Chapter 19

Zeus was waiting for them when the golden chairs reached Olympus.

“Man, no one’s ever going to believe you when you tell them how you got out of that mess,” Zeus said.

“Hi dad,” Hep said. “How’s it going around here?”

“The same as always,” Zeus said.

Olympus, overall, is kind of the trailer park of the divine world: petty family drama, sex between relatives, sex between non-relatives, lots of drunkenness, violence and general tasteless misbehavior.

Scroat felt right at home.

The four of them went into Zeus’s home. Hep and Pan looked around, somewhat nervously, expecting to see Hera. Zeus saw them.

“Don’t worry, she’s not home right now,” he said.

***

The six inch tall Hamburglar looked around the corner, making sure the coast was clear before he and the two others who had made it this far moved into the open. The other two action figures with him were a red-haired princess from a popular animated movie, and a comically happy robot.

There were no big people in the hallway, so the three action figures darted across to the nearest doorway, where they hid again. They had learned mere minutes after leaving the cell they had been locked in that the big people did not like moving action figures. Two others, another princess and a swamp creature of some sort, had paid for that lesson.

Now they stuck to the walls and moved cautiously. The Hamburglar knew their enemy’s name was Tim, and what Tim looked like, but he had no idea where Tim was right now. They listened carefully to the big people’s conversations waiting for some information that would take them to Tim.

Dan had explained a great deal to them before he was taken away, and the action figures knew that they had to do whatever they could to stop this Tim. As such, they did their best to sabotage any of the big people’s equipment they could reach.

The True Believers had jokingly called the strange breakages the work of gremlins. Had they realized they weren’t too far off, the True Believers probably would have freaked right the hell out.

Across the hall was an open door. Hamburglar checked the hall again, and the three of them ran into the open room.

“We don’t know how they got out sir. We had the entire building surrounded and observed. We checked inside the building, and didn’t find anything. As far as we can tell, they just vanished,” a big person said into a telephone.

“We checked that sir,” the big person said in a mildly annoyed voice. “No, sir, that isn’t… Yes, sir.” He hung the phone up.

“Look sharp. Tim is coming down here,” the first big person said to the other big person in the room.

The actions figures hearts, if they’d had any, would have leapt into their throats. They weren’t going to have to hunt Tim down. He was conveniently coming to them. What luck!

A few minutes later, the action figures saw a pair of perfectly polished shoes enter the room, carrying a big person in a neatly pressed black suit. It was Tim. They watched, and couldn’t believe their good fortune when he set down a soft leather briefcase. The three of them scrambled over to it and climbed into it while Tim yelled at the other big people in the room for being incompetent.

The three toys agreed that Tim really was a total fucker. They waited in his briefcase, and soon enough he picked up the case, and the hidden toys, and left the room.

***

Sarah and Dan were currently freaking right the fuck out. They’d heard the commotion outside the bar when Hep, Scroat and Pan had left and put two and two together. They’d dropped some money on the table and ran out the door, following the True Believers who’d followed the three gods. They watched as the True Believers surrounded the abandoned warehouse, and left when the helicopter launched the grenades into the building, before they were seen.

As far as they knew, Hep, Scroat and Pan were either dead, or imprisoned by the True Believers and would be dead shortly.

***
“Nope, you guys are on your own on this one,” Zeus said.

Hep, Scroat and Pan had spent the last several hours trying to convince Zeus to gather the gods still in Olympus to help overthrow Tim. He hadn’t budged on his position even a little. They had explained to him that Tim, unlike other newcomers to the world of divinity, had found a way to kill Gods and was doing so in an exceptionally efficient and ruthless manner.

It didn’t matter.

“He can’t get here,” Zeus said, “because I won’t let him. What happens outside of Olympus is hardly my concern nowadays. If things get really bad out there, you’re always welcome to come stay in Olympus. Now, what do you say we have a bite to eat?”

Hep looked at Scroat and Pan, who looked back at him and shrugged.

“Sure, why not?” Hep said. “Afterwards, we’ll have to get back down there, though.”

***

Sarah and Dan were sitting on the couch in their hotel room, each lost in thought, when they heard trumpets call and the ceiling started to glow. They were astounded as three golden chairs descended and landed on the floor in front of them.

“Ground floor. Housewares, Lingerie, Mopey Pagans,” Scroat said. He, Hep, and Pan stood from the chairs. The chairs lifted again, and soon the room was entirely back to normal.

“Hey guys, what’s up?” Hep asked.

Sarah jumped off the couch and ran to them. She leapt at Hep to hug him with such enthusiasm that he fell over backwards, with her on top of him.

“Watch out, that’s how Hercules was born,” Scroat cracked.

“What happened to you guys?” Sarah asked as she and Pan helped Hep up off the floor.
“It’s a long story,” Hep said.

“How on earth did you get out of that building?” Chris asked.

Hep looked at Scroat, who appeared worried that his sterling reputation was about to be sullied.

“Scroat made it rain angry squids,” Hep said.

“I don’t remember that part,” Sarah said.

“Oh, yeah, squids everywhere. They were mighty pissed off, too. If there’s one thing a squid hates it’s some jerk in a tracksuit making too much noise,” Pan said. “That kind of thing drives those oogy little bastards right up the wall.”

“What about the grenades?” Chris said.

“What grenades?” Hep said. “Clearly, you’re confused.”

“But,” Chris started.

“Confused,” Hep said distinctly.

“Um, yeah, I must have been confused. What with all the squids flying everywhere…” Chris trailed off.

Scroat watched this entire conversation with a look of mild disbelief.

“Yeah, uh, that’s one of my favorite tricks,” he said. “The old ‘torrential squid downpour’ gets them every time.”

“Well, that was a fun story,” Sarah said. “So what really happened?”

“Hep’s dad bailed us out,” Scroat said. “Personally, I thought Zeus should have smote a few of those fuckers with some well placed lightning, but I guess he’s gone soft in his old age. Instead, we just got to ride the luxury elevators to Olympus and have lunch. Luckily for us, Hera was out shopping, or whatever it is that high-ranking goddesses do to avoid their boorish husbands. Otherwise, I expect lunch would have been a lot more like a trailer park family reunion.”

Chris looked entirely baffled, while Sarah giggled a little bit at the thought of an ancient Greek trailer park.

“So has Heitsi shown up yet?” Hep asked.

Sarah and Chris looked a little guilty.

“Well, it has only been a few hours since you guys left, and we’ve been kind of pre-occupied,” Sarah said.

“Well, fuck, you guys. We’re only trying to save the world here, don’t feel pressured at all to get some fucking results,” Scroat said.

“Fuck you, Scroat,” Chris said.

Hep looked directly at Chris.

“Well? You want to get cracking on this?” Hep asked.

“Ok, Ok, I’m going,” Chris said. He got off the couch, put his shoes on and left to find something to sacrifice to Heitsi.

***

The Hamburglar, Princess and Robot rode in Tim’s briefcase for the rest of the day. Apparently, he was a busy, busy guy. God. Whatever.

Eventually he returned to his quarters and set down his briefcase. Hamburglar popped his head up out of the briefcase and watched Tim as he took off his suit jacket and shoes. Once Tim had left the room, he gestured to the other two action figures and they all crawled out of the briefcase. The three of them ran and hid under an ornate coffee table.

From their position under the coffee table, they had a pretty good view of Tim’s entire dwelling. They couldn’t see into his bedroom, but it was a short run to that doorway, and there were some lovely, leafy plants to hide in flanking the door.

“This ought to work,” Hamburglar said.

“Fuckin’ A,” Princess said.

The three of them retreated further under the coffee table as Tim emerged from his bedroom. They watched him prepare something to eat, select a book from his large collection, and sit down at a rolltop desk to read and eat.

The three action figures waited and watched Tim, looking at him with revulsion and hatred. They hadn’t figured out exactly what they were going to do to him, but they were agreed that, one way or another, it would not be nice. Not nice at all. Fuckin’ A.

After several hours, Tim finally rose from his desk, put his dishes in his kitchen, turned off the lights, and went into his bedroom.

The Hamburglar ran to one of the plants, and peered into Tim’s bedroom. There was a king sized bed with what looked like fine linens, a dressing table, and several full length mirrors.

There were also a shocking number of motivational posters on the walls. “Action: It only takes a single thought to move the world,” read one, while another said, “Winners must have definite goals and a burning desire to achieve them.”

Fucking lame, Hamburglar thought.