Wild Cards. Джордж Р. Р. Мартин

      Jade Blossom had him hooked like a fish. “Does she play skin flute?”

      Cesar stared at her, maybe not certain he had heard correctly. “She plays piano, only her hands are all weird.”

      “Weird how?”

      “Her hands are all rectangular. She’s hard and white, like piano keys. Her whole body looks like a robot made out of ivory, hard edges and angles and hinges on her joints.”

      “An exoskeleton,” said Jade Blossom.

      “And her face! Like a robot, all white and stiff, too.”

      Jade Blossom sighed. “If you hate wild cards, why did you write that essay to meet me?”

      “That was before. Now I know better!” He chugged the rest of his spiked iced tea, then clanked the glass down, gave her a triumphant grin, and stomped out.

      Jade Blossom judged it to be a good exit for a high school kid. The reporters and news crews followed him out. She had a moment alone, if you didn’t count Elaine waiting for her off to one side like the toady she was and Ethan staring at the floor with his hands shoved into his pants pockets, willing himself to be anywhere but here.

      Jade Blossom liked Cesar. Very few people tried to get the best of her—except that bitch Bubbles. Jade Blossom was not normally reflective, but Cesar’s responses reminded her of when she had been a six-foot-tall, skinny fourteen-year-old girl named Haley Mok, who was ridiculed and ostracized by her peers. When her card turned, she learned to hurt people before they hurt her. She had maxed out her density and smashed through doors and walls at school, destroying desks, terrifying her peers and the adults alike. Then she knew she could speak her mind. Those memories still amused her.

      She sipped her icy margarita, allowing Cesar plenty of time to go ahead of her. Her studio commitment required that she attend the mixer with him, but she had no idea if he was going back to the hotel. No matter what, she would have to go back and hang around for the evening.

      “Elaine!” she called over her shoulder without looking.

      “Yes?”

      “Take the limo to the hotel.” Jade Blossom set down her glass still half-full and sauntered outside into the dusk.

      The breeze was still blowing lightly from the direction of the hotel, but she had plenty of practice working her way through the air. She reduced her density to the minimum, jumped lightly, and let the breeze toss her like a silken scarf. Once in the air, she angled herself to pick up a thermal from the restaurant’s roof exhaust fan and rode it up high. Then, like a sailboat tacking against the wind, she altered her density in slight changes and turned herself to catch the pressure waves from passing vehicles and light gusts between buildings. Outside air was almost always moving, in more ways than most people ever noticed.

      She felt emotionally drained. Cesar’s complaints and accusations had taken a toll. The little snot was getting to her somehow and she hated that. Vulnerability was a sign of weakness and weakness was just about the only thing that terrified her.

      As she drew near the Gunter, she saw that the protesters were still outside. Some of the news crews who had followed Cesar from the restaurant had returned. She slowly increased her density and landed on the sidewalk near them.

      “Hey, look who’s back!” One woman pointed with her arm extended like she was making an accusation.

      Jade Blossom gave the crowd a quick glance, taking in a pair of twins maybe in their thirties wearing identical clothes and a woman in a muumuu carrying a sign that showed a picture of a deformed joker. Everyone in the group had hostile expressions as they looked back at her.

      Always ready for a confrontation, Jade Blossom sashayed forward with her best catwalk stride. “This is a public sidewalk.”

      “You’re even worse than that Bubbles,” one of the other women spoke in an imperious tone as she came forward.

      Jade Blossom’s professional eye for fashion was offended by the woman’s cat’s-eye sunglasses and electric-blue polyester pantsuit. Her hair was in a kind of oversize pile that Jade Blossom had seen in old movies from the sixties.

      “Betty Virginia.” Jade Blossom had seen the protest organizer earlier, leading a chant. “You think you know something about the wild card?”

      “The Lord’s word guides us,” Betty Virginia said calmly. “You aces just think you’re better than everyone else.”

      “No, just better than you,” Jade Blossom said in an exaggerated, childlike singsong. “Nobody needs an ace for that. Jokers are better than you.”

      “You’re no longer human. Abominations before the Lord.” Betty Virginia tilted up her face, challenging her. “If you can’t put on a regular dress, at least you could wear proper unmentionables.”

      “And leave my son alone!” A petite, pretty, forty-something woman of East Asian descent, wearing a modest blue dress, came up next to Betty Virginia. “He doesn’t want anything to do with you!”

      “This is Lara Chao,” said Betty Virginia. “You are certainly a menace to her family.” She backed away slightly, letting Lara step up.

      Jade Blossom looked down at her from more than a foot in height difference. “Cesar liked me just fine. Too bad, Mommy.”

      “Leave him alone!” Lara yelled, tossing shoulder-length black hair that was parted just off center. She took a deep breath and spoke with an intense calm. “I was proud when he wrote his essay. Now that I’ve met Betty Virginia and Bambi, I’m part of the Purity Baptist Church movement.”

      “Honey, you’re part of a bowel movement.”

      “I don’t see any need for that kind of language,” said Betty Virginia.

      “Listen, all right?” Lara insisted. “My Cesar is a prodigy. He played classical piano in local concerts by the time he was twelve. And he branched into jazz as a teenager. He has four full-ride music scholarships to choose from. And Betty Virginia told me how you wild carders take opportunities in life away from gifted human children like my son.”

      Jade Blossom heard her own mother’s demanding standards in Lara’s words. She felt sorry for Cesar. His tiger mother was smothering him. No wonder the kid doesn’t have a girlfriend.

      “I tried to put a stop to your so-called date, I’ll have you know,” said Lara. “I told somebody in charge here that I didn’t want my son spending one minute with you. They put me on the phone with your studio and some jackass threatened to sue me for the cost of your precious promotion, so I dropped it. If Cesar stays away from you on his own, well, that’s different.”

      “He’s a teenaged boy.” Jade Blossom took a sexy pose, with a hand on her hip and one leg angled out of a slit in her gown. “Of course he’s hot for me. His mama can’t do a damn thing about it.”

      “My son is naturally gifted!”

      Jade Blossom understood: Lara wasn’t any kind of true believer. She saw the protesters’ position in pragmatic terms. Lara just wanted to get an edge for her son. Jade Blossom heard the echo of her mother’s voice again.

      The guy wearing a sidearm shouldered his way through the crowd with a confident grin, leering at Jade Blossom. He had a comb-over and wore a denim cowboy shirt rolled up at the sleeves. His gaze dropped to her shoes and came slowly up her legs and trim torso to rest on her face.

      She began increasing her density in case she needed to defend herself. “Lara, if Cesar’s truly gifted, he’ll be fine.”

      “This ace has quite a mouth on her, doesn’t she?” The guy stopped in front of Jade Blossom, his hands on his hips.

      “I think she was just leaving, Earl,” said Betty Virginia, giving Jade Blossom a hard look. She waved her hand in a shooing motion.

      Jade Blossom had reached aluminum