The Age of Zeus

66. MARTYRS

Sam stayed in her room for the next couple of days with a feigned illness, lying low, venturing out only to grab leftover food from Demeter's kitchen and scurry back to eat it alone. She had no desire to mingle with the Olympians, not now that Hera had so openly declared her hostility. Anyone could see that Zeus had been set an ultimatum. Whatever his intentions towards Sam were, he had better act on them, otherwise his wife would step in and cut through this particular Gordian Knot herself.

The impulse to escape, and the impossibility of it, warred within Sam, the one hemmed in tormentingly by the other.

On the morning of the third day, beginning to get stir crazy, she headed out into the frigid dawn air. No one else was around other than the ever-present, ever-vigilant Harpies, cawing and cackling on their roosts. She roamed, enjoying the semblance of freedom that being on her own gave her. Her wanderings took her eventually to a corner of the stronghold she hadn't explored before. Here she came across a low-built edifice, like a large mausoleum, sandwiched between a tall rock outcrop and the inner flank of the stockade. This had not been on the itinerary of the tour Zeus had given. Curiosity piqued, she tried to door, tugging on its large round brass handle. The door, banded with iron, did not budge. There was no evidence of a lock but something, certainly, was holding it fast. She circuited the building but found no other entry point, not even a window. Returning to the front, she searched for some outward sign of the structure's purpose but found none. It had one unusual feature, a copper lightning rod attached to the vertex of the roof, two metres long and greened with oxidation. Other than that the place was plain and nondescript, almost ostentatiously so, given the general grandeur and ornateness that could be found everywhere else in the stronghold.

Perhaps it was some kind of storage unit.

Or perhaps this is where they're keeping my TITAN suit.

The thought galvanised Sam. She'd given up her battlesuit for lost, assuming Zeus would have destroyed it by now, but if by chance it was here, if she could be reunited with it, then a bid for freedom stood a substantially improved likelihood of success.

She resolved to come back after nightfall armed with something she could use as a crowbar to pry the door open.

Moving on, she shortly found herself passing the entrance to Argus's lair: a gap in a rockface surrounded by a carved-out portico, with giant bas-relief peacocks standing sentinel on either side. She had no intention of going in. Even the thought of Argus — that blubbery malodorous body, that wire-sprouting head — gave her the willies. But then a low, rippling voice called out from within: "Who's there? Someone's there. I'm picking up the sound of footsteps. I'm glad you've come. I need to talk to someone."

Sam started tiptoeing away, but Argus became plaintive and insistent. "Please. You must listen to me, whoever you are. It's urgent. Something important is happening. The mortals are up to something."

That was too intriguing to ignore. Turning, and bracing herself for the smell, Sam entered the chamber.

"Oh," said Argus. "It's only you, Samantha Akehurst."

"Only me."

"I need Zeus. Would you fetch him? I have intelligence I need to share."

"What's it about? I could pass on a message."

Sam glanced around as she said this, and noticed that several of the screens were tuned to surveillance satellite images — orbital views of Greece and the Mediterranean — while on others there were news broadcasts showing smartly dressed people, quite possibly diplomats, stepping out of limousines and walking quickly into imposing buildings. One screen featured warships at sea, another a series of military transport aircraft taking off. This was as much as she could take in before, with an "ah-ah-ah!" Argus swapped all these feeds for his peacock insignia. Hundreds of feather-mounted eyes glared reprovingly at Sam.

"Zeus," Argus said. "Not you. Kindly go and get him."

She came back shortly with a yawning Zeus. He didn't tell her to wait outside, so she went in with him.

"A bit early for our morning update, isn't it?" Zeus said to Argus.

"I regret getting you out of bed, but it just couldn't wait. Although," Argus added, "perhaps this should be for your ears only."

With a look at Sam, Zeus said, "Perhaps I should be the judge of that."

"But she's a mortal."

"So she is. But presumably what you have to tell me is news from the mortal world, meaning other mortals will know about it already, so why not her too? Besides, Sam is one of us for the time being, whether she likes it or not. Your tact is commendable, Argus, but unnecessary."

"As you wish, Cloud-Gatherer." The screens reverted from the peacock to the disparate images they'd been showing before. "This began late yesterday evening. I've been monitoring developments overnight."

"What am I looking at?"

"We have what amounts to a military coup taking place in the United Kingdom."

"What!?" Zeus exclaimed.

"General Sir Neville Armstrong-Hall is the instigator," said Argus. "Although he's calling himself Field Marshal now, because he believes Britain is on a war footing. He's invoked a law drawn up during the Cold War that's become redundant but hasn't been removed from the statute books. It was drafted to allow the mobilisation of British armed forces without parliamentary authority in the event of a Soviet nuclear strike."

"Mobilise them to do what?"

"Anything they like, more or less. In this instance, move on Olympus."

Sam saw Zeus's mouth drop open. "Preposterous! They can't. Why would they do that?"

By way of answer, Argus pulled up footage of a trim, grey-haired old soldier holding an impromptu press conference at an airbase, surrounded by a jostling mob of reporters all yelling, "Sir Neville! Sir Neville!"

"It's a nettle that needs to be grasped," Field Marshal Armstrong-Hall said, "and now seems to be the time to grasp it. People at home should rest assured that this is not, I repeat not, a declaration of martial law. Parliament is only being pre-empted, not supplanted. This is military action against an outside power, in retaliation for an attack that took place on British soil a few weeks ago — an attack that was, in my view, no less disruptive and impactful than a nuclear warhead would have been. I am simply doing now what the vast majority of the British public wish to be done and what our elected representatives, shirking their democratic mandate, have stubbornly refused to do. I regret that it's come to this. Since Bleaney Island I have been holding frequent behind-the-scenes meetings with Mr Bartlett, urging him to harden his stance towards the Olympians, but frankly I've been wasting my breath. Now, at a time when the Olympians have been proved to be vulnerable, and after an example has been so bravely and tragically set to us by these Titans, now is the moment to be decisive and take action of the kind that, God willing, has a decent prospect of success."

"There's more," Argus said. "The Americans are offering logistical support. The US Joint Chiefs of Staff have issued a statement in the past hour backing Armstrong-Hall."

At the Pentagon, a much-medalled general at a podium was addressing a rowdy press pack. It was 11pm Eastern Standard Time.

"We're pledging the Brits all of our Chinooks," the general drawled in iron-edged Texas tones, "plus ordnance, body armour, because we know how underequipped those fellas can be in that department, and last but not least the use of our one remaining aircraft carrier — the Nimitz — class USS Prometheus, which happens to be in the eastern Atlantic even as we speak, just off the Straits of Gibraltar — as a floating command post and field hospital."

"General! General! General!" the reporters cried.

"That's as much materiel as we can spare for now," he continued, "but we'll be keeping a weather eye on things, and should the situation alter radically we'll be prepared to maybe escalate our involvement further."

"What about the President?" somebody shouted.

The general's gimlet eyes glinted. "What about him?" he said, dismissively, and quit the podium amid a blitzkrieg of camera flashes.

"The Japanese navy is sailing back this way," Argus said, "and there've been reports of other nations putting their armed forces on a state of high alert."

"How could this all have sprung up so suddenly?" said Zeus.

"The pressure has been building for some while. If the internet is anything to go by, the global consensus has steadily been turning against us."

"Yes, I was aware of that, but I assumed that would die down eventually. It normally does."

"But it seems to have come to a head instead," said Argus. "And if you think you're having trouble believing what Armstrong-Hall has done, take a look at Mr Bartlett."

A late-night emergency session at the Commons. A harassed Bartlett was standing at the despatch box, trying to make himself heard above a House packed with restive, baying MPs.

"Mr Speaker, I would ask Sir Neville, beg him, to reconsider. He — he is knowingly endangering — knowingly endangering the Great British public. If he persists in these actions, it will place this country in the firing line. He cannot go down to Greece. He cannot position troops on the territory of — on the territory of another sovereign nation without their consent. That is a violation of international law. More than that, it's sheer folly, and I will not stand for it!"

The cry, Sam thought, of an impotent man. Bartlett knew there was nothing he could do but bluster and remonstrate. He'd been undermined by events. The ground beneath his feet was crumbling. He had become a victim of his own lily-liveredness.

"Can we all not just — " Bartlett went on, but the rest of what he had to say was drowned by massed bleating from the ranks of the Honourable Opposition, Shadow Cabinet and backbenchers alike.

"Baa!" they all went, "Baa! Baa!" taunting him like playground bullies, until the Prime Minister had no choice but to drop back into the seat behind him and sit there with his arms crossed, red-cheeked and fuming.

Argus said, "Other communications chatter I've been intercepting suggests that paramilitary organisations are throwing their hats in the ring as well. The Resistenza Contru-Diu Corsu, to name but one."

Galetti! He'd told Sam the RCDC owed the Titans a debt of gratitude. Now, if a little late to be of direct benefit to them, it seemed he was going to pay it.

"And the Agonides are podcasting about sourcing themselves weapons and volunteering."

Zeus rubbed his brow hard. Outside, distantly, thunder growled.

"Here," he said. "They're coming here."

"RAF planes have already touched down at Larisa and Tanagra airbases. The Greek government hasn't granted them permission, but the Hellenic Air Force hasn't lifted a finger to turn them away."

"Fellow travellers. They're in on it too."

"Not against it, certainly."

"Don't these people understand?" The thunder crackled louder, sharper, clearer. "They'll never win. They cannot."

"It's your own fault," said Sam.

Zeus swivelled round. "Excuse me? Who asked your opinion?"

"Nobody, but I'm going to give it to you anyway. You Olympians have brought this on yourselves, by killing the Titans. You made martyrs of them, and if there's one thing people love, it's a martyr."

"But we've killed countless others over the years. What makes the Titans so different? Why were they — you — special?"

"Because we hurt you," Sam said. "We did what no one else had done and showed there were chinks in the Olympian armour. That raised us in people's estimation. We gave the world what nobody else had been able to before — hope. You stamped down on us and crushed us out of existence, but it was too late. Hope's a pesky thing. You only have to think of Pandora. Hope won't stay in the box. Once it's out, it's out, and nothing you can do will put it back in or stop it spreading." She was mangling the myth somewhat but Zeus didn't seem to notice.

"But what good is this hope, if all it's going to do is create thousands more martyrs?"

"That's not the point, is it? People have been inspired to rise up against you again, en masse. And if they die, that's likely to inspire still others. Hope's like that."

"I do not accept this!" Zeus shouted, and a thunderclap detonated right overhead, making the chamber shake. Zigzags of static fizzed across all of Argus's screens, and the images on some rolled upwards, vertical hold lost.

"O God Of Gain, if you wouldn't mind," said Argus, sounding pained. "You're interfering with my signals…"

Zeus's eyes blazed. Sam wondered if she hadn't pushed him too far.

Then, slowly, he calmed. His jaw unclenched. The storm abated.

"Lay siege to Olympus then, would they?" he said. "Well, let them. Let them come. Let them try. All they'll find here is nemesis, divine retribution. Argus, keep abreast of events, figure out how long we've got until the first troops reach our doorstep. I'm going to call together the Pantheon. We need to discuss strategy. But before that — Sam." He grabbed her roughly by the arm. "You are coming with me."