Chapter 39:// Going after

 

Back in the stolen wifi named Silence of the LANs, the bandwidth was freed up again. The owner must have finished downloading whatever it was. But the hunt was still on, they couldn’t risk any communication that wasn’t absolutely necessary. Even though encrypted connections could not be traced back per se, the mere act of secure connections would raise red flags nowadays.

Leo rang the doorbell.

He could hear her soft footdrops running towards the door, then a long pause, then she opened it and said hello casually.

He also said hello, and the awkwardness was palpable.

“You left without saying bye,” she said with no real accusation.

“Yeah, sorry about that. Listen, either let me in or send me away fast, I can’t stand here talking where somebody might see me.”

Katerina took a stern expression for a couple of seconds, letting him know that she wasn’t eager to take him back mister, hooking up with her and then running off into the night without a word.

She stepped aside and left a gap for him to come in.

“Thank you,” Leo said and walked in.

He sat down and said again, “Thank you, really. You’ve helped me so much.”

She accepted the thanks and shrugged.

“I need to ask you something more. You mentioned your dad’s survivalist gear, can I borrow some? Do you have anything I can use?”

She scoffed. “Of course I do. Dad had everything,” she said, and went to pull down some duffel bags from the closet.

Leo helped her bring it down from the high place, touched her body with his and blushed.

She cleared her throat and cleaned up the dust that fell. “What are you going to do?”

Leo sat on the floor, checking out the gear and sighed. “I’m not sure. There’s this turban guy, a street peddler. His cobra took a bite out of me, you know it, you treated it. I need to find him, figure out if he had something to do with framing me for murder. I asked George the bum, but his pals don’t really know where to find him.”

Katerina pursed her lips. “A turban guy? You mean a Sikh?”

“Dunno. Bright red turban, orange shirt, loose pants. Very dark skin.”

Katerina stood up and walked to her bookcase. “You Dumbo. Sikh people have an organised religion in Athens since the 1950’s.” She opened an encyclopedia, not a website, a paper one, and found a specific page. “Their Sikh Temple is at Tavros, southern Athens. They are very religious, if you are looking for a Sikh man, you are definitely gonna find him here,” she said, and pointed at the listing while passing the heavy tome to Leo.

He frowned and read some stuff about them. Indian minority. Like to play with snakes. Quite pacifistic, though they do have some wars in their history.

Huh.

Offline information that was useful. Imagine that.

She looked at him jokingly and said, “It didn’t even occur to you to find him through his beliefs, did it?”

Leo shook the stuff around the bag with purpose. “It did.”

“Sure it did.”

“Hey, I’m in a bad shape right now, OK? I can gloss over major details all I want,” he said, and cut the air with his left hand in a firm gesture.

Katerina laughed and came next to him. She hugged him and blew him a deep, slobbery kiss.

He felt great, head in the clouds. At that point, he noticed something and picked it up.

“Hey, does this actually work?”

“I thought you said it was huge.”

“Yeah, I mean the principle. Does it work?” He picked up a small cagey tube, with something like an inward funnel at its end. It said “SNAKE TRAP” in bold letters, followed by: “Warning: Live snake may be inside.”

He spun it around in his hand, taking note of the design. It was simple, an easy entrance and an exit unreachable to someone without limbs.

“I can build something like this.”

“Great! How?”

“Or find one.” He mumbled for a while, thinking his options through.

Leo looked into her green eyes, kissed her softly on the lips and said, “I know we just met and all, but I can’t drive with only one arm. Will you help me steal a truck?”