Myth Gods Tech - Omnibus Edition: Science Fiction Meets Greek Mythology In The God Complex Universe (40 page)

The
doctor indeed looked pissed. He was probably overwhelmed by
patients, being one of the few medical practitioners in a small
town.

I sat
down quietly and let Zoe handle it.

He was
in his forties, and used to getting his way. “Everything I have to
say is in the report. I have patients outside waiting. Why did you
need to see me in person?”

Something was off in his attitude. I can somehow understand
the hostility of the police, and the naivety of the teachers, but
this man had expert knowledge of the situation. He was the only one
truly capable of grasping the danger people were in.

“
Doctor Gounaris, please, we are simply here to make sure you
are familiar with the latest algorithm,” she said, presenting the
printed info to him.

He received it and tossed it aside. “Yes, I can open a site
on my own, thank you. Is there anything else?” he asked, with a
voice that said
there better not
be
.

Zoe
locked eyes with him for a moment, and I was reminded of the
standoff with Jorge back at the office.

I
stepped in, putting my hand on her shoulder. “I’m sure if we have
any questions on the report, we could send an email.”

The
doctor smiled and gave me his card. “Anytime.”

Chapter
32

“
Aren’t we
gonna do the school education thing?”

“
They can go fuck themselves with a toothpick.”

I was
enjoying the breeze, and Zoe was driving us around town with no
particular destination.

For a
while, nothing was said between us and it was fine.

Then it
hit me. We were going in big circles.

“
Are we waiting for the doctor to finish up on his work and
then follow him around?”

“
Uh-huh,” she said, as if it was a casual thing to
do.

Chapter
33

“
You’re
alarmingly good at this stalker stuff,” I said and sipped my
water.

“
It’s called
surveillance
. You can learn all the
tricks online,” Zoe said and adjusted her phone on the
dashboard.

We had
been waiting for a few minutes outside a remote house. We were
parked in the main road to blend in better, and were watching the
house through Zoe’s binoculars. We’d bought them an hour ago from a
guy selling stuff on the street. He was carrying like a million
stuff that made noise or lit up, for sale at two euros. Zoe haggled
the price. The binoculars were cheap but they did the job
fine.

“
Can I see too?”

“
Ohi! Why didn’t you buy your own pair? It was only two
euros,” she said, mocking my tone when I had told her it was
embarrassing to haggle for a euro.

“
You put the I in CDI…” I said and regretted the pun as soon
at it left my mouth.

Zoe
slapped my leg, then huffed and sank in her seat. “There’s just
something off with this doctor.”

“
No arguments there…”

“
You saw it too?”

“
Nai. Yeah, it made no sense. I can understand if it was
arrogance, but the man was actively trying to shoo us
away.”

“
What could he be doing there?”

We
examined the remote house as if it would divulge information from
afar. It was just a typical single-house, with a yard behind. Open
garage space at the front, not that you’d never find a spot at the
empty side of the road. It seemed as if the city planning changed
it’s mind halfway and went the other direction. It was close enough
to seem normal, but a convenient earshot away from anything. The
only thing unusual about it was the rather high fence around the
back yard. It was made of wooden flatboards, tight enough to block
the view.

Zoe
fiddled with her phone for a while and then turned to me. “Do you
have any megabytes to spare?”

“
Yes, go ahead,” I said and gave her my phone. I took the
binoculars at the same time and took my turn
surveying
.

The
doctor had carried some groceries inside half an hour ago and was
coming out empty handed. “Here he comes.”

She
grabbed my binoculars and looked.

“
Huh.”

We saw
the doctor as got in his car and left the place.

“
I wanna try something,” Zoe said and drove us close to the
house.

She held
my phone up to the wooden fence and tapped the app. A slight
pressure in my ears made me uncomfortable, but before I managed to
ask tens of dogs started barking loudly and muffled everything
else.

Zoe
smiled like she won an award, tapped the phone gracefully and gave
it back to me.

I read the screen. It had an app saying “
Ultrasound dog repellent
.”

The
barking had died down a bit.

“
Why are you so mean?” I asked, not really expecting an
answer.

“
I’m not mean, this worked, and I’m trying to help those
doggies. Come on, let’s find a way to get inside.”

“
Are you nuts?” I asked with a surprised whisper, but followed
her anyway.

Chapter
34

There was
the distinct smell of kennel. Wet, musky.

Some of
the dogs barked at us, others were just eating the meals they just
had been served.

I kept
my voice low as Zoe was taking pictures. “I don’t know much about
dogs, but these are the ones usually kept for guarding or
hunting?”

She
carried on photographing intensely. “Guarding, others hunting.
Completely different mindsets, we have bred dogs for those two
jobs. Yes, these are what you would expect to have in these areas.
I guess they fetch a good price too.”

“
And this one, is a poodle. Nothing to do with the rest,
totally domestic,” I said, sounding like Sherlock Holmes to my
self. “Perfect for a little girl’s pet. Could this be the one from
the neighbour’s house?”

“
Could be,” said Zoe and walked around the cages. A Rottweiler
was making noises, trying to get its big snout through the cage
gaps. He had knocked over his plate and his food was on the floor.
Zoe picked up his metal plate, looked around, found the bags with
the dry food and filled it up. She petted the dog and put the plate
in the slot where he could reach it. “There there, little cutie,”
she said to it with the tone of voice reserved for wittle
pets.

“
It’s not that small,” I said. “It almost weighs as much as
you.”

“
It’s only months old. Rottweilers grow up fast.” She turned
back to petting his big head while he crunched slobberingly his
food. “Good doggie. Ugh! Wish I could take you home, but I can’t
afford it. You’ll eat more than me in six months.”

I looked
around at the cages. “Zoe, what is this?”

“
Isn’t it obvious?”

“
Not to me!”

“
The doc has a little side business selling pedigree dogs.
These are all prime specimens in this area, they are worth a lot.
And farmers can never have enough dogs. We’ll need to doublecheck
but I think he declared the poodle euthanized and took it
in.”

“
Why would he do that?”

“
Cause he has the system in place! I don’t think he planned
it, it’s not like a poodle is a rare breed or anything. But since
he has a place to keep them,” Zoe pointed at a few empty cages,
“people to buy them etcetera, it was like a small
bonus.”

I began
looking out the windows worried someone might catch us.

“
I don’t think he’s coming back for now,” she said.

“
Yeah, we are still breaking and entering.”

“
So?”

Zoe
petted her new furry friend and we left.

Chapter
35

“
I think
there is more to this.”

Zoe
didn’t look at me. She was driving, so it was good that she kept
her eyes on the road but you know what I mean. “There’s nothing
more. The doctor took advantage of a freak accident, polluted some
samples with rabies and made a few dogs disappear into his
illegal-breed business.”

I was
frustrated. “OK, fine. Why are we leaving? Shouldn’t we report this
immediately?”

“
Are you kidding me? Those pigs back there are probably in on
it. No sir, I’m getting as far away from that town as possible and
then reporting it.”

I
thought about Zoe’s theory for a while. It made sense, but
something nagged me.

“
So you think the doctor came into some money troubles or
something…”

“
We aren’t cops. We don’t give a shit,” she
interrupted.

It was
nighttime now. We had checked out and hit the road. We’d be back in
Athens in five or six hours at most, driving carefully.

No, it
wasn’t our job. We just needed to report the thing and someone
would verify the accusation.

“
Just let me think out loud. You think that this was something
psychological, unrelated, and doctor Gounaris for some reason
needed extra cash, so he took in dogs in a rabies
scare.”

“
Something like that, yeah,” she shrugged away.

“
But he’d need to bribe the nurses, fake the lab results,
the…”

“
Yes! That’s why we are getting away from there and accusing
by proxy!”

“
Occam’s razor Poly! What is more likely, that a rabid girl
attacked a cop and got shot or that a psychologically scarred girl
wandered off and the cop shot her by accident, leaving him nuts and
delirious?”

“
I’m not disagreeing with you!” I said in protest. “I’m in
training you know, try to be patient with my questions.”

“
Well, here’s today’s lesson. It’s not our job. Especially if
it’s not really a rabies case.” She cracked open a window and lit a
cigarette.

We
journeyed on in silence.

I tucked
myself in my jacket and shut my eyes for a while. I was gonna take
the night shift in a couple of hours.

I
mumbled to myself, “Can I see the pattern before it’s too late?”
and then slept uncomfortably.

The End

What If
There’s A Pattern To The Madness?

There is
something fishy going on, and Polybios is getting thrown in the
deep end. Will Zoe make a CDI out of him? Will Polybios manage to
see the pattern in time? When he tries to tell people, will anyone
listen?

Find out about the rest of the Maniai Case Files as they show
up by joining the Mythographers!

http://www.mythographystudios.com/join-the-mythographers/

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How To 3D Print A God

George Saoulidis

Chapter
1

The wait was killing
me. It was dark and cold and I really needed to pee. I did an ammo
check for the fifteenth time but Thomas put his hand on my shoulder
and said, “It’s a full mag. It says so on your overlay. Stop it or
you will jam something.”

I don’t
trust the overlay with matters of life and death. I can’t even
convince my coffee-maker to get it right, let alone the augmented
reality ammo reading beamed in my eye.

“
Why did we need to come all out here if the meet is online?”
I asked.

He
looked at me with the same look all IT guys have when they are
about to reply to a stupid user question and said, “The proxy here
is secure. Any other logon point in the city could be
tracked.”

I turned
around and looked at the kid. Hunched in the corner, a laptop in
one hand and the other waving in the air nudging intangible
controls. He looked like he was playing a videogame, not accessing
a secure logon to meet about a job involving real smartbullets that
aim for your juicy parts. I said to Thomas, “Can you make sure he
is not checking out his Facebook or something? I’m freezing here.
Do it for me.”

“
His nickname is UberToxic, and he knows what he is doing,
trust me,” he said.

I turned to face my brother and said, “I trust you. And since
you do, I trust
him
too. And I will shoot and maim anyone that tries to harm you,
or anyone else on this team. I will take a bullet for you. But I
will never, ever, call the diaper-kid UberToxic.”

Thomas
tried to keep it in but eventually burst into loud laughter. I was
being serious, I dunno what it was that he found funny. I just
stared and tried not to think of waterfalls.