“You ever try your clairvoyance on any of the Gods?”
“Me? You crazy? You?”
“No way in hell,” Nessa said. “Still, your clairvoyance is better than any of ours and I’m sure it’s your primary trick. Only you’ve been ignoring it.” She gave him a sideways look. “Refusing to use it.”
Alt stopped, and Nessa did as well. They had reached the back edge of the parking lot.
“I’m using my clairvoyance, but only for mundane things,” Alt said. “Like finding out where the nearest truck stop is.”
“Well, that’s a lot better than only getting flashes of distant events,” Nessa said. “Ever figure out why you don’t pick up on things world-wide?”
“Funny you should ask,” Alt said. “I threw the question at Celebrity earlier this evening, figuring someone as smart as her might have some insight into the problem. It took her about thirty seconds, dammit. I get flashes of distant events based on the number of local awake English-language speakers.”
Nessa grunted and looked up into the air, letting the fine mist falling out of the fog lightly wet her face.
“I wish you wouldn’t do that,” Alt said. She caught the pain in his voice, which troubled her.
“Do what?”
“Make me love you.”
Nessa frowned and turned to look at Alt. She saw lust in his eyes, despite how well he hid his emotions in his mind. This Nessa didn’t need. She turned and walked away at a quick pace.
Alt followed. Mary muttered a very quiet “Oh shit” and hung back.
“I shouldn’t have said that. I shouldn’t have said that.”
“Damn right you shouldn’t have said anything,” Nessa said.
“I can’t help it.”
“Can’t help what?”
“That I love you. That the longer I stay with you the more I love you.”
Nessa turned on Alt, angry, and he barely kept himself from running into her. He backed off, a waft of fear flowing from him. “Fix this,” Nessa said. “This is not acceptable. You have the self-control to do so.”
“I know it’s wrong,” Alt said, and raised his hands in surrender. “I need a little cooperation from you, though.”
“Such as?” Nessa asked. Stupidity like this made her want to give up on the 99 God problem, go back to Alaska, pull the covers over her head and hide. Dammit, she told herself, I should have seen this coming. Alt, too new at being a fully functional Telepath, had fixated on her as his savior. He just didn’t have the self-control or self-analysis he needed. He didn’t know how he thought, and he didn’t have the instinctive ‘check for lies’ mentality hard experience would teach him.
“Uh…” His mind leaked an image that sharpened Nessa’s anger.
“Jesus! You want me to be more ugly, less sensitive and more of a bitch. Thanks a bunch, Alt.”
Alt blushed and dropped his gaze. “I don’t want you to hate me,” Alt said, quietly.
“I’m not going to hate you because you love me,” Nessa said. Alt smiled. “You’re going to piss me off mightily, though, if you can’t control yourself better.” His smile turned to a frown. “You’re not allowed to mess up my life because of your lack of control or your thoughtless behavior.”
“You’re right, but what do I do? I’m just…”
Alt stopped speaking and turned to the truck stop driveway, suddenly alert. Nessa did the same. Her heart started to beat all fluttery and she felt almost as if she floated on air. Behind them, a blue van turned from the highway into the truck stop. “Shit! I can’t find any minds in that van!” Nessa said, breathless.
No minds meant mental protections which meant attack. Nessa sprinted back toward the tour bus, sensing for minds in the oncoming van, putting more effort into each successive probe. Nothing nothing nothing. Panic sprawled into the suburbs of her mind, enough to heighten her senses.
“Cover, get behind cover,” Mary said, sprinting effortlessly beside her. “Don’t make yourself a target.”
Nessa ignored Mary and continued to sprint. She screamed mental warnings at everyone in their group, especially those sleeping in the bus. Alt followed, lagging as he fumbled under his ankle-length black leather coat for his weapon. The van halted two hundred yards ahead of Nessa, dangerously close to the tour bus. She looked around for cover, following Mary’s suggestion, but everything she saw had ‘this will explode if hit by heavy weapons’ figuratively written all over it. She found the nearest safe-looking eighteen wheeler parked about fifty yards ahead and to her left.
Nessa turned and angled that direction.
The first person out of the van shot a shoulder-mounted weapon at the tour bus, leaving a thin smoky trail behind. From the other side of the van, a separate trail appeared, from a separate shoulder mounted weapon, again at the bus. Both missiles hit the tour bus and exploded in a blinding flash, followed by the yellowish explosion of the bus’s fuel tank. An instant later, the sound of the explosion kicked Nessa in the stomach, and she skidded and fell on the icy asphalt.
Nessa reached forward with her mind at the visible attacker, but she couldn’t find anything to grab. Panic flooded into her mind’s core, restrained only by the dull dim knowledge of her anticipation of this attack. The explosion lifted up from the tour bus to reveal a sight that would confound the normals but was nothing more than what Nessa expected, the back half of the tour bus vaporized, the front half untouched. Ken’s telekinesis. Her warning had worked. Nobody had died.
Ken and several others on the tour bus radiated pain, though.
“Wait until we get behind that truck before we shoot,” Mary said, pointing at their prospective cover. Nessa nodded, and a dozen paces later, skidded to a halt behind the eighteen-wheeler. She got out her Uzi and clicked off the safety. “Now.”
Nessa, Mary and Alt juked out and fired at the van and their attackers. Whoever had set up this attack had made a big mistake. They must have gotten a read on her or the other Telepaths and figured out that with their telepathy they would hesitate to shoot at other people. Heightened empathy. Otherwise, the mastermind behind this would have sent more attackers. Whoever set this up had also put mind-reading protections on the attackers, though, protections which removed the hesitation. Shooting at these idiots was no more traumatic for Nessa than shooting at a target. No minds, no problem.
Nicely abstract. She hoped they died horribly and didn’t lose their mind shields as they did so.
You’ve made a mistake as well, Nessa, a quiet voice in her head opined. You didn’t tell Alt that although you loved him as a friend and companion, you don’t desire him. He still has hope. This will be trouble, later.
Not now, sock! Nessa sent back. She noticed Mary shooting at the rear end of the van instead of the people. If Mary had hoped for a gas tank explosion, it didn’t happen, but the van did settle down toward the ground on flat tires. So much for any easy escape. Heh.
As Nessa shot, Nicole sprang out of the tour bus at a dead run, her mind a sheet of panic. Two steps and she fell from a burst of gunfire from the attackers. They had been waiting for panicked Telepaths to appear, part of their plan.
Nessa’s heart leapt into her throat. She covered Nicole’s small body with disguises and illusions of invisibility, the only way to protect Nicole she was able to think of in the midst of her battle panic. Those tricks normally worked even on the mind-shielded, but the screwy mind shielding on their attackers had to be something some damned God stuck on them, so Nessa couldn’t guarantee anything. Nicole lived, but in pain, hit at least twice. Her mind had totally gone under, submerged in her panic, so Nessa took over. She found Nicole’s non-life-threatening wounds and made Nicole stop bleeding. No, Nicole wouldn’t be moving any time soon on her own.
One of the attackers dropped, then another. From the cover of the van, one of the attackers shot at Nessa’s small group. Bullets whizzed by, and some thwacked against the side of the eighteen-wheeler. Nessa ducked back and knelt behind the eighteen-wheeler’s righ
t front tire.
Alt dropped prone, set up a tripod for his weapon and fired single shots into the van. “I count five attackers, but three are down now,” Alt said, after his third shot.
“Cheat,” Nessa said. Alt used his clairvoyance for targeting. Good for him.
“Fuck,” Mary said. She knelt down beside Nessa and dropped her weapons.
“Hit?”
“Yes,” Mary said. She peeled open her worn denim jacket to expose a matted fake-fur lining, an old sweatshirt and a couple of knives, and felt underneath. “Grazed by a ricochet or something.” Her hand came back bloody. Nessa turned and vomited when she got a whiff of Mary’s blood. Dry heaves.
“Nessa?”
“I’m not normally so squeamish,” Nessa said, after she wiped her mouth on her jacket. “Must be the pregnancy. Don’t mind me. I’m fine.”
“They’ve got to get out of the bus,” Alt said. “It’s on fire, despite what Ken did.”
“Ken’s hurt bad,” Nessa said. No fear, no worries now. The adrenaline of the action took care of her mental freakies. The breakdown would come later. Sooner, if Ken died on her.
The remaining two attackers cut Prep down. Nessa screamed in Ken’s mind, and he grabbed Prep and moved him under cover. As he tried to teek the last person off the bus he lost control of his telekinesis. He lost control of everything.
Ken’s heart stopped as he lost consciousness.
Nessa repressed panic, put herself in Ken’s mind and ordered him conscious, pushing herself beyond her normal capabilities. Her hard push worked, and his heart beat again, but she realized his wounds had reduced him to keeping himself alive with his telekinesis.
Nessa banished her thought and kept Ken conscious.
“How’d he get hurt?” Alt said. He had also picked up on Ken’s distress.
“The way his teek works he’s not bullet and shrapnel proof, unless he’s doing the skin-tight-teek trick,” Nessa said. “When he’s got a teek shell out, protecting others, he can only deflect bullets and shrapnel, and he’s subject to what he calls the point momentum problem.” Something about the energy density in his telekinetic shell. Bullets and shrapnel packed too large a punch in too small an area. She understood the mathematics but had a hard time putting the numbers into real life words. She didn’t have the same problem. Instead, Ken said her teek strength diminished at an inverse cube law because she didn’t have anything resembling enough control to focus it properly. Away from her body, her teek let everything through.
Nessa examined her Uzi, ducked to the side of the trailer, and took a half dozen shots at the bus. She ducked back, but the attackers didn’t return fire. Nor did the two remaining attackers move.
“Fuck, where are the damned police when you need them?” Mary said.
“Where are we, anyway?” Nessa said.
“Just outside of Boise,” Alt said.
“Boise? Dammit, who routed us through a God’s town?”
“Ken did,” Alt said. “Boise’s not after us. I’m certain of that.”
“Get Boise’s attention, Alt,” Nessa said, then after the incomprehension on Alt’s face: “The God! Get him to help us.”
“Me?”
“I can’t,” Nessa said. “I’m already doing too much. I’m keeping an illusion on Nicole, running the minds of the bus driver crew, keeping Prep from bleeding to death and I’m keeping Ken conscious.”
“Shit,” Alt said. “I’m not up to this.”
“If he’s not in his home town, then you probably can’t telep him anyway,” Nessa said. “Can’t you clairvoy him somehow?”
“I don’t have a clue how to do that without some sort of prior connection,” Alt said.
“Try anyway.”
Alt concentrated and reached out with his mind.
“Boise’s home, but he’s down,” Alt said. “I’m not sure what’s going on.”
“He’s out on a projection,” Nessa said. “I’ve got him on telep now. So does Javier.”
She half listened in as Boise chatted with Javier. “Boise’s projection is with a group of God projections, including Atlanta and her sidekicks, as well as that idiot Lorenzi, his sidekick and some damned apprentice magician of all things. They’re on their way.”
She hoped they hadn’t set this up, a legit fear as they had been on the way before the attack happened. She didn’t get any feel that Lorenzi and his God friends had conspired against them, but right now, after failing to penetrate the protections on these normals, she distrusted her analysis. Why didn’t the God group warn them?
“Wait a sec,” Mary asked, her voice thin with pain. “Where’s Celebrity?
Fuck.
“I forgot about her,” Nessa said. Completely forgot. “It’s some sort of trick.” By Celebrity.
“She got vaporized in the initial explosion,” Alt said. “She’s spread out all over that part of the parking lot and hiding.” Alt paused. “Her hiding trick doesn’t work on me.”
“The usual. Nobody knows how our tricks work,” Nessa said. “What do you mean, spread out?”
“Little droplets.”
Nessa winced. Droplets didn’t sound good.
“What the fuck do we do about that?” Mary said, after Nessa relayed Celebrity’s plight.
“Damn if I know,” Alt said. “Nessa, is there any way you can cover us with your fancy disguise illusions so we can get over to the rest of the group?” Alt patted his black leather coat. “First aid.”
“No way in hell,” Nessa said. Not with everything else she was doing. Not if they were firing weapons. She couldn’t come close to covering weapons fire with her illusions. “I can’t fucking believe that we have a vaporized and not dead God on our hands. Boise, I know you’re listening. Any idea what we can do about Celebrity?”
“Good enough,” Nessa said. “Thank you.” She hadn’t realized before, but she now thought of Celebrity as a person. “How long till you get here?”
Atlanta. Good God above, Nessa really didn’t want to think about the Atlanta part of this. “I think we can hold out for two more minutes,” Nessa said. She hoped. The slow creeping darkness of an incipient mental fit lapped up on the feet of her ego, threatening to submerge her mind, so she leapt out from cover, screamed bloody murder, and fired a half dozen more shots at the van. This time she attracted return fire, but only two bullets clanged on her own teek shields as she leapt back, nowhere near enough to bother her. “Adrenaline, breakfast of champions,” she said, muttering under her breath. The adrenaline would keep the madness away.
She leaned over and had another round of dry heaves.
She prayed Lorenzi and Boise’s group really were here to help.
“Sure enough, the pestilence broke out just after his departure,
and the Ephesians telegraphed to Smyrna, by the only means in their power, for his immediate return; gold, in the meanwhile, falling at least ten per cent. Apollonius reappeared in the twinkling of an eye, suddenly, in the very midst of the wailing crowd, on the market place. Pointing to a beggar, he directed the people to stone that particular unfortunate, and they obeyed so effectually, that the hapless creature was in a few moments completely buried under a huge heap of brickbats. The next morning, the philosopher commanded the throng to remove the pile of stones, and as they did so, a dog was discovered instead of the beggar. The dog sprang up, wagged his tail, and made away at “two-forty” and with him the pestilence departed. For this feat, the Ephesians called Apollonius a god, and reared a statue to his honor. The appellation of divinity he willingly accepted, declaring that it was only justice to good men.” – P.T. Barnum, Humbugs of the World
“You’re the daughter I never had.” “Well, that explains why we always fight.”
41. (Nessa)
Nessa had found a number of dry places to huddle up and drink her hot chocolate, but she spurned them all. Instead, she took a blanket, reeking of burned plastic, from the remains of the tour bus, pulled it over her head, and sat down with her back to the attacker’s van. Big wet drops of rain sprinkled the ground around her with meaty plops. Soon the smelly blanket would soak through and make her more miserable.
The police had finally shown, too late to be at all useful. Nessa watched as Dana, in projection, herded around the state troopers, keeping them away. So far, she hadn’t seen any sign of treachery by Lorenzi’s God crew. They had given Alt some fancy explanation for why they failed to warn any of Nessa’s Telepaths, something to do with outside interference, but the explanation slid over Nessa’s worried mind. The explanation did mollify Alt, good enough for her.
99 Gods: War Page 47