The Terminus Read Free

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…”
    Arthry and
Blinker burst into laughter.
    “Hand them in
to the police? A good one, ay? Must say, he’s original,” observed Blinker.
    “What’s so
bloody funny?” Gary asked angrily, his eyes seeking help from the girl. She
blushed again, avoiding his gaze.
    “Why should
the people who distribute food be the slightest bit interested in the specs?”
Arthry asked. The man had stopped laughing, his stare a laser thatthreatened
to cut Gary in two.
    “Tell me one
thing. What is this place?” Gary asked.
    “London.”
    “Right!
London! Kinda gathered that up there at the station. So we’re somewhere in the Underground,
yes?”
    “No! This is
the Retreat.”
    “Okay! The
Retreat. So what about that flood you spoke of?”
    “You’ve really no idea… or you’re pretending?”
    “Of course
I’ve no flipping idea! Police dishing out food? You lot thinking mums are
flowers? All crap to me! Crazy crap!”
    Cool it,
man!
    “ The Flood.
The one that destroyed the world… except for us lot and the unbrained surfacers
up there.”
    Gary sensed
the pit of his stomach opening up, as if he might fall in and be sick at the
same time. Arthry’s face hardened. Something had clearly occurred to the man;
something involving Gary.
    “D-D-Destroyed
the…?” Gary stuttered, his voice sounding squeaky. “Ahem! Destroyed the world ,
you said?”
    “Apart from
London,” Arthry added. “Thanks to God.”
    “When… I mean,
what year are we in?”
    Arthry eyed
Gary with intense suspicion.
    “Fifty-six
A.F.”
    “A.F.?”
    “After the
Flood. You, with those specs, come from the future. Yeah? Where God was heading
last time we met.”
    Gary shook his
head.
    “The past… I
think...” He hesitated. “Sure! The past. ’Cos in the London I come from there
are trains whizzing along in those stinky underground tunnels.”
    “Trains?”
questioned Blinker, his face drawn into a sneer. Gary disliked the boy more and
more, all the time softening towards the girl who still stared anxiously at
him.
    “Same as that
pod thing. The ‘shuttle-bus’. Only the carriages are joined together. Run on
wheels and make a heck of a noise... and don’t shoot by at the speed of bloody
light. Tell me one thing. This flood... why isn’t London under water? Should be
one of the first places to get submerged.”
    His last
remark raised eyebrows.
    “We are under
water,” explained Beetie. “We survive here only because of God.”
    “Hang on a
minute. You’re saying this place is under water?”
    Arthry nodded
confirmation of the fact, fixing Gary with eyes of steel.
    “So, how
come…?”
    “God’s
defences,” Beetie interrupted. “Flood defences around London. Built a long time
ago. As the water levels rose, so did his defences. When they’d sorted out
God’s air purification system, they closed the top over the city... just in
time. Before the asteroid strike.” She paused. “But London’s doomed,” she
continued. “So God must visit the future. Something he’d never wanted to do.”
    Arthry’s face
changed, revealing emotion for the first time.
    “Doomed, like
all of us here,” he affirmed. “Then you show up, huh? Trying to find out
how we plan to…”
    He stopped, as
if trying to trap Gary in the gaps between his words. Gary swivelled to face
Beetie, praying she’d bail him out.
    Christ,
man! London under water… doomed … and they think I’ve got
something to do with whatever’s going on?
    She said
nothing,