Page 19 of Dark Gods
“There she is,” Thor said in a tone far more pleasant than I’d have expected from someone whose little brother wanted to destroy my soul.
“There are only four of us?” Daphne asked.
“That’s right. Training is scheduled in small groups, and you’ll see why in a minute.”
He snapped his fingers and the door flew shut behind me. The room went dark, but the shift in light revealed the vibrant green grid covering every plain surface of the room.
“Whoa,” the white-haired guy said, looking around us.
“Welcome to the training room,” Thor said, watching our shocked reactions with a smug grin. “I think you’ll find it to be bigger than it appears. At least when a simulation’s loaded in.”
“Simulation?” I asked. “You mean like holograms?”
“That’s right. Over three million potential training scenarios and locations have been loaded into the computer. Once you have your access cards, you’ll be able to schedule timeslots in here as a group or an individual. The computer recognizes voice commands from authorized personnel, so you can ask it to drum up pretty much anything.”
I hadn’t expected Thor to be quite so tech savvy, but Olympus Academy was at once nothing and everything that I’d come to expect.
“And if we prefer to work on our own in class?” The blonde girl asked.
“Hey,” her twin protested.
“Shut up, Phrixus,” she snapped.
Thor already looked tired of them both. “Then as they say out in the real world, ‘Tough shit.’ You’re here to learn, not to be comfortable. If you want to train solo on your own time, so be it, but while you’re in this class, you’ll be learning to work as a team. I’ll go easy on you, though. First scenario’s gonna be a freebie. Halcyon, load Summit.”
A woman’s voice seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once in response to his request. “Loading Summit simulation.”
The grids vanished and an instant later, we were surrounded by white. Snow whipped around us, too biting and frigid to be fake, even though there was no other possibility. We were all standing at the base of a giant mountain so tall the peak was hidden under a thick layer of clouds. The twins were barely visible with their bone white hair, and the fact that the other three were huddled and shivering told me I wasn’t the only one who was freezing.
“This doesn’t feel like a simulation,” Daphne protested, her teeth chattering as she hugged herself.
“It’s a combination of technology and magic,” Thor explained, seemingly unaffected by the harsh climate.
Even though I knew we were in the same thirty-by-thirty room, the snowy cliffs seemed to continue on forever. Knowing it was an illusion did nothing to help my brain see through to reality.
“What are we supposed to do?” Phrixus asked, stuttering with each word.
“You’re supposed to get to the top,” Thor said, casting his gaze all the way up the mountain’s summit. “Together. If one of you falls, the lesson is over and you failed for the day. If you all manage to make it to the top, you pass.”
“And what happens if we fail?” the blonde girl asked, shooting me a dangerous look.
“Good question, Helle,” Thor said in a knowing tone. “Since this class is about training to win the Games--whether you ultimately choose to compete or not--losing is penalized harshly. Each time you fail, your class is assigned to kitchen duty.”
That wiped the conspiratorial smirks off the twins’ faces. “How are we supposed to climb a mountain when we’re freezing?” Helle protested.
“The atmosphere isn’t the only thing the computer can change,” Thor answered. “If you want to change your gear, all you have to do is ask. Who wants to go first?”
No one jumped to volunteer, so I decided I might as well. “Halcyon, give me a snowsuit.”
Even though I’d just seen a mountain appear before my eyes, I held out doubt that the computer could actually change what I was wearing until the particles of my school uniform slowly began to dissolve. In their place was a light blue suit made of a thick, weather-resistant material that dulled the cold to a more tolerable temperature immediately.
“Whoa,” I murmured.
“Let me try,” said Daphne. “Halcyon, give me a snowsuit, too.”
Phrixus soon followed suit, and Helle was the last to give it a try. She glared at me, like she was mad I’d taken the initiative to give it a shot when she’d had the same opportunity.
“Now that you’re all bundled up, go on,” Thor said, nodding as he began to disappear in the drift. “I’ll be waiting.”
