Joseph Lewis: Halcyon

Isoke winked at her. “Life is full of small challenges.”

“If the fire brigade is on strike-”

“Firefighters can’t go on strike. Not legally, anyway.” Isoke slowly crossed the Halcyon ’s hangar, her eyes darting all about. “One thing at a time. First, let’s see how bad it really is.”

She waved Taziri to follow her to the door. The boiling air shimmered and the sharp cracking of wood echoed in the next hangar. Isoke touched the door handle, then yanked her hand away and shook her head. She motioned Taziri back and kicked the door. It rattled in its frame, but held. She kicked again and the latch snapped free. The door swung wide and smoke belched through the opening, creeping up along the walls of Halcyon ’s hangar. Isoke replaced her goggles and stepped through the doorway. Taziri stood just behind her, peering into the filthy air, struggling to breathe as a warm sweat trickled down her neck.

A sharp cough punctuated the dull roaring and a tall man stumbled toward them out of the smoke. Gray fumes curled off his tattered black coat. The right side of his shaved head and beardless face was a black and red ruin of weeping cuts and scorched skin. His right eye was shut, if it still existed, but his left eye stared at them, a single blot of white in the dark haze. Isoke reached out to catch him as he approached the open doorway.

The firelight flashed on something in the man’s hand as he swung at the pilot. Isoke shrieked, her hands pressed to her face as dark blood spilled over her fingers. She dropped to her knees, and then the floor, her head thumping on the concrete. Her wheezing, gurgling noises barely rose above the roaring flames. Taziri darted toward her, but then froze when she saw the burned man holding the bloody knife at his side. The man lunged forward and Taziri fell back, crashing into the edge of a workbench and knocking a toolbox to the ground. Steel handles and round head attachments clattered across the concrete floor. She grabbed a heavy wrench in her shaking hand and rose to her feet.

Taziri glanced at Isoke still shivering and gasping on the floor, still covering her face with both hands as the pool of blood around her head expanded, and she hurled her wrench at the man. It flew past his head, several hand spans to one side. The brute stiffened as the tool flashed past, and he turned his head slightly but the scorched flesh of his neck refuse to twist that way and he cried out in agony, his empty hand flying up to cover the burnt skin. In that instant Taziri leapt forward and tackled the man to the ground, landing awkwardly across his body. She crawled up to sit on the man’s chest and planted one boot on the hand holding the knife covered in Isoke’s blood.

Taziri drove her fist down into the man’s face. As his head bounced off the concrete floor, a hideous vibration tore up Taziri’s arm, and she slid to one side, cradling her hand against her chest. The burned man lay still.

Coughing so hard her throat went raw, Taziri crawled through the filthy haze toward Isoke. The smoke stung her eyes until they gushed tears, and she tasted only ash and dust in her mouth. The sounds of wood cracking and flames roaring echoed through the hangar, and something heavy fell on her left arm.

The world faded into smears of gray and white.

The world snapped back into focus as hands grabbed Taziri by the arms and jacket, hauling her up and away from the ground. She heard voices all around her now, women and men, all shouting about hoses and pumps. Jets of water hissed in the air and boots pounded the concrete floor. Two men carried her backward across the hangar and outside onto the grass. They pulled off her goggles and scarf and she felt the cool air on her skin. The stars overhead hid behind waves of smoke and bright cinders rained down upon the earth.

Taziri sat coughing on the grass while the two men hovered over her, talking in low voices. She focused on just breathing, on the sting in her eyes and the ache in her chest. Her left arm throbbed dully and her little finger hummed with a slight numbness, feeling fat and rubbery. She stared at her blackened sleeve. I need to tell them something, something very important. There was something they should do, but she couldn’t remember what it was. Something she had left behind.

A moment later the pair stiffened sharply, boot heels clicking, and Taziri looked up to see a young woman approaching. The woman ignored the men’s salutes and knelt down in front of Taziri, peering into her eyes, wiping her face with a damp cloth, asking her questions in a professional monotone. Taziri muttered back her name, her birthday, the queen’s name. Rank and service number? When did you get here? Do you know anything about the two people in the hangar? A man and a woman?

A woman?

“Isoke! He stabbed her! You have to go back for her, you have to help her!” Taziri tried to stand but her legs wouldn’t lift her and the two men on either side wouldn’t let her, and she fell back on her rear, stunned. “I couldn’t reach her! Where is she?”

“They’re working on her now.” The young woman nodded off to her right.

Taziri followed her gaze and saw people in uniforms swarming around a lump on the ground wrapped in blankets. They were all talking at once so she couldn’t tell what they were saying, and they kept blocking her view so she couldn’t see what they were doing. She’s in there, lying on the ground, with strangers tearing off her clothes to try to fix her, like some machine. A wagon backed up to the medics. The uniforms stood, carrying the bundle of blankets between them, and then suddenly they were all on the wagon and it was racing away across the field, turning the corner onto the street and vanishing into the city. Taziri went on staring at the street, blinking dry eyes, swallowing rapidly, and feeling hollow and cold.

“Is she going to be all right?” She looked up but the young woman had already moved on, taking the two men with her. So Taziri sat there, breathing hard, watching the hangar burn as she rested her left arm in her lap and massaged her numb finger. She watched two dozen men pull Halcyon out the opposite end of the hangar and tether it to a mooring mast far from the flames. They ran left and right, shouting at each other, dragging smoking debris, pointing at smoldering furniture. It was all just a stone’s throw away, but it felt like a distant dream, familiar and yet unreal. As the minutes passed, the airfield continued filling with people and equipment while the walls of the hangars gradually disintegrated and collapsed. The fire brigade’s wagons rolled onto the field behind teams of oxen, sooty pumps began cycling, and the men in yellow coats uncoiled the hoses. Water arched through the air and fresh steam blossomed everywhere, filling the field with a new flavor of wet burnt filth. Slowly, the heat faded and the smoke thinned. In just a few minutes, the entire scene was transformed. Flaming havoc receded into the mundane work of dragging debris, dousing blackened objects, and inspecting melted equipment.

Chaotic shouting broke out across the field and Taziri looked up to see a dozen firefighters wrestling frantically with one of the water pump engines. The pistons were cycling furiously, the entire apparatus shaking violently as the pumps worked faster and faster. High-pitched voices barked orders over the screams of two men rolling on the ground, pressing their gloved hands against their bright red, peeling faces.

Taziri was on her feet in an instant, jogging toward the panicking crowd around the engine. The machine hissed and groaned as the pressure built inside it. She broke into a run and snatched up a firefighter’s axe lying in the grass. People shouted, a cacophony of panic and white noise punctuated by the cries of the two men still ignored on the ground. As Taziri reached the outer edge of the circle of firefighters, one of them glanced over his shoulder and they locked eyes for a moment.