“How are you doing, Uffie?” Nessa said.
“Stuck,” Uffie said. “Nairobi’s found the mental tricks he normally uses to bind his Supported don’t work on me” no shock to Nessa “so he’s bound me physically. If I try to leave his vicinity, I run into force fields.”
“So I was correct and this isn’t a voluntary arrangement?”
“Correct as always, Nessa.” Uffie’s eyes landed on Soft Hand Lady and her face froze. “Nessa?”
“I’ll explain later,” Nessa said. That topic was not one for discussion among the non-initiated. “Ken, do the honors.” Nessa wouldn’t have bothered with any preliminaries, too emotionally tied up about Uffie’s captivity to make good judgments. However, she and Ken had worked out what they would do ahead of time. Ken ran things today.
“Nairobi, you have a choice: negotiation or war.”
“You are needlessly upset,” Nairobi said.
Nairobi’s thoughts leaked nervousness. He thought he understood Telepaths by his interactions with his pet Telepath rag picker. Neither Nessa nor Ken followed Nairobi’s script.
Poor Nairobi.
“The box is a gift for you, if you choose to negotiate,” Ken said. Under no circumstances would they admit to bribing Nairobi just to talk to him. Officially, their meeting with the fake Nairobi did not happen.
“I appreciate gifts. Gifts build good relationships.”
Nairobi attempted to organize a group of his people on the first floor to find a way to ‘rescue’ Nairobi, or at least reinforce him. His comment on gifts and relationships had been so inane because he had relegated his mouth to a subsidiary mental track.
Nessa decided to improvise. She poked and prodded at the ‘rescuers’ emotions until the entire ‘rescue team’ snarled and screamed at each other. Ken and Nairobi exchanged several well-meaning platitudes while she worked. When Nessa’s mind returned to the here and now, she rang Uffie’s mental doorbell, about all the mental interaction possible with someone as talented as Uffie, with no skin-to-skin contact, and with no desire by Uffie to lower her mind shields.
Uffie stared at Nessa, peeved, fully aware what Nessa attempted. Nessa, now she had Uffie’s attention, looked at the crate.
“Nairobi, enough of this,” Uffie said, catching the hint. “Quit your horsing around and take a look at what’s in the crate.” Uffie’s tone put a smile on Nessa’s face. Nairobi might be able to compel Uffie to advise simply by being able to read when she lied and when she told the truth, but he couldn’t compel her to politeness without physically breaking her. The fact he hadn’t broken Uffie meant Nairobi did have promise.
Nairobi waved his hand at the crate, and the lid flew off. “Ah. The crate was shielded. What is this stuff?”
Packing material fountained and bubble-wrapped objects levitated and landed on Nairobi’s desk, his work. Each of the bubble-wrapped objects contained an amulet, 99 in total, Portland’s symbolism. He took the tricked up iPad, with headset, last out of the crate. A single large amulet lay on top of it, wrapped in the same bubble-wrap.
“Well,” Nairobi said, openly lost in wonder. “I’ve heard of Inventor’s so-called enchantments but I’ve never had the opportunity to examine them in person. What an amazing trick, to be able to place divine willpower on physical objects. So, what do they do?”
His comment told Nessa a lot about Nairobi: he was a mentally oriented instead of a physically oriented God, with the same general skill-set as Dubuque and Worcester. His specialty within that general skill-set would be unique if it matched the pattern. Whether he had damned himself or not they would determine later.
“They are two-thousand-kilometer-range communicators,” Ken said. “Anyone, including non-Supported, can answer if someone calls. In addition, you can set up any of your Supported to be able to call anyone who holds a communicator simply by putting an image of the target in their minds. In addition, the master amulet allows you or a Grade One Supported to communicate to any or all of the amulets, download projections to that location, or do any number of similar willpower tricks with an amulet-holder. The iPad allows Grade Two Supported the capability to locate the amulets in real-time GPS style as well as communicate to any or all amulets. Needless to say, the transmissions are digitally encoded, the code based on a fifty digit prime number you keep in your head.”
“You have my attention,” Nairobi said, face stern, after a long pause for thought. “Pray tell you don’t waste your opportunity.”
“Very well, sir. We wish to negotiate for Ms. Zumbrennen’s release,” Ken said.
Nairobi gave up trying to organize the ‘rescue team’. “Negotiate, eh? You and your backers want to make friends with me if you can?”
“Yes,” Ken said. “We don’t believe your stated desire to remain neutral in the growing conflicts among the Gods is viable, long-term.”
Nairobi laughed. “So this is ‘put up or shut up’ time, and your side isn’t averse to making an enemy out of me by forcing the issue?”
“You’re correct, though we would rather not have you as an enemy,” Ken said.
“Did Portland agree with these tactics, or are you freelancing?”
“This meeting is Portland’s idea,” Ken said.
Nairobi nodded. His thoughts leaked mild surprise; he had believed the media reports and divine gossip about Portland’s weakness and her inability to use political leverage. Of course, fooling the media was half the game, at least according to Portland. “If necessity allowed, my return gift to you would be Uffie’s freedom,” Nairobi said.
“Why necessity?”
“Mr. Bolnick, I was a simple soldier, a Lieutenant in the army of Kenya, a senior drill instructor, before my elevation to Godhood. I’m not a well-educated man. I need advisors to prevent me from making egregious mistakes, yet I find my local advisors too tied into the local ethnic political structures to be of any use. They all have their own agendas and their patron’s agendas, or only give me the advice I’m interested in hearing. Despite this, if I exert myself I can make them work and tell the truth, but to do so I squander all my energies.” Nairobi put his hands on the table and frowned. “If you wish to free Uffie, you must provide me with a better advisor.”
Nessa stifled a curse, not surprised. Portland’s advisory team predicted this request. “The actions of the Gods have made your request near impossible,” Ken said. The 99 Gods group Integrity collapse after Miami’s attack on Portland and Atlanta had seen to that. The group divine Integrity hadn’t recovered.
“Nevertheless, this is my requirement,” Nairobi said.
“We believe we can help you, but you must make the advisory position worth taking,” Ken said.
“You mean a salary?”
Ken nodded. “Six figures, no mental enslavement, and a binding legal contract.”
“Painful, but perhaps possible. A contract enforceable by who?”
“Portland.”
“Totally unacceptable.”
“We possess no other way to enforce a contract,” Ken said.
“I do not bow to any God save Allah,” Nairobi said. His side band thoughts confirmed the common knowledge that Nairobi considered worship of any of the 99 Gods blasphemous and evil.
“The contract can’t be enforced by any governmental court system,” Ken said. “A God must back the contract.”
Nairobi shook his head.
“Nairobi, would you be upset if I placed a phone call to Portland?” Ken said.
So much for th
eir mystique and omnipotence, Nessa grumbled to herself. She filched an ink pen from Nairobi’s pocket and began to take the pen apart with her telekinesis. Portland’s orders. Playing with pens supposedly aided her anger management and gave her needed practice in fine-level telekinesis. Her actions didn’t amuse Nairobi, but Nessa ignored him.
“I grant you permission,” Nairobi said.
Ken placed the phone call. Uffie whispered to Nairobi about the sheer number of enemies he would be making if he continued to hold her against her will. She also commented to him that, to Uffie’s surprise, Nessa and Ken were married and bonded to each other in such a way rendering the normal ‘Telepaths must work alone’ rule moot.
“…so don’t do anything rash,” Portland said over the phone. Nessa realized she had missed the first part of the conversation. Bad. That meant she would lose her composure soon, marking the end of any talk of making nice with Nairobi. She put more concentration into the ink pen. Springs, she found, were always an issue. “I’ll put the advisory team on the problem. I’m sure we can come up with a good solution. Do you want to fly back here to be in on the discussion?”
“Before we can come back, we’ve got another week or two of work to pay off Lorenzi,” Ken said. He looked up at Uffie. “This may take another month, Ms. Zumbrennen.”
If Uffie screamed ‘I can’t take this anymore’, Nessa would knock Nairobi into several thousand test-tube sized samples and suffer the consequences. She readied the blow and concentrated on watching Nairobi sweat. He understood the consequences of Uffie’s answer, likely able to feel Nessa and Ken’s power. Uffie paused, long enough to give Nairobi a chance to give her up without the rigmarole.
He didn’t.
“One month I can do,” Uffie said, leaking ‘get me the fuck out of here in three weeks or I’m going to go nuts’ on some quite prominent thought-bands. She had relaxed her mind shields and now radiated her thoughts with Telepath-like precision.
Nessa relaxed. They had squeaked through another nail-biter without anything apocalyptic happening.
“Fair enough,” Ken said.
“Then we shall continue to negotiate?” Nairobi said.
Ken nodded and clicked off the cellphone.
“My gift to you, then, is this: if you want to set up a meeting with me, feel free to do so, and I pledge to you I will be there,” Nairobi said.
Cheap ass idiot, Nessa thought.
“At Portland’s suggestion, I have another gift,” Ken said, surprising Nessa. “Turn on the cable news. There’s an interesting fight going on involving our friends and Phoenix.”
19. (Dave)
Mr. Lorenzi finished reading the outline of their final report and stood, a smile on his face. A half hour before the meeting started, he had acquiesced to Dave and Elorie’s request and bound them in holy matrimony, with their stunned work group as their only witnesses. He had even come up with an appropriate off-the-top-of-his-head sermon, admonishing them that despite the rushed ceremony, what he called a necessary wartime expedient God would forgive, they were still bound, as all married couples, to treat each other and their relationship with kindness and utmost respect. Afterwards, he did treat the both of them with far more kindness and understanding than before.
“Very good,” he said. “I’m authorizing you to continue on with this project. Work cautiously and do the job right. There’s no need to rush off into the next phase until you’re fully prepared. All of you have valid current passports?”
Dave nodded, as did the rest of the team. He hadn’t thought about the issue before, but ‘passports’ was surely part of the Recruiter’s criteria for this group.
“Great,” Mr. Lorenzi said. “You understand the next part will be extremely dangerous?”
“The danger was part of the deal from the start, Mr. Lorenzi,” Elorie said. “We’re ready.”
Mr. Lorenzi patted his ample stomach and looked the rest of the team over. “Hoochie coo. Could be worse. I could have sent you off to rescue poor Cosmo.”
Eh? Dave wondered.
“Anyhoo… Since we’re worried about 99 God interference, especially from the Tradition faction, I’ve got some protection amulets for you,” Mr. Lorenzi said. “They’ll keep the Gods from tracking you and save you from a bunch of their ancillary tricks, but they won’t stop a concerted attack. Don’t get cocky.” Mr. Lorenzi reached into his Santa Claus sack and handed out the amulets.
“Do these stop help?” Dave asked, after Mr. Lorenzi handed him an amulet. “Like if we pray?”
“No sir-eedie-deedie,” Mr. Lorenzi said. He handed his last amulet to Elorie. It fell apart in her hands to clatter in pieces on the floor.
“Excuse me?” Elorie said.
Mr. Lorenzi snorted. “Seems as though you won’t need one of these,” he said, in his cryptic swami voice. No one, not even Elorie, had the nerve to call him on his assertion. “So. Next on the list is how to get your weapons through security checks. Those strongboxes in the corner are set up so that whatever security types look at them think the contents are harmless. Best if you two men” indicating Jack and Darrel “are the only ones to handle the strongboxes. They’re set up not to affect you.”
Jack and Darrel nodded.
“I’ve also got contact sheets for emergencies, international travel-ready cell phones, and proper report procedure documents.” Mr. Lorenzi handed out a stapled document to each of them, along with a new set of cell phones. The phones weren’t all the same; several appeared to be satellite phones. “Follow the instructions. Note on page three my comments regarding the operatives I have working in the field checking up on groups like yours. Some of them are passing strange, so don’t get upset. They’ll know you by the team name. Use that as your password.”
Dave looked at the document and saw, near the bottom: ‘Team Name: Beluga Elephant’. Well, this wasn’t something anyone would come up with randomly, now was it?
“You don’t have to worry about Godly interference, at least as far as Ankara. Or so Boise says. After that, be on your toes, all of you, and I hope to see you again within a month,” Mr. Lorenzi said. He patted Elorie on the shoulder and waddled off.
After he exited the cabin, Elorie clapped her hands to get everyone’s attention.
“Now that we’re about to go out in the field, I’m reorganizing the team a little,” she said. “Jack, you’re in charge of our security.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Jack said.
“Dave’s now my second in command. If I’m not around, treat whatever he says as coming from me.”
Dave’s eyebrows raised. Elorie hadn’t clued him in on this ahead of time, but this change did follow, logically, from their wedding. The rest of the team nodded solemnly. Their grumbles stayed on their faces, unspoken.
Nope, he wasn’t part of their team any longer.
Heh.
“We’re doing what?” Lisa said. “Look, Elorie, I put that down on your crazy survey only for completeness. I’ve only gone rock climbing once, and once was enough for me.”
Elorie shrugged. She had passed out her adventure sports survey after Lorenzi left, saying she wanted to see if she could duplicate Dave’s trick with the languages.
She had.
“Of all the things on the survey, the only one we all have in common was rock climbing,” Elorie said. “I can’t believe this is a coincidence, so I’m going to take you all out and find out what sort of skill levels we have. Just in case we need the information later.”
Dave did notice a faint look of disbelief on Jack’s face as he looked over Elorie’s shoulder. Dave sidled up and examined Elorie’s survey, on top of the pile.
She had checked almost every box.
“It took me awhile to find something nearby and n
ot snow covered,” Elorie said, as they parked in the Rodgers Ranch parking lot. This place was on the Pacific side of the Cascades and likely hadn’t seen snow in a month. “Luckily I found one that has a good range of climbs.”
“What’s the hardest here?” Jack said.
“5.12b,” Elorie said. “At least a little challenging.”
Dave, who knew the free climbing rating system, winced. A 5.12b was quite difficult.
After they got the climbing equipment out of the van Elorie led them down a steep canyon, then to a flatter section where a half dozen climbing faces were marked on the map. Another hundred yards down the canyon, four climbers were already up one, softly talking to each other. One, on ropes, appeared to have gotten stuck.
Elorie put on a climbing harness, took a rope and some gear and began to free climb up one of the easier faces in this section. She moved quickly and confidently, monkey-like. “I wouldn’t have believed this unless I’d seen it,” Jack whispered. Dave estimated the height of the face to be about a hundred and twenty feet.
Elorie secured the rope at the top, out of their view, then after clipping herself to the rope whizzed down without a stop, using a figure eight to control her descent speed. A big grin covered her face. “Okay, who’s first?”
Nobody raised their hand. Dave dismissed the beginner-level face Elorie had picked as something even he could free climb easily and instead watched the others. Jack’s brows furrowed the most. “Elorie, I’d prefer something a little meatier, like that one over there, Dead Dog’s Wall.” Jack, who held one of the Rogers Ranch climbing maps in his hand, pointed out the face in question.
“Oh, do we have someone who’s done this for real?” Elorie said, dimpling. Dead Dog’s Wall looked vertical, well beyond Dave’s abilities, free or aided.
Jack didn’t answer. “That’s about my limit as well,” Darrel said. “Rig up a couple of safety ropes and let’s go, Jack.”
99 Gods: Betrayer Page 25
