48:00

 

Every day, as I board the rickety pre-modernisation train to work, I start the same little daydream.

 

Forty-eight hours from now, I’ll be lying on a bed of silk sheets in the centre of some Mediterranean villa, surrounded by scantily clad Grecian maidens in Vivienne Westwood sandals who feed me grapes and expensive wine. I’ll have a cupboard full of designer suits and a calfskin briefcase – not that I’ll ever have to go to work – and a French chef in the kitchen, who coincidentally has the thighs of a Botticelli Venus and likes to wear the top couple of buttons on her blouse undone. And some golden-haired nymph called Joanna who wears tight t-shirts and no bra to tend the sumptuous hanging gardens. And a couple of pretty young girls who go riding on the beaches with their red jackets and their tight white trousers and their riding crops…

 

Once upon a time I’d have had to stop there and cross my legs, but these days, I think, my body knows it’s not going to happen. I mean, hell, who am I? A lowly file clerk at a firm I’m not even sure I know the name of. I’ve never even seen a horse. It’s all just smut from some of the more expensive pin up mags. Normally I’d just keep going with whatever came to mind.

 

Today, however, someone tapped me on the shoulder.

“What d’you want?” I mumbled, my eyes still closed as I swayed with the motion of the train. Electric trains were so outdated, but they still ran, perfect timing every day. Not through any sense of loyalty or service, but just because the people running the trains wanted us all to get to work bang on time. Or more frequently, early. A hundred and twenty people crammed into a carriage meant for fifty. They’d taken all the seats out, you see. And the carpet. Just in case anyone felt too comfortable.

 

“Richard Jacobson?”

“That’s me.” I mumbled again, desperately trying to recall the name of the girl who washed my seven Rolls Royce automobiles in nothing but high-heeled sandals, hot pants and a sopping wet linen shirt.

 

There was a rustle. It sounded like the person who was talking to me was reading the paper.

“Richard Jacobson. In exactly forty-eight hours you will be sitting in a junkyard on the banks of the river Thames with an exceptionally pretty transvestite spy from Shanghai called Carmen, who on an espionage mission for his government and with whom you will have fallen hopelessly in love, your room mate Di, who will have been mysteriously transformed into a 1958 Plymouth Fury, and a small Border Collie cross, having hitched a ride on the tour bus of the 18 to 21 women’s hydro-cricket team, as you await the end of the world as you know it due to a nuclear holocaust instigated by the Chinese government.”

 

I opened my eyes, half turning as best I could in the press of bodies to look at this person.

“That’s bullshit.”

They turned a page with a rustle. The impressive broadsheet – The Elitist, the only paper still to be printed with pages fourteen glorious inches wide – took up much more space than this person should have had to spread their arms and almost totally hid their face from anyone but me. And even I could only see a bit. They had shoulder length hair, dark, pulled back into a short tufty ponytail; one of those felt hats popular in the 1950’s, and a long raincoat. I could just about make out where a pair of sunglasses hooked over a pale ear. It looked like someone had been watching too many film noirs.

“That’s what you think.”

“What the fuck is a 1958 Plymouth Fury? And why would I leave town? And I don’t like dogs.” As an afterthought, I added. “And I’m strait.”

“So that pathetic little fantasy you were broadcasting says.”

I almost replied, then paused. The person, a woman, I was pretty sure, smiled a little. “Yes, I heard it, you weird little fellow. And trust me, you’ll be there.”

Something had caught my eye. The headline on the paper. It read ‘Chinese Government Offers Hand Of Friendship To Getsikoi Leaders’. Nothing strange there. Well, okay, The Elitist was the only paper these days that made titles longer than three words and certainly the only ones who’d put anything like that on the front page, since the rest of the world was preoccupied with whether or not Fernando Stardust, top fauxballer, was going to divorce his third wife, singing sensation and small-time porn star Xendrixia ‘Call Me Bunny’ Dallas for starring in ‘Night Of The Undead Bunny Girls’ with his arch-rival, Grayson Kamiflage of Oxford Street Over 5’6”s Reunited. But for some reason, it wasn’t right. I paused, frowning.

“That bit with the hydro-cricket team sounded good.”

“You don’t get to sleep with any of them.”

“Dang.”

“Why would you? You’re madly in love with Carmen, remember.”

“I don’t do men. Especially not men in skirts. Especially not men in skirts who come from foreign countries. Especially not men in skirts who are spying on the Getsikoi for aforementioned foreign countries’ governments.”

“Hey, I’m not a psychologist. I’m just the one who delivers the goods. You’ll be there.”

“Why should I?”

“Because it’s the future. Because it’s been predicted. You can’t mess with causality.”.

“Hah! That’s bullshit. Give me one good reason why I should be there.”

She lowered her paper a little, turning to look at me, then reached up and twitched her sunglasses down an inch or so

 

And winked at me.

“Because that’s the only chance you’ve got of surviving.”

 

At that moment, the doors of the train opened and people started to stream out. She went with them. I was left standing there, with a cold, sinking feeling in my chest. Not because she was pretty, although she was, not withstanding the fact that her eyes were bright purple.

 

Her pupils had been the shape of an hourglass.

 

I’d just seen an Akedagish.

 

I paused a moment longer, revelling in the wonder of it all – she’d spoken to me! Given a prophecy… to me! Of all people! – Before I realised the doors were closing again and made a lunge for them. I made it. My shirttails didn’t, but luckily the fabric, recycled paper fibre, wasn’t up to much and disintegrated the moment I gave it a sharp yank.

 

On the platform, I looked up at the dull grey sky and scowled.

“Bullshit. I don’t do men.”

 

Convinced, I strode on towards work. It was absolute rubbish. I mean, all the stories about Akedagish coming out with nonsense and it all coming true… that was probably just the ones you heard about. I mean, what do you say to your wife when you get home? ‘Oh, an Akedagish told me I’d turn into a plastic cucumber at nine twenty eight this morning if I didn’t buy them a coffee and it didn’t come true?’ Not a chance. It was more likely to be ‘Oh, an Akedagish told me my geriatric grandmother with a heart condition would die if I took her on the train again and she fell down the stairs at the station!’ And most of them were probably made up. The few real Akedagish around – and I wasn’t ruling out the possibility she’d had some kind of custom contact lens made to justify her standing in trains and sprouting the weirdest thing she could think of to random strangers – probably made up anything that sounded remotely plausible and hoped for the best. I mean, there were probably loads of prophecies that didn’t come true, if they weren’t all just urban legends.

 

I wasn’t even going to touch on why she would do such a thing. Maybe she was a psychologist. Maybe she was a high school student with a really weird extra-credit assignment. Maybe that was her way of picking up blokes. I didn’t know and I didn’t care.

 

Just out of curiosity, I picked up a copy of The Elitist when I bought my morning fix of The Daily Scandal. The Scandal boldly proclaimed that Fernando Stardust had said ‘BUBBLES Or BUST!’ or something to that effect, probably with more words and fewer capital letters. And possibly without the exclamation mark. The Elitist, however, insisted that ‘The Getsikoi To Cut Sock Allowance By One Third This March Due To Reduced Availability’ and went on to explain that there weren’t going to be as many socks around, so our great and gracious alien leaders had made it so that we couldn’t have as many socks, in case a couple of people took them all and left others without any. I was mildly confused. Maybe it hadn’t been The Elitist she’d been reading. Maybe there was another broadsheet, another firm allowed to use enough paper to make a decent three piece suit on telling people what they could find out so much easier from turning on the news channel. I scanned the stands. There wasn’t one here, at least, and I was pretty sure this stand carried everything. I considered asking, but decided it wasn’t worth it.

 

If I’d known that the girl with the hourglass eyes had been bang to rights about my future, I wouldn’t have gone to work that day at all and wasted the five hours forty minutes of my remaining forty eight that constituted my morning shift on filing triplicate copies. But then again, if I’d done that, I’d have never met Carmen.


Chapter One

 

The first recorded incident of an Akedagish prophecy was in the summer of 2046, when a ‘Strange man wearing a raincoat and sunglasses’ insisted on access to the American President of the time. In the words of the President’s bodyguard, he:

“Pulled his sunglasses down a little bit and looked over the top, and my Gawd, did he give me the screaming heebie-jeebies, cause his eyes were purple as a bruise and the little black bits in the middle were like an egg timer shape. And he just said that the fate of the whole world rested on what he was about to say to the President, in some poncy accent. I figured he was from MI5 or something and let him in.”

 

The only words he spoke when ushered into the inner sanctums of the White House, into the presence of President Bush III himself, were these:

“Tomorrow, you’ll feel like phoning your wife in Texas. Don’t.”

 

Three days later, the following words were found scrawled on one of the few remaining stranding walls in the ruins of the White House, just twenty hours after the Getsikoi invasion:

“I told you not to use the phone, fucknut. Just typical, this. Just like your bloody twat of an uncle, you are, he wouldn’t listen to a word I said either.”

 

It is widely accepted that the Akedagish in question was English.

 

It is my usual custom, after morning shift, to join the war at the cart sent by a local supermarket and try and get something to eat. Today was no different, except I got to the front a little quicker than normal without gaining anything worse than a kick in the ribs and an accountant from floor 27B sinking her teeth into my arm. Elbowing a middle manager I particularly didn’t like in the eye, I lunged for a vacuum packed sandwich.

 

A slim, pale hand closed delicate fingertips with inch long nails on my wrist and, ever so carefully, twisted.

 

I dropped to the ground, screaming in pain.

 

I wasn’t aware of a lot after that (Well, apart from being kicked a couple of times, at least two of which were very well aimed and probably from people who were holding a grudge) except that eventually, the buzzer for returning to work sounded, the crowd cleared and the cart wheeled away. I slowly became aware, in a haze of agony, that someone was sitting on one of the plastic benches not ten feet away from me.

 

Well, in actual fact, I became aware of their shoes. I’m not an expert on women’s shoes, but they weren’t the grubby little office flats that everyone else seemed to wear. They were the shiniest shiny black, like the carapace of a cockroach, with narrow stiletto heels some four inches high, and a large black fabric flower. The person had their legs crossed, and on the foot that was suspended in mid air, the shoe had slipped off their foot a little. And I could see the label inside. It said ‘Vivienne Westwood’.

 

My eyes moved upwards.

 

Whoever it was had ankles like a gazelle. No cheap polyester tights to cover up the fact that the ration on razors was stiff indeed, in order to keep suicide rate at an acceptable low – her legs were naked, hairless and the colour of milk. And the foot that was partially uncovered by the Westwood dangling off it’s toes! I never thought a plump, perfectly rounded heel could be sexy, but holy Mary…

 

The eyes kept on going up.

 

Calves like the most expensive of shoe models, and thighs that put the pin up queens to shame. A pinstripe pencil skirt with slits up both sides. It almost looked – Jesus in heaven – like it was made of fabric. Maybe even cotton. Cotton! Cotton was practically extinct!

 

Further up there was a narrow waist neatly covered by a pale pink shirt. My eyes followed the line of buttons up to her collar bones, over a bust that was just big enough to be impressive but not so big that it’d start getting grossly excessive, not to mention droopy. The top button was left undone, so I could see the hollow at the base of her immaculate throat. I wasn’t ready for the face yet, so my eyes dropped to the three quarter length sleeves, unbuttoned cuffs showing off smooth, beautiful wrists, and slim hands with long fingers. Fingers tipped with an inch long French manicure, holding a sandwich with such grace and delicacy that it elevated that bread and ersatz margarine and limp salad to the status of a holy relic. I think if she’d left just a crust, I’d have taken it home and built a shrine.

 

She lifted the sandwich to take a bite, in a manner so elegant and beautiful that she deserved to give master classes in sandwich consumption, and all of a sudden my hungry eyes were confronted with the plumpest, most lusciously sculpted pair of lips I’d ever seen. They shimmered a soft cinnamon brown. I’d never seen lip-gloss before except on supermodels. Her teeth were white and even and sharp and perfect.

 

A little higher… a smooth, strait nose, neither too big nor too small, neither roman nor turned up at the tip. Almond shaped eyes the colour of chocolate, real chocolate, which I’d seen in real life only once, framed with long, black, slightly curled lashes like the tattered wings of a butterfly. Her perfect eyelids, like two little shells, were pink and brown. And to top it all off, a sleek, smooth black bun with two black lacquer chopsticks poked through it, not a hair out of place.

 

I felt a kick in my chest that felt uncomfortably like love. However, more importantly than that, I thought I was about to die from lack of blood to my brain, on account of it being redirected to another vital part of my anatomy that spoke of something quite comfortably like lust.

 

But first to get this damn arm fixed.

 

I dragged myself over to her feet, stars popping behind my eyes, and keeping a small distance away out of respect, lifted my injured arm.

“Little help?” I panted, eventually. I didn’t know whether it was the awe of this goddess or the blinding pain in the nerves of my right shoulder, but speaking had become incredibly difficult.

 

The vision of beauty made a noise in her throat that sounded like a ‘tut’ (And such a beautiful ‘tut’ it was!), placed her sandwich on the perfect white napkin on her lap, and reached down. One hand went under my upper arm, hauling me onto my knees, and the other hand took hold of my wrist as fingers curled tightly around my bicep. There was a twist, a click, and I screamed in agony again.

 

Falling forwards, I think I blacked out for a second. Awakening, I found myself face first in my idol’s ample chest. I almost blacked out again, this time from sheer joy.

 

The lady cleared her throat, with her usual grace.

 

“I’ll just stay here for a bit.” I mumbled, a touch giddy with elation, although some may claim my light-headedness was because the blood was being diverted elsewhere.

 

There was a derisive snort that sounded like the cry of a dove, and then a rumbling baritone that sounded like the mountain king had come round with a six pack of mead for feasting and carousing.

“If you like, mate, but they’re cotton wool.”

 

There was a brief, panicky moment of horror as the blood returned to my brain, loaded with new information.

 

Screaming again, I flung myself back, landing on the plastic bench and scrabbling as far away from the delicate little flower with the not so delicate vocal chords as I could.

“You’re a MAN!”

“Brownie points for you, jackass.” He, for it was most definitely a he, returned to his sandwich. Still just as graceful and elegant. But wrong, so wrong, on so many levels.

 

I tried to get my thoughts in order.

“What. The. Fuck?”

That was a good start.

“Tell anyone, I’ll kill you.” He rumbled. He didn’t have an accent, so much as a lack of an accent. It was British, and common as hell, but other than that I couldn’t place it. “You saw what I did to your arm? That was me being friendly.”

Something occurred to me.

“You’re not called Carmen, are you?”

 

A second later, he had grabbed my jacket lapels and yanked me to within a few inches of his face. Hot damn, if he’d been a girl…

“How the fuck do you know that? Who told you? Who are you?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. I’m Richard, pleased to meet you.”

“You’re from the Getsikoi, aren’t you?”

“Me? No! Nooooo!”

He relaxed a little, but it was obvious he was still pretty suspicious.

“I’m not sure why I’m believing you, or even if I really am… but you’re still going to tell me where you heard my name.”

“I’m serious, you won’t believe me.”

He let go of my jacket, starting on the half eaten sandwich again. “Oh yeah? Try me.”

I sighed, straitening my clothes. “This morning, I met an Akedagish.”

 

There was a stunned silence. It took me a couple of seconds to realise that Carmen was staring at me, mouth slightly open, with a look of awe.

 

“You’re fucking with me.”

“I’m deadly serious.”

“What else did he say? He? She?”

“She.” I rubbed the back of my neck. “She said that in forty eight hours I’d be in a junkyard on the banks of the Thames with you, my room mate, and a dog.”

“Oh. That’s not to-”

“Awaiting the end of the world by nuclear holocaust.”

Oh.”

“She also said you were a spy. What’s Shanghai like, anywfff!”

Carmen had clapped one finely boned, incredibly strong hand around my mouth, and now got to his feet, dragging me with him as he picked up a tailored jacket of the same material as his skirt and started towards the exit.

“We are leaving. Now. And don’t you dare say another word until I say you can. Got it?”

“Mmmf.”

“I’ll take that as a yes. If it’s not a yes, I’ll break your arm.”

He released my head but grabbed my wrist, yanking me along. I realised two things very quickly. Firstly, that Carmen was actually quite tall, and secondly, that it was amazing anyone could move as such a pace in four-inch stilettos.

 

Maybe it was in his training.

 

* * * * *

 

“So let me get this strait…”

I poked a suspicious looking piece of lettuce with my plastic fork. We’d defected to the local fast food joint, which had taken all of about six and a half steps out of the building. Since the Getsikoi invasion, all fast food restaurants had, effectively, become one fast food restaurant, and the serving of anything that wasn’t at least partially deep fat fried was strictly forbidden. Prizing what little arterial space I had left, I tended not to frequent them, and had ordered a salad.

 

It was deep fat fried.

 

“You work for the Chinese government, collecting vital information, about what you won’t tell me, how you won’t tell me, and why you won’t tell me, but they insist you wear women’s clothing and you think this is a good job?”

“I resent that.” Carmen grumbled around a mouthful of cheeseburger. For a man in drag, he had a hell of an appetite. “The Getsikoi are sexist scum. Thus, they’d never believe a woman could be working for the Chinese Empire.”

“Empire?” I ate the lettuce. My red blood cells started screaming at me like irate council estate mothers who’d just been kicked out of their flat, gathering their broods of cholesterol babies around them with shrieks of ‘Get yer arse back ‘ere now, Chantelle, or I’ll knock yer fatty acid chains off!’

“We own half the globe, what else are we gonna call it?” Carmen rolled his eyes elegantly. No! Not elegantly. He just rolled his eyes. I blinked with confusion.

“But the Getsikoi have got you beaten. They said you’re surrounded by hostile states, isolated and ready to give up!”

He sniggered loudly, helping himself to a couple of non-nationality specific fries.

“All lies. You’ve been lied to all your life, Richard. Much as they’d hate to admit it, the Getsikoi screwed up their invasion badly and China’s got a hell of a lot of friends at the moment.”

“Like who?” I replied defensively. I knew the Getsikoi were alien filth, but damn it, they were our leaders and the only person with a right to talk about our alien filth leaders like that was us.

“Mmm… lessee. Japan, Korea, Australia, Mongolia, Russia, Thailand, Singapore, India, much of South America…”

“You’re kidding.”

“Am not. The Getsikoi have got Europe, Africa and what used to be the USA and that’s it. Oh, and the Falkland islands. I think there was a brief movement to invade the Falklands, but it was cut down by a cunning argument.”

“Which was?”

“’What’s the fucking point?’”

“So… if you’ve got all those countries, why not have Russian agents or Brazilian cross-dressers or something?” I spluttered, a little irritated by the fact that the Chinese government was picking and choosing whether or not to crush the Getsikoi like bugs. Or rather that they’d chosen not to.

“We do. I just happen to be from Shanghai. There’s criteria for being a spy, you know – as long as you fit them, you’re good to go. Just so happens it’s mostly Orientals who fit the bill.”

“And they are?”

Carmen arched a pencilled eyebrow and licked melted cheese off his fingers. I fought the urge to stare.

“If I tell you that, I’d have to kill you.”

“Really?”

“No. But I might have to kill you eventually anyway.”

“Might?”

“Might not.”

“I’ll risk it.”

“There are four main ones. One, you have to be able to speak English. Well.” Carmen crumbled his cheeseburger wrapper and started polishing off the fries. I turned my disinterested eyes back to my cardiac arrest inducing salad and poked it for about half a second before giving up. “My dad was from Hong Kong so I learnt how to speak a few languages very young. And two, you need to be top of the game, physically. I mean, there’s training and stuff, how to kill a man with a tea tray…”

“… How to run in stiletto heels…”

“Yup, stuff like that. But if you’re not fit to start off with they won’t take you. And you need to be sharp as a tack. Good memory, good problem solving skills, high awareness.”

“Example?”

“What colour was the door frame on the way in? No, don’t look. What colour?”

I paused, thinking. I tried staring at my salad for inspiration. The greasy pools offered up no insight.

“I don’t know.”

“It was blue. Bright blue. Have a look. I know I’m right.”

I turned and squinted at the doorway. The frame was indeed bright blue.

“And they teach you that?”

“To a certain extent. A lot of it’s intuitive, though. You got it or you don’t.”

“And what’s the fourth one?”

“That’s the one where the rest of the world tends to fall down a bit.”

“Yes?”

“You have to look absolutely stunning in a dress.”

“Ah.”

“Yup. For some strange reason its mostly Asian operatives who can really pass for women. Most peculiar, but it seems the rest of the world just ain’t got it.”

 

I leant back on my chair, abandoning the rapidly deflating plateful of calories and damaged cellulose that was my meal, and stared listlessly at the shiny Getsikoi Grub sign. The ‘One Chain To Rule Them All’ slogan had been a pathetic attempt at PR many, many years ago. I didn’t even know why.

“It’s so weird.” I mused, trying hard not to notice that Carmen was slyly stealing forkfuls of my salad. “This morning the only thing I cared about was that my roommate had drunk all the coffee. And now I think my entire country is going to be blown to smithereens and I don’t know why.”

 

Reaching for a napkin and producing a pen from his bag, Carmen started to sketch something.

“Let me tell you something, Mr. Jacobson, about the Getsikoi and the history of the world…”