“Enough!” Portland said. “All of you. Woman, that wasn’t called for.”
Nessa glared at Portland; the God had directed her last comment at her. She caught Dubuque’s flicker of annoyance at Portland. He might think he was Portland’s boss, but he was sorely mistaken.
“If you can’t stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen,” Nessa said. “Between Ken and me, what we did to Dubuque and Montreal was the equivalent of a mildly raised voice. If you want to do business with us, you’d better be much more polite if you’re to avoid more strongly raised voices.”
Nessa ignored Ken, steaming mad at these idiot Gods. Damn their obnoxious attempts at snooty superior-being-hood!
“I must apologize,” Ken said. “Our previous meetings with the 99 have left us edgy and ready to defend ourselves over the slightest provocations.”
“I see,” Dubuque said. A thin smile grew on his face. “I apologize as well. Mortals with powers as potent as yours are new to me. In many ways you are like us, save physically.”
Ken let Montreal go. She slid down the wall and stalked back to stand beside Dubuque, glaring hatefully at Ken.
“What’s with your bodies, anyway?” Ken said. “Have you done any research to find out what the silvery stuff is?”
Ken got only four divine glares as an answer.
“Why are you in my territory?” Dubuque said, demanding.
“Personal business,” Nessa said.
“You seek allies,” Portland said. “For what purpose?”
“I work with an academic, a non-Telepath, and she vanished soon after you 99 Gods appeared,” Nessa said. Dubuque bridled. “I’m not accusing you of anything. Geez. She vanished in the mountains of East Africa; she’s a research primatologist fergoshsake. She vanished from my mind as well, but I know she’s still alive. Logically, the only explanation is that she got grabbed by a God. One of the people I know volunteered the name Nairobi, but I’m not sure how much I trust my advisor. The reason we’re in Davenport is to find someone who can help us.”
“What sort of person?” Portland said, subtly taking over leadership from Dubuque. Phoenix and Dubuque exchanged a glance, one that Nessa read as ‘shit, she picked that up from the United States?’
“I’d rather not say,” Nessa said. She realized she liked Portland. “I don’t have the right to involve them in the affairs of the 99 Gods without their permission.”
Dubuque cocked his head. “I applaud your sense of ethics and morality, on the question of the rescue of your friend and on your recruit. I counsel my volunteers much the same about the affairs of us Living Saints.”
“I’d like to propose a deal,” Dubuque said.
“Propose away,” Nessa said.
“I will honor your request to work independently,” Dubuque said. “Living Saints who have fallen from God’s Grace are vulnerable to mortals. Our creators, the Angelic Host, told us that’s one of the things that keeps us in line. What I’m going to offer you is a deputization, formal permission from the City of God – that is, from myself and the Living Saints who have allied with me – to seek out and bring to justice the rogue Living Saints Atlanta and Miami. Detain them if you can, defend yourselves as appropriate if they resist or attack you. In return, I’ll talk to Nairobi and arrange your friend’s liberation. The politics of the 99 may preclude a quick release, mind you.”
“I understand,” Nessa said. “What’s this City of God stuff, though?” The rain started in earnest and pattered down on her defensive shields. Ooh, far too good to pass up. She lowered her shields to let the rain leak through and enjoy the cool wet.
Montreal understood Nessa’s hedonistic motives and brightened. The rest of the entourage darkened, more wary.
“The City of God is my plan to bring all the Living Saints together, some physically, some philosophically, in a way to further the work of God on Earth,” Dubuque said. He frowned at her antics with the rain. “To do good, as we must do.”
Nessa stared at her feet for a minute and shuffled around aimlessly.
Ken sent, half in disbelief.
“Okay,” Nessa said. “We agree.”
Dubuque smiled. “Excellent! What’s your friend’s name?”
“Dr. Eufemia Zumbrennen of Stanford University, Uffie to her friends,” Nessa said. “She was in Malawi when she vanished. You treat her right. She’s not a Telepath like we are and she’s old.”
“You have no need to worry on my account,” Dubuque said.
“It’s so good to work with people on the side of the angels for once,” Dubuque said.
Nessa caught a glimpse of Dubuque’s mind and laughed. “You ran into John Lorenzi, didn’t you?” She ran her hands through her wet hair and bounced on the balls of her feet.
“I don’t find him to be a laughing matter,” Dubuque said.
“Sorry,” Nessa said, and slowly calmed her laughter. “He’s an utterly royal pain in the gazotch to deal with in the best of circumstances.”
“If you bring him to justice, I’ll grant you another boon. Two boons!” Dubuque said. His voice filled with laughter, but the frown never left his face.
Ken snorted. “We’re good, but we’re not that good, sir.”
That stopped Dubuque in his place. “You consider him more powerful than you are?” Dubuque said. His frown deepened. “I find that to be most disturbing news.”
“His abilities are far different from ours, and from ample experience we know
he can’t do much to us unless we let him, and vice versa,” Ken said. “Plus, he has centuries of experience on us. We try to avoid him if we can.”
“I see,” Dubuque said. “I’ll trust your experience and wisdom on that matter. If either of our rebel Living Saints surrenders to justice or comes back to the light, I’ll send you a message. I’ll also let you know when I find a way to gain the release of your friend. Fair enough?”
“Fair enough,” Nessa said, a quaver in her voice, from her ever-growing nervousness. This conversation had to end, and quickly, before Dubuque fully wormed his way into their minds. “We’ll start on our agreed upon project after we secure our ally. Goodbye, then.”
She waved at the Gods and their entourage and retreated with Ken into their motel room. Ken wiped sweat off his head and lay down in bed; Nessa stripped, toweled off, and lay next to him to rest. Five minutes later, the divine company flew off, back to the north, after a long discussion between Portland and Dubuque. Nessa took a deep breath and relaxed.
“Fuck! Dubuque’s as foul as Miami,” Ken said. “Despite his saintly goody-two-shoes aura. I know you liked him, but, yetch!”
“I don’t like the hold he has on Montreal and Phoenix’s minds either, even if he isn’t doing it consciously,” she said. “Half the reason I made this silly agreement was to stall for time.”
“I understand. It galls me to say so, but I’m afraid Lorenzi’s right. It isn’t just a few bad apples among the Gods, it’s all 99 of them.”
Nessa sniggered and climbed on top of Ken, straddling him. She put her hands flat on his chest and spoke with a vague imitation of Dubuque. “You shouldn’t fib to me. That’s unwise.” She couldn’t keep a grin off of her face.
“Okay, I’ll admit it. I like Atlanta,” Ken said. He smiled back. “I like her style. I think she had Dubuque pegged perfectly and I’d rather not have to go after her.”
“Subduing her and giving her to Dubuque wouldn’t bother me a bit,” Nessa said. Violent types always disquieted her, or pissed her off. “Subduing Miami and giving him to Dubuque would be worth a chocolate orgy.”
“Yum,” Ken said, and tickled Nessa. She giggled back. “Miami first, then.”
“Sure. Perhaps we can talk Atlanta into surrendering once we’ve got Miami. If we can,” Nessa said. “Besides, I think Atlanta’s disagreement with Dubuque is some sort of divine misunderstanding, likely over Dubuque’s accidental mind control trick.”
Ken grunted. “I don’t like surrendering anyone to Dubuque.”
“Every last God we’ve met has been bent, Ken.”
“Portland’s not bent.”
“You sure?”
“Positive. You’re the big mind whiz, Nessa, but you know I can pick out more details than you can from minds if they’re close by. I couldn’t get through her shields, but I could tell that Portland’s mind’s similar to ours, convoluted, complex and a bit inhuman.”
“Oh hell, that’s supposed to be a recommendation?” Nessa shook her head. “However, that matches with what I found. I thought she was pulling something on Dubuque, pretending to be controlled I think. I’ll tell you what. If we can take Miami we’ll give him over to Portland. It’s a risk, though. Despite her faking, she’s still partly under Dubuque’s control.”
“No worse than we are,” Ken said.
Nessa chewed her lip. “I was hoping you wouldn’t bring that up.” She shrugged. “Whatever influence he had on us wasn’t large and will fade over time. I’m not sure we should go after Alton tonight, though. I need some recovery time and I’d like to give Dubuque’s influence time to fade.” A little good telepathic exercise would be all it would take, Nessa decided. “You know, I think we’ve finally gotten a handle on things. Only, I keep thinking I’m denying something I’ve figured out…”
“Yah,” Ken said. “Same here. This mess seems simple but is a hell of a lot more complex than meets the eye.”
“Uh huh.” Nessa sighed and arched her back. Something needy continued to rattle around inside her mind, something she couldn’t put words to. She relaxed and took a deep breath.
Ken smiled. “It’s a little early to go to sleep, though.”
“I’m glad we agree on that,” Nessa said. She stared into his eyes, smiled and wiggled.
28. (Atlanta)
“We’re all glad you’re willing to come here and help,” Lara said. She had guided Atlanta as Atlanta flew Lara and Dana to the Indigo group’s place in northeast Georgia, a few miles east of Clayton and up at the top of a four hundred foot tall hill towering above Warwoman Creek and the road named after it. Velma was on call in the ER today, and couldn’t make it. They landed, and Atlanta noticed some of the buildings extended into the bedrock, while others nestled in trees, elaborate tree houses doubling as fire support platforms. She sensed with her divine tricks radar, lidar, and sonar in use, as well as the electrical grid and wireless network connecting dozens of other visual and audio sensors. The paranoid fools also had a half dozen hoverdrones, not military spec but home-built and weaponized. Many of the trees were bare, the pecans and maples having already lost their leaves, but enough oak and balsam fir grew on this hill to provide some concealment. Farther down the hill, mountain laurels, rhododendrons and oversized azaleas covered the twisty driveway and hid the doubled security fence from view.
“I’m impressed. I’d hate to be the idiots trying to take this place,” Atlanta said. “Pardon. Ex-military.”
“That’s why we like you,” Jan Cox said, leading a group of over a half dozen people, mostly all in their twenties, to where she, Dana and Lara had landed. “To me, you’re one of us. Welcome to our Georgia refuge.”
Atlanta made small talk as she tried to figure out what was bothering her about the situation. She had been edgy and paranoid ever since the Dubuque incident and she suspected the Indigo was attempting to pull something on her.
Part of it had to be the people Jan had with her; they were all overly energetic, squeaky clean, dressed in bright colors, clothing all of the same style and from the same manufacturer. They all exuded youthful fertility. Where was the normal angst and paranoia?
Jan noticed Atlanta’s mental digression, and gave up on the small talk, watching with Atlanta as Dana talked to the others. Of them, she only recognized Abe Cox and his wife, Tylee – Jan’s son and daughter-in-law.
“So, a PhD in economics?” Abe said to Dana. He had not-so-subtly taken over the conversation. He was a tall white man, vaguely Hispanic, six three or so, with a tanned face, an athletic build and piercing black eyes. He wore his black hair cut short, and had no visible tats or jewelry. “What was your topic?”
Unlike the blowsy home-schooled cult member he currently portrayed, he was actually the leader of the Indigo’s top strike force when they went on their rare missions against whatever boogity-boogity or big bad they fought this year. Although she didn’t fully understand the intricacies of the Indigo’s leadership set-up, she thought this made him the overall leader of the Indigo as well.
“My dissertation was titled ‘The Econometrics of Neo-Slavery’, and went into the perverse incentivization that originated with for-profit prisons and their contracts specifying a minimum number of prisoners the state in question is required to provide.”
“Your dissertation sounds very strange,” Abe said, smiling and flirting. “There are such things?”
“Of course there are,” Dana said, her voice taking on a ‘lecture to the rubes’ tenor. “When you add in the lobbying and campaign contributions, you end up with…”
Jan stepped back, and Lara followed. Atlanta, now knowing what trick the Indigo was pulling, followed as well. They were separating her from Dana.
“You’d better have a good reason for this,” Atlanta said, after they had backed away a dozen steps, into the shadow of an old white oak.
“She’s cute but naïve,” Lara said. “We want to talk about the price you want to charge us for your static protections without any of her an
ti-violence interjections.”
“I see,” Atlanta said. “You’re worried that when I call on you ‘for help’, I’m going to be using you as cannon fodder.”
Jan nodded. She continued walking them back, and sat them down at an acorn-encrusted picnic table. “We’re not the super-soldiers you envision,” Jan said. “We don’t do very much fighting at all. We do when we must, but our missions, as you call them, are primarily information gathering in nature.”
“I understand,” Atlanta said. “I have no idea where my contest with Dubuque and the Seven Suits is going to go, so I’m putting together contingency plans and options for the future. You’re not the only group I’ve made deals with, and some of what I’m doing would strike even your group as crazy.”
“Okay, I guess,” Jan said, turning an acorn cap in circles in one hand. “How bad is it? I don’t know if Lara told you, but our Indiana and Illinois groups have all relocated here to Harry Mountain.” Their own punnish private name for this place? Atlanta wasn’t sure.
“The ones who are hiding from me?” Atlanta said. “I figured something along those lines was going on. Have any of Dubuque’s envoys and extortion artists made contact with you?”
“Unfortunately, yes,” Jan said. “We did the best job of misdirection and dissembling we could, but I suspect it’s only a matter of time before he realizes we played his envoys.”
“Thus the interest in getting me to personally protect your home base with as many fixed 99 God style protections as you can squeeze out of me, without having to sell your souls.”
Abe and crew now led Dana off, toward one of the larger treehouses, likely where food, drink and mysteries awaited. Atlanta was impressed; it took a lot to distract Dana from her chief-of-staff duties, and she was thoroughly distracted.
“You’re as blunt as the worst of us,” Jan said, bemused. “I want right of refusal for any missions involving violence.”
“And what about those missions with a chance of turning into violence?” Atlanta said. “There are no guarantees when espionage is concerned.”
“By ‘involving violence’, I mean going into a situation with murder and mayhem as the goal.” Jan paused. “If Epharis is right, it’s not going to be long before we see our Hellish enemies start to take advantage of the situation. What I’m afraid of is one of you 99 deciding to make a deal with one of them and open a gate filled with Hellspawn to use as their cannon fodder.”
99 Gods: War Page 31
