The Age Of Zeus Read online

  "Look at that," McCann said. "How does he do that?"

  "You mean you don't know?" said a colleague of his, Rajesh Patanjali, responsible for all things IT at Bleaney. "Didn't you read the New Scientist special on the Olympians?"

  "Must've missed that one. I prefer my magazines to have pictures of nudie girls and articles about the Grand Prix in them. So what's the trick? Magic?"

  Patanjali rolled his eyes, as though it was his greatest burden in life to have to be confronted with such childishness on a daily basis. "Aquakinesis. Poseidon manipulates water with his mind. Water or any other liquid. He can control it down the molecular level. Shape it, congeal it, turn it to vapour - I've seen him on TV doing all of those."

  "Turn a man's blood to mud in his veins," said Eto'o. "I've seen him do that. And not on TV."

  "A very dangerous creature," said Landesman. "Perhaps second only to Zeus in terms of threat level. We shan't be tackling him 'til we've a few lesser Olympians under our belt first."

  "You're wrong there, Mr Landesman," said a voice from behind.

  Everyone spun round to see Chisholm marching up to the hilltop from the direction of the bunker entrance. On his face was a look of implacable determination - and in his arms was a rocket launcher from the armoury.

  "We're tackling him right now."

  Cresting the hill, Chisholm swung the rocket launcher up onto his shoulder and put an eye to the sight.

  "Round's already in. Laser-guided high-ex. I'm blowing the bastard out of the water."

  "No!" Landesman barked. "I forbid it. Put that thing down, Nigel. This instant. You are not going to do this."

  "Looks like I am, actually," said Chisholm.

  "Shoot, and you jeopardise this entire operation."

  "Not if I don't miss."

  "Even if you don't. Attack Poseidon, and whether you kill him or not the Olympians will retaliate. They'll come down on us like a ton of bricks."

  "Don't care. This is for Debs and Megan." Chisholm depressed the launch lever and curled his finger round the trigger.

  Sam stepped in front of him.

  "Mr Landesman's right, Nigel," she said. "Put the launcher down."

  "Out of my way."

  "No."

  Chisholm moved to one side, re-sighting on Poseidon.

  Sam sidestepped too, keeping her face level with the launcher's front opening.

  "Get out of the bloody way," Chisholm growled.

  "Or what?" said Sam. She kept her voice gentle but firm, as you did when talking to the deranged and the weapon-wielding. "You'll shoot me instead?"

  "He'll be out of range in a couple of seconds. I need to do this. Move, Sam. Please."

  "You'll get your chance, Nigel. But when the time's right. Not now."

  "Sam..." The launcher trembled in Chisholm's grasp. She saw a tear roll down his cheek.

  "Just wait. Poseidon is yours, I promise. You'll have first crack at him. But you need to be patient. Stow the launcher. There are cameras in those helicopters. If anyone zooms in you, we're sunk."

  She laid a hand on the launcher and slowly pushed it down, getting no resistance from Chisholm. It was a relief not to be staring into that lethal hollow any more.

  "Fuck," Chisholm breathed. His eyes were glassy, his expression one of crumpled, abject misery. "All right, you win. God, I was so furious, and there he is, parading by, arrogant as you please, and I... I just..." He shook his head like a man emerging from a trance. "I've made an utter tit of myself, haven't I?"

  "Not at all."

  "What was I thinking?"

  "You were thinking about your wife and daughter. You were remembering them and how much you loved them. And there isn't one of us here who wouldn't at least have been tempted to do what you did, in your shoes."

  "Rocket probably wouldn't even have got him. He'd have seen it coming and thrown up a wall of water to protect himself."

  "And then would have conjured up a massive tsunami to swamp the entire island and drown the lot of us," Sam said. "Your motives were noble, Nigel. Your strategy, on the other hand..."

  "...was atrocious. Mr Landesman - everyone -"

  Chisholm found he couldn't look any of the assembled company in the eye. He couldn't even finish the sentence. Letting the launcher drop to the ground, he turned and walked off, shoulders slumped in shame.

  Poseidon by now was a dwindling speck on the horizon, the helicopters too, the ruckus of their rotors reduced to a faint locust whirr.

  Landesman came over to Sam. "Adroitly handled," he said. "Well done."

  All of the Titans present were of the same opinion. They didn't have to say anything; Sam could see it in their faces. Ramsay gave her the merest ghost of a nod, and that seemed to sum it up. If any of them had been harbouring reservations about her, they weren't now. Like it or not - and for Sam it was still the latter - she was team leader. This incident had been her unofficial anointing. There could be no going back.

  13. MISTAKES

  Chisholm wanted to quit after that. "Damn near scuppered your ship," he said to Landesman, "before she'd even set out on her maiden voyage." He had his bag packed and was preparing to leave.

  Landesman, however, over several balloons of Chivas Regal and a couple of plump Cohiba cigars, convinced him to unpack his bag and stay.

  "I'm all for giving a fellow a second chance," Landesman told Sam privately in his office later. One of the bunker's larger rooms, the office was decked out like a clubland snug, with thick Axminster on the floor, oak panelling and reproduction Old Masters on the walls, and shelfloads of gilt-titled antique books. A sleek Apple PowerBook was its sole concession to the 21st century.

  "But what if he does it again?" Sam said. "Goes off the rails at a crucial moment?"

  "He won't. Man's learned his lesson."

  "I'm not so sure. I don't know if I can trust him now."

  "Nigel Chisholm was a captain in the RAF's Number 32 Squadron," Landesman said. "Meaning, among other things, he's piloted Tristars with members of government and the royal family on board. They don't let just anyone fly VIPs of that calibre around the world."

  "That was then. Nigel's not the person he used to be. None of us is."

  "Even so, it was an aberration, Sam. It won't happen again."

  "I have responsibility for this team. I need to know that -"

  "Sam, Sam," Landesman interrupted, wafting a hand. "Nigel will be fine, I guarantee it. He's got something out of his system, and he's duly embarrassed about what he did and is busy eating more humble pie than is good for the digestion. He won't be any more trouble. In fact, I suspect that from now on he'll be eager to prove just what an asset he can be."

  "That might not be such a good thing, either. Someone who's trying too hard is as much of a loose cannon as someone who's unreliable. But" - she let out a theatrical sigh - "I can see I don't have any choice in this."

  "As it happens, you don't," Landesman said genially. "That we're discussing the matter at all should be taken as a mark of the high esteem in which I hold you. Now, if there's anything else...?"

  Sam knew that she had just, ever so politely, been dismissed. As she rose from her chair, her eye fell on a photograph sitting on Landesman's desk in a silver frame. It was a studio portrait of a woman and a small boy, taken some thirty years ago to judge by the woman's clothes and hairstyle. She was sharply, aristocratically beautiful, with eyes that were strikingly large, dark and limpid. The boy was cute and had the same eyes, but his blazed with an extraordinarily intense and challenging light, as if everything, even posing for a photo, was a source of great puzzlement and irritation to him. He was, she guessed, three, four years old. Maybe the photographer had caught him on a bad day.

  "Your wife and son?" she asked.

  Landesman nodded. "Arianna. Alexander."

  Something about the way he said it prompted her next question. "Are they...?"

  Her implication was clear. Were they dead? Had they been killed by Olympians? If so, it
would explain a lot.

  Landesman certainly understood what she was getting at. He shook his head.

  "Arianna," he said, following a long intake of breath, "died shortly after that picture was taken, long before the Olympians were around. Natural causes. An unusually aggressive form of lymphatic cancer, and all the money in the world couldn't save her - it could only make her descent a little slower and her landing a little softer than it might otherwise have been. As for Xander, he's still with us, though not with me. By which I mean, he and I aren't in touch any more. We were always combative during his childhood, and had a terrible falling-out when he was in his early twenties. I'd tried my best to raise him on my own, using as little hired help as possible, but it wasn't easy. I was a busy man, not often home. He needed a stability in his life that I couldn't give him, so it was inevitable, I suppose, that we should come to a parting of the ways. I wish it hadn't been quite so terminal, though. I don't think he could forgive me for not having been a good enough father."

  "I'm sorry."

  "Thank you, but I'm reconciled to it. Some mistakes cannot be rectified. They can only be lived with, or erased."

  "As in forgotten."

  "Perhaps," said Landesman.

  As Sam turned to go, Landesman said, "Our pasts shape us, Sam. None of us is the person he or she used to be, it's true, but what we are still contains a great proportion of what we once were. Nothing, not even suffering the worst kind of tragedy, alters us completely. At core, we are set in stone."

  For some time afterward Sam debated whether he'd been referring to Chisholm, to her, or to himself. It very possibly could have been all three.

  14. CALLSIGNS

  The training continued. The Titans familiarised themselves with all the weapons on offer, not just the conventional ones - the guns, the grenades, the rocket launchers - but the more unusual items such as the knuckledusters that packed a stunning million-volt punch and the semiautomatic pistol with hinged barrel and videocamera sight that could shoot round corners.

  They practised manoeuvres as well, learning from Ramsay and Barrington about flanking crossfire, cover formation, shooting lines and the like. For those among them with no military background it was a crash course in the basics of armed combat, courtesy of two drill sergeants with very different teaching styles. Surprisingly it was the Australian who was the more even-tempered of the two, the one who would dismiss errors with a shrug and a "never mind, try again" attitude. The Chicagoan was less forgiving, quicker to scold. He might pepper his instruction with wisecracks, but he took the role of tutor very seriously. "This shit," he said, "if you don't get it right, you could get yourself killed. Worse, you could get the guy next to you killed." And if Ramsay was harsh with all of his pupils, there was none he was harsher with than Sam. His feeling seemed to be that, as leader, she could least afford to get things wrong - although in Sam's view there was more than a little bit of petty revenge going on. He was still smarting from her Piss off and leave me alone remark a while back. Not a man who took rejection well, obviously.

  And then, come early March, they were ready.

  They knew it, without having to be told. They were now moving in synch with one another, each instinctively understanding what his or her place was in any given manoeuvre. All of them were able to handle the weapons comfortably, although each had developed his or her own preference for and aptitude with a particular one. They had discovered that sense of quiet, deep-seated joy that comes from being part of a cohesive unit, the satisfaction that a wolf might feel in the sinuous ebb and flow of a pack on the hunt. They weren't perfect. Now and then one or other of them could still slip up. Nor were all the interpersonal relationships within the group in harmony. Barrington and Søndergaard continued their two-way sniping, which would sometimes escalate into out-and-out insults; Sparks and Hamel had started to get on each other's nerves, for reasons no one, perhaps not even they, could quite fathom; Chisholm had become ostracised since the rocket launcher incident (which he had self-deprecatingly dubbed his "Poseidon Misadventure"), although he was doing his utmost to ingratiate himself back into the group; and Sam and Ramsay remained on frosty terms, the initial affection each had felt for the other in the early weeks having now become submerged, leaving no trace of itself on the surface.

  Nevertheless, they were ready. They were beginning to get impatient, wanting to know from Landesman when they were going to hit the Olympians, pestering him to be allowed to put theory into practice. If that wasn't a sign that they were ready, then nothing was.

  And then one morning they arrived in the command centre to find that their battlesuits now sported names. Each of the Titans had adopted a particular suit as his or her own. The straps were permanently adjusted to fit just so, the visor display configured how each of them wanted it, and in the case of southpaw Barrington the control pad had been transferred to his right wrist. A few of them had even added customising details, having asked Patanjali to reprogram the nanobots to form particular patterns or images when the suits were in their default colour setting. Eto'o, for instance, had the green, red and yellow stripes and yellow star of the Cameroonian flag on one shoulder of her suit, Hamel had a rainbow on one shoulder of hers, Barrington had facsimile beer labels on his helmet, and Tsang's breastplate was ornamented with the symbol of the Obliteration - the letters HK surrounded by a black border.

  Every suit now had a single word on the front as well, just above the heart: the name of one of the mythical Titans.

  "Phoebe," said Harryhausen, reading hers.

  "Rhea," said Hamel.

  "Oceanus," said Chisholm.

  "Hyperion," said Ramsay. "I like how it sounds. Hyperion. Yeah, I'm cool with that."

  "Yer wot?" said Mahmoud, frowning at hers. "Mnemo... Memonsy... Flipping 'eck, I can't hardly read it, let alone pronounce it. Mnemosyne. Is that right? I think that's right."

  "Iapetus," said Barrington. "Just what in flaming fuck is a Iapetus? Can anyone tell me?"

  Tsang was Crius, Søndergaard Coeus, Sparks Theia, Eto'o Themis.

  Sam approached her suit.

  Tethys.

  She spoke the name aloud, trying it on for size.

  "I am Tethys."

  It felt strange, to be rechristened in this way, without consultation, without anyone asking whether she wanted it or not. Strange but also intriguing, as though she was being invited to exchange one identity for another.

  "Your callsigns," Landesman said. "Out in the field, this is how you will refer to one another and address one another. You are Titans. From now on, once you don your suits, that is what you become. Titans. Theocides. God killers. Today is your final day of training. As of tomorrow, you are on active duty. Our campaign begins."

  "What about that other suit?" Ramsay asked, pointing. "'Cronus' over there. Still haven't got someone to wear that. You had trouble finding your twelfth guy, Landesman?"

  "The position will be filled, don't you worry," said Landesman. "All in due course."

  Putting on the suit, this time, felt ceremonial. As Sam fastened each section into place, she was conscious of taking on a role. Encasing herself in armour was, perversely, like shedding a skin, sloughing off a dry, worn-out old self to become someone gleaming and new.

  I am Tethys, a Titan.

  It surprised her how much that suddenly seemed to mean. And she could see it in the others' faces, the same sense of shock, the same joyous realisation.

  We are Titans.

  We are here to kill gods.

  15. BLUE EROS MYTHOPORN

  Landesman announced that their first target was going to be the Cyclops.

  "A giant, yes," he said, "quite strong, very violent, but its great advantage, from our point of view, is that it's none too bright. Positively stupid, in fact."

  The monster had turned up recently in Wales, where anti-Olympian sentiment was rife. The Welsh National Assembly, and in particular its Plaid Cymru members, had taken a vociferous stance against Catesby Bar
tlett, mocking him for his views and calling him the worst and most misguided appeaser since Neville Chamberlain. The people of Wales were broadly behind their government in this, and hence the Olympians had dispatched the Cyclops to that country so as to re-establish a sense of the proper order of things. The monster had wrought havoc in various suburbs of Cardiff and Swansea, and had since then retired to the rugged climes of Snowdonia, where it had taken up residence in a nice cosy cave from which it ventured out from time to time to catch a sheep for its supper.

  The proprietors of businesses in and around the area that relied on tourism for their livelihood saw a sudden, steep drop in income and were incensed, and even more so were the local hill farmers whose livestock was being depleted. They lobbied their leaders to take action. The National Assembly, however, was in a chastened and somewhat less gung-ho frame of mind than before. They had, after all, just seen Wales's two main cities sustain considerable damage at the Cyclops's hands, with attendant loss of life (although, blessedly, the fatality figures were in the low teens). If the monocular beast wished to hole up for the time being in a remote rural spot, well away from major population centres, then let it. For an absence of human casualties, the loss of a few sheep was a small price to pay.

  "I'm sending a group of you to Snowdonia," Landesman informed his Titans. "Three of you should do it, I think. The objective is simple: kill the Cyclops. Make it look like an accident if you can. That way, we'll lessen the likelihood of Olympian reprisals against Wales."

  "And if it's not possible to make it look like an accident?" said Harryhausen.

  "The Olympians aren't any too fond of the Cyclops. It's a messy and malodorous thing. I doubt they'll miss it, and if they do want to hold the Welsh to account for its death, the punishment will be a token gesture at best. That's why I've chosen it as the object of our opening salvo in Titanomachy II - that and the fact that Wales is a convenient hop, skip and a jump away."