Myth Gods Tech - Omnibus Edition: Science Fiction Meets Greek Mythology In The God Complex Universe (29 page)

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Chapter 28:// Digging up

Aibo opened
his eyes and then licked his balls. He was in a new house but he
liked it there. The golden man had interesting odours, all
sunburned skin and that smelly pond with bad water in
it.

Aibo
liked the golden man, he was nice to him and played with him on the
floor. The smellscape also contained the woman. Aibo didn’t like
the woman much. She was kicking him away all the time but Aibo
didn’t know why. The woman was always giving away the mating smells
and Aibo simply wanted to get his nose closer, but he was always
kicked away.

Aibo
slurped the water the golden man had put in his tray and felt nice.
Everything was great. Now Aibo needed to get to work, the
yellowheads needed him. Aibo took care of the yellowheads, if he
wasn’t there, something might happen to them.

Aibo
didn’t want anything to happen to them.

Aibo
licked the golden man’s foot for goodbye and went to the door. It
was closed. Aibo didn’t know how doors worked. He whimpered for a
while but the golden man didn’t come.

His
front feet felt weird. A black fur was on them, Aibo licked and
licked till his tongue hurt but it didn’t come off. Finally Aibo
was bored and let the hard, black fur where it was.

Everything was great.

His
front feet reached up and touched the cold thingy at the door. Aibo
didn’t know why his feet were doing that but he pushed himself up
anyway.

The door
opened, and new smells came in!

Everything was great.

Aibo ran
down the corridor, past an old woman who shooed him away with her
cane, out the door and into the street.

Now Aibo
needed to get to work. He sniffed the air, taking note of the
hundreds of odours in the smellscape outside.

He ran
down the corner, and sniffed again.

He
crossed the street, found a bus stop and waited.

People
came and went, buses too, but Aibo waited. Some of the people were
nice, they threw pieces of their lunch to Aibo and he licked their
hands to thank them.

Aibo put
his head down on the grass next to the bus stop.

Then he
jerked up, metaphorically slapping himself. How could he forget
such a thing?

He
walked around the place, peeing on every lamp-post, every car tire
and every tree he could see. He was done, and felt nice.

Everything was great.

Then he
put his head down again, and waited.

The
smell he was waiting for eventually showed up. He ran to it and
found the fat man. His boots were hard like metal on their tips, so
Aibo made sure to stay clear of them, but the smell was definite.
He followed the fat man to the bus stop. The fat man petted
him.

The bus
came and the fat man took it. Aibo jumped in the bus and was off to
work.

Aibo
went off the bus after the fat man and he was excited. The
construction site was a mess of smells, oil, burnt metal, dirt,
coffee, sweat. He ran towards the yellowheads, they couldn’t start
working without him. He rubbed his nose in every one and they
petted him.

Everything was great.

Now they
could go to work. Aibo would take care of them.

His
front feet led him towards a big metal house. It was the house the
yellowheads lived. They came out of it every morning and went back
to it at the end of every workshift.

His feet
took him around the metal house, and Aibo sniffed at the pants
somebody had left inside. He’d smelled most of them when his feet
pulled him close to the pants of a man who had cancer.

He put
his snout in cancer-man’s pants and bit into a white card. The card
wasn’t food, and Aibo didn’t know why his front feet would want
such a thing, but he carried it anyway.

He went
out the metal house and his feet brought him to a van. His feet
wanted him to get in the van but Aibo needed to perform his duty
first.

Aibo
walked around the van, peed on every tire meticulously, and then,
satisfied with his work, jumped in the back of the van.

He
reached up, and let the white card fall out of his mouth on a table
that was one with the van.

Funny
that! A car with a table in it! What would those humans think of
next?

He was
about to sit back and relax a bit, but his front legs jerked him up
again and pushed the white card around the table. It was a funny
game, so Aibo scratched the white card around.

At some
point, the table bleeped and the front legs relaxed.

Aibo put
his head down and just sat there.

Everything was great.

The
monitor flashed in front of his eyes, with abstract shapes and
odourless images. He stared at them for a while but then he got
bored and chased his tail.

The
flashes stopped and his front feet pulled him up again. They swung
hard at the white card and threw it on the dirt, out the van. Then
Aibo got out of the van, took a dump on top of the card, and
covered it up with dirt cause he was a gentleman.

Then he
went back to the yellowheads to resume work.

Everything was great.

Chapter 29:// Giving up

Leo was
standing across the street, looking up at Katerina’s
flat.

He felt
better, the poison had been flushed out of his body and his wound
was closing, it wasn’t that deep after all. But he was a fugitive,
and a turban guy with a big-ass cobra wanted him dead.

A
conspiracy? Really? Heck, maybe the cobra simply saw him and
decided he would make a nice snack, how would he know?

He
stuffed his good hand in his pocket and turned away from the flat,
walking in the night.

He was
alone.

His best
friend Jimmy had done what he could, he had to stay away, out of
the picture.

His boss
would turn him in in an instant. The man was shocked with what he
witnessed at his office, and would be the prime witness to testify
against him.

Mom had
flown away to Canada, finding her purpose in life as a landscaper
even at a late age. No, she was happy and away. Even if he managed
to contact her without getting caught, what could she possibly do
from halfway across the world, apart from worry herself to
death?

Anna,
his ex-girlfriend? Bad idea. It was a bad idea then, when he hooked
up with her and it remained a bad idea now, when he needed
help.

Katerina? He barely knew her. She seemed like a good person,
and would hate for something to happen to her because of his
mess.

He
leaned on a railing and stared down at the city below. He
remembered her nice house, how clean and tidy it looked, how soft
the surfaces were. He had walked just a few minutes ago the
neighbourhood she was living in, and he was certain that Katerina’s
house was like an oasis in a desert of crappy cheap boxes to live
in.

He
looked around, and saw a young couple holding hands. The man was
keeping the woman’s hands warm as they walked, their bodies close
to one another.

He
imagined himself and Katerina in their place. A casual stroll after
a workday and a nice warm meal.

And then
a cobra jumped up and ate them alive.

Not the
young couple of course, but the one in his imagination.

He
gasped for air and propped himself to the railing, staring intently
at his feet. He felt feverish again, he clasped his forehead but he
couldn’t tell if he was sick or not. He was suddenly aware of the
bite in his thigh, now stinging and hot like someone was pouring
scalding water on it.

His leg
gave way and he let himself fall on the ground, gasping.

He
picked up a dirty plastic bag someone had tossed from a souvlaki
takeaway, and breathed in it ignoring the oily smell, to fend off
the panic attack.

He
closed his eyes but it was worse.

All he
could see was the cobra’s slit eyes staring at him like he was
delicious meat.

Chapter 30:// Giving away

There was a
wifi available from the cafe across the street, there for the
taking. But they couldn’t risk another connection. So they sat
there, like starved people sitting across a deliciously smelling
buffet.

Leo
moved around the underpass of the bridge to make sure he wasn’t
followed (not that he had any idea what he was doing), and finally
found George the bum’s place.

It was
only slightly chilly, Springtime was always mild in Greece, but
being outside all day was taking a toll on the man.

“
Hey George,” Leo said.

“
Hello! I see you’re feeling better.”

“
Yeah, my friend treated me.” Leo took off his oversized khaki
jacket and gave it to the larger man. “Here. It fits you better
than me.”

George
the bum took it in his arms like a knight receiving holy chainmail.
“Thank you,” he whispered.

Leo
explained his situation to George.

He took
out his smartphone and played the video taken by the security
cameras on the day of the accident.

Leo and
the bum watched together. They could see all the workers in black
and white jittery footage, moving with purpose. Leo pointed out
himself in the screen. He was talking to the others, seen from
overhead, at least 10 meters high. A coworker was operating the
beam lifter, clasping the metasteel beam in its claw and moving it
into place. Aibo was lazily walking behind the workers. A long
shadow appeared on the lifter’s arm, slithering like a snake. It
moved close to the pneumatics and there was a tiny spark. It then
slithered back up and disappeared.

Leo in
the video snapped his head around. The lifter’s claw slipped, the
metasteel beam shook and Aibo was wagging his tail to him right
below it. Leo barely pushed the dog out of the way when the beam
fell and sliced his arm off. Black blood sprayed everywhere. George
the bum winced audibly but kept on watching. As the heavy beam fell
it crushed the temporary floor where the construction was taking
place, and smashed on a box of tools. The tools, filled with
ratchets, drill heads, bolts, blasted away like shrapnel from the
sheer force of the impact. It was too low a resolution to see
clearly, but the dog was definitely hit by some flying bits of
metal and was grievously wounded. Leo was on the ground.

Then the
workers tended to both of them, medics rushed in and took him
away.

“
Sheesh. Thank god you are alive son,” said George, pulling
away from the phone screen.

“
You saw the form on the lifter, right? What does it look like
to you?”

George
shrugged. “Like a snake? A big one.”

“
Bingo. There’s this turban wearing snake charmer nearby. I
saw him on the street and then his snake attacked me in the jail
cell. Now I find this footage that looks like the cobra did
something to the lifter and caused my accident. I need to find this
guy. Can you do anything to help me?”

George
rubbed his hands together. It was an unconscious thing, when you
are cold all day and night you just rub your hands together all the
time. “I don’t know the guy, but he is distinctive enough. I’ll ask
around, someone will know for sure.”

“
You are a saint,” Leo told him and passed on a picture of the
snake charmer from those social media ones the daemons had searched
for earlier in the cell.

“
If I am, it currently feels like martyrdom,” the bum said
wearily and got on the phone to call his buddies.

Chapter 31:// Going after

Back in
the stolen wifi named
Silence of the
LANs,
the bandwidth was freed up again.
The owner must have finished downloading whatever it was. But the
hunt was still on, they couldn’t risk any communication that wasn’t
absolutely necessary. Even though encrypted connections could not
be traced back per se, the mere
act
of secure connections would raise red flags
nowadays.

Leo rang
the doorbell.

He could
hear her soft footdrops running towards the door, then a long
pause, then she opened it and said hello casually.

He also
said hello, and the awkwardness was palpable.

“
You left without saying bye,” she said with no real
accusation.

“
Yeah, sorry about that. Listen, either let me in or send me
away fast, I can’t stand here talking where somebody might see
me.”

Katerina
took a stern expression for a couple of seconds, letting him know
that she wasn’t eager to take him back mister, hooking up with her
and then running off into the night without a word.