The Age of Zeus

11. SUPERIOR

Days passed, merging into one another, and became weeks, which also merged into one another. The majority of the training was conducted underground, and was rigorous and intensive, so that come evening the Titans were so exhausted, it was all they could do just to eat supper and crawl into bed. Lights out, lights on, and then another few hours of suit practice and weapons drill, and then to bed once more, over and over, ad infinitum. Sessions in the upper world, the land above, were infrequent. Not only were reconnaissance satellites an issue but there was always the possibility of, as Landesman put it, "eyeball observation" — people on a passing yacht or the crew of a trawler or freighter catching sight of men and women roving across the rugged slopes of Bleaney Island in bizarre armour.

There were the locals to consider as well. People on the mainland were aware that something out of the ordinary was going on over on Bleaney. A few years back they'd seen construction crews travelling back and forth to the island from the harbour, plus heavy equipment getting transported across. Rumour was that the old bunker had been converted into some kind of top-secret government research facility where they were investigating alternative fuels, cold fusion, something along those lines. Lillicrap primed Captain Fuller with a flow of titbits of information that supported this rumour, without ever revealing any of the truth to him, and the captain of course was only too happy to spread the insider knowledge around after a pint or three down at the pub. It wouldn't do, therefore, for the battlesuits to be glimpsed in action, which would be just conceivable for someone on the mainland with a decent telescope, and it certainly wouldn't do for the noise of weapons fire to be overheard, particularly as sound carried a long way across open water.

Sam found this largely subterranean existence, this involuntary hibernation in a manmade cave, hard to cope with. She pined for daylight, vistas, fresh air. Any chance she could get, she sneaked up out of the bunker, just to be able to spend a few minutes on the beach watching the breakers pounce on the shingles, smelling the brine, and examining the detritus washed up on the foreshore — tangles of kelp, empty crab shells, plastic bottles and six-pack holders and scraps of fishing net. Even at night-time, even in rain, it was good to get outdoors. It was a relief to be away, however briefly, from battlesuits and guns and scrutiny.

Scrutiny, because her fellow Titans were looking at her, judging her every word and deed, trying to gauge how well she wore the mantle of leadership and whether in electing her they had chosen wisely. She didn't know what they wanted from her, so she behaved as she thought a leader should, offering commendation and condemnation wherever either seemed due and otherwise remaining aloof. It put a strain on her relations with Mahmoud, their friendship settling into a more formal mode, still cordial but no longer quite as warm.

With Ramsay, things were somewhat stickier.

He came up to her one evening at the end of training. Sam was sitting on the floor, having just divested herself of her suit. She wanted to get up and go and hit the showers but she was worn out from the day's efforts and her muscles, for now, refused to do anything but lie inert and ache.

She was in her oh-so-flattering Lycra bodystocking, and so was he. They both looked ridiculous and Ramsay knew it. That, most likely, was why he had chosen this moment to approach her.

"So, you and me," he said, "are we cool?"

She didn't turn to look at him. "What do you think?"

"Wild guess: you're still mad at me."

"No shit, Sherlock."

"I appreciate I blindsided you with the whole leader thing. Maybe I could have handled it a bit better."

"Or not done it at all."

If Ramsay had been waiting for an invitation to join her on the floor, she didn't offer one. He went down on his haunches next to her anyway. "You've got to understand, Sam, it was the right time. The matter needed to be raised. And you really shouldn't hold it against me. I was only a spokesman, saying what we'd all agreed on."

"Why me?"

"Well, that's the million-dollar question, ain't it?" He blew out air. "Why you? Apart from your brains. And everything else."

"But I have no combat experience. I've been in the odd brawl, had to subdue the odd villain, but that's it as far as fighting goes. You've been in war zones, seen actual action. So have Anders and Soleil and Nigel and Dez. You know what's involved, what to expect. When we're out in the field, I could be hopeless. I might not have a clue what to do."

"It isn't about combat experience," Ramsay said. "It's about taking charge. Responding decisively to events. Keeping a cool head under pressure."

"And if I cock it up royally and wind up getting everybody killed?"

"Then we'll all be dead and in no position to care. But you see, Sam, there's another reason why we want you as boss."

"Because no one else would do it?"

"No." A short burst of downpipe gurgle. "Well, yeah, maybe a little. But the truth is, what folks are looking for in a leader is somebody who's like them, only more so. Somebody who represents what they are in its purest form. We, us Titans, we're all… we're all broken. We're broken people. Life's picked us up in its jaws and given us a long hard shake and dumped us back down again all busted up and twisted. We've all been changed by something the Olympians did, and we can never go back to being who we were before. We've lost something. And you…"

"I'm the worst of the lot. The most broken. The most changed. The one who's lost the most."

"You won't even tell us what happened to you. You can't even bring yourself to talk about it, that's how deeply it's affected you. We all can sense how hurt you are inside, how damaged."

"So let me get this straight. I got voted in on the grounds of being the most fucked up? That's my main qualification?"

"Bingo." A grim grin. "Screwy, ain't it? But that's how it works. That's what gives you authority over us. Your superior fucked-up-ness. We've all of us got an axe to grind with the Olympians but the one you're carrying over your shoulder is way the biggest."

Sam thought for a moment.

"Rick?"

"Yeah?"

"Piss off and leave me alone. That's a direct order from your commanding officer."

Ramsay rolled it around inside his head for a few seconds. Then — saying, "Yes, ma'am," gravely, without a trace of humour or irony — he hauled himself to his feet and left.

Sam put her face in her hands.

No crying, though. These days, Sam Akehurst did not cry. Not ever. Her tear ducts were bone-dry.