99 Gods: Betrayer

by Randall Farmer

  “The anger,” Dana said. “I understand, now. He spends so much time out in the wilderness to free himself from the anger. I can’t believe this is just me and this is a Supported thing. The willpower is anger, or reacts to anger, or expresses itself best through anger. Or something.”

  Jan went over to Dana and gave her a shoulder hug, then, reacting to Dana’s stony body, began to knead her shoulders.

  Dana couldn’t resist Jan’s touch. Knowing Jan’s intentions, Dana cleared and cleaned a body-sized patch of floor, and with the willpower turned the carpet pad into a thicker and firmer mat. Jan spread Dana flat, on her stomach, and began the expected massage.

  As with the first two times Dana had trashed bedrooms, Jan didn’t have a scratch on her. Dana knew, in her rage, that she had waved at least one red-beaded beam or blue helix around without thinking, and had set off at least two ground-zero willpower detonations, and when waving her arms around in her uncontrolled rage had hit Jan at least once. But nothing.

  Dana didn’t understand, and before this point, hadn’t cared. Now, she cared at least enough to make a mental reminder to think about this later.

  “Remake the bedroom,” Jan said, as she massaged. “Slowly and carefully, with the willpower. Visualize what you are going to do, in your mind, before you create.”

  Dana did as Jan ordered, as Jan massaged. Bedroom furniture appeared, remade, one slow remake at a time. Right now, as after the last two bedroom trashings, Dana did whatever Jan wanted, well, at least if the doing didn’t cause Dana any moral conniptions. Some of Jan’s purpose here was comfort, the other was training. The training was inescapable and involuntary among the Indigo inner circle; hell, she had even caught Grover training the Akron non-combatant Supported how to better use their mental organization tricks. Successfully.

  “Ummm,” Dana said, in pleasure. Jan was as expert at massage as she was at anything else she put her mind to. This was much better than after the second bedroom destruction. Two nights ago, after Dana trashed the second bedroom, Jan had gone after Dana, physically: slapping, punching, wrestling and ripping into Dana with insults. Dana wasn’t special. She wasn’t the first who suffered through Hell nightmares. She was a goddamned Territorial Regent, not some puling nobody without power or responsibilities. Jan required more.

  Two nights ago, Jan had slapped the anger out of Dana, the same way Dana had witnessed Grover slapping the Hell-contamination out of Epharis. Dana had ended up similarly dominated, ‘yes ma’am’-ing Jan and without will of her own. The slapping had to be a powered Indigo trick, but as usual, Dana hadn’t sensed the trick in use. If Jan had wanted, she could have had Dana then – it wasn’t as if Jan hadn’t been dropping signals even Dana could read – but Jan didn’t, or signal even the smallest momentary desire.

  “So, what brought this on?” Jan asked, not a demand but a real worry-filled question. This morning she overflowed with empathy instead of reflected anger. Dana didn’t know what had changed.

  “Yesterday, I think. The end of the Siege of Dubuque. And the way you basically told the Society of Angels representative to drop dead.” She didn’t know enough to be angry over Jan’s curt response to their plea for help, but she had been angry anyway.

  “I wondered,” Jan said. “I’m sorry you had to witness the confrontation. The Suits sent five of their heads to us, along with a ‘you’re next’ letter. We don’t have the resources to protect the damned occultists unless they join us. Coming by to beg shelter isn’t enough.”

  “I didn’t know,” Dana said. “How can I help? I want to help.”

  “I don’t know if you can.” Jan momentarily paused her massage. “Tell me more about what you’re thinking.”

  Dana paused for a moment to think. “Well, I think I figured out where my anger’s coming from. It’s not from witnessing Hell, or at least, only a small part of my anger is from witnessing Hell.” Perhaps the understanding was why Jan was comforting this time, unlike the last. Of course, the trigger for Dana’s last temper tantrum had been her idly touching the place on Jan’s neck where there should have been a scar from her cutting her own throat. Yes, Jan could have taken her ensuing outburst as a backhanded insult.

  “Then we’re likely moving into an area where you need to be wary about taking my advice,” Jan said. “Just saying. So, what have you discovered?”

  “I was pissed at Atlanta. I still am.”

  “Talk to me.” Jan began to beat on Dana’s lower back. “Why?”

  “She gave up,” Dana said. “She killed herself.”

  “She died a hero, in battle, saving countless lives from a God gone rogue. That isn’t suicide.”

  “That’s what I thought. I repressed the truth, though. Atlanta planned out the fight ahead of time, for weeks – the Delta SRB, the preparations to hand over control of her Territory to me, her introducing projection space to me, and all the rest.” Dana found herself tensing up again, and Jan leaned into the massage. “Damn her for doing what she did! She knew her plans, but she wouldn’t even talk to me about them.”

  “She wouldn’t,” Jan said. “Not her style.” Jan moved down to knead Dana’s legs. The sensual pleasure of the massage drifted toward the sexual. The Godslayer, Jan said. Sexual energy permeated so much of what the Indigo did. Dana couldn’t summon any anger at the Godslayer for what she did to Dana, but Dana didn’t give in, either. “Tell me more. Not what you think, but what you feel.”

  “I’m angry and hurt,” Dana said. “I’m angry and hurt that someone I allowed myself to get so close to would plan her own death in such a cold fashion and never ask for help, or even want to talk about her feelings, or tell me what she was doing, or anything. She fucking betrayed me!”

  “There’s got to be more,” Jan said. “Emotionally, this doesn’t resonate with me.” She began to massage Dana’s feet. “I’m guessing you’re feeling a dissonance between your story and Atlanta’s, an unrequited story combination. Or, switching from an Indigo ‘world-as-story’ viewpoint to the equivalent Mission viewpoint, your Mission and Atlanta’s Mission grew apart and started to fight. Uh, belay that. From your perspective, Missions don’t possess independent will. That would be, um, your Mission and Atlanta’s Mission clashed, making it more difficult for the two of you to work together.”

  “Sort of, I think,” Dana said.

  “Sorry.” Jan moved to Dana’s other foot. “I’m sure I’m not explaining the Mission stuff correctly. Although ‘world-as-story’ and Mission are the same, from an unnatural perspective, I’m too tied to ‘world-as-story’ to be able to explain things in Mission terms.” Dana had been shocked to learn of the ‘world-as-story’ idea, how people interacting with the unnatural innately fell into mythological and fictional tropes, or invented new ones. She had been more shocked to learn the idea predated the forming of the Indigo by multiple generations, and utterly appalled when she realized ‘world-as-story’ and Mission were, when you got rid of the damned words, just two ways of looking at the same thing. She had convinced the Indigo with ease, as several of them suspected the same.

  “Uh huh. I can’t put this into words either, but you’re right.” Dana gave Jan’s idea some thought, attempting to ignore the sexual signals her body kept sending her, not at all easy given that Jan’s hands now worked their way back up Dana’s legs. “My problem does come from Mission. As a Supported, I didn’t have much Rapture until I became Regent, which meant Atlanta couldn’t take me into her confidence. I wasn’t equal enough at the Mission level to, um, unnamed divine emotion five, which sort of translates as a mixture of trust and emotional buoyancy.” Eventually, Dana promised herself, she would write a short book about the extra divine emotions; her Regency had given her enough of a feel as a mortal to at least understand some of them at the non-verbal level. If she survived the Troubles, that is.

  “Mission makes my head hurt,” Jan said. “I really don’t understand Rapture. I keep getting it confused with Congregation.”

  “N
either is easy to put into words. They’re best experienced,” Dana said. Dammit, Jan, stop massaging my ass! “The entire suite of emotions and responses and tricks you get from the Godslayer – your absurd ability to survive my willpower temper tantrums without a scratch on you – is from your Rapture. Because of your platonic love for Kara.”

  “Oh, it’s far more than platonic,” Jan said, chuckling. She froze for a moment, and took her hands off Dana’s ass as if her hands had caught on fire. After a short pause, Jan climbed on top of Dana, resting her rear end on Dana’s, and started to press down, hard, with her hands, on Dana’s upper spine. “Sorry. I understand.” Jan meant the sexual tension, which she had chosen to defuse. “I don’t worship the Godslayer, but I’ve given her my heart many times over, and my body. She’s my Angel. She’s my spiritual boss.” Jan continued, her voice quieter, with a “Despite the fact she’s most often a divine pain in the ass.”

  “Exactly,” Dana said, grunting out each syllable. “Congregation is quite different, though if you structured the Indigo as a religious group, you, as a non-God, wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. Since the Indigo isn’t an organized religion, your Congregation lives in your unnatural teaching and organization methods. For the Indigo, Congregation is the unnatural cachet of your teachings.”

  “In Christian terms, uh, Rapture is the Holy Spirit and one’s personal experience with the Holy Spirit, while Congregation is, well, the Bible and Christian society.” Jan paused. “I think. You’re right. Looking at Rapture and Congregation in religious terms, they do blend together.” Jan took a deep breath and started to massage Dana’s shoulders again. “So, how does this relate to your leaving the siege of Dubuque?”

  Of which Dana knew Jan disagreed with. Still… “Oh, shit,” Dana said.

  “More insight? Perhaps getting you initiated into inseeing wasn’t too bad an idea, despite my worries,” Jan said. Jan had borrowed Kara the Godslayer’s as-yet-nameless indigo-eyes trick and pried opened Dana’s subconscious, at her son Abe’s request, so Dana could better know herself. Mastering the uses of this, which Jan termed inseer, would take years. Or less, since Dana could cheat with willpower. The only issue Dana had with inseer was the fact the skill worked so radically different for everyone who learned it, so she had no idea where her inseer self-training would lead. This morning’s breakthrough was the first bit of use of inseer Dana had experienced, if she was correct and inseer was behind her sudden understanding.

  “If Atlanta had confided in me, and found a way to align our Missions, I wouldn’t have been able to leave the siege of Dubuque. No, I don’t yet fully understand why, but I wouldn’t. She screwed me over so she could save me!” Dana wasn’t a God, and despite her Regency and a decent fraction of the power of a Territorial God, she didn’t have the mind or body of one. Another momentary bit of anger flashed through Dana at Atlanta’s casually appalling planning capabilities; she raised her right arm and bashed the floor, in what she expected would be a momentary fit of floor pounding exasperation.

  Her fist and arm went through the steel-reinforced concrete floor with barely any resistance, sending debris down to the room below them in Dana’s HQ.

  Jan snorted. “I take back what I said, earlier. The only Indigo people strong enough to survive taking you for a lover are Epharis, Abe and I. Perhaps Diana as well. The rest of us are officially off limits to you, and if I were you, I wouldn’t go after any of the weaker Supported, for the same reason. Definitely, you need to stay away from mundanes.”

  “You’re assuming I’m going to…” Dana stopped. “Hell, this is something you or some of the other Indigo have seen, haven’t you?”

  “Uh huh,” Jan said. “Within a year. Please don’t kill them by accident, ‘kay?”

  Breakfast over, Jan and Dana continued to talk over cups of coffee from Dana’s HQ commissary. They had moved the discussion to Dana’s executive lounge after realizing they had chased everyone out of the commissary. The previous lunchers sensed as terrified.

  “…inseeing is internal and not magic or supernatural, even if it appears that way,” Jan said. She didn’t wear makeup today, but because of her intense focus on Dana she had turned heads in the commissary, even among some of the men and women of the Indigo who should have been immune to the ‘Jan effect’ by now. Jan sipped coffee and continued. “Anything able to do something tangible, affecting the real world, is either religious magic such as via The Craft or the 99 Gods, or is alien magic, such as the Hell-magic you experienced and the magic of Angels. We believe Lorenzi’s magic is also alien in nature, likely from Hell, an assertion we’ve never been able to prove or disprove.”

  Dana shook her head. “How do you explain Telepaths and Psychics, then?”

  Jan snorted, her green eyes flashing in humor. “For years, we denied there were such things, that’s how. They’re a conundrum. Either our entire theory is full of hot air, or telepathy et al is alien in nature. We consider the Telepaths an unsolved problem, one the Indigo was working on part-time until, well, the 99 Gods showed up and we, um, changed directions.”

  Dana leaned her arms on the table. “So how…”

  “Later,” Jan continued. “There’s one thing you need to know about Grover – he, alone, of all of us, predicted the current problems we’re all having with the 99 Gods, based on logic and experience. We – including myself – gave him enough grief over this to mess him up, which is why he’s radiating unhinged vibes.” She ran her hands through her hair. “Worse, when Epharis and the Godslayer started picking up unnatural information confirming his logic, we ignored them and treated their ideas as an unlikely hypothesis.” Jan paused and met Dana’s gaze. “Do you catch the subtext message this time?”

  Dana frowned. Jan was doing it to her again, somehow teaching inseer at the same time as holding a normal conversation. Dana closed her eyes and rattled the last half hour through her head. “Stockdale paradox.”

  “This has a name? Why am I not surprised?” Jan said, snickering. “We’ve faced this problem for forty years – how to cope with hope without risking despair and suicide. Illogical hope, the idea that things will turn out miraculously well and that the difficulties around you can be ignored, is a killer.” Dana nodded. She might not know the reference, but Jan knew the lesson. “You must retain faith that you will prevail in the end, regardless of the difficulties you face. At the same time, you must paradoxically confront the most brutal facts of your current situation, whatever they might be. To survive hope, you need both faith and honesty. Don’t lie to yourself for fear of short-term embarrassment or discomfort, because such deception will only come back to defeat you in the end.”

  “Which I’ve been doing,” Dana said. Dammit! Yes, being around the Indigo was embarrassing, and her embarrassment was something she had to get over. She had too many responsibilities she might mess up otherwise.

  26. (War)

  “Fu-uck.” Exhausted, War stood and stretched. Her battle-scarred Leo body held her mind and thoughts now; no need for active projections as everyone had stood down from the battle against Dubuque. Alt had decided to hole up for the moment in a set of lakeside cabins Lorenzi owned in the mountains of Washington; right now, where Alt went War went because her real Leo body was one of his bodyguards. Alt’s last hideout, an out-of-business Cutlery Select, had been discovered by the mall goths, and they and their clove cigarettes had smoked them out.

  Alt appropriated one of the cabins for himself to commune and search out possible new recruits. War found a deserted place to meditate alone, one of the cabins not properly cleaned since the last of Lorenzi’s many groups occupied the place. The cabin stank of cigar smoke and fish guts, easy for War to ignore. War paced.

  She had tried to will herself into the state where she had glimpsed the future and only succeeded in exhausting herself.

  Now, someone knocked on the doors of her mind. A Telepath? She couldn’t tell. She wasn’t interested in any telepathy games right now, especially
since Leo pretended to be a Mindbound. She did some surreptitious earjacking to make sure none of Alt’s group of Telepaths did the mental knocking. They didn’t. Ten minutes of pacing and analysis later, the persistent knocking still continued.

  Enough. War put up an illusion around her real body that made her appear to all normal and telepathic senses to be one of her projections, then sat down on the floor, cross-legged. She opened her mind and found the knocking wasn’t telepathic but something divine.

  Something with a lot of pull, as well. She didn’t fight the pull and opened herself up. The pull accelerated to a peak before halting with a flash. Although her body hadn’t moved, her mind had. War tuned her senses to her destination: swirls of faux clouds glowed around her; below her, fragments of images from movies and televisions shows marched in a line. Darkness ruled the sky, eerie light lay below her.

  War brought up her most potent mental defenses. Somehow, her meditative presence had been brought into the world of projection, into a part of it she didn’t recognize. This could be an attack. She pushed, an experiment, and created a projection of herself in this place.

  “Fear not. It is congratulations we wish to convey.”

  War recognized the voice. She turned and found Weeping for Cordoba, translucent and human in form, floating beside her. “Angel,” War said, and bowed her head. Weeping for Cordoba had been her teacher during apotheosis. As before, the terrifying presence of the Angel was strong enough to chase away her ire at the manipulative games of the Angelic Host. “Wazzup? This isn’t Heaven, where I was taught. Did you summon me, or did some other?”