The Terminus (2 page)

“God the Man?”
he queried. “Weird!”

“I’m R31267…
but everyone calls me ‘Arthry’,” replied the black man, avoiding the ‘God’
question. “This is B49265. We call him Blinker (
something makes sense here!
thought
Gary). His sister here, she’s B32968, but she prefers ‘Beetie’. What about
you?”

Brother and
sister? Oh, thank heaven!

Beetie
blushed, for Gary’s relief when he looked her way must have been very obvious.

“Gary! Plain
old Gary. Sorry, no number! My best mate’s Mike, but, as I said, he’s back in
Regent’s Park waiting for me to join him for soccer practice.”

A smile lit up
Beetie’s face. If she hadn’t been so pretty he’d have lost his temper.

“Good game!
Honest! Two teams each try to kick a ball into the opposite side’s goal,” he
explained with irritation.

“
Kicking
a ball? But why?” she asked.

Why? Oh God
,
thought Gary,
her voice is lovely as well
.

Arthry, too,
grinned.
Human, after all?

“Don’t you lot
even play virtual soccer down here?”

“So you never
met God?” Arthry continued, expressionless again. Gary thought the guy had a
nasty habit of parrying his own questions with others.

“Couldn’t tell
him from Adam!” he replied with a nervous chuckle. “God, I mean!”

“Adam? Oh, I
think you could,” said Arthry, eyeing Gary suspiciously.

Eager to
wriggle out of the bizarre God talk, Gary turned to Blinker.

“You’re
brother and sister, right?” he asked, looking suspiciously from boy to girl. A
blue-eyed blond with the face of an angel (
Jesus Christ,
she’s
pretty!
)
sister to a weasel-faced, dusky, Mediterranean-looking
youth?

“Uhuh!”
Blinker appeared evasive, his eyelids flickering.

“Different
mums or something?”

Blinker and
Beetie eyed each other quizzically.

“Different
what
?” the boy asked.

“Mums… I mean…
oh shit!”

Gone and
put your damn foot in, Gary! If clanger dropping were to become an Olympic
sport, you, mate, would get the gold!
Mike was forever giving him gentle
hints like, “Oh shut up, you stupid arsehole!” Nevertheless, those two standing
before him could not possibly have been full brother and sister.

“Mums?”
questioned Blinker, squinting at Arthry.

“Sort of
flowers, I believe. Before the flood,” suggested the big man.

Hell, this
is getting silly!

“Hey, guys,
d’you mind telling me where I am?” he asked, his blood pressure rising
dangerously. “I mean, why in God’s name did you bring me down here into this
underground hole?”

All three
stared at Gary, aghast.

“God’s name?
You can’t guess?” Arthry asked coldly.

“Nope!”

Gary could be
stubborn. Stubborn and plain rude! He didn’t do diplomacy. Not in the way Mike
did.

“Well, perhaps
we
should be asking
you
the questions. Like why you’re wearing
those spectacles and why you pretend to know nothing about God, their owner.”

“Hang on… I
didn’t steal them, if you’re thinking I’m a bleeding thief!” Arthry’s eyebrows
lifted a mere millimetre. “No, I
didn’t
!” insisted Gary. “About to hand
them in to the police when…”

Arthry and
Blinker burst into laughter.

“Hand them in
to the police? A good one, ay? Must say, he’s original,” observed Blinker.

“What’s so
bloody funny?” Gary asked angrily, his eyes seeking help from the girl. She
blushed again, avoiding his gaze.

“Why should
the people who distribute food be the slightest bit interested in the specs?”
Arthry asked. The man had stopped laughing, his stare a laser that
threatened
to cut Gary in two.

“Tell me one
thing. What
is
this place?” Gary asked.

“London.”

“Right!
London! Kinda gathered that up there at the station. So we’re somewhere in the Underground,
yes?”

“No! This is
the Retreat.”

“Okay! The
Retreat. So what about that flood you spoke of?”

“You’ve
really
no idea… or you’re pretending?”

“Of course
I’ve no flipping idea! Police dishing out food? You lot thinking mums are
flowers? All crap to me! Crazy crap!”

Cool it,
man!

“
The
Flood.
The one that destroyed the world… except for us lot and the unbrained surfacers
up there.”

Gary sensed
the pit of his stomach opening up, as if he might fall in and be sick at the
same time. Arthry’s face hardened. Something had clearly occurred to the man;
something involving Gary.

“D-D-Destroyed
the…?” Gary stuttered, his voice sounding squeaky. “Ahem! Destroyed the
world
,
you said?”

“Apart from
London,” Arthry added. “Thanks to God.”

“When… I mean,
what
year
are we in?”

Arthry eyed
Gary with intense suspicion.

“Fifty-six
A.F.”

“A.F.?”

“After the
Flood. You, with those specs, come from the future. Yeah? Where God was heading
last time we met.”

Gary shook his
head.

“The past… I
think...” He hesitated. “Sure! The past. ’Cos in the London I come from there
are trains whizzing along in those stinky underground tunnels.”

“Trains?”
questioned Blinker, his face drawn into a sneer. Gary disliked the boy more and
more, all the time softening towards the girl who still stared anxiously at
him.

“Same as that
pod thing. The ‘shuttle-bus’. Only the carriages are joined together. Run on
wheels and make a heck of a noise... and don’t shoot by at the speed of bloody
light. Tell me one thing. This flood... why isn’t London under water? Should be
one of the first places to get submerged.”

His last
remark raised eyebrows.

“We
are
under
water,” explained Beetie. “We survive here only because of God.”

“Hang on a
minute. You’re saying this place is under water?”

Arthry nodded
confirmation of the fact, fixing Gary with eyes of steel.

“So, how
come…?”

“God’s
defences,” Beetie interrupted. “Flood defences around London. Built a long time
ago. As the water levels rose, so did his defences. When they’d sorted out
God’s air purification system, they closed the top over the city... just in
time. Before the asteroid strike.” She paused. “But London’s doomed,” she
continued. “So God must visit the future. Something he’d never wanted to do.”

Arthry’s face
changed, revealing emotion for the first time.

“Doomed, like
all of us here,” he affirmed. “Then
you
show up, huh? Trying to find out
how we plan to…”

He stopped, as
if trying to trap Gary in the gaps between his words. Gary swivelled to face
Beetie, praying she’d bail him out.

Christ,
man!
London under water… doomed
…
and they think I’ve got
something to do with whatever’s going on?

She said
nothing, although her welling tears strengthened his growing conviction that
they shared a common purpose.

“Can’t God the
Man
do
something?” he asked her.

Instead,
Arthry replied:

“God said if
he didn’t return himself with the time-specs he’d send the only person he could
trust… unless...”

“Time-specs?”
interrupted Gary.

“The ones
you’re wearing. Things are happening in the Terminus. The Agenda! You’re in
with them, aren’t you? God told me to beware of traitors. You must be the one
we’ve feared for so long. The one sent by them to kill him.”

“Time-specs...
Agenda? No idea what…”

“Don’t try to
fool me! Monsters, the lot of ’em! What hold’ve they got over you, ay? Except
for a possible spy in our midst, nobody here has a clue what they’re up to…
apart from them taking control of the Hatcheries and blanking out surfacers’
brains. So why did you kill him?” Arthry’s hand reached for something stuck
into his belt. “You know who the spy is, right?” he continued, his eyes now
glacial. “Trouble is, my little friend, they didn’t brief you well enough. And
you’re a hopeless liar!”

Sweat broke
out on Gary’s forehead. If only Mike were with him.
He
was an ace
bull-shitter... although Mike preferred the term ‘factual embellishment’.

“Um…
H-Hatcheries… er… wh-what are
they
?” he stuttered.

Acid silence
followed, finally broken by Beetie whose large, warm eyes never once abandoned
Gary. They were his only hope of ever returning alive to Mike and Regent’s
Park.

“The
Hatcheries? It’s where we
all
come from,” she explained. She was trying
to help him but seemed frightened. “Me and Blinker, we came from the same
Hatchery. Brother and sister… see?”

Bugger! Not
related, then!
A strained smile flickered across Gary’s face as he tried to
imagine clucking, humanoid hens scratching away in the ‘Hatcheries’. What the
girl said next wiped the smile from his face:

“We’ve all had
our memories wiped out, so what goes on there is a mystery. Our brains are
re-conditioned before The Agenda lets us out.”

“But how can
you be so sure London’s doomed?” Gary asked, sickened by the thought of such a
gorgeous girl having her memory erased. “Why would The Agenda wanna destroy
London, anyway?”

Arthry replied
for her:

“That’s what
God meant to find out. From the future. Now he’s disappeared and you’ve turned
up instead, from the past you say, wearing his time-specs!” The man threw
Beetie a stern glance. “Tell me this,” he continued. “How can we
be
certain you’ve
not
been sent by The Agenda to kill God and flush us out?
And who’s their spy in the Retreat?”

“No idea!
Anyway, what prevents The Agenda from just coming here?”

“Stupid
questions won’t get you anywhere, Gary!” Arthry stood, revealing for the first
time his full size. Something flashed in his hand. “The gee-rats keep The
Agenda guys away, as you’re well aware!”

“Gee-rats?”

“Giant rats.
Genetically-modified is the correct term. All over the place in the tunnels out
there. Hungry as hell!”

Gary shivered.
He hated even normal-sized rats.

“Wouldn’t get
in here, would they?” he asked, scanning the walls for holes.

A smile
reappeared on Arthry’s face. He pointed to a row of sacks full of large blue
pebbles.

“Gee-rat
poison. Anyway, they have their uses. Fancy a steak?”

“Yuk! You
don’t actually…?”

“Gotta eat
something!” The smile vanished. “Prove to me you’ve not been sent by The
Agenda, or give me the name of the spy, and I may let you live.”

“This is
ri-ri-ridiculous,” Gary stammered, seeking eye contact again with the girl
again.

“I’m only a
schoolboy. Like I said, I found these bloody specs on a park bench and thought
I’d try them on. Look, for God’s sake…”

“God?”
interrupted Arthry, taking a step towards Gary. “You killed him... took the
specs, and when Blinker found you, you were planning to hand them over to the
spy.”

The thing in
Arthry’s hand… a knife!

“No!” insisted
Gary, shaking his head and backing away, his eyes trained on the knife. “Why
kill me?”

“
Why
should I take chances… with
everything
at stake and no sensible
explanation from yourself? Anyway, the gee-rats need feeding.”

Gary, his back
against the wall, had no escape option. His only hope would be to remove the
time-specs, but what chance was there of avoiding death in the present-day
Underground tunnel? Get stabbed or be hit by a train? Beetie made the decision
for him:

“DON’T!
LEAVE HIM ALONE! YOU’RE WRONG! RUN, GARY!”
she screamed, darting forward between Gary
and Arthry just as the big guy lunged with his knife. “RU…
AAARGH!”

Beetie swayed,
her beautiful eyes showing pain then fear until replaced by an awful, hollow
emptiness.

Gary turned
and fled. Beetie’s agonised cry cut him to the quick but he could do nothing
for her. He ran on, making maximum use of his limited soccer skills as he
dodged those in the corridor who tried to block his way. The door to the tunnel
opened automatically. He took off into the blackness in the direction of the
disused station, his anger turning against himself for not having saved the
girl’s life. With a heart-beat fall of running footsteps hot on his heels his
only protection would be the darkness. He threw himself to the ground, rolling
sideways till up against the wall where he remained perfectly still, holding
his breath whilst three pursuers ran past. One held a small torch, its light
dancing. Gary recognised the flickering face of Blinker. Another carried a
spear. After they’d passed, Gary stood and blindly patted his way along the
wall, soon reaching an alcove where he could hide. The sickening stench
pervading the tunnel half-choked him as the voices of Blinker and his mates
echoed in the darkness ahead:

“We’ve
gotta
kill him. Arthry
mustn’t
find out. Beetie suspected, as you thought,
the silly little bitch, but we won’t have to worry about
her
any
longer.”

“Are you
sure
he went this way?”

“Where else
would he have gone, rat brain!”

“Could’ve
doubled back. Might be thinking of trying to save Beetie.”

“Revolting,
the way she couldn’t take her eyes off him! Ready for a return to the Hatchery,
my sister is.
Was!
Wait… that noise! Did you bring the gee-rat poison?”

“Thought
you
did.”

“Damn you!
Back to the Retreat!
NOW
!”

“What about…?”

“We’ll check
the gee-rats’ shit for the time-specs later...”