“…that it’s come to this isn’t surprising,” Verona’s projection said. There were only four at the table: Verona, Lodz, Dubuque and Santa Fe.
“So you’re saying we don’t have any chance against the Tradition Gods’ Supported armies if we don’t finish off the stragglers in our back yard first,” Santa Fe said, his voice trailing off.
Verona nodded. “Yes. We can’t risk striking at the Tradition Gods yet, even indirectly.”
“Mopping up our stragglers isn’t going to be easy,” Dubuque said. “The Black Hand has slipped through your fingers numerous times, just like Orlando and the Telepaths have slipped through mine.”
“Your desire to take the Kid God in a way that makes him a full ally has led you to be soft on the group around him,” Lodz said, and sniffed. Dubuque frowned. “Smash them, don’t scoop them up. Kill the lot of them, and if the Kid God dies, no loss. You’ve been too greedy.”
“Just like you’ve been too chary with your resources in your attempt to take out the Black Hand,” Santa Fe said. “We’ve all made mistakes with our own stragglers. That’s inevitable. Someone has to be last, and odds are the last would be the hardest to grab, in any situation.”
“True,” Lodz said.
“I reluctantly agree,” Dubuque said. “I hate this action. Violence on this scale shivers my Mission, and isn’t right. Yes, I know, this is necessary, and necessity is all. I will send a full thousand of my Supported. The attack will ruin what I’ve been doing with the Kid God; instead of turning to me in adolescent annoyance with his pseudo-parents inability to protect him, he’ll be at best a reluctant member of the City of God. If he lives. On the other hand, I will finally end the Orlando problem and neuter the Telepath rebels. I must warn you, though: although Portland and Boise are ours, they aren’t willing allies, and their cooperation against the Tradition Gods may be reduced after this action.”
“That’s for you to stitch back together afterwards,” Verona said.
Betrayer turned away from the spy device, overcome by worry. She had seen a siege in the Place of Time, but the attack Dubuque described wouldn’t be a siege. His thousand Supported would slaughter Orlando’s crew long before a siege proved necessary. They planned mass murder, a moral activity in this house of worship.
“I’m going to have to go now,” she said to Alt and the other Telepaths. “Dubuque’s decision is the trigger for the break point we’ve been discussing. I have work to do if any of our allies are going to survive.”
“Go to, boss,” Alt said. “Kick some ass for me, too.”
Betrayer’s mind fled.
“Who are you?” Angie said. She was exquisitely Lancômed, bottle blonde and domestically perfect in every way, typical whitey over-done. She also held the post of Akron’s number one product manager, a top Supported and a former fashion account manager at Macy’s. Betrayer had never dealt with this top level Akron functionary before; the fabric designs and artwork Betrayer had commissioned for her lair had come from actual functional members of Akron’s organization, not from this seat-warmer.
“Who I am does not matter,” Betrayer said to Angie. Betrayer had left a dormant fourth-rate projection hidden in Akron’s office after she had barged in a few weeks ago, just for this moment. “Your idea is what’s important.”
“What idea?”
The idea Betrayer had just planted in this hapless woman’s head. “Chicken Cordon Purple, of course.”
“Oh, yes, that’s right,” Angie said, eyes aglow. “Grape jelly instead of cheese. Perfecto!”
“Push it,” Betrayer said. The idea for this travesty of a recipe had come from the broken remains of the internet, repository for all things sunken below the least common denominator. The chicken cordon yellow recipe she had found disgusted even her strong stomach; she couldn’t promulgate that with a straight face, even in this setting. Jell-O! If she ever got made boss God, she would decree the Internet be subtitled ‘limp bad puns substituting for intelligent creativity’ – and ban Jell-O for good measure. “Put Akron’s entire company to work on this. Put the recipe in today’s Akron’s Household” Akron’s cable TV show “and get the idea out there before someone else beats you to the punch.” Akron had guest hosts more often than not these days. Betrayer could never get something this perverse by Akron.
“Oh, I will, I will,” Angie said, squaring her shoulders and beaming like a crack addict who just picked up an underpriced score. There was nothing in the world more dangerous than a general manager with a bug up her ass regarding her own pet idea.
“Thank you, thank you very much,” Betrayer said. Kiss your job goodbye as well, pugly.
When Dubuque’s attack on the Telepaths and crew happened, Akron would be so busy putting out the fires caused by this utter disaster she wouldn’t be able to loan Dubuque any meaningful power at all.
One down.
Marie turned out to be a harder sell than Akron’s product manager, but Betrayer had prepared for that eventuality with weeks of hard work.
“It’s time,” Betrayer said, into her cellphone. Betrayer mimicked Montreal’s voice, and she had mastered Montreal’s ‘nudge nudge’ ‘yes it is me’ willpower trick Montreal used when she contacted her Supported. Poor Montreal, spun around in circles by both Portland and Dubuque so many times that the powerful, lusty but not overly bright Goddess had turned paranoid and now hid out in a supposedly unknown and well-defended Montreal brownstone. Which made the cellphone trick so much more exploitable.
“Time for what? Getting gay marriage accepted again?”
“Yes, of course,” Betrayer said. She felt a tiny bit ill for using an important social issue as simple friction in the system, but, hell, some of the things she planned along these lines would cost people’s lives, not just ruin them. “I’ve had enough of Dubuque’s hints and posturing. We can’t take him on militarily, but with the will of the people behind us, we will succeed.”
Montreal would never balk Dubuque in such a fashion, even with the will of the people behind her, but Betrayer had been priming Marie with fake Montreal phone calls for weeks.
“Well, I’ve got the ad campaign all set up; I’ll start blasting out the information today.”
“Don’t forget that we need someone out front on this,” Betrayer said. “You.”
Marie gulped. “Yes, ma’am. I’m honored, ma’am.” Marie served Montreal as a behind-the-scenes button-pusher, not an out-front person, for a reason. Marie, although effective and efficient, had the personality of fingernails scraped on chalkboard, which came through well over the television and the internet.
This would distract Dubuque enough to siphon off some of his army, perhaps enough to bring the simmering Montreal / Dubuque conflict to a boil and generate some real bad press, if not overt combat. This would also piss the crap out of Montreal.
Two down.
Enrique wouldn’t live through this, which bothered Betrayer more than a little. She had to take what little solace there was in the fact the enemy would kill this reasonable person.
Only after Betrayer stuck him in the line of fire, though.
“They’re exploiting you, making you nothing more than a target,” Betrayer said, using a Hispanic male projection this time. “You’re a Supported, not a yard man. Why are they treating you this way? If War resurfaces and gets Portland’s ear again, your operation,” running Santa Fe’s lair, “would be in the crosshairs, and with the majority of Santa Fe’s men out of his territory helping Dubuque, you wouldn’t stand a chance. You’d be dead.”
Enrique nodded. “But going on strike? Going to OSHA? That’s almost like being a traitor.”
Almost nothing. “You think Santa Fe cares about workplace hazards? You have to get his attention, and this is the right way to do things. The legal way. You have no other choice,” Betrayer said. OSHA still existed for the moment, its mindless momentum churning forward, though they hadn’t dared to litigate service to the Gods. The details didn’t matter; Betrayer
didn’t push the real anyway. “The union makes us strong.”
“I’m worried, though. This is such a big deal,” Enrique said, sighing. Betrayer jabbed with her willpower, a direct insinuation attack aimed at Enrique’s thought processes. Under the pressure she exerted, she felt his mind change. “We’ll do it.”
Hell, Betrayer thought to herself, if there was any chance that after this entire mess she could go back to being War, this exercise just ended her last hopes. Only someone with a Mission of betrayal could pull off a stunt like this with another God’s Supported. This was a foul trick.
This gatch would be a hell of a bitch to unupfuck, though.
Betrayer stood and shook Enrique’s hand. Santa Fe wouldn’t be able to ignore a revolt by his own Supported. She didn’t have any idea how many Santa Fe Supported would end up pulled out of the fight because of this, but she hoped for enough.
She felt like a schmuck, though, because she knew Santa Fe would blame the Telepaths or the Indigo, or both.
Three down.
“Your organization is strong but personally, bitch, you’re too weak,” Betrayer said. “The instant Dubuque decides to snap his fingers in a meaningful way, your temporizing and backfilling days will be over. You’re so beholden to him you’ll be forced to do whatever he asks, even give up command of your own army.”
Portland’s face darkened. “Monster, you have no right to complain. Your betrayals led us to this moment. Not my mistakes. Furthermore, I am not personally weak. I’ve been practicing the war arts ever since you betrayed Alt to his doom. I’m the most personally powerful Territorial God on Earth I know, dammit.”
And so annoyed at herself for being forced into mastery of war that she took out her embarrassment on everyone around her. Standing in front of Portland as a projection and arguing with her was like standing in front of a blast furnace to warm up your cold hands after a snowball fight. Appearances, though – very important. Betrayer couldn’t allow herself to waver or show any weakness.
Portland’s recent practice at the war arts had made Betrayer fear for months that the opposite would happen: backed into a corner, Portland would strike at Dubuque with her army and destroy him. Ruined by the karmic cost of taking down the head enemy God, Portland would become a far greater threat than Dubuque, a true Caesar. She would reminded everyone how ‘I must’ can turn into ‘I earned this’, and she would ‘mean well’ with each step she took along the path to eternal but well-meaning enslavement of all normal humanity, accompanied by the tumultuous cheers of the enslaved masses. The fact a Portland dictatorship would still make her former Indigo allies orgasm with glee bothered Betrayer a lot. As Atlanta, she suspected she would have signed on with Portland in an instant.
She wished she knew what this meant regarding her own personality.
Portland’s army of Supported had grown almost as large as Dubuque’s, but she also understood the danger in relying on Supported. She, with Inventor’s help, had come up with an armed enchantment-based cadre as strong as her Supported army. Betrayer’s complaint had merit, though. Portland, thoroughly politically spooked, couldn’t conceive of opposing Dubuque. If Dubuque demanded, say, a loan of a third of Portland’s army, she would hand over her troops in a heartbeat. Betrayer needed to prevent any such thing.
“Bitch, I can take you with my projection,” Betrayer said, dismissing Portland’s evident transcendent might with a callow wave of her hand. “You’re nothing but ego on two feet, deluding yourself about your power. You don’t even know what true power is.”
“You’ve lost all measure of sense,” Portland said. “You couldn’t even take me as a projection when you were War. As this foul thing you now are, this wouldn’t even be a contest. I’ve gotten a lot better.”
Betrayer raised her eyebrows and snorted. “Prove it, guidance counselor.”
Portland’s frown turned to stone. Betrayer could smell Portland’s anger as the far-too-reasonable Territorial God thought through her options. “Not here, not in my lair.”
“Fine,” Betrayer said, straightening her black floor-length cape over her brass-encrusted epaulettes. “Outside. Up on the surface. I’ll knock you out of the Seattle city limits.” Heh. Soooo true. “You can’t stop me. I, unlike you, am truly invincible.”
Betrayer waited as Portland worked the odds and angles. A public humiliation of Betrayer, like this, would stomp Betrayer’s Mission half way to China. If Portland played this correctly she would end up with a controlled and kidnapped projection of Betrayer, perhaps allowing her to rehabilitate Betrayer. After yet another name change this could end up with Betrayer reborn as a God totally beholden to Portland.
Portland couldn’t resist that possibility; Betrayer saw it in the echo of Portland’s willpower. “I reluctantly accept your challenge,” Portland said. “Outside, now.” This character flaw, this one right here, was the flaw that led Portland to Caesarism in far too many circumstances, because Portland would reluctantly agree to anything if correctly pressed. Eventually.
Betrayer nodded and triggered her trap, based on a dozen earlier suborned Portland Supported. How? She had, back in her War days, designed Portland’s security for her, and she in the process included some security back doors invisible to all eyes. Allegorically speaking. With any luck, Portland wouldn’t even be able to tell how Betrayer pulled this off, afterwards.
This was worth a few non-verbal bwah-hah-hahs all by itself. Those security holes had provided her with nearly a third of the cute willpower tech making up her own lair.
Portland’s over-armed and mostly female Supported Praetorian Guard marched Betrayer outside, a supposed prisoner, trailed by Portland and her entourage. Betrayer verbally sparred with Portland the entire way out, to keep Portland’s mind focused on her. Nor did she put up much of a fuss at Portland’s choice of a nearly empty parking lot for their duel.
“It’s time your mental problems got fixed, Betrayer,” Portland said. “Your hubris knows no bounds, and there was once logic in your actions. I’m positive I can return you to yourself.” She paused when Betrayer didn’t respond. “So our disagreement comes to this, and we must fight. Defend yourself!”
Betrayer felt like pounding her fists on bricks. Even after all of this: ‘defend yourself’? A warning? Jesus! She flicked a bit of dust off her black cloak and paid Portland no mind.
Portland attacked, finally, and Betrayer depowered her projection, leaving only an illusion behind. Portland’s entourage cheered.
“What’s this? A stalemate’s a loss for you,” Portland said, stopping her attacks but leaving an unstoppable killer willpower projection-zapper inside of Betrayer’s projection. She amped up her own charisma and focused it through her Mission, nearly bringing Betrayer to her knees.
Betrayer barely found enough mental wattage to focus her mind to speak. “Take a look around,” she said, in her ‘bwah hah hah’ voice.
Portland scanned the area and nearly exploded in anger. “What’re all of you doing out here!” she said, screaming at her own people. Surrounded by her entourage, the putative Living-Saint-because-Dubuque-said-so had failed to notice that every one of the people in her lair had joined the entourage and come out to watch.
Her failure to notice had been aided by a very tricky willpower screen Betrayer developed just for this purpose, one playing on Portland’s own ego: Portland’s own people coming out to support Portland was harmless, save for the fact she hadn’t ordered them to observe. This bassackwards failure shivered Portland’s hold on Betrayer enough to free her to trigger the rest of her trick.
A muffled thud rumbled everyone’s feet, followed by a plume of smoke and dust rising from Portland’s nicely deserted underground lair. A moment later the ground on top of the lair caved in, and continued to cave in. Betrayer had overnighted the chemical components of the bomb in separate packages to Portland, and Portland’s mailroom crew hadn’t figured out that when the chemical components were put together they made a hell of a bomb.
Betrayer’s projection popped as Portland angrily dismissed her, sending her mental presence back to her primary projection, which right then slowly snuck up on Boise to plant quite real enchanted willpower-sucking fleas on him.
Truthfully, she hadn’t stood a chance against Portland in a real duel. She suspected that with the training Portland had been doing, even her real body couldn’t take Portland any more.
Still…
When Portland realized what Betrayer had done to her off-site data backups, she would be beyond livid. Today, Portland no longer had an army, just a mob with messed-up IDs.
Four down.
Seventeen similar ‘attacks’ later, and with half of the useful non-captive Practical and Ideological Gods of North America in low Earth orbit trying to figure out how to get back down (which would teach them the importance of learning how to fly, but their collective failures were another story), Betrayer decided she needed to make sure none of her victims had the time to recover before Dubuque needed them…by moving up the time when Dubuque would need them. She waltzed herself, as a powerless projection, into Dubuque’s lair in Oklahoma City. This time over fifty of Dubuque’s worshipper-enhanced Grade One Supported escorted her to Dubuque’s cavernous audience hall. She couldn’t even jiggle a tit unless Dubuque let her.
“I hear you have some information to sell me,” Dubuque said from his gold-encrusted marble throne. Betrayer’s projection, in her nattiest comic opera uniform, complete with tri-cornered hat, bowed. “I hope, for your sake your demand this time is more reasonable than your last. You still owe me for those foul murders and for what you did to my factory.”
99 Gods: Odysseia Page 20
