SL Huang - Up and Coming - Stories by the 2016 Campbell-Eligible Authors

He sat on his fake leather sofa, put a finger on each of the hulking thing’s contact points and shoved lightning in. The battery’s gauge on the side lit up red, then yellow, then green.

Zeus stood and turned the air conditioner on full blast, then sat back down on the squeaky couch.Ahhhh. There, that was better. Cold air washed across his face and his underarms, fluttering the toga he still wore when he was alone at home. Retirement didn’t have to be all bad. The Court hadn’t stripped him of all his powers.

There was actually something satisfying about finishing a project. Plenty of people did it. Dr. Brinkman said there were many retired gods all living on Earth like humans, and that to his knowledge they’d found it relaxing. Nit, Egyptian goddess of weaving who had kept her role even after the Court of the Gods had stepped in, had apparently retired to a shepherding commune in California. He could do this.

In fact, he could celebrate. Some dolmades would just hit the spot, and maybe a nice shower after to get off the plaster dust. He was just getting out the grape leaves from the fridge when a sharp knock came from the door. He certainly wasn’t expecting company, as the complex’s crabs pariah. Must be a mistake. He rolled out a few grape leaves on a paper towel and started on the rice stuffing.

CRASH

Zeus poked his head out of the tiny beige kitchenette. A man swathed in glittering electronics was standing in his living room. Sprinkled around him were shards of what had been Zeus’ door. He was brushing splinters away from some of his own wires and lights.

“What in the seven pits of Tartarus do you think you’re doing?” roared the once-king of gods. “Look what you’ve done to my door! The condo board is going to fine me for this!”

The man pushed some sort of screened visor up from his green eyes to his forehead. “The condo board. Really. Old man, look what you’ve become.” He glanced around the room with obvious distaste. “Your wiring is shit.”

He wasn’t wrong, but that wasn’t the point.

“Look! You can’t just come barging in here and insulting my project. Do you have any idea who I am?” Zeus dropped the mask of humanity and let his impressive deific light shine through.

Only this guy was unimpressed. He humphed. “I know who you used to be. Zeus, I don’t care what you do here with your silly little ‘condo board’” he said with air quotes, “but you stay the hell off my turf.”

Only a god could look straight at another god. Who was this guy? Zeus thought he knew all the deities out there. Some he only knew by name, some by appearance, but none of them corresponded to this asshole here. “What do you mean, your turf? This is my home. You stay the hell off of my turf.” He crossed his arms, and realized he’d just inadvertently stuffed a grape leaf into his armpit.

“Are you so out of touch you don’t even know?” The man laughed. “I’m Tekhno, god of technology.Which means that any metaphysical, magical, or otherwise occult thing you do with wires and batteries, like this unbelievable mess,” he indicated with a flutter of his hand, “is MY TURF. Stay off it, old man.”

Tekhno pointed an LED-studded finger at Zeus’ fridge, TV, and the massive battery in quick succession. Each one shorted out with a POP POP POP and a shower of sparks. An electrical fire started behind the fridge and quickly spread to the microwave.

“OH COME ON!” So much for making dolmades.

“That’s your one warning, old man. Later!” Tekhno pushed a button on his left side and dissolved into ones and zeroes hovering in the air, which shimmered for a moment and disappeared.

Zeus stared at the spot where the god of technology had stood, which now only had shards of door and a thin veil of smoke creeping from the kitchen. His eye twitched, and a vein pulsed on his forehead. Why that little asshole…no. No. He was retired. He was on a new path. Breathe in, breathe out. Try gratitudes if you don’t have a good outlet, Dr. Brinkman had said. Fine. He was grateful for…

The fire burned merrily, and upped itself to a roar.

He was grateful for…

The vinyl paneling on the kitchen cabinets started to yellow and curl, and a charcoal smear was growing steadily on the backsplash. He made a little cloud form under the flickering fluorescent lights. It rained out the fire in one swift deluge.

HE WAS GRATEFUL FOR…

NO. Fuck this. This was too much. Gritting his teeth, he threw a lightning bolt at the very same place that had just been in flames and watched it light up again.

Some young upstart god, coming around and telling Zeus almighty himself what to do? How dare he! Arrogant little prick thought he could just break down his door. Zeus was retired! The whole point was to retire and let go of the old power and old anger and to just let the world be and this unmitigated asshole just strode right in like he owned fucking everything and…AAAAARRRGH!

Zeus let loose another lightning bolt. This one lit the polyester beige rug in the living room on fire, and the smoke alarm began to wail. Bang bang bang came from the ceiling—his upstairs neighbor’s response to any untoward sounds.

No. Breathe. This wasn’t worth getting worked up over. He could handle himself before he was blinded with the red rage. The last thing he wanted to do was repeat last time, when he spent a millennia in the Court of the Gods’ prison after murdering the other weather gods for their powers. So it was fine when he killed his own dad, but stupid foreigners were now a problem? And sentenced there by Themis, of all people. Goddess of justice from his own pantheon. Ex-wife. Vindictive bitch.

But that was the past. Now, he’d been making progress in therapy. It wasn’t worth it.

Breathe. Every breath was tinged with the smell of scorched plastic. That asshole wasn’t worth it. Just some young idiot god who thought he was on top.

Zeus’ pulse slowed. He gathered two more storm clouds and put out the new fires with a splash, then surveyed the damage. The condo was a wreck. Gaping holes in the walls from the wiring project grew soggy with buckling plaster from the water damage. There were smears of smoke damage everywhere; and both the battery in his living room and the bulk of his kitchen were not much more than twisted pieces of charred devastation. Half of the living room rug was unburned, but it was squelchy at best. At least it wasn’t all beige anymore.

He was committed to making a new start, he reminded himself. Possibly not in this particular condo anymore. But that little asshole did have to learn that it was just not okay to come in and burn another god’s house down.

In the old days he would have hunted him down and found a horrific punishment that vastly outweighed the crime. Probably he’d encase the little asshole in the trunk of a tree and leave him to rot for a few hundred years. Maybe put some of Nit’s hippie followers around him for good measure. But that was the old Zeus. He was putting the anger behind him, not falling back into old patterns. He exhaled. He would take Tekhno to the Court of the Gods and sue for damages or something. Following the rules was part of the fresh start. He could do this .

*

When the Court of the Gods was initially designed, all the gods felt like they had to have a say in how it looked and how it worked. Eventually, as massive group projects are wont to go, those loudest about bureaucracy won the battle of how it worked, and those loudest about aesthetics saw the abomination of design that had been born out of their committee and wanted to go hang themselves.

Up Zeus went to the mishmash of architectures from cultures worldwide. Had he possessed any aesthetic sensibilities beyond “not all beige,” he would have cringed, but he was not overburdened with such gifts. The Court was its usual bustle, with deities from a plethora of pantheons going in and out via their preferred travel mechanisms on air, land, water, and fire. Gods waited in long lines which snaked into the massive labyrinthine corridors, and politely ignored each other in a distinct haze of bored irritation.