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eBook Category: Science Fiction/Alternate History Hugo Award Nominee
eBook Description: There is power in politics. But some politicians have more power than others, a hidden power that allows them to pull the strings.... This was the first Senator Gregg Hartmann story, the only character in the Wild Cards series whose character arc began in the first book and ended in the last--at least until the revival of the series with a 16th volume from iBooks in 2002 (Deuces Down). Gregg would appear in nearly all the books ... and (quite justifiably) become one of the most reviled characters in the Wild Cards pantheon. When I created Gregg Hartmann and wrote this, I didn't know that I'd be writing stories around the character for seven years.... Like most Wild Cards tales, this story is not for the squeamish or easily offended.

eBook Publisher: Fictionwise.com, Published: Wild Cards 1, ed. George R.R. Martin, 1987
Fictionwise Release Date: March 2005

5 Reader Ratings: Great Good OK Poor

Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: Adobe Acrobat (PDF) [321 KB], eReader (PDB) [62 KB], Palm Doc (PDB) [51 KB], Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [47 KB], Microsoft Reader (LIT) [98 KB] - PocketPC 1.0+ Compatible, Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [118 KB], hiebook (KML) [116 KB], Sony Reader (LRF) [84 KB], iSilo (PDB) [43 KB], Mobipocket (PRC) [53 KB], Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [81 KB], OEBFF Format (IMP) [72 KB]
Words: 15161
Reading time: 43-60 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Adobe Acrobat (PDF) Format:  Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud DISABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED

The death of Andrea Whitman was entirely Puppetman's doing. Without his powers, the sullen lust that a retarded boy of fourteen felt for a younger neighbor girl would never have been fired into a molten white fury. By himself, Roger Pellman would never have lured Andrea into the woods behind Sacred Heart School in the suburbs of Cincinnati, and there ripped the clothing from the terrified girl. He would never have thrust that strange hardness into Andrea until he felt a sagging, powerful release. He would never have looked down at the child and the trickle of dark blood between her thighs and felt a compelling disgust that made him grasp the large flat rock alongside them. He would never have used that stone to bludgeon Andrea's blond head into an unrecognizable pulp of torn flesh and splintered bone. He would never have gone home with her gore splattered over his naked body.

Roger Pellman would have done none of that if Puppetman had not been hiding in the recesses of poor Roger's damaged mind, feeding on the emotions he found there, manipulating the boy and amplifying the adolescent fever that wracked the body. Roger's mind was weak and malleable and open; Puppetman's rape of it was no less brutal than what Roger did to Andrea.

Puppetman was eleven. He hated Andrea, hated her with the horrible anger of a spoiled child, hater her for having betrayed and humiliated him. Puppetman was the revenge fantasy of a boy infected with the wild card virus, a boy who'd made the mistake of confessing to Andrea his affection for her. Perhaps, he'd told the older girl, they might one day even marry. Andrea's eyes had gone wide at that and she'd run away from him giggling. He'd begun to hear the mocking whispers the very next day at school, and he knew even as the flush burned in his cheeks that she'd told all her friends. Told everyone.