Free Yesterday's Hero by Jonathan Wood

because of what I’ve said, I’m not sure.
    I’m about to try a new tack when the door opens and Felicity pops her head back in. My heart does a little leap. Hopefully this is to announce Coleman has been sent back to whatever circle of hell he had the temerity to crawl out from.
    But instead she says, “Clyde. Arthur. If you could pop down to London and pull papers on the Chernobyl incident that would be very convenient.”
    She sounds like she’s asking. It’s very unlike her.
    “Are you sure?” I say. Something else feels wrong now.
    “Please.” She nods.
    OK, something else is definitely wrong.
    “Do you need us to—” I start.
    “Just go to London,” she says. “It’ll be fine.”
    But as Clyde and I stand, I know she’s lying. Something is shifting. And it’s not some towering monster, not something from outer space or out of our reality, it’s something small and mundane. And I know for certain, all of a sudden, that when we put the world back together, we did it wrong.

TWELVE

    C lyde and I manage to maintain silence for at least two corridors. Then he turns and looks at me.
    “Did you know?” he asks me.
    Here we go again.
    “About Devon?” I ask, just to confirm this is going to be as uncomfortable as possible.
    “Shaw told you?” He’s working his long piano-player fingers against and between each other.
    “I…” I start, then fail to think of a way to change the subject mid-question. “She told me last night.”
    “You could have called me.”
    He’s right, of course. I should have. It was cruel to let him walk into that this morning. But I was… otherwise engaged last night.
    “It was late,” I say rather than get into the sticky details of it all.
    Clyde taps the mask that is not his face with a finger that is not his. “I don’t seem to really sleep any more. Little bit shy on the old zees. With this.” He doesn’t sound overjoyed about it.
    “You OK?” I ask.
    “Me?” He cocks his head again. Shrugs. “Been better, yes. But I’ve been worse. Been dead actually. Albeit briefly. So, you know, on the scale of things, pretty much always going to be able to say things have been worse. But you know, reincarnation and all that, so things can pick up. Sleeping in the bed I made. And it’s Tabitha’s bed, so…” He trails off, hangs his head. “I feel like a bit of a shit, Arthur.”
    And he should. But that’s not the sort of thing you say to a friend. “You followed your heart,” I say instead. I try and make it sound like an excuse.
    Clyde nods. “Not the smartest organ out there is it?”
    “Not the stupidest organ I’ve ever been accused of thinking with.” I twist my mouth into a smile for Clyde.
    Clyde chuckles, then he laughs. And he shrugs, and a little of the morning tension sloughs away.
    “What do you reckon’s going to happen about this Coleman bloke?” I ask. Not that either of us really know. But a problem shared… well, it’s not halved, but maybe it’s… well it’s someone to talk to about it.
    “I’m sure Shaw will sort it out,” Clyde says.
    In Shaw we trust. And I have to trust her. Except I already have misgivings about how she’s handling it.
    “Come on,” Clyde says. “Let’s get off to London. See the sights. Revel in the sense of history. Maybe buy a T-shirt. Or look for hoodies without skulls on them. One of the two. Whatever takes your fancy.”
    “Sounds like a plan.” I nod.
    “There’s just one thing we need to pick up along the way.”
     
    Outside the Bodleian Library
     
    Clyde’s Mini is parked, engine running, in an empty back street near the massive copyright library. I watch Clyde staggering under the weight of an enormous cardboard box as he exits. He sets it down by the car with a grunt. A large and rather eclectic collection of books. I look at Clyde confused. His mask is—obviously, I suppose—unreadable.
    He goes to the trunk, pulls out two jump leads and passes them to me.
    Ah, the regalia of the