Showing them Up
Showing Them Up
Reian
Thursday Prompt
5-14-2010
I flopped down on the grass, the first hour of my training was done. I had gone through all the basic classes and now I was going for my National Firefighter Certification; and it is a whole new ball game. I looked at my gear laying next to me, all 200 pounds of it. It made my muscles scream in pain, but the adrenlyn shut them up once we got going. I looked towards the three story building we had just got done scouring in the search and rescue drill. If we had conducted left handed search patterns, it wouldn't have been so hard. Yet, we were standing up, walking around, using triangulation in the pitch black.
I tried to think of the amount of walls I had run into, but it made my head hurt. I shook my head, my singed white fur smelling of burning hay. It didn't matter if you were as sealed in the equpiment as you could be, it still found a way to make you smell bad. I boosted myself up, back on to my feet, bunker coat still laying on the ground.
"Anette!" I heard someone say. I looked over and saw the other member from my department running towards me. It was Jonathan. He was a Jack Russell boy, only about twenty, five years my junior. He was still very wet behind the ears. I had grown up around this stuff, his parents were both blue collar workers who thought he would become a lawyer or doctor. I smiled gently at him, the collie smile that tells you it is all gonna be okay.
"I brought you some water! You were awesome in there! Everyone was amazed at the woman who knew excatly what to do!"
I took the water from him, blocking most of the praise out. I had been getting it since I was sixteen, the same words over and over again. I nodded, drinking the water bottle quickly, water dripping out of my mouth and down my chin. I tried to wipe it up as it happened, not wanting to cause anymore of a scene. I was known for just wearing a tank-top to fire classes, and as such the men always tried to get me a little wetter then I should be.
The alarm sounded, signaling the end of our ten minute break. Jonathan ran back to where he drapped his equipment, learning this morning that picking it up off the ground wasn't always the easiest thing. I shook my head in amusement, hoisting my coat up off the ground and around my shoulders, quickly clipping and velcroing it together. The self containded breathing aparatus followed, tossing it around my shoulders and clipping it all in.
I jogged over to the air station, carrying my helmet. The leutenant there set the air to fill my tank.
"You're impressive girl," he said in a fatherly tone. "Not many women come through here and thrive like you do. Most struggle and end up filling out the paperwork."
I laughed at him. That is what they told when I signed up. Just skip this step and go to the paperwork.
"If I didn't do well I would let my family down," I said, my ears twitching at the sudden sound of air.
"Yeah. Your father was another great. To bad your brother wanted to become a buissness person," he said, rather sad. As he disconnected the hose from the tank it whistled. The rest of the class was starting to gather and there wasn't to much time for small talk. Not to mention I hated discussing my brother.
"Well, wish me luck!" I said to him as I turned and began to jog towards the three story burn building again. The tank, filled with the sixty pounds per square inch of air really did add another sixty pounds to my already weighted gear.
I stood, waiting for the rest of the class to catch up. The instructors were making finishing touches to what I could assume was going to be a mixture of our previous search and rescue exercise and actually having the structure burning. As more and more of my classmates gathered, we were told to put on the remainder of our gear. As the last one joined us, the top floor window cracked, flames streaming out into the air.
"Alright. Go for it. McDaniels, your in charge," the head instructor said, pointing at the horse fellow next to me. He nodded, stepping up to the front of the class as another window began to whistle, signaling it was going to blow. He began to assign teams, seeming to skip over me for each assignment. I watched as my classmates got sorted into teams and I was seemingly skipped over.
As everyone set off I walked over to this McDaniels fellow, looking determined. I had taken off my SCBA, not wanting to waste the air.
"Excuse me, but why was I not assigned a job?" I asked, quite upset. I had experienced this many times before, but I refused to just sit by as it happened.
He laughed at me though. He downright laughed at me. He looked me in the eyes and licked his lips a little bit.
"Listen babe," he started, "I admire you and all, but women don't belong here. You'll just slow everyone down. Now if you want, I wouldn't mind you being part of my team once we are back at my apartment."
I smiled and nodded my head, beginning to turn away before I spun back towards him, fist clenched and the extra five pounds of weight feeling like nothing as my hand flew through the air. The instructors watched on, as if they expected this to happen, laughing hysterically as his jaw made a small crack and he fell to the floor. I shook my hand, most of the discomfort coming from the weights then the actual impact.
I grabbed his radio as he whined on the floor. "This is command to all units. Cadet McDaniels is out of commission, I, Cadet Fields, am assuming charge."
I got an echo of '10-4's come across. While we had plent of people on the inside, there was one outside, and they were only meant as releif. I looked at the few poor notes that the horse's ass had taken. Why were there three units on the third floor, four on the second, and another three on the first? I shook my head and pressed the radio again.
"Units 3, 5, and 9," I yelled of the radio, "Please head outside and report to me."
As the first group from the first floor came out I directed them over to the engine and told them to draft some water. They made these simulations as real as possible and only an idiot would think the amount of water in the engines and tanker would be enough. Second group got the tanker. I used the third group as my eyes to monitor the egresses and report anything else to me. They would also act as my second releif group.
I looked over at the instructors who were actaully straight up scolding McDaniels. My punch probably hurt, but their lashing would be a lasting hit to his ego. I pushed it to the side of my mind for the moment. I had a call over the radio that an air tank was running out for one of their members. I ordered the whole team out and told my first releif team to get ready to head in then went ahead and radioed ahead to my engine team and told one of them to fire up the air tanks.
Then a group of four people came out, doffing their masks. The smallest of the group, a cat, was the one with the warning going off.
"You okay?" I asked.
"A little dizzy ma'm, but otherwise okay."
I nodded. "Go grab some water and refill your tank. You probably aren't off the hook yet."
He smirked and dashed off with his team.