INTERVIEW LOGS, SIDE A

I.

But when can I go? You keep saying—the guys at the other place said it was temporary holding. Now you want to ask me questions? They already asked me a bunch of questions, I don't want to do it again. I don't understand why you're keeping me here. I haven't done anything wrong.

If I answer the questions, can I go?

II.

Twenty-seven. I think—I was born in … I don't know, why does it matter how old I am? And I know you already have my name. I saw it in that file of yours with my picture. That's not even my name, it's just what I told Markus it was so he'd hire me. My real name's Pyro. Pyro with a capital P.

III.

Yeah, Markus is the guy that owns the junkyard.

I don't want to talk about him. What does he even have to do with anything?

Ask me a different question.

IV.

I guess I've been living in Chicago for about six months. This is just where the train dropped me after I left my old job. After they fired me.

I used to work at—well, I can't talk much about it. I'm not working there anymore but the NDA lasts until I die and you don't want to mess with them about that stuff. But at my old job I was a pyrotechnician.

I loved that job. God. I burned things. Every day. For hours. It was amazing. All kinds of things. I couldn't even list them all. Most of them were blue. I didn't care what I was burning, honestly, as long as I got to do it. As long as I got to feed the fire.

V.

Hey—hey, do you have a match? Or a lighter? No, just—you don't have to give it to me. I can smell the cigarettes on you, c'mon. I just want you to light it, I want to show you something.

There. Yes. Thank you.

Do you see the colors?

VI.

The first time I saw the colors it was at my job. My old job, not the one at the junkyard. I guess a lighter isn't strong enough for it.

You know how when fire burns hottest it's white? That's where they come from, that white. It's like a—I think Engineer called it a prism. If you put white light through a prism, it turns into every color.

VII.

Who, Engineer? He's a friend of mine. He was one of my coworkers. No, that was his name. Everyone that got hired there had names like that. We had a Scout, a Medic. I guess it's a weird way to base your hiring, but it worked. We were a great team. And none of them minded my fires. I don't know what the hell it is about Chicago. You start a little fire and there's the fire department. Don't they have cats to be getting out of trees? That's what firemen do, right?

That was a joke.

I met a fireman once, when I worked with the team. He was like me. He fed the fire. I'm not sure how he got away with it, being a fireman. When I asked him he said he'd become one to get closer to the big blazes more often. It wasn't nearly as good a job as mine, but I didn't get to burn big things like buildings, so I guess he had that one on me, at least for a while. He could see the colors.

VIII.

I said I don't want to talk about the junkyard. I don't.

IX.

What was I talking about?

Oh, the fire. The colors, yeah, I'll tell you about the colors. Gladly. What do you want to know?

X.

It did startle me when it first happened. I thought they had put something in my food, but I didn't eat for three days afterward and it happened again, so that couldn't be it. Then I thought it was the water, but I could only go a day without water. I don't think it was that, though. The only other idea I had back then was they implanted something in my teeth while I was sleeping, like a transmitter that interferes with the brain. Like on TV. But that's the kind of theory you get out of conspiracy nuts and crazy people.

The first time it happened everything was normal. Fire latching its teeth into the cloth, unfurling itself in beauty. I was burning this big tarp bundle, or maybe it was a carpet roll or something, I don't really remember. It was big and heavy and smelled like burnt hair when I lit it up. I stood there and let the fire eat. That's sort of what I call it, I guess, feeding it.

I had this axe RED issued me that I'd used to pin the thing down because it was windy, and as the fire got bigger I pulled it out so it wouldn't get burned. That's when it happened. The fire snapped and the orange bloomed into a dozen different colors, and the air got sweeter. The burnt-hair smell went away and turned into that sweet kind of smoke, you know, the kind that smells like sugar or candy. Under the crackle I could hear the fire singing.

No, that's what I said. Sugar smoke. You're telling me you've never smelled that?

You're missing out.

XI.

I didn't see the colors again until I got fired.

I was with Engineer that day. It was a couple years later and I hadn't seen the fire again after the first time. I spent a lot of time with Engineer. He got me more than the others. He was kind of like—the way I am with fire, he was with machines. He built a lot of stuff and I would help him, sometimes. I learned a lot from him. I was the only woman on the team and no one cared, which suited me, but Engineer would go out of his way to treat me like a lady. I think he knew I was a crazy pyro bitch but he was nice.

He was nice…

We had to guard this one room specifically one day, and Engineer's machines were made to do that. It was really cool, the stuff he could make them do, it was like it was out of a science fiction show. He could have it so they knew not to fire on people wearing a certain color.

No, I meant to say that. Fire like gunfire. Bang. They were mounted guns. Everyone at my job used guns, his were just stationary. Once I thought I saw them move on their own but only once.

Anyway the people trying to get into the room broke in one day. It was just me and Engineer and his guns, and we'd just been talking all day because there wasn't anything else to do. It was down in a basement, and it's not like we could watch TV or read a book or something. It was just us. We'd talk about work and I guess the latest gossip and stuff. Who was sleeping with who on the team or that kind of thing. I never really got why that got talked about so much, but I'd go along with it because when we ran out of that Engie'd talk to me about machines and I'd talk to him about fires. I told him about the colors once. He understood.

So we were just talking, and then one of his machines makes this godawful scream. It sort of was. The other side had these other machines they could use to disable ours. But someone had snuck in, because this room didn't have any doors, and sapped the sentry. I hated listening to those things dying. They shrieked like animals.

When I was guarding—when I did most of the stuff at my job at RED—I used this flamethrower I had built when I got recruited. I build lots of things. Engineer liked it, he said it was a marvel of engineering. And it was a great defensive tool. After the sentry died I sat myself down on the briefcase we were guarding and held the trigger while Engineer tried to find this guy. He didn't find him, though. He got stabbed. Right in the back. The other guy was a spy, and you know how spies can just disappear and reappear, like The Invisible Man, that's what he did.

XII.

No, spies can do that.

Are you sure you're a psychiatrist? I know they said they were sending me for psychological evaluation but you—I mean, everyone knows spies do that.

XIII.

So Engineer was dead and so were the guns, and this spy was just grinning at me. He grinned like my boss at the junkyard does sometimes. Leered. That's the word. He leered at me and I charged him right as he pulled out his gun.

If he hadn't tripped over Engineer's body when I slammed my shoulder into him, he probably would have got me. But I'd just watched him murder Engineer and I was seeing red. He went down and I let loose with the flamethrower on his face…

XIV.

Crazy pyro bitch. Even the spy never called me that and he hated me.

I don't like any of those words. I'm not any of those words, unless they're Pyro with a capital P.

XV.

What?

Oh, no, that's the kind of job this was. License to kill. I don't think I ever saw anyone ever try to do a hostage sort of thing, from either side. I mean, there wasn't much of a point.

So I set the fire on the spy. Like a dog, you know? I like dogs—not that I'm saying fire's a pet. That would be stupid. I burned him up like I burned all the other blue things up. They were the blue team and we were red. I said that, right? So I burned him up and after I got him going really good, it happened. The fire changed color.

I'd been waiting years for it to happen again, by this point. I think I said that. It was so long. Nothing else I did seemed to make it happen. I was dying to see it again, I'd dream about it, it was awful waiting. And getting it again was like getting drugged. It looked like—fireworks or oil slicks, you know how you get rainbows on oil slicks? It was like that. It was so beautiful I wanted to cry. And the smell was just—I needed more of it. The sugar smell.

So I burned him up, and then I burned up Engineer's body, and the guns, and the room, and the briefcase we were guarding. Then I walked out of the room and lit the rest of the base on fire. I guess I got a little crazy. When Engineer came back from being dead he asked me what happened and I couldn't really explain it.

...Yeah, he came back. Obviously he came back. Why wouldn't he? The spy came back too, I think. If I wasn't under arrest I could call Engie and you could see for yourself. Or I guess I don't have his number. But he was the first one to say goodbye to me when RED fired me. You know, for burning down the base.