by G J Lee
Chapter 36
The New Order
How could this be? Surely this isn’t possible? How could my doctor be here? In 1946?
Suddenly everything shifted and clicked into place like a jigsaw or the tracks of a train set. Seeing Dr Meen stood in silhouette I realised that he was the faceless man in my dreams. That he was the watching stranger on my last visit to 1946. Now I understood why he was so anxious to see me in my own time.
But why? What was going on?
As my eyes adjusted to the light I could see that Dr Meen was smiling crookedly down at me. “And of course a very good day to your new friends,” he added, as if it mattered. Dr Meen then knelt down and removed his hat showing white hair. He peered in at the room and tutted. “Such a terrible place to be,” he said slowly, unconvincingly and with pretend concern. “And such a horrible smell.”
He stood up. He wasn’t alone. Hanz and The Face were stood just behind him.
“Would it be at all possible to give the two girls something to eat?” Dr Meen asked The Face in a tone that was asking yet at the same time telling. The Face said something to Hanz and Hanz shuffled off down the hallway. The doctor looked at down at me, still smiling crookedly.
“Jay,” he said, “if you don’t mind, I’d like you to follow me.” He held out a long and slender hand for me to take. But I refused the offer of his hand and ducked under it and out of the cupboard and into the hallway, all stiff and aching.
“What about Rosie and Lizzie?” I asked, straightening up.
“Mmm,” he considered for no more than a second before he waved the thought away. “They’ll be fine for the moment.” Then he turned to me. “It’s you I’d like to talk to.” And he pushed the cupboard door shut again and turned the key. He gave the key to The Face then turned to look at me.
“My, you are a good looking lad.” Then, after a moment’s pause. “Forgive me, you must be ravenous. Please follow me.”
I did as I was told but I wasn’t going to let it go. I rushed to keep up with his long strides. “You can’t just leave them in there,” I pointed out. “They’ll catch something.”
“Yes, there’s always that chance,” replied Dr Meen in that couldn’t care less way.
“Well, let them out then!” I demanded bravely, stopping in defiance.
Dr Meen halted and there was a pause before he came back to where I stood. He towered over me and that crooked grin still played on his lips like a sharks’ smile.
“Such devotion,” he said absent-mindedly. Then he gripped my cheeks with his long, left hand. “Now,” he snarled and his smile disappeared, “you going to do as you’re told, old boy. Is that clear?”
I couldn’t speak but mumbled ‘yes’ the best I could. Then, just as suddenly, Dr Meen’s smile returned.
He patted the side of my face lightly.
“Good.”
Then he turned on his heels and I had no choice but to follow.
Dr Meen led me into a bare room on the first floor, bare only for two old wooden chairs, a small wooden table and an ashtray. Heavy blue curtains were drawn at the window. Dr Meen unbuttoned his coat and placed it over the back of one of the chairs. His hat he placed carefully on the table beside the ashtray. He was dressed in the same tweed suit I remembered from the surgery. He motioned for me to sit in one of the chairs. I sat down but Dr Meen continued to stand. He lit a cigarette.
“Of course,” he said, “I saw you being born, you know.”
“You’ve said,” I replied, still attempting some sort of bravery.
The doctor looked hard and long at me and took a puff of his cigarette. “Yes,” he chuckled, “I have, haven’t I.” Then he came and sat down on the wooden chair opposite, crossing his legs. “I suppose you’re wondering what I’m doing in 1946?” he asked me, reading my thoughts.
I was frightened but I was angry. I was angry enough to try and show him that I wasn’t afraid and that I knew he’d been watching me.
“Just what are you up to Doctor?” I said flatly. “I know you’ve been watching me and getting inside my head.”
“Yes,” he agreed letting the ash drop from his cigarette. “All necessary, I’m afraid.”
“Why?”
“Well, let me put it to you bluntly, old boy.” He put out his cigarette then looked me straight in the eye. “You and your girlfriend have become a liability.”
“A what?” I didn’t understand.
“A risk,” he said simply.
I couldn’t believe it. “How could a couple of kids be a risk to anything?” I asked him.
“Well, seeing we’ve a little while, I’ll explain.” He lit yet another cigarette, then he uncrossed then re-crossed his spider-like legs and ignored Hanz when he came in with some thin sandwiches. I took a bite just to settle my stomach, but I wasn’t hungry now.
“My Grandfather was – and still is - a politician, you see. A famous politician. And he went a long way towards changing the world, how the people of the world perceive each other and how we live. Yes, he was a mighty man, rising to dizzy heights. But it hadn’t always been that way. Oh no.” The Doctor leaned towards me and dropped his voice to a whisper. “You see, he comes from the lower orders. The working classes, if you like. And he is despised by a lot of people who had been born into money. They thought he’d never live up to anything, you see. But he has. He showed them all. He became a great man. Respected and loved by his people. At an early age he realised that he had ‘special powers’ like you and me, and he saw all the evil in the world and he wanted to get rid of it so the world would be a peaceful place again. With an iron will and the consent of his people he started on a great crusade to cut out this evil once and for all.” At this point Dr Meen became serious and looked off into space. “Nevertheless, there were those close to him who were to betray him. There were those who were to steal his glory. The Fathers punished them in their own good time and delivered our great leader safely to us, where his great crusade continues.”
The cigarette clamped between Dr Meen’s fingers was strong and great clouds of smoke were drifting around him like mist at a mountain top. He looked at me, saw I was still frowning and gave me another crooked smile.
“Still non-the-wiser, I see.” Then he continued. “Well, where you – or should I say we – come in is simple, dear boy. With all our psychic and time skip capabilities combined my Grandfather can be great again.”
Although I understood that our ‘special powers’ would be attractive to this ‘great leader’, I really wanted to know exactly how me and Lizzie were expected to help.
So I asked him.
“How is perfectly clear, dear boy,” he replied. “We help my Grandfather escape to our time: the bustling twenty-first century.”
I didn’t like it.
“Escape?” I said curiously. “What do you mean ‘escape’?”
Dr Meen looked at me out of the corner of his eyes. “Is that what I said? I do apologise. What I really meant to say was ‘relocate.”
This sounded even worse.
“And your good self and that girlfriend of yours…” he added, but I stopped him before he could go any further.
“She’s not my girlfriend!”
Dr Meen looked irritated. He considered me with sly snakes’ eyes. I had to be careful.
“You and that friend of yours will be invaluable. Firstly, you. You will be able to ‘see’ any problems across time and space. A rare talent.”
“And Lizzie?”
“Your friend will help the time-skip. The crossover into your time. Exactly what she does to get you here.”
I thought about all this. It seems that Dr Meen knew that I had special powers since day one, had been following and watching me. He had, in fact, been planning to use them all along.
“So you knew,” I said. “You knew all along that I had special powers.”
“Oh indeed,” he answered with that crooked smile. “It’s like I said, I was there when you were born.
”
I was dumbfounded.
The idea that this man in front of me – a man who my family had trusted - had been plotting my future use since the day I was born made my head spin.
When I finally asked him how he knew that I had special powers before I was born Dr Meen explained how The Fathers knew everything. Had directed him to me.
“Who are The Fathers?” I asked slowly.
Dr Meen just smiled his crooked smile and finished yet another cigarette. “Whatever you’d like them to be.”
What kind of answer was that?
Then, thinking about it, it was clever. It was clever because it meant I didn’t have another question. It left me frowning and hanging there thinking.
I’d come to a dead end.
So I asked him what this ‘great man’ was planning to do in the 21st century. This seemed to get the doctor excited and he stared off into space again as he explained.
“He will extend his power and influence to our time where he will obtain the necessary tools to bring his crusade to a satisfactory conclusion. He will sweep aside the evil, the incompetent, the weak. He will lead us all like knights of old into a new Eden, a golden age with a new order, where only the strongest will be allowed to flourish. He will lead us, in essence, to total victory!”
I stepped around the fantastic spires and towers of a perfect future and asked him about Rosie.
“What about her?”
“What will happen to her?”
Dr Meen shook his head. “The little wretch has no place in our future. She will be killed.”
Just like that, it seemed.
He was sounding like a madman. I needed to get away, to go home or at least back to my friends.
But there was no means of escape. There was nowhere to run.
So we both sat in silence while Dr Meen blinked towards the future he had built in his head and finished yet another cigarette.
