Author: Andrew Seiple
Date: 2015-08-22 04:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Science Fiction; Superheroes
Description: Grim's a simple supervillain. Do the job, get paid, go home and drink beer; it's a formula that works for him. But when a heist gets messy, he ends up having to deal with an unexpected guest and old memories of better times. His regeneration can mend any physical wound, but nostalgia leaves scars that never heal...This is a short story from the "Tales from the Teslaverse" project. More to come, later.

KEEP AN ACE IN THE HOLE

By Andrew Seiple

Text copyright © Andrew Seiple 2015

All Rights Reserved

With thanks to my good friend and badass cover artist, Mike Conley.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Table of Contents

PART 1: A MAN DIVIDED

PART 2: SMALL COMPLICATIONS

PART 3: OLD GLORY

PART 4: THE CARDS YOU'RE DEALT

PART 1: A MAN DIVIDED

It's hard to understand how annoying being a regenerator can be until a guy literally has to pick his own face up off the floor. Grim sighed through his lipless mouth as he went through what he called "cleanup on aisle ten" making sure that no major parts of him were left behind. That was the main problem with his otherwise-awesome primary power- once heroes knew that he wouldn't die no matter how hard they hit him, things got messy.

“Okay. Anyone see ny lesht hand?” he asked his team, slurring due to his lack of lips. Different parts of him regenerated at different rates. Vital organs fastest, bone a bit slower. After that, muscle took a minute or two— his shredded arms were still weak. Skin took weeks. He had already grown a new hand of bone and bloody gristle, but the old one had skin on it. If he could find the remnant, he could possibly transplant the skin.

Negative replies filtered back as he poked through the remnants of the cluttered laboratory. Shattered beakers and strange fluids covered the cracked dome of a massive centrifuge, broken and sparking servers tried vainly to reboot, and the robotic arms along the sides of the breached test chamber were busy making jazz hands.

“Y'know, this was supposed to be a simple in-and-out job,” Deadweight said, the zombie heads sewn into his corpse suit speaking in eerie unison. “How the fuck did the heroes get wind of this?”

Grim stared up at Deadweight's main 'face'. The real man was buried somewhere in the ten-foot-tall conglomeration of rotting corpses. Deadweight's power was controlling and creating zombies, but the farther away they were from him the weaker they got. Grim had come up with the idea of zombie armor. So far it had worked out. Even saved Deadweight a beating, tonight. Grim's eyes drifted downward to one of the unconscious heroes, a seven-foot-tall muscular snakewoman with an incongruous head of puffy pink hair. Serpent Tina, he remembered as he put a name to the face. A teenage hero, just like the rest that the Graveyard Gang had fought tonight. Just kids. Christ, if he'd known it would come to this...

“No clue,” Grim answered, surveying the reptile kid. Her chest moved as she breathed, and he nodded. “Just keef your ninions on task, Deadweight.” More slurring. Hopefully he could reattach his lips.

From its harness on his back, his scythe whispered in his mind. He felt his attention drifting to Serpent Tina's neck. To the pulse of lifeblood within, and the easy cut it would take to spill it....

He stuck a hand back, ran a bloody finger along the blade. His scythe shivered and was still.

Around him Deadweight's free-roaming zombies gathered up the samples they'd come for, piling them in metal crates. Some had survived, some hadn't. The client wouldn't be happy.

He preferred things neat. Tidy. This was the opposite of that. To take his mind off of it, Grim checked over the fallen heroes. These were about half of the Torchbearers. The current generation of them, anyway.

Serpent Tina was on the ground after the slugfest with Deadweight, so she was accounted for. She'd probably wake up with no worse than a headache; she was a serious brick if the gossip was to be believed.

The one who'd riddled him with metal spikes had to be Mags, the leader of the group. She was slumped against a wall, where Whippoorwill had sung her to sleep. She'd be fine when she woke up, so he added her to the mental tally and moved on.

Shadow Boxer was caught in a cage of hardened mud while several of the lab's overhead lights shone down into the open top, preventing him from summoning his darkforce minion. Judging by the swearing and yelling, he was trying to taunt Gravedigger, and failing.

Those were the only heroes in sight, and Grim narrowed his remaining eyebrow as he checked the mental tally against the heroes' roster.

He pressed the torn remnant of his face against his bloody skull, and sighed as he felt the flesh writhe against it in a familiar pattern. When he drew his hand away, he had lips again, and an eyelid. The rest fell to the floor, too far gone to bond, but he was grateful for what he had.

“Two unaccounted for,” he said, working his restored lips. “The speedster and the mentalist. Anyone see them?”

Epitaph spoke up, as she settled her fedora on her head. “The speedster booked it.”

“No surprise there,” Grim muttered. “He'll be getting reinforcements. But the mentalist? Mentot? Yeah, Mentot.”

Epitaph shuddered, her marble-white skin seeming to pale even more. She was living stone, a statue dressed in a stark black suit. “She gave me a bad trip,” Epitaph muttered. “I hit her with a desk, and she stopped. I didn't see where she fell. I don't know— I was kind of out of it at the time.”

That wasn't good. Most mentalists were fragile, and Epitaph had serious strength in her stony arms. Grim glanced over to Deadweight, who shook his heads.

“Nobody died during this one. I would have felt it.”

Grim nodded. “Alright. Figure the speedster got her out of here then.”

He concentrated and rose into the air, looking down at the laboratory one last time from a better angle.

He saw his team, the incapacitated Torchbearers, and the minion zombies loading up the crates. Nothing else moved.

“You know, we could grab some extra stuff,” Epitaph said.

Grim sighed, and looked toward the tunnel they'd used to get into the lab. He killed his flight and settled to the ground. More loot was time and risk, for an unknown chance of reward.

“No. We play the cards we were dealt. Grab a crate and get gone.”

He followed his own suggestion and tugged on a crate, muttering in frustration as it proved heavier than he thought. “Well fuck a duck. Someone give me a hand?”

A soft impact on his back, and he turned to look down at Whippoorwill, gothed to the nines with an old-style plague-doctor's mask hiding her face. Frizzy black hair poked out around it, and he could almost sense the hidden smirk as she offered Grim his bloody severed hand.

“Ha ha fucking ha. C'mon, let's get out of here.”

But he tucked the errant hand away for later reclamation, and Whippoorwill giggled as he ruffled her hair. She was a good kid. They all were.

PART 2: SMALL COMPLICATIONS

It didn't take long to reach the end of the tunnel. Deadweight's zombies dropped their crates and headed back to stall pursuit, while Gravedigger collapsed the passage behind them. Earth control was a pretty useful power, and the Gang exploited it at every opportunity.

Emberlane Cemetery was on the southern end of Icon City, between the big metropolis and many miles of farmland. It was a sprawling graveyard full of crumbling monuments and dilapidated buildings— just the way the Graveyard Gang liked it. They'd bought up the buildings through brokers and false fronts over the years, and repaired the insides while leaving the outsides to look weathered and worn. A few coats of black paint over windows, some low-key power and utility taps, and they had about half-a-dozen safe houses to bounce between on any given night. Meanwhile, Deadweight's zombies roamed the cemetery after dusk, keeping intruders out.

It was a pretty good system. Occasionally some hero group or the other would launch a raid, and they'd have to relocate for a while. But usually they were guaranteed a safe haven unless they ran into a big problem.

“Grim. We've got a problem. Big one.”

Grim glared at Gravedigger.

“What?”

“You'd better come see.” The brown-clad man adjusted his bowler, and waved a hand toward the back porch. Grim followed him to where the zombies were still unloading the van, opening each crate so Whippoorwill and Epitaph could do the sorting. But the two women and Deadweight were ignoring the zombies, staring down into one of the opened crates.

Grim peered down into it. There, nestled among several specimen cases, was a three-foot tall figure. She was wearing a green-and-purple jumpsuit, and her bald head was disproportionately large. She had a nasty bruise on the side of her temple.

“Okay. Someone want to tell me why we've got a crate full of superhero?”

“That's the mentalist,” said Epitaph. “Looks like I knocked her out.”

“My fault,” said Deadweight. “I had the zombies running on autopilot. They must have packed her in by accident. In my defense, that snake chick was up in my grille, I was kinda busy—”

“Skip it. Done's done,” said Grim. He reached down, felt for a pulse. Steady enough. “Borrow a flashlight?”

Whippoorwill handed her penlight over, and he pried open the kid's eyelids, checked her pupils. “Just a concussion. Thank god. Last thing we need's a dead kid hero.”

Gravedigger raised a hand. “No problem then. I'll run her into the city in the van, drop her off somewheres.”

“Except that we need you present for the handoff. New client, you know the rules.”

“I could put her in the morgue,” said Deadweight. “She'd be in the dark, wouldn't know where she was when she woke up.”

“
If she wakes up. Minor concussion's still a concussion.” Grim shook his head. “An hour until the handoff, we can't spare anyone to keep her busy, and we need to keep an eye on her to make sure she doesn't get worse. No, we'll put her in the basement. I'll look after her until the handoff's done, then you can drop her off.”

“You're all heart,” Gravedigger said.

Grim shook his head, raw scalp meat sliding against his cowl. “I'm all self-preservation. Her team probably thinks we took her deliberately. Anything happens to her on our watch, it'll be on us.”

“Psh, you're a softy and you know it,”

“Just get the crates unloaded.” He reached down for the hero's crate, and grunted in satisfaction as he lifted it without trouble.

Gravedigger led the way inside, opened up the basement door for him with an exaggerated bow and a horrible fake-French accent. “Your accommodations await, messer.”

“Just save me a seat and a beer,” Grim grumbled. He took it slow on the stairs to avoid jostling the crate. Once he was down there, he started searching.

The basement of this safe house was full of cardboard boxes. Old gear, broken things. But some things were consistent with every storage room the Gang had, and Grim dug around in a corner until he found a first aid kit and a camp cot.

As he tugged the cot out a nearby box shifted, spilling red fabric on the floor. His breath caught in his throat, as he recognized the garment.

“So that's where it got to,” he whispered. Picking it up, he could barely make out the “US” emblazoned in black across the blood-red boiler suit.

With a skinless finger he traced the seam of the zipper, wincing at every thin patch or bare section of thread he encountered. The old uniform hadn't aged well at all. It had been made to match him, so long ago. A miracle material— it had been able to close up bullet holes within seconds, regrow from burns, and go from a handful of tattered rags to a full suit in minutes given time. Just like him.

He bowed his head, and in the echoes of his mind he heard the staccato sound of machine guns, felt the shuddering as mortars went off around him. He remembered how he'd gotten tangled in the wire and laughed as the two nearest bunkers focused fire on him. Laughed as the men behind him used the opportunity to move up, and the bunkers went down to bazooka-fire as he pulled himself free, healing the torn flesh in the space of a second as he raised an arm to wave them on up the beach. He wasn't the only super out there, and wind whipped behind him as Texas Twister got going, and the Kraut lines started to crumble. Lady Leviathan fell from the sky, ignoring anti-aircraft fire as she slammed into a machine-gun nest, wading in with both fists flying. Behind him, a child gasped in pain—

—And he jerked his head around, glared at Mentot. She was sitting up in the crate, holding her head with both hands. “Ow. Ow ow ow. You hurt!
”

“Oh. You were trying mindfuckery, huh?” Grim moved to loom over the kid. She shrunk back and glared up at him. He chuckled. “Yeah, don't do that again. See all these exposed nerves? I've gotten used to the constant pain. Doesn't go so well for people who try to get into my noggin.”

She blinked in surprise as he set up the cot, cracked open the first aid kit, and offered her a bottle of aspirin.

“What are you planning to do with me?” She asked.

“Would you believe we grabbed you by accident? Zombies aren't too bright. So you're not even supposed to be here tonight.”

“You didn't answer my question.”

He rummaged through the boxes again, found a bottle of water. She took it, but her suspicious glare didn't waver.

“Truth is we're going to let you go in a little while.”

“I'm supposed to believe that?”

Grim shrugged, and pointed to the cot. “You can believe what you want. But you can't win against me and you can't escape from here. So climb up here and lie down, and I'll get you a cold compress—”

The scythe on his back twisted in its harness, and leaped free as he stumbled. Held by unseen hands, it pressed against his neck.

“Ah. Telekinesis.” He said, and the blade pressed tighter, forcing him up against the wall. Decapitation wouldn't kill him, but he'd lose valuable skin.

“Yep!” Mentot grinned, as she pulled herself to her feet. “Now, we're going to walk out of here. I know you'll recover from anything I do to you, so don't think...” She hesitated, as the scythe twitched. “What are you doing?”

“Me? I'm not doing anything.”

The scythe shook, vibrated against his throat, bucking as it changed. An eye sprang open in the blade, as the metal bent and grew twisting protrusions. It growled through a thin mouth of fangs, as it studied Mentot.

“See, that's a thing called a tulpa,” Grim spoke, still smiling. “I got it in Cambodia back in sixty-nine. It's a parasite that feeds off pain. I'm like a buffet to it. Tulpas are some kind of magical critter that I really don't understand, but what I do understand about this one, is that it hates being handled by people who ain't me.”

Mentot shrank back as the tulpa hissed, warped now almost completely from its original shape, struggling against her telekinesis, reaching for her with metal claws.

“Um. I... don't think I can hold it.”

“Probably not. Look, you want to settle down? I don't want you dead. And you're gonna walk out of here in an hour, free to go.”

“You promise?”

The tone in her voice tugged at him. She couldn't be more than twelve or so. His gaze fell on the boiler suit, off to one side.

He reached out and closed a hand around the tulpa. It settled at his touch, settled more once the pressure around it faded and Mentot released her telekinetic hold.

“Yeah,” he said, feeling way too old. “I promise.”

She sighed in relief as the tulpa slowly warped back into a scythe, the baleful eye giving her one last glare before it closed. Grim tucked it back into its harness.

She climbed up to the cot, and sat on the edge. Grim dug into a nearby chest freezer, and set her up with an ice pack.

“I'd lay off the powers for a while,” he suggested. “It's best to take it easy after a concussion. Give it a day or two, stick to light activity.”

“I've had worse,” she muttered.

“That makes me sad. You ever think of a different career?” He reached up to adjust the ice pack, and she slapped his hand away.

“I don't need your pity!”

“Fuck. Fine, whatever.”

A burst of muffled laughter from upstairs, and he glanced up toward the door. “Yeah, its beer-o-clock and you're stable. Okay kid, there's two options here; option one is you can promise not to try to escape. Which you couldn't do anyway, because the only way out of here is that door, and we'll be watching it.”

She narrowed her eyes. “And the second option?”

“The second option...” he reached up to the lightbulb, and noticed how her eyes tracked his hand. “See, I figured out something about your powers,” he said. “You need to see to use them.”

“Where'd you get that idea?”

“You were in the room with us, back during the fight. You've got no real defensive powers or gizmos. Why would you be in the room if you had an option to be somewhere else? No, you need to see things to use your powers on them. So option two is I take this lightbulb and leave you alone. In the dark.”

She sat up again, her oversized head bobbling on her neck as she tried to stare him down, too-small face scrunched up in defiance. Defiance that faded, as he met her glare with an unwavering stare.

“Fine. I promise.” She looked away.

“Good kid.” He let go of the lightbulb, gave her the first aid kit, and headed upstairs.

PART 3: OLD GLORY

“Your bet.”

“Ten,” Grim said, staring at his cards. With his free hand, he worked the skin off of his severed left hand.

“Jesus. Do you have to do that at the table?” Epitaph asked.

“The longer I leave it off, the less of it rejoins me. You know that. Anyway, it's ten to you. Call or fold.”

A wet rip, and a large piece of his palm came free. He put his cards down, pressed the loose flesh to his bony palm. About half of it stuck, and he smiled.

“I am gonna hurl,” Whippoorwill announced. She'd taken her mask off, revealing a cute, snub-nosed face that wouldn't be out of place at any of the nearby high schools. She took a long pull of her beer, and tossed her cards into the center of the pile. “Fold.”

“Epitaph didn't choose yet,” Gravedigger protested.

“Doesn't matter,” Whippoorwill said. “Grim wouldn't work on his skin if he had a bad hand. It's a tell.”

“Nice theory,” Grim grinned. “You gonna buy it, 'Taphy, or you gonna keep me honest?”

“Call me Taphy again and I'll rip your nipples off.”

“Oooh, promise? I mean shit, normally I'd have to pay a few hundred for that kinda kink. Must be discount night.”

“And you're full of shit. Call and raise ten. To you, 'Weight.”

Deadweight didn't respond.

“Deadweight?”

“I just lost the zombies in the west.”

“Which part of the west?” Grim asked.

“All of the west.”

“Shit.” He gnawed his lips, as the others looked to him. “Guess the kids are ready for round two.”

Whippoorwill scratched her chin. “We could use big-head brat as a hostage.”

“No. She walks out of here free in an hour.” Grim picked up his cards. “That's the deal.”

“You sweet on the kid?” Gravedigger taunted. “Didn't think you went for'em that young.”

Grim glared at him, raised a bony middle finger as the rest of his team laughed. “Fuck you, she's like twelve or something.”

“More of my zombies are going down,” Deadweight muttered. “Oh, and fold.”

“The kids must have gotten some help,” Grim mused. “But who? Tomorrow Force is out of town. The Icons are busy with the Steampunks, they can't have mopped them up already...”

“That's everyone. Show your hand.” Epitaph leaned forward.

Grim took a pull of his beer, flipped over his cards. Groans around the table, as aces were revealed.

“Always keep an ace in the hole, that's the secret.” He grinned, as he raked in the loot. “Anyway, change of plans. Digger, I'm going to need some tunnel work. Deadweight, get zombies on toting duty. Whippoorwill, run escort. Epitaph, call up the client and arrange a new drop point. Somewhere out of the Graveyard.”

“And you?” She said, as he stood, and headed toward the basement door.

“I'm going to give the heroes what they want.”

He closed the basement door on the protests behind him. They were good kids, all of them. They'd follow orders.

Mentot turned as he descended the stairs. Her eyes were wide and she stared at him, her face a mask of puzzlement.

“What?” He asked.

“You. You're Unstoppable!”

She held up the red uniform, and he felt his chest pound, as he looked at the boiler suit again.

“Not for a long time, kid. Not for a long time.”

“You fought the Nazis! You were a founding member of the Liberty Legion! What happened?”

“How the hell did you hear about me?” He asked, sinking down to sit on the last stair. “I wasn't that well-known. Not like American Paragon, or Lady Leviathan. Not as photogenic.”

“The Legion's history is a required class for all the Torchbearers. It's part of the grant deal. They sponsor and train us, and we remember the past. Live up to the standards that they set. We fight for justice and truth and liberty!”

He barked out harsh laughter, felt the bitterness in his bones as he shook his head. “Pretty words, kid. God, we were so naive back then.”

“What happened?” She whispered, and the pity in her voice ground against him. It woke old emotions, as he shook his bony face.

“They got out at the right time, kid. That's what happened.” He sighed. “They had families to go back to. Lives after the war. Me, I was an orphan, part of the first supersoldier serum batch with a state-assigned family that only cared about the powers I was manifesting. That batch had a ninety-eight percent lethality rate, did they tell you that in the class? My powers were developed on the backs of dead kids just like me.”

“They told us you were volunteers.”

“We were. Had our heads pumped full of propaganda, told how grand it would be to be heroes. And it was, back in the forties. Back against the Nazis. But they left after that, and I stayed on. Black ops in Korea, and that whole clusterfuck. Then Vietnam and Cambodia, and the killing fields. And I was there for all of it. Every bit of it.” A shaking hand rose up, and he caressed the tulpa. It whined and cut him, and he bled into it, remembering the burned villages, and the dead faces, and the realization that they wouldn't win here, that it had all been for nothing—

He jerked his gaze back to Mentot. “Stop it.”

“I'm not. I'm not doing anything. That's all you.”

Silence fell, until Grim sighed. “Anyway, it's a long story. You want to know why I'm doing this? I'm dying. The chemicals and shit they dropped on the jungle in 'Nam fucked up my powers. Used to be I'd regenerate as soon as I took a wound. In the seventies and eighties it slowed down, and it's kept slowing down over the years. I didn't used to look like a horror show. But you play the cards you're dealt, and always keep an ace in the hole. So here I am.”

“So you went villain because you're ugly? That's dumb.”

He laughed. “I went villain because I needed money and cutting edge mad science. Money pays for a cure, and right now all the mad scientists who specialize in biology are villains. That's it. That's all.”

Mentot looked at him for a long moment, and hopped down from the cot. He glanced up as she toddled toward him on unsteady legs, “Hey. What—”

She hugged him.

After a few seconds of frozen shock, he unfolded his arms and hugged her back. “Shit. Not your problem kid. Look. It's time to go, let's get you back to your team.”

“I'm dying too.”

He exhaled. “Yeah?”

“I'm a clone. I've got tons of medical problems and genetic issues. They say I might make twenty years. Maybe thirty.”

“A clone... who? Wait. Mentat?”

She nodded, and he frowned.

“Yeah, he's an asshole. I see why you went hero.”

She giggled, and he stood.

“C'mon. Let's get you back.”

“Good luck,” she said. “They'll take you down on sight.”

“Maybe,” Grim said, arching his eyebrow as an idea struck him. “You say that Liberty Legion history is a required class for all you munchkins?”

PART 4: THE CARDS YOU'RE DEALT

The red suit still fit him, after all these years. The mask covered most of his face, though his lower jaw and bald, bloody scalp were exposed. Not much he could do about that. But it was enough, as he descended through the skies with Mentot curled up in his arms.

The winds died down as he descended to the field of broken tombstones and splattered zombies. A costumed-figure below raised a glowing hand that was swiftly slapped aside as another figure shook his head, shouted a single word:

Unstoppable.

The figures stepped out of the darkness around him, raising flashlights or activating glowy powers. He landed, and set the kid on the ground. He saw the snakewoman, saw the kid who'd spiked him to the wall back in the lab fight, saw the speedster and the boy with the shadow minion and several more kids he didn't recognize. All were frozen, staring at him, eyes wide. Save for Mentot, who rejoined her team with hugs and cheers.

And then his own breath caught in his throat, as two more figures stepped out of the darkness.

Stupid of him, he realized. The Torchbearers were Legion-funded, Legion-backed. So who else would they turn to, when the other big-name heroes were out of town and they had an emergency?

The woman on his left was gray-haired now, and held a cane in one hand. But those withered muscles still held enough punch to shatter bone and tombstones, he knew as he looked to the trail of devastation behind her. Lady Leviathan hadn't lost her touch, even after all this time.

The man to his right was in a wheelchair, but his ten-gallon hat and the gunslinger's outfit draped over his wasted frame were as recognizable now as they had been seventy years ago. The Texas Twister in the goddamn flesh, what was left of him, anyhow.

“Grant?” Lady Leviathan whispered. “Is it really you?”

“Hey there Lily. Hey Bo.” He could barely talk past the lump in his throat.

Lily's wrinkled face filled with horror as she studied his bloody skull of a head. “What happened to you?”

“Long story,” he sighed. “Talk to the kid. And go home, for god's sake. We're all too old for this shit.”

Twister stirred, squinting at him through rheumy eyes. “I don't reckon so. Think you're coming with us, Grant.”

Grim shook his head. “I end up in custody, some jackoff three-letter bureau will disappear me for the next few centuries. No. Just go home and I'll do the same.”

Twister raised a hand, and the wind picked up.

“You ain't flying out of here. And you ain't no match for Lily on the ground, nor the rest of our Torchbearers.”

Grim nodded, a smile creeping across his face. “I know. Good kids, all of them. You raised 'em right, Bo.”

His phone went off, and the heroes tensed. Gravedigger was in position, and Grim's smile slid into a shit-eating grin. “Fortunately, I don't have to fight with you. You remember how I always beat you at poker?”

Twister scowled. “Yep. Always keep an ace in the hole, you said.”

“Well tonight, I'm the ace.” Grim stomped one foot on the ground, and shouts and cries burst out from the heroes as Gravedigger did his thing, and the earth rose to swallow him.

Like a great worm eating a nugget of food, the earth rolled him through until he was spat out into the open some distance away, muddy and battered. But the injuries were fading as he stood, save for the skin on his left hand, ripped off anew by the friction. He sighed to see it.

“Here. I think we've got enough time to change before we book,” Gravedigger tossed Grim his costume as he spoke.

Grim stood and picked through the gore-spattered hooded robes, nodding his thanks. Gravedigger looked away as Grim slid off the boiler suit, revealing his ruined, torn body to the night.

“Thought we were going to lose you for a second there, boss,” Gravedigger said, as Grim put the scythe's harness over his back, and readjusted the grumbling blade.

“Nah.” Grim said, clapping Gravedigger on his back as they headed toward the waiting van and the next safehouse. “I play the cards I'm dealt.”

Table of Contents

- PART 1: A MAN DIVIDED
- PART 2: SMALL COMPLICATIONS
- PART 3: OLD GLORY
- PART 4: THE CARDS YOU'RE DEALT