George R.R. Martin - [Wild Cards 18] (18 page)

The wasp in the fold of Curveball’s purse took to the air as Jonathan’s attention inhabited it. It took a moment to get his bearings.

“I…I don’t really talk about it, you know,” Fortune said. The bar roared dully behind him, half a hundred conversations running in parallel. The décor was unfinished wood, painted ductwork, and odd signs and objects epoxied to the walls in lieu of actual character. “I spent most of my life with Mom trying to keep anything from setting off the virus. She’s great, you know. I mean I really love her.” He paused. “That’s not something guys are supposed to say about their mothers, is it?”

“Probably not,” Curveball agreed. “But it’s okay. I know what you mean.”

Curveball and John Fortune, sitting together in a booth at the back of some unholy Bennigan’s clone. There didn’t seem to be a film crew nearby. Either they were really well-hidden, or John Fortune had used his connection to the show to sneak Curveball out of the panopticon. And if that wasn’t reason enough to go out with a guy, Jonathan wasn’t sure what would be.

The wasp high on the wall edged down, keeping its green carapace hidden behind the fake antlers and 1950s outhouse humor. Jonathan tried to make out what the body language was saying; Fortune with his hands on the table, a little slumped over, Curveball sitting forward too, leaning on her elbows. Listening, but not flirty. She had her hair down. It was the first time Jonathan had seen her without her ponytail.

“And then, when I drew an ace… when I thought, you know, it was an
ace.
I don’t know. It was wild. Everyone was calling me the savior, or else the antichrist. And the thing with my dad. The thing with Fortunato.”

Fortunato dying to save me
, he didn’t say. Now that Fortune laid it out like that, Jonathan could see how there’d be a certain amount of couch time called for.

“Intense,” Curveball said.

“Yeah. Yeah, intense. And now,” Fortune shrugged, “it’s all over. You know? I used to have guards around me all the time. And then I was one of the most important aces in the world. And now I’m Captain Cruller.”

Curveball shook her head, shifting her hand from the opposite elbow to the beer bottle in front of her. Dos Equis. Jonathan would have thought she was a wine cooler girl. “That’s Drummer Boy,” Curveball said. “Blow him off. He’s a dick.”

And dicking away, even as we speak
, Jonathan thought.

“He’s not wrong, though,” Fortune said. “I mean it’s weird being ordinary, you know? Not being anyone in particular.”

“Maybe you should get on a TV show,” Curveball said.

The wasp was in a pretty good position to see Fortune’s face while that sunk in.

“Shit, I’m sorry, Kate. I didn’t mean anything about you guys. I wasn’t… I didn’t mean to slag on you.”

“No, it’s okay. I mean, apology accepted, but it’s not what I was thinking.”

“What was?” Fortune asked.

She looked up, half-smiling a question.

“What were you thinking?” Fortune asked.

Curveball frowned, picked up the beer bottle, drank a little, and put it down with a thud. Fortune let the silence stretch. If it had been a manipulation, it would have been a good one. The poor bastard was sincere, so it was even better.

“I’m thinking about the reasons we all came to this thing,” she said. “Drummer Boy, Earth Witch. Me. It’s been fun, and I’ve met a lot of people who are really great. And some that aren’t so great. But the thing that… the thing that’s weird in me? I want to win. I came here and I thought,
whatever. I’ll try and we’ll see what happens
, but I’m around everyone, and it’s like it’s important. I want it. I want to be the American Hero.”

“And what do you think about that?”

“That maybe we can never be special enough to be happy,” she said.

Ooh, deep
, Jonathan thought. But Fortune was nodding and smiling.

“Can I tell you something? You have to promise not to pass it on,” Fortune said.

Curveball raised her eyebrows.

“I tried to get my power back. After… after what happened. I thought maybe I could get it back and control it. Since my dad … since Fortunato fixed me.”

Curveball shook her head. Someone at the bar shrieked with laughter that sounded as fake as the ambiance. Curveball’s hands were on the table now. There were probably six or eight inches between Fortune’s hands and hers—flirting distance, maybe. Or maybe not. Jonathan was having a hard time getting a good read off the interaction.

“I tried everything,” Fortune said. “Meditation, hypnosis, acupuncture. Rolfing.”

“You’re kidding,” Curveball said with a laugh that managed to be warm and sympathetic.

“Seems kind of stupid now,” Fortune said into his drink.
Jonathan couldn’t be sure, but he thought the guy was blushing.

“Maybe,” Curveball said. “I get it, though.”

“I don’t care if John fucking Fortune gets his powers back!”

On the couch at Losers Central, Jonathan felt a wave of vertigo, suddenly uncertain of where he was. Someone was talking about Fortune. And she sounded pissed off.

He stood up, tucking the hand with the missing thumb into his pocket.

“No!” the voice said again. A woman’s voice. “No, I’m not. They voted me off the show, Mom. I’m
off.
I’m stuck with all the other losers.”

Jonathan walked to his doorway. Across the hall, Simoon’s door was ajar. He could just make out her sand-colored skin and black hair as she paced.

“Yes, he’s here sometimes. But it’s not like…”

A faint treble yammer, a voice on the other end of a telephone connection, buzzed like a mosquito. Jonathan came closer to the door.

“I’m American, Mama. I was born in America. I’ve never been to Egypt. Egypt isn’t my problem. John Fortune isn’t my problem. I got kicked off the show, and now I’m rooming with the most annoying guy in the world, a Mexican wrestler with a fake accent, a guy who turns into bugs, and a girl who thinks roller derby never went out of style. My career is over. Peregrine already thinks I suck, I’m not going to try to get her son to—”

The mosquito whined again. Simoon paused in the narrow strip. One hand held her cell phone to her ear. Her head bowed, and she sighed.

“I’ll try, okay? If the occasion comes up, I’ll try—and don’t push me, Mother. Honest to God, if you give me any more shit about this, I won’t even talk to him.”

The mosquito was much quieter.

“You too,” Simoon said. “Give my love to Uncle Osiris.”

The cell phone closed with a click, and Jonathan rapped gently on the door, swinging it open an inch in the process. Simoon looked up, her eyes round and surprised. Jonathan
waved, hoping the gesture was appropriately friendly and not particularly stalkerlike.

“Oh my God,” Simoon said, her brows furrowing with concern. “What happened to your thumb?”

“Oh,” Jonathan said, sticking his hand back in his pocket. “It’s nothing. It just does that sometimes. Little bits of me kind of wander off. They’ll be back.”

“Oh,” Simoon said, and Jonathan mentally removed her from the list of women who would ever, under any circumstances, consider sleeping with him.

“I was just… I couldn’t help overhearing you, ah, shouting at your mother there.”

Simoon sighed and sat on the edge of her bed. She looked smaller than he’d thought. “Sorry about that,” she said. “It’s this whole long thing.”

“The camera guys are still watching Joe Twitch and Spasm fight it out,” Jonathan said. “You want to talk about it?”

“It’s nothing,” Simoon said.

“Egypt. John Fortune. Something that wasn’t your fucking problem?” Jonathan said.

Simoon shook her head, paused, looked up at him.

“Okay,” she said. “But just between us, okay?”

“Absolutely,” Jonathan lied.

“My mom’s a god. The wild card hit Egypt way back when, and a bunch of the people who got it wound up looking like the ancient gods. You know. Crocodile heads or lion bodies, that kind of thing. They called themselves the Living Gods. My mom’s Isis, or, you know, an Isis. There are several.”

“She’s in Egypt?”

“No. Vegas. A bunch of them emigrated and got jobs at the Luxor. My mom hooked up with Elvis when she got here, and here I am. Daughter of a god and the King, and still kicked off the show. But anyway, I have a lot of family back in Cairo. Cousins and stuff.”

Jonathan moved slowly into the room and sat on the couch there. The bed would have seemed a little too familiar. “So how does John Fortune figure in?”

“My uncle Osiris has this thing where he sees the future.
Bits of it. They don’t even let him into the casino part of the hotel. Anyway, ever since the Twisted Fists killed the Caliph there’s been a lot of antijoker sentiment in the old neighborhoods. And Osiris told Mom that there’s some kind of amulet they gave Peregrine back in the ’80s, and that it’s time she got John Fortune to wear it.”

“Ah,” Jonathan said. And then, “I don’t get it.”

“It’s supposed to give him the powers of Ra, whatever that means. And that’s supposed to help things back in Egypt. I don’t know all the details, and Uncle Osiris really likes to play how he’s all mystical and wise and shit, so getting a straight story out of him is, like, good luck. It’s all destiny this and fate that. But Mom decided that I should tell John Fortune about the amulet. And now she’s giving me all kinds of shit about how I haven’t done it yet.” Simoon shrugged like it was obviously the worst idea in the world.

“And you don’t want to because…?”

“I came on the show to help my career. Get some exposure,” Simoon said. “If I go talking crazy shit like this to Peregrine’s kid, what kind of reputation do I get? And anyway, after what happened to him before, he probably doesn’t even want powers, you know?”

“Have you ever
tried
Rolfing?” Jonathan asked.

“What?”

“Never mind,” he said. “Just gimme your phone for a minute.”

“Why?” Simoon asked, suddenly suspicious.
Late in the game for that
, Jonathan thought.

“Trust me,” he said.

He dialed with his remaining thumb. The connection rang twice, then a click.

“Hello?” Curveball said.

“Hey,” Jonathan said. “Give him the phone.”

There was a pause.

“What are you talking about, Hive?”

“I don’t know his phone number. I know yours from when we were all buddies and gosh-darn-it friends for life, so I’m calling you. Now slide the phone across the table, okay? I need to talk to him.”

Simoon, jaw slack with horror and surprise, made a waving motion with both hands.
Don’t do this.
Jonathan gave her history’s least-successful thumbs-up.

“Jonathan?” Fortune said at the other end of the line.

“Hey,” Jonathan said. “I’m over at Losers Central with Simoon, and you need to get over here.”

“What’s the matter?”

“There’s a story you’ve seriously got to hear. And funny thing is, it’s all about you and how you get ace powers back.”

There was a pause.

“Is this a joke?” Fortune asked.

“That’s the funny thing,” Jonathan said. “It really isn’t. Get over here as soon as you can.”

He hung up before Fortune could say anything else, and tossed the cell back to Simoon. She didn’t look pleased.

“Hey!” Blrr said from the doorway. “We’re going to make some popcorn and watch some TV. You guys want to come?”

Simoon hesitated, her gaze shifting from Jonathan to Blrr and back.

“Nah,” Simoon said. “Next time. Bugsy and I are in the middle of something.”

Blrr looked mildly surprised.

“Nothing like that,” Jonathan said.

“Yeah, didn’t figure,” Blrr said, and vanished.

“You shouldn’t have called him,” Simoon said. “That was supposed to be just between you and me.”

“I know what I’m doing,” Jonathan said with a grin. “You’ll thank me for this later.”

Looking for Jetboy

IT’S SUPPOSED TO BE
a
game.
Reality TV, the teams segregated into separate headquarters, each location infested with cameras, with competition limited to challenges. Dramatic, yes. Tears and threats, sure. But it’s all
staged.
…