"We should take these two back to their quarters," Derrick said, and he realized their voices were past baritone into bass.
"We should," Jules said, and they both touched the small gems on their respective human sternums, and there was a flare of light, and they looked ... no smaller, no less powerful, but the gems and the metal on their bodies, and the carbon-fiber of their skins, was no longer visible. They reached around, almost in synch, and moved their exhausted passengers into place on their backs, holding their hands wrapped as far around their torsos as they could reach, and keeping them in a position where they could canter without accidentally destroying the young men's equipment by bouncing against them.
"Thank you," they said, and left the brightly glowing centaur stallion and the half-machine centaur stallion in the paddock with the bronze-colored handmaids. Hephaustus and Phaethon-Apollo would doubtless find something to do together.
"Where should we go tonight?" Jules asked. Derrick thought about it, glancing across the broad field, past the distant amphitheatre to where the large structure of the main lodge gleamed in the starlight. The lack of even a sliver of moon over the horizon made things far too dark, but neither of them had any trouble seeing, and in fact, there were details they hadn't been able to see before.
"What did they do to us?" 'Rick wondered aloud. And something answered: a visual "heads-up" display that looked like it was straight out of a futuristic online role-play game, slightly overlaid on his field of vision. Jules gasped, seeing the same thing.
YOU ARE CURRENTLY RUNNING CENTAUR 2.0 V3 ALPHA scrolled past the bottom of their vision, somehow not interfering with what they saw. There was a moment before the next line of text.
DO YOU WISH TO READ THE MANUAL? YES/NO 'Rick frowned. "Yes." Meanwhile Jules said "Wait, can we go back to this later?"
There was a list of chapter options in front of 'Rick, and Jules was presented with "Suspend for later? Yes/No"
"Yes, suspend for later."
"Suspend for later for me too," 'Rick said. The displays cleared.
"So Hephaustus is ..."
"So into cyberpunk."
"Well, we know what to send him for a thank-you gift."
"If he doesn't already have it.
They began moving uphill towards the Gymnasion, which when they crested, was still a glowing wall of glass. There were more people inside now. A few satyrs near the front, a number of humans, or apparent humans, all in the heroic mold, but none as powerful-looking as Alex or Nic, even though they were quite impressive. The winged woman was running on a treadmill by the entrance to the weights, and the weight room itself was filled with too many minotaurs.
"You're back. I see you were caught by Hephaustus, but I can't tell what he did to you," the woman said. "I'm Nike, by the way. Goddess of victory, etc."
"I recognized the wings," Jules said. "Hey, do you know where these guys live?"
She glanced at the two still-not-quite-conscious passengers, and got a slightly worried expression.
"I have never seen them so badly drained before. They're what keeps us from having the wrong kind of intruders and this is the wrong time of day for them to be out of it."
"Oh. Well, can we help?"
"Yes. Carry them in a fireman's carry, and get to the main building. I'll ring up their father."
Jules led the way out, and he and 'Rick moved their passengers to a front-carry position over a shoulder, and then began running across the hard-packed path that led around the amphitheater on the upper ridge, packed gravel ringing under their iron hooves, the fancy "boots" no longer necessary except as disguise. They reached the back veranda of the main building and cantered to the entrance, slowing. The run should have at least raised their pulses but nothing of the sort was the case, and they were let in by the night minotaur.
"We need to find Hercules," 'Rick said, but the minotaur shrugged. The woman at the front desk, the same one they remembered from before, was there, having come out of her office. Her normally beautiful and perfectly and professionally coiffed hairstyle was in curlers and wrapped in an enormous towel, her elegant office attire was replaced by a smoking jacket over a rather comfortable-looking nightgown, and she had no makeup, which was barely noticeable. She looked up as they came further inside, and waved them to her desk.
"Hercules is on his way. I'm going to give those two SUCH a swat, draining my guards that way. Well, the two of you look marvelous anyway. I'm afraid your parents are still busy so you won't want to go back to your own suite ... but if you would take the lads to room twenty, down the blue hall there, their mother will be able to restore them. I'll have some snacks sent to the staff break room, room ten on the blue hall."
"Thank you, ma'am," Jules said. "Let us know if we can help in the meantime. We feel a bit responsible for this."
"Nonsense, it's entirely on the Forge Master and the Charioteer, and they had better have a really good explanation."
They carried their still-out-of-it partners to the indicated door. The floor here had a plush carpet that they both felt very nervous about damaging, but it seemed to be tougher than it looked. The door to room 20 opened, and Hebe, in a more familiar modern-style robe over a silk pajama pantsuit, led them inside. The doors were just tall enough that they could each fit if they bent over a bit, and the room was unusually spacious.
"Set them here on the lounges," Hebe said. "I've got ambrosia warming in the microwave."
Hercules came in from outside, wearing a leather kilt that was halfway between Greek and Roman in design, and probably actually from an Italian movie more than anything that would have been worn. It was both flattering and comfortable-looking, and neither of the centaurs was surprised to see him wearing it. He looked up at them in surprise, though.
"You're huge, lads. And you've surpassed my blessing, I believe. Apollo? Or Hephaustes? or both?
"Both," they said together.
"Ah, they're going to be in moderate disgrace. Well, Hestia said you would help me with something. While my boys recover, I need someone to fill the role of Guardian of the Gates, and between you it's likely you could manage it."
The brothers looked at each other, then shrugged.
"There was something said about a snack?"
"Well, for this we're going to need to give you a bit more. I have a small bottle of breakfast nectar, and we'll give you each a tiny taste of ambrosia. That'll do the job."
The microwaved beeped, and Hebe began preparing the curative for her sons: a horizontal slice of a golden apple was layered with a thin frosting of the sparkling, purple-lightning bearing substance spread out like caviar, and a tea-cup filled with a transparent golden liquid that smelled like cider and honeysuckle.
Hercules put a quarter-teaspoon of the ambrosia on a small disk of a cracker, and poured two mugs of water, into which he mixed a few teaspoons of a lighter, less intense smelling nectar. He offered them to the brothers.
"Can't give you too much of this or you won't be able to go back to the mortal realms."
Alex and Nic were beginning to act more awake, as Hebe spooned a few mouthfuls of nectar into each of them.
Jules and 'Rick swallowed their cracker-with-ambrosia without heavy chewing; it had an odd coppery flavor similar to licking a battery, and the swallow of nectar-reinforced water was like rinsing it down with something that was not sweet, nor any of the other flavors, but intense and unique, and it hit like liquor but instead of heat and drunken fogginess, it instilled a sense of solidity and reality.
"Now, come with me," Hercules said, once he saw that neither twin was going to spontaneously combust, nor demonstrate any other unfortunate curse-like effect.
They followed him out to the gate, where he opened the guardhouse, and handed each of them an arm-band and a hat. Inside, they could see what looked like multiple camera-scan spots displayed on a bank of monitors, but neither of them thought that what they were seeing was what they thought. Hercules helped them adjust the arm-bands and caps, and slapped them on the shoulders where their horse and human parts met.
"You're official temporary guardians of Olympus. Congratulations."
Neither of them said anything, but they followed him to their posts, in a sort of booth at the end of the grassy entrance area.
"You, watch for anything coming from the south road. You, watch for anything coming from the west road. The other roads don't exist right now. If you see something, call out."
Hercules stepped into the guardhouse, closing it behind him, though the light inside remained lit. Derrick looked down the south road, wondering if he could tell if something was coming.
"Check your manual now," Jules said. 'Rick felt immediately stupid. He thought to himself, "resume manual now," and the heads-up display immediately reappeared. There were clearly marked chapters, covering things like "features of your new Centaur chassis", the ominous "Warranty", and the "How to Horse and Why You Are Not One" chapter. There was a section on "Advanced Cyborg Features" that looked interesting. He looked at "Scanners and Sensors/Visual" and learned that he had not just 270-degree vision, but also full thermal, low-light, and UV frequency, as well as radar and sonar and a set of telescopic/microscopic functions. There were other "Scanners and Sensors" packages for hearing, smell, kinesthetic, biofeedback, and a few locked as "not authorized" which were ... well, nothing to do for that right now.
There was a tutorial on managing the sensors, one of them marked "Program macros" which reminded him of something from the computers class he was taking in highschool. That, of course, was when he was a 15 year old human and not a peak-of-his-physical-prowess centaur with many benefits.
"Macros," he muttered. Jules said, "Yeah, look for Surveillance and Watchman there, I'm reading them right now."
'Rick managed to make the descriptions appear in the 'heads-up' and quickly scanned through them.
How do I activate this? he thought, and the text crawl said DO YOU WISH TO ACTIVATE CONTROL PANEL? YES/NO
YES! he thought, and there was a panel above his field of vision that showed a number of things he could do, all grayed out except for SENSOR. He "poked" at SENSOR and a second panel opened, showing eight senses, including VISION, and he poked at that, and MACROS appeared, and he poked at Surveillance and at Watchman. The macros appeared as buttons that he could tell the effects of. There were three that worked with both features, and he toggled the first one "on" and then all the heads-up moved off to the side and directly where he was looking, he could suddenly see the entire road as far as it was visible, over twenty miles. There was a fizzing like tiny bubbles appearing and popping at the extreme end of his view but only at the road. There were small warning notices around some of the bubbles, and a few warning notices closer in, so he focused on those. The warnings said "lifeform deviating from expected movement patterns" and "Unusual energy signature detected" and "movement towards self-location" and they made his mane shudder.
"Jules, are you seeing something odd?"
"Yep. Want to call Herc?"
"You do that. I'm going to see if I can connect to stuff..."
Jules called out, "Hercules, we've got something strange out here."
There was a pause and a thumping noise but Derrick was busy digging into one of the "must read this first" sections about using second-order mechanisms. He instinctively tapped the place where the gemstone on his chest had been, and it returned, along with all the others.
"What have you go... oh my," Hercules said, touching the gemstones along Derrick's back. "Have you been playing with Hepaustus?"
"Of course," Jules said. "But that's beside the point. We're both seeing strange things coming, about a mile and a half out on the south, and ..." "Two miles," 'Rick said. Jules continued, "to the west."
"I've put them on your screens," 'Rick said. "Jules will do the same thing once he activates his transponder system."
Jules was now the one staring blankly as he quickly read through a tutorial section, then he tapped the activation point and broke out in gemstones himself. Hercules had made his way back inside, and was typing on a keyboard inside -- a very ruggedized keyboard.
"Crappity damn," he said. "Full scale infiltration attempt. I am guessing human. Two groups. Once they get closer we'll be able to tell if they're Hunters, thieves, or just snoops. But they're all too good at sneaking around to be simply lost on the road."
The infiltrators were slow, but not that slow. They made half-a-mile on the south side within an hour, and there was much more information that Jules could pick up from them.
"They're someone's excuse for army," Hercules said when they got closer. "Can't tell why they're here unless we catch one of them and have Dianna the Muse of Truth talk with them."
"That sounds like an interrogation."
"Nah. Just a short and pointed conversation. I've sent for a quick messenger."
"There's a third group to the west moving in from the gate, and the gate is still doing that fizzing thing," Derrick said. "Also the nearest west group has stopped three-quarters of a mile out."
There was a movement detected by both Jules and Derrick, but they couldn't pin it down, before there was a THUMPTHUMP in the guardhouse. While they were stuck watching the incoming infiltrators, there were suddenly two of them inside the guardhouse, bound and gagged. Derrick opened a "remote watch" window connecting to the monitoring camera inside the guard-house and showed Jules how to do it, and Jules showed him how to set a more complicated 'watch for suspicious activity' macro ... and neither of them made a sound. Inside the guardhouse, a very pretty young woman appeared, entering through a door that didn't go anywhere.
She smiled down at the two captives, and touched one of them on the cheek, removing the gag that kept him from speaking.
"Tell me your name, sweetie," she said.
"George Rineheldt the third, Ma'am," he answered. His fellow captive, still gagged, started to twitch and her eyes bulged.
"Now calm down, honey," the woman said. "We're not going to hurt you."
The struggling captive stopped fighting.
"Now, do you know your fellow prisoner?"
"No, Ma'am."
"Why are you here?"
"Investigation."
"What are you investigating?"
"Alien, supernatural, or extra-dimensional incursion by potentially hostile forces, Ma'am."
She removed the gag from the other prisoner, but the conversation with her was in a language that 'Rick didn't speak. While he tried to find a translator program -- what good is having cybernetic spy stuff in your whole body if you can't speak other languages? -- he didn't find one before his enhanced observation macros detected that there was some turbulence in the second group back, and Jules sent a signal that he was seeing the same thing.
"They're getting stirred up," 'Rick called to the guardhouse. "May be falling back."
"They're bringing forward a weapon on the south road," Jules reported. "Looks like some sort of missile."
The interrogation finished quickly.
"Return them," Hercules' voice came. There was a blur again, and the two captives disappeared from inside the building.
"We've had ten or fifteen of these encounters," Herc said. "A local government decides they need to find out what happened to the vacationers, they tell them where they were, the government spooks discover there's no actual 'there' where they thought they were, so they get one of their spook units to come see what's happening."
"Missile is still a threat," Jules said.
"Hm. Usually when we send someone back with the right magic to ensure that everyone knows we're not here to cause problems, they stop attacking."
"West group has regrouped, moving outwards. Looks like they believed it," 'Rick said.
"I've got this one," a familiar woman's voice said, and the woman from the Gymnasion appeared, sword in hand, flying rapidly toward the missile. Jules managed to focus in on it. The missile was still on its transport, and the woman stabbed through it with the sword. Rather than exploding, it changed color and became blurry.
There was some sort of conversation with the woman as several of the men who had been accompanying the missile attempted to arrest her. Their guns fell apart as she moved faster than they could see her move. Not only did they fall apart, but they fell into pieces that they shouldn't have. Then the woman said several words to them, and disappeared, moving nearly as fast as the blur that had taken and returned the two infiltrators.
"They're leaving now," Nike said to Herc. "You should arm your mortals if you're going to make them stand duty."
"No need. They're just filling in for Alex and Nic. Did better than I expected too. My boys'll be back up in about ten more minutes."
"Hm. The amount of energy your horse-boys are carrying, I am not surprised. Looks like they drained the poor lads."
"That was more Hephaustus and Apollo being careless," Hercules said. "I'll complain to Hestia, as it falls under her domain."
Jules and Derrick watched, ignoring any further conversation, as they were watching the infiltrators retreating. Jules kept a sharp and unnaturally close eye on the commander of the group that had the now-rusted missile. Something he said. Some sort of a smug expression.
"Why is he gloating?" Jules said. Derrick peered at the recent-view buffer for his brother.
"He's acting like they left a bomb or something."
"SHIT" they said in unison.
"Unlock anything having to do with bombs," Derrick said, and he and Jules both quickly scanned through. There was, in fact, a sensor package that let them detect explosives of all sorts, but it used magic, and was locked.
"Unlock it, we're still in Olympus and magic is authorized. We can relock it later," Jules said.
Both of them saw the area light up as a second filter applied to their vision. There was nothing abandoned by the West, which was moving rapidly but not frantically. The South, however, had left a very large and rather ugly bomb, with sparkles around it that were miniature Radiation Warning signs.
"They left a nuke behind. Not a small one either," Jules said. "Herc, get Hephaustus and Apollo out here."
Three minutes later, the two (still in centaur guises) showed up. Jules' scans were showing in the guardhouse, and Hephaustus started laughing.
"They think that nuclear fires will harm us. Apollo, you're the one who drags the sun through the skies."
"Metaphorically," Phaethon-Apollo said, speaking in Apollo's voice. "But any of my horses, including you two, since you're still quite powered-up from Phaethon's transformation, could simply capture that fire. Let's go see what we've got there," he said. Hercules shrugged. "My sons are functional again, so you can take them."
The sun-centaur smiled brilliantly and said to the twin centaurs, "Let's go fetch a small bit of sun before they do something stupid with it."