Alex Anderson The Last Son of Zeus (15 page)

BOOK TWENTY-NINE

THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC

Things weren't progressing fast enough for Hera. The other gods were happy to take things slowly. Many of them still hadn't left Olympus yet. The ones who did only did so to fornicate or dabble in other mortal vices. It's as if they were children dipping their toes in water to test the temperature before diving in. Hera sighed.

It was time to dive.

She foresaw this happening. The gods' tentativeness keeping them away from what was rightfully theirs. If they weren't godly enough to grab it, Hera would just speed things up.

She looked at the apple. She had forgotten how beautiful it was.

No, it wasn't hers. She couldn't keep it. It wouldn't do anything for a god anyway. Things had to be fixed.

Hera went to Earth.

~ * ~

United States President Dub Tree sat at his desk and looked at the pile of paperwork. No, not a pile of paperwork, a pile of problems. The constant buzzing sensation he felt in his head since entering the office this morning didn't help.

He was tired. Jesus, he was tired. The economy was broken, illegal immigration was through the roof, foreign affairs was a mess, and people expected him to fix all of it...
him!
 
It wasn't his fault. He didn't directly cause any of it. How could they expect him to fix it?

The blame should fall to the previous administration. If they had left him more money to use, the economy would be in better shape.

There was a knock on his door. "Mr. President?"

Go away
. "Yes?"

"The vice-president is here. May he come in?"

Jesus. He just wants to give me more problems no doubt
. "Give me just a minute."

"Yes sir."

Tree stood. The buzzing was worse and started to make him feel lightheaded. He couldn't take it anymore. He had to get away. He had to run somewhere. Where would he go? How could he possibly get there? He turned. The door wasn't an option. Everybody would see him. Then some dick would talk about it on the news. They always talked about him on the news.

But there was the bookcase. He went to it and pulled the bust of President Tree Sr.

Heh-heh
...
bust
.

The bust triggered a hidden mechanism which made a section of the bookcase slide open to reveal an underground passageway. Many of the previous presidents used it to escape the responsibilities of their jobs or the oppression of their shriveled wives. It was a passageway he had used many times during his first term for similar reasons.

Now, however, it was a passageway blocked by a woman.

Tree barely stopped himself from screaming. He hadn't been this surprised since congress approved No Child Left Behind.

She looked like she just stepped out of a movie that used to play back during Tree's party days.

"
Wh
--who--how..."

"Greetings, Mr. President."

She stepped out of the passage and strolled around as if she owned the office.
Which was just fine for him.
He hadn't wanted it since shortly after re-election.

"You are a man with many problems."

He supposed he should have asked her a lot of stuff. Like how the hell she got in there. How the hell... Well,
a
lotta
stuff.

"No shit." He felt comfortable with her for some reason, like he could say anything. That was another thing, people always expected him to say something different after he'd already said something else.

"I can fix all those problems, Mr. President."

"What? You think you can fix
all'a
my problems? How?"

She pulled a golden apple from behind her back. The buzzing in his head increased ten fold. "With this."

"
Wassat
?"

She looked at it. "An apple."

"
Ohhh
.
What's it do
?"

"Eat it and you shall see."

"
Gimmie
." He snatched the apple and dug in. He'd never tasted anything so sweet.

He'd just finished the apple, core and all, when he looked up to see the woman was no longer there.

Damn. I wanted another one.

"Mr. President? Are you okay?"

The buzzing was gone. "Yes, I'm fine." Tree's statement surprised him for some reason. It wasn't what he said. It was the way he said it. "I'm fine. I'm very fine." He hadn't felt this much confidence since re-election. He felt like he could take on the entire
democratic party
, maybe even the country.

Maybe he could do anything. No forget that--he
could
do anything. He was the president of the United States of America, goddammit.

"Send in the VP. I have a job for him."

A second later, the door opened up and the VP walked in. The man looked eager to please as always. Sometimes, Tree thought he'd suck his dick if he asked him.

"Sir?"

"Sit down." He pointed to the vacant seat across from him. "We have much to discuss."

Tree sat down and crossed his legs. "Tell me again, how do you pronounce it?"

The VP sat and looked uncomfortable.

"It's okay, just tell me."

"Nuclear, sir."

"
Nuuuucalear
."

"No, sir. Nuclear."

"
Nuuuuceleaeeer
."

"No, sir, it's--"

"Never mind. How many of them bombs do we have? I'm getting tired of looking for those terrorist assholes."

BOOK THIRTY

A BOY AND HELL'S DOG

One of the heads lunged at Alex while the other two kept barking.

Alex planted one foot on its snout, jumped back and clung to the cave wall. The dog rose on its hind legs and snapped at Alex three times. The dog missed, but its assault weakened the area Alex clung to.

It gave way.

Alex screamed. He fell on the side of the middle mouth. The dog barked and jerked, trying to get Alex inside its muzzle. Alex pushed away, only to fall on the side of the left mouth. He clung to the head's ear while the dog spun in circles trying to catch him.

"Little help here?" he screamed to Homer.

Homer looked at her nails. "Sorry. No can do. This is all you."

The
dog slammed Alex against the cave wall and drug
him a good thirty feet. Alex's hands gave up before his will, and he found himself rolling into a boulder.

The dog spun and charged him again. Alex rolled, and its head crashed into the wall. He dove under the dog, turned around...

And saw the biggest nut sack he'd ever seen in his entire life.

There was zero hesitation on Alex's part. He kicked it as hard as he could.

The heads yelped and the dog jumped sideways. All six eyes looked at Alex with a hurtful expression. It tucked its tail and backed away.

Homer watched it go and looked back at Alex, who was still on the ground breathing heavily. "That was pretty impressive." She held her hand out. Alex took it and she jerked it away.

"But you're still a fuck hole."

Alex really hated his life.

~ * ~

Alex and Homer eventually reached an open clearing in the cave that somehow contained a wheat field so big Alex couldn't see the other side. Alex let the wheat touch his hand as they walked past. It made a feint ringing sound.

He saw people here and there, most of which wore togas. Some of them wore stuff from later periods and some even wore stuff from today.

"Is this where everybody goes?"

Homer looked at him. For the first time a type of kindness touched her eyes.

"No, just people who are touched by gods."

"In what way?"

"In any way."

She kept walking and Alex slowly followed. They turned a corner next to a big boulder, and there was Fiona smoking a cigarette. She saw them and put it out under her foot. "Took you long enough."

BOOK THIRTY-ONE

A GAME OF CATCH

"Did you know there was a dog? A three headed dog! He just tried to eat me with his three heads!"

"Yep."

"Well, why didn't you tell me?"

Fiona shrugged. "I've been told that, for mortals, anticipation of death is worse than death."

"That's your reason? That's your reason for not... I really hate you sometimes."

"And we're here," Homer said.

Alex turned and saw an older man lying in the middle of the wheat field with his hands laced under his head.

Zeus.

He lay there whistling and staring at the clear sky.
Where did the sky come from?

Alex looked at the two women beside him. He started to ask them how they imported a sky into the depths of hell but thought better of it. They would probably just give him an answer he didn't understand anyway.

"Hades has an odd effect on his kind," Homer said. "Things he says and things he does may seem a bit strange."

"So, what else is new?" Alex said. He crossed the field. Zeus never looked at him.

"Sit down, Alex," Zeus said. The sky became cloudy.

"Why am I here?"

Zeus sat up. "What? No hug for the old man? After everything I've done? Hey," he put his hands to his chest. "I'm hurt."

"I'm tired."

Zeus smiled and pointed a finger at Alex. "Nicely played, Mr. Anderson. Nicely played."

Zeus lay down again.

"You still haven't--"

"You're next."

"What?"

Zeus turned his head and looked at Alex. "You're next. They're going to kill you next."

"Well, news flash. They've been trying to kill me for a while now."

"No, you don't understand." Zeus reached behind his back and pulled out a wad of yarn. He threw it to Alex. "They're definitely going to kill you. Says so right there."

Alex looked at the yarn. It was a ridiculous thing to do. It just looked like yarn to him. "You got this from the Fates?"

"I did." Zeus stood up. "Before Hera killed them."

"How long? How long have you known?"

Zeus shrugged. "Since around the time you were born. Hey, you
wanna
play some baseball?"

Alex dropped the yarn. "Could we stay on the subject of my impending doom please? I mean, there has to be a way out of this right? There has to be something I can do or you wouldn't have me down here."

Zeus smiled. He produced a catcher's mitt and baseball from nothing. Alex looked down. Suddenly he had a mitt also.

"Oh there is." Zeus threw the ball. But you're not
gonna
like it."

"Try me."

Zeus held up his mitt. "Come on."

Alex sighed and threw the ball.

"
That'a
boy," Zeus said. "Now, there is one way you can avoid the whole death thing. You let the world burn." He threw the ball.

The ball whizzed by Alex. "What? What do you mean, 'let the world burn'?"

"Just what I said. Hera intends to destroy everything. Wipe most of humanity off the face of the Earth. She wants a fresh start. A clean slate if you will." Zeus produced another ball and threw it. Alex let that one pass also. "Oh, come on, sport. You're not even trying."

"Why? What does that
mean,
clean slate?"

"So she can remake the world in her image, champ. That's where you come in. You can stop her, but you
gotta
die."

Alex felt the blood leave his face and his stomach burn.

Zeus laughed. "I'm sorry, son. I hate to break this to you. But, like I said, you can just stand by. Let Hera do her thing. You might even live through it. Hell, you might have a good two hundred years in you still."

"Stand by?"

"Yeah." Zeus stepped closer. "Just don't do anything. Just watch the world burn and find a cozy spot to enjoy the rest of your days."