Busted Flush

“I was born here,” she said. “In 1988. The city was Kinshasa then. My father was a clerk with the Ministry of Transportation. My mother was a schoolteacher. We were good Catholics. Our life was good despite political upheavals and outbreaks of violence; they were worse in the countryside.”

She smiled. “We welcomed it when Dr. Nshombo and his . . . war leader took power, united the Democratic Republic with our neighbors the Republic of the Congo, and combined Kinshasa with Brazzaville into Kongoville. It brought peace and stability at last.”

The journalist smiled and nodded. Dolores was a child of a mass-media generation; her family had satellite TV. She understood the smile was purely professional. Yet she couldn’t help responding to it.

“You did something remarkable yesterday, taking that poor child’s injuries on yourself. They tell me both you and he will heal with astonishing rapidity—that you’ll actually regenerate the severed limbs. Is that true?”

“Yes. Already my arms grow back. They—they itch terribly. I wish I could scratch.”

She laughed. She did not mention how badly she still hurt. Laughter gave blessed if temporary relief.

“You’re an ace.”

“Yes.”

“When did you turn your ace?”

“I was a student nurse at Liberation University. I was given . . . a test.”

Dolores bit her lip. The Ministry of Information woman had coached her carefully. She hoped she’d get her lines right. Mistakes cost. It was part of the price of order.

“So it revealed your ace.”

“Yes.”

No. But the true nature of the facility she had been taken to, far out in the bush, was a state secret. And if she mentioned the experimental injection she and the others received there . . . even her sudden heroine status wouldn’t save her.

“Once they found out I had an active wild card I was taken to a special school for wild cards. They gave me more tests.”

And I failed them. The memory still brought on a cold sweat. Those who manifested no useful ace powers met the same fate as jokers and deuces. And the black queens, for that matter. They were taken away. What happened then no one knew.

If they guessed, no one dared whisper. Those who spoke too candidly also disappeared.

“There was an accident on the training ground,” she said. “A young man, Pierre, was terribly burned by a new ace who didn’t know how to control his power. They brought him in as I was being taken out.”

To meet my own fate. The State had lost patience with her. She knew the survival of the People’s Paradise in the face of imperialist hate and envy required harsh measures. But she feared death.

Almost as much as she feared pain.

“As he was rushed past on a gurney, I—I felt as if I had caught fire. I fell down screaming. My flesh blistered. Actually charred.”

“How terrible.”

“The pain was—unbelievable.” She blinked away tears of remembrance. It was never easy; but that was still the worst. “My injuries exactly mirrored Pierre’s. And we both healed totally within a few days.”

The reporter shook her head. “So you actually experience it all? The wounds, the pain?”

“Oh, yes.”

“You are an exceptional young woman.”

“I’m just a normal girl. I don’t mean to be a heroine.”

“But to walk up to that poor Ijaw boy, knowing what would happen to you—where did you find the courage?”

“It’s my gift.” My cross. “Because I can do this, I feel I—can’t not.”

The reporter nodded. Clearly she had what she needed.

“Thank you, Dolores,” she said. “I can well see why they call you the Angel of Mercy.”

Dolores made herself smile and nod. That, too, was duty. But the Ministry had hung that name on her.

What people really called her was Our Lady of Pain.

“I’m John Fortune,” said the kid with the lump in his forehead, shaking Tom Weathers’s hand.

No shit, Tom thought, glancing once at the bump and then forgetting it. What meant something to him was the presence of a class enemy. Even if he hadn’t known Fortune was a celebrity brat he’d take him for a rich kid. He squeaked with privilege.

Worse, he was Establishment all the way. Head of the Committee. In tight with UN boss Jayewardene. The Man, junior fucking varsity.

President Dr. Nshombo stood there, grave and graven in the cool dark room in his palace depths with all the monitors in it, to ensure this first meeting between the UN aces and his field marshal went smoothly. Tom would keep his personal feelings in check. Basic revolutionary discipline.

“Yeah,” he said.

The guy flashed his eyes at him. For a moment Tom thought he might take a swing at him. But no such luck.

An image of a different John Fortune flashed through his mind: a little boy, clutching the hand of his slim, beautiful mother with her wings folded at her back. He hadn’t had the lump in his forehead then. . . .

Tom shut his eyes and shook his head once, quickly. Not my memory, he thought. That dude’s dead.