by Alex Raizman
Dying is the worst.
She forced her brain onto a more useful topic. Why the bloody hell am I even coming back to life? In a normal conflict between gods, it was considered over when one side died, and no effort was made to destroy or corrupt the nanoverse. Enki was playing by his own rules, though, and
Ryan. Oh bloody hell, what happened to Ryan?
She forced herself to stumble over to a chair and sat down to think.
She was back in her nanoverse, which meant Ryan had survived Bast somehow. No other god would have been able to find her door and take her back here. Means there’s a chance he’s still alive, yeah? Which was good because that meant there was some hope of saving the damn world from being incinerated by a solar supernova. But he’s not here, so he could have died while you were dead. Which means everything is bloody ruined.
It would also be sad if Ryan was dead too, but that was an incidental concern compared to the entire world.
She contemplated that for a moment. If he was dead...maybe there was a chance another Eschaton could be found and made ready in time. Maybe. And maybe she could reprise her role of Eschaton - Crystal Ends the World Part Deux: Revenge of the Eschaton - but that also had no guarantee of working. It won’t happen, Crystal, you know that. Last nanoverse of the era. It has to be Ryan. She couldn’t think about that. It was too much. Ryan has to be alive. He bloody has to.
Reassuring herself that the universe wouldn’t shag her that badly without at least buying dinner and - oh damnit, do not think about shagging right now when all you’ve had is music to deal with that stupid Hunger - she poked her head out of her door to see where Ryan had left her.
Her head pulled back like she had stuck it on a hot stove, and she slammed the door. Athena. Oh you bloody bitch. Okay, Crystal, think - hard.
She hadn’t let on, but it had hurt when Athena sided with Enki against her. Things had gone badly between them at the end, to the tune of a hundred years of warfare and the death of an entire empire, but they had been close thousands of years ago. Which also meant Athena knew how Crystal thought. Maybe Ryan was dead, and Athena had saved her out of some old sentimentality. Maybe he was her prisoner, and Athena had just locked Crystal’s doorway in place, so she’d have to go through the Greek goddess to get out - until Crystal could walk out the front door, she couldn’t open a doorway anywhere in the core universe. Maybe she’s holding him in her actual nanoverse, where she’s all-powerful. It wouldn’t be the first bloody time someone pulled that trick.
Baseless speculation was leading to panic, and Crystal had to get it under control. If Ryan was alive, Athena would know where he was. Crystal could take the risk of trying to walk out of Athena’s nanoverse. No. Better to wait for Athena to come back and take her out then when she was alone. Get information on Ryan’s fate. If he was alive, rescue him. If he was dead…bloody hell, Ryan, you better not be dead.
Crystal grabbed everything she could to fill her Hungers. Bottles of water and granola bars and a few books. Those gathered, she went back through the door, into Athena’s nanoverse staging area, and took up a position behind one of the pillars Athena was so fond of. She pulled down the sword hanging over her head and settled in to wait, keeping her ears open as she tried to fill as many Hungers as she could before Athena returned.
Don’t fret, love. I’m going to save you, soon as I get Athena to tell me where you are.
◆◆◆
The dancing went on for hours, broken up by more drinking, and at the end both of them were flush from exertion and alcohol. They started stumbling back towards Athena’s door, doing that unique drunken lean where both parties tried their level best to pretend they were supporting the other one and not at all relying on support themselves.
Ryan realized something odd. His need for Company was full - the dancing had been a great way to take care of that - but he had felt full a good three hours ago, and still hadn’t wanted to stop. There’s an emotional...thingy. Like a...like an extra part. A gear. No. A component.
“Wha?” Athena asked, and Ryan had to wonder how much he had said out loud.
“I was just thinking. With...my brain.” He poked a finger to his temple to make sure Athena got the point. She giggled, and Ryan’s mouth fell open. Athena, actually giggling! This was surely a sign the world was coming to an end! Ryan’s face fixed itself into a half-witted grin.
“And what were you, were you thinking?” She smiled at him, and that smile obliterated any hope of rational thought.
“I was thinking...words. Yes. I forgot.” They both stared at each other a moment, then burst out laughing outside Athena’s door.
“Well, in that case...I don’t know where I was going with that.” Athena fumbled at the knob. The first couple tries, her hand slipped off. After that, she got it to turn, first one way, then the other. Then, and only then, did she remember she needed to push as well. One more try to both push and turn, and the door swung open. “Let’s...let’s go in. Oh hell, I’m drunk.”
Ryan stumbled before going in, which was unfortunate, because it meant Crystal knew that Athena wasn’t alone. She didn’t know it was him, however - just that Athena was inebriated and therefore vulnerable.
Athena shouted in surprise when she found herself pressed to the ground, someone on top of her, a sword - Ryan’s liquid silver sword - pressed to her throat. “Don’t say a damn word. Just tell me - where is Ryan?”
The Greek goddess took a moment to try and focus on her attacker. “How...how can I tell you if I’m not ‘posed to say anything?”
“Bloody hell, you’re pissed off your gourd. Are we in Empyrean Provocation?”
“Mmmhmmm. Ishtar? Is that you?”
Crystal sighed, lessening the pressure on Athena’s throat. Intimidation wouldn’t work, and Athena wasn’t a threat to anyone right now. “Athena, love. Is Ryan alive?”
Athena’s face contorted with the effort not to laugh. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, it’s not...you’re worried. Yes.” Athena’s laughter became real. “Ryan, come in and convince Ish...Crystal-tar I’m not the bad guy anymore?”
Ryan stumbled in, his eyes focusing on Crystal on Athena, his sword in Crystal’s hand and pressed to Athena’s throat. “Oh nooooo! Crystal, don’t hurt heeer!” He ran for them, but tripped over his own feet.
When he rolled over, Crystal was standing, her hands on her hips, her face somewhere between horror and trying not to die from choking to death on her own laughter. “Okay. I’ll be honest, I didn’t anticipate this being what I came back to, yeah? So...will someone tell me what the bloody hell is going on?”
Before they did, Athena and Ryan had to get over another round of laughter at her indignation.
◆◆◆
"Okay, I think I got it." Getting Athena and Ryan to drunkenly spill the story had taken long enough that they were starting to sober up, and Ryan noted that Crystal was rubbing her temples. Frustrated with us? Or side effect of coming back from the dead? "One thing I still don't get, yeah? How did Moloch know you were going to be in Granger?"
"Maybe you should-"
"Ryan, love, if you say I should roll with it one more time I'm going to beat you with your own bloody shoe." She grinned, to take the sting out of the retort. "But seriously, loves, you only went there because you happened to see it. No way he could have predicted that."
Ryan shrugged, but Athena furrowed her brow. Watching her try to concentrate while still intoxicated had not stopped being funny yet, and Ryan covered his mouth, so his laughter wouldn’t distract her. "I think...I don't think he was planning on us being there. I think we got lucky - he was turning the dead into Manticores. I think he wanted to throw those at us." She held her hand up, and Ryan grabbed her another mug of coffee.
Crystal nodded, her face a model of sobriety. "Okay, that makes sense. And you two are sure this Arthur chap's on the up-and-up?"
Ryan took this one. "No, not really. But since the world is going to end soon anyway, would it really matter if
he wasn't?"
That got a laugh out of both his companions, though Athena's was a second behind Crystal's. "Fair enough, love. So what's the next move?"
"We go on...on TV. Once I'm sober. I call Enki mean things on TV, his ego gets hurt, and he does something stupid we can..." He paused to belch, then turned pink and put a hand over his mouth. "That we can take advantage of," he muttered into the hand. He looked up at Crystal with watery eyes. “He killed a town, Crystal. So many...so many bodies. He has to be stopped. We have to...we have to stop him.”
"A good idea. But, if you don't mind me suggesting a slight change?"
Ryan nodded, and Athena motioned for her to go on.
"Well, I'm thinking we take it a step further, yeah? We don't just tick him off and see what he does; we bloody well call him out. Give him a time and a place and tell him to meet us there for a big old dust-up over this whole thing."
"You really think he'll fall for that?" Athena asked.
"I don't really see a way he can avoid it. He made this big deal about how he's gonna save the world from us, yeah? Well, between that and his pride, if we say 'we're willing to settle this if you've got the guts...'"
"...He'll pretty much have to," Ryan finished, nodding. He was nodding a lot this conversation, which was probably not good for his impending hangover. Oh, wait, no, I don't get hangovers anymore.
"Bingo," Crystal grinned. "Then we just have to make sure we win."
"And...Do you have a plan for that?"
"Nope!" Crystal's voice was cheery, but the cheer seemed like it had been stretched on a rack for a few days. "But once you two are sober and I've gotten my post-death hungers all taken care of, I'm sure we'll come up with something."
"Sounds like a plan." Athena muttered, laying her head back. "Being sober would be a wonderful thing right about now."
"I bet. And I hate to do this while you're still drunk, love, but there are a couple things that maybe you and I should clear the air on?" That strain again, nearly at its breaking point.
"You never were one for patience, Ishtar," Athena muttered, sitting up.
"It's Crystal now, Minerva." Ryan noted the edge to her voice, and slid further away from the two women, trying to clear his head as the lizard part of his brain started warning him of impending danger.
"I don't go by-" Athena clamped her jaw shut, realizing how stupid the protest would sound. "Fine, Crystal. What do you want to 'clear the air' about?"
"Why'd you join Enki?"
The question seemed innocent enough to Ryan, but the way Athena's eyes flared indicated there were layers he was missing. "Isn't that obvious? You two were going to end the world, and I didn't know about this sun exploding thing." Athena's eyes narrowed. "Or maybe that isn't the question you really wanted to ask. Maybe you meant something else."
Crystal opened her mouth, and then took a deep breath. "No, love, you're right. It's just that, well, we hadn't spoken since..."
Athena clearly had her own sharp retort but bit it back as well. "I know." She sighed.
For a moment they both looked just so sad. Ryan wanted to speak up, but without knowing the history...as if he had spoken out loud, they both looked at him.
"I was there during Athena's Roman years."
Athena nodded. "And we were...close."
"But then we had a...falling out?" Crystal glanced at Athena, who gave her a slight smile at the term.
"An ugly one," Athena amended.
Ryan swallowed, but had to ask. "What...what happened? Not to cause it, no need to rehash bad blood, but what made it so ugly?"
They looked at each other for a moment, and Crystal shrugged. "How good is your Roman history, love?"
"Uh...fair?"
"Heard of the Punic Wars?" Athena asked, "Rome vs. Carthage? Salting the Earth at the end?"
"Yeah, I'm familiar." They both looked at him for a moment to let that sink in. "Wait...that was because of you two having a falling out?"
Crystal winced, "Well...not entirely, yeah?"
Athena grimaced, "But it was a factor. Sort of the spark that lit the powder keg."
"And then kept throwing oil on the bloody fire," Crystal said, looking over at Athena.
Ryan sat back, needing to process that. The two women, meanwhile, were looking at each other.
"You know, love, you were Minerva back then."
Athena thought for a moment over the comment, and then replied, clearly choosing her words with care, "And you were Ishtar."
"So maybe we can just say Athena and Crystal don't have a history, yeah? Minerva and Ishtar did, but they’re both gone."
Athena nodded with exaggerated care. "I'm not exactly sober, but that still sounds like a good idea."
"Great." They both relaxed. "So why don't you two sleep off the booze, and I'll head out there and get my dance on till I don't have any more Hunger, yeah?"
They could only nod at that. "Lovely. Enjoy!" Crystal bounced out of the staging area, and for a moment they got to enjoy the sound of music wafting back in.
Ryan flopped back as soon as she was gone. "I thought you two were going to...to have a fight."
"We got most of the fight out of our systems a few centuries ago." She leaned over and looked at Ryan. "What, worried you'd get caught in the crossfire?"
Ryan laughed. "Goddamn right I was. I'm half drunk, you're three-quarters drunk, and Crystal was half-mad with hunger. I didn't see that...going well for me."
Athena chuckled. "You’re a wiser man than you seem, Ryan Smith. I'm glad it's all out in the open and dealt with."
"Agreed."
"When we get up, you should check on your nanoverse. We all should check on ours, really. Make sure they haven't gone to a mess while we were gone."
Ryan shuddered at the thought. "Fair. In the meantime...I guess we should sleep?"
For a long moment, she held his eyes. "Yeah, I guess we should. Rest well, Ryan." She rolled over, her chair forming into a bed.
Ryan sat there for a moment, then opened a door to his own staging area. A bed formed for him, and he flopped into it with a sigh. He was asleep before he could even form another thought.
Chapter 20
Unforeseen Consequences
After a night of drinking so much that he’d been tripping over his own feet, Ryan expected to wake up feeling like he'd slept in a sweaty gym sock that was being tossed in a cement mixer. For an instant, he almost managed to give himself a psychosomatic hangover, but divine biology was good for things besides not needing to breathe on Mars, and once the moment passed he realized that he felt fine.
He got out of bed and paused to look around his staging area. It had changed some since he was last here. The panel of touchscreens had morphed into classic, Hollywood style floating holograms, which made him grin - he'd wanted them to look like that. A chest-high wall also encircled the entire platform, which reduced the feeling that he was standing on the edge of reality and could fall off at any time.
Finally, and most importantly, a gentle hum filled the air, punctuated by the occasional beep. On some level he knew those sounds did and meant nothing, but compared to the semi-eerie silence of Crystal and Athena's nanoverses, it was a welcome addition.
He poked his head through the door into Crystal's nanoverse. She was splayed across a chair with the complete lack of dignity usually reserved for sleeping cats that had fit into an impossibly small container.
The stars and galaxies drew his eyes. He hadn't really looked at them in the past couple of days and now he noted that they were heading more and more strongly towards red and darker yellows. I'll ask her about it when she gets up. Instead of waking her, he moved with every bit of caution he could muster.
Athena was awake, inhaling coffee. Not in the figurative sense of drinking it quickly, but actually just sitting there, cup in hand, breathing in the steam. "Good morning," he said quietly, closing the door to Crystal’s nanoverse.
The look Athena gave him was borderline friendly, al
though full of the fuzz that clings to some brains as they wake. "Crystal still asleep?"
"Yup. Though I think I saw her shift as I closed the door, so she might be up soon."
"Noted." She finally took a drink of the coffee. "Headed to your nanoverse then?"
"Think I'll wait for Crystal to wake up. You?"
Athena nodded. "I haven't been in almost ten thousand years their time, so I'm probably forgotten. Will need to take a bit of time to establish myself as their goddess."
“So, wait. If you weren’t in your nanoverse, and you weren’t keeping up with the core world, what were you doing.”
Athena smiled. “There are other worlds with sentient beings, Ryan. I spent much of my time out among them, away from everything else.”
Ryan’s eyes widened. “Well, color me jealous as hell. After this is all done, maybe you could show me around out there.”
Athena shrugged. “Maybe.”
“I’ll take maybe.” Ryan smiled at her. “Hey, speaking of our nanoverses, I was wondering about something. I know worshippers don't get us anything over here, but in our nanoverses?"
Another sip of coffee. "Some argue that it does, that you can get more power out of a devoted nanoverse, but others argue we just want them to worship us, that it's a Hunger we gods have."
That made sense to Ryan. Might be worth keeping up with, just in case it gives me an edge. The door to Crystal's nanoverse opened and she walked in, her hair what she'd likely call a "right bloody mess," yawning. "Oh, good, caught you two before you scampered off to your 'verses."
They focused their attention on her. "Something on your mind?" Athena asked.
Crystal nodded. "Didja see the state my bloody nanoverse got into while I was dead? Half the stars burned out, even some of the red dwarves, cosmic microwave dropped to .3 k. I’m going to be dealing with bloody iron star formation soon - I'm not going to bother going into mine. Just going to run it to the ground and do a Big Crunch after we kick Enki's arse."
Athena gave Crystal a look that just said this is a perfectly sensible line of reasoning and not a bunch of science fiction gibberish. Ryan followed the astronomy part but had no idea why it mattered. "What's all that mean?"
