A Subway Named Mobius

A Train Journey Into The Twilight Zone

Original illustration from the story, by Orban.

The December 1950 issue of Astounding Stories contained a short story called, “A Subway Named Mobius” by Armin Joseph (A. J.) Deutsch. To my knowledge this is the only science fiction story that Deutsch ever published. Apparently, readers at the time didn’t know what to make of it. The only letter I found referring the story was in the March 1951 issue:

“...3. ‘A Subway Named Mobius,’ by A. J. Deutsch. I'll let the math boys wrangle over this one. But, being myself familiar with the Boston subway setup...I found it an interesting satire on the nation's nuttiest transit system.’ - Dean Laughlin”

Satire...? I don’t think so. But then, again, Brave New World was considered a satire for the few decades of its shelf life.

The story is a mathematician’s thought experiment. It asks the question: if you accidentally created a closed system out of a city’s subway lines, what might happen?

Before we go any further, a disclaimer. I am not a mathematician or topologist. I’m not able to explain what a topologist studies with more than a hand wave for the math. Wikipedia defines topology as: a mathematical study concerned with the properties of a geometric object that are preserved under continuous deformations, such as stretching, twisting, crumpling, and bending; that is, without closing holes, opening holes, tearing, gluing, or passing through itself. In other words, closed systems creating unusual objects such as mobius strips—which have only one surface and one edge.

With that said, let’s take a closer look at the story. It’s about what happens after a renovation to Boston’s overly complex subway system. The key piece is called the Boylston shuttle which was a spur, I suppose, that finally closes the loop. As soon as the new system is running in its entirety Boston loses a train. The No. 86 and all its passengers vanish. It wasn’t in the system any longer but where did it go? No one had an answer. It was in all the papers. People lost loved ones who were aboard that train. A Harvard mathematician steps in to help. The General Manger of the Boston subway system meets with the mathematician and they discuss, or rather the manager yells, at the other man when he hears his theories. Imagine such a hare-brained idea as a train becoming part of a closed, non-spatial system! For Heaven’s Sake! But the Boston subway was already a network of amazing topological complexity. (If you’ve ever been there and seen a train map you’d know what they were talking about. I have.) It was already complex before the new Boylston shuttle piece was added, closing the loop. Somehow that addition created a singularity, a connective network of a very high order. Accidently, the transit authority had created a mobius strip and the missing train was on the inside surface. It was still there, but you couldn’t see it. Later it’s discovered that something was setting off red lights on the tracks, with no train present. People could hear a train rushing by—somewhere—but they couldn’t see it. This leads the people in charge, including the Mayor, to believe that there might be something to the mathematician’s theories. But no one can quite agree and they dare not make any changes to the system in case, miraculously, the missing train returns from its non-spatial state. It also turns out that the foremost expert on topology is on the missing train.

Original illustration from the story, by Orban.

Months go by and although the missing train is sometimes heard, it is never seen. Mysterious red lights are also triggered by a train that isn’t there. The mathematician is loathe to take the subway in Boston, as you might well imagine. But over time regains his trust in the subway and returns to riding it regularly. One morning he has a weird feeling after he gets on the train. He notices that people are reading newspapers with the date from months before—the day train No. 86 vanished. He knows who the conductor of the missing train is, he’s heard the name for months. So he’s able to address him by name. He tells the conductor that there’s been a serious accident and announces the current date loudly to the entire car, creating some confusion amongst the passengers. He then demands the conductor let him off so he can make an emergency phone call. The train stops in a tunnel and he calls the subway’s General Manager, explaining that No. 86 is back. After a while the train is allowed to proceed—slowly—to the next station where the mathematician meets with the General Manager. Most of the passengers are fine, they didn’t even know they were gone. But some are not on the train when the passengers are counted. Did they get off at an earlier station...or did they make it back at all? No one knows.

The mathematician tells the manager it might be a good time to open up that Boylston shuttle linkage so that this never happens again. But the manager says it already has...train No. 143 vanished a short while after No. 86 returned to the system. And the topology expert is still missing. The End.   

The story reminds me of a Twilight Zone episode which scared me to death as a child—“Little Girl Lost” (Season 3, Episode 26, originally aired—3/16/1962). In that installment a six-year-old girl falls though her headboard into another dimension and although her parents can hear her in the house, they can’t find her. Eventually, the dad goes in after her and pulls her back through the portal.

But the premise in “A Subway Named Mobius” is actually more creepy in certain ways. It suggests that we can accidently change our reality to make it of a different order. The missing train jumped the tracks onto a non-spatial surface and in that weird state, goes round and round the system with all aboard completely unaware of linear time. You couldn’t see the train because it was on a different “side” of the mobius strip. And in the end what happened to the missing people? Did they get off when the train returned, all unknowing? Or, did they remain on the other side of the mobius strip without the train?

A mobius strip

Despite the apparent disinterest in the original release, “A Subway Named Mobius” has been reprinted in at least 17 anthologies since, the most recent being The Platform Edge: Uncanny Tales of Railways (2019). “Mobius” was nominated for a Retro Hugo award in 2001 and won 4^th place. A. J. Deutsch was a scientist, but not specifically a mathematician. He was a professional astronomer with a specialty in the study of “A-type” stars. He died in 1969.

Although people today are pretty familiar with the ideas of parallel and multiple realities, portals into other dimensions,  mandela effects, timeslips, etc.. the ideas in “A Subway Named Mobius” remain unusual to us. Or, maybe not. If we accept the fact that we are somehow living in a computer generated hologram (as was suggested in “The Matrix” movies) then is it so far a leap to think that the model can be twisted into strange topological shapes resulting, for example, in a subway system becoming a mobius strip? The Architect might have been experimenting that day asking—what if? One never knows....

This is the Rocketeer signing off for today.