Daniel Abraham - Inside Straight

“But how do you feel about her?”

I sighed. I had to talk—it was in that damned contract. “I don’t think she cares about being a hero. She only cares about making money and being famous.”

“And that’s bad, right?”

I looked up at the camera this time. “No, it’s not bad to want those things. But this isn’t about getting money or being famous. It’s about being a hero.”

“Do you think Tiffani is heroic?”

“I think she tries to be.” I assumed Tiff felt the same way about American Hero that I did. She had had my back. She’d told me she had never voted against me, not once.

“Well, what do you think a hero is?” Ink asked.

“It’s not just acts of physical courage. What’s a hero, if you can’t trust them to keep their word? What’s a hero, if they would betray a friend? What’s a hero, if they think of themselves before anyone else?” I looked Ink straight in the eye. “That’s not being a hero. Anyone can do that. We all do that. But a hero tries to do better.”

I dropped my head again, and my hair covered most of my face. I scrunched down into the chair and didn’t say anything else. After a few minutes, Ink told the camera crew to stop rolling.

“You did great, Michelle,” she said.

“You’re supposed to be calling me Bubbles,” I reminded her. She gave me a funny smile.

“What’re you working on now?” I asked.

Jetman was in the garage tinkering with yet another of his gadgets. Since the Maharajah had been voted off, Jetman pretty much kept to himself.

“I’m not sure what it is yet,” he replied. “Things just… change as I’m working on them.”

He started looking for something in his toolbox, and I handed him a Phillips head screwdriver. He grunted and took it from me. Sometimes I hung out with Jetman when he was gadgeting. Whenever he couldn’t find something in his toolbox, I gave him a random screwdriver. It seemed to work. Or maybe he was just humoring me.

“You know, I thought you were going to vote me off during Discard,” I said.

“Actually, I was thinking about voting Tiffani off,” he said. “But then I thought you might get pissed.”

It took me aback. I would never get pissed at Jetman for voting the way he wanted to. I told him that.

“Yeah, I realized that,” he said. “But I knew that you and Tiff were planning to get rid of Matryoshka after the last challenge. So I figured, go along to get along.”

I leaned against the bench running along the west wall of the garage. I was baffled. “But we didn’t ha—”

‘C’mon, Diamonds!” Tiffani yelled from the end of the driveway. “We’re going on a mysterious ride.”

“Our master’s voice.” Jetman wiped his hands on a greasy rag. We went outside, and he pulled the garage door shut behind us. There was an SUV limo waiting for us. Tiff was already inside, and Jetman and I piled into the spacious backseat. It was roomier now that there were only three of us left on the team. “Where do you think we’re going?” I asked.

Tiff shrugged. “Reshuffle. After all, all the teams have lost at least two players.”

“I hope it’s a reshuffle,” Jetman said. “We can’t afford to lose anyone else.”

The limo took us to the Warners back lot, where American Hero was taped.

We piled out of the back of the SUV, and Ink led us through one of the soundstages to makeup.

Peregrine was standing under a spotlight, arguing with one of the directors about her lighting. “I’m telling you, if you don’t put a decent filter on that thing I’m going to look like a crone,” she said.

“Peregrine, my goddess,” the director replied. “You will never look like a crone. I don’t care how hard you try.”

Peregrine gave him a lethal glare. “Shameless flattery is one way to get around me, but don’t think I’m not going to notice if you don’t fix that.”

Ink left us at the makeup area backstage. We were used to doing the whole makeup, blocking, hurry-up-and-wait routine that was part of the show taping.

The hair and makeup guys finished with us, and we took one last good look in the mirror.

Jetman looked as if he’d had no makeup done at all. He was a kinda plain-looking guy, but they’d made his skin perfect, as if a blemish had never been allowed to mar his face. And Tiffani… well, she was as beautiful as ever. It was a pity she was so short. Had she been taller, she would have made a great model. I took a quick glance at myself. My eyes did look great, and they did bring out the best in my skin—as much as they could, given how crappy my black hair made it look.

Ink finally came back. “Okay, guys,” she said. “We’ll be taping a short segment with Peregrine.”

When we arrived back onstage, the Hearts were sitting in a row of director’s chairs. Three empty chairs faced them. Hearts had won the most challenges; there were five of them, and only three of us.

We sat in our chairs. Mine gave a loud groan. I heard a Heart laugh, blushed, and hung my head.

“Asshole,” I heard Jetman say softly.

Peregrine swept onto the stage. When I’d been younger, I’d really admired her. Not only was she a great model, but she still went out and did things with her wild card ability. I guessed she must be in her fifties now, but you’d never know it. She usually wore very revealing couture gowns, but today she had on long palazzo pants, a gold-sequined halter top, and four-inch-high sandals. Her wings fluttered behind her, making her look like a disco angel. “Are we ready to shoot this?” she asked.

“We’re rolling,” said the director. “Start anytime.”

“Welcome to American Hero,” Peregrin said, looking into camera one. “We’re halfway through the competition, and we’ve lost quite a few of our heroes. But some of the teams have fared better than others.” She turned to camera three and her wings fluttered. “I know that some of the players here think we might be reshuffling the teams tonight.”

There were groans from the Hearts.

“But we’ve decided to keep the suits separated for now.”

The Hearts gave a small cheer. “However,” Peregrine continued, “our Diamonds team has not done well, and they are at a distinct disadvantage. So we’ve decided to let them draw one member from Hearts to even the teams up.”

There was stunned silence from the Hearts, and then an angry murmur bubbled up. “You’ve got to be kidding!” shouted Drummer Boy, jumping to his feet. “We’re being penalized because they suck?”

Curveball placed a hand on one of Drummer Boy’s lower arms. “Calm down. It’s just part of the game.”

“It’s bullshit,” he said.

I glanced at Tiff to see how she was reacting. There was a Mona Lisa smile on her face. “Do we have to choose now?” Tiffani asked.

“No, you have twenty-four hours to decide. We’ll be bringing you back tomorrow night for the pick.”

“And cut,” came the director’s voice.

Peregrine cupped her hands over her eyes and squinted up at the lights. “Did you put the filter on that spotlight?” she asked.

“So, who do you want to bring over from the Hearts team?” I asked when we were back in the limo.

“Drummer Boy,” Tiffani said at once. “He makes the most sense. He’s the most powerful player on their team.”

Jetman opened the fridge in the limo bar and took out a beer. “You think he’s more powerful than Hardhat or Earth Witch?” he asked.

“Well, how handy is making steel thingamabobbies?” Tiffani asked. “Are we really going to need a trench anytime soon? And Wild Fox? Don’t even get me started on how crappy his power is.”