The Holy Machine

23

Down in the subway there was a crazy black man with ragged clothes and heartbroken eyes.

‘We are all fallen!’ he cried. ‘We are all in darkness. Darkness, darkness, darkness! Listen to me! We can’t even see who we are! We can’t even see each other’s faces! We can’t even tell how far we have fallen! Oh no, no, no! We can’t so much as glimpse that lovely light, far, far above us! We live in dark tunnels. Listen to me, people, listen to me! We are like moles, we are like blind fishes in the darkest depths of the sea!’

As the train moved off I glanced out of the window and saw two men in suits taking the black man by the arms and dragging him away.

I must be mad, I told myself, as I sat down beside an elderly Albanian woman. I could have spent the evening with Marija. But instead I’m going to spend it with a machine.

I could get out now, I told myself as we drew in at Newton South Station, I could go straight back to Marija just as quickly as I got here. I could go straight back and tell her my appointment has been cancelled.

The Albanian woman struggled wheezily to her feet and a young South Asian man took her place. I started to move. But something inside me pulled me back.

The train plunged back into its tunnel.

She doesn’t really like me, I told myself in Galileo Central. She just feels sorry for me. I’m a lame duck that she’s decided to be kind to. She’s one of those kinds of people. Probably she has a whole collection of lame ducks revolving around her.

The South Asian took a computer game out of his pocket. A fat American lowered himself into the seat opposite to me. A silver security robot stared in impassively through my window as the train set off again.

‘Hawking West,’ said the train as we emerged into the light of another station, ‘Alight here please for Western and Memorial lines.’

I don’t know if I really even like her, I told myself. All this wanting to change the world, all this agonizing and philosophizing, all this wanting to get to the bottom of things. So serious. It’s not really the kind of thing that I…

‘Doors closing now,’ said the train.

On Pythagoras Station, two security robots were dealing with a group of drunken Arabs, picking them up two at a time by their collars and carrying them towards the exit.

‘Damned squippies,’ muttered the American. ‘Why do we let them in at all?’

The South Asian got off the train. A Chinese civil servant sat down beside the American.

My thoughts moved off at a new angle. If you don’t like her, I asked myself, how come you’re prepared to risk your life to prove to her that you’re really not a coward?

‘Sorry we’re running a couple of minutes late,’ said the train. ‘I hope this hasn’t caused any inconvenience. This is Schrödinger Station. You can change here for the Coastal and Mountain Lines.’

Get out now, I told myself. Go back!

My brain even sent signals to my limbs to move. It was almost as if a shadow of me actually did stand up and get off the train – and who knows, perhaps in another version of my life story, this is what really happened? But in this version other signals prevailed.

The well-lit train rushed back into the darkness.

You are an empty shell, I told myself, as the train opened its doors on Skinner Station. There is nothing inside: no thoughts, no real feelings. No wonder you go to Lucy, an empty shell like you.

There was a pigeon on the platform that had somehow found its way down into the tube. It went to peck at a scrap of food that lay by the feet of a man sitting on a bench, but just as it was getting close, its fear suddenly outweighed its hunger and it scuttled back again, only to turn again and gingerly edge back towards the food.

‘Take care, doors closing,’ said the train.

And with a strange surge of shame and excitement and dread, I realized that without any doubt at all I would get out at the next station, which was in the heart of the Night Quarter, and only five minutes from the house where the ASPUs waited.

I would get out, oh yes. But I wouldn’t get back on the return train to Marija.

I remember a Serbian woman on the escalator in front of me, telling a friend about a trip to the Beacon.

‘There are lights,’ she said, ‘and strange plants, and huge animals, and even a place where it is completely dark except for stars going round and round… and this strange music. That was lovely: the singing stars.’