Read Dealer's Choice for Free Online

Travnicek said. “If you get blown up again, I’ll build another one.”
    There was no point, the android knew, in pointing out that since Travnicek had become a joker he’d lost his ability to construct much of anything. Travnicek would just deny it, then order him to do something humiliating.
    “If you’re sure, sir,” Modular Man said. “If you’ve got enough money to”
    “Go!” The blue-skinned joker waved an arm. “And fuck you!”
    “May I take my guns first?”
    “Take whatever you want. Just stop bothering me.”
    Modular Man took the microwave laser and the .30-caliber Browning.
    It looked like it was shaping up to be that kind of day.
     
    The potpourri of thoughts around Bloat were amusing in their diversity.
    Kafka was radiating his usual sour paranoia and annoyance with the “juvenile behavior” of his compatriots: Zelda (who these days insisted on being called Bodysnatcher) was wondering whether she’d done a hundred bench presses this morning or just ninety. That was just mind-static: she’d been trying different strategies to keep him from reading her thoughts for the last few weeks. Shroud was gazing at his hand and wondering whether it was a little more translucent today than yesterday; Video was replaying the arrival of Herne a few hours ago; Molly was staring at Herne and speculating graphically about what she’d like to do with him (and whether it would be physically possible — evidently she’d seen some of the porno films in which he’d starred). Herne had become more his daytime personality of Dylan Hardesty; Hardesty was guiltily remembering an earlier Hunt and how good it had felt to kill the victim…
    And the penguin, as usual, was mind-silent — like all of Bloat’s creations. The penguin was staring at him, but he could sense no thoughts at all behind the blank gaze.
    None of them were particularly thinking about the subject at hand. Bloat blinked and cleared his throat.
    “Look, people, you’ve all heard Hardesty’s information from the Twisted Fists,” Bloat said loudly. Thoughts shattered and refocused on the sound; Bloat grinned in quick amusement. “So who here thinks we got something to worry about?”
    Molly sniffed. The bodysnatcher crossed her arms across the middle-aged woman’s body she was wearing and scowled. Video silently, emptily recorded. Shroud grumbled inwardly. Hardesty looked at the others expectantly.
    “I do, Governor,” Kafka said. His carapace rattled like a child’s toy as he shifted position. “I’ve been telling you this since the last time, sir; they aren’t just going to leave us alone. They never do.” Dark images of the aces’ raid on the Cloisters ran unbidden in his head. Kafka rattled his carapace gloomily. “Bush is a hardass when it comes to confrontations — he’s shown that abroad and he’s shown it with anti-joker legislation.”
    “We have a conference with Hartmann today,” Bloat reminded him. “A peace conference .”
    “The Japanese were negotiating with Washington when they attacked Pearl Harbor too,” Kafka said. “This time they’ll use the aces to help. Pulse, Mistral, the Turtle… The fact that Hartmann’s involved cinches it — they want him because he knows the government aces best, through SCARE. This time they’ll use the aces to help.”
    “Aces can be jumped,” Bloat answered, taking the words that Molly was about to speak and smiling at the annoyance on the young woman’s face. “If they’re jumped, they’re ours . Aces will also hit the Wall and not be able to get through, just like nats. My dream creatures will eat them, just like with the nats. The jokers here are well armed.”
    “Governor, that’s all true, I suppose, but —”
    “We’re fine here,” Bloat interrupted. “I don’t see what we got to be worried about. Hey, you should see what I’ve done with the caverns.”
    “Shit.” The bodysnatcher stretched like a tawny lioness. “Dreams ain’t gonna keep the