They got to a truck that was loaded with something blocky and covered with a brown canvas. Deinomache’s team was in formation, escorting the truck. They were driving along some unkempt gravel roads behind Rouf military drafting base, an area that despite being slap in the middle of Athens, had a large and semi-abandoned industrial zone.
The truck was running along a gravel-dirt road now and was lifting a cloud of dust behind it. The sun hadn’t set yet but the whole area was underlit, so the smoke darkened their view even more.
The group of Amazons had guns in hand and were alert. Orosa and Aura were following along, almost blind inside the dirt cloud.
“We can’t see anything from here! Give me the camera and get ahead of the truck,” Aura screamed to be heard over the roar of the engines and the crunching of the tires on uneven road.
Orosa hesitated. She thought about it and she finally agreed. They drove ahead of the convoy with a quick jam of the throttle and Aura managed to unclip the camera off Orosa’s helmet without dropping it. She held it tightly and pointed it behind them. She smiled when she saw that she was recording a rather dramatic shot. The truck was hurtling along, raising havoc behind it. The female riders were in formation, looking real badass.
Aura heard some pops and thought it was just the muffler from one of the bikes. The Amazons’ reaction made her reconsider. She quickly realised that they were in fact, gunshots and that she could make out a jeep in the dust behind them, going fast and closing in quickly. She saw a silhouette of a man sticking out and holding some sort of machine-gun. The Amazons were returning fire, and the truck had floored it.
“No matter what, don’t stop recording. I got you,” Orosa said and floored it too, since she was forced to do so to remain in the same relative distance ahead. At that speed every rock and every hole turned into a seriously dangerous obstacle. They took a few harsh turns, the bikes could adjust easy enough, but the truck actually drifted for quite a long distance. Aura realised that they were now essentially leading the convoy. The truck driver in his shock had thought of them as a part of the team and was following the bright yellow bike, who had two helmets, one red and fluffy eared, the other simply blue and shining.
“Do you even know where you’re heading?”
“Nope, but I intent to find out,” Orosa yelled. She tapped her phone, trying to steady her arm from the bumps on the road and spoke. “This is Orosa, this is Orosa. Interesting times. I need a gas station.”
One of the three Amazons must have been hit by a bullet because she fell. Her harness shone bright red and Aura had to do a double take to make sure of what she was seeing. She thought the chaos and the adrenaline rush was making her see things. Her instinct with things falling over was telling her that she should have hit the ground by now, but she was seeing the fallen Amazon still in the air, shining bright scarlet light. The second of the three Amazons spun in place and snatched the fallen one midair, throwing her on the back seat with drilled-in precision.
Deinomache, the third of the team and its leader, cursed loudly and braked hard, inertia raising the back tire in the air and tipping her bike like a motor-show. She pulled a huge military knife and slashed the jeep’s tire in a horizontal motion. The jeep swerved and the man holding the machine-gun was thrown around like dead weight. The whole thing took the jeep and the attackers way back.
Aura cheered and fumbled the camera, but didn’t drop it. She kept on recording. Orosa glanced back through the mirrors but didn’t slow down at all.
The jeep’s tire inflated itself back, and the attackers were in pursuit again in mere seconds, but the distance between them was significant now.
The phone that was in its usual grip holder on the steering wheel chirped and the holographic display reappeared over it. It was showing the surrounding area, and a big clear arrow was pointing the best vectors to take while driving at this speed. Orosa gripped the steering and followed the instructions. They were neatly arranged in positions so that she didn’t need to take her eyes off the road.
Orosa lead the convoy through a factory and along a winding path, that was surely someone’s attempt to shake off the pursuit. They got to some warehouses, huge buildings with slanted rooftops. The truck driver parked and got off to stretch his legs and calm himself, Aura could see that the man was literally shaking. Deinomache came next to him and pushed him back to the truck. He didn’t even think to protest or anything. She pointed at a warehouse and the truck driver moved it deeper inside a big building, around a corner where it couldn’t be easily seen.
After that, the second bike with the two Amazons on it showed up, reporting and finishing up a sweep of the ground.
Orosa turned anxiously to Aura and grabbed the camera. “Did you get everything?”
“Yes. I see now why they call you like that. Orosa. The one who watches.”
They turned their attention towards the wounded Amazon. The one who had picked her up, a blonde after she took off her helmet, cleaned her wound with a first aid kit. Then she sprayed a gray substance from a canister, which stopped the bleeding instantly. The wounded Amazon seemed relieved after that and tried to walk away. The blonde pushed her down and grunted a few words at her, and she bandaged the wound.
Deinomache reported something on her phone and then checked on her wounded teammate. She grabbed the wounded Amazon’s shoulder and smiled. Then she turned towards Orosa.
Aura could feel Orosa’s back stiffening.
Deinomache walked next to them, nodded with respect at her and then turned her fierce gaze onto Aura.
Oh shit.
Aura remained silent, not really sure of what to do or say.
The woman, Deinomache, was built like a man. Scratch that, she could easily take down most men. She had a short buzz-cut which must have been for practicality, Aura had never heard of a strict code in the Amazons from Orosa, and the rest of the girls had medium or long hair. Deinomache took off her glove, never taking her eyes off Aura.
Okay, now it was getting tense.
The fierce warrior, a fitting name thought Aura once you got to see her towering over you, took off her huge military knife from its scabbard. The thing could even be considered a short sword. One sharp gleaming edge, a serrated back in the other. “Who’s this chicklet?” said Deinomache, and it was a commanding voice.
“Aura. My… apprentice,” said Orosa.
Deinomache grunted and somehow made it sound like a disapproval, eyeing Aura top to bottom. Aura wasn’t tall or anything, she was average height but Deinomache took way too long checking her out. Aura feared she was sizing her up for meat chops.
Deinomache used her knife and slid it over the soft bottom of her palm, letting red beads of blood fall on the dirt, which soaked it up in an instant. Orosa took off her glove as well and Deinomache gave her the knife. She cut her palm in a similar way and let her own blood drip. “The road demands tribute,” they said in unison and Aura found herself mouthing the words.
Deinomache left it at that, sheathed her knife and turned back to her crew.
Orosa with Aura in the back seat, made a deep turn to stir up plenty of dirt and waved at the rest, leaving them behind.
Playlist: Video 23/67
“Oh fuck, she saw me,” panted Bremusa, pushing her back against a wall.
Antioche stared at her, then at the woman who had made the raging female quiver like a frightened girl.
She was frickin tall. A huge mane of brown hair, a fierce face, a cape. Yes, a cape, white as cloud, billowing in the air. It matched her spear, though she was, for now, carrying it like a walking stick. But the weirdest part was her skin. She had a mesh of black lines, like slightly faded tattoos but they seemed to cover her entire body. They weren’t too rigid in shape, diamond-like but also looking somehow organic.
“Come out of hiding you idiot!” Antioche said to Bremusa, “You’ll let her think we are afraid of her!”
“We are afraid of her,” said Melousa with her mellow voice w
ho was also ‘hiding.’ With air quotes.
“You are not supposed to let your enemy know that! It’s in the Art of War and everything. Come out here in the open beside me right now Bremusa, that’s an order!”
Bremusa hesitated for only a second but then stood next to her leader, her pose that of a warrior ready to pounce.
“It’s not like she’s gonna attack us out here in the middle of the street,” Antioche whispered to Bremusa. There were lots of people around, confused traffic from the road-block, shoppers, citizens of all ages. It was still early night.
The tall woman had her armed men do a blockade on the street. It wasn’t something anyone could expect, getting ambushed on the way of going to a silent infiltration. Antioche’s team had fallen right into the road-block and now had simply dismounted and were facing their opponents. The tall woman was just standing there, her men far behind. She didn’t seem to want to start a fight, but the Amazon trio knew better.
“Theseis,” said Bremusa acknowledging the tall woman.
“Bremusa. I see you are still loyal to that mouthy infant,” Theseis said with a loud calm voice, as if they had stumbled upon one another by accident.
“Hey fish-skin!” Antioche yelped. “The mouthy infant can hear you.” She bit her lip, regretting that come-back.
Theseis smiled widely. “I know.” She didn’t take her eyes off Bremusa. “I see you are getting ready to dance,” she added, nodding at the fully geared bikes behind them.
“So do you, Daskala,” said Bremusa hissing out the word that meant teacher in Greek.
“One more lesson for you my angry pupil.” She paused. “Nobody ever sees the whole picture.”
“What’s that supposed to mean,” snorted Antioche but got no reply to that.
“As a courtesy to old friends,” Theseis said and paused again, “stay away for two hours.”
“You’re telling me to back down,” Bremusa grinned. “What’s your new name by the way, now that you abandoned the Amazons?”
Theseis shrugged, and it was a big gesture coming from her shoulders. “It remains the same. I lay down the law, same as before.”
Antioche began mouthing off again but Bremusa put her hand on her shoulder and stopped her. “Who’s law? Zeus’?”
Theseis smiled. “Something even bigger than that.” She paused for effect once more. She was good at drama.
“Fate’s,” she added, looking straight at Antioche’s eyes.
Playlist: Video 24/67
“You have a dirty mind,” Orosa said and bit on her skewered meat on a stick.
“Ope means hole. Partheno means virgin. Parthenope. Virgin. Hole!”
“It basically means virgin voice,” she said and waved the stick around Aura’s face. “I dunno what the root of the word is, but that’s what it means. The others were making fun of her and just wanted to come up with a name that has virgin in it. She made the mistake of telling she was one.”
Aura giggled. Then she got sour. “Will she be alright? There was plenty of blood,” Aura said with a frown. She was staring at the juicy meat on a stick in front of her but she wasn’t hungry enough to go past the second bite.
Orosa grabbed two more sticks, completely unfazed compared to Aura, and was grabbing bites alternatively from each hand. She waved one around and spread grease and lemon juice all over the table. A few cats meowed behind her at the gesture. “If it was anything serious we would have called for an Apollo’s drone tripod. Don’t worry.”
She was done with one of the skewered meats and was tapping on her phone with greasy fingers, editing the video they’d shot earlier. The phone must have had some sort of nanocoating on it or it would surely not function after a week with Orosa.
“Are you uploading?” Aura asked and leaned forward in excitement.
“Nah, I scheduled it for tomorrow. There’s a fine line you know between showing off and being stupid. We’re showing the world what we do but we don’t give out current and valuable information. We don’t wanna sabotage the mission. It will be safe to upload in a few hours.”
Aura was trying to breach the topic for a while now but she was biting it down. She knew she wasn’t going to get a straight answer from Orosa, even if she trusted her enough. She wasn’t one of the team yet. “What was the cargo?” she said finally as if it was no big deal while spinning her meat on a stick.
“I don’t know,” Orosa said abruptly. Then she put the skewer down and looked at her straight in the eye. “I don’t make it a habit of getting involved, you know. I’m the one who watches, not the one who leads the convoy to the safe house…” She let that sink in and cleaned her teeth with one of the wooden stick’s end, making tsk sucking sounds.
Aura said nothing.
“Actually, now that I think about it, ever since you showed up things go to hell. That time with the businessman who jumped me. I had never involved myself before that.”
“Come on, that wasn’t my fault!” protested Aura. “You can’t blame me for that. And today with the truck, you saw we were blind in the dirt cloud. It was the right call, you know that. Wanna bet it will get over 300k views when it’s up?”
“I’m in. Certainly wish so. But remember one thing,” she said, dead serious and dropped the last skewered meat on the ground. “The road demands tribute.” One of the cats lunged at it, the rest followed and there was a prompt battle, a whir of meows and hisses and extended claws. A big cat emerged victorious, pulling the skewered meat with her at a bush. She was battered and with a frayed orange fur, missing an ear.
“Couldn’t you just take a picture of it and send it to Artemis? That’s what we do at Dionysos… It’s a waste,” said Aura.
“It must be something you need, something you’ll actually miss or it doesn’t count,” Orosa said and wiped the grease off her fingers on her pants shorts.
Playlist: Video 25/67
“Get this beast off of me,” Orosa said and stood still as a statue.
Aura bit her lip and tried to suppress a smile. She failed. She petted the beast but didn’t pull it away. It was night, and they were illuminated by floodlights triggered by motion.
The Rottweiler slobbered and licked Orosa’s gloved hands, then sniffed loudly at her legs. “What a nice doggy you are, yes you are,” Aura said in the voice everyone reserves for petting animals, and rubbed his black fur.
Orosa closed her eyes and gritted her teeth. “Is it fed, at least?”
“It, is Byron, and he wouldn’t ever stoop so low as to eating a scrawny person like you, so don’t worry. Byron gets well cooked meals from the chef, yes he does!”
Orosa dared open one eyelid. “So what you’re telling me is that this beast is fed better than half of the population? Fucking celebs, you live in another world entirely.” Her shoulders unclenched a bit, obviously feeling a little more at ease since the huge dog had shown no interest in her bones.
“Is the big doggy scaring the whittle Amazon,” Aura said with the same petting tone, pinching Orosa’s cheek.
“Are you kidding me? It weighs two times I do! Look at that enormous head.”
“Here, pet him, not the nose, back of the head,” Aura said holding Byron’s collar and guiding Orosa’s hand with the other.
Orosa went along hesitantly and petted the dog, relaxing her hand inside Aura’s grip. She visibly untensed then and looked around the house’s back yard. “So, this is where you live. It’s enormous.”
Aura looked around her house. Enormous. Sure, it might seem so to other people, but it was her home. She paid little attention to it, it just was. The lawn was well trimmed, the hedges were neat and high, the wall around was protective enough. The house itself was an old neoclasic, which means preserved old architecture but pretty. It wasn’t that enormous. They couldn’t have the party Viko had at his mansion here, but it was a bit bigger than most people had. By a factor of twenty. “I guess it is.”
Orosa wasn’t really awed by all of this. Aura looked at her, now cal
m, petting the Rottweiler which was indeed two times her size. She noticed then that she was holding Orosa’s hand for so long, and that it had felt completely natural. Sure, they had spent hours riding together, Aura holding onto Orosa’s waist, their bodies touching, driving around the city. Orosa had even caved eventually and let her come with on more missions, though none was as dangerous as the last one had been.
Aura tried to remember if Orosa had ever flinched at her touch, but couldn’t. Holding her hand inside hers was somehow very intimate but felt as natural as anything they had done together. They petted Byron but somehow Aura found herself enjoying it more than he did.
Aura realised that lost in thought, she was staring at Orosa’s exposed neck, the gentle curve of the bones and tendons leading down to…
Aura pulled her hand back and Orosa gripped her own into her chest. “What? Did I hurt him somehow? What?” Orosa said startled.
Aura turned her back, looking at the house. She cleared her throat and said, “I… I need to get some sleep for the test tomorrow. Good-night.”
She couldn’t see Orosa, but there was a pause and she could feel her gaze burying into her back.
“Night,” Orosa said levelly and swiftly walked back to her bike. The on/off mechanical beast tore through the gravel in the parkway and was gone into the night.
Aura watched as the headlight faded away, biting her nails. Orosa was observant, you don’t get to be a camerawoman without noticing stuff early. Heck, her name meant observant. She bit through a whole tip of her nail and spat it out audibly, then resumed work on the next one.
She was standing on the steps leading up to a side entrance, keys in hand. The floodlight turned off and Byron, despite being large and loud, had vanished into the bushes into his favourite spot.
MOAB � Mother Of All Boxsets Page 49