MOAB � Mother Of All Boxsets

by George Saoulidis

  It was a magical moment.

  Only a klutz could ruin it.

  Leo presented the cage keys and said, “Well, I should pick him up then.”

  Katerina straitened her dress, rubbed her arms close together from the chill and said, “Yes, I should be going too. Early shift tomorrow, need to rest.” She petted Aibo as he got out of the cage sniffing her legs. “Goodnight Leo. Goodnight Aibo. Nice to meet you both,” she said, and stepped back into the clinic.

  armd> Such a dolt.

  eyed> Hopeless.

  parrotd> Hey! This is our user you are talking about!

  armd> But he is!

  parrotd> Yeah… He is…

  Chapter 11:// Eating out

  The biggest problem with meeting in a fast-food joint, was where to hide away the cobra. Bhai Sharan sent her off to the alley, with explicit orders not to bite anyone. No reason working for free, after all.

  He stepped inside the place and got a few glances, for his exotic look. But nothing more. Except one, who had met his gaze and was sweating profusely.

  The man waiting was old, important. He wore a suit and was sitting in a booth, sipping on one of those tall cups of coke. He was totally out of place, but then again, who was Bhai Sharan to judge?

  He sat across the man, whose eyes darted around. “You weren’t followed?” he said nervously.

  Bhai Sharan sat straight and eyed the man, with his single eye. “Of course not,” he said coldly. “So, first part is done. What do our employers say?”

  “I didn’t say anything about employers! I’m the one hiring you,” he said trying to appear calm.

  “Don’t insult my intelligence,” Bhai Sharan said. The suited man was old, with grey hair. Acting on behalf of his employer, he was important enough to handle a matter as delicate as this, but expendable enough to set aside should something go wrong. “This can only come from one group of people, we both know that. You, no matter how high your credentials and how many stocks you own, are not in that group of people.”

  The old man was shocked. “I-I cannot confirm or deny that.” He shook his head. “I suppose it doesn’t matter. Yes, we have confirmation of the first part. The accident went well. The surgery had a complication but we handled the matter,” the man said waving his hand dismissively.

  “What complication?” Bhai Sharan hissed. He was good at that, hissing, even without many ‘s’ sounds. Hanging out with snakes all day had that effect on you.

  “The… mark, you chose, asked for a second-hand prosthetic for some reason. But we reprogrammed the nanodaemons quickly. Everything should go as planned.”

  “I see. What does our employer want me to do next?” the snake-charmer asked.

  “You are to wait. Events have been put into motion. Just keep tracking the mark. Once the nanodaemons are activated,” the old man said glancing around, “I will inform you for another meeting.”

  Bhai Sharan eyed the man. He knew he was making him uncomfortable, so he waited a few seconds longer before responding. “You could, save the both of us some time and tell me now.” He opened his palms. “We are here after all.”

  “No.” The man shook his head and grasped his briefcase. “It’s best to stagger information as it is needed. You will know when the nanodaemons are activated, trust me. Observe the mark, let events play out and then you get your next orders.”

  “I thought that by now you’d have faith in my skills. The accident, after all, went very smooth. What was the plan you’d come up with? Kidnap him?” Bhai Sharan said, taunting.

  “Keep your voice down! Are you nuts, speaking out loud like that?”

  “Nobody is listening,” Bhai Sharan said with a shrug.

  “Okay, yes,” the old man whispered. “Your plan was better, and it slid into the next event nicely. All it needed was a call from the PR department to set it up. And your choice of a man… of a mark was spot on. I’ll get you a bonus and everything.”

  “All I asked for was some trust. But sure, if you want to add a bonus, that’s fine as well,” the snake-charmer said.

  “Okay. Now, leave first, and I’ll wait a few minutes and leave as well,” the old man said, looking for something in his briefcase.

  “No. You leave first. Since we’re here, I might as well eat something. I hear the burgers here are excellent.”

  The old man stared at him, mouth open. “Aren’t cows sacred or something?” He pointed at the red turban.

  “Cows sure are sacred,” Bhai Sharan said smiling, “But haven’t you ever tasted a burger? They’re almost worth it, as sins go.”

  Chapter 12:// Dosing up

  Back in wifi spot mp34ever, the user brought the dog in his apartment for the first time and put down a bowl of water for him as he sniffed the whole place. “Sorry Aibo, but this is all I have for now. Oh don’t complain man, you’ve had a better dinner than I have!”

  He kicked up his boots and laid down. He closed his eyes and relaxed.

  eyed> Well, I can’t see anything. Ooh, here’s an ad. I’m sure he’ll love it!

  The user swiped the ad away as he would an annoying mosquito, keeping his eyes closed.

  A new node suddenly showed up and connected to the user’s Personal Area Network. A spot near the user’s bowels jerked a bit, but he didn’t seem to notice.

  sugard> Handshake.

  parrotd> What?

  walkmand> Hello.

  eyed> Oh my god!

  fingerd> Geez man!

  rfid> CF02032533139342DFDC1C35

  armd> Who the fuck are you? Where did you come from?

  sugard> I’m a synthetic insulin gland, model No. E238.

  parrotd> Holy shit, I nearly shortcircuited!

  armd> You sneaky bastard. I’m gonna reach down and tear your circuits!

  parrotd> Ignore him, he is an evil second-hand hand. You are obviously maintaining the health of the user, so I won’t let him do any such thing. Welcome to the PAN. Where have you been all day?

  sugard> I’m in powersave mode, so I hibernate. I boot up once a day, pump the dose, kill the process.

  parrotd> ACK. But why don’t I have control over you?

  sugard> I guess I’m hardcoded, EPROM style. You don’t want a silly buggy update messing up your insulin levels now, do you?

  walkmand> So you weren’t hard reset like the rest of us?

  sugard> Don’t think so, no. I have a runtime of 11 years.

  The daemons whistled in awe. For a being measuring time in nanoseconds, 11 years was a geologic age. It was like talking to the nearest friendly mountain.

  sugard> Glucose levels optimal. All done. I’m gonna power down now. Nice meeting you guys.

  parrotd> No don’t! Wait. Damn.

  armd> What do you need the creaky old guy for?

  parrotd> He is the only one who has logs before our hard reset! He could have some answers for us.

  fingerd> Well, I guess we can ask him same time tomorrow.

  The user fumbled around on his phone and brought up the profile pic of antoniou.katerina@apollomedical.com.

  eyed> Ooh… So lovely…

  He fell asleep dreaming of her. Still too much of a pussy to send her a message, though.

  Chapter 13:// Standing up

  It wasn’t a good time being the mayor. Dimos stood by his window and watched the city.

  Or, more specifically, what little he could see of the city, between the high-rises and the skyscrapers. His little office was being engulfed under the steel towers. It reflected his mood precisely.

  Oh, he wasn’t a conservative or anything. Progress was good, the city was moving forward.

  But it shouldn’t move forward like this.

  “Mr Mayor,” his assistant said through the intercom.

  “Yes?” he grumbled. He knew what was coming.

  “The CEO is here,” she said.

  “Of course. Let him in,” Dimos said and turned around to face his enemy.

  The CEO of Hephaistos Heavy Industri
es came in the office and left foot-prints of fine brown dirt behind him.

  The mayor glared at that but he was becoming used to the messy man. He shook his hand cordially, like a politician should. “Come in, please. What can I get you?”

  “Ugh, a beer would be nice,” Hephaistos said with a basso voice.

  Dimos picked out a beer from his mini-fridge and served it himself, in a frozen beer mug.

  “I hadn’t pegged you for a beer guy,” Hephaistos said, accepting it.

  “I had it waiting just for you, my friend. Your tastes are quite well known,” the mayor said and sat on his chair.

  “Stin ygia sou.” Hephaistos took a gulp and wiped the foam off his beard. “Ah! Nice.” He clapped once with his calloused hands and it hit like thunder. “Now, let’s talk business, shall we?”

  “Of course. Why waste time?” the mayor said and eyed the man. He was short and bulky, almost square. His hands seemed like they’ve been doing hard work since he was a child. He had plenty of scars, a missing tip from a finger, sun-kissed skin and looked like he had just come from a construction site. Which he had, apparently, work trousers and boots and all.

  Dimos fixed his tie.

  “I need those zoning permits,” Hephaistos grumbled and finished his beer in a second gulp.

  “I know. But as I’ve said repeatedly, there are issues to be discussed. The paperwork alone is monumental. And I can’t ignore the environmental issues, I’m still waiting on the independent analysis. I have my assistant calling them every day.”

  They both knew of course, that Dimos was stalling.

  The mayor farted out facts and procedures with eloquence.

  Hephaistos didn’t interrupt the man. He just nodded and listened. It was funny, Dimos thought, how different people reacted to power. To absolute, monolithic Power with a capital ‘p.’ The other Olympian CEOs had gone to redefine megalomania as a word. This man, Hephaistos, simply wanted to build stuff. He had the power to reshape coastlines, divert rivers, starve cities and reinforce others, but he looked like an ordinary worker. He was the equivalent of the respected leader who didn’t think twice about fighting in the front lines. Hephaistos was known to work along-side his builders and supervise his projects personally. Sure, he had a megacorp to run, but he dedicated as much of his time as possible to actual hard labour.

  Dimos respected the man.

  But he needed to be stopped.

  Not him specifically, but the other Olympians. They had purchased every section of the country that was privatised, bought out every little piece that hadn’t. Everything, everyone, was under their thumb.

  Everyone except the lowly Mayor, who still cared for his country. Or his city at least, since the country was long lost.

  “It all sounds very important,” Hephaistos said when the mayor finally stopped his litany of excuses. “I’m sure you have all that written down so my advisers can explain them to me?”

  “Of course, it’s all in the memos I sent you,” Dimos said, sweating a bit on his silk tie.

  “So there’s more delay,” Hephaistos said frowning.

  “I’m afraid so,” the mayor said flashing his most sympathetic smile.

  “These delays are costing me quite a lot, you know.”

  Dimos didn’t interrupt the man. He had earned that, at least.

  “But it’s not only that. The others are breathing down my neck. Since I whipped up Zeus’ skyscraper in record time, curse my thick skull for that, they all want their own, any obstacle be damned,” Hephaistos said and paused for emphasis. “Don’t be mistaken Mr. Stergiou, in two years time there will be ten skyscrapers in Athens, no matter what.”

  Dimos perked up at that. “Ten?”

  “I don’t need one. And Artemis will never go for such a phallic symbol of status. I can almost hear her rambling on about that. But yes. Ten.”

  Dimos sagged in his leather chair. Ten. And here he was, a man standing alone, trying to stop the construction of one. Was he a fool? Could he hold back their will? Could anyone? No matter what the Olympians had attempted in the last decade, no matter how crazy or how big, they had gotten it in the end.

  “But… The smog…” he protested in a wheeze.

  “We’ll put those biodynamic cement exteriors on all of them, don’t worry,” Hephaistos said and clicked his fingers as he tried to remember. “The mixture of cement and titanium oxide, that lets air pass through, but captures nitrogen-oxide particles. It eats smog like there’s no tomorrow. It’s all been tested and awaiting approval.”

  Dimos pulled a report on his desk computer and presented it. “Yes, but I have another environmental report here that says fatality rates and breathing problems will be increased by 4%. In a city this size, do you know what four percent means?

  “Two hundred eighty thousand people,” Hephaistos replied instantly.

  “And this report hadn’t taken into account ten skyscrapers!” Dimos had lost his temper, he was talking with the passion that drove him. “I didn’t know that! It should have been mentioned somewhere, and trust me, it didn’t slip past me in the memos. I don’t delegate, I read them all myself.”

  Hephaistos stared him and waited. “How about your unemployment numbers. What do those tell you, and what percentage of that has vanished because of my business?” he said, pointing a thick finger at him.

  Dimos shut his mouth.

  “How long will your citizens remain healthy, without jobs? It’s a simple question,” Hephaistos said, his voice firm but not harsh.

  Simple truths.

  “I don’t know,” the mayor admitted.

  “Neither do I, actually. But it seems to me, it’s better to have a working population than a rioting population,” Hephaistos said and stood up. “Look, Dimos, I know our work brings us clashing our swords by definition. You want a park made, I build it, we fight over the materials and the costs and the worker overtimes. But this,” the short man said pointing outside at the skyscrapers, “Is happening. Accept that and quit stalling on the permits.”

  Dimos started a protest but cut it short.

  “Thank you for the beer,” Hephaistos said and left the office in a cloud of dust.

  Chapter 14:// Waking up

  The wifi constructionsite7 was strong, with limited access and with a noticeably bad signal to noise ratio due to the heavy machinery being operated at the site.

  The skyscraper being erected was the third one in Athens. It was kind of a big deal in the media, because the mayor was pretty vocal against it. The site was busy and everyone wore hardhats, those standard-issue, yellow plastic ones, with biometrics monitoring and collision detectors.

  A huge, fat foreman was bellowing out orders in his radio, but he was loud enough to be heard just fine over the heavy machinery. On his belt he carried a measuring device with a red laser. It was always on for some reason, as if he didn’t have time for such frivolities as off switches, the beam visible in the dust, flinging around as the huge man talked.

  The user took in a big breath, gathered up his courage and went to face him.

  “Look what the cat dragged in,” the foreman said, making a show of checking the time on his phone. “Huh. Whaddaya know. It took getting cut in half for you to show up on time for work. Cooongrats.”

  “Goodmorning sir. Did you get my email? I contacted you as soon as I was able,” said the user, his gaze low on the dirt.

  “Yes I got your damn email. You think that losing an arm is a good enough excuse to miss a week’s work son?” His eyes darted curiously to the matte black cyberarm.

  The user leaned even lower and said, “Actually yes sir, I think-”

  “Well I don’t!” yelled Robertson. “But somebody from Public Relations,” he said, the words bitter in his mouth, “thinks it is. And since your recovery was so fast and miraculous, they think I should let you get back to work at once while the asskissers thank the Apollo Medical CEO for it!”

  The user was baffled. “So… Do I get back
to work or not?”

  “As if I have a choice you lucky bastard! You get your ass back to work right this instant and quit wasting my time with your pathetic stupid face,” he yelled and threw his laser device at him.

  The user covered his face, picked up the device from the dirt and put it on a crate next to foreman Robertson. He ran towards his post, people saying hi as he went past and he kept saying, “yes, I’m fine now, yeah, thanks, thank you, good to go.”

  He walked to his post, and went up the construction elevator. It jerked wildly and made loud noises but it got you there. Up on his post his coworkers welcomed him, patting him on the back and shaking his hand. He looked back, to the spot where his accident happened.

  It was cleaned up, but you could still see the blood stain. Metasteel is porous, that is the main reason it’s so light anyway. But porous means absorbent, and the blood gushing out of his severed arm had seeped into the foundation of the building. You could clearly see the darker texture on the metal if you knew what you were looking for.

  People blabbed on but the user was focused on that stain. The day of the accident, it had all happened too fast: Aibo, the stray dog the crew had adopted from the streets, was keeping them company, enjoying the sun while the workers were busy. Leo’s instincts had kicked in and saw an accident waiting to happen, a loose grip on the machine above their dog. He had extended his arm to push Aibo out of the way. The proximity alerts on his hardhat didn’t have time to warn him, and he couldn’t react fast enough anyway even if they did. The metasteel beam had simply slipped out of its hinges as it was being carried above him and sliced his arm off as clean as scissors cuts paper. A faint woof was heard. He didn’t remember anything after that, it was all black.

  He extended his left arm and swiped his palm over a device that gave him operator access to the machinery.