FUROR
ODIN
Odin had a long list of titles to go with that name. References to myths and past campaigns. He rarely thought about them, because he didn't feel that he deserved them. He took the name Odin because he led the Aesir, and because it was expected of him. Not because he wanted it.
He was Norwegian. Most Aesir were, actually, or at least one of the Nordic races. He was one of the many immigrants from those countries who got caught in the political crossfire in one of the stupid wars, and jumped at the chance to go to Domina when the city was being built. Many of his friends and family came with him, but few of them had any real skills. They ended up as more unskilled labor, laying the foundation of the city on the trash island. Life was hard, but they survived.
Then, fifteen years later, Clarke invented the toy maker. It was a miracle, in a thousand ways and more, but the first thing Odin became interested in was the Bigger package, a set of buffs that increased size and strength over about six months. He was one of the first to try it.
It worked beautifully. He went from a short and compact man to a tall Adonis, able to lift cars and push buses. With effort, true, but this was not a comic book. Super strength was impossible, enhanced strength more than enough.
That proved useful at his construction job, to be sure, and many of his coworkers bought the package as well. A lot of them were his Nordic friends and family, but others were other races. These were in the days before skin cosmos came out, when race still meant something. The Norwegians and Icelanders and Greenlanders were having enough trouble getting along. Throwing Mexicans and Brazilians into that mix would have been lighting a powder keg.
So, he formed a gang. It wasn't really a gang, at first. Just a small group to keep his friends out of trouble. Sure, it grew quickly, until they had almost a hundred members, but he still thought that was barely a gang.
It wasn't until the vampires started attacking them that they really started viewing themselves as a group. Odin didn't know which subculture it was. Again, that was the early days, so these were just kids with black eyes and bad attitudes. It was easy to assume they were all Nessians or daevas, but reality rarely put all the good guys and bad guys in clear groups.
In the end, it didn't matter. Strong or not, most of Odin's gang weren't fighters, and with their clumsy new bodies, we couldn't defend themselves.
So they learned.
They bought guns, learned how to use them. The more patient of them learned martial arts, while the rest just fought each other for practice. They killed the vampires when they came. They came back with more guns, killed some of the gang. A vicious cycle with no end in sight.
Then Butler walked into their HQ one day.
Everyone had taken to calling it Asgard, but it wasn't really a big deal. Just another 'scraper, originally intended to be a hotel. The plan got scrapped when they were about ninety percent done—everything except the carpets, pretty much. There wasn't really much demand for high-class hotels in Domina City.
Odin managed to buy it off the owner for about a hundredth of what it was worth, and converted it into their lair. It wasn't much, but it was theirs, and it was home. Fortified the first few floors, put water in the pools, and it was a place worth living. The vampires raided pretty often, but they repulsed them.
Then Butler walked into their HQ one day.
They had heard of him, of course. Even before the toy maker, people were already beginning to whisper about Artemis Butler. No one knew what he had done to get sent to prison in the first place, but he wasn't someone you wanted to screw with. They said he killed anyone who stood in his way, that his gang was supplied by the military, and that he was dying of an incurable disease, but held himself together with sheer will.
That was before the toy maker. After that, the rumors got stranger.
Odin had always assumed the rumors to be propaganda spread by the 'sarians themselves. He had met Butler once, on the boat over to the island, and it seemed like something he would do. Simple. Effective. Small risk of danger. Odin didn't want to cross him, but he figured if he started a fight, they could finish it.
But he walked through their fortifications like they weren't even there. Walked into the elevator, up to Odin's penthouse, and stood before him, leaning heavily on his cane, as if it was the easiest thing in the world.
Odin looked at the cameras, and it seemed like Butler had brought his entire gang with him. It was bigger than he had thought. Every single giant in the building had three guns in his face, and there were enough 'sarians left to guard the entrances. That was nearly a thousand of the bastards. At the time, Odin thought that was all of them, but in hindsight it was unlikely. Butler never showed all his cards at once.
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No shots had been fired. Not a one. The giants had been caught completely unaware.
Butler hadn't brought a single man with him to Odin's penthouse. Between Odin, his wife, their son, and their half-dozen bodyguards, they had twelve guns and nearly three thousand pounds of muscle to fight with. Butler was big and muscular, but he was baseline, and they were giants. Any one of them could have killed him with one hand. One finger.
But they didn't.
He stared them all down without even the slightest trace of fear. He wasn't smug. Smug implied that they're arrogant, lording their successes over you. Butler was not smug.
“My name is Artemis Butler,” he said, as if any of them didn't know. “I have come to make a deal.”
Odin remembered, even years later, swallowing a lump in his throat that felt like an apple. “What deal?”
“Don't cause trouble,” he said, looking Odin right in the eye. “Don't start protection rackets. Don't extort money or blackmail or murder. Don't start wars.”
Odin ground his teeth. “The vampires—”
“Will be dealt with,” Butler interrupted, “in short order. And if they attack you, you may of course defend yourselves. You may even retaliate.” He fixed Odin with those crimson eyes. “If civilians get caught in the crossfire, however, there will be... problems.”
“And if I refuse?”
“Then you will become my enemy.”
His eyes, his pale red eyes, made his intention perfectly clear. You did not want to become an enemy of Artemis Butler.
So Odin nodded, once.
“Good,” Butler said, smiling. “I will have a more detailed list of laws sent to you shortly.”
“Laws?” Odin's wife virtually screeched. “You have laws for us?”
Butler raised an eyebrow. “Of course, Lady Frigga. A set of written laws is the best for everyone.” He smiled. “Unless you would rather simply be subject to my whim? I can be quite fickle.”
Everyone in the room knew that was a lie. There was nothing more to be said after that, so he simply left. Let himself out as if he owned the place, and took every single one of his soldiers with him.
So when you take all that into account, Odin thought, when it came right down to it, it was obvious that he was trying to commit suicide.
That was the only logical explanation he could come up with for his actions fifteen years later, a day after some of his best Thors were killed in that disastrous screamer attack at Bombed Alley. He was old, and tired, and wanted to die. His wife would be a good Colossus for a time, and when she stepped down, their son would have his turn.
Odin burst into NHQ, throwing 'sarians left and right, roaring his anger and shouting Butler's name, daring Butler to face him. He called him names, disparaging and unimaginative things like “
“redeye” and “paleface.” Hardly his best moment, by any account. He expected to get a bullet to the brain any minute.
Instead, Butler came out.
He walked forward calm as you please, as though he was still in complete control of the situation. Which he was, of course. Odin had no power Butler didn't wish for him to have.
“Senator Odin,” he called warmly, once he was within ten feet. He had to look up to meet Odin's eyes, but as usual, he somehow managed to intimidate him. “To what do we owe this pleasure?”
“Don't try to charm your way out of this one, Artemis,” Odin growled. “I lost over a hundred of my men at that ridiculous attack of yours.”
“As did the hellions,” he said. “The Composer revealed a weapon we did not anticipate, and we suffered for it. We are taking precautions now, but we can't change the past.”
Odin stalked forward, ignoring the guns trained on him. “Yes, I read your little newsletter. But the cultures are in turmoil. You can't expect us to stand for this.”
Butler sighed, very deeply, and for the first time in a long time Odin remembered that this was a man with enough incurable diseases that he should have died when he was ten years old. Not only had he survived, but he had taken the weight of an entire city on his shoulders.
“I need your help with this, old friend,” he whispered. “This fighting—it's exactly what the Composer wants.”
Odin sniffed, a little chastised, but determined to plow on. Or maybe determined to get himself killed. “Open war still hasn't broken out, and it probably won't. Everyone is mistrustful, but they're not stupid. They're just falling back and fortifying their domains.”
Butler shook his head. “Fortifying against a creature that can turn a thousand people into mindless zombies over the radio—and everyone is putting themselves in nice, compact boxes. Perfect for what the Composer has in mind.”
Odin raised an eyebrow. “And what would that be?”
Butler shrugged. “Who knows? That's my point. Falling back gives the enemy too many options, and takes away too many of ours. We need to integrate, not segregate.”
Odin growled. “If you want us to deal with the hellions again—”
“Right now, I just want you to keep your men in check. Keep them from getting too violent. Once we find a way to identify these sleeper agents, everything will fall into place.”
He was being reasonable. He was always reasonable.
Odin sighed. “Fine. Butler, you win again. I'll hold back my men. And I'll shout down that vote of no-confidence some of the politicians are trying to push through.” He turned to go. “It's the least I can do.”
A pity. Death had sounded restful.