http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/photography/photo-of-the-day/firefighter-recruits-drill/

“This feels like a bad idea.”

“It’s not.”

“It’s unproven technology.”

“Nah, it’s proven.”

“Untested, then.”

“Well, yeah. Isn’t that why you’re here?”

“Not by choice.”

“Still.”

Greta wasn’t used to being bashful in the face of a challenge. When she was told a woman of her stature would be unlikely to pass the initial firefighter tests, she didn’t hesitate to sign up anyway. She passed in the 95^th percentile for all women, and above at least a dozen men. When she broke her leg during what should have been a routine grab-and-run, she was supposed to be sidelined for 8 months. She was back on the truck a day after 6.

When the cancer spread, she told them to turn the machine on higher. It’s a chemo machine, they said, it doesn’t go higher. Still, it was the spirit of the demand that fit the Greta mold. That was two years ago. The cancer hadn’t come back, and Greta was convinced she kept it away by pure will.

So Greta rarely hesitated in the face of an obstacle. Her wires didn’t run that way. This fact made her ill-equipped to deal with her current, deep concern. Which was off since it was nothing more than a test for a new tool. A new tool that if it worked correctly, could save a few dozen lives a year in this area alone.

Neatly arranged in the lot, the lift engines looked too insignificant. Each one was so small.

“Can those little things really catch a person?”

The instructor nodded. “This grouping is rated to catch more than that.” He flipped through his chart. “Up to 500 pounds at four stories up, up to 350 at six stories.”

“What if someone’s trapped on the tenth floor?” Greta asked.

“Carry him down the stairs to the sixth floor and give him the ol’ heave-ho,” the instructor said, casually mimicking throwing a living human out a window.

“Fine,” Greta relented, turning back to the front door of the training building. “But I’m on record as against defenestration as official department policy.”

“Duly noted. Still, you gotta go in there and throw some people out of windows.”

Greta swung her head in shock. “Wait, people? You said it would be dummies!”

A horn blared across the parking lot. The instructor clicked the stopwatch in his hand and grinned.

“Shoot,” Greta sighed and tugged her mask into place over her mouth. She charged into the building, lifting her knees to move the bulky fire suit with as much grace as possible. Not much was possible.

Inside, the smoke machines were already on, but visibility wasn’t too bad yet. She ignored the first floor and went straight for the stairs. On the second floor, she kicked in two doors to empty rooms. The third room had an open door and a figure huddled between the bed and wall.

“Kid!” she shouted, and recoiled at the volume. The megaphone attached to her mask amplified her voice, and without the roar of an actual burning building, it was too loud.

Except the kid didn’t move.

She got around the bed and grabbed his shoulders. She spun him around.

A dummy. Lifelike, anatomically accurate of a 10 or 11 year old boy. They were used to test rescues in tight spots.

“Oh, I’m going to smash his face in the most horrendous way,” Greta said aloud. She grabbed the dummy, tossed it over her shoulder and marched across the hall. The window was missing, and she positioned her body to best expel the dummy.

With a grunt, she heaved. The dummy went straight out. She took a deep breath.

“It’s only two floors. It’s not so high. And you have to see if you threw it right,” she said to herself. Then, like ripping off a band-aid or telling someone you know doesn’t feel the same way that you love them, she quickly thrust her head out the window.

The dummy floated above the grid, about four feet off the ground. She saw a few big grins around the perimeter.

“Come on, next floor!” her instructor shouted. He waved the stopwatch at her. She flashed him a gesture not at all fitting for a firefighter that was thought of as a community pillar.

On the third floor, she found two more dummies – a younger kid and a fully grown woman. Both went out the window with less hesitation than the first. But she didn’t look out to see if they landed. She told herself it was to make up for lost time. Alas, she didn’t believe it. It was a pretty transparent tactic.

The smoke got worse as she went higher. Each floor sweep took longer, and each breath she took was heavier. It was a test, she knew it was a test, and still she felt the adrenaline of panic flood her veins.

Fourth and Fifth floors were clear. On the sixth and top floor, they’d set up a dummy for a linebacker. Or maybe it was an adolescent gorilla. Twice as wide as her small, trim frame and basically a full foot taller, it was bigger than any test dummy she’d ever seen.

It took a full five minutes to drag the massive dummy to the dump window. Greta huffed and puffed when she finally made it. She had to take ten seconds to collect herself.

There was no getting around it this time. The dummy was too big, and she couldn’t afford to short-arm him. Splattering a person on the pavement was a pretty easy way to fail a test. The test was for the equipment, and not her, but she knew that was hopeful thinking. She had to be better than the others. That meant looking out. And down.

Her heart already raced, but Greta thought it maybe cranked up just a bit as she contemplated the window. She wanted to give herself another pep talk. She thought it might help, but she wasn’t able. If only she weren’t panting so hard.

She gave a quick peek. Her head went out, saw the distant ground, and shot back inside.

“Welp, the ground’s down there alright,” she said through her heavy breathing.

Bracing herself by the wall, she lifted the huge male dummy onto the window ledge. It was awkward, and the limbs were more askew than was entirely appropriate. But form was less important to her at the moment than getting him out the window and herself down the stairs pronto.

“Come on, Greta.” She found the words this time. With a huge effort, she hoisted the dummy up and out the window.

But it was heavier than she realized. She leaned too far out the window. Its left leg hit her square in the hip. As the dummy tumbled away and down beneath her, Greta balanced right on the edge of the window, half in and half out, eyes screwed up tight.

“Don’t look down,” she whispered, but that was the least of her concerns. Because her balance tilted away from the window and the building. It took three or four seconds of slow motion, but then she went out and chased the dummy toward the ground.

The grid burst into life. She swore she heard a buzzing sound, but the others said the grid worked silently. Maybe she imagined it her to make herself feel better.

Either way, when she opened her eyes, she wasn’t falling. She was floating. There was a foot over her face, and it took her a moment to realize that it wasn’t a real foot. The big dummy from the sixth floor had hit the grid just before her.

“The irony, of course,” her instructor said once they’d fished out of the anti-gravity grid, “Was that if a full-sized human had come on top of that huge dummy, the grid might have been overloaded. But since it was a headstrong pixie, you came in under the weight rating.”

“Time?” Grete asked once her feet hit solid ground again.

“Only 7 seconds over the allotted time,” he answered. “Respectable all around.”

Greta nodded. “I’ll need a bottle of water and a few minutes, but I can shave at least 30 seconds off my next run.”

“No need for another run-“ her instructor started to say. She held up a hand to stop him, then walked off. She needed a water bottle and 30 seconds to catch her breath. Then she was going in again.