Free Wild Cards [09] Jokertown Shuffle by George R.R. Martin Page A

into the heat waves rising up from the streets of the smoldering city. Brennan watched him until he was gone, then plunged into the jungle.
    Kien hated the jungle. He'd always hated the jungle. He was an urbanite at heart. He liked air-conditioning, ice cubes in his drinks, and buildings with real floors and walls, all of which were rather lacking in the jungle.
    But Wyrm had told him that his destiny was here, and he wasn't about to argue with the dead joker. He hit upon a strangely familiar path as soon as he reached the jungle. He half knew where it would take him as soon as he found it, so it was no real surprise that he came upon the village where he'd spent his childhood. It was strange, but Kien was beyond surprise by now. He accepted it as he accepted all the strangeness of this place, but he approached the village with all the caution that he could muster because he still had the feeling that death could be found here much as it could be found in the real world.
    The village seemed deserted. He headed straight for the dirt-floored store that was his father's, where he'd spent so many hated hours when he was a child.
    His father, Kien thought, had been such a hypocrite, always crying and moaning about how poor they were. He would scarcely put decent food on the table, let alone buy decent clothes for his children. It was bad enough growing up ethnic Chinese among the damned Vietnamese. It was worse to wear ragged and patched clothes that made him the laughingstock of the village school. And it wasn't, Kien remembered as he approached the store's entrance, that they didn't have the money. No. Kien's father, besides being a shrewd businessman in his dealings with the village, was also a blackmarketeer. He sold weapons, munitions, and medicine to the insurgents fighting the French, and everything he sold, he sold dear.
    Kien walked into the dark interior of the store. Old Dad had plenty of money. In fact, Kien knew where the miser hid it, buried beneath a pile of cheap straw mats in a cache dug into the store's dirt floor. Right there.
    As Kien looked at the spot in the floor, he was seized with the same compulsion that had once gripped him over thirty-five years ago. He took a sharp-pointed mattock down from those hanging from hooks on the wall and roughly pushed the pile of cheap mats away. He started to dig in a frenzy, cutting quickly through the cool, slightly moist soil in a spate of wild hoeing. Within moments he had dug a hole over two feet deep, and the blade of the mattock hit something that clanged with a metallic chink. He dropped the mattock, grubbed with his hands in the dirt, and pulled out a metallic strongbox that felt heavy with the weight of untold riches.
    "You!" a voice squeaked in rage.
    Kien looked wildly over his shoulder. It was Old Dad. "What are you doing there? What are you doing with my box?"
    "I--" Kien began, confused by the blurring of memories and events unfolding before him.
    "My son, a thief," the old man said haughtily. He raised the cane that he always carried and struck Kien sharply on the shoulder. Kien ducked his head like a turtle retreating into his shell and took the blow as he always did.
    Old Dad struck him again and again, and something snapped in Kien. He wailed in anger and pain, reached out and grabbed the object nearest to him, and struck out wildly at his father. He felt the shock of contact run up his arms, and his father stopped beating him. He opened his eyes and saw the truth that he had hidden with a thousand elaborate lies. He saw the mattock blade embedded in the center of his father's forehead. Old Dad looked at him with astonished, already glazed eyes.
    He was dead. Kien had killed him. There was only one thing to do now. He had to run. He needed money. He reached gingerly over his father's cooling corpse and lifted the key the old man wore on a thong around his neck. He put the key into his pocket and tucked the strongbox under his arm. It was heavy, heavy