The Winning Ticket

It was unusually dark out for the time of day: 2 p.m. But a storm brewed in the sky. And the rain battered everything beneath the clouds. We were no exception, my wife, Lenore and I. Strange. It had rained for ten straight days. As we rushed from our apartment—me late for another pointless job interview and her late for a job she hated and that paid far less than she was worth—I tripped next to our car. It was there on the ground that I saw a lottery ticket. I didn’t know what made me pick it up. In fact, I never played the lottery. I thought it was a waste of money, given the odds. House always won or house wouldn’t be in the business. No matter. I hopped in my car and dropped the ticket into the cup holder.

“What’s that?”

“Lottery ticket.”

She picked it up and examined it. “Twenty-thousand. This would help a lot.”

I huffed.

“I wasn’t saying—not blaming—never mind. Just drive, David. Can’t lose this job.”

“I’m trying.”

But really it felt more like I was dying. Everyone told us that we were crazy for getting married straight out of college. I knew it would be hard. But not like this. I had obtained a professorship at a prestigious university after all. Sure, at the time, we lived in a faculty apartment. It was a small sacrifice, so we could save to purchase a home to spend the rest of our lives in. But now that seemed too long.

I had to mess things up with my stupid theories and a device designed to bend space. But I didn’t devise a power source, which meant I had no way to test my theories. When I tried to get funding, I was laughed out of every office I walked into. Labeled a quack by the scientific community, I lost my professorship. In essence, we were exiled from academia.

Lenore was a struggling writer who tried desperately to make a name for herself in the world of novelists. In the meantime, as the sole breadwinner, she held down a job that had nothing to do with her aspirations. We never even paid anything on our astronomical mountain of student debt. But the other bills, the everyday expenses piled up too. Their weight placed a heavy strain on our fledgling marital bond. I couldn’t help but think it frayed a bit. Neither of us was where we wanted to be. I wondered if we still loved each other.

I turned the key, but nothing happened. I rubbed the steering wheel and used soothing words in the hopes that it would start. When that failed, I beat on the steering wheel and screamed to the top of my lungs. It was no use. We were already late. And now I had to spend even more time using my portable jump start box, my band-aid for the dying battery that I couldn’t afford to replace. As I stood behind the hood, rain mingled with tears.

This can’t be my life, God. We really need this money. It would take care of some of these bills and give us some breathing room. It could relieve some of the strain on our marriage.

Thunder clapped in the distance. I hurried with my business under the hood and hopped back in the car. It started right away. Lenore fumbled with the radio. But the channels we previously programmed only gave back fuzz. She nearly turned it off when an announcer came on.

“The numbers for this week’s lottery pick are as follows…”

Lenore picked up the lottery ticket. I frowned at her.

“What? It could happen.”

The windows fogged up. And the wipers should’ve been replaced ages ago.

“5672555—”

Lenore screamed to the top of her lungs. It gave me a start. I nearly veered into incoming traffic.

“What the devil?”

“So far, it’s all the numbers!”

In spite of myself, I got a little excited too. I started daydreaming about the money and nearly struck a truck head on. I swerved hard and tried to hit the brakes. But the pedal went all the way to the floor. The car mowed through a guardrail. We fell in what seemed like slow motion. Then the water came for us. Everything went black.

When my faculties returned, I lay on a bed in a white room, hooked to various machines that beeped and dripped and counted. I sat up. Immediately, a man with a white jacket entered behind a doctor’s mask.

“What is this place?”

He didn’t answer. He just unhooked me from the machines. Then he said, “Follow me.”

I did and we ended up in a dark poorly lit room with three men in suits who sat at a table. I couldn’t make out their faces. The lights all shined in my direction. The man that I followed into the room gestured for me to have a seat. Then he faded into the darkness like some apparition.

“Where’s my wife?”

“I assure you that she is alive and well.” One of the men at the table spoke. But I couldn’t tell which.

“Want to see her.”

“Can be arranged, but we’ll need you to have a seat first.”

I sat at the table across from the three men.

Another of them spoke. “While your wife may be well, the planet is not.”

“That’s a strange statement to make.”

“Strange but true.”

“And what do you mean by maybe?”

“A flip of the tongue.”

“Do you mean a slip?”

“Your wife is well. You have my word that no harm has come to her.”

“I wish I could say that means a lot. But seeing as how I don’t know you…”

He sighed. “I wish that I could give you more assurances. But time is short. It is something that we as a people no longer have a great deal of?”

“A people?”

“Human beings.”

“It’s official. You guys are really starting to creep me out. Let me and my wife go now.”

Silence followed. I imagined that the three men looked at each other.

“Not until you hear us out, Mr. Lensure. The stakes are just too high for you not to listen. For the moment, we have a captive audience. And we’ll use that our advantage.”

“What my colleague is saying is that things like civil liberties in our current situation—”

“What situation? You want me to listen to something? Then say something.” I slapped the table.

“I think it would be in your best interest to calm down,” a third voice threatened.

“You guys are the ones who said we had very little time.”

“Fair enough. We’re familiar with your portal. We’ve found a power source. And it works.”

“What kind of a sick joke is this? Who put you up to it? Lenore’s Dad?”

“Isn’t a joke. The world, based on our calculations, will end in one year’s time. Your portal device may be humanity’s only hope.”

“How do you know about it?”

“We work for a civilian agency, a conglomerate of wealthy investors from different countries. We have numerous resources. Our eyes have been on you for a long time.”

“Assuming what you’re saying is true—”

“Follow that assumption.” The one in the middle placed his cell phone on the table and pushed it over to me. “Just hit play.”

In the video, a man rolled a tennis ball through a portal gate. The ball rolled through another portal gate on the other side of the room.

I nearly cried. It works. My design really works. All of the naysayers were wrong. I felt vindicated. But that feeling didn’t last long. My blood ran cold.

If they are telling the truth about my invention, does that mean they are about the planet too? But if they are lying about the planet, it’s possible they just want to steal my invention for themselves. End of the line for Lenore and me.

“Is something wrong, Mr. Lensure? Where’s the excitement?”

“You have a power source. And you have my device. Can you at least let my wife go? She won’t cause you any trouble.”

“You’re probably wondering why we need you.”

“The thought had crossed my mind.”

“We can’t reverse engineer the device. And we need you to make much larger ones. Once you’ve done that, we’ll also—”

“To what end?”

“According to our scientists’ calculations, an asteroid, Wormwood, will strike the earth in a year’s time.”

“You’re using my device to escape.”

“We’ll need to explore once the portal gate is large enough for people to walk through. Eventually, we’ll need to move livestock, building supplies, vehicles. You get the picture.”

“Assuming all of this is real, I want my wife and our families to be able to come with us.”

“We thought you would say that. But we are building a new civilization, a new society. Only those with skills beneficial to the society—”

“She’s a writer. And she can teach. You’re going to need the arts. You’re going to need people to record things.”

“We already have award winning writers from numerous fields. And we have plenty of talented teachers.”

“If you don’t take my wife and the rest of my family as well, I won’t build the larger portal gates.”

“So predictable. Your wife is safe. Doesn’t have to stay that way.”

Of course, they’ll sink to using her as leverage.

“What happens now?”

The man in the middle pushed a leather-bound black notebook toward me and opened it to reveal a contract. He placed a pen on top of it.

“Sign the contract. It means you died in the car crash. We’ll pay for the funeral. Not monsters after all. It also means your wife will find that you have a twenty-thousand-dollar insurance policy, which has her listed as the beneficiary. It’s what she wanted.”

“How do you—did you bug our car?”

“Among other things. But let’s not get into the unpleasant details of what we have done and will continue to do to save humanity. Cheer up. You’ve got the winning ticket.”

Think! What are my choices? Sign this thing and my wife has twenty-thousand dollars. But I won’t see my family again. If I threaten not to build the larger device, they can kill her. Maybe they won’t do that because they’ll lose their leverage. But there’s always torture.

I laughed bitterly.

“Is something funny?”

“So many choices.” I picked up the pen.