Page 26 of Seth
Seth’s timewas running out; he knew it because his dreams had changed. Before, he could always enter the building, touch the sacred heart, watch it shine and pulse with life, now he constantly roamed the desert chasing SkyBlade, never getting closer.
In his dreams, the god increasingly resembled a monster dying from leprosy7; the majestic creature Seth had seen since childhood loomed on the verge of perishing. Set’s obsidian skin used to glint under the blinding sun, as if smeared with oils. Now, deep festering blemishes dotted the almost matte, dry skin stretched over the weakened muscles.
Seth didn’t want to see the god fall. He didn’t want to see him defeated or failed. He knew when Set died, he’d die too. He had always known that, for they were one and the same. Sleep stopped bringing him any relief, so he cast aside this chore as non-productive.
It’d been three days since Seth started slipping out of his house through the underground passage and spending his days in the car on the parking lot of the Vienna Central Hospital. On his watch, many large trucks stopped by to deliver food, water, and dry cleaning.
His small, accurate handwriting gradually filled a few sheets of the notepad that lay on the front passenger seat. Times, brands, vehicle models, uniforms, Seth recorded every little detail and photographed every vehicle that delivered goods to the hospital until the medicine delivery truck, arriving Tuesday morning, caught his attention. The simple blue uniform of the delivery guy with a logo attached to the front of his shirt was nearly identical to medical scrubs. A low-sitting baseball cap provided the only difference.
He zoomed the camera on the contents of the truck, spotted a few large cylinders strapped in place with black belts. Even though he couldn’t see the labels, he had a clear idea of what they might contain.
Seth nodded a few times.This should do.
Turning on the engine, he drove away. He had so little time and so much to do.
* * *
Obtainingthe uniformof the medicine delivery firm was the simplest part of the plan; almost every second-hand store had it. Printing a plastic logo on his domestic 3D printer wasn’t much harder.
The order he’d placed on the construction store’s website arrived next day. A large hardboard tempered panel, polycarbonate sheets, a few lenticular sheets8, and different kinds of adhesives transferred from the delivery truck into his garage.
It took him more than a day to bend the polycarbonate sheet into the half-cylinder. Struggling with a heat gun, he wished he could go to his glass factory and use professional tools designed for this kind of work.
His desk drowned in papers, and his garage turned into the carpenter’s shop. Sawdust and wood shavings littered the floor, and time to time, he had to stop to check himself in the mirror for cuts and bruises.
By the time pepper spray, ultrasonic dog repellent, and the tranquilizer gun arrived, he’d already assembled a decent polycarbonate shield, tall enough to reach his throat. When the lenticular lens layered the polycarbonate, he rested the shield against a stepladder. The light, bending, erased the object behind it9.
A grin invaded his face as he nodded.This would do. Let’s see how brave you are when you play by my rules.
The sun beat the ground,and every passing car raised a cloud of shimmering dust in the air. It floated on the waves of heat radiating from the melting asphalt. Seth stood in an almost non-existent shadow, behind the corner of the Vienna Central Hospital, a baseball cap low on his eyes. In front of the rear entrance, a delivery man huffed as he unloaded the contents of the truck into a rolling cage, filling the air with quiet rustles of his gloves brushing against cardboard boxes.
Turning on his heel, Seth sneaked around the corner and through the glass doors of the front entrance. Steps quick and confident, he strutted through the blue corridors illuminated by tube lamps. Seth grabbed an empty rolling cage and rolled it to the glass doors to peek outside. The rear doors of the truck stood open; the driver loomed nearby. A smoldering cigarette hung from the corner of his mouth as his attention fixed on his phone. Judging by his thumbs speedily tapping the screen, he entertained himself by playing some arcade game.
Holding his breath, Seth rolled the cage out of the hospital and toward the truck. The driver didn’t raise his head even when Seth loaded the rolling cage with four cylinders of nitrous oxide1. He was about to flee when a consignment note stuck to the side of a nearest box drew his attention. The content description stating Halothane2and Ketamine3.
Without a second thought, he grabbed the box and jumped to the ground. Tugging the baseball cap even lower, he rolled the cage into the rear entrance and back through the corridor toward the front doors. No one stopped him; no one asked him of his business when he strolled past the security guard and to the main parking lot. After loading the cylinders into the black van he’d illegally bought from a street junkie years ago, he hopped in the vehicle and drove away.
* * *
Water dust washedover Seth’s face with every gust of wind. The new moon graced cloudless sky; its reflection rippled in the water of the Danube River as Seth drove the boat up the current. His matte, black full-body swimsuit absorbed light and blended with the shades of the night. Around six hundred feet away from the pier, he turned off the engine and sculled the rest of the way, slowly dipping the paddles in the water not to create any noise.
When he dropped the puddles, a low whimper of distress reached him from behind. He smirked, shifted to the bow, and patted the dog hiding under the bench. The Border Collie sniffed his palm, laid back its ears, and whined again. Sad, brown eyes watched him with obedience and resignation.
Finding a bitch in heat was harder than Seth imagined, but eventually, money solved even this problem. He rubbed the dog behind the ear and mouthed, “Don’t worry, I won’t hurt you.”
He reached for the backpack, plucked out the night vision binoculars, and examined the sleeping mansion towering behind lush gardens. A lone Doberman trotted over the pier and toward an orange tree, lifted a leg. Seth smiled, patted the collie with a free hand.
Following the dog, two male shadows stalked over the pier. Relaxed postures and flickering lights of lit-up cigarettes suggested that no one ever attacked this place. The river carried the smells and sounds, washing Seth in shards of a conversation and cigarette smoke. He held his breath, revolted. Unlike the aromatic scent of burning wood, tobacco had a bitter tang that made him gag.
His hand mechanically patted the dog as he waited for the guards to vanish in the dark. When a hush fell on the ground, interrupted only by the wind playing with foliage and occasional barking, Seth slipped off the boat into the water. Holding the rope in one hand, he swam toward the pier, hauling the boat behind.
Water lashed, throwing him closer and closer to the vertical metal piles supporting the pier. To reach the blind spot of the cameras, Seth had to cling to the shadows of the bank, but the current was stronger here. Even the wind seemed to rebel against him. It kept thrusting the wide, low boat to the piles, threatening to crash it against the pier.
Concerned that the noise might attract dogs or guards, Seth threw the rope over his shoulder and squeezed his body between the pier and boat to use it as a buffer. The collie jumped to its feet, twirled, and whined. It gave him a distressed look as if wondering if it should jump into the water too.
“Sit,” Seth hissed, worried that the animal would throw herself into the river causing the water to wash out the potent heat scent essential for his plan to work. The animal lowered its head but followed the order. Seth kept swimming.
Upon reaching the pier, he thrust the boat away and lifted his head over the wooden planks to look around. Spotting the cameras directed to the water, he drew perspective lines in his mind’s eye. Lowering his head, he swam six feet farther before lifting again.
