Free Short Stories 2013

by Baen Books

  "Hal! Damn it! Not again! Don't tell people that shit! You know what we have to do to change the fricking codes!" Actually it wasn't that hard, but she made up stuff so he wouldn't do exactly this. She continued while emailing a change order to Juergen, "And on top of everything, I'm going to have to come to the hospital and get the camera so no one steals it. You got me out of bed at 4:00 a.m. this morning, Hal. I want to go home, feed Chesty, and go to sleep! It's been a shitty, shitty day."

  "They said I could leave if you came and picked me up." He dropped his voice to a whisper and pulled the camera closer. His pupils were blown wide, almost touching the rims of his irises. "The angry penguins scare me."

  Jane pinched the bridge of her nose, trying to ward off a headache. "They've given you pain medicine, haven't they?"

  "My state of medication does not make them any less scary. Tiny, angry, little birds."

  He was talking about the ancient Catholic nuns of Mercy Hospital. They were one of the few things on the planet that actually frightened Hal. She suspected he would be even more cavalier about getting hurt if there was a hospital other than Mercy to go to in Pittsburgh.

  "Please, please, please, please, please, please." Hal whimpered. "You've got the Fortress of Solitude. All those empty beds! Please!"

  "Fine. You can stay at my place. I'll come get you." She slapped down her hand, cutting the feed.

  The two men were staring at the display with surprise and amusement.

  "Who was that unfortunate fellow?" Nigel asked.

  "That's – that's the host of Pittsburgh Backyard and Garden, Hal Rogers. We had a rough shoot this morning."

  Taggart was clearly confused by the answer. Obviously he thought PB&G was a simple landscape show.

  Nigel raised a finger in question. "Speaking of beds, where are we staying?"

  #

  The two men trailed Jane to Ginnilee Berger's desk, which was alarmingly clean, as in not only was the desktop cleared of every yellow post-it note, all the pictures of England and peaches-and-cream complexion people were missing from the cubicle walls.

  Jane caught hold of Louis Robinson, the station engineer. "Was Ginnilee fired?"

  "No, she's on pregnancy leave. Has been for a month."

  "She was pregnant?"

  Louis stared at her a moment and then said, "Vespers."

  She shuddered as unwanted memories tried to surface. "What?"

  "You and Hal were off doing that show on vespers when we had the party for her. Yeah, she was like five months pregnant and planned to have the baby here so it would have Pittsburgh citizenship, but her ultrasound came back showing that the baby was breach. She had to go home; Mercy won't handle high risk pregnancies for people with visas."

  "Home? To England?"

  "Yes. England. She'll be back – if she can work out a visa for the baby. She's hoping for a joint citizenship, England and Pittsburgh, but it's unlikely."

  "But who is doing her job until she gets back?"

  "The intern."

  "Where's the intern?"

  "I think he went home too; it's summer break at the University."

  "So who is doing the housing?"

  Louis shrugged and backed away. "Not me."

  Nigel looked slightly confused and concerned but Taggart immediately grasped the situation.

  "So we don't have any place to stay?" Taggart asked. "Network said you would handle our accommodations."

  "We would have if we had more than," she checked her watch, "fifteen minutes warning that Network didn't do shit about preparing for your trip. Just to be clear, that includes not letting us know last Shutdown to prepare for you showing up yesterday."

  Nigel jumped in to prevent a fight. "We tried checking into a hotel last night after we crossed the border."

  "No luck huh? Welcome to Pittsburgh. Strange thing about disappearing to another planet for a month at a time; really kills the tourist trade." What few hotels remained were booked solid in the summer months.

  "We've just spent the last," Taggart paused to count back hours, "seventy-four hours in our truck, sitting in traffic, taking turns sleeping, pissing into a bottle. Three days."

  She'd heard that getting across the border was hell on Shutdown. At least it wasn't winter. Taggart certainly looked like he'd slept in his clothes for three days. Nigel must have had a splash bath in the offices men's room and put on clean clothes.

  "Doesn't the University and the EIA have people that stay just for the month?" Taggart asked with desperation in his voice. The man probably just wanted to fall over and sleep in a real bed.

  "They have dorms," Jane said. She wondered if their morning of positive karma with the EIA could allow her dumping the two onto them.

  "We can stay with you!" Nigel cried with the delight of a nine year old being told they were having a sleepover. "Your – your raccoon fellow says you have lots of beds. And we're going to be working together. It would be so convenient!"

  Taggart merely watched, knowing the persuasive powers of a TV host. He couldn't keep the smirk out of his chocolate-colored eyes. She really needed to get him into a high stakes poker game.

  "I have a really big dog," Jane said.

  "Oh, I love dogs!" Nigel said with all sincerity. "And dogs love Taggart. It's his special talent."

  Which apparently annoyed Taggart to all end judging by the wince.

  Housing was plentiful in Pittsburgh but not necessarily safe. They could pick any empty house and squat. Finding a safe place before nightfall would be tricky. She knew better than anyone what could be hiding in an abandoned space. The memory of vespers pushed into her mind and she shivered again.

  "Okay, fine, but only for one night. Tomorrow we find you someplace to live."

  #

  She'd missed their production truck earlier because Jeurgen had it in the garage on some pretense so he could climb all over it and drool. Taggart had state of the art cameras to go with it. Everything from battery life to resolution was all a hundred times greater than her camera. It put her ancient truck and ten year old gear to shame. Sheer jealousy made her want to kick the truck or something. She could see why, though, Dmitri assumed that they'd be driving the network vehicle all over Pittsburgh: her truck was too old to support their cameras.

  The thing had a giant-sized logo of their affiliated network painted on its side as well as "Chased by Monsters," which apparently was the name of their show.

  "Award winning nature documentaries?" Jane pointed to the show's sharp-toothed logo.

  "It wasn't our first choice of names." Taggart obviously hated it.

  Nigel, however, was a half-full kind of person. "The name isn't important, it's what we film that is. It's kind of catchy though."

  Jane didn't want to agree. She hated this sense of being railroaded into babysitting. It opened old wounds. She was going to have nightmares tonight for sure. "I have supplies in my truck that need to be moved to my SUV."

  That required a careful introduction of Chesty. He was too well-mannered to growl at them but he gave the men a look that let them know he would cheerfully tear their face off if Jane asked him to.

  Nigel clapped his hands together in sheer joy. "An elfhound! Oh how wonderful. They're on our list."

  "This is Chesty. Don't move while I'm getting him used to you."

  "Chesty? As in Lt. General Chesty Puller?" Taggart got points for seeming unfazed by having something the size of a bear sniff him over. Even the most avid dog lovers were unnerved by Chesty's size.

  "Yeah. My dad was a Marine." He had been a scout sniper to be exact, but she'd found men to be unnerved by the fact. Actually, almost everything in Jane's life unsettled strangers.

  Nigel obviously was restraining himself from a petting orgy. "He's a beautiful animal. How old is he?"

  "He's seven. The elves say that he'll live to be about a hundred, but he's full grown." She took Nigel's hand and let Chesty know he was to suffer the touch. "Just because he knows you, doesn't mean he t
rusts you. You have to earn his trust."

  "Like his owner?" Taggart asked.

  "I doubt you'll be here long enough for either one of us," she told them bluntly, but for some reason, it only made Taggart grin.

  #

  Much to Chesty and Taggart's dismay, she had the cameraman ride with her and Nigel follow in their truck. She had to keep them separated if she was going to keep them from running off and trying to film without her. From what she'd been able to observe, Taggart was the practical details person of the team.

  Taggart put his back to the passenger door; either to keep an eye on Chesty in the backseat or to make sure Nigel was staying behind them. Both denoted a cautious outlook, which Jane approved of. It would make her job easier if Taggart was used to keeping Nigel in check.

  "We'll see about getting you a place to live tomorrow," Jane said. "Any house that's unoccupied is free to anyone who is willing to take care of it. It's July, you won't have to worry about heating. The station can pull some strings to get you water and power. We watch each other's backs here." Hence the entire show this morning. They do a favor for EIA, and somewhere down the road, they could reasonably call in a return favor. "We're not going to let you screw things up and then drive away next Shutdown. We have to live here."

  "Fine," Taggart growled as if it cost him to agree. "But it would be helpful to be caught up to speed. 'It's complicated' is bullshit."

  It took her a moment to track back through the morning to find Dmitri's explanation of the current political situation in Pittsburgh. Okay, admittedly it was fairly sketchy.

  "Okay, I'll catch you up but you'll have to be patient because it isn't simple."

  She waited until he nodded in agreement before starting. She wanted to start laying ground rules of asking for cooperation and getting it. "Earth and Elfhome are parallel universes, mirror reflections with minor differences, the main one is that Elfhome has magic. Geographically they're identical. Recently the elves admitted that they could travel from Elfhome to Earth via a pathway through large cave systems."

  "Yeah, we've always suspected something like that. All the legends we have of fae living under the hills."

  "Lying is considered a major crime by elves, but not answering the question is an art form that they carefully cultivate."

  "And apparently it rubs off," Taggart complained.

  Jane ignored him. She'd scripted enough "how-to" bits that she knew that the key to understanding something complex required starting at the important facts that might seem basic but on which all understanding pivoted. "What magic does to the equation is that it superloads the DNA of all the native species. Basically everything on Elfhome could beat the snot out of its Earth cousin. We're genetically close enough to elves that we can interbreed, but they're taller, stronger and immortal. Chesty here will live almost twenty times longer than any Earth breed of his size."

  "Do you mind starting with something I don't know? Like if the Viceroy is dead or alive? And why he went missing?"

  Jane plowed on with her explanation. "There's a third parallel universe, with yet another mirror world, named Onihida, and it has magic. Its people are the oni."

  He didn't startle as much as she expected and his next question explained why. "Whose theory is this?"

  She dropped the big bomb. "Twenty-eight days ago, the oni made a very serious attempt at killing the Viceroy."

  "Wait!" There was the reaction she was expecting. He stared at her eyes wide. Pure cameraman, though, that was the only body reaction to his surprise. Thankfully his voice made it worth everything, his normal rich near bass went all squeaky. "You mean they're here? In Pittsburgh?"

  "Yes. Number unknown but possibly in the hundreds, if not thousands. Goal unknown, but obviously hostile to the elves. The elves have reluctantly also admitted that they had a running skirmish with the oni several hundred years ago. It started on Onihida, went across parts of China, and ended in the cave systems that lead to Elfhome. Or used to lead. The oni so scared the shit out of the elves that they blasted the pathways between Elfhome and Earth shut."

  Taggart gazed out the SUV's windows at the city streets. Mercy Hospital was in one of the better areas of town since it lay protected on two sides by the river. All the windows had glass in them, the sidewalks were clear of weeds, and no wild animals were scurrying for cover. It could be any street in America. "I thought if the EIA was allowing people in, that the trouble had blown over."

  Pittsburgh desperately needed supplies from Earth once a month. There simply were too many people and too little farmland for the city to feed itself, even in the summer months. It would have gridlocked incoming traffic completely if the EIA had tried to turn back everyone not transporting food.

  Jane didn't point out that they'd downloaded all the information to Earth at midnight yesterday. The network had twenty-four hours to realize they were sending their people into a war zone and call them back.

  #

  Hal normally was excitable with a quirky sense of humor. On painkillers, he was manic loopy. Most people thought Hal was funnier with all politically correct safeguards brakes stripped off and the engine running at full. The nuns of Mercy Hospital, however, were not among that number. If anything, "loathe" was probably an accurate word to how they felt about him. Over the years, they had abandoned all "family only" rules for Jane in order to facilitate her taking him away. As far away as possible. They had hinted that his returning to Earth – permanently – would be a good thing for everyone.

  Today was no exception.

  Mother Superior of the Sisters of Mercy herself was lying in wait for Jane at the foyer. "You have to keep in mind we only can restock our supplies once a month. Frankly, it always stresses our supplies of medications when Mr. Rogers is having a streak of bad luck. With fighting breaking out right and left..."

  "Mother Superior, this is Nigel Reid. Nigel, Mother Superior is head of the nuns that oversee this hospital. Anyone attacked by a monster is brought here to be treated."

  Which of course was all that took. TV hosts were kind of like napalm. You threw them at any major infestation and they cleaned out the area of all hostiles.

  Nigel lit up as if introduced to Santa Claus. "Oh, how simply wonderful to meet you!"

  Taggart caught what she had done and his eyes glittered with his smile. "That was pure evil."

  "Judicial use of resources is always appropriate."

  For reasons that she could never understand, they always put Hal in pediatrics, as far from the nurses' station as possible. It was possibly because it was usually the least occupied floor, or perhaps it was a statement on what they thought his mental age was.

  He was standing on the window ledge, hospital gown flapping open in the back, as he waved her camera around.

  "Hal! What the frick are you doing with my camera? Get down! And don't you dare break my camera!"

  "Jane?" Hal glanced over his shoulder. His two black eyes made him look like a startled raccoon. "Jane!" He cried with joy and then realized he was holding evidence of his crime. "Jane!" And that he was currently mooning her. "Jane!" And in trying to hide the evidence while pinning the flaps of the hospital gown, together, he started to wobble dangerously on the window ledge. "Jane!"

  Cursing, Jane caught the wrist of the hand holding the camera and jerked him toward her. In what was an unfortunately well-practiced move, she pulled him into a fireman carry over her shoulder. "I swear, Hal, I'm going to tell them to tie you into the bed if you pull this shit again!"

  She delivered him to said bed.

  "But there was this huge bird! It was bigger than me! Black like a crow! Wings this big!" He was attempting to show her by spreading his arms. She, however, was prying her camera free. "Ow! Ow! Ow!"

  "You break my camera, and we can't shoot for two months. I break your hand, we can still shoot tomorrow."

  "Letting go!" Hal cried. "Letting go!"

  She checked the lens for scratches. Camera parts needed to be ordered fro
m Earth. They have to wait until next Shutdown to order replacements and then another month for the lens to arrive. If he's screwed up her camera, she was so going to kill him.

  "I was just sitting here when this freaking huge bird came swooping out of nowhere." Hal was attempting to use his charisma to talk his way out of trouble, only because he was on drugs, he derailed quickly into incoherence. "At least I think it was a bird. Might have been a superhero. I am Batman! Only more like Hawkman – without the goofy cow." He meant cowl. He put his fingers to his head to make odd points on Hawkman's cowl. Obviously he hadn't seen himself in the mirror yet; he already was masked by deep purple bruises. "Cow. Cow. Mooo." He noticed Taggart for the first time and he went wide-eyed. He tilted his head, still making horns. "My god! You're Taggart with the unpronounceable first name."

  "Yes, I am." Taggart rubbed at his face to cover a smile. "And you're Hal Rogers from Pittsburgh Backyard and Garden."

  "I am." Hal slowly frowned as he tried to think through the confusion of the painkillers. He glanced about the familiar hospital room, the Boulevard of the Allies just outside his window with the Monongahela River beyond the steep cliff. "This is Pittsburgh. What the fuck are you doing here?"

  "I'm wondering myself." Taggart said.

  Hal suddenly lunged at Jane and wrapped both arms around her. "No. You can't have her!" He hissed like snake. "Jane is mine!"

  Normally she didn't think of Hal as a small man. His personality could fill a room to claustrophobic level, making him seem seven feet tall. In truth, however, he came right to boob-level on her.

  "Hal!" Jane worked at prying him off her. "If you want to get out of here, you better get dressed, because I'm not taking you out of here with your ass flapping in the wind."

  "What's he doing here?" Hal whispered fiercely.

  "Get dressed!" She gave him a shove and turned around so she wouldn't be flashed as well as mooned. Although after five years working together – and all various plant assisted disrobing and the subsequent ambulance rides -- she'd seen the entire package more times than she could count.