“Good point.” Trevor scrubbed a hand over his face. “I think my brother was right to stay with her. I'm hoping he'll convince her to shut down the machine.”
“So, this isn't about rescuing Ty.” Brahma, looking as slick as always in a suit, motioned a hand at Trevor. “It's about destroying the machine.”
“If we destroy the machine, we destroy all the god items inside it,” I said. “We need to remove the items first.”
“But ve can't do zat either,” Kirill said. “Removing zem destroys zem.”
“We have to separate the parts from the whole.” Odin sat back and crossed his massive arms. “Torrent, you're the expert. Any ideas?”
Torrent's eyes widened. “I'm the expert on the Internet, not machinery. I could unmake it, but I don't know how to dismantle it.”
“You put too much pressure on him!” Artemis slid her arm around Torrent's shoulders, her big brown eyes flashing.
“It's all right, Artie.” Torrent took her arm from his shoulders, put it in his lap, and patted her hand. “I want to help.”
“No, she's right.” I shared a heavy look with Odin. “We put a lot on your shoulders, Torr. If it's too much for you, please tell us.”
“It's not too much; I simply can't do it. You need someone who knows machines.”
“Hephaestus.” Hades moved his hand as if to say, obviously. Persephone had stayed home with their daughter, so she wasn't there to tone down his arrogance. “He may not build machines, but he builds automatons.”
“Have all of you forgotten that I was on the High Council of Atlantis?” Re looked around the table. “I have built many magical machines.” He glanced at me, leaving it unsaid that he'd also built robots. Very advanced robots.
“All right, sunshine.” Pan leaned forward onto the table, the motion disturbing his mop of brown curls to expose one of his little horns. “Impress us. How do we remove the items without harming them?”
Re explained, “To avoid damaging parts during removal, you need to power down the machine and take out its fuel source.”
“You couldn't have mentioned that when we were there?” Trevor growled.
“Well, I didn't think of it until just now, and also, the power core is in the center of the machine. I don't know how to get it out without removing some of the other god items. I might figure it out if I had some time to study the machine. Also,” he held up a hand to stop anyone from speaking, “removing the power source may destroy it, and an exploding power source may injure the one removing it.”
“I can take you back to study it,” Torrent offered. “Though that won't help with the removing part.”
“It might help in other ways.”
“All right, why don't you two do that while the rest of us mull things over?” Thor suggested.
“Sure.” Torrent stood up.
Artemis stood as well. “Be careful.” She kissed him goodbye and remained standing to watch him leave the room with Re.
“He's got the most powerful magic out of all of us,” I reminded Artemis. “He'll be fine.”
She sighed and sat down. “He's so worried about this.”
“We all are,” Trevor said.
“Yeah, sorry.” Artemis slumped in her chair. “I just hate to see him stressed.”
“I'm glad he has you.” I was about to say more when my cellphone vibrated.
It was a text from my human friend, Sommer. I read it and frowned. Read it again. Then I Googled Hawaii news.
“What is it?” Trevor leaned in to look at my phone. “What da?”
I looked up to find everyone staring back at me. “Hawaii is experiencing strange weather.” I turned up the volume on my phone and faced it their way.
The gods leaned forward. With their powerful senses, they could see the small screen without me passing my phone around. On it, a news reporter stood on a street in Hawaii, gesturing at the sky.
