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 peaceful: 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."

Brave Hawk is persistent. "You think because you work in Hollywood, you know everything, but you don't, Stuntman. You and I—" here Brave Hawk makes a completely fruity gesture of clasped hands "—we could be an awesome team!"

Jamal sees a nugget of truth in this—at least in the concept of teaming up against the other Clubs. But with this creature who looks like a John Ford Indian with wings? "Why me? Did Holy Roller already turn you down?"

This is all the encouragement Brave Hawk needs. He leaps up on the railing of the deck. "I never asked him! And it wouldn't work—not as well as Stuntman and Brave Hawk. We're two of a kind, man!"

Whenever Jamal hears that kind of talk from Brave Hawk, the pleasant images of his evisceration reappear. "We're both breathing. We both got talked into this project. I don't see what else we have in common."

Voices behind him signal the emergence of Jade Blossom and Diver from the house, both indecently perky and girly at this hour—and dressed for a swim. Diver might as well not exist—Jamal only sees Jade, her eyes, the way she moves. Her mouth. He has become infatuated with her mouth, the way her lower lip slides forward whenever she is about to speak.

Which she does, calling to Jamal, "What are you two doing over there? Scheming?" She and Diver start laughing, flirting with the camera team. It's all a big joke. Nevertheless, Jamal wishes Jade would approach him. They would make a great team.

"Think about it, Stuntman," Brave Hawk says, insistently. "We're both people of color . . ."

Jamal almost laughs out loud. People of color? Jamal is dark enough and has always known he was tagged as "black," but Brave Hawk? His wild card aside, Brave Hawk is no more ethnic in appearance than an Italian American. "And do what? Call ourselves The Red and the Black?" Jamal has read the novel; he knows without asking that Brave Hawk has never heard of Stendahl.

In fact, Brave Hawk loves the phrase, jabbing his finger at Jamal like a fourth-grade teacher whose student just finished the multiplication tables. "That's the idea. Make these producers and judges think twice before they vote us off."

"You mean play the race card, you and me."

"Everyone else is using what they've got. Those girls are giggling and snuggling up to the judges and camera crews. Have you seen the way Curveball's been flirting with John Fortune? Rosa and Tiffani are even worse, and Pop Tart . . ."

Jamal doesn't want to admit it, but Brave Hawk is correct. He's sure he's seen Pop Tart having the kind of intimate conversations only lovers have . . . with Digger Downs. "Why shouldn't we use the tools God gave us?" Brave Hawk says.

But Jamal can already hear his father, Big Bill Norwood, the pro ballplayer, sneering. "The baseball doesn't care what color you are. Can you hit or not? That's all." He's heard that all his life—and unlike some of the pronouncements Big Bill has made—believes it. He knows he's put in the "black" category, but he can't honestly say it's held him back.

"Wouldn't we be smarter to just win the fucking challenges?"

"Yeah, how is that working for us?"

Jamal barely manages to get the words through his teeth. "I just don't see how you and I singing 'Kumbaya' is supposed to stop the bleeding."

Brave Hawk looks over his left wing at the crew—he is the worst actor Jamal has ever seen, and he's seen some bad ones—while slipping his right wing over Jamal. Even though the wings are an illusion, Jamal still feels enveloped in a smelly, scratchy blanket. "We agree not to vote each other off, for one thing. And if we find ourselves—oh, hell, trapped underwater or buried in quicksand—we share the oxygen tank."

Jamal can't believe that the Apache ace believes what he's saying. "I tell you what, Brave Hawk. I will absolutely cross-my-heart promise not to club you over the fucking head with the tank. That's the best I can do." He slips out from under the protective wing. "Grow up, Cochise."

As Jamal walks away, his legs finally working, he hears Brave Hawk say, "You'll be the next one out, Stuntman."

Jamal can't resist. Right in front of Art and the camera crew, he pivots. "If it means getting away from you, sign me up."

For a moment Brave Hawk doesn't react. Then, strangely, he bursts out laughing. He actually claps his hands together, like a happy infant. "Outstanding! God damn, Stuntman, you're good!" Then Brave Hawk looks past Jamal to the camera crew. "Did you guys get that?"

"Yeah," Art says, "but don't point us out, okay?"

"As long as you got it," Brave Hawk says, striding across the deck, daring to slap Jamal on the back. "Just another heated, interpersonal, real-life moment for the viewers of American Hero, right?"

"You suck, Brave Hawk."

For an instant, the Apache looks wounded. "The offer was genuine, Stuntman. I just made use of your rejection for the good of the show."

And now Jamal really wants to kill him.

What troubles him most is the realization that Brave Hawk is essentially correct: Stuntman has no offensive weapons, no arrows in the old quiver. He can only be reactive.

Another reason to be bitter about what happened to him.

He still remembers the night his wild card turned—far out in the Valley, so far out that the hills were rising again. It was the spring of his senior year at USC, where he was majoring in film and television. Part of the experience there was to work on everyone's student project. Who knew the pimply twenty-year-old serving as director might turn out to be the next Bryan Singer, and your ticket to a career on his crew.

The other goal was to become the first Jamal Norwood—a Denzel Washington or Will Smith for the twenty-first century. And when Nic Deladrier asked him to play the badass joker in his student film, Jamal knew—just knew—it was the first step. Deladrier was not only the most skilled of all the senior year directors, he was ambitious as hell. He had friends in the business, an uncle working at Endeavour . . . this student film would be shown at festivals, and Jamal Norwood's name and face would be known throughout that strata of the business where young assistants and junior agents share bodily fluids, job recommendations, and gossip.

The script called for Jamal, dressed in a leather outfit and mask as Derek Knight—wealthy amateur astronomer who, in the 1940s, discovered the approaching Takisian ship and tried to warn a skeptical America—to leap from the top of a water tank that had been painted the same color as the alien ship.

The team had built a platform covered with foam rubber six feet below Jamal's launch point—out of frame. Jamal had practiced the leap four times, twice in daylight. He was ready to do it for Deladrier's camera.

But as often happened in southern California in the spring, it had rained that day. Not just rained Seattle-style, but poured torrentially, like a typhoon. The surface of the tower was too slick for Jamal's boots. When he made the leap, he slipped—and missed the platform.

The water tower was on a hillside. The drop to the base of the hill was, Jamal later learned, over a hundred feet. The base was jagged rock—not that he hit directly, he slammed into several tree branches before cartwheeling onto the rocks.

What he remembered was the confusion of slipping, reaching for the platform—the horrified look on Deladrier's face as the director flew upward from Jamal's point of view.

That was followed by the roller-coaster moment of freefall—no panic, just disbelief.

Then a blinding, gasping impact, like being hit by a speeding truck. Shock mercifully suppressed the pain for a few moments. Long enough for Jamal to realize he had fallen ten stories onto the rocks and was still alive.

He couldn't be certain. He was blind, deaf, without feeling in his arms and legs. For an eternally terrible moment he thought this was death.

But then his vision returned, at least to where he could see the flash-lights of rescuers searching for him. As the roaring in his ears died down, like the temporary damage from a heavy metal concert, he heard voices, boots crunching on brush.

A face appeared upside down above him—male, white, middle-aged, bearded. "He's here!" a voice called, far away. "Jesus Christ."

The face turned away, and even through his damaged ears, Jamal could hear the man retching.

Jamal Norwood lived; his wild card had turned. He was now an ace, albeit an ace whose power simply seemed to be the ability to bounce back from extreme violence, usually within twenty-four hours. The greater the damage, the longer his recovery.

The accident changed his life in more subtle ways: in true Hollywood fashion, Nic Deladrier survived the near-disaster to land an assignment as director on Halloween Night XIII—and whether motivated by guilt or just the practical value of having an ace for a stuntman, the first thing he did was hire Jamal Norwood.

Jamal resisted, until the pile of money got too high—and the offers to act never materialized.

For the past five years he has gone from one gig to another, one set of gags—stunts—to another, well-paid, usually falling from a great height wearing pinhole cameras for that close close-up experience. He had been flung off a spaceship in One Against the Legion, dropped to the bottom of a pit and then buried under tons of cement in Hoover Dam, crushed by the giant stomping feat of a war machine run amok in the remake of Kronos. . . .

Such was his life. It was almost Shakespearean, for God's sake. To fall, to almost die . . . and, painfully, to bounce back.

Showered, with no visible signs of yesterday's damage, dressed, Jamal is ravenous. He heads downstairs for the kitchen.

The Clubs are not expected to cook for themselves, any more than they are expected to choose wardrobe. "It's like we're back in grade school," Spasm had sneered, first day in the place. That was before they'd lost the second challenge, and voted his sorry ass off the team.

Even so, meal times are fixed, and Jamal has missed breakfast. Nevertheless, he has been living on his own for five years and he is capable of cooking a meal. He begins searching through the refrigerator and cupboards for eggs, bacon, pans, cups, a process made more difficult because the mansion housing the Clubs has been designed for its visual imprint, not utility. To begin with, the kitchen has been painted a primary blue, a color that makes all food look unappetizing. And nothing is where it would logically be.

He has managed to locate a frying pan when Jade Blossom enters. To Jamal's immense disappointment, she has exchanged the startling bikini for a tank top and baggy shorts, as if she were off for a morning at the mall. Still, she looks adorable. "That's ambitious," she says, noting Jamal's obvious search for the makings of a meal. "If you're looking for food after Holy Roller's been through here, good luck."

"I'm just amazed the guy even fits in the building."

"Or through the canyons."

"They got him inside the truck. It was the truck that had to get up the narrow road." Jamal will never forget the comic insanity of Clubs move-in day . . . the face of the elderly female neighbor whose shiny Jag had to wait while the American Hero convoy of camera limo, Club Humvee, and moving van negotiated the hairpin curve just outside the gate. Riding with Jamal and Toad Man, Spasm had thought to have some fun with the woman. "What do you think, should I give her a little thrill? When was the last time she popped?"

"You shouldn't distract the lady while she's driving," Toad Man had said with great indignity, beating Jamal by milliseconds. (There were useful wild card powers, and then there were the ridiculous ones: Spasm's ability to make other people orgasm or sneeze at will struck Jamal as proof that life made no fucking sense. Jamal wouldn't miss Spasm, now that he had deservedly joined the Discards.)

Getting Roller out of the truck and into the mansion had taxed even the great minds of the American Hero team: ramps had been built to allow the gigantic ace to shuffle his way to the front door, but getting all five hundred pounds of the man out of the truck . . . well, it took both camera crews and a lot of sweating and cursing. "They should have used a crane," Toad had said, in all seriousness. "Isn't that what movie people use?"

Jamal had failed to answer, as Holy Roller began, in his best Sunday-go-to-meeting voice, to alternately berate the grips for cursing ("Gentlemen, please! To hear the Lord's name and everyone else's taken in vain on such a beautiful day! It's a shame, it is!") while alerting them to the glories of God's plan ("Join the righteous, my friends! Find the joy!") was theater no one dared interrupt.

Now, alone in the kitchen with beautiful, unapproachable Jade, Jamal is half-worried that Roller is right outside . . . listening . . . and, if listening, judging.

"Now they have to use that truck to keep us supplied."

"Another good reason to vote him off."

Jade shook her pretty head. "They'll keep Roller around as long as they can. He's too much like the people watching this shit."

"How'd you get to be so cynical, so young?"

Jade can't be more than two years younger than Jamal. "Go to a few auditions as an actress and see what it does to you."

Jamal realizes that beautiful Jade has no idea what he does—granted, their introductions had been perfunctory, but Jamal has since pored over the online bios. Jade obviously hasn't, or she would know that he has been on his share of auditions, too. More proof that he has no chance with her. "Why did you join American Hero, then? It's really the same shit, isn't it?"

She has found a box of Cheerios and casually opens it. As Jamal looks for a bowl and a spoon, he sees Jade eating right out of the box. Not that he objects—she could put her mouth on anything he owns—but he's so hungry he's almost salivating. "I like shows like this. Laguna Beach, Survivor, Great Race. They're the only thing I ever watch."

Nothing in this cupboard. "So you know exactly how to play the game."

"Yeah." She crunches away. "They sort of cast these things. There's always the old guy, the biker, the crazy one—" and here she smiles "—the minority."

"Only me?" Jamal gestures gracefully toward Jade. "What about Chinese-American girls?"

"My category is hot girl. Hot girl trumps the whole minority thing." This is as true as it is irritating. "The other category in reality TV is freaks, but . . ." And here Jade smiles very fetchingly. At that instant, Jamal is lost—she can be as bitchy and self-centered as she wants, she will have to rip his heart out of his chest and stomp it. "On American Hero the freaks are the majority. Which is why even a . . . hugely fat white man is someone they have to hold onto. Will someone answer the fucking phone? Please?"

Jamal realizes he has been hearing a chirping from the living room. Toad Man hollers that he will get it. "Hullo," they hear him say. "This is Buford."

"So you've got your strategy all figured out. Be the hot girl."

"And let you big strong men knock each other off."

"How am I supposed to knock these other guys off? My wild card is nothing but defensive. I take a licking and keep on ticking. Big whoop."

Jade is still crunching. "I thought you were the big jock!"

This is a surprisingly perceptive thing for a woman as self-involved as Jade to say. "Who says I'm a jock?"

"You walk like a jock. You talk like a jock. I know jocks . . . all my brothers play sports."

Toad Man appears in the kitchen doorway, blinking, as always, in apparent bafflement. "Hullo. Ah, they want us. Griffith Park Observatory. Does anyone know where that is?"

Wet, glistening, still in her bikini, just out of the pool, Diver drips in the hallway. "In Griffith Park."

Holy Roller is at the other end of the hallway, blocking it like a cork in a wine bottle and—to Jamal's amusement—preventing Art and the camera crew for getting any useful footage. "Praise God. Another challenge. May the Lord be with us!"

The Clubs disperse to their rooms for last-minute prep for cameras, including Jade Blossom. Jamal realizes that the woman has taken the box of Cheerios. And that he still hasn't had breakfast.

Jade has come surprisingly close to explaining everything there is to know about Jamal Norwood. Forget the wild card—his life changed from what he wanted to something else long before that rainy night in 2001.

Jamal's father, Big Bill Norwood, was the best athlete in a South Central neighborhood noted for NBA stars and NFL running backs, for all kinds of major and minor league baseball players. "No hockey players, though," Bill used to say. "No ice."

Jamal was good, too, with the speed and eye-hand coordination of a world-class athlete. What he lacked was size, topping out at five-nine, 160 pounds in his junior year at powerhouse Loyola High. He could be the best basketball or football player the world had ever seen, but no scout or coach would look at him long enough to notice. That's assuming the coach's eyes noticed him at all, since he was a head shorter than his teammates.

Jamal had already experienced the humiliation of being passed over for the varsity baseball team at Loyola, even though his batting average was the highest on the team. He made the mistake of complaining to Bill one night on the drive home.

Big Bill simply shook his head. "Forget about being a pro athlete," he said. "You're never going to make it."

"But I'm good, Dad! As good as the Wilkes brothers!"

"I'm not talking about 'good,' Jamal! You are good, probably in the top five percent of all the athletes your age. I'm just saying you're never going to be a pro athlete. You've got too much going on."

"I don't understand."

Big Bill sighed. "You've got too much going on in your head." He must have realized that Jamal was still failing to see what he meant. "Look, you need two things to be a pro athlete: the skills, which you have, and the right kind of brain—which you don't."

"Are you saying I'm stupid?"

"I'm saying the opposite. I'm saying that you've got too many other things in your life to think about! What makes a kid a pro athlete is not having any other choices. You've got to be able to shoot hoops for six hours a day after school. You've got to bounce that ball off the step. And you've got to do because you can't do anything else! Because it is boring. If you get bored, if you find that you'd rather go to the movies or read a book or study or even chase girls, you aren't gonna be a world-class athlete."

Jamal mumbled something about jocks getting all the girls. "True. But it's because the girls chase them, not the other way around."

So he went off to USC determined to be the opposite of his father—not a jock, but an intellectual. He read Eggers and Pynchon and, yes, Stendahl. He discovered Marcel Duchamp and the Constructionists. He studied French film and Howard Hawks movies.

He even saw The Jolson Story.

Now that career had been sacrificed on the altar of the wild card. Jamal Norwood needs American Hero.

"Today's challenge is the Scavenger Hunt."

Griffith Park Observatory has just emerged from a five-year-long, $90 million reconstruction. Having been dragged to the site for field trips all through grade school, Jamal feels as though he knows the place—and to his eye, it has not changed. The only difference is that you could no longer park. If he and the other Clubs hadn't been driving their American Hero Humvees, they'd have had to take a bus.

Not that it matters for the Clubs. They are the last of the four suits to arrive, joining the other convoys as well as the horde of production vehicles and honey wagons.

Now Jamal and the other Clubs are lined up in front of a giant emblem so flimsy it flutters in the gentle morning breeze, and some kind of flat structure, like a scoreboard, covered with a colored sheet. The aces from the other suits, from Clubs to Diamonds to Spades to Hearts, all stand in front of Peregrine, all cleverly positioned so the light is in their faces. Peregrine herself steps onto a slick plastic circle twenty feet wide, bearing the American Hero logo.

Jamal has been on a dozen film sets, and yet he is still amazed at the artifice. Maybe it's another sign that he is in the wrong business; he wants the characters on TV and in the movies to be real.

Toad Man nudges Jamal. "Boy, I thought we were having tough times. Look at them," he says, nodding to the five Diamonds gathering in front of the symbol for their suit. They remind Jamal of an expansion baseball team about to take the field against the Brooklyn Dodgers. Only no expansion team had ever fielded such a sad-ass player as the Maharajah, missing two legs and one arm.

The Hearts, on the other hand, look cocky. There are six of them, just as there are six Clubs. Both teams have won a challenge, and the immunity that goes with it. The Spades and Diamonds, losers both times out, are down to five players apiece.

Jamal blinks—put them out of your mind. Think like Big Bill Norwood. They are all the enemy.

"We have hidden five statues just like this—" Peregrine raises a golden figurine, a stylized Jetboy a foot tall, "at five different locations around Los Angeles. The team that returns here within four hours with the most Jet-boys wins. It's that simple."

"Any rules?" Drummer Boy booms, shooting a shit-eating grin down at his partner in crime, Hardhat.

"Of course," Peregrine says. "Just one: there are no rules."

Most of the aces actually finish the phrase for her. Jamal can feel his heart rate rise, as it did when he walked from the on-deck circle to home plate . . . or his first moment on set.

"Okay, may I present . . . the Scavenger Hunt!" Peregrine pulls the covers off a giant electronic display—currently blank.

"Shit!"

"One minute, Mom. They lost the feed." That from John Fortune, hand to earpiece, running toward a satellite truck a dozen yards away—no doubt happy to have an excuse not to be Drummer Boy's Stepin Fetchit.

"Do the locations even matter?" Diver is behind him. "No matter what, I wind up fishing or swimming. The life aquatic. Christ."

"Could be worse. You could be a tackling dummy like me."

"A what?"

Jamal sighs. "Think of a punching bag on a sled. Football players practice tackles on it."

"Let's trade places. I bet I'd like being tackled more than you would."

"You've got a bad attitude."

"You have no idea." She forces a smile.

"Okay, aces! American Heroes!" The board has been fired up successfully, a Mapquest look at Los Angeles County, with five beeping dots. One is in the Valley near the intersection of the 405 and Ventura Boulevard; one appears to be on a peak near Mount Wilson; one is in the middle of Beverly Hills; one is way the hell and gone in Venice, by the ocean; and one appears to be located just over the hill from Griffith Park Observatory.

Jamal has no interest in dragging his ass all the way to Venice, or up some mountainside, and—as a Los Angeles resident—knows better than to face the 405 and Ventura area at any time of day. He'd also like to avoid getting into a battle anywhere near Rodeo Drive. Who needs the attitude? Besides, he has a good idea what that fifth location is.

As Jamal watches, the screen changes, actual addresses and images popping up, to reactions that range from appreciative to confused.

The fifth location is Griffith Park Zoo.

Peregrine is posing for a trio of cameras. "You see your possible destinations. How you reach them and how you return is up to you. "She points to a huge, ridiculous clock, complete with American Hero hands, that has been dragged into the center of the circle. "When I say 'go' and the clock starts, you're off.

"Any last questions?" Faux drama. Jamal finds this intensely annoying and turns away before he hears Peregrine shout . . .

"Go!"

The first challenge is the freakish mad scramble to decide which of the Clubs goes where. It takes two minutes of suggestions, argument, and actual shoving before it reaches total chaos. As Jade Blossom and Diver tussle over which of the pair would be best suited to search in Beverly Hills, Toad Man turns to Jamal and gives a half-smile. "This reminds me of a football huddle."

"Yeah, but nobody is the quarterback."

It's Holy Roller who uses his voice and bulk to restore order. "Dammit, people!" The uncharacteristic use of profanity shocks the team to relative silence. "Time, as they say, is a-wasting. Brother Stuntman, you know this godless city better than any of us. Why don't you give us some guidance—and quickly."

Whether he likes it or not, Jamal is suddenly in charge. And the choices are obvious: "Brave Hawk, the mountain location. Reverend, you and Toad hit that Valley spot. Jade, Beverly Hills."

Jade's face lights up in triumph—which is bad enough, but then she elbows Diver. "Too bad, baby"—as Jamal is forced to say, "Diver, Venice." Remembering their earlier conversation, he adds, "Sorry."

If Diver's wild card were laser eyes, Jamal's head would vaporize. "Fuck you, Stuntman. Where are you going?"

"The zoo."

The departure is a mad scramble, and not just for Clubs. Brave Hawk flaps into the sky. A few seconds later, Jetman launches himself in a blast of smoke and flame, the echo booming off the hills. Buford transforms into a toad the size of a Volkswagen and goes bounding off, with Roller rumbling behind him. A pelican the size of a hot air balloon appears out of nowhere and flaps off to the northeast—one of Dragon Girl's stuffed toys, transformed. Is she heading for the zoo? Or Mount Wilson to battle Brave Hawk and Jetman?

Jamal hears Rosa Loteria shouting for Rustbelt to "take the zoo!" The ridiculous-looking hoser ace jumps into a production truck and starts grinding the gears . . . the whole interior of the vehicle is probably now rust. Jade Blossom grabs John Fortune's cell phone and calls for a cab. Well, she's headed for Beverly Hills.

Ever Big Bill Norwood's son, Jamal gets a good jump, running for the Humvee and sliding into the driver's seat before anyone else even reaches the parking lot. He is amused to find Art in the back with Diaz and camera in the passenger seat. "Who did you guys piss off today?"

"You're not gonna be pointing at us all day, are you, Stuntman?" Art sounds completely beaten down.

"Sorry," Jamal says. He backs the car out of the lot and burns, as fast as he can, toward the eastern exit.

Growing up in Los Angeles has given Jamal a highly developed sense of geography, especially of various traffic shortcuts. He finds a turn-out just beyond a tunnel and quickly passes Rustbelt's truck. "So I'm heading for the zoo," he says, turning to Art. "What am I supposed to do, wrestle a fucking alligator?"

Art can't hide the smile. "Something like that." Another reason why he is really a bad American Hero producer: he's jumpy about contestants breaking the fourth wall, yet can't keep his own mouth shut.

Jamal thinks for an instant—a long, stretched, athlete-in-the-zone moment, the sort he experienced on a long base hit, a broken field run, a shot from downtown. He could win this. He feels it. He wants it.

When he reaches the parking lot at the base of the hill, near the turn to the Greek Theater and right across Vermont from the battered little Roosevelt Golf Course, Jamal pulls over. He is still a few minutes ahead of his competitors. For a moment he considers simply waiting for the parade. Why not follow the competition? Lay back, hit them from behind when the time is right? Of course, that strategy presumed Rustbelt could find his ass with both hands.

What the hell. If you're going to play the game, play it balls out. More words from Big Bill Norwood. Let the other guy react to you.

One, two, three—here comes a truck and a pair of Humvees. Jamal can't see who's in the third vehicle. But who cares? The cars disappear into the neighborhood and what Jamal knows is horrific midday traffic.

The standard route would take them all south on Vermont to busy Los Feliz, then east and north to the entrance to the park and zoo. But there is another way. . . .

"Are you gonna get going, Jamal? Or should we order lunch?"

He smiles. "Art, do you wonder why I keep talking to you?"

Art shuts up. He obviously knows his own weakness.

"I am going, Art. Watch this."

And Jamal pulls out of the lot and heads left instead of right—climbing a twisty road that he knows will carry him up and over the spine of the hills to approach the zoo from the other side.

Griffith Park Zoo is closed for the day—Jamal would have known that from the empty lot where school buses were usually queued up. But an American Hero camera crew is positioned right next to the entrance—and clearly not expecting an arrival just yet. Jamal is amused to see the crew scramble like ants. "I guess you should have called these guys, Art."

Jamal pulls up to the entrance—knows he's in the center of two lenses—and suddenly this is like being not only on a movie set, but as the lead. Why can't he play an American hero?

He can feel his eyes narrow—a full Clint Eastwood—as he scans the scene, right to left and back—a modified Schwarzenegger. A path has been marked with cones leading from the entrance past the row of animal habitats.

Jamal turns on the Tom Cruise smile. "Showtime."

He guns the vehicle forward. "Anybody behind us, Art?"

Art simply doesn't answer.

The trip is a short one—Jamal would have to be an idiot to miss the AMERICAN HERO SCAVENGER HUNT, so proclaimed on a banner.

The idea that an idol is somehow secreted inside the zoo strikes Jamal as silly—but then, so has every challenge until now. Nevertheless, Jamal does not expect to go up against a rare Bengal tiger—and he isn't.

American Hero had built a habitat of its very own. And inside it? A brown bear, some kind of lion, a rhino—and a moat filled with snakes.

And a brand new fence that sparks and hums, electrified.

"Something for all of us," Tiffani says from behind him. So much for getting the jump. The reflection of the brilliant midday sun precedes her. Tiffani is in full diamond mode.

Jamal has never really met the glittering Diamond girl. He wonders how many discussions there were between Berman and his production team about whether or not the ace from West Virginia had to be in the Diamond suit because of her ability to transform herself into superhard carbon.

(Then he wonders how many discussions there were about making sure Jamal Norwood, aka Stuntman, did not wind up in Spades.)

In her natural state she is, as they would no doubt say up in some West Virginia hollow, a purty little thang—red-haired, bright-eyed, not much of a figure, but a definite attitude. Jamal's early impressions labeled her a white trash trailer park babe, but that could be the accent. Being this close to her for the first time forces him to revise his opinion to a more positive one. If Jamal didn't have Jade Blossom to drool over, he could do worse than Tiffani. Though not today. Not with immunity on the line.

"You can have mine," he says.

"And they say gallantry is dead."

Jamal smiles. "You made good time."

"They had a police escort for us." That explains it; Jamal knows there's no way his competitors could be here already, going the long way around in L.A. traffic!

That's another thing he failed to anticipate . . . the continued interference by the American Hero production team. What else have they got cooked up for him? He slips along the freshly-painted safety railing—surprisingly substantial, for an American Hero construct—noting the various booby traps laid for the contestants. Beyond the moat of snakes, there were odd-shaped pools filled with some kind of bubbling goo—acid? Surely not. Holes in walls—would something shoot out of there? Projectiles? Or balls of flame? The ground within the habitat, where the animals were clearly not walking (fenced by some low-level electrical current?), was marked with a grid. Webbing? What would happen if you stepped on it? Would you be hobbled, bound? Or would you fall through? Roaming through this habitat . . . three big, mean animals who somehow managed to keep from attacking each other? (A thought that inspires Jamal to look for feeding troughs—he finds them in the shadows at the rear, piled high with disgusting substances.) The question remains, of course: where is the damned idol? Come on, Jetboy, show yourself!

Tiffani nods toward the habitat. "Hey, lookie there." She points with perfect fluidity of motion, surprising Jamal, who expects to hear grinding: Rustbelt is atop the cagelike habitat, the bars now looking aged, thanks to the ace's touch. And a few yards away—still outside—an honest-to-God T Rex is distracting the lion. Wild Fox is here too.

Jamal is impressed with the thought that Rustbelt must have made a hell of a leap to reach the cage. Either that, or his touch was enough to protect him going across the electrified fence.

Jamal looks for some kind of staging area, preferably one in front of a camera crew. He can still see Rustbelt hanging from the gridwork and Wild Fox's T Rex engaging the animals. The bear roars and swipes at Rustbelt, fast and close enough to send the iron yokel sprawling. "Hey, watch it!" Rustbelt yells, his nasal Minnesota accent as annoying as a honking car. "Geez, you could hurt a guy, ya know?" Then he laughs stupidly, as if it was all just an act for the cameras. But even from fifty yards away, Jamal can see Rustbelt's hands shaking. He drops to the ground with a clang that echoes off the walls of the habitat's caves, and starts sidling between two of the domed units, tipping over fake rocks and newly planted trees. There's no obvious way in, not that Jamal can see.

What the hell.

Jamal flings himself at the electrified fence, feels the stinging spark—the total, instantaneous clench of every muscle in his body—know that can't be good. . . . smells his own flesh singeing.

Then he hits the concrete apron bordering the moat. He lies on his back, panting, twitching, the sun and sky whirling. He feels as though he's been flattened by a three-hundred-pound linebacker at full speed, or dropped from an airplane.

Come on, bounceback. . . .

How long? He's not sure. He forces himself to sit up . . . stand up. Okay, he's still in the game.

It's not impossible to jump the moat, Jamal sees. Like most American Hero hurdles, it is designed to look more challenging than it actually is. A quick leap, and he's over.

Though he slips on what proves to be dirt that is so hard it's become slick. Trying to right himself, he feels as though he's pulled a thigh muscle. Fucking idiot. The injury won't do anything but throb and slow him down. The trauma isn't severe enough to trigger a bounceback. Where's the big wild card power now?

"Hey, Rusty! Look out!" Jamal turns—atop the railing, at the opposite side of the habitat from glittering Tiffani, Wild Fox has resumed his natural form, ears and tail and all, and is alerting Rustbelt to Stuntman's approach. Jamal can't even see the iron ace, though the grunting and snorting of bear and lion are clues to his location.

Suddenly Tiffani flashes into view, still outside the railing. "Behind you, Stuntman!" she yells helpfully.

A shadow falls across Jamal. The rhino. Wham! The beast head-butts him, sending him crashing into one of the domes covering a cave. The surface of the dome is raw concrete—it's not enough for Jamal to be slammed into it, he's also scraped raw, bleeding.

And trying to avoid the rhino's feet. Miss. Miss.

Then a direct hit on his left shoulder. He can't help screaming, can't help hearing his voice echoing in the habitat.

He drags himself inside the habitat. The rhino, either satisified by the punishment it has inflicted on the intruder, or otherwise distracted, turns away, allowing Jamal to begin to bounceback.

One new sensation breaks through the pain: this cave is the worst-smelling place Jamal has been in.

He sits . . . tests his shoulder. Completely shattered, but rebuilding. He uses the time to search the interior of the cave for Jetboy. No, nothing but bear or rhino shit.

Presently he drags himself out of the cave, emerging to a clamor of voices—Wild Fox roaring in his latest animal persona, Rustbelt yelling like a drunk at a tailgate party, Art and the other producers keeping their cameras aimed. Something is going on out of his line of sight. Fine. It gives him time to search further.

He performs a flanking maneuver, putting one of the caves between him and the snorting rhino, who seems—if possible—to be growing more agitated at the presence of multiple aces in the habitat.

In the shadows Jamal sees not only the expected foliage and the odd box or barrel—presumably filled with feed—but other obstacles, including what could only be a limbo bar.

Who is that stupid production designer again? Or is this the work of the "writers" Jamal had seen lurking with the camera crews?

Maybe it's his experience on films, where the action is usually broken into pieces, but he feels a strange sensation, as if he is seeing his quest as it will appear on plasma screens days or weeks hence . . . wide-angle habitat . . . lion, bear, rhino . . . snakes in moat . . . face of Tiffani . . . Wild Fox with his ears pricked up and his tail swooshing. Cut, cut, cut!

Rustbelt kicks over a bucket of feed, starts pawing through it.

Wild Fox is in the habitat now—and he's taken the shape of the bear! Which one is the ace? Ah, the one stopping to search.

Tiffani, where's Tiffani? Got to have that eye candy, people! There she is, glittering and glowing. And to Jamal's amazement, then fury, she simply steps on the electrified wire—balancing like an acrobat as St. Elmo's Fire envelopes her harmlessly—then simply dropping to safety in the habitat.

Of course. Stuntman is flesh and blood. He gets hurt, then bounces back. Tiffani is transformed into one of the hardest substances known, a lousy conductor. A few stray volts of electricity wouldn't even curl her hair, assuming it could be curled. She shoots the camera a smile so bright that Jamal can see it from behind, the way it shines on the crew's faces.

She turns. "Get going, Stuntman!" Cut. Cut. Cut.

Then it's Rustbelt, ducking under the sweeping paw of the brown bear. (What the fuck does he think he's doing?) Cut.

Wild Fox-as-the-bear pulls apart one of the cavelike habitats and begins picking through its contents in a very fastidious, unbearlike manner. "What have we got here?" he says. Shit, does he have the Jetboy idol? Jamal wonders. Am I screwed? Cut.

Then Jamal himself, Stuntman, is suddenly face-to-face with a lion. For one fraction of a second, he wants to laugh at the image . . . black man with a lion! Like some black-and-white jungle movie.

He's been electrocuted and stomped. He can't handle being slashed. Gotta go, gotta move. Make it more like the football field: run, spin, stop, reverse.

His bad leg slows him as he tries to clear a casing that covers pipes and a faucet. Wham! Jamal hits again, not hard by Stuntman standards, but enough to knock his wind out.

Tiffani screams at the lion, causing the beast to turn—it freaks out, if a lion can freak out—at the sight of her.

Under the tipped casing, Jamal sees the damned idol, Jetboy, lying on his back. He rolls so he can crawl toward it. . . .

Zap. He can't fucking do it! That grid in the habitat floor—it's some kind of nonlethal weapon, a wireless taser, slowing him down! Reach, crawl, reach. . . .

"Hey, Rusty!" He can hear Wild Fox.

Where? Jamal turns away from the glittery idol—still out of reach—can't see either Wild Fox or Rustbelt—no Tiffani, either. But they must be closing in. Three camera crews are scrambling closer.

Then there are the animals. He can smell them. . . .

Boom! Here comes Drummer Boy, all arms and attitude, yelping as he hits the taser field, but snatching Jetboy out from under the casing before Jamal is within five feet of the thing. "Tough luck, superstar!"

Not Drummer Boy: Wild Fox! As he turns, Jamal reaches out, finds his tail. He can't see it, but it's there. He gives it a yank, and "Drummer" loses his balance, turns back into Wild Fox . . . and sits down in a pile of bear shit. He hits hard and loses the idol.

Jamal finally gets to his feet. Dragging himself after the figurine, he sees it picked up by Rustbelt . . . it instantly changes color and texture. Seeing his immunity in the Minnesotan's hands—a stocky, stupid-looking kid who acts like an ape with a hand grenade—Jamal loses his temper. "You ruined it, hotshot!" Jamal shouts.

Rustbelt reacts as though Jamal has slapped him. And while he is distracted, Tiffani appears next to him and snatches the idol from his hand.

"Hey!" Rustbelt is even more wounded.

"Don't let her do that, goddammit!" Wild Fox snaps. He scrambles over the fence and out of the habitat. Rustbelt stands frozen as Tiffani actually poses with Jetboy, like a hostess on a game show, all glittering girlishness. "Purty, ain't it?" Her accent is as thick as Jamal has ever heard it. He knows what she's doing. Four cameras are on her and the male aces flanking her. The first one to make a move will look like a mugger attacking a cheerleader.

With one last look over his shoulder—yes, there's the damned rhino, looking as confused as Rustbelt—Jamal joins the group in front of the cameras. "So much for teamwork," he says.

"Come on, Jamal, what did you expect? We can't share the idol."

She's right, of course. They were never teammates. Jamal rejected the idea. He realizes that he resents the way she's got the idol: not from her wild card ability, which is no more useful than Jamal's, but from being a girl.

"You haven't got back with it yet," Rustbelt says, the longest, most coherent sentence Jamal has heard him utter.

For a moment, the sentence seems to take shape and hover in the air . . . a tangible challenge.

Tiffani realizes that her feminine immunity might be in danger.

As the cameras follow, she starts running for her vehicle.

Jamal has bounced back enough that his leg no longer bothers him, though his shoulder will be a gooey mess for hours yet. He easily outdistances Wild Fox and Rustbelt in the race to the vehicles. But Tiffani is ahead of him, Tiffani is pulling out, right behind an American Hero Humvee and its camera crew. Jamal reaches his own wheels—Art and his camera operator are already inside. Clearly they expect to record his frustration at losing to Tiffani.

It isn't until he is on the road, zipping through traffic heading south from the zoo, that Jamal begins to wonder just what he hopes to accomplish. "How are the other contests going?"

"I hear the shopping is taking too long." Art glances over his shoulder at the camera operator, who snickers. "Brave Hawk whupped up on Jetman. He's already back with his idol."

So Brave Hawk would live to fight another day. Jamal really needs to win, if only so he can spare himself a boatload of condescension from the Apache ace. This assumes, of course, that Jamal isn't voted out.

It won't be for lack of high-speed driving. Jamal has been trained, and while doing spins and turns in a controlled environment like a movie location is far easier than simply going fast, running lights and driving on the shoulder . . . he has the skills, and the two yokels behind him do not.

He catches Tiffani at the turn east onto Los Feliz, pulling abreast of her. For a moment she isn't aware of him—too distracted by the stares, shouts, and gestures she is getting from the cars behind and in front of her. Then she glances to her right—and Jamal has the pleasure of seeing true surprise on her face.

"There's nothing you can do, Jamal!" She isn't saying it to be mean, he thinks. And for a moment he feels bad, because he has realized how to get the idol from her.

But only for a moment. The other aces like Tiffani. She won't be voted off. Jamal, however, is on the bubble.

He can't make the move here, not on Los Feliz, with three lanes of midday L.A. traffic surging, then slowing, like gobs of sludge in a fat man's bloodstream.

Suddenly he sees an opening on the right. Tiffani's car is stuck behind the Humvee in the middle lane, but there is room to pass on the right, where, insanely, cars are parked. Zip to the right, then zip back before creaming himself on a BMW. He shoots a light—Tiffani and the American Hero team are now a good minute behind. Now he's able to turn onto Vermont and stop. "Get out," he tells Art and the camera guy.

"What the hell are you doing, Jamal?"

"Get the fuck out of here so you don't get hurt!"

Fortunately, Art is one of those people who reacts quickly. Maybe it's the look in Jamal's eyes. The producer and camera operator pile out of the Humvee. Jamal has it in motion before the doors slam.

He looks in the rearview mirror. The camera Humvee is just now making the turn, fifty yards back.

Faster, faster. He needs more time.

Past the golf course, whipping to the left. Up the hill. The glistening dome of the observatory flashes past like a rising sun.

Here! A turnout just around the edge of the hill. He slews the car around, frantic, get ready. He blinks sweat out of his eyes. This is genuinely nuts. He wants to be anywhere but here. Big Bill is right—he doesn't have the mentality for competition.

Tiffani's Humvee drives past. And without making a conscious decision, Jamal guns his vehicle right into the side of Tiffani's car, neatly T-boning it off the ledge.

Jamal feels himself go weightless, like a drop on Space Mountain or that awful, awful fall on the Nic Deladrier project. The impact of car on rock, then on Tiffani's car, is like being slammed into a brick the size of a garage door.

He is hanging in the air, in his lap and chest belt, nothing new broken, but definitely in pain, especially with his rubbery shoulder. He has smacked the side of his face, too. But the massive Humvee is intact—he is able to open the door and pull himself out.

He can smell smoke and feels dust in his throat. The light is so brilliant his eyes hurt. A breeze is starting to swirl up the canyon, a Santa Ana driven by the differing temperatures of desert to the north and ocean to the south. The only sounds are distant voices, school kids at play on fields far below, their shouts amplified by the surrounding hills.

The slope is steep. He has to hold onto the car to keep from slipping down. His legs aren't good, but he can already feel them bouncing back. Tiffani's car is ten yards farther down the slope, upright, but its body crunched, as if squeezed in a giant's fist.

And Tiffani is still strapped into the front seat—her glittering diamondlike surface smudged with dust. She is frantically trying to free herself, a process complicated by her need to scream at Jamal. "You stupid son of a bitch!" It actually takes her several seconds and deep breaths to get the words out. Jamal merely slides to the passenger side of her vehicle and—absorbing three first-rate punches—plucks the foot-tall, rust-colored Jetboy out of the wheel well.

"You could have killed me! What do you think you're doing?"

"Winning." He sees how trapped she is. "When I get to the top, I'll make sure they come for you."

He jams the idol inside his shirt because he needs both hands to get up the slope.

Bounceback is working for him—he has jogged two hundred yards up the road, one turn short of the observatory lot and the finish line, before he sees—strangely—a beautiful, naked woman standing just up the hill, like Hugh Hefner's vision of Eden. It's Jade Blossom! His dream girl with the saucy mouth and amazing breasts. . . .

He trips, his feet tangled in a rope. As he hits, he lands on Jetboy. More pain. Rolling on his side, struggling to free himself with one good hand, Jamal sees Jade Blossom transform back into Wild Fox.

Of course.

Not only have Wild Fox and Rustbelt caught him, they have help. Drummer Boy is here, too, and Rosa Loteria—which would explain the caballero reeling in the lasso that tripped him up. Adding to the fun, there is a camera crew with Rustbelt—Art and Diaz. Jamal looks up the road. The camera Humvee has backtracked. Then the whump-whumping of helicopter blades causes everyone to turn. The aerial camera from the flying challenge is back now, too.

Jamal feels as though he has become Will Smith. He is the action-movie star, and this is his big finish. This is like Bad Aces II. Helicopters, Santa Anas stirring dust, afternoon light. All he needs is theme music.

"Come on, tough guy," Drummer Boy shouts, easily blocking the mountain road with his flailing arms. He looks like a Hindu god on crack. As the chopper swoops south toward Sunset Boulevard and Thai Town to make a turn, Jamal hears the crunch of steps behind him. He bolts, and dodges a blow from Rustbelt.

He is surrounded. And outnumbered.

The only safe thing is to keep moving. He's faster and more mobile than his opponents. All he has to do is reach the damned finish line.

Drummer Boy picks up a rock and flings it. Jamal sees it, dodges, but here comes another one. Fuck! Without thinking, he ducks, hauls Jetboy out of his shirt—stands like A-Rod at the plate and smacks the next projectile. The impact is jarring, like hitting a baseball on a cold day.

But what takes the sting away is seeing that projectile smack Drummer Boy in the forehead. All of the ace's arms flutter like tree limbs in a gentle breeze, and he sinks to the cracked pavement. Jamal retrieves Jetboy and sprints past him. Rosa Loteria has transformed back into herself and is madly shuffling her magic cards. Using Jetboy like a club, Jamal smacks the deck out of her hands, and hears her gasp as the cards go flying. Then his path is blocked by a snarling tiger. He runs right through it, knocking Wild Fox back on his shit-smeared tail.

He can see the observatory building ahead of him. Lining the railings, half a dozen aces—Brave Hawk's pseudo wings fluttering in the breeze, Dragon Girl, Pop Tart.

And Berman, the network guy, off to one side.

It's as if the world is ganging up on Jamal.

A hundred yards to go. The camera truck is behind him. The chopper above.

For a moment, he wishes he could get to the building itself. What a perfect spot to replay the knife fight from Joker Without a Cause!

Jamal is hit from behind. It is the most surprising blindside tackle he has ever felt. He hits the pavement hard—chin scraped, hands raw. Jetboy flies out of his hands. Rustbelt rolls past, upset by his own momentum, his bolts sparking on the pavement. Jamal scrambles after the idol.

He and Rustbelt grab it at the same time.

For an instant they are eye to eye. "It's mine."

"Mine, now," Rustbelt says.

Both of them know that Jamal can't win a tug-of-war. His wild card—never especially helpful except on a movie stage—is completely useless here. But what had Tiffani taught him? He has other weapons. Especially when he hears Rustbelt say, "That's what you get for being a—"

The word is lost in the roar of rotor noise from the hovering chopper.

Jamal lets go of the idol. He points at Rustbelt and screams as loudly as he can, right in front of all the cameras, "Did you hear what he called me? What kind of racist shit is that?"

"It took you long enough."

It is early the next morning. Clubs Lair is quiet. Jamal sees Michael Berman emerging from the breakfast nook. Astonishingly, he is still dressed in his black suit and tie. The only signs that he has been up all night are a faint beard stubble that shows a surprising amount of gray, and the loosened knot of his tie.

"Didn't know we were meeting."

"You're not that stupid."

Jamal removes the carafe from the coffeemaker—still dirty. He smashes it into Berman's face, hearing the crunch of it, but it doesn't break. . . .

No, no need for that. Hear the man out.

He empties the old coffee into the disposal as Berman, strangely, opens the exact cabinet where the coffee is kept. "You didn't expect to drop that little bomb on us without experiencing a little fallout, did you?"

Jamal feels a tight smile forming. Fallout. Bounceback, oh yes. The look on everyone's face when he shouted that Rustbelt had called him "nigger". The rusted Jetboy idol never made it to the finish line. The whole scene fell apart, aces herded into their vehicles like witnesses to a crime. Sullen, confused silence at the Lair that night.

Silence, that is, except for Brave Hawk, who offered a pat on the shoulder. "Told you."

Now Berman removes the carafe from Jamal's hands and wipes it dry with a paper towel. He goes to the Sparkletts dispenser in the corner and fills it. "What proportions do you use?"

"Excuse me?" Jamal is still in bounceback, never his best mode, and suddenly feels unsure. What is this man doing here? What is he talking about?

"What proportion of coffee to water?" Berman's expression suggests this is the most natural question in the world.

"Two to one. I mean, one to two. One coffee to two water."

"Me, too." With two quick moves, Berman gets the coffeemaker started.

"So," Jamal says, "where's the camera crew?"

"This conversation doesn't exist."

"Fine."

"Neither, I suspect, did that word. It can't be heard on the tapes."

Jamal lets that statement hang in the air. "Which doesn't mean it wasn't said. Just like this conversation—no record, but real, right?"

"That would be an interesting public debate, wouldn't it? Your word against Rustbelt's." Berman shakes his head. "Poor Wally. Of all the people to pick on—he's as black as you."

"He's iron, Mr. Berman. He's not black." Jamal hears these words come out of his mouth. Where did he learn to be militant? Certainly not from Big Bill. "Is that what you want? A public argument between me and Rustbelt?"

"We've had enough of that already." True, before the Clubs had even returned to the lair after the scavenger hunt, the blogosphere had inflated with the news of Jamal's accusation.

"So, where does that leave us?" Jamal says. "Where does that leave me?"

Berman picks up the Jetboy idol. "You seem to have gained a new kind of immunity. It will be impossible for anyone to vote you out of American Hero."

"Does that mean I'm the winner?" He finds the thought incredibly exciting—as if he'd just been told he was going to start in the big game.

"I couldn't possibly tell you something like that." Which in no way means that he isn't the winner—the first American Hero! "It would be best for all of us, I think, if you tried very hard not to think that. To simply play the game. By the rules."

"I thought there were no rules."

"The apparent rules. The rules we make up as we go along." Berman suddenly puts his hands to his face, the gesture of a much older man. "Do I have your promise to . . . play that way?"

"Yeah. By the rules we make up as we go along." For a moment, he wishes Big Bill Norwood could be sitting in the breakfast nook. Or maybe that nasty little Nic Deladrier. How do you like Stuntman now?

Jade Blossom enters. "Oh," she says, her mouth forming that single syllable most prettily.

Berman stands, and a look passes between him and Jade. With utter certainty, Jamal realizes that Berman has been after Jade—and so far, unsuccessfully. Berman makes a grand gesture, midway between an introduction and a surrender. "You two must have a lot to talk about."

Then he leaves.

Almost instinctively, as if searching for a human touch as much as an erotic thrill, Jamal reaches for Jade.

But she raises a hand. "Wait a second."

Behind Jade, Jamal sees Art blinking sleep out of his eye, gesturing for Diaz to raise the camera.

"Now." And she takes his hand.