The Trouble With Heroes....
and they come."
    "I thought you had trouble finding them for
training."
    "True, but the only way we know is to bait a
trap.”
    “ With what?”
    “ With ourself. We go to a place where
they’ve ashed animals and wait for one to turn up.”
    “ Then you zap it. Before it ashes you.
Do fixers ever fail? I mean, die?”
    “ Very, very rarely.”
    But he could have died. She’d never imagined
that.
    They paused to let a tram pass, and Jenny
thought about what he’d said.
    When they were across the tracks, she asked,
"What does it feel like? A blighter, I mean."
    He pulled a face. "It can't really be
described. Like a nightmare, the awareness evaporates before we can
find words to describe it."
    She started at how that mirrored her
feelings.
    "Can non-fixers sense this? At a distance, I
mean?"
    His look was quick and sharp. "You're sensing
something now?"
    “ No! I’m not a fixer, Dan. Don’t even
think it.”
    "You don't want to be able to fix things?
It's an honorable calling."
    "I know. It's the years away from home I
couldn't take."
    He touched her face. "Don't worry. Some
people have a trace, but not enough to be taken seriously. What are
you picking up?"
    She tried to explain, but it was as he’d
said. Words evaporated.
    Even so, her efforts seemed to make sense to
him. Though she felt incoherent, it seemed to make sense to
him.
    She tried to read his expression. "You're
feeling the same thing, but much stronger?"
    "I assume so."
    "So they are coming?"
    "No, seriously, there's no need to worry,
Jen. The action is all in the hotter lands."
    She stopped to stare.
" What action?"
    He sighed. "The blighters and the fixers
dealing with them.” He grabbed her hand and tugged. “Come on. The
others will be there long before us." But three steps later he
stopped. He muttered something, but he pulled the fine wire from
his earring to his mouth. "Fixer."
    After a moment he pushed it back. "Kid fallen
off High Wall near Watling. Luckily, only a broken leg. Want to
come, or do you want to go on to the Merrie?"
    "Come." She rarely got a chance to see him
work, and it always delighted her.
    Hand in hand they ran across to the nearest
tram line and Dan waved one down, his uniform his authority. He
seemed to have the lines in his head and they jagged rapidly across
town to the west wall, where they found a boy on the ground with
two nurses in attendance and a small crowd of gawkers.
    The patient was about thirteen with freckles
and ginger hair. A tubby dark haired lad hovered, looking more
shocked than his injured friend. It turned out that the patient had
already had something for the pain.
    "Right leg," said the nurse who was kneeling
beside him. "Tibia and fibula, I think. Might be spinal, too.
Name's Jeff Bowlby."
    "Thought you could fly, Jeff?" said Dan,
sitting cross-legged beside him.
    "Just fell. Will it hurt?"
    Dan smiled at him. "Not at all. Relax."
    He put his hands on the boy's leg, which was
still covered by his jeans. Jenny knew the rules. Everyone did. In
case of an accident do nothing except pain relief until the fixer
comes, unless it's necessary to prevent death.
    The youth tensed anyway, but then his eyes
widened. "It tingles."
    Dan didn't say anything. There really was
nothing to see of what he was doing except a stillness that was
very unDanlike. But this time, Jenny realized, she too could feel
something.
    Tingling? That was one way to put it. What
she felt was in the air, or in her mind, or rather, in a part of
her mind she hadn't known was there. Oh, she didn't like this. She
didn't like it at all. She wasn’t a fixer!
    A man rushed up. "Jeffy?"
    Jenny and the second nurse took an arm each
before he could interfere.
    "He's fine," said the nurse, his voice
steady. "Mr. Bowlby, is it? No great harm done and it's being
fixed. We'll just need some details from you."
    The young man led the father away to comfort
him with record taking, and sting him with a bill. Co-payment for
foolishness.
    "All right?" Dan

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