Wild Cards V (85 page)

“For what?” Kien's voice grated out like rusty machinery starting after years of neglect.

“To warn you. I am a bad enemy to make,” the alien said brightly, and spread jam on a croissant.

“What do you want?”

“First, to demonstrate how easily I can take your mind and compel you to do anything. Second, to make it clear to you that Jokertown is
my
territory, and third, to reach a truce.”

“Truce?”

“I have my own interests to pursue, just as you have yours. Yours include prostitution and numbers running and the drug trade, but they will
not
include protection rackets and extortion and gun battles in my streets. I want my people safe.”

Kien's eyes slid to Brennan. “Is this trained jackal yours?”

“Oh, no, he too has his own interests to pursue.”

Brennan's gray eyes stared implacably into Kien's black ones. “I'm coming for you, Kien.”

Tachyon smiled. “You have people who can kill me from the shadows. I have people who can do the same to you. Stalemate.”

“You won't interfere with my business?”

“No.” Tachyon sighed. “I suppose it shows a distressing lack of morality on my part, but I am not a crusader. Men will still crave women, and women will sell themselves to satisfy those cravings, and drugs will be sold and consumed. We are, alas, not angels. But I insist on peace in my streets.” Tachyon lost his light, bantering tone. “There will be no more children dying in senseless gun battles in Jokertown. And my clinic and my patients will be safe.”

“What about Jane Dow?”

“That chip is not up for discussion in this negotiation, Mr. Phuc.”

Kien shrugged. “All right.”

“Are we agreed?”

“I agree to your terms.”

Tachyon grinned. “You should never plan a double cross in the presence of a telepath. Brennan, kill him.” The Vietnamese blanched.

“Wait, no wait, wait!”

“All right, let us try it again.
Are we agreed?
”

“Not quite,” Kien ground out. He stared at Brennan, who returned his gaze levelly. “I received a message from you some time ago.” Brennan nodded. “This is my reply.” Hate and fury laid a rough edge on the man's voice, and he pointed his half-hand at Brennan as if it were a weapon. “If you persist in annoying me, if, as you say, you bring me down, then I will have nothing left to live for. And then, I swear to you, this Wraith, this Jennifer Maloy, will die. Back off, Captain Brennan. Back off and leave me in peace or she
will
die. This is
my
promise to
you.
”

Tachyon looked from Kien to Brennan. The archer's face was as hard and unyielding as a clenched fist.

“You weary me,” snapped Tachyon. “Your threats weary me. Go!”

And he sent the Vietnamese and his jackal Wyrm trotting back into the building.

Tachyon was feeling pretty jaunty when he returned to the clinic. He paused to gleefully pat each stone lion, then trotted up the stairs. Croyd couldn't remain awake much longer. Surely his contagion power would fade in the next transformation. Kien was, for the moment, neutralized. Of course the Vietnamese would go back on his word, but perhaps by then Brennan would have achieved his goal, and Kien would no longer be a problem.

Tachyon headed into the basement and shut off the elaborate series of electronic locks that protected his private laboratory. It was here he manufactured the drug for Angelface and pursued his research for a perfected trump virus.

It was force of habit that drove him to draw blood and begin the XVTA-test. He was obviously fine. The Ideal and the percentages had been with him last night.

He slipped the slide into the electron microscope, focused, and read his fate in the tangled web of the wild card.

With a cry he swept a tray of slides and test tubes onto the floor. Beat his fists on the table, screaming out denial.

Calm, calm! Stress could trigger the virus.

Quietly he righted his stool, sat with folded hands, and considered. If it manifested, he would most likely die. Acceptable. He might become a joker. Unacceptable. The trump? A last resort.

Jane!

The irony of an impotent man being saved through sex struck him, and he laughed. When he realized they grew from hysteria, not humor, he stifled the wild whoops.

And the future?

Search for Jane. Remove as much stress as possible from his life. Go on living. The house Ilkazam did not breed cowards.

And most important:
Blaise.

The boy was all he had now. His blood and seed were poisoned. There would be no other children.

 

Concerto for Siren and Serotonin

VIII

AGAIN THEY WERE AFTER
him. If you can't even trust your doctor, he wondered, who can you trust? The sirens' wails were almost a steady sheet of sound now.

He hurled chunks of concrete, broke streetlights, and dashed from alley to doorway. He crouched within parked cars. He watched the choppers go by, listening to the steady
phut-phut
of their blades. Every now and then he heard parts of appeals over some loudspeaker or other. They were talking to him, lying to him, asking him to turn himself in. He chuckled. That would be the day.

Was it all Tachy's fault again? An image flashed before his mind's eye, of Jetboy's small plane darting like a tiny fish among great, grazing whales there in the half-clouded sky of an afternoon. Back when it all began. What had ever happened to Joe Sarzanno?

He smelled smoke. Why did things always get burned in times of trouble? He rubbed his temples and yawned. Automatically he sought in his pocket after a pill, but there was nothing there. He tore open the door to a Coke machine before a darkened service station, broke into the coin box, then fed quarters back into the mechanism, collected a Coke for either hand, and walked away sipping.

After a time he found himself standing before the Jokertown Dime Museum, wanting to go inside and realizing that the place was closed.

He stood undecided for perhaps ten seconds. Then a siren sounded nearby. Probably just around the corner. He moved forward, snapped the lock, and entered. He left the price of admission on the little desk to his left and as an afterthought, tossed in something for the lock.

He sat on a bench for a while, watching shadows. Every now and then he rose, strolled, and returned. He saw again the golden butterfly, poised as if about to depart from the golden monkey wrench, both of them transmuted by the short-lived ace called Midas. He looked again at the jars of joker fetuses, and at a buckled section of a metal door bearing Devil John's hoofprint.

He walked among the Great Events in Wild Card History dioramas pressing the button over and over again at the Earth vs. Swarm display. Each time that he hit it, Modular Man fired his laser at a Swarm monster. Then he located one that made the statue of the Howler scream.…

It was not until his final Coke was down to its last swallow that he noticed the diminutive human skin, stuffed, displayed in a case. He pressed nearer, squinting, and read the card that identified it as having been found in an alley. He sucked in his breath as the recognition hit him.

“Poor Gimli,” he said. “Who could have done this to you? And where are your insides? My stomach turns at it. Where are your wisecracks now? Go to Barnett, tell him to preach till all hell freezes. In the end it'll be his hide, too.”

He turned away. He yawned again. His limbs were heavy. Rounding a corner, he beheld three metal shells, suspended by long cables in the middle of the air. He halted and regarded them, realizing immediately what they were.

On a whim he leaped and slapped the nearest of the three—an armor-plated VW body. It rang all about him and swayed slightly on its moorings, and he sprang a second time and slapped it again before another yawning jag seized him.

“Have shell, will travel,” he muttered. “Always safe in there, weren't you, Turtle—so long as you didn't stick your neck out?”

He began to chuckle again, then stopped as he turned to the one he remembered most vividly—the sixties model—and he could not reach high enough to trace the peace symbol on its side, but “‘Make love, not war,'” he read, the motto painted into a flower-form mandala. “Shit, tell that to the guys trying to kill me.

“Always wondered what it looked like inside,” he added, and he leaped and hooked his fingers over the edge and drew himself upward.

The vehicle swayed but held his weight easily. In a minute he was sequestered within.

“Ah, sweet claustrophobia!” he sighed. “It
does
feel safe. I could…”

He closed his eyes. After a time he shimmered faintly.

 

“What Rough Beast…”

by Leanne C. Harper

BAGABOND LOOKED DOWN AT
her friend Jack Robicheaux. The transformations were coming more slowly now and lasting longer. Right now he was human, and he would probably remain human for the next several days. She had spent some time wondering if she was partially to blame for his continuous transformations. Jack had known he could only communicate with her as an alligator. Even in his coma it was possible that he had realized that he had to change to tell her about Cordelia.

She looked up to catch C.C.'s gaze and shrugged. “I know I promised to stop feeling guilty. I'm going to miss him.”

Both women looked up as Cordelia entered the hospital room.

“Good news, guys. Dr. Tacky says that Jack may be getting a little better. He's not sure, but he thinks that the time that Jack has been spending as a 'gator may be killing the virus.” Cordelia crossed the hospital room to Jack's bed and leaned down to kiss him on the lips. “So there,
Oncle.
Don't you give up on me now.”

C.C. Ryder and Bagabond exchanged surprised glances over Cordelia's head. Bagabond allowed a smile to sneak onto her face, camouflaged by the tangled hair.

The red-haired singer took Bagabond's hand. “Told ya so.”

“What? Never mind. Y'all speak in shorthand anyway. Worse'n Cajuns. When are y'all leaving?” Cordelia stood by Jack's head, looking down as if she could see inside him.

“Plane leaves tomorrow. I dropped the itinerary off at your office this morning. So, if there's any change, you can get in touch immediately.” C.C. looked up at her friend. “Suzanne will want to know right away.”

“Do they have phones in Guatemala?”

“Yes, Cordelia.” C.C. sighed.

“Bring me back an Indian?” Cordelia held her uncle's hand, but she grinned up disarmingly at Bagabond and C.C.

“We're going to help them, not arrange American wives.”

“Who said anyt'ing about marriage?” Cordelia's quicksilver emotions turned serious. “Bagabond, I'll take care of him. I promise. I know you don't think much of me sometimes, but—”

“Just need to grow up. Don't make promises to yourself or anybody else that you can't keep. The world doesn't need any more saints.” Cordelia blushed. Bagabond looked straight into the eyes of the younger woman. “'Sides, you don't think I'm going to leave Jack unguarded, do you?”