Witness is the third story in the Wild Cards anthology series overall and the third in the original Wild Cards novel. Written by Walter Jon Williams, the story details the postwar halcyon days and later downfall of Golden Boy and the Four Aces.
Plot[]
The story starts off in a twist of irony of Jack Braun, World War II veteran and aspiring actor, watching the Jolson Story in the theater. He dozes off on a repeat watch and later wakes up in the middle of the Wild Card virus outbreak on September 15, 1946. Braun returns home to discover he emits a golden aura that grants him superhuman strength to which he utilizes quickly in the relief effort. His actions are noticed by Archibald Holmes, a diplomat who formerly worked for Franklin D. Roosevelt, to which he offers a "job on the world stage." Braun accepts the offer and is initiated into a team of aces known as the Exotics for Democracy, later titled as the Four Aces by the public. Among the members include the black pilot Earl Sanderson, wife of congressman Blythe Van Renssaeler, and roguish New Yorker David Harstein, all led by Holmes with the intent of spreading democracy across the world and destroying its enemies.
The Four Aces' first mission was dealing with Juan Perón in Argentina, having just turned his country into a safe haven for Nazis. It was a simple enough job that gave Braun and Sanderson their time in the spotlight as legitimate superheroes. At this time, Braun detailed some of his exploits that he pulled from Superman comics like tying a tank's cannon in a knot or stopping a car in its tracks by standing in front of it, both which came to various degrees of success based on the application of real-life physics (the knot tying required proper leverage to do so, while the car trick flopped due to the object with the least momentum giving way in a collision {i.e. Braun.})
Overall, the mission to bring down fascism in Argentina was a wild success, and the Four Aces received widespread acclaim. A public image was soon formed with Braun and Sanderson--now respectively labeled Golden Boy and Black Eagle--being the faces of the team with Van Renssaeler and Harstein--both Brain Trust and Envoy--offering more secretive roles in their missions abroad. Meanwhile, Braun was earning a lot of good graces as an actor and was slated to star in an autobiographical film by Metro-Goldwyn Mayer based on his ventures called "Golden Boy". For Sanderson, he was making use of his image to further the civil rights movements of the day alongside preventing the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi. For Harstein and Van Renssaeler, they were becoming acquainted with Dr. Tachyon, which is developed further in the next story, Degradation Rites.
Unfortunately, the failures of the Four Aces would be coming in swiftly, firstly with a mission in Czechoslovakia that was called off, then shortly after when Mao Zedong succeeded in establishing the People's Republic of China, the Four Aces unable to intervene. The team was also splintering off into personal matters, with Van Renssaeler attending scientific conferences using the minds she absorbed, Holmes and Harstein assisting in Henry Wallace's candidacy in the 1948 election, and Braun getting embroiled in the development of his film, which proved contentious with Braun asking for changes, especially regarding how Sanderson was portrayed.
Things would come to a full stop when all members of the Four Aces were issued subpoenas by the House on Un-American Activities Committee, forced to testify in Washington, D.C. under assumption of them being dangers to the country with their powers. When at Washington, their first counter was for Harstein to use his powers to dissuade the court from continuing any further with their investigations, which only worked in the short-term, as Harstein's pheromones only worked on people when he was in the room with the people he's using them on. Afterwards, each member were harshly scrutinized and questioned. Braun was urged to avoid the same fate by cooperating with court, and as such, he unconsciously did so, suggesting that Van Renssaeler knows a list of aces that Dr. Tachyon treated that could be used in HUAC's favor.
When all was said and done, Braun remained a hero, but only to the public eye. He was ostracized by the larger wild card community for years to come, earning the moniker "Judas Ace." While Tachyon was deported, Holmes and Harstein were put in prison, Van Renssaeler was put in a mental institution, and aces all across America were brought to testify for just existing, Braun fought in the Korean War and continued finding success as an actor, one such endeavor was playing Tarzan in the 1950's. Braun was never the same after the trials, and he knew it. Twenty years afterwards, Braun went to dine at the Aces High restaurant in Manhattan, to which he was served salmon steak adorned with thirty dimes, in reference to Judas Iscariot betraying Jesus for thirty pieces of silver.