“Could this be another diversion?” Deanna asked, her stomach twisting. She glanced at Elliot who looked just as worried as she did.
“I’m afraid it all might be,” Tommy said.
“What is this guy after?” Deanna asked.
“We could jump into his head and find out,” Elliot said. “I’ll be glad to give it a try.”
Deanna hated, flat hated, the sound of that. But of course it would be Elliot to jump out front with something dangerous.
“Last resort,” Tommy said.
Elliot nodded.
“Did you get a look at the map?” K.J. asked.
“I got a pretty good one,” Jewel said. “But I have no idea what it meant.”
“You all stay here and keep an eye on our host,” K.J. said. “Jewel and I are going to go figure out what that map is all about.”
Jewel and K.J. vanished.
At that point a dozen unarmed men and women came from the communications center, went out the front gate, and started down the road, walking as if they had just gotten off work.
Tommy laughed. “Jewel and I told them that once they got this all shut down, that the boss was broke and wouldn’t pay them. That they needed to just get out of here.”
Deanna laughed, pointing down the road outside the walls. “Elliot and I did the same thing with all the guards.”
Tommy laughed.
Then all five of them just turned and stared at the big house from the top of the compound wall.
Deanna didn’t want to get any closer and clearly none of the rest of them did either until that angry god was out of there.
THIRTY
JEWEL ENDED UP with K.J. back in Poker Boy’s office.
Poker Boy, Patty, Ben, and Laverne were still there.
“We got the attacks we know about shut down,” K.J. said to Laverne who stood when they appeared.
“But we’re worried that all this might have been a diversion as well,” Jewel said. “Numa was studying an ancient map when we were in his office and I sort of got a look at it, but don’t understand it.”
K.J. turned to Ben. “Would you mind Jewel showing you that map?”
“Not in the slightest,” Ben said.
Jewel moved over and put her hand inside Ben’s shoulder.
She was overwhelmed for a moment by the vast amount of information Ben had in his mind and the thousands and thousands of years he had lived. He had once been a major god of lamplighters. But Poker Boy had rescued him from fading away into obscurity.
Jewel gathered herself and tried to remember the image of the map on Numa’s desk.
“Just let me look at it,” Ben’s voice said gently in her head.
So she focused on the map in front of Numa and after a moment Ben said, “That’s enough.”
Jewel stepped back next to K.J. as Ben shook his head.
Numa was looking at the Map of the Crystals,” Ben said softly.
Laverne stared at him for a moment, then just shook her head and sat down.
“Can you fill us in, Ben?” Poker Boy asked after a moment.
“The Map of Crystals is basically a map of all the major crystal points in the Earth’s crust. Crystal points are pressure points on what scientists today call the boundaries of tectonic plates.”
“I gave the Map of Crystals back to the Fates after Atlantis,” Laverne said. “There was only supposed to be one.”
“He seems to have found a second,” Ben said.
“He wants his power back,” Laverne said softly. “He wants to send this planet back to the Stone Age, back to when we depended on agriculture.”
Jewel felt more shocked than she wanted to admit. “He can do that with that map?”
“He can,” Ben said. “He could cause earthquakes and volcanic eruptions so large, it would destroy this civilization. And the next crystal point is tonight.”
“He wanted all of us so busy with a war with the Silicon Suckers,” Laverne said, “that we wouldn’t notice the buildup in energy at the points.”
“So how do we stop him?” Poker Boy asked.
“We don’t,” Laverne said.
She stood and squared her shoulders. “I’ll go plead my case to the Fates and the Powers that Be, but I doubt they will much care.”
Then she was gone.
Jewel turned to Ben. “Why wouldn’t they care?”
“Civilizations come and go,” Ben said. “It is the nature of humanity. They will consider this nothing more than a squabble among the gods.”
“Wiping out civilization is a squabble among the gods?” K.J. asked, clearly as stunned as Jewel was feeling.
Poker Boy and Patty just sat silent in the booth.
“Civilization always returns,” Ben said. “It has many times in the past, it will do so in the future.”
Suddenly Jewel had an idea.
“Ben, I was just inside your head,” Jewel said. “If you sensed me, could you block me?”
“Possible,” Ben said. “Why?”
“What happens if all seven of the Ghost Agents climbed into Numa’s head. Think we could slow him down, confuse him, get him to miss some deadlines or do things wrong?”
Ben just shrugged. “At this point I see very little else to try.”
Jewel turned to Poker Boy. “If he is holding some shield up around that compound that is not electrical, but power based, watch for holes. And come storming in when you see one.”
Poker Boy glanced at Ben, who nodded.
“Let’s go, K.J.” Jewel said.
“Be careful,” Patty said.
“We’re already dead, remember?” Jewel said, smiling.
“But there are worse things than being dead,” Ben said.
“Oh, that’s what I needed,” K.J. said. “A pep talk.”
“Just watch for the hole in his shield,” Jewel said.
And with that she and K.J. jumped back to their team standing in the sun on the wall of the compound.
SECTION SEVEN
The Battle
THIRTY-ONE
TOMMY DECIDED THAT K.J. would find someone in the house, a cook or housekeeper, then have that person knock on Numa’s library door. The distraction would be enough for the other six of them to jump into the library and merge with Numa.
Or at least that was the plan.
Deanna couldn’t think of a better one, so they all agreed and K.J vanished.
“We try to stay hidden in Numa’s mind,” Tommy said. “Just confuse him, give him faint suggestions, and so on.”
“And remember when you get in there,” Jewel said, “get small so the rest of us can crowd in.”
“If he spots one of us,” Tommy said, “the others use that distraction to take his mind apart if you can. This man wants to kill billions, so don’t worry about damage. He deserves what he gets.”
Deanna didn’t like the sound of that either, but she sure understood.
“Watch for the mechanism in his mind controlling the screen around this place,” Jewel said. “We need to knock that down to get help in here.”
“I go in first,” Tommy said, “then Jewel, Belle, Nancy, Elliot, and Deanna. One right after another. Be fast. We want to catch him by surprise. K.J will join us if he can.”
Deanna nodded and squeezed Elliot’s hand. She was dying in a bed in Idaho, days away from her final breath, and right now she felt like she was risking her life and everything.
Very strange.
“I’m in,” K.J.’s voice came back strong in her mind. “Knocking on the door now!”
They all jumped at the same time into the huge library room. Deanna didn’t allow herself to look around at all, but watched as Tommy, Jewel, Belle, Nancy, and Elliot vanished quickly, one right after another.
Deanna hesitated just a second to see if Numa had a reaction. “Then he said, “Come on in and join the party.”
The man that K.J. had found walked in and K.J. bailed out of the man as the guy fell to the floor and burst into flames.
&nb
sp; Deanna put her finger to her lips to tell K.J. to freeze. She had a hunch that the other five were trapped in some part of Numa’s mind.
Numa didn’t need to know there were more ghost agents around.
“You ghost agents didn’t think I wouldn’t notice how you got my people to shut down my wonderful diversions,” Numa said, leaning back in his chair and laughing. “So I was expecting you because no human or superhero or god can get in here.”
Numa leaned forward and looked at the old map in front of him.
“Can you all see the wonderful map I found in one of my old books?”
Deanna eased slowly toward Numa, doing her best to not make a sound and indicating that K.J. not move.
Numa pointed to a place on the map and said, “This is the first point of attack. It will sink the west coast of the United States.”
As he pointed, Deanna eased over and touched his finger and let herself be drawn inside Numa.
His mind was holding the rest in what looked like a prison in his head. Bars and all.
He did not seem to notice she was there.
He pointed to the next place and his mind imagined all the death and seemed to take joy from it.
That just made her angry, but she managed to contain her feelings. There was nothing joyful about death.
She should know.
She had watched Elliot die and now she was dying.
In one of her lessons with Jewel over the last few days, Jewel had shown Deanna the one place in a human brain that could be broken to shut the brain down completely. It was like a fine rope leading from the back of the brain to the spine. Jewel had had a medical term for that rope that Deanna couldn’t remember.
But she sure remembered where that was.
She eased her way there now, ignoring as much as she could what Numa was saying, bragging to the others trapped in his brain about how many would die.
The guy really wanted the world to return to the Dark Ages where everyone farmed and he had power again. It seems the gods took power from how many were basically worshipping them.
No wonder Lady Luck was so powerful.
Numa had been very powerful in his day. Only Ceres was more powerful, and she was nothing more than an old lady now tending to her own gardens and mostly ignoring the world.
Deanna could tell that Numa had great contempt for Ceres and all the other gods, actually.
Jewel had told her to only use what she was about to do in extreme emergencies, if she needed to stop someone from killing someone else.
And this seemed like a very large emergency.
It wouldn’t kill Numa, but it would shut him down.
Deanna imagined a large knife in her hand and without giving it another thought, cut through the cord that Jewel had told her to cut.
Numa’s brain went blank and his head banged on the table and the map.
Deanna left Numa and stood next to the wide-eyed K.J. as the rest of the team climbed out of the old god.
“Great work,” Elliot said, moving over and kissing Deanna.
An instant later Laverne and Poker Boy and Patty appeared.
Tommy pointed at the map under Numa’s head. “Might want to make sure all those points are defused.”
Jewel nodded. “He was going on and on about all the death and destruction he was about to cause.”
Laverne pushed Numa back and he slumped in his chair.
She picked up the map and stared at it, then nodded.
“What did you do to him?” Patty asked, moving around and touching his neck. “He still has a heartbeat.”
Deanna couldn’t imagine how glad she was to hear that.
Deanna turned to Jewel and said, “I cut the string that you told me to cut only in emergencies. I figure him killing billions and you five trapped was an emergency.”
Jewel laughed and turned to Laverne. “He will live, but never awaken.”
“Thank you,” Laverne said. Then she looked at K.J. and all the agents. “Your team’s work is finished. You have once again helped us save the world.”
At that moment Numa’s body vanished.
Laverne turned to Poker Boy and Patty. “We are far, far from finished.”
With that, all three of them vanished leaving the seven ghosts standing in the massive library.
Jewel walked over to one shelf and pulled off the ghost copy of one of the books there and looked at it, thumbing through the pages before putting it back. “Think Laverne would let us use this library and compound?”
“Yes,” Laverne said, her voice echoing in all their heads. “Keep the entire place for your team.”
Everyone smiled and laughed.
Deanna could hardly imagine having access to all these ancient books. This room was heaven to her.
She glanced over at Elliot and he was just looking upward at all the books and smiling like a kid at Christmas.
“Looks like we finally have a team headquarters,” Jewel said. “We just got to figure out a way to have real people staff the compound and cook and all that.”
“We can make that work,” Tommy said as he walked around and looked at all the books.
Elliot looked at Deanna. “Wonderful, huh?
“Couldn’t be better,” Deanna said, hugging Elliot.
“Lunch first,” K.J. said. “Then we can come back and haunt this mansion all we want. But if this is going to be headquarters, I vote for a hot tub up on the compound wall so we can look out at the stars at night.”
Books and hot tubs and wonderful food.
Deanna just smiled.
Elliot took her hand, smiling back at her.
She had a hunch that she and Elliot had just found heaven.
THIRTY-TWO
EXACTLY TWO MONTHS from the day of Elliot’s accident, Deanna and Elliot jumped back to their old condo and into their old bedroom.
It was seven and outside was one of those perfect evenings that Boise was famous for. And that Deanna loved. Clear blue sky, cooling breeze, the promise of a cool night ahead.
She and Elliot had spent so many wonderful walks on evenings like this one.
A machine beeped softly in the background like a ticking clock, noting the last few minutes of a life.
The room smelled of antiseptic and something sour. Deanna couldn’t believe the thin, frail body in the bed was all that was left of her.
The consistent beeping continued and Deanna could see the sheet rise slightly as her body took a shallow breath.
“You all right?” Elliot asked.
“I feel fine,” Deanna said, taking his hand. “Just glad I’m not in that body anymore.”
“I’ll have you know I love that body,” Elliot said.
“And you did that very well last night,” Deanna said, turning and kissing Elliot solidly on the lips.
She held that for a moment, then pulled away.
She looked around at their bedroom.
When alive, this had been a haven for them, a sanctuary they retreated to after long days in the real world of law and criminals and corporations.
She wanted to remember this place for all the good times they had had in here. She didn’t want to think of it as a death place.
“What do you say we go get something to eat,” Deanna said. “Find a nice quiet restaurant off the Strip in Vegas and have some wine to celebrate our new life together and then go back to the compound and enjoy our new apartment a little.”
“I love that idea,” Elliot said. “You sure?”
“Very sure,” Deanna said. “And maybe get K.J. to vacate his hot tub for an hour so we can watch the stars.”
“That might be asking too much,” Elliot said, laughing.
Deanna had to agree. Since they had taken over Numa’s old compound, Deanna and Elliot had taken one entire upstairs wing of the main house as their own and turned it into an apartment.
They loved the huge bed up there and were slowly having the living staff make the place into something more to their taste
. It seemed that superheroes needed jobs to live since they were not paid to be superheroes. And Laverne had given the Ghost of a Chance team all of Numa’s assets as a reward, so the entire Ghost of a Chance team were all very rich in real world money, even though they didn’t need it.
Laverne had let the superheroes working at the compound be able to see the team, so it didn’t seem like they were actually working for ghosts, even though they were.
Belle and Nancy were having a blast learning and running the corporations and Jewel was already digging into the medical corporation to figure out what advances they could do there.
K.J. had taken a guesthouse near one wall as a second residence and put a hot tub on the compound wall above his guesthouse in one of the old guard posts. The view of the desert sky and the valley below was amazing from that hot tub.
Belle and Nancy had decided to stay in their home in Las Vegas, as had Jewel and Tommy.
But all seven of them were already getting into a habit of meeting in the large dining room, also full of books, for breakfast every day and talking about the activities ahead, including the corporation holdings and what they were doing with them to help lives.
Besides helping with the legal aspects of the corporations and taking over control, Deanna and Elliot had spent every day in the main two-story library, just trying to get a sense of what books were there. It continually stunned them both at the scope and scale of the collection.
There were books in that large library that had not been seen in hundreds of years. Knowledge existed there that many thought lost.
But now, this evening, they were back in Boise because tonight was the night Deanna’s body was supposed to die.
The mechanical sound of beeping counting the moments down continued unstopped.
Deanna took a long look at her old, frail body under the thin hospital bed sheet. Her hair had mostly fallen away and her face was nothing but bones and sunken skin.
She looked awful. She didn’t need to stay here and watch this. As Laverne had said weeks ago, Deanna was already dead.
And now very much alive as a Ghost of a Chance agent living with the man she loved more than anything in the world.
Smith's Monthly #19 Page 21