Dealer's Choice Read online

  Bloat managed to smile at the woman. The image of her mind was Bloat-As-Weenie, impaled on a stick and roasting over a fire. He was making tiny little squealing sounds as the fat hissed and the skin bubbled.

  “Governor,” Hardesty interjected, driving away the vision. “You want to believe that they won’t hit you. It’s not realistic. I say you can’t afford to be complacent, and it’s not enough just to strengthen your defenses here. Hit them first. Hit them before they’re ready. I, for one, will help — I’ve a score to settle with Carnifex.” With the last statement, Bloat could feel a fountaining of heat in Hardesty’s mind and, behind it, the raging power of the Wild Hunt.

  “Listen, we have enough firepower of our own,” Bloat insisted. “There are — what, Molly — almost a hundred jumpers here? Each one of them can give us an ace. We have my Wall to send back at least part of any invading force; I can also summon the demons from my dreams, and they turned the last attack into a rout — those abilities seem to be growing every day. We have a few aces of our own, like Croyd.”

  “Who’s asleep in the east tower, who we can’t wake up, and who knows what abilities he might have when he does.” The penguin grinned wide-mouthed up at Bloat. “Hey, just being fair, your Prodigiousness,” it said. “I still think you should just walk away from the whole thing.” It cackled.

  Bloat tried to shrug and failed, his emaciated shoulders drooping. What was left of his human body in the gargantuan bulk of Bloat was slowly deteriorating. He shook his head instead, and flakes of dandruff in the wispy hair fell like snow. “Croyd will wake up or we’ll find a way to get him awake if we need him. We also have people like Shroud, who can hide and attack unseen. The Twisted Fists have given us modern weapons — we’re better armed now than a month ago. We have the caverns underneath in which to hide, food stores to last for a few weeks, and since the Wall has reached the Jersey shore, we’ve better supply lines. The nats’ll settle this politically. Through negotiation, not fighting.”

  “Great, Bloat.” Molly Bolt scowled. The young girl leaned against one of the crystalline pillars, her arms folded over her leather jacket. “You make it sound so damn easy. But what if you’re wrong? What happens to the caves if you get taken out, huh? What happens to the Wall or your demons? I think Mr. Well Hung here’s got the right idea. Let’s take the offensive.”

  “No.” Bloat’s voice broke with the word. It came out half-strangled and more bleat than shout.

  “Why ever not?” demanded Hardesty. “I should think you’d stand a better chance picking your own time and place to fight.”

  “Don’t you see?” Bloat asked. He realized his voice sounded almost desperate and tried to slow down, to lower the pitch … if only I could call up the Outcast. They’d listen to the Outcast… “It’s one thing to defend yourself. It’s another to attack first. If we make the first move, were not any better than they are. Especially when we haven’t even talked to them yet.”

  Zelda guffawed loudly; Molly frowned. “Look at us,” Molly said. “Look around you. They are better than us. I say kick their butts first, before they gear up to do the same. Nothing’s gonna change the way they feel about us — they hate our fucking guts.”

  “Molly, I’ve shored up the defenses,” Bloat insisted. “Go down in the caverns and look. We have the bay as a moat, we now have a lava moat in the lower sections. We’re safe here. I’m getting more powerful; hey, we’re more powerful. Don’t you see,” he continued, as loudly as he could. “Don’t any of you see? They want us to attack. They want an excuse to come in with everything and take us out. I say that we shouldn’t provide them the reason.”

  “You want us to stand here and wait to he hit,” Bodysnatcher said.

  “I say we should leave,” the penguin muttered. Bloat ignored it.

  “That’s exactly what I’m saying, Zelda,” he answered. “I’m the governor here.”

  “I knew that was coming,” the penguin said. It skated away to the back of the crowd. Hardesty watched it, a puzzled look on his face.

  The bodysnatcher snorted. “So much for democracy in action. Why’d you even bother to call us here, Governor? You already knew what you were going to do.”

  “I needed to tell you how important all of this is,” Bloat told her. “Hey, I’m the one who can read minds, after all. I knew what you were thinking. I needed you to hear it so that none of you go off and do anything stupid.”

  From Zelda, there was a sudden, desperate counting in her mind, masking whatever her thoughts might have been. A grudging acceptance radiated from Hardesty and Molly, though Bloat knew they remained unconvinced. Shroud and Kafka also had their doubts, but Bloat knew that they’d follow, whatever he ordered.

  “For the time being,” Bloat said, “I’ll have jokers manning the Wall towers to keep a lookout. I’ll continue to build the defenses around the Rox. We’ll wait until we hear what Hartmann has to say. In the meantime, Shroud can go over to J-town with Charon and contact the Twisted Fists — you can tell them what’s happened and get any new information they have. And the rest of you can wait.”

  Bloat glanced at each of them in turn. Only Zelda held his eyes, and in her mind there was the flak of surface thoughts …hate you… The phrase leaked out from underneath, contemptuous and sinister.

  “This is the Rox,” he told them. His hand waved awkwardly at the Statue of Liberty’s torch on the wall behind him. “Our land and our country. I won’t let them take it away from us. I promise that.”

  Bloat wished he were as confident as he tried to sound.

  Ebbets Field had been sealed off and surrounded by troops. The curb was lined with jeeps, supply trucks, and staff cars. A tank squatted right in front of the ballpark.

  The shell left a long shadow on the pavement as it floated silently up the street, past the police barricades. Snug in its claustrophobic interior, Tom swiveled slowly, scanning each of the television screens that lined the curving walls. The soldiers on the street below were pointing and gesticulating. One of them produced a camera and took a few snapshots. Tom figured he must be from out of town.

  He pushed up. The shell rose another fifty feet into the air, moved slowly over the ballpark. Sentries had been posted on the scoreboard. The dugouts were full of sandbags and machine guns. Uniformed men were bustling all over the outfield.

  A miniature Rox had risen on the infield.

  The castle sat on top of the pitcher’s mound. The curtain wall bisected home plate and circled the bases. Everything had been duplicated in astonishing detail. Teams of enlisted men were putting the finishing touches on the huge tactical model, under the supervision of junior officers.

  Near the Dodger dugout, a man in a blue-and-white costume was arguing with General Zappa and a couple of his aides. Even from this height Tom recognized Cyclone. His jumpsuit was shiny sky-blue Kevlar, accented by an oversize snow-white cape that fastened at wrist, ankle, and throat and drooped down behind him. Tom zoomed in. Exterior mikes tracked, locked.

  “…making this much more complicated than it needs to be, General,” Cyclone was saying. “These amateurs are just going to compromise the operation.”

  The general was taller than the ace, dark and saturnine, with a black mustache. “As far as I’m concerned, Mr. Carlysle, all of you civilians are amateurs.”

  “I don’t consider myself a civilian,” Cyclone said. “I had a special Air Force commission during Nam. General Westmoreland —”

  “General Westmoreland isn’t running this operation, I am,” Zappa interrupted. He was wearing an Arab headdress, for some reason.

  Tom smiled. Zappa was all right. For a general, anyway. He turned on his microphones. The voice of the Turtle, amplified and distorted by his speakers, boomed down over the infield. “NICE MODEL, GENERAL.”

  Vidkunssen, the big blond major in mirror-shades and Air Force blue, glanced up and said. “Soviet satellite reconnaissance. Got to give it to the Russkis, they didn’t miss a thing.”

 
That was swell, Tom thought, but he had the uneasy feeling that Bloat could change the physical layout of the Rox anytime the big boy put his mind to it. In which case, your Soviet satellite reconnaissance and a dime still wouldn’t get you a cup of borscht.

  He floated to hover above the field. “WHERE’S HARTMANN?”

  “On his way,” Zappa said. “With another volunteer.”

  “Another unnecessary volunteer,” Cyclone said. His real name, Tom knew, was Vernon Henry Carlysle. He was about fifty, just a shade under six feet, with the same coloring as his daughter Mistral — fair skin, hazel eyes, light brown hair that moved easily in the wind. The hair had started to recede, but his flier’s body was still taut and well muscled. “My daughter and I can handle this situation alone, I tell you. They’re only a bunch of jokers. There’s no need to put anyone else at risk.”

  “NO NEED TO PUT ANYONE AT RISK,” the Turtle announced. “WE’RE GOING TO WORK OUT A PEACEFUL SOLUTION.”

  “We all hope you’re right,” General Zappa said. Cyclone did not look convinced.

  “Of course, we do need to plan for contingencies, in case Senator Hartmann’s mission should fail,” a new voice put in. A plump civilian stepped from the dugout tunnel. He smiled at everyone and gestured up with the pipe he was smoking. “You must be the Great and Powerful Turtle.”

  No shit, Sherlock, Tom thought, but he said, “GUILTY. THEY TOLD ME IT WAS BAT DAY. I GUESS I WAS MISINFORMED.”

  The civilian smiled. “Nonetheless, we’re pleased to have you with us. I am Phillip Baron von Herzenhagen of the Special Executive Task Force.”

  Tom didn’t have the vaguest notion what the fuck the Special Executive Task Force was supposed to be. And right now, he didn’t especially care. A girl had emerged from the dugout shadows to stand beside von Hergenbergen or whatever his name was.

  She looked all of eighteen, her blond hair knotted in a ponytail, a black-and-orange Minnesota Giants baseball cap shading bright blue eyes. Great, Torn thought, the army brought cheerleaders. Only this cheerleader was wearing a Kevlar-armored vest and cradling an M16 instead of a baton.

  “This lovely young thing,” von Hagendaas began, “is —”

  The girl stepped out onto the field. “Danielle Shepherd.”

  “Legion,” von Harglebargle finished.

  “Danny,” she insisted. She pushed back the Giants cap and flashed an engaging, lopsided smile at his cameras.

  “Miss Shepherd is an ace as well,” von Handydandy added.

  Tom looked at her again. She was very cute, but even with the bulletproof vest and the M16 she looked like she’d be more at home in a girls’ softball championship than in combat.

  “GREAT. TERRIFIC.” Tom didn’t know what else to say. Forty-six years old, and he still got awkward around pretty girls.

  Von Herglebergle smiled. “And if you’d care to turn around…” Tom caught a flicker of motion in the corner of his eye, off one of the screens behind him. He spun his chair around 180 degrees.

  In deep center field, beside a weathered advertisement that promised Abe Stark would give a free suit to any batter hitting this sign, a wide double gate opened slowly. Sunlight shimmered blindingly off polished chrome armor as a massive metallic shape lumbered onto the field. It looked like a tank on legs.

  “Detroit Steel,” von Herzenberzen pronounced.

  Detroit Steel was seven feet tall and four across. He must have weighed as much as the Turtle’s shell; with each step, his feet sank a good ten inches into the soft outfield turf, leaving elephant-sized potholes to drive the Dodger groundskeepers crazy. He looked like he was moving in stop-motion animation.

  Danny Shepherd might be a new one on Tom, but he knew all about Detroit Steel from Aces magazine. It wasn’t a robot. There was a man inside that armor, an unemployed Detroit autoworker who had tinkered together the suit in his spare time to become Motown’s foremost public ace. His exoskeleton gave him strength to rival Golden Boy’s. Supposedly he’d built the whole thing out of scrap metal and old auto parts.

  Detroit Steel came to a stop beneath him. The reflection off the chrome was blinding. A single cyclopean headlight was mounted in the helmet above the tinted eye slit, and a whole bank of them across the massive chest. Vintage Caddy tailfins decorated shoulders and helmet. A radio antenna telescoped out from behind one ear. All it needed was a set of fuzzy dice.

  “Yo, Turtle,” Detroit Steel said, his voice boisterous, hearty, and full of static. “Good to be working with you. My kid’s a big fan.”

  “THANKS,” Tom said, uncertainly. The feds were bringing in aces from all over the country. Cyclone operated out of San Francisco. Detroit Steel was from Michigan. He didn’t know about Danny Shepherd, but the Minnesota Giants cap might be a clue. The local heavyweights had already been lined up: Mistral, Pulse, Modular Man, Elephant Girl.

  “This will be the most powerful ace strike team ever assembled,” von Hergenbergen promised. “One of my aides is in Japan right now, talking with Fortunato. We’re also following up leads on Chimera, Manta Ray, and Starshine. We’ve offered pardons to the Sleeper and Jumpin’ Jack Flash.”

  Fat chance, Tom thought. Starshine and J.J. Flash were both “friends” of Cap’n Trips, currently off in space somewhere with Dr. Tachyon and the private detective Jay Ackroyd. The last time Tom saw the captain, he’d been climbing into a spaceship, waving like it was the QE2 and he was off to cruise the Virgin Islands.

  “Going to kick some serious ass.” Detroit Steel said. Tom wished he were as sure.

  Ebbets Field seemed empty even though there were a lot of people present — the absence of crowds in the old wooden grandstand, and the lack of anything so interesting as a ball game to attract attention, made the huge field seem like a vast, obscure memorial to a cause long forgotten. A few soldiers ran about the bright green infield stringing wire, putting up antennae, testing a sound system … Someone was noodling around on the club organ, trying to hunt-and-peck his way through “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.” There was a huge model of the Rox built on and around the pitcher’s mound. Armed sentries were posted at intervals around the park’s perimeter, and both dugouts had been turned into sandbagged machinegun posts.

  Modular Man had been here twice before. He recognized Cyclone standing by the Dodger dugout. Near him were a number of people in uniform and a huge robot seemingly assembled out of junkyard spare parts. The Turtle floated enigmatically overhead.

  The android landed nearby, beside a lean man in uniform who wore an Arab headdress.

  “General Zappa?” Modular Man said.

  “Call me Frank.” The mildly southern voice issued from beneath a clipped military mustache. Zappa nodded toward the other man, who wore an Air Force uniform blouse unbuttoned over a Judas Priest T-shirt. “This is Major Vidkunssen. Big Swede.”

  Modular Man shook hands with the major. Words flashed across the electronic scoreboard. U.S. SIGNAL CORPS KICKS ASS.

  The robot — or was it a suit of armor? — gave a brief hiss of hydraulics. Oiled pistons slid in their sleeves, and little servomotors whined as it extended one paw.

  “Detroit Steel,” he said. “Made in America.”

  Modular Man gazed upward at the behemoth’s metal face and shook his head. He noticed that Detroit Steel had old auto fins on his shoulders and that the headlight on his helmet seemed to have come from a 1957 Chevrolet. There was a Lincoln hood ornament screwed to the top of his head.

  “Perhaps you’re long-lost cousins,” suggested Cyclone, “if not twins, separated at birth.”

  For the robot’s sake, Modular Man hoped not.

  Cyclone introduced Modular Man to a young blond woman named Danny Shepherd, who seemed rather small and fragile to be wearing uniform and carrying a gun.

  “Could I speak to you privately?” Zappa asked Modular Man. He led the android out to the pitcher’s mound, where a ghetto blaster on top of a miniature battlement was blaring Middle Eastern music. Vidkunssen followed them.

/>   “What I’d like to ask you to do,” Zappa said, “is take a flight over Ellis Island, drop some leaflets, and scope out the defenses at the same time. Think you could do that?”

  “I suppose.”

  “There’s supposed to be this kind of mental field around the castle so that people don’t want to get inside. But you’re a robot, right?”

  “An android.”

  “Android. Sorry. Anyway, the mental field shouldn’t be a problem. Will it’?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll try.”

  AIR FARCE ARE WIMPS, said the scoreboard.

  “And you seem to have enough firepower to keep the demons away.” Zappa’s eyes narrowed. “Where’d you get that machine gun, exactly?”

  Modular Man had stolen it, actually, from a National Guard warehouse. “I’d rather not say,” he said.

  Zappa and Vidkunssen exchanged looks. Someone on the organ was trying to play “96 Tears.”

  “You fought with the army during the Swarm invasion,” Zappa said. “You have an idea of the kind of information we’d be interested in, right?”

  “I suppose.”

  Zappa looked down at the huge model. “The problem is that our military reconnaissance satellites aren’t set up to cover the East Coast. NASA has been trying to get a Delta launch ready, but there are storms over Cape Canaveral right now and they’ve scrubbed the mission till Monday at the earliest. We’ve been buying intelligence data from the Russians, and we can overfly the Rox with a reconnaissance plane, but in each case it takes time to get the pictures to my office.

  “We’d also like to know where Governor Bloat is. Where he is physically.”

  “If we can neutralize him,” Vidkunssen said, “most of our problems vanish.” "The others might surrender without him,” Zappa said. “That would be a good thing.”

  Vidkunssen looked up. “Limo coming, Frank.”

  “The draft evader or his emissary. Better change the channel.”

  Vidkunssen grinned. “Makes you want to shoot quail, don’t it?”