Read Online A Chemical Fire by Brian Martinez - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Brian Martinez
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depending on their environment. Temperature, humidity, the manufacturers don’t know where they’ll end up. You think they predicted this?”
He says, “I guess not,” looking to the side, smelling of doubt.
“You have to check them manually, one by one. It’s tedious but it’s the only way you don’t end up with a flashlight that doesn’t turn on when by all accounts it should. How about it, right now? You and me?”
He looks at his watch, saying quietly, “Not enough time,” meaning his 1:30 Jerk Room thinking I don’t have his schedule down. My forehead feels like it could come off, my eyes pouring with good intentions.
“Know what,” he stands, brushing rice from his camouflage pants, “It’s your idea, your project. Pull it off and there could be a promotion in it for you.”
“You’re not coming?” My acting face, absent of one kind of eagerness, forging the other.
“ I’ll monitor from here,” he lies. “Just work top to bottom, clockwise, and quickly.”
“Sounds good.” I leave with honest body, take the stairs up and get to work pulling apart packs and going to flashlights without a look at the bottles, diligent, endlessly helpful, fingering out double A’s and trying them in the control light, examining light streams and nodding. A team player, right up until 1:41. Then I get to the real work.
At 2:05 I’m waiting back in the security room looking bored when he comes in saying, “You’re even sweatier than before.”
“So are you,” playing the fool.
“Yeah.” He gives no details- not embarrassed but liking secrets. “Find anything?”
I hold up my hand, in it three batteries bubbled with corrosion, looking the way anything would look after two minutes at four hundred fifty degrees in the oven of an abandoned hotel kitchen, then dropped in water to cool.
“Well, goddamn.”
“We don’t have any spares,” he says to monitors looking the way he left them. “You hit every Panic Room in forty minutes?”
“It was important,” I offer in sober tones.
He holds out his hand. “I think you just earned your first mission.”
My mouth smiling. My hand taking his. My intestines, pulling codeines from tablets.
II.
Circulation feeds raw nerves as leg pads attach. Bowels rebind under Kevlar. Helmet visor slides down to add haze to the haze, knives to the sides and clean rifles loaded, ammo stashed. We stand at the metal door to Earth and he pulls out a map to a death-run, the iron grid city laid out with X’s and O’s and arrows between them, more O’s than X’s.
“This X is you,” he pokes.
Slapping a clip he says we’re running a blitz. “Watch the sides for runners and hit that quarterback.” We clap hands and break. He unlatches the door, victims spilling to plan, standing between us and the end zone and us with guns up and armor on.
“Wait a minute,” I stop him. “I’ve never played this, who's the quarterback?”
He lifts his head, movement slow as he checks the air, takes in the scene. Down fifty yards and past one and then two cars is a group of four of them with us in their sight.
“That one,” he says a grenade coming out, pin pulled and dropping down, winding back and throwing to the air, up, over, tumbling at the victim feet, sleep-sound as ears silent hot and then bangTHOOM he’s shouting GO but I can’t hear, hands to the rifle and I scramble, burn victims turn to the sound as our guns come to face THACK gummy scabs spraying away, boots clopping and armor rubbing, checking left and right and running, a corpse reach too close, hiss-throating and then gunfire taking his shoulders to ground.
We slam into the back of the first auto, a rusty boat of a thing, backs to the metal and ammo to the guns CLACK.
“First down, twenty yards to go,” he shakes. “Good play but watch those sides, the linebacker almost sacked you.”
“You mean kill.” I check my sights.
“Beautiful day for a game,” he replies.
A hand reaches out
He says, “I guess not,” looking to the side, smelling of doubt.
“You have to check them manually, one by one. It’s tedious but it’s the only way you don’t end up with a flashlight that doesn’t turn on when by all accounts it should. How about it, right now? You and me?”
He looks at his watch, saying quietly, “Not enough time,” meaning his 1:30 Jerk Room thinking I don’t have his schedule down. My forehead feels like it could come off, my eyes pouring with good intentions.
“Know what,” he stands, brushing rice from his camouflage pants, “It’s your idea, your project. Pull it off and there could be a promotion in it for you.”
“You’re not coming?” My acting face, absent of one kind of eagerness, forging the other.
“ I’ll monitor from here,” he lies. “Just work top to bottom, clockwise, and quickly.”
“Sounds good.” I leave with honest body, take the stairs up and get to work pulling apart packs and going to flashlights without a look at the bottles, diligent, endlessly helpful, fingering out double A’s and trying them in the control light, examining light streams and nodding. A team player, right up until 1:41. Then I get to the real work.
At 2:05 I’m waiting back in the security room looking bored when he comes in saying, “You’re even sweatier than before.”
“So are you,” playing the fool.
“Yeah.” He gives no details- not embarrassed but liking secrets. “Find anything?”
I hold up my hand, in it three batteries bubbled with corrosion, looking the way anything would look after two minutes at four hundred fifty degrees in the oven of an abandoned hotel kitchen, then dropped in water to cool.
“Well, goddamn.”
“We don’t have any spares,” he says to monitors looking the way he left them. “You hit every Panic Room in forty minutes?”
“It was important,” I offer in sober tones.
He holds out his hand. “I think you just earned your first mission.”
My mouth smiling. My hand taking his. My intestines, pulling codeines from tablets.
II.
Circulation feeds raw nerves as leg pads attach. Bowels rebind under Kevlar. Helmet visor slides down to add haze to the haze, knives to the sides and clean rifles loaded, ammo stashed. We stand at the metal door to Earth and he pulls out a map to a death-run, the iron grid city laid out with X’s and O’s and arrows between them, more O’s than X’s.
“This X is you,” he pokes.
Slapping a clip he says we’re running a blitz. “Watch the sides for runners and hit that quarterback.” We clap hands and break. He unlatches the door, victims spilling to plan, standing between us and the end zone and us with guns up and armor on.
“Wait a minute,” I stop him. “I’ve never played this, who's the quarterback?”
He lifts his head, movement slow as he checks the air, takes in the scene. Down fifty yards and past one and then two cars is a group of four of them with us in their sight.
“That one,” he says a grenade coming out, pin pulled and dropping down, winding back and throwing to the air, up, over, tumbling at the victim feet, sleep-sound as ears silent hot and then bangTHOOM he’s shouting GO but I can’t hear, hands to the rifle and I scramble, burn victims turn to the sound as our guns come to face THACK gummy scabs spraying away, boots clopping and armor rubbing, checking left and right and running, a corpse reach too close, hiss-throating and then gunfire taking his shoulders to ground.
We slam into the back of the first auto, a rusty boat of a thing, backs to the metal and ammo to the guns CLACK.
“First down, twenty yards to go,” he shakes. “Good play but watch those sides, the linebacker almost sacked you.”
“You mean kill.” I check my sights.
“Beautiful day for a game,” he replies.
A hand reaches out
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