Olympus: The Agency

“Again!” Allyra called out, cheering. She was sitting on Isaac’s shoulders with a bottle of vodka in her hand, whooping as she watched Tartarus down another six shots of the smoking green alcohol in front of him.

Tartarus growled happily as he slammed down the final shot glass, raising his hands to the cheering of the bar’s patrons.

“Twenty seven,” Isaac said over the cheering. “Unheard of for a human. Not bad.”

“Go for thirty!” Allyra demanded, leaping off of Isaac’s shoulders and landing on the table. “Thirty! Thirty! Thirty!”

The bar’s patrons started chanting with Allyra. They wanted to see Tartarus down thirty shots of alcohol unfit for human consumption.

“Thirty!” they cried. “Thirty!”

Tartarus shrugged, and began pouring three more shots of the smoking lime liquid. Alice appeared on the table in front of him, her legs crossed, her head tilted to the right like an inquisitive cat.

“I know that your implants burn the alcohol off quicker than it takes effect, but do you realise that it has a limit? If you burn through it, your body will have to deal with it on it’s own.”

“It’ll be fine,” Tartarus mouthed so no one could hear him except Alice.

“This is Jinkai, Tartarus,” Alice said incredulously. “It’s an alcoholic beverage brewed for orcs, not humans.”

Tartarus, ignoring the advice of his artificial intelligence, downed the three shots and immediately felt regret. Actually, he felt sick to his stomach as the implant, like Alice had promised, burned out and the alcohol starting to dissolve his stomach lining.

“Alice...” Tartarus groaned quietly, “Help?”

Alice rolled her eyes. “If I do, you have to promise to listen to me in the future. No more stupid choices.”

“Agreed, yes, please...”

Alice used her processors to jump-start the implant, which protected Tartarus’s stomach lining and allowed him to ignore the effects of the excessive amount of Jinkai in his system. Remembering the cheering crowd, Tartarus raised his hands.

“Thirty, baby!” he roared. Allyra led the crowd in a cheer on the table as Alice shook her head at Tartarus with a sly smile.

“Thank you,” Tartarus whispered to his companion. Alice closed her eyes and smiled cutely.

Allyra sat across from Tartarus with a giant grin on her Elven face as Isaac sat next to her, folding his Demonic wings behind him.

“Well done, Tartarus,” Isaac said. “I’m sure you broke a record somewhere.”

“Hell yeah,” Allyra agreed. “But I’m sure you cheated somehow. You being an Agent after all.”

Tartarus said nothing, but his smile betrayed the truth. Alice whistled innocently, despite no one being able to see her.

“Even if it has no immediate effect, we should get some water in you,” Isaac said, ordering a water pitcher with the table’s ordering system.

Today was a day about relaxing for Tartarus. After fighting another assassin, eco terrorists, biological horrors and a criminal syndicate, he needed a break, even if it was only for a day. Before leaving the ship, he was approached by Allyra and Isaac, asking if he wanted to accompany them to the Red Light District for some drinking.

Tartarus wasn’t used to spending time with people. In fact, his time alive had had him lead a rather solitary life. But Allyra’s contagious jubilation and Isaac’s caring nature were two things he found himself liking. Combined with his friendship with Alice, and Tartarus could actually say...

He liked this new life far better than his old one.

“I’ve wanted to ask for a while,” Allyra said as the crowd dissipated around them. “Tartarus, what’s your real name?”

Tartarus thought about his real name and he felt an intense headache come forward. He grunted and grit his teeth, his hand moving up to his temple.

“Ow...” he muttered. “I can’t say. No Agent can say their name. I am Tartarus now. Whoever I was before this... before coming back to life... well, they’re dead.”

“What did you do before then?” Allyra asked. Isaac sighed audibly.

“Leave the man alone. Whatever he was, fate has given him a second chance to be whoever he wants to be.”

Tartarus shook his head. “Not much of a change, really. I was hired to kill people in the past. The only difference now is I moved from contracts to salary.”

“You’re still different,” Isaac said. “You don’t kill innocents, you kill terrorists and enemies of state.”

“Totally different,” Allyra said, nodding.

“What about you two?” Tartarus said, eager to change the subject. “How does a Demon and an Elf become a father-daughter unit?”

Allyra uncharacteristically lowered her face and stared at her lap. Isaac cleared his throat.

“I thank you for sharing your story, Tartarus. I can tell you mine, but I ask that you do not question Allyra about hers.”

Tartarus nodded in response. Fair enough.

“My story begins in a realm of existence outside of yours, in the depths of the abyss that your kind knows as Hell. I was one of the first, a Fiend of power and rage given form. I was known as an Archdemon, specifically, the Archdemon of Power.”

Isaac stopped, closing his eyes as the memories haunted him.

“I sought something more than what I was designed to do. So when my kind came here through the portals on Earth, I rebelled. I left Earth as soon as I could and drifted in space, needing no food or air, until another ship found me.”

Isaac placed his hand on Allyra’s shoulder, who smiled gently.

“That is my story.” Isaac concluded.

“I take it Isaac isn’t your real name?” Tartarus joked.

“It isn’t,” Isaac said with a wicked smile. “My name isn’t for mortals to utter, however. Let us leave it at that.”

Tartarus opened his mouth to speak, but there was a gigantic explosion outside. The windows shattered from the shockwave, sending glass over the bar. Isaac covered Allyra with his body as much as possible, the glass shredding through his suit and embedding into his hide. Tartarus was less lucky, though his eardrums were protected by the protective implants in his ear canal.

As soon as the explosion happened, his ear canal was filled with a porous substance that filtered out the explosion and shockwave to protect his ears, then subsided once the concussive sound had ended. The future was indeed interesting, Tartarus thought.

Without another thought, Tartarus leapt out of his chair and over to the shattered window. He peered outside to see the damage.

In the street were five humanoids, with external cybernetics and high tech weaponry Tartarus could not identify. Judging by the callousness they displayed by firing on civilians, however, they were not allies.

“Isaac,” Tartarus said, immediately in Agent mode, “we need weapons. Alice, alert Zeus. Allyra, stay with Isaac and do not put yourself in danger.”

Isaac rose and hurried over to the bar, grabbing the vintage rifle over the counter and checking it, before tossing it to Tartarus.

“It’s an old Kilpatrick, first hardlight series. It burns through energy quickly, but it regenerates.”

Tartarus kept that in mind. He knelt down onto the glass-covered floor, ignoring the spots of pain, and aimed at one of the attackers.

“Tartarus, no,” Alice said, stopping him. “Those are members of the Wight Initiative. We can’t fight them.”

“Why not?” Tartarus asked.

Alice appeared in Tartarus’s vision, sitting on the windowsill, a sad little hologram staring at her feet.

“Because of me. Wights can hack technology, and the presence of artificial intelligence makes it easier to take over a person. In the entire Olympus team, Tartarus... you’re the most vulnerable to them.”

Tartarus sighed. That did put a damper on the mood. But he needed to get Allyra out of here as a non-combatant.

“Isaac,” Tartarus said finally. “I’m going to create a distraction. I want you to run as fast as you can to the ship. Don’t stop for anything, not even me. Got it?”

Isaac picked Allyra up and slung her over his shoulder. Allyra was slightly annoyed by this but said nothing.

“I mean it. Do not come back for me.” Tartarus said gravely.

Isaac hesitated by the door. It was almost as if losing someone else he was friends with was too much for the old Demon.

“Don’t... die...”

Tartarus leapt out of the broken window and fired the rifle three times. Two of the Wights were killed instantly by critical shots that made their heads burst open like watermelons under pressure. The third shot winged another, and Tartartus rolled behind cover.

At the same time, Isaac burst out of the bar’s door and took off like an Olympic runner down the street. He used his wings to make himself run faster, without looking back. Allyra, however, saw everything...

Tartarus didn’t have time to wait for the gun to regenerate, so he rounded his cover and fired again, killing another. He entered close combat with the final Wight, knocking him down and punching him relentlessly.

Tartarus stopped. A sharp pain had sprung in the back of his head. Alice screamed.

“Remember who you are.”

Then everything went black.