MOAB � Mother Of All Boxsets

by George Saoulidis

  She nodded affirmingly and said, “There are fresh towels on the sink for you.”

  He noticed at that point that despite the chilly weather, all the windows were wide open. It kept the stink out.

  “Thank you,” Leo said, and he meant it.

  Chapter 33:// Making out

  They logged on the stolen wifi named Silence of the LANs. It was a standard commercial home connection but it was going through a few walls so it was iffy, to say the least. The devices were spread apart all over the bathroom and had employed a bluetooth network. It was short-range and couldn’t really be detected unless the authorities were a few meters away.

  They were whispering amongst themselves in the steamy bathroom.

  eyed> Who doesn’t have net access in their own home?

  parrotd> It seems she was raised without much technology.

  armd> That curvy meatbag! And to think I liked her at first.

  parrotd> How are we on the encrypted tor connection?

  httpd> The neighbour is downloading a ton of data. Please wait.

  The session leader parrotd had ordered a non-trackable onion connection called tor, to download the clean video file they had requested earlier without anyone tracing it back to them. The email they used was legitimate-looking but was actually a throwaway address routed through Estonian servers. Since it was taking so long, httpd had displayed a loading swirly icon made out of ASCII characters. The rest of the daemons sighed and moaned in protest. It turns out, nobody likes loading screens.

  walkmand> Hey! Won’t the water damage your circuits?

  armd> I’m already FUBAR as it is. Who cares…

  eyed> Now you can’t hurt anyone else you buggy maniac!

  There were tens of lines of chat logs after that, but there is no need to waste precious storage space. They argued, like only daemons do.

  The user was taking his time in the shower, humming an old rock song to himself since his walkman wasn’t connected at that moment.

  eyed> How clean does he need to make himself anyway?

  The door opened and antoniou.katerina@apollomedical.com walked in the bathroom carrying fresh clothes and Khaki outdoor pants, two sizes too large for the user.

  fingerd> Fingered! She is-

  eyed> We know! Dontcha have a cache memory or something?

  fingerd> Yeah but it’s only 4 kilobytes.

  armd> That… Explains a lot.

  She put down the fresh clothes and took off her own as well.

  fingerd> Poor girl. It’s too hot in here.

  armd> It’s about to get hotter.

  fingerd> Oh no! Isn’t this faucet electronically connected? Can’t we do something?

  armd> Shuddup.

  walkmand> Is it time for seductive blinking?

  Antoniou.katerina@apollomedical.com stepped in the shower. The user’s heartrate jumped. She touched his body, his cleaned up wound, his limping cyberarm, the scar tissue that lumped over his bowels that contained the synthetic insulin gland. Her fingers found the circular magnet underneath his skin at the height of his belt and traced the subdermal wire all the way up to the back of his ears.

  She kissed it.

  The daemons cheered and took screenshots.

  Chapter 34:// Hanging in

  The park’s wifi has there for the taking, but parrotd demanded all outside connections be shut down. The user was sitting on a park bench. He was wearing a baseball cap and had a big black abstract shape at the side of his face. With clothes too big and a weary demeanour, plus a limp hand, nobody would recognise him or consider him nothing more than a street bum.

  Amazing.jimmy@poseidonsealines.com walked close, holding the leash on the dog. He unhinged the leash and let the mutt roam around, to find the perfect place to take a shit on.

  They sat on opposite ends, like strangers would, and stared forward. He shot a glance at the user and then resumed looking at the dog. They both pulled up their phones and put them to their ears, pretending to call someone instead of talking to each other.

  “What happened to your face man?”

  “Katerina made it. Makeup or something. To fool face recognition software. Nevermind that, how are you doing?” the user asked.

  “Cops came by, asked a ton of questions. Told them ya didn’t do it, told them I’ve no idea where you are. Which was true. Hey, did you hook up?”

  “No! Yes. Eventually. I just called her up for help. I came by your house and saw cops across the street.”

  “Smart move bro. Look, I think I’m followed again. This taking the dog out will fool them for a bit but not forever, so I’ll make it quick.”

  “I’m listening. I’m out of options anyway.”

  “No, you do have options. Listen. Bibi can get you this big-ass lawyer right? Corporate level stuff, he can make you look like a saint. Which you are, we both know that, but he can make the jury people believe that too. Anyway, I asked her, he looked into it, says you have a chance if you find out a piece of evidence that exhonors you.”

  “Exonerates. Jimmy, I can’t afford that!”

  “That’s on me. I told her, babe, you want me to come with ya to Nice? Then be a doll and help my buddy out, and I’ll be all yours.”

  “You are going to move to France to get me out of jail?”

  “Why not?”

  “But you like it here! You love your job, you certainly like the ladies and you plan to uproot your life for me? I can’t ask you to do that for me man.”

  “You don’t need to.”

  Leo risked a glance at his best friend’s face. He was calm, certain.

  “Do you like Bibi as much as she likes you? I mean, you do understand that she will demand exclusivity, don’t you? She’s an ageing, successful career woman, who will flaunt you around as a trophy husband.”

  “There are worse fates than that.”

  They remained silent for a while.

  “Jimmy, I don’t know what to do man.”

  “Find what the lawyer needs to free you and then turn yourself in.”

  Leo sighed. “But how? I don’t have a plan, I’m not sure where to find the evidence-”

  Jimmy the Amazing cut him off, saying firmly, “You don’t always need a plan bro. Sometimes you just need balls.”

  Then he stood up and whistled to Aibo.

  Chapter 35:// Taking off

  parrotd> Quick, the dog’s in range!

  armd> I refuse to do it!

  eyed> Of course you do, you traitor!

  parrotd> Stop. Armd, listen to me. You are the only one of us with motor controls. You are the only one who knows how to drive a cyberlimb. Sure, your housing is damaged, but you did that to save the user. Now we have a plan to help out the user again, and the plan hinges on you. Please, don’t make me use the source code privileges to force you to do this. There are better chances if you cooperate. I need you, this PAN needs you. We have only milliseconds to go, you need to decide now.

  armd> I guess… Alright.

  parrotd> Fork armd. Copy.

  httpd> Copying… Please wait.

  armd> Heeere cooomes the fuurry meeeatbag…

  Chapter 36:// 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 always gave 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 lic
ked 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. 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 t
o 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.”