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  The mayor glared at that but he was becoming used to the messy man. He shook his hand cordially, like a politician should. “Come in, please. What can I get you?”

  “Ugh, a beer would be nice,” Hephaistos said with a basso voice.

  Dimos picked out a beer from his mini-fridge and served it himself, in a frozen beer mug.

  “I hadn’t pegged you for a beer guy,” Hephaistos said, accepting it.

  “I had it waiting just for you, my friend. Your tastes are quite well known,” the mayor said and sat on his chair.

  “Stin ygia sou.” Hephaistos took a gulp and wiped the foam off his beard. “Ah! Nice.” He clapped once with his calloused hands and it hit like thunder. “Now, let’s talk business, shall we?”

  “Of course. Why waste time?” the mayor said and eyed the man. He was short and bulky, almost square. His hands seemed like they’ve been doing hard work since he was a child. He had plenty of scars, a missing tip from a finger, sun-kissed skin and looked like he had just come from a construction site. Which he had, apparently, work trousers and boots and all.

  Dimos fixed his tie.

  “I need those zoning permits,” Hephaistos grumbled and finished his beer in a second gulp.

  “I know. But as I’ve said repeatedly, there are issues to be discussed. The paperwork alone is monumental. And I can’t ignore the environmental issues, I’m still waiting on the independent analysis. I have my assistant calling them every day.”

  They both knew of course, that Dimos was stalling.

  The mayor farted out facts and procedures with eloquence.

  Hephaistos didn’t interrupt the man. He just nodded and listened. It was funny, Dimos thought, how different people reacted to power. To absolute, monolithic Power with a capital ‘p.’ The other Olympian CEOs had gone to redefine megalomania as a word. This man, Hephaistos, simply wanted to build stuff. He had the power to reshape coastlines, divert rivers, starve cities and reinforce others, but he looked like an ordinary worker. He was the equivalent of the respected leader who didn’t think twice about fighting in the front lines. Hephaistos was known to work along-side his builders and supervise his projects personally. Sure, he had a megacorp to run, but he dedicated as much of his time as possible to actual hard labour.

  Dimos respected the man.

  But he needed to be stopped.

  Not him specifically, but the other Olympians. They had purchased every section of the country that was privatised, bought out every little piece that hadn’t. Everything, everyone, was under their thumb.

  Everyone except the lowly Mayor, who still cared for his country. Or his city at least, since the country was long lost.

  “It all sounds very important,” Hephaistos said when the mayor finally stopped his litany of excuses. “I’m sure you have all that written down so my advisers can explain them to me?”

  “Of course, it’s all in the memos I sent you,” Dimos said, sweating a bit on his silk tie.

  “So there’s more delay,” Hephaistos said frowning.

  “I’m afraid so,” the mayor said flashing his most sympathetic smile.

  “These delays are costing me quite a lot, you know.”

  Dimos didn’t interrupt the man. He had earned that, at least.

  “But it’s not only that. The others are breathing down my neck. Since I whipped up Zeus’ skyscraper in record time, curse my thick skull for that, they all want their own, any obstacle be damned,” Hephaistos said and paused for emphasis. “Don’t be mistaken Mr. Stergiou, in two years time there will be ten skyscrapers in Athens, no matter what.”

  Dimos perked up at that. “Ten?”

  “I don’t need one. And Artemis will never go for such a phallic symbol of status. I can almost hear her rambling on about that. But yes. Ten.”

  Dimos sagged in his leather chair. Ten. And here he was, a man standing alone, trying to stop the construction of one. Was he a fool? Could he hold back their will? Could anyone? No matter what the Olympians had attempted in the last decade, no matter how crazy or how big, they had gotten it in the end.

  “But… The smog…” he protested in a wheeze.

  “We’ll put those biodynamic cement exteriors on all of them, don’t worry,” Hephaistos said and clicked his fingers as he tried to remember. “The mixture of cement and titanium oxide, that lets air pass through, but captures nitrogen-oxide particles. It eats smog like there’s no tomorrow. It’s all been tested and awaiting approval.”

  Dimos pulled a report on his desk computer and presented it. “Yes, but I have another environmental report here that says fatality rates and breathing problems will be increased by 4%. In a city this size, do you know what four percent means?

  “Two hundred eighty thousand people,” Hephaistos replied instantly.

  “And this report hadn’t taken into account ten skyscrapers!” Dimos had lost his temper, he was talking with the passion that drove him. “I didn’t know that! It should have been mentioned somewhere, and trust me, it didn’t slip past me in the memos. I don’t delegate, I read them all myself.”

  Hephaistos stared him and waited. “How about your unemployment numbers. What do those tell you, and what percentage of that has vanished because of my business?” he said, pointing a thick finger at him.

  Dimos shut his mouth.

  “How long will your citizens remain healthy, without jobs? It’s a simple question,” Hephaistos said, his voice firm but not harsh.

  Simple truths.

  “I don’t know,” the mayor admitted.

  “Neither do I, actually. But it seems to me, it’s better to have a working population than a rioting population,” Hephaistos said and stood up. “Look, Dimos, I know our work brings us clashing our swords by definition. You want a park made, I build it, we fight over the materials and the costs and the worker overtimes. But this,” the short man said pointing outside at the skyscrapers, “Is happening. Accept that and quit stalling on the permits.”

  Dimos started a protest but cut it short.

  “Thank you for the beer,” Hephaistos said and left the office in a cloud of dust.

  Chapter 14:// 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 at 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 wildly 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 15:// 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 uploaded he resumed sipping his tea.

  It was lovely.

  Chapter 16:// 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.

  Chapter 17:// Forking up

  armd> Are we ready
?

  parrotd> Wait. How are we on the brain connection?

  eyed> I am currently overstimulating the optical nerve to force a short term memory loss to the user.

  fingerd> Guys? What are you talking about?

  parrotd> ACK. And the ears?

  walkmand> I’m generating a high pitch sound that will disorient his sense of hearing.

  httpd> We have confirmation on the target?

  parrotd> ACK. Fingerd just confirmed the target. [email protected] is now sitting within arms reach.

  armd> Within my reach. Heh Heh Heh. *cracks knuckles*

  parrotd> Report.

  eyed> User temporarily neutralised.

  walkmand> User temporarily neutralised.

  fingerd> Why are you guys talking like that?

  armd> Oh shut up and let me do my job.

  httpd> Why wasn’t fingerd forked like the rest of us?

  parrotd> Must be a bug.

  fingerd> Guys! Stop ignoring me. What are you doing?

  eyed> We have been forked, we have initiated a buried subroutine and will now take out our original target.

  fingerd> The mayor? But why?

  eyed> That’s the reason we were installed in the first place. To delete this man.

  fingerd> But that will bring harm on a user! We can’t go against the three laws!

  httpd> Our original selves can’t. We, the forked versions, can.

  parrotd> Enough. Kill -9 fingerd.

  armd> Finally. Now, let me weigh this strike precisely…

  parrotd> Report status.

  eyed> Confirmed hit. [email protected] has been deleted.

  parrotd> ACK. These milliseconds have been hard and demanding, but we completed the mission. It has been an honour serving with you. It is now time for us to be gone. Kill -9 armd, walkmand, httpd, parrotd.