Persona nodded. She had already started Dave’s foot regenerating, healed up his wounds and burns, and reset the broken and dislocated finger on his left hand. The God overlapped Elorie, half in and half out, occasionally whispering to Elorie about where Elorie needed to relax her immunities. For the nerve repair, which Dave didn’t know Elorie needed, Persona had immobilized her with some willpower trick.
“So, why aren’t we trying to get the hell out of here?” Dave said. Dave sat and Elorie lay on the floor of the lit room at the intersection of the detention area corridors. Dave had found the food supply, a willpower stasis-refrigerator if he guessed right, and snacked on beef jerky and preserved mandarin oranges from one cup sized plastic fruit tubs.
He had checked – he couldn’t not check – and found that the violin cases indeed contained violins. Crazy Betrayer had prepared the way for them. Persona had already extracted a promise from them to play for her. He hadn’t found a way to turn off the damned background music, though.
“Because Betrayer’s crazy oversized lair is chock full of willpower traps. Oh, let’s not forget that I don’t know the way out and I can’t sense outside,” Persona said. She appeared drawn and weary.
“But Betrayer’s going to notice what’s going on any minute now, and after what we did to that automaton projection of hers she’s going to be pissed.”
“I’d rather have a pissed Betrayer than a dead Dave and Elorie.” Persona reached her left hand inside Elorie and fiddled with something in Elorie’s torso. Dave shivered, still not used to Persona sitting cross-legged inside Elorie’s body. “Relax, please! You and Elorie have so much cortisol running through your systems it’s a wonder you haven’t popped a gasket or gone berserk.”
“All due to Betrayer’s training method. She’s been teleporting in on us, randomly…” He paused. “Think you could conjure up some clothes for us? I’m freezing.”
Persona shook her head. “Betrayer’s put a bunch of willpower blocks inside of this half of me. Can’t do reality creations.” Toothy smile. “So you got caught with your pants down, eh?”
“Betrayer’s favorite time,” Dave said. Relax. He had to relax. His heart still hammered away, waiting for Betrayer to nail him again. “So, how are you doing, Persona?”
“Call me Maria,” Persona said. “I want to get in on the humanization stuff as well.”
“Maria.” Pause. “How did you know?”
“I’m two, don’t forget,” Maria said. “Betrayer’s censoring what goes between the pieces of my body, but she let the humanization tidbit through.” She reached over and grabbed Dave’s hand. “Damn, I missed the two of you.”
“Same here,” Dave said, squeezing back. Of all the Gods he had met or heard, not a large collection, Persona was the only one who felt homey to him. Her he understood, especially her mission against the untrustworthy so-called Angelic Host. “Word of warning, though, we’ve decided that telepathy’s bad for us, and we’re not looking forward to telling Nessa and Ken about this.”
“Hmph. Real Telepath-style telepathy’s bad for you. Too much unconscious information transfer. That’s always been obvious, despite the fact you four wouldn’t listen.” Persona – that is, Maria – did have her moments. “However, I can set it up God-style so that only what you want to send goes through and nothing else.”
“Uh…”
“Elorie says ‘yes’, by the way.”
“If you’re trying to be more human, you’re failing,” Dave said.
“Wait and see some of the tricks I learned here before you say that,” Maria said. “This place has made me far less human, and I’m going to need all the help I can get just to get back to my former cuddly state.” She glanced up at the metal ceiling for a moment. “Betrayer tossed me in a cell with an insane collection of books. A lot of them were books Betrayer as War wrote about 99 God battle tactics and strategy, as well as some human-written classics on war and statecraft. She also didn’t fully turn off all of my willpower uses and she clearly left on low-powered battle willpower for a reason, so I would be able to practice. She’s been messing with my head real bad.”
“She’s training you, too.”
Maria nodded. “Yah.” Frown. “Come on. Open up.”
Dave sighed and opened up the hole in his shields.
He thought, felt and then relaxed.
Persona leapt out of Elorie, covered both of them with a shimmering force field, and blasted with a corridor-filling rainbow helix. All before Dave could even react. Betrayer’s projection evaporated, as did several yards of floor and wall a little farther down the corridor.
“What the fuck?” Maria said. She raised her still-shimmering blast-casting hand to her face and inspected her hand slowly and carefully. Distant howls filled the air, sounding like Betrayer. To Dave’s surprise, they sounded like howls of joy and surprise. “I can’t do that. I’ve never been able to do any such thing. This isn’t possible. I don’t have that level of power. It’s, well…”
“It’s the same as what I let you use in your cell, Persona, only now, without the cell’s dampers on, you got it full,” Betrayer said. No projection, just a voice echoing down the corridor. “Hot fucking damn.”
“Why aren’t you pissed?” Dave said, asking the air.
“Persona?” Betrayer said, pointedly ignoring Dave.
“If you want to talk civil to me, call me Maria.”
“Maria, then. I have a polite request: don’t repeat this particular level of power use unless you want to mess up a chance at ending the upcoming battle with a victory for our side. It’s not a good chance, but if you repeat the trick too often…the chance goes away.”
“You sound like War, not Betrayer,” Maria said.
“Let’s just say that if what I’m doing has any chance of working, the war’s going to come here,” Betrayer said, still jaunty. “Until the battle arrives, my lair is safer than anywhere else, and here you shall stay. Don’t think that just because Maria destroyed one of my projections I can’t harm you.”
Dave felt Betrayer’s invisible gaze turn on him, or at least her mental focus. His mind flooded with hunches, worse than when Diana triggered him. “Okay, okay, you proved your point, you can harm us, just turn it off,” Dave said, clutching his head.
“The twins,” Dave said. The obvious way to tie the three of them down. Elorie and Maria groaned in response. Betrayer didn’t bother saying a thing. She had them by their hearts, and she knew she did.
A half minute later another Betrayer projection appeared, with her two gray cloaked minions Jan and Knot. Both twins squalled with all their impressive native Bingle
hauser lungpower. Maria sighed, took a step back and reached into Elorie. Elorie sat up. “You’re not fully healed, but you need to be functional for this moment,” Marie said. Jan and Knot approached the three of them, carefully, then knelt and put the squalling twins in Elorie’s arms. They quieted almost immediately, turning their three and half month old wide eyes to Elorie in what Dave thought was recognition. Moments later, they started to paw at Elorie’s still uncovered and naked breasts. When Dave turned his head Jan and Knot vanished from his mind.
“I’m, um…”
“I’ll get you going,” Maria said, and did. The twins hooked up. Maria turned to Betrayer. “If you want my cooperation, you owe me more than this.”
Betrayer nodded. “How about I tell you what’s going on with you, Dave and Elorie.” Dave widened his eyes. He had wondered if it was just him.
Persona licked beautiful lips and grit her teeth behind them. “I’m all ears.”
“Please, not literally,” Betrayer said, and smiled. “They’re yours, and you’re theirs.”
Dave’s mind still held over a dozen stray bits of formerly unconscious ideas from what Betrayer had done to him. Because of Betrayer’s words, five of his hunches now made sense. “Oh. We’re her neo-Supported,” Dave said. Elorie gave him a smile. Maria looked like she had just swallowed a lemon.
“As she’s an Ideological God, you’re likely her only neo-Supported,” Betrayer said.
“I’m not your plaything!” Maria said, glaring. Betrayer shrugged the obvious rejoinder. Maria snorted back. “I’ll bet I can support a few more than Dave and Elorie.”
“But not many. If any.”
Nod.
“I’m not sure I understand,” Elorie said. “How did we agree to this?”
“By your actions and your emotions,” Betrayer said. “For instance, you two didn’t have any problem with Maria here going overboard and turning you into jaw-droppingly beautiful human beings. You cooperated and collaborated. Nor did you ever object to making love with Maria in one or both of you and enjoying the benefits, despite your otherwise monogamous natures.” Dave turned red, as did Elorie. “I’ll let you three figure out the rest.”
Dave’s mental protections finally clicked in against the gray cloaks, allowing him to remember Jan and Knot’s presence. He glanced up to them with a hunch-driven shit-eating grin. “The same way Jan and Knot have been figuring out the benefits of being your neo-Supported? Oops – you didn’t tell them, did you, Betrayer?”
He locked eyes with Jan and their old dislike-at-first-sight reactions clicked back in. She didn’t say anything, but she did glare. Knot, though, whispered a quiet “Oh, shit!” Dave smiled.
Betrayer shrugged. She already knew.
“Not to complain,” Dave said. “Just an observation, if this is true: I’ve seen one of these neo-Supported, and neither I nor Elorie possess anything like his tricks. Hell, I got more out of being a Grade 3 Dubuque supported. Back in the day.”
Betrayer laughed. “The Ideological Gods’ neo-Supported are vastly different from the Territorials’, and you’ve got a hell of a lot more than what you got from being a Grade 3 Dubuque Supported, and you’re barely started. You’re going to get Ideological God style benefits, which will all lie up here.” Betrayer tapped the side of her head. “I’ll bet you two won’t get stage fright any more, for instance.”
Dave sighed. “You aren’t telling us everything.”
“Of course not,” Betrayer said. “You know as well as I do that, in all likelihood, none of us is going to live through what’s coming. I trained you five not to have a better chance to survive, but to help our side do better. Assume you’ll see some big changes for the positive in your lives if by some chance you live through the war.”
You five. Yes, both Jan and Knot wielded willpower now, Knot’s doing, in addition to their other tricks. Their flesh glowed, and his subconscious decided they were nearly impossible to kill.
Betrayer’s lunacy might be an act, but her twisty nature wasn’t. Without the lunatic capering and commentary, her twisty nature showed even more. Dave decided to act on a few of his woo-woo ideas he already understood. “I hear a you-owe-me coming,” he said.
Betrayer smiled. “Yes. First, you owe me not to destroy my lair, which you could, from the inside, because this lair is the safest place for you and the twins until the war comes here. My lair’s also safer for you here in the war than anywhere else, although that’s only relative safety, mind you. Second, you also owe me, and yourselves, the work you will need to do to master my little treasure of a lair. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised, even if you can’t leave. Lastly, you owe me the honor of greeting my newest guests. I’m positive it would be best if they didn’t see the three of us at all” waving to indicate Jan and Knot as well “and greeting them will give you a good chance to quietly show off your neo-Supported talents.”
“So what you’re saying is that we’ve joined Betrayer’s secret society of betrayal?” Dave said, grimacing. “Not that we had much choice in the matter.”
“No, you’ve joined War’s secret society of war,” Jan said, making a sucking lemons face. “You’re going to be responsible for protecting our real bodies, for now, as most of the time we’re out with Betrayer as projections, doing things. Your choices are important now. They impact not only your own survival, but the success or failure of our side of the fight. We couldn’t help you earlier because you hadn’t earned the right to know.”
“We’ve all been through the same,” Knot said. She shook her head. “I wouldn’t have wanted to go through yours, and you wouldn’t have wanted to go through mine. Remember what Abe told you about someone in the 99 Gods messing up future prediction?”
Dave nodded.
“The God behind the prediction crocking is Betrayer. To earn my place, I had to master what she uses, the Place of Time.” Knot paused, her slowly-growing-younger countenance marred by stress. “I’m still surprised my mind didn’t break. Her methods aren’t meant for mortal minds.”
“You’re all as much a part of our side’s Mission as I am now,” Betrayer said. And a dubious prize that is, Dave grumbled to himself.
“Uh, if you’re trying to keep this a secret you need to do a better job of keeping Nessa out of the other me’s mind,” Maria said.
Betrayer widened her eyes, mocking, put upon. “You’ve got to be kidding. I’m nowhere near talented enough. Besides, Nessa’s the charter member of War’s secret society of war. She knows more about this crazy thing than I do.” Perhaps reacting to Betrayer’s expression, her lair’s annoying ambient music changed from haunted house to full-throated calliope.
Dave frowned and shook his head. No wonder Nessa hardly blinked when Betrayer kidnapped them. The bitch. “That does not inspire confidence, oh most high leader.” And something had to be done about the music selection in this place or he would go completely off his rocker.
Betrayer ignored both his comment and his secret thoughts. “You all need to go get ready to deal with those new charges I’m bringing you.” She conjured up a map; on it one of the rooms blinked. “I’m going to drop them off in this room. Make yourselves comfortable. Oh, and here are some clothes.”
Betrayer’s clanking robots brought the ‘new charges’ into Betrayer’s audience chamber. The audience chamber held a huge throne perched on a platform, much more svelte and functional battle robots in jet black uniforms, and over a half dozen varieties of gargoyles. The damned winking nodding half-animate and animate gargoyles perched everywhere, taking everything in. The place could have been featured on a fantasy calendar with its insane design. The pillars with the smoky burning oil fires were the worst, although Dave did note the smoke got filtered out of the air just above them. Either that or the damned things were illusions. Luckily, the throne room’s background music wasn’t as bad as normal – faux Star Wars – but the music still grated.
Dave had offered to kneel beside the throne and let Elorie sit, but
Elorie insisted that Dave sit on the throne because of his lost foot and his just-started slow-growing baby-sized foot replacement. Elorie sat on the right hand throne-arm. They each held one of the twins in their lap and held hands. He positioned the two violins, in their cases, at their feet, just in case. Jan and Knot had retreated to their room – a fake mad scientist’s laboratory – to be able to head off as projections with Betrayer.
Dave recognized a few of the people Betrayer’s robots brought in. Yet another hunch confirmed.
Abe Cox led the group, Nessa’s former bodyguard Tracy by his side. His eyes darted back and forth, spooked and edgy. “So… You two are in charge of this insane place?” His group consisted of more than twenty people, many of whom were obvious non-combatants, as well as some teens and younger children. Christine Binglehauser, whom Dave would rather never have seen again, stood behind Abe and Tracy. She was pissed.
Some things just had to run in the family.
“As of an hour ago, we were captives ourselves, locked in a jail cell,” Dave said. Alana started to gurgle and she spat up a quarter teaspoon of Elorie’s breast milk. Dave wiped it up on a lightning-bolt and helix embossed black towel. The baby started to fuss, so he put her over his shoulder. Zach stayed asleep in Elorie’s lap.
“The clothing wasn’t our choice,” Elorie said, wiggling her highly flattering tight-fitting faux-fascist black uniform decorated by apparently random rank insignia and medals. “This stuff was the only clothing available. We didn’t have clothes on when we broke out of our cell.”
“Wounded, too,” Maria said. She had split herself and resided inside them both, protecting them, just in case. Her presence relaxed Dave a lot.
Abe shook his head. “Persona? Good. We’re here to rescue you, ma’am.”
“Call me Maria. And I don’t need rescuing.” Pause. “You might say all of us need rescuing, though, because of Betrayer’s tricks, none of us can get out of this place.”
“Truthfully, I don’t think we want to leave, either,” Elorie said. “The lair’s safe, or at least it will be once we, that is, Maria, master the control room. And we do have Nessa and Ken’s children to protect.”
99 Gods: Odysseia Page 53