Myth Gods Tech - Omnibus Edition: Science Fiction Meets Greek Mythology In The God Complex Universe (11 page)

Physically, I was surprised to see that it was getting easier
to handle as time went by. Emotionally, it was becoming too much to
bear.

I stared
at them both inside the dimly lit van, parked at the side of the
little forest in the middle of the night. Billy was flushed and was
trying to discreetly pull his pant leg in a hopeless attempt to
hide his boner. Deppy was breathing heavily and her lips were shiny
wet.

My eyes
widened.

I threw
my arms in the air. “Finally, you two!”

I went
around to the passenger seat and put my seatbelt on, mumbling, “If
I had a euro for every time I tried to get you two vlaka together,
I’d be a gazillionaire.”

I looked
back through the hole. They were just staring at me,
speechless.

“
We ain’t got all night! Come on, I’ll let you get back to it
after we infiltrate a secure tech corporation.”

We
parked in the back of Hermes Information Technology. Prodromos had
already located a blind spot in the security cameras. To my
surprise, Billy was straining and sweating over driving the big van
but he was managing it. The traffic had been low, but it had been
still there.

I wore
dark loose clothes, but they attenuated my body lines nicely. Just
cause you are a cat-burglar doesn’t mean you shouldn’t look good
doing it.

Deppy
gave me a headband with LEDs on it, and helped me put it
on.

“
What’s this? Doesn’t making me a beacon defeat the purpose of
a stealthy approach?”

She made
sure my hair was neat and the headband comfy, and then tested the
lights. “Not in this day and age. These LEDs shine some visible
light, but they are extremely bright in the infrared spectrum. It
blinds the cameras, you are still there, but it’s like you have a
flash constantly blowing the image over your head. Oh, here,” she
said and turned on her phone’s camera on me. A superbright flare
that was leaving blue vertical streaks was over my face, moving as
I did. There was no way to see what I looked like.

Good.

I looked
around the van and moved my head to see how much it would light the
place. It wasn’t much, a person could see you of course, but if you
were a few meters around the corner it wasn’t enough to give you
away. “Huh. Nice. Did Prodromos make this?”

Deppy
smiled a bit. “No, it was me. Her plan was to spoof the video feed.
My plan is to leave everything running and trip no alarms. Our
entry will get recorded, but if nobody gets suspicious and checks
manually, they won’t even know we were there.”

I
squinted at her. “You are taking to this life of industrial
espionage like a duck to water.”

She
exhaled, “It’s all up there on the internet, if you look for
it.”

I
checked my watch.

“
Let’s do this or die trying,” I said.

“
Let’s try not to die at all,” they both said in
tandem.

Chapter
41

I felt damn silly, going in.

Crouching low, in my cat-burglar suit, dim lights on my head.
Other than the disabling of the cameras, we followed Prodromos’
original plan to the letter. A blind spot in the back of the
building allowed me to get over the fence. I was hurting various
parts of my body, but the constant running from the Erinyes attacks
had the flip side of keeping me in shape, even though it’s been
only a couple of days.

I saw a
light from an office at the second floor. I didn’t mind, the
building was large enough for someone to keep working there but
never come near me. I already knew that the R&D lab was on the
ground floor, somewhere on the other side, away from that deadline
champion.

I was
coming in from the opposite side, the main entrance was the other
way, so I stopped and did some mental orientation and moved my
hands around to spin the path I had on my head. Yeah, I went in, to
the right, so it’s my left now, and then down the hall, left
again…

I suck
at this.

I
decided I’d figure it out once inside. I moved low and ran the way
through the open space at the back of the building. The human
security was minimal, we knew the patrol times. I was near the
building. It wasn’t that dark, the back ‘yard’ had some big lights
that made you see well enough. I was counting more on intelligence
than stealth.

Not my
intelligence thank God, but that of Prodromos’ research and Deppy’s
steps.

I
followed them to the letter. Like a rehearsed dance move, I slid to
the side, behind a trendy modern half-wall that served no real
purpose, then crouched all the way to its end. I jumped as fast as
I could to some bushes, and stayed in there for twelve
seconds.

I had no
clue why I was doing all that, but Deppy had already gone through
this four times and I was getting bored. I just did as I was
told.

A patrol
drone, one of those quadcopters, whirred and buzzed down the wall.
It flew in a specific path, pivoting its camera around slowly,
making sure no one was there. Two seconds too late and it would
have caught me. It made an annoying sound, as if you got a thousand
bees in a balloon and shook it around. I could feel the blades
cutting the air, a slow breeze below it as it hovered.

Apparently, my positioning wasn’t precise.

The
drone went low at the bush level, and moved with its back towards
me. I wasn’t worried about it seeing me, so much as I was worried
it bumping into me. I stayed perfectly still, and the blades, too
quick to see as anything other than a blur, came right next to my
face. It came a palm’s width away from my eyes, slicing the air. I
stayed still. Then it buzzed in a higher pitch and gained height,
moving on with its patrol.

I hugged
the wall and moved to my right. I went around the corner, my limbs
flat on the smooth surface, me doing my best octopus
impersonation.

I found
the service entrance. I swiped the card I stole from Dave earlier,
and the door opened with a gling. I peeked inside, dim lights,
nobody around.

I closed
the door and moved silently down the corridor.

The
second corridor was going straight down to the security desk at the
main entrance. I peeked around the corner and saw a security guard
staring at monitors and sipping coffee. It was another guy, not the
one from before. If he glanced at my direction, he could see me as
I crossed the corridor to the next one. Especially with those damn
silly lights on my head, a stray reflection could shine right into
his eyes even without him turning towards me.

I
checked my watch and saw that time was ticking away.

I took
in a breath, covered my face with my sleeve and turned off the
lights on my headband. I crossed the corridor in steady quick
steps, one two three and hop. That was it. I made sure to get a bit
further around the bend and then turned on my headband lights
again, so I was free to move my arm.

Then I
got lost.

Skata.

Chapter
42

To my
defence, the place was like a maze.

OK,
fine, not that much. I admit it. My sense of direction is horrible.
I sent a message to Deppy and she gave me directions.

I found
the R&D lab, swiped Dave’s card and went inside. It was quiet
now, the two or three young guys I had seen working there earlier
were absent, as expected.

I held
my breath for a minute, checking around for any sounds. It was
clear. I closed the door carefully and went inside. I tiptoed
around the gear, making sure not to bump into anything. Stuff lay
on the floor, leaning at the edge of tables, it was a burglar’s
nightmare trap. I decided that caution makes haste so I carefully
walked around to Dave’s desk. The robotic arm behind me was
inactive, computer parts at its side. It was neatly folded into a
slanted pose, just like those robots in assembly lines.

I sat
down, pressed a key to wake up the computer and plugged Deppy’s USB
drive. I tapped the few steps she had instructed me and I saw a
progress bar filling up.

Whaddayaknow.

Easy
peasy.

I pursed
my lips and congratulated myself in silence. As I waited, I looked
around the lab. Veil phone prototypes were laid out in various
stages, either plugged in devices, taken apart or simply plugged in
to charge. One of those was pink, my own. I didn’t care for that.
The progress bar was filling up, but it was slow. I swirled around
the office chair once, then did it the other way.

I
stopped myself in horror. There was a whir of servos and the
robotic arm came to life. The welder tool at its tip for electronic
parts threw out a few sparks. With superhuman speed it reached me,
aligned the tool with my forehead and welded a straight vertical
line at one side of my face, burning my skin, my eyebrow, and my
eye, and then finishing deeply into my cheek.

Chapter
43

I fell on the floor hard. I managed to keep my
scream of agony mostly contained, but a slight whimper came
through.

The
pain, the pain was manageable. I didn’t dare touch my face. I
didn’t really want to know. I was shaking, tears in my eyes.
Strangely, the right side of my face felt funny. Instead of the
tear’s usual path at the side of my eye, an arc over my cheek and
into the side of my mouth, this one fell straight down. My tear
dropped on the floor, never reaching my lips. I hadn’t felt it
brush my skin.

The
orange robotic arm had taken it’s usual slanted relaxed pose over
its base. Me, in shock, turned around to the computer monitor.
There were a few minutes left still. I realised that I needed to
lean my head to the right to see the monitor. I decided not to
dwell on that too much.

My phone
kept buzzing.

Messages
were coming in one after another. My friends were telling me that
someone was coming into the building, had parked and walked
in.

I looked
around, craning my neck to see with my left eye.

Deppy
was sending me, “It’s the R&D guy, Dave. You need to leave
now.”

I looked
at the progress bar. It was seconds away.

Another
text. “Billy will make a distraction in the front.”

I shook
my head. “No. Stay put. I got this.”

The copy
was finally complete and I pulled the USB drive without safely
removing hardware. “Why yes, I do like to live dangerously,” I
muttered and put the computer back to hibernation.

Male
voices echoed on the glass walls, coming closer.

I looked
around, picked up a sharp cutting tool for electronics. It looked
like a scalpel.

I hid
behind a stack of computers, the ones that come in closet size.
Servers? Servers. I turned off my LED headband.

Dave
came in his lab escorted by the security guy, chatting away. He
fumbled through his desk and said to him, “No, not here either.
Thanks man, I’ll call you when I need to leave. Must have dropped
it from my wallet or something.”

The
security guy said, “Anytime Mr. Andrews. Just make sure to declare
it first thing in the morning.”

“
Will do,” said Dave and sat down on his desk, cup of coffee
in hand, ready for another all-nighter.

He
sighed, and slapped a button to wake up his workspace.

Then he
sniffed, and looked around. He checked the sole of his shoes, then
stood up and sniffed behind him. He went to the robotic arm and
leaned close to the welding tool, picking at it with his
finger.

My burnt
skin was on it.

He
looked around, mumbling but alert.

I
stepped out of my hiding place and stood in front of
Dave.

“
M-Mahi? Oh no. Oh no! What are you doing here? What have I
done to your face?”

Chapter
44

“
You listen
now, I know what you are doing here. There is that infrasound from
the phones you are planning to ship out, that makes people see
monsters. One of them is dead,” I snarled, feeling my skin pull at
me.

Don’t
touch your face.

Don’t.

I was
keeping my sharp tool in plain sight and staring him in the
eyes.

Dave
blinked. “It’s not me doing it.”

“
Then who is?”

He
gulped. “I’m not really sure. I’ve seen the reports too, we were
ordered to ignore them and move along like nothing
happened.”

“
Ignore what exactly?” I demanded and took a few steps towards
him. His gaze fell down on my feet.

“
It’s a testing ground.”

“
You wanna kill all the clients? That’s a hell of a marketing
idea!”

“
No, these are just large-scale tests I think. My hypothesis
is that when enough people learn about the myth of Erinyes, and
believe in it, the phones will be able to activate the,” he fumbled
for a word.