by Paul Neuhaus
“The pithos was on the ground where you’d been standing,” he repeated. “You didn’t take it with you.”
I did a quick calculation. If what he was saying was true, only I’d gone into the artificial reality. Only myself and the Arae had been real. All my friends and the people I’d met had been part of the simulation. “Does that mean you have the pithos?” I said to Elijah.
Elijah looked briefly at Pan and the two of them looked back at me (Pan for just a moment since he was driving). “I picked it up,” Weiner said. “I was going to try and get it out of there, but all hell broke loose.”
“Who has it now?”
“Prometheus. He wanted it for himself. That’s why he sent you away without it.”
I closed my eyes again and sighed. I couldn’t be mad at Elijah. Not without at least hearing the rest of the story. “Okay, so rewind again for a second. You looked over at me and I was gone but the pithos was still there. What was Prometheus doing?”
“I knew right away what’d happened. He’d put you inside the pinecone or some other kind of trick. But the rest of the people at the Conclave didn’t know that. We were deep inside the crowd and almost nobody saw you disappear. After a moment, Prometheus made a joke out of it. He said, ‘Kidding! It’s just a pinecone!’ Everyone laughed politely then he did what he really came there to do.”
“Which was to bring Mount Olympus to the desert between Las Vegas and L.A.”
Again, the two men looked at each other. Pan elaborated on what I’d said. “To bring Mount Olympus to the desert between Las Vegas and L.A. and to empty out the pocket dimension the Olympians fucked off to.”
“Empty out? Why?”
Pan drove in silence for a moment. We were headed toward Los Angeles. The highway was empty. “The old gods are back, and Prometheus is running the show.”
“Fuck,” I said. It was mostly a weary exhalation, but the word was in there too. “So, that’s why you wanted me back.”
Both men fell over one another trying to amend my statement. “That’s not the only reason we wanted you back,” they both said.
“Sorry,” I replied. “I didn’t mean that to sound so harsh. So, if Prometheus emptied out the place where the gods go to fuck off, that explains why you’re back,” I said to Pan.
“Exactly right,” the satyr said.
“What does Zeus make of all this? I can’t believe he’d just roll over and let Prometheus take charge.”
“That would be incorrect,” Pan replied. “I didn’t even know this—I had no prolonged contact with Zeus on the other side—but it turns out the King of the Gods was undergoing a serious depression.”
That really hit home for me. I was fascinated. I’d had a little experience with serious depressions myself. “Get the fuck out of town!”
“It’s true. Apparently, it set in not too long after he decided to fuck off. Turns out he regretted dropping out of the game. He missed the old days of bossing people around and electrocuting stuff. It happens to a lot of retirees. Long story short, when Prometheus dragged him back into the world, he was all ‘whatever’, and ‘I don’t care what you fuckers do’. We’re talking a serious case of ennui.”
“Wow. So, what happened?”
“Well, you’d think Prometheus would’ve just ignored this pathetic little, Prozac-needing former divine chief. I mean I’m told Zeus was beyond pathetic. But Prometheus has been carrying a grudge for thousands of years, so he couldn’t just let it go. He strapped old Zeus-y to the same rock he’d been strapped to. Now, a buzzard eats Zeus’ liver all day long, and Zeus grows it back at night.”
I was stunned. The story beggared belief—and yet it was too outlandish not to be true. I turned back to Elijah. “You said there was a battle…”
“There was a battle. It broke out right as Prometheus was moving on from the pinecone trick. Right before he brought back Olympus and the gods—which, by the way, I didn’t even see because of all the confusion and on account of me losing an eye.”
“Okay. Well, who attacked who?”
“Sebastian Squire attacked the leaders of the Church of Reciprocity. All the big shots up by the stage. Sebastian, all his people, your boy Calesius. Against Taylor Chriss, and his bodyguard and a bunch of other cultists I didn’t know.”
“Wait. Isn’t Sebastian Squire on Prometheus’ side?”
El shook his head. “No, what gave you that idea?”
“Never mind.”
“Yeah, apparently, Squire’d been planning the attack for ages. He knew what Prometheus was up to and he had photos of the site and maps and whatnot. He tried his damnedest to stop it all from happening, but, as you can see, he wasn’t successful.”
Weiner pointed out the back window, and I looked. Olympus still loomed behind us.
“Did Squire make it out alive?”
“He did, but just barely. Cal did too. Practically no one else, though. Squire’s forces were pretty well annihilated.”
“Fucking hell. Well, what happened to you?”
Elijah sighed. “If I’d done what I should’ve been doing, I would’ve been fine,” he said.
“What should you’ve been doing?”
“Running like hell and not looking back. It was the second part I got wrong. I kept looking back to see what was happening on the stage and I wasn’t watching where I was going. I slammed right into Church of Reciprocity security. They’d been moving toward me the whole time from the direction of the highway. Obviously, they’d been sent to collect your pithos—and collect it they did.”
“They worked you over?”
El flushed. “Only if you call one punch being worked over. In my defense, I will say that the guy who hit me, had his keys in his fist—with one of the keys pointed out.”
I cringed and shrank down into my seat. What Elijah had just described was the kind of sucker-punch anyone could’ve fallen victim to. Including yours truly. “Oh, Gods, El, I’m sorry.”
He shrugged to show there was no bad blood between us. Not that there would’ve been anyway. It was clear from his demeanor he knew my not being there had been outside of my control. “I really want to thank you for trying,” I said and meant it.
Again, the shrug. “I wish I had more to tell you. I haven’t heard word one about the pithos since I lost it.”
Pan looked at Elijah and said in a serious tone, “Tell her what else you haven’t heard anything about…”
El looked as though he’d been struck, but he wasn’t mad at the satyr. “Keri’s still mixed up in the Church. I think they took her to Olympus, but I don’t know for sure.”
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. For just a moment, I struggled to find who I was or to latch on to who I’d be in the coming days. Which of the personas I’d built would be most appropriate to deal with the horrendous situation that’d unfolded since I’d been removed from the picture? I knew I didn’t want to play the heroine anymore, but that was looking more and more irrelevant by the minute. Finally, I said to Pan, “You’re headed back to Los Angeles, right?”
“Right. We’ll hook up with the others there.”
“Okay,” I said. “I’m going to sleep. I wanna get some things straight in my head. Wake me when we get to the outskirts of the city.”
“Roger wilco,” Pan said, and both men turned to face the highway.
I slipped in and out of sleep. Mostly, I was trying to figure out my place in this world—and to jettison the memories I’d made in the artificial reality. I spent part of that time working out the “physics” of Demizois. I’d only ever been in two, and I found that, if I worked through my experiences, the ruleset was a fairly simple one. What it boiled down to was, in an artificial reality, only someone from the outside can affect someone else from the outside. When we’d gone into the pinecone, I’d warned Connie and Amanda that, if we were killed inside, we’d die on the outside. Turns out that wasn’t true. If we’d been killed by any of the creatures that were part of the simulation, we’d have bounced back out o
f the simulation. Only if we killed one another would there be lasting change. Medea—someone from the outside—killed Connie and Connie died in real life. I killed Amanda and she died in real life. Then I killed myself and I died in real life. Thinking back on it now, it all made sense to me, and the rules held true in my second Demizoi experience. In Prometheus’ alternate reality, El had made me pregnant. Since the El inside the simulation was part of the simulation, he couldn’t get me real world pregnant. No, the only “real” creatures inside that second simulation were me and the Arae—and the Arae was not something Prometheus could’ve planned for. He had no idea Adrestia was as crazy as she was. I made a note that. If I survived to the end of this new adventure, I’d go to Addie’s shade and thank her for giving me a hand. I was certain she’d just love that.
Pan and El woke me up when we reached the outskirts of Los Angeles. I was astonished when I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes. The city looked more or less exactly as it had when I’d seen it last, but Bloop banners hung everywhere. Men and women in black uniforms (with Bloop armbands) marched the sidewalks. Concentration camps looked over by centaur guards filled once-vacant patches of land. Scary monsters circled the skies above downtown. Prometheus had been busy. “Gods, this is horrible,” I said, my hands pressed up against the back window.
“On the upside, he’s still new at the fascist thing,” Pan said. “It’s still relatively easy to get around the city if you know where the checkpoints are.”
“Prometheus’ main concern has been other Mythniks,” El threw in. “That’s what the camps are for for the most part. Obviously, we’ll need to keep you out of sight.”
“Swell. Looks like I woke up right in the middle of the lion’s den.”
Pan drove us into Westwood and parked in front of Elijah’s house. I had to shake off the feeling it was Elijah’s and my house. It was going to take me a while before I could completely divorce myself from my years’ worth of fake memories. It helped that our friends were exiting the home and coming down the lawn toward us. Keri wasn’t there, of course, but Ty was there along with Jack, Petey and Chad. From behind the house, I heard a loud whinnying. Petey smiled. “I told Pegasus you were coming,” he said. “Do me a favor and go back there a little later and say hello. He’s been like a puppy.”
I trotted up onto the grass and my friends closed around me in a tight circle. Before I knew it, I was crying again. Not quite as bad as when I realized for sure I was no longer pregnant, but close.
I went around the house and said hello to the flying horse. Petey tossed me an apple when he saw where I was going. The rapper really wasn’t kidding—Pegasus greeted me like a long-lost friend (which I guess I was). I didn’t bother asking anyone how they’d gotten the beast back. I assumed Sebastian Squire had had something to do with it.
Speaking of Squire, he was inside the home when I entered. I went in through the back. He must’ve come through the front. He had a scar down the center of his face—from the Battle of the Conclave no doubt. He approached and gave me a small hug. “I’m really happy to see you,” he said. I didn’t ask, but I assumed his life in the last few months had consisted mostly of running and hiding. He had to be on Prometheus’ Most Wanted list.
I allowed him to usher me into the living room where everyone was gathered. El had put out big bowls of chips and cans of soda were passed around. When he saw me, he raised his can and said, “To the prodigal daughter!”
That was greeted with hear hears and applause. I took a small bow.
“Where’ve you been?” Chad Kroeger said. “What did you experience?”
“That,” I replied. “Is something I’m never going to talk about. Just know that I’m happy to be back. If I am back. My existential equilibrium is way off. If you told me Donald Trump was president in your dimension, I’d believe it.”
Polite laughter. Petey raised a hand, pretending to be the guy that was gonna give me the bad news, then he shook his head and mouthed the word “nah”.
Chad got up and offered me his seat, but I declined. I remained standing as I said, “I’m sure you all wanna talk about what we should do now that I’m back.”
I was surprised at the volume of their reply. They all spoke at once and all of them said some variation of “get your feet underneath you first”.
I appreciated their concern, but I felt I had to get through what I wanted to say. “I… have decided not to be a heroine anymore. It’s taking too much of a toll on me psychologically, and—in the last coupla thousand years—I haven’t stopped even once to figure out who I’m supposed to be.”
They all looked at one another and muttered words of support. “Sure, that makes sense” and similarly encouraging phrases. Still, I could tell they were crestfallen. They thought I was going to abandon them to a world of missing daughters and divine fascist overlords.
I went on before they could get too down about it. “That’s why, after we topple Prometheus and get back Keri and Hope, I’m hanging up my spurs for good.”
That was met with positivity and some relief. I could see they were right on the edge of wondering whether they’d wasted all that time and effort trying to get me back. On the one hand, the fact that might be their attitude made me a little sad. Was I worth more to any of them than the daring do I was capable of? I nipped that line of thought off quickly. Of course, I was worth more to them than my knack for decisive action—but my knack for decisive action sure as hell didn’t hurt. I looked to Sebastian figuring he was the one most likely to have an answer to my first question. “Where is Prometheus’ rock?” I said.
“Caucasus,” the man with the scarred face answered without hesitation.
“And where is that? What country?”
“It’s not in a country. It’s a region that—I think—cuts through Russia and Armenia. Maybe a couple of others. It’s mostly a mountain range that separates Eastern Europe from Western Asia.”
“Can you pinpoint the exact rock?”
Squire thought for a moment. “I know some people who know some people. I could probably get some satellite imaging done pretty quickly.”
“Do that please. Do we know anything about the current mythological org chart?”
That confused nearly everyone. “What do you mean?” M.C. Pliny the Elder said.
“Now that everyone’s back, do we know who’s doing what? Specifically, in the Underworld. I used to have an in down there, now I doubt that I do.”
Squire spoke up again. “Hades and Persephone are back on the thrones.”
I turned to him, raising an eyebrow. “And you know that because?”
He smiled, stretching his scar. “A little bird told me.”
Ty turned his head toward the former venture capitalist and said, “I like the sound of that.” The information hadn’t come from Ty then. Who it came from didn’t matter right then.
I didn’t press for more information. The plan forming in my head would come in stages anyway. “Okay, well, first thing’s first. I need to get to Caucasus. Can Pegasus fly that far?”
Petey shook his head. “That might be asking a bit much.”
“I figured,” I replied.
Sebastian spoke up again. “Let me make a couple of calls.”
I reached out my hand toward a six pack of Dr. Pepper. “Pass me one of those, would you?” Petey obliged. With my can, I bumped Chad on the shoulder. “Get up. What’s the matter with you? Not offering a lady your seat…”
He rolled his eyes and stood. “Sorry, I don’t know what I was thinking.”
I sat down in Kroeger’s chair and popped the top on my soda. El was looking right at me. “Well, don’t keep us in suspense,” he said. “If you have a plan, tell us what it is.”
I shook my head. “It’s still coming together. Up here,” I said, pointing at my head. “I wanna hold onto it for now so if it turns to shit, I’ve still got plausible deniability.”
Ty smiled. “Spoken like every congressman ever,” he said.
/> Amidst a renewed raucousness, Squire—cellphone in hand—excused himself.
After some catching up and some binge-eating, the party wound down and people—singly and in pairs—took their leave. Even Jack (who’d been quiet most of the evening) went next-door to his little house. Finally, only El and I were left. “So…” I said. “I guess I should crash here.”
He was taken aback and blinked with his one good eye. “Sure. You’re welcome if you need to.”
I felt suddenly awkward. “Well, I mean, just since my trailer burned down…”
“Your trailer burned down? No, your trailer didn’t burn down. I check up on it every so often. It’s locked up tight.”
I had to shake the faulty memories out once again. “Right. Of course. I was thinking of what happened in… the other place.”
He nodded, understanding.
“Besides which, I wasn’t thinking about crashing with you. In the same space, I mean.”
He flushed bright red. “No, of course…”
“I was talking about the office.”
“The office?”
“The office. On the couch. With the hideaway bed.”
“I don’t have a couch with a hideaway bed.”
It was my turn to flush. “Okay. Right. I’m just gonna go now.” Pan had passed me my keys on his way out, so the Pontiac was mine again. After such an awkward exchange—and a year’s worth of false memories—I looked forward to seeing the trailer in Malibu again. Right as I started heading toward the door (with dutiful host Elijah in tow), Squire reappeared. I’d completely forgotten about him. So, had everyone else, apparently.
The venture capitalist looked past us into the empty living room. “Where did everybody go? Did you guys forget about me?” El and I talked over one another, giving Squire false assurances that he hadn’t been forgotten. He clearly didn’t buy it. “Doesn’t matter,” he said, after a head shake. He turned to me. “I’m assuming you want to remain mobile after Caucasus?”