High Stakes: A Wild Cards Novel by George R. R. Martin
More than once Mollie had to snap a portal shut because something tried to hop, shamble, ooze, or hurl itself through to the Cosmodrome. Vaguely human shapes fused together at the face, perpetually eating each other; roving eyeballs slithering on a carpet of tentacles; once she even glimpsed through the fog something that she swore could have been a real-life human centipede.
As he dressed for work on Saturday Franny kept the TV on. Then wished he hadn’t. It was filled with pictures and reports from Talas, actually now an area hundreds of miles outside of Talas because the troops kept retreating from the encroaching darkness. The networks replayed images of troops shooting each other, a general committing suicide on air, people or things that maybe had once been people gnawing on dead bodies, and occasionally a flash of some grotesque, inhuman shape in the drifting fog. Reporters speculated and yammered endlessly about the cause of the phenomenon.
Apparently no one in authority had seen fit to tell the fourth estate what was actually going on. After a moment of reflection Franny decided they were probably right. If you told people the world was going to end the resulting panic would … What? Make it worse?
The embedded reporters spoke in hushed tones about what they felt—fear, rage, lust. They tried to stay professional, but sometimes they lost control. Cold sweat broke out of Franny’s chest and back as he remembered what he had felt in that hospital. He turned off the television and bolted from his apartment.
The precinct was nearly deserted with most of the officers still occupied by the ongoing standoff at the Jokertown Clinic. Michael was already at his desk. Franny slid into his chair. There was a stack of files next to his battered old P.C., and a note on a Post-it stuck on the screen. It was from Maseryk telling him he might be needed to carry messages between the hostage negotiators to Baba Yaga and Grekor, but in the meantime he should start to clear the backlog on his desk. Franny rubbed a thumb across his forehead and squeezed his eyes shut. When he opened them Michael was staring at him.
“Headache? Already? You just got here,” Michael said.
“Yeah.” Michael looked tired, and his eyes were shadowed with grief. “You okay?” Franny asked.
“Family troubles.” Michael fell silent. Franny waited, sensing his partner really did want to talk. The dam burst. “Kavitha, she left me! Took our daughter. Isai is confused, upset. Minal blames me one minute and Kavitha the next.” He bowed his head and pressed a palm against his forehead. “Everything’s just so fucked up.”
You have no idea.
Michael looked up again and forced a smile. “But hey, at least you made it back.”
“Yeah.”
“So, shall we get into this?” He held up a file. “Somebody fire-bombed the offices of Ace Assurance. Given their habit of selling cheap insurance to jokers and then never paying up I’m surprised it didn’t happen sooner.”
Franny shook his head. “You’ve also got to question the wisdom of picking that name when you’re selling insurance to jokers.”
Michael gave a sharp laugh. “Yeah, hadn’t even thought of that. Unfortunately the janitor was running late that night and he was in the building when it went up.”
Franny turned to his phone. “I’ll request a list of their clients. We can start there.”
Fifteen minutes after his call to the company a long list of names came scrolling across Franny’s computer screen. He and Michael divided up the list and worked for another hour. It was boring and tedious and so far nobody had jumped out as a mad bomber. Michael went and got them each a cup of the notoriously bad Fort Freak coffee, and settled with a sigh into his chair.
“What I don’t understand is where she gets off leaving me. Kavitha, I mean. I mean, I’m the wounded party. She’s the one who hid her brother from me … us. If we’d had that information what happened to you … well, it might not have happened.”
“I guess people’s first instinct is to protect the ones they love,” Franny said and he found himself thinking about Baba Yaga and Tolenka and Ray and his wife.
“Yeah, maybe.” Michael fell silent for a moment then added, “The bed just feels really lonely right now.”
“Wait, I thought you said Minal was still there?”
“Yeah, but I’m used to getting snuggled from both sides,” the detective said with a sigh.
Franny forced a smile when what he really wanted to do was deck Michael. The man was down to just one hot babe in his bed and was whining while Franny didn’t even have a girlfriend. He found his thoughts straying to the young English ace and actress, Abigail Baker. He’d had the hots for her ever since he’d first found her naked on the sidewalks of Jokertown. He had even been pathetic enough to help her deal with her ex-boyfriend Croyd Crenson when the guy had been in one of his sleep-deprived psychotic rages. How much more of a sap could he possibly be?
He went back to cross-checking the list of clients with anybody who might have had the training to construct an incendiary device, or access to the materials used in this particular device. Once again the cruel irony of life struck Franny. Somebody gets fucked by their insurance company, acts out, and was now facing a murder rap. Franny was sure their unknown perp hadn’t intended to kill Ben Wilson, but that had been the outcome.
Just like I hadn’t intended to unleash hell on earth. But he had, and what did it matter if they ever caught Wilson’s killer? In just a few more days Wilson would be just one corpse among thousands. Maybe millions. Sickened, Franny pushed back from his desk, the crooked wheels on his chair chattering like skeleton teeth on the stained linoleum.
“I’m gonna get some lunch. Want to come?” he asked Michael.
“Nah, I promised Minal I’d meet her for lunch. She’s pretty upset, too.”
Franny had managed to get a temporary ID, money, and a new phone. His replacement badge was going to take five working days. At which point it wouldn’t fucking matter.
He stood on the sidewalk, bounced the phone, and dithered. He finally dialed Abby’s number.
The morning was nothing but frustration. Marcus and Olena spent it moving through the growing crowd of refugees locked out of the Cosmodrome. He rode high on his coils, his torso well above eye level, fists clenched at his side in threats that didn’t need translation. People cleared the way for them. That worked to get him through the fugitive camp, but they were searching for a way inside the barricades. On that they were striking out. Each time he approached the buffer zone, Russian machine guns honed in on him, warning him off. Once, he’d swallowed down his fear and kept going, thinking he’d just leap the barbed wire and the fence and make his case from inside. A quick barrage of machine-gun fire drew him up. The ground in front of him came alive with little explosions of dust. A ricocheting bullet flew past his ear, singing as it went. So much for that. He retreated, much to Olena’s relief.
“These fuckers meant business!” she scolded. “You see the bodies strewn about sections of the buffer zone? Don’t become one of them.”
Truth is, he was lucky they didn’t gun him down on sight and he knew it. There was more than the usual amount of anti-joker sentiment in the air. It was as thick as ripples in the evil miasma back in Talas.
He did flare with hope when he came upon a contingent of blue-helmeted UN soldiers. They were guarding a side gate away from the main refugee camp. Behind the entrance, big warehouses stretched into the distance. A bustling confusion of military and nonmilitary people came and went. Marcus approached the gate slowly, with his arms raised and as little menace in his posture as he could muster. Olena stayed at his side. The soldiers’ guns came up just like the Russians.
“Hey, are any of you American?” he asked. “Help a fellow American out?”
“Keep back,” one of them said. Not an American accent, but at least he spoke English. “This entrance is for Committee use only. No nonessential personnel. No civilians.” Though, saying that, his eyes did linger on Olena as if he might reconsider this in her case.
“And no jokers,”
A wasp buzzed around Marcus’s head. He swiped at it, just faintly, with his upraised hands. “Committee? There are aces here? I need to talk to them. I know things about what’s happening in Talas. Bad things are coming here, man. You gotta let me—”
The jumpy soldier cut him off. “Move away!”
Marcus froze, trying to ignore the wasp as it danced in front of his face. He whispered at it, “Fuck off!” To the soldiers, he said, “Look, my hands are raised. I’m not trying to hurt anybody. I have information—”
The joker-hating soldier raised his gun higher, sighted right at Marcus. “Permission to use force?” he asked out of the side of his mouth.
“Denied,” the first soldier answered. To Marcus, he repeated, “This entrance is for Committee use only. Orders from on high. Move along. Now. This is your last warning. We will fire.”
Marcus didn’t doubt he meant it.
“Forget it, Marcus,” Olena said. “Idiots. Let’s go.”
“Fuck ’em,” Marcus said. “We should check on the villagers anyway.” The two moved away, backtracking for a time before finally turning their backs on the soldiers.
Marcus had been chewing over the idea that if they couldn’t get in to the protection of the Cosmodrome they should keep moving, get even farther away from Talas, maybe someplace secluded to wait this all out. He’d been reluctant to bring it up with Olena, the Handsmith, and Bulat and other village elders. He didn’t know how they’d take it, after they’d gambled so much on Baikonur. But it was starting to seem like their only option. He began, “Listen, Olena, if we’re trapped on the outside when the contagion reaches—”
He cut the words off when the wasp appeared again, right between his eyes, dangerously close. “Hey, what the—” It dive-bombed him, zigged to one side when he swiped at it. He’d never seen anything quite like it. An annoying, harassing green annoyance of an insect. He’d just decided to tongue tag the bugger when a swarm of other green wasps joined the first. For a second Marcus and Olena were caught in a swarm of them. Then they congealed, blended into each other, and took on human form. Not much of a human, though, just a half-sized, emaciated figure, small as a boy but with a face that looked a couple weeks past death. He was naked. This fact only marginally less disturbing for the swarm of wasps that blurred where his genitalia should’ve been. His eyes, as green as the hornets.
“Infamous Fucking Black Tongue!” he exclaimed. “We thought you were toast back in Talas. You don’t even look burnt. You’re kind of in trouble, kid, though it won’t really matter if we all go insane and…” He had more to say, but his eyes slipped to Olena. He studied her a long, lecherous moment. “Hello there. You know, from what I’ve seen the last few days the world’s days may be numbered and counting down fast. Half of me is bugging out, but despite that a part of me wants to do nothing more than to get to know you better.”
Olena smirked. “Which part of you is this? That doesn’t care about the world, I mean.”
“We should talk about that. Jonathan Hive, at your service. And yes, I mean the Jonathan Hive.”
Dead-faced, Olena asked, “Why do you tell me you have hives?”
“No, no. Hive, from American Hero! Season one, back when it was real.”
Olena scrunched up her nose like she was remembering the smell of something rotten. “I don’t watch American television. Except HBO.”
“Oh, you just haven’t given it a chance.” The ace stepped forward, one arm crooked as he rotated to slide it into Olena’s and lead her away.
Marcus slipped in front of Olena, the flat of his palm halting Bugsy. “Are you kidding me? She’s with me, and not to be rude, but you look like a shrinking dead man walking.”
Jonathan scowled. “Fucking Talas. Lost half my wasps there.” His gaze shifted from Olena to Marcus and back again, seemingly calculating the wisdom of continuing down this track. A green wasp crawled out of his ear and hung upside down on his earlobe, cleaning itself. “All right, whatever. We’re here on business anyway.”
A commotion came from back at the gate. A figure hovering in midair floated over the guards toward Marcus. Just behind him jogged a burly man clutching something to his chest. They came toward Marcus with the soldiers in tow.
“Bugsy, what the fuck?” the floating man said. He was olive-skinned, Asian-looking. He carried himself with a strange mixture of floating tranquility and nervous-eyed agitation. “Why’d you swarm and fly away like that? Scared the hell out of me.”
“Everything scares the hell out of you,” Bugsy said, about as snidely as Marcus had ever heard a person address another. “Meet the Lama. Not to be confused with the Llama.” Gesturing toward the burly man huffing up to them, he added, “And my butler here is Tinker, maker of clever, useless machines.”
“Bugsy!” the burly man called in an accent Marcus recognized straightaway. Australian. “What were you thinking? You forgot your clothes, mate.”
“That’s what I have you for.” The emaciated ace snatched the bundle from him and began slipping himself into the comically oversized garments. “Comrades, let me introduce you to one Marcus Morgan. Aka the Infamous Black Tongue. Denizen of the sewers of Jokertown, keeper of Father Squid’s underground crypts. A vigilante of considerable repute, illegal gladiatorial fighter. And all-around bad boy.”
Olena wove an arm through Marcus’s. “He knows you!” she said. “Even the bad boy part.”
“Of course I know him,” Bugsy said, cranking at the belt of the trousers that, thankfully, hid the swarming blur of his crotch. “Been writing features about him for ACES! magazine. He’s good copy.”
Marcus narrowed his eyes. “What have you written about me?”
Tinker grinned. “Probably better you don’t know.”
Bugsy didn’t dispute it. He smiled lasciviously at Olena. “And you are?”
“Not interested,” Olena answered. “And my name is Olena.”
Tinker grinned again. “I like her. She’s got you right sussed, Bugsy.”
“You were in that horror, weren’t you?” Lama asked Marcus. “Talas, I mean.”
Marcus nodded.
“Us too,” Bugsy said. “On the first team of aces the Committee sent in.”
“Yeah?” Marcus couldn’t help but show his eagerness. “What happened? Did you fix things?”
The wasp on Bugsy’s ear dropped off. He caught it in a fist and popped it into his mouth. “Not exactly. Barely lived to tell about it, is more like it. Come on. We’ve got things to talk about then. You’ll need to be debriefed. See if you know anything we don’t. Let’s get you inside.”
“Ah,” Tinker hesitated. “Babel might not like this.”
Bugsy scoffed. “What, ’cause he’s a joker? Screw her. All the better if it twists her nipples. Come on.”
The joker-hating soldier began to protest, but his superior officer shut him down. He said, “They’ve just become Committee business. Let ’em alone, soldier.”
As Marcus started forward, feeling the first sense of relief in days, Olena said, “Wait! Marcus, the villagers. We can’t leave them.”
“Oh, that’s right.” Marcus pulled up. “Hey, it’s not just us. We’ve got a village with us. Good people. They helped us get here. We gotta get them inside, too.”
The aces exchanged glances. “Not likely,” Bugsy said. “We’re not running a shelter here.”
“Not a joker shelter, that’s for sure.” The hater again. Marcus felt like slapping him.
“Your villagers are jokers?” Bugsy asked. “In that case forget it, kid. There’s not a chance in hell. Babel runs things by the book, and a bunch of useless jokers ain’t in this particular book. Come on. And I’m not asking. Consider it a Committee order.” He moved off, Lama trudging glumly beside him. Tinker shrugged apologetically and turned to follow them.
“Marcus, we can’t jus
“I know.” He thought fast, watching the aces recede toward the gate. “I won’t do that. I promise. But this is our best shot. Get inside. Talk to people in power. We’ll find a way to get them inside.”
“You are promising?”
“Yes. Straight up promise. Come on.”
The sun beat down on her unmercifully. The last time she had eaten or had anything to drink had been in the Kazakh army camp. And now that she’d used the last of her fat, she was cadaverous and weak.
But, at last, she was out of the crazy zone. And the horror of what she’d done washed over her again and again. She relived every moment with ever-increasing shame and remorse. But even as she agonized, in some horrible part of her, remembering blasting Aero’s head apart came with a deep glee.
And then there were tears. They rolled down hot and bitter. Who was she now?
And she hadn’t saved Adesina at all.
That brat.
Shut up!
She kept walking. Step after staggering step. She didn’t know why.
You do, too.
And she did. She was going back to see her daughter and Joey. She wanted to be with them when the world came to an end.
Joey said, “I’ve got something!”
The constant terror of flirting with madness, of opening portals into hell and closing them before the devil noticed, had left Mollie exhausted and numb. Hours and hours of endless dread melted together into … boredom.
She’d heard this before, too. But every time one of Joey’s zombies glimpsed something that might have been a survivor, inspection with living eyes always revealed a gibbering vaguely human abomination that was too distorted to identify as a former Committee member.
“That’s nice,” said Mollie, lying on the cold hard concrete of the warehouse floor. The Andromeda Strain guys couldn’t be bothered to bring her a pillow or blanket; they refused to get too close to the pinhole Talas portal.