Part 3
The Memory of Pain
“One of their most surprising instances in fact, perhaps, absolutely the leading impostor was the sage or charlatan (for it is difficult to determine which) known as Apollonius Tyanaus so called from Tyana, in Cappadocia, Asia Minor, his birthplace, where he first saw the light about four years earlier than Christ, and consequently more than eighteen and a half centuries ago.
“His arrival upon this planet was attended with some very amazing demonstrations. With his first cry, a flash of lightning darted from the heavens to the earth and back again, dogs howled, cats mewed, roosters crowed, and flocks of swans, so say the olden chroniclers probably geese, every one of them clapped their wings in the adjacent meadows with a supernatural clatter.” – P.T. Barnum, Humbugs of the World
Three weeks later…
“Thank you, Saint Dubuque, for all you have already done for me…”
35. (Nessa)
Nicole moaned and took her head out of her pale hands. “I’m done? That’s all there is to this?” Her birdlike form shook with exhaustion and she leaned back against the headboard of the hard motel bed, which shivered unsteadily in sympathy.
“Uh huh,” Nessa said. “If you can keep me out of your head, you should be able to, I hope, keep the Gods from reading your mind and taking you over. If they don’t try too hard.” Nessa toweled off her sweat-drenched hair and stood to stretch. Three hours of work today, after another ten over the last week, and all Nicole had been able to learn was how to block Nessa’s mind probes. When Nessa started training the recruits two weeks ago she had nurtured high hopes, but reality had reared its ugly head and reminded her that most Telepaths didn’t measure up to her or to Ken. Nessa feared she had picked up more benefits from the hard training than her students.
“Well, then, if you don’t mind, I’m going to go find a place to lie down and die,” Nicole said. The older woman clumsily climbed off Nessa and Ken’s king size bed and staggered to the door, muttering under her breath about ghosts and auras. Nicole didn’t like the motel Alt had picked out as safest. Too many of her imaginary demons lived here.
Nicole had far too many imaginary demons, or at least Nessa hoped they were imaginary.
Nessa studied Nicole’s ears, as she studied Nicole’s ears every time she saw them. On bad days, she suspected those ears were positively unnatural. She had never met anyone with Nicole’s swept-back ears. A straight line drawn through where Nicole’s ears met her face wouldn’t go up to the top of Nicole’s head, but around to the back, well below her cowlick. Those ears, Nicole’s poofy white-shot hair, and her skeletal anorexia-like gauntness made her look like some creature not quite human. Nicole hadn’t known about the milk, honey, mead, and chocolate trick before they recruited her, and not to Nessa’s surprise, the old woman had been closer to death from starvation than any Telepath should ever be.
Alt stuck his head in Nessa’s motel room after Nicole teetered out. “Got a moment?”
Nessa shook her head and turned her back on Alt.
“I think this is important.”
“Come on in, then,” Nessa said. She needed some down time, but with all the crap circling them as the world toilet-flushed around them she figured she wouldn’t get any. She stuck her face in the bathroom sink, which the hotel in some bizarre excuse for decorating had decided to put in the main room only sort of near the bathroom, and washed sweat off her face.
“When was the last time you ate anything?” Alt said.
“Dunno.” She gathered her hair over her shoulders, down her front, and ran a comb through it, all while studiously ignoring her reflection in the mirror. She hadn’t turned on the bathroom light, or hall light, or whatever you called a light sort of near the bathroom for illuminating the bathroom sink, but enough light seeped in through the motel room’s curtains to illuminate her. Behind her, she heard the crinkle of a chocolate bar wrapper.
“Here,” Alt said.
She abandoned the sink, took the chocolate bar and ate it without thinking. Yesterday’s lunch was the last meal she remembered. It didn’t surprise her that some of her old problems had resurfaced because of the stress.
“You finished with Prep?”
Alt nodded. He had been bashing on Prep’s mind this afternoon, hard enough to distract Nicole and give Nessa a sympathy headache. “His imperial creepiness still can’t even block me. He does fine as long as he’s concentrating, but as soon as he does anything else, like stand, I can get him.” Prep and Alt didn’t see eye to eye. Alt had replaced his paramedic’s uniform with a floor length black leather coat, which made him some sort of effeminate nerd in Prep’s eyes, while Prep’s patched and decaled motorcycle jacket made Prep a barbarian in Alt’s eyes. At least Ken had managed to talk Alt out of constantly referring to Prep’s favored mode of transportation as a ‘donorcycle’.
“Damn,” Nessa said. “Think we should cut him loose?”
“We can’t,” Alt said. “Even if Ken and Mary are successful, that’s only nine of us. Any idea why Prep’s having such problems?”
“He’s Mindbound.”
“Neither Phil nor Mary had any problems, and they’re both Mindbound,” Alt said. He sat down in one of the two cheap vinyl motel chairs and leaned back. Nessa, worried, noticed the tightness on his face.
“Their shields are built around shutting off their telepathy,” Nessa said. She couldn’t sit. Not now. She needed to stand and walk. “Prep’s a bodyguard, a natural, and his shields are built off of the denial of his clairvoyance and the other out-of-body crap he’d possess if he wasn’t Mindbound. Even if by some miracle we could find a way to un-mindbind him, he would have shit telepathy at best.”
Alt didn’t respond. He leaned back and stared at the ceiling.
“Another migraine?”
“Grunt.”
“Dammit, Alt, I’ve shown you three times how to get rid of them.”
“Uh huh, but none of the three methods you taught me are working on this one,” Alt said. “Almost none of the crap you teach me works. Why’d you need to un-mindbind me, anyway? Why’d you need to mess up my life?”
Nessa sighed and turned her back to Alt, resting her hands on the open bathroom doorway. She leaned forward to stretch out her shoulder muscles. “You were a Telepath in denial, not Mindbound. People like you end up institutionalized by the time you’re thirty five, like Nicole was.” They had found Nicole in a psych hospital, confined against her will as a delusional psychotic with symptoms of schizophrenia, and with an anomalous lack of reaction to her anti-schizophrenia and anti-psychotic drugs because of the obvious. “Or dead. We saved your life.”
Alt groaned. “Hey, what ever happened to the story about your hidden friends who ratted me out? You never said anything about saving my life before.”
“I’m tired of your whining,” Nessa said. “The other isn’t a story, it’s the truth. I’m just tired of telling it.”
“I was managing just fine before you found me and ruined my life.”
“You were a neurotic well on the way toward a full breakdown, in complete denial of your own abilities, and filled with self lies,” Nessa said. She walked into the motel room and lay down on the floor, on her back. “I’m not trying to cut you down, Alt. The only thing keeping me or Ken from being institutionalized was what we went through as young adults.”
“Which you won’t say shit about.”
“Which we won’t say shit about. What Ken and I put you through, and what we’re putting Nicole and Giselle through, will stabilize you. The same way Ken and I are stable.” Nessa paused. “Which isn’t saying much, as I’m sure you fully realize, but this will give you a much better chance at a normal life.”
“How many others have you stabilized before?”
“None,” Nessa said. “Neither Ken nor I have any ability to find messed-up Telepaths, and Telepaths, Psychics and Mindbound are by necessity good
at hiding themselves.”
“Dammit,” Alt said. “You’re holding back. It’s not a lie, but something close.”
Those annoying little lies. She couldn’t mislead Alt any more than she could mislead Ken or that asshole Lorenzi. “Ken and I tried a few interventions early on,” Nessa said. “Not one of the ones we found, through mundane detective means, were anywhere near as open to intervention as you, Nicole and Giselle are. Without you, Alt, we’d be stuck. You’re the key to our current success.”
“Hell,” Alt said. “Nicole and Giselle are both insane.”
“Sanity is overrated.” Nessa extended her tired mind and listened to Alt’s thoughts. His mind shielding had improved, but he still leaked. “So, Alt, why are you so upset?”
He sighed. “I don’t like having our group split up.”
“Split up? Ken and Mary aren’t even fifteen miles away.”
“Fifteen miles is far enough away that if one of the violent Gods flew in to Indianapolis” their current location “we wouldn’t have time to get back together.”
“This is something you picked up?” Nessa said, prickly skinned, her attempt at relaxation ruined. “Is there a God on the way?”
“I’m not sure, and that’s the problem,” Alt said. “Some of the Gods must have figured out I can track them, because they’ve found a way to shield themselves at times.”
“Shit.”
“Shit indeed.”
The man stank. Old sweat, bad breath, garbage, piss, even a little bit of dog poop. He sat in one of the two vinyl chairs and they would need to wash the chair before anyone else in the room would use it. Ken stood by Nessa’s side, Mary and Prep guarded the motel room door, while Alt, Giselle, Dr. Phil Blackburn and Nicole talked softly together on the far side of the motel room and scarfed fast food. Well, all but Nicole, who did the Winnie the Pooh routine, holding a plastic cup filled with honey in her skeletal fingers.
“You’re all like me and you don’t hate me,” the man said. “Fucking unbelievable.” He took a bite from his hamburger and licked his grimy fingers. Breadcrumbs from the bun nestled themselves in his unwashed beard.
“We’re not all like you,” Ken said. Nessa spotted a tiny teek shell in use, keeping the man’s foul breath away from Ken’s face. “But most of us are. As I said, we’re all Telepaths and the like, and yes, normally we can’t stand to be around other Telepaths either, but because of the 99 Gods we’ve decided to put aside our differences and work together.” He paused. “We would be even friendlier if you told us your name.”
“I ain’t saying nothing ‘bout my name,” the man said. He wiped his deeply lined face and shook his head. Several breadcrumbs fell to the floor. “Gives yah too much power over me.”
“You’re from Texas, New Mexico or Arizona,” Nessa said. She could hear the dry southwest in his voice.
“Yup, been there. I was born in Colombia and spent time in Guatemala,” he said. Goo-aaat-eh-maaala. He wiggled open his dirty coat. Underneath he wore a tattered down coat, flattened from age, which he unzipped. The reek of filthy male body floated upwards. “Don’t like the damned Gods, either, I guess you’re right about that. I unnerstan what they’re doing…they’re a buncha nasty lying fucks pulling the wool over everyone’s eyes. Most of’m make our politicians look like fucking saints, pardón my French.”
“I spent time on the street myself,” Nessa said. “Anchorage.”
“Goodie for you. Drugs?”
“Done too many of those,” Nessa said. “Didn’t want to hear thoughts. A phase I went through.”
The man looked her over. “Ah yup, unnerstand that. You glow. You I recognize; I’ve known you for years. You hate me when you lose your temper.”
“Ah,” Nessa said. “I hate everything when I lose my temper. I apologize if you picked up one of my rants long distance. We need you.”
“For fucking what? This malo crap in my head doesn’t do nothin’ ’cept get me in trouble. Never helped, never will.”
“I can teach you how to protect your mind from the Gods,” Nessa said. “I don’t understand what you can do as a Telepath, but I’m sure I can teach you how to protect your mind.”
“Telepath? Fuck, I’m no fucking bruja. No comic book mutant neither.”
“It’s just a name,” Ken said.
“Fuck off and thanks for the food,” the man said.
“Let me,” Phil said. Nessa turned and found Phil had walked over to stand by her side. He had the best shielding of the lot, both a good thing and a bad thing. Nessa had always been queasy about talented Mindbound after the incident. She had argued against recruiting him, just a funny hunch about this one, but the others talked her down. Phil pulled over the room’s second chair and sat, about two feet away from the recruit. “Ken and Nessa can be quite intimidating.” He shooed them back.
Nessa frowned and stepped back. Phil pissed her off most of the time, pushy as all hell, which made him a real person in her eyes. Someone with free will, an underappreciated commodity. She didn’t trust him, though.
“You’re some sorta highbrow perfesser?” the man asked. Phil shook his head. “You talk like one.”
“Where I worked they called me a wizard,” Phil said, with a smile. His polished business-casual appearance contrasted strikingly with the decrepit decay of the street bum. “Look, friend, we all have it bad. Ken and Nessa talked me into quitting a six figure job. Can you top that?”
“They talked you into that?” the man said. “Means you’re a fool, then.”
“If not for the 99 Gods I wouldn’t have given either of them the time of day.”
“I hear yah,” the man said. He leaned over toward Phil and lowered his voice. Nessa saw the flicker of a wince from Phil, but he stopped himself from showing more of a reaction. “There’s one of them damned Gods who’s stealing nukes. He’s not destroying them, either, he’s collecting them. There’s another who stole a goddamned solid rocket booster from the Air Force. Now there’s a white elephant.” Ken groaned, but that sort of thing didn’t surprise Nessa. It’s what she would do as a God. If anything, she thought the Gods showed almost too much restraint.
Phil held his face firm and breathed through his mouth. “It doesn’t surprise me. They’re messing up the stock markets world-wide, too, and I have the statistical analysis to prove it.”
“Fuck,” the man said. “Guess it’s too late to get my ‘vestments out of the market.”
As if. Nessa glared at Phil but he ignored her.
“Nessa and Ken convinced me that we could do something about the Gods because the Gods can’t muck around with us like they can most people. But to take the fight to the Gods, we need people like you, people who are functional Telepaths.”
“You call me functional, I’ve got some stories to tell,” the man said. “You’re not a whatchamacallit functional?”
Phil shook his head. “Nope. I’m what these people call Mindbound. All my mental tricks are invested in keeping other people’s thoughts out of my head.”
“Ayup, that’s the truth. I can’t even tell if you’re there with my ESP.”
“ESP?” Phil smiled. “You understand what you are and you have your own name for what you do, then? That’s good.”
“I know what I am, dammit, and I know they’re out to get me.”
“They?”
“The ESPers in the government. CIA, FBI and NSA.” They weren’t ‘ESPers’, and Nessa knew the last thing they wanted was to end up facing a real Telepath. Heh.
“Why didn’t they get you?” Phil said.
“Cause I’m good at hiding and the ESPers and their bosses argue all the time,” the man said. “It’s only a matter of time before they snatch me, though. I think Indianapolis’s gotten a bit hot.”
Phil nodded. “You can stay with us.”
The man shook his head. “I can’t be around ESPers who hate me.”
/>
“Who hates you?” Phil said.
The man’s voice lowered some more. “Those two ESPer women over in the corner.” He glanced at Giselle and Nicole. “Those two.”
Nessa sent.
The man jumped and shrank back in his chair. Ken nudged her but she ignored him. Phil’s ridiculous conversation annoyed her, and she had held back long enough. Too long.
the man sent.
Nessa sent back. She pushed into his mind with ease; for a Telepath, he had almost no mind shields, despite his comments about keeping himself hidden.
Ken’s hands slipped off her body, and he said something rude, but she ignored his words as she tore through the man’s mind. She felt Alt, Giselle and Nicole rush past. They ran out the motel room door and fled to their own rooms, all three of them near vomiting.
They had all experienced this trick, though Alt’s had been worse because he had been farther into denial.
Phil grabbed her and tried to yank her back, but as with Ken he couldn’t touch her. He cursed and kicked at Nessa, then fell to the floor clutching his foot. That would teach him.
Nessa sent. She showed Javier, the man’s name, the truth. Like so many Telepaths, he created his own enemies in his head. He screamed in his mind. They all screamed in their minds when they saw the depth of the lies they told themselves.
More screams.
Nessa steeled herself for the hours this would take. The poor man had buried himself in lies and delusions. She let her heart ice over, a necessity when confronting the truth.
“A little warning next time, Nessa. Please?” Ken said. He had crawled into bed and Nessa had curled up against him. Outside the window, she heard the endless hum of the interstate, a lullaby in the quiet night. Inside, the buzz of Javier’s peaceful breathing sucked her into sleep.
“Sleep,” she said. She had spent too much time in other people’s minds today, exhausting her.
And pleasing her, this exhaustion. It helped her see.
“Fuck sleep,” Ken said. “Our entire crew, save for Mary, is ready to shoot you for what you did to that poor man. You managed to convince them you’re as evil as the worst of the 99 Gods.”
“Good,” Nessa said, and cuddled up tighter against Ken. “Then when I say we’re not going to kill the Gods, only subdue them and neutralize them, they’ll say ‘oh so killing Gods is too evil even for Nessa’ and they’ll back off. Too many of our group wants to kill.”
“You’re crazy.”
“Uh huh,” she said.
“You violated that man’s mind without even a shred of permission from him.”
“Yup. Did Opartuth ask us?”
“That’s your rationale?”
She wanted to sleep. She knew she had this coming, though. She deserved everything she suspected Ken would throw at her.
“Yes.”
“You’re not God,” Ken said. “You don’t have the right to violate people that way.”
“Also true.”
“Then why?”
“Why what?”
“Why’d you invade his mind? We could have let him go, like the last three who didn’t work out.” Ken’s voice rose, but Javier didn’t wake. Nessa suspected that after what she did to him, he would sleep through Armageddon.
“Alt said recruiting him was too dangerous for us,” Nessa said. “I agree. We can’t split up anymore, and we can’t recruit as a group because when we try, they all run. He’s the last. We’ve run out of time.”
“That’s no rationale.”
“I didn’t give you a rationale. I gave you a ‘why’.”
“You’re impossible.”
“Uh huh,” Nessa said. She couldn’t deny being impossible. Unless she wanted to be more impossible… “You want a rationale? Then why’d you come bother me in Alaska? You don’t understand why you did that, but you did. It’s the same.”
“I don’t get what you’re saying.”
“Listen to your mind,” Nessa said. “Deep down inside all of us Telepaths a little voice is saying ‘the Gods are going to kill us, so what we do to them doesn’t matter because they’re already dead anyway’.”
“Which ‘they’ and ‘them’? Telepaths?”
“Uh huh. For some damned reason we’re the other side. Right and wrong don’t seem to matter.”
Ken didn’t comment, deep in thought. She drifted off into sleep.
“You’re right,” Ken twisted to his side and the bed bounced with his motion. “It’s desperation. That’s what’s motivating all of us. Desperation is why we’re so successful this time at recruiting Telepaths, and why we weren’t before. Desperation is why I’ve kept from throttling Alt every time he masturbates while thinking of you.”
Ken’s voice dragged her back out of the edge of a dream of a chocolate orgy. “It’s the old lesson about lying to ourselves,” Nessa said. “Poor Javier. He’d seen too much of the real world, and so he’d invented a whole world out after him.”
“Javier? That’s his name?”
Nessa grunted.
“He going to take a shower? Man, I don’t think I’ve ever run into anyone who reeks as much as he does.”
“Defense mechanism. He gets stinky on purpose,” Nessa said. “He actually had those stock market investments he talked about.” Javier slept out in the floor of their motel room, his mind filled with quiet dreams, save those in which Nessa appeared. The bad dreams. He would stop hating her after a couple of days. “He’s real good at long range telepathy, or at least he is now, and, by the way, it is the Seven Suits who’ve done in the economy. Javier’s got the proof, though he didn’t realize what he had until I showed him. Anywho, he doesn’t have the will to control other minds. He’s a good scanner, though. Now that I’m done with him, he can even read Phil’s thoughts.”
“That’s impressive,” Ken said. “What’s next?”
“Damn if I know,” Nessa said. “Sleep?” Every man she slept with wanted to chatter on when she was half-asleep. From her discussions with other women, she had learned the opposite happened more often. She didn’t know what this meant about Telepaths or her lovers, though.
“I mean on our mission, Nessa.”
“Love you too, Ken.” Her exhausted mind turned in circles. “Train, go after Miami, find out if Miami’s an enemy or not. See if Dubuque’s a friend or not.”
“If Miami isn’t an enemy, confronting him will make him one.”
“Never that simple,” Nessa said. “Sometimes confronting bullies makes them respect you. Perhaps, after we confront him, we’ll sit down and have a nice discussion.”
“Bets?”
“I’m not saying it will happen, but that it could happen,” Nessa said. “Sleep?”
“If you insist,” Ken said.
Nessa checked and noticed that he had gotten interested. Sleep was all she wanted, though, so she reached into his mind and dragged him off to sleep with her, where they made glorious superhuman love to each other in their shared dreams.
36. (Dave)
“Tiff, I know this is going to sound strange, but I’d like you to pray with me,” Dave said, as he straightened his tie. He had put off both his tense meeting with his co-owners of DPMJ and his return to his chamber music group long enough, and couldn’t postpone either of them any longer.
Time for me to face the music with both, the second more literal than the first, Dave told himself. Both scared the crap out of him.
Tiff looked up from scrubbing her face. “We have to wake the kids.”
Tuesday. Right. His turn to wake the kids and get them ready for school. “It’ll only take a few moments. I’ll wake the kids when I’m done.”
“Okay,” Tiff said, after a moment of hesitation.
She walked over to him, a blank expression on her face that changed to a frown when Dave didn’t immediately kneel, but instead led her to the nearest stairway to the second floor, a
nd then to his Dubuque shrine in the guest bedroom where he kept his small home office. She eyed him warily when he knelt before the shrine, and slowly knelt down herself.
Dave took Tiff’s hand. “Saint Dubuque,” he said, eyes focused on the shrine’s picture of the Living Saint. “Conduit to God, focus of my adoration of the Almighty. Let me be calm today as I confront those who do not understand me. Let me accept what I cannot change with strength and purpose, and give me the insight to know what I can change.” As always when he prayed to the Living Saint, Dubuque’s eyes came alive to him, a trick of his own mind. The usual mixture of acceptance and wonder flowed through Dave, helping him know everything would be right with his world. “Thank you, Saint Dubuque, my personal savior, for all you have already done for me in the name of the Almighty, and let me do the will of the Almighty in all things. Amen.”
Silence followed, Tiff’s fingers trembling slightly in his, at least until she extricated her hand from his grasp. Dave’s eyes left the picture of Dubuque and he glanced over at his wife, whose expression had returned to stony blankness.
“Thanks,” Dave said. He did feel calmer, more accepting, though he didn’t know if Saint Dubuque miraculously calmed him, or if the action of praying itself calmed him.
“You’re welcome,” Tiff said, neutral voiced, and stood. “Very educational.”
Dave stood as well and gave Tiff a hug; she tensed in his arms. “Time to wake the kids,” he said.
“Don’t forget that Stacy needs lunch money,” Tiff said, a little pale and breathless, extricating herself and rushing off quickly, to slam the bathroom door behind her.
Dave rang the doorbell at Mirabelle’s, then stood and waited. To his consternation, he heard music, even though he had timed his arrival to the scheduled start of the chamber music practice session. He wanted to talk to his friends in person and undo all the damage caused by his sojourn to Dubuque’s mega-church. Steve had refused to speak to him over the phone, and blocked his texts, while Mirabelle had been distant, distracted, and non-communicative.
The music stopped. Dave licked his lips, half contemplating his friends’ reaction and half aching over the buy-out options he and his DPMJ co-owners had discussed. He couldn’t say the negotiation hadn’t been successful; they came to a mutual agreement without any raised voices. The fact he needed to negotiate at all hurt, leaving him with a barely buried desire to find a way to strike back at the Seven Suits and their hidden shenanigans. With his health returning, he would be hitting the client search hard over the next month, living out of a suitcase and rarely returning home. He hoped the kids and Tiff would be able to cope.
Mirabelle opened the door, a quizzical look turning into a frown. “Dave! What a surprise! How’re you doing?” she said.
“Much better. Not fully cured yet, but well on the way. Haven’t had a headache in days.” In truth, he felt like a new man. He suspected his medical problems had been as much of a burden on his mind as on his body, and although he hadn’t lost all the physical symptoms of the cadmium poisoning, his attitude had certainly changed for the better. He even had one of his old woo-woo moments, about something other than himself, where he knew the word the second place kid in the national spelling bee missed before he read the article online. He hadn’t been having many of those, at all, during the depths of his illness.
“Come on in,” she said, and waved her arm. “You know Geneva. She’s been filling in on cello.”
“Hiya, Jenni,” Dave said, waving and smiling. Already replaced. Whole lot of replace’n goin’ round, he knew.
“Dave,” Geneva said, eyes downcast and peeking at her own cello.
Neither Steve nor Roger said a word after Dave sat himself down in Mirabelle’s music room, in front of the munchies, with his cello case and cello at his side.
Awkward silence followed.
“Well, I’m back,” Dave said.
“I don’t want to talk to you,” Steve said, shaking his head and refusing eye contact.
“Excuse me,” Roger said. He put down his violin and exited toward the bathroom. Geneva turned away and began to retune her cello. Softly.
“What happened, happened,” Dave said, letting his calm mood flow through his body. “I’m on the way to being cured.”
Steve leapt to his feet and stuck a finger in Dave’s face, uncharacteristically physical. “You’ve sold your soul to the worst devil of the lot! You’re not even you anymore!” Steve had always been excitable, certainly more excitable than Dave, but then again, most people thought Dave excessively phlegmatic. Still, Dave didn’t like his old friend getting in his face.
“How would you know?” Dave said, his kind voice surprising himself. He turned away, put some cheese on a cracker and ate. “You haven’t even talked to me.”
“For one thing, you’re here,” Steve said, waving his arms. “You go off to Dubuque to sell your soul without telling anyone, then you come here today, to Mirabelle’s, without any warning. Now you’re sitting here without a care in the world. I’m screaming in your face and you’re not even responding!”
Dave shrugged at Steve’s craziness and looked at Mirabelle. She wouldn’t meet his gaze either, a weary sadness around her eyes. “I don’t want a fight. I just want to get on with my life.” He didn’t want to proselytize, defend himself, apologize or explain. He wanted the entire thing behind him. For a moment, he had the urge to apologize, sarcastically, for saving his own life, but the urge passed, replaced by a warm calmness.
Geneva put down her cello and fled the room.
“Steve, please,” Mirabelle said. “You’re making me uncomfortable.” She gently pointed to a chair. Steve took a deep breath and sat. “Thank you.”
Mirabelle turned to Dave, her face sad. “This wasn’t how this was supposed to be. I wanted to talk to you in person, ahead of time.”
“About what?”
“Dave, we took a vote and I got outvoted. You’re out of the group.” She studied her toes and tapped her sandals together. “I’m so sorry.”
Dave took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Oh.” Now he understood all the funny emotional currents roving Mirabelle’s house. He waited a few beats, and took another breath. “I understand.” The parallel to the DPMJ debacle saddened him. The echoing of Dr. Greuter’s ‘I’m so sorry’ didn’t help, either. Damned freaky, but he had grown used to the damned freakies years ago.
Mirabelle’s eyes opened wide in shock. “You understand?” she said. “That’s all you’re going to say?”
“I’m not happy that things worked out this way, but I’m not devastated, if you’re asking,” Dave said. Mirabelle frowned. “I just had a death sentence miraculously lifted from me. The miracle’s made me appreciate…”
“Your so-called cure’s warped your fool brain worse than your cadmium poisoning did!” Steve said, leaning forward and almost snarling. “The Dave I know would get his back up. Snark sarcastically at us for being fools. Point out all the reasons for and against, and try to convince us we were wrong, using logic. For unending hours!”
“Perhaps I’ve just picked up the ability to accept what can’t be changed,” Dave said. The strange Boise follower, Diana, had been right. Intercessionary prayer did work. He felt no urge at all to get upset, and if there was a cost, he didn’t know of one. The louder and more obnoxious Steve became, the calmer and more confident Dave got. “My immediate reaction, if you want something nasty and personal, is to rush over to the Center for the Performing Arts and make sure I’m not kicked out of ‘The Shadow Box’ production’s costuming group. I would like to retain some measure of my former life.”
Steve shook his head and leaned back. “Okay, perhaps this Dubuque thing hasn’t totally destroyed your ego and turned you into a hapless cult member. But, Dave, Dubuque’s going after me. Us. Homosexuals. He’s not advertising what he’s doing, but anyone can see the shit coming when we read
between the lines. His goal is a world without sin, this City of God thing of his. He’s not being very specific yet about what he thinks of as sin and what he doesn’t, but it’s not hard to figure out his true feelings about gays. Dave, religions always persecute gays; and when our nation gets turned into a theocracy, that’s what’s going to happen.”
Dave shook his head. “Theocracy? I think you’re jumping the gun, Steve.” He paused while Steve fumed. “Before I chose Dubuque I studied the Living Saints. I’ve come to the conclusion that you’re right, in part. The Living Saints are going to change everything. Not just Dubuque, but all of them. However, what they change doesn’t depend only on the Living Saints, but on the choices us mortals make as well. To me, Dubuque’s just one viewpoint, albeit a very religious viewpoint. The other Living Saints will have their say. So will the rest of us; I’m convinced the coming change will arise from our desires. For instance, who didn’t dislike war?”
Steve didn’t say a thing, just clenching and unclenching his hands every time Dave said ‘Living Saint’.
“Far too many people dislike gays,” Mirabelle said.
“So? Far too many people also dislike not being super-rich,” Dave said. Mirabelle’s eyes opened wide again. “But you can’t make everyone super-rich.” Dave held up his hands for peace, seeing Mirabelle’s frown. “I’m not trying to be facetious. I’m just trying to make the point that one impossible miracle, my cure, doesn’t make everything possible.”
“You’ve made your point before,” Steve said. “But we’re not talking about physical impossibilities like turning the sun purple or making the Earth rotate backwards. We’re talking peculiarities of the human body.”
“Well, that’s true,” Dave said, tapping his feet, ideas leaping through his head, unable to stop the flow of his words. “But didn’t I read in your literature that one of the arguments gay men make about why being gay must be biological instead of a choice is to have someone like me, a standard hetero, think about gay sex and our own reaction to it, implying that nobody in their right mind would choose such a thing?” Steve frowned, but nodded. “What if, and this is just a what if, one of the Living Saints could miraculously change your sexual orientation? Would doing so be a bad thing?”
Steve’s eyes opened wide in shock. “Dave! I can’t believe I’m hearing this!” He stood and stalked out of the room.
Dave scratched his head and turned to Mirabelle. “I’m not sure I understand why what I said upset Steve so much. What did I say wrong?”
Mirabelle sighed. “Steve’s right. You’ve changed, Dave. You just insulted his identity. That’s not the sort of thing you do. Or at least, you did.”
“Okay, if you say so,” Dave said. “I thought I was just following the point of his earlier comment with an obvious follow-up point.”
“No, I don’t think so,” Mirabelle said. She looked up at the ceiling high above. “‘In me, all things are possible’ is too scary for even someone like myself to contemplate. Steve’s convinced me, opened my eyes to the real danger.”
“Real danger? You’ve been pro-Living Saint from the start.”
Mirabelle’s frown deepened when he spoke the words ‘pro-Living Saint’. “The Gods threaten everything we, the American people, have accomplished on our own with our democracy, our choices, our desires and our squabbles. Their influence on all of us, at the national level and the personal level, is taking all our choices away from us right before our eyes. Before this, you cared. Now, you don’t seem to.”
“I care about making the world a better place,” Dave said. “The Living Saints need our help, our thoughts, even our prayers, if the world is to be made into a better place. Which the world can be.”
“I think you’d better go, Dave,” Mirabelle said, standing and walking toward her front door. Dave picked up his cello and followed. He didn’t want to fight Mirabelle, of all people. “You’ve become a marked lesson to us all, but I think you’ve said enough for one night.”
“Tiff, I’m back,” Dave said to the air in the kitchen. No answer. He went to the mail kiosk in his micro office, checked it, and found two of his magazines had come in. He grabbed them and trotted off to Tiff’s office. He knocked.
“I heard you the first time.” Tiff clicked the desk switch that unlocked her office doors and Dave walked in. “What’s up?” she asked, wary.
“Nothing much,” Dave said. He didn’t want to talk about being kicked out of his own chamber music group or his successful attempt to grab the lead volunteer costuming spot for the production down at the Center for the Performing Arts. He did want to talk about the successful negotiations with the DPMJ co-owners, but he wanted to save that until later.
Instead, he whipped out the bouquet of red roses he bought on the way home. He hadn’t done that sort of thing in years.
Tiff frowned, sighed, and smiled. “Thank you,” she said, standing and giving him a peck on the cheek and a cold hug. “You’re better, I can tell.”
Dave nodded. He felt healthy enough to make love to his wife, the main reason he had thought up the idea of the roses tonight. He went over to stand next to her, putting his hand on her shoulder.
Tiff flinched. “Dave, hun, I’d like to, but something’s come up. My boss dropped a huge new project into my lap today, and I’m… Well, you know. Working all hours.”
His eye flickered to her computers, and saw the usual blank screens. He didn’t know how, but Tiff had found a way to boss-key out of all her work on all her computers at once with a single keystroke. He had actually seen it in action once, about a month ago.
“I understand,” Dave said, unable to keep the disappointment out of his voice.
Tiff chewed her lower lip, glanced at one of the blank flat panel displays, and glanced up at him. Then she flicked her gaze at the roses in their vase. Dave kneaded Tiff’s tight shoulder muscles and waited while Tiff thought, hoping that despite his ‘understanding’ she might still be seducible.
“You are feeling frisky tonight, aren’t you?” Tiff said, her voice a studied neutral. Dave grunted an affirmative. She clenched her hands together and took a deep breath; as she did her muted trembling stopped and her shoulders relaxed a little. “I’ve been thinking about this morning, Dave. I think you owe it to yourself, and to the world, to detail your experiences with Saint Dubuque.”
“You want me to proselytize?” Dave said. “I didn’t think you liked Dubuque very much. Besides, I can’t see myself as a streetcorner preacher type.” Hell, his preferred social media site was Parryscope, the site made for lurkers, which had the opposite of the old Facebook rule and forbade you from using your real name. Dave had eleven accounts, one each for his various interests, and several hundred dollars in the site’s secretkitty, allowing him to use the site’s always-believable one-time guest accounts and fake mobile and laptop OSes as buffers, when he wanted to investigate something interesting and not attract spam or bacn.
“I was thinking of something less exposing,” she said, relaxing into his shoulder massage. “I’ve found several blogs and discussion boards that are collecting and collating stories and people’s experiences with the 99 Gods, to better help us understand them, but I haven’t seen many at all about Dubuque. I think it would be a wonderful idea if you wrote up your experiences and posted them. I’ll email you the safe URLs.”
Anonymous. Yes, this sounded like Tiff. “I could do that,” Dave said, distracted by his now more successful seduction. Twinges of wrongness, though, rattled around in his gut, a fear of embarrassing himself by exposing his private thoughts and emotions, perhaps. Exposing Dubuque’s secrets. He would have to think about this. “Is there a way I could post these without leaving a trail back to me, Tiff?”
“Of course. I can set you up,” Tiff said. “That’s a good idea. If there’s anything I can do to help you, just ask. I think this is important.” She stood and put her arms
around his neck, pressing up against him. Her eyes didn’t lose their wariness, though.
The wrongness didn’t leave his gut, which he didn’t appreciate. He focused on Tiff and her wary eyes, willing the wrongness inside him away.
Away it went.
With it went his sea of calm. He realized Steve and Mirabelle had been right. He should have gotten in Steve’s face earlier in the conversation. He should have played the ‘this saved my fucking life’ card, and played it hard. Everything else had just been frosting on the cake. He had served them the frosting but forgotten the cake.
He refused to let his rekindled anger ruin his mood, though. He bent down to kiss Tiff, but got her cheek instead of her mouth. He pulled back a bit, but Tiff didn’t let go of him. “Let’s find somewhere dark,” Tiff said, shifting one hand down to his lower back, and pulling him toward her. “I’ve got just the place.”
37. (Nessa)
“Hey!” Javier said, his beard shedding crumbs. They hadn’t yet managed to get him into the shower. Nessa looked up from her telepathic scanning as he put down his poker hand and concentrated, agitated. She kept half a mind on her scans, carefully investigating anything out of the ordinary that had ventured close by. Nothing.
“What’s up?” Ken said. He, Javier, Prep and Mary played poker around the small hotel table, the stakes improbably chocolate bars. Ken and Nessa’s bed sat pushed against the wall and two extra chairs extracted from Prep and Phil’s room crowded around the table with Ken and Nessa’s chairs in the area freed up by the bed. They had been in the city of Miami for three days, without a peep from the God of that name. Nessa wondered if Miami had figured out they were there and why, despite their mental shielding, and decided to avoid them. Alt said he could only track Miami if he stayed put and lost him when he moved. Today, Alt placed Miami in western Cuba.
Javier shook his shaggy mane and kept on concentrating. He had hooked up with some sort of telepathic message, and Nessa hoped one of the distant ones called; she had leaned on Javier to send messages to all of them before they left Indianapolis. Alt, bless his impossible talents, had given her a first-ever worldwide count of the distant ones, the Telepaths who worked at her, Ken’s and Alt’s level of power. The smallness of the number shocked Nessa. Alt had only found six distant ones with the requisite power level and enough Telepathy for Javier to contact (not that it took much). Four of the six had been located near Gods, perhaps associated with them. None had yet attempted any answer.
Normally the distant ones contacted her, but with a group of active Telepaths around her, Nessa felt cocky enough to prod them.
“There’s a God coming to visit us,” Javier said. “She wants to talk.”
Nessa looked over to where Alt sat on the floor in the corner reading, as did Ken. Alt shrugged and did his thing, a few moments of concentration on his part. “She’s legit, and not hostile,” Alt said.
“Damn,” Phil said. He looked up from his laptop computer and frowned. “You’re going to talk to one of the damned lunatic Gods, aren’t you?”
Phil hated the Gods with a passion. He didn’t like Nessa and Ken’s tacit alliance with Dubuque in the slightest.
“I don’t see a problem with talking to a friendly God,” Ken said. “Nessa?”
“Fine by me,” she said. She exercised the limits of her telekinesis to grab a Hachez 77% Dark Classic from Ken’s stack of ‘poker chips’ and took a large bite, eliciting a ‘hey’ from him. He shouldn’t complain. She had accidentally caught a glimpse of herself in a mirror yesterday, emaciated no more. She had bulked up to merely thin.
The God knocked at the door and Mary opened it. The God stood perhaps five three, Hollywood near-anorexic thin, with mousy brown hair and a below average bust line, but she had one of those precious-almost-beyond-belief faces that made Nessa want to weep. Her mental presence didn’t fit with any of the Gods Nessa had met before, intricate and highly complex.
“Come in,” Mary said. She and the God eyed each other for a moment, Mary from a head taller than the God. Mary’s tattoos, corded muscles, and assorted weaponry made an odd contrast to the God’s refined elegance. Mary backed off, chagrined for some unknown reason, and the God walked by. The God’s mind leaked thoughts like a frozen pipe and Nessa could pick out fifteen separate trains of thought, one of which involved active long-distance communications with a distant someone and a second train of thought filled entirely with terror-filled prayers to God Almighty.
Ken waved the God over to the couch and Nessa patted the seat next to her. “Folks, this is Celebrity,” Nessa said, and introduced everyone in the room to her. Celebrity sat, twice as wary as before. Nessa caught Nicole’s thoughts of instant love, echoed more strongly by Prep. The God had gotten through to their weakest mind-shielders. Nessa smiled and tossed Celebrity’s trick out of Prep and Nicole’s minds.
Celebrity chewed a perfect oversized pouty lip. Nicole thanked Nessa and Prep continued to fantasize lustily about Celebrity, now entirely of his own doing.
“I’m here as a favor to John Lorenzi. He has a message for you,” Celebrity said. Her voice was rich, musical, room-filling and attention grabbing. One of Celebrity’s mental tracks watched her own emotional state and commanded several of the God’s other mental tracks to forget any hope of chit-chat and get down to business. Nessa smirked appreciatively. This was nearly as much fun as a two sock conversation.
“Hey, we’re not enemies,” Nessa said. Her voice sounded like a steel file rubbed against old wood in comparison to the God’s. “Relax.” Ken frowned at Nessa’s words, afraid Nessa would give too much away. she sent to him.
Celebrity didn’t relax her delicately curved shoulders in the slightest. Or say anything. Or give any hint that she could pick up on telepathy.
Nessa laughed. “You’ve been listening to too many of John’s tall tales. I don’t always attack everyone I meet for the first time.” Especially since the group she, Ken and Alt had gathered had enough of the undefined but necessary mental whatsis to stabilize her sanity. “Just patronizing holier-than-thou bastards.”
Celebrity gulped. “My mind’s totally open to you, isn’t it, Nessa?”
Nessa nodded.
“Wouldn’t you be terrified in a situation like this?”
“No,” Nessa said. “I’d be pissed off and aggressive.”
Alt chuckled from the far wall. He hadn’t taken his eyes off of Celebrity since she had walked through the door. He hadn’t ever met a God in person before and he studied her closely with his deep telepathy. “You’re pissed off and aggressive in most situations,” Alt said.
Nessa glared at him. She didn’t appreciate him screwing up her negotiations. She gave up on the glare when the rest of the room exploded in laughter. Celebrity tried to shield her mind, not hopeless, as Celebrity’s mind shields were nearly as good as Alt’s had been when he had joined them, and she had her memories and deep emotions well shielded, but she didn’t have a clue about stray thought leakages and the emotions they carried.
Then again, neither did John.
Nessa sent to Ken and Alt.
Ken sent back.
Alt said.
Ken sent.
Nessa said.
“Who do you fear?” Nessa said, to Celebrity. Nessa skooched over several inches closer to the God. She held her hand about a half inch above the God’s arm, poised.
“Besides you?”
“You’re filled with fear. That’s your motivation, although my guess is there’s more behind your motivation than fear.”
Celebrity’s thoughts went blank, all the different thought tracks in her mind now off. Nessa felt a pang of jealousy; she would nearly kill to have that level of self-discipline. “I’m angry at those creatures who made me what I am,” Celebrity said.
“The Angelic Host?”
The God nodded. “Some of the other Gods call them that, and some don’t.
I have my doubts.”
“You fear what they’ve done to humanity by making the 99 Gods, and you see the other Gods as fellow victims,” Nessa said. “That’s an interesting viewpoint. I’d never thought of that.”
“What sort of victims can do miracles and alter reality?” Phil said. Celebrity’s eyes turned to him, and she had to lean forward to do so. Nessa grabbed the smooth curve of the God’s arm.
Love.
Nessa slammed a mental barrier down to block the God’s trick. She picked up a mental image from the God, who she had been in her previous life, and what she had looked like. Yes, Celebrity had cause to be annoyed at her creators. She had earned the name her creators had stamped on her, legit, without having to be a God.
“You’re sharing a room with a group of people with potent tricks of a dozen varieties, most of whom are victims of circumstances as far out of their control as the Gods are, several of whom were street people,” Celebrity said to Phil, her voice filled with anger. “You have no…”
“Stop,” Ken said, forceful but not angry. Celebrity stopped. “Phil, back off the anti-God rant for a few moments.” He turned to Celebrity. “I apologize. We’re of several opinions about the Gods.”
Celebrity extracted her arm from Nessa’s hand and forced herself to relax. “I understand,” she said. “John Lorenzi’s group is just as fractious.”
“I’ll bet,” Nessa said. “He’s still hiding under Atlanta’s defenses, and Atlanta’s not one to reduce fractiousness.”
Celebrity almost jumped off the couch. “You weren’t supposed to know where he is,” Celebrity said.
“Just like we’re not supposed to know about the spy magics he has on us,” Nessa said. “Forget about it. We have to spy on each other. If either of us went after the other…”
“But…” Celebrity shook her head. “He was sure you didn’t know. You’ve never mentioned anything.”
“We’re a group of Telepaths,” Ken said, smiling. “Half of what we say we don’t say, if you catch my drift.”
“Right,” Celebrity said. She leaked thoughts of what she planned to say to John on the subject, and Nessa smiled at the expletives. As she expected, John’s arrogance had led him wrong again. She doubted John could keep his group together much longer; his arrogance would walk them into another trap and get them all killed. “Which brings us to the reason I’m here. John’s picked up something with his spying he’s convinced you need to know about.”
“Such as?”
“Rather than explain, let me show you,” Celebrity said.
Alt sent.
Nessa grabbed Celebrity’s arm again. “Tell me what you’re about to do before you go and do it.”
“Image projection,” Celebrity said, and looked down at Nessa’s hand on her arm. “Not an attack.”
“Okay, I believe you,” Nessa said, which beat having to tell a God not to lie to a Telepath. Much more polite, in Nessa’s opinion.
The room darkened and a three dimensional image appeared in the center of the room. The image showed Dubuque and another man, one dressed in priestly vestments, walking down a deserted hallway. Light showed through the other man, and Nessa realized the other man was some sort of Godly astral projection.
“…are right, Verona, my conscience has been bothered recently,” Dubuque said. He wore a white on white suit and walked as if he owned the world.
“Tell me,” the other God, Verona, said. Nessa recognized the name; Verona held the same position in Europe as Dubuque did here in the United States, the chief European Territorial God. Unlike Dubuque, Verona didn’t publicly lead. He had never let his picture become public. Verona spoke with a noticeable foreign accent.
“A group of allies of mine has joined up with a man who is a mortal danger to me.”
“Interesting,” Verona said. The two men continued to walk in unison. Nessa saw three other people at the vision’s edges, and she realized a person provided the vision’s viewpoint, a Dubuque functionary with a Lorenzi spy eye on him. Lorenzi didn’t lack for brass; Nessa hadn’t had near enough nerve to peek into the lairs of any of the Territorial Gods. “How did you learn of this danger?”
“I prayed. The Angelic Host answered.”
“I see,” Verona said. “Be wary of the information they provide. Their interests are by necessity pure good, but this doesn’t mean their interests are fully congruent with ours.”
“Yes, you are correct,” Dubuque said. Nessa could sense his caution crabbing around his glow of power. He didn’t trust this Verona, not at all. The two Gods reached the end of the corridor and turned left into a security area, complete with an airport-style X-Ray scanner, likely left over from the place’s earlier life as a standard American Oklahoma City mega-church. They ignored the device and the guards, passed through a door and walked to a large stage. “I just can’t imagine them lying to me, save by omission. For instance, the man they pointed out to me may not be my worst mortal enemy, but he is one of the worst and definitely an enemy.”
“What makes him an enemy?”
“His Mission is to stop the Gods, starting at the top,” Dubuque said. The stage was padded and ornate, a soft place of dim lights. Beyond the stage lay a stadium or auditorium, the mega-church’s main sanctuary. The two Gods stopped in the edge of the stage and looked out over the empty hall. “His presence among these allies of mine is twisting them away from me, even as we speak.”
Verona grunted and shook his head. “This place isn’t my style,” Verona said, a moment later, as he looked out over the sanctuary. “I understand why you like it, though. Very American.”
“Yes, wonderfully so,” Dubuque said. He shook his head. “Verona, my friend, what do you know about Telepaths?”
Everyone in the room groaned.
Alt sent.
Ken sent back. Goose pimples covered Nessa’s arms.
“Some,” Verona said. “Most of them try to stay as far away from us as they can, out of fear. I have one on staff, a powerful mind reader, but apparently not one of the better Telepaths.” Verona paused, eyes vacant. “Through me he found the light of God, and I use him to probe the minds of those near me for loyalty problems. The abilities of the Telepaths pale before ours, of course, but they are different enough to be of some use.” Verona looked out over the auditorium, his eyes falling on the AV equipment. “I don’t believe the Telepaths pose any danger to us.”
“I didn’t think so, either, until I received the answer to my prayer,” Dubuque said. “Now I’m caught in a nasty dilemma partly of my own making.”
If he hadn’t thought Telepaths were any danger to the Gods, then why did Dubuque send Ken and her off after Miami and Atlanta? Nessa wondered. None of the possible answers to the question she posed pleased her.
“You know what you must do, then,” Verona said.
“I’m not convinced this is the proper thing to do.”
“Dubuque, you must act to defend yourself,” Verona said. “You’re the one who convinced me that establishing the City of God is God’s true work, the only true answer to the Host’s desire for us to do good. The world is ours if we do this. The entire world, the souls of all mankind, for us to save forever. My answer to you is this: now is no time to be squeamish, to worry about what prices we must pay to establish God’s Utopia.”
“This isn’t a matter of being squeamish,” Dubuque said. “It’s a matter of politics. I have allies, some whom I hold close to me, others whom I only loosely control. If I remove this Telepath from the equation, I’m going to be straining a relationship I’d worked hard to arrange and betraying an implied agreement with another God.”
“Ah,” Verona said. “So that’s what’s bothering your conscience. Betraying one’s word to another God is an immoral thing to do, but how implied was this agreement? If this was only an informal assumed agreement, this will not carry the stain of immorality.”
Dubuque
didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he waved his hand and turned to lead Verona off the stage and down into the sanctuary. “I hear you and understand, but I’m troubled. The God in question, however, didn’t balk when I sent the current companions of this newly revealed enemy into harm’s way. The cause was good, and through it I gave two known divine enemies a chance to show their true colors and damn themselves before all of us. If my allies succeed, against all odds, they will neuter two divine enemies who greatly risk God’s plan. If they fail and die, their deaths will give me ample justification among the other wavering Gods to bring one or both of these independent actors forcibly under my sway. My ally, who also understands the danger, considered the risk to them acceptable.”
Verona closed his eyes and thought for a moment. “I suggest then working indirectly,” Verona said. “You can arrange things that are effective, but will not reflect…”
The functionary whose eyes provided the vision stopped and began a conversation with another functionary, while Verona and Dubuque pushed on ahead and out of hearing range.
The images vanished and the motel room lit again.
“I wish I had more to show you, but that’s the gist of it,” Celebrity said. “Unfortunately, John’s spy isn’t with Dubuque a hundred percent of the time. We’re lucky we got this much.”
Nessa looked at Alt.
Alt sent back.
“Thank you,” Ken said, to Celebrity. Nessa echoed his words.
“Why me?” Alt said, facing Celebrity. His earlier hatred of the God had vanished.
“You sure it’s you?” Celebrity said. Alt nodded. “Interesting. John guessed you were the target, Nessa. I don’t know anything about you, Alt. None of us do. To John’s magic and to my Godly senses, you’re just another Telepath, incomprehensible and, well, limited. But going after you is only part of Dubuque’s falsity.”
Do I have to spell this out for them? Nessa heard in Celebrity’s mind. Surely they’re not stupid.
Nessa had the sudden urge to flatten Celebrity with a mind blast. She repressed her urges and waited for one of their smarter group members to see what Celebrity thought obvious.
Phil cleared his throat. “If I may, Nessa?”
Polite and everything. Amazed, Nessa said “Go on, Dr. Blackburn.”
“Dubuque, the bastard, admitted that he’d essentially sent you and Ken out to die when he sent you after Miami and Atlanta,” Phil said.
“He did?” Nessa said, still confused, and wondering why her socks hadn’t caught this, either.
Ken slammed his left fist into his open right hand, a teek amplified firecracker pop. “Fuck! Dammit, he’s right. We’re the ‘companions of this newly discovered enemy’ that Dubuque ‘sent into harm’s way’, expecting us to fail and die. I didn’t catch this at first, because Dubuque talks in circles and I couldn’t make out half of what Verona was saying because of his thick accent.” Nessa nodded. This answered her question about why Dubuque had sent them after Miami and Atlanta if he thought the Gods were so much more powerful than the Telepaths. He had sent them on their quest to die.
“There’s more,” Phil said. “Note that both Dubuque and Verona are going on about ‘Gods’. In public, remember, they’re ‘Living Saints’. That’s the thing Dubuque’s most famous for. As you heard, they’re not ‘Living Saints’ when they’re in private with their hair down. Even the words of the supposedly ultra-liberal religious man-of-God Living Saints aren’t worth their weight in horseshit. Or any of the damned Gods!”
“Present company excluded,” Nessa said.
Celebrity winked at her. Nessa smiled.
“We fear both Dubuque and Verona are turning into megalomaniacs, addled by the fact they allow themselves to be worshipped,” Celebrity said. “You have to break off your alliance with Dubuque.”
“Excuse me,” Nessa said, frowning. “Worshipped? Where did that come from? How do you know they’re being worshipped?”
“When John confronted Dubuque, he sensed a wrongness in him, but didn’t know what it was,” Celebrity said. “He found the same wrongness in Miami and several other Gods, including Verona. He sought the answer in prayer and found out they were being worshipped. That, and only that, was what gave him the moral courage to become an active magician again.”
“That’s no proof,” Ken said.
“That’s as good a proof as anything else we have,” Celebrity said.
“For that accusation, you need more,” Ken said. “That’s up there with incest and cannibalism, hun. You can’t expect us to change our allegiance based on some piece of Lorenzi innuendo.”
Nessa stood and walked over to the motel room wall by the poker table, pounded it and cursed in thought. She grabbed a half-eaten bar of chocolate and sucked on it while she pounded. Milk chocolate, not her favorite. Polluted with almonds, too, which she normally liked but not today. Ken, Celebrity, Alt, Mary and Phil yammered at each other about proof, how nobody could ever trust Lorenzi or Atlanta, and how stupid it would be to break off their alliance with the leading North American Territorial God. She ignored them and pounded on the wall.
Celebrity endured the argument for only a few minutes before she followed Nessa. “So what has you upset?” she asked. Ken and Mary argued, across the room, about going to Africa, Mary expounded on how defenseless they would be on the way, and about the difficulties of getting her arsenal through baggage claim. Mary still didn’t have a good feel for the level of tricks the Telepaths could play. Phil and Alt talked about ways they might get proof of Dubuque worshippers.
“The agreement with Dubuque was in return for his help in extracting a friend of mine who’s apparently been nabbed by Nairobi,” Nessa said. “We bring Miami and Atlanta to justice, Dubuque gets my friend released.”
“That’s a moot point,” Celebrity said. “You can’t succeed.”
“Why not?” Nessa said. “Ken and I fought off Miami once. Ken fought him off by himself earlier than that.”
“Uh huh,” Celebrity said. “John told me about your confrontations with Miami. All you did was give him incentive to get better at fighting. Which he’s done, according to John’s spy in Miami’s camp.”
“We’re better too,” Nessa said. “There’s more of us, too.”
“You’re not that much better, and you’re already mature Telepaths.”
“I’ve heard that argument before,” Nessa said. “Okay, I get the point. You Gods are still new at the God thing and have lots of room for improvement, while us Telepaths aren’t and don’t. So you think Dubuque had no intention of following through with his end of the agreement?”
“He’s not going to do a thing unless you miraculously find a way to subdue Miami or Atlanta for him,” Celebrity said.
Nessa caught Celebrity’s worried train of thought. “Don’t worry about us subduing you, Celebrity. No wonder you’re so worried about us.”
“I’m not a fighter,” Celebrity said. “I’m at your mercy, just as I feared I would be.”
Nessa nodded. “Well, yes. Coming here was foolish of you.”
“I drew the short straw,” Celebrity said. “The consensus was that you wouldn’t listen to any of the rest of us.”
“Probably true.” Nessa turned back to the room and mentally pushed, to grab everyone’s attention. Beside her, Celebrity winced in pain. “So what are we going to do?” Nessa said, speaking to the crowd. Uffie! How were they going to rescue Uffie now? Dubuque had sent her and Ken out to die. He never intended to help them rescue Uffie, and probably wouldn’t even bother if they captured both Miami and Atlanta.
“If we can’t go after the Gods directly, we need to do so indirectly,” Phil said. “Lucky for us we have a specimen here to play with.”
“I beg your pardon?” Celebrity said, arch and theatrical.
“A tissue sample,” Phil said. “Nessa gave hers away and we need another. I have some friends in the b
iotech industry, and if we can figure out what makes you Gods tick, we should be able to find a weapon to use against you.”
“I don’t have any tissue,” Celebrity said, expertly curling her lip. “We’re something else entirely different.”
“I’ve told him that, but he doesn’t believe me,” Nessa said, to Celebrity.
“Lots of men are like that,” Celebrity said, her voice quiet, eyeing Nessa and making a secret decision that didn’t raise Nessa’s hackles. “Come over here, you.”
The last she aimed at Phil, and to Nessa’s surprise, Phil came over as Celebrity desired. Nessa sent to Ken.
Ken sent back, then paused in thought.
“Hold out your hand,” Celebrity said to Phil. Phil did so. Celebrity held out her hand above his, and lowered one finger. A silvery black-speckled drop fell from her finger and on to Phil’s hand.
“Does that look like tissue to you?”
The silvery drop spread out on Phil’s hand, then thinned to almost nothing, totally encasing his hand. His mind shrieked in terror, amplified by Celebrity’s anger and physical contact.
“Nice kitty,” Nessa said to Celebrity. “Sheathe your claws a bit, though.”
Celebrity glared at Nessa for a moment; when she realized her trick didn’t affect Nessa, sighed and reformed her silver flesh into a ball on Phil’s hand. “Let me magnify the light,” Celebrity said.
A magnified image of Phil’s hand and the silver drop appeared in midair, between him and his hand. The image interior grew until it became grainy and fuzzy. It remained focused on Phil’s hand, right at the edge of the silver drop. “We’re down past the size of human cells, as I’m sure you recognized,” Celebrity said. “Note that whatever I’m made of is still amorphous and undifferentiated. All the way down to the limits of visible light, all us Gods are this way. We’re not human any more. Not even close.”
“Damn,” Phil said.
“What did you think we were?” Celebrity said.
“Genetically manipulated things. It’s the only thing that made scientific sense to me.” Phil paused. “I thought you were a warning about where humanity was going if we continued to mess around with human genetics.”
“If there’s any science behind us, it’s far beyond what we can do or understand now,” Celebrity said. “According to John and his research crew, we’re not even normal matter. We’re miraculous.”
“There are no miracles,” Phil said.
“Well, then, what are we?”
“I thought I knew,” he said, staring at the mottled silver drop on his hand. “Not any more. But ignorance does not imply miracles.”
Celebrity reached down a finger and absorbed the silver drop. “Don’t let yourself be blinded by what you think you know,” Celebrity said. “The entities behind us made us to be as much a challenge to the scientific establishment as we are to the political and religious establishments. They didn’t say so outright, but they certainly implied the challenge.”
“When I got a piece of Miami, he howled in pain,” Nessa said. “This didn’t bother you?”
“The Practical Gods, the Ideological Gods and the Territorial Gods are different from each other,” Celebrity said. “Atlanta and I have compared notes, and we’re both of the opinion there’s almost as much of a difference between the two of us as between the Gods and mortals.”
“Atlanta,” Ken said. “What do you think of Atlanta, pray tell?”
Celebrity smiled, catching Ken’s never-hidden interest in Atlanta. Nessa poked his mind so he would behave, but he ignored her mental jab. “She’s Dubuque’s opposite, in my opinion,” Celebrity said.
“How so?”
“Dubuque’s paradise-on-Earth City of God is a worthy goal, but based on our espionage I’ve become convinced that he doesn’t have much in the way of scruples about what he’s willing to do to accomplish his goal,” Celebrity said. “The spy-snippet I showed you isn’t even close to being the worst. He literally makes my skin crawl when he goes on about how it’s every Christian’s duty to force the non-religious out of government. He’s become a fanatic of the first order. On the other hand, Atlanta’s got scruples up the wazoo, but her goal is utterly insane.”
“What’s her goal?” Ken asked.
“A world-wide military dictatorship of the Gods, or, when she’s feeling magnanimous, the Gods as a world-wide police force with a monopoly on police and military power.”
“I can’t say I find her goal a bad one. Hell, without human limitations and emotions mucking it up, I’d prefer a top-down logical and dispassionate dictatorship to our current mess,” Ken said, reaffirming his Atlanta partisanship. “What’s your goal, Celebrity?”
Celebrity shook her head. “My lonely voice in the wilderness? I think the Gods should serve humanity. There’s no limit to the amount of good we can do if we apply ourselves to it. Only I haven’t yet met anyone who thinks my idea’s worth shit.”
“It’s impractical and wrongheaded,” Phil said. “You have such immense power, so how could you restrain yourselves to serve humanity? No one has that amount of restraint. At best it would be a nasty fiction, at worst, an active dystopia.”
“See?”
Nessa shrugged. “Your idea’s incomplete, Celebrity, but incomplete doesn’t mean wrong. Try being a Telepath for a while, you’ll understand.”
Celebrity furrowed eyebrows; she did understand. Nessa realized she had made progress with this one. She had won her over, at least a little. Now she just had to avoid blowing the job…
Alt cleared his throat. “Back to reality, folks. If we break off our alliance with Dubuque, he’ll turn on us, and based on what I understand about what passes for God-logic, he’ll be justified. We’ll have the biggest fish on the block after us. We can’t break off the alliance.”
“So what do we do?” Nessa said.
“We vanish,” Javier said. “Find a place to hole up and shield ourselves from their minds.”
“Won’t work,” Nessa said. “We can’t even shield ourselves from Lorenzi. The Gods’ll just find us miraculously.”
“I think we need to take this evidence to Portland and strike at Dubuque politically. Well, God-politically,” Ken said.
Nessa smiled at her husband. “I like your idea. Portland’s really opposed to people worshipping the Gods. If we can’t nudge her Telepath-like, we can sure nudge her with data, such as with this vision of yours, Celebrity.” There went her hope of rescuing Uffie.
“You want me to go with you?” Celebrity said. “If you haven’t noticed, Portland’s on the other side of the political fence, bosom buddies with Dubuque…and I’m the ultimate rebel, at least from a Territorial God’s perspective. I’m not living up to the role given to me, expressed in my name. Not being Gods, you’re going to have to trust me on this one, but the other Gods think I’m bad news.”
“I understand your fear,” Nessa said. “But we’re all at risk. Portland’s powerful. Despite what your crew thinks she’s never been under Dubuque’s sway. But that also means she’ll be able to do whatever she wants with us if we can’t befriend her. She might even be able to subdue the lot of us with a wink and a nudge and pack us off to Dubuque so he can enslave us. Going to her’s dangerous, but I think the attempt is worth the risk.”
Celebrity shook her head, as did Alt and Phil. “How can you contemplate such a thing so calmly?” she said. “You’re insane.”
Nessa nodded. “Too true. If you want, we can subdue you, so you can claim you were taken to Portland unwillingly.”
Nessa met Celebrity’s eyes. Celebrity looked like she might pop.
“No, if I’m going to do this, I’m going to do it honorably, for real.”
“Nessa?” Alt said. She looked over at him and blinked, her train of thought lost.
“Yes?”
“I have a hunch this won’t be enough,” he said. “I mean, all we have for evidence o
f Dubuque’s worshippers is a bunch of suppositions that aren’t even good enough to convince us. Portland likely has this evidence already, so she’s likely to just blow us off unless we can get proof that Dubuque’s lying to her about the one thing she cares about.”
Nessa rolled her eyes. “So… do you have a suggestion buried in there somewhere?”
Alt nodded. “Yes. I’d like to try an experiment,” he said. “Ken, Javier and I working together.”
“Oh, so you don’t need me anymore?” Nessa said. She crossed her arms and fumed. The nerve of them. Men! Any time you got two or more of them together in a group, they always took over. Hemph!
“We’re going to be using the internet,” Ken said.
“You can still do that? Haven’t the do-gooder Gods snuffed out the internet yet, protecting all those innocent fetuses from free porn and gazillions of smarmy cat pictures?” Ken shook his head. Nessa snorted. “Well, count me out, then.”
Ken sent.
Nessa sighed and waved her hands in the air. “Okay, go do whatever you’re going to do. What are you going to do, anyway?”
Ken sat down in front of Phil’s laptop computer and brought up Phil’s favorite browser, something called Chrome; Nessa looked away. Alt and Javier stood behind Ken. “We’re going to attempt to hunch our way to some testimonials, from Dubuque worshippers. Javier and Alt will verify if they’re truth or not.”
“According to Atlanta and Mr. Lorenzi, Dubuque’s people don’t blab. It’s one of Dubuque’s tricks,” Celebrity said.
“This is still worth a try, especially if Alt has a hunch this’ll work,” Nessa said. She grabbed another piece of chocolate and turned to Celebrity. “Want some?”
“Can’t. Diet,” Celebrity said. Then laughed. “Old habits. Give me some.”
“You can still eat?” Phil asked Celebrity.
“I can still do anything I used to be able to do,” she said, purring. “And more besides.”
Phil rolled his eyes. “Ignoring the cocktail party come-ons, have you ever given any thought to what this all means? I mean, if you’re not flesh at all, then how can you have human emotions? Emotions come from immensely complex neural networks, coupled with your genes, your experiences and your hormones. The biochemistry behind emotions is insanely convoluted. How in the hell does that work if your body isn’t real?”
“Well, not only do I have all the normal emotions, I have a few extras besides,” Celebrity said.
“It’s not…” Phil paused, blanched, and leaned back, a bit fearful. “You’re a simulation.” He turned to Nicole, who sat, quiet, watching the interplay. “Can you verify there’s a mind in Celebrity’s body? Not some fancy computer program-like thing?”
Celebrity crossed her arms and growled.
“Sure seems like a human mind in there to me, well, more than human, actually,” Nicole said. “Human mind and human soul. Trust me, I know souls when I sense them, dead or alive.” Nicole paused. “Did you know your Aunt Edie’s been haunting you? Something about a thank you note you forgot to write…”
Phil sat down on the couch and Nessa avoided thinking about what Nicole could abnormally sense.
“You see ghosts?” Celebrity said.
Nicole nodded. “Lots and lots. Trust me, you don’t want to know yours.” She turned to Phil. “You know, for a computer wizard or whatever you are, you don’t seem to have enough imagination or something.” Phil frowned. Nicole could do the crusty old granny with the best of them. “She’s not made of flesh, she has human emotions and then some, she’s got human thoughts and then some, and she can do miracles…you know, I’ll bet she’s a God, Phil. Not only that, but consider what this says about the talents of God Almighty if He could create something like her!” Nicole tapped her foot and frowned.
Phil blanched again and Nessa giggled. The day was being hard on Phil. He turned to her.
“All of you scare the crap out of me,” Phil said. “I mean, you Telepaths all play with minds. How certain are you that this isn’t some other Telepath playing with your minds and all of our minds to make us think these Gods are real?”
“Come on, Phil,” Nessa said. “For a Telepath to be able to do any such thing, they’d need to be able to send thoughts all the way around the world and create illusions and mental control at long range. Nobody can, and if they could, they’d already run the place already.”
Voices giggled in the back of Nessa’s mind. She sighed. “Worse, they’d need to be able to make these God illusions act independently, a trick far beyond the capabilities of any human. The only ones we know who can do such tricks are Gods, like Celebrity here, which leads you nowhere.” The voices in Nessa’s mind acknowledged her point.
“Glad I’m not just chopped liver here,” Celebrity said.
“That isn’t the only thing bothering me,” Phil said. “Those damned hunches Ken and Alt seem to live by are the worst. It doesn’t make any sense that all you’re doing is seeing the present, like you say.”
Nessa looked over to Ken, Alt and Javier to make doubly sure they were too occupied in their activities to hear Phil’s question. She grabbed Phil and Celebrity and brought all three of their heads close together. “Don’t tell anyone, but I’m convinced there’s more to hunches than seeing the present. Most is seeing the present, but some kind of spooky shit is coming in from somewhere else as well.” She paused. “No more questions, though. Us Telepaths really don’t like to think about whatever’s behind our own tricks and the like. We’re just not curious enough or something. I think this is a hunch about whatever’s behind us Telepaths. Yah know, something dangerous, at least to our sanity, and likely to all of yours, as well.”
“Got a good one,” Ken said, almost an hour later. “Listen to this, from one ‘Denver Dave’: ‘At my shrine, when I pray, Dubuque’s eyes become my everything. Praying to God Almighty never felt so good.’ He goes on and on; I’ll read the whole letter to you if you like. He’s definitely a worshipper. Dubuque cured him of some disease or other, too.”
“Something is strange about this man,” Alt said. “I’m not sure what. He’s important, though.”
“Damned toot’n,” Javier said. “He’s like Phil and Mary, but he’s got something else, too. I don’t know how to explain.”
“If you blank the screen you can sync me in,” Nessa said, holding up a hand to quiet the chatty and still nervous Celebrity, more nervous now from Phil’s logic and analysis. Nessa wasn’t happy, either; Phil kept bringing up things she didn’t want to think about. “I’ve got a lot of experience with other minds.”
Ken blanked the screen. he sent.
Nessa fell into the group telepathy, flowed over to their target, and laughed. Lust, lust lust. She had run into him many times before, in her mind. He was a world-class pain in the ass, one of her favorite types.
Alt sent.
Ken sent.
How annoying. Nessa focused their linked minds on their target, poking their way around the edges of Denver Dave’s mind, picking up his leaked thoughts. For some reason, he thought some damned ‘anonymizer’ trick his bitch wife gave him prevented them from tracing his posting back to him. Fool. He didn’t understand Telepaths, nor the Gods or the magicians. However… she sent.
Alt asked.
Alt’s telepathy reeked of exasperation.
she sent. She would save this one for later, as her insight didn’t figure into their discussion.
Javier sent.
Nessa sent back. She didn’t like the evidence, as truth always hurt, but they had enough now to convince her Dubuque had worshippers screwing with his mind.
No way around this logic: Dubuque was as much their enemy as Miami, if not more so.
Which meant, oh shit on a shingle!, they were already up against the big dog, uh, big God. The threat of violence continued to haunt the edges of her mind. She had a hunch D
ubuque would strike at them quickly once they turned away from his mission. Bad bad bad.
Ken refused to answer.
“I guess this is settled,” Nessa said aloud. “Next stop, Portland.” She turned to Celebrity. “Okay, now.” Celebrity furrowed her eyebrows. Nessa decided to try being polite. “Pick us up and fly us to Portland, please, Celebrity.”
Celebrity sighed. “Flying really isn’t in my arsenal. I’d have a hard time flying your group across the room. Unless you want to trust air travel, we’re grounded. I can get us a tour bus, though.”
Tour bus. Figures, Nessa thought. She looked at Ken, who shrugged. “Bad memories aside, I think we can live with a bus,” he said. Celebrity started making suggestions and grabbing cell phones, working on lining up the tour bus she had promised them. From the tone of Celebrity’s voice, Nessa suspected she would be on a bus in a few hours.
The parallels to the past bothered Nessa a lot. Thoughts of unavoidable violence dancing in her head, she excused herself for a short sock conversation someplace private.