The Age Of Zeus (38 page)

And then one final, muffled shotgun blast brought hush.

44. AMBUSHING THE AMBUSHERS

S
hortly before the op commenced, the latest mythoporn extravaganza showing on Blue Eros came to a climax.
Perve-seus And His Winged Stallion Poke-ass-horse
exhaustively documented the sexual permutations that could be achieved between man and equine, and in one scene extended the range by having the pair copulate while in flight, although cheaply rendered special effects and the patently fake pair of wings tacked onto the horse's back somewhat diminished the boundary-stretching majesty of the moment.

The movie was playing on one screen in mission control at Bleaney while the other screens were dedicated to the visor-cam feeds from the five Titans who were lying in wait in various places of concealment all round the site of the roadwork. Ramsay was trying to pay attention to the op-in-progress but kept finding himself drawn to the filmic bestiality, then repelled by it, then drawn, then repelled, over and over. His expression was at times so incredulous that his face looked as if it was melting and sliding downwards.

"Fuck," he breathed as the final credits rolled and, in yet another Pyrrhic victory for low-budget CGI, Perve-seus and mount soared off unconvincingly into the sunset. "I mean, Jesus. That was some sick, sick shit."

"I don't know, looked like true love to me," said Patanjali. "Of course, if you were that offended, Rick, you could always have asked me to change channels."

"I guess I thought I was broadening my horizons or some such, but now all I've got is a vision of a man drinking horse spunk stuck in my head."

"All right, quiet, people," said Sam. "It's started."

Much of the visor imagery was an unintelligible muddle, the Titans travelling too fast and their motion too shaky for the cameras to cope with. Time and again there were glimpses of Hercules flitting in and out of view at the corner of a screen as everybody took their turns with their oscillo-knives, Coeus then Phoebe then Rhea then Cronus, in a well-choreographed sequence. Iapetus had his moment of face-to-face confrontation, delivering shotgun rounds to Hercules's shoulder, arm and finally groin, and then the darting knife attacks resumed. The Titans were whittling the Olympian down. It was the only way to tackle an opponent so physically powerful - swift harrying strikes that gradually and increasingly disabled, like fighter planes strafing a dreadnought. Hercules tried to lash out at his assailants. On several occasions his blows nearly connected, but he was slowed down and made clumsy by the knife slashes, hamstrung, and he was flailing rather than fighting, and anyway at full speed the Titans were all but unhittable targets.

At last he was entirely helpless. On his knees, still somehow upright, but sagging. His lion-skin cloak tattered and dripping with blood. Unable to lift his limbs. Scarcely able to hold his head up. Once more he became a steady central object in Iapetus's visor-cam, as Barrington approached him, shotgun to the fore.

"Sorry now, you lousy mongrel?"

Hercules's brimming eyes suggested he was, if only for himself. The tears mingled with the blood spatters on his cheeks, turning from clear to pink as they trickled down.

"The other... Olympians," he gasped. "My family. They... will kill you. All... of you."

"Maybe," said Iapetus. "But you won't be around to see it."

He lodged the end of the shotgun barrel between Hercules's teeth.

"I'd ask if you have any last requests, Herc," he said, "but I can see you've got a gobful. Just the way you like it."

"Do it, Dez," Sam muttered, off-mic. "Enough tormenting. Get it over with."

"My brother was worth a hundred of you," Iapetus declared, and squeezed the trigger.

Hercules's cheeks were lit up from within like a jack-o'-lantern. Then his face seemed to collapse in on itself. His eyes bulged dumbly. His body slumped.

"There you go, Malc," Iapetus said softly. "She'll be right. Rest easy, mate."

The other four Titans joined him beside Hercules's lifeless body.

"Good work, one and all," said Cronus. "Iapetus, I trust you're pleased."

"Ripper, boss. Couldn't be happier."

"Then we should think about making tracks." Cronus's visor-cam viewpoint swept from one end of the street to the other. The roadway was deserted, as were the sidewalks, but faces were visible in almost every lit window overlooking the scene. "Before we attract any more attention."

"Fair go."

"We rendezvous at -"

"All Titans." This was Sam, into the mic. "Look north. I think I just saw..."

The visor-cam images all swung in the same direction.

All showed that something was coming.

A man.

Fast as a car.

Sam had spotted him appearing round the corner at the far end of the street, just as Cronus had been turning to look the other way. Cronus had missed him but she hadn't.

Loincloth. Winged sandals. Winged metal helmet. Staff with a pair of snakes wrapped around it.

Hermes, brandishing his caduceus.

None of the Titans had time to move, or even to cry out.

Then the visor-cam image from Coeus spun, showing brown night-time city sky, buildings, ground, sky, buildings, ground, until it finally settled on just sky, with blobs superimposed on it, splashes of something ink-dark and wet...

"
Scheisse
," Phoebe hissed. "
Sein Kopf. Sein verdammter Kopf!
"

"Go!" Sam yelled.

"His head..." said Iapetus, numb, aghast. "Clean off."

"Go!" Sam repeated. "He'll be coming back for another of you. It
is
a trap. Go! Split up! Run! As fast as you bloody can - run!"

45. RUN

T
he four Titans scattered, Iapetus northward, Cronus, Phoebe and Rhea west. At the first intersection they came to, Cronus and Phoebe continued west while Rhea turned south. All four of them used road as well as sidewalk, slaloming between people and cars, going wherever a gap presented itself. Pedestrians yelled in protest as they were accidentally bumped into or barged aside. Drivers slammed on the brakes and honked their horns as black-clad figures shot by in front of them. Taillights flashed. Headlights flashed. Some very ripe language erupted in each Titan's wake, as if they were farmers sowing quick-sprouting seeds of profanity. For every person who was alarmed or startled to see an armoured, paramilitary-looking figure rushing past at astonishing speed, there were ten who were simply annoyed or indignant. "Hey, asshole, go shoot your goddamn sci-fi movie somewhere else!" "Extreme sports is California, dude!" "Fuck you, buddy!"

New York.

"Where is he?" Cronus yelled. "Where's Hermes now?"

"No idea," Iapetus replied. "Bastard's got to be chasing one of us."

"Somebody look over their shoulder."

"Not me, mate. Too busy running. At this speed I've got to concentrate on where I'm going, or - shit! See? Nearly hit a mailbox just talking to you."

"Peripheral expansion mode," said Sam. "All of you."

"It's even harder to run in a straight line when that's on," said Rhea.

"Just do it. Keep looking forwards, blinker out the rest. I'll be the eyes in the back of your head."

One after another the visor-cam images jumped into warped widescreen. Buildings on either side ballooned from the vanishing point then tapered off again to the edges. Parked vehicles, railings, front doorsteps, shop windows, passers-by - everything swelled and shrank away as though viewed through a crystal ball travelling rapidly a few feet off the ground.

A quick scan of the screens told Sam all she needed to know.

On the far right-hand side of the feed from Cronus, and the far left-hand side of Phoebe's, there was a tiny, pale shape in motion. Sam could make out arms pumping, legs flickering, the gleam of streetlights reflecting off a shiny silvery helmet.

"Cronus, Phoebe, it's you. He's on your tail."

"Dammit!" Cronus spat. "Dammit all to hell!"

"Just keep going, both of you. You can outrun him."

"No, we can't," said Cronus. He was breathing heavily already, and Phoebe had begun panting hard, perhaps in panic. "Hermes has a top speed of well over fifty. We can barely manage forty."

"The suit goes faster the faster you go. Pour it on. Run flat out.
Sprint
."

Cronus and Phoebe accelerated. Their tachometer readings crept up above 40 mph. 45, 46, 47...

But Hermes was still gaining.

"Why doesn't he just teleport ahead?" Ramsay wondered.

"He can't do both at once," Patanjali replied. "It's not safe for him. He can only teleport from a standing start. Otherwise, when he reappears his stored momentum could carry him slap-bang into a brick wall or whatever and splatter him to pieces."

"And that would be a shame."

"Quite."

"Base, I'm going to double back." It was Iapetus. "I've got a lock on their whereabouts. Maybe I can intercept."

To Patanjali, Sam said, "Where's the GPS map? Why's it not up? Pull it up."

"No sooner said than done," the computer programmer said, and did.

A blue-on-black street map of Manhattan winked into life, with four moving red dots tracking the four Titans' positions.

"All right, Iapetus, try," Sam said into the mic. "Judging by your relative locations, I don't think they should count on you making it, though. Cronus, Phoebe," she continued. "I have you headed along West Eighteenth Street. You've just crossed Sixth Avenue. Now, if you continue on that course, you're going to run out of city and hit the Hudson River in a couple of minutes."

Cronus groaned.

"No, it's all right. Just listen. You can't attempt evasive manoeuvres yet. All the turns here are right-angles and you can't afford to slow down as much as you need to in order to take one without wiping out. Hermes will catch up for certain if you do. But once you hit the edge of the island there's an expressway, the, er, the West Side Highway it's called, also known as the Joe DiMaggio Highway. There's bound to be sliproads onto that, or some kind of broader junction to help you get on it without decelerating too much. It'll give you more room to run and a bit of breathing space. At some point, though, you're going to have to stop and turn and make a stand."

"Hermes is too fast a target for us to -"

"No, Cronus,
listen
. This is not negotiable. This is just how it's going to be. I know we weren't planning on dealing with Hermes today, which is why no one's packing the relevant armaments. Yes, he's fast, he can teleport... but his only tactical weapon is that caduceus of his, and it's only useful at close quarters. You two have guns - long-range capability. That's your edge, and it's going to make all the difference. It's going to save your necks. So keep moving, keep running. I don't care how tired you're feeling, how much your legs ache or your lungs hurt. You can do this. Phoebe? Do you read me?"

"I read you," Phoebe said, between gasps.

"I'm going to get you through this, both of you, I promise. Your side of the deal is simply to keep listening to me and do exactly as I say."

She covered the mic with her hand.