Myth Gods Tech - Omnibus Edition: Science Fiction Meets Greek Mythology In The God Complex Universe (33 page)

She
wasn’t busy.

“
It’s OK, I’ll go there myself,” I said. “That
door?”

Zoe blew
some smoke in the right direction.

Chapter
2

The boss
slammed his hand on the desk.

“
The problem with rabies is that it’s too damn lethal but so
curable, people think they are immune. Well, they’re not. All of
these cases,” he said placing his huge hand on a stack of case
files, “are filled with people, mostly children, who live in the
countryside but lack proper rabies education to prevent a
transmission or recognise the symptoms. It’s our job to educate
them. Now it’s your job too.” He leaned back on his squeaky chair
and paused for me to absorb the weight of the situation.

I was holding the brochure in my hand. “
Rabies is 100% curable for humans if prevented, but despite
that every year around 55.000 people lose their lives to it due to
lack of awareness,
” it said.

Don’t
worry. Not here. In Africa and Asia.

I read on. “
Dogs and wild animals
are the common carriers of the virus. The red fox is usually the
carrier in rural incidents. There have been no reports of rabid
dogs in cities so far.
”

He
coughed to clear his throat and leaned forward, pointing a finger
at me. He had my attention.

“
Most people can’t see the patterns, before it’s too
late.”

He let
that sink in and leaned back. The chair complained.

“
Can I ask something Sir?”

“
Shoot,” the boss said. He has chubby and tall, the man you
would pick to don a Santa Claus suit for Christmas. His tone was
always cordial and that said a lot about the man who I would soon
consider my mentor. His office was his second home, filled with
memorabilia, fishing photos, beloved family, bits and pieces of
Greek folklore from his trips to the countryside.

I
processed his earlier sayings for a while. This was obviously
someone passionate but whose fire was quenched by the years and the
harsh reality. Recapping the division’s goals to a newbie like me
rekindled the fire that was never fully quenched inside him. I
chose my words so as not to insult him. “I can see that this is an
important job, it truly is. But I’m not a veterinarian. How can I
contribute to this kind of work?”

“
You aren’t hearing me son. The problem is that the
veterinarians themselves don’t know these things. You picking up
the brochure and taking the time to read it is more than what many
professionals have ever done regarding this matter.” He pointed a
fat finger towards me and half-closed his eye. “We are not doctors,
we
inform
doctors
on one thing, rabies prevention and treatment. And when there is a
case, we are to get in there and see what’s happening.”

“
What are we then?” I asked and realised I was already sucked
into the “we” mentality.

“
What we are is Communicable Disease Investigators. CDI for
short.”

Investigator. That sounded a bit cool.

Mr. Epiktitos shoved me a job contract. It said,
“
Payroll Job Title: Communicable Disease
Investigator. Job Description: Conducts investigations related to
individuals diagnosed with infectious diseases to reduce the
transmission and burden of disease in the country. Assures those
diagnosed with infectious diseases receive proper treatment;
identifies contacts to infectious cases; determines likelihood of
exposure of contacts to cases of infectious disease; and
coordinates prophylaxis for exposed individuals. Provides education
to the public and medical communities concerning infectious
diseases; composes reports and compiles data requests as necessary;
and provides support in the event of a public health
emergency.
”

I looked
back into his eyes.

“
How’s the health care plan?” I asked, with a silly grin on my
face.

Chapter
3

The both of
us were pulling a desk down the corridors. I noted that we were
going in the middle “lane.”

“
I know why you accepted the job,” Zoe said. “I can tell you
are happy about it. You freak.”

“
Yeah, well, you know how it is.” Of course she knew. The
Greek crisis had led to an unprecedented number of unemployed
people, most of them under the age of 25, like the two of us. She
must have struggled as hard as me to get a job, any job, in the
economic desolation after 2009. The government sector had to keep
up with some of the false promises it had made for all those years,
so it added a couple hundred of job positions every now and then to
its body.

Young
people didn’t get to fulfil their dreams anymore, they just gladly
accepted any lousy pay they were lucky to get. The bosses didn’t
have to imply anymore that there was a line of applicants waiting
outside should they dare demand anything remotely resembling
worker’s rights. The line was there for them to see.

That was
the private sector. In the government, the boss was as powerless
and underpaid as you.

I lifted
the desk slightly to prevent it from scratching on the floor, but
Zoe seemed to push it precisely so as to make more noise and leave
splinters behind.

I was
about to say something when the little guy with the cart showed up
around the corner.

I
immediately got a feeling like watching a Wild West duel. Zoe made
a disgusted face and planted her feet to the floor. She locked eyes
with the wiry man. He readied his stance for maximum pushing
potential.

Lots of
seconds passed, the space between them seemed electrified. A
careless young woman stepped into the corridor, clutching a folder
tightly on her chest. She saw the stand-off and quietly walked
backwards to her office.

The wiry
man lost patience first and charged with his cart.

Zoe
upturned the side of her mouth to a smile, leaned lower and timed
her push to intercept the incoming cart at the last possible
second. She barely moved her feet, giving her a solid base to stop
the cart with the desk.

The desk
and the cart banged loudly together. A few splinters flew away.
Paper flooded the place. The man was unrelenting, pushing the cart
against Zoe’s desk with a maniacal obsession.

Zoe
said, “Jorge, I’m gonna smush your ugly face on the wall back
there.”

Jorge
raised his head a bit and showed his gritting teeth underneath the
jockey cap. “Zoe, you are in the path of a cart. Step
away.”

Zoe
leaned forward and spat out the words, “Make me.”

Jorge
grunted and pushed his cart with all his might. His face went
through a few colour hues, settling on a pinkish-red.

Zoe was
tough, but not pushing-a-cart-around-all-day tough.

So she
cheated.

“
Isn’t it time for your siesta already?”

Jorge
replied, “I work hard all day chica… My siesta doesn’t mean I work
any less.” He pushed on, but wavered for a single second to check
his watch.

Zoe was
waiting for that opening. She shoved the desk forward and made him
fall over his cart sideways.

She
raised arms victoriously and belched loudly. “I own the middle
lane!”

Jorge
picked himself up and muttered constantly. He gathered the papers
back into his cart and hesitantly pushed it around Zoe.

I was
just staring at her.

She
turned her attention to me and nagged, “Come on, push. My arms are
tired.”

I
obeyed.

Chapter
4

The desk
was in place. We had a bit of a struggle at the main door, but it
was a millimetre issue and it finally caved in.

Irene
brought me an old office chair they had piled in a corner
somewhere.

Mismatched of course, but it was my first office
workspace.

Zoe sat
on it.

“
So, Polybios. Too many syllables. I’ll call you Poly,” she
said and sucked hard to keep the smoke inside.

“
I rather you didn’t…”

She
ignored me and reached for a folder. “Come on, we have a
case.”

“
That’s… That’s awesome actually,” I said and scratched my
head.

We went
to the office upstairs. A big office printer in the middle of the
room was spewing out documents as fast as it could produce
them.

People
were coming to the tray to check on the printed papers, and
occasionally shrugged and picked theirs up. Some of them were
mumbling about the “spool.”

Chairs
had spontaneously arranged themselves around the printer, as if it
was a holy relic.

We sat
and waited for the endless queue.

Zoe
leaned close to me to whisper. I could smell the cigarette in her
breath. “OK, so this something very important you need to know
about. You can waste time with lots of things, but the easiest one
is with a print job. Nobody checks on you because everybody knows
how much time it takes to print something. A couple of hours
easily.”

I
interrupted her. “Wait. You are telling me how to waste my time
waiting for a print job?”

“
No, you will do that anyway. What I’m telling you is how
to
maximise
the
wasted time.” She talked as if giving a seminar. “There are lots of
ways. Load up a couple of crumbled papers in the printer and it
will jam. Pretend you know nothing, but don’t actually go around
looking for someone to help. Just sit here and wait for someone
else to unjam it. Another trick is to leave the tray a bit open.
But some have caught onto that. Now, the absolute best way is
to…”

“
Come on! You are not seriously expecting me to waste my
working day around the printer!”

“
Ohi, of course not. You can go to the bathroom, go for lunch
breaks, whatever.”

“
This is nuts.”

She
seemed taken aback by this. “Hey, new guy, I’m teaching you the
tricks here. These are hard earned insights into the public sector
workplace.”

“
Why don’t you tell me about the case while we wait for it to
get printed?”

“
I didn’t read it!”

I
exhaled. I gave up.

We sat
in silence and waited for someone to come unjam the printer. We
couldn’t possibly do that ourselves, that would take too
short.

Chapter
5

We were in
Mr. Epiktitos’ office.

He was
looking over the case file Zoe was requesting to open. She had
presented the printed papers as if they were precious artifacts. We
had waited little under an hour for them to go through the
queue.

We were
just sitting there, Zoe smoking, me looking around the
memorabilia.

Mr.
Epiktitos was slowly reading the case, with occasional grunts and
rubbings of the chin.

It was
otherwise quiet. Quiet enough to hear the beeps and the pings of
Zoe’s game, the one she was playing on her phone. It had something
to do with candy, and it seemed to me that it was designed by drug
dealers who turned their efforts to mobile gaming.

I was
way uncomfortable. In a moment of courage, I slowly reached to get
a medical magazine on the boss’ desk.

As soon
as I touched it he dropped the folder and banged his hand on the
desk. I pulled my hand back.

“
Well,” he said munching his thoughts over, “this case
involves a poor little girl. The alert was raised too late for us
to do anything for her but we can’t risk any
contamination.”

Zoe
tried to pull her eyes from the game and perched up an
ear.

I just
sat uncomfortably.

The boss
went on. “You are to go to Thessaloniki, to the region Kilkis and
conduct an investigation. You are to inform the local physicians
about the particulars of rabies and find out if any other people
are threatened. The Rabies Division will authorise you with travel
expenses and accommodation. I’m sure we’ll have no problem getting
approval for two investigators since Zoe will teach you how the
work is properly conducted.”

The game
glinged a high score. “Sure boss. I’ll teach Poly the
ropes.”

Mr.
Epiktitos brought out his stamps from his drawer and signed some
forms. “Perfect, you leave tomorrow morning.”

The
queue on the Funds Desk was not long, so they compensated with
bureaucracy and turtle-like cashiers.

We had
five or six forms in hand, a cheque to be signed and Zoe was
beaming with joy. She wasn’t even smoking or playing
candy.

“
This is like, three days of travel expenses for two
people!”

“
So they pay us to go and investigate? That’s actually fun,” I
said, starting to enjoy my new job.

“
They rarely approve expenses for two investigators. This is
an exception cause I have to train you and stuff.”