“Dana, oh Dana,” Dave said. Slowly. She took his left hand and laid it on her cheek.
“I’m sorry,” Dana said. She half expected Elorie, still holding Dana’s shoulder, to explode, or nullify Dana’s magics with her immunities again, but Elorie held on firm, not moving, not angry. “I didn’t know…”
Dana wanted to tear Dave’s clothes off and make love to him right here. He stroked her cheek, and then reached over with his other hand to the back of her neck, pulled her to him and kissed her.
The world exploded in Dana’s mind, surges of emotion and wonder, longing and love. A deeper part of her pushed the emotions away, a part of her who had thought that her own personal growth and her experiences should be able to keep the situation from getting stupid. She backed off the kiss, as did Dave.
They went back to gazing into each other’s eyes. “Why?” Dave said. “How?”
“We were too dangerous for each other before, and those dangers have passed,” Dana said. She no longer feared she might accidentally kill him during loveplay, and she realized he had learned enough control now to keep from accidentally draping his mind shields over her at the wrong moment.
“There are new dangers, though,” Dave said. “I think we’ve changed our respective attitudes toward violence, for one.”
Dana nodded. “Likely our attitudes toward faith and religion as well.”
“Being part Angel might cause that, yes,” Dave said. He knew without telling, of course.
“So, do you think you two can control this, or do we have to avert our eyes for a few days while you two have the fling you so desperately need?” Elorie said. Only she hadn’t said it with the former combative New Yorker attitude she projected when she had been constantly fighting with Dave. She said it contemplatively, supportively…and flickered her eyes back at Richard, likely thinking that such a diversion would give Elorie enough time to slake her own hungers and curiosities.
“We don’t have the time,” Dave said. “I think I can control this whatever-it-is. I must.”
“I know I can if I try,” Dana said. She sighed. “Would it unnerve you if I did?”
“As long as we can still work together.”
“Of course,” Dana said. She averted her eyes and used her own angelic magic to damp down her desires for Dave. She didn’t have the heart to turn them off completely.
50. (Dave)
Dave bounced Zach on his knee, smiling at the infant and receiving a smile in return. He had gotten stuck listening to Dana and Elorie talk girl talk and tell each other their recent experiences, and appropriately ended up doing the baby tending. Alana, worn out by too much knee bouncing, slept cute infant style in her baby carrier, by his feet.
“Yoo hoo, Dana?” Dave turned to see January Cox and Knot standing at the doorway, waving gently at Dana, waiting for an invitation into their refuge, one of Betrayer’s many faux mad scientist laboratories. “Hi!” Jan said.
Dana reddened. “Hello.” She paused for a moment when neither Jan nor Knot responded. “Come on in. Sit down. I’ve heard that this place is your home, as well.”
Jan and Knot walked into the room, almost hesitantly, pulled over a couple of dingy and worn chrome steel and blue plastic lab chairs, and sat. “I’ve got a lot of apologizing to do,” Jan said.
“We both do,” Knot said.
Dana shrugged. “Apologize to them, not me,” she said, pointing thumbs at Dave and Elorie. “They’re the ones you betrayed.”
“We were just along for the ride on that,” Jan said. “What we did to you was our choice.”
“Doing what?”
“Leaving you. It’s my fault,” Jan said. She radiated ‘please forgive me’ as she spoke. He wasn’t sure why, and for now, Dave vowed to keep his mouth shut. Dana didn’t respond and Jan turned away. “I’m not perfect, and your situation ran into one of my larger imperfections.” Whatever Jan and Knot had done to Dana had her iced up, burying her emotions in a way he hadn’t seen since before her resurrection.
“Which one?” Dana said. “Emotionally overcommitting yourself, or giving bad guys too many second chances?”
Jan snorted. “Oh, I’ve got far more imperfections than those.” Dave could name a few, starting with ‘can’t interact in a social situation without sitting her fat ass in the middle and taking over’. “I don’t cope well when people die.”
Dana nodded. “You told me I was going to die if I didn’t declare Bob an adult and leave. I believed you, even. I thought you understood responsibility, though, and why I needed to stay. You left anyway. We could have used you in the fight where I died, you know.”
Oh. An old argument. He exchanged glances with Elorie, and her expression said ‘keep out of this’. He barely nodded a ‘yes’.
Jan bit her lips. Knot patted Jan’s knee and leaned forward. “I told Jan staying to protect Bob wasn’t getting us closer to the problem we needed to solve.” She paused and took a deep breath. “If Jan got into a physical relationship with you, and you died, she would have been useless for months, months we didn’t have. I threatened to go on without her. I’m sorry.”
“Hmm. You don’t call her ‘Aunt Jan’ anymore, meaning you two are now lovers,” Dana said, deadpan and icy. “Congratulations.”
“Is this what we’re getting ourselves into if we end up further stuck in the Indigo?” Dave said, unable to believe his ears, and unwilling to hold back on all his comments. He didn’t have any problem taking Dana’s side in this.
Jan, Knot, Dana and Elorie turned to him and barked a loud and simultaneous “Yes!” He reddened, held up his hands, and leaned back. Zach started to cry, and Dave picked him up and cuddled him on his shoulder until he stopped crying.
“I don’t want you to hate us,” Jan said.
Dana shook her head. “I’m not sure what to say. I’m married to Richard of Orlando now, so what’s done is done. I died, which was not fun. I came back to life as a living Angel, in part due to your own current patron, Betrayer. From my perspective, you betrayed us and joined the other side.” She paused and softened. “I apologize for being so intransigent before. Staying and protecting Bob was part of my own personal honor. My Mission. It wasn’t personal.”
“We want you to join us,” Knot said. “The side we’re on is the only side with a hope of victory.” She turned to Elorie. “I thought we’d convinced you.”
Elorie turned to Dana for a moment, and then turned back to Knot. “You did, but Dana’s more than convincing. I’m sorry, but she is. And if you know anything about Dave, then realize that if Dana even hints that you two needed to be stopped, he’s going to come after you with all the resources he can muster.”
Jan and Knot turned to at each other. “I’ve seen this before,” Jan said.
“Me, too. It’s like after you goosed our Godslayer, told her she was an apprentice Archangel, and grabbed our Jan the Younger, Luis, Abe and Tylee out from our Indigo and into your pocket.” Knot turned to Dana. “You’re an apprentice Archangel yourself, and part of the Indigo.”
“I wasn’t going to be telling anyone that,” Dana said, a white aura gathering around her.
“Uh huh, so what?” Jan said. “You just recruited Dave and Elorie. To you. You need to think about what you’re doing before you go and do it.”
Dave looked at Elorie and frowned. She shrugged. she sent.
“The choice is yours,” Knot said, her eyes on Dana. “I’m positive I don’t need to explain the options.”
Split the Indigo or not.
Dana closed her eyes for a moment. After she opened them, she said to Jan and Knot “Come over here, you two, and give me a big hug.”
They did, and the tableau of three glowed indigo for a moment.
She speared him with a fingernail in the side, but with a smile.
“Got it,” Richard of Orlando, said, his voice sounding around them, projected. “We’ve taken control over this place’s front door. Dave, Elorie, if you want to take the twins and leave, now’s the time.”
Jan and Knot covered their mouths to suppress laughter.
“We’re going to have to talk that over,” Elorie said.
“Don’t take too long, Dubuque’s likely to attack…” Richard paused, and then continued on much louder. “Oh, crap! Another defensive shell?” He paused again. “False alarm. We’re still stuck.”
Richard’s vocal presence vanished.
“He won’t give up until he’s exhausted himself,” Knot said, to Dave and Elorie, still hugging Dana and looking over Dana’s shoulder at them. “It doesn’t matter. We’re all stuck here until the end. Even us. Betrayer turned off our projection enchantments when Orlando’s crew arrived.”
Dana unhugged the two and held them away, at arm’s length. “Are you sure this is where we need to be? Oracularly?”
Knot nodded. “Positive. Here we are, and here we will die, and if we die correctly, we’ll help save the world.” She turned her gaze to Dave and sent a hunch to him – if you and Elorie put some work into it, you have a chance to live through the coming fight.
How?
Knot shrugged and didn’t otherwise answer.
51. (Betrayer)
“Boss!” Alt said, returning Betrayer to her real body with a harsh telepathic jab. She had been hiding in a storage closet, meditating on a line of bad futures associated with Portland losing her temper in one of the upcoming battles, physically attacking Dubuque and forcing him into a Mission and identity change, following the pattern set here today with Dubuque’s treatment of Freedom. Freedom had been captured by Dubuque’s minions and stripped of his Mission in front of Dubuque’s loyal throng, including the Telepaths, and sentenced to a re-education camp with the new name of Fear. In most of those future lines, Portland replaced Dubuque as head of the City of God and banned worship, but forced to compromise with Verona she immediately led the City of God into the Armageddon War, scorching the Earth and ending human civilization. Nothing special or unique, just the typical bad news future lines that had become possible after the broadcast of the information on the Watchers.
“Yes?”
“Orlando and his extended entourage have found your Lair,” Alt said.
Betrayer smiled as fear and anticipation built inside her. She took a moment to turn on the capture fields at the edge of her lair, as Orlando and Columbia would be able to solve the enchanted doorway and wall problems that had stymied her other recent captives. Betrayer couldn’t risk Orlando and crew realizing they had decided to lair in a trap. They had to stay, they couldn’t leave.
Even she almost gagged at what she had done and would be doing to the people she thought of as her friends, allies and Neo-Supported.
Game on.
“When an aggressive coalition has stalked or faced off against an opponent in a prolonged state of apprehension and fear, then catches the opponent in a moment of vulnerability, fear turns to rage, and the men will explode in savage fury. … A forward panic is violence at its ugliest. It is the state of mind that causes genocides, massacres, deadly ethnic riots, and battles in which no prisoners are taken.” – Stephen Pinker, The Better Angels of our Nature
“Wherever I am, there the City of God is.”
52. (Betrayer)
“…so I revealed myself to a nervy group of University of Idaho physicists and engineers,” Boise said. Boulders lay scattered around the entrance of his cave, and rubble covered the ground. The late afternoon sun shined cheerily onto the quiet landscape. “They arranged the test, and I shocked myself – pardon the pun – by being able to generate just under a megawatt-hour of electrical energy. I kept up the power generation for two and a half hours, enough to convince me that doing so wasn’t the least bit tiring. Furthermore, I wasn’t spitting neutrons, gamma rays, X-rays or even neutrinos; if you don’t keep up with the literature, there’s a measurable neutrino flux that the scientific community’s neutrino observatories can measure in about a third of the major 99 God battles. I think we can say our internal capabilities aren’t generating the neutrino flux, but one of the battle weapons. So the answer is: no, there’s no proof yet we are purely mechanical beings. We could still be supernatural.”
Betrayer nodded. She wanted that proof, as it would verify a bunch of Indigo hypotheses, but if the proof couldn’t be easily teased out of the 99’s bodies, she would just need to live without it.
“So, other than to hear the answer to the problem you gave me, what brings you here today?” Boise asked.
To the meat of the matter. Betrayer slapped at some fleas and took a deep breath. “Orlando’s group’s taken my lair, just as I hoped,” Betrayer said. “My hidden plot has started. Tell me, is Dubuque giving you any trouble yet? As far as I know, you’re the only God who’s gone and fully broken with the City of God.”
Boise waved his hands at the desolation around him. “This empty quarter is mine, alone today save for you. What worse trouble could there be than to rob me of those who come to me for help?” Boise snorted and glanced skyward. “So, what sin have I done to make me into Betrayer’s sounding board?”
Betrayer sat in the dirt beside him, sending up a cloud of alkali dust. “I have a confession to make, Boise. I had a plan but my plan got shot to shit when something unexpected happened to me, and now I no longer think there’s any chance of success.”
“How come?” Boise frowned. “Was it when Orlando’s crew released the information on the Watchers?”
When she revealed her true self to Boise. “Yes. I’ve tried to recover from the disaster, but so far, nothing has put my plan back on track.”
“That sounds counterintuitive,” Boise said. “When the Watchers revealed themselves, Verona and Dubuque panicked and split their forces so they could attack Orlando’s crew, the Euro mafias, the Watchers and still guard against Tradition God chicanery. Good for our side, right? By your reactions, the answer to this question must be ‘no’. Which means you didn’t want those forces split; instead, you wanted them focused on Orlando. Why?”
Betrayer shook her head.
“Tell me, woman,” Boise said. “Since you’re here, you should at least confide in me. You wanted Orlando’s crew to suck down eight City of God Territorials worth of Paladins. What would they buy with their deaths?”
“I’m ashamed to say.”
“Look, you’re the only one with a functional working plan. I’ve talked to Portland and her self-serving ideas aren’t worth their weight in polluted hot air. Not only hasn’t she officially broken with the City of God, she’s flat-out ordered me to make up with Dubuque! Well, fuck her and her strike-from-within bullshit. I choose to help you.”
“Nessa got to you, didn’t she?” Betrayer said. She turned and saw the ragged old prophet had tears running down his face. That was a ‘yes’. “What did she do to you?”
“Her entire group got to me.” He sniffed. “My name is Daniel Marcuccilli, Prophet of the Boise Territory. I choose to go back to God Almighty a human.”
“Why should you go back to God Almighty at all?”
Boise looked away. “I’m tired of conflict, Betrayer. I’m tired of being rejected by my own co-religionists, who you’d think would be open to the sort of revelation we represent.”
Betrayer put her arm over Boise’s shoulder. Whatever Nessa’s group had done to him had sent him and his Mission spinning off as pointlessly as a dust devil. Nessa’s hideous crew had done their part. Now it was time for Nessa and Co. to return, to help Orlando’s group, and for Betrayer to add another member to her Secret Society of War. “Okay, true confession time. My real body’s masquerading as one of the Recruiter’s bodyguards, a captive of Dubuque. My pl
an was, when the time was right, to lure Dubuque and Verona together, unprotected, and kill them, regardless of the cost to myself and those who helped me.”
Boise turned to her, his face filled with hope. “That’s a wonderful idea! I see now why you had to betray the Recruiter’s group. But I have a question: why then does it matter if a relatively small fraction of the City of God Paladins are off gigging Watchers?”
“Two things. First, Verona’s directing the battle against the Watchers from inside his well-guarded Italian stronghold, placing him outside my reach. Killing Dubuque alone won’t be enough to stop the Armageddon War. I’ll destroy him anyway, but it’s insufficient. Second, Dubuque’s severely underestimated the strength of Orlando’s group. Even though I tried to tilt the battlefield in Dubuque’s direction by not telling Orlando’s group about the Paladins, they’ve already solved the Paladin problem a half dozen ways. Even though I gave them a poisoned apple, my lair, it won’t weaken them enough to keep them from destroying the City of God Paladins unless Dubuque and Verona go after them with the City of God’s entire might. If they don’t, Orlando’s group will win in a public enough way to allow them to reveal their barely-ink-dry alliance with Tradition. After they publicly join Tradition, Orlando and Columbia will free their territories from the City of God and start defending them for real, backed by Tradition forces.”
“Then we are lost. This brings the Armageddon War.”
“I know, Daniel,” Betrayer said. She couldn’t think of him as anything other than Boise, but she could at least be polite enough to use his changed and – ick – human name. Well, at least this wasn’t anything she would ever need to worry about. “That’s why I’m stymied.” That’s why she was here.
“How about the group that captured your projection, and the two Indigo women who rescued you?” Boise said. “How do they fit in?”
Betrayer froze. “How did you learn about my former captors?”
Boise smiled.
Betrayer rolled her eyes. “Okay, Mr. One Way Street, I get the picture. I don’t understand how I could use them, though. They’re worthless for anything but causing minor problems.”
99 Gods: Odysseia Page 56
