The Terminus (10 page)
Authors: Oliver EADE
“Didn’t push
my luck by asking, but I expect one bloke carried the thing and the others had
coshes at the ready.”
“Might be
armed. Shooters and stuff!”
“Security
guards? Give over. No! Low key, the man said. To avoid attracting attention.
Quick, though. Like you see in movies.”
“So we go
round the back?
To
?”
“Bet they had
a decoy van at the main entrance? I would’ve!” said Mike.
“Jesus, Mike.
I’ve underestimated you. You sure Bellini’s not a Mafia name? P’raps we should
rename you Michael Corleone! Mind you, don’t think your redhead’ll be too keen
on a gangland mobster!”
“Man, I’d give
all
my dosh to her for a better view of those legs!” chuckled Mike.
“Before we leave,
Mike, have a butcher’s at the facial reconstruction beside the skull. The
spitting image of Teeth, I’m telling you. The guy I chased in Regent’s Park
after he pinched my time-specs… and who I got your pair from when they netted
Beetie. There has to be a link between Atlantis and the future! This is what
the whole thing’s about!”
“So you think
they built a time machine a hundred thousand years ago? Blokes who were all
eyes and teeth?”
“Dunno. Only
there’s gotta be a link.”
“Okay Gary...
first we go round to the main entrance. And immobilise the decoy.”
“If you’re correct!”
“Don’t
flipping believe me, do you? Got your head stuck in science and maths books all
the time. Not good for you. Out of touch with reality, pal!”
Reality
?
Beetie?
Christ, I have to get back to her soon… when- and wherever
she is
.
As they stood
in the doorway of an antiques shop opposite the British
Museum, pretending to share an
interest in Roman coins and ancient Egyptian junk, Gary
again explained the time-specs to Mike, showing him how to reset the lenses
should they get separated. He’d not travelled with a companion before and he
was glad he’d be practising on Mike, not Beetie. Each pair was set for
precisely the same moment the previous Wednesday, minutes prior to the museum closing
time at five-thirty pm. Gary made a careful note of the setting for the precise
point in the future to when he’d return. He noticed both lenses turn as black
as empty space whilst he adjusted the milled edges of the diaphragms encircling
the left lens. He was about to give Mike the thumbs up when his friend grabbed
his arm.
“Wait,” said
the other boy. “Assuming we steal the bloody Pentatron Tablet, where do we go
afterwards?”
“To Arthry, of
course!”
“How?”
Gary
paused. He guessed what was troubling Mike.
“You’ll find
out.”
“’Cos I ain’t
coming with you if there’s giant bloody rats involved. Gotta draw a line
somewhere, mate.”
“
I
’m
here, aren’t I? And still alive? Been there twice already, Mike. Rats are the
least of your problems in the future, I can tell you.”
“I’ll face
anything but giant rats!”
“We’ll do a
deal. First thing when we’re all back here, Beetie included, is to visit the
hockey pitch on a Saturday morning. Right?”
“Or giant
spiders!” persisted Mike. “Do they have those, too?”
“Spider-free zone,
Mike. Okay?”
“Hmmm!”
“Mike, you did
me proud back in the museum. Had ’em eating outa your hand, you did. Don’t let
me down now.”
“
Us
…
not just
you
!
Team work,
Gary
!”
“Sure! Us! You
ready?”
They high-fived,
and, as if choreographed, slipped on the time-specs together. For a fraction of
a second Gary was standing alone at
the same spot, the sunlight gone. Long enough for a wave of panic to disturb
his senses, but in a flash Mike was at his side. The last visitors were
leaving. Soon, a lanky museum guard appeared. He half-closed the main gate and,
standing alone, peered up and down the street, repeatedly glancing at his
watch.
“Okay,
he
’ll
be waiting for a van. I’ll stay here, Gary,
and immobilise Slimmy Jimmy and the decoy lads as soon as they arrive. You go
round to the
entrance at the back. I’ll join you when they’re frozen ducks. We travel back
in time to avoid suspicion. Pentatron Tablet wouldn’t’ve meant a thing to
anyone last month. Afterwards we go forwards to wherever.
Right?”
“Yeah!
Thank God I roped you in!”
“Call me ‘sir’
if you like!”
“Oh, shut up!”
Gary
left Mike and headed off to
at the rear of the museum. As he turned a corner, a security van swept past in the
direction of the main entrance. His faith in his friend increased by a quantum
leap when, after running round the corner at the back, he spotted a second
black van parked up on the pavement. Gary
walked slowly past, glancing sideways. Three men, just as Mike had said. One
looked back at him but he avoided the man’s gaze. After crossing over to the
other side of the road, he took the mag-stunner from his pocket and held it up
like a mobile phone. He began gesticulating and talking rubbish in simulated animated
conversation, all the time keeping an eye on the van.
The van door
opened. A darkly-silhouetted, helmeted figure emerged and disappeared round to
the back. Two men with coshes now stood, legs astride, on the pavement. Gary’s
hand tightened around the mag-stunner, his forefinger stroking the activation
button. The doors were opened and the man removed a case the size of a lap-top.
He fiddled with something attached to a chain around his wrist and slipped his
hand into his pocket.
The key?
One of the others
slammed the van door.
No time to
worry about his friend. Gary aimed
the mag-stunner and pressed the button. The man holding the case froze. Puzzled
why the case-bearer had become a statue, one of the others began pulling at his
frozen colleague. In an instant he, too, was immobilised. The third guard was
hidden from view behind the van. Gary
ran across the street, holding the mag-stunner like a gun. It was all too easy,
until… WHAM! His face hit the ground and the mag-stunner flew from his hand.
Dazed, his nose a focus of agony, he remained motionless for what seemed an age
though would hardly have been more than a second. A heavy weight pressed down
onto his spine, his arms yanked back like puppet limbs. Painfully, he turned
his bruised face, enough to catch a glimpse of the security guard’s
visor-shaded mug.
“What the
flaming…?” the man began.
Everything
went blank!
On coming too,
Gary was on the ground, his nose
throbbing, his back against the wall in a narrow street leading to Tottenham
Court Road.
“Mother of God… what kept you, Mike?”
Gary
gingerly rubbed his nose then stared at his blood-covered hand.
“Never mind!
Let’s just get the hell out of here!” replied
the other boy.
A police car
siren screamed somewhere in the distance.
“Take ’em off
together. Okay? Default set to the past again.”
Gary,
unable to think straight, did as instructed. A flash of light, and he and Mike
were sitting in the same place in brilliant sunshine. The road was busy, and
soon a huddle of people had gathered around.
“Hey, cool!
How did you come out of nowhere?” asked a lad whose girlfriend seemed
distinctly uneasy about the sudden appearance of the two oddly-dressed youths.
“Speed suits,”
replied Mike. “Testing ’em out, only my friend took the corner too sharp and
hit the wall.”
“But… you
materialised out of thin air. We’d have seen if…”
“I mean like
real
speed, dude. So fast the human eye can’t detect any movement.”
A gaggle of
pretty Japanese girls had stopped and stood giggling. Mike grinned and asked
for their e-mails, but, half-covering their mouths, they merely continued to
giggle. The young man’s girlfriend pulled him away before he was able to ask
more searching questions and the crowd gradually dispersed.
“You’ve got
the Pentatron tablet?” whispered Gary,
staring at the case in Mike’s hand.
“Yeah… but
we’d better go further back in time before I do the explaining bit.”
Gary
thought his friend was curiously buoyant considering their predicament. When he
started to fumble with the time-specs they were snatched away by Mike.
Hey, what the
heck…?”
“I’m an expert
now, Gary.”
Mike twiddled
the rings of the diaphragms on Gary’s
specs a few times, the lenses went blank, and he handed them back.
“All set!” he
announced triumphantly. “A month ago! Before the Pentatron Tablet exhibition
got set up.”
“How about a
hundred thousand years?” suggested Gary
nursing his nose and now curious about ancient Atlantis.
Mike perched
the specs on his friend’s wounded olfactory appendage. Everything went dim. For
a brief moment Gary was alone until
Mike was beside him again.
“Can you walk
okay?” Mike asked.
Gary
stood.
“No problem.
Only my face! Hoped the pain would go away here in the past… in another time…
but it hasn’t. Don’t you realise how important this is? Means we’ve got a true
time-space wormhole. Matter remains unchanged.”
“So?” queried
Mike, as they headed for Tottenham Court Road tube station.
“Oh, so what!”
replied Gary irritably. “You don’t
care a shit about science, do you?”
“Got
some
skills, mate. Aren’t you gonna ask me how I achieved the impossible?”
“What?”
“Well… it was
like this...”
Mike proudly
launched into a graphic account of how, having immobilised the other decoy
security guard, he realised the case had to be chained to the one carrying the
Pentatron Tablet, with the key in the man’s pocket being a dummy. He’d need a
hairgrip to pick the lock, for in all probability the genuine key would’ve been
sent by special delivery to top brass in the British
Museum. It’s what
he’d
have
done, anyway, he informed Gary. So
where would he get such a thing?
“I don’t think
I’m gonna like what you’re about to tell me, Mike.”
“My one chance,
Gary
!
Been all over the place with these specs in the last
quarter of an hour! You’re a real pal! Would never’ve done this without the
little lesson you gave me. Anyway, I reckoned she’d have spare hairgrips ’cos
her gorgeous red hair’s so long and she wouldn’t run around playing hockey with
hair in her eyes, would she? So... listen to this. I go to the same pitch in
the dead of night, a little adjustment to the specs and...
oh
,
you should have seen her face when I appeared from nowhere in the middle of
their game! Walked up to her… now, Gary,
I’m not kidding, she stared at me like I’d just come out of a Hollywood
movie… and…”
Mike’s face
went dreamy.
“What?”
“Bet you her
legs are better than
your
girl’s!”
“Get on with
it!”
“She just
gazed at me all starry-eyed, and…”
Gary
shook his head in disbelief.
“Well, I had
this little piece prepared. ‘
You
have been chosen,’ I said, ‘because of
all the beautiful girls in the world you are the most wondrous…’”
“
Wondrous
?
You flipping wanker!”
“Good word,
eh?”
“Yeah… if you
need something to make a girl puke!”
“Told her how everything
about her was pure perfection and that she had the best legs I’d ever seen. I
said, as a messenger sent to save the world I’d personally selected
her
…”
“Yes, yes…
spill the beans!”
“‘Can you lend
me a hairgrip?’ I asked.”
“And?”
“The other
girls… they pissed themselves with laughter. Can’t think why.”
“Mikey pal,
your technique stinks!”
“
She
didn’t laugh! Took a hairgrip from her hair, held it out and…”
“Oh stop
rambling!” Gary was plainly bored by his friend’s narrative.
“I swear she
was trembling. When she’d let go of the hairgrip I kissed her hand and gave a
bow!”
“You nutter!”
“Wanted to
kiss her on the lips like you did with yours, but... with those others laughing
like a pack of hyenas... you know... kink of put me off… so I told her the divine
messenger would always treat the loveliest girl in the world with overwhelming
respect!”
Mike winked at
Gary as they sat on a west bound Central line train.
“You said
what
?”
“Nice one,
ay?”
“Poor girl!
Must’ve been mortified!”
“After which I
vanished!”
“So you picked
the lock successfully?”
“Erm… not
exactly. A combination, see. Worth a try, though, don’t you think?”
“So?”
“Had to go
back and steal a bloody chain cutter, didn’t I? Went all over the place to find
one. Dragged you out from underneath that heavy in the nick of time. Heard him
shouting again when we were round the corner. Don’t give you much time, these
mag-stunners.”
“So I got
zapped as well ’cos that guy was touching me? Man, If only I knew how these
things work. Must take one apart sometime...” Gary’s bruised face suddenly lit
up like a light bulb. Mike knew that expression only too well. “Mike, you’ve
made my day! Just had a thought.”
“Here we go
again, Little Einstein. Explain!”
“P’raps the
time-specs and mag-stunners share the same phenomenon! Molecular blending at
interfaces, right?”
“To hell with
molecules and interfaces! The skin on the back of that girl’s hand, Gary, was
like silk. I was kissing silk!”
