Grapeshot Pantheon

by Dragon Cobolt

  “Quetzalcoatl,” Fizit said, not looking up from her laptop. She was, apparently, into the Aztecs.

  Meg looked back at Liam, grinning. “I mean, looking at it from a strategic and tactical perspective, landing multiple times or trying to take advantage of multiple proxies increases the risk of discovery and a bunch of very angry gods deciding to knock your ship out of high orbit. And while the Ancients were powerful, we know that they had their limits. Considering how the Purgatory experiment went for them.”

  Liv scowled at Meg. “I always forget you’re fucking smart.”

  “That’s how I caught this guy,” Meg said, cheerfully, jerking her thumb at Liam. “Lure him in with the titties. Then make sure he can’t escape with an elegantly argued philosophical treatise.”

  “I remember some minor strangulation being involved too,” Liam said, rubbing his throat in remembrance at Meg’s reaction to him being Christian.

  “Kinky,” Fizit said, dryly.

  Liam frowned.

  Meg lifted one leg and gently prodded at Liam’s chin with her toe. This had the side effect of causing her skirt – she had put it on as part of her ‘going to meet the United Nations’ ensemble – to ride up, exposing more and more of her gloriously bronzed and athletic thigh. Liam tried to catch a glimpse of her panties, and not entirely for perverted reasons. For one thing, he’d rather know she was going commando now, and not when she flashed some UN delegates from Iran or something.

  “So, the question you should be asking is not, why are there gods on the Earth? The question you should be asking is, why did you have no idea until now?”

  Liam frowned. He started to pace back and forth, his brow furrowing. “I wish that the gods had agreed to the requests for genetic sampling,” he said, quietly. “We could have done some studies...”

  When Liam swung around to start pacing the other way, he saw that the rear section of Air Force One had gotten a new guest. The President was walking in, brushing aside some of the dangling beads that separated sections. Apparently, the newest model of Air Force One was at least twenty percent bigger than the previous one, allowing for the creation of several discrete sections, for different kinds of administrative and diplomatic activity. For most of the flight from Washington D.C, the President had been sequestered in the communication and information part of the plane, on the phone.

  “No luck,” she said, shaking her head. “Your friends vanished and according to the DHS, they’re not even sure they’re still in the country anymore.”

  “They weren’t my friends,” Liv said, frowning. “Sun kept trying to get into my panties and Coyo didn’t even show me his face.”

  “I can’t imagine why,” Fizit said, closing her laptop. “Considering the relationship between the United States and literally every single Native American tribe.”

  The President bristled. “And what does that mean?”

  “It means what it means,” Fizit said. “Whatever you may feel, Coyote is old enough to remember the genocide. I’m surprised he isn’t still taking potshots at you.”

  Liam held up his hand. “Not helping, Fizit.”

  Tethis, though, snapped her fingers. “Ah! Ah! Ah!” She sprang up. “Amanda! Er, uh, Madame Minister! Prime President!” she shook her head. “Lady Deinhardt!” She flushed, hard.

  The President smiled at that last one. It was hard to not think of her as Amanda with that smile dancing across her lips. “I kind of like that last one.”

  Tethis blushed even more. “Do you have a white board?”

  A few minutes later, they had gathered in one of the meeting rooms in the second story of the plane, with Tethis standing on a chair so she could reach the white-board in the room. She uncapped a pen, then drew a stick figure on it. Since she was Coptic, it ended up looking more similar to a hieroglyphic than the cartoony style that Earth artists used. Smiling, Tethis labeled it as Coyote.

  “So,” she said. “Coyote is born. Or, more accurately, a human being who becomes Coyote through a feedback cycle is born. He acts like the legend, or legends are told about him, which feeds into his God Node...” She drew more stick figures, then arrows from their heads to Coyote’s head. “And thus, his power grows which causes his legend to grow.” She drew lines out again to the human stick figures. “This power sustains him in the face of catastrophic bodily harm – every god on Purgatory can return to a site of their power after body death, after all.”

  Liam nodded. Amanda shook her head slightly. “But you said several of your gods died?”

  “Exactly. If their, uh, site of power is destroyed,” Tethis said. “They can’t reform there. We’re not sure, uh, what makes a god’s site of power. Temples are involved, priests, rituals. But, obviously, no god wants to reveal the secrets and a great deal of them aren’t curious about it. They’re trapped by their own narratives. The G-Node rewrites their memories and personalities to match the legends told about them.” Tethis licked her lips. “But what happens if...” She leaned forward, almost falling off the chair – which had the byproduct of thrusting her butt into Liam’s face thanks to his position at the end of the meeting room table.

  Tethis wiped out the stick figure worshipers of Coyote, then the arrows.

  Fizit nodded. “He’s still alive, but there goes his power base. And that’s also a recursive cycle. As people die, he loses power. As he loses power, they lose faith.”

  “But wait,” Amanda said, slowly. “Population growth on the Earth means that there are still millions of Natives.” She looked at Fizit. “You’ve been reading up on them, how does that compare to when Coyote was throwing lightning bolts?”

  Fizit’s tail twitched. “Estimates vary. But if we split the difference, there are the same number of Native Americans now as there were before Columbus.”

  “So why isn’t he still a goddamn superhero?” Amanda asked, frowning as she looked at Tethis.

  Tethis frowned, considering. She tapped the pen against her chin, not seeming to realize she had just added a few fresh black splotches to her green skin. “It’s gotta be an issue of bandwidth.”

  “Bandwidth?” Amanda asked, her brow furrowing. “What, there are too many Christian callers for the Coyote worship to get through?”

  Tethis shrugged. “We don’t even know what the transmission medium freaking is. It can’t be electromagnetic, or else you’d have noticed it by now!”

  “Fair,” Amanda said, shaking her head.

  “So, Sun Wukong has, comparatively, more worshipers. I mean, a fraction of billion people in China, even a nominally atheist China, is still a lot of people.” Tethis nodded. “Hence why, apparently, Sun can fly around on a cloud and twat people with a metal staff while Coyote’s primary ability seems to be throwing bricks through car windows.”

  “Also,” Fizit leaned in. “There’s another thing to remember: Coyote, as far as I can tell, was more of a living object lesson. Not really someone you beseech, like Ares.”

  “There is that!” Fizit said, pressing her palm against the cap of the pen. Only now did she realize she hadn’t capped it and cried out. “Auh!”

  Amanda rubbed her hands along her face.

  “So, I get to go to the United Nations, most of whom have gotten into the habit of laughing at the President of the United States, and tell them that not only are there aliens and gods on another goddamn planet, but there are also gods walking around their backyards without them even knowing about it? What’s next, King Arthur kicking in the door to Buckingham Palace? A walking, talking Krampus, ready to start kidnapping kids to extort their parents for worship?” She shook her head. “Ares might be the least of our goddamn problems in a few months.”

  “I doubt that,” Liam said, frowning. “How many attacks did we leave behind?”

  “Four,” Amanda said, shaking her head. “Three were just bank robberies and one was an attempted prison break. No one else has tried to take over a town.”

  Yet hung unspoken in the air.

  The doo
r to the meeting room opened. Liam had to admit that Simone looked damn good dressed as a Secret Servicewoman. The suit was well tailored and she exuded a sense of deadly efficiency, even without the kidney holstered semi-automatic pistol being visible. Her sunglasses were off, but her earpiece was in. “Madam President, Ambassador Vanderbilt,” she said. “Our escort just radioed in. They think they detected something.”

  “Something?” Amanda asked, her face settling as she stood. “Do they have any more detail than something?”

  “It’s an intermittent bogey, ma’am,” Simone said. “I think we should all get to the seats and strap in.”

  Liam stood, feeling adrenaline buzz through his body. Not for the first time, he was happy that Mom and the kids were being left at the White House. According to the last text he had gotten before they had dropped out of contact, Brax was in love with one of the beds, and Marion had finally stopped fussing. Liam followed Simone as they headed for the seats. They had just arrived at several rows of seating when the PA crackled and the pilot spoke.

  “All passengers, be aware, we have two definite bogies. No, three.” There was a pause. “Ten, actually.”

  Liam frowned, then looked out the window. His heart started to race as Simone strapped herself in – after making sure everyone else was in. Tethis was starting to pull out one of her crystals. She whispered quietly, performing the delicate passes with her hands that were required for the casting of magic. Liam looked over at Meg, who was looking like she wanted to tear open the nearest door and go out swinging. He took her hand and squeezed.

  A moment later, the pilot said: “Uh, all bogies are gone. We’re trying to reaqui- hold up.” With the preternatural calm that pretty much all pilots seemed to attain at all times during their careers, the pilot continued. “A rather large storm has appeared directly ahead of us. Looks like serious chop – with thunder. Lightning. Rain.” His voice was tight. “We may have some turbulence everyone.”

  Liam craned his head.

  Outside of the window, he could see that the entire eastern horizon had become consumed by a roiling wall of blackness. Jagged lightning crackled through the storm clouds, while sleeting rain – and what looked like hail – pummeled the Atlantic ocean below. His eyes widened.

  “Magic,” he whispered.

  “No shit, partner,” Amanda said, laughing. But it was a nervous, strained laugh. “I’ve only seen your friend Tethis’ showing off and even I can tell that.”

  Liam felt his stomach drop out inside of him. On Purgatory, he had gotten used to being in control, in at least some way, some shape. He had been strapped to tables with mad cut lists ready to bear down on him with knives and torture implements. But his muscles and his wits could be leveraged against that. He had seen armies on the march, but he had had armies to call upon and his friends at his back. But in the small, relatively placid environment of Purgatory, he had forgotten just how unforgiving nature – even nature given a mystical steroid injection – could be. He was strapped down in a thin tube of aluminum and plastic, his fate entirely in the hands of some air force pilot whose name he didn’t even know.

  Or, more accurately, in the hands of engineers and designers who had been tasked with building Air Force One.

  To his left, a sudden bolt of lightning smashed home. The barely visible spec that was Air Force One’s port escort, an F-16 fighter, exploded into a flare of brilliant orange that was, a moment later, consumed by the clouds.

  “You’re a fucking dick, Ares,” Meg snarled, her hands squeezing the arm-rests so tight that the plastic and metal groaned. But now, the wings were catching the turbulance. The whole plane rocked up and down, shuddering. It slewed left, then juddered back right, the wings twisting and groaning. The superstructure screamed and Liam closed his eyes as flashes of strobing lightning flared through the walls. Next to him, he was barely aware of Tethis’ incantations growing louder and louder and louder.

  Right now, all he could do was pray.

  And it was definitely not to Ares.

  ***

  Well. Major Thomas O'Neill thought. And here, I thought I had seen everything.

  His hands held the controls while his copilot, Captain Williams flicked on the radio and spoke the expected words into it. But Air Force One wasn’t just getting hammered with a storm that had gone from placid blue day to Cat-1 hurricane in record time. It was also getting jammed. O'Neill didn’t know for sure what was causing it, but it the effects were clear. All the navigational software and communication gear gave back was a snow-field of static. Even the altimeter and other plane-based sensors were going crazy. According to his HUD, Air Force One was flying sideways, backwards, and without half her engines.

  “Guess we’re flying it by the seat of our pants, Williams,” O'Neill said.

  “Ground control to Major Tom...” Williams muttered as she grabbed onto her yoke.

  “Don’t start, Amy,” O’Neill said, flatly.

  That was when the lightning bolt slammed into the cockpit wind shield. O’Neill barely had time to cry out in shock before the bolt hit him, defying every law of physics he had ever known in his life. But that was not the end of the impossibility. Rather than burning through glass and his own damnfool head, the lightning bolt wormed along the skin of the plane, arcing and coiling and twisting. Electrical pops and crackles filled his ears and he blinked away splotches.

  “Everything working?” he asked.

  “Are we dead? No?” Williams said. “I think we’re good.”

  O’Neill gulped. “I guess God decided we de-”

  Air Force One was struck four more times, one after the other after the other after the other. The distant screams from the passenger sounded more alarmed than in pain. O’Neill wanted to join them – his plane had just been hit five times by lightning and take roughly as much damage as it took from flying through a light drizzle. If his instrument panels didn’t tell him anything useful, his hands sure did. And he could still control the plane – after a fashion. There was a lot of stress on the wings and the fuselage, but the lightning wasn’t blowing out electrical conduits or frying metal components.

  “We might just get through this damn thing!” Williams said, laughing – nearly hysteric.

  O’Neill pursed his lips.

  Ahead of them, a bubble had appeared in the air. It was a swirling sheath of lightning, shrouding three figures. All of them were winged. Their feathers were midnight black, almost invisible against the raging chaos of the storm, but they beat in unison as they soared towards the plane. Somehow, they came up slowly, as if they were going nearly the same speed as the plane, or as if Air Force One had suddenly come to a near perfect stop, buffeted into place by the screaming, tearing winds.

  “You just had to open your mouth, Williams,” O’Neill snarled, his knuckles going white on the controls.

  The leader of the winged people was a woman. Her clothes looked as if they had come right from a sword and sandals movie – a toga wrapped around her breasts, glued to them by the fierce wind and the soaking rain. Her hair was a silver cascade that billowed around her, a nimbus that would have reached her chest if it had lain flat. Her wings were a strange contrast to the white wings of the other two; her’s were a brown and black mixture like a falcon’s. She wore a belt, but whatever had been attached to her hip was in her hands now. She beat her wings as her two fellows – also women – chanted. Their lips moved, but their words were lost in the gale of the storm. They pointed at the front of Air Force One and the clouds exploded away from the cockpit window.

  “Holy Christ,” O’Neill whispered.

  They had just opened a tunnel of pure, clear air between them and the plane.

  The woman with the object in her hand twisted it, then flung it forward. It slapped into the window.

  It was a chunk of C4 with a timed detonator fuse on it.

  Major O’Neill’s last words were as prosaic as any in his life.

  “Ah fuck.”

  ***


  Roar.

  Crsssh.

  Roar.

  Crsssh.

  Liam’s eyes slowly opened. His head pounded. His back ached. He felt like at least one of his knees had been wrenched violently out of alignment. But he was alive. And a bright, noon-day sun was beaming into his eyes. For a moment, he could imagine that he was on Purgatory, in the middle of some adventure. He rolled slowly onto his back. And instead of seeing the vast expanse of a jungle or distant city, he instead saw endless blue sky and the brilliant heat of a real star.

  His eyes closed and he let out a ragged sigh as his leg screamed at him – furious he had dared to jar the knee he was now fairly sure had been dislocated.

  He tried to piece together what had happened.

  He could remember Tethis’ increasingly loud chanting. He could remember Liv standing up, her hands spread as she shouted: “Not this time, you fucker!” at least five times, coinciding with every single bolt of lightning that had struck Air Force One.

  He could remember her smoldering and smoking by the time the plane started to-

  Peel apart.

  Liam forced himself to sit up. He failed. So, instead, he craned his head around, to try and get an idea of where he was. He was on the beach of an island. A chunk of Air Force One had landed next to him, buried in the sand. It was barely recognizable as a plane anymore. It looked like a curved mass of metal, blackened along one edge, with a snarl of cables thrusting from part of its internal components. He could hear the roar of the surf, but little else. Liam tried to get his palms underneath him, shoving himself into a more upright position. The pain that shocked through his knee was enough to draw a ragged ‘Fucking ow!’ out of him.

  “Liam!”

  That was exactly the voice he wanted to hear. His lips skinned back into a huge grin as Tethis came running over the ridge of sand that separated where he had landed from the rest of the island. She had rolled her shirt sleeves up and torn a rather significant chunk of it off her belly, so it was now more of a midriff exposing halter-top than an official looking under-shirt for a representative to the United Nations. Her breasts bounced fetchingly as she skidded down the ridge, her feet almost slipping from under her in her excitement to get to Liam. She rammed into his shoulder, wrapping her arms around him as her breasts mashed against his head. Liam laughed, leaning into the cushy gobliness.