Myth Gods Tech - Omnibus Edition: Science Fiction Meets Greek Mythology In The God Complex Universe (46 page)

He
hadn’t expected to hear his voice again after so many years, tired
and weary from the illness. This was a message that was supposed to
be delivered six years ago, forgotten in a computer. Scrooge
couldn’t help but wonder, could his late partner be right? Was the
path he was on the wrong one? Was it too late?

“
Bah!” Scrooge blurted out and dismissed the video. He tried
once more to connect to his accounting service, and this time it
came through. He updated the accounts Clara had left for him, left
the system upgrade half-finished and closed shop for the
day.

Stave
Two

Outside in
the street, it was getting darker and chillier. It was Christmas
Eve, downtown Athens was decorated with lights and snowflakes,
people were cheerful going up and down, carrying wrapped gifts and
last-minute dinner shopping. It wasn’t snowing, but it was chilly
enough to see your breath and frost windows.

Scrooge
rubbed his hands together, tightened his old and patched coat and
got to the street corner. He took out his phone and used the
Supertaxi app, to call up his usual ride home. It only showed one
available driver, and Scrooge grunted. “A 4.6 star rating! Really,
I should send them a firm email about their low hiring standards.
The man might as well be a drunkard, for what I know!”

He tried
again for a few minutes but then decided to hail the driver through
the app. He stood and waited, sidestepping behind an advertisement
sign to shield himself a bit from the cold wind. He glanced at his
phone, which showed his route towards him. “Bah! He should have
turned earlier. The man is keeping a client waiting in the cold!
I’ll have a firm talk with him when he gets there, just you
wait.”

He was
beginning to shake. The taxi finally came, pulled aside and Scrooge
walked to the door. Before he could get in, the cabbie locked the
doors.

“
What in God’s name?” Scrooge bellowed and rapped the door
handle.

The
window rolled down slightly and the cabbie turned to him. “Sorry
sir, we’ve had an unfortunate ride before. I had a switch in my
account and it didn’t show up for some reason. I can’t give you a
ride, you’ll have to find someone else.”

“
That’s insane! Open this door at once,” Scrooge said and
raised his chin.

“
I’m sorry sir, it is within my rights to refuse an
undesirable client. Merry Christmas,” he said and started the
car.

Scrooge
lost his temper, tapping on the window and demanding the driver to
stop. The taxi left, turning into Ermou, the busiest shopping road
and leaving him in the cold. “Did you see that? The man just left
me here,” he told to a couple passing by, but they shrugged and
moved on.

His nose
was turning red from anger. He fished out his phone and tapped for
another taxi. There were no cars available, the app said. Please
try again in a few minutes, we are sorry for the inconvenience.
“What a horrible service! I’ll be sure to leave them a firm review,
I tell you that,” he muttered to himself. Scrooge didn’t drive. He
had a license, sure, but he preferred to be driven and over the
years, his skill had vanished anyway along with his eyesight. It
was cheaper nowadays to use a service like Supertaxi, to use the
car only when you needed it, driver included. He had done the
balance sheet of course, it was the cheapest choice. He had been
using Supertaxi for years now, relying on them for his daily
commute to and forth from work, but also on the rare times when he
needed to visit someone, usually for work related issues, and
occasionally when he treated himself with a proper meal at a
restaurant. Nothing too fancy of course. He would have a steak on
his birthday, and a proper wine to wash it down. Table for
one.

And he
liked the Supertaxi’s service, there was no interaction involved.
Sure, Greek cabbies were always talkative, but when they saw that
you didn’t want to strike up a conversation they shut their yap and
drove along. No interaction was necessary, tap the app, hail the
cab, get inside, drive you there, get off and go home. The
destination was selected from the app, no need to explain the
address every time. So efficient. And the payment was taken
directly from his bank account, in a neat exportable spreadsheet
that could be put into his expenses with ease.

No
talking necessary. Scrooge loved it.

But now, he had to call up a
phone
, wait in
line
, talk to an
operator
, like
Neanderthals
. The horror. So he
found Supertaxi’s phone number and called them to complain. He was
placed on hold, said to wait patiently by a recorded woman’s voice
and was soothed by some modern music he had never heard of
before.

A few
minutes went by and Scrooge dropped the call in
frustration.

He
retried the app and found another taxi. A 4.9 star rating. That’s
more like it, a proper gentleman. He hailed it and shoved his hands
in his pockets, enjoying his victory.

The taxi
arrived, a long and wide Mercedes, yellow of course but the colour
couldn’t possibly detract from the elegant machine’s beauty. It
stopped at the spot before him and Scrooge got in the back seat.
Warming seats, in fine black leather. Aaah… His joints untensed,
taking in the warmth. A smile came to his face, and he made himself
comfortable and waited for the driver to take him home.

The taxi
didn’t move.

On the
contrary, the driver switched off the engine and leaned back to
him, putting his arm on the passenger seat’s headrest. He was a
weary man, middle-aged, flecks of grey on the sides of his head. He
had a big well-trimmed moustache, quite old-fashioned. He seemed
friendly, a man from an older age, where politeness and hard work
were the norm. He was the kind that takes care of his old car,
drives safe, makes sure he is dressed clean and his trousers
ironed.

“
Good evening Mr. Scrooge,” the driver said in a deep
voice.

“
Good evening,” Scrooge replied and turned to face the window
again.

“
I’ve been informed by the office upstairs that you have been
flagged an undesirable client.”

Scrooge
stared back at him and his eyes flared. “What does that mean? I
have been a client for two decades! Is my money not good enough
anymore?”

“
On the contrary,” the driver said remaining calm. “It’s
because you are such a long time customer that instead of simply
banning you from our service, we wish to offer another
option.”

“
Banning me?” Scrooge spat out. “How can you ban me? I’m the
paying customer! I give a star rating to the driver at the end of
every ride.”

The
driver raised his palm. “And the driver gives a star rating back to
you,” he added.

Scrooge
was caught unaware for a moment. Really? They rated him back? “What
sort of business are you, banning paying customers?”

“
You sir, have been rude to six out of ten drivers in these
last few years,” the driver said calmly, reading from a list on the
tablet on his dashboard. “Have filed complaints to five out of ten,
have rated below three stars almost nine out of ten, and have
verbally assaulted four out of ten.”

“
That’s just stupid. I have only made valid complaints where
there was necessary. When I’m paying I demand a certain level
of-”

The
driver looked back at him. “You don’t remember me do you,
Sir?”

Scrooge
gawked with his mouth open, trying to recall.

The
driver sighed. “Well, I guess us cabbies really are invisible.
Anyway, the Supertaxi Terms and Conditions you have signed and
agreed to by using our service, allow us to deny access to
undesirable customers.” He put a big index finger in Scrooge’s
face. “You Sir, are undesirable.”

“
That’s insane,” Scrooge let out with a hiss. “What do you
want, a bribe? I’m not giving you one.”

“
I couldn’t accept a bribe, everything we do and say is
recorded Sir.”

Scrooge
looked around the spacious car. “Recorded?”

“
Of course. For your safety and ours. It’s in the Terms and
Conditions,” the driver explained.

“
I didn’t know that,” Scrooge said, his eyes darting around
the place, looking for cameras.

The
driver tapped the ceiling of the car, where a slight bump housed
the cabin light. “It’s right here. It’s not hidden, nor is it a
secret. It’s just discreet.”

Scrooge
lifted up the coat to cover his throat and said, “Whatever. It’s
been a hard day’s work, I need to get home and rest. Take me
there.”

“
I’m afraid I can’t do that yet.”

“
You what?”

“
As a long-time customer, you are entitled to a special
condition. You need to accept a disciplinary action, and take a
reprimanding ride,” the driver said, presenting the offer with a
big palm.”

“
What’s that? A ploy to get more money out of me?”

“
No Sir, no further cost will be incurred. The reprimanding
ride in itself is free.”

Scrooge
squinted. “What’s the catch?”

“
The catch is that by the end of the reprimanding ride, it
will be decided if you will remain a customer of ours, or if you
will be blacklisted and denied further service.”

“
Nonsense. You are speaking nonsense. A company can’t do that!
You’ll go broke in a year! Take me home right this
instant.”

“
We can’t do that yet. You need to accept the reprimanding
ride, it needs to be on record.”

“
Blasted- I will not subject myself to that, no.” Scrooge got
out of the taxi and stood in the sidewalk once more. The driver
didn’t leave. Instead, he leaned forward and turned up the volume
on his radio, muffled music coming in from the car. He sat back in
his driver’s seat and made himself comfortable, pressing the alarm
lights on his car to make himself more visible in the dark. The
orange lights just added to the whole flickering coloured lights of
the street and the shop fronts.

Scrooge
snarled, and went down the road to hail a taxi the old fashioned
way, by raising an arm and yelling at it. Supertaxi had pretty much
engulfed the whole taxi service, leaving freelance taxi drivers few
and in-between. There were some though, since this was the centre
of Athens, so Scrooge tried to hail one.

After a
lot of running about the busy streets and a lot of wild gestures,
he managed to hail a taxi. He had two more passengers inside, and
the man leaned towards the passenger window to talk to
Scrooge.

“
Where are ya going? South? Nah, sorry, going the other way,”
the driver said and moved into the traffic again.

Scrooge
just stood there exacerbated. He turned back towards the Supertaxi
that was waiting for him calmly, so he sneezed at it literally and
went on with his search.

Standing
at the road, waiting for a taxi to roll through another man came
close and was doing pretty much the same. But then, the man walked
infront of Scrooge so as to pick up a taxi first. Scrooge wasn’t
going to accept that, he was here first dammit! Scrooge walked
infront of the rude man, cutting back the line. The man sniffed his
nose loudly, checked the old Scrooge for a second and then cut in
his line again, going further down the road. Scrooge went forward,
and then some more, standing on the street corner, and looked at
the man with a triumphant face. There was no more pavement to rush
forward to. The man raised his palm in an open-fingered gesture
that was very rude indeed and left to go to another
street.

A
quarter of the hour later Scrooge located another taxi, and this
one was empty. He wasn’t going to leave anyone before him, so he
rushed to it, hailed the driver, and even before the vehicle was
fully stopped he got inside and blurted out his address.

The taxi
driver looked at him from his rear-view mirror. His cheeks were red
and there was a whiff of alcohol on the air. “Sorry man, only going
east. Going back home to my family, Christmas Eve and all. You
understand.” He shrugged.

“
No I don’t understand! It is demanded by law, that once a
customer steps foot into the taxi you are obligated to take him to
his destination!” Scrooge said a bit too loudly.

“
If you happened to be going my way, sure. But you’re not, so
bye bye. Get off.”

Scrooge
was pretty much furious at this point. “I’m going to file a
complaint about you!”

The
driver shrugged. “Don’t care. I just want a ride near my place and
then retire for the night.”

“
So, to be clear, you are not accepting to take me to my
destination, even though you know fully well that this is forbidden
by law?”

The taxi
driver leaned back and popped the door open for Scrooge. “Just get
off mister.”

Scrooge
did.

The taxi
left, leaving him once more into the cold. Scrooge cursed a few
times and gritted his teeth. He was too shaken up to really jot
down the taxi’s license plate. “People have gone insane,” he
muttered to himself. “Denying a customer proper service, rejecting
money!”