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Svalbard Territory, Norway
From a distance, the Svalbard Global Seed Vault resembled nothing less than a charcoal gray shark fin, inexplicably tipped with an enormous glittering diamond, knifing through an endless sapphire sea. The sea of course was frozen, a white snowscape that so perfectly reflected the night sky—at this time of year and so far north, there was only night sky—it was impossible to tell where one began and the other ended. The diamond was an illuminated art piece entitled Perpetual Repercussion, a flat pane of glass behind which mirrors and prisms redirected and amplified natural light when available, and artificial light, delivered by fiber optic cables, during the long winter. It now shone like a beacon guiding the riders on their snowmobiles to the vault’s doorstep.
Kismet drove his snowmobile—a SkiDoo MXZ 800 rented from an adventure tour outfitter in Longyearbyen—with one of Hauser’s men seated directly behind him in the one-up position. The passenger was armed, the driver was not. Hauser’s trust only went so far, it seemed. Two more SkiDoos carried four more of Hauser’s security team. Hauser drove the fourth, with their mother seated behind him.
“I don’t even know what to call you,” Kismet had told the woman, the previous night during the drive to the airport in Alexandria, even before she had revealed the location of Olympus.
“I don’t suppose I could convince you to call me ‘mom,’” she had said with a wry smile. When he didn’t respond, she went on. “Call me Leda.”
“Leda,” Kismet echoed. In Greek mythology, Leda had been the mortal mother of Castor and Pollux—twins sired by different fathers, one mortal—Tyndareus, king of Sparta—and one immortal—Zeus, king of the gods. Kismet doubted it was her real name, but didn’t press the issue.
“I’m sure you must be full of questions,” she said. “I’ve wanted to answer them for so long.”
“Why didn’t you?” He had an idea what her answer would be. During their second encounter, Hauser had told him about Prometheus’ grand experiment, the two of them, products of some kind of engineered union, separated at birth, one—Kismet—sent out into the world with no knowledge of his heritage, watched over and occasionally protected by Prometheus, but never told the truth.
She smiled ruefully. “It wasn’t the right time.”
“And now it is?”
“Now it is.”
When they were in the air aboard Hauser’s chartered jet, winging north to a planned refueling stop in Paris before heading on to Longyearbyen, she told the story from the beginning over a bottle of Bordeaux. Hauser shared the bottle with her, saying nothing. Kismet declined.
“Much of what I am about to tell you is conjecture,” Leda began, “but it is, we believe, an accurate approximation of the true prehistory of our world.
“There are common threads woven through the various mythologies of creation. One of these is a story of gods or god-like beings, putting on corporeal bodies, walking among men, taking mortal women for mates. In most stories, the offspring of the union is a demi-god—Gilgamesh, Perseus, Herakles. There are demigods in Hindu mythology. Norse. Celtic... As I said, it is a constant thread. In the religions of the Abrahamic tradition, they are called Nephilim—the mighty ones, and are said to be the children of fallen angels.” Leda paused to take a sip of wine and perhaps also let the gravity of her story sink in.
“These stories are all true,” she said, and then quickly amended. “After a fashion.”
“Let me guess. You don’t want to say it’s aliens, but...”
Leda did not smile. “We call them ‘the Ancients.’ Rather prosaic, I suppose, but it suffices. We do not speculate on their origins, but we do believe that they were non-corporeal entities. They constructed artificial organic bodies to use as vessels—”
“Artificial organic? That sounds like an oxymoron.”
“Artificial because they were created,” Leda clarified. “The product of artifice. Organic because they were made to perfectly simulate the organic functions of a human body, right down to procreation.
“What happened after that is not known with certainty. Some believe the Flood myths—another nearly universal thread—are evidence of some kind of upheaval that prompted their departure, as described in early Jewish and Christian documents. Others think they simply grew tired of their existence here and moved on. Returned whence they came. Whatever the explanation, they left those magnificent bodies behind. We know this because we have several of them at Olympus.”
Despite the lead-in, the revelation caught Kismet off guard. “You have the... The god-bodies?”
“God-bodies,” Hauser said with a chuckle. “I like that.”
Leda smiled. “They appear as statues of gold, and indeed, many were discovered in temple ruins. The gold exhibits an unusual chemical signature—a stable anion that can store electrical current.”
“Like the Golden Fleece,” Kismet murmured.
Leda gave a satisfied nod. “You hear the truth of it, I can tell.” She paused, took another sip. “You may recall in the legend that Jason encountered a metal giant named Talos. In some versions, he is a god, in others, an automaton created by Hephaestus. Regardless, Jason defeated him by removing a nail from Talos’ heel, which allowed his blood—a molten substance called ichor, the blood of the gods—to drain out.
“About fifty years ago, Prometheus scientists made careful examinations of the god-bodies and discovered traces of a liquid metal that reacted to a strong electrical current. And when these traces were reintroduced into the god-bodies, they began to show signs of activity.
“Not life,” she added quickly. “Something more akin to neuro-muscular activity. Like a postmortem muscle spasm. It is possible that ancient priests with a rudimentary understanding of electricity might have elicited a similar response, seemingly animating the statues of their gods. In any event, the effect was short-lived and the sample of charged ichor evaporated, but it was enough to inform our theory of the Ancients. And to begin designing other experiments.”
Kismet suddenly felt nauseated, his head spinning with vertigo that had nothing to do with motion sickness from the flight. “Experiments,” he rasped.
It wasn’t a question. He already knew the answer.
The party dismounted their snowmobiles in front of a wide metal ramp that rose to the double doors at the entrance. From this perspective, the entrance to the seed vault looked like an ominous rectangular monolith—three stories high. The doors occupied the lower third of the towering edifice. A louvered ventilation screen, part of the refrigeration system, filled the middle, and the top was dominated by the glittering illuminated Perpetual Repercussion.
The entrance to the seed vault was only a short ride by snowmobile, though it seemed to take much longer. The desolate landscape had a haunted aura about it, which their arrival did not dispel.
Kismet glanced up at the video camera mounted above the door. There was no permanent staff at the Global Seed Vault—it was a repository, not a research facility. The only reason for anyone to visit, aside from occasional maintenance, was to add to the collection of seeds.
It was, Kismet thought, the perfect cover for the Prometheus operation—a repository of a different sort.
Leda had briefly explained that there was an “arrangement” between the Norwegian government and Prometheus, which was why their unscheduled visit would raise no alarms.
She advanced to the doors, producing the ring of keys she had retrieved from a vacant guest apartment in Longyearbyen. Kismet surmised the dwelling was intended to provide temporary housing for visiting members of Prometheus’ inner circle. In the sparsely populated city, where turnover was high, what was one more empty apartment?
Kismet recalled reading that no one person had all the keys and access codes necessary to enter the vault. Evidently, the “arrangement” included an exception for the senior leadership of Prometheus.
Leda used three different keys to open deadbolt locks and then pulled the door open. Hauser pushed past her, though in fact there was little to see beyond the doors. The entrance was unremarkable; a long corridor of unpainted concrete illuminated by hanging fluorescent lights. Though shielded somewhat from the elements, there was no relief from the bitter Arctic chill, so the party remained bundled up against the cold. Enveloped in heavy parkas, faces hidden behind neoprene masks, the only way for Kismet to differentiate the members of the group was by seeing who was armed and who was not. His mother and he were the only ones in the latter category. That commonality however did not make them allies.
Leda had not given Kismet time to process the revelation. “When it became apparent that two viable embryos had been cultivated, the decision was made to separate the two of you. In the old stories, demigods who were unaware of their parentage were often noble, heroic, while those who grew up knowing the truth were cruel and oppressive. Entitled.”
She glanced sidelong at Hauser who laughed loudly. “And why not?” he said, deflecting the implicit criticism. “They were superior.”
Leda ignored the comment. “In every experiment, there is a control. We found a suitable father to raise you, give you a good life... A full life. Every choice that you made was yours and yours alone.”
Kismet drew in a deep breath. “The mission in Iraq. Was that a mistake?”
Leda and Hauser shared a look, an unspoken conversation, then she answered. “In a word, yes. The defector was a recent initiate into Prometheus. He knew of you, knew just enough to believe that you would be able to give him and his family safe passage out of Iraq.”
“So why didn’t you let me?” Kismet turned his stare on Hauser. “Why did you have to kill his whole family?”
Hauser merely shrugged, but Leda was not so dismissive. “There was a disagreement about how to proceed. You know how that argument ended. The consequences of that decision nearly destroyed us. It was the genesis of the schism that still divides us. More importantly however, it set you on the path to discovery. Every demigod must one day awaken to his true nature. The time for experimentation is over. It’s time for you to embrace who and what you are.” She glanced at Hauser again. “Both of you.”
Kismet shook his head. The revelations had left him numb. Hollowed out. This can’t be true. Ancient alien visitors. Demigods. This is just another one of their head games.
Yet, he knew it was true. Every word of it.
He straightened, took a deep breath. “I thought you two were at each other’s throats. You’re with the traditionalists. He’s leading the radicals. Now we’re all one big happy family?”
“He’s right, you know,” Hauser said, answering quickly as if the question had been weighing on him. “This is so like you, mother. Manipulative and duplicitous. I’m sorry, but I don’t trust you.”
She shook her head. “You were always a foolish boy, Rick. Headstrong. Refusing to wait your turn. This was always going to be your destiny.”
Hauser’s eyes narrowed. “You’re lying. You opposed me at every turn.”
“Because it wasn’t time,” Leda hissed.
“I decide when it’s time.”
“No,” she said, flatly. “I made that decision when I told you where to find Olympus.”
Hauser regarded her for several seconds, then without looking away, addressed Kismet. “What do you think, brother? Sending us to the end of the earth like this... Is she telling the truth, or leading us into a trap?” He shrugged. “I can handle whatever she throws at me, but the clock is ticking for your friends.”
For the first time since their introduction, a look of alarm came over Leda’s features. She had not been aware of the leverage Hauser had used to convince Kismet to join him. She stared at Kismet, brows furrowing in apprehension, but just as quickly, relaxed again.
“Whatever else I am,” she said, “I am your mother. You have a destiny. Both of you. And I want you to succeed. Prometheus was only ever the means to that end. Olympus holds the key to your ascendance... Your apotheosis. You will become gods among men, and I... Well, I will be the mother of gods.”
That, Kismet believed.
There was another double door at the end of the corridor, this one secured with an electronic lock. Leda tapped the access code into the keypad and the lock disengaged. Beyond it lay a long descending tunnel with curved sides covered in ice. As soon as they were through the doors, Leda pulled them shut again, locking them inside.
Despite his polar garments, Kismet felt colder here, as if the dry air was sucking the life out of him. They were deep inside the mountain now, surrounded by permafrost, though in reality the temperature in the vault was artificially maintained by refrigeration units. The electricity that powered the so-called Doomsday Vault was supplied by Norway’s only coal-fired power plant, located in Longyearbyen.
They passed by a few unmarked doors, coming to a T-junction. The ice accumulation here was even thicker, a couple inches at least, glittering white in contrast to the gray concrete floor. Leda steered them to the right, down a short hall that dead-ended. On the left, almost completely hidden by the ice scrim was another set of double doors.
Leda brushed the ice away from the door level with one gloved hand, and then slotted in a key from her ring. The door opened, revealing a small room with another set of doors against the far wall. When they were all inside the room, she pulled the door shut, sealing them in. Kismet could feel a subtle change in both temperature and air pressure. This was an airlock, though not a hermetically sealed one. With the outer door closed, the electronic lock on the inner door released automatically. Beyond was a room that looked like an enormous warehouse, with long rows of metal rack shelving, but every single one completely empty.
Hauser swore angrily. “There’s nothing here, mother.”
“As far as the public is concerned,” Leda explained patiently, “there are three vaults here. Currently, only vault two is in use and it is not yet at full capacity. There is, however, another vault of which the public has no knowledge.”
She advanced to the open cage gate and started down the middle row. Curious despite himself, Kismet hurried after her, with Hauser and his men trailing behind.
Even up close, the back wall appeared to be covered in ice like everything else, but as she approached a spot near the corner, Leda stripped off her right glove and reached out to touch the white crystals bare-handed. A chunk of ice the size of a dinner plate separated from the wall, swinging away on hidden hinges to reveal a square of black glass. She pressed her hand flat against it, and after a few seconds, a light flashed behind the glass. A biometric palm reader, Kismet realized.
As soon as Leda removed her hand from the glass, a loud hiss echoed in the still air, and then the entire wall began to move, separating into halves which swiveled inward to create a passage into another vault, considerably larger than the space they currently occupied. In fact, Kismet could not see to the far end. There were no racks of shelves here, but the vault was by no means empty. Arrayed on the bare floor, lined up like gigantic chess pieces awaiting the beginning of a game, were dozens of sculpted human figures, each one at least eight feet in height—some much larger than that—and each one gleaming brightly with light reflecting from their polished golden skin.
Leda calmly replaced her glove. When the walls stopped moving, she gestured forward. “Well boys, would you like to meet your father?”
Not really, Kismet thought sourly, but before he could voice his revulsion at the idea, Hauser spoke up.
“Sorry mother, but the family reunion will have to wait.” He held up the backpack he’d taken from Rose in Alexandria, but there was something unusual about it now. The straps were pulled taut, but instead of dangling straight down, gravity tugging the contents toward the center of the earth, the bag was hanging sideways. The elemental relics inside were being drawn toward something inside the vault. Hauser grinned hungrily. “I have more pressing business.”