Wild Cards V (62 page)

Count to three and you'll be free.
A small movement caught her eye; on the curb a squirrel was staring up at her with bright, curious little eyes. She swallowed openmouthed again and counted without hurrying.

One. Two. Three.

Her fingers squeezed the trigger. Absurdly, Sal's voice spoke in her mind.
Hey, cara mia,
now
what the hell you doin'
?

In the total silence of the street the click was deafening.

Misfire.

She sank down to the pavement, and the warm dark tide of the fever covered her over.

She was in a soft realm of many colors. They came and went, conversing in human voices, sometimes speaking directly to her. She couldn't answer; this wasn't her realm, she was just waiting here. Besides, they said such funny things. Things like,
The coma is unmistakable, it doesn't happen that way to all of them, but when it does, we know what it is
, and
Why don't we just put her in a bathtub and be done with it. The way the water's pouring off her, her skin will rot before she has a chance to die
, and oddest of all,
Jane, why couldn't I have helped. I should not have let my fatigue cause me to fail you.
That was the brightest color, an extraordinary shade of red, sometimes with bright yellow accents.

A little later all the colors went away (
Unplug the machines and get them out of here, she's not going to wake up
), and there was only peace for a while. Then, somewhere far away, a phone rang. It's for you, someone said, and she imagined that meant her.

Jane. It's time.

She roused to a strange, soft awareness that reminded her of a lucid dream. The voice that had spoken sounded familiar. That you, Sal? I've been looking all over for you. Where are you?

Never mind that now. It's time.

Time for what, Sal?

Time for you to get up. There's something very important you have to do. Come on now, open your eyes and get out of bed.

She sat up, looking around. Tachyon's clinic; how had she ended up back here? she wondered.

Don't worry about that. You have to hurry.

All right, Sal.

She slipped out of bed and padded across the room to the door barefoot. Just at the doorway she turned to look back at the bed. There was a pale shape on the mattress, slowly fading away like trick photography.

Was that me, Sal?

It was you. It isn't you anymore. Go down the hall. Quickly now, there's no time to lose.

She seemed to float down the hall, her bare toes just a few inches above the cold floor. It was a great way to travel, she thought. Being dead had a lot to recommend it in the comfort department.

You're not dead.

She accepted that with equanimity. It didn't seem to be worth arguing about.

This door. On your right. Go into that room.

She wafted into the room and hovered next to one of the two beds, looking down at the occupant. Once she might have found his appearance frightening and pitiable. Now she looked down at him with complete and rational calm, taking in the sight of the enormous head on the pillow, cratered like the moon, except each crater was filled with an eye, most of them open. They watched her just as calmly, or so it seemed.

A small hole near one of the craters opened, and she heard a whistle of breath. “Who are you? Are you a doctor?”

Listen very carefully, because I have to leave now and you must remember this.

She felt a small pang of fear. Leaving me again? Do you have to?

Yes. But I am leaving you with a gift. It's a very important gift. It's a gift that Croyd gave you.

What is it?

You'll find out.

Something in the soft air around her changed, and she knew she was alone with the joker.

Acting without her volition, her hand pulled the sheet back, exposing the rest of the joker's body, which was cratered with more eyes, almost all over. They seemed to be forming as she watched. She would have to work fast so as not to hurt him.

She climbed onto the mattress next to him and smiled. One area, fortunately, had been spared so far, and it was there that she began, moving with gentleness.

“Lady, what the hell are you doing?”

She couldn't answer him, but it wasn't necessary. Certainly he could see very well what she was doing.

“Hammond. Hey, Hammond! Wake up! Tell me this isn't a dream!”

She ignored the sounds from the next bed, ignored everything except the task at hand, except
task
was entirely the wrong word for it. Loving someone was not a
task.
Loving someone could perform miracles.

She felt his hands moving carefully on her, felt him quiver with pain. The eyes. How they all must hurt when anything touches him, she thought, and wondered who had been so thoughtless as to cover him with a sheet. Perhaps they'd just been waiting for him to die; this was the terminal ward, after all.

“Don't worry,” she told him. “I'll do it all.”

“Do anything you like!” he said, and groaned with enjoyment as he felt her enfold him.

It was different when it was love, she thought happily. When it was love, there was no pain, no shame; of course. When it was love, you wanted to heal the other person of all hurts. And when it was love, that was really possible.

She smoothed her hands over his chest and laid her head down on it to listen to his heartbeat. His arms went around her, and she could feel the new strength in them as they rocked together. Next to this, Ti Malice was a sad, sorry imitation of a kiss.

And with that thought, she realized that the terrible void within her had vanished and she was free. She rose up and gave a shout of joy.

A roomful of voices answered her.

It was like a switch being thrown—suddenly she was awake,
really
awake, and she realized she was straddling a man in a hospital bed, a perfectly normal man with two, only two, green eyes, and sandy hair, who was looking up at her with a beatific smile on his young, plain face.

“Lady,” he said, “
this
is what I call
medication
!”

She twisted around and saw that the room behind her was filled with jokers of every variety, and among them, forcibly restrained, were two nurses and a doctor.

They broke loose from their captors and rushed the bed, pulling her off and examining the man.

“I saw it, but I don't believe it!”

“Right before my very eyes—”

“I thought this one was already dead—”

“Who are you? What room are you in?”

She backed away from their questions, into the waiting arms of the jokers. A misshapen man whose features had been scrambled thrust his distorted face into hers and demanded, “Can I be next?”

“No,
me
!” shouted someone else, and then hands were grabbing at her, pulling her every which way, trying to throw her down on the floor.

“
SAL!
” she screamed.

The room was suddenly filled with fog, and then a wall of water crashed through the door, slapping them all down. Jane let it carry her across the room, onto the ex-joker's bed. She rolled into the headboard and slipped down to the floor. More fog poured into the room as she crawled around the confused, shouting, drenched mob splashing about in the ankle-deep water, and she fled through the open doorway.

By the time the alarms went off, she had already left the building.

The luncheonette was a far cry from Aces High, and the clientele didn't tip nearly as well, but they didn't expect a whole lot. Most of them hardly looked at her—a waitress with a short, punkish haircut and an ill-fitting, baggy white uniform wasn't especially noteworthy in that part of town. The owner was a big motherly woman named Giselle who called her Lamb and asked nothing more of her help than their being on time and trying to remember any good jokes they overheard from the customers. Giselle collected jokes, and the regulars were always happy to supply them.

Like the two-headed man who came in every Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday morning for a bacon-and-egg sandwich. He/they always had a new one to offer.

“Hey, have you heard the latest?” he/they said as she was setting the dish down in front of him/them. “There's good news and there's better news.”

She smiled at each head politely. The two-headed man was one/two of the better tippers.

“The good news is, there's this woman that can turn you back into a nat by screwing you!”

Her smile froze, but he/they didn't seem to notice.

“You know what the
better
news is?”

She shook her head, unable to speak.

“She's really good-looking!” Both heads roared with laughter, accidentally bonking into each other. She tried to laugh with them, but she couldn't manage even a mild ha-ha-ha. The heads sobered and looked up at her, slightly disappointed in her lack of reaction. “Hey, we guess you gotta be a joker—”

“—to really appreciate it,” finished the other head, and giggled a little more.

“It's—it's very good, really,” she said in a too-cheery voice. “I'll have to remember to tell it to Giselle when she comes in. I don't think she's heard it yet.”

“Well, don't forget—”

“—to tell her where—”

“—you heard it first!”

“I won't,” she said, still smiling her frozen smile at each head. “I won't forget. I promise.”

 

Takedown

by Leanne C. Harper

ROSEMARY STARED OUT INTO
the spring rain. Gray and dirty, outside it looked more like winter. Chris Mazzucchelli droned on in the background. Christ, how had she ever gotten involved with a jerk like him? Living underground with him had shown her the difference between dealing with Chris on an occasional basis and being together nearly twenty-four hours a day. He was no longer a romantic rebel in her eyes; he was a vicious punk. The problem was he was
her
vicious punk.

She returned her attention to the crisis at hand, but her eyes were immediately caught by the sight of Chris's rattail bouncing up and down on his back as he paced the dingy little Alphabet City hotel room they were using as a safe house.

“We lost eight capos to this double cross. Fiore, Baldacci, Schiaparelli, Hancock, and
my brother.
Dead. Vince Schiaparelli looked like he had been turned inside out. Fiore's skin turned into stone and he choked to death. Hancock and Baldacci weren't there anymore—just puddles with bones sticking out. My brother—” Here even he gagged and hesitated. “Three more, worse than dead. Matriona and Cheng walked away. They're fine, just
fine.
Since then we've been able to do nothing more than stay even, if that.”

“And what did we get? Siu Ma. We already knew about her. We've tried to kidnap her twice, for Christ's sake. We know who's behind the Immaculate Egrets. But we still don't know who the ultimate leader is.” Rosemary Gambione shook her head. “Even if Croyd knew something truly useful, they didn't get it out of him. Great. The Shadow Fists must have gotten to him.
We
hit a few more Shadow Fist operations, lose some more of our people, and we're just as far away as ever. Even worse, they've started using some kind of biological warfare against us. I wonder whose side this Croyd is really on.”