Free The Trouble With Heroes.... by Jo Beverley

students had been housed in dormitories
in the central buildings ahead. Later, they could board with
families in the town. Most of the citizens of Hellbane U were
fixers -- teachers or researchers -- but some had been family and
descendants of fixers, without special powers.
    Then Jenny realized that the reporter was
such a person, that he was a refugee from Hellbane U returning to
his former home, and shocked by the desolation. He was a
professional and his voice stayed steady as the team progressed
through the ghostly town, but she could hear the thickness of tears
in it.
    Tears were falling down her own cheeks.
    Where have all the flowers gone...?
    Eventually the camera reached the central
buildings. It panned lecture halls, libraries, and rooms that
defied general descriptions. The tour continued, and Jenny watched
it all, but Hellbane U was a dead place, the inhabitants gone. She
remembered a term for it.
    A ghost town.
    Where have all the flowers gone?
    She found the song in the system and set it
to play.
    Another war song.
    Damn war.
    She listened, and watched, and wept for all
the heroes who weren't coming back from the war.
     
     
     

Chapter 6
     
    They held a parade, renamed Bond Street Dan
Fixer Way, and life went on.
    Doctors had to learn how to mend broken
bones with splints and plaster, but the latest technology was on
the way. Apparently they had bugs and bots now to do just about
anything the fixers could do. The Minister for Post-Fixer
Adjustment moved into the Dan’s flat. Dan’s things were sent to his
parents, who turned most of it over to a committee planning the Dan
Fixer museum. Jenny managed to sneak the red jacket out and take it
home.
    No one knew what the fixers had done, but
they were heroes for sure. Yet it seemed to Jenny that other than
Dan’s family and friends people didn’t seem deeply affected by the
loss.
    Her pain was beyond words or expression, so
she hid it, glad that no one knew about that last night.
    Then as she wandered out of work at the end
of another meaningless day, a woman in the street bumped into
her.
    "Did you hear? Dan Fixer's back!"
    Jenny stared at her. "They found his body?"
But then she answered herself. "No. Blighters leave nothing but
ash."
    "Alive as you and me! Outside the southern
gate, he is."
    Alive? Outside? The words didn’t make
sense.
    “ They’re keeping him out, till they
figure out what to do.”
    The gates would be shut, yes. They were
still shut and guarded, though now she thought about it, she didn't
know why.
    “ Then it can’t be Dan,” Jenny said.
“He’s a citizen.”
    " And a fixer. Citizen of all, citizen of none."
    A sort of glee in the woman's voice
shattered the blankness in Jenny's mind. "You don't want him back?
How can you not want him back? He's a hero. He saved the world. We
had a parade and named a bloody street after him!” When the woman
backed away, Jenny asked, “Don't you at least want the fixing
back?"
    The woman turned and hurried off.
    Jenny stood frozen. Dan was back ?
    Alive?
    She was already running toward the nearest
tram stop. She needed to get to the gate, get to Dan. Then she
realized it would be on screen. If it was true. She stopped, made
herself look calm, and walked into the nearest pub.
    One of the big screens faced the door split
between a cricket game, a comedy, and a dim, sunset landscape. She
saw a fire and a figure by it. She moved into that line of sound,
having to squeeze up against two men in business clothes.
    "...claiming to be Dan Fixer," an announcer
was saying. "The Witan is meeting to discuss this development and
assures everyone...."
    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