The Filter Trap Read Online Free Page B

the highways are jammed already in the major cities.”
    “Congress has fought me on infrastructure funding my entire presidency, they’d rather their constituents get jobs building more F-35s. A lot of good those planes are going to do today. Are we at least broadcasting on the radio?”
    “Where we can, sir. Most stations have automated playlists. Not many stations have people in-house to broadcast on Christmas Eve. Most of the networks we’ve attempted to contact can’t even be reached over the radio.”
    “Are you telling me that we can’t radio the damned radio stations?”
    The president looked down again, feeling more helpless than ever in the face of the oncoming tragedy.
    When the water receded from Waikiki, most locals heeded the sirens and attempted to find higher ground. Though it would be far worse than they suspected, anyone who’d lived for some time on the island was well aware of the danger tsunamis posed. Still, even the revised extreme tsunami evacuation areas were a far cry from the real danger zones. The world had never seen a tsunami like this before, and many that did now would not survive to see anything else after.
    The pilots and politicians looking down saw thousands of Hawaiians abandon cars to run ahead of traffic jams. Tens of thousands clamored up the slopes of Punchbowl, Diamond Head, and Koko Head hoping the craters would protect them when the waves crashed.
    The walls of beachfront high-rise hotels lining Waikiki Bay, none much more than 400 feet, looked even higher against the bare beach peppered with dying fish, collateral damage exposed as the ocean reorganized for the first assault on land. The cobalt colossus, slowing only to a few hundred miles per hour as it reached up and over the shelf in front of the island, grabbed glass and steel, tossing it inward, crushing and splintering like a child stomping on dead leaves.
    The waves, easily eclipsing the 761-feet-high tip of Diamond Head, sloshed down into the craters and tumbled thousands of climbers to the swirling basin.
    The waves moved past lowlying residential areas on the western coast, putting Hawaiians still in their homes hundreds of feet below the lip of the swell. Finally, the first wave lapped against the high hills east of Waikiki and ran back down to rip asunder any of the structures remaining.
    It looked strangely soothing from thousands of feet in the air; gentle waves brushed clean the green parapet slopes of the Koʻolau Mountains and retreated, crests growing lower, until water ran off the streets, relieving the traffic jam by taking cars along with it.
    Only those who took the highway through to Kailua at the first siren would ever see another perfect Hawaiian Sunset. They instinctively headed to the undermanned and overwhelmed Bellows Air Force Station. The living appreciated their luck, but wanted answers. The barely one hundred enlisted soldiers at the base had nothing prepared.
    First to break radio silence, the president broadcast on civilian and military shortwave simultaneously.
    “Those of you on the coast, any coast, please evacuate immediately! The loss of our Moon has had an unprecedented effect on our oceans. Tsunamis are headed toward both North American coasts.
    “Earlier reports cited one hundred foot waves. Sadly, these estimates were woefully inadequate. I witnessed the devastation to our most western state just minutes ago. I fear nearly a million Americans have perished in the Pacific. I pray this day will not see a million more, but I need your help.
    “Please open your hearts and your homes to fellow Americans when they seek aid. Everyone in eastern California, Oregon, Washington, Maine, Pennsylvania, the Eastern Seaboard, and our Southern Gulf neighbors, please take in these refugees as you would your own family. Because they are. We are all Americans. We will persevere together thanks to our shared sense of generosity. As a nation. As a planet. As a people.
    “God