Inside Straight

Daniel Abraham Jonathan Hive

Better than television

“ST—hic—OP THAT!” Joe Twitch yelled.

“It’s not me,” Spasm said with his shit-eating frat boy grin.

“Seriously, just because I can do that doesn’t mean every time you get the hiccups, it’s because of me.”

“Bu—hic—llshit,” Twitch said, pointing an accusing finger at the newcomer. The camera crew was eating the whole thing up with a spoon. “Just be—hic—cause you think I moved your—hic—junk out of that room hic …”

The new round of losers had arrived that afternoon—Blrr, who was probably as fast or faster than Twitch, but only when she was wearing her rollerblades; Spasm, who had taken the bedroom across from Joe, only to find his things transported to a smaller, more distant room (to leave the first room available for one of the women, it was assumed); and Simoon, the girl who could become a dust storm. It was just an hour past dinner, and things had already devolved into a shouting match.

Jonathan was secretly pleased. Another few days with just King Cobalt and Joe Twitch, and he would have lost his mind.

Plus which, Simoon had taken the bedroom across from his.

Jonathan sat on a couch in his bedroom, trying to avoid his fellow inmates. He could hear the argument between Twitch and Spasm coming in from the hall. In the front room, the television was yammering on about events in Egypt; antijoker rioting was causing problems, the Egyptian army was threatening to impose a curfew, and the new UN Secretary-General was using the whole thing as an opportunity to show he could handle the job. There was a special report coming up on how the new Caliph, Abdul, had ordered all his brothers strangled, and whether that was going to be a stabilizing move politically, just in time for a switch to Entertainment Tonight. King Cobalt was obsessive about watching the entertainment news on the show. Blrr was probably going around the block for the three thousandth time that hour. And Jonathan just sat there, staring off into space. He had his arms folded so that no one was likely to notice that his right thumb was missing, small green wasps crawling over his skin where it used to be.

His attention, you could say, was elsewhere.

~ ~ ~

The beach wasn’t empty, even at night, but it was close. There were only a few college-age kids down by the pier, an old lady walking a dachshund with a frilly pink leash, and Drummer Boy sitting near the water with his middle pair of arms propping him up and his upper and lower pairs wrapped gently around someone. The wasp, bright green in daylight, was hard to see by the moon; the sound of its wings was muffled by the surf. So it could get in pretty close.

“We probably shouldn’t be here. You know. Like this,” she said. “We’re enemies, after all.”

Jonathan recognized the voice: the woman from Team Spades who pulled cards from a Mexican tarot deck and got a different power with each draw. Rosa Loteria. That was her name.

“Whatever,” Drummer Boy said. “It’s just a game.”

“I guess,” Rosa said. “They’re going to get rid of me. So then it won’t matter, right?”

“Why do you think they’d lose you?”

“They don’t like me,” she said. “Especially Cleopatra. She finds out I’m out with you …”

“Who? Pop Tart? She won’t care,” Drummer Boy said. “That’s over.”

“I thought maybe,” Rosa said. “I’m sorry about that.”

Ah, Jonathan thought. The oh-poor-you approach. Ham-handed as seduction techniques go, but it wasn’t like Drummer Boy was what you’d call a difficult lay. Still, the man was quiet for long enough that Jonathan and Rosa both started rethinking her tactics.“Why did you do it?” she asked. She traced the ink on one of his arms with her fingertips. “Get on the show, I mean.”

“I thought, you know, if I won… I thought maybe I could make a difference. You know, really do something.”

Oh puh-leeze! Jonathan thought, but Rosa shifted around in the cage of Drummer Boy’s arms. Her face tilted up to gaze into his eyes. The hush of the waves almost drowned out her words.

“You don’t need this. You can make a difference now.”

He kissed her. Because of course he did.

“It’s not like that,” Drummer Boy said. “The band… the band’s great. They’re really great guys. And we’ve cranked out some wicked shit. It’s just that I thought this would be a way to, you know, talk about the music. What it does. What it means.”

Rosa kissed him again, so the negotiation was going pretty well so far. Back at the Discard Pile, Jonathan propped his legs up on the couch. From here on in, things were going to get predictable.