all stop fencing and just look at the thing since we’re going to anyway?” Melchior rubbed his temples. “You do realize that as a whole your extended family must spend ten times as much energy on double and triple crosses as it saves by dint of same. Doesn’t it ever strike you all as the least bit tedious?” His eyes darted from Thalia to me and back again, then he sighed and threw up his arms. “No, of course it doesn’t. That’s probably half the fun. Why am I even asking?”
“The sound of one hand clapping?” asked Thalia. “No, probably not, and too absurdist for most senses of humor at that. Oh well, were you done?”
Melchior nodded, and she handed him the crystal. He popped it into his mouth, then flickered from goblin to laptop shape. On his screen a dialogue box opened.
Scanning volume for viruses . . . Holy shit!
He returned to goblin form. “Persephone doesn’t half mess around, does she?” Melchior’s voice was muffled by the crystal tucked into his cheek. Given his reaction, I was quite surprised he hadn’t spit it across the room.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“Persephone put the source code for the Necessity doomsday virus on this thing, along with about thirty variations of same, and major nastiness designed for most of the other god systems.
She’s even found a way to get a virus to jump from Hades’ personal desktop machine to the totally disconnected systems that run the business of the underworld. None of it’s active code, but my virus checker just about had a heart attack when it hit the file tree where it’s all stored.” He gave Thalia a hard look. “This stuff makes Scorched Earth look like kindergarten in the suburbs, and that’s the virus Ravirn crashed the mweb with way back when.” He turned my way.
“If this ever gets a wider audience, you and Eris can both hand your computer bad-ass hats straight over to the real evil genius. Why is Persephone offering all of this to us?”
“She thinks you might need it,” answered Thalia, looking far more sober than usual. “Play the video, and you’ll see why.”
Melchior nodded and shifted shape again. A picture opened on his screen. Persephone sitting in a garden under the open sky—after her long ordeal in Hades, she refused to allow a roof of any kind over her head. The goddess looked into the camera and raised the corners of her lips in a very good imitation of a smile. If I hadn’t known her as well as I did, I might even have believed it.
“Ravirn,” she said, “I’m sorry to impose on you yet again after the great service you’ve already done me, but the very thought of what I’m about to show you fills me with a dread that makes it very hard for me to act with restraint. I don’t want to have to do something about this, so I am asking you to address it if you would.”
It was my turn to whistle. The last time Persephone had acted without restraints, she had very nearly destroyed the whole damn multiverse. Coupled with a request for my help and the plethora of doomsday viruses she had just shown herself to possess, it was both the gentlest and most terrifying threat anyone had ever made to me. I glanced a question at my grandmother.
Thalia nodded. “She’s deadly serious.”
Melchior had paused the playback during the interplay—better than TiVo, that little guy. Now he started it again.
Persephone whistled something long and complex and self-harmonizing. It was a subtle piece of coding and one I definitely wanted to listen to again later for study purposes. The spell resulted in the formation of a black picture frame in the air beside her. The area within initially showed only static.
“I won’t watch this again,” she said in a voice edged with jagged ice, “but you must.” Then she rose and walked out of the picture as the camera moved in tight on the contents of the frame so that we were watching a picture within a picture.
The static seemed to fold in on itself,
“The sound of one hand clapping?” asked Thalia. “No, probably not, and too absurdist for most senses of humor at that. Oh well, were you done?”
Melchior nodded, and she handed him the crystal. He popped it into his mouth, then flickered from goblin to laptop shape. On his screen a dialogue box opened.
Scanning volume for viruses . . . Holy shit!
He returned to goblin form. “Persephone doesn’t half mess around, does she?” Melchior’s voice was muffled by the crystal tucked into his cheek. Given his reaction, I was quite surprised he hadn’t spit it across the room.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“Persephone put the source code for the Necessity doomsday virus on this thing, along with about thirty variations of same, and major nastiness designed for most of the other god systems.
She’s even found a way to get a virus to jump from Hades’ personal desktop machine to the totally disconnected systems that run the business of the underworld. None of it’s active code, but my virus checker just about had a heart attack when it hit the file tree where it’s all stored.” He gave Thalia a hard look. “This stuff makes Scorched Earth look like kindergarten in the suburbs, and that’s the virus Ravirn crashed the mweb with way back when.” He turned my way.
“If this ever gets a wider audience, you and Eris can both hand your computer bad-ass hats straight over to the real evil genius. Why is Persephone offering all of this to us?”
“She thinks you might need it,” answered Thalia, looking far more sober than usual. “Play the video, and you’ll see why.”
Melchior nodded and shifted shape again. A picture opened on his screen. Persephone sitting in a garden under the open sky—after her long ordeal in Hades, she refused to allow a roof of any kind over her head. The goddess looked into the camera and raised the corners of her lips in a very good imitation of a smile. If I hadn’t known her as well as I did, I might even have believed it.
“Ravirn,” she said, “I’m sorry to impose on you yet again after the great service you’ve already done me, but the very thought of what I’m about to show you fills me with a dread that makes it very hard for me to act with restraint. I don’t want to have to do something about this, so I am asking you to address it if you would.”
It was my turn to whistle. The last time Persephone had acted without restraints, she had very nearly destroyed the whole damn multiverse. Coupled with a request for my help and the plethora of doomsday viruses she had just shown herself to possess, it was both the gentlest and most terrifying threat anyone had ever made to me. I glanced a question at my grandmother.
Thalia nodded. “She’s deadly serious.”
Melchior had paused the playback during the interplay—better than TiVo, that little guy. Now he started it again.
Persephone whistled something long and complex and self-harmonizing. It was a subtle piece of coding and one I definitely wanted to listen to again later for study purposes. The spell resulted in the formation of a black picture frame in the air beside her. The area within initially showed only static.
“I won’t watch this again,” she said in a voice edged with jagged ice, “but you must.” Then she rose and walked out of the picture as the camera moved in tight on the contents of the frame so that we were watching a picture within a picture.
The static seemed to fold in on itself,
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