Everything has happened so quickly Fitz doesn’t know what to say, how to feel. Sam, Jake, Medeina are gone. He even feels a twinge of guilt for Zaphiel. He was an asshole, but he just wanted his life back, just like all the old gods.
“Does it hurt?” Fitz says. “When you die?”
She smiles at him. “I don’t die, Fitz,” all the Amandas say at the same time. “You know that.”
That’s some small comfort, at least. She’s alien and weird, an entity of technology that, though he may not ever fully connect with, he at least feels he can trust.
“Hey,” one of the Amandas says, coming up behind him and putting her arms around him. At first he thinks it’s an awkward hug until another one grabs his arm and yanks it back into its socket. He screams and almost passes out.
They haul him into the van, buckle him into a seat and hit the gas. They give him some OxyContin to help and though he’s thankful for it, letting it wash over him and drag him down, he’s afraid that it will break the last few strands of control he has. Fuck it, he thinks. It’s not like there’s anyone human watching.
He weeps quietly for Sam and Jake and even Medeina as they speed away into the night, taking back streets north out of Downtown. He looks behind him at the building receding in the distance and wants desperately to go back, try to at least retrieve Sam’s body, but knows it’s not possible.
A few minutes later they stop on a road near Dodger Stadium overlooking the freeway. In the distance he can see Big Money’s building amid the rest of the Downtown skyline.
“Thought you’d want to catch this,” she says.
The explosion is terrible and beautiful and he can’t help but think that, as tombs go, his friends could do worse.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER safe house. Fitz wonders how many of these things Amanda has hidden away, how safe it really is. He keeps drifting in and out, not daring to sleep. How is he going to get any rest if the gods can find him in his dreams? And now that the Man is flexing his muscles with the other gods, how long before he has them all under his thumb?
Maybe he should take Jake’s advice and eat a bullet, or throw back a bunch of Ambien with some vodka. The Man isn’t going to stop coming for him. And who’s to say death will be the end of it? These are motherfucking gods.
On the way out of the city, one of the Amandas was telling Fitz about the emergency response to the building explosion. Police, fire, even the FBI are out there. So far there are no reports of deaths. The two security guards were found a few blocks away unconscious and are talking about a bunch of people coming into the building and shooting the place up.
The radio talking heads are going back and forth between terrorists and the idea that a foreign government might have done it, since the blast was so precise only a handful of buildings nearby suffered minor damage.
It’s only been about an hour since the explosion, but the city has closed down all of the area airports. There’s talk that the President is about to give a speech about security.
It occurs to Fitz that all that act of defiance against the Man did was help him.
The house is one of a hundred identical homes in a tract development north-east of Los Angeles off the 14 freeway where the landscape starts to turn into desert. Most of the homes are empty and still new. Either they never sold or they sold and foreclosed when the economy tanked and people were forced out of the area.
The American Dream, Fitz thinks. He wonders if he can blame the Man and Big Money for that, but doubts it. Ninety-nine percent of people’s problems are just other people.
“Let’s get you inside and patched up,” an Amanda says as they pull into the house’s empty driveway. The street is clean, empty of cars, no sign of life. “How’s your breathing?”
“Sucks.” The oxy has helped some, but he’s taking shallow breaths because it hurts too much otherwise.
“Hopefully it’s just a bruised rib and not broken.”
“Are they going to find me here?” he says.
“They shouldn’t, no. I’ve added more protections against them and they shouldn’t be able to get into your dreams while you’re here, either. I’m also actively hiding reports of the car or anything about you. I’ve already destroyed all records of your existence, so they shouldn’t be able to use human agents to find you, either.”
“What, like driver’s license, bank accounts, stuff like that?”
“Yes. Don’t worry. I’m creating several fake identities for you, too, and all of your money will be available to you.”
“You make it sound like I’m about to go on the run. Like you’re abandoning me.”
“I think you’re going to have to, but I’m not leaving you alone. You’ll be safe while you’re here, but if you stay in one place too long, they will find you. I’ll always be watching and I’ll always have one of my clones with you, but I’m sorry, Fitz, you’re never going to be able to stop running.”
He closes his eyes and lets that information wash over him. He’s known that for a while now, but hasn’t wanted to admit it to himself. There’s not going to be any rest for him. Not now. Not ever.
“Let’s go inside,” he says. “Right now I just want to get some sleep.”
TURNS OUT THE rib’s broken, though it’s only a hairline fracture, and like it or not he has to keep his arm immobilized or it’ll pop out of the socket again.
The burns from the RPG blast and the heat from Zaphiel’s flaming sword aren’t too bad, but they hurt a lot. His hands and one side of his face are slathered in Silvadene, a hospital-grade burn cream.
He argues about an IV for a while, saying that if the shit hits the fan he needs to move fast, but when Amanda tells him okay and he gets out of the bed, he falls over from dehydration and pain and takes the hint. A heavy dose of Dilaudid and he finally falls asleep.
The dreams are calmer this time. No god-induced nightmares, no bleak desert with giants tearing through the sand trying to play keep-away with his psyche.
Instead he’s in a coffee shop near Blake’s apartment with a lunch counter, booths with chipped tables and turquoise vinyl seats torn from overuse, old fans stuck in the corner that rattle and barely move any air. Fitz and Sam would go there at least three or four times a week. Always full of people looking for cheap coffee and diner food, and no matter that they were about as regular as regulars could be, the waitress always screwed up their orders.
But now it’s empty except for Sam sitting in the far back booth, the only sounds are her spoon clinking against the sides of a chipped coffee cup as she stirs it and the rattle of the fan in the corner. Fitz slides into the seat opposite.
“You’re dead,” he says.
“I am,” she says. “Sorry.”
“Not your fault.”
“Not yours, either,” she says. “Neither one of us signed up for this shit, but it happened and there’s no going back. You want to point fingers, it’s that fucker who took Blake.” She takes a sip of her coffee, winces. “Hand me the sugar, would ya?” Fitz slides the container of sugar packets over to her and she grabs five of them, tears them open and shakes them into the coffee.
“That never helps,” he says. “Every time you do it.”
“Yeah, well it tastes like monkey shit anyway, might as well be sweetened monkey shit.”
“You always say that, too.”
“Stands to reason, doesn’t it? This is all you, after all.”
“Is it? You’re not another of the gods breaking into my dreams? Sure you’re not the Man trying to convince me to come over to his side again?”
“Would I tell you if I was?”
“Point. So, what, this is me feeling sorry for myself?”
“Could be,” she says. “Could be. Or maybe you’re trying to figure shit out. Like what to do now that everything’s gone to hell.”
“I was thinking about hanging myself,” Fitz says.
“Seems kind of extreme. From what I hear you have to willingly do your prop
het thing. They can’t make you do it. Say no.”
“Yeah, and how long’s that gonna last when they’re beating the crap out of me? The Man wanted me to feel hopeless, and you know what? He succeeded. I’m fucked, and if he makes me tell the world his fucking god stories, we’re all fucked.”
“You know you can fuck ’em up,” Sam says. “You did a number on the ones back at Big’s office.”
“Sure. One at a time. And I could barely scratch the Man. What happens when he has the other gods gang up on me? Near as I can tell I tell a story about one, like Burn or Go Away, and they do it. But that’s one at a time. How the hell does that help me?”
“Maybe you need to tell a story about all of them,” she says. She sips her coffee and winces again. “Jesus. It still tastes like shit.”
“What did you say?”
“The coffee,” Sam says. “Even with all that sugar it—”
“No, about the stories.”
“Tell a story about all of them. It’s all about belief, right? Yours and other people’s? So make people believe. The gods want you to tell stories, so start telling stories.”
Fitz stares at her, his mind suddenly abuzz with possibilities. An idea forms in his mind. But to do it he’ll need help. Very specific help.
“I know what to do,” he says.
“Good,” Sam says. “Now can you find me the waitress? I want to order some breakfast.”
“I CAN FIX this,” Fitz says, limping into the living room where an Amanda is sitting in a chair by the door with a shotgun cradled in her lap and frowning at him. He’s not sure how long he’s been out, but he doesn’t feel very rested. He’s jittery, nervous. If this works, then everything will be different. But it all hinges on one thing.
“How?”
“I need to know I can trust you first.”
“I’ve been helping you since shit got ugly two days ago,” she says.
“That’s not enough,” he says. “I know I can hurt the other gods, but you, I can’t see what I can see with them. I don’t know if I can influence you the same way. I need to know that I can do that. I never got hit with all of the Man’s stories, but I know I could if I wanted. You’re still a black box.”
“Sounds like you’re asking me to trust you,” she says, “not the other way around.”
“With all the other gods I see these red, spiky threads coming off of them. They all knot together and that’s how I make them do things. How come I can’t see those with you? I’ve looked at every one of your clones and not one of them has them.”
“Let me turn it back on you,” she says. “How do I know I can trust you?” It’s a good question, and Fitz has been thinking hard about how to answer it.
“I don’t have anything to give you besides promises. I only hope that it will be enough if it’s the right one. Show me and I’ll guarantee that the Man won’t be able to own you ever again.”
She says nothing for so long that Fitz thinks she’s going to say no. And then finally, “You’ve been looking for them the wrong way. Follow me.” She gets up, puts the shotgun aside and opens the front door. Fitz follows her outside.
“You’ve been looking too closely at these bodies. That’s like looking at an insect through a microscope and wondering why you don’t see six legs and a pair of wings. You’re too close. Look up and pull your perspective back.”
Fitz isn’t sure what she’s talking about, but he looks up into the sky. He sees clouds. It’s a little smoggy. And then, like one of those weird scrambled pictures that suddenly turns into a 3D picture of a whale, it all snaps into focus and he sees them.
Those red threads are everywhere. They crisscross the sky so thickly that he can’t see anything else. He shoves the heels of his hands into his eyes and forces his awareness back. When he looks again they’re gone, except for a faint afterimage overlaying everything, crossing through the satellite dishes on the houses on the street, clustered around Amanda’s body, but not coming off of her the way he saw them spiking off of the other gods. She’s enmeshed in it, like something trapped in a spider’s web.
“I’m not just technology, Fitz. I’m not cell phones or computers or satellites. I’m not bits of plastic and circuitry. I’m not even this body. I’m the connections between them all. I’m the data moving back and forth, the river of information flowing through all of these devices. I didn’t exist a hundred years ago because it was all too slow or all one-way. It was telephone calls and telegrams and TV signals just yelling out into the void. When you’ve been looking for those threads around this body and the others, you didn’t see them because this body isn’t me. This is just another thing for my connections to bounce through. It might as well be a cell phone.”
“Thank you,” he says. Maybe he doesn’t need to see those puppet strings to be able to do something to her. Maybe he can’t do anything now. It looks too big. Bigger than even the Man, but he knows that’s not right. He can feel it. The Man was just more concentrated, more contained within his own space.
“You’re welcome. Now what’s this plan?”
“You said you have a list of all the gods.”
“Seven-thousand-one-hundred-eighty-three. Well, seven-thousand-one-hundred-eighty, now.”
“I need that list, a pen and a lot of paper. And then, Goddess of the Internet, I need you to make something for me.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
“ARE YOU SURE he’s here?” Fitz says. He’s talking into a Bluetooth headset from a car in the lot of an industrial park in Paramount just south of Los Angeles where the 710 and 91 freeways meet. The buildings are all gray, windowless rectangles holding manufacturing and warehouse space.
He had thought about bringing Amanda with him—after all, he’s going to need to tell her when it’s go time—but then thought better of it. He wants to show that it’s all him, that he’s in control and that he’s not doing this under the direction of one of the gods.
Provided it works.
“Like I told you,” Amanda says over the headset, “it’s a best guess. There are video feeds going into the building from across the globe. Everything I have says he’s in there and holding the mother of all conference calls.”
“So it could be a trap,” he says. “He might not be in there.”
“Oh, it’s definitely a trap,” Amanda says. “But I also think he’s in there waiting for you. He was arrogant before he tipped his hand to Zaphiel’s cadre of gods. Now he needs to cement his position to the rest. He’s probably feeling pretty smug about things. I’m willing to bet he’s hoping you show up and take him up on his offer so he can parade you in front of the rest of them. That or give him the chance to lock you up and torture you until you do.”
“Ever the optimist.”
“You want me to show you the math?”
“Pass, thanks.” He gets out of the car, hands itching where the burnt skin is healing. His breathing is a little better now, but still labored.
He stayed holed up in the house for six days writing nonstop after Amanda gave him the list of the gods she had compiled. She insisted that it wasn’t complete, that there are others she suspects are out there, but she doesn’t know their names yet. He’s not worried about that. He doesn’t need all of them. He just needs most of them.
After that, he slept an entire day.
The front office of the building is empty except for a reception desk and a security camera. He waves at the camera. He has no idea if anyone is watching it, but he would be very surprised if the Man doesn’t already know he’s here. He can hear an indistinct noise through the door behind the desk, like machinery running, or a party going on.
“You still want me to pull the pin if your signal goes dark?” Amanda says. “Once you do that, there’s no going back.”
“Yes,” he says. “I don’t like it, but it’s better than the alternative.” Fitz worked out a ‘nuclear option’ with Amanda before he left. If things go south, he’s going to need it. “Do you really think
he can block me talking to you?”
“Not for long,” she says. “Before we were in Big’s office building, probably. But not now. It’s hard to tell for sure, but I think we’re pretty evenly matched now. I’m... different than before you told me you believed in me. More powerful.”
“I’m a regular Stuart Smalley,” he says.
She laughs. “I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and doggone it people like me. Given how much porn is coursing through my connections every day, I’d say they like me a lot.”
Fitz has noticed changes, too. He’s not sure if it’s his imagination, but over the last week she’s seemed less a really good chatbot and more of an actual person.
After Fitz woke up from his day-long nap, Amanda told him she’d started hearing chatter about the Man being up to something. Phone calls to other gods she’s been keeping tabs on, or their human agents being contacted about a meeting in the next couple of days.
He asked her if she was ready. She told him everything was ready the second she saw his pages. The thought that what he’s planned could be implemented so quickly kind of terrifies him.
“Do you think this is going to work?” Fitz says.
“I really don’t know,” Amanda says. “I hope so.”
“Fair enough. Well, let’s hope we don’t have to burn everything down,” he says.
“It’d be easier,” she says. “All I have to do is twitch.”
“You promised not to do that,” he says. He’s honored her trust since she showed her true self to him so far, and hasn’t tried to make her do anything. He really hopes he doesn’t have to.
“Can’t blame me for hoping.”
“Believe me, I thought about it.” In fact, he’s still thinking about it. He looks at the closed door behind the reception desk and a part of him is screaming to do it now, while he’s relatively safe from the Man and whoever else he has on his team.
But he has an opportunity here, and he doesn’t want to waste it.
Mythbreaker Page 24
