IGMS Issue 41

by IGMS

He stared at the hive and the quiescent bees within. His stomach rumbled. He hadn't eaten since last night.

  "Annie," he said. "How'd you manage to fire your guns? He'd destroyed you and blocked your backups. It doesn't make sense."

  Annie's image flickered and solidified. "I ain't ever been like a normal AI. He blocked the servers at the Dominicans, but I ain't ever used those anyway. I back up to my bees, one little part of me to each one."

  "Your backup and your system are in the same place. What happens if your entire dirigible is destroyed?"

  "Everything about me is a little messed up, just like you, Padre." She shrugged. "Sometimes you gotta have a little faith."

  He laughed, sadly. "I suppose you're right, Annie." Carefully, he knelt. "I'm not real sure exactly what I believe, but I do believe we're doing the right thing." He started to pray.

  "Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil . . ."

  The Fiddle Game

  by Alex Shvartsman

  * * *

  They say you can't con an honest man, but that isn't true. It is a self-deception ordinary people invented to feel better about themselves. Conning an honest man is easy because he isn't devious or suspicious by nature. What's nearly impossible is to con another grifter.

  I recognized the scam the moment the kid who'd ordered scrambled eggs and hash finished his food, walked up, and plopped a violin case on the service counter of my greasy spoon diner. He was gangly, barely out of his teens, and had that look of being smug but trying to hide it.

  "I'm terribly sorry," he said. "I seem to have left my wallet at home. I live on Tyson Street, so I'll run and get it, and come back to pay my tab. Fifteen minutes, tops." The kid flashed me his best smile. "Here, you can hang on to my violin as collateral." He opened the case, revealing the instrument within.

  I ignored the violin and looked the kid up and down instead. Aside from an ugly tattoo on his arm that he'll probably live to regret in a decade, I found nothing of note. The kid was ordinary. Mundane. None of the charms and talismans I'd painstakingly placed around the diner were set off by his arrival. Ergo, he possessed no magic and was apparently attempting to challenge me armed with his wits alone, a duel to which he arrived supremely underprepared.

  The little punk was trying to run the Fiddle Game on me. That's the oldest scam in the book, but still good enough to work on most people in this backwater town.

  He could never have anticipated that the balding, overweight diner proprietor he pegged for an easy mark was once known as Maurice the Ghost, the legendary art thief and confidence trickster, wanted by an alphabet soup of law enforcement agencies around the world. Wanted, but never caught.

  I was equal parts irritated and amused, but I didn't want to draw attention to my cover by appearing too sharp. The locals knew me only as an amenable and somewhat dull restauranteur; just another sheep among the flock. If I suddenly appeared to grow street smarts, people might talk, and who knows who might overhear? Toward the end of my illustrious career, I had stolen from Freddy the Mace. The law enforcement may have given up by now, but his people were still looking for me after all these years, because there is no statute of limitations on ripping off psychopath gangsters.

  So I played the part of a rube. I kept my jaw slack and my gaze unfocused as I nodded. "Sure, kid. Go get your wallet."

  As he walked away, I scanned the diner for faces I didn't recognize, trying to figure out who his accomplice would be. The man with a scar on his cheek drinking coffee in the corner booth? The comely brunette who'd ordered a stack of pancakes and an orange juice? They were all ordinary and boring. No magic user other than me would be caught dead in this flyover dump of a town anyway, and that's just how I liked it.

  I won't lie, after a short but glamorous career in liberating nice things from not-so-nice people, living the life of a small-town diner owner sucked big time. But I didn't dare make any waves. When I stole from Freddy, I believed him to be just another Brooklyn gangster with the life expectancy of an incandescent light-bulb and an IQ to match. I couldn't have known that he was a powerful wizard, not keen to advertise his magic or his intellect. He steamrolled the competition, and eventually became one of the most powerful mobsters on the East Coast.

  By now the amount of money I stole from him was a mere pittance to Freddy, but he was not the forgiving type. So until some even deadlier rival took him out, I remained hidden in Midwestern purgatory, unable to use my humble magic skills for fear of detection. And just in case he ever found me, I spent a fortune on top-shelf arcane protections. It would be easier for an ordinary burglar to break into Fort Knox than for another wizard to enter the diner and cause me harm.

  I scanned the crowd, secure in the knowledge that the accomplice, just like the kid, was merely mundane. My money was on the man with the scar, but he didn't so much as look up from his coffee mug. Instead, it turned out to be a wrinkled old man, who shuffled up to the counter as soon as the door shut behind his partner.

  "I couldn't help overhearing your conversation," he said. "Would you mind if I took a closer look at that violin? I'm an antique vendor, and when that young man opened the case, I thought his violin might be worth a bit of money."

  Neither of these jokers was going to win awards for their acting, but I had to give them points for sticking to the script, and also for using an actual violin in the Fiddle Game. I kept a straight face as I passed the case to the old geezer.

  He made a show of examining the violin, clucking and muttering to himself. I let him be and took a breakfast order from another customer. When I turned my attention back to the counter, my would-be scammer held out a napkin with a phone number scrawled across it.

  "Would you pass this along to the young man? I'll pay him five hundred for the violin, if he wants to sell."

  "You got it, bub." I shoved the napkin into my pocket. Amateur hour! The duo was too cheap to print out fake business cards.

  The old man paid his bill and split.

  The Fiddle Game relies on greed. The grifters hope that the mark will be tempted to turn a profit and offer to buy the fiddle - or whatever item they're hawking - from the original owner. The negotiated price might only be a fraction of its supposed value, but it is still way more than the cheap piece of junk is actually worth. It's only after the original grifter leaves with the money that the mark is going to learn that the phone number on that napkin is fake.

  It's a safe, reliable con. Even if the mark isn't tempted, the grifters are only out the price of scrambled eggs and some coffee. Which is exactly how it was going to go down this time, until I happened to take a closer look at the violin sitting in the still-open case on my counter.

  The fiddle looked old. Really old. I took it out of the case and used a tiny bit of magic to probe the instrument as my fingers caressed the seasoned wood of the garland. It felt good to use my power again, even if it was only for a few seconds, and I felt confident my arcane protections were sufficient to disguise such a minor spell. The ability to detect the true nature of objects was perfect to supplement the skills of a world-class art thief, but it was never a very powerful magic when compared to what someone like Freddy could do. I heard he once killed a man by boiling all the blood in his body with a spell. I wish I had heard that before getting greedy when I pulled off a job for him. My circumstances might have been much improved then.

  The magic confirmed my estimate. The violin had been made in the late seventeenth century. It wasn't a Stradivarius or anything, but it must have been worth at least five figures. Even if my magic had somehow failed me, and it was a replica created by a forger brilliant enough to fool someone like me, that would still make it worth far more than five Benjamins.

  How the hell did this pair of jokers get their hands on a genuine an
tique? I was still examining it when the punk-kid grifter returned with his wallet.

  "Listen, kid, this is a pretty nice instrument. Where did you get it?"

  "It was my grandfather's. It's old, but the sound's great."

  Grandfather's my foot. The scammers probably picked it up for a couple of bucks at an estate sale.

  I didn't need the money or the trouble. But I was annoyed at being pegged for an easy mark, and after twenty years of hiding from the authorities and from Freddy's goons, I was bored. Turning the tables on these chums was probably going to be the most interesting thing that happened to me that year.

  "Wanna sell it? I'll give you a hundred bucks."

  The kid licked his lips. "A hundred and fifty?"

  "A hundred, and breakfast is on me."

  We shook hands.

  My plan was to reach out to a fence I knew of in Madison. He didn't know me from back in the day, wasn't a wizard, had no apparent connections to Freddy and his people, and because he mostly dealt with ill-gotten gains, I could expect him to be discreet. He would pay a fraction of the violin's worth, of course, but it was well worth the extra security. I left him a voice message and waited for the call back while preparing for the lunch rush.

  The feds arrived only a few hours later. They came out of nowhere, swarming the diner and scaring the bejeebers out of my customers. Tens of thousands of dollars worth of arcane protections were useless against Glocks and Kevlar vests.

  "How did you find me?" I asked, after they read me my rights.

  "An anonymous tip," said the special agent in charge. He looked like he'd just eaten the canary and was still burping up feathers. He'd get a promotion for finding me, and he knew it, even if he couldn't make the charges stick.

  "What exactly are you charging me with?" I asked. "I've lived here for over twenty years. The statute of limitations on anything I could possibly be accused of has long expired."

  The fed's smile widened. "You've had a good run, Maurice. The statute of limitations has indeed run out on most of your crimes," he patted the nylon case, "but this violin was stolen from a museum in Prague last week. And here we thought the Ghost had retired ages ago."

  It's difficult to con a another grifter. But it's not impossible.

  As they led me out of the diner and away from all of my protections in handcuffs, the man with the scar who had been nursing his coffee at the corner booth all morning brushed up against me.

  "Freddy the Mace sends his regards," he whispered.

  At the Picture Show: Extended Cut

  by Chris Bellamy

  * * *

  On the state of the villain

  Dwayne Johnson has passed on an iconic superhero in favor of his nemesis; could this revitalize the declining art of the villain?

  In hindsight, it's no wonder crimefighters and action figures and superheroes have had it so easy at the box office lately. Within their own cinematic universe, they've had no one to contend with. No one to pose a genuine threat. No one who could undercut their power.

  For all the ways franchises and blockbusters have come out ahead in recent years, they've fallen behind in one essential area. While the standard modern tentpole template has doubled down on the simple, time-tested good-vs.-evil paradigm, somewhere along the line the latter part of that equation got tossed to the bottom of the priority list, rendered an afterthought rather than an indispensable (and often more entertaining) ingredient. I mean, sure, there are still bad guys trying to take over the world in every comic-book movie, and there are still insidious traitors in every action thriller, and there are still evil overlords in every violent fantasy. But how many of them, over these last few years, do we vividly remember? And how many of those were actually threatening?

  As far as I can tell, not many. Cinema's dominant genres and franchises have poured a lot of energy into building and reinforcing the greatness of their heroes, but without giving them a whole lot of legitimate opposition. Where have all the great villains gone? It's become a strange blind spot for a lot of films, and a particularly damning one because the hero/villain relationship is, at its best, a reciprocal one. As Heath Ledger's Joker (one of the last iconic big-screen villains, and that was six years ago) sardonically confessed to his nemesis, "You complete me." It's true, and it's always been true - movie heroes are (rightly) measured against the quality of their adversaries.

  "It all makes sense. In a comic, you know how you can tell who the arch-villain's going to be? He's the exact opposite of the hero. And most times they're friends, like you and me."

  - Elijah Price, Unbreakable

  Granted, a great antagonist or conflict doesn't always come in the form of a singular villain. An alien race, a global conspiracy, a pending apocalypse - movies that fall under that umbrella are exempted from this criticism. The problem is, so many major movies do rely on a singular villain, and simply fail to capitalize on the opportunity. The biggest name in both cinematic heroes and action franchises is, of course, Marvel - but while the studio has made some good movies and done an admirable job of world-building, it's been a pretty consistent and conspicuous failure on the villain front. There have been three standalone Iron Man films, and not one worthy opponent among them - not even with the likes of Jeff Bridges, Sam Rockwell, Mickey Rourke, Ben Kingsley and Guy Pearce in those roles. In fact, the third film seemed to actively mock the idea of an arch-villain, with Kingsley's Mandarin proving to be little more than a manufactured persona, portrayed by an effete, previously out-of-work actor.

  In terms of true villainy, the only remotely memorable baddie in the Marvel stable thus far has been Tom Hiddleston's Loki - and that comes with a couple of caveats. For one, he was an altogether forgettable villain in his first appearance, the altogether forgettable Thor. And secondly, even during his popular appearance in The Avengers, he was a charmingly evil but ultimately ineffectual antagonist. A good performance, and a pretty good villain, but - for my money, anyway - hardly the kind of adversary that ultimately defines any of the superheroes fighting against him.

  That said, I realize there will be some disagreement on that point, both because of the adoration for the movie as a whole, and Hiddleston's enduring popularity. So for the sake of argument, we'll go ahead and say Loki is a worthy bad guy and leave it at that. The larger point is, he's the only one Marvel has given us. At best, he is the exception that proves the rule.

  Elsewhere in the MCU? Captain America: The First Avenger's biggest weakness was the way it wasted a potentially great villain (Hugo Weaving's Red Skull), particularly during its problematic second half. And I have virtually no recollection of the villain(s) in last year's Thor sequel. Most recently, this summer's Guardians of the Galaxy - while mostly terrific - offered only a shoddily written antagonist in Ronan (Lee Pace), who's little more than a petulant blowhard who can't stop talking about his own sinister agenda. There's nothing to him. Again and again, Marvel has failed to come up with any kind of memorable presence to oppose its heroes.

  Take the story out of the equation for a second. From a purely cinematic perspective, there's a palpable void in a film like that when its central foe is so bland. The mere presence of a charismatic malevolent figure can do wonders - even if he doesn't have any of the grand, evil plans of Ronan or Iron Man 3's Aldrich Killian. It seems many movies worry too much about the finer details of the insidious plot (which, for the movie, is rarely anything more than a means to an end) and not nearly enough about the emotional, physical or political dynamic a villain might represent - not to mention the charisma and presence required to translate that into something truly formidable.

  As far as charisma and screen presence go, it doesn't get much more formidable than Dwayne Johnson, which is why the recent announcement of his casting as Black Adam in an upcoming Shazam movie (rather than the titular superhero) was so exciting. For months he'd been teasing his participation in the burgeoning DC Cinematic Universe, and it had long become clear that he'd be appearing in Shazam (nee Capt
ain Marvel) in one way or another. But his decision to spurn the title role and go instead for the villain was the best news possible - speaking even as someone who currently has no investment in that particular franchise. It tells me that Johnson gets the fundamental importance of the villain that so many movies and franchises apparently don't. He wouldn't lend his considerable abilities if he didn't.

  Of course, it makes sense for him - he's had plenty of experience on the dark side, dating back to his professional wrestling days. Johnson made his initial mark in the WWE as a heel, which is largely what established him as a star. (I'm no pro wrestling expert, nor a fan, but this is my understanding from those with much more expertise than myself.) As a movie star, more often than not he's been the hero. But the mere fact that he's embracing the other side again means we just might get our very first memorable, post-Nolan DC villain. After Man of Steel's disappointing Zod (a complete waste of the great Michael Shannon), Superman Returns' already-forgotten Lex Luthor and Green Lantern's half-baked Hector Hammond, they need it.

  Gravitas goes a long way. Look, it's not like there's any doubt that, say, Lex Luthor is ultimately going to get the better of Superman - but when it's someone like Gene Hackman keeping up that pretense, and when the movie itself is doing all it can to make us love or hate or fear or otherwise just enjoy them in all their depravity and evil, it makes all the difference in the world. The least a film can do is make it seem like a fair fight. Imagine Die Hard without Alan Rickman's brilliant Hans Gruber. Imagine, instead of an arrogant thief oozing with ice-cold charisma, you had a faceless crook who facilitated the plot but did little else. You've basically imagined the vast majority of crime movies from the last half-decade. (Consider last year's dueling White House-set Die Hard updates, Olympus Has Fallen and White House Down. Do you even remember the villain in either film?)

  Black Adam's casting is not only good for the movie - it could be exactly the right thing for Johnson's career at this point. His most recent lead role was this summer's Hercules, a prototypically heroic role that wound up a colossal dud both as a character and as a movie.