 |
 |
|
 |
|
|
| PAGE TWENTY THREE |
|
"No, doc.. He's NKA on just about everything. Well, everything except for an intolerance for putting up with one of Chet Kelly's jokes." Gage quipped. "Oh very funny, Gage. Would that be like ah, say your own marked intolerance for any strikes aimed at you from the Phantom??" Kel grinned. The banter meant the firehouse gang was starting to relax again. "I heard about that whole one upmanship going on, from Dixie, a while ago. Who finally won?" "I did." "I did." said Johnny and Chet simultaneously. They made sharp stares, glaring at each other and then let they both ..let ...loose. "I had the last word!" Chet insisted. "No I did! Remember my very very slick "Are we going to eat off the table?" delivery line? Man, Chet. You fell for that completely, hook line and sinker. And don't deny it. The whole gang were my witnesses.. Isn't that right Marco..?" and he patted Lopez's shoulder despite the fireman still being unconscious. Mike Stoker piped up. "Chet was the last one to "one up" there Johnny, if I recall." "No, I thought he was er, I was.." Gage cocked his jaw, thinking back. He wasn't quite sure about that fact himself and it showed in his eyes. "Sorry, Gage. But the Phantom match, I do believe, went to Kelly." Cap said, with an amused smirk. "I wasn't directly involved or targetted with water bombs in that particular week of shenanigans, but I did follow all the action VERY closely, back then." "You did?" "You did?" John and Chet said as one. They looked at each other once more but this time, in complete and utter surprise. Then Chet asked. "Hey Cap. How did you know?" "Well, usually, all the water in the station is either in the Engine tanks or the sink when I don't have someone stuck on mop detail." he steepled his hands together over his chest as he thought back "Annnddd I .... noticed the dry, hot Santa Ana air that month suddenly got suspicious humid, only inside the station." Kelly and John both flushed red when they realized they had been outfoxed by Cap the observer, despite their efforts to hide the misadventure. "Didn't take long to find out what you two were up to.... at all.." Cap said, pleased as punch. Johnny complained after he picked up his jaw off his chest. "Well why didn't you stop him from doing all that from the beginning?"he pointed at Chet. He winced when that pointing hand was his post surgical one. "I must have spent thirty dollars in laundering bills and re-polishing streetside shoeshines that week." Chet sniggered but immediately stifled it. "Well, Gage.. Let's just say I had money riding on the outcome.." Hank trickled. Chet and Gage's eyes both widened in surprise at their captain. Stoker couldn't wait to elaborate. "He made out like a bandit, boys, while you two were playing Phantom. Called your every mutual moves play by play." |
|
"Oh- oh yeah?" Chet said, gaining back a bit of timid bravado in the face of finding out about his superiorly ranking boss's less than honorable conduct. " Just how much did you win off us, Cap? We do have a right to know.. You know, for the loss of face we suffered, the butt we must have been in every other shifts' table jokes as you gave them gritty details behind our backs.." Kelly huffed low in his throat. "Pah.. I'll just bet C shift must have been the ones who ran that betting pool that Cap cleaned up in." Cap grinned evilly around his O2 cannula as he suddenly shook his head slowly in the negative.. "Kelly,.." he tapped his ample nose, twice at the curly haired fireman. "...about the winnings.." he chuckled. "And...hate to break it to ya fellas, but...." and he took in a big satisfied breath, "I was that all secret kingpin.." Johnny and Chet fell utterly speechless. Even Roy's eyes got larger and he blinked, almost sticking himself with Marco's sedative syringe that he was holding onto, to document usage spent, before he caught on to what he was doing, and reset it carefully back onto the table. Captain Stanley smiled at his audience. "You gotta remember, a captain's ALWAYS on top of any situation.." Hank said with aplomp. "At a fire, or.." he said with mystery,...".. just waiting for one.." With that, he turned over in his stokes and went back to sleep. Dr. Brackett chuckled as he snugged up Marco's blankets to his neck when he was convinced the ill fireman had good control over his breathing and airway on his own. "Glad I work in a hospital.." "Oh? You mean, Morton, Dix and Joe, don't get you with zingers like this one every so often doc?" Gage asked, lacing his fingers behind his head. He grunted when he knocked his injured hand against the wall. He had forgotten about it. "No. Doesn't happen. Everyone's always too busy to do that sort of thing being always up to their eyeballs in emergency cases, Johnny." and he grinned. Dr. Brackett got up from Marco's side to make a note on his runsheet about the new rash spreading on Lopez's body. He made it a point to keep it the first thing to mention to the CDC team, when they arrived. And soon, the long awaited for chartered helicopter.. zoomed over the gaping hole in the roof of the shattered fire station to land on the boulevard. ------------------------------- |
|
|
|
****************************** From : "Roxy Dee" <laterrapincabesa@hotmail.com> Subject : [emergencytheaterlive]The Grade Four~~ Date : Sat, 02 Nov 2002 08:41:36 +0000 In a wash of dust and debris, the foot rungs touched earth and five people got out, loaded to the hilt with sophisticated supplies and from the back, a mobile pallet of lab equipment from the chopper's cargo hatch. Police got them all through the clamoring press surrounding the station and allowed them to go into the barricaded off back yard. Once there, two of the five member team suited up in biohazard gear for entering the station, while the others stayed back to set up support tents and a rudimentary decontamination station out of the sight of public eyes. Captain Stone looked up from his place in the center of triage command and his thoughts turned once more to his fellow firemen held hostage not by smoke or fire, but by a germ.::Just how the h*ll are we gonna fight this ?:: Troubled deeply, he turned back to his organizational operations and tried not to feel helpless. He mentally hoped Captain Stanley would keep him updated on any news as it happened. The advance team's leader, a smallish, petite woman, picked her way through the fallen rafters and bricks in the garage to the bunk room. She went without preamble, to Dr. Brackett's side hefting a field autopsy kit, and a heavily sealed liquid nitrogenated container labelled extreme biohazard. This she set safely down in the middle of a tabletop. Kel looked up seeing them. "About time you got here, doctors. Marco's symptomology's advanced beyond your projections." "Sorry. Didn't count on breaking through a military line at the airport. The Guard was called out to maintain order because of your recent developing environmental setback. " the woman replied, grinning through her plastic face piece. Kel grinned. "Is that what you microbiologists call an earthquake?" The ginger haired, french braided woman looked up, setting the rest of analysis gear onto an empty bed. "It can be, to us in the CDC, that can also mean the fact that this contagion might have succeeded in jumping an international border." Roy and Gil and Craig had looked up with alacrity from their medical monitoring just a minute before and were still stunned at the sight of the fully suited doctor. ::My god. This is more serious than I realized.:: Roy thought, eyeing up the woman's white bio-tunic, clearly air sealed. She had on a SCBA tank but her mask was not in place beneath her transparent hood. |
|
Then, the second member of the CDC's First In team joined her, having come from where he had placed microlab instruments in the lamp lit kitchen. "Jamie, the kitchen area looks intact, I'll have our team give it a wash down and have it covered. I've already told them to place our mobile lab in there.." "Understood, Steven.." she replied, her very blue eyes, glancing up at him. Then Roy overheard something else which made him glad Marco was still comatose. The woman scientist eyed up her study subject with the skill of an analyst, noting the rash, the abnormal EKG and the fluids hung over Marco's head, and what percentage O2 he was on while she spoke. "First thing, we're going to confirm or refute the theory of Mr. Lopez truly being our Patient X in the U.S. as the boy was for his country in Mexico City. We've brought pathological tissue samples from the Lopez child to verify any infection commonality in both him and Marco. So far, you'll be pleased to know, Dr. Brackett, that we've learned the disease most likely isn't transmitted by airborne vectors.." she said looking up. "Three of the victims down with the illness have no sign of insect bites." |
|
| ||||
| ||||
| ||||
 | ||||
|
|