"A trout that thinks it's Jaws?"
"You should have seen it, Sam. It attacked anything in its tank that moved. It had no idea it wasn't a fearsome pelagic predator. Its self-delusion was entire. A river fish that was utterly convinced it was some kind of piscine god."
"But isn't it a bit of a leap from tinkering around with animals to giving human beings super powers?"
"Not really," said Zeus. "If I can augment animals, why not humans too? It has long been my belief that we all of us possess untold, hidden abilities. Embedded somewhere in us, latent, right down at the most primal level, are extraordinary faculties. In the past some people have been able to tap them, and then perform what have generally been regarded as miracles, astonishing feats of strength, telekinetic manipulation, healing, endurance, bilocation, pyrokinesis, and more. Some have been hanged for doing so, or drowned on ducking stools, or of course crucified. Others have been hailed as divine and worshipped. Finding and identifying the genes that generate these paranormal abilities was the task that preoccupied me over the five years. The result was… well, I've no need to tell you what the result was. You know full well."
"Where were you at the time you were doing all this?" Sam asked. "Your father thought South America."
"And how right the old man was. South America is the ideal continent for those who wish to go about their business unmolested by the law and unhampered by rules, ethics bodies, oversight committees and the like. You can buy anything, south of Mexico. Stump up enough money and whatever you need, whatever you desire, it's yours. A fully equipped lab. Animal test subjects. Even…"
"Even…? You were about to say human test subjects, weren't you?"
Zeus smiled. Bared his teeth, at any rate. "Prostitutes and feral gang kids from the favelas — who was going to miss them? Certainly not the local law enforcement, who shoot them as a matter of course and are only too happy to save bullets and supplement their income by abducting them to order instead."
Sam's stomach turned. "Are you sure you weren't adopted and your real father was a Nazi vivisectionist?"
"Playing the Jewish card again, Sam? Didn't work last time, won't now. Just because my father was of the Tribe, doesn't mean I am. Judaism is matrilinear, and Mum was Greek. Greek Orthodox, for what it's worth. Although for my dad it was enough that she was Greek, him with his passion for all things Hellenic."
"A passion his son seems to have inherited."
"No," Zeus corrected her, "he shoved all that stuff down my throat. I couldn't give a damn about Greek myths."
"Except where it suits your purpose."
"Well, yes."
"Your father was well aware that you chose the Greek pantheon, out of all the other pantheons, deliberately. To piss him off."
"He'd have been stupid not to realise that."
"And, by the way, one of the Titans you killed on Bleaney" — remember, no bodies equals no proof — "was him. Your own father."
Not even a flicker in Zeus's expression. "You say that like it's a bad thing."
"Patricide usually is."
"Usually. Now, shall I continue, or are you going to keep on sidetracking me?"
"I'm not sure I want to hear any more, now that I know where the human portions of your monsters came from."
"Squeamish?" said Zeus. "Squeamishness is a luxury no true pioneer can afford. Suffice it to say that I gave those whores and street kids the kind of power and invincibility they'd hitherto thought they could get only through a needle or a firearm. They were my foundation stones. On them and on countless dumb animals I built the edifice of a grand dream. A dream of saving humankind from itself. This dream."
"And getting one up on your father at the same time."
"A fortunate corollary."
"As well as gaining absolute authority for yourself. Misunderstood misfit Xander Landesman, appointing himself supreme leader of the world. Revenge of the dropout."
"Your obstreperousness is one of the things I like most about you, Sam. It's quite endearing. Exasperating, but endearing."
"Maybe we should just cut this short," Sam said. "If the only reason you've brought me here is to brag on about how clever and ruthless you've been, with your dancing DNA and your Greek myth storytime audiobook, then maybe — "
"Sam!" Zeus burst out. "Heavens, woman, just stop and think for a second. You're not here so that I can crow about my achievements."
"And not here to be killed either. So, what, then?"
"Could I make it any more obvious? Why not ask yourself why I had Hermes pluck you from the battlefield. It was because I had a feeling about you, Sam, based on what Dionysus and Aphrodite told me about you and my own subsequent researches, after your identity became apparent. And my hunch has been confirmed over the past few weeks. You're stubborn and obstinate and awkward in every way, not to mention resourceful and smart. That makes for a worthy foe. It also makes for a worthy ally."
"Ally?"
Then she saw it, and everything in her seemed to sink. Not just her heart, her whole self, as though her soul was draining out of her, seeping onto the floor.
"Godhood, Sam," said Zeus. "I'm offering you your very own apotheosis. Transformation from mortal to divine. Exaltation. I'm asking you to join us and become an Olympian."
69. COUNCIL OF WAR
Argus pinpointed Poseidon's whereabouts. Hermes fetched him. The twelve Olympians sat in session in the naos of the main temple. Zeus presided. Sam looked on from the sidelines.
A council of war.
"We go nuclear," said Athena. "Argus has control over the world's atomic arsenals. It's high time we took advantage of that. We bomb London. That'll halt this thing in its tracks. You know this, O Zeus."
"I can't countenance it, O Athena the Owl-Eyed," said Zeus.
"Why not? I'm the one you consult when it comes to tactics. Have I not advised you well in the past? Have I not helped steer you successfully around countless potential pitfalls? So this is what I am recommending now. Wipe out London with one of Britain's own ICBMs, and this new insurgency we're seeing will melt away — gone in a flash."
She hadn't always been Athena. Once, she had been a brilliant business strategist, a consultant whom corporations hired at staggering expense to tell them how to get one over on the competition and expand their own interests. Then she tried to play off two rival pharmaceutical giants against each other, for the sheer pleasure of manipulating them both, and got caught at it.
"I agree with my stepsister," said Dionysus. "Why must we exert ourselves over and over again quashing these uprisings when there's a far less effortful option open to us? All Argus need do is think it, and the deed is done."
Dionysus had been a vintner and bon viveur who hosted lavish, booze-sodden parties that could last for days. The good times ended for him after one of his guests killed another with a broken bottle in a drunken brawl.
"Typical!" barked Ares. "You're soft in every way, Dionysus. Soft and lazy. I, myself, will gladly take on these mortals hand to hand on the slopes of fair, snow-capped Olympus. The clash and clangour of combat is my music. Bloodshed and screams are my meat and drink."
Before he was enlisted into the Pantheon, Ares had been a soldier, a good one, born for discipline and killing, if a little too apt to sacrifice the former in the name of the latter. His involvement in a massacre of civilians in some west African hellhole town prompted a dishonourable discharge and a descent into alcoholism. There were frequent arrests for affray, until Xander Landesman came along.