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The 126 crew didn't quite know what to make of their new probie. Neither did Owen.
They knew the bare bones, of course — Alex Rider had graduated the fire academy with praise from several instructors, he was British at origin, and he lived with his quasi-older sister. Average scores in high school, some weird absences here and there, all official stuff Owen could see in his file. Now that Mateo had finally become a proper firefighter, Owen decided Rider looked like a good fit for the firehouse.
Despite all commendations, Owen had a gut feeling that this kid was going to give him as many gray hairs as TK had.
His instinct unfortunately turned out to be correct. When Owen clocked in this morning, he was still trying to forget whatever happened last shift. The entire 126 crew (minus Probie) gossiping around the water cooler, however, would not let him.
“What do you mean, a fish?” Tommy sounded like she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry - very similar to Owen’s own stance on the matter actually.
Marjan feigned seriousness while everyone else was struggling not to laugh. “An actual goldfish. Like, the type you keep in a fish tank as a pet.”
TK took a few breaths to calm down his laughter. “How did he even get it outside? There’s no way he took it out of the water.”
“No.” Owen’s voice was sharp and tired as he entered the kitchen. “He got it out in a plastic bag. No, don’t ask me why he had that, I don’t know.” Mateo closed his mouth.
Judd looked absolutely red in the face. “So, what’s the consequences, Cap?”
Now that was a question for the ages. You see, Owen had never given an explicit order for the Probie to not go after the fish. Hell, Owen didn’t even know Alex had gone back into the building! All they knew was that the victim was panicking about a goldfish and then bam!, Probie was there with it.
“I’ve got no clue.”
Alex was happy lately, much happier than he’d been in a long time. He and Jack moved to Austin for Jack’s jewelry-making and he had a job that did not involve risking his life constantly (ignore the burning buildings). He also had a standing deal with Joe Byrne that meant ‘6 could not touch him without causing an intelligence scandal - say what you will about Joe’s pity, but it was good for Alex when knew how to take advantage of it.
Alex would also like it to be known that he did not risk getting burnt for a fish. Well, not a normal fish. As his life usually goes, this was a three-letter-name agency’s fault.
When Alex saw Paul carrying Tamara Knight of all people out of that fire, he knew the situation was not ideal, even by emergency standards. He kept in contact with her perhaps more often than he should, and as far as he was aware she was investigating some foreign crime group that decided to base around Texas. At least the location made sense with the emergency.
There were, of course, questions as to why Tamara was in a random village house on the outskirts of Austin and why it was burned. Those questions stopped being relevant when she looked Alex in the eyes and started panicking about losing a fish.
Tamara Knight would not panic over a goldfish. Not unless it was important.
And so Alex found himself running through the at-home inferno in search of a goldfish. Not his proudest moment, but the fish was apparently not a fish. A bug of some sort, if he had to guess. No matter, he found an intact plastic bag and shoved the fake goldfish in there to avoid suspicion from his crew. It didn’t do much, but at least he wouldn’t be going outside with a supposedly alive fish out of the water.
“Can we get over the fish, please?”
The Probie was being teased mercilessly by the 126. Owen found it fitting in these circumstances.
“Nuh-uh, we cannot,” said Marjan. “One does not simply go into a burning building in their first week to save a fish, Probie. We are not letting this go for a long time.”
“It cannot be the most entertaining thing someone has done, guys,” Alex groaned. The crew just continued to laugh.
“No, but it is the stupidest.”
The Probie just shook his head and shoved a laughing Paul out of the way to get to the water cooler. Before he could fill up a glass, the alarm sounded — Owen could very much relate to that sigh.
On the way, Owen and Tommy were quickly filled in on the situation by dispatch. A gang shootout in downtown Austin is not something you see every day, but it did bring back memories of New York. According to the dispatcher, police would only get to the scene after them, but the caller claimed most of the instigators had already run away. True to word, there were only victims on the scene, so Tommy and her paramedic crew spread out very quickly.
“Here,” Tommy slapped a bunch of black tags into Owen’s hand. He recognized them — the same tags used to flag a person is beyond treatment of resuscitation. “I think your firefighters have enough knowledge to triage who’s a lost cause.”
“Right.”
Said firefighters looked in Owen’s direction with wide eyes. All but the Probie, who didn’t seem too fazed by the bloody scene in front of them. There was something to be said about that, but Owen didn’t have the time for it in the middle of an emergency.
Owen shook himself off and handed out tags. “Pair up! Marwani with Strickland, Rider with Ryder, and Chavez with me.”
Judd wasn’t particularly fond of their new Probie. Sure, he did well in academy testing, but he was younger than most recruits — that meant a lack of experience in life as far as Judd was concerned. The fish had been strike one.
Now, obviously, the young man’s apparent calm in the face of the remains of a shootout was strike two. Either the Probie had no concept of the value of human life (which, if the case, would make Judd kick him out of the AFD immediately), or he had seen worse. Or he had issues up in the head. Considering the fish incident, the man was leaning towards the last one.
Judd was also mentally cursing his captain — yes, he was lieutenant, and yes, he would have had to teach Alex the ropes eventually, but not on this scene. Not when Judd was already barely holding himself together.
Well, he mused, the others aren’t doing much better.
Judd spared a glance to the paramedics. Other than them.
Triage was light work from a physical point of view, not so much from an emotional one. The Probie didn’t seem to mind, although his attention was more on the gunshot wounds than on the victims themselves.
At a guy lying on his back in a pool of blood, Judd had to pause. Those were a lot of holes. Alex winced beside him.
“.40 to the liver is a nasty way to go.”
Judd had to process that one a little. There were more gunshot wounds on the man, not just the one on his side. “‘Way to go’? How do you know it’s that one specifically?”
The Probie, the unnervingly comfortable Probie, stepped closer to the corpse and started pointing out wounds. “Shoulder, thigh, and both arms are clean shots, bullet went through and through, and—” he lifted one of the man’s arms and checked it all around “—the exit wound isn’t much larger than the entry wound. Small caliber bullets, .25 at most. Maybe nicked an artery but I wouldn’t bet on it.”
Judd stared as the kid stepped over the dead man’s torso. He pulled up the victim’s shirt to see the gunshot in his side and rolled him so it faced upwards. “Here, the bullet still went through, but it tore through the liver and a lot of blood vessels. You can tell by all the blood. Considering the damage and the gnarly exit wound, especially for a shot from a decent distance, it’s probably a .40 or .45.”
Judd was officially done. Fuck the fish, this took the cake.
“That’s a headshot!” Mateo’s voice, loud enough for everyone on the scene to hear, snapped Judd out of his trance. He tagged the corpse, grabbed the Probie, and walked over to Cap and Mateo, who were standing over the body of a man lying on his front in a puddle of blood. The back of his shirt was stained red and sat over a weird bump, while the back of his head had clearly been hit straight on by a bullet.
Judd now noticed Carlos was there as well. Looks like the cops had finally arrived. “Well, that’s a clear cause of death at least.”
“Eh…” That was the Probie. Judd was going to have an aneurysm. “I’d wager the bullet to the skull was a precaution more than anything.”
The three men’s heads spun to face Alex in an instant. Judd knew the feeling. Probie shrunk a little under the attention.
“What do you mean?”
“Uhm, well…” Alex stepped closer to the corpse and pulled up his shirt, revealing a nasty hole. “That’s clearly an exit wound, sniper round too by the size. Probably from one of the rooftops around. He fell on his front, but I’m pretty sure it tore through his chest cavity. There’s no surviving that — headshot was either a stray or a way for someone to reassure themselves that the guy is dead. A small pistol, I reckon.”
“Riiight…” Carlos nodded slowly. “I’ll get back to you on that once this goes through forensics.”
Next shift, things hadn’t quite settled down. Everyone was over the fish incident, obviously, because it turned out their Probie could identify the degree and severity of gunshot wounds. Accuracy was still pending, but there was clear confidence in it, and that made it all the more confusing. Owen just hoped to god he wouldn’t have to explain that to the brass.
Alex was cleaning the engine when Carlos came in. From his office, Owen watched the officer give TK a kiss and the rest of the crew a greeting, then head towards the upper floor.
“Where’d you get that Probie from?” Carlos asked as soon as he stepped into the fire captain’s office. “I checked in with forensics — he nailed everything on that scene. Where did you find a Probie who just casually identifies firearm specs?”
Owen let his head drop into his hands. “I wish I knew, Carlos. I wish I knew…”
So, maybe Alex shouldn’t have gone on those bullet tangents. He had barely escaped questioning this morning, and he’d have to go sit at lunch soon. Or he could just continue doing chores around the station. Because he was a good probie, not because he was avoiding his coworkers.
Okay, maybe he was avoiding his coworkers. In his defense, he wasn’t sure what lie he should feed them when they would inevitably come asking about his suspicious firearm knowledge. He’d discussed the situation with Jack on his day off, but he was still undecided — he couldn’t tell the crew about his actual background, but he didn’t want to lie to them either.
So he’d just do nothing.
A few dozen minutes and a squeaky clean interior of a fire engine later, Alex gathered the courage to go to lunch and socialize with his coworkers. He artfully dodged their questions. He listened to stories spun around the water cooler as one person or the other fiddled with Cap’s espresso machine. His weird habits and interests made Alex a curiosity, but they also made him one of theirs. One of the 126.
One day, he might trust them enough to tell them his story. Until then, Probationary Firefighter Alex Rider would remain an enigma.