Orosa was still eyeing her.
“Don’t worry, I never get invited to those.”
A murmur and a roar from the tiny crowd, and Orestes showed up from the entrance. They were clapping and patting him on the back, and he was just standing there shyly, smiling and thanking people, holding his bouzouki case.
He was greeted by the quick barkeep and got shoved gently but firmly onto the small stage before he could even register what had happened.
Orestes picked up his bouzouki, pulled the mic close and struck the classic maga pose, which means the cool guy, with the frown and the open arms. That pose emitted in neon phrasing ‘I’m a tormented drunk and manly man.’
The boite was silent, unlike towards the earlier performer who was more of a background nuisance. Orestes twiddled the opening notes and got a round of applause.
“Now, Orosa my dear friend, you will enjoy a live performance by Orestes Dillinger,” Aura said proudly.
Playlist: Video 44/67
“He’s totally into you,” Orosa said leaning back, smiling and seeming to enjoy herself.
Aura found herself liking that smile.
Orestes took a break after an hour and made an attempt to reach them, but he was blocked by fans who wanted to talk to him. He was too polite to walk away. The bar filled again with people’s conversations.
Aura pffted and waved down at her. Some spit flew off.
“Fine,” Orosa shrugged. “Don’t believe me. He merely dedicated three love songs to you,” she said counting fingers and then sipped her drink as if she didn’t care.
“No, there’s a reason for that. The first one, it’s actually really funny, we were practising together and this-”
“You know you won’t be able to be with a man, once you join us, right?” Orosa said sobering up.
“Wha- Wait, not ever?” Aura asked and jerked, turning to face her.
“Oh you can sleep with as many guys as you want, we’ll even brag about it over beer and exchange stories,” Orosa said waving away. “Or cola, whatever. You just can’t be with a guy. Together, I mean. It’s not in the rules or anything, but Artemis doesn’t like it. This is a girls only club, boys are strictly for fun.”
Aura didn’t care about many guys, she hadn’t even been with one yet. “So if I get hired by Artemis, it will be for life. And I’ll never get married,” said Aura, thinking out loud. She wasn’t one of those girls who dreamt of her wedding day, had everything picked out already and were looking for the perfect man. But she did like to think she would have that option at some point. Yeah, she was still young but she always thought that someday, she’d meet a man she liked and get married in a church. Her family was after all the very poster boys of Greek traditional values.
“I’m sorry I didn’t explain this earlier,” Orosa went on, “but I honestly thought it was apparent. You’ve researched everything before you found me. The only guys that might, I repeat might, get a lukewarm approval for a casual relationship are the Apollo guys.”
Aura said nasally, “Doctors. She approves doctors. Any mother does, I guess.”
Orosa nodded in affirmative.
“What is this thing with Apollo Medical? This tight partnership?” Aura asked.
“Just like you said it, a tight partnership. Trust me, it is a literal blessing what we have access to cutting edge medical equipment and experts. That in itself would be enough to owe them big-time. But Apollo takes care of the orphan boys, so that’s fitting too.”
“Artemis gets the girls, Apollo gets the boys in corporate adoption? And Apollo offers medical care, while Artemis…”
“Provides security, transportation, research, engineering, personpower. There are many levels of exchange, I guess it evens out somehow,” Orosa said.
Aura was silent, taking it in.
Orestes showed up towering over her, slapped his palms together and said, “So, this is Orosa who has turned my friend into a wild biker, I presume?”
They had a great time after that. Orestes dusted off all the embarrassing stories and they were all laughing and rolling over, holding their bellies. He was called a couple of times to the stage, sang a duo with another musician, they drank some more. Aura was getting tipsy by the sheer fun they were having, but the other two were red-faced. Aura liked that, having her friends from two completely different worlds enjoying themselves in a night of drinking and music. She had a nagging fear it wouldn’t last, so she savoured every moment.
Playlist: Video 45/67
Melousa had raided the fridge.
And the candy machine, and her secret stash. The recruits had left her alone, staying clear of her way. They weren’t afraid of her of course like the other senior Amazons, this was just out of respect for her mourning.
Bremusa brushed off the discarded candy wrappers on the floor and sat next to her.
They didn’t say a word for more than ten minutes.
“I tried to-” Melousa said, breaking the silence.
“I know,” Bremusa cut her off softly.
Melousa held a candy wrapper in her hand and stared at it. “She’d be very mad at me if she could see me right now.”
Bremusa smiled. “You’re gonna get a heart attack Melousa!” she said in Antioche’s voice.
Melousa laughed at that. “Yes…” she exhaled slowly.
Another pause.
“I fixed her bike,” the chubby Amazon said and her voice broke.
Bremusa shook her head, “What?”
“The one she crashed on the highway. I fixed it. I put on gyroscopic automated stabilisers so it would steer itself and stop if the rider was off the seat suddenly,” she sniffed.
Bremusa blinked at her. “Oh. Nice.”
“So she wouldn’t crash it again in a similar situation. Do you think she’d like that? It was a surprise.”
Bremusa smiled, “Yes, I think she’d love that.”
Melousa sniffed. “I hope so.” Then she blurted out “Artemis lied to us!”
“Don’t say things like that! What do you mean?”
“I went over the footage I recorded from the mission. It cuts off, you know, when the electricity arcs… Anyway, that is no ordinary server room. And I went over the code we got for the exploit, it doesn’t make sense. It wasn’t going to change legal documents or anything like that.”
“There’s something fishy. You feel it too,” Bremusa said nodding.
“First of all, that server room has no place being connected with three mumbling ladies. It's a biggie as far as red-flags go. Second, it couldn’t be moved even if they wanted to. I only got a single frame, but I caught a glimpse of a liquid nitrogen cooled installation.”
“What’s that? I’ve heard you talk about something like that before.”
“It’s for a quantum computer. They are not uncommon but they are very troublesome, only the top companies can pay for their upkeep. The point is, that it wouldn’t be transported anyway. It would take an operation of at least two days, not two hours.”
“Theseis played us,” Bremusa hissed. “She just made a show of something we would definitely assault. We didn’t outsmart her.”
“It seems so. Also, the code,” Melousa said and showed her laptop. “It does change things, but not in a direct way. It alters the floating-point variable size of the 64-bit-”
“Melousa! Explain it to me like I’m five.”
“Um… Oh! It’s like this. It doesn’t change the actual data regarding the orphans, so much as shift the way they are perceived. If someone doesn’t take a good look at them, they might result in a different category.”
“Might,” Bremusa said frowning. “Antioche died for ‘might.’”
Melousa darkened at that.
“It gets weirder,” Bremusa said. “Artemis told me to find, and I quote, the one who wants to change her fate.”
Melousa’s eyes glinted. She typed on her laptop and showed the video from their infiltration. The moment the two Amazons were about to step
foot into the server room, with the weird women inside. Melousa went frame by frame, and stopped at the reaction of her leader’s face.
Bremusa was hurting just looking at it.
“Fate!” That’s what Antioche said when she got in the room.
“What about it,” Bremusa snarled, suddenly feeling angry and wanting to rip someone’s throat off.
Melousa jumped up at that. She said softly, “That makes sense now. Somehow that server room and the three women, have to do with fate. Just like in mythology, see? Klotho, Lachesis, Atropos,” she said and pointed with her chubby finger at the women on the screen.
“That’s bullshit. Fate is not determined in the Parliament’s sub-basement.”
“Of course not, but it’s more like a collection and interpretation of the data-exhaust people generate.”
“People have no mufflers Melousa.”
“It’s a term. People buy stuff, they like pictures, they share articles. Their phones monitor their locations, know their names, birthdays. Search engines know if they have looked for medical conditions. Medical records are unified and digital now. You can extrapolate a person’s life with a scary degree of accuracy from all of that data,” Melousa said. She grabbed another candy bar as if the thinking had made her hungry again.
Bremusa put her hands up and wheezed. “Okay, let’s say a bunch of brainiacs came up with that. Fine. Let’s say Zeus can afford that sort of thing, running the quantum whatever. Fine. How does that change a person’s life? It’s just bits and bytes in a computer.”
Melousa giggled and covered her mouth.
“What? Oh, because I said bits and bytes? I do listen to you, you know. Can’t make out half of it, but I do listen,” Bremusa said in mock seriousness.
“It doesn’t change anything, you are right. Apart from insurance and advertising, which is pretty much what was done decades up to now. I think, that they are simulating a plausible future inside the computer, feeding it to the women that were on the pedestals and since a human observer actually watches that future, it collapses the waveform and becomes real. Call it fate if you will.”
“You did not just go metaphysical on me!” Bremusa blurted out and stood up.
“There are many theories that suggest our own universe is simulated and finite, it is not that far off. When an observer-”
“Stop! I’m getting a headache, and I’m not getting any of this. If you say it is so, I believe you,” Bremusa said and paced up and down the row of cots. Her body hurt in ten places but she ignored it.
Melousa didn’t say anything to her in that state.
Oh she was angry. She wanted to smash that abomination to pieces, tear their optical-fibre umbilical cords out of their bodies, pry out their useless eyes, break the bones of that hand that cuts fate.
Then she sat down on a cot and put her face in her palms, breathing hard. It wasn’t their fault. Those girls were frail, weak. It felt like you could break their wrist by shaking it. They were prisoners as well. All for Zeus’ plans.
Bremusa could hear a song coming from the laptop. It was familiar.
No, it was her favourite.
‘Daughter don’t scold me,’ by Tony and Aura Nightingale.
She stood up at that. “What are you listening to?”
Melousa turned the screen at her and said, “Um, I think we may have found the girl who wants to change her fate.
Bremusa leaned in and read the news article headlined, “The Black Sheep Of The Nightingales Tosses Her Career Away With A Single Selfie.”
Playlist: Video 46/67
The Nightingale house was in siege. Press was camped outside, and they had to call-in extra security to push back the reporters and the cameras.
Mrs. Nightingale was pacing up and down, peeking through her curtain at regular intervals, cursing under her breath and pacing again. Aura had left her in that state two whole hours ago, but she knew she’d still find her doing that exact same thing.
Aura was locked in her room, in a foetal position on the bed. She could hear everything that was happening. She took the cowards way out for a moment earlier, putting on headphones and loud music. Then she took them off. It was her mess, her choice.
Her life.
The least she could do was listen to the sound of it crashing and burning.
Her father was downstairs, yelling his lungs out. For a professional singer, that decibel level was quite formidable. “This is my damn house! I decide who stays here. No, fuck you! My daughter is a minor, I’m her guardian, you don’t get to call that. Yes, allow me to repeat that. Fuck. You.”
“Mr. Nightingale, please. Her contract is null and void. Dionysos has the legal right to remove her from property that he owns,” said a calm voice. Aura knew that voice, it was one of the lawyers. The bigshot one, not the B-team. The one Dionysos employed for major scandals. The one with the Armani suit and the gleaming smile.
Tony hissed, “Tell Dionysos, that I’ve paid for this house a hundred times over. I don’t care what you think, this is my house, my family. You don’t get to kick my daughter out.”
“I understand how you feel-”
“Do you? Do you really? This isn’t some trashed hotel or some hooker overdose for you to handle. You don’t get to handle anything in my house.”
“I’m afraid miss Aura has left us no choice. She has announced the dissolution of her contract publicly, she has been seen in the employ of Artemis Automotive, a company with many points of conflict with Dionysos I might add. The only thing left for me to do is damage control, and we need to distance you from Miss Nightingale as soon as possible. The board’s vote was unanimous.”
“Distance?” Tony spat out the word. “Distance me from my family?”
“To be precise, distance your family from Miss Aura.”
Something smashed and broke. Aura guessed it was one of the ornate vases in the living room, the ones her mother had picked because it made them look distinguished and rich. Not some poor family from the dregs of the city, with a dying son and no future.
Her father murmured something. Aura couldn’t hear. She got up and opened her door slowly so as not to make a sound. She tried to listen in.
“… I’ll do anything. Tell them that. Endorsements, viral ads, fucking comedy cameos. Anything. Please Rick. We’ve known each other for a decade. Help me out here man.”
The lawyer spoke softly, his rhetoric facade crumbling into sorrow. “You know you are my favourite account Tony. A family man, serious and sincere. Like it used to be. You are like an oasis in a desert of megalomania and drugs. Every time I’m disgusted with myself with the things I cover up for the others, I think of you. It helps me go on. I do understand how you feel, but I’m saying this as an old friend. You cannot stop this. I will try my best, I swear I will, but I know how it ends.”
Aura sagged down on the carpeted floor. She wished for some nails to bite on, there were none left. Not without chewing into her fingers.
The front door shut and heavy footsteps came up the stairs.
She ran back inside and shut the door. She didn’t know why she did that.
She took a shower to take her mind off things. It was impossible to do so, but she felt marginally better. Then she called Orestes who had been trying to reach her for hours and had a hundred missed calls.
“Oh finally!” he said over the phone.
Aura paused for a minute. “What do I do?”
She could almost hear him frowning with worry. “How bad is it?”
“The baddest. Like, imagine the worst situation you can and add an alien invasion on top.”
Orestes laughed lightly at that, “I guess it does feel like an alien invasion sometimes huh? This life.”
“Not when I’m on the road.”
“Oh?”
“When I’m riding the bike, it’s like all this vanishes. I put on the helmet and it protects me like it’s supposed to, but from all this as well. Forget it, I know it’s dumb…”
&
nbsp; “I see.”
“What do I do?” she asked again.
“I don’t know. I’m not some sage, we’ve lived the exact same life you and I. You are much smarter than me.”
“Yeah right. I sure do feel smart right now, as it all crashes down on me.”
“Aura.”
“Yes?”
“You are smart. Smart people are allowed to do some dumb things in their life you know.”
“You always know what to say.”
“Wanna know what I think?”
“Sure.”
“I think that I’ve seen you every day for years now. We’ve been to school, to parties, to bars, to family dinners, to product endorsements. I think, the only time I’ve seen you happy, and I mean truly happy, is when you are about to hop on that bike. I assume the happiness carries on down the road but you’re pretty much a blur at that point,” he said finishing with a tease.
“Stop. I got the point, you are accusing me of dumping you all the time these days.”
“Yes, but I’m serious about the rest of it. It’s the only time I’ve seen you happy.”
A pause.
“Hello? Aura.”
“Orestes?”
“Yeah?”
“You are the best friend ever.”
Playlist: Video 47/67
Men came to kick her out of her own house.
Aura hadn’t once in her lifetime imagined that such a thing was possible. Sure, they’ve had angry landlords back in the old days before her dad’s fame. It seemed possible then, but now it was a world-shattering event.
Being kicked out of your house is something that happens to poor people. Never to rich people.
It was as if time had stopped, the shards of her reality crumbling down all around her.
She could take in every little detail, in a still image of human poses, a tableaux vivant of her life getting ruined.
The two private security men were huge and muscled as if pumped full of air. They were looking at her as if she was some sort of stalker, a crazy person. Someone to be removed from premises.
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