Energy Unbound

Chapter 10

Messengers

Hermes, Messenger of the Gods, was sitting at his desk, in his office, situated at the center of his temple in the hot zone of his domain. The modern world had changed a lot about the Olympians. He was no exception. Because of where the heart of his domain was located in this new world, he had to learn a lot of patience, especially for a certain annoying accent.

To the mortal world his temple bore a different name: the 'SuperHub', the biggest shipping center in the United States. Located in Memphis, Tennessee, the giant complex was the headquarters for Hermes' company, Fedex. With so many packages travelling through here daily, so many letters received and sent, not only was his domain the strongest here but also stronger than it had ever been. Hermes was reliant on mortal civilization, but he didn't care. Unlike most of the other gods he actually liked mortals. Well, most of them. There were still a few he'd deliver to his uncle in a heartbeat. A few of the gods fell under that distaste too. Every group had it's bad actors.

Sometimes he would walk into one of the sorting chambers to watch the automaton workers push and pull packages around, sending them off to their destinations. It felt strangely relaxing, seeing chaos constantly made into order. He chuckled at the memory of what mortals saw through the Mist. Apparently some kind of robotic arms showed up, instead of the automaton they really were.

But he was not relaxing at the moment. No fun was to be had for him, it seemed. His blasted uncle had sent one of his mortal organizations to audit Fedex. Yes, the God of Messengers was being forced to do taxes. Hate would be far too light a word for the opinion Hermes felt for these simple pieces of paper.

To be fair, he had painted his uncle's palace in the Underworld bright pink with his half-brother Apollo. Persephone caught them, but when she learned what they were doing, she helped them escape. The duo had barely managed to get out of the Underworld before they heard an unearthly scream of rage, and it seemed Los Angeles had several magnitude six earthquakes for the week afterwards.

This is the most effective punishment I've ever seen, much less felt, Hermes grumbled. Uncle should just replace the Fields of Punishment with a tax office. He sighed as he filled in more information on the object of his hate. He had people in the organization who could do this, several who knew of his true nature, versus the CEO most mortals believed. But Hades was smart, and offered his high level employees a week's vacation. They all abandoned him, unawares of the audit that would come down upon his company merely two days later.

"What does 'Median Gross Income' even mean?" Hermes cried out in anguish, throwing up his hands in defeat. He was going to crack, he was sure. Dionysus may be able to rip minds apart, but this, this was true insanity. The messenger god clapped his hands to his face, dragging them downwards in a mock attempt to claw out his own eyes. He had to get up, take a break, or there was no way he would be finishing this.

Just as he was about to stand, a prayer directed at him resounded. Hermes, if you can hear me, we need to talk, a young female voice said. He was puzzled by this, since the location of the prayer seemed to come from his cabin at Camp Half-Blood, but also... not. The feeling was odd, to say the least, but he just shrugged and flashed away to his cabin. Anything to get out of doing taxes.

Or rather, he tried. Some kind of barrier was preventing him from manifesting directly inside the cabin, so he resolved for landing outside the entrance. When reality hit his senses again, he looked up at the cabin and gasped, for it was gone. In place of the wooden house that had previously been there, a large building stood, constructed completely out of various shades of silver metal. It had a wraparound porch, double doors with his symbol of power etched into them, and a giant caricature of his snakes, Martha and George, entwined around not a staff, but his cell phone. Hermes just stood outside, gaping at the grand structure.

You don't have to stand outside, Hermes. This is your cabin after all, the young woman's voice rang out in his head again, shaking the messenger god out of his shock. He wiped his face, then ascended the stairs that lead to the porch. Hesitantly he approached the double doors. He jumped a little when they slid into the walls on their own with a small hiss. But then he caught sight of the room beyond, and his jaw dropped.

The giant round chamber with his caduceus engraved in the floor, color coded to Martha and George. A ring of blue light around the edges where the floor met the wall, interrupted only by large hallways that led away. The field of lights taking up the ceiling. Gods, it was beautiful. Hermes actually shed a tear.

"Like it?" a voice spoke softly, coming from one of the hallways. Hermes looked down to see a young woman, maybe eighteen, leaning against the wall with her arms crossed and a kind smile. She had unnaturally dark red hair, cascading down her back like a molten waterfall. Her eyes were orange, with small flecks of grey in therm. No, silver, Hermes realized. She wore a long trench coat, and underneath some kind of skintight suit, showing off her extremely well developed body. Both seemed to be made out of a dark metal, with glowing orange lines on them.

Hermes nodded, still taking in his new cabin. "Who made this?"

The girl walked over to stand beside him. "Connor Stoll," she simply said.

Hermes looked at her in disbelief. "My son, a Stoll, built all this?" he exclaimed, waving his hand about the cabin.

"With a little help from me," the girl responded, letting out a laugh.

Who is this girl? Hermes wondered, and resolved to find out.

"Who are you?" he asked her, receiving a raised brow.

"You don't already know?" she replied, smirking.

Thinking about it, the girl did look familiar. But Hermes had a long existence, and far too many people to remember. So he shook his head.

She seemed hurt at that, and turned her head away from him in a huff.

"Sorry," he heard himself say, shocked. He had just apologized without even thinking. Gods just didn't do that, even if they ever apologized. Who was this girl?

A moment later Hermes was glad he did, though, because she looked back at him with a smile. "It's fine, Hermes. You'll figure it out eventually."

Now he was dumbstruck. "If you know who I am, why do you not use my title?" he asked, puzzled.

Her smirk widened. "You'll have to figure out who I am to understand that."

He felt himself smile in return. What the heck? he thought. It was like some part of him knew who she was, and was reacting like this on it's own.

She must have heard his dilemma somehow, for she answered the confusion. "Hermes, Hermes, I'm sure a part of you does know who I am. After all, do the Olympians not have two sides?" she asked with mirth in her orange eyes. Her orange eyes with silver flakes in them, he noted again. No, not silver, but the color of a certain metal...

Hermes gasped, and heard a slightly different voice than his own in his head. You finally got it, me, Mercury said, mentally clapping him on the back. But the revelation just sent his head spinning, making it seem like nothing made sense anymore.

"You.. but… you're my… you're his... what? How? With who?" the God of Messengers stammered, shock on his face.

The girl looked extremely pleased. "I knew you were clever, Hermes. It's just that half of that cleverness is sequestered to the Romans."

I like her. She's cheeky, Mercury said.

Of course you like her, she's yours, Hermes shot back.

We are the same being, Hermes.

Says the voice in my head, he replied.

"You two done bickering?" the girl's voice cut in, instantly shutting them both up. Hermes looked at her, truly starting to wonder about her origin. What's more, she knew they had been arguing. Which was odd on it's own, since normally the Olympian's two aspects wouldn't even acknowledge each other, much less speak to the other in their shared mind.

"Yes," Hermes felt himself say, realizing it was Mercury exerting physical control over his body.

How are you doing that? Hermes asked him in a panic.

I have no idea, Mercury replied, and Hermes could feel his shocked state once he realized it.

The smiling, the sorry, was that you?

Yes. How is this possible, Hermes!?

It must be her. Whatever she is, she's capable of bringing both of us to the front at the same time.

There is no way she is mortal, then.

We need to ask her.

Yes, we do.

Somehow sensing that his aspects were in agreement with each other, the girl placed a hand on the messenger god's back, and began pushing him toward the hallway with a caduceus symbol above it. "Come on, both of you, I will explain once we reach a secure area."

Hermes raised his brow. "Secure area?" he asked.

She nodded, glancing around the chamber. "You have no idea who could be watching."

A chill went down the messenger god's spine. "Could you have said that any more creepily?" Hermes asked, annoyed.

"Yes," she said, an evil smile appearing on her face. Hermes' eyes grew wide, but he resolved not to say anything until her face resumed its normal, kind smile.

"So where are we going?" Mercury asked.

She looked at his eyes, searching for something. When she found it, she replied. "We're going to my room, Mercury."

Mercury tried to reply at the same time Hermes did, so all that came out of their mouth was a jumble of incomprehensible sounds. This caused the girl to laugh, throwing her head back. The sound of her laugh made Hermes feel giddy inside, and it wasn't just from Mercury's reaction. He realized he liked her a lot. Certainly not a romantic way, but in the way he should have, considering who she most likely was. Mercury's happiness just seemed to increase when he learned this.

They had been walking for about half a minute, passing by doors with symbols etched on them similar to the way the main doors of the cabin bore a caduceus. Hermes saw two doors opposite each other with illustrations of two boys dumping water out of a bucket on a rather large woman, and didn't have to read the nameplates to realize those cabins were Travis and Connor's. He also passed a room with an hourglass on it, and his heart sank when he saw the nameplate, for it read Luke Castellan. The campers must have added the room in honor of him, for his favorite son was no more.

Hermes heard a snicker from the girl when that thought crossed his mind, but he brushed it off. There was no way she'd heard his thoughts, so she must have been laughing at something else. The girl looked at him with pity in her eyes, making him doubt that assumption.

Finally, they reached a door at the end of the hallway. Unlike the other doors, this one was entirely composed of the material the girl's clothes were made of and the lines on it were slowly fading in and out. It was not on one of the sides of the hall, instead directly facing the entry chamber.

Now that Hermes thought of it, he looked back down the hallway to the chamber, and it occurred to him that there was no way in Hades this cabin could fit inside the structure he'd entered. "This doesn't make sense," he muttered, scratching his head.

The girl just shook hers, sighing, and placed her palm on a metal square to the right side of the door. A quiet chime sound was heard, and then the dark metal door slid into the floor. No, not slid, flowed like water. Hermes raised his eyebrows at this, but after everything he'd seen in his long life, it wasn't that unusual. The girl pushed the messenger god through the doorway, the door flowing back up behind them.

The room inside was quite homely as rooms go. It had a dull brown carpet, off white walls and a popcorn ceiling. A large bed was up against the left side of the room, a simple mattress on top of a large brick of the dark metal, sans the glowing lines Hermes had seen on the other examples of that metal. A large orb, also made of that metal, hovered in space directly across from the door, glowing orange symbols appearing and disappearing on it's surface. On the right side of the room a giant rectangle of shiny black material was inset into the wall. Other than those three objects, the door, and the girl's clothes, no trace of the metal could be found. There were a couple of windows to the outside world in the wall opposite the door, but what Hermes saw on the other side of them confused him greatly, given that they were currently displaying a vista of a snowcapped mountain range complete with a castle made of ice. It made even less sense when he moved sideways and the perspective changed.

As soon as the door closed, the girl's demeanor shifted slightly. She grew a little more serious, then walked over to a floating orb of metal that had orange symbols appearing and disappearing on its surface. She laid a hand on the ball. "Is the room secure, Command?" she asked, and Hermes heard a disembodied female voice reply.

ROOM SECURED, it said. Hermes swore it was coming from inside his own head.

The girl sighed in relief, letting her previously tense shoulders relax. Smiling, she turned around, waving her hand. Suddenly, a section of the rug wavered, then faded out of existence, revealing that under the rug was a solid floor of the dark metal. The metal flowed up like the door had, solidifying into the form of two large chairs, complete with tall backs and a table in between them. The rug faded back into existence. The girl beckoned the messenger god, directing him to sit in one of the chairs. He did so, and she took the other one. Hermes noticed that the chair, despite being made out of dark metal, felt exactly like a chair made out of actual leather would feel. He added that to the list of things that didn't make sense.

The crimson haired girl crossed her legs, resting her elbows on the arms of her chair. She placed her hands together and looked out over them like some kind of professor. "I'm sure both of you have questions. Here's the deal. Hermes gets to ask one, then Mercury, then Hermes, then Mercury and so on. If a question requires a follow up question, that is included in the turn."

Hermes nodded his head, and felt Mercury doing the same in his mind. "We agree," Mercury said.

The girl looked at Hermes with pity in her eyes, but quickly returned to the normal kindness. "Remember, I can tell who is speaking, so don't try and fool me. If you do, you lose your next turn to the other."

Neither Hermes or Mercury intended to do so, but Hermes nodded anyways.

"In that case, Hermes. Your turn," she said.

"Who are you?" he asked, not even hesitating. She raised an eyebrow at his urgency, but didn't seem to mind.

"I am Ari, 18, Unclaimed," she stated, smiling at Hermes' confused look.

"But if you're who I think you are, why haven't you been claimed?" Hermes asked, internally glaring at Mercury.

"Don't blame Mercury, Hermes. It is neither of your faults," Ari began, shaking her head. "Firstly, I can't be claimed. Secondly, I've been cloaking my presence since before I arrived at Camp, so even if I could be claimed neither of you would have detected it," she finished.

"What do you mean, 'You can't be claimed'?" asked Mercury with a suspicious tone.

"Simply put, my mother is not mortal. Thus, not a mortal either, thus, not claimable," she explained.

Hermes felt Mercury diving into their memories, trying to locate her mother. While he was doing that, he decided to simply ask her. "Who is your mother, Ari?"

Ari chuckled, shaking her head. "She looks almost exactly like me, Hermes. Maybe that will help in Mercury's search."

How the Hades does she know what's going on in our head, Mercury? Hermes asked his other aspect, who currently had his head buried in a section of their memories.

He heard the Roman shriek, jumping out of the memory cluster like he'd been burned. He simply looked at the mental representation of Hermes. She's HER daughter, he said.

Ari smiled, a knowing look in her eyes. Hermes looked at her in a new light. He'd never been told that the being he'd had relations with just ten millennia ago had a daughter.

"Yep, she is my mother. And you already know who the father is," she said, a teasing smile on her lips.

Hermes couldn't trust the facts in front of him it until he heard it from her mouth. "Me," he breathed out, not quite believing it.

Ari's face looked like she was about to cry with joy. "Hey, Dad. Guess I'm in the right cabin after all."

A huge smile broke out on Hermes' face,l. He rushed out of his chair, wrapping his daughter in a tight embrace. His protective instincts didn't just activate. They ramped up into overdrive.

"Oof!" Ari cried out, being smothered in the hug of her father. "I have to breathe, Dad!" she exclaimed.

"Sorry," Hermes said, returning to his chair. "How are you? Where have you been? Why didn't she tell me?" he asked in rapid fire.

Ari laughed, motioning for him to be quiet. "I'm fine Dad, thanks for asking. As for where I've been, across the universe. Protecting worlds, dealing with issues, saving lives."

Hermes had an extremely proud look on his face. "That's my girl."

She stuck her tongue out at him. "I don't know why mother didn't tell you. It's possible she forgot, but I doubt it. She didn't tell me," Ari elaborated.

That caused confusion for the messenger god, and it showed. "Wait, if she didn't tell you, how did you know I was your father?" Mercury asked.

Ari shrugged. "I didn't know for sure until I met you in person, but I guessed it was the case. If you saw my true form, you'd understand."

"Show me," Hermes asked.

Ari shook her head. "I can't do it here. If you take my hand, though," she said, "we can go somewhere I can be myself."

Hermes smiled at his daughter and grabbed her hand. Her face broke out into a huge smile, and she said "Hang on!" before she began to glow silver, a bright light engulfing them.