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

by George Saoulidis

  I turned around at the print job. The steam was weird, it looked like it was circling the object instead of, well whatever steam normally does. Yeap, those were feet.

  “We are printing feet,” I said. She glanced at me and kept on pointing her smartpistol at the door.

  The kid sent us, “Prmtr mvmnt. B rdy!”

  I squinted. I bought a vowel. Oh! Perimeter movement!

  Gamoto! I knew this was too easy. A metal grenade rolled from my exit. It filled the place with smoke, enough to cover whoever was storming in.

  “Save your ammo, find a target first!” I told Alkinoe, and she listened. My combat specs overlays were trying to lock on to heat signatures but their countermeasures blocked me. No point, it’s a chicken and egg problem. I relied on my senses.

  And then I saw my worst fear taking shape, in the form of a tight muscle-toned woman’s ass.

  Amazons.

  Screw it. I opened fire. They fired back. Alkinoe fired, we all fired.

  I threw a grenade in the mix.

  All hell broke loose.

  Bullets ricocheted around the place, tearing up R&D projects in tiny little pieces that would make the geeks cry tomorrow morning. My Amazon emptied an SMG clip on the other Amazons. I switched to armor-piercing rounds and managed to wing one kariola.

  “Bad choice of cover lady, my forklift is better!” Her blood spattered on a very expensive instrument next to her and she screamed a horrific wail that made me back and cover.

  “How many are there?” I asked Alkinoe.

  “At least seven in a standard group,” she replied.

  “Is this standard?” I asked.

  “This is definitely not standard,” she replied.

  The Amazons were trying to find cover in the rubble I “accidentally” had knocked over with my forklift earlier. They knew they were at a disadvantage and withdrew back. The shooting sort of stopped, but we weren’t winning.

  Their leader said, “Cease fire!”

  They stopped shooting so I stopped as well. The 3D printer kept on printing, unaware of the battle being fought for it.

  Alkinoe stood up. “What are you doing, get down!” I said and pulled at her pants.

  The leader stood up as well and spoke to her. “Alkinoe, we did not come shooting. The brute you acquaint yourself with opened fire first.”

  “And what were the drones on the road lady, Christmas toys?” I spat at her and kept my back in cover.

  Alkinoe asked, “What do you want Deinomache? A chat?”

  I peeked at the Amazon leader. She was big and muscular like a man, with a machete on her belt and a big scar on her face, keeping her lip always half-open in a grin. Deinomache. Alkinoe had told us that Amazons get renamed after proving themselves in battle. This particular one was called “Mighty Warrior.”

  Skata.

  “Where is this man you desire so much? Is his manliness so pleasurable that you turn your back on your sisters? Surely you have tasted many more so as not to cling on a particular one,” Deinomache said as if winning over the crowds was the way to survive this firefight.

  Alkinoe was openly hurt by this.

  Oh.

  Oooooohhhhhh.

  That’s why she left them. For my brother. Ha! That womanizer. “He can make an Amazon go straight again,” a legendary title worthy of tons of beer in celebration.

  “You have cast me out, as well as I have rejected your ways. The feelings are mutual. You obviously have orders not to harm the machine. Move on to your next point of discussion,” said Alkinoe with bitterness.

  “The feelings indeed are mutual. But Penthesilea wants me to grant you a choice of redemption,” Deinomache said.

  I made hand signs to Alkinoe, mimicking the creation and stacking of pancakes. She looked at me and nodded befuddled.

  I made more pancakes. She nodded, “What?”

  I whispered, “Stall her!”

  She nodded “ok” to me.

  The Amazon leader carried on. “You have placed yourself too deep. The entity being given birth right before our eyes in this mechanical womb is above and beyond anything you might have imagined. This is not merely something of value, where people can unhand a few million euros and obtain it. This is a being infused with ichor. People will never stop desiring it, you will never transfer it in time to your employer, and you will certainly never succeed in avoiding the myriad of bounty hunters that will follow its path leading to you.”

  She paused, for dramatic effect. Alkinoe took it in quietly. The huge woman continued her speech. “I offer to you redemption amongst us. No, I have not forgiven you, and no, not all of our sisters will happily embrace you but all will accept you. You can come back, adelfi,” Deinomache said, finishing on the word “sister.” The rest of the Amazons were obviously waiting for her reply and to my surprise I could see the schism in their eyes.

  Some of them actually wanted Alkinoe to come back.

  Alkinoe looked at her with tears in her eyes. “All I wanted was to love a man and you acted like I had spat on Artemis’ face. I have been an Amazon for as long as I remember and suddenly I meet a man who is kind and sweet and compassionate, and you tell me that I should use him for sex and then pass him along to the rest of the girls. I was good, I followed orders. I love being an Amazon, it’s what I am.” She had fallen into a full blown crying fit.

  “I’m sorry!” she cried and yelled. “I was simply in love. It shouldn’t be a crime, but for us it is. We try to joke and laugh about men and how they are pigs and we don’t need them, but you can’t just throw away a feeling. We have these rules but we can’t place rules on a heart that has never felt love before. I didn’t want to throw away my life, I don’t want to. They are getting a lot of money from this job but I don’t care, I just want my family back, my adelfes.”

  That’s good. Good stalling, good girl. I looked at the print job. The pair of legs that were being formed had a uniquely cybernetic feeling about them. They were too thin for a combat armor. Maybe a bipedal drone. A mist swirled around them and I could barely see a pair of wings on the feet. Interesting design.

  Wait. When did “you” become “we?” Was Alkinoe pretending or was she really switching sides?

  Alkinoe walked up to Deinomache. She dropped her pistol on the floor. My eyes darted and found her SMG empty beside me.

  Deinomache was trying to contain her surprise and contempt. She was always showing her brave cheek to her team. She opened her huge arms and said, “Welcome back adelfi. We will rejoice after this birth.”

  Alkinoe was crying and fell to her former sister’s arms like a little girl.

  I felt utterly alone. At least I had the most expensive 3D printed pair of feet in the world on my side. I put my back against my cover and banged my helmet on it.

  Skata.

  Chapter 7

  I heard a choir of females in surprise and turned around to look. Alkinoe was on the floor, Deinomache on top of her, a spear protruding out of her belly splashing blood all over the place. The huge woman punched Alkinoe, simply punched her, and our girl got thrown across the floor with some missing teeth. As she tried to get up and flee towards me Deinomache pulled her machete and sliced her back.

  I had no clear shot.

  Alkinoe saw that and stopped struggling, she fell squarely on the floor. My girl was cooperating flawlessly, once again.

  That or she had just dropped dead on the floor.

  I had a clear shot, I hit the huge lady with the machete in hand and the spear in the gut and the bloodshot maniacal eyes, but she charged me with a leap in the air. Four, five direct hits.

  Come on, predictable path of an object thrown. Hit her again Deimos! Bang bang. My combat overlay locked on to her. Oh now you decide to work properly?

  She twisted her machete pointing down and lunged at my chest with her full momentum.

  She must have seen it, the bullet hit from earlier on my armor. The hulking kariola must have switched her attack mid-leap from
a slash to a downward thrust on my armor’s weakened point, all the while being gutted and shot repeatedly.

  My combat armor cracked like a coconut and the machete went through my chest and pierced the back.

  I felt dizzy. I stumbled around like a drunk and tried to find someplace to hold myself but I fell. I had found grab on something squishy! I managed to look and there was Deinomache on the floor, shot up by my bullets and me on top of her, grabbing her breast. No, they don’t cut off their breasts. I am certain of it now. The rest of the Amazons had circled me and aimed their guns at me. A blonde one came over my head and kicked me.

  “Surrender now!” she demanded. She looked like a spoiled queen.

  “Mrgnph Stglurgh!” I replied drowning in my blood.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Emergency Stimpack!” I said and felt the quad injections from my armor.

  Synthetic clam glue made my skin tighten and hug around the blade, adrenaline sparked up my heart, my reserve liter of my own oxygenated blood got pumped back into my veins and hemostatic sponges unfolded inside my wounds.

  I gave the blondie Amazon no time to react, I kicked her feet and grabbed her unconscious leader, rolling her over me. I was betting on them not wanting to get her shot anymore and I was gonna lift her like a shield all the way back to Athens if need be.

  The rest of the Amazons were aiming their guns at me, swearing and yelling at me to put their leader down.

  But they weren’t shooting, and that was the only thing that mattered. So I decided to get cocky. I pulled my shotgun and placed it on Deinomache’s cheek.

  “One step closer and you will be picking up your sister in pieces!” I told them. “This is now a hostage situation. All of you get back on the freight elevator and leave this floor!”

  Ha. Silly little girls. I had booby trapped the elevator. Now you would all comply and get on there, and then go Boom. Problem solved.

  Except nobody moved. The blonde Amazon had gotten up, then grabbed Alkinoe by the foot and dragged her closer. Right underneath her katana.

  Damn those Amazons and their phallic melee weapons.

  “Our leader is important, if she is still alive, but our mission is worth any sacrifice. Surrender or Alkinoe dies,” the blondie said and brought the blade to our girl’s neck. She had a gash on her neck from the fall I gave her that was gonna scar nicely.

  Skata. This blonde was the next in line, and apparently ruthless enough to let my dance-partner die in order to take her place. Whatever her name was, after this she should be renamed to I-will-kill-you-all-and-eat-your-babies.

  Alkinoe wasn’t moving. If she was alive, my brother would be real pissed with me about the state he would find his girl in. Ok, halter tops were out of the question, but men don’t care. The teeth though, yeah, that would be an issue. It’s still better than having her beheaded I think. I remembered last time I got my teeth knocked out in a barfight, my cheeks were swollen and I was very silly looking. I tried to see if her cheeks were swollen, and they were. Wasn’t that a sign of her being still alive? I chose to believe it was.

  I calculated my chances, planned my moves to take all eleven of them out. Move in cover, headshot, flank left, get shot (?), charge that brunette with the machete from my chest…

  No. Do not take that machete out or you will bleed to death.

  Ok, here we go, different plan…

  And then I got a message from the kid saying, “Duck!”

  Chapter 8

  The kid had brought his drone pals on the railings above us. He must have slaved them all to his uncalloused little fingers by their digital threads and told them to charge the Amazons.

  More than twenty drones, either maintenance supervisors, the lava fingers from before, or simply strong lifting drones lunged down from the fifteen meter tall floor above, inhumanely unaware of any self-preservation or vertigo or damage from the fall.

  The Amazons broke their formation around me and spread out, taking cover and shooting the incoming drones. Sparks flew, bits were separated from their pieces and a couple of them were brought down.

  But the drones were a lot tougher than they looked.

  They managed to close the gap and went melee on the Amazons. Girls versus metal, with surprisingly even odds. The Amazons took out their melee weapons and started hacking at the drones. The machines were not exactly fit for combat, they just had inherent strength and armor. And they weren’t much of a brawler either, the kid simply ordered them to slam at the nearest target and let them loose, no finesse no nothing.

  That’s a silly word, finesse.

  But that is the only word classy enough to describe the feline grace of the warrior tribe. Jabs and cuts, circling movements not even a drone brain could follow. Attacks on stress points, fluid dodges and parries, a fighting skill from the old days, the ones of sword and steed and arrows. It’s like in the movies, where you get up close and everybody holsters their guns and watches the swordfight in a circle of amazement.

  Yeah right. As if I was gonna let this chance slip away. I pointed my shotgun at the brunette I had marked earlier and blasted her leg in shreds. The drone engaging her found the opportunity to slam his manipulator on her face, and then simply looped the process with exact precision.

  Deinomache did call me a brute after all.

  I shredded three more pretty thighs and let the factory drones sweep the floor with them. One did actually do some sweeping, bloodying the place all over.

  The blonde Amazon, now the Alpha girl of the group, commanded, “Retreat now!” They followed, fencing off the drone attacks and backed up to the exit. They laid cover fire from the exit and I had to duck. I picked up one of the pistols laying around and fired back.

  The kid had ordered two big factory drones to stay infront of him like metal bodyguards, and managed to get down close to me.

  I looked back at the 3D printer. The thing looked like a sleek robot, completed up to its waist. Thin aerodynamic legs and a pleasing aluminum finish gave it the impression that it was meant to fly. Or perhaps it was the wings on its ankles that gave that impression.

  “Where is my brother?” I asked the kid.

  “He is holding off two Amazons in the floor above. I left him a couple of drones to assist,” he said as I was pulling the unconscious Alkinoe behind cover.

  I threw him a medkit and said, “Patch her up while you talk. Did you crack the safe?” I kept firing back at the Amazons, they had fully retreated in the corridor. Our drones stayed in the room with us.

  The kid grabbed the medkit and obviously didn’t know what to do. Then he shook his head, typed a search, first-aid instructions popped up on his overlay and he began stitching Alkinoe’s back. The script he was running even dotted the points on the woman’s back that he should pierce with the needle and showed him how to make the finishing knot. “Yes, Mr. Thomas got the parts, I have them right here,” he said and pointed at three roughly oval shapes in the color of dark olive. “He said we should insert the parts to the robot. He said the plan had gone to skata and we needed that thing to walk on its own if we are to make it out of here.”

  “Good. That’s good. Let’s do that,” I said, and began to lose consciousness. The adrenaline wore off. The chemboosts wore off. Silly ringing. Silly alarms. God I’m so sleepy. Never mind me, I’ll just take a quick nap over here…

  Chapter 9

  I closed my eyes for three seconds. When I opened them, the smell of burned flesh filled my nose. I looked around, Thomas was behind the finished robot, arcs of electricity flowing from it to him. He jerked around spasmodically and fell on the floor. His face was burnt and his contorted limbs stopped moving. Big electric arcs blinded me and I covered my eyes.

  When my corneas managed to overcome the blinding flash I saw the kid on his knees, trying to cover. Alkinoe was awake, pistol in hand, her jaw purple and swollen. Deinomache wasn’t where I had left her.

  The robot was still.

  My brother was still
.

  I screamed from the bottom of my lungs, stood up and broke off the machete in my chest in half. I charged the robot with my halfblade. As I was closing in, his eyes came to life.

  The first thing he saw, was me trying to kill him.

  I brought the broken blade down on him with all the strength I had left. All I managed to do was scratch his eyebrow.

  He grabbed me by the neck and lifted me up with his hand. Then he threw me across the room like a ragdoll. I toppled some equipment on my path and broke my way into the far wall.

  I closed my eyes for three more seconds. When I managed to get them open again the building was coming down on us. The 3D printer was trashed on one side and kneeling, smoke and fire was coming out of everywhere. A big hole with singed edges was diagonal on the ceiling above, letting us see the stars. Another big hole was making a new entrance to the corridor where the Amazons had retreated to. If someone had stayed there hidden, they weren’t alive anymore. The kid brought a drone to carry me on its freight surface. Alkinoe was limping on one leg but keeping up.

  I saw a flash on the patch of starry night and then what could only be a plasma discharge. It was aimed at the metasteel forge below and I could tell because in moments the whole place was up in flames and the heat was unbearable. Tons of molten metal brought down girders and supports, bending the very floor we were on. We rushed to the exit.

  “Not the elevator,” I said, “I rigged it.”

  “Yeah, it’s already blown anyway,” said the kid. The robot we had 3D printed moments ago had used the freight elevator, got it blown to his face and then came back and blasted the ceiling to escape by flight. The corridor that the Amazons had retreated to had only two corpses, so the rest must have escaped.

  We followed a path out but there was molten metal running down the corridor. We doubled back and managed to find another exit. I was being carried on the back of a lifting drone and feeling useless. It was all on the kid now, he would get us out. I saw him manipulating a schematic and looking for a way out. A floor collapsed behind us and filled the air with dust.