Hardhat—aka Todd “T.T.” Taszycki. Lest we be accused of not having some good old salt-of-the-earth, blue-collar types, there’s Todd. A lifelong construction worker, Todd can create temporary girders with his mind. I’m not sure how he’s going to play on the tube, since I haven’t heard him speak a single sentence yet that was fit for broadcast. Anyone who thinks of the network as “a damn friendly bunch of cocksuckers” is okay by me. (Hey, Kenny, can we say “cocksuckers” on the Internet?)
Gardener—aka Jerusha Carter. She plants things. They grow. Gardener, get it?
And, of course, myself.
Now for the predictions:
First one out is going to be Gardener. Be serious.
“Stop, foul villain, or I shall carpet your lawn with giant daffodils!” How useful is that?
Drummer Boy is also going to be out within the first round or two. The guy’s a rock star. One little thing to tweak his ego, and he’s outta here.
And for evil team dynamics, keep your eye on Earth Witch versus Curveball. Earth Witch isn’t the kind of girl that gets asked out to the dance, and Curveball… well, like the poet said, everyone has a secret hatred for the prettiest girl in the room.
There’s gonna be blood. Count on it.
80 COMMENTS | POST COMMENT
FROM THE DESK OF
REBECCA LIEBERMAN
from: Becca
to: Michael Berman
re: American Hero promo copy
Hey, Mike.
Here’s the promotional copy and head shots for the American Hero print campaign, for your approval. Please get your tweaks and changes back to me by the 17th. Thanks. (There’s two head shots for Tiffani, you’ll notice, one normal and one where she’s gone diamond. Let me know which one you want to use. Oh, and Alan wants to tint Toad Man green in his head shot, though it’s my understanding that he’s only green as a toad. What do you say?)
There will be four broadsheets, one for each team. We’ll be slapping them on buses in the top twenty media markets, as well as the El in Chicago, the NYC subway, and most major airports. We’ll also be using them as full-page ads in People, Us, Entertainment Weekly, Daily Variety, Hollywood Reporter, Aces, TV Guide, Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair, Parade, and assorted Sunday supplements. If Drummer Boy survives the first few cuts and makes a good run, I might be able to get him the cover of Rolling Stone as well.
We’re also planning a major giveaway of promotional T-shirts the week that AH premieres. Each shirt will have the picture of a contestant on the front, with the team slogan and emblem on the back. The idea is one to a customer, so we can track the demand and get a better idea which contestants are most popular. And the deal with Burger King’s about to close, so we’ll also have a line of special promotional cups. Be the first kid on your block to collect all twenty-eight. We’ll be tracking those, too.
Plus, we’re lining up some regional media in the home markets of each contestant—print features, local television, etc. When the time is right, Maxim and Playboy have both expressed interest in doing photo spreads on some of our female contestants. Maxim has Jade Blossom at the top of their list, but Hef wants Curveball. Must be that whole girl-next-door thing. Maybe you could have Peregrine talk to her. Playboy worked for Peri once upon a time. I think my father still has the centerfold hanging in the garage. (No one seems to want Toad Man or Holy Roller to take off their clothes, can’t think why.) So, take a look and shoot these back to me ASAP.
luv,
Becca
HELP IS WHERE THE HEARTS ARE.
ANA delves deep. Stone and soil, clay and sand, they’re all putty in her hands. She’s the
EARTH WITCH!
Ana Cortez
Las Vegas, New Mexico
KATE’s the all-American girl with the all-American arm. She’ll zip it past you or throw it through you. Nobody can hit
CURVEBALL!
Kathleen Brandt
Portland, Oregon
MIKE’s large, he’s loud, he’s pierced, he has six arms and attitude to spare. He’ll rock you and he’ll roll you. Let’s hear it for
DRUMMER BOY!
Michael Vogali
On Tour, the World
Keep your green thumb, JERUSHA has ten green fingers. Mighty oaks spring up from tiny acorns at her command. Here she is, the
GARDENER!
Jerusha Carter
Jackson Hole, Wyoming
JONATHAN bugs out at the first sign of trouble, but he still packs a nasty sting. He’s
JONATHAN HIVE!
Jonathan Tipton-Clarke
Washington, D.C.
T.T. walks the high steel and builds them strong and straight. He’s tough, he’s tall, and he takes no crap off nobody. He’s HARDHAT!
Todd “T.T.” Taszycki
Chicago, Illinois
Seeing isn’t believing when ANDREW is around, so best not believe your eyes or your ears or your nose. Only the tail is real with
WILD FOX!
Andrew Yamauchi
Fresno, California
WHO WILL BE THE NEW AMERICAN HERO?
EVERYONE WANTS TO BELONG TO THE CLUBS!
BUFORD hails from down the swamp. Some say he’s just a good ol’ boy, but he’s got him one mean tongue. Folks go green when they see
TOAD MAN!
Buford Calhoun
Loxahatchee, Florida
JAMAL takes a licking and keeps on ticking. Shoot him, stab him, burn him, and he’ll be back for more. No one can stop the
STUNTMAN!
Jamal Norwood
Inglewood, California
The best-laid plans develop hiccups when PAUL’s around. He makes men cry “Gesundheit,” and women cry “Oh, yes, oh, yes, oh, yes!”
SPASM!
Paul Blackwell
Denver, Colorado
PEARL knows all the secrets of the sea, and speaks the language of the dolphins and the whales. Go deep with
DIVER!
Pearl Olsen
Honolulu, Hawaii
TOM soars above his ancient lands on proud, strong wings, watching, guarding, remembering. Look, up in the sky, it’s
BRAVE HAWK!
Tom Diedrich
Benson, Arizona
HALEY floats like a butterfly and hits like a piledriver. Light as a feather in the wind, hard as a ton of steel, that’s our
JADE BLOSSOM!
Haley Mok
Redondo Beach, California
THADDEUS will knock you down, roll over you, and save your soul. Cry hallelujah, brother, and pray you don’t get in the way of the
HOLY ROLLER!
Rev. Thaddeus Wintergreen
Natchez, Mississippi
WHO WILL BE THE NEW AMERICAN HERO?
TROUBLE COMES IN SPADES.
That girl CLEO gets around. Pop, she’s here, pop, she’s there, pop, she’s just behind you. Watch out for
CLEOPATRA!
Cleonida Simpson
Montgomery, Alabama
RACHEL has the bestest collection of stuffies anywhere. They’re all so soft and cute and cuddly, just like the
DRAGON HUNTRESS!
Rachel Weinstein
Bayonne, New Jersey
An iron man from the Iron Range, WALLY has steel in his fists and a furnace for a heart. Rust never sleeps and neither does
RUSTBELT!
Wally “Rusty” Gunderson
Mountain Iron, Minnesota
The KING is the mystery man from down along the border. Where is he from? What can he do? Who dares to look beneath the mask of
KING COBALT!
Name unknown
Somewhere in California
There’s never a loser when ROSA deals the cards. Diva or demon, snake or lion, even death itself, they’re all in the hands of
ROSA LOTERIA!
Guadelupe Maria del Rosario Garza
East Los Angeles, California
ALI likes to dust things up. The girl has got a little devil in her. From t
he land of Elvis and the Living Gods comes
SIMOON!
Aliyah Malik
Las Vegas, Nevada
JOHN burns bright by day and night in half a hundred hues. Let those who hide in darkness cower, and beware the light of
THE CANDLE!
John Montano
Durango, Colorado
WHO WILL BE THE NEW AMERICAN HERO?
THE DIAMONDS ARE OUR WORLD’S BEST FRIENDS.
MICHELLE is always blowing bubbles, but best not stand too close when they start bursting. She’s
THE AMAZING BUBBLES!
Michelle LaFleur
New York, New York
HOWARD is the man that Jetboy would have been. He’s seen The Jolson Story, but his own tale is just beginning. Make way for
JETMAN!
Howard Hawkwood
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
IVAN is full of surprises. Like Mother Russia, the more you pound on him, the more you have to deal with. He’s
MATRYOSHKA!
Ivan Kazakova
Brighton Beach, New York
MEGAN was dirt-poor growing up, but now she’s learned to shine. A regular diamond in the rough is our
TIFFANI!
Megan McKnee
Boone, West Virginia
JOE be nimble, Joe be quick, Joe can snatch your candlestick. You better bring your best game if you want to go one-on-one with
JOE TWITCH!
Joe Moritz
Baltimore, Maryland
EMILY is the fastest grrl on wheels. Don’t blink, or you’ll miss her whizzing by. There, that’s her, that
BLRR!
Emily Paige
Sunnyvale, California
Don’t you dare call RAJ handicapped. His servants wouldn’t take kindly to it. Step aside and clear a path for
THE MAHARAJAH!
Raj Chaturvedi
Seattle, Washington
WHO WILL BE THE NEW AMERICAN HERO?
Chosen Ones: I
Carrie Vaughn
THE THREE-STORY BROWNSTONE BURNED. Tongues of fire crawled out of every window, waves of heat and clouds of smoke billowed up, choking the nighttime air. Shouts of residents trapped inside sounded over the roar of flames. People leaning out of windows, begging for help, were shadows against a backdrop of red fire. A nearby fire truck sat abandoned. Hoses hadn’t even been hooked to the fire hydrant.
Ana stood on the curb and watched the inferno. Even a dozen yards away, the fire pressed scorching fingers against her face. She drew a breath and coughed at the dry, soot-filled stench. Horror at the sight froze her into inaction. This was too much. This was impossible. They didn’t expect her to actually do anything, did they?
“We don’t have any powers that can handle this,” said Drummer Boy, squinting at the glare of the flames. “Unless somebody here is invincible and forgot to tell anyone.”
The joker Drummer Boy was over seven feet tall and had six arms. All of them were lean, powerful, and covered with tattoos, along with much of his torso—which contained a set of tympanic membranes. He really was his own drum set, and he usually went shirtless to show it off. He managed to stand with all six arms akimbo, hands lined up on his hips. With his shaved head, scowling expression, and firelight glinting off his skin, he seemed like a monster from legend.
Curveball, the pretty nineteen-year-old with a perfect figure and blond ponytail, brimmed with energy. “Let’s stop bitching and do this thing.” She dashed forward, toward the blaze.
She’s crazy, Ana thought, hanging back by the curb.
The others—Hardhat, Gardener, Hive, Wild Fox, and Drummer Boy—followed Curveball. No one got close before the heat drove them back. It came off the building in shimmering walls. The air itself seemed to burn.
Hardhat reached out, seeming for a moment to paint his hand across the air. Along the wall in front of him, a structure appeared: one by one, glowing yellow I beams morphed into existence. They stacked into a scaffold that climbed to a second-story window, where one of the victims leaned out. But he couldn’t convince the guy that the phantom I beams were real and would hold his weight if he climbed onto them.
“Come on, you fucking cock head! Get your sorry fucking ass down here! Jesus Christ!” he hollered. The victim kept shaking his head.
“I’ll get him.” Drummer Boy ran for the scaffold. Using all six arms, he made short work of climbing the beams, and once at the top, braced himself while reaching for the victim. He winced away from a blast of sparks that poured from the window. The sparks, if anything, encouraged the man to take Drummer Boy’s hand and allow himself to be coaxed from the window.
One down, at least. The flames seemed to be climbing higher, and the shouts from within continued. Drummer Boy helped a second victim climb from the window. Two rescued. Maybe this would turn out all right after all.
Ana’s heart was racing, and she was just standing there. She clenched her fists, watching, praying. It was all she could do.
From inside, sounding over the crackle and roar of flames, a baby started crying. The sound was piercing, and jacked the tension to a new level.
Gardener pulled a handful of something from the leather pouch at her belt and flung it toward the building. Seeds. They instantly took root in the concrete and grew at a terrific rate. In minutes, vines sprouted and climbed, sending out leaves and tendrils, anchoring on the brick wall. Following Hardhat’s lead, she used living vines instead of conjured steel.
Before the vines reached the first window, however, they blackened and caught fire. The plants collapsed into ashes.
“Damn,” she muttered.
“You got anything in there that can shoot water?” Wild Fox asked.
“There aren’t any plants that shoot water,” she said, scowling at him.
Meanwhile, Hive rubbed his hands together in preparation of—something. His expression was uncertain, however. “Maybe I can do some scouting. Find out where the people are so we don’t waste any time searching.”
His outline fuzzed. Then, his shirt and pants collapsed, and in his place a swarm of tiny green wasplike insects hovered. The swarm maintained the outline of the man—a disturbing, wavering form, rather than anything with human features—and raised a nebulous, buzzing arm in salute. Then, he scattered. The swarm broke apart, zoomed to the building, and entered through three different windows.
“Is that bastard going to be okay?” Hardhat asked, staring. He’d built a second scaffold by another window and rescued a third victim.
In only a second, almost as quickly as they’d entered the building, the swarm returned, tendrils of insects shooting out of the windows and dropping to the ground. There, they coalesced, crawling together to form the shape of a man, kneeling and naked. “Bugs and smoke… don’t mix,” he managed, coughing.
Wild Fox pointed. “Dude, you know you’re naked?”
Regaining his feet, Hive glared. “Thanks very much. I might have missed that little fact.” With a bout of angry buzzing, his hip region snapped out of existence, to be replaced by a Speedo band of writhing insects. He went to retrieve his clothing.
“I bet the girls love that,” Curveball said, smirking.
He leered. “You could find out.”
“We don’t have time for this.” She drew a pair of marbles out of the pocket of her shorts. Then she wound up for the pitch. She threw with that odd softballer’s pitch, the underhanded swing and snap. The marble flew, faster than a softball, faster than any thrown object had any right to fly. It burned through the air, glowing yellow, before impacting on the front door. The wood shattered with the force of an explosion. She threw the second one at a ground-floor window. The impact left a jagged hole in the side of the house.
“Great,” Hive said, deadpan. “Now we can see the fire even better.” She glared at him.
Exposure to more air only made the flames larger and more ferocious. The baby was still crying.
Curveball turned to Ana. “Earth Wit
ch, you try something. We’ve got to do something.”
Ana shook her head. She wasn’t going to open a hole in the ground just for the sake of doing something and run the risk of undermining the whole building. They hadn’t been too successful so far, but that would take the cake of failures.
She said, “Maybe we could try the fire hose.” Stupid idea, yeah. That didn’t mean they had to stare at her like she was an idiot—like they were doing now.
Curveball and Drummer Boy glanced at each other, then ran to the hose and fire hydrant. They wrestled with it for a minute, without making progress. Buttoning up his shirt, Hive helpfully observed, “I don’t think you’re doing that right.”
“Then you do it, Bugsy!” Drummer Boy said. He dropped the hose, which he’d been hoisting with all six hands.
The heavy nozzle yanked out of Curveball’s grip. “Hey!”
“Shit,” Drummer Boy muttered. “Here, let me try.” Using brute force, he manhandled the nozzle into place and managed to wrench open the valve on the hydrant. The hose filled, writhed, and twisted out of their grip, spraying a sheet of water across the pavement.
“Watch it!” Hive shouted as a tail of the spray caught him.
“Stop standing there and help!” Curveball shot back.
Grabbing hold of the nozzle and pinning it down while Curveball attempted to wrestle with the hose, Drummer Boy muttered, “This is great. This is just great.”
The baby’s crying seemed to get louder.
They managed to maneuver the fire hose in place to spray water at the blazing windows, but by this time the flames were monstrous, engulfing the building. Shouting continued to emanate from within—more people needing rescue. They didn’t have much time, and the minutes dragged painfully.
Then Curveball said, “Oh my God.” She cupped her hands to her face and shouted, “Hardhat! He’s gonna jump! The guy’s jumping!”