Daniel Abraham - Inside Straight

Curveball knelt, wrapping her arms around her friend. Earth Witch shook. “It’s okay, Ana,” Curveball said. “It’s okay.”

“I killed them,” Earth Witch said. “I killed them, didn’t I?”

“Yeah,” Curveball said. “You did.”

Earth Witch stared out at the rubble, her breath in gasps. Her eyes were wide and round, caught between elation and horror.

“Excuse me, ladies,” Holy Roller said. “I don’t mean to intrude.”

“What’s the matter?” Curveball asked.

“The dam,” John Fortune said, appearing at their side. “Doing that weakened the dam. It’s giving way. We need Earth Witch to shore it up. Now.”

Earth Witch sagged into Curveball’s arms.

“She can’t do it,” Curveball said. “She’s too tired.”

“I can,” Earth Witch said.

“Ana,” Curveball began, but Earth Witch shook her head. A voice called out from the shore—some stray Egyptian soldier surrendering himself to Lohengrin. Curveball stood, drawing her friend up with her.

“I can fix it. Just…stay with me,” Earth Witch said.

“I will,” Curveball promised.

So to all the folks who said we were fucked, here’s the news: We won. The genocide stopped at Aswan, and we didn’t even drown all the folks we were trying to save in the process. And no, I don’t know how it’s going to play out from here. International pressure’s going to have to be placed on the Ikhlas al-Din and the government of Egypt. They may have to partition the country. That’s all complicated and nuanced and may take years to figure out. The United Nations will almost certainly have to be involved, and the caliphate. And yes, that may be a pain in the ass for some people. Live with it.

The killing stopped. And we stopped it. And that, ladies and germs, is just plain good.

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“Bugsy,” Fortune said. “Wake up. There’s someone here wants to see you.”

Jonathan rolled over on his bed, blinking up into the light. Fortune looked slightly better. Still cadaverously thin, still with the deep, bruiselike bags under his eyes. He and Sekhmet apparently hadn’t quite settled on a schedule for sleep yet. And still, the poor bastard looked better.

“Someone wants to see me?” Jonathan asked.

“You should come.”

“Beautiful blond entomologist with no boyfriend and a webcam?”

“CNN,” Fortune said.

Jonathan took in a deep breath and let it out with a sense of growing satisfaction. The traditional media finally there to agree he’d scooped them.

“A close second,” Jonathan said. I’ll be right there.”

He washed his hair, considered shaving, decided that the stubble was a decent manly touch—you never saw Indiana Jones breaking out a safety razor—and headed out for the lobby of the hotel that had become the aces’ barracks. The camera crew had set up shop by one of the big couches designed for travelers to lounge on in times of peace. The reporter looked familiar; black guy in his late thirties, close-cropped hair with a little gray coming in at the temples. He was wearing a khaki shirt with epaulets, like he’d been trekking through the desert instead of driving in from the airport.

“Hey,” Jonathan said, “I heard you boys were looking for me?”

Hands were shaken, admiration was expressed, someone got Jonathan a cup of coffee. Five minutes flat, and he was sitting on the couch, klieg lights shining in his face, sincere talking head leaning in toward him with an expression built to convey gravity and concern.

It was fucking sweet. Right up until it wasn’t.

“How do you respond to the accusations that you’ve sided with terrorists?”

“That’s stupid,” Jonathan said. “And anyone who says it doesn’t understand anything about how international politics works.”

“But you have come to the defense of a group that’s been accused of sheltering the Twisted Fists.”

“Well, accused, sure …”

“And the assassination of the Caliph.”

“These people didn’t assassinate the Caliph,” Jonathan said. “There were kids dying out on the road. Kids! You think some eight-year-old joker kid killed the Nur?”

“Right, and you also said in your blog that these people didn’t kill the Caliph. You have investigated the alleged link between the Living Gods and the Twisted Fists, then?”

Jonathan tapped his fingers on his knee. “I’ve been a little busy being shot at,” he said. “But I am perfectly comfortable that no such connection exists.”

“And how would you reply to the critics who say that Westerners—especially self-styled crusaders like Lohengrin and religious leaders like Holy Roller—represent an unacceptable Western interference in the internal affairs of Egypt?”

“I probably wouldn’t,” Jonathan said.

“So you don’t think there is an issue of national sovereignty here? You are a group of aces not affiliated with any government entering into armed conflict with the military of a legitimate state. How do you see that as different from a terrorist organization?”

“They were killing people,” Jonathan said. “Okay? Innocent people were dying. And we stopped it.”

The reporter seemed to sense an unpleasant stinging sensation in his future. He smiled and nodded as if he were agreeing with something, then changed the subject. “Will your forces remain in Syrene when the army of the caliphate arrives?”

“We are going to stay here until we’re sure that…” Jonathan held up a finger and licked his lips. The klieg lights seemed hotter than they’d been at the start of the interview. The couch had developed some uncomfortable lumps. “… army of the caliphate?” he asked.

“You didn’t know the new Caliph has sworn his support for Kamal Farag Aziz and his Egyptian government? His troops have been on the move for days.”

“Army. Of the caliphate. Ah. Well. That’s probably a pretty big army, huh?”

The reporter shrugged. Jonathan got the feeling that the guy might be enjoying this opportunity to make the blogger look dumb.

“About three times the size of the Egyptian forces. And the Caliph’s aces Bahir of the Scimitar and the Righteous Djinn,” the reporter said. “The Caliph says that this kind of Western adventurism is a threat to all sovereign nations of the world, and that your defense of terrorists places you in violation of international law. The Caliph also says he’s taken the secretary-general of the United Nations into protective custody to prevent his being attacked by the citizens of Cairo who are outraged by his apparent support of your cause.”

“Ah,” Jonathan said. “Huh.”

“Do you have a response to that?”

Jonathan blinked into the lights. He wished Fortune was nearby; they needed to talk. They all needed to talk. A lot. And right now.

“Jonathan,” the reporter said. “This is your chance to make a response.”

“Oops?” Jonathan suggested.

The world roared around Joker Plague: a barrage from the stage amplifiers; the black boxes of monitors taking the roar and hurling it back; the massive cliff-wall ramparts of the sound system thundering to either side of the stage; the crowd screaming; slap-back from the rear walls of the auditorium a second assault; the insistent rhythm of the song a hammer pounding at them.