Translator: Sean88888 Editor: Elkassar1
Party Ace were now outside the city centre of Washington, D.C.. Only five giant airships had been produced in this branch airship factory because of the late start of the project here. The right to choose the people to board the airships here should have been the government’s benefit, but the government’s main plans were still the Noah Arks and making more replica arks like China, so they had not paid much attention to this place.
There were not that many people here in the first place, and after Sheyan’s error in judging the time of the apocalypse, they could now hardly see anyone here besides the staff. Of the five giant airships that were ready for takeoff, four of them had empty cabins.
Of course, so far, intense earthquakes had only occurred along the San Andreas fault in the central and western parts of the United States, and the ripple effect which reached east coast cities like Washington and New York was not that strong. But in any case, there were already sustained aftershocks of magnitude 5 to 6, and it was the information era, so news had already spread.
In addition, the horrible ash clouds from Yellowstone National Park’s supervolcanic eruption had already rolled over to the sky here. It really was as Charlie Frost claimed: “The lights will go out in Washington too!” The people were already panicking.
Logically speaking, this place should have been a hotspot because it was one of the places that could provide them with the means for survival. The root cause for the low popularity here was that a terrible fissure had emerged during the aftershock which happened to cut off all three major roads leading to Washington! In this time of confusion, not many people would run here.
The one in charge of this place was Magneto’s subordinate, Mystique, who could shapeshift into anyone’s appearance and even copy their fingerprint. The person who could marry her would truly be a very lucky man. To have a different looking wife every day…. The female mutant was somewhat respectful of Sheyan, and she found all these administrative affairs really cumbersome anyway, so she gladly handed over the management of the sub-base to him.
Sheyan’s plan was naturally to save as many people as they could. He clearly remembered that Washington and New York would soon be hit by a strong earthquake that would make even the White House collapse, before the cities would be submerged in seawater.
With the help of experienced managers like Zi, he ordered the workers to continue pumping gas into another completed but yet to be inflated giant airship. He planned to incorporated the airship into the formation.
Thus, the workers had to work overtime even during the end of the world…. It was truly the pinnacle of capitalism. The workers were naturally unwilling to fulfill such an unreasonable demand of the vicious capitalists, but their families were all on the giant airships, so they could only steel their nerves and do the job.
During the wait, Sheyan turned on the TV to check the channels that were still broadcasting to see what was happening all over the world. He found that almost all the heads of state of the nations which participated in the Ark Project had already flown to Cho Ming Valley in Tibet. The only two heads of state who remained were the President of the United States and the Prime Minister of Italy. U.S President Thomas Wilson insisted to stay together with the people, while the Prime Minister of Italy was staying to pray for a miracle. But ten minutes ago, something really weird had happened. The prime minister of Italy was abducted!
That instantly reminded Sheyan of the fact that the nutty conspiracy theorist, Charlie Frost, had also been rescued away. He immediately came to the conclusion that there must be a great benefit to saving these key storyline characters and elites who enjoyed a high prestige among mankind.
With this in mind, Sheyan incorporated the giant airship which had been filled with enough gas into the joint formation, ordered the formation to climbed to a height of 1000 meters, and headed straight for Washington. Under the circumstances, there should be no need to gain permission from the Pentagon to fly over the air space of Washington.
A major drawback of the giant airships was clearly demonstrated during the flight — their moving speed was excruciatingly slow, especially when sailing against the wind. Each airship had only three engines. For three engines to provide the thrust to move a gigantic object like the airship, a speed of 30 km/h was already the best they could do.
During the voyage…a strong earthquake occurred.
Washington, the capital city of the United States, was finally hit by a magnitude 9.4 earthquake!
The Capitol Building and the Washington Monument, landmarks of Washington, collapsed one after another. As for the Statue of Liberty in New York, it had already collapsed for quite some time.
Despite the tremendous intensity of the earthquake, Sheyan was not too worried that he would find no survivors to save in Washington. There were 500,000 permanent residents in downtown Washington alone. Before the strong earthquake struck, there were enough signs and time for the residents to escape. Instead, he was worried about the problem of having too many people to save, leading to chaos.
As the airship formation advanced slowly forward, many people on the airships covered their mouths and wept. Looking at the land from above, they could see the continental plate beneath the entire downtown Washington had been pushed up. It then split into dozens of smaller plates, causing various horrifying fissures to form. The area near the sea had already sunk into the water.
It was truly heartbreaking to witness under the dim environment the glorious and prosperous civilization built by humankind being wantonly destroyed.
Sheyan stood at the bow of the mothership. Looking down, he was delighted to see that the White House at the center of Washington was still largely intact. It happened to be situated on a piece of plate fragment about 7 square kilometres in size. This means that the American President was still alive, and there should be thousands of survivors there.
Although ash was falling like snow from the volcanic ash clouds, the hum of the engines of the giant airships and the bright searchlights on them still managed to attract the attention of the survivors. They wept and shouted loudly, then lit up anything around them that could be ignited.
When the airships reached the South Lawn, Sheyan ordered the crew to drop the anchors. They laboriously fixed the entire airship formation here, but still kept it at a height of 30 meters and did not immediately lower the ladders. Doing so would no doubt lead to an unprecedented tragedy. The desire to survive was enough to make the vast majority of people lose their reason.
A voice came from the loudspeakers on the airships which commanded the survivors to line up for orderly boarding. Meanwhile, Party Ace slid down from the mothership by holding onto a rope. They were naturally surrounded by people the moment they got down. At Sheyan’s request, they soon met the respectable President Wilson, who was staying here with the people.
The black President (Danny Glover) cut a sorry figure at the moment. He had been encouraging others and helping rescue the wounded, so his whole body, including his hair, was covered in volcanic ash. His voice was hoarse and his eyes were sunken.
But Sheyan looked at him with respect. He extended his hand to the President.
“We’re here to help you, Mr. President, but before that, we need your help first. We don’t have much time, so we must hurry.”
President Wilson nodded. “I’ll do anything I can.”
“I’ll keep a long story short. The airships are huge, but they have limited carrying capacity, so we must make sure as much of them are used on humans as possible, instead of objects. I need you to organise all the survivors here to board the airships in an orderly fashion, and to check that each of them carries no more than a kilogram of luggage. Only you have the authority to make them listen. We already have a lot of food and things to keep them warm on board, enough for everyone’s basic surviving needs, so they wouldn’t need to bring any of those things. I thank you for your cooperation in advance.”
President Wilson nodded. “Not a problem. Give me a loudspeaker.”
Sheyan hesitated for a moment before he added, “One more thing, and it might be a bit cruel… We may have no choice but to abandon those that are injured so badly that they can’t move. Our carrying capacity is limited, and so are our medicine and food. There are still a lot of healthy people awaiting our rescue. But of course, if there are family members to take care of the wounded, we won’t forcibly abandon them.”
The President was silent. After that, he could only nod in understanding.
Now that the crowd could see a ray of hope and the President was there to organise them, order was soon restored. Most people were in tears at the thought of escaping death. However, regarding the restriction of a kilogram of luggage each, some still tried to secretly break the rules even though the punishment for violation was the deprivation of their right to board the airships. But after a few of the rule breakers who tried to cause a commotion were shot on the spot, no other similar incidents occurred. Desperate times call for desperate measures. This saying did not exist without reason.
After rescuing the survivors around the White House area, the four empty airships were now packed. They took off once again. President Wilson also boarded the central mothership. He only stayed in the first place for his belief that he should be together with the people. He did not necessarily have to seek death.
He asked Sheyan if they could deliver these survivors to a safe area, then come back here to Washington to rescue more people. Sheyan could only shake his head and smile bitterly when he heard the request. He showed the President a 3D animation on the screen and gave him an explanation.
The intense earthquakes in coastal cities was actually a sign — a sign that the second stage of the apocalypse was coming. The crust underneath most of the world was moving, and it would provide enough energy for the great tsunami. During the tsunami, the earthquakes would occur at the bottom of the ocean instead, so there would be a relatively calm period on land. If they let these people down now, the only fate awaiting them was to be drowned by waves several kilometers high a few hours later….
