Myth Gods Tech - Omnibus Edition: Science Fiction Meets Greek Mythology In The God Complex Universe (47 page)

He
stared back at the parked yellow Mercedes that was waiting
patiently for him. He decided to wait five more minutes, just to
spite the man. But in the end, Scrooge was the one standing in the
cold instead of a heated luxurious car, so he gave in.

“
Quick as you like, take me home,” Scrooge said, rubbing his
hands together.

The taxi
driver simply rubbed the tip of his moustache.

“
Oh fine. I accept the damn reprimanding ride. There. I said
it. Happy now?”

The
driver grunted in approval and turned the ignition on. The classic
car rumbled in a deep satisfactory purr.

They got
into traffic and moved in the city roads. “I’m obligated to inform
you about this ride. The AI that monitors our clients and helps us
provide a better service for you, has flagged you for this
reprimand. At the end of the ride, you will be taken home. Until
then, we will do a small detour.”

Scrooge
waved a hand and stared outside the window. “Whatever. Let’s just
be done with it.”

The taxi
took on speed and moved into the dark afternoon.

“
Where are we?” Scrooge demanded, looking around at the place.
It seemed familiar, but it must have changed so much over the
years, so he couldn’t really put his finger at it.

The
driver pointed at the big and flashy entrance to the Titania Hotel.
It was lit up, decorated to perfection, a warm welcoming to their
guests.

“
Oh right,” Scrooge said, and a few buried emotions seemed to
stir inside him. Just a bit.

The
driver tapped a few buttons and the monitor for the back-seat
passengers turned on. It showed a distorted image, a wide-angle
view of the inside of a taxi. It wasn’t this one, but it was
something quite similar. A couple was sitting in the back, you
wouldn’t call them young, but they weren’t elderly. In their late
thirties was more like it. Scrooge squinted and put on his reading
glasses.

Why, it
was him! A young Scrooge! With his fiance Beth! This was years ago.
The young couple had just entered the taxi, and the woman was
staring firmly outside, her lips pursed together and her arms
crossed over her chest. She looked upset.

“
What is this? How do you have this recording of me?” asked
Scrooge with irritation in his voice.

The
driver replied in a straight tone-of-voice, “As I said Sir,
everything is recorded for your protection and also ours. This is
only in case of emergencies, or to parse data so as the service
provided to you be as smooth as possible. It’s all in the
Terms-”

“
Terms and Conditions, yeah yeah,” Scrooge interrupted. “It’s
still wrong, keeping a recording of me for so long.”

“
Please pay attention to the video or we’ll have to go over it
again,” the driver said and then went silent.

Scrooge
grunted but couldn’t keep his eyes off the recording even if he
wanted to. There is something mesmeric in seeing yourself, more so
if it’s something so old, almost twenty years ago. A part of your
life that you had half-forgotten yourself.

In the
video, the young Scrooge said, “Come on now Beth, it was a steal!
Double dot they call it, charging twice the price for the very same
dinner as always! I will not be subjected to their marketing ploys
like that.”

Beth was
quietly sniffing a handkerchief, trying to fight back her tears.
“It was all lovely until you ruined it all. I never asked for any
expensive presents, or clothes. I don’t nag like other women to
take me to fancy restaurants. It was just this once, to have a
romantic Christmas Eve, us together.”

“
We can go somewhere else, where they aren’t price gouging so
blatantly,” young Scrooge explained.

Beth
cried and said, “But it was my dream, to spend a perfect dinner
with you up on the Olive Garden, in full view of the Parthenon, the
lit Athens below, us tasting wine and taking in the moment.” She
rubbed her eye and her makeup got blurry. “It wasn’t about the
cost, you know me damn well. I just wanted an experience for us,
something to treasure.”

Young
Scrooge sighed it away. “We’ll just go to a nice gyro place, warm
and cheap.”

“
I’m not going to a gyro place dressed in a gown!” she cried
out in surrender.

“
It’s better to be overdressed than under, I say.”

Beth now
cried out loud and was going through the taxi’s handkerchiefs like
a river. “I’m sorry,” she gulped. “I know this will seem that it’s
about the fancy date, but it’s not. It’s about you. I know you’ll
always love money more than me. I know you’ll always feel cheated
because my father has no dowry to give for our wedding. I know that
you have placed me and our upcoming wedding in a balance sheet on
your mind and are feeling an itch about it, constantly.”

Young
Scrooge just stared at her. Of course he had, it was how he viewed
the world.

“
You are bitter, you just are. You don’t care for a romantic
evening, just once in our life, because you don’t think it’s worth
the cost. You don’t think
I’m
worth the cost,” she ended and exhaled through a
stuffy nose.

“
No darling, don’t think-”

“
We are done. We are breaking up. Because I love you, and
you’ll never be happy loving me. So I release you. There. No more
‘girlfriend expenses’ for your balance sheet. Merry Christmas my
love,” Beth said and demanded to be left out the taxi. A few
seconds later, she got out, young Scrooge running after her. There
were some muffled sounds coming in the video. After a while, young
Scrooge got back into the taxi, alone.

Just as
his young counterpart, Scrooge himself was staring out into the
window, deep in thought. The driver didn’t say anything, he just
started up the car again and went into the flow of traffic once
more.

Beth,
his ex-fiancee. So long ago. He shuddered as he remembered how warm
she made him feel. The touch of her hands, the tenderness. The love
he never acknowledged. Scrooge just took in the dark roads,
illuminated by red lights and green lights and yellow lights, all
in a Christmas Eve.

“
Why are you taking me back to my office?” Scrooge said
wearily.

The
driver nodded, “The reprimanding route is decided by Supertaxi’s
AI. I’m just taking you there.”

They
stopped right back where they started from, at the corner beneath
his office. The driver tapped something and the video screen showed
another recording.

It was
Scrooge again, young like before, in business clothes. Beside him
was an older man, sitting calm.

Why it
was Mr. Fioretti! His old boss, the man who treated him like a
son.

“
Mr. Fioretti,” Scrooge said and tears came to his eyes. He
explained their relationship to the driver, who was listening in
silence. “He was so good to me. This is the day he came with me to
the capital, because I was too scared to come alone. He told me I
was the best, that I could do anything I wanted.” The two men in
the video were calmly taking in the sights of the big city, though
young Scrooge wasn’t that calm. He was straightening his suit and
tie all the time, rubbing his papers, his CV.

Mr.
Fioretti put a hand on his shoulder and said, “Don’t sweat it, you
are the best partner he could ever ask for. We just have to show
him that.”

Scrooge
told the driver, “This is the day I came to do the interview with
Marco. It all went well, we became partners and I worked in his
startup business. He did the computer stuff, and I did the
accounting. I own the business now, Marco is long gone,” he sighed.
“Mr. Fioretti is gone now as well. He is built like an ox that man,
but something in his arteries, I don’t know. He took me in, trusted
me with his finances, let me work around Economics school, get my
degree. Then he pulled all the strings he had to get me interviews
in Athens. He even came with me for moral support. It was the last
time I saw the man in person, that Christmas Eve.”

The
video showed the anxious Scrooge rehearsing some stuff he wanted to
say in the interview, and Mr. Fioretti nodding in approval and
raising his thumb, patting him hard on the back. Then they got out,
at the same spot Scrooge was now sitting in, and got up to Marco’s
little accounting startup.

“
I would have bolted if it wasn’t for him,” Scrooge said. “I
would have given up, I was that afraid.”

“
I’m afraid there’s more,” the driver said and tapped away on
his tablet.

Another
video showed up, but this time it wasn’t Scrooge. It was Clara. She
seemed different somehow. It took him a long time to place it, but
then he got it. She was prettier, plump cheeks, eyes filled with
energy. Her hair was dyed blonde. She was riding in the back of the
taxi, filled with anxiety, leaned forward, gripping the
headrest.

Scrooge
then noticed something, and looked around the cabin. It was the
same taxi, the same car. Clara in the video waited for the taxi to
stop, stormed outside, leaving the door open. Sounds from a
playground could be heard, maybe a school? Yes, that sounded right,
a school. The car in the video shook and another door thumped.
After a minute, a man leaned in carrying a child. Clara’s boy. The
man was old-fashioned, with a thick moustache.

It was
his current driver! Scrooge raised his gaze at the actual man but
he just lowered his head and sat deeper in his seat.

“
Oh God, is he alright?” Clara said in the video.

The
driver calmed her down, “Don’t worry, I’m taking you to the
hospital.”

“
I have no money! I’m not getting paid until-”

“
Don’t think about that. Think of your boy. Now now, get
inside,” said the driver in his deep assuring voice.

She
hugged her son and was holding him tight, moving back and forth.
She was cleaning his mouth from some vomit. The boy was just going
along, unable to sit up.

“
Timmy, Timmy. Mommy’s here. We are going to the doctor, to
see how sick you are, OK Timmy?” Clara was terrified.

The
video was cut and showed them both a few hours later, riding back
on the taxi. Timmy was sitting upright this time, Clara was holding
his little hand, gripping it tightly as if refusing to let
go.

“
How are you showing me this?” Scrooge asked. “This isn’t
about me, this is personal information.”

The
driver said calmly, “It gets charged in your business account, so
it all gets filed under the same policy. I think it’s like that,
anyway,” he waved a hand.

The
driver had began moving again, and Scrooge had the feeling they
were heading to the hospital in question.

Timmy in
the video spoke, a faint voice, barely heard. “Am I sick
mommy?”

“
Yes. You are, but we are going to take medicine and see some
doctors and you’ll get better,” she said, her voice sweet but firm.
Then she turned to her driver and said, “Thank you Sir, for
everything. I don’t know how to repay you.”

The
driver’s deep voice in the video said, “It’s alright Miss. If
something like that had happened to my boy I want to believe
someone would stay and help. That’s what Christmas is
for.”

“
When was this?” Scrooge asked.

“
Last year,” the driver said in a hushed tone, and not a word
more.

Timmy in
the video raised his eyes to his mother and she wiped off her
tears. “Mommy, is that bad man Mr. Scrooge going to give us enough
money for the doctors?”

Scrooge
felt a dagger plunge into his heart.

Clara
held her boy’s head to her chest and said, “I don’t know honey.
I’ll ask. We’ll see.”

Then the
video ended. Scrooge’s eyes focused through the black monitor,
blurring his vision.

He
whispered, “I didn’t.”

Stave
Three

“
This is
where you get off Mr. Scrooge,” the driver said politely. They had
parked at the side of a main avenue, nowhere near Scrooge’s
home.

“
But why?”

“
Another driver will take you from here. He’ll be around any
second now.”

Scrooge
got off and stood in the sidewalk. Cars wheezed past in moderate
speed, not so slow like the central Athens roads but not faster
than the highway.

The cold
was bearable now, even though it must have been a few degrees lower
since he got in the taxi. He had absorbed enough heat to make him
soldier on the short wait. The Mercedes went back into the road and
disappeared into the traffic.

Another
taxi came and stopped beside him. It was a modern model, smaller,
nothing like the vintage Mercedes. This was short, easy to steer,
easy to park. Sleek lines, modern accents. Scrooge stepped in and
it was nice and warm. Unlike the old cars, that required heavy
modification into the cyborg vehicles that being a taxi required
these days, this one had built in tablet surfaces, sleek hidden
antennas, integrated electronics in the dashboard, GPS, everything.
You couldn’t realise it when watching one of the old modified cars,
but they were actually a mess of cables and clunky slapped on
devices. In there, they were all part of the design. The seats
didn’t squeak with the sound of leather, but they felt
nice.