Dutton didn't even blink. But then Dutton had to face his own living death's-head face in the mirror every single day.
"Dutton," Oddity gated out. Even the voice was harsh and shattered, like some B-movie creature. "It just hurts so much…"
Evan could feel moisture on the ruined cheeks. The left hand (Patty's entirely, now), came up and brushed at it.
"I know it does," the owner of the Dime Museum said. "I know and I sympathize. But I don't think you really believe this is the way. May I have my weapon back, please." The cadaverous joker held out his hand.
Oddity looked at the gun once more. Evan hesitated, playing with the control of the shifting, powerful muscles. He could still bring the gun up, place the muzzle against Oddity's horrific, deformed temple, and do it. He could. Patty tried to force him to give the gun to Dutton. Evan continued to hold it, though it remained at Oddity's side. Dutton shrugged.
"I saw the Atlanta diorama this evening," he said. "It's excellent work, especially what you did with the Hartmann figure. I like the hands even more than the face, the way the fingers grip the podium even though Hartmann's ignoring the carnage behind him. They lend a tension to the entire scene."
The hand that was Patty's twitched involuntarily. An elbow tore from Oddity's chest, ripping muscles and prodding the front of the cloak before subsiding again. "They broke him," Oddity's grating, slow voice declared. "They conspired against him. It wasn't the senator's fault. He wanted to help. He cared, he was just… fragile, and they knew it. They did what they had to do to break him."
"Who, Evan?"
"I don't know!" Oddity's muscular arm swung wide. Dutton took a half step backward. A blow from that hand could kill. "Barnett, maybe. That Judas Tachyon, certainly."
"Maybe some conspiracy of the right-wing joker haters. I don't know. But they brought the senator down."
The gun beat against Oddity's thigh again. Dutton watched it. "There's nothing but pain, Dutton," Evan continued. "Every damn joker's life is nothing but unrelieved, bitter blackness. Jokertown bleeds and there's nothing and no one to bind the wounds. I-we-hate it."
"You're one of the few who have done any good, Evan-you and Patty and John."
Oddity gave a short, ironic laugh. "Yeah. We've done a lot of good." The weapon's barrel glinted as Oddity started to bring it up again, then let it drop once more. "Is this what Patty wants, or John?"
Oddity snorted. A glob of mucus spat from one nostril onto its cheek. "John's a martyr. He's almost delighted that Oddity suffers, since it makes us such a fucking noble figure. And Patty"-Oddity's voice softened, and the mouth almost seemed to smile for a moment "Patty holds on to hope. Maybe Tachyon will find a cure in between his sabotage of the jokers he claims to love. Maybe the virus will go into remission. Maybe there'll be another secondary outbreak like Croyd's to pull us apart again."
Oddity seemed to laugh, but there was no amusement in the sound at all. The gun beat against the heavy cloth of Oddity's thigh.
"It's all bullshit, Dutton. You know what the trouble is? There aren't any happy endings in Jokertown. No happy endings at all."
Oddity shuddered. The huge, misshapen figure brought the cowl up over the face before bending down to retrieve the fencing mask. Oddity placed the mask over its face and stared at the Jetboy diorama.
"It all started here. The hero's supposed to win. What a shame. What a horrible, awful shame."
Oddity seemed to notice the gun once more. The hand came up, held the weapon before the fencing mask. "I didn't finish Hartmann's figure," Evan said.
"He can wait. I've been contacted by a source who claims to have Carnifex's actual fighting suit from that night. If I can buy it…" Dutton shrugged.
"You're ghoulish, Dutton."
Dutton almost smiled. "So is the public."
"A ghoul and a cynic," Oddity said, and its voice was higher and less raspy.
The hand holding the gun trembled, then reversed its grip. "Charles…"
Dutton reached with a thin, bony hand and placed the gun in his suit pocket.
"Thanks, Patty," he said. "Where's Evan?"
"Passive," Oddity replied. "We'll keep him down there for a few days if we can. He's tired, Charles, very tired." Shapes humped along Oddity's back and a soft moan came from behind the mask. Then Oddity sighed. "All of us are tired. But thank you for listening and for helping."
"I didn't want to lose my artist."
Oddity gave a dry, rasping chuckle. "I know better. And I think it's time to go. Evan probably won't be back for a while."
Shadows flowed over the black cloak as Oddity turned to leave.
"Patty?"
Steel mesh glinted; the head looked back to Dutton but they didn't speak. Oddity lurched heavily away. Dutton watched until she/it/they (Dutton was never sure which pronoun was appropriate) closed the door of the rear entrance. The joker looked back at the Jetboy exhibit, brilliant in the darkness.
"They're right, you know," he told Jetboy. "You were supposed to win and you fucked up."
Dutton turned off the exhibit's lights with a savage swipe of his hand and went back to his office.
He locked the gun in the museum safe.
It was a cool night for May. Oddity's heavy, black ankle-length velvet cloak was comfortable. A cold front had swept the late-spring humidity and smog out to sea.
The air was crisp and crystalline. Patty could see the light of the Manhattan towers between the older, lower, and far grubbier buildings of Jokertown.
May 14, 1973, had been a gorgeous night as well, in its own way.
Patty sighed with the orgasm, her eyes closed. "Yes…" Evan whispered in her ear, and John laughed in satisfaction, lower down. When the long, shuddering climax had passed, Patty hugged both of them to her.
"God, you two are lovely." Then, giggling, she flung
Evan aside and bounded from the bed. Naked, she padded across the room and flung open the doors to the balcony. A breeze lifted her hair, fragrant with a warm, sweet-tasting rain that was scrubbing the city clean. Twenty floors below, New York spread out in noisy brilliance. Patty opened her arms wide and let the night and the elements take her, joyous. Droplets shimmered like crystal in her hair, on her skin.
"Jesus, Patty, anyone could see us…" John came up behind her, also naked, hugging her. Evan stroked the two of them in passing and went to the railing. "It's wonder ful," he said. "Who cares what they see, John. We're happy."
Evan smiled at them all. They melded into a long triple embrace, kissing and touching as the rain slicked their bodies. When it seemed to be time, they went back inside and made love again…
They'd gone to sleep that night, but they'd never awakened. Not really. It was Oddity who had opened its eyes on the fifteenth. Oddity, the horror. Oddity, the wild card's mockery of their relationship. Oddity, the torturer. Gone forever were a social worker named Patty, a rising black artist named Evan, and an angry young lawyer named John. Like a thousand jokers before them, they disappeared into the warrens of Jokertown.
Oddity looked at the brilliant concrete spires of Manhattan and moaned, as much from the memory as the physical pain.
[At least in Jokertown it's harder to feel sorry for yourself, when every day we see the other horrors, the ones who are helpless. Oddity's body has strength to match that of the aces.] John.
[Bull shit, it's all bullshit rationalization…] Evan screamed back, down below. [It hurts, it hurts…] [Rest,] Patty told Evan. [Rest for a few days while you can. We'll be needing you to take over again soon enough.] John scoffed. [I'm not rationalizing. It's the truth-in Jokertown Oddity can do some good.] John especially seemed to enjoy the role of vigilante. Oddity: protector of jokers, the strong right arm of Hartmann.
Hartmann's defeat still hurt. John especially throbbed with bitterness. But John was strong; Evan wasn't. Patty sent her thoughts down to him.
[I understand, Evan. John does, too, when he takes the time to think about it. We understand. We do. We love
you, Evan.]
[Thank you, I love you, too, Patty…] Evan could have said it only to Patty, but he left himself open to both of them, deliberately.
John was surly; Patty knew he'd noted Evan's intentional snub. [He has a hell of a way of showing his affection, doesn't he?]
[John, please… Evan needs the rest more than us. Have some compassion.]
[Compassion, hell. He almost killed us. I'm not ready to die, Patty. I don't give a shit how much it hurts.] [Evan doesn't really want to die either, or he would have gone ahead. I couldn't have stopped him, John. This was a gesture, a plea. He wants to be free of it. Sixteen years is a long time to be in a room you can't leave. I can't blame him for feeling that way.]
[He's come to hate me, Patty.]
[No.] But that was all she said. John scoffed at her. "Y'know, if you ignore the fact that there's three of us, we're almost staid," John said one night as they lay on the couch, sipping at glasses of cabernet. "We don't swing, we don't sleep with other people. Within the triangle, we're as monogamous and conservative as some married couple in Podunk, Iowa."
"You complaining, John?" Patty teased him, running a finger along his upper thigh and watching what that did to his face. "You getting tired of us?"
John groaned, and they all three laughed. "No," he said. "I don't think that's ever going to happen."
[Okay, maybe "hate" is a little strong,] John said. [But he doesn't love me or like me anymore. Not for a long time. Do you, Evan?]
[Damn egoist, no, I want out, I just want to be alone…] Then, the barest echo: [John I'm sorry I'm sorry…] [This might have happened anyway,] Patty said to both of them. [Even without Oddity. Those were different times. Different moralities than now.]
[Sure. But there's no divorce from Oddity, is there?] [Which is all the more reason we all need empathy and understanding-all of us.]
[You always were the goddamn saint, Patty] [Fuck you, John.]
[I wish I could, Patty. God, I wish I could.]
Jokertown had always been a night town.
A little past midnight, the main Jokertown streets were still busy. Darkness hid or amplified deformities as needed. Night was the best mask of all.
Not many nats traveled to J-town in the last several months. Tourism was something done in daytime, if at all. The streets had become too unfashionably dangerous.
At night, Jokertown was left alone like a bad dream. Still, the locals were out and Oddity decided to keep to the plentiful back alleys. John might find some small enjoyment in being public, in the respect and sometimes outright adulation of the jokers, but Patty didn't. Patty could forgive John's egotism-it was little enough balm for the pain-but she didn't need it or want it herself, especially not tonight.
They were a few blocks from the ruins of the Crystal Palace, in the back alley where Gimli's inexplicably empty skin had been found. The Oddity stared at the stained concrete where Tom Miller's body had lain: another death, another nameless violence. Patty was certain Gimli had been assassinated by a rogue ace, Evan thought that maybe Gimli had been an early victim of the Croyd outbreak, John (always the skeptic) thought maybe Hartmann had arranged it. [And good riddance, too,] John added in counterpoint to Patty's thought.
The Oddity shuffled on, limping because one leg seemed to be mostly Patty's and was attached at a decided angle to the hip. Moving it hurt like hell. The Oddity moaned and moved on.
"Shit, man. She's just a toy. Ain't worth wasting time on taking."
"Yeah, but that cunt'd be nice and tight, wouldn't it?" Voices stopped suddenly as the Oddity turned a corner into another alley. There were three of them, all male, none of them looking more than sixteen or seventeen and dressed in grimy leathers. One was prepubescent and childlike; another had a blotchy face peppered with angry blackhead acne. But it was the kid in the_ middle that made Oddity hesitate for a moment. He was tall and fair-skinned. Under the torn leathers and dirty Levi's he had a fighter's body, lean and hard-muscled. The youth was handsome in a feral way, with intense light eyes half-hidden behind straggling blond bangs. He was almost pretty, until they noticed the bloodshot eyes and the fidgety restlessness. The kid was pumped up, high and dangerous.
The joker Oddity knew as Barbie was sobbing on the ground between the three-a perfectly formed woman with adult features but barely two feet tall. Her face was caught in a perpetual smile. She saw Oddity; her mouth grinned incongruously, but the blue china eyes were pleading.
A quick anger raged through John; Patty could feel its red heat. "Hey!" Oddity shouted, their huge fists knotting. "Leave her the hell alone!"
"Shit," Pimpleface said. "You gonna let a fucking joker talk to us like that, David? Maybe it'd be fun, too. Big enough, ain't it? Maybe it's strong, too."
The leader-David-regarded the Oddity, hands on hips. Patty felt John trying to take control. [Just charge the bastards. Beat the kid's head in before he decides to move.]
Patty didn't need much encouragement. Oddity moved, roaring and lumbering toward the trio like a banshee. The gang suddenly flashed steel. Seeing the knives, Oddity screamed and tore a No PARKING sign from the asphalt. They swung the pole like a flail, it made a deep rumble as it whipped through the air.
There was nothing subtle about their attack. The massive body plowed into the gang like a careening truck. The sign caught Pimpleface and slammed him back against a wall; whipping it around again, they held the other two back. "Get out of here! Now!" Oddity barked at Barbie. The doll-like joker struggled to her feet. She ran, taking staggering, tiny baby steps.
Oddity spun to find David, figuring that if they took out the leader, the others would crumple. They launched themselves at the leering kid.
They were far too late. David's body slumped as if struck. Blackhead caught him before he fell.
[Patty…?]
At the same moment John and Evan felt Patty's presence ripped away from the Oddity. In place of her was someone cool, sinister, and smug: David. For just a second he was Dominant, crowing his triumph inwardly. Then the pain hit him.
Oddity screamed, loud and long and tormented. The sign and the twisted pole dropped from their hands, clanging on the pavement like an alarm.
John and Evan had had sixteen years to learn the neural mazes of Oddity's odd group mind. They knew all too well the searing agony that assaulted this intruder. Their shared response was almost instinctive: John sent his will surging to the high place they thought of as Dominant, pushing aside the screaming, frightened ego of David.
(Hands grasped at Oddity and a blade ripped cloth: Blackhead, attacking again after shaking off the first blow. Intent on the interior struggle, Oddity simply howled and flung the punk aside once more. The voices of reality seemed to be distant. "Goddamn, something's happened, man. David's screaming. Shit!"
"Fuck, it's gone wrong, it's gone wrong.."
Blackhead grabbed at their sleeve. Oddity roared and whirled; he heard a body fall hard on the concrete. ("The fucker's too strong! Grab David's body. Let's get back to the Rox.")
They knew it was wrong, John and Evan. "Patty!" they cried together, and the fury gave John enough mental strength to snatch the screaming David from control of Oddity's mind.
As John threw the jumper from the mental ramparts, Evan attempted to slide from Passive to Sub-Dominant. That was more difficult. David could feel himself losing control, and as Oddity's pain became more distant, his will began to assert itself once more.
For a moment both Evan's and David's minds were entirely open to each other as they moved, caught somewhere in the limbo between Passive and Sub-Dominant. Evan knew David in that instant, and he hated the mind he encountered. He could feel the jumper snatching at his emotions, his thoughts, his memories, and the feeling of violation gave Evan the power to throw David down again.
Evan screamed with David, thrusting himself past until the jumper tumbled down to helpless Passive. [John?]
[I've got Oddity, Evan. Just keep that bastard down in Passive.]
Oddity looked around. "Shit. Shit!"
The kids were gone. They couldn't even hear the sound of their retreating footsteps. The interior battle might have taken minutes-it was impossible to tell.
[Patty?] Evan queried softly, hopefully, into the matrix of Oddity.
There was no answer but soft, mocking laughter from Passive.
Oddity howled in the darkness of the alley.
She didn't hurt. That was the first thing she noticed. For sixteen years there had been constant pain. For sixteen years there had been tearing agony as ligaments shifted, muscles were stretched to their limit, and bones scraped against each other in the cage of Oddity's flesh. She didn't hurt. And she was alone.
There were the six or seven kids-nats, as far as she could tell-in the filthy room with her, but she was alone in a single body.
The others were arguing, but she paid little attention to the words.
"Hey, man, what you're describing is the Oddity. So the Oddity took David. He's gone, man."
"You don't mean that, Molly."
" I don't? Well, he sure couldn't control the fucker, could he?"
"If David's gone, everything's up for grabs. And there's gonna be some people who like that idea. You remember that, Molly. In fact, I'll bet you're thinking the same, too." There was rough laughter, footsteps, a slamming door.
The voices were outside. There were no voices in Patty's head.
[Evan? John?] No answer-only silence and her own thoughts.
Patty brought her hands up to her face and marveled. "Shit, she ain't supposed to be able to do that." Blackhead stared at her with an expression caught somewhere between fear and hatred on his pimply face. Patty ignored him, concentrating on the hands and wiggling the fingers, turning them around to see the calluses.