The advent of newer religions didn’t help. After the Great War, all gods were bound to adhere to the non-intervention law and many of the immortal beings found there was no use in walking among their followers anymore. As newer religions emerged not long afterwards, people got the idea that gods were somehow distant from their followers. The gods became more a concept of ideals rather than physical beings, and the disconnect between the immortals and mortals became wider.
Which is why I’m curled up in bed in a funk, listening to Seth trying to batter down my door. Because Ra couldn’t forget the apprehension on Arvyn’s face when he mentioned taking them somewhere, and he was struggling to forgive the stiffness on Kirill’s face when he first revealed himself to his mates. He remembered how harshly Kirill had questioned Cass – his issues about being forced to worship Ra – when all I wanted was to be held in their arms the way they held each other when they saw each other for the first time. Is that too much to ask?
THUMP. THUMP. THUMP. “RA! Damn it. Open the damn door.”
What the fuck is wrong with him? Ra curled his fists, his urge to banish Seth to earth growing with every punch of the god’s fist on his magically enhanced doors. He wouldn’t do it. He got tempted by thoughts like that often when dealing with Seth, but the god had been his most stalwart companion and staunch defender for longer than he could count, and besides, Ra leaned towards being a fair and kind god, rather than mean and despotic. Maybe that’s my problem. If I toughened up, maybe he’d respect me more.
But that wouldn’t happen in one day. Heaving a sigh, because immortal beings were nothing if not persistent, Ra waved his hand, allowing the doors to his private space to be opened. “What do you want?” he snapped, sitting up in bed as Seth burst through the door with a curse.
“That mangy-haired Greek idiot wants to talk to you, and you’ve had messages from someone called ‘Wes Wolf’, all screaming at you to contact him.” Seth pulled Ra’s phone out of his pant’s pocket and stared at it with fascination. “Really, this thing stores all your communications?”
“I thought you believed phones were shiny slabs from the devil djinn?” Ra’s heart skipped a beat, his fingers itching to reach for his phone. “I was also sure I told you that you could smash it.”
“You actually said, I could do what I liked with it.” Seth hid the phone behind his back. “It must be quite handy, having messages stored all in one place for you to find and respond to whenever you feel like it.”
The canny bastard wants to keep it. “Oh no.” Ra pressed the back of his hand against his forehead in mock horror, falling back among his pillows. “You’ve been beguiled by the evil shiny slab.” He sat up again. “Quick. Have you been spelled by a djinn? Blink once for yes and twice for no.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Seth’s cheeks got a touch of color. “I simply felt, instead of all those orbs everyone sends flying around, cluttering up the place, that it made more sense to have all your messages in the one device.” He pulled Ra’s phone back around to his front again. “I think I could do with one of these.”
“You know other people with phones?” Then a thought struck him, and Ra chuckled. “You could always ask Zeus for one.” Seth and Zeus’s relationship was volatile at best. Their biggest problem was they were two alike, both believing they were right all the time.
As Ra expected, Seth sneered. “I don’t have to ask that sky puncher for anything.” He held up Ra’s phone. “I can just duplicate yours.” Suddenly he was holding a phone in each hand. “Simple.”
“Just make sure you change the number on yours.” Ra flicked a finger, and his phone flew out of Seth’s hand and into his. “I don’t want you getting my calls and messages. Phones are for personal messages and should be kept private.”
“They have a number? Where is it?” Seth turned his around looking at it front and back.
Ra sighed and shook his head. “Every phone has its own unique number. It comes from what mortals call a SIM card, to ensure each individual only gets their own calls and messages. Zeus has his own SIM cards for us immortal beings, through the network he set up on Olympus. All you have to do is ask him for a personalized number for yourself.”
“I’m not calling Zeus on this thing.” Seth clutched his phone to his chest.
“Then ask Paulie.”
“I’ve got no reason to talk to the tiger either.” Seth was glaring now.
“Not Zeus’s Paulie, the phone’s Paulie.” I should’ve left my doors shut and just magicked up some earphones. “iPhones on earth have an app called Siri that will answer any questions you ask it to. Zeus decided he didn’t like Siri, so all god phones have an ‘Ask Paulie’ app. He wanted to help his mate feel valued.” Ra held up his phone. “Here, I’ll show you. Hello Paulie?”
“You can talk to these devices?” Seth looked at his phone, and then around the room as though he expected Zeus’s mate to just appear in front of them.
Ra waved his hand at him to be quiet. Paulie’s voice came out of the phone. “How may I help you today, Ra?”
Seth’s eyes widened and Ra grinned. “Paulie, can you tell us please how Seth can get a personalized number on his phone just for him? He cloned my device, but he needs his own number.”
“Hmm,” Paulie’s voice sounded thoughtful and only slightly tinny. “Cloning of phones is not an acceptable task when dealing with Lord Zeus’s devices. Seth would be well advised to remember that all communications among the gods, and mortals interacting with gods are run through Lord Zeus’s extensive and highly complex systems.”
“It’s too late now. Seth’s already done it, Paulie.” Ra chuckled.
“This proves to be a dilemma. Lord Zeus does not take kindly to gods who use their own powers to disrupt his system – chaos could ensue. However, Lord Zeus also doesn’t allow for his devices to be harmed or disrespected in any way and that could well apply to cloned devices too. I must think.”
There was a long silence.
“Well?” Seth paced the floor. “Is he going to give me my own number or what?”
“You heard him. Paulie’s thinking.” Ra put his finger to his lips.
“I thought Paulie was an app, not the real person.”
“This app thinks. Now hush.”
Sure enough, Paulie’s voice came through again a moment later. “After some consideration, weighing up Lord Zeus’s displeasure at having his system disrupted, against the other option, which was to destroy the cloned device, and then factoring in the long history of distrust and animosity between Lord Zeus and the minor god Seth…”
“I am not a minor god! Am I going to get my number or not?” Seth waved his hands in the air.
“Yes, Seth.” Paulie’s voice sounded so frosty, Ra expected to see icicles on his phone. He marveled at how Zeus could create an independently thinking app that could also show emotion. “Lord Zeus would have no wish to spend any time with you on this matter. Your number will be issued within the next earth hour. Please refrain from using the device until such time as the new number has been set up. In the meantime, if you wish to share your new number with anyone, you may inform any contacts your handle slash username will be A-S-S-H-O-L-E, which in numerical terms is 2-7-7-4-6-5-3. All numbers on Lord Zeus’s system are prefixed by three zeros. Have a good day and all praise the almighty Lord Zeus and his beloved mate Paulie.”