Allen1996
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Rage against the heavens: chapter 15: Tuesdays and the laws of equivalent dread
🕑 Added 2025-03-19 04:09:23 +0000 UTCTuesdays. The word alone was enough to make my jaw tighten, my shoulders stiffen, and my soul recoil. If the days of the week were a family, Tuesday would be the annoying little brother of Monday—the guy you already hated. Sure, Tuesday wasn’t as bad as Monday, but that didn’t make it any less insufferable. It was like being handed a slightly less rotten apple after being forced to eat a moldy one. Congratulations, it’s not as terrible. But it’s still terrible. Tuesdays were the universe’s way of reminding you that the weekend was still light-years away, and no amount of caffeine or wishful thinking could change that. They were evil, plain and simple. A cosmic joke wrapped in monotony and tied with a bow of existential dread.
I lay sprawled on my bed, staring at the ceiling, the faint hum of the air conditioner doing little to drown out the cacophony in my head. My conversation with Beryl earlier had left me drained, not just physically but mentally. Still, after the day I’d had, I decided I deserved a little rest. Just a short nap to recharge before the chaos resumed. I’d set an alarm for thirty minutes before we were supposed to leave, giving myself just enough time to shake off the grogginess and get ready.
In retrospect, maybe sleeping at all had been a mistake.
When the alarm blared, it felt like a jackhammer to the skull. My head throbbed, a dull, insistent ache that made me want to curl up and hibernate until the next millennium. It was as if a horde of gorillas had taken up residence in my brain, stomping and screaming like they were auditioning for some deranged Broadway show. I groaned, dragging myself upright, my body protesting every movement. The clock on the nightstand glared at me, its red digits mocking my suffering. Fifteen minutes. That’s all I had to pull myself together before we had to leave.
I swung my legs over the side of the bed, my feet hitting the cold floor with a soft thud. The room was dim, the curtains drawn tight against the afternoon sun, but even the faint light felt like an assault on my senses. I ran a hand through my hair, wincing as my fingers caught on a tangle. Focus, Alex. Just get through the day. Easier said than done when every fiber of my being was screaming at me to crawl back under the covers and pretend the world didn’t exist.
But I couldn’t. Not today. Not with what was at stake.
I shuffled toward Beryl’s room, my steps heavy and deliberate. The hallway seemed longer than usual, the walls closing in around me like they were in on some cruel joke. I knocked on her door once, twice, three times—each rap of my knuckles sharper than the last. No answer. My heart began to race, a slow, creeping dread settling in my chest. My mind, always too quick to jump to the worst-case scenario, conjured up a dozen different ways things could have gone wrong. What if something had happened while I was asleep? What if she’d left? What if—
I pushed the door open, my breath catching in my throat.
There she was, sprawled across her bed like a starfish, one arm dangling off the side, her mouth slightly open as she drooled onto her pillow. The tension in my chest dissolved, replaced by a mix of relief and irritation. Of course she was fine. Of course she’d been sleeping through my knocking like the world’s most oblivious sloth. I exhaled sharply, running a hand over my face. Panic for nothing. Typical.
But there was no way I was letting her sleep any longer. Not when we had places to be. I raised my hand, the air around my fingers shimmering faintly as I channeled my alchemy. The molecules above her shifted, rearranging themselves into a small, concentrated cloud. And then, with a flick of my wrist, I let it go.
The water was cold—very cold. It hit her like a bucket of ice, and she shot upright with a gasp, her hair plastered to her face, her eyes wide and wild. She swore loudly, a string of curses that would’ve made a sailor blush, her gaze darting around the room like she was expecting an ambush. When her eyes finally landed on me, I could practically feel the heat of her glare. If looks could kill, I’d have been reduced to a pile of ash on the spot.
“Alex, what the hell?!” she growled, her voice dripping with venom.
I crossed my arms, leaning against the doorframe with a smirk. “Firstly, it was pissing me off to see you sleeping while I couldn’t do the same.”
She blinked at me, water dripping from her hair onto the sheets. “Couldn’t do the same? What do you mean by that?!”
I raised an eyebrow, my smirk widening. “Thus comes my second point. Have you forgotten? We’re going to see Spielberg.”
Her eyes widened, the anger in them replaced by a flicker of panic. She scrambled out of bed, nearly tripping over her own feet in her haste. “Shit, shit, shit!” she muttered, bolting toward the bathroom. I watched her go, shaking my head in amusement.
“You’ve got like fifteen minutes to be ready!” I called after her, my voice echoing down the hallway.
I turned and walked back to my room, the weight of exhaustion pressing down on me like a lead blanket. I paused in the doorway, giving my bed a longing look. It called to me, a siren song of soft sheets and oblivion. But I couldn’t. Not yet. I dragged myself into the bathroom, splashing cold water on my face in a futile attempt to wake myself up. The mirror reflected a version of me that looked like he’d been through a war—dark circles under my eyes, my hair a mess, my expression one of pure resignation.
As I stood there, staring at my reflection, one thought echoed in my mind, louder and more insistent than all the others: Fuck Tuesdays.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
That was the thing about time—it never stopped, never waited, never cared for the affairs of men. It was a river, ceaseless and indifferent, and the only thing you could do was learn to move with it or risk drowning. And I was late.
Not too late, mind you. Not late enough for it to matter in any way beyond my own irritation, but still—it rankled. If I had actually bothered to tell Spielberg a specific time, if I had made the mistake of locking myself into a schedule, my sister and I would have shown up late, and that would have been unacceptable. Punctuality was everything in matters like these. Like the old saying went, time was money—and in my case, time was also power, safety, leverage, everything.
Yesterday, I had left alone, slipping out without a word, and as expected, my bodyguards had not been pleased. Today, though, I had informed them ahead of time. The result? An entourage. Not just one or two—no, the majority of them were coming. It was a small army, a black tide of security that surrounded me like the rings of a dying star.
I sat in the back of a black Lincoln Town Car, the kind of car you rode in if you had money, if you had people, if you were important enough that discretion mattered more than ostentation. The doors were heavy, the kind that shut with a satisfying thunk, sealing you away from the world. The leather seats—black, soft, and deep were the kind you could sink into, and the armrests were wide, sturdy, useful. In other words, a sanctuary on wheels.
Woodgrain trim lined the dashboard, a quiet nod to the kind of luxury that didn’t need to announce itself. The analog gauges glowed faintly in the dim interior light, a subtle warmth in the otherwise cool, shadowed space. Tinted windows. Thick carpeting. It was the kind of car specifically made for people who valued silence, privacy, and—above all—control.
And if that wasn’t enough, there were four other identical cars. Before us. Beside us. Behind us.
It was like something out of a damn Mafia movie. A procession, a caravan of shadows moving through the city, ensuring that nothing, absolutely nothing, would go wrong. And that was just what I could see. For all I knew, there were more, lurking in places nothing easily perceivable, watching for threats before they even had the chance to become threats.
The headquarters of Ambination weren’t in the worst part of the city, but they weren’t in the best either. My bodyguards in their point of view who could not afford to be careless. There were plenty of people who would have liked something bad to happen to me. Plenty of people who would have rejoiced at the opportunity.
But then again, there was the other side of the equation—the people who wanted me alive, needed me alive. Because thanks to the Huntingtons, thanks to the position I occupied, I was a golden goose, and you didn’t kill the golden goose until you were absolutely sure it had no more gold to give.
Well, I guess I would have taken it as seriously as them if it was not for the stars in my mind. More than that, I don’t think they would be able to deal with supernatural threats. I was honestly as much security with them than without them but explaining this to them wasn’t something I could do yet.
A sudden, sharp crack made every head in the car turn. My own gaze flicked toward the source.
Beryl.
She looked like a child caught with her hand in the cookie jar. Guilty. Embarrassed.
That sound—it had been her, cracking a finger. And I knew her well enough to know that she only did that when she was nervous. When something sat uneasy in her bones, a tension she couldn’t quite put into words.
For a moment, only the fact that my eyes could see more than most let me catch the flash of obsidian-like circuits along her wrists.
Protection.
That was what I had given her. That was what I had made.
We were surrounded by bodyguards. We had the chain and earrings I had crafted for us, the armor I had designed, the alchemy, the spells, the fail-safes, the layers upon layers of defense—and yet, still, I worried.
Because when you planned to go against Fate itself, paranoia wasn’t a weakness.
It was the bare minimum.
You never knew what could happen.
And I had prepared for that.
Her circuits—my circuits—held hundreds of anti-divine spells. Designed to target anything without human blood, like gods coming too close, who would use divine power to affect her in any kind of way. To make sure it would not end in disaster, I had it designed to react automatically at any great peak of cortisol/adrenaline while being in presence of a deity. I had designed to act in case anyone who was a half-blood who wasn’t blood-related to her showed itself to be threatening. I designed to make gods suffer.
Any god—preferably Zeus—who tried to get close to her would have a very bad experience.
But there was more. Because protection wasn’t enough. It was a good beginning but still a beginning. I had included reinforcement spells, both passive and active, layers of security meant to make hurting Beryl as close to impossible as magic could allow.
And then, there were the fail-safes.
I hadn’t wanted to add them. But I had needed to.
If she betrayed me, if she went back to Zeus, if she tried to harm Thalia—whether intentionally or not—the fail-safes would activate.
I had been honest with her about it.
I had expected a reaction—anger, sadness, something.
I would have preferred that.
Instead, she had smiled. Smiled.
She had looked… relieved.
And when I asked her why, she had told me.
"I am not to be trusted. I do not trust myself. I could have said those fail-safes were unnecessary, but the past has already shown what I am. I have hurt you. I have hurt Thalia. I have broken your trust again and again. At least like this, there will be consequences. At least like this, maybe I will not. Because no matter what I say, words do not define a person. Actions do. And my actions say everything."
I had had nothing to say to that.
For a moment, the only sound in the car was the low hum of the engine and the muted city outside the tinted windows.
“Everything will be alright. No need to worry,” I said, my voice calm, steady, like the surface of a lake undisturbed by wind. But the words carried a weight, a double meaning that I knew Beryl would catch. She always did. We weren’t just talking about the meeting with Spielberg, though that was part of it. This was bigger. This was about the path we were on, the choices we’d made, and the ones we still had to make. The kind of choices that could either lift us to heights we’d never imagined or bury us so deep even the gods wouldn’t find us.
Beryl nodded, her fingers twisting the hem of her sleeve in a nervous habit she’d had since we were kids. “You’re right. I know that it’s the case. It’s just my brain being stupid.”
I leaned back against the plush leather seat of the Lincoln Town Car, the faint hum of the engine a low, constant thrum beneath us. “Annoying, undoubtedly,” I said, my tone light, almost teasing. “But stupid? Your brain is anything but.”
She gave me a smile then, one that was half-genuine, half-forced, like a cracked mirror reflecting only part of the truth. “You know what they say,” she replied, her voice softer now. “Annoying is just another word for not boring.” She paused, her eyes narrowing slightly as if she were turning something over in her mind. “Before I forget, I know there’s logically no chance of the meeting not ending the way we want, but I’m sure you’ve still got something in mind to sweeten it even more.”
I acted as though I couldn’t see the diversion for what it was—a way to shift the conversation away from the things that were just said between the two of us. “You’re not wrong,” I said, letting the corner of my mouth tilt up in a faint smirk. “Spielberg is a genius when it comes to movie making.”
The prices he’d already won—and the ones he would in the future—were proof enough of that. But genius, I’d come to realize, was a double-edged sword. It could cut through obstacles, yes, but it could also blind you to the hurdles standing in your way.
“I’m sure that even if he’d never met me,” I continued, my gaze drifting to the window as the city blurred past, “he’d still have a long line of successes ahead of him. The thing is, he’s talented. He’s a genius. And geniuses, by their nature, most of the time fall into two hurdles that stop them from shining as bright as they could—brighter than the sun. Do you wanna guess the two?”
I watched as Beryl frowned, her brow furrowing as she turned the question over in her mind. The car was silent except for the low murmur of the engine and the occasional crackle of the radio from the front seat. My bodyguards were quiet too, their faces impassive, but I knew they were listening. They always were. Even if they didn’t show it, they were thinking about my words, turning them over like stones in a river, looking for the sharp edges.
Beryl spoke almost as if she were thinking out loud, her voice soft but steady. “You said two hurdles. Things that would stop a genius from shining brighter than the sun. You said as bright as they could, which means that even with those hurdles, they’d still shine somewhat. And we’re talking about Spielberg here. I’m not sure about the second one, but… I think the first one is money.”
I couldn’t help the smile that spread across my face. “Continue,” I said, my voice encouraging, like a teacher nudging a student toward the right answer.
She hesitated for a moment, her eyes narrowing as she pieced it together. “The reason we’re going to see him is because the goal is to buy his company from him. I’ve never met him personally, but we’re still in the same industry, which means I’ve heard about him. I’ve heard he’s really passionate about his work, and like you said, he’s a genius. That’s why I said money. Because the truth is, in this world, most of the time—99% of the time—talent, genius, isn’t enough. Not unless you’re very lucky. But for every lucky person, every success story, there are hundreds of thousands who didn’t make it. A genius, someone truly passionate, wouldn’t stand for someone else taking control—whether partially or totally—of their ideas, their work. They wouldn’t accept being restricted unless they had to. Unless they didn’t have enough money to do what they wanted with their ideas. That’s why I said money. Because without enough money—or whatever equivalent—it would be impossible for a genius to truly reach the peak of their talent. I may be wrong, though.”
I leaned forward, resting my elbows on my knees, my hands clasped together. “If it was a grade,” I said, my voice low but firm, “I’d give you an outstanding. You’re not wrong—or at least, I don’t think you are. Take, for example, the free energy device I made. The things we’re planning. The things I want to create. All of those things came together so quickly, were realized exactly the way I wanted them to be, because I had enough funds, enough money, to buy what I needed.”
I didn’t mention the fact that I’d cheated—a lot—by using the other things I’d gained thanks to the stars in my mind. But even without that, the point stood. Money was the grease that kept the wheels turning, the fuel that powered the engine of ambition.
“It’s because I had money,” I continued, “that I was able to live in Hancock Park, to attract the attention of the Huntingtons. I don’t think I’d have been able to do that if I weren’t their neighbor. It’s because of them that things are advancing this quickly, that I know the moment we start selling, everything will be bought. And all of this is because of money—whether directly or indirectly. Like the old saying goes, you need money to make money.”
I paused, letting the words sink in, watching as Beryl’s expression shifted, her eyes narrowing as she followed the thread of my logic. “That’s why Ambination will be sold to us,” I said, my voice steady, certain. “Because to realize his dreams, his ambitions, Spielberg thinks he needs us. That’s why the first hurdle is money. We’ve dealt with that—or more precisely, we’re about to. Which leaves only the second hurdle. Do you know what I think is one of the greatest obstacles to genius?”
I let the question hang in the air for a moment, the silence stretching like a taut wire. Then I answered it myself. “I think it’s time. Time, in all its forms, is the second greatest obstacle for someone who’s a genius. Time—whether it’s not having enough of it, or it advancing too quickly, or being born in an era without the techniques or technology to truly shine. Imagine if Da Vinci had been born in our time. Imagine what he could’ve done, knowing what he was able to achieve without much in the past.”
Beryl’s eyes widened, realization dawning like the first light of morning. “You said time was the second hurdle,” she said, her voice rising slightly. “I understand how you’re going to deal with the first one, but the second one… I don’t get… wait!”
I could almost see the gears turning in her mind, the pieces clicking into place as she replayed my words, as she connected the dots. And then it hit her. Her eyes lit up, and she leaned forward, her voice barely above a whisper. “You’re going to give him something not limited by time. Something not limited to what’s possible currently.”
“Bingo,” I said, the word slipping out with a smile that felt more like a blade being unsheathed than anything warm or friendly. “What I’m bringing to him isn’t a thing limited by time. I’m bringing him the future. I’ve never liked losing, and one thing I know must be done to make sure it never happens is to stack the deck on my side. Anything less would be an error.”
The words hung in the air, sharp and deliberate, like a chess piece placed on a board with a click that echoed louder than it should. Beryl’s eyes narrowed, her gaze flickering over my face as if she were trying to read the fine print of my thoughts. She didn’t ask for clarification. She didn’t need to. She knew me well enough to understand that when I said something like that, I meant it in ways most people couldn’t even begin to fathom.
I leaned back in the plush leather seat of the Lincoln Town Car, the hum of the engine a low, steady thrum beneath us. The city outside blurred past, a smear of gray and steel and glass, but my mind was elsewhere. Yesterday, after coming back from the Torringtons, after healing Alabaster’s father, I’d realized something. Something important. I’d been limiting myself. Not intentionally, not out of fear or doubt, but out of habit. Out of a failure to see the full scope of what I could do.
The boon of the stars in my mind wasn’t just power. It was potential. Raw, unshaped, limitless potential. And the beauty of it was that I didn’t need to be specific in what I wanted. I could be, if I chose to, but I didn’t have to be. That changed everything. It meant I could ask for something vast, something all-encompassing, and let the stars fill in the details. It meant I could aim for the horizon and trust that the path would reveal itself.
I hadn’t done that when I’d faced the Cyclops. I hadn’t asked for a specific specialization, a named power or tool. I’d just wanted—no, needed—to make things right. To carve out some semblance of justice for the child it had murdered, for the desecration it had committed. And the stars had answered. They’d given me what I needed, not what I’d asked for. That realization had been a spark, a flicker of understanding that had grown into a flame.
After coming back from the Torringtons, I’d realized I had an untapped star in my mind. A single, glowing point of potential waiting to be shaped. I’d thought about what to do with it, whether to invest it now or save it for a future moment when the stakes might be higher, the need more urgent. In the end, I’d decided to use it. Not just for Spielberg, not just for this meeting, but for everything. For the path I was on, for the battles I knew were coming, for the future I was trying to build.
When I turned toward the star in my mind, I didn’t ask for something small or specific. I asked for something vast. A specialization that would allow the stars in my mind to synergize, to become more than the sum of their parts. A toolkit, a foundation, something that could make anything.
And then the world disappeared.
One moment, I was in the car, the leather seat cool against my back, the faint scent of polish and metal in the air. The next, I was plunged into an abyss. Not darkness, not emptiness, but something deeper, something more. It was as if I were standing at the edge of a chasm so vast it defied comprehension, staring into a void that wasn’t a void at all but everything—every possibility, every reality, every fragment of existence condensed into a single, infinite point.
I was sinking.
No, not sinking. Plunging.
The abyss swallowed me whole, and in its infinite, endless depths, I looked.
And it—they—looked back.
For a moment, I felt insignificant. Not small, not weak, but insignificant. Like a single grain of sand on a beach that stretched beyond the horizon. The abyss wasn’t just one thing. It was everything. It was the beginning and the end, the question and the answer, the spark and the flame. And it was looking at me.
Then the pain came.
It wasn’t physical, not exactly. It was deeper than that, sharper. A lance of agony that lodged itself in my brain and spread like wildfire, burning through every thought, every memory, every fragment of who I was. For a moment, I felt immortal and dying, godly and mortal, eternal and fleeting. The contradictions tore at me, pulling me apart and putting me back together in ways I couldn’t understand. My skull cracked open like a fruit, and for a moment—
—I was dying—
—I was eternal—
—I was mortal—
—I was divine—
—i w a s n o t h i n g—
—I WAS EVERYTHING
And then it was over.
When I opened my eyes—when I realized I’d closed them at all—I was back in the car. The world outside was still blurring past, the engine still humming, the air still cool and faintly metallic. It had been a moment. A single, fleeting moment. But it had felt like an eternity.
I leaned back in my seat, my breath coming in shallow, uneven gasps. My head throbbed, a dull, insistent ache that made me want to close my eyes again and never open them. But I couldn’t. Not yet. Not when I knew it had worked. The pain had been excruciating, unbearable, but it had been worth it. My power was the gift that kept on giving, and I’d just unlocked something new. Something vast.
I wondered, idly, what the poem was again. The one about numbers, about the First and the Second and the Third. It came to me in fragments, like pieces of a puzzle I hadn’t realized I was solving.
My lips moved before I could stop them.
"At the beginning, the First changed all.
...Next, the Second recognized many.
...In answer, the Third showed the future.
...Tethered, the Fourth concealed itself.
And the final Fifth had long since lost its significance.
Someone once said, 'Had it only ended at the Third...'"
Beryl turned to me, her brow furrowing. “Did you say something?”
I shook my head, the motion slow, deliberate. “Just thinking out loud,” I said, my voice steady despite the storm still raging in my mind. “About a little poem about numbers. It made me realize the number four has always been my lucky number.”
The car finally stopped. We had arrived. The door unlocked with a soft click. I gave a nod to my sister and I stepped out with the future in my hands.
Comments
Darth Bane
Never hires her would be best.
Anthony Maxwell
She isn't the head of Lucasfilm until like 2013. She was working for Steven Spielberg in the '90s around the time the story takes place.
allen 1996
He would need to buy Lucasfilm first
Anthony Maxwell
Please tell me he's going to fire Kathleen Kennedy in the story.
LothWolf
I wonder how the Gods of the Riordanverse will react to True Magic and the powerful conceptual bullshit and other powerful techniques and Magecraft skills from the Nasuverse/Type-Moon/Fate
allen 1996
Thanks for reading
LothWolf
Thanks for the chapter 👍😁❤️
bone lord
My man cooking
