The sudden scent of burn took Ivan out of his wide-mouthed contemplation of the surroundings. On each sides of Alphonse’s work-van, entire families of trees were going up in flames, sucked down to meet with the fumes already in the sky by way of flaring canopies. Alphonse went through two balls of fire, his mid-length white hair floating around his skull due to the charge in the air, before he asked, “Ivan, what’s burning?” Indeed something was burning, inside the van. The question of what stole Ivan from his fascination and his oscillation between pessimism and optimism. He wouldn’t realise that the top part of his mask was thawing like the tip of an incense stick until Darlene pointed it out to him.

  “Ivan your hat is burning” she shouted, hitting the wall of the van from the strong jump she executed. Then Eugenie White and Barry tumbled down like a mudslide at the back of the van and Alphonse took a turn so sharp that the back doors flung open again. Some spoons and plates flew out, the cooking equipement from Daphne’s Martha-Stewart-workshop era, the entire fatigued pile of cheese boxes that Alphonse meant to recycle and the priceless antenna that Robortor had fetched from an abandoned Soviet site. The passengers all piled up on top of each other, pancaked on the corner, and Ivan’s mouth, still suspended in the preparation of a scream, tasted something coppery. He looked down at his hands, saw the color red flashier than he had ever seen. The acrid intrusion of the metal mixed with the sharper stink of burned things. Burned rubber.

  Eugenie White clumsily pulled Barry in the center of the van cargo space, under her and Darlene, “Where the fuck is Uberwoman??” Darlene yelled at the top of her lungs, hoping that Uberwoman, wherever she was, would also hear the question. She seized the doors that were swinging in the wind and closed them sharply, as it was a well known fact that she had the strongest arms of the group. After Marlene, of course.

  “Slowing them down” Ivan nodded at her

  She looked down at Barry, pinned on the floor of the vehicle. Ivan had never seen so much blood in his life, “why are we not FLYING” Darlene asked, mesmerized

  “The sky isn’t safe now” Alphonse replied. Just to punctuate his words, a small mushroom cloud of yellow and orange flashes erupted in the near distance.

  “Oh fuck, shockwave” Darlene warned, barely holding on to the doors, “incoming!” she cried out, but as the tide of air swept from under the van, Robortor violently smashed into it from the right side, sending a canceling quake through the vehicle and its small crowd of escapees.

  “Sorry!” George exclaimed, finding his balance on the seat next to Alphonse, “I was totally dashing through the sn—” Ivan watched Eugenie White tighten her knees around Barry’ shoulders, one hand holding on to the ceiling pipes and the other hooked on the collar of Barry’s jumper. Barry’s arms went upward following the commotion of the bump, George wailed, “what’s happening IS THAT BARRY”

  “Barry was gunned down” Eugenie said, “Ivan, help me” She confiscated his hands and pushed them down against all the goo on Barry’s upper body, “we need to stop, Alphonse, I have blood in my nose and in my throat, I can’t see anything, I have blood in my eyes, my vision is—” Barry’s own sleepy eyes were going from her alert to Ivan’s probable expression of disgust.

  “We cannot park, Ms White” Alphonse replied calmly, keeping his eyes on the road, “there is actually lava on our tracks”

  “Barry!” George jumped from the passenger seat to crouch next to Eugenie, grabbed his friend by the shoulders “you’re okay Barry?”

  “No” Barry blew out

  “Come on come on don’t shake him” Darlene reassigned George’s huge hand to his own space, “he’s been shot like three times”

  “THREE TIMES YOU FOOLS WHAT DID YOU DO”

  “Listen Ivan” against all odds, Eugenie White’s pony tail was having a good-hair day, contrasting with the ambient chaos and remaining surprisingly tidy in the middle of all the winds and explosions. The curled tip of it was bouncing following her movements as she unzipped Barry’s jacket while keeping Ivan’s hands there, “take this rag” she produced a grease-stained towel out of nowhere, “and all of us” she eyed Darlene and George, “we’re going to lift Barry and you will slide it under his back”

  “No please” Barry frowned

  Eugenie’s face melted in anticipated guilt as she forced herself to ignore Barry “Th then we will lie him back down very very flat against the fabric, to act as a sponge”

  “THREE FUCKING TIM—”

  “George!” Darlene implored him, “we have a job right now”

  In very fast and precise movements, Eugenie rolled off Barry’s long sleeves and, when Darlene and Robortor pulled him up, discarded it on the side, “are those bullet holes, mate?” George asked, “why is that one so big?”

  “You can handle it, Barry” Eugenie said to him. He held on through the motion, closed his eyes and gulped down something that seemed to be dried up rice and raspy air inside his mouth while his feet kicked feebly at the end of his legs. “Because the hit came from the back and exited through his front” Eugenie explained. Barry’s eyes met Ivan’s from down below as he was pushing his friend back against the floor. “Talk to him, keep him awake” Eugenie ordered Robortor, then threw another rag to Darlene, “Darlene, wrap this thing around Barry’s arm, the other arm, NOT this arm, the other one”

  “There is blood all over this arm too”

  “I know I know” Eugenie was speaking patiently, Ivan guessed, because she was accustomed to large populations of students expressing all sorts of things at the same time. For a civilian, the cool and the focus she was maintaining were impressive, and Ivan had never seen that side of her, he guessed, the Eugenie White who had been able to rescue the Bolt from his previous ordeals, out of scratch.

  “My friend, where the hell were you attacked??” Robortor leaned over Barry and asked him

  “NOT THAT, talk to him about something NICE”

  “Train… station” Barry’s eyelids flickered

  “Ivan, press this towel on his chest, let’s just stop this blood it’s—” she sniffled loudly, wiped her nose with the cuff of her blouse, spreading more blood on her upper lip although the left side of her face was entirely sticky with some older less bright red liquid, “it’s too much”

  “Sorry man”

  “Fuu—” Barry shook his head and some faint strands of blue light twirled at the bottom of his eyes

  “DON’T” Darlene held him down, “Don’t bolt now” Barry swallowed hard and retreated inside his head, eyes shut, and the indigo lights evaporated around his face.

  “Good, good, Barry” Eugenie smiled at him with a disarming revelation of warmth, what seemed to be dancing between pride and tenderness, “breathe, Barry, breathe” Ivan shivered and his heart sank from being torpedoed by so much pathos.

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  “Something nice, something nice” George was still thinking, “my friend, remember when you found that lizard and he wouldn’t leave you? You tried to release him back to the wild and he didn’t want to go”

  “Isn’t that the lizard that Hobbes accidentally ran ov—”

  “Ivan”

  Barry’s legs were kicking more compellingly, like he was trying to unlock some secret portal on the floor of the van and disappear into it “someone has a pen?” Eugenie White asked

  “I don’t have pockets” Arachnovitch said

  “I have a pencil”

  “Like an… an ink roller pen” Eugenie specified

  “You’re a teacher and you don’t carry a pen?” Darlene said, “sorry sweetie, I meant—”

  “DO YOU HAVE A PEN OR NOT?”

  “It’s out of ink” Alphonse said without fuss

  “I’m NOT going to write with it, dammit!” Eugenie was frustrated. Under her, Ivan saw Barry’s mouth welcome a small and faint smile, his eyes roll into their orbs and look up at her. His breathing was short and quivering.

  “Sorry little Barry” Darlene said after tying a strong knot on his forearm, “what’s it for, the pen?”

  “We need to find a hospital” Eugenie inspected the pen, her knee still blocking Barry’s legs and her other hand on his left shoulder to prevent him from slipping away. Outside, the van barely missed an ablaze tree that collapsed diagonally and cut the street in two, propagating a cloud of embers upwards and against the front of the car.

  “Evacuation has been completed” Alphonse stated, avoiding a huge puddle of burning oil at the last second, “there are no functioning hospitals in the area. FUCK” he cursed at a street pole dropping on an ice cream station right next to them, “it’s like fucking Mario Kart here!”

  “Get Hobbes on the phone” Darlene said

  “Barry, remember that lizard? You named him Barry, right? You really don’t have any imagination”

  Ivan watched Eugenie slid her finger under Barry’s tee shirt, push it up to reveal his abdomen and the lower part of his chest. His skin was glistening with brown and red blood, some of it streaming down in thick drops, some of the goo mixing with the now old ugly scar he had above his belly button. The smell was unbearable, it smelled like copper, like sick saliva. It smelled like death. How much blood did a human body contained and how much could one shed before brushing against death, for real? He wondered.

  “Hobbes is always on the comms”

  Barry gasped for air, his face crumpled like a dried olive, “I’m not going to make it” he said

  “BARRY SHUT THE FUCK UP, SHUT THE FUCK UP” Eugenie slapped his face. They all screamed inside the car, even Alphonse.

  Alphonse hooted without taking his eyes off the road. “Eugenie White!” He went on and barked at her reproachfully, “Eugenie Wh—"

  “Pen’s for that” Eugenie raised her right arm in the air while the vehicle was beginning a slow turn. She waited, holding her breath, for the manoeuvre to happen, “Barry, think about something nice, something beautiful” And as if he didn’t hold any grudges for the blow she’d just inflicted to him while he was already struggling to stay alive, he nodded at her with some kind of silent understanding. He clenched his jaws and turned his head to look away. The air at his mouth was whistling like a basket of snakes.

  “Hobbes is saying there are no staffed hospitals nearby” Alphonse informed

  “Motherfucker wait” Eugenie whispered, then she plunged the pen at the end of her hand towards Barry but stopped herself one centimeter away from his chest, “WAIT” she closed her eyes and added another hand on the pen, as if she was fighting with a mysterious force.

  “DON’T cl close your e—” Barry gasped in fright

  “Eugenie what –” Robortor gestured towards her, volunteering to add his own hands to the pen’s descent Darlene swatted it away.

  Eugenie White finally dropped the pen in a muffled sob and landed her hands on the sides of Barry, “I cannot do that I don’t I don’t I DON’T KNOW HOW TO DO THAT” She opened her eyes and nodded at Barry, and he nodded back and they nodded at each other as though they had all the time in the world to grant to nodding.

  “Do wh what, sweetie?” Darlene asked patiently, pushing George away.

  “Barry you… you need to sit, at least, at least” she rubbed the tears from her eyes with her bloody hands and squeezed Ivan’s arm with her other one, “we can try to sit Barry up, please” her voice was exhausted, weary, grave with disappointment, “Darlene and Robortor, can you superdry those things” mechanically, she handed the rags that had been compressed under Barry’s back to Darlene, “Ivan, lift him up please, I don’t want him to like… drown”

  “Drown?” The continued nodding exchange between Barry and Eugenie White gave Ivan some chills, and the chills up his spine were the size of baseballs. Having been the one catching the two in an eyelock before, on top of the kicthen table at Hobbes’ Lab, as well as the one starting the wild rumors about it, he took a moment to comply with Eugenie White’s orders, distracted and slightly disturbed.

  “Superdried” Darlene handed the towels back to Eugenie, “what the fuck, with the pen, sweetheart”

  “I’m not… I’m not a real doctor” Eugenie sniffled

  “FIREBALL” Alphonse cried out, “hang tight!”

  They went through the whirlpool of heat in relative silence except for Barry’s grated breath, limbs outstretched to grab anything that was sticking out of the roof or walls of the van to keep straight. Eugenie’s pants were saturated with blood at the level of her knees. “Drown, because Barry’s respiratory system is filling with some fluids” she said, sounding like she was reciting from a book, a very sad book, judging by the shake in her voice.

  “Fluids?”

  “I have Hobbes on the line” Alphonse said, switching the windshield wipers to their highest power after his third fireball, “Good God, we are running out of water”

  “Not the good kind of fluids. I was trying to poke with the pen through there” Eugenie pushed hard on the rag against Barry’s chest, “stay awake Barry, listen to me” she closed her index finger and thumb on his chin, “there is a chance that one of your lungs is shriveling inside your ribcage, I was hoping to keep it up and breezy with the pen but I have only seen that in a movie. Ivan, keep him sitting up please”

  “I can’t ssss—”

  “Shh Barry, you can handle it” She seemed dizzy, fragile, defeated for a second, talking from a rehearsal.

  “You ever seen ER?” George said, “Dr Ross used that trick during a spectacular accident, I mean, a bus crash in a thunderstorm. He saved the life of a little kid who had fallen into a sewer”

  “Exactly”

  “That’s a very old television program” Darlene finally handed the phone from Alphonse to Eugenie

  “It’s iconic, the pen trick became an urban legend” George opposed

  Eugenie cleared her throat and her tone regained vigor and some form of authority, “Hobbes, I cannot hear you, but it doesn’t matter: we need a hospital”

  “He’s saying that all hospitals have been deserted, and we will treat Masquevert at home” Alphonse carried the communication

  “HOBBES we cannot take care of Barry at home, he’s going to DIE”

  Ivan looked down at Barry, whose eyes grew larger with panic and also something scandalized about having just mentioned that possibility himself and gotten slapped in the face for it? “No-ho” Ivan forced himself to chuckle, freaked out by the dry-drowning situation that was happening below him, “I’m sure she’s exaggerating, Barry”

  “I don’t care I don’t need a hospital with a staff in it, I need the tools there, Hobbes, tell him! Alphonse, tell him!”

  “What tools?” Alphonse conveyed. All eyes fell on Eugenie and the right cheek on her face that anger was slowly making redder and redder so as if to match her bloody left one. She was coming out of her discouragement now, with ire.

  “Instruments! Like… surgical, stick some sponges inside Barry there and stop all the blood gushing, I need some fucking machines that have tubes and bleeps because those machines will tell me— I need a motherfucking blood bank, I need a sowing kit that doesn’t come in a Danish cookie box from Hobbes' grandma, I need—’

  “GOT IT” Alphonse cut her off abruptly, “looking for the next medical center”

  “Ivan PLEASE KEEP BARRY SEATED sorry I didn’t mean to yell at you it’s—”

  “We are sliding off, because of how wet the floor is” Ivan retorted

  “I’ll help you, here” George closed Darlene’s hand on the last towel he was superdrying, and slid his massive foot behind Barry with Ivan. They resembled a strange nativity scene, Ivan thought.

  “Holy sh—” Barry gasped, “it huurts, it really hurts, it rea—”

  “That’s because your ribs have been demolished, some of them are at risk of poking through your lungs, so sit still and stop resisting, Barry”

  “Dem... demol—”

  “There is debris floating in your chest, I will have to open it and tidy everything there”

  “Op… op—” Barry was trying to repeat her words, horrified

  “I will not let you die”

  “We have arrived at a clinic” George said, intensely scrolling on his wrist watch, “I’m gonna bulldoze in there and get a stretcher”

  As the van slowed down, a strange silence greeted them, only interrupted by the further-away fizzling and roaring of the fire beyond the bushes and across the alley from the building they were nearing. Black car hulks and carcasses trembled slightly in the suffocating breeze and the part of the construction that read Emergency was almost entirely reduced to ashes.

  The bricks were still burning on the corner of it but the adjoining chunk of the complex, a maternity ward, was intact, shielded from the flames by a steel wall. “And most.. most importantly” Eugenie White said in a whisper “I’m not… I’m not a real doctor. I need all of you there. All of you” the hot colors of the blaze all around them dissolved into the tears that escaped from under her shut lids.

  Ivan smelled burned hair.