“The light is good,” Hal pointed out. He’d shaved, applied makeup to conceal his two black eyes, and styled his hair with his mystery product.
“I want to hear it first.” Jane held her hand for the tablet that Hal was carrying. She didn’t look at it since his handwriting was horrible. On Earth, apparently they stopped teaching children penmanship just about the time that Hal entered kindergarten. Even after six years together, she couldn’t read his scribbling. Only his signature was legible. Whenever possible, she had him use a computer but Hal’s carelessness and the open river seemed too dangerous to give him access to any of her precious equipment.
He found his mark, turned toward her as if she was aiming a camera on him and turned on his hosting super powers. “Nearly three decades ago, humans opened a door to a new world. We confidently swaggered in. The natives seemed armed only with weapons made of wood and bone. We thought we could do what we’ve done with people of lesser technology since the start of time. Push them off their lands and take it for ourselves. Upon encountering natives seemingly armed with nothing more than wooden swords, American soldiers with assault rifles backed up with Bradley troop carriers attempted to round up the elves to lock into a holding area. We’d invaded their world and because we thought we had superior weapons that we had the right to detain them.”
This was not the introduction to the show that Jane expected. Where the hell was Hal going with this? She flipped the pages of the script, trying to jump ahead of Hal. The writing was too messy to read.
“We all know how that ended,” Hal said of the failed attempt to detain the elves. “Windwolf stood up against us. He demanded that we treat his people as equals. He forced us to recognize that Elfhome is exactly that: the home of the elves. Its theirs and the human race are merely visitors.”
Accurate but not the diplomatic way to put the first Startup. Maybe she should have written the script.
Hal changed his pose and dramatically waved toward the river banks. “You might fiercely argue that this world also belongs to the local humans, but come next Shutdown, you will return to Earth. You have a home world. It may not be the one you were born on. It may not be the one you want to live on, but it’s there. It’s yours by the genetics in your body. Every cell in your body is a statement of ‘I belong to Earth and it belongs to me.’ And if someone from another world came to take Earth away by force, humans would stand up to fight to the death for it.”
“What the hell?” Jane muttered. Was he trying to piss off all of their viewers?
Hal sped up his pace, obviously trying to get to the end of his script before she shut him down. “The elves are gracious hosts. They have forgiven us for that messy encounter. They’ve met with us in peace and came to a written agreement so we could co-exist on their planet.”
That wasn’t a bad point but when was he going to get to the monsters?
Hal was talking at auctioneer speed now. “This is amazing because they know us. They know our history. Elves have been trading with humans, peacefully, for thousands of years. They watched Alexander the Great conquer Macedonia and all its neighbors as far as Egypt. They watched the Trojan War play out. They saw the rise of the Roman Empire spread across the face of the planet. Genghis Khan and the Mongolian horde. The Great Wall of China built on the bodies of the Chinese people enslaved to build it. All the Crusades, as the Christians marched to the Holy Lands again and again to claim for their own because they wanted land for their younger sons. Think of it. You have this amazing virgin property that you haven’t even start to explore and boom, suddenly there is this stinking, sprawling, concrete wasteland filled with toxic chemicals and rusting steel mills and railroads sitting smack dab in the middle of your land. Your new neighbor? He’s fresh out of prison for rape, murder, and armed robbery…”
“Hal! No!” Jane shook the script that Hal had written. “We want to make our audience feel safe, not insult them! Focus on the oni.”
“But I don’t know that much about the oni.”
“You know more than most people in this city. Talk about the monster. No one can top you there.”
“Nigel could.”
“No, he’s on equal footing. Will you please stop acting like a spoiled brat? I know you like Nigel and respect him. He likes you and respects you. Neither he or Taggart got to shoot the big gun any more than you. One radio interview shouldn’t throw you into hissy fits. This isn’t healthy thinking.”
Hal covered his ears. “Oh, God, not the healthy thinking campaign.”
Jane winced. That was a throwback to their first year together when every day was a battle to keep him from sliding into drunken depression. “I’ll stop with the healthy thinking — unless you keep this up.” She shook the script at him. “This isn’t the right way to start this.”
“I was getting to why the elves haven’t told us about the oni up to this point.”
“No! Don’t put words in their mouths! We don’t know why for sure. Hal, talk about yourself.” Jane knew that despite his ego, Hal rarely did talk about his past. Only when he was drunk or high on painkillers did he open up. “The people of Pittsburgh don’t know that you have the education that puts you on equal footing with Nigel. They think you’re just a television personality; that maybe you have a bachelor’s in communication. This is your chance to tell them that you know what you’re doing.” She shoved the paper back into his pad. “Talk about yourself!”
“You’re right! Most people in the city don’t realize I’m a naturalist. That I have a doctorate in biology from UC Davis. Most people don’t even know what UC Davis stands for. I should let them know that I’m well qualified to deal with magically altered creatures.”
“We can’t say that we know that the oni are magically altering them. That information came from Boo.”
“Right.” Hal paused a moment, shaking a finger before exclaiming. “Snapdragon! We’ll interview your brother’s boyfriend.”
“Oh god, don’t say that out loud!” Jane slapped a hand over his mouth. “No one else in our family knows!”
“There’s nothing wrong with being bisexual.” Hal mumbled through her hand. At least, that’s what it sounded like he said.
“I don’t know if my cousins are homophobic or not.” Jane whispered. “We are not going to out my little brother, not even to my cousins. He will tell them when he’s ready.”
Hal mumbled something into her palm.
Jane lifted her hand. “What?”
“This is one of those things where you will hurt me very badly if I slip up?”
“Very, very badly.”
“Okay. Just checking.” Hal dropped his voice to a whisper. “We can question any elf we can corner, like Snapdragon, about what the elves know about the oni. They might tell us things we don’t know already. Regardless, if they don’t tell us about the whole magical bioengineering, we can edit the interview make it seem like they did.”
Hal’s sneaky side could come in useful in this.
“Fine. Just write it out so you’re clear on what you’re going to say. I don’t want mistakes to end up on video.”
The first day was nearly anticlimactic. If it wasn’t for Hal trying to sneak sticks of the dynamite, the river sharks, the jump fish, and the occasional brush with the EIA who may or may not be oni, it would actually have been relaxing.
They started at Sandcastle and worked their way toward the city. They nosed the Queen into the mouth of Nine Mile Run and then trolled westward. Some of the little streams they investigated, she knew their names like West Run, Glass Run and Becks Run. Others were barely more than culverts, possibly without a name.
It turned out that the boat had some radar on it to keep track of the depth of the water. They stopped often to let Geoffrey cast a spell and frown at the result.