Sam confirming it. Done.
Armstrong-Hall relaying this into a walkie-talkie: Stand down. I repeat, all units stand down. It's over.
And Sam and Ramsay walking on as the mist began to lift from Olympus, thinning, the air brightening. Making for the gate, and the mountainside, and somewhere, elsewhere, anywhere that wasn't here.
On the bench, Ramsay could see Sam unreeling this vivid memory-movie in her mind.
"Come back, Sam," he said. "Come back to me. That was then. This is now. You don't have to be there any more. It's over."
"You know what's odd?" she said, finally.
"Your accent? You pronounce the 'r's in the middle of words, and your sentences go up at the end. You're becoming a local girl."
"Well, I have to, to make myself understood. Otherwise, I say something and I get looked at like I'm speaking in tongues."
"Fitting in."
"Yeah. I'm a mistress of disguise. Who needs a TITAN suit with chameleon function?"
"And the less English you come across as, the less likely it is someone might recognise you as that woman who's still wanted in the UK for murder."
"I'm not in hiding, Rick. If the British government finds me and wants to have me extradited, I'll go back and face the music. I'm innocent."
"I'd testify to that."
"And Dai Prothero would be in my corner too. The only trouble is, to clear my name I'd have to admit to being a Titan, and that'd open this huge great can of worms. Life's simpler if I just keep my head down. Anyway, as I was saying. You know what's odd? I still can't get used to the idea that, in the end, I only actually killed one of the Pantheon. Hermes - Pugh. I never got my reckoning with Apollo and Artemis, or with Aphrodite."
"That bother you?"
"Not as much as it might have. I wanted revenge badly, so badly, but maybe it was better that I didn't get it."
"Better for you," Ramsay said. "Better for your soul."
"Right. But still I'm left with this feeling of, So what was that all about then?"
"You did your bit, and the Olympians got what was coming to them. Guess it doesn't matter who from, long as they got it. The only one who didn't really deserve to die was Argus, but that was necessary."
"A mercy, almost."
"Yeah. And soon as he was pulled off his machinery, NORAD got back control of its nukes, and so did all the world's other missile commands - Russia, France, and so on. Big whoop all round when his firewalls suddenly went down. 'Hooray, we can blow up the planet again, if we want to.'"
"Only, we won't, will we?" Sam said. "We're grown-up enough as a race, aren't we? We can manage things for ourselves. We certainly don't need self-styled gods lording it over us, telling us how to behave and treating us like infants. We're capable of making sure humankind carries on and prospers. Aren't we?"
"Hell if I know," said Ramsay. He jerked a thumb at the L-Day celebrants. "But maybe that's what all this is in aid of, and why it should carry on year after year, even become an official event. Long as people remember what they were liberated from, they'll do their best to enjoy the freedom and make sure it continues. We've been slaves a while. Freed slaves tend to treasure what they've gained."
A soft burble from the stroller was followed by the sound of small limbs furiously shifting.
"Ah," said Sam. "Nap time's over."
She unfastened straps and hauled a pudgy, clammy eighteen-month-old out of the stroller and onto her lap.
William Dai Ramsay rolled a sleepy eye at his mother, and then at his father. His light-brown face set into a grumpy pout, and he nuzzled against Sam's breast with a sigh that sounded far too heartfelt and careworn for one so young. He'd been named after his paternal grandfather. Sam had lobbied to have Dai as his first name, but Ramsay had vetoed this. "Sounds too morbid," he'd said. So William it was, Will for short.
Ramsay stroked his son's head, with just a hint of wistfulness, briefly recollecting another small boy, another head of dark nappy curls like this one.
"You wake up in your own sweet time, kiddo," he said, and kissed Will's crown.
In response, Will just snuffled, and Sam hugged him close, feeling the heat radiating off him and inhaling the mix of milk and sweat that was his unique, heady musk.
Will.
Her Will.
Will, Will, Will.
What more fitting name to give to the future?
Acknowledgements
Profuse thanks are due to: Gary Main and Johnny Reade, for technical advice relating to, respectively, military helicopters and riot policing; the fine folks at "new" Solaris, principally Jonathan Oliver, David Moore, Jennifer-Anne Hill and Ben Smith; Marek Okon for another awesome cover; and Eric Brown, Liz de Jager, Ron Fortgang, Tim Mitchell and Andy Remic for continued support and encouragement.
THE AGE OF RA
Eric Brown
The Ancient Egyptian gods have defeated all the other pantheons and claimed dominion over the earth, dividing it into warring factions. Lt. David Westwynter, a British soldier, stumbles into Freegypt, the only place to have remained independent of the gods’ influence. There, he encounters the followers of a humanist leader known as the Lightbringer, who has vowed to rid mankind of the shackles of divine oppression. As the world heads towards an apocalyptic battle, there is far more to this freedom fighter than it seems...
SOLARIS
[email protected]
www.solarisbooks.com
SHINE
Edited By Jetse De Vries
A collection of near-future, optimistic SF stories where some of the genre’s brightest stars and most exciting new talents portray the possible roads to a better tomorrow. Definitely not a plethora of Pollyannas (but neither a barrage of dystopias), SHINE will show that positive change is far from being a foregone conclusion, but needs to be hard fought, innovative, robust and imaginative.
Let´s make our tomorrows SHINE.
SOLARIS
[email protected]
www.solarisbooks.com
THE CULLED
Simon Spurrier
He made a stand against the end of the world…
The Blight arose from nowhere. It swept across the bickering nations like the End of Times and spared only those with a single fortuitous blood type.
Hot-headed religion and territorial savagery rule the cities now. Somewhere amidst the chaos a damaged man receives a signal, and with it the tiniest flicker of hope. The chance to rediscover the humanity he lost, long ago, in the blood and filth and horror of The Cull.
The Afterblight Chronicles is an exciting series of high-action post-apocalypse fiction set in a world ruled by crazed gangs and strange cults.
ABADDON BOOKS
[email protected]
www.abaddonbooks.com
CIRCUS OF SINS
Natasha Rhodes
When young vampire-hunter Kayla Steele is bitten by a werewolf, she thinks it’s the end of her world. However, little does she know that the real end of the world is not that far away. Master vampire Harlequin has made a deal with the Devil and is now planning to commit the ultimate sin – killing an angel – which will trigger an ancient curse and bring about war in Heaven.
If that happens, it will be the end of mankind forever. Kayla’s only hope now lies in a mysterious stranger named Niki, who knows where the angel is being kept. Together, they must rescue the angel before midnight on Sunday in order to stave off Armageddon. But unless Niki is who he claims to be, the stakes just got one hell of a lot higher…
SOLARIS
[email protected]
www.solarisbooks.com
Title
Indicia
Dedication
Prologue: Corsica
PART 1 Three Months Earlier
1. The Chicagoan
2. On Bleaney Island
3. The Barracuda
4. Regis Landesman
5. Dropout
6. Titan
7. P
ractical Demo
8. Pairing Off
9. Bolder and Boulder
10. Breakthrough
11. Superior Fucked-Up-Mess
12. Poseidon Passing
13. Mistakes
14. CallSigns
15. Blue Eros Mythoporn
16. the Cyclops
17. The Prothero Stare
18. Stratospherically Remote
19. The Everglades
20. Champagne
21. Operation: Three Lions
22. The Griffin
23. The Sphinx
24. The Chimera
25. Man-Lion Dream
26. Repercussions
27. Lost Landmarks
28. Monstercide
29. The Gorgons
30. Bruges
31. The Agonides Cup
32. The Minotaur
33. Haut-Pietra
34. Lakeside Encounter
35. Cul-De-Sac
36. Cronos
37. Unarmed
38. Bulls And Bullies
39. Non-Acrobatic
40. Rumblings Of Belligerence
41. Public Works
42. The New Labours Of Hercules
43. Oscillo-Knives
44. Ambushing The Ambushers
45. Run
46. The Myrmidon Protocol
47. Media Paste
48. Detective Work
49. Minotaur On The Loose
50. Xander
51. Well And Truly Snookered
PART 2 One Month Later
52. Cold Turkey In Kensai Rise
53. Drifting Ships
54. The Lotus Eaters
55. Congress
56. The Call
57. Di Prothero
58. Prodigal Daughter
59. Raid On Bleaney
60. Screamers And Rumblers
61. A View From On High
62. Olympus
63. Argus
64. The Mundane Lives Of Gods
65. Crates
66. Martyrs
67. The Shrine Of Apotheosis
68. An Audacious Lie
69. Council Of War
70. Three Days
71. Return Of The Titans
72. Fantasia Of Ghoulishness
73. Cerberus And Typhon
74. Talos
75. Amphitheatre
76. Apollo Appalled
77. Swimming-Pool Jellyfish
78. Gods' End
PART 3 Three Years Later
Epilogue: The Chicagoans
Acknowledgements
AD: The Age of Ra
AD: Shine
AD: The Culled
AD: Circus of Sins
The Age Of Zeus Page 48