Daniel Abraham - Inside Straight

The camera panned across the sofa where Curveball, Rosa, and Stuntman sat. Rosa and Stuntman watched the proceedings with a smirk and a look of superiority, respectively. Curveball was unreadable.

Peregrine continued: “But for those of you already out of the competition, your challenges are not over yet. Today the Discard Pile will choose the final two competitors, by voting to eliminate one of today’s three.”

If the announcement bothered Curveball, she didn’t show it. Stuntman now looked very serious. And Rosa looked particularly unhappy. Many of Wally’s fellow discards, on the other hand, looked smug. Some grinned.

“And since this is the final vote of the competition, we’re doing things a little differently this time.” Peregrine looked around the room, one eyebrow cocked. “We’re not letting you off the hook so easily, Discards. Today’s vote will be an open ballot. No shuffling.”

The grins disappeared.

Ink handed three oversize playing cards to each of the discards. “Think carefully about who deserves to become the first American Hero…and about who doesn’t deserve the honor.” Peregrine paused. “When your name is called, show us who you think is not an American Hero.”

Once everybody held three cards, Peregrine tipped an hourglass-shaped egg timer. “Discards: you have three minutes to consider your choice, starting… now. Contestants: good luck.”

Wally flipped through the cards. The photos of Stuntman, Rosa, and Curveball looked like the kind of glamorous head shots that all the contestants had submitted with their audition portfolios. His own head shot had been taken on a Polaroid camera in his aunt’s kitchen.

Wally hadn’t exchanged two words with Curveball, but she seemed like good folk. She even smiled at him once, which was more than he could say for a lot of the current and former contestants.

Rosa, on the other hand, had said—quietly, under her breath, so that only he could hear but the cameras wouldn’t pick it up—“Good riddance, you retard,” after Wally had been eliminated from Team Spades. She reminded him of the crazy Lacosky sisters from back home, and the time soon after his wild card had turned, when they tried pushing him into one of the drainage ponds up near the mine. Just to see if he’d float.

And then there was Stuntman. He looked friendlier in his photo than he did sitting across the room. But Wally found it hard to meet the gaze of either version.

“Discards,” said Peregrine, “your time is up.” Ink went back around the room again, this time collecting two cards from each voter. After she finished, and each member of the Discard Pile held only one card, Peregrine pointed about a third of the way around the circle from Wally. “Tiffani: How do you vote?”

One cameraman trained his lens on the finalists, and the other turned his own toward Tiffani. The West Virginia ace held up the Rosa photo. “I vote against Rosa. Why? I’d pay cash money to see her thrown under a bus. Any takers?” Rosa sneered; the corner of Stuntman’s mouth curled up.

By the time Peregrine and the cameras reached Wally, the vote stood at four against Rosa, three against Stuntman, and one against Curveball. Spasm’s was the sole vote against Curveball; Wally suspected that was Rosa’s doing, in the same way that the Lacosky sisters had gotten Lenny Pikkanen to lend them his car, with promises of a wild time when their parents next went out of town.

“Rustbelt: How do you vote?”

The cameraman crept closer, the lens glaring at Wally like an unblinking eye. Don’t think about the cameras, don’t think about the cameras, don’t think about the cameras … Stuntman crossed his arms over his chest and looked at Wally with a bloodless, thin-lipped smile. “I dare you,” it said.

“How do you vote?”

Wally glanced around the room. Not at the dozens of aces, nor at the cameramen, nor the lighting guys, nor any of the others. At the room itself. Carpenters and painters had covered up the earthquake damage. But outside of camera range, they hadn’t fixed anything. It was all fake. Fake and meaningless. Just like the books in the library.

Then he thought about Bugsy’s blog again, and the image of a little girl crushed into the dirt by men driving around in a steel-plated tank. Dead because somebody said she and her family were dangerous.

What’s worse than being hated for what people say you are?

Letting them get away with it.

Wally held up his Stuntman card. The air pressure dropped as everybody inhaled at once. The Harlem Hammer cocked his head, watching Wally through narrowed eyes.

“I vote against Stuntman.” He looked Stuntman in the eye. “That’s what you get for being a knucklehead.”

“Pfff. Figures.” Stuntman tried to dismiss Wally with a wave of his hand, but Wally saw his words hit home.

“That’s all I said that day, and you know it. I didn’t do anything wrong, but you made everyone hate me. Even people that never met me, for cripes’ sake. You don’t deserve to win. You’re too mean.”

Stuntman looked away.

Wally stood. “There’s lots of people like you these days. Some of them even have guns—and worse stuff, gosh damn it.” Hardhat was a bad influence. Nodding to the three judges, Wally added, “I don’t think I want to be on the TV anymore.” Then he turned and walked out of the room.

“Hey! Where’s he going? He can’t leave!”

As Wally clanked up the stairs, he heard Simoon saying, “I… I think he’s going to Egypt.”

Hardhat blurted, “Why in fuck’s sake would he do that?”

Cuveball, very quietly: “To be a hero.”

Back in his room, Wally dug his suitcase out from under his bed. He filled it with the few belongings he’d brought to California: his britches; a few shirts; the photo of Mom and Dad and his brother Pete up at the lake cabin; a box of lemon-scented SOS pads.

He didn’t own a cell phone from which to call for a taxi. They had a tendency to crumple up in Wally’s hands, unless he was extremely careful. So he went back downstairs to use the kitchen phone.

Simoon sauntered in and laid her finger on the disconnect button as he was jotting down the number for a taxi company. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“I need to call a taxi.”

“Why?”

“I need to go to the airport.”

“I mean, why not take the studio limo?”

“That’s for the show.”

“But it’s nicer. And we won’t fit into a single taxi.”

Wally looked up. They weren’t alone. Simoon had been joined by Holy Roller, Earth Witch, King Cobalt, Hardhat, and Bubbles.

“We had a little vote of our own,” she said.

King Cobalt added, “I join you in Egypt, and you join my wrestling federation.” He stuck out his hand. “That’s the deal.”

They shook on it. “You betcha.”

Dragon Girl squeezed in between Bubbles and Earth Witch. “Don’t leave without me! I have to get my stuffies.”

Bubbles shook her head and waved her arms. “Oh, no. Absolutely not. No way are you coming to the genocide with us.” Dragon Girl frowned, and stamped her foot. “Maybe when you’re twelve,” said Bubbles.

Simoon had been right about them not fitting in a taxi. Truth be known, they barely fit into the Discard Pile’s stretch Hummer, either. Wally felt sorry for their driver. On the one hand, Mr. Berman didn’t want him driving the rogue discards to the airport, and suggested that doing such would be a bad career move. On the other hand, seven aces wanted him to drive them to the airport, and suggested that not doing so would be an even worse move.