Contagious
Truck, Squad and Engine had been called out to a building fire. The address wasn't a neighborhood they were familiar with, which could go either way. Repeat customers were a given to first responders, but it was hard to tell whether it was better to deal with something you were already familiar with, or somebody new who didn't have a habit of repeatedly doing something they shouldn't that kept causing more problems.
Casey looked out the windshield at the scene up ahead and he mentally sighed when he saw the building the smoke was pouring out of, but noticed it wasn't coming from the windows or anywhere in front of the building, "It's a school, this isn't gonna be good."
"Looks like they got everybody out," Otis said as they pulled up in front of the hundred or so faculty and students who were standing around by the entrance to the property.
"I hope so," Casey replied as he reached to open his door.
Everybody got out and a man came up to them looking very frantic. It was Casey's guess he was the principal.
"What've we got?" Kelly asked.
"I don't know, somebody pulled the alarm and we evacuated," he said.
"Everybody out?" Casey asked.
"Yes. It's the science lab, it's a separate building around the back of the property."
"We'll find out," Casey said as everybody got their masks on to head in and see what they were dealing with.
"What do you think?" Otis asked once the flames were out, "Somebody trying to start a meth lab in there?"
"Probably some dumb kid farting around with the Bunsen burners," Herrmann replied.
"You always have such an eloquent way with words, Herrmann," Mouch commented.
Boden was standing out front with the principal and the rest of the school staff.
"This is precisely why we had the science lab separate from the main building," the principal said, "all the precautions we take, anything can still happen."
"What's the situation?" Boden asked his men as they came back from the science building.
"The main room is a lost cause," Kelly said.
"Several of the windows in the lab are broken, it's too soon to tell but I don't think the fire did that," Casey added.
"What're you saying?" the principal asked, "That somebody did this deliberately?"
"...It's possible," Casey said, "who was in there when the fire started?"
"Nobody, science is third period, everybody was out of there two hours ago," he answered.
"Exactly what kind of school is this, Mr. Hillard?" Boden asked.
"Junior and senior high."
"This a private school?" Kelly asked as he looked around at some of the students and noticed they were dressed a little too preppy for a regular school, but then noticed most were dressed in regular clothes.
"Not exactly, though we are discretionary," the principal answered.
Kelly and Casey looked around at all the teenagers who were an assortment of bored, excited and some still looked panicked. Casey elbowed Kelly to look where he was looking, and they both saw one teenage girl at the front of the crowd who was looking at them. She might've been 14 or 15, she was thin with dirty blonde hair pulled back and was dressed in a black and white striped T-shirt and blue jeans and neon colored sneakers. She looked at the two firemen, then turned her head and nodded towards someone else. They looked, and saw that she was nodding towards a preppy looking blonde haired boy who looked a couple years older than her. There didn't seem to be any mistake, she looked to the firemen again, then nodded towards the same guy again.
The boy's name was Nathan Jacobs, he was 17 years old, from a 'well to do' family, and he immediately went on the defense when the principal asked to speak to him. Casey, Severide, Boden, Principal Hillard and Nathan Jacobs all headed to Hillard's office for a private chat.
"I don't get what this has to do with me," the boy insisted from where he sat across from the principal.
"Nathan, do you know anything about who started the fire?" the principal asked.
"No," the boy acted put out.
Boden took that opportunity to explain, "My men seem to be under the impression that you know more than you're willing to admit."
"Yeah, from where?" Nathan asked. "Brenda Watson?"
"Who's that?" Kelly asked.
"She's one of our newer students," Principal Hillard answered, "She transferred here a few months ago."
"Yeah but she's a retar..." Nathan stopped before the last sound came out, closed his eyes, shook his head, and then amended himself in a very patronizing tone that was even more insulting, "Excuse me, 'highly functioning autistic'."
Kelly felt Casey's body tense up beside his, already he could tell his best friend wanted to rip this kid's head off with his bare hands, he reached over and subtly gripped Casey's arm to reel him back.
"You can't believe anything she says," Nathan said, "when she even talks that is...she probably set the fire herself, she's always doing weird shit, that's why she got kicked out of the last three schools she attended."
"Nathan," the principal chided, "The firemen aren't interested in idle gossip."
"Well it's true, that's why nobody likes her, because she's a psycho," the towheaded boy responded.
The two lieutenants turned towards each other and exchanged a look.
"You want to explain again just what kind of school this is?" Boden asked.
"We're an alternative school," Principal Hillard responded, "we take students, though not exclusively, who..." he searched for the right word, "haven't exactly thrived in regular public schools."
"And the rest?" Severide inquired, one eye glaring at the back of Nathan's head.
"We provide a regular school environment to all students," the principal said.
Complete, it seemed to the two lieutenants, with the typical rich kid/poor kid hierarchy, the students who came from money were the ones automatically believed and everyone else was left to fend for themselves. It definitely explained why some of the students were dressed better and more 'academically' than the others.
Boden was aware of the tension in the air but he didn't let on that he was. In a very collected tone he asked the boy, "Do you have any proof that she could've started the fire?"
"No, but if anybody was going to try burning down the school, it'd probably be her," Nathan answered, and scoffed, "Get the white trash from the east side, big surprise when something like this happens."
Now Casey felt Severide's body tense up against him, he reached over and subtly gripped the back of Kelly's neck to keep him from reaching over and strangling the teenager.
"That's not even counting all the times she's just an idiot, she's always dropping something or breaking something or tripping over something, she is the dumbest person who ever lived," Nathan continued. "If the school didn't have a quota for the number of losers they had to take in, she wouldn't even be here."
"Hey look," Casey said as he and Severide headed back to the trucks.
Kelly looked, and he saw the same girl from earlier, he guessed this was Brenda Watson that they'd been talking about, standing beside the Squad rig. The two firemen approached her, but before either of them could say anything, she surprised them by telling them, "Let me guess, he said I set the building on fire because I'm a psychotic retard, right?"
The two firemen looked at each other. It wasn't just what she said, or the fact that she said it, but her voice didn't seem to match the way she looked. It was gruffer than they would've expected for someone who looked so young, but they knew part of it was the biting cynicism in her tone.
"Did you see Nathan Jacobs start the fire?" Casey asked her.
"Would it matter if I did?" she replied, "Everybody's going to believe him because he's a rich kid with rich parents therefore he can do no wrong and anything he says is the gospel truth."
She looked at both the firemen like she was a couple steps away from ripping one of their heads off, out of nowhere she added, "For the record, I'm not autistic."
The two men looked at each other, neither knowing what to say.
"I've been labeled at every school I've gone to, even though I was tested and they found there's nothing wrong with me other than the fact that I don't like talking to anybody when I transfer to a new school and I'm surrounded by people I don't know, most of whom are just a bunch of morons anyway, they think that's a problem, I don't fit the mold so the school decides there's something wrong with me, and that makes me fair game to every idiot I share a classroom with," she told them. She rolled her eyes and explained, "I've been called retarded...and I've been called autistic...and believe me, it's less of an insult to be called retarded, there's far less of a stigma attached there, especially among such 'enlightened' groups as these."
Casey and Severide looked at each other again, silently contemplating a thought that came to both of them.
"Did you actually see who started the fire?" Kelly asked her.
"I saw who was in the science lab just before the fire started," she replied in a patronizing tone, "And I saw them hauling ass right before the smoke started pouring out. So what?"
"There might be a way to prove it," Casey said in a knowing tone.
Kelly raised an eyebrow inquisitively, "What're you thinking?"
Casey looked at him and asked, "Remember that house fire where the woman accused us of stealing her diamond necklace?"
"Yeah..."
"Otis convinced her our thermal cameras recorded everything in the house and the necklace mysteriously turns up."
Kelly shrugged, "So what?"
"So, how much do you think any of those spoiled kids know about firefighting equipment?"
Kelly pursed his top lip till it about disappeared completely, without any further words the two firefighters seemed to be on the same page.
"What is the meaning of all this?" the principal asked as the firemen got all the students to line up single file in a row out in front of the school again.
"My men think they can solve the issue of who started the fire," Boden told him.
"How?" the principal asked.
Otis held up one of the thermal cameras and said, "This little baby is the latest in firefighting technology, used by all the arson squads to find trace residue of accelerants and literally catch arsonists redhanded. It's a very simple process, completely painless, we're going to use this to inspect everybody's hands, and if anybody here got any of the chemicals from the lab spilled on them, this monitor is going to show their hands lighting up like the 4th of July."
Right away Casey and Severide could see a couple of the well dressed boys tense up, they guessed those were Nathan's associates Brenda had seen running out of the lab with him. One by one the teenagers were ushered forth to hold out their hands and wait until they were cleared to move on. As Otis worked his way down the line, the three boys in question looked more and more anxious, Nathan Jacobs had a largely unreadable expression but to the trained eye even he was starting to break a sweat and look like he was going to be sick.
Brenda was next in line and was quickly cleared through, Otis gradually drew closer to the three preppy boys and one of them jolted and tried to break away, but Herrmann and Cruz grabbed him and restrained him. Suddenly all three of the boys were screaming at each other about who was responsible. The two lieutenants looked and saw Brenda standing off to the side with her hands on her hips and her feet shoulder width apart, looking very amused by the sight unfolding before all of them.
"Not bad," Kelly murmured to Casey.
"I think I got one more up my sleeve," Matt murmured back.
Kelly cocked his head in silent question.
"Severide," Casey asked, "Would you say that for the most part I...manage to stay professional on this job?"
"...Yeah," Kelly answered simply.
"Well, I've got half a mind to do something very unprofessional that may result in some...disciplinary actions taken against me. If you don't want any part of it, I understand."
"What is it?" Kelly asked.
"Oh..." Casey looked over, "Never mind, let's get the rest of the equipment put away."
The three boys were being held until the cops could come to arrest them, being exposed as the guilty party for starting the fire hadn't done much to improve Nathan's disposition. As the firemen held him back, he screamed over at Brenda, "You stupid bitch! You ruined my life!"
On the other side of the crowd, the teenage girl stood alone and did what she apparently did best, kept quiet and acted like she wasn't paying any attention as he ranted and raved. As he carried on, some of the firemen came back with the rest of the tools to put away.
"I oughta kill you for this!" Nathan hollered at the unresponsive girl, "You stupid retard!"
The next sound out of his mouth was a pained howl as Casey walked by and accidentally jabbed him in the side with the handle of the axe he was carrying that they'd used to break open the door to the science lab.
"Oh, damn," Casey said very methodically as he stopped in his tracks and looked the boy dead in the eyes, "I am so sorry, I guess I'm just stupid today."
The blonde man had barely walked away and Nathan was glaring daggers at him when Severide came through and announced a few seconds too late, "Oops, watch out", and dropped the end of a Halligan on Nathan's foot, drawing another pained scream out of him. "Sorry about that," Kelly said as he picked up the bar and kept moving.
"So is this the part where I'm supposed to say 'thank you' because you believed me?" Brenda asked the two firemen as they got everything put back in the rigs.
"It would be nice," Kelly observed.
She stood with her hands in her pockets for a minute before finally responding, "Thanks."
"Look, Brenda," Casey said and glanced at Kelly, "We know what it's like to be the odd kid out in high school."
"Yeah?" she asked skeptically, "They ever call you a retard?"
The two men exchanged another glance and Casey told her, "Believe it or not, worse than that."
"But it gets better, right?" Brenda asked in a very cynical tone that said how little she actually believed that.
"Nope," Casey answered frankly, "But if you can hang in there, eventually you get out and then it gets better." He glanced over at Kelly through one eye and added, "That's when you tend to meet the real friends you'll have for life."
Brenda pursed her lips together in a contemplative pucker and let that sink in, without another word she turned around and walked off.
And as she disappeared, Boden walked over to them and told his men, "Don't think I didn't see that," and his tone made it perfectly clear he was referring to their little run-ins with Nathan Jacobs.
Both lieutenants suddenly felt all of 10 years old about to get their butts beat by their dads, simultaneously they glanced down and mumbled an uncertain, "Yes sir."
"Don't do it again," Boden warned them.
"Yes sir," they repeated.
"Off the record." Boden looked back and when he was sure it was just the three of them he told his two lieutenants, "The little punk had it coming."
Casey and Severide glanced at each other and quietly smirked at their chief's low-key approval.
"I guess every generation has to deal with the same crap in high school, no matter how much things change," Boden said.
Kelly cocked his head to the side and asked in disbelief, "You?"
Boden looked at the Squad lieutenant and asked him, "Do you think I was always built like this?" When neither said anything he told them, "Freshman year in high school I was 5'2 and 110 pounds, every day was a living hell, my dad taught me how to fight, but I still didn't have an advantage on those snot nosed bastards until the next fall after I shot up half a foot and spent all summer lifting weights. This redheaded punk Danny Taylor, who'd always been a general pain in the ass, thought he could goad me into fighting him, so he starts spouting off a bunch of racial slurs...I spun around and knocked his front teeth out before he got the last syllable out." He scrunched his lips up under his nose and shook his head, "After that, all the bullies knew pretty much to keep their distance. Sometimes I think we went too far in trying to protect our kids that that's no longer allowed. Sometimes bullies just need the crap knocked out of them."
Kelly looked over and saw Casey's eyebrows slightly raise knowingly as he remembered his days at the academy and the time he punched Ted Griffin in the face and knocked him on his ass.
Casey noticed Severide looking at him, and looked back, and added, "Amen."