The Trouble With Heroes.... (9 page)

Jenny stepped into the cricket commentary so
she could focus on the picture. The camera must be up on the wall,
looking down at the road. On the grass verge a small fire burned
and a man sat beside it, reaching for a kettle, pouring boiling
water into a pot.

Memory staggered her, then hope swept in, as
weakening in its own way. She grasped a chair to hold herself
up.

"Creepy, if you ask me."

Jenny blinked and looked at the two young
men in office wear drinking pints. One was blond with a sharp face,
the other dark haired and heavy.

"They've always been a bit strange, haven't
they, fixers?" the blond said.

"No one knows how it works," the heavy one
replied.

"No one knows what they did to win, either.
One minute the blighters are all over us, next minute they're
gone."

"Fixers were supposed to be gone, too. So it
can't really be him, can it?"

"Or they're playing silly buggers with
us."

More faint hostility. Was this a dream? It
wouldn't be surprising to dream that Dan was back, but why would
she dream this? She wanted to ask what the hell they were thinking.
If Dan was back, it was wonderful!

"They had stories on Earth about this sort
of thing," the heavy man said.

"About what?" his friend asked.

"About people who come back from the dead.
Ghouls. Vampires. Zombies. Ghosts. Monsters."

Jenny couldn't keep quiet.
"
Monsters?
"

The man turned to her. "Can't know for sure,
can we?"

Perhaps she looked alarmed rather than
angry, because the other one said, "It's probably not even him,
luv. Some berk thinking he can impersonate a hero, that's all. And
not even good at it. I saw Dan Fixer not long before he left, and
his hair was no longer than mine. Look at that."

He pointed at the screen and Jenny looked.
The camera wasn't on zoom so details weren't clear, but it did look
as if the man had a rope of hair down his back.

She didn't realize how much hope she'd
gathered until it drained away.

"Like a Trojan Horse."

Jenny looked at the dark-haired man in
disbelief. "Bringing what into the town?"

"Who knows. That's the point, isn't it?"

Jenny couldn't entirely fight off the idea.
The fixers and the blighters had fed off the same force. What if in
the end the remaining blighters had taken over their enemies?

She opened that neglected part of her mind,
trying to detect something. Was the faint tingle real, or wishful
thinking? Was her churning stomach and throbbing head a sign that
the blighters were back, or just shock and nerves?

The screen picture changed to a stocky man.
Alderman Higginbottom! She sidled so she could hear him.

"...have to take the cautious road here. We
were given to understand that all the fixers had died in their
gallant victory. We’ve been in touch with other major centers, and
none of them have heard from their fixers. None of them have one on
the doorstep, so to speak."

The camera shifted to the reporter, an eager
young woman. "But Dan Fixer has explained that some survived,
hasn't he?"

"He can explain all he wants, but we can't
just take his word."

The message bar on the screen began to
scroll.

Alderman Jack Higginbottom talking to
Angliacom reporter Alinda Brown. Subject -- arrival at the southern
gate of a person claiming to be Daniel Rutherford Fixer, our hero
of the Hellbane Wars. Gates are currently being kept closed to
everyone while a committee of the Witan reviews the situation.

Committee. Jenny had to bite back laughter.
It was a standing joke that when anything unusual happened in
Anglia, the response was: "Let's form a committee." Now they were
doing it, and as always it was a way of passing time in the hope
that the problem would go away.

"But given the heroic victory," Brown asked,
"doesn't it seem wrong to leave someone outside for the night?"

"Well now, there's no saying how long it
will be. The committee may come to a rapid decision. As always, all
citizens of Anglia are welcome to observe the discussion and make
presentations, either at Parliament Hall or from screen
phones."

"But why not let him in to speak for himself
?" Brown persisted.

Alderman Higginbottom shed his official
veneer and looked older and more strained. "Because we don't know
what's come back from the war, and nor do you! This is a time for
cautious thought, not impulsive action."

The screen abruptly switched to the
Angliacom desk. "We have reporter Nell Raiseby now with Dan Fixer's
mother…"

Jenny turned away. She couldn't bear
watching that. Should she go and support Annie Rutherford? Or to
the Witan to speak up for Dan?

But was it Dan? If Dan was alive, wouldn’t
he have contacted his family? Or her? Especially her. Worse than
that, deep inside, painful as a fatal wound, she too had doubts. If
it was Dan, what had come home from the war?

"But he is a hero." When she realized she'd
spoken aloud she glanced around.

No one was paying attention, thank
heavens.

She slipped out of the pub. She needed to go
up on the wall and see for herself.

When she stepped outside, however, dark was
settling. The camera would show more than human eyes could, but a
screen would be too distracting. She needed to think.

She longed to have Dan back in her life, in
her arms, but even if that figure by the fire was Dan, he could be
changed. She'd seen that, too, in war films. People who returned
not just with physical wounds but with mental ones, driven crazy by
the things they'd had to do, sometimes even destroying those they’d
fought to save.

How did she find that out? How did she do
the right thing with her heart yearning to have him back?

She stepped back into the pub. Part of the
screen was covering the committee meeting now. Another section
showed the huge basement bar in Parliament Hall with its fully
screened wall that made it a popular place to watch official
proceedings. An illusion of being close to the action

As the camera scanned the attentive crowd
Jenny saw Tom, Rolo, Yas – a bunch of Dan’s friends – at a table.
They would be coming up with some way to help him.

She ran to catch a tram, aware that she’d
made one decision. The man by the fire was Dan. And that meant that
she had to help him, no matter what the situation.

She was soon pushing into the crowded room,
looking for the others but keeping an eye on the screens. She
paused a moment to listen to the committee. Surprise, surprise.
They weren't getting anywhere fast.

Where were the others?

Then someone shouted, "Jenny!" and she saw
Gyrth standing and waving.

She squeezed over and those on one side
wriggled together so she could squeeze on the end of the bench.

The mood was grim. "It's not going well?"
she asked.

Gyrth poured her a beer. "Who knows? At this
rate they'll probably talk until the next blighter attack."

"The blighters are gone."

"Whatever."

Jenny took a deep drink. "Are they going to
let Dan in?"

"Probably not."

"Then what are we going to do?"

Everyone looked at her blankly.

"What can anyone do?" Rolo asked.

"Argue. Protest! They can't keep a hero
out."

"When Sillitoe argued that, Alderman Potts
came up with the bright idea that we can't welcome a hero of the
Hellbane Wars home without adequate preparation. He wants Dan to go
away until we're ready."

Jenny groaned. "Let's form another
committee."

No one laughed.

Jenny eyed them all. "We could sneak him
in."

Instead of approval, eyes and bodies
shifted.

"That wouldn't be right," Gyrth said. "It
would be... undignified."

"It's not very dignified to leave him
sitting out on the grass, is it?" She stared around. "Let's do form
a bloody committee."

"Don't take that tone!" Yas leaned forward
poking a long, beringed finger onto the table. "It's not a simple
matter, and if you think it is, you're naive. None of us know what
Dan is now. Perhaps he is dangerous."

"You know better than that!"

"It's because I know better that I'm wary.
There's more to him than the laughing friend, you know."

Jenny was shocked by her own outrage at
Yas's claim. None of them knew what had happened. Perhaps she
should tell them, but she couldn’t do it. Perhaps they wouldn’t
even believe her.

"He's bound to be different, Jenny," Tom
said gently.

"I suppose."

Then Rolo said something about there being
more point watching cricket, and Yas turned it to office politics.
In moments three different conversations were going on around the
table, none of them about Dan.

If his closest friends didn't care, what
could she do, especially when she knew better than any that Dan
could be changed, would be changed. Not into a vampire or a ghoul,
but in power. He’d begun the shift before he left.

Wild magic.

Then a screen section closed in on the long,
severe face of Alice Cotrell. Jenny rolled her eyes. Mrs. Cotrell
was a great one for drawing up petitions and addressing
committees.

"I speak for over a hundred citizens of
Anglia -- the names are here, Alders, if you wish to verify." Mrs.
Cotrell waved some sheets of paper. "We wish to make it clear that
many Anglians do not wish to see Dan Fixer back within our walls.
While duly grateful for the service the fixers have done, we
believe that his home, the home of all the fixers, is the Gaian
Center for Investigation and Control of the Hostile Amorphic Native
Entities."

How interesting that she used the full and
formal name.

"It is intact," Mrs. Cotrell went on, "and
suitable for habitation. As Dan Fixer claims there are only a small
number of fixers left, there is plenty of accommodation...."

"There are others alive?" Jenny whispered to
Gyrth.

"Apparently. It might be best for them to
gather there to figure out what to do in the future."

“
True,” Jenny said. But Dan wanted to
come in.

He wanted, she suddenly realized, to come
home.

Alice Cotrell was listing the many possible
dangers a fixer might now present to normal people.

Normal, thought Jenny.

Alderwoman Sillitoe interrupted. "He seems
perfectly normal, Mrs. Cotrell. And he was born and raised
here."

Alice Cotrell stood straighter. "We do not
understand his sort, any more than we understood the hellbanes. Who
is to say that the fixers themselves won't turn wild on us one
day?"

A murmur rolled around the room, but Jenny
couldn't tell if it was shock or approval. She'd not thought of
that. When a predator is eliminated, the prey often takes over as
pest. She followed the debate, no longer certain what was
right.

In the end, she grabbed onto one thing.
"Listen!" she said.

They all stared at her.

"If everyone's afraid of what Dan might be,
then someone has to go outside and find out. Yas-"

"Oh no!" Yas raised a hand. "We weren't that
close."

"What?"

"Not when he left. I don't know who he was
rumpling with then."

Jenny turned to Tom, hoping the dim lighting
hid her blush. "You're a good friend."

He turned his beer glass in his hands. "I
don't know, Jenny. It's not that I'm afraid of Dan," he added
quickly. "I don't think he'd deliberately hurt any of us.”

"Tom!"

"You know better?" Yas demanded. "Why has he
pretended to be dead for weeks?"

That was the overwhelming question. "I don't
know,” Jenny said. “I just know that someone has to go and find out
why he's here and what he wants…" The resistance around the table
dragged her words to a halt. "All right. How many here want Dan
back home?"

Eyes shifted. Perhaps some hands twitched,
but none went up.

"It depends..."

"We can't decide yet…."

"I need to know..."

"My, my. The committee really is in touch
with the mood of the voters, isn't it?"

"If you're so set on this," said Yas, "why
don’t you go and find out what's come home from the war."

It was a challenge, one Jenny knew Yas
didn't expect her to accept.

She turned her attention to the screen,
hoping for something that would save her. No. They were consulting
some expert about the place of Hellbane U in Gaian society.

She didn't want to do this, but she had to.
She’d remembered what she'd said when she'd parted from Dan. "Come
back," she'd said. "That's an order."

And he'd replied, “If I possibly can."

She took a deep breath then looked back
around the table. "I will, then, on one condition."

After a stunned moment, Tom said, "You don't
have to-"

"If no one else will, I will. But on one
condition. I'm your representative. If I come back and say Dan's
safe, you all support that."

"What good will it do?" Rolo asked.

"If necessary, we smuggle him in and carry
on the fight from here. Once people see he's just Dan, they'll
change. Most of them want the fixing back. Medical technology
doesn’t fix things. Are we agreed?"

She thought for a terrible moment that
they'd chorus no, but then Yas, of all people, said, "Yes. Fine.
After all, you're such a careful sort. If you think he's safe, he's
probably comatose."

It hurt, but Jenny hid it and waited until
they'd all agreed. Then she stood. "All right. Let's do it."

The easiest way out was through the storage
basement of Gyrth's uncle's grocery. They'd used it as teenagers
when sneaking outside had seemed like an adventure. It didn't take
long to move the stack of heavy boxes, then work out the loose
stones that blocked the tunnel through the thick wall. Wriggling
down the rough, dusty hole wasn't Jenny's favorite thing, but right
now it seemed a small challenge. She wriggled backward so her feet
went out first, hung on with her fingers a second longer than
necessary and then dropped the six feet or so to the grass.