Inside Straight by George R. R. Martin
“Sidekick syndrome,” Jonathan said. “Whole rebellion was prejudiced against Wookies.”
“Oh, whatever,” Earth Witch said.
“You guys all know he’s just using us, right?” Jonathan said.
“Who?” Curveball asked.
“Jayewardene. I mean, he said it himself. Here he is, it’s his first day of work, and what happens? He gets kidnapped. I mean you have to figure he lost huge credibility there. And so now he has to make it up somehow, and we’re the most convenient way.”
“Does it matter?” Lohengrin asked. “Whatever drives him to do what is right, it is not important. Only doing what is right.”
“I find you charmingly naïve sometimes,” Jonathan said. The German bristled visibly, then laughed. “I’m just saying Jayewardene is posturing. He’s using us to seem more effective than he is.”
“Even if you’re not totally full of shit, so what?” Drummer Boy said. “I’m good with it. You can back out anytime you want, Hive. We won’t call you chickenshit. Honest.”
Curveball and Fortune both chuckled at that. Jonathan frowned. “I’m not saying I want out,” he said. “I’m just saying that this whole committee thing is a publicity stunt. It’s not like we’re actually going to put on uniforms and run around the planet stopping bad guys and hauling them into the World Court for trial. We’re figureheads. We’re just for show.”
“You know, Bugsy,” Fortune said. “We’re really not.”
The crowd roared as Secretary-General Jayewardene took the podium. He smiled, nodding to the left and to the right. The room grew quiet. The cameras continued to flash.
“Ladies. Gentlemen,” he said. “I hope you will all find this as worthy of celebration as I myself do. I have come before you now to announce the formation of the Committee …”
Posted Today 7:12 pm
COMMITTEE, POLITICS, AMERICAN HERO | REFLECTIVE |
“CHILDREN OF THE REVOLUTION”—VIOLENT FEMMES
The Committee.
Yeah, there’s more after that; but when you get right down to it, we’re really the Committee. Say it, print it, post it. Everyone knows what you mean. The Commit tee.
I have a new job now. I’m one of the poor bastards going out there to help save the world now. But at least they don’t want me to put on Spandex or a cape or some shit like that. It’s great, but it also has the feeling of something ending. I’m going to keep this blog going as long as I can, but I don’t know how much I’ll be able to keep up with it. There are only so many hours in a day, after all. There’s already talk about maybe going in to this shithole in Africa where a guy is encouraging half the people in his country to take machetes to the other half. I don’t know what we’re supposed to do about it, but I guess if they send us, we’ll try. What else could we do?
I started this thing because I wanted to talk about what it was to be an ace. Here we are, with powers other people dream of having. We’re the cool kids. The heroes. The ones who get celebrated. And it’s not because of what we think or what we do. It’s because of what we are.
I don’t think there’s anything more toxic than that. To be celebrated—or condemned—for what you are instead of who.
We’re aces. And some of us are petty little fucks. Some of us are pretentious asses. Some of us can rise to the occasion, and some of us can’t.
So, if I did write my book—and honest to God, folks, I don’t see the free time anywhere in the immediate future—what would I say with it? That Hollywood’s ideas of heroism are shallow and cocaine-driven? Yeah, there’s big news.
That genocide is bad?
That sometimes people do honorable, good, right things for all the wrong reasons? Or stupid, destructive, short-sighted things for all the right ones?
The problem with a cliché is that it starts in truth. So when you dig down, fight and scratch and bleed and sometimes even die for the truth, sometimes—not always, but sometimes—you end up with something you could have bought on a greeting card.
Do the right thing. Cherish your friends; you don’t know how long you get to have them. You’re flawed and weak, but that’s okay; just do the best you can.
For that, I went to Hollywood and Vegas and Egypt and Hell. Hardly seems worth it, except that maybe I understand better what the Hallmark cards mean.
And I understand they’re looking at another season of American Hero. Good luck with that, guys.
I don’t know how you’re gonna top this one.
COMMENTS DISABLED
THE
WRITERS AND CREATORS
OF THE WILD CARDS
CONSORTIUM
George R. R. Martin Lohengrin, Popinjay, the Turtle
Melinda M. Snodgrass Double Helix, Dr. Tachyon, Dr. Finn
John Jos. Miller Carnifex, Yeoman, Wraith
Victor Milán Cap’n Trips, the Harlem Hammer
Stephen Leigh Puppetman, the Oddity
S. L. Farrell Drummer Boy
Walton (Bud) Simons Mr. Nobody, Demise, Puddleman
Lewis Shiner Fortunato, Veronica, the Astronomer
Walter Jon Williams Golden Boy, Black Shadow, Modular Man
Roger Zelazny The Sleeper
Leanne C. Harper Bagabond, the Hero Twins
Edward Bryant Sewerjack, Wyungare
Chris Claremont Molly Bolt, the Jumpers, Cody Havero
Michael Cassutt Stuntman, Cash Mitchell
Kevin Andrew Murphy Cameo, the Maharajah, Rosa Loteria
Pat Cadigan Water Lily
Gail Gerstner-Miller John Fortune, Peregrine, the Living Gods
William F. Wu Lazy Dragon, Chop-Chop, Jade Blossom
Laura J. Mixon Clara van Renssaeler, the Candle
Sage Walker Zoe Harris, Diver
Arthur Byron Cover Leo Barnett, Quasiman
Steve Perrin Digger Downs, Brave Hawk, Mistral
Royce Wideman Toad Man, Crypt Kicker
Howard Waldrop Jetboy
Daniel Abraham Jonathan Hive, Spasm, Father Henry Obst
Bob Wayne The Card Sharks
Parris McBride Elephant Girl
Christopher Rowe Hardhat
Caroline Spector The Amazing Bubbles, Tiffani, Ink
Ian Tregillis Rustbelt
Carrie Vaughn Earth Witch, Curveball, Wild Fox
Turn the page for an excerpt from
the upcoming Wild Cards book
Edited by
George R. R. Martin
Available from Tor December 2008
A TOR HARDCOVER
ISBN-13: 978-0-7653-1782-7 ISBN-10: 0-7653-1782-6
Coulda
Caroline Spector
IT’S DARK. SUFFOCATING. I can hear the sounds of the helicopters overhead. I’ve got to do something. But I can hear screams now. Oh, God, the way they scream as the flesh is seared off their bodies. I need to bubble. I need to get away from the smell of burnt skin and muscle. Screaming. I need to make the screams go away.
I try to blast my way through the darkness. For a moment, I can’t bubble. It’s as if there’s a wall between me and my power—then a stream of bubbles flows from my hands. Dust and rubble fill my mouth and rain off my body.
There’s light. The light is so clean and pure. I bubble more until I chase the darkness away and blow the weight of the debris from me.
“Stop that!”
I look around. I’m not in Egypt. There are no helicopters. No falling bodies. No fiery flesh. Just the clean, antiseptic testing room at BICC. Biological Isolation and Containment Center—who thinks these names up, anyway?
God, I hate government facilities. Why on earth would anyone build anything in an abandoned salt mine? And in the middle of Nowhere, New Mexico, to boot …
“The purpose of the test is to see how much force you can absorb, Miss Pond.” The disembodied voice belonged to Dr. Pendergast. His voice was normally silky smooth, so it was hard to tell when he was really pissed. But there was a hint of anger and I knew I’d been bad.
But, reall
I wasn’t even certain what they were testing me for anymore. At first, it was the usual: some joker with a face that could stop a clock and biceps the size of watermelons. He gave me a left hook that I kinda felt. I tried not to laugh at the look of disappointment on his unfortunate face.
Then they started with the cannonballs, bullets, walls on springs. Honestly, who the hell has walls on springs, just, you know, lying around? I mean, did none of these guys watch American Hero? You’d’ve thought they’d never heard of the Amazing Bubbles.
But the superweird thing was that they didn’t want me to bubble. In fact, Dr. Pendergast made it very clear that he didn’t want any bubbling. I tried to explain to him that when I got hit with as much raw energy as they were throwing at me, I had to bubble. It hurt not to.
But Dr. Pendergast didn’t care about that. He was only interested in how much power I could absorb. They’d already found out my max size would just about fill an eight-by-eight room. But I was no Bloat. They told me that when I stopped growing in size I started getting denser. Heavier, but no larger. I kinda got the feeling this was very interesting to them.
The problem was, after they got me as fat as I could get, and they kept throwing more and more force at me, I was finding it more difficult to bubble it off after the tests. The denser I got, the more powerful I became, but the harder it was to access my power. Hell, I could barely lift one of my pudgy fingers.
And it didn’t help that every time I got hit, it brought back memories. Memories that I didn’t want to face. So I did what I usually do—I thought about something else. Thought about anything that would distract me from what was rattling around my head like a bad Rob Zombie movie.
Thinking about Ink naked usually did the trick.
“Okay, Miss Pond, we’ll go again.”
“Yeah? I don’t think so,” I replied. I flung my hands out and released an enormous stream of bubbles, and I could feel my clothes getting looser. I grabbed a handful of waistband with my left hand to keep my pants from falling off.
The bubbles bounced around the room, but I kept bubbling with my right hand. As I filled the room, the bubbles just sort of vibrated against one another. I’d made them soft and rubbery so they wouldn’t hurt anyone. But it would take a while for them to dissipate. The room would be useless for any more games of Kick the Bubbles. At least for a while.
“Miss Pond, you agreed to be tested.”
“I know, and now I’m done with testing. I don’t recall this being anything other than voluntary on my part.”
“You’re acting like a child. We have only just begun to discover the true range of your power.”
I glared at the one-way mirror. I couldn’t see Dr. Pendergast, but I could imagine the patronizing look on his face. That and how he would stroke his Vandyke when he was trying to “reason” with you.
“Yeah, well …” Crap, I always sucked at pithy-line moments. “You’re not the boss of me.” I marched out with my pants hitched up, trying not to smack myself on the forehead.
There was a knock at my door. They were lodging me in one of the officers’ quarters. I suspected the hoi polloi got far less kind treatment.
I pulled the door open. One of the homeliest women I’d ever seen was standing there. Her hair was cropped short like she’d cut it with safety scissors. And her cheeks and forehead were acne-scarred, with an angry red breakout in full bloom. “Miss Pond?”
“That’s me,” I said.
“I’m Niobe.” She paused.
“Niobe!” I pulled her to me in a bear hug. We’d been corresponding via e-mail since American Hero. She had really touched me, as many of her e-mails had been heartbreaking. Her parents had been less than supportive when her card turned, which was like saying Joker Plague had some unattractive members. But there had been something else in her e-mails, something unspoken.
“What are you doing here?” I asked. “Not everyone gets an all-expense paid vacation at the lovely BICC.”
“Well, my parents weren’t too pleased that their only daughter wasn’t going to have the perfect coming-out party. It’s hard being a debutante with this.” Her thick tail swished on the floor. I hadn’t noticed it before. It was an ugly gray, thick and mottled, and there were stiff bristles sticking out of it.
I turned and started putting the rest of my things into my suitcase. She looked so forlorn it made me uncomfortable.
“They’re studying me,” she said, “just like they were studying you.”
“God, I hope not,” I replied, looking over my shoulder. “They’ve been pounding the crap outta me.”
She gave me a wan smile. “No,” she said. “I don’t have a power like yours. You know, you’re prettier in person.”
I laughed. “Whoa, Non Sequitur Girl, er, Woman.”
“I mean, I guess you’re different than you looked on TV.”
“You mean I’m not as fat now.” I shoved the last of my clothes into my bag. “Yeah, I just bubbled the hell outta the test room. I’m leaving, and I don’t want to be as recognizable when I head back to New York.”
She shoved her hands into her pockets and looked unhappy. “I guess this means you’re not going to spend any time with the other patients.”
“I didn’t know anyone wanted to see me,” I said. “They’ve pretty much kept me in the dark about everything except for the whole, ‘Let’s see what we can throw at Bubbles this time.’ ”
Niobe looked even more morose at this. “Yeah,” she said. “They treat us like rats in a cage.”
“Look,” I said. “I’ve got plenty of time before my flight—if they even have enough fuel to get off the runway today. Why don’t I come and meet whomever you want me to meet?”
“You’d do that?” My God, her eyes were so sad.
“Sure, let me grab my things.”
“Is it cool being a part of the Committee?” Niobe asked as we sped along the silent corridor in a BICC golf cart.
“I guess,” I said. “I mean, it’s great being a part of something that’s supposed to be doing good, but sometimes…sometimes it’s hard.”
There was a faint whiff of burning flesh. I glanced around, but there was nothing but smooth, unblemished wall flashing by.
“But you get to do a lot of other cool things, too.”
“True. I got to go to the Academy Awards and the VMAs, and they had a parade for us at Disneyland after that mess in Egypt. So that was okay. But doing press junkets, not so great.”
The cart slowed as Niobe lifted her foot from the pedal and looked at me. “But isn’t it fun having them ask you questions and then they actually pay attention to you?”
“Yeah … not so much,” I replied. “When we got back from Egypt they sent us out on a goodwill tour. It was pretty hellish. Not because of the people who wanted to meet us—they were almost always cool.” Except for the woman who threw pig’s blood on me and called me murderer, I thought. “But that press stuff is less than thrilling. Trust me, no fun at all.”
We sped up. “Oh,” Niobe said. “I just thought that after American Hero and being on the Committee that your life would be, you know, perfect.”
“I don’t think life’s ever perfect.”
“It was pretty perfect when Tiffani got knocked off AH.” She gave me a sly smile.
I smiled back. “Yeah, that was kinda perfect.”
“Have you seen any of the promos for the new season of AH?” Niobe asked. She sounded excited.
“Yeah,” I said. “They wanted me to do some teasers, but I was out of the country when they were shooting.”
“What do you think of the new aces?”
“I think they have no idea what they’re getting themselves into.”
George R. R. Martin, Inside Str
(Series: Wild Cards # 18)