Dealer's Choice w-11

by George R. R. Martin

Wyungare ignored him. “You have to listen to me,” he said to Bloat. “What I described to you about the destruction wrought to the dreamtime is, if anything, understated.”

  “Later,” said Bloat. “I Can’t worry about it now.”

  “There are millions, many millions of human beings around this world whose lives are being destroyed by you, however inadvertently.”

  ’No!” said Bloat. “There are hundreds on this island whose lives will be destroyed if we don’t figure a solution. They count more to me than your millions. Sorry.”

  Bloat’s advisers murmured, mumbled, nodded appreciatively.

  “I can appreciate that,” said Wyungare. “Your loyalty to your friends here, your colleagues, is admirable. But is it possible that both our purposes can be served? Perhaps if we simply reason this out.

  Bloat said. “How many penguins can skate on the head of a pin?”

  The penguin performed a series of tight infinity signs, each one precise and equal to the one before it.

  Bloat nodded. “We will talk, but another time.” He pointedly directed his look toward Kafka.

  Agitated, the joker looked from Wyungare to Bloat. He took a step forward. The sound of his body was like the sound of a barrel of steel flatware rolling downhill. “So where do you want I should take him?”

  “A cell, I think,” said Bloat. “For tonight, anyhow. Tomorrow, we’ll talk. I promise,” he said to the Aborigine.

  “I think it will be too late.”

  “Can’t be helped,” said Bloat. “The feds didn’t consult me before setting up their offensive.”

  “What about the gator?” said Kafka.

  Bloat rolled his eyes. “Put him in the moat. He can earn his keep as one of the guards.”

  “How we gonna get him there?” said the joker practically.

  Bloat thought for a moment. “I’ll have one of the guards waiting out front on his fish mount. If that doesn’t work as bait, I don’t know what will.”

  “What about the cat?” said Kafka.

  “What cat?” said Bloat.

  Kafka glanced around the huge chamber confusedly. “He was right over — shit, I don’t know where he went.”

  The Aborigine smiled. No one but he had seen the black cat depart.

  “I’m ready to go to my room,” Wyungare said. He held out his wrists as though expecting iron shackles.

  “Just go,” said Kafka disgustedly. “I’ll tell you which way to turn and when to stop. If that doesn’t meet with your approval, well, then I’ll just fill you with nine millimeter.” He hefted his rifle suggestively.

  “It’s not too late to discuss this,” said Wyungare over his shoulder. "Yes, it is.” Impatient, Bloat clearly turned his attention to other things. Kafka gave a shove to his prisoner and Wyungare moved toward the door.

  Wyungare sensed the presence of the black cat as Kafka and he moved up a spiral climb of stone steps. Good.

  The cat would know the Aborigine was confined. And thus, so would the alligator. And that seemed, to Wyungare, to be important.

  Out in the streets of Brooklyn, nature had gone mad.

  The street lamps were shaking in the grip of gale-force winds. Thunder was booming all around. Down below were screams, shouts, howls, a tank rumbling around a corner, the chatter of machine guns and the whine of rifles. Soldiers were scrambling everywhere like frantic cockroaches. The hounds were among them, dozens of them, more than he could count, huge pale wolfhounds with glowing eyes.

  A spear of lightning flashed down, throwing everything in sharp relief for a split second, etching the scene forever in Tom’s memory. The images seemed frozen on his screens. Blood swirling into a gutter. A white hound as big as a pony, tearing out the throat of a downed soldier. Another bounding after a jeep, dissolving into mist as a stream of tracers ripped it open.

  The light faded; darkness closed in. It took his eyes a moment to adjust. The thunder slammed into the shell with an almost physical force. For a moment it broke his concentration. Twenty-three tons of steel and armor plate dipped, then plummeted down like a dropped saucer. Hartmann yelled something incoherent into his mikes. Tom jerked the shell to a sudden stop, tasted blood in his mouth where he’d bitten his tongue. Too close, only ten feet off the ground, he had to get higher. He saw motion from one corner of his eyes, glanced back…

  The hound smashed up against the glass, snarling. “Jesus!” Tom said. If the TV lens had been a window, the thing would have come right through. The shell slid sideways. Tom heard claws scrabbling for purchase against his armor as they began to fall again. Hartmann shrieked. Tom was breathing hard. The sound was deafening; thunder, gunfire, howling. On top of the shell, Hartmann was on his knees, fighting for his life. The hound had his right hand in its jaws. Its eyes glowed a baleful green. Other hounds were closing in.

  Tom reached up with his telekinesis. He reached deep inside the hound, wrapped a telekinetic hand around its heart.

  He thought of claws, and squeezed.

  The beast’s massive head snapped back, and it howled in sudden agony, shuddered… and then it was gone, melting away into green mist, dissolving on the wind. Tom pushed up, hard and fast. The hounds leapt after him, missed the rising shell by inches.

  “Senator,” Tom said. Hartmann had collapsed atop the shell, sobbing, cradling his mangled fingers. “I’m sorry,” Tom said, not even knowing if Hartmann could hear a word. “I didn’t know they could jump so high, I…”

  Another lightning bolt blew apart a street lamp ten feet below him. He had to get the fuck out of here. The shell would draw the storm better than a lightning rod. All it would take was one hit to fry his electronics… not to mention the senator.

  Torn pushed and the shell rose straight up, a steel balloon. The thunder battered at him. He turned off his exterior mikes. The sudden silence was a blessed relief. He was pushing higher, higher. He never heard the horn wind, but when he scanned his cameras again, the Hunt was coming down the street.

  There were a dozen riders on huge horses with glowing green eyes. They flowed down the center of Bedford Avenue like water. Behind came a ragtag mob of animals, some with two feet and some with four. Feral dogs, poodles, and cocker spaniels with glowing eyes, street punks and winos and cops, for chrissakes, a whole phalanx of bikers on chopped Harleys. His sound was off, but Tom could see how their mouths twisted as they screamed, and he knew they were screaming for blood. There was nothing human left in any of those faces. Ahead of the mob, ahead of the armed jokers on the horses, he came. The Huntsman… It was the joker he’d seen on the Rox, the stagman with the antlers, but now he seemed transformed. He was naked, his shaggy red mane moving in the storm winds, his eyes glowing green. A golden dragon horn hung across his chest. Green fire played along his antlers and flickered around the great spear he held.

  “Holy fuck,” Tom said aloud.

  Somehow the Huntsman seemed to hear him. He pulled up suddenly, the great black stallion rearing as if it were about to prance into the sky. The hounds seemed to go wild, leaping, snapping. Then the street in front of the Huntsman exploded.

  Horses, hounds, and riders went tumbling through the air. A burst water main fountained upward. Somehow the Huntsman kept his mount, leaping nimbly over the torn pavement, then moving toward the ballpark at a full gallop, more hellhounds coming hard at his heels.

  In front of Ebbets, the tank had settled into position. Tom let out a cheer. A thin tendril of smoke trailed from the turret gun.

  The Huntsman threw his spear without breaking stride.

  It sliced through the air like a cold green thunderbolt, dead on, right up the barrel of the turret gun.

  The gunner must have fired at the same instant, that was all Tom could think. The tank exploded. A huge gout of orange flame and green witch-light flowered in the street.

  When the fire faded so Tom could see again, the Huntsman had his spear in hand once more. He gestured with it, pointing upward.

  Pointing at the shell.<
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  “You’re late,” Battle said flatly at the entrance to the graveyard of Our Lady of Perpetual Misery. Crypt Kicker stood slackly behind him, slumped against the moss-covered rock wall that cordoned off the tiny cemetery from the rest of the church lawn.

  “You know how hard it is to find a shovel in New York?” Ray asked, dropping it at Battle’s feet. “I had to go all over the damn city looking for one. Who the hell ever digs in the ground in New York City?”

  Battle gestured to Puckett who bent over slowly and laboriously to pick up the implement. The dead guy may be as strong as shit, Ray thought, but that’s also about how coordinated he was. The battle computer that was Ray’s mind filed that tidbit away for future reference.

  “This way,” Battle said, leading the way into the graveyard. “And quickly. I’ve got to be someplace very soon.”

  It was quiet inside, and peaceful except for distant thunder to the south. Ray looked up at the sky. It was clear above them, but there seemed to be a hell of a storm brewing in Brooklyn. Ray hoped that it’d stay there. The last thing he wanted was a rainstorm when he was screwing around in a graveyard at night.

  Many of the cemetery’s headstones were small and plain. Only jokers were buried in the confines of Our Lady of Perpetual Misery, and most jokers couldn’t afford elaborate graves. The stones were also crammed closely together. A lot of jokers had been planted within the cemetery’s walls.

  Battle stopped. He’d found the grave he’d been looking for. The tombstone was a simple one, with a grinning death’s-head chiseled into its top with the name “Brian Boyd” engraved below it. Boyd had been dead for two years.

  “This who we’re looking for?” Ray asked doubtfully as he leaned against another tombstone that read simply “Chrysalis.”

  Battle nodded. He gestured at Puckett and the ace began to dig. He was strong and he could move dirt fast. Ray, knowing the man had been dead once, considered asking him what it was like to lie in the ground. But then he decided it would be better not to know. Besides, he had a more pertinent question for Battle.

  “What do you expect to get from this guy, anyway?” Ray asked.

  Battle looked at him. “Boyd was known as Blockhead when alive —” Battle began, but his jaw slung open wordlessly as a ton of bricks landed on Ray’s back. Ray had time to think only, Christ, now what? then all conscious thought tied as he flowed into action.

  He grabbed one of the arms that encircled his chest and pulled at it, but whoever had grabbed him was stronger, and that meant he was a strong fucker. Ace category. But Ray could also tell from the distribution of weight on his shoulders, back, and legs that whoever was holding him from behind was relatively human-shaped, unlike the flying squirrel man he’d fought that very morning. Human shape meant human weaknesses.

  Ray fell forward, bringing his attacker with him, using him to break his fall. Whoever had him still wouldn’t let go, but Ray twisted like an eel, turned, and butted hard enough with the top of his head to bring tears to his eyes.

  His head connected with the bottom of his attacker’s chin. Whoever had him pulled back at the sudden pain and Ray wriggled free.

  Ray hit the guy three times before he realized who it was.

  “Christ,” he said, and stood up.

  Quasiman, Father Squid’s handy joker, lay on the ground, bleeding from his lips and nose. No wonder, Ray thought, he hadn’t heard anyone sneaking up on him. Quasiman was a teleport. He’d probably swooped down on Ray from his favorite position atop the church’s roof like a hawk on a pigeon, stepping off into space and materializing right before landing on Ray’s back.

  “What are you doing?” Ray asked the joker-ace.

  Quasiman straightened up slowly. He was big and ugly, hunchbacked and half-witted as well. But in the strength department he was up there with heavyweights like Modular Man and the Golden Weenie.

  “Guarding the cemetery,” Quasiman said, “from grave-robbers.”

  “Well, shit,” Ray said, “we’re not grave-robbers. We’re federal agents.”

  He turned to Battle and Puckett. Battle was watching with a guarded expression. Ray found it as difficult as ever to read what was going on in his devious brain. Puckett was also looking on, frozen in mid-motion with a shovelful of dirt. The events of the last few seconds had totally overwhelmed what passed for his mental processes and he was still trying to figure out how to react. He came to a decision and resumed shoveling.

  “We have a court order to exhume this body,” Ray explained. He turned to Battle. “Don’t we?”

  “Indeed we do,” Battle said. He reached into his jacket pocket, extracted a folded sheaf of papers, waved them at Quasiman, and then put them away again.

  Quasiman nodded slowly. “Why do you want the body?”

  “It’s not the body,” Battle explained impatiently. “It’s — ah!”

  There came the scrape of shovel on wood, and everyone gathered around the grave as Puckett scraped dirt off the top of the casket. He tossed his shovel on the back-dirt pile, then horsed the coffin out of its hole using brute strength. He tipped it over the lip of the hole and pushed it onto the ground. He clambered stiffly out of the grave, somehow looking very much in his element.

  “Open it,” Battle commanded.

  Puckett didn’t need a crowbar. He hooked one hand under the coffin’s lid and pulled. There was a squeal of protest as nails were yanked from holes they’d been in for two years. Ray screwed up his nose, expecting a hideous odor, but it wasn’t too bad.

  There wasn’t much left of Brian Boyd, a.k.a. Blockhead. He hadn’t been a big guy to begin with and his remains had shrunken down to the size of a withered child.

  Battle peered closely at the body, bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet like he did whenever he was excited. “There,’ he said, bending down and pointing. “The ring.”

  Puckett bent stiffly and reached into the casket. There was a brittle cracking sound and he offered Battle the corpse’s desiccated left ring finger, ring still attached.

  Battle shook his head. “I don’t want the goddamn finger. Just the ring.”

  Puckett stripped the gold wedding ring off the finger and tossed the digit back into the coffin. He gave Battle the ring. Battle took it and put it into his coat pocket, smiling, happy as a goddamn clam.

  Ray looked at Quasiman and suppressed a shrug. He still didn’t get it. But Battle was the boss.

  The boss checked his watch. “Ah, good,” he said. “I still have time to make my appointment. Ray, I have one last thing for you to do tonight.”

  He swept out of the graveyard, Puckett following him. Ray paused and looked at Quasiman, but found nothing to say. He followed Battle and Puckett from the graveyard. He looked back when they’d reached the gate and saw that Quasiman had retrieved the shovel Puckett had discarded. He was standing by the open coffin and empty grave, a bewildered expression on his sad, ugly face.

  It took Modular Man hours to deliver the messages to all the joker combat groups hidden in various parts of the New York area. Most of them had been hiding in small apartments for days and — when he could read the jokers’ expressions at all — they seemed happy at last to have a chance to get out of their claustrophobic surroundings and attack something.

  All the groups seemed to have television sets, and CNN’s bluish glow illuminated their crowded apartments full of sleeping pallets and weaponry. The rooms were crowded with the mingled scents of Cosmoline and unwashed bodies.

  “They’re just discussing you,” said one adolescent. He was part of the last group to be visited, thin to the point of anorexia and pale enough to remind the android — with a private shudder — of the albino Croyd. He dressed all in gothic black and wore shades even at night. He seemed to be this group’s jumper.

  Modular Man glanced up at the set and felt something flutter through his macro-atomic heart. The screen was full of a close-up of a blond woman named Cyndi. The television identified her as soap opera actress.r />
  “I know Modular Man,” she said. “I know he’s not doing this from choice.”

  “You tell um, bitch,” laughed one gray-skinned joker. He brandished his k-bar suggestively.

  “Maybe he’s been jumped,” Cyndi said.

  The interviewer’s response was reasonable. “How do you jump a machine?” he asked.

  “Are you kidding? How do you jump a human?”

  Modular Man had to admire her.

  “He’s got to do what his creator tells him,” Cyndi continued. “He has to have been ordered to do this. Or maybe somebody’s messed with his programming. But if he’s fighting the government, I know it’s not from choice.”

  The adolescent grinned up at Modular Man. His teeth were bad. “That true?” he asked.

  “More or less.”

  “Life sucks, huh?”

  “That interpretation has occurred to me.” Images of Cyndi floated through his memory.

  “And now you’re stuck on the Rox.” The kid laughed. “Man, I’m glad I’m not on that island being a target for napalm an’ cruise missiles an’ shit.”

  “Your sympathy is noted.”

  The kid laughed again, then jumped as lightning struck nearby and a blast of thunder rattled the windows. “Shit,” he said again.

  Modular Man left to return to the Rox.

  A strange, dark storm was hovering over Brooklyn, more or less where Zappa had his headquarters at Ebbets Field.

  Modular Man didn’t want to know.

  The Aborigine realized he was not the only prisoner in the drab cell block as Kafka led him down the narrow passage. At the very end of the hall was a young woman. She slumped against the barred door of her cell. Wyungare caught a glimpse of dark spiked hair and stained leather. He could smell her hysteria, a pungent odor that ate corrosively at his nostrils.

  Two doors farther, the joker jammed a key into a lock and twisted. Then he tugged at the door. Wyungare helped him wrestle it open. Kafka stared at him sideways. “Thanks,” he said. “You’re weird, guy.” He shut the door after the Aborigine and locked it. “Sleep tight, people,” he said to the two prisoners.