Good Omens
The second.. shortest biker, Pigbog (6′ 3“), whispered to the shortest, Greaser (6′ 2”):
“What happened to ‘Sport’, then?” He had LOVE tattooed on one set of knuckles, HATE on the other.
“It’s random wossit, selection, innit. I mean they do it with microchips. It’s probably got, like, millions of different subjects in there, in its RAM.” He had FISH across his right.. hand knuckle, and CHIP on the left.
“Pop Music, Current Events, General Knowledge, and War. It’s just I’ve never seen ‘War’ before. That’s why I mentioned it.” Pigbog cracked his knuckles, loudly, and pulled the ring tab on a can of beer. He swigged back half a can, belched carelessly, then sighed. “I just wish they’d do more bleeding Bible questions.”
“Why?” Greaser had never thought of Pigbog as being a Bible trivia freak.
“’Cos, well, you remember that bit of bother in Brighton?”
“Oh, yeah. You was on Crimewatch, ” said Greaser, with a trace of envy.
“Well, I had to hang out in that hotel where me mam worked, dinni? Free months. And nothin’ to read, only this bugger Gideon had left his Bible behind. It kind of sticks in your mind.”
Another motorbike, jet black and gleaming, drew up in the carpark outside.
The door to the cafe opened. A blast of cold wind blew through the room; a man dressed all in black leather, with a short black beard, walked over to the table, sat next to the woman in red, and the bikers around the video scrabble machine suddenly noticed how hungry they all were, and deputed Skuzz to go and get them something to eat. All of them except the player, who said nothing, just pressed the buttons for the right answers and let his winnings accumulate in the tray at the bottom of the machine.
“I haven’t seen you since Mafeking,” said Red. “How’s it been going?”
“I’ve been keeping pretty busy,” said Black. “Spent a lot of time in America. Brief world tours. Just killing time, really.”
(“What do you mean, you’ve got no steak and kidney pies?” asked Skuzz, affronted.
“I thought we had some, but we don’t,” said the woman.)
“Feels funny, all of us finally getting together like this,” said Red.
“Funny?”
“Well, you know. When you’ve spent all these thousands of years waiting for the big day, and it finally comes. Like waiting for Christmas. Or birthdays.”
“We don’t have birthdays.”
“I didn’t say we do. I just said that was what it was like.”
(“Actually,” admitted the woman, “it doesn’t look like we’ve got anything left at all. Except that slice of pizza.”
“Has it got anchovies on it?” asked Skuzz gloomily. None of the chapter liked anchovies. Or olives.
“Yes, dear. It’s anchovy and olives. Would you like it?”
Skuzz shook his head sadly. Stomach rumbling, he made his way back to the game. Big Ted got irritable when he got hungry, and when Big Ted got irritable everyone got a slice.)
A new category had come up on the video screen. You could now answer questions about Pop Music, Current Events, Famine, or War. The bikers seemed marginally less informed about the Irish Potato Famine of 1846, the English everything famine of 1315, and the 1969 dope famine in San Francisco than they had been about War, but the player was still racking up a perfect score, punctuated occasionally by a whir, ratchet, and chink as the machine disgorged pound coins into its tray.
“Weather looks a bit tricky down south,” said Red.
Black squinted at the darkening clouds. “No. Looks fine to me. We’ll have a thunderstorm along any minute.”
Red looked at her nails. “That’s good. It wouldn’t be the same if we didn’t have a good thunderstorm. Any idea how far we’ve got to ride?”
Black shrugged. “A few hundred miles.”
“I thought it’d be longer, somehow. All that waiting, just for a few hundred miles.”
“It’s not the traveling,” said Black. “It’s the arriving that matters.”
There was a roar outside. It was the roar of a motorbike with a defective exhaust, untuned engine, leaky carburetor. You didn’t have to see the bike to imagine the clouds of black smoke it traveled in, the oil slicks it left in its wake, the trail of small motorbike parts and fittings that littered the roads behind it.
Black went up to the counter.
“Four teas, please,” he said. “One black.”
The cafe door opened. A young man in dusty white leathers entered, and the wind blew empty crisp packets and newspapers and ice cream wrappers in with him. They danced around his feet like excited children, then fell exhausted to the floor.
“Four of you, are there, dear?” asked the woman. She was trying to find some clean cups and tea spoons.. the entire rack seemed suddenly to have been coated in a light film of motor oil and dried egg.
“There will be,” said the man in black, and he took the teas and went back to the table, where his two comrades waited.
“Any sign of him?” said the boy in white.
They shook their heads.
An argument had broken out around the video screen (current categories showing on the screen were War, Famine, Pollution, and Pop Trivia 1962.. 1979).
“Elvis Presley? ‘Sgotta be ‘C’.. it was 1977 he snuffed it, wasn’t it?”
“Nah. ‘D.’ 1976. I’m positive.”
“Yeah. Same year as Bing Crosby.”
“And Marc Bolan. He was dead good. Press ‘D,’ then. Go on.”
The tall figure made no motion to press any of the buttons.
“Woss the matter with you?” asked Big Ted, irritably. “Go on. Press ‘D.’ Elvis Presley died in 1976.”
I DON’T CARE WHAT IT SAYS, said the tall biker in the helmet, I NEVER LAID A FINGER ON HIM.
The three people at the table turned as one. Red spoke. “When did you get here?” she asked.
The tall man walked over to the table, leaving the astonished bikers, and his winnings, behind him. I NEVER WENT AWAY, he said, and his voice was a dark echo from the night places, a cold slab of sound, gray, and dead. If that voice was a stone it would have had words chiseled on it a long time ago: a name, and two dates.
“Your tea’s getting cold, lord,” said Famine.
“It’s been a long time,” said War.
There was a flash of lightning, almost immediately followed by a low rumble of thunder.
“Lovely weather for it,” said Pollution.
YES.
The bikers around the game were getting progressively baffled by this exchange. Led by Big Ted, they shambled over to the table and stared at the four strangers.