TICKET INSPECTOR GLIDEN BECOMES THE FIRST MARTYR OF THE GLORIOUS HUMAN UPRISING

by Derek Zumsteg

* * * *

Derek Zumsteg tells us that his “favorite weird thing about Berlin is how strange the pizza is, which is like what aliens would put together if they were working from the vaguest description (there’s bread, you put food on it and bake the whole thing. . . .)” In his third story for Asimov’s, we have an opportunity to witness just how bizarre interactions in Berlin might get when . . .

Behind them, in the U-6 train they hoped to ride for free, Phillip Gliden hid his smile behind a newspaper. The kids had seen and dismissed him: ticket inspectors wore comfortable warm clothes, sneakers, and a badge on a chain around their necks. He’d worn his nice suit, badge tucked into the breast pocket, and decent, well-shined shoes. And where inspectors stepped out at stations to change cars, allowing cheaters to spot them, Gliden waited patiently.

The rest of the car cooperated, not looking at the inspector or the aliens, offering no clues in their blank expressions. Gliden folded his paper to the takeover negotiation coverage but didn’t read. He knew. He found their kids everywhere, even way out on the surface trains, bright new clothes among the commuters wearing rad counters, and Berlin’s downtown stations were rich all day long with the parent generation.

The two youngsters made their move, heavy-hooded eyes followed by a full-body scamper to just beat the closing doors. Gliden stood as the alien kids warbled at each other, doing a passable imitation of smug human satisfaction, slapping hands to hands. Gliden put the badge around his neck, straightened, and smiled politely.

The car of Berlin commuters glanced over, noticing the badge, and returned to ignoring each other.

The urchins smelled like grilled lamb. Gliden’s stomach growled, and he blushed. This happened to him every time he had to deal with aliens, and it was embarrassing.

“Excuse me,” Gliden said, “may I see your tickets please?”

“What?” they both asked, heads swiveling over the immaculate shoulders of their sweatshirts. Their little localization implants, tiny metal pendants around their heads, had picked up his address and pushed them to German in response. Gliden wished he’d tried starting in Swahili, or Finnish.

“Your tickets, please.” They stared at him, one black eye of the four blinking shut slowly. “I’m a ticket inspector,” he added.

“You are?” one asked.

Gliden knew this reaction too well. Even his boss chastised him for taking the job too seriously when he dressed up. No other ticket inspector bothered. But playing at other people distracted Gliden from the job of near-constant motion, artificial light, being stacked in with his fellow passengers smelling of wet clothes, walking through the faint urine sting of stations beyond the S41/42 ring while the rad counter ticked angrily at him.

Gliden loved the suit. It was heavy wool, warm, comfortable, and it made him look like a detective. Being handsome helped his confidence, and a confident, handsome Gliden could sometimes turn asking a bored woman for her ticket into an initially charming three or four date relationship. Then, her journey over, she would dump him and pretend not to recognize him the next time they met on the train.

The aliens with big lightless eyes gave him that same blank look.

“You don’t have tickets? I’ll have to write you up. Can I see your identity cards?”

They pulled their EU-issued identification from their sweatshirt pockets. Gliden clipped them to his ticket pad.

“It’s not fair,” one of the urchins said.

“No, it really is not,” Gliden agreed, writing the ticket, a fine fifty times the one-way fare. “Though we might not agree on the why and in which direction. Please step off the car with me.”

He prompted them out onto Rickendorf Strasse, where stairs wet from rain tracked down reflected grey cloud-filtered sunlight.

“Do you know who we are?”

“I have the relevant information from your identification cards, but thank you for volunteering to help.” He continued to write as they struggled to find their way back to the conversation they wanted to be having.

“Your suit,” the first said. “You don’t dress like an inspector.”

“No,” Gliden said. He tore the tickets, held them out with the ID cards. “These are your tickets.”

“The paper!” the second one said, pointing two hands at the folded Berliner Zeitung. “Did you read it? Our—” the loc pickup sounded two sharp beeps. “Our f-father? He is in the picture there.”

Faintly, Gliden sensed the next train approaching through the soft soles of his shoes. He tried to nod at the tickets in his outstretched hand, then suggest them with eyebrows. He cleared his throat and gave the slips of paper an even larger nod.

“What if I don’t take that?” the second one said. “What happens?”

“Then you’ll still have a ticket and no instructions on how to pay it,” Gliden said. For years he’d dealt with urchins, punks, rebels, crotchety old men, partisans of the DDR, drunks, sleepless, druggies, the unbalanced, and packs of football fans.

They always took the ticket. They’d argue, swear, rant about the government. Sometimes they’d stare at him and hope to win through intimidation, mercy, or convenient distraction. Gliden waited them out. Usually only a few seconds, sometimes a couple of minutes, and, once, a half hour outside Olympiastadion. They always took the ticket.

Both aliens spotted something down the platform, out of his vision, and began to chirp and wave over his head. Gliden looked and saw, among the wincing early-lunch business people, tourists, and government officials on errands, two adult versions of the grubs approaching. They stood taller, far stiffer, both in council uniforms.

One wore a grey, unadorned one-piece wrap. The other’s deep blue suit was nearly covered with tiny, randomly shaped medals. That would be the junior, who needed to advertise, Gliden thought. His boss wouldn’t.

“How can I help you?” the elder asked.

“I’ve issued these two fines for riding without tickets,” Gliden said. “They’re refusing to take their copy.”

The two younger ones both split their eyes to look hopefully at each adult.

“You must cooperate,” the senior said, in German for Gliden’s benefit.

The two kids closed four eyes together. On the far tracks, a complaining U-8 departed, squealing. The grubs snatched their tickets and left, making presumably obscene gestures at Gliden with their three-fingered hands once behind the adult’s wide vision.

“Kids,” Gliden sighed.

“We’re about to take the U-4, Inspector,” the senior said. “Could you join us?”

Gliden wanted to eat and have a coffee to take the chill off. Hanging out with the lamb-smelling pair would only make things worse. But all metro employees were instructed to be as helpful to their new administrators as possible.

“Certainly,” Gliden said.

The smell of unshowered man and unlaundered clothes announced the groggy shamble of Monotone Max, who delivered his begging pleas with worn, tired disinterest.

“Good morning, Phillip, did you save any donner for me?” he asked, breathing beer smell over Gliden and holding a hand up to shield his eyes from the overhead lights and long tangles of dirty hair.

“Max, can you take the next train, please?”

Max shrugged under his battered overcoat as the short U-4 slowed to a stop past them. “Are these—”

“Yes,” Gliden said.

“Are you a co-worker of our ticket inspector friend?” the senior asked Max, who made a puzzled expression.

“What is happening?” the junior asked, eyes flicking back and forth along the length of the platform and the empty space before him.

“This is a half-train,” Gliden said. “Do you see the markings? Half-trains pull forward on the platform.”

“Why aren’t the trains consistent in size?”

“We should get on,” Gliden prompted.

His countrymen, with admirable composure, waited for the two bulky aliens to enter with Gliden trailing, then filled the car as if there was nothing unusual about sitting across the aisle from sweet-smelling alien cockroach dignitaries.

“Do you give a ticket to everyone you catch?” the junior asked.

“Almost always,” Gliden said.

“How often?”

The tone sounded and the doors closed.

At the other end of the car, with a great resigned sigh, Max began his pitch. “Good morning everyone my name is Max—”

“Max!” Gliden yelled down the car, and the two aliens twitched. Max stopped. “No, Max!” He turned back to the delegates. “I’m sorry, what?”

“Are there circumstances,” the senior said, “in which you might use your judgment as an officer and display leniency toward an offender?”

New species, same tune. They looked at him without expression.

“Excuse me for a minute, please,” Gliden said. His fellow Germans had paid Gliden the courtesy of pretending everything was normal, and he would return the favor.

“Ticket, please?” he asked the person nearest the car’s rear door. She produced her pass while staring intently at a fascinating tour guide advertisement at the car’s midpoint, over the two consul delegates. It showed a bright young lady smiling and pointing into the hopeful future while leading a group of esteemed alien guests (“Bekommen Menschlicherreisefuhrer!”). Perhaps eighty percent of the car kept rereading that sign without looking down at the less cartoony counterparts.

Gliden worked through the car, glancing at each ticket and pass until entering Max’s smell-based clearing.

“Do you have a ticket, Max? Today I have to ticket you...”

Max smiled. “Phillip, Phillip, Phillip. I have waited so long for this.” He held out a validated AB ticket with a clear boot imprint on it. He gave Gliden a wink.

“Thank you.” Gliden nodded and returned to the aliens. They held out BC one-way tickets for him.

“I’m afraid you need a zone AB ticket,” Gliden said.

“This is the two-zone,” the junior said. “We chose the lowest cost two-zone ticket.”

“You have to buy a ticket that covers each zone you’re going through. You’re in A zone now, and traveling to B.”

“Two-zone isn’t both zones?” the junior asked.

“I’m confused,” the senior said.

“Yes, in Brussels—”

Gliden shook his head and pulled his ticket book out. “I have to write you a ticket.”

“Shouldn’t there be a standardized human transport ticketing system?” the junior asked.

Gliden nodded. “That would make sense.”

“We’ll fix that,” the senior said. “I understand setting a stern example with the immatures. Why would we buy a cheaper ticket? Your money has no value.”

Gliden sensed the stir in the car, like another distantly approaching train, and felt his heart speed up. He looked around to see passengers paying attention, watching him for cues.

“Then equally you should not mind the added expense of a ticket.” he said quickly, projecting his voice a little more to be heard, “there are far more important issues in front of you than blaming the ticket system for your purchase.”

He got a few nods.

“It’s inefficient and confusing,” the junior one said. “Inefficient in all ways.”

“If I may,” Gliden said, glancing around again for support, “once you’re familiar with the system, it makes sense. The A zone is the center—”

“If it made sense,” the senior said, “we would have purchased the correct ticket.”

The announcement for the next stop played. Gliden needed to ask them to get off the train with him to take their ticket, and then he’d guide them through buying an appropriate fare. He swallowed.

“Absolutely,” the junior one continued. “Why can I buy an incorrect ticket?” Gliden tried to break in and failed. “Your kiosks allow slow methods of payment and don’t prioritize the queue.”

“Yes,” Gliden said.

“Validation is a separate step, and voluntary!” the junior’s voice crept up and his agitation seeped through the translation layer. “Anyone can attempt theft of services!”

“Yes,” his fellow added. “And then they meet our friend, the Ticket Inspector Gliden.”

The junior chirped harshly twice.

“We like to regard our openness as a strength,” Gliden said, working to keep his voice calm, slow, clear, and reassuring. “As a people, we will follow a just and well-implemented process. Everyone here bought the right ticket.” He scanned the car again with a hopeful expression, but found only unfriendly faces looking past him.

“Excepting us.”

“And why haven’t you done anything?” the senior one demanded.

“I’m trying to explain, so you can avoid this in the future,” Gliden said.

“No, no, no, the punishment should force compliance.” The car stopped, the doors opened, but no one exited, though Gliden knew this was the stop for many of them, including Monotone Max, who met his dates there. A few got on, glanced about, and flinched as if suppressing the desire to leap back onto the platform. But they stayed, and Gliden looked over with gratitude. “If you wanted people to learn the number of zones and this absurd coding system, then you should have killed us already. Are you a law enforcement officer?”

“In a sense, yes,” Gliden said. “Could you—”

“You certainly dress as if you wish to be one,” the junior said. He bounced while speaking, jingling his layers of medals. “Do you have lethal compliance gear?”

Gliden felt himself blush and glanced about. The car looked back at him and his cheeks burned, the flush dropping across his neck. “No. Ticket inspectors are unarmed.”

“But the detective that wears the suit?”

“They’re police,” Gliden said. “And I hope eventually I can—”

“—unlikely!” the junior shouted. “You fail to display flexibility and discretion or the determination to enforce the law with due spirit!” He chirped again. “We should be in detention by now. Or severely injured.”

“It’s not his fault, he’s a functionary,” the senior one said.

“I’m sorry, but—” Gliden started.

“It is still his responsibility,” the junior one said. He hit the seatback with two arms, the trinkets clinking in a wave. The door chimed, the doors closed, and Phillip sighed softly.

“Perhaps at the next stop,” Gliden began, but the junior delegate kept on, making a great separating gesture with his arms, and scanning the car of astonished, angry people. He’s not reading the cues, Gliden worried.

“Perhaps automation is the answer,” the senior burred.

“Take decision-making away from those who can’t make them,” his underling said. “An implanted chip during travel deducts the fare on a per-station basis. Station and car entry require adequate funds for declared destination.”

“You could throttle traffic immediately at any time between any two stations as well.”

No one rustled a paper, coughed, and even the train bucked softly against the tracks on its way to Understrasse (“exit right, transfer to S-bahn”). Everyone in the car looked at the pair with neutral, tight expressions.

“Why would we do that?” Gliden asked.

The junior officer clicked at him and looked out the window at the rushing blackness of the tunnel. Gliden tried to remember the orientation. Annoyance? Contempt?

“I’m sure that transport theory is an area that our two cultures have much to teach each other about,” he said.

“And enforcement,” the assistant said, without turning back.

“I think you greatly underestimate the amount of emotional attachment that people have to their transport system,” Gliden offered. “It’s part of themselves.”

“People attempting to travel farther than their accounts allow would be ejected out of the train immediately,” the junior muttered.

“Admittedly, I like that idea,” Gliden said. “I’m glad we’ve found some common point. Can we continue this conversation at the next station—”

“Where you’ll ticket us for violating your nonsensical zone convention,” the senior said. “Take an item,” not to him, “zone reform, plus station name and numbering system to go—”

“No,” Gliden interrupted. Around the car, people stood up to get better glaring angles, shook their heads, and began to look at each other, gauging their reactions.

“—each station in the world needs a unique alphanumeric designation. Mark the treaty site station as 0. Then each station down becomes-1,-2, each up +1, +2.”

“Station names are part of how we identify ourselves,” Gliden began.

“There will be a one to one exchange,” the junior said. “If you can identify yourself with one arbitrary label then why not another?”

Gliden swallowed. “So Seestrasse becomes AAA plus 5 minus 3?”

They’re never going to bite, Gliden thought. Please, step back from the gap. Look around. Gauge the reactions, see how angry we are. Step back, step back, step back . . .

“I can’t know as I haven’t designed the system yet, much less assigned the final universal indicators.” The alien paused. “I doubt they’ll be quite that simple, though.” He reached up to run his appendage down the banks of medals as a wave of muttering broke across the car.

“We must have geotemporally appropriate station labeling as the basis for any world fare system,” his boss said.

“You can’t remove the names,” Gliden said. “An example! In two stops we’ll be at Mohrenstrasse.”

“Yes.”

“Originally this was Kaiserhof. Berlin started as a Prussian military base, if you’ve walked around—”

“We’ve taken the tours,” the junior one said. “I did not see a significant stylistic difference.”

Gliden winced. “That’s unfortunate. Then the Russians took red marble from the Nazi Reich Chancellery for the walls and renamed it Thalmannplatz, for a communist hero they used to showcase the city’s communist roots.”

“Why is this—”

“Much later, we learn they had a chance to buy his freedom from a concentration camp but didn’t, because he was more useful as a dead icon than a live leader. Then they renamed it Otto-Grotewal-Strasse, for a politician that merged the German communist party with the Soviet one. It was the end of East German independence.”

“I’ve never understood these distinctions between governments,” the senior said. “They’re so numerous, and they overlap: religious, political, geographical—”

“Yes. Now it’s named Mohrenstrasse. Even I don’t know why. The Moors conquered Spain,” Gliden continued, “but more generally it refers to people with darker skin—”

“—ethnic,” the senior one continued. “Yes, ethnic is another category.”

“You can’t rename the stations,” Gliden said. “Each of the stations, the trains, even the zones, they’re parts of the history of our city.”

“A unique geotemporal designation can be as easily associated—” the junior started.

Everyone in the car except Gliden began to talk directly to the two, incomprehensible but all dissent in angry tones. The junior’s voice was lost. Gliden had never seen a car in open rebellion. If you’ve lost Berlin subway riders on an argument for efficiency and process, that’s it, he thought. Get on the next ship home, and take your treaty proposals, some souvenir worthless currency, and your canceled BC two-zone stub.

The car stopped and an expectant silence fell on the assembled passengers.

No one got off, and the people at the platform, seeing the look of the passengers, didn’t enter the car either.

“If you could please step onto the platform with me,” Gliden said, gesturing out with his ticket book.

“Or, to return to the original topic,” the senior one said, taking a gentler tone, “you could display a more nuanced understanding of your job responsibilities.”

And the stations could keep their names, Gliden thought. For how long?

“You understand how the system could confuse us,” the junior added. “It was an innocent mistake.”

“And certainly we could see that your ability to educate and display good judgment would be appropriately rewarded, perhaps with a position where such talents could do more for the public good. Where such a fine suit would be appropriate.”

Gliden’s pulse quickened.

“Or you could be viewed as an impediment to negotiations,” the junior said. Both sets of eyes made a deliberate move toward the rad counter clipped to Gliden’s lapel.

The doors stayed open. Gliden wondered if the conductor knew. He must.

“I need you to step off the train,” Gliden said. “And I’ll need to see your issued identification cards.”

They waited, and Gliden waited. Then with deliberate, slow movements, the two aliens got up to leave the car. The junior began to chirp into a handheld as he went, one eye on Gliden, who wondered which species would show up first, in which uniform, in support of which side.

And the car, his car, emptied and followed them, twenty Berliners of various stripes pretending they had some transfer or loitering they were eager to attend to. They formed a loose cloud around Gliden and the two aliens, ready to witness but not looking at them directly. Some got on their phones, and some leaned up against the beautiful red marble Mohrenstrasse station sign like bored guards well into their shifts.

Gliden took out a pen and opened his ticket book.