Myth Gods Tech - Omnibus Edition: Science Fiction Meets Greek Mythology In The God Complex Universe (48 page)

“
Well,” Scrooge said. “Are you going to take me home young
man?”

The
driver was indeed young. He was more casually dressed, no facial
hair, a modern haircut from some footballer that every man was
sporting these days. Scrooge studied him, until he was pretty sure
he was of Albanian origin. It wasn’t easy to tell, but there were
some signs.

Scrooge
grunted in disapproval.

“
You are still in the middle of the reprimanding ride, Mr.
Scrooge,” the young man said, a hint of scoff in his
voice.

“
Why the change of a ride? I don’t get that.”

“
The previous driver was about your past, Mr. Scrooge. I’m all
about the present,” he said and smiled.

“
Bah! Nonsense. Let’s be done with this charade.” He opened
his coat, letting the warm air in his body. “Have we met before?”
Scrooge squinted.

“
Yes we have. You had requested I never get sent to you again
because of my Albanian origin,” the young man said, studying his
features through the mirror.

Scrooge
lowered his head a bit. “Well, it is within my rights. I’m the
customer, after all.”

“
Yes, that you are,” the man said and drove.

Some
time later, they arrived to Goudi area, across the street from
Paidon Hospital. A children’s hospital, dedicated to Saint Sophia.
It was a big place, busy with people, packed with cars and comings
and goings.

The taxi
parked next to the row of other waiting taxis. Scrooge craned his
neck around and looked towards the racket at the entrance. A Santa
was going inside, a pack of children all around him, screaming and
laughing and waiting for their turn to get a present from his bag
of gifts.

It was
his cousin! He was throwing out little presents and sweets and
chocolates out of his bag in handfuls. The children were ecstatic,
going back to their parents to show what they got, wide smiles in
their faces. Camera flashes were going off constantly, as if Santa
was a celebrity. The kids were taking selfies with their Santa, or
between themselves. Apart from the Greek kids, some were Asian,
some black. A few Pakistani with their ears refusing to stand
anywhere near their skull. A pale ginger one who could only be
British. Some of them had tiny little crutches, others had
bandages, but they were all having fun as if everything would be
alright.

“
Ho ho ho! I think you’ve been naughty,” cousin Santa said to
a girl and pointed at her.

“
No Santa, I promise you! I’ve been nice all year. Ask my
teachers,” she protested.

“
Oh OK then, here’s your candy,” Santa said and picked her up
for an impromptu photoshoot as she laughed.

Scrooge
stooped down and said, “I don’t really want him to see me here,
please let us go.”

The
young driver tapped a button somewhere and a slight pop came from
the windows. “There. They are tinted now, he can’t see
us.”

Scrooge
disbelieved that for a second but he could notice a slight change
in the light coming in the window. He stood up again and
watched.

His
cousin Santa managed to get inside without trampling any of the
sick kids, and went to talk to some lady in the reception. After a
few minutes, the whole chaos had been moved to the first floor and
the kids who had been properly sweetened up had dispersed along
with their parents.

Scrooge
was still looking outside. “OK fine, I can see the joy my blasted
cousin brings to the sick children. Are we done?”

“
A few minutes more,” the young driver said and sat
comfortably in his seat.

Scrooge
looked around absent-minded. Then he noticed his assistant Clara,
holding some papers in her hand and talking on the phone. She was
quite close to him but he couldn’t hear clearly. The driver pressed
the button and the window lowered a few centimetres so the outside
sounds could be heard clearly, but was still blocking them from
being seen.

“
But I don’t make enough money to cover that. Those amounts
are insane! Who can actually pay that much health insurance?” Clara
said on the phone, very upset. “No, that
was
my Christmas bonus. No I can’t
make a payment before the end of the month. No, you listen to me.
This is my son’s treatment we are talking about. You can’t- Yes,
I’ll hold.”

Scrooge
watched her with interest, as if it was the first time after seven
years that he laid eyes on the woman. She was thinner than the
video of her last year. He hair was untended, simply brushed back.
Her eyes were sunken. She was snapping angrily at
everything.

She was
in despair.

He tried
to dig out his memories. Had Clara asked him for money to cover her
son’s treatment? She must have, but he had dismissed it. Probably.
Deep in his own accounts, his balance sheets. He was paying her
what was due, what the law dictated and a good enough raise as she
was getting experience. But had she explained to him how much she
needed the money? She must have tried. The woman was spending half
her day in an office right next to him, for God’s sake. An
opportunity would have arose. Or was she so scared she might lose
her only job that she didn’t even dare to ask. To ask him. The bad
man. Scrooge rubbed his face hard, as if scratching away the layers
to get down into his memories. He couldn’t even remember. Such an
important fact about the only other person that was so close in his
life, and he didn’t even remember. He dug up some calculations he’d
done at some point about her salary, he had given her some extra
pay for overtime. But it was nothing, a few euros here and there.
The health insurance must have been asking for
thousands.

He tried
to find her again but she was gone in a second, somewhere inside
the hospital.

“
W-wait,” Scrooge said. “Is she going to spend the night
here?”

“
Every night for the past five months,” the young man said,
his voice quiet. “I’m usually her driver, my routes coincide. Plus
the AI believes that having a familiar face to take you there is
easier on the parent who’s facing this, even if it’s only a few
words spoken here and there.”

“
It must be, yes.”

“
I know you Mr. Scrooge. All the little bits and pieces she
tells me, everything she mumbles on the phone over the months. Half
of it’s about her son, half of it is about you. Cutting corners,
keeping everything miserable so you can squeeze out some tiny
profit. Ignoring basic necessities, keeping her frozen and ill all
the time, making her unable to tend to her child. Do you like the
heat in my car?”

“
Yes…” Scrooge said unsure.

“
How about we turn it off. For economy’s sake.”

Scrooge
grunted. “OK, I got the point. Thank you.” He paused for a minute,
thinking. “What’s your name?”

“
Achilles,” the young man said.

“
That’s quite a Greek name,” Scrooge said, the words stuck in
his throat.

“
I was born here, you prick,” Achilles said and drove them
both away in silence.

Scrooge
had no idea where he was being taken. It was an area he had never
been to, all residential and green-grey. The houses were nice, not
too expensive, single or two story houses. It was a new
development, roads half-paven, lights half-installed, lots in a
patchwork, concrete ending abruptly in plain dirt. The houses were
decorated in blinking lights, trees and Christmas ornaments, even
those dwarves that had no relation whatsoever to the Greek
traditions but where shipped in along with all the others every
year.

“
I don’t know anyone who lives here, I believe. Your
AI
,” Scrooge said,
pronouncing the letters mockingly, “must have gotten things
wrong.”

Achilles
rolled his eyes and sat deep into his seat.

Scrooge
could hear voices, coming in from the house they had parked on. It
was a loud thing, a party going on of sorts. The parked cars were
few in this area, all of the houses having their own, so there
weren’t any guests in this house, Scrooge deducted. The party was a
close family one. Children’s laughter came out of it, high pitched
and annoying.

After a
while, a car came and parked in the space reserved for it. A man
came out of the car, he was about Scrooge’s age, but he looked more
healthy, taking care of himself. He stood tall and was all dressed
in heavy workman’s clothes. His arms were strong, obviously from
manual labour. He must have been a builder or something
similar.

As he
walked around, Scrooge noticed something. It could have been a
trick of the light, but he could swear that the man resembled
himself. Scrooge couldn’t be sure of course, but there was some
resemblance, not brotherly, but rather in his general
bearing.

If
Scrooge had been a head taller, not slouching, had arms thicker
than a tree and most importantly, if he was smiling.

The man
went to his house and out the door children burst and fell on him.
He picked two of them up, the smaller ones, and the big one was
simply hugging him beside him. A woman came outside, carrying a
baby in her arms.

Scrooge
squinted, but that was just an excuse to himself. He knew who she
was, he knew even before the door opened. His heart knew, even
though his thick skull needed time to keep up.

It was
Beth.

Oh, she
was fatter, and older. And tired, and a mess. But there she was,
happy, greeting her husband into her loving, huge family
house.

Scrooge
fought back tears. He didn’t let them drop. Enclosed in a taxi,
behind tinted windows, he was watching the woman who once loved him
too much, enjoy Christmas Eve with her beautiful happy
family.

Stave
Four

They had
gotten back into the main road, and pulled over to the
side.

“
What now?” Scrooge sighed. “What God-forsaken place are you
taking me now? What more can you throw at me? Why must you haunt me
like that?”

Achilles
said, “You are getting on another ride. Wait outside.”

After a
while, a weird car rolled near and parked. It was looking like a
bubble. It was too much even for those modern car designs. It was
small, almost round and had some installation on it’s
roof.

Scrooge
went around it and leaned down, opening his mouth to talk to the
driver.

There
was none.

“
What is this?” he said back to Achilles.

“
A driverless taxi. Completely autonomous.”

Scrooge
pursed his lips, looking at it from different angles. “Is it
safe?”

Achilles
shrugged. “Safer than a human driver actually.”

“
Why this? I get why I should meet you, and the other driver
from before. What’s this charade now?”

Achilles
sighed, feeling too bothered to explain. “I’m the present. This,”
he presented the awkward looking taxi, “is the future. It is slowly
adopted by Supertaxi, but not that much, because people still need
to feel safe with a human behind the wheel. All the other guys are
thinking they will take over our jobs, but I don’t think so. Not
yet. People don’t like’em yet. Except grouchy old geezers like you,
who don’t want to have any human contact whatsoever.”

Scrooge’s eyes widened. He was right. This was exactly the
sort of thing he would like. Completely automated, just showing up
on time, taking him home, rolling away. It was perfect for him. No
small talk, no annoying body odours, no silly Greek folk music
playing on the radio. That blasted AI was right. As soon as Scrooge
would learn about this, he would ask for it to come pick him up,
and it alone.

“
Fine,” Scrooge said and stepped into the back seat of the
driverless car. Achilles shook his head and drove away.

“
Where are you taking me now?” Scrooge asked in the
air.

A woman
appeared in the monitor in front of him. In a sensual velvety voice
she said, “Welcome Mr. Scrooge. You will be taken to your residence
now, after which, you will be given a choice. Regardless of that
choice, you will be at home in seventeen minutes approximately.
Please sit back and enjoy the ride.”

A whiff
of tea came to his nose and he saw a compartment open up beside
him, a ready-made tea in perfect temperature was waiting for him.
He picked it up and sipped.

“
Oh, this is brilliant,” he said and savoured the ride, as the
lights sped through his vision. “This,” he put a finger on the
seat, “is how things should be done. This right here.
Perfect.”

After a
few familiar roads the driverless taxi parked outside his house.
Finally, he was there. What an ordeal! He was going to have a few
words with some manager the day after tomorrow, that’s for sure.
The soft female avatar said, “You have arrived at your
destination.”

Scrooge
rapped the doorhandle but it didn’t open.

The
avatar said, “Please wait.”