There was an instant pause in F.D. chatter as all working fire crews fell into silence to hear Stoker's transmission start. Battalion Seven acknowledged a return. ##HT 51, this is 7. I note your priority. The channel's yours.## "We're at the core of the blast, 3rd and Fairfax. Point of origin, K-mart. The structure's totally collapsed. There are high apparent civilian casualties inside. A major underground fire is working with widespread subsidence. Our region's talk tower is destroyed. I've one Code I at my location. Also two fire crew who may be missing. We need a bug out and a search." Mike concluded. ##Responding all available units to the perimeter of the incident plus 500 feet. Kicking P.D. at you. Hang tight, and listen for him. Sound off every five with your status. ## said the far distant chief on the burning park's hillside. "10-4. Will do. HT 51 out." Mike Stoker felt a wave of relief wash over like a balm but he dared not relax. Adrenaline was still making him shake in a palsy everytime he moved. Thinking ahead, he cracked open a nearby hydrant with his jacket tool and let it run rampant in a protective buffering fountain of water that began pooling at the fringes, around their bus bench, in a noisy geyser. ::Signal and solution.:: he thought. "Gotta love fire department training." he said out loud, grinning at Marco. "Stoker, no way am I rolling in that water." Lopez tried to joke tightly, in pain. "You will if the street opens up straight into a fiery H*ll. Then we'll both be begging for it. You're forgetting how fast asphalt destabilizes when it heats up." "Uh, yeah. I'm not enjoying remembering that bit of trivia. Why are we here at the curb?" "It's the only thing not on fire." Mike said grimly, eyeing up the still normal pavement cracks stretching around and through their intersection along its seams. Marco's eyes soon shifted to the smoke column that was obscuring the sight of the YMCA. "Come on. Come on, guys. Do something smart. Tell us you're still alive and..." he broke off as a horrid image of immolation and flailing suddenly filled his head due to his overactive imagination. Lopez seriously began worrying about Gage and Kelly. And he began to look at his watch, counting down every crawling second a man might possibly spend while suffocating in a room full of ground gas. ************************************************** From:  patti keiper (pattik1@hotmail.com) Sent:  Sun 5/10/15 8:53 PM Subject: Fricasse' Captain Stanley nearly levitated out of the engine cab when the eastern sky lit up in a colossal explosion. "Oh, no, no, nonono!" he shouted in a rage as a nightmare scenario flowered into hideous life in front them.  He grabbed for his HT. "Engine 51 to Squad 51.".. he hailed.  *Hssst  spap*  There was only static. It was then he realized that their usual channel tower had been lobotomized by the force of the blast. ::I'm definitely not seeing it on the hill any more. Fine. There's a way around that. We'll do this old school.:: he mentally decided. Hank brought the engine to a stop along the nearest curb and lit up every light he had on his panel to advertise themselves as a beacon for any and all who might find them. Engine 51's feeble flashing lights under the setting afternoon sun became washed out and indistinguishable from the eerie red color of the flames licking up from the earth inside the sky scraper bowl of the downtown district far below them. Snatching a pull cord fast, he sounded the engine's airhorn in three short blasts to break Roy, in the squad, out of his stunned instinct to rush into the new fire zone. He saw Roy kick on the squad's emergency lights, too, and screech to a halt about sixty feet ahead of both a hydrant and a street side payphone.  They both met each other on the run in between their two vehicles. DeSoto had left the medical gear stowed. With him were pry tools and air tanks. "Yeah those. And let's find a working channel!" he ordered, keeping his eyes on the twisting fire ball rising from the heart of where his men were.  New flames began to sickeningly widen everywhere and rise to waist level above every concrete fissure and weak spot five hundred feet down the block. "Judas Priest! That's a monster pocket. Roy, how big would you say? He's gonna want to know a.s.a.p." DeSoto was breathing hard as he fitted the last of his breathing apparatus on over his face and tested it. "Two, maybe three blocks long.  And I'd say about twice as wide." "This is as good a staging area as any. We're on a rise with a good vantage point." Cap nodded, flipping off the dead channel and onto the only other local fire department one. He got on the horn. "Engine 51 to Hancock I.C." ##Go Engine 51.## replied the chief at the park fire. "Active subterranean burns are erupting roughly from La Brea Ave to La Cienega Blvd to Pico and Melrose, encompassing all of the Miracle Mile neighborhood. We're setting up a command post at.... Fairfax and Beverly one block west of what looks like a medical center.  I have a landline option and water." he reported. ##10-4. Origin point was K-Mart according to one of your men. He's with another. Two of yours have not reported in. I've sent S and R their way. You are I.C. for downtown. Maintain your post and start directing arriving fire to evacuate downtown inside any coordinates you stipulate. Make your medic head of triage in a sheltered area next to you. Use full scba gear. We don't know what gas is being fried.## came the order. "10-4, Battalion." Cap replied. "We're in our tanks. I copy assume Incident Commander Two with my paramedic as Triage One. Will affirm when setup to relay is complete." ## I've got Copters Two and Ten in the air to be our eyes, I.C.. One, out.## Roy looked up and saw a car hastily run up onto the sidewalk and onto a lawn. One of the driver's sleeves was on fire.  He and Cap grabbed out an asbestos blanket and got there just as the older man bailed out of his car. Quickly they snuffed it as they tackled him flat to handle it.

"Firemen?  I'm okay. I'm okay!! I think it was a cinder. What happened? It's raining fire down there!"  said the gray haired man, shucking off what was left of his scorched shirt to stop the heat. "Gas touched off in a basement. How many people have you seen injured, mister?" Roy asked. The man fought for breath but DeSoto knew it wasn't medically related. "Not one. Just ...just people like me trying to get out." "Okay.." said Cap, helping the man to his feet. "Get in your car and evacuate. Go 101 via Sunset. It's up to you whether or not to pick up anybody who's in trouble to take to a hospital along the way. Your safety comes first." "I know that.. I.. I'll do it anyway." said the driver. "God help any one who's still in the middle of that."  And then he was gone. One by one, then by the dozens, careening, tire squealing cars flew out of the downtown area, escaping the growing inferno forming along the cracks of the city. Nobody stopped by Engine and Squad 51. Cap and Roy began to feel very small very quickly. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "That was the K-mart I'll bet!" Johnny hissed, wincing from the aftermath of his ringing ears. Kelly shook his head to regain back the rest of his equilibrium. ::Once again, my helmet's done its job.:: But then fear took hold. "Marco and Stoker were there, Johnny. It was a basement check."   Chet cast his head about nervously as the power flickered around them and went out. Gage remained mute, hiding every reaction to that undeniable fact that he knew to be true. When the deafening sound of flaming debris falling onto the roof of the Y stopped, Chet and Johnny looked up from underneath the desk where they had hauled the screaming college receptionist. She was quiet now, and dazed. She didn't seem to see that the glass windows of the lobby surrounding them had spiderwebbed in the force of the explosion.  "uh.." she grunted, finally reaching up to her face. Kelly prevented her. "Gage, she's got a large cut on the side of her head." "Find something to put pressure on it. First check for any glass." he told Chet. Johnny took in a few deep head clearing breaths as he freed up his HT from one of his turnout pockets and fiddled with it.  "These are dead." he shared, stuffing it back into his jacket. "Way ahead of you, Gage. Maybe that's only for this block." Kelly snorted. Then he turned his attention back to their first victim. "Hey, Alex. Are you with me yet? Tell me how many people are here today. We're gonna need to know this so we can get everybody out."   "Ow.." she flinched as the curly haired fireman pressed a towel he had found from a used gym bin nearby over her cut. "Sorry. We have to stop the bleeding." he said to her. "Can you answer the question?" "Desk top." Alex shivered. "We've a guest sign-in sheet. And there's a staff check-in list, too." she whispered. "I'm so scared right now." The dusty red haired college student began to cry. "Hey.. There'll be no more loud noises,.. I can almost guarantee that from what I'm seeing." Gage said snatching down the slateboards with the names down into their shelter spot. He clicked on his flashlight. "Chet, all the sidewalks are burning. We're going to have to come up with another way outta here past the front door.  We've got another way to talk out though." he said, jabbing a gloved finger at the desk. "Got it." Chet said, grabbing the phone off of the desk and pulling it down to the floor where they could reach it to dial out. "You got her?" "Yeah." Gage said, beginning to examine Alex in a little more detail with his light. "Looks like this hemorrhaging's starting to clot up just fine." he said for her benefit. "Alex, are you hurting anywhere else? I'm a paramedic. I can do a lot about that if you are." "You're a what?" she mumbled. "I.... think I'm... I'm okay." "He's good with bandaids, miss." Kelly added. "Even I'd let him at it." "Maybe later.." she frowned. She hadn't missed the flirting earlier on, one iota, from Gage. "I've got a tone." Kelly said, holding up the phone receiver. He dialed out to L.A. "This is HT 51 in the YMCA off Fairfax and 3rd. Could you let our I.C. know that we're mobile and able and working on an escape route with the victims who are in this building? Yeah. Gage and Kelly of Station 51. ..OhHHhh. Our tower IS down. Yeah, we know about that. We'll check in occasionally on payphones and landlines when we find them. We're not injured. We've one girl around 22 who is, so far. A minor injury. Yeah, all right, every half hour to check in." He hung up the phone. Then he eyed up Gage as he finished taping up a dressing over Alex's laceration from a first aid kit he had found on the wall by the desk. "We're to use Hancock's channel only in emergencies. It's now captains and chiefs only."

"Terrific." Johnny scowled. "Maybe I should just use smoke signals instead of the phones. Might work better once the city services kick up into high gear." "Yeah, the lines are going to jam when folks catch on about what's happening for sure." Chet said. "Alex, do you think you can sit up back into your chair. We'll let you rest a minute or two before we start a building search." "Can't I just leave now? The medical center's just down the block. I feel fine." "It's not safe." Johnny said, shaking his head. "If you come with us, we could use your help since you know the layout of the place." "Okay." she said timidly. "I'll just go put my sweater on." she fake smiled half heartedly without enthusiasm or confidence. Kelly and Gage immediately shoved the desk over to the windows and climbed on top of it until they could look out above the shattered lattice cracks on all the lower panes of the windows. "Subsonics. Definitely a basement blast." Johnny commented to Chet. "Glass's intact by the ceiling." "Wind's east to west." Kelly added. "And steady. The column's all black." "What are you guys doing up there?" Alex asked once she had the two name slates and the first aid kit stuffed into her purse to carry along. ""We're reading the smoke changes." Johnny replied, eyeing up the deepening dusk sky. "What are you? Part Indian?" she said sarcastically, folding her arms over her elbows to hold some heat in. Gage grinned crookedly at her. "Yeah." And then he actually chuckled. "Okay, Chet. Time for the first sweep." He grabbed up a shovel from the closet to use if they needed it as a break through tool. "Alex, find a coat to put on over your clothes from a closet or from your locker. It'll protect you from anything sharp." Kelly suggested, pulling out his own flashlight. "I've got a rubberized rain coat." she offered. "That'll work." Gage said. "Where's the closest spot to check first for people?" he asked her. "Uh, the pool. Ned's got a swim class going on right now.  Five kids on the register." Alex answered. "Uh huh. And next?" Johnny said, reaching out for her hand to guide her over some debris on the floor in the dark. "The playground.  Steve has two sets of parents with one toddler each to coach." "Any others?" Gage prompted, halting in front of a closed door to feel all edges of it first for hidden fire heat. "No. Just us three and those folks." "Okay. Are you ready to go into the back?" Chet asked, reaching for her other hand. Fear suddenly gripped the young woman. Whatever calm she had gained being with Johnny and Chet suddenly evaporated. Alex shook her head, tearing up as she gripped their gloves in her icy cold fingers. "You'll do fine. We won't go anywhere dangerous." Johnny assured her.

************************************************** From: patti keiper <pattik1@hotmail.com> Subject: Bailed Butts Date: Sun 6/14/15 10:06 PM Mike Stoker made it a point to not step into the street where hundreds of panicking drivers continued to flee the downtown area. He kept himself between the curb and where Marco was seated on the bus bench at the corner of the intersection. He kept whirling in place, checking and double checking all the burning places on the asphalt surrounding them for signs that the ground underneath was beginning to sag and collapse. So far, the concrete was holding. His head literally shot up when he heard a familiar siren begin to grow from the west. It was Vince, weaving his way, Code 3, against the traffic flow of the mass evacuation, heading for their position. Mike switched to the squad's private police band. "Officer Howard. Sight for sore eyes. Is there still an escape route working? Marco's injured." he stated through the radio. Howard nodded his head as he angled the car towards the uptraffic flow and left his lights on and flashing to deflect any drivers away from the two firefighters. "We're fine that way!" he hollered, leaping out of the police car to open up the rear door so he could take on his riders. "How's he doing?" he said, moving his own radio so that it dangled from a strap on his wrist, freeing his hands up. "Getting a bit worse." Mike replied as Vince helped him support Lopez onto his feet. They carefully guided him into the rider cab of the squad with both of his arms over their shoulders.   "I'll head straight to Triage. I grabbed a med bag and oxygen before I came. They're in the back seat with you." he said, hurrying back to the driver's side. Howard got in, turned his siren back on, and took off, doing a U turn hastily to reorient with the evacuation route so he could weave in and out, and around traffic, at will, at a faster speed. Lopez's head began to lull so Mike tipped his head back over the edge of the seat below the rear window to keep his ability to breathe easier. "This is bad, Mike."  Marco gasped, trying to focus his eyes. "Not you." Stoker corrected. "Maybe out there perhaps. Now shut up and just breathe."  he said, fitting on an oxygen mask over Marco's bruised face. "I'm going to look for other issues. Yelp if I find one." he said, and began to test the extent of Marco's injuries by probing touch. Vince got on his squad radio and keyed up the mic. "Squad 9 to IC-2." he radioed. ##IC-2 to Squad 9, go ahead.##  came a transmission from Hank.

"Sticking like a tick to L.A. County Fire." she snorted efficiently, picking up the red phone again to dial out.  "I think we've enough clout to nab a Battalion's ear long enough to arrange that." "We'd better have." Kel growled.  "Tell the chief I require direct expert combat injury experience for his downed man. That ought to move a few mountains." Dixie grinned sharply in appreciation of his plan. "Using the words 'blown up' amply." "Works for me." Dr. Brackett replied. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Roy glanced up at the sight of Vince's patrol car arriving with its reds on.  On instinct, he automatically stepped in the direction of Squad 51. "Park it." Cap warned quietly. "You're in charge. You're going to have to let someone else handle Marco." "I was just going to set up for them." DeSoto ansed, watching Drs. Kiley and Welby rush over to intercept and open the rear passenger door. He saw Consuelo Lopez quickly flag over two helpers carrying a spineboard from Staging. "We delegate. We don't do, in these roles." Hank said apologetically. "Your job's the bigger picture. Marco's here. You're going to have to be happy with just that." Stanley said firmly. "No. Turn your back. If you can't see what's going on with him, you won't find yourself getting distracted.  You're already messed up because the others are still partially in hot water." "Flames more like." DeSoto mumbled, finally tearing his eyes away from the activity surrounding their friend to meet Cap's tightly controlled ones. "Hush. You heard Battalion. Gage and Chet have checked in. They're still actively on duty. And Stoker will be over here telling us any nitty gritty paramedic thing you wanna know before you can spit twice." DeSoto sighed in frustration. "But--" "Be. My. Head."  Cap quietly warned. "I find myself in those shoes you're currently feeling cramped in, all of the time. Marco's breathing, Roy. I can see that from here. You'll find out soon that that's enough of a fact to last you until the end of this call. Now get back to Check-In. Looks like there are three green tags and a yellow waiting to see you."

"Okay. If you say so, Cap. Can I ask who's got him?"  DeSoto asked unhappily, angry. "Brice is coming." "That's good enough for me." he said finally, returning back to his place by the side of the fire truck strewn boulevard. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The YMCA was getting hotter. But Chet Kelly knew that it wasn't the building that was burning. The heat was coming from the ground beneath their feet. "Bit of a hot foot, eh, Alex?" he joked as Gage, he and the college aged girl receptionist made their way down the dark hallway. Johnny stepped on Kelly's shoe. Hard. "Nothing like a foundation slab three feet thick to stand on. Solid as a first class WW II bunker. We're perfectly safe." he grinned widely. It was entirely fake, engineered to damage control the hellbent firefighter's humor that Chet had let loose to blow off some mental steam. ::That certainly wasn't any emotional steam.:: Gage fumed inside of his head. ::We're not in enough danger yet for him to do any of that.:: The wide eyed stunned look on Alex's face that had been beginning to form went back the way it had come.  She giggled nervously. "Too bad we can't all just jump into the pool. I'm sure the water's still nice and cool." Johnny and Chet's heads snapped around suddenly, and they looked at each other with Oh-Sh*t shock.  Gage suddenly grabbed the girl's hand and began hurrying them along, following the signs leading the way to the inside swimming pool. "Come on, we gotta hurry. Move!" he urged. "W-What?" the girl stuttered, trying to master her roller-coastering sense of alarm. "We forgot. You guys have a chlorine pool here." Johnny explained. "If any part of the gas that exploded earlier's methane, there's a chance that sunlight can set it off in a chain reaction that'll blow up again." Alex let out a frightened sob. "Oh no. Ned and the kids! I'm sure he's got them in the water. It's in our protocol to get everybody wet if there's no escape possible in a fire." Chet got to the door they needed and tried to shoulder his way through it. It didn't work. "Try the key?" Gage suggested, looking at Alex. "I don't have it. Ned's got it." Both firefighters renewed their efforts to break through. "Something's blocking the way in." Kelly hissed, working hard. "It's gotta be the door jam. The explosion must have warped it. Let's try the shovel as a pry bar." Gage suggested. "Chet.. They've got side glass in there..." he said urgently. "I can see the sunset." "Is that enough?" Chet grunted, as he and Johnny strained to force the hinges open. "We've got ample heat." Gage hissed back, his face turning even redder with effort. "It's gonna be Chloromethane and Hydrogen Chloride. Won't be fun breathing in there if it's already started... *gasp* chain reacting. Brown gas first, right over the water's surface. Then--"   They both worked desperately harder until both their muscles and voices were screaming. The aluminum framed pool entrance door gave way with a bang against the wooden wall panelling and the two of them staggered inside, dropping the shovel with a loud clang onto the pool's tile decking. They saw that Ned and the five children were indeed in the shallow end all huddled together in a knot of arm hugs. They were just beginning to cough. But they were in the shade and out of the worst of the almost hidden chemical reaction. "Ned! Get out of the pool! Get them all out now!"  Johnny warned the male counselor. "We'll help you!" Alex said, gesturing for the kids to come to the ladder so she could help them up. Chet Kelly busied himself for ten seconds, hurtling a sturdy steel garbage can against an exterior glass wall that was facing away from any westerly direction, away from the sun. The glass shattered and immediately, outside air flooded in to dilute the forming gasses that no one could smell, but could only see as the slightest coffee colored haze on top of the water that was slowly writhing like a boiling froth.

"Hurry! Go this way!" Kelly warned Ned.  Snatching up the last child from the water, Chet ran with the others through the hole he had made through the deck window.  Looking back as they ran for the playground and the others they wanted to find, he saw the dangerous muddy gas dissipate as silently as it had formed just at the same moment the sun slipped below the horizon over the mountains. "We're out far enough.." Gage panted, checking each frightened crying kid out in turn for any wheezes or asthma signs. He found none. "It's over. The stuff stopped." Chet agreed. "What was that all about?" Ned startled, grabbing up a few abandoned towels on the patio sun chairs for the children to use in the growing night chill. "I thought we'd be safe in the water. The sidewalk out here's burning." Chet stooped over, catching his breath as he flagged over the last YMCA staffer with the two sets of parents and toddlers from where they had taken refuge up a climbing apparatus of domed monkey bars to get off the ground. "Two bad gases." he said, holding up two fingers. "Were mixing... You had no idea..." he puffed. "We were this close to having another explosion.." Gage added, breathing hard with relief as he held up pinching fingers. "J*sus!" paled Steve as he took the slate Alex handed him to double check their attendance roster. "Can we get out of here?" "We're gonna have to wait for full darkness. Believe it or not, by the Y's still the safest place to be with its thicker floor base concrete.  Nightfall will let us see the fire glow where the gas is coming through these ground cracks. Maybe then we'll see a safe enough way out to our fire trucks." Chet considered their options. "Up on the roof's gonna be too cold for the kids. The wind's picking up." "Too smoky for a chopper pick up. No place to land." Gage added. "Let's call for Search and Rescue to bug us out. They've had more time to check out all of the blocks that are still burning." "Where's the nearest fire door?" Chet asked, turning to Ned, Steve and Alex. "Behind that tree." Steve answered. "Why?" "We're breaking our way back inside to get to the same front lobby phone we used before to summon a ride out of here." Kelly replied. "I'll smash open a few vending machines. We could all use a little food and a lot of soda." suggested Alex. "Atta girl. Now that's what I call getting into survival mode." Gage grinned at her professionally.   At Steve's dismay, Ned just shrugged. "Insurance'll pay for it." Then he followed Gage and Kelly, herding their charges in the right direction for the fire door.   Alex smiled back at Johnny as they walked. "You guys can skip the force tooling this time. I've got a key for this one." ************************************************** From:  patti keiper pattik1@hotmail.com   Sent: Sun 8/23/15 11:34 PM Subject: Unexpected.. A victim awoke in the heart of all the chaos, only a few hundred yards away from the basement that had self destructed in the ground gas explosion three hours earlier. The woman blinked grit and blood out of her eyes as she tried to suck in more than just a partial breath once again. A fallen fire extinguisher was the only thing keeping a heavy steel rafter beam from crushing her to death the rest of the way.   All she could think about was the fact that her pinky and ring fingers on both of her hands were still tingling. ::That's cervical damage. Or at least.. some really bad pressure on a neck nerve. :: she thought analytically to herself. ::That's definitely what Roy would say to me.... if he was here.:: It had taken Roy DeSoto's wife almost three hours after Marco and Stoker had fled Kmart, to wake up fully and figure out exactly what had happened to her. Joanne had long ago given up shouting over the sound of the angry sidewalk flames as they hungrily consumed the upwelling ground gas coming out of the earth. She had been in one of the fitting rooms, zipping up the back of a really fine sun dress. That's what probably saved her life. She had had two walls between her and the main department store space's expansive window glass. They had offered her some protection from most of the raw force of the explosion and all of the flying shards' debris.

Joanne had learned that there was absolutely no chance of being heard from where she was trapped. Her best yell didn't even penetrate the obstacles and echo anywhere else that was bigger.  She realized that she would have to wait until rescuers searched out the tiny room she was inside of within the shattered footprint of the store. A crumbling piece of the roof began to rain down more choking dust into Joanne DeSoto's face at a wind gust through a new hole. She could see the guttering glow of the night sky as it warred with some faint fire light. Stars and sparks both, began flickering in the tangling smoke above her. "Oh, why did I have to go shopping today of all days? I should have stayed home with the kids after school." she gasped as the pain in her neck from the weight of the fallen beam grew.  Futilely she tried to push it off with numb palms that were slippery with sweat from the heat. But Roy's wife had only succeeded in shifting it to a more painful pinching as it lay on top of her heavily bruised throat. The sudden increased pressure made her heartbeat slow down to a crawl. "Uggghh. Not again." she gurgled, feeling another black out coming on. "Can't.. br--" She kicked out, fighting back to consciousness and one of her gym shoes connected with something soft and yielding. Joanne suddenly stilled, her horror blossoming. Her struggling mind figured out exactly what the obstacle was. "Oh, I'm so sorry.." she murmured. "I didn't know you were.. there..." she whispered. As she had rested that first wakeful hour, she had identified three people who were lying dead next to her in her particular jumbled mass of debris. Her foot had just found a fourth person, nearly unrecognizable except for the soft give of their body. The fresh surge of blood tang and sour stool in the air confirmed another disturbed corpse and increased her nausea.  Joanne struggled to breathe. Without ever having experienced it before in her life, she knew that it was the stench of death. Several long minutes later, Joanne fought down some stupidly irrational rising panic, and worked once again to stabilize the beam that was holding her prisoner. ::Why don't I hear anybody from the fire department?:: she thought weakily as she began to twist a few wire hangers together to make a hook with some reach. ::Is the collapse zone really that big around me? Those sirens are so far away..:: She began to pant, her suffocation deepening. ::Did I tell Craig Brice where I was going on the payphone earlier? I-I can't r-remember..:: Joanne DeSoto began to cry softly in the darkness as she fumbled and dropped her careful crafting. Her fingers had gone completely numb.   She felt her whole body begin to rag doll and the world faded away in a flood of tears and retinal blood. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Marco Lopez began to pant, despite wearing oxygen. "No, don't let go." said Dr. Steven Kiley as he bent over the technicians removing the firefighter's clothes to conduct a full hands on trauma assessment. "Keep your gut tight for just a little bit longer. We're rigging up a MAST suit to help you out." Mike Stoker tipped back Marco's head a little farther for more breathing room. "Did he give up respiring on you at any time?" Steven asked 51's engineer.

"Here are our notes." Nurse Consuelo said, passing off her vital signs sheet carbon with the doctors' treatment steps, medication dosages and time stamps. "We'll save the original for his coworker paramedics to eyeball. They're probably chafing at the bit about it as we speak." she said, tearing off the color coding on Marco's triage tag to yellow. "That they are, ma'am. The exact man you want to see for delivering that to is Roy DeSoto. He's by Engine and Squad 51 right over there." Craig replied. "I'll take it." volunteered Stoker. "I'm freed up until I see my captain for new orders." "Brice. Any updates.." "..will be passed along to Captain Stanley,..er  I.C.2,  expeditiously." Craig promised. "I'll hold you to that. See you back at the station." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The sound of a very loud EKG monitor's irregular bleeping startled Marco out of his drugged stupor. "Ahhh!...Is that me?" "Yes, Mr. Lopez. It's nothing to worry about. You're reading NSR with vagal artifacts." replied Brice when Marco decided to open his eyes and join the living.   "What does that mean, Brice? I don't speak paramedic." he sighed wearily. "It means your heart thinks it got the wind knocked out of it like your lungs did earlier when you hit the wall." Craig replied frankly. "Excuse me. I've got Rampart on the line." ##Answer me, Brice!## came Kel's order through the biocom. ##What's the hold up?## "Our patient asked a question about his cardiac findings, Rampart. I answered him." There was a short silence on the other end of the biophone. ##Well, that's an improvement. What's your E.T.A.?## "Three minutes exactly." ##Take another set of vitals and report back to Nurse McCall with those in two minutes. I'm going to arrange for a second opinion on all of your reported findings.## Marco chuckled muzzily. "I trust those other doctors. Why doesn't Dr. Brackett trust those other doctors?" Brice didn't even bat an eye as he covered the phone receiver. "It's because they don't work together on a regular basis. It's a character flaw."  Then he got back on the frequency. "10-4, Rampart. Stand by for another strip on Lead II." ##Standing by.## Marco almost laughed out loud. But then he remembered his much abused renal plexus and didn't tempt fate. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Johnny and Chet jumped down off of Urban Search and Rescue's Engine 103 in the Triage area.  "Thanks for bailing our butts out, guys. We'll take charge of these YMCA folks and get them processed." The lieutenant who had driven the USAR's Quint, leading the way for the evacuation bus loaded with their victims, waved a hand and left to go back to Staging for a reassignment. Chet Kelly helped Alex the receptionist down the steps of the bus. "You're first, miss. There are doctors right over there who can take a look at your head cut." he said, tying on a green torn triage tag to her shirt from a stack of tags a fireman handed out to him in passing. "What about the others, the parents and kids?" she asked, still pumped up. "They're no longer your responsibility. They're ours. See?" Johnny Gage replied, waving over Nurse Consuelo who suddenly appeared with a handy wheel chair for Alex. "Everybody gets checked out. My paramedic partner's Head Of Triage, and he's not going to take no for answer. So sit and relax." he invited.  "We insist." he said when she didn't immediately do so. Consuelo raised her eyebrow at Gage about Alex. "She's minor." he shared. "Maybe some gas effects on these kids and one of those male YMCA staffers. Hydrogen Chloride and ground methane." he volunteered.

"What about you two?" she asked. "We're okay. Look, we've got to go touch base with our captain. And I've got to see Roy about a friend of ours who probably came in here to see you." "You mean Fireman Lopez? Good last name. It's the same as mine." "Uh, yes ma'am. But that's not exactly what I--"  Johnny stammered. "He's already shipped out." she replied, grinning happily. "Already?  What was his condition?" Gage gaped, fearing that the worst came for Marco such as his becoming a red tag priority transport. "Oh, we found him moderately shocky, but after treatment, he left as very stable." the nurse replied. "That's .. really good to know." Chet Kelly piped up, visibly relieved. "Come on, Chet. We're done. No offense ma'am,..Alex.." Johnny said, being diplomatic. "...but we've got to run." Kelly finished, "Duty calls, love." he grinned at the receptionist. "I hope we never meet again." he said, leaning into Alex's ear softly. She smiled at Chet, broadly. Kelly dragged Johnny off with him to report in to Captain Stanley and Accountibility before Gage could counter his excellent one liner invitation with one of his own. ************************************************** From:  patti keiper (pattik1@hotmail.com) Sent: Sun 9/06/15 12:12 PM Subject:  Shared Wings Full darkness had descended, but the night was still hot and stifling. Mike Stoker spied where Roy DeSoto and Hank Stanley were standing at the edge of the triage area along the avenue. A row of ambulances were waiting to take in victims, with their lights flashing to ward off any civilian traffic still distracted by the disaster, near their loading zone.  Hancock Park's fire flare was dying down, glowing eerily blue in what street lights still had power around the La Brea neighborhood.   The usual land/sea breeze had situated itself in for the night into a steady easterly direction. The engineer saw that air bottles were no longer needed around Station 51's streetside staging area because of it. The fog meant guaranteed fresh air. The sight of his stationmates was a relief even greater than knowing that he and Marco had made it to safe ground.  "Cap!" Stoker shouted. Hank looked up from the row of handy talkies he had inherited with his position as second Incident Commander that were lined up on the Engine's running board. "Hey, pal. How bad is it?" he asked eagerly, for news of the downtown earth fire. Another voice cut in eagerly from around the back of Engine 51.     "Never mind that, how's Marco?" Gage demanded, with Chet following close at his heels. "He's--" Mike began. Gage interrupted him, spotting the care notes in Stoker's hand. He snatched them up. "Well, why didn't you say so?" he said, reading Dr. Kiley and Welby's notes quickly. "Ah,... a yellow tag. He's already with Brice. Chet, I think we can relax now." Johnny sighed, ignoring his captain and Stoker's bemused expressions. A third voice started up. It was Roy's. "Really?... He's..he's going to be fine?" DeSoto stuttered, taking the sheets from his partner's grip in ginger disbelief. He finally summoned enough bravery to start eyeballing what the doctors had written down. "Says right there." Gage grinned. "Let me see!" said Chet, grabbing the notes out of Roy's hands impatiently. "Kelly, you can't read those." said Johnny, admonishing. "They're in doctor speak. Give them back." "I'll take those." interjected Hank neatly, rescuing both his authority and Marco's triage papers. "Used to forms. I can read anything."   "But.." Chet protested. "I'll translate for you, Chet. Roy, read over my shoulder." Cap suggested. "Fastest way to get your answers, around this guy." he said, pointing at Kelly. Chet made a face at his captain.   Hanging his head, Kelly resigned himself to fetching out five water bottles for everybody from a cooler Cap had rerouted from Rest and Recuperation. Mike Stoker accepted his and cracked it opened. "Thanks, Chet." Cap finally opened his mouth. "Awake. Breathing. Pain controlled. Done. Now, Mike. Give me that report on that fire." he said with exasperation, smacking the sheets against Roy's chest so he'd take them out of his hands forever. DeSoto just smiled, agreeing with the outcome Cap summarized without speaking. He fielded Chet's dissatisfaction with getting just four words on Marco's condition deftly. "Ah, Chet. Come here.. we can go over these point for point. Drink your water. Then I gotta get back to work." Mike Stoker, Gage and Cap were already in deep discussion behind them. "It's a huge area, involving even pavement structures. Access is going to be an issue." the engineer supplied.

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