19 On the Net

General Viewpoint

"Hawdy hawdy Night city welcome back to, Evening after Evening with me, ZiggyQ! My guest today is Wallace Bouden. Deputy District Chief of Watson with the Night City Fire Department . Hi there. Welcome to the Show"

Said Ziggy the talk show host who has become popular this year on his debut TV program, for his ironic way of speaking and unpredictability in the interviews he did.

"Hello, Ziggy, Thanks for having me."

Answered Wallance Bouden, a 50 year old African American Male, with 30 years of experience as a firefighter, representing the FDNC, in this interview, Although Boden knew, what kind of interview awaited him, but he had no other choice, if he wanted a raise in the NC firefighters spending budget that has been going down since the tragedy of H3, this interview was the only option he was given, it was this interview that could very well be considered a trap or a joke.

"I hope you made it to the building without any issues? No cut stairs or disabled elevators preventing you from going up to the studio?" said Ziggy waving his arms in an exaggerated fashion as he asked wryly.

"Hhm. No, no. Fortunaly, I was able to get up there without any of the problems you discussed, our department firefighters also inspect the elevators and fire exits in our respective districts" replied Bouden, knowing full well what Ziggy was implying.

"Hold on Hold on, you're saying the firefighters are doing their job right?...then how do you explain what happened in the Heywood District Megabuilding H3, we can all remember that horrible fire.... A second for the tragic lives that were lost..... Well! So how can you say the FDNC is doing their job right when in that fire burned up to 22 floors a 1/4 of the Megabuilding burned!, with the elevators supposedly inoperative 'due to malfunction' and with most of the emergency exits above the 50th floor closed, so tell me Chief Bouden! What Happened? Where are the Firefighters? when those 384 people burned because they couldn't escape from the burning Megabuilding?"

Bouden had to clench his hands tightly, so tightly that he dug his fingernails in, making himself bleed to contain himself with what he heard from this so-called journalist, asking him these cynical questions full of irony and filling his mouth with the deaths of nearly 400 people while seeking to ridicule the FDNC.

The Chief Bouden took a breath and recalled what happened H3

One of the worst fires in Night City that was also intentional, It happened in the last Valentinos war against Mealstrom, the Valentinos had the last 8 floors of Megabuilding H3 as one of their bases and as a clandestine drug lab. The NCPD knew about it, but did nothing, the Mealstroms also knew about it and did.

They entered the H3 control room, deactivated all the elevators, fire systems and closed most of the emergency exits, then set fire to the top 20 floors to kill all the valentines on the top 8 floors, never mind the people, families, children and adults who lived on the rest of the 22 floors they burned in that fire.

But the information about the actions of the gangs was left aside when the mayor of the city preferred to say that all these events were due to the inaction of the FDNC to avoid adding to the bad image of Night City, by hiding a gang war in the city that had ended with 384 deaths in one day, leading the masses, the media and politicians to blame us for what happened, lowering our salaries, or the budgets that we allocate to each district.

Bouden yet reminds Marcus his Heywood hominine as district chief, he was crossed by the media and society as the main culprit of that fire, for supposedly, not sending firefighters to do their job. leading all those people to their deaths..... Marcus, took his own life, when his son was beaten so badly in high school that he went into a coma.

His wife Maria, lost her mind when she saw what had happened to her innocent son, plus the insurance for working at FDNC did not cover the treatment and they did not have enough Eurodollars to try to save him, when their son died.... Maria disappeared, it is believed that she left alone, heading to the wilderness with a lost look in her eyes,

Marcus, living through all this, could not take it anymore and jumped from the roof of the Medical Center, being blamed and incriminated by the citizens and the city. He swore to serve and protect.

Becoming a tragic story that was only known in the FDNC, well there was another organization that also knew the truth and they were practically brothers with the FDNC, until the H3 fire and its consequences happened.

They knew it too and for Bouden they betrayed them by blaming them too, they were the NCPD, which the whole FDNC had a great resentment.

"We-Well I can't answer for my fellow members of the Glen Sub-district, I can only speak for the men and women I supervise and vouch for their work. But I'm sure the firefighters who went to that fire did-"

Attempted replied Boden before he was interrupted, trying to control himself as much as he could so as not to hit this hunk of plastic thought Bouden for Ziggy's accusations, made about the actions or rather lack thereof at that fire on the part of the FDNC

That it was the NCPD themselves who would not let them in, even after 3 hours of waiting and seeing people jumping out of windows desperate to get away from the fire, because they had not yet been able to secure the H3 control room, there was still Mealstrom in the room. To stop any attempt to put out the fire, they barricaded themselves in for as long as they could even dying in the process, when NCPD was finally able to secure the room, and the firefighters turned back on the fire systems, elevators, and emergency exits, 21 of the 22 floors that caught fire in the H3 tragedy had already burned.

"YES, YES, the same thing the late Deputy District Chief of Heywood, what was his name .... Marlin? that his brave men put their lives on the line to-"

Ziggy said as he threw his upper body on the table in front of him, with an exaggerated action to express exasperation, at Bouden's response, but suddenly his eyes lit up as if he was getting a call in the middle of his program cutting off his own sentence

"Oh Chief Bouden, I'm getting word, there's an NCPD chase going on right now in Watson. Apparently there is an FDNC truck involved, since we have you as an Expert in the field, why don't you discuss them with us, Thanks to the insatiable workers at Channel 54. We have exclusive live footage of what is going on."

"Yeah, sure whatever you say, Ziggy" replied Bounde serious and cold as he remembered how Ziggy had mistakenly called Marcus...as Marlin, as yet another disrespect to a good man who was framed, driven to despair and death.

Still restraining himself from getting up from this circus they call an interview, thinking how necessary it is to get them to increase the budget that had been cut after the H3 tragedy in order to do their job.

Shifting his attention to how one of his trucks was supposedly involved in an NCPD chase, making him wonder 'did someone steal one of our trucks?'. But he denied his own question in his head, because he knew he would have been informed immediately if that had happened.

----

Pov of Bes Isis

"Ho-hO! looks like you have a flower up your ass Bes, apparently Ziggy does care about the chase as you said, live on 20s, be ready and remember don't screw up, if you don't want AV from the network to become your second home, as happened to me, you fucked up by publishing, without the bosses permission, your story about the supposedly health hazardous meds being sold by Biotechnica."

Said Lyle McClellan, a veteran of Channel 54, and a friend of the profession as real journalists, not like that plastic man, who is only interested in ratings and his career, who stands at the expense of his guests he ridicules.

"Shut up already Lyle!!!, I don't regret what I did, those Biotechnica bastards are killing people with their medicines, you know?"

"Yeah, yeah, it's always the same with you, ya know, Corporation this, corpo that, I don't care about that, but if you wanted to really fuck up Biotechnica you should have waited and not put out a half-baked story without firm proof, if you had it you wouldn't be here, with almost a foot out of your job or be assigned to this metal coffin to control traffic with me, ha-ha-ha. What I'm saying Bes, is that anyone would have been kicked to the curb, so don't screw it up, you hear me...."

"YOU HAVE 10s, AND WE'RE IN."

Hearing what Lyle had said, I nodded my head and got serious and prepared myself for the live broadcast of the NCPD chase, which to me seemed more like a prank of two teenagers having a good time. While singing, laughing and shooting water at the NCPD cars. With musican instead of sirens coming out of the fire truck's PA system, drawing everyone's attention wherever it went by.

They had the music so loud I could even hear it while I was riding Av, it sounds like one of the hits, from that trendy singer, Jackie... I didn't know what to think of that guy.... was laughing at him? Or was his name really a tribute, I wasn't sure which one it was, but when he released all the rights to his songs into the public domain for people to do what they want with it, but in turn shielded them from being used by Corporations, it reminded me of something he could have done, if it wasn't that we were deadbeats back then, and barely had Edis to maintain our instruments....

But watching this chase, I didn't know why it was making me remember the old days.... I hadn't thought about that fucker for years but, watching this scene, this combination of music, gunshots, laughter and sirens.... make me remember when Johnny was still alive, fucking, everyone around him.

"LIVE!" shouted Lyle as he lowered his hand, conceding with what he was saying.

[Good afternoon Ziggy, from the 54th string Av flying over Watson]

[Hawdy hawdy, Bes, meet Chief Bouden of the FDNC, who will also be with me to comment on the exciting news you bring us]