Myth Gods Tech - Omnibus Edition: Science Fiction Meets Greek Mythology In The God Complex Universe (12 page)

“
The chase,” I offered.

“
The chase, and disrupt any person at all, effectively
destroying his life. Sometimes, it ends up in death by shock, heart
failure.”

I leaned
close to him and put the sharp edge to his neck. “I know about the
effective destruction of one’s life,” I said and gritted my teeth
at him.

He
shivered. “Look, I know what you did. You got my data. It’s fine. I
won’t tell anyone you broke in. I’ll even scrub the logs. I wanna
help, I really do.”

“
Why would you want to help me expose your own company?” I
asked in disbelief.

“
Because I know that this is wrong, on many levels. I can’t
guarantee I’ll give you any more information in the future, but
I’ll help you for now,” he said.

I was
taking in his words, trying to figure out if he was telling the
truth.

“
Plus, I have a crush on you.”

I
blinked. “What?”

“
I-I have a crush on you,” he repeated.

“
You don’t even know me!”

“
I do. You are all your dad ever talks about. Here, check my
phone. I got your selfies saved on it.”

He
passed me his phone and I said wearily, “That’s creepy
Dave.”

I swiped
around, my photos were on his picture gallery.

Damn.

“
Yeah,” he let out a little laugh. “It is creepy. Would I
admit to something like that if I wasn’t serious about letting you
out of here? I’ll delete them, I swear.”

I waved
his phone around. “So you won’t call security? You won’t tell my
father? Or the police?”

“
My lips are sealed my fair princess,” he said and locked his
mouth with a gesture. His face turned sour then. “I’m terribly
sorry about your face. I-I put that script but I
didn’t…”

I raised
a hand and interrupted him. I checked my watch.

“
Stop it.” Then I gulped, and fought back my tears. I turned
towards the door and stood in the frame.

“
You can keep my photos,” I said, and left.

Chapter
45

As
I said, I took her place.

Prodromos’ place.

I
adopted the nickname, took on her crusade. Though mine is a lot
less churchy and a bit more… Active.

I’ve
become a conspiracy nut, because I found myself inside a
conspiracy. I left school, abandoned my home. My parents have gone
crazy with worry. Police are after me, but I’m just another runaway
teen.

There
are people out there who are experiencing the same thing as me,
their guilt, their personal furies taking form and chasing them
non-stop. I have to help them. The mega-corporation Hermes is
rolling out this new technology en-masse, a new state of living in
the modern world that blends the virtual with the real, throwing a
veil on top of everything.

Deppy is
my hacker. We meet from time to time, and she gives me tricks and
tools to avoid the authorities, or worse, the private sector
security firms. I swear she gets a kick out of doing this hacking
stuff. She has applied that heuristic thingy and pinpointed people
who are or will be chased by Erinyes. I asked her to try and take
down all the creepypasta online about Erinyes, in a futile attempt
to limit the effect. But, as every censorship attempt in recent
history has proven, it is impossible to make the internet shut up
about something.

Billy
also helps me out sometimes. He brings me his mom’s pita, the
homemade pie I like. He has helped me contact some people and try
to get them out of this Erinyes chase. They are together with Deppy
now, and I’m happy about it.

I kept
the van. The computer gear is pretty much beyond my capabilities,
but I need to stay on the move. My life now comes in intervals of
a-hundred-and-nine minutes. I eat, rest, work, all inside that
timeframe. Then I run.

I never
admire myself in the mirror anymore. My narcissistic tendencies, as
Billy would call them, have gone for good. I have a deep straight
scar at the right of my face, burnt skin around it and an eye
that’s glossy. I never take a picture of myself anymore. My eye is
better now, I can see some shapes.

Prodromos is dead. I checked. She had wiped herself from all
records and had assumed fake identities. They were so intricate
that Deppy showed me how to utilise them for myself. The young
woman I met never told me her real name.

I took
her place. I’m Prodromos. But for now, I gotta run. My Erinyes are
after me.

The End

Crying Over Spilt Light

George Saoulidis

Chapter
Zero

The lady
in blue stood still, looking at the corner of the room. The air was
undisturbed around her, dust particles falling back to the carpet,
a few sun beams briefly illuminating their swirling
path.

The body
that caused all this dust upheaval was lying still in the middle of
the thick carpet. A tall man, heavy, not of muscle but rather of
spaghetti and feta cheese, was facedown, his limbs motionless,
drool spilling on the carpet, absorbed instantly. His small glasses
were crushed underneath his skull, their skeleton distorted but
their lenses intact.

The lady
in blue raised her eyes to the whiteboard.

The
movement of her eyelashes was not enough to nudge the falling
dust.

Mathematical symbols were written on the whiteboard, half of
it seemingly written, erased and rewritten a billion times. The top
left part was dry, scratched, old. A beginning that had tormented
the heavy man for years. The whiteboard was featured prominently in
the room, a totem raised high, a constant reminder for the heavy
man to keep on working, keep on thinking about what the symbols
meant.

There
was not much else worth mentioning in the room. It was as if
someone had inherited their mother’s house, full of decorations,
white knitted cloths and other folklore items characteristic of
Greek houses and then meticulously removed each and every one of
them, leaving an obvious tint on the varnish of the furniture. Old,
handmade furniture, with creaky latches and uneven feet, fixed by a
well-placed folded newspaper, pressed by the weight of the years
back to the wooden form it originally came from. Someone raised in
such a home could easily identify most of the objects missing from
their shadows alone.

There,
would be a thick photo frame. There, hung by the missing nail would
be a decorated plate, one that people back then seemed to love to
put on their walls. Its shape was almost perfect on the wall, like
an inverse shadow. There, a white knitted cloth would cover that
triangular shape in always perfect 45 degree angles.

All of
it missing.

The
woman in blue walked towards the whiteboard, her soft steps finally
disturbing the dust motes and causing them to circle around her.
She picked up the marker from the floor, carefully cut a page from
a notepad and wrote down the mathematical symbols from the board.
She double-checked them, making sure it was all there and then
grabbed the torn cloth beside her and wiped the board slowly. She
pressed the cloth hard and made sure it was wiped properly. The top
left part of the symbols resisted for a time, but then gave
away.

She put
the cloth back and folded the page. Effortlessly.

Then she
put the folded page inside her blue dress, right by her chest.
Effortlessly.

And then
she dragged the heavy man by his leg all the way down the hall.
Effortlessly.

Chapter
i

Yanni went
upstairs to his office/lab. He fired up the laser and turned on the
computer attached to it. He closed the blinds to darken the room,
wore his protective glasses, took out his e-cig and vaped in the
path of the blue laser beam pointing to the ceiling.

The
fake-cigarette smoke made the laser visible, but it was still going
up straight as an arrow.

Yanni
was annoyed by that silly adherence to the laws of
nature.

He
puffed a few more breaths and punched different variables on
Matlab.

The blue
light beam simply flickered a bit, but kept on straight.

Yanni
grunted and then stared at the blue dot on the ceiling, thinking
about equations.

He
worked hard like that for seven hours straight.

Thalia
came up and brought him a sandwich. “Were you sitting in the dark
all day?” she asked.

“
I can’t see the laser with a ten thousand lumen light source
flooding the place”, he said.

She
forced a smile, clearly not getting the concept and she told him,
“I need you to look after the kids, need to shop a few
things.”

“
Yeah, coming right down,” said Yanni to her as she closed the
door.

She left
him downstairs, sitting on the couch, with the baby in his arms and
Georgie throwing flour on his toy truck. Cartoons were playing on
the TV, loud to near cochleus-bursting levels and the baby was
crying for his mother. He picked her up in his arms and gave her a
pacifier. Then he grabbed the tablet to message his friends on
Facebook. He started tapping then realized the screen was dirty
with chocolate, so he wiped it hastily. He added them all to a
group chat and told them about party reservations so that Thalia
could arrange the whole thing.

Then he
needed to text Nikos. His friend was the only one not on Facebook,
he was old-fashioned that way. He knew about it of course, but he
always insisted about never accepting Facebook addresses from
girls, only their phone numbers (if they didn’t hop on his ride
right away). He thought of anonymously checking out a girl’s photos
as perverted, and they sent him nude pictures by themselves anyway
as soon as they found out he was an architect.

Nikos
called him back, “Yasou, did you think I would forget man?
September the second, the night we burn the house down, every year,
fifteen years on now!”

Yanni
felt slightly ashamed and said, “Yeah, I’m afraid the party will be
a bit calmer this year.”

Nikos
said, “Like the one last year and the one before that. Getting
married does that to you. Yeah no problem man, I just want to hang
out with you guys, I never get to see you anymore.”

“
About that, it might help if you bring along a more suitable
date. Last time our wives nearly tore our eyes out, man. You fueled
the fire for decades of nagging,” said Yanni.

“
Haha, yes, that was priceless!” said Nikos laughing. “No,
don’t worry, I have no dates now. I’ll come solo.”

Yanni frowned at the unusual statement and asked,
“Solo?
You
? How
come?”

“
I found my Muse,” Nikos replied. “Let’s go for a drink and
I’ll tell you all about her.”

“
You sound serious. I
need
to know more,” said Yanni.

They
arranged a meet and then Yanni checked out the tablet, which was
now covered in flour and drool. Georgie was sitting on his truck
pretending to steer a freight of precious flour. The other married
friends had all replied to the group chat, had liked and sent
smilies and started talking about bringing that fine bottle of wine
everyone liked so much last time.

Yanni sat on the couch, held his baby and waited for his wife
to return. All he really wanted was for
his
Muse to come back.

Chapter
i^2

“
You are
not that old. We are the same age. Are you saying I am old too?”
Thalia asked with a mind-your-words look on her face.

Yanni
opened his arms in an apologetic gesture and replied, “No, of
course not. I’m talking about academic age. About ideas. I just
don’t feel that snappy anymore.”

Thalia thought about the situation seriously, cradling the
baby who was cutely asleep. “Yanni, just take it as far as you can
carry it. Maybe it needs to be passed on to the next torchbearer.
Whom
you
will
teach and bring to the finish line. Is that such a bad
thing?”

“
Ugh. It’s my idea honey. I’ve worked so many years on it, I
would hate to see it go to someone else,” Yanni said, not really
talking to anyone but himself.

Thalia
walked in front of him to pay attention and said, “Yanni. If you
establish enough of your proof, they have no other choice but to
credit you. Think of your family, do a good job, pass it on and let
someone else finish the race.” She passed the baby on to him and
started doing house chores.

He
tended to the baby and then put her on the cradle. He turned on the
jingly tune and she laughed at him, her eyes never really focusing
anywhere but watching everything around her.

He spent
the day working at his home lab. At least this time he remembered
to turn on the laser.