Okay, fine. She needed to give the people what they wanted. Could she use that principle to fix her current story about Hardwicke? Joy had to fight to keep the grimace off her face. No, the hoi polloi were not going to suffer any criticism of the Great Leader, no matter how she tried to sugarcoat it. She’d definitely have to start over from scratch, though she had zero ideas for a new story. She would’ve asked Garai for suggestions, but he was still barreling on in full lecture mode.
Chapter 4
Weeping Statue
“…And then there was that disaster with the weeping statue of Mithras,” Garai continued. “I nearly had an entire religion coming after the Gazette. Holy men beating down the door of my office, threatening me with curses, lawsuits for harassment, defamation, and trespassing—”
“Okay, those first two are nonsense, and as for the trespassing thing…” Joy grimaced a bit, but soldiered on. “Well… it’s not like they actually had any signs that said ‘Keep Out’ around the back of the statue, and if I hadn’t sneaked in—I mean, if I hadn’t checked back there, I’d never have found that leaky pipe that was leaching through the clay and making it look like the statue was weeping tears of blood, when really—”
“And this is the whole problem with you,” said Garai, throwing up his hands. “I send you out to bring back a story about miracles, and then you go out of your way to prove each and every one of those miracles to be a fake.”
“But I wasn’t trying to prove they were fake,” Joy protested. “I was trying to confirm them. I mean, they told me that the statue had caused a veteran’s amputated leg to re-appear. That’s pretty amazing, right? And you’re always telling us how important interviews are. Adds that authentic, human touch to a story. You’re always saying that. So I paid him a visit and it turns out he’s still one leg short of a pair. That’s not my fault. Though he did say the statue really helped him deal with the pain from his phantom limb syndrome. Not completely, but much better than before. Pretty funny how stories can get exaggerated in the retelling, huh?”
“And you couldn’t have left them exaggerated, could you?” said Garai.
“Of course not,” said Joy. “I mean, good story or no, we’re going to look awfully silly when his neighbors read about his regrown leg, come over to visit, and find it still missing. That’d be awkward for everyone, don’t you think? And—”
“And the little girl whose boils were healed by the statue? What of her?”
“Not boils, just a really bad rash,” corrected Joy, before noticing Garai’s irritation and rushing on. “And yes, I confirmed that it had mostly gone away, overnight after visiting the Mithras statue. So—”
“…While not failing to mention that her mother had taken her to the doctor already, and gotten medicine from him, three days before visiting the temple.”
“Well, yes. I did mention that. But—well, that doesn’t mean the statue did nothing, does it? I mean, you could still say—”
“Ms. Fan!” Garai’s deep voice reverberated through the cramped office, making her jump. “Do you take me for a stupid man?”
Joy opened her mouth to deny it, but Garai was already on to his next point. “None of that explains why you went around to check the back of a holy statue. How does this confirm its holiness? How would this ever serve to awe our readers? Of course, it never would.”
Garai spread his hands across his desk and leaned forward, looming over her. “The issue here is that you still are not telling the type of story our readers want to hear. Tell me, what do you think that would be, for the weeping statue.”
“Well… I guess they’d want to hear about the wonderful miracle of Mithras that heals people, but—”
“Then if you know that, why did you write instead the story that you did?” Garai fixed her with his gaze, making Joy squirm. He could be really intense sometimes.
“I just thought…” Joy paused to gather her thoughts. “If people believe that a statue can heal people, but it can’t, that’s really dangerous—”
“Dangerous?” said Garai. “How so? A woman takes her daughter to the doctor and to Mithras and she is healed. Which of these things gets the credit does not matter.”
“But not everyone thinks like that!” said Joy. “There was another family, and they had a kid with this huge cyst on his forehead. And they saw the weeping statue and started yelling about how the cyst was shrinking, praise Mithras—but it didn’t look like it was shrinking to me—and they were so happy, and I heard one of them say, ‘Oh, thank the blessed Mithras—now we don’t have to take him to a doctor,’ and that really—”
“Bah,” Garai waved off her concern like it was a fly buzzing around his head. “People believe what they believe. One news story will not change this.”
Joy opened her mouth to protest, but stopped herself as she remembered the way Farmer Ecker, the people ‘healed’ by the statue, and the priests of Mithras reacted when confronted with the evidence. They’d been dismissive, indignant, or downright hostile. Those priests, especially—she’d expected holy men to be patient and kind, but they’d glared at her like she was some kind of demon. One of them had even started screaming “Blasphemer,” and the like and started chanting something that sounded like an exorcism. She’d actually been frightened for her physical safety.
Garai steepled his fingers together, closed his eyes, and took a long, deep breath before continuing.
“Ms. Fan,” he said. “I must confess, it is unusual for the Gazette to work with someone of your background.”
“My background?”
“Your Journalism degree. From the prestigious Rouvas College of Dodona U., no less,” said Garai.
Oh. That was what he meant. “Most people here don’t have Journalism degrees?” she asked.
“Degrees of any kind, really,” said Garai. “We value life experience here.”
“Ah,” she said, not trusting herself to say any more.
“So, when you started working for us, I will confess I had some high hopes,” said Garai. “But now I am beginning to think that this hope was misplaced. It seems that you simply do not fit in here. Perhaps we should both stop wasting our time with this.”
Joy heard those words and felt a surge of panic. It combined with the hollow feeling in her empty stomach to send a sick sensation of nausea in her core.
“Sir, what do you mean?” she said, trying to keep her voice level.
“I am saying that I don’t believe I will be giving you more assignments,” said Garai. “The time I save with proofreading and such does not make up for all the rewriting I must do to get your stories into something usable. And you don’t seem to be learning.”
“No, I am,” protested Joy. “What about the Sindra’s Wall story? I didn’t put any skepticism there, right?”
“Yes, that’s true,” Garai admitted. “But that story was boring.”
Well, of course it was boring. She’d thought it sounded boring when she’d gotten the assignment. “Sindra’s Wall” was the back wall of someone’s house that had a mold growth that looked a lot like common depictions of Saint Sindra. And that was it, really. There wasn’t anything to investigate. It was mold on a wall and it looked like Sindra. It was like seeing faces in the clouds or in random patterns of wood grain. Either you saw it or you didn’t.
“The folks at the wall thought it was exciting,” said Joy. “They were really proud of it. Really enthusiastic.”
Garai folded his arms and cocked an eyebrow at her. “I see. And this enthusiasm, this excitement—how did you convey that in the article you handed into me?”
Joy winced. “I… guess I didn’t,” she admitted.
“And this is the problem,” said Garai. “However competent a writer you may be, it does not seem you have any excitement for the Gazette. And so, I think it is time for us to part ways. I wish you luck for the future, Ms. Fan.”
Chapter 5
Final Chance
“No! No, wait…” Joy protested, as
a wave of dread ran through her. He wasn’t going to give her another chance? She’d been sure he would. She’d thought he’d been teaching her, but she’d been wrong. He’d only been building up a justification for her termination.
This could not be happening. She’d come in hoping to sell a story and treat herself to a big pancake breakfast. But instead, not only was she not getting paid, she was getting fired. Again! No—it didn’t even count as a firing. You couldn’t really fire a freelancer. But this her only source of funds. How was she going to make rent? She had nothing left in savings. Two weeks was plenty of time to write a story, but not to find another paying gig. None of the other newspapers in Dodona would talk to her. They’d all deemed her unstable, crazy, and all because of… that jerk, they believed him… but not her… nobody believed her… nobody cared… nobody…
Joy tried to say something, but she felt her throat close up, felt her words come out as a garbled sob. She buried her face in her hands and slumped back in her chair. She felt the tears well up beneath her palms, despite her best efforts to tamp it down. She did not have time for this right now. She had to be strong. She had to be able to think. She needed to argue her case, had to say something. She couldn’t go through this again… not again…
She felt a tap on her shoulder. Garai stood over her. He held a handkerchief in one hand and his face held a kind of embarrassed concern. She’d never seen that from him before. Something about it made things worse, and her self-control collapsed. She curled over her knees and started bawling. She retained enough presence of mind to reach out blindly for the handkerchief, which got pressed into her hand.
Eventually, she managed to regain enough control to sit back up. She blew her nose into the handkerchief. She couldn’t bring herself to look at Garai again, but she had to, and fast. C’mon, deep breaths, count ‘em. Breathe the good color in, breathe out the poisons, the negative emotions. She should return the handkerchief, but it had become a wadded-up damp rag of tears and mucus. This was humiliating.
“I’m sorry,” she mumbled. “I think I’m a little… I haven’t had breakfast yet, and I think… y’know how it is, when you’re really hungry… messes with you….”
“Hungry, hmm?” said Garai, in a speculative tone. Joy hadn’t heard him sound like that before. She looked up and saw he’d gone back behind his desk. Yes, that was better. The formality made things feel more normal.
“Hungry is not bad,” Garai continued. “I can work with hungry. As long as it’s the right kind of hungry.”
“What?” said Joy, though she felt a surge of hope. This was no longer sounding like a ‘you’re fired’ conversation.
Garai leaned back and looked her over carefully before speaking. “For a while now, Ms. Fan, I’ve gotten the impression that you don’t really want to work here. That you simply don’t care. But now I have seen that perhaps you do care, quite a bit. Am I wrong? Do you really want to work for this newspaper?”
Joy stared back, feeling drained-out and empty, as she considered the question. She needed to make rent. She needed to eat.
“I really want to work here,” she said.
It didn’t sound particularly convincing to Joy’s own ears, but a wide, white-toothed grin split Garai’s face from ear to ear.
“Yes, that’s good,” he said. “When I was a young boy, I and my family came to this country. We crossed the seas with only what we could carry on our backs. I remember being hungry then, my family and I. I remember how it drove me. I worked and saved, through war and turmoil, and now, many years later, I own the Gazette. I own the most popular newspaper in Dodona. I and my family are no longer hungry. But I do not ever forget this—how it was like when I was a boy. I never forget the hunger that made me who I am. So tell me, Ms. Fan: is this the type of hunger you have? Are you hungry like I was?”
Joy stared back at Garai. She’d never heard him talk like this before.
“Oh, I’m starving,” she said.
That earned her another grin from Garai. “So you say. Well, we shall see if this is true. I think that I have an assignment for you.”
Joy felt her heart race. Another chance! But she didn’t miss the other implication in his speech. This was going to be her very last chance.
“What’s the assignment?” she said.
“Your assignment,” said Garai, “is to go and get the interview of the century. You, Ms. Fan, will find and interview the Red Specter.”
Chapter 6
The Assignment
Joy stared back at Garai and tried to keep her expression neutral. Was that a joke? Should she laugh? He didn’t seem like he was kidding.
“The… Red Specter,” she said, trying to gather her thoughts. “That’s a… that’s a comic strip, right? And I think I saw it… Oh! They made a Magic Lantern show based on it, didn’t they? I saw the posters downtown. You want me to interview the guy who does the Specter’s voice? Or do a behind-the-scenes piece?”
Garai cocked an eyebrow at her. “Ms. Fan. Does that sound like the sort of story we would run at the Gazette? That I would assign to you? Remember what we have been discussing.”
Joy heard a tone of warning in his voice. She had to be careful here.
“No, you’re right,” she said. “That doesn’t sound like a Gazette type of story. But I’m confused. Could you explain more about what you want, please?”
Apparently that was the right answer, because now Garai was all smiles. “Very good. And it certainly is true that the Red Specter is now known mainly from the newspaper comics. But stories about the Red Specter pre-date the strip. During the Great War, there was many a soldier that saw him—bare glimpses at first—a mysterious masked figure in a trench-coat, leaving scores of dead Albion soldiers in his wake. Until the Battle of Cloudkill, and its aftermath, the Brentonsville Eviction.”
“I remember that. I was still in the KIB when that happened,” said Joy. It had been a huge deal at the time. There’d been whispers about the capture or annihilation of an entire squad of Albion’s elite Caliburn knights, an unheard-of event. The deaths of over half of a Steam Golem Company had also been confirmed. They had to notify the families, after all. But the rest of the story remained frustratingly vague.
The official, confirmed story was this: On February 25th, the 8th Company of the Steam Golem Corps got diverted from a routine rendevous mission with allied insurgents in the riverside city of Brentonsville. For some reason, the 8th ascended to the top of the mesa known as the “Giant’s Cutting” in the nearby Cloudkill mountains, where they fought a pitched battle with a squad of Caliburn Knights, which ended when Albion forces bombarded the mesa with massive amounts of Hemlock Gas.
Hemlock Gas was another nasty result of the Great War. When the Steam Golems drove the Dragon Knights from the field of battle, everyone thought that was the end of the war. Albion had lost its unbeatable superweapon, the source of all its military might, its trump card, the one tactic it could always rely on, the trick that had never failed them in over a thousand years of history. Without that, what did they have?
As it turned out, they did have other weapons—horrible weapons, that had been held as a closely-guarded secret, even from most of the Albion generals, and one of the worst of them was the Rosedeath. Actually, Joy was one of a very small number of people who knew it by that name, due to her time spent at the KIB translating intercepted Albion communications.
Everyone else called it Hemlock Gas, and that included most of the Albion military, too. Hemlock Gas was a thick, gritty pink fog that crawled across the battlefield, killing or paralyzing anything it touched. No-one knew who had started calling it Hemlock Gas, but the name had stuck, even though Kallistrate scientists insisted that there was no evidence that it actually contained any hemlock. What it actually was, they couldn’t say. But they did figure out a countermeasure—special face-masks with an attached air filter, which the 8th Company had just received, something Shiori Rosewing, the Caliburn knight leading the Albion forc
es at the battle, had likely not been aware of.
So the Battle of Cloudkill turned out to be a hard-fought victory for Kallistrate, and a failed suicide attack by Albion, but the battle’s aftermath was what caused the biggest stir. All the Hemlock Gas that had been dropped on Giant’s Cutting flowed down the mountainside and coalesced at the bottom-most point in the region: the nearby city of Brentonsville.
Incredibly, somehow the city managed to receive advance warning of the oncoming disaster, and a majority of the populace succeeded in fleeing the killer fog as it rolled over the city walls. Considering the size of Brentonsville, with a population of over a hundred thousand souls, the fact that so many were able to get clear of the city in time had to be considered a minor miracle. Bits of good fortune helped—the lucky appearance of a good stiff breeze at exactly the right time, combined with the gas’s tendency to bleed momentum as it traveled from the foot of Giant’s Cutting and crossed the flat river plain. Tales abounded of stragglers in Brentonsville running a desperate block-to-block footrace with the creeping pink fog as it inexorably engulfed the abandoned city.
Except Brentonsville hadn’t been entirely abandoned. There’d been thousands of citizens too old, sick, disabled, or simply too distracted to flee in time, and they all perished in agony, with their friends, family, and neighbors stranded outside the walls, helpless to do anything but stand and watch. But the hardships were only just beginning. Normally a cloud of Hemlock Gas would linger for a few hours before dissipating. But the thick pink fog that had conquered Brentonsville was different somehow. It hung around, roiling about like a brew in a witch’s cauldron, for weeks.
The Legend of the Red Specter (The Adventures of the Red Specter Book 1) Page 3