Marked Cards

♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

"Evan, so good to see you. It's been quite a while." Dutton's low tones echoed in the still hall of the Museum. From Gregg's refuge in one of the Turtle's old shells, hung high above the main gallery, the voice sounded sepulchral and ghostly - perfect for this place filled with the ghosts and shadows of Jokertown's past

"Patti's been dominant for awhile. I've been ... tired. I don't think I'll last that long, but I thought I'd get back to work on the church fire diorama while I could."

Gregg peered through one of the holes in the shell. In his fuzzy vision, he could see the Oddity's bulk, in its usual floor-length cape. Dutton's skull-like visage was just below.

It had taken more than two weeks. He'd found the main sewer lines into the Dime Museum, wriggling up through the fragrant miasma into the basement of the building. The museum, with its ornate displays and labyrinthian rooms, had afforded as many hiding places as he needed. Each night, as Dutton was busy closing the halls above, Gregg would enter. He'd overheard dozens of Dutton's private phone calls in his office, late at night after the museum had closed, but none of them had revealed anything. He'd looked through the man's papers on the rare occasions that Dutton left the museum; none of them were more than routine. He supposed that he could have melted the locks on the desk or the office safe to see what was inside, but that would have revealed his presence, and the odds seemed against the careful Dutton having anything there, either. The man had visitors - some of the visitors and their concerns quite surprising to Gregg - but the snatches of conversation he'd heard from them had also afforded nothing useful. One night there was a meeting of local jokers headed by someone called Hotair, where there'd been extensive discussion about Jokertown affairs. While Hannah and Father Squid's names came up more than once, no one gave any clue as to where they might be hidden.

Gregg had already decided to give this up if he heard nothing by the weekend. But Dutton's next words caused Gregg to lean forward in the shell.

"How are our friends?" Dutton asked. "Holding up well, I hope."

"As well as can be expected. I think they're all going a little stir crazy. Father Squid's about ready to go back, at least. That's a small house, after all, and Father Squid says he's getting tired of the sirens at all hours...."

♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

"Hannah, you've got to get over this. Hartmann was a goddamn jerk. He betrayed you. Betrayed all of us. He always was a fuck-up, and he didn't deserve what you gave him."

The words hurt. Gregg felt a shiver run through him in the darkness.

He was hanging upside down, an overgrown caterpillar hunched under the eaves of the tiny four-room house across the street from the Jokertown district fire station. It had taken him several days to find the place, checking smaller homes located near the Jokertown Clinic, St. Elizabeth Hospital, Fort Freak - the Jokertown police precinct, and - finally - the fire house. The Oddity was in the room with Hannah; the voice carrying through the screened window was John's, bitter and eternally angry. Gregg couldn't see much, but he could smell Hannah's perfume.

"John, I don't need to hear this again. Please." The familiar voice, touched with a tired huskiness and so close to the screen, almost caused Gregg to lose his grip on the slick painted wood of the eaves.

"You do need to hear it, Hannah. I'm sorry, but you don't realize how much of an effect you have on our fight. Without you, we're just a bunch of pitiful freaks howling about how oppressed we are. You're our voice, and it's been too damn silent since Hartmann sold us out, since he - " The Oddity's voice broke off.

"Since he was murdered," Hannah finished for him. "And without Gregg, my voice is being portrayed as that of a paranoid, silly woman, and things are getting worse every day. Death and violence are the only things I seem to be good at bringing out. I'm not effective, I'm not ..." Gregg heard her exhale in disgust. He could imagine her arm swinging wide in frustration, her hair swirling with the motion. "Damn it. Damn it!"

"Hannah ..."

Gregg heard the rustling of cloth as Oddity moved. The voice had changed timbre - John had given way to Patti. Even the scent of the triad joker had changed. "Hannah, I'm so sorry. John ... John just says things. Sometimes he doesn't think about other people's feelings. I wish I could help you - I can see how much it hurts."

Hannah's voice was muffled through Oddity's cloak. "I fell in love with him, Patti. I probably shouldn't have, but I did. And Gregg returned my love - I know that. I'm sure of it. I just want to understand what happened. There had to be a reason, had to be something. He wouldn't talk to me, wouldn't see me - all of a sudden. Then that damn press conference, and the next night..."

Hannah was silent for a long time. Gregg wondered whether they'd left the room. He relaxed the fingers on his front two hands until the sucking pads released and let his head swing down a few inches. He could see the bulk of Oddity and the back of Hannah's head as she hugged the joker.

"Something happened to him," Hannah's voice said at last. "I can't ... I don't believe Gregg would just turn like that. Not against us. Not against me." More quiet, then: "God, I hate it when I cry like this."

"It's okay, Hannah. It's okay...."

This was perfect. Better than he'd hoped. Gregg's initial plan had been, well, fuzzy. When he'd called Brandon back to tell him he'd located Hannah, they had set up a tentative rendezvous and a time. Brandon had been insistent that only Gregg and Hannah were to meet him there. Somehow, Gregg needed to get Hannah alone and convince her to follow him.

He'd thought to sneak into Hannah's room and present himself as Battle. He'd tell her that since he'd become a joker himself, he'd had a change of heart. Somehow, he'd convince her that it was in her best interests to follow him - alone - and he'd lead her to the rendezvous.

The problem was that he knew Hannah wasn't that gullible. She'd suspect Battle would be leading her into exactly the kind of trap Gregg had set, and he no longer had the Gift to help persuade her. He figured he had at best a fifty-fifty chance of his plan actually working, but it had been the only ruse available to him.

But Hannah had unwittingly given him the edge he needed. Now he knew how to get to her.

All he had to do was tell her the truth.

He was Hartmann. He'd been jumped. It hadn't been him who betrayed them, but someone else - probably Battle himself. It had been someone else - probably not Battle, Gregg suspected, but some other poor dupe whose body Battle now inhabited - who had been killed. Only you can help me, Hannah....

She'd be skeptical, but he could convince her. She wanted to believe, after all. She loved him.

It was all there for him.

Except ...

He couldn't do it.

The sickness and self-disgust he'd been feeling since he talked with Brandon welled up in him at the thought, and Gregg knew that he'd never find peace again if he went through with this. He didn't need his inner voice to tell him that. He was whole - and there was suddenly no place to shovel the mental shit, no false personality construct to blame for his actions.

There was only himself in his head.

Gregg Hartmann, you've gone soft, he told himself wonderingly.

Glancing back once into the room, where Hannah clung to the comforting Oddity, Gregg let himself drop to the ground. He padded away, the sound of his passage no louder than the wind.

♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

"Brandon?"

Gregg's piccolo voice awakened a few echoes in the warehouse near the East River. The rear doors had been open, just like Brandon had promised. Gregg could smell rat droppings, the papery scent of old packing cartons, the smeared oil on the concrete floor, the gritty residue of ancient machine tool shavings, all overlaid with the strong salty brine of the East River. But he couldn't see anything; all the details were lost in darkness and myopic blur.

"Brandon, it's Gregg Hartmann." Gregg sniffed again. Yes, there was someone here. He could smell perspiration, and a man's cologne....

The rustle above warned him too late. The weighted net draped over him with a soft thunk. His body went into overdrive, but all that did was tangle him more tightly in the coarse strands. He threw up on the netting, but it didn't dissolve - he could melt metal, but it looked like other materials were impervious.

Gregg heard people shouting, saw the lights come on, and when he managed to bring himself back into normal time again, someone he didn't recognize - young, strawberry blond, blue-eyed - was leaning over him, looking down at him with a strange mixture of curiosity and revulsion. Four other burly types were stationed around the net. One of them was familiar: General MacArthur Johnson.

"What's going on?" Gregg asked Johnson. "Where's Brandon?"

Johnson just grinned at him, the smile bright in the dark face. It was Mr. Aryan who answered. "He's not here," the man said. "You see, someone who sounded just like you called him about an hour ago and told him that the deal was off. Really, Gregg my old friend, when you kill someone, you should make sure that it's really the person you're after."

Something in the inflection, in the way the words were phrased, set off alarms in Gregg's mind. "Pan - " he breathed, and the man smiled.

"So you've guessed. You always were a clever man, Gregg. Where's the Davis woman?" Rudo was dressed in an expensive double-breasted silk suit - rather old-fashioned for his new body. Gregg wondered how joker vomit would look on the lapels - it wouldn't hurt Rudo, but it sure as hell wouldn't smell good.

"I didn't bring her," Gregg said. "I ... I needed to make sure Brandon was going to keep his word first," he lied. "Let me out and I'll get her."

Rudo shrugged. "It doesn't matter," he said. "She isn't that large a problem. Not any more. It was you I wanted, Gregg. You're the dangerous one."

"You were never going to give me a new body. Did Brandon know that?"

Rudo smiled. "Brandon is an idealist, not a pragmatist. You were supposed to give him leverage over me. He doesn't like the project we're working on. Brandon wanted to negotiate with you and Hannah as collateral: everyone would compromise and everyone would get something they want. Brandon would get my work placed on a back burner, I'd get your little anti-Shark group scuttled, with your help. Even you would get something, Gregg. Too bad Brandon doesn't realize that his phone isn't secure. Too bad, too, that I never could give you a body, even if I'd wanted to do so. You see, all the jumpers really are dead now. Didn't you know that? A shame, really. But I still have some uses for you, Gregg. I probably should just kill you now, but I'd rather demonstrate to you just what we've been doing. What Brandon didn't want us to pursue."

Rudo gestured to his companions, and they lifted him, net and all, as Rudo brushed lint from his suit.

"I think you'll be impressed," Rudo told him. "I daresay it will take your breath away."

A Dose of Reality

by Laura J. Mixon

& Melinda M. Snodgrass

Clara van Renssaeler, Journal Entry, 31 Mar 94

A viable killer virus continues to elude me. I'm afraid I'll to have to abandon this random-insertion approach. As ever, none of the latest batch are showing any preference for attacking Takis A-infected cells over noninfected cells. The shotgun method for targeting the wild card initiation site is simply not working.

If only Battle hadn't bobbled the break-in.

Uncle Pan is outraged at Papa for not supporting the Black Trump effort. Papa just made some sort of conciliatory gesture in the last few days, I gather, so the tension has eased a little between them. A little. Still, Papa's resistance to the plan has made Pan impatient with my delays. As if I had any control over my father!

But I can understand Uncle Pan's concern. Hartmann's allegations have raised everyone's suspicions. The Feds are probably already digging; eventually they'll turn up a lead that will uncover our work here. We are running out of time, and I am out of ideas.

Uncle Pan is trying to pull the organization back together and stave off panic, and has insisted I make a presentation at one of his political meetings tomorrow. ("Uncle Pan." It seems odd to call him that. He's now a good eight or ten years younger than I am. I miss the old Uncle Pan, the elderly gentleman from my childhood who let me crawl up into his lap and told me stories, who helped me train my first horse and helped me with my French lessons, and called me PC, his petite cavaliere.)

He's invited big wheels from all over the world. He says the organization is in serious trouble and my virus is perhaps our last chance to forestall wholesale defections - by forcing them all to focus on a single, common goal: eradication of the wild card, once and for all.

I'm to give an overview of my research, to make it clear why the Black Trump is necessary, and to "play down the obstacles remaining, if you please, PC." To leave the attendees with the impression only a few details have to be ironed out.

I loathe this deceit.

Uncle Pan argues that desperate times call for desperate measures. That if we don't act as a unified entity now, our cause is lost. What is a simple lie, he says, when a world is at stake? He laughs indulgently at my protests and tells me to trust him.

I suppose it's hypocritical of me to balk. Many things have been done in our cause that I find personally abhorrent.

If I could just get hold of Tachyon's files, I could transmute the lie into truthl We know his Trump virus, Takis B, is in essence a deletion virus that attaches at the Takis A initiation site. Even if Tachyon hadn't known from his work on Takis A - and the Takisians have clearly finished mapping the human/Takisian genome - to engineer Takis B, Tachyon had to know where that site is on the human genome from the restriction map.

I've combed all the lab notes he donated to the World Health Organization in the seventies. Notes on his Trump virus work weren't included among them. They have to be somewhere, though - and he developed Takis B in his Jokertown lab. The information has to be there; QED.

I need that initiation site.

♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

Clara entered the darkened conference room and waited for her eyes to adjust. The meeting was not yet underway, though most of the participants seemed present. No one seemed to notice her, other than the guard who'd opened the door. She chose a seat near the front end of the U at the U-shaped table, opened her satchel and pulled out her speaker's notes.

Muscular men with semiautomatics peeking out from inside their suit jackets stood at all the entrances. General MacArthur Johnson, Uncle Pan's security chief, stood near the shuttered windows, arms clasped behind his back and feet planted apart. If it weren't for his eyes, he might have been made of obsidian. Pan Rudo, graceful and catlike in his new, ectomorphic Aryan body, paced around the room behind the chairs, listening, exchanging a word here and there. He came over as she sat down, and squeezed her shoulder.

"Ready?"

"As I'll ever be."

"Good. We'll begin in a few moments."

In a counterpoint to the soft babble of interpreters' voices, the chandelier overhead tinkled in the air-conditioned breeze, glowing a dull amber. Glasses, coffee cups, and ash trays littered the polished mahogany table. The smells of smoke, of foreign perfumes and body odors, clogged Clara's nostrils and throat.

Perhaps thirty people or so, mostly men, sat at the table. Clara knew only a few of them. General Peter Horvath, an important British Shark for whom her father occasionally provided legal services, was there of course, and Eric Fleming, a multi-millionaire rancher from Australia who had been a close acquaintance of her father's since she was a girl. Most of the rest she knew only by name, if at all. They made up a hodgepodge of races - Caucasian, black, Oriental, Hispanic, Mediterranean - arrayed in a riot of costumes: business suits in a variety of styles, dress uniforms, fatigues, kitenges, robes, boots, loafers, sandals.

The fat Sikh to Clara's left wore an expensive gray business suit and white turban, for instance, and had a black beard rolled tightly up into the folds of fat at his chin. He chain-smoked, smiled at her in a way that made her uncomfortable, and completely ignored his interpreter, a strikingly beautiful woman in a ruby-red sari, who whispered in his other ear. Clara gave him her most intimidating owl-eyed stare, and eventually he coughed, stabbed out his cigarette butt, and looked away. On her right a tiny, stiff-faced man who might have been Central or South American wore a military uniform with lots of brass and ribbons on the chest. Two Orientals sat with O.K. Casaday - probably North Vietnamese representatives. And three members of the Meta-Greens - an extremist group from Germany, an odd marriage of the skinheads and the Greens - sat near Rudo's chair, looking young and insolent. One had his army boots up on the table.

Across the table from Clara sat Etienne Faneuil. His body may have been twenty years old, but the leer on his face belonged to a disgusting old man who should have died years ago. And now that he'd returned from his travels and gone into hiding, she had to share a lab - and the results of her research - with the psychotic son of a bitch. Clara shuddered.

She studied Pan.

Though it had been months, Clara had yet to feel at ease with this new Pan Rudo, this tall young man with the strawberry blond hair. Resemblances to whom he'd been remained - the fine bones, the violet-blue eyes, the mannerisms - but she couldn't help but feel as if she were dealing with a stranger who pretended to be Uncle Pan. And the way he'd used a wild card power for his own gain seemed wrong to her. More than her father ever had, Pan Rudo had had a vision.

First Papa, she thought, and now Uncle Pan. My icons are toppling off their pedestals all around.

Horvath slammed his hand on the table, apparently in response to something the man next to him said.

"Bugger that!"

Clara jumped, startled from her reverie.

"We have to do something about Durand. Now!" He turned to Uncle Pan, who was leaning over, whispering with Faneuil. "What will you do about it, Rudo?"

"And what about von Herzenhagen, for that matter?" Eric Fleming asked, from the other end of the table. "He's cozy with some of my connections - if he turns like Durand has, I'm finished. We have to do something. Assassinate him, if necessary."

"The hell you say," someone else said. "We should break him out. Pay someone off - whatever it takes. He's no traitor. And we need him."

Clara glanced at Faneuil at the mention of Durand, and the implied, possible assassination attempt. He didn't twitch an eyelid. No lingering feeling for his old flame. It figured.

Eric scoffed. "No one is indispensable. Not even you, Carruthers."

"Hartmann is the real threat," the Central American generalissimo said. "He knows far too much. Even as a joker he's dangerous."

Twenty arguments erupted at once. Clara buried her face in her hands. Sparks crawled behind her eyelids: incipient migraine. Not now, she thought.

She hated this. Why couldn't they leave her alone to do her research, and leave her out of these horrid wrangles?

Uncle Pan said, "Enough." It cut through the pandemonium like a scalpel through flesh. Voices died away and everyone turned to look at him - with a few nervous glances at Johnson, who had moved over to flank Pan, his semiautomatic visible beneath his arm.

"Stop this bickering. Listen to yourselves. You sound like frightened old women."

Embarrassed looks were exchanged as his words were translated. Even Horvath looked sheepish.

"Senator Hartmann has been neutralized," Pan went on. "As for the rest, the questions you've all raised need to be resolved, but now is not the time. I've summoned you here for a specific purpose." He paused. "This is a critical time for us. The forces that oppose us have struck some serious blows, and everything we have striven for so long to accomplish is in danger of coming to naught. We must combine our efforts now for a decisive strike, before they can stop us.

"I have summoned you here to reveal to you the existence of a secret weapon - one which promises to put success within our grasp."

That got their attention. Uncle Pan glanced briefly at Clara. She gave him a nod.

"To describe this weapon," he said, "which will wipe out the curse of the wild card, I give you the woman who has developed that weapon: the weapon that will trump the wild card once and for all, and put an end to the contamination of the human race. Ladies and gentlemen, one of the world's leading virologists, Clara van Renssaeler."

A delay while interpreters whispered. Then a murmur rose. The rumors about her father had spread, then. The color came up in Clara's cheeks. She gathered her notes and stood.

♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

Eight pairs of eyes. All held in a net of wrinkles. Why does power always come with age? Normal human eyes. Widen the focus to include the faces. Seven men and one woman. An expanse of aged white skin wrapped tenderly in expensive fabric. Power also surrendered slowly to the fretful demands of equality.

Dr. Bradley Latour Finn shifted uncomfortably. He was standing, an unruly schoolboy called before the assembled faculty of an expensive boys' school, but of course that wasn't the case. He was standing because the tall leather chairs which surrounded the oval table had never been designed for centaurs, not even pony-sized ones.

The Board of Governors of the Blythe van Renssaeler Memorial Clinic shifted, too, and exchanged glances. The chairman rose, and extended a soft, manicured hand. Finn stepped forward to accept it. His own hand was equally well manicured, and, he noticed with some distress, as soft.

"Thank you for coming in today. It's clear some kind of permanent arrangement must be made. Although the requisite seven years hasn't passed to consider Doctor Tachyon deceased, the patients and staff of the Jokertown Clinic need a leader. In these troubled times the ad hoc administration which you cobbled together just won't do."

"Like I said, Mr. Wily, I'm a joker. I'm a doctor. And I'm your guy."

There were polite smiles around the table, and Finn felt a presentiment of danger. Dismissed it. Of course he would have preferred to have them leap up and anoint him on the spot, but it was only in movies (and not the kind his dad made) where that happened. Bradley nodded politely, reared slightly so he could execute a sharp spin on his hind feet, and exited.

♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

Clara started out with a primer on xenovirus Takis A, the wild card. With a few graphics and two or three scanning electron microscope photographs, she described how the virus incorporated itself into the human genome and commandeered the cell, causing changes that led to the now-well-known outcomes: death, deformity, or, for a lucky few, a great psychic or physical benefit.

"I have developed a virus," she said "that penetrates the human cell wall and seeks out the wild card initiator sequence in the DNA - the location where the wild card first insinuates itself into the human genome. If my virus finds the wild card, it will destroy the cell and spread to others, leading to the death of the person infected."

"What effect does the virus have on non-wild cards?" one man asked. It was Casaday. "Is there any risk?"

"Absolutely not. My virus will attack the DNA only if the wild card is present in the genome. People untouched by the wild card are safe. The virus will be carefully engineered so as not to harm anyone but the intended target." She sensed Uncle Pan's gaze on her and avoided a wince; the "will be" was a slip-up. Perhaps no one else would notice. "The scientific name for my virus is necrovirus Takis. In the lab, we've dubbed it the Black Trump."

Loud voices broke out, and Uncle Pan had to call twice for silence before she was able to continue.

"Now," she went on, "your next question might be, why is such a drastic solution necessary?" She looked around at the several dozen eyes focused on her, and wondered whether these people cared at all about the lives that would be lost.

Hartmann's allegations on Peregrine's Perch had shocked her. She'd known that things like that went on, but she couldn't believe all of what he'd said was true. For every Etienne Faneuil or George Battle in the organization, there were ten dedicated, principled people like her father and Pan Rudo and herself.

"Any humane researcher would seek to cure the wild card," she said. "Not kill those poor souls who are already suffering from its effects."

The young Meta-Green with his boots on the table made a scornful noise, which she ignored. She put her hands behind her back and gazed out at her audience, waiting for the interpreters to catch up. She thought of the stories she'd heard, the violence against those afflicted. Some of these people were responsible for it. How could they possibly understand?

"My years of research in the field - and let me set aside modesty long enough to state that I am considered the preeminent expert on the wild card virus today. Other than Tachyon, of course." A pause as her words were translated; laughter rippled through the room. "My twelve years of research have led me unavoidably to a terrible truth: the wild card cannot be cured.

"Tachyon is the only researcher who has even come close, in four decades of feverish efforts by thousands of researchers. With a wealth of advanced alien knowledge and technology at his disposal, he developed his xeno-virus Takis B. The Trump virus. And look at the latest statistics on the Trump." She brought up a graph, and used her ruby laser arrow to point at the bars on the projector screen behind her.

"A cure is only successful in about twenty-four percent of attempts. Forty-seven percent of the time it doesn't work at all, and an appalling twenty-nine percent of the time, it outright kills the patient. In other words, it's more likely to kill than cure.

"In short," she said, "the wild card is such a complex virus, and modifies the genome in such an insidious variety of ways, that it not only defeats our science, it defeats the science of those who developed it, the Takisians. And meanwhile" - she flashed a chart onto the screen, showing the current rates of infection in the population - "as you can see, the wild card virus spreads ever more rapidly through the population. The numbers seem small now: barely seven hundred thousand jokers and aces, worldwide. But remember, they are only a small fraction of those infected. For every joker or ace you see, nine others have died of this disease.

"And complicating the picture are the latents. We estimate that the number of newly infected latents each year - the 'invisible' wild cards, if you will - is thirty percent of the total number infected. In other words, for every joker or ace, another four or five people have the disease lying in wait in their DNA, to someday go off like a timed charge."

She changed the slide, and pointed. "Last year we saw one-point-two million new infections. This was a sharp increase from the year before. Many of these were as a result of inhalation of the wild card spore, but the number of cases caused by genetic transmission is on the rise. Perhaps two million people now carry the wild card trait as a recessive in their chromosomes. They themselves won't become wild cards, unless they are infected by spores, and are counted separately in my totals. But they can pass it on to their children, if their partners are wild cards or carriers. In the same way that sickle cell anemia or hemophilia is passed on.

"Though the rate at which wild cards successfully bear or father full-fledged wild card children is comparatively low, they are responsible for the birth of a large number of carriers. And the average latent harbors the wild card gene for between five and fifteen years before it expresses itself - plenty of time to reproduce and pass the gene on.

"Thus, as you can see," she changed slides again, "we are on the heel of the wild card growth curve." She pointed with her laser arrow. "These three lines represent the projected cases of infection due to spores, due to genetic transmission, and the sum of the two. As this line shows, the rate of infection from spores will remain roughly flat for the next one hundred fifty years or so, at about six to eight hundred thousand new cases a year, and then begin to taper off, as the concentration of spores in the upper atmosphere is depleted. The rate of genetic transmission of the virus, on the other hand, will continue to accelerate. Dramatically.

"Using conservative assumptions, I estimate that by the year 2050, the number of people infected annually, worldwide, including latents and Black Queens, will surpass ten million. This means that in the year 2050 we will have" - she ticked them off on her fingers - "six hundred thirty thousand new jokers a year, most of whom will suffer gross deformities and greatly tax our nations' resources. Seventy thousand new aces, with their unpredictable and potentially threatening powers. Over three million new latents. And approximately twelve million new carriers born.

"And of course, in that one year, six million three hundred thousand dead."

Several listeners gasped. She propped herself on the edge of the table. "A portion of those deaths will occur in utero, so in one sense the impact is not as great as it sounds. We estimate that roughly seventy percent of all wild card-infected fetuses spontaneously abort or undergo transformation at some point during pregnancy. However, many of those are second- and third-trimester miscarriages, or transformations during delivery, often threatening the mother's life. So this is not a trivial loss. And it also means decreasing fertility among our populations, as more and more carrier and infected couples mate.

"By 2100," she went on, "the annual number of infections climbs to forty million, and the number of carriers climbs to seventy million. By the end of the twenty-second century, one seventh of the world's population will either be infected, or a carrier."

She paused and faced the audience again.

"That translates to over two billion infected. One-point-two billion dead, every year. One hundred twenty million jokers, and twelve million superhuman aces. Six hundred million latents. And another fifth of the world's population, or almost three billion, will be carriers."

Shock hung thick in the silence. Even the Meta-Greens seemed taken by surprise; the young man had removed his feet from the table and sat upright.

"In short," she said, "the wild card threatens the human race. In a few hundred years our population will be reduced to a small, enormously powerful elite, a large pool of carriers, and another large population of those physically deformed, many of them barely able to function.

"Nearly every pregnancy, every birth will be a time of dread and suspense, as parents wonder whether their child will be one of the very few lucky ones, or one of those who must spend the rest of their lives suffering. Or one of the vast majority who must die. The human race as we know it will have ceased to exist."

She turned off the projector and perched on the table again, waiting for the murmurs to die down. Auras sparkled around the edges of her vision; nausea clutched at her stomach.

"I've heard enough." Eric Fleming stood. He spared a glance at Clara, and she thought she read disapproval in it. Then he faced Pan. "If this Black Trump virus of yours is such a wonderful thing, destined to save us from the wild card, how is it the girl's own father doesn't support it?"

And several heads nodded around the room, as the interpreters whispered.

"My father doesn't oppose me," Clara said, but the Meta-Green smirked and spoke over her. "There must be some reason - everyone knows he's always been Rudo's lap dog."

Loud voices broke out. Clara came to her feet, stiff with rage. Hallucinatory flashbulbs burst around the Meta-Green. Pan's warning stare - and a wave of nausea - were all that kept her from lashing out.

Pan came to his feet in a fluid movement. All gazes went to him as he moved to the front of the room.

"Van Renssaeler has been careful to take no official position on this effort. But it is true he has reservations." His voice, calm and thoughtful, settled over the room, and the murmurs stilled. "I believe that his reasons are personal. Clara is taking a great risk in developing this virus. Imagine what will happen to the creator to the Black Trump, if our efforts are uncovered prematurely."

She blinked, surprised. Perhaps that was it.

"Clara has made her peace with this," Pan was saying. "It is my belief that her father has not. So." He spread his hands. "If she chooses to offer this means to decisively solve our dilemma, will you, Mr. Fleming, refuse it?

"Consider. You've told me yourself that the wild card threatens your nation's stability even now. Think how much worse it will be in ten years. In twenty. We must act now."

Fleming shook his head, with a dense and stubborn look on his face, exactly that of a bull refusing to be herded. "Well, mate, it still smells wrong to me, and I'm not having any of it. Until I hear van Renssaeler's backing this plan, you can count me out."

He gestured, and his two aides stood. Clara saw a glance pass between Uncle Pan and Johnson; she thought for a moment they'd stop him, but the guards let them pass.

Uncle Pan surveyed the room. Clara shivered at the look on his face, and felt glad he was on her side.

"Anyone else?" he asked, softly.

After an uncomfortable silence, Daniel Mkonda, an African political leader, addressed Clara. "How certain are you of those numbers?" He glanced at Pan. "These aces are a threat and a nuisance. My nation will be well rid of them. But for the rest ... you are talking many deaths on our heads. I have family who are jokers."

"Sentimental ass," someone murmured. Faneuil.

"Waziri Mkonda," Uncle Pan said, "it is a great tragedy what happened to your daughter last year - "

The African cut him off. "No, no, you don't understand. Many of my people suffer, and not just from the wild card. I have several wives and many daughters; if I must lose a child so that my children's children may be spared, then - " he paused as if words had been snatched from him, and looked around at the wall of silent faces. Clara wondered what he read there.

"Then so be it," he said finally, and his voice was like sandpaper. "But I would not pay such a terrible price unless I were certain that what she" - gesturing at Clara - "says about the future is true."

Clara nodded slowly. Taking a deep breath against the nausea, she gripped the table edge. It was almost as if she were alone in the room with him.

"I'm as sure as anyone can be. All my calculations have used very conservative assumptions. Believe me, sir, I understand your dilemma. It haunts me that history will remember me as the woman responsible for the deaths of over a million people. But I'm willing to pay that price. Because the alternative is unthinkable, and the Black Trump is the only means within my grasp to prevent it."

"But perhaps someone will discover a cure."

Clara shook her head. "We could gamble that sometime in the next two hundred years our science will advance that far. But it's a fool's bet. How can I explain this?" She paused, framing her thoughts. "Takisian biogenetics are several hundred years beyond ours. Maybe more. I've seen this with my own eyes. And I've studied Tachyon's work in depth. He was not merely a good researcher; he was brilliant.

"In other words, a brilliant researcher, after two decades of effort, with the aid of a science half a millennium beyond ours, couldn't find a cure. That tells me it could be a millennium before our science is advanced enough to produce a cure. Or never. And I think you'll agree, that is far, far too late."

Uncle Pan, seated next to Faneuil, spoke. "And I think you'll also agree, Waziri Mkonda, that it is better we lose some kin - who are already suffering, most of them - than to sacrifice the future of the human race. The future depends on our courage. Our ability to stay the course and see this through to completion."

Clara spoke again, to the room at large. "The wild card must be stopped. At all costs. Now, before the population affected gets any larger. And the only means within our grasp is a simple killer virus that targets the wild card in the DNA.

"The loss of life will be minimal. Not much more than the number of people who will die of the wild card this year alone." She broke off. Pain stabbed her behind the eyes; her hands trembled. She gave Pan a desperate look. He studied her, and comprehension dawned on his face. He stood.

"Dr. van Renssaeler has another commitment and must be going. If you have further questions, I'll be glad to relay them to her and get back to you. In the meantime, it'll be a few weeks before we're ready to mobilize efforts to disperse the virus, so I will keep you informed."

Lights exploding before her eyes, she found her way to the door and slipped out.

♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

Back at the Clinic the other members of the triumvirate which had run the hospital since Tachyon's departure were waiting impatiently. Doctor Cody Havero, a tough, one-eyed cutter who had honed her skills in Vietnam, and traded that war zone for the "no man's land" of Jokertown. And Dr. Robert "call me Bob" Mengele, ("no relation to the other Dr. Mengele," as he was always quick to add). Dr. Bob had a reason for waiting. He too had applied for the position of Chief of Medicine at the Blythe van Renssaeler Memorial Clinic. Finn had kind of resented it, but in fairer moments realized that having one of their own - even if he was a nat - was better than some outsider.

A surprising addition to the mix was Howard Mueller, known affectionately to everyone as Troll: nine feet of horny overlapping plates, metahuman strength, and metahuman kindness. He was the Clinic's Security Chief, and his skills had been getting a workout in the past two years as acts of violence against jokers, and their Clinic, had increased. He usually didn't put himself forward in this way, but it dawned on Finn that every joker on the staff was anxious to really have one of their own running the hospital. Mrs. Chicken-Foot had followed Finn into the office, and Finn didn't have the heart to shove her out. She mothered him like the Jewish mother she was, and her position at the front desk was a thankless, and sometimes dangerous, job. She deserved to hear what news he had.

"So, how'd it go?" Bob Mengele asked.

Finn slid behind the desk, and began running quickly through his mail. None of it was important, and more to the point, none of it was money.

"Pretty well, I think. I kept my smart mouth zipped. I stayed professional, courteous - "

"Like a Boy Scout," Cody murmured around her cigarette.

Cody had smoked in Vietnam. She had begun again last year. Finn frowned; he hated doctors to smoke. On the other hand, the obvious parallel being drawn did not escape him.

"I presented my credentials, and I told them I thought a joker ought to run the Jokertown Clinic."

"You didn't!" gasped Mrs. Chicken-Foot.

"Oh yeah, real courteous," said Troll, his voice holding an echo of laughter like the rumbling of distant thunder.

"Hey, I was very polite."

Cody flicked the cigarette ash. "Now it can be told. The Board approached me last week. Wanted me to interview for the position." Three sets of joker eyes and one pair of nat eyes fastened on her. "I told them no. Told them a joker ought to run the Jokertown Clinic." She winked at Finn.

He felt a momentary regret. Wished Cody weren't quite so much older than he was. Wished he was less shallow. But he liked younger babes. And wanted a family someday when he'd finally found that babe who could love him for his mind, and not mind his joker flesh.

"Are you upset with me for applying?" Mengele asked.

Cody slid off the credenza where she had been resting a hip. "No, Bob." She stubbed out her cigarette on the sole of her boot, and tossed it into the trash. "Well, back to work. Good job, kid. Now let's see if there's any justice in this sorry old world."

♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

"How is your headache this morning?"

Clara pressed the phone to her ear and a damp cloth to her head. She lay on her back, staring at the lightning worms that crawled across the high ceiling, and spoke softly. "Better, Uncle Pan. A few lingering visual effects is all."

"Excellent." His voice brimmed with energy. "I'm about to leave the country on business, but before I left I had to compliment you on your presentation. You made quite an impact."

Clara licked her lips, which were cracked and sore, sat up, and grabbed the jar of Carmex lip salve. "Not with as many as I'd hoped."

"Mmm. Fleming. Yes. And we need him to effectively cover the South Pacific." There was a pause. "Talk to your father, Clara. We need his support."

She sighed, smearing menthol-tasting salve on her lips. "He won't listen."

"We have no other way to reach him. You must try."

After a silence she said, "All right."

"And keep me updated on your progress at the lab."

"I always do."

♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

Clara van Rensaaeler, Journal Entry, 4 Apr 94

Had to trash another batch of prototype viruses today.

Uncle Pan says my talk on Friday went over well.

Some thoughts on the virus. I need to engineer an incubation period of at least two or three weeks, if possible, and make it transmissible via saliva and mucous membranes. It must be able to spread rapidly and easily. A deadly flu.

I called Papa this morning, and brought up the subject of my research. It was awkward; I just can't bring myself to pressure him, and I know he disapproves of what I'm doing. He asked how it was going and I told him the truth - it's not going well.

He said perhaps I was too close to my work and needed to step back from it for a bit. I needed a change of venue. That's not the problem. I know exactly what information I need. I simply don't know how to get it.

But perhaps in a sense I have been too close to my problem. I recently read an article in the Times about the Blythe van Renssaeler Memorial Clinic. The Jokertown Clinic. And it occurred to me a few minutes ago, the family still has connections with them; Grandmaman Blythe's trust fund has been donating money to the Clinic for years. Papa could get me a position on the staff, if I can persuade him to intervene on my behalf. If he won't do it, I'll get Uncle Henry to. And once there, I could certainly find a way to get access to Tachyon's lab notes.

I've got an urgent call into him. I'm pretty certain what I have in mind isn't quite what he meant by a change of venue. Oh, well.

There's the phone now. I'll bet that's him.

♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

The unctuous voice was still rolling out its sonorous, lying periods even alter Finn hung up the telephone.

"Such a difficult choice ... The Board agonized for several days ... Understood and appreciated your unique talents ... Two thousand dollar a year raise ..."

The real message could be gleaned - "You're joker shit, boy, and you ain't gettin' this job."

Finn turned away from the desk, and leaned the length of his body against the wall. Closed his eyes, and felt the tears prick. He wanted to call his dad, but even dad couldn't fix this hurt. Also, he couldn't bear to tell his father, or Cody, or Troll, or any of the other nurses, doctors and staff at the Clinic that he had lost, failed. The humiliation lay like a sick, oily taste on the back of his tongue.

Stop thinking about yourself, your wounded pride. Figure out what this means for the Clinic, and her patients - the people who really matter.

Dr. Clara van Renssaeler. Who the fuck was Clara van Renssaeler? Aside from (presumably) some relative of the tragic and doomed woman for whom the Clinic had been named? Finn hurried to the AMA directory for the state of New York. There she was; MD Harvard, PhD bio-chem Rutgers, published papers - there was an impressive list, and Finn again felt inferior. He was a GP with some minor cutting skills.

There was the connection to Blythe - granddaughter. It was an irony really that the Clinic carried the name of van Renssaeler. The van Renssaelers had never done a damn thing for the Clinic. It was Blythe's family who had founded and supported the hospital even in the face of growing wild card bigotry. By all accounts Henry van Renssaeler, Blythe's husband, had been a wild card hater of monumental proportions. Enough bile to put him on this list of "Sharks" that Hartmann had been exposing before his death. So, it probably wasn't blatant nepotism. Maybe the Board of Governors thought the name would ease the pain when they appointed a nat to head the Jokertown Clinic.

For Dr. Clara van Renssaeller was undoubtedly a nat. Because if some kin to the namesake of the Clinic had been bitten by the wild card bug, and turned into a hideous joker, the Jokertown rags would have been full of the news.

A nat.

It was the unkindest blow of all.

♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

He didn't know why, but it sort of helped that she wasn't very pretty. Looks, money, brains, and his job would have been just too much to take. Finn surreptitiously eyed the long (he sent up a mental apology) horsey face, the big boned, almost awkward body. She did have nice green eyes. Well, the color and size of them was nice. The expression was that hard, flat stare of the professional woman sizing up the playing field, and deciding it would probably be a potholed bitch. Cody, who was a woman who had long ago fought all those battles of sexism and personal insecurity, stared back at Dr. van Renssaeler with her usual warm, calm air.

Finn had ducked behind the cafeteria counter for a cup of coffee before Clara van Renssaeler had made her entrance. It left him feeling at a decided disadvantage as she nodded to the assembled staff. She said his name in a questioning tone.

"I'm Finn."

Their eyes met, and that connection, which only a young, straight, and horny man can make when he knows a woman has just found him attractive, occurred. It was a rare enough occurrence that Finn felt his heart lift. Then he stepped out from behind the counter, and watched the shutters slam down in her eyes.

Finn made the initial introductions, and he knew his tone was icy; he couldn't help it. That teasing eye play, followed by rejection, had deepened his fury. He watched as van Renssaeler's eyes took desperate refuge in the nice, normal features of Cody Havero and Bob Mengele. Finn was a joker. He knew joker loathing when he saw it, and Dr. Clara van Renssaeler embodied it.

Dr. Robert could always be counted on to play the glad hand Charlie, and he didn't fail them now. He stepped forward to chat up the new boss, and Finn pulled Cody aside with a look, a grimace, and a jerk of the chin.

In an undertone he said, "You take care of the tour."

"No."

The calm refusal took him aback. "Look, Cody, I can't deal with this bi - "

"You better learn, or look for a new job. Like it or not, she's here. She's in charge, and you're the person who has run this clinic for the past three years. She needs to be briefed by you, not by the Chief of Surgery. Quit bowling with your balls, and get on with your job."

♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

They went from the top down. Moving silently from floor to floor. As a tour guide Finn left much to be desired explaining each area with a terse single word; lab, nursery, ICU, surgery, morgue. Finn was at peace with his wild card, but as they viewed the suffering encompassed on each floor of the clinic, the presence of this horrified interloper suddenly reduced his tolerance for his own kind. We really are disgusting, he thought, and depression crashed over him like a wave.

The first spark of animation out of the silent Dr. van Renssaeler occurred when they reached the basement, and stood before the heavy vault-like door which barred access to Tachyon's private lab.

"Do you have a key?" she asked.

Her eagerness sent a shiver of unease down his spine. "Yeah. But there was an attempted break-in earlier in the year, and I'm even less inclined to let people in now. We spent ten thousand dollars upgrading the security on the lab. There's live wild card in there. Muy dangerous."

She stared flatly back at him. "Dr. Finn, my specialty is wild card. I'm fully aware of the dangers, and prepared to face them to continue my work. I want the key. It's my right."

"Yeah, it's your clinic now," Finn said He made no effort to hide his bitterness. A new set of words were clamoring for release. He weighed, tasted, considered them. Decided to say them. "You ever actually practiced medicine?"

"No." Terse and to the point, and perhaps just a hint defensive.

Finn allowed that admission to hang in the silent air between them for several seconds, then he said, "The suffering and dying at this clinic surpass anything I've ever encountered - even when I was a Peace Corps volunteer in Africa. And unlike third world sufferers, the jokers in Manhattan are Americans - or at least until Leo Barnett succeeds in saying we're not - and they think they're entitled to an ease to their sufferings and a painless death. I think you'd better develop some bedside manner, Doctor. Well, shall we visit the wards now?" Finn concluded brightly.

♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

The tour concluded on the fourth floor. Finn led his new boss down the hall, and pushed open the door to Tachyon's office.

"This is Tachyon's office. I've been using it. I presume you'll want it now."

Van Renssaeller walked past him, angling her body almost completely sideways as she passed to avoid touching him. It wasn't deliberate, he would have sworn it wasn't deliberate, but his tail suddenly flicked, the long white hairs whipped across her legs, tangling briefly in the strap of her purse. The woman shot into the room like she'd been launched. A couple of long strands, still caught in the purse, tore loose. She stared down at them in fascination. Untangled them from the strap, wrapped them around her index finger, suddenly brushed them off like a person afflicted by ants.

She was rattled. She stared around the room, and said stupidly, "There's no chair."

All the pent-up rage emerged in a spurt of angry, sarcastic words. "It may have escaped your notice, but I weigh four hundred pounds and have an ass a foot and a half wide. Chairs are not a big decorating item for me. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have patients to treat."

♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

The days fell into a kind of tense rhythm. Nothing had really changed, and yet Finn couldn't shake this pressure band of rage and unhappiness which had settled about his temples.

He had laid eyes on the new boss once in the past week, when she had come to his office to demand the key and access code to Tachyon's private lab. Later he had bitched to Bob Mengele that van Renssaeler obviously liked germs better than people.

With a sigh that shook him from withers to flank, Finn gathered up his clipboard, and headed off for rounds. As he walked down the hall Finn gave the implacable face of the closed door a glance. When Tachyon had ruled the Clinic with his particular brand of noblesse, the door had always been open. Finn had continued that policy. Now the door, and the nat behind it, had become a metaphor for a joker's life in America of the mid-nineties.

♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

A knock came around five in the evening, while she sat at Tachyon's desk sorting through the stacks of files she'd pulled from his office cabinets and laboratory file drawers. Her heart skipped into high gear at the sound. She had to restrain herself from hiding the contents of the folder she'd been translating.

Relax, PC - stop acting like a teenager they caught smoking in the girls' room. She removed her reading glasses, smoothed her wool jacket, adjusted the silk bow on her blouse, and arranged her features.

"Come in."

Cody Havero entered, a blue plastic file folder in hand, and surveyed the chaos Clara had made of the office.

"Dr. Havero," Clara said.

"Call me Cody." Her glance fell on the two Takisian-English references that lay open on Clara's desk - one a general usage dictionary; the other an unpublished, three-ring binder containing biomedical terms. Her eyebrows rose. "You speak Takisian?"

"Speak it? No. Merely read a little."

Cody glanced at the contents of the binder. "Someone's done some serious research, there."

Clara laid her hand on the binder, pleased. "I put this collection of terms together during my post-doc research at Harvard, to make use of the research notes Tachyon donated to the World Health Organization."

"Fascinating. You should consider publishing it."

Clara gave Cody a wry smile. "And enable other researchers to compete with me? Besides, I'm sure it's riddled with errors. I had to use a lot of guesswork"

Cody chuckled. Clara glanced at the folder she held. "You have something for me?"

"Tomorrow's surgery schedule." Cody handed her the blue folder. Clara slid her reading glasses back on.

"I'll look it over."

But Cody continued to stand there. Clara looked at the surgeon over the tops of her reading glasses.

"There's something else?"

Cody nodded. "Unfortunately, I'm here to dump a big problem in your lap."

Clara removed the glasses; they fell about her neck on their gold chain. She gestured. "Please, sit."

Cody dropped into the chair Clara offered - one of two old, taped-up, burgundy vinyl chairs Clara had appropriated from the staff lounge as a temporary measure. Propping her chin in her palm, Cody gazed at Clara with her good eye. Evaluating her, perhaps. "It looks like we'll have a severe shortage of nursing and radiology staff next Friday."

"I presume the heads of Nursing and Radiology can deal with these matters."

Cody shrugged. "They're trying. But frankly, it's close to unmanagedble. With all this public hysteria, we're losing staff in droves."

Clara frowned. "What are you talking about?"

Cody gave her a rather surprised, don't you watch the news? look.

"The Clinic has been picketed by hostile nat groups five times in the last two months. The scuttlebutt on the street is we'll have another demonstration next Friday. A big one. That's why half the nursing staff called in sick. They get tired of the cow's blood and spoiled vegetable showers." A little shrug. "Can't say I blame them. We've arranged for escorts and human chains to protect the staff and patients, but ..." Again, a shrug. "The demonstrators usually outnumber us."

Clara winced mentally. She didn't have time for this. She'd be up half the night doing research at her own lab as it was.

"I'll take care of it," she said.

Cody looked skeptical. "If you're thinking of calling the police, don't bother. We've tried that. They don't show. We've already called on some of our own to protect us, though my fear is we'll end up with a riot, and a lot of dead innocents, unless we're very, very careful."

The way she said "our own" bothered Clara. Cody was a nat. Joker vigilantes weren't her people.

But Clara merely gave her a little smile. "I have an idea or two that might help."

Cody appeared to be studying her again, with that intent look.

"I hope you don't mind my directness, Dr. van Renssaeler - "

"Clara."

An appreciative glance crossed her face. "Clara, then. I have a confession. I'm a bit of an admirer. I've read a number of your papers in virology and immunology. You've done some impressive work on the wild card."

That caught Clara by surprise. "Thank you."

"And frankly, I'm surprised you accepted this position, as you are so clearly a researcher. Not a physician, nor an administrator."

Clara eyed the older surgeon for a long moment. Her heart rate had picked up again.

"You want to know why I'm here, you mean. Why I accepted this position."

Cody gave a shrug. "Forgive me if I'm being intrusive. I'm merely surprised that you'd put aside your research this way, when your career seems to be at its peak."

Clara sat back. She had better deal with this now. Cody Havero was really doing her a favor - the questions would be there, behind the polite faces, until she'd addressed them. And, after a fashion, she could even tell the truth.

"Research is my first love. You're right. My life's goal is to eradicate the wild card. To find a way to purge it from the human gene pool."

She said it flatly, but Cody's eyebrows went up. "You feel strongly."

"You're damn right I do. The wild card is the most heinous disease inflicted on the human race. Not as bad as AIDS in its physical effects, perhaps - for most wild card victims who die, death occurs quickly, and there is a ten percent chance of survival. Even a small chance of benefit. But because it can spread by both spores and inheritance, it's extremely difficult to eradicate. My great fear is that it may already be too late. And the way we were infected deliberately, that enrages me. I'll always despise the Takisians for that."

Clara broke off and unclenched her fists, disturbed by her own intensity. She fiddled with some papers on her desk.

Cody was watching her with that penetrating, speculative look again. Clara's outburst hung in the air between them like a bad smell.

"My mother died of the wild card when I was five," she explained. "It's given me strong feelings in the matter."

Cody's expression softened. "That stinks."

"So." It was Clara's turn to shrug. "I've dedicated my life to finding a way to loosen the wild card's grip on the human race."

Cody's gaze went again to the files and resource materials. "So you're here to expand your studies, then?"

Guilt made Clara's stomach muscles clench. "You might say. Obviously" - with a sweep of her hand encompassing the stacks of files - "I'm interested in Dr. Tachyon's work. But I'm also here to get a dose of reality. Make contact with the people the virus is affecting. Try to understand the disease on the human level."

The words tasted foul in her mouth. Nothing could be further from the truth; staying detached from the wild card's victims, keeping her perspective as clinical as possible, was critical. But the probing look on Cody's face had been replaced by one of compassion.

"I have some advice, if you'll hear it."

"Please."

Cody slouched in the chair and laced her fingers about her midsection. Her lab coat fell open. Beneath it she wore a cotton blouse, jeans, and short boots the same black as her eye patch. "With your background, I believe you have the potential to be a tremendous asset to this clinic. But you've already observed how nervous the staff is about you right now."

Clara thought of that joker physician, Finn. The centaur. A short laugh escaped her. "Bristling, more like."

"Granted. Some are angry. They wanted a joker administrator. It's nothing personal. Frankly, you must be aware of the sort of prejudice jokers are up against, and how defensive it can make them. So. My advice to you is, be the first to reach out. Let the staff know that you rely on them. Get involved. It's the only way you'll earn their trust. And it'll make your job a whole lot easier."

Clara looked the older woman over for a long moment. It would have been easy to feel condescended to, but something in Cody's easy manner penetrated Clara's reserve.

She nodded, thoughtfully. "I'll certainly consider your advice, Dr. Havero. Cody."

♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

Once alone, she glanced at her watch. It was past midnight on the Continent. She'd probably wake him. With a wince, she picked up the phone and punched in an international number.

A series of clicks, as the call was relayed through several exchanges, then a man's voice said, "Hier ist Rudo."

The line hissed and crackled like water dropped on a hot skillet. Clara stuck a finger in her ear.

"Uncle Pan. I hope I didn't wake you."

"PC! Not at all. I am unfortunately all too busy these days; sleep is low on my list of priorities. I understand that you're official now. How has your first week been? How is your research proceeding?"

"Well." Clara cleared her throat. "That's why I'm calling. I have a bit of a problem. Apparently some anti-wild carders have been picketing the Jokertown Clinic, and it's interfering with my research. A demonstration is planned for next week. I wonder if there's anything you could do to stop it?"

"Hmm. That's too soon for me to be able to do much."

"I was afraid of that."

"As you know, it could be viewed as rather counterproductive to interfere with the demonstrations."

So. The demonstrations were being orchestrated by someone in the organization.

"I think I understand your difficulty," she said slowly. "My problem is, the Clinic's trustees are divided over my appointment - I was appointed over the head of a popular joker physician, and a couple of the Board members are looking for any excuse to get rid of me. So I can't afford to look like I'm not doing my job. And the more hassles I have to deal with here, the less time I'll have for my own research back at the UN lab."

"I see. So perhaps, strategically, it would be wise to take the heat off the Clinic for a while."

"Exactly. If you could at least pull some strings so that we can get the local police out to keep things under control - "

"I'll make some calls."

"Thanks."

An awkward pause ensued. "Have you spoken to your father yet?"

"No." It came out a bit too sharply.

"I'm not trying to pressure you."

The hell you're not, Clara thought, and then felt ashamed.

"I know how much you adore your father, and how confused his attitude must make you feel."

Clara wiped away a truant tear. "I'm a grown woman, Pan, and a scientist. My father's choices have done nothing to confuse my own. I'd appreciate it if you'd keep that in mind."

It felt better, not calling him uncle.

She thought she could hear him breathing on the other end of the line, amid the pops and hisses.

"I'm glad to hear it," he said finally. Another pause. "Talk to him, Clara. You're the only one who can reach him now, and we need him."

♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

The woman's hand resting on his was moist and puffy - compared to the grip of most jokers it was a positive pleasure. What wasn't a pleasure was the state of her unborn baby, and the war which was being waged between her body, the baby, and the wild card. The mother's card wasn't that bad. Her eyes were set wide into her head, and three strange, antenna-like protrubances grew from each temple. She was also not a citizen of Jokertown. She was a happily married woman from Syracuse, but the hospitals and doctors in her home town had refused to afford her pre-natal care, or deliver the baby. She and her husband had come seeking help at Jokertown's Jokertown Clinic.

And we're falling down on the job, thought Finn. With each passing day it became less and less likely this baby would ever reach term. Her puffy hand tightened, giving his a quick squeeze.

"Doctor?" The unspoken question hung in the air.

Finn's bedside manner was not quite as brutal as his predecessor, Tachyon's, had been, but he didn't believe in lying to patients.

"The blood workup doesn't look good, Maggie. I've been talking to some specialists ..." The flow of words stuttered briefly as a new, novel, and annoying thought intruded. He resumed. "And while they've got some ideas, we're a long way from answers."

"Jimmy and I, we really want this baby. We can't adopt because ... because." The pain and humiliation showed in her face.

"Yeah, I know. We'll do something."

Out in the corridor he stood for several seconds; wrestled with his pride. It wasn't all that close a battle, his ego weighed against a baby's life ... no contest, but he dreaded the coming interview, and what if she refused?

Up two floors to that implacably closed door. Finn knocked, entered on her invitation. She wore reading glasses, and they looked good on her. Instead of making her look bookish they somehow softened the lines of that long face, and made her look cute. There was the usual brief struggle with her features, which she mostly won.

"Yes?"

"Thought I'd give you a chance to act like a doctor," said Finn.

"I am a doctor." The words were so icy they could have cut.

"Practicing is a usual component in that description." There was the briefest flare of pain in those green eyes, and Finn both exulted and felt guilty that he had scored a hit. The guilt won out, and he offered an olive branch. "I also really need your expertise on the genetic front."

Her interest was piqued, and Finn shook his head over the researcher's mind.

"What's the situation?" van Renssaeler asked, and Finn outlined it as best he could.

He concluded by saying, "She is a joker, but she doesn't look ... well, real jokerish, so you - " He realized he was about to commit a real major social faux pas, and he cut off abruptly.

"So I what?" van Renssaeler asked softly.

They matched stares for what felt like several centuries.

"So you won't be too disgusted by her appearance," Finn finally said.

For an instant van Renssaeler kept her poker face, then the facade crumbled. "I try to hide it," she said softly.

"You don't succeed."

He held the door for her, and tried not to care when she used all available space to avoid contact.

♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

They stopped at the nurses' station to pick up the woman's chart. Clara scanned it swiftly, with Finn standing by. She saw from the amino results that the fetus was a carrier, a girl. The joker mother was twenty-three weeks along - too early for the baby to have any real chance if they went in after her.

Clara studied the blood test results, and shook her head.

"Looks bad. Her T-cell count is way up. It looks as though the mother's immune system has identified the fetus as an invader, and is trying to destroy her."

"No shit."

She frowned and ignored the sarcasm in Finn's tone. "I see you've already tried Cyclosporin."

Her remark seemed to irritate him. "Yeah. Believe it or not, we have a few competent physicians on our staff."

She pinched her nose with a sigh. "I didn't say otherwise, Dr. Finn."

After scribbling a few notes on the woman's chart, Clara handed it to him. "I'd like to order some special tests. Have two hundred cc's of blood drawn and sent to the address I've written here. If you would," she added, to temper the edge on her tone.

"It's my own lab," she added at his raised eyebrows. "My other lab. They can run some highly specialized tests and find out exactly how the mother's immune system is attacking the fetus. Some experimental, genetically engineered immunosuppressants are currently under development in the leukemia and organ transplant fields. And I have contacts at Sloan-Kettering, where a big research project is underway. I expect I can get this woman access to one of their drug testing programs."

"I don't think so," Finn said. "Maggie has been denied insurance coverage. Her wild card was a 'pre-existing condition.' They can't afford a lot of expensive medical tests and medicines."

"Not a problem. I have a grant to study the wild card. I can justify the tests somehow as part of the lab's research. And the drugs will be experimental, so as a volunteer - if she agrees to try the drugs - she won't be charged."

A flicker of something less than hostile passed behind Finn's eyes. "You've got it."

Finn handed the chart to the nurse on duty, a severely deformed joker whose rubberized flesh was peeling off in long strips. Clara avoided looking at him too closely. He emanated so much heat that even four feet away it warmed her face and hands; and he smelled horrible, too, like burning rubber and bile.

It struck her that despite his jokerdom, at least Finn was pleasing to look at. He looked more like the fantastical creatures her mother read to her about when she was little, with his large brown eyes, prominent cheekbones and forehead, tawny hair and flanks. And he had a not-unpleasant smell - vaguely musky, like a horse, though not in any sense overpowering. Whether it was a nervous habit, or because he was angry with her, his tail kept twitching and flicking around his legs. Occasionally a hoof would lift and scrape a leg; his flanks quivered. The horsey mannerisms were familiar to her from her school days, not at all off-putting.

But even though he was by no means repulsive, being around him made her break into a cold sweat.

And Finn rescued her from thinking too well of him by saying, with a challenging gaze, "Perhaps you should examine the patient, while you're at it."

Cody Havero's words of the day before came back to her. Earn their trust.

Fear clutched at her. She clamped down hard on the feeling and gestured down the hall. "Lead the way, doctor."

The look of mild surprise on his face - he had so clearly expected her to refuse - almost made the coming ordeal worth it.

♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

The woman's name was Maggie Felix. Finn had been right; she wasn't too bad to look at. Finn introduced Clara, explained that she was a leading immunologist, and then stepped back as Clara moved around him to the head of the bed.

Maggie answered Clara's questions eagerly, with mingled fear and hope in her exotic, insectoid eyes. Her antennae quivered and, as she spoke, her hands stroked the swell of her belly as if to protect the baby from her own immune system. Beside her, her husband gently stroked her hair. His eyes, too, were filled with expectations.

Clara tried to avoid looking too closely at the woman, focusing on the man's gaze instead. The walls seemed to lean inward, and Finn was blocking her way out the door.

"Why is this happening?" Maggie asked. "Why is my body trying to kill my baby?"

It was a question Clara could handle. She put on her best clinical manner.

"It's nothing you could possibly prevent. The wild card has given you a powerful immune system. It has identified the fetus inside you as foreign genetic material - which indeed it is - and the usual mechanisms that keep a mother's body from attacking the fetus aren't strong enough to contend with your charged-up immune system. So." Clara shrugged. "We'll find a way to trick it. Or disable it, temporarily. At least enough so that your body's natural mechanisms for protecting your baby have a fighting chance."

That made the woman cry. Clara stood there, embarrassed. She knew what it was to want a child; she herself planned to visit a sperm bank, if the right man didn't come along in the next couple of years. But this baby was a carrier. Mother and child would die when Clara's virus was released.

But what was wrong with giving them a chance at a little happiness in the meantime? More importantly, this would give her a chance to expand her knowledge of wild card immunology.

Finn left, pleading other responsibilities. Clara promised the couple she'd do what she could and then went back to her office to call the lab and tell her people what tests she wanted them to run. This promised to be an interesting challenge. One she could really sink her teeth into.

♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

What a difference a puzzle can make, thought Finn as he leaned on the front desk, and watched Clara go pelting past with this intent look on her long face. He also realized that he had used her first name. Change on both fronts.

A conversation going on between Mrs. Chicken-Foot and Puddle Man suddenly intruded.

"I think all these riots are being caused by these Sharks," the receptionist was saying.

"Chickie, that's like blaming the Sharks for bad weather. The Sharks are big. Much bigger than Jokertown. They're rich, powerful. They don't care about riots in Jokertown. That Durand hinted they were up to something big before they spirited her away."

"The government doesn't want people to know they've been manipulated," Chickie said.

"No," Finn heard himself say. "People don't have to be manipulated to hate. They just come by it naturally."

"Then you don't believe in the Sharks?" Puddle Man asked.

"Does it matter?" Finn shot back. "The results are the same. Coming through the doors of the emergency room." He remembered trying to save Bjorn, trying to inform Anne, Zoe, someone that he had died. Learning they were in Jerusalem, and remembered hating them for running.

His bleak memories were shattered by a faint, dry hissing, and Finn turned to greet all sixteen feet of Joan as she came slithering down the hall. Against the faded white of the linoleum tiles her scales had taken on rich gold and bronze tones.

"Hello, darlings." She didn't notice when she slithered right through Puddles. The joker noticed however. The water formed itself into a whirling dervish of liquid, and coiled and caressed Joan's length.

"Thanks, Joan, that's the closest I've come to an orgasm in twenty years."

Color like pale rubies glowed in the scales on her cheeks. The cobra's head closed briefly across her face like a veil. Muted, from behind the scaly skin, "Puds, you're awful!"

Puddles let out a watery chuckle, beaded and rolled away. Joan reared up three feet, opened her cobra's hood in greeting, and Finn bent his human torso, and kissed her on her scented, scaly cheek. She closed stumpy human arms around his neck, and hugged him tight. Thank God the strength in her arms couldn't match the massive crushing strength of her snake's body.

"How was Jamaica?" asked Chickie.

"Perfectly sybaritic, my dears. The scritch of sand on my scales, and all that lovely, lovely heat. I think Perry has finally reluctantly realized that if he wants the pleasure of my scintillating conversation we mustn't take skiing vacations to Colorado. Having a reptile's metabolism plays merry hell with my sex life."

Listening to this cheerful, inconsequential burble delivered in Joan's rich alto seemed to help ease the tension knot which had settled at the base of Finn's neck. Joan had that quality to make people feel that all was well, and if you ever had a doubt, why, "Darling, how foolish, things can only get better."

"So tell me all the news. Of course you got the job," Joan said, and the resulting stab of pain reminded Finn that maybe he hadn't dealt with his anger and disappointment, merely buried it.

He couldn't speak, and after several uncomfortable seconds of Mrs. Chicken-Foot clucking mournfully to herself, the sounds resolved themselves into words, and the secretary said, "No, they hired a nat."

"Oh, Bradley, darling."

Finn shrugged. "Feces occur."

"You should quit."

"And go where, Joan? In the current climate I can't get a job in a nat hospital, and I'm damned if I'm going to move to Vietnam or Guatemala or Jerusalem. I'm an American, I'm not going to be driven out of my own country."

"Who is this person?"

"Clara van Renssaeler." Joan stiffened "Yeah, nice bit of irony, isn't it? Especially since she can't stand jokers."

"Is she ... around?"

"Just down the hall. Room 112."

"Bradley's finally got her working with patients. Well, one patient," Chickie amended.

"Excuse me," Joan said, and slithered away down the hall. As he watched, Finn saw her scales shift from metallic brilliance to a pale white. The only way you could see her was as a blur against the floor.

"Oh dear, Joan can be very ... sudden. I hope she doesn't bite Dr. van Renssaeller," twittered Chicken-Foot.

"Or eat her," added Finn. He then considered for a second. "'Course, that would solve our problem. It's the perfect crime. No body."

Chickie was still making inarticulate clucking noises as Finn wandered away to begin the day's work.

♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

Late that night, while preparing solutions to package a new batch of viruses in her tissue culture lab, Clara reflected on her reaction to joker deformities.

Tychophobia, clearly. Fear of the wild card. She had a bad case of it. Knowing her reaction was irrational didn't make it any less severe. Only brute will kept her from diving out the nearest window whenever one of them came near.

It was fortunate that the more attractive jokers, like Bradley Finn and Maggie Felix, affected her less violently than others - less, say, than most of the patients languishing in the wards. Otherwise this sojourn at the clinic would be unbearable.

She pinned her hair up, then donned a protective hood, goggles, overalls, two pairs of gloves, and a respirator, and picked up her jugs of plasmids and mix solutions. She opened the airlock to the Level III clean room and stepped inside; the outer door locked and the inner door opened with a hiss. Her ears popped. Clara set the solutions down on the bench, then removed a tray of tissue culture plates from the incubator and carried the tray past the blinking banks of lights to the hood.

A wild card is a wild card, she thought, perching herself on her lab stool to prepare her solutions. Any visual difference is illusory; at their core, they harbor the same genetic damage.

Knowing this didn't change the shape or texture of her feelings. So much for clinical objectivity.

♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

Clara van Renssaeler, Journal Entry, 8 Apr 94

At last! I've found the restriction map I need. Tachyon's work on Takis B progressed in exactly the direction I thought. He reports the wild card initiation site as being 70 base pairs downstream from Taq1 and 2kB upstream from Xcm1 on chromosome 14.

I'm repackaging several of my more promising viruses with the right initiation site receptors. To maximize recombinations and cell disruption, I've spliced into the packages a transposon element with terminal inverted repeats as well. We'll have to see.

But this feels right. I'm getting close - I can smell it.

♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

A riot was fomenting in the street in front of the clinic. On the steps of the clinic stood the defenders. Troll, mountainous in his homemade body armor constructed out of pieces of old mattress and bumpers, was slapping a six foot long billy club against his palm. Despite the exhortations of the fundamentalist preacher, some members of the mob were eyeing the big joker nervously. Mengele, a few other doctors, and some random angry jokers completed the guardians. Finn was attired in more traditional kevlar. It still didn't make him feel safe. All he could think about was his exposed head, and the unprotected expanse of horse body.

"He's winding up," Troll said. "The rocks will be flying soon." Finn swallowed hard, nodded. "Herself said she was going to handle this?" Troll asked.

"I'll believe it when I see it," Finn grunted.

And then, miraculously, in the distance, they heard them - sirens. And they were coming closer. The mob was starting to exchange puzzled glances. Was it possible their fun was about to be spoiled?

A few seconds later, and police cars came wheeling around the corner. Nats scattered. Police erupted from cars, and ran off in pursuit.

"Look at that, will you. Police." Laughter tugged at Troll's voice.

"I wouldn't have known what they were if you hadn't told me," Bob Mengele added.

"She did it," Finn said simply, and was grateful.

♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

The next Saturday Clara needed some of Tachyon's notes from the clinic. The taxi driver turned on the radio, and 1010 WINS reported a water main break on The Bowery at Canal Street, which explained why they got stuck in traffic all the way up at Spring Street. She paid the fare and got out of the cab to walk the rest of the way to the clinic. Through Soho and Chinatown, and into the heart of Jokertown.

The air had quite a bite. A hard rain the night before had washed the streets clean of their usual patina of litter and urine. It was before eight; closed, graffiti-sprayed gates barred the store fronts and few people were out on the streets. Clara stuffed her hands in the pockets of her big, woolly cardigan and set out at a good clip.

Jokertown. By all rights she should be terrified. But this morning her fear had an element of defiance, almost exhilaration. She could face anything.

It was easier than she'd expected. Jokertown's streets weren't crowded. The one or two jokers she encountered up close seemed as nervous around her as she was around them, and gave her a wide berth.

Just down the block from the clinic, in a large, fenced asphalt lot, she heard shouting and laughing and the sound of wood smacking pavement. A small group of joker teenagers was playing polo.

Jokers playing polo? The idea seemed outlandish; the two didn't belong in the same universe.

Four of the teenagers had feet that could accommodate roller blades. Of the other two, one hopped on a sort of accordian leg and the other had the hindquarters of a pony, like Dr. Finn's. Then she realized it was Dr. Finn. Curious, she hung onto the fence and watched.

It was clear he way outclassed the kids and was holding back. Of course, his body was perfectly designed for polo. But she was struck by now well coordinated his movements were as he reared and turned, as he raced across the lot, as he bent low and swung his polo stick, and led the chase back across the length of the lot with his tail high and his hooves striking the pavement in a clattering beat: horse and rider in perfect synchrony.

It reminded her of her polo-playing years in prep school, and of the times her Uncle Henry used to take her along on outings with a local group of mentally handicapped lads.

The ball struck the fence near her and the ragged group raced over. They braked several yards away when they saw her, fear and suspicion on their bizarre and twisted faces. Clara averted her gaze. Finn trotted up, out of breath and flushed, looking surprised. He wore a sweatshirt with a University of California at San Diego logo, whose sleeves and neck had been cut out, and a sweat pad over his horse's haunches. Both were stained with sweat.

"Putting in some overtime?" he asked.

"Needed to pick up a few things. I didn't know you played polo. You play well."

"Um. Thanks." A hind leg stamped. He twisted a finger into the frayed neckline of his sweatshirt. There was something quite boyish and Californian about his embarrassment. At that instant it was as if she was seeing Bradley Finn, the man, for the first time.

A man atop a horse's haunches. The impossibility of it rattled her. She had a flashback to that first moment she'd seen him, before she'd known he was a joker. By God, but he was handsome. She'd had a horrible shock when he had come around the counter and she'd seen what the wild card had done to him. But she could see now how functional the combination was. Even attractive.

Her mother had read stories to her from Greek mythology when she was very young, and she'd taken quite a liking to centaurs. When she'd been in her "horses" phase, as a teen, she'd collected dozens of centaurs - paintings, posters, figurines of pewter and crystal.

Feeling awkward, she gave him a nod and moved on. She sensed his gaze on her back.

On her desk, along with the file she wanted, were piles of reports on various administrative hassles she'd have to deal with first thing Monday morning. She leafed through them and groaned.

Labor disputes. A discipline problem among the staff. Piles of funding requests, to replace dilapidated equipment that should have been replaced years before - requests that far outstripped the clinic's paltry budget. A snide letter from one of the Board members regarding a lawsuit by a former patient.

It struck her, heading down the steps from the clinic, that Bradley Finn knew how to deal with all these administrative problems; he'd been wrestling with them for years. He was one joker she couldn't afford to alienate. Not if she wanted things to function smoothly while she was there. She should be delegating a lot of this to him.

It did make things easier that he wasn't physically repulsive. She would imagine him as a centaur straight out of Greek legend. Not a joker, like those pitiful, deformed kids he was playing with. She would trick her phobia.

Starting Monday, she decided, I am going to make a real effort to make nice to him.

♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

... So, while I do apologize, I know you'll carry on splendidly without my tiny little volunteer efforts.

Joan

The handwriting was lovely. Someone had had the benefit of a fine education. The fluttering, almost tittering tone of the letter made him crazy, and Finn forcibly separated his teeth. The hinge of his jaw felt immediately better.

At first he thought he'd imagined it, so light was the tap on the door. Then it came again, a bit more forcefully.

"Come in."

What entered he hadn't expected. Clara van Renssaeler. Finn started to scramble up out of his oversized beanbag chair, but she waved him down. She then stood, clasping and unclasping her hands, and staring silently at the floor between her feet.

"Would you like to sit down?" Finn asked, indicating one of the two chairs which served as a concession to more normal bodies. She shook her head. The silence continued.

"When did this laryngitis problem first manifest itself?" Still nothing. "You know, it's amazing this effect I have on women. You're not the first woman I've struck dumb."

A dimple appeared in her left cheek. It never graduated to a smile, she had too much self-control for that. Witnessing that human emotion left Finn speechless. And a dimple? He would never have associated Clara van Renssaeler with dimples.

"The Independent Grocers Association came to visit me this morning," Clara said. "A new city ordinance has been passed banning joker owned and driven trucks from exiting Jokertown. And the Teamsters have hiked fees for deliveries into Jokertown."

"Sonofabitch!"

"Who do you think would be the best person to negotiate with them?"

He considered, and tried not to focus on the warm little glow which had settled in his chest. Probably heartburn, Finn thought, can't be a crush. Might be lust. He had a feeling he was blushing when he finally looked back at her. It had been a long time for Finn, and even considering the hot'n heavy had him struggling to keep his dick in its sheath.

"I'd send Cody."

"Rather than me."

"Cody's real good in a locker room setting. You're too much of a lady."

"I'm not sure if we've both been complimented or both insulted," said Clara.

"Complimented. Cody comes across like a sexy comrade, someone you want to storm the barricades with."

"And me?" asked Clara. From the look on her face Finn suspected she hadn't meant to ask the question.

"You're the kind of woman men like to protect. Or fantasize about awakening." And now it was Finn's turn to regret his unruly mouth.

"What does that mean, awaken me?"

"Behind that scholarly nature, behind those tortoise shell glasses, beats the heart of a sexual volcano just waiting for the right man." Finn tried to keep it very light. Another of the Finnmeister's meaningless, randy, flirting remarks.

"Oh."

It was the last response he had expected. For some reason the ridiculous remark seemed to have sent Clara into a deep blue funk. The woman scientist was standing before him. She had that inward, almost blank expression that researchers achieve when faced with some puzzling new germ, or bit of data which has upset their pet theorems. Finn wondered which worldview his sexual banter had undermined.

"I'll talk to Cody," Clara finally said in a small and distant voice.

She left, and Finn had a long talk with his unruly dick, and slapped his mouth around.

♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

Clara van Renssaeler, Journal Entry, 16 Apr 94

Exciting news! I started the test cultures for my new prototype viruses today. Batch 94-15-04-24LQ is already showing evidence of virulence against the wild card cultures, and little to none against the control cultures.

Don't want to jump to conclusions. Must be patient. Give the culture another few days. But this looks like it!

♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

It was late, after ten P.M., when Clara stepped out of Tachyon's office. The corridor lights were dim; joker nurses and orderlies carried their trays and rolled their carts and spoke in hushed tones: a freakish parade of horrors and oddities acting out a normal human routine.

Somehow, though, the scene felt like a clockwork: all components functioning smoothly. Perhaps a Salvador Dali clock.

Down in surgery, she stuck her head around the open door of the doctors' lounge. Cody had curled her legs up on the sofa with a stack of patients' charts in front of her, unopened. She was sipping a cup of black coffee. A dark smudge underscored her good eye, and her face looked haggard.

"Mind if I join you?" Clara asked.

"Have a seat." Cody patted the sofa cushion. "You're working late."

Clara dropped onto the couch. "So are you."

"Tough day. A serious trauma case, on top of the scheduled cases. I just got out of surgery." Cody stretched with a jaw-cracking yawn. "And I'm on call tonight." She gave Clara a curious glance. "So why are you still here?"

"I wanted to clear off my desk. A lot of little things had been piling up." And there was no hurry to get back to the UN lab; the test results on her virus womdn't be ready until the following afternoon.

She folded her hands in her lap, and thought for a moment, while Cody browsed through her patients' charts.

"Cody?"

"Mmm?"

"What brought you here? To Jokertown?"

Cody set down the chart and slung her arm across the back of the sofa. "A chance to do something useful with my skills, I guess. And" - she shrugged - "there was a need. Why?"

"I'm not sure. Just curious. A surgeon like you could find a position anywhere."

"I'm not sure I like what that implies," Cody said, with a frown. "Jokertown Clinic has an excellent staff of competent, committed professionals. This is not a dumping ground for physicians who couldn't get placement elsewhere."

"No. It's not." Clara twirled a ring around her finger, thinking. "Jokertown Clinic - surprises me."

"Sounds like some cherished beliefs are going down in flames."

"I didn't realize the depths of my feelings." Clara paused. "I'm a tychophobe. A clinical case: panic attacks, the works. I've been having a lot of nightmares, and a hard time fighting off a migraine, lately. I feel as if something's buried down there, something horrible. This" - she gestured all around - "seems to be stirring it up. And it terrifies me."

Cody looked at her. "You say your mother died of the wild card?"

Clara nodded. A needle of fear passed through her chest.

"Perhaps that's the connection."

Clara raised her eyebrows at Cody. Then she sighed and sank into the couch cushions, pushed her hair back.

"I'm sure you're right." She was silent a long time. "I think it would have been terrible to see her suffer; it's better that she died quickly. But sometimes the selfish child in me wishes she hadn't.

"It might not have been so bad. Even if she hadn't become an ace, she might have been a joker like Maggie Felix. Or Bradley Finn. You know - not horribly debilitated or in pain."

Cody's eyebrows went up, but she said nothing. Clara felt a warm flush spread across her face.

"I mean, I'd never want her to suffer the way so many jokers seem to suffer. But ..." she spread her hands. "Take Dr. Finn. He's so well-adjusted. I admire how he's overcome his - well, it's not even a disability, for him, is it? Nat furniture and attitudes aside, he seems to function extraordinarily well. He's been helping me a lot with some of the administrative functions lately, and - " Clara gestured again, paused. "Despite my phobia I find myself forgetting he's a wild card."

Cody lit up a cigarette, and shook the match out. "The wild card is not a simple disease, is it?"

Clara's laugh had an edge to it. "Not by a long shot."

Cody gave her a compassionate look, and inhaled some smoke. "How is Maggie Felix doing, by the way? She's in isolation, isn't she?"

"Yes." Thank you, Cody, Clara thought; subject change deftly done. "We have her on large doses of Aminosporin. No evidence that it's crossing the placenta or harming the fetus, though Maggie herself is suffering some side effects due to the high dosage. But the baby's T-cell count has dropped to a more normal level."

"That's good to hear."

"Yes. I want to give the fetus as many weeks as I can. The situation is still pretty dicey, but - it's better than the alternative." Clara shook her head. "Her immune system is amazing. I doubt she's susceptible to opportunistic infections even now.

"Well." She slapped her thighs, and stood. "I'd best be going."

At the door she turned. "Oh, and Cody - "

Cody took a drag off her cigarette, blew a stream of smoke into the air. "Yeah?"

"Thanks."

♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

Clara van Renssaeler, Journal Entry, 24 Apr 94

After a promising start, my 94-15-04-24LQ virus cultures don't thrive quite as energetically as I'd hoped. I need to do some tests to learn what the problem is.

Mustn't get discouraged. I'm still much closer than I've ever been.

Finally worked up the nerve to ask Papa out.

♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

The restaurant was La Lucia, an expensive little Italian restaurant on the upper West Side, Papa's favorite. The tried-and-true, soften-him-up-digestively method. He had already been seated when she arrived.

Brandon van Renssaeler always looked good - trim, handsome, with silver at the temples and taut, Nautilus-trained muscles and an even, gold, tanning-room tan. But tonight he looked a little frayed around the edges. He stood and took her hand and kissed her on the cheek, and she realized he must be as worried about all the recent developments as Uncle Pan.

Clara removed her wrap and sat. Her nerves were twitching like little jumping beans. The waiter brought her a double gin and tonic.

"I took the liberty," he said. Clara nodded her thanks and downed half of it in a few swallows.

They chatted about inconsequential for a few moments; she asked how Chloe was and how the practice was going, and he told her. The waiter took their order for appetizers. As the waiter walked away she pressed her fingers against her lip, mentally girding herself.

"We need to talk," she said.

His glance was sharp. He never missed much. "About your research."

"Exactly." She touched his hand. "Papa, why have you withdrawn your support? We need you."

He looked at her and said nothing, merely swirled his cognac and sniffed its aroma, wearing a thoughtful expression.

"Well?"

"You're your own woman," he said, and took a sip. "I can't stop you from pursuing the course you've chosen. God knows, I wish I could. But you're making a big mistake with this Black Trump project. And we're all going to pay."

"Damn it, I wish you would trust me. I know what I'm doing." She leaned forward. "The virus will work, Papa. I'm that close to perfecting it" - she held up thumb and forefinger. "We have the resources to disperse it. We have human immunology on our side. Once the virus is released there'll be no way to stop it. We'll be rid of the wild card forever.

"But Eric Fleming and his whole network won't cooperate unless you do, and if we don't have a series of vectors in the South Pacific, there'll still be large pockets of disease in the southern hemisphere. You must tell him to do what Uncle Pan says."

Brandon sighed, sipped at his brandy. The waiter brought prosciutto-stuffed wild mushrooms and gave them miniature forks. Brandon dug in right away, but Clara had no appetite. She sat with her hands in her lap, fighting the urge to lean across the table and shake him. Brandon asked the waiter to give them a few more minutes to select their entrees, and perused the menu. Clara seethed.

"Well?" she asked.

Brandon rubbed his forehead. "There's a word for what you're doing, and people are going to use it. Genocide. Mass murder."

Clara gasped caught between outrage and irony. A laugh escaped her. "You don't mince words, do you?"

He sighed. "If you're going to go through with this, you'd better get used to that label, Clara. I've seen what the legal system, and the media, can do to people." She started to speak, but he lifted a finger. "Yes, I know your intentions are good. And I hate the wild card as much as you do. I'm not prepared to wage a frontal war against Rudo. But I simply can't support you in this."

"But why?" Clara's fists clenched. "Why won't you support me?"

Brandon shook his head. "It's going too far. I can't condone it. Your heart is in the right place, Clara, but this Black Trump scheme is deeply misguided. There are plenty of actions we can take against the wild card without spreading killer diseases."

"Papa - "

"As I've told Rudo, if he wanted to do this he should have used someone else. Left you out of it."

At her look of distress he took her hand, and his expression softened. "I'm very concerned about what will become of you."

She jerked her hand loose. "How can you say that? You lost your wife to the wild card - I lost my mother! How many more people have to suffer the way we have - the way she did - before something is done?"

"Your voice is carrying," he said.

She lowered her voice. "Papa, you have to help."

His look was piercing. "Who says so? Rudo? Has he been pressuring you to get to me?"

She felt her color rise. At her expression, his lips went thin. "Thought so. That's just his style. It's my own damned fault; I should have removed you from his influence years ago, before he got his hooks into you. They're in you so deep now I don't know if they can ever be extracted."

"You don't know what you're talking about."

"Oh, I'm afraid I do. Rudo has turned you into a tool of mass destruction ... he's twisted your brilliance into something dreadful.... My God, look at you! Look at what you're doing! Look at your main collaborator - a man who spreads disease for the pleasure he gets from it. Doesn't that tell you anything?"

Clara dropped her napkin on the table.

"I didn't choose to work with Etienne Faneuil." She said it calmly, but she felt as if she were going to explode.

"No? Tell me, how is what you're doing different from what he's done?"

"I don't experiment on human subjects! I don't enjoy this the way he does. I'm putting an end to the suffering, and preventing the spread of a terrible disease. There's no other way!"

"Drop your work on the virus, Clara." He said it softly. "There are other ways to deal with the wild card, without resorting to genocide. Don't let Rudo manipulate you. You can walk away from it - there's still time. I'll protect you from any Shark fallout. Rudo doesn't dare attack me directly."

"Papa ..." She struggled with tears, won the struggle, stood. "Your support would have meant a lot to me. But I'll go on without you if I must."

He merely stared at her with deep sadness. She stood there for a moment, speechless. Then she turned and walked out.

♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

Clara van Renssaeler, Journal Entry, 27 Apr 94

Just got back from dinner with Papa. Still shaking. It was horrid. He all but accused me of being a carbon copy of Faneuil. How can he say that? How can he not understand? How dare he accuse me of genocide when it was he who inducted me into the organization to begin with? I'm furious.

I knew, I just knew it would end up this way. Damn him. Uncle Pan will have to find some other way to win Eric over. I've done all I can.

I wish things were like before. I want to talk to Papa about my research. And about Maman. With all this exposure to victims of the wild card, she's on my mind a lot. I want to ask him what she was like. I wish I'd known her. I barely remember her.

I saw two people draw the Black Queen at the clinic yesterday. When I think of how she must have suffered, it's like a great hand squeezing my heart.

The Black Trump is the only way to stop the anguish the wild card causes. If there were another way I'd take it, but there's not. How can he wish what we've suffered - what she suffered - on the rest of the human race?

Damn you, Papa. I won't stop for you or for anyone. I know I'm right in this.

♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

"I'm gonna ask her out."

Cody dropped onto a bench in the scrub room. Her green surgical gown was splattered with yellow gore. Finn stripped the scrubs off his torso, and bent double trying to reach back to unwrap the horse body from its sterile wrap. Cody gestured with a finger, and he allowed her to catch the velcro edge, and strip him.

"Are you sure that's a good idea?"

"It's not a date date. She's hearing all the problems of Jokertown, I thought it might be nice for her to see the up side."

"Is there one?"

For the first time in all the years Finn had known the surgeon she sounded old. And sad. And tired. He trotted to her, the rubber booties on his four hooves making squeaking sounds on the linoleum floor, put his arms around her neck. They rested their foreheads against each other.

"Yes, Cody, there is one. No, many. People still fall in love, and children play, and old men squabble over their chess boards in the park, and people trade books out of the back of the Worm's station wagon."

Cody straightened, smiled, pushed back a lock of his white-blond hair. "How old are you, Bradley?"

"Thirty-eight, why?"

"How did you keep cynicism at bay?"

He shook his head. "I don't know. Too dumb to be depressed?"

She stood. "If an older, more experienced woman might give you some advice...."

"Any time."

"I would couch this request as if it is a date." She turned that single, all seeing, all knowing eye on him. "Because, of course, that's what you want. And if you phrase it like an educational tour she's going to turn you down, convinced that you're condescending to her again. And, of course, she'd be right."

"She'll turn me down faster if she thinks this is a date," Finn said glumly.

"I don't think so."

She started out of the scrub room. Finn made a leap after her, and ended up tangling three of his four feet. "What do you know?" he demanded when he finally regained his equilibrium.

"Everything ... you know that, Bradley." She winked at him, and left.

♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

Clara can Renssaeler, Journal Entry, 28 Apr 94

Well, the analytical results are back and I've had a chance to study them. I think I may have figured out the problem with virus 94-15-04-24LQ. The situation is not as bad as I'd feared; this is still a viable Black Trump virus. But it's not ideal.

To make sure the virus doesn't die out due to lack of disease vectors, I hid the Black Trump gene inside a more benign virus that affects both wild cards and nats - like a Trojan horse. The benign virus is a linear, single-stranded DNA virus, which contains a "negative" of my Black Trump as part of its gene sequence, and a locator for the wild card receptor. I packaged all this with a reverse transcriptase for the Black Trump gene and a transposon to encourage mutations.

When the viral package enters a cell and the benign carrier virus starts to reproduce, the reverse transcriptase is synthesized. The Black Trump m-RNA is split out and converted to a proper, double-stranded Black Trump DNA sequence by the reverse transcriptase. All as planned.

For the control cultures, in which the wild card initiator sequence isn't present in the DNA, the Black Trump has nowhere to attach on the genome, so it and the transposon remain as junk floating around in the cell. The carrier - a much less dangerous virus - proliferates instead.

In the wild card cell cultures, the Black Trump attaches at the initiator site on the DNA. The linked transposon element wildly recombines and reproduces the Black Trump, causing random genetic insertion and throwing the cell immediately into lytic phase. The cells burst, dispersing the Black Trump virus to other cells.

In theory this should be deadly. But the 94-15-04-24LQ virus got progressively weaker as it was transmitted from cell to cell.

According to my follow-up tests, it appears that - ironically - this virus is too virulent. Introducing the transposon has made it so wildly recombinant that it produces a host of missense mutations, weaker strains that are more successful than the original Black Trump gene at repackaging themselves before the cell bursts. So the more lethal strain gradually kills itself off. Progressively weaker strains result.

Given the rates of mutation in the tissue cultures, my calculations indicate that the first wild card who contracts the virus will die, and also the wild card who catches it from the first, for a total of about three to four generations of wild card transmission. The intervening nats who contract it don't alter the Black Trump portion of the virus, so they don't dilute the effect.

Given the length of the viral incubation period and the ease with which it's transmitted, three to four generations should be enough to kill most of the wild carders in any given population center, before it mutates to the nonfatal form. So this is a powerful virus, despite its limitations. But it means that we can't use the virus to effectively sweep the globe, without mounting a larger infection campaign than Uncle Pan intended. Its virulence will peter out within weeks of its release. Thus it might be stoppable with the use of quarantines, unless we hit all the major centers at once. It will also almost certainly miss isolated areas, and it will be useless against the inevitable new wild card infections that will occur. That in particular concerns me.

The other potential concern is that this virus is so recombinant it could mutate to a form harmful to non-wild cards, under the right circumstances. It's a small risk, but I'd be more comfortable with a rather less mutable version.

Overall, though, I'm fairly pleased with this virus. I've dubbed it necrovirus Takis I - Black Trump, strain I.

And I think a few modifications will make it truly unstoppable. I'm now trying the same viral package, but without the transposon. That should diminish the virus's mutability enough - I hope - that the lethal form has enough time to repackage itself before the cell destructs, and is able to compete against the weaker, daughter strains. It should also reduce the risk that the virus might somehow become harmful to non-wild cards.

I should have preliminary results on the new batch, 94-04-28-24LQ, Black Trump II, by Sunday.

I want to share this with someone - I'm so close to solving the puzzle! But there's only one person I can confide in, and I find myself reluctant to tell Uncle Pan about my progress.

Not that I could reach him right now in any event; he's off to Asia, trying to consolidate support for our plan. But he was back for a day or two, and Saturday night he came by the lab and asked me out to dinner. He took me to a lovely little restaurant in the Village and we talked for hours. As tense as things have been between us, I was relieved that our relationship was returning to normal.

He asked me about my meeting with my father. Of course I told him nothing of what was said, only that Papa was adamant. He urged me to continue my efforts. I told him it's pointless. Papa's mind is made up. I wish Pan would believe me.

And when he dropped me off he kissed me. I mean on the lips. A romantic kiss.

And - I don't know, I mean there's no doubt he's a very attractive man, especially now - but it feels vaguely incestuous. Wrong. I've known him for too long as a sort of second father to be comfortable switching roles this way.

And I can't help but wonder, why now? And why me?

I feel terrible for harboring these thoughts against Uncle Pan, but I feel there's something else behind all this. I've overheard some of the angry remarks he's made about my father in unguarded moments, and the other day I heard him and Faneuil talking in Faneuil's office. (I must confess to being a bit of a snoop; I listened at the door when I heard my name.) Only caught a few words, but he seemed to be saying that I wasn't to be invited to some meeting or another. Faneuil mentioned someone named "Nor" or "Ner." And Pan said that the less I knew about any of Faneuil's work the better.

Faneuil's work is epidemiology - he has been working on ways to disperse the Black Trump through the populace. I'm being shut out of a major portion of the Black Trump effort. Because of my father, I'm certain.

And last night I dreamt about the dinner date, only Uncle Pan really was Pan, the mythical goat. Grotesque genitalia and all. He kept leering at me, and I was very frightened of him, but kept laughing and laughing so he wouldn't know. When we got to my apartment, Bradley Finn rode up and shot Pan with an arrow. It didn't seem to hurt Pan, but suddenly I was free of whatever spell of fear he had cast over me. I jumped onto Finn's back and he leapt out a window.

Then Finn turned into this Benji sort of dog, and a big snake with the face, arms, and breasts of a woman appeared and attacked him. I woke up shouting, in a cold sweat, at four A.M. and I've been awake since.

I've dreamt of that snake before. She was a lamia. A weeping lamia. More distorted Greek mythology.

Seeing auras and such, but no headache yet. I've taken some medication to see if I can fend off the migraine.

I guess I'm just under too much stress.

It's odd that I should dream of Bradley Finn. Perhaps it was because I've been thinking about him in terms of Greek mythology, and that got linked to Pan's name.

Had a long talk with Cody Havero the other night. My feelings about the wild card are changing. My commitment to eradicating the virus hasn't changed; it must be destroyed and there is only one way. Even if Pan, or Papa - even, I hope, if I - contracted the virus, I would continue my work on the Black Trump, for the good of the human race.

But I do think that knowing the people - realizing these are human beings, not just statistics - is important for me to face. I don't want to become another Etienne Faneuil, whatever Papa says. And I have to respect people like Bradley Finn. I'm struck by the difference between his natural, enthusiastic charisma and Pan's, whose charm has the feel of artifice, of calculation.

It's a shame the world must lose people like Bradley Finn, when the disease is released. Damn Tachyon and his race, for inflicting this disease on us.

♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

"Umm," Bradley Finn said, twining a finger in his lab coat buttonhole. His hind leg stamped and his tail swished. "Sunday is May Day."

Clara removed her reading glasses and eyed him. What on earth was he so nervous about? Was he afraid to ask for the day off?

"I know," she said, mildly.

"Well," he went on, "there's going to be a street festival, here in Jokertown."

"So I've heard."

"So." He cleared his throat. "You want to go with me?"

Clara gaped, flattening her hands on the desk. Her heart did a tap dance in her rib cage and her mouth went dry. "I beg your pardon?"

He stared back at her for a long moment. Then he tossed his head with a look of irritation. "Never mind. It was a dumb idea."

He wheeled in a clatter of hooves and headed for the door.

"Doctor - Bradley."

His hand was already on the door knob. He didn't turn to look at her. She tried to catch her breath, which had gotten quite short.

"I'd be glad to." It came out quickly, before a more prudent voice could intervene.

He turned then, and the raw, open look on his face made her heart skip another couple of beats.

"So," she said, sliding her reading glasses back on and clearing her own throat. "Where shall I meet you?"

Afterwards, she wondered what the hell she thought she was doing.

♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

They weren't just wandering randomly. There was order to this wander. They'd hit the May Day block party, eat great hotdogs, then the day would culminate at Joan's and Perry's apartment. Joan would invite them in, and give them tea on her beautiful bone china, and Perry would come in and snuggle with Joan....

And Clara will run screaming, his baser, bigoted self said. You're such a boob.

Was it naive to think that seeing a joker/nat couple would make a big difference with Clara? And what was he after? To get laid? A permanent relationship with a joker-phobic nat?

He had asked her to meet him at P.S. 101 - "Freak U," as it was known to the greater New York school district. He didn't want Clara to have to sit through his "use condoms, avoid dope and booze, and be proud" lecture. In the years when jokers made good human interest stories and the people of the United States hadn't decided to pretend they didn't exist, People magazine had done a feature on him. They had called him the joker Jesse Jackson, a happy, successful and well adjusted joker, busy telling joker youth that they, too, could make it. To some degree Finn agreed with this sentiment, but he didn't for a moment discount his father's money, his white, upper-middle class background. They had played their part in his success. But, liberal cynicism aside, Finn did feel that he could and should offer a positive role model to young jokers.

So each year he went to Freak U, and made a speech, and this year when he looked up into the bleachers, he had seen Clara sitting there, and he realized that she had come early to hear him speak, and his heart had squeezed down tight, and he realized this was going to have to be one hell of a speech.

He risked a quick glance at her long profile as they went walking down the street. "You didn't have to sit through all that."

"It was interesting."

Hardly ringing praise, and the tense tone of voice made him decide not to pursue it further.

"Hungry?" he asked.

"I could eat."

He grinned at her. "I'm gonna take you to my favorite Jokertown restaurant.

They turned down Hester, but Arnie's cart wasn't in view. Jube was, however, sitting in his paperstand reading Premiere and eating peanuts in the shell. A couple of large, mangy and vocal crows were pacing up and down on the pavement in front of the stand calling in raucous voices. Periodically the black, rubbery-skinned joker would toss a couple of peanuts to his peanut gallery.

"Hey, Jube, how's it going?" Finn called out.

"Fucked."

The bitterness incorporated in that single word rocked Finn back onto his hindquarters. "Hey," he demurred. "At least we're not headed off to joker concentration camps any longer."

"No," Jube agreed. "These Sharks probably have something worse in store for us."

Clara changed colors, ending up a dull shade of red. In a slightly brittle tone she said, "You don't really believe in all ... that."

Jube turned his close-set, piggy eyes on Clara and smiled, revealing another two inches of tusk. "Dr. van Renssaeler, I've never lost money overestimating the cruelty and paranoia of the human animal."

Clara looked to Finn. Her turmoil was evident. Quietly Finn said "I didn't believe, didn't want to believe initially. Now I have to." It was hard to force out the words. "I knew Peggy Durand ... in Kenya. Along with Faneuil. He made me an unwitting murderer. I believe everything now."

Clara turned and took a few hesitant steps away. The crows hopped away from her, crying raucously. Jube picked up the magazine, and flapped it at Finn. The crows reacted with sharp cries, and a half-hearted attempt at flight. "We're depressing the lady. Scoot."

"Coming to the block party?" Finn asked as he dug out money for an evening edition.

"I'll be along later. I gotta find my smile again. It's hard to watch everyone trying to have such a good time."

"Jube, they may be working at it, but the result is the same in the end. People have a good time." Finn touched a forefinger to his forehead in a little salute, and he and Clara moved on.

"Sorry about that, he's not usually so morose. Jube's been the jokester of Jokertown for all the years I've been here."

Clara gave an ill defined gesture. "It's all right, you don't have to ... The ... Sharks - "

Finn laid a finger across her lips. "Shhhh. No sad, bad thoughts today."

Clara nodded, determinedly changed the subject. "Shouldn't you be at that party before now? You're one of the organizers."

"Ah, let Dutton hog the limelight. It's his dough that bought the beer. All I did was harass people until they agreed to donate food, and stereo sets, and their classic Beatles collections. Besides, if I arrive before they're partying hearty I'll have to act dignified."

Clara choked on a little laugh, and without thinking Finn tucked her arm beneath his. He tensed for the flinch. It didn't come. He risked a glance at her. Her eyes were focused strictly to the front.

♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

An hour later he was replete with three of Arnie's kraut dogs. The music of the Lizard King was throbbing down Hester Street, and colliding with Uncle Albert's Genuine Polka Band, and the entire musical smorgasbord was topped off with the fine sounds of Los Blues Guys. The shrieks of children, laughter, the grumble of conversation formed a counterpoint to the music, and overhead a few stars struggled to peep through the light haze of Manhattan.

"You ever been in the Dime Museum?" Finn asked, trying to find a safe topic.

"No." Clara underlined the word with a head shake.

"Want to?"

She pointed to a sign that said SEE HIDEOUS JOKER BABIES. "I don't really have to, do I?" she asked in a small voice.

"Naw, that's just hype. It's mostly wax figures and dioramas, and a couple of Turtle's old shells."

Clara nodded, stood up from her perch on the curb, and brushed off the seat of her jeans. It was very cute - the gesture and the ass. Finn sent stern orders to his dick. It stayed in the sheath. With a lurch and a heave he was on his feet. The sharp motion sent mustard, kraut and dog washing forward, and he belched. Apologized quickly.

"Can you vomit?" Clara asked suddenly as Finn held the door for her.

"Gee, that's an attractive after dinner conversation."

A little defensively she said, "Well, I know horses can't, and that's one of the reasons colic is so fatal. I just ... hoped that wasn't the case for you."

"No, I can promise you I won't die from a belly ache."

"So you can vomit."

"I love researchers, they never let up until they have an answer. Yes, I can vomit, but it's very unpleasant because I have two stomachs. One here." He touched the front of his Hawaiian shirt, and for the first time really acknowledged the small paunch which was beginning to develop. He sucked it in, and reminded himself that forty was approaching, and jogging was a positive thing. "And one here." He reached back, and patted his horse gut with the flat of a hand.

"How interesting. I'd love to study it."

"Yeah, I'm planning on donating my body to science. Assuming the family doesn't get a better offer from a dog food company."

Clara laughed, and swept into the museum. Finn shelled out the five bucks for tickets, and caught up with Clara. She was standing transfixed in front of the diorama of the Four Aces. Finn looked from the cool wax features of the grandmother to the face of the granddaughter, with its tiny sheen of perspiration on her upper lip and across the high forehead. There wasn't a lot of resemblance.

"She looks like Aunt Fleur," Clara said softly.

"No, Aunt Fleur looks like her. Blythe was Fleur's mother."

Clara walked a little farther into the museum. Stopped in front of the wax figure of Tachyon. Glanced back at Blythe. Back to Tachyon in his finery.

"Why did she do it?"

"I think because she loved him," Finn answered.

"And him?" The tendons in Clara's neck were etched cords beneath the skin. So much tension.

"I think she was the only woman he really ever loved."

"Easy for him to say. She's dead and gone forty years." The anger etched the words like acid.

"I knew Tachyon," Finn said gently. "Admired him, liked him, respected him, sometimes wanted to kill him, but that's another story. I watched him woo women, make love to women, use women. What always struck me about it was the desperation with which he pursued. I think he was looking for another Blythe, but was smart enough to know that couldn't happen."

"With the result being?" Clara asked.

"That every relationship was doomed from the outset."

"That doesn't make him very attractive."

"It wasn't meant to. It was meant to make him understandable." Finn felt anger prickling along his nerve endings. He fought the emotion. This was supposed to be a good day. Their day. He didn't need fucking Tachyon turning up like Jeramiah, and fucking everything up. He found something which he hoped would put the argument to rest. "And hey, Cody loved him. Loves him. Maybe you ought to talk to her about what made him ... him."

Clara walked away a few feet, and stood staring into the black glass eyes of her ancestor.

Finn took a tentative step forward, and laid fingertips against her sleeve. "Clara, she's ancient history. He's ancient history. Wild cards spend too much time agonizing about the past. It's not our past. It sure as hell isn't our future. Let's forget about it."

"Future." She turned the word over in her mouth. Caressing it with her tongue, biting at it with her teeth. "Do any of us really have an unburdened future? You wild cards are right - the future is ordained by the past. We're programmed by the hates and needs and attitudes of our parents and grandparents - "

"It doesn't have to be that way. We're not totally reflexive beings. We can learn, change."

"And what have you learned, Bradley Finn, independent of your joker nature?"

"That this," he slapped at his flank. "Doesn't define me. That this," he touched his head, "And this," as he touched his heart, "Are more powerful than a fluke of genetics."

"And I believe that genetics are everything."

"What about souls?"

"I've never seen one." Clara's expression was as bleak as ash.

"I'm sorry for you," was all Finn could think to say.

♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

"I just want to stop and say hello. We won't stay long. Joan used to volunteer at the clinic, but her health...." Finn had hoped he was keeping it casual. Clara's expression was telling him he hadn't. Before she could demur he reached up and rang the bell. "Joan's like this incredible East Coast blue blood. Makes this surfer kid feel real inferior. The Finn's got money, but no couth. Guess I shouldn't tell you that. You're one of those blue bloods. You'll think you're slumming."

"Why are you so nervous?" Clara asked.

"Nervous?" Finn echoed. Fortunately Perry opened the door before Finn's mouth could shovel out an even deeper hole. "Who's nervous? Hi, Perry."

Perry was slim, gray haired, and old-fashioned. The chain and fob of a watch hung from one pocket, and he was wearing a jacket even on a Sunday in May. He smiled in welcome. Clara visibly relaxed, and Finn began to breathe again. Maybe this was all going to turn out okay. "Bradley! How good to see you. Come in. Come in."

"Missed you at the block party, figured I'd see you and Joan boogalooing on the sidewalk," Finn said as he and Clara entered the vestibule of the apartment.

Perry lost some of his ebullience, and glanced toward the door to his right. "Joan's been a little stay-at-home lately." He offered his hand to Clara. "Perry Simon."

"Clara van Renssaeler." Perry's eyes widened. Clara (damn her perspicacious little self) didn't miss it.

"I'll fetch Joan." The fact that he left them standing in the hall was proof he was rattled.

Finn gave Clara an encouraging smile. And felt it curdle as raised voices came wafting into the hall. Perry had closed the door to the study, so no words could be distinguished, but the soprano member of the duet was clearly distressed, and from the hissing noises, Joan's snake nature was also getting into the act. Finn wondered bleakly what he had done to so antagonize this former friend.

Perry returned. His face was flushed, whether from anger or embarrassment or a combination of both Finn couldn't tell, but he was the urbane host, and invited them into the living room. Clara settled onto the sofa like a nervous cat, and Finn dropped awkwardly to the floor, folding his legs beneath him. Perry darted into the kitchen, and started filling the tea tray.

"I'm sorry you're stuck with just me. Joan's a little ... er, indisposed, but she wanted me to make you both welcome."

He returned with the tray. Poured, offered Clara a cup. She stared down at the intricate Wedgewood pattern, and went white to the lips. Finn reared up, bracing himself on his front legs, alarmed because she looked so faint. Clara gave a tiny head shake, smiled, and took a sip of tea.

"You're at the clinic now, aren't you?" Perry asked.

"Yes."

"Like it?"

Clara drew in a sharp breath. "Normal adjectives don't really apply at the clinic...."

"How so?" Perry asked.

"I feel like a traveler, a visitor in your world." She stopped herself. "But you're an outsider, too."

"To a degree. I can't fully understand the joker experience. But I love a woman who happens to be a joker, and after awhile you don't see the strangeness, you just see the person." He laughed. "And you know something? They say the same thing about me."

Clara laughed, and the knot of tension which had settled into Finn's chest dissolved. It wasn't as good as fantasy had imagined it. It would have been better if Joan had been coiled on the couch, forming a nest for her lover, but it was pretty damn good.

Clara's gaze roamed about the living room. Evaluating the paintings, knickknacks, furnishings. All of it subdued. All of it tasteful. All of it very much Joan. Her eyes slid across the mantle, across the antique French clock, froze on a silver framed photo of Perry and Joan. Her teeth chattered on the gilt edge of the cup, and she sloshed tea into the saucer as she struggled to place the cup and saucer back on the coffee table.

"Bradley, I'm ..." She couldn't seem to think of the word. Her gaze was once again fixed on the photo.

Finn heaved to his feet. He got a hand under her elbow, and helped Clara to her feet. "Thanks for the hospitality, Perry, but I think I've run the stuffin's out of this girl. Give Joan my love."

The frenzied words had carried them back into the vestibule. Clara suddenly let out a mewling little gasp. Finn whirled, saw Joan whip back from the study door in a frenzy of glitter and scales.

Clara clutched at her head and doubled over at the waist. Finn grabbed her wrist. The skin was icy, clammy to his touch. Finn had diagnosed enough migraines over the years to recognize this one.

"Bradley, take me home. I want to go home."

Perry had the panicked look of a civilian faced with a medical crisis. "How did you get here?"

"Walked," Finn said tersely.

"Want me to get the car? I don't think she can make it - "

"No!" Clara's refusal was loud and emphatic. She then whimpered in pain, and clutched at her temples.

"Sweetheart," Finn said, and really didn't realize until much later he had used the endearment. "Put your arms around my waist. Now, just slide up on my back. Hang on tight now. I'll take you home."

♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

The apartment was gorgeous. Upper East Side. Awnings. Doormen. Poodles. They had taken the subway. She was in too much pain for him to get his van out of the garage. During the ride uptown Finn had understood how Lady Godiva's horse must have felt. He had also understood what a happy horse he must have been. The flesh of Clara's thighs was warm and moist against his coat. Then Finn got embarrassed, and shut down that particular line of thought.

They trod in stately dignity up Park Avenue. Up the broad steps to the door. Clara's hair was falling down her back, there were patches of sweat on Finn's flanks, and beneath his armpits. The security guard at his horsehoe-shaped desk was giving them the eye. He was going to refuse to let them on the elevator. Finn could sense it. He grinned at the guy, leaned in close. The guard reared back in his chair.

"She always loved horses as a kid," Finn confided.

The guard gulped, put the filthy spin on it that Finn had hoped and assumed he would. Waved them into the mirror-lined elevator. Up to the top floor. Fishing the key out of Clara's handbag. Into the apartment. And a sterile environment. Elegant, expensive furniture, but not much of it. A couple of fine watercolors on the walls. There was a big computer on the dining room table. Some heavy medical tomes lying on the coffee table and sofa. Empty diet Coke cans. And virtually nothing of Clara.

He was not a stupid guy. Seeing this cold box explained a lot about Clara van Renssaeler. She denied warmth, emotion, herself. And he wondered, why? Since he didn't have an answer, Finn decided not to waste time looking for one. He carried Clara into her bedroom, tilted so he could slide her onto the bed, and with perfect, clinical, doctorly, saintly, reserve, undressed her.

She wore pretty underwear. He didn't touch the lace briefs, but he did unsnap the lace and wire bra. She had lush breasts. Freed, they tumbled off to either side. Ivory white with dark rose nipples. Sainthood was vanishing. Finn prayed for forbearance. God heard. Clara groaned, rolled to the side of the bed, and vomited the contents of her stomach onto the pale lemon-colored carpet.

After this reminder that lustful thoughts carry then-own penalty, Finn got serious. He snagged a steel mixing bowl from the kitchen, ice and Evian from the fridge, a wash cloth from the bathroom, and settled down for the long haul. The nausea lasted for hours. Finn bathed Clara's face after every bout of the heaves, slipped ice slivers between her lips, kept cool cloths across her aching eyes, wrapped her in blankets when she became chilled, and wiped away the sweat when she became feverish.

After a few hours she took to sleeping with his hand clasped in hers. He folded his horse body down next to the bed, and rested his head on the pillow next to hers. It wasn't comfortable, but it sure was sweet, and finally, around four A.M. the spasms stopped, and Finn and Clara drifted off to sleep.

The annoying beep of his wristwatch alarm awakened him at five-thirty. Groaning, Finn got all four feet beneath him, and heaved to his feet. Clara didn't stir. Finn rubbed a hand over his face, trying to wipe away tiredness, and felt the harsh rasp of stubble against his palm. He canvassed the bathroom, and found a used razor on the side of the tub. Remembering the last time he'd tried using a lady's razor on his face made him wince, and he decided he'd just go to the clinic looking like a bum. He washed his face, propped his front feet onto the back of the toilet, dropped and aimed, and relieved himself without mishap. Squeezing some toothpaste onto his index finger he tried to rub the fuzz off his teeth. His mouth tasted like the bottom of a parrot's cage.

"And when did you sample the bottom of a parrot's cage, Dr. Finn?" he asked his image in the mirror in a bad Groucho imitation.

There was a faint noise from the bedroom, and Finn backed rapidly out of the small bathroom to check on his patient. Clara had shifted onto her side, her cheek pillowed on a hand. It was really sweet. Finn noticed her hair was matted. Crossing to the dressing table he picked up her hairbrush, and returning to the bed, smoothed out the worst of the snarls. He then leaned down like a bowing circus horse, and softly kissed her on the cheek. It was taking advantage. He hoped God and his conscience wouldn't mind too much, but she just looked so sweet.

"Sleep tight, sweetheart. I'll check in on you later."

He left for early morning rounds at the clinic.

♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

The ringing phone woke her. She kept the damp cloth pressed to her forehead and wished the sound would stop. Eventually it did.

Bradley Finn's voice floated in from the other room. A warm feeling she didn't want to examine too closely filled her; she waited for him to appear at the bedroom door. But a beep told her he wasn't there. He was leaving a message on her phone.

She remembered now: he'd stayed and cared for her all night.

Her headache was gone, though she still felt groggy. She stretched, sat up and yawned, scratching her head.

The LEDs of her bedside clock announced that it was past ten. With a groan, she threw off the covers and stumbled into the Bathroom to take a hot shower. She was supposed to have checked the latest test cultures last night. And now she had to get downtown to the clinic. She was late.

The steam and soap cleared her senses, and she remembered what had triggered the migraine. The night before, that visit to see that couple: Perry, and the joker woman who had hidden from them.

Perry had reacted so oddly to Clara's name. The china was the same as Grandmaman Moresworth's heirloom design. And she'd seen the face of the snake woman in the photo on the mantle, and then caught a glimpse of the joker herself.

It was the lamia from her dreams. And the creature wore the face of her mother, who had died when Clara was five.

Only she hadn't died. At that instant in the hallway as they were leaving, the memory had surfaced from where she'd buried it when she was five.

Maman had turned into a snake. A joker. And then she'd gone away.

Clara recalled Papa holding her, Clara, and she was hitting him, screaming, trying to run after her transformed mother, who slithered away down the hall.

That's not your Maman. Maman is dead. Maman is dead.

He'd lied to her. Her mother had been alive all these years. A joker, living not five miles from her. All these years, he - and she, Maman - had conspired to keep the truth from her.

And who else knew? Papa's long-time lover Chloe must know. And Pan? Her grandparents Moresworth? How many others were in on this lie?

She could understand why Papa would do such a thing. He hated the wild card, and a joker wife would have ruined his ambitions. He'd want to keep a joker wife as far from his life - and Clara's - as possible. But Maman ... how could she have agreed to abandon her own child? To pretend she was dead, to hide - not to give her own child the knowledge of what had happened, and the right to make her own peace with it?

She pressed her forehead against the cool tiles. A tear fell. Another. The tears mingled with the heated water from the shower, drenching Clara in grief. She backed into a corner of the shower and clutched her sponge. Water sluiced over her, and sobs ripped their way out of her chest, and the water carried them away.

♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

The grief left her exhausted. She wrapped herself in her huge terry cloth robe and called in sick to the clinic. Ignoring a number of other phone calls, including one from Pan, she rummaged through boxes she had in storage. She found one of her old dolls - the china doll her mother had given her - and her scrapbook, which held memorabilia from her early childhood: photographs of her and her parents when they were young, pressed leaves and flowers, a crayon drawing.

These, and the framed picture of her mother from before Clara was born, she took into the living room, where she curled up on the sofa with some tea, poached eggs, and whole wheat toast. The next few hours she spent reminiscing, touching old memories, crying some more. Then she slept for a while.

♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

Clara didn't remember their address - and she didn't want to have to explain to Bradley - but she remembered what block the apartment was on, and wandered around till she saw a doorway she recognized.

"I'd like to speak to Joan van Renssaeler," she said into the intercom, when an unrecognizable voice answered. Her voice was steady and calm. She'd had a lifetime to learn to mask her feelings.

Silence greeted her. Her heart was beating so hard it filled her ears with a great roaring. She rang the bell again.

Perry came out to the front door. He opened it only a crack, blocking it with his body. "I'm sorry, I wish I could help you, but there's been some mistake."

But his eyes held sadness and knowledge.

She shook her head. "No. There's no mistake. I'm Clara van Renssaeler and I want to see my mother."

His pupils dilated. With a sigh and a nod, he let her in. Clara's heart felt packed in ice. She followed him down the hall to the apartment.

He made her wait outside. She heard voices rising and falling, as with the previous night, and then a long silence.

I'll stay here till you admit me, she thought. I won't go away. She folded her arms and leaned on the wall by the door.

Then the door opened a crack, and a face with scales like jewels appeared.

That was her mother's face; those were her mother's eyes.

All the way down from the upper East Side, in the taxi, she'd rehearsed what she would say. Rejection or denial was possible. She was prepared - armed with facts, clear memories, reasons.

But the suave, controlled professional wasn't with her; only the five-year-old child.

"Maman?" she said.

The joker woman covered her mouth with a gasp. "Oh, Clara. Can you ever forgive me?"

♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

Inside the too-warm apartment, Joan showed Clara her own scrapbook - a more worn version of Clara's - and other memorabilia: photographs, figurines, trinkets. Many, many pictures of Clara as a little girl, in frilly dresses and ribbons. Some shots of her were more recent - a photo or two from her girlhood that Brandon must have given her; several candid shots: two from her years at Rutgers, one at a park a few years ago with a man she'd been dating. And she didn't remember them being taken.

Meanwhile, Joan talked. And Clara wandered around behind her, nodding, dabbing at the sweat that gathered on her upper lip, looking at this snake-woman who had - inconceivably - birthed and raised her, at all the familiar-strange objects. She felt as if her feet and hands were a mile away. Joan's voice flowed over her like water: she didn't hear a word of it.

Then Perry entered with a silver tray loaded with three or four kinds of tea, milk, lemon wedges, finger sandwiches, currant scones, jam and clotted cream. He set the tray on the coffee table with a sharp glance at Joan and Clara, and then left, closing the door. Clara felt relief, and gratitude. Sensitive man. She unbuttoned the top two buttons on her blouse and rolled up her sleeves.

Joan fussed over the tea in a manner so familiar and soothing to Clara that it alarmed her. Clara sat with her hands in her lap. She took the cup Joan pressed on her.

Joan folded herself up onto the couch next to her, coil by coil, and reached for her own cup.

How beautiful she is, Clara thought, watching light reflect off her scales as she sipped her Earl Grey. What an exotic creature. Colors shifted along her coils, her torso and arms and breasts, her face. Like moonlight caught in a waterfall. A cameo pendent, her only garment, dangled between her scaled breasts.

Joker. What a wrong-headed name.

"Why did you leave me?"

The question came out without her even knowing she was thinking it.

Joan gave her a look of surprise and she realized she'd interrupted her in mid-sentence. With a sigh, Joan set her teacup down. She started to reply, but Clara couldn't hold the words in any longer. She sprang to her feet and the words tumbled out, fully formed.

"I thought you were dead, all these years, and you knew the whole time. Five miles away. Five miles! And never once did you even try to reach me."

Joan raised a hand. Her scales had gone a muddy gray, a dirty white. "Darling, I - "

Clara spoke over her. "Why, why didn't you stay? Or at least contact me? Let me know you were alive?" She grabbed a framed, recent picture of herself - it hadn't been on the mantle the night before - and shook it at Joan. "How dare you have pictures and knowledge of me, without my knowing of you? It's a cheat! Don't you know that it killed me when you left?"

She hurled the picture to the floor and ground her boot heel into the glass, glaring at Joan. Then she bent her face into her palms and cried.

Hands landed on her shoulders; she opened her eyes. Her mother's altered face was only inches from hers; those cat-green eyes Clara remembered studied her; all the color had drained from her scales; they'd gone white and clear as gypsum sand.

"How I've hurt you." Joan's voice was soft. "I can never undo the harm I did, can I? Never give you back those lost years."

"No," Clara said She wiped at her eyes. "No, you can't."

Joan enfolded her in a careful hug that included a half-loop of snake flesh - and to her shock Clara didn't feel the desire to recoil. "Dear Clara. You deserved so much better than you got."

Can I forgive so easily? For all that pain?

No, she thought. I can't. She pulled back. Joan released her and handed her a lace kerchief, with the monogram JvR She entreated Clara to sit.

"It's understandable that you should hold a lot of anger toward me. You may never be able to forgive me. I simply want you to understand that my leaving had nothing to do with you. It was me. All me."

Clara's voice was flat. "Does it matter any more?"

"Would you be here if it didn't?"

Clara stared at her and said nothing. Joan sighed and took a sip of tea. Clara caught a glimpse of the fangs, the altered tongue. More than anything else, that made her realize just how physically altered her mother was. How much of the woman she'd been remained?

"I wasn't a nice person, you know. Not at all. I spread nasty rumors about my friends behind their backs; I made a specialty of subtly mocking Brandon, tearing down his self-esteem. What people wore was more important to me than what was in their minds or hearts. All I cared about was money and social position. I was shallow, bigoted and predatory." She gave Clara an owlish look that reminded Clara of herself. "The only thing good about me was you. You were the only one in my life who mattered to me more than myself.

"When this happened to me" - she gestured at herself, at the loose coils of snake flesh draped all over the couch - "it was as if now the outside matched the inside. This change made me realize just how much of a predator I was." She hesitated. "I don't know how much you remember of what happened after I changed."

"Enough." Very little, in fact; Clara only remembered the scene in the hallway.

"Do you remember what happened to Frou Frou?"

"Frou Frou?"

"We had a Lhasa apso named Frou Frou. I'd had him since I was a girl. You adored him. He attacked me, that morning after the change, and I bit him. He died of the venom. Later, I - I ate him."

Clara grimaced. "You ate him?"

"I was starving from the change. And, well, my body is truly more a snake's than a human's now, dear. I eat live or freshly killed whole animals."

Clara frowned. "I remember - something, I think."

Joan nodded. "You didn't see me eat him, but you saw me bite him. And you were quite the little warrior; you gave me a punch or two in the nose."

"I did?" Clara tried to picture it - a tiny girl pitting herself against this huge snake creature. It didn't seem likely.

"Mmmm. And, Clara," tears filled the woman's eyes, "I came far too close to striking out at you as I had Frou Frou. It terrified me. To harm you, or through neglect let you come to harm, was my single worst nightmare."

"Are you trying to say you left to protect me?"

Joan winced at Clara's tone. "I know I failed you. You can't know how many times I've wished I had made a different choice. But you see, I'd had no experience with courage or self-restraint. And I didn't know then what I'd become. I didn't trust myself not to harm you. So - " she spread her arms in a helpless gesture. "I left Brandon to care for you. Much as we despised each other, I knew he adored you, and would take care of you. But God how I've wished I had made another choice."

It was Joan's turn to break down and cry. Clara extended her kerchief and Joan took it.

After a long moment, in which they both sat without speaking or looking at each other, Clara said, "This is an awful lot to absorb."

Joan laughed shakily, dabbing at her eyes. "Oh, my dear, it most certainly is."

Clara stood and picked up her purse. She hesitated feeling awkward. "I appreciate your agreeing to see me."

Joan gave her a smile of great sadness. "I hope to see you again. You are always welcome here. Always."

"Thank you."

"And Clara - I want you to know that I love you. I'm very proud of the woman you've become."

Clara gave her a little, bleak smile. "But you don't know what I've become."

♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

The flat nasal blat of an endlessly ringing phone. Five rings, and the answering machine finally cut in again. "Hello, you've reached 993-2323, leave a message." No warmth, quick, level, professional. Like the first impression of Clara. Finn knew the nuances of the voice now. How her eyes could warm, smile and sparkle. The annoying bleat of the message signal.

"Hi, it's me. Either you're feeling better and you're not home, or you've died. You better not have died. I'll bring Chinese - no MSG - around six. Okay? If it's not okay, call. Otherwise, I'm descending."

Finn hung up the phone. Felt giddy. Felt silly. Felt sixteen again. You're weird, he thought, most people don't find vomit a turn on. But it wasn't that. It was the fact she had trusted him. Allowed him to see her at her most vulnerable. Clung to him when sickness washed over her. Then the cynical, armored side marched in, and wondered if he was overreacting to the night. Had she really known it was him caring for her? If she hadn't been quite so sick she would probably have preferred a different nurse. One of her own kind.

There was a knock. "Come in," Finn bellowed.

Cody entered, settled on the sofa, lit a cigarette. "You look like I feel."

"Well, you may be drawing an erroneous conclusion. 'Cause while I may look like shit, I feet great."

"Happy mind. Tired body."

"Yeah," Finn agreed.

"I didn't see you at the block party," Cody said.

"What time did you arrive?"

"Chris and I wandered over around seven."

"Clara and I had moved along by then."

Cody cocked an eyebrow at him. "And how 'far along' did you move?"

Finn felt himself blush. "Well, not that damn far. She got a headache."

Cody gave him one of her ironic looks, and he groaned with embarrassment. "Not that kind of a headache. I mean serious migraine. I took her home. I stayed."

"The things you men will do to get laid."

Finn swallowed his anger. It bothered him to have Cody reducing what he felt to mere sex. But his tone was light when he said, "Hey, in my case that's a lot. It don't happen enough for me to get blase."

Cody stood, stretched, closed her eyes briefly. "Be careful, Bradley. I'm fond of you."

"Cody, what's wrong?"

She kept her back to him. Waved a hand helplessly in the air. "My kid wants to go to school at Harvard. Wants me to get a 'real' job. Something that won't embarrass him, hurt his chances to get into one of these Ivy League shit holes. When did my kid grow up and become a bigot?"

Finn came around behind her. Laid a hand on her shoulder. "He'll outgrow it. We always do."

"Not when the whole world makes it acceptable, preferable to tolerance." She turned back to face him. "So, when I see you falling for a nat, I worry."

"Thanks, Cody, but I'm not expecting anything."

She smiled sadly, brushed his cheek with the back of her hand. "Yes you are, that's why I love you. You never stop wanting and hoping and believing." She leaned in, kissed him softly on the lips, and left.

Left Finn confused and breathless and more than a little sad.

♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

She got home at five twenty. Bradley had left another message on the machine, threatening to show up with Chinese food. But there was still enough time to call and tell him not to come. If she called right now. She orbited the phone, picked it up, put it back down.

She picked up her ancient, broken china doll, dropped onto the couch, tucked a leg under herself, and cradled it in her hands. The eyes opened and closed, click, click, as she rocked it back and forth. Bradley's face lingered in her mind like a touch.

He hardly knew her. She'd taken the position he'd so coveted - and then been barely this side of unpleasant with him for weeks. And yet, all last night, he'd stayed with her. Wiped her brow, cleaned up her messes, helped her to the restroom, held her hand. He'd been a perfect gentleman. And he hadn't abandoned her to her pain.

And he was a true philanthropist. He used his own power to buoy up those around him, not to trample them underfoot. She'd watched him with the patients and staff at the clinic: a word or look from him smoothed troubles like balm. And she'd seen the looks on those teenagers' faces when he'd spoken at the high school. He'd given them hope. At the spring festival, people's spirits were lifted by the celebration he'd organized, and by his presence.

And his face was such a transmitter of his moods - no secretiveness, no deception. If it was on his mind, it was on his face. With all the deceptions she was unearthing in her life, that seemed quite a comely characteristic.

Bradley Latour Finn. Wild card victim. No - wild card survivor. He'd made a lie of all her principles ... because those lofty principles had been built on a huge, stinking pile of prejudices and fears.

Bradley Latour Finn. Clara had been involved with any number of men, and she knew a good one when she found him.

She was falling in love with him. And that terrified her.

♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

She was waiting when he arrived with a bag of Chinese food. The General Tso's chicken had started to leak, filling the room with its pungent scent, and making his palm sticky as he tried to keep the bottom from collapsing out of the sack.

Before he could maneuver for the kitchen, Clara shyly took his hand, and pressed it (sauce and all) against her cheek. She then kissed him on the cheek. Quickly, gently on the lips, then hid her face against his shoulder. General Tso's chicken slid with a plop onto the floor.

She mumbled something against his neck. Her voice was thick with unshed tears.

"Sweetie, what is it? What's happened?"

"My mother. My mother's alive."

Finn felt stupid, like a kid involved in a game where he didn't know the rules. He hadn't known her mother was dead. Or supposed to be dead.

"Hey, that's, that's swell."

"Papa told me she died. But I kept remembering, and then you gave her back to me."

Taking her gently by the shoulders he pushed her back until he could stare into her eyes. "Clara, I'll gladly take credit for anything, deserved or not, but can I know what the hell I'm supposed to have done?"

"Joan is my mother."

Joy exploded in his chest. He felt like he'd just chugged an Irish whiskey straight. "Joan!? She's a joker!"

"Yes, yes." She wiped the tears out of her eyes with trembling fingertips. "Why did you take me there?"

Embarrassment made him hesitate. She was too quick. She read it. "What?"

Finn took a nervous turn around the living room. "I wanted you to see her and Perry. To see a joker/nat couple. Loving each other."

Her silence was sudden and complete. He spun around awkwardly, apologies tumbling from his lips. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have made assumptions. I just ..."

The assault was totally unexpected. Her fingers pressed into his cheeks as she grabbed his face, and kissed him hard. It took him by surprise, but Mama Finn hadn't raised no stupid children, and Finn took advantage of the miracle being offered to him. He clasped her close, opened his mouth, and her tongue shot between his teeth. They fenced lightly tongue to tongue, then he nipped softly at her lips as tears seeped from the corners of her eyes and ran down her cheeks.

"Am I making you unhappy?" Finn murmured against her mouth.

"No."

"I wish you ladies would provide us poor dumb males with a score card," he complained, trying to keep it light while his body felt like one large sexual lightning rod. "I can never tell if they're tears of joy, sorrow, or anger."

"Sometimes it's hard for us to tell," Clara said softly. "Especially when we haven't been allowed the luxury of emotion."

He pulled her head against his shoulder, stroked her hair. Her hand worked its way beneath the elastic base of his shirt, tickled his waist. Control departed. Finn let out a groan, and his penis dropped, sliding from its protective sheath.

"Oh, my," Clara said.

"I'm sorry," Finn gasped, and tried to pull it back. It wasn't working real well. The member was well and properly engorged, and it seemed to weigh twenty or thirty pounds.

"I treated you horribly," Clara said softly. "How can you want me?"

"Because you were scared. It took me awhile to understand that. I've watched you push past it. Taking an interest in me, the clinic, Jokertown. I haven't felt like you've been seeing this." He swept a hand back along his horse body. "For weeks. And now here I am sort of waving it in your face," he added miserably.

"Make love to me, Bradley."

It was that simple. And he felt himself freezing up. It wasn't all that easy to get a woman to this point. Then he had to get technical, and most of them went away. The few who went on usually did it because they were sensation junkies, thrill seekers. They weren't doing it for him, for the pleasure of his companionship.

"What's wrong?" The old hurt and vulnerability were back in her eyes. "I don't think I've misread the signals." A timid smile. "You do seem glad to see me."

It hadn't happened in years, but Finn felt himself blushing. "I am ... I do ... I want to make love with you very much, but it's kind of a major.... undertaking.... I don't want to disgust you - "

She laid a hand across his mouth. Slipped it aside, and muted the words with her mouth. Her tongue was back in his mouth, and there was nothing demure about the tonsil inspection. Eventually she stopped, stepped back and said, "I don't scare easily. Tell me what we have to do."

"We've got two locations, and three positions." His eyes flicked nervously over to the dining room table. "You on a high table. I brace my front feet on the table, and ..." He made a vague gesture.

"Penetration," said Clara, teasing a little.

"Yes."

"Isn't that painful for you?"

"My hindquarters and back legs do tend to cramp."

"Let's try something more comfortable," Clara said.

"Okay, in that case we pull the mattress off the bed - so I won't break it - and you spoon in against me - "

She took his hand, and led him to the bedroom. It was a tight fit, but they managed to get the mattress situated between the foot of the bed and the dresser. On the dresser was a small Indian seed pot with a stick of half-burned incense in it, a scrap book, and a picture of a lovely young blond woman in a silver frame. Finn could see echoes of Clara's face in the photo, and a vestige of Joan's lovely, kind face in that spoiled and imperious visage.

Clara pulled him back from his reverie with an imperious tug on his hair. Finn returned his attention to the daughter, and with a final thanks to the mother, he unbuttoned Clara's blouse, and pushed it off her shoulders. A quick flick, and the bra broke loose. Her breasts came spilling out. This time it was permitted for Finn to catch them in his hands, kiss each nipple. Clara sucked in a sharp little breath.

Hurried, clumsy fingers (it was probably a good thing she hadn't been a surgeon), and his shirt was unbuttoned, and tossed aside. She peered down his back, laughed delightedly.

"You've got a mane. How nice, I've got something to hang onto." She tangled her fingers in his curly hair, which followed the line of his spine, and tugged.

He got her pants open, and steadied her while she stepped out of them. Running a hand down her chest, he snagged her panties and swept them away. Awkwardly he dropped down onto the mattress, held out a hand to her. There was that tenth of a second of absolute terror when she glanced at his turgid penis. Her eyes widened, and Finn waited for her to say, "Nahhh," but it didn't happen, instead she knelt beside him.

"You have to do most of the moving," he whispered. "I'm not real flexible, and it's hard to heave this body around."

She smiled down at him, pushed his hair back off his forehead. "Do you know how attractive that sounds? Women never have a man at their mercy." Her voice was husky, warm.

Finn couldn't stand it, he heaved up, and locked his mouth on hers. He couldn't support it for long, but as he fell back she came with him, their breath mingling, tongues fencing. Her legs tangled in his four legs. Eventually they got the various limbs sorted out, and Finn turned her gently until her buttocks were tucked against his chest. Lifting her dark hair, he leaned in, and touched his lips to the nape of her neck.

"Clara, I ... I love you."

It was an odd little sound. At first he thought she was trying to say something. Then he realized she was crying. Frightened, he tried to pull back from her. She rolled over abruptly, and clutched at his shoulders.

"No, don't leave me." Tears blurred the words. "He took my mother from me. I'm not going to let anything take you from me." She rolled over, offered her buttocks.

Finn stroked down the line of her back, allowed his fingers to play in her moist, tangled mons. She gave a little cry of pleasure, and he slid his fingers into her. She rode him, and he brought her to a manual orgasm. The room was becoming musky with the scents of sweat and sex, and wet horse coat. Finn was trying to be patient, but it had been a while, and his penis was so turgid and erect that he felt like a touch would split it like an overfilled sausage.

Then Clara rolled over, and touched him. The shudder shook him from hindquarters to human torso, and yanked a groan from him. She weighed his member in the palm of her hand. Looked up with alarmed and dubious gray eyes.

"It's awfully ...big."

"I'm careful. I don't penetrate all the way," he gasped. She continued to stare at him. "Are you going to back out? If you're going to back out, could you tell me now? Could you maybe help me ... ease the pressure before you back completely out." He was babbling.

She laid a hand across his mouth, transferred her mouth to the task of muzzling him. A few moments later she rolled over and slid down until her hair was tickling his belly button. Reaching behind her she took his penis, and guided it carefully between her legs.

♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

Clara van Renssaeler, Journal Entry, 2 May 94

Just left Bradley sleeping at my place and came in to check my latest tissue cultures. The new virus obliterated the wild card cultures and left the uninfected cultures unharmed.

Batch 94-04-28-24LQ, necrovirus Takis II, is what I've been looking for. The Black Trump. The real thing. Unstoppable and utterly deadly. And I wish to God I'd never conceived of such a thing.

Discovering my love for Bradley, and finding Maman again, have opened my eyes. I've been so wrong. The wild card is a horrible disease, yes. But its victims have the right to make whatever they can of their lives. It's not right for me to play God. I've been such an idiot. How could I have been so blind?

♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

Chin in hand, she stared at the journal entry on her computer screen for a long, long time. Then she closed the file, leafed again through her write-up of the Black Trump II test results, freshly printed, which lay on the desk beside the computer, and brushed her hair back with a sigh. She thought of the flasks of virus in the lab refrigerator just down the hall, thought of her lamia mother, thought of her centaur lover Bradley sprawled across her mattress with his arm flung over his face. Thought of what would happen if even a drop of this stuff were to touch them.

Twelve years' work, she thought. Forty percent of my life.

She exited the security software, and used the shredder function to destroy all her files on the virus. There were few; she had been careful to avoid recording any significant amount of technical detail on her research, despite the expensive security system on her PC. After a hesitation, she also shredded her personal journal.

Then she suited up in protective clothing, gathered her notes, and went into the clean room. She got out all fifteen flasks of Black Trump virus, both strains. The microwave could hold ten flasks at a time, and fifteen minutes at the highest setting would be more than long enough. She got the first batch started, used a flint on the Bunsen burner, and began crisping the analytical results and notes. She dumped the ashes into the hazardous medical waste bin.

A half hour later she was done. It amazed her, the ease and dispatch with which she could wipe out a life's work.

♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

Afterward, she headed to the clinic. It was still early, just after seven. The graveyard staff were still on duty and the halls quiet.

She had finished her resignation letter and was packing up her things when the phone rang.

"Dr. van Renssaeler. This is General MacArthur Johnson. I'm calling on Pan's behalf."

"Excellent. I'm glad you called; I wanted to give Uncle Pan an update. I'm just wrapping up here."

"Oh?"

"Mmmm. I'm afraid this gamble just hasn't paid off. I've decided to stop wasting my time at the Jokertown Clinic."

"On the contrary," he said. "We're all well aware of how successful your stay has been."

Clara closed her eyes, apprehensive. Calm, PC. Calm. "You have me confused."

"You've relied rather too heavily on the encryption software I had installed on your office computer, I'm afraid. Every time you saved your journal an invisible copy was made for me. I've been reporting your progress to Pan all along."

Clara gripped the desk's edge. Anger warred with terror, and, for a moment, won. "You've been spying on me, after all my years of devotion, all my hard work? That certainly tells me what kind of man you are."

"It's lucky I did." He paused. "This doesn't have to get ugly. All we want is for you to recreate your latest virus. What was it, batch 94-04-28-24LQ? Necrovirus Takis II. The Black Trump."

Clara pressed fingers to her lips. When she finally spoke, her words were calm. "I'm afraid I can't help you there. You'll have to get yourself another virologist."

"It's too late for that."

"No, I'd say it was just in the nick of time."

Another silence ensued. "I'm sorry you feel that way. I'll have to take other measures, then."

And he disconnected.

She dialed her father's home phone and got the answering machine. "Papa. It's urgent I speak to you right away. Pan and I have had a falling-out, and it's serious. I won't be reachable by phone, so I'll keep trying to reach you."

Then she tried his office. He was out and was unreachable.

"Tell him to check his messages at home," she told his secretary. "It's urgent."

And Bradley. If Johnson read her journal entry, he'd know Bradley was still at her place. He was in danger.

Clara dialed her phone number. But last night, for privacy, she'd set the answering machine to pick up right away, and had turned the volume all the way down.

Maybe, maybe he'd gotten up by now and by some fluke had turned the volume back up.

"Bradley, can you hear me? Pick up. Please pick up." Nothing. "Shit."

The super. He could take a message to Bradley. She called information, got his number, dialed it. No answer.

Clara bit her thumbnail, narrowed her eyes, and thought. She dialed 9-1-1.

"Operator, this is Clara van Renssaeler at 48 East 79th Street, apartment 6G. I have a medical emergency. A man has had a heart attack in my apartment. Send an ambulance right away."

She slammed the phone into the hook, scrawled a note to Bradley, to leave with the receptionist, that chicken woman. Then she grabbed her purse and ran.

♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

She ran all the way to the City Hall stop and shoved her way onto a packed Lexington Avenue express train. They had several minutes' lead on her, maybe more. But Johnson's headquarters were located in Brooklyn, and at this hour all the streets, tunnels, and bridges would be congested with traffic. The subways would be faster. With luck, she'd beat them.

♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

He woke suddenly and unpleasantly to the sound of a man's voice saying,

"Oh, God, how disgusting. She fucked him."

During his sleep Finn had managed to get himself cast against the bedroom wall. The only way up was to heave onto his back, and roll over on his other side. At times like this he was painfully aware of every ounce of his four hundred plus pounds. He heaved, and began the roll, and was stung by something hitting his belly. He managed to crane his human torso up enough to see the dart sticking up from his horse gut. Then the faces of the four men staring down at him got very fuzzy, and he slipped away into darkness. As unconsciousness took him he realized that he hadn't been imagining it. Clara wasn't with him.

♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

The ambulance sat at the entrance to her building, lights flashing. Relief weakened Clara's legs. She yanked the outer door open, fumbled her keys out of her purse to open the inner door, and limped over to the elevators, half doubled over with a stitch in her side.

At that moment the doorman led four paramedics from the freight elevator. Bradley was laid out on a stretcher - head, limbs, and horse's buttocks hanging off all over. They'd already started an IV and oxygen.

Her heart leapt. Too late. She was too late. They'd gotten to him. She ignored the doorman's disgusted stare.

"Oh God - Bradley! What's going on?"

"We received a call," the head paramedic said. "It appears to be a poisoning."

She lifted Bradley's eyelids; the pupils responded to light and were equal in size, but were massively dilated. Breathing shallow and rapid, pulse weak.

They loaded Bradley in the back of the van, and she hovered over him, gave his hair and mane a worried stroke.

"Where are you taking him?"

"Lenox Hill. It's the closet."

"I'll meet you there," she told them, and ran for the garage to get her car.

The ambulance was pulling away, sirens screaming, when she reached street level. A string of cabs and passenger cars cut her off, not letting her creep in behind the ambulance. She swore and slapped the steering wheel - bullied her way into traffic as a second set of flashing lights appeared in the rear view mirror. Another ambulance pulled up to the curb at her apartment building and two paramedics got out.

A horrible suspicion began to form. Why did the other ambulance have four paramedics? She hadn't told them he was a four-hundred-pound joker. And why take him to Lenox Hill, which had a no-wild cards policy?

She abandoned her car in the middle of the street, ignoring the curses and horns of the drivers she'd trapped on the narrow, one-way street, and raced over to the paramedics getting out of the new ambulance.

"Whom are you here for?"

"We're here to pick up a heart attack victim," the woman said. "Apartment 6G."

♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

The apartment showed no evidence of a break-in or struggle. She tried her father again. He was still out. She left a message for him to call her at home right away.

The phone rang. An international call. Pan.

His voice was saturated with disgust. "They tell me you slept with him. How could you have sunk so far? I'm sick over this. What would your father say?"

Her temper flared. "Frankly, it's none of your goddamned business what he'd say."

"I regret having to resort to this, but you leave me no choice. I've instructed Johnson to hold him at the UN lab. And your mother. You have half an hour to get there, or they die. If you tell your father, or anyone, what's happening, they die."

My mother? My mother, too?

"Half an hour? That's absurd! What if I get stuck in traffic? What if the train breaks down?"

"You're an intelligent woman. I'm sure you'll think of something."

♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

She made them let her see them. Johnson had them locked up in one of the empty equipment storage rooms in the basement. Bradley lay in the corner on the concrete floor. Joan had made a cushion of her coils to lay his head on, and was stroking his temples. At first Clara missed her; her colors had faded to match the soft grays and greens that surrounded her till she was virtually invisible. The guard locked the door behind Clara, and Joan gradually appeared, turning an agitated blue, yellow, and orange pattern.

"Maman." Clara swallowed a sob and came over to kneel beside Bradley. "I'm so sorry. Is he all right?"

"His vital signs are better. I think he's improving."

Clara checked him. Pulse stronger and more regular, breathing normal, pupils shrinking. She sat down cross-legged and lowered her face into her hands.

"Thank God. He'll be all right."

"Darling, what is going on? Who are these people?"

Clara heard a noise in the shadows, in a dark corner beyond the boiler.

"Who's there?"

It took her eyes a moment to adjust, but soon she saw the figure: a rather disgusting-looking, small, insectoid joker with a carapace the color of baby excrement. He - or she - stood, and Clara saw the joker was wearing some sort of collar, attached to about eight feet of high-visibility orange nylon rope, tied to a PVC pipe overhead. This gave the joker a range of about four feet. Both pairs of "hands" were also bound.

George Battle had been turned into a little yellow insect; she'd heard her father talking about it. And then he'd switched bodies with -

"Gregg Hartmann," she said.

Joan gasped. "Oh my! He was telling the truth!"

The insect nodded, a gesture at once comical and grave. "Dr. van Renssaeler," he piped. "And, I presume, Mrs. van Renssaeler."

"Maman - " Clara gestured, and Joan slithered after her. The last thing she wanted was for Gregg Hartmann to overhear what she had to say to her mother. He slumped back into the shadows.

"Clara, darling," Joan demanded, in a whisper, "what is going on here?"

Clara stared at her mother. She wanted to blame Joan. If only you'd been there when I needed you - if you'd shown me what wild cards really are. Instead you abandoned me to the lies and bigotry of Papa and Uncle Pan. But that was absurd. Plenty of people lost their parents, lost loved ones to the wild card every day, without resorting to what Clara had.

So, keeping her voice low and making sure Hartmann couldn't hear, she told Joan everything. Without embellishment, without excuses. Joan listened calmly, merely nodding and asking occasionally for clarification.

"So they plan to use me and Bradley to force you to remake the virus."

"Exactly. Maman - " Clara's voice broke. "I just found you again. And I've just found the man I want to spend the rest of my life with. I can't let them hurt you. I don't know what to do."

Tears stood in Joan's eyes. She held out her arms. Clara laid her head on her mother's breast, and Joan held her close, stroked her hair.

"You must refuse," she said. "There is no alternative."

There has to be, Clara thought. There has to be.

♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

"I'll be happy to many her, sir." Finn came awake with the ridiculous words on his lips.

"You have my permission," came a familiar voice.

Finn forced open his gummy eyelids, and stared into Joan's delicately scaled face. She was laid out full length on the tile floor, so they were almost nose to nose.

Her tone had been light, but now that he could see her, Finn could see fear like a shadow in her strange eyes.

"Joan, where the fuck are we?"

"In a nest of Card Sharks. I guess Senator Hartmann was to be believed."

There was a flash of movement, and an incredibly silly looking joker scuttled into view, tied to a pipe. Finn felt a momentary flash of chagrin for being a bigot, but it was silly looking. Then in a piping, breathless, cartoon voice it announced:

"I'm Senator Hartmann."

Finn stopped feeling guilty - the guy was clearly a bozo.

"Could you, like, butt out? I'm trying to have a serious conversation here," Finn said. The joker puffed up, bounced up and down on his several legs.

"I tell you I'm Hartmann. I was jumped into this body."

Agitated, Finn tried to heave to his feet, discovered his back leg had gone to sleep, and that the tile was very slick, and went down in a welter of legs, hooves and flailing arms. The stupid looking joker raced backwards to avoid being hit.

"Shit." Joan slithered over, and massaged his leg until the bite of pins and needles signaled its return to life. He tried again, more carefully, and this time got to his feet.

"I am Hartmann," the joker insisted from across the room.

"Clara said he's telling the truth," Joan told him.

"Thank God," the joker senator piped, and sank down onto the floor as if overcome.

Finn turned back to face (he hoped) his future mother-in-law. "Joan, not to sound unduly humble, or totally stupid, but why would Card Sharks want to kidnap us? I know why they'd want Hartmann, but us?"

"Because of Clara," she answered softly.

Finn stared into her unblinking eyes. Forced his jaw closed so he didn't look stupid. "Joan, I'm gonna say this once, so pay close attention ... Huh?"

"Bradley, what do you," she hesitated. "Feel for my daughter?"

"I love your daughter. I'm going to marry your daughter. Remember, you gave us your blessing."

"Remember that, Bradley, when you talk to her." And she slithered away to a far corner of the room, and coiled.

"Goddamn it. You're being inscrutable. What are you talking about?"

"You need to hear it from Clara."

Frustrated, Finn turned to Hartmann. "Do you know what she's talking about?"

The senator sat up on his hindquarters, and shrugged with his front limbs. "I'm new here too."

♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

The first time he saw Clara he wasn't able to discuss jack shit with her. She was in the company of two young men. She was looking like a figure carved of ice, her deadpan scientist face in place, but there was a shadow of terror in her green eyes which Finn had a feeling he alone could see. The men were harassing her about something called the "Black Trump" (a title which did not fill him with confidence), and how she had to reproduce her earlier work. Clara refused, and then the two young men brought in two older, larger men who introduced Finn to their close personal friends, Pain and Suffering. At one point the goons took a break, and one of the young men walked up to Finn, grabbed him by the hair, and forced his head up.

"Recognize me, Bradley?"

He studied the sleek brown hair, deep-set black eyes, the taut, muscular body. Didn't ring any bells for him.

"You ruined my reputation. Turned me from saint to monster. I've never forgiven you for that, Bradley. It's a pleasure watching you hurt. It'll be a greater one watching you die."

There was a hint of a French accent, but it sounded strained like the throat producing it was unaccustomed to the accent. Finn realized who this had to be, and felt bile forcing its way through both his stomachs. He choked it back.

"Faneuil," Finn forced through cut and swollen lips.

"The same." A predator's smile. Finn spat in Faneuil's face, spraying him with blood, spit and a lost tooth. Faneuil fell back with a cry of disgust, groping for a handkerchief to wipe his face.

The strawberry blond man who was keeping a grip on Clara made a moue of disgust. "You never had any balls, Etienne. Why don't you hit him?"

"I'm not a thug," said Faneuil in a prissy tone and left.

The blond guy sighed, looked down at Clara. Gestured to Joan.

"She's next."

In the corner Joan reared up out of her coils, and spread her hood. The two thugs who had worked Finn over exchanged dubious glances about their next subject. Hartmann was huddled behind her, his entire body quivering with tension. He didn't have to worry. No one was interested in him right at the moment. This party was being staged for Clara's benefit.

"What does it matter, Pan?" Clara suddenly blurted out. "If I do what you wish, they'll die anyway."

"We may be able to arrange something," the man said soothingly.

"That's horseshit and you know it. I designed this virus. There isn't a vaccine, there isn't a chance you'll only catch a mild case. This is my mother, and my lover. I can't do this." Her back was rigid, the tendons in her throat were stretched and taut, and a pulse was beating wildly. But nothing showed in her voice.

The man's soothing, unctuous tone grated. "You can watch them suffer, or you can give them a humane death."

Finn knew her face so well by now. Every nuance, every flicker of emotion. He could see her calculating, deliberating, reaching a decision, and whatsoever that decision entailed, it left death in her eyes. Clara stared at the men. The words emerged, low and grating.

"All right, I'll do it." And she turned and stalked out of the room.

And while the physical pain was horrible, it was less agonizing than the nagging terror of this mysterious "Black Trump."

♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

Faneuil and his assistant, Michelle Poynter, both dressed as Clara was in protective clothing, shadowed her around the clean room. She first tried packaging a totally different virus, one of her early, failed ones. But Faneuil stopped her at the onset.

"Don't play games with me," he said, his voice muffled by the respirator. He had Poynter line up the bottles of solution, the basic ingredients she should be using. The materials were specific to her latest work. They must have been spying on her all along.

"And we'd better see your wildcard cell cultures die," he said. "If not, one of your joker friends is going to die instead."

She eyed Faneuil, thinking hard. Both Black Trump strains used virtually all the same ingredients. Faneuil wouldn't know the difference; even another virologist wouldn't, without being familiar with her methods.

Even Black Trump I was too dangerous a virus to give them. But it was far better than recreating Black Trump II. And it would buy her time.

She got to work.

♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

She had tried to lose him in a blizzard of technobabble. Virus sheaths, cell wall resistance, etc. It confused, but couldn't obscure the bottom line - she, Clara, his lover, his lady, had created a virus which would kill wild cards. All wild cards. Aces, jokers, latents. Leaving a world cleansed of their polluting influence. That's why they had tortured him. Finn wished they'd killed him before he had to hear this confession. Before he knew what she had done to "save" him.

"So what was I?" he asked and his voice emerged as an anguished groan. "Research? Did you fuck me so you could get some hot, fresh joker sperm?"

"Don't hate me, Bradley," she whispered through stiff, white lips. "I didn't know ... what you were like. I thought you were ... unhappy."

"Offering us the peace and contentment of the grave? Thank you very much, Clara. A little more van Renssaeler noblesse oblige."

"Bradley, please." He wanted tears, needed tears. He didn't get them. She was in clinical mode.

Instead, to his eternal embarrassment, the tears were his. The sob burst out of him. Tore at his chest and throat. The salt in the tears burned in the cuts on his face, and ate like acid at his soul and dreams.

Throughout all of this Joan and Hartmann were huddled presences in the corner of the cell. Finn plunged away from Clara. She didn't follow. That hurt too. Then Joan reared up, spread her hood, and hissed at him. Startled, Finn ran backwards, hooves skittering on the slick tile. Clara's hands were on his haunches. He bolted from her too. Irrational, he wanted her comfort, and couldn't bear her touch. He wanted the last few hours to be excised. He didn't want to know that while she had wooed him she had been killing him. He wanted to stop loving her.

Clara started for the door, but Joan shot across the floor, and blocked her daughter's escape.

"I want to live to be a grandmother," she said in her husky, humorous voice, that couldn't quite hide the fear and tension lurking beneath the surface. "I have a daughter again. I want a son. I want you both to stop fighting and grieving and guilt tripping each other, and think of something."

For the first time since Clara had begun her horrific confession, she and Finn actually looked at each other. Actually locked eyes. It surprised him a little - she was still Clara ... and he discovered that he still loved her, even as he hated her.

"Joan, I'm not James Fucking Bond with four feet. I'm a middle-aged out of shape joker."

"But you're both bright, so think of something," Joan insisted.

"Don't count on me," Hartmann offered. "This fucking body has a built in flight instinct. Danger rears its ugly head, and I'm gone. Nothing I can do to control it."

Clara ignored Hartmann. Stared thoughtfully at Finn. "You're stronger than a normal human?"

"A little. The extra weight helps. I got a lot of kick power in these legs ... but no, I can't kick out that door. And I think they'd notice if I tried."

"We need to clear the lab," Clara mused.

"A diversion," Finn amplified.

"The virus," they both breathed together.

Hartmann stiffened in alarm. "Won't that... kill us?"

"We wouldn't really use it," Clara said. "But they watch me whenever I'm near anything toxic so I couldn't even - What?" she asked when she noticed Finn staring speculatively at Joan.

"I remember the day when you dropped that religious nut cold in twenty seconds. With no permanent effects."

Joan stretched her mouth open in a travesty of a smile. Snapped shut her teeth. Clara was staring at both of them like they'd gone insane.

"Mommy dearest's got venom," Joan said sweetly and simply.

♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

Her timing couldn't have been better; the lunch line hadn't yet started to form when she got to the cafeteria. The neighborhood had a deficit of restaurants, and in half an hour the cafeteria would be packed.

Clara leaned over the counter and sniffed. "Hey ya, Peter. How's the lasagna?"

Peter, a gangly young black man with a lightning bolt-shaped bald patch over his left temple, a paper hat, apron, and numerous rings in his earlobes, shrugged.

"Hey, Doc. The usual grub - almost palatable. How come I haven't seen you around in a while?"

"I've been working nights. How were midterms?"

"A stone bitch. But I got through them. Even got a B on my microbiology test."

"Peter, that's terrific! And you thought you'd fail!"

He grinned. "Yeah, it's cool. Thanks for helping me prepare. Umm, do you think we could go over my microbiology exam together sometime?"

"Of course. Maybe later in the week. Say, Peter ..."

She leaned on the counter, glancing at the guard who'd been assigned to follow her around. He was helping himself to a Coke at the soda fountain. That put him - briefly - with his back mostly to her. Clara gave Peter a wink and, pressing a finger to her lips, pulled a vial out of her pocket. She swiftly emptied the contents onto the lasagna, then pocketed the vial.

Peter gave her a strange look. "What gives?"

"A little special spice," she said in a low voice, and jerked her glance toward the guard. "Serve it up as usual. Nobody'll get hurt. I'll explain later."

Peter nodded slowly. "You got it."

"But between you and me, I'd avoid the lasagna."

♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

An hour later, in the clean room, Poynter entered the lab where Faneuil was overseeing Clara's work. Her hair was coming out from under her hood and she looked worried.

"A technician in the wet chemistry lab has collapsed," she said.

"The cause?"

"They don't know. It appears to be a severe flu. The infirmary medic wants you there right away."

"Keep an eye on her," he said, jerking his chin toward Clara. "Don't leave her alone."

Clara kept working, while Poynter sat on a lab stool and glowered at her.

Ten minutes later the phone on the wall by the door rang. Clara started for it, but Poynter snapped, "Leave it!" and grabbed it herself.

"Uh huh? Yes, an RN degree. Shit! How many? I'll be right there."

She hung up and turned to Clara. "You're to come with me."

Clara followed her to the infirmary, and the guard waiting outside followed them both. The medic, a cranky old woman named Janice, was there with Faneuil. Clara leaned against the wall while Poynter, Faneuil, and Janice conferred in low, anxious tones. Inside the infirmary were groans and the sounds of people throwing up.

As she stood there a young man staggered down the hall toward them, and from another direction, a woman helped another woman along. A crowd of concerned friends and coworkers was gathering.

"Dr. van Renssaeler!" One of the technicians grabbed her arm. "What's going on?"

Others turned to look. She said in soft, grave tones, "Everyone should remain completely calm. We have no definite proof that one of the experimental viruses has escaped containment and mutated."

There were gasps and whispers. "What did she say? What did she say?"

"An experimental virus is loose!"

Pandemonium broke. Everyone started running and shouting. Faneuil - who was starting to look a little sickly himself - raised his voice, trying to stem the panic, but Clara might as well have lit the fuse on a bomb.

She made her way through the ensuing chaos to the clean room. The guards had fled, including her own. She suited up swiftly and entered. The flasks of Black Trump virus she'd made so far were encased in coolers by the door, neatly labeled awaiting verification of the test cultures.

Clara carried the coolers over to the microwave oven. All but three of the flasks fit. She'd have to do it in two batches. Fifteen minutes per batch would be too much time to gamble on, but ten minutes should be enough. She set the timer, and paced, watching the door.

When the alarm went off, she dragged the flasks of destroyed virus out, stuck the last three in, and reset the timer. Some sixth sense, or perhaps a faint noise, caused her to turn. A small compressed gas bottle was descending on her. Poynter's face was behind it.

Clara dodged and the metal bottle struck her shoulder. She buckled with a cry.

Poynter shoved her out of the way and grabbed the flasks out of the oven. She tried to run but Clara caught her by the leg and she stumbled, barely keeping hold of the flasks as she went down.

They wrestled for control of the flasks. Clara was larger but Poynter was younger and much stronger. She wormed free of Clara's grasp and scrambled to her feet, and hurled a two-gallon glass jug of plasmid solution at Clara, catching her in the gut. She sat down with a whoosh, all the air knocked out of her. The glass shattered on the floor between her legs, bathing her in sticky, acrid solution.

Poynter was gone by the time she'd recovered.

Clara stuffed the tissue cultures into the oven and turned it on, then ran out to find and stop Poynter. She dodged into a room when she heard General MacArthur Johnson's voice; he and a squad of goons armed with semi-automatics ran past. They entered the clean room airlock behind Poynter. Clara waited till they were all inside, then hit the emergency button by the airlock.

Alarms started going off all over, signalling a contaminant release in the clean room. The airlock doors would now be sealed till they could get someone outside to activate the override.

But some of the virus still lived.

Clara ran for the basement, pausing only long enough to fan the flames of panic with a word here and there.

♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

Hours passed. Finn imagined every possible catastrophe. Hartmann uttered them. Joan yelled at them.

Finn huddled against a wall, and imagined they had discovered her. Killed her. Fuck that, nobody gets to throttle her but me, he thought. He knew he was losing his mind. He never wanted to see Clara again, but the thought that he wouldn't was a sharp pain deep in the gut. Then, just when all hope was gone, the key grated in the lock and the door flew open. Clara stood revealed, her hair looking as if she'd combed it with an egg beater, a wild light in her green eyes.

For the first time Finn felt good enough to notice the environment beyond the door. It was really unexciting - stacked boxes, lab beakers lining shelves, sacks of bulk food supplies, in short ... a basement storeroom. Clara noticed his abstraction, slapped him on his withers with an open palm.

"We have to hurry. Johnson's not stupid." She was almost stuttering as she tried to force the words out faster. "He'll figure out soon it's not the virus, and I don't know if I got them all. Guards I mean. He's got four. If some of them didn't eat ..."

Finn shooed Joan out the door. She was a blur of camouflaging scales whipping across the floor. Finn leaped through the door. Clara grabbed him around the neck. Pressed a kiss on his mouth. He howled. She fell back, her hands pressed to her mouth, bumped into a stack of crates which went tumbling with a god-awful crash.

"Hurts," Finn muttered, wondering why he was reassuring her.

Hartmann skittered out of the room. "Want to give me a little nudge?" he asked. Finn stared at him in confusion. "Scare me," the senator amplified. He sounded irritated.

"I wouldn't think you'd need any help for that," Finn said.

"I need high gear. One of us has got to get out, give the warning. I'm probably the fastest of any of us. If you goose me."

Finn shrugged, and cow-kicked at Hartmann, clipping him lightly in the side. He levitated about a foot into the air. All of his myriad legs began churning, and he hit the ground running. Finn watched the senator go, swarming up the stairs and out of sight.

"Which floor?" Joan called from inside the elevator.

"Not the elevator," Finn yelled back. "If anybody's alert they'll shut them down. Trap us." Joan came out of the elevator at Mach two.

They crept up the stairs. Finn was having a hard time without his rubber booties. Finn, protecting the womenfolk and all that, emerged first from the stairwell and saw - a hall. It looked like any other hall in any other office building. Finn realized he was holding himself so tensely that his muscles were aching.