Posted by Lieutenant Commander Dr. Solomon Kane (Research & Development) in Holodeck- Memories Of Time And Places Long Past

Posted by Lieutenant Commander Alexis Kane (Assistant Chief Medical Officer) in Holodeck- Memories Of Time And Places Long Past

Posted by Lieutenant Commander Dr. Solomon Kane (Research & Development) in Holodeck- Memories Of Time And Places Long Past
Posted by… suppressed (31) by the Post Ghost! 👻
For the past few weeks, Kane had been busy after his ‘normal’ working hours. He hadn’t discussed what he was doing with Alexis… not that they had that kind if relationship. If he had thought about it, he probably wouldn’t have worried about it even then. Alexis was always buried in her PaDD reviewing a case or reading a new paper on some theory or advancement or another. Except when they slept. He was always with her, and made sure that the lights were on when she finally went to sleep.

But many hours had seen him on the holodeck. And the deck he was in was sealed and locked from any access while he was ended with… whatever it was he was doing.

A little over three weeks after the behavior started, Alexis got a message on her PaDD. Holodeck two. Tonight. 2200. It wasn’t signed, but it was obvious who it was from.

Kane, R&D

To say that Alexis didn’t notice his absence would be incorrect. She did, but such was the nature of his ‘extra’ assignments that it wasn’t unusual for him to work long hours, nor for him to not speak of it. This stretch was long than usual, but it wasn’t as if she didn’t see him, and they were always in each other’s ears. With all the time spent on Dalton, it wasn’t like Alexis didn’t have her own work to catch up on. Cmdr Walker hadn’t said anything about the sudden absence, but she wouldn’t give him reason to need to say anything.

It would be a lie to say that Alexis didn’t like all the reading and research and the mountains of work on her desk. She loved it. However, she would never admit she missed watching Lucy together after their shifts. Though she was absolutely certain, Solomon knew she did. Sitting in her office reviewing test results, the message flashed across her screen. I will be there.

At 2159, Alexis, wearing blue jeans and a soft knit peach sweater, pressed the controls for the holodeck knowing full well it wouldn’t open unless Solomon was ready for it to do so.

Lt. Cmdr. Alexis Kane, Assistant Chief Medical Officer

The doors slid open to reveal the standard black room with yellow grid. Kane was standing in the middle of the room with a PaDD of his own, tapping commands in as the doors slid closed behind Alexis.

He didn’t look up, but from the trademark cascade of hair covering his profile, he said “Hey. How goes the records reconciliation with Dalton?”

Kane

“I had to add a few test results from our trip here, to cover the diagnosis, but that was easy enough. You wiped that ship’s computer so there is no way to tell that we didn’t do the tests. She’s doing well, PT is happy with her progress, and she’s learning to pay attention to her bio-rhythms again. I don’t see why she can’t return to light duty soon, at least in an observation or consultation capacity. Until PT clears her, I wouldn’t allow her to handle experiments.” Alexis shrugged. Dalton was doing well, but her corridination and strength control needed to be refined a bit more before handling something that would require caution.

She was curious, and it was clear from the look she was giving him, but she also had endless patience.

Lt. Cmdr. Alexis Kane, Assistant Chief Medical Officer

Kane nodded, but said nothing for a minute. Then he exhaled deeply and said “Ok. Done.” He looked up at Alexis and said “Ok, so I was thinking a few weeks ago about your dad and everything that went down with your mom. And I realized that we weren’t really on equal footing. You and I went through the ugly s#!t that was your mom; but you only know my ugly s#!t secondhand from stuff I’ve told you. I don’t want that to ever cause a problem, so…” and tapped the PaDD and the yellow grid was replaced with an instantly depressing and claustrophobic city scape.

Alexis gave him a perplexed look. They couldn’t go back in time and they certainly couldn’t cross realities to go back. Alexis knew there were things she would never understand past an intellectual level. He wanted to tell her, and she would listen.

They were standing on the roof of an obviously dilapidated structure on a hill or rise, with he neighboring buildings directly attached. There was a haze all over and in the distance massive structures rose above the cramped, crowded, and dirty surrounding city. Advertisements in bright lights and garish colors stabbed the haze from the sides of buildings and floating billboards. Vehicles of types and makes Alexis had never seen clogged up skyway, and the streets below were crammed with pedestrians and ground vehicles. The sky itself was dark, light nightfall… but something about the place made it seem like the darkness never really went away. The overall technology level was obviously old… far older than Alexis had ever dealt with; and something about it seemed… ‘off’. Like nothing looked or was quite where it should be. Kane looked around and then took a breath.

“Welcome to New Detroit.”

Kane

It was dirty, filthy really, and reeked of … Alexis didn’t have a word for it. It was not as bright as she would have liked, but not so dark that she panicked. It was dark enough to make her desperately want to turn the lights on. She moved next to him, but turned slowly looking at it all. This was where he was born, without a family, even without a name when he was found or… left? He was forced into a gang, owned as a slave to the syndicate, survived a building explosion, was forced to learn Mandarin just to have a normal conversation. And it was here he joined the New Detroit Fire Department because it was the hardest job to get. They were elite and unique among this city. That was even in their own records of their version of this place. It was also here he left because he was tired of saving people for the destruction to just keep happening and then joined Star Fleet.

Seeing it made the things he had told her more vivid, but she’d never really experience it the way he did. It was just light and energy images. Something about it though was not right. Alexis couldn’t quite pinpoint what it was. It couldn’t be an error in his program. She turned again, slowly, trying to figure out what it was. Something Solomon had mentioned once came to her suddenly - The Uncanny Valley. “It’s like the mathematics of the universe is off by one trillionth. Not enough to destroy it, but enough to make it not right.” Alexis hand slipped into his and she looked up at him, “Is this how you feel all the time?”

Lt. Cmdr. Alexis Kane, Assistant Chief Medical Officer

Kane wasn’t looking at her, he was looking out over the city. “Yeah…” he said. He was quiet a moment and then looked at her. “Except with you. Thats how I knew you were special. The first time you walked into the lab… I felt it. Like… a harmonization of some kind. I knew that you and I were matched somehow. I don’t know how… don’t really care. All I know is that wherever I am or what I am doing, it’s never quite right. Except when I am with you. Even here…” and he looked out over the city. “When I made this… I made it down to the very last detail. I made this place like my New Detroit. So where you see it as ‘not right’, I saw it as exactly how it should be for me.” He looked back at her and said “Except right now, it’s not. I see it like you do. Twenty minutes ago? I saw like I always had… through my perception of it. But as soon as I ran the program with you standing here, I saw it.” and he grinned. “Weird, huh?”

Kane

“It’s an interesting observation. If I left, do you think you would see it as you always had?” It would be an interesting set of observations to study. Alexis knew that wasn’t the point of the simulation though. Alexis eyes scanned the cityscape again. “I’ve never seen a city with this level if technology but also so polluted.”

Lt. Cmdr. Alexis Kane, Assistant Chief Medical Officer

“Yeah… it was a real garbage dump. Some places, literally. You want to take a look around?” He looked at her and said “I have the program set to ignore you. Nothing you say or do will effect the simulation in any way. You can just watch and listen, if you like. But I can show you how it was… living here.”

Kane

Alexis wasn’t thinking if it as a dump, but more the extreme lack of responsible leadership that allowed the city to become like this. It was, or the New Detroit in her reality, was a Federation world. Who was caring for the people here? She squeezed his hand for a moment, then she nodded once. “Show me.”

Lt. Cmdr. Alexis Kane, Assistant Chief Medical Officer

Kane nodded and took her hand. “Okay. If it gets to be too much, just end the program, okay?” he said. “This building is one of three apartment buildings. As far as quality goes? They are considered not at all bad. Keep that in mind as we go downstairs. And yeah… stairs. No elevators or lifts. Not that there would be enough power to run ‘em even they were installed.”

“Okay.” Though the likelihood of that happening was slim. Alexis may not be as tough as Solomon, and she was certainly sheltered, but she was just as stubborn and determined. She followed him inside and to the stairs. The phrase ‘not enough power’ was a stark reminder of how different this place was, not that Alexis needed the reminder.

He led her inside and to a stairwell. The stairs were concrete and covered in graffiti. He led her down the stairs, and the lower they went, the more crowded the place became. People were sleeping in hallways and on the stairs themselves. More than a few of the ‘apartments’ they could see had no doors. Most of the lighting in the halls came from either far too bright or far too dim lighting in the ceiling. A few of the forms on the floor and stairs seemed like they had perhaps not moved in a very long time.

As they came to one landing, a teen was sitting down and leaned against the wall. A needle protruded from his arm below a piece of rubber tubing, and his arm was discolored and swelling. “Hijack. It was a nasty drug that the Syndicate created and tested here in New Detroit. Super addictive and highly lethal.” Kane said as they walked past the form.

Alexis looked at the young teen, eyes narrowed in horrified study. She’d heard of the Syndicate doing such things, they still did. She read reports and had seen a few patients at Star Fleet Medical, but she’d never seen anything like this first hand. The teen on the verge of dying, the bodies, the rundown state of the not all bad building. It was consciencenable.

Soon they came to the front door, transparent aluminum broken and shattered in the frame. Kane led Alexis out and onto the street. From here, nothing of the view they had from the rooftop was visible. It was humid, and the air clung to them like some kind of parasite. The smell was wholly disconcerting. People, vehicles, rotting garbage, and all manner of raw waste fought a battle for supremacy… but sometimes, just for a moment, there was the smell of something truly wonderful. Food of some kind, but it was quickly swallowed by the overwhelming stench of so many crammed together.

Kane led her to the left and down the crowded street. True to his word, Alexis simply passed by or through the masses of foot traffic. They had not gone far when someone screamed. Everyone froze and all eyes looked at the source: a human woman in her mid-thirties. He companion, a human male of about the same age had a look of shock on his face; and then he simply fell face-forward onto the concrete side walk with a sickening crunch. The handle of a blade protruded from his back. As soon as he hit the ground, two figures moved forward and in an instant had emptied the dead man’s belongings into their pockets and they disappeared into the crowd. The crowd, for their part, simply moved again… people stepping over the body as if it was a particularly noxious bit of trash. Kane took Alexis’ hand and pulled her down the street. The last view of the seen was the woman, the dead man’s companion, staring down at the figure the city had already forgotten.

Kane

The stench was awful and the brief whiffs of the food only seemed to make it worse. The press of the crowd was enough to make the most even keeled person claustrophobic. What stopped Alexis from hurrying toward the man, was the fact she knew it was a hologram. That didn’t stop the flinch of watching people scavenge off the man like vultures with a rotting carcass. What was worse was the way they just stepped over the man and not one person tried to help the man’s companion. As emotionally removed as Alexis could be, she was disturbed by it. She didn’t say anything. What could she say? It was awful and inhumane? Solomon knew that, and it felt hollow and disrespectful to state the obvious.

Lt. Cmdr. Alexis Kane, Assistant Chief Medical Officer

They walked on, through the press of people. Kane kept hold of Alexis’ hand the entire way. There was something about the way he held it, though, that was different. It was almost as if… as if he was holding onto her afraid she might slip away. Or maybe it was he was afraid he might slip away. He led through a truly labyrinthine maze of streets and dilapidated structures, each one seemingly a urban hell from which there was no escape for anyone. And the looks on the faces of those around them reflected that hopelessness.

Alexis held his hand, returning the intensity, and walking closely to him. It was hellish with seemingly no end in sight. Each block seemed worse than the previous. There was some new degradation. Even with the proof in front of her, she couldn’t imagine how a child, any child, could survive and grow up in this. It was giving her a whole new perspective on her husband.

They turned onto another street and suddenly the crowd just vanished. Not that the program removed them, but the people simply seemed to melt away from where they were walking. The block was no different from any of the other dozen or so blocks they had walked down, with the exception that the power here seeming stable… a fact that seemed so much a part of the city behind them that it was almost shocking when they stepped onto a street that wasn’t lit by flickering lights and the aura of gaudy advertisements and signage.

But here.... here it was brightly lit. The street was clean. And the buildings along this stretch were in god repair. “So here is where those than can choose to live.” Kane said. “It’s not that the area is any better or worse, but it has one thing that the area we just came through doesn’t have in it.” and he pointed up and to the right.

There, on the corner of the next block up, stood a structure that was was positively emblazoned with light. The massive building must have been almost eighty stories tall, and it had so much activity around it, it seemed like the central core of a beehive. Ground vehicles moved around it while other vehicles with flashing lights on top stayed still. All kinds of flying vehicles moved quickly to and fro around the structure. As they got closer there was a large wall, almost twenty feet high, blocking the road just before the building. On top of the wall were towers… and between the towers were something that Alexis had probably never seen in person… projectile guns. Large ones. And they weren’t stationary, either. They swept back and forth in a seemingly chaotic rhythm. Set in the wall in the middle of the road was a massive metal door. Next to it, a smaller, humanoid-sized door stood. And in front of both stood a dozen large figures in red armor with white helmets with some kind of decal on the side and massive rifles in their hands. It took a moment to get closer, but then the decal on the helmets was clearly visible and familiar to Alexis. It was identical to one of Kane’s tattoos: the crest of the New Detroit Fire Department.

At first it reminded Alexis of the Sanctuary Zones of the early 21st, but much much worse. The defenses around the building made her pause as they walked. The wall, the massive guns, the soldiers and their weapons. The building behind was massive and busy, but it seemed like an ivory tower after the rest of the city.

“New Detroit Fire Department Special Operations Command and Control Center. This is where I worked… where I lived before Star Fleet.” he said softly as he looked up at the gigantic building.

Kane

Alexis recognized the symbol immediately. That and his words gave her a new perspective on what she was seeing. Everything he had told her and what little she found about NDFD in this reality told her that they were good people, worked hard against an impossible situation. The question was out as she looked at the building and security. “Why would people threaten you?”

Lt. Cmdr. Alexis Kane, Assistant Chief Medical Officer

Kane looked at the facility, a sense of determined pride in his eyes. “Because they don’t have, and we do. Food. Clean water. Medical supplies. Hell… hope. We are… were… set up and designed to be the absolute best New Detroit had to offer in search and rescue, medical support, fire fighting. The cops were a joke, even to themselves. And the criminal organizations always tried everything they could to buy us… bribe us… blackmail, coerce, threaten, and kill us. But they couldn’t get us. Oh, here and there they’d take one of us somehow. But there were thousands waiting for that spot.” He look3d around and said “This place is the embodiment of ‘If you don’t rake care of yourself, you’ll never be able to help anyone else.’.” he said. “If we were sick… or hungry… or broke… then we could be manipulated by outside agencies. But we weren’t, so they couldn’t. Oh, we knew how good we has it. And we have back absolutely every single bit we could. But it was never enough. We could only save those we could. And for every one we saved, a hundred suffered. But they kept coming. In droves. More and more people crowding into a place that didn’t have enough to begin with. And all we could do to help was put band-aids on the bullet wounds.”

Kane

Alexis didn’t say anything. She just stared at the building and then looked over her shoulder back the way they had came. It was such a stark difference. One large building shinning building. An air vehicle drew her attention. Alexis imagined the building and cleanliness just around it, probably looked like a band-aid amongst the festering wound of the city. “Show me the rest.”

Lt. Cmdr. Alexis Kane, Assistant Chief Medical Officer

“Come on. I’ll show the ‘best’ view.” Kane said, and he led her past the guards and through the door.

Just past the wall was a massive assembly area. Emergency vehicles of all shapes and sizes were being stocked, reloaded, remained, and cleaned. In the center of the yard was a giant iron drain cover. As vehicles landed or rolled in, hatches and tail gates and doors were opened and crews wwith large hoses sprayed a mixture of water and disinfectant inside. The smell was… intense. As they walked past, rivulets of dark-tinged slurry washed out of the vehicles and down the drain. Bits and pieces of expended medical waste, including bits of flesh and… was that a hand?… flowed through the grate and out of sight.

The sight was disturbing, and despite the overpowering smell of disinfectant, the idea of all that medica biological waste being washed down a giant drain came close to making her feel ill.

Kane led her inside the front doors and into a giant waiting area. Rows and rows of seats were filled with individuals of a myriad of species. Past them was a large counter topped with transparent aluminum, behind which sat other members of the NDFD. It took a moment to register, but all of the dozen or so seated individuals had some kind of permanent injury: missing ey, arm gone below the elbow, burn scars all over their face. “Intake for those can walk here for help.” Kane said as they moved past the counter and through six security checkpoints to some elevators.

They took the elevator all the way up to the 87th floor. Stepping off, they were in a non-descript hallway with a single door at the opposite end. He led her to it and through it. Past the door was a flight of stairs that went up to another door. Moving up and through, they stepped onto the roof of the building.

Their first view of the city was informative, but this one was all-encompassing. From this height, the entirety of the city was visible. And there was only a single term that could describe the view… sprawl. As far as they could see was nothing but block after block of cramped, crowded, and oppressive city-scape. A major difference in this view, though, was the visibility of areas of glittering towers and obvious wealth. The silvery metallic spires thrust up from the near blackness of the surrounding city like needles piercing dark flesh.

Kane pointed at the spires off in the distance. “That’s the corporate sector. Whole place is surrounded by hundred meter high walls and pulse cannons. Everything you see around it? That’s what exists off the scraps that fall from those towers. That’s the seat of the Colonial government. Two hundred ‘elected’ officials who represent all the different districts and sectors in the city. At the time this was, I know of three of them who had ever been to the places they represented. And I never met anyone who ever voted.”

Kane

Alexis was exceptionally smart. She could have done anything she wanted, but she loved Medical science and being a doctor. She genuinely cared about people, even if she she was totally academic about it.

The gleaming spires took on a sinister visage. They really were like needles piercing flesh, but with drugs and not medication. Even all the way up here, the rank smell of the city reached them. This wasn’t even existing. “How did you survive this?” Alexis was certain she would not have.

Lt. Cmdr. Alexis Kane, Assistant Chief Medical Officer

Kane shrugged as he leaned on the guardrail that ran around the roof’s edge. “First I got really mean. Second I got really good at reading people. But most of all… I got really lucky. There are millions of people down there. A lot of them meaner than me. Smarter than me. More tenacious than me. But luck isn’t on their side. They are born with the deck stacked against them, and nothing changes for as long as they live.” He looked out over his former home. “You know the median age down there, with all of those people, is forty-six? I met a some people in their fifties… a couple in their sixties… never anyone past that. Not even Vulcans. But over there?” and he jerked his chin at the spires. “Well over a hundred.”

Kane

Alexis made a very rude and derogatory gesture as she walked over to lean on the rail next to him. “That’s… I don’t think I know a word to describe that. Nothing seems to quite cover it.” People in this tower were healthy and cared for, but they really weren’t escaping it at all. Alexis didn’t know what to say, she wasn’t sure she should try.

Lt. Cmdr. Alexis Kane, Assistant Chief Medical Officer

“Nope.” Kane said as he stared out over the scene. “Thirty years after this day… thirty years and all of this is gone.” He turned his head to look at the spires. “There were three nukes. One was in the basement of this building. Another was in the reservoir. The last one was in there. And I like to think that it was the last one to go off… so those bastards saw what was coming and had time to realize that none of their power or blood money would get them out of this.”

Kane

Alexis had studied, briefly, the nuclear age of Earth (as standard history). WWII and WWIII. She had been curious about the medical ramifications and when she learned about Chernobyl, she had convinced her father to take her. Chernobyl would still not be safe for several hundred years. The devastation, the biological changes of the flora and fauna had been a very real slap in the face of the distruction and hatred humanity was capable of. Alexis would not have wished that date on anyone.

Seeing New Detroit, the reality of it, along with the stories Solomon had told her, she (thought) she could understand why he felt that way. She would not wish that on those people packed like too much trash barely existing below, but she hoped those behind their wall and pulse cannons finally paid for their crimes.

What was really heart breaking was knowing it wouldn’t end there with the bombs. Someone else, another Syndicate boss, would rise to power in the loss of this colony, and it would just keep happening. The Orion syndicate was still very much active in 2400, and showed no signs of stopping.

Lt. Cmdr. Alexis Kane, Assistant Chief Medical Officer

Kane shook his head and then took a breath. “Anyway… it’s not like I’ll ever get back here, even if it did still exist. If I ever even wanted to, which I really don’t. Separate realities… one fate. Kind of weird. Like… this place was too rotten for any reality.”

Kane

Alexis slipped her hand into his again and stood there with him. “Different specific choices might have been made, but in the end all actions and inactions have consequences. The probability of the same outcome median, the exact same circumstances, very low, but not improbable.” She looked back at the door leading to the stairs. “NDFD did good work in both realities. Maybe it was just a band-aid on the bigger problems, but it mattered to those that walked in or called for help.” A soft sigh sounded in his ear as she looked back at him. “I wish I could tell you that this reality doesn’t have places like this.”

Lt. Cmdr. Alexis Kane, Assistant Chief Medical Officer

“But it certainly does.” Kane said. “One thing I have learned through all of this alternating realities and times is that large groups of individuals tend to be complete s#!t. An individual? They can be alright. A pair? Fine. But anything over, like, ten… and everything just goes to crap. Doesn’t matter species, culture, technological advancements… the bigger the group, the crappier they are to one another.”

Kane

Alexis looked over the city, and she realized there was no nature, no flora or fauna. Just people and their trash and waste and politics. “My father tells his students a quite from an old science fiction movie. ‘A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals…’ He says nature shows in how animals survive better in smaller groups. There are exceptions, but the social structure is extremely rigid. He says humanity has forgotten that, and we pay the price for it.”

Lt. Cmdr. Alexis Kane, Assistant Chief Medical Officer

“Some of us do.” he said, with another jerk of his chin towards the spires. “Some of us pay the price for others who never have to pay anything.” He chuckled. “I remember something from a history book. It said during the late 20th and early 21st centuries on Earth, billionaires were funding this kind of private race to get people to space. And I remember someone said ‘Billionaires want to get to space because they know guillotines need gravity to work.’ I f&<king love that response.”

Kane

Alexis grinned. She could see Solomon saying that himself. “Problem is, all celestial bodies have gravity. It would catch them eventually. Maybe after someone shoved them out an airlock.”

Lt. Cmdr. Alexis Kane, Assistant Chief Medical Officer

“One can hope.” Kane said. He stepped back from the railing and said “Well… there you have it. My ‘formative years’, in all their glory.” He looked out over the city and sighed heavily.

“What a s#!t hole.” he said, and shook his head.

Kane

It really was horrible, it was hard to wrap her mind around the total lack of humanity in this place. Then add to it the ‘wrongness’ of it from her perspective. Alexis put her arms around him and hugged him for a long moment. It was comfort and understanding. “Where next?” There on the holodeck or elsewhere, it was up to him.

Lt. Cmdr. Alexis Kane, Assistant Chief Medical Officer

Kane was quiet a moment and then said “C’mon. Follow me.” He led her back through the door, down the stairs, down the lift, and out of the NDFD building. He took her hand and walked with her in silence. They walked for what seemed like ages, twists and turns and sometimes going down alleys that seemed like dead ends just to go through doors and through buildings to get to another street. After walking, they turned onto a side street. It was dark. No streetlights, no lights in the windows of the tenements and row homes on the street. The only lights were those from the flashing ads plastering the sky and what spilled over the tops of the buildings form outside the street. All the power here seemed to be out. They walked in the middle of the street, past burned out vehicles and rundown, derelict buildings until they came to a building where Solomon stopped.

It was dark too dark. It didn’t matter that Alexis knew it was just a holodeck. Her hand tightened almost painfully in his, and with a strangled labored sound she was pressed against him, but she kept moving. A second later a blue white light emitted from her closed hand. He said the program would ignore her, so it would probably ignore her light too.

The building was dark, like the rest, but it also seemed far worse than it’s neighbors. Multiple floors had collapsed in on themselves and the external walls were bowed out, seeming likely to collapse at any moment. Twisted metal supports, blackened by something far hotter than a normal fire, jutted out of the rubble. Kane sighed. “This is where I first lived. Where I was named. I was here till I was ten… and then somebody burned the building to the ground.”

Kane

Alexis stared at the building. How could you keep children in a building like that? How could you let anyone live in a place like that. She leaned against him, slipping an arm around him. She went to speak and then shook her head. Alexis had never wanted to have children, and Solomon said he hadn’t either. She didn’t think she would make a very good mother. He’d said there were a lot of unwanted kids he would take before he’d bring more into the universe. She understood now. She couldn’t see the business, the rich, sector from here, but her head turned toward the direction with disgust. There was plenty of money there to help. She looked back at the building, “Do we go inside?”

Lt. Cmdr. Kane, AMO

Kane shook his head. “Can’t. See… this was one of the older buildings in New Detroit. So old it had a basement with a furnace in it. Winters here sucked. Wind would come in off the lake about twenty miles from here and cut right through you it was so cold. Average temp in middle of was below negative twenty Celsius. When the building was burned, they started the fire in the basement. Because of that… the whole place fell into the hole.” He turned and looked at her. “They did it during a blizzard.” and he looked back at the building.

Kane

He could see it, her brain processing the numbers. The temperature, wind chill, ages of the children, the negative impact of the squalor on their health, the solution, the structure of the building, the temperature and explosiveness needed for the fire to collapse the building. Then, glancing around and calculating the likelihood of someone taking in at least one of those children. There weren’t options for those kids. Her thumb gently traced over the scratchy bird tattoo. “That’s when you joined the gang?”

Lt. Cmdr. Kane, AMO