Chapter Nine

The darkness at the station, if it were possible, seemed even more absolute than before. The boy suspected it must be early morning, and glanced at the sputtering light bulb, glad of its glow. Suddenly, it gave a loud buzz and fizzled out for a few seconds; the boy jumped and Big Macca, wrestling with the seal on a food packet of some sort beside him, turned at the movement.

"I wouldn't worry about that, mate. It's been like that for months, but it hasn't stopped yet! I dunno how it does it, but I stopped worrying about it ages ago!" He punched the air triumphantly as he finally managed to prise the seal apart, and offered the bag to his companion. "Want some?"

The boy peered into the packet curiously, and was taken aback. "You eat them?!" He indicated the orange, powdery thin triangles inside.

"Yeah. Doritos. Nothing like 'em!"

"Doritos!" echoed the boy, wonderingly.

"Yeah! That's what I said."

"I always wondered what they looked like."

Big Macca threw back his head and roared with laughter, while the boy continued to gaze in delight at the Doritos. "Well, now you can find out what they taste like, too!"

The boy felt a touch at his shoulder, and turned to find his friend, in her new get-up, her eyes flicking from Big Macca to himself. She noticed the open packet and an amused expression spread across her face. She reached out and took the packet from Big Macca, who failed to notice, and to the boy's dismay, shovelled the majority of the crisps into her mouth. "You were never going to eat them, " she reasoned, "You'd just've stared at them all night!"

Big Macca, noticing the girl, attempted to contain his laughter.

"So what do I call you?" he asked the boy, "What's her name?"

"She's…Meatloaf." The boy replied for her. He'd plucked the name from the air.

"I am n-" The girl protested indignantly. She stopped abruptly when she noticed the look of approval on Big Macca's face.

"Meatloaf?!"

"Yeah. That's me!"

"Nice name. Meatloaf rocked before Ga Ga."

"Thanks." She grinned and made a note to thank the boy later for his quick thinking. It occurred to her that, by introducing herself with her Ga Ga name, she would have been scorned by Big Macca and Charlotte Church. Not the best way to start their new life.

"And your name is…?" Big Macca asked the boy again.

"I…" the boy stuttered, "am…Britney Spears!" He'd given the best name he knew to the girl, and left himself with second-best. Still, it didn't matter.

"Britney Spears?"

"That's me! 'Nice name', I can see you're thinking!"

There was a pause, as big Macca's face contorted into many thoughtful and pained expressions. Finally, he voiced his opinion.

"Britney who?!"

"What? Only the biggest, baddest, meanest, nastiest, ugliest, most raging, rapping, rock 'n' roll, sick-punk, heavy-metal psycho-bastard that ever got get-down funky!...and you never heard of Britney Spears?"

"Yeah. OK, mate. You win!"

They sat in silence for a time: the boy savouring his new name, the girl savouring the Doritos. Big Macca, who lay with his head back over the edge of the platform, spoke.

"Charlotte 'n' me are going up-ground tonight. Scavenging, you know. You've got the underground to yourselves, kids!"

It was night: very, very quiet…yet not dark. True to Big Macca's word, the light continued to flicker and buzz. The boy lay on his stomach on a thin, grey mattress, thankful for the absence of his companions. His hot breath came in small skeins of steam as he read under his breath from a smoothed-out scrap of paper spread across the hard mattress.

He scanned the Text through, three times over, and then sat up, resting his back against the curve of the tunnel wall. He raised the paper in front of his face and saw how the light shone faintly through the thin, brittle sheet.

"Britney?"

He jerked, and the paper tore apart in his trembling hands.

He swore loudly as he gazed in utter disbelief at the flimsy remains of his most important possession.

"Hey!" For the first time, he looked beyond his treasure towards the voice. It was her. The girl he'd been stupid enough to drag along with him. Meatloaf.

"Britney?" She said again, tentatively. "Brit? You OK?"

He refused to look at her for longer. He was angry, very angry with her, he was sure; but…No. Better to push her away. She'd do more harm than good, in the end. It had already started. He glared at the mattress, glared and glared and fingered the crackling paper remnants. He sat for so long in the silence that he felt sure that she had gone, and so he swivelled, eyes tight closed, until he was curled face down on the mattress. He dropped his paper to the floor. Almost at once, he heard a rustle and then a creak as his bed tilted slightly. He groaned, his face still hidden.

"Leave me alone!"

"Britney. What is it? What've I destroyed?"

Silence.

"I will find out, Brit. I'll put it all back together and read it!"

In spite of himself, he laughed briefly through his nose. "You're too stubborn," he sighed. He saw her smile hesitantly. A nice smile. It almost made him smile too.

"Well, that's what you must like about me! It's my best feature!"

"I wish I could. But I don't think I can like anyone."

"Yeah! You can, Brit! We're not stuck in Ga Ga land any more!"

"I know."

"Well, that's good. Now shut up and let me figure out this thing of yours." She spread the pieces out in front of her. "Why'd you want something so easy to break, though? People didn't actually use this stuff, did they?!"

He nodded, but she was already deeply concentrating on the puzzle before her. Her hair hung across her cheeks and it seemed to him that it glowed as the light flickered over it. Was that her best feature? He found himself deciding.

She gave an indignant, exasperated sigh and the boy abandoned his thoughts to find the paper, although looking worse for wear, pieced together on the mattress. Her look was far from triumphant, however.

"What?" He ventured.

"I can't read it."

"Why?"

"It's in the Old language! We never learned that at Ga Ga School!"

"I know."

"But you can read it?"

"Yes."

"How?"

"I learned. My own way."

"I'd say secrecy is one of your strong points, Brit!"

"Mmm."

"You gonna read it out to me or what?"

He faltered. Glanced at the words on the paper. Words for his knowledge alone.

"I don't know if-" He began.

"-You can trust me?" She finished, incredulously. "Brit! Who rescued you from Globalsoft and that life we were living? Somebody you can trust, I should hope!" She leaped from the bed and stood across from him, fists clenched and eyes narrowed. "So read me that thing or I swear I won't give up until I find somebody else who will!!"

The pair stood, their glares locked. They waited, moving only to breath. The air turned colder in the silent tunnels. Finally, with a shudder, the boy sank to his knees in front of the reassembled scraps. The girl mirrored his actions and they became seated, face to face on either side of the low mattress. He indicated the paper.

"This is what we know as the Text. Only one person from each generation of a small minority of people knows it exists. The small minority call themselves the Bohemians, since they don't succumb to Ga Ga like other people do. The Text is passed on from Bohemian to Bohemian, and that's why I have it. The knowledge of the Old Language comes with it. I'm this generation's Bohemian!"

"You're a Boho?"

"I'm a Boho."

"Well, good. I believe you. Now read the 'Text'."

"I'm getting there! The message passed to me with the Text was 'The future is the past'."

"Meaning…?"

"Meaning we don't have to live like this in the future. We can have trains, Old Languages…and individuality and real music! Musical instruments! Live! No Ga Ga cyber sounds! We could-"

"That's not what the Text says."

"Not what the Text actually says. I'm coming to that.
Now, the future can be a good future. But how can we change it by ourselves? We need more: a Resistance. People we can trust."

"Oh, great." She rolled her eyes to the roof. "This could take forever; you don't trust anyone."
"Wait. It's the Text that decides who we can and can't trust. It tells us words only Bohemians'll know - although they won't know why they know it – and it'll lead them to us, now we're free of Ga Ga."

"Lead them to us here?"

"Well, me. Lead them to me. But only because I'm the guy with the Text."

"Brit, you have the Text!! You're the man!" She leaned across the bed to slap him exaggeratedly on the back. "Now will you READ IT?!!"