demolitions expert on payroll today!” and he runs around until Cherry gets bored.
So fine, whatever. I go back to the deck and pull La Rana, the Frog, and one of the grips goes, “Look! Buford’s got a date!” and everyone starts laughing.
Hello, America, did you notice the colors? I was a poison frog lady. But no way do the stuntmen want to deal with real poison, so La Rana goes back in the deck and I shuffle again.
I pull El Valiente and he calls, “Okay, any of you Hollywood pendejos have a fake knife?” and at least they have that. So he goes through the stupid gauntlet and stabs all the terrorists except the last couple. Then I’m told it’s not “heroic” for El Valiente to tie up the stuntmen with his serape and hold a prop dagger to their throats until they tell him where the bomb is, ’cause they say terrorists always lie, and torture never works, and this is a family show.
Isn’t this the same network that produces 24?
Whatever. The next challenge is an obstacle course. El Valiente does fine until there are three doors with some crap written on them. They were supposed to be riddles, but here’s a riddle for America: If you were a terrorist, would it be a good idea to write crap on a door so idiots would stand there and read it while your sniper draws a bead on them?
Props to Curveball, she was thinking the same thing. She blew the hell out of those doors with her marbles, so she was quicker to find the lame maze than I was, just kicking doors down. But I mapped out the whole place in case there was something important somewhere, because, you know, if terrorists always lie, couldn’t the point of the riddle be to make us waste our time thinking about math problems instead of actually rescuing hostages?
So anyway, I finally find the hostage, and at this point I’ve pretty much given up thinking these terrorists might be smart, so the hostage can’t be a terrorist telling me crap to screw with me, and the terrorists were too stupid to just kill someone who knows where their bomb is too.
El Valiente doesn’t want to deal with any more of this crap, so when we get to the corridor with the booby traps—you know, like the stupid riddle doors could have had—I draw again and pull El Diablito. She’s a blue devil girl with a lightning bolt pitchfork, and she’s lightning quick, so I get to the bomb just in time to have it blow paint in my face.
If I hadn’t had my deck in my pocket, Mr. Berman would have needed a new ass.
So anyway, Curveball and I are both pissed, and Jamal’s sitting pretty because he thinks he’s going to get the immunity and he’s going to get to pick which of us to boot, and I get ready to kiss my ass goodbye because there’s nothing Curveball can do to hurt him, so he’d be stupid not to pick her. Then the judges give a twist—no immunity, everyone’s necks are on the chopping block, and it’s going to be the Discards who are going to decide who goes.
I didn’t think Curveball would get cut. I mean, I’m not saying she’s Miss Congeniality, but there’s not much there to hate. Kate’s got a respectable power, but it’s not so kick-ass that it scares people, and it’s not something that makes them laugh, either. Me? I do both, sometimes at the same time. If you get your ass handed to you by a chick in a baseball cap, you can still respect yourself in the morning. But a chick in a straw hat with exploding cherries? You’re hating life, and that doesn’t win me any popularity contests. Of course, Jamal had that crap with Rusty, and if you’re indestructible, it makes you look like a whiner at best. That doesn’t win you any popularity contests either.
Next thing Tiffani’s in front of me, smirking, and she says, “I said I’d pay good money to see you under a bus.” I wanted to slap her, but I knew she’d just turn to diamond, so I said, “Yeah? Well, people are going to be paying to see you under a donkey in Tijuana, puta.”
I think Wild Fox did an illusion of himself as the bassist from Joker Plague, the one who isn’t the devil dude. And I was going over to talk to Spasm,