Wild Cards: Aces Abroad

by George R. R. Martin

  Among those debarking this day in May was a stocky man in his early sixties, dressed like a typical middle-class émigré, in brown shirt buttoned to the neck and well-worn gray jacket. A woman from Relief stepped forward to help him. “Strasvitye s Soyuzom Statom,” she said in Russian, “Welcome to the United States.”

  “Thank you,” the man replied in English.

  The woman was pleased. “If you already speak the language, you will find things very easy here. May I help you?”

  “No, I know what I’m doing.”

  Out there, in the city, waited Dr. Tachyon, living in fear of their next encounter, wondering what it would mean to his very special grandson. To the south, Washington, and Senator Hartmann, a formidable target. But Polyakov would not work alone. No sooner had he gone underground in England than he had managed to contact the shattered remains of Mólniya’s network. Next week Gimli would be joining him in America. . . .

  As he waited for customs to clear his meager luggage, Polyakov could see through the windows that it was a beautiful American summer day.

  FROM THE JOURNAL OF

  XAVIER DESMOND

  APRIL 27/SOMEWHERE OVER THE ATLANTIC:

  The interior lights were turned out several hours ago, and most of my fellow travelers are long asleep, but the pain has kept me awake. I’ve taken some pills, and they are helping, but still I cannot sleep. Nonetheless, I feel curiously elated . . . almost serene. The end of my journey is near, in both the larger and smaller senses. I’ve come a long way, yes, and for once I feel good about it.

  We still have one more stop—a brief sojourn in Canada, whirlwind visits to Montreal and Toronto, a government reception in Ottawa. And then home. Tomlin International, Manhattan, Jokertown. It will be good to see the Funhouse again.

  I wish I could say that the tour had accomplished everything we set out to do, but that’s scarcely the case. We began well, perhaps, but the violence in Syria, West Germany, and France undid our unspoken dream of making the public forget the carnage of Wild Card Day. I can only hope that the majority will realize that terrorism is a bleak and ugly part of the world we live in, that it would exist with or without the wild card. The bloodbath in Berlin was instigated by a group that included jokers, aces, and nats, and we would do well to remember that and remind the world of it forcefully. To lay that carnage at the door of Gimli and his pathetic followers, or the two fugitive aces still being sought by the German police, is to play into the hands of men like Leo Barnett and the Nur al-Allah. Even if the Takisians had never brought their curse to us, the world would have no shortage of desperate, insane, and evil men.

  For me, there is a grim irony in the fact that it was Gregg’s courage and compassion that put his life at risk, and hatred that saved him, by turning his captors against each other in that fratricidal holocaust.

  Truly, this is a strange world.

  I pray that we have seen the last of Gimli, but meanwhile I can rejoice. After Syria it seems unlikely that anyone could still doubt Gregg Hartmann’s coolness under fire, but if that was indeed the case, surely all such fears have now been firmly laid to rest by Berlin. After Sara Morgenstern’s exclusive interview was published in the Post, I understand Hartmann shot up ten points in the polls. He’s almost neck and neck with Hart now. The feeling aboard the plane is that Gregg is definitely going to run.

  I said as much to Digger back in Dublin, over a Guinness and some fine Irish soda bread in our hotel, and he agreed. In fact, he went further and predicted that Hartmann would get the nomination. I wasn’t quite so certain and reminded him that Gary Hart still seems a formidable obstacle, but Downs grinned in that maddeningly cryptic way of his beneath his broken nose and said, “Yeah, well, I got this hunch that Gary is going to fuck up and do something really stupid, don’t ask me why.”

  If my health permits, I will do everything I can to rally Jokertown behind a Hartmann candidacy. I don’t think I’m alone in my commitment either. After the things we have seen, both at home and abroad, a growing number of prominent aces and jokers are likely to throw their weight behind the senator. Hiram Worchester, Peregrine, Mistral, Father Squid, Jack Braun . . . perhaps even Dr. Tachyon, despite his notorious distaste for politics and politicians.

  Terrorism and bloodshed notwithstanding, I do believe we accomplished some good on this journey. Our report will open some official eyes, I can only hope, and the press spotlight that has shone on us everywhere has greatly increased public awareness of the plight of jokers in the Third World.

  On a more personal level, Jack Braun did much to redeem himself and even buried his thirty-year emnity with Tachyon; Peri seems positively radiant in her pregnancy; and we did manage, however belatedly, to free poor Jeremiah Strauss from twenty years of simian bondage. I remember Strauss from the old days, when Angela owned the Funhouse and I was only the maître d’, and I offered him a booking if and when he resumes his theatrical career as the Projectionist. He was appreciative, but noncommittal. I don’t envy him his period of adjustment. For all practical purposes, he is a time traveler.

  And Dr. Tachyon . . . well, his new punk haircut is ugly in the extreme, he still favors his wounded leg, and by now the entire plane knows of his sexual dysfunction, but none of this seems to bother him since young Blaise came aboard in France. Tachyon has been evasive about the boy in his public statements, but of course everyone knows the truth. The years he spent in Paris are scarcely a state secret, and if the boy’s hair was not a sufficient clue, his mind control power makes his lineage abundantly clear.

  Blaise is a strange child. He seemed a little awed by the jokers when he first joined us, particularly Chrysalis, whose transparent skin clearly fascinated him. On the other hand, he has all of the natural cruelty of an unschooled child (and believe me, any joker knows how cruel a child can be). One day in London, Tachyon got a phone call and had to leave for a few hours. While he was gone, Blaise grew bored, and to amuse himself he seized control of Mordecai Jones and made him climb onto a table and recite “I’m a Little Teapot,” which Blaise had just learned as part of an English lesson. The table collapsed under the Hammer’s weight, and I don’t think Jones is likely to forget the humiliation. He didn’t much like Dr. Tachyon to begin with.

  Of course not everyone will look back on this tour fondly. The trip was very hard on a number of us, there’s no gainsaying that. Sara Morgenstern has filed several major stories and done some of the best writing of her career, but nonetheless the woman is edgier and more neurotic with every passing day. As for her colleagues in the back of the plane, Josh McCoy seems alternately madly in love with Peregrine and absolutely furious with her, and it cannot be easy for him with the whole world knowing that he is not the father of her child. Meanwhile, Digger’s profile will never be the same.

  Downs is, at least, as irrepressible as he is irresponsible. Just the other day he was telling Tachyon that if he got an exclusive on Blaise, maybe he would be able to keep Tach’s impotence off-the-record. This gambit was not well received. Digger has also been thick as thieves with Chrysalis of late. I overheard them having a very curious conversation in the bar one night in London. “I know he is,” Digger was saying. Chrysalis told him that knowing it and proving it were two different things. Digger said something about how they smelled different to him, how he’d known ever since they met, and Chrysalis just laughed and said that was fine, but smells that no one else could detect weren’t much good as proof, and even if they were, he’d have to blow his own cover to go public. They were still going at it when I left the bar.

  I think even Chrysalis will be delighted to return to Jokertown. Clearly she loved England, but given her Anglophile tendencies, that was hardly a surprise. There was one tense moment when she was introduced to Churchill during a reception, and he gruffly inquired as to exactly what she was trying to prove with her affected British accent. It is quite difficult to read expressions on her unique features, but for a moment I was sure she was going to kill the old ma
n right there in front of the Queen, Prime Minister, and a dozen British aces. Thankfully she gritted her teeth and put it down to Lord Winston’s advanced age. Even when he was younger, he was never precisely reticent about expressing his thoughts.

  Hiram Worchester has perhaps suffered more on this trip than any of us. Whatever reserves of strength were left to him burned out in Germany, and since then he has seemed exhausted. He shattered his special custom seat as we were leaving Paris—some sort of miscalculation with his gravity control, I believe, but it delayed us nearly three hours while repairs were made. His temper has been fraying too. During the business with the seat, Billy Ray made one too many fat jokes, and Hiram finally snapped and turned on him in a white rage, calling him (among other things) an “incompetent little guttermouth.” That was all it took. Carnifex just grinned that ugly little grin of his, said, “For that you get your ass kicked, fat man,” and started to get out of his seat. “I didn’t say you could get up,” Hiram replied; he made a fist and trebled Billy’s weight, slamming him right back into the seat cushion. Billy was still straining to get up and Hiram was making him heavier and heavier, and I don’t know where it might have ended if Dr. Tachyon hadn’t broken it up by putting both of them to sleep with his mind control.

  I don’t know whether to be disgusted or amused when I see these world-famous aces squabbling like petty children, but Hiram at least has the excuse of ill health. He looks terrible these days: white-faced, puffy, perspiring, short of breath. He has a huge, hideous scab on his neck, just below the collar line, that he picks at when he thinks no one is watching. I would strongly advise him to seek out medical attention, but he is so surly of late that I doubt my counsel would be welcomed. His short visits to New York during the tour always seemed to do him a world of good, however, so we can only hope that homecoming restores his health and spirits.

  And lastly, me.

  Observing and commenting on my fellow travelers and what they’ve gained or lost, that’s the easy part. Summing up my own experience is harder. I’m older and, I hope, wiser than when we left Tomlin International, and undeniably I am five months closer to death.

  Whether this journal is published or not after my passing, Mr. Ackroyd assures me that he will personally deliver copies to my grandchildren and do everything in his power to make sure that they are read. So perhaps it is to them that I write these last, concluding words . . . to them, and all the others like them. . . .

  Robert, Cassie . . . we never met, you and I, and the blame for that falls as much on me as on your mother and your grandmother. If you wonder why, remember what I wrote about self-loathing and please understand that I was not exempt. Don’t think too harshly of me . . . or of your mother or grandmother. Joanna was far too young to understand what was happening when her daddy changed, and as for Mary . . . we loved each other once, and I cannot go to my grave hating her. The truth is, had our roles been reversed, I might well have done the same thing. We’re all only human, and we do the best we can with the hand that fate has dealt us.

  Your grandfather was a joker, yes. But I hope as you read this book you’ll realize that he was something else as well—that he accomplished a few things, spoke up for his people, did some good. The JADL is perhaps as good a legacy as most men leave behind them, a better monument to my mind than the Pyramids, the Taj Mahal, or Jetboy’s Tomb. All in all, I haven’t done so badly. I’ll leave behind some friends who loved me, many treasured memories, much unfinished business. I’ve wet my foot in the Ganges, heard Big Ben sound the hour, and walked on the Great Wall of China. I’ve seen my daughter born and held her in my arms, and I’ve dined with aces and TV stars, with presidents and kings.

  Most important, I think I leave the world a slightly better place for my having been in it. And that’s really all that can be asked of any of us.

  Remember me to your children, if you will.

  My name was Xavier Desmond, and I was a man.

  From The New York Times

  JULY 17, 1987

  Xavier Desmond, the founder and president emeritus of the Jokers’ Anti-Defamation League (JADL) and a community leader among the victims of the wild card virus for more than two decades, died yesterday at the Blythe van Rensselaer Memorial Clinic, after a long illness.

  Desmond, who was popularly known as the “Mayor of Jokertown,” was the owner of the Funhouse, a well-known Bowery night spot. He began his political activities in 1964, when he founded the JADL to combat prejudice against wild card victims and promote community education about the virus and its effects. In time, the JADL became the nation’s largest and most influential joker rights organization, and Desmond the most widely-respected joker spokesman. He sat on several mayors’ advisory committees, served as a delegate on the recent global tour sponsored by the World Health Organization. Although he stepped down as president of the JADL in 1984, citing age and ill health, he continued to influence the organization’s policies until his death.

  He is survived by his former wife, Mary Radford Desmond, his daughter, Mrs. Joanna Horton, and his grandchildren, Robert Van Ness and Cassandra Horton.

  AFTERWORD

  By George R.R. Martin

  Wild Cards began with a three-book contract, but the series was always intended to be open-ended. So when the first three volumes were published to excellent reviews and very strong sales and Bantam asked for more, my writers and I were pleased to oblige. We loved this world and the characters who peopled it, and knew we had many more stories to tell about them.

  The question was, where should we go from here?

  Jokers Wild had brought the first triad to a climactic close. The Astronomer was dead, his Egyptian Freemasons smashed and dis­persed, and out in the dark of space the Swarm had been tamed and turned away from Earth . . . but our characters remained, and damned few of them had been left to live happily ever after. Yeoman was still on the streets with his bow, fighting his one-man war against the Shadow Fist. Croyd Crenson still woke transformed every time he surrendered to sleep. James Spector remained on the loose, his eyes brimming with death. The Great and Powerful Turtle had been killed in Jokers Wild . . . or had he? Was the Turtle sighting that evening authentic? Just what had happened to Tom Tudbury after the Astronomer’s minions had sent his shell crashing into the Hudson?

  And we had larger issues to deal with as well. We’d had some fun pitting our aces against the menace of the Swarm and the evil of the Astornmoer, but we were ploughing ground that had been ploughed a thousand times before. Aliens and supervillains had been staples of the funny books since the first one came rolling off the press. Our versions had been grittier and more visceral, perhaps, but there was nothing really new in those types of adventures.

  The most widely acclaimed story in the first three books had been Walter Jon Williams’ Nebula finalist, “Witness,” a powerful tale of human frailty where the villain was neither the Swarm nor the Astronomer, but rather the House of Un-American Activities Committee (a few of our readers seemed to think that Walter made up HUAC, but never mind). There was a lesson there, if we wanted Wild Cards to be all that it could be. Plenty of comic books fea­tured superheroes fighting supervillains and alien invasions, but very few seriously explored the deeper issues that would arise if a handful of superhumans had “powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men.” The responsibilities and temptation sof great power, randomly bestowed. The ways society would deal with those who were more than human, and with the new underclass, the jokers. Aces as objects of hero worship and aces as objects of fear. The cult of the celebrity. All this should be grist for our mill, and the thematic heart and soul of Wild Cards.

  We also wanted to broaden our canvas. The first triad had been very tightly focused on New York City. Oh, we got some glimpses of what was happening in the rest of the world during the Swarm War, and earlier as well, when the Four Aces were chasing Peron from Argentina and losing China to the Communists . . . but that was all they were, glimpses. For the most pa
rt our eyes remained fixed on the towers of Manhattan and the mean streets of Jokertown. It was time we showed what the Takisian virus had done to the rest of the world.

  In my Afterword to the ibooks edition of Jokers Wild, I talked about my belief that the most effective shared worlds were those that maximized the sharing. That was a lesson that carried over into the second triad. We wanted a series where the whole was always greater than the sum of its parts. I had been fortunate enough to assemble the most gifted group of writers ever to work together on a collaborative project of this nature, and in the first three books they had given us a richly textured world with its own history, full of fascinating characters and conflicts . . . but to build on that foundation we needed to start working together more closely than we had previously. I wanted to draw our plot threads together, and make the second Wild Cards triad much more tightly woven than the first.

  In later years, much of the planning for the Wild Cards books would be done on line, in a private category on the Genie BBS ser­vice, but back then the series and the Internet were both still in their infancy. Instead the New Mexico Wild Cards contingent assembled in the living room of Melinda Snodgrass’s old house on 2nd Street, where we argued over coffee, and from time to time phoned up some of our out-of-town contributors to draw them into the dialogue as well.

  As with the earlier triad, we decided that the first two volumes would feature a series of individual stories linked by an interstitial narrative, while the third and concluding volume would bring everything together in a full mosaic novel along the lines of Jokers Wild. The Astronomer and his Masonic cult had been the major overarching threat in the first three books. In this new triad, that role would be filled by Senator Gregg Hartmann, a wonderfully complex character who showed a noble, idealistic face to the world as he led the fight for joker rights, while concealing the sadistic ace Puppetman within. Hartmann’s 1976 bid for the presidency had failed in book one, but there was no reason he should not try again.