Jokertown Shuffle Read online

  The boy screamed, a full-throated yell of imbecile terror that echoed louder than the Dead Kennedys. Shad smashed the boy's head against a wall until the screaming stopped, then dropped the boy to the floor.

  Hell. That sort of thing always worked in the movies. Most of the rooms held only supplies. There was only one door that was locked, and that was with a simple wooden bar. Shad threw up the bar and pushed the door open. God, she seemed young. And tiny, barely reaching Shad's breastbone. Chill sorrow rolled through him as he realized she was pregnant.

  The darkness rained away as Shad let Tachyon look at him… '

  "I m Black Shadow," Shad said, "and you're outta here."

  "Bloat told me." Her voice was soft. Maybe once she'd been pretty, he thought. Now she looked like a war refugee. "He didn't say you were pregnant. Follow me."

  She followed him out the door, her eyes downcast. She had wrapped a blanket around her shoulders, but the shoulders were slumped. She wasn't anything like shad's memories of Tachyon. Shad couldn't picture her as anything but a lost girl.

  Somebody had tried to break this child, and probably succeeded.

  Apparently no one had heard the sentry's scream. Shad led Tachyon down the two flights of stairs, then looked cautiously into the corridor. No one in sight. He opened the door to the outside and stepped out.

  A dark-haired young woman stood there, holding an M-16 casually at port arms as she walked tiredly home from guard duty. Shad recognized her as the one who had left her eye in Shelley's hotel room. She had both eyes now, and they narrowed as she saw Shad, without his cloak of darkness, coming toward her. She worked the bolt of the gun and pointed it at him.

  Shad stepped for her and struck out, one medium-force punch to the face with his left, a grab for her gun with the right. He intended nothing more than to stun her for a short time and take her weapon.

  Instead, he knocked her block off.

  Shad's nerves gave a white-hot wail as the woman's head left her shoulders. It struck the ground, where both eyes popped out, then rolled, parts scattering-an ear, the jaw, the tongue.

  The body toppled, and one arm came off, but nothing ceased to move-the legs and arms flailed, even the arm that had come adrift. The eyes, once they'd stopped bouncing, swiveled and seemed to try to focus. When Shad had yanked the gun away, one hand came off at the wrist and clung to the gunstock. A finger held down the trigger. The gun leaped as it fired.

  Shad's stomach queased as he tore the hand away. Fingers fell like snowflakes. He dropped the rifle, picked Tachyon up in his arms, and ran, trying not to step on any of the woman's parts.

  Tachyon's blanket snapped around them in the cold Atlantic wind. Shad heard running footsteps behind. "Durg! " Tachyon shrieked. "Look out!"

  Shad didn't know what a `durg' was. He turned. A squat little man was racing after them, twenty yards behind, and was clearly gaining.

  "He's a Morakh!" Tachyon said. "Be careful!"

  Shad had no clearer idea of what a Morakh was than a durg, but in view of Tachyon's urgency, it seemed serious. He slowed and called a cloud of darkness into being around the Morakh, then watched with his infrared sense as the short man stumbled and fell sprawling. Shad laughed, then accelerated toward the harbor. The island was tiny, and he needed to get off it before too much alarm was raised.

  He heard footfalls behind, slower this time, then accelerating. He looked over his shoulder once more and saw the short man gliding purposefully through the darkness. He was moving his head back and forth as if straining to hear something over the sound of his own footsteps.

  Shad put Tachyon down. "Head for the harbor," he whispered. "I'll catch up with you."

  "Careful." Tachyon swayed. "Morakhs are deadly. More deadly than you can possibly imagine."

  "So am I, far as that goes."

  Tachyon began to run, clumsy in her off-balance body. The short man's head jerked upward at the sound of their words, and then a smile spread across his features, and he began to trot purposefully toward Shad. He wore jeans, heavy boots, and a dark muscle shirt over his formidable, wide torso. His hair was ash-blond. He looked like the shortest Mr. America in history.

  Shad planted himself in the man's path and ate heat from the Morakh's frame. He had absorbed a lot of photons since his arrival on the Rox and his efficiency wasn't great. The Morakh slowed a scant five yards away, and anger twisted his features.

  "Who will not face Durg at-Morakh bo Zabb in a fair fight?" he demanded.

  "I won't," Shad said, and started to eat more photons. But the Morakh moved with incredible speed as soon as he heard Shad's words. Astonishment flared in Shad's mind as he ducked a ferocious punch; then a spin kick slammed against his thigh, bringing pain crackling along his nerves, Shad let the kick's momentum help whirl him away. He hit the ground and rolled under a flurry of kicks and punches, then rose to his feet in a fighting stance. He'd lost control of his cloud of darkness, and it dissipated. Durg closed with him, fists and feet reaching.

  Durg was clearly faster and stronger than a normal human. But then, so was Shad. And Shad had the longer reach.

  Durg charged, trying to get inside Shad's guard. Shad sidestepped the rush and caught Durg in the solar plexus with a wheel kick, then stepped to the side and rear again, spun, lifted a rear kick, caught Durg in the solar plex yet again with a force that jarred Shad's spine.

  Durg grunted but kept coming. Shad spun again as the range closed, lashing out with a backfist followed by a reverse punch that landed square in the center of Durg's face. It felt as if Shad had punched a bridge abutment.

  Durg fired a short chopping wheel kick off his front foot. Shad blocked with both arms, but the kick knocked him twelve inches sideways in any case. Durg bored in and followed up, fists and elbows flashing. Shad managed to block most of the strikes, but one punch was only partly deflected, and a bolt of agony crackled up Shad's left side. He could feel his ribs bending as they absorbed the punch.

  Shad clawed for the shorter man's eyes, then slammed an elbow into Durg's face and drove the Morakh back. Pain rang through Shad's arm. It was like trying to shove a cement truck.

  Durg blinked blood from his eyes, and in that instant Shad focused his wild card and drew more heat from him. Durg shuddered, but his fighting instinct was still to attack.

  Shad kicked him full force in the knee as he came on, but it slowed Durg only slightly, and the Takisian fired a glancing heel hook by way of reply that rattled Shad's teeth. Shad blocked one strIke after another, pulling more heat from the alien, watching with cold incredulity as the Morakh blanched but kept on coming.

  Somewhere in Shad's mind flashed the memory that Takis was a wintery planet. They liked the cold there.

  He kept eating photons anyway. He was out of ideas. Durg put his head down and charged. Pain crackled through Shad's ribs again as the Morakh's head thudded into his torso. Shad was driven back, and then his injured leg folded, and he went down with the Morakh on top. Despairingly he grabbed for all the heat he could. The Morakh's hands wrapped Shad's throat, and the memory of Robert Penn and his garrote rose like bile. Shad slammed desperate palm heels into Durg's temples.

  And then the Morakh shuddered and collapsed. His skin was ice-cold. Shad rolled the heavy body off and rose. Something was grinding along his left shoulder and back. If he was lucky, he'd just ripped a lot of muscle tissue and ligament: otherwise, he'd lost some ribs. He limped for the harbor. Tachyon stood with Kafka and one of his joker soldiers, standing on the pier, watching a Zodiac inflatable boat roll dangerously in the tidal surge twelve feet below.

  Shots split the air. They were far off.

  "Some of my soldiers," Kafka said. "Bloat is telling them you're over on the south side."

  Shad looked down at the wooden ladder, slippery with spray, leading to the boat lurching at the end of its painter. He picked up Tachyon gently, and his ribs screamed in shock. He ignored them, and went down the ladder. A wave soaked his legs below the knee as he waited
for the Zodiac to move closer to the ladder, and then he gathered his legs under him and jumped. His injured leg put them a little off course, but Shad landed on the soft rubber bottom of the boat, caught his balance against the surging movement, eased Tachyon to a position near the bow, and jumped aft to the outboard. He peered at it, reached uncertainly for the pull-start.

  "There's a self-starter, "-Kafka called.

  Shad found it, grateful not to have to torque his torso after all he'd been through. "Thanks, brother," he said. "In the name of the widow's son."

  He started the engine, revved it, put it in gear. Kafka dropped the painter.

  They were off.

  Kafka didn't wave good-bye. The Zodiac breasted every wave and crashed heavily into the troughs with a thud that rattled more pain from Shad's ribs. A frigid Atlantic wind made a mockery of the August night. Spray drenched both passengers, but at least the boat moved fast. Shad surrounded the boat with darkness, taking in all the warmth he could. He headed out into the bay until the lights of the coast guard facility on Governor's Island began looking too bright, then swung south.

  If there was any pursuit, he never saw it.

  The Statue of Liberty glowed on the right, its torch seeming to twinkle in the rushing air. Shad let the darkness fall away from them so that Tachyon could see.

  "There," he said. "Your lucky sign for tonight." Tachyon gazed out in wonder. Her long blond hair whipped out in the wind. Shad couldn't tell whether her face sparkled with spray or tears.

  "Liberty," Shad said.

  The lights of Bayonne and the south Jersey City docks loomed to their front. Then there was something else, a black pillar rising out of the darkness dead ahead. It made a sucking, growling noise.

  "Look out!" Tachyon shouted, and Shad threw the rudder over. The Zodiac skated over a roller, then fell. The pillar passed astern. Shad could see something rotating on top.

  He dropped the cloak of darkness around the boat. Tachyon gazed at him with blinded eyes. "What was that?"

  "I'm not sure. I think maybe it was the snorkel of a submarine."

  "The what?"

  "A snorkel, along with the periscopes and radars. The old-time diesel subs used to have to surface for air, see, till the Germans invented the snorkel during World War Two. Now they just put the snorkel up and breathe through that. But I don't know if we've got any diesel subs left in the fleet."

  "Who'd put a submarine here?"

  "The Russians. If we're lucky."

  "In New York harbor?"

  "You'd never get a nuclear sub over Sandy Hook-too big. But maybe a small diesel." Something cold climbed Shad's spine. "Look," he said, "this is too weird. If that was a submarine, they're listening to our prop on their hydrophones, and they heard us leave from Ellis Island. If they've got their radio mast up, they could be telling other people we're here. I don't think I want to get close to the Military Ocean Terminal in Bayonne. There might be some kind of military op going on. I'm going farther south."

  "Where?"

  "I don't want to get out into the Atlantic. You'd freeze to death out there. I think I'll head for the Kill Van Kull. We can get lost in the commercial traffic and try to get ashore either in Jersey or Staten Island."

  Tachyon said nothing, just huddled deeper into her blanket.

  The Zodiac spent most of its time in the trough of waves, and Shad's visibility was not ideal, but he scanned the bay when the boat was on the crests and saw two big coast guard cutters heading for them, searchlights panning the water. Both were right on target. It had been a sub, then, and it was guiding the cutters right to them.

  Shad zigzagged-north, then south-then increased speed and dashed between the two boats. They were wearing dark wartime camouflage instead of their normal white paint. One of them was using a loud-hailer, but Shad didn't understand a word.

  The boats seemed to lose track of him after that probably distance affecting the sub's ability to track his outboard propeller.

  Its entrance white with swirling tidal foam, the brightly lit commercial channel of the Kill Van Kull gaped ahead. Somewhere a siren whooped, its sound torn by the wind. A helicopter came out of nowhere, a strange insectlike thing, and passed directly overhead at high speed.

  Shad looked up in surprise to see an odd-looking ballbearing-shaped turret on its nose, a stubby muzzle questing left and right as if sniffing for a target. The rotor downdraft turned the water white.

  Tachyon, blind, turned an alarmed face upward. Shad curved toward the Staten Island shore, his head swiveling wildly as he tried to keep the chopper in view. The helicopter banked and came back again, heading straight for him.

  They've got IR capability, Shad realized, and he tried to eat every bit of heat in the air, soak up every photon. Tachyon gave a convulsive shiver inside her blanket.

  The turret gun fired. Water flew skyward ten yards off the port bow.

  Too close. Shad swung the Zodiac madly to starboard. Whatever happened to the rules of engagement? he wondered.

  The chopper blasted overhead. It had stubby wings and what looked like jet-engine pods.

  The Zodiac bounced madly in the tidal swirl as it entered the Kill Van Kull. The chopper turned again, heading right for them. Shad wondered frantically if they had radar that could detect them.

  "Fuck this!" he shouted to Tachyon. "I'm just gonna surrender, okay? Don't tell 'em who I am. And I'll slip out of custody when I can."

  Tachyon looked blindly in his direction and gave a nod. The chopper fired, rockets this time, one blinding-white streak after another. Concussion slammed the boat. A world of white water fell like Niagara into the boat. The Zodiac kicked high from an impact, and Shad found himself flying, tumbling through the air, air blown from his lungs by the power of an explosion…

  Freezing water boiled around him. He screamed and held his hands over his ears as more concussions battered him. Water poured down his throat. He kicked out, broke surface, shook water from his eyes…

  The boat was careening on, heading for Bayonne with no one at the tiller. Shad caught a glimpse of flying blond hair, heard a distant scream, and then the turret gun opened up again, filling the water with white fountains.

  A wave exploded over his head, and when Shad came up, he couldn't see the boat. He sucked heat and light from the water and struck out for the shore. The roar of the chopper faded.

  The water was frigid and the swim endless, but the tidal swirl was heading in the right direction and helped. Finally Shad climbed up a deserted pier on Staten island, and as the breath rasped in his lungs, as he looked out on the Kill Van Kull from a position much higher than a wave-tossed boat, he saw what it was all about, why they'd been so desperate to stop anyone leaving the Rox.

  Ranked in the sheltered waters of the Kill Van Kull, hidden from Ellis Island by the sprawling turmoil of Bayonne, were quiet rows of ships in wartime camouflage. Landing ships, supply craft, a small helicopter carrier with its craft parked on deck. The helicopter that had attacked him was only one of several patrolling the ship channel. Trucks, their headlights lined up as far as Shad could see, were offloading combat-ready troops on the piers, and the soldiers were marching onto the landing ships.

  They were going for the Rox, and they were going soon. Shad stood dripping on the pier, watched the soldiers moving up the gangplanks, felt his ribs ache, and tried to add up wins and losses.

  He'd been to the Rox and back, but the person he'd come to rescue was drowned or blown to bits. He'd broken the jumpers' extortion scheme, but the police weren't going to forget what his jumped body had done to them. He'd lost Chalktalk, and he'd lost Shelley, and the jumpers hadn't lost anybody.

  Fuck it. He'd lost. There wasn't any winning in it.

  And Shelley had lost, and Tachyon, and if the invasion force was anything to judge by, so had the jumpers, and Kafka, and Bloat.

  Time to hid and figure out what he was going to do next. Shad turned and limped down the pier, and the night raised its welcoming mas
k and swallowed him.

  Lovers

  V

  Tachyon lay on the oil-stained sands of the New Jersey shore and vomited up what felt like several gallons of polluted water. No Takisian is a good swimmer-the home world was too cold to encourage that particular sport-and in her present condition Tachyon was about as lithe as a wading hippo. So she was amazed and delighted to find herself once more safely ashore, however dirty and depressing the vista might be.

  She rolled onto her back and waited for her heart to slow its desperate pounding. Illyana was sending out waves of puzzlement over her mother's distress. Tachyon sent back images of black water, trying to show the baby the reason for her fear and the fact that it no longer existed. Illyana's confusion deepened, and Tach felt a burst of pleasure from the fetus as she contemplated her watery home.

  That brought a laugh to her lips, and Tachyon sat up. "All right, you little fish, so I'm an irrational coward. But you won't be so smug once you've joined the rest of us out here on dry land."

  Sometime during that nightmare dog paddle, she had lost or kicked off her shoes. Water squished through the thick material of her tube socks as she stood and tried to get her bearings. Walking was going to be difficult, and her clammy clothes…

  She realized what she was doing and throttled the complaining thoughts. "Burning Sky," she said with disgust. "You're free. Free, and you're bitching about wet socks."

  Tachyon threw back her head and let out a whoop of joy. "I'M FREE! FUCK YOU, BLAISE! I'M FREE!" The joyous words echoed oddly among the rusting cranes and rotting piers that lined the New Jersey coast.

  It was all the celebration she allowed herself. She was still dangerously vulnerable, and dangerously close to the Rox. She had to make her way back to the clinic, and quickly. As she paused to get her bearings, the moldering skyline suddenly gave her a heart-squeezing sense of deja vu. Strange, because she had never in her life stood on this shore at the edge of the leprous bay, gazing across the cancerous rot of industrial parks.

  Someone else's memory.

  Despite her former body's formidable powers, she had not made it a habit to walk through the private parts of people's minds. That narrowed the possible owners of this particularly intense memory. And since only the Great and Powerful Turtle lived in Bayonne, New Jersey, it was a safe bet the memory was his.