one believed them, but clearly they were right. Who knew? It's amazing what can go on right beneath your nose. Harry! No ice cream now. Later.'
Cut to a couple of acne-speckled youths in sportswear, hair gelled to a slick gloss. One did the talking while the other sipped from a can of the energy drink Ichor and grunted agreement every now and then: 'Yeah, right, it's crazy, innit, like these people was right on our doorstep — so to speak — and nobody knew nuffink, kinda makes you proud, like they was goin' out all over the world and smackin' them Olympian w[bleep]ers up and comin' back to Bleaney of all places, like that lump of rock out there in the sea where there's nuffink but rabbits, but it's pretty cool to think they was right here 'cause nuffink happens round here, knowahmean?'
Cut back to the BBC reporter herself. 'So there you have it,' she said, 'a flavour of the local opinion about the astonishing events of the past twenty-four hours. To recap, the Olympians have attacked the island the Titans were calling home, just off the coast here, and from what we've seen and from what coastguard and police are saying, there are no survivors. No bodies have been found, but no Titans have been spotted alive either. We don't know where they are, where they've gone to, assuming any of them are left, but the likelihood is, given how thorough the Olympians are known to be, that the Titans are simply no more.'
And now another reporter, from ITN: '…must presume that the Titans' bold, perhaps foolhardy stance against the Olympians has come to its inevitably bitter end…'
And now none other than Jennifer Konchalowsky from Fox News, flown over to England specifically to cover the breaking story: '…this is what you get for sowing whirlwinds. The Titans have reaped themselves a deadly harvest of Olympian wrath. They poked the hornets' nest, and boy have they got stung.'
And Prime Minister Bartlett, in Downing Street: 'I'm sure I'm not alone in hoping that once and for all a line has been drawn under this scandalous and sordid chapter in modern history and that we can look forward to a future of continued entente cordiale with our friends in the Pantheon. The Titans may have been based in Britain but I can't emphasise enough that their antics were in no way representative of British policy and our Great British values…'
And President Stavropoulos: 'A buncha Limeys. Who woulda guessed?'
And finally, Jennifer Konchalowsky again: 'It's over. Finito. The Olympians have flushed the rats out of their hidey-hole and exterminated them. We can go back to living our lives again as normal. Time's up, Titans. You had your shot and you blew it. Goodnight.'
Argus faded the volume down to zero, and the chamber was filled with nothing but the hum and whine of the screens. Zeus and Ares stared expectantly at Sam. She kept her face rigid, her expression inscrutable. Inside, though, she was crumbling.
'No bodies,' she said finally. 'No bodies equals no proof. They could still be alive. Did you actually kill them? Did you actually, personally see them all die? Well? Did you?'
Ares looked at Zeus, Zeus at Ares.
'We can account for one death for certain,' Zeus said. 'Hades used his death touch on one of you, and the man fell.'
'I saw that. I also saw Hades get shot.'
'He's better now. As for the other Titans, after Hermes whisked you from the battlefield I unleashed the full might of the lightning.'
'Scorched earth policy,' said Ares.
'I blasted every inch of ground. It was spectacular, if I say so myself. I can't remember when I last let rip like that. Not since Sj?lland, that's for sure.'
'My ears are still ringing,' said Ares.
'Naturally, your teammates were routed. They panicked. Started lobbing smoke bombs.'
'White phosphorus grenades.'
'I kept up with the lightning strikes. It was pandemonium for a while.'
'Chaos!'
'But at last it was done, and the smoke thinned, the air cleared, and there was nothing left of our enemies, not even smithereens. We searched all over the island, just to be sure. As the reporter said, we're nothing if not thorough. Then we entered that bunker of yours.'
'And had some fun,' said Ares. 'Nothing beats a bit of rampant post-victory vandalism.'
'All your equipment, your belongings.'
'Bashed. Smashed. Trashed.'
'A rather grand-looking office, ruined.'
'Your mission control, all that technology, shattered beyond recognition.'
'And afterwards we set a fire. A fire that burned through the whole place, reducing it to cinders, turning your dream to ashes, and then we informed the media of what we had done, and you've just watched the fallout.' Zeus studied Sam. 'Do you get it now? That Konchalowsky woman, empty-headed language mangler that she is, summed it up pretty well. It's over. Finito. Goodnight, Titans. You're the last one left, Sam, the only survivor. We've won.'
Sam did all she could to keep her emotions in check, but the very effort of doing so set her body trembling.
'She's sad,' said Argus's everywhere-at-once voice.
'Don't be sad,' said Ares. 'You were valiant to the end, all of you, despite the fact that there was never any doubt that you were going to lose. It was a glorious defeat. Courage like that should be celebrated.'
Sam continued to say nothing. All she could think was: no bodies equals no proof. That was the one last flimsy scrap of hope she had to hold on to. Ramsay, Barrington, Hamel, Sparks, all dead. Landesman too. But no bodies equals no proof. Captain Fuller's boat — it was just conceivable that the Titans had got to the jetty and joined Lillicrap and the techs aboard and got away. She had to believe that.
No bodies equals no proof.
She repeated it in her head like a mantra.
No bodies equals no proof.
Because otherwise, what else was there for her? What else was left?
64. THE MUNDANE
Days came and went on that chilly mountain peak, and Sam drifted along, numb, observing the mundane lives of gods.
The Olympians endured her presence among them with varying degrees of acceptance. Zeus was by far the friendliest, Hera by far the least friendly, and the others ranged along a scale between these two extremes but tending more towards the Hera end. Aphrodite and Dionysus did a marvellous job of pretending they were delighted to have Sam there but she could almost hear their smiles vanish the moment they turned their backs on her, and her own loathing of Aphrodite made smiling back out of the question. Hephaestus, meanwhile, seemed to grumble about almost everything, so it was hardly out of character that he grumbled about her ('Mortals have their place, and this isn't it.'). He mostly kept to himself in his own temple, however, from where could be heard, now and then, the clank and groan of metal being worked.
With Apollo Sam had very little interaction, and that was probably just as well, since the sight of him, proximity to him, made her feel physically unwell. He spent all his day honing his warrior skills at the amphitheatre, or else exercising, pumping weights, running, swimming, often in the company of Ares. He paid Sam no heed — she was beneath his dignity. If he considered her in some way responsible for the death of his twin sister, there was no sign of it, although she couldn't help noticing that, a few days after she arrived on Olympus, one of the mannequins he used for archery practice had received a splash of orange paint on its head, a crude approximation of auburn hair. Whenever she passed, this mannequin was always pin-cushioned with arrows.
Poseidon was an infrequent visitor to Olympus. He regarded himself as an outsider, the one hard done by, the perpetual black sheep, although when he came he expected to be welcomed with open arms and made a fuss of.
