Challenges of the Gods by C. Hofsetz

Author:C. Hofsetz [C. Hofsetz]
Language: eng
Format: epub

Chapter 22

Lies

“Listen to me, you God damn little prick,” John says, getting right in front of my face. I instinctively move my arm to protect myself. “The next time you even point a gun in my direction, son, I will shoot you in the head.” He pushes me back hard, just as I was trying to get up.

“Let me talk!” I yell, but it comes out high-pitched. I take some extra breaths, and they wait for me to be able to breathe again. As I’m getting better, I get angry.

“Haven’t you been paying attention?” I shout. Dumbasses, I think, but I don’t say it out loud. I’m afraid that John might hit me. “The game is rigged. The hypersphere is filled with neuro-interfaced machines that only Jori can use. We had no chance.”

“Then how do you use them?” Jane asks, as I slowly push myself to a standing position.

“Jane,”—she cringes when she hears me say her name and I’m suddenly glad it’s Earth’s Mike who has a date with her this weekend, and not me—“you know I have some kind of connection with this place. I don’t know why, but I do. When we got to the ship’s bridge, there were more than a hundred missiles already coming to destroy us. We were dead anyway. What would have you done?”

“I don’t know,” she concedes, “but I probably wouldn’t kill everyone in sight, and definitely not my own fucking friends!”

To be on the safe side, I back away from her; otherwise, I’ll likely get punched again.

“Maybe not. Do you imagine it was an easy decision for me? I spent the last few hours trying to figure out if there’d been another way, but I don’t have a way to redo it. And yet, it worked. We’re all alive, and that’s what matters.” I look at John, feeling the urge to be petty. “In fact, nobody has really died on my watch, Major!”

“Mike, how are you alive?” Louise asks, her soft, jade green eyes glowing. I feel even worse that I hurt her. “You didn’t die and wake up. Rose told us she and the others saw you coming out of the hypersphere.”

“Did they tell you in what kind of state? I thought I was going to die, literally.” I flinch when I remember what happened. I almost didn’t make it out alive. “I wouldn’t have been able to save everybody. If I hadn’t killed you, we would all be dead.”

With a puzzled look on her face, Jane sits on the same chair Mercury was on just minutes ago. I try not to look at her bikini and focus on Louise nipping at her cuticles instead. Jane seems confused, and not because I’m not looking at her bikini.

“But if you’re right, the gods…why would they do that?” Jane asks. Weird, she’s okay with me betraying them, but not the gods?

Hermes—the real one, I think—interrupts our conversation, requesting that everyone be seated for some announcements. Venus and other messengers graciously take people to the tables and start bringing beverages, but I stay seated next to Jane.

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