The Age Of Zeus

by James Lovegrove

  It tilted its head to one side then the other. One hand probed its massive horns then the contours of its heavy overhanging brow, as though these things were unfamiliar and felt wrong. The Minotaur was inspecting its features in the manner of Narcissus - but unlike Narcissus it did not like what it saw.

  The monster let out a profound, dolorous bellow. Then it began pounding the water, fists scattering its reflection into a million ripples and then scattering those ripples. Finally it collapsed into a sitting position on the bank, now beating rocks rather than the lake. Its torso swayed and its mouth gaped in a soundless lament.

  It knows, Sam thought, with an inward gasp. It knows it's a monster.

  Her astonishment rapidly gave way to something akin to pity. Somehow this creature, this hideous half-breed thing, was aware of its own unnaturalness. It couldn't bear to look at itself. It didn't want to be what it was. Trapped inside it was some dim spark of a sentience that was more than animal - that was, could only be, human.

  Unconsciously, Sam let go of grenade and gun.

  At last the Minotaur clambered to its feet and stalked off into the trees, head hanging low.

  Sam slipped her helmet on.

  "All Titans, this, uh, this is Tethys reporting it. I have a sighting. Repeat, I have a confirmed sighting of the target."

  "You OK, Tethys? You don't sound right."

  "I'm fine, Hyperion. Absolutely fine. Relay the message to Galetti on the RCDC's shortwave frequency, then let's make for the rendezvous point."

  She was already thinking the unthinkable, trying to work out how she could take the Minotaur alive.

  It was madness.

  That didn't mean it was wrong, though.

  35. CUL-DE-SAC

  The Resistenza members did their bit, descending in a sweeping arc from behind the Minotaur, driving it downslope with small arms fire. There were too many of them for it to pick one to charge at. Whenever it turned menacingly on any of its pursuers, bullets would spray at it from another direction and, confused, maddened, the monster would recoil and lumber away to escape the stinging barrage.

  The Corsicans yelped with glee and pressed the Minotaur harder. They had it on the run. But success made them bold, and boldness made them reckless. One of them dared himself to go right up to the beast, puffing out his chest and singing a folk tune about foxes and wolves that was an uncomplimentary allegory of French colonialism. The Minotaur rounded on him with a startling turn of speed, impaling him in the belly then flipping him high into the air. Entrails uncoiled as the Corsican spun skyward. He landed on rocks with an immense splash of blood, bursting like a bag of water.

  From then on, everyone was a bit more cautious. But the herding continued.

  A village below was the designated kill zone. It nestled at one end of a steep-sided valley, in a natural bottleneck. The residents had been instructed to stay indoors and were heeding the warning. Iapetus and Hyperion were stationed at the village's two main entry points, waiting for the monster to appear. The other three Titans were strategically positioned in the streets.

  The boom of a shotgun announced that the Minotaur had arrived.

  "Buckshot up the clacker. Don't much like that, do you, you flaming mongrel," said Iapetus. "Crius, it's coming your way."

  "Roger that." Moments later there was the chunky staccato of an assault rifle on triple-burst setting. "Tethys, Mnemosyne, it's heading straight for you now."

  "Roger, Crius," said Sam. "We're cloaked and ready." She looked over at Mnemosyne, whose battlesuit was brick-red like the wall she was standing against. Mnemosyne had the coilgun. To her fell responsibility for delivering the fatal shot.

  "I'm scared as all buggery," Mnemosyne said off-comms.

  "Don't be," Sam said. "You can do this. Just stay calm. Wait for me to give you the OK."

  The Minotaur lurched into view. It lumbered up the road towards them, glistening with sweat, eyes panic-wild. It passed straight between the two Titans, seeing neither, and ran headlong into the cul-de-sac whose mouth they were flanking. Only at the last moment, as the end of the cul-de-sac loomed before it, did the Minotaur realise it had blundered into a blind alley. It turned in order to retrace its steps, and that was when two human figures seemed to manifest in front of it from nowhere. Magically, they detached themselves from the walls on either side, blocking its route to freedom.

  The idea was that Sam would pin the monster down with suppressing fire from her submachine gun so as to allow Mnemosyne to line up a clean, surgical takedown shot. Landesman was confident the coilgun's superior velocity would be able to put a bullet through the Minotaur's hide where other, lesser guns could not.

  But Sam, of course, was brewing another plan. When she saw the look of resignation in the Minotaur's eyes, that clinched it for her. Ignoring the protestations of Hyperion from afar, she had Mnemosyne temporarily stand down, then fitted on and activated a pair of stun-dusters. Fists crackling with voltage, she ran to meet the charging Minotaur head-on.

  Don't fuck it up.

  Her weight was no match for the monster's but her momentum was. The two of them collided halfway along the cul-de-sac, and even through the suit Sam felt the jarring impact. But the Minotaur was the one who was shunted backwards, not her, and Sam felt a surge of something like hilarity bubble up in her as she pushed the monster bodily along the road, less than a hundred pounds of woman successfully manhandling a creature more than four times bulkier. She rammed the Minotaur against the wall at the end, brickwork cracking, mortar dust puffing.

  Voices were yelling in her ear - Landesman's, Hyperion's, McCann's, even Lillicrap's. Everyone wanted to know what the hell she thought she was up to. Loud as all the shouting was, however, the pounding of her blood was louder.

  The Minotaur bellowed. Its musk smell was almost overpoweringly rank. Sam grappled with the monster, pushing it against the wall, using every ounce of suit-enhanced strength to keep it in place. The Minotaur butted her, its horns clattering on her helmet. She ducked her head and, one-armed, punched the monster in the gut. Electricity sparked from the stun-duster and the Minotaur let out a roar of pain. She punched again, and the beast convulsed from head to toe.

  But it didn't fall and it didn't stop struggling either. And then a kick from a powerful leg booted Sam in the midriff and sent her hurtling through space. She crashed into an iron gate; through the gate into a small courtyard; across the courtyard into a wooden bench, which was smashed to kindling. Immediately she was back on her feet, thanking her stars that the courtyard was empty - no one there to be injured by a flying Titan. A second later the enraged Minotaur burst in through the gateway. Sam went for it, taking it down with a waist-high rugby tackle. Monster and Titan went tumbling to the ground. There was grappling, jockeying for advantage. A table overturned. An earthenware urn full of herbs broke. Sam, almost to her surprise, found she had managed to gain the upper hand. Servos whirring, she levered herself on top of the Minotaur, straddling it. Three quick punches to its face depleted all the charge from her right stun-duster. The monster groaned. Blood-red eyes rolled in their sockets. She gave it a further couple of punches with her left stun-duster. The creature's skull was as sturdy as steel but the blows, and the million-volt jolts that came with them, took their toll. Sam clambered off its chest. The Minotaur made a feeble, flailing attempt to get up, but the best it could manage was propping itself on one elbow. Then it slumped back onto the courtyard flagstones, head sagging, tongue lolling out.

  Panting hard, Sam knelt beside it. Eyes shut. Breathing slow. The monster was out cold. Neutralised. But alive.

  Mnemosyne appeared in the gateway. She peeked in, coilgun at the ready.

  "Bloomin' 'eck," she said. "You did it."

  Sam nodded.

  "So now what?"

  "Yeah, now what?" Hyperion demanded, over Mnemosyne's shoulder. He barged past her into the courtyard. "What the fuck kind of stunt was that you just pulled?" He nudged the insensible Minotaur with one toecap. "I
t ain't even dead. What the hell are we supposed to do now? Sell it to a museum? Put it in a petting zoo? Huh?"

  "Take it home," Sam replied simply.

  "Yeah, right. Take it home. Are you nuts?"

  At Bleaney, Landesman echoed the sentiment. "Tethys, have you quite taken leave of your senses? Bring the Minotaur here? How? More to the point, why?"

  "I don't expect you to understand, any of you," Sam said. "But the Minotaur isn't just a monster. I don't think any of the monsters are just monsters, at least not the part-human ones. I think they're more than that. I think, buried in them, there's something else - a personality, a person even. I think they can be reasoned with, engaged with, won over. I think they could even be reformed and turned into useful assets. And I'd like to prove that with the Minotaur. At any rate I'd like to be able to try."

  "Base, give the word and I'll bust a rocket in this thing's ass," said Hyperion. "Turn it into ground beef."

  "Don't you dare, Hyperion," Sam said. "Don't even think about it. I just risked my neck to take it alive. I've earned the right to do what I want with it."

  "Right, schmight. Base? Overrule her. We can't just turn Bleaney into a goddamn monster sanctuary."

  Silence from Landesman.

  "Base?"

  "I'm thinking, Hyperion."

  "You can't seriously be... Ah, c'mon! No way!"

  "Very well, Tethys," Landesman said finally. "You get your wish. We'll make preparations this end. How you get the Minotaur here is up to you."

  "I'll find a way."

  "I'm sure you will. This is, it goes without saying, sheer insanity. But you've laid out a decent enough argument, and if there's even a slim possibility of what you're proposing working, then it's worth a shot. Let's just hope that my faith in your powers of logic and reasoning isn't, in this instance, misplaced."

  Sam didn't say anything, but she herself was hoping much the same.

  36. CRONUS

  Deep in Bleaney Island lay a bomb shelter where Churchill and his cabinet were to have taken refuge should the worst have happened and the Luftwaffe were to have launched Heinkels from a commandeered RAF base to put paid to this last outpost of British governance. The shelter boasted cross-braced blast doors and extra-thick reinforced concrete walls and ceiling. Until now, Landesman's Titan project had been using it for storing superfluous materials - discarded TITAN suit and weapon prototypes, offcuts from the suit production process, industrial machinery that wasn't needed for the time being, lathes and such - so that it was essentially a huge dustbin, or the Bleaney equivalent of a domestic attic, a place where all the clutter and clobber accumulated over the years fetched up.

  Cleared out and spring-cleaned, it now became a Minotaur pen.

  The monster was brought over from Corsica under tarpaulin wraps, heavily sedated on horse tranquillisers which Sam had sourced through Galetti. He and all the RCDC members were pleased to have played a crucial role in the Minotaur's capture, even if some of them were a little surprised that the outcome of the hunt had been so bloodless. Hoping for the satisfaction of a kill, they were happy nonetheless to settle for the monster's removal from their homeland.

  "The Resistenza owes you," Galetti said as he enfolded Sam in a crushing farewell embrace. His underarm odour was as potent as the Minotaur's musk, and somehow less tolerable. "Naturally, if asked, we shall take the lion's share of the credit. How could we not? We are Corsicans. No one fights our battles for us. But if you need us at any time, we will be there. We do not forget a debt."

  The liquid ketamine he obtained for her had to administered orally, seeing as no hypodermic could pierce the Minotaur's hide. Sam tipped phials of it repeatedly down the monster's throat all the way to Bleaney. She had no idea what a safe dosage was, but she erred on the side of caution. Better a Minotaur dead from an overdose than one that sprang unexpectedly to life in the back of the van, or in the Gulfstream somewhere over the Channel, or in Captain Fuller's boat halfway across the strait to the island.

  She allowed herself to relax only when the doped, still unconscious Minotaur was safely stowed in the bomb shelter and the blast doors were firmly shut. Then she went to find Ramsay, who was in his room, towelling himself off after a shower.

  "I have a bone to pick with you," she began.

  But before she could get any further, he halted her in her tracks with a simple, humble "sorry."

  "I was a jerk, Sam," he went on. "I was out of line. I should never have questioned your actions in front of everybody. That was uncool. Want to know why I did? 'Cause you'd just scared the bejeezus out of me. Going up against that thing hand-to-hand - that was ten kinds of foolish. I thought you were dead for sure. That was why I was so pissed at you. I couldn't help myself. When I'm scared, I get mad. It won't happen again."

  "You can't worry about me," she said. "You mustn't. I'm a big girl. I can take care of myself. If you start getting all protective, especially when we're on an op, it won't help anyone and could compromise the mission. We agreed, remember? Professional. We compartmentalise. When we're alone, just the two of us, we can be ourselves, but when we're working, I'm Tethys, you're Hyperion, we're Titans, and you don't fret over me and you certainly don't countermand me. Otherwise this - us - what we are in private - will have to end. Are we straight on that?"

  "We are. Office romances, huh?"

  "Quite. Having said all which, thanks for apologising. I know that's something you don't often do."

  "Hey!... No, you're right. I don't."

  "So now... You're still looking a bit damp in places. Don't suppose there's anything I can do to help? Any hard-to-reach spots need seeing to?"

  He handed her the towel, which left him naked but for his grin. "I could name a couple."

  Later, when all was quiet, there was a knock at the door. Sam dived below the bedcovers.

  "Yeah?" Ramsay called out. "Who is it?"

  "Anders," came Søndergaard's voice. "I'm looking for Sam, but she's not in her room and Zaina says she doesn't know where she is."

  "So why do you think I'd know?"

  "I've asked everyone else. Can I come in?"

  "No. No! I'm - er - I'm busy. I mean, naked. Busy and naked. What do you want her for anyway?"

  "I don't," said Søndergaard. "Mr Landesman does."

  "OK. Well, if I see her I'll be sure to pass the message on."

  "OK. And maybe you and me, we can shoot some pool later on down in the rec room, how about that? I know I've got to beat you sometime."

  "Dream on, Danish pastry. I used to spend all my downtime on base hustling the COs for beers and dollars. You're going to need several years of practice before you even get close."

  "The law of averages says I must win eventually."

  "The law of averages doesn't take my killer topspin into account."

  After Søndergaard was gone, Sam poked her head out from under the covers.

  "Oh God," she groaned. "I feel about nineteen years old again. Hiding in some man's bed. Haven't done that since uni."

  "Fun, ain't it?" said Ramsay.

  "I suppose." She climbed out and started hunting around for her bra. "Wonder what Landesman wants."

  "Wild guess? He's gonna bust your balls about the Minotaur."

  "What? He was all for bringing it here."

  "On-comms he was. But that was only 'cause he didn't want to lose face in front of everybody. Privately's going to be a different matter."

  "You think?"

  "I hope not."

  But what Ramsay predicted was what happened, more or less. In his office, in a voice like the bubble of a boiling kettle, Landesman told Sam that he believed she was making a mistake. He'd been reluctant to say so at the time. Hadn't want to undermine her authority. But, in his opinion, the Minotaur was pure beast, nothing else. It couldn't be, in her phrase, "won over." It couldn't be rehabilitated like a secure-wing psychiatric patient and converted into some kind of ally. The whole notion was preposterous.

  Sam related wh
at she had seen up by the lake in Corsica, the Minotaur's behaviour, its reaction to its own reflection.

  "A budgerigar will attack the mirror in its cage," Landesman said, "thinking it's seeing off a rival budgerigar. No, I don't buy your theory at all, Sam."

  "You won't even give me the benefit of the doubt?"

  "I've let you lock the monster up downstairs. I think you could call that the benefit of the doubt. You have a week. One week. That's all I'm allowing you. You want to make a project out of that creature, fine, but you need to get results within a week. Not a day longer. When time's up, and you're unable to show us any proof of progress, I'm sending Hyperion in there with his rocket launcher and he isn't coming out 'til the Minotaur's in pieces. Understood?"

  Sam nodded. "I take it there won't be any ops for a week, then. That's good. Everyone could do with a break."

  "Oh no, ops are going to continue. We've built up a good head of steam. It'd be a shame to lose it."

  "I can't do both, deal with the Minotaur and lead an op." She saw the look in Landesman's eye, and everything became clear. "I'm being relieved of my command, aren't I?"

  "You're being temporarily reassigned."

  Same difference. "And Rick's going to be team leader in my absence. No? Then who?"

  "You're looking at him."

  "You, Mr Landesman?"

  "Is there anyone else in the room?"

  "But..."

  "But what? I'm too old?" Landesman laughed. "Au contraire. I am, as I believe I may have mentioned at some point, in top physical condition for a man my age, and my mental faculties are, I'm sure you'll agree, unimpaired."

  "But training..."

  "I've trained long and hard in the TITAN suit. I was proficient in one long before you lot arrived."

  "Cronus," Sam said, a lightbulb popping on in her head. "Of course. You're Cronus. That's why no one else has been found to wear that suit. You've been keeping it back for yourself."

  "Spot-on. And now seems the opportune moment to make the move - to join the ranks. It always was my intention to. I've simply been waiting for the rest of you to gel as a unit, so that I could feel safe fitting in. And my presence on missions might have had an inhibiting effect before now. As things stand, I'm confident the Titans can accommodate me in their midst without it upsetting the balance of their functioning."