فصل 36

Mind your p’s and q’s

When you are arming bombs or—

SPLAT—trample jelly

I MAY HAVE MENTIONED: I am not the god of the sea.

I have many fascinating abilities. In my divine state, I am good at nearly everything I attempt. But as Lester Papadopoulos, I was not the master of one-armed swimming underwater while encumbered, nor could I go without oxygen any longer than a normal mortal.

I clawed my way through the passage, hugging Meg close, my lungs burning in outrage.

First you fill us with dark prophetic bees! my lungs screamed at me. Now you force us to stay underwater! You are a horrible person!

I could only hope Meg would survive the experience. Since she was still unconscious, I couldn’t very well warn her to hold her breath. The best I could do was make our journey as brief as possible.

At least the current was in my favor. The water pushed me in the direction I wanted to go, but after six or seven seconds I was pretty sure we were going to die.

My ears throbbed. I groped blindly for handholds on the slick rock walls. I was probably destroying my fingertips, but the cold rendered my nervous system useless. The only pain I felt was inside my chest and head.

My mind began to play tricks on me as it sought more oxygen.

You can breathe underwater! it said. Go ahead. It’ll be fine!

I was about to inhale the river when I noticed a faint green glow above me. Air? Radiation? Limeade? Any of those sounded better than drowning in the dark. I kicked upward.

I expected to be surrounded by enemies when I surfaced, so I tried to emerge with as little gasping and flailing as possible. I made sure Meg’s head was above water, then gave her a quick abdominal thrust to expel any fluid from her lungs. (That’s what friends are for.)

Doing all this quietly was no easy task, but as soon as I took in our surroundings, I was glad to be such a ninja of soft gasping and flailing.

This cave was not much larger than the one we had left. Electric lamps hung from the ceiling, casting green streaks of light across the water. Along the opposite side of the cave, a boat dock was lined with boxy aluminum barges—for touring the mortally accessible areas of the subterranean river, I assumed. On the dock, three blemmyae crouched over a large object that looked like two scuba tanks duct-taped together, the cracks stuffed with wads of putty and lots of wires.

Had Leo Valdez made such a contraption, it could have been anything from a robotic butler to a jet pack. Given the blemmyae’s lack of creativity, I came to the depressing conclusion that they were arming a bomb.

The only reasons they had not noticed and killed us already were 1) they were busy arguing, and 2) they were not looking in our direction. Blemmyae’s peripheral vision consists entirely of their own armpits, so they tend to focus straight ahead.

One blemmyae was dressed in dark green slacks and an open green dress shirt—a park ranger’s outfit, perhaps? The second wore the blue uniform of an Indiana State Trooper. The third…Oh, dear. She wore a very familiar-looking flowery dress.

“No, sirree!” the trooper yelled as politely as possible. “That is not where the red wire goes, thank you very much.”

“You’re welcome,” said the ranger. “But I studied the diagram. It does go there, you see, because the blue wire has to go here. And if you’ll excuse me for saying so, you’re an idiot.”

“You’re excused,” the trooper said amiably, “but only because you’re an idiot.”

“Now, boys,” said the woman. Her voice was definitely that of Nanette, the woman who had welcomed us on our first day in Indianapolis. It seemed impossible that she should have regenerated from Tartarus so soon after being killed by Josephine’s crossbow turret, but I put this down to my usual wretched luck. “Let’s not argue. We can just call the customer-support line and—”

Meg took this opportunity to gasp, much louder than I had. We had no place to hide except underwater, and I wasn’t in any shape to submerge again.

Nanette spotted us. Her chest-face twisted in a smile, her heavy orange lipstick glistening like mud in the green light.

“Well, lookee here! Visitors!”

The ranger unsheathed a hunting knife. The trooper drew his gun. Even with his species’ bad depth perception, he wasn’t likely to miss us at such close range.

Helpless in the water, holding a gasping, half-conscious Meg, I did the only thing I could think of. I yelled, “Don’t kill us!”

Nanette chuckled. “Now, honey, why shouldn’t we kill you?”

I glanced at the scuba-tank bomb. No doubt Leo Valdez would know exactly what to do in a situation like this, but the only advice I could think of was something Calypso had told me at the zoo: Half of magic is acting like it will work. The other half is picking a superstitious mark.

“You should not kill me,” I announced, “because I know where the red wire goes!”

The blemmyae muttered among themselves. They may have been immune to charm and music, but they shared mortals’ reluctance for either reading instructions or calling customer support. Their hesitation gave me a moment to slap Meg (gently on the cheek, simply to help her wake up).

She spluttered and twitched, which was an improvement over being passed out cold. I scanned the cave for possible escape routes. To our right, the river wound through a low-ceilinged tunnel. I was not anxious to swim through these caves any longer. To our left, at the edge of the boat dock, a ramp with railings led upward. That would be the exit to the surface, I decided.

Unfortunately, standing in our way were three superstrong humanoids with an explosive device.

The blemmyae concluded their conference.

Nanette faced me again. “Very well! Please tell us where the red wire goes. Then we will kill you as painlessly as possible, and we can all go home happy.”

“A generous offer,” I said. “But I really need to show you. It’s too hard to explain from way over here. Permission to come ashore?”

The trooper lowered his gun. A bushy mustache covered the width of his lowest rib. “Well, he asked permission. That was polite.”

“Hmm.” Nanette stroked her chin, simultaneously scratching her belly. “Permission granted.”

Joining three enemies on the dock was only marginally better than freezing in the river, but I was glad to get Meg out of the water.

“Thank you,” I told the blemmyae after they hauled us up.

“You’re welcome,” all three said in unison.

“Just let me put my friend down….” I stumbled toward the ramp, wondering if I could make a break for it.

“That’s far enough,” Nanette warned, “please and thank you.”

There were no ancient Greek words for I hate you, scary clown-woman, but I muttered a close approximation under my breath. I propped Meg against the wall. “Can you hear me?” I whispered.

Her lips were the color of blueberries. Her teeth chattered. Her eyes rolled back in her head, showing the bloodshot whites of her eyes.

“Meg, please,” I said. “I will distract the blemmyae, but you need to get out of here. Can you walk? Crawl? Anything?”

“Hum-um-um.” Meg shivered and gasped. “Shumma-shumma.”

This was no language that I knew, but I inferred that Meg would not be going anywhere on her own. I would have to do more than just distract the blemmyae.

“All righty, then!” Nanette said. “Please show us what you know, so we can bring down this cave on top of you!”

I forced a smile. “Of course. Now, let’s see….”

I knelt next to the device. It was sadly uncomplicated. There were, in fact, only two wires and two receptors, both color-coded blue and red.

I glanced up. “Ah. Quick question. I am aware that blemmyae are tone-deaf, but—”

“That’s not true!” The ranger looked offended. “I don’t even know what that means!”

The other two bowed emphatically—the blemmyae equivalent of nodding.

“I enjoy all tones,” Nanette agreed.

“Explosions,” the trooper said. “Gunshots. Car engines. All tones are good.”

“I stand corrected,” I said. “But my question was…could it be possible that your species is also color-blind?”

They looked dumbfounded. I examined Nanette’s makeup, dress, and shoes once again, and it became clear to me why so many blemmyae preferred to disguise themselves in mortal uniforms. Of course they were color-blind.

For the record, I am not implying that color blindness or tone deafness indicate any lack of creativity or intelligence. Far from it! Some of my favorite creative people, from Mark Twain to Mister Rogers to William Butler Yeats, had these conditions.

In blemmyae, however, sensory limitations and dull thinking seemed to be part of the same depressing package.

“Forget it,” I said. “Let’s get started. Nanette, would you please pick up the red wire?”

“Well, since you asked so nicely.” Nanette leaned in and picked the blue wire.

“The other red wire,” I advised.

“Of course. I knew that!”

She took the red wire.

“Now attach it to the red—to this receptor.” I pointed.

Nanette did as I instructed.

“There you are!” I said.

Clearly still perplexed, the blemmyae stared at the device.

The trooper said, “But there’s another wire.”

“Yes,” I said patiently. “It goes to the second receptor. However”—I grabbed Nanette’s hand before she could blow us all up—“once you connect it, you will most likely activate the bomb. Do you see this small screen here? I am no Hephaestus, but I assume this is the timer. Do you happen to know what the default countdown is?”

The trooper and ranger conferred in the guttural, monotone language of the blemmyae—which sounded like two busted power sanders speaking in Morse code. I glanced over at Meg, who was right where I’d left her, still shivering and muttering shumma-shumma under her breath.

The ranger smiled in a self-satisfied way. “Well, sir. Since I’m the only one who read the diagram, I’ve decided I can safely give you the answer. The default time is five seconds.”

“Ah.” A few phantom bees crawled up my throat. “So once you connect the wire, there will be virtually no time to exit the cave before the bomb goes off.”

“Exactly!” Nanette beamed. “The emperor was very clear. If Apollo and the child make it out of the Oracle chamber, kill them and bring down the cavern in a mighty explosion!”

The trooper frowned. “No, he said to kill them with the mighty explosion.”

“No, sirree,” said the ranger. “He said to use the mighty explosion only if we had to. We could kill these two if they appeared, but if they didn’t…” He scratched his shoulder hair. “I’m confused now. What was the bomb for?”

I said a silent prayer of thanks that Commodus had sent blemmyae and not Germani to do this job. Of course, that probably meant the Germani were fighting my friends at the Waystation right now, but I could only handle one earth-shattering crisis at a time.

“Friends,” I said. “Frenemies, blemmyae. My point is this: if you activate the bomb, the three of you will die, too. Are you prepared for that?”

Nanette’s smile melted. “Oh. Hmm…”

“I’ve got it!” The ranger wagged his finger at me enthusiastically. “Why don’t you connect the wire after the three of us leave?”

“Don’t be silly,” said the trooper. “He won’t kill himself and the girl just because we ask him to.” He gave me a cautiously hopeful glance. “Will you?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Nanette chided. “The emperor told us to kill Apollo and the girl. Not to have them do it themselves.”

The others mumbled agreement. Following orders to the letter was everything, of course.

“I have an idea!” I said, when in fact I did not.

I had been hoping to come up with some clever plan to overpower the blemmyae and get Meg out of there. So far, no clever plan had materialized. There was also the matter of my promise to Trophonius. I had sworn to destroy his Oracle. I preferred to do that without destroying myself.

The blemmyae waited politely for me to continue. I tried to channel some of Calypso’s bravado. (Oh, gods, please never tell her I drew on her for inspiration.)

“It’s true you have to kill us yourselves,” I began. “And I do understand! But I have a solution that will accomplish all your goals: a mighty explosion, destroying the Oracle, killing us, and getting out alive.”

Nanette nodded. “That last one is a bonus, for sure.”

“There’s an underwater tunnel just here….” I explained how Meg and I had swum through from Trophonius’s chamber. “To effectively destroy the Oracle room, you can’t set the bomb off here. Someone would have to swim with the device deep inside the tunnel, activate the timer, and swim back out. Now, I am not strong enough, but a blemmyae could do this easily.”

The trooper frowned. “But five seconds…is that enough time?”

“Ah,” I said, “but it’s a well-known fact that underwater, timers take twice as long, so you’d actually have ten seconds.”

Nanette blinked. “Are you sure about that?”

The ranger elbowed her. “He just said it was a well-known fact. Don’t be impolite!”

The trooper scratched his mustache with the barrel of his gun, which was probably against department safety protocols. “I’m still not sure why we have to destroy the Oracle. Why can’t we just kill you two, say…with this gun…and leave the Oracle alone?”

I sighed. “If only we could! But, my friend, it’s not safe. This girl and I got in and got out with our prophecy, didn’t we? That means other trespassers can, too. Surely that’s what the emperor meant about the mighty explosion. You don’t want to have to come back here with your bomb every time someone breaks in, do you?”

The trooper looked horrified. “Goodness, no!”

“And leaving the Oracle intact, in this place where mortals obviously have guided tours…well, that’s a safety hazard! Not closing off the Oracle’s cave would be very discourteous of us.”

“Mmmm.” All three blemmyae nodded/bowed earnestly.

“But,” Nanette said, “if you’re trying to trick us somehow…and I apologize for raising that possibility…”

“No, no,” I said. “I fully understand. How about this: Go set the bomb. If you come back safely and the cave blows up on schedule, then you can do us the courtesy of killing us quickly and painlessly. If something goes wrong—”

“Then we can rip your limbs off!” the trooper suggested.

“And trample your bodies into jelly!” added the ranger. “That’s a marvelous idea. Thank you!”

I tried to keep my queasiness under control. “You’re most welcome.”

Nanette studied the bomb, perhaps sensing that something was still off about my plan. Thank the gods, she either didn’t see it or was too polite to mention her reservations.

“Well,” she said at last, “in that case, I’ll be back!”

She scooped up the tanks and leaped into the water, which gave me a few luxurious seconds to come up with a plan to avoid getting trampled into jelly. At last, things were looking up!