Freya

by Matthew Laurence

  At the mention of the world’s creepiest CEO, my smile curdles immediately. Samantha gives Nāmaka an understanding look. “I don’t blame you for being nervous. Which is why this only happens once, right now. I can’t get involved in any plotting, both for my safety and yours. But I wanted to help.”

  “You do realize we’re trying to destroy the entire facility, yes?” Nāmaka asks.

  Samantha nods. “Without implicating yourselves. Tricky, isn’t it?”

  “Very. Look, it’s not that we don’t trust you,” Nāmaka says. “It’s just … you’ve worked for them for years. If you wanted this place gone, why wait? Why turn on them for us?”

  Samantha smiles, and I get the impression she’s been expecting this question. “Right now, I see Finemdi as a means to an end”—she gives me a meaningful look—“so despite its obvious problems, I haven’t really entertained thoughts of open rebellion. If you manage to take this place down, I’m just going to move to another facility and try to, um, finish my work. Who knows? Maybe I’ll have more luck there. But the real reason I want to help is because I’d like to make it out of whatever’s coming alive. I doubt any of you would be trying to kill me, specifically, but if you’re planning to annihilate Impulse Station, there’s a chance I might get caught up in that.”

  “We certainly didn’t want you getting hurt,” Hi‘iaka says. “We were hoping to attack at night, when most of the mortal off-site staff would be home, and the real creeps who live here would be asleep.”

  “Well, I keep some odd hours,” Samantha says. “And I realize rampant destruction is one thing gods do very well. I just want to make sure I’m well away from here when it all goes down.”

  “Okay,” I say, realizing she wants to pretend our conversation in the maintenance room never happened. Paranoid little thing. “Then here’s the deal—when we’re ready to move, I’m going to dispel the magical auras defending this place. I’m fairly certain they all run through a central location, so all I need to do is find—”

  “Utility closet on sublevel three,” Samantha says. I smile at her readiness; she probably researched the location since we last spoke. “Take elevator four-F on the east quad down, go straight ahead until the floor color changes to red, take your first right, and it’ll be the second door on the left. No key card entry required—they like to hide things in plain sight.”

  “Elevator four-F … east quad … sublevel, um … two?” I mumble, desperately trying to copy it all down into my Mim. I still haven’t gotten the hang of typing quickly on its touch screen.

  “Oh, here,” Samantha says, pulling it out of my hands. “Nice phone, by the way. Looking forward to the new version of the OS?” Her fingers dart over the screen as she speaks.

  “The what?”

  She shakes her head. “Never mind. So you clip the wards somehow, and then what?”

  “Then—”

  “You’d better get far, far away,” Pele says with a dangerous grin.

  “I always trust gods when it comes to that,” Samantha says, handing my phone back to me. “Okay, let me do my part to help. You’re all thinking of this from a magical perspective—kill their spells, use your own to wreck the place—but you’re missing the technological one. Impulse Station has computer logs you’re going to want to destroy, because as soon as the building looks like it’s a lost cause, it’s someone’s job to trip the emergency backup line and transmit every shred of on-site data to a new facility. Unless you want the blame for all this, you need to get there before they do that. Oh, and trust me: You don’t want the blame for all this.”

  “We weren’t really worried about that,” Hi‘iaka says, grinning. I know exactly why she seems smug about this—we have a plan about how to shift that guilt off our backs.

  “Then be worried about it,” Samantha says. “This isn’t even Finemdi’s main facility. That’s in New York, and they have an additional twelve stations around the world, not counting research outposts and dig sites. You want to strike a blow here, and I get that, but just be aware that in the grand scheme of things, you’ll only be bloodying the nose of a very potent enemy.”

  I’d like to tell her I’m not one for hiding in the shadows, but right now, in my weakened state, it’s probably my only option for staying alive. Fortunately, Nāmaka is still powerful—and haughty—enough to deliver the message for me. She places dampened fingertips on the table and leans in to stare at Samantha. “We do not hide from bureaucrats. Their days of twisting our minds have ended.”

  Samantha sighs. “Ms. Nāmaka, please. Think for a moment. If Finemdi has the ability to believe you into compliance, haven’t you considered that they might also be able to disbelieve you entirely?”

  “I … oh,” Nāmaka says, sitting back. She seems stunned at the possibility, rippling eyes wide with surprise.

  “Put yourself on their hit list and evade their teams long enough, and they’ll just turn to death by disbelief. They will, of course, consider it a last resort, since it’ll require the efforts of most of their facilities to bring down a god of your strength, but they’ve done it before.”

  “Hang on, what about the gang in Corrections?” I ask, realizing this could have dire implications for Sekhmet.

  Samantha shrugs. “Those gods aren’t really threats anymore. They can be kept behind glass with a pittance of resources, and Finemdi doesn’t like throwing away potential tools. I mean, what do you think would sound better to a bean counter: Spend decades poisoning the minds of those gods with tainted belief on the off-chance they’ll crack, or dedicate an absurd amount of power to wiping them out completely so you can free up a cell?”

  “Oh,” I say, unsure if the explanation actually makes me feel any better.

  Nāmaka’s silent another moment, then holds up her hands. “All right, we do it your way. We had plans for that ‘server’ place, regardless. After I’m done at the armory, I’ll head to the room with these computer logs and—after a little meddling of my own—destroy it. Water and electronics don’t mix,” she says with a grin. “Where do I go?”

  “Take the—oh, here, this will be easier.…” Samantha unclips a pen from the breast pocket of her lab coat and scribbles the directions down on a napkin. “Now, this room will be locked, so—”

  “On it,” Hi‘iaka says. “You can’t keep out the wind.”

  “Great,” Samantha says, pushing the napkin over to Nāmaka. The watery god picks it up and pushes it into her bag before it has a chance to get soaked.

  “Are you sure you’re okay with what we’re going to do, Samantha?” Pele asks.

  “Like I said, I don’t have a lot invested here,” she says, shrugging. “Not right now, at least. The closest facility is New York, so maybe they’ll move me there. I’d be working with better resources at that location, too, so there’s always the chance I can make some real headway on my project.”

  “But, Samantha … your father will be here. He may die. One of us might do it,” Pele continues, frowning at the girl’s cavalier attitude toward the situation.

  “That is a very poor idea,” Samantha says, locking eyes with the goddess. “He is not a normal mortal, and he has access to the best weapons and tricks the company can provide. If one of you encounters him, I’m not worried for his safety; I’m worried for yours. Please, if you see him—if any of you see him—I strongly advise you to run.” She looks to me as she finishes saying this, and the message is clear: These three goddesses might survive him. You will not.

  Judging by the skeptical looks on the sisters’ faces, they probably think she’s just trying to protect her father. Knowing what he did to her mother, though, I’m inclined to believe her. “Is there anything else you can tell us about the place? Anything else that might be of use?” I ask, deciding to change the subject before one of the other women tries to commit herself to attacking Gideon Drass just to prove a point.

  She frowns. “Not really. You’re already inside the building, so the hard part’s done. I gue
ss in a more general sense, I want you to fully comprehend what you’re attempting here. Finemdi’s not my father or this facility. It’s not a handful of gods or legions of mercenaries, either,” she says, looking at each of us in turn. When her pale green eyes settle on me, I get the feeling this isn’t the first time she’s considered what it might take to destroy this place. “It’s a world-spanning conspiracy,” she says at last, still focused on me. “Their ultimate goal is to eliminate every deity on the planet, and they’ve been trying to do it for centuries. You’ve all chosen to attack the one organization on the planet that’s best-suited to killing you.”

  “Are you trying to persuade us not to?” Hi‘iaka asks.

  Samantha smiles at that. “Could I?” She doesn’t wait for a reply. “No, I just want you to be careful, to actually understand what you’re up against. I know why you want to do this—they’re only the greatest threat to your kind that’s ever existed, after all—but I’m not sure if you four actually know how you’ll be pulling it off.”

  “Well, we’ve got to start somewhere,” I say. “Impulse Station is as good a place as any.”

  The other goddesses nod in agreement. Samantha shrugs. “Okay. I don’t have the answers, either. I just want to make sure you’re thinking about it.” She looks over at the false Samantha eating by herself and sighs. “I’m going to head back to my table now. If I don’t get a chance to talk to any of you before the big day, I just want to let you know that even though it didn’t work out, I’m glad you all tried to be friendly to me. Most of the other gods don’t even manage that. Good luck, you guys.”

  With that, she vanishes. Her chair trembles slightly, then scrapes to the side. I keep my eyes fixed on the illusion of Samantha monotonously eating her salad. It’s only because I’m watching intently that I notice the slight hitch as the illusion ends and she picks up where it left off, a bit of salad halfway to her mouth. She gives me a wink as she munches on the forkful of vegetables and greens, then returns her attention to her plate.

  “That was kind of neat,” Hi‘iaka says, looking back at us. “Do you really think she’s on our side?”

  “She hasn’t called the guards on us yet,” Pele says.

  Nāmaka sighs. “I don’t believe she’s out for anyone but herself. It seems that ‘project’ of hers was her main concern. Freya, do you know what she meant?”

  “I do,” I say, nodding. “But if she wanted you to know, I think she would have told you. Just believe me when I say it’s reason enough to trust her and for her to betray her father and everything he’s built here.”

  “Good enough for me,” Hi‘iaka says, resuming her meal. She chose the rib eye with smoked bacon brussels sprouts, and seems more than happy to agree if it’ll return her to feasting on it sooner.

  “I suppose that honestly was helpful,” Nāmaka admits. “Saves you the trouble of finding out where all their wards were cast, doesn’t it?”

  I nod. “I wasn’t looking forward to tracking them down. This place is saturated with all kinds of magic. Probably would have taken weeks. And now we also know about their computer backups.”

  Nāmaka sighs. “I hate this modern world. Nothing is what it seems. Now we must be wary of little bits of metal and plastic. Who would have thought you could hide so much on so little?”

  “Oh, I don’t hear you complaining about that mean ol’ modern world whenever it brings you another Golden Girls marathon,” Hi‘iaka says, grinning as only a younger sister can.

  Nāmaka huffs, mumbling something about how at least she wasn’t “the one hooked on reality television” before returning to her own meal. Pele laughs at their exchange, then turns to me. “So how do you plan on breaking those wards of theirs?” she asks. “I know the things my sisters and I can do are magic, of a sort, but I can’t say that I’ve ever really thought of myself as much of a spell-caster.”

  “I’ve prepared a wonderful time-delayed dispelling hex,” I say. “I’ll just set it up in the room and give myself a few minutes to get away before it goes off. Should be enough to shut down every spell in the complex.”

  “And then it’s our turn,” Pele says, showing her teeth. I can tell she’s been itching to cut loose ever since we started plotting. I don’t tell her this, but part of the reason I want some time to get away is because I have other things I need to do in the building after the wards go down, and I’m worried she might go a little overboard as soon as it’s time for her to act.

  We finish dinner without further incident, spending the remainder of it on gossip rather than scheming. This suits me just fine, as I realized a few weeks ago that trying to cram too much planning into any given mealtime would result in the majority of it going over the girls’ heads. Besides, gossip is fun.

  After we’re done, I bus my tray and head out into Finemdi’s labyrinthine halls. I check the time on my Mim and realize I have another hour to kill before Nathan’s supposed to swing by to pick me up. Finemdi actually operates a car service for deities who choose not to drive, but I prefer having Nathan at the wheel instead of some corporate goon. That, and it’s a nice chance for the two of us to catch up on our respective days.

  Pele’s questions about how I plan to defeat Finemdi’s spells are still fresh in my mind, so I decide to follow Samantha’s directions to that little utility closet where they’ve collected all of their wards. As long as I don’t go over a month, I can set that hex for just about any date I want. It might be a good idea to lay it down now, so I don’t forget, time it so it goes off in a few weeks, and adjust as needed. I haven’t cast the spell in ages, either—I should probably test it, just so I can be certain it works.

  I begin moving through the halls, phone in one hand and my battered facility map in the other. It’s nice to actually have directions, for once. After about ten minutes, the elevator doors open with a dull beep, revealing the letters “B3” stenciled into the walls on either side in bright yellow paint. The hallway continues straight ahead, studded with unremarkable doors at regular intervals. There’s a dull buzz of machinery in the air, and beyond that, I can sense the deep thrum of magic. It almost feels like it’s been pooling here, collecting over the years like water in a cave system. I put the map back in my bag and stick with the phone from here, walking the deserted corridors as Samantha described. I pass numerous side hallways and offshoots, but ignore them all, my attention focused entirely on the color of the floor under my feet.

  It shifts from dark blue to orange to … red. There we go. I see the entrance to another corridor ahead on my right, just past two nondescript doors, and I’m about to take it when my curiosity gets the better of me. What in the world is behind all these other doors? I mean, the map labels huge swaths of these lower floors with dreary tags like Maintenance, Supplies, and Utilities, but how often is a janitor really going to hoof it five minutes down a creepy corridor for some floor wax? And take this door on my right, for instance—how would they even remember what the closet labeled B3-X-5E-36 had inside? They must have either minds like steel traps or a phone book–sized directory of the place. On a whim, I try the door handle, expecting to find the standard setup of metal shelving, cleaning supplies, and—if I’m really lucky—an upright vacuum. Instead, the door swings open on another hallway. This one’s a bit more brightly lit than the one I’m in, and its floor is light brown instead of red. I stick my head out, glancing left and right, and notice it extends a few hundred feet in either direction. Hmph. Not what I expected, but in the end, it’s just a different kind of boring.

  I step back into my own hall and pull the door closed. I walk another twenty feet over the red floor and I’m about to take my first right, just like Samantha said, when I stop, something tickling the back of my mind.

  Wait …

  I whirl around and look at the door I just opened. Twenty feet away. An increasingly puzzled look growing on my face, I walk back, open the door again, and take a step in, then look to my left. Yeah, I thought I saw the hallway in there g
oing a lot farther than twenty feet. I dash back out into the red hall, zip down twenty feet, and stare into the right-hand corridor I was about to take. There’s no sign of the other hall with the light brown flooring.

  “Oh, you clever people…” I murmur, looking back at the door. So this is one of the hidden tricks of Impulse Station. “‘B3-X-5E-36,’ eh? And what level am I on? B3?” I’ve passed how many nondescript doors on my wanderings? I think I’m starting to understand how Finemdi’s staff gets around this place without spending hours of their day. The whole building must be laced with teleportation magic. Who knows how many different links there are throughout this facility? I should probably start trying to map these out—it could prove very useful.

  One thing at a time, though. First, I’m going to find this roomful of wards. I head down the right-hand turn. I quickly pass one door on my left, and it’s not long before I come to a second. This one is apparently Utility Supply #204. I feel an odd sense of vertigo as I approach it, like I’m teetering on the edge of a vast precipice. Tiny ripples twitch and scrabble in the air around the doorframe, but I know they’re not real; even when I close my eyes, I can see them. It’s as if reality were leaking gas. Whatever’s behind this door is definitely something a little more powerful than Formula 409. I test the handle and find it turns easily, just like Samantha said it would. I open the door a crack and peek inside. The room’s single light flicks on as I do, illuminating a space not much bigger than a walk-in closet.

  My vision swims and I’m forced to blink back tears as a wave of dizziness staggers me. To me, the room is in flux, constantly jumping between two states. It is at once a standard supply room like any other, yet I also see it as a writhing nest of incandescent snakes, a Gordian knot of living spells. There are so many wards, abjurations, and enchantments gathered here I can’t pick out an individual one—they’re all blending together in a bedazzling hive of energy. My deific senses are going into overdrive, like my soul’s been given a jolt of smelling salts.