A Fair To Remember
Part Six: Fire and Ice
Author's Comments: My thanks to those who read Chapter Five and offered comments, listed this tale as a Favorite Story or put it on Story Alert: Cajun Bear73, MahlerAvatar and Stormchaser 90.
Read on, people, and enjoy . . .
The moment they entered the Cold Storage Building, the two teens saw a set of stairs
that led up from the ground floor. Several people were hurrying down, and there was a strong
smell of smoke in the air. Kim and Ron promptly went up the steps, pausing only to help a
man and a woman who had slipped on the stairs.
"Just be calm, ma'am; there's plenty of time to get out," said Kim as she caught the
woman's arm.
"Easy, mister, watch your step!" Ron grabbed the man's coat as he staggered down
the stairs, steadied him and guided him toward the exit.
While the people who had been using the skating rink rushed out of the building, Kim
and Ron went on looking for anyone else who needed help. The smoke was getting thicker,
and the electric lights could barely cut through the murk, but Kim spotted a couple who were
on the far side of the rink, sitting on a bench and struggling with their iceskates. She headed
across the ice, using a foot-sliding gait she had learned that made it possible to get across
a slick surface. Behind her Kim heard Ron call, "Right behind you, . . . YEOWP!"
Reaching the far side of the rink Kim glanced back and saw Ron toboganing across
rink on his chest, pulling at the ice with his hands and pushing with his toes. She turned to the
couple, who were still seated, and realized they had just taken off their skates and were now
putting their shoes back on.
"Come on, you've got to get out of here!" Kim shouted, but the woman just pulled on her
left shoe and began to fasten what Kim realized were buttons on the leather.
""These shoes are brand new, and I'm not leaving them!" the woman replied.
"Pick 'em up and run!" Ron had reached the edge of the ice and gotten to his feet
again.
"There!" the woman cried, "I've got it!"
"Then let's get out of here!" Kim, Ron and the young man chorused.
"Across the ice!" Kim grabbed the woman's arm. "We'll help you; just slide your feet,
don't lift them."
In what might be called a slow-motion, gliding run, the four hurried across the rink.
Once the couple was safely headed down the stairs, Kim and Ron turned back to check for
others who might need help. They recrossed the ice rink and scanned the area carefully.
There was nobody in sight, the fire was breaking through the inner walls, the air was getting
thicker, and Kim had just decided it was time to leave . . . when the lights went out.
"Wires must've burned through," said Ron, peering about in the light of the flames.
"Can't be up to code, I'd say."
"HELLO! Is anybody else here?" Kim's shout was almost lost in the crackle of the fire.
Kim and Ron exchanged a glance; it was time to go. They dropped to the surface of
the rink and began to slither across it toward the stairs. The ice was getting wet from the
fire's heat. Then there was a wheezing, rumbling, whooshing sound, and the two teens were
astonished to see an Eskimo igloo materialize on the ice, a few feet from where they were. A
moment later the Doctor stuck his head out of the entrance tunnel of the igloo, saw them and
shouted, "Kimberly! Ronald! Get in here!"
The two teens scrambled across the wet ice and dove into the low entrance to the igloo.
Once through it they were only mildly surprised to find themselves inside the control room of
Drax's TARDIS. The Doctor gave Kim a hand up, while Ron got to his feet on his own. Drax
shoved a control on the console and the door closed behind them, cutting off the smoke.
"Go, Drax!" the Doctor shouted.
"Right! Sharp's the word, folks," Drax exclaimed, and the central crystalline pillar on the
console began to rise and fall. After about a minute it stopped, and both Time Lords turned to
look at Kim and Ron with a mixture of respect and exasperation.
"Chuck a chicken up the chimney!" Drax exclaimed. "Hope yuh don't do that sort
o' thing every day — might get a bit sticky, y'know."
"I'll thank you two not to scare me that way again," said the Doctor in a severe tone.
"Doctor, those people needed help," Kim protested. "We had to do something!"
"Human beings are quite my favorite species, but at times you can be an extremely
irritating one as well!" The Doctor took a deep breathe, let it out, and then went on in a calmer
voice.
"I know you want to help people in trouble, Kimberly, but if it weren't for Drax you might
have been trapped in that building."
Kim turned from the Doctor to face Drax. "I get it; you moved your TARDIS into the
building to help us get out." Before Drax could say anything, Kim continued, "Of course, it had
to be yours. It looked like an igloo! Your chameleon circuit works."
"That's it, miss," Drax answered happily.
"Thanks, dude," said Ron, as he shook hands with the Time Lord.
"Any time, mate."
"Say, where are we now?" Ron asked Drax, pointing at the viewscreen on the wall as
he spoke. "That looks like the place where your TARDIS was."
Kim turned to see what Ron meant and silently agreed with him. The screen showed a
locomotive and several railroad cars, like those they had seen in the Transportation Building.
The Doctor explained that after picking up the two teens in the burning building,
Drax had 'jumped' his TARDIS into the closest building, which held an exhibit about the
Pennsylvania Railroad.
"Doctor," said Kim, "you knew that the Cold Storage Building was going to burn down,
didn't you?"
The Doctor nodded. "Of course. That's a matter of established history."
"Then why didn't you do something to prevent it?" Kim asked sharply. "If you know that
a building will burn down or a ship will sink, why not keep it from happening?"
"'Ere, we got laws 'bout that," Drax cut in. "That sort o' thing can cause a lot o' trouble."
"Yes, exactly. You might upset the cultural growth of a society, or by preventing one
tragedy, make an even worse one more likely."
"What do you mean?" Kim asked.
"Well, consider this city, for example," the Doctor explained. "On 20 December 1903,
here in Chicago there will be a fire in the new Iroquois Theatre during a show. Over six
hundred people will die, one-third of them children. But because of that fire many laws
requiring improvements to make theatres safer will be enacted."
"And if . . . " Kim began, but the Doctor waved her to silence and went on.
"If I prevent that fire, those laws won't be passed, and those safety measures won't be
installed." The Doctor gave Kim a firm gaze. "And ten years later there may be an even
worse catastrophe in some other theater. You see?"
Before Kim could answer there was a loud SNAP from the TARDIS console and a
strong smell of a freshly-baked blueberry pie.
"Well, that's done it right an' proper!" Drax exclaimed. "That little jump burned out the
chronostat." He shook his head in disgust, and muttered, "It's always the chronostat!" Then
Drax turned to look at Kim and Ron.
"See, I hadn't finished puttin' the new crystal in the time rotor when the Doctor rushed
in an' said we had to rescue you two, so I tickled the HADS to move the TARDIS into that
building, and then over to here." Drax shook his head. "Overloaded the chronostat doin' it."
Kim spoke before Ron could. "Let's just say I don't know what a 'hads' is, Drax.
Because I don't." She grinned at Ron with a 'Gotcha!' expression, and turned back to Drax.
"What is it for?"
"The Hostile Action Displacement System — the HADS," Drax replied. "When it's
turned on an' somebody attacks yer TARDIS, it dematerializes until the attack's over."
"And using that to save Ron and me made something burn out?"
"Exactly. Now we're immobilized until Drax finishes his work on the time rotor," the
Doctor answered. He gave a sigh. "Well, there's no help for it. If you promise not to run into
any more burning buildings, we can step outside and let Drax deal with his repairs."
The Doctor regarded the two teens sternly. "Otherwise we'll stay right here until he's
done."
"All right, Doctor, I promise: no more sudden rescues," Kim said dutifully.
"Okay, Doc, I promise too," Ron echoed.
"Thank you." The Doctor touched a control and the door opened, but then he stopped
and looked at Ron.
"But just one thing, Ronald? Please stop calling me 'Doc!'"
"Okay . . . uhh . . . dude," Ron replied. Kim hid a smile, and the Doctor gave a sigh.
"Well, I suppose that will do for now," the Doctor muttered as he led the way out the
door.
There was nobody in the exhibit building when they emerged from the TARDIS. To Kim
it looked as if everyone had gone to watch the fire in the Cold Storage Building. When they
left the exhibit, Kim saw that she was right, for there was a large crowd around the burning
structure.
Smoke was rising from the turrets on the building's four corners, and flames were
shooting out of the main entrance. Many firemen had arrived and water was streaming from
their hoses onto the flames. There were several steam-powered fire pumpers in action, and
a number of escape ladders had been set up, but they did not reach to the building's roof.
As they worked their way through the crowd, Kim, Ron and the Doctor overheard
people talking about the fire.
"I hope no one's still inside," said one man to a lady standing beside him.
"I saw some firemen go in," another man remarked, "but I believe everyone else got
out."
"Well, if anybody's still inside they'd better get out now," a third man said. ""That whole
building is likely to go!"
"They don't have a sprinkler sytem?" Ron asked the Doctor.
"I'm afraid not. Sturdy as they appear, these buildings are only temporary structures for
the six months of the fair," he explained. "Sprinklers are considered too expensive for such
things."
There was a scream from a lady in the crowd.
A man standing next to her shouted, "There's someone on the roof!"
Kim stared in shock, and counted at least eight figures on the flat roof of the Cold
Storage Building. She glanced at the escape ladders that were elevated from their two-
wheeled carriages, and realized that none of them was tall enough to reach the men.
"Doctor, those men! They're trapped! We've got to . . . "
"No, Kimberly, we can't," the Doctor said, his voice lowered. He drew the two teens to
the back of the crowd.
"We can't use Drax's TARDIS to rescue them because it's non-operational, and there
isn't enough time to retrieve my TARDIS and move it here," he explained, in a sad voice.
"But those men will die if we don't do something!" Kim answered furiously.
"Yes, they will. According to the history of this tragedy, no visitors to the fair were lost,
but thirteen firemen and four workmen perished. They went into the building and then were
cut off from the doors by the fire." The Doctor's face was grim.
"Isn't there . . . " Kim began, but the Doctor shook his head and interrupted her.
"If I were to change history by preventing the assassination of President Lincoln, the
sinking of the Titanic, or the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger it might make the
future you will live in totally irrelevant, and your families would never be born." Kim felt a chill
ar the Doctor's words. Her parents, the tweebs, Nana, Uncle Slim, Cousin Joss, Ron's
family . . . they might never exist if she meddled with history too much!
"Guys . . . ?" said Ron, as he gazed at the flaming building.
"In my previous regeneration, the TARDIS got shifted into an alternate universe where
history was totally different," the Doctor went on. "Everyone was a cruel mirror image of the
decent people I knew, and a project was underway to tap the power of the Earth's core.
I told them it was all wrong, but nobody listened to me. The project failed, and destroyed the
whole planet."
"Uhh . . . guys . . . !" Ron repeated, more urgently.
"So we couldn't, oh, get rid of Hitler before he makes a mess of things?" Kim asked.
"Consider what Nazi Germany might have become if it had been controlled by some
other leader. Someone equally bent on conquest but not so crack-brained," the Doctor
replied. "He might concentrate on destroying England before attacking Russia, and not
declare war on America after Japan had attacked Pearl Harbor." He shook his head. "It
would not be pretty."
"Guys? Hello! Building on fire, here!" Ron waved a hand between Kim's face and the
Doctor's face, and then pointed at the Cold Storage Building.
"Look! They're at the top of the tower, now!" Ron added desperately.
Kim and the Doctor looked back at the building which was now spouting smoke from all
four turrets. Figures could be seen at the top of the central tower, and flames were dancing in
plain sight along the roof's edges.
"I don't think you should see the end of this," the Doctor remarked. "Let's go back
inside . . . "
"Wait!" Kim snapped, in her 'mission mode' voice. "Look over there!" She pointed
toward a man who was standing slightly behind the main crowd. Everybody else was clearly
horror-stricken at what they were watching, but this man was not. He wasn't even watching
the fire, but just standing there with his eyes shut, wearing a strange, concentrated expression
and a blissful smile.
TBC . . .
Author's Disclaimer and Notes:
The Disney Company owns the Kim Possible concept and characters.
The British Broadcasting Corporation owns the Doctor Who concept.
The term TARDIS is also copyright by the BBC.
The plot of this story is my responsibility.
In December 1903 the Iroquois Theatre in Chicago was very new, and widely advertised as being "completely fireproof." But while the building was fireproof the seat cushions, draperies and furnishings were not. The so-called "fire curtain" was not really fireproof and a stage light kept the curtain from being fully lowered when smoke was first detected during an afternoon performance. Most of the people who died were victims of smoke inhalation or were smothered in the crush when the fire exits could not be opened against the crowd. The doors opened into the auditorium instead of outwards.
Just like all of the other major buildings at the Columbian Exposition ― except for the Palace of Fine Arts ― the Cold Storage Building was built with a metal and wood framework covered with the plasterer's material known as "staff." And since it was designed to keep heat outside and cold inside, there were no windows and only a few doors at the ground level. The Exposition had an extensive fire-fighting organization in place, and it responded quickly to the alarm. Firemen who went inside the building to determine the location of the blaze and how it could be fought became cut off from the exits by flames and smoke.
The descriptions and locations in this story of buildings and exhibits at the 1893 World's Fair are as accurate as possible.
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