Author's Note: This was the prompt that got this story started.
Q is for Quarantine
It was days like today that really made Maru miss Cabbie.
Only a few years ago, the three of them (Maru, Blade, and Cabbie) would have spent the worst of January snowstorms holed up at the Air Attack Base. Now the Piston Peaks contracted with the local Forest Service to provide avalanche abatement for the Park, which meant that there was no reason keep the Air Attack Base running in the winter months. Superintendent Jammer could have decided to move Maru and Blade back to a seasonal status, but he had instead decided to have the two of them move down to the main firehouse by the lodge. And that his how Blade and Maru became Pulaski and Rake's bunkmates.
The fire truck and tug were gracious hosts. They hosed down dorm area used by their summer season rig. They also did their best to split duties in a way that didn't crowd anyone's authority. Pulaski took the lead on firefighting missions and stayed busy completing safety inspections. Blade lead any search and rescue missions and helped Jammer fill out any paperwork relating to the Park's airspace. Maru and Rake did their best to pound through the massive backlog of repairs, cook, clean, and otherwise make sure that the firehouse was a cozy place to spend the winter.
It wasn't a bad life…but Maru still couldn't help but miss his old routine. He missed the long evenings with nothing to do was sit and watch the fire while shooting the breeze with friends, he missed bootleg movies and terrible commentary, Chrysler…he even missed the burn as slag coffee. But there was nothing to do but set up a series of new habits.
Spending the evening clicking through YouTube videos with Rake proved to be one of the ones that had stuck particularly well. On some days, Pulaski or Blade would role in and join them for a couple of particularly humorous clips. Tonight, the whole crew was parked in the firehouse living room so Rake had started streaming clips to the TV. They had watched a couple of Hamilton parodies and some baby wildlife videos. Maru was about to suggest that they have an another 'You Suck at Cooking' marathon, when Blade suggested that they watch a clip from the news section of the feed.
"Really? Hospital construction?" Maru asked with amusement as he clicked on the link, but the moment the video started the mechanic instantly knew why Blade was interested in it. It was actually pretty interesting to watch a hospital being speed built.
Within 24 hours Rake had located a webcam feed a quarantine hospital being built halfway across the world, and it quickly became the background noise to the four vehicles day to day life. When they had a free moment they would swing by living room and see how far a particular section of the project had gotten.
"Do you think that will come here?" Rake asked absentmindedly as he stared at the screen. Maru wished that he could say of course not, but he remembered how hard SARS had hit Vancouver and as first responders there really was no reason to sugar coat things.
"Who knows…" Maru shrugged. "We will just have to wait and see."
