George R.R. Martin - [Wild Cards 18] Read Online Free PDF Page A

Digger Downs pantomimed striking a gong. “If you could … ah… John? Could you take Mr. Stormbringer to the Green Room, please?”
    The vaguely familiar blond guy detached himself from the clot of technicians and walked, clipboard in hand, to escort the man out of the stadium. Jonathan squinted, trying to place him—café-au-lait skin, a little epicanthic folding around the eyes, blond hair out of a bottle.
    “Aw, man,” he said.
    “What?” Twitch demanded.
    Jonathan gestured toward the blond with his chin. “That’s John Fortune,” he said.
    “Who?”
    “John Fortune. He was on the cover of
Time
a while back. Pulled the black queen, but everyone thought it was an ace. There was this whole, weird religious thing about him being the antichrist or the new messiah or something.”
    “The one Fortunato died trying to fix up?”
    “Yeah, he’s Fortunato’s kid. And Peregrine’s.”
    Joe Twitch was silent for a moment. The only thing that seemed to slow him down was trying to think. Jonathan wondered if he could buy the guy a book of sudoku puzzles.
    “Peregrine’s producing the show,” Twitch said.
    “Yup.”
    “So that poor fucker’s working for his mom?”
    “How the mighty have fallen,” Jonathan said dismissively. A new ace was taking the field—an older guy, skinny, with what appeared to be huge chrome boots, a brown leather jacket, and a ’40s-era pilot’s helmet, with straps that hung at the sides of his face like a beagle’s ears.
    “Thank you,” the Harlem Hammer said. “And you are?”
    “Jetman!” the new guy announced, rising up on the little cones of fire that appeared at the soles of his boots. He struck a heroic pose. “I am the man Jetboy would have been.”
    “Oh good Christ,” Jonathan muttered. “That was sixty
years
ago. Let the poor fucker die, can’t you?”
    Apparently, he couldn’t.
    Of the constant stream of wannabes presenting themselves to the world, Mr. Stormbringer had been the worst so far, but the guy who called himself the Crooner hadn’t managed to do much either. And Jonathan’s personal opinion was that Hell’s Cook—a thick-necked man who could heat up skillets by looking at them—was really more deuce than ace, but at least he was a good showman.
    And there had been some decent ones, too. Jonathan’s benchmate, Joe Twitch, had made a pretty good showing and also managed to be so abrasive it was clear he’d be a good engine of petty social drama. The six-five bear, Matryoshka—who split into two five-eight bears when you hit him, and then four five-footers, and so on, apparently until you stopped hitting him—had been decent. The eleven-year-old girl carrying her stuffed dragon had seemed like a sad joke until she made the toy into a fifty-foot, fire-breathing, scales-as-armor version of itself. She’d also had a bag of other little stuffed toys. Even Digger Downs had dropped his comments about wild card daycare. Jonathan was willing to put even money she’d make the cut.
    Jetman finished his presentation to polite applause, and the blond—John Fortune—appeared at Jonathan’s side.
    “Jonathan Hive?” Fortune asked.
    “That’s me.”
    “Okay, you’re up next. We’re going to be filming from cameras two and three,” he said, pointing at a couple of the many setups in the stadium. “The judges all have monitors up there, so if you have the choice, it’s better to play to the cameras than the people.”
    “Great,” Jonathan said, mentally remaking his presentation. “Okay, yeah. Thanks.”
    “No trouble,” Fortune said.
    “Any other advice?”
    Fortune looked serious for a moment. He was a good-looking kid, but maybe a little lost around the eyes.
    “You’re the guy who turns into wasps, right? Okay, the guy on camera two is really afraid of bees, so anything you want to do up close to the lens, go for camera three.”
    “And that one’s camera three?”
    “You got it,” Fortune said. Jonathan redid his routine