Interview with Neas, part II

Last week, I was interviewing a dirty tunic-clad hero in the Ilium underground, when he suddenly pushed me!

 “Goose-it! Get behind that column, pronto!”

I jump! I just catch the buzz—like bees, wind, and my computer fan mixed together—before lights with riders roar by my hiding spot. Neas has disappeared in the fog.

He’s back before I can see where he hid. “Yikes,” he says. “You still itchin’? Perfect. See those two bogeys? The ones whizzin’ down the road? Those markin’s mean they work for that gooser I was tellin’ you ‘bout earlier. Gore. Yeah. And you hear that whizzin’ when they flew by? Soundin’ kinda like Vergil?”

“Like me, Sir?”

“Yeah… that’s my favorite sound. The whizzin’ a hoverboard makes when it boosts across the road. Always wanted to try ridin’ one… yet another thing Mentor won’t let me try. But they’re hard as heck to find, you know? And bikes ain’t the same, no matter what Acamas says. I can see it now… wind blowin’ through my hair, boosters flyin’ me higher and higher, then… BAM! All of Ilium right in front of me. The stars and the spires and everythin’ in-between. Yeah…”

“That sounds pretty cool,” I smile. I can see it—shoot, I have seen it. But I won’t spoil the surprise for him. Aeneas, Ilium's future unwilling savior, doesn’t need pro-tips from a—uh—‘porter’ like me.

 But if I'd given him a pro-tip or two, I might have saved him a lot of heartache. Keep reading here to find out how I got stuck between a love for a new friend and the rules that hold our universes together--and if you'd like me to interview YOUR character, e-mail me at petrepan at gmail dot com.