Date: Sun, 9 May 93 16:51:58 EDT From: Tracy Finifter Subject: Flashover - End Message-Id: Fortunately, the first engine hadn't even pulled out by the time I got to the firehouse. I figured I must have set quite a few new speed records for the town, but I didn't care. I ran into the station just as the first engine started pulling out of the bay. Throwing on my gear, I hopped onto one of the seats behind the cab of the second engine, and a few seconds later we were on our way. We all could see a little bit of the smoke from the firehouse, looming like an omen. On the truck with me were Chris, Mike, and two other firefighters. Mike was talking into the radio, apparently to the other engine. "When we get there, everyone but Steve and Larry put on packs," Mike ordered. "Chris and I will go in on the search team, Phil, Tom, Lou, and Bill will take the speedlays. No one goes in until both hose teams are ready. Steve, help Larry and Jack put up the ladders. The dispatcher reported that there might be people trapped on the second floor." "Damn..." said Chris. I was silent. I knew I should've said something earlier, but no one would have believed me. But I could say something now. "I don't think you and Chris should go in on the search team." "Why not?" "Just call it a feeling." Not much of an argument, I admit, but what else was I supposed to say? That my holographic friend had found out from my egotistical computer that you were going to die? Mike didn't reply to me. Instead, he went back to the radio. I couldn't tell what he was saying, but he was looking at me when he said it. We pulled up to the house. *** I hopped off the engine and stood staring at the house. I could see a little bit of flames coming out of the window of one room, but other than that, it seemed almost anti-climactic. I don't know what I was expecting, maybe some kind of raging inferno, but this wasn't it. And I was unsure of hwo to feel about it. I looked around, partly for this Larry and Jack I was supposed to help, but mostly for Al. "Steve, over here," someone called from next to the ladder truck. I went over to him and helped him lift off one of the ladders, all the while watching what was going on at the engines. I saw Mike and Chris put on air packs, and gulped. All the firemen were running around like crazy, with the chief and assistant chief both doing what they could to maintain order. "Put that up next to the second floor window of exposure four," someone yelled to us. Fortunately, he was pointing where he wanted the ladder to go since I had no idea what he meant. "Sam! They're getting ready to go in! You've got to stop them!" Al's voice broke all of my concetration. Acting now purely on reflex rather than thought, I dropped my end of the ladder and ran over to Mike and Chris who were now ready to go in, ignoring the protests of my partners. "Stop!" I yelled, reaching them just before they stepped up to the house. "You can't go in. It's too dangerous!" "What's the matter?" Chris asked, his voice muffled by the mask of the air pack. "It's going to flashover any second now," I said, hoping that in my panic I made at least a little bit of sense. The other firefighters seemed to be getting more and more anxious. Chris looked at the house again. He looked as if he was pondering my words. It seemed like he stood there for hours, when in reality it was only a few seconds. It was Mike who finally said something. "I think he's right," he said through the mask. "Look at the window now. Everyone, back away! Get away now!" I looked behind me as we all ran back towards the engine. Whereas before the smoke was coming up thin but steady, it now was coming out in massive puffs that were thick and black, with flames seemingly shooting out from within the dense smoke cloud. Mike turned back to the two hoseteams. "Start an external attack. I don't want anyone going in that building!" he ordered. Just then, what I can only describe as a small explosion came from the corner of the house. Flames started tearing away at the walls and smoke was coming out from windows all over the house. I exhaled the breath I had just realized I had been holding. But since I didn't leap, I knew that that wasn't all I was there to do. "The kids, Sam! You still have to get the kids out!" Al yelled from right next to the window. He was pointing up above it. "Their room is right above the living room. "Shit," I said and looked back to where the ladders were going up, on the other side of the house. Since I had run off earlier, two other firemen had come and were leading the two parents out of their room down to safety. "There might still be people trapped on the second floor," I said to Mike, who was now trying to figure out what to do. "Shit is right," he said. "Okay, put up another ladder on that side, AWAY FROM THE WINDOW!" We both pulled another ladder from the truck and brought it over to the other side of the house. As we did so, I noticed the frantic mother running over to the chief crying out, "My babies! My babies! You've got to save them!" Footing the ladder as Mike and Chris frantically climbed up to the second story window, I felt helpless. I watched Mike as he climbed into the bedroom, and disappear into the smoke. Endless seconds later, he emerged, and passed one unconscious girl to Chris who had remained at the top. Then he disappeared into the smoke again. Chris carried the girl down the ladder. Seeing no one available to help Mike with the second child, I climbed up the ladder myself. I knew that somewhere, something was about to go completely wrong, but I had no idea what. The growing sense of impending doom only grew more intense as I looked into the smoke-filled room. Mike had been in there entirely too long for my comfort, and though I was now coughing uncontrollably from the smoke, it was all I could do to keep looking in, trying to find a glimpse of him. "Please, God, let them both come out safely," I breathed. As if my prayers were instantly answered, Mike emerged again from the smoke and handed another unconscious body to me, which I in turn handed to another firefighter who had just joined the operation. I was about to help Mike out of the window, when I heard a loud, strange moaning sound. Several firefighters from the ground started yelling in our direction, "Mike! Get out! Get out now!" But it was too late. Mike hadn't even begun to get out of the window when the floor he was on gave way, sending him falling into the fire below. I tried desperately to grab hold of him, but I missed, and was only able to catch a sight of him disappear into the smoke. "No!" I cried, unsure of what do to. It was as if time had stopped. "Steve, get down from there now!" someone called, but I only half heard them. My eyes were fixed on the window, and no amount of coughing, yelling, or sirens could draw my attention away. That is, until I saw Al hovering over me. "Sam, get down." He said it simply, without any urgency, but I could see the urgency in his face. That is, I thought it was urgency. I couldn't tell. I didn't know what was going on anymore. Mike had just died, that much was certain, but more than anger or sadness, I felt shock. Shock that I could save his life just a few minutes before, only for him to suffer the same fate now. "Please get down," Al repeated. I did, not knowing what to do next. The entire scene was chaos, and as the ambulances carried the family away, I walked slowly over to behind the engine and stared at the house, not thinking of anything. Al's presence beside me made me rejoin reality. "You did it, Sam," he said, his voice pained with the sadness I tried to feel. "Did I, Al?" I asked. "Did I trade a life for a life, again?" "This isn't the same," Al said. Mike died in the original history, too. This time, he saved the life of two little girls. That's what you were here to do. You can't save everyone." I had no answer. I was glad that the girls were now safe, that two young lives wouldn't be cut off before their time, but things weren't the way I wanted them to be. As if Al had read my mind, he said, "You know, Sam, things don't always happen the way we want them to, even if we get a second chance to fix things. The best we can hope for is that things turn out for the best, or at least, the best they can be." I looked at my friend, wondering if he was still talking about Mike. Things would be different, they *had* to be different, and as the blue- white leaping effect came over me, I promised myself, and Al, that someday, things were going to be different. *************************************************************************** _Perhaps the most important sense one can use when Quantum Leaping is one's feelings. Feelings, when accurate, can give you a much better determination of your situation than any other sense, even sight or hearing. And, as the leaping effect faded away and I continued my latest persona's walk on this cold, gray morning in an as yet unnamed year, I definitely felt something, something not at all pleasant._ Sam Beckett looked around at his newest locale. His setting, though innocuous looking at first, gradually took on more and more of an alien feel than any time or place he had ever experienced before. There was something not quite right about the buildings, the people, or the feeling that he had deep inside him. It was the feeling of eyes boring down into him, watching his every move. Sam kept his steady pace, unsure of his persona's original intent, but now with the purpose of exploration, as he investigated his new locale. To his right was a heavily graffitied wall, like any number of walls Sam had seen in any number of cities. To his left were people going about their normal routines, none of them seeming to be especially interested in Sam. Sam then looked up to the top of the wall. He was surprised to find barbed wire lining the top, and manned guard towers evenly spaced. Here were the eyes that were watching him, belonging to armed soldiers who did not seem at all hesitant about firing when necessary. Somewhere in the back of Sam's mind were triggered memories about the Cold War, the Iron Curtain, and the Berlin Wall. "Oh, boy," he muttered. Keep Leaping... * Tracy Finifter | "We are all born mad. * * finifter@gandalf.rutgers.edu | Some remain so." * * Douglass College, Rutgers University | -- Samuel Beckett * ------------ This line cancelled by NBC ---------------