18

Interlude: The Real Heroes

"What's the holdup, Jimmy?" Pat asked.

It was hard to hear clearly though all the gear, but Jimmy answered him. "Waiting for the area to clear. Still too dangerous."

Another loud bang. Could have been a gunshot, a tire popping, a gas line exploding, a grenade... who knows. Nearly the whole damn block was on fire. All they could do was watch as the fire raged on. They had their gear on, fire engine at the ready, and nothing they could do until the police managed to clear the area. They knew there could have been innocent victims trapped in there. Every second counted. The longer they took, the harder it would be to both fight the fire and the lower the chances of a successful rescue.

They watched as the fire continued to grow, and grow. Occasionally there was another few bangs and explosions. Dread shifted to frustration. What would have been a difficult fire to put out was now impossible. Instead of a potential rescue, they would only be able to contain and condemn. There was always the chance someone was caught inside, but they weren't allowed in yet.

They could only wait while others risked their lives.

"PRT's given the go-ahead. All known capes accounted for. It's time for us to move in." Richie readied his pistol and nodded to his partner. The PRT and Protectorate may be concentrating on the capes, but he reported the Empire still had armed members. Sure, capes still took up all the headlines even thirty years after they first appeared, but normal guys with guns were just as dangerous, if not more so.

And it was the job of Richie's team to take them out.

The battering ram swung hard and smashed through the door lock quickly. A flashbang flew through the small gap, just like in training.

Thunk. Thunk. BANG.

The team rushed in, following the sounds of confused and pained shouts.

Even blinded and deafened, the nazis were holding on to their guns. Too dangerous. They were shot down quickly, and unfortunately, some of them pulled the trigger in shock. Bullets went wild, and unfortunately, one of them got a lucky hit. Thank god for body armour.

"Clear!" he shouted.

"Clear!" came a response.

"Man down!" came another. Fuck.

They gathered around protectively to assess their downed comrade. Frank. He had been grazed in the shoulder, just missing his body armour. Though it wasn't critical, it was bleeding badly, and they needed to evacuate him. "Joe, Emil, get him to the medics. The rest of us, we can keep sweeping."

They kept pushing through the building. It was mostly empty, but from the very last room, a flaming bottle flew at them from behind a counter. They managed to dodge it, but naturally, that didn't mean much. It smashed against the wall behind them. Its flammible contents splashed everywhere, and the flames spread immediately. The room was quickly engulfed in fire, and it even caught one of them in the blaze.

"Evac, evac!"

They had to back out quickly; Richie's leg was already on fire. He ducked out around the corner into cover, then tried to pat and smother the flames. They were several men down now; they didn't have enough to even arrest everyone if they continued. They were on a short timer now, too.

Smoke filled the air, cutting both visibility and putting them at risk. The perp was out of sight. He probably escaped through the back door, which was now blocked off by the spreading flames. They had to abort the operation with, but they'd managed to clear at least three-quarters of the building and taken down a few gangsters.

"The police team's out, so we're moving in!" Jimmy shouted to his crew. They'd been watching from a distance, and once they saw the men hauling both the injured and handcuffed out the building, they went in. Through the windows, they could see flames of a flickering fire; one that hadn't been there before. The building was supposed to be a weapons storehouse; that could mean anything from ammunition to grenades to gasoline.

Not his favourite fire to fight, but at least they had trained for things like this. Gas stations, greasy kitchens, paper mills, oil change shops – they all caught fire. There was always the chance of random accelerants existing in any building they had to enter. They had trained for this; and at least they got some warning this time. The fire was already blazing, but they had been itching to get started. His team had the fire engine hooked up to they hydrant in record time, and they were spraying down the building.

While the police had given the building a once-over, they didn't have time to double check. The fire was growing; if they didn't act soon the entire city block would be lost. They rushed in to contain it as quickly as they could. Some doors had been bashed open already by the police, which was convenient. No need for the fire axe. Still, they followed procedure, going from room to room to search for any potential victims the police may have missed.

The building was a mess; as they tended to be when they were taken by the gangs. Either abandoned or taken by force; they were not treated with any respect or care. Fire spread even more quickly through buildings like this.

"Stairs!" The warning came not a second too soon as the one in the lead realized the stairs were far too weak to hold all of them and their equipment, after being damaged by age, fire, and the recent police raid. Two of them backed off quickly enough, but the rotting wood creaked and split, causing Frankie to fall through.

He slammed into the floor below, landing right on his oxygen canister. Thankfully, those were built tough, and it didn't explode – though it certainly didn't help his back. "Frankie! You okay!"

"I'll live!" he shouted back.

They helped him up, and urged him to get out of the building. He wouldn't be carrying a victim out of there when he could barely hold his own equipment. The rest of them had to continue through the building, ever more wary of the dangers.

"Die you fuckin pigs!"

A closet door in front of them burst open. Before anyone could realize what was happening, a man had jumped out and fired a weapon. They had been expecting live people, panicking people even, but not hostile and murderous ones.

"Oh shit, you aren't –" he managed to say before another firefighter managed to slam him into the wall.

"Fuck, Jake got shot! We need the medics!"

Treating a wound in a moving vehicle was hard enough, treating it while trying to remove fifty pounds of gear from a firefighter was outright ridiculous.

"Hey, Sandra, would you mind keeping the ambulance steady?" Fred shouted. It was a joke, of course; they'd been through these situations all too often.

"Sure, just let me install a cow-catcher and plow through traffic," she shouted back, once again swerving into the oncoming lane to avoid traffic. At least, at this time of night, there weren't as many cars on the road, but some had been blocked off by the police or PRT.

"How're you holding up, Mr. Henderson?" Fred asked as he struggled to cut through the thick fireproof coat.

"Call me Jake, damnit. And fuck, it's as bad as when I broke my arm," he replied.

"Well, that's probably because your arm's broken," Fred said. "They'll need to do an X-Ray to confirm it, but I'm guessing the bullet might have hit the bone."

The ambulance rushed to the hospital, only to find another two ambulances waiting. Gunshot wounds, each of them. The entrance to the emergency room was crowded; there were stretchers waiting outside the door.

Nurses and doctors were rushing to and fro, trying to get as many patients assessed and treated as they could. Panacea wasn't here today, and neither was Eunoia. They knew that the capes worked on a volunteer basis; they had no obligation to work and the staff should have had no expectation of them, either.

On some days, the work was easy; the capes could simply fix patients almost as fast as they could be admitted. And sometimes, it was flooded with injuries from gang fights while the capes were busy with their own responsibilities.

Just another day in Brockton Bay.