Bear Spark

Bear Spark Things weren’t like they used to be. Alexander McCready was no fool – he understood that times changed, people changed, life changed – but hell, things were so different now that he barely remembered how they used to be. He’d had a job he’d loved once. He’d had men he worked with, men he called friends, and they too were mostly gone. Everything that had been pillars in his life seemed to quickly be eroding away, slipping between his fingers, and there was nothing he could do to stop it. He couldn’t stop change. There was the sound of an alarm blaring and he opened his eyes. All around him, there was movement. Men were running, yelling. Boots clattered on the floor. No, he couldn’t save his life, couldn’t even save himself, but he could save others. “Get your ass up, Mac!” he heard a voice yell from across the room. The men were scrambling. “Yeah, yeah, I’m getting up,” he growled. Alex swung his legs over the edge of the bed and felt his boots touch the floor. He propped himself up. God, I feel old. He sure felt it – but he was anything but. As far as most were concerned, Alex was still young. But joining the once greatest firefighting team in the world at the age of 16 and working harder than most could dream of was taking its toll on him. His body, heavily muscled and designed to withstand punishment, wasn’t the problem. It’s my damn mind. I’m tired. His body was strong but his resolve had gradually been crumbling. He couldn’t pinpoint exactly when it had started – probably somewhere around eight months ago, he guessed. That’s when everything had gone to hell. He pulled on his suit and was the second out the door, beaten only by Jesse Haley – who, unsurprisingly, had been the one to yell at him to hurry up. Jim Ortega, Tom Buckner, and John Forbes followed him out the door. There was a man standing outside in the bay next to one of the fire engines and Alex felt his stomach churn. Alexander McCready had joined the Forest, an elite set of Shifter firefighters when it had first started, what seemed like centuries ago. He was one of only three of the original men left in the squad on the squad. He’d been sergeant, he’d been happy, and then this man had come in and ruined everything. Alex couldn’t blame Crichton for ruining the Forest. It wasn’t his fault that his bosses had turned the Forest into little more than a propaganda piece for Shifter rights. The man was just a pawn, just like the rest of them. What Alex could blame Crichton for was incompetence and almost getting Alex’s men killed. True, they weren’t his men anymore, not exactly, but Alex couldn’t help but feeling like even though he wasn’t Sergeant in name any longer, he still was their Sergeant at heart. The men seemed to treat him that way – at least when Crichton or the higher ups weren’t around. “Squad Two,” Crichton began. Alex scowled at the man. He wanted to yell at him, tell him that he would never follow him into a burning building, that he wasn’t fit to lead these men – but he bit his tongue. “There’s a fire 40 blocks south of here. Abandoned industrial park. The fire’s growing, but it’s not out of control – yet. It’s our job to get in there and stop it.” Alex wanted to shake the man – there wasn’t a right or wrong way to prepare the men for an out of control fire – but Crichton’s callousness, his impersonation of the entire situation, rubbed Alex the wrong way. He took a deep breath and was flooded with the scent of newcomers. Alex turned and looked towards the bay doors and was surprised to see three other men standing there. It took him a few moments to process the scene, and then everything made sense. He recognized the first man, and didn’t like him: Ryan Smith, one of the recruits chosen a few months back to be a sort of figurehead for the whole PR stunt going on in the Forest. The other two he didn’t know, but judging by the camera one was holding and the microphone of another, he knew enough. “Who are those men?” he growled, pointing. “Are those reporters?” “They’re none of your concern, McCready,” Crichton said, waving his hand at the man. “Let’s load up.” “They’re goddamn reporters!” Haley yelled. “This is a crock of s**t! We’re not firefighters anymore, we’re just here to get your bosses good ratings! I’m not going!” “You’re refusing to fight a fire? That’s subordination, Haley,” Crichton said, his voice all venom. “I suggest you load up and get in the engine.” “Take someone from Squad One.” “I chose Squad Two for this job – now get in the engine.” Alex walked up and grabbed Haley’s shoulder and squeezed. “Let’s go, Haley.” The man was shaking with anger for a second and then nodded. He shot daggers at Crichton but walked past him and climbed into the engine. The rest of the men followed – with the exception of Crichton, who gave Alex the address and joined the reporters. Alex climbed into the engine and fired it up, wondering if the fire had grown out of control during the short argument. “Can you believe that?” Haley asked as he climbed in the back. Alex pulled out of the building and saw they were being followed by a news van. “Can’t even ride with his own men!” Next to him, Buckner directed Alex on which turns to take. The streets flew by, siren blaring, cars stopped on the side of the street, people on the sidewalk in the warm August air watching with slack jaws. “Not what I expected,” Forbes said from the back seat. “Keep your head up, rook,” Haley yelled over the roar of the engine. “When are you gonna stop calling me that?” Haley laughed and said, “Not sure yet, rook!” There was a lighthearted laugh around the engine, though there wasn’t much levity in it. “Why film this? An abandoned industrial park?” Ortega asked. “I’m sure they’ll spice it up with some editing,” Alex growled as he turned the wheel to Buckner’s directions. The rest of the ride was mostly spent in silence, with the exception of Haley cursing every few minutes. Alex saw the smoke, an acrid black cloud, much sooner than he saw the flames. He pulled the engine up as close as he dared to the burning building. He parked and jumped out, followed by the other men of Squad Two. They’d always worked in different squads but somehow, this felt different. Before their boots were even on the ground, Crichton, Smith, and the reporters were there and if Alex hadn’t been so mad, he might have laughed. The two Shifters were moving bent over, crouched down as if they were under sniper fire. It looked halfway comical seeing their large bodies bent over so close to the ground. Crichton was bellowing orders, something he never did – the man probably couldn’t even order take out. “Let’s go, men! Buckner, on the water cannon! McCready, Haley, Forbes – you’re on point. Ortega, with me!” The orders were ridiculous – just sensationalism, designed to make this job look much worse than it actually was. Alex looked over at the burning building. It wasn’t out of control, and for that, Alex was thankful. The last time they’d been on a factory fire had seen Chief Rawls and Tanner O’Brien injured in a smelting explosion. Rawls would never walk, or shift, again, and he certainly wouldn’t return to leading their squad. His accident had been the perfect opportunity for Crichton and his bosses to weasel their way into the Forest. Alex lead the way into the building – because it was what he was supposed to do, not because it was what Crichton had told him to do. The factory was abandoned. It was almost pitch black, so the men turned on their flashlights and made their way through the building until they came upon the blaze. It had engulfed the offices, which were little more than flimsy walls built in the corner of the factory floor. The best Alex could tell, it had thankfully started in the offices, burned up the outside wall and broken the windows, but hadn’t spread to the rest of the building. He paused for a second. It was unbelievably lucky that the fire had started in the offices, far away from any of the equipment or materials that had been left behind. That was possible, of course. It could just be dumb luck that the fire had started in a place that wouldn’t spread, at least not until the roof truly went and the fire spread to the rest of the building. But he didn’t have time to think about that now. He raised his axe and jumped into the fray, cutting off the fire’s fuel so it couldn’t spread no more. The other two followed suit, each doing their own job, ensuring that the fire wouldn’t destroy the whole building. He spared a glance backwards to see the reporter on his knees, almost crawling, yelling and screaming as Crichton tried to look like he knew what he was doing, all the while the cameraman recorded with a look of awe on his face. It about made Alex sick. Finally, the fire was contained – they’d stopped the spread from the interior and Buckner had successfully put out the blaze on the outside of the building and doused the roof. It was a routine job. No, it was less than routine. Everything went perfect. They had jobs where nothing went wrong, of course – they were good. But even when things went perfect, they never went perfect. After all, they were fighting fires. Things didn’t go perfectly. Except this time, when the cameras are rolling. They wouldn’t have started a fire just for the sake of filming it, would they? “It’s awfully convenient they were standing by,” Alex said, doing his best to say it in an offhanded way as he put his axe back into the engine. The others were doing the same, lounging for a few moments, drinking water and slapping each other on the backs. The cameraman looked nervous as he filmed the reporter talking with Smith. “Keep your comments to yourself,” Crichton warned. Alex nodded and took off his gear. His idea was ridiculous, wasn’t it? Crichton’s bosses wouldn’t arrange for a fake fire just for publicity, would they? That was ludicrous. The men piled back into the engine. “That was awfully convenient, wasn’t it?” Haley growled the moment the doors slammed shut. “The reporters, that controlled blaze… Almost seemed set up.” The rest of the men were silent – but none dared to voice their opinion – or contradict him. “Keep your mouth shut about it, Haley,” Alex told the man. “The rest of you – do the same. Not a word until we see how this plays out. I’d be interested in seeing this on the news tonight.” The rest of the men muttered their agreements. Usually, the ride back to the station was full of laughter and a job well done. Occasionally there were moments of grief, if something had went wrong or they hadn’t been able to do their job as well as they’d hoped. But Alex had never seen the men like this. There was something in the way they sat in silence. They knew something was up and it didn’t sit right with any of them. Even Forbes, who was the rookie, knew something was wrong. Fires weren’t a joke, they weren’t some way to prove a point or make other people money. They were a horrible fact of life – and people died because of them. It was his job, and his men’s, to make sure that didn’t happen. He’d always had one belief – that fires were the enemy. After all, it was his job as a firefighter to fight them. That made them enemies, didn’t it? But he wasn’t sure any longer. If there was someone out there starting fires to turn a profit or make a good news article, then who was the enemy? Alex McCready wasn’t sure. But he knew one thing. “No matter what, you guys did a good job today. I’m proud of you all.”