The Age of Zeus a-2

by James Lovegrove

"I'm not sure about anything, Zaina," Sam replied. "All I know is, there's something Landesman's not been telling us. It's been nagging at me for a while. Little things here and there. Like when I was talking to Lillicrap and he used the word 'vendetta.' He tried to make out it was a slip of the tongue, but I don't think it was. And Landesman's behaviour on the whole. I don't buy the whole 'billionaire on a mission to save the world' bit, not any more."

  "And this isn't just because you're pissed off with him, after New York?"

  "Not just because of that, although I swear to God he knew Kerstin was in trouble and he didn't even think about turning back to go and help her. I'm also pissed off with him because he's been busy avoiding me ever since."

  "Due to 'work commitments'?"

  "What bloody work commitments? Being a Titan is his job now. What else does he have to do?"

  "He still has a business to run. Daedalus Industries is still a going concern."

  "Nothing he can't delegate," Sam said. "It's been three days. He's hiding from me. He knows it. I know it. And he knows I know."

  "Maybe he's embarrassed. His first op as leader wasn't exactly a roaring success."

  "Whatever. The point is, I'm convinced he's been holding out on us. It was watching Zeus on that programme with the chubby woman that clinched it for me."

  "Paulita, chubby?"

  "Don't you think so?"

  "I'd describe her as healthy-looking. Latinas are always quite rounded anyway. Bit like Arab-ethnic women."

  "You've got a great figure, Zaina. I'd kill to have boobs like yours."

  "Bless you, duck."

  "But, if I can get back to my argument…"

  "Of course."

  "I've lost my thread, actually."

  "Zeus on Paulita."

  "Oh yeah. You see, it set my cop instinct tingling."

  "Cop instinct? Is that like Spider-Man's spider sense?"

  "Almost identical."

  "I'm not certain I ever had one. Don't you have to get bitten by a radioactive policeman?"

  "Are you going to let me explain?"

  "Sorry. This is making me nervous, and I gabble when I'm nervous." Mahmoud mimed buttoning her lip.

  "Now, is that door locked?" They were in one of the facility's R and D labs, surrounded by electronics equipment, tools, components, and steel-frame shelves bearing mounds of microchips and snaky nests of fibre optic cable.

  "No one's unlocked it since you asked me the same thing five minutes ago," Mahmoud said. "But I still don't see why all the secrecy. And why do you need me here?"

  "For a second opinion. To confirm my hunch or else tell me I'm being a paranoid loon. And as for the secrecy, if I'm wrong then I'm wrong, and no harm done. But if I'm right, I don't want anyone else knowing yet. Not 'til I've decided what to do with the information. The Paulita clip, that'll be on YouTube, right?"

  "I should imagine so."

  Sam tapped keys. Broadband access was fast on Bleaney, for all the island's isolation. Patanjali had devised dozens of methods for boosting bandwidth and download speeds, such as installing powerful swap memory caches and ultrafast glass-based photonic circuits in most of the bunker's computers. Within seconds Sam was rerunning the moment at the end of the chatshow when Zeus had looked into the camera and rumbled his threat in Ancient Greek. She played that segment of the clip a couple more times, studying it hard.

  Then she said, "How old do you reckon Zeus is?"

  "Some would say ancient. Thousands of years old."

  Patiently: "How old would you say that man there on the screen is? How old does he look?"

  "I don't know. Forties? Fifties?"

  "It's the hair. It ages him. Silver hair like that — it can add at least a decade. A bushy white beard too. Look at his face. Look at it closely. His skin. No way is that the skin of a middle-aged man. That's the skin of someone in his thirties, I'd say."

  "Maybe he has a good grooming regime. Moisturiser and that. Some men do, you know."

  "Or maybe being an Olympian, having all that power, somehow keeps you looking young," said Sam. "But let's assume it doesn't. Let's assume Zeus isn't some perpetually ageless immortal. He's a bloke in his thirties whose style makes him look much older and who also acts like a much older person."

  "So? Where are you going with this?"

  "I'm going where my suspicions are dragging me. Now, next question. Does he remind you of anyone?"

  "Who, Zeus?"

  "Yes. Keep an open mind. Look at him talking there. His features. The way he holds himself. His mannerisms. Anyone at all?"

  Mahmoud was nonplussed. "Er, no one as such. Who's that American actor, the one who always plays cowboys and bar owners and the like? Never without a cheroot. Name's on the tip of my tongue."

  "I know the one you mean."

  "Younger version of him. But it could be the hair again. They both have the same hair."

  "Try to ignore the hair." Sam paused the clip. "There. That's a good shot. You really can't see it?"

  Mahmoud placed her hands on the screen, cupping out Zeus's snowy-white locks. She squinted. "Nope, not ringing any bells."

  "OK, let's try another tack." Sam opened up a new tab and input a name into Google Images.

  "Who's he?" Mahmoud asked. "That surname. Is he anything to do with…?"

  "You'll see. Or rather…" The search, somewhat to Sam's surprise, returned no worthwhile hits. "You won't. Damn. He must be out there. He can't have absolutely no internet presence. That would be…" She thought about it. "Well, it wouldn't be inconceivable, I suppose. Not if you happen to know someone who could eradicate every trace of you online if you wanted it."

  "You're being very enigmatic here, duck. Or is it me? Am I being slow? Is there something glaringly obvious I'm missing?"

  "If there is, it's something we've all been missing. Right, how about this?" Sam inputted another similar name, and this rustled up dozens of valid results. She selected one. "That's a good shot of him. Now, compare that face to this one." She clicked between tabs: first Zeus, still paused on the YouTube clip, then the image she had just Googled. Back and forth. Click, click. "See it?"

  "Am I looking for a resemblance?"

  "You are."

  "I really don't — " Mahmoud stopped herself. Her mouth formed itself into a perfect O. "Or perhaps I do," she said slowly. "The noses. The noses are almost identical. The shape of the eyebrows too. They're like those French accents, whatchemacalls, circumflexes."

  "Something about the jawlines as well."

  "Yes. Sort of."

  "And then there's the body language," Sam said. "My DI always used to tell me to watch out for that. Study faces, he said, but study posture and gesture as well. People give away so much about themselves unconsciously, and I'm still in the habit of noticing those little tics and giveaway cues." She un-paused the clip. "Zeus has this sturdy self-assurance about him."

  "As well he might."

  "As well he might. But it's so like someone else we know, isn't it? Also, he holds himself very erect. See? Even when sitting. He's not quite as tall as he'd like to be, but he keeps his back straight. Tall people have a tendency to stoop. Small people are the opposite. They have a tendency to keep their backs straight in order to try and make themselves look taller."

  "And he's not tall," Mahmoud said, referring to the other man.

  "Correct. What does it for me most, though, is Zeus's eyes. You may not have, but I've seen a photo of someone with big dark eyes like that. Two people, in fact."

  Mahmoud sat back in her chair. "So let me get this straight. You're saying they're related? Him and him?"

  "I'm saying I think there's a strong likelihood of that being the case."

  "Ruddy Nora. It can't be — can it?"

  "In context, it makes sense. I know for a fact that they have history. There's no love lost between them."

  "But to take it this far…?"

  "No one can hate quite like family can hate."

  "But…" M
ahmoud could think of a whole host of further objections, and wished that any of them was strong enough to withstand the weight of Sam's evidence. If what her friend and colleague was saying was true, then the Titans had been very much misled.

  "I am," said Sam, "so much less quick on the uptake than I should be. This has been staring me in the face for weeks."

  She gestured at Zeus onscreen.

  "Staring me in his face."

  49. MINOTAUR

  ON THE LOOSE

  "M r Landesman! Mr Landesman!" Lillicrap hammered on the door, sounding frantic. "It's broken free. It's smashing up the refectory."

  "It? What it?"

  "The Minotaur, sir."

  Landesman came out of his office. "Well, where the bloody hell's Sam? It's her pet. She should be dealing with this."

  "I've no idea where she is. I've no idea where any of the Titans are. The techs are running around like headless chickens. So's the chef. Nobody knows how the Minotaur escaped, but it's complete chaos downstairs. Panic stations."

  "The other Titans — they're all missing?"

  Lillicrap shrugged so hard his shoulders touched his earlobes. "I've looked all over. I thought if they could suit up, they could contain the monster, maybe kill it. But they're nowhere to be found. That's why I came to you."

  "Right. Then I should go down and get my Cronus gear on, shouldn't I? Or…" Landesman paused, pondering.

  Lillicrap said, "Don't you think it would be better to abandon the bunker, get to the surface, call Captain Fuller to come and fetch us?" It was clear he favoured this alternative. His beloved boss's personal safety, and his own, were priority one for Jolyon Lillicrap.

  "No," said Landesman, with a calm, slow-spreading smile.

  "No?"

  "Clever girl, Sam." Gritted-teeth admiration. "Very well, let's get this over with."

  "Sir?"

  Landesman strode off down the corridor. "Follow me, Jolyon."

  "Where to?"

  "The refectory."

  "Sir! The Minotaur — "

  "— is no danger to us."

  "With all due respect, sir, I beg to differ."

  "This is Sam's doing. She let it out. She controls it. She wants a confrontation with me, and this is her rather dramatic way of engineering one."

  "Are you positive about that?"

  "It's what I would do, were I in her position and had I the tools at my disposal that she has." Landesman sighed elaborately. "Serves me right for hiring smart people, Jolyon."

  Lillicrap chose to interpret that as a compliment. "Er, quite, Mr Landesman."

  The crashing of crockery resounded along the corridor that led to the refectory. Landesman couldn't suppress another smile as he neared the source of the ruckus, with Lillicrap tagging along reluctantly behind. If the Minotaur laying waste to the flatware was Sam's idea of a joke, it wasn't a bad one. Bull in a china shop.

  "All right!" he called out. "All right, I'm coming in. Don't let that thing attack me. I come in peace."

  As he entered the refectory he felt a twinge of misgiving. What if he was wrong? What if he'd entirely misread the situation and the Minotaur was on the loose, unrestrained by its mistress?

  Debris lay everywhere. Tables had been overturned. Chairs were scattered about, lying on their backs with their legs in the air like dead animals. Shards of glass and crockery littered the floor, forming a crazy mosaic along with pieces of cutlery and condiment containers. And in the thick of it all the Minotaur was stomping to and fro, snorting furiously as it crushed fragments to smaller fragments underfoot.

  Landesman couldn't see Sam anywhere, and then the Minotaur rounded on him, fixing him with its crimson gaze, and all at once his misgiving sharpened into dread. What had he done? He'd just blundered straight into danger. The monster started to move towards him, and Landesman did a smart about-turn and made for the exit.

  Then a voice came from a corner of the room.

  "No. Stop."

  Landesman heard the Minotaur halt in its tracks. He turned again, to see Sam emerge from behind a shelving unit, one of the few items of furniture in the room still standing upright. She crossed over to the monster, which preened at her approach, offering her its head much as a cat might do when greeting its owner.

  "That's enough," Sam said, scratching the Minotaur between the horns. "We have Mr Landesman's attention now."

  Landesman recovered his composure, some of it. "Really, I should deduct this from your wage packet," he said, waving at the mess. "It's what any other employer would do. Luckily for you, I'm not that petty. Now, you're quite certain you have that beast fully under your command? It's not going to take against me all of a sudden and charge?"

  "That depends. If you're uncooperative, the Minotaur might sense it and not be happy. Then there's no telling what it'll do."

  "I don't believe that," Landesman replied. "You're many things, Sam Akehurst, but reckless isn't one of them. Especially when it comes to the welfare of others."

  "I don't know. Perhaps you should try me and see."

  Landesman eyed the Minotaur, then her. "No," he said firmly. "I'm perfectly safe." He picked up a chair, righted it, dusted off the seat, and sat with his arms folded and ankle on knee. "So. What shall we talk about? What is it you want? This is about New York, I'm assuming. You're of the opinion that I handled the op poorly. I waltzed us straight into a trap. You even warned me beforehand that you thought Zeus might be setting us up, and I pooh-poohed the notion, and look where it got us. It was a miscalculation on my part. I could have managed things better. There, I've admitted it. Is that good enough for you? I messed up. I shan't again, though. Once bitten, and so on. Happy?"

  "No." Sam took the Minotaur by the arm and steered it to the far end of the room, near the hatch through which meals were served. The massive, hulking creature let itself be led, docile as a donkey. She fetched a dish of fruit and vegetables for it, and the monster got to work noisily and indiscriminately, stuffing apples and broccoli florets into its mouth, green beans and whole tangerines with the skins still on, raw potatoes and handfuls of red grapes. Then she returned to face Landesman, who understood that she had just holstered her gun but could still draw it any time and use it on him. Not that she would. It wasn't in her nature — was it?

  "Then what are you after?" he said. "Need I remind you that New York, although it cost us two of our own, also cost the Olympians dearly. And, furthermore, it appears to have garnered us considerable public support and acclaim. It's even fired up some politicians. Only this morning the new prime minister of Japan announced he's sending a fleet of warships on exercises in the Mediterranean. I say fleet. They're only got about five in total left. But the Mediterranean! A place of about as much strategic important to Japan as the moon. What possible motive can Mr Akiyama have for sending ships there other than to rattle a sabre at the Pantheon? You mark my words, those warships will sail into the Aegean and as far up the north-east coastline of Greece as they can, 'til they're within shelling distance of Mount Olympus — and then Poseidon will sink them. But still. The world will see. The message will have been sent, loud and clear. Japan isn't afraid. Japan is prepared to forfeit its last few naval vessels to show the Olympians how unafraid it is. And where one nation leads, others will surely follow. The New York op has effected a sea change, Sam, a seismic shift in the global mood. Yes, we had to lose Anders and Kerstin in order for that to happen, and it's something I deeply and sincerely regret, but for God's sake, just look at the benefits!"

  Sam said nothing.

  "I see. Not New York," said Landesman. "The Myrmidon Protocol. Is that what's got you so hot under the collar? OK, perhaps I should have come clean. Perhaps I should have shared that little nugget of information with you right from the start. But honestly, would it have helped? You might have refused point-blank to put the battlesuits on, knowing what the nanotech could do, knowing that it wasn't solely there for your protection. I made a judgement call, and on balance I think I got i
t right. After all, it was possible that the protocol would never have had to be implemented, and then you'd have been none the wiser."

  "Ignorance is bliss, eh?"

  "It's not always such a bad principle. Doesn't it tell you something, though, that I am quite happy to put a TITAN suit on, Myrmidon notwithstanding? If I'm not bothered by it, then neither should any of you be. It's only ever to be used in a worst-case scenario, when the suit wearer is long past caring, and there's a failsafe in place to stop it going off accidentally. The suits have built-in cardiac monitors. Myrmidon will not work if the CPU is measuring heart rate activity in the wearer."

  "You know, maybe it says something about me, about how I've changed since becoming a Titan, but I don't actually find the Myrmidon thing that difficult to come to terms with," Sam said. "A few months ago I'd have been disgusted. Now, I'm able to see the need, even if the whole idea of it doesn't exactly give me a warm, fuzzy feeling inside."

  "You're a more pragmatic person than you used to be."

  "In some respects, yes. I'm more able to see that means are justified by ends. Scruples have to be discarded in order to get the results you crave. You, I imagine, were born knowing that, but it's something I've had to learn."

  "You think all I am is a businessman without scruples? How shallow of you, Sam. If that's really the case, why the Titan project? Why am I here haemorrhaging money over this thing, and now putting my life on the line as well, if I am, as you seem to be implying, an ethics-free zone? What is this campaign I've embarked on if not a selfless, public-spirited act, intended not for my own good but for everyone's?"

  "Well, there you have it, Mr Landesman. There we get to the nub of it."

  "I remain in the dark. What has been my sin, Sam? I'm as committed to the cause as you are, isn't that obvious? More committed, I'd say."

  "Some might debate that," Sam said. "Some might say that if you were truly committed, you'd have gone to Kerstin's aid in New York instead of just carrying on running up the West Side Highway."

  "I told you at the time," said Landesman, face reddening, "I didn't know Hermes had got her."

  "And I told you he had."