of the definition of “lame.” And I’ve only been “differently abled” since I drew my ace. But anyway, the thing I rode in on is called a houdah or a palanquin, depending on whether it’s got an elephant or servants underneath, and while it’s great for a grand entrance, it doesn’t work so well indoors. Plus, if I rode a palanquin around the Diamond House, I’d hit my head on the ceiling. A racing wheelchair is a lot more maneuverable. Plus it fits in the trunk of the Hummer. At least when Blrr isn’t pushing me around, and gods, when she did that, half of me was having flashbacks to my accident and half of me was going Faster! Faster! This is so cool!
Did I mention I like being an ace and meeting other aces? Emily’s fun, too—I’m from Seattle, she’s from Silicon Valley, so we’ve got a fair bit in common. But anyway . . . glad you thought I looked cool, Bobby, and thanks for watching.
Okay, next letter. Jeeves?
Dear Maharajah,
What’s up with your power? If you can make a chorus line of bridesmaid dresses and legwarmers do the can-can, why can’t you just fill up your empty pants with invisible legs so you can walk around? Or do you really just like sitting on your ass while people wait on you?
—Curious, Custer, SD
Okay, busted. I just like sitting around on my ass while people wait on me. Subconsciously, at least. That’s the way the wild card works. If I got what I consciously wanted, I’d be Raj the deuce with three invisible phantom limbs to make up for what I lost when I rolled my truck. Instead, I’m the Maharajah, with an army of phantom servants to cater to my every whim. But hey, life could suck worse.
Hazel, this mai tai needs freshening. Fetch me another drink.
All right, one more letter. Jeeves, if you would?
I just watched the new episode of American Hero and I can’t believe what I saw Team Diamonds do. I had my husband rewind it so I could watch it again: the ghostly fireman goes into the baby’s nursery, picks up the baby from the crib, then tosses it back in the fire and leaves! I can understand Jetman missing that poor man when he leapt to his death, but what kind of “hero” leaves a baby to burn? My littlest one is having nightmares about those possessed clothes putting the baby back in the flaming crib and so am I. What am I supposed to tell my daughter? At first I’d thought it was kind of nice that they had a cripple on one of the teams, but now I’m thinking the Maharajah must have brain damage, too.
—A Concerned Mother in Baton Rouge
Okay, “Concerned Mother,” I don’t have brain damage, thank Vishnu, but . . . could you tell your daughter it was a doll? Really. That burning building is a set on the Warner’s lot and the victims were all stuntmen. Except the baby, which was a doll. With a voice track. And my servants aren’t really ghosts, just animated clothing, and they’re a bit literal-minded.
I should probably explain. I used to do game animation. You program a sprite to walk north, it does until it hits its head on a virtual wall, and it’ll keep whacking its head on the wall until you tell it to stop. Programmers have a term for this: GIGO. Garbage in, garbage out. You can only expect a program to do what it’s told to do. So before you get artificial intelligence, you get artificial stupidity.
My servants follow the same rules: they do exactly what I tell them to do, nothing more, nothing less. I animated a bunch of firefighters’ clothes and told them, “Gentlemen, I wish you to enter that building and bring me every living creature in it except the houseplants! Go! The Maharajah commands it!” And that’s what they did.
Jeeves, stop! Stop looking for a building. That was a hypothetical . . . And Hazel, yes, my mai tai. Thank you . . . for the coffee. Oh. I asked you for another drink, didn’t I? And you know I’m from Seattle. Stop nodding, Hazel.
Anyway, like I was saying, my servants are based on my subconscious. They know what I know, but I don’t really know what they know. If I’d told them “victims” they wouldn’t have gotten anyone, because consciously I knew there weren’t any real victims at our first challenge, just