“She what?”
“She strong-armed the EIA into providing bulldozers and dump trucks and started to build something.”
“And we don’t know what?”
“We sent Mark’s crew out to the building site to see what they could find out.” Mark Webster was WQED’s reporter most fluent in Elvish. “The elves have not a clue; they’re just blindly following orders. Apparently asking questions never occurs to them. One of the humans Mark interviewed claimed that they were building windmills out of pickup trucks. Ford F-250s. Another claimed that they’re building some kind of supercomputer running on magic. A third said that Tinker kept saying it was something that sounded like ‘infrastructure’ but he’s not sure he was hearing her correctly.”
“So, we still don’t know.”
“We were reviewing the video, trying to guess.” Which meant everyone was in production with him and had seen the live feed from her camera. Juergen was probably included because of the windmill/pickup truck angle. The entire office had seen her rescue Hal with the chainsaw.
Jane cursed slightly as the hot burn threatened to climb higher.
“You did a good job, Jane.” Dmitri flung the newspaper onto another desk as they passed. “Tinker invented hoverbikes that use magic to fly when she was twelve…”
“Thirteen,” someone corrected him.
“Twelve! Thirteen! Who cares? The point is that she’s a little mad scientist and the viceroy just gave her complete control of the city because he’s in love.”
Dmitri opened the door and gestured that she was to go in. He’d successfully distracted her enough that she’d forgotten about the “network surprise” until she was five steps into the office. There were two strangers sitting on his leather couch. Empty cups waited on the coffee table, explaining why he’d stolen all the coffee from the break room.
“I found the coffee, and your new producer.” Dmitri shut the door firmly behind him.
“What?” Jane whispered fiercely. She had assumed that the “network surprise” was in the way of a memo, warning of a film crew’s arrival during the following Shutdown. She didn’t think that they were already in Pittsburgh.
The two men were polar opposites. One was a middle-aged Peter Pan, a schoolboy that never grew up, fair-haired, wiry build, and all grins. The other was a brooding wild man of dark hair and beefcake. Host and cameraman, probably in that order.
“This is Nigel Reid and…Taggart.” Dmitri frowned as he realized that he didn’t have a first name to stick on wild man. “They arrived late last night during Shutdown. Apparently they had visa problems at the border and were delayed. Almost didn’t make it.”
“Came across just before midnight, minutes to spare, like Cinderella.” Nigel had a slight Scottish burr to his baritone voice. He beamed with the charisma that the camera loved but was pure hell to contain. People like him were sure that if they could just talk long enough, they could persuade anyone into anything. And normally, they were right.
“Apparently our news stories to the network preempted their attention as we didn’t hear about your arrival until this morning.” Dmitri found a stray cup, inspected it to see if it was clean, and then poured coffee for Jane.
Taggart was obviously the behind-the-camera guy, from his unkempt black mane to heavy five o’clock shadow. His black muscle shirt, worn blue jeans and hiking boots indicated he expected to hit Pittsburgh running and be out filming shortly after arrival yesterday, not holding down a chair in an office today. “We were warned that last Shutdown the viceroy had been attacked and was missing and that we might be walking into a war zone.”
Jane snorted at the ancient news.
“It’s complicated,” Dmitri temporized. “Things are a lot more edgy here but so far, we’re not at war with the elves, and we want to keep it that way.” He indicated the spare guest chair, meaning he wanted Jane to sit. “This is Jane Kryskill, the producer of our top show, Pittsburgh Backyard and Garden.”
“Backyard and garden?” Taggart leaned back, body language full of defensiveness that made lie to the vague query in his voice. Hopefully he didn’t play poker with that many tells. “Nigel and I do award-winning nature documentaries all over the world. We’ve been a team for six years. I’d rather not add a third wheel to our machine.”
Jane started to protest that the most dangerous places on Earth wouldn’t prepare a crew for Elfhome and then caught herself. If they turned her down, she was free. She spread her hands in a “what can I say” motion to Dmitri. “I’d be a third wheel.”
Dmitri gave her a stern look. “They’re yours, keep them out of trouble.”
“Excuse me,” Taggart started. “I thought I made it clear…”
“No, let me make it clear. You’re going to be driving around with a great big truck that says you are our responsibility. The elves might not speak English but that NBC logo is fairly universal. If you screw up, every human in this building becomes a target. You’ve been dumped in my lap without any warning, so you will play by my rules, or so help me God, I’ll have the EIA lock you up until the next Shutdown and boot you back to Earth with no chance for a visa approved ever again, understand?”
“I say, I don’t think there’s any need to…” Nigel started to bring his charisma to bear.
Dmitri stabbed a finger at him. “Shut up! The only thing I want to hear from you is ‘yes, sir’ and ‘thank you, sir.’ From now on, Jane is not just your producer, she is your god. You will not go anywhere or do anything without her knowledge and you will do what she tells you to. If you even try to fight with me over this, I will have you locked up until you realize that this is Pittsburgh, and you can’t do anything you damn well please.”
There was a knock at the door and Michelle Baker leaned in. “Jane, Hal is calling you.” When Jane started to take out her phone, Michelle shook her head. “He’s got your camera and he’s broadcasting live.”
“Oh, shit!” Jane leapt to her feet.
“Jane!” Dmitri snapped to keep her from bolting. “They’re yours.” He pointed at the two men. “Keep them out of trouble.”
She cursed and went. Maddeningly, they followed. At least Nigel had the intelligence to wait until they were in the hall to ask in a very quiet voice, “Would he really have us locked up?”
“In a heartbeat,” Jane said. She considered telling them about what had happened to the last person who hadn’t taken Dmitri seriously. Then she realized that if they were locked up, they’d no longer be her responsibility.
Hal’s mark of bruises had darkened to solid black purple from ear to ear. They hadn’t cleaned the sap out of his fine blond hair, thus it stood up in wild spikes. He looked totally demented, making a great first impression on the two New Yorkers.
“What the hell, Hal!” Jane cried over the link. “How did you get my camera?”
“I told Johnnie Be Good the code to the truck’s locker.”
Johnnie Be Good was the slimeball of an EMT who had responded to the 911 call. She didn’t trust him near her drinks at parties and she didn’t trust him not to be stealing things off her truck.
“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 e-mailing 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 little pinpoints. “The angry penguins scare me.”