99 Gods: War

“Magic and witchcraft are believed in by the vast majority of mankind, and by immense numbers even in Christian countries. They have always been believed in, so far as I know. In following up the thread of history, we always find conjuring or witch work of some kind, just as long as the narrative has space enough to include it. Already, in the early dawn of time, the business was a recognized and long established one. And its history is as unbroken from that day down to this, as the history of the race.” – P.T. Barnum, Humbugs of the World

  “With the 99 Gods around, though, where’s the need for faith? You can just go ask them.”

  7. (Dave)

  “Headache?”

  “Constant,” Dave said. At least his headaches hadn’t completely crippled him. He had still managed to summon up enough energy to take Steve up on his offer to come visit. Dave stretched out on Steve’s couch and closed his eyes, forcing himself to relax. Steve’s home was a comfortable patio home near downtown Denver, narrow and deep, with two stories and a basement, decorated with an eclectic mix of battered old hand-me-downs and polished art deco. The couch fell into the category of battered old hand-me-down and sucked Dave down with a deep cushional softness. Marty – Andy Martin Madrid, Steve’s domestic partner – puttered about and finally came out of the kitchen with a magnum of wine, three wine glasses, and a plate of various cheeses.

  “Here we go, you two,” Marty said. “So, how’s Tiff coping with all your problems?”

  Tiffany was Dave’s wife. “Three guesses and the first two don’t count. She’s putting in longer hours at the office and at home, losing herself in her work.” Dave didn’t understand Tiff’s work, all sorts of obscure IT crap she either evaded explanation of or refused to talk about. Steve and Marty knew Tiff quite well. “She’s upped Olinda’s hours again, too.”

  Marty set the tray down on the polished black coffee table and sat opposite Steve in an odd looking chair with a puffy white cushion and narrow black arms that Steve said was a ‘Shanghai sofa seat’. He poured three glasses of wine. “Olinda’s your immigrant combo maid and nanny?” Marty asked. Dave nodded. “Must be nice.”

  Dave didn’t comment. Neither Marty nor Steve had high paying careers.

  “How’s your company doing?” Steve asked. “I mean, you’re a co-founder of the place.”

  Co-flounder, these days. “As good as could be expected with me out for a while,” Dave said. “Hernandez Industries” the Denver-based mining and extraction firm currently DPMJ’s main client and Dave’s only client “didn’t have any new major disasters or significant problems while I was out, but the minor disasters are piled high and deep. As always.” Dave foresaw meetings. Endless eye-drooping meetings. He would rather be out in the field doing things.

  “I was thinking more of the effects of the 99 Gods,” Steve said. “We’re obviously going to get a wondrous utopia soon, but a lot of pundits think we’re going to suffer through some sort of major economic upheaval first. For instance, the major military contractors are already yowling. I think that’s why the President’s going on about how everybody needs to be patient about the budget and demobilization issues. The initial euphoria’s wearing off.”

  “I’m surprised the lobbyists took this long to throw sand in the gears,” Marty said. “The initial exuberance was bound to wear off eventually. Besides, the so-called demobilization law is chock through with loopholes large enough to drive armies through. War by any other name. Eventually, the Gods are going to demand our government do better.”

  The divine response almost sounded like fun to watch. Dave predicted he would be stuck in a meeting when it happened. “I’ll tell you, watching a God walk away unscathed from those assassins’ bombs that took out a St. Petersburg city block is the sort of thing to rivet one’s attention,” Dave said. The assassination attempt on the God Moscow, two weeks after the Gods appeared, had attracted the attention of the entire world, one heck of an introduction. “You’re right, though. Utopia won’t be easy or quick, despite the media over-exuberance on the subject. But the media always over-responds. We’ll get our utopia. These Gods do seem to know what they’re doing.” Taking the North Korean army’s weapons away from them one night, in less than an hour, had made that point perfectly clear. They could stop national wars. The major nations had leapt over themselves to pledge to disband their armed forces.

  “Speaking of the media,” Steve said, conspiratorially. He clicked on the television, hanging midway up the opposite wall and set as most were these days to one of the news channels, all of which now devoted almost their full efforts to the work of the Gods. The whatever NN channel appeared to be part way through a piece on Phoenix.

  Phoenix, an impressive looking Hispanic guy, wandered a barrio labeled on the screen as in El Paso, Texas. “Education is the enemy of poverty,” Phoenix said to the camera. Dave smiled; Phoenix reminded him of his Uncle Ignacio. “Teachers need to work a full day, with much fewer students, to accomplish the difficult task of teaching the love of learning to all, not just to those whose parents love learning. Strong disciplinarians must accompany them. We can’t accept people dropping out of high school as soon as it’s legal. Too many do so. The best schools with the best teachers need to be in the worst neighborhoods, and we must pay accordingly. Yes, I’m talking salaries able to attract prospective management-track corporate types and junior stockbrokers. Jobs for the graduates of these improved schools must be available as well, jobs using their education; the private sector must cooperate and produce more jobs or the public sector will be forced to do so, for them.” Phoenix walked the media entourage into a soup kitchen, and asked the proprietress, in Spanish, if they had enough volunteers. She shook her head no. Like many Dave had seen, everyone who met a God liked him or her immediately. The divine ‘willpower’ Mirabelle had mentioned paled, in Dave’s mind, to the personal charisma of the Gods. “Wherever I go, I find a lack of volunteers. We need more people who are willing to help those who can’t help themselves. Government and businesses can help, by making volunteering easier. Consider, as just one idea, the concept of a law granting an extra two weeks of paid vacation for volunteer work, open to every person working in the United States and Mexico. Yes, I know, we would need safeguards to prevent fraud, but safeguards are just a detail…”

  Steve muted the sound. “Anyone want to bet on how many days this offhand idea of Phoenix’s will take to become law? My guess is fifteen.”

  “Ten,” Marty said, his feet crossed on the coffee table. “Portland’s suggestion about ratifying the Equal Rights Amendment took only two weeks.” He sipped wine.

  “Things have slowed down,” Steve said, nibbling cheese and crackers. “Worchester’s comment that we might as well abolish the service academies is still pending in Congress, and after three weeks they’re still talking compromise. Portland’s comment on the ERA was the first public comment she made on anything.”

  “But think about Dubuque’s suggestion last week. He said unless Hollywood cleaned up its act about violence and explicit sex, he and the other Gods would go after them personally. So now there’s a brand new rating system making a substantial number of violent formerly PG-13 rated movies adult-only,” Marty said. “You can go down the list: late term abortions banned in all cases…”

  “Huh?” Dave said. “You’ve got to be kidding.” So many changes had happened while he was stuck in the hospital for tests, short conversations with dour faced doctors and the exploratory surgery. “How’d that stickler get resolved? I mean, the abortion question has always been the biggest of the hot button issues.” He couldn’t believe the abortion question got resolved. Talk about your faith-straining miracles!

  Steve smiled. “Well, when you have Dubuque, Doctor, Inventor, Lawyer and Virtue on stage and saying a fetus becomes a human when its brain turns on and becomes a human mind, things change. The twenty-first week was earlier than anyone expected, but it’s a good signp
ost, and something tangible we can measure with our existing technology, at least once the Gods taught us how. That’s why the uber-propellerhead Inventor was involved, and, no, I can’t believe the Almighty chose such a stereotype to be a Practical God! Anyway, any intervention before the implantation of the embryo is sweetness and light. Essentially, contraception. Anything between then and the forbidden now-considered-homicide late-term abortions is a gray area both morally and physically, morally equivalent to a patient refusing to take life-saving medications, something not done on a whim.”

  “What does this mean on a practical scale?” Dave asked. What would people argue about without the abortion issue? He supposed they could protest a lack of things to protest…

  “It means post-implantation abortions shouldn’t be considered equivalent to contraception and that people shouldn’t use them as such. It’s a major decision that must involve counseling,” Steve said. “Nothing a walk-in clinic should be allowed to do.”

  “People accepted this? On both sides? Without a big fight?” Surely people would be protesting in the streets, especially about the ban on late term abortions. He thought about the divine judgment call for a moment before realizing the Gods were pledging to save the lives of both mother and infant, where possible. With their miracles. Dave shivered for a moment, thinking about the level of interference this would take; such problems might be rare in the greater scheme of things, but there were even fewer Gods.

  “Tell me,” Steve said. “Could you look someone like Dubuque in the eye and tell him he’s morally wrong? I mean, his ‘I make Gandhi and Mother Teresa look like Jack the Ripper’ holiness comes through on television and the internet, for gosh sakes. What must he be like in person?”

  “He’s impressive, I’ll give you. The ultimate pacifist,” Dave said. He sat up and decided his headache had abated to where he could sip some wine and nibble some cheese. He did so. The wine wasn’t very good. “Despite all the wonders the 99 Gods have done so far, doesn’t any of this bother you? Even a little?”

  “This is a hell of a gift horse to be looking in the mouth, Dave,” Steve said. “But you’re right. I worry about all the changes we’re seeing, so fast. Yes, the Gods are taking us to utopia, but I’m not sure humanity is made to travel that fast. What if we have an economic collapse in the meantime? What about all those people who really don’t agree with their position on abortion? What if some God comes out against gays? I don’t know that things really are as easy as they seem right now.”

  “That wasn’t quite what I was going to say,” Dave said. He sat up too quickly and now his back ached where the stitches were.

  “So, what did you mean when you said you were bothered by this, Dave?” Steve asked, pointing at him.

  “What bothers me is that the 99 Gods are too tangible,” Dave said. He waved his arms wide and then immediately regretted doing so, as his head throbbed and his back twinged. “Religions are morally strong not in spite of their faith, but because of faith. Once upon a time you needed faith to believe in God, the afterlife, and man’s purpose on Earth. Faith without proof. It’s faith that gives people the strength to confront the big moral questions and live their lives without falling into existential angst. With the 99 Gods around, though, where’s the need for faith? You can just go ask them.”

  “So says the formerly agnostic science PhD in environmental geology,” Steve said. Dave shrugged. “I thought you liked the fact the 99 Gods proved God Almighty’s existence and the rest.”

  “I did, until it sunk in to my rock-filled head about all those mysteries going away,” Dave said. “Now I’m torn.” And not just from surgery. “I love what the 99 Gods are doing, but I’m not sure I like the implied price.”

  “Same here,” Steve said. “I’m afraid we’ve sold our souls for a mess of pottage.”

  “You guys,” Marty said, waving his hands madly. “I hear they’re going to be reviving ‘The Shadow Box’ at the Center for the Performing Arts. Any interest in seeing if we can horn in on the costuming again, Dave? I think…”

  Dave drove up the sloping driveway to his garage, stirring up a few pine needles as he passed. Ten steps across the garage, he heard “Dave, got a moment?”

  Tiff’s disembodied voice. He stopped and boggled until he placed it; Tiff didn’t normally talk to him in the garage using their intricate house intercom system. Or, should he say, ‘her intricate house intercom system’.

  “Sure,” he said. “You in your office?”

  “Where else?”

  He didn’t respond. For all he knew his wife might have hooked up her intercom remotes to relay his answer to the bathroom toilet seat or something else equally Tiff-like.

  Tiff’s ground floor office sprawled nearly as large as their master suite, chock full of computers and other electronic gadgetry. After he entered the room she turned from her ham radio set and rolled a chair over to him, across the mirror-polished oak floor. “You look tired, Dave,” she said. “You holding up okay? Was this too much too soon after your latest surgery?” Tiff run his life? Never.

  “Steve dragged me over to his and Marty’s place to socialize,” he said, sitting. He checked his antiquated watch and found midnight rolling toward the hour hand. “I’m tired, but I’m feeling fine otherwise.”

  “Headache?”

  “Nothing worse than the usual.”

  Tiff shook her head and patted him on his knee, staring off into infinity. She still had her mousy brown hair up from work, but wore sweats, which meant she had been emulating the rats earlier on their exercise room’s treadmill. “What’s up?” he asked. Normally, Tiff didn’t like to be disturbed at her work. Nor did she know the details of his chronic problems, because he didn’t want to share such things and, presumably, because she hadn’t taken the time to find out the information.

  “I picked up some disquieting non-public information,” she said. Meaning: from her work. He knew she worked at a stealth corporation that officially did nothing but churn out non-committal annual reports under the DBA of ‘Smith Masters’. Top secret stuff, but she said she worked in their IT department, supposedly inoculated from the worst of things. Not government top secret, though, but big business top secret. That much she had revealed. Logically, her company did something with data, but no telling what. “You need to keep a warier eye out for problems and traps.”

  “Traps? You talking personal or business?”

  “Business,” she said, frowning. Tiff no longer had a personal life, unless she kept that a secret from him as well. In her endless quest for more time to devote to her career, she had even given up her long-standing athletic interests. For four years, back in her twenties, she had been a member of a women’s professional soccer team. As far as Dave knew, she hadn’t even played a pick-up soccer game in over six years. “I can’t say anything exact, but two of the larger payday advance firms were attacked by unknowns. Not only did the unknown attackers reveal some massively illegal corporate shenanigans to the State and Federal authorities, but the attackers exposed every conceivable minor peccadillo of all of both firms’ chief operating officers and directors as well. Without proof, one or more of the Gods must be behind the attack. Us perfectly ordinary powerless private citizen types could easily get caught up in this sort of power game and get squished like bugs.”

  “What does this have to do with me?” Dave said. Tiff often spouted nonsense she knew was bogus, just to observe his reaction. She also had a tendency to lie, often just to smooth things over. She also regularly lied to herself, he knew. She firmly believed her estrangement from her family had been their fault, despite the fact he knew she had purposefully picked dozens of fights with them. Once a hypercompetitive soccer player, always a hypercompetitive soccer player.

  Tiff licked her lips while tightening her jaw muscles, a gesture Dave knew to interpret as meaning ‘I thought you were smart enough that I didn’t need to
spell this out’. “If I made a list of large companies of similar morally loose nature, your firm’s clients would be in the top thirty. I can’t say more, though.”

  Right. “If the Gods are doing this, then it’s the right thing to do,” Dave said.

  Tiff narrowed her eyebrows. Then he figured out what she meant. “One or more of the Gods hired your company to help them, didn’t they?”

  “I can’t respond to your comment, Dave,” she said.

  Well, that’s shit on the petunia you just sniffed. This he didn’t need. “I understand,” he said, making nice. “I’m going to bed. Want to join me?”

  Tiff turned back to her computer. “Naw. I’ve got at least another two hours of work left. Get some extra sleep for me, okay? See you tomorrow for church.”

  8. (John)

  “Johannes, Johannes, wake up!”

  Brother Matthias spoke, in Latin. Startled to hear Matthias’s voice after all these centuries, John woke up. He opened his eyes, for all the good that did.

  No Brother Matthias here; darkness surrounded him, the air close and hot. Sweat poured off his ample body. John felt around and found himself inside something soft, padded and small. He tried to remember how he got here, and couldn’t.

  What had he been doing?

  A moment of utter terror came over him, a moment of not knowing himself. The moment passed as scores of names raced through his head, images of centuries of life, rebirth, and work.

  John relaxed, as he remembered worse experiences. Awakening in a coffin was new, although the servants of what would be his holy order once dragged him around the city of Cordoba in a wooden coffin, a very long time ago. He had sent ample numbers of his old worn out bodies into coffins over the centuries, and dug himself out of burial pits several times, but never the formal grave. He had come close – the time he had been skewered by arrows from Mongol horsemen, back in old Poland, came to mind. Or was that Muscovy? Anyway, despite being dead and looted, he had recovered.

  Dubuque? One of the Living Saints, John remembered. Dubuque had appeared out of nowhere one day, and in a press conference told the media that God Almighty created 99 Living Saints in order to ban war and do good. Within hours, over a dozen of the 99 appeared, most of the rest calling themselves Gods and affirming Dubuque’s message. The next day the newspapers of the world blared “God Speaks” in their largest typeface, or some equally impressive headline.

  This was his second visit to Dubuque.

  After the 99 appeared, he had prayed for a full week about them. The Virgin answered and told him to persevere. She said the Living Saints weren’t Satan’s spawn, but neither were they born of God as Jesus had been. Instead, the 99 Living Saints were normal men and women, human adults elevated by a Host of Angels to sainthood and granted the ability to work God’s miracles. Though created, they were free to choose their own actions. “God made the Siberian Tiger as well as the Asiatic Ox. You find Siberian Tigers only behind bars in zoological gardens; the Asiatic Ox has become the domesticated cow.”

  John found the Virgin’s last two sentences most disquieting. He had interpreted the earlier sections of the answer to his prayer as meaning the 99 wielded God’s Grace, in all the old familiar ways, an interpretation now proven wrong.

  How long had he been dead this time?

  After the arrival of the 99 Living Saints, John had ordered his people to analyze their actions. His people concluded that despite their promulgation of the new ‘no nations can war’ commandment and their utopian blandishments, the 99 Living Saints were able to act in other than a purely pacifistic manner. Yet, ‘elevated by their creators’, whoever or whatever that meant, implied the 99 were created at God Almighty’s behest and that they experienced His divine goodness. Like newborn children, God created the 99 Living Saints innocent and holy. Filled with God Almighty’s light, he expected them to choose to be good, and do good.

  Foolish him.

  John examined the insides of the coffin, and decided they had given him one fitted for his belt-size and not his height. He heard faint noises around him, which meant he wasn’t buried underground. He guessed his coffin lay upon a bier.

  What did his people find? Right. They figured out the Territorial God by the name of Atlanta was secretly behind the recent spree killings down south. His people extrapolated that she had killed thousands of people. Atlanta’s horrific anonymous murders were all over the newspapers, enough so that he overcame his fear of modern technology and turned on a television. He had read online, an activity he despised with a passion, that televisions were on the way out, soon to be replaced by a different gadget. John prayed for strength, unsure how he would cope. His last two centuries had been hell because of the industrial revolution, or revolutions, and their aftermath. Every time he turned around he needed to learn something new, even as evil magicians and his mission against them remained the same.

  He hadn’t even gotten far enough in his conversation with Dubuque to talk about his suspicions regarding Atlanta’s actions.

  “This coffin is a sign from God,” John said to himself, reminding him again of that box in Cordoba, and how he ended up inside. He had messed up. Badly. The fact he didn’t sing with angels surprised him, another sign from God, this one saying ‘you still have work to do, boyo, so go do it’.

  Dubuque had killed him while doing his exorcism, or afterwards, controlling John’s mind in some screwy fashion to keep him from resisting. As usual, John’s unconscious mind, wielding his normally oath-quieted magic, brought him back after his death.

  John had found many varieties and nuances of the supernatural over the years, but his mission focused on magicians who called on infernal spirits for their power and those taken over by the infernal spirits. He could undo their ability to use magic, and he knew through experience he was able to undo anyone’s ability to use any form of unnatural abilities.

  However, the only form of the unnatural or supernatural he was able to undo directly was magic. He couldn’t free a victim from a Telepath’s mind control, or stop his telekinesis from picking up a rock, or stop a Shaman’s ritual from taming a wolf, or stop a Mystic from gaining his hunches. Not without attacking his ability to use his variety of unnatural.

  John chose to view his current predicament as a test from God. He tried to open the coffin lid, physically, but he couldn’t. Dubuque’s holy willpower held it closed.

  He pushed at the holy willpower lock, and it gave. Shocked, John pulled back, and didn’t dispel it. Dubuque’s holy willpower was magic. The 99, as he now feared, weren’t Living Saints wielding the miraculous power of angels and of God Almighty, but magicians wielding their own power, a new power akin to magic, but different.

  The strictures of John’s mission thus allowed him to stop Dubuque.

  But should he? God Almighty sent the 99 Gods. About this, John had no doubt. However, the chosen of God were still able to choose to do evil. Judas had. Besides, how many magicians had John met over the years who started out on the path of holy glory and who later fell to the infernal voices that plagued all magicians? Far far too many. And some fell fast. On the other hand, an magician God created and sanctioned by the Almighty might have been given the moral right to do whatever he wanted whenever he damn well wanted, even to someone like John, and John wasn’t sure he possessed the moral right to oppose a magician who wielded God’s authority.

  He didn’t know enough. He needed to delve into the issue of the 99 Gods, all of whom he now suspected.

  However, did he have the authority to do something even as minor as undoing Dubuque’s holy lock on his coffin? Even so small an act might cross a line he feared to cross.

  Fearful, John did what he always did in such situations. He prayed.

  The fact he had survived Dubuque’s anger was a message from God. It said, ‘submit to MY will’.

  Thy will be done, John prayed. I submit myself to you. Whatever thou
wilst, let it be done to me.

  No answer.

  John finally understood the voices outside his casket. One voice in particular, the same message spoken repeatedly: “Here lies a spawn of Satan, a witch, an evil man. Learn truly this lesson, that evil raised up against the power of a Living Saint must fall.”

  A Living Saint must fall. The message made him shiver. His shiver was the prayer answer, a true call.

  The Living Saint must fall.

  His morality assuaged, John focused his own willpower, his own magic, and targeted it at the coffin lid. Undo! Dubuque’s hold on the coffin vanished and the coffin lid opened.

  John sat up, his body old and creaky. The young man who spoke the words fled in terror in one direction, the audience of eleven men and women, slower to react, backed away and out of the room, similarly afraid. With a dusty ‘oof’, John climbed out of the coffin and stretched. Not too bad. His bier sat in some sort of rotunda, accessed by several halls. He picked a hall and started to jog, trying to figure out where in Dubuque’s home he might be, and where he needed to go to find Cosmo.

  John didn’t find Cosmo, but he did find the main entrance to Dubuque’s abode. A functionary, not the same one who had admitted him but still young, healthy and athletic, protested as John passed him and a short line of petitioners waiting admittance. John ignored him.

  As John stepped through the door, he looked up to see Dubuque, still glowing in his white holiness and streaking across the night sky like a comet, fly from elsewhere to meet him. John realized he had no options left but to fight, which despite the answer he had received from his prayer, sickened him. He wasn’t remotely prepared, physically or morally.

  “Far enough, demon,” Dubuque said as his feet touched the faux marble steps to his home. John stopped, still under the cover of the entryway roof, yet again undone by Dubuque’s mental control. “Attend me, my friends, for another lesson. We have…”

  These Gods didn’t know what they were doing, John realized. They possessed tremendous power, but didn’t understand how to use their power properly and efficiently.

  John didn’t bother with any time-wasting banter. Instead, he muttered his old well-used magician-removal spell, fixing his eyes and mind on his target, the chattering Dubuque. His magic flowed into Dubuque and struck. The so-called Living Saint screamed and began to melt Wicked Witch of the West style. As he melted the faux building around them melted as well, revealing the parking lot it stood on, as well as a great many people.

  Dubuque’s functionaries screamed and ran.

  John chuckled, sick and thrilled at the same time. His magic was powerful.

  He looked around, quickly, and didn’t spot Cosmo. Even with Dubuque’s magical house gone, he couldn’t find Cosmo. No choice remained but to leave his old companion in Dubuque’s hands.

  Angry at the loss of Cosmo, his companion for nearly twenty years, John sprinted away, lumbering into the artificially lit night. Outside of the area where Dubuque’s faux house once stood, parked vehicles partly filled the Living Saint’s large parking lot. “You! Give me your car keys!” John said, loud and bellowing. The terrified woman stammered for a moment, gave John her keys, and ran away screaming. It appeared he had acquired himself a reputation.

  John opened the car door and hauled himself in.

  His attack on Dubuque confused him. He had fought long and hard fights in the past, often against powerful magicians able to destroy him in an instant if he didn’t strike first, but this? This was oil and water. Fast. He thought he whipped a horse with a buggy whip and instead set the saddle on fire. The fight had been flat out wrong. He came closer to killing Dubuque than removing Dubuque’s ability to use magic. John had to admit he didn’t know what in the hell happened.

  Dubuque melted! What sort of beings were these Gods, anyway?

  John blinked and saw, in the car’s side mirror, Dubuque’s parking lot home rebuilding itself. “Well, that was bloody fast,” he said, chewing his white moustache in consternation. John turned left, out of the parking lot now, and stamped the gas pedal to the floor. The vehicle sprang forward faster than he dared hope, but quietly, and he realized he was driving an effeminate electric vehicle.

  He suspected little time left remained for him among the living. Any instant now the God would come nigh after John and smite him to his death in personal battle. John readied his dispel, fearful that another fight wouldn’t go so well as the last. Dire worries rumbled through John’s mind, horrible speculation of what a magician with the power of a God might do in this situation. He couldn’t get a sense for the power level of these Gods. Or their limitations. Or their morality.

  While John scanned the sky behind him for a flying God, the car’s radio turned on.

  “Lorenzi, you are now marked for justice,” Dubuque said, over the radio. “The entire world will know that Satan’s demon is on the loose. You will have nowhere to run. Your picture shall adorn the front page of every news website. Surrender now!”

  “Or what, you skanky dog?” John said under his breath, and turned off the radio. Melodramatic oaf. “I have to act fast, get some new identity papers, and move my resources around.” All the usual things. “Dubuque’s too newly empowered to know how to stop me. If I give him enough time to learn his chops…”

  John sped on into the night, unwilling to finish that last spoken thought.

  9. (Atlanta)

  “It’s good to see you again in person,” Phoenix said. Atlanta shook his hand. Phoenix had been an older Hispanic man before his apotheosis, but to Atlanta the Marine Corps tattoo on his shoulder had made all the difference in the world. She had told him she flew CH-53E Super Stallion heavy lift helicopters for the Corps first thing, and he immediately stopped looking at her as a pushy black bitch. “I sense Portland on her way here. Did you invite her?” Phoenix appeared two decades younger than the last time Atlanta had seen him, a level of Imago change she hadn’t had the nerve to try. The most she had done was darken her skin from coffee brown to jet black.

  “Yes. This is Dana Ravencraft, a magician, um, supported, with Portland’s power.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Phoenix,” Dana said, and shook his hand. Dark circles bagged under Dana’s eyes, and her minimal makeup had worn thin. She was exhausted, no sleep since her rescue, four different flights as Atlanta had ferried her from one location to another, the meeting in the Anime Café and now this meeting. Less than a day had passed since she had rescued Dana.

  “Interesting,” Phoenix said to Dana. He and Dana chatted while Atlanta paced around the motel room Dana had rented for her. Dana had given her a very strange look when Atlanta had asked Dana to arrange the rental, but the state of Atlanta’s pathetic finances could remain a secret until Dana officially accepted her chief of staff job.

  “You’re nervous,” Phoenix said to Atlanta a few minutes later. “Something’s bothering you.”

  Atlanta nodded. She perched herself on the end of the motel room bed. “Lots of things. I’m not going to talk about my issues until Portland gets here.”

  Phoenix shook his head and went back to chatting with Dana.

  “They what?” Portland said. She frowned. “Absurd!”

  “Nevertheless,” Dana said, more relaxed after Portland’s arrival. “I’d done nothing more than talk to some of the people they’d bludgeoned into vacating their lease on the 64th floor of the Trump Tower when Indulgence grabbed me and accused me of spying.”

  Portland’s physical appearance hadn’t changed a bit since Apotheosis. She remained an exceptionally short woman of ample thickness, middle aged, with Native American or Hispanic ancestors, possibly both. At least she dressed well.

  Portland’s eyes had become warier, though.

  The three Gods and Dana sat around a table in the motel room, all official-like. Phoenix, the most careful among them about appearances, had enlarged the table to a more impressive godly
size and had temporarily vanished the rest of the motel furniture.

  Atlanta told the other Gods about her encounter with the Suits and how she had discovered their actions because of the impact on the joint godly Integrity. The others didn’t much like to hear how they had missed something so significant to them all.

  “I worry most about the Ideological Gods,” Atlanta said. “Our creators implied the Ideological Gods needed to keep their heads down for Mission success, which I thought was backwards at the time, but the Seven Suits listened. They’re up to something bad and secret, and I don’t like their attitude toward mortals with unnatural tricks.” Far too many of them she considered under her protection. “I also wonder what the other Ideologicals are doing and whether the world is going to survive. How much meddling can our world take before it falls apart?”

  Phoenix drummed his fingers on the divinely enlarged table. “I don’t know the answer to your questions, but you’re right. Unfortunately, we know so little about ourselves. What I want to know is how our disruptions as Territorial Gods are going to affect things. I find myself hesitant to act for fear of causing more problems than I solve.”

  His statement fit, unfortunately, with her analysis of Phoenix.

  “I’ve run into some problems, too,” Portland said. “In a different area. Worshippers.”

  Atlanta frowned, surprised.

  “I don’t understand,” Phoenix said. “The Angels implied we’d be worshipped.”

  “You forget something Dominick spoke of, Phoenix,” Atlanta said, about the chief of the Angelic Host, the entity Jan and the other Indigo analysts hypothesized was an honest-to-God Archangel. Atlanta still wasn’t happy with Jan’s follow-up comment that according to Atlanta’s description Dominick possessed the same ‘what I say defines mundane reality’ aura possessed by the one alien Archangel they had met. Atlanta knew the Indigo got into some hairy messes, but alien Archangels? “I quote: ‘The three aspects of Rapture are adoration, awe, and the holy strength of your followers; each has its own pitfalls and benefits; as you explore you will find a path of moderation to be best.’ Unquote.”

  “Adoration means worship, Atlanta,” Phoenix said. Portland shook her head.

  “Yes, but outright worship doesn’t fit with the moderate aspects of adoration. I’m afraid I agree with Portland,” Atlanta said. “I had some people worshipping me and their worship made me both sick and high. I stopped them.” After figuring out she had a problem, but not knowing why, she had searched her feelings and found the point of illness in her mind. In the same way as she later would find the hurt to the Gods’ Integrity, she had searched out and found the source of the sickness and pleasure. Her meditations had led her to a church and to a minister who had his whole damned Baptist church worshipping her instead of God Almighty.

  “Did any survive?” Dana said, tsk tsking.

  Atlanta frowned. “They’d done me no wrong save from ignorance,” Atlanta said. She had given them a divinely charismatic sermon straight out of her childhood memory, the one about the Israelites turning their back on God to worship the golden calf. Her sermon convinced them to desist, though afterwards she suspected she could get the whole lot of them to jump off a cliff for her if she asked.

  “So you detected a harm to your Rapture?” Phoenix said. She nodded. “You’re more sensitive than I am. You proved that with the Integrity hit. Some people do worship me, people who’ve put me on an exceedingly tall pedestal. I may be in danger.”

  “You need to stop them,” Portland said. “Atlanta’s right. Worship is like a drug. I didn’t experience the effects of worship in exactly the same way she did, but I felt the worshippers’ thoughts and desires eating at my mind and my willpower – in the mundane sense of the word – and they continued to do so until I stopped them from worshipping me. I sent them all off to counselors.”

  “Counselors?” Atlanta said. The Host had given Portland divine gifts powerful enough to stop wars and blessed her with the moral responsibility to do so, but when she ran into a problem with some normals she sent them to counselors?

  Portland shook her head and politely ignored Atlanta’s comment. “Several Territorial Gods are encouraging worshippers. I shudder to think what this is doing to them. They need to be told and led back to the more moderate path.”

  “But when does adoration turn into worship?” Phoenix said. “This is a very difficult line for me, and the mortals will have even more problems, I fear.” Atlanta wanted to bark out a comment to stop acting like a potential recruit with an ASVAB waiver, but held back. His reaction felt a hair off, his voice deeper and smoother than his question entailed.

  “Think celebrity worship and role models instead of ‘great holy God, you’re everything to me’ religious worship,” Dana said. “I believe the difference is, if I may say so, that you’re supposed to be leading us to God, not to yourselves.” The thing that most struck Atlanta about Dana was her ability to debate, forcefully, with the Gods. She was the only mortal Atlanta had found with enough spine to do so.

  Portland made a face. “God. This would all be so much easier if God had shown his face to us. Or Jesus had. Or Buddha. Muhammad. Or even the Archangels named in the canonical Bible and the Apocrypha. Instead, we got a bunch of screwy named spirits who implied they were Angels, called themselves the Angelic Host and said they represented God Almighty, leaving us to take their claim on faith. They felt holy to me…” She paused. “But not all of the 99 agreed.”

  “What did they claim?” Dana leaned forward with her elbows on the table. “What’s their origin?” Phoenix froze and turned away. Portland’s eyes unfocused. Atlanta could tell Portland struggled for the right words. Atlanta hesitated herself, finding something innate in her that didn’t want to spill the secrets of the Angelic Host. She willed her way around the restriction, at least a little.

  “In their own words, our creators said they were newborn, just under half a millennium old, and they served God Almighty,” Atlanta said.

  “That sounds like a lot of nothing,” Dana said. “Surely they said something?”

  “Well, in addition to the ‘no wars between nations’ commandment we were to relay from God, our creators also said they had been invited by Earth’s holiest to judge the ills and potential strengths of modern civilization,” Atlanta said. Given the resistance within her, to her own words, she suspected Dana was the first mortal to hear this. “The Host says we, the 99 Gods, are the living embodiments of modern civilization, the archetypes of modern civilization, and the success or failure of humanity and modern civilization will be judged by our actions. Through our miraculous willpower the appropriate rewards and punishments will appear.” She paused. “All of which I struggle to understand. The more time goes on, the less sense his words make.” When she had heard Dominick’s reality-defining words the first time she had been fully convinced, and intuitively and fully understood all the nuances.

  But no longer.

  “Yes, his words make less and less sense,” Phoenix said, unfrozen. He smiled at Dana, finally appreciating what had attracted Atlanta to the pushy young woman. “I’m afraid, though, that Portland’s right and true worship of us is wrong. The Angels, and I wish you two would admit they are Angels, didn’t tell us to be worshipped. My hubris led me to twist their words to that end.”

  Atlanta heard his words but didn’t hear any conviction in them.

  “Good start,” Portland said. She took Atlanta’s hand in hers. “Atlanta, you need to eschew your violent ways. They’re just as wrong. How will you judge whether someone needs killing, among those who you judge as needing killing? Would it be unfair to society to kill only ten percent of those who need killing? Once you start killing, where do you stop?”

  “The ones I killed needed killing,” Atlanta said. “I’m not talking about family violence crap, or people who stupidly panic and kill people in the heat of the moment, but care
er criminals of the worst stripe. I can see their history. That’s how I know where to stop.”

  “Your killing’s not going to make things better,” Portland said. “We aren’t omniscient and merely having our creators name us Gods doesn’t give us the wisdom to play God Almighty. Get a staff of mortals to help you choose, if choose you must.”

  “Good idea,” Atlanta said. Portland’s spoke her last sentence from on high, the thunder of the Lord. Atlanta thought for a moment, and realized she had heard Portland’s Rapture at work, Portland’s inner faith.

  She didn’t disagree with Portland’s statement, either, which lent it more weight. “This opens up a side topic I’d like to discuss,” Atlanta said. “I want to hire Dana here to be my chief of staff.”

  “Oh?” Portland said, letting go of Atlanta’s hand, her eyes flickering to Dana. “Was this your idea, Dana?”

  “No, Portland,” Dana said. “Atlanta made the offer after I told her how I got involved with you and you made me what I am.”

  Portland smiled and turned to Atlanta. “Dana’s pushy and is going to push you around, and because she wields my loaned power I know her thoughts when she thinks them, so she can’t help but be my spy in your ranks. Just thought I’d mention this first, so you wouldn’t think I was pulling anything on you.”

  Atlanta liked Portland’s honor the most. A little more spine would be good as well, but one can’t have everything.

  “No problem,” Atlanta said. “I’m not the Suits. I don’t have any grand designs on personal world domination or any other megalomaniacal shit. I figure I’ve got enough on my plate with ol’ Dixie as my responsibility.”

  “Then this is settled,” Portland said.

  Dana cleared her throat. “Don’t I get a say?”

  “Dear, I can read your desires in your mind. I know you want the job,” Portland said. “Besides, as I said to you when I found a way to loan you willpower, life’s always been too easy for you. You’ll never shine unless you’re challenged.”

  Dana glowered as best she could, fighting like mad to keep a smile off of her face.

  “So, now that you’ve heard our gripes…what’s your worst problem, Phoenix?” Atlanta said. She still didn’t like Phoenix’s reaction to Portland’s statements about the danger of worshippers.

  “Well, thank you,” Phoenix said. “I hadn’t thought of my issues in such direct terms, but I have seen some problems. I’ve had several conversations with Gods of all three varieties, and about half of them told me up front they hold the opinion that mortals aren’t to be trusted.”

  “This is a problem?” Atlanta said. “We were made vulnerable to mortals. We shouldn’t trust them.” Trusting all mortals felt wrong. Life had always been ‘us versus them’. Now, Gods versus mortals. That was why she put so much work into wooing the Indigo group. She wanted an edge, some mortals on her side.

  “It’s to balance your earlier comment that their lives are in our hands. I believe our lives are in their hands,” Phoenix said. “Your ‘Gods versus mortals’ attitude, if allowed to grow and spread, will lead inexorably into to Godly dictatorship as a way to prevent the mortals from being a threat to us. It’s the same lure leading a few too many politician-distrusting officers in the Corps into longing for a military dictatorship to set things right.”

  Atlanta tapped her right foot on the nearest table leg. “Yes. Okay. I’ll admit the thought had crossed my mind both in the Corps and as a God.”

  “Don’t forget that the Angelic Host is testing humanity by our actions,” Phoenix said. “The Host was careful with their words, but their disdain for modern civilization wasn’t hidden. Our ‘status quo ante’ is before Apotheosis. I think theirs is pre-modern. If they’re testing the validity of modern civilization through us, and if we act without thinking, that’s where we’re going to end up.”

  Dana made an ick face. “That puts a whole new spin on what’s going on. Why didn’t you tell me this before, Portland?”

  “It’s too upsetting,” Portland said. “Phoenix is right. When I said ‘old ways’, I mean the ‘real old ways’, pre-Renaissance, pre-Protestant Reformation, pre-destruction of the Caliphate, pre-Charlemagne. Perhaps even pre-destruction of the Second Temple! This is my darkest fear. I’m afraid we’re been given power simply to fall flat on our faces and prove some hidden someone’s point.”

  Book of Job thoughts involving God and his Adversary filled several tracks of Atlanta’s mind. No, that wouldn’t be good, she decided.

  “Which brings me to my long delayed point,” Phoenix said. “I trust society a hell of a lot more than I trust the other Gods. Present company excluded. Nothing you’ve said to me today leads me away from my conclusion, either.” He tapped his fingers together. “I fear we, as Gods, have too much freedom.”

  Atlanta reflected for a moment about her post-Apotheosis anti-murderer cleansing spree, and hoped her early moments of ‘too much freedom’ wouldn’t come back to haunt her.