Firefighters!
A Supers story after the Portals.
I’ve mentioned before that a lot of the inspiration for my Supers can be found in Drew Hayes’ Powereds series and Marion G Harmon’s Wearing the Cape series. As my Supers grew together as a team through the Indie Ink Fund’s Portal prompts it became apparent that this team was not the Avengers or Justice League. And I’m ok with that - they are powerful in their own ways. They are actually more akin to the group in Drew Hayes’ one-shot based in the Powereds universe called Corpies. Basically about a group of relatively low powered superheroes who focus on augmenting first responders. It is a fantastic book. Anyway, without going in to it too much, one section of the book deals with the Corpies as they respond to a fire in an apartment building, and I wondered how my Supers would handle a similar situation…
Here’s the refresher on our daring group of supers, last seen in Portal
(Check out all the Stories here)
Conduit - 29, male, established hero, energy absorption and reflection
Blink - 25, male, junior hero, teleporter
Awareness - 31, female, junior hero, telepath - able to sense and send images and feelings
Reset - 45, male, junior hero, able to send himself back in time and change his actions, healing ability
Portal - 54, male, trainee, suspected cause of Portals
There hadn’t been a new portal for almost a month, much to the new trainee’s chagrin. Apparently being aware of his power made it fundamentally impossible to subconsciously create the portals. A bit of super power irony there. But the trainee, Portal, was game to keep trying, and Awareness was enjoying working with him. She’d sit with him as he wrote a new pirate story based in a fantastical new location, and it was fun to bounce around ideas with him. However, no one had reported a portal opening anywhere in Calgary or Alberta.
There were a couple of times the story would take an unexpected turn and Awareness would see the world clearly forming in his mind, but then he’d notice and the image would return to the wispy generalities of a nascent story. The stories were still fun, Awareness was enjoying the adventures of the pirates, and Portal was pretty upbeat about the quandary.
Which was good since he was semi-officially her “day-job” for lack of a better term. There was great interest in regaining access to the portals, and he seemed to be their best hope. She, Reset, and Blink were now off their probationary period and were fully licensed and insured. Nice salary and benefits to boot! Which was great, since she couldn’t imagine going back to an office job when she could hear the thoughts and emotions of everyone in the weekly scrum meetings…
The Agency had also let her continue to live in her remote cottage rent free as part of her compensation. Her control had improved enough that she wasn’t overwhelmed in the city, but it was still nice to be able to relax completely. And with Blink usually available for transport, it was still convenient.
Awareness was at the Agency’s Calgary headquarters with Portal when the call came about the fire at the apartment building. Of course, she had sensed the heightened urgency in those around her, so wasn’t surprised. She had hoped it would be a portal, but wasn’t disappointed to learn that they’d be helping out the local first responders. She let Portal know she’d be heading out, but encouraged him to keep writing, his current story was shaping up to be quite fun.
“So,” Portal started tentatively, “If Reset can go back and prevent events from happening, why are things like apartment fires and the like still happening?”
She could tell he immediately felt bad about asking, but it was a good question, and one that came up often enough that the Agency had some “talking points” whenever someone learned the scope of Reset’s abilities. Portal was so focused on the world building and telling his new story, it was honest curiosity that had prompted the question. As such, she avoided the canned answers and spoke from her own understanding.
“First, we never know if we’re in one of Reset’s loops, so we need to respond assuming that we’re not.” She began softly, “Secondly, the cause of the event, in this case an apartment fire, might not be learned until it’s outside of Reset’s scope so he couldn’t go back far enough to change anything.”
“Lastly,” she said even more quietly, “he could be preventing something far more dire, and stopping this fire could distract him from something much worse.”
Portal looked away, nodded, then asked the question Awareness could already see forming, “Does he ever tell you? Can… can you sense…”
“Very rarely,” she said, “with the telling. And, no, I can’t sense individual thoughts from him anymore, unless he lets me. I… his… perception of time and events is like a swirling mass now. So even when my control slips, I don’t get anything. From him.”
She had to appreciate Portal’s perceptiveness, as well as his restraint. She could tell her statement opened a series of questions he wanted to ask, but he only asked about the last statement she had let slip.
“Not from him, but…”
“I’ll pick up confused images from an agent who just called an airport ordering them to cancel a specific flight, ‘on Agency authorization.’ Or someone dwelling on how they would react to the loss of their family in a car accident.”
“I see…”
“He does have professionals that he will talk to. It’s a burden he shouldn’t have to handle alone, and the Agency is doing what it can to help.” Awareness continued, “While, ultimately, he is the only one who knows what path he chooses, I do know he’s consulted with others in some cases.”
“That’s… that’s… a lot…”
Blink chose that moment to appear in the room, looking grim but ready for anything. He looked between Portal and Awareness and with a brief nod to Portal, he put a hand on Awareness’ shoulder and the two of them were in front of a burning apartment building in the north east. She knew Portal would have more questions when she got back, but turned her focus to the task at hand.
Thick smoke was pouring out of the windows of the nine story structure, occasional flashes of flame on the lower floors emphasizing that the fire department still hadn’t gotten it under control. Conduit and Reset were being briefed by the captain, already shouldering oxygen tanks and Blink popped forward to join them. Awareness let her mind reach in to the building, pulling up her hood instinctively as she felt the first panicked thoughts. She was bolstered by the calm and resolute minds of the firefighters already working their way through the first and second floors. The fire was spreading quickly, and it seemed the alarms had not sounded, so there were still many people trapped inside.
Awareness took a moment to calm herself, and concentrated on what the people were seeing, not what they were feeling. As she slowly walked to the command center, the team gave her expectant looks. She nodded and turned to the fire captain.
“The fire hasn’t reached the fourth floor yet. Blink will take Reset and Conduit to the northeast stairwell entrance. They’ll have to work their way down. Blink will start clearing people from the fourth floor working his way up. I am working to keep the people from leaving their apartments.”
To his credit, the captain quickly realized that these were not questions. He turned to his communications officer and tersely said, “Let the team know Conduit and his team are on site, they will be coming down from the fourth floor.”
Conduit looked to Awareness as he and Blink fastened their rebreathers over their faces, “Anyone we need to get to first?”
“Yes. There are unconscious minds on the north side of the third floor. I can’t tell exactly where, as there is no one else nearby. The third floor hallways seems to already be ablaze, the residents are trapped in their suites, but staying away from the doors.”
“Ok.” Conduit nodded grimly and turned to Reset, “When we get to the third, I’ll get you through the north doors, then I will start on the fire. Once you’ve got eyes on the unconscious people, Blink can come get them.”
With that, the three men disappeared and Awareness moved to join the captain and his comm’s officer. She looked to the captain as he grasped the new facts of the situation.
“Are you able to help my team navigate the building as well?” he asked.
“Yes,” she replied, “we’ll do our best to get everyone out as safely as possible.”
Blink appearing in front of the paramedics with two small children and a woman reinforced her claim. The captain nodded his thanks and turned his attention to controlling the fire.
Conduit and Reset quickly made their way down the stairs to the third floor. As Awareness had surmised, the hallway to their south was already being consumed by flames. To the north were two apartment doors, so they split up to check if they were locked. Conduit’s doorknob turned, but the door didn’t budge, the deadbolt likely in place. A look at Reset confirmed a similar result. Reset nodded and stepped away from his door. Without knowing where the people were, kicking in the doors was not an option.
Conduit placed his hand over the deadbolt and with a searing blast of stored heat he melted it away and quickly absorbed the resultant lick of flame. He shoved the door open and switched places with Reset. Reset quickly moved in to the apartment, his rebreather and his “buddy” rebreather already in his hands.
That was the first time Conduit noticed that Reset wasn’t using his rebreather. Yet another thing to ask him about later and hope for an answer…
Setting his mind back to his tasks, he melted the second deadbolt and shoved open the door. With no people being visible he turned and made his way towards the flames. His body was already absorbing the heat, now it was time to work on the fire.
He closed his eyes as he spread his arms, walking down the hallway. He let the energy of the fire guide him, but not overwhelm him. This had to be done with precision, as he simply couldn’t pull all of the fire to him. Trying that would cause the flames to consume any and all fuel on the path. And that included the floor and the structural support beams. That was a mistake you only made once…
Conduit walked briskly down the hall, sometimes leaning closer to one side or the other to keep his absorption precise. He could hear Reset moving down the hallway behind him, knocking on doors and assuring the people inside that help was on its way. As he neared the southeast stairwell, he reached out looking for any lingering flames and sensed only those below him. He opened his eyes to see a woman in full firefighting gear staring at him in wonder from the open door to the stairwell.
“I… uhh… I can see why they sent me to get you,” she began slowly before her professionalism kicked back in, “I was sent to bring you to the basement, we need your help.”
With a quick nod from Conduit she began to lead the way down the stairs. Conduit quickly looked over his shoulder and was startled to see Reset standing right behind him.
“That did look pretty cool.” Reset said with a small smirk, “Don’t worry, Blink and I will clear this floor. The two people on the north end needed oxygen, but they’re with the paramedics now.”
And with a small shove to Conduit’s back, Reset turned and walked back in to the smoke filled hallway - no longer wearing an oxygen tank.
Awareness pulled the nachos out of the oven and smiled as she made her way back to the deck of her cabin. The team had decided they needed a little celebration after their successful day, and her cabin was the best place for it. A quick e-mail to the township had brought the nearby residents to the beach front. They were gasping in amazement as Conduit stood on a boat in the middle of the lake and blasted gouts of fire into the air. When he was done having his fun, Blink would go and sneak him back to the cabin - so that the neighbors wouldn’t know about his connection to her.
For now, Blink and Reset were cheering with the rest of the villagers from her deck.
“Admit it,” Reset was saying almost playfully, “You were getting a kick out of surprising the residents.”
“I can’t say that I was…” but with a look at Reset, Blink continues, “Ok, I may have started making a game out of seeing if I could get them to the paramedics before they stopped swearing.”
“THE paramedics?” Awareness interjected as she stepped onto the deck, “Or A paramedic?”
Blink’s blush was adorable.
“I… uhh… she… uhh… we had a system!”
“And the fact that she was totally into you had nothing to do with you ‘porting to the same paramedic every single time?”
“Nahh, she wasn’t…. wait… was she?”
“Oh, look… more fireworks! Conduit is having fun tonight!”
In Corpies, there was a moment where the main protagonist, a physical powerhouse, is about to smash open a door. The leader of the team he was working with pointed out that without knowing where the residents were, he could potentially cause more harm than good. I modified it a bit for my story, but wanted to call that out as great moment of character/world building that seems to be a Drew Hayes specialty.
I toyed with the idea of having a villain starting the fire, or something else to spice up the story, but I decided this first non-portal prompt story would be a simple incident as the Supers get used to their new roles as junior heroes.
Hope you enjoyed!
Dave
Junior heros indeed!
I love the very human side of these supers.
I'll miss the portals, but this was a fantastic view of how your supers could help in "normal" situations. Loved it.