“Tell me, Betrayer, how are you betraying us?” Uffie said, professorial and demanding.
Dave found Elorie’s hand and held on tight. She nodded and they covered each other with their respective immunities.
“Betrayer’s not fully correct. I also think your group owes me one for forcing me to reveal the place of time,” Orlando said, eyes on Nessa. “I found, in the place of time, a better way to protect us. I don’t like what I’m doing, personally or morally, but this is necessary.”
“I don’t like the word ‘necessary’,” Nessa said. “Too much like another name for ‘evil’.”
“No,” Orlando said. “Not evil. A gamble.”
“Jesus Christ!” Ken said, suddenly highly animated and a foot off the ground. “No way, Betrayer. I won’t let you.”
“Phah! You can’t stop me.”
Ken turned to the two cloaked women. “You’re making a big mistake by helping Betrayer. She isn’t one of the good guys.”
“And you aren’t making any mistakes by sitting around and doing absolutely nothing, Ken?” Jan said. Her words seemed to push Ken away from her.
Ken turned to Orlando. “I can’t believe this of you.”
“You’re going to have to trust me in this,” Orlando said. “Trust me that this serves the greater good and isn’t as bad as it sounds.” He glanced at the Divine Compact contract in Betrayer’s hands, and made an addendum to Betrayer’s addendum. He turned to the crazy God. “Only if the two innocents are kept safe, away from this experimentation.”
“Bwah hah hah hah!” The world dimmed as Ken interposed a solid nearly opaque teek barrier around Dave and Elorie. “Kenny, dear, teek shells can’t stop me. I can teleport, you know.” Deep throated giggle.
Dave’s mind froze solid, finally catching on. He gave Elorie’s hand three squeezes and turned to Betrayer. She did the same. They hit Betrayer’s projection with their projected immunities. Nothing.
Shit.
“Good luck with this experimentation,” Orlando said. “I predict you’ll find them as annoying as I’m sure you’re finding Persona’s other half.” He turned to Nessa. “The twins, please? I’m sure you understand the necessity.”
“Bullshit. You’re paying Betrayer protection money,” Nessa said, now nose to nose with Orlando. “I want to hear the logic behind this or I’m going to lose my temper. Badly. Gods will suffer.”
Orlando quailed while Betrayer bwah hah hah-ed again. He gathered himself, visible willpower defenses springing up around him. “Dave, Elorie and the twins are a burden on you, keeping you and Ken from doing what you need to do, what you must do, as well as keeping you from acting with the skill and power I know you have. The twins will be under Betrayer’s protection. Dave and Elorie she gets to play with.”
“Hey!” Elorie said. “You can’t fucking be serious!” Orlando shrugged. “Nessa! We’re your family! Jan, Knot! We’re allies, outer circle Indigo members.”
Jan and Knot didn’t respond, or say a thing.
Nessa studied Betrayer’s contract and nodded. “When I want them back I get them back,” she said, voice all icy.
“You’d be a fool to want the twins back until after all of this is settled, but if you try to get any of these four back without my say so, the contract is voided,” Betrayer said. “They could easily die without my protection in the time it would take you to rescue them.”
“Nessa!” Dave said. Elorie joined in with his shout. He couldn’t believe Nessa agreed to this…until he got a close look at Nessa’s cold-as-ice eyes. She too had fallen, taken down by necessity.
“Sorry,” Nessa said. She stared down Betrayer. “I have a bit of advice for you, official Daughter of Light advice. My cost for not contesting this.”
“Advise away, then,” Betrayer said.
“When all seems darkest and there appear to be no more options, remember that the map is not the territory. That’s a quote, by the way.” Insanity. Dave winced. Her thirty pieces of silver was a bit of utter insanity.
Betrayer nodded. “I read the quote in a marketing brochure once. There’s more to your comment than the superficial?”
“Uh huh. Whole bunches of philosophy crap I’m sure you’re going to need someday.” Nessa took the twins from her arms and gave them to Betrayer. “Ken. Cold logic time. Drop the barrier. This has to happen.”
Ken hesitated for a moment, eyeing Betrayer, his calculating-the-odds look on his face. Then his shoulders slumped. “Elorie, Dave – I’ll make sure we come get you,” Ken said. He dropped his teek barrier. “I promise.” Both Diana and Uffie shouted at Nessa and Ken and at Jan and Knot, but they ignored them. Jan, strangely, appeared ready to start crying at any moment, but he had a hunch her sadness didn’t have anything to do with him. Or Elorie.
Betrayer, haughty, proud and carrying the now squalling twins, pranced over to Dave and Elorie. She stopped and paused. “Cute attempt, airhead. I’m better. Get out, now!”
Dave curled his eyebrows into a big ‘huh?’ Persona answered his unasked question by exiting Elorie and screaming “You fucking bitch!” into Betrayer’s face.
“You missed your chance to stop me from taking Dave and Elorie by trying this pathetic scheme to get back to your other half,” Betrayer said, wagging a finger at Persona. Dave blanched, recognizing Diana’s prediction about Persona coming true. “You stay here with Orlando or I’ll hunt this half of you down again and make you pay. Understand?”
Persona nodded, chastened. Betrayer turned back to Elorie and Dave. “You two will make a fine addition to my menagerie,” Betrayer said, barking her insane laughter.
Just try anything, Dave thought. We’re immune. You’re too unnatural for us to spoof, but you can’t affect us.
Betrayer raised an eyebrow and a five foot across section of floor lifted Dave and Elorie off the ground. The roof blasted open above them and the gees built under Dave’s legs. Betrayer, Jan and Knot’s projections followed in flight.
“Tell you what. I’ll make a bargain with you,” Betrayer said, as they sped up toward the bottoms of the cumulus clouds. “You relax those immunities of yours and I’ll provide you some air to breathe. How does that sound? You like that deal? Bwah hah hah hah hah!”
Dave turned to Elorie. Her pupils wide, she now shook with terror. “We’ve got to,” he said. She nodded and they both relaxed their immunities.
Betrayer’s willpower sucked its way into Dave’s mind and he blacked out.
35. (Dana)
“There’s another God in the camp this morning,” Richard said. Dana kissed him on the cheek and snuggled up closer against him. Her bed, once a narrow twin bed, now seemed permanently grown to queen sized. More than large enough for two people who spent their time wrapped in each other’s arms. The room housed fewer books now, but they had been lousy books anyway.
“Who? I’m not picking up anything.”
“I don’t know who,” Richard said. “But whoever it is, they’re hanging out with Bob. My guess is the God’s female and there’s more going on than talking.”
Dana snorted. “Bob moves fast, doesn’t he?” Bob had officially broken up with Lydia five days ago, the day the Telepaths left. Lydia took the dumping well; there hadn’t been a fight and they had, apparently, decided to remain friends. Dana didn’t worry much about Lydia, as the young woman had been through plenty of break-ups. Instead, she worried about the inevitable scuttlebutt – Lydia telling stories or badmouthing Bob, especially if and when Bob got involved with someone else. Which appeared to be now. Only time would tell how deep the fallout would drift.
“During our big fight,” a fight about Orlando selling out Dave and Elorie to Betrayer, Jan and Knot, which still annoyed the crap out of Dana, despite Richard’s apologies and explanations, “you said something about a large problem you had found in the place of time,” Dana said. She hadn’t wanted his logical explanations. Instead, she wanted the morality, which took her far too long to dig out of him. She hadn’t lik
ed what she found, and his inhuman moral choices still colored her feelings about him. At least part of his moral explanation had involved separating Dave and Elorie from them to prevent any funny business. Cold. Not that she could complain about cold logic, though. “You haven’t mentioned anything since. Is there anything you can tell me?” She had to intrude into his business, now that he had proven how little she understood God-morality without the old Regent-Supported linkage.
Richard grunted, not wanting to revisit that fight at all. “We’re going to be attacked soon by the City of God forces. Only they’re being cagy – nobody’s decided when. If I may hazard a guess, Dubuque or one of the other City of God Living Saints has figured out we can do some sort of future prediction, and they’re hiding their plans from us by not having any plans.”
“Ah. I’ll bet Dubuque’s captive Telepaths figured this out,” Dana said. Dubuque held the Recruiter and his crew of Telepaths tight. Even without Supported guards to protect Dubuque’s headquarters, everybody got bad vibes about trying any rescues. “That sounds like some sort of anti-hunch method, which if Nessa’s crew was correct, should work against a place of time prediction as well. What are the odds, if any?”
“Today’s the last day the attack won’t happen.” This was also the day of the last of three scheduled debates between Dubuque and Father Haus. “After that, it’s about 7 percent a day.”
“Our latest crew of Natural Supported students won’t even be up to defending themselves when the hammer falls.”
“All part of the deal, why they’re going after us so quickly,” Richard said. He rolled over on to his back, causing Dana’s heart to flutter, despite all her mental cautions. For the umpteenth time, she commented to herself ‘so this is what love is like’. She didn’t appreciate the ooey-gooey emotions at all, but she had given up trying to fight them days ago. Nessa, Elorie and Diana had spent far too much time talking with Dana and drawing her out about her relationship with Richard, making sure she didn’t mess things up by being her normal repressed self. Dave and Ken had done the same with Richard, making sure he realized that he shouldn’t give up on being romantic just because of a marriage ceremony.
Which meant the flowers, gifts and dates had continued. Dana wasn’t complaining. This gave Richard ample ways to apologize for not cluing in Dana ahead of time on his highly suspect deal with Betrayer.
“The first group of four students are ready to move into operational training,” Dana said. “The other twenty seven are somewhere between hopeless and more likely to harm rather than help if they try to defend themselves against attack. How’re your people doing?”
“The Nerds?” Richard said, giving the name that had come to be associated with the computer-interface willpower users. “They progress differently, but they’re advancing. With them, what they lack is knowing what to do and how fast. Bob’s latest software upgrade has them at about 38% of the power level of a Natural Supported. And we have fifty eight of them.”
“Any hope of getting any more?”
“Yes, but recruiting’s going slowly. Also, we can power up only another hundred of them before we start degrading Bob and my willpower.” He paused. “The two of us are ‘trocious, you know. Everyone I’ve talked to on the subject told me to skip the shop talk in bed.”
Dana laughed. The subject had come up before. Her confidants had been just as appalled. “That’s because we’re both so incurably romantic.” She looked forward to the shoptalk almost as much as the physical intimacy.
Richard laughed.
“Want to get up and find out who Bob snagged?” Dana said.
“Sure.”
“Name’s Progress,” the God said, icy cold. She and Bob waited for them out on the patio, beside the infinity pool. Progress had herself more laden down with computers and gadgets than Bob, wore her black hair about two inches long, wore her skirt three inches above the knee and a short dark red see-through blouse over a black lace bra. A tattoo of a butterfly wrapped itself around her belly button and three chain tattoos circled each upper arm. The mirror sunglasses, the iPad clone and the earbuds were all enchantments. “What’s with the suicide death camp you’re running here?” Progress spoke with a deep raspy no-nonsense voice, no warmth at all.
“Pardon me?” Dana said. Progress’s voice grated, and her bony narrow face and almost Nessa-like emaciated body pegged her as one of the ‘food is for sissies and work is my life’ types Dana did not enjoy. All Dana knew about Progress was that she was an Ideological God who had delved into business and had refused to deal with the political games until the Seven Suits had grabbed her companies out from under her and blackmailed her into their employ. After Satan had settled the Seven Suits’ hash, Progress went underground and incommunicado.
“War-game it out. Staying here is certain death.”
“You’re assuming Dubuque can equal our tech,” Richard said. Progress nodded, a smartypants head-cocked ‘duh’ expression on her face. Bitch. “And that he won’t have to divide his forces, whatever they turn out to be. If you haven’t noticed, he’s being pressed both by popular revolt and by the Tradition Gods.”
Progress shook her head. “I like what you did, arranging the release of the information about the Watchers. The information stirred up the masses and reminded them of their power. However, by doing so, you’ve also now assured Santa Fe, Worcester and their people will be active participants in any attack against you.”
“How did you figure this out?”
“I didn’t figure out anything,” Progress said, and snorted. “That was direct espionage.”
“If you’re joining up with us, I’d like to know what you can do,” Richard said.
Progress smiled, which on her appeared painful, and not just from the facial studs. “I’ve been helping Bob for weeks with his computer-willpower interface. I’m going to be helping him increase the efficiency of his Nerd army.”
“You’re one of his hacker friends?”
“Yo,” she said. “Since Bob introduced that idea to me, I’ve been working on some unique tricks that I’m not going to show you unless we do a little Divine Compact agreement.”
“Alliance?”
“Alliance and I want it in writing that this here suicide death camp isn’t your final resting place and that you’re going to be willing to move if the situation warrants.”
“If we can’t defend ourselves here, after what I’ve done to the place, moving won’t help,” Richard said. “I’ve been here long enough to give me a massive Territorial advantage that I won’t have anywhere else. I assume you can also tell that Dana and my marriage, and Bob’s acceptance of it, has merged my and Bob’s territories. You should also be able to sense the fixed emplacements I’ve put here in the last two weeks. I’ve also made a deal with Betrayer to keep her from passing information to the other side about us.” Progress nodded. Bob had likely already told her about the information leak through Persona. “There are no advantages to a fallback position.”
“There are no advantages that you know of right this instant,” Progress said. “The damned Suits might not have been right about much, but they were right about one thing: you Territorial Gods inevitably overstate your territorial advantages. Me personally, I don’t think the City of God ahem Living Saints are so stupid that they’re going to ignore your defenses. The fact they’re readying an attack proves that they’ve got something they think can take you out, likely something that gives them an advantage based on the fact you’ve tied yourself down.”
“I’ll admit this is a low likelihood possibility.”
“Human nature says the possibility is much higher.”
“Okay,” Richard said. “I’ll work up a bunch of escape plans.”
Anything to get another a
lly.
“And what’s this about all the damned media hovering around your camp?” Progress said, a sour look written on her lips. “I even had to scare some paparazzi away from me.”
“If Dubuque attacks, we want the attack to go down in public,” Richard said. “He’s the foul aggressor and we’re the innocent victims, and we want this known.”
“You expect this from our media?” Progress said, utter disbelief showing on her face and tinting her words with primary colored ire. “They’re not going to support you, not with their instinctive attitude toward all contests. They’ll go ‘good versus evil, a balanced viewpoint’ on you and you’ll end up looking like a manure pile.”
“Oh, they’re not perfect, but I think they’ll do their job,” Dana said. “Though I do wonder about the remora following around the media. I’ve been approached twice from advertising speculators who want to hire Telepaths for telepathic push advertising.”
Even Progress laughed at Dana’s comment.
“Okay, as long as you know the dangers,” Progress said. “I’ll sign up with your group. I’m not exactly getting any better offers elsewhere.”
They all signed a Divine Compact contract, Dana with a false smile on her face and a fought-off urge inside her to smack Progress around the block once or twice.
“Here’s my trick,” Progress said. She, computers and all, dove into Richard’s iPad and came out fifty feet away, from a laptop set up as one of their camp’s area monitors. “I can’t take armies with me, but I can get about five people and their equipment.” She paused. “I assume there’s nothing we need to deal with about the personal issues, now that Bob’s an adult?”
Dana opened her mouth to say ‘of course there is’, but Persona, who had sauntered up during Progress’s demonstration, nudged her with willpower.
“As long as you and Bob keep things friendly, I don’t have any problems,” Richard said.
“Fine by me,” Dana said, but Progress had already stalked away to talk to Bob.
99 Gods: Odysseia Page 40