George R.R. Martin - [Wild Cards 18] (5 page)
Read George R.R. Martin - [Wild Cards 18] Online
Authors: Inside Straight
Jetman finished his presentation to polite applause, and the blond—John Fortune—appeared at Jonathan’s side.
“Jonathan Hive?” Fortune asked.
“That’s me.”
“Okay, you’re up next. We’re going to be filming from cameras two and three,” he said, pointing at a couple of the many setups in the stadium. “The judges all have monitors up there, so if you have the choice, it’s better to play to the cameras than the people.”
“Great,” Jonathan said, mentally remaking his presentation. “Okay, yeah. Thanks.”
“No trouble,” Fortune said.
“Any other advice?”
Fortune looked serious for a moment. He was a good-looking kid, but maybe a little lost around the eyes.
“You’re the guy who turns into wasps, right? Okay, the guy on camera two is really afraid of bees, so anything you want to do up close to the lens, go for camera three.”
“And that one’s camera three?”
“You got it,” Fortune said. Jonathan redid his routine again.
“Cool. Thanks.”
Jonathan took a deep breath, rose to his feet, and walked forward to the clear area that Jetman had vacated. Jonathan nodded to the judges, flashed a smile at the other aces, and stepped out of his loafers. The grass tickled the soles of his feet.
“Anything you’d like to say? No? Well, then, when you’re ready,” Topper said.
It felt like breathing in—the comfortable swelling of the chest and rib cage—but it didn’t stop. His body widened and became lighter; his field of vision slowly expanded. Distantly, he could feel his clothes drop through where his arms and legs had been. A couple bugs were tangled up in them, left behind like nail clippings.
Jonathan rose up above the crowd, seeing them all at once through hundreds of thousands of compound eyes. Hearing their voices even over the hum of his wings. He had no particular form now, and the joy of flying, the freedom of his swarm-shaped body, thrilled and vibrated in him. He hadn’t really cut loose in days. He had to focus and think about his routine. He brought his multiform attention to bear on the crowd, picked a woman sitting in clear view of camera three who looked game, and sent a tendril of wasps to her. When they landed on her lap, he could see her stiffen, and then as he moved the tiny bodies to spell out words, relax slightly.
It is okay. Do not be scared.
He covered her in a bright green, crawling ball gown, then burst back up into the air and sped to the end of the stadium and back, circled around, and then it was time for the grand finale. It was hard to consciously form his body, and his kinesthetic sense was fairly rough, so he sent a couple wasps to sit on top of camera three and concentrated on the view through their eyes.
Slowly, carefully, he adjusted the swarm into a smaller, tighter, angrily buzzing mass. When the insects were thick enough to block the daylight, he moved. It was like dancing
and also like trying to balance a pencil. The swarm that was his flesh took shape—huge, floating, ill-formed letters. EAT AT JOE’S.
He took the swarm back to his fallen clothes, the insects crawling into the spaces within the cloth and pushing gently out to allow another few wasps in and then more and more as the bugs congealed again into flesh. He was tired and exhilarated. He took a bow to the polite clapping. The judges asked a couple of questions—yes, the wasps could sting; there were around a hundred thousand wasps in the swarm; yes, if he flew through insecticide, he would get viciously ill. Digger Downs called him Bugsy, the Harlem Hammer asked about his blog (an extra couple thousand hits if that made it to the final cut), and it was over. He walked back to his seat on the benches.
“Nice,” Joe Twitch said.
Someone gently tapped Jonathan’s shoulder. The woman he’d volunteered for his demonstration. She looked different, now that he could only see her from one angle at a time.
“Hey,” Jonathan said, smiling.
“Hey.” She had a nice voice. Sexy. “Jonathan Hive? That’s what you call yourself? Well, Bugsy, if you ever try to feel me up like that again, I’ll kill you. Okay?”
The woman’s hand vanished in a burst of concentrated flame like a blowtorch and then popped back. She smiled, eyes hard, nodded once, and went back to her seat.
Jonathan turned back to Joe Twitch.
“Oops,” Twitch said.
“Yeah. Oops,” Jonathan agreed.
“You get that often?”
“What? Death threats?”
“Bugsy.”
“Oh, that. Yeah.”
Posted Today 12:18 pm
AMERICAN HERO | EXCITED | “AMERICAN IDIOT”—GREEN DAY
Well, it’s official. I’m in. It’s almost midnight, but this isn’t getting posted until tomorrow sometime. As part of the deal with the network, I’m letting a guy in the legal department vet my blog posts while I’m on the show. Everyone wave to Kenny! (Hi, Kenny!)
[ED: Hi everyone—Kenny]
I’ve just gotten back from the getting-to-know-all-about-you party with my teammates. Chateau Marmont. Very John Belushi-died-here Hollywood chic. All the contestants were present, and there’s twenty-eight of us, so grab your scorecards, kids. It’s gonna be a bumpy ride.
I sat next to the Candle, whose ace powers appear to involve looking like his hair’s on fire, across from the fattest woman I’ve met in recent memory—the Amazing Bubbles. I’m told that she stores kinetic energy as fat, and was apparently dragged behind a Cadillac before coming to the party, because, oh, my, God. The only one bigger than her was a Southern Baptist preacher in a bariatric wheelchair who calls himself Holy Roller and weighs in at six-hundred-some pounds. Neither of them turn out to be on my team, so I’m just hoping some of the challenges we’re facing involve getting into an elevator.
(On a personal note: Yes, Grandpa, Jetman made it on, and your cap lock key’s stuck again. Ask Gramma to fix it for you.)
After serving us dinner and recording all our conversations and interviewing each of us separately, we got assigned to teams. It wasn’t quite the Sorting Hat, but it had some of that feel. Big ramp-up by Peregrine to
each announcement, clapping, cheering, smiles—everyone has a drink, and then the next one up. By the end we were all pretty tipsy, so I imagine we made total assholes of ourselves, pouting and preening for the cameras. Frankly, I was too drunk to remember the details. I’ll just have to catch it when it broadcasts, same as the rest of you.
I’ve been assigned to Hearts because God forbid the media ever do anything with the wild card virus that isn’t a pun. There are three other teams: Diamonds, Clubs, and Spades. We all hugged and learned and grew and pledged to work together as a team until it stops being convenient.
Then we all piled into a limo and rode to our new secret lair. I shit you not. Secret lair.
It’s an old mansion all tricked out to make Big Brother cream himself. Cameras everywhere but the bathrooms (and no bets that there aren’t a couple undocumented features there, too) and a little confessional where we get to gossip and backbite to our dearest, closest confidant: everyone in the freaking world.
Let me introduce the contestants, Johnny. Team Hearts is:
Drummer Boy—aka Michael Vogali. Yes,
that
Drummer Boy. Percussionist for Joker Plague, seven-foot ohmigod, six arms, more tattoos than a biker’s convention. He spent the whole dinner signing autographs and chatting up an ace who everyone called Pop Tart, but not to her face. Since I don’t listen to Joker Plague and I’m not a thirteen-year-old fangirl, I was unaware that he has six built-in tympanic regions on his chest. Yes, he is his own drum set.
Wild Fox—aka Andrew Yamauchi. Nice enough fella. Apparently can do something with illusions that’s all very thematically appropriate if you know a lot more
about Japanese mythology than I do. He’ll be easy to identify when you watch the show. He’s the one with the great big poofy fox tail. Seriously. He has a tail.
Curveball—aka Kate Brandt. Nice-looking girl next door. Anything she throws, she can not only control in flight but detonate on impact. She was showing off a little at the dinner and wound up exploding a water pitcher with a grain of rice. She may have been just an ee-tinsey bit drunk. In all fairness, though, she’s pretty cute when she’s drunk.
Earth Witch—aka Ana Cortez. Another of our carefully ethnically diverse team with, sex-appealwise, a lovely personality and great sense of humor, I’m sure. She can dig holes in the ground with her mind. Yes, I’m not making this up. One of our superheroes is a ditch digger of Mexican extraction. I’m not sure how this got by the Hollywood liberal politically correct establishment, but I think it’s funny as hell. No disrespect intended; some of my best friends are vicious racial stereotypes.
Hardhat—aka Todd “T.T.” Taszycki. Lest we be accused of not having some good old salt-of-the-earth, blue-collar types, there’s Todd. A lifelong construction worker, Todd can create temporary girders with his mind. I’m not sure how he’s going to play on the tube, since I haven’t heard him speak a single sentence yet that was fit for broadcast. Anyone who thinks of the network as “a damn friendly bunch of cocksuckers” is okay by me. (Hey, Kenny, can we say “cocksuckers” on the Internet?)
Gardener—aka Jerusha Carter. She plants things. They grow. Gardener, get it?
And, of course, myself.
Now for the predictions:
First one out is going to be Gardener. Be serious.
“Stop, foul villain, or I shall carpet your lawn with giant daffodils!” How useful is that?
Drummer Boy is also going to be out within the first round or two. The guy’s a rock star. One little thing to tweak his ego, and he’s outta here.
And for evil team dynamics, keep your eye on Earth Witch versus Curveball. Earth Witch isn’t the kind of girl that gets asked out to the dance, and Curveball… well, like the poet said, everyone has a secret hatred for the prettiest girl in the room.
There’s gonna be blood. Count on it.
80 COMMENTS | POST COMMENT
REBECCA LIEBERMAN
from: Becca
to: Michael Berman
re:
American Hero
promo copy
Hey, Mike.
Here’s the promotional copy and head shots for the
American Hero
print campaign, for your approval. Please get your tweaks and changes back to me by the 17th. Thanks. (There’s two head shots for Tiffani, you’ll notice, one normal and one where she’s gone diamond. Let me know which one you want to use. Oh, and Alan wants to tint Toad Man green in his head shot, though it’s my understanding that he’s only green as a toad. What do you say?)
There will be four broadsheets, one for each team. We’ll be slapping them on buses in the top twenty media markets, as well as the El in Chicago, the NYC subway, and most major airports. We’ll also be using them as full-page ads in
People, Us, Entertainment Weekly, Daily Variety, Hollywood Reporter, Aces, TV Guide, Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair, Parade
, and assorted Sunday supplements. If Drummer Boy survives the first few cuts and makes a good run, I might be able to get him the cover of
Rolling Stone
as well.
We’re also planning a major giveaway of promotional T-shirts the week that
AH
premieres. Each shirt will have the picture of a contestant on the front, with the team slogan and emblem on the back. The idea is one to a customer, so we can track the demand and get a better idea which contestants are most popular. And the deal with Burger King’s about to close, so we’ll also have a line of special promotional cups. Be the first kid on your block to collect all twenty-eight. We’ll be tracking those, too.
Plus, we’re lining up some regional media in the home markets of each contestant—print features, local television, etc. When the time is right,
Maxim
and
Playboy
have both expressed interest in doing photo spreads on some of our female contestants.
Maxim
has Jade Blossom at the top of their list, but Hef
wants Curveball. Must be that whole girl-next-door thing. Maybe you could have Peregrine talk to her.
Playboy
worked for Peri once upon a time. I think my father still has the centerfold hanging in the garage. (No one seems to want Toad Man or Holy Roller to take off their clothes, can’t think why.) So, take a look and shoot these back to me ASAP.
luv,
Becca
