Futuretrack 5

by Robert Westall

“Oh, but I was. Shall I quote some Virgil? Daedalus, ut Jama es, Jugens Minoa regna…” The Latin flowed on and on, almost inaudible but totally accurate. Then she said, “I was deputy Head Girl.”

  “Thieving.”

  “Wait till you’ve been here three months.”

  “You didn’t have to steal.”

  “Look, I can’t sing, so Futuretrack One’s out. And imagine me trying to fight! I tried Futuretrack Three, but those pin tables nearly stoned me out of my mind.”

  “Futuretracks are… jobs?”

  “The only ways of staying alive there are. And I’m too small for motorbikes and I’m not going on Six.”

  “What’s that?”

  I felt the disgust in her shrug. “Look, I meant what I said. I’m a good pickpocket, the best of Futuretrack Four, but I need looking after. I steal a lot of credits, but I’m known. I’m usually robbed on the way home. I’ve got a really snug hole. I’d make it worth your while. With your muscles …”

  “No, thanks,” I said. It was all too sudden. “I’ve got to look around first. I haven’t even seen your face.”

  “You won’t now.” She slipped from my hand like a young eel. But she lingered on the corner, so I saw her silhouette.

  “Do you want a few credits?” I asked.

  “They’d only take them off me.” Then she was gone.

  A straggle of Unnems passed in single file, shouting in unison and not a sound to be heard above the cacophony. Four were wearing Polaroids; they couldn’t all be razzling Techs. I put my Polaroids on; found my pay slip, chewed up bits, and stuffed them into my ears. Suddenly deaf, I plunged in.

  The chewed paper helped, up to the swing doors. Beyond, the noise was as bad as ever. I could feel my eardrums pulsing, like someone was pressing their thumbs in; could feel the chewed paper moving…

  Mustn’t stand still; I was attracting glances.

  The dome was so full of fag smoke it was like walking through a stinking autumn mist. The far end was invisible, apart from patterns of winking lights. That was the awful thing: too much light yet somehow not enough. No steady light you could read by.

  Fading into the haze, bank upon bank of machines with figures crouching over them, endlessly pulling handles. A factory? But what were they making? Levers were pulled, lights flared, there were fake electronic explosions, buzzes, whinings, bleepings, the sound of cars driven fast and badly. But nothing emerged from the machines.

  As I watched, one crouching figure stopped his compulsive lever-pulling and began to beat on his machine with his fists. Rocking it on its foundations so the bolts that held it to the floor began to lift. I stepped forward, appalled at seeing a machine so abused.

  The machine emitted a high-pitched shriek. Two white-coated men ran up, plunged a syringe into the guy’s backside through his thin denims. He gently collapsed. A third white-coat pulled up a long tube on wheels. They slotted the inert body into the tube and wheeled it away.

  The rhythm of the other workers never faltered. Only the black man next door raised his head; shrugged and went back to his handle. I went across to him. “What happened?”

  Shrug.

  “Where they taking him?”

  The black man wriggled his broad shoulders, like I was an annoying fly. I turned to the abandoned machine.

  “Mind out!” I was pushed aside by another white-coat, who bent to the floor with an electric screwdriver, tightened up the bolts that held the machine down. He checked it with a vigorous tug to see if it was stable and departed, saying, “Carry on.”

  The glass top of the machine was a glowing mass of Supermen, rockets, atomic explosions, all very badly drawn; and a series of numbers ranging from one thousand to one trillion. I pulled the handle at the side; nothing happened.

  “Putcher money in, lobo,” shouted the black man, never taking his eyes off his own machine.

  I pulled out one of Sellers’s Unnem credits and put it in the now obvious slot. Pulled the lever. A coloured light danced an intricate pattern round the crude screen and died. I saw I’d scored a trillion. Was that good? I pulled the lever a second time, in exactly the same way. Techs are trained to perform exactly the same movement, over and over again.

  I scored a trillion six times. The machine put up a green metal flag, burped at me repeatedly, and dropped ten Unnem credits into a tray by my knee.

  “Jammy sod,” said the black man.

  To cover my confusion, I put another credit in the slot and pulled the lever again. Nothing happened.

  “Push your flag down, lobo,” shouted the black. “Where you been all your life—down on the farm?”

  How did he know what I was doing, when he never broke his own frantic rhythm?

  I was in bad shape; the noises and lights were beating in waves, my head was splitting. But I had to keep my head down; feel my way carefully. Dangerous to wander about aimlessly…

  Like any Tech, I lost myself in the machine; forgot the Supermen and rockets; saw through them to the crude electrical circuits beneath. The machine was badly worn, standing on an uneven floor. Some parts were overheating, near going on the blink. This gave the machine its personality, its bias. Playing on this bias, I began to win steadily. Letting the credits pile up in the trough, spill out on the floor. Lost to the world…

  A hand tapped my shoulder, painfully. I turned, exasperated.

  He was taller than me; with a car-smash of a face. The cheekbones had been broken and allowed to mend themselves; square corners of bone humped up beneath the skin, red and shiny. Badly stitched scars wrapped his face in a mask of red barbed wire. His jaw hung lopsided, showing steel false teeth. His ears had been cut off, leaving red question marks on each side of his shaved cannonball skull. He wore a thick, black leather collar, with steel spikes like a dog’s collar. Otherwise, he was naked to the waist. Wild tattoos ran across his slabby chest. He was either sweating, or he’d greased himself.

  I looked into his eyes, as I might have looked through the windows of a crashed car; afraid of what I might see. His eyes were dark grey, dull, empty of everything but pain. The ruined mouth moved, spoke.

  “I’ll have me share, now. Half.”

  “What?” His words were hard to piece together, and I was still coming out of my machine world.

  “Half.” He nodded down at the coins around my feet.

  “What for?”

  “Protecting yer. I’m yer Fighter.”

  “Who said?”

  “I said.”

  “Now look. …”

  He hit me in the gut. Luckily, his eyes had signalled the blow. I had no room to dodge, but I tightened my gut muscles, so it didn’t hurt like it was meant to.

  “Half!” He hit me again. It hurt a bit more the second time.

  No Tech can stand being crowded like that. And every Tech is trained to deal with it. I stamped down hard on his instep. Only to find he was wearing steel toecaps.

  I saw the violence coming in his empty eyes; he’d have killed me. If I hadn’t chopped at his shaved temple with the edge of my hand…

  He collapsed gently to the floor. He’d be out about five minutes; enough time for me to deal with the situation, probably by running away.

  But the moment he collapsed, the white-coats whipped in with that wheeled tube and syringe. Before I could draw breath they were wheeling him away. I ran after them, shouting at them. They were only Techs 2M.

  A solid, warm hand gripped my wrist, a brown hand with a pale palm; my late neighbour.

  “Cool it, lobo. You wanna go in a tube, too?” He drew me back to my machine.

  “I didn’t mean him any harm. I wanted to talk… Where they taking him?”

  “His worries are over now, lobo. You wanna worry about his mates. …” He nodded toward the curving walls of the dome. And there they were, in three ranks, silent, watching. Earless, bald, stripped to the waist with greased, shining torsos. Looking like undressed shop-window dummies, they stood so still.

  “Who are th
ey?” My voice shot up in a frightened squeak.

  “Fighters, lobo. Futuretrack Twoers. Didn’t they teach you anything, down on the farm? You’d better win a whole lot of credits now, lobo. So you can hire a whole gang of them to protect you. The Bluefish are good— only they cost, lobo, they cost.”

  I hammered away at my machine with total dedication. Soon I was slipping and sliding on a whole mountain of credits. Other people’s dedication was wearing off; they were leaving their machines and standing in a circle around me. Wondering loudly if I’d do it…

  Do what? Remembering the shop-window dummy faces, I went on pulling.

  Suddenly my machine gave an incredible howl; all its lights began flashing together. The handle locked, wouldn’t pull anymore. I looked round, terrified the wheeled tube would come for me. But my friend the black man was pounding me on the back, his blue-black face splitting with delight.

  “You did it, man, you did it.” Everyone was pounding me, hugging me. Six black Fighters pushed through and began gathering up my mountain of credits in a purple bag. “These are your Bluefish, man, the greatest.”

  Looking at their size, I was very glad to hear it.

  Now white-coats were pinning a purple cloak of thin cheap satin round my neck; trying to balance an absurd chrome-plastic crown on my head. A plastic sceptre was thrust into my hand. I was draped with a gold ribbon marked “London Northeast—Champion of the Day.”

  Then the Bluefish lifted me very expertly onto their shoulders and bore me in wobbly triumph over the heads of the crowd. The jangling music had turned into one huge electronic fanfare, filling the dome. All for me. I felt seasick. The Bluefish thrust me up on a very high rostrum, almost dissolved in an incandescence of spotlights.

  “Smile, man,” shouted the black man. “You’re on the Box.”

  “What’s your name?” shouted a white-coat.

  “Stephen Sellers,” I shouted back, keeping up my disguise. A huge screen lit up on the far side of the dome, spelling out quickly: Stephen sellers 2810 credits, followed by: Walter nevin 2523 credits, and a whole list more. Nobody had scored as many as me.

  “You’re All-London Champ!” screamed the black man, spraying the spit of delight all over me. “Try and look pleased, man. It must be better than down on the farm.” The crowd was roaring its head off.

  “Sellers for Champ, Sellers for Champ.”

  A second giant screen lit up across the dome, divided into six compartments, each containing a guy sitting high on a silly gilt throne, wearing a purple cloak and plastic crown. They all looked stupefied. One must be me. I waved my arm, and one of them waved stupidly back. Then all six were waving, and the crowd was roaring again.

  Up went a new scorecard:

  LARRY MARTIN BIRMINGHAM 2201 CREDITS PETER BRENNAN GLASGOW 2512 CREDITS…

  Again, no one had scored more than me.

  “You’re Champ, man. National Champ of the Day,” shouted the black man, thumping me harder than I’d ever been thumped in the college boxing ring. “You’ll need a manager now—make me your manager!”

  “Yes, please,” I said.

  I never heard his thanks; only saw his grin, as the crowd exploded.

  “Sellers is Champ, Sellers is Champ, Sellers is Champ.”

  A white-coat took the silver-plastic crown off my head and put on an even taller gold-plastic one. I held my head utterly still, but it still began to slide over my left ear. The other five guys vanished from the screen; the whole glowing surface was now filled with a fifty-foot bloated image of me, grinning inanely. Below, the printout message:

  SELLERS IS CHAMP SELLERS IS CHAMP…

  Then the whole dome went black, and there was silence.

  An electronic voice said, “Monday’s game is about to begin.”

  Dim lights went on, all over the dome. The big screens were blank and grey. There were no spotlights shining on me. Two white-coats took away my cloak and crown. My moment of glory was over.

  And all over the dome, the slaves of Futuretrack Three were trooping back to another day’s work.

  “Where d’you live, man?” asked my manager, as we stepped into the drizzling night, the Bluefish closed up round us. He’s finally calmed down enough to tell me his name was George.

  “Nowhere,” I said.

  “On the razzle, eh?”

  “No. Walked out for good. Couldn’t take their crap.”

  Rumbling approval from the listening Bluefish. “Straight through, man!”

  “Come and stay with me an’ my Grannie,” said George. “She’s fifty-five, the oldest woman in our block.”

  “Straight through, man,” I said.

  I was glad of my Bluefish, with the lamplight shining on their greased torsos, their shaved and earless fighting heads. Several times other gangs of Fighters drifted toward us, but when they saw the Bluefish, they drifted away again.

  “When you’re Champ of the Month,” said George, “you’ll need twelve Bluefish.”

  “When he’s Champ of the Year,” said a Bluefish, “he’ll need every Bluefish we got.”

  They saw us to George’s council block; past the shattered lift gates, up the graffitied, pee-soaked stairs.

  “Decent block this,” said George.

  “Bluefish territory,” explained the Bluefish. “The Bluefish give you law an’ order an’ a straight deal.”

  As we neared George’s door, he gave a low whistle. The door was slightly open; smoke was pouring out. George shouted, “Gran!” his face turning pale ivory.

  Immediately, a horde of little kids came running out, not one of them more than six or seven. The Bluefish flew at them, punching them, hammering them against the walls. But they were quick; all but one got away. The one, a red-haired child, lay still, blood trickling from his nose…

  “Gran!” shouted George again, sheer dread in his voice.

  “Ah’m alive, boy,” came a quivering voice. “Come right now and put out the fire in the TV.”

  We rushed in. An old black woman lay on a torn settee under the window, a broom lying limply in one hand and a carving knife in the other.

  “They burgled the electronic lock, George. Ah thought meh last hour was coming. Ah fought them, George, but they got your gold studs an’ wallet.”

  “Thank God yo’ alive.” George kissed her.

  “Five minutes more an Ah wouldn’t have bin. Ah had no breath left to fight them.” She coughed as the smoke from the extinguished telly caught her throat. “You’ll have to change the lock, George. Get one of them latest computer ones—they cain’t burgle them yet.”

  Looking young and sheepish, the Bluefish patched together the wrecked apartment with oddly tender hands.

  “Ah don’t know what kids is coming to these days,” said one of them indignantly. “George ought to get yo’ a pistol, ma’am.”

  “Ah wouldn’t have the strength to aim it.”

  “But the bang would make them think twice. Ah’ll get yo’ a real fine homemade one, ma’am.”

  “You’re all good boys.” She looked at me. “Yo’ haven’t introduced our guest yet, George.” She shook my hand, solemnly.

  “Goodnight, ma’am,” said the Bluefish as one man. “George, we’ll take that little vermin outside with us as we go.”

  “What we goin’ to give this fine young man for supper, George? Those vermin done empty the fridge.”

  We sat up talking till four a.m. George whispered that Gran was terrified of falling asleep for fear of the vermin. But he plied her steadily with drinks from a brown bottle, as he did every night, and eventually she dozed off. He lifted her legs up onto the torn settee, draped a rug over her, and we went to kip in the wrecked bedroom.

  “George? About that Fighter I hit. …”

  “Real smart, the way you handled him… The Blue-fish liked that. …”

  “No, I mean, I’m sorry…”

  George sniggered. “He’d a’ killed you, else …”

  “Did they take him to the
lobo farm?”

  George shrugged, shaking the sagging bedsprings massively.

  “Dunno. You won’t see him round here again, don’t you worry. Once they’re put in the tube… we share out their gear between us. Nobody comes back from the tube, man.”

  “So I killed him…”

  “Don’t fret, man. He was old, was Oscar. Twenny-three, maybe twenny-four. He’d been hit so often, his brain rattled like a pea in the pod. He went quick: the vermin did’n’ get him.”

  “Is your granny really the oldest woman in the block?”

  “By miles, man. She’d never have lasted this long, only the Bluefish took a fancy to her… mascot, like. They take her to collect her pension credits an’ buy her groceries, so she don’t get mugged or starve to death. They’re seein’ how old they can grow her… she could make sixty, man.”

  “What happens to the rest?”

  “Sellers, man, you’ve given me a good day—don’t ruin it, askin’ too many questions. That’s the fault with you razzlin’ Techs—questions, questions, questions. Take every day as it comes, man. You could be vermin meat tomorrow.”

  “Just one more question, George. Ever heard of anybody called Scott-Astbury?”

  “How would I know anybody called Scott-Astbury, man? That’s an Est name. Now, shurrup.” And in a second, he was snoring. Leaving me to worry about the vermin and the hopeless lock on the door. And remember that car smash of a face, with the dead, empty eyes looking out.

  Chapter 7

  We slept late; lay about all day. I didn’t have to play the pinball machines again till the end of the week. Just as well: I was shattered.

  Most of the day we half watched the telly; cowboys killing Indians, soldiers killing peasants, cops killing robbers. In between there were commercials for Coke, tranquilizers, and the state crematorium. Including the coffins vanishing musically through the curtain in the crematorium commercial, I reckoned we were watching about fifty deaths an hour. Grisly. George wouldn’t answer any more of my questions; at intervals, Gran told us how the cowboy hats reminded her of the happy, old dancing days of the Notting Hill Carnival…

  Round dusk, my Bluefish called for me; brought me a red plastic sash saying “Champ of the Day.” I didn’t want to wear it, but they looked hurt.