The Terminus (28 page)

Half an hour
later, Mr Bellini’s eyes were glazed over and Mike was still talking. A nudge
from Cathy reminded him. She pointed to the clock.

He’d only just
taught her how to tell her the time using a standard clock-face the night
before. A bright girl, he reckoned…

To think
she and those other girls were to be turned into zombies by freaky Atlanteans!

“Cathy’s
right. We’d better be going, Dad. I’ll just have a word with Mum first.”

Mike ran
upstairs. Mrs Bellini was still in bed. She’d been crying.

“Gary’s such a
strange young boy,” she said. “He’s like an old man, at times… and too clever
by half. Why can’t you get a normal friend, Mike? Having Gary in your football
team hasn’t helped him!”

Mike sat on
his Mum’s bed.

“Nothing wrong
with Gary, Mum! He’s a really good mate who happens to be brilliant. Not his
fault. And he’s not so clever at everything. Not into words. Always needing my
help when he gets himself in the shit, too! Relies on me a lot, does Gary.”

“What about
his religion?”

“Oh, we have
great times talking about religion. When he says he thinks he’s turning into a
lapsed Catholic I just tell him I’m thinking of becoming a lapsed atheist. We
have fun together…
and
he’s helped me get a girlfriend!”

So where are
you off to now?”

“To meet a
bloke.”

“A bloke?”

“Yeah! At
Baker Street station. Dad’ll phone the school.”

“I’m
frightened, Mike. Frightened I may never see you again.”

Mike kissed
his Mum. He hadn’t done this for such a long time; wasn’t normally a
sentimental sod, but something inside urged him to.

“Don’t be
silly, Mum! Got a daughter as well now! Thanks for agreeing to take Cathy in,
you and Dad. She can tell the time already… after one little lesson from me.
She’s pretty switched on, though I’m not so sure I want her beating me in exams
at school. Not in English, anyway!”

Mrs Bellini
smiled through her tears as she ruffled her son’s hair, but when Mike had left
he knew she she’d been right about them never seeing each other again.

They arrived
early outside Baker Street station, so Mike decided to pass the time by giving
Cathy a short lecture on Sherlock Holmes:

“He was dead
clever... like Gary! Made deductions from observation, he did… like he got
villains to trap themselves in evidence. ’Course, he didn’t actually exist, but
they put up a memorial plaque for him anyway. Sad ending, though, struggling
with the bad guy, Professor Moriarty, and falling to his death from a waterfall
in the Alps. What a way to go, though, don’t you think? Bloody romantic! All
that water rushing past you as go flying through the air... weeeeee… splash!...
ugh!”

“Don’t die, Mike,”
Cathy pleaded. “I don’t want you to die. In the Hatcheries people were dying
and disappearing all the time. I tried not making friends in the end. It hurt
too much to lose them.”

“Don’t worry,
Cathy,” he said, stroking her hair. “No plans for dying yet.”

None-the-less
he was scared, though if God the man had been able to see into his mind with
that fancy science stuff of his, the bastard would’ve been even
more
scared.
Moriarty vs the legendary Holmes in a final death struggle, ay? Cathy’s silken
hair slipped between his fingers and he gently caressed her, determined to
savour the glorious experience of having a girlfriend for a teeny bit longer.
He prayed God wouldn’t be armed with a mag-stunner, for being pushed off the
platform stiff as a manikin into the path of an oncoming Jubilee line train was
far less romantically appealing than the Great Detective’s final bow out.

A tap on the
back! Mike turned round. Redfor… alone! He was carrying a large silvery attaché
case.

“What’s that…
and where the hell’s God?” Mike asked.

“
This
is your future, Mike. Yours and Gary’s. And Cathy’s. God’ll explain. He’s
waiting for you on the platform.”

Mike’s heart
started to race. A bomb? Should he give himself up to the police and hand in
the case? He couldn’t bear the thought of poor Cathy getting blown up as well…
without him ever kissing her properly like Harry Potter and that pretty Chinese
actress with a Glaswegian accent. Why should he trust Redfor when all the
others, including Beetie, had deceived him and Gary?

“Don’t like
the way you say ‘my future’,” Mike informed the man, eyeing the silvery case
with suspicion. “
Death
can be a future, too.”

Redfor
laughed.

“Stop being
melodramatic. Just take the thing! To the Terminus. The others will be waiting.”

“Others? Teeth
and Arthry? What makes you think I’ll ever want to see any of
them
again?”

“It’s the only
way, Mike. God chose you specially. You and Gary. This is
not
a game!”

“Damned
right!” Mike’s fingers curled around the mag-stunner in his pocket.

“Return to the
Terminus ten minutes after you left. Should be just about right, God reckons.”

“Not sure I’ll
agree to anything God thinks is right.”

“Hurry, Mike!
Here! Take this!”

Mike’s unease
was obvious as he took the case from Redfor.

“Jubilee line.
Northbound. End of platform. Must go and find Gary now. Always told God he
should have made a third pair of time-specs. ‘Two’ll never be enough’, I used
to say!” Redfor chuckled, turned, saw a bus and ran for it.

“Feels pretty
heavy!” Mike said to Cathy, showing off his biceps as he lifted the case up and
down a couple of times.

“What’s
inside?” she asked.

“Haven’t a
clue!”

Perhaps he
might use the case as a weapon against God, he thought, as they descended the
escalator. It was made of a strange material similar to that of the Pentatron
tablet and he wondered whether this might serve as a shield against a
mag-stunner. Or maybe he should slam the thing across God’s face… like sending
Professor Moriarty spinning to his death with one mighty blow; no need for a
mutually fatal struggle. He reached for Cathy’s hand.

Mike
recognised at once the old man with a beard standing at the far end of the
platform. How he hated him… but to kill him? Doing a thing’s a whole lot
different from thinking about it. He racked his brains for reasons to spare the
man as he walked slowly towards him, Cathy by his side. God was old. Nature
would do the job herself pretty soon, time-travel or no time-travel. And Cathy
hated violence. She’d already told him. After all, he couldn’t risk doing
anything to put her off… not whilst they were still getting acquainted.
Horribly messy, too, God being hit by a train, and if the specs failed him he’d
end up in clink and unable to kiss Cathy properly if banged up, and…

He was only a
few feet away when he looked up and straight into the old man’s eyes.

No! He
couldn’t
kill him!

“Thanks, Mike.
Sorry, but it
had
to be you. After all these years, I knew you were the
only one.”

To do his
own killing? The poor sick old bastard,
thought Mike.
No
,
I shan’t.
Not if he’s asking me to. I can’t kill. I may be an atheist, but I’m thinking
of lapsing, so I can’t!

“Why?” he
asked. “Did you force Beetie, promise her something… or what? Gary’s my best
friend. He’s so screwed up now I don’t know what to do to help. Like his life’s
come to an end, and all because of you, you dirty old man!”

“Beetie tried
to tell you, Mike, but you wouldn’t listen.”

“Tell me
what?”

“The baby’s
Gary’s. He’s gonna be a dad.”

Mike glanced
briefly at Cathy, at his feet and the advertisement hoardings: designer shoes,
home insurance and the Royal Ballet.

“What?” he
asked again.

“Beetie’s
child is Gary’s.”

Mike stared at
God.

“You… you
said… at the Terminus… in the future… you said she’s expecting
your
child.”

“Come closer, Mike.
Don’t you recognise your friend?”

Mike stepped
right up to within inches of the old man’s face and those bright eyes that
twinkled mischievously in the underground light.

“Oh my God!”
the boy exclaimed.

The man
laughed.

“Correct! Gary
O’Driscoll. The initials at the bottom of agenda reports at committee meetings
when I was… or
going
to be… Chairman. G.O.D. Yeah, I always knew you
were the one person who might one day help me.”

“Jesus, God… I
mean Gary… what the hell are you up to?”

“Like we keep
telling you, Redfor and me, this is no game. Listen carefully! Take the case to
Arthry.  In the space-craft! The Belindaron.”

“To
that
jerk? After what he’s gonna do to Gary’s… I mean to
your
girlfriend?”

“Arthry? He’d
never
harm Beetie. Why do you think he offered to flog her himself? Won’t touch the
girl, and he’ll kill anyone with his bare hands who so much as lifts a finger
against her! You must arrive at the right time, though… before the Chairman
discovers he’s been betrayed.”

“Teeth?
Betrayed by Arthry? I don’t understand. The geyser wanted me and Gary… I mean
me and you… killed outside the Retreat by those freaky gee-rats. Came snuffling
after us, they did!”

“Never heard
of a double agent? Have to admit gee-rats aren’t the greatest of my inventions,
those genetically-modified horrors! Still, we needed… rather,
will
need…
a reliable source of protein in the future. Like I said, Arthry’s a good double
agent. Only way I could find out what’s really going on in the Terminus. He had
to somehow pretend to prove to the little weasel, Blinker, he’d been
against
us all along and working for The Agenda. Was Arthry’s idea to get Blinker to
rescue you in the tunnel! So
you
could honestly mislead Blinker into
thinking you trusted him. Mike, I swear you can trust Arthry… and I don’t swear
as much as I used to. Belinda changed that. She changed a lot of things, but
I’m afraid Gary O’Driscoll will never make a leader. Not even with Beetie
beside him. Arthry’s your man from now on, though I’m hoping one day you’ll
learn enough from him to take over yourself when the time comes. Arthry’s
decided on the people he’ll be taking. Had free rein because the Chairman
thought he was
their
man. Left him to choose good men and women… in
addition to girls like Cathy and Beetie who were being groomed in the
Hatcheries by Zaman. For the delight of himself and his Atlantean cronies!
Arthry’s chosen a thousand or so. Not as slaves for Zaman but pioneers
for
a new beginning. Based on their skills… their commitment. Most’ve been through
the Retreat without the Chairman’s knowledge… and you, chum, effectively got
rid of my biggest headache… Blinker! Funny thing, ay? All this having happened
already in two hundred years’ time! Even
I
never get used to
time-travel!”

Ashamed that he’d
not recognised his friend straightaway, Mike knew this had to be Gary.

“The other
Gary’s out to kill you. Funny sort of suicide, eh? I came to carry out the deed
myself. Seemed the least I could do for a friend.”

God chuckled.

“Yeah! I know
only too well how I feel about Beetie. Of course
you
would never be able
to do me in. But there’s a far more important reason why I must never meet up
with myself. I’m only beginning to understand these strange forces I’ve been
playing around with for two hundred years, but one thing is certain. Present
and future must never collide. We might both be destroyed. As for killing
me
,
Gary O’Driscoll… the old man? No need for
any
one to bother, Mike.”

“Gary, I’m
getting a pretty uneasy feeling here. You’re saying Cathy and me are gonna whoosh
off to a distant paradise planet in that weird contraption plonked there in
middle of the Terminus. The Belindaron, or whatever? With the younger you?”

“Precisely!”

“Jesus Christ!
So my mum knows too?”

“Mmm! She
know’s it’s for the best. Redfor’s seen to everything. Same with my folks.”

“You met them
again?”

“Yeah! Damned
close to seeing the other me, I was, too. Didn’t like hiding things from Mum,
but seems she has enough to cope with.”

“We’ll no
longer exist back here. Right?”

“Chaos theory?
A risk I have to take, Mike. This is why you’ve gotta be quick when you get to
the Terminus. Why you have to listen to Arthry.”

“Gary… what
about our parents? Mum and I both felt a sort of sadness… like we knew. Why
can’t they come too?”

“I’m
not
God. Not the
real
God. In fact, I wish I’d never even signed things
using my initials. Mike, something happens in the summer vacation. You and I
have our last time together. We go on holiday. Youth hostelling in Scotland.
Each of us desperate to meet up with a girl in one of the hostels, but we
don’t. When we’re away something happens in London which affects our little
part of the city in a big way. Terrorists! Can’t say any more. No point. Some
things you can’t alter. This is what fired the anger that drove me forwards for
the rest of my life… apart from that little interlude of bliss with Belinda.
’Course, someone from the past I’d befriended and wanted to help had to ruin
everything! Chaos theory proved right, eh? Maybe things would’ve been different
if I’d had you by my side for longer. You’d have advised me, given me
direction. You understand people so much better than I do. As it is, we never
saw each other again till when we met in the Terminus yesterday. You go to your
Aunt Mabel in Harrogate after what’s gonna happen and I end up with Dad’s
relatives in Ireland till university. By then, we lose touch. The whole
country’s in a mess.”

Mike’s head
was spinning.

“I… I’m… not
sure I can leave them. I…”