I strode back through Providence’s front doors with a small army in my pocket. Lucy’s hip flask, back to its original form, weighed down the inner layer of one of my robes and bumped uncomfortably against my side, a small price to pay for the prize. Djehuti must have seen a glimmer of it on my face. The god of words stood aside without challenge as I took the demons to the managerial lift.

Others had joined him; staff from Helpdesk down to see the commotion, and several from the powered middle floors. I breezed past them all, swiping Odin’s card at the reader only a few could see and not caring if it became common knowledge.

Even someone of my unique brand of insight couldn’t be right all the time. Siphon’s planned end game had been a lot closer to fruition than anyone had thought, even themselves. By accident and underestimation, they’d worked their way up the corporate hierarchy until twenty-two now-decontaminated gods waited dormant in their database, all of which we’d replicated – a staggering number given the struggle to take one down by traditional methods. That one of them was Vishnu went to show how little and late the reaction had been. Thanks to outdated intel from Yun-Qi, most of them weren’t friendly with Providence.

The full floor tree unfurled on the wall in its illuminated glory. I swiped Odin’s pass again, selecting the level at the very top of the gibberish chart amid blue swirls and curlicues absent from the items below. Nothing to stop me now.

Gia yelped as the doors shut behind us, and finished decontaminating one of the gods outside. The laptop vanished from her hands shortly afterwards. Time was limited. We couldn’t afford to waste it, even on something that important.

I tapped on the side of the hip flask to get my guests’ attention. How are things in there?

Themis had listened to the whole story, growing grimmer the longer it had gone on. I’d braced for the inevitable accusations, but instead she’d surprised me.

[You’re the closest to a leader we have, then, from multiple different angles. Until I can verify the truth, I have no choice but to take you at your word. Do you claim temporary ownership?]

A question like that coming from Themis was dangerous, even when depowered. [I prefer ‘business auditor’,] I’d replied cautiously. [But I do declare ex-leadership and its succession invalid due to undue external influence and/or general malignancy, whichever you prefer. Good enough for you?]

[I can work with it.]

[Then you’ll help?]

[‘Overwhelming’ doesn’t begin to cover the level of trouble you’re in. But if what you say is true, Baldr must be dealt with. Despite what you may think, I do what I do for the sake of order. And that, it seems, detonated the moment I wasn’t around to keep an eye on it.]

She didn’t have eyes at all anymore, which made her somewhat reliant on my input. An important detail, given what she could do, but I didn’t pick Themis for a liar. Uneasy though it was, a truce was a truce. She was keeping the others under control for now.

Poor, Themis replied to my current question. What else did you expect?

Fair. What do you know about the uppermost storeys in the building? I asked, changing the subject.

Less than I should. Executive access only, and otherwise strictly forbidden. I’ve speculated on the contents, but it doesn’t get me any closer to answers. Frankly, it’s a waste of time. The energy is better spent dealing with matters conceivably within our control.

They’re in our control now, I declared, to the accompaniment of the lift opening.

Darkness yawned beyond. I wasn’t sure what I’d been expecting – something surreal and metaphysical, perhaps – but I stepped out onto another floor laid with Providence’s signature white marble. It resembled Yahweh’s office, except without the lighting. The only illumination shining in came from the lift we’d entered by, and it didn’t reach far beyond a small white and blue-tinted halo around the door. What I could see looked empty to the point of desolation.

I turned back and saw no call button. Not the kind of detail you wanted to miss, either as a visitor or a construction crew. So. That was a thing.

“Stay here and don’t let the door close,” I instructed the demons, passing over the flask containing the Siphon victims. “Sit in it, stick your foot in the entrance, whatever.” That was the problem with making your only access point an elevator, even if it never broke down; it could still be monopolised by leading it to a floor and facetiously stabbing the button. Decades of modern architectural practices had taught the tyrant nothing.

“Are you sure?” asked Gia, looking less than enthused about being left alone in the universe’s best kept secret.

“God no. But I should probably find out what I’m burning before I burn it. The trouble they went to to hide it –” or contain it, “– it has to be important.” I thought about it for a second and conjured a pair of broad necklaces, then covered the beads in runic protections. I pulled them off my neck and held them out. “It’s not much, but it should ward off some things. Mostly from my own pantheon, but you never know. If you see Bragi, this should wipe the grin off his face.”

“Loki?”

“Mmm?”

“Are we part of your pantheon?”

“Probably. Mine and Lucy’s, which makes you unenviably related to a bunch of egotistical maniacs.” I nodded towards the necklaces. “Can you feel the magic in those?”

“I think so.”

“Then yes.” I took a step further back into the giant room. “Don’t let the door shut. I’ll be back.”

If the outside of the building was to be believed, the higher floors should have narrowed and tapered. Instead, this felt larger than the rest. The exception being Yahweh’s personal suite. I wasn’t sure why it was necessary, if they weren’t going to put anything in it.

I walked for a few minutes, footsteps disappearing into the blackness and dropping a trail of sowilo runes behind me for illumination. I didn’t seem to be getting anywhere. If it was a misdirection spell, it was a good one; the trail at my back shone clear and steady in a straight line.

The room was large enough I couldn’t feel its boundaries. Abandoning walking, I dissolved into air and extended my reach, searching for something my eyes might have missed. The place of power let me go far. It was some time before I found the ceiling, the walls still nowhere in reach. I kept going. I thought I was reaching further than I had in a very long time, though the lack of landmarks made it hard to tell.

Eventually I found something; a high pillar of rock far, far away from the lift. It itself was enormous. Taller than Providence on the outside, and slightly thinner. It didn’t feel like polished marble. The stone was rougher and weathered, bearing wide columns and ornate carvings I couldn’t make sense of.

Large arches peppered the walls, acting like open windows. I made use of them and wound myself around the interior, exploring the small empty rooms full of arches and preserved furniture. And stairs, lots of them. Ancient, not modern, ricocheting back and forth up the inside of the pillar in narrow, steep inclines.

I condensed myself into one of the rooms, briefly, and scratched another sowilo on the slabs beneath my feet. They slowly illuminated, exposing bright, painted reliefs in blue, gold and red. Fancy, and the style was familiar, if only through second-hand information. If I wasn’t mistaken, Mesopotamian – though Akkadian or Sumerian, I wasn’t sure.

This had something to do with Enki.

Leaving the rune where it was, I picked back up where I’d left off, winding up the column with a cursory check in each of its rooms. Preserved though they were, I found nothing more exciting than furniture. No obvious secrets or powerful treasures. Which was fine, because I’d already found the interesting part the moment I’d located the structure: an impenetrable hemisphere perched atop the pillar, as wide as a mansion and completely opaque to my gas form.

I coiled my way up and stepped out onto the roof as Odin. More runes proved unnecessary; the dome, set thirty metres back from the shaft’s edge, exuded a bright warm light forming a beacon in the darkness. It radiated out onto the uneven brown stone under my feet; roughness worn smooth by many feet over many years.

In this form, I could see into it clearly. Inside stood a smaller building – more of an unenclosed shelter – comprised of many tall arches. Lush trees and bushes twined around it, weaving in and out of the windows providing shade, apparently flourishing despite the lack of a sun. It sat in the middle of a larger grassy glade whose edges stopped in a near perfect circle where the dome kicked in.

And on the grass, reclining with eyes closed, lay two figures.

The first was a young, beautiful woman. Dark and curly-haired, she wore a panelled gold dress in a simple cut, folded to accommodate two equally golden wings. Though she couldn’t have been more different to angels than night to day. Angels didn’t sleep, for one thing, and her sprawl at rest alone held more personality than Yahweh’s recruits from the uncanny valley.

The second was a bull. Larger and more muscular than its mortal equivalent, its coat was dark brown and glossy, and the curved horns sprouting from its skull were almost as tall as the rest of it.

I didn’t quite know what to make of the scene, and watched them for a while in silence before reaching out a hand to the rim of the dome.

The woman’s eyes opened, fixed on me from the first flicker of movement. They matched her wings. She rose to her feet, relaxation draining from her features, and crossed the verdant ring until her unfamiliar figure stood before me on the other side of the barrier. Waiting.

“So,” I began, in the absence of any other cues, “who are you?”

Unhurried, the unfamiliar goddess waited a few moments before answering in a language I didn’t know. Sumerian or Akkadian again, I guessed, though couldn’t be sure.

“I don’t suppose you’re any better with Latin? Or Sanskrit?” I tried reaching out mentally, but could immediately tell it wasn’t getting through. I placed my hand on the invisible dome, where it rested like it would on any other wall. Not a dimensional barrier, unfortunately, and I didn’t think I could shift it. Watching the goddess, I didn’t see the surprise or unfamiliarity I’d expect towards a stranger. She and Odin had met. “Old Norse?” I switched into, on the off-chance.

The woman squinted at me, clearly not understanding. She uttered another string of unintelligible gibberish, then gestured at me with her brows raised in curiosity.

Well, this was a dead end. None of the demons or soul jarred gods had language powers as far as I knew, and even Djehuti had more to do with the writing part of words than the deciphering. Support was thin on the ground.

What was interesting was the indifference with which she seemed to react to Odin. Not enemies, probably, and not friends. Maybe I was approaching as the wrong person.

I shifted into a perfect replica of Enki, and watched as her body immediately tensed, eyes flicking furtively to the sides. Interesting. She inched forwards, one shoulder ahead of the other, and spoke in a guarded tone in the same language as before. It was the reaction of someone fairly sure I wasn’t who I pretended to be, but with a faint sliver of doubt.

One more. I put my hands by my sides and imitated the tyrant in all his condescending glory. This time, the reaction morphed into clear disgust. The winged goddess stepped forward, though still out of arm’s reach of the barrier, and raised her voice in anger. I didn’t need to speak the language to understand what she meant this time: ‘Who are you?’

I dropped into a new form again, one I didn’t mind being associated with my actual self. I made it handsome and approachable without being quite as distracting as Lucy, considering I wanted my companion to focus. I gave it a moment and raised a hand to my chest, bowing slightly at the waist, and enunciated my name clearly.

When no sign of recognition surfaced, I twisted the hand to point at my conversation partner. “And you are?”

The woman hesitated, but then copied the motion with careful deliberation. Then, with great clarity on each syllable, she spoke a single word: “Inanna.”

I didn’t try to hide my surprise. It fit – Inanna, Enki’s daughter, everyone knew of Inanna; she was a big name – except for one small detail. Inanna was supposed to be dead. Not demoted. Dead. Since before the wars, before all of it. Back when Lucy had still had siblings, and well before I was born. She might have been resurrected, but why? To keep Enki in line as reward or punishment? Hostages were usually against form for Providence, but Enki being Enki, perhaps they made an exception.

And then there was the bull, almost certainly a god in his own right. My eyes wandered in his direction and Inanna followed them. She turned and raised an arm towards the sleeping creature. “Baal.”

Another dead god, or so I’d been told. This one killed by the tyrant in one of his earlier fits of jealousy, also before the wars. The crazy thought crossed my mind that maybe a physical afterlife had survived and I’d stumbled into its installation at the top of Providence. I’d already seen a sample with Valhalla. Enki had overseen the restructure; perhaps he’d arranged for his child to be spared.

Possibilities were cheap, though, and the truth more elusive. Inanna had been here for some time; the language barrier made that obvious. The strangest part was the secrecy. What could be so different about these two to warrant separation from the dead, demoted, and living? Even Janus, uncontainable as he was, had been assigned an enclosure in a standard facility.

It occurred to me Inanna and Baal did fit Pakhet’s criteria for the mastermind. Too bad the pact was no longer around to check, not that the language barrier would have made it effective anyway. If they were, I’d been expecting… well, not this. And if it was Inanna, the lack of recognition made for a curious setup.

I sat on the worn slabs and leant back on my hands, a little disappointed the grass didn’t extend that far. “So what do we do now, huh?” I sighed. “I suppose I leave you here, unless Themis can burst that bubble. I don’t imagine you’re here of your free will. And it will deprive Baldr of more ammunition.”

Inanna stared at me, the tips of her wings twitching. They were white at the ends in a distinct layer, not unlike angels’. She spoke again, her words turning up at the end in a question.

“Beats me,” I responded. “You didn’t happen to chessmaster some gods and heads of the Catholic church into exterminating corporate leadership, did you?” I stabbed a finger on the stone to indicate the floors below.

Misplaced understanding switched on behind her eyes. She reached down, mimicking the movement, then swept out her arms to encompass the circumference of the pillar. “Etemenanki,” she announced, poking the grass again.

I sat up with a start, not sure I’d heard correctly.

“Etemenanki,” Inanna repeated without prompting. She gestured once more around the column and kept going, reaching far into the distance and up to the ceiling, until one hand pointed directly up and another sought the marble far below. “Babilim,” she followed up, returning the hands to their usual position.

Babilim. Babylon. What little was left of the millennia-old city now lay crumbling in Iraq. Except this bit, apparently, which Inanna had conveniently named: Etemenanki, the great tower of the Mesopotamians. Once the greatest in the known world. Another point towards my afterlife theory – like Inanna and Baal, it had been officially destroyed. Stripped to the very foundations. I hadn’t realised it was so high.

“Except it’s not just this, is it?” I mused to myself, recalling the goddess’ expansive gestures. Mortal technology, restricted as it was, built up from the ground. Gods suffered no such limitations. It explained the height and the preservation, and why it had been built down and around, growing to accommodate an ever-increasing population and the exorbitant growth of a despot’s ego. Of course Yahweh had had to have it. And steal it from another pantheon, no less. He couldn’t stand not being the best at everything.

The unintelligible buttons in the lift made more sense now. With all the ire it attracted, Providence had been burnt, crushed, dimensionally deconstructed, exploded and even – on one infamous occasion I wished I’d been around to see – eaten. But it had always been rebuilt and remodelled with the best divine labour money refused to pay for.

Still, I hadn’t expected to learn I’d spent the last three hundred years crushing hopes and dreams from a seat in the Tower of Babel.