Myth Gods Tech - Omnibus Edition: Science Fiction Meets Greek Mythology In The God Complex Universe (5 page)

I just
stared at him.

“
Get it? Cause he was hurt? No?”

“
Don’t make me regret picking you as my knight,” I said and
moved along.

“
Hah! A chess counter-joke! Nice. Yeah you
are
feeling better. It’s the other
way.”

I turned
like a princess and moved along, the right way this
time.

Chapter
17

We walked
along a street where two young Nigerian girls were showing off
their wares. I’m more discreet usually, but couldn’t help but watch
as they called out to men driving by and squeezing their breasts to
present them. Not that they were in any way hidden, of course. The
girls, not the breasts. It was broad daylight.

I
thought these things happen only at night?

Talk
about a distorted worldview from TV.

Loud
chewing of gum, perky lips, fishnets. Some animal prints of course.
It was like an unofficial uniform, as if there were general
guidelines posted up somewhere with what a prostitute should wear
to be considered one. You could mix and match, but the general view
should work like a neon sign.

Billy
took one peek and then proceeded along as if nothing
happened.

The poor
boy was embarrassed, that big cushy wushy!

We got
to the sculpture, at last. Yup, it was big and tall and metal and
rusty. Piece of garbage in a man form.

“
There it is,” Billy said as if the female partner, moi, was
blind or something and couldn’t notice a huge metal man by
herself.

I told
him exactly that.

“
Just sayin’, here we are. What now?”

“
No idea,” I said, and had no idea. At all. I checked my
phone, no new messages. Not from this Prodromos, that is. I always
had new messages, from stalkers and gawkers and droolers. Those
were my own categories, I’ll explain them another time.

But from
the man in question, nothing.

Chapter
18

“
So…”

“
So what?”

“
What now?”

“
Beats me!”

The
metal man was taunting us. Taunting me. Terminator my 700 like-ass,
this guy was useless.

Billy
was discreet, searching around for clues or any hidden messages in
the sculpture, but after an hour or so he was just shoving his arm
in its gaps risking tetanus and sudden finger-loss.

I’d
located the cleanest spot I could find and was lying in the
sun.

At that
point I unconsciously checked my phone for like the fortieth time
and remembered about that thingy Deppy was excited about. The veil?
Something like that.

I opened
the app and scanned around for stuff. A vendor across the street
branched out with information. OMG, what a furry fetish. Keep it to
yourself man!

I
pointed it towards the metal statue.

Billy
was there, with minimal information of course. The profile picture
was from the mandatory registration at school, the public data as
little as possible.

Then the
Terminator lit up.

Not
literally, the veil version of him. The artist’s name popped up,
links to the articles relevant to the story. And a pi.

A greek
π.

I tapped
the link and got a loading screen.

“
Hey Billy, come here! I got something,” I told him and showed
him the phone.

The app
reloaded and showed a big arrow over the live video, pointing the
way.

“
It seems so,” Billy said and we hesitated.

Chapter
19

We walked down the alleys, guided by the phone
prompts. It was really hot and I wanted to go home, but my
curiosity was getting the better of me.

Billy
was following me closely, towering over my shoulder to glance at
the little screen himself, craning his head back, never
relaxing.

The
arrow was taking us towards a multi-story parking space, one of
those whole buildings where you can park by the hour, because
finding a spot in the middle of Athens is pretty much
impossible.

But then
the arrow was gone, so I stopped.

I
slapped the damn thing.

“
What?” Billy asked, as he stumbled slightly on my
back.

“
Nothing. That’s it, nothing,” I said breathing
out.

“
Where was it pointing before it was gone?”

“
To that parking building, I think. I’m not sure.”

Billy
squinted and looked up at the building. It was five floors
tall.

My phone
then blipped and a message read, “You are being followed. Lose
them. π.”

I whispered, “Look,” and showed the message to my tall
friend. I had never been followed before. Not like that, I think.
Followed by teenagers, sure. Some leery men, too. A creep or two,
when I walked home. But not like this,
conspiratorily
.

“
Uh huh,” Billy said and then looked around as if looking at
street names. Then he said, too loud so he could be heard by
anyone, “I think the store is over there.”

We fell
side-by-side into a hurried walk, round the corner, towards crowded
shops and people. We were going the other way, far from the parking
building.

I tried
to hide it, but I was anxious. Being followed by people? Some
nebulous face? I needed to make it real, to see someone. They say
that the unknown is what’s really scary, that if you familiarise
yourself with something, it doesn’t scare you anymore.

I
rubbernecked all the time, trying to catch a glimpse of our
pursuers.

Then I
saw them. Two guys, wearing light coloured shirts in the heat, but
they seemed the sort to favour suits. Sunglasses, short hair.
Nothing distinctive on them, no tattoos, no piercings. Average
height. They were the sort of people who would blend in easily, and
who you couldn’t recall anything specific about if you were
asked.

Billy
was pulling me close to him, not forcefully but I would find myself
being hauled along if I tried to stop for a second.

Two
streets down I saw them again. They were definitely following
us.

“
What are we doing?” I whispered.

“
We are trying to get lost in the crowd,” he said.

“
You are too damn tall! You stand out like a
lightpost!”

“
I know, that’s why we are going to Varvakios
Agora.”

Varvakios, or rather its more recent name Athens Central
Market, was the biggest place to shop for perishables in Athens.
Fresh produce, meat, fish, anything you can think of is stacked in
rows of little shops, carried back and forth while people yell
loudly and speak out their sales. It is so big that it’s actually a
tourist attraction. It has a retro feel to it, a very tall ceiling,
old-style roof and metal supports with white and dark green paint.
Some shop signs are modern, some are old. High-tech aluminium open
fridges sit right along the classic drop-the-fish-into-ice-boxes
technique. Screens yell out advertisements and public-interest
messages, banners fall down from the ceiling. It’s packed with
people.

And the
fish.

Oh boy,
the fish.

A
pervasive fish smell oozes out blocks away from the
place.

And to
my joy, Billy was taking me right towards a fish
merchant.

Chapter
20

I was
trying to be as ladylike I could, but it was impossible. If I could
find a clothespin I would use it in a heartbeat. I just held my
nostrils tight.

Billy
was talking to a merchant, right next to a big stack of those
shallow wooden fish crates. Names were written at their side. As I
waited, while holding my nose of course, I read some of the
surnames from the fishermen who had brought them.

Afovos
. Fearless.
Armenistis
. The
wanderer.
Anemos
.
The wind. OK, those were probably nicknames, not surnames. But the
rest were ordinary last names.

The
noise in the agora was intense. I couldn’t hear them speak three
meters away. So I went closer to see what was up.

“
I can’t let you go back, I’m sorry,” the middle aged man
said. He was, in a word,
weathered
. Rough hands, rough face,
gentle eyes.

Billy
was gesturing wildly. “Come on Mr. Antoni, I just need a couple of
minutes.”

Mr.
Antoni’s eyes fell on me. At first I was rattled by that, but then
I realised he was checking me out and whispering to Billy in
approval.

So I did
what I always do.

I struck
a pose and took a selfie.

I put in
my most seductive yet innocent face, as if for the camera. I could
see in my peripheral vision Mr. Antoni softening up. Billy, his
mind quick and sharp, admitted quietly that he had promised me to
show around the back.

He let
us go past, and I thanked Mr. Antoni as we went by, holding my
breath in a nasal “Tenk yom”. He went back to selling his
fish.

Billy
looked under a dirty metal stool and found a key. He unlocked the
back door and put the key back to its place. He kept the door open
for me and I went inside.

“
How do you know this man? This place?” I asked.

“
I worked here last year,” he shrugged.

“
You were selling fish?”

“
I was mostly carrying them and placing them on ice, but
yeah.”

A
teenager that works. I didn’t know that about him. Me, I’d never
worked a day in my life. What else didn’t I know about the people
who I called best friends?

We went
through tunnels. No, they weren’t really tunnels, but they were so
dirty and smelly and thick in grime that they might as well be.
Dangerous too, metal edges, discarded wires. People were carrying
heavy loads back and forth with those handy two wheel lifters. They
barely slowed down, I had to stand aside or get squashed
down.

Then I
stepped on something squishy.

We
walked at the far end of the Varvakios agora and came up to the
sunlight. The street was busy as always.

“
Whoever it was, we shook them off for now,” Billy said while
holding the heavy metal door for me.

I rubbed
the soles of my feet on the pavement. I didn’t even wanna know what
I had stepped on.

Chapter
21

We stared
up at the parking building.

Billy
held my arm and said, “Wait, are they just gonna let us walk in?”
We both looked at the guy in the booth, next to the swinging
barrier.

I
perched up myself and tilted my nose up. “Just walk in like you own
the place,” I said, and did just that.

I didn’t
even acknowledge the man’s presence as I walked past him, and he
simply went back to fussing with his crossword puzzle. My tall
friend followed me behind. I couldn’t see his act, but I was sure
it wasn’t as good as mine.

As soon
as we went a few meters inside, I pulled out my phone again and
fired up the veil app. The arrow led us up the stairs, two floors
up.

I
panted. I was so not used to physical exercise.

After I
caught my breath, we moved along, and found a white van,
nondistinct, with a private company’s plain logo at its side. It
looked like a technician’s van for a communications company, two
small antennae at the top.

We
walked around the front, and were greeted by a young woman with a
gun pointed at our guts.

Chapter
22

“
Why did you bring him here?” the young woman
asked, pointing with the gun vaguely at Billy’s feet. She was lean,
pretty, in her thirties.

I put my
hands up, and the woman leaned forward and pushed my arms down.
“Are you nuts! Don’t raise your arms, there are cameras here.” She
tugged her jersey hat even lower and adjusted her ponytail, keeping
her face hidden from any camera. I realised then that she had
barely shown the gun, and that it was my startled imagination that
made me think she had pointed it at me. In truth, she had merely
shown us the gun and had never threatened us directly.

Huh.

Talk
about unreliable eye-witnesses.

Billy
was about to raise his long arms and paused halfway, turning the
gesture into a scratch and a yawn.

“
I wasn’t gonna come meet a crazy sleazy guy by myself, would
I?” I said, crossing my arms over my chest.

She
squinted. “What guy?”

“
Prodromos. Aren’t you taking us to him?” I asked.

“
Yeah, yeah. Right. Get inside, we gotta go. Those guys might
have lost you but they won’t be long now,” the woman said and went
back into the driver’s seat.