Myth Gods Tech - Omnibus Edition: Science Fiction Meets Greek Mythology In The God Complex Universe (6 page)

Me and
Billy stared at each other, and I shrugged at him.

“
I thought you said it was a guy,” he whispered to
me.

“
It is a guy”, I replied, not getting it.

“
How did you manage to get me into this mess?” he asked, but
moved around the van and opened the car door for me.

The
young woman lifted an eyebrow at that, but said nothing and fired
up the engine. We all sat in a row, a van’s seat can accommodate
three people, and we drove down, paid the parking fee with a
paycard and drove out into the streets.

I
glanced behind me. There was a thin divide with a hole at our
backs. I raised myself and peeked inside. There was a ton of
computer equipment in there, double monitors, racks of hardware,
blinking lights, cables neatly arranged in copper guts and sinews.
I was in no way an expert in computers, my knowledge was limited in
selfie uploading, chatting and photofilter applications, but this
looked non-standard for a tech-company’s van. It looked something
that Deppy would drool over, and I mean that literally.

We drove
in silence. Billy was silent, in observation mode. I could see the
gears spinning in his head, processing all details, big or
small.

The
young woman was peeking at the mirrors constantly. She once
muttered, “We are running out of time…”

After a
while, we got away from the city centre and towards some
warehouses, an industrial area. I wasn’t really sure where we were,
my sense of direction is wobbly at its best. I doublechecked even
the train direction at the platform, the very same one that I used
daily. I had gotten on the wrong one a few times too
many.

She
parked us in a secluded space, finding some shade from the
scorching sun. We got off the van and the slight breeze felt
nice.

What a
great place to get executed in, was the thought that came to my
mind.

“
So?” I asked, “Where is he?”

She
snorted, taking off her jersey hat to cool off.

“
Oh Mahi…” Billy said, presenting her with a gesture of his
hand. “Meet Prodromos.”

I was
stunned for a minute. I closed my mouth because my jaw was hanging
like an idiot and then said, “But you look normal.”

“
Thanks?” she said hesitantly, but then her expression changed
into a stiff tone. “Give me your phone.”

I put my
hand over my jeans pocket and said, “Ohi. No, I’m not giving it to
you.”

Billy
was about to say something but she raised a hand and he
stopped.

“
I know your father gave it to you. I need that phone,” she
demanded, opening her palm, the other hand resting at the hilt of
her holstered gun.

“
All this so you could rob us? Going the long way around, are
we? Just find a dark alley and get over with it,” I said in
challenge.

Billy
interjected, “I think you should give it to her, Mahi.”

I
blinked at him. “What?”

“
There is something happening to you, those episodes, and it
all began as soon as you got that phone. Right?” he said, and
paused until he got a shrug of approval from me. “From what you
told me, I can only conclude that Prodromos,” he said showing the
young woman, “Is investigating this and needs your phone to test
stuff.”

“
But my father gave it to me! He would never do something to
hurt me!” I protested, forcing back a tiny amount of
tears.

“
He wouldn’t!” Billy said, putting his hand on my shoulder.
“He might not know, Mahi. He’s just in the marketing department, he
doesn’t know what this is.”

Prodromos was softer this time. “I need it now, but I can
give it back to you at some point.”

Billy
said to her, “It’s best not to raise suspicion right? We don’t want
her dad noticing that she lost it.”

Prodromos shrugged and said, “Yeah, a couple of days should
do it. I’ll contact you and give it back then.

I
straightened my spine and gave my phone to her. As I did, Billy
asked, a frown on his face, “But why? What does this phone have to
do with anything?”

Prodromos checked the time, pointed at my horrified face and
said, “This.”

I saw
the Erinyes climb out of the concrete and come straight at
me.

Purple
time

I saw her
hands like steel claws, breaking through the concrete floor, pieces
shattering and exploding all around, pulling her body up the
hole.

I reacted a second sooner this time, my feet taking me
swiftly at my side, dashing towards metal barrels.

The Erinyes rose up and lunged at me, missing my back for a
hair’s width. I ran towards the barrels and looked behind me. Billy
was trying to reach me, and the Erinyes brought down a hand and cut
his extended arm where it was. Her strands of hair grabbed him and
choked him, but her attention returned back to me. I hesitated for
a second, seeing my friend like that but I couldn’t control my
body. I ran back to the maze of barrels.

She ripped his head out of his body and her purple hair
loosened again. She came at me, her hand sliding on the stacked
barrels, her nails sending sparks around in staccato rhythm. I
pulled down a top barrel to block her path and then ran
away.

She put both her hands inside it and ripped outwards, passing
through it with ease.

I pulled down another barrel but it was heavy and didn’t
budge. She closed the distance, her purple hair floated and darted
towards my neck. She pulled me hard on the floor, brought her face
over mine and tightened her grip on my throat.

I thrashed and slapped the concrete, moved my arms in defence
but I was powerless. She stared at me with deadly eyes and choked
me.

Darkness fell and I let it take me.

Chapter
23

I got
pummelled on the concrete floor, unable to open my eyes. Something
heavy thumped on my chest, a little more and it would break my
ribs. I took in sweet, warm air and managed to fill my burning
lungs.

Billy
fell back relieved and I turned to the side, coughing my lungs out,
wheezing in air, coughing, wheezing, and so on.

Prodromos leaned back, crossed her chest in an absent-minded
religious gesture and sat near me on a barrel. As soon as I managed
to calm myself, I stared at Billy, who was rattled but fine, and at
the fallen barrels at my path. The mess was real alright, but what
I had seen before, my friend getting choked and ripped apart by the
Erinyes, and her tearing of the metal barrels was not real. I had
knocked over a barrel or two myself, but nothing more.

I must
be going crazy.

Billy
didn’t look Prodromos in the eye, though he was clearly addressing
him. “What. Is. Happening?”

“
I don’t know,” she said quietly, and met my friend’s sudden
deadly stare. “I don’t! I swear to God almighty!” She took out a
cross from a chain around her neck.

Billy
said as-a-matter-of-fact, “That’s what you are trying to figure
out.”

“
That’s what I’m trying to figure out,” Prodromos repeated, a
hint of plea in her tone of voice.

My
friend turned back to me. “Are you OK?”

I
touched my wet lips and said, “Were you kissing me?”

“
I was doing CPR!” Billy said apologetically.

“
Well, you took my breath away,” I said and enjoyed his
blush.

Chapter
24

I barely
got inside my house when I decided to head back out again. Mother
called me out and I answered back with some excuse I can’t
remember, shut the door and headed straight to Deppy’s.

As I
walked there, I got lost in my thoughts.

This all
seemed nuts. If my friends hadn’t been there for me, I’d think I
was going crazy.

My
friends.

I took
them for granted, but they had really been there for me. Billy the
tall and lean geek had come with me to a strange meet, saved my
life after my heart stopped, and still said when we parted, “Call
me as soon as you need me.” Deppy, the short and curvy geek, whom I
didn’t even care to hang out with at school, had defended me from
the people who’s attention I craved for.

It was
the first time I really appreciated them, instead of just thinking
I was worth it so they just did stuff for me.

One
hundred and nine minutes. That was my life now, a
countdown.

Chapter
25

“
That’s
impossible,” Deppy said with a squeaky voice. We were in her room,
I was sitting on a pokemon woolly stool or something like
that.

Did I
mention she was a nerd? Yeah, I need to emphasise that
again.

Her room
was filled with nerdy stuff, spaceships, monster toys, muscly men
and curvaceous women with swords, superhero movie posters, and of
course, a big computer with blinking blue lights and two huge
monitors, silent as a whisper.

I pursed
my lips and said, “Yeap. 109 minutes, that’s what Prodromos
said.”

“
Wait. The period is 109 minutes, and she shows up for a
minute?”

“
Yes, the period is 109 minutes, but no, she shows up for the
duration of the last minute. So, 108 minutes after my last
episode,” I said presenting the countdown app I had running on my
old phone, “She’ll show up again for one minute.”

She held
a pillow to her tummy. “So it’s 108 minutes, plus one minute of
appearance.”

“
Nai. Sure, call it like that,” I surrendered.

“
Like Lost. Pushing the button.”

“
Wha’?”

“
Haven’t you seen it? Lost, where the plane crashed on the
island, and-”

I put up
a hand, and said, “It sounds boring, so assume I
haven’t.”

“
Anyway, they find a person who is stuck in a vault somewhere,
and he has to press the button every 108 minutes, for four minutes.
So he was to schedule his sleep, his food, his whole life around
that schedule. He can’t leave the place of course, and he believes
something bad will happen if he doesn’t reset the countdown. And it
does, but he still goes back-”

“
I know it sounds thrilling for you, but this is happening to
me right now, so it’s more like horrifying than like, interesting,”
I said, and chose my tone of voice specifically to hurt
her.

“
Sorry. I’m just trying to figure it out. Wait, did Prodromos
say the same thing happened to other people?”

I
sighed. “Yeah, a couple more. Prodromos didn’t get there in time,
that’s why I got contacted so soon.”

“
We need to ask your dad about this!”

“
No! He won’t know a thing about this, and we are keeping it
that way. I don’t want to jeopardise his job, mama will go nuts
about it.”

She was
thinking out loud. “109 minutes. A prime number… That could mean
something.” She got to her desk and unlocked her computer, tapping
out stuff as she thought. “It’s so specific, a heuristic could look
up at the appearances at a sufficient data set and I
could…”

I zoned
out. She was mumbling nonsense again. I looked at the movie
monsters around me, the video game monsters, the novel monsters. So
many monsters. None of them looked like Erinyes. She basically
looked like a really pissed of lady, thin, her cheekbones poking
out. She was always wearing an Ancient Greek style white cloth on
her, a toga, but not the sexy kind we were used to seeing at
masquerade. More like the theatre kind. The normalcy ended there,
cause she was moving like in thick water, and she had floaty
constricting purple hair.

I was
feeling claustrophobic.

I stood
up and opened the window, and leaned out for fresh air.

Deppy frowned and looked at me with worry. “So how
do
you handle
it?”

I
shrugged. “Prodromos said, mind the clock. Stay in open spaces.
Avoid crowds, mass transit. Just run away from it for a minute, and
then you are fine.”

There
was a pause. “How can I help?”

“
You already are,” I said and leaned down to hug her. I
couldn’t see her expression, but she remained still and didn’t
break it off.

I leaned
back, towering over her as she sat, her dark eyes on me with
worry.

Huh.
This is how Billy is experiencing the world, I thought.
Overhead.

She
jumped up and she startled me. “Oh! I know, wait.” She began
shuffling through stuff in the closet, opening boxes and looking
into bags.

I turned
back to the window and just stared outside.

A lot of
shuffling later, she presented me with an old style sports watch,
“waterproof up to 30 meters,” it read. She gave it to me and then
pulled it back out of my hand, made sure the time was right, set up
a countdown alarm, and gave it back again.

“
Here. It’s an old gift, and smartphones can be a bother
sometimes, batterywise. This is heavy duty. Hope it
helps.”