Who wants to live forever pt 3

 

The call came three days later. I had spent the time worrying and wondering, I still wasn’t sure this was the right thing to do. I was worried what would happen, where it would lead. I even thought of running away. I had enough money to live for many years, I wondered how long I could survive ensconced in a tropical paradise where no one knew me. I’d get bored eventually, but I’d be safe. I came to my senses; I was safe anyway. No one wanted me dead, I’m not even sure I can die, I was just scared and apprehensive. It’s hard to put into words how I felt, being the oldest man alive and likely to be so for many years. Having a secret that someone, somewhere would probably pay a fortune to learn. I was about to reveal that secret to a government agency too. I’ve seen enough science fiction and conspiracy movies to distrust anything with the word Government attached. But was that really true? Was it all just ridiculous? I mean, governments don’t really have secret labs, experimenting on people and forcing them to do their bidding. Do they? 

Vicky had sounded excited on the phone, and I felt a little of it rub off on me. After so long it would be nice to just relax with someone, chat about what I had seen and make plans of what I might do next. But what if she had an ulterior motive? What if she just wanted the secret of my serum so she could make money and be famous? Victoria Wilson, the woman who solved the aging problem. I couldn’t let that happen. She had to know how disastrous this would be. Living forever sounds amazing until you realise that it isn’t. Your friends die, your family dies, your money runs out, unless you steal your friend’s identity and all his money, of course. Also, how many people can this little planet support, long term? If no one died the food would soon run out, and if only some people had the serum, you risk having a them and us scenario. Would that lead to civil unrest, to war? So many questions to answer. I needed to be involved, I needed to put my views across, from the perspective of a man who lives forever.

So, just over a week after meeting with my granddaughter I was sitting on a tube, heading into the centre of London to a secret lab. When you say it like that, it sounds like something out of a cheap sci-fi novel. But the truth is London has many secrets. If this was a movie the lab would be in a country house somewhere idyllic, with rolling hills in the background. But the reality is more bizarre. The London underground has many stations and terminals, most of them busy, most of them easily accessible. But there are others. Back in the past, even before I was born, stations were abandoned, and closed down. Sometimes bigger stations were built to replace them, sometimes routes were changed, and the station was no longer on an active line. When you close a station underground, and the trains no longer use the line, what are you going to do with it? You can’t just bury it; you can’t knock it down. So, you sell it to the highest bidder, and they use it for storage, or as a sub-terranean office complex. Or you give it to the government, and they turn it into a secret underground lab where they can work on anything they like, and no one is any the wiser. Aldwych station is just such a place. Who knew? 

Of course, you can’t just hop on a tube and ask for a return ticket to Aldwych, they would laugh at you. But fortunately, the stations are all linked by maintenance tunnels, even the abandoned ones, so you get a tube somewhere else and walk.

As I stepped out of the train onto the platform, I seemed to be the only one there. The clock said 10am. Midway between the morning rush and lunchtime. I looked up and down the platform and saw only a guard leaning against a wall a little further along. As the train pulled out of the station, he approached me and handed me a small metal disc. It was about the size of an old penny. I mean a really old penny, pre decimal, not the pennies we used to have pre-euro. On it was a painted clock face, made to look like a pocket watch. I looked up to say something, but the guard was gone. Curiouser and curiouser. 

There was only one exit from the platform, so I followed it and headed down a narrow tunnel with posters on either wall advertising the latest Lloyd Webber musical. That’s a better way to live for ever, I thought. Be so famous that even after you are dead people are still making your shows in the West End.

Now this next part was a bit of a wild guess, but something was tugging at the back of my mind. The pocket watch disc. Something from Peter’s childhood. I looked closely at the tunnel walls looking for an entrance, a doorway, or something that would show me where to go next. Vicky had already said she would meet me in the lab and that I would find directions when I arrived at the station. I was expecting a map, or a guide, or even a friendly chap leading the way. Maybe a shopkeeper would appear and open a door for me that no one else could see. But none of that happened. What I did see, however, made me smile. Partway down the tunnel, on the left-hand side was a door. A fairly innocuous door painted brown and with a lot of graffiti written on it. Pretty ordinary you would think. Probably a maintenance cupboard, or maybe a fuse box. On closer inspection, it appeared to be something different. Instead of keyhole, there was a coin slot. Next to the slot, a sticker, that looked like a child had stuck it there. Something quite ordinary, something that most people would pay no attention to. A picture of a little white rabbit. 

Growing up Peter had been obsessed with Lewis Carroll and Alice. He made us read it to him every night when he was little, and as he grew up, we had to sit through almost every film adaptation of the little girl, falling asleep and following a bunny down a hole. No disrespect to Mr Carroll and his wonderful creation but after you have read it as many times a I had; you do get bored with it all. But now, years later, looking for the entrance to Peter’s secret lab deep under the capital it made sense. I dropped the disc into the coin slot. A grating noise, followed by a click and the door swung inwards, revealing yet another tunnel, dimly lit heading off to who knew where. What was a guy to do? Much like Alice Liddell I followed.

At the end of the tunnel, I was almost expecting a tiny door I would need to squeeze through, but thankfully the wonderland references had been restricted to the main entrance. The door at the end of the corridor was as ordinary as the one in the station, only this time when I pushed, it slid open silently revealing a small office with a desk to the left and a TV screen on the wall to the right. On the desk sat a telephone and a sign asking me to dial zero for attention. So, I did. The screen flickered into life and the face of my granddaughter appeared beaming.

‘You made it then? I hoped you would work out the code.’ she said

Now what was I to say? If I said I had known Peter was a big fan of Alice in Wonderland, it would give the game away. But how else would I explain it. I could say I like Carroll too, but how plausible would that be? Of course, I already suspected that Vicky knew my identity anyway, so maybe it didn’t matter. I settled for a knowing smile instead. That seemed to make Vicky laugh.

‘Wait there.’ she said, ‘I’ll be right down.’ So, I waited.

Within moments the wall in front of me slid aside and Vicky stepped through. She was wearing a neat pinstriped suit with a white lab coat over it. Her hair cascaded down around her shoulders, she looked so much like her grandmother. 

‘Welcome to the lab, grandad.’ she said.