The Terminus (16 page)

“Guess you’re
right,” agreed Blinker, staring at the gaping severed tube. “Okay, I’ll climb
onto your shoulders first… then pull you up. I don’t like this, though. No idea
what’s at the other end. Only that The Agenda are using Life-Force for
something… the reason God fell out with them. He and the Chairman were once
friends. Did Gary never tell you?”

“Nope!”
replied Mike as the other boy climbed onto his shoulders and grabbed the edge
of the tube before swinging himself up and into it. “Told me virtually nothing!
P’raps that’s a good thing. Allows me more objectivity, ay?”

Blinker
reached down, and, with the boys’ arms gripped together, Mike was pulled up…
and not a second too soon. Crouching on all fours, they’d only crawled a few
metres before a burst of shouting echoed in the hall below. Reinforcements had
arrived and evidently the surfacers were putting up a fight.

“Bit of a
kerfuffle, eh?” whispered Mike.

“A what?”
Blinker blinked at him.

“Kerfuffle!
Good word!”

They slowly
wriggled further into the tube, Mike in the lead. The kerfuffle below had
subsided and he became aware of another noise: a deep, heavy rhythmic sound,
like the beat of a gigantic heart pulsing in the darkness ahead.

***

“Who are you
talking about, Mum? This is Beetie, not Belinda.”

“I’m sure he
said Belinda. Such a nice man. Said you’d be along any minute. Oh, you poor wee
thing. You’ve no shoes on!”

“Red hair? In
Mike’s clothes?”

“No! A black
man. Big build. Such a kind face.”

“When?”

“He’s still
here. Gave him a cup of…”

Gary
grabbed Beetie’s hand and yelled, “RUN!”

“Hey... Gary!”
Mrs O’Driscoll shouted after her son. “What’s the matter with you?”

“Lock the
door, Mum! You didn’t see me! Hold him back… make any excuse! I’ll phone
later!”

Gary ran with
Beetie away from his home, the one place where he felt sure she’d be safe and
find peace at last, more determined than ever to get answers from God and
desperate to get Mike back from the future. They ran up the hill towards
Finchley Road Tube station. Half way he stopped, panting for breath.

“Christ…
bloody close!” he gasped. “So Arthry… must’ve tortured Mike… got his specs… and
my address… for The Agenda.”

“The Agenda?”
Beetie repeated. “I remember! Things are coming back to me. The Chairman... the
man with the big teeth and the bad eyes... he’s in charge, isn’t he? Things are
happening where he was gonna take me. The Terminus. Where the flowers and
streams and mountains are, only…”

“Bloody lies,
Beetie! Whatever’s going on the other side of the wall has nothing to do with
flowers or mountains or streams or pretty waterfalls. I promise you.”

“I believe
you,” the girl said. “Don’t know why, but I believe you and I was certain you’d
come for me. Yeah! Awful things were going to happen in the Terminus. The
Chairman tried to tell me they were good and that he’d specially chosen
me
…
but…”

Tears
reappeared. This time she let Gary
softly stroke her cheeks with the back of his hand.

“Did the
Chairman touch you in
that
way?” he asked again, his anger barely
suppressed.

Beetie shook
her head.

“He was going
to. He told me in the preparatory lesson. Showed me what... ugh… I couldn’t
bear the thought of him near me, let alone doing... doing that! Not with
you
inside my head.”

Gary
kissed her hand. She smiled.

“Kiss?
Your
word ‘kiss’… I remembered… I thought…”

“Thought I
meant ‘kill’?” Gary chuckled.
“D’you
remember
your cell in the Retreat?”

“With you?
One night? No... I mustn’t say.”

“Say what?”

Gary’s
grin broadened.

“I remember
all right! I so wanted you with me. On
my
side! In
my
bed! All
night I ached for you to hold me close. I couldn’t think how to tell you.
Hardly slept!”

Gary
felt confused and embarrassed. The idea that the girl had experienced similar
feelings to him that night had never occurred to him. Saying nothing, he walked
on and,
thank
heaven, they weren’t being followed.

“Why didn’t we
escape from Arthry at your house by using the time-specs?” Beetie asked.

“Arthry? You
remember him? Soon you’ll remember everything.”

“I remember
trusting a big black man called Arthry. He was so good to me. I can’t believe
he’s with The Agenda. But you never answered my question.”

“A thought
occurred to me, Beetie. The two pairs of time-specs might be linked in some
way. If so, we’re in a trap. Putting ’em on could be like saying, ‘here we are
Arthry! You can come and get her! I’m taking no chances.”

“So?”

“First… proper
clothes for you… and shoes! Something to eat too. I borrowed money from Dad’s
wallet earlier.”

“What’s
money?”

“Rules our
lives here in the past. You’ll soon see. And the food’s a whole load better
than that rat crap of the future. We’ll share a pizza. There’s a place up on
the

Finchley Road
.
But shoes first.
Then we’ll find a lady’s clothes shop
somewhere.
And afterwards Hampstead Heath.
We’ll take
the bus.
Safer than the tube.
No links to the future.”

They continued
on up the hill.

“A
shuttle-bus?”

“Bit
different. More of a snail bus.”

“What’s
Hampstead Heath?”

“Well…
remember the trees we talked about?”

“Like big
flowers?”

“Not quite.
Big green plants... like the one over there. Only loads of them. You’ll love
trees. They won’t come looking for us amongst the trees. We can sleep out in
the open. Anywhere else, and we’d get hunted down. Friends, relatives… no good.
God, I wish Mike was with us. He’s the strategy guy, is Mike… even when he gets
on my nerves. I don’t fancy having to work this thing out alone.”

“You’re
not
alone!”
insisted Beetie, frowning. Gary
squeezed her hand.

“Nope!
Sorry! You’re right. Not alone!”

“Thank you, Mr
Clever Head!”

And they
laughed together.

Gary
found a shoe shop along the

Finchley Road
and bought Beetie a pair of trainers. In the clothes store he had difficulty
persuading her to buy sensible stuff like jeans and a top instead of another
pretty dress, but she was strong-willed, as he was slowly discovering, and in
the end they ended up with both. As for the underclothes, Gary
hid in a corner of the shop whilst the girl purchased her smalls. Finally, they
ended up in a pizza parlour. Beetie had never before tasted anything as
delicious as pizza.

“This is
nothing!” said Gary. “Wait till you
try fish ’n’ chips!” Beetie’s expression betrayed ignorance of the nation’s
favourite dish. “Lived under the sea all your life and never had fish ’n’
chips?”

Gary
chuckled. He felt deliriously happy despite seeing no easy way out of the mess
they were in. His best mate was stuck in a future where they chopped up living
people, he and Beetie were on the run from fiends who threatened her with a
fate worse than death, and yet in that pizza parlour with Beetie he felt
happier than he’d ever felt before.

What a curious
first date. After cleaning her face and changing into jeans and a blue blouse
in the toilet, Beetie asked Gary
where she could buy toiletries; he hadn’t a clue. For him and Mike, how girls
made themselves pretty was a total mystery… something to do with bottles and
lotions and creams and powders that took place in ladies’ toilets or girls’
bedrooms. He counted through the remaining banknotes ‘borrowed’ from his dad’s
wallet. Surely there was enough. How could he deny a girlfriend what she
needed? But the toiletries cost a lot more than he imagined. Sometime he’d have
to talk to her about money; explain things as gently as possible... but not
yet.

They took a
number 82 bus to Golders Green and walked up North End Road towards Whitestone
Pond, Gary carrying bags full of girl’s clothes and toiletries, with Beetie
hanging on to his arm and exclaiming excitedly about anything that caught her
attention.

“Gary,
another tree…
look
! And another! Oh… it’s got flowers
on! See?” A tug at his arm, and: “Wow! That man’s balancing on two funny wheels
and moving along. Over there! Like magic!”

“A bicycle, Beetie.
Bike
.”

The girl
bubbled over with enthusiasm at these things. She’d got so used to talking to
the boy inside her head at the Hatcheries she merely carried on as if he had no
eyes of his own:

“
Her
hair’s so short.
Nearly bald!” and “
Gary
!
That
girl’s hair comes down to her bottom. How does she sit down? And what if she
needs to… erm…?” And Gary and Beetie laughed at the shared thought of some poor
girl struggling with her long hair in the toilet.

“Flicks it round to the front, I s’pose!” the boy suggested.

What affected Beetie
most were the children. Several played noisily beside Whitestone Pond. ‘Little
people’, she called them, and she seemed curiously disturbed by their shouts
and laughter which brought tears to her eyes. She told Gary
she wanted to run up and touch and talk to them and he had to restrain her.
Such behaviour would attract attention, but he was troubled to see her so
upset. Things from the future, her past, buried within her subconscious, must
have caused her to react so bizarrely.

“Do you
remember
nothing
of your own childhood in the Hatcheries?”

“When
I
was a little person? Was I
ever
like them?”

“Everyone was.
Even those without parents… no mum or dad… like you were a test-tube baby. Yes,
Beetie. You were once a little person.”

Tears
glistened
the girl’s cheeks and as Gary
held her close he seethed against The Agenda erasing her childhood. What right
had they to do such a thing?

“Didn’t you
even
hear
children when you were staying in your cell in the Hatcheries?
Before Mike and I came for you?” Beetie shook her head. Gary
appeared puzzled. “You can
always
hear them from a long way off. It’s
the way they shout. So where
are
they all in London
of the future? Were you and Blinker the last kids to leave the Hatcheries? Did
its purpose change after Teeth
took
over from God?”

Beetie
shrugged her shoulders again. Gary
could tell talking about children distressed her so he decided to steer clear
of the subject, but he wondered, and was able to arrive at only one conclusion:
children no longer existed in twenty-third century London.
Was the unbearable true?  He’d seen what was going to happen to surfacers.
Would the children go the same way? Was whatever they sucked from peoples’
heads even stronger in the young ones?
Some sort of
mysterious energy?
Had The Agenda only kept alive a few of the pretty
girls, like Beetie, for their own pleasure... and to procreate? Build a new
mixed race of Homo sapiens and Atlanteans? If so, what about Blinker? Surely,
being Homo sapiens, he’d not align himself with The Agenda!

Gary
rested his arm protectively across Beetie’s shoulders. She nestled her head
against him. He spotted a phone booth. After explaining to the girl how this
would allow him to contact his mum, he called home. His heart sank when his dad
answered. He and Dad didn’t always see eye-to-eye. They were too alike… both
short-fused.

“GARY, WHAT
THE HELL’S GOING ON?” the man yelled down the phone. If only he had an answer.

“May I speak
with Mum?” he asked quietly.

“She’s very
upset! What’s all this about a girl called Belinda? The black guy was still
here when I got home from work. He’s gone now, but I thought he’d break every
bone in my body when I told him we hadn’t a clue where you were. Have you done
something really stupid, Gary? Tell
me, son! He’s even threatened us with the police.”

Oh shit!

“Calm down,
Dad. You’re not helping! Put me onto Mum, please.”

“Huh! Me? Mum?
What’s the difference?”

The phone went
silent.

“Wait till he
finds out I nicked a load of money from his wallet,” he whispered to Beetie on the
side whilst tenderly combing his fingers through her silken hair.

“Gary?”

Mum... thank
God!

“Mum, the
black guy, Arthry. He’s dangerous. But nothing compared with Teeth.”

“
Teeth
?”

“Teeth. The
big boss. Chairman of The Agenda.”

“Gary, none of
this is making any sense at all.”

“I was gonna
show you the time-specs. Explain. Even take you on a little time-travel
yourself. You might’ve understood. Mike was sceptical at first. Until…”

“Where
is
Mike? His mum’s phoned me.”

“He’s… erm…
he’s in the twenty-third century… and in... like... big trouble. And I mean
planet-sized
big
!”

“Oh
Gary
!
Please
don’t mess me around!”

“I can’t tell
you over the phone. Has Arthry left? You and Dad mustn’t stay at home any
longer. I
have
to meet up with you somewhere secret. There’s another guy
called Redfor. Says he’s working for God but I don’t believe him. Been to our
house as well.”

“God? Oh Gary,
dear…”

“Here we go!
Had the same bother with Mike. God the
Man
, Mum! Not Him in church… or
wherever. You and Dad should decamp to a B&B immediately. Don’t tell
anyone… and I mean
no one
… and come alone with money, some proper
clothes for me, a blanket and pillows…” He glanced at Beetie. “…And girls’
stuff. Things they might need… I dunno… cosmetics... whatever. Whitestone Pond,
six o’clock
. Okay? Tell nobody else.
Not even Dad.”