"Never heard of him." Zeus was beaming benignly, as one might when conversing with a person whose sanity one was beginning to doubt. "Xander... who?"
"Landesman. Don't act like you don't know what I'm talking about."
"No acting here. I honestly don't."
"You are Alexander Landesman," she said, spelling it out, "son of Regis and Arianna Landesman, and you're probably something of a genius because you invented a way of genetically -"
Zeus, still beaming, overrode her. "Do you have any idea what she's on about?" he asked Ares.
Ares twitched his massive shoulders. "Search me, O Cloud-Gatherer. Mortals. They do get some strange notions in their heads sometimes."
"Right, I see," Sam said. "That's how we're going to play it, are we? You are gods. The original Dodekatheon, newly emerged in the twenty-first century. Not a bunch of biotechnologically souped-up human beings, but the genuine article."
"That is so," said Zeus.
"OK. Then the obvious thing to do, as I have this opportunity, is ask where you've been for the past couple of thousand years. Why's it only recently that you decided to come out into the open?"
"We," said Zeus, "were biding our time. Before the arrival of what is known as the Common Era, belief in us was waning - had, indeed, dwindled almost to nothing. Other faiths, other creeds, had sprung up to take the place of us, and so rather than linger on, superfluous, like party guests who have outstayed their welcome, we went into recess. We withdrew from the world, ceased to have any truck with mortals, left you to go on your way with your Yahweh and your Allah and your Krishna and your Buddha and their ilk. It was a period of what one might call, I suppose, divine hibernation. Did you not hear my speech to the United Nations all those years back, when we returned? I explained all this then."
"Obviously I wasn't paying close enough attention. Maybe I was too busy marvelling at Ares's great godly forearms. Or buffing my nails, I can't remember which."
"The woman cannot keep a civil tongue," Ares growled. "Let me at her, O Father Of Gods And Men. I'll teach her how to show respect."
"No, restrain yourself, Ares the Slaughter-Stained," Zeus said. "She is trying to provoke us. Let's not give her the satisfaction of rising to the bait. We are her superiors, after all. Her elders and betters. Sam, our worshippers began looking elsewhere for their divine guidance and we simply didn't feel we were needed any more, so we left this earthly plane, although we continued to keep an eye on things here from afar, because we were, and remain, rather attached to you mortals. A millennium passed, then another, and we perceived what a mess you were making of things. Your religions seemed to be leading you down all sorts of terrible paths, to inquisitions, to pogroms, to endless internecine wars. At their best they were being used as methods of mind control, enslaving the masses with the promise of a reward in the life hereafter, and even where they were rejected there was still wholesale torture and slaughter. The atrocities of Communism, for example, were inflicted in the name of a political system predicated in no small part on atheism.
"In the end, we could no longer stand idly by. Enough was enough. Somebody had to take the world by the scruff of the neck and set it straight again. Somebody had to drag you people out of the mire into which you had got yourselves and down into which you were remorselessly sinking further and further every day. At my instigation, we Olympians manifested in the mortal realm once more, taking fleshly form as we so often did of old. Our role this time was to be proactive and change things for the better. This, I would submit, we have achieved. Not without cost, but is there not some wise contemporary adage about omelettes and eggs?"
"Yes, Xander, there is."
"I told you, I know of no person by the name of Xander... Landman, was it? Please stop trying to insinuate that I am something less than I am. You're taking some poor innocent's name in vain. Perhaps, because you yourself have pretended to Titanhood, you feel I pretend to godhood. In fact, now I recall Aphrodite telling me how you levelled a similar accusation against her and Dionysus. You are, in this regard, quite clearly delusional."
Sam almost laughed. "I'm delusional? All right, let's say for argument's sake I am. I still don't see why, if everything you're claiming is true, you didn't step in sooner. I mean, what about the Second World War? Where were you when Hitler was rounding up and gassing the Jews? That, surely, was the time to get involved. You didn't have to leave it another sixty years."
The reference to the Holocaust didn't appear to faze the man who was Xander Landesman, grandson of Austrian Jewish refugees. He simply said, "And what about the hundreds of other occasions we could have stepped in? What about all the other despots and fanatics throughout history? Should we have returned from limbo to smite Attila the Hun, Genghis Khan, Torquemada, Stalin, Pol Pot? No. We considered it but held off. On balance, in spite of these tragedies and injustices, humankind still seemed to be thriving, progressing. It was only at the turn of this century that it became apparent that this was no longer the case. That was when we realised that mortals were, indisputably, on course to their own doom, spiralling downward into the abyss with no hope of salvation or rescue - apart from us. And so we came. At the eleventh hour, perhaps, but better late than never. And now, Sam, speaking of late, evening is fast falling and I would dearly love to take you on a tour before the sun is gone."
"A tour?"
"As I said, I have things to show you, and things to persuade you of. Come with us and see what very few other mortals have been privileged to see. Come and see Olympus!"
62. OLYMPUS
Sam was hardly in a position to say no, and anyway it would have been foolish not to say yes. A tour was a chance to spy out potential escape routes, and there was, too, a part of her that was curious to take a look round the place. Who wouldn't be curious? Olympus, for heaven's sake.
Zeus was eager to impart the statistics and data as he and Ares showed her around. The Pantheonic stronghold had been modelled on the Acropolis, with added ramparts and stockades. It occupied 3.5 square kilometres of mountainside, on a tilted plateau between the ridge of sharp peaks that constituted Olympus's summit and the secondary peak known as Ilias, at an altitude of some 2,500 metres above sea level. It was built, just like its exemplar, of Athenian limestone and marble from the Penteli region, and comprised several clusters of private quarters, a temple dedicated to each member of the Pantheon and one dedicated to them all, a central agora or meeting place, and countless courtyards, colonnades and cloisters. There was a sunken amphitheatre where the more martially-minded Olympians practised their weaponcraft, a menagerie for the monsters, and a pool for communal bathing. Water was provided by snowmelt, while food was helicoptered in from the nearby city of Katerini, courtesy of the Greek government, which had also provided, likewise for free, the materials and manpower for the stronghold's construction.
"Ordinary food?" said Sam. "I thought you lot only ate ambrosia and nectar."
"If the locals wish to pay tribute in this way," Zeus replied blithely, "who are we to turn down their largesse? Not that the gifts the Greeks come bearing are given entirely selflessly. We have brought renewed prestige to their country. Our presence has put what had become a minor, some might say inconsequential, European power firmly back on the map. It's a more than fair exchange, in my opinion."
"The Greek government may think that. The people aren't so sure. They don't like their taxes being spent on you."
"The building work was costly, I grant you, but nonetheless a small fraction of the national GDP. And the food is a very modest outlay indeed."
"Even so, other nations are forever grumbling about how Greece mollycoddles you."
"Mollycoddles?" Zeus looked amused. "Pure jealousy. The whingeing of the wishful. Besides, correct me if I'm wrong, but I've not heard anything to that effect from your own Mr Bartlett."
"I said nations, not leaders."
"Are leaders not the mouthpieces for nations?"
"Not always," Sam said. "And only a
totalitarian dictator would make that assumption."
"Sticks and stones may break my bones, Sam..." said Zeus.
"Not mine they don't," Ares averred.
The tour continued, and as they walked Sam kept casting surreptitious sidelong glances at Zeus. He was unmistakably his father's son. Close up, in the flesh, the resemblance was marked. Cut the hair, trim the beard to a goatee, and you'd have a younger Regis Landesman, only with Arianna Landesman's dark eyes. The body language was a match as well.
What was this absurd pose, then, that he wasn't Xander? A bluff? An attempt to deny any connection with his past, sever himself entirely from his despised father? Or was there a deeper, stranger explanation? Had he somehow made himself forget who he'd been, and done the same to his fellow Olympians? If so, how?
Above and beyond these puzzles, though, what perplexed Sam most of all was why Zeus was being so polite and hospitable. Dionysus had told her that Zeus was consumed utterly with hatred of the Titans and wouldn't rest until they were dead, or words to that effect. Yet here she was, a Titan, alive, having been brought back from the brink by Demeter at Zeus's request, and he was treating her with a courtesy that bordered on deferential. What was going on? What was his gameplan here? She couldn't fathom it.
A sweeping flight of stone steps took them down to the stronghold's main gate, which was immense, several trees' worth of wood planed and planked and dovetailed together. The gate's rear, reflecting pictures Sam had seen of its front, was embossed with bronze plaques. Each plaque carried the emblem of an Olympian - a thundercloud for Zeus, an owl for Athena, an anvil for Hephaestus, a bunch of grapes for Dionysus, and so on.
The towering gateposts on either side were topped with platforms, and here Harpies perched. One of the monsters took flight as the three neared. It soared on batlike wings into the dusk-purpled sky and circled a few times, letting out shrill cries that resounded out across the sheer slopes below and down into the valleys. When it returned to its roost on the vacant gatepost it found another Harpy had moved in to take its place, and a vicious altercation broke out, the two bird-woman creatures going at each other with beak and talon until finally the interloper, with a flustered squawk, beat a retreat and flew to a platform further along the battlements. There, in a true demonstration of the meaning of "pecking order," it turfed off the Harpy already sitting there and settled down in its stead.
"Should you be contemplating some kind of breakout," Zeus informed Sam, "I wouldn't advise it. Our Harpies are incredibly vigilant. When I say they sleep with one eye open, I mean it. They do. And such eyes, too. Sharp as a hawk's, with night vision to rival an owl's. So even supposing you were able to open the gate, Sam, which I very much doubt, you would not get far on the other side. A dozen Harpies would be on you in a trice."
"They have, after all, been exceptionally well trained," said a female voice.
It was Hera, who sidled up to join them, accompanied by a three-headed dog on a triple leash - Cerberus.
"No one," she said, "comes within a mile of here on foot. From bitter experience people have learned better than to do that. Death by Harpy is neither quick nor painless."
"My dear," said Zeus, "may I introduce Sam Akehurst."
"I'm well aware who she is," Hera replied, giving Sam a disdainful once-over. "One of the monster killers."
Cerberus gave a threefold growl and strained on its leashes towards Sam. A trio of large, near-spherical heads came within inches of her, so close that the slobber from the knifelike fangs flecked her dress. Sam couldn't help but shy away, much to Ares's amusement.
"Scared of a stupid mutt?" he scoffed. He patted one of Cerberus's heads, which suddenly rounded on him and bit his hand while the other two heads kept their attention fixed on Sam. "Ach! You fucker," Ares hissed, shaking the hand in the air.
"Your own fault, Ares," said Hera. "You startled him. He doesn't like people coming at him from the side."
"Yes, well," Ares said, sucking his hand, "let that be a lesson to you, Sam. That dog's got a hell of a nip on him. Didn't even break my skin, mind, but if it'd been you, you'd be looking at the bleeding stump of your wrist."
"So I was sensible to be scared of him then?" Sam said tartly.
"Hmph," was Ares's reply.
"If I had my way, Miss Akehurst," said Hera, with a doughty swell of her chest, "Cerberus would right this very moment be feasting on your vitals. The way you Titans massacred my menagerie was unforgivable. Quite, quite unforgivable. However..." A glance at Zeus. "My husband is adamant that you are not to be harmed, and what the Aegis-Bearing decrees, all must obey."
"Spoken like a good little wifey," Sam murmured.
Hera flashed a glare at her. "You would do well to mind your manners, mortal. Zeus is prone to whims and fancies, like any male, but that which he gives he can also take away. Without his protection, trust me, you would not last long here."
She stalked off, dragging the thrice-whining Cerberus with her.
Zeus chuckled indulgently. "Hera the Ox-Eyed does not like it if even I so much as look at another woman. I have a history of dalliances, of course, I won't deny it. But what she ought to know by now is that I always come back to her in the end. All said and done, she is the only one for me."
Sam was aghast. "Oh my God, is that what this is? You've taken a shine to me? I'm just another of your 'dalliances'?"
"Certainly not."
"That's repulsive. It's never going to happen, you hear me? One hundred per cent never."
"Hera spoke out of turn," Zeus said, spinning on his heel. "Now come. There's still more to see."
Sam turned incredulously to Ares. "Please tell me I'm not a dalliance."
"Zeus has always had a taste for nubile mortal females," said Ares, "and ever since he saw your picture on television he's been going on about capturing Titans if possible, rather than killing them. Although," he added, "that could just be coincidence. The main thing as far as you're concerned is that, while you don't annoy him, you get to live. So, if you want my advice, try not to annoy him."
"OK," said Sam. "But no way am I sleeping with him, ever, and if that means I'll be signing my own death warrant, fine."
Ares nodded, perhaps with a touch of admiration. "Nobly put. When the time comes, should the Fates decide that I am to be your executioner, I promise I shall do you the honour of making it swift and clean."
"Thanks for that, much appreciated," said Sam, and she set off to catch up with Zeus.
63. ARGUS
The final stop on the Olympus tour was a chamber hewn deep in the rock of the mountainside and reminiscent in many ways of the command centre at Bleaney. Here, as there, could be found a plethora of screens and cables. The former provided the only illumination in the room, a wavering bluish glow, while the latter fed, presumably, to the meter-diameter parabolic antenna dish which Sam had spotted outside, nestled between two buildings, an incongruous sliver of modernity amid all the Classicism.
A smell reached Sam's nose as she followed Zeus and Ares into the chamber, a drab, musty odour that put her in mind of a teenage boy's bedroom. It was worse inside the chamber itself, stronger and more noxious. It spoke of unwashed flesh and fungal growth.
The source was - could only be - the corpulent figure who reclined in the centre of the room on a mound of silk cushions. He was near naked, his modesty preserved by a cloth draped across his groin, and his pallid, vein-marbled skin looked like it hadn't seen the sun in ages. It also looked like it hadn't seen soap and water in ages. There were blotches all over it that could have been food stains, encrustations that could have been rashes, a whole host of scummy dried-on marks of indeterminate origin. The covers of the cushions the figure half sat, half lay on were similarly bespattered and besmirched.
What was even more repellent about this bloated monstrosity, though, were the wires protruding from his head. A score of them were plugged into his hairless scalp, sticking out at all angles like rubber-insulated dreadlocks, and around the p
oint at which each wire pierced the skin there was inflammation and scabbing. It reminded Sam of something from an anti-vivisection poster, a laboratory monkey with electrodes implanted in its brain.
He was slumped there with his eyes closed, as though blissfully asleep. However, as Sam drew (reluctantly) closer, she saw that his eyelids were puckered at the join, like pursed lips, and concave, sunken. There were no eyeballs beneath them.
"Argus?" said Zeus softly. "O Hundred-Eyed One? Can you hear me? Are you with us?"
Argus did not stir, but all round the chamber the screens flickered and changed. They had been displaying websites, live news broadcasts, CCTV footage, webcam images, a range of data input streaming in from across the globe, but now all at once each showed the same thing: a computer-generated peacock, its tailfeathers fanned, and the eye markings on the fan actual human-style eyes, different-coloured, intermittently blinking.
"Greetings to you, O mighty Zeus," said a warm, mellow voice that came from several directions simultaneously. The words echoed, cascaded, overlapped. "And to you, Ares. And to you too, Samantha Akehurst, former detective sergeant, resident of Kensal Rise, London." The voice proceeded to list Sam's driving licence and National Health numbers, gave the name of the high street bank she banked with, and threw in her credit rating for good measure. "Currently wanted by the London Metropolitan Police for questioning," it added.
"And my dress size?" Sam asked, trying not to sound unnerved.
A pause. Then: "You look like an eight to me."
"Actually I'm a ten."
"It's always wise to underestimate."
As the voice said this the man on the cushions, eerily, smiled.
"Argus," said Zeus, "Sam is, as you know, a member of the resistance group who were until not so long ago our mortal enemies - in more senses than one."
"Ah, yes, the Titans," said Argus. Several of the screens shifted from the peacock image to display stills from the Agonides clip, a blurry security-camera shot of a Titan haring through Manhattan, several newspaper pictures of dead and decaying Olympian monsters, a forensics photo of Søndergaard's skeleton half-buried in the dust of his battlesuit, and Titan-related soundbites from the press conference Zeus and Hercules gave in the shadow of the World Trade Centre and from Zeus and Hera's appearance on Paulita.
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