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  He sighed heavily and answered the call. “Yes?” he said with a clipped tone that he hoped conveyed he wasn’t interested in talking and he didn’t have time to do it even if he were interested.

  “You got your phone back,” mocked the voice he’d once found musical. “I’ve been trying to call you.”

  “Why?” Danny asked. “What do you want?”

  “What’s with the attitude?”

  Danny held the phone at his ear. He could feel his pulse in his neck, hear it in his ears. There was so much he wanted to say. Instead, he chomped on the gum.

  She sighed. “Whatever. You can be mad. I can’t control you. Never could.”

  Danny tightened his grip on the phone. His jaw tensed.

  “I’m calling because I need a favor.”

  A couple walked past him. The man held the door for the woman. The commotion of conversation, dishes, and cutlery grew louder and then dissipated after the door clanged shut. The restaurant closed in an hour. He’d have another hour after that to clean up before he could go home. Well, not home, just a place with a bed, a shower, a toilet, and a close facsimile to a kitchen. Home was a word more than a feeling for Danny. It had been since the woman on the other end of the line had made a one-sided decision to end their marriage.

  “Are you there?” she asked.

  “My break is nearly over.”

  “You’re still at that diner?” she chided. “Rae’s, is it?”

  Danny sighed heavily into the phone. He chomped on his gum with his mouth open.

  “Derek and I are going to be in LA later in the week. He’s got a meeting with…people.”

  “Who else would he be meeting with?” Danny said. Hearing Derek’s name made him want to scream.

  The door chimed open behind him. The cashier was standing there with her foot in the door. She motioned back into the restaurant with her head and tapped her wrist with her index finger. Danny nodded his understanding and shooed the cashier back inside. She wasn’t his boss; she wasn’t even full-time. She might not even have been a legal adult. The cashier rolled her eyes and slipped back inside.

  “Can you help me or not?” she asked as if he were the imposition.

  “No.”

  “You don’t even know what I—”

  “Doesn’t matter,” he said. “Stop calling me.”

  He pulled the phone from his ear and stared at it for a moment. The call timer was still ticking. He could vaguely hear her calling out his name from the tiny speaker at the top of the device. His thumb hovered over the screen before he tapped it and ended the call.

  The streaming video reappeared on his screen. The fire looked worse. At least five people, including firefighters, were dead. More were injured. He tapped off the device and stuck it back into his pocket. It was time to get back to work.

  Danny yanked open the door and stepped back inside. He walked past the row of orange vinyl booths that lined the front of the place. Large picture windows let bright afternoon light into the diner. It was packed, as it always was. The booths and the swivel chairs at the bar all seated customers as they were served their burgers, corned beef hash with eggs and home fries, and even granola.

  Danny couldn’t understand why anyone would go to Rae’s Diner for the granola, except that this was California and the granola was the only thing that didn’t clog arteries.

  He wound his way around the bar and took his apron from a hook on the wall, wrapped it at his waist, and popped the paper chef hat on his head. At a smidge under six feet, the hat made him appear taller. His father, who was of Mexican descent, was a good two inches shorter than Danny. His mother, an Irish Catholic from Michigan, was the same height. Danny was glad he favored his mother’s side of the family, even if it was only a bit. Otherwise he’d have spent his life looking up to everyone and getting the distinct sense that everyone looked down on him.

  Truth was, Danny knew the issue was his more than it was those who judged him. And it wasn’t his height that had them casting their eyes downward.

  He adjusted the hat and grabbed the handle of a fry basket. The timer told him they were done. A waitress wearing the all black uniform trimmed with a white collar and sleeves sidled past him. She put her hands on his hips as she moved. He stole a glance at her as she sauntered toward the opposite end of the bar, and averted his eyes when she winked at him over her shoulder.

  He shook the oil from the fry basket and dumped the crispy potatoes into an aluminum bin to salt them. He eyed the waitress again. Her name was Claudia.

  She leaned into the counter, pulled a Bic pen from behind her ear, and scratched an order onto her notepad, smiling at the man in front of her. He sipped from a cup of coffee and toasted her as she weaved her way back to the line of cooks working the open kitchen.

  “Those fries ready?” she called out to Danny. “I need them yesterday, mijo.”

  Danny didn’t speak Spanish, but being called “little boy” was either degrading or endearing. He wasn’t sure which it was coming from Claudia. Even when the cook next to him, a burly black man named Arthur, raised an eyebrow at him between burger flips, he couldn’t decide.

  Danny raised a pair of fingers in a V. “Two seconds,” he said softly. “Give me two seconds.”

  She handed him a plate with two over-easy eggs and a biscuit sopped in gravy. He scooped an order of fries onto the plate, careful to carve them away from the gravy, and gave it back to Claudia. She thanked him with another wink and walked the order around the counter to an orange booth.

  “Who eats fries with breakfast?” he mumbled to Arthur and dipped another basket into the boiling oil. “Eggs beg for hash browns, right?”

  Arthur shoveled the sizzling patties on the grill. “I never question a man’s taste in food,” he said. “I know you’ve only been doing this a minute. When you’ve been at it a lifetime like I have, you see predilections for cuisine that boggle the mind. Grilled cheese and bacon dipped in ketchup, coleslaw and yellow mustard on a kosher hot dog.”

  Danny smiled weakly. He wasn’t capable of more than that, especially on a day when she had called asking for a favor.

  Arthur pointed the spatula at Danny, unintentionally flicking some droplets of grease at his chest. He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, pulling forward some memory stored in the back of his mind. Then his eyes widened with horror. “I even saw a man put hot sauce on pancakes,” he said, his jaw slack. “Our pancakes. Can you imagine? It was some of that Sriracha crap everybody likes. Squeezed it like syrup onto pancakes. Damn shame.”

  Before Danny could reply, a man bounded in through the door. He was breathless and shaking his head. It was enough of a scene to draw the attention of most of the busy diner.

  “The whole city’s on fire!” he said loud enough for everyone to hear. He had a newspaper tucked under his arm. “I mean. The. Whole. City.”

  “How’s that?” asked Claudia.

  The man stomped past her to the only empty seat at the bar. He untucked the paper and slapped it onto the pale blue counter, exhaling hyperbolically. He waved his hands around as if trying to do a magic trick. “I can’t believe none of you knows what I’m talking about,” he said. “Huge fire in Brentwood. Whole block up in flames, and there’s a couple of wildfires in the hills. The drought’s about to kill us all one way or the other.”

  The diner was quiet for a moment; then the crowd returned to their conversations and their club sandwiches. It was as if the man hadn’t said anything at all alarming.

  Danny overheard a customer ask Claudia if the place took credit cards. Claudia giggled and pointed to a sign at the register that announced cash only. From beyond the restaurant, he heard what sounded like a large explosion, the plates and dishes rattled, and the lights inside the diner went out.

  CHAPTER 4

  Friday, October 17, 2025

  Santa Monica Pier

  Dub Hampton felt the rumble in his legs. At least he thought he did. The arcade was a noisy, crowded place
. He wasn’t sure if he’d imagined it until his girlfriend, Keri, touched him on the shoulder.

  “Did you feel that?” she asked. “I felt something.”

  “Like a wave?” Dub was focused on the wooden ball in his hand. He eyed concentric circles at the end of the ramp in front of him. He stooped, flicked his wrist, and rolled the ball toward the circles. The ball accelerated, launched into the air at the end of the ramp, and rattled into a hole marked 30.

  Dub grunted. “Or an earthquake?”

  Keri shook her head. “No, like an explosion.”

  It was the end of another tough week in the fall quarter. They’d both finished midterms that morning and needed a break. Blowing cash at the pier sounded like fun. They’d Ubered there and had dropped money on the Ferris wheel, bike rentals, and now the arcade.

  Dub noticed, despite the chimes, dings, and pops from the other games, much of the crowd was headed outside toward the pier. His girlfriend’s brow was furrowed with concern, her hands planted on her hips.

  “We should probably go see what it is,” said Dub, asking as much as deciding what to do.

  “Probably,” she said in a way that told him she meant “definitely.”

  Keri Monk had a paradoxical way about her that was singular among the women at UCLA. She was both athletic and feminine, strong and slender, kindhearted and strong-willed, easygoing and a relentless advocate for herself. Dub loved all of it. Most of the time.

  She started toward the bright light of the open entrance that led out onto the pier. Dub gave chase and caught up with her as they passed a row of old-style pinball machines. A thin, ghost-faced man in loose jeans and a grungy T-shirt was playing The Walking Dead Pro 2014 machine. He hip-checked it and cursed, calling it things Dub had only recently learned by checking Urban Dictionary. The man had been there since they’d arrived an hour earlier. Come to think of it, Dub was sure he’d seen the man there, at the same machine, on previous visits. He wondered if zombies were, in fact, more than science fiction. The strong odor of marijuana hung in the air around the man.

  When they emerged from the arcade, the bright light forced Dub to squint. Keri reached for his hand and laced her fingers into his. When his eyes had adjusted, he saw the crowd forming on the pier. Everyone’s eyes were aimed inland toward the myriad of large plumes of black smoke.

  “How many are there?” Dub asked.

  Keri counted them with her finger. “Seven,” she said. “Are they all fires, I guess?”

  Dub scanned the horizon. He counted too. Seven plumes, each distinct and ominous, ballooning skyward. Together, high above the western part of the city, they cast a thick haze darker than the smog to which southern Californians had become accustomed. In the distance, the sounds of sirens whined above the lulls in the crashing surf.

  “They look like fires,” he finally said to her. “You said you heard an explosion?”

  Keri nodded. “Yeah, it sounded—”

  A man in front of them motioned toward one of the smoke pillars. “Big boom,” he said. “Had to be a transformer. Or a substation. Had to be power. Had to be.”

  Dub stared at the man for a second until a bright light in his peripheral vision drew his attention back to the distance. A flash of blue-white light strobed like an electrical storm; a fireball shot skyward, followed by a column of black smoke. A moment later a sharp zap and rumbling boom rolled across the air above them.

  “That’s another one,” the man said. “Another one.”

  The sky was apocalyptic, like something from a big-budget Hollywood film. Dub half expected to see Dwayne Johnson swoop in on a helicopter to save the day.

  “What’s going on?” A shallow-sounding voice came from behind Dub. It was accompanied with the strong odor of medicinal pot.

  The pinball wizard stood with his hands in his pants pockets. His T-shirt was printed with the words SORRY I’M LATE, I DIDN’T WANT TO COME across the chest.

  “The power’s out inside the arcade,” the man said. “Killed my game.”

  “It’s a fire,” Keri said. “Or a bunch of them. They’re blowing up the lines.”

  The man’s eyes drifted from Keri to the horizon, and his narrow, pale face stretched with disbelief, his glassy, bloodshot eyes widening with surprise. He chuckled nervously. “Whoa,” he said. “That’s crazy.”

  “We should get back,” Keri said. “I don’t want to get stuck out here if things keep getting worse.”

  Dub took her hand again and led her toward the end of the pier. With his free hand he drew his phone from his pocket. He tapped it and opened the Uber app. His eyes darted between his phone and the crowded path in front of him as they weaved their way toward land. The app wasn’t opening properly. He tapped it again. “I can’t get Uber to work,” he said. “Wanna try your phone?”

  They stopped walking, and Keri let go of his hand and unzipped her cross-body purse. She plucked her phone from the bag and thumbed her way to the app.

  She tapped the screen several times and then frowned. The concern on her face deepened. “It’s not working on mine either. I don’t have any service.”

  Dub glanced up at the horizon again. He counted ten fires now. The blended haze of smoke was darkening and growing thicker. He shook his head and shrugged.

  “Maybe there’s too much cell traffic?” he suggested. “Or I guess some towers could be affected by the fires?”

  Keri’s broad shoulders sank. “What do we do?” she asked, sounding unusually exasperated. “It’s a long walk, and there are, like, I dunno, a dozen fires between here and campus.”

  “We start walking,” Dub said. “No other choice right now. We can catch a cab or Uber on the way. We’re, what, five miles from the Hill?”

  She put her phone back into her bag and adjusted the strap across her chest. “Something like that.”

  Dub sucked in a deep breath through his nose and held it for a beat before exhaling. He glanced over his shoulder at the arcade. Its beckoning, blinking lights were out. The space inside was dark. He scanned the pier. Nothing was operating except for the Pacific Wheel, the famed Ferris wheel on the pier. It was spinning at normal speed, those in the baskets looking inland toward the fires instead of out at the ocean.

  The wheel was the only solar-powered Ferris wheel in the world. At that moment, Dub imagined everyone aboard was thankful for that advancement; otherwise they’d have been stuck.

  He took Keri’s hand, ran his thumb across it, smiled at her reassuringly, and led her through the bustling, anxious crowd to the shoreline and the end of the pier.

  By the time they’d reached the street, another trio of explosions had shuddered through their bodies. The explosions were closer, the sirens louder, and the panic amongst the people around them more palpable.

  Dub was acutely aware his hands were sweating. His mouth was dry. Against Keri’s advice, he hadn’t been hydrating as he should in the dry southern California climate. They were both from humidity-soaked environs, she from New Orleans and he from Houston. She’d done a much better job of acclimating. She drank water all the time and used tubs of lotion on her skin. Sometimes he was the one lucky enough to be applying it.

  “You okay?” she asked breathlessly as they crossed the wide street. “You’re pale.”

  “I’m okay,” Dub said. “I’ll be okay. Let’s keep moving.”

  They kept a good pace, making good time despite the conditions. Dub was certain the air was getting hotter. He was sure that the fires were spreading. Above them, the haze was beginning to block out the sun. It drifted in thick patches overhead and signaled that wherever the fires were burning, firefighters were having trouble putting them out.

  He imagined a game of Whac-A-Mole; as soon as they got one fire under control, another would pop up in another part of the city. Dub didn’t say anything to Keri as they trekked silently, deliberately toward home. He wondered if they’d be able to get there. The acid in his gut told him it wouldn’t be a straight shot. It wouldn’t
be easy.

  “I think it’s getting worse,” Keri said through her shirt. Her flat, muscled abs flexed in the gap between the top of her yoga pants and the bottom of the shirt she’d drawn over her face.

  Dub instinctively glanced at her bronze skin. Even in the worst of times, he couldn’t resist admiring her. She squeezed his hand again to refocus his attention.

  “The smoke,” she said. “It’s getting worse. So is the traffic.”

  She was right. They were moving faster on foot than the cars next to them on the street. It was gridlock. Drivers honked their horns, revved their engines, and cursed at one another through open windows. This was extreme, even by Los Angeles standards.

  The air became more acrid the farther they forged ahead. It was laced with smoke and the remnants of whatever the fires had burned to ash. They were getting closer to what he imagined was one of the transformer or substation fires they’d seen popping from the vantage point on the pier. The smoke thickened, obscuring his view to perhaps thirty feet in front of him. Keri’s grip tightened around his hand, and the two of them drew their T-shirts higher above their mouths and noses.

  They walked slowly forward. The traffic beside them went from an intermittent crawl to a dead stop. The closest fire to them was more than an isolated power fire. The road was blocked. Through the smoke, the faint strobe of red lights flashed.

  Police were trying in vain to turn around traffic. There was nowhere to go. An entire block was in flames.

  CHAPTER 5

  Friday, October 17, 2025

  Westwood, California

  The uneasy ping of déjà vu flashed through Barker Mayfield. The sky was hazy with the drift of black and gray smoke. He could smell it, the caustic odor of wood and chemicals burning somewhere in the distance.