Chapter 003

Thor could feel the steam pouring out of his ears. He imagined himself as some unfortunate fool in a Bugs Bunny cartoon, crouched down on the floor next to the photocopier machine, parts scattered across the low-pile carpet, his uniform gray trousers covered in toner.

He cursed in unintelligible syllables under his breath. The toner cartridge had come apart in his hands, again. Just as other cartridges had done every day thus far this week, and twice just this morning. Whether he was too strong or simply too impatient for such menial work didn’t matter. He sucked at it either way.

Thor pitched the broken cartridge into his canvas utility bag and wiped his hands across his shirt — streaking black stripes across the white polyester fabric — before pulling out a new one. He took a deep breath, trying to remember the relaxation mantra his mother had taught him. He’d burned through six jobs in the past two years, and needed to keep his cool. The others had gradually found a way to make peace with their more mundane lives and the need to earn a living, but getting and keeping a job had not come easily to Thor.

He was having the most difficulty adjusting to the life of an ordinary guy — except perhaps for Loki. His historically mischievous uncle had practically had to go underground, unable to cope with the rapid technological advances of the last century or so. It had started with a few blown out light bulbs and sewing machines, but quickly escalated over the ensuing decades. It was entirely possible Loki had been unintentionally responsible for the 1963 Chicago blackout, and Tir had nearly blown a gasket at his own Superbowl party this year — as soon as Loki got within five yards of Tir’s new 50-inch flat-screen plasma TV, the display had fizzled out entirely with just a puff of smoke.

“Peace,” Thor whispered to himself, eyes half-closed and head bowed. “Peace.” An odd choice of mantra for the god of thunder and lightning, but it got the job done. He took another breath, opened his eyes, and ever so carefully peeled the plastic wrap off of the fresh toner cartridge and gingerly slipped it into place inside the machine. When the cartridge didn’t want to click into position, Thor visualized a cool waterfall gently pouring restorative waters over his head and down the back of his neck. He reached deeper into the machine and gently pressed down on the cartridge, smiling in a deep mixture of satisfaction and relief when he heard the familiar click of the plastic snapping into place.

“There now,” he said to himself as he leaned back away from the photocopier. “Piece of cake.”

Thor nearly broke into a celebratory smile, and then surveyed the litter of photocopier parts strewn about him on all sides — parts he’d unceremoniously ripped out of the machine trying to get to the malfunctioning toner cartridge in the first place.

“Bloody godless hell.” Kneeling on the floor, Thor pressed his palms down on his thighs, jaw clenched. What he wouldn’t have given for a thunderbolt, just one — one big enough to obliterate all photocopier machines across the globe, any factories that might manufacture more of them, and the person or persons responsible for their invention in the first place. Was that too much to ask?

He picked up a small, odd-shaped plastic part in toner-smeared fingers and rotated it first left, then right. He had no idea what it was or where it was supposed to go. He’d have to consult the manual, a massive six-inch three-ring binder packed full of enough useless diagrams and miniscule print to make the old god’s head hurt.

He hated having to consult the manual.

Thor reached into his utility bag and hefted out the cursed vinyl binder, but the pager clipped to his belt went off just as he’d flipped it open to the index. His father’s four-digit code flashed on the electronic display, and Thor heaved a sigh of relief. Maybe there was a crisis — a forest fire, a flash flood, a small village being harassed by a troll — anything to call him away from 9-to-5 photocopier hell.

Scrambling to his feet, he clipped the pager back on his belt and thundered down the hallway toward the call center’s front desk desk. The middle aged receptionist was waiting for him.

“You need something, hon?” she smiled up beneath thick glasses. “From the sound of you storming down that hallway, I’d bet that machine’s giving you one bear of a time.”

Thor rested one hip against her desk and forced a more pleasant expression onto his face. His mother had warned him against needlessly — accidentally — upsetting or frightening the humans. “I’m just a big guy,” he shrugged. “Kind of hard for me to not make a ruckus.”

The receptionist raised her eyebrows and looked him up and down appreciatively. “I’ll say.” She dropped a collection of file folders on her desk and lean toward him. “Can I help you with something, or what?”

Thor took a step back and gestured toward the plastic box attached to his waist. “Yeah, I just got paged. Can you get me an outside line.”

She nodded and pointed toward a telephone on a low table near the window, next to an upholstered chair and a tall plant that had both seen better days. “Just dial 9, hon.”

Thor practically tiptoed across the carpet, trying to be less obtrusive. He wiped his hands across his shirt again before picking up the phone, but still managed to smudge the white plastic with black toner. He hit 9, waited for the dial tone, then punched in Odin’s number.

“Dad? I got your page.” Thor looked over his shoulder and smiled at the receptionist, who made no attempt to disguise that she was eavesdropping.

Thor heard a shuffle of activity on the other end of the phone as his father closed the door to his office and sat down behind his desk.

“We’d like you home tonight for a family dinner.”

Thor sat down in the upholstered chair — if you could call his hulking frame barely on the cushion edge sitting — and hunched up his shoulders, trying to gain some privacy from the receptionist just a few feet away.

“What’s going on,” Thor said in a low voice, lips practically touching the phone’s mouthpiece.

“We have a Berserker on the loose.”

Thor’s brows furrowed deeply. “On the loose? What do you mean, ‘on the loose’? Those guys answer to you.” He stopped himself, taking a moment to get his anger in check. He exhaled loudly, then continued. “I mean, are you sure? They haven’t been around for cen—” Thor felt the eyes of the receptionist on his back. “… Uh, for a long time.”

“I know what I saw,” came his father’s patient reply. We are convening at the family hall this evening. I’m counting on you to be there.”

Thor cleared his throat. He tried shifting his weight in the chair, but the squeal the frame gave let him know that splintering was imminent. He rose to his feet and rubbed the back of his neck. “Why don’t I just come over now? We’ll need a game plan for how to tackle this—”

“You will stay and finish your work. We will discuss and plan this evening.”

“Come on, I’m your right hand man. If there’s really a Bers—… If there’s really one of those out there, we need to get on this.” Thor ran a big hand through his thick, blond hair, now tinged with both a bit of gray and toner ink. “How could such a thing even happen to begin with?” An electronic whine interrupted the call, and Thor relaxed his grip on the handset.

“Son.” Odin spoke in the slow measured tones he knew would cut through Thor’s impulsive excitement. “There is much to consider, and I will use this time to look more deeply into this matter and to marshall our forces. In the meantime, you have a job to do.”

Thor glanced quickly at the receptionist, still watching his every move, and turned his back on her. “Dad, so help me, if I have to deal with one more load error or paper jam….” He left out the part about having torn apart his current client’s photocopier and about having no idea how to put it back together again.

There was silence on the other end of the line. That was never a good sign. Thor sucked in his breath. “Or I could just stay here and get this job done.”

“Very good.”

Thor checked back over his shoulder, and caught the receptionist checking out his butt. She didn’t try to hide it, either, but gave him a wink and a flirty tilt of her head.

“I’ll see you and Mom tonight.” Thor replaced the telephone handset and tried not to grimace too obviously when he saw the deep dent his thumb had made in the plastic.

“Thanks.” He nodded quickly to the receptionist as he turned around.

“Anytime, hon,” she replied with a light sing-song in her voice.

Frowning, Thor shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his toner-covered trousers and trudged back down the hall to the photocopier.

*****

Slapping the steering wheel in time with the windshield wipers, Managarm pulled his dusty Suburban off of Highway 26 onto the short drive leading into the wooded park. The rain couldn’t have come at a better time — not that light, persistent sprinkle that a near constant in the Pacific Northwest in the fall and winter, but a chilly driving rain, one of the first of the seasons.

The Suburban sloshed through deep puddles as it curved into the parking area. Not another car in sight. Managarm smiled, shifted the vehicle into park, and shut off the engine. He sat for a moment behind the wheel, listening to the patter of rain on the metal hull of the car. Very much like the sound of the rain coming down on a newly built longhouse, before the roof had been lined with turf for insulation.

Before too much longer, Managarm thought, there will be longhouses aplenty, once again. Longhouses and fire pits and longships and raiders.

He pulled the keys out of the ignition and stepped out of the car into the pouring rain. His body shuddered as the cold water first hit him squarely on his bare head. Managarm reached back into the car and pulled out a wide-brimmed rain hat, pushed it down firmly on his head, and zipped up his fleece pullover. He reached down behind the driver’s seat to pull out a hack saw, then slammed the door shut. He made his way toward the wide wooden ramp leading up to where the sitka spruce used to stand, and grunted when he sank shin deep in a puddle, cold water splashing up over the top of his boot and seeping down into his socks to chill his skin.

He fought the urge to curse. Rain hadn’t been an issue for him before, nor cold, until more recently. They were all of them growing weaker, more feeble, prone to the elements like newborn goats.

“Fucking Odin,” he grumbled, finally giving into his bad temper. Reaching the ramp, his boots squished against the boards as he climbed to where the old tree had once towered. Thousands of visitors over the years had made this same trek west of Portland, to have photos taken beside the tree and touch its trunk. Small shreds of yellow caution tape littered the ground, left over from the spruce’s last days. Split open by a wicked wind storm, the 700-year-old giant had finally succumbed a year later when the winds returned. There was little more for the forest service to do at that point than cut down the ancient corpse.

Visitors still came to see the stump of the Klootchy Creek Giant, nearly 100-feet tall by deteriorating rapidly.

Managarm took a quick look around to confirm that he didn’t have an audience, then jumped down off the platform onto the soggy ground below, ducking down beneath the wooden barriers to approach the massive stump. He reached out and rested a palm against the remains of the tree and listened. After a moment, he shook his head and began to smile. There was no life left in the tree.

He took a few steps to either side, surveying the most accessible portions. He found a large knot toward the base and raised his hacksaw, getting to work. It was slower going than he’d anticipated, but then he’d never been a mortal before, sawing wood out in the rain. Hunched over, he cursed Odin and most every other member of the old pantheon with every stroke, as cold rain ran down the back of his neck.

The saw came to the bottom of the knot, and a round slab of wood eighteen inches in diameter and about three inches fell free to the ground. Managarm rested the saw against the base of the stump and weighed the wooden slab in his hands.

Yes, this would get the job done. This would do just fine.

He stood upright and stared at the bark of the stump, feeling a cold respect creep into his bones. It hadn’t been the tree’s fault that the world had come to this. The tree was a font of wisdom and power; it had no control over how it was used. This old shell of the tree was just one of many over the millennia, as the tree was born and took root, grew up tall and strong, and then ultimately died and rotted away in this endless cycle set into motion long before Managarm had ever come into existence. It was a major part of the grander scheme he sought to destroy.

Managarm pursed his lips against the cold rain. His blue jeans were now drenched and sticking to him. Cradling the wooden slab in one arm, he hefted the hacksaw over one shoulder and turned to head back toward the car, walking beneath the shelter of the walking ramp above.

He yanked open the door of the Suburban, whose rusty hinges protested in a loud, squeaking groan, and shoved the saw back behind the driver’s seat. He slid in behind the wheel, resting the round piece of wood on the seat beside him, and started up the engine.

The others would no doubt be hunting for the young tree, but they didn’t have his magic. They’d abandoned the old ways when it had become obvious their powers were in permanent decline. Managarm laughed, trying to imagine the mighty Odin and the others trying to live as humans, amongst the very rabble they had once dominated and ruled.

“Serves them right.” Managarm hit the lights and switched on the windshield wipers. He turned left onto Highway 26, heading back east toward Hillsboro, toward the Fred Meyer where he’d stop off for supplies for the night before disappearing again into the forest to continue his work.

And coffee. He definitely needed more coffee, to warm up, to keep going. He cursed his own body’s mortal stamina. Damned Odin and his meddling. They were all having to pay for the old fool’s hubris.