Great Hites # 53

Download



Congratulations to Norval Joe who won this week's voting.

Ashley Redden
Norval Joe
Mick Bordet
And Jeff Hite



Troll
By: Ashley Redden
1. Interview

Sheriff Davis recognized them right off, FBI agents. The dark off-the-rack suits, sunglasses and everyday all American hero type looks nailed them to a tee. But, hell, anyone could have guessed who these two were. They looked as if someone had dropped two young men into a couple of FBI molds and out stepped two iconic special agents, it was almost comical.
He watched as they stopped the first deputy they met, that would be Strauss, a good man if a bit slow on the uptake sometimes. The sheriff watched as both agents flashed their IDs, and asked a question of the deputy. He saw both agents dark glasses follow Strauss’ outstretched finger as it pointed unerringly at Sheriff Davis.
Sheriff Davis sighed and slightly shook his head as he watched both agents stride purposefully across the room leaving Deputy Strauss with his mouth open, finger still at point. He very seriously doubted that any good whatsoever would come of these two getting involved, but his people had hit a dead end. At this point in the investigation, he really had no choice.
The two agents stopped directly in front of the sheriff and went to pull out their brass. Sheriff Davis waved an age spotted hand and said, “Don’t bother.”
Both agents stopped, frozen with their respective right hands half inside their suit top, like something off a bad TV drama. The sheriff’s lip twitched but he held himself in check. Laughing, whether meaning well or not, would certainly not be appreciated by these two. Not that he cared much what they thought, but a little innocent giggle here might cause him problems he didn’t need later. He squinted his eyes instead and wondered where the hell the agent’s task force was. Two more guys weren’t going to help much in finding those lost scientists. Out loud he said, “I’m sheriff Hank Davis, but I guess my deputy already told you that much, you here for the missing scientists?” Both agents nodded and Davis continued saying simply, “How can I help you?”
The agents removed their hands and the lead agent said,” We’re from the FBI. I’m special agent Briggs and this is special agent Stratton.”
This time the sheriff did laugh, but Briggs and Stratton didn’t miss a beat.
“We need to have a word with the survivor of the attack. We would also appreciate access the crime scene as well. Please make available any evidence that you might have acquired during the investigation so far. Also, we expect any evidence gathered from now on, no matter how small, to be made available to our organization at the quickest convenience.”
The sheriff noticed that they didn’t say that any evidence they obtained would be made available to his people, but hell, these guys were the pros. Davis said, “You two mind if I have a look at those ID badges?” He waited a beat and added, “because of the names and all.”
Both agents withdrew their IDs and held them out for inspection. As the sheriff peered at one, then the other, Stratton said, “due to the sensitive nature of our work and the personnel with which we sometimes meet, the given names of our branch operatives are confidential.”
“Well, we did call you guys, but I was expecting a little better turn out. No offense, but just two agents to help find these guys seems a bit thin to me,” answered Davis leaning back after inspecting the proffered identification. Sure enough they read special agent Briggs and special agent Stratton. Sheriff Davis shook his head and wondered to himself, you’d think they could think up something better than a lawnmower engine for names. Out loud he said, “Branch of the FBI? What branch would that be?”
“Classified,” said the agent called Briggs wearing a thin smile. “We’re here to aid in the investigation not run a search party. If and when more help to look for the PhD’s is needed, we’ll call them in on our discretion.”
“Okay,” said Davis and sighed anew. He continued, “We called Jake back this morning; he’s over in the waiting room on the right.” All three law enforcement officers began walking to a closed nondescript wooden door.
When they stopped at the door, agent Briggs said, “We would like to speak with the witness, Mr. Martin or rather Jake you say, if that would be acceptable?”
“Sure,” answered the sheriff. “But let me introduce you so he knows what’s going on. Jake’s been through a lot these past couple of days.” The sheriff turned to the agents and said, “I would appreciate it if you guys weren’t too hard on him, Jake’s a mess. He hasn’t been the same since the accident. I think his mind keeps going back to that pit in the tunnel, but I’ll be surprised if he ever sets foot down there again.”
The sheriff looked from one to the other, “do you two need to be briefed or have you read the report?”
“We’re up to speed,” said Stratton. “One question though.”
“Shoot.”
Stratton glanced at his partner then looked hard at the sheriff. He said, “do you believe the story that’s in the report? Suffice it to say that the details border on the fantastic.”
When the sheriff didn’t answer immediately but stood looking uncomfortably between the two agents, Briggs prompted, “off the record.”
Sheriff Davis nodded slowly and added, “yeah, I’m not saying that I buy everything or that I understand any of it, but I’m sure that Jake believes what he’s saying without a doubt.” The two agents exchanged a furtive glance, the demeanors of both remaining poker faced and unreadable behind the matching sunglasses.
“Okay,” said the sheriff opening the door and standing aside for the two agents to enter. After both had crossed the doorway, Davis followed and shut the door behind him.
The room was small, stodgy, and not overly lit, decorated simply with a solitary long table running almost the entire length of the room. The sheriff opened a hand indicating for the agents to have a seat across from Jake.
On the other side sat Jake, a small disheveled man that looked as though he hadn’t slept in a week. An overfilled ashtray sat in front of the man, stuffed with ashes and butts. Davis wondered if another cigarette would even fit.
Jake sat with his head down, both hands on the table, one over the other. He looked up and acknowledged their presence with a hesitant nod. Jake had been rubbing the back of his right hand with the index finger from his left when they entered. He did not stop. Looking at the nervous fidget and the overall demeanor of the man gave Sheriff Davis a sick feeling in his stomach for the poor guy. He really did look like warmed over crap.
Sheriff Davis introduced the agents and explained their agenda. Jake again answered with a silent nod. Agent’s Briggs and Stratton took turns drilling Jake with a battery of questions while Davis sat by silently, worrying about his friend. The agents tried again and again to lead Jake and get him talking about the incident. The most they were able to get out of him was essentially affirmation to the questioning, which strictly followed the report.
Finally, both agents seemed to have had enough. It had become pretty obvious to even Sheriff Davis from Podunk America that they were getting nowhere fast. Davis cleared his throat. Both agents looked his way. One of them, Briggs he thought, nodded to go ahead.
Davis said, “Jake?” After waiting for Jake to look up, he continued, “can I ask you just one question more?”
Jake nodded hesitantly still rubbing his hand. He had not stopped since the three had entered the room. “Jake, just what was this thing that you said you saw down in the pit?”
“Well, um, see,” said Jake actively rolling his hands now looking directly at the Sheriff. “I think, well, you see, I really think that maybe it was a troll.” The last of the sentence he finished with a wilt, barely mumbling.
“I’m sorry Jake, but what was that last part?” asked Sheriff Davis.
Jake looked the sheriff directly in the eyes, took a deep breath and said, “I think maybe it was a troll.”
Davis sat back and blew slightly ruffling the hair cropped just above his eyes. Jake said gaining force as he spoke, “yeah, if it wasn’t a troll, it had to be something else I’ve never seen before except maybe in some crazy movie or something.”
“You sure Jake, I mean…a troll?”
“Yeah, a troll, I mean dammit sheriff I got a really, really good look at that thing, whatever it was. We heard this swooshing sound, like somebody opened a big trash bag, you know, with air. Then I saw something moving underneath the ledge on the other side of that hole from where those two science guys were trying to climb out. First a clawed arm came out from under the ledge and got a hold of the rock. Then, this long neck poked out, just like that.” Jake shot his arm out rigid, hand in a closed fist. “The end turns up see,” and he rotated his fist up towards the ceiling without moving his arm. “Then this face just pops out of the end, with two big wet eyes looking right at me. Two more arms came out and one flipped something up towards me, caught my leg. I looked down and saw some kind of claw or hook. It was stuck through my pants. That’s when the thing gave a yank and snatched me off my feet. I would’ve gone on over, quick as a wink, but my other leg got caught on some of the crap sticking up from when the hole collapsed trapping those science guys.”
Jake swallowed hard, looking now from the agents to Davis and back again as he continued, “that thing gave another couple of snatches and nearly pulled my leg outta the socket, hurt like hell. Finally the claw tore through my pants and the thing began hissing and pulling the claw back to it, I guess it was on a line or something.”
Jake stopped and tried to light another cigarette. He managed to get the cig in his hand and after some difficulty to light a match, but had begun shaking so bad that he couldn’t make the business end of the two meet. Finally, he put both the unlighted cigarette and spent match back down on the table. Davis noticed that there were several more blackened matches in a pile behind the ashtray in front of Jake. Boy, Jake sure was a mess.
One of the agents asked, “What happened then?”
Jake looked up, in his eyes beyond the fatigue was sadness and shock. He said, “I ran for my damned life that’s what. The whole way out of the main dig tunnel I could hear those science guys just screaming and screaming. I’m not sure when they stopped. When I got outside, I realized that I was screaming too. Had maybe screamed the whole time I was running, maybe, I don’t know. I was almost drug down in that damn hole with the science guys.” He paused and added with a shudder, “and that thing.”
No one spoke. After several moments of awkward silence, Jake stood and said aloud, “One things for damn sure. There is no power on Earth that could drag me back into one of those tunnels. No way, “he shook his head hard. Looking at the sheriff he asked, “Can I go now?”
The sheriff nodded and rose opening the door. Jake made his way around the table and out the door. As he walked out, he paused, turned partially back and said, “You three had best not go back down into those dig tunnels. They should be sealed tight, keep whatever’s down there from getting out.”
One of the agents responded, “Sir, we can’t do that. We have to find the two missing PhD’s.”
“Well, you three just be careful. I suspect that if and when you do find those two guys, you’re not going to like what you find very much.” And with that Jake was gone.
The two agents rose, gathered their paperwork and left with a nod to the sheriff. Davis lingered by the door, gathered his hat with a sigh and said to no one in particular, “no, I suspect they won’t.” The sheriff left the way he had entered, hit the light switch and pulled the nondescript wooden door closed behind him leaving the stark waiting room dark and foreboding. Just like a cave.


The Traveler
By: Norval Joe

　
The walls of his cubicle were a tribute to his travels. Post cards of Big Ben, The Pyramids, Taj Mahal, and Mt. Fuji shared space with hotel stationary in French, German, Malaysian, and Chinese. Exotic memories on the plain grey back ground of a mundane life.
"Jerry", he heard from over the partition, "Are you there?" That was Mark on the other side. "Yeah, man. I'm here, just deep in thought."
What a joke, he mused 'No thought involved in this mindless job, deep or otherwise.
"The weather was cooperating and they would be ready for their final ascent the next day. The sherpa had spread all their gear on a nylon sheet, outside the tent. They inspected each piece for damage or excessive wear. They checked the gates of the carabiners, that they opened and closed freely, and looked for frayed areas of their harnesses. They flaked the climbing rope out onto the tarp, and then inspected every inch, running it between their fingers while examining it with their eyes. They felt the continuous core of nylon fibers through the woven mantle that sheathed them. Like blind men reading brail, they felt for inconsistencies in the dynamic, semi-elastic fibers that might cause the rope to fail, in the event of a hard fall.
"Jerry," Mark said again, "I don't think I can take this job anymore. Day after day, the same thing. How do you stand it?" There was no reply from Jerry's side of the temporary wall. "Jerry, are you over there?"
"Yeah Mark, What do you need?" Jerry asked as he resurfaced.
"I was just wondering how you do it. You've been here longer than anyone else, how can you stand it, day after day?"
"I don't know, Mark. I just try to stay focused."
Focus. He should be relaxing his mind and getting some rest, not focussing on the climb tomorrow. The route was well known and the Sherpa well trained, there would be no worries. What he needed was his strength, and for that, he needed sleep. They would be starting their ascent at 2 am to be able to summit by mid-day. He rolled over in his sleeping bag and squeezed his eyes shut; he could never sleep when it was light outside.
They had returned to Camp 4 the day before and spent the day resting, to improve their chances of summiting. They had set up the camp previously on one of their preparatory climbs. He didn't feel well rested; just moving around at this elevation was fatiguing.
Camp 4 was just above 26,000 feet at the edge of Everest 'Death Zone'; from here to the top the temperature could drop so low as to cause frost bite to any body part exposed to the air. The snow above would be so well frozen in some places that death could be caused by simply slipping from the trail. And worse, the oxygen level is so low that climbing, even breathing becomes extremely difficult and the mind dull; and thus, reactions fatally slow.
　
Hours still before dawn, they roped up as they prepared to leave the campsite for their final approach. He pulled the gators over his boots and up to his knees, to keep snow out of his pants and boots, and stepped into his bindings. He stamped each foot into the snow several times at different angles, ensuring that they had properly attached to his boots, and would remain in place, under any circumstance. He clipped onto the rope and spun the lock on the carabiner, binding his harness to the life line. He checked to make sure that he had his glacier glasses in the most accessible pocket of his goretex jacket; he would need them when the sun came up. He adjusted his halogen head lamp and swung its beam back and forth across the snow in front of him. Each climber inspected one another's harness before picking up their ices axes and headed toward the summit.
"Jerry, I'm quitting, just as soon as I can find something to pay my rent. I don't care if its less than what I'm making now. Heck, I don't care if it's flipping burgers. I just need a change; some time away from this grind. I need some time to be creative again; maybe write that novel I've been thinking about. Time to extend myself; to climb to my potential. The potential that has been stifled by this job.
He watched the Sherpa climbing the trail in front of him, the rope between them pulling taught as he slowed and stumbled. The native climber stopped and turned to look back at his charge. Swaying slightly, he leaned on his ice axe, resting against the against the glacier where it rose to his right. On his left, only eighteen inches from his foot, the mountain dropped away, one thousand feet to a junkyard of broken rock and ice. There were the bodies of climbers down there as well. One was added just last week, as a climber lost his focus, lost his step, and lost his life. They say that for every four climber that makes the top of Everest, one dies coming back down.
'The Traveler'
　
He could see the summit. The glacier distorted his perspective and though it looked close, he knew that he still had another 1000 feet to climb.
"Jerry? Have you really gone all those places you have the post cards from. I mean, that would be tons of traveling. China, Japan, and Malaysia? A trip like that would take weeks. Jerry? Are you there?" "Yeah, Mark, now what?" All those places you've been, when do you go? In my five years here, you have never taken any vacation." There was a long silence, " Jerry? Are you ok?" "Yeah, Mark, I'm just feeling a little dizzy."
He concentrated on the sound of his crampons as the sharp spikes bit into the ice. Each crunch told him he had taken another step forward. Each step was more difficult, the time between each step increasing. He began to verbally command his body, to keep himself moving forward, "Lift the leg. Thrust the foot forward. Plant the foot. Now the next leg."
He was weary. The next leg wouldn't move, though he strained to drag it forward. He opened his eyes and found that he was leaning on his ice axe, that he hadn't moved again for some time. The Sherpa was standing in front of him. "Mr. Caldwell," he was pleading. "You must go back, you won't make it now. If you don't turn back, you will die!"
'How pathetic,' he thought, 'the man wants to cheat me out of my payment.' "I can make it," he argued with the Sherpa, "With or without you."
He fumbled at the lock on the carabeener, eventually opening it. He unhooked his harness from the rope and pushed past the Sherpa, his indignation giving him renewed strength. He heard the Nepalese man shouting warnings but, then, eventually following behind him.
"I'm calling it a day, Jerry. Hope you have a good night. I'll probably call in sick tomorrow; give me a chance to check out some job leads that I have been looking up over the last couple hours. Come on, Jerry, walk down with me."
Mark walked around the partition. The partition crowded with postcards collected from garage sales and torn from travel magazines. Hotel stationary written in exotic languages, not by Jerry, but, to Jerry in reply to his requests for hotel information.
Jerry stared blankly at his computer terminal. His bloodshot eyes, and a small trickle of blood coming from one nostril, was the only color on his otherwise, pale and lifeless face.

Don't Mind Me
By: Mick Bordet

I blame it on the theremin. I started playing it about a year ago, after finally getting fed up asking myself "what is that weird sound?" in the Beach Boys' song 'Good Vibrations'. It didn't matter that the sound they used wasn't actually produced by a theremin, because, by the time I had found that out, I was already hooked. This strange, otherworldly sound, played without even touching the instrument, but by careful manipulation of the body's own capacitance, had mesmerised me. Once I had one in my grasp, I practiced at every opportunity until the swoops and wails of the beginner were replaced by recognisable tunes. About three months ago I was told that I had picked up "thereminist's stare"; that distant, slightly glazed espression that comes with trying to keep one's body as still as possible to avoid affecting the tuning, whilst concentrating on finding the correct pitch and playing with true feeling.

A short time after that I was on the regular bus to work and it broke down at the side of the motorway. The passengers, myself included, were transferring onto another bus that ran the same route half an hour later, but as we walked from one to the other past the open engine compartment, something caught my attention. I bent down, stuck my hand into the hatch and twisted a pipe which led into the main engine block.

"Try that now," I said to the driver, "your fuel pipe was twisted and blocked. That should be it sorted."

He gave me a rather sceptical look, but returned to the driver's seat and tried the ignition. It started straight away. He nodded and gave me the thumbs-up sign, surprised and impressed. Not as surprised as me, though. My knowledge of motor maintenance extends as far as filling my car up with petrol and topping up the windscreen washers once in a while. How did I know to fiddle with that particular pipe? Why was it such an instinctive reaction? It puzzled me at the time, but I forgot about it until one night, some weeks later, when my wife and I sat down to watch a film.

By the time we had reached an hour into the film, I had to switch it off, so annoyed was I with inaccuracy of several of the theories being put forth. I hadn't even heard of Dan Brown until the week before and thought I knew next to nothing of Da Vinci's greatest works, yet here I was, picking apart the film with comments about the Priory of Sion and the Knights Templar as though I was an expert in grail-lore. That happened the day after a long session of theremin practice and it was only the beginning. My memory is starting to fill with some of the greatest works of literature, I know the princples of aeronautics and thermodynamics, I can recite many of Shakespeare's sonnets and have found myself watching French films without reading the subtitles.

It seems my mind has rebelled against my sedantary twenty-first century lifestyle and has taken to going to the library without me. Why that should have happened is beyond me; I can only guess that it thinks I'm holding it back. Perhaps some day my mind will read up on psychological phenomena and I will be able to explain it all, but until then I'm enjoying kicking back and letting the knowledge flow in like the tide.

I must go now; the big match is on in half an hour and I need to dig out the beers. By the time the final whistle blows I should be familiar with everything Dostoyevsky
wrote.

Rob and The Apple
By Jeff Hite

Rob opened his eyes to the new smell, and realized that he didn't know where he was. There was a great meadow in front of him, that he knew he had never seen before. And he was standing waste deep in wild flowers. Scattered around the meadow were a number of fruit trees, all covered it ripe fruit. He was hungry, so he walked slowly through the grass toward the nearest of them. It was an apple and they were all beautiful looking. But as he reached up to pick one, he hesitated. There was another person in history that picked the wrong apple, and paid the price for it. So, he decided not to. He walked slowly to the next tree. This was a peach, it was also laden with fruit, but he noticed something else odd about it. Not only was it covered in ripe fruit, but it also was covered in blossoms.
"What a great idea," he thought out loud. "I wonder how many times a year it will produce fruit."
"Nearly continuously." Said a voice from behind the tree.
"What?"
"I said it produces fruit nearly continusly." a small boy stepped from behind the tree then with a big grin on his face. "That is how we keep Zuse happy."
"I see." He stood in amazement waiting for the other shoe to drop. "This has to be a dream."
"Oh this is no dream, this is real. We have to tend the this orchard to all year round."
"It doesn't look that much like an orchard, more like a meadow with a few trees."
"Well since they produce year round they need extra nutrients, so they are spread pretty far apart."
"Well that makes sense, as much sense as the rest of this I guess. Where are we."
"Foolish man, I told you we are in the orchard of Zues."
"Alright, but where is that?" The young boy looked at him quizzically, and suddenly looked much older to him.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean where is the the orchard located?"
"You are strange to me. The Orchard is on the western slope, it boarders the mortals realm That is why we ocationaly loose tress as the two realms bump into each other. I have told Zues this before. You are a spy for him aren't you? You are down here to make sure that we are not stealing any of the fruit. Who are you?" His face contored into an angry mask."
"I don't know what you are talking about, I just wanted to know where I was. I don't know anything about Zeus or any other god for that matter."
"I don't believe you. You go and tell your master that we are producing the fruit, and that we have never stolen from the trees."
"I believe you," He said stammering as the little man pulled a wicked looking pruning knife from his belt.
"Be gone, get out of the orcard before I change my mind." Rob truned and ran. He was not sure which way he should run, but he ran.
"Rob!"
"Huh?"
"Rob, did you not hear your phone ringing? I have been trying to call you for the last fifteen minutes." Monica's voice as a pleasant relief even if she was annoyed with him.
"No, I'm sorry I got distracted, my mind wandered. What did you need?"

Great Hites 52 Bonus Episode 1

This is the first Bonus episode for the anniversary for GreatHites. Like a hobbit I am going to be giving you the gifts. So here you go with the first one.

Download




P.S. You have to listen to get the surprise

Great Hites # 47

This Week we have Stories by

This weeks winner was Norval Joe!

Scott Roche
Norval Joe
And
Jeff Hite

Hear Feed back and learn about submitting your own prompt.





Download


Magic Quadrant Part 3
By
Scott Roche

The mysterious figure hunched over and crawled into the Jefferies tube, pulling the access door shut, behind him. He was certain that he hadn’t been followed. This deck level was largely empty during even a normal duty cycle. In addition, thanks to the Red Alert status which relegated everyone not on duty to their quarters, it was even less likely that he would be discovered. Still if someone in security did catch him there would be hard questions.



Once he was securely in place, he slid the small device out from its hiding place and slapped it on a conduit. Unless you knew exactly where to look there was no way anyone would spot it. Satisfied with that he spoke into the micro-recorder he had in his bag of tricks. “Log number forty-seven, Agent Alpha Three dash Zero Zero Seven recording. We have arrived at the agreed upon coordinates. I have necessary access to all of the ship’s subsystems as required by my mission. If I run into any problems I will avail myself of whatever options I can find, though I want to state for the record that I find none of the potential answers is very savory."



Stating it for the record would do little good if the recorder never made it back into his overseer’s hands, but it made him feel better. “I will initiate self destruct or make the necessary adjustments to the power structure to assume command only if I am forced to do so. Otherwise I shall let things proceed as planned.”



Working for Section 31 often meant that he had to do things that most people would find not only unsavory but perhaps even outright treasonous. If it meant keeping the Federation safe though, no agent worth his salt counted the personal cost. The only problem was, this particular agent had let his guard down and started to get to know this crew. He was friends with some of them.



That didn’t mean he would shirk his sacred duty. Friendship meant little if they were thrust into a disaster, the proportions of which made their involvement necessary. It still made the whole matter stickier than he liked. “The science officer has yet to detect the modifications that were made to the sensor package. I await the transmission from our operatives on the other side. Agent Alpha Three dash Zero Zero Seven out.” He replaced the micro-recorder into the slit pocket in his red tunic’s sleeve. Only the most advanced sensors would detect it and even then it would have to be turned on.



He turned in the cramped space and opened the hatch. Satisfied that the coast was clear, he crawled out and dogged the hatch behind him again. He had three minutes to return to his quarters before he was missed. That was plenty of time.

Family Matters
By: Norval Joe


The king stood in the passage just outside the open door to his daughters ante chamber, and watched the ladies-in-waiting hover and fuss like a swarm of helpful bees attending to a single flower. "She is beautiful', he thought as the ladies primped and preened her in preparation for the betrothal feast, just a few hours away.
A son-in-law that would be the most beneficial alliance for the kingdom was not the foremost factor in the kings mind as he negotiated with the eligible men of the surrounding kingdoms, but it was high on the list. He wanted his only daughter to be happy, that was foremost. Ten kingdoms touched the boundaries of his own, or were within a days ride of it. All had varying degrees of hostility or cooperation with his land. Should he choose the son of his most trusted alliance and cement a relationship that was already strong, or pursue the son of his most heated rival and build a bridge to cooperation that had been difficult to achieve in the past? Would allying with this rival, then, offend his trusted friend, and thus shake a fundamental and valued relationship? Should he choose the dim witted, but handsome, youth of one king over the intelligent, but middle aged brother of another? None of the choices had been simple; all had potential repercussions that might prove to be undesirable.
He had made his decision and forged an alliance with one of the more distant kingdoms that produced much of the grain that his kingdom used; It had seaports and was strong in trade with distant, exotic countries. In addition to fields of grain and sailing ships, the kingdom had a prince, the heir to the thrown, a few years older than his daughter. The princess had accompanied the king and her older brother each autumn, since she was eight years old, as the king traveled to the foreign land to secure treaties and trade agreements. It would seem that the princess had been concealing an interest in the young prince for many years; when he presented the idea to the princess of marriage to this young man, she reacted with indifference, and replied, "My desire is to serve the kingdom. If this is what is expected of me, I can do nothing but comply with your wish."
'She will be a beautiful queen,' the king thought, proudly, as he heard her reply, her shining eyes putting the lie to her affected indifference.
The king turned from the door and walked toward the banquet room, where his trusted advisors and ministers were preparing to receive the prince and his envoy, in preparation for the official betrothal.
A scribe, red faced and perspiring sped down the passage and threw himself at the kings feet. "My Lord, I bring the gravest of news. The princes envoy was attacked as it passed through the eastern forests, and the prince was taken hostage. The rest of the entire party were killed, save a single squire. He reached our gates only this very hour. He said that there is a large contingent moving this way. He brought this emblem from a dead solder of the attacking party."
Mechanically, the king took the emblem form the messengers outstretched hand. He recognized it immediately and wanted to cast it down in disgust. The kings face paled then reddened in turns, as the implications of the attack clarified in his mind. "Rise, good servant." The king said gruffly. "Send word that all are to gather in the banquet hall within the hour. I must, now, speak to my daughter."
His son stood and all discussion ceased in the hall when the king entered. He was composed, but it was evident from his demeanor that the news was not easily received by his daughter. Emotionally drained and feeling all of his five and a half decades, he dropped into the large cushioned seat in the middle of the long banquet table; with a wave of his hand, he indicated that all who stood in attendance, should sit. "Father, will she be alright", the prince leaned in and whispered? He nodded an abbreviated half-nod to reassure his son.
All the choices were before the king, and he knew that a decision would need to be made quickly.
He looked, first, down the table to his left. There sat his minister of finance, the deep sense of unease clearly readable in her eyes. She saw his contemplative stare and quickly glanced down to the sheets of parchment on the table before her. She shuffled them about and acted as if she was reading them, hoping that this would divert the Kings attention elsewhere. Her lead accountant sat to her right, careful not to look up from his own notes. To her left sat her chief economist, blissfully unaware of the tension.
He then looked down the table to his right. His minister of trade sat between two of his long time friends, the guild masters of the bakeries and the blacksmiths.
Between these two groups were arrayed the various other ministers and advisors.
The king signalled to his steward who rang the dinner chime and the room was suddenly filled with servants rushing about to get the various platters and tureens onto the long banquet table within three of the kings deep, steadied breaths; they knew that he was counting, and were too familiar with the results, if the count was too long. The food on the table, the servants disappeared as quickly as they had come.
"Eat", the king declared when the last of the servants had left the banquet hall, "This was to be a celebration banquet, after all." He looked at the steaming entrées, a look of dismay growing on his face; sweet and sour soups, candied yams, and chocolate fondues. He looked at his ever expanding waist and at the dinner service again. 'All sweets', he thought, ' not a savory choice on the table. No wonder I'm getting so fat!'
He looked up from his evaluation of the table to see his dinner guests; The entire entourage sat, motionless, waiting for the king to be the first to eat; someone's stomach groaned loud enough for half the table to hear.
The noise startled the king from his contemplative stasis. With a heat he hadn't expected, he growled at his advisors, "Make your selections and eat. With an invading army approaching our lands, we've many decisions to make this evening, and none of them are savory." He slammed the table for emphasis and picked up a honey coated date ball to throw, sullenly, into his mouth. The dates were crunchy and sweet, yet difficult to swallow.
They all began to eat cautiously pondering the steps that must be taken to prepare for war.


Merideth Introduction
By Jeff Hite


The Sound of his phone Ringing was like a nail being driven into his skull. The headache was back, and the high trill of his phone was almost more than he could handle this morning. He thought about ignoring it but, both ignoring it and answering it had consequences that he didn't really want to face that this point. It rang one more time before he made his decision and picked it up.
"Rob, this is Mary." Rob did the best not to roll his eyes. Mary was the best receptionists the company had, but her voice had a quality that could strip paint of walls in any direction she choose to point it.
"Yes, Mary."
"Rob, you have a guest up here, and your conference call with marketing is in five minutes." It was completely odd for a guest to be visiting him. Mary was very good about not letting any sales people in, and he didn't have any planned guests from the other departments.
"Who is it Mary?"
"I don't know Rob, he would not give me his name, and when I tried to get rid of him, he said he was an old friend and that you would make time for him."
"An old friend huh?" If this job had one cost it was his social life. He had not been home before nine thirty in over a month, and had mostly spend his weekends just trying to recover from the weeks. That was of course the weekends that he didn't end up working. "Alright Mary, I will be but shortly. When the conference call comes in, can you stall them for a few minutes?"
"Alright Rob, but they won't buy it for long."
"Thanks Mary." He hung up the phone and took a quick look at the train wreck that was his schedule today, then he made his way to the front lobby. There was a man sitting in the chair facing away from him, and a woman in the chair opposite him that he could not take his eyes off of. When she meet his eyes he felt like the room had just lit up.
"Rob, look at you," the voice was unmistakable, and it was probably the one thing that forced him to take his eyes off the woman, now standing up in front of him.
"Larry, what? but where have you."
"Larry?" Mary's voice removed the last spot of stubble he'd missed this morning.
"Surprised to see me again?"
"That is an under statement." Rob said when he finally was able to speak again.
"Yea well things happen in funny ways."
"The last time I saw you was on the top."
"Lets not talk about that now," he said holding up his hands. "Rob, I would you like you to meet my friend Meredith." The woman at Larry's side held out her, hand and for the first time in his life, Rob felt like maybe he should kiss it and not shake it.
"It is nice to meet you Meredith. Did you meet Larry in Greece?"
"You could say that," She said with a smile and voice that made him feel warm. "It is very nice to meet you, Larry has spoken a lot about you."
"Rob, your meeting is waiting."
"Thanks Mary. Listen Larry," Rob started.
"It is alright Rob, I understand I just wanted to let you know that we were back in town. Can you meet us for a late dinner. We can celebrate your promotion. Mary told me you got Dave's job."
"Alright, but."
"No buts tonight at the steakhouse on the west side of Broadway at nine-ish alright?" Rob nodded dumbly. "Great, we will see you there. Get to that marketing call."
Rob watched the two of them go and could almost feel the room getting colder as they stepped from the lobby to the streets beyond. Larry had been one of his only friends for years. Mostly because they both worked for Unitide, but Larry had been gone for years since they had lost sight of each other while looking for what Larry thought was the was entrance into the home of the gods. And what about the woman with him. Larry had never, as far as Rob knew, been very good with women, and Meredith was certainly the most beautiful woman that Rob had ever seen him with. He didn't have time to think about this now. He needed to have his thoughts together for this call, or the marketing team would walk all over his department again.

Great Hite 37

Great Hites 37
	COUNTING THE DAYS By: Anima Zabaleta
	The Prison By: Norval Joe
	Prometheus By: Jeff Hite
pollcode.com free polls

Download

COUNTING THE DAYS
By: Anima Zabaleta

One more day, dear Lord. Let me get thru this just one more day.

The well-worn office chair creaks under me, and the computer starts to whirr to life.
Lights flicker as the various programs install themselves. Everyday is Monday anymore… I try not to ponder on how many days I have sat at this desk in the past 15 years. If only I could take a vacation… but everything seems to depend on me… the silos, my children, the families of the people I employ…

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. I moved to Cedar Grove in the 90s, fresh from getting my MBA at night school. All I was looking for was a low stress job in the middle of nowhereville, where the cost of living was cheap, and I could decompress from taking classes for the previous 6 years. I didn’t like living in Chicago, but that was the best place to go to school. The plan was to work for a couple of years, learn agribusiness and make some headway on my student loans. Being the assistant manager of a grain silo/farming mercantile sounded perfect to me.

When I got hired, I had no intention of forming any connections in this podunk village. I threw darts at the local tavern, and was ok with the few guys who would invite me to go fishing and hunting with them. I liked my confirmed bachelor lifestyle, Then Sheila showed up, to work as daddy’s admin assistant for the summer. I fell for her in a big way. She was leggy and had a great tan, something that wasn’t commonly seen in Midwestern farming environs. Sheila brought a fresh breath of cosmopolitan flair with her, talking about the latest books on the NY Times best sellers list, and how much she liked Thai food. I realized I missed a few things about Chicago.

To make a short story long, I married the boss’s daughter, with promises of taking Sheila away on a “real” honeymoon as soon as the wheat harvest was done in October. Old Man McGuillicutty had a heart attack and died that September; and Sheila inherited the family business.

Together, Sheila and I picked up the pieces of her fathers endeavors, and managed to grow it some. Farming, though, is never a sure concern, and neither are the businesses that support farmers. Sheila stayed with me for 9 years, but she had escaped the small town doldrums once, and had had no intentions of returning to stay. We never did take that honeymoon, which she always brought up when we argued. Once her mother passed, there was no one left she felt she had to impress. I have never understood how she could walk out on the children and me. It was all part of the small town persona she found so odious, she said.

So, here I sit, waiting for the computer to finish its routine. I no longer read the Chicago Daily Herald, finding news of the bigger world to be too depressing. I turn off the television when the advertisements to visit Mexico come on. Sometimes I can’t even bring myself to make French toast on Sundays, because it conjures up images of foreign places I promised to Sheila… Maybe, some day… Who am I fooling? Today is Monday and I need to concentrate on corn futures and the soybean market. There are people who are relying on me.


************

The Prison
By: Norval Joe

The walls of the prison cell were exactly as you would expect them; slime and black moss grew in the water percolating through the walls and oozing down to pool on the floor. The air in the cell was humid and smelled of rot, but it wasn't cold. Not this deep in the cellars of the prison, with in the very foundation of the mountain, upon which the tyrants castle was built.
The prisoner sat naked on the floor of the cell. His clothes had rotted away years ago. His grey hair matted with filth reached nearly to the floor where he sat leaning against the locked wooden door.
He waited for the sound of approaching boots on the stone floor, outside the door. When had he last heard them, and the sound of the metal plate as it was shoved through the gap under the door?
He couldn't know, in the perpetual dark, during this one eternal night. But he had eaten, he thought, he must have, because he was still alive, having lived long enough for his clothes to rot away and his hair and beard to grow almost to his waist.
He tested the shackle around his ankle. The iron cuff bit into and wanted to tear the thin skin as he pulled on it to test the strength of the chain. The chain, long enough to allow him to reach the door, but not go through. Go through? But it wouldn't open. The metal plate would just scape the floor as it was pushed under the door.
The door was locked, or at least he assumed that it was. He knew it was, didn't he? He must have tried the door in the countless years that he had spent in the cell, with his clothes rotting off and his hair growing down his back.
He stood on weak and trembling legs, his knees threatening to buckle under his meager weight. He leaned against the door, supporting himself as search for a knob or handle. But the door, at the prisoners touch, creaked on rusted hinges as it opened into the dimly lit passage.
Unbelieving, he stepped forward and the chain fell away from his ankle. He ventured tentatively, into the passage, outside the cell. The hallway stretched off into darkness on both sides, the torch near the open door casting only a small pool of light on the floor where he bent trying to catch his breath, panting in anticipation. He stretched his arms and legs to loosen joints stiff from inactivity and felt a sharp pinch at the bend of his arm, like the bite of a spider. His head started to spin and his sight, even in the darkness, filled with a brilliant blinding white. He fell to the floor and rolled onto his back, breathing hard, trying to ease the sudden nausea.
He lay still for a moment, then slowly opened his eyes. His head was resting on something soft. He turned his head to the side luxuriating in the suppleness of the linen and the fragrance of its' cleanness. Beside him sat a woman. She looked familiar, but she was much older than a woman he had known. How long ago had he known her? She looked so kind, with lines of concern at the corners of her eyes and across her brow.
She saw him looking at her and she smiled. She reached out to run her hand through his long greying hair. "Dale, honey, you're awake," she quietly exclaimed! "They didn't think it would happen so quickly." She stood and kissed his forehead. Turning to the phone, she said, "I have to call the kids, there are grandchildren now, too. They will want to say hello. It has been so long." She paused with the phone held halfway to her ear, "The doctors don't know how long the drug will last, they have never tried it on humans before."
She was punching numbers on the phone as the blackness crept in from the edges of his vision, to steal his wife away and plunge him back into the cell, under the castle in the foundation of the mountain, with the slime and moss growing on the walls where the water percolated through and oozed down to pool on the floor.


*********

Prometheus
By Jeff Hite

It had been so long since she called him, that she wondered if he had actually heard her over the howling wind. She thought about calling again, but he had looked up at her when she had said his name the first time. Meridith had been around the old gods long enough to know that they would speak when they were good and ready. Calling him again would just annoy him, and possibly make him take longer to answer. But, she did wish he would hurry up , because the wind here on the cliff edge was freezing.
"What is it that you want girl?" He said finally
"Prometheus."
"Go away."
"Wait, Prometheus."
"Go away, if I don't rest my liver will not grow back. If my liver does not grow back."
Prometheus, I need to know how you did it," she interrupted him.
"If it does not grow back, the eagle will scratch, and bite at me."
"I need your help, I need to know how you got away from Olympus."
"It cannot kill me, but it can torture me, and make me bleed from a thousand places. When it returns the next day it will be hungrier than normal, and even my fully formed liver will not sate it's hunger, and again it will attack me and torture me." He paused for the first time and shuttered. "Do you know how long it will take me to heal from those injuries?" She didn't answer. This was not what she had come to talk to him about. Maybe if she didn't answer him, she could guide him down the path she came for.
"Prometheus," she said when he did not continue to talk. "I need to know how you got away from Olympus."
"What do you mean girl. I have been here forever."
"Not forever Prometheus. A long time, but not forever."
"Stop! I will not hear of the time before."
"You must, you are the only one."
"There was nothing before this."
"Prometheus, you know that is not true," Meredith begged.
"There was nothing before this."
There was a long silence that followed. Meredith, thought about leaving. She thought about giving up, but in her nearly two thousand years of captivity on Olympus, the one thing that she had was time to wait. But the time to wait had ended Everything here was about waiting. Waiting until your power had so diminished that you simply disappeared. Even Hades had been losing his grip. He had been letting the humans recover people that had been dead, by means of so called science. No, she would not give up. This was the only way that she could turn things around. She was Meredith, the final child of mighty Zeus and his lovely wife Hera. The last of the gods born since Olympus had been relegated to a place of the past, by the humans.
Finally Prometheus did move. He tilted his head up so that he could see her. She tried to push her long hair out of her face so that he might see who she was.
"You have more patience than most."
"Yes, a blessing and a curse."
"Why have you come?"
"I need to talk to you. I need to know..."
"Come down here," he said cutting her off.
"What?"
"You heard me, don't waste my time. I have enough pain, come down here so that at least I might see you when I talk to you."
With more than a little hesitation she stood and lowered herself over the cliffs edge. She found well warn foot and hand holds, that led down to where he hung on the side of the cliff.
"That is better. Now I can see you. Who are you?"
"I am Meredeth."
"Meredeth." He rolled the word out and even with his broken voice it sounded nice. "I have not heard of you."
"I am Hercules' younger sister." She hope the memory of the great hero would give her some credence with the long imprisoned god.
"Ah then a Daughter of Zeus. What can I do for you? My powers are limited, and I am kind of shackled to my job here." He laughed a roughly in a way that seemed almost to be a last breath.
"All I seek is information."
"Ah the power of knowledge. If you wanted to know things why not go to an oracle? They can tell the future you know. The only thing I know is the open sky. The sky with the eagle coming toward me, and the sky with the eagle going away from me. Oh, and pain I know a lot about pain."
"I Seek knowledge of things that only you know."
"As I told you I don't know much."
"You know something that no one else knows. You know of the time before."
"There was no time before this." He said grinding his teeth and spitting the words out.
She waited until the fire in his eyes was gone before she continued.
"Once long ago you escaped to the human world and gave them a gift. You are the only one who has ever done this." She rushed it out so the he would not have time to cut her off. But he did not answer. He didn't even look at her. "You gave the humans the gift of fire, ten thousand years ago. Now the humans have turned their backs on us, and we are fading away. Many of the spirits have simply disappeared." Still he did not respond. "Even most of the nymphs had gone silent." He looked at her then, a tear in his eye.
"There was no time before this." He whispered.
"There was, and you remember it."
"No, I don't. I won't." He insisted but his words came weakly.
"Prometheus, please. I beg you. I need to know how you did it. I need to know."
"Why? So that you can spend the rest of your life like me. You want this? Look at me. Look at my wrists. Look at my face. Look at the scars, and the places that will not heal."
For the first time she looked closely at him, and not for the first time wondered what would happen to her if she failed. Where the chains met his wrists, the shackels were not there. Instead, the chains connected right to the bones in his arm, or were those odd bumps in this writs the shackles that had simply been there so long that they had become a part of him. His body was covered in scars that she could only assume were from where the great raptor had attacked him because it was not sated by it's daily meal of his regrowing liver. His Ankels looked much the same as his wrists, but his toes had been torn off. She could only assume by the great bird.
"Is this what you want for the rest of forever?" He whispered softly.
"No." She admitted.
"Then just go," he turned his head away from her.
"But I am willing to face it, to help our people." He turned around in surprise and stared at her. She could not read what was behind those eyes, but there was great pain on his face.
"No." he said finally. "No I will not condem you to my fate."
"But I am willing to."
"No, you are young you do not know what you are saying."
"Prometheus, we are dieing. And I would rather die here on the side of the cliff knowing I had tried then to just fade away knowing I had not." He was silent along time after that. So long that her arms began to burn from the strain of hanging there on the side of the cliff. She would not die if she fell, but there would be pain, and many many years of healing. She had just about decided to climb back up when he spoke again.
"I didn't do it."
"What?"
"I didn't escape to deliever fire to the humans," the tears were streaming down his face now.
"Of course you,"
"No!" he cut her off again. "No, I didn't," he shifted his weight so that she could see the hole in his side where the great bird tore at him every day. "I didn't take fire to them. I could not, just as you cannot now."
"But, then you have hung here for eons for something you didn't do."
"Please," he said sardonically, "I gave them fire. Of course I did. But I didn't leave the mountain, just like you cannot. Like all the gifts from the gods they have to either appear to the humans in such a way that they can see us in the gift, or..." He trialed off again.
"Or?"
"Or they have to be let in to get it."
"Let in? But humans cannot come to mount Olypus any more than we can go to them."
"They did once. I let them in." The releization dawned on her then. Although fire was an incredible gift, the idea of humans being on the moutain was probably more than the gods cound stand.
"You let them in." She repeated.
"Yes, not very far, but I let them in far enough to come to my campsite. I left a fire burning and let them steal from it. It took years for me to coax a human up that far, and at great risk. If Zeus found out that I had made a way in for them. Well in the end he did find out, and you know the rest of the story," he guestured as his prison. His face twisted then, and he cried openly.
She tried to move her body closer to him but he pulled away.
"No!" He screamed. "No, I will not be reminded of what comfort is. It has taken me ten thousand years to forget." She waited until he stopped crying.
"Will you tell me how?" He didn't answer for a long time and then he just let his head fall forward, in a movement that could have simplly been resignation, but she took it as a yes. "How?"
"Come back tomorrow?"
"What?"
"Will you come back tomorrow if I you tell you?"
"If you like."
"I have been so lonely. The Nymph in the tree above stopped coming a thousand years ago. Will you talk to her for me?" That explained the hand and foot holds. "I had almost forgotten about her too, until I heard you tonight."
"Yes, I wil come back." And the pain returned to his face.
"It might be better if you didn't. I might not have a thousand years to forget you too."

Great Hites # 34

Great Hites # 34
	Slow Food by: Anima Zabaleta
	Low Master High Master By: Guy David
	Turtles all the way Down By: Jeff Hite
pollcode.com free polls

SLOW FOOD
By: Anima Zabaleta
Performed by: Anima Zabaleta and Arri Gaffer

Mmmm, smells good! What's the occasion? Did I forget some important date? Should I have picked up a cake?

Thanks, hon. Dinner's in an hour.

That long? but I'm starving!

Oh, you'll live. I was listening to the radio today, and there was an interesting program about the Slow Food movement. I had an epiphany! We are always so hurry-scurry with our lives, eating on the run, dashing from this place to that, multi-tasking our lives away…

So I sat down and listened to the whole show. Really listened and took it to heart. I'm not saying we need to live of the land or anything, but we can be more conscious about what we eat. I went through the freezer and cabinets, tossing out the convenience foods, the pop tarts and pizza pockets, that sort of stuff. I can bake pies and turnovers; I've already flagged recipes in the cook book…

Why are you looking at me like that? You know I can cook; I just haven't in a while. We'll spend time together on the weekend, putting in a garden… and in the summer, we'll have strawberry ice cream made from milk from the local dairy. If this is going to work, I'm going to need your help...

If you insist, honey. And, yes, I know you can cook. Are you sure you really want to go through with this? Tell me you don't like a greasy order of onion rings and a milkshake on a Saturday night, from the burger-rama…

Well, sure I do, but not for the tenth time in a week. I'm exaggerating a little… but not by much. Look at these receipts… We ordered take-out for dinner, when we sat down for dinner at all, and I bought lunch every day last week. These are just the slips in my coat pocket. How many more are in the car from my daily Joe-To-Go? Did you take a bag lunch to work even once?

Sure I did…

Oh yeah, like what?

Left over pizza from poker night.

Um hmmm…

Alright already! We'll try it your way for a while… What did you say was for dinner?

Soup… It's an old fashioned recipe from my granny… Listen to this: Start with 5 pounds of turtle meat… There were 14 in her family; I cut it down for us…

Turtle soup!?!

But of course! I figure, if you are what you eat, then our first slow food meal should be the slowest meat I could find.

Oh brother…

*****

Low Master, High Master
By: Guy David

Justin was a low master, one of the 3rd class mages. The high masters didn't expect much of him. He wasn't the one they would summon to fight demons or battle the dark lords of mischief. Those mischievous dark magic practitioners where a real problem, an annoyance they would have to deal with, but Justin wouldn't be the one helping them with that.

Justin was their magical chef, and was pretty good at it. He could conjure up Italian dishes like no-one else could. His cannelloni was exemplary and his lasagña a wonder to behold. He started young and quickly became very popular amongst the mages. His name went before him and word reached even the dark lords of mischief themselves, who decided they needed to taste his dishes for themselves, so they did what dark lords of mischief do – they kidnaped him.

Justin wasn't one to fall victim to his own fear. Instead, he viewed this as an opportunity to prove his worth to the high masters. He had ambitions. He watched, and he listened, looking for a hint of weakness in his captors. After testing and tasting his skill they made him their chef. He knew he had to be perfect at it since they where known to be merciless and they wouldn't hesitate in torturing and executing him if they decided he was useless to them, so he created the most magical culinary masterpieces he had ever conjured up and listened. At last he found it. It was perfect since food was his speciality. All he needed was to magically slip 5 pounds of turtle meat into their dish of the day, timed perfectly, and they would vanish into nothingness.

As dinner began, Justin started dazzling the dark lords of mischief with ravioli and appetizers. He served one culinary wonder after another, seemingly almost invisible to them. They rarely noticed their servants. When the time came the magic ingredients appeared in their dishes. They didn't notice. They continued eating, talking and laughing cheerfully. Justin was so masterful with his magical dishes that neither the color nor the taste of the food changed. Eventually it began. They started shrinking one by one. In the end all that was left of them where little green paddles. Justin easily found his way out and escaped.

After he returned victories to the high tower of mages, he was granted a star of honor which is one of the mages highest of decorations, and he was promoted to middle mage. He knew as a 2nd class mage he would get all the training he needed to become a 1st class mage. One day he would fulfill his dream of becoming a high master.

*****

Turtles all the way Down
By Jeffrey Hite

In his 1988 book Steven Hawking repeated this well known story:
A well-known scientist (some say it was Bertrand Russell) once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the center of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy. At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: "What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise." The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, "What is the tortoise standing on?" "You're very clever, young man, very clever," said the old lady. "But it's turtles all the way down!"[1]

"What is surprising about this story is not that it happened or didn't happen, it is that is is true. Not the part about the scientist or the old woman, the part about the tortoise."
"What are you talking about old man?"
"Wait I am not crazy, I know that you think I am crazy, but you don't understand. I have been there."
"What, where?"
"Under the plate."
"Under the plate?"
"Haven't you been listening to anything that I have been telling you? Last year, I took a team with me and we travel under the plate that the world sit upon. I had spend my life searching for a way to get to the edge of the plate, but it was not until a few years ago, I figure out a way. We didn't go over the edge, but found a hole in the plate near the ring of fire in the South Pacific."
"So you went under the plate the Earth is resting on and saw the tortoise?"
"Oh yes, we saw it all right. And it saw us to. And as soon as it did it reached that monstrous head around and tried to eat us. At first we were too fast for it. But it has a very long neck. You the hole in the plate must have been from it sticking it stout up into the world, because we were right in it's reach, so you see we had no choice."
"What do you mean? You had no choice about what?"
"We had to kill it. See." He said pulling a bag of meat from the freezer.
"What is that?"
"I told you we had to kill it. This is five pounds of world supporting turtle meat. Soup?"


Download GreatHites 34

Great Hites # 25

Thank you to Ann Hite for the extra voices. Enjoy!


The Finding of Mt Olympus
By Jeffrey Hite







March 21 9:30 AM Eastern Standard Time.
"I've found it!" Larry shouted standing up in his cubical so that we could all see him. "I found Mount Olympus."

"So? Why not Atlantis, Larry? Hundreds of thousands of people have found Mount Olympus, most notably the Greeks. It's an actual mountain in Greece you know. ". Sue rebuffed him from the next cubical over, not even bothering to get up.

"What?" I blurted out while standing up for the first time.

"Mt Olympus, you know the home of the gods come see..." he said, ignoring Sue and beckoning me over.

I hesitated; going over into Larry's cubical was a bit like stepping into a fantasy world and more often than not, not one you would really like to visit. His normal variety of fantasy was not something I really liked, but Greek myths were a passion we both shared.

"Come on it will only take a sec," he said when we saw my hesitation. "It's here on the map."

"Alright, I'll bite." I said entering his cubical. As expected it was a dizzying array of posters, drawings and fantasy character figures. They were everywhere: on the desk, on top of his test systems, on the keyboard tray, even on the phone and his monitors.

"Hey, where did you get those?" I said pointing to the two Apple thirty inch cinema displays.

"Never mind that, they're mine."

"And you brought them to work?"

"Yes, yes, I needed them to look at the maps and satellite images. Look here." he said pointing to the center of the display on the left.

"It looks like a bunch of mountains."

"Right, let me zoom out a bit so you can get an idea of where they are." He grabbed the mouse and scrolled out so that we could see the whole land mass. It was, of course, Greece. Then he zoomed back in. "Here, do you see that?" he said circling a spot on the map with his finger.

"It looks like a mountain, just like all the rest around it." I liked Larry. He was a good guy, and despite his fascination with the fantasy world, he was a brilliant technician but I was beginning to regret this trip to Larry Land.

"Right. We are looking at the official topographical map. Now if I switch to satellite view." He clicked and the image changed.

"What's the joke? We're still looking at the same peak."

"Yeah, but look closer. Do you see that shadow?"

"Yes."

"Look at the peaks around it. Do any of them look like that? In fact, have you ever seen a peak that looked that perfect except in drawings?"

I looked at the image and he was right. There was nothing around that looked like the shadow and it did look particularly perfect.

"Now watch this." He changed the angle of the view so that we were about 45 degrees from the ground. "Look, look, do you see it?"

"My God!" On the screen all the other mountains had flattened out as in most two dimension pictures, but the shadow stood up straight, an almost perfect cone. "Wow! That is really cool. I wonder what that is? It has got to be some kind of software glitch."

"No, it's not. I tried it on this other program too. See?" He switched applications and there it was again. "The last one uses fly over views from aircraft, this one uses satellite photos."

"Right, well maybe it is one of the other peaks that just looks distorted," I said sitting back down in my cubical.

"Yeah maybe." He didn't say anything to anyone for the rest of the day, and when I left late that night he was still in his cubical. I sneaked a quick peek as I walked past toward the door, and he had both images up on the left display and a number documents up on his other one that didn't look like the code that he was supposed to be working on.


March 29 8:15 AM Eastern Standard Time
Larry came in a little later than normal with his habitual cup of coffee in his left hand and big mailing tube in his right.

"More posters Larry?" Mike asked laughing. Larry, as usual, ignored him. He walked past and sat down in his cubical. I could hear him tearing the tape off the tube and pulling out its contents. I tired to ignore him. If it were new posters, putting them up would be an all morning affair and I had things to do. I couldn't get sucked into it. Three new systems were going live in a week and I needed to make sure that the databases would actually work when the customers started making their queries.

"I was right!" Larry screamed twenty minutes later. "I was right, I was right! See, come look at this Rob!" despite the need to get the systems out I was more than a little interested. The Greek myths were something that had always interested me and, well, I really needed a break after the morning I was having. Sue and Mike both gave me sidelong glances and Dave, our boss, gave me a look that told me that I would be working overtime if those databases were not up and running.

"What, Larry?" I said.

"Look!" he said pointing. On his desk were a dozen or so maps of different types and one huge blowup of a satellite image. "I had a friend of mine at NASA get this for me. I owe him about three cases of booze for it but it will be worth it."

"What is it?"

"Come on," he insisted pointing at the image. I looked closer. It was a picture of the same spot he had shown me last week. The lighting was different but the shadow still stood exactly as it did before.

"Wow ,that is really cool. What do you think it is?"

"Damn it Rob, don't you believe me? It is Mt Olympus. You know, the home of the gods."

"Larry, that is not possible. It's a myth."

"All myths have their roots in some fact. In ancient times no mortal could find it unless the gods wanted you to. I think this is one of those things."

"But why would it show up like this?" I said gesturing to the pictures.

"Because you can't hide from photography. The eye you can fool, but not film. And," he said smiling a little, "I think that maybe they want to be found or at least one of them does." I sat back in the extra chair in his cubical. It was then that I noticed that Larry's office had changed. There were none of the normal posters of his fantasy world. In their place were maps of every sort of the area around Mt Olympus. On some of them he had drawn in the cone with red pen. There were maps of ancient Greece, with clear overlays of the modern map. There were genealogy charts that followed all of the gods and goddess. He had taken the system roll-out schedule off his white board and replaced it with lists of supplies, travel plans, flight numbers and hotel names.

"Larry, what is all this?" I asked gesturing to the new decor.

"I have been digging up everything I could on this in the last couple of weeks, and not just on the Internet. I have done some serious book work on this as well. I have found some really great stuff."

"What about the roll-out schedule? Have you been doing the development for that? I am a huge fan of Greek Mythology too but..."

"Forget that, this is huge. What if we could find our way into the home of the gods? Think of the things we could ask them."

"Larry, we are going live with the first site in less than two weeks."

"Is that all you can think about? Look at this." He picked up a book about the stealing of fire from the gods. "This talks about how it only happened because Prometheus, one of the gods, wanted it to. Think about what it could mean."

"But..."

"But nothing. This is huge."

"Larry, what do you think you are going to find? What do you think you are going to prove?"

"I don't know what I'll find, but I'm going to find something. But right now I've got to go talk to Dave about some time off." With that he got up and walked out of his cubical and headed towards Dave's office.

"Larry, he is never going to give you time off now!" But he waved me off and walked right into Dave's office.

They had a short argument that I can only guess at, but in the end Larry threw up his hands, came back to his desk and spent the next hour or so packing everything up.

"Larry, what are you doing?"

"I quit! Can you believe it? They would not give me the time off when I have found something this big. Dave said something about after the roll-out. But what if this thing disappears, what if this is a short time offer. What if it is only one god that wants to be found, like I think it might be, and the others find out about it and close the door. We can't wait. We have to get over there now and check this thing out."

"Wait a minute Larry. I can't go. I have a job to do. We both do. We are grown men, we can't just go running off on a wild goose chase."

"You too? Damn narrow minded people, can't even see past the end of your noses. You sound just like the rest of them!" was all that I got from him as he pushed past me and walked out.


March 29 10:45 AM Eastern Standard Time
"Rob," I looked up to see Dave standing at my desk. "I hate to have to do this to you but it is going to be hard on all of us. Larry quit this morning, as I am sure you know, so we are going to have to divvy up his roll-out responsibilities." Dave always had this way of whining that made my skin want to crawl. It was only worse when he wanted to give you bad news. It was as if he picked the most annoying voice to deliver the most annoying news.

"Dave, what did he say?"

"Something about finding Mt. Olympus and that he needed time off. I told him some time after the roll-out was completed, but he insisted that it had to be today. When I told him that was not possible, he quit. Just like that. So like I said, we are going to need to you do some over time." there was that voice again.

April 11 2:13 AM Eastern Standard Time
I woke the sound of the phone ringing and it made my head hurt.

"Rob, Rob! Wake up man."

I rolled over to check the clock, and winced as the receiver pressed against my ear.

"Larry?"

"Rob, I've found it! You've got to come see this. It's here."

"Larry, what are you talking about? Do you know what I have been through the last two weeks since you left?"

"Rob, screw all of that. Listen to me. This is huge. I've found it! The entrance to Mt. Olympus. I bought you a plane ticket. I need someone here to help me document this. You are the most detailed person I know. You have to come here. I mean, it is nothing like I expected. It is more than I ever imagined!"

"Larry, hang on a second. What? There is no way. What about Dave?" I was still half asleep and having a hard time understanding him.

"Rob, I promise that you will not regret this. Listen, the ticket will be delivered to you first thing in the morning. I have to go." The line went dead.

I lay in bed for a long time, not able to get back to sleep. Half of me was cursing Larry for waking me up, half of me dying to see what he had found. I had to admit even with everything I had been through in the last few weeks, I was interested. I had been since the first day he had shown me. I did not quite know if I should believe him, but it was certainly interesting. Besides, although he was a bit odd with all the fantasy things, Larry was not one to really make something like this up. He always did his homework.

For a long time I could not decide what to do, but in the end practicality won out. If this ticket did show up in the morning I would just throw it away and go on like the phone call had never happened. Larry would have to find someone else.


April 12 8:42 AM Eastern Standard Time
"Rob, is that your fifth cup of coffee?"

"Yes, Sue, it is."

"Going kind of heavy aren't you?"

"I didn't sleep well last night."

"But it's not even nine in the morning."

"I have been here since five, Sue." I was beyond aggravated with this line of questioning, and so made my way to my desk trying not to hear her last comment. She was the kind of person that always had to get the last word in.

I had no more than sat down at my desk when my phone rang. I looked at the caller ID and was both relieved and concerned that it was an internal call. That meant that the customer was not having a problem with their newly rolled out system, but it could very well be Dave with a complaint that the customer had taken over my head.

"This is Rob."

"Rob, this is Mary, you have mail and it is marked urgent."

"Thanks Mary. I will be up in a little bit to get it."

"It needs a signature, and it is not marked with Untide's name. You know the policy about not signing for personal things."

"Yes, yes, I know," I said with as much annoyance in my voice as possible. "I will be right up," she hung up the phone and I headed for the front desk.

"Not going for more coffee already are you? You are going to give yourself an ulcer, you know," Sue was at it again and I did my best to ignore her.

When I got to the front desk, Dave was standing there and he didn't look happy. Apparently Mary had called him right after she got off the phone with me. Or maybe right before. One look at the delivery guy, and decided it must have been before. Mary and Dave looked like a firing squad.

"Thank you." I said taking the envelope from him and checking that it was addressed to me and not Unitide.

"Just sign here."

"Thank you, I said handing the clipboard back to him.

"Rob," Dave was using that voice again. "You know the policy about getting personal mail delivered to the office."

"Yes," I said turning around. suddenly felt like a little kid who got caught stealing a cookie.

"What is this all about, who is it from?" I had not looked at who it was from but I knew it was from Larry. "Rob? Who is it from?" Now he was getting on my nerves.

"What difference does that make?"

"You are not supposed to be getting mail at the office. It is a distraction. Hand it over and it will be on my desk when you are ready to go home."

"You are kidding right?"

"Come on hand it over."

"Like hell."

"You had it delivered here, it is company property."

"Go to hell Dave," I said as I walked back to my desk.

"Rob!"

Who did Dave think he was? Wasn't it illegal for him to take my mail? I would have to look it up when I got back to my desk.

"Rob, we need to talk about this," He must have taken the other way around because now he was standing at the entrance to my cubical.

"What is the deal Dave, why all the fuss over a letter?"

"It's from Larry isn't it?"

"What is the difference?"

"Do you know why the policy is what it is?"

"You know, I never really understood that. You think that grown men and women are going to be distracted by getting mail? We are not three-year-olds Dave."

"It is what it is, you can have your opinion, but there is more than that. We think Larry could be a security risk since he knew our roll-out schedule before he left."

"Bull! Larry never cared about what we were doing here, he was here for the paycheck and you know it!"

"He knew the schedule."

"What did he tell you before he left?"

"Give me the letter Rob you can have it back after work."

"I am not a three-year-old," I said raising my voice a bit so that everyone else could hear. "This is total bull. You have no right to take my mail where ever I get it delivered. I have given ten years of loyal service to this company, and you want to treat me like I am a child. Fine! You want the letter, take it." I held it above me head waving it slightly. Dave reached for it but came about six inches short. I smiled at him and walked past him into my cubical. I picked up my jacket and keys with my free hand and pushed past him again.

"Where are you going?"

"Same place Larry did. I quit!"

"You can't!"

"Watch me."

A few minutes later I sat with my head on the steering wheel, my heart pounding and hands shaking. What was I going to do now? I was on my way home to get my resume up to date, when I remembered the letter. It was sitting on the seat next to me. I felt like it was calling to me, tempting me to open it. I didn't even want the damn letter and now I had quit my job over it.

"What was I thinking? I wonder if it is too late to go back in." Still the letter was calling me. I reached over and opened it. Inside was a set of plane tickets, a thousand dollars in cash and a note.

-Rob,

The tickets are for a 2:30 flight so you will have to hurry once you get this. Don't worry about packing. If you need any clothes or anything you can use the money in the envelope. I will pick you up at the Athens Airport.

Larry



"Now what?" I had his money. I was glad that I had not run the entire letter through the shredder or given it to Dave. "But, now what?"


April 13 7:30 Am European Summer time
This morning I found Larry standing in our hotel room. His towel still wrapped around him, a set of maps in one hand and a slice of bread and lox in the other. He didn't notice me for a few moments.

"You eat that?" I said, making my way to the coffee pot.

"Oh, good morning Rob. Sleep okay?"

"Yeah, where are we? It was pretty late last night."

"We are in the Olympic national park, south of Mt. Olympus. Here, let me show you." He carried the map to the table with the coffee pot spreading it out. "Here is Mt Olympus. It is about 2917 meters tall. Now here is the GPS unit I bought. See, it has the ability to save previous locations so you can find your way back. Now I know that it is accurate to about one hundred feet. See, the latitude, longitude and elevation of this place is here, and this is what the GPS shows."

"Wow it only appears to be off by about twelve feet."

"That would be because we're one floor up. Last week, I climbed up to the highest point on the map, here." He pointed first to the map and then to the GPS the numbers all matched. "Then using this enlargement of a satellite photo I found this trail right here." He said pointing to a thin white line on the photo.

"Okay I see it."

"I followed that path for about ten minutes, and it was pretty steep. Since this is a picture and not exactly the same scale as the map, although it is close, I would guess that I stopped about here and took a GPS reading."

"3024 meters."

"You know that that means don't you?"

"Yeah, I means you found a point higher than anything recorded."

"No. It means that I found the home of the gods!"

"Larry!"

"Rob, listen to me. When I was up there as soon as I found the trail, everything around me seemed to be shrouded in mist. At first I didn't really notice it, but the further I went the denser it became."

"You are high enough up that you could have been in a cloud."

"I thought so too, but then when I turned around I had a really hard time going back down the path. There were even parts I felt like I was going up again, and I can promise you that when I was going up there were no downhill parts. It was like I kept getting turned around, but the GPS unit said I was going the right way. And here is the kicker: as soon as I was back down at 2917 meters, no mist, no cloud, nothing."

Could it really be possible that he had found what he was looking for? That he had found the fantasy world he had been trying to find all of his life?

"So?" He said breaking me out of my thoughts.

"So, what?"

"Do you believe me?"

"Larry, I'm here. You have given me some pretty hard evidence, but I want to see it for myself before I totally agree." I could not believe the words that were coming out of my mouth.

"Good. This morning after we get dressed, we'll go into town and get outfitted with some supplies. It is a two day hike to the top. You will be glad of all those times I dragged you to the climbing gym with me."




April 15 3:30 PM European Summer Time.
"The path was just over here." Larry said as I trailed behind him a few feet. We had reached the peak only a few minutes before.

"Hang on a second Larry," I sat on a near by rock and caught my breath. "Larry, I had a thought. What if we get up in the mist like you did and we can't find our way out?"

"That is why we have the extra supplies. They should last us a few days at least, and longer if we get really lost. But I don't think we will get that lost. We have the GPS unit, and can just keep following it until it eventually leads us out.

"Eventually? that is not very comforting."

"Everything will be fine. You'll see Rob. Ah, here it is!" He was pointing to a little worn spot in the rock. "This is it, just like I told you! Now we just follow this a little ways and we are in. Ready?"

"I have an idea."

"Let's tie the climbing line it to something down here in case we need to find our way back. Then we can move it up the path when we run out."

"Wow! How low tech of you my friend, but I am game!"

I tied the rope to the base of nearby boulder and we started up the path. Within seconds we were enveloped in a fog so thick, we could hardly see each other.

"Okay Larry, end of the rope. I will go back and untie it. You wait here and tie your end off," I said a few minutes later.

"Fair." He said as he looked around for something to tie it off to.

I picked my way along the path and as Larry had said at points the path seemed to go up and down, even though when we had come in it was most certainly all uphill. When I finally made my way back down to the base the fog had indeed cleared. I untied the rope and made my way back up the rope, winding it up, as I went so that it would not get snagged on anything.

"Rob? Is that you?" I heard Larry voice just a few feet in front of me.

"Yes."

"Did you hear that?"

"What? You calling to me?"

"No, before that."

"I didn't hear anything. What was it?"

"I thought I heard someone talking."

"No, I didn't hear anything." When I was close enough to see him we stood still and listened for some time, but we didn't hear anything.

"You know something weird?" Larry said breaking the long silence. "When you were walking away, you went down the path, but there were times that I watched the rope, go way up like you were going up hill. Just like a told you."

"Yeah, it was very odd." I was starting to feel more than a little nervous. "Did you tie your end off the line off?"

"Yes."

"Okay then let's keep going."

"Right," he said taking the coil of rope from me and heading up the path, but he could not hide the slight quiver in his voice. Whether it was from excitement or nervousness, I could not tell.

"I will go back this time. You look a little wiped out." Larry said when we reached again reached the end of the rope. It had taken us longer this time as the path had begun to wind and we had to find places to loop the rope so that we would be able to follow it back if we needed to.

"Thanks," I said as I watched him walk back in the direction we had come. In truth I was more than a little tired. I tied my end to the nearest rock and sat down on it.

"Why are you here?" a voice from the mist said.

"Larry?" He didn't answer. I pulled gently on the rope and I could feel him moving away.

"Why did you come? It has been so long." The voice said. The voice was soft and sweet and definitely not Larry's. Then I heard something moving nearby and it sounded like a big animal, but it was coming from a different direction than the voice.

"Who's there?" I said, no longer able to hide the fear in my own voice. There was no answer. I yelled for Larry again.

"Coming," he said from only a few feet off. "What is it?"

"Larry, the voice you heard before?"

"Yeah?"

"Tell me you heard it again."

"No."

"Larry there is someone out here with us. And I think they might have brought an animal with them."

"Come on, lets keep going." he said, a little more calmly than I felt.

"Larry, I am not afraid to admit, I am more than a little freaked out."

"Come on, it will be alright."

"You have nothing to fear." the voice said again.

"I heard that," Larry said.

"Me too." We looked around but could see nothing in the mist.

"Let's keep moving," He said. I again handed the coil of rope to him and we walked on, the voice urging us on now and again.

"I'll go back this time," I said when we reached the end of the rope.

"Don't go back," the voice said. "You are too far now."

"Rob?"

"What?"

"Did you see that?"

"No, what?"

"I'm not sure but it was a huge shape." We watched the swirling mist for a few minutes but saw nothing more.

"I am going back to get the rope," I said after a few moments.

"No!" came the voice, more insistent this time. "You will not be able to return."

"You mean we can't leave?" No answer, but now I saw something moving in the mist. "I am not going on with out the rope," I said to Larry.

"I know I made fun of you before but I totally agree with you now." With that I headed back to untie the other end.

"You have come so far," the voice said, sounding as though it was weeping.

"Who are you?" I asked, but there was no reply.

In a couple of minutes I found the end of the rope. I untied it, turned around to go back and bumped into something. It was softer than rock, but just as solid. I backed away and felt something brush against me.

Whatever it was, it was moving around me to prevent me from going either forward or back. I fought to keep calm and tried to see through the fog, but could see nothing more than a large vague shape and feel the occasional brush of what felt like hair against my skin.

After what seemed like an eternity the voice spoke again, "You cannot return to your friend. He has passed beyond you." This time it had more firmness than before, but it was still soft.

"What do you mean?"

"Follow the beast, it will show you the way out. Do not attempt to come back. It will be guarding the way."

"What about Larry?"

"He is with us now."

"What does that mean?" There was no answer. "Hey, what does that mean? What have you done with him?" Then I felt a huge body pressing against me. It was covered in hair and more than a match for me. "Wait!" I yelled, but it did no good. The beast was forcing me down the path. I screamed for Larry until my voice was gone, but the beast never faltered and soon I stood alone on the top of the mountain. The air was clear and I could see all around me.

I tried to go up the path again and again, only to find the huge beast there.



That was three years ago. I have written down every detail of what happened to us, thought it will make little difference as no one will believe it. I have tried many times since then to go back, but each and every time I did the beast was there. I heard from Larry only one more time. I returned to the mountain ten days after our first encounter. This time the beast was accompanied by a smaller creature. It appeared to be a sprite of the kind that Larry used to keep on his desk. It did not speak, but handed me a small scrap of paper.

Rob,

I have found it.

Larry




Download Great Hites 25 Audio