Adam Thirlwell - The Complete Short Stories - Volume 1

He passed the next three days nursing cups of coffee in any of the thirty cafeterias in the station, reading discarded newspapers and sleeping in the local Red trains which ran four-hour journeys round the nearest sector.

When at last the Supersleeper came in he joined the small group of Fire Police and municipal officials waiting by the gangway, and followed them into the train. There were two cars; a sleeper which no one used, and a day coach.

Franz took an inconspicuous corner seat near one of the indicator panels in the day coach, and pulled out his notebook ready to make his first entry.

1st Day: West 270 °. Union 4,350.

‘Coming out for a drink?’ a Fire Captain across the aisle asked. ‘We have a ten-minute break here.’

‘No thanks,’ Franz said. ‘I’ll hold your seat for you.’

Dollar five a cubic foot. Free space, he knew, would bring the price down. There was no need to leave the train or make too many inquiries. All he had to do was borrow a paper and watch the market averages.

2nd Day: West 270 °. Union 7,550.

‘They’re slowly cutting down on these Sleepers,’ someone told him. ‘Everyone sits in the day coach. Look at this one. Seats sixty, and only four people in it. There’s no need to move around. People are staying where they are. In a few years there’ll be nothing left but the suburban services.’

97 cents.

At an average of a dollar a cubic foot, Franz calculated idly, it’s so far worth about $4 × 10 27.

‘Going on to the next stop, are you? Well, goodbye, young fellow.’

Few of the passengers stayed on the Sleeper for more than three or four hours. By the end of the second day Franz’s back and neck ached from the constant acceleration. He managed to take a little exercise walking up and down the narrow corridor in the deserted sleeping coach, but had to spend most of his time strapped to his seat as the train began its long braking runs into the next station.

3rd Day: West 270 °. Federation 657.

‘Interesting, but how could you demonstrate it?’

‘It’s just an odd idea of mine,’ Franz said, screwing up the sketch and dropping it in the disposal chute. ‘Hasn’t any real application.’

‘Curious, but it rings a bell somewhere.’

Franz sat up. ‘Do you mean you’ve seen machines like this? In a newspaper or a book?’

‘No, no. In a dream.’

Every half day’s run the pilot signed the log, the crew handed over to their opposites on an Eastbound sleeper, crossed the platform and started back for home.

125 cents.

$8 × 10 28.

4th Day: West 270 °. Federation 1,225.

‘Dollar a cubic foot. You in the estate business?’

‘Starting up,’ Franz said easily. ‘I’m hoping to open a new office of my own.’

He played cards, bought coffee and rolls from the dispenser in the washroom, watched the indicator panel and listened to the talk around him.

‘Believe me, a time will come when each union, each sector, almost I might say, each street and avenue will have achieved complete local independence. Equipped with its own power services, aerators, reservoirs, farm laboratories …’

The car bore.

$6 × 10 75.

5th Day: West 270 °. 17th Greater Federation.

At a kiosk on the station Franz bought a clip of razor blades and glanced at the brochure put out by the local chamber of commerce.

‘12,000 levels, 98 cents a foot, unique Elm Drive, fire safety records unequalled …’

He went back to the train, shaved, and counted the thirty dollars left. He was now ninety-five million Great-Miles from the suburban station on 984th Street and he knew he could not delay his return much longer. Next time he would save up a couple of thousand.

$7 × 10 127.

7th Day: West 270 °. 212th Metropolitan Empire.

Franz peered at the indicator.

‘Aren’t we stopping here?’ he asked a man three seats away. ‘I wanted to find out the market average.’

‘Varies. Anything from fifty cents a –’

‘Fifty!’ Franz shot back, jumping up. ‘When’s the next stop? I’ve got to get off!’

‘Not here, son.’ He put out a restraining hand. ‘This is Night Town. You in real estate?’

Franz nodded, holding himself back. ‘I thought …’

‘Relax.’ He came and sat opposite Franz. ‘It’s just one big slum. Dead areas. In places it goes as low as five cents. There are no services, no power.’

It took them two days to pass through.

‘City Authority are starting to seal it off,’ the man told him. ‘Huge blocks. It’s the only thing they can do. What happens to the people inside I hate to think.’ He chewed on a sandwich. ‘Strange, but there are a lot of these black areas. You don’t hear about them, but they’re growing. Starts in a back street in some ordinary dollar neighbourhood; a bottleneck in the sewage disposal system, not enough ash cans, and before you know it – a million cubic miles have gone back to jungle. They try a relief scheme, pump in a little cyanide, and then – brick it up. Once they do that they’re closed for good.’

Franz nodded, listening to the dull humming air.

‘Eventually there’ll be nothing left but these black areas. The City will be one huge cemetery!’

10th Day: East 90°. 755 thGreater Metropolitan –

‘Wait!’ Franz leapt out of his seat and stared at the indicator panel.

‘What’s the matter?’ someone opposite asked.

‘East!’ Franz shouted. He banged the panel sharply with his hand but the lights held. ‘Has this train changed direction?’

‘No, it’s eastbound,’ another of the passengers told him. ‘Are you on the wrong train?’

‘It should be heading west,’ Franz insisted. ‘It has been for the last ten days.’

‘Ten days!’ the man exclaimed. ‘Have you been on this sleeper for ten days?’

Franz went forward and found the car attendant. ‘Which way is this train going? West?’

The attendant shook his head. ‘East, sir. It’s always been going east.’

‘You’re crazy,’ Franz snapped. ‘I want to see the pilot’s log.’

‘I’m afraid that isn’t possible. May I see your ticket, sir?’

‘Listen,’ Franz said weakly, all the accumulated frustration of the last twenty years mounting inside him. ‘I’ve been on this …’

He stopped and went back to his seat.

The five other passengers watched him carefully.

‘Ten days,’ one of them was still repeating in an awed voice.

Two minutes later someone came and asked Franz for his ticket.

‘And of course it was completely in order,’ the police surgeon commented. ‘Strangely enough there’s no regulation to prevent anyone else doing the same thing. I used to go for free rides myself when I was younger, though I never tried anything like your journey.’

He went back to the desk. ‘We’ll drop the charge,’ he said. ‘You’re not a vagrant in any indictable sense, and the transport authorities can do nothing against you. How this curvature was built into the system they can’t explain, it seems to be some inherent feature of the City itself. Now about yourself. Are you going to continue this search?’

‘I want to build a flying machine,’ M. said carefully. ‘There must be free space somewhere. I don’t know … perhaps on the lower levels.’

The surgeon stood up. ‘I’ll see the sergeant and get him to hand you over to one of our psychiatrists. He’ll be able to help you with your dreams!’

The surgeon hesitated before opening the door. ‘Look,’ he began to explain, ‘you can’t get out of time, can you? Subjectively it’s a plastic dimension, but whatever you do to yourself you’ll never be able to stop that clock’ – he pointed to the one on the desk – ‘or make it run backwards. In exactly the same way you can’t get out of the City.’