If You Play With Fire

The Game with Fire Part 1

"Truck 81, Squad 3, Engine 51, Ambulance 61 Building fire...", the voice rang through the room.

Liam turned around in his bed and pretended to be asleep. As Matt ran out of his office, he stopped by Liam and watched his son for a short moment. Either the boy has an impressive deep sleep or he tries to fall asleep again. Matt took the fallen blanket, covered him and ran into the vehicle garage.

Liam sighed and opened his eyes again. In no less than 6 hours he wrote a mathematics exam and such a stupid big fire robbed his last hours of sleep.

Slowly he trotted into the kitchen and nibbled on the chocolate candies. Calls at night were quite boring for someone who stayed on 51. He was all by himself.

The only advantage was that he did not have to argue with Mouch about the television program. He sighed again. He felt that all of them no longer liked him and considered him to be an arsonist. He did not do anything. The first time was a stupid accident and the other times he just followed the SMS instructions. His father told him from an early age that you did not play with fire. Why did they think he started this?

Liam startled suddenly. A loud bang brought him back to reality. A man came in through the back door, which was next to the kitchen.

"Finally we get to know each other!" He grinned.

"You are the arsonist!" Liam said, "What are you doing here!"

"Well, what's an arsonist doing, huh?" He grinned.

"You don't light the 51, do you!", Liam exclaimed indignantly.

"Too late!" the man laughed, "I've already hid and activated the detonator."

Wide-eyed, Liam stared at the man. He felt that he already knew the man from somewhere else. Not only from their first meeting at the first fire, but much longer. Only he could not assign it from where he knew the man.

"I should be blamed right from the start as arsonist!" Liam stated.

"Exactly. Let's just continue the discussion outside."

"No! First you tell me why you want to harm us!" Liam hissed.

"Hey buddy we can talk about everything outside."

"You also bribed the psychiatrist, didn't you!" Liam shouted.

"With a little money you can change people," he grinned.

"Why are you doing all this?!" Liam asked, not bothering to leave the building.

Meanwhile, they fought on several fronts against the flames. The good news: it was a vacant building. No people were inside.

"Same call," Severide said, looking worriedly at his colleague.

"Liam was at 51 all the time," Matt explained, "He can't have set the fire."

"Like the other fires, a time fuse was used," Severide said.

"Yes, but Liam didn't have the opportunity," Matt said.

"Then who started the fire?" Severide asked and Matt shrugged his shoulders without a word. The only thing he knew was that his son could not possibly set this fire. Liam had a total smartphone ban and house arrest. He picked up his son from school or took him there. Liam was not left unattended for more than 10 minutes. The time was not enough to plan a fire.

"Oh my Gosh!", Otis stared into the distance, where a pitch-black cloud of smoke rose. It was the middle of the night and the darkness made it possible to show a distant explosion in its full extent. The explosion conquered almost the entire attention of all present firefighters and paramedics.

"An important announcement to everyone: fire department 51 burns!", the voice of the radio said, who just got a call from a resident.