New Olympus Saga (Book 1): Armageddon Girl Read Online Free PDF Page B

conceal his scowl
while the ceremony concluded and Freedom Island became an independent territory
bound by no law but the Legion’s. Only the Soviet Union had refused to send a
representative to the ceremony, but that failing empire was on its way to
irrelevancy even then.
    None of the victors of the war approved
of the Freedom Legion’s internationalist program, but they could not stop it,
not when all but a handful members of the Legion had pledged their support to
its independence. The will of thirty-three Legionnaires was backed by more raw
power than any nation state could command. Without the Legion, Nazi Germany
would still dominate Europe. The Legion would ensure no other nation could
become a threat of that magnitude ever again. It had been a lofty goal, and on
that day he had felt the thrill of possibility, the promise of a great future
almost within reach.
    “John?”
    John Clarke snapped out of his reverie
and turned around to greet his old friend. “Kenneth. I thought you were going
to skip the press conference.”
    Kenneth Slaughter, a.k.a. Doc Slaughter,
and more recently Brass Man, shook his head. “Artemis asked me to un-skip it.
As you know, she can be very persuasive.”
    “That she is,” John said wryly as he
shook hands with his friend. The two men were very similar, tall and powerful,
broad of shoulder, narrow at the waist, sporting the muscular build of
professional athletes. Even the cast of their faces was similar, with firm
square jaws and chiseled features generally set in calm and confident
expressions. Slaughter’s pale blonde hair and sky-blue eyes contrasted with
John’s dark brown and green, but otherwise they could have been brothers. In
all the ways that counted, they were. “Why did she insist on you being here,
though? It’s going to be the usual dog and pony show.” The monthly press
conferences at Freedom Island were fairly boring affairs unless some crisis was
developing. John suspected he knew the reason, but waited for his friend to
confirm those suspicions.
    “Artemis – Olivia – is worried about you.
As am I,” Kenneth said, not wasting any more time on pleasantries. John wasn’t
surprised. He hadn’t spoken with Kenneth for three weeks and had been avoiding him
for even longer than that in order to prevent this very conversation. Now he
understood why Kenneth had showed up for the press conference: he wanted to
make sure John was up for it.
    “ Et tu , Kenneth? I thought a fellow
oldster would spare me the touchie-feelie stuff.”
    “Watch it, youngster. I’m a good decade
your senior, and you know it.” Kenneth’s smile was brief, and his tone became
serious again. “We’ve all noticed it, John. We all feel the temptation to dwell
in the past, but of late people have noticed you going into full-fledged fugue
states. You were in one just now, weren’t you?”
    “I was reminiscing, yes,” John admitted.
He realized with some concern he could not remember how long he had been lost
in thought.
    “Even when you are paying attention to
the here and now, there are other worrisome signs. You seem unusually unfeeling
and disengaged. ”
    “Disengaged? I have been anything but for
close to eighty years, Kenneth. You want to worry about disengaged, worry about
Janus. He’s the one who went on a twenty-year walkabout in outer space.” Janus
had gone on a twenty-year walkabout in outer space and on his return had chosen
not to reveal anything about what he had seen. John didn’t know what that
meant, except it couldn’t possibly be anything good.
    “Cassius… yes, he also worries us all.
And when we worry about two of the mightiest beings on the planet, we’re truly
worried. But this is not about Janus. Right now, you are worrying us a great
deal.”
    John shrugged. “I wish you hadn’t waited
until half an hour before a press conference to bring this up.” Underneath the
calm façade, he was very worried himself. What Kenneth did not know was that
the