99 Gods: Odysseia Read online

  Well, she thought, it was good someone was making use of her brain and her telepathy, even if it wasn’t her.

  She took a deep breath – well, breathing worked, though her throat was raw. She tried to wiggle her fingers and toes, and got a screwy response, reminding her of the bad old days when she had gotten into drugs. Oh. What she sensed were her regenerating fingers and toes, baby sized, not the prostheses. She fished around in her mind until she found the prostheses connections, wiggled her prosthetic fingers and toes, and relaxed. Learning those damned things wasn’t something she wanted to do again.

  Why didn’t someone hold her? Didn’t they know she needed skin, human contact, to maintain her humanity? Evidently not, though wielding her own telepathy appeared to be beyond her now, she sensed her family around her but not holding her. The babies! There they were, one in Elorie’s arms and the other in Dave’s, both sleeping. Good for them. She realized she had been so caught up in the this is the day brainstorm she forgot to keep track of her own twins. The babies hadn’t fussed enough to break her out of her mental spell, which meant that Elorie, bless her, had taken over the job. Well, that’s why she and Ken had pressed Elorie and Dave to take over guardianship of the twins. Oh, and the fact she and Ken had gotten so stuck in greater events that they couldn’t escape – some logic flaw there, but she couldn’t see it right then – and the fact Elorie and Dave couldn’t have any children because of a nasty trick the Watchers played on Elorie.

  Her mouth tasted of chocolate, not a unique taste, but since she hadn’t eaten anything this day, the chocolate had to be recent. In fact, while she was out gawking at distant ETs, someone else must have been running her body. The fact nobody held her led to a second guess, that that ‘someone else’ had been Left Sock. Despite Portland’s work, Left Sock still bitched and moaned incessantly, especially when Nessa got hurt or overwhelmed or something.

  Hmph.

  The sand was comfortable.

  The air was warm but not oppressive.

  She didn’t have to pee, or at least not too much.

  The sun wasn’t too bright outside of the pavilion. In fact, the weather threatened rain.

  The air did smell overly fishy, though.

  Nessa decided to not call attention to herself and instead just lay on the sand and recover. Someone else could handle her responsibility and burdens. If she had any. If she was anything.

  Even after Korua’s tour, she wasn’t sure she was sure about being anything. For sure.

  “Your turn Dave.”

  “Awh, come on, when Elorie tried to rouse her she got an instant migraine. How about you give it a try, Diana? You’re good at the indecipherable.”

  “Geez, thanks, Dave. I’ve dealt with her before when she’s been in one of these hurtful moods. I’ve had enough inventive insults for one lifetime. Forget it.”

  “Well, Uffie, it’s your idea we need her. You snap her out of this.”

  “We need the Daughter of Light if we’re going to follow through with Spang’s idea about the Watchers, Dave. I’d do this, but I caused this problem, so I’m in charge. I can’t take the risk.”

  “Why not Ken?”

  “Okay, Elorie, when was the last time you saw Ken?”

  “He was stalking back to the estate house to hunt for nail clippers, complaining about how he couldn’t stand how ragged his fingernails were.”

  “Which was a half hour ago. Oh, and let’s not mention the fact he has enough control with his teek to trim his nails that way if he wants to.”

  “He’s as hurt as Nessa over this, he just shows his hurt differently.”

  Nessa kept her face impassive and controlled the urge to giggle hysterically. Ken was drama queening! By now he was likely out getting his hair cut, or buying a new pair of shoes, or arranging an obsessive amount of cleaning. Or he had trapped someone into listening to him complain about something trivial, like lint, making it sound like the problem was the end of the world.

  “Fine.”

  Oh, goodie! Dave leaned over her. “Nessa?”

  Heh heh heh. She kept her eyes open but didn’t respond, not even a twitch.

  “Her eyes are open, but there’s nobody home,” Dave said. “Still nothing on the telepathy.”

  On her telepathy. She might have opened up Dave’s mind shields but he couldn’t initiate telepathic contact. Of course, this meant she could play tricks on Dave and convince him, and everyone else, that she was still gone gone gone.

  Dave knelt down beside her and tried the usual “Nessa, come back please” crap. Nah uh uh, Dave. You’re going to have to go Fairy Tale on me to get me back this time.

  After the obligatory discussion, after Dave passed along her obligatory earlier warning, and after some side commentary about why they should hunt down the damned spy, Persona, and get her to do the dirty deed because she was indestructible, Dave did the inevitable and kissed her.

  Nessa played the kiss for all it was worth, starting with the cold dead unresponsive Snow Queen lips and only showing any response when Dave nearly gave up. It didn’t take much to heat things up. Oh, and playing with his nads so that by the time the kiss progressed to full French he ached to come in his pants.

  When she moved her arms up his side, he backed off the kiss, and she let him. “Hi there,” she said, utterly bedroom.

  “Yah,” Dave said, voice deep.

  Oh, putty in her hands.

  “I need to get changed,” Nessa said, voice slow and deep. “Help me back to the estate house, please, Dave.” She held out a hand, implying he should help her to her feet.

  “Of course, Nessa. Let’s…”

  The fate destined epic sheet-messing curiosity-fulfilling action derailed when Diana moved in behind Nessa and undid Nessa’s bikini top, Elorie moved in from the left and stuck Zach on Nessa’s left breast while Uffie moved in on the right and stuck Alana on Nessa’s right breast.

  Elorie was mighty peeved. Nessa had the cure for her peevishness. “You can help me get dressed, too, El,” Nessa said, voice still bedroom. Elorie skittered back away from Nessa, dragging Dave with her. Poor Dave appeared confused, caught between a ‘oh am I horny’ moment and a ‘wasn’t this something I was supposed to avoid’ moment.

  Nobody answered. The breast-feeding effects kicked in.

  So much for adventurously horny.

  Nessa blissed out.

  “So much for getting Nessa useful.”

  “She’s never useful in this mood, and she’ll make a pass at anyone or anything.”

  “I once saw her go after a laptop computer’s jittery CD drive, and…”

  “I warned you she would.”

  “Which is why we had the twins ready.”

  “You’re a nasty old lady.”

  “Nessa and I go way back.”

  “Now what do we do?”

  “Pick her up.”

  The twins had found their rhythm, not one Nessa remembered from before. Alternating sucks. Perfect timing. Now that she had a reason, she found her telepathy with ease and examined the twin’s baby minds. Clean. No interference. No sign of precocious development of telepathy. Only…it was clear the two baby minds knew about the alternating sucking trick and did this on purpose. Not allowed! Her twins just had to be normal.

  “If you’re going to deal with Telepaths, you’ve got to take the good with the bad.”

  What did the alternating sucking trick mean? Nessa delved deeply into their pre-verbal minds, reveling in the baby glory, and after checking on several other similar aged infants in her telepathy range, decided the trick fell well within baby norms. Her babies, like all of them, were information sponges, actively learning everything they could about the world around them, limited only by their senses and infant minds. They knew their mother’s voice and their twin’s sounds; Alana and Zach knew Elorie, Ken and Dave’s voices as well. To her surprise they also knew Dana and Lydia’s voices. They knew and differentiated the taste of their breast milk, too, which surpri
sed Nessa, as she hadn’t authorized Lydia. Dana had. Elorie had authorized Dana. Hmmph. This would teach Nessa the folly of raising her twins around people who could work 99 Gods willpower magic.

  “This is wrong! The floor here is filled with scuffmarks. The owners of this estate are going to think we’re pigs. We have to clean them up!”

  Whoever had been carrying her sat her down in a recliner in the library. Both of the twins finished dinner, and Nessa put one on each shoulder. They hadn’t been too hungry, but their mother’s tits were special, and they had nursed so long they were completely fully totally utterly stuffed. The twins thought Nessa’s milk tasted best of all.

  They settled in to take a little nap, but before they did, Nessa polled each twin about breast milk taste. Was there something different about her milk?

  “So, what’s going on, El? What’s wrong with Nessa?”

  “Sorry to wake you, John, but we have some disquieting news to report, as well as a proposition.”

  Both twins shared the same tastes, and agreed that Dana’s milk was the worst. Too much stress, Nessa decided. Next up was Lydia’s milk. Her milk was very rich and yummy, but there never was enough. Nessa decided that Lydia didn’t put her heart into the baby feeding and didn’t make enough with whatever cheap magic trick she used on her ample breasts.

  “…unfortunately, this makes sense. I’ve had contact with the Minds of the Sea since the beginning, and they were the ones who tricked me into the self-resurrection…”

  Elorie’s milk was never ending. She always had enough, so the twins rated her as number two. Strangely, they preferred Elorie’s left breast over her right breast. The milk from her left breast tasted better. Goooood stuff, actually, but it just didn’t have the zing their birth mother’s had.

  “…he actually raised the dead! On live television! Insane! Dubuque grabbed willpower from all the Gods to do this! Orlando had to lie down…”

  Too bad letting Persona nurse the twins gave Nessa hives. That would have provided lots more data. There had to be a way to figure this out without filling her children with nano-whatsis milk. She focused her mind on the logic and cogitated.

  “…we agree to consider this in its exacting fullness. Although we do not have the power to do this in this fashion, without the Ha-qodeshim aid, this is a subject we have already debated, brought on by, inevitably, a suggestion by Bais regarding the fact such a broadcast should be able to be done using modern technology. Without the Daughter of Light’s approval, though, we must in this special time of conversation refuse.”

  So something about her breast milk had to be special. This surprised Nessa, as she didn’t have any physical tricks as a Telepath. Well, not counting her never-ending-stamina trick or the skin-tight teek trick. Which weren’t much as tricks, in her viewpoint. Others disagreed, though. Did she have to stop nursing the twins? Could this trick harm them? This would be horrible.

  “They’re back mollidigoddled in mental conversation. Going public isn’t going to be easy on the Fallen Angels. Whenever the subject comes up, once you get past the expected ‘no, impossible, never’ comments, they get all fearful. Can you try to get Nessa functional again? Or Ken. Yes. Work on Ken. If you can bring him out of his mental skid, he can bring Nessa out of hers.”

  Richard ne Orlando had the technical knowledge and proved to be distracted enough by whatever momentous event of the hour for her to extract the knowledge from him without him noticing. Bob ne The Kid had a willpower chemistry set to borrow as well; he noticed her work, all paranoid pins and needles about everything because of Elorie being in charge right now (what happened to Uffie?) and because he had gotten short-sheeted into learning about the Watchers for real for the first time and underneath he found himself horrified, terrified, scared stiff and thirty other incomprehensible 99 God-only emotions best translated as ‘not good not good I’m-a-gonna-die’. He didn’t object to Nessa’s snooping, luckily. Well, at least too much.

  “Okay, okay. I’ll agree to talk to the Watchers about this prophetic Child crap, but only because the dolphin Gods have admitted this idiocy is their concoction. I won’t do anything until after the rest of this is settled, though. I’m not giving them any freebies.”

  Yes, her breast milk did contain some abnormal chemicals. Alkaloids. Non-standard oligosaccharides. Altered fats as well. Okay, this was a start. Next, she needed to figure out what the contamination meant.

  “…believe you’re correct. Releasing this information is an attack on Dubuque and the Angelic Host. Since this isn’t a physical attack, though, I’m positive you’ll be safe. My karma protections and bad luck won’t rebound on you for something like…”

  Wasn’t she supposed to stop Orlando from going after Dubuque in any fashion at all? Or was this only if he went after Dubuque physically?

  No. This wasn’t Nessa’s thought…this was Persona’s thought! Betrayer had gotten to Persona yet again! Why did this not surprise her? Nessa fixed the issue, no problemo. How could she think any such thing, though? She wasn’t in LA…

  “…these ‘as yet undiscovered ancient children of God’ Spang mentioned must refer to the two ancient pre-modern-human Gods Jan and Knot learned about. They’re the ones who lie behind Epharis and Knot’s Shaman abilities. If they’re also behind the Godslayer’s world-as-story manipulation abilities, it’s at the level of providing an initial connection instead of ongoing power, as Archangel Croaker verified that the ability was holy and indirectly from God Almighty. My analysis inevitably leads…”

  Oh. There, in Richard’s head, a match for one of the alkaloids, a chocolate derivative. Success!

  Where had Betrayer gone, anyway? Nessa had a blinding urge to beat Betrayer about the brain, telepathically, but Betrayer seemed to be KOed or something. Wasn’t that impossible?

  Persona, about to ‘accidentally’ destroy the communication setup Nessa’s family and Orlando’s group used in their talk with Lorenzi and the Watchers, froze in place. Nessa adjusted Zach to one side – he had spit up – and decided that yes, she had been the one who had frozen Persona. Persona needed distracting. Nessa sent to the God. Persona slunk off.

  Now wait a minute, Nessa thought. I could get Persona to make love to me, couldn’t I? Sure. But the twins, they’re so peaceful, wouldn’t want to wake them. Too much work. Oh, and then there’s the problem I would have to go through the work of convincing Persona’s ‘sperm’ to stop trying to make my own nads ovulate.

  Far too early for any such bio hanky panky. She had given birth not too long ago.

  Back to the chemistry. No, she didn’t lactate chocolate milk. She did have non-digested and part-digested chocolate byproducts reacting with other of her body’s chemicals, and these were what produced the interesting shit in her breast milk. The twins certainly got a kick out of it. Hell, Nessa analyzed and found her body suffused with the stuff. How much chocolate did she eat, anyway?

  “Nessa, come on back,” Ken said. He stroked her hair.

  Nope, not a quantity issue. How much of her daily diet came from chocolate, anyway? Too much, percentagewise, far too much. Inhuman, actually. Someone else would likely die from her diet. Had she? She examined herself out of Ken’s eyes and decided she didn’t look dead at all, or even anorexic, or fangy (something Diana checked herself for every day, for some strange reason). For one thing, Nessa had never had breasts this big before in her life, though it might be nice if someone put a top on her and covered the damned things up, and her bottom was quite sufficient. Her tummy needed work, but that wasn’t from overeating, it was from pregnancy recovery. All post-pregnancy women had the same problem.

  “Here, let me help you put this shirt on,” Ken said.

  “Don’t disturb the twins,” Nessa said, aloud. “Just tie on one of my bikini tops.”

  “Okay,” Ken said, and handed off the shirt he had been about to put on her to Dave, who ran off and came back with one of her bikini tops. The rest of the room applauded.
/>   Hmph! This had to be Uffie’s sense of humor. Uffie hadn’t left. No, Elorie just took over leadership when they got in contact with Lorenzi. Uffie refused to deal with Lorenzi, and Nessa had never been able to convince Uffie to cough up the reason why. Dave seemed out of sorts as well, for no reason that Nessa remembered.

  “Fix the scuff mark problem on the floor yet?” she asked Ken.

  He nodded. “I also noticed that the oriental carpets in here need cleaning. They’re full of sand! What have we done to this place!”

  Nessa giggled. “At least we haven’t given it the patented Bolnick treatment.”

  Ken frowned at her.

  “What’s the Bolnick treatment?” Elorie said.

  “Destroying places, especially expensive houses,” John said, from the fancy willpower-magicked computer. Must be the middle of the night over in Watcher-woojie-land. He appeared to be dead tired and wore the stupidest set of PJs she had ever seen. Trains. Choo-choo trains. Really ruined his ‘me big evil bastard’ image.

  Dave returned; she leaned forward and let him tie the bikini top on her. She gave him the eye, and blinked slowly. He backed away, red. You would think – she thought – that at least one of them would remember not to let Dave anywhere near her.

  “Nessa, we need your help,” John said, as she gave Dave a hip wiggle. “Nessa?”

  She nodded. “Whatever. I’m being a little dysfunctional right now.” If this nonsense about the dolphin’s scheme, this telepathic broadcast, actually happened, she would end up a lot more dysfunctional as they would be using her mind for the translation. Gaaah. Too much like work.

  Somewhere in the back of Uffie’s mind was a barely legible memory of a paper Uffie had read about a garden slug that ate refuse from cacao trees, and which showed some ominous signs of behavioral modifications due to their nearly exclusive diet. Nessa did the math and decided neither Zach or Alana were in danger – and, luckily, neither was she. She didn’t eat anywhere near as high a percentage as those slugs.