“Thus elevated in his own opinion, Apollonius, still preaching virtue by the way side, set out for Babylon, after visiting the cities of Antioch, Ephesus, etc., always attracting immense crowds. As he penetrated further toward the remote East, his troops of followers fell off, until he was left with only three companions, who went with him to the end. One of these was a certain Damis, who wrote a description of the journey, and, by the way, tells us that his master spoke all languages, even those of the animals. We have men in our own country who can talk “horse-talk” at the races, but probably none so perfectly as this great Tyanean.” – P.T. Barnum, Humbugs of the World
“Adrenaline, breakfast of champions.”
38. (Atlanta)
Atlanta didn’t know her location, but stopped anyway. A ginger swirl lay below her, slowly coiling in on itself. Embedded within the agglomerating swirl lay albescent flow lines, citron sparks and slate gray blobs. A thin cloud of saffron translucence flowed achingly slow by her, highlighted by aquamarine dots that enlarged from nothing to the size of her thumbnail before vanishing with a noiseless pop.
Tingles of relaxation surfed in waves across Atlanta’s body and mind, an awe she hadn’t expected at the unnatural world of the projection. Dimly experienced subsonic rumbles passed without notice or origin. Smells of cinnamon and cardamom mixed with a faint taste of pine on her tongue. The inverted scene within the world of projection: light below, dark above, mimicked that of airborne urban nighttime, save for the excessive brilliance. The flat black featureless ceiling over this unnatural world – for unnatural it felt, as it had none of the clean lines of the mixing of oceans, the layering of rock, or the fractal explosion of living nature – was but the backdrop, not a thing in and of itself. Nothing more than a lack; no stars, planets, sun or moon to guide the way.
When she learned the projection technique, self-taught from descriptions and observations of the other Gods, she hadn’t expected beauty. Nor did she know if any of the other Gods experienced the world of projection as she did, as none of the others who knew it would now speak of it to her. At best they were polite. At worst? Well, she did not want to think about the worst.
The ache, the emptiness within her grew day-by-day. She sensed the void within as a call, now unmistakable, to return to the fold of the other Gods. Even this unnatural video-game-like place settled her better than reality. Terrifying.
A jaundice-tinted flow of pinwheels erupted from below and to the left and forward, expanding as a dome set against the glowing roan floor of the world. A touch of wind confused Atlanta, face on and yet a tug forward on her lower legs. Titian streamers of perfectly formed hexagons sprayed into view from her left, angled down, and vanished unnaturally into the ginger swirl below her. A snippet of noise crackled in her right ear, which for a moment she decoded into an advertisement for some form of golf club that cured hooks and slices, then returned to the noise from which it arose, before it vanished altogether in a palpable absence of sound.
This, her current location, situated her at one of the special places within the world of projection. She understood now the intensity of Boise’s offhand and cryptic comment about projection, that it by itself proved the worth of all the trauma of being a God. The existence of beauty in the world of the Gods thrust upon her involuntarily served to calm her. The overwhelming despair she had fought over the past weeks eased. Yet, she knew that if she stayed here simply to admire and enjoy, she weakened her own Mission, a Mission that grew more tattered by the day. The palpable irony of the situation depressed her; she, the God most in tune with Integrity, Rapture and Congregation, now found herself so bereft of them. Her realization served to drain her will and her desire to act. Nor did Dana’s happy commentary about the self-limiting nature of the Gods and their actions buoy Atlanta, as Atlanta had self-limited the most.
From the back and the left, a wave of asymmetrical straw and fuchsia toroids dimpled with ebon arcs carved randomly into their surface danced toward her, at eye level. These held little beauty, so Atlanta turned and pushed forward, willing her projection to move, which it did at a rate she knew she could use to circle the globe in an hour. It amused her to wonder at, and boggle Dana with, the thinness of the world of projection, less than a mile tall, and incongruent to the true Earth. She had exited the world of projection once at its black roof and found herself below cumulus clouds; she had entered the world of projection on a sub-orbital God-hop a hundred and twenty miles above the Earth, and found herself in the heightwise middle of the world of projection. Exiting from the gummy floor of the world of projection inevitably landed one in a building, often a wildly incongruent translocation. If one wanted to match the true contours of the Earth, for purposes of navigation, one stayed where Atlanta now hovered, about four-fifths of the way up from the bottom of the place to its top.
Atlanta extended herself and dropped out of the world of projection. The late afternoon sky of Santiago stretched above her, and below her, a hundred feet below, squatted a forty-year-old unaesthetic wreck of an apartment building, all Socialist Modern and ugly. She flew her projection down toward the ground and off to the north, a difficult piece of work, as moving a projection at faster than a brisk run required the world of projection. Miami, the only Territorial God who would speak to her at the present, dealt with his personal business of the day from the Cuban town’s administrative center.
The dinginess of the town, of any town, drowned her happiness and returned her to the world of humanity. People milled about, doing their jobs, chatting, moving along the street in their own self-made streams. They ignored Atlanta, her projection invisible, which allowed Atlanta to flog reality to push her projection slowly across a square, through a building wall and into a long narrow room with a tall ceiling, lined with antiquated filing cabinets. The clacking of manual typewriters filled her ears, from elsewhere in this benighted backwards place.
There she waited until Miami finished terrorizing a so-called hero of the revolution, who in Atlanta’s opinion should have been in a nursing home somewhere. The world ached. She feared she would never have the time to experience the pleasure of a simple slow crossing of a beautiful area of the world of projection. She contemplated Dana’s recent chippiness and her own unhappiness at how badly the conflict with Dubuque had progressed. She worried about the fact that even Lorenzi’s damned throw-away ideas seemed more intelligent than her best-laid plans.
Even her most loyal subordinates now questioned the wisdom of Atlanta’s own long-term plans.
The center of her apprehension revolved around what she had learned from Celebrity. The difference between Celebrity’s abilities and her own boggled her mind and undercut her most basic assumptions. The more she analyzed those differences, the less she liked the results: the Host had created the Gods maimed, as artificially limited and blinkered as a car in an auto race, and maimed they remained. The Territorial Gods might be Indy cars and the Practical Gods stock cars, all with the illusion of improvement built into them, but the respective rules and limitations hemming them in were so severe as to make their divinity patently artificial. All they could do was circle the track and turn left.
Atlanta couldn’t now think of her own putative divinity as anything but artificial. She couldn’t even think of herself as a demigod; at best she served as some damned tarted-up grade VI civil servant in some divine bureaucracy, a pathetic mockery of an Angel with the semblance of a physical body.
She pushed through the wall as Miami walked out of the corner office, surrounded by his entourage of tricked-up mortals. “So, when are you going to stage the revolution?” Atlanta said. Cuba, if anyplace, needed a revolution, a good purge. Rivers of blood.
Miami turned to her and shooed away flunkies, who marched off in Ranger file. “Damn if I know. I’m still having a hard time seeing how I’m going to do it without causing utter anarchy. There are times I feel like I’m swimming upstream.”
“I thought you didn’t
mind anarchy.”
“I’m tolerant of it in moderate amounts,” Miami said, tugging on his tie and straightening his suit coat. “Societal collapse would harm my Mission. Only, how do I do anything about this sucking shithole without causing a total social collapse? What’s worse, the status quo harms my fucking Mission just as much.”
Atlanta nodded.
“So, Atlanta, do we have an agreement?”
“Yes,” she said. Time for business. “Lorenzi and his crew are willing to explain what has them agitated, in return for the right of passage through South Florida and the Keys.”
“Puta! I still don’t like it that they won’t tell me why they want right of passage,” Miami said. Miami groused. He complained continuously, as far as Atlanta could figure. “But with the damned Telepaths out of the way, my former objections are gone. I’ll take the information.”
“I figured you would,” Atlanta said. She figured that the reason Lorenzi hadn’t been willing to tell anyone his plans was sheer embarrassment that he had anything to do with something so damned unlikely to succeed. “They’re related, by the way.”
“The reason why Lorenzi’s coming to Florida or the information?” Miami strutted. Even as relaxed as Atlanta had ever seen him, Miami strutted. She realized he had grown to where he could even draw power from his bullying.
She was disgusted.
“The information,” Atlanta said. They walked by the elevator, not working, and went down the stairs to the ground floor. Normals scattered, as Atlanta had given up masking herself, and anyone with better than shit-for-brains ran from foreign Gods. “Although Dubuque’s the reason why the Telepaths are after our blood, it turns out he was setting up the Telepaths as well.” She went on to tell Miami the whole story of Lorenzi’s spy in Dubuque’s headquarters and some of what the spy had learned. By the time she finished the story, they had gotten into Miami’s flying bus and taken off. Atlanta still wondered what had driven the God to imbue divine powers, albeit a limited set of them, into an inanimate object instead of a person. His trick did allow one of his non-enhanced flunkies to fly the damned thing, though.
The trick with the bus also made Atlanta wonder what other objects Miami imbued with divine power. Such as weapons. Miami had probably tried weapons first. She didn’t want to be hit with the results, as an enemy, until she had some of her own.
“One of your group told the Telepaths about Dubuque’s game, didn’t they? That’s why they fled my city,” Miami said.
“Yes.”
Atlanta watched as Miami worked out the implications. If it had been Miami in charge of Lorenzi’s operation, he (as Lorenzi) would have charged the enemy God a bundle to get the annoying Telepaths out of said ‘enemy God’s’ city. “There’s an implied favor in this,” Miami said. “Lorenzi’s a devious bastard.”
“That he is.”
“No alliance, though. I will grant him more leeway to mess around in south Florida.”
“Mr. Lorenzi will be saddened, but not upset, by your again turning down an alliance. I correctly predicted your response and braced him ahead of time,” Atlanta said.
Miami shrugged. “I owe yah one, too, personally,” Miami said. “Let me tell you about Dubuque’s offers and threats.” Miami went on to relay Dubuque’s communications with him, or, at least, the ones Miami was willing to share. Miami’s communications with Dubuque matched Atlanta’s experience, with one exception.
“He offered you the International Space Station?” Atlanta said, with a shake of her head. The offer didn’t make sense.
Miami nodded. “That and Cape Canaveral, which is your territory. I asked why, but didn’t get an answer. The best I can guess is that Dubuque wants some God, not the mortals, in charge of the place. Real screwy.”
“There’s a lot more going on with that God than we know about,” Atlanta said. “Beyond Dubuque’s plans to bring us in line and his desire to set up this City of God mirage of his, we know he’s got a bitchload of supporting schemes. Unfortunately, we’ve only managed to figure out a few of those. Any help in figuring out Dubuque’s plans would be greatly appreciated.”
“Well, count me out for now,” Miami said. “I did figure out a solution to the problem of the Seven Suits, though.”
“Really?”
“Yes. Let them buy you off,” he said, and smiled. “They appear to think monetary agreements are more binding than any other.”
“Then they are fools,” Atlanta said. She wondered if she would fall so far as to allow the Seven Suits to buy her off. Not yet, anyway.
Miami nodded. “I’m still building a power base in my own territory, and I’m a long way away from being able to project any sort of political, social or military power outside it. I can’t afford to mess with Dubuque.”
“When he gets around to you, it’ll be too late,” Atlanta said.
“Perhaps,” Miami said. “I’ve got a few other schemes going which might help.”
Miami still refused to let Atlanta store a projection in his territory, which would allow her to flick into it without the travel time issue, so she dissolved her projection and instantly went back to her own body. Night had fallen, and across the room in her penthouse office overlooking downtown Atlanta, Dana sat at Atlanta’s desk and typed on her keyboard, her face illuminated by the soft glow of her LCD screen. She hadn’t bothered to turn on the lights.
“How’d everything go?” Dana said, when Atlanta stood up from the couch where her body had been resting.
“Fine,” Atlanta said. “Miami agreed to the proposal, and everything’s worked out. Anything come up while I was gone?”
Dana shrugged and stretched. “Nothing major. I’ve managed to prove that some of the world’s larger corporations, including the top six automobile makers, are paying protection money to the Suits to keep them off their backs.” Atlanta shook her head, disgusted. With all the time they spent on the Dubuque issue, they had little left to devote to the problem of the Suits. “Oh, and as we suspected, the new chief of police in Raleigh-Durham is a Dubuque plant.”
“I’ll put him on the list.”
Dana pursed her lips and looked away. The list consisted of people to intimidate or otherwise neutralize. Dana didn’t like either, but at least she didn’t give Atlanta the same amount of grief she had once given her, back when Atlanta had been killing Dubuque’s plants.
“How are Velma and Lara doing?” Atlanta said.
“Their home group” Dana still hesitated in using the ‘Indigo’ word “is working on another location move, to yet another of their hidden strongholds, and when they’re done, they’d like you to bless it with your protections. Velma’s decided to ditch Athens and move here” to the city of Atlanta “so she can be more open about her miraculous healing. If you don’t mind, she wants to donate what proceeds she garners to various Georgia women’s shelters.”
“No problem. Lara?”
“She had some sort of nervous breakdown while you were gone, and she’s off being tended to.” Dana took a deep breath. “I think I may have triggered it.”
“What did you do?”
Dana blushed. “Lara was venting about some incomprehensible relationship she has with some guy, who’s the father of her only child, and how he got all verbally shut down and paranoid and cutting after you 99 showed. After she said that I gave her a hug.”
Atlanta winced. “She’s a lezzie, she’s unattached, and she’s had a crush on you since she first laid eyes on you.” Yup, Dana had triggered Lara’s breakdown. You would think someone of Lara’s real age would be able to cope, but, given Atlanta’s own pre-Apotheosis relationship contretemps, she had quite a bit of sympathy.
“Huh? But, uh, the guy, Grover…”
“He’s her ‘one guy who doesn’t break her sexual identity’ exception,” Atlanta said. Dana shook her head, uncomprehending. “You’ve never run into that before?”
Dana, the
utterly naïve, shook her head again.
“We’ve got to get you laid, just so you don’t mess up our allies,” Atlanta said.
“Sorry,” Dana said, eyeballing ceiling. “I just don’t understand why we all can’t come with owners’ manuals for all these silly sexual issues.”
Uh huh, and getting Dana laid would take mountains being moved. Atlanta gave up on her professional virgin for the moment. “I’m off to visit Lorenzi and pass on the news,” Atlanta said. She could only run one projection at a time, and she couldn’t yet run her real body while she ran a projection. Worse, she suspected that the Mission hits she kept taking would soon rob her of the ability to run any projections. That would make life far more difficult.
She hated to be on the short end of the stick. Unfortunately, nothing she had tried to improve the situation had worked.
She feared that she would soon have to make some very bad choices, all to the tune of Dubuque’s distant laughter.
39. (Atlanta)
Lorenzi’s men packed the venerable safe house. Tables cluttered what had once been an elegant living room complete with real wooden floors. A man in a brown friar’s habit left over from the Dark Ages stared engrossed at the three giant flatscreens arranged on the table in front of him and occasionally moved a mouse and typed numbers. A man in an expensive business suit sat in an easy chair in the far corner and stared fixedly at a hand mirror while his other hand held a sharp-edged small rock. A man in sweats sat on the floor next to him doing the same. Two men in blue jeans sorted through papers, photos and reports piled high on another table. A couple more men typed on laptops at a different table. A small man with tattoos down his exposed arms sat on the end of the couch and said the rosary. Three different crucifixes hung on the walls, the Catholic sort, with Jesus on them, not the Protestant empty cross Atlanta grew up with. Two cheese plates, a fruit tray, three bowls of chips and a mostly eaten bowl of queso lay scattered around, and Atlanta smelled some sort of pastry baking in the kitchen. From upstairs, she heard the sound of multiple men snoring, and the chatter of more men still awake. All men, all white, and all loyal to Lorenzi. She wondered where he found them all.
Lorenzi wove his bulk through the crowded living room. “Cowabunga,” he said, deadpan, and less enthusiastic than Atlanta hoped. “Next week, south Florida. Today, I have a horde of recorded spy sessions from my Worcester guy I’d like you to look at. I think something funky is going on, and I’m wondering if you’ll come up with the same conclusion as I did.”
“I can look,” Atlanta said. It galled her to realize she had become Lorenzi’s flunky, despite the substantial benefits she gained from the association. Lorenzi now had over two hundred people working on his various schemes and operations. Without her support, though, he would have a hard time keeping himself and his number two, Reed, afloat. He had become a fixture in Atlanta’s Mission, and if and when Atlanta wanted to use it, he had given her power over him, a form of power she suspected Lorenzi didn’t understand.
“Oh, and one other thing, we lost the Telepaths,” Lorenzi said. He eased himself down into a dining room style chair across from the table with the man with three monitors. “Someone’s covering them.”
Atlanta crossed her arms across her chest. “What do you mean ‘lost’, John?”
“We don’t know where they are any more.”
“Any idea who did this?”
“An unknown Ideological God,” Lorenzi said. “Definitely not one of the Seven Suits.”
More interference to unfuck. Atlanta paced the small open space between three monitor man and the couch. “I don’t like this.”
“Neither do I,” Lorenzi said. “I’m upping the pressure on a lot of things right now. My instincts say something’s up. I want to find out what.”
“You think Worcester’s involved?”
“Take a look for yourself.”
Atlanta nodded. She wanted those damned Telepaths on her side and following her orders, one of her medium term plans. They had so much potential, yet all they did was dick around and waste time, consumed by existential angst. She sat down at the other end of the couch from the man saying the rosary and picked up one of the magic imbued spy-eye connections from the coffee table. Three boxes of them sat on the coffee table, plus a dozen or so loose, all looking like small jagged rocks. In one of the boxes, the rocks were all carefully packed in tissue paper, as if someone somewhere couldn’t imagine something so valuable flying loose during shipping. The packers of the other two boxes seemed to have had more faith in the sturdiness of rocks.
Atlanta picked up one of the loose rocks, noted the information on the carefully taped-on label, and flashed through its contents. Lorenzi’s new magicians could rake up hundreds of hours of information with ease, but neither they nor Lorenzi had any means of quickly analyzing the information. Nor would Lorenzi’s baby magicians be useful in any sort of fight; Lorenzi-style magic didn’t appear to be well suited for combat to start with, and the uses of his magic in combat took years to master, according to her analysis.
Atlanta had no problem quickly analyzing the information, not with the multi-track mind common to all the Gods.
The fifth spy eye she picked up proved to be one of the ones looking in on the Telepaths, or should have, if it still worked. The information record covered the point where someone had blocked the spy eye, and contained the flavor of the power they used. The divine power blockage did reek of an Ideological God’s willpower. Atlanta compared the flavor to her mental database of divine power use, and got a hit.
“John, I’ve identified the Ideological God who’s covering the Telepaths,” Atlanta said.
Lorenzi rushed over, still munching on a chocolate chip cookie straight from the oven. “Who? How?”
“Don’t worry about the how,” Atlanta said. “The God behind it is Freedom.”
“So Freedom’s been suborned to Dubuque? Not good,” Lorenzi said. “He was one of the neutrals I thought we might be able to recruit.”
Atlanta shook her head. “I think your earlier analysis was correct. He’s doing this to protect the Telepaths, and there’s no Dubuque taint on his protections at all.”
“Why would he protect them?” Lorenzi said. “We don’t have any record of him contacting them.”
“Well, they are Telepaths,” Atlanta said. John’s magical spy tricks couldn’t pick up telepathy. “Another possibility is that Freedom has his own plans and plots in motion. Remember, he was one of the public Ideological Gods who vanished after my confrontation with Dubuque.” Virtue, Faith and Charity, three Ideological Gods who had been public and active in America practically from the day the 99 appeared, had also vanished. Atlanta doubted those four were allies, as Faith and Freedom appeared to be active competitors. Still, their Ideological instincts might have led them to such an improbable alliance, if they figured out the danger of Dubuque early on.
More likely they had determined she was the danger, though. Her mind, no, her Mission, kept trying to convince her they weren’t the bad guys. That bit of mental dissonance colored all her thoughts.
“The second makes the most sense to me,” Lorenzi said. “In Freedom’s media interviews, he’d emphasized his support of pluralism, tolerance and democracy, though more from the Joe Six-Pack end of things than the de Tocqueville end.” Freedom’s love of anarchy and his propensity to dress like a cowboy had led Atlanta to dismiss Freedom as a potential ally. Joe Six-Pack, though? There were times when she worried about this antiquated flake’s connection to reality. As far as she knew, and not counting the Indigo people, who were only loaners, Lorenzi didn’t have any women in his organization, which annoyed her a lot. He also didn’t have a single Protestant, atheist or agnostic among them. Most of his men were Catholics, but he also had Eastern Orthodox Christians, Moslems and Jews among his crew. She didn’t know why, or care. “I think he’s protecting the Telepaths from the other Gods
. Can you locate them?”
Atlanta shook her head. “I tried. Nothing.”
“What’s your opinion about what Worcester’s doing?”
“I’m not done looking through the spy eye recordings yet.”
Lorenzi nodded and went over to one of his magicians who had raised his hand, politely attracting attention. The politeness didn’t surprise her. She wished Lorenzi’s team possessed more discipline, though; they tended to work short hours backed up by never-ending bull sessions.
Atlanta picked up another spy eye and flashed through its contents. Then another. Slowly she emptied the boxes. After she analyzed the first dozen of the Worcester spy-eye records, each holding four hours of data, she started to pick up on several patterns. She continued to analyze, to check her hypothesis. After seven more, Dana’s projection awakened, and Dana rushed from the upstairs closet where she stored her projection to Atlanta’s side. Male eyes turned from their business to watch.
“Atlanta, we’ve got a problem,” Dana said. “Nine of Dubuque’s planted operatives woke up. They’re all doing the same thing, agreeing to local media requests for interviews.”
“Fuck,” Atlanta said, quietly. She and Dana had suspected something like this might happen after Lorenzi had convinced her to do some good deeds in public. Public opinion about her had improved, especially after her public repairs of the I-24 bridge over the Tennessee River, previously closed due to incipient failure. The repair, and several other public miracles, had significantly buoyed her Mission, and she didn’t want to lose the hard-won benefits now.
Reed had noticed Dana’s projection awakening and followed her down the stairs. “What’s wrong?” Atlanta still hadn’t found a way to hide her emotions from Reed, his trick too subtle for her to stop. Telepaths worked that way, it appeared: the more subtle the trick the more difficult to block. Atlanta found her trust of the Telepaths as a class diminishing by the day.
“I’ve got to go; my territory’s under attack by Dubuque,” Atlanta said, and gave details. In response, Reed whistled. The room quieted and he waved at Lorenzi, who was just reappearing from the bathroom.
“Everybody, pay attention,” Reed said. “Atlanta, if you would, could you explain what’s going on?”
Atlanta explained, while wondering what Reed had seen to convince him to push the panic button.
Lorenzi shook his head. “It’s a distraction,” he said. “Dubuque wants you occupied elsewhere.”
“This isn’t something I can ignore,” Atlanta said. She wouldn’t have a territory left if she didn’t neuter these Dubuque-sponsored infiltrators.
“I understand, Atlanta,” Lorenzi said. “We need you back here as soon as possible, though, with what’s going on with the Telepaths.”
“Wait,” Dana said. “What’s going on with the Telepaths now?”
Atlanta dropped the information directly into Dana’s mind. Dana shivered for a moment and held up her hand.
“No no no. Let’s look at this again, please, both of you. Atlanta, this isn’t a distraction to keep you away from helping John. I’m afraid it’s a distraction to keep you from helping the Telepaths,” Dana said.
Atlanta merged her emotions into Dana’s, which allowed her to follow along with her chief of staff’s expert analysis. Dana was correct. The Telepaths would soon walk into something that would normally attract Atlanta’s attention. “This implies Dubuque’s going to make an attempt on them, in my territory,” Atlanta said. The most obvious way to attract her personal attention.
“The Telepaths shouldn’t be in your territory, unless they’re being more dilatory than normal,” Lorenzi said.
She had no problem believing they might be more dilatory than normal. “What were their plans?” She knew the Telepaths had left Florida after Celebrity dropped the record from Lorenzi’s Dubuque spy on them, but she hadn’t been told what, if anything, they had decided to do next. She expected them to find a bit of neutral territory, perhaps Memphis again, and sit down and dither.
“They were going to talk to Portland to present our evidence of Dubuque’s chicanery and some evidence they uncovered proving, finally, to them, about Dubuque having worshippers,” Lorenzi said. “They’d chosen to use ground transportation and they should be somewhere west of Denver by now.”
“They’re going to be attacked before they reach Portland’s territory,” Dana said. “I’m guessing Dubuque’s worried about Portland’s reaction to the worshipper evidence, because if the Telepaths come up with something real, Portland will turn against him, I have no doubt. He can’t afford to lose Portland. They’re forcing his hand.”
They had long since figured out Dubuque didn’t want to start any rough stuff, despite Verona’s prodding.
“I’ll also bet he’s not at all happy about what might happen if Portland allies with us,” Dana said.
That, Atlanta guessed, would only happen after hell froze over. Something more had to be going on here. She growled in frustration.
“Too many guesses,” Lorenzi said. “Insufficient information. This still could be an attempt to keep you from helping me, Atlanta.”
“Do you have anything else urgent besides this set of spy records?” Atlanta said.
“No,” Lorenzi said.
“In that case, I can give you a preliminary analysis,” Atlanta said. “I was just doing a double-check to make sure there wasn’t anything in the spy records to contradict what I’ve come up with.”
“Go to,” Lorenzi said.
“You were right about Worcester. Despite her protests, she has worshippers, she knows it, and she’s comfortable with them. It’s secret societies.”
Lorenzi nodded. Dana and Reed turned to her, interested in an explanation. “Worcester worship is spreading through the Ivy League and Prep School sororities, fraternities and school-based secret societies. She’s funneling all of her divine miracles through them, or, at least, the ones she’s not providing up front to Dubuque’s people when they come by to ask her for support. She knows how many Mission benefits she can get from this style of support, and she’s handing out the miracles as fast as she can. She’s of the opinion she’s too strong willed for worshippers to mess her up.”
“She’s joined the addicted addled, then,” Reed said. Atlanta nodded.
“There’s more, which may relate to what’s going on with the Telepaths,” Atlanta said. “I think Dubuque’s using Worcester’s secret society support as a cut-out. I’ve found several examples of requests for miracles of protection versus Telepaths and miracles of protection from other Gods, all requests from charity workers. Charity workers needing protection from Telepaths and other Gods?” Her audience nodded with her. “If my analysis is correct, Dubuque’s got operatives of his, working outside the law, supported by Worcester. If I’m right, if his flunkies’ activities blows up in their faces or becomes public, it’s going to trace back to Worcester, not him.”
“You’re right, Atlanta,” John said. “This supports Dana’s idea that the Telepaths are at risk of being nabbed.”
“This is more than a risk. This is a certainty, and they’re in a lot more danger than just ‘nabbing’,” a new voice said. Atlanta turned and found another projection standing beside her. Boise.
Lorenzi paled. “How’d you get in here?”
Atlanta’s Integrity plummeted, as keeping other Gods’ projections out of Lorenzi’s HQ was her responsibility. Or had been, until Boise had simply ignored her defenses.
“Desire,” Boise said, which she translated as: ‘I can teleport projections, and can do so right through your protections’. “I’ve decided to formally ally with your group, Mr. Lorenzi. You want me, I’m in.”
Lorenzi froze for a moment as he digested the news and Atlanta’s Integrity recovered. Projected fleas jumped on Boise’s divine skin, competing with the flies for space. The bastard had even found a way to project his washing-is-for-sissies body odor
. “Welcome aboard,” Lorenzi said, still discommoded. “Why?”
“A group of Worcester-supported human assassins are after the Telepaths,” Boise’s projection said. “They’re going to succeed, and the stain of blood will be large enough to erase any of my lingering doubts about the contest. You aren’t going to be the bad guys much longer.”
Finally, a good use for the Telepaths. They knew the dangers inherent in their plans, and this would validate their path of action.
“Dubuque’s made a strategic mistake, then,” Dana said. “But only if we stand by and let this ambush happen in secret. We need to find the Telepaths and protect them.” Atlanta would rather see the Telepaths live than die, but witnessing their destruction would suffice as well. There had to be some positive use for them…if only she or the others could think of one.
Lorenzi nodded. The morality bothered him as well.
“Dubuque?” Boise said. Lorenzi filled him in on how Dubuque was using Worcester’s secret societies as cutouts. “Okay, I understand where you’re going with this. You don’t have real proof that Dubuque is behind Worcester’s assassins, but I’ll let this stand for now as a working hypothesis.”
Atlanta snorted. She knew Dubuque was behind Worcester’s attack. She could just smell it.
“I’ll also bet Dubuque maneuvered Freedom into cutting off our contact with the Telepaths. Devious bastard,” Lorenzi said, continuing to jabber. “We’re still left with the problem of finding the Telepaths fast enough.”
“Call them on one of their cellphones,” Boise said.
“I’ve tried,” John said. “Someone’s blocking the airwaves.”
Boise frowned. “Huh. I’m not, and I can’t sense who is.”
“You can scry,” Reed said to Lorenzi.
“Scrying isn’t fast. It will take a half hour or more, if we want a location,” John said. “Worse, I can’t fly and scry at the same time, and none of my new crew of magicians are good enough to do either.”
“The Telepaths knew what they were doing was dangerous,” Atlanta said, trying to bring the discussion back to reality. “We should work on making their sacrifice a meaningful one.” All four of the others glared at her. None of them saw the honor of conflict in a positive light. Dammit, Dubuque had handed their group his head on a platter and Lorenzi and his crew were going to give it back, if they could, by playing hero.
“The contest isn’t so simple,” Boise said. “Few if any of the other Gods will turn on Dubuque because of this attack, unless they listen to me on the subject. Which they probably won’t. Most of the 99 Gods lack any sense of morality.” The last he said with a thousand degree glare at Atlanta. “If you publicize the attack, though, the price will be in public opinion.”
“Which is why you’re willing to ally with us now,” Dana said. Boise bowed to her.
Heroism. Fucking inevitable. “If we can save the Telepaths without paying an extraordinary price, we should,” Atlanta said. “Unfortunately, I’m under attack in my territory right now, a political attack. Defending my territory is more important.”
“No, Atlanta, it isn’t,” Boise said.
“Logic says otherwise.”
“Logic isn’t always right,” Boise said. “I can’t predict the future, but I do understand the consequences of free willed decisions. You face a moral choice, Atlanta. Ignoring the plight of the Telepaths and protecting your territory from Dubuque is a moral failure on your part, which leads you inexorably into Dubuque’s camp, or to your destruction.”
“Let me think about this,” Atlanta said. She stepped back and thought, weighing hundreds of variables. She understood the obvious dilemma: either decision led her into deeper trouble.
Dubuque had won.
The crap the Angelic Host built into her, her extra emotions, told her the proper course would be to go to Dubuque and surrender. That’s how Territorials should think.
This annoyed her more than everything else. The Host built her to be a two-timing backstabbing Judas!
“How much time do we have?” Lorenzi asked Boise.
“I don’t know,” Boise said. “Perhaps as much as an hour. Most likely a lot less.”
She didn’t have Boise’s moral feel for the situation, but with Boise’s projection in front of her, she had no doubt that he believed what he said. Boise felt, if anything, stronger in his rejection of Dubuque than anyone else in the room.
Her realization eased much of her inner agony, but it didn’t solve her problem.
Could the Host be right? She dove into her own mind to analyze the ‘why?’ The more she understood about why she needed to surrender, the better she might be able to fight the urge.
“Do you know where the Telepaths are?” Lorenzi said. “How did you learn this, anyway?”
“I learned through prayer and meditation,” Boise said. “Impractical skills, but as you likely already realize, I’m a very impractical God.” Boise laughed. “I’ve decided it’s time for action. My Godhood won’t help anyone if I just sit in my cave and know all the horrible things happening or about to happen. My conscience won’t allow otherwise.”
Dubuque won by setting up the trap, she realized. From a Territorial God’s perspective, he had won honestly. He had proven himself her superior. This was what made the surrender to Dubuque feel right. The Host made her so she would fight only so hard and no harder against other Territorial Gods, a built in method of conflict resolution.
“Can you fly us?” Lorenzi said.
“Not through a projection,” Boise said.
“Can you, Atlanta?”
“Yes, no problem, if I choose to,” Atlanta said, grimacing at the effort it would cost. “I’m still thinking.”
It galled her to let Dubuque win. It galled her to have the urge to surrender. Even the concept of changing sides royally pissed her off. She didn’t want to give in to any of these built-in urges. If she did, she would be giving in to the sorry morality of the Angelic Host, their obvious intrinsic lack of strength of character, and their games.
Some God this would make her.
If she flew Lorenzi and his crew to attempt to save the Telepaths, Dubuque would destroy her hold on her territory, and destroy her Mission. The only Mission left to her would be her tie to Lorenzi. She would be his flunky in all senses of the word.
If she abandoned Lorenzi and his group to deal with Dubuque’s political attack, she would save her territory. Boise’s point meant that if she defended her territory right now, she showed her opposition to Dubuque lukewarm at best. Which meant…
“Cease protecting John Lorenzi and his people and I will allow the war between us to end,” Dubuque said, in Atlanta’s head. Not a real-time message, his offer came relayed through the Angelic Host, the Angelic Host serving the function given in the name ‘angel’. Messenger. Dubuque had foreseen this dilemma.
Damn him.
His canned message went on. “You need not bow to me, formally become my ally, or further treat with me. All I require is you no longer aid or protect my enemies and you restrict your activities to your territory and only your territory.”
The offer tempted her, but Dubuque had made a mistake. He shouldn’t have ever sent his message. She understood, now, Boise’s point about this being a moral choice, and how the wrong moral choice would inevitably lead her into Dubuque’s arms or to her destruction.
Dubuque would let her sit until he could gather her into his arms or pick her off at his leisure. As a Marine officer, her teachers had exposed her to too much history. This never worked for nations, for warlords, or even for officers caught up in political fights between their superiors. Dubuque didn’t offer a way out, just a delay.
Nor did Dubuque’s offer give her any way of avoiding dishonor.
She decided she would rather become Lorenzi’s goddamned flunky than dishonor herself and surrender to Dubuque. Lorenzi, at least, possessed something she recogn
ized as honor and morality, despite his dubious and dark background.
“I’m in,” Atlanta said. “I’ll fly you to Portland.” The conversation had turned to logistics. Lorenzi’s magicians had abandoned their spy efforts and packed. Boise had Lorenzi’s ear and the lecture had turned to the dangers of too many mortal magicians. Lorenzi nodded along, buying Boise’s arguments. Not that he would do squat about them, though.
“Great,” Lorenzi said. “Let’s get out of here pronto.”
Pronto?
“Don’t you want to wait for Dana and my real bodies to arrive?” Lorenzi’s safe house sat at the edge of her territory, as close to Dubuque’s territory as possible, in Little Rock, Arkansas. He appeared to have dozens, if not hundreds, of safe houses.
He shook his head. “No. We can’t afford to wait.”
She could live with his decision. Atlanta suppressed her urge to argue, grabbed her smartphone, texted a coded message to the Indigo group about the dire nature of the situation and their need to go on full alert. She eyeballed the crew in Lorenzi’s safe house, picked them up and flew, taking her projection, Dana’s projection, Velma’s projection, Boise’s projection, Lorenzi, Reed and at Lorenzi’s direction the magician in sweats, presumably the most promising of the bunch. When they reached the stratosphere after her slow projection-slog through the thick troposphere air, Atlanta pushed. Within moments they went hypersonic.
Lorenzi got out a bowl, poured water, and began his scry.
She started her, Dana and Velma’s real bodies along as well, unfortunately slower, picking up a little just-in-case surprise on the way.
“Velma, I’ve got some priorities for you. For triage.”
Dr. Horton nodded, and followed as Atlanta read off her mental list.
40. (Nessa)
After the tour bus squeaked its way to a stop, Nessa waited for Ken, snoring beside her, to wake. He didn’t. She extricated herself from his arms and stood.
“You look green,” Alt said, from where he sat, several seats forward.
Green didn’t half cut it. “I need to get out of the bus,” Nessa said. “Care to join me?”
He hesitated for a moment in an easily read longing for more sleep before he nodded and led them out of the bus. “Oh, damn,” Mary said, from the seat behind Nessa’s. She leveraged her lean frame out of her seat and hurried after to carry out her assignment as Nessa’s shadow.
“Nessa, you armed?” Mary said, after she caught up with Nessa.
Nessa patted her jacket. One Uzi, over the shoulder, as prescribed. Mary nodded. “You, Alt?”
“Yah,” Alt said. Like Nessa, Alt favored long guns, but in situations like this he used a subgun, in his case an MP5K, a conversion of the HK94 machine gun. They had talked for hours on the subject, boring Ken to distraction. Alt stepped over Nicole, curled up under a blanket and sleeping restlessly on the floor of the tour bus. “Think we should wake her up? Maybe find her a more comfortable place to sleep?”
“Nah,” Nessa said. “She’s having enough problems with her life as it is.”
Alt frowned at Nessa, shrugged, and pushed forward past a stack of bungee-cord restrained suitcases left on the tour bus by its previous users. Nessa pushed by him and rushed forward and down the steps of the bus. She turned, bent over and vomited.
“Jesus,” Alt said. “You eat something funky?”
Nessa shook her head and accepted a torn rag from Mary to wipe her face. “No,” she said, after she stood. “Morning sickness.”
“More like four in the morning sickness,” Alt said. “So you’re really pregnant?”
“You didn’t believe us?”
“I’m never sure when you’re pulling my leg,” Alt said. Mary laughed.
“Glad I’m not the only one,” Mary said.
“I need to walk,” Nessa said, and headed off into the late November just-below-freezing night, walking with her legs straight and robotic. “My bodily control weakens if I’m too cooped up.”
As she walked, she looked around and took a deep breath of the fog-enshrouded truck stop. Diesel exhaust and the faint odor of sewage filled the air. The bus driving crew, two hires of Ken’s Nessa hadn’t even learned the names of, had parked the bus beyond the farthest set of gas pumps from the main truck stop building, far enough for the ground fog to give the lights a fuzzy quality to them. The hired drivers had gone into the main building, to guzzle coffee and take leaks. Nessa had no desire to go there, too many strangers in the main building for her, so she led them off toward a dark part of the truck stop parking lot.
“You coping with Celebrity okay?” Nessa said, to Alt. Nessa hadn’t slept since they left Miami. She wasn’t able to sleep in moving vehicles, not since her telepathy awakened as a tween. She happily let the others do the driving and the logistics; she didn’t know the day, and if Alt hadn’t mentioned it, the time. She hadn’t suffered morning sickness before in this pregnancy and suspected it might be psychosomatic. Although she knew she had caught based on her mental tricks, her late period had been her first real world evidence. Well, since the pregnancy was real, then tender breasts and morning sickness were legal, so she developed both. This craziness had happened the same way in her first pregnancy as well, a thought she hurriedly crammed back into her memories, hopefully never to surface again.
“I’m coping so far,” Alt said. “Celebrity’s different than I expected. There’s no thoughts leaking from her of the I’m God You’re Not variety, which makes everything a lot easier.”
“So she’s not a walking blasphemy, eh?” Nessa said. Alt held to old-style Judaism, one God, and only one God.
“She’s right about the Gods being victims,” Alt said. “None of them asked for what happened to them, and from what Celebrity’s said, it’s clear their transformation into whatever the hell they are messed with their personalities and psychology. I’d been afraid the 99 Gods would lose their humanity from the start, but I’d never dreamed the loss would happen so quickly, like with Verona and Dubuque.”
“You ever try your clairvoyance on any of the Gods?”
“Me? You crazy? You?”
“No way in hell,” Nessa said. “Still, your clairvoyance is better than any of ours and I’m sure it’s your primary trick. Only you’ve been ignoring it.” She gave him a sideways look. “Refusing to use it.”
Alt stopped, and Nessa did as well. They had reached the back edge of the parking lot.
“I’m using my clairvoyance, but only for mundane things,” Alt said. “Like finding out where the nearest truck stop is.”
“Well, that’s a lot better than only getting flashes of distant events,” Nessa said. “Ever figure out why you don’t pick up on things world-wide?”
“Funny you should ask,” Alt said. “I threw the question at Celebrity earlier this evening, figuring someone as smart as her might have some insight into the problem. It took her about thirty seconds, dammit. I get flashes of distant events based on the number of local awake English-language speakers.”
Nessa grunted and looked up into the air, letting the fine mist falling out of the fog lightly wet her face.
“I wish you wouldn’t do that,” Alt said. She caught the pain in his voice, which troubled her.
“Do what?”
“Make me love you.”
Nessa frowned and turned to look at Alt. She saw lust in his eyes, despite how well he hid his emotions in his mind. This Nessa didn’t need. She turned and walked away at a quick pace.
Alt followed. Mary muttered a very quiet “Oh shit” and hung back.
“I shouldn’t have said that. I shouldn’t have said that.”
“Damn right you shouldn’t have said anything,” Nessa said.
“I can’t help it.”
“Can’t help what?”
“That I love you. That the longer I stay with you the more I love you.”
Nessa turned on Alt, angry, and he
barely kept himself from running into her. He backed off, a waft of fear flowing from him. “Fix this,” Nessa said. “This is not acceptable. You have the self-control to do so.”
“I know it’s wrong,” Alt said, and raised his hands in surrender. “I need a little cooperation from you, though.”
“Such as?” Nessa asked. Stupidity like this made her want to give up on the 99 God problem, go back to Alaska, pull the covers over her head and hide. Dammit, she told herself, I should have seen this coming. Alt, too new at being a fully functional Telepath, had fixated on her as his savior. He just didn’t have the self-control or self-analysis he needed. He didn’t know how he thought, and he didn’t have the instinctive ‘check for lies’ mentality hard experience would teach him.
“Uh…” His mind leaked an image that sharpened Nessa’s anger.
“Jesus! You want me to be more ugly, less sensitive and more of a bitch. Thanks a bunch, Alt.”
Alt blushed and dropped his gaze. “I don’t want you to hate me,” Alt said, quietly.
“I’m not going to hate you because you love me,” Nessa said. Alt smiled. “You’re going to piss me off mightily, though, if you can’t control yourself better.” His smile turned to a frown. “You’re not allowed to mess up my life because of your lack of control or your thoughtless behavior.”
“You’re right, but what do I do? I’m just…”
Alt stopped speaking and turned to the truck stop driveway, suddenly alert. Nessa did the same. Her heart started to beat all fluttery and she felt almost as if she floated on air. Behind them, a blue van turned from the highway into the truck stop. “Shit! I can’t find any minds in that van!” Nessa said, breathless.
No minds meant mental protections which meant attack. Nessa sprinted back toward the tour bus, sensing for minds in the oncoming van, putting more effort into each successive probe. Nothing nothing nothing. Panic sprawled into the suburbs of her mind, enough to heighten her senses.
“Cover, get behind cover,” Mary said, sprinting effortlessly beside her. “Don’t make yourself a target.”
Nessa ignored Mary and continued to sprint. She screamed mental warnings at everyone in their group, especially those sleeping in the bus. Alt followed, lagging as he fumbled under his ankle-length black leather coat for his weapon. The van halted two hundred yards ahead of Nessa, dangerously close to the tour bus. She looked around for cover, following Mary’s suggestion, but everything she saw had ‘this will explode if hit by heavy weapons’ figuratively written all over it. She found the nearest safe-looking eighteen wheeler parked about fifty yards ahead and to her left.
Nessa turned and angled that direction.
The first person out of the van shot a shoulder-mounted weapon at the tour bus, leaving a thin smoky trail behind. From the other side of the van, a separate trail appeared, from a separate shoulder mounted weapon, again at the bus. Both missiles hit the tour bus and exploded in a blinding flash, followed by the yellowish explosion of the bus’s fuel tank. An instant later, the sound of the explosion kicked Nessa in the stomach, and she skidded and fell on the icy asphalt.
Nessa reached forward with her mind at the visible attacker, but she couldn’t find anything to grab. Panic flooded into her mind’s core, restrained only by the dull dim knowledge of her anticipation of this attack. The explosion lifted up from the tour bus to reveal a sight that would confound the normals but was nothing more than what Nessa expected, the back half of the tour bus vaporized, the front half untouched. Ken’s telekinesis. Her warning had worked. Nobody had died.
Ken and several others on the tour bus radiated pain, though.
“Wait until we get behind that truck before we shoot,” Mary said, pointing at their prospective cover. Nessa nodded, and a dozen paces later, skidded to a halt behind the eighteen-wheeler. She got out her Uzi and clicked off the safety. “Now.”
Nessa, Mary and Alt juked out and fired at the van and their attackers. Whoever had set up this attack had made a big mistake. They must have gotten a read on her or the other Telepaths and figured out that with their telepathy they would hesitate to shoot at other people. Heightened empathy. Otherwise, the mastermind behind this would have sent more attackers. Whoever set this up had also put mind-reading protections on the attackers, though, protections which removed the hesitation. Shooting at these idiots was no more traumatic for Nessa than shooting at a target. No minds, no problem.
Nicely abstract. She hoped they died horribly and didn’t lose their mind shields as they did so.
You’ve made a mistake as well, Nessa, a quiet voice in her head opined. You didn’t tell Alt that although you loved him as a friend and companion, you don’t desire him. He still has hope. This will be trouble, later.
Not now, sock! Nessa sent back. She noticed Mary shooting at the rear end of the van instead of the people. If Mary had hoped for a gas tank explosion, it didn’t happen, but the van did settle down toward the ground on flat tires. So much for any easy escape. Heh.
As Nessa shot, Nicole sprang out of the tour bus at a dead run, her mind a sheet of panic. Two steps and she fell from a burst of gunfire from the attackers. They had been waiting for panicked Telepaths to appear, part of their plan.
Nessa’s heart leapt into her throat. She covered Nicole’s small body with disguises and illusions of invisibility, the only way to protect Nicole she was able to think of in the midst of her battle panic. Those tricks normally worked even on the mind-shielded, but the screwy mind shielding on their attackers had to be something some damned God stuck on them, so Nessa couldn’t guarantee anything. Nicole lived, but in pain, hit at least twice. Her mind had totally gone under, submerged in her panic, so Nessa took over. She found Nicole’s non-life-threatening wounds and made Nicole stop bleeding. No, Nicole wouldn’t be moving any time soon on her own.
One of the attackers dropped, then another. From the cover of the van, one of the attackers shot at Nessa’s small group. Bullets whizzed by, and some thwacked against the side of the eighteen-wheeler. Nessa ducked back and knelt behind the eighteen-wheeler’s right front tire.
Alt dropped prone, set up a tripod for his weapon and fired single shots into the van. “I count five attackers, but three are down now,” Alt said, after his third shot.
“Cheat,” Nessa said. Alt used his clairvoyance for targeting. Good for him.
“Fuck,” Mary said. She knelt down beside Nessa and dropped her weapons.
“Hit?”
“Yes,” Mary said. She peeled open her worn denim jacket to expose a matted fake-fur lining, an old sweatshirt and a couple of knives, and felt underneath. “Grazed by a ricochet or something.” Her hand came back bloody. Nessa turned and vomited when she got a whiff of Mary’s blood. Dry heaves.
“Nessa?”
“I’m not normally so squeamish,” Nessa said, after she wiped her mouth on her jacket. “Must be the pregnancy. Don’t mind me. I’m fine.”
“They’ve got to get out of the bus,” Alt said. “It’s on fire, despite what Ken did.”
“Ken’s hurt bad,” Nessa said. No fear, no worries now. The adrenaline of the action took care of her mental freakies. The breakdown would come later. Sooner, if Ken died on her. Nessa boomed to everyone in the tour bus. Normally, hyped as she was, her telepathic command would have been inexorable, but with her concentration divided between her telepathy and the telepathic illusion on Nicole, she got none of the Mindbound. There weren’t any doors on the driver’s side of the tour bus, the side safe from gunfire from the attackers, but Ken blew out a window with his telekinesis and began to toss people out. The first out, Prep, ambled along the side of the tour bus until he found an angle on the far side of the van from Nessa. He shot at the visible attackers and missed.
The remaining two attackers cut Prep down. Nessa screamed in Ken’s mind, and he grabbed Prep and moved him under cover. As he tried to teek the last person of
f the bus he lost control of his telekinesis. He lost control of everything.
Ken’s heart stopped as he lost consciousness.
Nessa repressed panic, put herself in Ken’s mind and ordered him conscious, pushing herself beyond her normal capabilities. Her hard push worked, and his heart beat again, but she realized his wounds had reduced him to keeping himself alive with his telekinesis.
Nessa banished her thought and kept Ken conscious.
“How’d he get hurt?” Alt said. He had also picked up on Ken’s distress.
“The way his teek works he’s not bullet and shrapnel proof, unless he’s doing the skin-tight-teek trick,” Nessa said. “When he’s got a teek shell out, protecting others, he can only deflect bullets and shrapnel, and he’s subject to what he calls the point momentum problem.” Something about the energy density in his telekinetic shell. Bullets and shrapnel packed too large a punch in too small an area. She understood the mathematics but had a hard time putting the numbers into real life words. She didn’t have the same problem. Instead, Ken said her teek strength diminished at an inverse cube law because she didn’t have anything resembling enough control to focus it properly. Away from her body, her teek let everything through.
Nessa examined her Uzi, ducked to the side of the trailer, and took a half dozen shots at the bus. She ducked back, but the attackers didn’t return fire. Nor did the two remaining attackers move.
“Fuck, where are the damned police when you need them?” Mary said.
“Where are we, anyway?” Nessa said.
“Just outside of Boise,” Alt said.
“Boise? Dammit, who routed us through a God’s town?”
“Ken did,” Alt said. “Boise’s not after us. I’m certain of that.”
“Get Boise’s attention, Alt,” Nessa said, then after the incomprehension on Alt’s face: “The God! Get him to help us.”
“Me?”
“I can’t,” Nessa said. “I’m already doing too much. I’m keeping an illusion on Nicole, running the minds of the bus driver crew, keeping Prep from bleeding to death and I’m keeping Ken conscious.”
“Shit,” Alt said. “I’m not up to this.”
“If he’s not in his home town, then you probably can’t telep him anyway,” Nessa said. “Can’t you clairvoy him somehow?”
“I don’t have a clue how to do that without some sort of prior connection,” Alt said.
“Try anyway.”
Alt concentrated and reached out with his mind.
“Boise’s home, but he’s down,” Alt said. “I’m not sure what’s going on.”
“He’s out on a projection,” Nessa said. “I’ve got him on telep now. So does Javier.”
She half listened in as Boise chatted with Javier. “Boise’s projection is with a group of God projections, including Atlanta and her sidekicks, as well as that idiot Lorenzi, his sidekick and some damned apprentice magician of all things. They’re on their way.”
She hoped they hadn’t set this up, a legit fear as they had been on the way before the attack happened. She didn’t get any feel that Lorenzi and his God friends had conspired against them, but right now, after failing to penetrate the protections on these normals, she distrusted her analysis. Why didn’t the God group warn them?
“Wait a sec,” Mary asked, her voice thin with pain. “Where’s Celebrity?
Fuck.
“I forgot about her,” Nessa said. Completely forgot. “It’s some sort of trick.” By Celebrity.
“She got vaporized in the initial explosion,” Alt said. “She’s spread out all over that part of the parking lot and hiding.” Alt paused. “Her hiding trick doesn’t work on me.”
“The usual. Nobody knows how our tricks work,” Nessa said. “What do you mean, spread out?”
“Little droplets.”
Nessa winced. Droplets didn’t sound good. she sent, expecting no answer.
Panic and vulnerability filled Celebrity’s now shrill mental voice. If she had a body she would be screaming and crying.
“What the fuck do we do about that?” Mary said, after Nessa relayed Celebrity’s plight.
“Damn if I know,” Alt said. “Nessa, is there any way you can cover us with your fancy disguise illusions so we can get over to the rest of the group?” Alt patted his black leather coat. “First aid.”
“No way in hell,” Nessa said. Not with everything else she was doing. Not if they were firing weapons. She couldn’t come close to covering weapons fire with her illusions. “I can’t fucking believe that we have a vaporized and not dead God on our hands. Boise, I know you’re listening. Any idea what we can do about Celebrity?”
“Good enough,” Nessa said. “Thank you.” She hadn’t realized before, but she now thought of Celebrity as a person. “How long till you get here?”
Atlanta. Good God above, Nessa really didn’t want to think about the Atlanta part of this. “I think we can hold out for two more minutes,” Nessa said. She hoped. The slow creeping darkness of an incipient mental fit lapped up on the feet of her ego, threatening to submerge her mind, so she leapt out from cover, screamed bloody murder, and fired a half dozen more shots at the van. This time she attracted return fire, but only two bullets clanged on her own teek shields as she leapt back, nowhere near enough to bother her. “Adrenaline, breakfast of champions,” she said, muttering under her breath. The adrenaline would keep the madness away.
She leaned over and had another round of dry heaves.
Nessa sent as she heaved.
She prayed Lorenzi and Boise’s group really were here to help.