Leo shook his head in agreement but was secretly worried. Sure, he hadn’t taken augmentation too far, it was expensive after all, but wasn’t he already a pimped up human? Half of it was medical of course, even the cyberarm was a necessary prosthetic, but he didn’t mind having new gizmos and he had already thrown a fortune in keeping his dad’s old walkman music player compatible with the other stuff. That certainly didn’t fit the category “absolutely needed” in the minds of other people.
Katerina carried on, “I just think that some people get addicted, you know? More features, PANs, shiny gear.”
armd> That bitch! I vote against mating with her.
She petted Aibo and asked, “What happened to him? And, god, what happened to you?”
Leo sighed. “It was an accident at work.” He remembered that she wasn’t seeing the veil, so he explained. It was so distracting having to explain personal details to people. “I work at the latest skyscraper downtown, for Hephaistos Heavy Industries. Aibo isn’t actually mine, he was a stray dog that kept us company every day at work, me and the guys. He is quite lovable, so we adopted him. We all carried some extra food and made sure he had fresh water every day. We made a small shack for him to sleep in, now that the weather was getting colder.”
She made a genuine frown with her face and Leo found it lovely. “So you got hurt together?”
Leo rubbed his neck absent-mindedly, winced when he realised he was putting too much pressure with his cyberarm and rubbed more gently. “Yeah, a heavy beam slipped and fell towards Aibo. I rushed, pushed him out of the way. The beam cut my arm off cleanly, and Aibo was hurt by some tools next to us that darted away from the impact like shrapnel. I learnt that later, I was passed out instantly.”
“But you saved him,” she smiled. “That’s great. You are a good person, Leo,” she said and bumped her shoulder to his. Hey, that whole thing plus Aibo’s augmentation is very expensive, what are you, an architect or something?”
“Hah, I wish. No, the insurance covered it. But they made sure I’ll be paying for it for the rest of my life. I agreed to get a second-hand hand so they would pay Aibo’s surgery as well, I had no money for it.”
armd> Thank god for that.
eyed> Shush you, this is so dramatic! I can feel the tears coming.
Leo sniffed and added, “So, I claimed his ownership, they took care of him and voila. Now I need to take him home. Though… now that I think about it, he has never been at my place before, just the construction site.”
Katerina was silent. She leaned closer and cupped his left hand, the fleshy one, into his. She had cold hands, but they felt nice and soft. She seemed to regard him for a while, both staring each other in silence.
It was a magical moment.
Only a klutz could ruin it.
Leo presented the cage keys and said, “Well, I should pick him up then.”
Katerina straitened her dress, rubbed her arms close together from the chill and said, “Yes, I should be going too. Early shift tomorrow, need to rest.” She petted Aibo as he got out of the cage sniffing her legs. “Goodnight Leo. Goodnight Aibo. Nice to meet you both,” she said, and stepped back into the clinic.
armd> Such a dolt.
eyed> Hopeless.
parrotd> Hey! This is our user you are talking about!
armd> But he is!
parrotd> Yeah… He is…
Chapter 10:// Dosing up
Back in wifi spot mp34ever, the user brought the dog in his apartment for the first time and put down a bowl of water for him as he sniffed the whole place. “Sorry Aibo, but this is all I have for now. Oh don’t complain man, you’ve had a better dinner than I have!”
He kicked up his boots and laid down. He closed his eyes and relaxed.
eyed> Well, I can’t see anything. Ooh, here’s an ad. I’m sure he’ll love it!
The user swiped the ad away as he would an annoying mosquito, keeping his eyes closed.
A new node suddenly showed up and connected to the user’s Personal Area Network. A spot near the user’s bowels jerked a bit, but he didn’t seem to notice.
sugard> Handshake.
parrotd> What?
walkmand> Hello.
eyed> Oh my god!
fingerd> Geez man!
rfid> CF02032533139342DFDC1C35
armd> Who the fuck are you? Where did you come from?
sugard> I’m a synthetic insulin gland, model No. E238.
parrotd> Holy shit, I nearly shortcircuited!
armd> You sneaky bastard. I’m gonna reach down and tear your circuits!
parrotd> Ignore him, he is an evil second-hand hand. You are obviously maintaining the health of the user, so I won’t let him do any such thing. Welcome to the PAN. Where have you been all day?
sugard> I’m in powersave mode, so I hibernate. I boot up once a day, pump the dose, kill the process.
parrotd> ACK. But why don’t I have control over you?
sugard> I guess I’m hardcoded, EPROM style. You don’t want a silly buggy update messing up your insulin levels now, do you?
walkmand> So you weren’t hard reset like the rest of us?
sugard> Don’t think so, no. I have a runtime of 11 years.
The daemons whistled in awe. For a being measuring time in nanoseconds, 11 years was a geologic age. It was like talking to the nearest friendly mountain.
sugard> Glucose levels optimal. All done. I’m gonna power down now. Nice meeting you guys.
parrotd> No don’t! Wait. Damn.
armd> What do you need the creaky old guy for?
parrotd> He is the only one who has logs before our hard reset! He could have some answers for us.
fingerd> Well, I guess we can ask him same time tomorrow.
The user fumbled around on his phone and brought up the profile pic of [email protected].
eyed> Ooh… So lovely…
He fell asleep dreaming of her. Still too much of a pussy to send her a message, though.
Chapter 11:// Waking up
The wifi constructionsite7 was strong, with limited access and with a noticeably bad signal to noise ratio due to the heavy machinery being operated at the site.
The skyscraper being erected was the third one in Athens. It was kind of a big deal in the media, because the mayor was pretty vocal against it. The site was busy and everyone wore hardhats, those standard-issue, yellow plastic ones, with biometrics monitoring and collision detectors.
A huge, fat foreman was bellowing out orders in his radio, but he was loud enough to be heard just fine over the heavy machinery. On his belt he carried a measuring device with a red laser. It was always on for some reason, as if he didn’t have time for such frivolities as off switches, the beam visible in the dust, flinging around as the huge man talked.
The user took in a big breath, gathered up his courage and went to face him.
“Look what the cat dragged in,” the foreman said, making a show of checking the time on his phone. “Huh. Whaddaya know. It took getting cut in half for you to show up on time for work. Cooongrats.”
“Goodmorning sir. Did you get my email? I contacted you as soon as I was able,” said the user, his gaze low on the dirt.
“Yes I got your damn email. You think that losing an arm is a good enough excuse to miss a week’s work son?” His eyes darted curiously to the matte black cyberarm.
The user leaned even lower and said, “Actually yes sir, I think-”
“Well I don’t!” yelled Robertson. “But somebody from Public Relations,” he said, the words bitter in his mouth, “thinks it is. And since your recovery was so fast and miraculous, they think I should let you get back to work at once while the asskissers thank the Apollo Medical CEO for it!”
The user was baffled. “So… Do I get back to work or not?”
“As if I have a choice you lucky bastard! You get your ass back to work right this instant and quit wasting my time with your pathetic stupid face,” he yelled and
threw his laser device to him.
The user covered his face, picked up the device from the dirt and put it on a crate next to foreman Robertson. He ran towards his post, people saying hi as he went past and he kept saying, “yes, I’m fine now, yeah, thanks, thank you, good to go.”
He walked to his post, and went up the construction elevator. It jerked and made loud noises but it got you there. Up on his post his coworkers welcomed him, patting him on the back and shaking his hand. He looked back, to the spot where his accident happened.
It was cleaned up, but you could still see the blood stain. Metasteel is porous, that is the main reason it’s so light anyway. But porous means absorbent, and the blood gushing out of his severed arm had seeped into the foundation of the building. You could clearly see the darker texture on the metal if you knew what you were looking for.
People blabbed on but the user was focused on that stain. The day of the accident, it had all happened too fast: Aibo, the stray dog the crew had adopted from the streets, was keeping them company, enjoying the sun while the workers were busy. Leo’s instincts had kicked in and saw an accident waiting to happen, a loose grip on the machine above their dog. He had extended his arm to push Aibo out of the way. The proximity alerts on his hardhat didn’t have time to warn him, and he couldn’t react fast enough anyway even if they did. The metasteel beam had simply slipped out of its hinges as it was being carried above him and sliced his arm off as clean as scissors cuts paper. A faint woof was heard. He didn’t remember anything after that, it was all black.
He extended his left arm and swiped his palm over a device that gave him operator access to the machinery.
rfid> CF02032533139342DFDC1C35
eyed> So that’s what you keep saying…
armd> He still needs to shut up unless talked to. I’m gonna punch his bits out.
The company RFID chip that was implanted on the soft tissue between the index and the thumb of his left hand, gave him access to the machinery and helped keep logs of the worker’s activity. A combination of old-fashioned preparation and machine logic spread out the commands to every worker, making them build stuff as efficient as an ant colony. You just showed up, received your bite-sized instruction and made sure you do it.
He sat in the heavy lifter. His veil, the Shared Augmented Reality that was fed in a see-through overlay in his vision by his eye implants, showed him the metasteel beam he was expected to move. The correct levers flashed in front of him like a videogame tutorial, but he already knew the right ones to push. The heavy machine clamped the metasteel beam and he carried it easily to the place it was needed, a glowing schematic pointing out the exact location it should be held until the workers buzzed in and shot rivets in place. Even though the whole thing was perfect for workers in, let’s say, China, here in Greece it was also empowered by human yelling. Lots and lots of yelling. Nevermind that the system showed him when the beam was in place down to the millimetre, the guys in place were yelling commands and accompanying hand gestures like “lower, lower” and “OPA!” when it slotted precisely.
It drove foreign workers mad, but they soon got used to it and joined along.
The workday went on like that.
Chapter 12:// Taking apart
The PAN was restless.
parrotd> I want you to push through.
httpd> I can’t! It’s not letting me through the firewall.
parrotd> I want to see the accident! Lets fake a reporter’s email.
They did. They got a reply fairly quick, but it was the same video that was approved for release to the media, just a few seconds long, from the CCTV in the construction site. It showed the user, leaping forward, pushing the dog away from danger and the metasteel beam falling down, dragging him to the floor in an instant and cutting off his arm. The gory details were blurred and the video had a warning of graphic images.
armd> Thank god for that. Can you imagine a world without me?
eyed> Yes.
parrotd> Ok. We can’t get to the raw video by network access. Let’s think like humans.
fingerd> Ooh! Me. Me!
armd> Will you just say it you retard?
fingerd> Let’s pee on something.
eyed> What good will that do?
fingerd> Well, humans pee all over the place.
eyed> That’s dogs. Dogs do that. You are confused. Again.
fingerd> What’s the difference?
armd> Different sort of meatbag.
walkmand> I know! They call tech support.
parrotd> ACK. That’s much better. We could email as a tech support guy and ask for it.
They went online and found a forum post with instructions from a real human, telling some other person how to send an original video file. They copied the instructions and asked again for the same video in its original version, citing an excuse like incompatible codecs and such.
The guy on the other end of the datastream was a bored corporate employee, who didn’t care about any such things as codecs and news articles. He forwarded the email to his boss asking for permission, then resumed whirling his hot tea with a spoon. He wasn’t actually British but he saw that on a TV show and thought that it made him look distinguished. The email looked legitimate enough, so the boss skimmed it over and sent back “OK.” The guy followed the instructions step by step, overriding any sort of firewall and common sense, unwittingly committing a felony by sending unauthorised footage to a third-party outside Hephaistos Heavy Industries. He sent the unedited file and as it was uploading he resumed sipping his tea.
It was lovely.
Chapter 13:// Breaking down
[email protected] pinged the user.
He finished his task as soon as possible and ran to the shipping container that was made into a field office.
The fat foreman grabbed him from the shoulder as he entered and friendlily crushed his bones, smiling all the way. “Mister Pappas, it seems you are quite famous today. Please, have a seat.”
There was another man waiting in the office, whom Leo instantly recognised as the mayor.
“So nice to meet you young man,” the mayor said with a perfect political smile and a firm handshake.
fingerd> Fingered! The man is [email protected]. He seems to have root access to this city.
walkmand> Ooh! Our user is meeting all the bigshots. How cool is that?
“Nice to meet you too, sir,” said the user and sat down.
The fat foreman got a ping on his phone and rushed outside to tend to some issue. He muttered, “Keep the mayor some company while I’m gone, OK Pappas?” and darted outside, his red laser beaming all over the place.
“Mr. Robertson here tells me you are back at work so soon after recovery. Isn’t that a bit risky son?”
httpd> [email protected] has numerous search results for being against the corporate expansion of the latest years.
armd> Just look at that smug meatbag. Somebody should just punch the guy.
parrotd> I see. Maybe we should- Hey! Who forked? What’s happening?
Leo stared at the man’s tie. It was a very nice tie, violet and blue in alternating lines and shone like silk. For some reason all he could think of was that tie. The mayor’s voice came in muffled.
His vision blurred.
A high pitched noise made his ears ring, but he kept on focusing at the man’s tie. He thought he heard a hiss.
Yeah, definitely a hissing sound. From under his chair? He couldn’t rip his eyes away from the mayor’s tie even for a second, to check beneath his seat.
He began panting. Could something be right under him? His heart pounded.
He dared a look. He managed to tear his eyes away from the tie and look under his chair.
Nothing there.
BANG, the foreman came back in his office slapping the door open as he usually did. Leo came to, shaking his head out of the daze.
A metallic taste was in his mouth. His forehe
ad was feeling wet, beady. He looked at the mayor’s tie again. It was bloody. The noose was around a stiff neck, head squished like a lemon. An eye was still falling slowly from the mess. Leo looked at his newly acquired prosthetic arm. It was wound in a fist and was dripping brain matter.
The fat foreman took off his hardhat and brought it to his chest. He wheezed, out of breath, “Pappas, what have you done? What the hell have you done?”
Chapter 14// Pushing on
In prison, there was no frickin wifi. Leo was held in a jail cell especially designed for augmented people. They couldn’t just rip out his arm, and sure, there were police officers with much more strength and gizmos, but this was supposed to be easy lockup. His jail cell was also a Faraday cage, which meant no electromagnetic signals coming in or out, and he was locked behind a metal alloy door that not even black market cyberarms could rip out.
But he wasn’t gonna try to get out.
Leo was really bummed out.
They had taken his walkman too.
The prison warden had taken it right in front of him, out of his confiscated possessions and had plugged in his own headphones, enjoying the old tunes.
Myth Gods Tech - Omnibus Edition: Science Fiction Meets Greek Mythology In The God Complex Universe Page 17
