Taking the Tube to the Outer Limits

by Darren Humphries

  “Welcome to tonight’s drawing of the World Lottery,” announced a deep, clear voice in Pavel’s ears. Unlike the images, the voice would be different right across the world. As the population grew, travel shrank and so the need to learn other languages died. That had been the expectation, anyway. In fact, the reverse was true; national languages started to devolve into regional dialects that grew stronger with each generation. Transmissions were in national birth languages, but conversation on the street in one conurbation was increasingly harder to understand should someone from another conurbation find themselves suddenly transplanted there. Not that this was likely since nobody travelled any more. Even those people who dealt with international and global business worked through teleconferencing rather than physically moving across the world.

  The thunder of noise in the eating hall had completely vanished. Pavel imagined that, if he removed his headset, he would be able to hear all the occupants breathing in time.

  “Tonight there will be twelve locations offered to lucky winners from across the globe.”

  That caused quite a stir amongst the audience and the headset struggled to cope with the sudden change from near silence to hubbub. There was usually only about half that number of winning places on the lottery. It varied every time, but Pavel struggled to recall the last time that so many winners had been announced.

  “Locations on offer are in Europe, Africa, South America, Antarctica, Australia, India and the Pacific Basin,” the deep, cultured voice continued. At least it sounded cultured. It was probably computer generated from the audio files of some long-dead announcer or actor.

  Images filled Pavel’s eyes, and those of everyone else around the world, images of trees, dense jungle, sloping hillsides, dry scrubland and coastal cliffs.

  “Why keep the desert wild?” Alex wondered aloud, his voice cutting across the music of the transmission and the general noise thanks to the direct link. “Seems like such a waste of space to me.”

  “Too hot to build and live there,” Pavel supposed with a shrug. “Anyway, they also use it for solar farms.”

  He thought of the vast acres of high-efficiency solar panels that blanketed the previously useless deserts, the same panels that coated the roofs of every building in the conurbation. It was likely, he considered, that if you saw the desert and the conurbation from above they would look remarkably similar.

  “Still seems like a waste,” Alex muttered.

  Pavel was sure that, in time, even the once-shifting, now pinned, areas of desert would be built over if the situation became so dire that it was required. There were other ways to generate power.

  “The computers are running,” the announcer voice intoned, possibly from beyond the grave (or rather, beyond the incinerator since all the graves had been dug up and built over).

  The excitement reached an even higher pitch and Pavel could feel his own heart racing, his own breathing getting faster as the moment approached.

  “The winner signals are going out to their bands,” the announcer continued, his own voice increasing in speed and pitch in order to encourage the audience’s excitement, “and the first winner is…”

  Pavel ignored the vibrating at his wrist as he waited to hear who the first fortunate winner was. Who could possibly be trying to contact him at this moment? It was probably some automated reminder of something that he was supposed to do that he had forgotten to cancel.

  The first winner was from the Chinese Conurbation, which was hardly a surprise. Their population had led the expansion and they had been the first to implement most of the measures that allowed people to continue to live together. India had been close behind, but the second winner came from the West Russian Conurbation. The third was from Canada, which was more surprising because that was one of the countries that had managed to preserve swathes of its wildest country long enough for the UN to place preservation orders on them. The orders were slowly being whittled away by the need for expansion, but the population was one of the sparsest in terms of heads per square foot. The fourth and fifth were both from Africa, one from the Eastern African States Conurbation and one from the South Mediterranean Coast Conurbation. The sixth was finally a representative from Europe; Pavel Kosinski from the British Conurbation and the seventh came from…

  Alex’s shout almost deafened Pavel, even with the inbuilt automatic filters. What on Earth…

  “It’s you!” Alex screamed. “Pavel, it’s you!”

  Pavel’s band was vibrating so hard now that it was starting to numb his wrist. He looked down at it in shock and saw that it was also shining, light pulsing out of it in a pattern of rotating colours. He had never seen it do such a thing in all his life.

  “Pavel, you won!” Alex continued to shout in his ear.

  Some of Pavel’s neighbours noticed the glowing band. They cancelled the video feed so that they could look at the man with the glowing band and realised that they had seen his face before, very recently. Though they listened in the now vain hope that their own names would be called (there had never been a case of two people from the same conurbation winning the same lottery), they nudged each other and there was an almost visible wave as the knowledge spread out that there was a winner amongst them.

  The man to Pavel’s left placed a congratulatory hand on his shoulder and shook him in friendly manner. The woman in front of him, who had been previously replaced by Alex’s projected image, smiled and touched his chest. The man to his right embraced him in a tight hug.

  The lottery transmission ended and seats all around the hall started to signal that their owners should vacate them so that other diners could take their place. In a startling breach of protocol normally ingrained so deep that it was instinctual, nobody moved. Pavel realised that they were all waiting for him. All that had happened was that his name had been read out on a transmission, admittedly a global transmission, actually the global transmission, but his place as another anonymous face in the mass was gone. He sensed that it might have gone forever. Now, he was recognisable, and recognised. Now, people wanted to see him, wanted to be near him, wanted to touch him. He was one of the luckiest people on Earth and they hoped that some of that luck could rub off on them.

  He stood and, remarkably, a space opened in front of him. People stood back to let him pass, something that he had never once experienced before. As he walked unsteadily toward the exit, they moved into the space behind him, touching his clothing, stroking his arms and his back. Though there was a disturbing emptiness in front of him, there was a warm, comforting pressure behind him.

  Alex somehow found his way into the two-pace gap in front of his friend. He reached forward and enveloped him in his arms just as the man had done at the table.

  “Oh my God, Pavel. You’re going to a wild place,” he said and, for once, Pavel didn’t need the headset to hear him.

  “He won the lottery!” Alex yelled, lifting Pavel’s hand above their heads so that everyone could see the coruscating band on his wrist. The entire hall cheered, sending the headphones into noise-cancelling overdrive.

  “I don’t know what to do,” Pavel confided in his friend, grateful for the direct link for something other than its noise-cancelling properties. “What do I do now?”

  Alex lowered their arms and looked at the face of Pavel’s band. “It’s an address. Not far from here, either. I guess that you have to go there.”

  “How?” Pavel wondered, gazing at the sea of faces all around him. There was always a sea of faces all around him, except when he was in his rack, but these faces were all turned to him, looking at him. The attention was an immense pressure on him.

  “Walk, I suppose,” Alex and said and slowly headed for the nearest exit. The people fell away in front of him. Apparently, the awe or respect or whatever it was that had gripped them extended beyond Pavel to Pavel’s friends.

  Since there was no other choice, Pavel followed, and quickly caught up his friend before going out onto the street outside.


  The authorities were certainly familiar with the response to a lottery winner, which Pavel supposed was the same all over the planet, because they had shut down the moving walkways. This was to prevent injury to the people who now had a new destination; to see the lottery winner. The whole street was filled with people, as it always was, but these were not moving. They were staying where they were, waiting and hoping for a chance to the see the lucky person.

  Me, thought Pavel, somewhat disbelievingly. They are here to see me.

  The destination building was, as Alex had said, not far away, and Pavel was certainly pleased to see the wide doorways. Every inch that he moved seemed to bring a dozen congratulatory slaps to his shoulders, several of which missed in the melee and hit his ear instead. His arms where chafed from the material of his clothes being rubbed against his skin as the people crowded in around him, hands reaching out everywhere to touch him as he passed. It was a kind of adoration, worship, a longing to be him or, since that was not possible, to be near him.

  “There’s going to be a crush,” Pavel warned, worriedly.

  “No,” Alex denied cheerfully. “We know well enough for that not to happen.”

  We, Pavel noticed. Alex had placed himself in with the rest of the crowd, the rest of Pavel’s, literally-speaking, followers.

  They entered the building. The night shift workers had all abandoned their posts to come and see what was happening. As the weight of the crowd behind pushed him across the few feet of lobby to the lifts, one opened with an inviting ping.

  “Is that for me?” Pavel asked, panicked at the thought of possibly doing something wrong.

  “Look at your band,” Alex suggested, with a condescending patience.

  The band confirmed that the lift was indeed for him and that it had been unlocked so that it could access the roof.

  The roof?

  Almost as though it heard what he was thinking, though in reality more likely because it read his sudden heart rate spike, the message on the band changed to reassure him that it was quite safe.

  Pavel stepped into the lift and turned around so that the last thing he saw as the doors slid shut on him was Alex’s wistful expression.

  The lift rose swiftly, but the building was high enough that Pavel was able to enjoy the novelty of being the only person in a lift rated for maybe a dozen people. He allowed his body to spread out, his shoulders to loosen outward and his arms to swing out away from the sides of his body. Long before he could become accustomed to the sensation of space, the doors of the lift slid open to reveal the roof of the building and the helicopter that sat on the landing pad there only a few feet away. The rotors above were idling down to stillness.

  “Welcome Mr Kosinski,” the voice of the TV announcer greeted him through the headset, “and congratulations on winning the lottery. You will be feeling a little disorientated by what has happened to you, I am sure.”

  A little!?

  “This is perfectly normal and nothing at all to be alarmed by,” the voice continued even though he had not spoken. “We would have contacted you earlier, but experience has shown that the winners need a few moments to absorb what has happened… and also the reaction of those around them. It has also taught us that it is impossible to reach the winner in the early stages after the announcement and it is best to bring them to us. I will ask you, therefore, to take the few steps to the helicopter where you will be met.”

  A door on the vehicle’s side slid open and a couple of people, one man and one woman, gestured to him to approach. Three paces later and he was climbing into the vehicle. The door was closed behind him and the man ushered him to a comfortable seat. There were only three others in the helicopter’s body.

  “Congratulations, Mr Kosinski,” the man said politely.

  Pavel wondered why he was still using the band connection rather than speaking normally. There was nobody else about. The steady roar of humanity was no longer present.

  “It helps not to change too much too quickly,” the man explained without a smile and Pavel wondered how many winners these guides had to deal with before they could anticipate these reactions with such accuracy. “Also, the rotor noise will render normal speech difficult as soon as Sharon takes us out of here.”

  “Congratulations, Mr Kosinski,” the pilot said and then exited back into the cockpit.

  “My name is Franz,” the man introduced himself and busied himself with checking that Pavel was properly strapped in. “I know that this is a lot to take in.”

  “You have no idea,” Pavel said with feeling.

  “Oh, but I do,” Franz said, pulling the last strap tight and settling himself into one of the other seats. “I won the lottery, too. It was five years ago now, but it is not something that you easily forget.”

  “That I can believe.”

  The engines started up with protesting whines and the rotors began to spin faster above them.

  “It helps to know what is going to happen,” Franz told him with a smile that seemed genuinely friendly and succeeded in taking Pavel’s mind off what was actually happening beyond the confines of the cabin. “It makes things a little less… intimidating.”

  Pavel said nothing about the careful choice of word.

  “We are taking you directly to a lodge on the edge of the country area designated for you. A good night’s sleep will make everything seem a little less strange and imposing. In the morning, there is a very nice breakfast made with all natural ingredients from the farms within the nature zone and then you will be taken out and allowed to wander around as you please.” He paused to let the idea settle into Pavel’s distinctly unsettled mind.

  “It is quite an experience,” he added, with a heavy sense of nostalgia and, yes, even envy, in his voice. “There are some rules, of course…”

  “Rules?”

  “Oh, nothing very great, and pretty obvious really, if you think about it,” Franz waved away Pavel’s momentary concern. “Don’t set fire to anything, don’t kill any of the wildlife if you can help it, that sort of thing.”

  Pavel was absolutely horrified at the simple thought of such a thing. It would be the worst kind of crime. To be given the opportunity to wander about through a Nature Zone and then to damage it? It was inconceivable.

  “I can see that we will have no problem with you on that score,” Franz said, smiling comfortably. “Now, tell me about yourself. What do you do?”

  Franz chatted away throughout the entire flight and proved to be a charming and diverting companion. He was so diverting, in fact, that Pavel had no sense of time when the note of the engines and the rotors altered and he had a feeling in the pit of his stomach that told him they were descending.

  “And here we are, safe and sound,” he said as the slight jarring of the wheels thumping onto the ground was transmitted up through the vehicle’s frame, cushioned by the seats to the point where it was barely noticeable.

  The lodge that Franz had told him about was not a large building. The corridor along which Pavel was led was narrow to the point where only one person could pass along it and the rooms that he glanced into on the way past were also very small. Pavel realised that he had been unconsciously expecting a sprawling building that spread out carelessly over the unspoilt land it inhabited.

  “It’s kept small to make it welcoming,” Franz said over his shoulder, correctly guessing Pavel’s thoughts. “More in keeping with the places we have come from.”

  Pavel presumed that made sense, but before he could really consider it, Franz stopped outside a door.

  “This is you,” he said and slid the door open.

  The room beyond was tiny, barely larger than the space around his own rack back home. Which, when he came to think about it, was probably rather the point.

  “Now I don’t want you to worry about suitable clothing or anything like that,” Franz continued conversationally. “Everything will be provided, in your size, tomorrow morning. I am right next door and the facilities are just ac
ross the hallway here. We are aware of your work and sleep shift patterns, so we will try and keep to those if that is satisfactory.”

  “Yes, I suppose,” Pavel answered, not knowing what else to say.”

  “Then I will say goodnight and see you in the morning,” Franz gestured for Pavel to enter the room and then slid the door shut behind him.

  There were pyjamas on the bed, good ones. For a moment Pavel thought that they might be new, but that was only the impression given by careful laundering. They were very nearly new, though. He got changed and lay down on the bed, which was set into a depression in the wall in order to give the same closed in feeling of his own rack. As he lay there, he realised that he could hear sounds, the same sounds that he might hear on any normal night. They must be piping in a recording to give him the same ambience that he was used to. It worked, too, because he was asleep in minutes.

  Franz had not lied about the breakfast. It was better than good. Everything was fresh and the tastes were intense. He just knew that this was how bread and butter and milk and coffee and apples were supposed to taste.

  “You eat like this every day?” Pavel asked in wonder as the other man joined him at the table.

  “Nobody eats like this every day,” Franz denied. “Even the UN President doesn’t eat like this every day.”

  It was only then that Pavel noticed that Franz was not eating. His first reaction was to offer him something, but somehow he knew instinctively that this would be the wrong thing to do.

  “I’m sorry, I’m keeping everybody waiting,” Pavel apologised.

  “Today, it is allowed,” Franz reassured him. “You are refreshed?”

  Pavel smiled ruefully. He felt wonderful. He had expected, after the shocks of the previous evening, that he would wake up stressed and strung out, but he had slept soundly and awoken at his usual hour feeling more rested than he could remember. There had been no queue at all for the shower and it ran for a whole three minutes more than the ones in his building. After that, the food had left him feeling like the luckiest person on Earth. Well, one of the twelve luckiest, anyway.