“I slept well,” he said, simply.
“I remember,” Franz said with the same mixture of nostalgia and envy that Pavel had sensed the evening before.
“And the clothes fit well?” Franz asked.
The clothes fit very well indeed. They had been laid out on Pavel’s bed whilst he was luxuriating in the shower. They were sturdy and practical; warm, but also bulky as a result. The boots especially weighed at his feet. He had no idea why they had to be so heavy. The travelling walkways of the conurbation meant that there was no need for shoes with thick, durable soles as there was very little actual walking done.
“They are exactly my size,” Pavel replied, hoping to mask the fact that he felt comfortable in absolutely nothing that he was wearing.
“Good. The outfitters have a very good eye for size. So,” Franz rubbed his hands together as a sign of impending activity, “If you are ready, we shall see to your orientation briefing.”
“Yes, quite ready,” Pavel allowed. He was loath to leave the delightfully tasting food, but he could not, in truth, have eaten much more anyway.
Franz rose and took him through into a room that was the largest that he had yet seen in the lodge. There was space for maybe five people, but the room contained only three; Pavel himself, Franz and a woman who was dressed in a very similar manner to himself.
“Congratulations,” the woman said, a greeting that Pavel was beginning to get familiar, if not comfortable, with.
“I am Julia,” the woman introduced herself, “and I am one of the workers here in the Nature Zone. It is my job today to explain to you the dangers of your visit.”
“Dangers?” Pavel was surprised. Nobody had mentioned dangers before.
“It is not called a Wild Zone by some for no reason, Mr Kosinski,” Julia said archly, “though it is much tamed from its original state. Please do not be alarmed. There is actually nothing here that is more dangerous to you than you are to yourself. You are not familiar with a non-urban environment. Here, the ground is not flat all the time. It is, in fact, never flat. There is little order, there is much chaos. There are no animals that you need to fear...”
Animals!
Pavel had not thought of that. He had seen videos of animals, of course, on the screen above his rack, but the idea of seeing a live one had never occurred to him, even since his name was read out as a lottery winner.
“In fact, the thing you need to fear the most is tripping over something and hurting yourself in the fall.” Julia smiled as she said that and shared a look with Franz that was clearly a shared joke. “So, we have reprogrammed your band. Should anything even remotely untoward happen, you can call us for help. There is no network coverage out here, of course, but your band will still be able to send out a signal loud enough to bring us running.
“She’ll run, I’ll jog,” Franz joked.
“Do you have any questions?” Julia asked.
“I don’t think so,” Pavel responded uncertainly.
“Then please step outside and enjoy yourself,” she said, indicating the door.
“What? That’s it?” Pavel was taken by surprise by the suddenness of the offer.
“The Nature Zone is right outside that door,” Franz told him, smiling at his consternation. “Take your time; there is no rush.”
There was also, as far as Pavel could see, no reason to prevaricate. He walked across to the door and paused for a moment. He wasn’t sure whether he was afraid or whether it was an innate sense of drama. He felt certain that just about anyone else would have paused at the exact same moment. Then, he gripped the handle, opened the door and stepped outside.
The sun was up, but it was masked by foliage above him, the light being turned a soft shade of green by its passage through the leaves. Pavel took a shuddering breath and felt suddenly lightheaded. The air here was pure, unfiltered, and had not passed through the lungs of several others before it reached him. The oxygen content was higher and it caused him a few moments’ giddiness.
He reached out to steady himself and his hand came into contact with something rough and uneven. He realised that it was the trunk of a tree, the first non-human living thing that he had ever come into contact with. The sensation was harsh and not altogether pleasant to his skin, but it was also… monumental.
He walked on, further away from the lodge. Julia had not been lying about the unevenness of the terrain and he was glad for the boots he had considered to be so ungainly, but which he now realised were protecting his feet and ankles from the fallen wood underbrush that was all around. The sun was suddenly in his eyes as he found himself in a patch of sunlight that fell through an opening in the canopy above. With a start, he realised that he was not alone. There, in the air in front of him, was a small swarm of dancing dark spots. It wasn’t an effect of the over-oxygenated air, he realised straight away, but was rather a group of insects, midget flies or some other name like that which he couldn’t remember. They moved around each other in such an odd, angular way that he laughed out loud to himself.
These were the first living animals that he had ever encountered that were not the same as him, but Pavel realised that they were not alone. He could hear chirruping in the trees, birdsong. He had heard it before, of course, but this was the real thing, not mimicry passing through the flat surface of a rack screen. This was actual experience.
He peered up into the canopy and caught sight of shapes flitting amongst the trees there. He could not identify them, not even as birds really, but there seemed a lot of them.
Pavel also realised something else: there were more animals around him, more flies and birds and probably crawling insects in the dirt of the forest floor, than there were humans. For the first time in his life, he was not completely surrounded by other people. Here there was space, wide open space, space enough for him to throw out his arms without fear of punching several other citizens. Here, he was not protected by the press of bodies around him, not comforted by the crush other people, not warmed by the familiarity of the flow along the pavements or the endless queues everywhere. Here, he was free to choose his direction on a whim. He could go anywhere, do anything. It was as though he was the only person alive.
And the surety that he was the only person left alive hit him as hard one of those tall trees falling down on top of him. It was ridiculous, he tried to tell himself, but his logic was like King Canute standing in front of a hundred-foot tsunami and ordering it to turn back. He swung around, thinking to go straight back to the lodge, but it was no longer there. Where it had been, there were just trees. He turned around again, but everywhere he looked, there were just more trees. Something had happened to the lodge, something terrible. It had been destroyed, or taken away or was being deliberately hidden from him. Perhaps that was it; perhaps he had done something so terrible that he had been exiled out here to starve to death alone. Or worse. Perhaps they had been lying about there being no dangerous animals out here. There were flies and birds and worms and trees and so there could be other things out there in the early morning mists, lurking and waiting to get him.
Lions and tigers and bears, oh my.
He had to find the lodge. He stumbled in the direction he was sure would take him back to the human habitation, but found only trees and more trees. Everywhere he looked, there was nothing but trees and more trees. Perhaps they were different trees or perhaps they were the same trees, but there was nothing about them that was familiar. He stumbled in another direction, looking for the stubbornly-absent building. If he couldn’t find it, he would be lost out here forever. He would die and nobody would come and nobody would ever know.
He tripped over something. It might have been a fallen branch or an uncovered tree root or even a rocky outcrop, but he sprawled headlong, trying to take the impact out of the fall. His hands squelched into the soft earth and his shins were scraped. He pulled his hands out of the dirt and some of it came away with them. Beneath, he could see shapes wriggling back out of sight in the depres
sions his hands had made, squirming, hideous shapes. He tried to wipe the dirt marks off his hands, but they remained stained. He rubbed and rubbed against the material of his trousers, but the dirt remained. Dampness seeped in through his clothes where they were in contact with the ground. He shivered as the heat ran out of him, sucked into the earth beneath him. The ground itself was inimical to him. He struggled to his knees and scrambled over to the base of a tall tree, where the roots pushed the ground up a little higher. It was drier here, huddled at the base of the tree, but Pavel could feel it now, the terrible hatred that this place had for him. It meant to kill him and devour him and there was nothing he could do to prevent it. He wrapped his arms around his knees and started to rock, singing a lullaby to himself that he remembered suddenly from his childhood. At least he would die with a familiar sound in his ears.
The Chief Executive Officer of the World Lottery Foundation nervously watched the UN President’s face for any sign of reaction to the footage being played out on the wall-mounted computer screen. The two men were in the latter’s office, which was at the highest point of the new UN Building and therefore high enough above the roofs of the other buildings in the East Coast conurbation to catch the sunlight throughout the day. It was an expansive office, with room for three chairs as well as the desk behind which sat the man who was, nominally, the most powerful in the world.
The, nominally, most powerful man in the world watched silently as a young man walked through some trees before breaking down and collapsing into a nearly-catatonic condition for no readily-apparent reason.
“How many is that now?” the President asked, his voice marked with infinite tiredness, something that always seems to mark the voices of people with great responsibilities.
“Enough,” the CEO admitted. Somehow, he knew that he was going to get the blame for this even though it was not his fault. He was given the details of the winners that were to be chosen and arranged for their transport and preparation as he was told to do, but not being the one responsible wasn’t always a sure way to avoid being held responsible.
“It is now a recordable phenomenon,” the third man in the room, the UN’s Chief Scientific Advisor, added clinically.
“It isn’t down to the individuals chosen?” the President asked with little hope. The members of the UN scientific community were extremely clever people in their fields of expertise and he had no illusions that this was a simple mistake that someone had made.
“Each of them was chosen specifically because of their apparent predisposition towards being alone,” the scientist confirmed, gesturing to the screen, which now showed medical personnel gathering around the still unresponsive lottery winner. “They should have been the least likely people for this to happen to.”
“And it is also happening with the sea platform workers?” the President sought verbal confirmation of what he had already read in the reports.
“The same, but in reverse,” the scientist reported. “The marine workers react just as adversely, but to overwhelming feelings of being hemmed in, surrounded, suffocated. When they are not working on the platforms in the middle of the ocean, they become just as unable to function as this poor soul.”
“This is worrying,” the UN President stated, something that had not been lost on either of the other two men. “Very worrying.”
“If it continues along the projected curve, then the sea workers and the land dwellers will no longer be able to function in each other’s environment. They will no longer be able to meet at all,” the scientist predicted.
“Is it possible?” the politician asked, almost rhetorically.
“It is happening,” the science advisor said flatly. “At this point, it is practically an inevitability, perhaps even before the decade is out, certainly within a generation, two at the most.”
Nobody spoke for a long moment.
Finally, the President asked, “Since it is now an officially recognised condition, I presume that it has been given a name?”
The scientist nodded.
“And what are we calling it?” the President asked further.
“Evolution.”
The Girl Who Talked to Fire
“So, Bonfire Boy dumped you eh?”
Nicole blinked her eyes, emerging from the waking trance into which she had slipped whilst watching the dancing of the flames in the waste paper bin. She could feel the warmth of those same flames on her cheeks.
“What?” she asked uncomprehendingly, looking around the room that was two thirds of her tiny bedsit. The apartment, part of a large house on the outer edge of Oxford that had been remodelled into overly expensive flats in an overly expensive regional city, was the only place she had been able to afford and only then with her parents chipping in to cover the deposit.
“Well, I see the smudged mascara, the red wine, the fact that I’m currently consuming birth control devices and photographs featuring a young man and I jump to certain conclusions.”
There was nobody else in the room. There was supposed to be, but there wasn’t. Neil had sent her a ‘Dear Jane’ text early in the afternoon.
A text! A bloody text! He hadn’t even had the nerve, or consideration, to tell her face to face. Even a phone call would have been less... dismissive.
Another tear rolled out of her eye and slid down the side of her nose to perch at the end for a few seconds before falling from her downturned face to land in the flames. She imagined she heard a slight sizzle.
“Ooh, salty.”
Nicole took another large mouthful of the unspectacular shiraz that had been lurking at the back of the cupboard behind the more palatable cabernets. It probably came from some party; something cheap that someone brought along before drinking the better, pricier beverages supplied by the hostess.
“I’ve seen it before, of course. Women have been burning memories of men for as long as there have been objects to burn. It was a thing long before they did it in Friends. Photography was certainly a big step forward in that respect, although pictures are a lot less flammable than they used to be. It’s harder now, of course, with photos being kept on disks and hard drives and USB sticks and the like. Admittedly they melt, but that’s not the same as watching the bastard’s face blacken, curl and blister in the flames, is it? There’s still clothes, though. There’ll always be clothes and they’re not all that much more me retardant than they’ve ever been. Still, maybe you should have seen it coming. I mean, how could you trust a man who would willingly wear posing pouches like that? They burned better than they looked, but they really should have been a clue to you.”
Perhaps that was true. Perhaps there were lots of other things that should have been clues as well. There had been plenty of indicators after all. He had spent longer in the bathroom getting ready than she did and possessed more beauty products than she did. He’d always flirted with the pretty girls, even when she was with him. She hadn’t been able to complain too much about that because he’d been doing the same thing when they had met and she had been the pretty girl in question. Who had he been with that night? Nicole couldn’t remember. She couldn’t even dredge up a faded image. Had Neil had the balls to tell that girl, her predecessor, in person or had he dumped her for Nicole with the same bald, unfeeling text message? Had that girl cried? Had she burned her formerly treasured keepsakes like concert tickets and valentine cards along with the detritus of his presence such as unused condoms, men’s cologne...
“I liked that. Made me jump and dance, that did.”
...socks and underwear? Had she felt the things, and done the things, that Nicole was doing?
“Almost certainly. I seem to remember burning this guy’s curly hair and handsome face before.”
Neil had been handsome. Still was, in reality, though he definitely didn’t seem that way any longer to Nicole. He was the man who sent her that text, that text that made her feel ugly, lonely, unwanted. How could it be fair that he was able to just carry on, unconcerned, as happy as ever, a
s handsome as ever? He would just move on and flirt with another pretty girl.
“A future memory burner.”
In fact, he probably already had. He was probably dumping Nicole because there was somebody new not on the horizon, but already pulling up into the dock. It was probably something that he did all the time.
“Oh, did you think he was the one? You didn’t think he was the one, did you? Oh, you did!”
She had thought that he was the one, or at least that he might be the one. They’d been dating for almost a year, went everywhere together and did everything together. They had been a couple. Everyone had treated them as a couple. It was understood.
Not by Neil, apparently.
Nicole hadn’t done anything wrong. She had done a number of things that she had never thought that she would do with anyone…
“A different kind of heat.”
…but she had done them with him, for him. She hadn’t nagged or complained, or stopped him from doing the things that he liked to do. She had even given up some of the things that she liked to do just so that she could become involved in his hobbies and pastimes. She had rearranged her lifestyle and her time and had even inconvenienced her own friends to fit in with him and his friends. The more she thought about it, the more she realised all the compromises that she had made to fit around his life, but she couldn’t think of a single compromise that he had made for her. Not a single one.
“The man should burn and I don’t just mean his pictures.”
He might be with his new woman now, the bitch who had stolen him from Nicole with her perfect hair (probably blonde; Neil liked blondes) and her perfect mouth (he liked what women could do with their mouths) and her flirtatious laugh and her flashing, humour-filled eyes.
Taking the Tube to the Outer Limits Page 10
