99 Gods: Odysseia

by Randall Farmer

  “There’s nothing inside any of you. You aren’t resurrected. He enslaved your souls and bound them to these artificial bodies of plastic and metal. No flesh remains.” A far cheaper trick than real resurrection.

  They all nodded. No revelation this. “What was done to you was unnatural and is against life. Consider, my friends, Dubuque is a supposed champion of a culture of life. What sort of champion of a culture of life steals people’s souls and turns people into crude enchanted unliving robots?”

  “Even I’m more human than you are,” PheareChylde said. Her costume, as Living Death, involved a black cloak and scythe. She threw back her hood and opened her cloak to reveal her oozing fleshless body. Her lips and eyelids were her only remaining skin; both were rouged black. Her grotesque ugly nearly muscle-less form made a great Living Death. “God calls to ones such as yourselves. The Virgin Bride Reborn can dance peace into your hearts so I can send you back to where you should be with a simple kiss.”

  “What Dubuque did to you is using you up. Each time your enchanted bodies fall in battle, the false resurrection uses up a bit of your soul. You can sense this,” Dana said. She hadn’t known the truth until she said her words, Angelic magic at work again. She amped up her empathy and projected her knowledge, so the Paladins could also sense the loss. “In the end, when he no longer can call back your souls, you won’t go to Heaven. Because nothing will be left of your souls, only oblivion will await.” Typical Dubuque evil.

  “But we love him and worship him!” one of the Paladins said. “He’s our master. Our God.”

  “There is but one God and that is God Almighty,” PheareChylde said. “Those who believe otherwise sin against God Almighty.”

  “I cannot betray Him like this,” the Paladin who had killed Dana said. The ‘Him’ was Dubuque. Dana and her divine allies had never been able to turn Dubuque’s followers. From the beginning, Dubuque’s converts always said the same thing and believed so with their hearts. Even when confronted with the truth, Dubuque’s followers still couldn’t break free. Even when confronted with imminent death. Of Dubuque’s followers, Supported and otherwise, only Dave Estrada had been able to break free, a special case because of his strength as a Psychic.

  Dave’s example gave Dana the lever she needed.

  “This isn’t a betrayal, it’s the righting of a wrong.” Dana remembered Atlanta faced with the same problem long ago. Dana thought her solution far more Angelic than simple murder, though. “You’ll go back to where you belong and nothing else. Even your enchanted bodies will stay here.” And, if everything went well, Dana and PheareChylde would gather up their enchanted bodies and take them back to the four Gods, to be analyzed for weaknesses. “I offer you peace and Heaven.” Dana loosed the song of heaven around her, with Dave’s mind shields woven in, and waited. Her still chaste and overwhelming love of the man would do the rest.

  A minute later, the Paladin who had killed Dana nodded. “Yes. I will dance.”

  He danced with the bride, received the kiss of death from PheareChylde, and with Dana’s help, his soul wafted off to his heavenly judgment. The other Paladins knew where the first had gone; they had once been there themselves, before Dubuque used his resurrection analog on them. The first Paladin’s departure made the City of God leak Mission; out in the battle, which started without them, Dubuque’s projection howled in pain.

  A second Paladin said. “I too will dance.”

  In the end, they all did.

  Dubuque’s worshippers watched and wept.

  Bearing a busload of discarded Paladin parts, Dana and PheareChylde hopped back to the battle site. They reached the site as the last of the Paladins fled the aborted battle, covered by the three enemy God projections and their neo-Supported entourage, who retreated as well.

  “Your resurrection is total blasphemy; your work is the evil of Eve!” Dubuque said, thundering down at Dana and PheareChylde as he passed. “I vow I shall destroy you!”

  “Not today, chowderhead,” Dana bellowed back, borrowing a bit of Marie’s leather-lunged willpower and sass. “If you want, the Virgin Bride Reborn will dance with you and you can receive the kiss of death from Living Death, and all your sins will be forgiven in the arms of God Almighty’s love.”

  “Die!” Dubuque said, as he shot and flew off at his top speed. His vile attack didn’t survive to come within thirty feet of Dana.

  “Neato keeno,” PheareChylde said. “He’s just as impotent against your holy Angelness as the Paladins were.”

  “Today,” Dana said. “Not the next time we meet. Then I’ll die.”

  PheareChylde shook her fleshless and hairless head. “And to think they call me morbid. Cheer up, will yah?”

  “There’s nothing to cheer,” Dana said. She had sensed the battle site.

  The attackers had destroyed their camp again. “Phat lewtz,” S’up said, ogling the Paladin bodies. “I didn’t get anywhere near as much with my ninja looting.” He had a half dozen Paladin-pieces arrayed on the ground beside him. Bob gave S’up a knowing smile and hopped over to Dana’s haul, examining the parts closely.

  Dana sought out Richard, who showed large patches of silver across his entire body.

  “How bad?”

  “We lost five, including Ricky Branson.”

  Dana nodded. Ricky was one of the original Natural Supported, the first of the originals lost in any of these battles. “In that case, please excuse me, as I’m going to need to aid the mourning of the remaining Natural Supported,” Dana said. “PheareChylde, you are free to follow or to seek out your own destiny for the remainder of the day.”

  “Something wrong?” PheareChylde said, scratching the side of her upper nasal bone with a nearly skeletal finger.

  “Oh, nothing,” Dana said. She sighed. “Just me being angelically pompous again. Anxiety makes it worse.”

  “You should try making love to someone talking like that,” Richard said.

  “Thank you no.” PheareChylde hurried off.

  They moved camp ten miles back to the northeast; that night, after midnight, Richard called Dana and the other leaders together. They gathered in a simple willpower created building consisting of little more than four walls, a roof and a floor. These days, Richard’s constructions were seldom more than purely utilitarian.

  “Solis of Portland just finished chewing my ass off again,” Richard said. They sat in chairs that looked like they belonged in some doctor’s waiting room. “Apparently she chewed Dubuque’s off earlier. I think our conflict is officially pissing her off.”

  “Great,” Maria said. “Break out the s’mores and lets have a party. Did our renamed Portland have any suggestions about anything better that we might be doing with our lives?”

  “Nothing useful,” Richard said. “She said, and I quote ‘You have not fulfilled your obligations toward your territories, so abandon them, leave North America, and accept the loss of your Mission. You will receive appropriate new Missions later when the conflict is over.’ Anyone want to take her up on this?”

  Dana raised her hand. She was the only one who did.

  “Figures,” Kay said, flickering an eyebrow roll at Dana. “There’s got to be a way we can keep ourselves alive through this without you two having to abandon your territories.” Kay – Progress – always thought there should be a way.

  “Well, I don’t know how much it’s going to help, but I’m tired of going through these fights half assed,” Maria said. Right. “Betrayer still has half of my body in her damned lair in western Virginia, and I’m not at all happy with the screwy changes Betrayer’s been putting the other half of me through, and the information she’s been keeping from me. I want the rest of my body back. I’m not going to be of much use to you dead, which is what I’ll be soon. Those damned Paladins almost got me this time, and I know the other half of me’s picked up a few useful battle tricks from the bitch.”

  The Paladins learned from defeat, or got improved from defeat, a technically better
assessment. Dana hoped that by sending all but three of Dubuque’s personal Paladin retinue back to God she had set him back some, but she knew what she had done was a one-time trick. The three enemy Gods wouldn’t allow her to trick them again.

  “I think it’s time,” Bob said. “Let’s go get you.”

  “Don’t forget that Betrayer’s no wimpasaurus. She’s going to have that place defended up the ass,” Lydia said. “You guys sure this is wise?”

  “There’s four of us, plus Angelic Dana and you Natural Supported,” Richard said. “We’ve got her outgunned, even if she shows in person. Or, as we’ve surmised, this is where she keeps her real body.

  “Let’s go.”

  “I’m in love,” Bob said. “Look at those enchantments. This isn’t just a lair, this is a goddamned stronghold! It’s Baradur! The Fortress of Solitude! She’s loonier than I thought!”

  They hovered a half-mile back and a half mile up, looking down through the night dark at Betrayer’s lair. Fortress described the place just fine, Dana decided.

  “The bitch has somehow put a lot of our territorial willpower into this,” Richard said. “She must have stolen it from me all those times when she’s humiliated me.”

  “I didn’t think that was possible,” Maria said. “This does explain some of the things my other self has picked up on, though.”

  “She’s a tricky bitch, that’s for sure,” Richard said. “Any of you get anything from inside?”

  They all shook their heads, including Maria, who had half of herself stuck in the place. “Something happened a few days ago,” Maria said. “I haven’t gotten squat since. She’s got the filters on me set on high.”

  Betrayer’s lair even stopped Dana’s angelic detections.

  On the other hand…

  “I can get in there,” Dana said. “Betrayer doesn’t have anything stopping my current style of teleport.”

  “Bet she has your ‘ports stopped tomorrow,” Kay said, glaring at Maria.

  “Right. Sure. Blame me for everything,” the still untrusted Maria said. “It’s not my fault!”

  “This might be dangerous,” Richard said. “You up to another risk?”

  “I don’t think this is dangerous,” Dana said. “Going in doesn’t feel dangerous.” Nor was this time to die again. “Power me up so I can bring you in. I’ll take PheareChylde again as well.”

  “Just great,” PheareChylde muttered from well back, followed by the sound of brick on brick. Dana watched PheareChylde change form from flayed living death to a thin brick-woman. “Bob, this isn’t what I signed up for, you know.”

  “We’ll get back to the work on the computer-willpower interface expansions later,” Bob said. “First we need to get the rest of Maria’s body.”

  Richard chewed his lip. “There’s another possibility, you know. Since she built Columbia’s and my territorial energies into the fortress, we could use this place as a stronghold. I’m thinking of taking this from Betrayer.” Richard paused and thought, a quick juggle through the Place of Time. “Folks, take a look at your new home. This one isn’t going to get trivially blown out from around us like the last ones.”

  Dana teleported herself and PheareChylde into the deserted front entryway. Spooky and unfamiliar music surrounded them.

  “This place is made of metal!” PheareChylde said. She pointed out the eyeball-infested Hell-themed decorations and the metal statues ahead. “And what’s with the cello rock? Talk about totally yesterday. Betrayer’s decorator and music coordinator must be lame.”

  “I think she’s the decorator and music coordinator,” Dana said, not willing to credit her insights about the music and the artistry. She adjusted her white bridal dress and walked forward. “I’m not so sure these are statues…”

  They weren’t. The statues stepped off their pedestals, clanking loudly. They raised enchanted weapons at Dana and PheareChylde. The background music changed to a rousing metal climax. Dana shook her head, not believing even Betrayer was crazy enough to have theme music piped into her own lair.

  A ceiling panel opened fifty feet ahead, behind the robot army. Betrayer slowly sank to the floor, bathed in eerie flickering fluorescent light and clouds of dry ice vapor. She wore a black leather outfit and a jaunty three-cornered black cap.

  “Bwah hah hah!” Betrayer said, after she hit the floor with a clang. “Intruders in my own personal stomping ground, just for me. Surrender or be annihilated to the last atom!”

  “We’re here for the rest of Persona’s body,” Dana said. Betrayer’s defenses stymied Dana. She couldn’t even tell if a God stood in front of her or not. “Let’s negotiate.”

  “Let’s not. Last warning!”

  Before Dana had time to respond, Betrayer’s robots opened up with an eyeball-straining mass of standard willpower attacks, more potent than Dana had ever seen from mere robots. Betrayer herself opened fire with two red and gold helix attacks, one aimed at Dana and the other at the ever-more-brick-like PheareChylde.

  Dana’s protections stopped both attacks feet away. “Guys, we’ve met Betrayer and we’re under attack,” Dana said, using one of Richard’s willpower-based communication links. “I don’t think she’s in a negotiating mood. A little help here might be nice.”

  “Open us up a teleport corridor and I’ll ferry people in,” Kay said. Dana did as Kay wanted. Groups of five began to pop out of the computer PheareChylde carried on her stone back.

  Richard appeared with the first group and teleported forward to confront Betrayer. A moment later Betrayer exploded and the robots fell silent.

  “I’ll be fucked,” Richard said. “Another robot.”

  “Welcome to our humble abode,” Dave Estrada’s voice said over a low-quality intercom system. Damn, her insight was right. “We’ve taken over this place. Please don’t shoot up too many of Betrayer’s idiotic robots. They’re part of our defenses. Yours too. Once in here, there’s no way out. Give us a minute or two to come greet you and give you maps of the safe routes around the, um, local hazards. Oh, and there’s a lot of us stuck in here.”

  Well, that did explain the cello rock theme music. Dana brought her hand to her lips and laughed in relieved glee. Richard had been right when he had predicted Dave and Elorie would be too much for Betrayer to handle.

  Everybody on both sides stopped talking and moving when each side’s Maria started glowing. Dana opened herself up to Maria’s troubles and found that the God had spent too much time separated for an easy reintegration. The huge crew with Maria’s other half included far too many people Dana didn’t know, and many of the ones she didn’t know appeared to be Indigo people. At least some of her old Indigo crew were here in what appeared to be Betrayer’s throne room, including Jan’s children Abe and Richard, Kara Minor, Jurgen Lowezski and Epharis. They all wore Betrayer-style faux-Fascist enchanted military uniforms, toted around enchanted weaponry and looked quite ready for battle.

  “Oops,” both Marias said, in unison. “Are we two now, forever?” They slowly approached each other, people on both sides giving way, daunted by Maria’s now joined pastel glow. When the two Marias touched, left index finger to left index finger, the world exploded in turquoise and cerise solid light. Dana flinched, as the willpower detonation had been far more potent in the realm of Angelic magic. She felt Maria vanish into the substance of Betrayer’s lair.

  “I can’t feel Maria anymore!” Lydia said, panicking from a few feet away from Dana. “Oh emm gee! It’s a trap!”

  Dana put her hand on Lydia’s shoulder and interrupted what might have turned into a Lydia-panic-triggered all-out fight.

  “She’s okay, she just needs some recovery time,” Richard said.

  “More than that. She’s lost her Ideological Godhood,” Bob said. “She’s something else, now. Something completely new and different.”

  “Well yay for her,” Lydia said, still hyperventilating. “This we really really don’t need.”

  Dana ignored Lydia’s panicky
banter, searching for a problem she felt reaching out to her. She found the problem with her eyes, not her senses, which couldn’t reach past Elorie’s immunity shields. Dave had fallen to his knees, clutching his head and moaning. Dana rushed over. She turned on her angelic aura, and Dave’s entourage made an opening for her.

  She skidded to a stop, knelt down and took Dave’s hands. Elorie grabbed Dana’s shoulder and expanded her immunity over Dana, showing far more control than before. She then changed her immunity to let in Dana’s magic…and Dana sensed Dave’s mind falling to pieces, overwhelmed by thousands of hunches, all triggered by Maria’s rejoining.

  “I can make this bearable,” Dana said. Elorie nodded. Dana played biochemist in Dave’s brain, accelerating the process that turned experiences into memories and making everything safe. In a few moments Dave’s mind cleared and reintegrated.

  He opened his eyes and looked into Dana’s. Their eyes locked.

  Oops.

  Dana lost herself in wonder, responding again to the calling of one soul to another. She knew Dave had changed in the two and a half weeks since Betrayer had carried him off. For one, one jackboot held a partly regrown foot, five sizes too small, and secondly, he carried himself with far more confidence and authority. She had suspected his changes and her changes would have separated them, diminished their mutual physical attraction and made their love more platonic.

  Wrong wrong wrong. He had become rougher and more masculine, a true Indigo-style hero, and he called to Dana in a far more physical way than before. She felt her new angelic nature had the same effect on him, because as she had discovered with Richard, her angelic nature had made her more of a sexual creature, far more attractive and potentially seductive. Which said something important about her earlier self, alas. She had thought she had everything under control, the emotional side of her hidden away, a present only to be opened by Richard. In private.

  Wrong again.