Anxious to reconnect with the others, Ford looked up and down the damaged and deserted streets. The unsettling darkness failed to mask the extreme damage done to his hometown. Once known as “The Wall Street of the West,” the Financial District now looked as though the Big One had finally hit. Gleaming towers of glass and steel, built to withstand all but the most powerful earthquakes, were now smoking husks. A toppled skyscraper leaned precarious against its neighbor. Broken glass, mangled steel beams, and crumbling blocks on concrete littered the streets and sidewalks. Elevated sky-bridges had crashed to earth. The Transamerica Pyramid, once the tallest structure in the city, was missing its tip and several of its upper stories. Abandoned cars, trucks, and buses had been crushed by falling debris.

Ford stared aghast at the devastation. The monsters had done all this—in less than an hour?

A titanic roar jolted him back to the crisis at hand. Ford spotted more soldiers running up a street one block over. He hustled after them, readying his gear on the run. A rifle hadn’t done him much good against the female up in the mountains, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to go up against the creatures unarmed. Better to go down fighting if he had to.

Panting, he caught up with several other soldiers. An EOD specialist named Bennett was busily assembling a device that resembled a Geiger counter, while the other soldiers conferred tersely, comparing notes on what they’d seen on the way down. Ford figured that some of them were still coming to grips with laying eyes on the monsters for the first time.

Bennett finished assembling the tracking device. It started clacking immediately, especially when he pointed it up toward Chinatown, where the warhead was reported to be.

“We’re moving up the hill,” their jumpmaster said gruffly. “Keep it spread out. Move out!”

The soldiers took only a moment to get their bearings before jogging up Grant Avenue. Within minutes, they passed through the ruins of the “Dragon Gate” at the southern entrance to Chinatown. Fallen ceramic tiles shattered beneath their boots, while the head of one of the gateway’s two guardian dragons stared up from the rubble. Advancing into the heart of Chinatown, they hurried past trampled shops, temples, banks, and restaurants. An upended cable car lay on its side, squashed bodies spilling out of it. A street lamp crafted to resemble a bright red pagoda leaned precariously over the obliterated avenue. Colorful flags and banners lay trampled on the ground. As they neared the crest of the hill, the infernal orange glow of an unseen fire could be seen through a dense wall of smoke. The veiled flames, and the clacking of the tracking device, drew the troops on.

Getting warmer, Ford thought. Let’s hope we don’t run into any company.