Organ Music Read Free Page A

sound struggled out from between them.
    â€˜Wicked!’ croaked Harley, valiantly trying to be cool.
    â€˜I, personally, took it through its imprinting run,’ said Winnie Finney fondly. He patted the car’s battered flank again. ‘And I tuned and set up the guiding beacons. Well, though we call them beacons, they’re so small no one knows they’re there. Not to mention the latest Japanese technology in the distance sensors, and in those bumpers. Touch-sensitive, even at speed. But I mustn’t blind you with science. Let’s concentrate on getting you two hooligans sorted out. This way!’
    David and Harley grinned foolishly at each other as they followed him through the right-hand door. Their reception wasn’t nearly as fierce as they had imagined it might be.
    Just inside the door a huge figure stood, seemingly waiting to greet them. David’s heart, already pounding, gave a sharp leap and he made what sounded like a cry of terror.
    â€˜It’s only a statue,’ said Harley, ‘of someone about to bowl a ball.’
    â€˜Atlas with the world in his hand,’ Winnie Finney told them, looking back over his shoulder. ‘Come on! You can admire it later.’
    He led them past the statue and, entering an elevator, he pressed a button. David craned to watch, determined to know which floor they were being taken to. But these buttons had no numbers, and it was impossible to tell how fast or how far they were going. All he could be sure of was that they were shooting down.
    â€˜Long way?’ he asked.
    â€˜Oh, yes,’ said Winnie Finney. ‘There’s much, much more to this place than meets the eye, you know.’
    The lift stopped and the door slid sideways. White corridors curved away to either side of them.
    â€˜I’m afraid you won’t be able to go home straight away,’ Winnie Finney said. ‘But never mind! I’ll take you to a place where you can have a cup of coffee and put your feet up.’
    â€˜Will I be able to ring my mother?’ asked David, remembering that she would be waiting up for him, drinking coffee and trying not to worry, yet growing unhappier with every moment.
    Though Winnie Finney patted his shoulder and spoke in a comfortable voice, he did not actually answer David’s question.
    â€˜Only the most important people ever get down to the level we’re making for,’ he said. ‘You’re being treated like celebrities.’
    He pushed his hand into his pocket and pulled out something that looked to David like a gun. However, there was no report when Winnie Finney pressed the trigger, merely the sound of a lock unlocking itself. Yet another door swung open.
    â€˜Quickly!’ Winnie Finney pushed Harley and David ahead of him, his long arms held out to either side in case either of them should decide to break away and run for it.
    â€˜Sorry to hurry you, but an alarm goes off if that particular door doesn’t close within the minute,’ Winnie Finney told them. ‘Security!’ he added as if that explained everything.
    They passed along a narrow, bright passage and came out into a second corridor, painted in pale blue and curving rather more tightly than the one they had just left. Half a dozen people were moving rapidly towards them from the right, led by a man and a woman both wearing pale blue overalls and jackets. Behind this pair walked three elegantly dressed people, one of whom was propelling what seemed to be an electronic wheelchair flashing coloured lights at them, in which sat a bony old man wearing something like an oxygen mask. It was an unexpected sight, even in this place. Winnie Finney seemed surprised by it, too. He exclaimed to himself, then flung out one arm imperiously.
    â€˜Stand back! Let these people pass,’ he said softly, but sharply.
    â€˜We’ll make everything as comfortable for you as we possibly can, Mr Yee,’ the woman in blue overalls