The API of the Gods

By Matthew Schmidt

What if your computer could control reality?

Michael Arnold, a programmer for Pantheon Solutions, Inc., leads armies of golems on tactical solution deployments against the enemies of his divine masters, Upper Management. With the API of the Gods, powered by divine blood, anything is possible... if the Gods are willing. As he is ordered to assault a daemon's palace in Lake Superior, he begins to question if the Gods really do have humanity's best interests in mind, and what he could do to defy them.

After all, the Gods are all-powerful.

The worlds of software engineering and urban fantasy uniquely blend in this action-packed short story of betrayal, hope, and transcendent power.

• Language: English
• Publisher: O and H Books LLC
• Release date: Sep 27, 2022
• ISBN: 9798215013762

Book preview

The API of the Gods

A Programmatic Fantasy Short Story

Matthew P. Schmidt

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O and H Books LLC

Copyright © 2015 Matthew P. Schmidt

Cover Design by James, GoOnWrite.com 

All rights reserved.

No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher or author, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, business, events and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Published by O and H Books

www.matthewpschmidt.com

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Contents

The API of the Gods

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The API of the Gods

The shining fluorescent lights, the screech of metal being milled into shape, overpowered by the screaming of managers and CNC fairies, and the sweltering heat of the machine shop nearly overwhelmed me. But I did not have the luxury of going to a quiet place to cry. Not only had we to make up for our losses in the last battle—excuse me, tactical solution deployment —but we were ordered to make over ten times more of my golems for our next deployment.

My title is Captain of Metal Armies or Deployment Coordinator, depending on who you’re talking to, and how much they may know. At the moment I was glorified sword-machinist, grinding blank after blank into blades. Others with even higher titles had such offices as go-fer, drill operator, and wielder of oxy-propane torches or the primeval fire before worlds (whichever was handy). Middle management had shown up briefly to deposit a vial of Ichor on a workbench in the center, which would have disappeared within seconds had I not sworn to swear a geas to kill anyone who touched it. Rhetorical meta-oaths are frowned upon, I know, but no one asked if I was joking.

Whence came the thought that I had reached the point where there were things I needed so much I would threaten to kill people over it. Where had I gone wrong?

WATCH IT! the CNC fairy screamed at me. YOU’LL LOSE A FINGER!

"I’ll give you a finger, I said. And shut up, you’re not even sentient. Go bother someone else before I recycle you."

The fairy hissed, but floated over to the part of the shop where they were making the armor plates.

I sighed and wondered for the hundredth time how I had gotten myself into this.

***

The interview had gone swimmingly up until the interviewer told me what Pantheon Solutions, Inc. actually did. We are here to leverage our information technology expertise to provide customer-focused reality-altering services to our Gods for reasons that we can neither question nor understand.

I had no words for several seconds. Excuse me, sir? I asked. I don’t understand.

That’s what I said, said