Paul Blackwell crossed his arms and regarded them with a satisfied grin.
“Jesus Christ, would you stop that!” Downs shouted. The seizures stopped and the three judges slouched over their table, exhausted.
Topper wiped her nose with a tissue and said angrily, “Mr. Blackwell—”
“I am Spasm!“ the guy said, punching both arms into the air.
“Fine. I think we’ve seen enough of your—I hesitate to even call it an ace—”
“Hold on, not so fast,” Downs said, and Topper rolled her eyes. “Er, Spasm. You say you can do this sort of thing to anyone?”
“Yes, sir!” he said, grinning. “At least, so far.”
The three judges leaned together to confer, and a moment later Spasm left the field, grinning. Downs scratched a note on the paper in front of him. Then the production assistant called, “Sixty-eight! You’re up! Ana Cortez!”
Ana’s heart raced. This was it. Finally. She spotted a guy up in the stands, waving both arms wildly. Roberto, among the spectators. He seemed so happy. The sight of him settled her.
Smoothing her hands on her jeans, she went to face the judges. The three looked so with-it, so assured of themselves. They’d recovered quickly from their encounter with Spasm, and their gazes were almost bored. Who could blame them? Surely they’d seen everything by now.
Downs asked, “What is it you do, Ana?”
She’d said it a hundred times by now. “I dig holes.”
“You dig holes.” His expression was blank.
“Yeah.”
“Well.” He shuffled some papers in front of him. “Let’s see you dig a hole.”
She stood alone at the edge of the field, a hundred yards of green spread before her. She’d never had an audience like this—not since she was little, digging mazes in the playground, when all the neighbors gathered and whispered, brujita, es una brujita de la tierra. This crowd didn’t make a sound. The silence marked thick anticipation.
She closed her eyes so she couldn’t see them.
Kneeling, she touched her medallion, then put her hands on the ground.
Had to be big. Something flashy. The holes she dug for work—nobody could see how far down they went. So she had to do something else. It didn’t need to be precise, no one here was measuring. Turn the hole sideways, and dig it fast.
Now.
Particles moved under her hands, the dirt shifting away from her. The ground rumbled as it might in an earthquake. It vibrated under her, no longer solid, sounding like the soft roar of a distant waterfall. She opened her eyes just as a trench raced away from her. In seconds a cleft opened, splitting the earth to the opposite end zone. A hundred yards. Wide and gaping, it was four feet deep, angled like a steep canyon. Earthwork ridges piled up on either side, and a gray film of dust floated in the air above it. She’d cracked open the earth like an egg.
A few spectators coughed. The air was thick and smelled of chalk. She breathed out a sigh. Her heart was racing, either from the nerves or the effort. Her hands, still planted on the ground, were trembling, like they still felt the vibrations of the earth. She brushed them together, wiping the dust off.
Still, no one said anything. Ana didn’t know what to do next. Stand up, she supposed. Go home. She’d shown them her trick, done what Roberto wanted her to do. Now he could take her home, as soon as the judges told her to leave.
The judges were staring. Ana realized: the whole crowd was staring, wide eyed, eerily silent.
She stared back for a long time before Downs pointed his pen at her. “You’re in.”
When he met her outside, the first thing Roberto said to her was, “Told you so.”
The next week passed in a haze. The production company took care of everything—plane tickets, schedules, publicity. Even a stipend. She gave the whole check to Roberto. They weren’t going to have her pay anymore, at least not until she got back. She assumed she’d get back quickly—that she wouldn’t win.
The production assistant with the tattoos, who called herself Ink, wanted to know what Ana’s name was. The show seemed to have hundreds of assistants, each with their own little task, clipboards and cell phones never far away.
“Your ace name,” Ink explained. “What we’re going to call you on the show.”
“I don’t have an ace name,” Ana said—then realized she did. She always had. She’d just ignored it.
“Well, we need to come up with one. Any ideas?”
“Brujita—” she started to say, then changed her mind. That was a name for a little girl. If she was going to do this, she ought to do it right. “La Bruja de la Tierra. That’s what people call me.”
Ink frowned. “That’s kind of a mouthful. What is that, Spanish?”
“Uh, yeah.”
“What’s it mean?”
“Witch. Witch of the Earth.”
“Earth Witch.” She scribbled on her clipboard. “Yeah, cool, that’s great.”
She walked off before Ana could argue.
She’d grown up in a rickety trailer home at the edge of the desert, surrounded by Mexicanos like her, yet marked as different by her power, always the odd one. Now, suddenly, she’d been plucked from her old life and set down in a new one.
She certainly wasn’t the odd one here.
At the meet-and-greet party in the dining room at a fancy old hotel in Hollywood, the contestants met each other for the first time and learned their team assignments. All of it was being filmed. Don’t look at the cameras, Ana kept telling herself.
After a while, she almost forgot they were there.
She recognized the Candle, Gardener, and even Spasm from the Denver audition. Spasm waved at her across the room, hoisting his drink in salute. Everyone else was new, and she tried to figure out who they were and what they could do. There was Diver, the woman who had real gills. Rustbelt, whose skin was iron, whose touch could turn a car to rust, and who clanked when he moved. Then there was Drummer Boy, already a star as the front man for the band Joker Plague. Hard to miss, at seven feet tall. Not to mention his six arms. Ana felt even smaller among these—sometimes literal—luminaries.
Of course, she was put on a team with Drummer Boy—who immediately announced that he preferred to be called “DB.” Then there was pretty blond Curveball. Ana was small and drab beside them. Well, I’m not going to last long before they vote me off.
“You look kind of nervous,” someone said. Startled, Ana turned to find Curveball—Kate was her real name—standing beside her.
“Yeah,” Ana admitted, “aren’t you?”
Kate shook her head, and her gaze gleamed as she looked around, taking in the old architecture and the crowd of people. “No, this is exciting. I can’t wait to get started.”
“So, I guess we’re all on the same team.” A man in his midtwenties, with scruffy brown hair and an amused expression, sidled up to them. He had his hands shoved in his pants pockets.
“You’re Jonathan, right?” Kate said.
Jonathan Hive offered his hand for shaking, which she did. Ana was prepared to slink into the background, but he noticed her and shook her hand as well.
“Some of us seem to be a little more comfortable with this than others.” Jonathan nodded at Drummer Boy, who was signing autographs for some of the crew.
With all those tattoos and that oddly shaped torso with its living drums, it was hard to look away from him. He seemed to enjoy being the giant in the room. He especially seemed to welcome the attention of the women. American Hero was blessed with—or rather, the producers had been sure to choose—a stunning selection of beautiful women, of almost every ethnicity. With six arms, Drummer Boy could flirt with all of them—resting a hand on one woman’s back, another on a different shoulder, while touching a strand of hair of a third.
The hair in question belonged to Cleo—or Cleopatra—who could teleport herself and whatever she was touching short distances, leaving behind a pop sound, as air rushed to fill the empty space. In respon
se to DB’s touch, Cleo laughed and sidled up to the joker, tucking herself by his side. Already, Ana had caught her new nickname among the production assistants: Pop Tart.
“Hey, is that Peregrine?” Kate said, and Ana turned to look.
It was, emerging through a hallway from another part of the building, followed by a lanky young production assistant carrying a clipboard and a cup of coffee. The talk show diva and perennial celebrity’s wings fluttered slightly as she turned and addressed the assistant. Ana couldn’t hear, but the exchange seemed odd—overly familiar, maybe. One hand on her hip, Peregrine pointed a finger, and the assistant nodded meekly at what turned out to be a lecture.
That wasn’t a boss dressing down a subordinate, Ana realized. That was a mother admonishing her son.
Peregrine took the cup of coffee from him and turned her attention to another member of the crew, and the production assistant came toward them. He had coffee-and-cream skin and light, curly hair. Young, maybe twenty, his boyish face nonetheless had a tired look.
“Hi, I’m John Fortune,” he said. “Looks like I’ll be the traffic cop this afternoon. Let me show you where we need you to stand for the shoot.”
It took a half-hour for him to break up the party and herd everyone to where they needed to be for the publicity photo session.
John asked, “Anything else you need? Is everybody okay?”
“I think we’re fine,” Kate said, returning his smile. She looked around for confirmation. “Yeah?”
“Great. We’ll start in a couple minutes.” With a mock salute, he left them.
“I’d watch out for that guy,” Hive said to Kate. “Charm, multiethnic good looks—you may be doomed.”
“Oh yeah?” she said.
“Yeah, I saw the way he looked at you.”
“Kind of like how you’re looking at me?”
Hive quickly glanced away and pursed his lips. “So what if I am?” Kate blushed, and Hive sighed. “Whew, we haven’t been here an hour and we’re already making great TV drama.”
Another half-hour passed while the crew adjusted the lighting.
“Just like being on tour,” Drummer Boy muttered. He was nevertheless smiling.
“This show business stuff must be old hat to you,” Kate said, looking up at him.
“Old hat with a new twist. The scenery here’s way better.” He winked at Kate, who actually giggled.
Oh, this was going to be a long day, Ana thought. She was so out of her league.
A man Ana recognized from the audition detached from the mob of crew and regarded them all, a lord surveying his domain: Michael Berman, a network executive on hand to observe the proceedings. He was in his thirties, slick and intense. Even Ana could tell his suit and tie were expensive.
“This is fabulous. Thank you all for helping make this a reality. I can’t wait to see what happens over the next few weeks. And I’m sure I can count on you to make this the best show possible.” He rubbed his hands together with obvious glee.
“Is it a competition or entertainment?” Hive said with a smirk. “The world may
never know.”
“I don’t think I like that guy,” Kate whispered to Ana.
Ana had to smile. “I know what you mean.”
The meet-and-greet was at the hotel, but the actual unveiling of the teams for the premiere of American Hero took place on a Hollywood sound stage that looked like a night club, all dark glass and chrome, touched with blue neon.
Peregrine was the emcee. In her fifties now, she was as poised and beautiful as ever, and her wings framed her perfectly. She wore a black strapless evening gown that shimmered gold when she turned, and her hair lay in loose waves around her shoulders and wings.
“Welcome to the first of what promises to be twelve weeks of excitement, astonishment, heartbreak, and—we hope—heroism the likes of which you have never seen. We’ve searched the country for undiscovered aces, for great powers, and for people who have the potential to change the world. This is American Hero.”
Then came the theme song, a pounding, blood-stirring rock anthem that would no doubt be hitting the charts in weeks to come. Peregrine introduced the judges, two who in their younger days had been beloved aces in their own right: Topper, wearing her trademark tuxedo and top hat, from which she could pull any manner of items, and the Harlem Hammer, the massive, super-strong ace who had been coaxed out of retirement. The third judge knew his aces—had reported on them for Aces! for going on twenty-five years. Who better to judge the up-and-coming generation?
Thomas “Digger” Downs spoke seriously, regarding the camera as he would an old friend. “After sixty years of living with the wild card, you’d think we couldn’t be astonished anymore. That we couldn’t be amazed. We’ve seen alien invasions, madmen with the power to take over the world, plagues of crime that steal away your very mind, strangers who can peer into your soul. Women who fly, men who lift tanks, deformities that strain our definition of what it means to be human. We’ve seen witch hunts, assassinations, politics run amuck, the world brought to the brink and back. You’d think that surely we’d seen it all.
“But I can tell you that we haven’t. Over the last few weeks I’ve traveled from one end of the country to the other. And I have been amazed.”
He introduced the next segment: highlights from the seven auditions, potential contestants who tried and failed—sometimes to the great amusement of the audience—and those who tried and astonished.
A dozen concrete walls shattered.
A dozen cars rose from the ground, or disintegrated, or burst into flames.
A dozen bone-shattering falls were survived. A dozen aces flew to the tops of nearby buildings.
The sequence of clips paid special attention to the ace, Curveball. The show’s editors were already deciding who their heroes were.
She threw a baseball with an underhanded snap. Her whole body seemed to pop like a spring, and the ball flew, faster than any major league pitch. It glowed yellow, then orange, scorching the air it passed through.
Then it turned. Hand outstretched, Kate guided it. As if it had a mind of its own, it flew around an overturned bus, back through a maze of twisted rebar, and slammed into one of the stacks of concrete blocks that served as a makeshift wall.
The wall shattered with the force of an explosion. Concrete and dust flew in all directions and the sound rattled the seats all over the stadium. When the air cleared, the wall was gone. Disintegrated. The missile—a simple baseball, everyone was sure to note—had destroyed it.
Downs’s prediction was right: The audience at home was astonished and amazed, and they couldn’t wait to see more.
“Now,” Peregrine said, donning her brightest smile yet. “Meet your new American Heroes!”
Twenty-eight contestants joined the winged beauty on stage, standing in groups of seven with their teams: Hearts, Spades, Diamonds, Clubs. It was glorious—lights flashed, music swelled, and it sounded like cheering.
Ana was caught in it all like a deer in the headlights, a tight smile locked on her face. Drummer Boy punched six hands in the air, and Wild Fox’s tail flashed sparks as it twitched.
Amidst the thrills, elation, and chaos, Jonathan Hive tapped his wrist.
“All right, kids, check your watches,” he said. “Your fifteen minutes starts now.”
A week later, the party was over.
Four teams gathered on the same stage, which now served as the field of judgment. Behind each team, as part of the backdrop, was its logo: Hearts, Spades, Diamonds, Clubs.
No one knew what to expect, so the atmosphere was beyond tense. It crackled. The last time they’d stood here, the mood had been celebratory: They were the chosen ones, they’d been anointed. Now, they had failed. They’d had their first trial, and they didn’t feel good about it.
One team—Clubs—held itself differently. Their frowns were a bit more smug, their backs a bit straighter. Before any of them saw the replays, they could all guess wh
o had won this round.
In fact, the replay of Team Clubs’ assault on the burning building couldn’t have been any more glorious if it had been scripted.
Stuntman did the impossible: ran into the burning building by the front door. Nearly invulnerable, he couldn’t burn. He made three trips, pulling out four “victims,” including the doll programmed with a digital recording of a crying baby. His clothes were scorched to nearly nothing, but Diver was on hand with a coat from the fire truck to cover him. The others had been more successful operating the fire hose. Jade Blossom increased her density, making herself an anchor to brace the nozzle. The water dampened the fire enough to clear a path in the front entryway. Two more people rescued. Brave Hawk, who manifested illusory brown-black hawk wings when he flew, had been able to pull another three victims out of upper-story windows, including the one who had jumped. The flier snatched him out of the air. And Toad Man, turned into his giant toad form, managed a particularly gruesome rescue by snatching the tenth and final victim out of a window with his thirty-foot-long, viscous tongue. All ten victims rescued.
Spades and Diamonds didn’t achieve quite so spectacular a victory, but they each had their moments. On the Spades side, the Candle used his multipurpose, colored flames to build a glowing red ladder to the second-story windows. The victims within climbed to safety. Metal-skinned Rustbelt withstood the flames enough to save a couple of victims from the ground floor. The team, however, suffered a drawback when Simoon, in an attempt to quell the fire by blasting it in her whirlwind form, only succeeded in fanning the flames. Their rescue effort ended with five victims saved.
Diamonds fared better. The Maharajah, the easily overlooked man in the wheelchair, had telekinetically animated a half-dozen firefighters’ coats from the truck and marched them into the burning house to rescue three victims. Matryoshka had split into four smaller versions of himself, and they controlled the hose as a well-coordinated unit. Their flier, Jetman, rescued several victims from the upper floor. Unlike Brave Hawk, though, he’d failed to catch the man who’d jumped. They’d rescued seven victims.