Strange Cosmology

by Alex Raizman

  “Yeah,” Andrew said, “about that. I noticed a bit ago that this damn plane doesn’t have any parachutes.”

  “Parachutes?” Diane said with a grin. “What kind of punk-ass god needs a damn parachute?”

  “Drop’s in five,” Roger repeated. “Final gear check, and then we hit the ground hard. Let’s see how ‘gods’ die.”

  ***

  Ryan took a deep breath. “Can I get a hand with pulling my foot from my mouth? It tastes like a shoe, and that’s not the best flavor.”

  Anansi erupted in warm laughter, so infectious that Ryan found he couldn’t help but join him. “Okay,” Ryan said, “so you’re turning your worshippers into spider people to help them avoid the apocalypse. I’ll be honest, I didn’t even know that was possible.”

  “I am over five thousand years old,” Anansi said with a twinkle in his eyes. “And just recently, I encountered something I believed impossible.”

  “What was it?”

  Anansi reached into his pocket and pulled out a cellphone. “I can push this piece of glass a few times and have almost any food I want brought directly to me. Impossible is a word that I would hesitate to ever use, Ryan Smith. I think you’ll often find that the difference between the possible and the impossible is just a matter of time and determination.”

  “Makes sense. Well, given your motivation for turning people into those...hybrids? Is that the right term?” Anansi nodded, and Ryan continued, “How would you like to help make sure I don’t screw up the end of the world too badly?”

  Anansi thought, and Ryan leaned back and didn’t interrupt. He didn’t want to rush things, although he was keenly aware that he had spent most of his twenty-four hours already.

  “I think that I will,” Anansi said finally, “if you promise me a couple things.”

  “If I can, I will.”

  “A careful answer. You’re taking to being a god quite naturally.” Anansi continued, “Two things, then. First, I will make sure that my people are cared for. If the world is ending, and your mission cannot save them, I will take time to ensure their safety. If possible, I’d like your promise of aid for that.”

  “If at all possible,” Ryan agreed. “I don’t know how crazy things will get, but I will do everything I can to give you that time.”

  “That is all I can ask. And that you don’t interfere if I must break away to ensure their safety.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it,” Ryan said without hesitation. “Hell, if it comes down to that, I’ll be glad to know at least some people are going to make it out.”

  “Good. As for the other...I’d like to ask a question. You had a life before all this, yes?”

  “I mean, yeah, but it wasn’t much of one.” Ryan said, frowning as he tried to follow Anansi’s logic.

  “Oh, but it was yours. Yet in your tale, you did not mention it once. No family, no friends. As far as your story was concerned, your life only involved Nabu, and then you were a god.” Anansi’s gaze was intense, and Ryan couldn’t maintain eye contact. He found himself looking at the floor as Anansi continued, “You want to save the world, but you have removed yourself from it. Letting yourself get completely engrossed in being a god, so much so you are losing what it means to be human. Talk to the people you are trying to save so that you do not lose sight of that which matters.”

  “You want me to...what? Go to a bar, spend some time making friends in a park? Because I’m a bit busy-”

  Anansi cut Ryan off with a firm shake of his head. “Even now, you misunderstand. Deliberately, I think. You will go talk to your family, your friends. Reconnect with the people you care about.”

  Ryan let out a long sigh. It was what he was afraid Anansi had been getting at, and he tried to deflect as best he could. “It’s been crazy. I can’t be sure there will be time to go talk to them.”

  Anansi shrugged. “Maybe it will be hard. But in the long run, you will save more time if you have me as your ally, I can assure you of that. If you do not...well, then you will at least not have to make time to see them.”

  “You’d really refuse to help us if I don’t make time to see my friends and family? Seriously? With the entire world at stake?” Ryan felt the heat rising in his voice and tried to clamp it down.

  “Yes, Ryan Smith, I would. Because if you do not, I believe you will become as dangerous as Enki. You are not grounded. You do not have anything in the world to make you want to save it, other than the abstract notion of good and evil. But war, it has a way of eroding the abstracts. Anchor yourself, so you do not lose your way.”

  Ryan found the strength to meet Anansi’s eyes again, but they were unyielding. Ryan let out another sigh, though this one was less frustration and more resignation. “Fine. I agree to your terms.”

  Anansi smiled. “Then, I will work with you. I do have some questions, though. For example-”

  Before Anansi could finish, he was cut off by the sound of shattering glass from the front room.

  ***

  Wind whipped Diane’s hair back as she flew towards the target, streaking through the air like a superhero. Well, almost. They weren’t really flying. It was a controlled fall, using tiny amounts of divine power to alter their vectors towards the target. She grinned fiercely. It was still closer than she’d imagined possible, at least since she’d been a kid.

  The city of Accra stretched beneath them, everything looking small and toy-like from this height. Part of her brain insisted she should be able to reach out and pluck the cars below like they were hot wheels. I wonder if I could, she thought, imagining using her divine powers to create a hand made of energy.

  The ground was getting closer with every second, and the cars were starting to look too big for that to work. Plus, it would be a pointless waste of power. Unless I threw a car into the building. I bet that even with everything Anansi’s seen, he never imagined a car flying through his window.

  It was a fun thought, but it wouldn’t work, even if she was strong enough to toss cars like that. Police had cleared the road leading into Anansi’s office, giving them a clear field of operation. Diane twisted reality one last time, to make sure she was on target, and then began to prepare for impact.

  Each of her companions did the same, and their fall jerked to a halt a few feet above the ground as they zeroed out their acceleration an instant before impact. Diane absorbed the rest of the fall by letting one hand drop to the ground to stabilize herself.

  There weren’t any more signals needed. Each of them hurled tear gas grenades into the store’s front window.

  ***

  Ryan whipped his head towards the door. There was a gentle hiss in the air, and they could hear Kwadwo let out a surprised shout that quickly turned into coughing.

  Ryan was on his feet, reaching into his nanoverse and pulling out a sword, while Anansi summoned a pair of daggers. “Do you feel that, Ryan?” the other god whispered.

  Ryan did. It was a strange feeling, like the sensation from fingernails on a chalkboard without the sound. Whatever was out there was weird and unnatural and dangerous.

  “I think we should-” Ryan began.

  He was cut off by a staccato burst of gunfire, muffled by the walls. Ryan slammed himself to the ground as bullets zipped through the air over their heads, filling the space they had just vacated. He could hear shattering glass from the front room, and white gas began to pour through the holes in the wall.

  Ryan felt his heart pounding. Kwadwo was still coughing, and Ryan heard glass being crushed under boots.

  “Ryan Smith and Anansi!” A voice shouted. “Surrender peacefully or die, by order of the United States of America.”

  By order of the what? Ryan thought, glancing at Anansi. When he first heard the gunfire, he’d expected terrorists or some kind of fanatics. Soldiers, however, were a different matter. Anansi gave Ryan a questioning look, clearly unphased. Ryan told himself he wasn’t scared of the men outside, a lie he was sure he’d eventually believe. He had never imagined g
oing to battle with United States soldiers. They opened fire on a building in a crowded city. That back wall didn’t magically stop bullets. They could have killed someone. Screw that noise.

  Ryan gave Anansi a nod and scrambled over to the wall to peer through the holes. In the other room, Kwadwo was on his hands and knees, still coughing. A soldier walked over and grabbed his hair, forcing his face up. “It’s not one of them, sir,” the soldier said.

  Good, Ryan thought with relief. Now they’ll let Kwadwo go and-

  The soldier’s rifle swung up in a lazy arc until it was pointed directly at Kwadwo’s face. Before Ryan could even think to act, the gun erupted. Kwadwo’s head jerked back, a red mist spraying out of the back of the skull, and he collapsed in a lifeless pile.

  Anansi’s face turned to stone, and his eyes flared with sudden rage. He rose to his feet in a smooth motion and reached out to begin a twist.

  “Come out now, or you will be destroyed!” the authoritative voice demanded once again.

  Ryan answered the demand with a twist of his own. He began to manipulate the equations governing the wall’s momentum. Right now it was unmoving, but if he changed the velocity from zero meters per second to one hundred…

  His twist fell into place, and the wall exploded outwards, sending wooden shrapnel flying towards the attackers. Anansi’s twist followed, and the splinters curved in the air, random debris becoming guided missiles. “Here we are, you son of a bitch,” Ryan said, stepping out to see what they were facing.

  The shrapnel had never reached their destinations. They were embedded in the floor around the feet of the intruders, and Ryan couldn’t even begin to fathom how that had happened. The soldier in front was a young man, probably in his early twenties, with sandy blond hair and a hard glare. His hand was outstretched, although Ryan could see nothing in it.

  There were three others with him: an extremely tall dark-haired man, a woman with a malicious grin, and a squat man with deep-set eyes and a bored expression.

  Each of them wore a harness over their fatigues, some strange device that glowed with a faint light. With his divine sight, Ryan saw that the equations around those things were monstrously complicated, far beyond anything Ryan had seen before. Whatever they were, they were clearly unnatural.

  What sent a chill down Ryan’s spine was the soldiers’ complete lack of shock at the display of power. He and Anansi had just turned a wall into homing missiles, but these people seemed...unimpressed. No matter how disciplined a soldier you were, that couldn’t be something you were used to. What the hell are you and why aren’t you shitting your pants in fear? Ryan thought.

  It didn’t matter. He would show them why they should be afraid. He began to twist again. Beside him, Anansi was doing the same. The stony expression on his face had broken, and every line of his body radiated fury. Ryan began to relax. Whatever they were, they’d managed to piss off Anansi and - The soldiers had also grabbed equations, each making a different manipulation. Ryan lost control of his own twist in shock, and the pillar of fire he’d been preparing fizzled out into a heatwave that rolled over his opponents. They’re... they’re gods?

  Ryan’s hand shook as the god-soldier’s equations began to fall into place. Bolts of lightning burst through the ceiling, and Ryan threw himself to the side, the twin bolts electricity arcing to scorch the floor he’d just vacated. The bolts targeting Anansi were intercepted as the Trickster redirected his twist upwards, creating a barrier. The impact drove Anansi to one knee, as Ryan hit the floor and rolled.

  Four of them. He and Anansi were outnumbered two to one, and that first attack had nearly fried him. He could only imagine how close Anansi had come to being hit, but from the way his eyes widened, it had been closer than Ryan would have liked.

  “Shouldn’t talk about my mother that way.” This was the authoritative voice, but it wasn’t demanding now - it was harsh and menacing. “Dead or alive. Go!”

  Ryan started to get to his feet, but the government-sponsored gods were already manipulating equations again, and he threw himself back to the floor as four fireballs appeared on each side of him, racing inwards to explode where his head had just been.

  They weren’t just outnumbered. They were also outgunned. These gods were throwing power around like they didn’t care about their Hungers, and as long as they kept that up, he couldn’t see how he and Anansi could survive this.

  The harness on one of the gods serving the United States government glowed brighter as she began to twist equations. Some kind of monitoring tool, or enhancing her power? Ryan wondered. He couldn’t make heads or tails of it, especially when he had more pressing concerns.

  The woman hurled a sphere of solid air at Ryan, and he rolled to the side. It missed him by mere inches. Driven by reflex, Ryan kept rolling. Bullets slammed into the ground beside him, and he barely stayed ahead of the fire.

  The assault was relentless. Ryan finally managed to scramble into a crouch, just as the woman thrust out her hands and sent another arc of lightning towards him. He dove again, wishing that he could at least get off the damn floor, and threw out his hand in a desperate twist of equations.

  A burst of air, followed by a quick transformation of the air to a mixture of sodium and water, created a rolling fireball. Windows exploded across the street, and the two soldiers Ryan was dealing with were thrown out the windows.

  Oh, holy crap, that worked, Ryan thought. This twist was one he’d wanted to try, although he’d hoped to test it in less desperate circumstances.

  As a bonus, he had cleared out the tear gas and smoke in the room. Ryan could see better now, and finally had a chance to stand up, so he took a moment to take stock.

  It occurred to him that the soldiers were attacking too fast. They were making mistakes with their twists and burning power like it didn’t matter when they ran out. These guys are rookies, Ryan realized with a start. It was comforting at the moment, but it should be impossible - Ryan was supposed to be the newest of the new guys.

  A problem for later. Ryan turned, intending to help Anansi, but then he saw the two soldiers charging back into the room, looking more annoyed than injured. Divide and conquer. I can’t worry about Anansi – I have to assume he can handle it. I have my own problems.

  His opponents switched roles, the man letting his gun dangle as he began twisting equations while the woman unslung hers to take aim. Ryan tried to dodge, but suddenly his movements felt sluggish and heavy. Bullets slammed into his chest, and pain radiated from the impact. He knew this was it, that his brief tenure of godhood had ended, and he’d lost his chance to save humanity.

  Then he looked down and saw three bullets hovering over his heart, but no actual wounds and no blood. He blinked, focused, and saw the equations delineating an air pressure bubble protecting him. Anansi.

  Acting to save Ryan had put Anansi in a vulnerable position, with the other two soldiers about to fire on him. Adrenaline kicked in, giving Ryan the ability to move. He reached out and heavily ramped up the magnetic attraction between the two guns aimed at Anansi. When the soldiers opened fire, the guns were pulled to point towards each other, spoiling their aim.

  Unfortunately, the two men stopped firing before they could mow each other down. Instead, they let go of their guns, which slammed together before clattering to the floor. Anansi was moving, and Ryan returned his attention to his own opponents.

  The woman was readying another twist, but Ryan didn’t have time to follow it, because, at that moment, the man threw a bolt of lightning. Shit! Ryan threw out his hands and amped up the positive charge beneath the woman’s feet. The lightning arced away from Ryan, negative being called to positive. She clenched her teeth in pain as the bolt struck her, and the harness around her chest sputtered before the light went out.