Prometheus Inc.: Tooth & Nail
Chapter Two - The Cab Ride
««« Chapter One - The Letter «««
A drizzle pattered against the streets of the Rogers Park district in northern Chicago. Summer had been especially hot, and the August rains did little to cool it off. In the pre-dawn hours of the morning, the city choked on the humidity as streetlights gleamed in smears across pavements and car hoods.
Sophia drummed her fingers on the wheel of her cab and snapped her gum in a sharp triplet. She hated gum, but her two teenagers kept offering her pieces and she kept giving in until she became addicted to the stuff. Now, whenever she was at the curb waiting for a patron to hurry up and get in, she would find herself popping a wad of spearmint gum without even realizing she’d unwrapped a stick.
Usually, the gum helped to calm her nerves or at least distract them. Sophia had always been the nervous type. Her father compared her to a terrier when she was a kid, “Bug-eyed and shaking like a leaf on a tree.” Sophia’s mother insisted she had inherited “the gift,” some small measure of clairvoyance to sense when things were wrong, and there was always something wrong growing up in her neighborhood.
Her mother might have been right, too, because Sophia’s ragged nerves managed to keep her out of serious trouble for her forty years of living in the poor parts of Chicago. “You follow your gut, sweetheart,” was what Mama would say, and it had never steered Sophia wrong.
Until now. Here she was, chewing her gum with a vengeance, her body tensed and her hands sore from gripping and drumming the steering wheel. Everything in her screamed to drive away and leave this one for somebody else to deal with. But at the same time, a still part in her core said this was different.
It was also possible that the voice cautioning her to stay was simple practicality reminding her that money was too tight for her to forsake paying customers. She craned her neck around after another sharp crack of her gum to see if her patron had come back out of the apartment complex.
That was another thing. Ordinarily, Sophia would never have waited for some guy who hailed her at six o’clock in the morning just to realize he had left his luggage up in his room and go running back inside. But something told her to stay.
Finally, the young man burst from the doorway of the cramped apartment block and stumbled haphazardly down the slippery steps. He was dressed in sneakers, jeans, and an oversized windbreaker with the hood already turned up, all in varying shades of blue. His thin-framed glasses fogged up from the humidity as he wrestled with a large, brown trunk.
Instead of moving to the back of the cab to stow the luggage, the patron made straight for the rear passenger door, stopping short to mouth to himself while patting down his pockets. That was a maneuver Sophia had seen plenty of times, and her eyes rolled at the thought of him darting back inside again.
The rider opened the door and slid in, torquing his body to yank the trunk into the back with him. The trunk slid along and sat partially in his lap and partially wedged against the back of Sophia’s seat. As he leaned around its bulk to reach the door and slam it closed, it bumped and rocked the cabbie and elicited a string of gum snaps in annoyance.
A small, “Sorry,” drifted up from the back, along with, “Navy Pier, please.”
“Yessir,” Sophia breathed with another pop of her gum, shifting the cab into gear and pulling away from the curb. She opened her mouth to start the customary small talk, but the rearview mirror revealed that the rider was struggling with his cellphone around the leather trunk in his lap. “You know you coulda put that in the back, right?”
“Mhmm,” was all he said, never looking up from his screen.
Millennials, she thought, punctuated by a large pop. She looked up into the mirror again to see him putting the phone to his ear, the fog on his glasses starting to fade. His face flickered an expression of disappointment before he spoke.
“Good morning, Doctor, it’s Rhys. I’m sorry for calling so early, but something’s come up. I won’t be coming in this morning, and I may need to take some vacation time. If you can call me back, I would appreciate it.” He pulled the phone away and immediately began typing on it, his arms resting on the trunk like a child trying to sit at the adult’s table for dinner.
“Are you a doctor?” Sophia probed, more out of a need to make noise than actual interest.
“Huh?” the rider asked, looking up from his phone for the first time. “Oh, uh, no. I work at the Field Museum. I’m an assistant to Dr. Henrick Keppler.”
Sophia politely nodded as though the name was familiar to her. “And what does an assistant to a doctor in a museum do?”
The rider was back to his phone. “Step-and-fetch, mostly. I also handle any technology that proves too modern for the boss. Occasionally, I get to help with research and curating some of the exhibits.”
“Uh huh. And what did you think you were going to do when you got this gig?” Sophia raised knowing eyebrows at the young man in the rearview.
His eyes met hers with a wry smile. “Step-and-fetch. I knew what I was getting into.”
Sophia snorted as she passed through an intersection. She noticed how quickly they were making their way southward. Traffic this light was unheard of. “You’re in for the long haul.” Snap snap snap. “What’s the plan?”
“I want to become a curator myself, but I’m in no rush. I wanted to get a feel for museum culture and the politics of academia from a safe position first.” He started typing into his phone again with a speed that rivaled Sophia’s teens.
“Don’t you have the credentials or whatever to be a curator?” Sophia didn’t know the first thing about “curators,” but the question popped to mind and she spat it out instinctively. Where are all the walkers? she thought to herself. Sure, there were some people milling around, but nothing like usual. Pop.
The rider looked up with a perplexed expression. “I… suppose I do. I have my master’s in social anthropology and an undergrad in literature, but…” He hesitated. “I don’t really have any practical experience. I like to be cautious,” he ended lamely before adding, “and thorough, I guess.”
Sophia turned left down one block before turning right to head south again with the lakeside on her left. She was trying to find the traffic, the people. It was a Thursday, the sun was just coming up behind the overcast sky, and people should have been heading to work or the gym or wherever. What is going on?
She popped her gum some more before saying, “Sounds to me like you’re holding back.”
The passenger was silent for a moment. “Maybe.” He returned to his phone once more. “We’re making pretty good time this morning.”
“Yeah.” Another thought occurred to her. “What the heck are you gonna do at Navy Pier at six thirty in the morning?”
Navy Pier, the biggest tourist attraction not just in Chicago but arguably in the whole Midwest. For all intents and purposes, it was a theme park on a 3,000-foot-long pier with signature foods, a Ferris wheel, botanical gardens, shopping, and all other touristy treats. It was not, however, a place that opened this early or would, in Sophia’s mind, be the typical hangout for a twenty-something egghead with a packed suitcase.
“Honestly, I don’t have a clue.”
The rest of the short trip was filled with the awkward sounds of Sophia’s nervous ticks mingling with the creaking of her passenger’s trunk and the occasional swish of his nylon sleeves against it. In the distance, she saw the Ferris wheel and Children’s Museum at the front of the pier, but as she neared the complex, an unexpected sight stunned her.
It was typical to see several boats and yachts moored on the southern side of the pier. Most were commercial, used for giving tours of Lake Michigan to those interested and willing to pay. This morning, however, none of those were present.
Instead, a massive ship was anchored in their place, its length spanning almost half of the pier. It was covered in blue-gray steel and had a high railing all around the deck, but the prow of the ship was shaped oddly and had a huge figurehead attached to it. It was like an optic illusion, Sophia’s eyes unable to make sense of what she was seeing in the carved metal.
Here, the streets were abandoned by pedestrians and vehicles alike. Sophia cut to her left and aligned herself with the curb on her driver’s side, hitting the button for her window to descend. “Mister, what on earth is that?”
The passenger exited on the left, dragging his trunk out with him and pushing the door closed. Rain continued to coat the morning in a watery haze as the young man reached into his pocket and retrieved his wallet, pulling out a fifty-dollar bill and giving it to the cabbie. “Thanks for the ride.”
Sophia took the fifty and nodded. “Uh, you sure you wanna be here?” Her stomach roiled, and her head throbbed. Her nerves shrieked at her to pull this kid back into her cab and drive away from this place like there was no tomorrow.
He looked at the ship for a long moment, uncaring of the rain soaking past his windbreaker. “I’m sure. Have a good one.” He unceremoniously pulled the trunk along and made his way down the empty pier toward the ship.
Sophia rolled her window up and pocketed the fifty. It was a fantastic tip for such a short drive, but it felt guilty against her thigh. She wiped the rainwater off her face with her sleeve, spitting out her old gum in a napkin and starting on a new stick before looking at the ship again.
In the rain-streaked glass, the form on the prow of the ship took shape. It was a tentacled beast, like an octopus or a squid with a coiling shell for a head. The sight of it frightened her, and watching that young man march toward it was like watching him be lured straight into a monster’s lair.
The car pulled slowly around in a right-handed U-turn, heading north with the lake sliding by on the right. An inexplicable tear formed in Sophia’s eye as she blew a small bubble and pulled it back into her mouth to snap it an impressive number of times, remembering something from one of her kids’ textbooks.
The creature on the front of that ship was a Nautilus.
Thanks for reading!
This is as far as this story has made it on paper. If you like it and are interested in seeing where it goes, please let me know! I struggle a little with prioritizing my writing, so any encouragement goes a long way.
Blessings,
S.M. Osborne
Yes please... continue!