Martin,George R.R. - Wildcards 04 - Aces Abroad

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Wildcards IV: Aces AbroadAces Abroad

Book 4 of Wildcards

Edited by George R.R. Martin

ISBN: 0-553-27628-X

THE TINT OF HATRED

Stephen Leigh

Prologue

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 1986, WASHINGTON, DC:

The Sony threw flickering light over Sara's Thanksgiving feast: a Swanson turkey

dinner steaming in foil on the coffee table. On the television screen a mob of

misshapen jokers marched through a sweltering New York summer afternoon, their

mouths moving in silent screams and curses. The grainy scene had the jerky look

of an old newsreel, and suddenly the picture swung about to show a handsome man

in his mid-thirties, his sleeves rolled up, his suit coat slung over a shoulder

and his tie loose on his neck-Senator Gregg Hartmann, as he had been in 1976.

Hartmann strode through the police lines blockading the jokers, shrugging away

the security men who tried to hold him, shouting at the police himself. Alone,

he stood between the authorities and the oncoming crowd of jokers, motioning

them back.

Then the camera panned toward a disturbance within the ranks of jokers. The

images were jumbled and out of focus: at the center was the ace/prostitute known

as Succubus, her body seemingly made of quicksilver flesh, her appearance

constantly shifting. The wild card had cursed her with sexual empathy. Succubus

could take on whatever shape and form most pleased her clients, but that ability

was now out of control. Around her, people responded to her power, grasping out

for her with a strange lust on their faces. Her mouth was open in an imploring

scream as the pursuing crowd, police and jokers both, bore her down. Her arms

were stretched out in supplication, and as the camera panned back, there was

Hartmann again, his jaw open in surprise as he gaped at Succubus. Her arms were

reaching for him, her plea was for him. Then she was gone under the mob. For

several seconds she was buried, lost. But then the crowd drew back in horror.

The camera followed Hartmann closer: he shoved through those around Succubus,

angrily pushed them away.

Sara reached for the VCR's remote switch. She touched the pause button, freezing

the scene, a moment of time that had shaped her life. She could feel the hot

tears streaking her face.

Succubus lay twisted in a pool of blood, her body mangled, her face turned

upward as Hartmann stared at her, mirroring Sara's horror.

Sara knew the face that Succubus, whoever she might have really been, had found

just before death. Those young features had haunted Sara since

childhood-Succubus had taken on Andrea Whitman's face.

Sara's older sister's face. Andrea who, at thirteen, had been brutally murdered

in 1950.

Sara knew who had kept that pubescent image of Andrea locked away in his mind

for so many years. She knew who had placed Andrea's features on the infinitely

malleable body of Succubus. She could imagine that face on Succubus as he lay

with her, and that thought hurt Sara most of all.

"You bastard," Sara whispered to Senator Hartmann, her voice choking. "You

goddamn bastard. You killed my sister and you couldn't even let her stay dead."

FROM THE JOURNAL OF XAVIER DESMOND

NOVEMBER 30/JOKERTOWN:

My name is Xavier Desmond, and I am a joker.

Jokers are always strangers, even on the street where they were born, and this

one is about to visit a number of strange lands. In the next five months I will

see veldts and mountains, Rio and Cairo, the Khvber Pass and the Straits of

Gibraltar, the Outback and the Champs-Elysees--all very far from home for a man

who has often been called the mayor of Jokertown. Jokertown, of course, has no

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mayor. It is a neighborhood, a ghetto neighborhood at that, and not a city.

Jokertown is more than a place though. It is a condition, a state of mind.

Perhaps in that sense my title is not undeserved.

I have been a joker since the beginning. Forty years ago, when Jetboy died in

the skies over Manhattan and loosed the wild card upon the world, I was

twenty-nine years of age, an investment banker with a lovely wife, a

two-year-old daughter, and a bright future ahead of me. A month later, when I

was finally released from the hospital, I was a monstrosity with a pink

elephantine trunk growing from the center of my face where my nose had been.

There are seven perfectly functional fingers at the end of my trunk, and over

the years I have become quite adept with this "third hand." Were I suddenly

restored to so-called normal humanity, I believe it would be as traumatic as if

one of my limbs were amputated. With my trunk I am ironically somewhat more than

human ... and infinitely less.

My lovely wife left me within two weeks of my release from the hospital, at

approximately the same time that Chase Manhattan informed me that my services

would no longer be required. I moved to Jokertown nine months later, following

my eviction from my Riverside Drive apartment for "health reasons." I last saw

my daughter in 1948. She was married in June of 1964, divorced in 1969,

remarried in June of 1972.

She has a fondness for June weddings, it seems. I was invited to neither of

them. The private detective I hired informs me that she and her husband now live

in Salem, Oregon, and that I have two grandchildren, a boy and a girl, one from

each marriage. I sincerely doubt that either knows that their grandfather is the

mayor of Jokertown.

I am the founder and president emeritus of the jokers' Anti-Defamation League,

or JADL, the oldest and largest organization dedicated to the preservation of

civil rights for the victims of the wild card virus. The JADL has had its

failures, but overall it has accomplished great good. I am also a moderately

successful businessman. I own one of New York's most storied and elegant

nightclubs, the Funhouse, where jokers and nats and aces have enjoyed all the

top joker cabaret acts for more than two decades. The Funhouse has been losing

money steadily for the last five years, but no one knows that except me and my

accountant. I keep it open because it is, after all, the Funhouse, and were it

to close, Jokertown would seem a poorer place.

Next month I will be seventy years of age.

My doctor tells me that I will not live to be seventy-one. The cancer had

already metastasized before it was diagnosed. Even jokers cling stubbornly to

life, and I have been doing the chemotherapy and the radiation treatments for

half a year now, but the cancer shows no sign of remission.

My doctor tells me the trip I am about to embark on will probably take months

off my life. I have my prescriptions and will dutifully continue to take the

pills, but when one is globe-hopping, radiation therapy must be forgone. I have

accepted this.

Mary and I often talked of a trip around the world, in those days before the

wild card when we were young and in love. I could never have dreamt that I would

finally take that trip without her, in the twilight of my life, and at

government expense, as a delegate on a fact-finding mission organized and funded

by the Senate Committee on Ace Resources and Endeavors, under the official

sponsorship of the United Nations and the World Health Organization. We will

visit every continent but Antarctica and call upon thirty-nine different

countries (some only for a few hours), and our official charge is to investigate

the treatment of wild card victims in cultures around the world.

There are twenty-one delegates, only five of whom are jokers. I suppose my

selection is a great honor, recognition of my achievements and my status as a

community leader. I believe I have my good friend Dr. Tachyon to thank for it.

But then, I have my good friend Dr. Tachyon to thank for a great many things.

THE TINT OF HATRED

Part One

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MONDAY, DECEMBER 1, 1986, SYRIA:

A chill, arid wind blew from the mountains of the Jabal Alawite across the lava

rock and gravel desert of Badiyat Ash-sham. The wind snapped the canvas peaks of

the tents huddled around the village. The gale made those in the market pull the

sashes of their robes tighter against the cold. Under the beehive roof of the

largest of the mud-brick buildings, a stray gust caused the flame to gutter

against the bottom of an enameled teapot.

A small woman, swathed in the chador, the black Islamic garb, poured tea into

two small cups. Except for a row of bright blue beads on the headpiece, she wore

no ornamentation. She passed one of the cups to the other person in the room, a

raven-haired man of medium height, whose skin glowed a shimmering, lambent

emerald under a brocaded robe of azure. She could feel the warmth radiating from

him.

"It will be colder for the next several days, Najib," she said as she sipped the

piercingly sweet tea. "You'll be more comfortable at least."

Najib shrugged as if her words meant nothing. His lips tightened; his dark,

intense gaze snared her. "It's Allah's presence that gleams," he said, his voice

gruff with habitual arrogance. "You've never heard me complain, Misha, even in

the heat of summer. Do you think me a woman, wailing my futile misery to the

sky?"

Above the veils, Misha's eyes narrowed. "I am Kahina, the Seer, Najib," she

answered, allowing a hint of defiance into her voice. "I know many hidden

things. I know that when the heat ripples over the stones, my brother Najib

wishes that he were not Nur al-Allah, the Light of Allah." Najib's sudden

backhanded cuff caught his sister across the side of her face. Her head snapped

sideways. Scalding hot tea burned her hand and wrist; the cup shattered on the

rugs as she sprawled at his feet. His eyes, utter black against the luminescent

face, glared at her as she raised her hand to her stinging cheek. She knew she

dared say no more. On her knees she gathered up the shards of the teacup in

silence, mopping at the puddle of tea with the hem of her robe.

"Sayyid came to me this morning," Najib said as he watched her. "He was

complaining again. He says you are not a proper wife."

"Sayyid is a fatted pig," Misha answered, though she did not look .up.

"He says he must force himself on you."

"He doesn't need to do so for me."

Najib scowled, making a sound of disgust. "Pah! Sayyid leads my army. It is his

strategy that will sweep the kafir back into the sea. Allah has given him the

body of a god and the mind of a conqueror, and he is obedient to me. That's why

I gave you to him. The Qur'an says it: `Men have authority over women because

Allah has made the one superior to the other. Good women are obedient.' You make

-a mockery of Nur al-Allah's gift."

"Nur al-Allah shouldn't have given away that which completes him." Now her eyes

came up, challenging him as her tiny hands closed over the pottery shards. "We

were together in the womb, Brother. That's the way Allah made us. He touched you

with His light and His voice, and He gave me the gift of His sight. You are His

mouth, the prophet; I am your vision of the future. Don't be so foolish as to

blind yourself. Your pride will defeat you."

"Then listen to the words of Allah and be humble. Be glad that Sayyid does not

insist on purdah for you-he knows you're Kahina, so he doesn't force your

seclusion. Our father should never have sent you to Damascus to be educated; the

infection of the unbelievers is insidious. Misha, make Sayyid content because

that will content me. My will is Allah's will."

"Only sometimes, Brother..." She paused. Her gaze went distant, her fingers

clenched. She cried out as porcelain lacerated her palm. Blood drooled bright

along the shallow cuts. Misha swayed, moaning, and then her gaze focused once

more.

Najib moved a step closer to her. "What is it? What did you see?"

Misha cradled her injured hand to her breast, her pupils wide with pain. "All

that ever matters is that which touches yourself, Najib. It doesn't matter that

I hurt or that I hate my husband or that Najib and his sister Misha have been

lost in Allah's roles for them. All that matters is what the Kahina can tell Nur

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al-Allah."

"Woman..." Najib began warningly. His voice had a compelling deepness now, a

timbre that brought Misha's head up and made her open her mouth to begin to

speak, to obey without thinking. She shivered as if the wind outside had touched

her.

"Don't use the gift on me, Najib," she said gratingly. Her voice sounded harsh

against that of her brother. "I'm not a supplicant. Compel me too often with

Allah's tongue and you might one day find that Allah's eyes have been taken from

you by my own hand."

"Then be Kahina, Sister," Najib answered, but it was only his own voice now. He

watched as she went to an inlaid chest, took out a strip of cloth, and slowly

wrapped her hand. "Tell me what you just saw. Was it the vision of the jihad?

Did you see me holding the Caliph's scepter again?" Misha shut her eyes,

bringing back the image of the quick waking dream. "No," she told him. "This was

new. In the distance I saw a falcon against the sun. As the bird flew closer, I

noticed that it held a hundred,people squirming in its talons. A giant stood

below on a mountain, and the giant held a bow in his hands. He loosed an arrow

at the bird, and the wounded falcon screamed in anger. The voices of those it

held screamed also. The giant had nocked a second arrow, but now the bow began

to twist in his hands, and the arrow instead struck the giant's own breast. I

saw the giant fall. . . ." Misha's eyes opened. "That's all."

Najib scowled. He passed a glowing hand over his eyes. "What does it mean?"

" I don't know what it means. Allah gives me the dreams, but not always the

understanding. Perhaps the giant is Sayyid-"

"It was only your own dream, not Allah's." Najib stalked away from her, and she

knew that he was angry. "I'm the falcon, holding the faithful," he said. "You

are the giant, large because you belong to Sayyid, who is also large. Allah

would remind you of the consequence of defiance." He faced away from Misha,

closing the shutters of the window against the brilliant desert sun. Outside the

muzzein called from the village mosque: "A shhadu allaa alaha illa llah"-Allah

is great. I bear witness that there is no God but Allah.

"All you want is your conquest, the dream of the jihad. You want to be the new

Muhammad," Misha answered spitefully. "You won't accept any other

interpretation."

"In sha'allah," Najib answered: if Allah wills. He refused to face her. "Some

people Allah has visited with His dreadful Scourge, showing their sins with

their rotting, twisted flesh. Others, like Sayyid, Allah has favored, gifting

them. Each has been given his due. He has chosen me to lead the faithful. I only

do what I must do--I have Sayyid, who guides my armies, and I fight also with

the hidden ones like alMuezzin. You lead too. You are Kahina, and you are also

Fqihas, the one the women look to for guidance."

The Light of Allah turned back into the room. In the shuttered dimness he was a

spectral presence. "And as I do Allah's will, you must do mine."

MONDAY, DECEMBER 1, 1986, NEW YORK:

The press reception was chaos.

Senator Gregg Hartmann finally escaped to an empty corner behind one of the

Christmas trees, his wife Ellen and his aide John Werthen following. Gregg

surveyed the room with a distinct frown. He shook his head toward the justice

Department ace Billy Ray-Carnifex-and the government security man who tried to

join them, waving them back.

Gregg had spent the last hour fending off reporters, smiling blankly for video

cameras, and blinking into the constant storm lightning of electronic flashes.

The room was noisy with shouted questions and the click-whirr of highspeed

Nikons. Musak played seasonal tunes over the ceiling speakers.

The main press contigent was now gathered around Dr. Tachyon, Chrysalis, and

Peregrine. Tachyon's scarlet hair gleamed like a beacon in the crowd; Peregrine

and Chrysalis seemed to be competing to see who could pose most provocatively

for the cameras. Nearby, Jack Braun-Golden Boy, the Judas Ace-was being

pointedly ignored.

The mob had thinned a bit since Hiram Worchester's staff from the Aces High had

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set up the buffet tables; some of the press had staked permanent claims around

the wellfreighted trays.

"Sorry, boss," John said at Gregg's elbow. Even in the cool room the aide was

perspiring. Blinking Christmas lights reflected from his beaded forehead: red,

then blue, then green. "Somebody on the airport staff dropped the ball. It

wasn't supposed to be this kind of free-for-all. I told them I wanted the press

escorted in after you guys were settled. They'd ask a few questions, then. . ."

He shrugged. "I'll take the blame. I should have checked to make sure everything

had been done."

Ellen gave John a withering glance but said nothing. "If John's apologizing,

make him grovel first, Senator. What a mess." That last was a whisper in Gregg's

ear-his other longtime aide, Amy Sorenson, was circulating through the crowd as

one of the security personnel. Her two-way radio was linked directly to a

wireless receiver in Gregg's ear. She fed him information, gave him names or

details concerning the people he met. Gregg's own memory for names and faces was

quite good, but Amy was an excellent backup. Between the two of them Gregg

rarely missed giving those around him a personal greeting.

John's fear of Gregg's anger was a bright, pulsing purple amidst the jumble of

his emotions. Gregg could feel Ellen's placid, dull acceptance, colored slightly

with annoyance. "It's okay, John," Gregg said softly, though underneath he was

seething. That part of him that he thought of as Puppetman squirmed restlessly,

begging to be let loose to play with the cascading emotions in the room. Half of

them are our puppets, controllable. Look, there's Father Squid over near the

door, trying to get away from that woman reporter. Feel his scarlet distress

even as he's smiling? He'd love to slither away and he's too polite to do it. We

could fuel that frustration into rage, make him curse the woman. We could feed

on that. All it would take is the smallest nudge ...

But Gregg couldn't do that, not with the aces gathered here, the ones Gregg

didn't dare take as puppets because they had mental abilities of their own, or

because he simply felt the prospect too risky: Golden Boy, Fantasy, Mistral,

Chrysalis. And the one he feared most of all: Tachyon. If they even had an

inkling of Puppetman's existence, if they knew what I've done to feed him,

Tachyon'd have them on me in a pack, the way he did with the Masons.

Gregg took a deep breath. The corner smelled overbearingly of pine. "Thanks,

boss," John was saying. Already his lilac fear was receding. Across the room,

Gregg saw Father Squid finally disengage himself from the reporter and shamble

pitifully toward Hiram's buffet on his tentacles. The reporter saw Gregg at the

same moment and gave him a strange, piercing glance. She strode toward him.

Amy had seen the movement as well. "Sara Morgenstern, Post correspondent," she

whispered in Gregg's ear. "Pulitzer, '76, for her work on the Great Jokertown

Riot. Cowrote the nasty article on SCARE in July's Newsweek. Just had a makeover

too. Looks totally different."

Amy's warning startled Gregg-he hadn't recognized her. Gregg remembered the

article; it had stopped just short of libel, intimating that Gregg and the SCARE

aces had been involved in government suppression of facts concerning the Swarm

Mother attack. He remembered Morgenstern from various press functions, always

the one with the hardball questions, with a sharp edge to her voice. He might

have taken her for a puppet, just for spite, but she had never come close to

him. Whenever they had been at the same affairs, she had stayed well away.

Now, seeing her approach, he froze for an instant. She had indeed changed. Sara

had always been slim, boyish. That was accentuated tonight; she wore tight,

black slacks and a clinging blouse. She'd dyed her hair blond, and her makeup

accentuated her cheekbones and large, faintly blue eyes. She looked

distressingly familiar.

Gregg was suddenly cold and afraid.

Inside, Puppetman howled at a remembered loss. "Gregg, are you all right?"

Ellen's hand touched his shoulder. Gregg shivered at his spouse's touch, shaking

his head.

"I'm fine," he said brusquely. He put on his professional smile,. moving out

from the corner. Alongside him Ellen and John flanked him in practiced

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choreography. "Ms. Morgenstern," Gregg said warmly, extending his hand and

forcing his voice into a calmness he didn't feel. "I think you know John, but my

wife Ellen ... ?"

Sara Morgenstern nodded perfunctorily toward Ellen, but her gaze stayed with

Gregg. She had an odd, strained smile on her face that seemed half-challenge and

half-invitation. "Senator," she said, " I hope you're looking forward to this

trip as much as I am."

She took his proffered hand. Without volition, Puppetman used the moment of

contact. As he had done with every new puppet, he traced the neural pathways

back to the brain, opening the doors that would, later, allow him access from a

distance. He found the locked gates of her emotions, the turbulent colors

swirling behind, and he greedily, possessively, touched them. He unfastened the

locks and pins, swung open the entrance.

The red-black loathing that spilled out from behind sent him reeling back. The

abhorrence was directed toward him, all of it. Totally unexpected, the fury of

the emotion was like nothing he'd experienced. Its intensity threatened to drown

him, it drove him back. Puppetman gasped; Gregg forced himself to show nothing.

He let his hand drop as Puppetman moaned in his head, and the fear that had

touched him a moment ago redoubled.

She looks like Andrea, like Succubus-the resemblance is startling. And she

detests me; God, how she hates. "Senator?" Sara repeated.

"Yes, I'm very much looking forward to this," he said automatically. "Our

society's attitudes toward the victims of the wild card virus have changed for

the worse in the last year. In some ways people like the Reverend Leo Barnett

would have us regress to the oppression of the fifties. For less enlightened

countries, the situation is far, far worse. We can offer them understanding,

hope, and help. And we'll learn something ourselves. Dr. Tachyon and myself have

great optimism for this trip, or we wouldn't have fought so hard to bring it

about."

The words came with rehearsed smoothness while he recovered. He could hear the

friendly casualness of his voice, felt his mouth pull into a proud half-smile.

But none of it touched him. He could barely avoid staring rudely at Sara. At

this woman who reminded him too much of Andrea Whitman, of Succubus.

I loved her. I couldn't save her.

Sara seemed to sense his fascination, for she cocked her head with that same odd

challenge. "It's also an entertaining little junket, a three-month tour of the

world at the taxpayer's expense. Your wife goes with you, your good friends like

Dr. Tachyon and Hiram Worchester. .."

At his side Gregg felt Ellen's irritation. She was too practiced a politician's

wife to respond, but he could feel her sudden alertness, a jungle cat watching

for a weakness in her prey. Off balance, Gregg frowned a moment too late. "I'm

surprised a reporter of your experience would believe that, Ms. Morgenstern.

This trip also means giving up the holiday season-normally, I go home after the

congressional break. It means stops at places that aren't exactly on Fodor's

recommended list. It means meetings, briefings, endless press conferences, and a

ton of paperwork that I can certainly do without. I guarantee you this isn't a

pleasure trip. IT have more to do than watch the proceedings and cable a

thousand words back home every day."

He felt the black hatred swelling in her, and the power in him ached to be used.

Let me take her. Let me dampen that fire. Take away that hatred and she'll tell

you what she knows. Disarm her.

She's yours, he answered. Puppetman leapt out. Gregg had encountered hatreds

before, a hundred times, but none had ever been focused on him. He found control

of the emotion elusive and slippery; her loathing pushed at his control like a

palpable, living entity, driving Puppetman back.

What the hell is she hiding? What caused this?

"You sound defensive, Senator," Sara said. "Still, a reporter cant help but

think that the main purpose of the trip, especially for a potential '88

presidential candidate, might be to finally erase the memories of a decade ago."

Gregg could not help the intake of breath: Andrea, Succubus. Sara grinned: a

predator's smile. He readied himself to assault her hatred again.

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"I'd say the Great Jokertown Riot obsesses both of us, Senator," she continued,

her voice deceivingly light. "I know it did when I wrote my piece on it. And

your behavior after Succubus's death cost you the Democratic nomination that

year. After all, she was only a whore-wasn't she, Senator? -and not worth

your... your little breakdown." The reminder made him flush. "I'll wager we've

both thought about that moment every day since then," Sara continued. "It's been

ten years now, and I still remember."

Puppetman wailed, retreating. Gregg was startled into silence. My God, what does

she know, what is she hinting at? He had no time to formulate a reply. Amy's

voice spoke in his ear again. "Digger Downs is heading over at a trot; Senator.

He's with Aces magazine--covers the entertainment types; a real sleazeball, if

you ask me. Guess he saw Morgenstern and figured he'd listen in to a good

reporter-"

"Hiya, folks," Downs's voice intruded before Amy had finished speaking. Gregg

looked momentarily away from Sara to see a short, pallid young man. Downs

fidgeted nervously, sniffing as if he had a head cold. "Mind another reporter's

nosing in, Sara love?"

Downs was a maddening interruption, his manner rude and falsely familiar. He

seemed to sense Gregg's turmoil. He grinned and looked from Sara to Gregg,

ignoring Ellen and John.

" I think I've said all I want to-for the moment," Sara answered. Her pale aqua

eyes were still locked on Gregg's; her face seemed childlike with feigned

innocence. Then, with a lithe turn, she spun away from him, going toward

Tachyon. Gregg stared after her.

"Chick's looking damn good these days, ain't she, Senator?" Downs grinned again.

"Begging your pardon, of course, Mrs. Hartmann. Hey, let me introduce myself.

I'm Digger Downs, with Aces magazine, and I'll be tagging along on this little

venture. We'll be seeing a lot of each other."

Gregg, watching Sara disappear into the crowd around Tachyon, realized that

Downs was staring at him strangely. With an effort he forced his attention away

from Sara. "Pleased to meet you," he said to Downs.

His smile felt wooden. It made his cheeks ache.

FROM THE JOURNAL OF XAVIER DESMOND

DECEMBER 1/NEW YORK CITY:

The journey is off to an inauspicious start. For the last hour we have been

holding on the runway at Tomlin International, waiting for clearance for

takeoff. The problem, we are informed, is not here, but down in Havana. So we

wait.

Our plane is a custom 747 that the press has dubbed the Stacked Deck. The entire

central cabin has been converted to our requirements, the seats replaced with a

small medical laboratory, a press room for the print journalists, and a

miniature television 'studio for their electronic counterparts. The newsmen

themselves have been segregated in the tail. Already they've made it their own.

I was back there twenty minutes ago and found a poker game in progress. The

businessclass cabin is full of aides, assistants, secretaries, publicists, and

security personnel. First class is supposedly reserved exclusively for the

delegates.

As there are only twenty-one delegates, we rattle around like peas in a pod.

Even here the ghettoes persist jokers tend to sit with jokers, nats with nats,

aces with aces.

Hartmann is the only man aboard who seems entirely comfortable with all three

groups. He greeted me warmly at the press conference and sat with Howard and

myself for a few moments after boarding, talking earnestly about his hopes for

the trip. It is difficult not to like the senator. Jokertown has delivered him

huge majorities in each of his campaigns as far back as his term as mayor, and

no wonderno other politician has worked so long and hard to defend jokers'

rights. Hartmann gives me hope; he's living proof that there can indeed be trust

and mutual respect between joker and nat. He's a decent, honorable man, and in

these days when fanatics such as Leo Barnett are inflaming the old hatreds and

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prejudices, jokers need all the friends they can get in the halls of power.

Dr. Tachyon and Senator Hartmann co-chair the delegation. Tachyon arrived

dressed like a foreign correspondent from some film noir classic, in a trench

coat covered with belts, buttons, and epaulettes, a snap-brim fedora rakishly

tilted to one side. The fedora sports a foot-long red feather, however, and I

cannot begin to imagine where one goes to purchase a powder-blue crushed-velvet

trench coat. A pity that those foreign-correspondent films were all in black and

white.

Tachyon would like to think that he shares Hartmann's lack of prejudice toward

jokers, but that's not strictly true. He labors unceasingly in his clinic, and

one cannot doubt that he cares, and cares deeply ... many jokers think of him as

a saint, a hero ... yet, when one has known the doctor as long as I have, deeper

truths become apparent. On some unspoken level he thinks of his good works in

Jokertown as a penance. He does his best to hide it, but even after all these

years you can see the revulsion in his eyes. Dr. Tachyon and I are "friends," we

have known each other for decades now, and I believe with all my heart that he

sincerely cares for me ... but not for a second have I ever felt that he

considers me an equal, as Hartmann does. The senator treats me like a man, even

an important man, courting me as he might any political leader with votes to

deliver. To Dr. Tachyon, I will always be a joker.

Is that his tragedy, or mine?

Tachyon knows nothing of the cancer. A symptom that our friendship is as

diseased as my body? Perhaps. He has not been my personal physician for many

years now. My doctor is a joker, as are my accountant, my attorney, my broker,

and even my banker-the world has changed since the Chase dismissed me, and as

mayor of Jokertown I am obliged to practice my own personal brand of affirmative

action.

We have just been cleared for takeoff. The seat-hopping is over, people are

belting themselves in. It seems I carry Jokertown with me wherever I go-Howard

Mueller sits closest to me, his seat customized to accommodate his nine-foot

tall form and the immense length of his arms. He's better known as Troll, and he

works as chief of security at Tachyon's clinic, but I note that he does not sit

with Tachyon among the aces. The other three joker delegates-Father Squid,

Chrysalis, and the poet Dorian Wilde-are also here in the center section of

first class. Is it coincidence, prejudice, or shame that puts us here, in the

seats furthest from the windows? Being a joker makes one a tad paranoid about

these things, I fear. The politicians, of both the domestic and UN varieties,

have clustered to our right, the aces forward of us (aces up front, of course,

of course) and to our left. Must stop now, the stewardess has asked me to put my

tray table back up.

Airborne. New York and Robert Tomlin International Airport are far behind us,

and Cuba waits ahead. From what I've heard, it will be an easy and pleasant

first stop. Havana is almost as American as Las Vegas or Miami Beach, albeit

considerably more decadent and wicked. I may actually have friends there some of

the top joker entertainers go on to the Havana casinos after getting their

starts in the Funhouse and the Chaos Club. I must remind myself to stay away

from the gaming tables, however; joker luck is notoriously bad.

As soon as the seat belt sign went off, a number of the aces ascended to the

first-class lounge. I can hear their laughter drifting down the spiral

stairway-Peregrine, pretty young Mistral-who looks just like the college student

she is when not in her flying gear-boisterous Hiram Worchester, and Asta Lenser,

the ballerina from the ABT whose ace name is Fantasy. Already they are a tight

little clique, a "fun bunch" for whom nothing could possibly go wrong. The

golden people, and Tachyon very much in their midst. Is it the aces or the women

that draw him? I wonder? Even my dear friend Angela, who still loves the man

deeply after twenty-odd years, admits that Dr. Tachyon thinks mainly with his

penis where women are concerned.

Yet even among the aces there are the odd men out. Jones, the black strongman

from Harlem (like Troll and Hiram W and Peregrine, he requires a custom seat, in

his case to support his extraordinary weight), is nursing a beer and reading a

copy of Sports Illustrated. Radha O'Reilly is just as solitary, gazing out the

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window. She seems very quiet. Billy Ray and Joanne Jefferson, the two justice

Department aces who head up our security contingent, are not delegates and thus

are seated back in the second section.

And then there is Jack Braun. The tensions that swirl around him are almost

palpable. Most of the other delegates are polite to him, but no one is truly

friendly, and he's being openly shunned by some, such as Hiram Worchester. For

Dr.

Tachyon, clearly Braun does not even exist. I wonder whose idea it was to bring

him on this trip? Certainly not Tachyon's, and it seems too politically

dangerous for Hartmann to be responsible. A gesture to appease the conservatives

on SCARE perhaps? Or are there ramifications that I have not considered?

Braun glances up at the stairway from time to time, as if he would love nothing

so much as to join the happy group upstairs, but remains firmly in his seat. It

is hard to credit that this smooth-faced, blond-haired boy in the tailored

safari jacket is really the notorious Judas Ace of the fifties. He's my age or

close to it, but he looks barely twenty ... the kind of boy who might have taken

pretty young Mistral to her senior prom a few years back and gotten her home

well before midnight.

One of the reporters, a man named Downs from Aces magazine, was up here earlier,

trying to get Braun to consent to an interview. He was persistent, but Braun's

refusal was firm, and Downs finally gave up. Instead he handed out copies of the

latest issue of Aces and then sauntered up to the lounge, no doubt to pester

someone else. I am not a regular reader of Aces, but I accepted a copy and

suggested to Downs that his publisher consider a companion periodical, to be

called jokers. He was not overly enthused about the idea.

The issue features a rather striking cover photograph of the Turtle's shell

outlined against the oranges and reds of sunset, blurbed with "The Turtle Dead

or Alive?" The Turtle has not been seen since Wild Card Day, back in September,

when he was napalmed and crashed into the Hudson. Twisted and burnt pieces of

his shell were found on the riverbed, though no body has ever been recovered.

Several hundred people claim to have seen the Turtle near dawn the following

day, flying an older shell in the sky over Jokertown, but since he has not

reappeared since, some are putting that sighting down to hysteria and wishful

thinking.

I have no opinion on the Turtle, though I would hate to think that he was truly

dead. Many jokers believe that he is one of us, that his shell conceals some

unspeakable joker deformity. Whether that is true or not, he has been a good

friend to Jokertown for a long, long time.

There is, however, an aspect to this trip that no one ever speaks of, although

Downs's article brings it to mind. Perhaps it falls to me to mention the

unmentionable then. The truth is, all that laughter up in the lounge has a

slightly nervous ring to it, and it is no coincidence that this junket, under

discussion for so many years, was put together so swiftly in the past two

months. They want to get us out of town for a while-not just the jokers, the

aces too. The aces especially, one might even say.

This last Wild Card Day was a catastrophe for the city, and for every victim of

the virus everywhere. The level of violence was shocking and made headlines

across the nation. The still-unsolved murder of the Howler, the dismemberment of

a child ace in the midst of a huge crowd at Jetboy's Tomb, the attack on Aces

High, the destruction of the Turtle (or at least his shell), the wholesale

slaughter at the Cloisters, where a dozen bodies were brought out in pieces, the

predawn aerial battle that lit up the entire East Side ... days and even weeks

later the authorities were still not certain that they had an accurate death

toll.

One old man was found literally embedded in a solid brick wall, and when they

began to chip him out, they found they could not tell where his flesh ended and

the wall began. The autopsy revealed a ghastly mess inside, where his internal

organs were fused with the bricks that penetrated them. A Post photographer

snapped a picture of that old man trapped in his wall. He looks so gentle and

sweet. The police subsequently announced that the old man was an ace himself,

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and moreover a notorious criminal, 'that he was responsible for the murders of

Kid Dinosaur and the Howler, the attempted murder of the Turtle, the attack on

Aces High, the battle over the East River, the ghastly blood rites performed at

the Cloisters, and a whole range of lesser crimes. A number of aces came forward

to support this explanation, but the public does not seem convinced. According

to the polls, more people believe the conspiracy theory put forward in the

National Informer-that the killings were independent, caused by powerful aces

known and unknown carrying out personal vendettas, using their powers in utter

disregard for law and public safety, and that afterward those aces conspired

with each other and the police to cover up their atrocities, blaming everything

on one crippled old man who happened to be conveniently dead, clearly at the

hands of some ace.

Already several books have been announced, each purporting to explain what

really happened-the immoral opportunism of the publishing industry knows no

bounds. Koch, ever aware of the prevailing winds, has ordered several cases

re-opened and has instructed the IAD to investigate the police role.

Jokers are pitiful and loathed. Aces have great power, and for the first time in

many years a sizable segment of the public has begun to distrust those aces and

fear that power. No wonder that demagogues like Leo Barnett have swelled so

vastly in the public mind of late.

So I'm convinced that our tour has a hidden agenda; to wash away the blood with

some "good ink," as they say, to defuse the fear, to win back trust and take

everyone's mind off Wild Card Day.

I admit to mixed feelings about aces, some of whom definitely do abuse their

power. Nonetheless, as a joker, I find myself desperately hoping that we succeed

... and desperately fearing the consequences if we do not.

BEASTS OF BURDEN

John J. Miller

"From envy, hatred, and malice, and all uncharitableness, Good Lord, deliver

us."

-The Litany, Book of Comnwn Prayer

His rudimentary sexual organs were dysfunctional, but his mounts thought of him

as masculine, perhaps because his stunted, wasted body looked more male than

female. What he thought of himself was an unopened book. He never communicated

about matters of that sort.

He had no name but that borrowed from folklore and given to him by his mounts-Ti

Malice-and he didn't really care what they called him as long as they addressed

him with respect. He liked the dark because his weak eyes were unduly sensitive

to light. He never ate because he had no teeth to chew or tongue to taste. He

never drank alcohol because the primitive sack that was his stomach couldn't

digest it. Sex was out of the question.

But he still enjoyed gourmet foods and vintage wines and expensive liquors and

all possible varieties of sexual experience. He had his mounts.

And he always was looking for more.

i.

Chrysalis lived in the Jokertown slum where she owned a bar, so she was

accustomed to viewing scenes of poverty and misery. But Jokertown was a slum in

the most affluent country on the earth, and Bolosse, the slum district of

Port-au-Prince, Haiti's sprawling waterfront capital city, was in one of the

poorest.

From the outside the hospital looked like a set from a B-grade horror movie

about an eighteenth-century insane asylum. The wall around it was crumbling

stone, the sidewalk leading to it was rotting concrete, and the building itself

was filthy from years of accumulated bird shit and grime. Inside, it was worse.

The walls were abstract designs of peeling paint and mildew. The bare wooden

floors creaked ominously and once Mordecai Jones, the

four-hundred-and-fifty-pound ace called the Harlem Hammer, stepped on a section

that gave way. He would have fallen all the way through the floor if an alert

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Martin, George R.R. - Wildcards 04 - Aces Abroad

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