George Martin - Jokertown Shuffle

"Someone has tampered with you," Bloat said. "Someone has turned you into a berserker-has made you kill."

Anger lanced through Shad. " I advise you to stay out of my head!" he snapped.

Bloat paid no attention. "It's very subtle. The individual doing it was moving very quietly, just making little alterations. Masking your inhibitors, accenting the violence, the rage…"

Bloat's face was intent, absorbed, his expression almost ecstatic. "Yes, he's been at you, all right. It's almost invisible, but I can see the fingerprint, now that I'm sensitive to it. The same individual who drove Peanut to madness, who inflamed the Oddity's self-loathing and hatred…" Bloat's eyes bored into Shad's heart. "That wasn't you who strung up that first man. Or the next few, either. That wasn't your ecstacy-that was some filthy pervert having an orgasm in your mind."

Shad's mouth went dry. "Bullshit," he said. "Nobody's been with me all this time."

"This is the wild card!" Bloat said. "Who says it can't be operated by remote control?"

"So who was it, asshole? Give me a name."

"What is your grudge against the jumpers, exactly?" Bloat snarled. "I know-they stole your self. But it was only your body they took. What will you do with the man who tampered with your mind? Who sent you on a fifteen-year murder spree, because he had you convinced that was who you were?"

Shad hesitated. Then a cold resolve filled him. "He would deserve death," he said.

"Probably. The man has certainly killed. But you don't have to kill him, of course. That's your choice now. You don't have to do any of this."

"Give me his name."

Bloat narrowed his eyes. "Let's make a deal, Shad. The name in exchange for an understanding."

Shad looked down at him. "Talk."

" I do not like having Tachyon imprisoned here. It's an embarrassment. Tachyon has been a great friend to jokers over the years. She was brought here without my permission, and if you take her off, I-"

"Her?"

Bloat hesitated, then spoke. "Tachyon is at present residing within the body of a sixteen-year-old girl." The words seemed to come with difficulty, and Bloat's cheeks seemed hot. He spoke quickly, as if he hoped Shad wouldn't notice. "Here's the deal, Shad. You spare the jumpers. Take Tachyon off the island. Prime Minister Kafka will let you have one of our speedboats. And I'll give you the name."

"And if someone tries to stop me?"

Bloat thought for a moment, then sighed. "Do what you have to do."

"And Chalktalk?"

Bloat giggled again. "She left the island a long time ago, quite in her own fashion. I wouldn't have molested her, in any case. She's been here before, and-"

"And she's a joker."

Bloat's voice was sharp. "She's a joker who has been badly hurt. Which,"-eyes narrowing-"I see you understand."

"You know the story?"

"No. Her mind is opaque to me. But I can guess. Your concern for her speaks well of you. Before Senator Hartmann turned you into a murderer, you probably would have turned out well."

Shad was stunned. Hartmann…

Hartmann. The only person he'd had regular contact with for years.

"You gave me the name," Shad said, "but I haven't said yes to the deal."

"Yes, you did," Bloat said. "You just never said it out loud."

Shad was silent.

"Kafka will have a boat waiting for you on the east side," Bloat went on. "A Zodiac-you'll get wet, but you'll move fast. You don't want to head for Jersey City-the authorities have set up too many searchlights, and you'll be spotted."

"Searchlights won't see me."

"They have radars out there, too. Hooked to missile batteries, Kafka tells me, and to something called the 20mm Vulcan Air Defense System. Which sounds pretty intimidating to me."

Shad hesitated. He could absorb photons in the electromagnetic spectrum as well as the visual and infrared, but his control was lessened when he was dealing with something he couldn't see.

"I'll have to raise an alarm sooner or later," Bloat said, dismissing the thought for him. "I'm supposed to be omnipotent that way. But I'll tell the jumpers you ran for Brooklyn. They'll search in that direction."

"And where will I really go? Manhattan?"

"Too well patrolled by the coast guard and air force. Head south, toward Staten Island. You should be able to come ashore in one of the Bayonne terminals without difficulty." Shad thought about it.

"That's settled, then," Bloat said. "Follow my friend the penguin. He'll lead you straight to Tachyon." Shad hesitated. "Move fast," Bloat said, "before word of your presence gets out."

Move fast. The best piece of advice he had all night. The penguin skated into the room, gliding effortlessly on the ceiling. Dark smoke that smelled of brimstone poured from his funnel cap. The penguin cruised a nonchalant circle around Shad, then made a silent glissade toward the Administration Building entrance.

Shad's nerves wailed an alert, but there wasn't any ambush waiting. Shad followed the penguin out of the building and to the infirmary, passing behind a joker sentry without alerting him. The western horizon glowed: huge searchlights set up on the jersey shore had the entire island in their grip. Breakers boomed in the distance. A cold Atlantic wind cut through his light Manchukuoian jacket.

The penguin led Shad to the door of the infirmary and passed through without opening it, leaving a faint whiff of brimstone behind. Shad opened the door-heavy institutional steel pitted by salt water-and stepped inside. Music slammed from off-white corridor walls, and Shad heard laughter somewhere, but no one was in sight. There were no guards, and no security seemed in place.

The penguin was gliding up a staircase to Shad's right. Shad followed up two flights. The Dead Kennedys filled the staircase with exuberant hardcore. On the floor above were roughly finished rooms right under the eaves. A white boy lay asleep on a mildew-eaten couch, his boom box and a space heater plugged into a thick orange extension cord. A halfeaten bowl of rice and Vienna sausages lay on the floor. An M-16 was propped on the wall.

Some sentry.

Okay, Shad thought, I'll try it Bloat's way.

He ate photons and called the darkness down, filling the room with night, then snatched the boy out of sleep. He broke one arm, then the other, then whispered into the boy's ear.

"Okay, kid," he said, "here's how I see it. I don't want to kill you, and you don't want to die. So lead me to Tachyon and I'll let you live, okay?"

The boy screamed, a full-throated yell of imbecile terror that echoed louder than the Dead Kennedys. Shad smashed the boy's head against a wall until the screaming stopped, then dropped the boy to the floor.

Hell. That sort of thing always worked in the movies. Most of the rooms held only supplies. There was only one door that was locked, and that was with a simple wooden bar. Shad threw up the bar and pushed the door open. God, she seemed young. And tiny, barely reaching Shad's breastbone. Chill sorrow rolled through him as he realized she was pregnant.

The darkness rained away as Shad let Tachyon look at him… '

"I m Black Shadow," Shad said, "and you're outta here."

"Bloat told me." Her voice was soft. Maybe once she'd been pretty, he thought. Now she looked like a war refugee. "He didn't say you were pregnant. Follow me."

She followed him out the door, her eyes downcast. She had wrapped a blanket around her shoulders, but the shoulders were slumped. She wasn't anything like shad's memories of Tachyon. Shad couldn't picture her as anything but a lost girl.

Somebody had tried to break this child, and probably succeeded.

Apparently no one had heard the sentry's scream. Shad led Tachyon down the two flights of stairs, then looked cautiously into the corridor. No one in sight. He opened the door to the outside and stepped out.