Above us, at around twenty kilometers altitude, hung motionless black clouds filled with aerosol compounds: nitrogen oxides, heavy metals, and radioactive dust. Below us, clouds resembling a multi-layered, colorful cake rushed by. The colors depended on which substances saturated the clouds: dirty yellow from sulfur compounds, brown from bromine and iodine, gray-green from chlorinated organics.
ATLAS began descending vertically through these water- and vapor-filled layers. At first, the outside temperature rose to plus two degrees Fahrenheit, but the second cloud layer consisted of harmful toxins, and the temperature dropped to minus twenty. The lower we descended, the more it fell. At an altitude of two kilometers, it stabilized at –12°C, then just above the surface, the external temperature sensor showed minus one degree (–18.3°C). For early October, this was unusual cold. At this time in the USA, late apples and pears were still being harvested from trees.
We were glad the frost over the Mojave wasn't severe, and as soon as ATLAS touched down—on that very spot near the hangar where the first explosions had caught us—we ran out of the cabin to survey the streets of the former city. Before the catastrophe, the city was spread across four districts, each with a colorful name. The district where my former apartment was located and where we landed was called Sun Valley. At the opposite end of the city were the Golden Gates and Silver Canyon. Between them, where the city park and artificial reservoir were, was the Green Harbor district. Not one of these districts remained: a bare, ash-and-soot-covered desert wrinkled with landslides. Only to the right, where the building of a research company that tested new aircraft in the desert once stood, ruins were visible. Though it was late morning, everything around still drowned in the gloom of a damp, cold fog.
"Was there really a city here?!" Sarah asked with disbelief. "Maybe you're mistaken?"
I glanced questioningly at Hunter. Foolish, perhaps, but I hoped he'd confirm the captain's assumption.
"A terrible sight!" he said sadly. "I can't believe it either, that we were loading our things here just a week ago, but it's a fact."
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Suddenly, a growing rumble was heard. The ground underfoot shuddered, and the area we stood on began sliding downward.
"Take off, fast!" Hunter shouted.
Good thing we hadn't shut down the vertical lift engines. At a hundred meters altitude, Hunter commanded "stop," and we hovered over the ground.
"What was that?" I asked.
"It used to be called an earthquake," Hunter tried to speak calmly. "Probably at least magnitude nine."
I stood by the porthole and saw soil crumbling into gaping, open cracks, how a deep, narrow chasm opened where we had just stood. To the right, where the ruins of the research center were visible, reinforced concrete piles were exposed, then disappeared again under soil and rubble.
"Seems it's over," I said when the ground movement stopped.
"Are we just going to fly away like that? Maybe there are survivors in basements?" Sarah rose from her seat, stopping by the porthole.
"So which direction was the shelter?" Hunter asked with his characteristic businesslike manner, not even acknowledging the captain's question.
"Over there, beyond the desert," I pointed east, "under Clark Mountain... Its entrance is somewhere in the center."
I tried to recall the terrain around Clark Mountain, but for some reason, minor details surfaced: a military guard post at the fork, traffic signs, highway width, even bad road sections, but I couldn't remember the landscape itself.
"Sit at the panel yourself and search for your shelter," Hunter suggested.
Reaching Clark Mountain, I began looking for familiar places. We flew low in the direction where I presumed the shelter entrance was. From above, both mountains and hills looked the same. We moved thirty kilometers away, and I soon realized I was lost.
"Somewhere in this area, but exactly where—I can't determine..."
Utterly disoriented, I commanded: "Stop!" and ATLAS hovered in the air, adjusting position with its engines, trying to hold us steady despite gusty winds.
"Isn't there a proper laser terrain scanner here?" I heard the calm but insistent voice of Colonel Daniels and immediately understood his point.
I opened the mapping module on the screen, set a "kilometer by kilometer" grid within a ten-kilometer radius, and launched circular scanning mode. ATLAS smoothly transitioned to a stable orbit over the area, and the laser rangefinder began reading the terrain line by line, plotting fresh data on altitude and surface structure on the screen. Lines thickened, contours became more precise.
On the fourth or fifth circle, I noticed a distinct elevation below us—a massive slope dusted with limestone powder, as if carved by wind and time. Its shape immediately caught the eye.
From above, the area was shrouded in fog. But in the spot where we hovered, wind raised white clouds of limestone from beneath the ash and aerosol dust, and something resembling a wisp of smoke was visible.
"Is there volcanic activity under Clark Mountain?" Alarm sounded in Sarah's voice.
"No, nothing like that," I replied.
"Then where is that smoke coming from?"
