From time to time, the Lords of Olympus meet high above the domed city of Elysium to discuss matters of state.
BY BENJANUN SRIDUANGKAEW AND DEVI LACROIX
We meet above Elysium, in the stately superstructure that now hangs from the center of the city’s habitation dome. In the past generation, what was once just utility conduits and access panels has grown into a sweeping, palatial complex of diamond and durasteel, the most visible expression of not only our power, but also the argument that we are different from the regime that came before. The Titans had no use for such flagrant displays; they preferred their authority to be invisible, embedded within the population, an eye that sees all but which cannot be seen in turn. I understand the mentality, even agree with it, but Zeus is not so reserved in her inclinations. “We must give our subjects a reason to look skyward,” she said to me once. “They must know we are here.”
She means this quite literally: as each of us enters the main meeting hall, banners unfurl along the exterior of the complex, announcing to all below which lords are in attendance for the day’s conference. The grand sweep of Elysium lies beneath our feet—our demesne of immaculate green, visible through walls and floor as thin as a sheet of paper and stronger than the hull of a warship. But the same materials that appear to suspend us, as if on thin air, also render us legible to the population below: banners or no, it is well known that our subjects watch the heavens with powerful telescopes, track our comings and goings as a matter of public record.
She is far less outspoken on this subject, but I know this to be part of Zeus’ machinations, too. My sister, the visionary, does not simply fight for legitimacy; she has succeeded in defining what legitimacy is, and has built for her supposed equals a glass prison of expectation and responsibility. Each time we do not heed her call, we undermine our own position in the social and political reality she has crafted: millions of invisible eyes monitor the twelve of us in the collective—the worshipers we would govern, forcing us to commit to battle on a field of Zeus’ own design and choosing.
In this regard, the table we sit at is the most dangerous of warzones I have ever fought in: bloody in the way of a melee, innervating boredom in the way of a siege. My sister has not yet found a way to craft monopole magnets, a world that can turn on one point alone, so we are obligated to face one another from opposite ends of the table. She and I are, unfortunately, preternaturally suited to be each other’s foil: the same height, but she is lean where I am powerfully built; her hair glows like burnished gold where mine is the very definition of Stygian—of any word, that is mine alone; my eyes gleam like the riches of the deep earth, luminous, while hers are as black as the void of space.
The table itself is a long oval—Zeus at one end, me at the other, five chairs on each side between us. Only her and my spots are fixed; the positions of the other gods change from meeting to meeting, a formalized-if-unspoken language where relative seating arrangements reflect agreement and dissent on the matters up for debate. There are, however, general rules of where each gravitates toward. Hera sits to the left of her wife, except when she doesn’t; Ares and Athena sit across from each other in the third position, perfectly balanced between myself and Zeus; Hephaestus, more often than not, sits at my right, as zer erstwhile wife Aphrodite heaps scorn from afar. Dionysus, the youngest and scrawniest of us, typically opposes Demeter, the very image of motherly heft; Poseidon projects an image of herself from whatever undersea deposit she is studying that week, or—as today—sends one of her blue-scaled nymphs to keep her seat warm. On and on it goes, the bitter contempt of familiarity.
I warn Hephaestus ahead of time—not in so many words, but I recommend ze sits in the middle of the table. Later, the other lords will assume I confided to zer before the meeting was convened, regardless of reality; this way, at least, it will appear ze responded to my confidence with polite dissent and a shift to the neutral position.
Zer eyes pinch in a mixture of concern and annoyance; ze has seen through me immediately, of course. “I deserve more than a hollow forewarning, Hades. And it’s not like you to play games.”
And ze does deserve more consideration than I am giving. Of any relationship amongst the lords of Elysium, I believe mine and Hephaestus’ to be unique: most rare and dangerous of all, we respect each other. “Come to my estate later today. I promise you, I will show you everything then.”
Show, not tell. I can see Hephaestus trying to work through what is at stake, even as the meeting comes to order. But ze respects my request and does not sit at my right.
We have all assembled now, and the glass around us grows opaque. Our worshippers must know us, but only to a point; the actual meetings of the Twelve are not for mortals to see. It helps preserve our mystique, the enigmas that make our power possible. It would be unbecoming for the humans to see Athena put Ares through the table again—there is a time and place for us to air our bloody grievances to the public, and that is the arena, not the council chamber—but it would be equally damaging to our reputation for uplifted eyes and bated breath to discover us conducting a boring board meeting, with charts and handouts.
The meeting begins formally enough, short updates about each of our specific domains; no calls for blood quite yet, no swearing of dark curses as one or the other of us suffers a mortal offense that will be forgotten next week. I watch the other lords more carefully than I typically do, looking for any sign that information concerning Persephone has leaked out. If any of them know of her, they keep it to themself for now; no doubt they, like I, are interested in learning Demeter’s reaction first.
The old witch must know that her clone has gone missing, but she carries herself with her typical cool, calculating distance. The first comment she makes is a short, withering criticism of Aphrodite’s status report on lichen growth yields. “Your rosy prognosis is undercut by the numbers in the appendix,” she says, voice as barren as the lifeless rocks the organisms are meant to colonize. “Oxygen output is only a third of what you promised us, and you somehow managed to increase the organism’s vulnerability to radiation.”
“There continues to be difficulties adapting the lichen to this planet’s environment.” Aphrodite gives the same excuse every meeting; she is surly and chafes at the ignominy of handling what she believes is a demeaning assignment. “The symbiosis of the fungus and cyanobacteria continues to fail, for reasons that we have not yet discerned.”
“I think the reason, singular, is clear enough,” Demeter replies, not looking up from her tablet.
“I’m certain she would appreciate your help in the endeavor,” Ares jokes, earning xer glares from both of the quibbling gods. “What? Everyone says the terraforming project is of critical import, but all I see is Aphrodite being handed a shit assignment with no assistance from her colleagues.”
“My mandate is the cloning and breeding of sapient species. Show me one involved in the lichen project, and I’ll start assisting. In addition, I have my hands full keeping this city fed.” Demeter gives Ares a narrow look. “Would your militias care to assist Aphrodite’s efforts?”
“Were that we could hammer our swords to plowshares.” Ares is a complicated, mercurial lord, prone to flippant humor one moment, biting and sardonic analysis the next. “Perimeter segment 279 was breached last night; a sub-leviathan class was repulsed, at the cost of twelve soldiers.”
“That’s fewer than normal,” Zeus remarks. “Congratulations.”
Ares rocks xer head back and forth in dissent. “Eight of them were specialists and officers. They were targeted.”
“We’ve always known the colossi capable of adapting and evolving physically,” Dionysus chimes in; she projects her voice poorly, almost mumbling. “It stands to reason that their tactics would change over time, too.”
“I warned you all that this was not just a possibility, but a certainty,” Ares growls. “Instead, we have hidden behind walls for decades, waiting. My men cannot hold forever, so we either need the terraforming efforts to succeed or we need a pilot cadre. Make up your gods damned minds and give me the tools I need to win this war.”
Zeus nods pensively, as if this is the first time she has heard such a clear assessment of our predicament—trapped in a walled city, the environment antithetical to our existence and overrun by hostile fauna, lacking either the science to turn nature to our benefit or the martial might to sally forth—then pivots to Demeter. “You brought the Mark Four online recently. How is it performing?”
Aside from our terraforming efforts, we are—ostensibly—wed in a combined endeavor to find and cultivate a cadre of pilots qualified enough to command our war machines into battle. Each of us maintains a small army of mechs, piloted by the best this city has to offer. We make a great show of it, because participation brings comfort to the mortals, and because the image of a dozen eidolons in parade formation does a remarkable job of strangling dissent in the crib. But our resources are not limitless, and even one colossus is a match for a score of lesser warframes.
No, what the gods speak of when we discuss pilots is the never-ending effort to find the pilot. Each of us had one, once, a singular human soul that piloted our personal mechs into battle during the bloody days of the Titanomachy. They were our first champions, bound to us as we were to them, and together we performed miracles. They each fell in the final battle against the Titans, and we have spent the intervening years acutely feeling their loss.
Since then, a handful of us have found new humans that can rise to the challenge of being our chosen pilots, and it is on those burdened shoulders that the defense of Elysium ultimately rests: at present, we can muster only four of our mighty war machines at a time. Zeus’ eidolon Keraunios has as its pilot Herakles, who is wed to Hippolyta, the pilot of Ares’ Penthesilea. Artemis and Apollo share Siproites between them, as they share most things, but that means only Laphria or Delos may take the field. Demeter’s pilot, Adrastus, performs his duties with great skill, but this has not earned him his lord’s love, or even respect. My understanding is that Poseidon, never present, has a pilot, though the rumor is that her eidolon Corinth has been so modified that it is now forever bound to the sea. Last and least is Dionysus’ so-called cult. They have eschewed the heavy war mechs of their peers and instead field a team of smaller armored suits, outriders for the landship Paralos; an unruly and unprofessional lot. I would sooner count on our mortal auxiliaries than rely on their service, and I do not reckon them among our defenses.
The other mechs—my Styx and Hephaestus’ Charis—have stayed silent for decades. Athena’s Gorgoneion, Hera’s Ganymeda, and Aphrodite’s Urania have had pilots only intermittently. We all know that a god’s eidolon, commanded by a worthy pilot, is the only weapon that can truly best a colossus in battle. But for all our coveting, such champions are exceedingly rare, virtually bespoke to each god. Worse, there is bitter disagreement about how best to conduct the search. The hunt is the most intimate undertaking a god can commit to—and the most public, too. Any discussion of the process invariably collapses into bitter acrimony: too many cooks in the kitchen, each grievously offended by every other, violently fighting on the food to be prepared, the recipe we ought to follow. Even, to carry the metaphor to its strained conclusion, whether we are actually chefs, or to whom the meal will be served.
So each of us pursues or does not pursue, hinders or ignores the efforts of the other lords as we see fit. Zeus is, characteristically, the most humanist of us all: her stated belief is that there is greatness, ever sleeping, in the ants below, and that in the moment of crisis one of them has always risen to the occasion as her champion. She may have a point: to the great vexation of Zeus’ wife, mortals have indeed risen to the challenge time and time again, in at least one manner of speaking.
The other lords trust the vagaries of mortals less, involve themselves more directly in hunts colored by their own preoccupations. Ares believes martial prowess is what will serve us best, and xe looks for xer champions among the armed forces and the gladiatorial pits; it is in the former that xe found Hippolyta. Athena argues that strength must be cultivated through mastery and education, and has focused on educational uplift. Hephaestus has toyed with the suggestion that lesser artificial intelligences might succeed where a human would otherwise be necessary, to the great rebuke of Zeus and even Hera. Dionysus’ approach is aptly described as esoteric—insofar as none of us know a damn thing about their approach. The end result is eleven disparate voices, each finding a new way to state the same truth, again and again: that our avatars and our pilots must embody the best of us, the strongest of us, the wisest and bravest and shrewdest of us… and that we have no idea how to meaningfully and consistently get from here to there.
For my part, I have stood outside of this fool’s errand. I have had no need of demigods since my first pilot, have not sought companionship nor understanding beyond Hephaestus. Better I focus on what I can control directly, seize the future with my own hands. We need the pilots, yes… but the effort has become a fetish, an excuse to deliberate and ponder and never, ever act. Every day we hem and haw on genetic markers and caloric deficiency and education engrams, we burn the only resource that matters—time. We have now ruled Elysium for almost three mortal generations, and where others choose to see the first buds of progress, I have witnessed only a useless struggle intended to assign meaning to pretentious meetings.
Demeter has always argued that the perfect pilot can be bred—Adrastus is proof of this—and she has used her command over the forging and decanting of clone bodies to gather evidence, iterating on physical specimens. Of any of us, she is probably the closest to actually achieving our goal, as sacrilegious as her methods seem; it’s why I expressed my own interest in the Mark Four, and it’s why the first model was to be gifted to Zeus. Unfortunately for both Demeter and my sister, the Mark Four had other ideas.
The Lord of Harvest nods to Zeus. “It has exceeded all previous performance hallmarks by at least thirty-five percent—cognition, memory, and physical ability are all up across the board.” This elicits a murmur from the table; Demeter is as duplicitous as the rest of us, but she never overstates her findings—and if what she is saying proves true, it’s the most promising development we have had since we seized control of Elysium.
Zeus leans in, an almost lecherous smile on her face. “And when will I be able to take possession of my investment?” A power play, more crass than is typically her wont. Then again, her stumbling block has always been the need to prove that she is the first among equals.
“I am experimenting with its developmental pathways,” Demeter answers, noncommittal. “Once we’ve put the Mark Four through its paces, I’ll arrange transport of it to your estate.” Zeus is Demeter’s foremost ally, with reach and resources that exceed even mine, potentially; she’s clearly hoping a white lie will give her time to control the situation.
“Interesting,” Athena pipes up, for the first time since the meeting began. “You have custody of the Mark Four at this very moment?”
She doesn’t wait for Demeter’s reply; the table flickers to life with security footage of a naked and blood-soaked Mark Four—Persephone—murdering her way down a corridor. A team of armored security try to trap her in an enfilade, and she dances between the bullets, pulls one guard apart with her bare hands, snaps a neck, guts a third. It is breathtaking in its speed and brutality; were it not for the circumstance, Demeter could have shown this footage as proof of her claims of heightened performance.
The footage cuts to the exterior of Demeter’s compound; a figure hurls itself from the glass and steel of a high floor, lands in a perfectly executed roll, and then sprints—still naked save the blood—into the metropolis beyond.
“There continues to be difficulties adapting the Mark Four to this planet’s environment,” Aphrodite says, getting her pound of flesh.
Demeter doesn’t rise to the bait. Her attention remains on Athena. “First, I will point out that you have gained illicit access to my personal security files; blood has been spilled on this council for less. Second, as you are no doubt aware—this was a trial for the Mark Four, which it passed with superlative skill. The specimen has now been recovered.”
So that is how she intends to play it—the first overt lie of the day. I ignore the traitorous impulse to check my estate’s own security, to see if Demeter has learned the truth and escalated to an open war to take back her creation, and stay silent for a moment longer.
“Interesting,” Athena says again. “I must take your word for it.” She fixes me with one of her gray-eyed stares, but adds nothing further. I notice she has taken Hephaestus’ seat beside me; either she intends this as quiet proof that she stands behind my efforts, or our colleagues will think that before the meeting is out. I cannot say either way; Athena’s predictive abilities—borderline prophetic—make her one of the most unreadable of my kin.
“You have not recovered the Mark Four, Demeter,” I say this simply, without malice. But I no longer require Demeter’s grace; I have what I sought. “It arrived at my estate yesterday evening, apparently of its own volition. It was still there when I left to attend this meeting.” A murmur goes up; rarely does a god get caught out so explicitly, so incontrovertibly.
“I would,” Demeter replies, slow and even, “appreciate your consideration in the return of the specimen. I have, evidently, overestimated its cognition.”
“The Mark Four invoked the right of asylum, the documentation of which will be supplied to each of you presently.”
The artifice of Zeus’ good nature begins to crack under the growing awareness that this situation is spiraling out of her control. “Clones are unrecognized entities and cannot claim asylum,” she declares, a hint of thunder in her voice.
“But pilots can,” I answer. “I hereby claim Persephone as mine.”
The hall erupts in shouting.