The Pubs Of Penzance

Late November 2043.

Somewhere west of Reading, England.

“Mr. Fernsby?” The train guard had already scanned his ticket and moved on. Mike had gone back to staring out the window, watching the tents and rubbish go past as they worked their way out of London. “Mr. Fernsby, yes? That is you?” So why had he come back?

“Yes, that’s me.”

“I’m afraid I’m required to inform you that you’re absent without approved leave.” He turned the scanner around and quickly showed Mike the screen. It had his photo, a lot of words and a lot of red. “I’ll need to ask you to disembark at the next station and present yourself to the police.”

“N-no, no, that’s a mistake. My manager knows I’m off today, tending to a family emergency.” He avoided eye contact. Mike was a terrible liar, and always had been. “He probably forgot to log it. It was short notice.”

The train guard grumbled a bit to himself, looking down at the screen again, then up at Mike. “Mate,” he whispered. “I’ve already scanned it.”

“Can’t you⁠—”

“They’ll be waiting at the next station. They’ll be expecting you.”

“What if I⁠—”

He shook his head and turned, walking away, continuing his rounds. A few stray eyes peered over and around seats, trying to catch a glimpse of the scofflaw making such a fuss. Mike squeezed himself against the window, still watching everything fly past outside. Surely they didn’t actually check on these things. Not for a first offence. Maybe they’d log it, he’d get a slap on the wrist. But he just couldn’t get off the train. Not now. Not after finally working up the courage to go see Lyndsey, spending virtually every penny he had left. There was nothing left to lose. And everything to gain.

“The next station is Newbury.” That calm, generic, generated voice. It took on a more sinister quality, Mike knowing that his fate might await him there. He half-expected it to read his name out and tell him to disembark. It didn’t though. Some people shuffled off, some others on. Mike sat motionless, unwilling to let go, quite literally, his hands gripping the sides of his seat.

The doors slid closed with a chime, a loud rattle and some grinding noises. Was it all bluster? No-one had stormed the train to retrieve him. He peered out the window. No police presence to speak of on the platform. Clearly, all bluster.

As the train began to move, his phone lit up. It was a message from Jason. He swiped his hand dismissively over the screen and it disappeared. That was for later. When he had some good news to share. Something that seemed to be a valid reason for missing work. It’s not like it was exactly fair that he didn’t get weekends off. It shouldn’t even be legal.

The hours crawled by and the train ambled along, his second of the journey, having changed at Exeter. Cornwall looked close on a map, and yet it had been nearly five hours since he’d boarded at Paddington. A lot of stations seemed disused these days. Closed, abandoned, maybe repurposed. The train still had to slow down to go through them, but most had unusually high barriers of metal or plywood blocking your view. All in all it was remarkably less remarkable than the last time he’d come out this way, probably with Elizabeth, probably over a decade ago. The trolly went by and he picked up a gin tinny to loosen up, take his mind off of it. He didn’t know how much money he even had left at this point. But it was now £15 less. Bloody train prices.

Finally, the announcement came. “We will shortly be arriving in … Penzance… where this service terminates.” Hardly anyone was left aboard at this point. Mike stumbled out into the afternoon sun looking rather disheveled, his unwashed hair having left a greasy spot on the window. This was just a reconnaissance mission. If he found a lead, he had time to pull himself together somehow, even though he had nothing with him and possibly no money. At the very least, he’d rely on Lyndsey being understanding of his whole deal.

In between naps he’d looked up a few spots where locals might be, figuring he’d simply show Lyndsey’s photo to people, ask around, see if anyone knew her. She talked a lot about her favourite drinks, so he just assumed she left the house sometimes to drink them. Especially as a widow, surely she’d be using a pub in the area for some socialising.

As he stepped into The Mitre he could feel a few sets of eyes on him right away. It was quiet, and bright. A rough, worn-out look to the place, like it was really starting to feel its age. Chips and splinters abound on various low tables, the wooden flooring knotted, untreated and with gaps between the boards you could lose a 50p coin down. The bar itself wasn’t too shabby, with care and attention paid, the cherry wood polished and shining, gorgeous copper pipes for the three draught beers with ornate logos on each tap handle. And behind the bar stood a rather cross looking heavyset man with a flat-cap atop his bald head and a football shirt stretched over his stomach. This was a proper pub.

“Hello, excuse me, I’m just in from London, and I⁠—”

“Christ,” said the bartender under his breath.

“I, um, and I um,” Mike stammered, “I’m actually looking for someone.”

The bartender gestured out to the rest of the room, where a handful of old punters sat quietly, nursing full pints. “This is the lot of them. Oh, are you meeting your friend upstairs for silver service? Perhaps out on the fuckin’ veranda?”

Mike grimaced. He’d put a foot wrong here somehow. “Sorry, I don’t mean that I’m meeting anyone, I’m actually looking for someone in town. I’m wondering if maybe you know⁠—”

“You gonna order anything?”

“Yes, I um, yes. I’ll have a gin and tonic?”

He patted one of the beer taps. “Pints, mate.”

“I’ll have a pint. Sure.”

“Pint of what.”

“Whatever’s on.”

The bartender nodded and started pulling what looked like a nice amber. Mike tapped his phone to the paypoint on the bar. It flashed red and buzzed quietly.

“Credits only, mate.” He pointed with his free hand at a sign, heavily graffitied and stickered over, the relevant bits still barely visible. ‘NO £ / CR$ ONLY’. The bartender put the drink down in front of him. “You a connie, London? We’re a connie bar. Need to leave else, house rules.”

Mike grimaced again, rapidly adopting it as his trademark look. He nodded and fumbled with his phone, opening his WorksPay app, then tapping the paypoint again. It let out a pleasing chime and flashed green.

“You out on the tidal plant build? New in? You don’t look right for it mate.”

“No,” Mike replied between sips. “I’m just in town looking for someone. Actually, do you know her? Lyndsey?”

“Lyndsey? What’s her surname?”

“… I don’t know.”

“Don’t know any Lyndsey. You lot,” he raised his voice. “Anyone know a Lyndsey?”

A choir of grumbles accompanied by head shakes. Mike stared at the pint, then the sign on the wall. Well, she wouldn’t be drinking here. She’s not in the works programme as far as he could tell.

“Any other pubs around here? Ones that aren’t just … connies?” The bartender scoffed. Someone behind Mike chuckled. “I just mean, the person I’m looking for, they’re… not one.”

“The Billet’s up the way, up on erm… oi, where’s the bloody Billet?” He shouted past Mike. An ancient man with his head drooped low, practically dipping his nose in his pint, muttered back inaudibly. “Yeah right, up on St. Mary’s. Should be open today. Tossers.”

Mike finished his pint, then left unacknowledged into a heavy downpour. He repeated this pattern at The Billet, also having no luck, but was sent to The Goose & Gander, which was closed. Someone in a tent on the pavement nearby thought for sure she’d seen Lyndsey hanging round at The Meritorious, which was up near the old soft play, across from the new dorms, which weren’t done yet on account of all the weather lately. But nobody there knew her either, and by then he was completely soaked through, and already too late for the last train back.

He curled up on a bench inside the train station and waited for morning, finding it marginally more comfortable than the tile floor in his flat. He knew she was somewhere out there. He wondered if, had he found her, she would’ve taken him in. He thought about pulling up one of her videos, to calm him down, help him sleep. But he couldn’t spare the battery.

The first train back to London left shortly before 7 a.m., which, after changes and the glacial speed at which it moved, got him into Paddington around Noon. By 1:30pm, he was slinking awkwardly into the office, looking and feeling like absolute hell. Jason was stood angrily in the doorway of his office waiting.

“I can’t get my head around what you’ve done here. I really cannot.” It was not the tone of a disappointed friend. It was the tone of someone who thought perhaps jail might sort you out.

“I’m really sorry, Jason. I’m so sorry. I thought I had the day off.”

“How could you have possibly—” he raised his voice sharply, then looked around. He motioned for Mike to join him in the office, shutting the door behind them. “How could you have possibly thought that?”

“I don’t know. I’m new to all this. I haven’t been feeling well.”

“Mate, this isn’t a bloody job. I can’t just sign you off on compassionate leave while you mourn your dead career. It’s a fucking prison.”

“I know.”

“They sent me a photo of you sat on the train! How was Cornwall, by the way? Nice little holibobs? The sea air do your lungs good? What the fuck, Mike! The state of you!”

“I can go home.”

“You absolutely cannot. You need to go work, now. Please, please try to salvage this. Please don’t make me have to actually do something about it, Mike. You were never like this at HumanTouch. Pull yourself together.”

He slinked back to his cubicle, stinking and distraught, still feeling damp in places. There were, of course, loads of requests for him to work on, and he found it somewhat rewarding, or at least distracting. Nothing so glamorous as a new EastEnders, but a smattering of random low-effort stuff. He still felt confused, utterly baffled by this. How many other giant rooms full of people existed? He really wanted to know if, when he asked the AI to multiply a bunch of numbers, if someone in the cubicle next to him got out a calculator.

But then one request caught his eye. He almost instinctively tapped it, accepting it. And then he stared. It had the little film icon next to it. The client was listed as Aspirential, an advertising firm he knew because they consistently got work HumanTouch had bid for. And the summary Mike had trouble reading. His eyes went in and out of focus. He leaned back in his chair, trying to physically distance himself from the words. “Create a LyndseyHelps video to market our new sewing machine. Product information is attached.” Tasks populated down the right side of the screen. He skipped the first few, his eyes finding “Prepare virtual set.” He tapped it, and after a moment, there it was. Lyndsey’s sewing room, lit exactly as he’d always seen it. This close, and at this resolution, he could tell it wasn’t real. A computer-generated virtual set. An empty fake chair sat in the foreground.

He winced and looked partly away, seeing enough of the screen to tap “Load character from library.” The usual search interface appeared. Under his breath, his voice cracking, he said “Lyndsey.” The search results appeared, and there she was, part-way down. He spotted her instantly from the thumbnail. Tapping it placed her, after a moment, straight into the chair, the designated spot in the virtual set where the character went.

There she was. Mike felt a bead of sweat coming down his forehead as he stared at the screen. He made eye contact with her cold, dead stare. Completely frozen, awaiting input. Awaiting him telling her exactly what to say. To do some quick searching, to find some inferior sewing machines, so Lyndsey could make her pick for the one she was being paid to shill for. It was her purpose. She existed to shill. She didn’t exist at all.

He was breathing so heavily now. He held two fingers to his wrist, trying to feel for his pulse. His feet got tangled up on the chair leg as he rubbed them together, nearly sending him flying backwards. He scratched his arm, a lot, the skin feeling raw and numb under the sleeve of his shirt. Still, her eyes stared out at him, a vague smile on her face. It was breathing: the model designed to animate, even when idle. It blinked. He jumped to his feet, still staring at the screen. He had to get out of here.

In the corner of the screen a timer had been running, and slowly getting larger, the longer Mike took. It knew roughly how long each task should take an average worker, on average. This was how he was graded. This determined his pay each day. The timer was huge now, and had gone from orange to red, and was blinking. Some lackey at the ad agency was still sat there, watching a screen, an indicator telling him to wait. He might even see the virtual set, with the virtual Lyndsey sat there, staring out at him too.

He moved swiftly past loads of cubicles, steadying himself on the wall, a couple heads poking up out of cubicles to see what the commotion was. He burst into the bathroom, the first one he came to, slamming the door behind him and bolting it. Vomit went everywhere, sweat poured down his face. He fell to his knees, crying. Not long after, he was being quietly escorted out of the building.

That night, at his flat, he packed. A notice had been taped to his door when he finally got home. The reddest of envelopes. As it had not worked out in his current posting, it said, they had generously arranged an alternative for him. They wanted to see this work for him. It wasn’t optional, they added, but they appreciated his flexibility.

As he brushed his teeth, his phone lit up. A text from Kathryn, wondering if he was free for a gig that night. He swiped it away.