Jokertown Shuffle

The desperation on Kien's face was almost enough to incline Bre

But they heard Men scream, "Don't leave me here forever," and it echoed over and over again as a reedy voice crying, "ever… ever… ever…" like a condemned man questioning an unendurable sentence.

Then there was silence.

7.

Bre

He turned and looked at the rest of the room for the first time.

Father Squid was staring at them with wide-open eyes.

Kien's body-Fadeout's body-was lying slack-mouthed and drooling on the floor. The door to the room suddenly swung open, and there was Rick and Mick, carrying a large jar tucked under Rick's right arm.

"Okay, boss," Rick said. "Here we are." They stopped, looked around, looked at each other, and said, "Oh-oh" in unison.

"We've been tricked," Mick added. "Something's wrong with the boss."

"Let's get out of here," said Rick. They dropped the glass jar as they ran from the room, and it shattered. Bre

Brutus looked up at him, barely able to see through swollen, bruised eyes. "Sorry I told where you were, boss, but I guess it worked out."

"It did," Bre

Bre

"You did, Brutus," she said.

"Good." His tiny body was wracked by a spasm of coughing, and he leaned back among the shards of glass. "This is damned uncomfortable," he said, and closed his eyes.

Bre

"You did very well out there," a voice said. Bre

Bre

Bre

Trace shook her head. "You are very hard to please," she said, not ungently.

"I guess I am," Bre

"It was easy," Trace said. "Everything I do should be so easy."

"How much was you in that place," Bre

"Haven't you learned your lesson about the reality of reality yet?" Trace asked.

"I don't know," Bre

"It's as hard as you make it," Trace told him in his mother's voice. "Sometimes there's nothing anyone can do to make it easier. Sometimes there is."

The door to the room shot open, and Dr. Tachyon rushed in. "What's going on?" he demanded. "A strange joker was seen ru

He looked around, genuinely puzzled. "What did I miss?"

Bre

The Temptation of Hieronymus Bloat

II

I have a dream.

I have several dreams, in fact. I suppose that makes this teenage governor marginally better than old King, right? They're very odd, my dreams-a lot more hard-edged and surreal than I remember them being before the wild card hit me. But then, I always did like the painters who could twist reality and make it their own: Dali, Bosch, Brueghel, Chagall…

Last night I had a dream too.

I was in the Administration Building. (Where else would I be, huh?) But the old place had changed. The stone and brick had changed to glass. It was a wondrous, clear crystal line palace from which I could see out into the world again. The sunlight shattered on it and bled rainbows.

I'd changed too. I was someone else, not Bloat. I stood on my own legs, and my body was a gorgeous, muscular wonder. Kelly, as resplendent and alluring as a fairy-tale princess, stood alongside me. Her thoughts were no longer pitying but full of love and trust for me. Together, we strode up and down inside my palace, marveling at its beauty.

Kafka was kneeling in the lobby as we approached, hooking up that generator he keeps insisting we need. A snarl of wires went all around him.

Then I noticed that the brilliant sunlight had tricked me. These weren't wires. The lobby was filled to overflowing with jokers, their bodies all pressed together. They were screaming at me, waving hands and tentacles and filaments and ante

I looked out and saw that-omigod!-they were right. Through the windows I could see that all the Rox was the same way-a living, writhing carpet of jokers from end to end, right into the greasy waves of the bay.

I shouted to them all. My voice was the voice of a King, deep and charismatic. Not at all the adolescent boy's screech it really is. " I will make you a new home!" I told them. " I will do that for you!"

Kelly applauded. The jokers cheered.

But Kafka glanced up at me from the generator. "They won't let you," he said softly.

The massed jokers all howled agreement. I knew that Kafka spoke of every joker's eternal "they": the nats who hate us, the turncoat aces who are weapons against their own kind.

"My Wall keeps them out," I insisted, shaking my head. Kafka sighed.

I suddenly felt a chill. I looked up to see that the entire roof of the building was gone. Above, a winter wind flung dirty wet snow from massed, hurtling clouds. The snow piled in drifts around and over the mountain of my body-I was Bloat again. Kelly, disgust on her face, fled the lobby. I was frightened. I felt more helpless than I'd ever felt, for I knew that the wall couldn't keep out the snow.

"The wall isn't enough," Kafka told me. "Not enough."

"The jumpers. My joker army."

"Not enough."

The wind howled, a mad laughter. Sleet hissed around the columns of the lobby, between the supports that held the floor against my weight…

And I woke. My enormous body was trembling so that the whole building was shaking in sympathy. All the guards were looking at me, and the smell of the bloatblack… Well, you get the idea.

Hell, dreams are supposed to be escapes. I should be dreaming of being in a normal body or having some postpubescent wet dreams about Kelly.

Every joker needs a refuge. I can't even find one in my dreams.

I talked to Molly Bolt rather than Blaise because I could hear through the mindvoices that Blaise was busy.

All right, I'll be honest here. That was a lousy excuse. I talked to Molly because I really don't like Blaise.