Revenge Of The Mutant Algorithms - The Myth of the Fall of Icarus

Throughout November I'll be releasing new weird sci-fi short stories. Each one is a campfire horror yarn, with a technological twist. Your feedback is highly appreciated.

Everything you read is possible - there's no magic, just sufficiently advanced technology.

Chapter 2 - The Myth of the Fall of Icarus

Icarus had quarrelled with his father the night before their inaugural flight.

"Beware, my son" the ancient Daedalus intoned, "These wings are temporary. We may not make landfall."

Icarus scoffed. He was twice the craftsman compared to this ridiculous old man. "Father, my calculations show that we'll be able to take advantage of the early morning winds to propel us across the water."

"The waters!" lamented his father, "Oh! The waters. I fear if our arms tire, we'll fly too low. When the water hits our wings..."

"Nothing!" Interrupted Icarus. By Zeus's farts, this man was a worry-wart. "The feathers have all been plucked from sea-birds. You don't see them drowning when they get splashed by a wave, do you? Think it through, old man!"

There was general harrumphing as Daedalus staggered around the flimsy contraptions. He poked and prodded them with his gnarled tamarix walking-cane. He pinched at the finely hammered metal and sniffed at the lubricating olive-oil clinging to the hinges.

"My boy, my bright and clever boy. What is keeping these feathers in place?"

Icarus sighed. The pox-ridden cankersore wasn't able to remember the technical discussions they'd been having all week. It was sad, really. The mind which had envisioned the Labyrinth was now little more than quince porridge. The hours spent in his laboratory, huffing in fumes as he genetically engineered the Minotaur, had obviously rinsed his brain. Holding a conversation with him was like teaching a child to paint; messy, repetitious, and of dubious merit.

"Aristaeus has provided a beeswax which is strong and lightweight. Perfect for our needs. Each feather-tip is gently coated and..."

But before he could launch into a detailed technical treatise on the finer points of the chemistry, his father began wailing like an old fisherwoman whose husband had been found dead in a brothel.

"No no! Beeswax? Oh no! We are doomed never to escape this wretched tower! Oh! Anything but beeswax! The melting point, my son, the melting point! If we were to fly too close to the sun! Oh!"

The sight of his father blubbering made Icarus blush with shame. That his mighty father should be brought down to this. He gently placed his muscular arm across his father's wiry shoulders and steered him to the only window in the tower.

"Look out there, dear father, and tell me what you see."

Daedalus strained his bleary eyes. The sun was low in the sky and the shadows were long. He shuddered and drew his himation tight around his body.

"Snow on the mountains. Chione's mantle, we used to call it. Always a bad omen."

"Not for us, you old goat. We could fly high enough to punch Helios on his nose and it still wouldn't be warm enough to melt the feathers from our wings. Now, stop worrying and go to sleep."

Daedalus woke several times that night to piss. Icarus pretended to sleep, but kept running the calculations in his head. A dozen things could go wrong in the morning. There were a hundred ways to fail. But should he succeed… When they wrote the history of the world, no matter what men came next, there would always be a sentence which read "and then Icarus discovered the secret of flight!"

The morning air was frigid and both men stood naked before the world. Not a scrap of cloth to weigh them down. Their beards and hair shaved off in an attempt to lighten their load. A breakfast of stewed figs to empty their bowels and, finally, little bloodletting to appease Athena. She had given Icarus the wisdom to build his magnificent wings and, quite rightly, demanded a sacrifice.

As the sun began its journey from the East, the winds picked up. Even with the wings folded, both men felt the feathers hum with anticipation. There were no more words left to say. They were about to do the unthinkable. They would either plummet to their deaths and have their names blotted out from history, or their names would be sung in praise high enough to make the gods tremble.

Daedalus stepped toward the edge of the tower. Even his failing eyesight couldn't disguise the distance to the hungry rocks beneath them. He tugged the centre rope on his harness and let his wings blossom. The sunlight hit the feathers and they sparkled, the oil shone, and the beeswax became radiant. The winds, sensing his urgency, caressed his naked frame and he shivered.

Icarus mistook his father's trembling for fear. A well-placed foot to the buttocks sent the old man spinning off the ledge. Wings askew, hands desperately clutching for a solid surface that wasn't there, his screams fading as he fell.

And then the miracle happened!

Daedalus's screams started to get louder. The screams turned to laughter. His hand clasped in praise as he ascended from death's grasp and flew straight up into the skies. The wings worked!

Icarus, pleased with his experiment, opened his wings and ran towards the edge. With one giant leap, he took mankind one step closer to the gods.

They flew across the sea.

This was an art humans had long dreamed of, but never accomplished. They soared and dipped and rolled and glided and a hundred other joyous new experiences until they spotted where the sea met the land.

"My boy! We are free!" Daedalus yelled against the wind. "We must land. Preferably somewhere soft. My old bones won't survive a fall."

In all of their discussions, Icarus had never given any thought to a landing. In truth, he barely believed this wine-addled plan would succeed. Why ruin the fantasy? He looked down at the land and saw the world in a way that hurt his brain. His world was tiny! The little village he grew up in was but a speck. A tiny morsel for the cities to eat. The long path through the mountain, which took days to cross, was now an afternoon's flight. What sort of life would he be returning to? A life of hiding in the shadows from King Minos's guards? A life of secrecy and helping manage his father's decline?

Icarus didn't want to land.

So Icarus didn't land.

Daedalus couldn't comprehend his son's betrayal. When people asked him where his golden boy was, he would mutter about the child's hubris. The villagers, having witnessed the old man crash-land into a grove of olive trees, spun their own story about the boy who flew too close to the sun. They were half right.

Icarus didn't return home. Instead, he raised an army.

When the barbarians saw him descend on golden wings, they took him to be a god. And why not? He knew the secrets of fire, carpentry, metallurgy, and they had literally seen him descend from heaven.

Icarus still loved his father and vowed bloody revenge on King Minos for the indignities he had put them through. These barbarians were skilled with the blade and fearless to boot. But it would take hundreds of them to defeat even one well trained phalanx of hoplites. When faced with an impenetrable wall of shields, a regular attack would be mercilessly crushed.

He spoke to the chieftains using the few words of their broken tongue that his civilised mind could manage. "We no go through wall. We go over wall."

The chieftains all agreed that this sounded marvellous in theory, but had the small practical disadvantage that this was literally impossible. They humoured their new god by adopting a few words of his confusing language.

"How go over?"

Icarus leaned across and whispered the words every man has longed for his god to say. "I will teach you to fly!"

In the end, he didn't teach the corpulent old men to fly. While being fêted by the ignorant savages, he had made a curious discovery. The young men of the tribe were well muscled and delightfully supple. But the young women of the tribe were lithe. Weight mattered. Sustained periods of flight required a great deal of vigorous energy - which the daughters of the tribe had in abundance - but getting airborne in the first place required the sky-sailor to be as light as a feather.

The chieftains' granddaughters were slim, feisty, and fearless. Icarus had no trouble convincing them to wage war upon his enemies.

They flew.

The first phalanx provided no resistance whatsoever. They were guards of a remote fortress. Barely worth protecting but for the orders of some mad king a dozen years prior. A lookout cried something unintelligible which caused all the guards to rush out. They followed the pointing arm of the sentry and saw a dozen naked women flying towards them. Some soldiers ran away immediately, fearing the wrath of the Harpies. Others collapsed as their brains refused to process this impossible sight. A few dozen dropped their swords and stared.

The women flew in beautiful formation. Swirling high above the men. Icarus, with golden wings flaming in the sunlight, screamed a command. His warrior women, each of whom had starved for a week to keep their weight down, drew back their lightweight bows and rained death down upon the starstruck soldiers. Then, like carrion, they descended to pick at the corpses.

The plan should have worked. Icarus should have been king. The world should remember his might. But, alas, the gods had other plans.

It was a bright spring morning and Icarus was confident of his final victory. His race of warrior brides had swelled in number. Every mother wanted their daughter to fly with a god. Every father prayed that their next child would be a girl so that the tribe's name would live forever. Five hundred women had spent the night in ritual prayer and purging. They were hungry for the victory they had tasted a hundred times before. They flew into the sky chanting the name of their God King.

"ICARUS! ICARUS! ICARUS!"

Perhaps that is what angered the gods? A mortal - and a commoner at that - being praised to the heavens.

Icarus twirled above his beauties watching them pirouette on the breeze. This was freedom! Watching your women wreak vengeance on your foes from above. "Piss on Minos!" he screamed. Golden arcs rained down on the palace below, marking it as his property. The crestfallen soldiers shaking their fists impotently into the skies.

The Harpy next to him cried out in pain. An arrow? This high? Impossible! He twisted his head towards her screams. She was on fire.

Her beautiful wings, made from the finest feathers, soaked in stolen oil and affixed with purloined beeswax, were now turning to ashes as she tumbled down. Another cry! Icarus spun quickly enough in the air and saw a golden beam of light appear from the palace. It swept an arc through the sky. Every Harpy it touched went up in flames.

At the edge of the palace stood Archimedes. He'd had to invent an entirely new branch of mathematics for this. He rotated the dials of the Antikythera device and plotted the likely path of his king's foe. The calculations complete, he shouted out a new formation. His followers held up shields which had been perfectly hammered into parabolas. In lockstep, they reconfigured themselves into a new shape and lifted their polished shields to the sky.

The sun's rays took a new and exciting journey into the mirrored surfaces and then immediately burst out in precisely the direction Archimedes had plotted. The death ray's magnificent heat seared the flesh, blinded the eyes, and melted the wings of the attackers. Minos would reward him handsomely for this. A brand new science! A fantastic way to project fire upon the world. Truly Archimedes would be heralded as the new god of war.

The soldiers started singing their victory songs and King Minos emerged from his hiding-place to celebrate. The servants were ordered to crack open the best amphorae of wine while preparations were made to slaughter a bull. Archimedes began scribbling down some thoughts for his memoirs. Somewhere amongst the drowning Harpies, Icarus had his ignoble splashdown. Unnoticed by his conquering concubines, unmourned by the world, unpitied by the gods.

Thanks for reading

I'd love your feedback on this story. Did you like the style of writing? Was the plot interesting? Did you guess the twist? Please stick a note in the comments to motivate me 😃

Hungry for more? You can read:

• 2024's "Revenge Of The Mutant Algorithms"
• 2023's "Tales of the Algorithm"