When the Devil Dances

“Don’t drop the dummy,” she whispered, grabbing it by the shoulder of the bunker-coat and pulling it up to a sitting position. The head flopped to the side and the arms dangled, all of the appendages getting in the way no matter what she did. Finally she maneuvered herself behind it, her arms under the dummy’s, right hand gripping the front of the bunker-coat and left hand locked on her right wrist.

With a grunt she straightened her legs, getting the dummy up, and then just paused, trying not to sway. The dummy was taller and much heavier than she was and just staying on her feet was a challenge. Finally, she leaned carefully backwards and started dragging.

Every step was an agony and a struggle. There was no momentum to build up, that evil enemy gravity prevented anything along those lines. She just had to drag it step by painful step. Two thirds of the way there, her grip on her wrist slipped, but a quick snatch with the left hand got a handful of bunker-coat and the dummy didn’t, quite, fall. Now all she had was its coat and her Nomex gloves had gotten slippery with sweat so maintaining her hold was problematic. But she could still do it. She was nearly there.

Then disaster hit. She was within ten feet of the line, almost completely done, when she felt the first snap give way.

The dummy, unfortunately, had been used for thousands of drags. It had been lifted and carried and hauled hither and yon and always in the same bunker-coat. A bunker-coat which chose that moment to decide to open up.

She felt the snaps give way and frantically started scrabbling at the front of the coat, trying to get a handhold anywhere. The dummy poised for a moment on her knee, but then her last handhold slipped and it hit the floor.

She just stood there and… looked at it. The dummy was on the floor. She’d dropped the dummy. After all that…

She wanted to scream. She wanted to beg for another chance. And she knew that if she did either one, she’d never be accepted for another evaluation. So she just stood there, tears streaming down her face, unable to move as one of the examiners came over, buttoned up the bunker-coat and lifted the dummy into a shoulder carry to reposition it.

Finally, Chief Connolly came over and took her by the arm. She led her over to a bench and pulled off her helmet.

“There’ll be other events,” Connolly said. “All you have to do is as well as you did and don’t drop the dummy.”

“How did you know?” Wendy whispered.

“I didn’t,” Connolly answered turning to watch the next candidate. “I jinxed you. I knew you had screwed up your courage for the rope sequence so I decided to throw you a curve on the dummy. I didn’t fiddle with the buckles, though. That was just bad luck.”

“Bad luck,” Wendy whispered. “That’s the story of my life.”

“And that’s why I jinxed you,” Connolly said calmly. “You don’t really have your head around this yet. It’s all a game to you, even when it’s tough. I don’t want anybody going into the fire with me that’s in it for the ‘fun.’ Or the uniform. Or anything, but the burning desire to kill the flame and save the people.”

Connolly turned back to look at her and shook her head. “You’re still playing fireman, Wendy. That’s what your psych profile says; that’s why you’re not in Security either. You’re not sure that you can do it, you’re not sure you can handle it and you want to play at it for a while to see if you like it. I don’t want anybody in the department who’s just playing. I don’t want anyone who isn’t perfectly, completely, confident and competent. We’ve got too big a responsibility for ‘might.’ ”

Wendy looked up at her for a moment and nodded her head. “Fuck you.” She pointed her finger at the firechief as she opened her mouth. “If you say another fucking word I will kick your ass,” she whispered, getting to her feet and then getting to her feet again to stand on the bench so she could look the taller firefighter in the eye.

“Let me tell you about bad luck, Chief ‘I am God’ Connolly,” she whispered again, carefully stripping off the bunker gear. “Bad luck is knowing, not worrying, not wondering, but knowing that the Posleen are going to kill you and then almost assuredly eat you. Bad luck is having every single member of your family, everyone that you are going to school with, everyone you have ever known, killed in one day. Bad luck is seeing your life wiped out in an instant.

“You came here from Baltimore before it was even invested,” Wendy continued softly. “You’ve never seen a Posleen except on television. You’ve never seen them in their waves, cresting the hills and filling every corner of your town. You’ve never heard the crack of railgun rounds overhead or had your ears ringing from missiles slamming into the houses around you.