“Do you
know who I am?” The voice was a deep mechanical
whirr.
“Yes… Oh
dear Zeus, protect me,” responded the blindfolded man.
“What is my
name?”
“Please,
don’t-“
“Say it
Priest!”
“Monster!”
“What else?” Monster poked a small with a staff. The staff’s crown had the shape of a
golden-bearded face, eyes diamonds.
“Father
Zeus, protect me!”
“Call him
you whining crust!” The whirring voice increased
with breath, an engine of the lungs.
“So?”
“Creature! Fiend!
Wretch! It!” “Through clenched teeth, “The experiment of the
Doctor!”
“Wrong. I am his son, and it means stronghold of freemen,
but I have chosen a new name.”
“You are no so son, or man.
No vital essence courses through you.
You are soulless.”
The fire
bounced shadows about the cave, an unwanted and unruly audience. Fiend rose, using the staff like a cane. He had to duck so not to hit stone and
stepped over the fire. His foot fell
heavy on the granite. He stood before
the Priest whose hands were bound behind his back. His fear the smell of shit that soaked his
white robe and mixed with the smoke of the flames. Fiend used the staff to remove the blindfold.
Is this a
test? The Priest thought the Minotaur
was before him. The beast was huge, near
two men in height. But as the fire’s
light revealed more, he saw no horns.
This was no act of gods. This was
an abomination. Patchwork of grey skin
was just a façade. Metal hid between sown
skin around the forehead and neck. But
it was too human, delicately crafted – metallic blue eyes wet with moisture,
saliva caked at the corners of its mouth.
It wore a brown fur coat. Chest
was covered, but its massive legs were exposed, and between them: Nothing.
When it spoke, the mouthparts moved perfectly, so human-like, thousands
of mini-gods at work.
“Call me
Adam. Simple, yes?”
“Father Zeus will not stand for this!”
“Zeus is useless.”
“Zeus is
the god of gods!”
“Zeus is no
god to me. My father is the true
Prometheus, and he bore me the way he saw fit.”
Adam leaned down, knees grinding like gears. “Your father Zeus is a flashy mongrel to me.”
The priest
shuffled back. He yelped, “Blaspheme!”
A gust of
wind threatened to put out the fire. Rain
began to fall, small waterfalls dripping at the mouth of the cave. Thunder rumbled with ferocity that shook the
cave.
“He is
coming, vile insect!”
“Good.” Adam grabbed the priest by the back of the
neck and dragged him out of the cave.
“What are
you going to do? Let me go, and I will
allow you to live! I will speak with
Zeus!”
“You are
the head priest, the one who sacrificed humans to Zeus? You are his favorite?”
“Yes! So obey me, and you will live.”
Outside, rain
fell like needles but in the corner of the sky moonlight watched the playground
with anticipation. Adam shoved him out
the cave. The Priest hit the ground
hard. His face scraped and head
cracked. Blood ran down the side of his
chin and into his beard.
The storm
brewed, heavy with heat and friction. Lightning
slammed like angry heels into the mountains behind the cave.
“Your great
Zeus ordered his son to kill my father. Adam
stepped behind the priest and grabbed his neck.
“No,
please,” struggled the priest.
“I am
sorry, truly. And I thank you for your
sacrifice.” Adam snapped his neck with
one quick twist of his wrist. He threw
the limp body on the ground.
Clouds formed
into a black sphere above. Lightning
bolts snapped like whips.
“See before
you, your most prized human, bleeding on your ground like cows and pigs! And I will kill them all!”
A bolt of
lightning erupted from the cloud. It
struck Adam in the face like a boxer’s left hook. Adam flew back ten feet and crashed on the
ground.
“Is that
all you got?” Smoke curled from his
lips.
The sphere
took the shape of a glowered face.
Three bolts
shot out of the clouds, and, as before, struck Adam with boxer blows: hooks,
upper cuts, and a cross.
Part of
Adam’s facial skin burned off. The metal
underneath was not so much skeletal as it was sculpted: bronzed into human
features. Even metal lips covered
metallic teeth. Adam crawled to the
staff and grabbed it. He struggled to
stand. The cloud rumbled on like a
stampede.
“Ha! You are nothing to me, nothing but a
monster!” Adam smashed the cane. The diamond eyes shattered and wood
splintered, and the gold scattered across the stone ground.
The
spherical cloud shrunk down to the size of an iron cannonball. Silence hung in the air. The rain froze,
trapped in time. Air tasted of salt and
acid. A dozen bolts snapped out of the
sphere.
Adam
exposed his chest. The lightning struck
two metal bolts screwed at the sides of his heart. His eyes blazed with white fire. Light lit his heart and spilled out his
mouth. He let out a roar that challenged
Zeus’ thunder. He then collapsed but
immediately stood. Electricity danced on
his frame. Again, Zeus spit out tongues
of bolts that struck Adam. He laughed and
absorbed the god’s energy.
“Yes!” Adam
grabbed a boulder ten times his mass and chucked it at the cloud. It popped a hole in the brume. The cloud fled with defeat, dissipating
towards a mountainous range. The
thunderous rumble like an exhausted dog’s breath.
Adam stood
staring at the clearing sky. Energy
coursed through his body.
The clouds
raced towards the horizon in the distance allowing the suns first birth of
beams to crawl out.
“Hercules,
your ass is mine.”
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