“The Insula? I think so.” Jade Kim looked at Paschal. “An Insula is like an apartment block, the occupants own the land in common and their own unit. Pretty much like a condo. Not everybody can afford their own villa although that’s the way we want people to go. The Insula make a good first step. People who live there will satisfy the conditions for becoming Citizens and get them started.”
Overhead, there was a whupping noise that almost caused Kim to drop her breakfast. Paschal grinned at her reaction. “I put the request through last night. These are a gift from the U.S. Government.”
Kim had recognized the sound instantly. “MH-6s? You got me an MH-6?”
“MH-6T. Three of them. They’re new production, they’ve got all the Hell modifications built into them, not slapped on as an emergency refit. So the filters are a lot more efficient and they affect performance less. You’ve got all your old unit here?”
“I have. With the addition of Titus and Lucius, they’re the Consular Guard now.”
“Well, you’ll need to be checked out on the T version, there’s new kit on it you’ll not have seen before. But, welcome back to the Little Bird community. Roman Chapter. Caesar, you’re getting some M1117 armored cars as well. They’re not new or first-line, they were ones in the factories at Detroit when the city got smeared. They were rescued from the lava but they got beat up in the process. Rather than fix them, we’re passing them through to you.”
“Very generous of you.” Caesar’s voice was suspicious.
“The feeling is that you have a well-organized state here that’s keeping the peace and setting a good example. There’s others around that aren’t. More like warlords leading gangs of brigands and terrorists. So, we’re giving you some quiet backing. There’ll be more kit coming through as soon as General Petraeus can get his staff to organize it.”
“Let me guess.” Caesar dipped another piece of bread in the wine. “Enough to defend ourselves, not enough to go around conquering people.”
Paschal smiled. “Exactly.”
Chapter Thirty Eight
Michael’s Palace, Aukumea, Heaven
“Do you have to do this?” Raphael-Lan was seriously concerned.
“If you want to stay hammered and stoned, yes.” Michael-Lan grinned to take the sting out of his words. “We’re going to be running short of a lot of supplies soon and this is a perfect opportunity to restock at fire-sale prices. I can’t afford not to make this trip. Where’s Gabriel by the way?”
“Down at the club. Theoretically supervising it, but actually paying proper respect to Lailah-Lan. He was late with his tribute again.” Raphael chuckled at the thought. “You know, if Yah-yah had known Lailah-Lan a few millennia ago, it would have saved us so many problems.”
“I’ve thought the same thing myself. The things we could achieve if we only had pre-emptive hindsight. Or time travel. Humans have many stories about time travel you know.”
“They can’t do it can they?” Raphael was genuinely scared at the prospect. If the humans could go back in time, they could create havoc. They could even go back to the time of the Great Celestial War and change that.
“No, they can’t. And I think their top people have dismissed the idea as impossible.” Michael saw Raphael relax, and smiled. The idea of time travelling humans had terrified him as well. “But if they did, it could work for us, we could nip the Yah-yah problem before it ever reached this level. It’s a pity, but time travel is impossible and we won’t be facing it.”
Raphael picked up his glass of whisky and sipped the contents. “How are our supplies of this?”
“Pretty good. I stocked up well as soon as Yah-yah came up with the idea of closing down the Earth operation.” Michael sighed and looked around his palace. “All this idiocy because he threw a temper tantrum when humans refused to believe he created them.”
“Well, he didn’t.” Raphael was just pickled enough to let his guard slip.
“I know that and you know that and the rest of Heaven knows that. Guess who doesn’t know that. That’s right. Yah-Yah. Remember this Raphael, remember it well because you’ll be running the show up here if anything happens to me. Yah-yah believes his own propaganda, believes it implicitly. Every myth, every legend he’s imagined has become the truth to him and he won’t accept anything else. He’ll drive out anybody who’s thought patterns or beliefs differ from his. He hears what he wants to hear and nothing else. The Unbearable One believes what he wants to believe – and nothing else.”
“If anything happens to you.” Raphael paused as the implications of the words sank in. “You think the humans will kill you?”
“They might. They can. I don’t anticipate letting them succeed but they might pull something off. Only a fool expects everything to go the way they plan, Raphael. Another lesson for you. Success doesn’t depend on having the perfect plan. It depends on changing plans to match circumstances fast enough for the changes to be effective. And that means spotting deviations from the predicted course of events early enough to have time for those changes. If Yah-yah had watched humans and realized they weren’t developing the way he expected earlier than he did? Well, we wouldn’t be fighting this stupid war for a start.”
West of Hacienda Heights, Los Angeles, California
Uriel stepped through the tiny ellipse and closed it behind him. It had only been open a few seconds and he had hoped that the opening would have passed unnoticed but one look at the city spread out beneath him was enough to end that expectation. The lights across the city were flashing and the wailing of the sirens was enough to wake the dead. A curiously apt phrase Uriel thought. He noticed something else, as soon as the portal behind him closed, the sirens changed from their wailing to a long, steady single note. The humans were aware he was here and they knew his attack was about to start. He was becoming familiar with unusual sensations brought about by the humans so another one didn’t floor him. It’s implications did for Uriel realized that he was afraid of humans.
He lifted his hand in the traditional benison and intoned the time-honored phrase. “Peace be with you and my peace I grant you.” His mind stretched out to the brilliantly-lit city below and started to squash down on all the life therein. Some of the response was familiar, he could feel the wildlife withering and dying under his touch. Other responses had become familiar over his last few incursions into this heresy-ridden and blasphemous country. He felt the solid blow of rejection, the grim determination of people not to succumb to his will. But there was something else there, a touch of something that hit Uriel much harder than just plain rejection. Some of the humans were welcoming his assault, they were using him as a measure against which they could test themselves. He was shocked beyond measure, the humans did not fear the god-like power that Uriel had over their lives, they were using it to assess themselves, to show they could do better than their rivals. They saw fighting Uriel as playing a game and they did so with the grim determination that they brought to every competition, every trial they faced. They were pitching themselves against the gods and they were doggedly certain that they were not going to lose. That was only one tiny step short of believing that they were gods themselves.
Then Uriel realized one other thing, one that he simply couldn’t believe or accept. Some of the humans weren’t just welcoming his attack as a chance to prove themselves, they were laughing at him.
Harvelles Blues Club, 4th Street, Santa Monica, Los Angeles, California
The Key Frances Band had lost the thread of their number when the assault from Uriel started. The sheer impact of the attack, driving the breath from their bodies and stopping their hearts made that inevitable. They and their audience was saved by the layers of foil that wrapped the club, from the outside walls down to the tinfoil hat that everybody present wore. It slowed down Uriel’s attack, gave the intended victims that their autonomic systems were being suppressed and allowed them the few seconds they needed to adapt and fight the attempt to do murder upon them. Around the room, people grabbed each other’s hands and braced themselves for the battle that was now starting.