Wild Cards 14 - Marked Cards

by George R. R. Martin

  Reach out with your power. Above and to west

  Which way's west again?

  Instructions followed. He reached out to the extreme limits of his power, found a thin trickle of electrical energy, sucked just the faintest bit of it.

  Your-mentality stand by. Take all power on my signal.

  Would you mind telling me why?

  Croyd's answer was instant. All-cells monitored by hidden fiberoptic lens. Essential/escape plan to blank monitor in Dervish's cell ...

  Mind explaining the rest of the plan?

  Shad swayed as a mental picture invaded his mind. Croyd wasn't telling him the plan, just broadcasting the action as it happened, slices transmitted from other people's heads.

  At the moment he was looking down at a pair of elderly black hands that held a cup of tea. Tea leaves swirled in the bottom of the cup.

  I say this moment be's auspicious. An old voice, speaking with an antedeluvian rural accent Shad couldn't place.

  Shad was outraged You're having your tea leaves read?

  Croyd didn't reply, but the mental channel switched. Suddenly Shad felt himself in a small body that didn't feel right at all - center of gravity all wrong, weight distribution strange. His mind was heavily concentrated, straining a power that wasn't quite clear to him.

  Click, click, click. He realized the body was female - that's why the center of gravity was wrong - and that she was trying to push buttons. Buttons that weren't actually in sight. Croyd had to tell her where they were, in what order to push them.

  The buttons, Shad figured, that opened the electric cell doors.

  Splitscreen. Suddenly he was in two heads at once. The other had to be a guard, because he was wearing a brown uniform shirt and sitting at a console filled with television monitors with views of prisoners, all except for the one turned to Jay Leno.

  Lots of prisoners, though. Jokers, mostly, but he recognized himself hanging upside-down in the corner of his cell. There were other natlike prisoners who presumably had a hidden ace or two.

  And one old black man, shrunken in his prison coveralls, staring into a cup of tea. What the hell had he ever done to get here?

  Now.

  Croyd's command rolled into Shad's head. He strained his power and ate the electricity from the distant source. And he watched, through the guard's eyes, as one of the little monitors went black. But the guard barely paid attention, he was watching Leno.

  And then Shad was in another head. The walls loomed in toward him, as if they were seen through a distorting lens. Everything looked terrifying. Little creatures, half-seen things with scaly glistening bodies and silver fangs, slithered in and out of vision. Sometimes they offered advice; Shad could see their lips move. But he wasn't receiving audio and didn't know what they said, and for that he was grateful.

  This was a maximum security sanitarium, after all. Some of the inmates had to be genuinely crazy.

  Dervish. Croyd had given Shad the madman's name.

  Titanium bars slid, and then the point of view spun into the corridor. Walls and cell doors swam past. Shad realized that Dervish wasn't walking straight, probably couldn't: he spun as he walked, turning circles.

  But he moved fast. Out of the corner of the guard's eye, Shad saw Dervish coming - a massive long-armed torso above tiny crooked legs, knuckles almost dragging, evil red eyes and a shaggy mane that covered head, shoulders, upper arms. The guard half-rose from his seat, held out a hand, stop, and then Dervish swarmed onto him, and the guard's point of view thankfully went blank.

  Apparently Dervish wasn't up to pressing the buttons that opened the cells, because the woman's point of view returned again, and she strained once more to the limits of her power.

  Shad's door whirred open, the one time that had happened since he'd been here. He was out in a shot.

  He ran to the console and stopped short, his heart crying, when he saw Dervish crouched over Ramirez's body. The huge joker had pulled off an arm and was eating it like a turkey leg. He looked up at Shad and growled. Blood matted the hair on his giant chest. Shad called the photons to him, shrouded himself in night, and then cautiously moved to the console and began pressing the numbers Croyd gave him.

  On the monitors he could see people wandering out. A big joker in the lead, with claws and a set of wolfs fangs set in a pointed snout. She would have looked like the Wolfman if she'd had any hair, but she was bald, and bright orange to boot. The woman whose telekinesis had opened the doors came next: her Caucasian body was shaped like that of a nat, but she had a nose that drooped past her chin, and earlobes that fell past her shoulders. Shad wondered why she hadn't had cosmetic surgery. She was followed by the old black man, still holding his cup of tea.

  Then came a muscular white man, hard-eyed, wearing a muscle shirt and prison tattoos - and hatred warred with wariness in Shad's mind as he recognized the man. He called himself the Racist in the same way that John Wayne was the Shootist - he was fast, supposedly capable of two hundred miles per hour on the straights - but he was a racist in the other sense of the word, too, a member of the Aryan Brotherhood. Some of his tattoos were swastikas. He'd been an ordinary stick-up man until he'd volunteered in prison for an experiment with the wild card virus, and to everyone's surprise he'd drawn an ace and escaped prison. Not that he'd stayed out of the slams for long - Straight Arrow had caught up with him and held him in a cage of fire.

  Shad wondered idly if he should drain the Racist of all his photons and leave him here on the prison floor.

  No/forbidden. Racist/Mark Wagner is necessary to plan.

  Just thinking. That's all.

  Shad watched, and pressed more buttons. A dark-haired white woman came out, attractive and anonymous in prison coveralls. A long-haired, long-bearded man in his forties whose brain had literally exploded out of his head, running down over his ears like oatmeal boiling out of a saucepan. Shad knew of him - he was an old hippie who'd become a projecting telepath, able to make others experience his psychedelic visions. Not surprisingly, they called him the Head. He sold his talent to young acid-head wannabees - it was illegal to deal drugs, but not to get others stoned by telepathy. There'd been some interesting court cases, and the Head had won them all.

  Until, apparently, the case that put him here.

  Next came a joker who puddled into the room, looking like fifty gallons of lime Jell-O - no skeleton, no visible organs, nothing but shimmering translucent green. He was followed by a chitinous creature in black armor, with a vast, swollen head and side-mounted eyes. This turned out to be Croyd.

  There were more levels to the complex, more electric locks, more guards - but no more master control rooms full of cameras, no reason for Shad to use his power. Witchy picked the locks, seeing through Croyd's mind and reaching out with her TK; Racist and Dervish took care of the guards, always messily - and the last door, the door to the outside, opened with a simple push.

  Cold sea-air blew in. Shad filled his lungs with it, let it slide over his tongue. Felt it fill his heart.

  The smell of freedom. Nothing was going to stop him now.

  Everyone held hands. Shad called photons and covered the whole group in darkness.

  Holding hands, they shuffled out of the building. Governor's Island was a curious mixture: there was the Coast Guard establishment, frame buildings filled with high-ranking guardsmen and their families, serviced by their own ferry that ran back and forth to Manhattan. Green lawns ran down to the water's edge. The snug family dwellings of the Coast Guard shared uneasy quarters with the wild card psychiatric facility and its dangerous collection of aces and jokers, all confined in the concrete monolith on the south side facing the rubbish of the Rox across the bay. And then there was the old stone bulk of Fort Jay, with its display of rusting cannons dating to the War of 1812, ready to contest the passage of King George's frigates.

  Shad's heart lifted as he saw the lights of Manhattan rising above the sensible frame buildings of the Coast Guard facility. Freedom was tha
t close ...

  Shad saw two figures take to the air - one a man who flew silently into the sky like Modular Man, another who flapped on mantalike wings.

  Where are they going?

  Will assassinate Governor Raney and CO Shannon. Death of Sharks not necessary to plan, but may sow confusion and cover our retreat.

  Shad thought about it Solid, he decided.

  The Governor's Island Ferry was docked, closed for the night but brightly lit. Keeping to the shadow of Fort Jay's rough stone walls, Shad slipped his people past, to a motor launch in another slip.

  All-mentalities inside Commander's gig.

  Shad dropped his cloak of darkness so the others could find their footing on the dock. Racist was first in the boat, heading for the ignition.

  Then there were shots. Three distinct shots, bang-bang-bang, and as Shad's nerves leaped in reaction he heard an alarm, a furious urgent buzzer, endlessly repeated. Floodlights came on automatically, and suddenly the dock was lit brighter than day; a hot white glow that pinpointed the refugees, caught frozen in their tracks by the sudden onset of light.

  Apparently one of the assassinations hadn't gone well.

  Shad turned to where Racist was still bent over the gig's controls. "You doing all right there, speedy?"

  "Shut the fuck up."

  Shad turned at the sound of running feet and saw guards with guns, assault rifles held at port arms as they ran from the complex, heads swivelling as they looked for escapees.

  Shad called more darkness to him, dropped to a crouch. He was going to have to stop those people before they started unloading automatic weapons at the packed escapees in the boat.

  "Wait!" It was the dark-haired white woman, jumping to the dock. She threw out her arm in the direction of the pursuers, her fingers crooked slightly - and then a giant bloom of white light encompassed the guards. Shad eyes dazzled, thought for a moment that there had been an explosion - but no, it was silent, and when it faded the guards were unharmed, just fallen, hands over their dazzled eyes.

  The gig's engine caught, boomed loud in the night. Shad threw off moorings fore and aft, then followed the white woman into the boat. She held out a hand.

  "Lady Light" she said. Her voice was small and feminine.

  "Black Shadow." Taking the hand. "Pleased to meet you."

  They lurched as the boat took off toward the towering lights of Manhattan, dead ahead.

  ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

  "Lights are on," Herzenhagen reported as he peered into his telescope.

  "About fucking time," piped Battle.

  They and Mademoiselle Gerard - Herzenhagen couldn't quite bring himself to call her Mam'zell, as everyone else did - stood on the roof of a building across from Gregg Hartmann's apartment. They'd been there for hours, since Battle's joker form had scaled the building, opened the roof door, and let them all in.

  "Is he alone?" Battle asked. With his poor eyesight he couldn't see for himself.

  "Apparently." Herzenhagen peered into the scope once more, saw Hartmann clearly as the former senator stood by his window, staring moodily at the night while he took off his jacket and loosened his tie. Herzenhagen turned to Gerard.

  "Viens ici, s'il vous plait."

  "Bien."

  She was a tough-looking French girl, maybe sixteen, in jeans and a leather jacket. Brainy, too, because she'd trusted the government amnesty and left the Rox before it was destroyed.

  Now she worked for Herzenhagen. Maybe she believed the Shark allegations, maybe not. It didn't seem to matter to her. She had the life she wanted - she was jumping, and living well, and had all the protection the government could give her.

  Jumpers. Herzenhagen had the only three jumpers still active under his control, and his only conclusion was that it made him remarkably like God. He could decide who lived, who died, and more importantly, who got to be who. Who got scrambled. Who got a new chance at life in a new body. Who was condemned to old age and death.

  Who got to be Gregg Hartmann.

  Lux fiat, he thought.

  Roofing gravel crunched under Mademoiselle Gerard's boots as she approached the telescope and put one dark eye to the eyepiece. Herzenhagen reached into his pocket for his Browning Hi-Power, ready for what would come later. Gerard concentrated for a brief moment ... and then her body came unstrung, fell to the roof like a puppet with its strings slashed.

  Battle reared himself up on his hindmost pair of legs, and thumbed on a large flashlight to illuminate his absurd face from below so that Mademoiselle, in Gregg Hartmann's body, could see him from the window. Then there was another shock - Battle dropped the flashlight and fell to all six limbs - and then Mademoiselle's body gave a start, and she sat up with a little cry of satisfaction.

  Triple jump. Leaving Battle in Hartmann's body, Hartmann in the ridiculous yellow joker, and Mademoiselle back where she started.

  Now all that remained was to finish off Hartmann. Since people were normally paralyzed after being jumped, Herzenhagen planned simply to shove the spastic six-limbed body off the roof - though he did carry the Browning Hi-Power just in case things didn't go according to plan.

  But what he didn't expect was that the joker would give a whoop and run like a mad six-legged racehorse, kicking up gravel as it scuttled to the roof parapet, yellow rump flashing as it went up and over, all before a stunned Herzenhagen could raise his gun to the firing position....

  Just as the joker had done when Battle had tried to do his stunt with the lighter. Apparently it was some kind of automatic defense mechanism.

  Herzenhagen moved quickly to the parapet, looked down, and saw the joker body already on street level, zigzagging madly along the street, screaming all the wnile. Herzenhagen raised his gun, then decided against it. He'd probably miss, and shots would only call attention to what had just happened.

  He'd have to move faster, he thought. Get the Hartmann business over with, accelerate the viral test on Governor's Island, head to Washington to try to move the Quarantine Bill through Congress....

  Herzenhagen turned to leave. Mademoiselle Gerard was watching him, hands in her jacket pockets, a quizzical expression on her face.

  Herzenhagen shrugged. "Quelle affaire," he said, and offered her his arm.

  ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

  Above, the shattered span of the Brooklyn Bridge stretched across the night sky. Underneath, in the shadows of the great arches beneath the bridge approaches, Shad paced along, followed by figures in prison coveralls who scuttled from darkness to darkness.

  The jokers were making their way deeper into Jokertown. Most were following Witchy, who had promised them that the Twisted Fists would help smuggle them to one of the Jokertown havens, Jerusalem or Guatemala or Saigon ...

  That, Shad realized, was why she hadn't had cosmetic surgery. She was an ideological joker as well as a physical one, and accepted her deformity as part of her joker identity.

  The aces were left on their own. Racist had chosen to keep the Coast Guard boat and take it over to the Brooklyn side, where he had friends. Shad hoped that would confuse and divide any pursuit.

  You still there, Croyd?

  This-unit is monitoring.

  Can we talk? We might have business to discuss - you want Rudo, and I want certain other people.

  Your-mentality may accompany me.

  Good. You wait here, I'll get us transportation.

  Shad stole an old Pontiac on Pearl Street and brought it back under the bridge approaches. Croyd waited there. Shad leaned across the front seats and opened the passenger door.

  This-unit knows of safe house uptown.

  Sounds good.

  The Pontiac pulled away from the curb. Shad headed north out of Jokertown on Fifth Avenue. At one point he had to swerve wildly to avoid a bright yellow six-legged joker that screamed as it raced across the street.

  Shad thought seriously about his own safe houses and whether he could trust any of them. The places he trusted most were in Jokertown, and he wanted t
o avoid Jokertown for the moment. That's where the search for the escapees would be at its most intense.

  Still, he could probably trust the Diamond house and the Gravemold house. Not but that his skin didn't crawl at the thought of disappearing into the Gravemold identity with its hideous chemical stench....

  There was a horrible mental scream from Croyd, a cry so intense as to jangle pain through Shad's mind.

  Your-mentality=Black Shadow=Neil Carton Langford=Mr. Gravemold!

  Oh hell. Gravemold had once captured Croyd when he was in one of his psychotic fits. Shad had almost forgotten about it, but Croyd had just plucked the thought from his mind and wasn't about to forget.

  Croyd lunged over Shad's shoulder for the wheel. Shad fought for control, felt wheels rebound from the curb ...

  Your-mentality=Gravemold! Your-mentality redeflned=enemy!

  "You were crazy, Croyd!" Shad shouted. "You were killing people left and right and - "

  Die, enemy! Croyd's hands fumbled for Shad's throat.

  The Pontiac crashed into a parked Thunderbird. Croyd's head drove into Shad's from behind, slamming into the mastoid. Shad blinked stars from his eyes.

  "Dammit, Croyd!"

  He turned around, blood boiling, ready to backhand Croyd out of the way, but the joker had crumpled into the back seat, limp as a ragdoll.

  "Croyd?"

  Shad could see Croyd's chest moving up and down. Maybe he'd been knocked unconscious when they banged heads.

  Shad checked Croyd carefully and saw he wasn't bleeding or damaged in any obvious way. It looked as if he'd just gone to sleep - gone to sleep right in the middle of a fight, which had to be something new even for him - and if that was the case, Croyd could be gone anywhere from days to weeks.

  Shad slid out of the car. He would just leave, eat photons and walk up a building and get away.

  But that would leave Croyd in the hands of the authorities.

  Your-mentality redefined=enemy!

  Shad hesitated. He couldn't leave Croyd to the tender mercies of the Sharks.

  He went back into the car, worked Croyd out, and carried the joker into the night.