The United Stated Of Atlantis

by Ostercy

Sequel to "The Atlantean Way". Natla wants power but not even she anticipates the challenge she'll face if she achieves it. Set from 2010 onwards.

Star-Spangled Heaven

The sequel to The Atlantean Way

Diamond Dogs

I'm not even going to attempt to chronicle the bad years between 1996 and now. Basically it's all out there in the public domain and if you're really interested you can read the newspapers or even Lara Croft's memoirs, if you've got money to burn. To cover it in a sentence or two, Lara killed me three times; once in the ruins of the Golden Pyramid of Aea, once at Parajito Mesa when she discovered that - out of my love for her - I'd genetically altered her, and once in Helheim. Each time I found a loophole. I had either triggered the Christian Resurrection and came back in time, or had the remains of my brain rescued from a pool of subzero Eitr and my real and electronically stored memories inserted into a cloned body. It's all very dull. Needless to say I was left with a new body and a faulty memory. Thank the Lords of the Sea and the Sky that I wrote a diary.

Amanda had become, shall we say, a bit flaky. She changed allegiance more times than Joel Cairo, and I realised that the mixture of genes from Tihocan and myself must have generated some flaw, for she was little better than Chloe of the Golden Hair and her other sisters. She would always be the eternal teenager, deprived of a real childhood and swept by floods of hormones and resentment. She was a foolish girl, but I forgave her. I loved her, and more to the point, fifty percent of the time she did something really useful, like saving my ass. She was Atlantean, but she seemed older. From the faux naive ingénue that I'd sent to befriend Lara Croft in Bolivia she'd grown into a bitter blonde, like a cowgirl forced by age and poverty to start tricking in a small town bar. All quite ridiculous for a woman who was a Princess of Atlantis and an Assistant Director of the extremely prosperous Natla Technologies. Maybe her association with Fluffy the Wraith or her Dais trips to meet her historical sisters had warped her in some way. Neither I nor her brothers Nas and Das had much of a clue, but we supported her as best we could.

So - to start somewhere - one day there was a family meeting at Parajito Mesa on the 1st of January, 2010.

"Happy American New Year's Day!" I said, raising my glass.

"Happy New Year, Mama Jackie!" said Nas and Das, in unison.

Nas, in a military uniform and sporting a full beard, was the spit of his Uncle Qualopec and has inherited his uncle's grasp of the martial arts. He had recently been appointed a Major in the newest brigade of the 1st Armored Division, the 7th Brigade - founded 2009 and nicknamed "The Young Ironsides" - based out of Fort Bliss, NM. He was on more or less permanent temporary assignment to the Far East - due to his language skills - and was currently stationed in Camp Zama, Japan, doing 'humanitarian work', whatever that meant. With him was his bizarre "fiancée", Bea Bartak, a blackly clad Transylvanian minx who was dossing around the Far East under the guise of "teaching English". He'd met her in some sort of ghastly drug den in Laos whilst on leave, and I couldn't really see her doing his career much good. I thoroughly disapproved, and I could see Ms. Bartak coming to an untimely end unless he got bored of her soon. A Royal Prince should be guided by more than his loins, I thought. On the only hand I couldn't help but remember my previous disastrous attempts at matchmaking within the Family and so, for now, I kept my doubts to myself. Naturally Amanda adored her.

"Happy New Year, Mrs. Natla" said Bea, in her Dracula accent. She handed me what looked like a bunch of straw.

"Happy New Year to you, dear," I said. "What is … this?"

"It's a vetula. An image of the Old Woman that we pagans worship."

I looked at her to see if she was joking. Which "Old Woman" was she referring to exactly, I wondered?

"Pagans?" I said, after a moment.

Bea looked nonplussed. "You know …" she began, looking to Nas for help.

"Oh, pagans!" I said, to break the silence. "I've heard of this … neopaganism, now that you mention it. So which deity or deities do you pagans worship?"

"Oh Mother!" said Amanda. "Give it a rest."

"We don't worship any deities," said Bea, with a vampy pout.

"Ah," I said. "Well thank you for the … whatever you called this thing. I'm sure it will bring me luck." I made a mental note to throw it in the furnace before I caught fleas off it. Maybe one day I'd introduce Bea to the Lords of the Sea and the Sky. If she lived long enough.

"Come on, Bea," said Amanda, getting to her feet. "Let's go get baked."

"I didn't give you permission to step down from the table," I said, plaintively.

"No, you didn't," said Amanda, with a toss of her brittle blonde hair, and she dragged Bea away.

"I apologise, Mama Jackie," said Nas.

"Don't worry, darling. At least Bea isn't boring. And I expect it from your sister."

"Amanda has her uses," said Das, in that quiet voice of his. "She keeps us in touch with the shallower end of American culture. We supply the bread and she supplies the circus."

Das looked a bit like a young Ghandi, with rimless glasses that he didn't need, but which he claimed helped preserve his eyesight during the many hours he spent at the computer screen or wading through dusty libraries. As always he was dressed immaculately in a single breasted brown suit, complete with a striped tie in dark burgundy red and a light blue silk square in his breast pocket. He was based in Bangalore, where he was Visiting Professor of Nanobiotechnology. Like Nas, he spent most of his time on the business of Natla Technologies, but the endowments that we handed out to civil, academic and military projects meant that few questions were asked. Like Harry Wales in the British Army or those members of Asian Royal Family in academic positions, on paper Nas and Das were just the same as their peers, but in reality they were a race apart, only playing at being part of the command hierarchy.

"In a way we're probably better off with them retiring," I said after refilling everybody's glasses. "I have a plan to take over the world that I want to discuss with you boys, and Amanda would only start going on about how much she doesn't want to be in charge of the southern hemisphere."

Nas and Das exchanged glances.

"Another plan to take over the world?" said Das, softly.

"Aren't we fairly well positioned as it is?" echoed Nas.

I smiled. "Hear me out. I know you boy think that I'm just a megalomaniac just for the sake of being a megalomaniac, but you have to see it from my point of view."

"Mama, we love you," said Das. "We only want you to be happy."

"And we realise that you feel that it is your duty as the only remaining ruler of Atlantis to return Earth to the happy state that it enjoyed during the Golden Age," said Nas.

"But your plans always seem to go awry," said Das, pushing his spectacles up and blushing. "The last time we almost lost you."

"Hear me out, darlings," I said, patting their hands. "If you disapprove, then I won't put my plan into action. Fair enough?"

They looked at each other, doing that telepathic twin thing.

"Sounds reasonable," said Nas, squeezing my fingers.

"Mama Jackie," said Das, kissing my cheek.

I leaned back in my chair, steepled my fingers and took a deep breath.

"My plan," I said, "is to be elected President of the United States."

My plan had two parts, and neither of them involved ancient technology or fireball-throwing Atlanteans, at least not unless strictly necessary.

I'd studied Wikipedia and as far as I could see there were only a few things that one needed to become President. One had to have a seat in a lower tier of government, have lots of money and have lots of popularity, however underserved. I wasn't sure if one had to be born American, but I had enough paperwork to say that I had been, and one could even have held a ridiculously inappropriate former job - like "actor" or "trust fund drunk" - whereas I, I was a self made "captain of industry", wasn't I?

My research suggested that one could become President not only as a Senator, but also as a member of the House of Representatives - like Lincoln or Quincy Adams. However an examination of the political parties - the Democrats and the Republicans - left me unenthused, not least because the concepts of democracy and republicanism struck me as incompatible with the rule of a God King. As a result I decided that I was going to stand as an Independent in the 2010 election for the Governor of New Mexico. The incumbent, Dick Bilson, was out of time, and the other candidates - according to the files kept on them at Natla Technologies - included an actor who had once provided the voice for the magic car in a kid's program, a corrupt former Air Force pilot who destroyed anybody who stood in her way, an Evangelical sheriff, a bisexual nymphomaniac who had once been cited for stalking and a shady individual who probably had links to drug smuggling. None of them were particularly rich, at least not compared to me.

The second part of my plan, other than to become Governor, was to become unassailably popular, and nothing works better in my opinion than bribery.

I called a meeting at Natla Technologies and laid out my proposal.

"I suggest," I said, "that we offer the people of New Mexico beauty, health and a greatly extended life span. Free of charge."

The Natla Tech adverts, starring me, started going out in late February. Here, for your edification, is part of one of the scripts.

Voice over: Edgar Allen Poe once said beauty of whatever kind excites the human soul to tears.

(Montage of shots of film stars such as Marilyn Monroe and Brad Pitt in their swimming costumes.)

Since before Ancient Egypt and Cleopatra, the age old secrets of beauty have been handed down from generation to generation.

(A naked actress made up as "Hollywood Egyptian bathing in a bath of asses milk.)

Hippocrates, the medical genius of the Ancient Greeks, said that life is short, but is this still as true today?

(Greek bust of Hippocrates. Cracks appear across his face and the statue falls to pieces.)

Health is more than just the absence of illness. It is a positive feeling of vitality, energy, optimism and an overall sense of well-being. True health is being able to say "I feel good" for no particular reason other than being alive.

(Clips of beautiful young people doing callisthenics in the nude.)

Cut to me sitting behind a desk wearing a smart lab coat, a lowish cut blouse, a tight 'above the knee' skirt and an excellent pair of Manolos. As I speak I stand up and come round to sit on the front of the desks, showing my incredible legs to their full advantage.

"Hello. I'm Jacqueline Natla, the CEO of Natla Technologies, and I'm no spring chicken. Wouldn't like to know my secret?"

I laugh like a 50's film star.

"Seriously though, I can make your most vivid dreams come true. Have you ever wished that your face would change its shape? Maybe you've always wanted a longer nose, wider, thinner lips or a larger forehead?"

Fade to an animation showing the face of a dumpy white trash housewife morphing into mine.

"Here at Natla Technologies we have the technology. We can rebuild you. And it won't cost you six million dollars."

Shot of me visiting a bright laboratory set and being shown a test tube filled with glowing pink gunk, by a glamorous actress playing a scientist. I make a tick on my clip board, she unpins her hair to let it fall loose whilst removing her retro glasses and we laugh together like we are about to have sex.

Cut back to me sitting on the terrace at Parajito Mesa sipping an espresso.

"It's true. We can give you a breast enhancement whilst replacing all of your internal organs, and it's all absolutely free. You'll live twice as long and twice as fast, and it won't cost you an arm and a leg. Sign up to our program today. You don't have to be worth it, because after all; we'll charge you nada at Natla's."

Fade from a close-up of me grinning in a vulpine way to a last wide shot of me and about a hundred actors in lab coats standing outside a computer-generated version of a beautifully landscaped Natla Tech lab, and waving cheerfully as the camera backs up into the sky to be swallowed by storm clouds. End on announcement saying that the advert had been 'approved by the Committee to Elect Jacqueline Natla Governor of New Mexico'.

I'd laid the ground plan for new Natla Tech labs long ago, starting in the 1950's when I'd built medical facilities for the Mexican miners in the Natla Zinc Mine.

The mining site was on the edge of an Indian reservation owned by the Chiricahui people, and after a lot of negotiation they had allowed me to build the Lunar County Indian Hospital on the outskirts of the town of Izee. That was in the 70's.

Now in the twenty tens I had decided that I needed to situate the organ culture facilities next to the Lunar County Hospital. More to the point, I wanted the new facility to be on Chiricahui land. Although culturing organs from patient biopsies - livers, kidneys, hearts, lungs and so on - was perfectly legal, and although the pioneering test cases had been carried out on Philly bladder patients ten years before, I wanted to create as little potential for interference from the federal government I could. Any objections would be tied up in Tribal Law for years.

In the meantime I'd start work. By the time anybody could stop me I'd be Governor, and the problem would be a cat of a different coat.

There was a snag, though, and his name was Chief Freemont Elkhorn.

I met him in his office on the reservation. He resembled Marlon Brando in the Godfather, and was dressed in a rather cheesy chamois jacket with tassels across the shoulders. He was smoking a disgusting tobacco pipe and drinking straight from a can of domestic beer. He must have been in his eighties. He was flanked one each side by two great-grand-daughters, Jicarilla and Maria, both heart meltingly beautiful. They looked like the sort of dream hippy girls who had mythically got naked at Woodstock.

I began to explain about how I wanted to build a Natla Tech Lab next to the Indian Hospital so that I could start my "Health and Beauty" program.

Freemont scratched his ear for quite a long time before gracing me with an opinion. "I feel that is unwise," he said, "to allow you to build anything new on Chiricahui land since you are not of Chiricahui blood."

The beautiful Jicarilla consulted a note on her clip board. "In the olden days under the Blood Quantum Laws, nobody could claim to be Chiricahui unless they could prove one eighth ancestry," she began, earnestly. However I was smiling at her in such a warm and frankly lustful fashion that she stammered to a halt, blushing to a warm terracotta colour.

"Surely that's just racist nonsense," I said. "What does it matter who builds the facility? You'll all benefit from the free health care, and from the influx of patients who will use local goods and services ..."

They were staring at me with a sort of horror, and I realised my gaffe. One doesn't describe people who are isolationist and proud of their "tribal identity" as racist, at least not if they are Native Americans. Clearly they were classified as victims, and as such could not be called racist. All that killing and raping - when they did it to other Native American tribes it was "noble savagery" and when they did it to the white settlers it was merely "freedom fighting". I readjusted my world view hastily.

"May I tell you of a Cherokee legend?" said Freemont, whose look of horror seemed only marginally different from a look of suppressed amusement.

"Why Cherokee?" I said.

"It's a good story," said Freemont, shrugging.

"O.K."

"Cherokee legend tells of a white snake that devours Indian land and people. Many generations later, a young Indian learns its ways and drives a stake through its heart. In the end, the legend concludes, only Indian blood will be left, and people will be lining up to try to prove they have Indian blood." He sat back and puffed his pipe.

"That's rather ..." I found myself struggling to think of a polite description. 'Stupid' seems a bit rude. I settled on "gnomic" with a silent prayer to the Lords of the Sea and the Sky that the word wouldn't signal a dislike of vertically challenged people.

Freemont coughed and stared at me for a long second. "Well, Miss Natla," he asked, eventually. "Are you the white snake?"

"Well ... I don't think so," I said, smiling at Maria, who looked furious. "May I tell you a story in return, Chief Elkhorn?"

"Please do. It isn't Cherokee, is it?"

I laughed. "About ten years ago, just after the Human Genome was first published, researchers began to fan out over the planet taking blood samples and starting to map the inter-relationships between various nationalities and families. This was a scientific technique that didn't rely on dodgy legal documents or suspect family trees or folk tales. It nailed once and for all who was related to whom and where they came from. However one nation in particular was very unhappy about it. Can you guess which?"

Freemont merely raised an eyebrow and started fiddling with his pipe.

"When American Indians first learned of the project, they were loudly opposed. They cited cultural and spiritual reasons. They cited their common world view. They said that Indians were tired of serving as test subjects. After more than 500 years of colonization, they said, characterized largely by deceit, exploitation and annihilation, they were extremely skeptical and cautious, both for legal and political reasons."

"Very wise," said Freemont, although his great-granddaughters were shifting uneasily.

"Now - I could have come here today with all sorts of research proving beyond a doubt I was part Chiricahui. After all, documents can be forged and testimony can be bought and I'm a rich woman. If I was the 'white snake' you described, no doubt that is exactly what I would have done. Instead I have just walked up to you and talked to you, straight to your face, with no dissembling."

"She has a point, Shi'choo," said Jicarilla.

Freemont snorted. "She has a forked tongue," he said, without much conviction.

"Tell you what," I said. "Let's all have blood tests. Me. You. All the Chiricahui on the reservation. We'll get it analysed and see how closely we are related. I have a feeling that your ancestors and mine have more in common than you realise." After all, I sensed the remnants of the Mayan Regiment of Atlantis in their faces.

That broke the ice. Freemont smiled at me at last. "Beer?" he said, handing me a can.

"Only if the ladies are joining us."

In the end we decided to forget the business about who was an Indian and who wasn't an Indian, and they gave me my go ahead, subject to our lawyers hashing out the details.

That night we all went down to the local bar for Texan style steaks. After Freemont went home, I ended up in bed with Jicarilla Elkhorn.

Soon afterwards, after the signing of an agreement that would make the Chiricahui richer than Midas, the building of the new Natla Tech facilities at Izee Township began.

I had long realised, due to the proximity of so many New Mexican military installations, that my ranch at Parajito Mesa was not monitored routinely by satellites. At least so it seemed, as there were no pictures of me in the tabloids. I could happily "wing up" at home, and my Atlantean security contingent would keep even the most accidental observer at bay.

Sometimes I went for a bit of a fly for the exercise as it was more fun than jogging. At other times I'd saddle up my favourite horse, Minnihaha, and ride with my wings spread in the breeze. It felt good.

Today I was galloping across a flat singing along to my mobile phone.

"Every time I look at you
I don't understand
Why you let the things you did
Get so out of hand
You'd have managed better
If you'd had it planned
Now why'd you choose such a backward time
And such a strange land?
If you'd come today
You could have reached the whole nation
Israel in 4 BC had no mass communication."

I was so engrossed that I failed to see the dune buggy heading towards me from six o'clock. I'd stopped to give Minnihaha a breather and was drinking from my water bottle when the vehicle zoomed up along aide me, causing Minnihaha to rear up and my to fall to the ground.

"What the good Gods?" I shouted as I got to my feet, but stopped short as I was confronted by Bea Bartak. She was seated at the driver's seat of the buggy and staring at me as if I was a flasher in the park.

I retrieved Minnihaha's reins and walked over.

"Good morning, Bea," I said, flapping my wings once or twice to shake off the desert dust, before folding them neatly.

Bea was stammering and shrinking back in her seat. "You've got wings," she said, in her bizarre Transylvanian accent.

I extended one wing to examine it. The sun shone through the red membrane between the digits, turning Bea the colour of freshly spilt blood.

"Yes," I said. "Courtesy of Natla Tech. Nice, aren't they?"

"It is ... not possible." She had begun to sweat and it wasn't due to her choice to wear black on a blazing hot day.

"Maybe not, but they look cool and it beats hang-gliding."

"You can't fly?"

"Sure I can fly."

Bea got out of the car, and fingered my wing. "But everybody knows that you couldn't generate the lift to raise a human body. Like Leonardo's flapping flying machine. It'd never work."

"You've never heard of ornithopters."

Bea suddenly froze. I saw her irises pinprick and the blood flee from her face. She took a step backwards.

"What?"

She was getting back in the buggy, never taking her eyes off me. "Strigoi. Strigoi morţi," she was muttering.

I put a hand on her shoulder and she shrieked like a girl.

"What are you talking about? What is Strigoi morţi?"

Bea's kohl-ringed eyes began to fill with tears. "Vampire," she whispered.

It probably wasn't the right response, but I burst out laughing. I attempted an impression of the Count from Sesame Street. "Listen to ze musik of ze children of ze night," I declaimed, vampishly. "Don't be so ridiculous. I'm not dead, I don't drink blood and I'm outside in broad daylight."

Bea was searching my eyes. "Oh," she said.

"I adore garlic and besides - how could I remain looking this fabulous if I couldn't see myself in a mirror? Edward Cullen must have a makeup girl following him around continually to stay so pretty."

"Oh," said Bea again. The terror in her expression was slowly being filled with another emotion, one that I didn't like the look of much.

"What?" I said, grasping her shoulder again. I took the buggy keys out of the ignition.

"Nothing."

"I can see ... greed," I said, slowly. "You're thinking - what a scoop."

"No, I'm not."

I leaned towards her overly pierced ear. "Let me just tell you - these wings are an industrial secret."

"I don't work for you," blurted Bea and then realised that she'd given herself away.

That was it; she had to die.

Part of having my brain rewired was that although I might not be able to remember much of the 1960's, for example, I'd gotten much better at flying.

I grasped the struggling Bea under her armpits and lifted us slowly into the air, a huge cloud of dust billowing out all around us.

"Tarfa proasta!" snarled Bea, trying to twist around and bite me.

"Bite me and it'll get worse," I said.

Bea suddenly stopped wriggling. She reached around and tried to stroke me. She managed to plant a kiss on my mouth so that I had to head butt her.

"Vă rog, ai milă,"," she whispered.

"Would you show me any mercy?" I retorted.

We had risen about sixty feet above the ground and - like a bird dropping a tortoise - I was looking for a suitable rock. I had just spotted an outcrop that would provide a convincing scene for a staged car crash when my mobile rang in my ear

I tutted in exasperation. "Can't I get a moment's peace?" I said, accepting the call.

"Mother, I can see you," said Amanda's voice, over the sound of galloping hooves. "What the fuck are you doing?"

"Oh, nothing darling," I said, somewhat breathlessly. The exertion was beginning to get to me.

Turning slowly in the air I spotted a horseman approaching, and the glint of binoculars.

"Amanda!" yelled Bea. I slapped a hand over her mouth, almost dropping her in the process.

"What the fuck?" said Amanda. "Why have you got Bea up there?"

The gig was up.

"Just giving her a bird's eye view of the ranch."

I stopped flapping and allowed us to coast back to Bea's buggy. Amanda galloped up and leaping from the saddle, took Bea into her arms.

"She was going to kill me," sobbed Bea.

Amanda frowned. "Why?" she said. I could tell that she was thinking that it was unusual for me to murder anyone without some kind of reason.

"Ms. Bartak was threatening to go to the newspapers," I said, mildly, mopping my brow and wiping Bea's black lipstick from my fingers.

Amanda pushed Bea away and held her at arms length.

"What?"

"I didn't say anything about the press," wailed Bea.

"And I didn't say anything about dropping you from one hundred feet so that you burst like a watermelon," I said.

Amanda was aghast, but not with me. She grabbed Bea's chin and glared straight into her face.

"You idiot!" she hissed.

"What?" protested Bea.

"You can't mess with my mother," said Amanda. "She will so fuck you up."

"Will she?"

"I ... I can't even think of the right word."

I bestowed a deific smile on the both of them. "Biblical?" I said.

Amanda started nodding rapidly. "Twelve plagues, Passover, Armageddon, something like that. Smiting."

"Verily smiting," I said, rinsing some water around my mouth and spitting it out onto the ground. "With great wrath."

I went over and put my hand on Bea's shoulder.

"However, bygones. I forgive you. You are the beloved of my beloved Nas after all. But no publicity. I'd hate to have to kill yet another family member."

"OK," said Bea in the tiniest of tiny voices, her smeared makeup making her look like a water-logged panda. She had clamped her knees together in a way that suggested she was in desperate need of an emergency bathroom break. "Whatever you say, Mrs. Natla."

"Just Natla, please. Plain simple old Natla.

There was this guy - the evangelical Sheriff - and he wanted me to meet him in a television studio for a "moderated debate". It seemed fair enough to me, much as I despised democracy. As I understood it you put your arguments in the form of rhetoric to the demos and they decided if you were fit to rule them. Of course by birth I was obviously fit to rule them, but if they wished to play out a charade to convince themselves that they held the levers of power, so be it. Besides, I welcomed an opportunity to show off on TV. The sooner that the peoples of America got to know their future Queen the better.

The Evangelical Sheriff - Benito Arpaia - would not have cut it in Atlantis. He was little more than a simpleton. However he was popular amongst a bunch of death cultists who described themselves as "Evangelicals" and who stifled all debate by quoting misinterpreted chunks of their particular version of the Bible, specially translated to appear to confirm as "the word of God" their every prejudice and bigoted belief. I'd read of Jesus - apparently unlike myself he wasn't hostile to misfits, criminals and the mentally ill - but even he would have had trouble with this lot.

We started off with a statement, two minutes worth, and whereas I focussed on the excellent free health and beauty care afforded free of charge to the good people of New Mexico - "it'll cost you nada with Natla" - Mr. Arpaia launched into a garbled attack on modern medicine, denouncing as some sort of a "slaughter of the innocents" the services offered by Natla Tech. His "buzzwords"` included "stem cells", which we didn't use, "dead foetuses", all our foetuses were alive and well, and "murder of unborn children" - which as far as I knew we didn't offer as a service, although I was open to a well thought out business proposition.

Sheriff Arpaia wasn't afraid to be a stereotype. He started to quote the Bible at me.

"Does not St. Paul's Letter to the Corinthians say that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit received from God?" he thundered in what I took to be a bizarre imitation of the soul singer James Brown. "You are not your own but that you were bought at a price. You should honour God with your body!"

I raised a polite hand. "What's the relevance of that?" I said. "You've lost me."

"Replacing your body with one grown in a test tube is the work of Satan, Madam."

"Test tubes?"

"Yes, test tubes, Madam!"

I let a look of sympathy cross my face. "Doesn't Corinthians also say that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable?"

Now it was the Sheriff's turn to look confused. "And your point is?"

"Surely it means that one's holiness is not dependent on the form of one's earthly body. In other words, God doesn't care about plastic surgery."

"Who are you to dare to tell us what God thinks?" The Sheriff looked genuinely aggrieved.

"I'm merely quoting the word of God," I said. "Doesn't Corinthians also say that the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable and the mortal with immortality? If that isn't an advert for organ transplants I don't know what is."

"You speak of the 'word of God' as if you believed in it," said Sheriff Arpaia, glaring at me. "Are you a Christian, Madam?"

"No," I said politely, "but are the words of the Bible are rendered any more or less true if an agnostic quotes them?"

The Sheriff drew himself up to his full height and hitching his thumbs in his belt, addressed both me and the world behind the television cameras.

"If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell," he chanted, more for the benefit of the audience than for mine. He obviously loved the sound of his own voice.

Again, in the mildest possible voice, I quoted back at him. It was like debating with a child. "Does it also not say that we should tend the sick, feed the hungry and generally try to better those less fortunate than ourselves? Surely that is exactly what we at Natla Tech are seeking to do?"

Sheriff Arpaia went a very vivid shade of purple. "You mock Christianity, Madam," he said.

"I'm not mocking you," I said. "I just don't understand why you think that the ability to quote scripture would make you a good executive. I expect that even Satan knows the Bible off by heart."

Fortunately at that moment the moderator decided to step and ask about our views on various topics.

In response to a question about capital punishment, I - like the Sheriff - vowed to overturn the "no executions" stance that New Mexico had recently taken.

"However," I added, "if you're going to kill somebody, let's get on with it. I propose to add a very short time limit for appeals against the sentence. It seems to me both inhumane and a waste of tax payer's money to lock up a condemned man whilst lawyers get rich pretending that they can save him."

"Aren't you worried about miscarriages of justice?" asked the moderator.

"Of course," I said. "We should make sure that the people who deliver death sentences are competent to do so. Any unjust sentences that subsequently come to light should result in the punishment of the justice officials concerned, possibly even to the imprisonment of the jury. I shall set up a committee to investigate the possibility of donating the entire estate of a mistaken judge - in compensation - to the family of any man unjustly executed."

That got me strange looks from the panel and a round of applause from the audience.

"Surely nobody would ever dare convict anybody under that system?" said the moderator.

I smiled. "I see no reason why the same system shouldn't be applied to criminals who have been unjustly freed. I'm sure that if a defence lawyer was made aware that he faced the full weight of the law if his client was subsequently proved guilty, it would focus his mind."

"Nobody would dare take on a defence case."

"It certainly would speed things up," I said. "Guilty men would have to remain defenceless, whilst innocent men would have help."

Sheriff Arpaia was gaping at me as if I'd just grown horns and a tail.

"The moral is - make sure you have an air tight case before you come to trial, which is the system that we already have, surely?" I said.

The Sheriff harrumphed. "That's idiotic, Madam. The police would never arrest anybody."

"My dear Sheriff, I would support the system already used in your own county. I'd allow the police to administer a light thrashing to miscreants if they didn't feel confident in taking them to trial. Unlike yourself, however, I wouldn't limit the thrashing to poor coloured people."

There was a murmur and a shifting from the audience. They'd started to look slightly glazed but now they perked up.

"That's ... an outrageous accusation!" said Sheriff Arpaia.

"Really? I thought you were proud of your department's treatment of illegal immigrants and racial monitories? 'Benito the Leader'? Isn't that the nickname you gave yourself?"

I'd done my homework. Various unfortunate Mexican men had turned up injured or dead in Arpaia's jails, or at least that's what the local liberal troublemakers claimed.

The audience were starting to snigger.

"If we are descending to gutter level and flinging mud about," said the Sheriff, "how would you like to comment on the rumours that you are a practicing lesbian?"

There was a general gasp of schadenfreude, and I couldn't help but burst out laughing. It seemed a strange country where one's sexual preferences were thought more important than murder.

"Honestly, Sheriff," I said, with my best smile. "How ungallant. In answer to your question, I did experiment when I was younger. I'm not going do a Clinton and say I 'didn't inhale'. But I'm not here to tell people how to behave in the privacy of their bedrooms."

"Sounds like a charter for child molesters and perverts to me."

"Except that being a lesbian is not against the law as far as I'm aware, and I'm really only interested in law and order."

"Madam, I tell you now that the God-fearing people of New Mexico do not want an amoral woman in charge of 'law and order'," said the Sheriff in a rather aggressive voice.

"Your insinuation that only those of us free of temptation are suitable to run for Governor is ... un-Christian," I replied, with a tinge of admonishment. "Who would you rather have as your commander in chief - a holy fool or the devil you know?"

The rest of the debate was rather boring, as the Sheriff and I agreed on nearly everything from hating central government to supporting gun ownership. We both stressed the importance of being able to torture enemies of the state. We both agreed on the divine right of America to rule the world, although I didn't mention that in my case by "divine" I meant myself. I even got to rhapsodise about my darling Captain Nas, which made me look both patriotic and motherly. The press coverage the next day seemed to say that I'd won the debate, mostly for my honesty. One blog used a Star Trek word that I'd never heard of - they called my proposals on justice "Cardassian". I looked it up and decided to take it as compliment.

The new clinics at the Lunar County Indian Hospital were finished and we needed an "event" to get it off the ground, something that would attract nationwide attention. Cutting a ribbon and smashing a bottle of champagne didn't seem to be enough, and I knew from experience that the more conventional advertising that we bought the more people would be alienated.

"We need a leper healing moment or the casting out of a demon," I said to Das, who was over helping to get the facility up and running.

"Maybe you could cure a famous paraplegic?" said Das, smoothing his silk tie under his lab coat.

"Like whom?"

."I'll ... do some research into it, Mama Jackie."

"A pretty young white girl would probably get the most coverage," I said.

The irony was that in the end it was the very opposite of a pretty young white girl that caught my eye. The TV was on in my office, sound down, when I caught sight of one of those non-news news items that one gets on early evening magazine shows.

Diamond Jim Cetus was a 60 stone African-American who was giving some trouble to the fire and medical services. He was wedged in the upper bedroom of a small garret and was in imminent danger of multiple organ failure. They were trying to stabilise his condition long enough to demolish the wall of his house and winch him onto a flatbed truck using a crane.

I picked up the phone. "Das - I think we have our candidate. Take a lawyer and a laptop down to the house and let me chat to this Diamond person."

They managed to get in and help the Natla Tech laptop in front of Diamond's face. I've seen some pretty strange things in my life, but this man - his eyes and mouth were almost buried in huge rolls of fat - made me kinda angry. What sort of society allowed him to become like this, I wondered? When I ruled the world, this sort of thing would be eliminated. It was as if some cruel and unusual punishment had been inflicted upon him.

"Hello, Mr. Cetus. My name is Jacqueline Natla, CEO of Natla Technologies. You may have seen my adverts?"

"No, sorry Ma'am. I haven't seen them."

"Call me Jackie. Do you prefer Diamond, or Jim, or Mr. Cetus?"

I explained to him about our program.

"We can fix you up with transplants to fix your heart and liver and kidneys - all free of charge - and if you like we can discuss some surgical strategies to reduce your weight. But only if you want to. If you have anything about your appearance or health that bothers you, we can help you."

Diamond gave a rumbling laugh from deep in that behemoth of a body. If he could have smiled through the fat, he would have done. "Are you kidding, Jackie?" he said. "Do you do whole body transplants?"

"Why don't you come in and I'll personally discuss your options with you?"

"They can't move me, Ma'am. The door's too small."

I smiled at him. "Don't you worry about a thing, Diamond. We can stabilise your health right there and then get you out of your home to our hospital at Izee in Lunar County."

Das ran the extraction like a military operation. Firstly he and the doctors hitched up Diamond to a heart/lung/dialysis machine of our own design. After reassuring Diamond that his house would be made good, Natla Tech engineers removed the wall to his second floor bedroom. A large fork-lift device was used to move Diamond and his bed out of the room and gently, ever so gently, down onto a specially designed Natla Tech flatbed truck, multi-wheeled, with superb suspension. An air conditioned carapace folded over him and his doctors and the vehicles, attended by a convoy of police and press made the slow journey to Lunar County Indian Hospital.

I rang the local police chief.

"Is by any chance Mr. Cetus on the local DNA database?" I said.

"I can't tell you that, Ms. Natla."

"Not even under the Freedom of Information legislation?"

"That applies to your own data, Ma'am, not other peoples'."

"How ridiculous. Can I buy the information then?"

"Are you attempting to bribe a public official?"

"Define 'bribe' for me," I said.

Eventually we agreed that in exchange for a large donation to the retired police officers' fund he was allowed to tell me that Mr. Cetus was on the database even though I wasn't allowed to access the information held.

"That's all I need," I said.

Diamond was in a bit of a state. In addition to the aforementioned multiple organ failure, he had fading eyesight from diabetes, necrotic patches of skin impregnated with food that had got trapped between the folds of his flesh, and premature arthritis from the strain that his bulk had placed on his bones and joints. He had gangrenous bedsores, a mouth full of ulcers and rotting teeth. For any normal medical facility he would have been a bit of a handful, but for Natla Tech he was an ideal test case for us to show our wares.

"Ms. Natla," he whispered to me. "Can you really fix me up?"

"I believe so, Diamond."

"Is it true what the doctors have been telling me - that I can look however I like?"

"Of course," I said, taking his sausage fingers in my hand.

Diamond looked abashed, or at least I think he looked abashed, as his looked permanently flushed and his eyes watered constantly.

"You don't have to be shy," I said. "I'm here to serve you. Tell me your dreams."

He beckoned me to him and whispered into my ear.

"My," I said, straightening up. I was impressed with his ambition. "That might be quite a tall order for any other outfit than ours. Are you sure?"

So the treatment began.

We force grew new internal organs for him. His fractured bones were replaced with the light constructs that I myself had used to allow me to fly. His old skin was removed in sheets, grown in culture, re-coloured and replaced. Fifty of his sixty tons were sliced away and taken away in biological waste bins. New muscles were stitched into place, and he was given new blue eyes. His hair was altered, the various organs added or removed from his body. My arachnobots scuttled about in his system, knitting fibres and blood vessels and cartilage. His face and skull were reshaped, his arms and legs re-proportioned.

One day, as I was waiting for the brand new Diamond to come back to full health, Amanda crashed through my office door without knocking.

"Hello, Amanda," I said evenly.

"Hello, Mumsie," she said, throwing herself into a chair and putting her boots up on my desk.

"What on earth are you wearing on your feet?"

The boots were clunky, knee length, and covered with straps and buckles.

"They're Libby Plate Elevator Boots," said Amanda, with a faintly malicious smile.

"How very unladylike. Could you possibly elevate them off my very expensive Parnian desk? It's made from six exotic woods."

"Very green."

"What can I do for you?"

"I have a business idea."

"Do you?"

She threw onto my desk top a catalogue printed on recycled paper.

"What's this?"

"It's stuff for Goths, Mother. Rock horror ornaments. Fake Satanic mass stuff."

"Ghastly silver bling. Ill-fitting and ill-made black clothing," I said, gingerly flicking through the pages. "Kitsch china statues of anatomically incorrect dragons."

"Yes," said Amanda.

"So what is your idea?"

"I was thinking - your clinic produces lots of human fat. As a waste product."

"We do tend to remove a lot of excess adipose tissue."

"So I was thinking - candles. Made from human fat."

I think I threw up a little in my mouth.

"Who on earth," I said, handing the catalogue back to her, "would want such a thing?"

"Devil worshippers. Death cultists. Slightly pretentious emo kids. We could make a fortune."

I gently steered her out of the room, smiling as kindly as I could manage.

"Even if it were legal, darling Amanda, we already have a fortune. Besides, the good voters of New Mexico would be rather startled by their potential governor behaving like Hannibal Lector, don't you think?"

"Doesn't what you are doing already make you look like some mad Nazi doctor?" said Amanda, halfway out of the door.

"I have taken the good Nazi ideas - improvement of the human race using science - and discarded the bad Nazi ideas, such as racism, homophobia and genocide," I replied. "I offer to volunteers what the Nazis enforced without a mandate. Now - will we be seeing you later for dinner?"

And so came the day for the unveiling of our first lab-built Sonnenkinder.

Das and I stood at a podium in the Natla Tech Press Center.

I gave an unsubtle speech which I won't bore you with, ostensibly about what a humanitarian I was but with the subtext "me good, vote me Governor".

"And now I'd like to introduce you to our latest patient, Diamond Cetus, whom I'm sure you all saw being rescued from their home by Natla Tech a couple of months ago. Das, if you could ...?"

Das led in from stage right the new reborn Diamond. Looking out at the press corps, I have never seen so many journalistic jaws hit the floor.

"Navidad Gravidad, New Mexico Times," called out a grizzled old hack after a moment. "Surely this isn't the same person?"

Diamond had gone for a square blonde cut with highlights, and was showing off long blonde legs beneath a pink puff skirt. She'd opted not only to lose her weight but also her gender and skin colour. The new Diamond had all the perky appeal of her heroine, the young Britney Spears.

"Hi!" said Diamond, with a bright white bread smile, half turning to the audience to show off her new hot figure. "It really is me, Diamond Cetus."

The press crops burst out laughing, causing an injured tear to glisten in Diamond's eye and Das to put a protective arm around her shoulder.

I fixed them with my kindliest imperial glare.

"Those of you would seem to implying some sort of fraud here might want to contact the local law enforcement office, where Diamond's DNA is kept on file," I said, with flinty good cheer.

The story made all the nationals and we were off and running.

As for Diamond, I'd changed her body but I hadn't altered the genetics of her brain. All the things that had led her to obesity in the first place - sadness, self-indulgence, greed, lack of impulse control - were still lying dormant in her cerebellum, waiting for her to hit a bad patch. After a semi-successful pop career, the birth of a baby, a drunken car crash and a spell of heroin abuse she killed herself with a drug overdose, probably accidently. She achieved immortality as a gay icon, the first transgender beauty from the labs of Natla Tech.

"It's odd," I remarked to Das. "Here in America there is this theory that all men are born equal."

"It's the American Dream," said Das, sipping on a cup of camomile tea. "A sort of egalitarian fascism."

"Whereas in reality only a few of us have the genes to rule."

"People are strange, Mama Jackie."

I reflected that it was certainly well past time for America to get a leader such as myself to save them from their self-imposed confederacy of dunces.

"And with your help, Lords of the Sea and the Sky, I will once again come into my birthright," I prayed, facing the rising sun over the desert.

For a moment, it was if I saw a face appear in the pink disk just above the horizon. It reminded me of someone, and a faint chill gripped me. As fast as it was there the face was gone, but I recognised it and I perceived its blank Apollonian expression as it examined me as an ant under a magnifying glass.

---

Interlude; "Lara"

One of the things that I used to do before turning in for the night at the Golden Pyramid of Aea was to do the rounds checking on my babies.

First and most important were my twin sons, Nas and Das.

I was slightly surprised at how much they liked the Golden Pyramid, given that their first experience of it had been a fight to the death against a nearly re-awakened giant mutant which the security systems had birthed from its incubator egg. They liked the darkness, the humidity, the red pulsing walls and the sound of the giant heartbeat. Given the choice between their room in my villa at Gagri on the Black Sea shore and an orifice-like cave in the Pyramid they always chose the latter. I didn't know if it was a child thing or an Atlantean bloodline thing, but I thought it was cute, if faintly weird.

I crept into their "room" and looked down on them curled on the organic excrescences that served as "beds". Das had a thumb in his mouth and his toy duck hugged tightly to his face, a bijou version of his father Tihocan, whilst Nas was smiling in his dreams, his little fists clenched and his legs jerking occasionally in his sleep, no doubt dreaming of being a wolf killing lambs, the spit of his Uncle Qualopec.

I kissed each on the lips saying "Good night, sweet Princes," and smoothed their baby hair with my fingers. My love knew no bounds.

Next I made the rounds of the incubators, where my first attempts at creating some Atlantean soldiers were cooking, their neurones being knitted together by swarms of miniature arachnobots. Many were nearly ready. I pressed my nose against the almost opaque shell of one giant green egg to gaze lovingly at a centaur, one hand resting on the thick, throbbing blood vessel feeding the neonate. The vessel itself rose and fell slightly with the peristatic movement of fluids inside it, held into a curved shape by a network of veins and membranes and looking for all the world like the wing of a purple moth beating in slow motion. There was a placental patch on the nursery wall, siphoning off the blood of the Pyramid itself, and I could tell merely by touching it, by feeling the beat and the temperature and by examining the colour that all was well with this particular infant. My fingers stroked the curved, firm surface of the egg and the muscular warm hardness of the blood vessels. I kissed the sinewy surfaces and I rubbed my body against them like a small dog against a leg.

"You are so beautiful," I said to the floating centaur, a catch in my throat. So many years of struggle had brought us to this moment and I was filled with such an intense and deep maternal pride that it made my want to cry just standing there.

Last on my rounds was the biggest experiment of them all, my attempt to recreate the bizarre prehistoric megafauna that had attacked us when we first arrived. I hadn't designed it – Tihocan, who had taken over the Pyramid after my imprisonment (to replace his original Workshop that had been swallowed by the waves) had been working on all sorts of weird creations. I'd dabbled with cloning the T. Rex, for example, but my brother seemed to have gone the whole hog and had been rampaging through the genetic library like a kid in a candy shop.

This giant "thing" – its skeleton revealed it to have the face of a panda, the neck of a horse, the arms and shoulders of a massive ape, the front claws of an anteater and the short rear legs of… well, I'm not sure what, exactly – was almost identical to our former attacker, the monster nicknamed "The Wolf" by the twins. The latest incarnation had been named "Adam" but the twins, with cheerful irreverence, had renamed it "Mr. Torso".

I gazed up at the gargantuan egg suspended from the wall of one of the laval vents inside the Pyramid and I confess I felt less like giving this particular baby a hug. Scientifically I was interested in what Tihocan had intended for this … "monstrosity" seems a bit harsh … but emotionally I can't say I was feeling the love. Looking at its panda head with tufts of blonde hair spurting from the cranium, and at its as yet barely fleshed horse's neck, grotesquely long without the sheath of muscle and skin, I felt vaguely sorry for Mr. Torso.

"You ain't pretty," I said, patting the incubator.

Finally I lay down in my own chamber within earshot of the boys, gently rocked by the Atalntean equivalent of a water bath, blood red and blood warm. It was like sleeping on the belly of a giant man, using his flaccid penis as a pillow.

Then, that last night, I was suddenly awakened by the alarm, a noise that sounded like a baby wail played on a chorus of trumpets. The floors and walls had begun to pulse with subtle changes of hue – gold-speckled black to green-veined blood to metal-seamed clot, and so on.

I dashed to the boys, meeting them halfway.

I crouched down.

"Now then, my Princes. What did we practice for this?"

Nas was waving a stick around. "Fight, fight, fight!" he said, with a huge grin.

"No-o. Das?"

"We go to the emergency train, Mama Jackie," said Das, solemnly.

"Aw! No fair!" protested Nas.

"And then what?" I said, pulling them close to me.

"We go to the villa and wait."

"And Nas? Nas! Stop pouting."

"What?"

"I expect you to escort your brother to safety and to guard him. If anything tries to stop you, you are welcome to kill it."

Nas calmed down. "Yes, Mama Jackie."

I gave them the biggest kiss and hug that I could manage. "I love you both very much," I said, squeezing them, "and I'll see you when this is all over."

I shooed them to the hematoaulic elevator that lead down to the rail track which headed straight for the mainland, deep under the rock of the seabed.

"Byeeee!" they called, waving furiously.

"Bye!" I echoed, blowing a kiss. Then I turned to the matter in hand, heading for one of the Golden Pyramid's many control rooms.

Magnesian, my technician, possibly the oldest living person on the planet, was calmly pushing nipple-like buttons and tweaking various fleshy knobs. He been almost completely desiccated when we had first awoken him and now he looked more like a sultana.

"Your Magnificence," he croaked. "To everyone's astonishment one of Your Majesty's former employees has gone mad and wants to kill Your Majesty. Personally I'm agape."

"Stop being a smart aleck," I said. "Are the Eyes of Iridis working? Can we seen who it is?"

The Eyes of Iridis were a bioelectronic system that I had caused to sprout all over the Golden Pyramid, feeding back to what the Pyramid had for a brain and accessible to us.

Magnesian poked a fleshy control and a picture appeared on the screen of the aetheroscope.

"That's outside in the Mines isn't it?" I said, peering.

"I believe so, Your Highness, and those bodies lying about are your Most Excellent Mercenary Guards. Worth every obol in My Humble Opinion."

I could see a gunfight going on between the black rocks. In the middle distance I could see one of those rivers of that rare, runny, copper-tainted mud lava that flow through the bowels of the Pyramid and then, cartwheeling, a silhouette, guns blazing, ponytail flying.

I felt an immediate jolt of fear mixed with irritation. "By the impacted bowels of the Underworld!" I said. "It's that Croft woman again."

"I thought you'd sacked her, You Majesty?"

"So did I. Over a cliff."

"Shall I let her in for a good dressing down by senior management?"

"No, you will not bloody let her in. Set all the systems to … whatever the equivalent of red alert is."

"Yes, My Queen. It's 'gold' alert, I believe."

"Whatever – gold, plutonium, ginger. Throw the whole Periodic Table at her."

Lara had killed all the humans, most of them former employees of Mauro Nero under the command of Larson Conway, rather optimistically hired by me as bodyguards. They weren't having much luck staying alive.

I watched Lara prowling around outside an entrance to the Golden Pyramid. She searched all of the bodies and then started clambering around on the protuberances that dotted the outer surface of the structure.

"Magnesian, assuming she gets that door open, what's on the other side?"

"One of the Hive Hatcheries, Your Ingeniousness. Filled with Atlantean soldiers of various sorts."

"Set up some sort of motion sensor. Automatically hatch anything that she goes near and give them the instruction 'Kill, kill, kill'."

"'Kill'?" said Magnesian. "Wouldn't 'run, run, run away' be more appropriate?"

"Look - she's only one small wee human," I said, demonstrating with my fingers how tiny Lara Croft was in the cosmic scheme of things, my voice breaking with exasperation.

"Vicious though, Your Majesty, with big guns and knives and … hand grenades. And she probably bites."

"Oh for the Gods' sake just get something to lop her head off, Magnesian!"

"Very good, Sire."

I guess I've described at great length elsewhere how I fell about Lara Croft, and although it seems a bit denial-ish of me to order her killed, the truth was that I had a massive girlcrush on her. Half of me wanted her to knock down all my defences and leave me quivering and naked, bound and defeated at her feet, unable to deny her even one of her filthy desires. I even wondered if my previous attempts to have her shot were just an attention seeking device. If only, instead of destroyed me she'd just … fuck me. I had a lovely vision of us ruling the world, two goddesses in love.

"Darling Lara," I fantasised about saying to her. "Why blow my brains out when you can just … blow my brains out?"

However, when Lara managed to pierce my outer defences – somehow she got my front door open as I'd known she would - and started murdering everything in sight, I realised that my fond rose-coloured dreams were about to turn blood-stained.

"Keep her busy," I said to Magnesian. "I'm tooling up."

"If Your Ladyship would permit it, I have a cunning plan," said Magnesian.

"What is it – surrender?"

"Not yet, My Queen." And when he told me I had to smile and give him the go ahead.

I had a number of weapons at my disposal. First there were my beloved wings, the modern versions, fully detachable. I kept copies of them in special incubator tubes wherever I might be staying and when they were decanted, I could place them on my back, and special tendrils crept into special cloacae near my shoulder blades (causing me to shudder and gasp with pleasure). When it was all over there they were, two blood-red and magnificent batwings with a twelve foot span. I didn't have the complete body armour that I developed afterwards, but I did have a prototype – a thin sheet of invisible cartilage that covered much of my skin, and which could help me to survive bullets, fire and even boiling water for at least a short time. Finally I had my biochemically-fed fireball-throwing mutant, which wrapped itself around my forearm and responded to instruction from my thoughts.

I strapped all of this on, straightened my business skirt and my business blouse, touched up my makeup, and then went back to the control room to see how things were going in the war against the terror.

"This might be interesting," said Magnesian.

His cunning plan had been to edge Lara out of "our" areas of the Golden Pyramid and into as yet unexplored regions "belonging" to Tihocan. None of us, not even me, had wanted to investigate too closely in case the whole thing was a Tihocan trap designed to destroy me lest I ever escape from my prison and return.

"How come we can see her?"

"One can only support that your order to seed the inside of the Pyramid with Eyes worked even better than we hoped, Your Magnificence. Nobody is more astonished than myself."

"That chamber she is about to enter … what is it?"

"I'm always sceptical about Atlantean technology," said Magnesian, "but look at this …"

I gazed at the new chamber. A furious activity was going on. It looked as if a million arachnobots were weaving a doll or a golem or an image, the laying down of the individual threads a blur, the object at the centre obscured by motion.

I realised, with a dawning amusement, that the arachnobots were attempting to make a clone, a copy, a simile of Lara Croft herself.

I watched Lara outside the door of the chamber, hesitating.

"Go on, go on, go on," I found myself whispering at the aetheroscope screen.

She felt around the door jam and then backtracked up the corridor looking for a switch or a block of stone to push.

"Is it unlocked?" I said.

"Yes, Your Ladyship. She just has to push it open."

Lara reached rounded in her backpack and produced a grenade. She placed it on the ground and then run away. The door disintegrated.

Inside the room the arachnobots scattered – or at least I assume they scattered – leaving the more or less finished Atlantean copy of Lara standing in the room. There was a moment's silence and then it ran to the far side of the chamber, pushing against an identical door to the one that Lara had just destroyed.

I watched it carefully. It was holding its head and ever now and again slapping the side, as if it was trying to clear and ear of water. Something was happening. It was as if a download of information was going on and it didn't look a very comfortable process.

Lara, meanwhile, was stealthing towards the entrance, pistols drawn. The moment she stepped over the threshold the At-Lara spun and around and adopted the exact same pose. We could see miniature fireball throwers, mimics of Lara's pistols, forming out of its hands.

"Wow," I said. "Neato."

"Whatever Your Majesty says."

"You've been poking around the Golden Pyramid for a few weeks now. Where are the instructions for this process stored?"

"In a memory falx made of dura matter, like the rest of it."

"And is there a backup?" I suddenly had an uneasy feeling that Lara might be about to decerebrate the Pyramid once and for all.

Magnesian chuckled, the first and last time I ever heard him do that. He pulled up a schematic which appeared on a flat surface of wall space, pixilated with waving villi like those pin boards that produce a contour of a face.

"The answer, Your Majesty, is yes and no. This is the – forgive the modern names – the Nile Delta east of Alexandria and this is Lake Burullus. Hundreds of feet below the Mediterranean shore is a large complex, the remains of the Workshop of the late Lord Tihocan, Ruler of the Territory of the East. That place is now combined with … well the map gives it no name."

"And?" I said, rubbing some patience into my forehead with a finger. "So what?"

"There are two chambers, one here in the Pyramid, and one somewhere in the unnamed area, both labelled the Pineal Transplants … and if I understand it correctly, there is your backup."

I gave him a long look. "Good. So … what was so amusing about that exposition?"

Magnesian shrugged. "There are no instructions as to how to access this bizarre Mediterranean underworld, nor who built it, nor if it is working, nor …"

I blew exasperation out through my lips. "Oh be quiet, Magnesian. You are such a 'no man'."

"Yes, Your Glowing Positivity."

"And stick to Your Highness from now on. No more making up hilarious titles. Not until the Croft woman has gone at least."

"Your command is my only wish, Your Highness."

We turned back to the aetheroscope screen just in time to see Lara fire at the At-Lara. Simultaneously the latter fired back, fireballs streaking across the chamber. Lara did one of her trademarked sideways jumps, hells over head, and the At-Lara copied her. Both set of missiles missed their targets.

Lara was thinking – I could almost sense it. She holstered her guns and so did At-Lara. Lara took one step forward, one step back – copied. Then she performed what I can only describe as a hokey cokey, and got an instant dance partner. Finally, she walked forward and touched noses with the At-Lara.

"Me, I presume?" she started to say, but the At-Lara interrupted her with a large honking sound.

"Quack quack here."

"Honk honk honk."

"Quack quack there."

"Honk honk honk."

The chamber was filled with a cacophony of sound as Lara tried singing "Here a quack, there a quack, everywhere a quack quack" over the top of the noises that the At-Lara was making. They both stopped together with the sounds dissipating into echoes and screeches.

With that, Lara ignored the At-Lara and strode to the far door. She pulled it open and stepped though into the corridor. The At-Lara, trying to copy, tripped over the remains of the entrance and lay still.

It was my turn to laugh. "What was the point of that?" I said.

"Maybe when completed, the copy becomes autonomous," suggested Magnesian.

"I'll have a look at the blueprints later. For now … tell me she's not heading for the Scion Room."

"That would be inaccurate, Your Highness."

I took him by the shoulders. "I'm going to face her now, my good old servant. Keep things going as best you can while I'm gone. If the Croft woman manages cause some kind of explosion, or - the Gods forbid - an eruption, shut all the doors and vents and tunnels and try to direct the blasts and the lava streams down into the Mines, under the sea. I don't want my future subjects hurt because of some little disagreement between Her Ladyship and myself."

Magnesian was as desiccated as an old smoked ham left in an airing cupboard, but his eyes met mine and I swear there was a trace of moisture. With great self-control I managed to blink my own eyes dry.

"Very good, Your Royal Majesty, Granddaughter of the Lord of the Sea, Daughter of Atlas, Ruler of the Territories of the West, once and future Queen."

And so, the denouement.

I was standing in the shadows as Lara fell through a ceiling panel and landed in a clatter of fragments.

"Fuck," she said.

She took a moment to slap a bandage on herself where she'd been cut and then straightened. She listened for a moment and then peered around the corner.

"Ah ha!"

Her eyes lit up in what I can only assume was a look of triumphant greed.

She walked up to the pedestal where the Scion was seated and reached out for it … and it was then I realised just how much Atlantean bloodline she much have left in her, for something unexpected was activated, something I'd never seen before.

It was a 'movie' of my trial and imprisonment left, no doubt, by my kind brother Tihocan, ensuring that my name would by blackened for generations of Atlanteans. The images were projected in mid air and I was aghast at how young we all looked, standing stiffly on the Execution Platform in the long gone Atzlan Confederacy.

I began to burn with embarrassment. It was as if someone had got out the baby photos to embarrass me in front of my new girlfriend.

"We condemn you, Natla of Atlantis, for your crimes. For your flagrant misuse of your powers," I watched Qualopec saying, saying the words that had been agreed for my show trial, buying time until he could come back to free me, or at least that's what he'd said.

So why hadn't he? He had been so very ill but … As I squirmed, I found myself thinking "So much for my big brave brother. You coward! You …you langouring wimp!"

My only excuse is that fear and self-loathing can rob us of our better judgement

The 'movie' clip finished, and I saw Lara stagger. The look on her face, the realisation that I had been a Ruler of Atlantis. She stood for a long time, rubbing her chin, her eyes a thousand yard stare. She gazed across the abyss at Mr. Torso's egg.

I straightened my robes and adjusted my crown. I clasped my hands to stop them shaking. It was my duty to explain. What use was the Scion to her? Surely she would see? The human race had to take one small step back to make that massive leap forward.

"Be brave, daughter of Atlantis."

I took a deep breath and stepped from the shadows, my wings semi-unfurled, my chin up, a devil-may-care smile on my lips.

"Back again?" I said, politely.

---

Oh, You Pretty Things

Despite what you might think, I'm not a love 'em and leave 'em kind of gal. I was with Aþkðn Tanrica for most of her life, and despite my dalliances with various winged creatures whilst I'd been in Atlantis, I'd never spurned any of them. However I was kinda startled when one of my genuine one night stands - Jicarilla Elkhorn, tracked me down.

I was inspecting the organ culture rooms at the Izee site, pouring fondly over the latest batch of human uteri in their glistening glass incubators. They sat like little horned cushions in their pink media bath, bubbles gently cascading over their blushing contoured surfaces.

"As sublime as the shell from which sweet Ishtar stepped," I said to myself, "spawned from a spumy sea."

In the background, chimes from the Clock of the Long Now sounded whilst zest-scented zephyrs stole through the labs. I was daydreaming of a colony of beautiful connubia, all in blissful control of their bodies, all birthing comely babies and all beholden to me.

My reverie was shattered by a buzz from my earpiece.

"What?"

"We have a Ms. Elkhorn here," said the gatehouse, "asking to see you."

You could have knocked me down with a hammer.

"I'll come down," I said.

We had had to build a new road and new car park just to cater for the casual visitors who had turned up without an appointment hoping to get admitted to the Lunar County faculty. I employed a whole team of people to police the traffic jam, to hand out literature and to ask people to (politely) go away and contact us either by phone or online. I realised, of course, that it was the poor and the stupid who just arrived out of the blue, and that it was the poor and the stupid that I had to reach the most, especially if I wanted to be a successful politician. So I had instructed that the drop-ins each be giving a "certificate". I had designed the certificates myself; I was inspired by Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and had used an identical design, only with the phrase "Wonka's Golden Ticket" replaced by the single word "GOODNESS™". Although the tickets didn't entitle the owner to anything that wasn't already on our website, they made people go away smiling, with our contact details grasped in their sweaty hands.

"Greetings to you, the lucky recipient of GOODNESS™, from Ms. Jackie Natla!

I shake you warmly by the hand for now I do invite you to come to my clinic and be my guest. I, Jackie Natla, will supervise your treatment myself, giving you everything that your heart desires. Afterwards, when it is time to leave, you will be escorted home by large trucks carrying all of the medicines that you need and with a voucher for a free ride to the voting booth on Election Day.

Until then, Jacqueline Natla, your Gubernatorial Candidate."

I passed Das in the foyer. He was looking at one of the certificates with a bemused expression.

"Do you like them?" I said, draping a hand around his narrow shoulders.

Das held the ticket up to his nose as if sniffing it. "They're shiney," he said. "I was just wondering if they were legal."

"Legal?"

Das shifted uncomfortably. "Isn't this a poltical bribe? As well as possibly false advertising?"

I smiled and kissed his cheek. "Do feel free to get it checked out, darling. I suspect it's more unethical than illegal. Besides I'm sure that I've slipped enough weasel words in there to confuse the most learnéd law professor."

"Yes, Mama Jackie," murmured Das, allowing me to straighten the front of his lab coat.

Outside I had a momentary vision of a Nascar rally driven by a herd of sunburnt pink elephants. The sun beat down whilst the heat and smell rose up, and there was a constant trumpeting of vehicles and people.

The chief of the security guards was gazing out through the bullet proof glass at the mob.

"They're looking a bit ugly, Ma'am," he said.

"They wouldn't be here otherwise, would they?" I said.

"It's no laughing matter, Ma'am. What if they riot?"

"Don't worry, my good fellow. If things get out of control turn the water cannon on them, or lob out a few stun grenades. They'll soon disperse. You just have to be firm."

"Wouldn't that be a bit of a publicity nightmare, Ma'am?"

I laughed. "If you know a pleasant way of driving off an unruly mob, I'd be pleased to hear it," I said. "What do you want me to do? Reason with them?"

He gave me a long look. "No, Ma'am," he said.

"I'm sure it will be fine. Just keep your nerve. They are no more threatening than a flock of hungry sheep."

And saying that I indicated that they should allow Jacarilla inside the compound.

Jacirilla was wriggling and giggling because of the ice cream that I had spooned onto her belly.

"Lick it off!" she said. "It's cold!"

"No, let it melt a bit first," I said.

Jacirilla, or Jak as I'd started calling her, tasted like strawberries and coffee. It was all very yummy.

Afterwards we lay in each other's arms and I was dreamily thinking how odd it was that we were 'Jak and Jackie', and wondering if the voters of New Mexico would accept as gay couple in the Governor's residence. Probably not.

I wondered if I need to find a token man from somewhere, someone from 'central casting' whom I could claim to be engaged to. If there was one piece of so-called 'right wing' legislation that made me uncomfortable it was the next door state's Proposition 8, which banned gay marriage. I was all in favour of ensuring that only the correct people could be allowed to breed. I was all in favour of measures that ensured that lovers from vastly differing stations in life didn't marry. But ... I was vaguely baffled as to why marriage between opposite genders should be allowed a status that marriage between the same genders was not. There was a religious element of course, but as yet the USA was not a theocracy, much as I might desire it. May as well ban blood transfusion just because Christian Scientists disliked it, or pork just because the Jews thought it unclean.

The thing is - I'd always assumed that underneath the greedy bluster and the fake sentimentality that characterises the North American population, there was an inherent sense of fair play and an acceptance of different life styles. Therefore Proposition 8 left me confused. What was I going to do if the voters of New Mexico called for a similar proposition? I was comfortable with judicial executions and even some types of judicial xenophobia, but judicially sanctioned sexual prejudice? Even for me that was just a bit too weird. It was as if the cool figure of Justice had lifted her blindfold and had been embarrassed by the sight of two boys kissing.

Jak broke into my reverie by sticking her nose into my ear.

"Are you thinking about another woman?" she said.

"Why would I be thinking about another woman when I have you in my arms?" I said.

Jak snorted. "Grandfather is right. You are a natural politician. Everything you say seems to mean one thing when it could mean another."

"Coming from an old crook like Chief Elkhorn I can only take that as a compliment."

"He is worried."

"About what?"

"The huge crowds of people flooding across our lands to the hospital."

I leaned on one elbow and smoothed the hair from her face. "I'm surprised he hasn't taken advantage of it," I said. "Can't you guys sell them beads or pots or peace pipes or something?"

Jak made a moue. "We're Chiricahui, not the Amish. It's not as if we run around half naked scalping people with our tomahawks."

"I'm sorry baby," I said, kissing her. "Even if I'm sure the sight of you running around half naked would be most excellent."

Jak giggled. "Your contempt for my people knows no boundaries," she said, but smiled to show that she didn't mean it.

"No pots then. How about a used car dealership next to a casino instead?"

She kicked me out of the bed onto the floor.

I was semi-smothered in sheets and being submitted to some sort of tribal tribadism when my ear piece buzzed.

"What?" I gasped.

It was Das in the clinic. He had something to show me.

I don't know if Das had arranged the room with a view to theatrical impact, but there was something about the way that the sunlight that beamed down from a high skylight above to the figure standing in the middle of the floor that was almost Wagnerian.

Das stood calmly to one side, the whitest of white lab coats buttoned up to his throat, rimless spectacles glowing, the single silver pen glittering at his lab pocket. In the background the icy coldness of Apollon Musagete was playing from the flat chrome hi-fi embedded on the gloss white lab wall and in a steel vase a bunch of flawless white lilies turned their heads towards the patient. The whole scene shone; the blonde hair and the shiny skin, the glint of the glassware, the twinkle of the surgical tools ... I immediately thought "sungodchild".

"This is Alexander Icarus," said Das, indicating the man in the sunlight with a slight movement of his fingers.

The man had been facing away from me as I approached. I noted the dark valley down his spine between his lean back muscles, the curve and dimples at the top of his buttocks, his long limbs. He turned his head to show a profile as clean as that of a cartoon, his long hair swaying like a golden fleece.

He turned to face me - he was dressed only in a short towel that revealed one smooth thigh and suggested the bulge of a penis - and looked into my eyes.

"This is my mother, Jacqueline Natla."

The sunlight from above threw his eye sockets into shadow but despite that his pale blue eyes shone out from the darkness. His pupils seemed dilated despite the light and his gaze ... somehow it smote me.

"Pleased to meet you at last, Jacqueline."

Being Atlantean I am sensitive to overtones and echoes and musical notes, in the same way as a perfume maker or a wine connoisseur, and I could hear the alpha maleness in his timbre. He had the voice of musician. I felt commanded.

He held out a seemingly huge hand - as delineated as that of a Da Vinci sketch - and enfolded my fingers in his. He placed his other hand behind mine so that I felt enclosed in a warm iron cage.

I could feel the heat from him - the heat of a sunbather - and his scent overwhelmed me.

"Pleased to meet you Alexander," I said, simply.

I was drifting. Somehow I was ... leaning ... towards him, my eyes on his lips. My rational mind was spluttering in astonishment, but the rest of me wasn't listening.

Fortunately at that moment I felt Das' cold hand on my forearm.

"May I have a word in private, Mama Jackie?" he said.

The next thing I remember was smelling salts under my nose. I was lying on a chaise longue in Das' darkened office with a cool cloth on my forehead.

"Oh my," I gasped, fanning my burning skin with a fluttering hand, and felt obliged to loosen my suddenly restrictive blouse. "Mr. Icarus is a more affecting gentleman. I feel quite flushed."

"Quite," said Das. He held out a glass of iced water and a pill.

"I can hardly see," I cried, laying the back of my fingers across my eyes as I lay weakly sprawled, my bosom heaving. "It's as if I have stared into the sun. I'm literally dazzled. What is this medicine that you are giving me?"

"It will make you feel better," said Das. "I'll explain exactly what it does when I explain exactly what we've done to Alexander Icarus."

He flicked at his remote control, and a green laser light beamed from the end as various computer screens burst into life and the room lights dimmed.

"This is what we started with," and a shot of pre-op Alexander popped up. He resembled one of the shorter Mexican mice from the Speedy Gonzalez cartoons. "He wanted not just to be handsome and strong, but also irresistable to women."

A screen showed a number of artworks such as Da Vinci's Vetruvian Man, Michaelangelo's David and Mapplethorpe's Ajitto.

"Our computers have all of the psychometric and psychological data for what is considered attractive in modern Western society."

Chemical and peptides structures were appearing and I recognised GnRH, androstadienone and the copulins, amongst others.

"We analysed the receptors in the human nose and engineered his scent glands to emit what we hoped was an hypnotic cocktail of odours."

There were slices of brain and spices of nerves, cross-sections of neck and onion peeled eyeballs.

"We combined tweaks of the hypothalamus and the periaqueductal gray of the midbrain with a carefully constructed facial design based on that of the golden eagle so that Alexander Icarus has the attitude and appearance of a sexual predator, and we altered the voice box with a larger larynx and thicker vocal chords to stimulate trust in the female."

The final product - Alexander Icarus in all his glory - appeared on all the screens, revolving around and around. Alexander turned his head to follow the "camera" and winked.

"Awesome work, Das," I said, hand to my mouth.

"Thank you, Mama Jackie," said Das.

"So what was the pill that you gave me?"

"When we had finished we found that we had a bit of a problem. Nobody could go near Alexander Icarus without being reduced to a drooling idiot."

"I see."

"I quickly threw together a cocktail of inhibitors to switch off human receptor/stimuli pathways, especially those of the sense of smell. Once we'd dosed ourselves, we could finally work with him."

I looked at Das closely. "You mean you have to take the cocktail as well?"

Das' eyes held mine. "Without it I'd be content to lie at his feet in chains, abused in every orifice and covered with his seed."

I hugged his head to my breast. "Poor baby," I said. "Well, you'll be relieved to know that the pill seemed to have worked for me too."

"That is a relief," said Das, straightening his tie. "I'm not sure that I'm comfortable with the concept of either of us behaving like simpering Southern belles."

Surely you say we should have shelved him and his siblings on the spot? Sadly, however, then I had one of my bright ideas.

It was moments after Alexander Icarus had left the room. I had just introduced him to the family as my new ersatz "fiancé".

"Fuck," said Amanda.

"Darling!" I said, irritably. "That's not the sort of language that I expect from a member of what will undoubtedly be America's first family."

"Fuck," said Amanda, again.

Nas looked vaguely confused. "I don't know what the fuss is about," he said. "He's got a firm handshake and looks good in a suit, but basically he reminds me of an Aryan version of George of the Jungle."

I kissed. "My dear son. You're so deliciously vanilla. But you don't hate him on sight? Das had a theory that people hate beautiful boys."

Das - who was sitting neatly on the end of my Manhattan couch finishing an entire book of Sudoku - looked up for a moment. He was absently tapping his teeth with a titanium fountain pen.

Nas shrugged. "He's pretty. Can he keep his mouth shut, though?"

"What could he possibly say?"

Bea and Amanda, both the colour of beetroot and with arms crossed tightly over their breasts, were banging shoulders and giggling.

"Well girls," I said. "Would you vote for him?"

They just burst out laughing.

"I'm sorry, Ms. Natla," said Bea. "I'm a bit lost for words."

Amanda whispered in Bea's ear and they had to go outside before they covered the floor with mirth-induced vomit.

"You'd better give them their medicine," observed Das.

"So do you think it is OK to make an announcement through the press office?" I said. "Take him to a few official functions?"

Das and Nas conferred.

"It's worth a try I suppose," said Nas. "But you must be careful Mama Jackie."

"We wouldn't want you to be embarrassed politically," said Das.

"My darling boys," I said, embracing them both.

I'd never experienced a cult of personality such as that which grew around Alexander Icarus. If one is the God-King of a worldwide empire then it's understandable - even holy - that people worship at one's feet. If one is a talented athlete or musician, then one expects young men and women to dream of lying in one's arms. But Alexander Icarus - or "XC" as he became known - was merely pretty and famous. Maybe people responded to him as some sort of embodiment of the Platonic Ideal.

Wherever we went, it wasn't me that the new crowds came to see; it was him.

"I wouldn't worry Mama Jackie," said Das, drily. "Every lovedrunk Maenad will lead to a punched chad."

"Smooth allusion," I said, "but remember Ikarios. Let's hope that our man fares better with the Bacchae."

Everywhere I saw boys and girls with XC jewellery, XC tattoos, XC shaved into their hair. My ratings in the polls rose and rose, ratings already high from the wunderkind that my clinics were spilling onto the streets, to the rage and jealousy of rival candidates and rival states.

The glossy magazines portrayed us as a new Michelle and Barak, a new Ronald and Nancy, a new Marilyn and JFK. We were invited onto chat shows and somewhat to my relief the hosts and the audiences seemed more interested in the clothing that "XC" wore than my plans to unite the world under my theocratic rule. I began to think that the American people didn't really care how they were governed, just as long as it was by somebody beautiful. If Hitler had turned up looking like a cool blonde surfer dude recently retired from the Marine Corps he'd have been a hit, no doubt. Which suited me just fine.

One afternoon I flopped down in the living room at Parajito Mesa and ordered a cold mojito. I thoguht that I was alone, but then I noticed a small movement in the corner.

"Hello?"

It was Bea Bartak, who - reading a book with Slipknot blasting into her headphones - had not noticed me come in.

I tapped her on the shoulder.

"Come over here and have a Long Island iced tea," I said. "Tell me all about the book you're reading."

Bea did as she was told and we sat and looked out at the desert. She visibly relaxed as the liquor hit her bloodstream and she realised that today wasn't her day to die at my hands.

I thumbed through the book, which was Gibbon's Decline and Fall Of The Roman Empire.

"I didn't know you liked history," I said.

"I love it," said Bea. "It's so full of ... blood." She pronounced the last world with a Transylvanian pout.

"The Romans were big fans of blood."

"So dark and romantic. The witty way in which it is written."

"Is there any particular emperor you like? Most people go for Caligula or Commodus or Caracalla - one of the camper Caesars. Or so I've heard."

Bea looked thoughtful, twirling the stud in her nose.

"I think," she said eventually, "that I like the Third Century. All of those little emperors, all those generals raised up by their soldiers. They rule for a few years and then they are assassinated and then a new favourite. Each because of the threat from the barbarians. It makes you wonder - why did they volunteer for the job, when it was obvious that they would only rule for a short time and then be murdered by the people who elected them? It is insanity."

My eye fell on the opening of Chapter Seven; "Of the various forms of government which have prevailed in the world, an hereditary monarchy seems to present the fairest scope for ridicule," it read.

"Did you know that Edward Gibbon died from swollen testicles?" I said.

I awoke suddenly, sucking in the drool from my lips and half sitting up in bed. Parajito Mesa is in the middle of the desert and there are no street lights. All I could see at first were the tiny red LEDs from various devices scattered about my room.

I found myself listening, trying to distinguish the faintest whisper above the roaring of blood in my ears and thump of my cardiac valves. The sockets over my shouder blades ached, whilst the rest of my body felt as if it had been suddenly unwrapped from a cocoon of cotton.

I levered my legs out of bed and reached for my silk robe.

"Hello?" I said, but my voice was too croaky to be understood. "Lights."

I'd ben suffering with a slight headache before sleep and so the illumination was set to a twilight level, but suddenly, I saw her.

"Gods save us!" I said, starting violently.

The figure was althletic and I could see a hunting rifle tied across her shoulders, resting on a small high rucksack. Her hair was twisted into a vicious ponytail, and she was dressed in shorts and desert boots. All I could see of her eyes was a glint and they seem to be narrowed and fixated on my face.

"This is it," I found myself thinking. I took a deep breath, never taking my eyes from her.

"More lights," said a familiar voice.

It was Jak.

I angrily poured myself a glass of ambrosia and gulped it down.

"What do you think you're doing, sneaking around my bedroom unannouced like that? You could have been ... anyone."

Jak was expressionless. She had been running and she was covered with sweat. "Am I not welcome in your bedroom any more, Jackie?" she said.

"What?" I said, putting down my glass, caught by the unexpected curve ball. I went to embrace Jak but she twisted away. "Of course you are. Why wouldn't you be?"

The anger was beginning to flood into Jak's face, despite herself.

"I've seen you and him on the television. Swanning around at openings and galas and chat shows. Like a king and a queen."

"Me and who?"

"You know perfectly well. I'm just not good enough for you anymore, is that it? A little bit too ethnic? A little bit too female?"

"Jak. Jak!" I tried to touch her but she wasn't having it. "You're being ridiculous."

"I've seen you holding hands and you saying how he's the love of your life."

"It's just a charade!"

"How you're going to have a lovely wedding and all the magazines will be there."

"A lavendar wedding!"

Jak glared at me. "Is it true that you have to take a tablet to stop you flinging yourself on him like some sort of bitch?"

I spluttered. "Well, yes. But it's not personal. I'm not even sure it's sexual."

Jak snorted derisively.

"It's ... he's been designed that way. In the lab. He taps into the deep subconscious. It's more like he triggers a very strong aesthetic appreciation ... it's more like saint worship than ... what you and I have."

"Had."

We locked gazes.

"You're finishing with me?" I said.

"Unless you finish with him."

"I'm not ... can I keep him around until after the election? You know how important ..."

"No. Now."

I've purposely left out most of the details of my gubernatorial campaign - the fund raisers, the interviews, the rallies - in order not to bore you, my faithful reader. However there is one rally, the last rally, which I do have to bore you with.

The boys had hired the Albuquerque Convention Center, finding a three day slot (against the odds) just after the Annual Meeting of the amusingly named American Vacuum Society. Apparently it was the venue of choice for politicians on the make; even the unfortunate Obama had spoken there just before winning the Presidency.

Naturally the security was handled by the Mauro Nero Company, overseen by the estimable Nas.

"Are we sure that Alexander Icarus is good enough at sky diving to pull it off?" said Nas, doubtfully.

"He must have done ... I dunno ... a hundred jumps by now?" I said. "He and that Cessna seem to be buzzing over the house every hour of the day."

Nas pointed at the map on the screen in front of us. "I've instructed the pilot; he's one of my best men. We've been given clearance for the plane to approach the Center from the east along Martin Luther King Avenue and then Alexander will paraglide over the building and land in the Plaza."

"And I hear he's planning to operate some smoke canisters on his ankles."

"I imagine he'll be highly visible, Mama Jackie. I've stationed snipers on the rooftop of the Convention Center and other overlook sites. The APD will be handling crowd control in the Plaza."

"Sheriff Arpaia isn't linked to the Albuquerque police is he?"

"No, Ma'am. And if he was, I'd have my men scattered even more thickly through the audience."

"And what about ... shall we call it the 'entertainment'?" I asked Das.

Das sighed. "We have a massed choir of Alexander Icarus co-patients to sing an 'Ode to Goodness' specially commissioned from Ted Nugent; we picked the blondest singers. And we have a sixty foot 3D display."

"How will you be able to see it in broad daylight?" interrupted Amanda, who had been sulkily thumbing through a magazine about bondage wear as we spoke.

Das smiled faintly. "I think you'll be impressed," he said.

"You truly are a reincarnation of your Uncle Tihocan," I said.

"Maybe a pale shadow of him."

I turned to Amanda.

"And how are you going to dress, my beloved family member and campaign supporter?"

Amanda looked started. "I didn't think I was going to be there."

I sighed. "Darling. You really are going to have start taking more interest in your manifest destiny."

"So I have to be there?"

"I want you next to me on the podium next to Nas and Das. One straight arrow American family. Big smiles. Mom's apple pie. That sort of thing."

Amanda had gone rather pale.

"What's up Sis?" said Nas, roughly hugging her round the shoulders. "Shy?"

"I guess," said Amanda.

"Darling." I touched her arm. "You look terrified. Don't worry - you can be as high as a kite provided you stand up straight and wave a lot."

Amanda nodded and her pupils re-dilated somewhat. "Can't I wear my normal clothes?" she said, eventually. "I promise to put on a gingham dress and have a preppy hairdo for the Presidentials if I can just be myself for this."

Das giggled. "Gingham," he said. He squeezed Amanda's hand.

"It'll make you look magnanimous," continued Amanda. "In with the kids, that sort of thing. Besides, you wouldn't want people to get us confused."

We all turned to look at her.

I drew her over to a mirror and we stood there. I noted the same triangular face and the high forehead, the same bobbed blonde hair, the same mouth, the same nose. I wasn't sure whether to be flattered or not.

I relented. "O.K., darling." I said. "If it'll make you happy."

Amanda and Bea had opted for identical outfits and to my job they were not only feminine but they were excellently tailored.

"Maybe I've been a little short-sighted in my perception of how you emo types dress up," I said, handing them each a glass of champagne from the limousine minibar.

Their long dresses were mostly white silk, with strapless halter tops, the dress figure-hugging, with a Morticia Addams aesthetic. The fronts were covered with filigreed black lace panels, whilst the backs consisted of leather straplets criss-crossing between D-shaped metal hoops. The sleeves were long but made of a light material, with ruffled cuffs. The lace was embedded with tiny black stones, possibly adamantine and Brazilian onyx, which glinted in the sunlight and emphasised every feminine curve.

"We dress like the Moravian Royal Family," said Bea, proudly.

"What she said," said Amanda, gulping a couple of pills with her champagne and reaching for more."

"What are those, darling?"

"Ecstasy. You said you wanted me to smile and wave."

"Just don't get dehydrated. It's a hot day."

"No shit," said Amanda. "If I get too hot I'm stripping off."

Bea giggled. She held up her foot wear for my inspection. They were white velvet shoes with four inch Mary Jane heels, open topped and held on with thin bondage straps.

"Can you walk in them?"

Bea tossed her head. "But of course."

They had raised up their hair into improbable bird nests pierced with rods of steel, decorated with precious stones and the odd feather. Their bare shoulders were tattooed with what looked like multi-coloured bruises and the skin glittered from the application of some cunning cosmetic or another. They looked like the Black and White Queens from a Gothic chess set, both just back from a hot night out with the denizens of the underworld.

A tear sprang to my eye. I suddenly saw them as Atlantean Princesses.

"Good grief, Mother!" said Amanda as she spied my tears. "Have some more champagne."

"I'm very proud," I said.

I myself had chosen an outfit that matched with that of Das and Nas , more specifically Nas, who was in his dress uniform. We all wore a variation of white shirt, blue tie and belted blue trousers. Nas had his gold braid and his combat service badges, all topped off with a blue beret. Das looked very similar, but with a discrete Natla Tech set of badge, tiepin and cufflinks, and a very NASA looking gold pen in his top pocket. I had allowed myself the addition of a very short jacket from an evening dress - titanium white - with long sleeves and slightly padded shoulders. In my ears and at my throat twinkled Mozambique tourmalines of an imperial purple, set in African red gold.

As we were helped from the limousines all five of us donned identical aviator sunglasses, Bea and Amanda additionally raising two chichi umbrellas so that they, like Chinese royalty, could be shielded form both the sun and the gaze of any uncouth peasants that might be lurking nearby.

As we appeared here was a roar from a crowd, a wall of sound, the voice of a tsunami. The cameras clattered like crickets.

"If it is not obvious to all watchers that we are born to rule," I said to myself, smiling gravely and circling my right hand like Queen Elizabeth, "then the earth has tipped from its axes." I offered up a quick prayer to the Lords of the Sea and the Sky.

Projected on sky screens all about us, the choir of Das' sonnenkinder burst into a cappella song, their blonde hair and azure eyes glinting in the sunlight and their right arms raised in salutation;

That Jacqueline Natla, New Mexican Queen
She lookin' so clean, speci'lly in between
She's so sweet in the Governor's seat
Down on the street you know she can't be beat

You better cross your way (Better come and see)
You better cross your way (Jackie N and XC)
You better cross your way (Our destiny)
To GOODNESS!

"Jackie N!" screamed the crowd in Pavlovian fashion. "GOODNESS!"

We had processed to a garlanded dais at one side of the Plaza, bedecked with balloons and campaign posters of myself, when the sound of the Cessna became audible over the howling electorate.

Delicately clearing my throat I leaned into the baroque Neumann microphone and said "Hello there Albuquerque!"

I introduced the family; all stepped forward and bowed slightly with the exception of Amanda who started jumping up and down like a victim of St. Vitus' Dance and had to be restrained.

"And of course there is one person missing," I said, throatily. "My beloved fiancé - Alexander Icarus!"

I mimed turning and raising a hand to shield my eyes, indicated with my body language that the mob should follow my gaze skywards.

"XC!" they began to roar. "XC!"

A few hundred feet up - I'm not sure exactly - Alexander Icarus had tipped out of the plane. His wing was bright yellow and had in its centre a red circle with groups of rays pointing in four directions, the Zia Sun Symbol from the New Mexican flag and from the Atzlan Confederacy. From the ground it looked as if he was flying closely to the flames.

The crowd roared and began to chant "XC!", their right hands raised in a straight armed salute. My eyes began to swim, and for a second it seemed to me that the face that I had seen in the sun looked very similar to Alexander Icarus' face. A shudder went through me, un-noticed by anybody else.

Then as he was rapidly descending - blue and red smoke trailing from each ankle, lining up on the Plaza in front of us - something seemed to punch him on the shoulder and there was a spray of red. He spun, his lines tangled, the foil folded and he began to fall like a teardrop. The last lift of his wing took him to the front of one of the orange adobe blocks of the Convention Center and into an unoccupied painter's cradle. His arms became draped over the cradle rail, splaying him out in a pose of crucifixion, his dying legs kicking the empty air.

Maybe there was flammable material in the painter's cradle. Maybe his ankle canisters exploded. Whatever the reason, he burst into flames. A cloud crept over the sun so that his burning body, like a KKK cross, shed light over the watchers.

I didn't see any of this personally - I reviewed the tapes later. Just as Alexander Icarus was twisting in mid air, a bullet caught me in the back.

The last things that I saw were Nas, sheltering Bea and scanning around with furious eyes, and Amanda, her face decorated by blood, staring at me in expressionless shock.

It actually took me a few days to regain consciousness, and by then the election for Governor was over.

The first face that I saw was Das, who was holding my hand in his cold fingers and gazing into my face intently, like a puppy watching its master. As I focussed on him relief flooded his face and he attempted to hug me, his tears falling on my skin.

They wouldn't give me any news initially, although I noted the extra security outside the door of my suite.

Then Nas came to see me, and wearily sat down in the plastic chair next to my bed, waving away the other occupants of the room.

"What the hell happened?" I croaked furiously as soon as we were alone.

"You're not to over-excite yourself, Mama Jackie."

"The hell with that! Someone tried to kill me."

Nas laid his hand on mine and spoke quietly and reasonably. "The bullet came from across the plaza from a raised bank behind some bushes. We have the bullet and we have identified the rifle. We brought in Jicarilla Elkhorn and questioned her, but she was out of town at the time and the bullet was not fired from her hunting rifle. We've examined the CCTV and amateur videos, and found nothing. The F.B.I. are still on the case."

"I want to know."

"You will."

My rage dissipated somewhat.

"Asides from that, everything went like clockwork. Governor."

I sat up in bed.

"I won?"

"You won. You already had them in the palm of your hand but the assassination of your fiancé on primetime sealed the deal. The first independent Governor since some professional wrestler or other won in Minnesota."

"I didn't know you could win an election from a hospital bed.

Nas laughed. "I checked it out. In the 19th century some guy called Goebel who was standing for Governor of Kentucky was shot. They swore him in on his death bed."

I started to get up. "They're not swearing me in on my death bed." I was weak and in pain, I discovered. "Get me drugs, bionics and cloned organs - whatever. I'm out of here within 24 hours."

Nas grinned. "At once, Madam Governor. "

I sat down again as a thought struck me.

"What about our man? You say the F.B.I. are investigating."

"I think the confusion after your shooting actually helped us. We got him away from the roof of the Convention Centre before people realised what was going on. We left nothing behind."

"What about the bullet?"

"You're not going to believe this, but it's gone missing. When Alexander Icarus burned, he effectively disintegrated. Bits of him were showering down for hours and the fans were fighting over the remains. As trophies. Or relics, maybe. The guy's been practically canonised. No doubt the evidence will turn up in a few years encrusted in jewels and on display in a reliquary in The Church of the Sacred Bullet."

I gaped at him. "So we not only got away with it, but now Alexander Icarus is turning into some male version of Eva Peron?"

We "high-fived" and continued laughing for a very long time.

At my swearing in, I was escorted by Jak, who was hanging onto my arm. I was dressed in mourning black but she was dressed in exultant white. She looked like a supermodel. Let people think what they liked now, I thought. Was she my nurse? When asked I just described her as a "close friend". Jak was glowing with happiness, which made both me and the cameras love her even more.

We had a slight constitutional crisis, apparently, in that I hadn't put forward a candidate for Lieutenant Governor, but it was agreed that the previous incumbent, one of my rivals, should stay in post until someone came up with a better idea. It suited me fine. She had far more experience running the state bureaucracy than I even wanted to gain.

The State Capitol of New Mexico, the Roundhouse, wouldn't have looked out of place in Atlantis. The building when viewed from above was designed to resemble the Zia Sun Symbol, with four entrance wings that protruded from the main cylindrical volume. My beautiful office on the fourth floor looked out into a central space above which was positioned a ceiling skylight designed to resemble an "Indian" basket weave, with blue and pale pink stained glass representing the sky and the earth, respectively. I felt as at home as if I'd been in a palace on the shore of the Inner Circular Sea.

I gave a couple of interviews, donated my entire Gubernatorial salary to health care insurance for local government employees and then announced I was taking a couple of week's leave to recover further from my gunshot wound. In actuality I was as fit as a flute, but I needed time to try and come to terms with the fact that some malefactor had tried to murder me.

One of my favorite weapons had always been the "biogenic weapon" that had allowed me to shoot fireballs from my wrist. The bioelectricity generated by a mutant Electrophorus that I wore around my waist was used to ignite the semi-sulfurous saliva from a mixotrophic Ascidiacea. My belt was studded with trillium crystals to store the electrical charge and peridot phials to store the expectorate, the whole connected by peristaltic trachea made of gold and fiber. This device, combined with my wings, had once provided quite a good battle get-up, especially in Atlantean times. However as I recalled it hadn't proved particularly effective against a pair of well-aimed single-action 9 mm Browning Hi-Power semi-automatic handguns.

And so I had commissioned armour, an amalgam of light-weight chitin, shape-shifting cartilage, self-camouflaging chromophore cells and heat-retardant chlorinated cactus skin. I'd road tested it once and it had saved me from a fall into sub-zero Eitr. The armour was thin-enough and body-conforming enough to be worn under a not very flattering asbestos pyjama suit which the Techies had christened "The Straightjacket".

I got all of the gear out of storage and practiced with it. I was fit enough - I had to remain fit enough for my annual bull dance - but I saw no harm in being fitter and quicker. Until I knew who was after me, I had to be prepared to defend myself. I had copies of my battle gear stored in every office and every vehicle.

I retired to Parajito Mesa after giving them instructions to beef up the security.

I was seated at the back veranda, sipping on a cold glass of ambrosia and listening to "Java Jive" by the Ink Spots. I was vaguely admiring my new toy parked on my private runway; my brand new Learjet 85, one of the first few out of the factory. I could hear the throb of a tanker pump as the pilot refueled it, ready for a moment's takeoff. The setting sun silhouetted its sleek shape, a swift steel shark of the sky.

"I love java, sweet and hot", I sang softly.
"Whoops! Mr. Moto, I'm a coffee pot
Shoot me the pot and I'll pour me a shot
A cup, a cup, a cup, a cup, a cup!"

I guess I should have wondered why exactly they were refueling the jet so late at night. I should have realised that there was one person that no amount of extra security could keep out.

I stood up and stretched. It was early November but in the desert it was warm and dry. I breathed deeply of the perfume of the plants and listened to the whispers of the nocturnal animals emerging from their burrows.

I had the house to myself. Das had business in Bangalore, whilst Bea and Nas were romancing in Vientiane. Amanda appeared to be spending her time in London getting out of low slung cars without any underwear on, as far as I could tell. The attempt on my life seemed to have driven her into an intoxicated panic, and I hoped that she would manage to get it all out of her system without doing a River Phoenix.

I waved my hand to close the shutters and told the house system to lock down for the night. I put the kettle on whilst I stepped into the shower. I gently soaped the healing scars and tried to condition some bounce back into my tired hair.

I sat for a while in front of the television, sipping my lemon tea. It seemed to me that the more news that I watched the more it began to repeat itself, like a tired drama that had jumped the shark.

"Soon all that will change," I said to myself. "I'll shake your windows and rattle your walls."

I tried to read some more of my Encyclopedia of Myth but my eyelids failed me.

"Lights," I said, and went into my bedroom. I sat in front of my dressing table mirror and looked at myself. I suppose many people look for signs of advancing age or enumerate their perceived flaws, but I merely smiled at myself. "I'm alive," said my ocean blue eyes. "I'm happy," said my lips.

Only vampires should be able to creep up behind you when you're looking a mirror, but suddenly I found an arm around my throat, choking me. My cry was strangled and I knocked the light onto the floor.

I could feel the body of my assailant and the breath jetting out of their nostrils onto the back of my neck. I gurgled but couldn't speak or stand and I could see a trembling in my peripheral vision as I grew faint.

I had thought the choke hold was hurting me, but it didn't compare to the pain that suddenly flared from my mouth. My attacker had rammed something cold and hard into my lips, and I could feel blood spurting from my ripped flesh. A hand jabbed insistently with the object, forcing my jaws open so my mouth was filled with metal. My teeth felt as is they were being damaged as I was forced to chew on what I had realised was a gun. Some sharp protuberance had scraped the skin at the roof of my mouth, and the long hard barrel was being forced into my throat so that I gagged.

I started to thrash my arms and the chair on which I was pinned turned in a quarter circle, teetering on one leg. My attacker merely tightened both their hold and the pressure of the gun in my mouth.

Then in turning I caught sight of the two us in a wall mirror, and as I did my eyes met hers. I can't quite describe the sensation but it was as if a stream of information crackled between us. I recognised her and was astonished. She saw my astonishment and seemed momentarily shocked herself. My eyes widened in a pleading expression, a glare for mercy. Her eyes hardened and a nasty smile crept over her face.

As I watched, she cocked the pistol, loading a round into the chamber under my nose. She watched my reaction as she did it.

I stared at her, indicating my panic and pleading wordlessly that surely she didn't mean to do this?

Her smile faded.

"Absolutely," she said, and began tighten her finger on the trigger.

---

Interlude; "Astarte"

Astarte's first Temple of Demeter wasn't a conventional temple building as such, but a twenty-three step ziggurat with a golden tree at the summit. It was there that she had sacrificed her lover Captain Attis in one of the first ceremonies of her new state religion.

"Why is she sacrificing him?" whispered Tihocan in my ear as we stood, dressed to the nines, the Atlantean Royal Family on full display.

"It's a holy act of some sort. We show the gods how much we worship them by giving up something valuable."

"What's so valuable about a dead body?"

Qualopec – these were the days before he was crippled – added, sotto voce. "And which gods are benefiting from this death? Demeter, is it?"

It was all I could do to stop myself scratching my head in puzzlement. "I don't think we are literally talking about the Olympean Demeter," I said. "As far as I can tell Astarte is making herself the personification of Demeter on earth. For the people to worship."

"So … she's killing her boyfriend as a sacrifice … to herself?" said Tihocan.

"Don't ask me," I said, irritably. "I'm just a scientist."

However the combination of a bloody crucifixion, the lovely new ziggurat and the appearance of use four Royals seemed to please our subjects. Astarte might be bonkers but she had her audience in the palm of her hand.

A few days after the spectacle or ceremony or performance art or whatever it was, I wondered over to the Mansion of Azaes and Diaprepes to see my famous, and by now heavily pregnant sister. (The foetus had congealed from the sperm of the now dead Attis.)

"Greetings to my Brightly Shining Sister Astarte, Defender of the Faith and Pioneer of the Atlantean State," I hailed her.

"Greetings to my Royal Sister, Her Royal Highness Natla, Ruler, Empress and Goddess of the Western Territories," said Astarte, who forearms were red with blood. Laid out on the marble slab in front of her were a couple of dead piglets and an array of metal instruments. Her shiny red fingers twinkled as she complemented her words with ceremonial overtones of meaning such as "love", "respect" and "peace".

"You will be overtaking me in the science of anatomy, my learned sibling," I observed.

"I could never attempt to match your all encompassing knowledge nor your sense of the deeper processed both microscopic and macroscopic," smiled Astarte. "No, I was merely trying out some new blades, amalgams made by our excellent brother Tihocan for my examination."

"To what end?"

"I am interested in the mechanisms of flensing and flaying, skinning and scalping. Sundry mutilations - noses, lips and so on."

I found myself raising an eyebrow. We Atlanteans were fairly blasé about death and suffering and to us slaves, prisoners or war and such like were of less consequence than a useful animal, such as, for example, a laying hen or a swift hound. We did not see all human life as equally valuable. Nonetheless Astarte's obsession with blood seemed to me a little … dismal.

"How about we go down to that artificial beach that you like on the edge of the Middle Circular Sea?" I suggested, playfully. "We could drink those intoxicated fish drinks you used to gulp down by the half dozen."

"What a pleasant idea, my Esteemed Natla," said Astarte, holding a sickle up to the light and examining the fine wave pattern in the metal of its blade. "I fear however that I have to be ready for the birth of this child."

I glanced at the servants hovering nearby. "What is there to prepare for? We have at hand towels and water and the midwives. A young physically fit specimen like yourself should have no more trouble birthing than a peasant woman squatting in a pond."

Astarte laughed. "You misunderstand," she said, washing her hands in a bowl of water and drying them on a silken cloth. "The birth will be nothing, but so will the child, a mere bastard, illegitimate, not worthy, not royal."

"That's a bit harsh. Why, my own mother Atlanta was nothing more than a chattel, a piece of goods, a thing, and yet our father Atlas sanctified her unworthiness by making her, however briefly, his queen."

Astarte embraced me. "I meant no comparison, no slight. The two situations are as alike as ice and glass, fire and flowers, wind and song – only superficially, not in the slightest atom the same. No – this child of mine was a crime, an abomination, and I need a way to atone and to be seen to atone."

I put my hand around her shoulder and looked into her guileless indigo eyes. "So what do you propose?"

"A ceremony. True - I could excoriate the foetus like a tumour or a chancre and fling the resulting five fistfuls of flesh to the dogs and have done. But then I thought – is this not an opportunity? Can we create light out of dark, meaning out of chaos, beauty out of tawdriness?"

"You sound a little fevered, my beloved sister," I said, placing the back of my fingers on her hot brow. "Let us sit together on the bench by the fountain under the olive tree, and I shall bid brought some chilled ambrosia and light rice cakes whilst we hold our conversations."

"Very well," she said, somewhat reluctantly. "I see one of my architects hovering, clasping plans for the new Temple, his brow decorated with blood, sweat and tears. May as well receive him in comfort."

We adjourned to the bower as suggested and I signalled for cooling peacock feather fans to be waved over us and a lyre quartet of soothing sonorance to sound.

"Come Dōrieis," said Astarte, "bring me joy or I shall execute the messenger."

Dōrieis' lips trembled and his eyes filled with tears. He was a clever man, a mature man, a family man, an artist and an artisan and yet all of this is of no consequence when one is a disappointer of princes. May as well be a dumb dolt.

As he trembled out his news – the second Temple of Demeter was behind schedule – Astarte picked up the incense stand (that which kept pests and irritants away from our Royal presences) and after pressing the lighted coals into his eyes, beat him to death with it. I contributed a couple of kicks to his prone body.

"You just cannot get the staff!" she raged, stamping her little slippered feet. "Feed his corpse to the Royal Eels and execute his entire family."

"Maybe some pity to dilute the fully justified Royal fury?" I suggested. "Mercy is like a light drizzle dropping from the heavens, as the saying goes."

"Very well. Merely exile the bloodline of this leech, feeding on my time and patience."

"Wise and moderate, my Sublime Sister."

"And yet still I am tempered beyond the melting point."

"Have some mint leaves with your ambrosia and let me stroke your fingers."

We sat in contemplation for a while. I cannot describe the interval in modern minutes, for as you know the Atlantean time scale had one hundred "seconds" to the "minute" and one hundred "minutes" to the "hour" and ten "hours" to the day, and counting Atlantean "seconds" is two or three times faster than counting modern seconds … but let say it was five to ten minutes of silence.

"Well maybe, like the birth, we can make a virtue of a disaster and have the new Temple deliberately rather than accidently shorn of all ornament."

"It might be pleasantly understated and set a new vogue."

"Maybe we could call the new style Dorian after their hapless creator, meaning basic, humble, unostentatious." Astarte's humour was returning. "Plain columns, square pedestals and capitals, blank walls, glassless windows."

"An artistic notion," I said. "My sister is lyric in her vision."

We sat for a further Atlantean while, watching the wildfowlers ensnaring various types of nightingale and wren in their nets by the shore.

"I just go for a lark's tongue," I said. "With pomegranate."

"I'm peckish, but wait!" Astarte sat up suddenly, her eyes flashing with her idea. She gestured to a slave and whispered in their ear.

"What?" I asked, smiling.

"I have a new dish for you to pronounce upon."

After a moment or two a server approached with a dish of ice harvested from The Mountain. Arrayed tastefully on the surface were what looked like chilled flakes of the most thinly and delicately carved meat, pink and mouth-watering.

Astarte chose a fragment morsel with a silver prong and held it to my lips. "I cannot decide if it is best 'as is' or whether it requires a dressing or condiment of some description," she said.

"What is it?"

"I shall wager a thousand obols and gladly pay if you can guess."

"You have yourself a bet, my Royal Sister," I said, confident that my princely palate and scientist's senses would identify the dish.

The meat was melting, delicious, a prize, like baked and honeyed pork, or the most tenderised and highest quality porpoise flesh. My saliva burst forth and I found myself 'smacking my lips' as they say. The surface texture was that of peaches and yet the sinews were like the best of boiled heart or of bull's pizzle.

"By the Lords of the Sea and the Sky," I exclaimed. "What culinary treasure is this?"

"That, my Beloved One, is for you to guess or to suffer the forfeit."

Well, dear reader, I tried. Jaguars' earlobes, wolf nipple chips, otters' noses - I named a delicatessen of dishes. Astarte giggled.

Eventually I gestured to one of the household servants. "Fetch the Lady Astarte a thousand obols," I said. "She has bested me, no easy feat, and has well earned the wages of her wager. So?"

Astarte smiled for a second and then said "Human! Human flesh. To be precise - the meat of an infant, milk-fed to the perfect weight and then blood-drained and prepared to my exact instructions by my chef."

Slaves are not supposed to pay attention to the conversation of their masters unless bade to, but I caught one or two looking at me ought of the corner of their eye, interested no doubt in my reaction to the news.

I dabbed my lips with a napkin and raised a goblet in a salute. I felt fine, but I was – shall we say – a bit surprised.

"An interesting choice," I said, carefully. "Not something that one hears of much in Atlantis."

"But one of impeccable pedigree," said Astarte. "Was not our own Grandfather Poseidon devoured alive by Great-grandfather Cronos?"

"Of course. Now you mention it, I recall the incident." Personally I regarded the whole Cronos incident as a political allegory about how the Olympeans had bested another race in some fashion, but I was prepared to let the subject drop. I gestured at the pink and blue clouds. "Wonderful weather we're having for the time of year don't you think?"

Astarte wasn't stupid, and she gave me a piercing purple stare from beneath her black curls.

"You disapprove?"

I laughed. "I neither approve nor disapprove, my darling Astarte. It's not my choice of dish, but it is yours and that all there is to it."

"Did you not say it was delicious?"

"It is, as are many things, but I do not eat them all."

"Name one thing."

I struggled. "Liquorice root. I love the taste but fear for the whiteness of my teeth."

Astarte snorted and then sat sipping silently at her ambrosia.

"Is it the death of a human that offends?" she said.

"Of course not, provided they were born of a slave," I said. "We regularly slaughter people of all ages for a number of reasons.

"It is that the human was an infant?"

"I love eating young flesh, be it veal, lamb or puppy. Yum yum."

"It is eating the meat of a being bred solely for the cooking pot?"

"I would be a hypocrite if I did," I said, "for I regularly stuff myself on the breasts of corn-fattened geese. Why, I even think one could modify animals using the scientific arts merely to make then more toothsome."

Astarte raised an eyebrow. "I'm not sure I'd want to eat food assembled in a workshop."

"Well, there you are. We all have our likes and dislikes. May I offer you a small cake?"

And so eventually came the day when Astarte gave birth to her own bundle of deliciousness and, as I have recounted elsewhere, braised the corpse on a Sacred Brazier and disarticulated it with Sacred Artefacts before dedicating the sacrifice to deities that were only apparent to herself. The congregation received the sliced and iced slivers of flesh on their tongues, with Astarte urging them to eat that they might have eternal life. It seemed that Tihocan's razors were a great success.

Afterwards Qualopec came to see me. He strode in, unclasping his bronze sword before throwing it down, and then sat on a squat stool, legs apart, his manhood visible beneath his military skirt.

"No formal greeting, my dear brother? No loving exchange of titles?" I said, kissing him on the cheek.

"There is no time today, my beautiful Natla. We already know who we are. Or I thought that we did."

"Of course, my paragon of masculinity. What's the emergency? More taunts and attacks by the Amazons of Libya?"

"This business of Astarte killing and eating babies," said Qualopec, accepting a goblet of alcoholic beverage and knocking back a gulp. "It seems wrong to me."

"Oh?" I said neutrally.

A faintly haunted look began to creep across Qualopec's craggy features. "Let me attempt to explain by use of an anecdote," he said.

"I love a good anecdote," I said.

"From time to time during our campaign to civilise the world we have come across savage tribes, little more than cavemen, who devour each others' flesh. They chomp away with gusto and without a qualm. Creatures barely possessing language, what little wits they have seemingly sapped by dining on the fresh brains of their compatriots. The sight of these shaggy howling beasts throwing down rocks onto our regiments from the arid crags of some nameless mountain range still chills my dreams. These beasts - for I will not name them men - present us with a grim precedent."

"Are you attributing their barbarism to their cannibalism or vice versa?"

Qualopec smiled. "Spoken like a courtier," he said. "Maybe both. My point is that perhaps the human race is a race apart, a race beloved of the gods, created in the image of the gods. Some creator took the undifferentiated stuff of life that teems over the land and in the sea, and like a sculpter has breathed significance into insentient clay."

I shrugged. "It is true that there appears to be something that differentiates us from the common apes," I said, "some of whom, like the chimpanzee, think nothing of devouring each other. As a scientist I had always concluded that the difference was merely an opposable thumb and a gift for vocalisation, but as the grandchild of an Olympean God I am forced to acknowledge the existence of the unknowable other."

"You take my point?" said Qualopec vigorously. "Maybe we have been placed in this paradise on earth like treasured pets of the gods, and as such our own flesh is like a forbidden fruit."

"You fear that if we eat this fruit the knowledge of our own former natures will overcome us, and that we will, for the first time, feel ashamed to be human?"

"I fear you have lost me there, beloved sister. But I am strictly a Lords of the Sea and the Sky kind of man, and although I recognise the right, perhaps even duty, of Astarte as High Priestess of the Atlantean State to examine new forms, new way of thinking, I cannot help but feel uneasy. An admittedly illogical voice inside me cries out that eating people is wrong."

I could not help but nod at his words. We sat in silence, each lost in thought.

Then I thought I saw a way through that might satisfy everybody, even the gods if they were paying the remotest attention to Astarte and her infanticidal antics.

"Maybe we could pass a law," I suggested, "forbidding the eating of human flesh to all but a select elite, a priesthood who stray from the natural to the supernatural, risking and sacrificing their own beings for the greater glory of the gods?"

"Martyrs of the occult, risking heavenly wrath in the pursuit of an arcane truth?" said Qualopec. "With Astarte at their head, her more insane impulses channelled into religion."

"A state-sponsored Holy Lunatic."

Qualopec leapt to his feet and grasped my forearm. "By truth I think she has it," he exclaimed. "Happy Atlantis to be governed by such wise rulers as ourselves."

"May we reign for a thousand years," I replied.

It was some time later and we Royals were sat in the rain watching Astarte's latest ceremony atop the first Temple of Demeter, now renamed by her the Pyramid of Mars. She had caused to be dragged to the new stone altar (that replacing the Golden Tree of Attis) a screaming prisoner of war, captured in one of Qualopec's many military triumphs. Before our eyes she cut the living heart from his body and presented it to the thunderous sky.

"Land of Blood and Glory," she sang, "Empire of the Freed. See how we extol thee, with this ghastly deed."

"Still as nutty as a fruit bat," muttered Qualopec, the rain dripping from his helmet.

"The people seem to like it," said Tihocan hopefully.

"I quite like it in a weird sort of way," I said. "It's always interesting to see what atrocity her fertile imagination comes up with next."

"I love a good public execution myself," said Qualopec, "but does it all have to be so avant garde? What's wrong with chopping their heads off or throwing them from the nearest cliff?"

Tihocan poked him playfully. "Oh go on, Big Brother. You love it really. Our Royal Sister is a genius."

And that note we ended in agreement, applauding politely as Astarte kicked the still twitching body down the blood-stained pyramid steps before calling for the next sacrifice.

---

Snow White Tan

I awoke rather slowly, sluggishly. I could sense that the two syrettes that she had slammed into each of my carotid arteries had contained morphine.

I rubbed my eyes. I took in my surroundings panicked jerks of my head, like a trapped pigeon. I was aboard a jet plane - presumably my Learjet 85 - and we were in the air. The roar of the engines augmented the roar of blood in my ears, and the faint smell of gas increased my nausea.

I staggered to my feet, banging my head on the ceiling. I was in a luxuriously-appointed cylinder 6 feet by 6 feet by 24 feet and in my present frame of mind it reminded me of a glistening white sarcophagus. I stumbled forward to the head - the bright shininess of it smote my eyes as I vomited. The Learjet 85 lavatory is beautifully appointed, combining function with flawless aesthetics, the brochure had said. I stumbled across the aisle to wash myself. Among its many amenities are a faucet and sink with pressurized water flow and water tank, as well a vanity cabinet with lighted mirror. Perfectly rolled handtowels nestled in something that resembled a glass wine rack.

I tried the handle to the pilot's cabin. It was locked and I wasn't ready to break it down. I could see nothing out of the windows. We may as well have been flying through Tartarus.

There were 16 seats in the cabin, nestled in sets of four around bijou tables, all unoccupied.

At the back I found a fridge, with inside some bottles of champagne and the sort of freeze dried snacks one finds in a hotel minibar. I washed down some peanuts with the wine. Whatever was happening, I needed my strength back and my wits about me. There's something about the bubbly sharpness of a good champagne that can restore anybody's self-confidence. The fridge wasn't quite fully stocked, as if somebody had already been helping themselves.

I tried the various gadgets scattered around the cabin used for getting or transmitting information. The computer map had been turned off, as had the phones.

I went to the rear closet, coded to my biometric data. Whoever had kidnapped me hadn't broken into it. I know then that I was armed and that I could escape, if necessary.

I took another swig of champagne and found myself narrowing my eyes as I glared down the plane at the pilot cabin.

"Someone," I said, "has been a very naughty girl."

I strode down the plane and hammered on the door.

"Get out here for an ass-whooping!" I yelled.

There was no response.

"This is my aeroplane and I want it back!"

No response.

"If you don't open this door in seconds I'm getting the fire axe ..." I didn't know if there really was a fire axe "... and I'm coming in there to take you down with extreme prejudice!"

Suddenly the Learjet flipped over so that we were upsidedown. I thudded into the roof. There was a roar of the engine as the jet went into an impossibly steep dive. I was floating, gravity-less. Then it started to pull up suddenly so that I was thrown heavily to the floor.

I knew when I was beaten. I crawled back to my seat and slumped heavily into it. As I sat there breathing deeply in order to regain my equanimity, a recessed television began to appear from a recess in front of me, emblazoned with the Natla Tech logo.

"In-Flight Information Film.

Sit down and watch

or risk getting shot."

Enter a weirdly young looking Winston Jeeves, Lara Croft's butler. He has grey hair but it looks like a young mop of hair dyed grey. His stance is that of a much younger man and his fan is tanned and smooth.

Winston: "Do I have to do this, Miss Croft?"

Female voice offscreen: "Just get on with it."

WInston: "With all due respect, Miss, but wouldn't you be better?"

Female voice: "You know I hate being photographed and the idea of appearing in a movie is ... well, quite frankly ... appalling, Now please - stop whining and get started, there's a good chap.

Winston (sighing and straightening his tie): "Very well, Miss. First slide please."

There is the clack of a vintage rotary slide projector and behind Winston on a slightly haphazardly hung white sheet appear the words "The City Of Tinnos."

Winston: "Well, first we have an account of an underground site situated on the Antarctic Peninsula that Ms. Croft explored in about 1998."

The next slide shows a map of the Antarctic Peninsula, a sort of snout-like protuberance jutting northwards from the bulk of the continent towards the tip of South America.

"So called from local legend." Winston, shuffling and dropping papers. "Architectural detail vaguely Polynesian, but actual architecture completely unlike any other. Mutant insects, some man size, able to function in sub-zero temperatures, not unlike the Arctic Bumble Bee or the Antarctic Midge."

Female voice: "Is there a problem?"

Winston: "No, Madam. No problem. Just having to squint at your handwriting. Mutants ... glow in dark like fireflies, and some shoot ball lightning from the abdomen tip. Unsure if native or result of meteor radiation."

The next slide shows some badly drawn animals, one resembling a giant green hornet, and the other, something from H..

Female voice: "Tell them that I apologise for my lack of artistic skills. I'd have provided photos but quite frankly I was too busy trying not to get my head blown off to take tourist snaps."

Winston: "I think that they can hear you, Madam."

Female voice: "Continue then."

Winston: "Recurring motif in Tinnos architecture is the sun:"

The next slide shows a circle surmounting five chunky downward-pointing rays.

Winston: "Unknown mythology - not Polynesian, Egyptian or Aztec for example - but may refer either to sun worship or light driven power sources ... one found on site still functioning as a pillar of energy. Next slide."

An old black and white slide - unclear whether it is a photo or a drawing - showing a sled team in the foreground on a flat snowfield with mountains in the background.

Winston: "Included in a letter written in 1936 by Grigory Shelikhov and sent from the 3rd base of the British Alexander Land Expedition. This expedition explored the Antarctic Peninsula by sea, air, and dog team from 1935 to 1937, using a different base each winter."

He indicates the middle of the picture with a wooden pointer.

Winston: "Here, at precisely 70th Parallel South, 70th Meridian West, one of the sled teams thought that they spotted what they described as a 'pyramidal peak' nestling in the Mount Umbriel Range. Unfortunately the weather closed in before they could investigate further."

Female voice: "OK good. Here, catch!"

Winston stumbles as he catches a large whitish object thrown from off screen.

Winston: "Remarkable - fished out of the ruins and not a dent or a scorch mark."

Female voice: "One of the few things that survived the fire at the Mansion."

Winston holds the object up to the camera. It is a white head, with features resembling Agamemnon's Mask and studded with various tubes, a la one of Doctor Who's Cybermen.

Winston: "An Olympian warrior. A sort of ... biomechanical device. Which bring us onto the next portion of our presentation. Next slide please?"

A title slide appears with "Olympus Mons" written on it in crayon.

Winston: "Before the Atlanteans there were the Olympeans. In the late 1990's we dug up one of their spacecraft in the grounds of the Croft Mansion."

A photo of a large empty hole in the ground.

Winston: "Lady Croft and various companions activated the device and it flew them to the planet Mars, to the extinct volcano named Olympus Mons."

A photo of Olympus Mons on Mars, photographed from orbit.

Winston: "There they discovered the tombs of various Olympeans, including those of the beings known to mythology as Poseidon and Ares."

A picture of a statue - a man with a horse's head.

Female voice: "This photo probably isn't directly relevant - it's a picture of Vadavamukha, a Vedic deity. But in the Tomb of Demeter, or 'Diwija' as she was called, we viewed an ancient projection that showed beings with horses' heads. Taking part in a ceremony called the Thesmophoria."

Winston: "As Madam said. The point being that the Olympean gods were aliens - some were even non-humanoid - and although many appear to be long dead, there are still signs of dormant life. And there is a remarkable similarity between the site on Mars and the Lost City of Tinnos."

Female voice: "So we're going back. Third time for me, first time for you. There's a door that needs opening."

Winston: "... a door. With some sort of biological key. Underneath the pyramidal mountain called Astarte's Horn."

Female voice: "Thank you for watching. The end. How do I turn it off?"

I do not have the descriptive powers to describe the powerful effect that this movie had upon me. If you have been following this memoir so far, I think that maybe you can imagine. As to my specific reactions, I think I'll allow the telling of the tale to reveal them as we go along.

A third of the way through the film I went to the sealed closet at the back of the Learjet. Inside were copies of my wings, of my device for throwing fireballs, and of my armoured clothing.

I allowed the tendrils from the fire ball thrower to infiltrate the cloaca at the small of my back, connecting directly into my nervous system, responsive to my every thought. I did the same for my wings. The plane could go down now and I'll be able to just fly away. I straightened the creases of The Straightjacket, smoothing the sleeves and re-creasing the collar. I was now more or less invulnerable.

I went to the pilot's cabin and knocked politely on the door.

There was a moment's pause and the lock clicked. I let myself in.

Lara Croft was seated at the pilot's seat, a lit Montechristo cigar in one hand, and a champagne bottle in the other, her boots up on the dashboard.

I pointed my fireball thrower in the rough direction of her head. "Lara Croft," I said, "you just don't know when to die."

"Fair enough," said Lara, agreeably, blowing cigar smoke at me. I was quoting her reaction when we'd once met. "I suppose I did sound a bit of a pompous twat. You caught me by surprise."

"Good gods," I said, fanning my face. "Who told you that you could smoke?"

"It's good stuff. Cuban. Hurrah for Communism, and all that. Want one?"

I wedged myself sideways in the co-pilot seat.

"I'll pass." I peered at the avionics screens. "Where exactly are we?"

Lara peered at the screen. "Approaching Antarctica at Mach 0.82 and at 42,000 feet, I think. It's your plane; you tell me. I just programmed the coordinates into the GPS. For all I know we're about to drive straight into a cliff."

I looked at her. "How on earth did you get us down here? This thing doesn't have the range."

Lara waved her hand airily. "Oh, you know. I put down on a mate's airstrip in Colombia and refueled. Then I refueled at a second mate's airfield in Chile. Love the ride through. I'll have to get one. Even a chimp could fly it."

I examined her. She'd gone back to the ridiculously impractical plait and was dressed in grey and grey khaki camouflage pants and an orange fur-trimmed survival jacket. I thought she'd lost weight. She was armed, not least with what appeared to be an RPG, which was wedged somewhat awkwardly across the windscreen.

As for her face - well, it was that face. The same almost Asiatic eyes, the cute nose, the Latina lips. They say most of the English were mongrels and Lara was no exception. The habitual expression flitted over her eyes; on the surface they were filled with humour but underneath they were as dead as an icicle. A smiling killer, personal motto "Fuck you all".

"What's 'fuck you all' in Latin?" I asked.

Lara made that "dunno" noise. "Futuere totum or something? Haven't got a bastard clue really. Ancient languages aren't my strong point."

"Funny."

I was about to tell her that there was nothing to stop me blowing a hole in the fuselage and then flying to safety when a loud beeping noise started up from the control panel, and various indicators turned to warning colours..

"What is it?" I said.

"Oopsie," said Lara, sitting up straight and grasping the control wheel.

"What do you mean - oopsie?"

Suddenly we broke through the black clouds and there in the predawn was Antarctica, approaching rapidly.

"I think we're about to fly straight into the Neptune Glacier at five hundred miles per hour," said Lara, thoughtfully. "Hard core!"

I took in the outside in one rapid glance. It looked very cold and very isolated, and even if I left the aircraft I'd have no idea what to do next.

I sparked my forearm weapon and held it next to Lara's head so that there was the smell of singed hair.

"Turn us around," I said slowly and forcefully.

"Really?" said Lara, pulling her head away.

At that very second it was as if we were dropping in an elevator. We both screamed.

"Cocking hell," said Lara, pulling as hard as she could on the steering column, her forearms vibrating with the effort. "Downdraft!"

I grabbed the co-pilot controls but they didn't seem to make any difference.

"You moron!" I said.

A variety of alarms were going off - proximity alarm, stall alarm. We probably weren't but the view from the cockpit suggested that we were about to fly into a white wall. There seemed to be a lot of airborne snow. Anybody in front of us would probably have been struck by the ridiculousness of the sight. Lara wrestling with the controls, her view mostly blocked by an RPG and me stuffed into a space too small for my wings, both our mouths locked open in a silent scream.

Lara gave one last wrench to the column and the Learjet bucked like a horse. There was a loud crunch, a bounce, a prolonged scraping sound, another bounce and then we were speeding along a flat white expanse like an out of control race car.

"My plane!" I said. "Did you lower the undercarriage?"

"No point," said Lara, a semblance of cheerfulness returning to her face. "It would have ripped off. Anyway - aren't you insured?"

"Hit the damned air brakes, you idiot."

"We're not running out of runway any time soon."

"This thing isn't designed to scoot along on its belly." I applied the brakes and the engines began to roar.

"We're slowing," said Lara. "I think this bit is up hill."

And so on. As you can probably guess we eventually skidded to a halt someway on the upper reaches of the Neptune Glacier.

For a minute or two we both sat in the comparative silence, the main sounds being the howling wind and the spattering of hail on the windscreen.

I stirred myself with an oath and extricated myself from the cockpit. I went back to the galley and poured myself a brandy, my wingtips quivering with fury. I disconnected my wings and my weapon, laying them carefully across the seats.

I returned to the cockpit.

Lara had relit her cigar. I took it from her mouth and stubbed it out on her trousers. She yelped and brushed off the glowing ash before it could burn.

I bent to the avionics suite and activated the emergency systems. A signal was being bounced off the nearest satellite and now all we had to do was wait for rescue.

I went back into the cabin, reclined one of the seats and pulled a couple of flight blankets over myself. I closed my eyes and tried to calm my mind.

"Natla?"

"Go away."

"Natla?"

"I'm trying to sleep."

There was five minutes of silence.

"Natla - I really think you ought to think about this."

"If I find you've switched off the distress signal I'm going to get positively Atlantean on your ass," I mumbled.

"There's information in there that you need," said Lara, reasonably.

"You have absolutely no conception of how dangerous if would be for me to go in there. Dangerous for me, dangerous for the planet."

Lara was drinking something from the sound of it. "Interesting name, Astarte's Horn. "Horn" is like the Matterhorn. It's a German name for a sharp pyramidal peak. Do you want to know who named it that?"

I said nothing.

"The Nazi expedition to New Swabia, east of here. They must have sent a U-boat round the peninsula for some reason. Odd that. That and the choice of the name 'Astarte'".

"Tell it to the birds," I said.

"Did I tell you about ur-Earth and about how an A.I. on the Olympean spaceship used a vision of my father stolen from my own mind to try and trick me into destroying the Earth as part of an ancient war between two factions of gods?"

I snuggled down. It didn't matter what she said. I knew my limitations and going anyway near an Olympean site on the edge of the Pacific was outside my remit. Her talk of Olympeans and of an ancient war and of Astarte terrified me to such an extent I had become numb and sleepy.

"You go if you want to," I said.

Lara sighed. "Inside the complex there's a huge depiction of you, Tihocan, Qualopec and someone who looks a bit like your younger sister. Did I tell you that whilst I was inside Qualopec's Tomb, just as it collapsed, I could have sworn I saw him move? Are you sure you safer just ignoring all of this?"

"Yes." My teeth had started chattering.

"I thought you wanted to be ruler of the world. I thought you felt that you have some divine duty to rule? Where's your sense of responsibility to your subjects?"

That did it. I threw back the blanket and grabbing one of Lara's pistols put it to her forehead and pulled the trigger. There was a click. In my fury I'd forgotten the safety catch.

"Whao there, tiger!" Lara batted away the pistol in exasperation.

"You have no freaking idea!" I said. "No idea at all."

"You need to know."

"OK. I'll send a team from Natla Tech as soon as I'm home."

"I tried for days to get in. They wouldn't be able to get in either."

I got up and started to pace up and down the aisle, drinking more brandy to try and still the shakes. I was mortally terrified.

"What happens if I die?" I said.

"Dunno," said Lara, with a shrug. "You pay another visit to the City of Angels?"

"What about my destiny?"

"What about if a big Olympean flyswatter descends from above and splatters you and your so-called destiny into the carpet?"

She scrabbled in her backpack and produced a battered looking notebook held shut with an elastic band. She opened it and pointed to a passage.

"I don't believe in monomyths or dotty theories cobbled together from half remembered facts but read this passage I found on Wikipedia."

I took the book gingerly.

"An esoteric Nazi Gnostic sect called the Erbengemeinschaft der Tempelritter, founded in the early 1930s, teaches a form of the Gnostic religion called Bogomilism," it said. "They claimed that the Aryan race originally came to Atlantis from the stars Alpha and Beta Geminorum (this information is supposedly based on "ancient Sumerian manuscripts"). Alpha Geminorum also has the Arabic name Al-Ras al-Taum al-Muqadim, which literally means "The Head of the Foremost Twin." They maintain that the Aryans from Gemini derive their power from the "magic" energy of the Sonnenrad (the German for "Sun Wheel"). They teach that since the Aryan race is of extraterrestrial origin it has a divine mission to dominate all the other races. It is believed by adherents of this religion that an enormous space fleet is on its way from Gemini which, when it arrives, will re-conquer the Earth."

I contined to stare at the text long after I'd finished reading it. "It's all nonsense of course," I said, "and rather boring nonsense at that."

But still - ""The Head of the Foremost Twin"? Where the hell had that come from?

I hated to admit it, but Lara was right. We just had to know.

One hundred million years ago or so a continental microfragment, complete with a section of the spine known as the Andes, impacted with the edge of the former continent known as Gondwana and the Antarctic Peninsula was born. Further north in Chile caves exist in which the remains of bones and shellfish and primitive tools show the presence of protohumans, and the crevice in an exposed cliff below the flank of Astarte's Horn was no doubt once the same, maybe in the days before Antarctica became surrounded entirely by ocean and the temperature began to drop and drop.

"How come you don't get cold feet?" said Lara, her breath ballooning in the torchlight.

"My feet only look bare," I said, sombrely. All the way across the snowfield from the Learjet, watching Lara striding along on her skis far below me, my mind had been filled with thoughts of my sister. "The suit covers me with a nearly invisible second skin.

Lara shone her headlamp at me. "Don't worry," she said. "This is the narrowest bit. We don't have to go far inside to get to the hatch."

"I don't think there is anything that you can say."

"Watch your wings. Here - give me your hand - there's a tricky bit. Step down from the rock that you are on onto the gravel floor."

"Can you hear a buzzing?"

"There's always a buzzing. It will get louder as we go down. Don't let it worry you."

"Don't worry about giant bioluminescent wasps?"

"If any turn up I'll take them down. Did I tell you that they've been named after me? I took some body parts to the Natural History Museum."

"Are we nearly at this hatch?"

"Nearly there. They named them Megapelecinus croftii. Cool eh? Normally my contribution to natural history is to shoot it."

"And what did they call the giant black insect monsters? Fucyouupus bastardi?"

Lara sniggered. "You made a funny!" she said.

"It's just nerves. You've heard of nerves?"

"Here's the hatch."

She brushed away the frost to reveal a circular logo. It read "Deutsche Antarktische Expedition 1938-1939". In the centre was an engraving showing Nazi flag planted in a map of "Neu-Schwabenland."

"Velcome to the glorious Thousand Year Reich, mein Fuhrer," said Lara, fastening her gloves hands around a metal handle and pulling with all her might.

"How on earth did they have the means to make a giant metal hatch?"

"They had all sorts. Freighters. U-boats. Aircraft. This is the Nazis we're talking about."

"You have to admire them."

"Um ... possibly not." The hatch opened with a crash and a wave of fetid air rushed upwards, causing me to stagger back, coughing.

Lara put a steadying hand on my arm. "Stiffen the sinews," she said. "It's not as bad as it smells."

Under the hatch was a shaft in the rock, rough-sided and not quite vertical. From it issued heat and an even louder buzzing. Lara produced a rope ladder, and - tying it off on the hatch hinges - allowed it to clatter away into the darkness.

"Ladies first," she said with a grin, and practically dropped into the hole.

I crouched at the edge, shivering. I watch the rope ladder shaking as she descended. Eventually it stopped moving and then, suddenly - making me jump backwards - it undulated like a cracked whip.

"Oi!" I heard Lara shouting far below. "Are we having fun yet?"

"Is it safe?" I yelled.

There was a brief silence. "Well there's nothing trying to kill me at the moment, if that's what you mean."

I folded my wings close to my back, and using my one free hand proceeded awkwardly down the chimney, using a motion that was half abseiling and half dropping like a stone. Then I clattered through a hole in the ceiling and found myself spinning in an open space. I let go of the ladder in shock, but by spreading my wings managed a heavy but uninjured landing.

"Stylish," said Lara, fanning away the cloud of dust and ice particles that I'd stirred up. She helped me to my feet. "Are you OK?"

"Fabulous," I said, distractedly, gazing around me.

We were in a giant tunnel, not unlike one of the tunnels in the Golden Pyramid of Aea, but on an altogether bigger scale. The walls gleamed with luminescence, but despite that the tunnel stretched away on each side into the distance until it was too dark to see any more. The colour scheme in the Golden Pyramid is black and blood red, but this was green and blue, like a corpse in a lake. Raised from the floor were three parallel tracks of blue stone.

"Welcome to the Olympean Line, calling at all stops from Tinnos to Astarte's Horn," said Lara. "God's own Underground."

"In that direction, after about a mile, the tunnel has collapsed," said Lara. "But in that direction, after about a mile, is our destination."

I tilted my head from side to side to remove the tension knots and did a few stretching exercises. Then I set off after Lara before she disappeared from sight.

As I jogged along, drops of fire falling from the weapon on my right hand, the end of the tunnel became visible in the distance, silhouetting Lara's running figure. At first it was merely a grey pentagon, and then as we began to get closer, tiny indistinguishable details began to appear.

My eyes were forward but I was listening behind me, strained for the thud of a giant limb or an increase of the general background buzzing. The air was growing drier and warmer, with a smell of old paprika. The journey went on and on as the minutes passed, with nothing changing but the humidity and the darkness at the end of the tunnel.

At every second I was expecting to see gun flashes start ahead of me, or the whoosh/crash of an RPG. My mind's eye saw Lara doing that weird sideways leap of hers, feet over head, twin guns blazing.

I could feel a sort of static in the air, trickling my nose and raising the hairs on my body. I noticed that Lara was waiting for me, standing next to what I could only envisage was a set of giant buffers.

"You're quite fit for an old codger," she said as I ran up.

Beyond the buffers the tunnel turned into a staircase leading downwards. On each side were smaller trackways, and stranded half on, half off, the crumbled remains of a transportation platform of some kind.

"What now," I said. I was breathless, but not from exertion.

"Down these stairs and then we reach the hall. Think Grand Central Station on steroids designed by an Atlantean Ken Adams."

"Hang on a minute," I said, picking up a metal object from the rubble on the floor. It looked like a rusted tuna tin welded to a razorfish shell. "What's this?"

Lara examined it, turning it over in her fingers.

"It's the magazine from a Nazi machine gun," she said. "The Bergmann MP 18 to be precise. Still got a round in it." She levered a bullet out of the rusty object. "There you go - an original nine times nineteen. A 9x19mm Parabellum full metal jacket."

I scanned around. The floor was covered with shell casings. There were what looked like red stains and tiny scraps of freeze dried bacon. I picked up the remains of a gun barrel, bent in the middle and engraved with the legend "Theodore Bergmann Abt. Waffenbau".

"Looks as if our German expedition was in a fire fight," I said.

"It wasn't on the way in," said Lara. "It was on the way out."

"How do you know?"

"Trust me."

I let the mangled gun barrel fall from my fingers with a clang, and looked at her.

"How do I know that this isn't some sort of Machiavellian scheme to get me killed?" I said.

Lara smiled. "Darling, if I'd wanted you dead I'd have plastered your brains all over your bedroom ceiling in New Mexico."

"And you really need me to go down there?"

"There's no other way. Look around you at the remains of the people who tried and failed."

"So how is it that you survived your previous visit?"

Lara tapped the side of her nose. "Good breeding," she said. "Onwards and downwards!"

At the bottom of the stairs was what I now tend to think of as "The Lobby". I didn't rush down the stairs two at a time like Lara. I stepped gingerly onto one step and then waited, looking under the lintel with my hand held in front of my face and my wings wrapped around my body, emotional tears flooding down my face.

"Lords of the Sea and the Sun I beg you to forgive me," I whispered to myself over and over again, a mantra of terror.

I began to make out something in the gloom. It looked like a giant set of toes, resting on a giant sandal. As I got closer, I could see two feet, belonging to two figures, the right of one next to the left of the other. As I descended I could see that the two figures were standing to one side of the base of a gigantic pair of doors. I closed my eyes and sat down on the step, knowing that when I opened them I would be able to see the entire image and the entire entrance. There was no sound but the low throbbing buzzing, a sound that was being joined by the buzzing of light-headedness within me. I swayed where I sat trying to slow my breathing and watching the black and white squares kaleidoscoping on the inside of my tightly shut eyelids.

" Lords of the Sea and the Sun I beg you to forgive me."

My rational mind was trying to break through my panic. "No gateman has accosted you," it said. "No wrathful harbinger has come. No golden statue with the voice of a god has appeared to tell you to leave. This is not the tomb of an Atlantean Royal."

However another voice was wondering if this was the tomb of my sister Astarte.

I took a deep breath and peeked through my fingers at the colossal image.

"She was right."

On one side of the door, in archaic poses, were Qualopec and myself and on the other were Tihocan and Astarte. The portraits were ideals of our younger selves; Qualopec was as he had been as a young man, uninjured and straight limbed. We were dressed in our Royal Garments, our limbs posed in expressing of peace and power, with objects denoting our various areas of influence. Qualopec, Tihocan and myself were wearing our thirds of the Scions on golden chains around our necks, whilst Astarte held in one hand an image of the Tree Of The Crucified Attis and in the other a vaguely familiar circular object.

I got slowly to my feet and walked into the hall. Tearing my eyes away from the portrait of myself, I took in my surroundings.

The floor was scattered with the remains of alien body parts. Insectoid torsos jostled with grotesque black humanoid arms with horns instead of hands. Dismembered insect wings, some more than a foot in length, quivered in the draught as I passed. Baseball-bat-sized stingers were surrounded by dried green puddles of insect venom. The remains and the floor and the walls all gave out light, so that the entire "Lobby" was bathed in twilight.

I walked towards Lara who was sitting cross-legged next to a low mound of rocks and rubble.

"What is this?" I said, softly, since she didn't look up.

Lara looked sombrely at me, her jaw clenched shut and her eyes dark with a wounded expression.

"The last time I came here," she said, in a husky voice, "I had a companion with me. I didn't have the strength to carry him away when I left."

I gestured at the hall. "There would appear to have been some fighting," I said.

Lara glanced at the battlefield. "Not all us," she said, her voice resonating with what I suspected was a kind of guilt. "I think that even before us and the Nazis there were other pilgrims."

"And where are the guardians now?"

Lara got to her feet and brushed herself off.

"There, and up there," she said, pointing.

Near the ceiling at each side where what looked like the cannon hatches on an antique battleship, whilst at ground levels were iron gates with a deep darkness behind them.

She took me by the arm and lead my back so that we were facing the giant doors.

"Above the doors is some script, written in gold, " she said. "I cannot read it."

I dashed some fresh tears from my eyes. The text was in High Atlantean, the symbols shifting slightly depending on precisely which angle I viewed them from.

"The main script reads 'The Temple Of The Chariot Of The Gods'," I said. "Beneath that it says 'Re-sanctified by Astarte of Atlantis. Only the pure may enter'."

Lara was gazing at me. "And who exactly is Astarte of Atlantis?"

I turned to her, not trying to disguise my emotions. "My long lost sister," I said.

Once there had been a rather steep-sided valley hidden somewhere between the sharp peaks of a mountain chain. Then millennia ago, someone had converted it into a closed space, roofing it over with stone to create an architecture like that inside a Gothic cathedral. Time had passed and the roof had started to fall in, exposing the contents to the weather. Then ... the site had been rediscovered, presumably by Astarte, and the roof had been patched up with newer materials. Although impossible to undo all of the ravages of time - both the far end and one side of the structure was still collapsed - an area the size of a Zeppelin hanger had been renovated, like a city street in an archaeological site. It was almost as if we were standing on the brink of the oldest tourist attraction on earth, except that the site was - as the plaque outside explained - 're-sanctified', and so we were on holy ground.

As the doors fully opened, music started up. I recognised it as a hymn with words written by Astarte and set to music by Tihocan. Fresh tears began to fall.

Lara glanced at me, putting down her weapon.

"It's a racket," she said, "but it's not that bad."

"I'm not in the mood for your frivolity," I said quietly. I disconnected my fireball launcher and laid it just inside the entrance.

"Is that wise?"

"It's respectful. Think of Westminster Abbey. Would you wear your guns in there?"

Lara raised an eyebrow. "I once had to," she said. "Evil doers don't always observe the niceties."

"You do what you like," I said.

My eye was caught by a little structure to our immediate right as we entered.

"What does this say?" said Lara, pointing to a notice above a rack of what looked like conch shells.

"'Audio Tour'", I said.

"You're kidding?"

I lifted one of the couch shells and found it was attached to a bracket for resting over one's head. "In Atlantean."

"And this?" Lara was pointing to another notice over a second rack of shells.

"I don't know that word," I said, squinting at the text. "Phonetically it sounds a bit like ... 'houyhnhnm'?"

Frustratingly both for you and me I can't remember the exact text of the 'Audio Tour' - possibly because at the time I was frightened out of my wits and expecting to come face to face with an Olympean any second - but I can remember the broad highlights.

Lara had tried a second conch shell but after a moment she put it down, remarking that it sounded like a child doing an impression of horse whinnying.

Walking around to our left, we were directed to plinth topped by a grey slab, two foot square at the end and seven foot long.

"These," said the tour, "are the remains of the pilot of the Kastor, Auriga Phaëton Hippeios."

There was a flickering of light within the grey slab, and suddenly we could see, lying inside, a prone body. It was a humanoid figure, clad inside what looking like an armoured spacesuit.

"Look at the head," said Lara.

The space helmet of the corpse was horse-headed. Inside one could just make out some jutting equine incisors and wisps of mummified hair.

"Captain Phaeton, peace be upon him, gave his life bringing the Chariot of the Gods to a safe haven," said the tour.

I translated for Lara.

"Isn't this whole place supposed to be ''The Temple Of The Chariot Of The Gods'?" she said. "Is this it?"

"Is what it?"

"Well .. look around us. One corpse in a box and a big pile of rubble."

I did look around, pulling off my headphone. Secretly I had to admit that she appeared to have a point. There was a hint of 'side chapels' along the left side of the 'cathedral', but as she said - it mostly appeared to be filled with a pile of giant boulders.

"Maybe this whole place was built for this one sacred body," I suggested. "It's not unknown. Look at the Taj Mahal."

"The Taj Mahal's empty," said Lara, doubtfully. "But maybe that's it. Maybe this place was built and never used."

"Then why would Astarte renovate it?"

"To make money out of gullible Atlantean tourists?"

I shielded my eyes and looked up at the right wall. There was some odd about the rubble, but I couldn't put my finger on it.

"Notice how some of the original roof still remains above the rock fall," I said. "How is that possible?"

Lara was squinting too, and she produced a rifle night-sight.

"That's weird," she said. "You know how stalactites ... can form themselves over other objects?"

"Given enough time."

"I can see at least one stalactite that drops down near the wall ... and then drapes over the curve of those boulders. And there's another. Surely the rock fall came afterwards ... after the formation of the wall? Not before. I don't get it."

We were both scratching our heads.

"Wait here a moment," I said, eventually. "I have an idea."

I took to the air, flapping my wings so that I rose up into the 'nave' of the 'cathedral'. Maybe there was something about the perspective from where we had been standing, but as soon as I started to rise I realised that our 'cathedral' was at least ten times bigger than any human-built one.

By about a hundred feet, I was beginning to be able to take in the whole of the rock fall at one side and at the far end of the edifice. Higher I flew ... and a bit higher ... and then suddenly I saw it. I almost fell out of the air with shock. I didn't even notice as the conch headphones fell from my fingers, no doubt to shatter on the floor far below.

What we had perceived as rock fall was the remains of one gargantuan black object, an object that the cathedral had been built around.

I was looking at the stylised shoulder, neck and head of a horse. It had various holes and scars and burn marks and even what looked like windows set into its skin. Its outline was more of an idea of a horse's head - a streamlined version, a smoothed out version - like the head of the White Horse of Uffington or of a horse glyph on a Celtic coin.

My intuition immediately told me what it had to be.

I spiralled down and down to land, and then stood with my hands on my knees, recovering my breath.

"What?" said Lara, jogging up.

I laughed, shaking my head with disbelief. "It's the wreck of a huge spacecraft," I said.

"You must be joking."

"Presumably a part of the vessel known as the Chariot Of The Gods."

Lara was gazing up at the remains, hands on hips.

"That is literally awesome," she said.

Obviously I couldn't stop her, but I was damned if I was going with her.

"It reminds me somewhat of a wreck called the Maria Doria," she'd said. "Only bigger."

I was fumbling in my pocket for my phone. "Have you got a mobile?"

I heard her snort. "What sort of mobile works when you're deep in a tomb?"

"Half an hour and I'm leaving and taking the Learjet with me!"

Lara was already swinging a grappling hook in the distance.

"Good luck with that," she shouted back.

"I mean it. You'll be alone in here!"

"Excellent!" she said and began to climb up the side of the Kastor. "My school report cards ... always said ...doesn't play well with others." I lost sight of her as she scrambled over the upper edge.

I set the timer on my mobile.

I decided that I might as well walk down to the end of the 'cathedral' and back, and check out the 'side chapels', although I'd have much rather have left. I debated going back for another "Audio Tour", but decided that I'd already ingested far too much information for one day.

I was constantly aware of the 'neck' towering to my right as I strolled, and the 'shoulder' ahead of me in the distance. I began to relax. What sort of death trap has an audio tour, I said to myself?

The hymn was still playing in the background - it was on some sort of eternal loop - and I found myself first humming and then singing along. I reproduce some of the lyrics below, although since translated from Atlantean they are missing rhythm, metre, assonance, alliteration, onomatopoeia, metonymy or euphony.

The great Lord of the Sea
Pursued Demeter
When she was mourning the loss
Of her daughter

The goddess took the form of a horse
And hid amongst the herds
Where Poseidon as a stallion
Raped the goddess

She bore him two children
The horse Areion and the nameless Goddess
For them Diwo made one twin
The other Dioskouros, Demeter

I became aware of two other sounds as I walked; a sort of tapping sound like a loose blind in a breeze, and a sort of watery sound, like the sea. Typical damp cave sounds.

I'd never really listened to the words before; one often tends to sing hymns with paying attention to the 'lyrics'. However when I got to the verses -

They put Kastor and Polydeukes
In the sky, a sun chariot
Phaeton at the wheel lost control
And Kastor fell down dazed

But Poseidon has rescued them
For he gave them horses to ride
And the power and the duty
To aid shipwrecked mankind

- I suddenly focused on what I was singng, and stopped. It was ironic, but maybe I'd known the story all along but I'd not being paying attention. After all, I'd always been much more interested in science than Astarte's re-creations of 'history' in the form of new religions.

I realised that the tapping was getting louder as I approached one of the 'side rooms' and, stopping my singing, began to tiptoe instead. I peeked around the corner.

The room was bare except for a rather shiny looking throne. Lying at full length on the floor was a tall golden figure, metallic-looking. The tapping sound came from one outstretched hand, reaching towards the throne. Reflected in the mirrored back of the throne I could see its face, and it was looking straight at me.

I jumped back and took a few deep breaths. It hadn't got to its feet or said anything to me, and so my heart soon slowed.

I approached cautiously, circling well out of range of that tapping finger, until I could see its face straight on. It appeared to be a statue, or else a human in a suit of armour, with a face or a visor that looked exactly like Heinrich Schliemann's Mask of Agamemnon. However, instead of ears, this being had two rectangular tubes that emerged from the sides of the head and then re-entered at the sides of the neck. I estimated it to be about seven foot tall.

I crouched down and its eyes followed me. It was making a whispering or a hissing sound.

I debated going any closer. I took the out-stretched hand in my own. It was like a gauntlet of gold, heated from within, though whether the heat was from a body or from a mechanism I could not say. The creature did not have the strength to return my grasp.

I leaned down and placed my ear near to the slot of its mouth.

"Greetings to the Most Royal Natla," came the whispering voice, "whose Imperial Wings provide shelter to her children from the midnight wind and the midday sun."

"Greetings to you," I replied in Atlantean, "oh fallen golden one in the Temple Of The Chariot Of The Gods. By what name should I respectfully address you?"

"The honour is all mine, Your Majesty. My name is Amboulios and I am the curator."

"And how do you recognise me, Amboulios?"

"You are the mirror image of your sister, the Goddess Astarte. Only one of a similar closeness of blood could have entered this holy place."

"Why are you lying here?"

"I am drained of life force," whispered Amboulios. "I was unable to return to my chair after the midnight wind came down."

"What is this 'midnight wind'?"

"It cuts through rock and douses all electrical activity, draining batteries and nullifying charge. It comes from beyond the sheltering sky, whose shelter wears thin. One vicious storm, maybe twenty years ago, felled me as I ran."

I examined it from top to toe. It seemed mostly mechanical, but there were hints of a biological component.

"Forgive me, venerable servant," I said, and gently unplugged one of its neck tubes. The orifice that was left looked almost human, although embedded in gold. It gave me an idea.

"I will be but a small while, faithful Amboulios," I said, and flying back to the giant doors - now closed - retrieved the bioelectric Electrophorus generator from my fireball hurler. When I held the tendrils that habitually plugged themselves into me near to Amboulios, they snuffled around the neck hole and then burrowed in with every sign of satisfaction.

I helped it to its feet and thence to his throne.

"Tell me of Astarte," I said.

"The Goddess spends half her time in heaven with her consort Diwo and half her time here with her priests," said Amboulios.

I recalled an ancient anecdote I'd had from Astarte, an aeon ago in Atlantis. She had been telling me about her mysterious night time visitor; "He said that his name was Diwo, Lord of the Daylight Sky, and that he had come down from the heavens to be with me, having espied my beauty from afar and been inflamed by the sight of my straight limbs and dark gaze. Furthermore he explained that the secrecy surrounding our love play was to protect me from the vengeance of his heavenly consort, Diwija of the Cow-like Eyes. Naturally I banned him from my bed on the instant and he, perhaps too readily, agreed."

I had been unsure at the time if this was just another of Astarte's visions, one of her weird half-waking hallucinations brought on by her religious obsessions. It hadn't seemed that important then, but now ... ?

Amboulios had last seen her (it thought) twenty eight years ago, although it admitted that its grasp of time, due to lapsing in and out of consciousness, was precarious. So ... circa 1983, I calculated. Maybe Astarte really had been on earth in 1979 when the golden statue had addressed me on the beach in Cyprus?

"The Goddess rode the Dais of the Twins and has not returned since ... to my knowledge."

"I doubt that she would have left her faithful servant sprawled and helpless in the dust," I said.

Amboulios held its gauntlet up to where its ear might have been. "I still hear it," it said. "It was never shut down."

"Hear what?" I said, stiffening.

"The Dais of Gemini. Can you not hear the sound of the sea?"

I tuned in to the watery sound that I heard earlier.

"This device," I said, unable to prevent a certain tension entering my voice. "The Goddess Astarte ascends to heaven with it? And yet it has been left on? By whom, good Amboulios?"

"I only caught a glimpse, reflected in the throne."

"And how did this intruder get in here?"

"Either by using the Royal Blood Key at the door, or else by taking advantage of a storm of the midnight wind, when all security has failed."

"I shall investigate," I said, patting its metal fingers, "and at very least will turn off the power."

"I would be eternally grateful, Your Majesty," said Amboulios. "I have had an unbearable, immeasurable age of listening to the rush of waves and it has almost un-minded me."

I almost ran to the site of the sound and the light on the ground showed the Dais. There was a vertical ring within a circle of menhirs, the centre looking like Galadriel's mirror and the rocks pulsing with green veins of energy.

I approached the control podium, where the power source (which Lara had nick-named "Excalibur") was inserted into the stone.

I guessed ... assumed ... that the Dais of the Twins was the same as those that had borne both me to the Underworld and Amanda to the past, designed to carry a traveller not from location to location or from time to time, but from person to person, royal relative to royal relative, activated only by the presence of the Royal Gene.

"Thus allowing my intellectually challenged offspring to visit her long dead sisters," I mused.

Suddenly I began to wonder how Astarte managed it. I could feel myself beginning to frown. After all, there was nobody here in the temple for Astarte to "travel" to, no "destination". No clone. No distant descendent.

Except ...

For precisely at this moment.

I saw a figure beginning to coalesce. It was dressed in a kilt and was wearing a conical head dress.

"At last," said a voice that I hadn't heard in millennia. "My beloved Royal Sister ..." The toes of a human foot clad in a simple sandal began to step through the aperture.

I didn't wait. I wrenched the "Excalibur" from its housing. Instantly the power died and the figure disappeared. I inserted the blade of the power unit into a cleft in the rocks and snapped it in half, showering myself with sparks, and discharging lightning bolts into the walls.

I left that place like winged Mercury. I retrieved my power source from Amboulios, who was still too weak to stand unaided, and whose plaintive questions I ignored.

"One of my distant family is here in the Temple, inside the Kastor," I said.

"Inside the Kastor?" I heard Amboulios' horrified tones behind me as I ran.

"Lara Croft. Look after her when she emerges and do not try to fight her, or she will kill you."

"But Your Highness ...!"

I half ran, half glided for the exit, shouting for Lara, warning her that I was leaving, but there was no response. The giant doors slammed behind me and I hurried that long mile down the trapezoidal train tunnel without pausing.

I leaped for the rope ladder and hauled myself through the hole in the ceiling like a winged monkey. I pulled the ladder up after me and slammed the Nazi hatch shut, dogging it so that it was firmly locked.

"Forgive me," I whispered.

If I'd thought about it, I'd have realised that there must be other entrances to the underground city, but I was in a flat panic.

There was a blizzard outside the cave, but the white hotness of my preoccupations helped me to find the Learjet without even noticing.

The voice from the Dais and the voice from behind the mask of Amboulios had been the same voice, not distinctly male or female. Maybe the curator was the destination, and my fears of a trap had been unfounded, but I wasn't hanging around to find out.

I created a takeoff ramp of half-melted ice on the glacial slope leading down from the plane by firing salvos of fireballs at the ground, my very own skating rink. I saved the last remnants of fire to thaw the jet engines, leaving them sputtering and flaming as if hit by anti-aircraft bullets, and throwing aside my wings, climbed into the pilot's cockpit.

The Learjet turned jerkily on its axis through 180 degrees and then picked up speed as I opened the throttles. It skidded down the slope and then hit a bump - we were fortunate perhaps not to simply fall into a crevice - and then we were airborne, climbing away from the surface of the Neptune Glacier. I engaged the avionics and the autopilot.

I stumbled back into the cabin and fell on my face. "Cruel is the strife of brothers ... and sisters," I murmured, and fainted clean away.

---

Interlude; "Atlas"

As I've explained elsewhere The City, otherwise known as Atlantis, was named for my mother Atlanta, mistress to my father, King Atlas and wife to my uncle, King Eumelus. However before the name Atlantis came into vogue, The City was known as The Citadel Of Clieto, Clieto being one of the mistresses of the Olympean Poseidon, or so the story went. Grandfather Poseidon had broken the ground enclosing the hill on which Clieto dwelt all around, making alternate zones of sea and land, larger and smaller, encircling one another; so that there were two of land, and three of water, which he turned as with a lathe out of the center. Later a channel had been built leading from the Outer Circular Sea to the nearest natural ocean to allow the approach of both ships and voyagers. The central hill of Atlantis - now an island - contained a strange device, the Omphalos, through which it was said that Clieto could visit her lover at will and through which one day she disappeared never to be seen again. The Omphalos or "Navel" was given as the centre of the known world in all Atlantean maps, and our circular time zones revolved around this point.

My father, Atlas, was alive throughout my time in Atlantis, but like the other nine Kings of Atlantis was strangely distant and shrouded in a certain amount of mystery. Qualopec went on campaign with armies nominally commanded by my father, but Atlas was rarely at the scene himself, issuing instructions from afar.

Similarly the five sets of twins had divided the Atlantean Empire up between them, but it was far from clear in practice what this actually meant. The day to day "ruling" was left to Qualopec, Tihocan, Astarte and myself and I cannot remember a single occasion when one of our decisions was questioned by the silent Kings.

So most of the time they in their thrones in the Temple of Poseidon, facing each other in a circle, saying little, contemplating the next world. They all had Palaces dotted around the shore of the Inner Circular Sea which they didn't use and which doubled as offices for state business. Not that having the offspring of an Olympean God as nominal Heads of State didn't suit the Empire of Atlantis just fine. It gave us, quite literally, the Divine Right to rule.

Naturally I was intensely curious about the Ten Kings. Who or what were they? What did they do? Did they eat? And what of my father? I can't say that I loved him, for he had destroyed my mother, but I calmed my guilt by telling myself that my siblings Tihocan and Astarte seemed equally disinterested in their own sire, King Eumelus. It was as if we all had comedy stunt-double parents.

"I'm off to see Father," I announced airily to Qualopec one day.

"Are you?" said Qualopec, pausing in his sword practice. He had attempted, with Tihocan, to create a sword blade that was heavy and sharp enough to remove a man's head at one swipe and he was practicing on the slaves. "What on heaven and earth for? Stand still man! I want to test your neck, not your face!"

A head went flying through the air, spiraling blood, and thumped in the sand.

"Wonderful!" shouted Qualopec cheerfully. "Again! Yes, you, girl."

"Do you have to kill them all?"

"I have to learn somehow," he said. "I tried propping dead bodies up but it's just not the same."

"Fair enough," I said. "Anyhow, I'm off to the Temple of Poseidon."

"I doubt you'll get in if they're in session."

I snorted. "What's not to get in?" I said.

I took a boat around the Inner Circular Sea and then disembarked at the Central Island.

"Anybody in?" I asked a gardener who was raking the lawn, gesturing up at the portico of the Temple.

The gardener blinked rapidly several times. "Your Majesty," he said, somewhat overcome, falling to his knees. "The Sons of Poseidon are nearly always in residence."

"Raise yourself," I said. "I have some questions that you may be able to answer. Come sit at this bench with me."

"Whatever Your Magnificence requires."

His name was Eskamelios and he had been tending this same patch of garden all of his life. The same was true of his father, Melios.

"So … what do the Ten Kings generally have for their tea?" I said, using the simplified and gesture free dialect of the Atlantean language one usually uses with servants.

"I'm not entirely sure, Your Majesty," said Eskamelios. "I'm seen nectar and ambrosia being delivered. And the occasional crateful of pomegranates labeled 'A Gift From The Underworld'."

"The Underworld?"

"Not that Your Magnificence doesn't already not know this," said the gardener, almost tying himself in knots with his double negatives, "but the Lord of the Sea is said to be brother to the Lord of the Underworld."

"Of course, my good man," I said, with what I hoped was a reassuring smile. "How true. So … in the Temple … what are there in the way of bathroom facilities?"

"Oh! Your Terribleness should have said earlier. We have an aide-de-baigner next to the greenhouses in the form of a wicker fence surrounding a deep hole." (I use French to illustrate that he threw in a few nonsensical phrases, possibly in Athenian Greek.)

"It's not for me," I said. "I was wondering about the Kings."

Eskamelios leaned forward conspiratorially. "They say that the Kings never have to take a … you know." he said.

"How very odd."

"They are half god, Your Majesty."

"I'll freely admit that I've never heard of an Olympean feeling the need to excrete," I said.

"They don't know what they're missing," said Eskamelios with a broad and somewhat coarse guffaw. The principle source of amusement for the lower classes revolved around bodily functions, or so I'd been told. They must find death by dysentery hysterical, I reflected.

"Quite," I said. "Now. How are they transported about the place? Chariot? Divan? Shank's pony?"

"You know what, Your Opalescence? I don't think I've even seen them leave. Or arrive. There's a silly rumour that they pass through the Navel, but that sounds a bit fanciful to me."

That seemed to set the cap on it for me. The Five Royal Twins might well be human, but they were rather odd humans. The fact that they were Royal didn't seem enough of an excuse to account for their eccentricities.

I threw Eskamelios a few obols – I can't say that I ever saw him again – and proceeded up the road to the Temple of Poseidon. If I was expecting some sort of guard or security arrangement, I was disappointed. However on reflection, why bother attacking the Ten Kings? Firstly, they weren't in charge of anything, and secondly they were the sons of Poseidon and no plan that I could think of to harm them seemed important enough to risk the wrath of the Lord of the Sea.

As I drew near I could hear chanting, rather tuneless and inexpert, but chanting nonetheless. Thinking back it resembled a rendition of "Old MacDonald Had A Farm" sung by Hare Krishnas, only, of course, with different words.

"Hello?" I said, approaching the portico of the temple entrance. The temple itself was a sort of cylinder of columns with square buildings bolted onto the circumference. The entrance was moderately impressive, and just inside stood a rather primitive statue of a portly gentleman crowned with kelp and bearing a trident, whose bathing towel had slipped somewhat to reveal his pubes, no doubt intended to represent the great Lord of the Sea. I wasn't sure if it was artful, artless or plain blasphemous, but if Poseidon's sons liked it, whose was I to argue? The floor was scattered with fish bones, half burned candles and seagull effluent, and it certainly smelt like the sea.

The central circle of pillars appeared to have had the spaces between then mostly filled with mud bricks, and I was wondering who the architect had been so that I could have him tortured, when I suddenly realised … this was the entire point. This was "authentic". This was "ancient". This was something that had existed from before the modern 'effete' Atlantis, from before The City. It was supposed to look a bit … the politest word I can think of is "primativistic". Maybe my grandmother Clieto had arranged for it to be built from local materials to show her love for her man. Maybe she had laid the bricks herself.

I knocked on the wooden door and the chant abruptly ceased. After an age, I could hear a bolt on the inside of the door being drawn aside. I pushed the door open a crack and peered through.

As expected there, seated in a large circle of thrones facing each other, were the Ten Kings.

"All together now …" one of the Kings whose throne was labelled 'Mestor' was saying, and he began to try to restart the chanting in a tremulous falsetto"… Old Uranus had no balls, E-i-e-i-o, And from those balls Cytherea sprang, E-i-e-i-o."

One of the Kings, Autochthon, resembled a sort of shaved orangutan, with heavy eyebrow ridges, a sloped forehead and long muscled arms. He didn't seem to know the words and was bashing the armrests of his throne whilst emitting grunts and roars. "There's one in every family," I thought. Mneseus, his twin brother, who was occupied in patting his apelike brother on the hand and nodding encouragement, looked nothing like Autochthon – which I guess was biologically possible – and I should say for my modern readers the former looked like George W. Bush just after he had kicked addiction, the model of preppy respectability and intelligence. Maybe Autochthon had been dropped on his head or had his skull crushed during birth, but despite the fact that he looked like a retarded yeti he had the Royal Blood and that was all that mattered. I felt nothing but reverence as he scooped up what looked like a dried fecal pellet and threw it at his fellow sovereign.

I spotted my father. He looked familiar to me – the body builder's body, the large white teeth, the bouffant hair, the tan – and he was sitting there in his loincloth with a golden medallion bouncing on his pecks as he conducted along with the music and sang with a beefy bass voice. Previously I had an image of him always wearing his armour but I guess it was a warm day and obviously none of our many "peacekeeping" efforts all over the known world required his personal attention right now.

I tapped on the arm of his throne.

"Hello!" said Atlas, causing my hair to move with the force of his voice. "Who's this?"

I genuflected humbly.

"You Royal Highness, He Who Supports The Earth On His Shoulders, Son Of Titans, The Great Primordial, Father Of Qualopec it is I, your humble daughter," I said, making the appropriate ceremonial hand gestures for 'shock' and 'awe'.

"Ah, young Natla!" said Atlas. "My, you've blossomed! How old are you now?"

"If it pleases Your Highness, I have been alive roughly seventy years."

"Come and sit on your father's lap! Bounce those firm young buttocks up and down on my groin and make an old satyr very happy!"

Although incest between consenting adults is possible in the modern world and unremarkable in the ancient world, nobody has a good word to say for father-daughter intercourse. Even the Bible, that repository of weird sex, when recounting how Lot got his two daughters pregnant tells us that he was too drunk to know what he was doing, which sounds a bit like a weak excuse but at least indicates the storytellers' disapproval of the practice. I wasn't shocked but I did squirm somewhat at Atlas' suggestive suggestion.

"With respect, My Lord, I am a virgin to men and a lesbian, so I'd rather not."

"Fair enough!" said Atlas jovially. "Worth a try! Good to see that you prefer the ladies! Very respectable!"

"I was brought up to believe that sex between men and women was rather déclassé and best reserved for the breeding of sufficient numbers of the lower classes, Your Highness."

"Quite right too! Which one was your mother again?" He had, during his life, more than thirty children by several women, and those were just the ones he got pregnant and which we knew about.

"Queen Atlanta, My Lord."

"I remember! By the Lords of the Sea and the Sky, she was a fine filly! She could squeeze the juice out of a man!"

"You are most gracious, My Lord," I said, relieved that he hadn't chosen to bring up the fact that she'd been a slave girl at the time and that he'd taken her, as was his right, without her permission. With such a paragon of manhood for a father it surprises sometimes that I grew up gay.

There was a moment's awkward silence, with Atlas humming along with the chant and waving his finger with the rhythm and me wondering what the hell I was doing there and whether that was it as far as the father-daughter bonding went.

"So," I said, "where do you live then?"

"Good question, good question!" he boomed. "Well, apparently there's a Palace of Atlas and Eumelus on the shores of the Inner Circular Sea! Can't say I ever go there! I think I was there for the grand openin'!"

"And where else?"

"Well … I have a nice tent for when I'm on campaign."

"A tent?"

"It's got quite a nifty foldaway canvas bed that goes with it. I put the bed up in one of the side rooms here if I feel like it. That's unless I have a quick snooze on my throne."

"And what about the others?"

"Oh, they all have their own thing. Elasippus likes to sleep in one of the fountains, especially after he's been drinkin'. Autochthon has a nice cage with a rope to swing on."

"And what do you all do all day."

Atlas waved his hand airily. "Oh, you know. Chantin'. Discussin'. Wagerin'. That sort of thing."

"What sort of discussing?"

"So many questions!" he laughed. "Well, at the moment, Evaemon is wonderin' if women can make effective priests or if their 'natural inferiority' to men, plus their uncontrollable sexual desires, makes them unworthy for such a holy position. An obviously ridiculous rhetoric, but an interestin' topic to while away the years."

"What about priestesses who use sex as part of the ceremony?"

"That's what I said! Who else? Ampheres is considerin' whether the class between slave and king can be persuaded to support the inevitable inequalities in society by offering them a sort of ersatz version of royalty. Gold-plated wood instead of gold. Cunningly painted rat fur instead of leopard fur. Houses decorated like tiny palaces. That sort of thing. Not sure what the point is, as one peep out of the so-called middle class and we'd chop all their heads off, but another interestin' topic nonetheless."

"And what about you?"

"Oh, I'm merely interested in the art of war, the portraiture of slaughter, the ballet of massacre. I'm more of a doer than a philosopher. War, war, war, not jaw, jaw, jaw, that's what I say!"

"You're just like my brother."

"Excellent! You can't have too many killers in the family."

And so on. I'm sure that we had more to say – remember this is the longest conversation that I had with my father for his entire life – but I'm beginning to bore even myself straining to remember.

I can only remember two other things that we talked about – the "Navel" and his father, Poseidon.

"Did you ever meet him?"

"Don't be silly," he said, cheerfully. "Mother only met him in secret a few times. There was a wife I think, and believe me, you keep clear of Olympean spouses unless you want to be attacked by dolphins or have your legs tied in knots during child birth. Five pairs of twins is a bit of an effort, all from the same belly in the same day."

I winced, and decided not to pursue that line of conversation. "Have you ever even seen Grandfather Poseidon?" I said after a moment.

"When she was very old Mother pointed out to sea and there was a huge and dark shape or shadow crashin' and cruisin' through the water and the waves, blowin' and snortin' jets and plumes of water from itself. She called it our father, but I fear she may have confused Dad with a large porpoise."

I reflected that Atlas had had ever less to do with his father than I'd had to do with Atlas. An Olympean God was as distant and incomprehensible to him as a son of the Lord of the Sea was to me. We may as well have come from alien species. I vowed that in the unlikely event that I ever had children I wouldn't be a stranger … although, I reflected, maybe 'stranger' wasn't the right word. Maybe the right word was 'foreigner'. I wouldn't be a complete foreigner.

"And then Grandmother Clieto left?"

"Ah," said Altas. "The Omphalos. You must see it before you have to get back to doing … whatever you chaps who really administer Atlantis do."

"O.K. … Dad."

He led me to the centre of the throne room – the other Kings barely acknowledged us for whatever reason – and there was a large stone with carved over its surface a stone net. I hadn't really noticed it before as it was kind of … not very impressive.

However when Atlas placed his hand on the strands of the net they lit up, and the stone seemed to hover. He pushed it gently to one side and beneath it was a hole with a ladder. A strange smell wafted out of the hole – an aroma of wet earth – and I swore I heard a sigh.

"Down there?" I said, hesitantly.

"Down into the belly of Gaia," he replied, "although there's not much to see. If this stone is the navel, then the womb behind it stopped dried up and givin' birth long ago."

We descended, not very far, maybe thirty feet. At the base of the ladder was an ovoid and curved tunnel, coloured dark red, and at the end of this stone tube an elliptical chamber, its walls covered with stone veins.

"Once they say there was a heartbeat," said Atlas.

Arranged around the chamber floor, lit by luminescent greens and scarlets were a number of megaliths. On the floor was a large engraved pattern enclosed in a circle and in the midst of all this was a stone with a slot.

"What goes here?" I said, running my fingers over the slot. It was moist and warm.

"Who knows?" said my father. "A sword? A phallus? None of us know."

"And who made this place, and what for?"

"Again, who knows? But the legend is that Mother visited her lover from here any time she felt like it. And she took the secret with her when she went."

Looking back I wish I could just step onto just such a device and visit Father again. I never knew him and yet I miss him much more than people that I did know and love. They say the past is another country, but I think I'm the only person for whom this is literally true. You have to laugh or you'll weep.

---

Take Your Protein Pills And Put Your Helmet On

It was a week or two after my enforced visit to the Antarctic Peninsula. I had toyed with the idea of ringing the Croft Mansion ... but then I remembered it had burned down. I was kind of reluctant to contact Lara. I decided that I'd wait. For now.

I gave out the story that I'd gone 'walkabout' in the Learjet on a whim, and attributed the battered aspect of the plane to my inept piloting "somewhere in the Rockies". My security men were livid with me - the State Governor doesn't just go on an unscheduled trip - and only the reassurances of the staff at Natla Tech had prevented a federal manhunt. I apologised, and said I wouldn't do it again. "I was suffering from post traumatic stress and needed to be alone," I told my security chief, "but here I am, safe and sound, ready to get back to work." I guess we were lucky that nobody told the newspapers.

When I gauged that the feathers of local government had ceased to be ruffled, I called a meeting of the family. I had a room in the Roundhouse swept for listening devices, and arranged for Scotch, ambrosia, juice, honey cakes, blueberry muffins and coffee to be laid out. I dressed in my most conventional light blue suit - conservative knee length skirt - and wore my most sensible shoes. I needed to be at my most calm externally to suppress the panic that lurked just underneath.

I told them of my trip to Antarctica, omitting mention of the Tihocan-shaped silhouette that I'd seen in the Dais of the Twins, as I didn't want Amanda going off message out of supposed loyalty to her father. I illustrated my briefing with images that I had hastily captured with my mobile phone.

"I believe that before this decade is out that the Olympeans may return and set foot on the earth. I intend to ask not what our country can do for them, but what they can do for us."

All three children gaped at me. Nas loosened the collar of his uniform and tilted back his chair, Das rather dazedly started to polish his glasses and Amanda looked as if an ice pick had made her ears burn.

"I have tasks for you," I said. "Important tasks."

Amanda, I told them, was to discover how many active Daises there were worldwide.

"If necessary I want the capability to shut them all down. We can't afford to miss one."

Amanda shut her mouth in order to be able to speak.

"And how do I do that, exactly?"

"Use all of the resources at hand. Spend whatever you need."

"Are you off your meds again, Mother?"

I took a calming sip of ambrosia. "No, Amanda, I'm not," I said.

Das, I continued, was to start a Natla Tech space programme, and to buy any available commercial rocket systems. With the Space Shuttle retiring just when we needed it, we had to take the initiative ourselves.

"Imagine an aircraft carrier or a battleship floating in space." I put up a photo of the wreck of the Kastor, taken from above. "Devise a way of blowing a hole through the hull. Think maybe in terms of the WW2 minisubs that the British used against German cruisers."

Das was making tiny notes on an electronic pad. "So are we talking about possible suicide missions?"

"Yeah - U.S.S. Cole," said Amanda. "Natla akbar."

"We're talking whatever it takes," I said, brushing an irritating fragment of lint from my sleeve. "Oh, and Das, my darling - get the pattern recognition people to have a look at this floor plan."

I handed him a photo of the circular object that Astarte had been holding in the giant mural.

"And what do you want me to do?" said Nas.

"Yes," I said with a slight grimace. "For you I've got what will be, potentially, the trickiest task."

I told him of what Lara Croft had told me; that as she had been escaping from the Tomb in Peru, she thought that she'd seen Qualopec come back to life.

"I want you to take a team down there and find Qualopec's body."

"Isn't that Tomb a total death trap?" said Nas, a grin beginning to spread across his face.

"So I've been told."

"And weren't we warned not to enter?"

"I was warned. You weren't."

There was a moment's silence, broken by Amanda.

"Whoopee doo, bro," she said. "Semper fi, do or die."

I snapped. "Oh shut up, Amanda, you irritating ... child!"

Nas smiled his most devil-may-care smile at his sister. "Whatever you need, Mama Jackie," he said, as she stuck her tongue out at him.

I placed a hand on his shoulder. "Needless to say I want you all to remain safe and sound."

"And what will you be doing, Mother?" said Amanda. "Topping up your tan?"

I laughed. "Governing New Mexico, if you must know, Amanda," I said, gazing out of the window. "And with any spare time I have left, arranging for our mines in Abkhazia to be re-opened." Re-opened to check your father isn't lurking somewhere inside the ruins of the Golden Pyramid of Aea, I could have added, but didn't.

I couldn't shake the suspicion that they thought I'd gone stark raving mad.

The most recent new Secretary of State created by the US Government had been in 2002 when George W. Bush created the post of Secretary of State for Homeland Security.

It had been noted that I was single-handedly propping up the hospital system of New Mexico and that my labs were still churning out valuable bluesky research in the teeth of a worldwide economic downturn. I ticked all the boxes. I was providing free health care - tick. I was driving forward the white heat of technology - tick. I was a prime candidate for a Government Of All The Talents - tick. I wasn't a Republican - tick. I was female and possibly ethnic - tick.

Therefore I wasn't completely surprised when I received a summons to see the President in Washington.

"Did you find out anything useful?" I asked Das.

Das opened his notebook. "It appears that the Luo family group possesses a unique allele that we can target."

"We won't be wiping out the whole of Kenya by mistake?"

"No," said Das, slightly defensively.

"I'm sorry, my darling," I said, kissing him. "I'm a bit nervous. What sort of disease is it?"

"Korean hemorrhagic fever. I purchased some gene technology left over from the US biological weapon program," said Das, smiling. "Irony of ironies."

"And how quickly does it work?"

"A week, maybe two."

I grimaced. Poison was so passive-aggressive and I didn't like it. I'd have rather challenged the man face to face in a duel for the throne, but the elimination of my main rival for 2102 had to be covert. The man was just too damned popular not to win a second term. "And you'll weaponize my right hand?" I said, examining my fingers like Lady Macbeth.

"They'll never detect it, Mama Jackie."

"What a clever boy."

Das blushed with pleasure, reminding me of when he'd been little and so very obsessed with his toy duck. I wondered if he still had it.

As they checked me out in security I wondered if I should have brought Jacarilla Elkhorn.

"Will the President's wife be at our meeting?" I asked a rather jugheaded Marine officer.

"FLOTUS will not be accompanying the Commander-in-Chief today," he said.

Probably for the best, I thought. We didn't really want our ladies around for this encounter.

First thing was the White House tour, a rather multicoloured affair. There was a Green Room, a Red Room, a Blue Room and a Yellow Oval Room.

"Is there a Pink Room?" I asked the West Wing staffer who was escorting me around.

"There's the Rose Garden," she said, with a twinkle. "I like your suit. Very photogenic."

"Oh, thanks." I did a little twirl and wondered if I should get her phone number. "It's an old Christian Lacroix. A bit conservative, but I thought ..."

"It's just right."

"And these flats are one of a kind, made specially for me by Cesare Paciotti."

"I am in awe," said the staffer.

"We girls have a point to make."

"Totally."

They gave me the two-minute warning as a photographer was taking a few practice shots; "He's on the way" was my cue to get ready. The elevator doors opened, we could see the Secret Service agents, and then the President

He strode towards me like a man about to break into a sprint. I was surprised to see that he was only a few inches shorter than me, which made a refreshing change. "Maybe I could have worn heels," I thought, slightly irrelevantly.

It's funny how it's always in the details. We'd been very clever making the toxin but there was one thing that we hadn't bothered to look up. On such small events the history of the world turns.

"Hello Ms. Natla," said the President. "Pleased to meet you at last. Thank you for making the time to see me."

He was holding out his left hand, not his right. I returned his handshake with my non-toxic fingers.

"Thank you, Mr. President," I said.

"May I call you Jacqueline?"

"May I call you Barry?" I replied, but saw the secret service man stiffen imperceptibly. "Only joking. Jacqueline is fine, and I'll stick to Mr. President if that's OK."

A slightly confused look crossed the Presidential face as he looked at me, grinning fixedly. "Shall we go through?" he said.

I perched on an upright embroidered chair whilst the President flung off his jacket and sat on a sofa, long legs splayed like some sort of pornographic insect.

"Congratulations on New Mexico," he said, with the sort of smile that men exchange when they are sharing news of a sporting or sexual conquest. I half expected him to punch me on the shoulder.

"Thank you, Mr. President."

"May we walk in the garden?"

"Where my Commander-in-Chief leads I follow," I said, provoking another of those fleeting fixed smiles. "Lead on MacDuff."

"You're a Shakespeare fan?"

"I prefer I love Lucy, Mr. President."

"That's what Macbeth says as he fights his opponent to the death. I hope we aren't going to fight, Jacqueline."

'If only you knew, Barry', I thought, but I just laughed.

The President suddenly turned conspiratorial. "I have a dreadful request of you."

I stiffened.

"I'm supposed to have given up, but do you mind if I smoke? I hardly ever get the chance, and I can see you're a woman of the world."

I raised an eyebrow. "Didn't you sign the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act through Congress a couple of years ago?"

"I know. I'm a poor, poor sinner," he said, lighting up a rather disgusting low tar brand of cigarette. "Want one?"

"No thank you, Mr. President," I said.

He touched me on the elbow, obviously a prelude to talking turkey, even if he had a roundabout way of approaching the subject.

"Jacqueline, have you heard of John Bowden Connally, Jr.?"

"No, Mr. President."

"He was sitting in the limo in front of JFK when he was shot. Like yourself, he survived an assassination."

I wondered where he was going with this.

"However there are some other things about him that you might find quite interesting. He was elected a Democratic Governor of Texas, but despite that Nixon invited him to be the Secretary of State of the Treasury in a Republican Cabinet. He crossed the floor, as they say."

"Really?" I said, non-commitally.

"The thing is, Jacqueline, I've noticed what a good job you've been doing with health care in New Mexico. Also, my staff tell me that you have produced more original scientific patents than any other living American."

"Thank you, Mr. President. I try to make a difference."

"And that's exactly the sort of person we need in a government of all the talents."

"I'm not sure that I follow, Mr. President."

"How would you like to be the brand new Secretary of State for Science?" he said triumphantly, like a bright child angling for approval. Seeing that I was at a loss for words he ground out his cigarette under an immaculately brogue and led me back inside, grinning all the time and almost breaking out into a self-congratulatory dance step.

"You wouldn't have to move to Washington," said the President as I sipped on a lemon tea. "In fact it would be better if you stayed in New Mexico and ran your department from the Roundhouse."

"Why?"

"Have you heard of the line of Presidential succession? You'd be ..." he counted on his fingers "... eighteenth in line to the throne after the Vice President and myself. In the event of a Tom Clancy kind of event, you'd be in charge."

"I haven't read any Tom Clancy, Mr. President."

"Battlestar Galactica?"

"I didn't catch it."

"The point is, you'd be what they call the 'designated survivor', kept at a distance from the rest of the Cabinet in case of a dreadful disaster."

I pondered what the man was telling me, wondering whether I needed to continue with my poisoning plan.

"You know," I said carefully, "that I'm not a natural born American?"

The President grinned. "Not sure I am," he said, in the sort of faux ironic tone popular on Saturday Live. "Some of my opponents claim I'm British. Besides it makes no difference. Henry Kissinger and Madeleine Albright were in exactly the same position. I don't really think in the event anybody is going to be harping on about a technicality, do you? Even Arnie might get to be President one day, and he's an Austrian, for God's sake."

I looked at him for a long time, wondering if there was any point in killing him. The probability was that some white supremacist would do the job for me any day soon. Besides, I could hardly force my toxic fingers down his throat. His wife had once gotten into trouble for merely touching Queen Elizabeth, so I'd probably be shot for man-handling the President.

"May I have a few days to go home and discuss it with my family?"

At the mention of the F-word a look of almost religious seriousness spread over the Presidential features.

"Of course, Jacqueline," he said, prayerfully.

The last time I had set foot in the Golden Pyramid of Aea was in 1996, unless ... and I realise this will sound confusing ... unless you count the time when I visited its remains at some undefined time in the future in a parallel universe. I'll tell the latter tale maybe at another date, but for the purposes of this narration, all you need to know was that at that second visit there had been (or will be) remains (or renovations) of the old Atlantean machinery, and that hidden in a side laboratory within a statis egg was (or will be) my Royal Brother Tihocan. I get a headache even trying to explain it.

Maybe you should ignore that last paragraph.

Needless to say I had to send a team in there partly to see what was left, but mostly to check that Tihocan wasn't lurking in there somewhere.

I was heading to my multimedia suite to watch the first team go in when I passed Amanda lying on a sofa. She was snoring, and a smouldering cannabis cigarette was about to set fire to her hair. I kicked her onto the floor.

"What the fuck?" she spluttered. I rescued the joint and doused it with a squirt from my copper houseplant syringe.

"How's the hunt for the Daises going then, my darling?" I said, icily.

Amanda was too busy yawning to answer, so I gave her a fresh spray of water to the face.

"What is your major malfunction, Mother?"

I sat down next to her. "Amanda, can I ask you a question? Do you like me when I'm angry?"

Amanda was suddenly all ears. "You were being serious about the Daises?" she said.

"What amazes me if that I have given you carte blanche to max out the Natla Tech credit card whilst carrying out the comparatively minor chore of travelling around the world looking for the portals, and yet here you are sprawled in my living room like some drug-addled bleach-blonde emo piglet."

Amanda looked as if she was going to protest at the description for a split second but then she caught my blue imperial stare.

"Right on it, Mother," she said, jumping to her feet.

"Excellent," I said, smiling as magnanimously as I could manage. "Take Bea if you like."

Amanda was dialling a number on her mobile. "Starting all the arrangements right this second."

The techs had decided to base the telemetry in the multimedia suite on something from NASA, for reasons best known to themselves. Under a large plaque that read "MOBILE TACTICAL OPERATIONS BAY (MTOB)" was a control console lined with monitor screens. There were two screens for each member of the team, the upper screens showing images from the image-intensified video cameras in their helmets whilst the lower screens were labelled things like "BIO-MONITORS" or "EEG" or "EKG".

"What's an EKG?" I wondered "and why do I need to monitor it? Electrokidneyogram? Does that tell me if they've lost bladder control?"

The trouble with techs is that they watch too many science fiction films, I concluded.

I flicked on the apparatus and immediately got eleven pictures of various troopers sitting inside a transport helicopter, most of them asleep in their webbing.

I put on my headset and opened a channel to the Mauro Nero team commander.

"Is that you, Captain ..." I hesitated slightly as I read his name "... Captain Spunkmeyer?"

"Yes, Ma'am."

"Any relation to the Otis Spunkmeyer who makes muffins?"

"I believe that trading name was chosen at random, Ma'am."

"They chose 'Spunkmeyer' at random?"

"Yes, Ma'am. It's is a source of endless amusement I'm told. Ma'am."

"Not to me, Captain."

"Nor me, Ma'am."

"What's your ETA?"

"We're inbound from Sukhumi about to touch down at the Natla Tech Mines, Ma'am. Less than a minute."

Five minutes later the eleven troopers were jogging across the cracked tarmac and I was going to write that "on the screens the mine buildings loomed in the low visibility like wrecks of freighters on the sea floor" but let's just say that it was bit foggy and the large buildings looked a bit shabby.

The troop zoomed through the Natla Mines themselves like hyperactive game players with a walkthrough, and approached the point where the Golden Pyramid's bizarre lakes of low temperature lava mud should have begun to appear.

"Where's the lava?" I said to Captain Spunkmeyer.

"It appears to have drained away, Ma'am." He pointed his helmet camera at what looked like a large hole in the ground. "I can see a tide mark, but nothing else."

"Proceed."

"Ma'am."

I must admit I had to suppress my emotion as they approached one of the sloping golden walls of the pyramid through the cavern. Such a beautiful thing, I thought. A huge wave of nostalgia threatened to overwhelm me

"The door is open, Ma'am," said Spunkmeyer.

"Proceed with caution."

Sprinting in a skirmish line, the team advanced on the main entrance and then moved into the broad corridor. A few patches of green luminescent wall still glistened and I thought I could hear the moaning of the wind. Condensation dripped from the ceiling and pools of water covered the patterning in the floor.

"There appears to have been some sort of gunfight here, sir," said a female trooper called Epona. She fished a bullet out of the wall. "Long time ago."

"Lara Croft," I said.

"Acknowledged," said Spunkmeyer. "Advance and stay frosty."

They entered what had once been one of the egg halls. The floor and the walls were dead - no liquid flowing, no heart beat pulsing. Even what had presumably been egg shells and membrane had rotten away to unidentifiable black husks.

"It stinks," said Trooper Caballa.

"Just like the beaner home planet," said Trooper Hippos.

"Fuck you."

"Fight the power!"

I flicked a switch. "Guys ..." I said.

The only lighting was from helmet spotlights. Every time a side tunnel or an alcove was illuminated, I expected something blood red and lethal to leap out, but there was nothing. Damn you, I thought. You destroyed it all.

They had reached the centre of the pyramid, the vertical chimney that had once had a lava lake at the base and the control room at the apex. The beams from the helmet swung up and down the vertical space. The lava was gone, the guardians were dead and the automatic ledges were all extended. There appeared to be rain falling. We may as well have been in a medieval ruin.

"I think everything has long disappeared," I said.

"Ma'am," said Spunkmeyer. "We can hear no unusual sounds and there is no movement."

"I'd quarter the troop and advance up the staircases in relay. There still may be an old automatic defence system functioning somewhere. I'm guessing in places you'll need grappling hooks to abseil."

"Acknowledged," he said, and began to deploy his troop.

Something was niggling in the back of my head. When I'd visited the Pyramid in the "future", much of the infrastructure - the hematoaulic elevators for example - had been working. I guess I'm going to repair it, I thought, but it didn't seem very likely.

Suddenly I heard a shout from one of the troopers.

"I see daylight, sir," they said and I could see what looked like the sky through what looked like a pile of rubble covered with thick undergrowth.

The trooper concerned - Private Przewalski - picked his way over the rocks and parted plant tendrils with his hands.

"Jeez," he said.

He was standing halfway up a cliff, looking out at the Black Sea. The cliff was part of a blast crater, with waves crashing at the base. It looked like an excavated, but I knew that it was the aftermath of the gigantic explosion that had ripped the heart from the Golden Pyramid of Aea fifteen years earlier.

Another trooper - Falabela - joined him.

"Kinda looks bigger than the satellite photos," she said. "Nice spot for tombstoning."

"Decent rock too."

I could see Falabela grinning through Przewalski's helmet cam. She was Californian tanned, with strong white teeth. Extremely pretty.

"If you ladies finished planning your honeymoon, can we proceed?" said Spunkmeyer.

I indicated one of the "caves" in the side of the new crater, so that it was highlighted on Spunkmeyer's HUD.

"There," I said.

They began to belay down and across to the tunnel entrance, down where I suspected "Tihocanland" might be situated, on the other side of the Golden Pyramid to mine.

I don't know if you've ever seen one of those pickled corpses in cross-section, but the inside of the Golden Pyramid looked like that. I could see what had used to be the "veins", sclerotic and clogged with a red powder that had once been "blood". Instead of the heartbeat of biomechanical machinery there was silence, and where there had once been the crackle of sparks traversing axonic powerlines, there was just the odd creak. The troop had been wandering around inside a dead body.

However as they entered "Tihocanland", the whole place - if not exactly alive - began to look increasingly less desiccated.

Spunkmeyer bent down to lay his palm flat on the floor of the tunnel.

"Slightly warm," he reported. "And with some elasticity." He banged his first on the ground, and there was a faint quiver such as one might get hitting a hard party jelly with a tea spoon.

They halted in a red and green room that resembled a diseased heart chamber.

"Sound off," said Spunkmeyer, and the troopers stood in a line and shouted their names one by one. I guess it was a morale thing in unfamiliar territory. I just hoped that nothing was listening.

Tihocan had originally had his own lab, situated on the Egyptian sea shore. However the Flood had come - partly due to his meddling with volcanoes - and now the remains lay below hundreds of feet of Nile Delta silt. Thus, after my imprisonment he had, apparently, taken over part of my Golden Pyramid of Aea. If he had been around at all in the last few hundred years there would be telltale signs.

"Move out. Trakehner - point."

"Sir."

"Cap - are we supposed to shoot stuff?"

"Not if it has Natla Tech stamped on its forehead."

"Can I shoot Percheron?" asked Trooper Dobbin.

"On your own time," said Spunkmeyer.

"And with your own damn bullets," growled Percheron.

"I'll swing by the aisle next time I'm in Walmart," said Dobbin.

"Percheron has Natla Tech ink on his ass," said Fallabella.

"Eyes please ladies," said Spunkmeyer.

A moment later they leave the tunnel and walked into a large open space - a sort of giant body cavity studded with sewer-size arteries, tumorous outcroppings, gristly furniture and bulbous fittings the size of a car.

"That looks promising," I said into my mike.

"Take defensive position but nobody touch anything. Look and listen."

I watched the eleven TV screens as the troop looked around them.

"What's the range of your Bosch distance finder?"

"About 160 feet, depending on laser scattering," whispered Spunkmeyer.

"Give me an idea of proportions." However the chamber was taller than 160 feet and the walls were further than 160 feet.

I was scribbling on a pad in front of me, building up a rough 3D map on my computer. I could refine later.

"OK, " I said, eventually. "Two things to check out - two potential threat. Roughly east of you - I can see a light and what looks like metal. And roughly north by northwest- that giant sphere, looks like a dulled pearl, about 20 foot diameter."

"Check," murmured Spunkmeyer. "Any advice?"

"Watch the walls," I said, "and listen for flapping wings."

"NBC suits?"

I reflected that a fireball would make short work of almost anything they could wear.

"No point," I said, with a stab of anxiety in my throat.

Silently, the troop was divided into three squads. Falabella, Przewalski and Percheron were left to guard the tunnel entrance. Spunkmeyer led Troopers Dobbin, Trakehner and Steed to the "metallic light", whilst Sergeant Caballa led Yearling, Epona and Hippos to the "giant pearl".

I was watching all of the screens, and it immediately became clear that the "light" was a Dais, a Dais left switched on like in the Temple Of The Chariot Of The Gods, but unlike any Dais that I'd ever seen before.

"Captain," I said to Spunkmeyer. "That is a portal. Approach with care, but if you manage nothing else, I want it destroyed with C4."

Spunkmeyer did a thumbs-up in front of his cam.

This Dais was brand new. There were no chunks of rock lying about, no vegetation, nothing to make it look as if it had been there for centuries. It was a smooth and shiny and clean as if it had just been taken out of the box. It was also twice as tall and twice as wide as the other Daises. Either something big was designed to come through, or lots of things at once. I didn't like it.

I liked even less what flanked the Dais in the concave alcove that had been built for it, contrasting strongly with the Atlantean black, green and red surrounding it, as out of place as a camera embedded in a mosaic. Seven figures, glittering with orichalcum, versions of Amboulios, Olympean warriors. Above each figure was a name - "Capaneus" and "Eteocles" and "Polynices", et cetera. They appeared as inactive as statues, but ...

"Those golden figures," I said, "are killer alien robots. If you can, you may want to mine them. Before they wake up."

"Great," muttered Spunkmeyer, under his breath.

As if I needed any more evidence, it was clear that my Royal Brother Tihocan was somehow in league with the Olympeans. He, and my Royal Sister Astarte. Back in Atlantis I'd have been delighted - after all we were all family - but now?

Was I just being paranoid, or was there a reason to feel that everything was not right? Something was niggling at the back of my brain, but I couldn't bring it into focus. Something to do with my awakening in 1945, and the world that I'd awakened into. Something that had driven me to disable the Dais at Temple Of The Chariot Of The Gods and to prevent whoever was stepping through - possibly Tihocan, possibly Astarte - from proceeding.

Was I just ill again, I wondered?

At the other end of the cavern, Corporal Caballa's team were approaching the "pearl".

"Can you hear me Corporal Caballa? This is Jacqueline Natla."

"I hear you."

"The thing in front of you is either an incubator egg, or it's a stasis chamber. Either way something might come out that you are forced to engage."

I could see Caballa gesturing to her team members to spread out.

"How should we proceed, Ma'am?" whispered Caballa.

"Hold position - not too close - until the Captain has finished."

"Ma'am."

I switched channels.

"Corporal Falabella?"

"Ms. Natla, Ma'am."

"Be prepared to retreat rapidly back up that tunnel taking fire."

"Any other egg sucking advice Ma'am?" she said, with a smile in her voice.

"Cute," I said.

They had mined the Dais and all of the Warriors when the flying device arrived. It was small and glittering and it was definitely having a good long look at the troops and their activities. Half a dozen weapons swung around onto it.

"Try not to shoot it," I said to Spunkmeyer, "but you've been spotted. Blow the charges and get out of there."

He shouted commands with no more pretence at stealth, and running backwards, armed his explosive trigger.

At that moment the flying thing - let's call it The Bee - had either made an executive decision or received a command. Tow appendages appeared from its torso. Flying up to Spunkmeyer before he could react, it grasped his shoulder with a metal claw and injected him in the neck with a shining needle.

Spunkmeyer fell. I glanced at his vitals, but he wasn't dead, merely asleep.

The troop opened fired on The Bee.

"Retrieve the detonator," I said on an open channel.

Steed and Dobbin were dragging Spunkmeyer towards the entrance tunnel when Trakehner yelled "Fire in the hold" and set off the explosives. The Bee was not quite quick enough to stop him, but a second later he was injected and fell unconscious.

Caballa's egg exploded, which was informative for me - it wasn't a stasis chamber containing my brother - but bad news for her. A creature, half-centaur, half-minotaur burst out, its hoofed forearms clad with fireball armaments.

So.

I went back over the next few minutes over the following months, bent over in my chair with guilt. A few images stick in my mind.

Przewalski running and leaping onto the bull-headed centaur, grabbing the horns and then, unable to break its neck or penetrate its hide, blowing it and himself up, to a cry of grief from Falabella.

Falabella alone, running down the corridor.

A line of unconscious or disabled men, arranged in a nice line on the floor by the Bee, with only Corporal Yearling still conscious, and looking about.

His cry of horror as something crawls out of the fire and smoke, half an Atlantean warrior, pulling itself along by its arms.

His camera jittering as it reaches the end of the line and holding out a giant golden hand, its face expressionless, crushes the head of the first man before moving on to the next.

Yearling crying and praying.

Each monitor screen going blank in turn.

Yearling's scream as the golden hand closes about his face.

Only one monitor left working and the sound of gasping.

Falabella reaches the cliff, and slumps down. She seems to be broken.

"Corporal Falabella," I saw gently, trying to keep the overtones of anxiety out of my voice.

She grabs off her head set and throws it away.

For an hour she sits watching the sun going down, weeping and saying Przewalski's name, ignoring my tinny shouts.

Then, as the light goes, she is suddenly calm. She stands and falls forward off the cliff. Her life signs cease; the ledge is empty.

I lock the door of the control booth and ignore the knocking and the calling from outside.

After the Golden Pyramid incident I withdrew into self-imposed purdah. The only people I allowed into my presence were Jacarilla and Das. The local newspaper began to run stories about New Mexico's absentee Governor.

Jak prepared all my food herself - various simple succotashes and milk dishes. She had a fresh bag of kefir on the go at all times - she had become as expert as an Atlantean - and occasionally she tempted me with salty ,spicy tack resulting from her hunting endeavours, or with freshly made breads made from corn that she had ground by hand. Her grandfather, Chief Elkhorn, sent over containers of home-distilled Chiricahui Ishkodewaaboo, a sort of harsh alcoholic spirit that was very pleasant served with over ice and roughly chopped citrus fruits, and which the Chief claimed would help me with my "spirit quest". He also prescribed potions prepared from peyote or homebred hybrids of hemp called things like "herojuana", but I declined. My brain chemistry was already in an altered state.

Most days neither Jacarilla or Das got very much conversation out of me and we'd sit on the porch in silence, me with my thousand yard stare and they with their companionable meditation. I didn't feel much of anything most of the time, but the intellectual side of my brain recognised how much I loved them beneath the ice coating my heart. I found myself wishing that Elwood Gato and Jacqueline Love were still alive. I even thought of Chloe of the Golden Hair.

Then, one day, Das handed me a note. It was written in his ultra-neat hand with fountain pen and it said; "We have recovered Qualopec."

I didn't react, except to say; "Bring your Royal Uncle here. Use a covert cargo plane ... make a temporary runway ... set up labs and clinics near the Mesa ..."

I caught sight of myself in a mirror - the red-rimmed eyes, the dry hair and haggard skin - and looked away with a stab of self-loathing.

Das bowed, kissed my hand silently and went on his way..

Later I watched the heavy rollers at work just out of earshot and the air-conditioned trailers parking respectfully in the distance in preparation. I wondered if any of the workmen spotted the mad old lady sitting on a rocking chair on the porch of Parajito Mesa, steadily getting drunk from breakfast time onwards.

Then I received an electronic message informing me that the plane had lifted off from Bogota and was expected to touch down at sunset.

I cleaned myself up, conditioned my hair, put on a plain white dress, simple chamois sandals with calf ties and one or two pieces of modest jewellery, doing myself up like a virtuous Attic matron. I knew that Qualopec would not be aware but I felt it fitting. I was weak, however, and so I allowed myself a wide-brimmed "beekeeper" hat and a beechwood thumbstick to lean upon.
I watched the plane as it lumbered in, casting a giant shadow across the land and felt the vibration of the ground as it touched down. I allowed myself to be driven in one of the dune buggies out to the airstrip, where the plane was already flanked by vehicles and generators. The tail gate was down and we drove straight inside. There, bathed by spotlights, was what looked like an orange cargo container, with Das standing before the closed doors.

"Order everybody out," I whispered to him as I hobbled up, leaning on my thumbstick, hat brim pulled over my eyes.

Alone, he unlatched the metal doors and swung them open, first one side then the other, with a rusty scraping and clanging.

I could see a dim shape stowed inside, tied down with cables and cradled by braces, but it wasn't until Das began to position the lights inside that I could begin to make him out.

At the risk of boring you, I'll just say that it was a very emotional moment for me. I was glad of my stick and hat.

To be blunt, my brother looked like a cooked body in the remains of a car crash. The spidery legs and carapace of his prosthetic armour looked as if they had been crushed by a hundred tons of rock and he himself resembled a cross between a mummy and a barbeque sausage overlooked in the ashes.

I approached gingerly, snapping my fingers for a torch. His head was intact, and that was all that really mattered.

I took a hanky from my pocket and gently brushed to the rock dust from that sleepy face, at first sight little more than a leather mask.

"Hello again, my Royal Brother," I said gently. "Has anybody told you that you look like the villain from the Texas Chainsaw Massacre?"

I touched his cheek with my fingers, and immediately, a thrill of hope. I felt not cold hard leather, but something smoother and slightly static. There was a very thin layer of what appeared to be a statis field surrounding his skull. Qualopec's gallant exoskeleton, masterwork of my Royal Brother Tihocan, had gallantly expended the last of its many thousand-year-old radioactive fuel attempting to protect its master.

"We can rebuild him," I said. "We have the technology."

We removed him in bits, the head in its stasis field and then the body, the latter to be treated with rehydration liquids and fabric softeners. I wept at his shrunken limbs and the deep scars where his flesh has interfaced with the metal. It was all my fault.

The body was easy for we immediately began to grow another, a trivial matter for Natla Technologies. The head, though - now that was a three pipe problem.

"What is personality?" I mused. "What are memories? Somewhere frozen in that leather football are his last thought and his first thought, laid out in a pattern of protein scaffolding and neuronal wiring, charged clouds and half-open gates. The smell of an Atlantean rose lies written within the states of probability flickering around the periphery of his QDNA. How do we access it without destroying it?"

The answer turned out to be; gingerly.

We probed that skull with every ray and every magnet, and collated the results in a giant 3D model in the world's most powerful computer. Some parts were the bioalgorithms that we all share in common - how to walk, how to breathe - and for those we could fill in the gaps ourselves.

Then - remote probing exhausted - we switched off the preservation field and sent in the spiders. Tribes of cooperating arachnobots scuttled thought the spaces of his mind, memorising what they saw in the same way that they would remember the complexities of an individual web, and then relayed the information to the mind construct forming in cyberspace.

The computers pondered and modelled and mathematicked the results day after day until the uber-program announced that they had 95% of a whole person, a software homunculus, ready for transplantation into a newly grown cerebellum.

As we reassembled Qualopec, I felt myself being re-assembled.

Then at last the great day of the awakening ceremony arrived.

Qualopec was laid out on a Royal Bed, marvellous in his beauty (of which more anon), an Atlantean Prince rebuilt.

I dressed in as much Atlantean finery as I could reconstruct, even preparing a set of jewels that would wink in an approximation of my finery of old, allowing me to gesture and declaim in High Ancient Atlantean.

"Revive His Royal Highness," I ordered, and Das pulled down a wall switch, bathing the room in the cracking of lighting flashes and the whirring and bubbling of machines. The new mind was fed into the new body.

Qualopec twitched and then arched his back as a bolt of electricity entered his chest, restarting his heart.

We waited, listening to the thud of his heart beat over the lab monitors.

Then his eyes snapped open, and he sat bolt upright on his bier, his gaze locking with mine.

"You're alive," I said.

Qualopec and I were true brother and sister, offspring of the same Atlantean slave girl by the mighty Atlas, who for so many years held up the mighty edifice that was Atlantis on his broad shoulders. As is only natural, right from the get go we were truly and deeply besotted with each other.

My natural sexual proclivities went right out of the window; maybe there is only one kind of man who can genuinely "cure" a lesbian, and that is her beloved brother. One wonders how many women turn to other women simply because no man can ever measure up to their siblings.

I wondered, of course, if the memory of my alleged treachery and my trial had conveniently been mislaid from his mind but then one day as we lay together he said; "I am sorry, my most beloved Royal Sister, that I did not return to release you as I promised. I failed not from a lack of honour, but from a lack of energy."

"Now you have all the energy of a brave new world," I replied, snuggling again him. "You are the Royal Bull to my Royal Cow."

Of course the press were delighted, and we gave out that Qualopec was a Peruvian archaeologist who had been rescued from a rock fall by the staff of Natla Tech. Apparently I had fallen for him whilst nursing him back to health, and this tale, with its mixture of feminine soppiness and masculine derring-do went down like an enthusiastic lover with my public. Besides, Qualopec's natural beauty made Alexander Icarus look ersatz and artificial in comparison.

If I was impressed with the remade Qulaopec, Nas was even more so. They were both warriors and so I think both were tempted to fall into the traditional roles of pais and erastes so beloved of the ancient armies, even though strictly speaking Nas was rather too old to make such a pederast relationship quite respectable (by Atlantean standards). However they took a more chaste approach and in spite of continually washing and oiling each other's bodies and often sharing a bed, they did nothing that would have been thought unacceptable between athletes, footballers or boxers. However although buggery was not rigueur, I'm sure they thought nothing of manually relieving each other whilst sharing a passionate kiss, their hard, oiled bodies sliding sinuously together in that manly, military companionship that builds the bonds one finds useful on a battlefield.

Often at dawn I would see them struggling in the dust outside the Mesa Parajito, each trying to throw the other in some complicated form of wrestling. Nas taught his beloved uncle English and introduced him to the terror of the gun, whilst Qualopec instructed Nas in tactics and took him on long Spartan retreats into the desert, both naked except for flasks of oil and water and a single hunting knife.

The new order of things had an unfortunate side, however. Neither Bea Bartak nor Jacarilla Elkhorn understood, perhaps naturally enough.

One day they walked solemnly together into my living room, where I, Qualopec and Nas were lounging about drink mojitos, and announced that they were leaving.

I cried, Nas cried, Bea cried, Jacarilla looked grim and Qualopec was distressed. However there was nothing to be done. Neither Nas nor I could give up our new family member, and Bea and Jak would share. Bea spat at Nas' feet and called him a "duce pe cai greshite" or some such thing. Jak gave me an awful look as if she wished that she could kill me. I begged for forgiveness but I could see that she was dreaming of gutting me like one of her hunted animals. I could feel the knives from her eyes flaying the skin from my heart.

Eventually they left.

Everybody was very upset for a fair period of time.

Then, after a decent period, we announced my impending nuptials to Qualopec.

One day Das came in to tell us about his ideas for space defense. Despite his polite smiles, I had the impression that he didn't really like Qualopec. He'd get used to him, I thought.

"We have created an offshoot company called Natla Galactic and built an operating base here in New Mexico called Spaceport Atlántico."

Qualopec's English was fairly good by this time. "Why Atlántico, Royal Nephew?" he said.

"My Royal Uncle asks an interesting question," said Das, bowing. "The name has resonances of both the modern world, of the 'Atlantic' as the Americans call the Ocean, and of ancient Atlantis, which they already have named a spacecraft after."

"Why not just Spaceport Natla?" I said.

"Our focus groups say that people are becoming tired of the name Natla cropping up all over the place."

Qualopec and I exchanged glances.

"Leave it for now," I said. "We have to at least appear democratic."

Das projected a photograph onto the wall. "And this is the spacecraft," he said. "It will achieve low earth orbit above the atmosphere which will be sufficient for the attack that I have planned."

"Attack?" said Qualopec.

"I'll fill you in later," I said. I hadn't told him that I intended to attack Olympeans and I wasn't looking forward to it. Qualopec waved a regal hand to indicate that we should continue.

The space craft had two parts; a mothership that looked like a commercial plane and then seated in between the two jet engines a smaller orbital craft which could detach itself and fly upwards into space.

"And what is this named?"

"The mothership is called the African Queen," said Das, "but I thought I'd leave the naming of the orbital craft to you."

"First explain how it works. How can you use it as a weapon?"

Das went through all the details; the payload, the flight plan, the target and the weapon, and as he did I could see Qualopec stiffening. I placed a hand on his arm and gave him a look that signaled patience.

"Just like The Dambusters," I said, with a smile. "You are an ingenious engineer, my son."

"Thank you, Mama Jackie," said Das, bowing again.

I pondered for a moment. "I think a good name for the space craft might be ... J for Jackie".

"I thought you weren't naming things after yourself any more?" said Qualopec.

"Oh, it's not named after me," I replied, sadly.

Behind closed doors Qualopec and I had the first row that we'd had since the good old days.

"I've been listening and looking and learning, my Esteemed Royal Sister-Wife," said Qualopec, striding up and down the room, "and I am forced to the conclusion that you have declared war on the Lords of the Sky and the Sea." I had given Qualopec access to all of our activities. It seemed pointless to keep anything from him any more.

"Not so, my Beloved Brother-Husband," I said, sitting meekly on a chair with my hands folded in my lap.

"Then perhaps you can explain to me why you have dispatched our Royal Niece-Daughter to close the Gateways of the Gods and commissioned our Royal Nephew-Sons to shoot down the Chariot of the Gods?"

"My answer as to the Daises is that we do not know that they are Gateways to the Gods. They are also Gateways to the Underworld and to other worlds we know nothing of. They may even on occasion be Gateways to Times Past. Would you free the Blood-hungry Dead? Would you rouse the Gigantomachy from their burial beneath the mountains? And if so, would the Olympean Gods thank us?"

"Hypotheticals," snorted Qualopec.

"My darling," I said, placing a placating palm on him, "I swear that I saw our deranged and vengeful brother Tihocan through the Dais in the Temple of the Chariot of the Gods."

Qualopec pursed his lips. "Very well. Your reluctance on that point, although not showing very much family loyalty, is at least understandable. But what of the rest of it? You rave as if you were in the grip of Phobos."

I sat him down and poured us glasses of ambrosia. I lit the incense brazier and put harp music to play.

"There are two points which I must explain," I said, "and if at the end you find my logic wanting I will call off the hounds."

Qualopec's face emptied of anger and he remained merely quizzical.

"The first point is the information that I have received from the woman known to us as Lara Croft."

"The destroyer of the Golden Pyramid of Aea and the would-be assassin of yourself on numerous occasions?" said Qulaopec with a dry laugh.

"You forget, dear husband, that I dearly love this old enemy of mine and I can detect when she is telling the truth. Deadly she may be but dissembling she is not. She is like a naive child."

"Very well."

"Lara has visited the Tombs of many of the Olympeans on Mars. Many of the Gods that we knew, including our beloved grandfather Poseidon, peace be upon him, are dead. Lara spoke of an alternative to Earth named ur-Earth and of two factions of the gods, one led by the male Diwo and the by the female Diwija, who destroyed themselves in a lethal war."

"The Gods fought many wars in the time before Atlantis."

"But which faction approaches and what is their intent, my dearest? As rulers of a kingdom threatened by an unknown enemy with unknown powers what can one do but prepare for all eventualities."

"This does not explain why you plan to attack them first."

"The second of my two points is this," I said, gently. "I have observed the human race of the modern age. They are proud beyond measure and spoiled beyond sanity."

"Maybe a return to the Golden Age would address those faults? One world, one state, one religion, my beautiful wife."

"If only," I said sadly. "I was awakened into this world be the sting of a fearsome wasp, whose toxin would easily spread o'er the planet and extinguish all life. It is my considered opinion that the human race would rather die and take their cities with them into a poisoned fiery abyss than submit. We have left them to play alone for too long and now our children have run out of control."

Qualopec took my hand.

"It is your considered opinion that our future subjects would rather die than welcome the return of the Gods?"

"Why do you think that recently I have taken the tentative path to power that I have, working within their belief systems and wearing the masks that they have provided? I could have unleashed the might of Atlantis - I even tried once - but I was deluded. I'd have killed the baby in its bed."

Qualopec pondered this and as he did absentmindly put an arm around me and kissed me. I could feel him as close as a trout to my tickling fingers.

"Could be not greet the Gods and see what they propose?"

"The humans would not be able to. Their minds would be filled with terror and horror at the mere proof of a God. In their genetically programmed survival mode they would shoot first. Hence I propose to shoot for them, as their ruler, in a fashion that is under my control. In this way we may gain a space both to fire a warning shot across the face of God and to allow the human race to adjust to their eventual rulers."

Qualopec smiled. "You are the most cunning of us all, our own Odysseus. And what if the Gods object to your warning shot?"

I shrugged. "If Tihocan is with them then I am already outlawed and condemned from his lips. I may as well get my money's worth and if necessary provide a scapegoat to the anger of the Lords of the Sun and the Sea if only to divert it from my subjects."

Qualopec's eyes filled with tears and I knew that I had him. But I wondered which side he'd bet on when the chips were down.

I had been so busy having a good time with Qualopec that I had blotted Amanda from my mind. Where was Amanda?

"Where is Amanda?" I said to Nas and Das.

"She's ... I don't know, Mama Jackie," said Nas, cheerfully. "Presumably still shutting down Daises."

"But you don't know precisely?"

"No," said Das. "But I can try and locate her."

"Please do. I want her to meet her Uncle. Now ... what was it you wanted to tell me?"

Nas came over and put an arm around my shoulder. "Time for a stiff Atlantean upper lip," he said.

The news was this; apparently, as the year wore on, the number of strange natural phenomena had increased. There had been tsunami and earthquakes and eruptions all over the place. The trend was positively apocalyptic.

"Much of this is due to increased sun spot activity," said Nas, softly. "It has even had an effect on military communications."

I looked at his face, and I knew what they were going to tell me.

"Then, this morning, we received these reports from astronomers across the globe," said Das, handing me some printouts. "There is a huge tornado on the planet Venus, and a new Red Spot has appeared on the face of Jupiter."

"But that's not the worst of it," whispered Nas, holding me tighter.

"Radar has picked up an object which appears to have appeared from nowhere somewhere near Pasiphaë," said Das, stumbling and stammering somewhat over his sentence. His hands were shaking and his face was like beige chalk. "The object will reach earth some time between December 21st and December 23rd, 2012."

I sat down rather heavily, despite Nas' support.

They say that the anticipation of what you most fear is worse than the actual event itself, but I couldn't detect any lessening of my secret terror.

"It's looks as if we'll be having relatives over for Christmas," I said, in a sepulchral tone.

---

Interlude; "Tihocan"

It was roughly a month since I had drugged and overpowered Tihocan, my traumatised consort, and I still wasn't showing. There were eight foetuses in there, four sets of twin girls, one of the pairs a bad seed – Chloe of the Golden Hair and Amanda Evert. Not that I knew that then. Of course no Atlantean Queen could be asked to bring to term octuplets - so animalistic, so plebeian - and so, when the time was right and the augurs propitious, the babies would be decanted into glass jars, fed the human equivalent of Royal Jelly and watched over by winged nurses.

Our subjects may have been ecstatic at the news that one of their Royal Couples were breeding – there were graffiti on every wall and pottery statues for sale at every knick knack stall – but Tihocan wasn't happy. Although … on reflection that's a bit of a euphemism. A better description of his mood would be as stark raving mad, or as in an eternal hissy fit, with claws permanently drawn to scratch my eyes out and his pouting lower lip stiffened to the point that I felt that if the wind changed direction, he would stay that way for eternity. If any statues survived from that time they would show him dressed in his bishop mitre crown and his panelled kilt, his belly and heavy thighs on display, and with the most extraordinary and fleshly moue, his huge lips thrust forward below his elongated forehead, like two obscene plantains sticking out of his face.

We had set up house in the Atrium Of The Consensus, a palace on the outer shore of the Inner Circular Sea, an area usually reserved for the Administrative Class. I had been slightly horrified that we should be mingling with non-Royals, but our advisors had advised us that it was advisable to advertise the advent of an ever more accessible autocracy, and therefore we had acceded to the ceding of our royal autonomy.

Tihocan was the only person who capable of making a grand entrance small, and this particular morning was no exception. He appeared from the garden and struck a pose, a young beautiful boy hanging on each of his bejewelled arms.

"Your Royal Highness!" he said, with an elaborate bow.

I rose from my chair to return the salutation.

"My love," I said. "The sun itself blanches at Your Kingly Presence."

"Yes. Well. That's all very well, but I have come to inform you that I am moving out of the Royal Bedchamber," said Tihocan, raising his weak chin, and presenting a three quarter profile.

"I didn't know you were still in the Royal Bedchamber, My Beloved and Most Blessed Brother-Husband," I said, sitting back down to my genetic designs.

"Well I was, and now I won't be," he said, adding as an afterthought "My Fertile Princess Of The Triple Seas."

"Whatever Your Serene Highness wishes," I said, making the stylised hand movements for compliance and content.

"Very good, My Queen," he said, turning on his heel and walking out.

I smoothed the sand table in front of me and began to draw with my onyx stylus. After a second, however, my concentration was broken by the re-appearance of my brother.

"Aren't you curious to know why Your Husband is deserting Your Nuptual Chamber?"

I looked him in the eye and I could see his secret dream of slitting my throat. "Of course, My Love. Whatever concerns you concerns me, Your Loyal Wife."

Tihocan took a dancer's half step forward and with his jewels and gestures signalling a combination of "play" and "legal enquiry" said "Maybe you can guess, Jewel Of The Earth's Firmament?"

I smoothed my tunic over my lap. "Maybe you don't like me watching you doing it with your gilded inamoratas, My King," I said, gesturing at his two consorts. "You shouldn't be shy. Your Lordship being sodomised by your boys is of no more significance to me than when I myself strap on a leather phallus and fill your ever lubricated fundament."

Tihocan let out a snarl like an annoyed lap dog, and threw his companions to one side. He strode forward and started to wave a bejewelled finger in my face.

"I... you ... only your Royal Blood which I have the privilege to share prevents me from ...," he spluttered. "You ...I ..."

"What is it that is troubling you, my stuttering sibling?"

"You ... what is the word ... rode? Took? Polluted me? However you term it, you joined with me without my permission."

I was finding it difficult not to go cross-eyed with his finger an inch from my nose but I said "We married for state reasons - to produce a child. You agreed and took the vows. Besides, your accusation is ridiculous. Everybody knows that a wife cannot be accused of outraging the modesty of her husband."

Tihocan stamped his feet. "I am not some squalling prisoner of war bewailing a just defilement by his captor," he said. "Consider One's Royal Feelings. They are injured."

"I observe your whims and moods every day, My Husband, as is the duty of a loving helpmeet," I said, "but when it came to the Succession your feelings were not reachable by logic."

"What has love got to do with logic?" he said. "Did our best poets die in vain?"

"I hear your wailing as no doubt does Grandfather Poseidon himself, My Beloved Brother, but what were we supposed to do? Who else would do it? Qualopec is no longer able."

"Thanks to your bizarre creations."

I ignored this. "Maybe you suggest that I mate with one of the Ten Kings? Your father, for example?"

Tihocan blanched. "Don't be disgusting," he said.

"So?" I said, raising a haughty eyebrow.

"Couldn't you have chosen … a nearby Prince, or something?"

"There are no nearby Princes," I said, trying to control my irritation. "May as well go out in a field and have my furrow ploughed by some hoary-handed helot."

A thoughtful look came over Tihocan's face. "Yes, well obviously would defeat the object," he said.

"So?"

"I'm still upset!"

I had begun a very elaborate bow, combined with an elaborated son et lumiere indicating "condolences in the event of an inconsolable loss" when a strange and strident sound stopped us in our steps.

"Braaaaaaw!", it said. "Braaaaaaaaaaw!"

Tihocan and I exchanged alarmed glances.

"Come on," I said, grabbing his hand and running out of the Tertiary Throne Room of the Palace of Mneseus and Autochthon and onto the shore of the Inner Circular Sea.

There we were met by Captain Hellas of the Lapithae Regiment.

"Apparently there is some sort of distress klaxon from the Central Island," he said.

"The Kings?" said Tihocan. "Is there an attack?"

"I have little or no information, My Lord."

"Take us over," I said.

"Yes, My Lady."

"Our fathers," said Tihocan, as we hurried down to the dock.

"I hear you," I said.

Tihocan had drawn his sword and was sharpening it on a whetstone as we were skulled across the Inner Circular Sea whilst I, caught by surprise and therefore unarmed, armed myself with a hoplite's spear and gazed across the water at whatever. Tihocan's two boys strapped on armour and stood ready to defend their princes.

"Our brother," I said, shielding my eyes and observing a craft on a parallel course to our own.

"To the Lords of the Sea and the Sky applause," said Tihocan. "We may soon need his killing claws."

Within a short space we Royal three met on the Central Isle, our handful of soldiers wondering what the hurly-burly was all about.

"Well met, weird sister," said Qualopec jovially, or as jovially as a man can manage when he is encased in a grotesque machine.

I was glad to see him, sad not to be able to embrace him. "Greetings, Theion of the Atzlan Confederacy," I said, all grace and favour, my lights and jewellery a-twinkle.

"Let us to Poseidon's Temp and see that which our peace unkemp," said Qualopec.

We tripped - or in Qualopec's case clumped - up the green to the scene of the emergency.

As we entered the portico, the soldiers fanning, it seemed as if the Ten Kings had dispersed, or maybe they were having a day off.

"Can we silence these clamorous harbingers of blood and death?" said Tihocan, his hands clapped o'er his ears.

"Things at the worst will cease," I replied, flicking a switch, and silencing the trumpets.

We crept in, weapons drawn, and cover sought, but there were but two figures standing over the trapdoor to the Omphalos, and bizarre creatures they were too.

The first, an etiolated barbarian with unkempt bleached hair and war paint around the eyes, looked as if she had been dragged through a bush backwards. Her clothes were a bizarre collection of strange materials and scraps and bobbins, and she started like a guilty criminal.

The second looked like a warrior from hell, Cerberus's trainer or Hades' food taster, dressed in black shine, studded, silvery and dead-eyed.

"Declare yourselves,"` said Qualopec, clicking forward on lobster legs, claws clacking.

"Who disturbs our peace?" said Tihocan, an engineer's chill masking his features, weapons calibrated.

"How on earth did you get in here?" I said, fiddling with my fireballs.

The blacked haired one said nothing, eyes aglow, and the white haired one said "Ooga booga booga ooga boogily oogily," or words very much to that effect.

But then they did something that impressed us. The white one drew from her bag a golden object - a lamp? a bottle? - and within it appeared a tiny figure, a figure that spoke.

"Greetings to the Imperial Triumvirate of Atlantis," said the homunculus, bowing. "We, humble travellers from a distant place, fall on your mercy and pray your forbearance."

"You know us?" said Tihocan.

"Who has not heard of Tihocan, the Smithy of the Gods, Qualopec, the Crab God of Atzlan and Natla, the Mother of Invention?"

"Ooga booga booga ooga boogily oogily," chimed in the white one, and it was impossible to say if she was scared or angered or both. The dark one looked blackly enigmatic, and held her stygian tongue, if she had one.

I held out my hand, and the white one hesitated. The black one stiffened and drew what might have been a couple of projectile weapon but in the next instant her face was grimacing silently in pain.

"This one does not speak," remarked Qualopec, holding her up in his claw. The black warrior struggled but the giant claw dug into her waist and she was in danger of being snipped in half.

I took the genie in the jar and peered at it. It seemed oddly familiar if miniature.

"Name your masters," I said.

The homunculus wrinkled its brow in thought and then said; "I do not have the vowels to render the names in High Atlantean. However the lady is white is known as 'She-who-has-been-turned-out-yet-must-be-loved' and the lady in black as "The-pea-in-a-pod-who-sells-herself'."

"And you, little mouth. Who are you?"

"Merely a machine. A vision. A projection. A device."

"But your face. It chimes."

"I am yourself," said the homunculus. "You have created me in your own image."

I was so shocked that I dropped the bottle. The white visitor cried out, whilst Tihocan stepped forward to retrieve the genie from the marble floor. The white one stepped forward and grasped his arm, and animalistic look of craving on her face.

"Ooga booga," she murmured piteously. "Ooga booga." And she fell to the floor, grasping Tihocan around the knees and bursting into tears.

"My brother," I said. "Maybe I should interrogate the tiny ambassador further, whilst you examine She-who-must-be-loved?"

"It is grasping at The Royal Thighs," said Tihocan, with intense horror. "Shoo, oafen beast! Shoo!"

"I think it likes you," I said, retrieving the bottle from his flapping hands and retreating a few paces.

"Speak the truth, miniature me," I whispered. "Whither you come, weird travellers three?"

"From your old age," it replied.

I made no sense of this statement, and began to wonder if this visitation was something to do with Olympus. "You look not like the inhabitants of the earth," I said.

"We are human. As I say, by strange routes and tunnels from your future."

"And I, in this future, made you?"

"As a guide for the white one, with the black warrior as her guard."

I glanced at the others. "Why does she weep?"

The homunculus hesitated for a rather long time. "She greets her father … if he but knew it. But you, his sister, must not reveal it!" it added.

"You command me?"

"You command yourself," said the sprite, with a lopsided smile. "But you will want to hear my prophecy."

I drew myself up to my fullest height and adopted my snootiest tone of voice. "I sneer at prophecy," I said. "Prophecies are for fools who would give up control of their own destiny. I forbid you to utter them."

The homunculus obvious had its own agenda. "Tihocan will be king hereafter," it said quickly, before I could dash it to pieces on the ground.

I glared at it, and it giggled nervously.

"Lesser than Tihocan, and greater," it continued. "Not so happy, yet much happier. Thou shalt get kings, though thou be none."

That finally annoyed me and I snapped. I threw the bottle against a pillar, smashing it into smithereens, crying "Go, imperfect speaker, and tell me no more!"

"Oo-gaa!" wailed the white one, running over and scrabbling among the fragments. Her face darkened and began to redden as she looked at me. "Ooogily boogily," she snarled, throwing the white hair out of her black eyes and drawing a blue pendant from between her breasts. "Oogily boogily!"

At that moment there were some explosions from the other side of the Temple. The black warrior had fired something at the face shield of Qualopec, causing him to drop her.

"Arrest it!" yelled Tihocan, and I heard him "oof" as the air was knocked out of him.

However my whole attention was now fixed on 'She-who-has-been-turned-out-yet-must-be-loved'. A blue vaporous horror was emerging from her necklace jewel and coalescing in front of me. The thing roared, and before I could let off a fireball, it was smothering me and clawing at me.

My head crashed against the floor and I blacked out. My last sense caught the triumphant laughter of the one in white.

A few days later, I awoke in the Charnel House Of Aesculapius, one of our local hospitals, and Qualopec and Tihocan were summoned as a head splitting fanfare of salpinxes announced my return to consciousness.

"Disaster postponed," said Qualopec jovially.

"Our fathers intervened," said Tihocan.

The Ten Kings had reappeared at just the right moment and the visitors had been thrown back down into the Omphalos, the entrance sealed for eternity.

That woke me.

"You met your fathers?" I said.

Tihocan and Qualopec exchanged a glance, one shuffling his effete slippers and the other his crab legs.

"We'll tell you later," said Qualopec, but I don't recall that they ever did. "'Til then, Tihocan has something to say."

Tihocan swallowed as if he was being forced to eat something unpleasant. "I feared for your safety, My Divine Sister," he said," and for the sacred and precious cargo you carry in your belly, our children."

"Say that last phrase again."

"Our children," he said, somewhat reluctantly.

I looked at him thought 'you'll be king over my dead body, you charmless man.'

But I said "And your eight daughters thank you, Your Royal Godhead," and wondered how disappointed he'd be if I told him that he'd already met one, and that the augurs were not propitious.

---

The Sun Machine is Coming Down

And so the invasion - or as the Olympeans described it "The Intervention" - began. I should tell you that I was acutely aware of the irony. I, Natla of Atlantis, had schemed and planned and plotted to save the human race from itself and to usher in a new Golden Age, and now it looked as if the Olympeans were going to beat me to the punch. And I was going to be on the opposing side. When I'd got over the shock of the approaching spacecraft I mixed myself a jug of mojito and laughed and laughed and laughed. It seemed my hubris was being punished by the Gods - literally.

"Oh well," I said to the sky. "I'm in good company."

For every second of the object approach there was continuous new coverage all over the world. It was Fox News that first used the word "alien".

It soon became apparent that the object was in fact three spacecraft, one a large globe that shone like the sun and cast shadows on the ground at night, and the other two shaped like giant horses – one on each side of the globe – sister ships no doubt to the Kastor whose wreck Lara and I had found under Astarte's Horn. It was a no-brainer for the media to pick up on the spacecraft's real name, for the iconography was obvious and deeply embedded in their cultural sub-conscious. Everybody started referring to it as the Chariot of the Gods. I began to wonder if maybe humanity was more receptive to the ideal of gods returning than I'd anticipated.

"The central sphere seems to be revolving around an axis linking the two outer propulsion units," said Bill Nye, Science Guy, "which would mean that inside there may be a equatorial gravity zone, which I calculate form the speed of rotation and diameter to be about one gee."

The anchor interviewing him yawned. "Strange how it turns like a golden chariot wheel. Between two silver horses," she said. "So beautiful, like a Bronze Age burial." She gazed at the Chariot like an expectant lover.

Every listening device and radio receiver was pointed at the approaching craft, but all that was heard was a hymn in High Atlantean.

Oh, say, can you see, by the sun's holy light,
What so proudly we hailed at Atlantis' last gleaming?
Whose azure sea and golden sun, as the perilous flood
O'er the ramparts descended, yet so gallantly streaming.
Oh, say, does that Atlantean banner yet wave
O'er the home of Apollo and the land of Poseidon?
And this be our motto: "In the Gods is our trust";
As the Olympean fleet in triumph shall fly down.

"I recognise the rhyming couplets of our Royal Sister Astarte, and the melodies of our Royal Brother Tihocan," said Qualopec, as we sat and listened.

"Maybe my tastes have changed since prehistoric times," I said, "but it isn't very good, is it?"

"It has a strange admixture of Atlantean and Olympean that I find disconcerting."

"Cheesy is my preferred descriptor, my Royal Husband. And the tune reminds me of Never going to give you up."

Despite my artistic reservations the strange alien hymn, whose words none of the modern humans could translate, became a worldwide hit. Anybody listening on board the Chariot could only have deduced that the arrival of the Olympeans would have us all running out onto the streets and welcoming them with open arms.

The Senate of the United States, however, had a different view. I wasn't personally allowed to attend, what with me being the 'Designated Survivor', but I was present via video link. Not that anybody asked my opinion, as they were totally unaware of my connection to the approaching threat.

The President of the United States made a very long speech. One bit that I do recall went something like; "My grandfather signed up for a war the day after Pearl Harbor was bombed and fought in the name of a larger freedom, part of that arsenal of democracy that triumphed over evil, and he did not fight in vain. And so, my fellow Americans, I ask you - what if this space convoy rather than bringing envoys of peace is the prelude to another Pearl Harbor or another 9/11?"

Needless to say the Senate hastily gave him carte blanche to do whatever he thought best. The American response to the mere mention of the World Trade Center was Pavlovian and only an unpatriotic person would have questioned the wisdom of pre-emptively preparing for a war. A trigger had been surgically implanted in the American psyche and now anybody could use it whenever they wanted, for whatever reason. If such a thing had happened in Atlantis I'd have wondered if it had been sponsored by the state pour encourager les autres, as the saying goes, but this was America, not Atlantis.

My mind shifted to the Atlantean War Machine and the muddy motivations of the people who had set it on a collision course with the Camarinal Dam. Maybe the Senate were right to be worried.

I was not privy to the war council of the President, but I can imagine the turmoil as they realised that they could only attack an approaching spacecraft when it was a mere hundred miles or so from the surface. I wonder if they realised that mere missiles would be turned aside like spears from the bronze boss of a shield? A more cunning, a more subtle tactic was needed, one that even the most advanced scanning device would not see coming.

I ordered that the African Queen and J for Jackie be at constant readiness. We could only hope that the Chariot would overfly our section of the sky.

One night as I lay next to Qualopec in our Royal Marital Bed at Mesa Parajito I had a dream.

We four children were playing around the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Poseidon.

Qualopec was sitting on Tihocan and trying to make him eat dirt.

"Get off!" shouted Astarte, hammering her tiny fists on Qualopec's back. We weren't supposed to form cliques, but Qualopec and I, first born of Atlas, tended to gang up on Tihocan and Astarte, children of Eumelus.

"You little weed," said Qualopec. "Your mother must have been one of Eumelus' servants." (I paraphrase as I translate.)

"I hate you!" said Tihocan, wriggling and crying.

"Maybe you get off," I said, trying not to laugh. I went over and laid a hand on Qualopec's shoulder.

Qualopec eased himself off and as soon as he was free, Tihocan kicked him in the face. The two boys started to cry and then Astarte joined in out of sympathy.

At that point we had as our nanny, Thyia, mother of my future servant Magnesian. She came bustling out of the portico at the noise.

"You!" she said to me, giving me a clip around the ear.

"What?" I said, my lip quivering. "I didn't do nothing."

"The correct phrase is 'I didn't do anything'," said Thyia, taking me by the hands and glaring directly into my face. "You're not in the gutter any more."

I drew myself up. "I didn't do anything," I said firmly. "And yes, now I'm a Royal Princess, so you'll show some respect."

"If you want respect, young Missy, earn it. I know you. You're always the agent provocateur in these fights."

"That's it," said Tihocan with a nasty smile. "She egged us on." Astarte said nothing.

"What rubbish," said Qualopec. "You little creep."

Tihocan began to wail histrionically. "He ... called ... me ... a ... CREEP!"

"By the immortal gods!" exploded Thyia. "Will you Royal Brats shut up?"

At that moment the Royal Eumelus sauntered into the garden. Tihocan immediately ran across the lawn, squeaking like a banshee, and threw himself into his father's arms. "Daddy!" he squealed.

Qualopec came and put an arm around my shoulder. "What a whiny little bitch," he said.

Astarte tottered up to Eumelus. "They were ... pwacticing," she said breathlessly. "Wrestling."

I felt a sudden warmth for my little sibling.

Later I went up to her and hugged her and kissed her.

"I love you, Astarte," I said.

"I wuv you too, Natla," said Astarte.

"Promise we'll always be friends."

"I pwomise."

Later we all took our annual visit to the tomb of our mother, Atlanta, brushed, dressed in mourning white and all vaguely bored.

"Do you think it's fun to be queen?" whispered Tihocan, gazing at the marble statue lying in state on the limestone sarcophagus.

"Yes!" said Astarte, excitedly.

"Why?"

"You get to wear jewels and boss people around."

"Tihocan couldn't boss his way out of a silk sack," said Qualopec.

"Enough," I said. "I'll get the blame again.

"Would you like to be queen, Natla?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"To do good," I said. "To help my people. It would be my duty. It would be great."

And so they teased me for the rest of the day by calling me "Natla the Great".

I awoke with a start.

"You were talking to the dead," said Qualopec, pulling my head onto his chest.

We lay listening to the noises of the night.

"Do you think I should step back and leave the human race to cope with Olympus alone?" I said.

Qualopec sighed. "If you still want to be queen, my Royal Sister-Wife, what does your conscience tell you? Can you throw away your heritage like a garment gone out of fashion?"

"You'll never know how much I'd rather have a new outfit," I said, but I smiled as I said it.

We already had a cover story as I was almost certain that there would be a mole at Natla Technologies. Das was going to pilot J for Jackie to launch a "military satellite" - top secret, hush hush - which prevented anybody regarding his flight as anything other than peaceful.

The supercomputers at Natla Tech had modelled and modelled, and produced over 9000 possible solutions to what was a conceptually simple but practically devilish problem in vectorial mathematics.

We hugged Das in his spacesuit before he climbed into the cockpit.

"Maybe the Goddess of the Wind guide you to you target, my Royal Nephew-Son," said Qualopec, grasping Das' forearm. "You are a brave man."

"I shall be below you in a high altitude aircraft in case of emergencies, darling," I said, but both Das and I knew that a rescue from above the atmosphere was impossible.

Das listened to his earphone. "Their trajectory is steady - they are approaching an orbit - but the numbers of attack solutions is diminishing. We will only have a minute or two at most to gauge when they are preparing to land. Do we still have a go?"

I hesitated.

"We know what is going to happen", said Nas. "We have to take the initiative. It might be our only opportunity."

"Your aunt and uncle are probably on that ship," I said.

Nas stepped back. spreading his hands. It was my decision.

"Who would you rather have rule; yourself or Tihocan?" said Qualopec, softly. "Last time he sat on a throne he was served by Egyptian slaves."

I drew myself up. "I regret it, but I see no other option. You have a go."

I went to the Eleos rescue plane as the African Queen piggybacking J for Jackie launched from Spaceport Atlántico.

It was hard to tell exactly what the rest of the world was doing at that moment. The aether was so full that it was almost the electronic equivalent of white noise, whilst every television had the same pictures and the same baffled commentary. There was no military response and no political statements. The human race may as well have been a troupe of monkeys throwing their poop at an intruder. The human brain had paralysed itself.

I was watching the TV in the cabin when J for Jackie achieved orbit on its pre-calculated position roughly one hundred miles from the intruder. The latter - we can give it its correct nomenclature now, was clearer visible as two flanking ships - the Neberu and the Aethon - and the central globe, the Phoebus. Das' target was the Phoebus. Since the glow from the globe blanked out the moonlight, the fall ought to be visible all over the night time earth.

"Two minutes until launch of satellite," came Das' voice over the intercom.

We had figured that a direct attack would lead to J for Jackie being shot down before it even came into range of the Phoebus. Likewise, mere missiles would be deflected or destroyed. The only way to penetrate their defences was to be 'on them' before they realised what was happening, and to do that we had to make it look innocent.

I could see what Das could see through his HUD. Two vertical spikes were coming into line over the Neberu and the Aethon, whilst a graphic of a searchlight being bounced off the top of the atmosphere gave him an approximate altitude. One minute to go and all computer communication to the J for Jackie ceased and we only had Das' voice. He was practically flying in the dark, 'under their radar', just above the surface of the ecosphere. His course was set; he only had to choose the moment of release.

I was fixated on the display when I felt a tugging at my elbow.

"You better look at this," said Qualopec, indicating the TV screen.

A breaking news report was coming in form Rome, Italy. There was some shaky camera footage. "Robots emerging from Mundus" said the ticket tape subtitle. I dazedly recalled that the Mundus was an ancient cave under the Italian capital, thought by the ancients to be an entrance into the underworld but more recently discovered by Amanda to be the site of a Dais.

"That little bastard," I said, as it became clear that Olympean Warriors were spilling onto the streets of Rome. "She didn't switch them off." Reports began to flood in from all over the Western World.

"My beloved," said Qualopec, urgently. "Given this, surely it would be a mistake to attack?"

I gazed at him "Pointless and inflammatory," I said.

"Bombs away!" came Das' voice in my ear.

Those of you alive at the time or who have seen the movie Apollo 13 will know that if a powerless spacecraft approaches the atmosphere at too steep an angle it will burn up on re-entry and if it approaches the atmosphere at too shallow an angle it will bounce off back into space.

Das had deduced that any missile headed for the Olympeans in a straight line would be intercepted. A bomb, however, that skipped across the top of the atmosphere like a stone on a pond would catch them by surprise, especially if they were manoeuvring themselves for atmospheric re-entry at the same moment.

J for Jackie was travelling at about nine thousand miles per hour when she released her payload. The spheroidal bomb had about a minute - time for two shallow bounces - before slamming into the snout of one of the "space horses", the Neberu. Meanwhile Das had used his rockets to execute an unlikely 180 degree turn whilst simultaneously preparing to drop out of orbit.

The Neberu had most of its "snout" blown away and only the field around the Phoebus and the shielding that it provided for the Aethon saved the other two ships. Immediately the couplings holding the Neberu were cut loose causing it to spin majestically off course, venting flames and air.

I recalled what I had learned in the Temple of the Chariot of the Gods;

They put Kastor and Polydeukes
In the sky, a sun chariot
Phaeton at the wheel lost control
And Kastor fell down dazed

We had only found the wreck of the Kastor. The rest of the ship had presumably landed or flown away. The Phoebus and the Aethon continued their descent over the Americas as if nothing had happened.

For a long moment Qualopec and I were rooted to our chairs as we watched J for Jackie fleeing northward to New Mexico and the Olympean ship southward towards Peru.

"Good shot," murmured Qualopec, shaking himself from his stupor. "It seems we have another Apollo in the family."

"Nobody is ever going to believe we did the math right," I said. I picked up the cabin phone. "Get us down on the ground at Spaceport Atlántico as quickly as possible."

The Olympean craft, once in the atmosphere, moved smoothly and eerily. Observers described it as seeming both light and heavy simultaneously, like a gas filled elephant hanging over a parade. It left no trails and made little noise as it apparently crab-scuttled through the air over the Peruvian coastline. It flew close over the town of Ica to the amazement of the citizens and then began to pick its way over the Nazca desert. Strange navigation lights came from the base of the Phoebus and the "hooves" of the Aethon, playing over the ancient lines on the ground. At the same time, ports opened on the side of the craft, and winged "things" and tiny "aircraft" spilled out, some flying alongside, some landing and some speeding off to all points of the compass. Viewed from nearby it seemed as if a rotting sun, buzzed by carrion flies, was setting into the sand. Eventually, unphased by the defacing tyre-marks left by the beach buggies of Californian alien hunters over the surface of the giant patterns, the craft turned itself through 68 degrees relative to the ground and then settled, with the curved base of the Phoebus positioned precisely at the centre of the spiral tail of a giant monkey drawing.

"At last one mystery is solved," said one of the Californians. "We've never been able to figure why the Nazca Lines could be a landing site for alien space craft whilst simultaneously so vulnerable to being blown away by strong winds. Now we know. No altitude jets, man. How cool is that?"

Of course like all the New Agers and the cultists flooding onto "social websites", there was an idea that the Olympeans were here to "take us away". It was Halle Boppe and Xenu, the Raelians and Close Encounters of the Third Kind all rolled into one.

If I had to hear the couplet ...

Would you like to ride in my beautiful balloon?
We could float among the stars together, you and I

... just one more time, I thought, I'd be killing something with fire.

I had more important things to do, however. Nas and Das had to make themselves scarce, and I had to at least try and advise the President about a safe place to hide.

"I don't know for certain," I said, "but I have a hunch that you'll be safe in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Another lore has its writ there, and not even Helios or Diwo or Zeus or whomever is in that spacecraft will be able to get to you."

"How should we get there?" said Das, who was suffering from delayed shock after his adventure. I was rubbing his back to try and get rid of his trembling.

"It probably isn't safe to take the Learjet or any other aircraft," said Nas. He seemed disappointed that he wasn't staying and fighting.

"I need you guys alive. When they figure out what happened in orbit, your mother could end up as nothing more than a pile of glowing embers in the sand."

"Surely they'd blame me, not you?" said Das, stammering. "I should stay and take one for the team."

"I'll say you were obeying my orders," I said, firmly. "They'll think twice before executing me, but you they'd kill just to make a point. Take one of the more nondescript pickups from the ranch and drive to Chief Elkhorn. He can arrange for you to be taken somewhere - whatever route you take, make sure you end up in Hawaii."

"Is that where you are advising the President to go?" said Nas.

"At least initially. They can head out further into the Pacific as necessary. You stick with them."

Das was blinking up at me. "Will we be safe in the Pacific?"

I kissed him. "Safer than here," I said, softly. "And take these."

I handed a small box to Nas.

"What are they?" he said, opening it to find two pale green tablets.

"If all else fails," I said, "take one each."

A flash of angry comprehension crossed Nas' face. "Surely not?" he said.

"Trust me," I said. "It's not what you think. Can you obey that last order from your Queen, soldier?"

Nas straightened up and saluted so firmly that his fingers almost bounced off his cap. "Yes, Your Majesty."

"Now get going before they arrive. I have to ring the White House."

Qualopec and I had dressed ourselves in the finery of Atlantean God-Kings and stood alone - I'd sent everybody else away - in the shade of the portico at Parajito Mesa, a jug of kefir in a cooler by our side. My finest and reddest wings were attached to my back, my fire proof skinsuit enclosed my body and on my forearm was my bio-organic fireball-generating mutant. I was wearing my Senatorial dress jacket and skirt, and my most powerful red Gucci stiletto boots. I'd kohl'ed my eyes and painted my lips and nails carmine. My hair was a plutonium blonde helmet and on my head was the crown that I had brought with me from the statis chamber. It had ceased to chatter and beep some years about, but lights still winked on it now and again.

Qualopec was bare-chested and wearing what he'd been wearing when he ruled Atlantis. We'd managed to reassemble his old crushed crown and imperial staff from the remains found at his tomb and the rest - his Royal Apron, his jewelled boots, his greaves, and so on, we had remade. His profile was as sharp and red as that of a Navajo warrior. Strapped to his waist was a simple sword, and the epaulettes resting on top of his naked powerful shoulders winked with electronica. His appearance dared you to meet him hand to hand, all modern contrivances and weapons thrown aside, and his demeanour was that of an all-powerful Emperor, born to rule men. He stood with one gauntleted hand on his hip and the other holding aside a fold of his imperial cloak.

"I am proud, my Imperial Sister and Wife, to stand beside you as your Prince Consort to greet these rude invaders who have visited our lands without so much as sending an Imperial Ambassador to announce their approach."

"If you are my Prince Consort, my Imperial Brother and Husband, then I am your Princess Consort, for we are equals, and the honor is mine. I only ask that I take responsibility for the attack on our visitors alone, for I need you to rule after me."

Qualopec kissed my hand. "I shall do as you ask," he said, "but if they should kill you I fear I shall not be long for this life myself, for my righteous rage will inspire me to avenge you. But remember I shall always love both in life and death, my dearest Natla."

Tears briefly filled my eyes. "Whatever you think best, my love," I said, and we embraced.

The, as we sipped reflectively on our iced drinks, the sky to the south began to shimmer.

"The storm approaches," said Qualopec.

"Bring it on," I murmured, and drew myself up to my full height.

The horizon was flat over the Jornada del Muerto, or was it? I was peering at the line and the heat shimmer seemed to be intensifying. I could see a black cloud forming from one side to the other and I deduced that it was a mirage of something still just belong the horizon edge but growing and approaching. The heat shimmer began to be sprinkled with black dots like distant birds, fading and re-appearing.

"Do you mind if I put some pop music on, my love?

"Please do, my Queen."

I was getting a glint of metal now and then and the black mass - which stretched from east to west – was solidifying into two, one on the earth and one in the sky.

Why does my heart go on beating
Why do these eyes of mine cry
Don't they know it's the end of the world
It ended when you said goodbye

From the distance carried on the breeze I could hear the top harmonic of something, maybe a high cornet or of the shriek of a falsetto voice.

From behind me I heard the clatter of a helicopter and the NM police suddenly shot over our heads towards the approaching phenomenon.

"Should be interesting," I murmured.

"Is that all there is?" said Qualopec. "Where is the airforce?"

"Defending the cities I expect. That or already taken down."

The police helicopter disappeared into the general black background and then there was a tiny distant flare of flame in the rough position that it had occupied.

"Poof!" I observed.

Qualopec knelt down and placed an ear to the ground.

"I can hear them."

As he said it I could feel them – a tickling sensation in the soles of my feet.

"Did they march all the way up here from Peru, though the Darien Gap?"

"Airships."

"I expect the Mexicans were pleased. Looks as if the Atzlan Confederacy is back to stay."

"Is there anything not firmly secured in the house?"

"You think the house will survive?"

The army was beginning to resolve itself as it came into sight across the alkali flat. Great squadrons of red Atlantean creatures or silver Olympean warriors could be imagined, all marching in step. In the air the sun would catch the bloody glint of a bat-like wing, or the sharp glint of metal. Above the ground forces were what looked like flying ships, end on to us and sharp against the white sky, with the raised blue lotus prows of Egyptian funerary barges.

Granules of sand at our feet began to jiggle and jump, and ripples like those from a Tyrannosaurus step spread in the jug of refreshment.

Qualopec planted his feet firmly and leaned on his Royal Staff, whilst I held onto the porch pillar with one hand and my drink with the other. Somewhere around the side of the house glass shattered and the alarm began to sound from a car in the drive.

I began to distinguish individual beings. There were dog-faced crimson warriors with piranha teeth, stalking forwards on their strange back legs with rear hinged knees. There were centaurs with the horse skull heads, marching in a strange diagonal fashion like Lipizzans at dressage, fireball launchers strapped to their forelimbs. Above them the winged things flew with a strange up and down motion - falling two feet, clawing back two feet, then falling two feet again, their leathery wings smacking the air like bat on ball. Next to them in perfect line and in perfect step the Olympean Warrior machines, blank faced, the half-remembered originators of racial nightmares that all humans had, of Apollonian-faced killing machines, of SS troops, of Cylons and Cybermen. The alien army was packed side to side with the stuff of bad dreams.

"Well I don't know about you," I said sotto voce, "but I definitely surrender."

"An empty cart makes most noise," murmured Qualopec.

Then, about half a mile away, the whole army stopped suddenly, the fliers landing heavily on the ground like winded pterodactyls. The sudden stop, in perfect unison, followed by total silence was much more un-nerving than the approach. Above, a fleet of funerary barges hovered, floating on the denseness of the desert air. As we watched, all but two settled down behind the ground troops, dwarfing them.

The pair of remaining sky barges glided forward, and with practiced strokes of their air oars turned sideways onto us. They were long and thin, with raised prow and stern, flat bottomed with no keel, made of planks lashed together with needle grass. The steersmen, each armed with a single rudder oar, somehow guided the two ships gently to the ground.

Not that Qualopec and I were focussed on that. We had simultaneously let out gasps, and now were trying not to gape with unregal surprise, for one of the boats contained only the crew. Row upon row of thrones was empty, and draped in black.

The other boat, however … .

I scanned the faces above me – Tihocan, Astarte, Maia of the Serene Countenance, someone who looked like Lara Croft - and last and definitely least, my foolish daughter Amanda, who appeared to be laughing down at us.

I might have launched into the air and slung a flaming fireball at her for her treachery, but it seemed the grand entrance of the Olympeans was not yet over.

The court – for it seemed obvious that it was a court – turned to face the empty space between the two ships. They knelt in unison and each produced a device to shade their eyes.

Qualopec activated the light attenuator on his helmet and handed me some nuclear test goggles.

"And now the King approaches," he said.

I smelt the King before I saw him – ozone. The sunlight all around the house and playing over the Olympean army began to brighten. The sand began to blaze like an Antarctic snowfield, and I could almost feel the pupils of my eyes shrinking, my irises bleaching.

There was a hum like a giant electrical transformer and within the hum, the sound of horses galloping in slow motion – clop clop, clip clop. I gritted my teeth.

A golden chariot was descending from the sky, wreathed in white hot flame. Four mechanical horses, glowing like a lime mantle, and a giant golden figure, a living statue of gold or a golden golem. The sand melted into glass as it landed, and at that same moment, the blast of golden trumpets from the army, and the open throated roar of a hymn.

"The Lord of the Daylight Sky," I said, and despite myself dropped to one knee in supplication. For all of my life, or at least for most of my life, all of my prayers had been directed to my grandfather, Poseidon, and to this being of a thousand names, three of them being Helios, Apollo or Diwo.

The God – or the avatar of the God, for the sun cannot touch the earth – stepped onto the melting ground and dismissed His chariot with a gauntleted hand. A second figure or apparition became apparent through the glare, a moving pillar of fire or maybe a shower of golden fragments. This Interpreter took station just ahead and to one side of the God and the chorus fell silent.

The Lord of the Daylight Sky pointed directly at me, and it was if I was suddenly trapped in a tanning booth.

"I, I, I have returned," came a voice from the shining Interpreter, vocalising for the God as He gestured in ancient Royal fashion. "I, I, I am the Lord of the Daylight Sky. You will bow down and worship Me, Me, Me."

I took a moment to compose myself. I looked at the weave of the cloth of my sleeve and the sand granules moving slightly under my breath. Slowly … I realised that I had an excellent card up that closely woven sleeve.

I raised myself and sat on my heels, placing my hands together in prayer and bowing my head slightly.

"My Lord God," I said, clearly. "I bow down to You as I have always done. Nearly every day of my life I have prayed to You, the Lord Of The Daylight Sky and Your Brother, the Lord of the Sea. As my God You will remember my daily prayers and Your keen eye pierces my heart to see my sincere love for You. Even my worst enemies cannot deny that I am one of the devoutest of Your servants. I bow down to You with great joy and I am Yours to command."

And I placed my forehead back on the ground.

"Raise yourself and look on Me,Me,Me."

I sat back on my heels, and pulled Qualopec up into a kneeling position.

"Do you see this?" said the God, and the Interpreter indicated the empty sky barge, with its throne shrouded in black.

"I see it, My Lord."

"These were My, My, My children who died in the Neberu."

"I ordered the attack, My Lord."

The God shouted and I could smell the singeing of my hair. "Why?" it roared. "Why?"

I kept my composure. "The craft approached unannounced refusing all communication. I, as the highest ranking Atlantean on the planet, struck, as was my duty, perceiving an invasion by strangers. I did not know that the craft belonged to God."

There was a very long silence. I was aware, out of the corner of my eye, of Tihocan and Amanda watching expectantly. It looked as if they'd finally cooked my goose.

I took a deep breathe. "I too lost a child," I said. "The brave soldier who single-handed attacked. A true hero, if misguided."

"Vengeance is Mine, Mine, Mine," said the God, eventually, the roaring of the flames diminishing somewhat. "Alone." The Giant Avatar and the Interpreter turned to the other sky barge where my family were watching, no doubt mildly disappointed that I hadn't been incinerated. "Do you hear Me, Me, Me?"

They all bowed, some no doubt doing the Atlantean equivalent of Muttley muttering.

"I, I, I will tour the planet," said the God. "I, I, I will announce My, My, My return to a cheering populace of worshippers, thanking Me, Me, Me for their liberation from false idols."

"Glory be to God," chorused the court.

"And you will not kill each other in My, My, My absence," roared the God, beating his fiery chest for emphasis.

"Amen."

"The Royal Tihocan! You will build My, My, My Collosi. You, the Royal Astarte, will raise My, My, My Basilikai."

They bowed.

"You, the Royal Natla, the Black Sheep, the Goat That Departs, the Paraiyar, you will abide until I, I, I return. Your consort, the Royal Qualopec, He Without Sorrow, Beloved of God, will accompany My, My, My Heavenly Army as Advisor, Ashoka, Ajax."

Qualopec and I bowed.

And with that Divine Audience appeared to be at an end. The sun chariot returned, and the God and His Interpreter rose back into the sky. What a show off, I thought.

When He was out of sight, I squeezed Qualopec's hand.

"It seems as if we have been saved by a Deus Ex Machina," I said.

And so it was time for the grand family re-union.

A huge number of servants appeared from nowhere and began to place platforms and thrones on planks on the sand – it was like a rapid scene change at the circus. By the time the various Atlantean dignitaries had begun to disembark from the solar barge, fanned and parasol led by a hoard of lackeys, their makeshift palace was already there, with canvas wall being hauled into the air by tiny flying machines, fastened in place to gas-filled balloons. A canvas roof not unlike the room of a Roman amphitheatre was whisked into place by red flying mutants.

I watched Tihocan and Amanda process to twin thrones and then be seated in a haughty fashion, not looking at anything in particular, and being served cold sherbet and dainty sweet-meats. What interested me much more was a figure who was being led like a dog, with a gold collar around her neck, her golden lead being held by an Olympean killer robot. She was dressed in a Princess Leia metal bikini and her expression was … hard to describe. Her jaw was clenched and her eyes were slightly too wide open, and blazing with fury. Her chains were attached to cleats at Tihocan's feet and she was seated like a pet beneath him. It was Lara Croft, transformed into a female slave that would not have looked out of place on the cover of a heavy metal album. There was going to be an interesting story to tell there, I thought to myself. I just hoped that the robot kept a good hold of that lead.

The first person that approached Qualopec and myself was the ever-diplomatic Maia Of The Serene Countenance. She bowed deeply.

"Oh what a joyful day that I should have the honour to genuflect to the Royal Siblings, the Eternally Beautiful Natla of Atlantis, Governor of the Former Territories of the West, and the Miraculously Restored and Virile Qualopec, Golden Commander of the Maian Regiment and King of the Atzlan Confederacy," she said in Atlantean, her sleeves twinkling with lights as she made the appropriate gestures of nuance.

"Greetings, Daughter of Atlas, Glorious Sister Of The Pleiades, Ever Wise Sage and Negotiator, Most Sagacious and Beautiful Of Women," replied Qualopec with an ornate bow.

"I don't suppose you speak English, do you?" I said, which rather punctured the atmosphere.

"Of course," said Maia, smoothly. "Do I address you as Jacqueline Natla in this abbreviated tongue?"

"And I shall call you Maia Pleiades and welcome you to the United States Of America," I said, embracing her, although I could sense she only returned the embrace out of etiquette.

"Alas I am the only one of my sisters to survive the trip."

"The Neberu?"

"Sadly," said Maia, with the blankest of expressions. "They perished, along with the priests of Astarte, the husband of Tihocan and various other innocents."

There was a bit of a silence.

"We are horrified at the losses," said Qualopec eventually, touching Maia on the shoulder.

"I … will you come inside my house, my bereaved sister?" I said. I was genuinely shocked by the news.

However at that point another figure approached.

"Gweetings, bwother and sister," said Astarte. (She had that rhotacism that sometimes afflicts Atlanteans speaking English.) She appeared to have lost all but two of her breasts, and she was dressed in the simplest of djellabas.

"Astarte!" said Qualopec, and whisked her off her feet, spinning her around.

"Careful," said Astarte. "My feet are less steady than yours these days."

I stepped forward tentatively and took her two hands in mine.

"Sister?" I said, and burst into tears.

The next scene would be kind of boring if it weren't for the fact that I tried to kill Amanda.

"He wants us to sit around and have a formal meeting," said Astarte.

"Who died and made him King?"

I think was in shock, because Qualopec had to thread his arm through mine to lead me. I reached out at one point and grabbed Astarte's arm.

"So … you don't hate me any more?" I said. "I killed your priests. Captain Attis. All that stuff."

Astarte sighed, and I could see the age in her face. "The pwiests … well, they were just pwiests. I get through a lot of them. As for the other … I'm just too old to care any more."

"But you're still religious and all that?"

"I've lost my enthusiasm. You know I was a goddess with weal powers for a while?"

"I didn't," I said.

"You met a version of me on a Cyprus beach. Do you not wemember?"

I was silent for a moment.

"Maybe we should go?" said Qualopec.

"Why didn't you contact me directly?"

Astarte shrugged. "I decided that you were better off out of … everything. While I was divine."

I allowed Qualopec to tug me into movement.

We sat in a big circle below the billowing canvas, Qualopec and I in twin thrones facing Tihocan and Amanda, and Astarte and Maia of the Serene Countenance to each side. I'm not sure if my descriptive powers are up to the occasion, but I did finally look Tihocan in the face over a distance of a few yards. At his feet a quietly smouldering Lara Croft was gripping her chain in both hands as if she meant to throttle him.

A livered major-domo of Tihocan's invention stepped forward, watched by the silent army. He began a formal Atlantean speech which didn't seem to get much beyond listing Tihocan's real and imagined titles – including "Pharaoh of Egypt" – but then I stood and silenced him with a raised hand, my wings bristling.

"Hello Tihocan," and I said, in a bored voice.

I could see Tihocan visibly trying to swallow his rage. "Does my Royal Sister no longer observe the rituals of Atlantis?" he said, in the snottiest form of High Atlantean.

I strolled into the center of the throne room. "We all have titles and former titles. I'm sure we can all brag. If you want titles, then I'm the representative of the present earth government, duly elected by the people."

"I am horrified at your lack of dignity, my Royal Sister."

"Well you would be. You always were a prissy little boy."

Tihocan leapt to his feet and made a fairly unimpressive stab at drawing his ceremonial weapon.

"If it wasn't for the orders of the god I would kill you where you stand," he said.

"Yeah, right," I said, in a very American drawl. "Why don't you put it away before you embarrass yourself in front of the ladies?"

Fortunately at that moment Qualopec chose to stand and bow. "I am happy to greet my Royal Brother after all these centuries."

Tihocan was forced to bow back, and to echo the sentiment.

"After all, are we not one big happy family?" I said. Astarte started to rub the palm of her hand over her eyes. "Come here, Royal Daughter, and greet your Royal Mother with a kiss." And I held my hands out to Amanda.

Amanda jumped nervously, and looked up at her father for guidance. Tihocan gestured towards me and then had to practically spur Amanda into action with the toe of his bejewelled shoe.

I embraced her hard so that she couldn't wriggle away and said "Welcome to the Royal Court of Atlantis," I said loudly, followed by a hiss for her ear only of "You're dead, you treacherous little worm."

"Daddy!" said Amanda, squirming. "She's threatening me."

I turned her around to face Tihocan, holding her neck in one hand and brought up my fireball mutant next to her head. There was a faint smell of scorched hair.

"I have the right of materfamilias under old Atlantean law do I not?" I said.

Tihocan had gone a bright red and everyone else looked as if they wanted to try and rush me.

"You already killed one of my daughters," he said. I had run Chloe of the Golden Hair through with a spear for much the same reasons that I now planned to burn Amanda.

"This one is just like her twin. Bad blood."

"The god forbad us to kill each other."

"I very much doubt that the god gives a stuff about darling Amanda here."

Amanda said; "I wasn't being treacherous. I just wanted to see my father."

"What a load of weaselly crap," I retorted. "You just wanted to bring me down and to get a nice shiny crown to wear. Now you've gone and sold out the whole planet just to satisfy your bratty angst."

Qualopec stepped forward. "To be fair, she is a Royal Princess of Atlantis," he observed, keeping his voice as neutral as he could manage.

"She's no worse than you at her age," said Tihocan.

I gaped at him. "No worse than me? … this girl hasn't done a day's work in her life. She has no honour, no dignity, no sense of duty. And she doesn't get any of that from her mother. Plus, she's an idiot. Maybe she spent too long asleep."

Maia of the Serene Countenance stood and said; "Is there nothing we can give you in exchange for the life of this foolish Princess?" At that moment I realised I'd have to postpone Amanda's richly deserved death. The crowd wasn't with me, as they say.

"Give me that slave," I said, gesturing towards Lara Croft.

Tihocan shrugged, and the army gave a polite murmur, no doubt relieved that the threat of familial homicide had been averted.

I took Lara's chain and, with a "come along my darling husband", stalked back inside my house, shutting the door on the whole scene.

"I saw you once, seated in your tomb," said Lara Croft, who had changed out of the fratboy slavegirl outfit into normal clothes.

"And I saw you just before the roof came down," said Qualopec.

"It's a funny old world."

"It is indeed, Lady Croft."

Lara snorted and produced a cigar that she had found. "None of that Lady Croft nonsense," she said, sunnily. "I'll leave the pompous titles to Atlanteans and Americans. You lot deserve each other."

"You are not smoking that in here," I said.

Lara lit up anyway. "By the way," she said, blowing smoke into my face. "I don't suppose you recall leaving me locked in a tomb at the South Pole. With a killer robot?"

"I'm sorry about that," I said.

"I beat the bloody thing in a fire fight, realise that I'm locked in, find out that there's a working Dais and then teleport myself straight onto Tihocan's space ship."

I bit my lip. It wasn't funny.

"I'm arrested, enslaved and then made to sit at the feet of His Royal Gayness for the rest of the voyage."

"Well at least you're alive," I said, fanning the cigar smoke away.

Lara rooted around in a fridge and discovered a bottle of expensive champagne. She knocked the top off (taking a chip out of one of my beautiful tables) and then (after allowing a lot of champagne to spill on my beautiful floor) drank straight from the jagged neck.

"That's the ticket," she said, after a moment. "I have to officially inform you that Atlantean cuisine is bloody awful, and I'm looking forward to a decent plateful of fish and chips."

I cleared my throat. "Are you still angry with me?"

"Nope," said Lara, with a bright smile. "No more than usual. You just can't help yourself, can you?"

"I guess not."

"Besides - I have a job to do, don't I?"

"You have to find something – what's the phrase – 'to kill a god'?"

Qualopec looked startled. "You're going to kill the god?"

Lara had put down the champagne and produced one of the house revolvers before he had finished speaking.

Qualopec laughed and stepped back, hands held in a placatory gesture.

Lara slowly put away the gun. "Medea gave Jason the ointment to withstand the breathe of the Hydra. One of the few things that survived the fire at my house. That and a suit made from the scales of the giant salamander. We'll see how your bright spark of a sun god reacts to a cold wet shower of me."

"Are you sure you know what will happen to the sun if you extinguish the,God?" I said.

Lara shrugged. "Who cares?" she said, stubbing the cigar out on the sole of her boot and replacing in it a cigar tube in her pocket.

"Absolutely."

"Hilarious," she said.

She sprinted across the room and dived through an open window at the back of Parajita Mesa. There was the smashing of glass followed by the roar of a car engine.

"Lady Croft could have just asked for a vehicle," said Qualopec.

"This is a woman who could buy up most of the world's archaeological treasures on the black market but still chooses to steal them instead." I said.

We watched the cloud of dust disappear into the distance, unpursued.

"Do you still love her?"

"Always," I said.

In my mind were some words of Hesiod;

"Would that I were not among the men of the fifth generation, but either had died before or been born afterwards. For now truly is a race of iron, and men never rest from labour and sorrow by day, and from perishing by night; and the gods shall lay sore trouble upon father will not agree with his children, nor the children with their father, nor guest with his host, nor comrade with comrade; nor will brother be dear to brother as aforetime."

And I knew that nearly every living son and daughter of Atlantis, and even the most distant of her greatgreatgrandchildren, would soon be dying.

---

Putting Out The Fire With Gasoline

Next I suppose I ought to record some of the events of 'Earth versus the Flying Saucers'. Of course, my only true eyewitness was Qualopec, sending me sound and vision by the only method not blanked out by the electromagnetic storm that followed the Avatar of the Lord of The Daylight sky, namely, a portable aetheroscope attached to his helmet. Of course, the forces of Earth were less fortunate. Every vehicle, every computerised system, battlefield communications, even mobile phones ceased to function as soon as the Avatar came within line of sight. Fighter planes that didn't fall out of the sky on approach found themselves mobbed by clouds of suicide mutants, flapping into their flight paths. The Atlantean Army progressed on a slightly meandering route through New Mexico, Texas, Arkansas, Tennessee, North Carolina and finally Maryland, massacring people at Fort Worth, Fort Smith, Jackson, Knoxville, Winston-Salem, Lexington and finally Remington. They were in no hurry, as this was merely Year Zero of the eternal reign of the Sun God.

On the ground, attempts by police, civil defence and eventually the Army to attack using conventional weapons were repulsed by Olympeans Warriors and Atlantean centaurs – not the half human centaurs that I had created and which I loved, but the horse-headed monstrosities created by Tihocan, shielded and fire-throwing and devoid of pity.

"Have you heard of the Second Amendment?" said Qualopec's voice. "I have the text - A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

"What about it?" I said.

"I realise that I'm a newcomer here, but that reads to me as saying that the right to bear arms is dependent on the gun owner's duty to fight for their country."

"Most of the fat blowhards who own fancy gun collections think merely of their manliness, their bragging rights and their right to shoot burglars."

"Shouldn't all of these men, with their weapons and their powerful vehicles, be attacking us continually in defence of the United States?"

"I expect they loaded up their humvees with as much tinned food as they could carry and then headed for the Mexican and Canadian borders as fast as they could. Most of them don't even believe in the Federal Government, and they certainly don't care about their neighbours when push comes to shove."

Qualopec made a disgusted sound. "This isn't a nation of men," he said. "They have less honour than the worst Atlantean."

We'd discussed the whole plan before he'd left.

"I don't know where the Lord of the Daylight Sky has been all of these centuries, but he'll need an advisor. Fortunately he's leaving everybody else who might provide him with intelligence on humans behind," I'd said.

"I am the Trojan horse."

There were two potential pitfalls to any Olympean who fancied conquering the earth The first was the Pacific. "The President is on Hawaii. Tell the Lord of the Daylight Sky that he will never win the hearts of the people without killing the President," I said.

"And what of ur-Earth?" said Qualopec, sombrely. Ur-Earth, the malignant copy of Earth on the direct opposite side of the sun, discovered by Lara Croft, and possessed by an insane and vengeful planet-wide intelligence. I wasn't sure which side the Lord of the Daylight Sky had been in the war between Diwo and Diwija, but I suspected it wouldn't matter if he led his army to ur-Earth.

"Just tell him that the being of ur-Earth is a rival god. And just … try not to land, or, failing that, have a fast ship ready," I'd said, anxiously.

"I lead the fleet between the clashing rocks?"

"A last resort, maybe." We'd embraced for a moment and I confess that I shivered at the thought of that dark place, worse than Tartarus, the realm of madness. "I have this for you."

I'd draped a silver pendant, a bullet-shaped object, around his neck.

"What is it?"

"Only you can open it," I'd said, beginning to put things into a rucksack for him to take with him. "There is a pill inside; you'll know when to take it."

"Suicide?" said Qualopec, with a frown. "I would rather die fighting."

"Not suicide," I'd said. "Now let's make sure that you have everything you need when you depart …"

Of course, eventually the Americans had to try out their 5000 plus nuclear warheads, although I expect none of them anticipated that they would be used on US soil. Nuclear missiles were for foreign places well out of sight of the Bible belt, preferably well to the east of Jerusalem or to the south of Key Largo.

Qualopec described how a scatter of ICBMs, retasked to be intracontinental, swooped down on the Army near Nashville. As the nukes approached, a crowd of Astarte's priests - possessing still some of the magic that Astarte had renounced along with her Goddesshood – began to chant, and the spell, or whatever it was, was amplified towards the speeding threat. I only have hearsay as to what happened next, but the rumour was that the missiles de-evolved in midflight, turning from the LGM-30 Minuteman III to the LGM-118A Peacekeeper to the SM-65 Atlas to the Vergeltungswaffe2 to the Vergeltungswaffe1 to a 800mm Schwerer Gustav HE shell to a 200mm Schneider shell to a 32-pound Brooke naval shell to Palliser Shot, then to Royal Artillery Elongated Shot followed by iron-tipped broadhead arrows. By the end nothing but a handful of thighbone clubs fell at the feet of the Army.

I was astonished, quite frankly. I didn't believe in magic. Maybe the actual truth was that the missile electronics malfunctioned as they approached our very own humanoid solar flare. It was a good story, however, and the Americans gave up on nuclear weapons. Now all that remained were chemical and biological weapons, or hand to hand fighting, and I couldn't see the President authorising the use of the former on American soil.

The first part of the campaign ended as the Lord of the Daylight Sky flattened Washington DC. It was then that Qualopec whispered into the ear of the Interpreter that the President was probably in Hawaii and that America would not bow down until the President was dead.

It was all very well for His Godness to tell us not to ring the death knell over each other's graves, but may as well put some puppies together in a box and tell them not to nip. There just had to come a day when somebody started a fight.

Tihocan and Astarte had gone to work on their divinely sponsored tasks with, respectively, gusto and weariness … only being Tihocan and Astarte, they did it their way. I watched with some bemusement for it seemed as if they had exchanged parts of their personalities.

Astarte's Temple to the Lord of the Daylight Sky resembled in no way her previous triumphs of religiosity, namely, the Temple of the Chariot of the Gods at Tinnos and the Temple of Demeter in ancient Atlantis. The new Temple was … minimalist. To my eye its white interior, devoid of decoration or mural, icon or mosaic, statue or photograph, resembled nothing more than a large sterile laboratory.

We strolled around the site arm in arm, me supporting the slightly tottery Astarte.

"So what's the thinking behind this one?" I asked.

"It's simple weally," said Astarte. "We have the Living God among us. We do not need visual cues to turn our minds to paradise or to wemind us of the history of the divine deeds on earth. Any depiction would seem like a mere cawicature, blasphemous even, when God himself sits at his altar to wecieve our adulations." She halted to cough, the birdlike cough of an old lady.

"Well I like. It's very … clean."

"All imperfections burned away by the ways of the Sun."

"You mean 'rays'".

"Do I?"

We sat beneath a parasol as the servants brought us cool ambrosia and nectar cakes.

"What of the Avatar of the God and the Interpreter of the God?" I asked. "Will the people worship a God whose true face, if they looked into it, would destroy them?"

Astarte smiled. "It's been done before. Even Medusa had her cult, and the Zowoastrians have gazed into the flame for centuries."

"Do they accept the Lord of the Daylight Sky as Mazda?"

"Indeed they do. In fact they are the only weligion that I have heard of via my networks that does not oppose Him."

"Speaking of which - have you seen how the plans of Tihocan are progressing?"

Astarte glanced at me sharply. "No," she said. "Should I?"

I was nonplussed. "I … I'd assumed it was some sort of collaboration between you both."

Astarte laughed. "I think Tihocan has dismissed me as some sort of batty old Cassandra," she said.

"Well, I love and revere you even if the foolish Tihocan does not, my Royal Sister," I said, and we embraced.

Tihocan's nouveau versions of the Atlantean War Machine – the Colossi – squatted in the desert like perverted Transformers. They were about as subtle and elegant as Las Vegas.

Astarte and I drove up in our beach buggy and peered up at the scaffolding on a blowsy metal giantess where Tihocan and his technicians were fiddling around with the mechanism embedded in a gargantuan nipple.

I picked up a walkie-talkie.

"Haven't you read, my Royal Brother, that those who ignore history had better be damned sure of themselves?"

Tihocan pushed his welding glasses onto his forehead and peered down at us. After a word to his minions he embarked on an elevator bringing him down to the desert floor. "History is over, my Royal Sister," came back his crackly voice. "We all exist in the Divine Now."

He approached and all three of us began the ritual bowing we were accustomed to, more pointless today that it had ever been in Atlantis.

"I greet my Royal Sister Astarte," said Tihocan with an elegant flourish, "whose wisdom has kept the Atlantean dream alive throughout the centuries whilst the rest of us … dreamed."

"Far be it from me to contradict my learned and revered brother," said Astarte, "but I was but midwife to the children of Atlantis, not the preserver of the parent. A god frozen in amber is no living god. I cherished the new religions not their progenitors."

"Did you not have Temples built to yourself, my religious sister?"

"For which I do penance daily," said Astarte grimly. "There's no fool like a holy fool."

"Thank goodness the real Lord of the Daylight Sky has come to wash all holy foolishness away."

I put a hand on Astarte's arm to calm her.

"So explain, oh gifted Royal Engineer. What are this contraptions and what is their purpose?"

Tihocan took an orator's stance, one hand raised.

"As you know, despite the military victory that has engulfed the planet …"

"… some of the planet …"

"Despite that, there are still the adherents of the old forms of worship who daily drive car bombs into our Army, or who usher themselves into the Presence of Our Prince only to detonate themselves in a futile effort to kill their Master. Only the other day some howling fundamentalist crashed a passenger plane full of innocents into a night camp of the Aean Regiment, killing many of our brave soldiers as they slept."

"Maybe the Lord of the Daylight Sky, peace be upon Him, has not revealed enough of his holiness to capture their hearts," I said.

Tihocan took up his rhetorician's pose again. "I, as a loyal servant of the God, have come to a solution that will strike at the heart of the insurgency. Behold …" he waved his hand at the metal giantess above us "… the Whore of Babylon."

"The what of what …?" I began, but Astarte had stepped forward.

"If you please …" she said in a quiet voice "… can you explain precisely the role of these colossal Abominations?" and she placed her hands with palms together. This gesture must have tapped into her role of old, for some kind of pulse or wave in the shape of her steepled fingers spread into the air.

A voice called down from above and Tihocan signalled to the mechanics. A moment later, the scaffolding began to back away from the body of the Whore.

"Firstly," said Tihocan, turning to face her, "these instruments are built by the order of the Lord of the Daylight Sky, so unless you plan to wrestle with him personally, please do not try to threaten me with that old black magic of yours."

The light around Astarte bristled a little less, but she still looked strained and flushed from the effort.

"As to the function of these Holy Colossi, the Whore here will fly to Rome, to the so-called Holy City, where she will level the Cathedral of St. Peter and stamp on the temporal center of the Catholic faith."

Astarte glared at him rheumily. "You cannot do this," she croaked.

The Whore of Babylon bent forward and gazed down at us. There was a screech of metal on metal as its painted lips parted in a ghastly leer.

"My Royal Brother," I said, putting an arm around Astarte's frail shoulders, "this is a bold move indeed. Do you intent to issue a warning so that the innocent Roman populace may stand aside and be safe?"

"Of course," said Tihocan. "We're not barbarians. However, there will be a useful winnowing."

"How so?"

"We expect Catholics from across the globe to flock to the site, to protest, to gather. We will allow a week between the announcement and the deed."

Astarte turned to me and whispered in my ear. "Is this weal, sister? Am I being punished?

"Yes, it is real, but I doubt it is holy."

"It is nefas! Nefas!"

"Surely it is merely a sacrifice to the Lord of the Daylight Sky? Even thousands would not match your holy offerings over the centuries."

Astarte's face underwent an un-nerving transformation. She seemed to age, and her eyes sank in their sockets. The tears spilled down her gaunt cheeks.

"Tell me it isn't so," she said. She fell to her knees and I with her. I was afraid that her bones would crack.

"Tell you what, My Beloved and Best-Loved Sister, Royal Sibling, Princess of my heart?" I murmured, holding her as tightly as I dare, and stroking her straw-dry hair. "Many have died at your hand and I, for one, thought it necessary and beautiful. A state religion without shed blood is a pointless as a war without brutality. We needed – still need – to enforce our will. Terror must last forever."

Astarte's eyes had become wild. "I murdered every one of my boys," she whispered.

I maintained a calm expression. Standing, I addressed Tihocan. "Thousands will be killed."

"Merely the infidel."

"And the other eight Colossi?"

"Jerusalem and Ayres Rock, Mecca and CERN, the Shaolin Temple and Wall Street, the Halema'uma'u Crater and Meenakshi Amman …"

But at that moment, with a cry like Rochester's first wife, Astarte had twisted from my grasp. She ran at Tihocan, who merely gaped at her, his face high-eyebrowed.

"ιερόσυλη σκατά!" sang out Astarte, first scratching at his eyes and then fastening her frail fingers around his throat. I could see blood from beneath one of his ruined eyelids and he stumbled back, off guard, bloodied, choking.

I hurried forward, crying "Sister! Brother!" but Tihocan had prized Astarte loose and thrown her to the ground where she, after falling awkwardly, lay motionless. There was a cracking and a crackling as her ancient body subsided into shapelessness.

I ran to cradle her head in my lap, but I could see that her skull was loosened from her vertebrae.

"Natla," she mimed, grasping at the front of my clothing and then dying.

"Shh," I said. "My good Astarte."

For the first time in millennia a member of our Ruling Quadrumvirate was dead. The deaths of all other rulers in recorded history were as nothing, ersatz, meaningless, trivial. A Goddess had died – a Goddess - and there was no precedent. Can you even begin to appreciate the loss? The loss for you, the loss for Atlantis, the loss for the whole history of the Western World. Forget the sack of Constantinople, the destruction of the Library at Alexandria, the religicides of Christianity and Islam. Astarte the Goddess, as cruel as she was wayward, she of so many names – Ishtar, Aphrodite, Atargatis - worshiped so widely and for so long, thrown aside in the New Mexico dust like a sack of insignificance. What accursed creature had the right to carry out such a blasphemy?

I, Natla of Atlantis, had had but one sister, and now I had none. I stuffed my fist into my mouth and battered my forehead against the ground.

Tihocan, half-blinded, was unaware of his transgression. He held one hand to his eyes, and the walkie talkie pushed tightly to his ear, as if to balance one pain against another. As he grovelled, the ground started to rattle and roll. The Nine Colossi, walking in step, began to move.

Members of the Olympean Army were running up as I was unfurling my wings.

"The Divine Astarte is dead," I said. "Bear her body away and prepare it to rest in state."

Tihocan was weeping blood and trying to raise a response from base when I swooped down and grabbed him under the arms.

"Natla!" said Tihocan, turning his blind face to and fro. "Thank Helios."

"Sororicide!" I hissed in his ear. I was flapping vigorously and we were already thirty feel up.

Tihocan began to hyperventilate. "What?" he said.

"You killed Astarte!"

"No. I only threw her off. She blinded me."

"And now, blind unclean king, having murdered your father and your sister, I've come to bury you. Justice demands it."

"I … I did not murder my father!"

"Which 'Vulcan' brought an end to Atlantis by meddling with volcanoes? Which smith to the Gods hammered our civilisation into the ground? Which 'Hephaestus' engineered the Atlantean War Machine?"

I was catching up with and then beginning to overtake the striding Colossi. In the back of my mind I expect I thought I'd get Tihocan to stop them in their tracks.

"Natla! Stop talking and start listening. We have to talk!"

"You εἶδος κίναιδος! Have you forgotten locking me away to rot for an eternity?"

"Please Sister …!"

"Enough of your forked tongue and honeyed words. You will stop your Automata."

Tihocan wriggled. "Impossible!"

"Forget your God. It's me you need to fear."

I landed us several hundred yards in front of the foremost of the Colossi, a stunningly beautiful woman, fifty foot high, proudly naked, with golden wings. I later learned it's name was Manāt, the Arabic Goddess of Fate - a tribal version of Astarte.

"Was she meant as some sort of tribute?" I said with grim humour. "Your tribute is about to squash you like an orange."

At each footfall of the Manāt, we staggered.

"Oh my God," said Tihocan, sobbing.

"Call them off, then. How do you stop them?"

Tihocan scrabbled desperately inside his tunic and produced a box.

The Manāt was only four footsteps away, and the dust flew around us like a haboob.

I looked at Tihocan's controller. It had a retinal scanner.

"This is the only way?"

"I told you. It's impossible! Only my eyes can stop them, and my eyes are gone! Natla? Natla!"

I'd thrown the box away and was walking away without looking back. I could hear Tihocan screaming for help - promising the world, promising to be good - as he ran helplessly around in circles.

"Upon a pillory - that all the world may see, a just desert for such impiety," I said softly, as the giant footsteps got closer.

There was a final shriek and a hideous crunch as the avatar of Astarte accidently trod on him.

Of course, I was immediately under arrest, and by "arrest" I mean like from the original French. Amanda – now "Queen" Amanda – took command of everything Olympean and Atlantean in the absence of "God" and ordered me frozen in a stasis field from which I could hear and see but within which I was immobilised.

Amanda had "blinged it up something rotten" in celebration of her Royal Succession. She resembled a cross between Ornella Muti's Princess Aura and Dejah Thoris of Mars, and strode about flinging her arms about and shouting.

"Yet again the evil Natla of Atlantis has turned on us all," declaimed Amanda from her throne, "and murdered her brother, the Royal and Much Beloved Tihocan and her sister, the Holy and Much Feared Astarte." She stood in a twinkle of golden trinkets and boldly pointed a bejewelled and be-gloved finger at me.

A wailing of sorrow started up from the assembled armies, a paean of pain. They, like me, were genuinely heart-broken at the loss.

Amanda, who appeared to suddenly remember that Tihocan was dead, burst into a jag of weeping painted in primary colours.

"Daddy!" she cried throatily, falling to her diamonded knees.

I could observe all of this, despite the fact that my body was ambered in time. I guess they left my head unfrozen (or something that I didn't quite grasp). Needless to say I could neither smile nor frown nor yell deaths threats at my bejazzled daughter. It was relaxing, and the world was distanced from me by a pleasant rose tint. If truth be told I was glad that I wasn't giving away the sneaking admiration that I was developing for Amanda.

'Unscrupulous, unsentimental and unpredictable,' I thought to myself. 'She looks good, she sounds in command and she hasn't hit the bottle. You go, girl.'

I wondered if, after I'd been executed, people would remember me through her.

Speaking of which, my Execution was set for a week's time, the time set aside for a "Sanctified And Ancient Festival Of Mission Accomplished". Various apparatchiks were assembling a giant viewing screen inside of Astarte's new Temple to the Lord of the Daylight Sky so that we of the court could all join in the fun. I wasn't sure if Astarte would have approved or not, but I know she was keen on religious murder in general, so maybe she wasn't spinning on her catafalque.

The program included;

The Return Of The Lord of the Daylight Sky

The Attack Of The Colossi (live, in 3D)

The Funerals Of The Beatified Tihocan and Astarte

The Burning At The Stake Of The Blasphemous Traitor Natla

I just hoped there'd be popcorn.

The visitor to the Temple to the Lord of the Daylight Sky (as I have mentioned elsewhere) might first have been struck by its austerity. Standing inside it giant white interior with the white New Mexican sun streaming through the un-stained-glass windows, one was infused with light, the white light of what astronomers used to call a Yellow Dwarf now inhabited by a Golden Olympian.

In previous temples to Sol or Helios a giant electrum statue with flashing eyes of gold, crowned with an emperor's radiate crown - a crown of silver rays, a crown of thorns turned inside out - would have stood on the altar, sandals whitewashed and head hidden in the eaves in wreaths of incense. Indeed an example of such a statue of Sol, the Colossus of Rhodes bestrode the harbour defending the city of the Cult of Helios and had shone light across the sea like a Grecian Statue Of Liberty, only with naked loins instead of Lady Liberty's chaste robes. None of this iconography was apparent in my sister's Temple. Maybe, in the same way that the tactful French covered up the bare breasts of Marianne for a puritanical America, Astarte had sensed that stupendous statues smacked too much of totalitarianism. After all, Ozymandias wasn't lying forgotten in the sand for nothing.

They'd allowed me my house arrest whilst I waited for my death. No doubt Amanda figured that she could appear merciful whilst being crueller by giving me time to brood. Maybe she should have left me locked up, for I'd made the most of it.

I'd been put in my place at the left hand of the God, shackled to a throne atop my unlit pyre, which from a viewer's point-of-view was the hottest seat in the house. They hadn't shackled me very tightly, and so I was able to sit with one leg nonchalantly folded over the other and a glass of wine dangling from my fingertips, the nearest a Ruler of Atlantis can come to a comfortable slouch. I wasn't overly bothered about being burnt alive not only because of the suicide capsule that I'd secreted in my mouth, but also because my main last creation – the seed of destruction – was already germinating.

I peered down at the faggots of wood beneath me. At first the kind executioners had used dry quick burning timber for a quick burning death, but then – whispered to be at the personal command of "Queen" Amanda – they'd put some green wood amongst the dry.

'Idiot,' I thought. 'You mean me to die for longer above the wet bundles, but the smoke will now choke me before the flames reach my feet.'

Not that smoke was a problem in the Temple to the Lord of the Daylight Sky, for the roof above the altar could be slid open to the sky, no doubt all the better for Mr. Sunshine to drop in on his fiery chariot.

'I just hope that they have thought through the health and safety implications,' I said to myself.

I amused myself by watching the congregation as they began to troop in. They were as fair as Monday's child in their Sunday best, all creatures great and small, some silver, some scarlet and some black. They were relaxed enough to whisper and whinny, and aware enough of their relative status to form orderly blocks, cliques and herds, the Maian Regiment to God's Right and the administrators to His Left. The Royal Family, what was left of it, Maia Of The Serene Countenance among them, faced the temple with the God and stood should to shoulder like Justinian and Theodora at Ravenna, blank faced, mildly amused and powerfully implacable.

However I was distracted, even in the midst of this pomp and circumstance. In the back of my mind were Das' laboratory notebooks specifically those related to the research that I'd asked him to regarding the possible assassination of the President and specifically concerning the unique targetable allele that the Kenyan Luo family group possessed.

"If infection begins at t=0 hours," Das had written in his perfect goldplate hand, "there's a non-contagious latency period of 14 hours. After 14 it presents. After 20 the host is incapacitated. By 24 the host is dead. If the host initiates at a single location by the end of Day One there will be a couple of hundred cases. By the end of Day Two it could in the thousands but from there it's easier to talk about percent of population. By the end of the first week 9 percent of people possessing the target allele will be infected ... and those people will die within 24 hours of infection."

I craned my neck to see if we had any earthlings present and spotted a few timorous New Mexicans in the shadows behind a pillar, the only place not over-illuminated. They were ignored as if they were no more than plants. I fixed them with my gaze and smiled, but they looked merely fearful. I hoped that a glimpse of Helios would not prove fatal to them.

At that juncture my heart jumped, for appearing in the doorway and then marching smartly down the aisle was Qualopec, dressed to the nines. He strode up the steps and sat on his allotted sell in the Royal enclosure. Only then did he look at me perched on my bonfire.

I winked at him and the corner of his grim mouth twitched. I blew him a kiss, which started off a certain amount of muttering. Qualopec ground his teeth as if quelling some deep feeling and drew his sword. Various guards who until that moment had assumed they were merely ceremonial hastily aimed their weapons at him. Qualopec, eyes fixed on mine, kissed the blade of his sword and the, after a moment, re-sheathed it. I found myself simpering and blushing like a girl, overwhelmed with relief that he'd found reports of my guilt somewhat unconvincing.

Sadly our mutual eye feasting was interrupted for then, to the boom and thunder of a hydraulis, Amanda appeared like a person from Porlock and began to process down the aisle, a gold-plated sixth-time bride, her straw-coloured hair throwing off-yellow light to right and left.

The congregation began to sing and hoot;

Glory, glory, glory
To our glorious Queen
Glorious Amanda
Glory in the scene
Born from royal purple
On t'Atlantean plain
Born to bring us glory
Glorious is her reign

… or words very much to that effect belted out to a tune not entirely unlike Land Of Hope And … you guessed it … Glory. I suspect that Amanda had written it herself. I saw at few eyes flashing at the look of disbelief that I failed to stop crossing my face. Qualopec watched his niece with no visible reaction.

Then Amanda turned and addressed her fans. "Friends, Atlanteans, countrymen," she said in a passable imitation of Queen Elizabeth of England. "I do not have the heart of a weak and feeble woman and although I have been placed at your head by a coup de … tête unplanned by myself but engineered by She Who Must No Longer Be Obeyed," she indicated me with a jerk of her heqa sceptre, "I will endeavour to serve yourself and the Lord Of The Daylight Sky with as much … verocity as my late, great father."

"Three cheers for the Queen," snapped a sergeant of the Maian, and three cheers issued from the troops in a very organised and clipped fashion, leaving a somewhat echoey silence in their wake.

"Yes, well, thank you," said Amanda, who seemed to have run out of speech. "I say to you – if you prick me, do I not bleed …?"

Fortunately at that moment a roaring sound began to sound from above.

"Oh … good," said Amanda, and hurried out of the way with a certain lack of savoir faire.

The chariot with the Avatar and the Interpreter of the God began to descend through the hole in the Temple roof. The Avatar was glaring at us all with a look of smelting steel and the Interpreter was leaning very slightly away from it as if in doubt of its own fire-proof-ness.

"Bow down to the Lord Of The Daylight Sky!" announced the Interpreter, and all of us, even myself, hastened to comply.

The chariot alighted on the stone floor with two quiet clinks and the Avatar stepped off with two deafening thuds.

"I, I, I am Your God!" roared the Lord via his Interpreter, his mask face as immobile as ever . "I, I, I am victory! Rejoice!"

"Hallelujah," replied the congregation, attempting to disguise the fact that they'd practiced beforehand.

"The Western Hemisphere is Mine, Mine, Mine!"

"And so say all of us."

"I, I, I have captured their bodies and now I, I, I shall capture their minds."

"So help me God."

"But first, I, I, I will execute the traitor Natla of Atlantis."

There was a gasp, and a rather uncouth swear word escaped from my lips as I sat bolt upright on my throne. The Lord Of The Daylight Sky pointed an incandescent digit at me and was no doubt a millisecond away from barbequing your humble author when Amanda and Qualopec stepped forward, protesting.

"My Lord!" said Qualopec. "Surely one of Your Royal subjects deserves to have the facts examined less partially?"

"This is the second time that your wife has been implicated in deaths within My, My, My Court. She must burn!"

"Your Highness is rightfully enraged, but Your Court is depleted. Can we afford to lose another Royal unless for the correct reason?"

"Besides," quavered Amanda, showing a piece of paper to the disinterested Interpreter, "there's a program. Surely you wouldn't want my evil evil mother to miss the Colossus…es?"

"Viper," said Qualopec to her, with deepest contempt.

"Pussy whipped," hissed back Amanda.

The Avatar subsided and a look of comparative calm was visible through the flames.

"Proceed," it said.

And so the show of shows began. The canvas roof was pulled over the temple and its edge draped down behind the altar to mimic a movie screen. Each window was covered and flame extinguished except that of the Avatar which dimmed from incandescent to lambent.

An image of St. Peter's Square in Rome appeared, saints silhouetted against the burning sky and nuns packed habit to habit. The venerable Pope was propped up by prelates and leading the signing from his balcony.

The voice of Maia of the Serene Countenance echoed around the Temple and the world;

You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and fourth generation of those who reject me.

A lascivious robotic laugh filled the air – an epitome of the female sexuality that the Catholic church so feared – and the Whore Of Babylon stepped up to St. Peter's. Hitching up her scarlet skirt she humped the dome until it collapsed in ruins on the congregants beneath.

Then to Jerusalem –

It is even insufficient to reduce an idol to powder and scatter it to the winds, since it could fall to earth and become a fertilizer; but the image must be sunk, whence it can never emerge

- where a porcine shrieking filled the air and the thunder of trotters drowned out the thunder of weaponry and outrage and there appeared a Colossus of that most reviled creature - the Uncleansed Pig - which proceeded to roll flat the Dome Of The Rock and the Church Of The Holy Sepulchre and the Wailing Wall, and then grind the remains into a giant excremental wallow.

Then, Mecca. The golden statue of Manāt, goddess of fate banished centuries before by the fanatics of the Prophet in the very first act of Islamic iconoclasm, appeared above the white clad millions in all her insulting nakedness, unveiled, and with a single song of triumph vanished, leaving behind a desert scoured clean of all sign of man … except, with great irony, for a single lonely statue of Astarte, reassembled from fragments of the Black Stone of Kaaba.

Then, from the people of the book to the temples of those whose falsely profess and pretend to no faith whilst being as blind as any acolyte. A large monkey with the face of Darwin destroys CERN, Geneva, using missiles fashioned from its own dung, whilst a Soviet giantess levels Wall Street with her hammer and sickle yelling "Religion is the opium of the people!"

I, like everybody else, like the entire planet in fact, watched this performance with open mouth. There has always been a La Ronde of religious destruction - the Hindus at Babri Mosque and the Taliban at Bamyan, the Buddhists in Sri Lanka and Crusaders in Byzantium, Gratian versus the pagans and Stalin versus the Christians – but never have the world faiths been hit by a coordinated apocalypse.

I knew it wasn't strictly true but I found myself thinking "Game over". I glanced at the Lord Of The Daylight Sky. The Avatar was expressionless, no more engaged than if it had been watching a gardener weeding. There was only one Lord Our God and everything else must be torn up or dug under. Weeds have no champion.

Then, whilst we were watching the sixth and seventh Colossi at work in Asia – the Turbaned Termagant trashed the Tamil temple at Meenakshi Amman whilst the Dragon of Xian incinerated the Shoalin Temple at Song Shan – I saw a flunky approach and whisper in the ear of Amanda and Qualopec. I felt some relief, for the festival of destruction was secretly starting to bore me – once you've seen one faith center flattened, you've seen them all.

"It seems," came the voice of Maia of the Serene Countenance, "that one of our Colossi is missing. The Great White Hunter, en-route to Ayres Rock in Australia, has disappeared in the empty reaches of the South Pacific. However, as a grand finale, we bring you – heading straight to Halema'uma'u Crater in Hawaii - the Christian Evangelist …"

A more or less sincere cheer arose from the assembled Atlanteans, but I was still with apprehension. Hawaii was where I'd advised the boys to go, following the President.

Terrestrial pictures showed the fleet at Pearl Harbor assembled to bombard the approaching behemoth. The President, no doubt against all advice and gone stark fighting mad, stood on the golf course at the Pearl Country Club brandishing a moose rifle against the invader.

The Christian Evangelist was striding waist high though the Pacific, brandishing a Bible and singing from Ka'ahumanu's hymn book, when suddenly it stopped in midstride.

However I only found out what happened off the shores of Hawaii somewhat later, for at that moment Nemesis rode up to kick all our asses.

Lara Croft, dressed in archaic armour and with a crusader robe flying behind her, burst through the entrance astride her trusty Norton motorbike.

"Deus vult!" she yelled, lowering a jousting lance.

She must have snuck into the Temple as we were all watching the ceremonies for as she gave her battle cry, explosives detonated from every pillar down the sides of the building. As she sped forward she was narrowly missed by large chunks of masonry falling onto the assembled Maian Regiment and Olympean Warriors.

There was no roof above the altar so the Royals were spared the immediate destruction. I was blown bodily from the top of bonfire as it burst into flames, and with a backward somersault found myself lying slightly stunned in the remains of my wooden throne, freed from my chains.

Lara stood on the seat of her speeding bike as it crashed into the body of the Avatar, and – vaulting through the air - impaled the face of the Avatar with her spear tip.

The Avatar roared and fell flat on its back, and a huge ball of flame burst out in all directions. From my vantage point against the back wall, I could see Qualopec shielding the others as they lay on the floor just under the burning cloud.

Then I spotted Amanda, or at least Amanda's heel, for she was fleeing out of a well hidden door at the back of the altar. Ducking and running, I ran after her.

The Avatar got slowly to its feet, its "injuries" re-mending themselves and the jagged hole in its face knitting back together to re-make that perfect Apollonian mask.

"Who dares to lay hands on My, My, My Representative on Earth?" it roared at Lara, who had scrambled to her feet and drawn the Sword of Perseus. Her cloak and all other flammable material had been burnt away, but she herself was unharmed, coated as she was in the ointment that the witch Medea had made for Jason when he fought the fire-spitting Dragon.

"Listen, old chap," she said. "You may be able to impress our country cousins across the water here with flashy PR and tacky graphics," she gestured at the Avatar, the screens and the remains of the Temple, "but we in England require rather more substance before we pledge our allegiance."

I knew all of this because, perhaps unfortunately, the whole scene was still being broadcast worldwide, even onto the giant screens set up in the desert around the Temple site … not that there was anybody left to watch it.

I could run faster than Amanda. I have longer legs and the only exercise she ever got was trying on clothes. I caught up with her and rugby tackled her to the ground.

"Got you, you little bastard!" I said, pinning her arms with my knees and grabbing her face with my hands.

"Get off me, Mother!" spluttered Amanda. "I'm a Queen now."

"As am I, you stupid child, but it didn't stop you trying to fricassée in my own boiling blood."

"You're hurting me!"

Above us on a screen, the Colossus known as the Evangelical Christian appeared to be being dragged beneath the waves by some unseen monster, a tentacle wrapped around its despairing face and giant metal fingers grasping at the sky as it sank into the thrashing foam.

I burst into vicious laughter. "I'm hurting you? I'm hurting you? You're about to be murdered and all you can thing of to do is whine?"

I ran my infected nail down her cheek, drawing blood. Amanda squealed. Then I stood with as much distain as I could manage, and brushed the dust from my robes.

Amanda had scrambled to her feet, her crown askew, examining the blood on her skin. Reaching down her bejewelled hip, she produced a tiny gold-handled pistol.

"What did you do?" she said, horror mingling with the blood.

"Well now," I said. "You'll be pleased to know that Atlantis is dead, even that ray of overgrown sunshine that Lara is bashing up."

Amanda just stared at me. "Poison?" she said, after a pause.

"Kinda." I said, silkily. "You can thank your clever brother Das for the groundwork. I just fiddled about with it a bit."

"Give me the antidote!"

"Oh, that old thing. "I laughed. "Well, let's see … Nas and Das have it. Qualopec has it. I have it …"

"Give it to me!" said Amanda.

"Don't you want to hear what the virus does?"

"No, you fucking bitch." Amanda cocked her pistol and aimed it at my head. "Give me the antidote, now!"

"Well I'll tell you anyway," I purred, picking a fleck of dust from my sleeve. "You know that gene that allows you to work the Daises? The allele that allowed you to skip around the planet setting up this disastrous invasion?"

"What about it?"

"I've targeted it with a weaponised virus."

Amanda's hand flew to her throat.

"Don't worry," I said. "The symptoms can take up for a week or two, although since you've just received a massive dose you might die a bit quicker."

Amanda began to blink. I watched her closely as the implications began to set in.

"You used the Royal Gene? So … every living Atlantean … they all have it?" she said. "You cannot be serious."

"I'm afraid so, dearest. The entire civilisation, including its Gods, is doomed. It's War Of The Worlds, only this time I engineered the killer bacteria."

"How come everyone else in the family gets it except me?" I could see that behind her histrionics, Amanda was thinking very hard. "Hang on a second," she said. "You say that Nas and Das have an antidote. When exactly did you give it to them?"

"Before they left, obviously."

"So you know in advance … you had this weapon in place before the Olympeans even arrived?"

"Yes." I could see that I was going to have to tell her. "The Olympeans that I encouraged you to bring to Earth. The whole bunch. All at the same time."

"You helped me …?" Amanda's voice tailed off into silence.

"I put you personally in charge of shutting down the Dias network." I looked her in the eye, and I could not help a wry smile. "What did you think? I was having some sort of senior moment, trusting you with such an important task?"

Amanda started to swear, and I could see her mentally kicking herself.

I tried very hard to keep the amusement out of my voice. "And your next question is; why didn't I release this virus earlier?"

"Yes! Why didn't you? You could have avoided the war, the destruction of Earth's forces …"

"I was hardly going to be able to rule the world without subduing it first, surely?"

Our gazes locked and I could see an expression, admiration mixed with disgust, creeping over her face.

"You provoked them!" she spluttered, eventually. "You deliberately shot them down! You started the war!"

"Admittedly I didn't know about the Colossi and I never thought Astarte was still alive, but …"

"You killed your own brother!"

"There was no point in becoming World Leader with Tihocan still out there," I explained, gently. "When I saw his silhouette trying to step through the Dias of Gemini in the Temple Of The Chariot Of The Gods, I just knew it would only be a matter of time. "

Amanda's face flushed bright red. "You fucking traitor!" she said. "I should kill you on the spot!" She raised her little pistol, pointing it at me with a shaky hand.

I shrugged. "Take your best shot," I said. "You still won't get the cure."

She probably would have shot me right then, but at that moment something very odd began to happen. Above us in the sky the sun began to flicker like a faulty neon tube.

I gazed up at the star, at first needing to shield my eyes and then not needing to. It resembled a tadpole egg, with something twitching for a moment inside it

I spun on my heel and looked up at the scene from inside the ruins of the Temple. A very battered Lara Croft, naked feet planted firmly on the Avatar's burning chest, was methodically sawing its head off.

I looked back at the sun, and still it flickered. "No," I said, hollowly. I'd known that the Avatar represented Helios, but it had never occurred to me that there was a literal, physical link between Helios and the sun.

Suddenly a great fear came over me and I fell to my knees. 'What have I done?' I said to myself. I had a vision of a planet without a star, a frozen block of ice, all squabbles forgotten. I could feel all my childhood faith flooding back again.

"Lords of the Sea and of the Daylight Sky," I prayed, my hands clasped to my chest like a little girl. "Do not desert us. We will do anything …"

Amanda was not taking the dying of the light very well

"You fucking idiot!" she screamed hysterically. "You arrange for the release of your fucking attack dog Lara Croft and you just knew she'd do something postal like this! You and your fucking master plans that never fucking work."

"If you had any dignity as an Atlantean you'd join me in prayer," I said. I was serene but there were tears welling in my eyes.

Amanda's voice had become very calm in the way that a very angry person's voice does. "So, Mother. What use are your clever plans to you now?"

And with that, she shot me in the back.

I lay alone in the sand, vaguely watching the giant screen.

The Avatar's head had fallen off.

"And let that be a stern lesson to all Gods everywhere," said Lara.

I moved my eyes to the sky expecting the sun to wink out, but instead – after a while - it brightened again. It seemed that the sun (or Helios or whatever it was) had merely been distracted. Moments later – and I'm not sure if I hallucinated it – a pillar of fie came down from heaven and remade the Avatar anew.

'Poor old Lara,' I thought. Yet again she had failed to kill a God

I turned my fading eyes to the screen again, expecting to see a dead Lara … but the Lord Of The Daylight Sky seemed to be too flustered to kill her.

"I saw another earth," he was saying, in quite a normal voice, "one I never saw before. An evil doppelganger upon I have never turned my face. My light faltered for an instant and in that instant something … terrible … awoke."

"My Lord?" said Qualopec, stepping forward. He could have laid a hand on the giant arm of the Avatar who for the first time that we'd seen it was not a-flame.

"ur-Earth," said Lara, adjusting to her new reality with Lara-esque rapidity. Maybe she, like me, realised that the best way to get rid of one Big Bad was to pit it against another. "Everything with you people involves a twin."

"ur-Earth?"

"Maybe we should investigate, my Lord," said Qualopec. "It would be a tragedy if at the height of your triumph we were attacked from an unexpected quarter."

'Good man!' I thought.

I couldn't see that well, but I could have sworn that I saw the Avatar's shoulders slump and its lower lip quiver slightly. What does a God have to do, I could see it wondering? Slowly it straightened up again and the flames began to lick over its flesh.

"Let it be as you suggest, Lord Qualopec," it said, its voice regaining some of its stentorian volume. "Gather my armies and … My, My, My skyships. I, I, I will conquer this abomination."

"Yes, my Lord," said Qualopec with a bow.

Two birds with one stone. The Avatar and his Army would be defeated, or at least trapped in an eternal battle with their equal and opposite. Only Qualopec would survive as the virus kicked in … I hoped.

And whilst they were away …

I had calculated that not just Atlantis, but every descendent of ours that possessed the allele or even a bad copy of the allele, would be vulnerable to my virus. Lara didn't have enough of a Royal Gene to be able to open the door to the Temple Of The Chariot Of The Gods in Antarctica, but she did have enough to fall ill. I had once tried to do a calculation. Any individual human would, over 30 generations, have a billion ancestors.

I had a vision of a planet in chaos, no rule of law left and a new Black Death rampaging across the West. 'Who knows? Maybe fresh meat will incite territorial rages again, will strengthen and advance us.'

"That's the spirit," Lara was saying to the Avatar, returned to her usual cheerful and imperturbable self. "You head off and do some biffing."

"And You will guide us," replied the Avatar.

Lara froze. She began to protest and then to struggle, but she was trapped. It appeared that, as an added bonus, my one real opponent was being carried off to an ignominious death on a distant planet, a planet where once she had very nearly died at the hands of her own Doppelganger.

I sighed and rested the back of my head on the cold, soft sand.

"I love you, my husband," I whispered.

And then it seemed that all I could see was the blue of the daylight sky. Somewhere a small bird was tweeting and a slight breeze was playing over my feverish skin.

'Look after my people,' I thought, thinking of the boys.

And so, at last, I slept.

That should have been it, of course, and I should have died bleeding out into the sand of my beloved Atzlan.

I was lapsing in and out of consciousness when I began to be aware of the ringing sound and a vibrating on my leg. It took me a very long time to release that it was a mobile phone. I'd put it in the pocket of my Royal Raiment weeks ago and forgotten it.

I could barely find it out and fumble it up to my ear.

"Hello?" I croaked.

"Is that Jacqueline Natla, Governor of New Mexico?" came a clipped military voice.

"Ye-es."

"Thank God you are still alive, Ma'am."

"Just," I whispered. "I'm afraid I've been shot. Again."

I could hear a slight intake of breathe. "Are you still a prisoner of the invaders, Ma'am?"

"I think most of them have just flown off."

"That is our assessment also. If you could hold on, Ma'am, the National Guard is heading towards you from the nearest base. We have you on satellite."

"Hi!" I said weakly to the sky, waving my fingers.

"In the meantime, Ma'am, it is my sad duty to inform you that POTUS is dead."

"Who?"

"The President, Ma'am. A giant tsunami stirred up by the monsters fighting in the ocean off Hawaii swept ashore and the Commander in Chief was tragically drowned."

"I'm … very sorry to hear that," I said, thinking of the idiot gesticulating on the golf course.

"And so it is my solemn duty to inform you," said the officer, "the rest of the Cabinet being dead and you, Jacqueline Natla, being the official Designated Survivor of the US Government …

If I'd had the energy I'd have sat bolt upright. "You're kidding," I said.

"… that the power of the Executive has now been passed to you …,"

I began to laugh.

"… Madam President."

---

The End.