IMMOLATION: Chapter 11

The cinder block struck the ground, cracking and falling into two pieces and leaving a deep scar in the concrete.

“A little help?” Joan asked, looking over to the steps where Matt sat, smiling.

“You're late,” Matt observed

Joan heaved another block out of her car, ignoring Matt, and succeeded in placing it gently in a cart she'd pulled out from her trunk. She'd spent the greater part of her morning driving around looking for the cinder blocks. Matt slung his duffel bag over his shoulder and joined her beside the car.

“So what's with the bricks?” Matt asked.

“Just help me, okay?” Joan snipped at him. “Questions later.”

Matt shrugged and took over loading the cart. There were around a dozen blocks in all and by the time he finished loading the cart he had broken a slight sweat.

“Thank you,” Joan said and turned toward the building. “Now hurry up and lets get inside.”

Joan marched up the ramp that ran along side the steps, Matt in tow as he struggled to pull the now heavy cart up the incline. His bag only made the climb more cumbersome and Matt quickly fell behind.

“Joan!” Matt shouted before Joan could slip through the front doors.

Joan looked back, rolled her eyes and jogged back down the ramp. She took Matt's bag and tossed it onto the pile of cinder block. A clattering of instruments sounded from within the bag. Matt cringed.

“Hope that wasn't anything important,” Joan said apologetically and moved to the back of the cart where she could push.

Matt's look of concern didn't lessen but he began to pull the cart up the ramp nonetheless. With Joan helping, they made their way to the top quickly. Joan lead the way through the halls to her room. The doors were already propped open. Joan checked her watch as Matt pulled the cart passed her and into the room.

“You've got five minutes to set up whatever instruments you brought,” She said. “After that...

Matt nodded. “And what's this for?” He asked, gesturing to the cart of blocks as he lifted his bag off the cart and began pulling out his equipment.

“You'll see,” Joan said and she began emptying the cart.

Matt set to work, arranging his sensors around the room. Joan watched him while she stacked her blocks one top of the other. Most of the instruments looked like they were built to sustain high temperatures. The others, well, Joan could only hope she wouldn't have to clean up the puddles of melted glass and plastic they were likely to leave behind. Matt seemed to be thinking along the same lines as he looked at his equipment and began moving the more delicate pieces further away. He paused again.

“How far does your fire reach?” He asked, a yellow, plastic looking box in each hand.

“Just look at the floor,” Joan said, checking her cinder block tower; it stood level with her chest.

Matt looked down and, now that he was paying attention, saw the concentric circles burned into the marble floor by Joan's fire. The circles grew lighter as they got farther away from the center of the room. They'd have to replace the floor soon. Cracks were already appearing near where Joan stood

“It's growing?” He asked.

“A little bit each time,” Joan said, satisfied with the height and width of her stacked cinder blocks and she began reinforcing the sides.

Matt considered her briefly before placing his more fragile instruments outside of the most recent burn ring. Joan moved the now empty cart to the very edge of the room.

“Time's up,” Joan announced shortly after Matt placed his final piece.

Matt picked up his duffel bag and stepped inside the observation room. Joan stepped behind her tower and began to undress. He tried to maintain a professional air about it as Joan wrapped her clothing up in her own bag and then tossed it expertly into the cart. Matt found the controls for the intercom system and turned it on.

“Nice tower,” Matt said for lack of anything else to say.

“Yeah, a friend of mine thought this would be best,” Joan replied as she waited for her fire to begin, resting her chin on her crossed arms as they, in turn, rested on the cinder blocks.

“You sure they can take the heat?”

A flame flickered across Joan's arm. “They'd better,” She said. “Or you better find the back wall in there very interesting.”

Fire caught in her hair and spread down her face.

“Watch this,” Joan said with a smile and took a deep breath. She exhaled.

A gout of flame shot out of her mouth and exploded against the far wall.

“I thought you couldn't control it?” Matt asked as he pulled a laptop out of his bag and turned it on.

“I can't once it gets going,” She said with a shrug. “But there's this sweet spot right before when I can do some amazing things.”

Joan flapped her arms like a bird and fire cascaded over them, continuing on past her fingertips until it formed a waving ribbon of fire. Readings began pouring in from the instruments scattered throughout the room and Matt, using his laptop, switched back and forth monitoring the data.

Fire exploded from Joan and Matt had to shield his eyes. He had been too distracted by the readings to notice as Joan's fire blossomed. There had been almost no warning, even watching the data as he had, one moment everything seemed stable and the next he was getting readings all over the board. The fire roared so loud that it drowned out Joan's voice as she called out to him.

“What?” He shouted into the intercom.

“I said this is where I lose control,” Joan shouted back.

“I can see that.”

Joan was nothing more than a silhouette at the center of the enormous blaze. Even through the safety glass, Matt could feel the heat. He turned back to his laptop and switched over to the infrared view. The image on his laptop looked like a watercolor painting done by a child who only had access to white red and orange. While he couldn't see any great detail about the shapes of most objects, the colors told him the temperatures. As things heated up, they would turn orange, then red, then white. He had little trouble picking out the cinder block tower and Joan at the center of the image, glowing bright white. Well, almost.

Matt cocked his head, something wasn't right. The laptop screen flickered as Matt shifted through the various infrared displays. It had been a relief when Joan didn't ask what all the instruments were for. He very much doubted that she would have allowed him to surround her with cameras if she knew. Of course, the cameras were next to useless when it came to giving any detail besides temperature but somehow he doubted Joan would have cared.

All the infrared images showed the same anomaly, but it couldn't be right. The white halo surrounding Joan was to be expected, but her center...

“Hey Joan,” Matt called through the intercom, “Could you grab that piece of metal I placed on your tower?”

Joan looked around for a moment, straining to see through the fire.

“This thing?” She asked, pointing, though Matt could see even less than Joan and so he had to assume that she'd found it.

“There should only be the one metal plate,” Matt said and Joan picked it up. “Hold it for a little bit,” Matt added and he cycled through the data once more until he found what he was looking for.

Matt stared at the readings, unable to believe what he saw.

“Okay, now put it back,” Matt told her.

Joan did.

Matt continued to stare, open mouthed, at what the data was showing him