The Age Of Zeus by James Lovegrove Read Free Book Online

such. They had helmets, breastplates, gauntlets, greaves, boots - separate sections that would have to be donned one at a time, most likely with the assistance of a latterday squire. They were coated in a matt, gunmetal grey substance which from a distance looked like paint but closer to resembled hessian.
    There was also an armoury in the chamber, an array of weaponry mounted on racks and shelves, dozens upon dozens of guns, rifles, rocket launchers and the like. Enough, all told, to equip a small army, and included in it were items the like of which Sam had never seen before and whose function she couldn't identify.
    The chamber was, in all, a command centre of some kind, kitted out for war. The suits of armour were the centrepiece, the thing that commanded one's attention. Certainly they were what Landesman wanted to show off.
    "Ladies, gentlemen, you see before you the fruits of three years of research and development, two years of construction, and another year of rigorous, painstaking testing. The name for them is Total Immersion Tactical Armour with Nanotech. A somewhat clunky sobriquet, but we had to do it back to front, making the initial letters conform to an acronym rather than, as is more common, the acronym arising organically from the product's qualities. The acronym, of course, being TITAN - Titan."
    Landesman waved a hand around him at the suits, a ringmaster flourish.
    "The TITAN battlesuit is, quite simply, the ultimate in combat gear. I could waffle on for hours about the compact servomotors, the nanotech body protection, the onboard-computer-aided control system, the variable-mode head-up display, the GPS transponder triangulation, and I'd still be barely touching on what the suit is capable of. I have sunk everything into this - all my years of experience in the field of arms and armaments, all the knowledge of these outstandingly clever men and women you see at work here, the very cream of my Daedalus workforce, not to mention funds totalling nearly half a billion dollars US."
    Barrington whistled through his teeth.
    Ramsay said, "That's gotta put a crimp in the mortgage payments."
    Landesman gave a wry look. "I am, I'll admit, a person of somewhat reduced net worth as a consequence of this project. Half the man I used to be, financially. But I wouldn't have invested so heavily in it if I didn't believe the cause was just."
    "And you can always sell on the technology to someone else in the future," Harryhausen observed. "I imagine, if these suits do all you say, if they really are the ultimate in combat gear, certain nations would pay handsomely to get their hands on them. Your outlay would be well rewarded."
    "There is that, too," Landesman conceded. "I already told you I am not a philanthropic man. At least not wholly. But believe me, in this instance the philanthropy comes first. The potential recouping of expenditure, with interest, is just a bonus."
    Eto'o went over to inspect one of the battlesuits. Before she got there, one of the technicians in coveralls hurried into her path.
    "Please don't touch," he said, the anxiety in his voice softened somewhat by an east coast Scottish lilt.
    "I was only going to look. Why, is it delicate? Will it shatter like an eggshell?"
    "No, of course not."
    "Then what is the problem?"
    "I just..."
    Landesman clasped the young man's shoulder. "Jamie, it's all right. Soleil can touch it if she wants to."
    "I'm sorry, sir."
    "Don't be. You're only being protective. It's very admirable. Everyone, allow me to introduce you. This mother hen is Jamie McCann, our chief engineer and all-round fixer of things that need fixing."
    "Hi," McCann said with a nervous bob of the head. "McCann the Manic Mechanic, that's me."
    "Jamie basically built the suits from scratch with his own fair hands. They're my brainchild but it's his sweat and elbow grease that gave them shape and reality."
    "Feels strange," said Eto'o, running her fingers over the battlesuit's exterior. "Rough and smooth