He was surprised to be drawn as a number five, which was by far the highest he’d ever had. When it came over on the radio’s dedicated channel he thought he’d misheard, but the website confirmed it. He knew people who’d kill for a five.
Most of the world was doing the same as him: staring at screens or listening to the broadcasts, eager for a number that meant they’d be among the first. The difference was he didn’t care. All a five did for him was to get the thing over with early, and that was the best he could have hoped for.
As expected, his phone trilled. It was Sean.
‘I got one hundred and thirteen. What’d you get, Mark?’
Mark hesitated for a second, knowing the reaction he’d get. ‘Five.’
‘Five? You’re kidding!’
‘No, I drew a five.’
‘Wow! You lucky bastard! You’re not having me on, are you?’
‘Would I joke about something like that?’
‘You’ve got to be ecstatic.’
‘Yeah, it’s ... exciting.’
‘You don’t sound very excited. I’ve never known anybody who got higher than ninety something. You should be dancing on the ceiling, Mark.’
‘I am. Well, not actually. But you’re right; it’s great. I think I’m still taking it in.’ Sean Needham was his best friend, but he wished the call was over.
‘Yeah, well, that’s understandable. You’ll have started believing it by the time we all get together tonight though.’
Mark would have liked to make an excuse and avoid that. He couldn’t, of course. It was a ritual, something they did after every draw. Not turning up, especially when he’d drawn a five, would be really bad form. ‘Looking forward to it,’ he lied pleasantly.
‘The others are gonna be green about this! There’s no way you’re buying your own drinks tonight.’
‘About eight?’ Mark was keen to end the conversation.
‘See you then. Wow, a five. Can’t believe it ... ’
‘Bye, Sean.’
‘Bye!’
Mark sighed relief.
Not that the phone stopped ringing. Family, friends, work colleagues. All telling him what they got and reacting to his five with predictable hysteria. He tried to keep the calls as short as possible, this side of civility, but they still ate the time. He had to go soon. Any other callers could leave messages he’d delete later.
He flicked on the TV while he fretted over what to wear. All the channels had nothing but news of the draws. Good stories, like his supposedly was, of people drawing high numbers. Bad stories of people drawing astronomically low numbers and their despair at having to wait for so long and avoid spoilers.
The trailer for Deadly Conflict 4 came on. Again. A noisy, fast-cut montage of car chases, explosions, shoot-outs and angry men bellowing at each other. With Calvin Barker striding through it all brandishing an unfeasibly large gun. Mark hit the channel button on a close-up of Cal’s sweat-sheened, tooth-perfect, wrathful face. All the other channels were running the trailer simultaneously. Even the BBC, which danced to the same tune since privatisation. He killed the TV.
What to wear was a problem. He needed something that showed respect for this latest Event, but not so much that it offended his own feelings about it. In the end he chose a replica of Cal Barker’s LAPD badge, a dark blue cap similar to the one Cal sported in Ammo Apocalypse and a pair of fawn cargo trousers like the ones he wore in the Deadly Conflict series. Mark hoped that was enough. He didn’t want to stand out in a crowd.
The bar where they were meeting wasn’t too far, so he decided to walk. Not unexpectedly, the streets were teeming. Every bar, pub and eatery had a post-draw gathering. But you had to book months in advance, as soon as the draw’s date was announced, and even then many were unlucky. So a lot of people celebrated, or commiserated, at home. The world was a party, and Mark didn’t relish having to attend.
Ads for Deadly Conflict 4 were everywhere; billboards, taxis, bus shelters, the sides of buses themselves. Clips ran on street screens and the theme music throbbed from restaurants’ sound systems. Supermarkets were stacked high with merchandising. Passers-by wore clothes and accessories referencing the new Event.
Even though it was evening quite a bit of refurbishment was underway.
Purpose-built venues were inadequate to deal with something the entire population was going to attend, so existing buildings had to be converted, and work went on round the clock. One site in particular caught his attention, a once elegant Victorian structure, long neglected and now being gutted. But what better to adapt, the authorities argued, than the many unused libraries?
Mark arrived at the bar. Unsurprisingly, it was packed. He took a deep breath and elbowed his way in. As he approached the table where his friends were sitting they greeted him with ragged applause and cheers.
Sean leapt up and gave him a man hug. Meg, Tom, Neil, Michelle and Sonia were there, all wearing something honouring the Event. They fussed over him. His back was slapped, his hand was shaken, his cheeks were kissed. He tried to look pleased.
Even when things settled down, and drinks were brought, Mark’s good fortune was still the only topic. They ribbed and questioned and did their best to hide their envy. He faked joy.
There came a point when Michelle said, ‘You know, a five’s probably as high as anybody can get, Mark. Well, maybe a four. Anything higher’s not for us.’
‘Yeah,’ Neil agreed. ‘One’s for all the important people; movie stars, top politicians, celebrities, bankers, the royals ... No way anybody ordinary’s going to draw a one.’
‘Or a two or three,’ Meg added. ‘They put the slightly less important people in those.’
‘The difference is they don’t have to pay for it like the rest of us,’ Mark said. He could have bit his tongue.
There was a shocked silence.
Sonia broke it. ‘That was rather harsh,’ she remarked frostily.
Neil joined in. ‘Don’t you care about the economy?
‘Sounds like something you read, Mark,’ Sean said, raising a laugh from the others. It was intended as gentle ridicule. As though reading was something only a fool or a dangerous radical would do.
‘I didn’t mean anything by it,’ Mark told them sheepishly. ‘I just - ’
‘Hey, look!’ Tom exclaimed. He pointed at a wide-screen TV over the bar.
A regional channel was showing a photo of Mark, with a caption that read Breaking: Local resident Mark Bowyer draws a five. The photo was an old one from his student days the station had somehow got hold of. That sparked more hilarity among Mark’s friends, his gaffe forgotten. They called for the volume to be turned up, but by then the item was over. Now the TV displayed stock market prices, which had risen by eleven points In anticipation of the Event.
‘You look like you’re in shock, Mark,’ Meg said, smiling.
‘It is all a bit unreal,’ he admitted.
‘Get used to it,’ Sean advised. ‘You’re a celeb now.’
‘Just a week to go,’ Michelle reminded them. ‘It’s going to be a busy one for you, Mark.’
He nodded, managing a faux grin to hide the dread.
For the rest of the evening he remained the centre of attention. Strangers toasted him, and several asked for his autograph. Everyone wanted to buy him a drink. When he finally disentangled himself and headed for home it was in an alcoholic haze.
All he wanted to do was get back to his flat and shut out the world. The streets were even more crowded and harder to negotiate, but the cool night air helped clear his head. When he finally got to his road he saw trucks parked outside the house, and a number of people milling there. Moving closer, he realised that the vehicles were TV news vans and the people were journalists and rubberneckers. Some of his neighbours, many of whom had never spoken to him, were being quizzed. Mark considered fleeing.
The pack of reporters spotted him and stampeded his way. Flashbulbs flared. Microphones and cameras were thrust at him. Such was the commotion that he could hardly hear their bellowed questions let alone answer them. But eventually things quietened down and, still tipsy, he tried to deal with the interrogation.
‘How do you feel?’ a beefy journo asked.
Mark thought that particular cliché had been pensioned off long ago. ‘I don’t know really.’
‘Would you say thrilled? Fortunate? Honoured ... ?’ The man needed a usable quote, even if he had to supply most of the words himself.
‘Er, yes. All of those.’
Another hack said, ‘Our readers would like to know what you’re going to wear on the day. Any idea?’
‘I’m still thinking about that.’ Actually he wasn’t. It was another part of the ordeal facing him.
The inane questions flowed on. They asked what his family thought about his five, whether he had a regular girlfriend, or boyfriend, and what they thought about it, how he felt about being a representative of his community, his favourite food, whether he had a pet, owned a car, played any sport, listened to pop music, followed a favourite soap or did his own laundry. Mark tried his best to respond, though he could see they were frustrated by his laconic replies.
A young woman, wearing a dress just like Vanessa Sauvage’s when she co-starred with Cal Barker in Merciless Fists, said, ‘Let’s talk about the Event itself. You’re looking forward to it, obviously.’
‘Oh yes,’ he feigned, ‘obviously.’
‘What in particular are you looking forward to about it?’
‘Well, you know ... Uhm. The story, the performances ... That ... sort of thing.’ He knew he sounded lame.
The journo and her cameraman exchanged this is like pulling teeth looks.
‘Anything else?’ she persisted.
‘Well, I hope it isn’t disappointing, of course.’ Mark laughed, then realised he was the only one. All he heard was intakes of breath. Me and my big mouth, he thought.
Another deluge of questions hit him, only this time they bordered on the hostile. He tried telling them that the remark was intended as light-hearted, a joke even, but they smelled blood. Words like disloyalty and unpatriotic were used. Extricating himself was no easy task, but eventually he fought his way through the mob and got into the house. They rang his bell and banged on the front door for a long time.
He didn’t sleep very well that night.
Mark got up with a hangover.
A small contingent of hacks were still outside, drinking coffee and staring at his window. He exited via the back garden and over the wall into an adjacent alley.
At least he’d be free of them at work, he thought. That turned out to be naive. They were there in force, besieging the entrance, and they went wild when they saw him. It took three members of the security team to get Mark into the building.
His workmates were ambiguous. Some congratulated him in a genial way, others went through the motions half-heartedly. Shortly after he got to his desk one of the administrative staff said that the boss wanted to see him. Not his manager, not his manager’s superior, but the top boss, Gideon Haywood himself. Mark approached his office with trepidation and knocked timidly.
Gideon Haywood contributed to Event mania by wearing a replica of Cal Barker’s shoulder holster, one of his signature props. This differed from the original in holding not an imitation gun but a small bundle of pricey cigars. Given Hayward’s advanced years and his otherwise conservative attire it seemed absurdly Incongruous.
‘Take a seat!’ he snapped.
Mark had never been offered such a privilege before and meekly did as he was told.
‘Now look here, Bow - erm, Mark, you’re to be congratulated on how well you did in the draw.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘But there are certain ways to comport yourself in this situation, and this isn’t one of them.’ There was a TV on the wall. He jabbed the remote. Mark watched a clip of himself standing outside his flat, looking dim-witted and saying, ‘Well, I hope it isn’t disappointing, of course.’
His boss switched it off and glared at him.
Mark squirmed. ‘Ah, yes. I’d been to a draw celebration you see, Mister Hayward, and maybe I ... had a little too much to drink.’
‘What you do in your own time is up to you. But if it affects this company then it becomes my concern.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘You got a five. Know what I got? No, of course you don’t. I drew one hundred and thirty-two.’
‘I suppose it’s all the luck of the draw, sir.’
‘Yes, it is. But luck has nothing to do with how you behave if you get a number as high as yours. Because that comes with a certain responsibility. Tell me, what does this company do?’
Mark was baffled by the question. ‘We make furniture, and fixtures and fittings, that sort of thing.’
‘And ninety per cent of our business is related to the Events. Since the big crash ninety per cent of the entire country’s business is related to them. People have to have something to sit on for the Events and the venues have to be fitted out. That’s how we stay afloat. Lord knows, hardly anybody makes anything anymore, and the service industries ... well, you can forget them. They went down the drain when the financial system tanked. Everything depends on the Events, and that includes this company.’
‘Yes, sir, I know.’
‘You can bring kudos to the company. Equally you can bring it into disrepute. And any talk that casts doubt on the quality of the Event might be considered troublemaking.’
Mark wanted to tell him that he didn’t see it that way. That it was really about being allowed a choice. But he held his peace and just nodded gravely.
‘I mean, you wouldn’t want to be thought of as one of those bloody refusniks, would you?’ Hayward added.
Mark had heard whispers about those who saw things differently, though he’d never come across anyone who admitted as much.
‘We’ve all got to do our bit,’ Hayward said, rising, ‘and that includes you.’
‘Yes, Mister Hayward, I understand.’
‘I think you’d better take the rest of the day off.’ He looked out of the window and saw the media scrum. ‘Second thought, take the week. I can’t see you getting any work done round here anyway. Or any of us, given the interest in you. Only do us both a favour and stay out of trouble.’
Mark left by a back door. The second time in a day, and it was still early. He pulled down his cap in an effort to hide his features and scuttled off. Fortunately nobody saw him.
His flat was staked out and he couldn’t go back there without running the gauntlet again. So he spent the next few days staying with various of his friends. He was able to return when the media, with the attention span of goldfish, latched onto other stories. These included items about people trying to buy higher numbers than the ones they drew, with apparently no regard for the security checks they’d have to outfox to use them, and despairing individuals who committed suicide because their numbers were so low. As the Event got closer things became more frenzied.
Finally the day of the premiere arrived. Mark and his by now highly emotional friends watched the live broadcast at Sean’s place. Several senior members of the royal family trod the red carpet, along with an array of A-list actors, high-ranking politicians, newspaper proprietors, showbiz personalities, captains of what was left of industry, offshore hedge-fund managers, dotcom moguls and, of course, bloggers with enormous followings, who were treated like royalty themselves.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, the Archbishop of Westminster, the Chief Rabbi, the Chief Imam and an elder of the Church of Scientology blessed the Event.
Those interviewed coming out of the Event were unanimous in praising what they’d just seen. That opinion was echoed when the reviews appeared, online almost immediately and in next day’s papers and broadcasts. By law all critiques were general in nature and revealed no details that might spoil the experience for the many still waiting. There were rumours of sites on the dark web that illegally deviated and were critical, but no one took any notice of them.
So it went as the thousands who drew two, three and four were ushered in to
numerous venues to do their civic duty, and Mark found himself on the eve of the fives. His gloom increasing, he thought of pretending illness. But he knew that only the chronically sick got away with that, and even then they participated via special screenings in their hospitals, retirement homes and hospice wards.
He resigned himself to his fate.
Everyone was obliged to attend the Events. It hadn’t actually been made mandatory as the societal pressure to attend was too intense to resist. In any case compulsion was thought unnecessary as the vast majority of people were believers. Political manipulation and a compliant media made sure of that. Consequently, staging the Events was a massive logistical exercise.
The draws, based on everyone’s national insurance numbers, professed to be honest. That was true to an extent. But there was “management”, to use the official euphemism, in that the great and the good stood outside the procedure and were guaranteed to be allocated a one. The less great and not quite so good could count on a two or three. In that way it was not unlike the honours system.
Mark was one of many thousands who were drawn as a five in his region alone. So the fives, like every other number, were divided into shifts running from early morning to late at night. Early morning was deemed to mean just that: one minute past midnight. He could have been required to show up at something like 3am, but by luck his slot was two in the afternoon.
He was up extra early, after another restless night. For days he’d wrestled with the problem of what to wear. Reluctantly he accepted that he couldn’t get away with a few ill-matched accessories this time. Not after his televised howler. Somebody was bound to remember that and drag it all up again. So he’d visited one of the numerous Event costumers.
When it came to dress there was a kind of etiquette. You were expected to wear something that alluded to the current Event. But it was acceptable to reference a past Event if there was a connection with the present one, like the same star. So he decided on the lightweight spacesuit Cal Barker wore in the
science fiction/supernatural crossover Death in Venus. He rounded off the outfit
with a plastic plasma rifle slung over his shoulder. A last check in the hall mirror confirmed that he looked suitably ridiculous.
Nobody on the streets took the slightest notice of him. Or of any of the hundreds of clone cops, secret agents, private investigators, cowboys, helicopter pilots, cyborgs and a score of other characters. Even the driver of the bus Mark caught was wearing a Stetson.
There were long queues at the venue, partly due to the numbers but mostly because of the identity checks they all had to undergo. Fingerprints were taken and retinas verified, and there were body searches for mobile phones and any other forbidden recording devices.
Once that was over, the stiff price of admission was automatically taken from attendees’ bank accounts, or in the case of the impoverished, deducted from benefits payments. Events income was divided between the copyright owners, which is to say the studios, and the government in the form of a fifty per cent tax, providing the Treasury with an enormous windfall. Their coffers were further swelled by earnings from merchandising, the subsequent DVD and download sales, and TV rights.
Already wearied, and poorer, Mark finally made it into the spacious foyer. As five was a high number there were some supposed celebrities present. He saw a couple of local TV presenters, a weathergirl, the mayor and several councillors. A few Z-list film actors were present, too, firing air kisses at each other. One in particular caught his eye, a performer who was to resting what Rip Van Winkle was to cat naps. And rumour had it that a minor royal was attending, thirty something in line to the throne, but there was no sign of him. Mark didn’t see any real people he knew. Nor did he see anyone below the age of twelve. Kids younger than that were herded into children’s screenings, for which their parents were charged. The baffled youngsters were shown heavily edited versions, in the case of adult offerings, which usually made the films incomprehensible.
A bell rang, signalling the performance. Shunning the collectables and popcorn in tubs the size of dustbins, Mark trudged into the auditorium like a condemned man.
The audience looked like the world’s biggest fancy dress party, albeit a party at which everyone was seated. Mark was wedged between a man and a woman who both, like him, paid homage to past Cal Barker movies. The man was dressed as the vengeful oil rig worker from Drill ‘Em All! The woman had cast herself as the zany but plucky girlfriend in I Kick Your Corpse. They were very excited. Oil rig man rocked back and forth in his seat, a beatific grin on his face. Kooky girlfriend, hands clenched tightly, mumbled ‘Can’t wait, can’t wait, can’t wait ... ’ over and over again. Mark thought she might wet herself.
The auditorium’s lights dimmed. A murmur of thrilled anticipation rippled through the audience, cut short by thunderously loud music heralding interminable ads and trailers.
At last the moment came. The lights went out completely, the screen stretched itself, the spectacle unfolded.
It was everything he expected. The anguished ex-vet hero cop who’d conquered a drink problem and broke all the rules, his murdered partner, his estranged wife, his world-weary but wise mentor, the permanently furious black precinct captain, the gratuitously sadistic villain, the minions who were lousy shots even at point blank range, the crooked politician in cahoots with the baddies, the hooker with a heart, the comedic stool-pigeon, the sardonic medical examiner, the sceptical DA ...
Twenty minutes in, Mark was wishing that his plasma rifle was real. Ten minutes after that he was fighting to stay awake. Having foreseen the very real possibility of nodding off, and imagining the unpleasant consequences if he did, he had made provision. Carefully he unzipped a side pocket and found the sharp pin. He clenched it in his fist, and every time he felt his eyelids drooping he squeezed, piercing his palm. There would be a small amount of blood, but he’d also brought a handkerchief to wrap round his hand. Anyone seeing it would think it was part of his tribute costume.
So it was that he stayed more or less conscious to endure an eternity of formulaic, quip laden death and mayhem, betrayal and heroism. The audience helped keep him awake too, with their boos, cheers, laughter and extravagant gasps.
Mark’s relief when it was all over was indescribable. Filing out, he did his best to imitate the half manic smile everybody else was displaying.
He had hoped to sneak off. That was not to be. A phalanx of journalists infested the exits, doing vox pops.
One of them pointed a microphone at him. ‘Tell me, sir, what’s your reaction?’
‘Words fail me,’ he told him. ‘It was ... quite an experience.’
He quickly moved on, apparently without being recognised. There was no lingering on the way home, not even for a badly needed drink. He just wanted to get away.
A bill was going through Parliament to prevent what he was about to do, and now that the Human Rights Act had been abolished he knew the risk he was running. But he had to purge what he’d just seen.
When he got in he locked the door, drew the curtains and switched off his phone. Then he stripped and dropped the costume into the waste bin in the kitchen, along with the toy rifle. All the while he thought about those refusniks, and that maybe he’d try to find out more about them. But not now.
He took a chair and placed it by his wardrobe. Climbing, he reached to the back, and under a bundle of bedding found a box. Inside was an object wrapped in a scarlet cloth, which he removed.
Crossing the room, he sank into his armchair and, drink in hand, began to read the book.