High Stakes: A Wild Cards Novel by George R. R. Martin
Beep.
She pressed redial. But when the answering machine beeped again, she didn’t know what more to say. So she hung up.
For somebody whose entire life had become a litany of apologies, she really sucked at delivering them.
Sliding through the gates of the Cosmodrome with the joker girl, Sezim—and her doll—cradled in his arms, Marcus felt better than he had in a long time. Before him and behind him, the other jokers walked, shuffled, or squirmed. A few were carried in. They moved through a channel of soldiers that protected them from the masses rumbling angrily outside and from the unkind eyes of the various soldiers—UN, Kazakh, and Russian—who weren’t exactly welcoming them in.
Let them stare, Marcus thought. It didn’t matter. The only thing that did was that—with Nurassyl’s help—they’d delivered on their promise to get the villagers inside the Cosmodrome. They were about as safe now as they could be.
The Handsmith strode beside him, holding his wife’s hand. “Thank you,” he said, touching Marcus on the shoulder. “Thank you.”
Marcus shook his head. “Not me. Nurassyl. He did it.” He wished he could explain it all to him. He’d make sure that Olena did. Saying he’d go and get the boy, he handed Sezim to Aliya and started toward the Committee’s warehouse. He didn’t get more than a few yards before a swarm of wasps shot out of the warehouse, curved in the air, and swept toward him. Bugsy formed in front of him, looking quite a bit more substantial than he had when Marcus had left him with Nurassyl. He was naked again, but this time not even modest enough to blur his genitalia.
“Something’s up with your girl,” he said. “She was talking to this guy for a while, and then they started arguing. Next thing you know a bunch of Russians grabbed her and dragged her away. She went screaming bloody murder, man.”
“You let them take her?” Marcus asked.
He swiped his limp hair from his face. “Let them? What could I do? Have you not noticed that Russians run this place?”
“Where’d they go?”
“Come on. I got a hornet following them.”
Bugsy swarmed, and Marcus squirmed after him. Vasel, he swore, if you hurt her I’ll kill you. If you take her away … He couldn’t finish that thought. If Vasel vanished with her what chance did Marcus have of ever seeing her again? The gangster seemed capable of anything, and he had all of the vastness of Russia at his disposal.
They went around the warehouse, between two others, and then shot past an open hangar where Tinker was at work on something. Bugsy re-formed. “Tinker, there’s a damsel in distress. What’s that?” He pointed at the contraption Tinker had built. It had the treads of a tank, but with a body that looked cobbled together from oil drums and scrap metal, creating the base for a swiveling artillery gun that appeared to be manned by a Homer Simpson bobble head.
Tinker grinned, looking at it proudly. “I’m calling it a Think Tank. A tank with a programmed artificial intelligence. It’s all right here in the noggin.” He set the bobble head bobbling with a brush of his fingers. “Really simple intelligence, though. We can send it into the beasty swarm without worrying it’ll go mad and start—”
“Bring it! They’re getting into a plane, supersonic bomber it looks like.”
“Fuck,” Marcus said, knowing they were doing more than just making an escape. “Vasel thinks we should destroy Talas. He might try to bomb it on his way out of here.”
“That would be a very bad idea.” Bugsy swarmed again and was off, Marcus squirming so fast he almost got ahead of him. Tinker shouted some protest, but when Marcus glanced back he saw the big man lumbering along. The tank kept pace with him like a well-trained dog.
The airstrip was massive. A maze of crisscrossing runways and airplane hangars and several towers that stretched to the horizon. One plane was landing. Several others were taxiing. A bunch more—in various shapes and designs—cluttered the area as far as Marcus could see. “Which one is it?”
“There,” Bugsy said, suddenly his naked self again. He pointed at a sleek number just turning onto one of the runways. It was smaller than Marcus expected, more like a billionaire’s private jet than what he imagined a bomber to be—if the billionaire happened to like packing nuclear warheads attached to its underbelly. It was heading away from them, toward the end of the runway.
“What now?” Tinker asked.
Marcus pointed toward the plane, which was making a slow turn at the far end of the runway. “We stop that plane. Can this thing do it?”
“I wouldn’t count on it,” Bugsy grumbled.
Tinker was more confident. “You bet. Homer, acquire target. Take out that Russian plane.”
The tank started toward the runway over a rough patch of grass. The bobble head bobbled, spun, and dipped. The gun lowered.
“No!” Marcus shouted. “Don’t shoot it! Olena’s in there.”
The gun boomed, sending a mortar round scorching across the tarmac and right into the tail section of … an entirely different plane, one parked innocently outside a hangar.
“I should’ve known,” Bugsy said. “Another Tinker original.”
“No, not that plane!” Tinker shouted. “The other one!”
The barrel of the gun swung around, shot again, this time taking out a helicopter.
“Homer, that’s not even a plane!”
“You know,” Bugsy continued, sounding ruminative, “it’s not really a matter of if his gadgets will screw up. It’s more a matter of how monumentally.”
Next down was a shuttle bus, a mobile staircase, and a fuel tanker. The blast from that explosion nearly flattened Marcus. All of this while Vasel’s plane completed its turn and started down the long stretch of runway. Marcus hoped the explosions might make them pause. Just the opposite. The plane rolled forward, starting to take off.
“Fuck!” Marcus squirmed onto the tarmac. He slammed into the back of the tank. The bobble head rotated and looked at him. Homer’s big eyes went wider. Marcus swiped the head so hard it flew away and landed in the grass. Okay, Marcus thought. That’s the brain of the thing gone. That still left the plane, which was coming toward him, picking up speed every second. If he didn’t do something now, it would be past him and unstoppable. He bunched the muscles of his tail and leaned into the tank. Damn this is heavy! He pushed harder, coils churning and flexing against the scrubby ground. The plane got nearer, the roar of its engines loud now. Marcus pushed with every muscle of his body right down to the tip of his tail. The tank rolled forward, a slow bastard but … He got it to the center of the runway. He turned to face the oncoming plane, staring right into the pilots’ frantic faces. One of them gesticulated wildly at him, telling him to move out of the way. Marcus didn’t. He didn’t know much about planes, but he was pretty sure this one wasn’t going fast enough to take off. Second by second, it got closer, the whine of its engines in his ears and vibrating through his scales. Oh, no …
Then they swerved. The plane veered off the runway and into the scrubby grass beside it. The nose wheels caught in a dip and the momentum of the plane wrenched the gear back. The nose dived, churning up soil and grinding through shrubs. The plane ground to a halt, a cloud of dust billowing around it.
Marcus watched, gasping, as Bugsy and Tinker rushed up to him.
“It worked!” Tinker said.
Bugsy guffawed. “Yeah, that was exactly what you had in mind, I’m sure.”
The plane’s door slammed open. Vasel leapt out on to the ground. A torrent of armed guards poured out after him. Red-faced with anger and throwing Russian expletives, the gangster took in the damage to the front wheels. Olena jumped from the plane as well. She didn’t look at the plane, though. Her eyes found Marcus. She ran to him and threw herself into his embrace. The feel of her slim body, her arms around him, her hair tickling his collarbone, and her forehead pressed to his neck: it was gorgeous. But it didn’t last long.
Vasel wheeled on Marcus. “You!” he roared. “You did this!” He strode toward him,
“Marcus, let’s go!” Olena yanked on Marcus’s arm, but he didn’t budge. If he was going to die here at least he’d meet it front on, not with his back turned.
“You!” Vasel said. “You…” He cut himself off, unable to find the words and instead just grinding through a full-bodied roar of anger. His eyes were crazed, his motions as jerky and savage as when he’d stomped on the creature back at the village. Marcus’s mouth flooded with saliva. His tongue bunched and twisted inside his mouth, a living thing ready to explode if he let it. He didn’t, though. Even with Vasel so near, ranting and insane, he didn’t know if he could actually kill him. He was an ace, for one thing. More important, he was Olena’s father. There was stuff between them that Marcus would never understand. He’d do anything to defend her. That would be easy. But she wasn’t the one in danger.
Then Vasel’s expression sharpened. His eyes came into focus, searing into Marcus. He said, “You will not stop me. There are other planes, other missiles. So fuck you, black mamba.” His fingers danced and there was the coin, sliding through and over them like a living thing. “Heads or tails? Call it whichever way you like…”
The coin was in the air before Marcus even saw the motion that flicked it. He watched it turn over and over as it moved toward him, flashing bright and then dark. Bright and then dark. He knew it was his death, and yet there was something undeniably entrancing about it. He knew the horror of it, and he wanted to flee, to just wriggle for it, to just give in to panic. But his eyes couldn’t help but follow it. Like a fish drawn to the lure that will be its death, he stared in awe and hunger. He began to lift his arm, instinctively, to catch it.
Olena beat him to it. She swung in front of Marcus, the flat of her palm upraised. So fast. She snatched the coin just before it would’ve hit his face. Marcus stared at her upraised fist, right there in front of him, a small, white-knuckled fist, gripping the coin. The wail of misery inside Marcus began so deep it had a long way to rise. He felt it, though, coming, raging up, taking shape as his grasp of what was about to happen did.
Vasel knew as well, and he found his voice faster than Marcus. He bellowed something in Russian. Two words, over and over again.
Olena opened her hand, turned it to reveal the coin. It was there, stuck fast to her palm, pulsing with energy. That stopped Vasel’s shouting. Olena shook her hand, trying to drop the coin, but it was stuck fast, embedded in her skin. She stared at it again, as did Marcus and everyone else. The moment stretched, long and silent. Nobody moved. Marcus held his breath, afraid that if he marked the passage of time the fate that awaited those on the receiving end of Vasel’s coin would fall on Olena as well.
Olena said, flatly, “I’m not dead.”
As if freed by the words, Vasel approached her. He opened his mouth to say something, but didn’t get a word out. Olena—her words as hard and compact as stones—said, “I hate you. I wish you were dead.” When he tried to speak again, she smacked him. The hand with the coin flew with such speed and fury that it cut Vasel off mid-word. The blow snapped his head to the side. When he looked back, an oval-shaped slash had been burned into his cheek. “Die, Papa! Die.”
An expression of utter grief possessed Vasel’s features. His flesh shriveled and squeezed taut against the bones of his skull. His eyes hollowed and his lips drew back, revealing teeth that looked instantly ghastly. Before their eyes and in just a few seconds, the life drained out of him. He reached out toward his daughter with a now skeletal hand that clutched at the air but didn’t reach her. Then he crumpled to the ground.
“Whoa,” Bugsy said, “that was a serious bitch-slap.”
Michelle held Joey’s face gently in her hands. They were in the hangar that served as a base for the Committee and the remnants of the Kazakh and Red Crescent forces. Soldiers and what Michelle assumed to be black ops were engaged in various make-ready activities. All armed to the teeth, and even the doctors wore sidearms.
“What are you doing here?” Michelle asked. She was shaking. With happiness or fear she couldn’t tell. “Where’s Adesina? You shouldn’t have brought her here.” A hot stab of panic went through her. Adesina had to be safe. What was the point to any of this if her daughter wasn’t out of harm’s way?
Joey laughed, then winced. “I left her with Wally. You think I’d bring the niblet here? I swear, you are so cocksucking…”
Michelle leaned forward and kissed Joey on the forehead where it wasn’t covered in bandage.
She didn’t care that she stank and was covered in gore. For now, she was happy that Joey was here and that her daughter was in good hands.
“You’re right, he’ll protect her—as long as anyone can.” He’d protect her right until they were consumed by the fog.
“And what on earth happened to your face?” she said, stroking Joey’s unwounded cheek.
Joey shrugged. “We were trying to find you. Mollie had a portal open near Talas, and then we both went pretty batshit insane. She cut off one of my fingers, with her fucking portal, then bit off my left eyebrow.” Joey lifted up her bandaged hand. “Then this joker kid grew it back. The finger, not the eyebrow.”
“I bet you gave as good as you got,” Michelle replied with a tight smile. Then she had a moment where she thought about killing Mollie, but her joy at seeing Joey stamped it out. For now.
“I’d like to say I gave as good as fucking got,” Joey said, shaking her head. “But that bitch is crazy. She’s insane and in a very bad fucking way. I’d be careful around her, Bubbles.”
“I’ve never been so happy to see you,” Michelle said, ignoring Joey’s warning. She noticed that the other people in the room were staring at them, but she didn’t care.
“Of course you’re happy to see me,” Joey said. Suddenly, the scowl she constantly wore was replaced with a mischievous grin. “You’re my bitch.”
Michelle laughed. “Yes. Yes, I’m your bitch. And you’re mine.”
Joey reached up, pulled Michelle’s head down, and began kissing her. It was urgent and hard, then soft and sweet.
Tasting Joey again made Michelle feel dizzy and alive and sane. It was perfect.
“Are you two done?”
Billy Ray.
“Director, always a pleasure,” Michelle said without turning around. She pulled Joey closer. “And no, I’m pretty sure I’m not done.”
“Well, you have to be. Babel is waiting for your debriefing.”
Michelle dropped her head. The last thing she needed was to have a conversation about what had happened in Talas.
“Let’s go,” Joey said, pushing Michelle away. “For once those dicklickers are doing something good. We gotta figure out how to stop this.”
“I don’t want to…”
Joey crossed her arms. “Don’t think anyone has a choice about it now.”
“Balls,” Michelle said dejectedly.
“Not into them.”
Michelle smiled wanly.
“Lead on,” she said as she turned to face Billy Ray. “But first you’ve got to feed me.”
Babel was standing at a fold-out table. Behind her, flat-screen TVs took up part of the wall.
“Have a seat,” Barbara said. There were circles under her eyes, and she looked exhausted. “Have you had something to eat and drink?”
Michelle nodded. She held up the water bottle in her left hand and the sandwich in her right. It was her fifth bottle of water since she’d gotten to the Cosmodrome. She felt as if she could drink five more.
She hoped Billy Ray would help her put some fat on later. In the past, he’d been happy to beat the shit out of her. It was part of their history.
What if I can’t take a punch without it hurting anymore? she thought with a surge of panic.
“We have some intel from Mollie about what’s happening inside the zone, but we were hoping you could give us a better idea of exactly what’s going on,” Barbara said.
“Yeah, I imagine Mollie isn’t a reli
“I’d like to tell you more, but at some point things become fuzzy.” She was dancing around what she’d done to Aero now. Trying to distance herself from what had happened. Trying to get away from her murderous glee.
“I wasn’t me anymore,” she continued. “I no longer had control over anything. We all lost control of ourselves.” Yes, that was it. Share the blame. “And it wasn’t just us going mad. The city is changing for the worse by the second. I can tell you that however bad you think it is in there, you can’t imagine how much more awful it is.”
Michelle wasn’t going to tell them about Aero. She hadn’t seen Earth Witch or Recycler or Doktor Omweer after Joey had brought her back. They were the only ones who could tell what had happened.
It was her burden to bear. She had so much shame and guilt. But you liked it. It felt good. You could do what you wanted. And the blood. You bathed in the blood. You barely wiped it off your hands.
She thought she was going to vomit.
Puking seemed like a very good idea. It might get in the way of the crying. Because now she really wanted to cry. But she wouldn’t let that happen. She didn’t deserve to cry after what she had done.