Breaking the Gods

Chapter 10

Almost immediately, Nico made an incredible discovery.

Anubis? Anubis! I can read!

For the first time in his life, Nico was able to look at something written in the English language without the letters swimming around on the page, changing their order on him, or flipping around so they were backwards. Before he'd always had to devote every bit of his not-so-considerable concentration just to figure out what a single paragraph said, and by the time he'd finished it, he'd lost interest. Now, with all of his demigod powers and throwbacks being blocked, reading was practically effortless.

Anubis felt his excitement and seemed amused. I'm sorry you can't commemorate the occasion by curling up with a good book.

Shut up. This is big for me. I can read a whole paragraph without getting bored or confused. I can read a whole page without getting bored or confused!

Enjoy it while it lasts, advised Anubis.

That thought was a bit sobering, but Nico had already known his new-found reading skills weren't permanent.

He wasn't even able to fully enjoy it while it lasted since he had a job to do. He ended up doing more skimming than reading as he searched for relevant information about his enemies and what they were doing. A lot of it was confusing. Even though he was now able to read, that didn't automatically grant him a better vocabulary. There were lots of medical terms and other big words in the notes and documents Nico found in the file cabinets and on the desk that even Anubis didn't know what they meant.

Procedure successfully removed the layer of altered melanin from subject's iris . . . Nico furrowed his brow. What's melanin?

I don't know.

While one 30 second exposure to lasers is sufficient to permanently remove said layer in normal humans, demigods require follow up treatments. Wait, wait, wait! Am I reading this right? They're cutting peoples' eyes up with laser? Nico was horrified.

It's not necessarily as bad as it sounds. Lasers can be used to correct problems with human vision, Anubis told him.

But to cut layers out of their eyes? Nico couldn't help but shudder. That sounds really freaking horrible. That doesn't even happen in the Field of Punishment.

I don't see how it's much different than cutting out someone's wisdom teeth.

It's just different. Trust me on that, said Nico, then he read on. Concerns about pig . . .men . . . tary glau . . . oma? Is that what that word is?

I don't know, and I don't know what it means.

What good are you? teased Nico. Concerns about pigmentary glaucoma seem to not be valid . . . chronic eye seepage not occurring in any test subjects, damn that sounds nasty. Neither have the development of cataracts been a problem, however coloration of demigod eyes differs from those of normal humans, resulting in a vivid, overly bright shade of blue. It is possible this is caused by repeated removal of melanin, but paranormal explanations cannot be ruled out at this stage.

Nico took a deep breath as he tried to process the information he'd just acquired. So they're removing this melanin stuff from demigods' eyes and deliberately turning them blue. The question is why. Any ideas?

Anubis gave the telepathic equivalent of a shrug. It must be for more than merely cosmetic purposes.

Nico frowned, remembering another organization that had been a big fan of blue eyes . . . of course they'd also liked blond hair too. They'd been trying create some sort of master race. Could this be a new incarnation of that old idea? Somehow Nico didn't think so. Demigods weren't a race. They were hybrids. They could have kids, yeah, if they didn't get eaten by monsters before they got old enough for that, but their kids rarely inherited their gifts. Besides, even if these people were trying to put together some sort of master race, using demigods as the basis for it, why were they so bothered about getting all their eyes blue? They seemed to already know that a demigod's lineage could be determined by their eyes. That gave them an indication of what kind of powers they could expect from most any given demigod. Even if they were trying to clone demigods or transplant their powers somehow, the eyes of their knockoffs were still likely to let them know what they could expect from their creations.