The Age of Zeus

18. STRATOSPHERICALLY REMOTE

N ine days later, Landesman's Gulfstream was flying west at a mean speed of 500 knots towards one of the small commercial airports in the environs of Miami.

On board were Sam, Hamel, Sparks and Barrington, plus McCann and another two technicians. Three hours into the trip, Barrington was stretched out fast asleep on the plush sofa in the plane's cabin, Hamel was plugged into her iPod nodding along to Patsy Cline and k.d. lang, Sparks was watching a Pixar movie on a portable DVD player, and Sam was listening to McCann explain the necessary alterations he had made to the battlesuits.

"I've got to say," the engineer said, "it's something that never occurred to me, and I'm a great hairy numpty for not thinking of it. Any complex system that's run by microprocessor, you need redundancy. You have to have backup in the event something goes wrong with the main CPU. I just felt, with the suits being so impact-resistant and all, that'd never be a problem. The CPU couldn't get damaged, so why install an auxiliary one in case it did? All that'd mean was extra weight, extra wiring, extra hassle."

McCann had been hangdog — more accurately, hangpuppy — these past few days, once he'd realised the mistake he had made in the suit's design. A number of times Sam had had to tell him he wasn't to blame, it was a simple oversight, he shouldn't beat himself up so about it, even Einstein had his off-days. She couldn't quite console him, however, nor did she have the strength to, not really. She had her own burdens. He couldn't expect her to carry his as well.

"Took us ages to pin down why Soleil's leg servos failed," he went on. "We broke those suits down to the smallest wee parts, and when that didn't turn up anything we put them back together and started banging them about every which way. We reckoned you lot had given them such a pounding during training, if that hadn't found a chink in the armour then nothing would. Thanks to you they'd been tested almost to destruction and passed. But it still seemed worth a try. Trouble is, what none of you had done was whack your head hard enough against the ground to jangle the onboard computer."

"Silly us."

"Aye, well, it was a thousand-to-one thing, Soleil falling just how she did, catching her helmet against a rock just so, at just the right angle and with just the right amount of force to scramble the hardware. That's what paralysed the servos. In all fairness, most of the suit continued to work fine. I mean, it could have been much worse, the whole damn thing could have gone down…"

He flicked a hand as though to drive off a persistent gnat.

"No, that doesn't make up for it. I bollocksed up. That's what it comes down to. I bollocksed up, and someone died because of that."

His voice faltered, tightening, threatening to become a sob. Sam reached out and clasped his arm. She felt like a priest offering absolution, except instead of a confessional they were in a luxury jet cruising at 40,000 feet.

"Soleil died because of the Cyclops," she said, "not because of you. She chose to go out the way she did, and under the circumstances it was the only thing she could do, and the best thing. I know how Rick keeps grumbling, but never mind him. The problem with her suit was a contributing factor but it was far from being the sole cause."

McCann wiped his eyes and sniffed. "It's sorted now, though, I swear. All the suits have been fitted with an auxiliary CPU that'll kick in a millisecond after the main CPU registers any kind of runtime error. The auxiliary'll offer support in the affected areas or else take over altogether if the main CPU's fritzed beyond redemption. It's installed just beneath the power pack, well out of harm's way. The odds against both computers getting knocked out of commission — well, they've got to be stratospherically remote, haven't they?"

"You tell me."

"Aye," the engineer said, confirming it in his own mind. "Stratospherically remote."

The plane darted onwards across the broad blue glitter of the Atlantic. A couple of hundred miles off the coast of Florida it hit clouds and some severe turbulence. The co-pilot, Greene, suggested over the intercom that everyone might like to fasten their seatbelts, and for quarter of an hour the Gulfstream bucked and jolted in the grip of elemental forces, as though the sky were a fractious child and the plane were the sky's plaything. Across the cabin from Sam, Sparks sat hunched in her seat, clutching the gold crucifix at her neck and murmuring a prayer. As the turbulence subsided and the flight smoothed, Sam leaned over and said, "He was listening."

"He always does," Sparks replied matter-of-factly. "My aunt and uncle were churchgoing folk and they raised me right. They taught me to fear God and trust in Him, and so far He ain't steered me wrong."

"You were brought up by your aunt and uncle? What about your parents?"

"Nobody knows nothing about my daddy 'cept he was white, and my mom was a no-account who left soon after I was born and never came back. My aunt and uncle, them and my grandmother, they were all the family I ever had, all I ever needed. They've gone to their reward now, of course, but I still have Jesus. A shoulder to cry on, a friend to rely on, Jesus sees me through everything. He's the one who guided Mr Landesman's hand in choosing me to become a Titan, and He saw to it that Mr Landesman selected me for this mission."

To Sam's knowledge, Landesman hadn't needed supervision from on high when it came to deciding which Titan went up against which particular monster or Olympian. "My policy," he had told her yesterday, "is that each of you gets to confront whoever — or, as the case may be, whatever — was responsible for the deaths of your loved ones. It's only right and fair. Sparks lost relatives to the Hydra, ergo she is a shoo-in for tomorrow's op."

Landesman had recovered most of the pep and vigour that had gone out of him in the wake of the Snowdonia debacle. He'd been encouraged by the fact that the Olympians had chosen not to visit retaliation on Wales in response to the Cyclops's fatal entombing. A day earlier a terse video statement had been sent to every TV station on earth and also disseminated across the internet, showing Zeus making a statement on that very topic.

"It has come to our attention," he declared, "that the being whom you and we know as the Cyclops has perished as a result of a cave-in in north Wales. Our understanding is that the event was pure accident, due most likely to local tectonic instability. We will not make efforts to recover the body. We mourn his loss, and salute a fallen comrade."

That was all, a handful of sentences couched in Zeus's usual orotund tones, delivered to camera with blazing eyes and furrowed brow. If the king of the Pantheon suspected foul play in connection with the Cyclops's demise, it showed in neither his face nor his words. Landesman, certainly, was convinced the Olympians were ignorant of the truth behind the apparent misfortune.

"We pulled it off," he had said, with quiet vindication. "I'd've preferred to have done it without losing anyone, but still — we pulled it off."

Sparks, watching Sam's face, noted scepticism there. Sam was trying hard to hide it but couldn't quite manage to.

"You ain't a believer," she said. "That's OK. Can't all of us be believers, though the Lord'd like it that way. He lets some folk think they can do without faith, 'til they realise they can't. It's all part of His plan, sister. All part of His plan. You'll get there in the end."

"Maybe," Sam said. "It's possible, I suppose."

"You're a good person, no doubt about it. There's some among our number who's not deserving of His grace and mercy, but you ain't one of them. Your heart is true, and you're doing the Lord's work, whether you realise it or not. We all are."

"We are?"

"Sure we are!" Sparks said, wide-eyed, as though it was the most obvious thing in the world. "Them Olympians go around calling themselves gods. That is an offence in His eyes. No one can call themself that but Him. So somebody taking those guys out, knocking 'em off their perch? That's His work all right. And now through His infinite wisdom He's given me the chance to slay the evil beast that took my Nanna and my Aunt Celeste and my Uncle Hubert. An eye for an eye. I bless Him for that, and I bless His agent on earth Mr Landesman too, and I relish the thought of being the one to rid the world of that thing."

Sam couldn't not ask. "Some among us who don't deserve God's grace and mercy? Anyone specifically?"

"I won't name names," Sparks said in low, conspir-atorial tones, "but… you know." She cast a glance over her shoulder, towards the rear of the cabin.

Sam immediately looked at Barrington, who had contrived to remain asleep despite the bout of turbulence.

"Dez is a bit rough round the edges, I grant you," she said, dropping her voice to match the other woman's. "Not the most enlightened of human beings. And his sense of humour is, let's say, an acquired taste. But basically he's sound."

"Oh no, not him," Sparks said, now whispering. "Her. The sinner."

Sam transferred her gaze to Hamel, who was staring out of a porthole, still in thrall to her music.

"Oh," she said.

"'If there is a man who lies with a male as those who lie with a woman, both of them have committed a detestable act; they shall surely be put to death. Their bloodguiltness is upon them.' Leviticus. Applies to the ladies as well." Sparks mimed a shudder. "She's an abomination. Makes my skin crawl just being in the same room as her."

"She's — she's a good person too."

"That's as may be, but she has chosen a lifestyle that is sick and unclean and will damn her soul to hell for all eternity."

"But she's one of us, doing God's work with us. Surely that, well, redeems her?"

"Afraid not." Sparks's dark eyes were as hard as coal. "'Less she renounces her deviant ways, whatever deeds she's done in life won't save her from His judgement. Oh, don't worry. I can tell what you're thinking. I'll work alongside her, I'll be her comrade-in-arms, I'll have her back, you needn't have any doubts on that score. Just don't ask me to be her friend, OK?"

"OK." Sam looked back at Hamel, who caught her eye briefly then returned her attention to the view outside. Sam wondered whether the Canadian had overheard anything Sparks had just said. Likely not. The music was still hissing in Hamel's earbuds, and Sparks had done her best to be discreet. All the same, it was conceivable that the odd word might have leaked through, enough to enlighten Hamel as to her fellow Titan's true feelings about her. Perhaps she knew anyway. Neither woman much cared for the other. There'd been mutual antipathy there almost from the start. Maybe Hamel had sensed Sparks's disapproval and divined the reason behind it without having to be told.

Sam shunted it to the back of her mind. It wasn't a problem — wouldn't be as long as it didn't interfere with the op.

"Commencing our descent now," co-pilot Greene announced. "We should be landing in — "

The rest was drowned out by a fart from Barrington that was so raucous and percussive he startled himself awake with it.

"Strewth!" he cried, sitting up and glancing worriedly out of a porthole. "Was that a bird strike? Are we about to crash?"

"We," said Sam, with a pained expression, fanning her face, "should be so lucky."