While fit, anyone who climbed stairs knew how taxing it could be on the body. By the thirtieth floor, he needed a break. He paused on a landing that had a single door, bronze with carvings. It tempted him to open, and the very fact it distracted had him snatching his hand away from the knob.
He continued upward, wishing the various levels had numbers so he could see how far he’d gone—and how much remained. No one had ever actually counted all the levels and stairs. He should have asked Ishtar since the Martians built it. What he did know? He had to move faster or by the time he reached the penthouse, he’d have no time to prepare for the Kukakk’s arrival on Mars. At that point, he still assumed hecould actually make the ascent. As the hours passed, and the muscles in his legs knotted, it seemed less and less likely.
At the fourteen-hour mark, he collapsed. Spasms in his thighs, splints in his calves, and pure exhaustion took him down.
“Nimrod. Please,” he called out for the millionth time. “Help me.”
A warm cocoon enveloped him. Finally. He sighed and closed his eyes as it zoomed him—to his apartment door.
He blinked at it in disbelief.
No.
No.
No!
He glared at his door before pivoting to eye the stairs. “You’re a fucking dick,” he grumbled, and he began climbing again.
Ten flights before Nimrod zoomed him back down.
His next attempt he managed five.
His third try? He only had the choice of going down.
Nimrod apparently had decided he wasn’t going to Mars.
And so Aquarius did what any self-respecting warrior would do when stymied for a mission.
He sulked.
And ate.
And drank beer.
Sure, he could have been more productive, giving his brothers a hand tracking and countering the militant groups hunting out the non-Alien-Jesus believers. But instead, he pulled a Leo and wallowed in his misery.
Ishtar was gone.
The Kukakk would be arriving at Mars in the next day or so.
The clone he’d been counting on would probably be the first thing the alien destroyed.
The bomb would be dismantled and stripped of its gems and the whole thing repurposed.
Hell, what was to stop the fucker from finding the portal that would bring it to Tower? Assuming it could use it. Maybe it couldn’t. After all, the Astraeus powered them, and the two beings weren’t compatible. But did blindness still apply when the fucker possessed a human body?
Didn’t matter. Earth was fucked.
On the morning of the third day, as he lay in his gross bed, unbathed, covered in Cheeto dust, his jaw an unshaven scraggly mess, a warm nudge had him muttering, “Fuck off, Nimrod. I’m not talking to you.”
Tower didn’t take no for an answer and dumped him onto the floor.
He rose to his feet and lasered the ceiling with his gaze. “Leave me alone.”
Nimrod did not leave him alone. Nimrod used a fist of air to shove him in the direction of the bathroom.
Aquarius protested by spreading his arms and halting his entry. “I am not bathing. I don’t care how badly I stink.”
