CHAPTER 36

“And we’re taking the elevator,” Brannigan said as we entered the lobby. “We don’t always have to do things the hard way, Williams.”

“Thank you, Chief.” Afu looked like he wanted to grab Brannigan in a hug.

Brannigan punched the elevator button and turned to Naveena. “You been taking care of things, okay?”

“This is Williams’ show,” said Naveena.

Brannigan scrunched his eyebrows as he looked back to me. “You didn’t tell her, did you?”

“Tell me what?” Naveena asked.

“Nothing,” I said.

The elevator doors opened and Brannigan stepped inside.

“What were you supposed to tell me?” Naveena wasn’t letting it go.

“That Sherry and Chief are getting a divorce and he wants to know if you still have feelings for him.”

“I never had feelings for him!” Naveena crossed her arms.

“I never said that at all,” Brannigan said. “Goddamn it, Williams. If you’re going to lie, at least make up something believable.”

I smiled and stared at the holographic floor numbers rising higher.

“Captain Williams and me are back together,” Afu stated, like a proud little boy who got a smiley face sticker on his science project.

“I kissed you,” I said. “That doesn’t mean we’re back together.”

“Give her time, big guy,” Brannigan said.

I spun around. “Are you guys in the same situation I’m in? We’ve got a phoenix to kill and this wraith might cause it to explode and permanently paint our shadows against the walls.”

“I don’t think the roof is going to have walls,” Afu said.

“You know what I mean. I’m trying to figure out how we can get out of this thing alive.”

Brannigan stuck out his hand. “Hand me the remote.”

“What?”

“The wraith,” he said. “I’ll hold onto it.”

“Chief, you shouldn’t be getting close to the phoenix. You know as well as I do you could go crazy and burn–”

“How did you just address me?” Brannigan asked.

“I…”

He hadn’t drawn back his hand. If the old bastard was wanting to showboat and take all the credit, fine. He could have it, but I wasn’t going to have his death on my conscience. Patrice filled that space enough as it was.

“Chief,” I said.

“Right.” Brannigan nodded. “And as your chief, I’m giving you a direct order. Wraith remote. Now.”

I huffed and ejected the remote from my pocket. With a slap against his open, armored palm, I relinquished the wraith trapper.

“All right,” he said. “This is how we’re going to do it. I’m going out there first.”

I tried to object, but Brannigan lifted his hand and stopped me before I could even get a word in.

“You three are going to stand back until I say it’s all clear.” He studied the laser axe in Afu’s hands. “You mind if I give that a try?”

Afu handed it over. “All yours, Chief.”

Brannigan tested the ax’s weight in his hands. “Nice.”

The elevator dinged and opened to the top floor.

“All right,” Brannigan said. “Sink or swim.”

The only way to the roof was from a flight of metal stairs at the end of the hallway. The phoenix’s shrieks rumbled through the ceiling, shaking the tiles. One of the tiles dropped to the floor behind us and we all turned with laser blades extended.

“Why are you guys so jumpy?” Naveena swallowed and retracted her laser sword.

I’d been somewhere like this before, that night I’d climbed the roof of Smoke Eater headquarters to face Patrice. Fear hit me like a cannonball in the gut, but I wasn’t afraid of the phoenix. I was scared that I would just be repeating the past. That I’d be stuck in the same terrible déjà vu and wouldn’t be helping anybody. That I’d be failing once again.

“Chief,” I said. “I’ve got this Impulse gun. I can go out there with you as back up. At least to–”

“No, Williams.” Brannigan said.

“Chief ’s right,” said Naveena. “The bird might be right at the door, and if we have to lose someone, better it be someone already at death’s door.”

Naveena tried to smile, but it felt forced. Brannigan only shrugged.

We came to the door and I put a hand against it. “I can feel the heat. Even through my power suit. I don’t think this is a good idea.”

“This is our shot,” said Brannigan. “We’re smoke eaters. We can stand a little heat.”

My hand began shaking. I felt powerless, useless, tied up in something I couldn’t get out of, kind of like how Mrs Wilkins had been scooped up by PC First and made to have her husband be the undead voice of a cause she probably didn’t give two shits about.

Brannigan took hold of my arm and eased me out of the way. “Just give me two seconds.”

I stared into Brannigan’s eyes. He didn’t say word. With a firm hand, he grabbed the door handle and pulled.

As Brannigan went through, I got a quick glimpse of the phoenix on the other side, arching its wings in a defensive posture. Then the door closed and the sound of a metal pole scraped against the door.

“Chief?” I called.

I tried the door but it wouldn’t budge. “Brannigan, open the door!”

Afu and Naveena tried to help me open it, but he’d shoved the laser axe through the door handle on the other side. We couldn’t get through.

“Back up,” I told Afu and Naveena. “I’m going to blast through this fucking door.”

“Williams.” The heavy door muffled Brannigan’s voice. “I’m about to release this wraith and if Yolanda was right, like she usually is, this is going to set off an explosion. I’m ordering all of you to leave now.”

“You stupid, old fuck!” I cried. My knees buckled. And here I thought I couldn’t have been made to feel any weaker.

I grabbed the door handle again. Naveena and Afu tried to pull me away, but I wouldn’t let go.

“I’m going to keep the bird occupied until I know you’re on the street,” Brannigan said. “If you try to break through the door, I’ll release the wraith and we’ll all be barbecue. This city needs you. Don’t disappoint them. Don’t disappoint me.”

I let go of the door. For a while I didn’t even try to run away. Afu dragged me until we reached the first step leading down to the top floor. By that point, I had no choice but to move one foot in front of the other, picking up speed gradually, as if Brannigan was a big wad of glue I had to force myself out of.

“The stairs will be faster,” Naveena said.

How could they go along with this? Why weren’t they trying to stop Brannigan? It was like they wanted him to die.

“Why? Why?” I kept mumbling as we ran down the stairs, taking entire flights in a jump. “He’s the Chief,” Afu said. “We can’t stop him.”

In the lobby, Naveena had to push me along as Afu ran ahead of us and, ever the gentleman, held the door open for us to pass through.

“Goddamn, I’m burning up,” Brannigan’s voice came through my helmet. “This bird isn’t going to stick around long. Are all of you on the street yet?”

I couldn’t respond. Giving him the affirmative would mean he’d release the wraith and be gone from my life forever.

“Tamerica.” Naveena grabbed my arm, urging me with her tensed eyes.

I wanted Naveena to make this all go away, to find a way to stop it, an alternative where nobody else had to die. But all she must have seen was that I wasn’t going to respond to Brannigan’s message.

Naveena took a deep breath and cast from her radio. “We’re out of the building, Chief.”

“I’m proud of you guys,” was the last thing I heard Brannigan say over a wraith’s shrieks.

A second later, the top of the building exploded in a ring of electric fire like I’d never seen before or since. The old bastard had actually gone through with it. Flaming pieces of debris rained down from the roof, like glowing snow.

We told all of the Slayer trucks to move out of the way and stay back. All the smokies watched the top of the building burn like some morbid fireworks show.

After a while, everything got so quiet I could hear my heart thumping inside my power suit. No flaming bird flew from the skyscraper. No smoke eater spoke over the radio – we were keeping the channel clear to hear if Brannigan had somehow made it out of there in time. But after twenty minutes of silence we knew: the phoenix was gone, and our chief with it.

I went to the roof with the cleanup crew. For safety reasons, they’d shut the power down and we had to take the stairs. I didn’t mind. It was a form of penance I had to pay for letting Brannigan sacrifice himself. It was a drop in an ocean of pain I had planned to put myself through. I was never going to forgive myself, not for this one.

The three floors below the roof were completely demolished. We couldn’t make it to the roof because there was no longer a roof to get to. The cleanup crew told me there was no possible way anything could have survived the blast. I told them they didn’t know much about our chief. For over an hour they appeased me, letting me turn over charred hunks of metal and concrete. But everyone has their limit. They finally closed down the scene and all but dragged me back down to the street.

Afu and Naveena had refused to come along. They already knew what I was still denying.

Calvinson and Renfro were there when I walked out of the building. Outside the hot zone, where crews had put up hologram caution tape, the street was bustling with smoke eater and firefighter crews. Even a few army vehicles had shown up. Soldiers stood around with laser rifles hanging from their shoulders, looking on as if they thought they could have done a better job.

Renfro gave me a big hug and I fought the urge to just cry into his power suit. Ash-covered metal isn’t the most conducive for sobbing your grief into.

I pulled away from him when my holoreader rang. It was Yolanda.

“Harribow is awake,” she said. “He’s doing great, all things considered. A complete turnaround. I want to run some more tests, but I’m thinking this means you guys were successful?”

“Brannigan did it,” I said.

“Wonderful. I hate to ask you for anything more, but if you can, I’d love to get any residue from the phoenix. It might help us be better prepared if any more show up in the future.”

Fuck that, I thought.

I shook my head, emotionless, a hollowed out hunk of flesh. “There’s nothing left.”

“Oh,” Yolanda said. Her hologram head tilted in a concerned lean to the side. “Well, no matter. I’ll see you all when you get back.”

She hung up and I stood there staring at a blank screen. It was almost like some part of me thought I’d be getting another call. Additional orders from an old man I didn’t know I’d miss until it was too late.

People talk about the five stages of grief as if they’re levels of a videogame, like you go from one to the other, in a progressive linear fashion. I wasn’t goddamn Mario. I was feeling every single stage at the same time. Maybe that’s what it was really like and over time, if you were lucky, they’d start to drop away one by one, like dead scales.

“Captain,” Renfro said. “The clean-up crews should have everything under control now. All of the dragons are ash.”

“And the pyro people,” said Calvinson.

Naveena glared at him.

Renfro cleared his throat. “Anyway. I’m sure you have a big report to type up. Definitely some rest is earned. And we have to elect a new…”

His words drifted off. He couldn’t say it, but we all knew what he was about to tell us.

“He named Naveena chief,” I said.

My fellow captain’s eyes widened. She crossed her arms and turned away. “It’s too early to be talking about this.”

“You guys can talk about it all you want, whenever you want,” I said. “Because I’m done.”

“I know.” Renfro dropped a hand to my shoulder. “Like I said, we all need a good rest before we handle anything else.”

I shook my head. “No, that’s not what I mean. I’m quitting the smoke eaters. I’m out.”

“T,” Afu stepped toward me with his hands outstretched, but stopped short. He realized I was serious.

“You can’t let this force you out,” Naveena said. “This isn’t like you. Now’s the time to fight even harder. That’s what Brannigan would have wanted. Smoke eaters don’t quit.”

“I’m not a smoke eater anymore.”

“None of you are.”

We all turned at the woman’s voice.

Mayor Ghafoor stood there with Colonel Calhoun and a few of his army thugs. “I have never seen such a disaster, not even E-Day can compare. You have all let this city down. You’ve let me down. I cannot in my good conscience entrust our safety to your organization any longer.”

“What are you talking about?” said Naveena. “We stopped this mess from devolving into a full scale clusterfuck. Your army goons made it worse. That Duncan Sharp asshole, too.”

“Colonel Calhoun has given me his report,” Ghafoor said, “and I saw firsthand how things happened from the news drones.”

“The Feed?” Afu said. “Really? They don’t get anything right. Everybody would be dead if it wasn’t for us.”

“There’s going to be an investigation,” Ghafoor continued. “And I’ll be involved every step of the way. I intend to see that official charges are brought against Smoke Eater Division. The evidence I’ve seen is enough. I’m afraid of what the whole story is going to reveal.”

“She can’t do this, can she?” Calvinson asked us.

I said nothing. It was only fitting this blob of bullshit would come down on us, without Brannigan around to carry the weight.

“Listen!” Ghafoor stamped her foot into the cracked asphalt. “As of this moment, you are to relinquish all apparatus and equipment. All operations are terminated, along with your positions. Get this through your heads, people: the smoke eaters are no more.”