Old John had been ready to stake his life on one thing: an extra layer of protection for his youngest son. That hit Bella harder than she expected. She asked herself honestly whether she'd be willing to make the same sacrifice for her own child.
She'd spent the better part of an afternoon at the summer camp trading philosophical niceties with Odin, and what did she have to show for it? Not a single shred of practical help. Humanity, divinity, the nature of parenthood. What did any of that have to do with the problem at hand?
If she wanted 006 back in his right mind, she'd have to do it the hard way.
That evening, using whatever materials she had on hand, she built a somewhat crude Iron Golem. Then she cleared every employee off the top floor of the Empire State Building. She placed the golem at the entrance to 006's "palace." You say you're the King of the Gods? Fine. Let's see how royal you feel after this.
With a series of heavy, resonant thuds, the Iron Golem lumbered into His Majesty the God-King's bedchamber.
What followed was a sustained percussion of iron striking flesh. 006 was nothing if not tough. He didn't beg. Instead, he deployed that thunderous voice of his to berate the golem at full volume.
Every other sentence was something like, "Stand down! You wretched abomination!"
Or: "I summon you, thunderbolt! Destroy my enemy!"
Bella pulled up a chair and sat outside the door, waiting.
Only when 006's voice had gone completely silent did she stroll inside at her leisure.
She checked on her golem first.
"Impressive. What a strange energy signature..." Three scorched, blackened craters marred the Iron Golem's chest, skull, and abdomen. When she reached out and touched them, her fingertips tingled with a faint numbness. Under the influence of that bizarre memory fragment, 006 had actually developed a degree of supernatural ability. But the cost had been enormous.
He looked like a man on death's doorstep. His hair had gone completely white. The once-lean, well-built muscles had withered and gone slack. His teeth were loose in his gums. A candle guttering in the wind would have looked healthier. By her estimate, he had less than a year left.
The result was grim, but it fell within Bella's predicted range.
She used a shot of adrenaline to bring him around. "Mr. Trevelyan. Are you lucid? I hate to say this, but I'm obligated to inform you that you've been absent from work for three days."
006 was desperately weak. He forced his eyes open, and one trembling finger rose to point at her in what appeared to be a silent, wordless protest.
Good enough! That whole "I am the God-King" energy seems to have evaporated.
Bella produced a vial of Fire Flower extract and tipped a single drop into his mouth.
The potency of Fire Flower extract was staggering. Calling it capable of raising the dead was barely an exaggeration. One drop, and 006, who'd been moments from drawing his last breath, immediately sank into a deep, healing sleep. Life force flooded back into his cells. His hair darkened from white to black. His hunched, withered frame straightened and filled out again.
"Rest well, Mr. Trevelyan. I'll come check on you tomorrow. If you still haven't snapped out of it by then, I'll just have to build another Iron Golem..."
The next morning, after breakfast, Bella went to look in on her old friend.
She found him still catching up on the diary entry he'd been too unconscious to finish the night before.
Bella's eyesight was excellent. She knew reading someone else's diary was wrong, but she craned her neck and snuck a peek anyway.
Huh. She discovered that 006 had already filled an entire dense page.
The diary's core content was a blow-by-blow account of his battle with the Iron Golem the previous night:
"Last night I was seated upon my throne, deep in contemplation, when a set of footsteps drew my attention. I looked up. Some pitch-black iron contraption was clomping toward me, each step hitting the floor like a sledgehammer. I said, 'Listen here, dark one. Have you ever seen a King of the Gods before?' I told it to try hitting me. It couldn't even make me flinch. I said, 'You're useless.' It shook its head, as if to suggest that I, the God-King, was the useless one. What a joke! I could fight a two-hundred-meter Titan to a draw.
"I said I wouldn't fight back, that it was free to attack. The moment I said it, the thing jumped to its feet. Fast! Very fast! A left hook, a right hook, and I blocked them all! Every single one! In the traditional Olympian style of divine combat, that should have been the end of it. I smiled. This iron contraption couldn't hurt me. At that point, it had already lost.
"I am the King of the Gods! Tedious as it was, I would not stoop to fighting such a toy. I withdrew my divine power and stood down. But then the wretched contraption launched a sneak attack! I let my guard down. Didn't dodge. Its fist grazed my shoulder. I said stop. It kept hitting!
"I must inform the creator of this iron contraption: deception! A sneak attack! Is this any way to treat a King of the Gods as distinguished as myself? You know nothing of Olympian etiquette! You have no respect for the ancient Greek code of martial honor!
"I was just about to relay this message telepathically to the contraption's maker, hoping that the youngster would reflect carefully and conduct themselves properly, and refrain from such petty tricks in the future. Before I could finish the thought, the iron contraption punched me unconscious!"
Bella was at a complete loss for words. 006's condition didn't seem fully cured after all. Were these residual traces of Zeus's memories?
Memory was a complicated thing. Human memory was complex enough. The memories of a god were on another level entirely.
She didn't mention that she was the "dishonorable" creator of the Iron Golem. If 006 discovered the truth someday, that was a problem for someday. Right now, she just needed to gauge how far his recovery had progressed.
When 006 saw her, his first words were equal parts hope and dread: "Am I really not Zeus?"
Bella's tone brooked no argument. "Believe me, old friend. You have absolutely nothing to do with Zeus."
Whether that was actually true was genuinely hard to say. Fate was a strange and mysterious thing.
But for the moment, she had to stamp out every last trace of that delusion.
006 slapped the side of his own head. "But I still feel like someone stole my scepter. Can you help me find it?"
This man has truly lost his mind...
Bella decided that a total, blunt denial would be devastating to 006's inner world. Heavy medicine for a heavy illness was sound practice, but now that he was mostly recovered, doubling down would do more harm than good.
"Ahem. How about this: those young men and women at the shelter don't have much to do anyway. Weyland Corporation will foot the bill. Let them go search for the scepter on your behalf."
With that single sentence from Bella, the summer camp leveled up.
Over a hundred young men and women were divided into fifty groups of three and dispatched across the entire United States to hunt for the so-called scepter. "Searching for the scepter" was 006's framing. For the young people themselves, it was a free vacation.
All expenses along the way were covered by Weyland Corporation. Their only requirement was to record the beautiful scenery they encountered using cameras or sketchbooks. That counted as mission accomplished.
Ninety-nine percent of Americans wouldn't turn down an opportunity like that.
"You're not going? I think it sounds like a blast." Heather even came to invite Bella.
Bella politely declined.
Then she watched as Heather left the summer camp alongside a handsome young man named Percy Jackson and a young Black man who'd once worked as a radio host.
So the Lethal Lady had broken up with Mustache after all.
The news was hardly surprising. Seeing Mustache chatting and laughing with a girl from another group, Bella figured an amicable split was for the best.