Joker Moon

by George R. R. Martin

  “It’s his dream. I believe in his dreams.”

  “Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds, wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men.” I was amazed I remembered the T. E. Lawrence quote but was glad I did. “Look, Ms. Schwartz, I hate to be a big buzzkill, but has he thought through any of this? Will there be adequate medical care? Jokers have a lot of medical issues. You planning on building a state-of-the-art medical center up there?”

  “If need be, yes. And you could help with that. Who better?”

  I ignored that. There was no way I was signing up for this mad scheme. “What about population replacement? You have to know how difficult it is for two wild cards to produce a viable child. Ninety percent of all births will be stillborn or die within moments of exiting the womb. Within a few decades his joker paradise is going to look like Japan times a thousand with old, infirm people trying to live in an unrelentingly hostile environment.” Mathilde was starting to look queasy as the words poured out of me. “And do you actually think the governments of the world are going to sit passively by while a bunch of jokers take over the Moon? I’m here because they’re worried that one of Theodorus’s little snowballs will miss and hit the Earth … which by the way would—”

  “—be impossible! We have the best engineers in the business. Every calculation has been checked and rechecked.”

  “They said the same thing about the Titanic,” I countered. “Okay, for the sake of argument let’s assume this comes off without a single hitch. That still doesn’t answer the issue. Theodorus and maybe you as well have a really jaundiced view of nats. I get that. And I’m not saying there haven’t been tensions and problems, but hanging a deadly threat in the sky over their heads is not going to help improve the relationship.”

  “We would never do that.”

  “Great. Maybe you wouldn’t, or Theodorus … though empathy doesn’t seem to be his strong suit.” I waved my hands. “Whatever, the point is someday neither you nor he will be around. What if some monster comes to power—and don’t tell me you’re naive enough to think every joker is a saint—and decides maybe sunning himself or herself on a beach in Tahiti beats the Moon, so they decide to arrange for a little nuclear winter back on Earth. Wait a few years for the air to clear and come back to empty real estate. Assuming any of your Moon goons could endure Earth’s gravity by then.”

  “What did you mean about empathy and Theodorus?”

  “Maybe you’ve been around him so much that you don’t notice, or maybe he’s always been this way. Tachyon didn’t make a note of it in his files, but his emotional reactions are … off.”

  “No, he wasn’t always like this. He was excited, enthusiastic. Now he’s just driven.”

  She turned away, but not before I read her expression. “You’re in love with him,” I said.

  She whirled to face me, anger and tears fighting for primacy. “And you think that’s crazy, impossible, right?”

  I couldn’t help it. I laughed. “Oh hell no. I fell in love with the woman who developed the Black Trump, a virus that would have killed us all, every wild card.” Mathilde stared at me in shock. “Believe me, I get crazy. The point is, she changed. People can do that. The heart wants what the heart wants, Mathilde, no one should apologize for that.”

  “I can’t ask him to give up his dream,” she whispered.

  “I’m not asking you to; just convince him to make the dream a little bigger. Let this be the first human foothold on another celestial body. With Theo’s fortune and brilliance this could be the first step. We could have colonies on Mars, out in the asteroids, on Jupiter’s moons. Nats and jokers and aces all standing ready when the bastards come back.”

  “The Takisians?”

  “Any of them. All of them.” I waved my arm wildly at the sky. “We can face them together united as the human race.” I realized I had gripped her shoulder. I mumbled an apology and stepped back. I wasn’t sure, but I thought there was a hint of moisture in her eyes.

  “Wait. Don’t leave yet. Let me talk to him.” She whirled, her skirt a swirl of color in the garden lights, and went back into the house.

  I paced for what seemed like hours, though when I checked my watch she had only been gone for forty-eight minutes when she beckoned to me from the front door. I returned to the dining room to find Theodorus frowning at nothing. He gripped a brandy snifter tightly in his hand. “Mathilde is sentimental,” he said. “I’m not.”

  “I get that. Then if you don’t want to use your heart, use that great brain. We humans are dangerous when we’re in packs and when we’re afraid. You’re about to create two truculent packs and make one of them really afraid. A pack, by the way, that significantly outnumbers us and outguns us, since they’ve got armies and shit.”

  “We’ll have the Moon,” Theodorus countered.

  “And that, right there, is my point. You can turn the Earth into a frozen hellhole and they can turn the Moon into a ball of radioactive glass. So why don’t we not do that and instead stand together against the threats that we know are out there?”

  “You have faith in the goodness of humanity,” Theodorus said.

  “No, but I do believe in the goodness of individual people. We can find a compromise, Theodorus. And just think how much it will piss off the crazies on both sides.”

  “So what is it you want?”

  “Talk to the president. She’s a decent person who actually does want to make the world a better place.”

  It hung in the balance as he sat deep in thought for many agonizing seconds. He finally lifted his head and looked at me. “Very well. But I have conditions.…”

  “Who does he think he is to order the president of the United States to come to him?” Campbell was apparently in the mood to fulminate.

  I was trying really hard not to be impressed … but it was the Oval Office. I could tell from the expressions on the faces of the men around Pauline that they weren’t happy about having a joker standing on the carpet with the seal of the United States with his four hooves.

  Vice President Towers and his chief of staff were on the far side of the room. Towers had a horror of germs. My presence in the room had him ready to grab the hand sanitizer and maybe a surgical mask.

  I answered Campbell. “He’s a giant snail-centaur who weighs three thousand pounds and leaves a trail of slime wherever he goes.” I gave the assembled men a smile. “You should be glad it’s just my hooves on this nice carpet.” I lifted a hind foot and watched as the Secretary of Homeland Security shrank back. “Look, I even wore my booties.” I waggled my hoof. “Oh, and you’d have to knock out half of the wall for him to even get into the room.”

  Pauline sat behind the Resolute desk, hands clasped in front of her. The eagle carved on the front of the desk seemed to be snubbing the one on the carpet. Pauline was frowning at Campbell.

  “Logistics—” the Secret Service agent began.

  I cut him off. “Oh, come on! How hard can this be? The president goes to campaign events and museum openings, baseball games and Christ knows what else all the time.” I turned to Pauline. “You don’t have to publicize that you’re going to meet Witherspoon. There’s got to be some Toyota factory or high school you can go visit. Then we arrange for the meeting at the Witherspoon estate.”

  “You shouldn’t be jumping on the say-so from some joker,” said Towers. “You set that precedent and you’re going to pay bigly for that.”

  I gave Towers a sweet smile. “Gosh, I seem to recall how the Justice Department brought suit against you and you had to pay a ton of money for discriminating against jokers in your rental properties. So maybe you don’t have the best instincts on this matter.” I gave a gimlet stare at the people in the room who might have a clue. “Look, let’s get real here. I’ve told you what Witherspoon’s planning. Let’s not kid ourselves that this is going to be widely accepted. I remember my dad telling me about all the worries about how m
aybe Takisians would set up on the Moon, or there would be Commies there, or Democrats.” Okay, yeah, it was a feeble joke and it lay like a dead fish in the center of the room. I cleared my throat. “How do you think bigots are going to react to jokers controlling the Moon? Hell, I’m not all that sanguine about it and I am a joker.”

  I could almost hear my two hearts beating as I waited for the response. The quiet felt like a stretched piano wire. Finally, Pauline raised her eyes and looked at me. “Tell them I’ll come.” She turned to Campbell. “Find us an excuse.”

  “Yes, Madam President.”

  Towers’s thick lips were pursed in that pout that was so well known to all of us who lived in New York City. “I still think it’s a really bad idea. Really, really bad.”

  “I don’t recall asking for your opinion,” Pauline snapped. If looks could have killed, Pauline would have been six feet under.

  She waved us all toward the door. As we shuffled out, I noticed Towers’s chief of staff busily texting. I figured he was contacting some source in the conservative media so they could run a story about how President van Renssaeler favored jokers over hardworking white Americans.

  Just before I made my escape Campbell caught me. He whispered, “The president wants you there. You brokered this deal.”

  I heaved a sigh. I just wanted to get home to Clara and Caitlyn and the clinic. “Okay.”

  I was waiting at a lonely gas station some six miles from the estate. It was one of those places that couldn’t decide whether it wanted to be a fancy gas station in Charleston or a charming country roadside stop that harkened back to the days of Burma-Shave signs and signs out west that warned travelers this was the last chance for water for two hundred miles.

  I had arrived early, having driven my van down from New York so I wasn’t beholden to either Theodorus or Pauline. I emerged from the inside of the station with a MoonPie, and a silly key chain for Clara. She liked to collect stupid things when we traveled, and when I’m nervous I always get hungry.

  My cell phone rang. I fished it out. It was Mathilde. “So are we on schedule?”

  “Far as I know. They had to slip the prez out the back of the hotel and into a nondescript car. They should be here in the next five to ten minutes.”

  “Good. Theodorus is … anxious. If they’re late—”

  “They won’t be late. Pauline knows how much is riding on this for all of us.”

  “I hope … it better be worth it.”

  “Nothing in life is ever certain, but this is pretty damn close.” I hoped I sounded more soothing than I felt.

  “Okay.” She hung up. I returned my phone to my pocket and finished my MoonPie. It felt like my jaws had been gummed together so I headed back into the station and got myself a coffee out of the machine. It was as awful as I expected, but it did wash away the cloying taste of sugar.

  A car pulled up, a big silver Cadillac. Even on a clandestine mission it seemed the president needed to roll in an American-built car. I’d really hoped they’d have the sense to pick a nondescript Toyota, but I suppose they needed room for her security. There was a Secret Service agent driving, another riding shotgun, and a woman agent in the back seat. She and Campbell had the president wedged between them. I thought it seemed disrespectful to make the president sit on the hump.

  The agent in the passenger seat was Colonel Centigrade. I wished it had been somebody with a bit more of a kickass power, someone like Lady Black, but people seem to have this idea that the mere presence of an ace will deter people from bad acts. On the other hand, not having a heavy hitter was probably smart. Otherwise Theodorus and his security might think this was just a way to get close and kill him.

  I trotted over. Campbell stepped out of the car. “Okay, what now?”

  “You follow me. They’re expecting us at a gate in the back of the property.”

  Pauline scooted across the back seat, rolled down the window, and leaned out. “They should be aware that the top cabinet officers and the vice president have been informed of my whereabouts and if I don’t check back in within two—”

  A buzz like an angry wasp passed by my cheek and whatever she had wanted to say remained unspoken. Instead a hole appeared in her left temple and blood and skull fragments blew out the right side and onto the neck of the agent in the driver’s seat. An instant later I heard the distant report of a large-caliber weapon.

  “You bastard! You treasonous bastard!” Campbell roared. He lunged toward me only to have his head explode in a cloud of blood, brain, and skull fragments.

  The assassin was good. His shot had killed Campbell instantly, but he had misjudged on Pauline. The angle of entry and the fact there was an exit wound meant there was a chance she could survive. If we get her to a trauma unit quickly. How much of the woman herself would remain was another question, but there was a chance …

  I grabbed her and pulled her out of the car and onto the stained concrete. The agents boiled out of the car, waving guns and screaming at me. I screamed back. “I’m a doctor. Let me work!”

  They were shouting into their shoulder mics. In the distance I heard the wail of a siren as their backup rode to a rescue that might come too late.

  “Get me a drill! Ax, big knife, something … anything,” I bellowed. Captain Centigrade stared at me blankly. “I’ve got to open her skull to relieve the pressure. There’s still a chance.”

  Centigrade bolted for the building. Pauline was feebly pawing at my arm. “It’s all right. It’s all right,” I said.

  “Daddy. Don’t … don’t let Mommy … give away … my … puppy.…”

  A high-pitched screaming passed overhead, and the gas pumps exploded in flames as a wire-guided missile hit. Somebody really, really wanted to be sure the president was dead. The heat washed across my face and engulfed the Caddy. I fell back, hooves struggling to find purchase on the concrete while still dragging Pauline with me.

  One of the agents was waving his gun at me. Screaming at me to get on my knees, hands behind my head. I wondered if he had any idea how hard that was going to be for me. I shouted back at him, “I’m a doctor! I’m a doctor!”

  Colonel Centigrade was on fire. His screams could be heard above the roar of the flames. “Use your power! Use your power!” I screamed at him. He finally did, coating himself in ice and smothering the flames. His face was a mass of burned skin and blisters and his hair had burned away. He collapsed.

  The guy who had been threatening me was down. He had been slammed face-first into the concrete by the concussion and was bleeding from a cut on his forehead. The woman agent who had been in the car was dead. No one was bringing me a drill now.

  I dropped onto the knees of my front legs. Awkward, uncomfortable, but I could at least hold Pauline as the inevitable happened. She died in my arms. Then it was time to turn to the living. Lurching to my feet, I grabbed the unconscious agent and dragged him away from the burning pumps and car.

  My mind was stuttering. No, no, no! This can’t be Theodorus. Can it? Who talked? This can’t be happening! Pauline is dead! No, no, no.

  There was no more gunfire. The assassin had done his work and left us in the ruins. The backup vehicles arrived. Agents were shouting, calling for ambulances, fire trucks, setting up roadblocks, talking about keeping a press blackout. I felt my phone vibrating in my pocket. I pulled it out only to have it snatched away by an agent.

  “Who were you calling?”

  “Nobody. Someone was calling me.”

  The agent answered. I heard Mathilde’s voice. “Where are you?”

  “Who is this!” the agent demanded. I could tell from his expression that Mathilde had hung up.

  Shock was starting to set in. My face was stinging from the burns I’d suffered and I was suddenly deathly cold. I wrapped my jacket tightly around my human torso while my teeth chattered.

  Eventually the fires were out, and the charred bodies from the car were loaded into body bags. Colonel Centigrade and the unconscious Secret Se
rvice agent were loaded into ambulances. At that point a couple of agents came over to me. One grabbed my arms and pulled them roughly behind my back. I wasn’t surprised to feel the bite of handcuffs. The other agent stared at me with hate in his eyes.

  “Bradley Latour Finn, you are under arrest for the murder of Pauline van Renssaeler, President of the United States, National Security Advisor Jackson Campbell, and Agent Dalia Sanchez. You have the right…”

  I didn’t need to hear the rest. I was the person who had convinced the president to slip away to a private meeting with a reclusive joker billionaire. Now she was dead and nobody in the world was going to believe this wasn’t some kind of joker conspiracy. That there was a conspiracy was clear. What random Secret Service guy at the scene of a heinous crime would have known my rather obscure middle name? We had been betrayed by someone high in the government.

  “Oh Clara, I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I think it’s going to be a while before I get to come home again.”

  Fatal Error

  By Victor Milán and John Jos. Miller

  “FINN?” SAID CHARLIE HERRIMAN, pushing himself up off the polished hardwood floor of his family’s condo in a gentrified part of Jokertown with the short, green flippers that served him as arms. “That’s impossible. That’s insane. They’re cousins.”

  “And relatives never kill one another, of course,” said the face on the screen of the open laptop beside him through a neat white beard. “Much less in-laws.”

  Charlie slapped the tips of his flippers together. His older daughter, Leonore, squealed with glee from atop his back and clapped her own small hands together. She was five. Charlie, a classic late bloomer, was thirty-six. His three-year-old son, David, watched keenly from where he sat splay-legged next to the laptop. “Does he want you to represent him?” Charlie asked the screen.

  “He does. He just doesn’t know it yet. His father has hired a high-priced LA law firm to defend him. A new dream team. But we’re going to poke our noses around anyway. Medical care in Jokertown is bad enough without losing Finn. Besides, he owes me money.”