Ace In The Hole

OR I'LL HAVE TO MAKE IT FOR HIM. C'MON, PEOPLE!"'

Hovering at head height, the Turtle eased through the barricades and into the jokers like a plow. Gregg stepped forward in his wake. Carnifex, the secret service people, and several of the police followed. Reporters and cameramen jostled for position.

Gregg was recognized immediately. The chant began to rise on either side of the Turtle and his entourage. "Hartmann! Hartmann!" Gregg smiled, reaching out to brush the hands that stretched toward him from the front ranks. "Hartmann! Hartmann!" He was beaming, his jacket off and his tie loosened, a patch of sweat darkening his spine: The Candidate At Work. He knew the scene would be featured in all the evening reports.

Inside, he was not so complacent.

The crowd was charged with emotional energy. The current was nearly visible to him, pulsing and surging, and it drew Puppetman like a lure. He could feel the power strengthening, rising, growing. Let me out, it told him. Let me taste.

There's Gimli, he reminded Puppetman. Remember '76. As if Gregg had spoken an invocation, Gimli's faint voice echoed. I remember '76, Hartmann. I remember it very well. And I also remember what happened yesterday with Ellen. Tell me, how did you like being the fucking puppet? Go on, let your friend out. I might not stop you this time. Of course, if I did, he might get mad. Maybe Puppetman would walk you around again. The news services would all love that.

Puppetman snarled at Gimli, but Gregg shivered behind his smile. Puppetman shook the bars of his cage as the jokers' energy shimmered around them. Gregg held the doors shut with an effort.

"Hartmann! Hartmann!"

He smiled. He nodded. He touched. The temptation to let Puppetman out and ride with him was maddening. In that, Gimli was right-Gregg wanted it too. He wanted it as much as he wanted anything.

The Turtle came to a halt in the middle of International Boulevard near the effigy of Barnett. "Get on, Senator," he said. The shell swayed lower until it was only a foot above the pavement. Gregg stepped up; Billy Ray and the others circled the Turtle.

An enormous shout went up as he climbed the shell. Sensitive despite his burying of Puppetman, he was nearly staggered by the emotional impact of their massed adulation. Gregg slipped and nearly fell; he felt the Turtle lift him with an almost tender push. "Jeez, Senator, I'm sorry. I guess I wasn't thinking-"

Gregg stood on top of the shell. Joker faces peered at him, pressing against the Turtle's telekinetic barrier. The sound of their cheering echoed from the Omni and the WCC, deafening. He shook his head, smiling in the modest, half-shy way that had become the Hartmann trademark during the long campaign. Gregg let the chant go on, feeling the insistent beat hammer at him.

Puppetman rode with it. Though Gregg held him in, he could not keep the power from rising to the surface of his mind. He looked out at the jokers and saw familiar faces among them: Peanut, Flicker, Fartface, Marigold, and the one called Gravemold, who had finally brought down Typhoid Croyd. Puppetman saw them too, and the power slammed hard against the mindbars, growling and tearing.

Gregg trembled with the effort of controlling the ravenous personality, and knew he could not stay out here long. His hold was crumbling under the assault of their emotions.

(Brilliant, undiluted primary colors, swirling all about him. Puppetman could almost touch them and see them sway like tinted smoke

…)

Gregg raised his hands for silence. "Please!" he shouted, and heard his amplified voice rebound from the buildings around them. "Listen to me. I understand your frustrations. I know four decades of ill treatment and misunderstanding are aching to be released. But this isn't the way. This isn't the time."

It wasn't what they wanted to hear. He felt their distaste and hurried. "Inside that building, we're fighting for jokers' rights." (… shouts of encouragement: aching green and knife-edged yellow…) "What I'm asking is that you help me in that fight. You have a right to demonstrate. But I tell you that violence in the streets will be used as a tool against you. My opponents will point and they will say: 'You see, jokers are dangerous. We cant trust them. We can't let them live anywhere near us.' Now's the time for all jokers to finally cast off their masks, but you must show the world that the face underneath is the face of a friend."

(… the shaded currents turning muddy brown with confusion and uncertainty. The brightness dimmed…) With me, you'could do it. Easily. Puppetman mocked him. Look out there. Together, we could turn this around. We could end the demonstration. You'd walk away a hero. Just let me out.

Gregg was losing them. Even without Puppetman's direct link, he knew that. Gregg Hartmann was suddenly saying the same words they'd heard all along from everyone else. There was no magic anymore. No Puppetman.

(… shifting to a dark, somber violet: a dangerous hue, a feeding color. Puppetman screamed…)

Gregg had to leave. The emotions, like a storm-tossed tide battering the shore, eroded the tenuous hold on his power. Puppetman would leap out.

He had to end it. Had to get away from the feast spread before his power.

"I'm asking-begging-you to help those who are down there on the floor. Please. Don't let anger ruin it all."

It was a horrible, abrupt ending; Gregg knew it. The crowd stared at him, silent. A few tried to begin the chant again, but it died quickly. "Get me down," Gregg whispered.

The Turtle lifted him slightly and lowered him to the concrete. "Let's get out of here," Gregg said. "I've done all I can do." Puppetman clawed at Gregg in desperation, lashing out in his mind like a mad animal. The Turtle backed slowly through the crowd toward the waiting limo. Gregg followed, frowning. He saw and heard nothing of what was in front of him. It took all of his concentration simply to hold Puppetman in.