Interlude: Mush, No More

When he heard the sirens, Mush was about to go back inside to his little apartment, maybe watch some TV, or… practice some of the stuff Orb Weaver had shown him.

Orb Weaver was scary as fuck, but he was…

Nice.

He never looked down on Mush.

Or Squealer. Mush wasn’t an idiot—well, not much of one, and a new Tinker building big-ass fire trucks?

That had to be Squealer.

And that made him think. He’d been building up everything, getting the Mushmobile ready but… It wasn’t like he was a great fighter. Skidmark had used him to be sort of intimidating but…

Another truck went zipping by, followed by an ambulance.

Mush nodded.

I’m gonna do it.With that, he ran to the Mushmobile, and started up the engine, a cloud of smoke exploding from the rear as it backfired. And then Mush was heading out onto the street.

The Mushmobile was moving like a pig, what with all the stuff in the back, but Orb Weaver had said you wanted to be prepared.

And there was the fire.

Shit. One of the apartment buildings down by the docks, the kind of place where you could stay for twenty bucks, because the guys running the building didn’t bother to fix it. Mush saw the smoke billowing away from it, and there were people up at the second and third stories, behind metal grates that had been welded onto the windows to keep people from sneaking out if they didn’t want to pay.

He stopped a block away and then jumped out of the car, running to the rear and opening the hatch. Material fell out. Ceramic pellets, metal pellets, and the other little special things Orb Weaver had come up with.

Mush paused. Right. Metal conducted heat. He’d leave it here.

Remember, Mush, a power is only as good as how well it is used…Orb Weaver, chatting in that strange voice that came from everywhere.

Mush had a feeling Orb Weaver might not have a body. He’d read about some Case 53s that didn’t.

Or maybe Orb Weaver was just so scary in person that he had to stay out of sight.

Regardless, he’d talked a lot about Mush’s power and Much had thought about it as well.

He waited, his power pulling the pellets to him, along with the steel rods that he could use to as a sort of skeleton making his body stronger.

Another Orb Weaver idea. He also put on the little domino mask that Orb Weaver had told him to wear, even if he wasn’t planning on showing his face.

Lastly, the trashcan popped onto his head, looking like some kind of Tinkertech scanner with a pair of battery-powered LEDs in it, and Mush was stomping down the road, all ten feet something.

**** 

Captain Marc Langston was cursing. Not only had the bastards shut down the water, so that the sprinklers weren’t working, they had used the floor for storage, and now it was fully engulfed, sending flame and smoke up the stairwells. They were moving fire ladders to try to get the people, but half of them were trapped by the grills and—

The ground started to thud behind him, and he turned around.

There was a huge… thing. The skin was smooth and some kind of sensor unit on the “head” let him know it was a robot of some kind.

“Can I help?”

“Can you put fires out?”

“Uh… I can hold a hose.”

“Can you hold your breath?”

“Yeah, I have—I mean, yeah.”

“I need you to get close to the lower level, I’ll give you two hoses, one stream one fog—that’ll hopefully beat the fires down so our people can use the ladder to get them out. Can you do that?”

“Uh—sure!”

God, I hope this doesn’t turn into a disaster. He gestured for the firefighters to come forward with two hoses. Normally, those big hoses would need two-man crews, but hopefully, the big robot-guy could hold’em.

“We're charging the lines, so just keep spraying them.”

“Right!”

***** 

Mush felt the pressure in his hands. The hoses were sending a torrent of water out, one as a solid stream, the other as a massive cloud of fog.

“The fog will block the heat, help dissipate it. Use the stream to directly attack the fires!”  Mush nodded, the trashcan head bobbing, as he advanced. He could feel the heat through his “skin,” the ceramic heating up. But the big fire hoses were now part of his arms, the material of his body enclosing them while the tips emerged from his hands. He wasn’t gonna fuck with their settings.

The first hose was spraying out its fog, and Mush could feelhow the heat diminished, and even some parts of the fire seemed to slow down as the fog covered all the surfaces around it. But the other hose was hitting the fires—he aimed at one and—

“BASE OF THE FIRE! HIT THE BASE OF THE FIRE!”

Shit, right! And he lowered the stream, and now the fire was being knocked down, even though the rest of the place was still on fire. Above him, a ladder was being extended, firemen on it with some kind of buzzing gadget that cut through the bars on the windows like they were butter. Then the grill was off and shielded by Mush and the rest of the firemen’s hoses, people were coming out of the building, being moved down the ladder. Another group of firefighters were trying to knock the fire down by one of the stairwells, even as a man cut the heavy chain across the door in two.

Then the door was open, men and women going into it, as smoke billowed out. Mush kept working, every time the ladder moved, stepping to the side to keep it covered. It was getting hot, but nobody else could get that close to it. Nobody else could keep the people from being driven away.

And then it happened. There was a cracking, rumbling sound and the fall around one of the windows started to collapse, the people inside screaming.

Mush dropped his hoses and reached up and grabbedthe wall. He wouldn’t let it fall and take them with it. There was more rumbling, and Mush stared at it.

It’s wrecked. It’s garbage. It’s trash…

And suddenly, it felt like trash as he extended his power into it. It hurt. Everything was hot, and everything was on fire, but Mush held, his great, trunklike legs sinking into the earth.

“GO, GO, GO, EVERY HOSE, EVERY HOSE ON HIM!” And water was spraying around, as people were moving above him, firefighters helping people, carrying little wrapped bundles that squalled in fear, going back for more.

“Building’s clear!” someone shouted, and now Mush realized how hot he was. He was really, really hot!Mush stumbled back, the ceramic pellets falling from his body as he tried to get rid of them. Then he was…

Oh. Shit. I’m Mush.  The tiny, scrawny person looking up at everyone around him. They were gonna…

“Well, thank God for you, man. What’s your name?”

Mush’s mind went blank for a moment. People were clapping?People didn’t clap for guys like him.

“I…” He thought back, at some of the names, and suddenly he remembered one. It’d been a show when Dad was drunk and passed out, so he didn’t have to worry about being smacked around because the booze was gone.

“I’m Bulwark,” he said.

Nobody laughed. Nobody looked down at his scrawny form.

But nobody was scared of him, either.

And it felt good.

*****

Later, after he managed to get back to his apartment, Mu-no, Bulwark still felt strange. Then his phone rang.

“Hello, Bulwark.”

How did he…“How did you know?”

“I keep my ears open.”There was a pause. “Forty people in the building. All alive. All due to you. How does it feel?”

“Good. I mean, I couldn’t have done it without you, you know, the part about how metal conducts heat, and well, I just…”

“You could have done it without me. You just needed an opportunity. Forty people. Every one will go on to have their own lives, and you played a role in that, Bulwark. You put your body between theirs and the flames. That decision was you. It was all you.”

“It felt good,” he said.

“Are you free tomorrow?”

“I’ve gotta go to the drug rehab. I mean, I don’t think I need it, but that… sometimes guys in the Merchants, they’d say they were gonna get clean, and they did. But then they said they didn’t need it anymore…and they always came back.”

“That’s wise.”

“I don’t wanna be that guy anymore.”

“And you aren’t. Thank you, Bulwark.”

And then Bulwark sat back, looking at his little apartment. You know, I could have done more.Orb Weaver was scary as fuck, but she’d told him so much about his power… but it was hispower. Why couldn’t he figure out new ways to use it. Maybe… extending his arms, like some kind of ladder?  Or maybe, if he had to fight a fire again, what about lots of nozzles, all over his body so that he was like a walking fog bank to black the fire…

Bulwark didn’t write real good, but it didn’t stop him when he grabbed a used pizza box.

He had ideas.

He was also gonna have to find a different name for his truck.

Mushmobile just didn’t fit, not any more.