George Martin - Suicide Kings

“So, what are you thinkin’?” he asked.

“So, what are you thinkin’?” Rusty-Wally-asked.

Jerusha had never seen the Cafe du Monde so quiet and empty, especially this early in the morning. People were drifting in from the street to buy their paper bags of beignets and cafe au lait. A few of the other tables were occupied, but no one sat near them. Perhaps it was Wally’s bulk and his appearance. Certainly it wasn’t Jerusha-she wondered how many of the patrons recognized her at all, an ordinary-looking black woman except for the belt with many pouches around her waist. The flashes of tourist cameras were constant, though, and the staff kept eyeing their table uneasily.

What are you thinking?

Now that she’d listened to Wally, now that she’d seen his binder, she wasn’t quite so certain anymore. She’d come here with the intention of giving Wally a firm “no” and trying to talk him out of this entirely. Now…

The picture of Lucien stared up at her. She could see the scratches on the plastic sheet protector from Wally’s metal fingers; there were a lot of scratches. He pawed through that binder frequently, then. And his mouth had been moving as she had read the boy’s poorly scrawled letter-he’d obviously memorized it.

Wally’s simple tenderness and compassion made her want to hug him. She just wasn’t sure it made her want to go with him.

Jerusha sipped at her coffee. The cup rattled on the table as she set it down. “I’ve been looking at maps, and I called Babel and talked to her a bit after your phone call.” Jerusha saw the hope rising in Wally’s eyes with her statement, and she frowned in an effort to quash it. You’re not doing this. You’re not. “Wally, she’s really not happy with the idea of you going to Africa, and she’s doubly not happy with you taking another Committee member with you…” Jerusha paused, wondering if she really wanted to say the next words. “ If I did this,” she said, with heavy emphasis on the first word and a long pause after the phrase, “or no matter who ends up going with you, Wally, I agree with Babel that you don’t want to go directly into the PPA. What looks best to me would be flying into Tanzania and crossing over Lake Tanganyika, especially since you say that Lucien’s in Kalemie, right on the lake.”

The hope in Wally’s face was now transcendent and obvious. “So

… you’re coming with me?”

Sure. I’m black, aren’t I? she wanted to retort angrily, but she only shook her head. “I still have work here. All the marshlands that need to be reclaimed before the next big storm hits here…” Alone. Out in the swamp. Alone.

Wally looked down at the table, dusted with the remnants of beignets. “I guess you make the plants grow a lot faster…” She saw him start to rise, his shoulders lifting. “Well, thanks for looking at those maps. That will help.” His face scrunched up stiffly, the stiff iron skin over his eyes furrowing. “So where’s this Tanzania place?”

Jerusha sighed. “Tanzania is…” she began. Stopped. He won’t last five minutes out there on his own. She realized that somewhere in the midst of this, she’d made the decision. What’s here for you? You’ve nothing. No friends, just Committee work. And when Michelle dies, now you’ll get the blame for that, not the Committee. You have a chance to save a life…

“Oh, hell,” she said. “I’ll show you on a map on the way over.”

Jackson Square

New Orleans, Louisiana

Michelle reaches a hand out in front of her face. Five fingers. That’s good. She pulls her legs up to her chest, reaches down, feels her feet. “That’s better,” she says. Even though she’s in the pit again, she’s happy about her feet and hands being back.

The spider pops down in front of her, points up to the edge of the pit. “Yeah, leopards, I know. I’m really the wrong person to try and scare with kitties.”

The spider grabs Michelle’s hair. Its body lengthens and grows and the four middle legs shrink into its torso. The mandibles slide back into its head and the eight eyes move toward each other until there are only two.

Sitting on Michelle’s lap is a little girl, maybe eight or nine. She wears a threadbare dress. The pattern is faded, and in the dim light of the pit it’s a mottled grey. The girl places her hand over Michelle’s mouth, then leans forward and whispers in her ear.

Michelle whispers back, “I can’t understand you.”

The girl pulls away from her, and a tear slides down her cheek. Michelle reaches up and wipes it away. “I’m sorry,” she says.

The girl puts her hands on either side of Michelle’s temples. The girl shuts her eyes and suddenly Michelle is slammed by a barrage of images.

Trees limbs whip her face as she runs. Vines grab at her legs, but she can’t stop. She can hear her own harsh breathing. Are they closer now? Close enough that they can reach out and… a claw rips open her back.

She shrieks. Warm blood wells up and burns. She trips and begins to fall.

Wait a minute, Michelle thinks. Claws don’t do anything to me. She reaches up and gently pulls the girl’s hands away.

The girl gazes at Michelle with such longing and pain it makes her want to cry. Michelle reaches out and touches her own hands to the girl’s temples, imagines pointing at herself, whispers, “Michelle.”

An image blossoms in Michelle’s mind. It’s the girl in her lap, but now she’s wearing a pale blue checkered dress. Her hair is plaited with a pretty pink headband. The girl points to herself and says, “Adesina.”

United Nations

Manhattan, New York

The United Nations perched at the edge of Manhattan like the guest at a party who really needs to leave now, but has just one more very important thing to say.

Bugsy showed his ID to the guards at the front who all knew him anyway, and took the brushed steel elevator up to the seventh floor. In the brief time that the Committee had existed, they had commandeered much more space than Bugsy would have expected the international bureaucracy to permit. Having a lot of superhuman powers probably helped with that.

Lohengrin’s office was on the western side, its windows facing out toward the skyscraper mosh pit of uptown. The hallways were filled with people in thousand-dollar suits looking harried. He nodded at the people who nodded to him and ignored the ones that didn’t.

It was getting harder and harder to keep track of who exactly was with the Committee. It seemed like every time he turned around, it was Let me introduce Glassteel. He can shatter anything made from hard metal. Or Noppera-bo here can mimic anyone’s appearance. Then Bugsy would shake hands (with Noppera-bo it had been particularly creepy since she’d taken on his face as soon as their fingers touched), exchange some pleasantries, and scurry off to someplace he could add their names into his database. Even so, he forgot the newbies more often than he remembered them.

Lohengrin, at least, was familiar. The long, blond hair actually looked really good with a dark grey power suit. Maybe a little tired around the eyes, but that went with the suit, too.

Bugsy closed the office door behind him and plopped down on the couch while the Teutonic God finished his phone call. “No,” he said. “I have nothing to do with the prosecution on a day-to-day basis. You’ll have to call the World Court. At the Hague.” He put down the handset with a sigh.

“Highwayman’s lawyers still giving you shit?” Bugsy asked.

“Captain Flint today,” Lohengrin said. CAHptain flEHnt. No one could do round vowel sounds like the Germans. Except maybe the Austrians. And the Dutch. “There was a time, my friend, that I believed this would be fulfilling work. There are weeks I spend fighting and fighting and fighting and at the end, I think I might just as well have stayed at home.”