“If you want me to train you,” Trank says through the Tarnhelm, piloting the hot-dog cart around an open manhole, “you have to follow my orders.”
They walk past the burn clinic. It’s not even open yet, but the proprietor sees them and hurries out through the jangling doors with his hands full of brochures. He’s wearing mint-green surgical scrubs, or maybe pajamas—could go either way, since as mentioned it’s still crack of sunrise o’clock.
“Special on skin grafts!” he says. “Skin grafts are our specialty!”
Ripple and Trank both ignore him. If you say one word to these guys, you have to hear the whole sales pitch.
“I’m already trained,” Ripple argues. “I have my Junior Special Officer badge and everything. So maybe it’s time we start treating this more like a partnership.”
“I leave at dawn each morning. You can leave with me or you’re on your own.”
“Maybe I should be on my own, then.”
“Maybe you should.”
This annoys Ripple. Because doesn’t Trank respect how much Ripple is changing—how much he’s already changed? Ripple respects it every morning, when he stares sleepy-eyed at the mirror and tries to shave, which is basically a sobriety test for wakefulness; he respects it every night, when he peels off his sweaty, sooty gear and stands under the shower, too beat even to soap his pits. The difference is visible: he’s getting shredded, seriously cut, like not quite six-pack abs yet but a fun pack for sure. Even his face looks hella chiseled. He never got that from Power Jousting, since he basically just sat there and held the lance while his drone pony did all the work. Whereas now he’s got the cardio and the strength training and also the adrenaline, because holy shit is it scary to risk your life—he thought he would get used to it, but nope. It puts Ripple in permanent Fight Mode because flight is not an option, which is an important truth he learned from the inspirational quotes section in his fire training handbook although mostly that applies to conscripted pros who grew up without their own HowFlys.
Because let’s be real, flight is totally an option for Ripple, it always has been and it always will be. He’s been thinking about that a lot the last couple of days, how he could just bail on this whole unpaid internship and go back home, no harm no foul. The job is never going to be done, not until Trank’s vision of a dragon-protected future city comes true, and Ripple’s not holding his breath for that.
So far, though, despite having other options—like the option to go home and sleep in his own Slay Bed until eleven a.m., then have a brunch burger served to him on a silver tray—Ripple has applied himself, which is a new thing for him. He wishes Trank would respect that, and demonstrate his appreciation of Ripple’s hard work with a compromise naptime at least. Also, a promotion.
They roll up to this morning’s first blaze: not one building, as Ripple expected, but two side-by-side, identical low-rises with painted brick exteriors. The topmost floors of each have flames tonguing the insides of their window glass and you can feel the heat down on the sidewalk.
“I’m going in,” says Trank, donning his water tank backpack and heading for the door on the left. Ripple sighs, flips down his gas mask, and follows suit with the one on the right.
Entering the building is the least dangerous part. Dragon fires start on the roof and work their way down…that is, when they don’t just scorch some brick. A lot of the fires don’t “take.” They do a little damage and burn out by themselves. It’s the weirdest thing: the dragons spit their magma-gorge—ptooie, ptooie—they don’t barf it. If Ripple could breathe fire, no way he’d show such restraint. It’s like the dragons are poking the city, trying to get its attention. To wake it up when, like Ripple, it just wants to hit the snooze button and doze.
No false alarm here, though: this building got walloped big-time. In the lobby, smoke is already wafting out through the vents above the mailboxes, and Ripple can hear the fire licking and snacking inside the walls. Great, not even six a.m. and he’s got an unsalvageable superstructure on his hands. This is a Search & Rescue only.
Ripple goes up to the fourth floor—any higher would already be too dangerous—and starts busting into apartments, hacking down jambs with his hatchet. He takes some satisfaction in the splinter and crash. The only good part of Search & Rescues is that you can renovate doors to your heart’s content.
“Fire squad, coming through!”
But the first apartment Ripple checks out is long empty, the bed stripped, the closets open and bare. Back to the hallway. The next one he checks looks more recently inhabited, with an open fridge half-filled with rotting food and sooty footprints not his own on the peeling linoleum. Ripple scouts around, but this unit’s clear too. He’s thinking he might be able to write the whole building off as a total loss when he finds the Survivor in Apartment 3C.
The Survivor is in a kitchen, wearing a bathrobe, heating up a kettle on the stove. He’s stooped and rheumy, with neck skin like a Hoover Island vulture’s. He doesn’t seem to notice the thick black smoke pouring out of his vents, the heat bubbling his latex wall paint. A leukemic tabby lounges beside him on the windowsill, admiring its view of the airshaft.
“Sir,” says Ripple through the Tarnhelm, “your building is engulped in flames. I advise you to turn off that burner before we have a belch on our hands.”
The Survivor pulls a tarnished pistol out of his robe pocket and points it at Ripple quaveringly. It looks about as threatening as a used dishrag, even though it might be loaded. Obediently, Ripple sticks his hands in the air. It isn’t the first time he’s run into this situation. Keep it polite, keep it professional.
“Sir, I’m unarmed. This suit might look bulletproof, but trust me, it’s not.”
“They’ve tried to evacuate me before. The terms of my lease don’t allow for it.”
“Sir, the building’s on fire.”
“I’ll take responsibility for my own safety, thanks.”
“Sir, as a representative of Metropolitan Emergency Services, I’ve taken that responsibility upon myself.”
“I didn’t call the fire exterminators.” The Survivor coughs. “Besides, didn’t you get the memo? That department disbanded months ago.”
Ripple gets this a lot; he doesn’t feel like explaining the whole independent contractor angle yet again. “Look, mister, I’m here to take you to safety. I can’t leave your side till you let me do that.”
“You have a warrant?”
“We’re not on private property anymore. This is a Public Hazard Zone.”
“Who decided that?”
“Sir, the ceiling’s about to cave in.”