Marked Cards

by George R. R. Martin

  Oddity left them after they returned safely to Jokertown. As they walked up to the door of Father Squid's parsonage, Gregg could feel Hannah's admiration for him. The woman genuinely liked Gregg. She considered him a friend and an ally. Like the glow from a banked fire, her feelings promised heat beneath.

  As he had all evening, Gregg blew again on the embers with the breath of his Gift.

  Stop it, the voice cautioned him. I tell you - this isn't why the Gift was given to you. You abuse the power and you betray yourself!

  Gregg just smiled as he held the door open for Hannah and they went inside. It's mine. I'll abuse it any damn way I want, he answered. "Here," he said to Hannah, "let me take your jacket. Where's Father Squid?"

  As he slipped it from her shoulders, he let his fingers graze the skin of her arms. So soft ...

  "He's staying overnight with a sick parishioner." Hannah flicked on the lights, moving around the small living room before going to the chair where Quasiman sat staring into the night with unseeing eyes, lost in his own world. Hannah looked out to where the stark framework of the new steeple rose in the yellow glow of security lamps, then tenderly hugged Quasiman.

  "Quasi, we're back, okay? We're here if you want us."

  There was no answer. Hannah smiled at him and kissed the top of the joker's head. "Poor man," she said. "I owe him so much ..." Tears suddenly brimmed in Hannah's eyes and she stopped. She sniffed and shrugged to Gregg, smiling sadly. "Sorry," she said.

  "Don't you dare apologize," Gregg said, his voice low and deep, letting the power course through them. "Never ever apologize for compassion and love, Hannah."

  The words flashed inside her, igniting against the flame of her friendship. She smiled again at him, brushing her long hair back from her face with what was almost a shy gesture, looking at him sidewise. "I was so paranoid about you at first, Gregg," she said to him. "I was so afraid that I was making a mistake going to you. Now ..." She stopped. Smiled once more. "You're a very good man, Gregg," she told him.

  "You flatter me, Hannah. I'm just an old man trying to do the best I can. I'm not a saint. I'm as flawed as anyone else. More." His voice was laden with the power inside him, stroking her emotions, slowly brightening their colors, deepening their hues. So much slower than Puppetman, so clumsy in comparison, but ... And the other voice yammered its constant warning: Stop it! You taint all that you have!

  "I don't believe you," Hannah answered. "You have courage." She smiled up at him, taking a step closer to him. "You have compassion and you have - " She paused a heartbeat. " - love."

  Her hand stroked his shoulder and remained. Gregg could feel her touch, as if her finger were molten. She felt it too, for she suddenly looked down, breaking the eye contact with him as she gasped. Gregg reached out with his left hand and cupped the side of her face, her hair silken through his fingers. She glanced up into his eyes once more, her face questioning. Almost in defiance, she moved her head quickly to the side and kissed his palm. When she looked back, her gaze dared him.

  He found that he truly did not know what to say. In that moment, the linkage between them was no longer in his control. He felt dizzy and disoriented. The emotional matrix sparked and throbbed, wrapping about them both, impossible to hold or guide. The feedback screamed in his head, and he knew he must either let it go or surrender to it.

  But to let go meant that he would lose her, lose the sudden promise in her eyes. Gregg held on.

  The interior voice howled at him: Stop this! This isn't right, and this isn't real. It's a middle-aged man's fantasy with no substance. Greggie, this is rape. You're forcing her reactions. Stop before you ruin this like you ruined all the rest of your relationships....

  "I ..." he began. Stopped. The power crackled in his head; the voice screamed. For a moment, guilt threatened to make him let go. "Hannah, I should be leaving. It's late."

  She held his gaze. "You don't need to."

  "I was in my twenties when you were born."

  "And now I'm in my thirties and all grown up, Gregg. I'm a big girl. I can make my own decisions. Unless its not what you want - "

  "No!" he said quickly. The power was blinding. It pounded, it surged, it filled him with heat and light and burned away the guilt. So you've learned nothing from all the pain you've inflicted, Greggie. It's still Greggie and his power and fuck everyone else. You've been given your chance and a Gift and you're proving only that you're no different now than you were. What happened to all the shame, the nightmares, the prayers for release?

  "Gregg, you look so sad. If I've embarrassed you or if I'm presuming too much ..."

  "No," he said again, and shut his mind to the voice, the nagging voice, the lecturing voice. "Oh God, no."

  Hannah reached up with both hands and pulled Gregg's head slowly down to her, her gaze always on his until the last moment. As her eyes closed, their lips touched, hers impossibly warm and soft and yielding. The power was a storm around them, its thunder drowning out everything else. He opened his mouth, tasting her sweetness; his hand cupped her breast, feeling the nipple rise and harden beneath the cloth of her thin blouse and bra. He could feel her body pressing against his, her arms around him, and he responded, growling under his breath. You see! And she's not a joker ... He started to bear her down to the floor, but her mouth came away from his, gasping.

  "Not here," she said huskily, glancing back at the silent form of Quasiman. "I can't ..." She pulled away from Gregg and took his hand. "My room," she said.

  Hannah led him away into darkness as the voice yammered at him: No! This is the old pattern, don't you see! You're sick and you'll be punished, Greggie. I guarantee it.

  He didn't listen.

  As he moved on top of Hannah, as he entered her, Gregg thought of Sarah Morgenstern, of Ellen, of Succubus, of Andrea, of all his lovers' ruined lives.

  He groaned in delight.

  Feeding Frenzy

  by Walter Jon Williams

  1

  Puppetman.

  The word sang through Shad's mind as he paced his cell, a rhythmic accompaniment to the old Dexter Gordon tune that floated somewhere in his backbrain. In George Divivier's thudding bass he heard the refrain:

  Puppetman.

  Gregg Hartmann's secret ace, the one that had driven Shad into a frenzy, made him kill. That had led him, eventually, to this place, to this cold concrete cavern carved out of Governor's Island.

  Puppetman.

  Shad was planning to meet Puppetman some day. And then, after him, some other people. George Battle, for one - who lied to him about the promise of a pardon, then let him get slammed away on Governor's Island.

  He didn't feel anything any more. No compassion, no fear, no love. His own personality seemed very far away, buried somewhere, latent. None of that could help him survive.

  Thoughts of Puppetman filled his mind. They were the kind of thoughts that would keep him alive.

  It was good, in a place like this, to have a reason to live. Because someday he'd figure a way out of here, past the concrete-and-rebar walls, past the titanium bars and bulletproof glass, past the armed sentries of the Governor's Island Maximum Security Psychiatric Unit, the Coast Guard sentries on the rest of the island, the cold waters of New York Harbor and back to the city itself, to its mirrored fortresses of glass where his enemies danced their dance of power, and then it would be Shad up on the bandstand, voice a low whisper telling everyone, Hey, motherfuckers, last waltz ...

  ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

  Philip Baron von Herzenhagen adjusted his pearl-gray fedora and walked expressionlessly through the media vermin swarming on the stoop of his townhouse. He opened the door of his Jaguar sedan and stooped to enter.

  "What about the latest revelations of the Card Sharks?" A booming baritone voice, chiseled features, razor-cut hair. Some local television news personality, tired of covering back-alley murders and city council elections, here trying to make the big time.

  Herzenhagen rose from his crouch and put
on his world-weary face. "Really," he said, "what evidence exists for these 'Card Sharks'?" Putting the quotes in his voice. "As I understand it, the chief witness against me is a talking hat." He pulled off his own hat and held it up for the camera. "Shall I call my own hat as a rebuttal witness?"

  This got a laugh. Herzenhagen figured he'd made the news.

  He gave them a brittle grin. "Again for the record, the last time I drew a government paycheck was 1945." He looked at the reporter again. "You can look it up, if you're so inclined."

  He got in his car and headed for his club.

  What he was really afraid of was that one of those media lice actually would start to do his own research, instead of just parroting the Hartmann allegations or each other. Because, though it was true he hadn't drawn a government paycheck since 1945, that was only because in the CIA, founded in large part by gentlemen with independent incomes, one could still check off a box on the application form whereby one could return one's salary to the government. And if the little media weasels got really lucky, they'd discover that, though Herzenhagen had left the Agency in the fifties, he'd been a member of one covert organization or another ever since.

  Biological Research Unit. Unit Omega. Special Control Group. The Vice-President's Special Executive Task Unit.

  The Sharks. All the Sharks.

  Herzenhagen took off his hat, smoothed the brim, and was heartily glad it couldn't talk.

  The allegations had to end, he thought.

  Something had to happen to Gregg Hartmann. Something bad>.

  And soon.

  Herzenhagen rather thought he knew what it was going to be.

  ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

  Shad wondered why Chalktalk hadn't walked through the walls and helped him escape. Maybe she hadn't heard he was in trouble. Maybe she didn't like him any more.

  Names went through his head like a mantra. Puppetman. George Gordon Battle. Crypt Kicker. Pan Rudo.

  He hoped they would all live long enough for Shad to catch up with them.

  Your-mentality defines Pan Rudo=enemy?

  The question rang in Shad's mind with a voice of thunder. Shad's heart thundered.

  "Who the fuck ... ?" And before he could stop himself he was looking around, head jumping on his shoulders like a thing out of a jack-in-the box.

  This-unit is known to you as Croyd Crenson.

  Croyd? Shad had been scoped by telepaths before and hadn't liked it one little bit. Cautiously he beamed out little thought-particles. That really you, man?

  This-unit is known to you as Croyd Crenson. Your-mentality is defined= Home/Black Shadow/Neil Carton Langford=ally. You define Pan Rudo=enemy?

  He's the shrink who put me in here. A two-hour interview, man, and me full of anaesthetic: next thing I know, I'm declared insane and slammed in the jug.

  Pan Rudo-mentality defined=enemy. Defined=Shark. This-unit's purpose=termination Pan Rudo-mentality.

  Shad couldn't help but be impressed. I can get behind that, man. Only thing - why are you talking like that?

  This-unit flew to United States to attempt assassination of Pan Rudo. This-unit fell asleep on aircraft, awakened incarcerated. This-unit capable of advanced multi-path calculation, telepathy. This unit incapable of termination Pan Rudo-mentality without allies. Your-mentality defined=ally.

  "Uhhh, thanks."

  This-unit will arrange escape. Arrangements must conclude within 28 hours before this-unit sleeps again, before arranged pandemic occurs Governor's Island. Your-mentality stand by. Affirmative?

  Shad straightened, alarm tingling in his nerves. Hold on. What's this about a pandemic?

  Card Sharks/Governor Raney/Pan Rudo/Phillip Baron von Herzenhagen/CO Ramirez/CO Shannon plan release toxic virus chosen targets Governor's Island. Objective: termination Black Shadow, Croyd Crenson, Tea-Daddy, Glop/Boris Scherbansky, Fade ...

  The alarm was wailing now. They're gonna kill us?

  Termination is Sharks' objective. Medical care will be onsite but deliberately ineffective or lethal. Autopsies will be performed by Shark pathologist brought in for purpose. Diagnosis will be death by Legionnaires' disease.

  You're telling me the Sharks are real?

  Escape will be arranged. Your-mentality stand by. Affirmative?

  Stunned. Got nothing else to do.

  Shad's mouth was dry. He licked his lips and his frame shuddered to a useless adrenaline charge. Run! the adrenaline said. Fight! Something!

  Stand by. You bet.

  He hadn't known whether to believe in the Sharks or not. Whatever it was, he knew, Hartmann was scamming somehow, using his television tease to Puppetman's advantage.

  That Correction Officers Ramirez and Shannon were Sharks, Shad could believe - they'd always been bastards. But the governor of the facility? Planning on dumping a virus in the air-conditioning?

  Shad could feel gunsights on the back of his neck.

  He hoped Croyd knew what he was doing.

  ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

  George Gordon Battle blinked myopic eyes. "Jesus, Phil, it's bad enough being joker. Now you want me to be a liberal?"

  "Only for a few days," Herzenhagen said. "And then the liberal can have an accident. Or perhaps kill himself in despair at being duped." He reached in his pocket for his cigarette case. "I'm leaning toward the latter, myself."

  "I feel so useless in this damn place," Battle said.

  The dinner table was covered with dirty dishes and a half-finished game of solitaire. Dismembered guns sat on every horizontal surface. A flak jacket hung on the coat rack.

  The field agent at home.

  Since his transformation, Battle had been hiding in a safe house - safe apartment, really - in the East Fifties. He'd had to be smuggled in, since jokers weren't permitted in such places anymore, and he'd had to stay in here with nothing but the cable TV for company.

  "As soon as we can get Mademoiselle Gerard up from Washington, we'll do it," Herzenhagen assured.

  He lit his cigarette and watched Battle with some interest. He had never been repelled by jokers, was in fact mildly fascinated by them. His desire to eliminate the wild card wasn't a result of any personal repulsion, only science - only clean, objective facts.

  History was a progression, Herzenhagen thought, an endless, inevitable progression to better things, perhaps to racial greatness. All his life he had considered himself a servant of history, a servant of that progression - smoothing things here, advancing them there. Fighting the irrationality of fascism, then Stalinism.

  It was Einstein who proved how the wild card could spread, had shown Herzenhagen and Hughes and the others the math. The wild card was a random factor of incredible dimensions. The progression of history stumbled, lurched, leaped ahead, stepped cautiously back. The numbers wouldn't add up anymore.

  Einstein - brilliant, compassionate, yet tormented by the numbers. Einstein, Our Founder. The first, after being called in by Truman, to see the chilling facts clearly.

  The plague had to end in order for history to become orderly again. In order for Herzenhagen and people like him to be able to control things again, to move them along in their proper order, proper perspective. And it was Albert Einstein who'd shown him the way.

  Einstein, the first Card Shark, the one who had recruited all the others. Who had finally been driven mad by the truth, gone all wiggy and sentimental and soft, and who had finally had to be disposed of. Herzenhagen still regretted it, the fact of it, the necessity. The restraints, the gag applied gently, the loaded syringe put to the old man's arm, the stonefish toxin that stopped his heart ...

  Herzenhagen had no personal animus. He had nothing against wild cards. He had nothing against rabid dogs either, only knew they had to be put away, with rigorous efficiency and as little sentimentality as possible.

  "I can still do it!" Battle said. He was a little joker now, bright yellow, less than four feet long, with six limbs. He could walk precariously on the last pair, or run on four legs. He had a perfectly ridicu
lous face, with what looked like a red putty nose right in the middle and more red putty noses where the ears should be. Little tufts of bristly hair stood out on his body like rebellious cowlicks, and his voice piped like that of Mickey Mouse.

  "I can overcome this body!" Battle ranted on. "It's all a matter of will. Give me that lighter."

  Dutifully Herzenhagen passed his silver Dunhill Rollagas to Battle. There was no point in trying to stop Battle now: he was determined to prove himself in front of his chief.

  Battle flicked on the lighter with one of his middle limbs, held it to the yellow flesh hanging under one of his upper arms. His eyes went wide. Then suddenly the mutant body was in motion, zooming over the floor, up the walls, across the ceiling, moving too fast for Herzenhagen's eyes to follow. Battle kept it up for twenty or thirty seconds, cursing a blue streak the entire time. Paint flaked off the ceiling as he crossed it. Finally he stopped in the middle of the living room. Herzenhagen stood and collected his lighter.

  "Jesus, Phil," Battle panted. "I didn't mean to do that."

  "So I gathered," Herzenhagen said. He patted the little joker on the head. "But don't be overanxious. We'll get you a new body, tomorrow or the next day."

  ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

  Your-mentality prepared/jailbreak?

  Shad practically bounded out of his cot at the touch of Croyd's unearthly mind.

  What the fuck else do I have to do?

  It was two hours past shift change, and Ramirez was on duty in the corridor, a fact Shad gleaned from the observation that his TV and heater had been shut off.

  Take position upper northwest corner of cell.

  Shad looked at the featureless concrete ceiling of his cell. Which corner's the northwest? He'd never seen the sun, never been out of this concrete cage, and he didn't know.

  Upper right, your-mentality's perspective.

  Shad climbed the wall, planted one foot on the ceiling, waited.