CHAPTER 4

“Sometimes I think the Feed tries to rile people up on purpose.” A driver named Holland’s voice echoed off the tile walls.

Tucked fifty feet away in the shower at the very back of the locker room with my back under the high-pressure stream of water and I could still hear his loud ass. He was talking to another smoke eater named Feingold, and I guess they didn’t realize how much acoustics the locker room had.

“Yeah, man,” Feingold said. “But one of those arsonists was a refugee.”

“They’re not refugees.”

“Sure they are. They left their cities to come here because we have things they want. I bet you anything the other two aren’t originally from here either.”

“Feingold, you’re from fucking Kansas.”

“Well,” a long moment passed, “that was years ago. This is a new problem.”

“If it doesn’t involve a dragon,” Holland said, “it isn’t my problem.”

“That’s not very compassionate.”

Exiting the shower, I used my favorite big, fluffy towel to dry off. When I first came to Smoke Eater headquarters, I was worried about the coed locker room. Some female smokies even roomed with men during rookie training. Brannigan had shared a room with Captain Jendal. When I told Jendal – Naveena, I call her – that I didn’t feel comfortable about it, she said she understood my feelings, but that it was a way to make things fair for everybody and to instill that we were a unified force. We were to behave professionally. If two dudes could room together without fucking, so could members of opposite sexes. Several smoke eaters are transgender, too, so it just made it easier to say, ‘This is where we shit, shower, and shave. Period.’

Although we can be crude, smoke eaters are held to an extremely high standard. Harassment of any kind would be handled with extreme prejudice. What that meant exactly, I didn’t know. It never came up. But heaven help you if you ever failed to put the toilet paper on the dispenser roll.

I was about to get dressed when Holland’s voice carried through the locker room. “Holy shit, have you read your Feed messages?”

“I don’t ever look at that stuff,” said Feingold. “Why? What’s going on?”

“Look.”

I didn’t even have to guess. They were looking at Brannigan’s message about me getting promoted. I hadn’t even looked at it yet. I keep my holoreader in my locker when I’m on duty. Too many smokies have gotten their devices burnt or smashed carrying them around in their pockets on dragon calls. Being a captain would change that. I’d have to keep it on me all the time.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Feingold said.

I wrapped the towel around my torso and crossed my arms. A hot ache formed in my chest. Feingold and Holland didn’t even know I was back here. I didn’t like being talked about, but if people were going to talk shit, I’d rather it hear out of their own mouths and have them look me in the eye while they did it. So, slowly, I walked toward where my fellow smoke eaters were having their little bitch session.

“I know,” said Holland. “It’s such bullshit. You hear what she did today?”

“Everybody’s talking about it. I’m sure the smokies in Memphis have heard about it. If I’d known wrecking a Slayer and nearly getting your crew eaten was how you got promoted, I would have done it already.”

“I’m surprised that fat ass of hers can fit into a power suit.”

They laughed, and I picked up my pace. All I had on was a towel, but I didn’t give a damn. I’d kick their asses anyway.

“And they promoted the bald chick, too!”

“Let me ask you something,” said Holland. “Do you think these women smokies can do the job just as good as us?”

I rounded the corner and leaned against a locker. “I’ve breathed more smoke, slain more scalies, and trapped more wraiths in a week than either of you two punk bitches have done in your entire career.”

Holland was dressed and straddling a bench, while Feingold was naked and held a towel in front of his junk. Both of them snapped their heads toward me, eyes wide. Feingold’s towel slipped. He cupped his privates with both hands.

“And that’s not even counting the robots I chopped up when Rogola attacked headquarters and tried to kill us all,” I said. “Remember that? Oh, wait. You wouldn’t. Because you weren’t there.”

Holland swallowed. Feingold remained frozen with a handful of nothing.

“And like you saw in Brannigan’s message, I’m now a captain. That’s right, me. A black woman whose stellar booty fits perfectly in her power suit thankyou-very-much, who has no tolerance for bullshit and who now outranks you. So I’m going to give you three options.” For emphasis, I raised a finger for each. “I can either write up your asses, kick your asses, or both of your asses can go wash every single apparatus in the bay right now. What’s it going to be?”

Feingold gathered up his towel and fought Holland to be the first out the door. Both of them shouted, “Sorry, Captain!” as they left.

I sat on the bench and sighed.

A while back, Brannigan had sent me a holobook about women in the fire service. Holland and Feingold’s gum-flapping was nothing compared to what the first female firefighters had to go through. For them, every single day was hell, just to do the job they loved.

In the old days, when a woman firefighter would walk into a firehouse kitchen, all of the men would walk out. The women were ostracized, hazed, had their reputation shit on. Everyone said they were too weak to do the job, even civilian women.

Thinking about it now made me feel guilty for wanting to leave smoke eating. Those women firefighters didn’t quit and they had to fight against more than just dissatisfaction.

“The Captain is in the house!” the deep voice boomed through the locker room.

I looked up and there he was, Afu Kekoa, my exboyfriend. His green duty shirt stretched across his chest as his dark tattoos peeked out from the collar and short sleeves. He’d tied his long black hair into a bun. That always used to turn me on.

Used to. Right.

I rolled my eyes at him and trudged back to my locker to get dressed. The propellerheads were waiting and I really didn’t want to get caught up in an exlover’s spat.

Afu followed on my heels. “Hold up, teine.”

Teine. It was one of the only Samoan words I remembered.

“I’m not your girl,” I said, slipping on panties under my towel. Afu had seen me naked a hundred times, but I’d revoked that privilege.

“What’s with the attitude?” he said. “You broke up with me, remember? I’m not the one acting like we can’t still be friends.”

I turned my back to him as I pulled a duty shirt over my head. “Friends don’t go tell the chief that I lost my passion for the job.”

“Ah, shit.”

The locker room was silent as I finished dressing, tying off the last boot. Afu could have walked out, as far as I knew, even though his heavy steps were hard to miss. The man was built like a hover-train. But when I turned around, he was still standing there, hands on his hips and a slight, guilty smile on his face. At six foot three, he stood a good eight inches taller than me, and had shown, more than once, how easily he could lift me with one arm.

“I’m just looking out for you,” said Afu. “I don’t want you burning out. You’re one of the best smokies on the job. I don’t know what I was thinking. I guess I thought Brannigan wouldn’t think less of you. That he’d be able to help. He’s probably seen this kind of thing before.”

“What kind of thing?” I thinned my eyes. Maybe if I tensed hard enough, lasers would shoot out and set that long hair on fire.

Afu shrugged. “I don’t know. Depression?”

“I’m not fucking depressed. I’m bored and unsatisfied. There’s a big difference.”

“Yeah, well, I was right, though. Brannigan didn’t think less of you at all. He promoted you!” Those big teeth appeared with Afu’s fifty-mile-smile, white as wraith fire. “Captain Williams. Wow. This is crazy. Just don’t go bossing me around too much, yeah?”

“You don’t have to worry about that,” I said, looking for a gap on either side of him to slip through. The big bastard took up the whole space between the lockers. “We won’t have to deal with each other outside of… these kinds of run-ins.”

Afu’s two bushy eyebrows bunched together. “T, didn’t you read the Feed message?”

Oh, hell no.

I threw open my locker and grabbed the holoreader lying under a bra. With a finger press against the notification in the top right corner, Brannigan’s message floated up from the screen. My eyes darted over the message, too frantic to read the whole thing through. Congratulations to Captain Tamerica Williams, blah, blah, blah. Following transfers will take effect tomorrow…

Shit. It floated there in holographic green. Official. Practically irreversible.

The new crew of Cannon Truck 15: Captain Yours Truly, Dynamite Patrice Johnson as driver, and – I had to read it five times before I finally accepted it – Afu Kekoa as smoke eater.

“And how about that?” Afu said. “They promoted your girl, Johnson. We’re going to be a hell of a crew. And we can all hang out off shift, like we used to.”

I turned off the holoreader and shoved it into my pocket. “This isn’t right. This has to go against some kind of conflict of interest rule.”

“We aren’t dating anymore,” Afu said. “And the way you’re acting, it’s like you don’t want to be friends either.”

He looked sad. Puppy dog eyes came easy to Afu. What sucked is that it was always sincere when he did it. I don’t think he had a manipulative bone in his body.

I relaxed my face, dropping the ache of irritation I’d built up in my cheeks and around my eyes. Could I work with Afu on a crew? Supervise him? Was I seriously thinking about this?

“Tammy,” my mama would say, “looks like you don’t have much of a choice.”

I tried, but failed, to conjure a smile. “This’ll be… fun.”

Afu must have thought I was throwing an olive branch at his face, because he was grinning. Then again, Afu had the emotional memory of a goldfish. He never stayed sad or upset for long. Eventually, no matter what was happening, he’d revert back to his usual jolly-ass self. I hated that about him.

“You still DJing at Infinity Saturday night?” he asked.

I nodded.

“Cool. I’ll come out. Buy my new captain a drink. Might have a bag of sparks with me, too.”

Sparks. Little pills of bottled static.

I didn’t do that shit any more. It was a safe drug, but after a while, I got weirded out about putting hologram tech into my body. What if someone could figure out a way to hack into it and make you do things? Afu had said I was paranoid, but he’d quit sparking while we were dating out of respect. I guess he’d returned to the habit. Well, I might not have been his girlfriend anymore, but as his captain I could put a stop to it quick, fast, and in a hurry.

Afu turned and left me to the deafening quiet of the locker room, where I stood for a few more minutes before heading over to meet with the propellerheads.

This may sound crazy coming from someone who traps dragons and ghosts for a living, but thinking about all the responsibility Brannigan had dumped on my shoulders, the void of the unknown lying in front of me like an endless pit, the people on my crew I had to look out for and make sure didn’t die, I was scared. I’d never been so goddamned scared in all my life.