The cameras cut to President Grayson again. He was sitting with a humble look on his face, his eyes downcast and lips pursed together. The excitement of the crowd intensified in both Omega and Delta towers when he appeared on the screen. Zack was distracted by Leonard’s continued irritations with his skin. He had started scratching at his ribs again. Intermittently he would stop, stare at the wrist of his right hand to look at his numbers. Zack could see his lips moving, mouthing them over and over as if in a moment of silent prayer. As Zack looked around the room he could see lots of people checking their wrists as if they didn’t already know their numbers off by heart. He thought of Ronson, in his bar none the wiser about what was happening above ground. If Zack won tonight he would be unlikely to ever see him again, and it made him regret that he hadn’t offered him more the last time they were together.
Ladies and gentlemen, there is no more time for delay. The lottery of the people is coming to you tonight. Tonight one of you becomes the future. You become your neighbour’s future. One of you becomes the winner. Let’s make that happen, right here, right now!
Zack was near-deafened by applause so loud that nobody could hear their nearest neighbour. Zack was on his feet cheering, throwing off whoops and yeahs in all directions, celebrating with people at his side and behind him who he had never met before. Somebody was rubbing his shoulder. The crowd was energised, smashing into each other like charged atomic particles. Fusion. That’s what happened the last time the world ended. A few people began to sit, others remained standing. It took a while for Zack to take his seat on the bench, and next to him Leonard still looked like he was praying. His hands were clasped together, knuckles white, jaw tight and set in place. It seemed like the organisers of the lottery and the citizens of Omega must have expected the commotion because when the din finally passed and people sat in their seats, the programme didn’t appear to have moved on at all.
Chapter Twelve
“What do you think, Zack?” Leonard reached over, placed one of his sweaty palms on Zack’s hand. “Do you think it really could be one of us?” Zack wasn’t paying attention, even though Leonard was shouting over the noise of the crowd to be heard. His eyes were set firmly on the television set, waiting for the draw to start. Once Daley Cartwell started talking again a hiss whipped around the room, and soon all was quiet. There was a ringing in Zack’s head, loud like the beat of a drum, a fizzing in his ears. He wasn’t used to noise anymore. People stayed quiet now. There was little in the way of conversation or excitement in Delta tower, and when suddenly it was everywhere it created a sensory overload.
“Shush,” Zack muttered, patting Leonard’s hand. “He’s talking.”
Daley Cartwell announced a celebration dance, and a series of multicoloured children, red, blue, and yellow, entered the stage. The clothes were excessive, sore on the eye. They danced in lines, in circles, perfectly choreographed. Zack could see the excitement once again rippling through the crowd. People’s eyes were wide, primitive and savage-like. They weren’t used to colour anymore, their palette had been subdued. The desire of the crowd was ferocious and somehow terrifying in comparison to the relaxed calm of the Omega crowd as they sat and watched. They were sitting in even rows around the lobby like a fashion show from the old time, people cool and relaxed, and yet simultaneously on edge, afraid to look out of place. They sat cocooned in safety, their luxury of cleanliness and plenty. It was the people who were the prize. A community that didn’t want for anything. The idea of being part of it was thrilling, like a stimulant more empowering than any drug the sublevels could produce. Zack was just starting to wonder where all the children came from when the dancing stopped and Daley Cartwell came into view, wide white smiles as the children filtered from the stage. More applause.
Two white-gloved and white-clothed workers pushed a spherical beast of a machine with a rotating drum from behind, bent double as if they were worshipping it. They positioned it in the centre of the lobby, and the children who had only moments before been dancing on the stage filled with stars formed two circles of primary colours around the machine. Daley Cartwell announced it as Sisyphus, and the children with their hands clasped together skipped in opposite directions around it which drew delighted smiles and cheers from the crowd. As the cameras panned back they revealed a canopy of green from eight huge trees, rising as tall as the columns of the Parthenon. Occasionally the trees seemed to move as if in a breeze, which Zack knew was impossible and a sign of how intoxicatingly destructive the atmosphere really was. After this was all finished, the memory of it would fester like an open wound, putrefying what was left of his life. He stood up at one point, the sudden movement sending Leonard’s arm flying off to the side. He gasped for breath, panting for air. His sides were so tight it felt like his lungs couldn’t even expand, like new balloons impossible to inflate. Even with all of his effort behind it, breathing was hard. Leonard pulled on his arm, gentle encouragement to sit back down. Zack hadn’t noticed them, but the Guardians had already noticed him. There was a ring of them around the perimeter of the Food Hall. Leonard nodded to Zack, and one of the Guardians used his Assister to motion for him to sit.
“Relax, Zachary.” Leonard returned the hand to Zack’s shoulder. “Relax.” It was the name his parents used. It was the name people who loved him spoke of. It was the name Samantha used. It was the name of familiarity. Of the past.
“OK, OK,” Zack said. He breathed deeply. He stared at his wrist, at the tattoo, at his number.
“They’re about to draw the first ball.” Leonard said.
In his effort to breathe there were definitely parts of the show that Zack had missed because there was another small stage that had been pushed into place that wasn’t there before. It was topped with the same twinkling lights, and the main lights in the Omega lobby had been dimmed. He couldn’t focus on the show anymore. Just hearing the name Zachary had rolled him straight back into a time when he felt, when he cried, loved, danced, and hurt. When he was anything but numb and desperate. In this moment he caught the smell the musky scent of Samantha’s perfume as she slipped her naked leg between his, and her arm across his chest as she slept. In the day she would speak of future plans that seemed like crazy ideas, able to scare him half to death with just the suggestion of a lifetime together. What he would give to listen to all those words that he had once filtered out. Her crumbs in the bed. The hair in the bath. The coffee rings she left on magazines about architecture that he was planning to keep. Now he would treasure anything if it was hers. As he opened his eyes he thought he saw her for a moment, smiling, her image faint and hazy in front of him. Within seconds the image had faded but still he reached out for her, his arm stroking the air. But even though he knew it was impossible, she was here with him somehow. There was a smell of musk in the air, and his leg tingled as if she had been resting hers on his. Somewhere she still lived, inside of him. He always thought there was nothing left, but the energy of the night had reignited something. There were still memories in him, feelings, a passion he thought was lost or taken from him as a punishment and yet now here in this night, with Leonard still steadying him, he felt it. He felt a connection he thought had been burned when the bombs rained down and fire had torched his world and his life. She was here. He was here. They still lived, and it had taken the possibility of a future to be able to taste the past. Perhaps he could believe that he could forgive himself for his mistakes, knowing it was the only thing that could really set him free.