Aisha's Amazing Adventure: Aisha and the Fire, Part four

I was in class. Fuming. Quietly. But the school was in lockdown. The emergency was calling all services and so nobody would be released until the all clear was given.

Which meant that Orb Weaver, the feared bane of the underworld…

Was sitting in Literature class.

I was very thankful for my bugs, because running little gladiatorial fights was calming me. A little bit.

Granted, I wasn’t certain what I could do. The heat and poison would keep me out of the area, and my bugs weren’t invulnerable. I might try and go later, when I could be of—

Students screamed as the sudden rumble made the entire class shout.

We’re miles away. I had studied explosives, of course and that had to be an immense explosion. My bugs outside the school were accessing the news channels, even as the teacher turned the class TV on.

The huge pillar of smoke was… twisting. Rising faster than it should.

“Vista,” I said.

Why aren’t Glory Girl and—I cut that thought off. Vista could control the disaster while remaining safe. Glory Girl wasn’t gas proof and Amy couldn’t heal someone who had been blown to pieces, so the risk of keeping her close outweighed the possibility that she might be in just the right place to help someone. Especially since she was unable to heal herself.

That limitation wasn’t spoken of much on PHO, but well, The Investigator would be a poor detective indeed if she hadn’t noticed the time Amy hacked and snorted her way through class before she went home with a fever.

ATTENTION! ALL STUDENTS ARE TO REMAIN INDOORS. TEACHERS SECURE AND CLOSE ALL EXTERIOR WINDOWS.

A bit of a useless announcement—it was about 60 degrees outside and I bet that nobody had their windows open, but I supposed it would help make certain nobody neglected to check.

For the next several minutes the room was quiet, little groups whispering. One red head pulled out a phone and looking around checked it.

Ah. I’d wondered if he was a ward. But the phone likely proved it—only Tinkertech could get through the Faraday cage. I—I pulled myself short. He might also be someone with a large amount of money who could buy a Tinkertech phone. I’d watch but not jump to conclusions.

AMY DALLON, PLEASE REPORT TO THE NURSES OFFICE IMMEDIATELY!

I watched as Amy got up and headed, and then my bugs picked up a police car pulling up to the front of the school, joining the other one, part of normal measures during a Lockdown.

And then I picked up a bike that was moving incrediblyfast, over a hundred, as it shot into the parking lot.

Armsmaster. No other bike I knew of would have some kind of odd… field around it that my bugs couldn’t quite interpret but that managed to take it from 100 to stopped in less than thirty feet. He leaped from the bike, letting it fall to the ground—the bike the PHO said do not touch. There was someone in his arms.

My bugs couldn’t smell, not like humans could, and in any case there was too much in the way of chemicals, but my bugs touched the clothing a few flies—and the texture was different. Epaulettes and a uniform.

Aisha.

Under the school, bugs tore each other apart as I sat in that classroom. Armsmaster would not have brought Aisha to the school instead of waiting for Amy to go to the hospital. Armsmaster would not havedumped his fucking bike like it was something out of a scrapyard. Armsmaster would have not driven at a hundred miles an hour—not unless Aisha was on the very brink of death and there was no other alternative.

And it would be out of character for Taylor Hebert to know any of this—

TAYLOR HEBERT TO THE NURSE’S OFFICE.

Wait. What?

Were they ou—no. I was her tutor. We did some things together.

And the PRT knew that I had rescued her as The Investigator. If they wanted someone with thinker powers, it would make sense, and they had a good excuse. But why?

I got up and walked out of the room.

****

When Panacea walked into the room, Colin was already ready, Aisha put out on the nurse’s bed. The Nurse, actually a PRT certified Trauma medic, was standing by, equipment at the ready—but she was looking helpless.

Colin understood. He’d filled Aisha’s lungs with a first aid fluid of his own design, highly oxygenated, designed to neutralize any toxins in the lungs. Ideally, a non-tinkertech version would be ready in a few months, if he and Dragon could finish their work. But it wasn’t designed for this level of damage. The chemicals Aisha had inhaled were dissolving her lungs, and all the oxygenated fluid in the world wouldn’t help.

Colin, on the desperate drive over, had noted to himself to develop a system to directly oxygenate the blood stream. Some existed, but they weren’t portable.

He was damned well going to rectify that.

The two children were also on the way, but Aisha had kept them from breathing in too much of that fucking poison, but she’d been exerting herself more, talking more—and so she’d inhaled vastly more than they did.

Was this because she felt she had something to prove? Colin could understand that. Or had she decided she wasn’t going to let two kids die? Colin could respect that as well.

What he couldn’t respect was her possibly dying because she hadn’t considered the most elementary precautions.

If—when—she was healthy, he was going to rectify that.

“What happened?” Panacea said.

“She inhaled toxic, corrosive fumes.” Armsmaster said. “I’ve removed the chemicals, but the damage…”

“Let me—shit.” She stared at the unconscious girl. “Keep your fluid in her lungs. I can’t fix all of her lungs at once, so try to fix enough so that she can breathe from your fluid and go from there. I’ll keep her unconscious.”

There was a knock, and Taylor Hebert entered the room.

The Investigator. Colin wouldn’t say that not here. But Taylor Hebert was Aisha’s friend, and Aisha respected her. There was a reason to talk to her, although technically, exposing these injuries to a minor would be something you wouldn’t do without parental approval.

But… This also gave an excuse for Taylor to be at the PRT since Aisha was an open cape. And an excuse to talk to them, since it was clear that Aisha responded best to those she respected—and who were in her peer group.

And that meant that there would be time to have quiet, off-the-books talks with The Investigator.

Because Colin, and Director Piggot both knew that the city would politely tell them to back off, since this wasn’t a direct Parahuman crime and try to foist the entire disaster off on some manager who broke regs, instead of everyone above him who had their hand in the till. Director Piggot couldn’t bring in the Think Tank on that.

Wasn’t it fortunate that they had a detective who wasn’t working for the PRT?

Then he focused on the most important thing, as the softly swearing Panacea started rebuilding Aisha’s lungs.

**** 

There will be another part of this, but I'm suffering from the start of a cold right now. But yes, Colin and Piggot can be sneaky, when they have to be, and Colin has something to focus on other than the "oh God, I could have lost a Ward."