Dealer's Choice by George R. R. Martin
“I see.” He made a steeple of his fingers. “How did that make you feel about aces?”
“I want to kill every last one,” the bodysnatcher said.
The psychologist made a notation.
“I’d like to kill all the nats and jokers too,” the bodysnatcher added. The shrink wrote faster.
“They finally found me,” the bodysnatcher said. “They took me to some hospital. It was too late to save my eyes. Being crippled, that didn’t matter, but I needed my eyes. You can’t jump what you can’t see. All I could do was lay there and wait to die. You know what saved me? My cunt.”
The psychologist stopped writing and looked up. “Are you telling me you used to be a woman?” He licked his lip, like the idea got him excited.
“What do you think, Doctor?” the bodysnatcher said. “I’d been in that hospital maybe a week. One night I was lying in my own shit, waiting for someone to come clean me up. Finally an orderly shows up. He wiped me off, changed the sheets. Then he spread my legs and raped me.” The bodysnatcher gave a savage smile. “I jumped while he was in me. No one had ever done a blind jump before, but he was close enough for government work.”
“I see,” said the shrink. “So this body originally belonged to the orderly.”
“Fuck no,” the bodysnatcher said. “That jelly-belly? His feet always hurt, I couldn’t stand it. I used him for a few days. Then I filled a tub, opened his wrists with a razor blade, and phoned 911. I jumped the first paramedic through the door. The meat arrived DOA.”
The psychologist sat very still after he had finished, then gave a nod. “I see. Very well. I think we’re just about through here.” He stood up. “If you’ll come with me.”
The bodysnatcher followed him downstairs, where the shrink turned him over to a nasty-looking old fuck who said his name was George Battle. Battle looked over his file, then escorted him to a small bare room in the lowest subbasement. There was nothing in it but a large glass window opening on another small room. On the far side of the glass an old man in a flannel shirt sat at a table, working a crossword.
“One final test,” Battle told him. “We’d like to see if you can jump that gentleman over there.”
The bodysnatcher looked through the glass at the geezer. He was about eighty. Loose skin dangled under his chin, and there were liver spots on the back of his hands. He didn’t seem aware that he was being watched.
“Why should I?” the bodysnatcher asked.
“A good soldier never asks why. He follows orders,” Battle said. “But I’ll tell you, this one time. We want to get a better understanding of how your jumping power works.”
“Why don’t I just jump you instead?” the bodysnatcher asked.
Battle was as cool as Prime used to be, he had to give him that. “I certainly can’t stop you, but it won’t establish anything. This experiment is designed to ascertain whether jumpers can use their powers on a visible target even if a physical barrier interposes. Like that window.”
“Windows can’t stop jumpers. Take my word for it.”
“I’d rather you show me. If you can.” Battle gestured.
The bodysnatcher moved to the window, studied the geezer lost in his crossword. He drew a fingernail down across the glass. The geezer looked straight up at the window, blinked. Not a television hookup, then. It had to be one-way glass.
The bodysnatcher turned. “Fuck you,” he said.
“Save the vulgarity,” Battle said. “I’ve heard it all before. If you’ll follow me, you can rejoin your friends.”
Wyungare knew he was still in the cold, drafty, starkly austere cell. No question about that. But he simultaneously knew he remained in the dreamtime. No discrepancy, there. You can be both a particle and a wave. No contradictions.
“Let me show you something,” he said to the Outcast.
The man looked uncomfortable.
“Is something wrong?” Wyungare said.
“I have to get back.” His voice shook a little.
“You are back,” said Wyungare. “You don’t have the ground rules down yet. You’re still there as well as here. And here is taking virtually no time. It’s like Mr. H. G. Wells’ ‘The New Accelerator.’ The times are different, here and there.”
“I still don’t see,” Outcast muttered.
“Please trust me,” said Wyungare. “Now come on. I’ve something to show you.”
“More of this swamp?” said Outcast, more than the hint of a complaint in his voice.
“Not much more.” The pair came out from under what had seemed an endless canopy of overhanging tree branches, both broad-leafed and pine. They entered a clearing, a space where the scars of clearing were long since muted by time and the wear of human usage. The low frame house squatted at the edge of the water. A ragged curl of smoke drifted from a crooked, rusted vent pipe in the roof.
Wyungare whistled a few bars of “Blue Bayou.” Outcast didn’t seem to get it. The Aborigine stopped. “All right, we’re going visiting now. Just follow me and watch.” He glanced back at Outcast.
The man nodded. “Okay. But please make this quick. Back in … the real world… I’m sending people —” He hesitated.
“— out to die.” Wyungare finished the sentence for him. “I know. Don’t worry, you’ll send them all out in plenty of time for their respective appointments in Samarra.”
Outcast looked puzzled.
“Don’t worry,” said Wyungare. “I’ll explain someday. You need to read something more than game-playing novels.” He led the way around to the front of the house. The two men climbed rickety steps and crossed the sun-bleached plank porch. The door stood open.
They heard sounds of pain from within.
“After you,” said Wyungare. He motioned inward. Outcast went.
And stopped, dead in his tracks.
“Go ahead,” said Wyungare. Outcast resisted the urging. Wyungare gently pushed him forward anyway.
“Oh, no,” said Outcast. “Please, no. I don’t want to watch this.”
“I’m afraid you must,” said Wyungare. “Just a bit. Just enough to make an impression.”
They stood just outside the doorway into the small living room. "No,” said Outcast.
“I’m afraid so.” said Wyungare.
They saw a young boy tied facedown across a rough wooden table. His wrists were lashed with clothesline cord to the table legs at one end, his ankles secured to the wooden legs at the other side. His hair was very black. He rolled his head from side to side with pain. When he turned toward the pair in the doorway, they saw how dark his eyes were.
“That is Jack,” Wyungare said.
“Do I know him?” Outcast sounded puzzled.
“You’ve met.” The Aborigine chuckled. “You didn’t recognize him because his outer appearance has changed just a bit.”
On the table, the boy’s thighs were spread. A cloudy figure stood between the boy’s legs, pumping in a violent pounding rhythm.
“What’s that?” said Outcast, alarmed.
“Just what you think.” They heard the brutal sounds of flesh slapping flesh.
“But… who”
“Someone you might have known well, at least in a slightly different context,” said Wyungare. “Recall your cousins. Think of their father.”
Outcast moaned. Then he rushed forward past Wyungare, striking out at the phantom figure pistoning between the imprisoned boy’s thighs.
Fingers through smoke.
It did no good. The rape continued.
“I commend your attempt,” said Wyungare quietly. “At least you tried to do something.” He took Outcast by the shoulders and steered him back toward the door. “Jack would thank you if he could.”
“Jack?” said Outcast. “That boy? Jack?”
“Indeed.
“But can’t —”
“— we help him?”
Outcast nodded frantically.
“Perhaps,” said Wyungare. “But there’s nothing we can
SATURDAY MORNING
September 22, 1990
Bloat awoke back in Bloat’s body. Echoes of the dream still reverberated in his mind. Family secrets, yes… Teddy wasn’t sure who he hated most, Wyungare for dredging up those buried memories, or himself for letting the story pour out to the Aborigine. I’m sorry. I promised I’d never tell. I’m sorry… It was just that seeing that boy reminded me…
He made me do it, he wanted to add. But that wail was not only childish, it wasn’t true. Teddy hadn’t realized just how much he’d wanted to lance that particular mental wound.
He sat there for long minutes, mostly feeling sorry for himself. Now that he could use the Outcast’s body even while awake, it was quickly becoming home — that young, handsome figure was certainly more desirable than this, this enormous slab of immobile fat and skin, pinned like some gargantuan specimen to the floor of his castle and fed on shit and garbage.
He was tired, so tired. So sleepy.
The mindvoices of the Rox ebbed and flowed in his mind, a backdrop to his misery.
Kafka rattled in; evidently the guards had alerted him to the fact that the Bloat-body was awake again. “Governor?”
“I’m beat, Kafka. Leave me alone.”
“I thought… Excuse me, Governor, but I thought you would stay as the Outcast.” The rest of the sentence followed, unspoken …. why would you WANT to come back to this horror if you could get out?
“I would if I could, believe me. But I always come back here when I’m tired. Always. I’m linked with this body.” His voice was so mournful that he ended up giggling harshly at himself. “We jokers are so damned ugly,” he said. “We don’t like the way we look any more than the fucking nats. Ain’t that a trip? If we could, we’d cover all the goddamn mirrors in the world.” Bloat yawned, the pimply fat cheeks stretching like uncooked dough. “I was inspecting the Wall emplacements. We’ve picked up a fair amount of stuff from the Jersey shore. There’s a couple radar units. We got anyone who knows how to use them?”
“I think so, Governor. I’ll find out and get them set up. We can certainly use them.”
Kafka’s voice sounded weary, and the roach-man’s thoughts were pessimistic. Maybe they’ll give us a few seconds warning before the missiles hit. Just long enough to scream…
“Is it really that bad, Kafka?”
Kafka looked around. They were alone except for the ring of guards around the balcony and at each of the entrances into the main lobby of the castle — half of them jokers, half Boschian mermen seated on flying, armored fish. Outside, the Rox was slumbering as false dawn lightened the eastern sky. The towers of Manhattan shivered in the waters of the bay.
“I…” Kafka began. Stopped.
Kafka sighed, a high and thin wheezing. “I am worried, Governor. This time they won’t try a ground assault. If what you’re hearing from Patchwork is true, then it’s going to be a long-range bombardment. The New Jersey is stationed suspiciously close to the bay. Governor, a Tomahawk cruise missile comes in low and fast, maybe 500 mph — how quickly can we detect it, and can we respond to the attack in the four or five seconds we might have? A Lance missile moves at Mach 3, much faster than a Tomahawk. They have missiles that can be fired from Apache helicopters; some of the jets can fire from as far away as three miles and put a missile straight down a chimney… You want me to go on? Governor, they don’t have to commit any troops to this assault — not this time, not if they don’t want to. They can just bang away until there’s nothing left here but rubble.”
Kafka left one thought dangling, but Bloat heard it … and you’re the prime target, Governor. We already know that. What the hell chance do we have if you’re gone? If you’re dead, there’s no Wall, no caves, no fairyland castle, no demons from Bosch. There’s nothing but a bunch of jokers with stolen weapons and the jumpers. It isn’t going to be enough. The thoughts from the joker guards weren’t much better. More than one of them was thinking of that fucking 800 number and of the jokers who’d left yesterday under the amnesty. He knew he had to do something — talk like this would lead to flash-fire rumors, and he couldn’t afford that.
Bloat shook his head at Kafka. “You are about the most pessimistic roach I’ve ever seen.” Kafka glared up at Bloat at that. “No man, I mean it. You must think that every cloud is the bottom of a shoe. Look, everything you said is true. Okay, fine, it’s all true. But look at what we’ve got. Modular Man’s here, Molly’s in place, Croyd’s likely to wake up any minute, Hardesty’s banged up but he can call up the Hunt tonight if we need them. We have the caves and the Wall and a lot of goddamn equipment. We have a lot of jumpers. We have Patchwork’s eye and ear in Zappa’s goddamn headquarters, so we stand a good chance of knowing in advance every move he’s going to make. There’s a lot of protesters out there right now walking the streets in J-town and making noise about how Bush’s “kinder, gentler nation” is just a crock of bloatblack. Manhattan’s practically a ghost town, from what we’ve heard. Put enough pressure on Congress and they might demand that Zappa and his people get pulled back out. Half the aces they asked to join refused, didn’t they? — maybe they’ll even show up on our side if things get ugly. Maybe this Wyungare fellow can actually do something. If the military’s targeting buildings the way they are, then I can change them — every day if I need to — so their targeting systems are fouled up. We have some radar, we have some jokers with useful powers. C’mon, Kafka. Think. Give me advice, not sob stories. If you were me, what else would you do?”
Bloat’s shoulders sagged back against the rubbery skin of his body. The long speech had made him more tired than before, but he could hear the difference in the mindvoices. Even Kafka stood up a little straighter under his carapace.
“I’m sorry, Governor,” he said. “I —”
Bloat waved a weary arm. “What else would you do?” he repeated. He plucked the answer from Kafka’s mind before Kafka could speak it. “If all it takes is a little foul weather…” Bloat said.
Bloat giggled and looked out from the transparent walls of the castle. The sun was just rising over the bay. Deep black, long shadows crawled like ebony fingers over the lower buildings of Manhattan while bright sun was glinting from the upper windows. The moat between the Wall and Ellis was dark and still, with wisps of dawn steam rising from the surface of the water. Untroubled by Bloat’s Wall, a gull glided in over the Manhattan Gate, swooped low over the wavelets, and plunged into the cold water. It came out with silver wriggling in its beak. The gull raised its head and swallowed the fish whole.
It all looked so damned peaceful…
“Get me a phone,” Bloat said. Kafka snapped his fingers; one of the Boschian mermen leapt atop his fish-steed and left the room, returning a moment later with a cordless receiver. The merman glided up to Bloat’s head; hovering, he held the phone out to the boy. Bloat took it in his stick-thin hands and nearly dropped it. He giggled, then slowly and deliberately punched the buttons. “… I … Give … Up,” he said aloud, then cleared his throat.
“Joker amnesty,” said the voice at the other end. “Who are you and where and when can we pick you up?”
“You couldn’t pick me up with a fucking derrick,” Bloat shrieked. “This is Governor Bloat. Listen. I got a message for your goddamn General Zappa. Tell him that I figure the whole problem is that you nats hate the sight
Bloat disconnected in the middle of the spluttering from the other end and let go of the receiver. The merman flicked the reins of its fish and did a power dive, scooping up the receiver just before it hit the floor. Around the room, Bloat’s guards applauded.
Bloat paid no attention. He had his eyes shut, humming to himself and imagining…
He visualized each of the hundreds of gargoyles he had so carefully placed along the roofs of the Rox — those leering, obscene little creatures. Then he thought of fog, a pea soup that London would have been proud of, a mist that might have wreathed the macintosh of Sherlock Holmes, one that would set the lighthouses along the Maine coast to wailing mournfully to unseen ships. Images of old horror movies came to mind: the Ripper stalking the streets of Whitechapel, bursting through ropes of fog to attack an unsuspecting woman of the streets; Frankenstein trudging stiff-legged through a smoky Bavarian village; Castle Dracula blanketed in stuff so thick it looked like coils of soiled cotton. He thought of fog so dense you could cut it and slice it and serve it for dinner.
He thought of that fog belching from the open mouths of all the gargoyles on all the rooftops and all the towers in his domain.
Bloat imagined it. He opened the gates and let the power flow through. It was so much easier now; if nothing else, Wyungare had done that for him. Now he knew where the power came from. He could find the path quickly, could tap the energy anytime he wanted. Voices from the dreamworld screamed at him in outrage as thick streams of cloud vomited from above.
Bloat opened his eyes. He chuckled. All around the Crystal Castle, from everywhere in the Rox, the wreaths and tendrils fell and spread, like thick gray velvet being pulled over the sun and sky. In moments, there was nothing outside the transparent walls of the castle except wisps of dark sullen cloud.
“So much for my great view,” he said. “This is really gonna cut down the value of the property.”
He yawned. A feeling of exhaustion overwhelmed him. Bloat slept.