The Gods Who Chose Us

by Michael J Roy

  I’ve never seen her this…threatening. Loki felt himself immediately begin to sag as he tried to avoid eye contact.

  “I don’t need to ask why you’re here—I already know you’re obsessed with these places—but how could you abandon Vili and let him face Atlas alone?” Sigyn asked, her voice steady, but seemingly fighting to stay calm.

  “If he was alone then that means you didn’t help him either—I could ask you the same,” Loki petulantly replied, immediately regretting his words. He face suddenly felt warm. Don’t act childish.

  “I was following his orders and began the delicate negotiations with COPUOS—again, without your help. I’m a fool for believing you’d care about anyone—including me—over any of your own interests; even exploring destroyed and useless ruins.”

  “What I don’t care about is fighting a hopeless and largely pointless war for the Aesir,” Loki said, regaining his composure and looking Sigyn in the eye. “I’m not willing to lay my life down just so our ancestors can get revenge for something that occurred 1,000 years ago.”

  “But you were willing to kill two innocent men to cover your tracks in Bandurria?”

  Loki momentarily broke eye contact. “Human lives are of little value to me.”

  “As is our friendship, and your relationship to our people.”

  “Sigyn, why do you continue to fight for a cause you don’t believe in? Come with me—I could use your knowledge to help me unravel what I’ve discovered here, and in Bandurria.”

  “I fight for those that see me as more than a brain to exploit for their own benefit. Why the fuck did you even agree to come? What was so important about these facilities on Earth that you’d risk my life, and the life of countless other Aesir, to come on this mission?”

  “I’m just…looking for lost history.”

  Sigyn moved toward him and grabbed Loki by the collar, pulling him down to her level. “That’s complete shit. I know when you’re lying. Why are you here?”

  Fuck it. “To find the Book of Thoth—I know it’s on Earth—and to see what else the Olympians didn’t realize was under their noses this entire time.”

  Sigyn took a step back. Her eyes teared up as a pitiful laugh left her mouth. “You’ve betrayed us for a fairy tale?”

  “It’s not a fairy tale! I know it’s real—it’s likely in Egypt. I have evidence! And Sigyn, what I’ve found in Bandurria—you wouldn’t be so skeptical. If—”

  “Enough! Enough with your lies, Loki. If you really believe the Book of Thoth is in Egypt then come with me back to Vili. We are being called to a fight in Djoser.”

  Loki’s clenched his jaw and looked down at his feet, but didn’t respond.

  “Ha—of course. Even though we’re going to the exact same place where you believe the Book of Thoth is you still won’t help.”

  “I’m not going to risk my life for a lost cause,” Loki said quietly, unable to look up from the ground.

  “Then this conversation is over.” Sigyn turned to leave, but Loki lunged out to grab her after a moment of hesitation.

  “Sigyn, wait! I know it sounds crazy, but think of the potential that can be realized with the book! We are burdened in uncountable ways by our corporeal form. And not just practically—knowledge itself lurks behind an opaque wall built by our limited senses. Even something as basic as eyesight misleads us; it forces an interpretation of the universe onto us and conceals fantastic events through invisibility. True existence will refuse to reveal itself to us as long as we remain imprisoned in these wet bags of flesh.”

  Sigyn shook her head. “I’m well aware of the limited range of electromagnetic radiation our brains can process. That doesn’t stop us from using other tools to explore spectrums outside those bounds. The universe has objective laws that are discoverable by sentient beings, regardless of their ‘limitations,’ as does a sustainable society.”

  “Society is a specious concept. The mercurial beings engaging it are in a constant struggle. Fundamentally, they yearn to understand their purpose, believing the solution lies at the ambit of ‘morality.’ These fools, in their desperation, will have ephemeral moments where their ethics crystallize and they find the purpose they seek, only to fade into vapor when pushed with any force. ‘Society’ can only exist on the fictitious ground of morals.

  “Face it: the universe—our own existence—is indifferent to us. We have no meaning and, therefore, no ethical code to live up to. Even if we did, it’d be meaningless without the free will to act on it, which we don’t have due to our current state. Our body carries with it the weight of an immutable nature.” Loki held out his arms. He was aiming to induce enough doubt in Sigyn for her to stay, using every angle he could. “In your form, you’ll never truly grasp or understand the endless phenomena the universe produces. Your free will is entombed under the tyrannical conditions of your chemistry and physiology, preventing authentic meaning from finding its grip.”

  Sigyn was silent; she gazed directly into Loki’s eyes. “Science can only be my passion as long as I live in a functioning society. Passion can only exist with imperfect chemistry. You think emotions are a weakness? Without them, the universe is nothing but sterile bits of information flowing over an indifferent entity. The very constraints you want to free yourself from are the foundation of your desire to do so.

  “The tentative bonds that held Olympia and Asgard together have nearly disintegrated. You need to pick a side—even if you find the Book of Thoth you’ll need help from a group willing to finance and develop the equipment necessary to ‘break free of your bodily chains and live as information.’

  “I’m siding with Asgard—the individuals who will always view me as their kin. You’re right that morality can sway with the shifting intellectual winds, but the healthy implementation of any ethical system relies on a shared sense of value among beings in civilization. Not just for one another, but for life’s most basic guiding principles. We’re here to fight to regain that for the Aesir and Olympians. We can live as neighbors, but not as a family.

  “I’m going back to help Vili. I wish you were too.”

  “You’ve gone from sounding like an Olympian to sounding like a human.” If this doesn’t work then I don’t know what will.

  Sigyn slowly shook her head and expressed her next thoughts with a hint of pity. “Not all allegiances are bad; in fact, some are necessary. If you think dedication to one’s entire species against an existential threat is equivalent to an intense intra-species tribalism that inevitably eats away at the moral capital of a race, the very basis for a functioning world, then you really are lost.

  “Goodbye, Loki.”

  Loki was speechless. She’s made up her mind.

  He watched as she slowly turned and descended down the ramp toward her ship. The feeling of guilt was uncommon and uncomfortable for him, so he offered her the first conciliation that came to mind.

  “At least take Retiarius with you. I did find a poison that rapidly kills Primordials and applied it to my remaining nets.”

  Sigyn, now on the hanger floor, didn’t break her stride. “And how do you know it does that, Loki?”

  “I…” Loki stood defeated at the top of the ramp, unsure if he should continue his pursuit. “…this will help you! Just trust me, Sig!”

  She continued crossing the hanger toward her ship and replied without looking at him. “I already made that mistake once.”

  Loki wanted to say something, but wasn’t sure what. Sigyn was the only person with whom he’d ever had a meaningful bond, but the consequences from severing the connection only hit him now. Whatever her rationale, she had shown him true friendship in the past, but also made Valhalla and Asgard feel like home. Without her would I even be here now, or would I have left Valhalla altogether? Searching through increasingly dangerous sites of ancient battles and research on my own, potentially meeting my own death in the process?

  Loki implicitly understood that his relationship with Sigyn had forced his true cen
ter of mass to lay within the Aesir, but without her influence on his orbit he would be flung out into space; a wanderer with neither family nor emotional anchor, no one to water-down his risky impulses. But his risky impulses had served him well so far. Maybe she’s been no more than an obstacle in my path. Another unimaginative, textbook scholar that thinks progress amounts to incremental movements along a pre-defined path.

  His guilt was churning into a combination of resentment and slight betrayal. “Trusting Vili is the biggest mistake you’ll ever make!”

  Sigyn showed no indication she heard—or cared—what he had to say. He yelled to her again. “If you think he’s so trustworthy then ask him about the Svalinn shields! How do you think we collected so much data on the Olympians?”

  She paused for a moment, but quickly resumed her stride toward her vehicle. She fired up her engines and left the facility without saying another word to—or sparing a glance at—Loki.

  * * *

  Sigyn arrived back in Zurich; she found both Vili and Lugh were resting, so she did the same. Sleep came easier than she was expecting, given the events that transpired. More surprising still was that she rested a deep and dreamless sleep.

  In the morning, Sigyn and the two men convened over breakfast to discuss their next move.

  “I take it you couldn’t find Loki,” a much healthier looking Vili said.

  Sigyn stared at him dishearteningly. “Unfortunately, I did.”

  Vili looked off in the distance and shook his head. “It was a mistake to bring him on this mission, but we all expected this on some level. He’s pathologically dishonest.”

  “I’m not sure he’s the only Aesirian that has been dishonest,” Sigyn replied in the same dispirited tone.

  Vili gave her a curious look. “Go on.”

  “How were you using the Svalinn shield to collect information on Olympians?”

  Vili’s eyes squinted and voice dropped. He didn’t seem mad at Sigyn for asking, but he was damn serious in his answer. “The same methods used to scramble and measure electromagnetic waves were used to send encrypted signals out into space.”

  “Has this always been the case?”

  “Yes. From day one, we were working to gain an advantage against the godlike Olympians. The Svalinn shield was crucial in bringing us closer to equals—we smuggled out vital information in the only equipment the Olympians adopted from our society.”

  Sigyn had already expected this was the case. “So we were planning this conflict long before you contacted me…”

  “Both the Aesir and Olympians knew—if they were being honest with themselves—that the moment we joined their society it was destined to end in conflict.”

  “If that’s what both sides believed then I’m sure it’s true.”

  “Would you have declined this mission had you known we were monitoring the Olympians via the Svalinn shields? You knew we had some spies on the inside to gain intel—how is this any different?”

  Sigyn thought for a moment and then spoke. “The outcome would have been the same, but I would have felt less used.”

  “What’s done is done. Talking about it won’t change the past and we are now at war. You need to stay focused on our mission or you can go join Loki.”

  “Understood, commander.”

  The room remained silent. Vili stared out of the window while Sigyn focused blankly at her plate.

  “Now that all that’s settled, can we discuss our next move? Who is going to Djoser and what are Wen Shi and I supposed to do?” Lugh asked.

  “I’ll be going to Djoser in a few hours,” Vili replied without looking back at the table.

  “And I’m going with you,” Sigyn said.

  Vili immediately turned around. “Are you sure?”

  “Every civilization has a past riddled with mistakes. I can only belong to a society that accepts me as their kin, and that’s not something I get to choose. For better or worse, Asgard is my home. I need to be loyal to our people above all else, and you need help.

  “Plus, I’d rather die with you than be stuck here with COPUOS for another day,” Sigyn said with a smile. All three chuckled.

  “What can I say? Humans have a way of unnecessarily complicating matters and fighting against our own self-interests,” Lugh responded. “But in all seriousness, what should Wen Shi and I be doing?”

  “Do your best to answer COPUOS’ questions and make them realize they need an alliance with us,” Sigyn said.

  Lugh acknowledge her comment and changed the topic somewhat. “From what I’ve heard from Emilia, Wen Shi has been making quite the impression on the leaders in D.C. I have no idea how she managed to convince the worlds’ most powerful leaders she should be included in these discussions.”

  Sigyn flashed Lugh a mirthless smile. “Her powers of persuasion and leadership will be something many humans come to rely on in the coming months.”

  Vili broke into the conversation. “Lugh, you need a contingency plan in case Sigyn and I don’t make it. In the event of our deaths, keep a close eye on the single Olympian left on Earth. Do not attempt to plot against them and, if they request an audience, then grant it. Comply with their demands—there is nothing you can do to stop them from enforcing their will on humans.

  “Your only hope will be Skadi or Njord—the Aesir in charge of the fleet in this system—coming down and finishing the fight we started.”

  “Will I need to contact them?”

  “No. They’ll find you if necessary.”

  “Understood.”

  Vili looked at Sigyn, his eyes heavy but tinged with the barest glimmer of hope. “We leave here in three hours. Sigyn, we have much to discuss.”

  Act III, Chapter 8

  Last Journey

  Location: Earth’s Solar System

  Zetes and Dionysus left the floating graveyard that used to be Njord’s crew and headed toward Earth.

  “We’ll need to approach Earth on the side opposite its moon. Once we get within 250,000 kilometers I’ll exit the hanger, and at that point you need to follow the instructions in the front of the book.

  “We’ll be detected by the Aesir as we approach, but at top speed they still won’t be able to intercept our ship before the drop-off,” Dionysus said.

  “…And you can’t just simply tell me what to do next?” Zetes asked.

  “I can’t cover all of the scenarios you may find yourself in, but the notebook can.”

  * * *

  Skadi reflected resolve to Haki, her lead pilot, and the other crew in the communications room of her Storskip, but whirlpools of uncertainty brewed beneath her veneer. She was surveying the Kuiper Belt after having just received word from Njord that an enemy ship had entered the system.

  Her first command was to send millions of tiny rocky spheres into orbit around Earth. They would act as a shell by preventing any ships from landing, should the Olympian vessels get through Skadi’s forces. The method was simple but effective: at a sufficiently high speed the spheres would obliterate any craft in their path, but at the same time their composition and trajectory would lead to them burning up in Earth’s atmosphere a few days from now.

  That was her plan B, though. The invaders still needed to get through Skadi, which is what led to her current predicament. She wanted to stay hidden on the moon to protect her location from the invaders in the event they bypassed Njord, but she risked being slow to respond if by chance—or strategy—they chose to approach Earth from the other side.

  Moreover, Skadi needed to determine if Njord required reinforcements. There was no doubt that it would be better to stop the invading force on the outskirts of the system, but it would also leave her weakened if the invaders pushed past the blockade.

  She spoke without taking her eyes of the map. “Haki, I want you and Gna to take your automated fighters and aid Njord in the Kuiper Belt. I’ll send a probe ahead to let him know you’re coming. Radio him when you get near the interception point—don’t engage without order
s from Njord.”

  “Understood,” Haki replied.

  * * *

  Gna and Haki ripped through black space in their Nemesis vessels. They kept their automated fighters in a diamond formation a few kilometers ahead of them. Gna felt a knot in her stomach at the impending conflict; she needed a small distraction to calm her nerves.

  “How close should we be flying to the fighters carrying anti-matter?” Gna radioed.

  There was a pause. “Not as close as we are, but increasing the distance will make us less nimble,” Haki replied. “I’m hesitant to sacrifice agility when we have a non-trivial chance of encountering a ship dropping out of a jump.”

  “But even if that happens we’ll still need to push those fighters out, right? In either scenario we’d need to sacrifice agility one way or another.” Gna wasn’t looking to argue with Haki, she just wanted the distraction.

  Haki paused again before answering. “True. Any advantage we’d gain from exposing ourselves to risk in this formation would be nearly erased should we actually encounter a ship dropping out of a jump…maybe it’s not a risk worth taking. Let’s double the distance to our automated fighters.”

  Two of the Nemesis fighters ahead started to shrink as they accelerated through nothingness. Before they were completely repositioned, an alarm went off in Hofvarpnir, alerting Gna to the destruction of one of the automated craft ahead of her. She strained her eyesight in the direction of the vessel carrying her anti-matter missiles in time to see the three-pronged starship suddenly erupt into uncountable pieces.

  “Reverse course!” Haki yelled as the shrapnel from the vessel destroyed two other automated fighters.

  Hofvarpnir notified Gna of another automated ship was destroyed. She and Haki had both already frantically turned their ships around. They sped back toward Thrymheim following the same route they just flew, alerts coming in sporadically to indicate the destruction of more automated craft.

  Gna was dripping sweat in her climate-controlled ship. Every muscle in her body tightened as she held her breath and accelerated to full speed back toward Skadi’s Storskip. Are we in a mine field in space?