The streets of Cairo are no stranger to peculiarity. It is a conglomeration of the modern, rich architecture that shrouds the unkempt, crumbling shanties and slums under its tall shadow. Most of the waiters, belly dancers and maintenance that serve in the skyscrapers and casinos come back to their crime-infested domains, hoping that what they’ve earned will be enough for their day. The clash of cultures at the core of Cairo becomes far more apparent as you see the upper-class denizens belittling the low-brow slum residents from a distance, whilst also seeing those same denizens being beaten and robbed from those so called “ingrates”. The poor particularly like the tourists, since they can sell some of their stolen goods to them for somewhat outrageous prices. Some of them, however, grow desperate towards the humble visitors, and offer whatever they can for a single dollar, including themselves. It certainly has caused for a great deal of bizarre cases to erupt in the city, especially the one involving the scarab jewelry, the golf club and the underage prostitute.
Perhaps for some, this doesn’t come off as the least bit unorthodox. It’s reasonable to see why; the mesh of these sorts of people happening in the capital of a nation is supposedly commonplace. The capital is meant to be the hub of a vast majority of people, ranging from politicians and aristocrats to hoodlums and thieves. In some cases, it’s hard to tell who is who, when the streets are bustling madly. Still, Cairo has concealed in its boundaries a most unusual of matters that one can’t simply ignore. For its part of the reason Cairo has made itself into an admirable destination. Ironically, it’s also the reason why one must be safer around its streets, but let’s just get into the insanity that it beholds, shall we?
In downtown Cairo, there resides a cafe called “The Jade Nile”. Most of the customers are tired tourists, middle-class citizens and two disguised robotic agents that come by to have themselves a cup of coffee or some biscuits. The tourists don’t come along until much l-oh right, I believe you want to know what’s with the robots. Well, these two have been stationed in Cairo thanks to the CIA as part of the Security-Oil Trade-off Act that was signed between America and Egypt a few years ago. The red one that seems to possess a more humanistic design is the American Undercover Investigating Egyptian Activity Surveillance Unit (AUIEASU), whilst the yellow one with blue stripes on his chest plate that looks like something out of a 50s sci-fi series is the Cybernetic Assistant For International Espionage Robots (CAFIER). Both of them don’t really like their acronym names since it’s nothing like the Systematically Hardened Android Destroyer Overseeing Wales (SHADOW) or the Cyber-Lieutenant Overtly Vaporizing Enemy Resources (CLOVER), so they issued for their own nicknames. AUIEASU calls himself Voltze Valiant, since he’s quite fond of wearing a brown trench coat and fedora to properly blend in with the crowd. CAFIER deems himself as S4m Sp4d3 for the multitude of suits that he wears each time as well as his commissioned head-alteration that has shaped him to the likeness of Humphrey Bogart.
Voltze orders himself a dark cup of coffee and stares at the papers inconspicuously for information whilst S4m asks for a glass of iced tea and a couple of the finger desserts that they usually have. There never is much information of use to Voltze, but at least the political cartoons keep him mildly amused. Still, some of his greatest cases had been solved thanks to the newspaper, so he figured he might as well give it a shot. If nothing comes up though, he would just resort to the usual technology. While Voltze flips through the pages, S4m makes idle chit-chat with the workers at the cafe and continues to stuff his circuitry with sweets. The workers rarely seem to be all that interested in conversing with S4m, but some of them put on a delightfully fake grin if it means that they’ll get a good tip. Depending on the day, it could be as average as 20% or it could be as exaggerated as 200%.
“I will never understand how or why they would program you with such an insatiable appetite for food, S4m.”
“The only thing that they did was enhance my tasting system, they never warned me how great it would be.”
“If you were a human, you’d be the size of this whole cafe.”
“Yep, sure is great not being one. No worry of getting fat if you eat too much.”
“Sometimes I worry that your gears will jam all of a sudden from a measly bread crumb, S4m.”
“That’s what the drinks are for,” S4m chugged his glass of iced tea, slamming it down when he was finished. He asked for another glass much to the chagrin of the servant. “Have you found anything of use, or are you looking at the funnies again?”
“I’m doing something called ‘investigating’, maybe you should try doing that.”
“If you’re going to do any ‘investigating’, you’re better off going back to HQ. You sure won’t find it in the papers.”
“You underestimate the ability of newspaper journalism.”
“I know it’s quite outdated in this day in age.”
“You’d know a thing or two about being outdated.” S4m rolls his eyes and checks the time. It was around 6:00 and they had to head back to base for the briefing on their following mission. As S4m asks for the bill, Voltze notices an article titled “Exterminating the Blue Beetle” which has a picture of a bag filled with empty cases that resemble the eponymous insect. He pulls out a red marker from his trench coat and circled the article before stuffing the newspaper into the inner pocket. The two of them leave and head out to the Cairo tower. The beauty about the Jade Nile is that it wasn’t far away from the tower, which meant that they didn’t have to spend their time trying to find a parking spot or misinterpreting what the cab drivers are saying. It was also one of the establishments that had bilingual service.
Once they finally get there, they go into the elevator and close the door quickly before anyone else can get in. Unbeknownst to them, there is a gentleman inside with them that looks at them suspiciously. S4m gets a key from his pants pocket and opens a panel below the buttons. Opening the panel, it reveals a giant button with a green H on it. They press the button, and immediately the elevator descends. As they go down, they take off their clothes and place them inside compartments in their chests. All over their torsos they have different hieroglyphic markings, some of which are colored in a darkish lavender. When the elevator finally smashes down to their floor, they walk out, unaware of the dazed and confused businessman who simply rushes to get back to the main floor.
The floor that they’re on turns out to be the Egyptian Security Initiative Service (ESIS)’s secret base. Well at least to everyone except that businessman, but they have ways of dealing with those sorts of incidents. Voltze and S4m notice all of the experiments being conducted by a wide array of scientists that have been assigned to ESIS under SOTA. They decide to look further into the more technologically-based tests as they know that some of the tools that they are tweaking will be given to them and they’d much rather understand the complexities of it sooner than later. At least that’s what Voltze would do. S4m was more eager to grab whatever the technician was working on and become a lab rat with serious wiring issues. After a good 15 minutes of messing about with the machines (one of them actually causing an explosion in part of the base) they realize that their watches have been beeping for that amount of time. “And I thought we were actually early,” Voltze said to himself. He pulls S4m out of another potential catastrophe and drags him to the red door at the end of the convention-sized experiment room, which is where their superior resides. And just who is the superior?
Amunet Alasia, that’s who! What, you don’t recognize such a name? What are people teaching you these days? God...oh alright, alright, I’ll get to it. Amunet Alasia is responsible for a great deal of covert operations that took place to rid Egypt of most of it’s mafia. Yeah, it’s weird to think that there was a time when the Greek mobsters tried to claim most of Alexandria and parts of the Saharan Desert as their own, but they didn’t last so long after Operation Atlantis. You can imagine that she’s quite the revered character. Some could even say that she’s idolized by many. This isn’t hard to imagine since she looks like Anubis...with more modern clothing, of course. She’s been in the ESIS since 1980, back when it was called the HESITFI (Hidden Egyptian Spying and Independent Task Force Incorporated), and by god she hasn’t aged one bit. Gotta love what CIA genetics can do. Her office is pretty much the standard look of any other; you have your fine-furbished desk, your executive ball-clicker, your black swivel chair, your bookshelf to the side and file cabinets behind your desk. For this particular occasion, she’s wearing a grey suit and matching pants. Her bowtie is golden which to the two cybernetic gumshoes means that she has something important to attend to this evening.
“I don’t think I need to explain myself, gentlemen.”
“Well, ma’am, you know how it is, we figured that perhaps we could...”
“Your watches were going off for a pretty long time...”
“I’m surprised you didn’t hear the explos- ”
“Don’t mention that!”
“Well, okay, I guess there wasn’t. I guess that side-mission we had to do was just another crazy dream of mine.”
“Wait, wh-ohh, yeah, see...that’s what was holding us up!”
“Our budget hasn’t been cut yet! Bunch of nanonimrods,” Amunet points to the monitors that were hidden on the bookshelf whilst pulling out a Camel cigarette from her pocket. S4m changes his hand into a lighter and leans closer to Amunet. He tries to get a light, but Voltze comes forth with his midnight blue Zippo and does the deed. “Thank you, Voltze.”
“Least I could do for the trouble we’ve caused, ma’am.”
“Oi vey...” S4m sighed.
“Well, let’s get down to brass tacks, as you can imagine, I have to fly out of here quite soon.”
“Where are you heading out to? The US?”
“Why do you have to always assume I’m going there?”
“Where else are you gonna go, Switzerland?”
“W-How did you know?”
“I asked your secretary after I blew a hole in the wall.”
“Janus really should shut his mouth about what people do around here.” Voltze chimed in.
“I’ll deal with him later, jeez! I’m trying to settle my business with you two.”
“Why Switzerland, by the way?”
“You’re really going to ask that? You talked to her, she probably told you my co-ordinates as well. Just let me speak.” S4m could see that Amunet was in no mood for his attitude, but he had no details about why she was going there. “So, as you know, we’ve been dealing with the whole Blue Beetle problem for about ten months and no results seem to be showing up as to how to stop it.”
“Ma’am, I have an article where they said they have found a way to exterminate it!”
“I read the news too, but if you had paid more attention, you’d be aware that they are merely targeting a district that sells the drug.”
“Better than nothing, I suppose...”
“It’s less than 5% of where most of the drug is trafficked around. They’re basically stopping this leak with a band-aid.”
“Alright, then we’ll talk to the police. They’ve probably roughed up those scumbags good enough to get more dirt from them.”
“As much as I appreciate your spirit, S4m, they did not do any ‘roughing up’, nor did they get any ‘dirt’. Even if they did, it wouldn’t help seeing as they only got the house cleaners and the butler.”
“I don’t know, you can never be too sure about them. They could just be lying.”
“Perhaps, but so far we’ve gotten nothing on that end. However, we are getting something in the eastern area, concerning a suspicious reservation at one of the most expensive hotels in the country. I’d like you two to go there and see what you can gather. And please, don’t bother asking them for any explosive pens, this isn’t that kind of mission...yet.”
“So is that it?” Before Voltze could finish his sentence, she had already pulled the trap door. Only now did the two notice it and begin to go through the chute only to pop out from the back of the building with their attire changing into a fine tux. S4m and Voltze know for a fact that after they get out of the trap door chute that they have a folder giving them more information about what they must do. Voltze seemed to have it and he opened it up. It said that they had to go to the Radcon Cairo whereupon they had to scope out a man by the name of Dr. Hiero G. Thadius PhD. It wasn’t exactly clear to them why a psychologist would be part of this, but they weren’t there to question their target...well actually they kind of were, I mean it sort of is their job to make sure that they get the r-I’m sorry, where was I? Did I get to the taxi part? No? Okay, so they start to call out for a taxi. They notice that the city is far darker than usual, but not in the typical sense. The light glimmers on them in such a way to envelop them in mystery. The dust starts to flow in and smooth blues starts to play out. You’d be surprised how many blues enthusiasts there are in Egypt.
They keep on searching until finally one taxi arrives. Voltze tells the driver to go to the Radcon as the two stay silent looking out the windows. S4m looks at the lights but Voltze focuses himself more on the people on the streets. Time ticks by but they don’t bother to talk, trapped in their own digital thoughts. Never mind the mission at hand, when it comes to them being where they need to be, they know what to do. There’s just something magical in the air that puts their minds in hibernate, unaware of what really stood in the world around them. Actually it’s a automatic switch put into their minds so they don’t suffer from overload in information. A good chunk of the prototype detective robots have either defected or exploded because of thinking too much about the case at hand.
Their semi-existential techno-trance soon starts to break, but they’re not even close to where the hotel was. Rather, it was from Voltze gasping at the sight of his previous lover. Glistening in one of the few archaic lamps that stayed in the city, there was the gal that had programmed her way into his motherboard. Don’t worry, you bunch of robophobiacs, Voltze would never bother to share his metal heart with one of flesh. She’s another one of them. Her name is Mandy DeNilo. She’s one of the aforementioned defectors, who got overwhelmed by one of the biggest operations that led to the demise of the Greek mafia’s presence. It left her completely and utterly confused and resulted in her detaching herself from the organization to pursue a life of free-roaming various nations. In various underground robo-bars around the world, she’s gotten the ever-creative nickname of “Malfunctionin’ Mandy” due to how her body still being affected by sporadic internal glitches.
It was incredibly surprising to see her again, with her alluring magenta chassis being covered by the black robe. She too seemed to be calling for a taxi, but the man did not bother to pick her up. Voltze convinces him otherwise, making up something about how it was actually his wife standing there. “Oh come on, Voltze, you know that’s a load.”
“I haven’t seen her in god knows how long...”
“One year, two months, two weeks, five days, seventeen hours, forty-two minutes, eight seconds and ninety-two milliseconds and counting...” S4m rolled his eyes as he kept calculating the time.
“Have you been tampering with my brain again?”
“If I even tried to get close to that part relating to Mandy, I think I’d overload.”
“Whoa, whoa, where did that come from?! Did she abandon you with half of your body blown to bits, not even bothering to call for assistance?”
“You knew that I had to set things straight with that two-timing ba- ” The cab driver pulls up to the side of the street, interrupting the two squabbling. Mandy whispers to the cab driver and shows him a card. The driver sees it and gets out of the car, promptly thanking her as he’s been having quite a strenuous shift. It was only by mere coincidence that the man also lived near to where she was, otherwise he would have had to walk quite a distance. Or then hitch a ride in another cab...or perhaps in the same cab the two are in, but that would be kind of weird. Come to think of it, cabs usually have the driver’s info posted in the back seat, don’t they? Maybe it’s just in Amer-oh crap, you’re missing more of the story! Mandy takes the wheel, and after driving off for a bit, takes off her robe to reveal her figure in a matching color dress. Voltze saw her face and couldn’t help but still be in awe over the work at Venus Incorporated, perfectly building such a humanistic, yet still cybernetic visage.
“Hey, Mr. Valiant, long time no see,” Mandy’s voice to Voltze emulated the style and grace of Miles Davis’s trumpet whilst to S4m it sounded like a radio that had trouble catching a signal. It was neither one, it was more like a gruff smoker who drank one too many estrogen cocktails. Okay, so maybe it was a bit of both. Speaking of smoking, she takes out an e-cigarette and with one of the sparks that flew from her jaw’s spasm, it powered up.
“You’re looking as great as ever.”
“Ah, still the gentlebot, Mr. Valiant. Yoo hoo to you too, S4mmy, me boy.”
“Spare me the pleasantries, Manny.”
“For a guy who doesn’t like sticks in the sand, you sure can be one stubborn stick.”
“I’d be more concerned on how well you drive rather than my attitude. Hell, I don’t think you should be driving.”
“Relax, I’ve been meeting someone about that, it only seems to happen around my face. By the way, sorry about all those times I slapped you silly, the both of you. I don’t think I’ve apologized enough.”
“No worries.”
“Whatever.”
“So, where you two heading, by the way?” S4m’s eyes did something that Voltze had never seen, widen in a way that only he did when S4m messed around. Voltze didn’t say much but once steam flew out of S4m’s nostrils, he couldn’t help but chuckle.
“That must explain why we’re going backwards...”
“You must not go out too often, S4m.”
“Yeah she’s clearly taking a shortcut to the Radcon.”
“If you were anymore of a suck-up, Voltze, I would sell you as a carpet cleaner.”
“Give Mr. Valiant a break, he’s probably thinking about work. Speaking of which, what are you two up to this time?”
“Well, we’re working on the whole Blue Beetle fiasco. We’re going to see Dr. Hiero G. Thadius and see what we can gather. According to the files, the man worked on a lot of cases involving patients taking doses of new drugs and studying their effects. There seems to be nothing shocking aside from a few questionable experiments here and there that have him exiled from Europe, one of which still seems to be under review by some of the most important scientific institutes. Not much is known why he’s here, but they suspect it could either be the Egyptian government enforcing political asylum or him trying to find work relating to the latest fiasco.” As impressive as that was to Mandy, S4m knew that Voltze only begun to look at what was in the folder when she started to approach the vehicle. That knowledge in mind, you could understand perhaps why he grinds his teeth as Voltze looks at him with a smug grin.
“I doubt that a man like Dr. Hiero is going to speak with you two.”
“You kidding me, Manny? We have a nice tuxedo, our human-like face-paint is still fine, we even have great aliases.”
“I do hope you’re being sarcastic, CAFIER.” S4m’s teeth-grinding turned into a fireworks spectacle for ants as Mandy put her e-cigarette near it to recharge it.
“Actually, S4m’s got a good point, why wouldn’t this be helping us? It’s been fairing pretty well for us the other times we’ve done it.”
“Well, I met with Dr. Hiero in France, long before the problems with his practice came into play and he’s not as eloquent as you’d think. Considering that he’s staying at the Radcon, he’d probably ordered half the wine selection.”
“That’s quite illogical for a psychologist to be acting that way.”
“I’m sure if he was your shrink, he’d down a vodka halfway through the session.”
“I’m not the one that gets antsy when someone calls them by their factory name.” Mandy did a sharp turn on the road, veering off the path to the hotel, slamming the two detectives’ heads against the front seats.
“As much as I like a good insult war, let me finish with what I have to say. Now, as I was saying, I do know where the doctor lives...”
“How do you know that?”
“S4m, his name basically tells me which map I should look at...”
“I meant more than just the city and the country.”
“Pure luck. I think both of you will have better luck trying to wiretap his house rather than speaking with that floored Freud.”
“I don’t think that’s a proper way of saying someone’s drunk...”
“Would you rather me use another word that starts with F?” The two detectives didn’t quite get why she said that...hell, I don’t even get it. The awkward silence was cut by the sudden twitching and mangling of her silicone face, following her parking near a relatively big house. Mandy opens her chest plate and hands them a device. “This is the best I got on me.”
“Oh wonderful, one of those taps that only works on the phone and you can only hear clearly if you’re outside the target’s home. Real useful, Manny.”
“You still carry wire-taps around?”
“I have my own definition of fun. Now you have my number, Mr. Valiant. Call me if you need a ride back home. See ya.” The two got out of the car, with Voltze thanking her with a friendly kiss...those sort of kisses exist, dont’cha know? S4m, on the other hand, didn’t bother even to wave goodbye.
“Jeez, you really have to bury whatever hatchet you have with her.”
“It just seems weird still that you still liked someone that was originally designed to be an android not a gynoid.”
“Is that really what it’s about? You seemed to be fine with her before I told you that.”
“Well, I mean after being slapped about more times than one of the Three Stooges, it wouldn’t surprise me if she was just using that as an excuse, apart from the obvious design change. You hardly got slapped at all!”
“I learned something called dodging, maybe you should look into it.” S4m figures that if he kept on trying to talk to Voltze about Mandy it would further distract them from what they had to do. The two walk up to the house and decide through rock-paper-scissors who should wire-tap the phone line. Voltze is the loser, which meant that he would have to find a way to enter through the back door without disrupting the neighbours. Luckily, Voltze had with him a paper clip in his pants that he would use for...well, take a guess. After doing some careful unlocking, he did his best to walk as quietly and carefully as possible into the house, find the electrical system, use his glowing eyes to locate the one that directs to the phone line, place the device on it and leave everything normal so that the doctor wouldn’t find anything suspicious. Now what lay in store for them is the exciting and exhilarating event of the waiting game.
Perhaps for some, this doesn’t come off as the least bit unorthodox. It’s reasonable to see why; the mesh of these sorts of people happening in the capital of a nation is supposedly commonplace. The capital is meant to be the hub of a vast majority of people, ranging from politicians and aristocrats to hoodlums and thieves. In some cases, it’s hard to tell who is who, when the streets are bustling madly. Still, Cairo has concealed in its boundaries a most unusual of matters that one can’t simply ignore. For its part of the reason Cairo has made itself into an admirable destination. Ironically, it’s also the reason why one must be safer around its streets, but let’s just get into the insanity that it beholds, shall we?
In downtown Cairo, there resides a cafe called “The Jade Nile”. Most of the customers are tired tourists, middle-class citizens and two disguised robotic agents that come by to have themselves a cup of coffee or some biscuits. The tourists don’t come along until much l-oh right, I believe you want to know what’s with the robots. Well, these two have been stationed in Cairo thanks to the CIA as part of the Security-Oil Trade-off Act that was signed between America and Egypt a few years ago. The red one that seems to possess a more humanistic design is the American Undercover Investigating Egyptian Activity Surveillance Unit (AUIEASU), whilst the yellow one with blue stripes on his chest plate that looks like something out of a 50s sci-fi series is the Cybernetic Assistant For International Espionage Robots (CAFIER). Both of them don’t really like their acronym names since it’s nothing like the Systematically Hardened Android Destroyer Overseeing Wales (SHADOW) or the Cyber-Lieutenant Overtly Vaporizing Enemy Resources (CLOVER), so they issued for their own nicknames. AUIEASU calls himself Voltze Valiant, since he’s quite fond of wearing a brown trench coat and fedora to properly blend in with the crowd. CAFIER deems himself as S4m Sp4d3 for the multitude of suits that he wears each time as well as his commissioned head-alteration that has shaped him to the likeness of Humphrey Bogart.
Voltze orders himself a dark cup of coffee and stares at the papers inconspicuously for information whilst S4m asks for a glass of iced tea and a couple of the finger desserts that they usually have. There never is much information of use to Voltze, but at least the political cartoons keep him mildly amused. Still, some of his greatest cases had been solved thanks to the newspaper, so he figured he might as well give it a shot. If nothing comes up though, he would just resort to the usual technology. While Voltze flips through the pages, S4m makes idle chit-chat with the workers at the cafe and continues to stuff his circuitry with sweets. The workers rarely seem to be all that interested in conversing with S4m, but some of them put on a delightfully fake grin if it means that they’ll get a good tip. Depending on the day, it could be as average as 20% or it could be as exaggerated as 200%.
“I will never understand how or why they would program you with such an insatiable appetite for food, S4m.”
“The only thing that they did was enhance my tasting system, they never warned me how great it would be.”
“If you were a human, you’d be the size of this whole cafe.”
“Yep, sure is great not being one. No worry of getting fat if you eat too much.”
“Sometimes I worry that your gears will jam all of a sudden from a measly bread crumb, S4m.”
“That’s what the drinks are for,” S4m chugged his glass of iced tea, slamming it down when he was finished. He asked for another glass much to the chagrin of the servant. “Have you found anything of use, or are you looking at the funnies again?”
“I’m doing something called ‘investigating’, maybe you should try doing that.”
“If you’re going to do any ‘investigating’, you’re better off going back to HQ. You sure won’t find it in the papers.”
“You underestimate the ability of newspaper journalism.”
“I know it’s quite outdated in this day in age.”
“You’d know a thing or two about being outdated.” S4m rolls his eyes and checks the time. It was around 6:00 and they had to head back to base for the briefing on their following mission. As S4m asks for the bill, Voltze notices an article titled “Exterminating the Blue Beetle” which has a picture of a bag filled with empty cases that resemble the eponymous insect. He pulls out a red marker from his trench coat and circled the article before stuffing the newspaper into the inner pocket. The two of them leave and head out to the Cairo tower. The beauty about the Jade Nile is that it wasn’t far away from the tower, which meant that they didn’t have to spend their time trying to find a parking spot or misinterpreting what the cab drivers are saying. It was also one of the establishments that had bilingual service.
Once they finally get there, they go into the elevator and close the door quickly before anyone else can get in. Unbeknownst to them, there is a gentleman inside with them that looks at them suspiciously. S4m gets a key from his pants pocket and opens a panel below the buttons. Opening the panel, it reveals a giant button with a green H on it. They press the button, and immediately the elevator descends. As they go down, they take off their clothes and place them inside compartments in their chests. All over their torsos they have different hieroglyphic markings, some of which are colored in a darkish lavender. When the elevator finally smashes down to their floor, they walk out, unaware of the dazed and confused businessman who simply rushes to get back to the main floor.
The floor that they’re on turns out to be the Egyptian Security Initiative Service (ESIS)’s secret base. Well at least to everyone except that businessman, but they have ways of dealing with those sorts of incidents. Voltze and S4m notice all of the experiments being conducted by a wide array of scientists that have been assigned to ESIS under SOTA. They decide to look further into the more technologically-based tests as they know that some of the tools that they are tweaking will be given to them and they’d much rather understand the complexities of it sooner than later. At least that’s what Voltze would do. S4m was more eager to grab whatever the technician was working on and become a lab rat with serious wiring issues. After a good 15 minutes of messing about with the machines (one of them actually causing an explosion in part of the base) they realize that their watches have been beeping for that amount of time. “And I thought we were actually early,” Voltze said to himself. He pulls S4m out of another potential catastrophe and drags him to the red door at the end of the convention-sized experiment room, which is where their superior resides. And just who is the superior?
Amunet Alasia, that’s who! What, you don’t recognize such a name? What are people teaching you these days? God...oh alright, alright, I’ll get to it. Amunet Alasia is responsible for a great deal of covert operations that took place to rid Egypt of most of it’s mafia. Yeah, it’s weird to think that there was a time when the Greek mobsters tried to claim most of Alexandria and parts of the Saharan Desert as their own, but they didn’t last so long after Operation Atlantis. You can imagine that she’s quite the revered character. Some could even say that she’s idolized by many. This isn’t hard to imagine since she looks like Anubis...with more modern clothing, of course. She’s been in the ESIS since 1980, back when it was called the HESITFI (Hidden Egyptian Spying and Independent Task Force Incorporated), and by god she hasn’t aged one bit. Gotta love what CIA genetics can do. Her office is pretty much the standard look of any other; you have your fine-furbished desk, your executive ball-clicker, your black swivel chair, your bookshelf to the side and file cabinets behind your desk. For this particular occasion, she’s wearing a grey suit and matching pants. Her bowtie is golden which to the two cybernetic gumshoes means that she has something important to attend to this evening.
“I don’t think I need to explain myself, gentlemen.”
“Well, ma’am, you know how it is, we figured that perhaps we could...”
“Your watches were going off for a pretty long time...”
“I’m surprised you didn’t hear the explos- ”
“Don’t mention that!”
“Well, okay, I guess there wasn’t. I guess that side-mission we had to do was just another crazy dream of mine.”
“Wait, wh-ohh, yeah, see...that’s what was holding us up!”
“Our budget hasn’t been cut yet! Bunch of nanonimrods,” Amunet points to the monitors that were hidden on the bookshelf whilst pulling out a Camel cigarette from her pocket. S4m changes his hand into a lighter and leans closer to Amunet. He tries to get a light, but Voltze comes forth with his midnight blue Zippo and does the deed. “Thank you, Voltze.”
“Least I could do for the trouble we’ve caused, ma’am.”
“Oi vey...” S4m sighed.
“Well, let’s get down to brass tacks, as you can imagine, I have to fly out of here quite soon.”
“Where are you heading out to? The US?”
“Why do you have to always assume I’m going there?”
“Where else are you gonna go, Switzerland?”
“W-How did you know?”
“I asked your secretary after I blew a hole in the wall.”
“Janus really should shut his mouth about what people do around here.” Voltze chimed in.
“I’ll deal with him later, jeez! I’m trying to settle my business with you two.”
“Why Switzerland, by the way?”
“You’re really going to ask that? You talked to her, she probably told you my co-ordinates as well. Just let me speak.” S4m could see that Amunet was in no mood for his attitude, but he had no details about why she was going there. “So, as you know, we’ve been dealing with the whole Blue Beetle problem for about ten months and no results seem to be showing up as to how to stop it.”
“Ma’am, I have an article where they said they have found a way to exterminate it!”
“I read the news too, but if you had paid more attention, you’d be aware that they are merely targeting a district that sells the drug.”
“Better than nothing, I suppose...”
“It’s less than 5% of where most of the drug is trafficked around. They’re basically stopping this leak with a band-aid.”
“Alright, then we’ll talk to the police. They’ve probably roughed up those scumbags good enough to get more dirt from them.”
“As much as I appreciate your spirit, S4m, they did not do any ‘roughing up’, nor did they get any ‘dirt’. Even if they did, it wouldn’t help seeing as they only got the house cleaners and the butler.”
“I don’t know, you can never be too sure about them. They could just be lying.”
“Perhaps, but so far we’ve gotten nothing on that end. However, we are getting something in the eastern area, concerning a suspicious reservation at one of the most expensive hotels in the country. I’d like you two to go there and see what you can gather. And please, don’t bother asking them for any explosive pens, this isn’t that kind of mission...yet.”
“So is that it?” Before Voltze could finish his sentence, she had already pulled the trap door. Only now did the two notice it and begin to go through the chute only to pop out from the back of the building with their attire changing into a fine tux. S4m and Voltze know for a fact that after they get out of the trap door chute that they have a folder giving them more information about what they must do. Voltze seemed to have it and he opened it up. It said that they had to go to the Radcon Cairo whereupon they had to scope out a man by the name of Dr. Hiero G. Thadius PhD. It wasn’t exactly clear to them why a psychologist would be part of this, but they weren’t there to question their target...well actually they kind of were, I mean it sort of is their job to make sure that they get the r-I’m sorry, where was I? Did I get to the taxi part? No? Okay, so they start to call out for a taxi. They notice that the city is far darker than usual, but not in the typical sense. The light glimmers on them in such a way to envelop them in mystery. The dust starts to flow in and smooth blues starts to play out. You’d be surprised how many blues enthusiasts there are in Egypt.
They keep on searching until finally one taxi arrives. Voltze tells the driver to go to the Radcon as the two stay silent looking out the windows. S4m looks at the lights but Voltze focuses himself more on the people on the streets. Time ticks by but they don’t bother to talk, trapped in their own digital thoughts. Never mind the mission at hand, when it comes to them being where they need to be, they know what to do. There’s just something magical in the air that puts their minds in hibernate, unaware of what really stood in the world around them. Actually it’s a automatic switch put into their minds so they don’t suffer from overload in information. A good chunk of the prototype detective robots have either defected or exploded because of thinking too much about the case at hand.
Their semi-existential techno-trance soon starts to break, but they’re not even close to where the hotel was. Rather, it was from Voltze gasping at the sight of his previous lover. Glistening in one of the few archaic lamps that stayed in the city, there was the gal that had programmed her way into his motherboard. Don’t worry, you bunch of robophobiacs, Voltze would never bother to share his metal heart with one of flesh. She’s another one of them. Her name is Mandy DeNilo. She’s one of the aforementioned defectors, who got overwhelmed by one of the biggest operations that led to the demise of the Greek mafia’s presence. It left her completely and utterly confused and resulted in her detaching herself from the organization to pursue a life of free-roaming various nations. In various underground robo-bars around the world, she’s gotten the ever-creative nickname of “Malfunctionin’ Mandy” due to how her body still being affected by sporadic internal glitches.
It was incredibly surprising to see her again, with her alluring magenta chassis being covered by the black robe. She too seemed to be calling for a taxi, but the man did not bother to pick her up. Voltze convinces him otherwise, making up something about how it was actually his wife standing there. “Oh come on, Voltze, you know that’s a load.”
“I haven’t seen her in god knows how long...”
“One year, two months, two weeks, five days, seventeen hours, forty-two minutes, eight seconds and ninety-two milliseconds and counting...” S4m rolled his eyes as he kept calculating the time.
“Have you been tampering with my brain again?”
“If I even tried to get close to that part relating to Mandy, I think I’d overload.”
“Whoa, whoa, where did that come from?! Did she abandon you with half of your body blown to bits, not even bothering to call for assistance?”
“You knew that I had to set things straight with that two-timing ba- ” The cab driver pulls up to the side of the street, interrupting the two squabbling. Mandy whispers to the cab driver and shows him a card. The driver sees it and gets out of the car, promptly thanking her as he’s been having quite a strenuous shift. It was only by mere coincidence that the man also lived near to where she was, otherwise he would have had to walk quite a distance. Or then hitch a ride in another cab...or perhaps in the same cab the two are in, but that would be kind of weird. Come to think of it, cabs usually have the driver’s info posted in the back seat, don’t they? Maybe it’s just in Amer-oh crap, you’re missing more of the story! Mandy takes the wheel, and after driving off for a bit, takes off her robe to reveal her figure in a matching color dress. Voltze saw her face and couldn’t help but still be in awe over the work at Venus Incorporated, perfectly building such a humanistic, yet still cybernetic visage.
“Hey, Mr. Valiant, long time no see,” Mandy’s voice to Voltze emulated the style and grace of Miles Davis’s trumpet whilst to S4m it sounded like a radio that had trouble catching a signal. It was neither one, it was more like a gruff smoker who drank one too many estrogen cocktails. Okay, so maybe it was a bit of both. Speaking of smoking, she takes out an e-cigarette and with one of the sparks that flew from her jaw’s spasm, it powered up.
“You’re looking as great as ever.”
“Ah, still the gentlebot, Mr. Valiant. Yoo hoo to you too, S4mmy, me boy.”
“Spare me the pleasantries, Manny.”
“For a guy who doesn’t like sticks in the sand, you sure can be one stubborn stick.”
“I’d be more concerned on how well you drive rather than my attitude. Hell, I don’t think you should be driving.”
“Relax, I’ve been meeting someone about that, it only seems to happen around my face. By the way, sorry about all those times I slapped you silly, the both of you. I don’t think I’ve apologized enough.”
“No worries.”
“Whatever.”
“So, where you two heading, by the way?” S4m’s eyes did something that Voltze had never seen, widen in a way that only he did when S4m messed around. Voltze didn’t say much but once steam flew out of S4m’s nostrils, he couldn’t help but chuckle.
“That must explain why we’re going backwards...”
“You must not go out too often, S4m.”
“Yeah she’s clearly taking a shortcut to the Radcon.”
“If you were anymore of a suck-up, Voltze, I would sell you as a carpet cleaner.”
“Give Mr. Valiant a break, he’s probably thinking about work. Speaking of which, what are you two up to this time?”
“Well, we’re working on the whole Blue Beetle fiasco. We’re going to see Dr. Hiero G. Thadius and see what we can gather. According to the files, the man worked on a lot of cases involving patients taking doses of new drugs and studying their effects. There seems to be nothing shocking aside from a few questionable experiments here and there that have him exiled from Europe, one of which still seems to be under review by some of the most important scientific institutes. Not much is known why he’s here, but they suspect it could either be the Egyptian government enforcing political asylum or him trying to find work relating to the latest fiasco.” As impressive as that was to Mandy, S4m knew that Voltze only begun to look at what was in the folder when she started to approach the vehicle. That knowledge in mind, you could understand perhaps why he grinds his teeth as Voltze looks at him with a smug grin.
“I doubt that a man like Dr. Hiero is going to speak with you two.”
“You kidding me, Manny? We have a nice tuxedo, our human-like face-paint is still fine, we even have great aliases.”
“I do hope you’re being sarcastic, CAFIER.” S4m’s teeth-grinding turned into a fireworks spectacle for ants as Mandy put her e-cigarette near it to recharge it.
“Actually, S4m’s got a good point, why wouldn’t this be helping us? It’s been fairing pretty well for us the other times we’ve done it.”
“Well, I met with Dr. Hiero in France, long before the problems with his practice came into play and he’s not as eloquent as you’d think. Considering that he’s staying at the Radcon, he’d probably ordered half the wine selection.”
“That’s quite illogical for a psychologist to be acting that way.”
“I’m sure if he was your shrink, he’d down a vodka halfway through the session.”
“I’m not the one that gets antsy when someone calls them by their factory name.” Mandy did a sharp turn on the road, veering off the path to the hotel, slamming the two detectives’ heads against the front seats.
“As much as I like a good insult war, let me finish with what I have to say. Now, as I was saying, I do know where the doctor lives...”
“How do you know that?”
“S4m, his name basically tells me which map I should look at...”
“I meant more than just the city and the country.”
“Pure luck. I think both of you will have better luck trying to wiretap his house rather than speaking with that floored Freud.”
“I don’t think that’s a proper way of saying someone’s drunk...”
“Would you rather me use another word that starts with F?” The two detectives didn’t quite get why she said that...hell, I don’t even get it. The awkward silence was cut by the sudden twitching and mangling of her silicone face, following her parking near a relatively big house. Mandy opens her chest plate and hands them a device. “This is the best I got on me.”
“Oh wonderful, one of those taps that only works on the phone and you can only hear clearly if you’re outside the target’s home. Real useful, Manny.”
“You still carry wire-taps around?”
“I have my own definition of fun. Now you have my number, Mr. Valiant. Call me if you need a ride back home. See ya.” The two got out of the car, with Voltze thanking her with a friendly kiss...those sort of kisses exist, dont’cha know? S4m, on the other hand, didn’t bother even to wave goodbye.
“Jeez, you really have to bury whatever hatchet you have with her.”
“It just seems weird still that you still liked someone that was originally designed to be an android not a gynoid.”
“Is that really what it’s about? You seemed to be fine with her before I told you that.”
“Well, I mean after being slapped about more times than one of the Three Stooges, it wouldn’t surprise me if she was just using that as an excuse, apart from the obvious design change. You hardly got slapped at all!”
“I learned something called dodging, maybe you should look into it.” S4m figures that if he kept on trying to talk to Voltze about Mandy it would further distract them from what they had to do. The two walk up to the house and decide through rock-paper-scissors who should wire-tap the phone line. Voltze is the loser, which meant that he would have to find a way to enter through the back door without disrupting the neighbours. Luckily, Voltze had with him a paper clip in his pants that he would use for...well, take a guess. After doing some careful unlocking, he did his best to walk as quietly and carefully as possible into the house, find the electrical system, use his glowing eyes to locate the one that directs to the phone line, place the device on it and leave everything normal so that the doctor wouldn’t find anything suspicious. Now what lay in store for them is the exciting and exhilarating event of the waiting game.