals, but there's a second bridge further south that was never reinforced. I can't find any record of other retrofit projects except on a couple of their freeways."

"I don't believe this," Brains said.

Scott swallowed hard, wondering how much more 'good news' there'd be. "What is it?"

"One helijet's right over the river streaming live footage," Brains replied. Then he said nothing.

"Brains? What are you seeing?" Scott inquired.

"Mud Island...it's an, ah, island in the Mississippi...has disappeared completely, as though it just sank into the river. And there's a-another, larger problem. Apparently the earth has, ah, split apart right at a place called...ah, Beale Street Landing, on the banks of the river. The Mississippi's rushing into the new chasms, making them wider. It's already opened all the way past the, ah, Memphis Zoo, and probably two miles beyond that. The river is, ah, filling it and overflowing, creating massive flooding."

"So if anyone survived the quake," Scott said grimly, "they're in the process of drowning."

No one said a word.

"Great," he whispered, shaking his head. "Just great."

"Scott," Jeff broke in, "I've finally managed to get hold of Agent 5. He's the one who made the call that set Thunderbird Five's alert off. He's on the other side of the M Bridge, the Hernando-Desoto, getting people off it to Arkansas. According to him, it looks like she's gonna go. He's got no way into Memphis and nobody can get hold of any emergency services close by."

"I guess we're on our own," Virgil observed.

Which meant Scott was literally flying by the seat of his pants on this one.

Ellie was trembling partially out of fear, but partially from being soaked to the bone. As if having been drenched by the newly-raging Mississippi hadn't been bad enough, the overcast skies she'd noted earlier had decided to open up with a steady, heavy rain.

Every now and then her little island moved, and as the rain poured down and the river slowed its advance up the new fissure, inch by inch that island melted away. First the large slab of concrete in front of the bench fell into the swiftly-moving water. Clumps of grass. Large blobs of mud. The bench had only about five inches of land on her left, and was right up against the edge on her right.

There was nowhere for her to go. Nowhere but into the depths of where the earth was splitting at the seams. No way for her to find out if her mother and sister had lived, or if anyone in this city was still alive. As despair settled in, she climbed over the bench to sit down on it. She was weary...her arms and legs were sore. Her work pants were torn; the left leg nearly completely shorn away on her thigh and the right leg split on the seam from ankle to pocket. The white short-sleeved plain knit top she was wearing was a sickening shade of gray and brown mixed together. It clung to every inch of her skin. Her hair was a wreck. She halfheartedly took the scrunchie out of it and smoothed the sides back to a point high on her head as best she could, then rewound the ponytail.

The island bumped up, causing her to shriek, fingers locking around the green wooden slabs of the bench seat. She looked up and noted that in spite of it being morning, the rainstorm and lack of electricity were making it pretty dark out.

The island jerked to her left. She squeaked, tightening her grip. It jerked again. She trembled, lips pursed tightly together, eyes trained on the M Bridge just so she wouldn't be looking when at last her oasis gave way beneath her.

All at once a high-pitched whine pierced through the drumming of the rain and the sounds of the rushing Mississippi. She couldn't immediately pinpoint the source of it, but since it sounded like a large plane, started looking to the skies.

There. There!

She started laughing and crying as she got to her feet and jumped up and down in front of the bench, waving her hands in the air. Because the letters on the side of something that looked like a cross between a space rocket and an airplane told her that International Rescue was here!

"Okay, I've reconnoitered, Virgil," Scott said, his external cameras moving left, right, up and down. "I can see where the Mississippi's branched off."

"Gordon, Alan and Tin-Tin just got the last of the victims from Sector 4 loaded," Virgil reported. "But Brains is telling me to high-tail it out of here now."

"Is another quake coming?"

"It would, ah, seem likely," Brains replied. "There have only been minor aftershocks in the past two hours since the original quake. From the readings, ah, Two is providing, I expect one in the, ah, magnitude 7 range very soon."

"And we're full-up. With the equipment in the pod, every medical bed is taken. The less severely injured are on the floor."

"You're going to have to take them all the way to Jackson, Mississippi, Virg. The Central Mississippi Medical Center is prepared to take them on. I'm sending you the coordinates."

"FAB, securing pod."

Scott frowned. He was sure he'd seen something move in the aft camera screen. He enlarged the feed and zoomed in. "Holy shit," he breathed.

"What is it?" Jeff asked.

"There's a woman down there," he reported, "on a tiny island in between where the initial two chasms came up from the river. They converge directly behind her. There's no way she can get outta there."

"Lifting off, Scott. You need us to bring the cage over?"

Scott pursed his lips, then nodded. "Yeah, I think you could lower it and grab her fairly easily," he said. "I'll keep an eye on her 'til you get here."

"FAB, on our way," Virgil acknowledged.

Slowly Scott brought Thunderbird One lower until he was sure the woman would be able to hear him through the external speakers. "This is International Rescue. Stay where you are. Help is on the way."

All he could tell about her was that she was fairly young, black and completely drenched. She didn't appear injured, for which he was grateful, but even from the distance he was at, the little bit of land she was perched atop sure didn't seem very stable.

"Come on, Virg," Scott whispered. "Hurry it up."

"Oh, thank God, thank God!" Ellie cried after hearing the voice from the plane marked TB1. New tears flowed from her eyes, only these were tears of relief. She couldn't help but stare at the incredible rocket with its pointed red tip, its extended wings and its strangely-shaped tail. So many times had she read stories on the internet, or watched news reports on television about the amazing feats of this group of anonymous rescuers. So many lives had been saved all over the world, and by people who didn't even want to be thanked.

Well to hell with that, because the first one of them she saw when they got her out of this mess was going to get a really big hug and a very loud thank you.

Sinking onto the bench, Ellie looked disdainfully at her ruined clothing, then turned her head to look behind her again at where those million-dollar homes had once been. Now a half-mile wide branch of the Mississippi filled a great deal of the space, obliterating Beale Street and most likely, she mused, all the clubs and stores that had once lined it. River and rainwater had been steadily eroding all the land surrounding the fissure to the point where the bluff was literally only half the height it had been mere hours earlier.

Such devastation. Such unimaginable destruction. She knew the loss of life would be massive, and could only hope that her mom and Leitha were somehow alive. But even as she prayed for their safety, something deep inside her gut told her there was no way. After all, she knew better than anyone what a piece of junk her childhood home was; all the homes in Raleigh were similarly dilapidated. So often she'd wished for enough money to fix the house's foundation, its roof. To have it rewired, updated. But medical school bills and the cost of having her own apartment, car, and just everyday life in general, meant she hadn't yet gotten to the point where she could afford to find a safe place for her mother to live in her old age, and her youngest sister a place to live that wasn't rife with violence.

There was no way that old house could've come out of this mess unscathed. As the thought hit home, she bowed her head, elbows on her knees, and began to grieve.

A sudden rumble stopped her flow of tears. She gasped as the ground fell out from underneath her like a sudden roller coaster drop, but didn't even have a chance to grab the bench before becoming weightless. In slow motion she was hovering two feet above the bench, suspended in mid-air as though by magic. Her stomach dropped to her toes, and then Time went back to normal speed and she fell those two feet, butt landing hard on the bench. She cried out as the island suddenly tipped left and then forward. Turning, she got her knees on the bench seat and grabbed the back of it, hanging on for dear life.

Then another sound cut through the air even as the ground starting shaking left and right. Ellie's head turned and there was a sight unlike any she'd seen before. As she clung to the bench, her eyes zeroed in on the giant hulk of an aircraft over the M Bridge. There, in the deluge of rain, as her entire world was falling apart bit by bit, it came. Slowly it advanced closer and closer to TB1 until at last she saw THUNDERBIRD 2 on the front side of it.

Her little island shook harder. She turned back around and lowered her head to the backs of her hands. International Rescue was right there. The island shook harder and lurched forward. Scared out of her wits, she screamed.

They were right there...but they were too late for her.

"Shit, Virg, get over here now, that little slip of land she's on is going!" Scott barked.

"On it," Virgil replied. "Gordon, you in place with the cage?"

"FAB," Gordon's voice wafted through. "Open the hatch and start lowering me. We don't have time to wait."

"Opening hatch. Starting winch."

Scott's hands were gripping the controls of his 'bird so tightly that his knuckles were bone-white. His forward external camera was zoomed in closely now; he could see the woman in quite a bit of detail. The little island tipped to her right yet again. He couldn't help his sharp intake of breath as the angle just became too great and her body started sliding right off the slick bench toward the ever-rising divergent river.

"She's going to fall! It's now or never!" Scott reported.

"I'll get her," Gordon said, voice ever so calm amidst the storm. "I need five more feet south, one east and give me eight more down."

"FAB," Virgil replied.

"Scott, that quake was only a 6.2," Brains advised. "The tectonic plate is highly unstable. It's going to shift again very soo—"

Brains' prediction came immediately true. Gordon watched, the door of the small rescue cage wide open, as the landscape shook violently, the waters of the Mississippi bubbling and forming waves a body surfer might've enjoyed. He'd never seen a river get this kind of surf. And he'd never seen a woman so determined to live, he thought as he watched the her hands move from the back of the bench to the right side of it...which was now nearly perpendicular to the deepening chasm beneath. It left her hanging from her fingers.

"Hold on," he whispered, every muscle in him tensed to act. "Just hold on." To Virgil, he said, "Lower me full-speed now!"

Without a word from the cockpit, the winch released, letting the last five feet he'd asked for out all at once. Gordon triple-checked that his safety harness was secured to a hook just inside the small cage door and as the cage fell, leapt from it like an action hero escaping a roof that was exploding behind him.

He swung way back, eyes firmly on his target as he brought his legs out in front of him to get as much force behind the forward swing as he could.

"Jesus," John said, "this one's big!"

"Shit," Scott swore.

Gordon was fully aware of the fact that another earthquake was happening. He was also fully aware of the fact that the bridge Two had just flown over was being ripped apart. He could hear giant pieces of it crashing into the water below. But that was all peripheral. He swung forward like a human pendulum even as the upended island the woman was on twisted and jumped. He heard her scream as the island fell back down, dislodging her precarious grip on the top edge of the bench.

She was falling.

He swooped forward, arms outstretched, legs opened wide and slammed into her. Immediately his arms and legs closed around her, and they twisted wildly from the force of impact.

Her screaming stopped as soon as she realized someone had her. Wide honey-colored eyes met his, then her arms came around his neck, her head on his shoulder. She was shaking so hard it vibrated his entire being as the twisting slowed and they began swinging back toward Thunderbird Two.

"Gordon, report!"

"I've got her, Scott," Gordon replied, tightening his hold on her. "I'm a little stuck down here, though, so I'll need help in the nose when you get the cage back up, Virgil."

"I'll be there," John said.

As Virgil began to winch the cage up, with Gordon and his charge dangling some five feet below it from his safety harness, the woman lifted her head, swallowed hard and looked right at him. Then she purposely tightened her hold on him and leaned in to give him a kiss on the cheek. "Thank you for saving my life," she said, and then laid her head on his shoulder again.

He smiled, resting his head against hers, and gave her a little squeeze. "You're welcome," he whispered into her ear.

It was moments like this that made everything worth it.

Ellie clung to her copper-haired savior with what felt like the last of her strength. How he had snatched her from the jaws of death she would never know. But she would never ever forget the kind face, the amber eyes, and the soothing voice of the man who held her in his arms.

There was a quick jolt and she jumped, squeezing the man even harder, her legs coming up to wrap around his butt. "It's okay," he said. "The rescue cage is in place. Now they're going to manually winch us up."

Pulling her head away from his shoulder, she chanced a look up. Only five feet above was the green hull of a ship that had to be the size of a football field if it was an inch. And through a rectangular hatch in the nose of that ship, she could see another man wearing the same uniform her savior wore. That man had very light blond hair. She watched as he grabbed hold of the tether from which the two of them were hanging, and they rose about half a foot as he disappeared from view with it.

"Okay, I've got you attached to the auxiliary winch," came a disembodied voice. She watched as the copper-haired man raised his left wrist...and in the face of the gold watch he wore, she saw the blond man from above. "Starting winch," the man said.

"Wow, that's cool," she said.

The man grinned at her. "What's your name?"

"Ellie Johnson," she replied.

He nodded, then looked up. "Hold on for a little longer."

"Are you kidding? Even if you get me on solid ground, I'm not letting go."

He looked at her, surprised, then chuckled. "Well, you'll have to at some point, won't you?"

She shook her head no and buried her face in his shoulder again. Relief was flooding through her in waves, and she could only attribute it to being in this man's arms. Just the very idea of not holding onto him as tightly as she could made her heart flip-flop in her chest.

His hand moved up until it was palm-flat between her shoulder blades. "It'll be okay now."

"Not really," she mumbled into his uniform as they slowly inched closer to the hatch. She lifted her head. "I think my whole family's probably dead. And just look." She turned to look out over what used to be the skyline of Memphis, but was now little more than piles of rubble. "It'll never be okay again."

She looked back at him and saw the sorrow in his eyes. Here this stranger was, risking everything to save her, and then sharing in the pain of the destruction of Memphis. That someone cared enough to do what he, the blond man and whoever else was in these two aircraft did...never before had she experienced such universal love in a way that was so tangible.

It made her smile a little, which earned a thousand-watt grin from him.

Seconds later she felt hands on her back. "I've got you," a voice said. She turned to look, and it was the blond man, whose eyes were the most unreal shade of blue she'd ever seen. She turned back to the copper-haired man as the hatch closed beneath them.

"Gotta let go, Ellie," he said softly. "I have to get this harness off and we need to get back to where the injured are."

"John to Virgil," the blond man said, "okay to go."

"FAB," a velvety voice replied.

So...the blond one was John and the apparent pilot of the flying football field was Virgil. She looked at her savior as she released her chokehold. "And you're?"

He grinned. "Gordon."

She nodded. "Well, thank you."

"My pleasure."

She turned to John. "And thank you, too. And thank you to Virgil, if he can hear me."

"He can't right now, but you can tell him in a minute," John said. "Are you hurt?"

"Everything aches, but nothing's broken," she said, shaking her arms a bit just to make sure. "I just look like I've been through a blender, is all."

John laughed. "Well, you have, in a way. We're going to take you back to our medical area."

She nodded as Gordon shed the harness. John stepped into a strange compartment with only a bar over the front of it. He gestured for her to enter and she did, mimicking him by putting her back flat against it. Then Gordon stepped in.

"Wow, I get rescued and then I get a man sandwich. What a day," she quipped.

The men looked at her in surprise, then laughed as John hit a button on the compartment wall. They moved up...up...up...and she gasped when what was above came into view.

It was the cockpit of Thunderbird Two. Not that she'd ever seen a cockpit like this, but there was no way it could be anything else. A man in uniform was seated in a pilot's chair. There were buttons and monitors everywhere, lights flashing, levers and even something that resembled an old-school joystick. His hands were currently resting on what looked like half a steering wheel. He turned when the elevator clicked into place. His hair was reddish-brown, and his eyes looked like darker versions of her own.

Gordon lifted the bar away from them, and helped Ellie into the cockpit proper. "You must be Virgil," she said, taking a step toward him.

He nodded at her. She could feel the ship start moving, but it was such a smooth transition that she wondered how in the world anyone could make something this massive move so gently.

"Well, thank you for saving my life," she said. "I swore when I saw TB1 and that man talked to me over his loudspeakers, that if you guys rescued me I'd make sure I thanked you whether you wanted me to or not."

Virgil smiled. "You're welcome," he said, then turned back to look at his instruments. "John, Gordon, back to the pod. Alan said he and Tin-Tin can't keep up. A few are worse."

"We're on it," John said. "Come on, Ellie, back we go."

She turned and quietly followed John, with Gordon moving in behind her. A door swished open; she guessed there must be some sort of motion sensor activation that triggered it. As they walked through, she heard another voice...and this one she knew was the one from TB1...say, "So she's all right, Virg?"

"Yeah," Virgil replied softly. "She's all right, Scott."

"FAB," Scott replied, and she could hear the relief in his voice.

So...that one was Scott.

In spite of everything, as they walked through a long hallway and entered a second elevator, Ellie's heart was filled with a warmth she'd never known. These men...John, Gordon, Virgil and Scott...and then two people named Alan and Tin-Tin that she hadn't met yet...they were doing this just to save lives. There was nothing in it for them. They were handsome, the ones she'd met, and very fit. They seemed so close, and she figured it was probably something like firefighters felt. After all, like those brave men and women, these men put themselves in danger constantly trying to snatch people from certain death like Gordon had done for her today.

"Okay, come on," John said after the elevator stopped. She stepped out and her jaw dropped in awe of her surroundings. They were in a gigantic room. To one side was a huge machine strapped down to the floor. Its nose was pointed; it looked for all the world like a giant boring machine. She wondered if that wasn't exactly what it was. Other smaller pieces of equipment were strapped down to the floor. The walls were lined with shelves, cabinets, lockers. And covering the entire right side of this area, which she assumed was the 'pod' they'd mentioned, were medical beds. Some people had IVs running into their hands or arms. Others had makeshift splints and casts in place, while still others had been bandaged. There were at least one hundred people in here, some of whom were seated on the floor because every bed was filled.

"I'm sorry we don't have a bed for you, but I'll get you some water," Gordon said.

She nodded as John sprinted away between two rows of beds and disappeared off to the left behind the big boring machine. A low moan caught her attention. She moved forward to the second row in, second out from the hull to her right. It was a woman with blood running down her face. Ellie got a good look at her, saw a pile of towels and a water basin two beds over, and grabbed them. She knelt next to the woman, wetted a towel in the basin and wrung it out.

"There, there, it'll be okay," she whispered, dabbing at a large gash above the woman's left eye.

The victim opened her eyes, looked at Ellie and then her eyes got wider. "Wow, they got a sistah workin' up in here?" she asked.

Ellie barked out a laugh. "No, I don't work—"

"See, these days a black woman can even work for International Rescue," the woman said. "Now, that's progress. Good on ya, sistah."

Shaking her head and smiling, Ellie just let it go. The woman was obviously not tracking very well, and if it made her happy to think Ellie was with International Rescue, then so be it.

"Miss?"

Ellie turned to find a middle-aged man who looked to be from Pakistan, like her St. Jude coworker, Umair. "Yes?" she said, then to the woman, "Hold this towel against your wound, ma'am."

The woman nodded, grabbed the towel from her and patted her hand. "One of my own," she said tiredly.

"My arm..." the Pakistani man said through gritted teeth. "I think it's broken."

"Oh," Ellie said, then hesitated. Sure, she was a doctor, but she did research. She hadn't actively worked on patients since her residency in Delta Medical Center's Emergency Room. "Uh..." She looked around, but there wasn't an International Rescue man to be found. "Okay, where does it hurt?" she asked, gently pulling back the man's ripped shirt sleeve.

He pointed to a dark bruise just over the right side of his elbow. She felt on either side of the bruise and frowned. "I don't think anything's broken, but you may have some serious tissue or muscle damage," she told him.

"Oh, that's good," he said. "But it hurts very badly."

"I'll bet. I, uh...I imagine they'll have you at a hospital soon," she replied, hoping to hell she wasn't way off base. It only made sense that they'd be taking everyone to a nearby hospital. After all, that's what this big ship did on other rescues; she remembered reading the details many times.

"Are you with International Rescue?" the man asked, reaching up with his good arm and taking her hand. "What is your name?"

"No, they rescued me like they did you. I'm Ellie," she said. "You'll be okay now. Try to rest."

The man nodded and let go of her hand. She turned and just about jumped out of her skin. "Oh! Uh...hi?" Standing there was a woman maybe three inches shorter than Ellie, with long, dark hair tied back into a ponytail. Her skin was like porcelain; her eyes were large and green and she appeared to have some sort of Asian blood from the shape of them.

"What are you doing?" the woman asked.

"I, uh...this woman was bleeding," Ellie said, pointing to the woman she'd first helped. "I couldn't just...stand here."

The woman cocked her head. "Are you a doctor?"

"Actually," Ellie nodded, "I am. Dr. Ellie Johnson," she introduced herself, holding out her hand.

The woman smiled, took her hand and shook it firmly. "I'm Tin-Tin," she said. "And I'm glad you're here. We could use your help back by the lab, if you don't mind?"

"Sure," Ellie said, and groaned inwardly. Now she'd given this Tin-Tin the impression that she was the kind of doctor who could fix things like...her eyes widened...that.

The man lying on the bed Tin-Tin led her to had half his torso innards...out. John and another blond man, wearing latex gloves and full plastic aprons, were doing everything they could to catch intestines and various other organs and keep them in, rather than letting them fall all over the bed and floor.

"Jesus," Ellie breathed, the many gunshot-wound victims she'd treated in the ER coming back to her in spades. "Gloves!"

Tin-Tin handed her latex gloves, which she quickly snapped on. Gordon ran up behind her and slipped an apron over her neck. "What gives?" he asked.

"She's a doctor," Tin-Tin replied.

"You didn't tell me that," Gordon said as he tied the apron behind her back.

"You didn't ask," Ellie replied. "What happened here?"

"That was protruding from his lower torso," Tin-Tin told her, pointing down to a two-foot long and two-inch wide blood-soaked piece of wood on the floor. "Then suddenly it shot out of him when he coughed and his gut just...blew open."

Ellie knew damn well she had to check for organ damage, see if any arteries or veins had been severed...suddenly, it was like she was back in that ER again. "Penetrating abdominal trauma," she said, pushing gently at John's hands to move them back. He held the majority of the man's small intestine very precariously. The other blond man – Alan, she guessed – was trying to catch the tail end of the bit John's hands just weren't large enough to hold.

"We've got extensive damage to retroperitoneal structures. His bladder's injured and...his aorta's been severed! I need to get that closed or he's going to bleed to death in less than a minute!"

She wasn't even thinking about what she was doing as Tin-Tin held out a tray full of tools she recognized. Quickly she grabbed two clamps and went to work, mind only on saving the life of the man who was being held together by the hands of International Rescue.

Brains couldn't believe what the latest readings were showing. He grabbed the data pad as soon as the charts had been transferred to it from the lab's main computer, and darted out of the pod lab...only to find the pod completely devoid of life. Except for a woman he didn't recognize, who was standing at one of the sinks along the back wall of the pod giving her arms and face a thorough scrubbing.

"Who are you?" he asked, blinking as the hand holding the data pad fell to his side.

She turned toward him, but her eyes were scrunched closed. She seemed to be reaching around looking for something. He quickly assessed the situation and noted that a pile of clean white towels was out of her reach. So he moved forward, grabbed one and gave it to her.

"Thanks," she said, opening the towel and drying her face off. Then, as she started drying her hands and arms, she looked at him. "My name's Ellie John—" She stopped mid-sentence, her mouth hanging open.

"Ellie John?"

She shook her head. "Um...no, Johnson." She was looking at him in a way that made him feel like one of his own experiments. "I know you."

His eyes widened. "I, ah, doubt that very much, Miss Johnson."

"No," she said, moving closer. She raised a finger in the air and shook it gently at him. "You're Hiram K. Hackenbacker."

He flinched. How would this woman from Memphis know him? He'd never been here. Maybe she wasn't from Memphis?

"I attended the Medical Symposium in Orlando, Florida in 2030," she explained, certainty in her voice.

Brains froze. He'd not only been at that Symposium...he'd given three lectures regarding new technology that Tracy Medical had developed. "Which lecture?"

"I attended all of yours," she replied. "But the one I was most interested in was the development of nanotechnology with the intent of reversing necrotizing fasciitis, and the applications of that same technology on cases ranging from anthrax to onchocerciasis to sepsis."

Oh, yes. They were still working on those now, six months after the Symposium in question. They almost had the programming to a point where the individual nanobots would be able to immediately diagnose the nature of the disease in the body and begin treatment without human intervention.

She held her hand out and he took it. "Dr. Ellie Johnson. It's a great honor to meet you in person, Mr. Hackenbacker. I tried like hell to get into your post-lecture panels but the rooms and halls were jammed. I didn't have a hope of speaking with you."

"You're a medical doctor?"

"Well, sort of."

"Wait...aren't you the, ah, one who saved the man's life? The one whose stomach exploded?"

Ellie nodded.

"But you're not a medical doctor?"

"I'm an MD," she replied. "But right now I'm actually a research technician in the Infectious Diseases Department of St. Jude Children's Hospital." She looked away. "I worked a lot of nasty cases in the ER, but haven't practiced since my residency." She looked back at him. "You won't tell."

"Tell what?" Gordon asked as he moved toward them.

"Oh, dear," Ellie said, biting her lip. "Well, Mr. Hackenbacker and I were just discussing a Symposium we both attended a few months back."

Gordon's eyes widened. "You know him?"

"I'm, ah, afraid she does, Gordon."

Gordon looked at Ellie and smiled. "Oh, dear."

It was worse than she remembered from when she was fighting for her life. As Scott had flown them overhead in Thunderbird One, she'd seen that Memphis was literally nothing more than flattened buildings. It looked like photos of war zones in foreign countries that she'd seen in online magazines like National Geographic and Time.

After realizing she could compromise their secrecy because she knew who one of them was, and after all the help she'd given them on five separate trips to hospitals with hundreds of victims aboard for each trip, she'd been ferried to the nearest operating airport. There she'd been met by a man she would've known anywhere: Jeff Tracy, the former astronaut, the current billionaire and, as she later learned, the head of International Rescue. With him had been a beautiful blonde woman named Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward who, she found out quickly, was in charge of International Rescue's agent population.

And she'd been made an agent within days of the meet.

Not only that, but in the final load of people ferried to a hospital in Nashville, Ellie had found her seventeen-year old sister Leitha. The girl had been badly injured, but she'd survived. Their mother hadn't made it, and Ellie figured the rest of her siblings must also have perished. Local rescuers had worked for two weeks trying to find survivors, but of the total population of 810,000 Memphians, only just over 100,000 had lived.

Loss of life on that scale was impossible to believe, but there it was, staring her in the face. Scott had set down and let them disembark on the northern part of Riverside Drive, just beyond where the Mississippi River had branched off thanks to the earth splitting apart along one of the seismic zone's faults. Memphis was now, literally, a ghost town. It had been quarantined, but somehow Jeff had managed to pull enough strings to let Brains make a trip back there with her...only briefly, just so she could see it once more before she went to Nashville to collect Leitha and start a new life.

Scott told them he'd be back in an hour; he was headed to some kind of secret facility in Arizona to pick up who-knew-what. All she knew was that Brains needed whatever it was faster than regular planes could get it to him, and that it was for an experiment he was conducting with John related to a cloaking device or some such beyond-her-ken thing she didn't understand.

So Ellie had just one hour to look at what was left of this city she'd loved so much. Nothing looked the same. It sure didn't feel the same. The stench of dead bodies wafted to her every time the breeze blew up. The M Bridge was gone. Just...everything.

"I, ah, was wondering, now that you're an, ah, agent," Brains said, looping her arm through his and walking toward the new river branch where she'd very nearly lost her life, "if you would be interested in some of the, ah, trials on that nanotechnology."

She smiled widely at him. "Really? Oh, Brains, that would be wonderful! I was always trying to get St. Jude's head of ID to consider what you'd proposed. I showed him your papers, showed him the research, the early trials you spoke of. He was too old-fashioned; I couldn't get past a couple opening lines with him. I really think it's the wave of the future. Imagine how many lives could be saved!"

He smiled as they stopped a couple feet back from a wide-open area that looked like a small pond. "Well, that's what we do," he said.

She chuckled, then turned to see where they'd stopped. Her eyes fell on the small pond and she knew that had been the location of her little island with its green bench. She grew quiet...introspective...as that morning terror came back to her. How close she'd come to losing it all. She would be among the 700,000 dead right now...just a statistic...if not for Jeff Tracy's sons, and Tin-Tin and Brains. If not for Gordon, especially, who'd flown in like Superman and scooped her to safety.

"Let's go," she whispered, unwilling to dwell on it anymore. She had so much to look forward to: working to save lives as she'd always dreamed of doing, and helping her sister become the stellar woman she knew Leitha would grow into. Also, now, with the words the man who insisted she call him 'Brains' had spoken, working with such an extraordinary mind on new ways to combat age-old diseases.

They turned and, with her arm still looped through his, walked back along what was left of Riverside Drive. "For what it's, ah, worth," Brains offered, "I'm glad you survived."

She smiled at him, but felt too sad for it to linger. They moved up a hill and stopped right where the entrance to the Hernando-Desoto Bridge had once been. Now it was nothing but a sheer drop into the Mississippi, with only twisted and shorn metal to show there'd once been foundations, locks and abutments there. She turned and looked back across the much-changed landscape. "It used to be my favorite thing to come down here in the mornings before work. When practically no one but the birds were up with me, you know?"

He nodded.

"Even if they decide to try to rebuild it," she said, eyes scanning as far as they could see in all directions, then shook her head. "Even if they decide to try to rebuild it, Brains...walking in Memphis will never be the same."

His silent support over the next few minutes gave her the strength she needed to say a final, quiet, "Good-bye."

"Come on," he said softly as he steered her toward North Parkway. "Scott's meeting us a good half-mile from here in forty minutes. Let's go."

She nodded and let her arm fall away from his. But he caught her hand. She grasped it tightly, grateful for this new friendship, and for his understanding of what she needed to face these moments. And with a brighter future ahead of her than she'd ever dreamed possible, Ellie Johnson walked in what was left of Memphis, Tennessee, for the last time.