Experiment With Destiny Read Online Free Page A

into the gutter. Marcus glanced over his shoulder to see her scrambling to her feet, apparently unhurt. There was something about her eyes…he felt a twinge of guilt that rapidly dissipated with her partner’s outburst of righteous fury.
                  “Hey you fuckwit! I’ll…” Marcus turned away.
                  “Leave it, Scott,” she implored, stemming his threat. “Let’s just get out of here.”
                  Marcus reached his coach as the first passengers were allowed to board. He stood panting, leaning against the muddied red and white bodywork and scanning the terminus for a sign of the angry young man. He and the girl were gone. He glanced at his fellow passengers, worried in case they had seen his disgraceful haste and lack of chivalry. They paid him scant attention, their minds on other matters. Marcus waited his turn then stepped aboard and slipped his card through the auto-fare, punching the ‘Merthyr Station’ button. No sooner had the machine deducted the appropriate number of euros and punched out his ticket, he strode toward the back and found a space on the seat over the engine. There, he pressed himself against the window. Minutes later the coach pulled out of the terminus and began its short northward journey. The coach was full but Marcus spoke to nobody. Instead he gazed blankly through the rain and condensation-smeared window, alone with his thoughts.
    The streets and semis of Whitchurch eventually gave way to the jaded greens, yellows and browns of hills and reclaimed slag heaps as the bus crawled slowly out of Greater Cardiff. The hills were lined with terraces of two-up two-down houses, painted like ageing crones and spread to the left and right against a backdrop of misty ruin. Occasionally the regimented lines were punctuated by buildings of once grander scale and ostentation, derelict Victorian tombstones to the former mining industries upon which these communities were forged. Libraries, social clubs and other public buildings that had become too expensive to maintain but too architecturally important to knock down. These communities were once distinct towns and villages, each with its own identity and character. Over the years they had sprawled together and become little more than Cardiff’s extended suburbia. But even the Welsh capital had its limits and Merthyr Tydfil, once the iron capital of the world, was it. Marcus’s hometown was the northernmost suburb of Cardiff, the last stop on the CMS-Cardiff network and the end of the road for his bus.
                  Marcus stepped off as the bitter wind surged toward him, tugging at his coat. He wrapped it tightly around him, hugging its pockets, and walked through the arcade beneath the monorail station toward the Crown pub. A few doors on from the pub was a newsagent. A hollow bell jangled flatly as he entered and closed the weather-beaten door behind him. Marcus did not look up. The girl serving recognised his hunched demeanour.
                  “Twenty?” she asked. Marcus nodded. The packet of cigarettes slid across the counter and he held out his card. A moment later he collected it from the cold glass counter and retreated without so much as a glimpse of the girl. “Bye!” she called softly. He did not acknowledge her and her voice trailed away as the door closed to the dimly chiming bell. Marcus paused for a moment to study the abandoned and boarded up church opposite. He had been to Sunday school in St Tydfil’s many years ago and vaguely remembered the strange stories they told, the rarefied atmosphere, picture windows and scented candles. Few people went to church any more, and nobody went to this one. Turning away from the old ruin, he walked back to the Crown.
                  Its brick and paintwork had dulled through decades of neglect and its hanging sign creaked loudly in the ever-present wind. Marcus peered had through its smoky glass