“Dion Cassius, the historian, records one of the most remarkable instances of his clairvoyance or second sight. He states that Apollonius, in the midst of a discourse at Ephesus, suddenly paused, and then in a different voice, exclaimed, to the astonishment of all : “Have courage, good Stephanus ! Strike ! strike ! Kill the tyrant !” On that same day, the hated Domitian was assassinated at Rome by a man named Stephanus. The humdrum interpretation of this “miracle” is simply that Apollonius had a foreknowledge of the intended attempt upon the tyrant’s life. “– P.T. Barnum, Humbugs of the World
Two weeks later…
“Aren’t you a little young for a war God, miss?”
53. (John)
John’s driver, Matt, stopped the limo at a security gate the GPS didn’t know about. He talked to the woman who ambled up to the limo, one of Portland’s own, who scanned them with a God trick and waved them through.
“Somehow, I’d imagined this place to be hilly, fjord-like, not flat as a pancake,” Reed said, looking up from his tablet computer.
“We’re not there yet,” John said. Still, the islands ahead of them appeared to be just as flat.
Once through the security gate, the limo drove through the expensive and heavily wooded exurban community on Snag Island. Well, several islands worth, though John didn’t know which of them claimed the actual Snag Island name. They halted at a second security gate, at the entrance to the last island, and the guard waved them through. Beyond the gate was a large building, almost fort-like, under construction near the center of this dozen acre island, but a security officer directed the limo to a large estate home on the north shore instead of the construction zone. Matt parked the limo in a recently poured asphalt parking lot now defacing the formerly elegant front yard. Across the wooded lawn, the far side of the house’s yard backed up on Lake Tapps. The setting, the overly busy people, the construction smells, the cold gray skies, intermittent mist and the ambient tension made John think of wartime England. Only instead of England in the 1940s, this was a generic exurb outside of Tacoma, Washington.
One of Portland’s new replacement Good Shepherds greeted them. “You and your entourage are staying in guest house three,” she said. “You’re sharing the place with a few Gods.”
John nodded at the awe-struck woman. His entourage, such as it was, included only Reed, the driver and three bodyguards (a Boise, a Portland and a Montreal). They hoisted the baggage while John and Reed went into the estate home to find out who else was there.
“Hello?” John said, spotting two Gods playing poker around the kitchen table with the Telepath Alton Freudenberger and Soon Rei, Portland’s chief of divine power research. “I’m John Lorenzi.”
“Lawyer,” the God in the expensive suit said.
“Change,” the God in the lumberjack outfit said. Ah hah! John thought. A new one! “You want in the game?” Change said.
“Watch out for him,” Alton said. “He’s a practical joker.”
Change rolled his eyes and rubbed his thin moustache and goatee. “You take all the fun out of life. You have no right to complain, either.” Alt did hold the largest pile of chips.
“Perhaps later,” John said. He hadn’t had a day off since the big fight where Miami and Atlanta killed each other, and he felt bone tired. “Has anyone provided a schedule for this hoo-rah?”
Soon Rei smiled. A Southeast Asian gentleman in his 40s, he carried a wild-man magical aura about him, despite his visible-to-the-mundane-eye placid countenance. “The schedule’s on the website. Do you know the password?”
“No, but I’ll bet Reed does.”
Reed nodded from where he had settled on the sofa and began to tap his tablet computer’s screen. “There we are. Last time I looked it hadn’t been posted yet. The first meeting starts at four.”
John looked at his watch and tried to remember where he last set it. He gave up in disgust and turned to Reed. Reed smiled and anticipated the question. “Two hours from now, John.”
“I need to take a shower and lie down,” John said. “Sorry, no poker for me.”
“So, are you going to tell us what you’ve been up to?” Nessa said. Someone had dressed her in a deep cut dark green evening gown with gold highlights, done up her long hair with curls and pins, and expertly made up her face. Add to that a dose of Celebrity’s come-hither charisma masking the usual Telepath disconcerting aura and Nessa’s own Telepathic magnetism, she was enough to give any man still breathing a heart attack. Worse, he faced two of them, identically dressed save for the details of their hair, and they both oozed Celebrity’s tricks. John had never thought of the razor-stropped Nessa as an object of lust before, but her effect on him was devastating tonight.
At least Celebrity had gotten Nessa to eat enough to stop looking like a starving peasant.
“Yes, although I hope you don’t think I was poaching on your turf,” John said. He wanted to find a quiet corner of the huge great room and weep, mourning the years on his soul and on his last body. He had at best a few more years to live, the result of the pledge he took to regain his active magician talents. This time, when his body died, he died. Anything else would invite the corruption of magic he had fought all his absurdly long life. “I finally found enough time to go to the Keys and talk to Korua.”
“You did?” Nessa said. She held a nearly empty mug of hot chocolate in her hands. The simple white mug contrasted oddly with the beauty of her gown and the elegance of the room. “I didn’t think Reed had what it took.”
Nessa or Celebrity, no telling which was which and John didn’t think it mattered any more, was still as sharp as a darning needle, regardless of her fears. “I am a magician. Boosting someone’s telepathy isn’t that hard.”
“I’ll bet Korua was just tha-rilled,” Nessa said. She had a point with her sarcasm. All the shared mind types he knew of hated magic passionately, and wouldn’t say why. As Nessa correctly suspected, Korua had chewed him out on the subject.
“Korua understands the danger of the moment,” John said. At least after John explained the details. “I wanted help, and Korua bargained hard.”
“Did Korua bring in any of the other shared minds of her kind?”
John shook his head. “No. They’d all talked this over amongst themselves through whatever means they use, and come to an agreement. To get the help I wanted I not only had to cash in all of my chits but cash in the big one as well.”
Nessa made a face and stuck out her tongue at him. “Meaning you’re going to help them go public?” He nodded. “Shitfire.”
“Well, I did warn them that going public might backfire. The public’s still not sure what to make of the Telepaths who’ve done so,” he said. “They’re still interested.” Nessa frowned. “Do you want to be in charge? You and your Telepaths?”
She shook her head. “I don’t think so, we have other plans. Thanks for asking, though.” Nessa waved a dainty hand and walked off to refill her mug, leaving John puzzled. He had predicted a scene when she found out, but she hadn’t even asked about what help Korua would provide. Today must be a good day for her. He knew she wasn’t cured of her psychiatric foibles; he had played counselor to a Boise projection just four days ago, after Nessa shredded Boise for some stupid bit of divine arrogance. He had worked hard to convince Boise the Telepaths were indeed worth having in the alliance.
“She always apologizes afterwards. If she doesn’t, I guarantee you were in the wrong,” John had said.
Boise hadn’t been impressed.
With Portland in charge, John expected a plenary session, informal, everyone around a large table supposedly equal to each other. Instead, the so-called meeting turned out to be more of a social where groups met as they mixed in Portland’s giant living room and exchanged ideas. He smelled Boise’s hand in the arrangements and decided he could cope, despite his desire to get everyone together for his big announcement.
“You’re not fully co
mmitted to the alliance, then, Change?” Inventor said. He wore a white short-sleeve dress shirt and bow-tie, pants one size too large, and owlish black-rimmed glasses. His clothes made him look like he had just stepped out of the office of one of the local high-tech firms. A new-fashioned goofball, yes, but no worse than, say, Freedom. With Gods one must cultivate tolerance.
“I’m evaluating my options,” Change said. “I’ll tell you, though, I’m not going to help the other side, no matter what happens.” John didn’t know anything about Change, save that he had shown up on Portland’s doorstep interested in trading information after the God deaths. With Change came another unknown God, this one as a projection of a nine-year-old black girl with a large wad of chewing gum in her mouth, her hair in tight cornrows and a red bow on the back of her head. Not a God John recognized.
“So, Change, what are you going to do with the nukes you’ve stolen,” the little girl God asked, cracking her gum.
Change froze in place for a moment, as did Singularity, who hovered at the edge of the conversation, lost in deep thought. “How’d you figure that out?” Change said.
So Change was the God who had stolen the nukes, John thought. He didn’t know what to make of that.
“Tricks,” the girl God said. She smiled prettily and cracked her gum again.
Change sighed. “My inclination is, when I’ve collected the rest of the damned things, to toss them into lunar orbit and detonate them in a pattern that reads ‘No More Nukes’.”
John laughed.
“Toss a few uranium reprocessing plants into orbit as well and you’ve got my vote,” John said. “If I may ask, who are you?” The last he addressed to the girl God.
The girl God blew a small bubble and gave him the once-over. “Name’s War,” she said. “Practical God.”
“War? I didn’t think the Angelic Host gave any God that bit of practical knowledge to expound,” John said.
“Guess you thought wrong, fat man.”
For this he climbed out of bed this morning? “Aren’t you a little young for a war God, miss?”
She cracked her gum again. “Appearances can be deceiving,” she said. “As the Godly deaths and the failure of the attacks by Phoenix’s goons to bluff you into surrendering showed, wars involving the 99 Gods won’t be heroic combats or standard military actions. Think covert war, Mr. Lorenzi. You and your evil magician flunkies ought to be good at covert activities.” She blew a large bubble and cleaned her face with a divine trick when the bubble popped. Damned projections. “I’m not going to be showing anyone my real divine body, or my true appearance. Reality is just an invitation for the other side to do me in. Secondly, I doubt I’ll always appear as a projection in the same way.”
Nope. Not a little girl at all. “I see,” John said. “What’s your advice for the moment, then, War?”
“Caution, old man. We need to prove to the public that we aren’t the bad guys, and we don’t want to lose any chance at that,” she said, ruefully. “Think behind-the-scenes action.”
“A dirty war, then,” John said.
“Exactly. Glad you’re on board.”
Wunderbar, John thought. Another God with an attitude problem. He didn’t think he could deal with War’s attitude now, so he turned to Singularity. “I’ve heard a rumor you’re thinking of following in Celebrity’s tracks and changing your divine designation,” John said.
Singularity nodded. “I felt a calling, and I’ve decided to go with this feeling. Futurology never excited the public, and with the joint Integrity down to near zero, the interest level in my teachings has completely gone away. So I’m going to take over Miami’s old territory and become a Territorial God.”
“Not Atlanta’s?”
“No. Dana’s handling that as regent for Celebrity’s unborn God-child, and she’s going to have my active support as well as the support of Portland, Boise, Akron and Montreal.”
Which would make Dana a power in her own right, John decided. The regency solution sounded better than any of the others floating around. “So, what should we call you?” Celebrity had decided on ‘Persona’ as her new name, which didn’t please John. Far too obscure for an Ideological God.
“Not Miami,” Singularity said. “Too much baggage. Orlando is more my style.” Right about where the invisible border between his new Territory met up with Atlanta’s old Territory. Interesting.
“Not Disney World? Epcot Center?” War said, with a crack of the gum. “What about Pirates of the Caribbean?”
Singularity glared. “Orlando.”
“So there’s no more worries about Dubuque walking off with any more Gods,” Alt said. “The Boise-Portland method has now been spread world-wide. Amazing how fast it got snapped up, now isn’t it.”
“Unfortunately, the Seven Suits are Dubuque’s now, and I don’t think they bowed to Dubuque because he controlled them,” Akron said. Akron had outdone herself tonight, John decided: mature actress on Oscar night in spades. This place tried John’s soul, and every woman in the place knew it. Did they hold back? No. Of course not.
Akron had joined the alliance fifteen minutes after Portland went public with her leadership. She still eyed John as something with far too many legs that had recently crawled out from under a rock. “He’s also picked up the Practical Gods Industry and Engineer, as well as the Ideological Gods Faith and Virtue. We’re outnumbered.”
“Perhaps,” Alt said. “You Territorials seem to pack more punch and exert more presence than the Ideologicals and Practicals, and that’s where Dubuque is weak. He’s only got Phoenix and Worcester with him.”
“In North America. Don’t forget that Dubuque’s aims are world-wide, and we suspect he’s got foreign Territorials in his camp already.”
“Verona, Lodz and Lima,” John said. “They’re true allies, not flunkies, though.”
“Our master spy,” Alt said, and nodded to John. “I’ve got a proposal I’d like your input on. I think it’s time we go after the established Telepaths who are hanging around neutral or opposition Gods. I think we can either enlighten them, or free them from what the other Gods have done to them, and turn them to our cause.”
“We meaning the Telepaths?”
Alt nodded.
“What do Ken and Nessa think?” John said.
“I haven’t braced them yet,” Alt said, his face darkening.
Trouble, John realized. Big trouble. Mature Telepaths didn’t work well together. Never had, never would, and certainly not for long. By definition, they all possessed massively big egos. Worse, John had noticed the Alt – Nessa – Ken triangle, and how Celebrity / Persona’s body-doubling of Nessa made the situation worse. In a more perfect world, one of the Nessas should have been free to indulge Alt’s fantasy love, but in reality, Celebrity / Persona’s body doubling was good enough for the Nessas to twice blow off Alt’s love.
Double the rejection, double the fun.
“Let me brace them,” John said. He would rather put his hand in a meat grinder, but he thought he would be able to jigger the argument better than Alt. “I think it’s a wonderful idea.”
Alt relaxed.
“If you haven’t heard, we’ve done a mental census on all the world’s Territorial Gods,” Alt said. ‘We’ being the Telepaths, of course. “Every God who picked up worshippers, which is about a third of them, has gone barmy. Life isn’t going to be easy for any of us, even if all these barmy worshipped Gods don’t ally with each other.”
The Telepaths got nervy in their desperation. “Have you come up with any long-term plans?” John said. He hoped and prayed for options better than his own unlikely schemes.
“Well, we now know the Gods can’t kill other Gods without destroying themselves,” Alt said. “Also, given Celebrity’s baby, we also know we can’t get rid of the Gods permanently. Kill one and a woman God gets pregnant.”
John didn’t think life would be so
simple, but he didn’t challenge Alt.
“You Telepaths are so comforting,” Akron said. “You better hope someone else doesn’t decide to get rid of the Telepaths.”
John covered a cough. Akron might be half domestic goddess, but the other half was damned nasty.
“I’d say that Dubuque’s done enough along those lines already,” Alt said. “What us Telepaths are going to propose is that it’s up to the normal mortals, not the Gods, not the Telepaths and not the magicians, to decide which Gods should live or die. Telepaths are rotten at killing. You magicians? Well, if you get into killing our guess is you’ll be corrupted by those infernal forces you fear and end up a worse problem than the Gods. Our long-term strategy should be curing the Territorial Gods from their worshipper addiction and freeing any other Gods from their sway. Some, I’m sure, we’ll have to subdue. Of course, we don’t have any good ideas about how to do any of this.”
No killing. John didn’t mind at all. “I’m not sure your idea’s practical, but you’ve got my support.” At least for now.
“It’s my fault,” Portland said. Everyone in the room, about half of the invitees, laughed. “I brought you here mostly to listen to this announcement of John’s. I hope this is worth it. John hasn’t confided in me, either.” Portland had fully recovered from the nuking, at least physically. Mentally? Well, she now had more spine and more drive, but still not nearly enough toughness to suit John. Her wounded psyche ached. Too many people close to her slain and ripped away.
John stepped forward. “I’m just the messenger, and the person who arranged the research. Reed, pass around the first of the two papers, if you will.”
Reed began to pass. “I don’t understand much of the details, but I can answer some questions about the people who did the research and the methods involved,” John said. “I’m sure you’ll have questions, and, yes, the people involved are yet a different variety of abnormal human.” Jan and Epharis had threatened to throw him bodily into Hell if he outed them, but he had convinced them the good guys at least needed to know of their existence.
“The first paper has to do with the weapon Miami used in the fight, once personally against Atlanta and a second time, as a weaker transferred trick, against Portland. It was nuclear in origin, as the clicking Geiger counters suggested afterwards, but it was something new. Apparently, Miami’s weapon, when it hit solid matter, created in the matter a small amount of antimatter, which then exploded with a small nuclear explosion. The amount of antimatter created wasn’t large, micrograms, I believe, but that’s apparently all it took.”
“Where’d the energy for the conversion come from?” Inventor said. “Or did Miami break a few natural laws, like the second law of thermodynamics?”
“It’s on page seventeen, near the end. My people say the energy came from neutrinos, an incredible number of them. It doesn’t violate any natural laws because the neutrinos were captured ahead of time, and the energy to capture and corral the neutrinos of the proper energy turned out to be several times as large as the resulting explosion. Miami traded time for energy. What I find worrisome was the fact that Miami could transfer that trick to his flunky.”
“Oh, that’s no big secret,” Inventor said. “He just put it in an enchantment, like the charged Kevlar body armor you’ve had me making.”
The audience flipped pages and ignored Inventor’s comment.
“Before we get to the inevitable questions and technical discussions… Reed, the second paper, please?” John paused. “This paper deals with an analysis of what you Gods are made of. This one’s a bit beyond my comfort level, but my people are quite certain they’re correct. You’re made up of something called neutral strangelets, not ordinary matter. Each neutral strangelet is a million times the mass of a normal atomic nucleus, and made from a large number of subatomic particles normally having an insignificant lifetime. As a strangelet, or at least this variety of strangelet, they apparently last forever, or something equivalent. As to how this gives you Gods your power, all my people have are wild hypotheses. The current consensus is that each of the neutral strangelets is a simple computer or computer analog, and there’s enough of them in your body to hold your souls, your minds and your abilities.” Grover, Joe and Jurgen and their crew hadn’t been so polite. They had called that idea a wild-assed guess at best, each of them terrified of what Grover termed ‘godawful pants-wetting superscience’.
“If this is a technology, it’s farther above our heads than our modern technology is above hand axes,” Singularity said. “Unless I’m right and a near infinite technological spike happens in the next fifty years.”
John nodded. Jurgen’s comment was ‘This is to nanotech as nanotech is to the Model T’, which matched Singularity’s observation.
“What about the specks?” Inventor said. “You’ve described the silvery parts of our makeup. The dark specks have macroscopic reality. They are not this.”
“Meaning?” John said.
“They’re large enough to see, as solid objects, through a microscope. They’re not strangelets.”
John shrugged. “My people said they’re made up of the same neutral strangelet matter as the rest of you, but in a different configuration, and to an unknown purpose. They called it an unidentified strange matter object.” Which, in John’s opinion, meant nothing at all. He had no desire to pass along their terrifying speculation on the dark specks.
Portland raised her hand, politely, and the technical discussion started.
“There’s something I need to talk to you about,” Boise said, after the gathering broke up. John loaded his plate again, tempted to gluttony by the wonderful food. His ample waist showed his chronic lack of restraint. The buffet table was always his friend.
Boise came alone. He still hadn’t taken a shower, the wild prophet of Idaho still whiff enough to gag all bystanders. The mountain God exuded bad mood, likely because the Mormon Elders had labeled him a two-bit evil spirit follower of Satan and teacher of untruth.
“Okay,” John said, doing his best to control his gorge. “Is it about Portland’s suggestion we assign the problem of the Seven Suits to Freedom and that group of Ideological Gods?” The solution felt wrong to him, very wrong.
“No, not at all. In fact, I agree with Portland’s suggestion,” Boise said. “My observation’s something else, based on some spies I have in Dubuque’s headquarters in Oklahoma City,” Boise said.
John smiled. “Now that’s useful. Dubuque’s cleaned mine out.”
Boise shrugged. “I’ve learned that he’s recruited a Telepath to serve him, and when I told Nessa and Ken about the recruit, they practically died on the spot and directed me to you.”
“Well, that doesn’t sound good,” John said, uneasy. He kept track of all the powerful mature Telepaths and he didn’t know of any worth the reaction.
“This recruit’s an old man, in his seventies. Blind, and the blindness appears impervious to miraculous healing,” Boise said. “I haven’t gotten a name on him yet.”
John paled. “His name is Blind Tom, and he hasn’t been a Telepath in years.”
“Your work? I thought you could only remove the ability to be a magician,” Boise said.
“A common misunderstanding,” John said, a misunderstanding he had cultivated over the years. “I don’t remove their ability to do magic, I remove their knowledge and interest in it. I can do the same with anyone abnormal who gets out of line. As Blind Tom did.” Far out of line.
“You don’t sound pleased.”
“You don’t want to know,” John said. “Enjoy the day while you can. Blind Tom wasn’t blind after I removed his telepathic tricks. If he’s in Dubuque’s service and blind again, that means that Dubuque’s restored Blind Tom’s knowledge and interest in affairs telepathic. The reason this is very bad news is because Blind Tom is an evil man, one of the few I know who’s truly evil. He’s also got a bad hist
ory with Nessa and Ken, which could cause big whampum problems for all of us.” John paused in thought. He owed Boise for this information, and he had a proper payment, although he hadn’t wanted to spill the beans until the problem actually showed. “There’s a similar problem about to show its face, an old nemesis of mine, one who will be bothering all of us in North America.”
“Yes?”
“It also has nothing to do with the accusations against you,” John said, a millennium of sympathy in his voice.
“Yes?”
“Satan’s coming.”
54. (Dave)
Dr. Greuter sat them down in his office and smiled. Dave fidgeted; Tiff maintained her mask of professional distance. “There’s no bad news,” Dr. Greuter said. “Every test we ran confirms what you suspected. Your miraculous intervention by Dubuque fully cured you. You have less cadmium in your system than most other 40 year olds.”
“That’s wonderful news, Doc,” Dave said. “Any cautions, caveats, anything?”
“Not a one,” Dr. Greuter said. “I consulted with some other physicians with experience with the miraculously cured, and they say you’re clean. You don’t have a single non-functional body part being held together by ongoing divine tricks. As far as we can tell, you can go on with your life as if the cadmium exposure and its many side effects never happened.”
Dave smiled and took a deep breath. Smiled wider. Hot damn!
Dave toweled off after his four mile hike up and down the trails in Mount Falcon Park, tired and achy. Good aches, though. Muscle aches. A good tired. He loved Mount Falcon Park, despite its familiarity, because of several overlooks where he could peer through the firs and see his house, a distant dot in the valley below and to the west. He even ran in to a woman hiker with a large metal-framed kid-carrier backpack, the same as Tiff once owned. He even chatted her up for long enough for her to grow uncomfortable with him, something he hadn’t been able to do for months, if not years.
He felt like he belonged again, back into the Denver swing of things, where absurdly fit was the norm.
“Lunch, Dave?” Tiff said, waiting for him outside her home office.
“Sure. To celebrate my cure?”
“I found something strange for you,” she said. Her distant mood remained, even after Dr. Greuter’s good news. “I figure with the news about your health and your work, now would be the perfect time to bring this up.”
He nodded. He had talked Pete and his other partners into a salary again after he brought in his third, albeit small, client contract. Only fifty percent pay, but his company had put the formal buyout on hold, at least for long enough to see if Dave could pull in enough clients to match those of his partners. He would never be able to replace the loss of Hernandez Industries, but if the deepening recession bottomed out, he might be able to come close. “We can do lunch,” he said to Tiff.
They chose a favored soup and salad emporium, a short drive down into the outer suburbs. After they waited five minutes in line for a table, they sat. Dave practically bounced as he waited and chatted at Tiff, buoyed by the good news about his health and his successful hike. In his mind, he plotted out further things he could do to warm up his relationship with Tiff, his romantic gifts of flowers, chocolates and jewelry not yet having the desired effect. He especially didn’t like the fact that the flowers never passed the door of Tiff’s office and tended to nearly rot before Tiff tossed them.
Tiff made nothing more than social noises, often little more than a grunt. She ordered an ornate salad, giving the waiter her usual detailed instructions to the chef about what she wanted and didn’t want. Dave ordered French onion soup and a small house salad, content with whatever the place decided to throw at him today.
“So, when would be good for you for my next client-hunting trip?” The hostess had given them a quiet table in the rear of the busy restaurant, a good place for private discussions.
Tiff shrugged. “I’m not sure it matters,” she said. “Did you read the document I forwarded to you?”
“The one by that crazy person who claims to be a real-life Telepath?” He couldn’t believe half the crap on the internet after Miami and Atlanta’s death duel. Every crazy in the world had come out of the closet, it seemed. If he believed the internet noise, some of the Telepaths even lived underwater, in the world’s oceans.
“Uh huh, Joan D’Ark’s piece,” Tiff said, slicing some of the warm bread and taking a bite of it, plain. She made a face and put it down on the bread plate, where Dave guessed it would remain the rest of the meal, once bitten. “What did you think of it?”
“Unproveable hogwash,” Dave said. “I still don’t believe in those demonstrations of hers, nor the other demonstrations by the other alleged Telepaths who’ve gone public. I’m sure her thesis about the Living Saints going after the Telepaths is pure vapor, as all of the other so-called Telepaths who’ve gone public have done so under the protection of one of the Living Saints.”
“There’s clearly some political nonsense going on behind the scenes among the 99 Gods, factions forming and dissolving, but I don’t want to talk about politics,” Tiff said. “I don’t doubt her veracity, based on some other information I can’t talk about. What I find interesting is D’Ark’s section on all the many varieties of almost-Telepaths, especially the group she calls ‘Psychics’. I think this can explain your strange encounter with Madame Xenia.”
Dave furrowed his brows. “Yes, go on?”
“If you read between the lines of what she wrote, Psychics apparently do, at times, some of the same tricks as the Telepaths, only these tricks normally stay buried in their subconscious. They can’t use them consciously, but these tricks do work, at least sporadically. The rest of the time they function as what D’Ark termed Mindbound, who appear to be nothing more than Telepaths who shut off their own Telepathy.” Tiff paused to examine the salad the waiter elegantly placed in front of her. She weighed her options, cataloging the accuracy of the chef in meeting her high expectations, and then sighed and accepted the salad. Dave started in on his soup. “True adult Telepaths tend to be paranoid and anti-social, apparently good enough or crazy enough to avoid or chase off anyone who might want to research them, which explains how they’ve been missed. Instead, the research community’s been stuck with the Psychics, with their sporadically successful tests and difficult to duplicate results. The most common of the tricks Psychics possess are what D’Ark calls ‘hunches’, not quite future foretelling but better than educated guesses about the future based on the thoughts and plans of others. Ring a bell?”
He shrugged. “You’re suggesting that Madame Xenia was one of these Psychics?
Tiff shook her head as she picked at her salad. “I don’t know anything about Madame Xenia, not having ever met her nor found any hint of her existence in any of the accessible databases. I’m talking about the puzzling comment she made to you, Dave, the one where she said you were meant for greater things.”
“Huh?” Tiff hadn’t thought Diana’s comment worth its weight in air.
“You’re a Psychic, Dave. You have quite a few of the signs: your bad dreams in your teen years of being someone else, your uncanny tendency to pick up on what’s going on around you, such as when you cancelled your trip over 9/11 or when you turned down the offer to become a Wise Shepherd and die in Miami’s attack, and your overly credulous and yet successful leap into the unknown, alone, to get your Dubuque cure. What initially threw me off the trail was that your tricks seemed so random, sporadic and untrustworthy, which appears, after a more careful reading of D’Ark’s document, to be exactly as expected for a Psychic.”
Dave made a face and put down a spoon. Everything he had read about Telepaths made them sound like utter lunatics. “So I’m one of them? You’re saying I’m one of those crazies?” Disgusting! When people said he was staid and sane, this was never a compliment, but a character flaw. His woo woo moments had never com
pensated for his staid sanity. He actively liked chamber music, for gosh sakes.
“I don’t believe you’re crazy, as it’s the sane and thoughtful ones who become Psychics or Mindbound. The crazies become either adult Telepaths or what D’Ark archly terms ‘failed Telepaths’. Psychotics.” Tiff sliced a cherry tomato into quarters and speared it, then speared some arugula lettuce to add to the tomato, swished the concoction in the lemon and extra virgin olive oil dressing, shook off the extra dressing, eyed the forked salad for a moment, and slowly took a bite. “Congratulations, you’re a one-in-a-million, if D’Ark’s numbers are right.” She frowned. “I’d sort of hoped that I might be a Psychic, the sort of cool thing that almost never happens to me, but no dice. I didn’t turn out to have a single one of the signs D’Ark mentioned. I’m likely not even one of the Mindbound.”
“Okay, okay,” Dave said. Now he understood some of Tiff’s recent stony behavior. In some idiot fashion beyond his understanding, he had out-Tiffed Tiff. Never ever a good thing. “From what I read, all this nonsense sounds like that and five dollars will get you a latte down at the Starbucks, unless you’re one of the real adult Telepaths.”
“There’s one important benefit to being a Telepath of any variety,” Tiff said. “Attempts by Gods and Telepaths to control the minds of people like you supposedly slide off over time if they, you, exert your free will. Psychics appear to be the best at bouncing control attempts, going with their tendency to be hard-headed and strong willed.”
“You talking ‘bout me?” Dave said. Tiff snorted. “Alright, I can understand that, at least a little.” He did have a tendency to do whatever he wanted to, once he got some forward momentum going. “So, any ideas about what ‘greater things’ I’m supposed to be doing?”
“Just an educated guess, with implications I don’t like,” she said. “I think you were right; Madame Xenia was trying to recruit you, and as a Boise follower she was trying to recruit you to work for Boise. Perhaps, and this is only a guess, Boise’s got a way to turn Psychics into mature adult Telepaths, or he has some important uses for hard-headed difficult-to-control followers.”
“Work directly for a God?” Dave said. He shook his head. “I’ve already turned that sort of thing down twice.”
Tiff frowned, taking his comment as a slur on her advice. “I’m not saying I’d recommend taking a job with any of the Gods,” Tiff said. “This was only a hypothetical analysis. In fact, I think working directly for any God is far too dangerous right now, and will remain so until they sort out their hazardous political issues. They’ve shown their true colors at last, God Almighty save us all. I’ll bet, though, that if you offered yourself to Dubuque’s ministry, as a Psychic, you’d get an immediate job offer, likely a large one.” She shrugged. “If you want to avoid the implied danger, though, perhaps the best thing for you to do is to pretend you aren’t a Psychic and try and go on with your life.”
He nodded. “There’s a good case to be made that I already had my fifteen minutes of fame,” he said. More like fifteen minutes of flame, considering the ruckus his blog entries on his Dubuque experiences caused on the various God-experience boards. The anonatrolls had accused him of looking at things in the worst possible light, of exaggerating the magnitude of his healing, and of lying, depending on the prejudices of the responder. He didn’t want anything to do with that sort of notice ever again. He certainly understood now why so few Dubuque experiences ever made it on any of those boards. “I don’t need any more notice. I think you’re right.”
“Good,” Tiff said. She finished her salad, one swish and shake at a time, and pushed the plate away. Contrary to Dave’s expectations, her face remained its stony professional self. Normally agreeing with Tiff brightened her mood appreciably.
“Since everything’s going so well with me, perhaps this is a good time to bring up our personal difficulties, and what we can do to sort them out,” Dave said. Nothing he tried had improved a thing. “Now that I’m cured, I’d like to look into your suggestion about counseling.”
“I don’t think bringing up our problems today is a good idea. Why ruin one of your good days?” Tiff put her hands in her lap, even more distant, if possible.
Huh? “In addition to following up on your counseling idea, I also think we might be able to scrape up enough money for a vacation, just for the two of us,” Dave said. “I was thinking Calgary.” Skiing sounded fun. Outdoorsy vacations had always brought them closer together in the past, especially something semi-athletic and competitive guaranteeing a victory for her.
“I don’t think so, sorry,” Tiff said, frowning now.
Dave stapled sympathy on his face. He thought his suggestion was a no-brainer. “Work problems?”
“Not at all.”
“Money?”
“With you on half pay, not a problem, since we didn’t put anything back in the budget we cut before.”
He ungritted his teeth and practiced Zen tongue amputation. He failed. “Then,” he said, “I don’t mean to press,” which of course he did, “but I’d like to know why not.”
Tiff took a deep breath, hesitant, eyes downcast. “Okay. First, you need to know this is all about me, all my problem, not about you,” she said. “You’ve done nothing wrong.”
Errr… Dave read ‘major lie’ all over Tiff. “Yes?” He read ‘made up mind’. He anticipated the bill had come due on all the ‘support’ Tiff gave him after diagnosis terminal. He suspected he would soon hear about ‘necessary eighty hour weeks’ and how she would soon require him to cut back on his business trips.
Why, though, did this feel like he had run into yet another parallel of the DPMJ and chamber music debacles?
Tiff licked her lips. “I didn’t want to talk about this today,” she said. “But since you insist.” She paused again, and looked away. “Dave, you’re right that it’s time for us to end our little war. I want a divorce.”
The End of
War
To be continued in:
Betrayer
and concluded in:
Odysseia
Fiction By This Author
Indigo Universe:
Storybook Crazy
99 Gods Trilogy Novels
War
Betrayer
Odysseia
99 Gods Trilogy Supplementary Stories
Tales From The Anime Café (Part One)
Tales From The Anime Café (Part Two)
Transforms Universe:
The Commander Series Novels
Once We Were Human
Now We Are Monsters
All Beasts Together
A Method Truly Sublime
No Sorrow Like Separation
In This Night We Own
All That We Are
The supplementary Commander Series Stories:
The Good Doctor’s Tales Folio One
All Conscience Fled (The Good Doctor’s Tales Folio Two)
The Good Doctor’s Tales Folio Three
The Good Doctor’s Tales Folio Four
The Good Doctor’s Tales Folio Five
The Good Doctor’s Tales Folio Six
No Chains Shall Bind Me (The Good Doctor’s Tales Folio Seven)
The Good Doctor’s Tales Folio Eight
The Good Doctor’s Tales Folio Nine
Focus
The Cause Series Novels
The Shadow of the Progenitors
Love and Darkness
The Forgefires of God
Beasts Ascendant (The First Chronicle of the Cause) (coming April/May 2016)
(more to come, later)
Author’s Afterword
Thanks to Randy and Margaret Scheers, Michelle and Karl Stembol, Gary and Judy Williams, Alex Farmer, and as always my wife, Marjorie Farmer. Without their help this novel would have never been made.
Cover credit to Shutterstock for the ocean and businessman picture. “Humbugs of the World”
is a real book, by P.T.Barnum, and is in the public domain. Originally published in 1855, this book is a real treasure for the literary spelunker. The final chapter on Apollonius of Tyana is well worth the full read.
I am a traditionally published and epublished author, with two published short stories, one in Analog and the other in Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Fantasy Magazine, and the epublished seven book Commander Series (starting with “Once We Were Human”) and 10 other shorter works in the Commander universe.
The story started in “99 Gods: War” continues in “99 Gods: Betrayer”. In addition, if you enjoyed this novel, you may also want to read the companion piece “Tales From The Anime Café Part One”, which contains a short novel, a novella and a novelette about the 99 Gods universe.
In addition, you can find out further information about the background mythos of the 99 Gods trilogy and the Commander Series on https://majortransform.com. Try the Author’s Facebook page for news and comments (www.facebook.com/pages/Randall-Allen-Farmer/106603522801212). Interesting and helpful comments are encouraged. Tell your friends. Post reviews.
Randall Allen Farmer
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