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. Then 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 strode 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 people 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 37:// 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 away and happy. 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 to fend off the panic attack, while ignoring the oily smell.
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 38:// 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 b
ehind 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 39:// 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.
She stepped aside and left a gap for him to come in.
“Thank you,” Leo said and walked in.
He sat down and said again, “Thank you, really. You’ve helped me so much.”
She accepted the thanks and shrugged.
“I need to ask you something more. You mentioned your dad’s survivalist gear, can I borrow some? Do you have anything I can use?”
She scoffed. “Of course I do. Dad had everything,” she said, and went to pull down some duffel bags from the closet.
Leo helped her bring it down from the high place, touched her body with his and blushed.
She cleared her throat and cleaned up the dust that fell. “What are you going to do?”
Leo sat on the floor, checking out the gear and sighed. “I’m not sure. There’s this turban guy, a street peddler. His cobra took a bite out of me, you know it, you treated it. I need to find him, figure out if he had something to do with framing me for murder. I asked George the bum, but his pals don’t really know where to find him.”
Katerina pursed her lips. “A turban guy? You mean a Sikh?”
“Dunno. Bright red turban, orange shirt, loose pants. Very dark skin.”
Katerina stood up and walked to her bookcase. “You Dumbo. Sikh people have an organised religion in Athens since the 1950’s.” She opened an encyclopedia, not a website, a paper one, and found a specific page. “Their Sikh Temple is at Tavros, southern Athens. They are very religious, if you are looking for a Sikh man, you are definitely gonna find him here,” she said, and pointed at the listing while passing the heavy tome to Leo.
He frowned and read some stuff about them. Indian minority. Like to play with snakes. Quite pacifistic, though they do have some wars in their history.
Huh.
Offline information that was useful. Imagine that.
She looked at him jokingly and said, “It didn’t even occur to you to find him through his beliefs, did it?”
Leo shook the stuff around the bag with purpose. “It did.”
“Sure it did.”
“Hey, I’m in a bad shape right now, OK? I can gloss over major details all I want,” he said, and cut the air with his left hand in a firm gesture.
Katerina laughed and came next to him. She hugged him and blew him a deep, slobbery kiss.
He felt great, head in the clouds. At that point, he noticed something and picked it up.
“Hey, does this actually work?”
“I thought you said it was huge.”
“Yeah, I mean the principle. Does it work?” He picked up a small cagey tube, with something like an inward funnel at its end. It said “SNAKE TRAP” in bold letters, followed by: “Warning: Live snake may be inside.”
He spun it around in his hand, taking note of the design. It was simple, an easy entrance and an exit unreachable to someone without limbs.
“I can build something like this.”
“Great! How?”
“Or find one.” He mumbled for a while, thinking his options through.
Leo looked into her green eyes, kissed her softly on the lips and said, “I know we just met and all, but I can’t drive with only one arm. Will you help me steal a truck?”
Chapter 40:// Boiling over
The snake-charmer was furious.
He was breathing quickly, waiting in the parking. It was a five-story private parking, where you paid to get a spot. There was a gate and security and everything.
Bhai Sharan just snuck in of course, his cobra helping him climb up the difficult parts. He had to be extra careful, because his princess had been wounded. He tried to step on her as little as possible, he could feel her pain as she propped him up.
That mean bastard had shot his princess.
She was fine in general, she had some reptilian DNA in her mix that would help her recover fast, but she was still in pain.
That mean bastard had emptied a whole pistol clip inside her.
Bhai Sharan wanted to slice him up into nice chunks and feed him to his princess.
But he couldn’t. This was supposed to be an easy framing, not a free-for-all. Yet, as Kaur slithered into the shadows behind him, he felt his face burn with rage.
He waited in the shadows, avoiding the building’s security cameras and the drivers. A lady with a stroller came and parked right next to them, humming to her baby and juggling her phone and her purse. She had some sort of presentation to do, at Hermes Information Technology. Somehow, her reservation at the company’s daycare centre had vanished.
Silly computers.
The baby looked at the cobra in the shadows and said… Well, we have no idea what was said because it was babytalk. If it had been a proper language it would have dictionaries and a dropdown selection on Google Translate.
The baby said something and drooled.
The cobra looked at it and tasted the air.
The mother pulled the stroller away and went on to her oblivious corporate life.
Right on schedule, the limo parked in
its spot.
The old man got out of the car and Bhai Sharan slid from the shadows and had his kirpan on the man’s neck in an eyeblink.
“What?” the old man said, horrified.
“Are you trying to make me look like a fool?” Bhai Sharan asked with gritted teeth.
“Oh! Oh, it’s you. Oh my God,” the old man said, dropping his briefcase and clutching his heart.
“Don’t pretend to have a heart attack. I know you’ve got a mechanical one,” the snake charmer said, pressing the curved knife into the man’s neck. “Tsk tsk. All that sugar can’t be good for you.”
“Okay! I’m cooperating. You don’t have to hurt me.” He turned towards the limo, which was bobbing from something heavy inside. “Where’s my driver?”
“He’s fine. Slightly bitten, but alive. Might be out for a few hours,” the snake charmer said and dragged the old man into the shadows.
The cobra slid out of the limo and vanished. The limo’s suspension raised the car up again.
“What do you want? Is this how you handle failure?”
“Failure?” Singh spat out. “I couldn’t possibly fail. Someone is helping the mark. What games are you playing? Are you trying to take me down with him too?”
“What? No! Honestly, no. There are no other assets in play, just you,” the old man said and was terrified.
Singh glanced at his cobra, who slid between the man’s legs. She tasted the air and then took out her tongue in quick bursts.
She was telling her master, that the old man was telling the truth.
Bhai Sharan pushed the old man to the wall and holstered his kirpan.
“How did you find me here?” the old man asked, rubbing his joints in pain.
“I can find anyone. Remember that,” Singh said and pointed menacingly. Damn! His anger had subsided. He was certain he had been double-crossed, set up to take the blame along with the mark. It wasn’t uncommon for clients to try this shit with hired operators. It was the reason they had a loose dark-web rating site for vetting clients. And blacklisting them.
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