Read Online The Trouble With Heroes.... by Jo Beverley - Free Book Online
Authors: Jo Beverley
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and victory
to hand, that would change. Hellbane U would get back to normal.
There’d be contact, organization.
A listing of the dead.
She slipped away, slipped home to sit in
front of the screen, set on max, showing ten different cells.
There were maps on most, showing where the
blighters had been stopped. The blighted area was still an
appallingly huge belt around the planet, and the closest edge was
only fifty miles south of Anglia.
Talking heads, but when she switched each to
audio none had solid information. She muted all, but set the sys to
alert her of any mention of Dan Fixer. Then she fell asleep.
She woke to see the screen flashing on one
cell that showed an excited woman mouthing silently, an exhausted,
bald man behind her. A fixer? Jenny hunted, cursing, for the
clicker, finding it down the side of a cushion, and turned on the
volume.
"...here at the front, as they call it. My
friend here assures me I'm safe." The stocky reporter grinned, but
she looked tensed to run at a word.
For some reason she was dressed in a dull
green shirt and trousers that looked vaguely like the army uniforms
in the old films. Jenny snorted. Fat lot of good that would do her
if a blighter came along. The woman chattered on, not really saying
anything because there wasn't anything to say. Behind her lay
peaceful, normal countryside.
"So," she said, turning to the man -- flabby,
middle-aged, grim, "you think this is the turning point of the war,
Jit Fixer?"
"We're getting the upper hand."
It was direct, but the flat tone made Jenny's
heart pound. No jubilation at all.
"Can you tell Gaia how you've managed to turn
the tide, Jit?"
The man's eyes shifted for just a moment.
"It's very technical," he said, then went on about concentration of
powers, of nodes and impacts and strategic distributions of
forces.
Jenny wondered if she was hearing Dan’s
theories put into practice. That would mean he was alive, wouldn’t
it? She sat glued, praying for a mention of his name despite
knowing how unlikely it was.
There had been -- what? -- five thousand
fixers or so before the Blighter Wars started.
But Dan had said he'd been the one to gather
the remaining fixers. He might be important enough to get a
mention. No such luck. The reporter, glassy-eyed, brought the
technical ramble to an end, wished the fixer success in the fight,
and returned the screen to the "your local station."
Jenny slumped back in the chair. That hadn't
even been Angliacom. It could have been anywhere around the
world.
On sudden impulse she clicked on the
directory and found the numbers for Hellbane U, scrolling down to
Information. She clicked on that. After two rings a message
flashed: We regret that due to the current
emergency the Gaian Center for Investigation and Control of the
Unfriendly Amorphic Native Entities is unable to respond to
enquiries. Please call back when normal conditions
resume.
Jenny clicked back to the multi-cell screen
and lay there watching maps and charts, sometimes raising the
volume on an interview. She heard displaced people, community
administrators, doctors, and even artists sharing their thoughts
about victory and the future.
No one mentioned Dan.
If he was dead, wouldn't she know it?
She staggered up to go to the loo, grabbed
some food and collapsed back down again to watch, trying
desperately to glean something that would tell her Dan’s fate.
Then more interviews with fixers popped up.
They were all different in age, clothes, and race, but she could
spot them by their debilitated look. It was more that physical. It
was as if something vital had been sucked out of them. Something to
do with the wild magic Dan had shown her that night?
What a terrible struggle it must be, and it
wasn’t over yet.
But they were winning. They were winning.
Then slowly Jenny began to hear something in
their voices -- an echo of the speeches in the war films. One of
them even said, "We will never surrender," in a flat tone almost
identical
to hand, that would change. Hellbane U would get back to normal.
There’d be contact, organization.
A listing of the dead.
She slipped away, slipped home to sit in
front of the screen, set on max, showing ten different cells.
There were maps on most, showing where the
blighters had been stopped. The blighted area was still an
appallingly huge belt around the planet, and the closest edge was
only fifty miles south of Anglia.
Talking heads, but when she switched each to
audio none had solid information. She muted all, but set the sys to
alert her of any mention of Dan Fixer. Then she fell asleep.
She woke to see the screen flashing on one
cell that showed an excited woman mouthing silently, an exhausted,
bald man behind her. A fixer? Jenny hunted, cursing, for the
clicker, finding it down the side of a cushion, and turned on the
volume.
"...here at the front, as they call it. My
friend here assures me I'm safe." The stocky reporter grinned, but
she looked tensed to run at a word.
For some reason she was dressed in a dull
green shirt and trousers that looked vaguely like the army uniforms
in the old films. Jenny snorted. Fat lot of good that would do her
if a blighter came along. The woman chattered on, not really saying
anything because there wasn't anything to say. Behind her lay
peaceful, normal countryside.
"So," she said, turning to the man -- flabby,
middle-aged, grim, "you think this is the turning point of the war,
Jit Fixer?"
"We're getting the upper hand."
It was direct, but the flat tone made Jenny's
heart pound. No jubilation at all.
"Can you tell Gaia how you've managed to turn
the tide, Jit?"
The man's eyes shifted for just a moment.
"It's very technical," he said, then went on about concentration of
powers, of nodes and impacts and strategic distributions of
forces.
Jenny wondered if she was hearing Dan’s
theories put into practice. That would mean he was alive, wouldn’t
it? She sat glued, praying for a mention of his name despite
knowing how unlikely it was.
There had been -- what? -- five thousand
fixers or so before the Blighter Wars started.
But Dan had said he'd been the one to gather
the remaining fixers. He might be important enough to get a
mention. No such luck. The reporter, glassy-eyed, brought the
technical ramble to an end, wished the fixer success in the fight,
and returned the screen to the "your local station."
Jenny slumped back in the chair. That hadn't
even been Angliacom. It could have been anywhere around the
world.
On sudden impulse she clicked on the
directory and found the numbers for Hellbane U, scrolling down to
Information. She clicked on that. After two rings a message
flashed: We regret that due to the current
emergency the Gaian Center for Investigation and Control of the
Unfriendly Amorphic Native Entities is unable to respond to
enquiries. Please call back when normal conditions
resume.
Jenny clicked back to the multi-cell screen
and lay there watching maps and charts, sometimes raising the
volume on an interview. She heard displaced people, community
administrators, doctors, and even artists sharing their thoughts
about victory and the future.
No one mentioned Dan.
If he was dead, wouldn't she know it?
She staggered up to go to the loo, grabbed
some food and collapsed back down again to watch, trying
desperately to glean something that would tell her Dan’s fate.
Then more interviews with fixers popped up.
They were all different in age, clothes, and race, but she could
spot them by their debilitated look. It was more that physical. It
was as if something vital had been sucked out of them. Something to
do with the wild magic Dan had shown her that night?
What a terrible struggle it must be, and it
wasn’t over yet.
But they were winning. They were winning.
Then slowly Jenny began to hear something in
their voices -- an echo of the speeches in the war films. One of
them even said, "We will never surrender," in a flat tone almost
identical
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