The Age Of Zeus by Lovegrove James

Author:Lovegrove, James [Lovegrove, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3, mobi, pdf
Tags: Science Fiction
Publisher: Rebellion Publishing Ltd
Published: 2010-05-04T22:42:46+00:00

42. THE NEW LABOURS

OF HERCULES

The first New Labour that Hercules performed was demolishing a condemned tenement building in Brooklyn's Bedford-Stuyvesant district. He collapsed the derelict three-storey brownstone with his bare fists, and took tangible delight in doing so. Then he cleared away the rubble, piling it by the armful into a fleet of municipal dumper trucks. The site was slated to be turned into a play park and sensory garden for kids in the neighbourhood.

The second New Labour involved a hunt for one of the urban-legendary giant alligators reputed to lurk in the New York sewer system. Much to everyone's surprise, Hercules returned from his jaunt into the underworld hauling the corpse of just such a beast, a caiman some 25 feet long from nose to tail which was taken to the American Museum of Natural History on Central Park West to be stuffed, mounted and put on display.

New Labour number three was a somewhat controversial one. Hephaestus had fashioned a statue of none other than Zeus himself, 112 feet tall, one foot taller than the Statue of Liberty, and similarly made of copper. Hercules helped hoist the Zeus statue into place on a plinth on Governors Island so that it gazed across the Upper Bay towards Manhattan and dominated the view southwest from Battery Park much as the Statue of Liberty did. Naturally, plenty of New Yorkers grumbled. They all knew what the Statue of Liberty symbolised. What did the statue of Zeus stand for? Some, however - people who were perhaps of a more sentimental outlook - felt that after all these years of solitary spinsterhood it was high time ol' Lady Liberty had a mate.

Hercules's fourth New Labour was unplanned and impromptu, and occurred just as he'd completed the third. One of the Staten Island Ferry boats got into difficulties coming in to dock at Manhattan. The captain would later profess himself mystified as to what happened. He'd made the back-and-forth trip countless times and thought he knew the tides and currents in the bay intimately. He could have berthed that boat blindfolded. But then a sudden, inexplicable and very powerful rip caught the ferry, twisted her round and began pushing her sideways towards the pier at great speed. Nothing the captain could do would impede her progress or correct the profound list to starboard she had developed. Two likely outcomes awaited: either the ferry would hit the pier broad abeam, crushing dockworkers and possibly holing herself and sinking, or she would roll over and capsize. Neither was, to say the least, desirable.

Then, salvation.

It came in the form of Hercules, who had just alighted from a coastguard motor launch and who now leapt into action, bracing himself between the ferry's hull and the pier. With his immense strength he halted the boat, staved off a collision, and averted disaster. A couple of hundred commuters cheered and the captain hooted his foghorn in appreciation. Hercules took a bow - hero of the hour.

That night, in a comedy club

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