The Lottery - Part One

Dragging myself through the cold morning air filling my apartment I shamble into the kitchen, my head filled with mental cobwebs and my eyes still hooded and filled with sleep. It was like this every first Wednesday of the quarter, at least for me, having spent the night before refreshing my browser and waiting for one site in particular to update.

Sadly, I had been forced by exhaustion to head to bed before getting my answer. Despite the late-night I had gotten up at the crack of dawn, this ritual taking place each week the results were drawn.

Making my morning coffee, adding more and more grounds in the hopes of revivifying my tired and lagging mind, I fumble for my phone. Fishing it from my pocket with clumsy fingers, nearly dropping it twice before placing it on the countertop.

As I pour the darkest mug of coffee I can muster I open up my emails, hoping to double-check my ticket before going to the website I had waited so long last night to see. Opening the email I'm met with a small receipt, a series of numbers I had selected myself along with a large logo with flourished font reading...

 

The Lottery

The Lottery had started well after the advent of body-swapping technology, a thing largely seen as a realm of the super-wealthy. For the average person, or even the rather well off, using the technology to get yourself a ''better' body had largely been unthinkable, the cost of the service dwarfing most people's entire savings let alone the added cost you would need to pay someone for their body.

With purchases dwindling as the years went on, as most wealthy folks only needing a fresh ''coat of paint' every few decades, the company behind the technology needed a new revenue stream.

To remedy this a new service was hastily thought up, a lottery where ticket holders would have a chance at winning themselves a new body. Despite their best efforts however, the scheme was relatively unprofitable with nowhere near enough tickets being as to pay for the extravagant jackpots they had lined up.

Seeing this new form of lottery, the Government quickly stepped in. However, rather than shutting down the questionably legal enterprise they merely took it over. With new legal backing the Lottery was rapidly expanded, with all manner of costs being shaved off in the pursuit of even greater gains.

Firstly, no longer were the new bodies purchased by The Lottery. Instead, as a condition of purchasing a ticket, each participant was liable to lose their body to a potential winner. When making an account their body would be assessed for a certain value, weighing the upsides and downsides, before being placed in a division bracket. Where a winner falls into the bracket they would receive the body of someone whose body resides in that bracket, the Lottery being more than capable at 'collecting' the winnings if need be.

Secondly, to keep overheads down no additional paperwork would be done regarding the swap. While most commercial swaps allowed for the continuation of one's life, simply with a new body to go along with it, the bureaucratic costs made it untenable for something like this. Instead, the participants would be expected to simply take over the life of the body they now inhabited. While there was an option to pay the additional costs to remedy the situation, those who ended up in wealthy enough bodies strangely enough rarely chose to give up said wealth in paying for those additional costs.

Due to this exchanging of lives the Government also assisted with the allocation of division brackets, modifying the general value of the body with the state the life was in. A mixture of living situation, debts, savings, education, and more were all taken into account to give a rough idea of the relative value of any given prize.

There was no need for secrecy in these swaps, no requirement to hide the fact that a new driver was behind the wheel. While awkward for those close to the ''prize' most tended to overtly rush the change, either leaning into the life and living it more intensely or quickly reverting to their old ways in a new skin.

The issue of low draw continued to plague the Lottery, though with the reduced costs it had become. Bodies and lives to be used as Jackpots were few and far between, with most of those participating looking to move up in the world and not downwards. To remedy this the Government began to offer incentives to rich and poor alike, though with far more going to the rich, in an effort to urge them to purchase regular tickets. From reductions in tax to fast-tracked applications and passports and reductions in Student Loan amounts.

As these new benefits rolled out bit by bit the numbers of participants surged. As the numbers grew it seemed like more people were eager to sign up, with each new ticket buyer the chances of them being picked diminishing while the pool of better bodies only grew.

Winners of course were given a choice in all this. After their win was declared they were told just who they could become, the prize being drawn randomly from a pool. If, for whatever reason, they did not want to accept their prize they could merely forfeit it along with their win in general. While rare in relative good prizes it still occurred, though it was a far more common occurrence in relative downgrades where the winner won a low ranking prize.

With no real payouts, at least in terms of money, the Lottery had also garnered a surprising amount of praise despite the obvious strangeness of the prizes. Roads were repaired, schools properly funded and equipped, each round of tickets bringing more and more much-needed funds to the public sphere. Detractors soon grew into the minority, the pointed public and visible good the proceeds were causing cowing most into silence.

I had started my purchases after losing my job, the budget cuts at my college being too much for them to keep me around. The slight bonus to my unemployment benefit was nice, though not enough to keep me from bleeding my savings, but the harsh reduction in my mountain of student loans really pushed me over the line. Since then I had purchased two tickets, the quarterly draw keeping things relatively stable as opposed to mass disruptions of swapping every week or month.

As I close the email I received another, the title reading;

 

Attention - Ticket: 5318808618

Cocking an eyebrow I open the email, blinking a little as I try to clear the vision blurring crust from my eyes. Glancing down at my phone my eyes dart over the screen, struggling to focus without the caffeine course through my system.

I barely read the bulk of the text before my eyes dart back to the top, the title telling me more than enough.