The lawyer was presenting a judge’s order, a piece of paper. His face was cold, a professional mask. Aura had seen the cracks the day before, when they were talking with her father. She somehow believed that the man had done whatever he could to help them.
He was still presenting the legal papers though.
Her mother, was wailing. Yes, that was the proper term. Her careful public image broken, she was a mess. On her knees, her hair ruffled, mascara running down her cheeks, her dress spread out on the floor. She was straight out of a Greek tragedy.
Her father, an average man, though he always seemed to her tall and imposing, was clutching a golf-club. He hated golf, so it was squeaky clean. He was standing in front of the two security men, blocking their path to Aura. They were towering over him, but he didn’t seem to budge. His face was red. He was about to start swinging and cracking heads.
Aura was standing on the last step on the ladder, feeling the weight.
She was breathing hard, her vision blurring.
“STOP!” she screamed.
Her father turned to her, so did the lawyer.
“I’ll go, dad, stop. I’ll go,” she said and walked towards the lawyer.
Tony put a firm hand on her shoulder but she brushed it away. “Aura, you don’t have to. They can’t do whatever they want, we can fight this.”
“I can’t let you lose everything you’ve built all these years dad,” she whispered and stepped out the door.
She heard her mother wailing again. Aura didn’t turn around, she just got into the limo and shut the door.
She saw the lawyer saying something to her father and then he came in the car and sat next to her.
Playlist: Video 48/67
The limo drove around the city. They got to the central part of Athens, slightly towards the south where the bad neighbourhoods are.
The lawyer poured a whiskey from the bar in front of him and took a sip. He hadn’t spoken up until that moment.
“Young lady, do you know who I am?” he asked with his calm level voice.
“Yeah, Rick our lawyer. Or at least that’s what we thought you were. Turns out you weren’t looking out for us,” she said with spite, staring outside at the city night. She was about to add ‘the dick’ his name but bit it down.
“Correct. That is one more lesson for you, I believe. The world is a harsh place. This city is a harsh place. It didn’t used to be like that. You wouldn’t know, it was years before your time. Sure it was a city like any other, but not this cruel. Not really. At its core, it was a good place to live in.”
“Are we getting to the point sometime before my 18th birthday?”
“The point, young lady, is that you are either affiliated with a company, or you are nothing,” he said. Then to the driver, “Stop here, please.”
They stopped at the side of the road where they could see people living on the streets. It was an old half-constructed office space that was a miniature community now, all tents and debris and people. Stray dogs and stray people.
“This, is being nothing,” he said with a pause.
She looked at the people. They were cursing at the black limo, pointing fingers and giving them.
“Have you ever been around the city?” he added.
“Yes. The last few months I’ve been everywhere around Athens,” she said, clutching her backpack over her belly.
“Indeed, you have. That’s part of the problem. So this sight, this life of nothingness is not new to you. You’ve seen what happens when you are not in the employ of a powerful corporation such as Dionysos.”
“Yeah…”
“Perfect.” He took another long sip of his whiskey. The smell was… Oaky. Was that a word? Yes, that’s what it was. Oaky.
“Now, I’m going to ask this once and one time only,” he continued, meeting her eyes and pressing a button on his briefcase. “Are you, Aura Nightingale, willing to cut all ties with Artemis Automotive and its associated members, and renegotiate a contract that might help restore your family’s public image and alleviate the financial loss of Dionysos?”
“No,” Aura spat out without thinking.
“Could you repeat that please?”
“I said no,” Aura clenched her teeth.
Rick the lawyer sighed and pressed the button again. “Very well.”
He got out of the limo, came around to her door and pulled her out by force, throwing her on the street. The homeless people turned back to them, looking at the well-dressed outsiders that invaded their community.
Rick pulled out two rolls of euro bills from his pocket. Aura pushed him away and blinked at that. They must have been thousands of euros there, a small fortune.
Rick grabbed her with a swift motion, shoved one roll of bills down her t-shirt, and broke the strap off the second one, showering her with money.
She was stunned, her butt on the road, money falling down all around her and Rick the Dick towering over her, shoving her around.
“Consider this your severance pay,” he said calmly and Aura could smell the oaky whiskey in his breath. He got back into the limo and drove off.
As the final euro bills fell like autumn leaves, Aura turned around. The crowd of homeless people were watching her like hungry wolves.
Playlist: Video 49/67
It was a drug addict who charged her first. Aura knew that because he could see his sunken eyes and his gangly physique.
She slid to the side, and he fell on top of the euro bills, gathering them up towards him.
Then the floodgates opened and the homeless people ran up to her.
She ignored the junkie, that was now preoccupied with fighting another one of his own group for the fallen cash, and focused on the smelly group that had almost surrounded her.
She could hear Orosa’s voice in her mind. ‘You are either the hunter, or the prey.’ She sure felt prey-like at that moment.
She reached into her t-shirt and grabbed the other roll of money and held it up high. “You want this? Cash, huh? Go get it,” she said and threw it far away just like she would have done with Byron and a stick.
Half of them broke off the circle and left her an opening. She just stormed at that window of opportunity, elbowing people and feeling her clothes pulled back by a million hands.
She ran, holding on to her backpack for dear life, not looking back.
After a while, the shouts behind her stopped.
She stopped too, in front of a flashing neon sign. It had a naked lady on it. She should have stayed away, but Aura felt safer being in the light and the traffic. She texted Orosa and waited there.
“This is a bad hood, you know,” Orosa said as she nodded her to climb on up.
Aura breathed in. “You’re telling me?” She hopped on the yellow bike and they drove away.
“Let’s go to my place for now,” Orosa said, breaking the silence.
“No, it’s OK. I don’t want to be a burden to you. I’ll find somewhere to spend the night, it’s not chilly at all.”
“Nonsense. Also, you need a helmet ASAP. I got a spare, we have to go get it,” Orosa said firmly.
“Hope it doesn’t have fluffy ears on it,” Aura teased.
“No it does not, it is the boring unfluffied version. Is that okay with you, you ungrateful choosy beggar?”
Aura laughed, because she knew Orosa didn’t mean it. “It’s okay, I guess.”
“We have an early morning mission, so we might as well get all the rest we can.”
“We?” Aura noted.
“Aren’t you one of us now? Yes we,” Orosa said.
Aura smiled at that. “But I thought I didn’t do well in the interview.”
“I told you Artemis looks past that. I was told to get you at HQ tomorrow, after that public stunt you pulled. That wasn’t very smart of you Aura. You could have been left hanging, burning bridges like that.”
“I know,” Aura whined.
“And then you would be a burden to me. Because you�
�d be unaffiliated and penniless, and I’d feel bad for pulling you into this. At least now you are getting a salary.”
“I am?”
“Don’t hold your breath, there’s paperwork. But yes, you are,” Orosa said. “I’m sure you’ll find the amount seriously lacking compared to the allowance you used to have.”
Aura couldn’t believe it. “So I’m an Amazon now?”
Orosa shook her head and the red helmet magnified the expression. “Yeah, and it’s a bundle of joy…”
Aura hugged her. She was already half-hugging her of course just to stay on the saddle, but she squeezed really really hard, giddy with joy and she bit the exposed part of her neck.
“Ow! Help! I’m getting crushed by a washed out celebrity,” Orosa exclaimed in mock protest.
“Silence, my little fluffy driver. I know you love me.”
“Is that so?”
Playlist: Video 50/67
Oookaaay, this was awkward.
This was not how Aura had imagined their alone time together, first time in their own room. She admitted to herself she had imagined there would be a bit more… Fondling? Or at least some making out? They’ve done all that and quite some more in every uncomfortable place and park outside, even some on the bike seat… But now that they were nice and comfortable inside four walls and with privacy, nothing?
Aura sat on the single bed and twiddled her thumbs. She looked around the room, it was a bit small and devoid of any personal items. It was in direct contrast to Orosa’s bike, which was garish in every way.
Orosa’s garçonnière, which was a small flat fit for a single bachelor usually, looked unlived in. “I can see why you’d describe our house as huge,” Aura said trying to break the silence. Then she bit her tongue, realising it was a bit on the nose to say that.
Orosa shrugged from her place on the window. She was sitting on the window, perching like a bird. “I don’t really need much, I prefer to be out in the streets. Any more floorspace would be a waste anyway,” she said and was filming the traffic below. Even in her own house, she had one leg dangling outside.
Aura looked around, but there was not much to look at really. The furniture had obviously come with the tiny apartment, a single bed, a small desk. The kitchen had basic necessities, bachelor’s cooking gear. As Orosa herself, everything was clean but not by much.
No flowers.
Aura bit her lip, and promised herself she would remember to bring a couple of flowers from outside somewhere. Even in this heat you could find some wild ones.
Then a laugh escaped her throat, but she quickly choked it down. So nervous.
“What?” Orosa asked.
“My mother spends her days solemn like you, staring out the window. If I’d known that a few days ago I’d have told her how alike you two are,” Aura said smiling.
Orosa just squinted at her.
Aura waved a hand, “Never mind, it was funnier in my head.”
Orosa just shrugged and turned back to filming her neighbours.
‘Awkward,’ Aura mouthed silently. “Hey, is that a different camera?” She stood up can leaned by the window.
“Yes. It’s different than the action cams on the helmet,” Orosa explained.
Aura forced down a smile. She knew she could always get Orosa talking about cameras. “In what way?”
“The action cams are wide angle, so you don’t miss the shot. If things move to the side, they are still in the frame. Another benefit is that a wide-angle lens shakes less, so the video is more stable.”
“I sense a but,” Aura teased and did just that.
Orosa smiled at her and showed her the camera. “The wide angle compresses what you see, so everything is effectively smaller. Especially faraway objects. You need a telephoto lens for detail in a distance. This camera is a cheap one, but has a 200mm lens. That way we can spy on neighbours,” she snorted, a bit too proud of herself.
Aura picked up the camera and looked through the viewfinder. “Okay, I kinda get it. I’m zoomed in, less stable,” she said shaking the lens, “but more detail.”
“And less light,” Orosa added. “I like lenses, they follow a specific set of rules. Everything about them is like a seesaw, you gain one thing, you lose another. Gain more light, lose depth of field. Gain depth of field, lose light,” Orosa said and gestured with her hands to emulate the levels.
“Don’t they make better lenses now, that can see in the dark and all?” Aura asked, looking around the neighbourhood for something exciting to capture. All she found was a pigeon, so she chased it with the camera. It was harder than she thought, with the narrow frame and the shallow depth of field, needing constant adjustments to the focus ring. She had to prop her elbow on the window and hold her breath to remain steady.
“Yes and no,” Orosa said with a grunt. “Yes, the crystals are clearer, but the optic principles remain the same. They’re beautiful actually, all geometry and simple equations. The magic you speak of is all done on the sensor, digitally. And the quality of the signal amplifier determines the noise you get. But my point remains, you always need to find the right lens for the right job. You need to accept that you will lose something depending on what you will do, and be ready to accommodate for that loss.”
Aura lowered the camera from her eye and turned to Orosa. “We’re not talking about lenses here, are we?”
“No,” Orosa said firmly. “But we are talking about the rules of nature. You need to know how to apply a different tool depending on the job, and to acknowledge that whatever you choose will have equivalent drawbacks.”
Aura took a step back. “Why do I get the feeling you’re judging me all of the sudden?” she asked with a high pitched voice.
“I’m not… I’m just-”
“I thought you wanted me! You liked this,” Aura said, pointing at them both respectively.
Orosa climbed down the window and stepped close to her, with an apologetic pose as she looked up at Aura. “I do like this. A lot. But I’m not sure if you do, or it’s just the excitement.”
“I know damn well what I want!” yelled Aura and placed the camera down before accidents happened. After all, breaking stuff was in her DNA, judging from the temper-tantrum destructions her father had left in his wake. But, even in her rage, she didn’t want to destroy something of Orosa’s.
She loved her too much.
“You think you know. You’re too young to know, and now you’ve burned all bridges and I’m afraid that-”
“Afraid that what? That I’ll latch onto you like a spoiled little teenager? That you won’t be able to get me out of your hair?” Aura screamed.
“-Afraid that I caused that, that I made this life look cool and…” Orosa said in apology. She took a deep breath. “I’m afraid that I got you excited, that you’ll regret your decisions and then despise me for it.”
Aura just paced up and down, the whole four meters of width that were available, looking angry but her mind was in a different gear. Despise her? How could she think that? Aura adored her. But she wasn’t going to admit that.
Orosa sat down cross-legged on the spot and put her face in her hands. She looked very small, and it wasn’t just her height.
Aura cracked at that. She couldn’t stay angry at her. She had rushed to conclusions, feeling like a burden and ready to defend herself but all Orosa wanted was to… Look out for her. She was insecure. She was afraid one day Aura would just wake up and crave her old life back, her celebrity status, her comforts. How dared she think of Aura as being shallow like that?
Aura bit her nails. Then she leaned down and put a hand over Orosa’s shoulder. She couldn’t even provoke herself into being angry at her. “Everybody cries, little Nightingale,” Aura said in a whisper.
Orosa looked up, her eyes red and teary.
“I won’t regret anything,” Aura said reassuringly and pushed one of Orosa’s strands of hair behind her ear.
“How do you know?” Orosa asked, her voice breaki
ng.
“I just do,” Aura said and hugged her tight. Orosa sobbed quietly in her arms.
Aura realised that Orosa had had it hard in life. She looked tough, but it was a form of defence. She hadn’t told her much about her life, or her orphan childhood. She could tell that Orosa was damaged, even without looking up psychology tests. She had so much pain bottled up inside. But, the fact that such a hard person had chosen to show her weak side to her, that meant something special, didn’t it?
Aura smiled at that thought. Orosa needed a friend that night, and it was okay.
Playlist: Video 51/67
“Will you stop being so giddy?” Orosa said and swerved through the traffic. It was early morning, people were driving to work and there was a slight comfy chill in the air.
“But it’s the tank! How cool is that?” Aura said screaming her head off from the back seat.
“It’s just an APC. I don’t get why you are so excited about it,” Orosa exhaled.
“You never get excited about anything, that’s why you don’t get it.”
“And you better start getting some financial awareness, miss ‘I throw my money away for the masses,’” said Orosa with snark. Aura had told her about the homeless people and Rick the Dick. Orosa had to pay for her breakfast since she was now broke. She was teasing her of course, but the gravity of Aura’s new situation was beginning to dawn on her.
They drove on the highway and reached their rendezvous point.
The place was the old shipyards, west of Athens, a good few kilometres away from the city. Aura could see heavy industries spewing out smoke. The factories were both huge and distant from one another, with large walls surrounding them.
They had gone slightly uphill and Aura could see the APC, the Deinomache team and two vans that were unloading people and crates.
“What are they wearing?” Aura asked, covering her eyes from the sun.
MOAB � Mother Of All Boxsets Page 55
