American Hero - George R. R. Martin Page 0,67
to continue on. Rosa Loteria had a little more trouble and took three tries to draw a card that could help her, El Valiente. This put her behind the others, and the clock ticked on.
Inside the warehouse, the three would-be heroes faced an obstacle course. They’ve traversed courses like this before, but this one had a twist: not all the obstacles were physical. In one phase of the course, the contestants faced three doors. Only one led to the hostage. A riddle written on each door gave the clue to the correct path.
Stuntman chose correctly—the middle door. Through the door, he had to traverse a maze, and at the end of the maze he found the hostage. Once freed, the hostage pointed him to the next part of the challenge. Curveball took a different approach: throwing marbles, she broke open the doors one after the other, hoping to find the hostage more quickly than she could by solving the riddle. Seeing the mazes on the other side, however, she returned to the riddles and eventually found the right passage, freed the hostage, and went on to the rest of the challenge. Once again, luck wasn’t with Rosa: she chose the wrong door not once, but twice. Exploring two wrong mazes before finding the correct one took time that she couldn’t spare.
A booby-trapped corridor led to the final step of the challenge. Trapdoors, foam arrows, and hidden attackers waited to stop our heroes. As usual, Stuntman simply barreled through and weathered the beating, showing off his athletic ability by leaping trapdoors and dodging attacks. He reached the final room and the bomb in record time, but even he was looking the worse for wear after so much abuse. Curveball didn’t do nearly as well, nearly falling out of the race—literally—when she tripped a trapdoor. She caught herself in time, but had to haul herself back into the corridor while simultaneously fending off an attack from a stray terrorist. She almost didn’t reach the end of the corridor at all, despite the impressive display of skill and determination, and unfortunately didn’t reach the bomb in time. Though only a few seconds late, the spray of a paintball pellet told the story. If this had been a real scenario, the device would have exploded and destroyed this part of the city. Rosa handled the obstacle course without a problem—finally, the cards were on her side, and the Diablito card let her speed through and destroy most of the booby traps before they had a chance to catch her. However, the time she’d spent getting through the riddles at the doors and rescuing the hostage came back to haunt her. Like Curveball, she arrived a few seconds too late and was caught by the bomb.
Only two of the three would move on to the final week. But the judges announced a special procedure to choose who would continue on—and who would be leaving for good.
We haven’t forgotten our Discards, the twenty-five aces who didn’t make the final cut. As many have speculated, their time on the show hadn’t come to an end. Those old alliances, rivalries, and team loyalties once again played a part in the game, because the final Discard vote, the final decision as to which of these three moved on to the very last challenge was made by the Discards themselves. Who better to determine who has what it takes to continue on? Who better to judge these three than the former contestants who lived with them and fought by their sides ? Old rivalries were rekindled and long-forgotten grudges returned with a vengeance as our three finalists faced down their fallen comrades.
The voting was close, and everyone had an opinion about who was most worthy to continue on in the competition, and who deserved to get the boot. Tiffani had this to say about Curveball: “Am I the only one who thinks she’s kind of a bitch?”
As it turned out, her feelings may have been more common than she thought, because guess who the Discards voted to join them? Curveball. There you have it: next week, two aces face off for the million dollars and all the glory.
Rosa Loteria or Stuntman?
Who will be the American Hero?
Keep on the lookout for this week’s confessions:
Gardener, Jetman, Rosa Loteria, and Wild Fox!
Confessional: Jerusha Carter aka Gardener
You can’t say it hasn’t been exciting . . .
I mean, the earthquake the other night, and we damned near lost the whole Discard House. Wish you guys