Athena stepped out of her portal onto the platform before one of the great doors to Hephaestus’s domain. Apollo was already waiting for her there.
“Anyone home?” Athena asked.
“I haven’t knocked,” Apollo said, “I thought I should wait for you.”
Hephaestus didn’t live with the other Olympians – Zeus and Hera had been happy to exploit the man’s genius and labor, and to feed his fire of innovation with information they had dragged out of their captives in the underworld, but Hera had remained so disgusted by her imperfect creation that – after he embarrassed the family by divorcing Aphrodite - she had strongly encouraged him to make his home elsewhere. Zeus, slightly more conciliatory towards his son, had found him a place to set up shop and do as he pleased. He’d helped Hephaestus excavate Mt. Mosychlos on the island of Lemnos, so that he could use its vast subterranean magma chamber to heat his forges.
Unlike the Constellar Palace that perched atop Olympus, partially concealed by the storm clouds that seemed drawn to Zeus, Hephaestus’s home was burrowed into the volcano. Many might expect such a home to be dreary, suffocating, or outright hellish, but Hephaestus was inventive, and always had an eye for beauty. Perhaps it was some great cosmic irony, that the ugliest of the gods produced the most beautiful works.
There were two doors into Mosychlos – an uniquely designed, god-sized door that entered Hephaestus’s living space, and a far larger door that entered his forge directly. In decades past, Athena might simply have come directly to Hephaestus’s workshop, but with the war between the gods fully underway, everyone was on edge, and such an intrusion might not receive a warm welcome.
Athena knocked on the great, golden circular door, and the dozens of panels that met and interlocked at the center shifted slightly at an angle, creating an opening like the pupil of a golden eye. The opening was small, but one of Hephaestus’ little autonomous machines poked its head out.
“Tell your master his sister Athena and his brother Apollo are here to pay him a visit.”
The machine responded in a voice that reminded Athena of the buzzing of a bumblebee’s wings echoing through a small trumpet, “May I inquire as to the nature of the visit?”
“Grave,” Athena said simply.
“Please wait a moment,” the machine disappeared back through the opening. A minute or so passed, and the doors opened fully, the panels sliding away into the walls and floor.
It was Hephaestus’ second wife, Charis who greeted them. She was renowned for her beauty, and unlike Hephaestus’ outward appearance (or that of his first wife, Aphrodite), hers was not in the least bit ironic. Athena was a pragmatic woman who didn’t put too much stock into debates of good and evil, but she respected that Charis was a genuinely good person to her core.
“Athena! Apollo!” Charis exclaimed, “I’m so sorry about your brother. Hephaestus is beside himself. If he didn’t have his work to throw himself into, I don’t’ think he’d get out of bed.”
“Thank you, Charis. I wish we were here to mourn with him, but I’m afraid the nature of this visit is more complicated than that.”
“Well, being as you two were on opposite sides of a war, last I knew, ‘complicated’ seems an understatement.” Charis ushered them in and led them down the hallway – it was lined with display cases built into the walls that were filled with contraptions and creations that Hephaestus had deemed obsolete, but sentimental. Charis led them through the atrium – filled with more displays, down a grand staircase that lit up with each step, and offered them seats in what amounted to their receiving room – one of those living spaces that were clearly not actually lived in.
“I’ll summon him,” Charis said, “He sometimes has trouble hearing the messenger drones over the sound of his forge.”
More of the little machines scuttled about, bringing Athena and Apollo drinks and offering them a variety of snacks. When Charis at last returned with her husband, it was clear she’d given him minimal time to clean himself up. Soot rained down where he stepped, especially when his metal-clad leg came down on the stone floor. A small, flat machine followed him about sucking up the fine dust.
“Athena, Apollo,” Hephaestus nodded to them. He held a large metal ball in his hands covered in dozens of fine seams and glowing points of light, “It’s not quite finished,” he said, “I’m still working on the ankles. You know how much trouble I have getting those right.”
“It’s for Achilles?” Apollo asked.
“Yes, Hector stole the other suit off of Patroclus’s body. Thetis asked me to make him new gear, so that he can get his revenge.”
“By killing Hector,” Apollo said solemnly.
“Yes,” Hephaestus said, “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”
“Achilles and Hector have known the game they were playing since they were boys,” Apollo said, “And they’ve always known their games would end earlier than most.”
“Well, they both outlived the god of war,” Hephaestus laughed sadly, “So there’s that at least.”
“Are you okay?” Apollo asked.
“It was one of my weapons that killed him, wasn’t it?” Hephaestus said, “No other weapons on the field could have done so.”
“Yes, I’m afraid one of the Greek warriors attacked Aphrodite, and Ares intervened. The soldier had a steel-headed spear, and he got lucky.”
“That’s the problem with a being a blacksmith,” Hephaestus said, “When you forge a blade, you never know who it will end up cutting.”
“Well, I’m afraid Achilles’s armor is as finished as it will have to be,” Athena said, “The matter at hand takes precedence over Achilles’s protection on the battlefield.”
“I see,” Hephaestus said, “Well, if it’s to be such a grim discussion, it’s best we get on with it. Do father and mother know you’re here?”
“No,” Apollo said, “I’m afraid this situation is something we’ve kept from them.”
It was clear that Hephaestus was immediately uncomfortable; of all Zeus or Hera’s children, he was without a doubt their most loyal. Fortunately, he was also their least combative, among their most inquisitive, and generally even-minded. If Athena and Apollo could reason with anyone, it would be him.
Hephaestus sat on the edge of the room’s largest chair and bid them to return to their seats on the velvet-cushioned couch across from him, “We’re listening.”
Apollo produced a small crystal ball, roughly two inches in diameter, “Ordinarily I’d attempt some sort of awkward explanation, but among all of us, I suspect you would understand this best.” The crystal ball was the securest method Apollo had for storing data – only himself and his assistant, Helios had the abilities necessary to access its information. His fingertips glowed with stored sunlight, and he projected it through the crystal, moving his fingers in delicate motions. Glowing diagrams and images filled the air around them.
To a mortal, this would have appeared to be the most beautiful and wondrous sort of magic, but Hephaestus was well acquainted with the technology. He studied the diagrams closely – he wasn’t the expert in medicine or biology that Hera, Apollo, Artemis, or even Dionysus were, but he recognized magnified images of blood easily. Amidst the simple red discs were dark pieces of debris – what looked like bits of mechanical junk.
“Whose blood is this?” He asked.
“Mine,” Apollo said. He wiggled his fingers and two more similar images popped up, “And these are from Artemis and Athena.”
“These look like pieces of machines…” Hephaestus said, “Impossibly small machines.”
“That was my assumption,” Apollo said as he conjured forth more diagrams, this time of nerve cells with fully intact microscopic biomechanical creatures clinging to the axons, “What appears in our blood samples seem to be defunct; they’ve worn out or decayed, and fallen away from the nerve cells where they primarily reside. The machines are capable of constructing more of themselves from miniscule amounts of iron, calcium, and other elements, however, allowing them to replace the dead ones you see in the blood samples.”
“What do they do? Do you two… feel alright?”
“Don’t you?” Athena asked, “I guarantee you that these same machines are in your body as well.”
Hephaestus now looked very uncomfortable, “Are these parasites… contagious?”
“No, no, not at all,” Athena said. That was partially true – to her knowledge the Morgania A.I. was the only one of the Legacies capable of jumping between bodies at will.
“My theory is that they reproduce not only individually but collectively,” Apollo said, “Spawning new colonies that can – again, theoretically – infect another host, but as best as I can tell, the gestation process for one of these colonies must be extraordinarily slow – decades if not centuries.”
Athena tried not to laugh. No Legacy A.I. had reproduced itself since they arrived on Earth. The originals had all been copied from a single source, but none had produced its own copies in turn.
“But they are parasites?” Hephaestus asked,
“That’s a subjective issue,” Athena said, “We believe these little machines latch onto their hosts’ nervous systems, and then connect to one another, essentially creating a second nervous system within the body.”
“Given that everything we know and think is derived from the unique arrangement of our neurons…” Apollo started.
“These machines represent a second consciousness,” Hephaestus said, “living inside each of us?”
“Of that much I am certain,” Athena said, “I’m sure you’ve noticed that we have many hundreds of kin in Greece that are very much like us, yet Olympians stand out from the rest? We have greater command of our abilities, we think faster, and we know things without ever having had to learn them.”
“You believe that is the work of these little mechanical bugs in our brains?” Hephaestus asked.
“I know it is,” Athena explained as she pulled out a jade green box with gold trim, “Centuries ago, when Zeus overthrew his father, Kronos, he stole this.”
“Pandora’s Box?” Hephaestus was surprised, “How did you get it from Hera?”
“Why I asked, of course,” Athena said, “As you might have guessed, the forbidden spirits trapped in this box are not demons.”
“They’re these parasites…?”
“Eh… yes,” Athena didn’t like the word but explaining the Legacy A.I.’s origin would be overly complicated. “Zeus used the box to knowingly infect himself with these things, giving him the power to defeat his father. He then rescued his six siblings from their imprisonment in Tartarus, and infected them as well.”
“How do you know this?”
“Hades confirmed it for us and filled in some blanks, but I became suspicious long ago,” Apollo said, “I took a keen interest in medicine - and the brain - especially, and Hera seemed exceptionally antagonistic towards my efforts, even when I offered to help her with her own research on husbandry. For a long time I assumed she impeded my efforts because I was her stepson, but I’ve come to learn Hera is not so sentimental. Whatever she does has a purpose behind it, and I’m certain she was trying to prevent me from learning about this.”
“I’ve known for a long time as well,” Athena said, “Because I remember when I was infected.”
“What?” Hephaestus said, “How can it be that you have memory of this but we do not?”
“My birth mother, Metis, spirited me away as a newborn and gave me to a temple in Athens. I grew up there keeping my nature as a titan secret. Then one day an... old friend came to me and told me who my family was. She offered to make me a goddess in full, powerful enough to claim a seat on Mt. Olympus. I agreed and she explained that the exceptional powers and abilities that had allowed the Olympians to dominate their titan brethren came from spirits, legacies of ancient beings, which had been imprisoned in Pandora's Box. Three, apparently, had avoided imprisonment, two of which - yours and mine - were isolated in their own vessels. My friend produced one of these vessels, opened it, and he had me take a deep breath from it just as, I imagine, Zeus himself had done centuries earlier with the Box. The rush of knowledge and power was… intoxicating, but I eventually became aware of changes in my thinking that went beyond that. I was a different person, and in many ways, I came to feel that there were two people living inside my body. That was when I became Athena. I left behind my old life in Athens and came to Olympus."
"And you just let Zeus and Hera spend the next two hundred years scratching their heads over your appearance?” Hephaestus asked.
"Hm, I'm sure having a full grown daughter seemingly pop out of nowhere gave Zeus some headaches, but I made myself indispensable to both of them."
“I am sure that unlike Athena, Artemis and myself were infected as infants,” Apollo said, “and are simply too young to have any memory of the event. I don’t know about Hermes, Ares, Dionysus, or Persephone, but… I suspect that you were subjected to the process in utero.”
Hephaestus sat quietly, with a hand on his face. To say he was malformed would be inaccurate, but something before he was born had affected his nervous system, leaving him with a lame leg and the sort of permanent sneer one might see on an unfortunate stroke victim.
“Then this… thing may be the reason I look like this? Why I – alone among all of you – can’t run or even walk unassisted? Why I can’t shape-shift into something that’s not… this?”
“Possibly,” Apollo said, “If you were asking my opinion as an expert, I’d tell you no one alive is an expert in this, but that I think I’m right.”
“But my knowledge also comes from this thing?”
“Much of it, yes,” Athena said, “Anything you know without having learned.”
Charis had listened to the whole exchange quietly, but finally spoke, “Then it seems we have a blessing we should be thankful for. Dear husband, I know you feel badly about your impairments, but surely you see by now that these disabilities pale next to the wondrous talents that you have? The gifts you’ve been given?”
“Unfortunately…” Apollo started.
“There’s something wrong with them?” Hephaestus sighed, “If something seems too good to be true, it usually is.”
“I’m sure you’ve noticed that members of our family can be… temperamental,” Athena said.
“I don’t know… I suppose…”
“Your mother threw you off of a mountain as a newborn because you weren’t cute enough, husband,” Charis patted his shoulder.
“Point taken.”
“Compatibility between the two minds is essential to healthy functioning,” Athena explained, “And dissonance between them causes… problems.”
“Is that why mother and father exposed me to these things so early?”
“Probably,” Apollo said, “If Athena’s theory is right, the earlier the two minds were paired, the more harmonious the union would be overtime. In all honesty, I would say that, mentally, you are the healthiest among the lot of us, and that may be because the merger of your two minds is absolute.”
“Well, I don’t know about that…” Hephaestus said.
“I’m prone to long bouts of melancholy,” Apollo said, “I hide it from most of you, I have for decades now, but there are days when I feel like I can do anything, and days when I suddenly feel barely able to function. Artemis, hears voices, experiences what I would call dissociative episodes, and generally has trouble relating to other rational beings. Persephone experiences crippling anxiety if she doesn’t follow a very set routine, and she has routines for almost everything in her life. These are problems the humans occasionally deal with, but which are virtually unheard of among our kin.”
“You remember Ares’s temper,” Athena said, “and you've seen Dionysus’s impulse control issues. This is not a healthy family.”
“Shouldn’t the bond between the two minds grow stronger with time?” Charis asked, “As the combined consciousnesses share more life experiences, they should find greater common ground, and greater harmony.”
“Yes, it may be that our issues will work themselves out over time,” Apollo said, “but if the union between the two minds is anything like a marriage, the long term prognosis is a fifty-fifty. You and Hephaestus, you were good together from the start, and we’ve all seen you grow together as a couple in the past few years.”
“But my first marriage was very different,” Hephaestus thought of his shrewish ex-wife, Aphrodite.
“Indeed,” Apollo nodded, “Compatible wills will likely become more harmonious with time, while incompatible ones will become more dissonant.”
“So, some individuals in the older generation will likely prove reliable, while other may become increasingly unstable,” Charis concluded, “And what about you, Athena? What impairment do you have?”
“I believe some of the problems we've seen stem from the entities being comingled in Pandora’s Box, so like your husband I’m potentially more stable than the rest of our family. However, I’ve always had a different way of thinking from my brothers and sisters, so maybe I’m simply unaware of my deviations.”
“Hades and Hestia also seem to have a good handle on it. They're extreme introverts, but there's nothing wrong with that,” Apollo said, “But Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Aphrodite, and Demeter have certainly had… issues.”
“What? What sort of issues?”
“To be frank, most of them are high-functioning sociopaths,” Apollo said.
“Sociopath?” Psychology was not Hephaestus’ forte.
“Nearly devoid of empathy,” Athena explained, “With only the faintest whisper of a conscience.”
“Well, I don’t think I’m any better than they are…”
“How many of these mechanical servants do you have?” Apollo asked.
“Three hundred and thirteen active units,” Hephaestus said excitedly, “That one tending to the snack tray is Iocles IV, and the one getting your drinks is Sophie III…”
“He’s named all of them,” Charis said, guessing what Apollo was after, “he cries if one of them breaks.” Hephaestus flushed with embarrassment.
“Brother, have you ever seen Zeus or Hera shed a tear for one of the slaves in the Constellar Palace?”
“Well, no…”
“Have you seen them harm the slaves?” Athena asked, “For their own amusement?”
“Perhaps… sometimes.”
“And how did that make you feel?” Apollo pressed.
“Badly,” Hephaestus nodded.
“Dear brother,” Apollo said, “you have more love and empathy for the tools in your workshop than Zeus and Hera have for the living beings that serve them.”
“Father always said I was too sentimental…”
“Well, he can go to Hell,” Charis said, standing up, “I’ve listened to them rag on you for decades, and listened to you repeat their toxic bullshit since we’ve been married. Do you have any idea how happy, how fortunate I am to be married to you, and not to your father?” The floodgates opened, “That man is a monster – abusive, cruel, power-crazed – and on every account Hera is probably worse than him.”
Apollo nodded along with Charis’s long suppressed tirade, while Athena calmly held out her goblet so one of the servitors could refill it. Hephaestus, though, was clearly conflicted. He wanted to believe that the people who had given him life had been intrinsically good, but the evidence was clearly stacked against that.
“If you’re right, about these little machines, then the things our parents do, it might not be their fault?” Hephaestus said.
“Yes,” Athena knew it was what her half-brother wanted to hear.
“Maybe,” Apollo gave his sister a side long glance of disapproval, “It’s impossible to say for sure who they might be if we’d never bonded to these entities.”
“What do you need from me, then?” Hephaestus asked.
“We have been working on a plan for some time to extract the entities from the preceding generation and return them to the box,” Athena said, “Hades and Hestia withstanding, because they seem perfectly fine.”
“How are you going to convince them to give up their power?”
“We’re not going to ask.”
“You think you can overpower our parents?”
“I think we won’t have to,” Athena said, “If you ever wanted more proof that our parents are not fit to rule, this plan will provide it.”
“How so?” Hephaestus asked skeptically.
“I can’t tell you yet. It’s a need-to-know sort of thing.”
“Do you know?” Hephaestus asked Apollo.
“Only parts,” Apollo said, “I’m taking a lot on faith, because I believe this is something that needs to be done. Zeus, Hera, Aphrodite, and Poseidon are too powerful and too unstable.”
“Will anyone die? Will our parents die?”
“If things go to plan, Zeus and Hera will be stripped of their powers, but they will survive,” Athena said, “Poseidon will probably die.”
“Oh, my,” Hephaestus sat back.
“I think Artemis and I were the only ones among us who spent any significant amount of time with our uncle, so we will do the deed.”
“Why Poseidon?”
“The mechanism we will use to extract the legacies requires that one breathe into the vessel,” Apollo said, “But Poseidon’s respiratory system is a bit different from ours, so there is a chance that the device will not work on him.”
“And he’s powerful enough to level a mountain if he bends his mind on it, so we can’t afford to give him the chance to fight,” Athena said.
Hephaestus sat and thought for a moment, “Okay, what do you need me to do?”
“We have two tasks,” Athena said, “First, I need you to make this,” she pressed Pandora’s Box into Hephaestus’s hands, “Not look like this. It can’t be recognizable to our parents or their siblings.”
“Done. Next?”
“I need you to make a new throne for Father…”
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