The Age of Zeus

EPILOGUE:

The L-Day event in Lincoln Park was the usual contrasting mix of solemn memorial and joyful celebration. At noon on a baking-hot June day several thousand Chicagoans gathered, some to sing hymns, some to light candles, some to sit in quiet contemplation, some to share beers, some to play music and dance, some to march in circles and chant slogans, and some just to spectate from the sidelines. It was disorganised, rowdy in places, not sanctioned by the authorities, and with no point of focus — no special monument to rally around, no single person to conduct the proceedings, no distinguished figure to stand up and make a speech and be a mouthpiece for all. Similar improvised assemblies were occurring all over the world on this, the third anniversary of the overthrow of the Olympians.

Despite much campaigning and petitioning, not one government would overtly acknowledge Liberation Day as a formal annual calendar occasion. There was a desire among the powers-that-be to move on from the age of Olympian rule, draw a line under it, act as if it had never happened. The people, however, disagreed. Let their elected representatives sweep that decade under the carpet and the dust of political cowardice with it. They might wish to forget, but seven billion others did not.

Furthermore, many felt that their leaders should be held to account — the ones, at least, who had bent the knee most abjectly to the Pantheon. Here at Lincoln Park voices called for ex-president Stavropoulos, whose term of office had just ended and not been renewed, to be retroactively impeached. Similarly, at Trafalgar Square in London where an L-Day event had been held some six hours earlier, there'd been renewed demands for Catesby Bartlett to face prosecution in the High Court. Bartlett had stepped down as prime minister not long after the Olympians' demise, citing health reasons, but the vilification of him in the press and online — criminal, coward, collaborator — continued unabated. For all that he was currently serving in an ill-defined role as some sort of goodwill ambassador for the UN, he was seldom seen in public, and had not set foot on British soil since leaving 10 Downing Street, perhaps for fear of being arrested, or lynched.

At this same hour, in New York, a big band struck up show tunes on Governors Island at the spot where the giant statue of Zeus no longer stood, and people started to dance. In Paris, where it was evening, a firework display splash-painted the sky above the recently restored Eiffel Tower. In Sydney, where day was just breaking, the Australian prime minister delved a spade into the ground, declaring building work on a new Opera House begun. In Bruges, a statue was unveiled with all due pomp and circumstance — and the imbibing of a great deal of pale lager — in the centre of the Markt. It was a memorial to the Unknown Titan, to add to the countless other similar memorials that had been erected all across the planet.

Meanwhile, a breeze off Lake Michigan kept the throng of Chicagoan L-Day celebrants cool as they milled about. Conversations returned again and again to that day three years ago when it had become apparent that the Olympians were no more, all killed at the hands of Sir Neville Armstrong-Hall's little impromptu army and the last remaining Titans. Where were you when you first heard the news? Wasn't it amazing to see those interviews with troops who had taken part and listen to their accounts of shooting monsters and combating a metal giant? And how about that footage of the JDS Inazuma Maru bombarding Olympus from just off the coast, razing the Pantheonic stronghold to the ground? And the helicopter shots of the smouldering ruin afterwards? The long-distance images of the mountain with smoke billowing up from its summit?

Armstrong-Hall's name received repeated mention. After the attack on Olympus the distinguished old soldier had gone home to face the music: a court martial, and even the possibility of trial at the Hague on charges of being a war criminal. A vast international public outcry, however, had soon put paid to that, and he was quietly discharged and pensioned off instead. Now in retirement at his home in the Cotswolds, Britain's erstwhile Chief of General Staff divided his time between penning his memoirs and cultivating rare strains of apple in his orchard. On L-Day it could be guaranteed that at least fifty different TV stations and newspapers from all over the globe would ring him up to ask for a comment, but all he would say was: "I did what I had to do and what was right. It isn't me you should be talking to. It's the soldiers I led. They did all the work and took far greater risks than I. They and the Titans — whoever they were."

And of course there was much discussion of the Titans at Lincoln Park, as at every other L-Day event, most of it favourable, some of it speculative. The Titans remained anonymous. Identities, nationalities, origins — all a mystery. Even the bodies of the ones killed in action had never been found. Ghostly, they had appeared. Ghostly, they had gone. In a way, that was preferable to knowing everything about them, every last personal detail. They were blank slates, everymen who had emerged from nowhere to fulfil a function, then melted away back into the shadows. What they'd helped bring about meant more than who they'd actually been.

So in Lincoln Park, on this summery and boisterous L-Day, it was possible to imagine that a Titan might be standing right next to you. Might be that man in the queue for the hot dog vendor. Might be that woman sipping bottled water while leaning on a lakefront lamppost. Might be that rollerblader whizzing around in a cutoff L-Day T-shirt (motto: Waking Up From A 10-Year Nightmare). Might be that rich-voiced gospel singer leading a chorus of "Amazing Grace."

Might even be one or other (or both) of that mixed-race couple who were pushing a baby-stroller through the crowd and observing the goings-on with a detached, wry amusement.

"Don't you just feel like standing up and telling them?" said he to her. "Shouting it out loud? 'That's me you guys are all so jazzed up about. I'm the one. Come and give me a pat on the back. Maybe the key to the city too.'"

" You might," said she to him. "I wouldn't."

"Pride ain't a crime."

"No, but modesty's a virtue."

"You're not even tempted? Don't tell me you're not tempted."

"Not for a moment. Besides, what makes you think they'd believe us? Dozens of people have come out of the woodwork in the past three years claiming they were a Titan. They've all been debunked and laughed at. Why would we get treated any differently?"

"Uh, because it's true?"

"Face it, Rick, we're better off this way. We have a nice, quiet life. Be a pity to ruin it."

"Quiet?" said Ramsay, casting a dubious glance at the occupant of the stroller, who was fast asleep.

Sam followed his gaze. "Well, for another few minutes, at any rate. Hey, ice-cream van. Fancy a snow cone?"

They ate the cones on a bench overlooking the brilliant expanse of the lake, where pleasure cruisers, jet-skis and water skiers leashed to speedboats all vied for space, cross-hatching one another's wakes.

"Oh, I got an email from Jamie this morning," Sam said.

"And how is yon bonnie laddie?"

"Your Scottish accent is even worse than your English."

"Did I not sound like Sean Connery?"

"Not even close. And Jamie's fine. He's got a girlfriend now, so I don't hear from him as often as I used to."

"McCann has a girlfriend?"

"Don't sound so surprised. He's cute — in a boyish way. He's also pretty wealthy, thanks to Landesman."

"Aren't we all?" said Ramsay.

Jolyon Lillicrap, as executor of Regis Landesman's will, had supervised the disbursement of funds from his late boss's estate. Channelling the money through various offshore accounts so as to render it untraceable, he had ensured that everyone involved in the Titanomachy II campaign, from techs to surviving Titans, had been duly and amply rewarded for their services, himself included. By this means Sam and Ramsay had been able to buy a handsome, serviced penthouse apartment on North Lake Shore Drive, with spectacular views of the lake. They'd also established financial security for themselves for the rest of their lives.

"And Therese?" Ramsay enquired. "She called lately?"

"No, but the trip to Quebec to visit her is still on." Sam nodded at the stroller. "I'll take him with me so she can see how big he's getting."

"The poor woman. Any, you know, progress?"

Sam shook her head. "Every treatment in the book's been tried. If it's not made any difference by now, it's never going to."

Hamel had been left quadriplegic by Poseidon's attack. Sam's intervention had prevented him from fully coagulating the blood in Hamel's veins but he'd done enough damage to trigger a series of small ischemic strokes, the result of which was complete loss of function and sensation below the neck. Hamel could afford the best of healthcare and occupational therapy and, tough old broad that she was, she remained resolutely upbeat about her condition, arguing that it could have been worse, she could be dead, and moreover it had all been in a good cause. Sam, though, still felt an ache in the pit of her stomach every time she thought of her.

"If I'd only been a fraction quicker off the mark…"

Ramsay lodged a reassuring arm around her shoulders. "Stop it. You always beat yourself up about this, and it isn't going to change anything. Therese doesn't blame you, so neither should you."

Sam nestled her head against the muscled firmness of his shoulder. "Rick," she said after a few moments, "what do you think about, when you think about that day?"

He gazed out over the lake. On the grass nearby a drummer was pounding on bongos, beating out a complex polyrythym for a throng of neo-hippie L-Dayers to freak out to.

"Mostly I think how goddamn lucky you and me were to get out alive. When Zeus went all self-destructo on us… I mean, Jesus, if it hadn't been for our suits, we'd have been toast. Crispy-fried bacon. Done to a turn and carbon round the edges."

"Me, I can't forget Zeus's face as Landesman — you know."

"Castrated him."

"The sheer disbelief. His own father. After all the feuding and bad blood between them, suddenly he was just a kid again, ten years old, not understanding how his daddy could be so cruel."

"Yeah, it was a regular Greek tragedy. Bet Landesman himself regretted it, in the last few seconds. Not even a TITAN suit could save him from the shitstorm Zeus called down. The two of us just got blown off our feet. Landesman was right at the epicentre…" His voice tailed off.

Sam wasn't listening. She was back there, on Olympus, reliving it — the lightning explosion and its aftermath. Tottering to her feet, dazed, dazzled, half deafened. Her battlesuit seared all over, partially melted, no longer functioning. Useless, just so much high-tech clutter. Discarding most of it, piece by piece. Helping Ramsay upright, helping him pick off the majority of his armour too. Then surveying the agora — blasted and blackened on every surface, a negative print of itself. Trawling through the rubble to find scorched bits of Cronus's battlesuit, with scorched bits of Cronus inside it. Finding even less of the Olympians, just a few charred, scattered bone fragments, some held together with tar-like scraps of skin. All that remained of Zeus, Hera, Demeter and Dionysus.

Then the journey back through the stronghold to Rhea, amid grinning, triumphant soldiers who sensed now that the battle was truly won. On the way, encountering a group of men who'd unearthed Argus from his chamber. Seeing them drag him into the open with detached wires dangling from his head. Seeing them push him to his knees, his belly flopping over his thighs. Seeing them retreat to form a line, rifles raised — a firing squad. Seeing a vague smile creep onto Argus's corpulent face, as if he knew what was about to happen and it was a relief, an end to the stench and suffering of his existence. Or else the smile was just the idiot smile of a creature disconnected from all contact with the world, not realising what awaited.

The multiple report of the guns, and the slumping thud of a fleshy body falling, and her and Ramsay trudging on. To Rhea, who was still lying at the poolside, and lying so still, with Armstrong-Hall squatting solicitously beside her, doing his best to soothe her. The Field Marshal, in his water-soaked battledress, standing up as he saw the other two Titans approach. Snapping off a salute. Catching their expressions. Understanding. Saying, Done?

Sam confirming it. Done.

Armstrong-Hall relaying this into a walkie-talkie: Stand down. I repeat, all units stand down. It's over.

And Sam and Ramsay walking on as the mist began to lift from Olympus, thinning, the air brightening. Making for the gate, and the mountainside, and somewhere, elsewhere, anywhere that wasn't here.

On the bench, Ramsay could see Sam unreeling this vivid memory-movie in her mind.

"Come back, Sam," he said. "Come back to me. That was then. This is now. You don't have to be there any more. It's over."

"You know what's odd?" she said, finally.

"Your accent? You pronounce the 'r's in the middle of words, and your sentences go up at the end. You're becoming a local girl."

"Well, I have to, to make myself understood. Otherwise, I say something and I get looked at like I'm speaking in tongues."

"Fitting in."

"Yeah. I'm a mistress of disguise. Who needs a TITAN suit with chameleon function?"

"And the less English you come across as, the less likely it is someone might recognise you as that woman who's still wanted in the UK for murder."

"I'm not in hiding, Rick. If the British government finds me and wants to have me extradited, I'll go back and face the music. I'm innocent."

"I'd testify to that."

"And Dai Prothero would be in my corner too. The only trouble is, to clear my name I'd have to admit to being a Titan, and that'd open this huge great can of worms. Life's simpler if I just keep my head down. Anyway, as I was saying. You know what's odd? I still can't get used to the idea that, in the end, I only actually killed one of the Pantheon. Hermes — Pugh. I never got my reckoning with Apollo and Artemis, or with Aphrodite."

"That bother you?"

"Not as much as it might have. I wanted revenge badly, so badly, but maybe it was better that I didn't get it."

"Better for you," Ramsay said. "Better for your soul."

"Right. But still I'm left with this feeling of, So what was that all about then? "

"You did your bit, and the Olympians got what was coming to them. Guess it doesn't matter who from, long as they got it. The only one who didn't really deserve to die was Argus, but that was necessary."

"A mercy, almost."

"Yeah. And soon as he was pulled off his machinery, NORAD got back control of its nukes, and so did all the world's other missile commands — Russia, France, and so on. Big whoop all round when his firewalls suddenly went down. 'Hooray, we can blow up the planet again, if we want to.'"

"Only, we won't, will we?" Sam said. "We're grown-up enough as a race, aren't we? We can manage things for ourselves. We certainly don't need self-styled gods lording it over us, telling us how to behave and treating us like infants. We're capable of making sure humankind carries on and prospers. Aren't we?"

"Hell if I know," said Ramsay. He jerked a thumb at the L-Day celebrants. "But maybe that's what all this is in aid of, and why it should carry on year after year, even become an official event. Long as people remember what they were liberated from, they'll do their best to enjoy the freedom and make sure it continues. We've been slaves a while. Freed slaves tend to treasure what they've gained."

A soft burble from the stroller was followed by the sound of small limbs furiously shifting.

"Ah," said Sam. "Nap time's over."

She unfastened straps and hauled a pudgy, clammy eighteen-month-old out of the stroller and onto her lap.

William Dai Ramsay rolled a sleepy eye at his mother, and then at his father. His light-brown face set into a grumpy pout, and he nuzzled against Sam's breast with a sigh that sounded far too heartfelt and careworn for one so young. He'd been named after his paternal grandfather. Sam had lobbied to have Dai as his first name, but Ramsay had vetoed this. "Sounds too morbid," he'd said. So William it was, Will for short.

Ramsay stroked his son's head, with just a hint of wistfulness, briefly recollecting another small boy, another head of dark nappy curls like this one.

"You wake up in your own sweet time, kiddo," he said, and kissed Will's crown.

In response, Will just snuffled, and Sam hugged him close, feeling the heat radiating off him and inhaling the mix of milk and sweat that was his unique, heady musk.

Will.

Her Will.

Will, Will, Will.

What more fitting name to give to the future?