Daniel Abraham - Inside Straight

“Thanks,” she said. A simple gracias always helped smooth things over.

He growled and marched after the others.

The tunnel opened into a space that looked like an arena: a bowl-shaped park with grassy sides sloping down to a pond some fifty yards in diameter. The surface was dark, opaque. No telling how deep it went.

A flag fluttered from a buoy bobbing in the center of the pond—bright red, X marks the spot. The prize lay somewhere under the surface of the water.

“Well, shit!” Hardhat said. Ana could already hear the bleeps on the final cut.

“Diver on Clubs’ll have this all tied up!” Diver, the woman with gills, could breathe underwater.

Despite the maze, the obstacle course they’d succeeded in traversing, despite making it this far with the sort of flair the judges had to appreciate, the game did seem fixed at this point.

“Maybe it’s not that deep,” DB said. “Maybe I can wade in.”

“Dude, can you even swim?” Wild Fox asked.

“Dude, does it matter?” the drummer shot back.

The water lapped almost imperceptibly along a sandy stretch that led out from the tunnel. DB went straight into the pond, shoes, clothes and all, until the water was up to his ankles, then up to his knees. He continued, dragging against the water, all his arms out for balance.

Then, abruptly, he disappeared. Sank straight down and out of sight. Kate gasped, hand over her mouth.

A second later he came back up, sputtering, shedding water everywhere.

“It drops off,” he reported, gasping for breath. “Three feet deep, then straight down. I don’t know how far it goes.”

He returned to shore, and they stood in a line, staring out at the water, potential heroes with no ideas.

Gardener reached into her ubiquitous pouch. “Maybe I can get some vines growing, pull the thing up to the surface.”

“We don’t even know what the fuck it is,” Hardhat said. “We’re just assuming it’s right under the buoy.”

“You have a better idea?” she said, glowering at him.

“It’s better than nothing,” Curveball said. “We can think of something else in the meantime.”

The conversation continued, but Ana was only half-listening. She was looking at the sand—the ground, the earth—and following it to where it touched the water. And continued, under the water. The soles of her shoes touched the sand, and she could feel the lines of earth spreading under the water. Maybe twenty, twenty-five feet. She’d dug wells hundreds of feet deep. This was nothing. She touched her medallion, mouthed the words por favor .

She could feel the whole area, the hills sloping up to where they butted against concrete walls. She could bring those hills down if she wanted.

“I think I can do it,” she heard herself say, and felt herself step forward, toward the edge of the water, before she realized what she was doing.

DB laughed. “What? What do you think you’re going to do? Hey—maybe you can dig a canal, drain the water. If there were any place to drain it to. And you could dig a swimming pool while you’re at it! But hey, we’ve already got one!”

“Would you shut up and let her try!” Kate said. DB actually shut up.

Ana knelt by the water’s edge. She buried her fingers in the sand. Only her knuckles and the tendons—tensed, straining—were visible. She reached into the earth. Watch this, Roberto .

The hills around them started crawling, the grass rippling. The ground traveled in waves, a subtle, miniature earthquake, creeping ever downward.

The surface of the water rippled, vibrating, like someone was shaking it. Then, the water lurched, splashing with a sound of crashing waves, and was displaced, pushed out, flooding the arena. Ana ignored the stream of water, several inches deep, flowing around her. She was bringing the earth to her.

The bottom of the pond rose to the surface.

The one large pond became dozens of puddles scattered around the whole of the arena. In the middle of the arena stood a brand-new island rising a few feet above the water. With a last shuddering of earth, a bridge formed, a stretch of thick mud leading from Ana to the island. Her hands were now sunk in mud.

In the middle of the island stood a safe, a two-by two-foot square of heavy steel with a handle on the front, and on top of the safe rested a round red buoy, its flag tipped sideways and dripping.

All of them were standing in water now, but no one complained.

Ana sighed, opened her eyes, and looked on what she’d wrought. She tried to be surprised, and found only a sense of resignation. This was what she was. Earth Witch.

“Holy fucking shit,” Hardhat said. His jaw hung open.

A hand touched her shoulder, and she looked up, startled. Kate stood there, frowning with concern. Ana sat back, relaxed, and her arms hung limp.

“You okay?”

Ana smiled. “Yeah. I’ll be okay.”

Wild Fox tried to cross the mud bridge, but his feet sank to above his ankles almost immediately. His tail stiffened and twitched, and he hurriedly backed away. He had lost a shoe and had to reach back for it. “Okay, not cool.”

Gardener already held a handful of seeds.

She tossed them, and they rained down to the start of the bridge—and grew. Giant lily pads opened and spread like carpets across the length of the bridge, digging roots into the mud, solidifying it.

They crossed the bridge, walking on the squishing green carpet, and discovered

they still weren’t finished, because they had to break the thing open. Without a word DB tackled it, wrenching at the handle, pulling at the crack that marked the door, pounding at the steel sides. He could bend steel bars, but he couldn’t dent this. He glared at the thing as if it had offered a personal insult.

He went at it for five minutes before Kate cut in. “Let me try. Please?” Her tone was flat.

Six arms loose at his sides, DB stepped back.

Kate already had her missile in hand, cupped to her chest in preparation for her pitch. “Everyone stand clear,” she said, and she herself backed onto the edge of the bridge, with the others fanned out behind her.

We’re a team , Ana thought. We really are .

Kate snapped her pitch, and Ana never even saw the marble leave her hand. Only a streak of light blazed—a shooting star—and the streak swerved, slamming straight into the combination knob and locking mechanism. The thing sparked and shattered, pieces zipping in all directions. The safe’s door swung open.

They’d done it. No numbing failure this time. No sense of shame. For a long moment, they didn’t seem to believe it.

Then Wild Fox cheered. “ Yes! ”

Miniature fireworks flew around him, red and gold light bursting, flowering, and falling. That was a cue, and they all let loose, a cathartic release. Hardhat hugged Earth Witch, Wild Fox grabbed Gardener’s hands and spun her in a circle—and Kate hugged Drummer Boy. He lifted her clear off the ground, and they were both smiling.

They settled down long enough for DB to gesture at the safe and say to Kate, “You want to do the honors?”

Curveball retrieved their prize: a hand-sized velvet box with a gold heart inside.

Hardhat parked Hearts’ Humvee in its spot outside the American Hero studio and cameras captured every move. They were still soaked and dirty from the challenge, but their mood was high—electric. Wild Fox couldn’t sit still. His tail twitched manically. “We’re going to win. We’re totally going to win. They totally can’t rag on us this time.”

“We still don’t know how the other teams did,” Kate said. “If the others got into their safes, then the judges get to call it.”