The interior of Grauman's Chinese Theatre smelled of popcorn and ozone.
Jason, Sarah, and O'Malley walked down the aisle. The theater was packed. Two thousand of Los Angeles's elite sat in red velvet seats.
They were all wearing headsets.
Thick cables ran from the headsets to the floor, pulsing with a faint blue light. The audience stared at the blank silver screen, their faces slack, their breathing synchronized.
Inhale. Exhale. Inhale.
"They're plugged in," Sarah whispered, clutching her beaded purse (which concealed a small caliber pistol). "Direct neural feedback."
Charlie Chaplin walked ahead of them. He moved with the jerky, exaggerated gait of the Tramp—knees out, feet shuffling. On screen, it was comedy. In person, in the silence, it was grotesque.
He led them to the front row. The VIP box.
He gestured for them to sit.
Jason sat. O'Malley stood behind him, trying to look like a bodyguard and not a terrified Irishman.
Chaplin stood in front of the screen. He tapped his cane three times.
The lights dimmed.
The projector whirred to life.
A beam of light cut through the darkness.
The film began.
It wasn't a movie. It was a kaleidoscope. Geometric shapes flashed rapidly. Spirals. Grids. Fractals.
And text.
ORDER IS PEACE.
CHAOS IS PAIN.
THE EARTH IS HEAVY. LET IT GO.
"Subliminal programming," Jason realized. "He's prepping them for the earthquake. He's telling them to let California go."
Chaplin turned to face Jason. He smiled. The mustache twitched.
An assistant held up a cue card.
DO YOU LIKE THE ENDING?
"I prefer talkies," Jason said loudly.
Chaplin's smile vanished. He pointed his cane at Jason like a weapon.
A hiss filled the room.
Gas.
Vents opened under the seats. A yellow, heavy fog began to roll across the floor.
"Knockout gas!" Sarah coughed. "Hold your breath!"
"Doors!" O'Malley yelled, turning to the exit.
Clang.
Steel shutters slammed down over the exits. They were trapped.
The audience didn't move. They just breathed in the gas, still staring at the screen.
"We need a distraction!" Jason choked out, his vision blurring.
O'Malley looked up. A massive crystal chandelier hung above the center aisle, suspended by a rope tied to a cleat on the wall.
"This is Hollywood, right?" O'Malley grinned. "Let's use the props."
He drew his Thompson (hidden under his chauffeur coat). He didn't fire at Chaplin. He fired at the rope.
RAT-TAT-TAT!
The rope snapped.
The chandelier fell.
CRASH!
It smashed into the center of the audience. Crystal shards flew everywhere. The noise was deafening in the silent theater.
The spell broke.
The audience ripped off their headsets, screaming. The gas swirled in chaotic eddies.
"Run!" Jason grabbed Sarah.
They vaulted over the seats, sprinting toward the stage. Chaplin stood there, furious, silently screaming commands that no one could hear over the panic.
They pushed past him, running backstage.
They burst into the back lot.
It was a maze of painted sets. A fake New York street. A fake Western saloon.
"Stop!"
A whistle blew.
Running toward them were five police officers. They wore the tall helmets of the Keystone Kops. They carried batons.
But they weren't running like men. They were running on wheels.
"Androids!" Sarah yelled. "Gates's leftovers!"
The robotic Kops rolled forward, swinging their batons with hydraulic force.
"Start the car!" Jason pointed to a prop Model T Ford sitting in front of the saloon.
"It's a prop!" O'Malley argued.
"Everything here is real except the people!" Jason yelled, jumping into the driver's seat.
He hit the starter. The engine roared. It was real.
O'Malley and Sarah dove in.
The Keystone Kops lunged. A baton smashed the windshield.
Jason floored it.
The car shot forward. He aimed not for the road, but for the painted backdrop of a mountain range.
"You're going to hit the wall!" Sarah screamed.
"It's canvas!"
RIP.
The car punched through the painting of the mountains. They burst out of the studio lot and onto the actual street of Hollywood Boulevard.
"Head for the hills!" Jason shouted, steering the car up the winding road toward the Griffith Observatory. "The signal is coming from the peak!"
The Observatory
The Griffith Observatory sat on the highest peak, overlooking the grid of lights that was Los Angeles.
But the telescope dome was open.
And sticking out of it wasn't a telescope.
It was a massive, vibrating metal spike. A Tuning Fork the size of a skyscraper.
It was humming. A deep, bone-rattling bass note.
"That's the Emitter!" Jason yelled, drifting the car around the final curve. "It's aimed straight down at the fault line!"
They skidded to a stop at the entrance.
The ground lurched.
CRACK.
The pavement split open. A fissure zig-zagged toward the cliff edge.
"It's starting!" Einstein's voice crackled over Jason's radio. "Seismic activity at 6.0! The resonance is building! If it hits 8.0, the plate snaps!"
Jason ran toward the entrance.
A screen mounted above the door flickered to life.
A face appeared. Digital. Pixelated.
Gates.
"You are persistent, Jason," Gates's voice boomed from hidden speakers. "But you are too late. The song has already started."
"Stop it!" Jason yelled at the screen. "You'll kill millions!"
"I am saving the useful ones," Gates replied calmly. "California is inefficient. It is weighed down by the rest of the country. I am performing an amputation to save the patient."
The hum grew louder. The glass in the car windows shattered.
Jason fell to his knees. The vibration was making him dizzy.
"I can't get to the controls!" Jason yelled into his radio. "The sound pressure is too high! It's like walking into a wall!"
"You cannot stop the wave!" Einstein yelled back. "You must cancel it! Destructive interference!"
"How?"
"Play the opposite note!"
Jason looked up at the sky.
"Hughes!" Jason screamed into the radio. "Bring the ship down! Now!"
"We're stealth!" Hughes argued. "If I drop altitude, they'll see us!"
"I don't care! Drop the hammer!"
The clouds above the Observatory parted.
The Icarus descended. It wasn't silent anymore.
Jason had ordered Hughes to overcharge the Tesla Coil. The purple lightning around the hull was screaming. The airship was a massive, floating speaker, humming with high-voltage electricity.
"Hover directly over the Emitter!" Jason ordered.
The airship drifted over the massive tuning fork.
The sound of the ship—a high-pitched whine—clashed with the low bass of the Emitter.
WUB-WUB-WUB-SCREEEE!
The air between the ship and the Observatory turned white. The sound waves collided.
Destructive interference.
The vibration didn't stop. It imploded.
BOOM!
The metal spike in the Observatory shattered. Shrapnel flew everywhere. The screen with Gates's face exploded.
The ground stopped shaking.
Silence returned to the hilltop.
Jason lay on the pavement, his ears ringing. He looked at the Observatory. The dome was smoking. The weapon was gone.
"Did we do it?" Sarah asked, helping him up.
"Seismic activity dropping," Einstein reported. "Plate is stable. You cancelled the quake."
Jason looked out over the city. The lights were still on. Los Angeles was still attached to America.
"We won," O'Malley grinned.
Jason looked at the Icarus hovering above them. The purple glow was gone. The coil was burnt out. Smoke poured from the generator housing.
"We burned the stealth drive," Jason said. "We're visible again."
The screen above the door flickered. It was broken, but the audio still worked.
"You saved the land," Gates's voice hissed through the static. "Calculated. But you forgot the water."
"What?" Jason asked.
"Action and reaction, Jason. You stopped the earth from moving. But the energy had to go somewhere."
Gates laughed.
"Look at the ocean."
Jason ran to the edge of the cliff. He looked down at Santa Monica.
The water was gone.
The ocean had receded for a mile, leaving wet sand and flopping fish.
On the horizon, a white line appeared. It was growing taller.
A wall of water.
"Tsunami," Jason whispered. "The shockwave went into the Pacific."
"Get to high ground!" Jason screamed into the radio. "Everyone! Get up the mountain!"
He watched the white line rush toward the glittering, silent city below.
"The Pacific is coming to collect," Jason said. "And I just opened the door."