Inside Straight wc-18 Read online

  Of course, she was put on a team with Drummer Boy—who immediately announced that he preferred to be called "DB." Then there was pretty blonde Curveball. Ana was small and drab beside them. Well, I'm not going to last long before they vote me off.

  "You look kind of nervous," someone said. Startled, Ana turned to find Curveball—Kate was her real name—standing beside her.

  "Yeah," Ana admitted, "aren't you?"

  Kate shook her head, and her gaze gleamed as she looked around, taking in the old architecture and the crowd of people. "No, this is exciting. I can't wait to get started."

  "So, I guess we're all on the same team." A man in his midtwenties, with scruffy brown hair and an amused expression, sidled up to them. He had his hands shoved in his pants pockets.

  "You're Jonathan, right?" Kate said.

  Jonathan Hive offered his hand for shaking, which she did. Ana was prepared to slink into the background, but he noticed her and shook her hand as well.

  "Some of us seem to be a little more comfortable with this than others." Jonathan nodded at Drummer Boy, who was signing autographs for some of the crew.

  With all those tattoos and that oddly shaped torso with its living drums, it was hard to look away from him. He seemed to enjoy being the giant in the room. He especially seemed to welcome the attention of the women. American Hero was blessed with—or rather, the producers had been sure to choose—a stunning selection of beautiful women, of almost every ethnicity. With six arms, Drummer Boy could flirt with all of them—resting a hand on one woman's back, another on a different shoulder, while touching a strand of hair of a third. The hair in question belonged to Cleo—or Cleopatra—who could teleport herself and whatever she was touching short distances, leaving behind a pop sound, as air rushed to fill the empty space. In response to DB's touch, Cleo laughed and sidled up to the joker, tucking herself by his side. Already, Ana had caught her new nickname among the production assistants: Pop Tart.

  "Hey, is that Peregrine?" Kate said, and Ana turned to look.

  It was, emerging through a hallway from another part of the building, followed by a lanky young production assistant carrying a clipboard and a cup of coffee. The talk show diva and perennial celebrity's wings fluttered slightly as she turned and addressed the assistant. Ana couldn't hear, but the exchange seemed odd—overly familiar, maybe. One hand on her hip, Peregrine pointed a finger, and the assistant nodded meekly at what turned out to be a lecture.

  That wasn't a boss dressing down a subordinate, Ana realized. That was a mother admonishing her son.

  Peregrine took the cup of coffee from him and turned her attention to another member of the crew, and the production assistant came toward them. He had coffee-and-cream skin and light, curly hair. Young, maybe twenty, his boyish face nonetheless had a tired look.

  "Hi, I'm John Fortune," he said. "Looks like I'll be the traffic cop this afternoon. Let me show you where we need you to stand for the shoot."

  It took a half-hour for him to break up the party and herd everyone to where they needed to be for the publicity photo session.

  John asked, "Anything else you need? Is everybody okay?"

  "I think we're fine," Kate said, returning his smile. She looked around for confirmation. "Yeah?"

  "Great. We'll start in a couple minutes." With a mock salute, he left them.

  "I'd watch out for that guy," Hive said to Kate. "Charm, multiethnic good looks—you may be doomed."

  "Oh yeah?" she said.

  "Yeah, I saw the way he looked at you."

  "Kind of like how you're looking at me?"

  Hive quickly glanced away and pursed his lips. "So what if I am?" Kate blushed, and Hive sighed. "Whew, we haven't been here an hour and we're already making great TV drama."

  Another half-hour passed while the crew adjusted the lighting.

  "Just like being on tour," Drummer Boy muttered. He was nevertheless smiling.

  "This show business stuff must be old hat to you," Kate said, looking up at him.

  "Old hat with a new twist. The scenery here's way better." He winked at Kate, who actually giggled.

  Oh, this was going to be a long day, Ana thought. She was so out of her league.

  A man Ana recognized from the audition detached from the mob of crew and regarded them all, a lord surveying his domain: Michael Berman, a network executive on hand to observe the proceedings. He was in his thirties, slick and intense. Even Ana could tell his suit and tie were expensive.

  "This is fabulous. Thank you all for helping make this a reality. I can't wait to see what happens over the next few weeks. And I'm sure I can count on you to make this the best show possible." He rubbed his hands together with obvious glee.

  "Is it a competition or entertainment?" Hive said with a smirk. "The world may never know."

  "I don't think I like that guy," Kate whispered to Ana.

  Ana had to smile. "I know what you mean."

  The meet-and-greet was at the hotel, but the actual unveiling of the teams for the premiere of American Hero took place on a Hollywood sound stage that looked like a night club, all dark glass and chrome, touched with blue neon.

  Peregrine was the emcee. In her fifties now, she was as poised and beautiful as ever, and her wings framed her perfectly. She wore a black strapless evening gown that shimmered gold when she turned, and her hair lay in loose waves around her shoulders and wings.

  "Welcome to the first of what promises to be twelve weeks of excitement, astonishment, heartbreak, and—we hope—heroism the likes of which you have never seen. We've searched the country for undiscovered aces, for great powers, and for people who have the potential to change the world. This is American Hero."

  Then came the theme song, a pounding, blood-stirring rock anthem that would no doubt be hitting the charts in weeks to come. Peregrine introduced the judges, two who in their younger days had been beloved aces in their own right: Topper, wearing her trademark tuxedo and top hat, from which she could pull any manner of items, and the Harlem Hammer, the massive, super-strong ace who had been coaxed out of retirement. The third judge knew his aces—had reported on them for Aces! for going on twenty-five years. Who better to judge the up-and-coming generation?

  Thomas "Digger" Downs spoke seriously, regarding the camera as he would an old friend, "After sixty years of living with the wild card, you'd think we couldn't be astonished anymore. That we couldn't be amazed. We've seen alien invasions, madmen with the power to take over the world, plagues of crime that steal away your very mind, strangers who can peer into your soul. Women who fly, men who lift tanks, deformities that strain our definition of what it means to be human. We've seen witch hunts, assassinations, politics run amuck, the world brought to the brink and back. You'd think that surely we'd seen it all.

  "But I can tell you that we haven't. Over the last few weeks I've traveled from one end of the country to the other. And I have been amazed."

  He introduced the next segment: highlights from the seven auditions, potential contestants who tried and failed—sometimes to the great amusement of the audience—and those who tried and astonished.

  A dozen concrete walls shattered.

  A dozen cars rose from the ground, or disintegrated, or burst into flames.

  A dozen bone-shattering falls were survived. A dozen aces flew to the tops of nearby buildings.

  The sequence of clips paid special attention to the ace, Curveball. The show's editors were already deciding who their heroes were.

  She threw a baseball with an underhanded snap. Her whole body seemed to pop like a spring, and the ball flew, faster than any major league pitch. It glowed yellow, then orange, scorching the air it passed through.

  Then it turned. Hand outstretched, Kate guided it. As if it had a mind of its own, it flew around an overturned bus, back through a maze of twisted rebar, and slammed into one of the stacks of concrete blocks that served as a makeshift wall.

  The wall shattered with the force of an explosion. Concrete and dust flew in all directions and the sound rattled the seats all over the stadium. When the air cleared, the wall was gone. Disintegrated. The missile—a simple baseball, everyone was sure to note—had destroyed it.

  Downs's prediction was right: The audience at home was astonished and amazed, and they couldn't wait to see more.

  "Now," Peregrine said, donning her brightest smile yet. "Meet your new American Heroes!"

  Twenty-eight contestants joined the winged beauty on stage, standing in groups of seven with their teams: Hearts, Spades, Diamonds, Clubs. It was glorious—lights flashed, music swelled, and it sounded like cheering.

  Ana was caught in it all like a deer in the headlights, a tight smile locked on her face. Drummer Boy punched six hands in the air, and Wild Fox's tail flashed sparks as it twitched.

  Amidst the thrills, elation, and chaos, Jonathan Hive tapped his wrist.

  "All right, kids, check your watches," he said. "Your fifteen minutes starts now."

  A week later, the party was over.

  Four teams gathered on the same stage, which now served as the field of judgment. Behind each team, as part of the backdrop, was its logo: Hearts, Spades, Diamonds, Clubs.

  No one knew what to expect, so the atmosphere was beyond tense. It crackled. The last time they'd stood here, the mood had been celebratory: They were the chosen ones, they'd been anointed. Now, they had failed. They'd had their first trial, and they didn't feel good about it.

  One team—Clubs—held itself differently. Their frowns were a bit more smug, their backs a bit straighter. Before any of them saw the replays, they could all guess who had won this round.

  In fact, the replay of Team Clubs' assault on the burning building couldn't have been any more glorious if it had been scripted.

  Stuntman did the impossible: ran into the burning building by the front door. Nearly invulnerable, he couldn't burn. He made three trips, pulling out four "victims," including the doll programmed with a digital recording of a crying baby. His clothes were scorched to nearly nothing, but Diver was on hand with a coat from the fire truck to cover him. The others had been more successful operating the fire hose. Jade Blossom increased her density, making herself an anchor to brace the nozzle. The water dampened the fire enough to clear a path in the front entryway. Two more people rescued. Brave Hawk, who manifested illusory brown-black hawk wings when he flew, had been able to pull another three victims out of upper-story windows, including the one who had jumped. The flier snatched him out of the air. And Toad Man, turned into his giant toad form, managed a particularly gruesome rescue by snatching the tenth and final victim out of a window with his thirty-foot-long, viscous tongue. All ten victims rescued.

  Spades and Diamonds didn't achieve quite so spectacular a victory, but they each had their moments. On the Spades side, the Candle used his multipurpose, colored flames to build a glowing red ladder to the second-story windows. The victims within climbed to safety. Metal-skinned Rust-belt withstood the flames enough to save a couple of victims from the ground floor. The team, however, suffered a drawback when Simoon, in an attempt to quell the fire by blasting it in her whirlwind form, only succeeded in fanning the flames. Their rescue effort ended with five victims saved.

  Diamonds fared better. The Maharajah, the easily overlooked man in the wheelchair, had telekinetically animated a half-dozen fire fighters' coats from the truck and marched them into the burning house to rescue three victims. Matryoshka had split into four smaller versions of himself, and they controlled the hose as a well-coordinated unit. Their flier, Jetman, rescued several victims from the upper floor. Unlike Brave Hawk, though, he'd failed to catch the man who'd jumped. They'd rescued seven victims.

  On the other hand, the editing on the replay of Team Hearts' trial brought to the fore every mishap, every wart, every fault. Hardhat's success was reduced to a second or two, making the highlight of the sequence Curveball, Drummer Boy, and Hive yelling at each other, Hardhat and Gardener fruitlessly running around searching for victims to rescue, and Earth Witch and Wild Fox doing absolutely nothing. At least the many bleeps punctuating Hardhat's speech got a few chuckles.

  For a moment, all was quiet. The judges' weighty silence was worse than any criticism. The Hearts gazed back hopefully, as if they might escape.

  Topper shook her head, and it was like an ax falling. "Aren't you taking this seriously? Do you know how many people would be dead now if that had been a real fire?"

  Seven, Ana thought. Seven people, even if one of them had been a fake baby.

  The Harlem Hammer continued. "Half of you just stood there. You gave up before you even tried anything because you couldn't figure out how to use your powers. You think it's all about your aces? And you didn't even try to work together."

  Then Downs inserted his own vitriolic assessment. "You guys aren't a team, you're a preschool! I wouldn't trust you to look after my hamster!"

  Ana could imagine watching this on TV at home, and how exciting it must be. How gleeful the audience would be, watching Downs cut them to pieces. But even if she'd had a chance to respond, there was nothing she could say. They weren't wrong about any of it. Her cheeks were burning at the reprimands. Kate's gaze was downcast, her jaw tight, as if she clenched her teeth.

  All the groups were quiet, quivering with tension. Maybe they had imagined what it would be like to lose, what the judges might say to them, but they hadn't imagined anything like this.

  When Topper announced that Team Clubs had won immunity for the first challenge, no one was surprised. Clubs' members gave each other high fives and hugged in celebration, but didn't cheer. They looked relieved rather than smug.

  Peregrine spoke solemnly, like this was an execution and not network television. "Hearts. Spades. Diamonds. Each of you will now return to your headquarters, where you'll decide who from your team to discard."

  One of the judges accompanied each team to officiate the discard process. Just when Ana thought the evening couldn't get worse, Hearts was blessed with the presence of Digger Downs, who seemed far too gleeful in his role as the "bad" judge.

  Her stomach was in knots, which were tightening with every breath. On the drive back, she and her teammates kept glancing at each other, sizing each other up, making calculations: Who should go?

  She wasn't worried so much about herself. What she really hated was having to make a choice.

  In the garage, Drummer Boy lingered by the Hummer and waved her over with a gesture from an upper arm. Uncertain, she went to him, wondering what he could possibly want with her.

  His voice hushed—and for such a huge, brusque man, he could make his voice surprisingly muted—he said, "You know who you're picking?"

  Ah, that was what he wanted to talk about. "No."

  "You worried?"

  "About what?"

  He gave a huff, like he thought she was being stupid. "You didn't do squat during the challenge. That puts you in danger of getting kicked out, you know that?"

  She supposed it did. "I hadn't really thought about it."

  "You ought to be making deals," he said. "Trade votes. Make sure someone else gets it."

  She couldn't do that any more than she could have stopped the fire by digging a hole under the building. She shrugged. "I don't even know who I'd pick."

  "Bugsy," he said. "The guy's a prick."

  "What do you get if I pick him?"

  "Don't vote me off the next time we lose. It's that simple."

  Downs called from the house for them to hurry up.

  "I'll think about it," Ana said, and hurried away from the towering joker.

  She didn't want to make deals. She didn't want to vote anyone off. She shouldn't even be here.

  Inside the house, in the no longer comfortable dining room, they gathered around the long table. Cameras watched them; all their expressions were somber, their shoulders tense. Hands clenched the backs of chairs, or tightened into fists.

  Downs handed them each a thin pack of cards. Shuffling through them, Ana found only seven cards. Each one bore the photo of a teammate.

  The judge explained. "Each of you will place the card of your choice face down on the table—"

  Suddenly, a dozen small, furry creatures appeared on the table, jumping over each other, squeaking, dancing. Ana gasped, and everyone took a step back.

  "What the hell!" Downs said.

  "Hamsters," Wild Fox said, grinning like he was pleased with himself. His tail gave a flick.

  Next to him, Curveball huffed. "You would have to go pissing off the judge."

  Murderous looks glared at him across the table, and the hamsters popped out of existence. Wild Fox glared back, his tail drooping.

  Downs sighed heavenward. "Let's get this over with. Hearts, play your cards."

  Curveball only considered her cards a moment before drawing one and setting it face down on the table. Jaw set, she glanced around the table, confident, meeting everyone's gaze. At least she wasn't going to let this cow her.

  So it went around the table. Drummer Boy and Hardhat quickly followed, then Wild Fox, Hive, and Gardener. Then they were all looking at Ana, waiting.

  Ana studied the cards in her hand, the smiling faces so unlike the ones she saw around her now. Her teammates were waiting to learn their fates, and she was delaying. But she couldn't decide.

  She wondered what would happen if she put her own card on the table. After all, she never wanted to be here. She could leave just as quickly. Nobody would ever know that she'd discarded herself—unless all seven cards showed her face. That was a distinct possibility; as DB had said, she hadn't done anything. If all seven cards showed her face, she'd have to explain to Roberto why she rigged her own downfall. So that wasn't going to work.

  She couldn't think rationally. Everyone here had strengths. Everyone here would be useful, given the right situation. If they ever had to look for buried treasure, Ana would save the day. She couldn't use that criterion to judge. If it was a matter of picking who she didn't want to live with for the rest of the show, she'd have to say Wild Fox. Then again, maybe Drummer Boy had the right idea.