Daniel Abraham - Inside Straight

They wove through the Los Angeles traffic in silence. It went on a long time. Long enough for Wally to wonder if people were sore at him again. Just to break the ice, he said, “So, a fella might wonder who got voted off the show. Just saying, is all.”

Earth Witch sighed. “Rosa got knocked out. So it’s Stuntman and Curveball in the final round. Sorry, Rusty.”

Wally shook his head. “Sounds like a good deal to me. She’ll clean his clock.” The others nodded in agreement.

They rode the rest of the way to LAX in silence, but Wally didn’t mind so much.

A taxi pulled up alongside them as they unloaded their luggage and argued about how much to tip their driver. (The way Wally figured it, he was probably out of a job now, the poor guy.) The back door opened, and out climbed a slim blond woman in a tank top with a duffel bag slung over her shoulder. The taxi pulled away.

Holy Roller squinted. “Praise be—is that Curveball?”

King Cobalt flashed him a thumbs-up.

Hardhat smiled. “Fuckin’A, Rusty. Fuckin’A!” He’d been more inclined to talk to Wally after the events of the previous day. Which was nice, except that he swore so much.

Curveball dropped her duffel bag on the curb. “Room for one more?”

Before anybody could collect their wits enough to speak, yet another car pulled up alongside the group. This one was a silver BMW, and it screeched to a halt. Mr. Berman jumped out. “Kate! Are you out of your goddamn mind?”

Curveball ignored him.

“Think carefully about what you’re doing. You’re pissing away the opportunity of a lifetime, just to join some half-baked publicity stunt with a bunch of rejects. Listen to me. You don’t need them. A month from now your face can be on the cover of every magazine in America.”

“I have thought about it. And I choose to do something meaningful.”

Mr. Berman pressed his hands to his temples, and ran his hands through his hair. It hardly moved, it had so much mousse in it. “Kate,” he said, pointing at Wally, “just look at these freaks. You’re the most popular character on the show. You’re a shoo-in. You’re walking away from a million dollars. You’ll win if you come back. I know it.”

Earth Witch stepped between them. “She made her decision. You need to leave now.” The others joined her.

The network executive stared at them for several seconds. His lips moved, but no sound came out. Wally didn’t think it possible for somebody to turn so red in the face. Finally Mr. Berman said, quietly, “You’re making a huge mistake, Kate.

The worst fucking mistake you’ll ever make.” He got back in his car. Through the open passenger-side window, he yelled, “I’ll slap you assholes with lawsuits so hard your ghosts will be lonely!”

Wally reached out. He rested one finger on the roof of Mr. Berman’s car. The BMW peeled away. An ochre pinstripe appeared under Wally’s fingertip. Mr. Berman tumbled to the pavement thirty yards away in an explosion of orange dust.

The others stared at him, wide-eyed.

Wally shrugged. “Steel-frame construction. Them Germans sure do make some nice cars.” Then he hefted Curveball’s bag in one hand, his suitcase in the other, and entered the airport.

The metal detectors would be a problem. The last time he flew, the studio had handled everything. But his friends would figure something out, he was pretty sure.

Jonathan Hive

Hey, Guys. My Dad’s Got a Warehouse! Let’s Put on a War!Posted Today 8:16 pm

GENOCIDE, ASWAN | EXHAUSTED | “WHO BY FIRE” — LEONARD COHEN

It’s been a hell of a day, but I’m still standing (in the metaphorical sense, since I’m sitting on my ass in a bar in Syrene).

I’m falling asleep on my again-metaphorical feet here. But I’ll do the best I can to catch you folks up. A little geography first. You’ll need it.

Okay. There are two cities at Aswan. Aswan itself is on the east side of the river, near the train tracks. The Egyptian army’s over there. In the middle of the river, there’s Sehel Island (and Kitchener’s Island, and Elephantine Island, and Amun Island with, I shit you not, a Club Med), where a bunch of the Living Gods are holed up. On the west side of the river, there’s Syrene. That’s where we are. The Aswan airport’s on our side. Got that so far?

Okay, next (and much to my surprise), there’s not a dam. There’s two dams. The Low Dam is older, farther north (which is to say downstream—up and down the Nile’s confusing when you’re used to reading north as up) and nowhere near as apocalyptic as the High Dam. The High Dam? That’s to the south.

When you were a kid, maybe you heard about how the Nile flooded every year. Well it doesn’t anymore. Because that whole goddam flood is stuck back behind the High Dam. I mention the dams not only because if they blow, a whole lot of people die, but also because they’re the only two ways across the river that don’t involve boats. So if you had a big infantry force bent on killing a shitload of people like, say, me, the dams are pretty much where it’s going to be an issue.

We knew that when we got here. It also became pretty clear that the Egyptian army really wanted to get across the dam—what with their helicopters and tanks and guns and bombs and their whole fucking army , we weren’t going to be able to stop them.

Funny thing happened, though.

The cavalry arrived.

The war council met at a restaurant about three blocks from the Monastery of St. Simeon. The place smelled of baked raisins and garlic, and the light from the windows made the air seem cleaner than it was. The Living Gods sat at a huge table, arguing, planning, debating, and despairing. Jonathan had picked up enough of the language to catch a word or phrase here and there, but for the most part, he and Lohengrin were excluded. Fortune—Sekhmet, really—was shouting and pounding the table, or nodding, or shaking his head and pointing east.

“There are still the helicopters,” Lohengrin said.

“We are aware,” Sekhmet replied, using Fortune’s throat. “But on the island, there is some protection from the ground troops.”

Fortune didn’t look good. The whole not sleeping thing was eating at him like a cancer. And Jonathan was quite aware that neither Fortune nor Sekhmet was going to rest until the refugees were safe, or everyone died. Lohengrin was looking pretty tired, too. Sobek had lost a couple teeth. No one was doing well.

“The problem here,” Jonathan said, louder than he’d intended to, “is that we’re fucked.”

To his surprise, the table went quiet. He blinked. All eyes were on him.

“Well,” he said, “we can hole up here and hope that they all just go away, but when you get right down to it, we’re fucked, right? The island is a pain in the ass for the ground troops to get to, but if they take the west bank, they can starve us out or do some kind of pincer attack or nuke us from orbit. Whatever. And everyone we move to the island because it’s safer there means one less we have to defend the dams. We don’t have scorpion lady. We don’t have Horus. So, I’m sorry to say it, but I think we’re fucked. ”

“God,” a voice said from behind him. “You are such a loser, Bugsy. No wonder we voted you out.”