“. . . United States is among the many nations from which Ares is calling in favors. As armed forces mobilize to assist the Olympians, the question remains as to how effective they can possibly be. The Titanic struggle moves quickly, says the Pentagon, leaving military forces insufficient time to maneuver into striking position before their targets move on. When asked what this means for the defense of American cities, officials would only state that they are working with the Olympians and will not discuss further details with the media at this time. Yet with the destruction of Athens, Maui, and large swaths of land across the European mainland and Canada . . .”
“Athens and Maui are gone?” Leif burst.
“Yeah.” Tracy fixed him with a grim look. “They came out of this big blue vortex thing near Athens—no one’s sure why—and the fighting started there before it spread. One of the Titans tried to shove an Olympian down one of the Maui volcanoes; they’re not sure who, but I think it was Dionysus, judging from the footage. I think he escaped, but it set the volcano off and they had to evacuate the island. They’re throwing mountains around in Canada; someone had a wrestling match in Eastern Europe. It’s out of control!”
“Zeus still hasn’t done anything to help stop it either,” he said. “He says he’s got a plan, but if he doesn’t get his ass in the fight soon and help them stop this . . .”
Leif trailed off as the news report showed a map of the globe. Areas in red marked locations where numerous divine struggles had taken place. Most were in less-populated areas, but the sheer number of them horrified Tracy. Professionally critiquing the media coverage of it all was almost her only coping mechanism at the moment.
“Reality sucks!” Leif cursed. “Mythology was a lot better when it was fake.”
“Even with the crap and danger I’ve had to deal with since finding out Zeus was my dad, the whole gods-being-real thing still fascinates me. But this is too much.”
“No kidding. This stuff needs to go back to being fantasy so I can enjoy it again.” Leif straightened a bit. “Yeah, sure, we’ll be there in a sec.” He rolled his eyes, adding, “Sir.”
“Excuse me?”
“Zeus wants us to come down to the collider. It’s a telepathy thing,” he explained in response to Tracy’s incredulous stare. “Sounded like a good idea at the time.”
Tracy switched off the TV at the sight of an unidentified Titan appropriating Jefferson’s head from Mt. Rushmore and throwing it. Only then did she spot the cranberry orange nut muffin Leif had apparently brought for her. With an appraising look to make sure his back was turned on his way to the door, she snatched it up and followed.
The two soon entered an elevator that took them hundreds of feet beneath the surface to the reactor level. From there, a small electric car carried them the rest of the way along the subtle curve of the collider, to what Leif described as a secretly built auxiliary chamber adjacent to one of the collider’s detector caverns. Leif still had no idea just what the device that Zeus ordered to be built in the auxiliary chamber did, but he explained that in the detector caverns, proton streams would cross at velocities close to the speed of light and could be made to collide using magnets.
“Magnets are important,” he explained as they entered the chamber. “I remember being told that much.”
“Apollo!” Tracy shouted.
The diminished sun god stood atop the stairs leading up to what seemed to be some sort of reaction chamber, his hands clasped behind him as he examined it. He turned and waved.
“How’d you get out?” Leif asked. “Why aren’t you out fighting? Still diminished?”
Apollo’s smile faltered. “Yes, still. Please stop bringing that up.”
“I shall fix that posthaste,” spoke Zeus. He descended a different staircase, this one leading down from what looked to be the control room, judging by the wide windows and numerous, smartly pensive lab-coated individuals milling about. “The others left him more or less unguarded in the chaos. His rescue was hardly a challenge.”
“Good to know you’re doing something,” Leif muttered. Zeus appeared not to catch it. “Is Thalia with you?”
“On Olympus with her sisters, but safe for the moment,” Apollo told them.
“Despite Calliope’s skill with slow-motion kickboxing,” Zeus explained, “the Muses are little help in a fight of this nature.”
“We’ve noticed,” Tracy said.
“Thalia did help keep the Erinyes out of the temple for you, you know,” Leif said.
Tracy’s eyebrows raised. “Fighting?”
“No, but she made for a helpful distraction. She did good.”
“Remind me to thank her.”
“Be sure to thank Thalia.” Leif turned to Zeus. “So we’re all here to see this master plan of yours that’s kept you from helping out with the Titans, right?”
“Most assuredly,” Zeus announced. “You are all to be witness to evidence of my glory and foresight; Apollo’s own skill at prophecy notwithstanding, of course.”
Apollo nodded in polite acknowledgment.
“Here, in this specially built room, through the miracle of science held aloft by my own power and knowledge as rightful king of the Olympians, I shall return stability to the world and to the pantheon upon Olympus. I shall create the means to justly punish those responsible for my untimely, heinous, and astoundingly uncouth demise!” Zeus, beaming more proudly than Tracy had ever seen (which is to say, since meeting him late the previous afternoon), called up to the control room. “Dr. Kowalski! Begin proton acceleration!”
This sparked a rustle of activity in the control room as scientists dashed about in their obedience and white coats.
“That,” Zeus declared, “is the first step! Hydrogen protons are now being ripped from their electrons and accelerated via oscillating magnetic fields”—(“See? Magnets,” Leif whispered.)—“faster and faster through successive circular tracks until they carry masses and energies not seen since the dawn of time!” Zeus paused. “Or so they tell me. It’s not precisely important beyond the fact that, eventually, they’ll be rapid enough and massive enough to unleash the energies we need.” He pointed through the wall to the detector cavern. “Protons will collide—right there!—over and over. That energy will be drawn into this chamber here, whereupon it shall be manipulated through processes far too complicated to explain. Suffice it to say it incorporates a combination of my own divine power, rocks of ancient power culled from the rings of the planet Saturn”—(“Named after your grandpa’s Roman name, which has something to do with . . . something,” Leif whispered to Tracy again.)—“and one last thing, which I picked up myself just this morning.”
Zeus showed them a small silver platter, upon which sat six large pieces of what looked to Tracy like—
“Fudge?” Leif asked.
“Really good fudge,” Zeus corrected.
“I mentioned that to you once,” Apollo told Leif with a chuckle. “You doubted it then too, as I recall.”
“Chocolate,” Zeus continued, “is the key to numerous divine machinations, and this particular process needs top-quality stuff. Why do you think I made them build this place in Switzerland?”
Tracy held back about half a dozen questions on that topic. Zeus was building to a fervor:
“Make no mistake!” (Leif snorted for some reason.) “Were I still in my rightful place as king of the gods, I could do this—I have done this—without the collider at all. Yet in this time of strife, this time of betrayal, this time when I can trust few but those assembled here, I must take drastic action! Desperate times call for desperate measures! When the going gets tough, the tough get going! And . . . so forth.”
Tracy cleared her throat. “But what does it do?”
Zeus laughed. “Ah, my dear daughter, so sharp, so inquisitive. Never lose that; I command it. What does it do? It makes gods.”
“From scratch?” Tracy asked.
“No, not from scratch!” Zeus laughed. He indicated the three
of them in turn. “But from a diminished god, and from the daughter of a god, and from the high priest—more or less—of a god! And from . . . other things.”
Tracy’s eyes went wide. “Hold on. I never agreed to this!”
“And that has what to do with the price of ambrosia?” Zeus asked. “I am your father, your king. I—”
“Command it, yes,” Tracy finished for him. “At least give me a few moments to think about it, right?”
Zeus gave her the same look her mother did whenever Tracy tried explaining her objection to getting breast implants. “Think about what?”
“Geez, Dad, don’t you know anything about me? All my life I’ve tried to work for everything because I want to be able to look back on my achievements and know that I earned them: my college degrees, creating and producing Monster Slayer, even bringing you back! If something falls in my lap because I’m pretty or privileged or I seduced my way into it, what good is it? Now you want to hand me freaking godhood because of what, nepotism?”
“Um, Titans destroying the world here . . .” Leif muttered.
Zeus silenced him. “On the contrary, Tracy. Most of my relatives either stand against me or have actively tried to kill me. Just yesterday Aphrodite literally stabbed me in the back. I am handing you ‘freaking godhood’ for the sole reason that you’ve proved your loyalty.”
“And because I’m your daughter. What about the scientists who’ve helped you with all this? Do they get godhood?”
Apollo frowned. “Your stubbornness is becoming quite the character flaw, dear half-sister.”
“The scientists fear that becoming gods will shed doubt on the accuracy of their experiments here,” Zeus answered. “Something about invalidated calculations, scientific method, and the difficulty of publishing papers with proper peer review. In any case I do not wish to risk them in combat with the Titans, in case I have need of their skills a second time.”
“That’s another thing!” Tracy declared. “You’re bringing me into a war, here! Don’t I get to be nervous about that after all I’ve been through already? All right, so that’s a bit cowardly, I know something needs to be done, it’s just . . .”
“You want to get this on the merits of your talent,” Zeus finished with a smile. “I could point out that your skills and talents were also inherited by virtue of your simply being an Olympian’s daughter. Even were you to ‘earn’ this, you would owe it to your genes.”
The assertion slapped her in the face almost palpably as she realized she’d never thought of it that way before. “I just want to be normal,” she groaned.
Leif’s groan echoed hers, with an extra tinge of annoyance. “Oh, yeah, poor you, Tracy, you’re cursed with awesome. Must be rough. Just suck it up and deal with it, all right? You’re like someone who wins the lottery and then whines about all the taxes they’ll have to pay.” His scowl vanished the moment Tracy turned to see it. “Still love yooouu!” he cooed.
She squared her jaw, envious of all Leif had accomplished recently without the help of any supernatural genes. Why couldn’t she be like that? Why couldn’t she get something done that people couldn’t credit to her genes? Or at the very least, what was wrong with her that she couldn’t just shut up and accept it, as everyone was saying?
“Enough hesitation!” Zeus declared. “I command it! Your father needs you, your people need you, and that’s all there is to it. I must retake my throne. The carnage of the Titanomachy must be extirpated!”
Tracy sighed to draw out the moment as long as possible. “All right, fine. If it’ll extirpate carnage.” It wasn’t a gift, she told herself; it was a favor to Zeus. “I can renounce it all right after we deal with the Titans, though, right?”
“Oh, I expect you’ll pretty much have to.” Zeus nodded. “But there will be a chance for you to reconsider.”
She took a deep breath and reconciled herself to the decision.
“Watch your necks,” Apollo warned. At least he said it with a grin.
“I said I was sorry about that. Let’s do this before I change my mind.”
“Yes, let’s!” Leif agreed. “And before Ares starts flinging nukes around too! Hey, speaking of that, who gets to be god of what?”
“Details to be worked out later,” Zeus commanded. “Apollo first.”
As it turned out, recharging Apollo wasn’t nearly as flashy as Tracy would have expected—at least not from her vantage point outside the windowless chamber. Zeus sealed him inside with a bit of fudge, called a few orders up to the control booth, then pressed his hands against the door in concentration. A powerful hum swelled and set everything vibrating ever so slightly, until those in the control booth announced the opening of safety locks and the countdown to proton stream collision. Tracy had only five seconds to decide she didn’t care why Leif found “Safety lock open!” so funny, before she jumped at a rapid series of bangs that sounded like an MRI machine firing. The vibrating subsided, and then it was over.
The chamber door opened to reveal Apollo, frankly looking just as he had before save for a beaming smile and a brighter twinkle in his eye.
“How do we tell if it worked?” she asked.
“Trust me,” Apollo said. “It worked.”
Well, there it was, then.
Leif paused halfway into the chamber. “It won’t kill me, right?”
“Oh, heavens, no!” Zeus answered. “Nothing like that, I’m sure.”
“Okay, but if I wind up flying through time putting right what once went wrong, I’m not going to be happy.” He nabbed the fudge and stepped farther into the chamber. “Hey, it won’t kill me, but is it going to hurt very mu—?”
Zeus sealed the chamber. The process began anew. Humming swelled, safety locks opened, countdowns began in dramatic fashion, and another series of MRI-ish bangs later, the procedure was finished.
Zeus opened the door once again. “How do you fee—? Oh. Well, then. Apollo, check to see if he’s dead, will you?”
Apollo rushed in beside Leif, who lay slumped against the side of the chamber with a slight nosebleed and his mouth open wide enough to swallow a Studebaker.
“He’s all right,” Apollo reported. “Just a bit stunned, I expect. There is new power within him, though.”
“Excellent. Bring him out. Give him a bit of time to adjust. Daughter?” Zeus motioned her inside.
Though her stomach knotted, she followed suit. Leif would not outdo her. The door closed.
Only then did she notice the sign on the inside of the door: “Warning: Do not eat the fudge.”
There was nothing to do but wait, smell the fudge in her hands, and try to breathe. Again the humming began, rising until she could feel the fabric of her clothes buzzing across her skin. A metallic iris opened behind her to reveal a long tube lined with strange-looking rocks that immediately began to spin rapidly. Her heart pounding, she clutched the fudge into a gooey mess, frozen in place until at once there was a blinding flash from all around her. Energy fired from the tube into her body with a rapid series of bangs, and the fudge burst into white, engulfing flames that carried her into eternity. In an instant that was perfectly ordered in its intricacy, reality presented itself for her inspection, gave itself over to her and—amid a flowering cascade of glorious beauty and unwinding mystery the likes of which few mortals ever encounter—willingly became her plaything to control.
And then it blew up.
Tracy woke after Leif did, finding herself on a couch in one of the facility’s aboveground offices. The heinous, purple sky casting its light through the windows swiftly brought her back to reality. She jumped up with a start, careened off the ceiling, and then somehow landed on her feet.
Well, she thought, that was unique.
“Aha, she wakes!” Zeus declared.
Apollo added his smile to Zeus’s. Leif, who’d rushed to catch her before she landed fine on her own, gave a little wave.
“How long have I—?” Thirty-eight minutes. The answer jumped to mind b
efore she could even get the question out. She was sure of it, just as sure as she was that her boots were black. Highly accurate internal clock? If she kept this godhood thing, she could get rid of her watch. Then again, she liked her watch.
“Been out?” Zeus finished for her. “Thirty-eight minutes. It took you a little longer to adjust than the others.”
“How do you feel?” Leif asked.
“Good. Powerful. Why is there an oak tree in the corner?” Tracy asked upon turning around for the first time. She felt power radiating from it with enhanced senses she’d only begun to realize.
Also, the tree moved.
“Is that . . . ?”
The tree waved a branch. “Hellos to you, Tracy Zeus’s Daughter! Did you be havings a good nap? This is being strange place, isn’t it? All the rocks are looking funny. And . . . squishy.” It picked up a couch cushion and squeezed demonstrably.
Tracy couldn’t help but grin. “You elevated the guardian-tree?”
“Call me not ‘guardian-tree’!” burst the guardian-tree. “Am guardian- tree no more! Am being god-tree, and now you call me by new true name I be having! I am . . .” Here the tree paused for some sort of dramatic arboreal breath-taking. “Jerry!”
“Jerry used to be dead,” Leif explained. “I don’t think you saw that part.”
“Skinny man is being right! Big, ugly womans with buzzing rock- stick cut Jerry in half! In half! But is O-kay! Cry not for Jerry! Zeus is making me better, which almost is making up for many, many, many years ignoring Jerry.”
“He wasn’t, strictly speaking, dead,” Zeus explained. “Not in the sense that mortal humans can be. There was no spirit to retrieve from the underworld. Jerry is best described as an elevated force of nature given divinity by the same process you experienced. Clearly it was the prudent thing to do until I can determine which, if any, other mortals are trustworthy. Jerry is one of three created in this way. I suppose you could call them brothers.”
“Only three?”
“I must save my strength, Tracy. Even with the help of the collider device, granting you such power drains me for a time, and there is battle to be done!”
Zeus is Dead Page 45
