Ra curled his fists, his urge to banish Seth to earth growing with every punch of the god’s fist on his magically enhanced doors. He wouldn’t do it. He got tempted by thoughts like that often when dealing with Seth, but the god had been his most stalwart companion and staunch defender for longer than he could count, and besides, Ra leaned towards being a fair and kind god, rather than mean and despotic. Maybe that’s my problem. If I toughened up, maybe he’d respect me more.
But that wouldn’t happen in one day. Heaving a sigh, because immortal beings were nothing if not persistent, Ra waved his hand, allowing the doors to his private space to be opened. “What do you want?” he snapped, sitting up in bed as Seth burst through the door with a curse.
“That mangy-haired Greek idiot wants to talk to you, and you’ve had messages from someone called ‘Wes Wolf’, all screaming at you to contact him.” Seth pulled Ra’s phone out of his pant’s pocket and stared at it with fascination. “Really, this thing stores all your communications?”
“I thought you believed phones were shiny slabs from the devil djinn?” Ra’s heart skipped a beat, his fingers itching to reach for his phone. “I was also sure I told you that you could smash it.”
“You actually said, I could do what I liked with it.” Seth hid the phone behind his back. “It must be quite handy, having messages stored all in one place for you to find and respond to whenever you feel like it.”
The canny bastard wants to keep it. “Oh no.” Ra pressed the back of his hand against his forehead in mock horror, falling back among his pillows. “You’ve been beguiled by the evil shiny slab.” He sat up again. “Quick. Have you been spelled by a djinn? Blink once for yes and twice for no.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Seth’s cheeks got a touch of color. “I simply felt, instead of all those orbs everyone sends flying around, cluttering up the place, that it made more sense to have all your messages in the one device.” He pulled Ra’s phone back around to his front again. “I think I could do with one of these.”
“You know other people with phones?” Then a thought struck him, and Ra chuckled. “You could always ask Zeus for one.” Seth and Zeus’s relationship was volatile at best. Their biggest problem was they were two alike, both believing they were right all the time.
As Ra expected, Seth sneered. “I don’t have to ask that sky puncher for anything.” He held up Ra’s phone. “I can just duplicate yours.” Suddenly he was holding a phone in each hand. “Simple.”
“Just make sure you change the number on yours.” Ra flicked a finger, and his phone flew out of Seth’s hand and into his. “I don’t want you getting my calls and messages. Phones are for personal messages and should be kept private.”
“They have a number? Where is it?” Seth turned his around looking at it front and back.
Ra sighed and shook his head. “Every phone has its own unique number. It comes from what mortals call a SIM card, to ensure each individual only gets their own calls and messages. Zeus has his own SIM cards for us immortal beings, through the network he set up on Olympus. All you have to do is ask him for a personalized number for yourself.”
“I’m not calling Zeus on this thing.” Seth clutched his phone to his chest.
“Then ask Paulie.”
“I’ve got no reason to talk to the tiger either.” Seth was glaring now.
“Not Zeus’s Paulie, the phone’s Paulie.” I should’ve left my doors shut and just magicked up some earphones. “iPhones on earth have an app called Siri that will answer any questions you ask it to. Zeus decided he didn’t like Siri, so all god phones have an ‘Ask Paulie’ app. He wanted to help his mate feel valued.” Ra held up his phone. “Here, I’ll show you. Hello Paulie?”
“You can talk to these devices?” Seth looked at his phone, and then around the room as though he expected Zeus’s mate to just appear in front of them.
Ra waved his hand at him to be quiet. Paulie’s voice came out of the phone. “How may I help you today, Ra?”
Seth’s eyes widened and Ra grinned. “Paulie, can you tell us please how Seth can get a personalized number on his phone just for him? He cloned my device, but he needs his