The first thing that hit me was the cold. Not an ordinary cold. Not even a Scandinavia-in-midwinter cold, which wasn’t to be sniffed at. This was a raw iciness that burned through my skin with the ferocity of a killer storm, piercing the spacesuit and the layers underneath within the first few seconds like they were made of tissue paper. Chill that was so cold it didn’t even fully register as a drop in temperature and simply manifested as pain.

I was fairly sure spacesuits were supposed to offer a lot more protection than this. If I got out of this, I was going to peer pressure Tez into taking that engineering course.

I wasn’t sure how a mortal human would have coped in this position, but I wouldn’t have liked their chances. After the first few moments, the pain seemed to settle into a sharp but steady equilibrium, and I was able to work through it. Debilitating as it was, I’d been through much worse. I was, I realised, still on my feet somehow, though something about it felt wrong. Low gravity. That would be it.

To make matters worse, I couldn’t see out of my suit. The inside had fogged up with condensation within instants, rendering me blind for all practical purposes.

A gloved hand fell on my shoulder. Tez. Give me a moment.

Well, I wasn’t going to be doing anything else. Most of my muscles were cramping up and I could barely think straight from the pain.

After what felt like far too long, I heard a small clunk in close proximity, accompanied by the appearance of - I couldn’t believe it – a small feathered blade on oiled roller tracks on the inside of the helmet.

“Unbelievable,” I gasped out, tilting my head and upper body to the side. The blade slowly – more slowly than expected – drifted downwards, brushing off the condensation as it went. I tilted my head the other way and it did the same thing in reverse. By the time it reached the opposite end, the far side was already starting to fog up again. It must have been my earlier comment about the engineering. That joker had just created the world’s least efficient windscreen wiper. But it was an improvement.

I had to keep tilting my head every few seconds to see out of the suit properly, but it did the job. At this point, however, it became clear I had another problem. The surface of the moon did not look like it did on video footage, where everything was bright and grey, defined shadows highlighting every ridge of every footprint. I hadn’t really thought about it before, because it looked so different to Earth, but all that footage had been shot during the day.

We’d arrived at night, and if I wasn’t mistaken, also on the side facing away from the Earth. There was some faint illumination from the stars, but not much made it in through the misting-up visor and the goggles, which I had to admit were doing a decent job of protecting my eyes in comparison to everything else. Tez, in his black suit, was almost invisible, and I could barely even make out the ground. How we were supposed to find anything up here was a mystery.

My fingers felt like stale sausages, but I made a concerted effort to sign.

Anything I do about that is going to draw attention, Tez stated in response. We’re already tiptoeing around the locals; let’s not strain that balance further. Besides, he added, it benefits me.

As a god of night, that made sense. Tez’s domains, multiple, fell under that convenient space many deities occupied where he had ties to many areas of influence, or what was politely known as ‘being a generalist’, which made it all the more remarkable he’d managed to avoid being rendered powerless. Most of Providence’s senior management were also generalists; the tyrant liked to surround himself with versatile henchmen. When my powers were operational, I came in at the other end of the spectrum, specialising in just one thing, but doing it very, very well. To an extent, thinking of it as a spectrum at all could be misleading, because at a certain level of expertise you tended to hit a point where there became fewer and fewer differences between specialisation and generalism, and the whole thing disintegrated into an indistinct blobby mass of abstract connections. Which was how gods worked, when it came right down to it. Even Providence was management’s attempt to slap a framework of procedure and order on top of something inherently chaotic. No wonder it was doing such a poor job.

I signed.

Between the poor light and impaired vision, I couldn’t get a look at his face or much of his body language, which was frustrating.

There’s a hidden bunker around here somewhere, he explained, gesturing out over the barren expanse.

I’ll find it, he said, pivoting around to examine the landscape. I see it happening. It just… all looks the same. It’s not like there are any landmarks to go on.

I sighed, immediately fogging up my helmet again, and reached out with an arm that felt ready to snap into pieces. He turned back to face me before it made contact.

I signed. I couldn’t hold out for long up here. Cold aside, I recognised the familiar headache beginning that signaled I was out of official jurisdiction. Not only that, but the air in our tanks would run out before long, and then I’d really be in trouble. All together, it was miserable.

Bad idea, he argued, aware of what I was about to suggest before it even occurred to me. No one can know we’re here. It won’t end well.

It took me a couple of seconds to mentally catch up. He’d mentioned locals earlier. It had to be a reference to the moon gods. There was usually at least one in every pantheon. They had special jurisdiction extensions. Most of them were living personifications of the moon, too, which meant that technically Tez and I were traipsing around on their body, in a sense. I wasn’t sure if that meant they all shared a common 'moon' body, because every time I’d ever asked, my questions had been met with evasiveness and dark looks. It was all a bit weird, and I got the impression none of them were particularly happy with the state of affairs.

There were allies among the moon gods, though. It would be a risk to our cover, yes, but –

I haven’t, said Tez.

He was getting ahead of himself, anticipating my questions before I even knew what I was going to ask. Sloppy. The conditions must have been getting to him too. So he did need the suit, then, which was interesting.

I signed. Then,

I have now, Tez said, sounding frustrated. Carefully. You’re right; she’s helpful. In the short term. But I’m warning you, the more people in on the plan, the less I can guarantee it stays secret.

He obviously hadn’t figured out I was planning to fill Lucy in on the details later. He was right, of course, but I knew Mayari, and she was firmly in Lucy’s camp. Enemy of my enemy and all that.

I insisted. I hadn’t come this far just to get stymied by the landscape.

It’s on you if it goes wrong, he said, and laid a hand on my arm. Reality warped around us – though it wasn’t very obvious. A slightly different patch of soil. The change barely registered.

We waited. I wasn’t sure why Tez had brought us to this particular spot until I felt the earth shake below my feet. Upon investigation, I saw that a section of the ground was opening up a short distance away. To my eyes it looked like a black chasm against a backdrop of slightly lighter darkness, a perfect circle cut into the surface. It wasn’t large; less than about ten metres across. The vibrations in the earth were still rumbling.

Incoming, said Tez unnecessarily.

Something was coming up the pit. I saw the glow first, a dim silver light increasing in brightness, and then the mechanical platform attached to it.

Riding it up was Mayari, her identity unmistakable. Suitless, she wore a simple short-sleeved tunic, shirt and trousers in shades of green-tinted grey, a bulky work belt slung over her hips from which dangled a variety of metal tools. Her waist-long hair flowed loose from her head, twining around her like ribbons with every movement. It was silvery grey, but the face underneath was young and unmarred, except for a slight asymmetry around the eyes. In the darkness, her body glowed with a soft silver light, allowing me to see her clearly.

Like me, Mayari didn't have access to her powers. As a lunar goddess, however, her default state was very different to my own and granted her certain convenient dispensations at the cost of having to answer some awkward questions if she ever set foot in an earthly medical facility. Or, in fact, most situations where she had to deal with mortals face to face. Last I heard, she was deep into the rave scene because it was one of the few places she could blend in.

She waved to us, and with an arcing leap hopped off the elevator before it completed its ascension, landing on the ground so that a tiny cloud of dust puffed up around her feet.

she signed in greeting. It was an easier means of address than spelling out Tez's full name in sign language.

If you can keep a secret, that shouldn’t be an issue, said Tez. We could use your help. We’re looking for a secret bunker.

I added.

she said, pointing a thumb back over her shoulder.

I signed back.

She nodded, motioning towards the centre of the platform.

My knees were stiff and didn’t want to bend, but the low gravity made it easier to jump forwards with minimal effort. Once we were all on the platform, Mayari approached the pole in the centre, unhinged a lid at the top, and pressed down on the button it revealed. With a slight initial jerk, the dais began to descend at a slow but steady pace. It looked to be made of iron or steel, with that criss-cross pattern you sometimes saw on anti-slip surfaces. Industrial-type materials you’d expect to see in a factory, built for function rather than aesthetics.

she said, grinning.

The platform descended down the equivalent of two storeys, emerging into a small chamber hollowed out from the rock. Mayari ducked through an opening in one of the walls and around a corner, disappearing from view, and popped her head back out a moment later to beckon to us.

We followed through a series of metal doors with handles like valve wheels - air locks, I guessed. After the third door, the cold eased off dramatically and my body cried out in pain as some of the more frazzled nerves started to remember how they were supposed to operate.

We’d come through into a storage room the size of a small boutique café. By Mayari’s light, I could see boxes, crates and loose equipment stacked along each wall. Sinister shadows with long, twisting tendrils danced around the room as she moved through it, optical phantasms cast by the innocuously misleading exposed root systems of hundreds of small plants lining the ceiling.

My suit vanished as Tez dismissed it, and I dropped a couple of centimetres in the vacuum the boots left behind. It was still cold, but the temperature seemed bearable. My arms had swollen up a bit, supported by the stretchy-but-firm material of the wetsuit, but the damage didn’t feel too bad. With uncooperative fingers, I pulled off the gloves and goggles and took a deep breath. It didn’t go far.

“The oxygen’s thin here,” said Mayari, noticing my efforts. “This place is designed to support one person per chamber. With three of us, we’re going to have to work a little harder.”

“I can fix that,” Tez stated, and I could feel the pressure in my chest ease off as he flooded the room with oxygen. Of course, I realised belatedly. I’d never really been in danger of my air tank running out as long as Tez was around. Chalk it up to the cold addling my brain.

“Appreciated,” said Mayari.

“Never was a truer word spoken,” I agreed. “I’m not looking forward to going out there again.”

Mayari clasped her hands together in front of her waist. “Your suits can be improved,” she said diplomatically. “Let me take a look before you leave and I can suggest some modifications. But in the meantime, what’s this all about? I assume you didn’t risk coming here just to say hi.”

I glanced at Tez, who shrugged. “We found out where Providence is keeping the power suppressants,” I revealed.

Her mouth fell open in a small ‘O’. “That's big news. You think they’re here?”

“Not here here,” said Tez. “But they’re on the moon. In a different underground bunker. We’ve come to ask your help in finding it.”

“I was about to say,” she said, looking somewhat frazzled. “I’m not aware of anything like that. As far as I know, the only established lunar structure is the one you’re standing in. But if you’re speaking the truth, we have to do something about it. It takes some serious gall to house the instruments of oppression on my land.”

With long, floating strides, she walked over to a door on the far side of the room and pushed it open. Beyond, the bunker opened up into a larger and taller cylindrical space containing scattered workbenches and materials, a dilapidated mattress and various unfamiliar metal contraptions of ambiguous purpose. Some hung from the ceiling in between the rows of plants. It had a bit of a da Vinci steampunk vibe happening, if the aforementioned genius had lived on the moon and had access to an eclectic mish-mash of twentieth and twenty-first century technology.

“Make yourself at home,” she said. “I’ll help how I can. If you can pull one over on that bastard Yahweh, you’ll have my full support. If you can restore my powers while you’re at it, I’ll be your fricking retainer.”

I shot Tez an ‘I told you so’ kind of look, which he ignored.

“If we do get your powers back,” I began, “You’re going to have to keep it quiet. Otherwise we all go down together.”

She nodded in acknowledgment. “Understood. It’s not ideal, but I can keep a secret. I’m certainly not going to run around proclaiming it from the rooftops.” She raised a finger at me. “But here’s a question for you, Loki: Assuming you succeed, what are you planning to do with your newfound powers? What’s your plan?”

Tez and I looked at each other. “I don’t have one yet,” I confessed, resisting the urge to massage my temples. The headache had kicked up a few more notches over the last few minutes. “Keeping all my options open seems like the smart thing to do right now. At the moment I’m more concerned with getting to point B without being demoted.”

“And you, Tezcatlipoca? Why are you helping her out?”

He glanced at me for a long moment. “Because I think she can pull it off,” he said eventually.

“Thank you,” I said. “Pull what off?”

“The revolution,” they said in unison.