99 Gods: War

by Randall Farmer

  “Understandable,” Steve said.

  “Why should I bother looking for new clients? Why should I bother with anything?” Dave said. “I’ve been coping by faking my way through life. ‘Everything will be fine’, you know? I’m sick of it.” He sighed. “Counseling sounds like more of the same.”

  “Don’t give up,” Steve said, a catch in his voice.

  “Why not?” Dave said. “Life as a mental vegetable doesn’t appeal to me.” In Dave’s worst nightmares, he saw himself, drooling in a bed while suffering through a slow and painful death. He would rather exit thinking, if he had to exit at all, and Dr. Greuter’s results were the next exit sign he had feared.

  “Well, you’re not a mental vegetable yet, and you can’t do anything meaningful if you’re dead,” Mirabelle said. “The last bit’s a Boise quote. Someone had asked him, since the 99 Gods admitted there is an afterlife of sorts, about the point of life.” Portland had been asked about Heaven, and had replied that although the popular idea of Heaven and Hell didn’t exist some sort of afterlife did, where you ‘joined God Almighty’. Then she said she had said too much, the end of that tidbit of trivia. “He says life is for doing. There’s still meaningful things you can do with your life, Dave.”

  Dave turned away; yes, Mirabelle had caught him out. He hadn’t been thinking of suicide, well at least not seriously, but he had been thinking about giving up. “Trying to dredge up new clients isn’t one of them, though.”

  “Are you sure?” Steve said. “I don’t know much about your business, but with the stock market continuing its slide and so many firms in trouble, anything you find for your company’s going to at least help your company, even if you…” Steve’s voice choked up, unwilling to finish his sentence with the obvious ‘aren’t there to share in the reward’ comment.

  Dave bit his upper lip again.

  “All hope isn’t gone,” Mirabelle said. “You can always hope for a miracle.”

  “That’s what I’d been doing, until this,” Dave said. Moping for hearacles. Whatever. “I’m tired of it. There’s no point. The odds are so far against it that why should I even bother?”

  “Well, for one thing, there’s always the 99 Gods,” Mirabelle said. Dave shook his head. “No, really. They do cure people, and not just once or twice for show. They even specialize in cases like yours, something you didn’t bring on yourself, something beyond the ability of modern medicine to cure and not a malady of old age.”

  He hadn’t known that.

  “You’re seriously think Dave should try and find a God to cure him?” Steve said. “That’s disgusting.”

  “Why do you think it’s disgusting?” Dave said. He liked the absurd idea, kinda sorta, especially after Dr. Greuter’s results, although he suspected his chance at divine healing was as low as his chance of spontaneous remission. It might even keep him out of the house as much as his client searches, a good thing these days. He didn’t know the first thing about how to go about finding a God to cure him, though.

  “It’s cheating,” Steve said. “And I don’t know what the penalties for that sort of cheating will turn out to be.”

  “You don’t trust the 99 Gods anymore?” Mirabelle asked. “That’s new.”

  Steve nodded. “I changed my mind. I think there’s a lot of shit going on behind their utopian façade. They’re messing everything up.”

  “Come on,” Mirabelle said. “You can’t mean that. Look at all they’ve done so far! Consider how much they’re going to do for us, over time.”

  “Exactly my point! I don’t believe they’re doing anything for us,” Steve said. “If you follow the blogs, there’s a lot of evidence piling up about the Ideological Gods, at least the ones they call the Seven Suits, being behind the big ongoing economic downturn. Dave thinks so too. They’re not being selfless altruists, they’re trying to take over the world’s biggest corporations. They even bought a few, legally and in public. What are they doing secretly? Much worse. Dave convinced me they’re behind Hernandez Industry’s fall and why Dave’s having to live out of a suitcase trying to drum up new clients.”

  “I don’t believe it,” Mirabelle said. “If any of the Gods tried something like trying to take over the economy, the other Gods would stop them before they succeeded. Besides, why would they? The Gods don’t need wealth. They can conjure up anything they need.”

  “What if the Gods want power for power’s sake?” Steve said. “Or for one upping us mortals? Sure, a few of them are doing good deeds and dispensing a few miracles, but I’m sure there’s got to be some sort of quid pro quo involved. What are we selling when we buy into the 99 Gods and their acts? Our souls?”

  “Oh, phooey on you,” Mirabelle said, pursing her lips. She turned to Dave. “Don’t you go believing Steve’s paranoia. The 99 Gods are a good thing, a wonderful thing. I think they can help you, if you only try.”

  “I noticed, in my travels, lots of people expressing caution about the 99 Gods and their activities, at least in private,” Dave said. “Although I’ve heard more worry about Khartoum’s heavy handed actions in Somalia than the actions of the Seven Suits.”

  “That’s because of the commandment to stop national wars,” Mirabelle said, throwing her shoulders back. “The faction leaders in the latest Somalian civil war wouldn’t lay down their arms, so Khartoum was forced to step in.”

  Steve put down a bowl of chips and glowered. “He murdered hundreds of officers who refused to let their men quit the war,” he said. “Murdered!” He threw up his hands. “And when the media asked some of the other Gods about it, they said Khartoum was in the right! That’s nonsense and hypocrisy; our variety of war is a sin and needs to be stopped, but the 99 Gods variety of war is holy and correct. I can’t believe you’re now an apologist for murder, Mirabelle.”

  “Well, I don’t have any problems with what Khartoum’s doing at all,” Mirabelle said. “The 99 Gods could have showed up with a hundred new commandments from God, given how complex our civilization’s become. Instead, they only gave us one, the ‘no national war’ commandment. Their actions show its importance, and if it’s going to be meaningful for us, the 99 Gods have to back it up with force. Otherwise, people will try to get around it the way they always have. You know the drill: police actions, pre-emptive self-defense, surgical strikes, covert actions, drone strikes, all that stuff. Words that sound like no war is involved, despite what’s going on.”

  Steve frowned. Mirabelle turned to Dave.

  “So have you soured on the Gods as well?” Mirabelle said.

  Dave shook his head.

  “Cautious, yes, soured, no,” Dave said. “I accept the Gods’ comments about God Almighty’s new anti-war commandment and why, and I do understand the need to enforce it. I read several articles and book excerpts about how people’s chances of dying in war had been declining for generations. Some of the articles were from before the 99 Gods showed. It makes perfect sense to me for God Almighty to withhold the anti-war Commandment until we were ready. I’m not happy about the fact the 99 Gods don’t seem to be constrained in what else they can do, though. Too much meddling can’t help but be bad news.”

  “So, about my idea of seeking their help?” Mirabelle said. Steve shook his head, sadly.

  “I like it in theory, but the practicality of the matter escapes me,” Dave said. “Where would I start? I don’t know anything about getting in contact with any of the 99 Gods to ask for help, and only a few of the 99 Gods have official offices, and they’re mobbed by people wanting favors of one sort or another. Futile efforts don’t appeal to me any more than drooling in a bed does.”

  Mirabelle leaned forward, putting her hands on her glass and chrome coffee table. “I know someone,” she said. “Her name’s Diana, Diana with no last name, and she’s more than a little strange. However, she’s told me she’s in regular contact with Boise. What more could you want?” She wrote down an address and Dave put it in his wallet.

  Well, no one’s g
oing to confuse East Colfax with Five Points, now are they? Dave thought, as he pressed the button and his far-too-clean and sparkling SUV parallel parked itself a half block from the address Mirabelle provided, at least according to his smartphone’s GPS. He had never been in this Denver neighborhood before, and being here didn’t make him want to stay. He made sure he locked the SUV quickly after getting out and shutting the door, noticing his was the only hybrid or EV parked anywhere nearby. A man in grimy layered cast-off garments, leaning up against a grimy brick wall of a boarded up storefront, caught Dave’s eye. A placard at the bearded man’s feet, hand lettered and upside-down, read ‘Send the Gods back to their UFO’.

  Riiight.

  Dave pretended not to notice as he walked down the block, feeling awkward as all hell. Most of the buildings here weren’t numbered, and few appeared to be functional businesses or dwellings. Trash, complete with needles and broken glass, littered the corners between walks and sidewalks. Posters, handbills and graffiti covered everything, some the normal gang signs, some others Dave had seen elsewhere, while still others… “The 99 Gods are a HOAX” “The Rapture happened August 5th and we’ve been Left Behind!” “Death to Israel! The 99 Gods are a Zionist Conspiracy!” All new to him, as nothing like this ever made it to the websites he frequented.

  All this place needed was peanuts and it would be a zoo, Dave thought. A panhandler brushed by him, smelling of paint. Two tatted up truants eyed him warily, smoking cigarettes, and rushed off. Dave stopped when he found the address, 414A, a narrow sliver of a subdivided storefront, next to a dusty shop filled with dried flowers advertising itself in Korean. The sign above 414A, hand painted, read “Madame Xenia’s. Fortunes Told. Tarot! Palms Read.” God.

  Dave rubbed his temples and sighed. He should have asked Mirabelle more about this Diana person, at least something. Normally he would. Are these the signs of his long-feared mental problems, he wondered.

  He turned back to his SUV and saw placard guy walking unsteadily toward him, already between Dave and the sanctuary of his vehicle. Cornered, he sighed to himself and entered Madame Xenia’s. Tiny bells on the inside of the door jingled as he did so, and his eyes teared up from the rank incense stench of the place.

  A young woman, in her mid to late teens, glanced up from a paraphernalia-strewn desk and frowned. “You’re supposed to knock,” she said, a faint southern accent flavoring her arch voice.

  “Sorry,” Dave said. “I think I’m looking for your mother.” He looked around and saw on the other side of the desk a beaten up fifty year old fridge, a cot piled with strewn clothes and bedcovers, an ancient wooden-legged card table with a hotplate, several pots and pans, as well as a half dozen dirty glasses and dishes. Below the card table rested a laundry detergent bucket, half full of water, with a washcloth and towel draped over the edge. Beside the card table sat a child’s dresser and an ancient PC with a dingy discolored beige monitor on top.

  “My mom’s a long way from here, guy,” the young woman said, exasperated. She shook her head at his incomprehension. “I’m Madame Xenia, believe it or not. I’m older than I appear.”

  “Well, I’m looking for a Diana, no last name,” Dave said. He figured the odds of finding helpful information in this indoor garbage dump to be somewhat less than the odds of pigs flying.

  She half stood and carefully looked Dave over, once, twice, three times. Then she sat again, pushing a half-filled ashtray to the side. “That’s me as well,” she said, her voice taking a long detour to Georgia or South Carolina.

  “Oh, I apologize then.”

  “Why apologize?” she said. “You’re the one who’s made a fool of himself. Take a seat, mister. What can I do for you?”

  Dave found said seat, once someone’s dining room chair, now a chair only because someone had put a discolored two inch bare foam cushion over a piece of plywood over the long-gone upholstery. He sat. As he expected, concrete would have been more comfortable.

  “I was given your name and address by a friend of mine, Madame Xenia,” Dave said.

  “Just Diana, please,” she said. “Okay, got that. And?”

  “I need to talk to a Boise contact.”

  Diana grunted and held her hand out.

  “Huh?”

  “I’m a fortune teller as well as a Boise contact. Give me your palm.”

  This was absurd. “With a bedside manner like yours, you ought to be a doctor,” Dave said, but he did hold out his hand.

  Diana snorted laughter and took his hand. “Madame Xenia gets all the bedside manner. Diana’s just a bitch. Blame my mother, who patented the word.” She glanced at his hand. “Oh, I’m sorry. I apologize. I thought you were here to try to induce Boise into some stupid business deal. I didn’t realize this was a personal matter.”

  Shivers ran up and down Dave’s spine. “I… I…”

  “Relax,” Diana said. She looked him in the eye for the first time, and Dave realized it took work. Shy, he realized. “More. You can do it. Hey, I like you, I’m not going to bark any more. You can relax.”

  Diana had pale skin, shoulder-length black hair, and a distinctive round face. She bore a strong resemblance to Elorie, his old high school flame and first lover, but Diana wasn’t anywhere near as good looking and she didn’t have curly hair. Of course, Diana wasn’t over forty, either. “I’m Dave,” he said. “Dave Estrada.”

  “You’re new at this, aren’t you? You’re not supposed to tell Madame Xenia things like that,” Diana said, a twinkle in her eye. “So, which problem is the real reason you’re here: the health or the dying marriage?”

  Dave had to close his eyes for a moment. “I’m not used to getting my fortune read,” he said. “Accurately or otherwise.”

  Diana smiled. “I haven’t read your fortune, Dave, nor am I likely to.”

  Huh?

  “The comment’s a trick, from reading your posture and the like. Oh, and the fact you look like you’ve crawled out of someone’s grave, most likely your own,” Diana said. “You should be home, resting. Or in a hospital, or, um, a hospice.”

  Ouch! “What’s the ‘Nor am I likely to’ mean, anyway?”

  Diana blinked winsomely at him and her smile grew. “You probably want to know how someone like me is a Boise confidant. I would in your shoes. Well, he chose me. Came by one day in late August, patted me on the head, blessed me, and said if I got cleaned up he would invite me to meet some of his other Denver friends. Which I did and he did.”

  “You’re not into answering questions, are you?” Dave said. He didn’t need this.

  “That I share with you, Dave.”

  Dave sighed, exasperated. “If I may ask, though you’ll probably not answer, how are you in continuing contact with Boise, like my friend said you were?”

  Diana giggled. “You’re a treasure.” She released his hand and pointed to the dilapidated computer. “The internet. Boise’s got his tricks. He doesn’t need a computer to email you or check his own email.” She paused. “Only I hope this isn’t an emergency. Boise’s doing some heavy duty meditation and refuses to be bothered. Something’s annoying him and his Godly brain is agitated enough to shirk his normal duties. I haven’t been able to tease out of him why, yet.”

  Meditating. Just great. Nope, no pigs flying today. Dave shook his head, ready to leave and go lean on Mirabelle for a better contact. “I’m here because I need a miracle, because of my health problems. I’m sorry to have bothered you, Diana, but…”

  “Sit your fat ass back down,” Diana said, her voice now sharper and more penetrating. For a second she appeared surrounded by an almost tangible dark purple aura. Dave hesitated for long enough to convince himself that he sat of his own free will, and sat. “There. That’s better. Let’s talk.”

  “I don’t suppose you do miracles yourself?” Maybe the pig would fly after all.

  “‘I don’t suppose’ is right,” Diana said. And the pig nosedives into the runway before takeoff. “Give it a few months. If I’m
still here, I’ll bet I’ll be able to.” What did he do to deserve this? Dave asked himself. Did his offering last Sunday bounce or something?

  “I may not have a few months. If a time frame matters, this is something of an emergency,” Dave said. “So, if Boise’s in your back pocket, then why are you…” He waved his arms around. Why did she live in this dump?

  “You know, Davy boy, not everyone’s hot for money and the luxuries they buy,” Diana said. “I’ve got more important priorities in my life, a trait I share with Boise. I suspect that’s why he picked me.” She paused, licked her lips, leaned back in her chair and crossed her legs. “So, Dave, what’s your reaction to the appearance of the 99 Gods?” She glanced over his head and to the left as she said this, a fake eye contact trick Dave recognized from dealing with a few aspie and near-autistic geologists.

  All of Diana’s twists and turns left his brain on spin cycle. Enough of this and he would need to be thrown in the dryer. “Excited. Thrilled,” he said, blurting out the answer before deciding to. “I was a church-goer but not a believer, and suddenly the Gods appeared out of nowhere saying God Almighty’s real. Instant belief.” He could easily see how she could be a successful fortuneteller. Despite her shyness and awkwardness, she could make people talk, even if she didn’t know the first thing about putting people at ease.

  “What did you think about how the 99 Gods blew many of the standard Christian beliefs out of the water?”

  Dave shrugged. “I never thought the dogma was right to begin with.”

  “I see.”

  “How about you?” Dave said.

  “You care about me?” Diana said, tipping her head to the side and looking at his hands and arms. “This is about you, not me.”

  “Still, you’re the one making the cryptic comments and asking the strange questions,” Dave said. “Knowing your viewpoint will help me understand what’s going on here.” He, on the other hand, knew a hell of a lot about how to put people at ease. Or kick their verbal feet out from under them. He normally didn’t go after strangers with his verbal jujitsu, but in his mind Diana had earned it twice over.