99 Gods: Odysseia

by Randall Farmer

  “That floozy’s my mother,” Bob said. Progress blanched. Dana’s eyes opened wide in surprise. Bob, defending her? Her face tightened and her eyes threatened tears. “She’s also a mortal leader of the first rank, the first Supported, an Indigo inseer, the first and only Supported to instantly pick up Natural Supported, as well as the only mortal able to hold a Territorial God’s territory for them. She is the mortal conscience of the Gods. I hate the idea she’s come up with, but she’s right. I can’t think about this rationally. So, because this lies outside of our rational ambit, we must follow her lead. Especially since S’up, Lydia and the others aren’t objecting.”

  “Okay, okay, I get the hint,” Progress said. “This sort of thing isn’t my strength, anyway. I’ll go along with you on this.” She flickered hot eyes at Dana anyway.

  They all turned to look at Richard.

  “I know this is a risk,” Dana said, apologetic. “But, Orlando, what more could they do to us?”

  “Lots more,” he said. “Your optimism’s misplaced, you’re tempting fate.”

  “You wanted to keep the momentum going,” she said. “I haven’t heard any other useful ideas, and your Replicator is a waste of time.” Tofu. He, Bob and Progress had built a mundane machine to turn food garbage into tofu, and thought this a game changer.

  He nodded. “True.” He paused and thought. “Doing nothing’s a greater risk, and this is at least something. Let’s do this, now.”

  “Hey, what about me?” Persona said.

  “Sorry,” Richard said. “But I don’t think Dana ever thought she could win you over into wanting to talk to the Angelic Host about the humanization ideas. Feel free to vanish into someone if you want.”

  Persona glared at him, put hands on her hips, pouted her oversized lips and held her ground.

  Bob and Richard, as the two Territorial Gods, bent willpower and called upon the Host. Dana moved back. This might have been her idea, but mortals didn’t easily deal with the Angelic Host who created the 99 Gods. Unless you were named ‘Nessa’, that is. She found herself next to Richard; she sat beside him sideways on the lounge chair and found her hand in his, even as he bent willpower. Hand in hand suited her just fine.

  She had heard about the appearance of the Host in the attack on Phoenix and another appearance, in Portland’s lair, and expected a light show or something esoteric. Instead, when two of the Angelic Host appeared, they came dressed for the beach – swimming trunks and Hawaiian shirts – and they appeared sitting on the sand, under the shade of the pavilion with the rest of them. They had, she realized, borrowed a bit of Richard’s fine sense of whimsy.

  “Ubiquitous Truth and Despiser of War, thank you for answering my call,” Richard said. “We would like to talk.” For reasons no one knew, all the members of the Angelic Host save their leader, Dominick, had highly screwy names that mimicked the screwy names of the 99 Gods.

  “Yes, we can talk; we have much to discuss. You have done us a great disservice,” the tall, balding-on-top pale-skinned Ubiquitous Truth said. Add in his long white beard and the word ‘Wizard’ came to Dana’s mind.

  “We speak of the release of the information about the Watchers,” Despiser of War said. Despiser appeared to be a young man in his late twenties, a clean-shaven light-skinned North African with short black hair and a large hawk’s nose. “Although those you refer to as the ‘Ha-qodeshim’ did the deed, we know you were present when the Telepaths and the Watchers made the decision. You did nothing to stop them. Do you have something to say in explanation of this?”

  “The Ha-qodeshim and the Watchers speak of me as their Child of Morning,” Bob said. “Among other things, I’m supposed to return the Watchers to God Almighty. I’ve agreed.”

  “They don’t deserve to return to God, because of the evil they have done and the evil they are,” Despiser of War said.

  “Only God is fit to judge them, not you, not I, not Bob,” Richard said. “Or are you claiming this as a prerogative?”

  “You seek to judge us?” Ubiquitous Truth said.

  “That too I will leave to God.”

  “Helping evil is doing evil,” Ubiquitous Truth said.

  “So, saving souls is no longer proper?” Richard said. “I hear personal history interfering with your Mission, Ubiquitous Truth and Despiser of War. I would think the sooner the Watchers are returned to God, the better for all of us.”

  “The sooner they are gone, by any means, the better,” Ubiquitous Truth said.

  “What’s the real danger?” Persona said. “I don’t trust your…”

  “You have no wisdom to dispense,” Ubiquitous Truth said. “So do not sully the air with your words.”

  Persona turned rigid and snarled.

  “Then let me ask that question,” Richard said. “What’s the real danger? Why are the Watchers so dangerous if their presence in the world is fading?” Richard said. “Their enchantments, which they call gamme, are being destroyed one at a time. As they destroy each one, they erase the footprints of their past activities and lessen their evil threat. Is this wrong?”

  “You speak the truth, yet gamme can be remade. Corruption can still occur, and I fear you might find the mortals sent to them return some day to haunt humanity with far greater evil than even a futurist God can imagine.” Despiser of War looked ready to spit in disgust. “The Watchers can easily abandon the path they are on and turn away from the fools who lead them toward God. The evil within the Watchers demands they do so, and they are not good at resisting evil,” Despiser of War said. “There are only twenty six Watchers. As you have by now ascertained, there were 99 of them originally, the same as yourselves. Do you wonder where the others went? They died in war, not war against mortals, but war against each other. The very knowledge of the existence of the Watchers can lead any moderately intelligent entity who examines them to the knowledge that a large scale God-slaying Divine War is quite possible and appropriate.”

  Dana found herself angry with the two Angels. They didn’t sound angelic at all. They sounded like a pair of crotchety old grandparents.

  “I’ve seen the war you fear,” Richard said. “A war between the City of God and the Tradition Gods. We seek to stop this war.”

  “You?” Ubiquitous Truth said, raising angelic eyebrows. Despiser of War looked away, instead writing out words in the sand, right-to-left in what Dana suspected to be Arabic. “You are two real Gods, one immature God and one reject God, and you reek of the contamination brought by a flawed apprentice Archangel from an evil-dominated parasite universe. You cannot even protect yourselves. Dubuque will soon capture you and send you back to God Almighty. Your spouse will be captured, mentality erased, and bear twin Gods for Dubuque to raise in his image. He will convert you other two Gods into City of God stalwarts. Stopping such a conflict is far beyond you.”

  “How could such a war ever be appropriate?” Richard said.

  “The right of personal self-defense cannot be denied,” Ubiquitous Truth said. He paused and pushed sand around with his feet. “You were not created to only do the will of God. You were also created to illuminate the choices of humanity. Divine war is one of many appropriate choices, given the unfolding of your Missions, even if an evil choice.”

  “No matter how much we would rather this divine war not occur, we cannot stop such a war by fiat, no more than we can will the Sun not to shine,” Despiser of War said. “Upon your shoulders this evil rests, as a consequence of the release of the information about the Watchers.”

  Richard stood. “Well, since I want to stop the war and you want to stop the war, then why are we arguing? Go against your personal feelings in the matter and help us return the Watchers to God Almighty. We need your help and good will in this matter.”

  “You want more,” Ubiquitous Truth said.

  Richard took a deep breath and steadied himself. “Yes, I do,” Richard said. “Your anathema against the Telepaths is no longer necessary. There are no more truths to be shaded, no
more information to be guarded.”

  “Those you name as ‘Ha-qodeshim’ did not explicitly state the truth that the Watchers were once 99 and once Gods; nor did these ‘Ha-qodeshim’ explicitly state they are 99 and still Gods,” Despiser of War said.

  Dana couldn’t understand the Angels’ angle in this. She prayed and opened herself up to her willpower magic again, filtering what the Angels said through her changed Mission.

  Yes, Persona called it right. These two Angels roiled with anger, petty and flawed, parochial and blinkered, without a doubt former mortals. God’s harsh darkness and evil shown through them and by extension shown through the rest of the Angelic Host. These Angels sorely needed some enlightenment. She really didn’t like their petty political sneering at the Godslayer.

  Enlightening them, as the mortal conscience of the 99 Gods, she knew was beyond her. However, she knew where she could get some help; she had seen Atlanta do this trick, so she knew this was possible. She knew how to call on the Godslayer, so she knew the mechanical aspects of this as well. Dana knew she reached at the impossible again, but necessity called. She focused her magic through her willpower and prayed for God Almighty to speak through her.

  “If you allow the Child of Morning to be slain, you will damn yourselves,” Dana said. God’s presence left her and left her shaken and filled with insights. God’s evil was a gift, she now understood, taken on so humanity wouldn’t be required to choose. “I was the one who asked for this meeting, because there are some choices only a mortal can make. If you don’t listen to the Daughter of Light, if you let her die, you will never be ready to hear the Child of Morning’s message of salvation. God’s message isn’t prophesy but logic. You’re being tested by God, just like the rest of us. Do you want to fail?”

  She had passed her own test, she realized. She had chosen to trust God Almighty instead of fulminating with anger at these flawed Angels and God’s darker side, and through this trust she had placed her corrupting hatred within her Mission, right where the hatred needed to be. No – wrong – what she had done had taken the hatred away and placed the needs behind her hatred into her Mission.

  Her choice made her feel at peace.

  “What do you want of us?” Despiser of War said. “What monstrosity have you prayed for and received?”

  They didn’t understand. They couldn’t understand, because of their corruption. At least not yet.

  “I prayed for you to go beyond your personal animosities and negotiate in good faith.”

  The two Angels looked at each other. “We can agree to do so,” Ubiquitous Truth said.

  38. (John)

  “Come, you are needed,” Sorrow said. John opened his eyes from his meditation and slowly rolled himself out of what passed for a bed here. Sleeping on a tied rope net, the net covered by blankets, brought back old memories. Modern beds had spoiled him. He sighed as he walked. So had the rest of modern life.

  “Is there a problem?” He did sense a mystery; none of the Fallen Angels hovered around his mud brick hut as they normally did.

  Sorrow did not answer his question. The lack of answer piqued his curiosity and he studied her. She glowed with health and fullness.

  Merde! She must have been feeding on mortal pain in quantity. He jogged toward Grover and Lara’s hut, placed across the Fallen Angels’ village to keep them from bothering each other by accident. He had no idea where Satan and Reed were; likely involved in more nasty Telepath lessons, which the Fallen Angels would not allow inside their village.

  Yes, the Fallen Angels hovered around Grover and Lara’s hut like a flight of bats, not even bothering to pretend humanity. He slowed to a walk, made himself presentable, and crept in.

  Lara had a video telephone session set up on a foot across display. She had tried to explain the details to him once, something about phone calls from satellites and blue teeth, but he didn’t understand, or want to. She and Grover were sobbing in Glory’s arms, in their bed, radiating grief. The electronic display screen showed two people and a text scroll at the bottom. The recognizable woman was Karen Cox Stevens, the current head of what remained of the Indigo. She wore a vacant expression on her face, and she wasn’t speaking. Although only a few tears rolled down her face, John knew from her expression the story: as the Indigo’s leader, she couldn’t afford to lose herself in emotionalism, and couldn’t speak without doing so.

  The text scroll read “Hug Love Hug Love” and didn’t stop.

  He didn’t recognize the woman in the hospital bed for a moment, given how little was left of her. His eyes misted when he eventually realized this was Grover’s wife, Lurilene. She was a woman with whom he shared a long history; she had come to him as an occultist, one of the few to ever do so, back when she had been an active CIA agent. She had been worried about one of her family experiments. He had blessed it, and two years later the experiment had blown up in their faces, leaving Lurilene cursed and near death. Only her subsequent defection to the Indigo, for which her family incorrectly blamed him, had kept her alive all these many years.

  Now, she was on life support, her life preserved in ways far too medical and modern for John to understand. He did notice she had lost more body parts; both ears, her nose, her teeth and much of the skin on the left side of her face. He suspected worse, but her body, or what remained of it, was covered by sheets below her neck.

  Lurilene was dying, and rapidly; he was surprised she had lasted this long. The disruptions of the 99 Gods and the Fallen Angels to Earth’s ambient magic had pushed her over the edge.

  “Hello, John,” the text scroll said. “Thank the Watchers for agreeing to my plea, for I fear your priestly services are requires.” A moment after this text appeared, the ‘s’ at the end of ‘requires’ turned into a ‘d’. Lurilene, somehow, was creating the text scroll.

  “There’s been a loss, then,” John said. “I am sorry.” He magically created a chair and sat, beside Grover, Lara and Glory. They buried their wet faces on his chest, even Glory.

  “Terrible losses,” Lurilene sent. “Greg and Amanda Clover, their eldest son John and John’s daughter Mary were ambushed in their New Orleans safe house and slain by Dubuque’s soldiers. John’s wife Lisa was out of the safe house at the time and survived.”

  “I’m more than sorry, I’m hurt,” John said, and tears began to fall down his face as well. Greg and Amanda were original Indigo, and he had known them, and been friendly with them, for almost forty years. Knowing the intricate emotional and physical ties between the Indigo members, this had to be devastating.

  Worse, John Clover was Grover’s biological son, and if John remembered his old Indigo stories correctly, Grover had become quite close to him after John reached school age. He had taught John Clover his outdoorsmanship, how to fish, shoot and hunt. “How did this happen?” John mouthed, voicelessly, at the screen and Lurilene. How did Dubuque’s minions get past the Godslayer? “Did they go on to serve your greater cause?” Go to Hell to be heroes, that is. Any sane person thought going to Hell as a curse, but not only did the Indigo think going to Hell an honor, they put work into doing so.

  “Dubuque’s soldiers carried enchantments tuned to harm the Godslayer,” the text scroll said. “They destroyed her, at least for the moment. Do not let my Grover and Lara see this, but I predict this will turn out to be a mistake on Dubuque’s part. By attacking the Godslayer, he gave us the moral authority to directly oppose the City of God.”

  John nodded. Lurilene was as hard a person as he was. “At the present time, they remain on the path to heaven.” The text scroll paused. “Grover and Lara need you as Monseigneur Lorenzi right now. Help them grieve.” Another pause. “Do not respond. I die tonight and go to my reward, with Glory’s help. Goodbye.”

  John let Grover, Lara and Glory cry as they hugged him. The Indigo was failing, falling apart in a metaphorical sense as quickly as Lurilene’s body physically did so. He also didn’t share Lurilene’s optimism; yes, Dubuque’s people attacking an
Angel was going to harm the City of God’s Mission, but the long term Mission harm would be dwarfed by the short term benefit of taking the Godslayer off the gameboard.

  He did wonder how Lurilene had managed to convince Glory to send her to Hell after she died. Had the ancient Fallen Angel developed true feelings for Grover, Lara and the Indigo? Definitely a miracle, if so.

  39. (Betrayer)

  “I’m in a bad mood because Dubuque’s assholes just killed two of my oldest friends and my son-in-law,” January said. She paced, the baby Zach in her arms, a pacifier in his mouth, and a look of trouble in his eyes. Knot, who held Alana in her arms, merely cooed at Alana and fought tears. They had commandeered one of the lair’s undeveloped faux laboratories as theirs, a five thousand square foot open space they had partitioned off into barely useful living quarters. Padded cubicle walls out of some Dilbert cartoon somewhere surrounded a couple of cots, several trunks, and a pile of blankets and pillows in the center of the floor. The place stank of sex, which puzzled Betrayer, as she thought these two were hetero, and there hadn’t been any men here. She decided to sit on that question for now, as well as hold off any of her bwah-hah-hah craziness.

  “Is this something you can tell me about?” Betrayer asked. Both Jan and Knot’s auras were weaker today, less Indigo. This setback could easily gravely injure Betrayer’s cause as well as destroy the Indigo.

  Jan told the story of the New Orleans ambush. Betrayer shook her head. “If you ignore the death aspect of this, this is a good thing,” she said, caught up in the Mission effects this would have for all the 99. “Dubuque’s made it so…”

  “I know that,” January said, stalking over to Betrayer. She shook with anger. “They’re people, though. Don’t forget they’re people. And Mary Clover can’t go to Hell and be a Hellion even if we find a way to fix this; she’s too young, and all she ever wanted was to be normal and not get caught up in the family battles.”

  Jan and Knot were people, too, she couldn’t forget. Hurt people, now.