‘Tornado Warning?’ Earl asked. ‘You think that there horse was created by the CRU?’
Emily nodded. ‘He’s too much like Pegasus.’
‘But cloning ain’t possible,’ Earl insisted. ‘I know he’s broken records and all, but it can’t be. Besides, Tornado is grey.’
Agent T stood beside Earl. ‘A horse can be dyed,’ he said. ‘Look at what these kids did to Pegasus last year. And I’m afraid to say, cloning is very possible. The CRU scientists have been doing it on a small scale for years. If they had enough genetic material from Pegasus it would be the obvious thing to do.’
Earl’s eyes flashed open and he snapped his fingers. ‘Hey, do you think them others could be—’
Agent T shook his head and flashed Earl a quick warning. ‘Later …’
Emily studied Agent T’s face and Earl’s reaction. Something was going on between them. Just as she was about to ask, Chrysaor came forward and knocked Agent T backwards as he made several loud and angry squeals.
‘Don’t you squeal at me, pig!’ Agent T fumed as he recovered. ‘I’m not the one doing it. I told you, I left the CRU.’
‘Chrysaor, please,’ Joel said. ‘Losing your temper isn’t helping.’ He concentrated on Agent T. ‘Why would they do it?’
Agent T gave the winged boar a final threatening look before saying. ‘Olympians are much stronger than humans …’ He paused and looked at Pegasus, Chrysaor and Alexis. ‘And it seems most of you can fly. Think about it. What could the CRU achieve if they had an army of laboratory-created Olympians?’
Shock tore through the room like wildfire. Pegasus pounded the tile floor with a golden hoof while Chrysaor squealed in rage. Paelen’s face went ashen and Alexis roared and drew her claws.
‘Quiet!’ Agent T ordered. ‘Do you want the neighbours to hear? They’ll call the police and we’ll all be captured.’
Emily stood in silence, fearing the worst. If Jupiter had heard that one comment, there would be no stopping him. ‘They wouldn’t, would they?’
‘They could and they would,’ Agent T insisted. ‘That is what the CRU do. Use new technology to create weapons to better equip our military.’
Emily shook her head. ‘You don’t understand what this means! If it’s true and the CRU are building an army of cloned Olympians, it will mean the end of everything.’
Earl put his arm around Emily. ‘Calm down, I can’t hardly understand you. What do you mean the end of everythin’?’
‘Your world,’ Paelen finally said. ‘If the CRU have created Olympians, Jupiter will destroy the Earth.’
6
Before long, everyone was gathered together to eat. Though they had ambrosia, Pegasus and Paelen also ate a whole box of sugary breakfast cereal and introduced Alexis and Chrysaor to the joys of glazed doughnuts.
While they ate, they told Earl and Agent T everything that had happened since they left the cabin in the woods and had gone to the Nirad world to fight the gorgons. Earl whistled in disbelief.
‘Gorgons? Them snakey-haired women from the stories? They are real? They was the cause of all that trouble?’
Emily nodded. ‘They wanted to take over Olympus and tried to get me to use my powers to kill Jupiter. When I wouldn’t, they turned all of us to stone.’
‘For real?’ Earl cried. ‘Just like in the stories?’
Again Emily nodded.
‘What happened?’
‘Emily melted the stone around her,’ Paelen added. ‘Then she melted the gorgons.’
‘You melted the gorgons?’ Earl repeated.
Emily shrugged. ‘I lost my temper and kinda unleashed my powers. The Flame did the rest.’
‘Then she used her powers to turn us back from stone,’ Paelen finished.
Earl whistled. ‘Boy, I sure woulda liked to have seen that!’
Agent T was rubbing his chin. He looked around at the odd assortment of Olympians in the room. ‘Tell me something. The myths, are they all true? Everything?’
Joel leaned forward. ‘Seems to be. They’re not exactly the same, but close. From what I’ve learned, the Olympians used to come here all the time.’
‘Why?’ Earl asked.
‘Because you were interesting,’ Alexis answered. ‘We were studying you.’
‘You were studying us?’ Agent T asked incredulously.
‘Of course,’ Alexis replied. ‘You were a savage people, always going to war. We found you fascinating. But you were contaminating us with your violent ways, so Jupiter stopped all visits to your world. He had hoped you would learn from your mistakes and embrace peace. From what I have seen and heard, you have not.’
‘Who is he to judge us?’ Agent T shot. ‘Or to decide if we can exist or not.’
Alexis narrowed her eyes. ‘He is Jupiter.’
Earl looked over to Joel. ‘What about you? What happened to your arm?’
Emily sighed. ‘That’s my fault.
Joel shook his head. ‘No it’s not. The gorgons did this to me, not you.’ He turned to Earl. ‘When I was stone, I fell over and my arm smashed. Emily tried to heal me but it wouldn’t work.’ He held up his silver right arm and wiggled his silver fingers. ‘Vulcan made this for me in his forge. I don’t know how it works. There are no electronic parts and if you look, you can’t see any joints for the fingers. But it’s better and much stronger than my real arm. The only thing is I can’t feel with it. But at least it can’t be hurt.’
Agent T leaned closer and studied Joel’s arm and hand with the kind of intensity that disturbed Emily. She’d seen that same expression when he was in the laboratory with the wounded Pegasus on Governors Island. ‘The CRU would love to get hold of that thing,’ he mused softly. ‘Can you take it off ?’
Joel shook his head. ‘Nope. It’s attached to me now.’
‘So if they wanted it, they’d have to surgically remove it from you,’ Agent T muttered.
‘The CRU are not going to see it!’ Emily shot. ‘They’ve caused enough trouble already. If they’ve created clones, Jupiter is going to destroy this world.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Agent T spat. ‘If Jupiter is so pro-peace, he wouldn’t destroy this planet just because the CRU may have created a few clones. He couldn’t.’
‘You don’t know Jupiter,’ Joel said. ‘He is very protective of the Olympians.’
‘And the order of nature,’ Emily added. ‘It’s true that in the past some of the Olympians had children with humans. But that was natural. Clones being created in a lab are different. Diana and Pluto know about this and why we’re here. If it’s true, they won’t stop Jupiter.’
‘Ah, yes – Diana,’ Agent T said. ‘Interesting woman. How is she?’
‘Still angry,’ Joel said. ‘Now even more so that this has happened.’
Agent T shook his head. ‘This is insane. A few Olympians can’t possibly come to Earth to destroy the whole planet. You may be powerful, but we have weapons and we will defend ourselves.’
Pegasus was standing beside Emily, munching on his large bowl of cereal. He raised his head and nickered.
‘You cannot defend yourselves against Jupiter,’ Paelen translated. ‘He would not even need to come to your world to destroy it.’
Emily looked at Pegasus and frowned. ‘He wouldn’t?’
Both Pegasus and Chrysaor started to make sounds. Paelen raised his eyebrows. ‘I did not know this.’
‘What?’ Emily asked. ‘Paelen, what did they say? How would Jupiter do it?’
‘He would open the Solar Stream and turn it on Earth.’
‘What?’ Joel cried. ‘The Solar Stream?’
Earl frowned. ‘Ain’t that the special super highway you guys use to come to here?’
Paelen nodded. ‘Jupiter has control of it. All he needs is to combine his powers with his brothers and they can redirect the Solar Stream. When they are gathered together they are called the Big Three. And collectively they have the power to shift its direction. Instead of it opening up
beside your world as it does now, they would point it at your world. The energy of a billion suns would obliterate your planet in an instant.’
Emily sat in stunned silence. How many times had she travelled within the Solar Stream without really thinking about what it was or how it worked? It was just a means of transport. She never imagined it could be turned into a weapon of mass destruction.
‘We’ve travelled through the Solar Stream lots of times,’ she said to Earl and Agent T. ‘You can feel its power when you’re in it.’
‘We’ve got to stop him,’ Earl said.
Agent T shook his head. ‘Wait! You are all jumping the gun. Right now, this is only speculation. There is no proof that the CRU have done anything at all. But even if they have, I am certain we could reason with Jupiter.’
Alexis sat up on her haunches and rested her front paws on the table right beside Agent T. She narrowed her eyes at the ex-CRU agent. ‘Jupiter can not be reasoned with when the sin is too great. If your people have created New Olympians, nothing will stop him. He can and will destroy this world.’
‘They are not my people any more,’ Agent T said as he leaned closer to her and stared defiantly into the Sphinx’s green eyes. ‘I am not responsible for what they are doing now.’
‘Once a CRU agent, always a CRU agent,’ Alexis growled.
Earl looked at everyone around the table. ‘We’ve got to find Tornado Warning and pray to God he’s just a horse and not an Olympian clone.’
‘And if he is a clone?’ Agent T posed.
Emily looked Agent T squarely in the eye. ‘Then we must stop the CRU before Jupiter finds out.’
After breakfast, Agent T took Joel, Paelen and Chrysaor into his small office to use the computer to search for Tornado Warning. Emily helped Earl clear the table.
‘I was shocked to see Agent T still with you,’ Emily said to Earl as she washed a breakfast bowl.
‘I ain’t got much choice. I can’t get him to leave me alone,’ Earl said, picking up a cloth to start drying. ‘Lord knows I’ve tried! I don’t know what the heck you kids did to him. Last I saw, he was crazy for Cupid. But I wake up in the cabin and he’s there and you guys are gone. He said Cupid told him he was my brother and that he’s going to protect me for ever. I can’t hardly go to the toilet without him checkin’ to see if it’s safe first.’
‘Cupid shouldn’t have done that,’ Emily said.
Earl sighed. ‘I may complain a lot. But the truth is he ain’t that bad once you get to know him. I ain’t never had a brother, and it’s kinda nice. And he’s saved my life more than once. He knows how them CRU folk work. He’s kept us one step ahead of them. I’d have been a gonner long before now if it weren’t for him.’
Emily dropped her head. ‘I’m really sorry about that. It would have been better if you’d never found us at the Red Apple. You’d have your old life back.’
‘Hey, hey, hey,’ Earl said softly. ‘Don’t you go frettin’ about that. I bless the day y’all came into my life. If I hadn’t met that big fella out there,’ Earl stepped through the door and stroked the stallion’s face, ‘and the rest of you, my life would have been a lot emptier. Even though you left, I still felt part of you. It’s kinda like you’re my family that’s gone on vacation but would come back one day. And look – here you are.
‘And now, I get to meet even more interesting people like this pretty lady here.’ Earl approached Alexis. The Sphinx was sitting on her haunches and came up to just past his waist. ‘That Olympus must be one amazing place if folks like you are there.’
Alexis’s green eyes sparkled and she smiled demurely. ‘Thank you, Earl. It is a pleasure to finally meet a human who appreciates true beauty.’ She shot a look at Emily. ‘Some people only regard me as a …’ She paused. ‘What were the words you used, Emily? Oh yes, now I remember, “an overgrown, green eyed, flying house cat”.’
Emily’s face reddened. She didn’t think the Sphinx knew what she’d called her.
Earl turned to Emily in shock. ‘You didn’t!’
Emily shrugged. ‘Well, I …’
‘It is all right,’ Alexis said as she patted Earl’s hand with her large paw. ‘I understand fully. She is jealous of me. She knows I am the better woman.’
Emily inhaled sharply. ‘I am not jealous!’
Alexis looked up at Earl and nodded her head. ‘She is.’
Beside them, Pegasus nickered as his eyes sparkled.
‘It’s not funny, Pegs,’ Emily shot.
Suddenly Joel appeared in the room. His face was ashen. ‘Em, you’ve got to see this. We have a big problem!’
Emily followed Joel into the small office.
Chrysaor was deeply troubled. The large boar was shaking his head back and forth and fluttering his coarse brown wings. Agent T was at his laptop computer furiously tapping away on the keyboard while Paelen was tearing through a scrapbook. Joel approached a large bulletin board on the wall. Newspaper articles were pinned all over it.
‘What’s that?’ Emily asked.
‘We’ve been keeping a record of Olympian sightings,’ Earl explained.
‘What sightings?’
‘Look.’ Joel pointed at a newspaper clipping. There was a blurry photo at the top of the article that looked like it had been taken with a security camera. The headline read: Woman wanted for murder.
Emily peered closer and her jaw dropped. ‘That’s Diana!’ She looked back at Earl. ‘Why didn’t you tell us about this earlier?’
‘I started to …’ Earl defended himself.
‘But I stopped him from mentioning it,’ Agent T finished.
‘Why?’
‘I wanted to know why you were here first.’ Agent T stood up and walked towards Emily. ‘But if this isn’t the real Diana, these sightings and the clone theory must be linked.’
‘It can’t be Diana,’ Emily insisted. ‘What’s this woman done?’
‘She is wanted for robbery and murder,’ Agent T said.
Pegasus whinnied loudly while Emily cried, ‘What?’
Agent T nodded. ‘I saw this article a few months back and thought Diana had returned to Earth. Earl and I have been searching for any unusual stories that suggest it could be Olympians.’
‘Until y’all came back today, we really thought this was her,’ Earl added. ‘I ain’t never met the lady myself, but Tom has. He says she’s strong and mean enough to do this.’
‘Tom?’ Emily asked.
Agent T nodded. ‘My real name is Thomas. I know what Diana is capable of. I was the one who supervised the tests on her when we had you at the Governors Island facility. When I saw this article, I was convinced she was back.’
‘We swear it wasn’t her!’ Joel said. ‘Yeah she was here for a quick trip with Apollo and Emily’s father, but there’s no way that’s her. They were being inconspicuous and, anyway, she just wouldn’t!’
Agent T rubbed his chin. A troubled expression crossed his face. ‘Then this may be further evidence that the CRU have created clones. But if it’s true, how are the clones on the loose? First there was Tornado Warning and now these sightings. I know for certain the CRU will not be releasing them into the community. That would be too dangerous and raise far too many uncomfortable questions. The clones must be escaping somehow. But how are they getting around CRU security systems?’
Emily turned back to Pegasus, who was standing at the threshold. ‘It says the mysterious woman and her large accomplice broke into a jewellery store. They killed the owner and several employees and then stole a lot of jewels. The article says there was a walk-in safe at the back of the store. They don’t understand how, but the heavy door was ripped off and the contents taken. It also says that there was one survivor of the massacre. He claimed that the woman’s accomplice was a monster. It had four arms. Its face was covered but it was huge and super-strong. It ripped the door right off the safe. He said he got a look at one of the creature’s hands and it was dark grey.’
‘That’s
a Nirad!’ Paelen said.
Earl looked at Agent T. ‘I told you so! You wouldn’t believe me when I said it could be a Nirad.’
‘When you told me, Olympus was still at war with the Nirads. It wasn’t logical for Diana to be working with one. That they could be clones was never a consideration.’
‘But it is now,’ Joel said.
Emily nodded. ‘The article says the police think the man was in shock and didn’t understand what he was seeing. They say the accomplice had been wearing a costume. There is a nationwide hunt for them going on right now.’
In the doorway, Pegasus whinnied loudly. He pounded the floor with his hoof and tore a large hole in the carpet. Chrysaor squealed loudly. After their heated exchange, Paelen translated. ‘They believe this is confirmation of our worst fears. We know for certain that this wasn’t Diana or a Nirad – they would never kill so senselessly. The only explanation is that they are creations of the CRU. This world is in even more danger. If Jupiter were to find out …’
‘We know,’ Agent T shot. ‘He’ll destroy us.’
Alexis was scanning the photos in the newspaper clippings. ‘There have been multiple sightings of this Diana woman all over the country. The riddle is this: is that the same woman appearing in all these different locations, or is there more than one?’
‘It is not just Diana,’ Paelen said as he pulled a paper from the scrapbook. ‘It appears I have been up to mischief as well.’ He held up an article with a mug shot of a teenager that looked just like him. The boy was holding up a sign with a series of numbers beneath it. Though the face was Paelen’s, the expression in the eyes was very different. The boy’s eyes were wild and terrified.
Paelen handed the article to Emily. ‘What does this say?’
Emily read the story. ‘It seems this boy was caught after breaking into a chocolate shop. They found him on the floor ravenously eating an entire tray of chocolates. The police caught him and took him to the station. It says the boy never spoke a single word and appeared petrified. After he was booked and photographed, he attacked the guards and managed to escape. One witness said he was super-strong and tossed everyone around like they weighed nothing. He then seemed to squeeze himself through an impossibly small window. They are still looking for him, but think he’s left the area.’