The Trouble With Heroes.... Read Online Free PDF

street, beneath the lights, she gently
moved away from him, trying to ignore a drag, as if two sticky
surfaces were pulling apart. Stuck like two toffees....
    "You don't sleep much because of your fixer
abilities?"
    "The energy of it, yes.” He took her hand,
rubbing her knuckles with his thumb. “Sex helps."
    All kinds of interesting muscles contracted,
but she knew -- perhaps had always known -- that her friend Dan
Fixer was too strong a drink for her.
    Spontaneous combustion.
    "You should have gone with Yas, then."
    The street light two doors down showed his
smile. "I don't think so." He raised her hand and kissed the palm
-- a lover's move. "Anytime you'd like to, Jen. Sleep tight."
    She watched him walk away, stunned.
    Anytime?
    She had only to ask?
    She turned and pressed the lock, her
exhausted mind staggering around the perilous possibilities.
    She stumbled up the stairs of the quiet house
and fell into bed, into sleep, thinking she'd probably dreamed the
whole thing. For that and a bundle of other excellent reasons, she
couldn't imagine taking him up on the offer.
     
     
     

Chapter 3

    For a few days everyone spent time on the
wall watching the stream of refugees, but the numbers dwindled and
Anglians became more concerned about their own problems. The town
was overcrowded, but that wasn't the worry. Everyone was wondering
whether they, too, would end up on the road north.
    An occasional group of refugees had a citizen
in the family and had to be let in. Those people told tales of
whole families ashed, though when it came down to it, no one had
actually seen it. Of course not. No one got that close to a
blighter attack and lived.
    Except fixers, and the fixers weren't fleeing
north.
    Angliacom showed charts and graphs that
tracked the hellbane wave, all the time assuring viewers that the
fixers to the south had everything under control and that the
temporary visitors -- never refugees -- would soon be able to go
home.
    Academic analysts pointed out that the
supposedly ashed families had probably left to go north, and any
piles of ash would be animals they had been too softhearted to
kill. That was presented as a lack of kindness -- they left animals
to die a terrified death, but Jenny knew the necessity was to
starve the blighters.
    Jenny wondered how many worked that out. She
also wondered how many others saw that the news was sugaring
everything and sensed the darker truth. Was she the only one to
feel she could taste bitter ashes on the wind, to sense the peril
thrumming in the earth, stronger and stronger, coming, coming,
coming....?
    If the starve-them-to-death plan was working,
why did the pressure grow day by day?
    Personal calls to people in the south either
received no response, or found people frightened and planning a
move. Gaia central was no help. The officials didn’t seem able to
keep track of who was where. Just possibly the first settlers had
made a mistake when they’d rejected Earth's efficient,
communication system and strong, centralized government.
    Paradise didn't need that, they'd said, but
Gaia wasn't paradise anymore.
    Tension was making her jumpy and queasy.
Drops got her through her workday, but she stayed home at night,
watching the screen with her family.
    Dan came over once. He checked her out, but
said there was nothing he could fix. She knew her problem was to do
with the blighters, but he looked fine. She’d heard that every
night at the Merrie was a wild night. Perhaps that explained
it.
    She decided to try it for herself and went
there after work, but it was nothing like the music night.
    Dan flared with too much energy, edgy energy
that screamed down her nerves and twisted up her spine, giving her
a crashing headache. No one else seemed bothered, but she fled for
her own salvation, and because she thought Dan might burn himself
to ash.
    There was nothing she could do.
    Or nothing she wanted to do.
    She'd caught his eyes on her, and he'd held
the moment before looking