Myth Gods Tech - Omnibus Edition: Science Fiction Meets Greek Mythology In The God Complex Universe (4 page)

George
yells that he sees the bicycle and runs to it. I can’t see where he
is going and I can’t see the bicycle. I wait at the corner and I am
holding my dress up so it doesn’t get dirty.

I call
out to George but he doesn’t say anything. I yell louder but he
still doesn’t hear me. I wait there because I don’t want to get my
dress dirty. It’s new and I love it.

I yell
again and I step into the muddy water. My dress gets ruined. I am
angry and am going to tell everything to mommy so she takes care of
George when she comes.

I hold
on to a car and go where George saw his bicycle. It is a place from
a condo that has cars below. There is a hole and the water is going
inside very fast. George is at the hole and is pulling the green
bicycle. The water is fast and he can’t pull the bicycle. He tells
me to help him. I tell him no, he made me walk into the water and
now my new dress is ruined. It is wet and muddy and I’ll never
forgive him and I’ll tell mommy and he will never play videogames
again.

George
is all wet and dirty, and his face is red. He is pulling on the
bicycle. It gets unsnagged and George falls under it in the water.
I yell at him from far away.

He gets
up from the water and carries the bicycle against the fast water.
He puts his arm in the triangle under the seat and puts it on his
back. He tells me that it’s OK and he can get it home.

He slips
and falls and the water pulls the bicycle into the hole. The
bicycle gets stuck in the hole and his arm is pinned under the
water. His face is red and brown and under the water. I scream and
run to George and pull him up but he is stuck and the water is
coming fast.

A man
hears me and comes towards me and tells me to get back but I pull
George up but he is stuck.

I pull
and pull and I slip and I stand up over the water and I
breathe.

The man
comes next to me and pulls George over the water.

George
turns blue.

I love
him but he is now blue.

Chapter
14

I was in no
mood to go home. I left Deppy’s after cleaning up of course and
went to a cafe on my own.

I walked
inside and the barman lit up as soon as he saw me. His name was
Adras and he was as manly as it gets. He had a thing for me,
commenting on all my pictures. I could get a free coffee anytime
where he worked.

He tried
to hide that he rushed to my side of the bar and casually rubbed
something that needed cleaning. “Yasou Mahi! It’s not your usual
time.”

“
I should leave then,” I said and theatrically turned towards
the exit.

“
No, no,” he said and he was practically leaning over the
counter.

So
adorable.

“
I’ll stay then,” I said and smiled at him.

He
looked like he had won a prize. “What shall I make you? Frappe as
usual?”

I held
my hand topside touching my forehead, and said, “I really need
something stronger today.”

Adras gritted his teeth and inhaled. “I can’t do that Mahi,
you aren’t 18 yet. And the fact is, I
know
you are not 18, and can’t even
claim ignorance. You come here with half your classmates for god’s
sake.”

“
Come on…” I said and leaned on the counter to give him a good
view, the very same I knew for a fact he was looking at for hours
surfing my pictures. I took a real bimbo tone of voice and said, “I
read on a article the other day that a woman should have a Cosmo
when she is troubled. Can you make me a woman?”

He
gulped. “Yes.”

“
I’m sure you make it great.” I made sure to keep the pose he
liked and took out my wallet. “I dunno how much a cocktail costs,
never had one before…”

“
It’s OK, on me,” he said and started making me
one.

“
You are the best,” I told him and smiled.

I sat at
a table alone.

I surfed
the web a while, ignoring my messages. Adras brought me the Cosmo
and after some chit chat, he went back to the bar. I took a big sip
and found it nice. I think he made it light on alcohol somehow,
even though I’ve never had one before to compare. It was surely on
purpose because he really knew how to make those things. Adras was
a mixologist, a title that brings out snorts in Greece everytime it
is uttered out loud because it means something silly. It sounds as
if you call yourself “snot specialist.” Seriously. But no one
seemed to complain after he’d tasted his lattes and cocktails.
Adras had gone to a mixologist school in the Netherlands, and he
was really proud of it. He was older of course, way over thirty but
he was always sweet.

Plus he
had grrreat arms.

Muscled
and with hands that were rough from manual labour.

I stared
at him work through a reflection.

My phone
buzzed. It was a message. I was about to ignore it but I noticed
the greek pi on a white background. It was Prodromos.

“
Come with me if you want to live.”

What?

I wrote
back, “What?”

No
reply.

I waited
and waited, refreshed and turned my Wi-Fi on and off again.
Nothing. I drank my whole drink but decided against asking for
another. Maybe I could push my luck with Adras for a second one,
but to be honest, I was starting to get tipsy.

I called
Billy.

“
Hey.”

“
Hey. Did you see what happened?”

“
No, what?”

“
You really need to get a smartphone one of these days. You
are literally the only person I know who didn’t see the videos
yet.”

“
Please tell me you aren’t talking about a sex
tape.”

“
No, it’s worse!”

And I
told him what happened.

“…
And now nothing.”

“
It’s Terminator.”

“
The killer robot is after me?”

“
No, I mean could be, but no. The line is from
Terminator.
Come with me if you want to
live
. It’s right after he saves
Sar-”

“
So? What does it mean?”

“
Lemme think. It must be a place, he must be telling you to
come somewhere.”

“
We aren’t in Hollywood.”

“
No, wait. There is something similar nearby.”

“
What, a killer robot?”

I
instinctively looked around. Couldn’t help it.

“
Ohi, no. There’s a sculpture at Omonoia, a metal man. It
looks a lot like Terminator. The artist was on the local news a few
weeks ago, didn’t you see it?”

“
Why would I see
sculptures
,” I said as if the word
was something lame. Which it was.

“
Because that knowledge might come in handy when receiving
cryptic messages from anonymous people. Which it just
did.”

I let
the smug bastard have his moment.

“
I’ll text you the address.”

“
Whoa, wait! You aren’t leaving me to go there alone, are
you?”

“
Why not? I could be wrong.”

“
And you could be right! And frankly, when have you
ever
been wrong you tall
brainiac?”

“
I’ve been wrong many times.”

“
You’re coming with me. I’m not meeting this creepy guy on my
own. My mom would kill you if something happened to me and you
weren’t there.”

Chapter
15

I poked
Billy.

Not on
Facebook of course, in real life. We have already established that
the freak doesn’t actually use social media.

How does
he even breathe?

Anyway,
we were on the metro heading to Athens Centre. The historic centre
of Athens you might say, yes, the one with the Acropolis on it. I
could tell we were heading close by the ever increasing amount of
people squeezing in and by the body odours.

Or muck.
Call it what you want.

Billy
was a gentleman as always and was standing close to me, towering
over and cornering me so that people wouldn’t bump into me. Other
girls might think that was a bit flirty, I knew that he was
actually following his own personal Savoir Vivre.

I kinda
liked that.

He was
looking out the window, zoned out and probably thinking of chess
moves or something esoteric as always.

I poked
him again.

“
Yeah?”

“
Deppy told you didn’t she?” I asked, not quite
asking.

He
hesitated. “She might have mentioned an episode.”

“
An episode? Like an epileptic one?” I
angry-whispered.

“
That’s my term, don’t get mad at her. She’s just worried
about you.” We were so close he was literally looking down at
me.

I kinda
hated that.

A sudden
rush hit me. Cold sweat. My heart pumped and gravity
tilted.

I looked
around at all the people, locked in like sardines in a
can.

Where
would I go if she came at me again?

Where
would I run?

Is there
a button you can press in an emergency? Yes, there is one over
there. Only three meters away yet so far it might as well be a
hundred. A “break in case of emergency” button, with a warning
below it for facing charges if used inappropriately.

How
would I convince people it was an emergency if I was the only one
who could see her? The Erinyes, with her angry face and her purple
glowing hair that flowed towards me like it wanted to choke
me?

I think
I fainted.

Yeah.

It must
have been mere seconds but I have no memory of it.

Duh,
that’s what fainting is!

I was
held in the corner by Billy, he had pushed my head closer to the
window so I could get some more air.

I looked
around, people were whispering. A woman gave me her water bottle, I
splashed it on my face.

“
Take your girl off the heat and the people,” she said to
Billy.

“
Excellent advice madam, we are getting off now anyway,” he
replied while propping me up.

I pushed
him away and walked to the door, people were making room for me
despite the crowded space.

The
doors opened and we walked onto the platform.

I stood
firm as people rushed out of the metro and went on to their lives.
I opened my legs wider than normal to stabilise myself.

People
stopped paying attention to me. I wonder what they would do if they
could see what I saw in my mind’s eye?

“
Are you OK Mahi?”

“
Fine now.”

We
stepped outside into the street and breathed in the smell of
piss.

Chapter
16

No seriously, piss.

Everywhere, like stepping into the world’s largest urinal.
Depending on the wind and the building you were near, the odour
varied. Sometimes it was just a hint, something you pick up and
need to take another sniff to pin-point. Other times it was wet and
think, like the piss from 46 people taking on an averaged urinal
scent.

I’m not
sure why, but Omonoia, the big plaza smack-dab in the middle of
Athens smells like piss. Take it from me.

I
pinched my nostrils but then decided it was a bad idea to deny
oxygen to my brain so soon after an actual fainting, so I
mouthbreathed instead.

Besides,
what kind of lady would walk around pinching her nose?

I let
Billy lead, due to the fact that I had no frickin idea where we
were going.

“
It’s not far, two streets west.”

“
Uh huh.” I decided not to interrupt my mouth-breathing and
for the first time in my life, I had no reply.

“
It’s funny, so this artist made the Terminator statue out of
spite. He works with metal, right? And he makes sculptures in
abstract shapes. So he made four sculptures out of scrap metal, and
found a way to pull them out on the sidewalk. It was a big
sidewalk, if you see the pictures you’ll understand. Anyway, he
manages to get those half-a-ton sculptures into the street so that
people could see them for free. That was his thing, he wanted that
collection to be free and amongst the people, not out in some
gallery for intellectual assholes. So he places them there, people
like them, dogs pee on them, cyclists lock their bikes on them etc.
And then the garbage collector comes, sees the piles of scrap metal
and calls his partners and they haul them into the landfill. He
thought they were rubbish! Not aesthetically, he literally thought
they were trash and he had to get them sorted! That’s exactly what
he said on his interview. Then the artist reads it, gets mad of
course, months of his work wasted and called rubbish, so he makes a
metal man and plops it in the same place. And then he says,
‘Terminators don’t feel pain’!”