by B. C. James
The zombie raver handed Simmons a suitcase and shambled back off into the crowd, presumably in search of either some ecstasy or a brain to eat. Simmons walked as briskly as his short legs would carry him to the security room where Thor was being held.
Freya followed him for as long as she could. The journey took her to the stadium’s lower levels. Carl Simmons had turned a corner in the maze of hallways and that was where she heard his footsteps come to a halt. As stealthily as she could, Freya followed him and stopped when she saw Odin’s lackey conversing with a man in a dark suit and sunglasses. It appeared that he was standing guard in front of a green steel door. The no-nonsense crew-cut and telltale bulge of a shoulder holster beneath the left side of his jacket conveyed a clear ‘no admittance’ message to anyone who may try to get through that door.
Simmons and the guard both looked her way as she came around the corner. The closer she got to the man in the black suit, the more he looked like something that just rolled off the Freightliner assembly line. What stunned her was that neither of them looked surprised to see her there. Simmons simply gave Freya a look of contempt that she suspected he saved for every woman who may potentially reject him. The truck-like security person looked Freya up and down, but his right hand never made a move to the cannon concealed under his coat. This reaction made it clear to Freya that not only did Odin and his lackeys know that the Valkyrie were running around masquerading as cheerleaders, but that the Valkyrie were also in on whatever schemes Odin had concocted. The upside to this was that as long as nobody who might recognize her got a good look at her face, she could move about with a certain amount of freedom.
Freya walked right past them and took a right at the hallway that was directly past the door. She winked at the guard as she passed and added a little skip to her movement; playfully tickling his chin as she passed. Sometimes she simply could not help herself. Being a Goddess of Love could occasionally be a curse.
She hid behind a Coke machine and tried to listen to what passed between Simmons and the door keeper. While she didn’t get every word, she did catch the fact that Thor was in that room, and that he was unconscious. Simmons was apparently charged with transporting him back to Odin’s place of business. She also caught a few words about Baldr and where he was being held. Seeing as he was still, to her knowledge, languishing somewhere in Hel, she was both surprised and confused by the possibility of his presence. However, she’d have to worry about it later. For now, with Thor apparently down for the count and being held prisoner, she would need help if she was going to free him. Baldr could be that help.
For a moment, Freya wondered why she was going to so much trouble to help someone who had written her off years ago. Thor being a prisoner of his father even put some doubt in her head about exactly how much help he could actually be when it came to protecting her. She could always just give up the choice of freeing Thor and go with secret option number two: turn herself over to Simmons and let him take her to Odin. Unless he had changed dramatically, he would protect her as long she allowed him to regularly play a rousing game of Governor Schwarzenegger and the naughty maid, an idea that revolted her completely.
She also considered the possibility that Odin had extinguished the torch he carried for her through the ages and replaced it with contempt and hatred. There was no guarantee that it wasn’t Odin who’d sent a malevolent spirit after her. Eons of rejection and sexual frustration could leave anyone cranky enough to kill the object of their affection. Her mind finished doing its impression of Crossfire with the side advocating getting as far away from Odin as possible winning the debate. The part of her that just wanted to surrender to him and hope it all worked out somehow wandered off somewhere to sulk. Freeing Thor, getting him healthy, and letting the chips fall where they may seemed like the safest course of action…so long as she wasn’t the “chip.”
Freya made her way down the hall, and off to the room where she overheard them saying Baldr was being kept. As Freya went off in search of Baldr, Simmons stood at the door of Thor’s cell, talking to the man on sentry duty. Simmons was asking the building-sized guy in the CIA action wear if he was positive that Thor was sedated. The increasingly annoyed agent stated that Thor was in a drug-induced haze that would make Johnny Depp jealous.
The Q&A session ended with the guard threatening to do some anatomically impossible things to Simmons with the barrel of his Glock if he didn’t just shut up and leave him alone. Simmons got the message and walked cautiously through the door, leaving the agent to his guard duties.
Odin was long gone at this point and Thor was on the ground in front of him. He was as unconscious as the sentry had assured Simmons he was. He was also heavily chained. The way he was shackled reminded him of the rodeo cow roping events they showed at 3:30 AM on cable. There was also an intravenous drip leading from a bag to the Thunder God’s arm. He guessed that it was a sedative drip and would not be surprised if the class of narcotics in it could be used to knock out bull elephants. That would make sense for anyone who wanted to keep a wounded, and no doubt furious, Thor safely unconscious.
Simmons was not big on risks. He avoided risk in favor of meek conformity and occasional backstabbing, but only when he felt it was safe to do so. The only time he could muster the courage to exert anything that resembled authority was when the object of his domination was completely helpless. Before walking within arm’s reach of the drugged and chained deity, Simmons pulled out his phone and called Odin.
“Sir, I hate to bother you…but you are ABSOLUTELY sure he is sedated, right?”
There was a loud click on the other end as Odin hung up on his assistant. That wasn’t the answer that Simmons was looking for.
He put his phone back in his pocket and then walked up to Thor. He kicked him in the ribs and then retreated to the door. Thor did not move. Simmons slowly made his way to the god’s motionless body and kicked him in the ribs again. This time, he only jumped a step back, but Thor was still not moving.
Odin’s assistant smiled a meek little smile and kicked Thor hard in the groin. No movement. Emboldened, Simmons walked around Thor, kicking him everywhere. After each kick, he would sarcastically call him “The Mighty Thor.”
He kicked Thor’s unconscious form until his leg was tired and his foot hurt. Simmons then found a piece of pipe that was broken off when Thor ripped his chain away from the bench and proceeded to beat him with it. During this spasm of violence, Simmons looked like one of the cavemen from the early scenes of 2001: A Space Odyssey as he went at the Asgardian with the pipe. He flailed away so wildly that his hat flew into the air. He kept beating his helpless victim until all his energy was spent.
He stood panting before his oblivious target. He had never before been able to impose his will on a being so far above him on the food chain. This was much more fun than blinding the mice he caught in his glue traps. He had a lighter and a couple of safety pins in his pocket and considered how much fun it would be to blind Thor. That would show the God who was truly the bigger man. Unfortunately, Odin would probably want his son to be delivered relatively undamaged. Instead, Simmons unzipped his pants and relieved himself all over the Thunder God.
“This should sterilize your wounds, Thor,” he said as he urinated into the gaping spear wound in Thor’s upper back. “See, I’m doing you a favor. I hope you remember how kind I have been to you.”
Thor stirred for just a moment. Simmons reacted to the movement by falling backward in a panic and emptying the rest of his bladder in his own lap.
As soon as he recovered what passed for composure, he confirmed that Thor was still deeply sedated. He felt it was still safe enough to continue with his mission. He opened the briefcase, and pulled out a needle, some tubing, and a bag. It was a kit to collect blood.
“S…s…so how does it feel, Mr. High and Mighty, get-all-the-girls-and-money-you-want, Thunder God,” Simmons said with more than a little fear in his voice, watching closely for any movement from Thor. “I ca
n get things too. You’ll see. I can even take things from you. Today, I am going to take your blood…lots of it. I can do this because I’m smarter than you, which makes me valuable to powerful people. Very powerful people! You’re nothing! You were just born in the right place at the right time…AND YOU NEVER APPRECIATED IT! You just took it for granted because you’re Thor…and you think your soooooo big. Well, little people can do big things too…really big…you’ll see! Oh…you’ll see!”
Once he finished what was shaping up to be an epic, preadolescent-style tantrum, he shoved a specially-treated bore needle in Thor’s arm and began to harvest his blood. Any other needle may have just bent against the God’s skin. This one was special. It was made by an enterprising group of Asgardian dwarves who had broken away from crafting Steampunk accoutrements and gone into the business of making medical equipment. The sedation kit was probably their work as well.
After the second sack was filled, he attached another bag and began singing the “Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full” part of the song “Baa Baa Black Sheep.” After five pints had been drained from Thor, Simmons was out of bags. He took the needle out of Thor’s arm and wiped it with alcohol. Thor healed with the speed of a God, so soon there would be no external evidence of Simmons’ theft of the divine blood. Internal evidence was another thing. Five pints was a lot of blood. As he put the bags in the briefcase, locked it, and left the room, he wondered if gods could bleed to death.
He called Odin one more time. It was worth annoying his boss just to make sure he was not anywhere nearby and able to catch him taking any unauthorized blood from Thor. Stealing his son’s blood would be considered a form of insider corporate espionage. The penalty for this would surely be death. Simmons was not a courageous man, but the potential reward was a carrot that far outweighed the risk.
He could barely contain a girlish giggle as he slinked away.
Chapter 20
Baldr was having a bad day. It had started off well enough. He got to accompany Thor to one of his games. Baldr was not a huge sports fan, but the pomp and energy around any live NFL event could excite even somebody who believed golf claps were an excessive show of emotion. After that, it all went downhill.
Later in the day, he got his ass kicked by a girl. Following that, he was arrested by the FBI for being an Al-Qaeda-linked terrorist. Well, maybe it wasn’t the FBI who’d arrested both him and Thor. To the best of his knowledge, it could have been the NSA or the CIA. Hell, for all he knew it was agents from the League of Women voters. All Baldr could say for certain was that they wore black suits, high-end sunglasses, and had tech that could shackle the gods. They were also unusually well-versed in the finer points of police brutality. The latter hinted to the possibility that the agents were actually officers on loan from the Los Angeles Police Department.
After being arrested, he was turned over to his father. It would seem that Odin had completely forgotten that Baldr had once been his favorite son. According to his dad, and the agents who served him, Baldr’s immediate future included torture in the form of crude dentistry, minus the laughing gas. While waiting for his appointment with the drill, Baldr was held in a completely dark room with his hands and feet chained. No sunbeams or even fluorescent illumination for the God of Light.
While in the loving care of the agents, his captors bragged about the frame job that had been perpetrated against Thor, and how neither he nor Baldr would be allowed to show their faces in public again. Well, maybe not American or Western European public. They were sure that they would be welcomed with open arms by any public where jihad was a sanctioned sport. Thanks to the Feds, they would be known the world over as the “Ginger Jihadists” from now on. Baldr wasn’t even a red head, so this irked him on a number of levels.
As the agents were locking Baldr in, they promised to return later and replicate one of Pulp Fiction’s more infamous scenes with their Taser batons.
The dark was not Baldr’s friend. He was the God of Light. As such, he had learned a number of entertaining ways that he could manipulate the illumination that most people took for granted. Watching Star Wars was like a religious experience to Baldr. It opened up the world of lasers to him and added a brand new dimension to his powers. This discovery made him feel like those kids from the Narnia books, except instead of opening the wardrobe on a new and weird world, it had led him straight into the heart of the Playboy mansion. Baldr would be lying if he said that the idea of blowing things up with lasers didn’t make his trousers considerably shorter.
Baldr had also experimented with the use of solid light. He had come across some research from the University of Melbourne on the subject of converting light from the ethereal realm into something as solid as steel.
He was able to take a scientist’s clumsy baby steps into this new discipline and become a master. After some practice and study, he was soon able to do things with light that had not been seen outside of a Green Lantern comic book.
For the longest time he thought he had been cursed with the lamest abilities in all of Asgard. Thanks to a wildly imaginative science fiction industry and some innovations from the scientific community, he had come to the realization that he was actually powerful beyond his wildest dreams. Of course, without light, all of his abilities were useless. The fact that Odin made sure to hold Baldr in a room of absolute darkness hinted at the possibility that his father was aware of the strides he had made in the manipulation and use of light. For the moment, he entertained himself with the thought of showing his dad just how far he had come. He fantasized about the vengeance he could inflict upon his father using nothing but the power of a 100-Watt incandescent light bulb and the rage he felt brewing somewhere in his belly.
He may have been shut out from the light, but sound still traveled. He could hear the muffled voice of a guard just beyond his door and someone speaking in a seductive, alto voice. The talking stopped, and, for a moment, there was silence. The calm outside was broken by the sudden violent crash of something heavy slamming into the door.
In that brief instant, Baldr allowed himself the privilege of hope. He thought that perhaps Thor had gotten away from Odin and had come to free him. But simply thumping something against the door, presumably the guard, was way too subtle for his brother. When Thor was good and ticked off, he was the type who would have ripped the door from its hinges, crucified the aforementioned adversary on the door, and then set him on fire. Considering what had gone down in the past few hours, the Thunder God would be in a lethally foul mood. A heavy thud on the door probably wasn’t Thor.
The door cracked open and Baldr prepared himself for whatever was about to come into the room. The fact that he was chained rather securely meant that his preparations were limited to defiant facial expressions, whimpering, or passing out. He decided to go for the option that included scowling.
He scowled as defiantly as possible at the cheerleader who was carrying the black suit into the room. She had him slung over her shoulder like an overstuffed bag of laundry. Baldr added a low guttural snarl to his defiant grimace in the hopes that he didn’t look as helpless as he thought he did.
The cheerleader dropped her unconscious sack on the floor. She looked down at the lifeless agent. “I always feel like I should be using some sort of catchphrase when I take someone out,” she mumbled aloud.
“Freya?” Baldr said as his eyes went wide with surprise. “Is that really you?”
“Of course, it is, Baldr,” she said as she hugged him.
“Freya, you are the last person I expected to see here.”
“Well, considering the fact that you are supposed to be dead, you’re the last person I expected to see anywhere. Would you like me to get you out of those cuffs?”
Baldr lifted his handcuffed wrists in front of his face, made the most pitifully plaintive look he could muster. To this, he added the sound of whining dog.
Freya chuckled. “Okay, okay, just let me find the keys.”
She began to search thr
ough the dead agent’s suit for the keys to Baldr’s constraints.
“You know, Freya, this is perhaps the most intelligent conversation I have had all day.”
She smiled as pulled the keys out from the breast pocket of the man’s jacket. “Got ‘em.”
She unlocked his shackles. Baldr was rubbing the feeling back into his wrists as they both stood there looking at the dead agent.
“What do we do with him?” Baldr asked, hoping Freya had a plan in mind.
Freya picked up the shackles. “That’s easy; you exchange clothes with tall, dark, and deceased over here. We then put the corpse on the bench, put your cuffs on him, and hope nobody comes into this room before we’ve escaped.”
Baldr picked at the dead man’s clothes like he was trying to peel a month old banana that had been left out in the sun on top of a dung heap. “Undressing a dead guy and using his clothes…is this as wrong as it seems?”
Freya just took a seat on the bench, hugged her knees, and grinned at the show. “That is an odd statement coming from a guy who spent the last few hundred years dead. C’mon, get on with it. Strip!”
“You seem unusually anxious for this to happen,” Baldr said while taking his shirt off.
In Freya’s opinion, Baldr was always a bit of a self-serving dandy, but he did look good.
“Hey, I’ve been taking my clothes off for guys for years. I’m curious to see what it’s like from the other side of the stage. If you’re very lucky, I’ll smack your ass and stuff a dollar bill down your boxers.”
“Lucky me. Anyway, once we’re done here, we should probably rescue Thor.”
“Actually, I came here to find Thor, but I didn’t know I was walking into a rescue mission, and I certainly didn’t know that you were going to be part of the equation. So, yes, we’re getting the big guy and then hauling our asses out of here.”