Inside Straight

Ian Tregillis The Tin Man’s Lament

…They didn’t do it.

What’s worse than being hated for what people think you did?

Wally Gunderson, aka Rustbelt, aka Toolbelt, aka You Stupid Tool, aka Hey You, aka Racist, sat in the darkness of his bedroom in the Discard Pile, scrolling through Bugsy’s blog. It chronicled cruel people doing senseless things to others. Harmless and undeserving others who hadn’t said or done anything wrong.

The monitor cast a sickly hue across his cast-iron skin, tinting the midnight blue-black with green, like he was a nat mottled with half-healed bruises. It fit the ooky feelings that he’d carried in his gut since he got kicked off American Hero. Sadness. Confusion. Shame. Anger.

The blog didn’t help matters any. As confusing as this Egypt thing was—Wally didn’t really understand the details—it was depressing, too. Innocent people were dying for no good reason; he got that much.

But reading still beat venturing outside. The place was awful crowded; all but five of the American Hero contestants had joined the Discard Pile. (Twenty-three aces. Four bathrooms.) Of those not living in the overcrowded mansion, two had up and left the show: Bugsy was in Egypt, and Drummer Boy had decided he’d rather be a rock star than a discard. The other three—Curveball, Rosa Loteria, and, of course, Stuntman—were still competing.

Oomp-thump-oomp-thump … Somebody cranked up the bass downstairs. Tonight, the others were holding a knockdown, drag-out party to welcome the arrival of Dragon Girl, Jade Blossom, and the Candle, whose team had been eliminated in the most recent challenge.

Wally didn’t much care for Joker Plague. Not because of Drummer Boy himself (although he wasn’t all that swell) but because their music was so angry. He would have used headphones to drown out the noise, but he’d never found a pair that fit around the massive hinge joints on his steam shovel jaw. Not that he had anything to listen to. His Frankie Yankovic CDs had disappeared when the others sent Joe Twitch to his room to complain about the polka music.

The scent of grilled meat drifted through the open window. When Wally’s stomach gurgled, it sounded like somebody squishing up water balloons inside a soup kettle. Earlier that evening the Maharajah’s invisible servants had fired up the grill and laid out one heck of a spread on the long, cantilevered deck suspended over the pool and patio. Wally scooted off to his room as soon as he realized the others were preparing for a party. That had been hours ago.

A splash, followed by peals of laughter and a brief rainstorm. Holy Roller must have joined Diver in the pool.

He tried to put food out of his mind and opened a bookmark for the network’s American Hero website. Wally had stopped watching the show. At first, he’d tried to watch the dailies in the TV room with the other discards, but he might as well have been ice fishing, it got so cold down there. Even Holy Roller, who seemed like a nice enough guy, had taken to saying things like, “As you have done unto the least of my brethren,” every time he saw Wally. So Wally stuck to himself and got his information about the show off the web.

Huh. The new arrivals had been close to winning the latest challenge until Rosa got a good draw from that magic picture card deck of hers. They had a picture of the winning card on the website. It was called “El Tragafuegos”—whatever that meant—and it showed a fellow with fire coming out of his mouth. Wally didn’t know what to make of this, except that it had cleared the way for the final three contestants, Curveball, Rosa, and Stuntman. Mighta been me up there, but for what he said I said.

It didn’t matter. Curveball was a shoo-in. Lots of people said as much, too. They said tons of stuff on the message boards. Stuff like:

Why is Rustbelt with the other discards at all? I can’t believe they’re still letting him participate after—

CLICK.

Stuntman might be an arrogant jerk, but Rustbelt is a racist, plain and simple, and—

CLICK.

Rustbelt-Redneck hick.

CLICK.

The New Face of Racism. This one was just the one line, followed by an image of Wally’s publicity head shot from the American Hero press package Photoshopped onto the cover of Time magazine.

CLICK.

The next one started out: You go, Toolbelt! You got friends out here. … Finally. Friends were friends, even if they didn’t always get the name right. Drummer Boy had a knack for giving people catchy nicknames. Wally kept reading: … you done nothing wrong but put that spear-chukkin’ jungle bunny in his place—

CLICK.

What’s worse than being loved by hateful people?

Tiffani’s throaty laugh came through a lull in the music, just as Wally took a long pull on his glass of pop. Something about the Candle trying to light Toad Man’s gas. It startled him. The glass shattered in Wally’s fist, dousing his face and hands with sugar water.

“Cripes!”

He’d have to scrub his face before going to bed, otherwise he’d break out in new rust spots by morning. This time he’d try to remember to clean the bathroom sink afterward. Nobody got mad at Pop Tart for leaving her makeup stuff all over the bathroom, but they sure got sore when he left his used SOS pads on the sink.

A guy would think they’d never scrubbed a pot before.

He’d been a pimply kid before his card had turned. Turns out you can have bad skin even when that skin is living iron.

Hunger got the better of him. I wonder if they got any of them Rice Krispies bars downstairs? Maybe he could just slip out long enough to fill up a plate.

K-chank! K-chank! K-chank! K-chank!

It’s hard to tiptoe when you’re three hundred fifty pounds and wrapped in inch-thick iron. But Wally was getting better at it, skulking around the Discard Pile.

Chank. Chank. Chank. Chank.

A little better.

Wally paused at the bottom of the stairs for a deep breath before wading into the fray. It’s hard to slip through a crowd unnoticed when your elbows can crack ribs.

“Look at me, I’m big and important!” said Mr. Berman. Jade Blossom, Matryoshka, and a few of the others stood around him, laughing. He waved his arms over his head. “I’m a rich Hollywood weasel! I’m—” Something crunched when Wally tried to sidle past the group. The television executive howled in pain as he dissolved into a pale-faced Andrew Yamauchi. “Aaah! My tail!”

“What?”

“My tail! Get off my tail!”

“Sorry, sorry, I’m sorry.” Wally jumped back. Wild Fox swished his tail around and delicately inspected the tip. The last few inches, where the coppery fur blended into smoky gray, had been flattened. It also had a new kink.

“My tail …”

Wally spun around to get out of there, only to bowl over Spasm, causing him to splash his drink on Pop Tart.

“Damn it, you stupid tool. I was going to swi—talk wardrobe into letting me keep this top, too.”

He tried to apologize, but he couldn’t form the words around a very violent sneezing fit that nearly knocked his eyes out of his head. Wally bashed a hole in the wall as he stumbled blindly away, trailing apologies as he went.

“Clumsy oaf! Go crush some rocks or something.”

“Did you hear about his audition?”

“No.”

“Oh, man. It was classic.”

Wally pushed his way toward the kitchen.

Somebody had made a pan of Rice Krispies bars. Now, how about that? Wally got the last one, too, until Blrr came zipping past and snatched it from his hand. He found some brownies, but Joe Twitch got those, too. They were having some kind of competition, she and him. For crying out loud!

Most of the good stuff was gone, but he managed to fill a plate. He didn’t feel up to braving the crowd again on the way back upstairs. Instead, he slipped into the library. Nobody ever went in there, not even for a party. Wally didn’t, either. He wasn’t much of a reader.

Seated in a leather recliner with a paper plate perched on one massive knee, Wally took his first good look at the library. The first thing he noticed was that the books lining the shelves along every wall weren’t actually books. They were cheap cardboard facades with the spines of books painted on them. Up close, there was no mistaking them for the real thing. Maybe they looked real on TV.

He did find one real book, a dictionary at the end of one shelf. Fanning through the yellowed pages released a cloud of dust and the mustiness peculiar to books.

They didn’t do it.

The entry on Egypt was short. “A country in northeast Africa, bordering the Mediterranean and Red seas and containing the Nile Delta. Capital: Cairo.”

Not exactly what Wally wanted. Then again, he wasn’t sure what he wanted. Thinking about those people in Bugsy’s blog felt like an itch he couldn’t scratch.

It was a long time before the party quieted down enough to let a guy sleep.

He woke around dawn to the loudest sound he’d ever heard. It was like a couple of freight trains, loaded up good and heavy with taconite ore, colliding head-on in the middle of the room. Over and over and over again. It shook the house so badly that he almost tumbled out of bed. Instead, the bed just collapsed underneath him.

A whump, and then from the floor, Hardhat yelled: “Ouch! God-fucking-damnit!”

Back home in Minnesota, summer thunderstorms were nothing special. But this was different. First off, thunder was never this loud. Plus, there wasn’t any lightning. The house just kept shaking, shaking, shaking. And for another thing, a bad storm came with clouds so thick they turned the sky to ink. But he glimpsed sunrise peeking over the Hollywood Hills as the blinds danced and shuddered over the window. Something dusted his face when he opened his mouth to ask Hardhat about this. He tasted grittiness on his tongue. Plaster, raining down from the ceiling. Boy howdy, was this weird!

Tornados could be pretty loud. Maybe they were inside one, and the whole house was whirling away like in that scary movie with the flying monkeys?

“Um,” Wally had to shout over the rumbling, “strange weather we’re having.”

“Weather? It’s a big, motherfucking”—just then it stopped—“earthquake.”

And then it was quiet again, at least compared to the sound of the house shaking apart. New sounds floated through the near silence. Creaking, as the house settled, punctuated with sudden cracks like gunshots. And a little fainter, but still nearby, moans and groans.

The floor shifted a little bit each time a new gunshot crack ripped through the house. More plaster sifted down, getting in Wally’s eyes. He rolled off the mattress and climbed to his feet. The blinds came clattering down in a tangled heap around his feet when he pulled the cord to raise them. The glass in the window was cracked, but it hadn’t shattered. Outside, plumes of smoke and dust threaded the hills and canyons, lofted skyward on the beeping of car alarms and the barking of terrified dogs.

Hardhat joined him at the window. “Jesus, Mary, Joseph, and camel. What a clusterfuck.”

The floor shifted again.

Hardhat rattled the doorknob. “Door’s stuck. Piece of shit.”

Wally tried the door. Yep. It was wedged in the door frame good. “Some folks might wanna stand back.” Wally gave the stubborn door a good yank. The doorknob snapped off in his hand, but otherwise the door didn’t move.

Hardhat laughed. “Smooth move.”

Wally stuck two fingers through the hole where the doorknob had been, braced his feet on the floor, and pulled. The door screeched open a few inches, gouging the floor, then cracked in half when it got stuck again. Wally gave up and smashed the two halves of the door into the hallway.

Apparently they weren’t the only ones having trouble. People pounded on doors up and down the hallway. Wally worked one side of the hall, shoving the doors open. Hardhat worked the other side, prying them open with a glowing yellow I beam that he wielded like a crowbar.

Halfway up the hall they met up with King Cobalt. He seemed to be enjoying himself as he ripped the door frames apart with brute strength. Even tossed out of bed early in the morning, he still wore his Lucha Libre mask. Wally wondered if he ever took it off.

“I guess we work pretty good together, hey?”

King Cobalt shrugged. “Doesn’t matter to me. I like smashing stuff.” His tone suggested that this was the end of the conversation. Maybe he was black underneath that costume, like Stuntman.

I’m darker than all of them, though.

One by one, people assembled in the big TV lounge on the first floor. The bamboo floor had buckled and warped, and a couple of ihumb-thick cracks in the walls ran from floor to ceiling. The flat screen TV had jumped its mounts on the wall, and was lying facedown on the floor.

Matryoshka took a head count while two of the camera guys went off to disconnect the gas and turn off the water. He came up short until Earth Witch stumbled through the front door. Wally noticed a pile of bricks strewn across the U-shaped drive. Apparently the chimney had collapsed. And from the trickle of blood on Earth Witch’s forehead, she’d been out there when it came down. Sweat streaked her face. People cleared a spot for her on a sofa. When she plopped down, Wally saw dirt on the soles of her feet, the palms of her hands, and crusted under her fingernails.

Jade Blossom said, “Well?”

“This quake was strong and very deep,” Earth Witch said, “and it caught me by surprise. I was sleeping.” She looked around the room. “I couldn’t stop it, but I did my best to weaken it. I might be able to damp down the aftershocks a little bit.” Earth Witch said this last with her eyes closed, like she was ready to take a nap.

Just then another gunshot crack echoed through the house, making the walls shake. The cracks in the walls widened a little bit, as more plaster sifted down to the floorboards.

Wally jumped.

Bubbles went off in search of bandages and hydrogen peroxide. In addition to Earth Witch, a number of people had bumps, bruises, and cuts.

The others took stock of the damage. If it hadn’t been for the cracks in the walls, it might have been difficult to distinguish between earthquake damage and the aftereffects of a major party. As the Maharajah’s servants swept up the sizeable pile of glass where the sliding doors to the patio had stood, Diver went outside to check on the pool.

She returned a few seconds later. “Well, this sucks. The pool is completely empty.”

Wally and a half-dozen others filed outside to see for themselves. The pool technically wasn’t empty, because the gas grill had rolled off the upper deck and crashed into the deep end. But it was empty of water. A wide crack had opened along the bottom of the pool, pulling the tiles apart like a long, snaggletoothed grin.

“I think the grill is broken,” said Wally.

Another crack echoed up and down the canyon. It sounded louder out here than it had inside.

“Holy shit.” As one, they looked at Hardhat, then followed his gaze overhead to the long, cantilevered deck, then to the wall where it adjoined the mansion.

And then, also as one, they stepped all the way back to the railing at the canyon edge.

The immense deck wasn’t level any longer. Now it sagged, with the far end tilting down over the canyon. It dropped another inch while they watched. The first and second floors of the mansion were cracking apart. And they didn’t line up anymore, either.

Wally added, “I think the house might be broken, too.”

“No shit?”

“Maybe we should get everybody out.”

“On it,” said Blrr. She disappeared.

Hardhat peered over the fence, down into the canyon. “Yep, we’re boned. Used to be a couple support columns at the end of the deck.” He pointed to a pair of jagged concrete buttresses perched on a narrow outcrop on the otherwise sheer canyon wall, about thirty feet below the end of the deck. “Quake ripped those sonsabitches right off.” Wally tried to see where they had landed, but the shadows and the tinder-dry brush in the canyon were too deep. Hardhat continued, now speaking with the professional authority of a fourth-generation construction worker. “Now the fuckin’ deck is coming down, and that cantilever’s prying the house apart like a cheap hooker’s gams.”

Wally had no idea what his roommate said. But he got the gist of it: the house was coming down around their ears.

“What kind of moron would build a house that way?” Pop Tart tossed her arms up, clearly exasperated. “This has got to be the stupidest thing in the world to do in an earthquake zone.”

“Jesus, don’t be so goddamn naïve, sweetheart. These old houses get grandfathered in all the time. Grease a few palms and any shithole can—”

CRACK! This time the deck sagged a full foot in one go. Glass shattered on the second and third floors. A quieter “pop” followed the crack as Pop Tart reappeared briefly on the far side of the canyon. She came back a moment later, after apparently deciding that the building wasn’t going to collapse just yet.

A luminous yellow scaffold blinked into existence, extending from the severed buttresses all the way up to the deck. Hardhat grimaced. “I can’t do this all day long, but—OH FUCK—”

The scaffolding suddenly dropped, like it had fallen through a trapdoor. The deck sagged again. An assortment of yellow beams and crossbeams of various sizes flickered in the canyon for several seconds before stabilizing again.

“What happened?”

Hardhat gripped the railing, frowning in concentration. “Pool water caused a mudslide. Now the goddamn buttresses are gone, too. Gotta build this motherfucker all the way up from the bottom of the canyon. It’s the only solid ground.”

Wally peered over the fence again. Sure enough, now the ethereal scaffold extended all the way from the road, sixty or seventy feet down.

Blrr herded the others out of the house. Nobody spoke. They stood on the crowded patio, listened to the wail of sirens echoing across the Hollywood Hills.

Through gritted teeth, Hardhat said, “I’d appreciate it if you cocksuckers did something besides stand around with your thumbs up your asses all day long.”

“Maybe Ana could help.” Holy Roller shook the unstable structure every time he moved.

“No good,” said Earth Witch, leaning on Bubbles for support. “I won’t move earth up from the roadbed down below—that would make it impossible for emergency vehicles to get through. If I start moving things inside the canyon, this whole house could end up at the bottom. The pool water has made the foundation unstable.”

“Now you’re talking my language,” said Gardener, pulling a handful of seeds from a canvas pocket on her belt. She flung them over the fence and down into the canyon. A few fluttered away on the breeze, but in seconds the muddy hillside turned vibrant green, as shoots and vines snaked up the canyon like one of those fast-forward nature documentaries. They burrowed into the soil, too, making little sucking and squelching sounds. The smell of fresh vegetation wafted up on an updraft from the canyon.

Wally looked up at the deck again. Pebble-size chunks of concrete rained into the pool, making a patter like hail on a tin roof. In some places he could see the steel cantilevers that now imperiled the house.

Holy cow.

Still looking up, he said, “Um, would getting rid of the deck help?”

Silence. He looked down again. Some people rolled their eyes, others shook their heads. “Yes,” said Joe Twitch like he was talking to a five-year-old, “the-the-the deck is our p-p-p-problem.”

Cripes. Why did they have to get so sore at a guy just for asking? He knew the deck was the problem.

What’s worse than being hated by some of the biggest weirdos you ever met?

He tried again. “If we got rid of the deck, would that make things better or worse?” He forged onward. “Because the deck is connected to the house with steel beams.”

More silence.

“So they got iron in them.” Wally held up his hands and wiggled his fingers to make his point.

Through clenched teeth, Hardhat said, “Son-of-a-fucking-bitch, yes, get rid of the deck!”

The construction worker’s approval galvanized the group into action. It was the work of just a few minutes before they had a plan. Most of the discards went out to the street in front of the house, where they’d be safe if things went wrong. Wally, Hardhat, King Cobalt, Dragon Girl, and Pop Tart stayed behind.

Wally went back inside the creaking house and came out on the deck. King Cobalt took a position under one end of the deck, with Pop Tart at his side. If things went wrong she’d whisk them both away to safety. Hardhat kept his temporary scaffold in place at the other end of the deck. Dragon Girl and Puffy circled over the house.

Wally kneeled at the junction between the deck and the house. Wham! Wham! Wham! Using his ironclad fist like a jackhammer, he perforated the concrete every two feet. The noise echoed through the hills. Soon a fine layer of pulverized concrete coated his skin. When he scooped away the rubble he found three I beams inside the deck. Two ran along the sides and one went straight down the middle.

He took a deep breath. Then, like a blue collar Midas, he touched the central I beam. Steel flashed into oxide under his fingertips. A creeping stain spread out from his handprint, first in little needles of rust, then in an orange wave that coursed through the beam. Chunks of corroded metal flaked away and danced around his hand as the house shuddered. Wally willed the rust deeper until it sundered the beam. Puffs of red dust eddied up around his fingers, sparkling in the sunshine until a gust of Santa Ana wind carried them away.

“That’s one,” he called.

The outer beams were too far apart for him to sever at once. As he weakened the second beam, the deck let loose a high-pitched groan. Then it tipped sideways with much shaking, cracking, and the screeching of tortured metal.

King Cobalt called out from underneath: “Oof!”

The last remaining beam was so badly stressed that it tore apart even before Wally could push the rust all the way through. The entire deck dropped several feet to where, presumably, King Cobalt held one end overhead. Wally leapt for the second-floor entrance to the house before the masked strongman hurled the deck into the canyon.

“Yikes!”

Wally was in midair, approaching the doorway, when he noticed the cameraman standing there. He’d been too busy concentrating to notice the guy filming him as he worked. The cameraman saw a man-shaped lump of iron speeding at him. He yelped, dropped the camera, and hit the floor. Wally tried his best to tuck and roll to the side. He came to a clanking halt in the hallway after rolling over the camera.

He helped the guy to his feet. “Cripes, are you okay?”

The man nodded, but he made little wheezing sounds as he breathed. He looked down at the shattered camera. “Damn. That was some beautiful footage.”

They watched as Hardhat released the scaffold he’d erected with his mind. At the same time, King Cobalt used his prodigious strength to hurl the entire deck out into the midmorning air. Puffy swooped down, caught it in his talons, and gently set it down across the canyon.

The house didn’t creak anymore.

Wally went back down to the pool. The others started to congregate and congratulate each other. A few even smiled at him, and gave him “OK” and “thumbs-up” signs.

A second cameraman was taping “confessionals” from Hardhat, Pop Tart, Dragon Girl, and King Cobalt about how they had felt as they saved the house. Nobody bothered to ask Wally how he felt about it.

The masked wrestler came over when his stint in front of the camera was over. “You’re not too bad,” he said.

Wally shrugged.

“Have you ever thought about wrestling?”

“Um. No.”

“Give some thought to my Wild Card Wrestling Federation, okay? Because I tell you, once this thing takes off it’s gonna be huge. And you could get in on the ground floor. You’d be great. The Iron Giant!”

Wally hadn’t given much thought to what he’d do after American Hero. Probably go back and work in the strip mines with his dad and brothers. But professional wrestling? Gosh.

“Do I have to wear a mask?”

“If you want to. But I think people would dig your appearance. Oh! I know! Can you do different accents?”

“Accents?”

“Different than that Fargo one you’re always doing, I mean. Russian would be awesome. Imagine it: Iron Ivan, the Russian Robot.”

Wally wasn’t sure he wanted to be a wrestler, but the masked man seemed very excited, and this was the most anybody had spoken to him since the Stuntman thing. “Well, that’s different. I’ll sure think about it.”

“Yeah?”

“You bet.”

“Great.” King Cobalt slapped him on the back. It sounded like somebody hitting a gong with a steak. Then he went off to mingle with the growing crowd.

“Nice work, cracker.”

Brave Hawk sidled through the crowd, illusory wings and another cameraman in tow. Simoon tagged along behind the camera, looking uneasy.

“I’m sorry?”

“I said, ‘Nice work.”’ His lips curled into a half-smile as he added, “You must be exhausted. It’s hard work.”

“It wasn’t so bad. Um, what is?”

The half-smile turned into a full-blown grin. “Trying to convince people you’re not such a bad guy. Pretending you’re something you’re not.”

“Pretending?”

“It won’t work, though. I won’t let the others forget that you’re a racist at heart.” Brave Hawk turned and went back to the crowd on the patio. As the cameraman followed him, he said, “Shameful. Just shameful.”

What’s worse than being hated for what people think you are?

“Just ignore him.” Simoon patted Wally’s arm. “You did a good job today. He’s just a jackass.”

Cruel, too. Thing is, I’m darker than Brave Hawk and Stuntman and Gardener and everybody else. Way darker.

He looked down at Simoon.

Darker than Simoon and even those poor folks in Egypt.

“Stuntman made it up, didn’t he?” she whispered.

Wally went back upstairs to his room. He didn’t come out the rest of the day.

The studio must have pulled some strings, because housing inspectors arrived bright and early the following morning. Wally thought they’d have to move out, but now that the deck wasn’t tearing the mansion apart, they were much better off than some of their neighbors.

Electricity was restored soon after that. So while workers from the studio poured over the Discard Pile, patching the cracks and holes, stringing new lights and replacing the cameras that had been damaged in the quake, Wally stayed in his room, rereading Bugsy’s blog.

Bugsy had updated his blog with more photos and video clips. The shaky video—as if Bugsy had been on the run while he captured it—showed desert-camouflaged tanks rumbling down dirt roads, tossing up plumes of dust, mowing down refugees.

Wally watched the steel-plated Egyptian tanks.

He glanced outside, to where the deck had been. He remembered how good it felt to help out, how satisfying it felt when the beams crumbled under his touch.

And then he looked at the tanks again.

Holy cow.

He was still rereading the blog, and studying the photos, when Ink, one of the production assistants, called everyone into the TV lounge for a “special meeting.” Maybe they’d decided to move everybody out of the damaged mansion after all. Without the gas hooked up, the hot water hadn’t lasted through one morning of showers.

Wally followed Jade Blossom and Simoon down the stairs. He tapped Simoon on the shoulder. She stopped at the bottom of the staircase; Jade Blossom went on ahead.

“Simoon?”

“What?”

“Do you, I mean, I was wondering—”

She rolled her eyes. “Oh, no. Look, Rusty, I meant what I said yesterday about you doing a good job saving the house, but you’re not my type. You’re a nice guy and all, but you’re made of iron, and I’m not. I just don’t think we’re compatible.” She looked him up and down. “At all.”

“Huh?”

“Don’t worry, though. I’m sure you’ll meet a nice…metal…girl someday.”

“Oh, cripes, no, no no no. That’s not what I meant.”

Her gaze darted sideways, toward the TV lounge. A frown flickered across her face and creased her brow. She looked back at Wally. “Then what?”

“Did you live in Egypt a long time?”

“Egypt? No. I’ve never lived there. Not ever.”

“Oh.” That wasn’t the response he’d expected. “Do you know a lot about it, though? Egypt, I mean.”

It took her a few seconds to answer. She sighed, and lowered herself to sit on the bottom stair. “I guess. Why?”

“I was reading Bugsy’s blog, you know, the bug guy that was on the show with us?” She nodded. “Since he went over there with John Fortune and that German fella—”

“I never meant for that to happen, I swear.”

“… he’s been writing about the whole thing, and it’s a heckuva mess.”

“I know,” said Simoon, looking down. “Look, can we talk about something else, please?”

“Well, I was wondering if you knew how a guy might—”

A cameraman sidled closer. Wally stopped in mid-sentence. He wasn’t too keen on the cameras.

“Hey!” Mr. Berman stood in the archway to the TV lounge. “Go flirt on your own time, you two. We’ve got an episode to film.” He tapped his watch. It probably cost more money than Wally had ever seen in one place in his life. He wondered why the executive was there at all.

Wally helped Simoon to her feet—she looked real unhappy all of a sudden—and followed her to the lounge, where the other discards were sitting in a large circle. He stopped dead in his tracks. Not only was Mr. Berman here, but so were Peregrine and the judges: Topper, the Harlem Hammer, and Digger Downs.

And Curveball.

And Rosa.

And Stuntman.

The lying showbiz ace gave Wally a little sneer while the clanking joker hurried to find a seat. All the comfortable spots had been taken. Wally chipped a few bricks as he plopped down on the edge of the fireplace.

If he thought a chill settled over the room when Stuntman watched him enter, the glare that Peregrine gave Simoon was worthy of the worst blizzards back home.

The cameraman that Wally had narrowly avoided crushing the previous day circled the room, panning across the faces of the assembled discards. The cameras swiveled in Peregrine’s direction as she stood.

Wally read the monitor along with her. “Hello, and welcome to all of our current and former contestants. The competition over these past ten weeks has been fierce. Alliances were forged … and broken. Challenges conquered, and failed. Today only three aces are left in the running for the one-million-dollar grand prize. The final three champions vying for the title American Hero.”

The camera panned across the sofa where Curveball, Rosa, and Stuntman sat. Rosa and Stuntman watched the proceedings with a smirk and a look of superiority, respectively. Curveball was unreadable.

Peregrine continued: “But for those of you already out of the competition, your challenges are not over yet. Today the Discard Pile will choose the final two competitors, by voting to eliminate one of today’s three.”

If the announcement bothered Curveball, she didn’t show it. Stuntman now looked very serious. And Rosa looked particularly unhappy. Many of Wally’s fellow discards, on the other hand, looked smug. Some grinned.

“And since this is the final vote of the competition, we’re doing things a little differently this time.” Peregrine looked around the room, one eyebrow cocked. “We’re not letting you off the hook so easily, Discards. Today’s vote will be an open ballot. No shuffling.”

The grins disappeared.

Ink handed three oversize playing cards to each of the discards. “Think carefully about who deserves to become the first American Hero…and about who doesn’t deserve the honor.” Peregrine paused. “When your name is called, show us who you think is not an American Hero.”

Once everybody held three cards, Peregrine tipped an hourglass-shaped egg timer. “Discards: you have three minutes to consider your choice, starting…now. Contestants: good luck.”

Wally flipped through the cards. The photos of Stuntman, Rosa, and Curveball looked like the kind of glamorous head shots that all the contestants had submitted with their audition portfolios. His own head shot had been taken on a Polaroid camera in his aunt’s kitchen.

Wally hadn’t exchanged two words with Curveball, but she seemed like good folk. She even smiled at him once, which was more than he could say for a lot of the current and former contestants.

Rosa, on the other hand, had said—quietly, under her breath, so that only he could hear but the cameras wouldn’t pick it up—“Good riddance, you retard,” after Wally had been eliminated from Team Spades. She reminded him of the crazy Lacosky sisters from back home, and the time soon after his wild card had turned, when they tried pushing him into one of the drainage ponds up near the mine. Just to see if he’d float.

And then there was Stuntman. He looked friendlier in his photo than he did sitting across the room. But Wally found it hard to meet the gaze of either version.

“Discards,” said Peregrine, “your time is up.” Ink went back around the room again, this time collecting two cards from each voter. After she finished, and each member of the Discard Pile held only one card, Peregrine pointed about a third of the way around the circle from Wally. “Tiffani: How do you vote?”

One cameraman trained his lens on the finalists, and the other turned his own toward Tiffani. The West Virginia ace held up the Rosa photo. “I vote against Rosa. Why? I’d pay cash money to see her thrown under a bus. Any takers?” Rosa sneered; the corner of Stuntman’s mouth curled up.

By the time Peregrine and the cameras reached Wally, the vote stood at four against Rosa, three against Stuntman, and one against Curveball. Spasm’s was the sole vote against Curveball; Wally suspected that was Rosa’s doing, in the same way that the Lacosky sisters had gotten Lenny Pikkanen to lend them his car, with promises of a wild time when their parents next went out of town.

“Rustbelt: How do you vote?”

The cameraman crept closer, the lens glaring at Wally like an unblinking eye. Don’t think about the cameras, don’t think about the cameras, don’t think about the cameras … Stuntman crossed his arms over his chest and looked at Wally with a bloodless, thin-lipped smile. “I dare you,” it said.

“How do you vote?”

Wally glanced around the room. Not at the dozens of aces, nor at the cameramen, nor the lighting guys, nor any of the others. At the room itself. Carpenters and painters had covered up the earthquake damage. But outside of camera range, they hadn’t fixed anything. It was all fake. Fake and meaningless. Just like the books in the library.

Then he thought about Bugsy’s blog again, and the image of a little girl crushed into the dirt by men driving around in a steel-plated tank. Dead because somebody said she and her family were dangerous.

What’s worse than being hated for what people say you are?

Letting them get away with it.

Wally held up his Stuntman card. The air pressure dropped as everybody inhaled at once. The Harlem Hammer cocked his head, watching Wally through narrowed eyes.

“I vote against Stuntman.” He looked Stuntman in the eye. “That’s what you get for being a knucklehead.”

“Pfff. Figures.” Stuntman tried to dismiss Wally with a wave of his hand, but Wally saw his words hit home.

“That’s all I said that day, and you know it. I didn’t do anything wrong, but you made everyone hate me. Even people that never met me, for cripes’ sake. You don’t deserve to win. You’re too mean.”

Stuntman looked away.

Wally stood. “There’s lots of people like you these days. Some of them even have guns—and worse stuff, gosh damn it.” Hardhat was a bad influence. Nodding to the three judges, Wally added, “I don’t think I want to be on the TV anymore.” Then he turned and walked out of the room.

“Hey! Where’s he going? He can’t leave!”

As Wally clanked up the stairs, he heard Simoon saying, “I… I think he’s going to Egypt.”

Hardhat blurted, “Why in fuck’s sake would he do that?”

Cuveball, very quietly: “To be a hero.”

Back in his room, Wally dug his suitcase out from under his bed. He filled it with the few belongings he’d brought to California: his britches; a few shirts; the photo of Mom and Dad and his brother Pete up at the lake cabin; a box of lemon-scented SOS pads.

He didn’t own a cell phone from which to call for a taxi. They had a tendency to crumple up in Wally’s hands, unless he was extremely careful. So he went back downstairs to use the kitchen phone.

Simoon sauntered in and laid her finger on the disconnect button as he was jotting down the number for a taxi company. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“I need to call a taxi.”

“Why?”

“I need to go to the airport.”

“I mean, why not take the studio limo?”

“That’s for the show.”

“But it’s nicer. And we won’t fit into a single taxi.”

Wally looked up. They weren’t alone. Simoon had been joined by Holy Roller, Earth Witch, King Cobalt, Hardhat, and Bubbles.

“We had a little vote of our own,” she said.

King Cobalt added, “I join you in Egypt, and you join my wrestling federation.” He stuck out his hand. “That’s the deal.”

They shook on it. “You betcha.”

Dragon Girl squeezed in between Bubbles and Earth Witch. “Don’t leave without me! I have to get my stuffies.”

Bubbles shook her head and waved her arms. “Oh, no. Absolutely not. No way are you coming to the genocide with us.” Dragon Girl frowned, and stamped her foot. “Maybe when you’re twelve,” said Bubbles.

Simoon had been right about them not fitting in a taxi. Truth be known, they barely fit into the Discard Pile’s stretch Hummer, either. Wally felt sorry for their driver. On the one hand, Mr. Berman didn’t want him driving the rogue discards to the airport, and suggested that doing such would be a bad career move. On the other hand, seven aces wanted him to drive them to the airport, and suggested that not doing so would be an even worse move.

They wove through the Los Angeles traffic in silence. It went on a long time. Long enough for Wally to wonder if people were sore at him again. Just to break the ice, he said, “So, a fella might wonder who got voted off the show. Just saying, is all.”

Earth Witch sighed. “Rosa got knocked out. So it’s Stuntman and Curveball in the final round. Sorry, Rusty.”

Wally shook his head. “Sounds like a good deal to me. She’ll clean his clock.” The others nodded in agreement.

They rode the rest of the way to LAX in silence, but Wally didn’t mind so much.

A taxi pulled up alongside them as they unloaded their luggage and argued about how much to tip their driver. (The way Wally figured it, he was probably out of a job now, the poor guy.) The back door opened, and out climbed a slim blond woman in a tank top with a duffel bag slung over her shoulder. The taxi pulled away.

Holy Roller squinted. “Praise be—is that Curveball?”

King Cobalt flashed him a thumbs-up.

Hardhat smiled. “Fuckin’A, Rusty. Fuckin’A!” He’d been more inclined to talk to Wally after the events of the previous day. Which was nice, except that he swore so much.

Curveball dropped her duffel bag on the curb. “Room for one more?”

Before anybody could collect their wits enough to speak, yet another car pulled up alongside the group. This one was a silver BMW, and it screeched to a halt. Mr. Berman jumped out. “Kate! Are you out of your goddamn mind?”

Curveball ignored him.

“Think carefully about what you’re doing. You’re pissing away the opportunity of a lifetime, just to join some half-baked publicity stunt with a bunch of rejects. Listen to me. You don’t need them. A month from now your face can be on the cover of every magazine in America.”

“I have thought about it. And I choose to do something meaningful.”

Mr. Berman pressed his hands to his temples, and ran his hands through his hair. It hardly moved, it had so much mousse in it. “Kate,” he said, pointing at Wally, “just look at these freaks. You’re the most popular character on the show. You’re a shoo-in. You’re walking away from a million dollars. You’ll win if you come back. I know it.”

Earth Witch stepped between them. “She made her decision. You need to leave now.” The others joined her.

The network executive stared at them for several seconds. His lips moved, but no sound came out. Wally didn’t think it possible for somebody to turn so red in the face. Finally Mr. Berman said, quietly, “You’re making a huge mistake, Kate.

The worst fucking mistake you’ll ever make.” He got back in his car. Through the open passenger-side window, he yelled, “I’ll slap you assholes with lawsuits so hard your ghosts will be lonely!”

Wally reached out. He rested one finger on the roof of Mr. Berman’s car. The BMW peeled away. An ochre pinstripe appeared under Wally’s fingertip. Mr. Berman tumbled to the pavement thirty yards away in an explosion of orange dust.

The others stared at him, wide-eyed.

Wally shrugged. “Steel-frame construction. Them Germans sure do make some nice cars.” Then he hefted Curveball’s bag in one hand, his suitcase in the other, and entered the airport.

The metal detectors would be a problem. The last time he flew, the studio had handled everything. But his friends would figure something out, he was pretty sure.

The war council met at a restaurant about three blocks from the Monastery of St. Simeon. The place smelled of baked raisins and garlic, and the light from the windows made the air seem cleaner than it was. The Living Gods sat at a huge table, arguing, planning, debating, and despairing. Jonathan had picked up enough of the language to catch a word or phrase here and there, but for the most part, he and Lohengrin were excluded. Fortune—Sekhmet, really—was shouting and pounding the table, or nodding, or shaking his head and pointing east.

“There are still the helicopters,” Lohengrin said.

“We are aware,” Sekhmet replied, using Fortune’s throat. “But on the island, there is some protection from the ground troops.”

Fortune didn’t look good. The whole not sleeping thing was eating at him like a cancer. And Jonathan was quite aware that neither Fortune nor Sekhmet was going to rest until the refugees were safe, or everyone died. Lohengrin was looking pretty tired, too. Sobek had lost a couple teeth. No one was doing well.

“The problem here,” Jonathan said, louder than he’d intended to, “is that we’re fucked.”

To his surprise, the table went quiet. He blinked. All eyes were on him.

“Well,” he said, “we can hole up here and hope that they all just go away, but when you get right down to it, we’re fucked, right? The island is a pain in the ass for the ground troops to get to, but if they take the west bank, they can starve us out or do some kind of pincer attack or nuke us from orbit. Whatever. And everyone we move to the island because it’s safer there means one less we have to defend the dams. We don’t have scorpion lady. We don’t have Horus. So, I’m sorry to say it, but I think we’re fucked.”

“God,” a voice said from behind him. “You are such a loser, Bugsy. No wonder we voted you out.”

Slowly, he turned.

Curveball, a duffel bag over one shoulder. Earth Witch beside her, frowning with her arms folded. The wheelchair-bound minister, Holy Roller, smiling and avuncular even now. Hardhat, grinning. King Cobalt, maybe grinning; under the mask, who could tell? Simoon and Bubbles looking more like runway models than warriors. Rustbelt standing in the back like an old-time locomotive with self-esteem problems.

“Uh,” Jonathan said.

Curveball stepped forward, her duffel bag sliding to the floor. She walked past Jonathan and Lohengrin, straight to Fortune. For a moment the pair were silent. Then Fortune—Fortune, not Sekhmet—nodded.

“So,” Curveball said, “what’s the plan?”

The moon was beautiful, a crescent of silver floating in the black sky. The city lights of Syrene and Aswan were dark, each side keeping information from the enemy. Jonathan sat on the street, his hands on his knees, looking up at the stars.

“Hey,” Simoon’s voice said. “Bugsy.”

He looked over his shoulder. The woman stood in the doorway of the restaurant. The voices raised in debate behind her sounded oddly joyful for a council of war.

“How’s it going in there?” he asked.

Simoon stepped forward, letting the door close behind her. The voices didn’t vanish, but they grew distant.

“It’ll be a while before anyone decides anything,” she said. “But I think it’s going well. What about you?”

“I could sleep right here in the gutter,” Jonathan said. “Seriously. Just stretch out and snooze off.”

“Probably should. Rest, I mean. Not the gutter part.”

“Yeah. I’ll get to it,” he said.

“I wanted to say thanks.”

Jonathan looked up at her. She was prettier than he remembered. She’d been good-looking, but now in the moonlight, with her hair down, she was beautiful.

“Thanks?”

“For butting in,” she said. “For listening in on my phone calls. For getting John Fortune involved. All like that. I wouldn’t have had the balls.”

“I’m not sure I really did you any favors,” he said. Simoon shook her head, her gaze lifting to the buildings, the horizon, the sky.

“No,” she said. “I’m glad. I’ve never actually been here, you know. But I’m from here. So, you know, thanks.”

“Anytime,” Jonathan said.

“Harder!” Bubbles said.

Rustbelt raised his balled fist, and then lowered it. “Ah, cripes. This is just… I mean …”

Bubbles, now looking like a woman of a healthy hundred and seventy pounds, put a hand on Rustbelt’s arm and tried to keep her temper.

“Sweetie,” she said. “We have to get these bubbles in the air, or it’s only going to be Simoon’s sandstorm to stop all the planes and helicopters they throw at us. So it’s not really me you’re hitting. It’s them. Just think of it like that, okay?”

Rustbelt smiled, but the expression seemed forced.

“You ready to try again?” Bubbles asked.

“Sure,” Rustbelt said. “Let’s try it.”

“Okay. Beat the shit out of me.”

Rustbelt closed his eyes and swung. The impact sounded like a car wreck. Bubbles put on another thirty pounds.

“Much better,” Bubbles said. “Do that again.”

“Okay,” Rustbelt said. “You know, this is really uncomfortable, though.”

Bubbles nodded. “That speaks well of you, sweetie. Now hit me.”

The boats chugged out from the east bank, dark marks in the sun-bright water. Hardhat and Sobek squatted by the shore. The croc-headed joker hunkered down, his hand shading his eyes.

“This could be a problem,” Sobek said. “If they reach the island—”

“Those dick-lickers have about as much chance of getting out here as I’ve got of ass-fucking Mother Teresa,” Hardhat said cheerfully. “Watch this shit.”

The first girder appeared across the bow of the first boat, forcing the craft lower into the water. There was the distant sound of voice raised in alarm. A second girder appeared. The boat rode lower, water lapping up over its sides.

The other boats hesitated as the lead craft tried to turn back to the shore. A third girder appeared. The boat sank. The boats idled and then turned back.

Sobek chuckled.

“Elegant,” he said. “Could you do that to all of them? If they all came at once?”

“Probably not,” Hardhat said, folding his arms, “But I could fucking sure get the first two cocksuckers, and then let the pussies fight it out who gets to go third.”

“They’ll have to come by land, then,” Sobek said.

“It’s a bulletproof shield,” King Cobalt said, leaning against the upended pickup truck. “Like riot police use. I just hold it toward them like this, charge in, and when I get there, I’ll rip ’em apart.”

Rustbelt raised a hand, shielding his eyes from the rising sun. The dam stretched out before them and behind them, water calm and glittering to the right, empty air to the left. King Cobalt crouched down behind his shield.

“Stay behind me,” King Cobalt called out. “All of you just let me get in there and soften them up.”

“Now, son,” Holy Roller called out, “I think you had best come on back for a bit, the both of you. We may be seeing some enemy movement. At the far end—over there.”

“I don’t see anything,” Rustbelt said, and a bullet ricocheted off his chest with a sound like a piston blowing. King Cobalt lowered his riot shield, sighed, and slid to the ground. Blood poured from the back of his neck.

“Medic!” Holy Roller yelled, pushing himself toward the fallen ace. “Get a medic over here! We got us a man down!”

“Oh, cripes,” Rustbest said, rubbing the shiny spot the killing bullet had left on his skin. “I’m sorry, King. I didn’t… we’ll get someone…it’ll be …”

Holy Roller reached the fallen ace, felt desperately for a pulse, and then shook his head. Leaning over carefully, the minister hooked a finger under the wrestler’s mask and gently pulled it free. The thick body thinned and diminished.

“He’s just a kid,” Fortune said.

“Dear Lord,” Holy Roller intoned. “I don’t know if this poor boy believed in you. I don’t even know his name, or if he was a Mexican, but he was a brave boy and he tried to do something good. I know you’ll find a place for him in Heaven, wrestling with your angels. He did so love to wrestle.”

They all cast their eyes down for a moment. When he looked up across the dam, the old minister’s eyes were hard. On the far side of the dam, the sun was glittering off metal. A sound came like distant thunder that never stopped. Tanks were coming.

“Time’s come,” he said. “Get on the horn to the others. It’s started.”

Curveball crouched, a stone the size of a golf ball in her hand. Rusty and the German ace were still advancing, but it wasn’t easy to see much beyond that. The blowing sand obscured most of what lay ahead, and smoke and flakes of rust swirled madly, making the air taste like blood.

Earth Witch plucked at her sleeve and pointed out to the right, over the water. A boat was just visible, pushing out from the eastern shore.

“Got it,” Curveball said, and sidearmed the stone like she was skipping it. The detonation sent a wave across the surface of the water. Someone—John Fortune?—pressed another rock into her hand.

“It’s turning back,” Earth Witch said.

“Good work,” John said. His hand was hot, like a man with a fever. “Keep going.”

The angry chop of helicopters cut through the noise. They’d crossed the river somewhere else and were circling back to come up behind them. “Mine! I’ve got ’em!” Bubbles yelled. “Take cover!”

Machine guns spat, fire blazing from their muzzles, as two huge, iridescent bubbles rose gracefully into the air. The transparent skins swirled with colors like oil on water, trembling in the wash of the propellers. When they detonated, the concussion was like a blow. The burning hulk of the copters arced down to the water and sank.

“Forward!” Fortune shouted. “Come on! Let’s go!”

Curveball nodded, looking ahead to the battle, to the sky for an attack from above, to the water. Time didn’t mean much. They might have been doing this for ten minutes or an hour or a day. No one noticed anything had changed until she looked out to her right and the water was gone. To her left, there was no clifflike drop.

They were on the other side. They’d crossed the dam; it lay ten or twelve meters behind them. Without being aware of it, they’d fanned out into the road. John called out for Simoon to let her storm slacken. As the sand began to fall from the air, half a dozen streaks of green buzzed past.

“Does this mean we won?” Bubbles asked. “I think this means we won.”

“I don’t think so,” Curveball said.

On the dam, the battle had been restricted. Rustbelt, Lohengrin, Holy Roller, Sekhmet. They’d been able to hold a line. No more than eight or ten soldiers could reach them at a time. But the Egyptians had fallen back slowly, drawing them on. Drawing them to the shore where they could be surrounded and overwhelmed. The streets ahead were packed with men, with tanks, with guns.

They’d screwed up. They were dead.

No one noticed the sound at first. When the rumble penetrated, they realized they’d been hearing it—a deep, bone-wrenching sound. Holy Roller was craning his thick neck, trying to spot the source. The Egyptians, across the small no-man’s-land of the street, seemed confused as well.

“What’s happening?” Simoon shouted over the growing cacophony. “What is that?”

And the earth opened before them. A great chasm yawned, sand and stone sliding down into an abyss that seemed to go for miles, though it probably wasn’t more than a few hundred feet. Egyptian tanks and men slid down into the gap, rifles firing impotently. Buildings cracked and fell apart, walls tumbling end over end in the air.

Curveball turned. Earth Witch was on her knees, her hands grasping the medallion at her neck, her face red with effort. With a thump like an explosion, the chasm closed. The first wave of the army was gone, buried alive, dying under their feet. The soldiers that remained stood agape. The first of them turned and fled.

“Oh, God,” Earth Witch said. Her voice was thin and unbelieving. “Oh, God. I did that. Did I do that?”

Curveball knelt, wrapping her arms around her friend. Earth Witch shook. “It’s okay, Ana,” Curveball said. “It’s okay.”

“I killed them,” Earth Witch said. “I killed them, didn’t I?”

“Yeah,” Curveball said. “You did.”

Earth Witch stared out at the rubble, her breath in gasps. Her eyes were wide and round, caught between elation and horror.

“Excuse me, ladies,” Holy Roller said. “I don’t mean to intrude.”

“What’s the matter?” Curveball asked.

“The dam,” John Fortune said, appearing at their side. “Doing that weakened the dam. It’s giving way. We need Earth Witch to shore it up. Now.”

Earth Witch sagged into Curveball’s arms.

“She can’t do it,” Curveball said. “She’s too tired.”

“I can,” Earth Witch said.

“Ana,” Curveball began, but Earth Witch shook her head. A voice called out from the shore—some stray Egyptian soldier surrendering himself to Lohengrin. Curveball stood, drawing her friend up with her.

“I can fix it. Just…stay with me,” Earth Witch said.

“I will,” Curveball promised.

“Bugsy,” Fortune said. “Wake up. There’s someone here wants to see you.”

Jonathan rolled over on his bed, blinking up into the light. Fortune looked slightly better. Still cadaverously thin, still with the deep, bruiselike bags under his eyes. He and Sekhmet apparently hadn’t quite settled on a schedule for sleep yet. And still, the poor bastard looked better.

“Someone wants to see me?” Jonathan asked.

“You should come.”

“Beautiful blond entomologist with no boyfriend and a webcam?”

“CNN,” Fortune said.

Jonathan took in a deep breath and let it out with a sense of growing satisfaction. The traditional media finally there to agree he’d scooped them.

“A close second,” Jonathan said. I’ll be right there.”

He washed his hair, considered shaving, decided that the stubble was a decent manly touch—you never saw Indiana Jones breaking out a safety razor—and headed out for the lobby of the hotel that had become the aces’ barracks. The camera crew had set up shop by one of the big couches designed for travelers to lounge on in times of peace. The reporter looked familiar; black guy in his late thirties, close-cropped hair with a little gray coming in at the temples. He was wearing a khaki shirt with epaulets, like he’d been trekking through the desert instead of driving in from the airport.

“Hey,” Jonathan said, “I heard you boys were looking for me?”

Hands were shaken, admiration was expressed, someone got Jonathan a cup of coffee. Five minutes flat, and he was sitting on the couch, klieg lights shining in his face, sincere talking head leaning in toward him with an expression built to convey gravity and concern.

It was fucking sweet. Right up until it wasn’t.

“How do you respond to the accusations that you’ve sided with terrorists?”

“That’s stupid,” Jonathan said. “And anyone who says it doesn’t understand anything about how international politics works.”

“But you have come to the defense of a group that’s been accused of sheltering the Twisted Fists.”

“Well, accused, sure …”

“And the assassination of the Caliph.”

“These people didn’t assassinate the Caliph,” Jonathan said. “There were kids dying out on the road. Kids! You think some eight-year-old joker kid killed the Nur?”

“Right, and you also said in your blog that these people didn’t kill the Caliph. You have investigated the alleged link between the Living Gods and the Twisted Fists, then?”

Jonathan tapped his fingers on his knee. “I’ve been a little busy being shot at,” he said. “But I am perfectly comfortable that no such connection exists.”

“And how would you reply to the critics who say that Westerners—especially self-styled crusaders like Lohengrin and religious leaders like Holy Roller—represent an unacceptable Western interference in the internal affairs of Egypt?”

“I probably wouldn’t,” Jonathan said.

“So you don’t think there is an issue of national sovereignty here? You are a group of aces not affiliated with any government entering into armed conflict with the military of a legitimate state. How do you see that as different from a terrorist organization?”

“They were killing people,” Jonathan said. “Okay? Innocent people were dying. And we stopped it.”

The reporter seemed to sense an unpleasant stinging sensation in his future. He smiled and nodded as if he were agreeing with something, then changed the subject. “Will your forces remain in Syrene when the army of the caliphate arrives?”

“We are going to stay here until we’re sure that…” Jonathan held up a finger and licked his lips. The klieg lights seemed hotter than they’d been at the start of the interview. The couch had developed some uncomfortable lumps. “… army of the caliphate?” he asked.

“You didn’t know the new Caliph has sworn his support for Kamal Farag Aziz and his Egyptian government? His troops have been on the move for days.”

“Army. Of the caliphate. Ah. Well. That’s probably a pretty big army, huh?”

The reporter shrugged. Jonathan got the feeling that the guy might be enjoying this opportunity to make the blogger look dumb.

“About three times the size of the Egyptian forces. And the Caliph’s aces Bahir of the Scimitar and the Righteous Djinn,” the reporter said. “The Caliph says that this kind of Western adventurism is a threat to all sovereign nations of the world, and that your defense of terrorists places you in violation of international law. The Caliph also says he’s taken the secretary-general of the United Nations into protective custody to prevent his being attacked by the citizens of Cairo who are outraged by his apparent support of your cause.”

“Ah,” Jonathan said. “Huh.”

“Do you have a response to that?”

Jonathan blinked into the lights. He wished Fortune was nearby; they needed to talk. They all needed to talk. A lot. And right now.

“Jonathan,” the reporter said. “This is your chance to make a response.”

“Oops?” Jonathan suggested.