by Oliver EADE
“…your preparatory lesson, Belinda. You’ve been such a good girl. I’ll tell you everything. Soon I’m going to make you so very happy!”
“With those bloody teeth? Come off it!”
“Shhhh!”
“Yes, your preparatory lesson! You see, it’ll be like this…”
Both boys leaned forwards, staring in anticipation, listening to every word, hoping to find out what mystery lay beyond the door to the Terminus. Ten minutes later when the goofy face had vanished, the Chairman’s ‘lesson’ over, Mike was still gaping at the screen. He remained rigid, his hands tight balls of knuckle, his features distorted by revulsion.
“I’ll kill the bastard… and any other Atlantis creep I can lay my hands on. Kill the lot of ’em! I swear it!” He turned towards the girl on the bed. “One of us must stay on guard all the time. Mustn’t let the rodent-toothed sugar daddies get anywhere near her… or the others.”
Mike couldn’t remember when he’d last experienced true anger. It wasn’t in his nature. Overwhelmed by this volcano of fury, he was unable to think clearly. Even Blinker appeared disturbed. Perhaps he truly had no idea this was what The Agenda had been planning... a sex orgy in a mock-up paradise.
“Whatever my sister says about me, I wouldn’t wish this on her,” he said.
“The buggers will’ve gone back for Beetie. Teeth, Arthry… the whole bloody lot of ’em. Hold hands, and they can travel together. They’ll kill Gary, bring her to the Terminus and…”
“Windows!” The girl on the bed said. “Keep away from windows!”
Mike’s eyebrows lifted.
“She spoke! Windows? Microsoft? Is Bill Gates still knocking around?”
Blinker seemed unduly nervous, but his twitching face gave away nothing.
“Never by the windows,” repeated the girl, smiling stupidly.
***
“Yuk!” exclaimed Gary as Beetie, laughing, smeared a handful of dirt over his face.
“To complete the image!” she explained.
They were standing at the top of Hampstead Heath looking beyond the trees across twenty-first century London spread out before them to a hazy horizon… a carpet of human achievement, of cumulative twenty-first century technology, and as fragile as a bone china plate.
Beetie wiped her hands clean on Gary’s tramp suit.
“Thanks!” he said. “Always wondered what it feels like to be a tramp... a gentleman of the road.”
“Gentleman?”
“Yeah! In his own funny way Seamus O’Malley is a gentleman. He doesn’t want you to come to any harm… whether or not he honestly believes you are the Holy Virgin. Prepared to put himself out for you. That’s being a gentleman.” A shadow of doubt darkened his face. “Beetie, be honest with me. You were terrified when I found you. Did anyone touch you, hurt you… do anything bad to you in the Hatcheries? Please be open.”
Whatever answer she’d already given him, the thought that she had been molested refused to leave his mind alone. Her innocence was a fragile thing, like the city before them. But Beetie kept silent, appearing to absorb every detail of present-day London, and Gary could not take his eyes off her.
“You won’t return me to the future, will you?” she finally asked. “Be honest with me, too.”
“When I came to fetch you the only thing on my mind was to bring you here. Get you out of harm’s way. Give you a new life. But now? It’s all going pear-shaped, with Arthry coming after you like this.”
“Pear-shaped?”
“An expression of ours. Means ‘not as it should be’. A pear’s a funny-shaped fruit, see. Comes from a tree… but tastes pretty good.”
“Better than pizza?”
Gary chuckled.
“Different! Look Beetie, I’m sure God meant us to come together. He knew Teeth had dark plans for you… for those other girls as well, I reckon… and for some odd reason he chose me to rescue you. Only can I be certain the Chairman’s not done... well... erm…?”
You arsehole, Gary, he thought. You’ve gotta get lessons in talking from Mike some day!
“You mean what the Chairman was telling me about in that lesson? Gary, I’ll only ever allow you to do such things to me. No one else!”
Beetie reached across and took Gary’s hand.
Is she a virgin? Oh God, please make it true, the boy prayed in his head. She doesn’t have to be the Holy Virgin. Just untouched... and pure.
He would’ve suggested they lose their virginity together on Hampstead Heath, there and then, if it wasn’t for Seamus O’Malley’s smelly suit.
“There’s all the other business too,” he continued, giving Beetie’s hand a gentle squeeze. “Surfacers… whoever they are… no children… not even in the Hatcheries… and tubes sucking stuff from the heads of those poor bastards before they get chopped up for gee-rat food... and now Mike! They’ve got his time-specs. And the Pentatron tablet. Lord knows what the stupid thing has to do with Teeth and his harem. Beetie, I’ve gotta go back to the future. To the Terminus. Somehow I don’t think God, the real one… in heaven, that is… reckoned on things ending here in the present with you and me living happily ever after. Life’s not like that. Anyway, you’re no longer safe. Present day London could be alive with Agenda spies. A whole bunch of them could’ve travelled back in time. We’ve gotta stop this whole thing. Get Mike back. Defeat Teeth. Together!”
Beetie gripped Gary’s hand more tightly but said nothing.
“Remember how we communicated in the Underground tunnel of the future by squeezing each other’s hands?” Gary asked.
For a while Beetie remained silent. She stood and gazed at the city that should become her present, periodically giving Gary’s hand a soft squeeze, as if she wanted to say something but couldn’t find the right words... or the words were just too awful.
“I promise he didn’t touch me like that,” she said at last. “I’d rather kill myself than let him. That lesson of his… if… if you hadn’t been in my head I would’ve killed myself.”
“How?”
“Shuttle-bus. Nothing survives being hit by a shuttle bus.”
“I’ll have to stay in your head then!” He caressed her hair. “Always! I promise I’ll not leave you again.”
“Seamus O’Malley, that tramp gentleman... he talked funny,” Beetie observed changing the subject.
“How dare you!” exclaimed Gary in mock offence. “That’s a good Irish accent. My Granddad came from Ireland. To be sure, he did!”
“Granddad? Dad? It’s all so… so strange. The Chairman said what he was showing me would one day make me a…”
She stopped short, as though she couldn’t bring herself to say the word.
“The filthy shit!” exclaimed Gary.
“‘We’ll start new life together’, he said.”
Gary noticed anger burning in her eyes, too.
“Of course! You… and those other girls. He’s chosen you, and it’s pretty obvious why, but don’t you see? He wants to start a new colony. In the Terminus. Arthry told me about London being doomed… as if he cares! Remember? Maybe the Terminus will somehow be protected. Perhaps it’s been turned into a kinda virtual reality paradise. Fake mountains and waterfalls and flowers… even forests. P’raps the Pentatron tablet holds some scientific clue.”
“Everything looked so beautiful on the computer screen, Gary. I used to think to myself, if only I could go to the Terminus on my own with you inside my head. It was horrible having to pretend all the time. To her. The warden. Pretend I was a good and dutiful girl and would obey the Chairman because I knew she’d have taken me back to the grey building given the slightest chance. She hated me.”
“And you really don’t know why?”
“Wanted my clothes, maybe?”
“Hardly, Beetie. The Chairman. She wanted the Chairman. Jealous of you... of your looks.”
“Jealous?”
“Many women would be. Like I told Seamus O’Malley, you’re pretty special,
Beetie.”
The girl laughed.
“Like de Holy Virgin?” she mimicked.
“Hey… a good imitation! We’ll make a colleen out of you yet!”
“Who is the Holy Virgin, Gary?”
“No religion at all in the future, ay?” Beetie stared quizzically at the boy. “Here… in this present… God’s not a person. He’s... well, everywhere. A spirit. He sees us, knows what we’re up to, only we can’t see Him. Only communicate to Him through what’s called ‘prayer’. In our heads, sometimes.”
“Like you were in my head? I spoke with you all the time.”
“Not quite the same, Beetie,” replied Gary, embarrassed by the blasphemy of her suggestion. “We believe – those of us who do believe – He controls everything. Our destinies. Only you’ve got choices, too. Where you go in the end depends on how you choose. Teeth and his cronies, they’ll go to hell. For what they did to you… and what they’re doing to London and its people of the future.”
“Hell?”
“The opposite to heaven... to paradise. Bit like the grey building.”
“Yuk! But you still haven’t told me about the Holy Virgin! What’s so special about her?”
“Different types of religion in the London you see out there, Beetie. All see God and stuff in different ways. My granddad being Irish, our family’s Catholic. The Holy Virgin, she’s important in our faith. The Catholic faith.”
“Faith?”
“What you believe in… if you do. Not sure I do now, though. See, we believe God gave the world a son… part man, part God… a long time ago. The Holy Virgin was His human mum so she’s special. Her son was sent to guide the people of the world. Get them to do things to help make paradise a reality... in the place of hell.”
“Sounds complicated.”
“Sure is! And there’s lots of other religions all with different beliefs.”
“I often wondered whether I met God once. Our God. When I was in the Hatcheries the first time. When I was a little person. Before my memory got wiped out. Only they…”
Beetie paused.
“What?”
“They couldn’t completely wipe out my memory this time, despite all those injections from the warden. Because you were inside me. It’s true! When I saw you again, and you were for real, things began to come back to me. Slowly. And I’m wondering… about the God thing...”
“Of course, Beetie!” interrupted Gary. “It’s so damned obvious! We’ll use him!”
“Who?”
“Your God. To get to Mike. Bring him back. I’m not taking you to the future again… not with Teeth still around, and I’m not leaving you alone here either. We can get to him through Redfor… and I don’t believe the baloney about God not wanting to see me. Just Redfor trying to keep us apart for some reason. Maybe he’s a kinda double agent, the bastard.”
“Baloney?”
“Means rubbish. Stuff and nonsense.”
“You’ll need to teach me the strange English of the past!”
“Irish... I think! But yeah, you’ve a lot to learn. I was hoping to bring you along to my school, but not now… with me being wanted by the police and all that.”
Gary glanced at his watch. Nearly six o’clock.
“She’ll turn up! Dad’ll try to stop her, but she’ll show. Mums do anything for you.”
Beetie followed him across the road to the pond and they waited in silence. Gary, repellently conspicuous in his vagabond outfit, cast nervous glances in all directions whilst fingering the mag-stunner hidden in the pocket of the Irishman’s ill-fitting trousers.
***
“She’s trying to tell us something, Blinker. I mean ‘keep away from windows’ is pretty specific, isn’t it? What windows? Where?”
Mike stood studying the strange girl sitting on the bed.
Have to think of a name for her. Not ‘Belinda’. Too old-fashioned, anyway. How about Cathy? She looks like a Cathy!
“Her name’s Cathy,” he told Blinker.
“Cathy? Means nothing to me, but okay... Cathy’ll do fine. Mike, why don’t I sit and chat to her. See if she comes out with anything else. She might be less intimidated with only one of us… and perhaps she finds your hairstyle a bit odd.”
“My hairstyle odd?” Mike smoothed down his Italian locks.
“You could check on the other girls. Find some food. See what’s happening outside.”
“Can I trust you alone with Cathy, mate?” He winked. Blinker’s vacuous expression unnerved him. “Sorry! Just joking! Gary always says to take no notice of me… until he wants me to get him out of some mess or other. Sure! I’ll check on the others. Some thief from ancient Atlantis could have…”
“Windows,” repeated Cathy. “Don’t look out of the windows.”
“What windows?” Mike asked. “Nothing to see from here, anyway. Is it the Terminus you’re on about?”
“Never look out of the windows until told to!”
“What’s the bleeding point in having windows if you don’t use ’em. Sorry, Cathy! ’Scuse the vocab! Oh, try and get some sense from the girl, Blinker.”
Leaving the door wedged open with an item of feminine underclothing he found in a drawer, he went out into the corridor. The courtyard was still deserted and Mike knew something was horribly wrong... like Cathy going on about ‘windows’ and Blinker being so unfazed, despite having more than proved his loyalty to God the Man. Maybe cocooned from reality for too long... little life experience... no street cred... or even a bit thick? Difficult to fathom, this boy from the future, but he, Mike Bellini, would have to do the thinking for both of them.
What about the girls? Drugged, no doubt, but why on earth had they been left alone in the courtyard? Where had those scheming bastards, Arthry and Teeth, gone? How come a hoard of machete-swinging surfacers vanished within minutes, leaving only bloodied prints in the yard? Too many questions danced around inside his head.
Following Blinker’s suggestion, he proceeded to check on the girls. The first cell was empty and he’d personally ushered a girl into the room! Perturbed, he tried the next one… and the next… and the next. All empty! The entire row... girls gone! They could never have taken off on their own. It seemed someone was playing a game with him. He returned to the room marked ‘Belinda’, half-expecting Blinker and Cathy also to have vanished.
“Disappeared!” Mike announced. “They’ve all bloody gone, Shruggie! Done a flipping offsky without even a ‘thank you’! D’you think the geezers with the muscles stole ’em?”
Blinker shrugged his shoulders.
“Wasn’t much point in bringing them all here, anyway,” he said lamely. “They’ll only slow us down if we need to make a quick getaway.”
“Anything more from Little Miss Talkative? Any reason why she’s going on about windows? We should get her an OED, you know. Dictionary. Teach her a few more words. Expand her vocab!”
The other boy’s eyebrows shifted; barely noticeably, but enough to inform Mike that Blinker was irritated by his prattle. He often got a similar sign from Gary.
“Not a word!” replied Blinker.
“Hey… those marks on Cathy’s arm!” remarked Mike. “A lad in the park back home once had the same thing. He was into drugs. Could be how she got doped.”
“What marks? Dunno what you’re talking about, Mike.”
But Cathy seemed different. More spaced out when Blinker raised her limp arm to check.
“At the elbow!” insisted Mike. “Needle marks. There! Didn’t notice ’em before, but...” Mike’s verbal flow stopped. A pin-head of fresh blood showed on one of the marks. “... they’ve gotta be needle marks. And fresh! From what they doped her with.”
Blinker let the girl’s arm hang limply.
Fresh blood? Even I know blood clots within five minutes.
“Expect the other girls decided to go for a walk,” Blinker remarked, changing the subject. “Taken the shuttle-bus or something.”
“To the Te
rminus? Where it all ends? End of the line? It’s what ‘Terminus’ means. Why would they have left Cathy behind? Anyway, these doors don’t open from the inside.”
Mike scowled at Blinker, awaiting an explanation for the girl’s needle marks.
“Only those authorised by The Agenda can ever reach the Terminus.”
Blinker seemed distant... or was he, Mike, changing?
Creepy place like this is bound to change a bloke... get to him sooner or later. And perhaps blood takes longer to clot under the sea or in the future?
“So, we just sit here till I get inspiration, ay?” Mike suggested. “Or wait for more machete-swinging brutes to come hacking their way through that front door?”
The computer made an electronic noise and flickered back to life. Mike glanced at the screen. It was him again… Teeth!
***
A woman carrying a rucksack stepped off a number 210 bus and peered anxiously in all directions.
“Told you she’d show up,” Gary said to Beetie.
He waited until the bus was gone and he could be certain no one was following her, before waving. She hurried across the road.
“Gary? What on earth…?” she asked
“No time to explain, Mum. Did you get everything?”
“You look ridiculous!”
“Sorry, but we can’t hang around. By now they could be all over the place searching for Beetie.”
“What do you plan to do? Sleep on the Heath dressed like that? You’ll stand out a mile. Gary, this whole thing’s crazy. Dad’s all for calling the police and bringing you to your senses. Even talked about getting a psychiatrist. Says teenagers are going off the rails all the time. Mentioned counselling.”
Two pigeons landed on the pavement beside the pond. One, the male, puffed himself up, stretched his neck and began stalking the female who zigzagged a futile escape, her head nodding with each step. Gary took out his mag-stunner.
“Over there. Those pigeons. Watch!” he told his mother.
Two ‘ZINGS’ and both birds stopped moving. Gary’s mum’s jaw dropped.
“A mag-stunner,” the boy explained. “From the future. It’s okay. I haven’t killed them. In three minutes he’ll be after her again like nothing happened. Quite painless. Not the same as a Taser. I’d love to learn how it works, mind you.”