Doctor Who_ Wonderland - Mark Chadbourn [42]
'No.' He shrugged, looked away; it wasn't that much of a denial. 'Nobody'll believe you anyway. They're good at making the papers and the TV go deaf.'
'And you think they'll look after you? You're a nobody, Denny, another cog just like Mathilda. And when they finish with you – '
He shook his head firmly. 'No. Because I play the game.'
I don't know how long I thought about those words in the years that followed; somehow it summed up the whole sick mess the world was in. How could I fight something like that? If Denny could be corrupted, someone who I thought had the purest of beliefs, then anybody could be. The creeps didn't have to kill that movement in the Haight that they obviously found so threatening. We'd do the job ourselves.
With the mist folding around us, he turned to me, the lamps reflected in the shadows of his eyes. 'You want to get out of here, Summer. They'll be back soon, to clear up any mess.' The stress he gave to that word told me I was included in the description. 'But now that you know about them, they won't let you fade away. I'm sorry it turned out like this. Really. I liked you.' I laughed. His voice grew hard with threat: 'Keep running, Summer, and don't look back.'
And that's just what I did.
There was another assassination that day, as effective as the one that murdered President Kennedy. Denny killed the last part of me that had hope for something better. With the mist drifting through the city, I left San Francisco for the last time. Before dawn, I was heading south towards LA, and from there I moved slowly eastwards, never staying in one place too long, always watching over my shoulder. My life slipped into the twilight.
The fear was always there; I'd seen what those people were capable of. Every time I caught sight of smart suits and dead-eyed men, I'd step back into the shadows; but that was the worst thing ... they were normal, more normal than normal, and people like that were everywhere. They never drew attention to themselves, only acted when it was necessary. They could be anyone, in any place.
And if I ever thought it was all in my mind, there'd be incidents like the time in Houma when I returned from my shift at the diner to find my squalid apartment turned over and the landlord talking about men in suits who'd be back. Or the night in some Kansas backwater I can't even remember the name of, when a black car with black windows followed me for ten miles before trying to force me off the road. I only escaped because I jumped out and hid in a cornfield.
I'm not stupid enough to think they were searching for me all the time, but sometimes a file would be shuffled, or I'd just drift into someone's personal radar as a loose end, somebody who might surface at some time with a story to tell.
These are the true enemies of life on our planet. Not alien creatures or supernatural threats, not even religious fanatics with bombs strapped to their chests; bland men in bland suits who will do anything to stay in power.
So I watched from the sidelines as the Summer of Love burst in a blaze of publicity and hope, knowing with a terrible fatalism that the end was not far away. The players in the burgeoning hippie movement spoke of changing society, challenging the war in Vietnam, but I knew they were all deluding themselves into believing they had any chance at all; any power.
When I was in the Oval Office I had a distinct impression of great sadness, that the Colour-Beast wasn't the only one imprisoned. That there were more. Did they refine their dark arts, become more subtle in the use of such a great power? Was it there, in the desert, when Charlie was planning his night-time raids on LA? Helter Skelter. Death to Pigs. Did it help corrupt Chapman when John was shot? John, the last advocate of the hippie sixties, of peace and love, who was about