Itty BItty Bigger World - Megafire

Itty Bitty Bigger World - Megafire

[This story is set in 2033, well after the Troubles but well before the present San San Era.]

It all started with a car fire.

Mountain road, panicked driver, sudden collision. Driver bailed out, car fell down hill, crumpled at the bottom, caught fire. Full of lithium batteries.

The driver was caught and killed in the flashover when the wildfire climbed the slope, faster than anyone can run.

###

The situation is happening too fast for staging and briefing. We are running, on the fly.

"Anderson, logging on, CSAR-6 Golf"

"CSAR-6 Golf," a metallic voice replied, a tell that I was being talked to by an expert system not a person. "Evacuate all persons west of Skybound and north of Fall Meadow at once. Life safety absolute."

I gunned the motorbike. Yes, gasoline. What of it? I'm rich, I can afford the pollution tax.

What I saw as I crested the slope on the narrow mountain road nearly caused me to crash.

The entire ridge opposite was on fire. And it was expanding, faster.

Overhead, I heard a howl from a Fast Attack aircraft as it turned on its siren and power-dived its way across the valley.

Howl. Get. Out. Now.

I selected my go no go point. If the fire starts spotting within visual of Skybound while I'm on it, I'm gone.

I roared the motorbike past a control point where a deputy sheriff and two volunteers in vests were trying to encourage people to get out faster.

My heads up display on my helmet displayed the numerics on Skybound.

Fuck commander's intent. I'm dumping the whole road, right now, while we can.

I overrode the PA system and broadcast a high-low siren with voice commands. ["Pee Ahh Override Password Seventeen Michael Four Cast Sound High Low Wail Volume Maximum"]

My phone buzzed and an overlay flashed on the bottom third of my helmet.

"MANDATORY EVACUATION ORDER"

I ignored it and it went away. Just smart enough to know that I was on duty.

To the top of the road.

This is a cul-de-sac. The last three years had taught us the French for 'people killed in death trap.'

At the house at the top, an elderly woman was just loading her cat in a carrier into her electric runabout.

She looked up at me. My riding suit's smartpaint was displaying neon orange, eye hurting to look at, with the words "SHERIFF RESCUE" overlaid in contrasting white outlined in black on front breast and across the back.

"Anyone else in the house?" I asked the house.

It replied negative.

"Fire mode," I ordered, and all the house lights snapped on as the doors unlocked. The roof cleaning system started puffing compressed air and the cameras swiveled, watching the skies for the embers that would be coming.

"Time to go, ma'am!" I said as she looked at me.

She shuddered, got in her car and left on manual drive.

I followed. My job was to sweep the houses.

Three numerics down, I hit a snag.

The house informed me frostily that the occupant had a valid DNR order and that my entry as a medical technician was not approved and if I persisted, would be logged.

I changed hats and forced the door with a police override.

Inside, a woman in a power wheelchair hooked up to a lung machine listened to classical music while eating small bits of chocolate.

She looked up at me. I looked back at her.

Are you sure? my eyes asked.

WIth a slight firm nod, she thanked and dismissed me, wordlessly.

She had chosen her place and time to go.

"House, log and record to incident management file. Query life safety hazard file."

"Life safety hazard: this house will be flooded with nitrogen at two atmospheres when wildfire reaches one kilometer distance. Occupant has requested no notification."

I left to the next house.

It would have been comic if it were not so dangerous. A man was chasing his two small dogs around, trying to get them into carriers with gestures and good intentions.

Thirty seconds later, he was telling his house to file an animal abuse charge on me, for picking up his dogs and flinging them one after another into the back of his runabout.

Then he was squawking about personal battery as I strapped him into the driver's seat and told the car to leave. It had no choice but to obey, police override.

I looked up as the car left.

Spot fire on the far side of the road.

Trigger condition met. I had only one more life to save today.

My own.

I pulled up the battle management camera that had been monitoring the intersection at Skybound and Fall Meadow.

It was out. Temperature twelve hundred degrees.

I switched to long range.

A sheet of flame was racing up Skybound towards me. There was no escape route.

I was trapped.

I overrode the man's car and sent it to the top of the hill. It wouldn't survive the trip down.

I still had several arrows in my quiver.

"Safety, this is CSAR-6-Golf, Anderson. I am pinned on Skybound above 700. Request capsule drop for three."

The fire capsule was a module, very much like an ancient spacecraft, that would land on a crush plate and contained a heat shield and powerful life support system. A lifeboat for a sea of flame.

"Unable," the robot voice replied.

Well, shit. It was a busy day. I wasn't the only one in deep shit.

But I was still surrounded by a wall of rising flame.

Four houses to pick from. All sucked. So I picked the hilltop.

I drove the man's car into the garage on voice override and locked the doors before he could get out.

Some things are faster on a touch pad. I entered the garage and entered two passwords by touch.

I told the garage that its job was to shelter the car at any cost. Opaqued the windows. Turned on AC full blast. Plugged, manually, the car's power plug into the garage.

Then I told the car its job. If the garage was compromised, it was to park inside the house, wait until the structural integrity of the house was compromised, then drive out and seek the nearest burnover spot.

I could have gotten in the car with the very upset man and the two dogs trying to calm him. Perhaps I should have. But I didn't.

Instead I would use the wide open spot next to the pool to deploy my fire shelter.

That's when I discovered that the wide open spot was occupied by patio furniture that had been flung off the house deck.

And the pool that showed on the house schematic was drained, for repairs.

This was becoming non survivable, quickly.

"Safety," I called, "Urgent."

"Unable," came the robot voice for the second time.

I looked behind me.

The wall of flame was racing up the canyon behind and beyond.

If I tried to deploy in the empty pool, or on concrete, I'd cook.

I had no time to move the God damned patio furniture.

Too late to go in the garage.

Going in the house.

The house let me, instead of stunning me. But the house warned me that my actions would be recorded.

No? Really? Are you sure, house?

I couldn't stay in the living room, that was the only room big enough for the car.

I didn't want to end up in the basement. Too much like a tomb.

Modern house, rich person.

Of course it had a panic room.

Of course the panic room was built to blast shelter specs.

And also of course, the damned thing wouldn't let me in!

Even with a police override. It had been very unlawfully hacked to prevent that.

Killed by a lockout. Given that I had lockouts on some of my own stuff, I couldn't even really complain.

That's when the roar of tank treads squealing on asphalt, grinding it, reached me.

"GET IN!" boomed a voice.

I ran outside to see the fire tank squat, settling on the ground as it dropped its treads.

Not a water tank.

A fire tank.

Covered in white and red and markings. No turret.

The clamshell hatch opened, I squeezed through it, it slammed again, my ears popped as overpressure equalized.

It was chilly. Ice box cold.

Imagine a public single use toilet. Now install two seats instead of the toilet and put twelve people in it. The two sitting in the seats are the pilot and commander. Two more are firefighters. The other eight crammed in are rescuees. Now add me.

A tiny space, full of people. And our only hope of surviving the literal Hell outside.

I braced someone to keep them clear of the pilot seat. The pilot was moving dual manual joystick controls.

"Pool's empty. Can't heatsink it."

"Dig?"

"Not enough time."

"Plow the house."

"Copy."

The tank drove into the house to use it as a partial heat shield. It obligingly collapsed around us.

I barely noticed the BANG as my motorbike blew up.

I caught my breath.

None of us wanted to burn.

But it was getting hotter by the moment as the wildfire outside warred with the technology within.

"Power level thirteen percent," warned my remote display of the fire tank's stats.

"Safety, safety," called the tank commander. "Thirteen souls."

Again, the robot voice.

"Unable."

Which would run out first, the fire tank or the wildfire?

We would find out.

I slipped a hand down to my jacket pocket. Found a small pill. Slipped it into my mouth.

I would bite down on it if I had to.

But I would try surviving some burns first.