“Of course. Self-defense only, to start out with. I want his Mission in the basement, weakening him, before I do anything. However, as I said before, if a fight breaks out between Territorials, the fallout’s going to hit all the Gods, no matter how the fight turns out. I doubt Miami’s going to cross that line. Even he’s not that stupid. I’m guessing Dubuque’s bluffing. He’s backing Portland into a corner and forcing her to toe the party line.”
“Good, good. Call the bluff. Make them back off.”
“If I’m putting my effort in the Portland defense, I won’t be here to help you hold off Phoenix and Dubuque’s stooges. Your defenses won’t be able to hold.”
Lorenzi smiled. “I’m not so sure. The longer they spend probing our defenses, the more I learn about them and the more ideas I have about what I and my magicians can do to them. We’re learning more about them than they’re learning about us.”
“Well, I’ve learned enough to know that you can’t hold them off without our help.”
“We still have Boise, who’s getting better with every second that passes. This is his territory, a huge advantage. Besides, we haven’t yet used any of our offensive tricks,” Lorenzi said. He rubbed his hands together and smiled.
Why am I working with this lunatic? Atlanta asked herself. She looked at Dana, who practically bounced up and down on her heels. “If I go, you have to go as well, and you’re going as a fighter, and we’re taking Velma.”
“Of course, Atlanta,” Velma said. She, at least, knew when the shit hit the fan, people like her risked their lives and often died.
“Me?” Dana said, proving she did not.
Atlanta raised an eyebrow. “What did you think you were going to be doing?”
“Healing. Clean up.”
Atlanta sighed. “Dana.”
“Alright, already. What are you going to have me do?”
“To start with, you get to move and cover the white elephant.” Atlanta appreciated the Telepaths’ name for her acquisition.
“Jesus!”
“You’re going to need this. Here,” Atlanta said, and made a false softball throw to Dana.
“What the?” Dana frowned. “You just gave me your powers? Won’t this weaken you?”
“I’ve had this trick prepped for over two weeks. Boise?”
He turned from the window and made an identical softball motion. Dana boggled.
“This is insane.” Dana flexed her fingers and levitated her projection by accident. “You’ve made me into the most powerful mortal on the planet. Why didn’t you do this earlier?”
“I’m not revealing any tricks to my enemies until they’re needed,” Atlanta said, not telling Dana she thought her chief of staff was already the most powerful mortal on the planet. Dana needed the blooding to come to her full potential. Perhaps this time… “It’s not for battle, Dana. You’re going to need the power to move and hide the white elephant.”
Atlanta had a hundred tricks and scenarios backed up as contingency plans against enemy action, most of which she hoped she would never need to use. This one… Atlanta wiggled eyebrows and forced Dana’s projection back to ground level. “Don’t get too cocky. Even with this, even after you get back to your real body, you’ll barely be more powerful than one of my projections.”
“Are we going to tell the Telepaths?”
“No need to bother with the obvious,” Atlanta said. “On three, to our real bodies.”
“Do we have time for this?” Dana said. Atlanta felt the Telepaths examining Dana, Velma and her. If her new shields held, the only thing the Telepaths should be able to tell was that an unknown God had arrived nearby. That is, until Alt opened his goddamned mouth…
“Yes,” Atlanta said. She sensed Miami about a hundred miles out, poking along subsonic. For a God with his supposed strength, he moved damned slow. She had figured out hypersonic movement before she recruited Dana, but Miami still moved in the subsonic. Apparently speed wasn’t one of his thrills.
Dana started up the white elephant and accelerated the beast toward Portland’s home.
“Now, into projection transport space,” Atlanta said. She and Dana created new projections and transferred their conscious minds to them, then made the transition to the overwhelming beauty of transport space, leaving Velma behind with the white elephant.
“Where are we going?” Dana said.
“Nowhere. I need to show you something.” Atlanta started the sense transfer, showing Dana how to duplicate all of Atlanta’s transport space-functional God-senses. Dana’s eyes open wide after Atlanta finished.
“This is beautiful!” Dana said. “Atlanta! This place is so beautiful!” Before, Dana had only been able to sense the light below, the dark above, and the dim blue curls that marked concentrations of dense population.
Atlanta lost herself in the beauty of the place, a place of calm before the oncoming storm. She pointed at a distant incarnadine cloud moving toward them. “Remember this place and enjoy its beauty. This place also has other uses. Notice the cloud. That’s Miami.”
“But he’s coming here for real, isn’t he?”
“Miami’s got a bunch of tricks involving created realities,” Atlanta said. “He’s carrying his weaponry in them. He doesn’t realize, but his reality creations disturb the projection transport space. Unless he drops his created realities, he, or any other God who uses tricks like this, can’t hide themselves. This is how I’ve been tracking him all this time.”
“This is a huge hole in his defenses, then.”
“Yes, it is,” Atlanta said. She allowed herself a chuckle. “Eventually, no God in their right mind will do such things. Until then, this is a hole worth exploiting.”
“Uh huh,” Dana said. “This won’t matter when he gets here, though. You set this up just to show me how beautiful this place is, didn’t you?”
Atlanta sighed. “Miami might try for stealth in a fight, Dana. You need to be prepared.”
“Right,” Dana said. “Whatever you say.” Dana’s mind went vacant as she took in the beauty. “What’s up with you, anyway?”
This time Atlanta didn’t sigh. “Being a Territorial God’s far too much work,” she said. “Hell, at one time I even had outside interests and a sense of humor. This place makes up for a lot.”
Dana smiled. “Yes, it does.”
“In any event, we’ve got a confrontation to prepare for,” Atlanta said. “Let’s go back to our real bodies. Why don’t you repeat my instructions back to me…”
“…and I put everything into flying this monstrosity and into personal shielding,” Dana said, nervous. Velma eyed both of them in a mixture of horror and awe. “If you give the red signal, bring it in close and fire it off. If you give the blue signal, abandon it and join the fight. Be ready to defend me if something comes my way.”
“Good enough,” Atlanta said and clapped Dana on the back. “Good luck.” She flew off, hugging the now harvested wheat fields below and covered with ever-changing illusions. She sensed Miami now, about twenty miles out.
She waited, fended off devious telepathic probes, and kept herself between Miami and Portland. Luckily, neither Portland nor the Telepaths attempted to move or to approach Atlanta in person. At least they had a little sense.
Or they were too scared to do anything.
She wondered if Miami would listen to reason. She expected he would, once he knew about the assassination attempt on the Telepaths and the siege around Lorenzi and Boise. If he didn’t do the expected? Well, Atlanta had her charged staves and the distortion tricks, none of which she had showed to a single living or divine soul.
Dubuque would be a big problem if he showed up. She and her allies hadn’t had the time to work up a good defense against Dubuque’s mental takeover, but they were about half way to figuring out how she, Boise and Lorenzi had managed to thwart the God. John hadn’t been happy to learn Dubuque had momentarily gotten them both. Dubuque’s mental takeover was something cunning, an attack ag
ainst whatever passed for a subconscious in a God. His trick worked on mortals as well, though not at all well against Telepaths and Mindbound, an important clue. The Telepaths’ belief that Dubuque, at the time, hadn’t known he was doing his trick was a second important clue.
She and Boise still hadn’t worked out how their subconscious minds naturally repelled Dubuque’s attack and why Gods like Phoenix and Montreal hadn’t. Nor had they figured out whether Portland had repelled Dubuque’s attack, found a way around it, or remained under his control, which fed Atlanta’s reticence to inform Portland in person about their arrival.
Which way would Portland jump? Atlanta half expected that if Miami gave the right signal, Atlanta would have Portland on her ass, or she would watch helplessly as Portland subdued the Telepaths and bundled them off to be Dubuque’s slaves or prisoners.
What if Dubuque came with Miami, though? They hadn’t seen or sensed Dubuque in the Lorenzi siege, only Dubuque’s troops. He could be on his way here. They had no real information regarding Dubuque’s battle abilities; he might be anything from a feeb in battle like, alas, Boise, to someone more powerful than her. Based on personality and lack of experience, Atlanta guessed feeb, but she needed to honor Dubuque’s threat potential until proven otherwise.
Miami passed Velma, Dana and the white elephant without even the slightest notice, meaning their protections had worked. If she wanted, Atlanta knew she could ambush Miami, attack without provocation, and destroy him before he knew what hit him.
Instincts said a sneak attack would be bad.
Ignore tactics, she told herself. Think strategy. Think Mission.
She had to try to talk him out of his attack.
When Miami got close enough to Portland’s house, too close to evade Atlanta, she made herself visible to him, hands raised, obviously non-hostile.
“This isn’t a place to be all alone,” Miami said as he faced her a hundred feet above the quiet farmland near Portland’s home. He was dressed in his normal natty business suit, his couture perfect for a conference room battle or a night out with his best friend’s wife. “A gal like you could get hurt.” Miami hummed with power, ready for battle. Atlanta saw hostility in his eyes, the urge to kill. She had seen the look in the eyes of hundreds of soldiers in her time.
“I’d like to pass on a warning. Dubuque’s pulling one over on you,” Atlanta said. Miami felt different to her in many ways. Exhausted by something she couldn’t put her finger on, buoyed by something else foul.
“How so?” Miami said. She examined the foulness, but she couldn’t determine the its origin. It made her nervous, though.
“I don’t know what story Dubuque told you, but you’re here because he wants to trick you into taking the Mission hit for whatever happens today. He pulled a fast one on Worcester as well: he used her to set up a group of assassins who failed at their attempt to kill the Telepaths.”
The wind whipped around the two Gods as Atlanta studied Miami’s unsurprised reaction. Fuck!
“Worcester’s a dupe,” Miami said. “She doesn’t know how good she’s got it.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because my master didn’t order her to personally fight another God.”
Master? Crap. “You’ll fight Portland?”
“I will if she doesn’t agree to help me subdue the Telepaths and take them back to my master,” Miami said. “She needs to choose the winning side, or else.”
“You mean kill, not ‘subdue’, don’t you?”
“No, subdue,” Miami said. “Nobody’s going to die today unless…”
“Unless what?”
Miami hesitated. “Never you mind,” he said. Bastard. He had all the contingencies planned out as well. “I’m going to give you a bit of advice, Atlanta. Go to Dubuque. Prostrate yourself before him and beg him to be your master and make you into a proper Living Saint. He has a lot to teach, and what he teaches will give you great power.”
“That’s what you did?”
He nodded. “I saw the writing on the wall, and I’m the Living Saint Miami now.” Miami smiled. “No more worshippers, alas. Just veneration. Only, the power of veneration is simply awesome, enough to make up for losing the pleasure the worshippers gave me. Dubuque is deh boss.”
Shit. That’s what buoyed Miami, and made his aura so foul. “Veneration is still worship, though,” Atlanta said, her voice reduced to a whisper. Just not as debilitating. “Still wrong. Changing the name and making it safer doesn’t get around its moral problems.”
Lorenzi’s crap magic had been right. Dubuque had been accepting worship since the day after Apotheosis. Atlanta flashed on an image of the religious practices of the Caribbean that went well beyond normal Christianity: Santaria, blood sacrifice of animals, zombies, an image she picked up from Miami. She held back a feral snarl.
“So you say,” Miami said. “Go to Dubuque. Let him teach you the difference. Let him show you the difference.”
“Don’t do this, Miami,” Atlanta said. “I’m protecting Portland, whether she wants my protection or not. If you attack me, you’ll doom yourself. The Host made us Gods so that we would stop wars, not start them. If you attack, all you’ll be doing is pissing off God Almighty.” Miami frowned at her. “I’ll give you some free advice: leave. Go back to your home territory and hunker down. Let Portland and Dubuque settle their differences on their own.”
“I don’t think so,” Miami said. His eyes narrowed. “You’re confused, Atlanta. There’s…”
He didn’t finish his sentence. To Atlanta’s surprise, he interrupted his words with a Golden Fire attack at her, at range, a helix of Golden Fire. She parried it with ease, but as she did Miami shot a different attack at her, a bolt of White Lightning which momentarily dazzled her.
When the dazzle lifted, she realized the reason for Miami’s slow movement. He carried sixteen hopped-up normals with him, hidden in a reality bubble. During her dazzled instant, he freed them, and they now shot off toward Portland’s lair, weapons ready.
“God Almighty won’t do a thing, because he doesn’t exist!” Miami said, voice booming. “Only the antiquated and antiquarian Angelic Host exists, the entities who made us true Living Saints, and they will accept anything we do because that’s their Mission! All shall venerate us forever!” He shot another Golden Fire helix at her, a more potent version of his first attack. His attack penetrated her shields and minorly scorched her.
Fuck! Now, she had to fight.
She dropped a marker on the most promising of Miami’s hopped up normals, as she had several scenarios built around an event like this, and bent space and jumped, transporting herself to within arm’s length of Miami. She swung one of her charged staves at him, hiding it until the last possible instant. The charged staff hit and detonated, spraying little bits of the forever-venerated God across the unkempt farmland. Miami screamed, formed a shield around himself and backed off. He blasted Atlanta with another bolt of White Lightning as he retreated.
Atlanta winced as his third attack penetrated her shields with ease and deeply scored her body, tendrils snaking toward her mind, urging her to become a nice motionless statue. She ignored the tendrils and boggled at the idea that her shields had failed so spectacularly so early in the fight. Her mouth drew back in a sneer as she blasted Miami, hitting him with her special Yellow Helix range attacks, one after the other, attempting to blast his body to goo.
As she showed the world her own secretly designed range weaponry, her thoughts gravitated to her worst-case scenarios. This didn’t look good. No, not at all.
“Yet Apollonius was by no means an ultra peace man, for he strongly advocated the shaving and clothing of the Ethiopians, and their thorough chastisement when they refused to be combed and purified.
“When Domitian grasped at the imperial sceptre, the great Tyanean sided with his rival, Nerva, and having for this offence been seized and cast into prison, suddenly vanished from sight and reappeared on the instant at Puteoli
, one hundred and fifty miles away.” – P.T. Barnum, Humbugs of the World
“He’s got stooges with him this time!”
47. (Atlanta)
Miami’s latest salvo of short range Golden Fires exhausted, the Caribbean God flashed forward at her, swinging away with purple glowing fists. Atlanta responded in kind, happy to get it on at short range. Despite her preparations, Miami still had more varied range weapons, and more potent ones, besides. As she traded mid-air left hooks and uppercuts with Miami, she carefully built a stronger ‘floor’ underneath her. They had passed beyond the farmland and now fought above a hilly Portland suburb. When she finished the floor, she shifted from boxing to Semper Fu, throwing her entire body at the idiot martial God, attempting to corral him with a scissors hold, to pin his arms at his side.
The move worked. “Surrender, dammit!” she said, bellowing at him after she immobilized him. He ignored her and worked his willpower on the world and her reality ‘floor’, sending them plummeting toward the ground, and with a vomit-inducing wave of willpower use bringing an entire hillside down upon them, complete with splintering homes and screaming civilians. Buffeted by thousands of tons of rock and soil and by the shock of the instantaneous Integrity hit on all of the 99 Gods due to Miami’s actions, Atlanta lost her hold on Miami.
Fuck!
Atlanta reality-distortion transported out from under the hillside, cursing because the transports wasted a large amount of her meager willpower supply, even when she went less than five hundred feet, and because they were supposed to be a means of pressing the attack, not a goddamned defense or utility. No Miami. She extended her senses and found the lunatic God bull-rushing his way out from under the rock and soil. She charged at his most likely exit point, and when he appeared, she took her second to last charged stave out of its concealment and swung it Ruthian at the side of Miami’s head. He didn’t duck, slowed by the exertions of escaping his earthen tomb. The charged stave detonated on contact, taking off twenty percent of his head.
99 Gods: War Page 54