Page 7 of Under Southern Stars
CHAPTER FOUR
JACK
The second I push through the bay door into Station 2, I know it is coming. The silence is the first clue. It isn’t the usual quiet of a crew checking their rigs; it is the predatory stillness of hyenas waiting for the wounded wildebeest to walk into the clearing.
Rodriguez, walking beside me, is grinning like he’d just won the lottery.
“You texted them, didn’t you?” I mutter.
“I don’t know what you could be talking about,” Rodriguez says, albeit without trying to look the slightest bit innocent.
We round the corner, and the station erupts into catcalls and howls. The entire day shift crew materializes from various corners of the bay like they’d been lying in wait. Which, I realize, they probably have been. Some are pretending to check equipment, others have clearly abandoned whatever they’d been doing to witness this moment.
“JAAAAAACK!” O’Malley’s voice echoes off the concrete walls.
“Oh,Jaaaaaaaack!” Martinez calls in a terrible falsetto that would have made a drag queen weep.
“Uhhhh…Jack??” Thompson adds, his impression of Sophia’s radio voice surprisingly accurate.
“Well, well, well,” says Kowalski, emerging from behind Engine 18 with a shit-eating grin. “Look what the Kiwi dragged in.”
I surveyed the scene, taking inventory of the damage. The apparatus board now displays “Medic 402—Romeo Unit” in neat block letters. My gear locker is “decorated” with heart stickers that look suspiciously like they’ve been liberated from the pediatric trauma kit, along with what appears to be gas station roses with a note reading “From your secret admirer at Metro General.”
Someone has even written “McKenzie ♥ Metro” in pink dry-erase marker on Engine 18’s bumper.
“You lot have been busy,” I observe.
“We’re dedicated to excellence in all our endeavors,” Martinez says solemnly, then immediately ruins the effect by snickering.
O’Malley cups his hands around his mouth like a megaphone. “Attention Station 2! McKenzie’s girlfriend is on the radio!”
“She’s not—” I start, then stop. There is no point. “Right, well, this is happening then.”
The chant starts somewhere near the back of the group and quickly spreads: “He buy you dinner first? He buy you dinner first?”
The rhythm is getting more elaborate, like some kind of demented marching cadence. Thompson is starting to add percussion by banging on a clipboard.
Rodriguez leans against the ambulance, arms crossed, watching the spectacle with obvious satisfaction. “You should see your face right now, hermano.”
“Traitor,” I mutter.
“Professional development,” Rodriguez corrects. “Character building. Very important for crew cohesion.”
The bay door to the station offices opens with a sharp bang that cuts through the chaos like a fire axe through drywall. Lieutenant Isabela Delgado steps out, clipboard in hand, her expression carved from granite.
The catcalls and laughter die so abruptly it is almost louder than the noise had been.
“Martinez,” she says, her voice carries the kind of quiet authority that makes grown men reconsider their life choices. “O’Malley. Don’t you have rig checks to finish?”
“Yes, Lieutenant,” they mumble in unison, suddenly fascinated by their boots.
“Thompson, I believe you’re on inventory duty this week. That supply closet isn’t going to organize itself.”
“On it, El-tee.”
“Kowalski, wasn’t there something about the hose bed needing attention?”
The crew scatters like roaches under a sudden light, leaving me standing alone in the middle of the bay with Rodriguez, who is trying very hard to look like he hadn’t been the ringleader of this particular circus.
