Chapter 22

With some effort, Heitsi pushed aside the cover at the top of the ladder. He climbed up and looked around in mild shock. Instead of being outside Tim’s tower, they were in a computer room. He walked around a bit as the others climbed out of the manhole in the floor. He didn’t have to go very far before he saw a banner congratulating the New Paradigm’s I.T. staff on the completion of a search and analysis tool of some sort.

At least they were in the compound.

Thor was the last to climb into the room, and he shut the manhole behind him. They all spent a moment looking around.

“Where the fuck are we?” Scroat asked Heitsi.

“Well, somewhere in the New Paradigm’s compound, anyway.” Heitsi said. “Let’s try to find a map.”

They rifled through folders, and searched every available surface looking for a map or diagram of the compound. They had nearly given up when Pan said “Hey guys, look here!”

Mounted on the wall by a door was a map of the New Paradigm compound, a long with an arrow pointing to a dot, which was labeled “You are here.”

“How convenient,” Thor said. Pan grabbed the map and pulled it off of the wall. It brought a few good-sized chunks of drywall with it.

The group heard a door open behind them. They turned to see a young woman wearing a green track suit walk into the room. She looked at them. They looked at her.

“How do you do?” Scroat asked, and bowed slightly.

The True Believer screamed, and ran back out the door she’d just come through.

“Well, there went the element of surprise,” Ares said as the door wheezed shut behind the True Believer. He walked towards the door, as did the others in the group. Chris and Sarah stayed towards the back of the group.

Seconds later, the door slammed open again, and burly True Believers charged, single file, into the room. Ares grabbed the first True Believer through the door and threw him into a rack of expensive-looking computer equipment across the room.

The bottleneck caused by the doorway worked to the gods advantage, as they only had to contend with one or two True Believers at once. The overly eager True Believers continued their assault, and so wound up getting individually beaten up by Ares or Thor.

After a few minutes, Ares became impatient and charged through the door into the group of True Believers outside. He was difficult to see in the crowd of track suit wearing thugs, but every now and then the crew in the computer room would see a flash of black leather among the track suits, usually immediately before they heard a gurgling scream or saw a headless body flying across the room.

Showing a complete lack of strategic intelligence, the True Believers continued their attempts to get into the computer room and overpower the gods, regardless of the slaughter happening in their midst and the bottleneck that made their strategy impossible anyway.

As each True Believer entered the room, Thor would grab him by the collar and deliver a smoking right hook to the head. Scroat and Pan then moved the unconscious True Believers to one side of the room to keep them from piling up in Thor’s way.

Once the smarter True Believers had run away, and the others were rendered unable to stop them, the crew left the computer room, and consulted the map. Ares joined them, looking delighted to be there.

“What’s next, guys?” he asked, practically bouncing from foot to foot.

Pan, Hep and Heitsi decided it would probably be best if they stayed indoors as much as they could. So far, the confined areas seemed to work to their advantage. Hep hoped the True Believers would be dumb enough to continue with the unarmed frontal assaults. A few minutes later he realized that the True Believers’ lack of weapons meant that Tim wanted to kill them himself; he’d just sent the True Believers to collect them. That meant that the rest of the True Believers would almost definitely be unarmed.

Sweet, he thought.

Sarah opened the door from the room they were in to the hallway a crack, and peered out. She couldn’t see anyone, so she opened the door further, stuck her head out and looked up and down the hallway.

The hallway curved gradually, and had grey carpeting and white walls. Cold, fluorescent lighting made the hallway feel institutional (which, really, it was). Every twenty feet there was a framed motivational poster, encouraging the True Believers to Think Win-Win and informing them that A Winning Attitude Guarantees Success. Sarah would have liked to add Read A Book as one of the posters.

The hallway appeared safe and empty for the time being, so they left the room and made their way down the hall. They walked quietly, keeping an ear out for the sound of more thugs in track suits. For the most part, all they heard were the fluorescent lights humming, and their own footsteps. There was a potted plant placed approximately every one hundred feet, presumably to cheer the place up a bit.

Hep couldn’t figure out how all the True Believers looked so darn eager and cheerful all the time, working in an environment like this. He’d seen prisons that were less oppressive. Hep was willing to concede, however, that he might be a little biased against the organization and their design decisions since Tim was trying to hunt them down and kill them. All the same, the buildings seemed more like they were intended to keep the True Believers in line and conforming than to get them to produce excellent (if misguided) work.

It might explain why they were consistently easy to defeat. They all tried to do what everyone else was doing, with no defined leader unless Tim happened to be around. Sheep have never been renowned for their fighting skills.

According to the map they had swiped, the only way to the next building closer to Tim’s tower was to go outside. They arrived at an outer door, and Heitsi took a peek outside.

“I think I know where all the people are,” he said. Hep took a look as well. He stood back and thought for a minute.

“Ok, I’ll take Sarah and Dan into the next building. You guys can easily fight your way across to the other door,” Hep said. He looked at Ares, “Only do what’s necessary to get to the other building.”

Ares sulked.

Hep continued, “It’s ok, you’ll be able to do plenty of smiting when we’re closer to our goal.”

Ares brightened a little bit, and agreed to just get across to the other building with the others.

Hep grabbed Sarah and Chris, and they disappeared. At that moment, Heitsi threw open the door, and they ran out to meet the True Believers. They fought hard and fast, simply trying to knock the True Believers out of the way. Their progress increased significantly when Ares grabbed one of the True Believers and started yanking limbs off of him and tossing them at the people in their way.

Once they were across to the other building, Ares tossed the remaining bits of the True Believer over his shoulder. The people behind him got out of the way, and the True Believer remnants hit the ground with a juicy smack. Ares strolled into the building behind the rest of the gods.

He looked at Hep and said, “See? Nothing more than was absolutely necessary.”

They walked down the hall, noticing that this building was also curiously empty of people. Apparently word of their arrival spread quickly.

Hep saw a room marked “Tracking” and had to go inside. In the room were maps of the different states and countries around the world, with numbered push pins stuck in various places. Presumably, the pins marked the locations of other gods.

Hep and Scroat made quick work of tearing the maps off the walls, while Thor, or more specifically, Mjolnir, his hammer, decimated the computers.

“I suddenly feel so much better,” Hep said.

“Yeah, me too. We gotta wreck shit more often,” Scroat said.

They left the room and got back to the serious business of finding their way to Tim. The interior of this building was identical to the previous building, and if they hadn’t known better they could have easily confused the two.

The group made it to the other side of the building, and again Heitsi checked out side to see if anyone was there.

Of course, there were a great many people there. Significantly more than there had been previously, in fact. He closed the door and turned to tell them.

That’s when the lights turned out and the fire sprinklers opened and poured dirty, stagnant, smelly water poured out onto them

“Oh, that’s nice,” Thoth said.

“They’re trying to get us to panic and rush outside. Everyone stay mellow,” Hep said. “We’ll do this just like last time. Sarah and Chris, get over here.”

Hep grabbed onto Sarah and Chris and said, “Ok, go!” He vanished, not that anyone could see him in the dark anyway. Heitsi opened the door and they rushed outside. The True Believers closed in on them. Thor and Ares cleared a path in front, but more True Believers fell in to replace those who’d been pushed out of the way.

Four of them grabbed Pan, who had been at the back, and dragged him off. The gods couldn’t hear him yell over the din of the crowd. They rushed into the next building, which was dark and flooded, but the sprinklers had at least stopped running.

Scroat pulled out a lighter, and they quickly noticed that Pan wasn’t with them.

“Fuck! Those bastards grabbed Pan!” Scroat said.

“That guy really has to learn some self-defense, “ Hep muttered to himself.

He cleared his throat and said, “We gotta keep moving. We’ll get to Tim before Tim gets to Pan.”

Scroat shut his lighter, and they sloshed their way through the dark hallway. They were careful not to trip over the potted plants every 100 feet, but every so often someone would stumble over something in the dark.

Heitsi and Hep first saw the light approaching them. Seconds later a group of True Believers came out of the dark and rushed towards them.

“Aw, fuck,” Scroat said, and the fight began. Ares, being who he was, charged into the fray, swinging wildly. Soon he’d managed to knock out the lights the True Believers were carrying, and the scuffle continued in the dark.

“Son of a bitch!” Scroat yelled as he took the hardest punch he’d been dealt in centuries to the left cheek.

“Aw, hell, sorry Scroat,” Ares said.

The group of True Believers was actually pretty small, and soon the fight ended. They didn’t hear anyone sloshing away, so Scroat took out his lighter and they took a look around. There weren’t any True Believers lurking in the dark, thankfully.

Hep looked closely at Scroat and said, “Damn, Scroat, that’s one ugly bruise you’re developing there.”

“Oooo, yeah, sorry about that Scroat. Good thing you’ve got a harder head than these goofy mortals,” Ares said. “Imagine if I’d hit one of them that hard! Ker-splat!”

The group walked the rest of the way to the other side of the building, and once again found the door to the outside and the next building. This time, when Heitsi grabbed the door know, he hissed in pain and pulled his hand back.

“What’s wrong?” Thoth asked.

“Hot! The damn door is burning hot!” Heitsi said.

Hep took off his shirt and wrapped his hand with it. He grabbed the door knob and opened the door a tiny bit. Flames slipped in to through the crack in the door. Hep quickly shut the door again.

“That complicates things a little bit,” Hep said. He thought for a moment. “Which of the other doors should we use?”

“Well, there’s an exit about two hundred feet behind us,” Heitsi said. “We’ll have to fight through a lot more of the True Believers to reach the next building, though.”

“You know, maybe we shouldn’t bother with the other building. Maybe we should just fight our way through the crowd to Tim’s tower,” Hep said.

“Yes!” Ares said. “I’m ready. Let’s go, let’s go. Now!” The rest of the group heard him sloshing away in the dark. “Come on, you guys!”

“You guys are nuts,” Thoth said.

“Yeah, we are. Have you got a better idea?” Hep asked.

“Well, no. I expect they’ve already figured out a way to keep us good and trapped in the next building.” Thoth said.

“Come on you guys!” they heard Ares yelling in the distance. “This door isn’t hot at all!”

At the door, Heitsi asked, “Hep, are you sure?”

“Yes! He’s sure! Let me out there!” Ares yelled.

“Yes, Heitsi, let’s go,” Hep said.

“All right. Been nice knowing you,” Heitsi said, and opened the door.

The True Believers had expected the gods to leave through that door (it was the only one that wasn’t currently burning), and had expected them to come out fighting. No one, however, expects a bloodthirsty Ares to come blasting out the door, killing five people before anyone has had a chance to catch their breath. Thor was immediately behind him, and cut a huge swath of destruction before him as he swung Mjolnir through the crowd of True Believers. Thoth, Scroat, Hep, Sarah and Chris were close behind. The intial group of True Believers moved backwards quickly in reflexive response to the carnage in front of them.

Sarah and Chris teamed up to take care of each other, while Hep and Scroat each took on the True Believers as they came.

Ares, meanwhile, actively chased down the True Believers who were smart enough to run like hell away from him.

“Hey, come back! There’s something I want to show you!” he yelled, and cackled wildly. He caught one of the True Believers in a headlock. The man he caught immediately began scrabbling at Ares arm, attempting to free himself. With his free hand, Ares pulled the struggling man’s head off and let the body drop. Without missing a beat, he turned and bludgeoned a nearby True Believer with the head.

“Did you all see how I did that?” Ares yelled at the people attempting to flee. “Aw, you guys don’t appreciate a good trick,” he said. He chased after the True Believers again.

The True Believers were also giving Thor a wide berth. Rather than chase them down, however, Thor threw his hammer at them. It bashed it’s way through the crowd, sending track suited thugs flying to land in a bloody heap before returning to Thor’s hand.

Sarah and Chris were surrounded by a throng of True Believers, all attempting to capture them. The pair fought back to back, barely holding off their attackers. One of the larger True Believers pulled his arm back to hit Sarah, and was stunned when his arm was yanked from it’s socket.

He turned, mystified, to look at the hole where his arm had just been, then looked up to see Ares grinning crazily at him, holding his arm by the stump.

“Why don’t you pick on someone your own size?” Ares asked. He then wound up and slapped the True Believer with his own hand.

“Stop hitting yourself,” Ares said, and hit him again with the arm. “Why are you hitting yourself?”

The spectacle Ares was making gave Scroat and Hep and opportunity to get over to to Sarah and Chris and fight off the crown who’d gathered around them.

“Pick on the weak ones, will ya?” Hep asked before sending a True Believer flying. “Not on my watch.”

Scroat had latched on to a particularly large True Believer and sunk his teeth into the man’s ear. The man screamed hysterically, and yelled “Get him off of me, get him off of me!” before Scroat managed to bite the rest of the way through his ear.

Scroat spit the chunk of ear into the big True Believer’s face and said “Damn, man, you could grow fucking potatoes in there. Take some pride in yourself, man.” He wiped the blood off of his mouth. This was just too much for the big man, and he fainted.

Scroat looked down at him with disdain. “You fucking pansy,” he said.

Thoth and Heitsi were also fighting back to back. For the most part, the True Believers stayed out of range, just keeping the gods from moving too far, but every now and then, one of them would step in and attempt to hit Thoth or Heitsi. These attempts were met with immediate and harsh retaliation. Before long, the True Believers had figured out that the two gods were probably best left alone. They maintained the ring around them, keeping them from moving, but no longer attacking.

The True Believers had their attention so focused on Thoth and Heitsi that they didn’t notice Ares stomping towards them until he’d grabbed two of the thugs’ heads and smashed them into each other. He dropped the two limp bodies and raised his hands over his head in a gesture of victory.

“Two birds with half the work!” Ares yelled, before grabbing the next person and viciously head-butting him. For most people, a headbutt is a risky attack. There’s always the possibility that one will knock himself out. Ares, however, had no worries about getting knocked out by headbutting anyone. He could have headbutted Fort Knox and come out the victor. Fortunately for Fort Knox, it had not pissed off Ares. At least, not enough for Ares to take a personal interest in teaching Fort Knox a lesson.

The group had made enough progress to get around the corner of the building, and they could see Tim’s tower in the distance.

They could also see several thousand more True Believers waiting for them.

“Just how many of these fuckers are there?” Scroat asked.

The army of True Believers surged forward, and even Ares began having a hard time keeping up with the wave of attackers. The gods, still fighting, quickly became separated from one another by the sheer number of True Believers forcing their way forward.

Soon the crowd around each of the gods was so dense that they could barely move, and they were swept along with the crowd around them.

Hep, in desperation, remembered the sacrifices in his garage. He thought, I really need some help, here as hard as he could.

A low roar, like distant thunder, soon became audible. It grew louder and louder, until it overwhelmed the noise of the army of True Believers. From the sky, a chicken went into a power-dive, and slammed into the True Believers surrounding Hep. The force of the chicken’s attack drove them back, and Hep had a bit of room to move around again. He immediately went on the offensive, punching and shoving anyone he could reach.

The chicken, for it’s part, leapt up and clawed and pecked at the True Believers.

Elsewhere in the crowd, a host of strange objects attacked other True Believers. The shock of the attack by inanimate objects could not be understated. The army had been shocked when Ares burst forth earlier, but unexpected as that had been, nobody, anywhere, ever, has anticipated being attacked by a foaming case of Pabst Blue Ribbon. Furthermore, defending oneself against an animated case of beer is difficult enough, but even more so when the individual beers leave the case and attack on their own.

If you had asked him, the True Believer fighting off the case of beer, and losing, would have told you that it was like being punched by twenty four angry, flying fists of frothy goodness.

The True Believers, decidedly unable to believe what was happening to them, quickly lost discipline and the group began to loosen, making it possible for all the gods, as well as Sarah and Chris, to resume fighting their way to Tim’s tower.

“Nice trick, Hep!” Ares yelled over the chaos around him.

“Thanks,” Hep yelled back. “I’m here every Tuesday. Be sure to tip your waitress.”

Newly enraged by the True Believers who, until the sacrifices had arrived, had the upper hand, Ares quickly began to viciously attack everyone around him. He punched clear through two True Believer’s skulls, and commented, “Ask Chuck Norris if he can do that.”

Sarah and Chris found the True Believers were largely ignoring them. This was because the True Believers were more worried about being attacked by a carving of Hep made out of apples that was wielding a baseball bat with nails sticking out of it.

Thoth and Scroat had an easy time shoving their way through the crowd, as the panic of the True Believers escalated. Thor shook his head as he saw three or four of the True Believers trying to fend off a large pepperoni pizza. He wasn’t surprised about the pizza attacking them so much as the fact that the pizza was winning.

“Truly, pizza is the king of foods,” Thor said to himself. He then turned at hurled his hammer towards a group of True Believers who had regained their composure and were advancing on him. Mjolnir thumped off of their skulls, emitting a surprisingly musical sound upon each strike. It was better than wind chimes.

The group moved closer and closer to Tim’s Tower. They redoubled their efforts, and the sacrifices continued attacking without tiring.

Ares had caught a smaller True Believer, and was swinging him by the legs like a baseball bat. The result frustrated Ares. Though he was clearly winning and gaining ground, it was because the other True Believers kept backing away. It’s no fun to bludgeon someone with one of their friends if the one you’re trying to hit keeps moving out of range.

Heitsi watched Ares for a moment with an amused detachment, then went back to the business at hand. In his case, the business at hand was braining everyone within reach with a heavy rock.

One of the True Believers, who had actually been trying to get the hell out of there, wound up facing off with a flying basket of fruit. He tried pushing the basket to one side, which resulted in a very annoyed basket of fruit. The True Believer caught a mushy apple in the forehead before he remembered to defend himself. A variety of other fruits and cheeses attacked him repeatedly, striking then pulling back to strike again.

This particular True Believer did get away from the fray, but had nightmares about attacking fruit for the rest of his life, and would break into a cold sweat every time he had to go into the produce section of the grocery store.

Soon the crew were only ten feet from the front door of Tim’s tower. The guard, who was still really only there as a public relations officer, had held his ground this long, but when the case of Pabst Blue Ribbon swooped towards his head, he took off running and never looked back.

Ares and Thor conjured another burst of energy and blasted their way through the remaining True Believers blocking them from the entrance to the tower. Within seconds, Thor had opened the door and held it open for the others. The sacrifices kept the True Believers from trying to rush the gods (and Chris and Sarah) as they went into the tower. Once inside, Heitsi and Scroat barred the door to keep out any True Believers who managed to get past the Pabst Blue Ribbon of Doom.

“Well, that was fun,” Ares said as they caught their breath in the entryway of the tower.