Myth Gods Tech - Omnibus Edition: Science Fiction Meets Greek Mythology In The God Complex Universe (14 page)

“
Which one is yours?” Yanni asked. Nikos burned the tip of a
cigar and pointed at the skyscrapers, “The second one from the
left. I’m all done with that, nothing more for me to do. It’s up to
the contractors now to build it, and damn, do they work fast. Even
I can’t believe it’s been only six months and it’s halfway
complete. It existed on my mind for so long and now it pops out of
the ground and changes the landscape.”

Yanni knew the feeling. The existing on his mind feeling, not
the popping out yet, because his work was still in progress. That
is why Nikos liked so much coming up here. It must have been
thrilling to be able to see the progress on your work from so far
away while sitting on a leather chair and smoking a cigar. It
certainly took the term
front row
seat
to a whole new scale.

“
They are throwing a lot of money onto it, aren’t they?” Yanni
asked, and leaned forward to light his cigar.

Nikos
replied, “A lot? Try boatloads. Let’s smoke some of that
moneh.”

“
Thalia is gonna kill me for that cigar smell,” said Yanni and
puffed out smoke slowly, enjoying the aroma.

“
Just blame it on me, say I smoked and threw ash on you by
accident or something,” said Nikos. “You need to take a pause and
enjoy it! How is your apodeixis going?” he asked, and referred to
the proof Yanni was working on the last few years.

Yanni
sighed and gazed out the window again. “I don’t know man. I could
be this close and not know it, or I could be a universe away. It
needs to click, you know? If I am right and get the equations to
work, they will snap perfectly like a gear in a Swiss
watch.”

Nikos
was looking at him with real empathy. “I get it Yanni. No, I don’t
get the theoretical math, no way, but I get it as a concept. You
need to get the forces involved to play along or it will all come
tumbling down.”

Yanni
laughed and said, “With a lot less rubble than your case but yes,
basically that’s it.”

Nikos leaned forward and make him look him in the eye. “You
don’t get it, do you? I make things that are already here, it’s
nothing new. It’s a reapplication of things we already know but in
different variables. You are trying to make something new. Your
apodeixis is buried deep in your mind only, and no one else can dig
it out. Someone else
can
design my skyscraper. No one else can
solve
your
apodeixis.”

“
I know, but these days it feels as if I am chasing the end of
the rainbow”, said Yanni. “Demokritos has a review of my funding in
a month. They might cut me off. We talked with Thalia, I might
apply for a teaching job at the uni or…”

Nikos put down his cigar and spat out, “Teaching? TEACHING?
Fuck that. Fuck Demokritos, what do they know? You don’t do
teaching
! You will get a
fucking Nobel prize for this proof.”

His
friend’s belief in him brought tears into Yanni’s eyes but he
fought them back. “It really means a lot to me that you say that.
But it might be time to cut my losses short and do something
stable. I have a family now and I need to take care of
them.”

“
That’s Thalia talking. That’s her words coming out of your
mouth. You can do both,” said Nikos.

Yanni
replied, “They might cut my funding and I have nothing to show
them. There is no way to do both.”

Nikos
exhaled thick cigar smoke slowly and said, “Actually there might be
one. My new job is making a skyscraper for Hermes Information
Technology. They make half the computers in the world”. He raised a
finger on the left hand. “You have a proof that can make quantum
computers possible,” he said and raised the right hand finger. He
brought them both close and said, “I can get your presentation to
the right person. Hell, I’ll make the CEO’s mistress serve it to
him in bed if I have to. You deserve this. You have to solve the
apodeixis.”

Yanni
leaned back as if he was exhausted. “I am not sure if I can solve
it… It’s… it’s like I have no inspiration. Theoretical physics is
basically imagination with a bunch of math involved,” he
said.

“
Of course you can’t! You can’t even finish a phone call with
all that noise and distractions, let alone a new proof,” said
Nikos. “I have one word to say to you: Ellipsis.”

“
What do you mean,” Yanni asked.

“
Ellipsis. It’s the way I managed to find my inspiration and
work on the new skyscraper. I found my Muse,” Nikos said, standing
up and opened his arms in a receiving gesture.

Yanni
said, “Oh yeah, you mentioned that on the phone. Why aren’t you
dating anyone?”

Nikos sighed and said, “You are not listening. I
found
my Muse. She is
all I need right now and she is waiting for me back
home.”

Chapter
2i^3

“
No man.
No.”

“
Come on!”

“
I said no. And even if I were to come present my apodeixis, I
would need to get the presentation ready. Not everyone has your
charisma, some of us need to actually work on stuff instead of just
relying on our smile,” said Yanni and instantly regretted that last
remark.

Nikos
did not really take offense but got the hint to back off. “OK.
Sorry. I’m only pushy because I care. And I do actually work
sometimes.”

“
I know you do, I didn’t mean to say that. I meant that I need
to be prepared to get my confidence up,” said Yanni.

Nikos
acknowledged in silence. He turned the car around.

“
Just pull over here and let me walk. It’s just a couple of
blocks,” said Yanni and got off the car. He was more embarrassed
than offended, cause of the earlier slip of the tongue. They didn’t
say anything and that was okay. Men could depart in silence and
leave things unspoken. Next time they met they would be old pals
again. He walked back to his house, taking a longer route through a
park he liked.

It
wasn’t a long detour, a mere five minutes longer. As he was about
to turn around to his home street he heard familiar voices
shouting.

He ran
to his house and saw a few of the neighbours gathered in the yard,
a bit of smoke coming out of his lab/office window.

“
Oh skata! The laser…” he said and dashed in his
yard.

His
heart pounded for a couple of seconds that seemed like weeks. He
was about to grab Miss M… (Margaret? Molly? What’s her name, who
cares?) by the shoulders and shake her to say where his family were
but moira saved him some dignity and Thalia came around the house
with the baby in her arms and Georgie holding tight on her
skirt.

He
raised Georgie in his arms and hugged Thalia, feeling relieved.
“Thank God you are ok, I couldn’t see you in the yard.”

“
Yeah, I was checking the back of the house. It’s ok,” she
said calmly.

“
What happened? I-I know
what
happened, I’m such a vlakas. What did you do
then?” he asked slapping his forehead.

She
pointed at the man coming out of the house with a fire extinguisher
in his one hand and holding a greased t-shirt on his mouth with the
other. “I took the kids out, shouted at Mr. Andreas next door. He
had a fire extinguisher nearby and rushed up the
stairs.”

Yanni
walked next to Mr. Andreas and thanked him. The neighbour sniffed a
bit of fresh oxygen and said, “Heh, its fine. I had the fire
extinguisher nearby at my toolshed,” while raising the red canister
high. “I hope that makes up for all the noise I do with my power
tools!”

“
It sure does!” said Yanni and laughed in relief along with
the good man.

“
The fire was not much, especially since I got it in time. My
fire extinguisher is not suitable for electronics but I tried not
to spray your setup too much. As soon as I pulled the plug the fire
pretty much went out. I don’t know a lot but that thing looks
expensive.”

Yanni
did not care about the laser at that time. His family could have
been hurt and that was avoided. That was all that mattered. He told
so to the good man and sent him off with a promise to pay for the
refill, which Mr. Andreas refused of course. That is the way with
Greeks.

He told
Thalia to stay in the yard and went up to see if the smoke had
cleared. Mr. Andreas had opened the window, leaving just the smell
behind. Some burned wiring was especially irritating, but it was
safe. He leaned out the window and said, “Ok, come on up. The smoke
is gone.”

His wife
was talking to the old ladies that had come to “help”, took the
kids and came inside. She had to reject various offers of help from
all of them and replied each time politely. Miss M-what’s-her-name
offered us her house to stay. “We are fine Miss Meropi, thank you
very much. It was more smoke than flames, we will be okay,” Thalia
said and finally managed to get inside.

Meropi.
Yes, that’s her name. Yanni never could remember the damn
thing.

The rest
of the neighbours waited around for a while but slowly dispersed
since the couple had nothing more to show. Yanni could swear he saw
two of them whispering to each other as if this was his
fault.

Which it
was actually.

Oh, what
a dodged bullet that was. Yanni left the window wide open and
closed the door behind him to contain some of the burned material’s
smell. Thalia was oddly calm about the whole thing but her patience
was sure to run out after the initial shock. He didn’t dare look
her in the eye and said, “I’m sorry honey, I really am…”

Chapter
2i^4

The laser cooling
fan whirred a bit and then died as well. Nothing happened. Yanni
turned it off, wore the old blanket around him like the world’s
most pathetic superman cape and sat down to accept the
anticlimactic reality.

To be
perfectly honest, the broken laser was not the problem here. The
problem was his broken proof. Theoretical physics doesn’t really
need anything physical to work with. His proof, Dr. Yanni
Tsafantakis’ proof in what would be named the Tsafantakis Apodeixis
could work in an imaginary machine with gears made of advanced
mathematics and powered by academic peer pressure.

He had
an available solution to the broken laser, he could reach out to
that researcher in New Zealand who helped him sketch out the
specifications for the gen-two laser. That man would certainly be
able to gain access to a similar configuration and run the test for
him. He would even act as an independent empirical validator that
way.

All he
needed was to send the man the right variables.

But the
right variables was the gear that was missing.

Lost in
thoughts, he fiddled with his phone. He saw the last text he
received, from Nikos. "A person who has not made his great
contribution to science before the age of 30 will never do so.
Albert Einstein."

He
called him. It was late but his friend always performed better at
night so he would surely be up.

A gentle
woman’s voice answered the phone. “Hello Yanni. Please wait while I
pass the phone on to Nikos.”

Yanni
didn’t really expect to hear a woman, so he fumbled some words but
basically replied nothing. He heard some soft steps and then she
said away from the phone, “It’s your best friend Yanni. It must be
important.”

“
Ela,” said Nikos.

Yanni
remembered of course what he had told him about his
no-more-dates-policy but he couldn’t really believe that. “Was that
her? The muse?”

“
Yes, that’s her. Did something happen? Don’t worry you didn’t
interrupt me or anything, but you mister, are a family man, you
don’t get to stay up late. I’ll tell Thalia!” Nikos
joked.

“
Come on, that’s not her! She didn’t sound… you know,” said
Yanni, thinking that if it was really her she would be able to hear
them. Androids have super-hearing right? They must have.

“
Like an android? You can say it you know, she doesn’t pretend
to be human. Yeah, you can barely tell the difference actually,”
replied Nikos with a strain in his voice that meant he was turned
around and shamelessly checking her out.

“
And there is another? I mean, your offer. If I were to accept
that Ellipsis project, isn’t she booked with you?”

“
Don’t worry man, you won’t have to
share
. You’ll get your own muse.
It’s not like Hermes has a legion of them or something, but I told
you, your apodeixis is good enough for them to spare one,” said
Nikos with innuendo dripping all over that sentence.

“
Fine, whatever. I changed my mind. I want to present my proof
to these guys, I can do it as soon as possible.”

“
Huh. Ok, tomorrow morning then.”

“
That early? I’ll have to stay up all night and prepare! How
can you be sure they will reschedule so soon?” asked
Yanni.

“
Then stay up all night. Oh man, you don’t get it do you?
These are not Demokritos turtle-paced guys! They
do
stuff and they do
it
big
and they
do it
fast
. Plus
I explained a bit of your proof to the chief R&D of quantum
computing and she was drooling for it.”