The Terminus Read online

  The Terminus

  by

  Oliver Eade

  Copyright © Oliver Eade 2013

  All rights reserved

  No part of this publication may be produced or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the author.

  All characters and events in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  www.olivereade.co.uk

  Front cover artwork

  Copyright © David Jowsey www.davesdoodles.co.uk

  Mauve Square Publishing

  Dedicated to friends past and present

  Think where Man’s glory most begins and ends

  And say my glory was I had such friends

  William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)

  Chapters

  Chapter 1 Real Virtuality

  Chapter 2 Beetie

  Chapter 3 Teeth

  Chapter 4 The Hatcheries

  Chapter 5 Naked in Swiss Cottage

  Chapter 6 A Boy from the Past

  Chapter 7 Treachery

  Chapter 8 To Believe or Not to Believe

  Chapter 9 Stanmore Scientific Laboratories

  Chapter 10 On the Run

  Chapter 11 God…

  Chapter 12 God’s Plan…

  Chpater 13 And God’s Baby

  Chapter 14 An Old Score Settled

  Chapter 15 Love Redeemed

  Chapter 16 The Power of a Child

  Chapter 1: Real Virtuality

  Gary removes the spectacles for the last time. The light grows steadily brighter, the noise louder, as his mind drifts back to a bright June morning two days ago in Regent’s Park, London, England. Or was it two hundred years back when the boys met up, as usual, on Saturday before soccer practice in the park?

  “Hurry up, Gary!” Mike shouted impatiently when his friend stopped and stared at something on a bench.

  “Hang on!” Gary called back.

  Shaped like a large eye and pointed at both ends, the object shimmered as if alive. Closer, Gary saw a myriad tiny flickering ‘eyes’ reflecting his face and the cloudless sky a thousand times over.

  “Someone’s left something behind! A sort of weird glasses case.”

  Mike sighed.

  “Huh! Just leave it! They’ll be back!”

  “Awesome! Who on Earth’d forget something like this?”

  Gary picked up the curiously weightless case.

  “Empty!” he announced before giving the thing a shake. It rattled. “Hey… cool! Something in it!”

  “Oh come on! I hate being late.”

  “Oughta hand this in. Might get a reward.”

  To Mike’s annoyance, Gary sat on the bench and turned the case over a few times, mesmerised by its changing reflections. Science had always fascinated the boy and there was something almost other-worldly about the object in his hand.

  “Funny… it’s sorta looking at me! Like… um…”

  He stared at the sky, seeking inspiration, whereas his friend glanced upwards from sheer frustration.

  “Think I’ll open it.”

  “Do what you sodding like! Only be quick about it, mate!”

  Cautiously, Gary examined the case. His finger hovered over a minuscule button at one end. On touching this, the two halves sprang open.

  “Only an old pair of specs!” he declared, disappointed.

  “Well, stop farting around then!”

  “Hang on…”

  Slowly, the spectacles frame began to shrink, as if sensing a face smaller than their previous owner’s, whilst the lenses held him transfixed. Gary had once seen a photograph of the eye of a fly magnified a hundred times and each lens reminded him of that photo. Composite eyes! A science buff, he often bored the pants off Mike by going on about the wonders of evolution, about fractals and the string theory, but these specs were something else. On closer examination, the ‘eyes’ within each lens appeared to be made up from hundreds of even smaller lenses. Also, each lens-frame had minute controls yet, on holding up the glasses at arm’s length, they resembled any other pair of specs.

  “Think they suit me?” he asked, standing up and cocking his head sideways whilst slipping them on.

  “WATCH OUT!” someone yelled before grabbing his arm.

  An instant after being yanked violently backwards, and where he’d been standing on a path in Regent’s Park, grinning stupidly, an enormous, silver, lozenge-shaped pod flashed past at an incredible speed. In a blink, it contracted into a receding dot, vanishing in the far distance.

  “Wait… Mike… what the…?”

  Gary turned, frowning. He squinted at a boy who’d just pulled him out of the way. Not Mike or anyone he knew. Regent’s Park had gone… the grass, the flowers, the trees, the bench… and Mike. Strangely dim, everything familiar had disappeared.

  “Who the heck are you?” Gary asked. The boy, olive-skinned and about the same age as him, had a pudding-basin haircut. Dressed in a shiny, blue tracksuit emblazoned with a white ‘B’ and a number, he kept blinking. A nervous tic, Gary reckoned. “And where the bleeding hell am I?” he added.

  Gary surveyed his surroundings with unease. He stood at the edge of a wide concrete run where he’d come so close to being killed by that silver pod and which stretched to a constricted horizon in both directions. The pavement, of a strange grey, artificial material, reflected towering, similarly grey buildings studded with converging vertical lines of circular porthole windows. Other people, silent and solitary, dressed in glossy red, green, yellow, blue or purple tracksuits, wandered about aimlessly. Their expressions blank, they all walked at the same easy pace. Apart from his saviour, no one paid Gary the slightest attention. Zombies? Like the boy, they had numbers on their chests with single bold letters, these clearly relating to the colours of their tracksuits: ‘B’ for blue, ‘R’ for red etc.

  The boy seemed so very different from those others. Mostly, it was his eyes that set him apart. Restless and watchful, they were alive. Before Gary could repeat his question, the boy pointed discretely up at the wall. A grey camera, camouflaged against the building, turned silently from one side to the other, constantly scanning the pavement. More cameras, every ten metres on both sides of the street, moved in unison. The boy made a slight head gesture, his eyelids still flickering, and Gary understood. He should move away from the gaze of the cameras before they could safely talk. Gary reckoned the specs must be causing this strange illusion; a virtual reality experience and nothing to be alarmed about.

  The boy in blue took off along the street as another silver pod grew out of one horizon before sweeping past them towards the other, soundless and so beautifully streamlined there was no disturbance of air. Now twenty metres away, the boy glanced back at Gary. With a flick of his head, he indicated a poorly lit side-street into which he vanished. Before following, Gary turned to check on the swivelling cameras; he caught sight of a blond-haired girl and froze.

  She wore a similar blue tracksuit with the letter ‘B’ and a different number, more tightly fitting and revealing of her maturing girlish figure. Like the boy, she had a pudding-basin hairstyle but her face held Gary spellbound. It was the loveliest he’d ever seen.

  He and Mike often discussed their female classmates’ physical attributes: faces, boobs and bottoms, mostly boobs, but this girl was in a class of her own. He couldn’t believe anyone could look so perfect. Pretty cool virtual reality, he thought, staring stupidly at her. A moment earlier, he’d been fingering the spectacles, ready to take them off in an instant, but her extraordinary beauty stopped him. Perhaps it was those Himalayan Blue Poppy coloured eyes. He’d always considered the colour of the poppies in the rockery at Queen Mary’s Gardens as something special, but
the same blue in the eyes of a girl? Wow! Not virtual reality, but real virtuality! His hand touching the specs dropped to his side.

  As he stared at the girl she began to walk in his direction, her gaze locked into his. God, those eyes had to be for real, not virtual, and somehow he felt certain their fates were linked for a purpose. For the time being Mike would have to wait, for Gary had to find out about her and why they were together in this freaky place.

  He’d already noticed something disturbing about the sky. The dull, grey buildings were impossibly tall but the sky seemed curiously low... almost resting on the buildings, and moving… cloudless, dark grey-green and moving! Illumination came from strip lights across the tops of the high buildings and the brightly-lit porthole windows. He should have been terrified, but having set eyes on the girl everything else seemed of trivial importance.

  Neither Gary nor Mike had ever got closer to a girl other than lusting after Emma Pearson, the class pin-up. If not discussing ways round Danny Bryan’s protection racket, the ineptitudes of teachers and the future of the world according to Gary O’Driscoll and Michael Bellini, they would often focus on the gender-specific attributes of Emma Pearson. Mike became obsessed with her breasts whilst Gary day-dreamt about her bum and the fantasy of one day being close to her, holding her and (oh, the thought of it!) kissing her. The boobs could come later. Sadly, Emma remained out of bounds. Being Danny’s girl, if any wimp should dare to stare at her chest in class (Danny had his spies), the owner of the stare would have the shit thumped out of him at break time. Gary and Mike, technically wimps, kept their eyes to themselves and only compared Emma Pearson thoughts when out of earshot of the bully’s side-kicks.

  Emma Pearson? Pfff! This girl’s a thousand times prettier than Emma!

  On reaching the side-street, Gary had difficulty distinguishing the boy from other blue figures dotted amongst the crowd until someone nearby spoke... softly. It was the girl. She’d caught up.

  “Follow me!” she whispered.

  Like an electric current, a tingle of excitement coursed through his body on realising the loveliest creature imaginable had actually addressed him! She ran on quickly through a wide opening and down a flight of stairs, taking two steps at a time. Chasing after her, Gary recognised where he was. Despite motionless stairs, the absence of advertisement hoardings and a ceiling lower than it should have been, this eerie place was, without a shadow of doubt, the London Underground.

  Apart from Gary and the girl, the disused station was deserted. Prickles of fear played with the hairs on the back his neck, but fascination with the girl prevented him from removing the specs. She stopped again to check on him. Why her interest? Surely their paths had crossed for a purpose! But what connection did she have with the nervous boy who’d saved his life? The thought of this disturbed him. He didn’t want anyone else to be connected with her.

  The girl ran on, taking several turns in the dimly-lit tunnels at the foot of the defunct escalator before reaching a bare-walled platform. At the far end of the platform she turned, as if to check on Gary’s continued presence, then jumped down onto the rail-less track. Ignoring the instinct of self-preservation, he, too, jumped and followed her into the tunnel. After rounding a bend they were enveloped by darkness. Someone seized his arm giving it a painful squeeze.

  “Hey!” he exclaimed, “what the...?”

  “Shhhh!”

  In the dimness he just made out the face of the boy.

  “Might be gee-rats around! Follow us,” the boy whispered.

  The girl, standing behind the boy, peered shyly at Gary with those extraordinary eyes. In comparison, Emma Pearson had the eyes of a cow. The boy and girl headed off into the tunnel. Gary continued on after them. Another curve in the tunnel and blackness took over, and he found himself following footsteps and the sound of someone counting in a whisper. Also, he became increasingly aware of an overpowering smell like that of an animal house in the London Zoo in need of a clean-up and a generous helping of disinfectant. He cupped a hand over his nose.

  The footsteps stopped. An arm reached out, grabbed his arm and dragged him sideways. Three knocks, a burst of yellow light and an open doorway. Dazzled, Gary entered after the others. The door closed behind him and for a few moments he stood blinking in brightness at a corridor lined with rows of book-laden shelves. People in garish tracksuits sat on a long bench, apparently engrossed in doing nothing at all until Gary noticed computer screens embedded in the desk that ran the length of the wall. No one paid any heed to him.

  “This way,” said the boy, and Gary followed him and the girl the length of the corridor before passing through another doorway and along a dingy passageway. They reached a door marked ‘R31267’. Beyond this, in a small room, a large black man in a red tracksuit sat behind a desk. He glanced up at Gary. A forced smile hovered on his dour face.

  “Sit down!” he commanded in a deep voice.

  The boy with the restless eyes brought a chair over for Gary who again wondered whether he shouldn’t just remove the specs. He glanced at the girl, at her eyes, and stayed put.

  “Him?” the man asked.

  “Think so,” the boy replied, his own eyes flicking. “Was about to get himself killed by the shuttle-bus! The specs would’ve got ruined (Thanks, dude! Never mind me! )… or they might have got hold of them.”

  The man narrowed his eyes at Gary, his smile gone.

  “How can you be sure he’s the one sent by God? Could be one of them!”

  Gary’s gaze travelled from the man to the kids.

  “God? No idea what you’re talking about!” he said. “I’m no religious nutter! Was on my way to soccer practice with my mate, Mike, when… er...”

  The man silenced him with a cold, unblinking stare.

  “Soccer practice?” queried the other boy, grinning.

  “Soccer! Kicking a bloody ball into a goal.”

  The girl giggled.

  Who are these crazy people? Gary wondered.

  “Listen, I found some funny specs in Regent’s Park. Tried them on for a laugh, and… well...” he attempted to explain.

  “A laugh?”

  The black man’s steely glare bore into him.

  “Um… I didn’t actually laugh. Just a figure of speech!”

  “Was he there?”

  “Who?”

  The man turned to the boy, ignoring Gary.

  “At least you got the specs,” he said.

  “Who’s ‘he’?” persisted Gary. “Who are you talking about? And God? Are you some kinda wacko religious sect?”

  After a stony silence, the black man spoke again, his voice chilling:

  “God! The man called ‘God.”

  Gary’s turn to grin. A man called ‘God’? How bloody naff!

  “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…”