The Atonement Tango: A Tor.com Original

By Stephen Leigh

The Wild Cards universe has been thrilling readers for over 25 years.

One act of terrorism changes the life of Michael "Drummer Boy" Vogali forever in Stephen Leigh's "The Atonement Tango." Now without his band, Joker Plague, Michael must figure out a way to re-build his life--and seek revenge.

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Macmillan Publishers
• Release date: Jan 18, 2017
• ISBN: 9780765392459

Stephen Leigh

Stephen Leigh is an award-winning author with nineteen science fiction novels and over forty short stories published. He has been a frequent contributor to the Hugo-nominated shared-world series Wild Cards, edited by George R. R. Martin. He teaches creative writing at Northern Kentucky University. His works include Immortal Muse, The Crow of Connemara, the Sunpath duology, and the fantasy trilogy Assassin's Dawn.

Book preview

Michael—aka Drummer Boy, aka DB, as most of the people who knew him called him—saw Bottom peering out through the rear curtains of the stage where their band, Joker Plague, was set up to play to the audience in Roosevelt Park. Through the thick velvet, they could hear people clapping and shouting impatiently. Well? Michael asked as Bottom let the curtains close.

Bottom glanced back at him: the head of donkey on a man’s body. The thick lips curled over cartoon-character teeth; he held the neck of the Fender Precision already strapped around his neck. Michael twirled the drumsticks held in each of his six hands. It’s a decent crowd, Bottom told him. Nearly all jokers, of course.

A ‘decent’ crowd? You mean a mediocre one. Shit. Michael pulled one of the curtains aside, looking out himself. The front of the stage area was packed, the audience there applauding in unison and pumping fists in the air, but the crowd thinned out well before it reached the end of the park’s field. When Joker Plague had played here during their heyday ten years ago, the crowd would have spilled out onto Chrystie and Forsyth Streets, which the Fort Freak cops would have closed off.

But that was years ago. The Joker Plague faithful were here, but …

They were rapidly becoming an ‘old’ band. While they could still pack the smaller venues, in the past they had played huge arenas to thousands—not just to jokers, but to crowds of nats as well. They still had fans, still put out the requisite new album every year or two, but their new material never got the airplay, coverage, and good reviews that their old stuff had, and the nats now paid no attention to them at all.

Playing music had been his refuge when everything in his life had turned to shit. Now he was losing that too. Even the jokers’ rights events where he’d once been so visible had mostly vanished, just like Joker Plague’s fame and days with the Committee. He was becoming that old guy, whatshisname that they dragged out on stage to give a few lines before the real talent appeared.

Washed-up and useless in his mid-thirties. Playing a parody of himself now. Fuck. Michael let the curtain close.

What’s the problem? Shivers asked. He was the guitarist for the group, who had the appearance of a bloody devil newly released from hell. Everything about him was the color of blood: his skin, his face, his hair, the twin horns jutting from his forehead, his trademark Gibson SG guitar. Shivers, like the other members of the group, didn’t seem to notice or care how they’d fallen. If they were no longer making the money they used to, money managed to come in and it was sufficient. It’s showtime.

S’Live—a balloon-like face gashed with mouth and eyes, thin and impossibly long arms protruding from his head like a living Mr. Potato Head—hovered in the air behind S’Live. The Voice, the lead singer for the group, was there as well: invisible but for the wireless mic that floated in the air near Shivers without any apparent hand holding it there. Their head roadie, a joker built like a two-legged, seven-foot-tall pit bull (and with the same breath), gave them a double thumbs-up at Shivers’ statement.

Shiver’s right, the Voice said in his mellifluous, rich baritone. Let’s get on with it. There’s a couple chicks waiting for me back in the hotel room, getting themselves ready, if you know what I mean. He laughed. The Voice lifted the mic, flipping the switch on the barrel. Are you ready? he bellowed, his voice amplified to a roar through the PA system, the echo from the nearest buildings bouncing back to them belatedly. A mass cry from the audience answered him. C’mon, the Voice responded. "You can do better than that! I said, are you