Work Text:
“ So Lizzy,” Travis Tate drawls. “What’s with all the gods and goddesses and what not? I mean, GAIA, Mother Earth, sure, but you really went the whole hog with it.”
She doesn’t look away from her work screen as she answers. “It’s helpful for organizational purposes to have a theme. And most of the Alphas have at least a passing familiarity with classical mythology.”
“Sure, sure,” Travis says. “I just didn’t expect such a down-to-earth, logically-minded scientist like yourself to be so familiar with a bunch of old fairy tales.”
Elisabet rolls her eyes. “I have interests and hobbies outside of robotics and artificial intelligence.”
“Yeah, sure you do. Name one,” he says.
She doesn’t dignify that with a response. Progress reports from the various Alphas are coming in, and she wants to review them as quickly as possible to make sure the timetable is still feasible and allocate more resources to any units that are falling behind.
Unfortunately, Travis doesn’t need two people to hold a conversation.
“Well, I’m mighty honored to be made the HADES Alpha,” he says. “Could’ve been stuck with something a lot worse, like poor Pat. Who the hell heard of ELEUTHIA before all this?”
“Now why would you say a thing like that?” Elisabet asks. “You want to be associated with the god of the dead?”
“Sure, I do,” he says. “I look great in all black.”
“And the kidnapping?”
“The things we do for the people we love,” he says.
She rolls her eyes. “That’s love to you?”
“You never loved someone so much you’d do almost anything to have ‘em?” Travis says. “That’s a damn shame, Liz. A real pity.”
“I’ll get over it somehow,” she says. “What about the trickery and the lying?”
“You mean that business with the pomegranate seeds?” Travis says. “Now there’s where a lot of people get it wrong. That was no trick. Persephone knew the whole time.”
“Uh huh. Sure, Travis.”
“I’m serious. She gets to go from being a flower-picking mama’s girl to the queen of the whole damn underworld, and she still gets to spend half the year in the sun? Nah, little lady knew what she was doing.”
“I suppose you also think they were in love,” Elisabet says, amused despite herself but trying to hide it.
“Of course, they were,” he says. “He made her his queen. He gave her power and love and all the riches of the earth. God of the underworld’s pretty wealthy, you know.”
“And you know more about a bunch of old fairy tales than I would have expected of a technically-minded hacker and cybersecurity specialist.”
She looks up from her reports to see him grinning at her, as smug as if he just breached Far Zenith’s security and leaked their membership list.
“I did some research when I found out the names of this whole Zero Dawn operation. Made a nice change from staring at code or porn,” he says.
Elisabet scoffs. “Classy as ever, Travis.”
“Why, thank you, Lizzy,” he says, undeterred. “And you know, you’re welcome to be my queen of the underworld any time.”
She rolls her eyes. “There aren’t enough jewels in the earth to convince me of that.”
“We’ll see! We’ll see!” he says, wiggling his eyebrows. She chokes back a snort of laughter.
“Get out of here, Travis,” she says. “Get back to work.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he says, still grinning at his own joke.
She sighs as he leaves and tries to focus on the Alpha reports, but thoughts of the underworld keep creeping in instead.