Inside Straight

"That's the funny thing," Jonathan said. "It really isn't. Get over here as soon as you can."

He hung up before Fortune could say anything else, and tossed the cell back to Simoon. She didn't look pleased.

"Hey!" Blrr said from the doorway. "We're going to make some popcorn and watch some TV. You guys want to come?"

Simoon hesitated, her gaze shifting from Jonathan to Blrr and back.

"Nah," Simoon said. "Next time. Bugsy and I are in the middle of something."

Blrr looked mildly surprised.

"Nothing like that," Jonathan said.

"Yeah, didn't figure," Blrr said, and vanished.

"You shouldn't have called him," Simoon said. "That was supposed to be just between you and me."

"I know what I'm doing," Jonathan said with a grin. "You'll thank me for this later."

Looking for Jetboy

Michael Cassutt

IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE a game. Reality TV, the teams segregated into separate headquarters, each location infested with cameras, with competition limited to challenges. Dramatic, yes. Tears and threats, sure. But it's all staged. . . .

Yet two hands appear on the railing of the deck of the Clubs Lair. Then two more, and two more after that, and Jamal Norwood knows that Drummer Boy is here, all seven and a half feet of tattooed attitude. Why?

"It's all part of the game, Stuntman."

"It's against the rules."

"The only rule is, there are no rules."

Jamal, aka Stuntman, can take Drummer Boy—more precisely, can take whatever Drummer dishes—if he had any desire to endure bounce-back so soon after the last American Hero challenge. Instead he tries to rise from the deck chair to retreat. But he is paralyzed, as if he has just slammed into concrete from a great height.

Drummer Boy passes by, his footsteps heavy on the cedar deck.

Then Jamal hears the buzzing, sees the greenish cloud in his peripheral vision. Hive is attacking, too. This must be some joke attack, some mystery challenge, Hearts against Clubs, with the Discards thrown in for good measure. Jamal tries to turn, to see the cameras, but is still frozen.

Hive's voice speaks from the cloud. "We're not after you, Stuntman. We want him." Weird; Jamal didn't know Hive could talk in this mode.

Jamal can already feel the fluttering at his back—Brave Hawk swooping overhead from behind, like a bird of prey.

Or, rather, prey itself. Hive's cloud envelopes him, forcing the winged Apache to flutter to a stop . . . long enough for Drummer to grab him with his upper arms, hold him fast with the middle pair, and start jabbing him with the lower. Brave Hawk struggles, but no one can stand up to a Drummer Boy solo, especially with Hive swarming and stinging. Jamal hears the crunch and crack of broken bones, the agonized groans. Why is this happening? Where are the goddamn producers?

Miraculously, even though he is blinded by his own blood, his ribs visibly broken, Brave Hawk frees himself, unleashing a kick that staggers even the giant Drummer Boy. The winged Apache climbs up the railing of the deck, about to launch himself across the arroyo when he staggers and falls forward.

A bloodied baseball rolls to Jamal's chair. "Got him!" Curveball, the snot-nosed kid whose only talent is throwing things, smirks at the edge of the deck. "Hey, Stuntman, you used to play ball—catch this!" Curveball raises her arm, about to fire again. But Jamal can't move! Curveball's arm whips forward and the deadly ball fills his vision.

"You're going down, Stuntman."

Jamal blinks. There is no ball. No invasion by rogue members of Hearts. Just Brave Hawk standing to his left, his fake wings obscuring the sun rising over the Santa Monica Mountains.

A stupid bounceback dream.

"Thanks for the vote of confidence." Jamal doesn't like Brave Hawk. He would have enjoyed seeing him beaten up by Drummer Boy and Hive, his head crushed by a superhot Curveball missile.

"Look at yourself. How long have you been out here?"

"Since last night."

"When there's a perfectly good bed inside. Bad sign, my friend."

Jamal could easily explain bounceback, the need for his body to thrash itself back into shape after being crushed by a safe that had become the object of an underwater tug-of-war between two aces. Not only would he have torn up the bed, he would have literally been bouncing off the walls. Tough on the room, even tougher on the rest of the Clubs who were trying to recover from their lackluster performance.

No, it was better for Jamal Norwood to bounceback in the open, even if it meant chills, bug bites, and hallucinatory dreams.

"What's this?" Brave Hawk bends to pick up a paperback dropped next to Jamal's chair. "Helter Skelter?" Clearly the Apache has never heard the title. "You're sulking out here, killing time reading. Going. Down."

Jamal stands for the first time in hours. Stretches. It feels so good it's almost orgasmic. "So let me go. Why do you care?"

"A, I'm your teammate. So I need you." One of the many things Jamal finds annoying about Brave Hawk is his tendency to state the obvious—and to break it into handy categories, as if his listeners were terminally stupid. "B, I have a proposal."

"A," Jamal says, knowing Brave Hawk will miss the sarcasm, "our team is one bad challenge from being broken into spare parts. We are not competitive, so get used to it. And B, I can't imagine what kind of proposal would interest me." To make sure Brave Hawk notes his indifference, Jamal searches for the large drinking glass he left under the chair. Bounce-back always leaves him thirsty.

"We need to team up."

There's the glass. Empty.

Now Jamal sees that the ever-present camera crew of three, led by crazy Art the producer, with silent Diaz the operator, has followed Brave Hawk onto the deck. All of them are yawning, resentful of the early call. "You guys need a beverage?"

"No, no, that's okay," Art says, flapping his hands nervously. Jamal has already noted Art's terror at any violation of the fourth wall—the entirely fictitious notion that these wild cards are really conspiring, flirting, or fighting together unobserved. "Just pretend we're not here."

"Too late, Art," Jamal says. But he turns back to Brave Hawk and tries to act. God knows he's had practice. But now the brave Apache has everyone on hold while he talks on his cell phone.

The Clubs Lair sits near the spine of Mulholland Drive, surrounded by dry pines and junipers that in this hot, dry season require nothing more than a discarded match and the kiss of the Santa Ana winds to explode into flame. It hasn't happened here, yet some part of Los Angeles is on fire. Jamal can smell the smoke in the air. He coughs frequently. The pages of the paperback book blur as his eyes water.

Bounceback complete, he could go back inside the house. But he would rather bear discomfort here on the hardwood deck than share space with the other Clubs at this moment—not to mention the camera crews.

Besides, he is an L.A. native: the curves, drops, and hidden mansions of Mulholland are as familiar and comforting as well-worn sneakers. He knows, for example, that the A frame to the west belongs to a notorious Hollywood detective named after a dead musician. That the estate below him—its pool still shadowed by the hills—was where a former governor used to party with pool boys while publicly dating female rock stars.

For all its rugged beauty, the setting is anything but peacefuclass="underline" the smoke, the glare, the accumulation of irritants can make the most easygoing man turn violent.

Brave Hawk finishes his call. "My girlfriend," he announces, as if Jamal could possibly care. "She's been reading the blogs and sees other alliances being formed. She says we need to team up, too."

"Wise up, Cochise. All this game strategy stuff is that asshole Berman doing some 'viral promotion'." Michael Berman is the network executive for American Hero. Jamal has seen the Armani-clad dungeon master lurking at every audition, prep meeting, challenge announcement . . . seldom speaking, but clearly more in charge than the actual producers. "And what is 'everything'? Is she seeing who's going to win? What the next challenge is going to be? If your gal pal has that, let me know."