“Meet with you? Forget it! I will never again fall under the sway of your honeyed tongue! I refuse to listen to you about the so-called problems you have with those who worship God by venerating me. Stay away from me and my followers, or else! You will see. Things are going to go badly for those who blasphemously oppose the City of God.” With his villain oratory finished, Dubuque vanished, spoofing his projection on the way out.
War scanned Portland’s lair and found no problems.
Portland sat in one of the several chairs surrounding the gaming table and thought for a moment. “He’s destroyed the projection I keep at his Lair as well,” she said, already plotting on how to insinuate a new one.
“He’s lost his mind,” War said, cutting off several more profane comments.
“Clearly, in some fashion,” Portland said. “This is far worse than his normal plotting and scheming against my people.”
Plotting and scheming? ‘Once sided conflict’ would be a far better name for what the Helping Hands Gods and their followers had endured in the past several months. Groups of Phoenix and Dubuque Supported had hit Portland twice, and hit her people six other times. “It sounds like you’re defending Dubuque.” Again.
“Dubuque’s just living the consequences of a free willed mistake. If we can save him, why not?”
“How about ‘don’t give evil a second chance’?” War said. “We’re the good guys, but there’s no reason for us to be silly about what we do.”
“His actions aren’t evil, they’re stupid,” Portland said. She sighed. “This is what I feared would happen to worshipped Gods from the start. Satan’s only sped up the clock.”
“And?” War asked.
War’s question earned her a Portland frown. The two of them had started their argument about when to take action against the worshipped Gods after Dubuque sent a squad of mind-bent Boise Supported after the Telepaths, six weeks after the Atlanta – Miami battle. They had reprised their argument after every following underhanded attack.
“I’m going to call the Helping Hands Gods together.”
Portland’s divine faction.
Dear God Almighty, not another roundtable discussion!
“And?” War said, prompting.
Portland’s frown deepened, but she dropped her eyes to her table. “I’m going to reluctantly advocate we follow your fifth plan,” she said. The careworn older-looking God looked like she sucked on a lemon. “I’ll show them what happened here today. I don’t think I’ll have any problem convincing the others we need to take action.” That’s because you and Nessa have been the ones talking them out of action in the past, War thought. “We need to save the worshipped Gods from themselves, before it’s too late…for them and us.”
War nodded. Plan five involved group counseling for the worshipped Gods. In person. Without the right of refusal. Only this wasn’t the usual pointless Portland plan. They backed this plan by force.
“I’ll get moving,” War said.
Finally.
“I need y’all to take a look at something,” War said, after activating the projection she kept in Lorenzi’s Washington State hideaway. Alt, who had arrived hours earlier to prepare, looked up at her and shook his head.
“You’re early.”
“This isn’t about the plan five practice, this is something else.” She found Lorenzi down by the lake and rattled the air around him to get his attention. He waddled over toward the two cabins the Telepaths called home these days, leaving his gaggle of trainee magicians behind. The other Telepaths gathered round from their various hidey-holes in the corners of the cabin’s oversized great room. “I’ve been going through the Verona and Lodz spy records, and I’ve found something strange.”
“You know, you make my brain hurt, War,” Alt said. “Why don’t you go bother Nessa and Ken for a while?”
“If I knew where they were, I’d go,” she said. Those two had gone to ground after the Satan affair. Portland said that Nessa had fallen into some completely dysfunctional mental state and they were out recruiting, with Ken protecting her. Knowing those two, they were arranging something, but nobody could figure out what. Given their current talents and interests, nobody would know until Nessa and Ken told them.
Lorenzi stamped snow off his boots and shut the cabin door behind him. “You found something?”
“Uh huh,” War said. “Take a look at this.”
She started up one of Lorenzi’s spy records.
The record showed Lodz working in his lab. He appeared like a young Eastern European punk, complete with a mullet and body-covering tattoos.
War disliked Lodz. During Apotheosis and for months later, Lodz had been a woman. After Verona recruited Lodz into the City of God, she had become a man, likely involuntarily. The worth of women in Catholicism remained tiny, at least in Lodz’ mind and the mind of his worshippers, it seemed. Knowing the mental and physical pain involved in a major Imago change because of her personal experience, War had reason to doubt Lodz’s sanity.
Projections of Phoenix, Dubuque and Verona flew into the lab, warping the image but not cutting it off as sometimes happened. “Tell us what you’ve got,” Verona said. Lodz grunted.
“Lodz?” Verona said.
“This is nothing.”
“Your discovery wiggled my mission,” Phoenix said. “It’s not nothing.”
“Okay, I’ll explain, but only if you agree beforehand not to again belittle my experimentation,” Lodz said. “I’m more interested in working than arguing about my ideas.”
“We’ll agree to accept your working assumptions,” Verona said, his accent as thick as ever. All four of the City of God leaders spoke in English, which amused War greatly.
“Fine,” Lodz said. He picked up an enchanted rock from his desk and spoke. “Kasimir, you are needed.”
Kasimir, a non-Supported, walked into the workroom several moments later. Lodz continued, “As I stated in my report this is only a side project, which is why I gave no details. This project is not finished. The work is very difficult, and I must invent many new willpower applications. Much hairy mathematics is involved, as are computer simulations.”
“Please,” Verona said. “Just show us.”
“As you wish. Kasimir, into the apparatus and sit.”
Kasimir, nervous, walked up and into a cubical glass and metal enclosure, about eight feet across. Inside, he sat on a chair. Restraints clasped his arms and legs tight as an elaborate headset swung over and to his head, totally covering his head and neck. “Kasimir is not Supported material in any way. A waste, for our long term plans.”
The other three Gods frowned. As War well knew, they all had a surplus of Supported. Lodz didn’t attract many, for obvious reasons.
Lodz went over to an enchantment-covered workbench and adjusted one of his devices, engaged in a complex use of willpower that drew power from several small devices on his bench as well as an immobile enchantment buried in the floor. Inside the enclosure, Kasimir began to scream. The screaming went on for thirty seconds before ceasing. Lodz backed away and the device he had been adjusting stood up. The device was a partially deconstructed Japanese toy robot.
“Now, Kasimir,” Lodz said. The toy robot walked around the table and flexed its limbs, hopped into the air, and flew to the other end of the table. After the device landed, it raised an arm. A tiny beam of light sprung from the arm, a miniature version of a red and gold helix, one of the standard pieces of battle willpower.
Kasimir screamed again, and the toy robot fell over.
“Not so good,” Lodz said. “Not so good. I can initiate the merge but I can’t get the merge to last. I wouldn’t have ever wanted to present this to your eminences without better progress than thi
s. Is still trash.”
“Irrelevant,” Verona said. “What you have done is new, completely and totally.”
“Dangerous as well,” Dubuque said, the first comment he had made. “I can feel the cost to your test subject. You have diminished his soul.” He shook his head. “You think you can make soldiers for us with this invention of yours, Lodz?”
“Yes. Eventually,” Lodz said. “Many problems remain. Many problems.”
“Your trick pales before my innovation, though,” Dubuque said.
Lodz bristled and strode over to Dubuque. “But mine requires no learning time! I can provide us with instant soldiers. Once perfected.”
“Enough,” Verona said, stepping between the two Gods. “We will leave you to your work, Lodz.”
War turned off the spy record. “That’s all. Any idea what we’re seeing?”
“Evil,” Alt said.
“Undoubtedly,” Lorenzi said. He reached behind him to find a large, overstuffed chair and levered his bulk into a Lorenzi-shaped hollow in the seat. “That is, if Lodz cannot remove the cost to the user’s soul. I don’t like the idea of instant soldiers. This will lead us back to war as our only means of conflict resolution.”
Which didn’t bother War one bit. “Do any of you have any hunches about how long Lodz will take to perfect this?” War asked.
The Telepaths all shook their heads, except Nicole. “Months, if not years,” she said. “My ghosts Ingrid and Margo agree; we won’t see these instant soldiers when we’re carrying out plan five.”
Ghosts. War shook her head at Nicole’s crazy utterance, one of many. “Good enough for me,” War said. “We need to keep an eye on this.” Nicole, like all the Telepaths, was a little off. Actually, Nicole was more than a little off, she was the most off of this entire crew. Not as off off as Nessa, but certainly in the same chapter of the psych manual.
She spent most of her time looking at and chatting with ghosts.
They seemed to know quite a few things.
“Of course.” Alt paced and waved his arms. “Luckily, few of you Gods are into real research and development. Unfortunately, Lodz is one of the best, and he’s on the other side.”
“What we need to worry about is Dubuque’s innovation, whatever that is,” Nicole said. “According to Margo, Ingrid and Louise.”
War stopped in place. “An innovation we know nothing about, because Dubuque can stop all your telepathic tricks and our spies have been removed from Dubuque’s HQ.” She suspected the removal and Dubuque’s innovation were no coincidence. “Dammit. Soon?”
“Soon,” Nicole said.
“Then we need to get our asses in gear regarding plan five,” War said. She turned to Lorenzi. “We can’t wait on your magicians to get better.”
Lorenzi shook his head. “I disagree, but perhaps we can leave them out of this venture. You won’t need them and I need more time. They need more time.”
“We won’t need them if things go as planned,” War said. “As backups, though…”
The Telepaths found chairs as she began the long explanation of her intricate contingency plans. Three quarters of a continent away, one of her alarms rang in her mind. She moved her consciousness over and grimaced.
Here we go again, she groused.
“No,” War said. She paced her projection around Dana’s new Atlanta suburban lair, worried. She didn’t want to have her mind focused here, but she had to stop this insanity right now. What coincidence had caused this dormant mess to come to a boil now, right during their plan five preparations? War didn’t know and didn’t like the coincidence one bit. “Not in person.”
“I need to go in person,” Dana said. “My projections aren’t strong enough.” She sat at a conference table, one War remembered from the bad old days. The Ideological Gods named Freedom and Change sat opposite her.
“What about the Indigo?” War asked. She knew Dana and the Indigo had some sort of falling out, with Dana’s move from the Indigo’s Anime Café HQ to here as the most overt symptom, but they were still allies.
“Their unnatural talents aren’t suited for dealing with the Gods,” Dana said, eyes unfocused, her heart rate spiking and her already white skin paling to a chalky white. War cursed mentally, realizing the problem: Dana had gone on one of the Indigo’s screwy missions and come back with the usual Indigo-induced PTSD and a firm desire to avoid anything more to do with Hell. War hated being so far out of the loop. “Besides, they’re doing most of the running of my Territory. They are crackerjack detectives and bureaucrats.”
Dana’s suburban Atlanta lair had been a former pharmaceutical lab before the coming of the 99 Gods and the Seven Suits-triggered economic collapse. Dana had picked it up for a song from the five professors and their backers, after Immunogen, their company, had collapsed. The lab equipment had vanished long ago; Dana had wanted the location simply for the office space and its excellent security.
She needed the space. She had Bob, Persona’s trouble-magnet God-child to teach and protect. Even with borrowed Supported from half the Territorial Gods in North America, they were still too exposed. The idea of using the Indigo as bureaucrats, though…well, Dana was Dana.
“Going in person is far too dangerous, given your responsibilities,” War said. For this group of pure-whities, she wore her tall goddess projection. The tall goddess intimidated and got her heard. “The Suits have amassed the power of numbers, with at least a half dozen Ideological and Practical Gods under their thumb, protecting the Suits and providing them with ample willpower resources.” Which is why all their attempts at the Suits had so far come up empty.
Two weeks after the Atlanta – Miami fight, a bunch of Akron-backed investigative reporters had outed the Seven Suits’ economic machinations. Governments retaliated, backed by Portland’s Helping Hands Gods and the World Peace Gods. The Suits retaliated and the world economy collapsed, causing what the media types now called the Troubles. The collapse hadn’t hurt the Suits at all. Instead, they bought more companies. Governments tried expropriation and the Suits retaliated, causing bank runs in some countries, stock market crashes in others, hyperinflation in still others. The Troubles were the worst world economic calamity ever, or at least the worst since the founding of the first stock exchange.
Governments fell like chaff. The Seven Suits played for keeps. The Helping Hands Gods and the World Peace Gods blamed each other for the debacle.
Everyone else blamed the Gods, as a group. Nobody trusted them anymore.
War didn’t blame them. And the Gods still hadn’t been able to stop the Seven Suits, or even slow them down.
“We need Dana’s strength,” Freedom said, resting his elbows on the conference table and tapping his fingers. “None of the other Territorials will help us in person. Dammit, War, Capitalism and his far-too-many minions almost caught us when we did the snatch and grab on the US Steel takeover records. We can’t keep taking chances like that without backup.”
“I’ll admit The Regent” Dana “is freakishly strong for a non-God,” War said. She stalked the room, too unhappy to sit. “But she’s still only a Grade One Supported.” Nobody understood the source of Dana’s strength. Part of it certainly originated in Atlanta’s bequest of her territory to Dana before she fell. Another part came from the fact Dana had four Territorials Supporting her: Portland, Boise, Orlando and Montreal. That didn’t explain everything, though. Dana remained an anomaly, one War couldn’t examine too closely without blowing her cover. “Treating Dana as a full Territorial would be a disaster.” She turned to Dana, expecting fireworks over the implied insult, but instead Dana nodded, unhappy.
“Which is why you’ve barged in here. Yes, you mentioned this already,” Change said. He straightened his tie and leaned forward. War sighed. The incredibly inventive Change invariably leaned forward as if he fought the wind whenever he was about to drop another zinger. “But by my calculations, the power lack can be made up if you cough up a projection.”
�
�I’ve told you before that I can’t get involved in another conflict,” War said. She had her reasons, number one being the fact that if anyone had the skills to unmask her hidden identity, it was the Seven Suits. She didn’t want to be anywhere near them. “I’ve made too many enemies already.”
“Nevertheless, you either go in with us, or Dana goes in with her real body,” Change said. “Or we have to toss in the towel and give up on the Suits.” We being the Helping Hands Gods. “Anything else is suicide.”
War took a deep breath, covering some intense thinking time. She didn’t like this, but she couldn’t counter Change’s analysis. She did have a one-shot trick she had been hoping to save for a better use. Perhaps using this trick would cover her ass, and theirs as well. “Can you keep a secret?” she asked. Freedom, Change and Dana nodded.
War concentrated and altered her projection to be a projection of Dubuque, a duplicate of the one that had chewed Portland’s rug yesterday.
“Nice, nice,” Freedom said. “Let’s plan.”
Their long-bed van from Midnight Auto rolled to a stop in front of an exquisitely maintained and recently renovated Beacon Hill brownstone. War, in her real Leo-body, jerked to his feet in a convincing fashion, hunched over. War’s little black girl projection didn’t bother with the convincing lurch and just stood.
The van’s doors popped open and Alt’s attack squad – an exaggeration if War ever heard one – exited the van with business-like efficiency, adjusting their borrowed catering uniforms and keeping mentally silent. A flock of young girls representing the local I.B.T.C. scattered away on the sidewalk, giggling to each other, banging their smartphones together and pointing their cute little noses into the air.
99 Gods: Betrayer Page 13
