Once We Were Human (The Commander Book 1) (43 page)

Books by this Author

The Commander series:

Once We Were Human

Now We Are Monsters

All Beasts Together

A Method Truly Sublime

No Sorrow Like Separation

In This Night We Own

All That We Are

The supplementary Commander Series books:

The Good Doctor’s Tales Folio One

All Conscience Fled (The Good Doctor’s Tales Folio Two)

The Good Doctor’s Tales Folio Three

The Good Doctor’s Tales Folio Four

The Good Doctor’s Tales Folio Five

The Good Doctor’s Tales Folio Six

No Chains Shall Bind Me (The Good Doctor’s Tales Folio Seven)

The Good Doctor’s Tales Folio Eight

The Good Doctor’s Tales Folio Nine

Focus

99 Gods Trilogy Novels

99 Gods: War

99 Gods: Betrayer

99 Gods: Odysseia

99 Gods Trilogy Supplementary Stories

Tales From The Anime Café (Part One)

Tales From The Anime Café (Part Two)

If you liked “Once We Were Human”, here’s a short excerpt from the beginning of “99 Gods: War” for your
reading enjoyment.

99 Gods: War (Excerpt)

1.  (Atlanta)

Atlanta climbed the outside of 40 Wall Street, leaving behind anger-fueled fingerprints in the fascia.  All 72 stories of 40 Wall Street’s exterior stank from years of pollution. Built around the start of the Great Depression, the building was depressing all the way up to its perfectly classical pyramidal roof.  The bastards she soon would confront were on the 64
th
floor.  They had taken over the entire floor several weeks ago and now talked of buying out the entire building.  Atlanta didn’t understand what they had done to mess up the Integrity, one of the major parts of the 99 Gods’ joint Mission, but they had messed it up more than anyone else in North America.

The night swirled around Atlanta as she climbed
through the off and on heavy rain, though she didn’t get wet.  She didn’t want to get wet.  Thus, she didn’t.  She could have flown directly to the 64
th
floor, or jumped from an airplane or helicopter or even taken an elevator.  However, after investigating which uses of willpower her peers found most difficult to detect, she had found ‘climbing skyscrapers’ near the top of the list.  She couldn’t have done such a trick before Apotheosis, but eight years as an aviator in the Corps hadn’t left her with the Imago of a wimp and that’s what mattered now.

Her senses reveled in the climb.  Apotheosis
had brought her world to life in a marvelous and unexpected way, and she devoted nearly a dozen thought streams in her now multi-track mind to simply enjoying her new senses.

The never-ending mechanical song of New York traffic floated up from far below, muted by the spattering of rain and occasional rumble of thunder.  Lightning streaked the sky to the southeast, and the rain’s fresh scent dominated all the other odors.  Below that, n
ot only could she smell the pollution and even identify the stench of old leaded gasoline exhaust in the deeper crevices of the brick, but she also smelled the difference between the businesses when she passed from one corporate domain to another as she climbed.  She didn’t have X-Ray vision, but she tracked the internal temperature of each floor by how much heat came out each window.  She sensed the air currents around her, as if currents in muddied water.  Her most interesting discovery was the way the wind curled around the southeast corner of 40 Wall Street and caused a small cylindrical low pressure zone that had grown as she had climbed, up to about the 14
th
floor, leveled off, then started a rapid decline thirty floors later.  Now, on the 48
th
floor, it had vanished completely.  She even picked up the intensity and direction of radio, television and wireless internet.  Not its content, though.

Five more minutes of climbing brought Atlanta to the 64
th
floor.  The skyscraper didn’t have ancient Depression-era style windows.  Someone had replaced them some number of years ago with modern, non-opening, windows.  She maneuvered herself around the skyscraper until she approached the source of the Integrity disturbance.  She didn’t sense anything about the situation to change her mind, so she crashed the window and barged in.

While she did, she put on her mental to-do list the need to find some better method for going through windows and walls than pranging them. 
A method using tricky willpower.  Seven weeks of this God shit and she still hadn’t unmasked a measurable fraction of the possible tricks.

She landed hard but on her feet, crunching thick stormproof glass under her big black
boots as she took in the place and whistled.

Atlanta craved bling as much as the next sister, but the meeting room here floored her.  There’s nothing here that
isn’t
bling, she thought.  Marble this.  Gold that.  Jesus!  Considering the building’s owner, she had expected opulence, but her targets, referred to by the press as the Seven Suits, had outdone the old man in putting in bling improvements.

“What’s the meaning of this?” a man said, not yet in sight.  One of the Suits, another God.  He strode in to Atlanta’s crashed room as if he owned the world.

Not fucking yet, although he and his Godly cohorts were well on their way, according to her hush-hush military contractor contacts.  As per the nickname, Mr. Whitey God wore an immaculate and expensive bespoke suit.

On the other side of the meeting room, huddled in a chair against a wall, Atlanta saw a woman.  Saw, but didn’t sense.  Very peculiar.  Special.  Not an ordinary mortal
, and different in a way she hadn’t encountered before.  Not sure what to make of a woman she couldn’t sense but still knew to be special, Atlanta ignored her for the moment.

The fact that
someone had stripped the woman and chained her naked to the chair helped Atlanta make the decision.  She hadn’t been attracted to weakness as a mortal.

Apotheosis hadn’t improved her attitude on that matter
in the least.

“Which one are you?” Atlanta asked the white man.  The Seven Suits had banded together even before Apotheosis’s end, a grouping of seven male Gods, five whities and two
East Asians.  Seven Ideological Gods at that, and their numbers made them the leading plurality faction among the Ideologicals.

The Suit didn’t answer Atlanta.  Instead, he raised his hand and conjured up chains and shackles around Atlanta’s lower arms and lower legs.  They grabbed on tight.  He slid over a
leather office visitor’s chair with inlaid gold filigree and sat her in it.  Atlanta counted to ten, backwards, and allowed herself this indignity.  Information first.  Attitude adjustment later.

“Who sent you?” the Suit
said.  “Who!”  Pressure beat on Atlanta’s mind.  She smiled.  Her experimentation with willpower hadn’t included anything in the area of mind-probing or mind reading.  Mental track four took note number fourteen of the day: learn some mind-probing willpower.

Good intel already.

Even better, the Suit’s question and tone implied Atlanta hadn’t been the first someone ‘sent’.

Then she got it.  Her willpower-derived protections had successfully hidden her Divinity from the Suit.  On the other hand, she had revealed herself by climbing the outside of their nascent palace and crashing in the window
, so she suspected he would crack her identity any minute.  None of the 99 lacked brainpower.  Their creators, the Angelic Host, had made sure of that.

“I sent myself, mofo,” Atlanta said.  “I’ve got some questions for you.  Like what the fuck you’ve done to mess up our Integrity?”

“Hold on for a second, Indulgence,” a second Suit said on his way through the door, one she recognized, a Korean who went by the name of Competition.  The remainder of the wardrobe of Suits strode in behind Competition, noticeably agitated.  “She’s one of us.”

“You’re kidding,” Indulgence, her captor, said.  “She feels like a mortal to me.”

“It’s a trick,” one of the other Suits said.  He turned to Atlanta.  “I’m Capitalism.  You are?”  Capitalism had more than a passing resemblance to the fat dude from the Monopoly game.  His skin looked bleached.  If her contractor contacts had a bead on things, Capitalism led the Suits.

“Atlanta,” she said.  Several of the Suits blanched and took a step back.  Apparently, she had acquired a
reputation
.  Good.

“A Territorial!” Capitalism said, suddenly wary.  “You could have texted us for an appointment.”

“Not my style.”  She didn’t have any social media presence, even a minimal Facebook page or Twitter account.  Too tacky for her.

“Why are you here and not back in whatever digs you have down south?” Capitalism said.  Condescension filled his words, something she hadn’t heard since she wore the bird, ball and chain
. Before Apotheosis.

“You Suits have harmed our Integrity.  I’m here to figure out why and do something about it.”

“Why do you care?” Capitalism said.

“Because it’s obvious to me that us Gods were made to rule the Earth
, and we can’t do it if you destroy our Integrity.”  The Host hadn’t said as much, but their hints were unmistakable.  At least to Atlanta.

“You worry about your Integrity and we’ll worry about ours,” Capitalism said, his voice New Yawk nasal, a sneer on his face.

A fool, then, Atlanta thought.  “We have individual, subgroup and group Integrity, though it appears you’re too self-centered to acknowledge anything but your own,” she said.  “You’ve harmed the Integrity of the 99 Gods as a group.”  She sneered back at Capitalism.  “What the fuck did you do?  If I don’t get some answers soon, I’m going to inscribe some respect on your pasty white divine bodies, begging your pardons Competition and Wealth.”

“There are seven of us and one of you,” Wealth said.  “Numbers do not lie.”  Wealth looked
as old and Japanese as he had before Apotheosis.  “We had the same training you did.  It is you who are in danger here.”  Training to suppress national wars, he meant.  Atlanta had expected such suppression to take years, if not decades, but the leading nations had been more than happy to comply, especially after the 99 carried out their pre-agreed forcible disarming of North Korea, a nation even the Territorial who held responsibility for it refused to support.  Their instant success left all of the 99 at loose ends, which Atlanta was beginning to suspect might not have been a good thing.  Despite the Host’s comment about what they should do once the 99 finished their initial anti-war mission, ‘do good,’ Atlanta remained suspicious.

“I don’t think so,” Atlanta said
.  Equal training or not, she trusted in the special extra her creators had given her as a Territorial God.

“There’s no need to be so hasty,” Capitalism said.  “Let’s sit down peacefully and talk this over.  I’m sure we can find some mutually beneficial outcome.  I’ve noticed that you Territorial Gods have limited monetary resources; your expertise lies in other areas.  We can be of help.”

Atlanta shook her head, pissed at the far too on-target offer.  “The last thing I need is to be owned.”  Especially by Mr. White Capitalist himself.  She stood and left shattered shackles around her.  Indulgence sucked air, hurt by Atlanta’s use of willpower for some unknown reason.  “I wouldn’t mind negotiations about our mutual problem, though.  I’m not looking for money, I’m looking for information.  That is, what did you do to harm the Integrity of the 99 Gods, and what can we come up with together to fix the problem.  It’s clear you want a piece of the action in this world-running business; I’m sure we can come up with a mutually acceptable solution.”

Twelve eyes fixed on Capitalism.  “What we’re doing is none of your business, and
won’t
be part of any negotiations,” he said.  He took a deep breath and threw up his hands in utter disdain.  “Get this pathetic figurehead Territorial out of here.”

Definitely an attitude problem.

Atlanta interrupted her combat preparations when the woman in the corner
did something
to the divine hold on her, a
did something
Atlanta didn’t recognize.  “They kidnapped me,” the chained woman said.  “I work for Port…”  A wave of Indulgence’s hand undid whatever the woman had done and she fell quiet.  Nevertheless, the mortal woman had Godlike willpower of some variety, even if overshadowed by the Suits.

Portland, eh?  Atlanta and Portland had talked for several long minutes back during Apotheosis.  As a fellow Territorial God, Atlanta could see quite a bit of good coming from doing Portland a favor.  Portland had struck Atlanta as indecisive, a softie, despite the extreme willpower she exuded.  However, as a fellow woman, Portland would
likely appreciate learning that good old-fashioned sexism still infected the minds of the non-Territorial Gods.

Besides, i
f she helped Portland, Portland would owe her.

All to the better.

Atlanta changed her mind.  Instead of continuing to give the Suits grief verbally, she focused her willpower on the naked woman and unbound her.  Indulgence screamed.

“She ripped the bitch right out of me!” Indulgence said.  Atlanta boggled at the stupidity of Indulgence’s chees
edick tactic.  Didn’t he understand anything about how to properly use the willpower?

Freeing the woman also solved Atlanta’s
joint Integrity mystery.  The Suits had kidnapped another God’s protected underling, crossing a line that hadn’t been crossed before.

Crap.  She realized that if she fought these idiots, she would make the Integrity hit worse.  Well, then…she would let them come to her.  Self-defense at least wouldn’t harm
her
Integrity.

Capitalism crossed his arms and glared.  Divine willpower of the Suits gathered around Atlanta, confining her.  “Stay put,” Capitalism said, guiding the willpower.  Bodily immobilization.

Atlanta analyzed Capitalism’s attack and raised her eyebrows in shock.  Amazingly, her personal willpower dwarfed the Suit’s group willpower, at least expressed as a change to physical reality.  She knew her local cleansing activities had strengthened her willpower, but she had no idea her activities had strengthened her willpower to such an extent.