“Leo, a little less menace, please?” Phil said, quiet and polite. Dr. Philip Blackburn, PhD in Computer Science and with ample real-world business experience, had been promoted into Alt’s second in command after Alt had parted ways with Nessa and Ken. He looked overdressed no matter what he wore. Of course, this was because of the fact he only wore the finest, and freshly washed and nattily ironed all his clothes. Even his catering uniform looked more fly than everyone else’s.
War relaxed the tension in her real body. “This better?” Leo said. Nobody, save Nessa Right Sock (God Almighty save me from Nessa! War mentally griped for the thousandth time) knew War’s real body masqueraded as Leonides Pepper. The real Leo, God rest his dearly departed vicious evil soul, had been born on Tortola in the British Virgin Islands and had been a loyal functionary of the Bitter End Yacht Club until Miami recruited him for his intimidating presence and his gunplay skills. The real Leo originally attracted Miami’s attention because of Leo’s status as a drug smuggler, but the real Leo had seen the light and pledged himself to Miami to save his miserable life. War found Leo’s shape to be perfect. Masquerading as a black British Virgin Islander was far easier for War than portraying a White or Hispanic man or woman.
“Perfect,” Phil said, thumping Leo’s biceps with a closed fist. War rolled his, Leo’s, eyes.
War’s little girl projection, invisible now as according to plan, clung to Alt barnacle like. Poor Alt looked like a ponce in his catering uniform. His normal black leather coat and shades were embarrassingly Matrix, but War had to admit they were a vast improvement over what Alt looked like in catering unis. “Divine tripwire at the doorway,” War’s projection said, doing her job. “No force fields. The doorguards are Grade Four Supported and normally visible.” Grade Fours were hardly worth mentioning.
All of Alt’s Telepaths were Grade Two multi-Supported, backed by at least two Gods, each by Portland and some, such as Mary, by as many as five. The Divine support amplified their telepathic capabilities as well as providing them added defense against bullets, bombs and enemy Gods. Portland had come up with the idea of Supported Telepaths. War didn’t like the idea, afraid of the Telepaths getting too cocky, but the trick had worked so far. Portland had wanted the Telepaths to have Grade One support, but the Telepaths had wisely demurred. Mastering the ability to wield willpower took time they didn’t have; besides, they had their own tricks to wield and didn’t need any distractions. So, instead, they got the strongest static support: Grade Two.
Alt’s crew wheeled the catered dinner into Worcester’s New England aristocrat lair, ready to do a little social engineering. War’s contribution to the caper, supposedly stabilized by her higher-quality-than-normal projection, was willpower-based invisibility. Not eyeball-style invisibility, but invisibility to divine senses and the Supported senses of Worcester’s flunkies. This had fooled every God and Supported when War tested the trick, and with any luck the trick would fool Worcester as well. Of course, one serious use in the field would be the end of its usefulness, given the speed of the Godly gossip network.
The palatial banquet hall in Worcester’s renovated brownstone ran from the street in front to the alley in back, large enough to sit a hundred. Her kitchen, though, was only set up to feed Worcester’s staff, which is why they needed caterers. Today, Worcester entertained a group of politicians from Connecticut, or would have if fate, in the form of Alt’s group and their divine backers, hadn’t intervened.
Alt’s team stashed the food in the kitchen and assembled, Javier grabbing fried shrimp on the way by, greatly pissing off Mary.
Now things got tricky. Plan A had them leaving a mental image of the attack squad milling around the kitchen doing caterer things. When they originally put together the plan, Nessa would have provided the illusions, but with Nessa and Ken absent that left the illusion-work up to Walter. Walter could do projective illusions, his big trick, but even after two weeks with the Telepaths he didn’t have the necessary experience, and his projective illusions couldn’t fool Gods or Telepaths. However, if Worcester didn’t explicitly poke at them, the caterer illusions they left in the kitchen should be good enough to fool Worcester’s flunkies.
Walter, a ratty white punk wannabe in his early twenties, of no great intellect, did his thing; illusory duplicates appeared. “Oh yah, I’m a god, that’s good, yah baby, that’s good,” Walter said in his raspy whisper, admiring his handiwork and sighting along his thumbs. He was cool. Just don’t call him Wally.
Mary and War, as Leo, led the way up the guard-free rear stairs. Leo’s job in this crew was to shoot guns, offer sneaky advice, protect the Telepaths and be a target. War’s projection damped the stairway noise and kept her mental focus hot. She had done the projection thing with the Telepaths only three times before and it still made her whack to experience the same events from two sets of eyes. Still, War had now spent more time as ‘War’ than she had in her previous form and she was infinitely more comfortable with her current mindset and her capabilities than before. The ‘war’ Practical God specialty was her.
Plan C involved a mad rush to Worcester, fight ready, to get to her before she decided to flee. Leo and Mary led the way down the antique-strewn hallway and crashed the door to Worcester’s office as the God got up from her chair. She had two of her Supported with her, neither of them guards, a Grade One and a Grade Two. Her Supported hadn’t yet reacted. Leo grabbed one and tossed her to the side, Mary grabbed the other and wrestled him away. Pat Duncan, the third muscle type on this crew, another Mindbound, got to Worcester first. He grabbed her and twisted. Worcester’s personal defenses blasted him off her, but not before Worcester, a dainty little white goddess, came to rest in Nicole’s arms. Nicole concentrated and her body flashed with intense telepathic power, power invisible to normal eyes but these days, not to War.
War concentrated her projection’s telepathy, slaved it to Alt, and followed him inside Worcester’s mind.
The interior of Worcester’s mind stank, all compartmentalized and full of needless tension due to the compartments’ lies to each other. Each of the Telepaths had their own tasks; War did lookout duty for the inevitable telepathic traps Dubuque’s pet Telepath, Blind Tom, regularly put in Dubuque’s flunkies’ minds. There had been some debate as to whether Dubuque’s monster of a Telepath had enough jiz to put anything of the sort into a God’s mind, but Nessa insisted Blind Tom had the amps if Dubuque provided Blind Tom with the God.
And there they were.
Only Nessa and Ken, working together, had enough skill and power to blitz one of Blind Tom’s buried exsanguination traps. War certainly didn’t, but she had another method for dealing with the damned things. S
he ran her mind over the supposed control link and removed it, springing the trap. The trap insinuated itself into her projection and causing the projection to leak a few quarts of divine projected blood. Drained, War’s projection ‘died’, reduced to a non-physical voice.
The other Telepaths did their work, using Boise’s trick to cut Worcester loose from her worshippers and Dubuque’s control. Despite Worcester’s talent as a mental trickster, she didn’t have any native talent at resisting Dubuque’s annoying and insidious mental takeover tricks. Yet.
Alt’s comment gave War barely enough time to put up her own defenses. Javier had a coughing fit, and then concentrated on his job. After a few seconds Montreal’s projection came down Javier’s link, stabilized by Javier’s big trick: long-distance telepathy. If Javier had any distance limits on his telepathy, they hadn’t found one yet.
Worcester’s ego coalesced, confused.
The rest of Alt’s crew just smiled. War covered up her intense embarrassment.
Montreal was damned difficult to refuse, in any form.
Montreal let loose her projection and vanished. The Telepaths exited Worcester’s mind and returned their conscious thoughts to the elegantly appointed office.
Worcester chose that moment to reach into a pocket, pull out a lady’s handgun at God-speed and shoot Alt in the face.
Or she tried to. The bullet stopped just above Alt’s flesh, which now glowed silver and divine.
“Oh, sorry, Worcester,” Persona said. She poked herself out of Alt’s body and kicked the handgun out of Worcester’s hand, to land by a glass-fronted cherry bookstand filled with leather bound books. Ever since Alt’s team split with Nessa and Ken, Persona had been bodyguarding Alt, either as a body double or inside him. In her own way, Persona had become as much of a terror to their opponents as Alt, impossible to predict and sneaky as all hell, aspects of her divine power that had grown strong after her switchover from Celebrity.
The Telepaths powered up, ready to paste Worcester’s mind.
“Phooey,” Worcester said. She rose to her feet and dusted herself off. “So much for surprise.”
“What did you do that for?” Alt asked the God, his voice loud and obnoxious.
Worcester didn’t back off. Instead, she leaned closer to Persona, radiating her own anger. “For the bounty, of course,” Worcester said. Her absurd answer mollified the Telepaths and they powered down. War, surprised, checked to make sure Worcester hadn’t done one of her subtle take-overs, and found nothing. Instead, she found the Telepaths chattering about hunches and solved mysteries.
Crazy Telepaths.
“Bounty?” Persona said.
War popped her bubble gum. “Bounty from Dubuque,” she said, picking the minds of the Telepaths. Her little girl projection crossed her arms and glared at Worcester, War’s pinafore gently swishing to the rhythm of her anger at the entire situation. Persona joined in the anger, unable to believe how someone who offered an actual dead-or-alive bounty could be considered a good guy.
“My loyalty remains unchanged,” Worcester said, haughtily. To an audience of one: Dubuque. The Telepaths continued their incessant mind chatter, looking at all the angles. Traps and counter-traps. Persona backed away and vanished into Alt. War scanned the area again for incoming, such as help from Dubuque, and found nothing.
“But Dubuque was controlling you, ma’am,” Phil said. As a Mindbound, he wasn’t in on the mind chatter. “We freed you.”
Worcester snorted.
“Can’t you see what he did to you?” he asked.
“Of course I can. I would have done the same to me in his shoes.” Worcester frowned at Phil. “I wouldn’t expect someone like you to understand.”
War dropped her pointless anger, stepped her little girl projection forward and held out her hand. There still might be a way to salvage this absurd situation. “Worcester, my name’s War. We haven’t met before.” Not as War.
Worcester’s instinctive politeness clicked in and she took the projection’s hand. War fought off Worcester’s attempted mental control. War pushed back with a telepathic hotfoot Worcester equally ignored.
“You’re a strange one, aren’t you?” Worcester said, getting a good read on War. War nodded.
“You’re not happy with Dubuque, despite your comments about bounties and loyalty,” War said. She could read Mission, mind and intent well.
Worcester paused and contemplated her options, long enough for War to wince. She knew how fast a God’s mind worked.
The East Coast’s top Territorial God ended her internal dialog by holding up her hands, palms forward, for a second or so. Mock surrender. “I’m not happy that he beat me at my own game,” Worcester said. Mental takeover.
“And?” War asked.
“Not ‘and’, but ‘but’. I agree with Dubuque’s goals.”
“And his means?” War said.
“No comment.”
Gotcha! “And the actions of his allies of convenience, the Seven Suits?” War said.
“The Seven Suits are not his allies, but mine,” Worcester said. “By attacking me, you have attacked them.”
War popped her bubble gum again. This tidbit was new info. Worcester had given them one for free, an implicit payment for freeing her from Dubuque’s control. Persona caught the byplay and nodded in understanding.
None of the others understood, not being in tune with the inner workings of Mission.
Phil froze for a moment before straightening his back. He didn’t want the attention of the Seven Suits turned on them. “Ma’am, this wasn’t an attack, but a rescue. If you still wish to be Dubuque’s ally we will leave.”
Worcester relaxed, a divine sneer at the mortals and their lack of understanding. “You don’t want the Suits’ attention? I’m willing to negotiate.”
War translated Worcester’s comment as ‘I want a chance to see if I can worm my way around your defenses against my mental control tricks and get the damned bounty anyway’. War sent the observation along, telepathically, to the others.
Whafuck? War’s projection turned and examined the young woman, who had curled fetal position at the foot of an incredibly detailed globe in a brass stand.
Nicole hadn’t lied. This woman, the Grade One Supported War’s Leo body had unceremoniously tossed across the room, was indeed something new and different. War shivered for a moment, overcome by intense déjà vu, remembering her discovery of the equally impossible Dana in the Seven Suit’s headquarters.
Damn, the tribble-like breeding of coincidences in the world of the Telepaths could be annoying at times.
Alt edged forward, around Phil. “Of course,” Alt said. “We’re
here to serve.”
“That I doubt,” Worcester said. She practically bent reality into knots with her willpower, attempting to suborn Alt. Alt’s defenses didn’t even twitch.
“Serve as caterers, let me be more clear,” Alt said.
“After all this, you’re going to cater my meeting?” Worcester said.
“Of course,” Alt said. “It wouldn’t be proper, otherwise.” A flicker of a silly grin crossed his face. “Oh, and one other thing. Instead of those politicians you were expecting? I’m afraid there’s another change of plan to report.”
Worcester false smile frosted.
Alt didn’t answer.
“I’m waiting.”
“You should be able to sense them now,” Alt said.
Worcester licked her lips. “Yes, you’re right. There are three Territorial Gods, in a limo, on their way here. Which ones?”
War’s projection covered a snigger. Worcester really was a one trick pony. War didn’t know of any other of the Territorial Gods who couldn’t have 411’ed the Territorials at this distance. They weren’t trying to hide. Even Dana could have ID’ed these Territorials at this distance. From one of her projections.
“Montreal, Akron and Orlando,” Alt said. “Oh, and there’s another bunch of divine projections on the way as well.”
“Well, then, I accept your offer of recompense,” Worcester said, her mind now focused on the Territorial God visitors instead of the conflict with the Telepaths. “So, get to work and do your catering job. At least your group won’t be peanut butter mouthed around so many Gods.” A common problem, but not for Alt’s group.
Worcester stalked out the door, gathering her people, organizing. The divine visitors might be Worcester’s enemies, but she would die rather than be rude to any divine guests. The guests would also give Worcester much more profitable targets for her attempts at mental control.
99 Gods: Betrayer Page 14