Back in Betrayer’s lair, Orlando and crew scrambled to find out who and how someone had knocked out Maria. For a moment, Betrayer felt pity for those caught in the snares of the sheer number of levels of betrayal involved in her current game.
“Orlando’s crew found and took Betrayer’s lair from her,” Alt said, to Dubuque. “If I’m correct, Betrayer’s under their control now and she’s been forced into openly working against the City of God.” He looked at one of the security monitors in the meeting room, surprised at Maria’s projected appearance, adding necessary verisimilitude to his utterances. “They could easily have Nessa and Ken with them. That’s Persona’s projection, and Persona’s a known confidante of those two.” Alt’s voice spoke with true disgust. “I’ll bet they caught the fact I tagged their location. This must be some sort of desperation attack!”
Oh, he was good, Betrayer said to herself. This was unplanned and he still played his part perfectly.
The distraction worked. The questions about Alt’s coincidental appearance with just the right bit of information fled from Dubuque’s mind, replaced by questions of war and survival.
“I only have four Paladins left in Oklahoma City,” Dubuque said.
Lodz coughed and covered his mouth and scraggly soul patch. “She’s only a battle projection. You’re a true Territorial God. What do you have to fear?”
“Surprises,” Dubuque said. “You don’t know what it’s like here in North America. My forces haven’t been in a battle yet where we haven’t been faced with a half dozen or more unexpected tricks. Not just willpower tricks, either; I haven’t told you yet but Columbia’s come up with a way to merge computer and willpower technology. A real merger, so that the computer can control the willpower uses.”
Lodz gasped and growled “We need that” with lust in his voice.
“Portland’s spies already stole the trick, which is why we can’t do anything to risk Portland switching sides. She’s already challenged me on yet another new issue: out of the blue she’s decided that we need to take mundane human names, to better retain our humanity.”
“Your local allies are too independent,” Verona said.
“We can’t reel them in until the actual rebels are subdued. Which I don’t have the strength…”
Dubuque sighed. He hadn’t meant to blurt this bit of truth out. Mortified, he dismissed Alt, allowing the ruckus of Alt’s departure to cover his embarrassment.
Yes! The crux point!
Betrayer, elbow to elbow with Mary and Phil, held her breath. The other members of Alt’s crew caught her mood and quieted as well.
“Then what we must do is obvious,” Verona said. He ripped the top doodle off his notepad, wadded it up, and slammed it to the table. “I know your pride speaks against this course of action, but this is necessary. We’re going to abandon the stand-off against Tradition and ignore the fact they forced two of our allies” Omsk and Annaba “to switch sides in the last month. We’re going to abandon the fight against the Watchers and leave only a token force opposing them. We’re also going to pull our Paladins off of their peacekeeping” read: protest squashing and European mafia gigging “activities. Instead, we will concentrate all our efforts on the destruction of Orlando’s group and overwhelm them with our full and complete power.”
Dubuque bowed his head in shame, his Mission as deflated and limp as his dick. For the moment, Verona led the City of God, the first time since before the debates. “I hear you and concur. Let us finish this,” Dubuque said, desperate to do anything to get his status back. “All of us in person?”
“As befitting our status and stature, the two of us should stay close by but secure until the others and the Paladins have finished the dirty work,” Verona said. Betrayer and the rest inhaled, waiting, anticipating. “We can direct them from here in Oklahoma City as projections; we only need to show up in person for the executions. Lodz will keep the Watchers pinned down in person. Santa Fe will lead the attack on Orlando in person.”
Brinnng! Brinnng! There it went, the feeling of potential success. Alt’s crew felt the change as well and began to breathe. They turned to Betrayer in expectation.
“Now we start our tactical preparations,” Betrayer said to them. “We won’t strike until Orlando’s group shatters the confidence of the City of God’s worshippers. Then we will strike, and we will be striking at Dubuque.” Betrayer paused and lowered her voice. “Verona as well.”
“Verona too!” Mary said. “Hot damn!”
Alt looked over to Betrayer, eyes haunted.
Betrayer expected anguish; instead, Alt’s face got hard and his mind filled with anger.
53. (Nessa)
“I can’t leave the City of God this instant,” Paramaribo said. “I do sympathize with your ambitions and fears. But in this I must follow Portland’s lead.” They met in Paramaribo’s office, which resembled nothing so much as a staff office in a church somewhere, with crosses on the walls, bibles and religious books on shelves, and several religious paintings mixed with children’s crayon drawings of Noah’s Ark filling all the remaining wall space.
Uffie nodded. Paramaribo, named for the chief city of Suriname on the northeast coast of South America, resided in her Bolivar City headquarters, in Venezuela. Ethnically, Paramaribo was South Asian in appearance, much to Nessa’s surprise. She hadn’t known Suriname to be such an ethnically mixed melting pot before she and her friends began their research on their approach to Paramaribo.
Even stranger was the fact Paramaribo was originally Dutch Reformed and her role, as a Territorial God, she thought of as Minister. Her force of presence reminded Nessa of Portland and Dubuque.
“Can you be ready to announce, when Portland announces her intentions?” The elephant in the picture above Nessa seemed particularly dour as it glared down at Nessa.
“Yes,” Paramaribo said. “Don’t get me wrong. Now that you are here, in front of me, I understand the correctness of your position. I leaned this direction from the start, unconsciously, by seeing myself as a Minister rather than a secular leader. I’m looking forward to returning to be Rev. Catharijne Talieh.”
“We can’t ask for anything more,” Uffie said.
They excused themselves from Paramaribo’s office and returned to their hotel.
“You look awful, Nessa,” Diana said.
“I feel awful.” Her head spinning, Nessa laid down on one of the two hotel room beds. The bed was hard as a rock.
Diana sat down beside Nessa and put the back of her hand on Nessa’s forehead. “No fever.”
“I don’t get sick,” Nessa said. “This is something else.”
Nor was it the fact she despised the various monkeys she sensed in and around the city. She probed minds until she found the locals called them Capuchin monkeys, and she had learned the critters’ habits and their so-called suitability as pets in the process.
Ken, sitting at the small hotel desk, looked up from their laptop. “You want me to check our email? Doing so is dangerous and leaves us open to being tracked, but we’ve been out of touch for too many days. I’m getting nervous.”
“Absolutely,” Diana said. “But we need to be ready to leave.”
“We need to be ready to leave anyway.”
Diana opened the door to the next-door hotel room she shared with Uffie. “Trouble?” Uffie said.
“Not sure,” Diana said. “We’re going to check our email and blow our cover. We need to get prepared to run.”
Uffie nodded. “Thanks for the warning. Leave the door open.”
Nessa decided she didn’t like the Capuchins because of their social behaviors. Monkey tribes were just a bunch of bullies.
“Do you sense the pressure?” Diana asked Uffie, as she bent over to pack. “The world is inhaling in my mind.”
Oh
. “So you don’t think we’re extra safe right now?” Nessa said.
“No,” Diana said. “If the world’s inhaling, it’s eventually going to exhale.”
“The tide’s out and will eventually come back in?” Nessa said.
“More like the first warning of a tsunami being the water pulling back from the shore,” Uffie said, from the next room. “Whatever’s going on is big and nasty.”
Big and nasty and old rang in Nessa’s mind right then, hardly a coincidence. Nessa hooked up with the long distance telepathy. She sighed. “Hello, Joanie,” Nessa said.
“The whole lot of them? Yuck! Thanks a bunch,” Nessa said aloud. So much for their vacation. She had enjoyed their diplomatic capers as they had gone from Territorial God to Territorial God in North, Central and now South America. Each of the Territorials was so different; they had to approach each of them in an entirely different manner.
A vacation.
In this business, though, vacations were hard work and rarely lasted long.
“No I don’t want to vacation in your lair.”
“Nessa?” Ken said.
Nessa grunted and freed her mind from Joanie. Her presence skittered off around the world, lonely and sad. She didn’t want to go back to that war and violence shit, but she didn’t seem to have any choice.
“Ken?” Diana said.
“Working,” he said. “Here’s one you’re going to want to hear: John says the Paladin army stopped besieging the Watchers and pulled back. Everyone’s edgy because nothing special happened in the fight when the Paladin army left. No big victory for either side.”
Nessa grunted. Protesters ringed Portland’s current home and Patricia had one of her projections negotiating with them non-stop. She could probably keep those negotiations going for years, if she wanted to.
Ken typed. “Spam. Phishing attempts aimed at elderly baby boomers.”
Had to be one of Uffie’s accounts. “I’m not elderly, I’m just well-traveled,” Uffie said, from the room next door.
“Penis length adders. Herbal Viagra. Crap! Our Eklutna lawyer says someone messed up the taxes on the Eklutna place, some sort of false appraisal that jacked the tax rate sky high. Somebody’s harassing us.”
“No wonder I’m sick,” Nessa said. Her mind skittered to Alaska and she found some wolves to visit. “Thanks.”
“Something else is behind my hunch,” Diana said. “Keep working, Ken.”
Ken muttered something about next time and too many women, and typed. “Ah. Got one in code from the Kid God.” He stared at the laptop screen, and then began to type randomly with his pinkies. Decoding by hunch.
“What the nations of the world would do with Telepath spies…” Diana said, her voice trailing off as she leaned back and studied the ceiling.
“Got it,” he said, two minutes later. “Orlando and crew have stolen Betrayer’s lair from her and have decided to use the place as a stronghold. Dammit!”
“What’s bad about that?” Uffie said.
“Betrayer’s lair is a trap,” Ken said. “Don’t they have anyone with any sense?” Anyone with even minimal hunches. Evidently not.
“A trap by who?” Uffie said.
“Betrayer, of course,” Ken said. He sounded like he was about to drama queen on them. Nessa couldn’t understand why, so she sent her mind skittering over to Orlando’s crew and took a look out of their eyes at Betrayer’s lair. She loved her new long-distance clairvoyance trick, brought out by her near death and Sorrow’s games, though the new gain did cost her a noticeable bit of her protective telekinetic strength.
Nessa started to laugh.
“What’s so funny?” Diana said.
“What Betrayer did to her lair!” Nessa brought her knees up to her chin and barked laughter. “It’s a mad scientist theme park!”
Diana frowned. “Aunt Jan’s work, I’ll bet. I’m going to wring her fool neck!” She took Jan and Knot’s betrayal personally because of her feelings for Dave.
“Nessa,” Ken said, twisting around in the desk chair to face Nessa. “This is bad. Betrayer built a delayed action roach motel disguised as a fortress. None of them, not even Orlando, can get out now. All Dubuque needs is to adjust his tactics to attrition and he wins, no matter how useful the defensive features of Betrayer’s lair are.”
“The lair’s still funny,” Nessa said, sitting up. “So, when we get there, should we try and bring in Portland’s army on our side, or at least some of them? With the entire European Paladin contingent on the way – based on what Joanie told me – they’re going to need all the help they can get.”
“What? Who?” Diana said.
“Jeanne D’Ark, the crazy Euro Telepath,” Uffie said. “The one Nessa bargained into spying for us on Verona. She’s very dangerous.” As dangerous as Nessa, Uffie didn’t say.
Diana shivered.
Uffie turned to Nessa. “Nessa, what do you mean by ‘get there’?” Uffie said. “Oh shit!”
“Uh huh,” Ken said. “We’ve got to go. This is where your tsunami’s going to hit.”
“It’s not my tsunami.” Uffie continued to mutter, cursing all the Gods with ripe abandon.
“Nessa?” Ken said. “Could you get in contact with Betrayer, please? Perhaps this is a mistake and she can let them go.”
“Yo boss man,” Nessa said, and flopped back down on the bed. The mattress was still hard as a rock. She couldn’t throw her thoughts that far in a coherent manner to some random person, but she did have an unstoppable link with Betrayer.
Betrayer bwah hah hahed.
Nessa got so angry she lost her long-distance telepathic focus and sat up in bed. By then everyone else was all packed and ready to go. She told the tale. Everyone groaned.
“Let’s go rescue them,” Ken said. “I refused to believe Betrayer’s found a way to stop my tricks.”
54. (Dave)
Dave raised a finger into the air, putting a stop to their lesson. “Nessa and Ken,” he said, picking up Alana. Elorie picked up Zach and they ran toward the lair’s front door from the place’s main control room, where Maria had been giving them another lesson on the use of the lair’s controls. Maria picked them up with her normal rough-service faux-teek and zipped them to the front door faster than they could run.
She landed them, and Dave almost tripped over his own feet in the transition from a Maria fly to walking. No Nessa, no Ken in the typically oversized entry room, just the normal guard contingent from Richard of Orlando and Bob of Columbia’s army, and an abundance of gargoyles.
“Nessa. Ken. Come out come out wherever you are!” Maria said, one of her amplified bellows.
“So much for stealth,” Diana said. From right behind Dave’s left ear. He nearly jumped out of his shoes. In a moment he found himself (and Alana) in a wild Nessa hug.
At least Nessa had dropped her illusionary invisibility before she hugged them.
“Shit,” Nessa said, her voice a growl. She backed off a second and looked closely at Dave. “You’re not going to let us back into your minds, are you?”
So much for a nice quite private talk on the subject.
“No,” Elorie
said. “We’ve decided it messed us up too much.”
Nessa sniffed and turned away. “Took you long enough,” Ken said.
“I’m sorry,” Nessa said, her voice leaking tears as she nodded. “I wanted the links too much.”
“Being bathed in icy reason was bad enough,” Dave said. Excess reason was itself a form of madness, he vaguely remembered someone important had said, once upon a time. “Not lying was worse.” He suspected ‘not lying’ nearly cost him his marriage.
Nessa shivered. “Do you hate us for what we did? For not fighting Betrayer when she kidnapped you?”
“No,” Nessa said. “Never. Empathy’s just as necessary as logic. Empathy and compassion keeps us human.” She stiffened and took a step, still not turning back to look at either of them. “Publicize this. Everything.” The last she said without emotion, icy cold.
Dave shivered, unable to respond, several comments about Nessa and Ken’s inhumanity jangling across his mind. He and Diana locked eyes, and he could practically hear her lengthy mental commentary about his bad karma, and about how she had missed him.
“…so are we allowed to merk them?” S’up said, his voice carrying well this morning. He and the PheareChylde flanked Bob, walking a wider than necessary arc around Nessa, Ken, Diana and Uffie. Nessa waved to them anyway. Only PheareChylde acknowledged, with a low wave back. Dave was positive PheareChylde and Nessa had never met, but he suspected something at work along the lines of ‘like calling to like’. “I do so enjoy the merking.”
“Sure,” Bob said.
“Right. But if you start doing any other gamerboi shit, like teabagging, I’m outta here,” PheareChylde said, waving her bony arms. “If I’m gonna die, it’s not gonna be by embarrassment.”
99 Gods: Odysseia Page 58