Something bugged me. Something was off.
Then it hit me.
Was that a CRT monitor on her desk? A big, old, TV-like ancient monitor?
I inhaled. There was a smell, but nothing like what the manager upstairs menacingly implied. It was clearly cigarette smell, clearly against regulations.
A toilet flushed and a dark girl came out smoking.
At first I thought that she was hiding for a smoke in there, but then I realised she was still taking puffs and making no effort to hide at all.
“Whassup,” she said and nodded towards me.
“Hello there dear, meet Polybios, this lovely young man will be working with us from now on,” Irene said.
“Hello,” I said scratching my head.
“Polybios, meet Zoe.”
“Hello,” Zoe said but her demeanour was the exact opposite of what her name implied. A few years ago she would have been an emo, I think. These days, they called themselves dark veiled brides or something.
“Zoe, take Polybios to see Mr. Epiktitos.”
“You take him, I’m busy,” Zoe said and threw herself on a cosy sofa. We both just stared as she lit another cigarette.
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 m
iddle 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.”
Our turn came. A droney face spoke. “Forms.”
Zoe presented them in order.
“Cheque.”
Zoe gave that too, never taking her eyes off of it.
“CDI card.”
We presented those.
“Next.”
She was trying very hard to contain her joy, and failing. I learnt later as to why.
A day’s hard work was near its end, so we went back to the Tramp Division and picked up our stuff.
“Meet you tomorrow morning at the bank,” she said and sent me the details on a message.
Irene congratulated me and patted me on the back.
That was my first day on the job.
Chapter 6
The next morning I found myself feeling happy. I had my backpack with me, a few essentials really cause I don’t need much. I was on the bus, looking outside the window as the city raced past.
I would have felt good even if I only went to work that morning. The trip was just the cherry on top.
It was a shame of course, the cause of our trip. That poor little girl…
It was nice though, going somewhere. Meeting new people, doing honest work. Learning new stuff. If it had to be rabies, then rabies it is.
Being unemployed sucks, and I wasn’t going to return to that state willingly.
I got off the bus and carried my backpack to the bank. I checked the clock, I was on time. The bank was filled with people. The crisis didn’t seem to have any effect on the amount of people in banks each day. You’d think that people with no money wouldn’t really have any bank-related issues but there it was: full of sorrow and miserable people, waiting in line, loud beeps pushing them slowly towards the cashier.
I decided to treat myself with my joyful feeling for a little longer so I waited outside, at the shade of a tree. I could see the entrance, and could definitely spot Zoe coming out.
A few minutes later, she did, smiling and closing the distance with little jumps.
“Kalimera Poly,” she said. “What’s with the bag?”
“Kalimera. What do you mean, I packed for three days.”
She walked towards her car and unlocked it. I threw my backpack over my shoulder and followed.
“Very gallant of you,” she said and counted the money she just exchanged for the cheque. She split some and gave me a handful. “Here’s your cut. Stay at home until Thursday, and we’ll pretend to come back late at night. So we can scrape off a few hours off Friday morning too. Then we’ll get back to the office.”
“What are you talking about? Fudge the report? The investigation?” She was about to get into
her car and I shut her door.
“Look, I get it. You’re new. Take it from me. It doesn’t matter whether we investigate or not. It’s all the same in the end. Instead of spending three days in one another’s cheery company, why not crash at home with booze money? Or go to a bar, with booze money. Huh? Even better. Now, lemme go, I have a pair of trousers that I’ve been eyeing for days, and now, I’m gonna buy it and enjoy my bonus!”
She went into the driver’s seat and turned on the ignition.
I was speechless.
I leaned down to look at her through the car window.
“Ohi. No. Stop. You can’t do that! Do you always do that?”
She shrugged. Her voice was muffled, like, well exactly like coming through a closed window. “Not always, I have done a few investigations now and then. But this is too good to pass on. It’s like a new payday in the middle of the month. Don’t worry, I’ll do the report. You can thank me later.”
I opened the rear door and picked up the folder. I shoved the girl’s photo in her face. OK, not her face, because the window was still closed, but I slapped it hard on the glass and when she turned towards me it was right there in front of her.
“This here, happened. And it might happen to other people, unless we go up to Thessaloniki and check things out. I’ll go by myself if I have to. Don’t worry, I’m not a snitch, I’ll say we were together. But I can’t do something that I have no knowledge of.”
Zoe’s face turned sour. She looked at the picture of the poor girl and then looked at me with dark eyes.
She rolled down the window. “There’s nothing we can do for her anyway. Enjoy the bonus. Fuck off.”
She drove her car away and I was left holding the case file.
Myth Gods Tech - Omnibus Edition: Science Fiction Meets Greek Mythology In The God Complex Universe Page 23
