Page 28 of Playing with Fire

Only an idiot would attempt to bomb a fire-breathing unicorn. During Professor Yale’s experiments, very few incendiary devices bothered me. In the explosive conclusion of my species testing, he had strapped C4 to my back, put me on an ammunitions range, and blown it all up to scare the liver out of every last one of the bomb techs in a joint operation. He had even let me eat the extra C4. Of all the explosives and fuels I’d taken a nibble of as a unicorn, C4 was my second favorite. Napalm came in at the top, but they wouldn’t let me have more than a taste to prove it wouldn’t hurt me.

Stupid safety supervisors.

“That’s very reassuring, Miss Gardener. We evacuated the building in case there were additional explosives, but with a high risk of a copy cat—or the original bomber—we’re worried we’ll end up with an even worse situation.”

Or a bigger bomb, but if she hadn’t figured that out yet, I wasn’t going to tell her. I worried. I could eat fire and explosives and burp flame, but could I do it fast enough to protect the two cops accompanying me? I had no idea.

With the risk of reversal, no one had been willing to put my abilities to the test, myself included. I liked living.

“Where bile in building?”

Janet pressed the up button on the elevator, and one dinged and opened right away. “It’s in an office close to the middle of the building. From our initial investigation, we’ve determined there are between twelve to twenty victims. The spray radius is at least twenty feet in a cubicle environment. One of the workers who escaped claims they heard a bang before the crash. The victims are still in there.”

I stepped into the elevator and used my hoof to hold it open for the two cops. “Many desks? Cu-bee-cle farm?”

“Exactly. At least two of the victims were exposed to the bile when they tried to help their co-workers.”

Ah, good old New Yorkers. In a pinch, they could always be trusted to get the job done—or get killed trying. When disaster struck, they stuck together, for better or worse. It made crowd control interesting for police in serious situations. At least most knew better than to try to handle the truly dangerous substances without certification. “No more after? Twen-tee max?”

“As far as we know. After the evacuation, we cleared the building—even us.”

Something wasn’t adding up for a gorgon bile removal coupled with a small-scale bomb. While I appreciated the precautions, clearing the floor should have been sufficient until bomb techs could examine the scene. What was I missing? Then again, after the gorgon dust in my apartment, I could understand the police being exceptionally cautious.

A pinch of the dust could turn hundreds of people into statues—and possible carriers—within a few minutes.

It didn’t take long for the elevator to reach the twenty-first floor. “Which office?”

Janet pointed to the right down a broad hallway which ended at a glass-fronted office. “It’s that office on the end. The contaminated room is adjacent to the reception. We’ve been informed the interior doors were all left open.”

The door leading into the affected suite was ajar, too, and it looked like someone had hit the glass hard enough to crack it. “Come. Stay in hall near re-cep-shun. Will ee-val-u-ate sit-u-ation in-side. Cam-er-uh. You have?”

Janet pulled a small sphere from her pocket, which was attached to a lanyard. “We call this a fish eye. We normally tether it to a line for dropping into holes and pipes to help get a view of rescue op situations we have a tough time reaching. I will have the controller, and I will be able to get a full range of visibility from the sphere.”

The cadet snorted. “Never thought I’d see the day a horse could do a man’s job, especially when she can’t even handle basic English.”

Perky had asked me really nicely not to attack other police officers, but would one bite really be that bad? Maybe I could step on the man’s toes. Humans didn’t really need their toes, did they?

Janet’s cheek twitched, and I got the feeling the cadet was known for using ‘woman’ instead of ‘horse’ when he tossed that line under normal circumstances. I started with his face and made a show of looking him over, noting his darker complexion, dark brown eyes, and signs of probable South American descent. “Been in America long?”

Cadet John Winfield’s eyes bulged. “What? How dare you!”

I snorted and allowed a small trail of flame to billow from my nose.

“Winfield, enough.”

Perhaps showing the cadet my serrated teeth broke every etiquette rule in the book, but I did it anyway. “This u-nee-corn eats meats. Breathes fire. You might taste good with ketch-up. Crunchy and tasty, yes?”

“Please don’t eat Cadet Winfield, Miss Gardener, even though he deserves it. He’s very sorry.”

“I am no—”

Janet stomped her foot on his. “He’s very sorry, ma’am.”

I left Janet and the idiot cadet just outside the doors leading into the office. I carried the camera and a meter with my teeth, both rigged with straps to make them easier for me to handle. In what classified as a miracle in my rather humble opinion, Janet’s choice of meter and settings worked best for amateurs with no idea what they were doing.

It’d catch any dangerous substance from gorgon spittle, which was generally harmless unless someone decided to bathe in it, to phoenix feathers. No one wanted to screw around with a phoenix feather, which could incinerate anything given ten seconds. The damned things had a mind of their own, too. Someone could carry around a pretty little white feather, which to all appearances looked like it came from a pigeon, and then bam. Fire, and lots of it.

Fortunately for society at large, phoenixes disliked cities and guarded their precious feathers as though they were their first-born hatchlings. I’d only seen a feather outside of training once, and it had still been attached to the phoenix, who had agreed to come to the CDC auditorium for a demonstration in exchange for some undisclosed favor.