99 Gods: Betrayer
Page 26
That meant another climb up for Elorie, who didn’t mind the climb at all.
“There’s no way I can climb this,” Lisa said, about the first beginners’ face, after Elorie zipped back down.
“This is a 3,” Elorie said. Beginner quality.
“I’m not sure I count as a climber, then,” Lisa said.
“Give it a shot, Lisa. I’m sure you can manage.” She clapped Lisa on the shoulder.
Lisa grimaced, hooked herself to the rope, and started up. Slowly.
Dave stuck one foot on the left side of the crack, his right foot on the other, and then using his feet as bracing leveraged himself up the last ten feet. Over the top, finally. He had gone up Bug Wall, located just to the right of the beginner wall Elorie had set up for Lisa. Georgia, Osham and Mohammed had gone up Bug Wall as well, although Dave had seen enough of Osham’s style to know he could have handled something far gnarlier. Dave was the last to the top, doing his slow but steady best. He flopped down on the pine straw and shook his shoulders. They ached and his legs shook.
Elorie ended some technique discussion with Jack, waved to Dave and came over to sit down beside him. She had climbed all of the three faces the others had climbed, and one other as well. “Whew! I’m horribly out of shape,” she said, nuzzling him, discarding her normal professionalism. “I’m going to feel this tomorrow.”
Dave nodded. “You’re amazing.”
She snorted. “Someday I’ll show you some real climbing,” she said. “You’ve got to be feeling it, too. With your illnesses you can’t have been doing much climbing recently.”
“Uh huh,” he said. “I haven’t climbed in nearly two years.”
“Ouch,” she said. “I hope you don’t mind me saying this, but you’re a far better climber than I expected. I was half afraid you’d be more like Lisa.”
He grunted.
“Which means that someday I am going to get you out where we can do some real rock climbing.”
“I wince in anxious anticipation,” Dave said. He leaned over to Elorie’s ear after her inevitable rib poke. “We’re bringing this climbing gear with us to Turkey, yes?”
She nodded. “Think of this little exercise as an official recommendation by the Recruiter, as interpreted by me.” Elorie leapt to her feet. “Now let’s show you the fun way to get down off this silly pile of rocks!” She put on a pair of belay gloves, clipped on to the rope with just a carabiner, went to the edge of Dead Dog’s Wall, and leapt off, backwards. With a wheee of rope on metal and a yahoo! from Elorie, she flew out a little ways and down about half way, coming back to the wall and taking the impact on her feet. Then she kicked off backwards, again, and squealing the rope, landed on her feet on the ground below. She pumped her fist into the air and let out a happy yell. Dave, whose heart had climbed into his throat as he had watched, took a deep breath and forced himself to relax.
“You know, going down a face in such a manner isn’t recommended at all,” Jack said to Georgia. “She’s an utter lunatic.” Georgia’s climb had been slowed by the fact that she hadn’t been able to keep her eyes off Jack as he climbed. They stood shoulder to shoulder ever since they had made it to the top. Dave suspected some professional distancing had vanished between those two as well.
“She’s as crazy as a peach orchard boar,” Georgia said. “But I think we already knew that.”
“Uh huh. Mom warned me about women like her,” Darrel said. “And that’s saying a lot, for my twice imprisoned mum.”
Dave cleared his throat, just to remind them he was still there. “Okay, who’s next?” he asked, as chipper as he could fake.
No, this wasn’t what he expected when he stuck the ring on his finger. Nope, not at all.
“You’re going to call your parents?” Elorie said, putting a business suit-laden hanger in her garment bag. “Now?”
Dave nodded, canceling the call before the phone rang. “Uh huh. I always touch base with them before I leave the country.”
Elorie shrugged and started to fill her second suitcase with her less formal clothes. “I take it you don’t?”
“Uh, no. Nor my daughters, or the Loomis’s. Not normally, just for a business trip, and especially not when…” Elorie looked away. “If I did, I wouldn’t be able to continue on with this crazy job.” Her voice sounded raw. “You going to call your ex, too?”
Dave shook his head. “I’m going to leave her a voice-mail message…and, no, I’m not going to say anything about us.” He suspected he wouldn’t have to. Given Tiff’s proclivities, he suspected she had been monitoring all the group’s email and phone calls.
“You know not to tell them anything about the mission?”
“Uh huh.” Part of the contract.
“I’ll give you your privacy, then,” Elorie said, giving him a quick kiss on the cheek on the way out. He couldn’t place Elorie’s expression, then decided her expression masked her sadness.
He placed the phone call. “Dad? Hi…” Dave said, his mind shifting from the world of the crazies back to his former and much saner life.
“Success,” Lisa said.
They had only settled in to their Ankara hotel for a day. Dave was surprised when Lisa grabbed Elorie, and then called them together.
“You found them?”
Lisa nodded. “They stuck out like a sore thumb. It was trivial.” Well, at least for Lisa.
“So, where are they? Or, where did they go?” Elorie said, bouncing on the bed’s overstuffed pillow top mattress. Lorenzi funded good hotels.
“They rented out an entire tourist bus and went to a relatively nearby town named Nevsehir,” Lisa said. “They rented it round trip, but never turned up for the trip back. The local authorities searched for them outside Nevsehir but couldn’t turn up anything. My guess it wasn’t much of a search, though.”
“Nevsehir?” Dave said, suddenly alert, scalp tingling, bouncing his heels as he stood.
Jack groaned, as did Lisa. “Let me guess,” Lisa said to Dave. “You know something important about Nevsehir.”
Dave nodded and turned to Georgia, who had taken a very deep breath. “It’s the provincial capital for part of Cappadocia and only a few miles away from a place I’ll bet you know: Goreme.”
“A place I more than know,” Georgia said, nodding, a fellow bearer of the secret knowledge. “So we’re about to delve into the absurdly strange. That fits.”
“Come on, you two,” Elorie said. “What’s so important about this place?”
“You won’t believe it until you see it,” Dave said. “The Nevsehir province is the home of numerous underground cities, cities carved into rock, fairy chimneys and painted rocks. The local rock is a type of welded volcanic ash that’s very easy to carve. The place that sticks most in my mind is the underground city of Derinkuyu: eighteen stories deep, once home of up to twenty thousand people, complete with ventilation shafts and circular stone doors that roll into place. I’ve never been there professionally, but I’ve visited as a tourist. I’ll bet Georgia knows more about Goreme, though.” He turned to eyeball her. “From the way you’re acting, you must have worked Goreme. Yes?”
“Twice. Goreme’s currently an open air museum as well as an archeological site,” Georgia said. “Centuries ago it was a Christian monastic complex with over a half dozen separate churches. Its importance is due to the many ceiling frescoes. The locals think the underground cities are of first millennium origins, and the chapels date to the 10th to 13th centuries, but the underground cities are mentioned in the writings of Xenophon, around 400 BC, and my work there and that of others implies the first underground dwellings were dug not long after the coming of agriculture to the area, somewhere around 4000 BC.”
Elorie whistled. “That’s totally bizarre. I’ve never heard of the place.”
Dave wondered how she had missed Goreme, although, he remembered, dismissing tourist brochures and their over-inflated claims came natural to any experienced traveler. He had only visited becau
se an awe-struck client had dragged him there. He had fallen in love with the place immediately.
“So we’re going caving, then?” Jack said. “Guess our climbing gear’s going to come in handy.”
Dave shrugged. “My gut says if the Ecumenists went to this area, it was to find something underground. However, we’re going to have to dodge authorities, as these aren’t only tourist sites but also world heritage sites. Goreme’s a national park and many of the underground cities are also on park territory. It’s not exactly the outback.”
“Oh, there’s plenty of outback in the area, once you’re outside the church tours,” Georgia said. “I did some hiking in the area and once you’re off the beaten path it’s far too easy to get lost. Not everything underground has been discovered, that’s for sure. Even the lower levels of Derinkuyu haven’t been fully unearthed, even though the upper levels are crawling with tourists.”
“You worked Derinkuyu?” Dave said, envious.
“No, only the Goreme complex, United Nations consultations on how best to preserve the place. The rock everything is carved from is so soft it practically melts in a hard rain.”
The crew quieted down, Jack, Osham, Lisa and Mohammed radiating tension. Elorie, though, had a hard time keeping a smile off her face. Georgia remained distracted.
Lisa snorted and stalked over to her laptop, connected to the expensive Ankara hotel’s Wi-Fi connection. “Uh oh.”
“What is it?” Osham asked.
“It appears that Portland’s and Phoenix’s people are fighting, and there’s media with them,” Lisa said.
“Hey, your honey’s best pal’s about to be squished flat, Dave,” Jack said. “This oughtta be fun to watch.”
Dave groaned.
20. (War)
“All I’ve found is one offhand comment,” War said. She wore her gum-cracking child body today, appreciating the ornery sensation she associated with the body. Alt and his people had been difficult to deal with recently. “Let me show you. It’s an answer to a question, from Verona, about Dubuque’s new development.” Nicole had noticed the development, info from her ghost Louise.
This projection and the Telepaths finished the last minute preparations in a hotel suite in the city of Flagstaff, far enough from Phoenix that avoiding the God’s attention was easy.
War projected the Lorenzi-special spy record as an illusion, which filled up the sitting area of their suite.
The illusion showed Lodz’s messy lab. “My opinion? Dubuque’s innovation scares the crap out of me,” Lodz said. “As in, I have a hunch we’re messing with things that ought not be messed with. Again.” The punk God sat at a workbench in his lab.
“True, true,” Verona said. Verona paced. Verona always paced. Today he dressed in a hooded robe, prince of darkness style. “I have the same instinctive response. Yet, even though I may not like the innovation, I fear we will need it. Our instincts can be fought. The day of conflict is coming soon. Your work on the metal soldiers hasn’t progressed far enough.”
War turned off the spy record display. “The conversation goes on from there into Lodz’ ongoing difficulties with his tin soldiers project.”
“Well, if this bothers Lodz, this must be evil beyond measure,” Phil said, distrustful of the Gods as always.
“Not necessarily,” Alt said. He paced. He was nearly as bad about pacing as Verona. “The Gods don’t think the same things are icky that us mortals do. Right, War?”
War nodded. “For instance, any number of us could create Godzilla-style monster soldiers for our armies out of willpower illusions, but the thought of doing so makes me want to puke.” She doubted any of the Gods would have the nerve to cross that line.
She did fear Dubuque had, somehow, managed to cross that line. Of course, her gut feel on the matter was that if Dubuque did, the Angelic Host would declare Dubuque anathema and cut him off, ruining him. She didn’t quite trust her gut, though. The Host was too unpredictable.
“Javier?” Alt said. Javier looked twitchier than normal today. He kept checking behind him, as if someone followed him. He stuck his hands in his grease-stained coat, brought out a half-eaten bag of cold French fries, and started to eat.
“I still can’t get anything out of Phoenix’s lair.” Phoenix had followed Dubuque’s example and shut them out of his lair after the Helping Hands Gods had done the Worcester intervention. “You, Alt?”
“Not a thing.” He turned to Nicole. “Your ghosts have any comments?”
“Margo thinks Phoenix has part of X, but not all of X. Whatever ‘X’ is,” she said. Nicole grabbed her ratty gray hair in her hands and shook her head back and forth, like shaking dice in a dice cup. She stared off into nowhere. “If only Margo or any of the spirits could tell me the real story. But no. Of course not.”
Real or not, Nicole’s ghosts never had any technical details.
“At least neither Lodz nor Verona have any of their Supported helping either Phoenix or Dubuque,” War said. “Verona’s Supported are all nicely accounted for, leaning on Stockholm to either go underground or join the City of God.” Verona’s plan for Europe was for the only public ‘Gods’ to be the City of God ‘Living Saints’. So far Dubuque hadn’t shown any interest in those tactics. “So, let’s go.”
They rolled up to Phoenix’s lair, the suburban Sun City Toyota lot, in two commandeered and partly illusionary flat-bed auto haulers. The vehicles in the front of the flat-beds were real, all newly minted God-aided-design plug-in EV commuter cars. The back of the flat-beds only appeared to be cars. Instead, they held Alt’s Telepaths, fifty Portland Supported, a bunch of dormant projections, some embedded media people and War.
War winced as they passed through five different defensive screens, two of which had active eyeballs paying attention to them. Scanner-bait. Radar. Sonar. All sorts of shit. War, backed by five of Portland’s Grade One Supported, blocked them all.
Phil, clipboard in hand and dressed in a delivery trucker’s dark gray uniform, led the crew. Walter, backed by his Portland Grade Two Supported enhancements, held the illusion keeping the rest of the Telepaths invisible. War’s projection shared Walter’s body with him, while Persona hovered inside Alt. Walter dunked his comb in Mary’s half-consumed iced tea glass and slicked back his hair.
As they approached the hidden entrance located behind a drinking fountain, nine Grade One Supported ran up and surrounded them.
“Stop right where you are,” the lead Supported said. War looked the man over and saw ex-Army Ranger. “Hands in the air. Drop your shit, now!”
So much for Walter’s souped up invisibility. Alt signaled to Walter, who turned him visible. “Hello there,” Alt said. “We’re going to be speaking to Phoenix today. I’d advise you to stand…”
He didn’t get to the ‘down’ before all nine of the Phoenix Supported opened fire with Yellow Fire, Yellow Beams and Red and Blue Helixes at the lot of them.
A capture attempt.
“Extract,” War said, sending the order through the battle communication system.
Portland’s Supported dropped a force field around Alt’s squad. Phoenix’s Supported attacked the force field and Portland’s Supported using deadly divine range weaponry and the battle was on.
So much for peaceful entry.
War signaled for the off-site reserves to fly in and got to work.
War’s projection eleven healed Lonnie, the team’s number two, from a fire blast from a Phoenix Supported. Her projection seven amplified Miranda, a Boise Supported as she stunned a half dozen low-end Phoenix Supported who had cut in behind that squad’s position. Her projection one telepped to Alt
from a rolling barrage of insanity-inducement that came from Phoenix himself.
She had never extended herself so much in a battle before. Her reactions had slowed and her advice was uninventive and canned. Her divine willpower sputtered at times, especially when faced with Phoenix’s direct attacks.
The attackers slowly exhausted Phoenix’s Supported groups and his more mundane gun-toting guards. They could have already blasted their way into Phoenix’s personal hideaway, but they would have ended up trapped between Phoenix’s Supported groups and Phoenix himself. If they kept up the slow pressure, though, Phoenix would have time to call back his off-site defenders, allowing them to defeat all of Phoenix’s Supported before taking on Phoenix himself. Part of their strategy involved hiding their true strength from Phoenix until it was too late for Phoenix to realize he shouldn’t be trying to mop them up.
This strategy also gave Phoenix’s external defenders ample opportunities for flanking and rear attacks, which made War’s life a bitchin’ annoyance. So far, of the thirty-four Helping Hands alliance squads in on the attack, eleven were out of commission, fourteen partly nullified, and only nine remained fully functional.
All nine of the fully functional squads had War projections with them. Only four of her squads with projections had been partly nullified, and none were out of commission.
That success added to War’s Mission strength. Sick!
Make that six takeouts, as another of the attacking squads vanished out of Portland and Inventor’s amulet-based communication net. Alt had argued the attack required the involvement of one more Territorial God, but Portland, backed by War, decided to save the Orlando, Akron and Montreal Supported and Lorenzi’s magicians for the planned follow-on Dubuque chunkums. So far, save for this one Phoenix squad and its so-far unstoppable Magician, the plan had worked.