99 Gods: War

by Randall Farmer

  “I’m glad you’ve decided I meet your standards,” Portland said, arch. “You, on the other hand, have insufficient stick-to-it-iveness.” Her inability to rescue Uffie, for instance. “Outside of your trauma issues, your inability to properly complete projects is your largest problem. I can help you overcome this.”

  Nessa glared at Portland and didn’t respond. The exploitable gaps in Portland’s mental defenses vanished. Nessa concentrated on keeping her own mental barriers up and strong.

  “There’s little to be gained by this, both of you,” Ken said. “Trust me, we don’t want to bring the house down, now do we? What’s our next move, Portland?”

  “If you want, I can put you up in my headquarters, and…”

  Alt’s eyes opened. “We’ve got problems, folks. Miami’s on the way, fresh from a visit to Dubuque. He’s under orders to physically subdue us all and take us to Dubuque, and, ma’am, Portland, he expects your help.”

  Portland backed off from her confrontation with Nessa. “You read this in Miami’s mind?”

  “Not exactly,” Alt said. “I just know this is his plan, and how the plan came about. I don’t know how this trick of mine works.”

  “Then you are as dangerous as Dubuque appears to think you are,” Portland said.

  “My screwy insights are why I’m considered dangerous?” Alt said. His voice dropped an octave. “Now That Sucks.”

  Nessa laughed. “Here you were hoping it was something physically dangerous that had Dubuque upset, Alt. Too bad.”

  “Bite me,” Alt said.

  “Chil-dren,” Portland said. She had grown frustrated enough that her eyebrows had nearly merged to become one. “Alt, do you have any feel for how long it’s going to be before Miami arrives?”

  “An hour to an hour and a half,” Alt said. “With your permission, I’d like to have Javier contact John Lorenzi’s group. They should be able to get here before Miami shows.”

  “I’ll consider the idea,” Portland said. “But first, on the off chance this is a real threat, we need to move out of here. I think my out-of-town estate is best. I wouldn’t want it on my conscience if a fight started here inside my city.”

  Alt frowned at the ‘off chance’ comment. He had gotten too used to everyone instantly believing him, Nessa decided. Portland, though, wasn’t a believer of anything, save perhaps in the innate goodness of young people.

  “Let’s go, then,” Ken said.

  Nessa shrugged, disgusted at her own thoughts. Portland would waffle until it became too late to do anything useful.

  It’s what the Angelic Host designed Portland to do.

  Portland flew them to her estate with the ease of long practice, flying the two vehicles procured in Boise and giving ulcers to all the air traffic controllers in the vicinity. The God’s estate looked new and in obvious violation of the City of Portland’s tough zoning laws, in the middle of a farm, right next to a hilly decade-old suburb.

  Godhood hath its privileges, Nessa decided. Portland gathered the five of them in a quiet and cozy study. The comfortable room had more ceramic animals, mostly dogs, than books. A toy poodle yapped its greetings at them, went to Portland’s lap and curled up. Over forty people worked in this estate, a tiny fraction of Portland’s organization, but many of them were Portland’s top people, her Wise Shepherds. Nessa realized everyone here had mental protections equal to Portland’s, mental protections created by Portland, of course.

  “Dubuque’s not answering my hails,” Portland said. “Nor can any of my people get in contact with him by more mundane electronic means. His people are stalling. I don’t like this.”

  “So we fight,” Nessa said. Her chair was too comfortable for her mood, so she stood up and paced. She hated real fights and she didn’t have much experience with them. However, she knew she couldn’t run from something like this.

  “Not so fast,” Portland said. “I should be able to clear up this confusion with Miami when he appears. I’m certainly not helping him detain you.”

  “If he decides to shoot first and ask questions later, people are going to die, and by ‘people’ I mean us, ma’am,” Alt said leaning forward in his chair. “I have a hunch Miami could easily make such a decision.”

  “Our defenses are that crappy?” Ken said. Alt nodded. “It would have helped if you’d figured this out beforehand.”

  “Sorry,” Alt said. “I just got the insight now. Mr. Lorenzi is, unfortunately, correct in his analysis, and the newly awakened among us haven’t had a chance to master our own abilities.”

  “You will not shoot first at a God,” Portland said, with the voice of the heavens. “If you did, I would have to reconsider my position to support you.”

  “Can you protect us from being detained? Physically subdued?” Nessa said, pacing past a small table filled with ceramic poodles.

  “Not against a God with a combat fetish,” Portland said. “I have better things to do with myself than to spend my time learning to fight other Gods. You must trust in good sense and diplomacy.”

  “Portland, you’re being ridiculous,” Nessa said. “If Miami’s gone rogue, I’d probably agree with you. You might be able to talk him down. However, in this case, he’s following Dubuque’s explicit orders, which means he’s under Dubuque’s mental control. If…”

  “Only if Alt here is correct,” Portland said. “Don’t forget the power of stupidity and error. In my experience, most if not all claims of conspiracy and evil of this nature boil down to mistakes and errors.”

  She’s too nice, and nice people finish last, Nessa thought. Even if this particular nice person did have incredible power. “We’ve got to contact John Lorenzi. He and his group can help. For one thing, Atlanta must have gotten her damned real body to them by now, and if anyone’s able to balk Miami, it’s her.”

  “Which is exactly why I don’t want you contacting them,” Portland said. “Atlanta will shoot first and ask questions later, and the last thing I want is for us to blunder into a God war. You have no conception of how bad this might be, not only for us Gods, but for every human on the planet. Besides, doing so would slap God Almighty in the face. We don’t want to do that, either.”

  “Dubuque’s ordered Miami to physically drag us back to him! He’ll kill us if we resist!” Nessa said. She stalked up to Portland and got in her face. “We have the right to defend ourselves, and in this case, the right to ask someone who’s already volunteered her services to help us defend ourselves. We’re mortal, Portland, and when we die, dammit, we’re dead. I have no desire to sit here and wait to find out if Miami can kill the lot of us with his first shot.”

  “You only think Miami might shoot first because of Alt’s intuition,” Portland said. “That’s not the same thing as being absolutely sure…”

  “You will not gamble our lives away because you don’t trust Alt,” Nessa said.

  “You will not start an idiotic apocalyptic war on a hunch something might just go bad!”

  Under stress, Portland’s mind leaked thoughts, and Nessa didn’t like what she found. “You don’t know what the hell you’re doing! You’ve never faced anything like this in your life. This isn’t some playground dispute! As, um Trotsky said…” she paused, letting Right Sock take over “‘You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.’ You can’t escape war by pretending it can’t happen!” Nessa’s voice rose to a shout and she waggled a finger in Portland’s face. “At least give over leadership to someone who’s been in a fight before.” Portland shook her head. “Well, then, if you’re not going to give us permission to defend ourselves, we’re going to take the permission no matter what you say or do!”

  “Crap,” Ken said.

  “Give her hell,” Phil said, which drew a glare from Ken and Alt.

  Portland didn’t respond and saved her glare for Nessa.

  Nessa took a deep breath, backed away a half step and thought over what she had just said. “I’m sorry about the last, Portland,”
she said. “My threat was out of line.”

  Portland nodded. “It’s your old traumas,” she said, and stood up, arms open, to hug Nessa. The poodle dropped to the floor with a scramble of feet. “That’s where your anger comes from. You want to make sure nothing like the confrontation ever happens again. I can help.”

  Nessa hugged her back. She always had a hard time turning down a hug. So few people ever wanted to hug a homely schizzy mess like her.

  “Wait just a second, there, Portland,” Celebrity said. She rushed forward, toward the two of them. “It’s…”

  Celebrity hit a barrier Portland put up around Nessa with a clang.

  The world vanished around Nessa.

  Clouds and old memories. The smell of chocolate and sod. The wood-smoke smell of an Alaskan winter. The sound of a Russian Orthodox Church service. The scent of Nessa’s firearms collection. The memory of shooting a rogue bear who had become immune to her control. The horrors of the incident, the explosion and the confrontation.

  Portland’s desk at her old high school job. Thousands of conversations with students about their career plans. A husband. Fights with her husband. Her children who had never supported her when she fought with her husband. The messy divorce. Her children, grown up, coming back to visit, their entire childhood off limits in the family discussions because of her ex. Grandchildren as a way to provide new conversation topics.

  The danger of worship, something Portland saw because of her incredible empathy. Portland’s creation of an army of employees and volunteers, all with the task of taking the power loaned to them by Portland and doing good. Portland’s do-gooders accepting donations, telling those who donated that no matter how large the donation, everyone would get the same treatment. The lecture the do-gooders all knew how to give: the miracles of the Gods are not to make life easier, they are to do the impossible when appropriate and to help others who want to make lives easier for others. The recruitments and support of the actual miracle workers, Portland’s best of the best, her Wise Shepherds, every one of them pleasant. All new and different and directly supported by Portland’s divine willpower, Portland’s invention. She had leapt ahead of the other Gods.

  Nessa remembered her time in Eklutna. Helping the helpless. Giving them the will to fight and the will to strive. Comforting grief. Keeping the predators – mostly two-legged – away, and arranging for restitution when one slipped through. Making wife beaters understand by giving them the mental experience of being helpless and beaten, memories plucked from their victims.

  The clouds parted and Nessa stepped down to a forested hillside above a grassy meadow, busy with songbirds. Portland appeared there as well, her normal dumpy self. “Come sit by me,” Portland said, patting the ground next to her, at the edge of the meadow under the trees.

  “This is my mental refuge,” Nessa said, petulant.

  “I like this place,” Portland said. “I’m surprised at you. You abhor violence as much as I do. Based on what you were saying, I hadn’t expected this at all.”

  “I’m surprised you’re actually uncorrupted,” Nessa said. “I was beginning to suspect Dubuque had gotten to you.”

  “Dubuque has nothing on me. I too can wear masks,” Portland said. “I’d thought you were nothing more than a pawn of John Lorenzi.”

  “Never.” She relented and sat on the cool ground next to Portland. The smell of wildflowers and damp earth drifted up to her nose.

  “I understand, now,” Portland said. “I can’t ease too many of your traumas. They’re tied up in your nature. They’re what makes you an adult Telepath. Did you know that?”

  “Kinda sorta,” Nessa said. “I can’t make you more decisive, either. You know too much. As with Celebrity, you’re both way brainier than I am. I can’t keep track of your mental strands and arguments, ‘cause there are too many of them. For you, there really are too many angles, too many options.”

  “When the so-called Angelic Host made me a God, they made me smarter. Not necessarily better.”

  “You recruited Denver Dave to be one of your Wise Shepherds, but he turned you down,” Nessa said, seeing around some invisible corners. “You should trust your own judgment. If he wrote on some internet blog that he’s a Dubuque worshipper, you should believe him.”

  Portland smiled. “I recognized him as well. That’s the only reason why I’m willing to send over a projection. The number of cranks on the internet is so high they drown out any real information, and I don’t have anywhere near enough spare mental capacity to cope.”

  Nessa grunted and hugged her knees in front of her. A couple of songbirds trilled happily. “So, what are you trying to do, anyway? I can sense your mission or whatever you call it, but I don’t understand.”

  “No big secret. I’m enhancing communities,” Portland said. She held out her hand and a sparrow landed on her finger. “What’s called civil society. I’m helping people re-connect with other people, fighting the splintering off caused by modern technology. As an aside, I think the Angelic Host chose us to be Gods because of our misgivings about modern technology and modern society. Thankfully, though, we don’t all share the same misgivings. Anyway, a civil society is a congeries of communities defining and enhancing a shared culture, and which become themselves a community in a larger shared culture. A community must have enough internal substance to engender cooperation without coercion and be compelling enough to engender solidarity without having to…”

  Nessa cleared her throat. The sparrow chirped in surprise and flew off to join the other sparrows in the tall grass. “Pardon me, but I don’t understand a word you’re saying,” Nessa said. “Well, I do understand communities and I think I understand solidarity, like when people get riled up about the right to vote, but I don’t understand how a God fits in, especially a Territorial God. Yah know.”

  Portland gave Nessa a motherly hug; it felt funny in Nessa’s own dream space. “Charity. Helping others. Spreading the idea of community. Making religion and faith into constructive forces, never ever negative. Setting examples. You’re right, though, it’s often difficult to send the right message. My Mission takes time, as quick fixes are always wrong. I want Dubuque’s utopia, too, but I’m willing to wait for a long time and do the change slowly, very slowly, and do the change right.”

  “So you’re doing what you did as a mortal, only bigger.” Nessa frowned and cupped her hand under Portland’s chin. “You love what you’re doing, but your actions bother you, too.”

  “I try and keep those thoughts hidden.”

  “You don’t believe in fighting, but you’ll defend yourself, and you’ve practiced defending those around you.”

  Portland blanched. “I fear for those around me. I fear the horrors I might cause if I went mad. I’m afraid that Miami knows too much about combat and I won’t know how to protect the people around me from his tricks.”

  “That’s not everything,” Nessa said. “You, like several of the other Gods, are afraid you don’t have free will.”

  “It’s more than just fear. I know that what the Angelic Host did to me compromised my free will.”

  Nessa concentrated and brought up an abstraction of Portland’s thought processes. “Here. This is the major free will block.”

  Portland gasped. “That’s my Mission! It’s the main measure of any God’s personal power,” she said. “Those bastards! If I exert my free will, I cut into my own power as a God.” She paused. “That’s what Atlanta did, when she confronted Dubuque. That’s how she resisted him. That’s what weakened her and sent her on her current path.” She shook her head. “I can’t follow her example. It wouldn’t be logical or help my cause.”

  “You might need to. Here’s how to do a little snipping of this blockage without destroying it.”

  Portland studied what Nessa showed her. “Thank you,” she said. She similarly summoned one of Nessa’s thought processes. “This is why you don’t complete your projects.”

  Nessa looked at the thoug
ht process and recognized it. “Left sock?”

  “Without pain, you become a gutless vegetable,” left sock said.

  “Intriguing mixed metaphor,” Portland said. “True, guilt and self-punishment are not necessarily bad in all cases, but they shouldn’t be so primary, shouldn’t have so much of an overshadowing effect. I would say that you are over-punishing yourself. I can reduce the relative power of this thing if you want.”

  “Okay, sure,” Nessa said.

  “Hey! I’m you,” left sock said. “You can’t do this to me.”

  “Sure I can,” Nessa said. “It’s proper punishment.”

  Her comment stopped left sock’s pending diatribe, enough for Nessa to follow Portland’s instructions on reducing Left Sock’s power over her.

  “I can’t stop you in what you want to do,” Portland said. “I’ve seen too much now.”

  “You love me.”

  “You’re much like me. I always fall in love with those who are like me.”

  “I do too.” Nessa sighed. “Love always messes people up because it’s so hard for non-Telepaths to separate love from sex. That’s why I don’t mind getting older; eventually I’ll be able to love everyone I want to without having the guys get horny and the like.” She twisted her braid in her hands. “We’re going to have to watch my problems, though. I always fight with all the parental figures in my life.”

  Portland nodded. “That’s because they never understand you.”

  “Are you sure you do?”

  “Positive,” Portland said. “I don’t agree with your opinions on everything, but I understand their validity.”

  “Okay,” Nessa said. “I certainly understand you more than I did before. Alt’s insight’s right. You are our leader. I hadn’t known I’ve been looking for one, but you are our leader.” Sometimes a leader didn’t need to be out front on horseback shouting orders. Most of the time, actually, if you came from the uterine side of the divide. Portland worked as a consensus builder. She listened and thought about what she heard. Better, she could love.