There were considerably more than the usual amount of pilots in the building filing their own flight plans and making their own preparations. It seemed like getting out of LA for now was a popular idea. He found himself an air chart and some table space and went to work. It took him about twenty-five minutes to come up with a navigation course and calculate out his weight and the fuel load he would need to make the trip. Everyone had been told to bring no more than ten pounds of luggage (including the bag itself) since they would be carrying the maximum number of passengers that could fit in the plane. Having a full plane meant extra fuel in the tanks to provide a healthy safety margin, which, in turn, meant the plane was going to be quite close to maximum takeoff weight. This did not worry Jake much, but it did worry him some. Just one more thing to stress about on an already stressful journey.
Paulie better hold that clump inside of her until we land, he thought as he walked out of the ops building, carrying his kneepad with his navigation notes in hand. There’s sure as shit not enough room for one more.
Celia was there when he made it back to the GA building. She, like everyone else, was cranky and out of sorts and had a tale of horrible gridlock and nightmare traffic to tell. It had taken her over three and a half hours to drive thirty-six miles.
“Greg’s onboard with delivering the masters?” Pauline asked, turning immediately to business.
“He’ll get it done,” Celia said. “He’s going to start working on it this afternoon.”
“Did you warn him about the traffic?” Jake asked.
She simply shrugged. “He’ll find out on his own,” she said simply.
Pauline cast a strange look at her and then looked at Jake, her eyes questioning. He simply gave a shrug of his own.
The Nerdlys finally arrived ten minutes later.
“All right,” Jake said after everyone dutifully listened to their tale of traffic Armageddon. “Let’s get this show on the road—or up in the air, actually. Everyone go hit the bathroom and let’s get loaded up.”
This took another fifteen minutes to accomplish. It took another ten to get all the baggage loaded into the cargo hold and everyone squeezed into the plane. The Nerdlys, who were the smallest of the bunch, squeezed into the two rear seats. Pauline and Obie sat in the rear-facing seats just behind the cockpit. Jake and Celia took the pilot and co-pilot seats, respectively. He fired up the engines again, programmed his radios and his navigation gear, and then went methodically through the preflight checklist until it was complete. He contacted the tower and was given permission to taxi to the fueling area. Once there, he had to wait for two planes in front of him to be serviced first before they were able to pump 650 pounds of JP-8 fuel into his wing tanks.
Jake paid for the fuel with his bottomless credit card (over the objections of Pauline, who thought that she should pay for it) and then, after clearing the fueling area for the next customer (there were already two more planes waiting behind him), contacted the tower again asking them to activate his IFR flight plan to Cypress Muni. This they did, and then they gave him taxi and runway information. Since, for Los Angeles anyway, it was cold this morning, the air temperature cooler than the surface of the ocean, the wind was offshore instead of onshore, which meant that Runway 3 was being used instead of Runway 21.
“Be advised,” the controller told him, “traffic is heavy this morning. You’re sixth in line for takeoff behind the Cessna Citation with tail number November-Tango-Seven-Six-Six. We’ve also got multiple incoming aircraft in pattern.”
Jake sighed and then repeated the information back. Another par for the course.
Pauline had not been joking about putting on an adult diaper for the trip. This was a fortunate thing because, despite the fact that she had consumed no liquid since the previous night, she had to make use of before they even made it to the runway. The cramped aircraft interior soon smelled like urine.
“I’m sorry, guys,” she said, genuinely appalled and embarrassed.
“No sweat,” Jake assured her. “This is all going to make a great story to tell little Tabby when she gets older.”
“Fuckin’ A,” Obie agreed with a smile, patting her leg affectionately. “You’ll be able to hold this shit against her for the rest of your life, darlin’.”
Finally, at 10:17 AM, it was Jake’s turn. He throttled up and accelerated down the runway, lifting neatly into the air just thirty degrees east of due north. He pulled in the gear and then retracted the flaps as they climbed out. The air around them, though cold, was quite clear, with visibility well over twenty miles—a rarity for the LA region even under the best of conditions.
Jesus fucking Christ, he thought in amazement as he got a good look at the sprawling metropolis below. Would you look at that.
Directly ahead of them was the interchange of I-405 and I-10, the former choked with gridlock traffic in both directions for as far as the eye could see, the latter empty of all but construction vehicles clustered around where the freeway used to cross over La Cienega Boulevard until the earthquake had caused that particular crossing to collapse to rubble. Aside from the freeways, every surface street in sight was packed full of automobiles and occasional trucks, none of which were visibly moving from this height.
After passing over the 405, Jake banked left to 350 per standard departure procedure. As they crossed over I-10, the abandoned and condemned Kaiser Hospital came into view. The structure was still standing, but it was plain to see that things were not all right with it. It appeared to be leaning forward at an unnatural angle, with dozens upon dozens of trucks, tractors, and a few cranes arrayed around it.
They climbed up over the Santa Monica Mountains and then were over the San Fernando Valley, which had been hit the hardest by the quake. The traffic on the streets here, if anything, was even worse, but there were also many areas where no traffic was present at all due to flooded streets or road closures secondary to quake damage. In multiple places they could see apartment buildings that had collapsed and a few columns of smoke were still rising lazily into the air from different points here and there.
Celia was staring at the view below just as hard as Jake. She shook her head sadly. “Madres de Dios,” she said, violating the sterile cockpit condition.
Jake let it pass, and then violated it as well. “Yeah,” he said. “It’s something, isn’t it?”
“All that from just a couple of seconds of shaking,” she said.
“People weren’t meant to live here,” Jake said. “At least not in the density that they do.”
“You might be right,” she said.
“I am right,” he said. “And this whole experience has made up my mind for me.”
“About what?”
“About leaving,” he said. “I’ve been talking about it for years, but now it’s time to do it. It’s time for me to find that piece of land I want and get the hell out.”
Pauline decided to deliver her clump at Presbyterian of the Valley Hospital which was located in the well-to-do suburb of Gardenville just northeast of the city of Heritage. It was the newest and most modern facility in the Heritage metropolitan region, opened just three years before. It featured a women’s and children’s center that was state of the art and reflected the recent philosophy of in-hospital childbirth in that all of its delivery suites were large, private rooms designed to accommodate a family through all stages of the birthing process, from check-in to delivery to postpartum care and discharge home all without ever leaving the room. In addition, the center was equipped with a neonatal intensive care unit that was considered the very best in the northern central valley. Pauline and family sincerely hoped they would not be needing the services of the NICU, but it was nice to know it was there just in case.