by Oliver EADE
Strangely dim outside, Mike heard voices. Cautiously, he unfastened both belts.
“Wait!” he whispered.
Again, the girl’s expression informed him she so desperately wanted to comprehend.
“Stay!” he instructed.
He crept soundlessly towards the open shuttle-bus door. With his face at the edge of the opening, praying his nose wouldn’t get sliced off should the thing snap shut, he gazed at the vast, poorly-lit space beyond.
The ceiling must have been two to three hundred feet up and the high grey walls were criss-crossed by metallic tubes and pipes similar to those he’d seen in the grey building, but it was what filled most of the enormous hangar, several foot-ball pitches across, that had Mike spellbound. It was so huge he could only see a fraction of the silvery grey object studded with two tiers of circular windows and raised up about thirty feet above the glistening grey ground on great slanting metallic legs, broad at the top and narrowing towards the bottom where they rested upon ten-metre wide circular supports. From the extreme edge, above the windows, the saucer space-ship sloped upwards, but its lofty top remained hidden.
Hundreds of surfacers were crowded into an area in front of the giant craft. A few, nearby, and smeared with blood, may have been the ones Mike had seen attacking heavies with machetes in the grey building; if so, they’d transformed back into passive zombies, fiddling with bits of machinery, dials and adjusting switches and levers... or just standing doing nothing. Chairman-clones were scattered amongst the surfacers: short men with big heads, pop-eyes and goofy teeth, dressed in long, grey coats and giving out orders in machine-gun bursts of high-pitched, clipped cockney. They reminded Mike of small terriers snapping at Alsatians. He scanned the crowd for the other girls. Nothing! Perhaps they were already inside that thing which was so clearly the clue to the mystery of the Terminus.
“Quick!” he whispered to Cathy. “Here!”
She jumped from her seat, ran to him and took his hand.
“Don’t look out of the windows,” she repeated. Too loudly! Mike covered her mouth.
“Shhh!”
One of the little Chairman-look-alikes swivelled his ugly head in their direction but thankfully a surfacer stopped right in front of him, obscuring his view. Not so dumb, after all? The shuttle-bus hummed softly, as if about to take off again. Split second decision-making. Blinker must have recovered. Either he’d be waiting for him to reappear in the Hatcheries or planning to take the next shuttle-bus to the Terminus. Mike jumped out, with Cathy, moments before the door snapped shut. The vehicle sped off in reverse. Crouching, he concealed himself and the girl behind the large surfacer.
“Over there!” he whispered to Cathy, pointing to a metal ladder fixed to the wall where a large silver tube entered the Terminus... the other end of the tube into which he and Blinker had crawled in the grey building.
“I fought ya told me they was all inside,” Mike overheard the Atlantean complain. “Ya bloody forgotten one of ’em. I ’eard ’er squeal.”
Mike whispered to the doped surfacer blocking his view:
“She went that way! Tell him! You might get an extra ration of rat meat, chum!” The surfacer turned his head and peered down at them as Mike pointed away from the ladder.
“SHE WENT THAT WAY!” bellowed the surfacer, indicating the opposite end of the hangar.
“She ran round the corner,” whispered Mike.
“SHE RAN ROUND THE CORNER!”
“’Urry!”
“’Urry?” queried the dimmer of the two Atlanteans.
“Find ’er! An’ don’t ya bloody lose ’er,” shouted his boss. “The Chairman’ll be back wiv Belinda any minute now. ’E’ll boil ya in rat piss if there’s one missin’.”
Mike seized the opportunity. Amidst the ensuing commotion, he grabbed Cathy’s hand again, and, staying low, they ran together to the ladder, climbed up onto the pipe and crawled along on hands and knees to where it entered the space-ship. Obscured from view by a flange projecting below the portholes, Mike stretched himself lengthways along the pipe. Cathy copied him, her face inches away... and still smiling.
“If you were Veronica I’d kiss you but your permanent grin turns me off,” he whispered, tiring of her grimace.
Immediately he regretted what he’d said. Her smile was without a vestige of happiness. She clearly struggled with her confusion at his remark, trying to figure out why he’d spoken so unkindly, her furrowed brow exposed her ongoing battle against the molecules of dope invading her brain. The boy realised what he’d said was totally crass. He stroked her hair.
“I… I’m sorry, Cathy. I’m a right arsehole at times. Gary will tell you! Actually, I think your face is a lot nicer than Veronica’s. I only wish…”
He went quiet. The bigheads had returned with their high-pitched, grating voices.
“Go an’ count ’em. I’m sure I ’eard one out ’ere. Should all be inside by now, but if one’s missin’...”
“P’raps Blinker kept one for ’imself. Finks ’e’s gonna get a little reward, maybe? Good one, ay! ’Im expectin’ a reward?”
“Well, you’re the one what’s gonna do wivout, Zygol.”
“Bleedin’ ain’t! Been practisin’, ain’t I!”
“Watcha mean, practisin’, you rat ’ead? Practisin’ what?”
“All that stuff the Chairman told us. What we’re supposed to do wiv ’em when we gets there?
“Practisin’?”
“Yeah… well, in me ’ead, like. Like imanginin’!”
“Imanginin? Imaginin’, ya rat prick! Ain’t no good imaginin’ girl stuff. Gotta do it! Anyway, your ’ead’s too fulla shit to imaginin’ fings. Better off finkin’ what y’er gonna say to the Chairman if ya’ve lost one.”
“I’ll tell ’im we’ll suck out the Life-Force from Blinker before we feed ’im to the rats. If ’e ’as foughts of keeping one of ’em in that little ‘uman ’ead of ’is she’ll go whooshy up the tube an’ I’ll catch ’er at the other end. I fancy the one with the black ’air an’ the white dress.”
“Chairman decides. But ’e’ll still prob’ly feed ya to the rats if one’s missin’ ’cos your job was to collect ’em from the ’Atcheries. ’E’ll be ’ere any minute. When ’e’s got ’is own one back.”
“Belinda? The one with the yellow ’air? ’E’s welcome to ’er! Weird, she is. Like a wild fing when little… in the ’Atcheries. Never did nuffink she got told. They ’ad to put gallons of stuff into ’er to clear out ’er mem’ries. Dunno why the Chairman bovvered. An’ to fink we’ve all ’ad to wait ’cos of ’er.”
“Not that easy, Zygol. Not after what ’appened in the’ Atcheries. As for Blinker, well looks like ’is prisoner’s gone an’ done ’im in before runnin’ amok an’ ex-scapin’. Oh… too fick to understand, ain’tchya! That’s why y’er still where ya are!”
“Watcha mean, shit face?”
“Oh, ya wouldn’t understand nuffink. Not with yer piddlin’ little brain.”
“Try me!”
“God! All about God! The old God. She ’ad an ’old over God is what. When ’e liked to fink of ‘imself as Chairman before Zaman took over. God always said Belinda was special. Different, like! Till we started cleanin’ out their bleedin’ little minds after Zaman got the stuff from the old place to do this. Cleaned all the pretty girls’ brains out so as none could remind Belinda about the other God, and the new Chairman sent the girl to the city to keep ’er away from ’im. Could never tell when ’e might show up in the ’Atcheries with those friggin’ time-specs of ’is, the stupid old shit. Mind you, we are ’ere ourselves ’cos of God’s bleedin’ specs, I s’pose… but that’s another matter! Anyway, God ’ad ’is spies too. That’s ’ow the girl ended up in the Retreat instead of the place where she was s’posed to go to. Bloody good job the Chairman sent Blinker out wiv ’er, or we might never ’ave tracked ’er down. But the boy’s lettin’ us down badly now. Still, not to worry. Not me, at least, you poor bugger. We
’ve got the tablet, prob’ly enough Life-Force for lift off… and when the fussy Chairman’s got ’is bloody girl back then ‘bye-bye’ little ole London. So long as God don’t frow no spanner in the works. This is why Arfry came back for the Chairman. ‘Somefink ’appenin’, Arfry said. Mind you, ’e could easily kill the old God wiv ’is bare ’ands if ’e needed to. Now, is there anyfink else ya want me to squeeze into yer tiny little brain, Zygol?”
“Nope!” replied Zygol. “I’ll start countin’ an’ I’ll cut one in ’alf if numbers don’t add up. The young ’uns can ’ave ’alf a one each.”
“Ya jus’ dunno what this is all about, do ya! I should’ve turned ya into rat food as soon as they assigned ya to me as an ’elper.”
Mike peered over the edge of the pipe. The moronic one called Zygol pushed his way past the surfacers and disappeared from view. The other, his immediate boss, sauntered over to chat with two more of his kind then the three set about bullying surfacers, verbally and physically.
“I’ve seen friendlier things in the snake house at the zoo,” Mike whispered, “but I’m thinking we’re not in a particularly clever place if this bloody great silver contraption lifts off with those dolly birds inside. Do your job, Gary boy! Hold on to your girl… for all our sakes, please!”
“Wind–… mmmm!”
Mike slapped his hand over Cathy’s mouth again. He tried to read her eyes; tried to work out whether, from her expression, she might be winning her struggle against the drug Blinker had stuck into her. After overhearing the Atlanteans’ conversation he hated the boy even more, for at least he and Blinker belonged to the same species. The prehistoric big-heads, with their shrunken bodies, could almost be forgiven for being long-extinct time-aliens. Sure, they spoke in funny, clipped English − an odd foreign-sounding cockney − but this was the closest they got to being human. From what he’d gathered, an idiot called God had brought them to this future London. What a prick! He’d a good mind to strangle God himself should he ever meet the man!
With his hand held firmly over Cathy’s mouth, Mike waited. He had no idea what for, or how this whole wretched thing would end, but he waited and he thought of his mate, Gary; thought of all the times they’d had, the bust-ups and the making-ups, the laughter and the anger, and how, in different ways, they needed and supported each other. And he did something he’d never before done, or even considered; he prayed to another God − the real God − for Gary.
***
“Why should I flipping trust you? Tell me!” Gary asked Redfor when the man emerged from the room into which Beetie had disappeared only moments earlier. Redfor turned to face Mrs O’Driscoll who stood at the foot of the stairs, her mouth agape. He extended his hand in greeting.
“Redfor!” he warmly introduced himself. “A friend of Gary’s and God’s.”
“Pleased to meet you, I’m sure,” the woman replied, too stunned by the day’s events to know how else to respond.
“Friend? Mum, he’s one of them. They’ve come to take Beetie away forever. Don’t you understand?”
“Dad’s with them. He won’t let any harm come to her, believe me.”
“He’s flipping clueless! You too! They’re bloody animals, these people. Beetie’s the only one we can trust. Even that God bloke, Mr Invention himself, he…”
Redfor glowered at Gary.
“Gary, get a grip! It’s you who understands nothing,” he interrupted.
“Oh no? Prove to me you’re not one of them!”
Redfor chuckled.
“Sort of thing Arthry would say! He’s another one who…”
“Yeah! He’s with them and all! Him and Teeth. In the Retreat. Almost had me and Mike fed to the gee-rats. And it was you who told me to take the Pentatron tablet to the bastard!”
“What nonsense! Gary, we must talk. I told God we should’ve filled you in a bit more. Mrs O’Driscoll, may we use your bedroom?”
“I’m not flipping leaving this spot whilst Beetie’s in there with… with a geriatric creep called God.”
“Okay! We’ll sit on the stairs here, but you listen to what I have to say. Hear me out if you want to save the girl.”
“Gary…?”
It was Gary’s Mum.
“Gary, I’ll go in there with Beetie. I’ll stay with her. Don’t worry. I already think of her as, you know…” Her eyes began to fill with tears. “Never mind!” she continued. “She’ll be all right, I promise. You listen to this nice man, here.”
“Nice? Pfff!”
Mrs O’Driscoll opened the door and once again Gary heard the drone of an old man before she closed it behind her.
“Sit!”
Gary reluctantly joined Redfor at the foot of the stairs, not taking his eyes off the door beyond which anything might be happening to the girl who refused to leave his mind.
“God has good reason to keep you out of the conversation,” Redfor said, “but believe me, he, of all people, is aware of how you feel. You see, she’s special to him as well. Very special! He knew the girl’s mother.”
Gary looked sharply at Redfor.
“He’s her father?”
Redfor shook his head.
“I thought they don’t have mothers in the future. The Hatcheries and all that. Assumed Beetie had been born a test-tube baby.”
“Like I said, Gary, you’ve a lot to learn. When God first arrived from the past, when he was a young man, he fell in love with a girl called Belinda.”
“That’s what the Chairman calls Beetie!”
Redfor nodded.
“Beetie looks so much like her mother.”
“So who’s her father?”
“Dunno! As I was saying, in the future, when God arrived from the past, he met up with Belinda. She worked in the Terminus Laboratory God himself had started up over a hundred and eighty years previously. Used to be beside the Stanmore Scientific Laboratories. He’d invented these time-specs and wanted to use them to reshape the future… because of what had happened. His parents getting killed in a terrorist bomb blast, global warming then all those natural disasters starting with the Great Pandemic of 2022. When he arrived in the future the world was worse than he could ever have imagined. The sea level had risen, great cities abandoned, uninhabitable… people dying everywhere from new diseases that swept across the planet. God saved London, Gary, and by saving London he rescued what was left of humanity. Truly remarkable!”
“Beetie told me about the defences… his inventions… SAME, Self-Adjusting-Matter-Expansion… APUS, the Air-Purification-System. I guess that shuttle-bus thing was one of his jobs, too.”
“Mankind survived in London because of God. Of course, he forever travelled backwards and forwards in time with those specs of his. There were many stories about him as a young man, too. So he became a sort of legend. His energy, his genius… but most of all his love for the city and his people.”
“His people?”
“No leadership at the time. Only anarchy. Every man for himself, if you get my meaning. God changed that. People looked up to him. And he and Belinda were so very happy together.”
“Then how come Beetie’s dad…?”
“Complicated, Gary. Very few children being born in those times. Maybe radiation from the nuclear wars or loss of the ozone layer. Whatever, God and Belinda were devastated they had no offspring. His dream had been to start the world afresh, in London. Like humanity being reborn, he said. He worked hard on the global infertility project. Stored thousands of women’s eggs, frozen, though most of the men’s sperms didn’t seem to work with IVF. Including God’s.”
Gary’s eyebrows flickered.
“Bum do if not even God’s sperms work!”
“Like they’d ‘lost heart’, he said.”
“Poor little blighters!”
“Of course we had a few successes. Some men proved lucky, and one got called ‘Supersperm’. Treated like gold-dust, his sperm was! Stored in a secret place in the Terminus Laboratories.”
&n
bsp; “Didn’t keep God’s, obviously.”
“Correct! Anyway, when God’s super-telescope discovered an asteroid hurtling towards earth he turned his attention to the defences. Worked hard on the SAME project...”
“Can’t think how matter can be created out of thin air! Fascinating!”
“…and everything else to save London, and… well, the beauty of time-travel is that you can work on things in the past and return to the present or the future and speed up the process. Get so much more done in a short interval.”
“The asteroid?”
“Landed in the Atlantic… only days after London got sealed off. God reckoned the tsunami would have been a mile high.”
“One thing. How come he got called ‘God’. Seems kinda weird. Okay, there’s no religion in the future… pretty obvious… but the word must have some meaning for you lot.”
“He never liked the name. He told me. Used to have a different one once, but… well, a bloke turns up from another time, does all sorts of miraculous things, and like you said… no religion in the future. Those awful wars, the disease and famine… you can hardly blame people for not believing before he changed all of this. God and I both knew how things used to be... about his own religion when he was a kid... but it didn’t take long for folk to start thinking God was divine. Sent to save London when nothing else was left of our human world. After being made Chairman of the Agenda Committee he’d sign reports as ‘G O D’. Word got around that he was God. Frankly he deserved the title, whatever you say. Everything he did was for our good, and the city worked… until they appeared.”
“The Atlanteans?”
“Took over the running from God. You know, God’s got one fault. Only one, but his… what do you lot call it? God gets fed up with my ignorance. That ‘heel’ thing?”
“Achilles Heel?”
“Yep! It’s been so long! Achilles Heel! Sometimes he’s too kind. Went right back in time because he thought mankind had been through similar periods in the past. Always looking for clues from previous civilisations he might use to help us in our own plight. Somehow he seemed convinced the Atlantis Legend had some truth. In Africa and Latin America the evidence was overwhelming, he said, but he had to travel back a lot further than he’d ever imagined.”