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

by George Saoulidis

  “Doctor Gounaris, please, we are simply here to make sure you are familiar with the latest algorithm,” she said, presenting the printed info to him.

  He received it and tossed it aside. “Yes, I can open a site on my own, thank you. Is there anything else?” he asked, with a voice that said there better not be.

  Zoe locked eyes with him for a moment, and I was reminded of the standoff with Jorge back at the office.

  I stepped in, putting my hand on her shoulder. “I’m sure if we have any questions on the report, we could send an email.”

  The doctor smiled and gave me his card. “Anytime.”

  Chapter 32

  “Aren’t we gonna do the school education thing?”

  “They can go fuck themselves with a toothpick.”

  I was enjoying the breeze, and Zoe was driving us around town with no particular destination.

  For a while, nothing was said between us and it was fine.

  Then it hit me. We were going in big circles.

  “Are we waiting for the doctor to finish up on his work and then follow him around?”

  “Uh-huh,” she said, as if it was a casual thing to do.

  Chapter 33

  “You’re alarmingly good at this stalker stuff,” I said and sipped my water.

  “It’s called surveillance. You can learn all the tricks online,” Zoe said and adjusted her phone on the dashboard.

  We had been waiting for a few minutes outside a remote house. We were parked in the main road to blend in better, and were watching the house through Zoe’s binoculars. We’d bought them an hour ago from a guy selling stuff on the street. He was carrying like a million stuff that made noise or lit up, for sale at two euros. Zoe haggled the price. The binoculars were cheap but they did the job fine.

  “Can I see too?”

  “Ohi! Why didn’t you buy your own pair? It was only two euros,” she said, mocking my tone when I had told her it was embarrassing to haggle for a euro.

  “You put the I in CDI…” I said and regretted the pun as soon at it left my mouth.

  Zoe slapped my leg, then huffed and sank in her seat. “There’s just something off with this doctor.”

  “No arguments there…”

  “You saw it too?”

  “Nai. Yeah, it made no sense. I can understand if it was arrogance, but the man was actively trying to shoo us away.”

  “What could he be doing there?”

  We examined the remote house as if it would divulge information from afar. It was just a typical single-house, with a yard behind. Open garage space at the front, not that you’d never find a spot at the empty side of the road. It seemed as if the city planning changed it’s mind halfway and went the other direction. It was close enough to seem normal, but a convenient earshot away from anything. The only thing unusual about it was the rather high fence around the back yard. It was made of wooden flatboards, tight enough to block the view.

  Zoe fiddled with her phone for a while and then turned to me. “Do you have any megabytes to spare?”

  “Yes, go ahead,” I said and gave her my phone. I took the binoculars at the same time and took my turn surveying.

  The doctor had carried some groceries inside half an hour ago and was coming out empty handed. “Here he comes.”

  She grabbed my binoculars and looked.

  “Huh.”

  We saw the doctor as got in his car and left the place.

  “I wanna try something,” Zoe said and drove us close to the house.

  She held my phone up to the wooden fence and tapped the app. A slight pressure in my ears made me uncomfortable, but before I managed to ask tens of dogs started barking loudly and muffled everything else.

  Zoe smiled like she won an award, tapped the phone gracefully and gave it back to me.

  I read the screen. It had an app saying “Ultrasound dog repellent.”

  The barking had died down a bit.

  “Why are you so mean?” I asked, not really expecting an answer.

  “I’m not mean, this worked, and I’m trying to help those doggies. Come on, let’s find a way to get inside.”

  “Are you nuts?” I asked with a surprised whisper, but followed her anyway.

  Chapter 34

  There was the distinct smell of kennel. Wet, musky.

  Some of the dogs barked at us, others were just eating the meals they just had been served.

  I kept my voice low as Zoe was taking pictures. “I don’t know much about dogs, but these are the ones usually kept for guarding or hunting?”

  She carried on photographing intensely. “Guarding, others hunting. Completely different mindsets, we have bred dogs for those two jobs. Yes, these are what you would expect to have in these areas. I guess they fetch a good price too.”

  “And this one, is a poodle. Nothing to do with the rest, totally domestic,” I said, sounding like Sherlock Holmes to my self. “Perfect for a little girl’s pet. Could this be the one from the neighbour’s house?”

  “Could be,” said Zoe and walked around the cages. A Rottweiler was making noises, trying to get its big snout through the cage gaps. He had knocked over his plate and his food was on the floor. Zoe picked up his metal plate, looked around, found the bags with the dry food and filled it up. She petted the dog and put the plate in the slot where he could reach it. “There there, little cutie,” she said to it with the tone of voice reserved for wittle pets.

  “It’s not that small,” I said. “It almost weighs as much as you.”

  “It’s only months old. Rottweilers grow up fast.” She turned back to petting his big head while he crunched slobberingly his food. “Good doggie. Ugh! Wish I could take you home, but I can’t afford it. You’ll eat more than me in six months.”

  I looked around at the cages. “Zoe, what is this?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?”

  “Not to me!”

  “The doc has a little side business selling pedigree dogs. These are all prime specimens in this area, they are worth a lot. And farmers can never have enough dogs. We’ll need to doublecheck but I think he declared the poodle euthanized and took it in.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “Cause he has the system in place! I don’t think he planned it, it’s not like a poodle is a rare breed or anything. But since he has a place to keep them,” Zoe pointed at a few empty cages, “people to buy them etcetera, it was like a small bonus.”

  I began looking out the windows worried someone might catch us.

  “I don’t think he’s coming back for now,” she said.

  “Yeah, we are still breaking and entering.”

  “So?”

  Zoe petted her new furry friend and we left.

  Chapter 35

  “I think there is more to this.”

  Zoe didn’t look at me. She was driving, so it was good that she kept her eyes on the road but you know what I mean. “There’s nothing more. The doctor took advantage of a freak accident, polluted some samples with rabies and made a few dogs disappear into his illegal-breed business.”

  I was frustrated. “OK, fine. Why are we leaving? Shouldn’t we report this immediately?”

  “Are you kidding me? Those pigs back there are probably in on it. No sir, I’m getting as far away from that town as possible and then reporting it.”

  I thought about Zoe’s theory for a while. It made sense, but something nagged me.

  “So you think the doctor came into some money troubles or something…”

  “We aren’t cops. We don’t give a shit,” she interrupted.

  It was nighttime now. We had checked out and hit the road. We’d be back in Athens in five or six hours at most, driving carefully.

  No, it wasn’t our job. We just needed to report the thing and someone would verify the accusation.

  “Just let me think out loud. You think that this was something psychological, unrelated, and doctor Gounaris for some reason needed extra cash, so he took in dogs in a rabi
es scare.”

  “Something like that, yeah,” she shrugged away.

  “But he’d need to bribe the nurses, fake the lab results, the…”

  “Yes! That’s why we are getting away from there and accusing by proxy!”

  “Occam’s razor Poly! What is more likely, that a rabid girl attacked a cop and got shot or that a psychologically scarred girl wandered off and the cop shot her by accident, leaving him nuts and delirious?”

  “I’m not disagreeing with you!” I said in protest. “I’m in training you know, try to be patient with my questions.”

  “Well, here’s today’s lesson. It’s not our job. Especially if it’s not really a rabies case.” She cracked open a window and lit a cigarette.

  We journeyed on in silence.

  I tucked myself in my jacket and shut my eyes for a while. I was gonna take the night shift in a couple of hours.

  I mumbled to myself, “Can I see the pattern before it’s too late?” and then slept uncomfortably.

  The End

  What If There’s A Pattern To The Madness?

  There is something fishy going on, and Polybios is getting thrown in the deep end. Will Zoe make a CDI out of him? Will Polybios manage to see the pattern in time? When he tries to tell people, will anyone listen?

  Find out about the rest of the Maniai Case Files as they show up by joining the Mythographers!

  http://www.mythographystudios.com/join-the-mythographers/

  You’ve had a taste of the God Complex Universe.

  A world of scientific innovation, Greek mythology and endless action! Explore more of it here:

  http://www.mythographystudios.com/the-god-complex-universe/

  How To 3D Print A God

  George Saoulidis

  Chapter 1

  The wait was killing me. It was dark and cold and I really needed to pee. I did an ammo check for the fifteenth time but Thomas put his hand on my shoulder and said, “It’s a full mag. It says so on your overlay. Stop it or you will jam something.”

  I don’t trust the overlay with matters of life and death. I can’t even convince my coffee-maker to get it right, let alone the augmented reality ammo reading beamed in my eye.

  “Why did we need to come all out here if the meet is online?” I asked.

  He looked at me with the same look all IT guys have when they are about to reply to a stupid user question and said, “The proxy here is secure. Any other logon point in the city could be tracked.”

  I turned around and looked at the kid. Hunched in the corner, a laptop in one hand and the other waving in the air nudging intangible controls. He looked like he was playing a videogame, not accessing a secure logon to meet about a job involving real smartbullets that aim for your juicy parts. I said to Thomas, “Can you make sure he is not checking out his Facebook or something? I’m freezing here. Do it for me.”

  “His nickname is UberToxic, and he knows what he is doing, trust me,” he said.

  I turned to face my brother and said, “I trust you. And since you do, I trust him too. And I will shoot and maim anyone that tries to harm you, or anyone else on this team. I will take a bullet for you. But I will never, ever, call the diaper-kid UberToxic.”

  Thomas tried to keep it in but eventually burst into loud laughter. I was being serious, I dunno what it was that he found funny. I just stared and tried not to think of waterfalls.

  The van circled the antenna tower and came close to us. Alkinoe shushed us. “Keep it down, I could hear you from a kilometer away,” and got off the van.

  “Relax, we are in the middle of nowhere and you just checked the perimeter,” said Thomas between breaths. As she moved I triple-checked to see if her breasts were there, under the kevlar. It was instinctive, I couldn’t stop it. She was an ex-Amazon and I always wanted to know if they cut off their right breast. They didn’t, but I always felt the need to check.

  I couldn’t take it anymore. I yelled, “Hey kid, what the skata is happening, are we gonna talk to someone anytime soon?” and propped my rifle on my shoulder menacingly. Then I felt bad. Here I was, acting tough to a fifteen year-old. The kid was just doing its job, and damn finely at that.

  His eyes never stopped flipping from his monitor and his overlays to look at us. He just said, “They are in. We are secure, calling. Mr Thomas, you can now talk to the client.”

  Thomas looked a bit surprised to see the vidcall suddenly pop up on his field of vision, made a gesture to protest against hacking but then gathered his professional demeanor and talked to the client. Then we all heard the client’s reply, cause the kid patched us all in. We did hire a hacker, after all.

  The voice was scrambled to avoid recognition, with varying modulations. I can only assume the image was more of the same. “If you have followed our specific instructions, you will now be present at the secure logon site and be armed and ready for the job. Do you have the SSD at hand to begin the download?”

  Thomas raised his bag and gave it to the kid. “Right here, ready to accept the data in a moment,” he said and waited for the kid’s signal.

  The kid waived ok and the client simply said, “Sending.”

  More waiting. Great.

  Thomas finally said, “How time-sensitive is this? We are on schedule of course but anything can happen.”

  The client replied, “The job can be done only tonight. Events have taken place, planned months in advance to create this narrow window of opportunity. People have been talked to look away, switches turned just the right amount, vulnerabilities exploited for this single chance. It must be done tonight, whatever it takes.”

  Spare me the drama man, you are lucky you are paying us a ton of money. I turned to Alkinoe and mimed the word malaka with my lips. She tried to show me her strictest face but I saw a glimpse of smile in there somewhere.

  “Of course, it is best to make the gravity of the situation clear, that is all,” my brother said with the tone of voice that gets him all the girls in the bar.

  The client said, “I expect you to arrive at the factory in under an hour. Your hacker has already received the access codes and the instructions to start the printing. Under no circumstances are you to merge the stolen parts and the printed object. Do not fail, and you will receive the rest of the payment.” The call was terminated.

  I cheered as if my team had scored a goal. Half a million bitcoins is a lot of money after all.

  Thomas said with decisiveness, “Ok team, let’s go do this thing and get paid. Last one in the van pays for drinks at Jenny’s.” The kid and I went in the back, Alkinoe drove and Thomas sat next to her.

  I checked them both out. Was that mere comradery or was there something between those two?

  Chapter 2

  No more than five minutes in the kid raised the alarm. “Skata, we got drones incoming!”

  “Yes!” I said raising my rifle, “Time for some duck-hunting.”

  “No, they are land based, parallel to us, closing in at our front vector,” the kid said.

  Alkinoe went pale. “Landmines. They are landmines. Thomas grab the wheel,” she told him and lifted her torso out of the window. She pivoted her body outside the car and peeked in again. “It’s standard Amazonian tactic, two drones come firing for distraction and two faster ones get in front and deploy,” she said and looked at me.

  “Got it,” I said and opened the van’s back door. The poor kid was distracted on his monitors and almost fell out so I grabbed his arm and hauled him back on his seat. He held on tighter after that scare. The ex-Amazon climbed in front of the speeding van, lowered herself at near asphalt-level and took out her spear. The thing is retractable, she carries it all the time, but she doesn’t let me touch it.

  “Can’t you hack them or something kid?” I asked him while steadying my rifle.

  “Nah, its fail man, not in time. I can only make them show on your smartlink, here,” he said gulping down his fear.

  I looked at the bushes whizzing past us in the dark. Lou
sy place to make an ambush if you are a man, great place if you are a land drone. I could see pitch black skata for a long couple of seconds, and then a red target appeared on my overlay. Nice.

  “When you fire make sur-“ the kid tried to say but I was already BANG WHIZ BLAM broken drone. Bullets fell on the van like hailstorm from the flanking side and we both fell on the floor. Thomas did some evasive maneuvers and we thought we lost Alkinoe for a second.

  Then she raised her hand in an “ok” thumbs up and held her place.

  Bullets ripped the top of the van into a cheese-grater and the kid was holding down his head.

  “MAKE SURE OF WHAT?” I screamed over the bullets.

  “MAKE SURE IT IS THE FARTHEST ONE CAUSE THE OTHER WILL BREAK CAMO MODE,” the kid screamed back.

  “GEE THANKS FOR THE WARNING,” I yelled back to him and propped my rifle to take the drone down. The red target was moving around, something was wrong. I fired but nothing seemed to go blowie. Thomas was obviously trying to keep the van steady, but was that the right strategic decision or was he going to get us killed in order to protect his girlfriend?

  Alkinoe held the tip of her spear in front of the van, adjusted it when she saw the mine-drone in the headlights and gritted her teeth.

  Contact. She had placed the tip at the side of the drone, tripping it over to our side. It bounced like a football and got lost into the darkness.

  No explosion.

  I was trying to find the second drone that was at the moment not firing at us but was sure to do so soon. The overlay targeting was all over the place. Bah, that’s why I don’t trust these things.