99 Gods: War

“This was a certain very terrible and powerful divinity among some savage tribes, of whom dreadful stories were told very authentic, of course! Some unbelieving scamps of travelers, by unlawful ways, managed to get into the innermost sacred place of the temple one night. They found the god to be done up in a very large and suspicious looking bundle. Having sacrilegiously cut the string, they unrolled one envelop of mats and cloths after another, until they had taken off more than a hundred wrappers. The god grew smaller, and smaller, and smaller; and the wonder of the travelers what he could be, larger and larger. At last, the very innermost of all the coverings fell off, and the great heathen god was revealed in all his native majesty. It was a cracked soda-water bottle! This indicates what is beyond all question the fact that the heathen mysteries had their foundation in gas” – P.T. Barnum, Humbugs of the World

  “You don’t have a stomach to get ulcers in.”

  32. (John)

  “My name’s John Lorenzi,” John said. He shook the hands of both the Gods. Both were male, but they were about as dissimilar a pair of Gods as John could imagine. Inventor, what the locals termed a 98 pound weakling, had an amply blemished face and he wore thick glasses. In John’s terms, a real spaz. If anything, Inventor appeared nervous. Singularity towered over John, perhaps six two or so, with East Asian eyes and an athletic build. He was tanned, good looking in a professorially way and had a vice grip handshake. “My friend here is Reed. I want to thank you kindly for being willing to talk to me. Why don’t you two have a seat? Would you like some coffee?”

  “Thank you very much,” Singularity said. The hotel room furniture was barely suitable for a hobo, much less a God, and it creaked as Singularity sat down. “Black.” John had thought Singularity was Japanese, but revised his opinion to Japanese-American, likely from Hawaii, from the way he spoke.

  “None for me,” Inventor said. His voice was high and reedy. “I’ll have a Coke, if you have one available.”

  “Diet Coke,” Reed said, flustered by the two Gods and almost stammering. Inventor made a face, shook his head, and sat awkwardly at the end of the lumpy couch.

  “So what did you want to talk about?” Singularity said.

  “Some of the actions of the Gods have me worried,” John said. “I’m interested in any information I can find about what’s going on, and why certain Gods are doing what they’re doing.”

  The two Gods looked at each other, and shrugged. “We’re all just acting out the roles we’ve been assigned,” Inventor said. “What’s your role, John Lorenzi?”

  “Why do you ask that?”

  “Because anyone who isn’t a normal human being has a role,” Inventor said. “I can see your role, as can any God, but I can’t understand it.”

  John frowned, unhappy to be so transparent. “My role had been to keep normal humans from learning to use magic. I can no longer perform my role because of the actions of the Gods.” He didn’t say anymore, unsure how much he could or should tell these two.

  “There is no magic,” Inventor said.

  “Nevertheless, he can do magic,” Singularity said. “Or what he thinks is magic.”

  “I’ll believe it when I see it.” Inventor furrowed his forehead, took off his glasses and polished them on his shirt.

  Normally, John would never enlighten skeptics as to the reality of magic. In fact, he had encouraged skepticism wherever it could be found, and he had founded a dozen skeptical periodicals and funded dozens of debunkers over the last several centuries, making sure even the most rapscallion skeptics got published. He made sure the scientific community’s ability to research paranormal phenomena of any sort had become tainted and muddled, not that it ever took many of his resources, given the truly insignificant amount of money and effort ever put into magical research. The irony of his actions always brought a smile to his face.

  On the other hand, these two were skeptics of an entirely different variety. “A small demonstration is possible,” John said. He exerted his will and cast the room into near darkness. “What does this look like to you, Inventor?”

  Inventor frowned and observed for fifteen seconds. “Captivating. What you did made many tiny creatures appear that absorb the light in their vicinity. These creatures are smaller than viruses, their collective weight is insignificant, but they appear to be nano-scale spiders. They aren’t native to this universe and don’t obey our natural laws. They carry their own natural laws with them.”

  John sat up straight in shock. “How do you know they’re alive?” He had always suspected magic was alive, but not like this.

  “They move and they’re made out of the same chemicals lifeforms are made from. Their molecules are actually physically reduced in size and even more reduced in mass. They show the inefficiencies and metabolisms of lifeforms. They aren’t machines.”

  “They violate the natural order,” Singularity said. “Intriguing as they are, I do find their presence disturbing. Almost evil. Could you do me a favor and remove them, Mr. Lorenzi?”

  John did so. He wondered whether he should mention the dozens of protective magics he carried on his body, then decided that if the two Gods had a problem with them, they would have already commented.

  “Thank you,” Singularity said. “Inventor, he played with the same forces the so-called Angelic Host played with, but used these lifeform intermediaries instead of directly altering natural laws and reality.”

  “He’s no Angel, though,” Inventor said.

  “No, he’s not.” Singularity looked John over with care. “Mr. Lorenzi, the forces you play with are hazardous on dozens of logical, ethical and philosophical levels. I believe your former role as enemy of magic is a good one, and I also believe you should go back to it.”

  “I’ll take your advice under advisement,” John said. He wiggled nervously in his seat, disturbed by these two Gods and their unforeseen perspectives. “Don’t you Gods also directly alter natural laws and reality in a similar fashion?”

  “No,” Inventor said. “We…”

  “Wait, my friend,” Singularity said. “I don’t think it would be wise to say anything further on the subject.”

  John chewed his lip and worried. He didn’t want to fight these two, but he feared they headed toward such a confrontation. Singularity distrusted him, and John didn’t trust either of the two. He feared they would turn on him at any instant, Dubuque style. He could practically read the words ‘evil’ and ‘demon’ dancing through their minds. “Is there anything you can say?”

  “Sure,” Inventor said. He fixed his eyes on infinity. “I, for one, found the existential experience of learning from Angels to have been most enlightening. My natal religion emphasized God as personal and omnipotent. Why then do Angels, the messengers from God, need to exist at all? Omnipotence implies absolute efficiency, and superfluous creation is not efficient. In addition, why have messengers at all when God is with us all and can speak to us as needed? Despite this, Angels fill the scriptures of many religions, not just the Judeo-Christian Bible. Were these biblical Angels the Holy Spirit at work, perhaps, misconstrued as something else? Fallible humanity often makes mistakes of that nature. However, after encountering tangible Angels, I believe other hypotheses can and need to be examined, such as whether God is truly omnipotent within creation, or…”

  Singularity cleared his throat, interrupting Inventor’s obviously prepared speech. John nodded a silent thanks, having no wish to argue the logic of Angels with a scripturally illiterate fool. The Church had settled the issue of Angels centuries ago, as necessary intermediaries between the unapproachable face of God and most mortal man. He also thought the half-millennium long belief in a personal Jesus and God most wrongheaded. His heart still dwelled in the medieval Catholic Church of his upbringing.

  “I can say this: we, too, are bothered by the activities of some of our divine brethren,” Singularity said. “Many of them have roles representing the fla
wed past. The two of us have roles representing the promise of the future. We fear conflict between the Gods, a fight between the past and the future.”

  “I also fear a fight among the Gods, but I hadn’t thought along those lines,” John said, as carefully as he could, as both these Gods appeared to be bone-tops from the local asylum. “When you say you represent the future, what exactly do you mean?”

  “I, for one, am deeply suspicious of the religious aspects of what’s going down among the 99,” Inventor said, unable to make a point without pontificating. “The last thing we should be doing to humanity is resurrecting old religious conflicts and reintroducing superstitions.” Inventor punctuated the end of his pontification by pushing his glasses further up his face.

  Inventor appeared to share Portland’s jaundiced view of religion and worship of the 99 Gods. “So you think that worship of the 99 Gods is bad?”

  “Oh, that,” Inventor said. “No, that’s not what I’m talking about at all.”

  “What do you mean?”

  The two Gods looked at each other and shrugged again. “Let me,” Singularity said. “You’re familiar with the accelerating pace of technological change?”

  John nodded.

  “Where does it end?”

  “I have no idea,” John said. “I suspect the rate of change will eventually slow and a more technologically unchanging future will unfold.”

  “Your guess can’t and won’t happen. Think of the alphabet,” Singularity said. He leaned forward in the cheap motel chair. “If all you can make are two letter words and you are artificially limited to three word sentences, you can’t convey much meaning at all in an efficient manner. However, once you can make words of any length out of the alphabet and sentences of any length, you can write novels. Now your only limits are time and creativity, and so the number of possible novels becomes infinite. Note, though, that you haven’t changed the alphabet. In my analogy, the alphabet is our minds and the two letter words and the three word sentences analogize to pre-modern classical knowledge. The lack of understanding of nature – the two-letter word limit – and the lack of use of the experimental method – the artificial limit of three word sentences – explains the well-known limits of classical knowledge. However, humanity has now discovered longer sentences and multi-letter words, in analogy, and we’re just starting to utilize them. We haven’t discovered all the words we need to know to fully describe science, but when we do, as with the analogy to writing, there will be no limit to what technologies we can create with them. That is what we are exponentially accelerating towards, a point in time where the only limits to what we can do with technology is our own creativity and our will as a people, accelerated even faster by the augmentation and ongoing replacement of human cognition by ever more intelligent machines. The point in time where everything becomes possible is called the Singularity, and that’s what I’m named for, as a God. And, as an aside, consider that the Angelic Host suggested my name to me.

  “In any event, thinking a technologically unchanging future is in store for us is the same as thinking that fifty years after the invention of the printing press all the possible writings had been written and the pace of new writing would plummet to zero.”

  “I’ve heard your argument before,” John said. Singularity’s sales techniques were good, but his philosophy sophomoric. “This is the standard promise of the Enlightenment, that everything would be solved by technological progress. It didn’t happen. Instead, what we got were vile ideologies and horrific wars.”

  “I didn’t say the Singularity would bring a utopia,” Singularity said. “That depends on our will as a people. An infinite number of vile ideologies and horrific wars are possible, many far worse than anything before from history. If everything is possible, chaos and evil are inevitable unless we, and humanity, put some aspect of overall control in place, as we confront technical issues making an utter mockery of existing legal systems and constitutions. I think we 99 are the harbinger of the control.”

  “Crap,” Reed said, resigned.

  John nodded in silent agreement with Reed. “So what you’re saying is that at some time in the future we’ll all be similar to you Gods in power,” John said. Singularity’s speculation was so outré as to be beyond appalling.

  “I’m stating something far more specific,” Singularity said. “I’m saying humanity will become exactly as we 99 Gods are, and in the not-so-distant future. I’m saying the 99 Gods are a tangible representation of the technology of the future. We show both the promise and the peril, and it’s our responsibility to turn what we represent into promise.”

  “In your belief.” John wasn’t sure whether he should vomit or break out in laughter. He greatly doubted God’s plan behind the 99 Gods had been so absurdly materialistic. Doubt, though, swam through the back of his mind, revolving around the question of ‘why else would the Angels have made a God named Singularity if the Singularity concept wasn’t important?’ He ignored his unanswerable question for now.

  “Yes.” Singularity’s eyes focused on infinity, lost as was Inventor in these ivory tower abstractions.

  John chewed on his lip and thought. Despite his spell, these two didn’t strike him as allies. In fact, they sounded pro-God. “Then what’s the conflict?”

  “It appears, at least to the two of us, that some of the Gods would rather take advantage of the current situation and use our God-given abilities to stop the development of technology while it’s still possible,” Singularity said. “Instead of welcoming the future and guiding it, they’d turn back the clock and establish a permanent and unchanging dictatorship of the Gods, with the Gods on top and the other mortals left behind forever in a technologically stagnant wasteland. Become Gods in the pagan sense of the word.”

  “That’s just wrong,” Inventor said. He took a rumpled Kleenex out of his pocket and blew his nose with a honk. He tucked the dirty Kleenex back into his pocket. “The turn-back-the-clock Gods are going to make the world into their slave farm and take us back to the old days of serfs, nobles, despotism and state run religions.”

  “By ‘they’ you mean the leaders of the 99 Gods, such as Dubuque?” John said.

  Inventor snorted. “No, not at all. Dubuque’s not half bad as a God,” he said. “I like the way he’s pissing off the fightin’ fundies. No, I’m thinking of the might makes right types, such as Miami, Atlanta, Nairobi and Lima. They’re the ones I see setting themselves up as monarchs.”

  John kept his face studiously blank. Dubuque had gotten to these two if they thought Dubuque was on their side. “I understand. You two have given me a great deal to contemplate. I thank you for your time and effort.” He toyed with the idea of pointing out the dangers of Dubuque’s neo-theocratic City of God ideas, and discarded it. Such an observation would only lead to conflict.

  After a few more minutes of chatting, Inventor and Singularity left, flying off in some physical device (likely made by Inventor) that moved quicker than John could follow. Reed had paled, curled up in his chair, throughout the last half of the conversation.

  “There’s no hope, is there?” Reed said. “There’s going to be war, the bad guys are going to win, and naïve Gods like those two are going to end up silenced and enslaved.”

  “There’s always hope, my man,” John said. “As much as I hate to say it, I’m afraid we’re going to have to go talk to Atlanta. We don’t have any other potential allies left.”

  33. (Dave)

  Dave got out of the rental, stood and leaned up against it, sweating profusely. Today wasn’t a good health day. The world swam around him, and pain rocketed up and down his back, slowly and gradually settling in the back of his head. The car’s thermometer read only 81 and he had been running the AC on full, but he felt weak, overcome by the heat.

  He checked his watch and added an hour. Damn. A full ninety minutes late on his pills, but even that shouldn’t have had such a s
trong effect on him.

  “Face it, this disease has made me an old man before my time,” Dave said to himself. He didn’t like to admit it, but soon, too soon, he would no longer be able to escape Denver. Housebound, then bedridden. Then beyond all that. “I’m not desperate. Not yet. I could take Portland’s offer and live with myself.” Maybe the woo-woo thing had been a mistake.

  He didn’t want to unless he had to, though.

  He looked out over the parking lot and noticed the sign above on the light post, which read 8 K. Of parking lot three. Dubuque’s headquarters shimmered in the distance, not any supernatural aura but simply heat rising from the acres of asphalt. Dave craned his neck until he found the sea of trailers where Jeremy had sent him, and the lines of people, the endless lines.

  “I thought I told myself never to get stuck in an endless line for a divine audience,” he said. He shook his head and began to walk, as unsteady as a drunk. He mopped his brow after ten steps, sweat soaking his hand. “I’ll never make it.” He had never been an athlete, but he had never been sedentary either. His environmental geologist job provided him extensive exercise, along with the mountain hiking Tiff used to drag him out to do. Now he couldn’t walk more than ten steps without panting. “I’ve got to make it.”

  Ten more steps, then more energetic, he pushed it to twenty. He almost fell when he reached to steady himself on an SUV. He took deep breaths in a hope to slow his beating heart.

  “Sir? Mister?” Dave turned his head to find a boy – no, a young blond man, early twenties – riding up to him on a golf cart. “You okay?”

  Dave shook his head. The young man got out of the cart and came up next to him, surreptitiously sniffing. Checking for alcohol, Dave guessed. He had no idea what he smelled like, save foul, a side effect of the cadmium, his medications, and all those overloads on his system.

  The young man bowed his head and concentrated, then lifted his shoulders. “You have an appointment. Climb in and let’s go.”

  Dave smiled, chalking one up for Dubuque’s organization.

  “Save for the most extraordinary circumstances, Dubuque no longer heals or performs miracles in person,” the well-groomed Lucy said. She sat behind an immaculate desk topped with four neat stacks of paper in a sparse cubicle, one of eight identical cubicles in the trailer. Despite Dave’s annoyance with the entire idea of divine bureaucracies, Dubuque’s main operation had one, a large one. Without any high-end back door contacts, as neither Jeremy’s card nor the golf cart kid had counted for much beyond a quick pass through the first two layers of flacks, he had been forced to wade through the bureaucracy one bureaucrat at a time. They were all sympathetic to his problems, but rules were rules, even here. “This doesn’t mean we’re turning you down. Not at all. The Living Saint’s expanding his operation and his ability to help people, which means more work for all of us, including him. Instead of in-person, or through any form of normal bureaucracy, he’s helping via prayer. That’ll do the trick for you.”

  “Prayer?” Dave said. “I didn’t think Dubuque encouraged people to worship him directly.” In fact, Dubuque had made several public statements agreeing with Portland’s contention that direct worship of Living Saints, or any of the 99, offended God Almighty.

  On the other hand, he did remember Diana’s offhand comment about prayer.

  Lucy, a smiling and good-looking blonde woman in her mid-30s, nodded at Dave and moved paperwork around on her desk. The title on her nametag read “Special Assistant: Healing”; if the previous functionary had the story right, Lucy regularly dealt directly with Dubuque. While he waited for Lucy to respond, Dave heard a half-dozen conversations in the vicinity of the trailer cubie, some over a phone, others in person. Even after golf cart kid’s help, Dave had waited in three different lines for two damned hours in the still stifling Oklahoma late-season heat just to watch cubie lady shuffle papers and think.

  According to the scuttlebutt he had picked up while waiting in line, Dubuque had chosen this place not only because the mega-church was available, but because of the abundant expansion room around it. His new headquarters, still unnamed, sat on nearly twenty acres of an Oklahoma City exurb, surrounded on two sides by businesses and on the other two by established large-lot housing developments. His original operation in the city of the Living Saint’s name had been located in a willpower created building, a temporary expediency that had attracted trouble the same way trailer parks attracted tornadoes. This time, Dubuque wanted a real building better suiting his needs.

  “It’s prayer to God, through Dubuque,” Lucy said, topping her stack of documents with a small glossy brochure. “Here.” She pushed over the entire stack to Dave. “We’re still working on the second document, which gives the details for how to pray, but the brochure on top gives the overview.” The second document was a stapled-together printout. “Underneath there’s a piece of paper with the password for the privileged sections of the website. Don’t lose it.”

  Dave quickly read the top brochure. He had never imagined such a thing, a technical instruction manual on proper prayer techniques, but as he thought about it while framing his next question, he decided he should have expected something like this from the 99. They lived in a technical age, and instruction manuals were one of the era’s main inventions. It wouldn’t surprise him to find out that Dubuque’s prayer interface was programmable. “Will this work if I’m living back in Denver? Do I need to live in one place, or in Dubuque’s territory? I do a lot of traveling.”

  “Praying from Denver shouldn’t be any problem at all. As I said, Dubuque’s expanding his reach. He’s discovered his ability to answer prayers long distance is one of his specialties, if not his premier specialty. Long-distance answers may not be something the other Living Saints can learn to do, even the other Territorials, so Dubuque has decided to shoulder this burden himself. He can answer prayers worldwide.”

  “So, what are the odds of an answer to my prayer?” Dave said. “I’m not trying to be greedy or grasping, here. On the other hand, if I’m just wasting my time, I’d like to know.”

  “I can’t judge the odds without knowing the details of your difficulty,” Lucy said. Dave nodded and told Lucy the medical details. Empathy grew on Lucy’s face as each minute passed. “If you’re correct, and your problems are beyond the ability of modern medicine to cure, then given your age and marital status, I’d say an answer to your prayer is almost certain.” She paused and thought. “No guarantees, of course. I’m just basing this on my experience.”

  Dave nodded. “I understand. Sounds like good news to me.”

  “Great!” Lucy said. She stood and held out her hand; Dave stood as well, as he recognized the ‘I need to end this meeting and get on to the next client’ ritual at work. “Study the second document, follow the procedures, and keep an eye out for changes to it on our website. Good luck and see you on Sunday.”

  “Thanks,” Dave said, and after shaking Lucy’s hand, exited.

  Clutching the documents and his invitation to the 9:30 Sunday service, Dave left Dubuque’s headquarters, and went back to his hotel to rest and read. Lounging on the hotel room’s one easy chair, he absorbed the document, marveling at the procedures involved. To him, this sounded a lot like Eastern Orthodox Christianity; saintly icons used to focus the mind in prayer and making a shrine as a way to build a relationship with the distant Dubuque, mixed with a modern understanding of information science. “God works through Dubuque, but Dubuque is only a Living Saint, not God Almighty,” Dave read. “For Dubuque to know when to heed your prayers, he must have a way to recognize you. Think of the shrine you’re making as a flag or semaphore; the shrine may physically hold Dubuque’s picture but in reality, the shrine is a picture of you, your choices and what you consider important in your tie to Dubuque, God, and Jesus. This is also the purpose of the ritual words starting each of your prayers. Once the Living Saint has you in h
is mind, he will then know the particulars of your prayer request and judge whether to let God work through him to answer your prayer.” To Dave’s amazement, there were similar sections in the document covering the procedures for people of the Jewish and Moslem faiths to follow.

  Dave’s phone yodeled some Beethoven. He put down the printed document and answered it after seeing Steve’s ID. Steve’s picture flashed up on the screen.

  “What’s up, Steve?” Dave said.

  “You’re in Oklahoma City, Dubuque’s new residence, aren’t you?”

  “Uh huh.” Crap! He didn’t want to have this discussion. He already knew what Steve thought about Dave’s activities.

  “Why didn’t you tell anyone you were going to visit our nation’s preeminent Living Saint?”

  “Because it’s my decision, my life.” Dave chewed his lower lip, unhappy with Steve’s tone of voice and the smell of bridges burning in the distance.

  “I can understand that,” Steve said. “But…”

  Always the buts that made asses out of people. “I’ve made my decision to try to get help from Dubuque,” Dave said. No more hemming and hawing, at least with Steve. “I took a good long look at all the Territorial Gods in North America, and Tiff even got me a divine offer of help that would have left me enslaved to Portland.” He didn’t want to go into the details. “The decision wasn’t even close. Phoenix and Miami have been accused of having worshippers, which I and others” Dubuque and Portland, which he didn’t want to mention, either “think is a bad thing. Atlanta’s been linked to the Dixie Ripper” the media’s name for the serial killer active in the area “and may even be the Dixie Ripper, Akron’s focused on her new cable television career and has a spotty track record of granting healing requests, Montreal’s trying to be a sex goddess, Worcester’s not doing anything visible except hobnobbing with the rich and powerful, no office, no website, no visible organization, and Boise’s gone off into the wilderness to speak to the trees or something equally nonproductive.”

  “Uh, right. It’s not…” Steve stopped and paused. “Dave, I think you’re selling your soul to save your life,” Steve said. He had said this before. “I don’t trust any of the 99 anymore. Even Marty’s come around to my point of view about Dubuque. The so-called Living Saint may have a few modern trappings, but underneath the trappings he’s just another reactionary.”

  Uh huh, along with all those other turn-back-the-clock ecumenical types who thought well of Judaism and Islam. “What did you find out?”

  “Gays need not apply to join his organization,” Steve said. “Gays don’t get hired, period, end of question, no reason given. He won’t meet with any representatives from the activist organizations, or even take a position on the issue. To him we don’t exist. It’s all over the blogs I read.”

  Yah, and I know which blogs those are, too, Dave thought. “How certain are you about the facts behind these rumors and innuendo?”

  Steve didn’t answer.

  “Say, how’d you know I was in Oklahoma City, anyway?” Dave said. “Or, for that matter, that Dubuque’s relocated here?” The grand opening hadn’t happened yet. Although Dubuque wasn’t keeping the start of his ministry and the move here a secret, you had to search it out to know it. Dave had certainly missed the move himself, resulting in his fruitless trip to the city of Dubuque.

  “Dave, I’m trying to help you, not cause problems,” Steve said. “You’re not acting like your normal self or even sounding like your normal self. Where’d your ‘always act in moderation, stay on an even keel’ self go, anyway?”

  “It got sick,” Dave said. Then he figured out what was bugging him. “You know, Steve, the only one I know who’s good enough to do a long-distance hack on my phone’s GPS is Tiff. She asked you to call me, didn’t she?”

  Dave listened to the crackling and thumping of Steve shifting positions. “We’re all worried about your behavior, Dave,” Steve said. “You didn’t tell anyone where you were going or what you’re doing.” Steve paused. “I think she’s a mite pissed at you.”

  Sounded like a confession to Dave.

  He hadn’t told anyone his plans because he had a hunch he would end up in a disgusting conversation like this.

  “Thanks for the worrying and the vote of confidence,” Dave said. “It’s still my life, though.” He clicked off the connection and tossed his phone on the bed in anger.

  “Oh, Dave, it’s you, son,” Dad said. “Hold on a second while I get your mother on the line.”

  Dave smiled. “How’re you doing, Dave?” Mom asked, a half minute later.

  “Not so good. Here’s the deal,” Dave said, laying out the latest updates on his hopeless medical problems, his job issues, and his decision to seek help from Dubuque. “I haven’t started up Dubuque’s prayer procedures yet. Tiff’s not happy with what I’m doing and thinks I’m crazy, as do at least two of my other Denver friends. What do you guys think? Am I doing the right thing here?”

  “Well, certainly do whatever you need to do to save your life,” Mom said. “Regarding Dubuque in specific, you’ve never liked to go haring off on your own. You’ve always had to have a group to lean on, partners and followers. Funny, though. You’ve never much liked following other people’s leads, either. That’s what’s bothering you, I’ll bet. You don’t have anyone following you.”

  “Uh huh,” he said. He knew calling his parents would turn out to be a good idea. “You’re right. I don’t like being alone in what I’m doing now, especially considering that this is, no pun intended, a life or death situation.”

  “Oh don’t give me that,” Dad said. “You intended the pun.”

  Dave laughed. “So what do you think?” he asked.

  “Well, I don’t know,” Dad said. “It’s your decision. We’ll support you in whatever you choose, even if you choose not to go the God route.”

  “I mean about Dubuque instead of any of the other Living Saints?”

  “I don’t like Worcester,” Mom said. “She’s made it plain she wants to associate only with the upper crust of society. Dubuque seems quite reasonable to me, at least from what I’ve seen of him on the TeeVee. The only worry I have is whether someone as important as him will have time for you.”

  “That’s not a problem,” Dave said. “I’m just worrying about whether I’ve chosen the right one or not, or whether I’ve gone crazy.”

  “Well, you don’t sound crazy to me,” Dad said.

  “Thanks,” Dave said. He made family small talk and said goodbye.

  Dave’s ticket read ‘Ancillary Viewing Area 3’, which turned out to be a tent in a field behind the mega-church. The megachurch complex crawled with mobs of people this Sunday morning, overflowing the parking lots. So much for Dubuque’s move staying below the radar. Dave’s ticket at least got him a seat; even in his tent people stood along the edges, packing the place.

  Dubuque didn’t speak until the sermon. A team of ministers and lay people officiated the early part of the service. Dubuque sat in the back of the stage in a white suit, his new trademark, happily just another member of the ministry, every few moments covering his mouth with his hand and leaning over to whisper something humorous to the other members of the ministry team. Eventually he stood and took the front and center of the stage.

  “How’s everyone doing this morning!” Dubuque said, happy and energetic, absorbing the cheers and cries of ‘doing fine’. “Stupendous!” He went on to talk about the practical details of the progress of his new ministry, thanking everyone for their donations of time and money. He also took a moment to thank the Oklahoma City officials for their kind help; apparently, they had to bend quite a few city ordinances to accommodate Dubuque’s needs. Then he paused and looked down at the dais in front of his feet for a moment.

  “You go into a field, in springtime, and see a flower,” Dubuque said, starting his sermon. “You look at it and decide it’s beauti
ful. Everyone’s done this, but few ask why. Why?” Dubuque paused. “Is there something intrinsic in you making the flower beautiful? Is there something intrinsic in the flower making it beautiful? If your question bothers you enough, you might decide to ask your friends, or your companions, or even some strangers what they think about the flower. If you ask enough people, you’ll find people who don’t share your opinion about its beauty.

  “The reason is because the beauty of the flower lies within you.” Dubuque strode out from the dais and down along the front row of the congregation, gesturing as he spoke. “The flower exists as beautiful for you because of your own standards of beauty. God made the flower, but God didn’t make the flower beautiful, or everyone would say the flower was beautiful. Is this something wrong with God? No. Is this something wrong with you? Certainly not.

  “God made the flower with the potential for beauty in it, but it’s you, the actor of your own life, who is called upon to recognize the beauty. Or not, as the case may be. Perhaps you admire shapely buildings, or shapely members of the opposite sex” Dave laughed, as did many others in the congregation and the tent “more than you admire flowers. So? What’s going on?”

  Dubuque strode up the sanctuary’s central aisle, drawing everyone’s eyes with him. “What’s going on is that you’re exerting your willpower. Certainly your experiences in the past, your earlier choices, aid you in deciding whether you consider the flower to be beautiful or not. A choice lies at the heart of your decision. Perhaps you’ve seen too many flowers recently and you don’t think this one is special. Or, on the other hand, perhaps it’s been a long winter and you’re starved for the beauty of flowers, and the straggly flower that others would sneer at becomes the most beautiful thing you’ve seen in months. This is your willpower in action.”

  Dubuque crouched down and lowered his voice. “Free will is both our blessing and our curse.” He paused, and as he spoke the next sentence, he raised the volume of his voice and stood taller with each word. “But God did not give free will to mankind by mistake!” Fully standing, Dubuque raised his arms and thundered. “God made mankind in His own image, and God certainly has free will Himself. We need to remember this, always.” Dubuque backed up, keeping eye contact with the congregation as he went back to the dais. “God gave us free will so we can choose to be one with God. Choose!” Dubuque hopped back on the dais and lowered his voice. “However, we can also choose to not go with God. We can choose to sin. We can choose to do many bad things. We can choose to be evil. Mankind has become so powerful that we, in our free will, can even choose to destroy all the life on our planet.

  “We must choose not to do these things! We’ve been commanded by God to stop the wars of nations, all of us. But that’s not all we’ve been called on to do. We’ve been called on, by God, to save ourselves. Are you sick, sick from dirty air, dirty water and dirty soil? Are you sick because you cannot afford proper food, proper shelter, and proper medicines? Are you sick because of the excesses of your fellow citizens?

  “Friends, humanity is and has been at war against the Earth as much as we’ve been at war with each other. These are our trials and tribulations. We despoil the environment with unwise use of modern technology. We take what isn’t ours to take and give back nothing to our home planet. We despoil each other with the callous disregard of others that comes with modern society. We need to return love, charity and hope to humanity and to Earth, and stop all these wars.

  “Friends, listen to what I’m saying, to what is going on around you with the coming of the Living Saints! The Millennium is here! We’re establishing the kingdom of God now! The devil is out there working! The kingdoms bow before the will of God. It’s time for all people to help God Almighty. I’m calling you to ready yourselves for battle, to battle against all these wars, against these trials and tribulations, the Earth in the balance, and do so with the Living Saints at your side. Your ammunition will be your charity: we have food banks to fill, poor to be educated and helped, the sick to be nursed, harmful technology to be blunted and the environment to be saved. The four horsemen ride now, Conquest, War, Famine, and Death, and their target is not just humanity, but all of Earth’s living things. It is our call to stop them!

  “I don’t want your votes. I don’t want your money. I do want your help, as we have a better world to build. Our united hearts can and will triumph, and we will do good. The goal is Heaven on Earth, an end to all of the wars I’ve described. I’ve spoken of this before, many times. However, Heaven on Earth is not the end. Heaven on Earth is only the beginning of what will be an unending and living paradise. Even when everyone is so filled to the brim with God that Earth becomes Heaven, a person will still be able to go out and see a single flower in a field and decide for themselves whether it is beautiful or not.

  “Now wouldn’t it be grand if that was the most pressing matter in anyone’s life?”

  Dubuque called on everyone to stand and sing, and they did. Tears ran down Dave’s face, tears of love for the future Dubuque had shown everyone.

  Later, back in his hotel room, Dave followed the procedures and prayed to God through Dubuque, barely overcoming his embarrassment and his trepidations. Nothing happened.

  He studied the procedure’s instructions again, then slowly and more carefully repeated each step, paying close attention to his mental state. Technically, he prayed to Dubuque, for Dubuque to intercede with God on Dave’s behalf. Only when he let the picture of Dubuque at the center of the shrine fill his sight did he feel anything outside of himself.

  He didn’t receive an answer to his prayer in words. Nor did he receive any visions. The answer came in a burst of health, and a realization that through such prayer, the healing would not come in an instant. He would have to continue to pray, daily and nightly, which he would.

  Dave relaxed into Dubuque’s holy embrace. Dubuque became his everything.

  The healing process started.

  Dave slept at ease that night, for the first time in a very long time.

  34. (Atlanta)

  “It’s your choice,” Atlanta said.

  State Congressman Lloyd blinked and shrank away from Atlanta. His nervous eyes kept flickering to the decorations on the wall to her right. He didn’t need to know the splattered victim had been a major lieutenant in a drug cartel, and of his forty-seven kills.

  “Ma’am, my notion came to me while I said my daily prayers,” Lloyd said. “Heaven for those who opposed you, the fires of hell for those who support you, and the realization I had been specially chosen to found the League. God had spoken. What else was I to do?”

  He had called her bluff. She hadn’t said she would kill him, but she implied she would. He wasn’t evil or even a bastard, just gullible; no more racist than any other white state congressman in the Georgia legislature, nor more corrupt. He truly believed God Almighty had personally chosen him to lead the Anti-Atlanta Purification League. So far, she had managed to avoid killing people as innocent as him, though Dana would disagree. She thought the reporter who broke his oath to Atlanta had died an innocent.

  Dana was wrong about the reporter.

  If Atlanta killed this idiot, Dana would be right.

  “I will allow you to realize the folly of your error and atone,” Atlanta said. “I value your life and worth as a fellow human being.”

  Lloyd darkened, upset at the ‘fellow human being’ term. “I will not turn my back on Jesus,” Lloyd said.

  Atlanta searched her mind for any way to save this fool’s life. She strode over to him, and he fell to his knees, muttering the Lord’s Prayer. Holiness filled the air, strong enough for her to feel, as she was able to around any truly religious people caught in the act. The Holy Spirit at work, she called it, trusting to faith she was correct.

  Yet there might be a way.

  She raised her hands and bent her willpower to the task. Since he prayed, she de
cided she would answer with Heaven’s voice: “Those false Gods who have allowed themselves to be worshipped will be struck down by the Lord. Their followers must be persuaded of the errors of their ways, else their immortal souls be lost. To you falls the task of leading a crusade against them.” The holy aura of the room rose to a crescendo.

  Atlanta stepped back and the holiness receded.

  State Congressman Lloyd opened his eyes and stared at her, confused and overwhelmed. “You…”

  “I allowed God to speak through me,” she said. She had been as surprised by the words God Almighty chose to speak as the State Congressman. Sounded to her like Portland’s anti-99 God-worshipper Mission had just been stamped ‘approved’. “Listen to God’s word and follow His advice and you’ll get your crusade, but not against me. I am not one of those worshipped.” Neither, to her knowledge, was Dubuque, a bit of common ground she hoped might bridge the gap between them. “So, Congressman, you now know what the true voice of Heaven sounds like.”

  “Liar!”

  “I do not lie. My word is my bond,” Atlanta said. “Nor do I have a need to lie.”

  “It cannot be.”

  “Lloyd, you were misled. Now you know the true voice of God. When one of us answers a prayer in our own voice, the difference is obvious to those with eyes to see and ears to hear. Such answers are not wrong. When one of my people prays to me to save the life of a child from a fatal disease, it is my voice they hear instead of Heaven’s voice, because such healing is my work.”

  From such a prayer for healing, Atlanta’s voice would tell them to contact the appropriate member of Dana’s organization who worked in Atlanta’s name, where appropriate bureaucratic channels would evaluate the request. The evaluation was necessary. In many cases, Atlanta didn’t need to act, as many of those who prayed didn’t need a supernatural miracle but a more mundane miracle involving money, guidance and scissors to cut through governmental paperwork. Those Dana, Lara and Dr. Horton’s crew would provide. “I can only speak with the true voice of God when I do God’s true work.”

  “Then it’s worse than I feared,” Lloyd said. “You are the Antichrist, evil incarnate. You can mock God by speaking with his voice.”

  Lloyd wanted to die. Thankfully, Atlanta had spent over half her days in practice with her willpower since Dana’s arrival. She had learned much more about herself, what she might be able to do, and how.

  Yes, Dubuque had gotten to this poor fool. “Witness, then, the truth,” Atlanta said. “Experience it as I did.” She strode forward and put her hands on the State Congressman’s head. Into his mind she poured her experience in front of Dubuque, starting with the approach and ending with her hasty exit. She left it exactly as it had happened, along with her emotions and mental comments, several of which were unflattering. She also made sure Lloyd lived through the experience. Any Territorial God was able to heal and keep people alive, even through the terrible mental stress such a memory transfer implied.

  The State Congressman’s eyes opened in blank terror at the end. “You’re right and I was wrong. It was Dubuque who answered my prayer, not God Almighty. My soul is his, freely given. However, I have no choice except to oppose you, even though I know how wrong I am. You cannot free me. I gave Dubuque my soul of my own free will and I do not possess the power to take my soul back. Take pity on me, ma’am. I pray you make my end swift and painless.”

  Fuck. This nonsense had to be more futile than her worst training days back at ol’ Twenty-nine Stumps.

  “I told you to keep leading him around in circles,” Atlanta said. She stood behind her desk and held her anger in check. “You disobeyed a direct order.”

  Dana didn’t answer. She stood ramrod straight and stared back at Atlanta, daring Atlanta to kill her or fire her or do any such thing. John Lorenzi stood behind Dana, a caricature of an old fat white friar, Santa Claus carrying a battered leather briefcase likely older than everyone in the room combined except for the old man himself. Next to him quavered his pathetic white gay Telepath sidekick of the moment. Lorenzi had been angling for a meeting with Atlanta for days. Atlanta wanted nothing to do with him.

  Dana disobeyed orders because Atlanta had killed State Congressman Lloyd. Dana had refused to listen to Atlanta’s arguments; killing him had been self-defense, and his allegiance to Dubuque made him no longer an innocent. Dana thought otherwise. She thought they should confine the Congressman until they found a way to free him.

  Now Dana directly challenged Atlanta’s authority.

  Atlanta weighed the consequences of punishing Dana or letting her challenge slide. She didn’t like either option. However, this was the first real sass Dana had shown since their confrontation with Dubuque. She credited Dana’s reborn sass to the insane initiation the Indigo had given her.

  “Sit,” Atlanta said to Dana and pointed to a chair, acknowledging Dana’s victory in this round. Atlanta sat down behind her desk and didn’t offer either visitor a chair. Dana sat to Atlanta’s right.

  “You want to talk to me, so talk,” Atlanta said, glaring at the short fat cleric. Layered defenses covered him, woven from some obscure form of sense-itching supernatural power Atlanta decided she might as well call ‘magic’. Through his defenses she read his Mission in flux, all confused, and his morality, absurd pasty white goodness colored by old darkness because of his past alliances. He felt old, far older than his aged body. If she didn’t need allies so badly…

  Lorenzi studied her in return, nothing showing on his face. “I am here to offer my help, such that it is.”

  “You’ll take my orders?”

  “No, ma’am,” Lorenzi said. “I seek an ally, not a boss.”

  Dammit, why was everything so fucking difficult! “What use would this alliance be, then? Endless discussions while Dubuque organizes our surrender? Worthless. You’re not someone I can ally with. You’re far too different.” Atlanta shook her head. “I’m under attack, dammit. Dubuque’s subverting my people in my territory, or chasing them underground. I don’t have time to coddle you or listen to you moralize at me. I’m not interested.”

  Lorenzi nodded. “I fully understand your worries and agree. You are correct. Time is of the essence, a fact I haven’t been able to properly convey to certain other untrustworthy allies. You’re going to do what you have to do, and I know enough not to bother someone with your responsibilities in a tactically hot situation,” Lorenzi said. “I’m positive we can find common ground.”

  Atlanta leaned back and closed her eyes. He hadn’t spilled all, leaving an annoying undercurrent of distrust between them. “It’s more than just Dubuque. We can’t let ourselves forget about the Seven Suits and the ruckus they’re causing.”

  “You chirped it, old scout,” Lorenzi said, nodding. Atlanta repressed a wince. “They hit me as well. I believe the threat Dubuque and his allies pose is far more dangerous, though, and I fear the Suits bought Dubuque off by purchasing his mega-church for him. Strategically, Dubuque and his allies are running interference for the Suits.”

  “You need to know Dubuque’s sent a couple of Telepaths after me, Telepaths I’d also hoped to recruit. I sense you’re fond of them,” Atlanta said. “If they come after me, I will kill them.”

  Lorenzi nodded again, not the slightest bit angry. “They are fools,” Lorenzi said. “Yes, I am fond of them. They’re going after Miami first, in the hope you’ll surrender to them once they’ve shown to all that they can defeat a God. However, I believe they’re stalling for time by going after recruits instead of immediately going after Miami, as the tactics of the situation require. Dubuque’s hold on them is weak and those two fools are as willful as they are useful. I think they can be turned back to our side if given the proper incentives.”

  The bothersome undercurrents lay buried in his words. “You’re hiding your ideas from me,” Atlanta said. “You’re trying to talk me into something with
out actually making the argument. I won’t tolerate that shit.”

  Lorenzi sighed. “You prefer blunt over suave, then. No problemo. I can do blunt. What I’m holding back is an observation I don’t feel right to propose without an invitation.”

  Atlanta stared him down. Lorenzi struck her as slimy and evasive, but not dishonest. Worse, the more she studied his layered defenses, the more she suspected he had the power to attack her and defeat her. If he made any moves on her, she would need to run. Like the two Telepaths, he had power and a Mission, and worse, his mortality ebbed and flowed, hazy and inconstant. He didn’t understand her, though, based on his statement of worry. “You have my permission to make this observation. I’ll do you no harm over an observation.”

  Lorenzi licked his lips. “Ma’am, we’re the bad guys.”

  Dana winced and threw Atlanta a hot look. Lorenzi’s comment had just ruined Dana’s day. Atlanta carefully didn’t react.

  “Explain,” Atlanta said. She felt her Mission quiver from his words. His observation wasn’t news to her, but she hadn’t ever said it out loud.

  After a slow deep breath, Lorenzi continued. “Dubuque has attacked both of us, indirectly and directly, in the arena of public opinion. Slowly and surely, he’s building the case that we’re wrong, misguided, and in the end evil and unsalvageable. The proverbial other, the enemy outside the gates. He even calls us the ‘other side’. We’re people they can rub out without the slightest moral taint, which they have already tried. This is very dangerous to us, for a great many reasons.

  “For instance, to my senses, your abilities are as mine: magical. In my experience, I know magic reacts to public opinion. To oversimplify, what we can do is based in part on what people believe we can do. As the bad guys, we need to be aware of this and take it into account, or risk falling into true evil.”

  She might say the same thing about the various aspects of Mission. “Okay, how do we take this into account?” Atlanta said, harsh.

  “Subtly. With deeds.”

  “You mean good deeds, don’t you?” Lorenzi nodded. “Stopping my violent activities, too?” Another nod. “Dammit. I can’t afford an alliance with a self-professed pacifist who’s going to spend his time trying to convince me to ‘mend my ways’. I’ve already got one of those and I don’t need another.”

  Dana flushed. Atlanta was glad neither Velma nor Lara were here for this debacle.

  “Nevertheless, until the situation changes the only way to combat what Dubuque’s tyranny of the mind is doing to us is by not doing what he’s accusing us of. Instead we must do as much of the opposite as our opposition allows us.”

  Lorenzi’s twisty logic made her brain hurt. Yet, she understood his point, even if she didn’t like it. “Why me?” Atlanta said, without formally giving up on her necessary violent activities. The other Gods hadn’t been able to convince her, but Lorenzi’s annoying logic and Dana’s justified opprobrium over what she had done to State Congressman Lloyd had. “Surely you can find more compatible Gods.”

  She could always go back to her old ways, if she needed. Later. Or if she couldn’t ally with Lorenzi.

  To her surprise, Lorenzi nodded. “God led me here, ma’am, in circular ways.” She glared at him. He took another slow deep breath, and started the necessary explanation. “In my problematic meeting with Dubuque, he attempted to exorcise me, thinking I was demon possessed. As he did I sensed something wrong with him, something profoundly bad.” He held up his hands, in surrender, before she interrupted. “Later, after I met with more Gods and prayed about this wrongness, I realized this wrongness wasn’t a part of the make-up of all you Gods. I had misinterpreted God’s will.” He chuckled. “Not the first time in my long life, but I do learn. It’s this wrongness I find I’m called to oppose.”

  “I take it I don’t have this wrongness?”

  Lorenzi nodded.

  “Who else does?”

  “Of the Gods I was able to check out, surreptitiously and otherwise, only Miami, Phoenix and Worcester possess this taint, in addition to Dubuque. Each has a different magnitude of taint, Miami the most, Worcester the least, and, worse, in each the taint is growing. I’m afraid, in the long run, this taint may take them over and cause them to oppose God’s will.”

  Shit. Atlanta, in her gut, knew what this ‘taint’ had to represent. Dubuque, though? Impossible. He had opposed the idea of worshipers the most of all of them! Still, it would explain Dubuque’s mind-shielding when he took the information from Phoenix’s mind. She needed more data. Real data, not the observations of a magician contaminated by his own past deeds or her own speculations. “Do you have any hypotheses about what this taint represents?”

  “Just answers to my prayers, answers I know you, as Gods, will not trust,” Lorenzi said. He reached into his battered professorial briefcase and brought out a multi-page printout. “However, I also filched these. Read. These are from behind some of the spiderweb’s lock and keys.”

  Atlanta frowned at Lorenzi’s baffling words. “Network passwords and heavy encryption, ma’am,” Reed said, in explanation.

  She read the papers, instructions on how to pray to Dubuque for miraculous help, and winced. “You’re implying this taint is the result of worship.” Lorenzi nodded. “These documents don’t constitute proof.”

  “It’s the only thing that logically fits, though,” he said. She glared. He raised his hands again in mock surrender. “You are quite correct that I have no proof beyond the answers I’ve received to my prayers and these documents, ma’am. These are the best bits of proof I’ve been able to come up with, so far.”

  His words implied far more. “You can spy on all of us, can’t you?” She hadn’t been able to learn anything about Dubuque’s organization, as they all had an extremely bad case of shut-mouth. Probably divinely reinforced through Dubuque’s appalling skill at mental control.

  “A talent I would be willing to help you with, ma’am, if we allied.” Evasive. Very evasive. He lowered his eyebrows. “Atlanta, ma’am, spies or no spies, Dubuque’s beating me like a drum. We must ally.”

  “You’re desperate.” In truth, her desperation echoed his.

  The ‘bad guys’, indeed. In truth, they sucked.

  “Desperate and cautious,” Lorenzi said. “Right now, Portland’s hearing a predictable screaming session between the two of us about morality.” He looked at Dana with a smile, and shrugged. He knew about Dana’s link to Portland. “I do have my uses.”

  Atlanta revised her opinion of him to slimy, evasive and devious. She had uses for devious. Both she and Dana were straightforward to a fault. She also appreciated the fact she hadn’t picked up on this particular use of power.

  Lorenzi studied her intently as she thought. His flunky still hadn’t figured out if Atlanta had agreed to ally with his boss or not, despite the fact said flunky was able to read her hidden emotions. Atlanta had the urge to secretly flash some hidden murderous anger at him just to get the nervous white guy to jump.

  “So if you’ve got a spy in Dubuque’s camp, what have you learned?” Atlanta said.

  “Many things,” Lorenzi said. No, this information wasn’t for free. “For instance, he’s been practicing his mind control. He apparently hadn’t realized he could control Gods until you confronted him on the subject.”

  Damn. Still… “Okay, what’s he doing right now?”

  “I can show you, if you want.” Atlanta nodded, and Lorenzi had his aide bring out a bowl. He asked for water, filled the bowl, and breathed on it. Atlanta ignored the itch of Lorenzi’s foul magic and leaned over to look at what he had done. Yes, he had created a scry bowl, right out of the most unbelievable fictions she had ever read.

  Gah. Worse, she could hear as well as see…

  Dubuque sat somewhere and talked with some formally-dressed men. Completely normal defenseless men. Atlanta felt for them.

&nb
sp; “…problem is straightforward,” the older of the normal men said. “The label ‘liberal’ is the last thing you want to be known by. Liberalism fosters pluralism, denying any one faith the power to organize the whole of social life, which is what God wants. The number of sins…”

  “So you say,” Dubuque said, interrupting the older man. He looked exasperated. “It also signifies the fact the Living Saints represent a change from the past, which is true and undeniable. Like it or not, we are ushering in a new biblical era.”

  “If you want righteous men, like us, to support you at all, you must not use the term. The L-word is tainted!”

  Dubuque paused and chewed his lip. Atlanta thought he did a very good job of feigning politeness. “Tell me, from your point of view, what is so wrong with pluralism?”

  “It isn’t just pluralism, it’s the entire edifice of liberalism,” the older man said. Dubuque leaned back and folded his hands in his lap. “Liberalism teaches that power flows from below, from the sinners we must teach, through the nonsense they call the ‘consent of the governed’. Liberalism encourages the use of the scientific method to settle questions of morality, God’s eternal morality, and the Word of God is not up for debate. Liberalism encourages consumerism, unleashing sinful human appetites and unfettered freedom to satisfy these appetites. The waste of liberalism pollutes the world.”

  “It also gives men of God the freedom to teach God’s word,” Dubuque said. “I find little wrong with such freedom.”

  Another of the men, dark haired, dark eyed and fierce faced, spoke up then. “Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” He paused for a moment of emphasis before continuing. “But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men; for you neither go in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in.”

  They all nodded.

  “I don’t feel I possess the right you hint at,” Dubuque said. “I want to teach, not demand.”

  “Those who listen to your message, those who support you with their very souls, are giving you this right. Living Saint Dubuque, it is your responsibility to make these demands,” the older man said. “Indeed, all Christians have it, a holy responsibility to reclaim this nation and others for Jesus Christ. To possess, as some call it, dominion in civil structures, in all aspects of life and Godliness. Christ commissioned us to convert everyone, demanding we win over the entire world with the word of the Gospel, and to settle for nothing less. This is your City of God in a nutshell.”

  Atlanta realized, from the way the scene in the scry bowl moved, that she looked at this through the eyes of Lorenzi’s spy, who must have been one of Dubuque’s chief flunkies. She found herself impressed with Lorenzi’s trick.

  “There’s a difference, though, between ends and means,” Dubuque said. “About which I am afraid we disagree.”

  “Your goals cannot be accomplished without these means.”

  Dubuque smiled. “So now you’re limiting God’s miracles?” he said, opening up yet another can of worms. Of all things, he took this nonsense seriously. She read this in his Mission.

  Atlanta rolled her eyes and waved her hands in dismissal. Theology of the most boring kind. Lorenzi took the hint and dismissed his magical scry.

  “I possess lots more where this came from,” Lorenzi said, after stowing away his scrying bowl.

  Not exactly Mr. Small Ego, is he, she thought. “You’re going to give me ulcers,” Atlanta said.

  “You don’t have a stomach to get ulcers in,” Lorenzi said, after a moment’s hesitation.

  A little revealing, his hesitation. His minor revelation tied into his earlier evasions. “So you know about our bodies then?”

  “Some.” More evasion. He knew much more.

  “What are they?”

  “Like nothing else on this Earth.” Yet more evasion.

  “You know something extremely important you’re not saying,” Atlanta said, pressing her willpower on Lorenzi. “Tell me.”

  Lorenzi’s flunky looked ready to die of fear. If Lorenzi didn’t spring, Atlanta decided she would take the information out of the flunky’s mind, just before she abandoned yet another lair, with Lorenzi on her heels. He would take an attack on a flunky as an attack on him, a positive in Atlanta’s mind.

  “I’m not giving this tidbit away for free,” Lorenzi said, showing off his resistance to divine charisma. “This is information for allies only.”

  Interesting, Atlanta decided. The great human magician hadn’t figured her out, either. “Lucky for you I’m a patient woman who doesn’t consider arrogance a fatal flaw in those I deal with,” Atlanta said, accompanied by a short glare at Dana. “Alright. You’ve convinced me we can ally.”

  “Thank you,” Lorenzi said. “I should start by telling you I know about your Anime Café friends, and I’ve had contact with them for years, and worked with them many times. I’m even friends with a few of them, though most of the people in that crew of crazies would rather I didn’t exist.”

  “Thank you for being up-front about this,” she said. “They mentioned you, obliquely, and I was wondering if you were going to fess up about knowing them.” She lowered her eyebrows. “I assume you need a safe place to rest and recuperate your magical batteries or whatever magicians have?”

  Lorenzi relaxed. “Yes. My greatest fear is that Dubuque will figure out how vulnerable I am to exhaustion.”

  Which he just revealed to me, giving himself into my power, she thought. Why? What had he seen? How had he missed the fact I decided to ally with him?

  It meant he couldn’t read her mind or her intentions, but he was able to read her Mission.

  Which means I’ll have damned few Mission-level secrets from him, Atlanta thought. Which means he’s going to be a pain in the ass.

  She suspected all her true allies would turn out to be pains in the ass.

  “So?” Atlanta said.

  “To the gory details, then,” Lorenzi said, with a half-smile. “After I got cued in by a Practical God who wants to remain hidden, I did some research and figured out that all the Gods died before they became Gods. They all died on the same day.”

  “I don’t remember dying,” Atlanta said, unexpectedly uncertain. She had been positive she hadn’t died. Kidnapped by her creators, yes, died, no.

  “None of you do, as far as I can tell.” Lorenzi reached into his battered briefcase and brought out another sheaf of papers. He laid them on Atlanta’s desk. She read the papers and used her willpower to verify their authenticity.

  “This is who you were. Yes?”

  Atlanta nodded, fighting emotions she hadn’t suspected remained in her. Grief. Tears. Fear.

  “You’re buried in Arlington National Cemetery. Your helicopter was shot down by enemy fire.”

  Stomach or not, Lorenzi did induce ulcers. “I hate you for this,” Atlanta said. “I hate those who did this to me. I hate the ones who made me into a God. They had no right.”

  “If you want, we’ll leave you…”

  “Fuck you,” Atlanta said, unwanted emotions coloring her words. “Shut the fuck up.” He shut up and waited. She studied the documents, the crash site, the date. She had thought the Host had grabbed her while she slept, which turned out to be the night before she died. “What the fuck is going on? Our creators implied we’d been specifically selected for the job of being Gods. If we all died on the same day, that isn’t much of a selection process.”

  “Ma’am, you’re correct,” Lorenzi said, his voice supportive. At least he realized the serious nature of his presentation. “Nevertheless, you were a rarity, a black woman Marine helicopter pilot. Officer. The first to die in action, if my meager ability to search such things is correct. They, whoever or whatever they are, did not choose randomly. People always die, every da
y. I believe they chose the best of the lot.”

  “You’re right. I do want to be left alone,” Atlanta said. “Go. All of you.” This changed everything. She didn’t understand all of the ramifications, but it did change everything. The cheap piece of shit trick passing as her ‘divine’ body began to unravel, what their creators called Imago loss. In such a way the 99 Gods might die for real.

  She had died once.

  She hadn’t gone to Heaven, though she died a Christian in good standing and thought she deserved Heaven. She hadn’t gone to Hell either, a place she no longer understood due to what she had learned from her Indigo friends. Instead, the Host made her into this thing and sent her back to Earth.

  She no longer knew herself.