1 Life 2 Die 4

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Table of Contents

Acknowledgements Prologue Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Coming soon: ‘2 Lives 2 Live 4’ (take a sneak peek at the sequel) About the author Connect with Dean Waite Acknowledgements

Thank you to those special people who have supported the writing of this story. Particular thanks to Emma, Wendy, Alan, Callum, Thomas and Tim.

Prologue

Gallery of Modern Art (GoMA), Brisbane, Australia. Just before 2am, Tuesday morning

Except for the steady drone of a passing taxi, an almost perfect silence hung over the Brisbane city fringe near the Queensland Gallery of Modern Art. On the top floor, like everywhere else in the gallery, the subdued security lighting left the spacious display areas cloaked in a soft shadow, punctuated here and there by scattered pools of golden light focussed on some of the more expensive art works currently residing there. Suddenly – inexplicably – an area in the north-east corner began to shimmer and sparkle with the pulsating, vivid colours of a million tiny rainbows flickering silently about in the air. The dazzling display looked for-all-the- world like some vibrant work of art for which the Gallery might have paid some ridiculous sum of money. But this was no work of art. Less than a second after it had begun, the mesmerising display abruptly vanished, returning the area to its usual unremarkable tapestry of shadow and light. Bizarrely, however, on a previously empty section of floor there now stood a large abstract sculpture consisting of several gently-curving, interconnected slabs. A small plaque stood before it on a narrow metal stand, its neat black lettering reading:

“BRIDGE TO SALVATION” by Ian Callum Hope 2001 (Concrete over steel)

Most of the slabs within the mysterious new sculpture were around ten centimetres thick and a half-metre wide, connected by sturdy rods of stainless steel so that they ran in on one another at various angles and heights. A slightly thicker and wider central slab rose from the floor at a gentle angle, curving steadily upwards over the rest of the sculpture towards a spot where, just seconds earlier, a small water-colour landscape had hung on a blank, cream wall. Now, in its place stood a huge window roughly two-and-a-half metres square, revealing a sweeping City panorama beyond. The State Library all- but filled the foreground of the view, its façade of two-storey vertical panels providing the vague impression of an enormous shelf packed full of gigantic books. To its left, however, the dark, slow-moving waters of the Brisbane River reflected a distorted collage of sparsely-lit city skyscrapers and the wide, elegant white arches of the Victoria Bridge. Several hours later, shortly after the GoMA staff began arriving, a ruckus erupted over the unexpected changes on level three. Yet it quickly died away once paperwork authorising installation of the new art piece, as well as the completion of various minor building alterations, was discovered on a clerk’s desk on level one. Despite the ageing man’s noticeably hazy recollection of the origin of these documents, and the fact that these changes had obviously been carried out during the dead of night, everyone was far too busy to dwell further on a series of sanctioned, minor changes. Of course, even if they had, it was unlikely that any of them would have suspected the sculpture, the window and the associated paperwork had all materialised out of thin air during the early hours of the morning. During the following few hours, there were similar confused reactions to various other unexpected changes across a wide swath of the City centre. Yet each time, just as had happened at GoMA, the appropriate paperwork was eventually uncovered and everyone was left feeling satisfied despite a vague sense of uneasiness about what had occurred. As if all this wasn’t confusing enough for those working in and around the CBD, just twenty-four hours later their grasp of reality was once more cruelly tested when a similar series of astonishing events reversed every single one of these mysterious changes. Considering the total lack of appropriate paperwork on this second occasion, a far greater ruckus would have seemed inevitable. Yet few people took much notice at all. By that stage, everyone was far too preoccupied with the devastating trail of destruction left in the wake of the sensational events of the previous afternoon.

***** 1

Brisbane City Centre, Australia, 2016.

I felt pretty good as the bus pulled up and I climbed out, hardly needing to look for the stairs leading up out of the underground bus terminal. I’d been taking the ride into the Brisbane CBD on my own every six months since I was ten, and at just over fourteen and a half I now had the routine down pat. Leave school early, at 12:45; catch the 12:58 from Yeerongpilly to the Queen Street mall underground, then up the stairs, through the mall and on along Queen Street for another hundred metres or so. Mum had made the trip with me until I turned ten, but that was all the hand- holding I got. It’s never worried me though. I’ve grown up with my parents being too busy for me. And being an only child, I’m used to doing things on my own. The stairs led me out into the sunshine above and I strolled off through the busy Mall feeling relaxed and happy. Some guys would probably fight with their parents about religiously visiting the tooth doctor every six months. But I never complain. For a start, I know there’s no way my dad would listen. When it comes to teeth, he’s about OC level 100 (‘OC’ stands for Obsessive Compulsive, in case you didn’t know. Like the poor sods who have to wash their hands every two minutes for no good reason other than that they just can’t help themselves.) Anyway, ever since the first tooth burst through my gums, Dad’s been at me about keeping my ‘biters’ spotless. I reckon I’m the only kid in Australia who’s expected to clean his teeth for five minutes, five times a day. Yeah – for real! My dad even makes me take a toothbrush and toothpaste to school every day! Of course, that doesn’t mean I actually risk the embarrassment of having other kids see me scrubbing my teeth at school, but I always make sure I give them a quick clean as soon as I get home. Dad has a freakish ability to work out whether my teeth have been cleaned, just from a quick glance when he gets home. He’s so fanatical about it all that when I was five, Santa-Dad gave me ten tubes of toothpaste, an electric toothbrush, about a kilometre of dental floss and a special timer that flashed and played ‘All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth’ when my brushing time was up. It’s a real shame the timer vanished after the first day and was never seen again (I hope our dog, Canine, doesn’t dig too much in the back left corner of the yard!) Dad seemed pretty upset, so I figured I’d better use the other stuff really well, otherwise he might just decide he needs to buy a replacement timer. Now, more than nine years later, I could probably clean my teeth standing on my head in the dark. But I’m just sooo over all that scrubbing and flossing! Anyway, Dad’s OC-ness aside, the real reason I never argue about coming in here so regularly is that I love being able to check out a few of the more interesting stores after my check-up’s done. There’s a cool skate shop on Elizabeth Street and an awesome video game centre nearby where they let you try out games for as long as you want. The place I love most, though, is the gun dealership down near the Botanic Gardens. Not that I can buy any at my age, of course. I just love checking them out. Mind you, I’m not one of those gun- crazies who get a rush from killing things. I just love the look of them … and the idea of a machine which can spit lethal chunks of lead that move faster than a Formula One racing car! Coming out of my daydreaming, I realised I’d already reached the Central Post Office. Still trying to decide which store I’d visit first, after I’d done my dental duty, I waited while the traffic pulled up. Then, along with a bunch of other pedestrians, I stepped onto the crossing. My dentist’s office was in a high-rise just twenty metres away, on the far side of the road, and although there were people swarming everywhere, I was easily going to make it with five minutes to spare. If he was running on time, and if my Dad-inspired dental- hygiene-overkill meant there were no nasty surprises, I should have at least an hour afterwards before I had to catch the bus home. Then I saw her … She was just stepping onto the far side of the crossing when our eyes met and it felt like about a million volts shot through me! I’m not ashamed to say that one of the other things I always like about the city is that there are plenty of good-looking women around. And like most teenage guys, I notice pretty much every one of them. But they hardly ever seem to notice me. And they never look at me the way this gorgeous doll was! She had a kind of desperate, wary frown around the most beautiful dark-brown – almost black – eyes I’d ever seen. It gave her an odd impression of deep, inconsolable sorrow that left me frowning as well. And there was something else, too; something even more odd, though I found it almost impossible to put into words … a sort of burning protective passion, barely held in check. Like she was some wild, caged panther watching through bars while hunters stalked her mate. Together with her Jessica Alba lips, the effect was so startling I almost tripped over my own feet! Why on earth would this drop-dead gorgeous woman be looking at me like that? Then ‘Jessica’ looked away and I suddenly found I could breathe again. It only took me an instant to realise how stupid I’d been. She’d obviously been looking at someone behind me. As if a mid-twentyish, absolutely stunning woman - my gaze slid down a bit - with a body to-die-for - would want anything to do with me. Not even fifteen yet, I was gangly and pretty average-looking. Not the kind of bait that catches the big ones! Grinning wryly to myself at how thick I’d been, I allowed my eyes to hover just a bit longer than I should have on the provocatively low neckline of her deliciously snug white top. It probably sounds a bit arrogant, but despite my limited years of experience, I consider myself a true connoisseur when it comes to the female body. And she was, without a doubt, one of the finest examples I have ever seen. Despite understanding that we were complete worlds apart, it almost killed me right then and there knowing that in a few seconds she would walk straight past and vanish from my life without a second thought. I was still struggling to come to terms with this tragic realisation when ‘Jessica’ turned back and her stare hit me like an uppercut from a rampaging red kangaroo! This time I really did trip over my own feet! There was absolutely no doubt Jessica was staring straight at me. And for some reason that look of wary protectiveness I’d noticed earlier had suddenly grown into a sort of frightened hostility! Unfortunately, I missed exactly what happened next because I was too busy trying to stay on my feet while I stumbled awkwardly forward over the zebra-striped bitumen. By the time I regained my balance and looked up, she was right in front of me, reaching into her tan, thigh-length coat; her eyes now cold and deadly. I felt my mouth drop open as her hand emerged holding the meanest-looking pistol I’ve ever laid eyes on. Then she reached out anddragged me in tight against her as she raised the gun... I’ve heard that adrenaline can do strange things, and as I glanced around, it honestly felt like someone had pressed a slow-motion button. Like my mind had gone into overdrive. I had time to take in almost every detail of the people around us. Most were already reacting to the unexpected sight of the gun, some frowning oddly, probably hoping this was some sort of tactless joke, or that they’d accidentally stumbled onto a film set. Others looked openly horrified as they accepted it was all too real. A few of the more responsive ones were already moving, doing their best to put some distance between themselves and this stunning, gun-wielding goddess. My head swiveled quickly round, taking it all in, until I was staring back the way I’d come. Then I felt my eyes go wide at the sight of the guy Jessica was obviously aiming at. He was of average build in much the same way Tiger Woods is an average golfer. Muscles stood out from his arms like mountains along the Great Dividing Range and I knew the bulk beneath his baggy shirt had nothing to do with flab. Bizarrely, two narrow strips of hair arched back along either side of his head and had to be heavy with gel or hairspray ‘cause they stuck straight out over his ears like baseball cap brims! If the rest of his head hadn’t been shaved bald, I’d have thought he was paranoid about getting sunburnt. The guy was certainly an intimidating sight. Understandably, however, the thing that really got my attention was the mother of all guns he was cradling in his arms while he swung it to point at Jessica. It was roughly the length of a rifle, but that was where all similarity ended. The thing was thicker than the guy’s leg-of-ham arms and it bristled with all kinds of knobs, switches, buttons and odd protrusions that gave the impression it did a whole lot more than just shoot things. Even as this thought raced through my mind, one of his fingers moved inward slightly like it was pressing a recessed button and the air in front of the gun shimmered. At the same time, I heard the powerful, yet controlled explosion of Jessica’s gun firing three times in rapid succession. A split second later, three bright spots blossomed just in front of the guy’s chest. I squinted at it and actually saw the bullets Jessica had fired as they slowed to a stop, one after the other, amidst brilliant white flares of light! Then the glow vanished and the slugs dropped towards the ground as casually as coins slipping through the guy’s fingers! Who were these people? And what the hell was going on? I had no time to think about it now. Before the bullets hit the ground, we were moving - Jessica and me, that is. With surprising strength, she guided me away along the street, glancing warily back over her shoulder as we ran. Naturally, there was mayhem all around us by now. Drivers had either hit the accelerator or slammed on their brakes, and several minor crashes had occurred. Pedestrians had scattered or dropped to the ground in whimpering huddles, and there were frightened screams coming from all around. To the left of where we were heading, people streamed out the far side of a Council bus, desperate to get away from the woman with the gun and realising their bus wasn’t going anywhere while people were swarming all over the road around it. I thought about pulling away from Jessica and going my own way. I certainly didn’t want to get dragged into whatever feud she had with Baseball Cap man. But she was surprisingly strong, and I figured if I complicated the situation by trying to go in a different direction, I’d probably just slow us down enough to get us both killed. I had no choice but to go along with her for now; and anyway, she was getting us away from Baseball Cap Man much faster than I could have done on my own! She glanced over her shoulder then unexpectedly dropped to a crouch, dragging me down with her as she raised her gun over my shoulder and pressed a button on the side. I glanced back and saw smoke streaming from the barrel of Baseball Cap Man’s mega-gun while he held his trigger finger down. A heartbeat later I squinted as explosions of light erupted from the shimmering air about half-a-metre in front of my nose! Instead of riddling me with hundreds of holes that I could easily do without, the bullets were being halted by some kind of field, just like the one the guy had used seconds earlier! Where did they get this stuff? After it seemed like Baseball Cap Man had emptied more rounds at us than even that bloated mega-gun of his could hold, he finally worked out he wasn’t having much of an impact. With an irritable grunt that reminded me of a bad-tempered gorilla, he released the trigger and unclipped something from the side of his weapon. I barely had time to register that it looked like a miniature silver and red missile before he’d aimed it straight at me. A red laser dot appeared on my chest and I almost spoiled my good jeans thinking I was dead right there and then! At the same time, I heard Jessica gasp. I guess she felt responsible for involving me in this little war of hers, since she didn’t just abandon me to die. Instead, she yanked me to my feet and started dragging me towards the front of the now-deserted bus. Once I’d convinced myself I was still alive, I threw a look over my shoulder just in time to see Baseball Cap man lob the mini-missile into the air. It spun lazily upwards, end over end … then flames suddenly burst from its tail end and it did a rapid u-turn, racing straight for me with a whooosh that raised the hairs on the back of my neck and left me feeling like my relief at finding I was still alive was about to be cut tragically short. I guess Jessica’s shield-field thing didn’t have enough oomph to protect us from the missile, since she didn’t even try using it. Instead she kept dragging me towards the front of the bus faster than I’d have thought possible. When we were almost there and it seemed like the missile must just about be in my back pocket, she veered round the front of the bus and launched herself forward, lifting me into the air with her so that we sailed up over the gutter and past the open bus door. We were in mid-air when the 335 to Carseldine exploded in a raging inferno of flames. I was astonished at how much devastation such a tiny missile could cause. The percussion wave hit us while we were still in the air, blowing us sideways while the smoking fireball expanded up and out from the driver’s side. The sound was mind-numbing, and the added noise of about fifty bus windows shattering simultaneously didn’t exactly lessen the throbbing in my eardrums. Then we were plummeting towards the pavement with Jessica still firmly gripping the back of my red hoodie. I’d expected to feel a skin-grating, bone-jarring impact. Instead I felt her arm expertly manoeuvre me round so that, when we hit the ground, we both rolled smoothly back to our feet and were running again before I’d even worked out what had happened! I don’t know how she did it, but it made me realize she was more skilful than any Olympic gymnast I’d ever seen. I’d like to see one of them grab some dorky spectator from the crowd and take the poor dope though their routine with them! I turned my head away as thousands of window fragments rained down over us. Once they’d hit the pavement, I looked ahead again and my eyes were drawn to the left. Amidst the chaos of fleeing people, the thin, black leather clad figure walking calmly towards us stood out like a priest at a ‘Living Dead’ concert … even before he’d raised his gun. This time Jessica didn’t need to drag me into a crouch – I knew her field- shield was our only chance so I was already dropping. Two seconds later, the man’s bullets fell harmlessly onto the pavement in front of us. Then, for the first time since Jessica had grabbed me, she let go and I watched her lob something over the shield towards our new enemy. Everyone else had started running a while back. Now bad guy number two finally worked out that they had the right idea! And so did we. I’ve never moved so fast on foot. I was putting in everything my adrenaline- packed muscles could muster, yet Jessica was always a step ahead, always dragging me on. I heard the grenade blow behind us and could only hope we’d put sufficient distance between ourselves and the lethal shrapnel I knew would be blasting out through the air behind us. That wasn’t our only problem though. The flames and smoke from the gutted bus to our right were already thinning, and I could only pray their fading cover would be enough to hide us from Baseball Cap man, who was undoubtedly lurking somewhere just beyond it. Thankfully, as we flew along the pavement and ducked left down a wide flight of stairs into the Post Office Square underground mall, our luck held.

***** 2

There were only a handful of confused- looking people still milling about down in the mall. I figured most had done the smart thing and were racing for their lives, heading for the exit at the far end, away from all the gunshots and explosions! I hardly touched the stairs at all on the way down, and once we reached the floor of the mall, Jessica didn’t slow at all. Together we raced on, veering left round the big circular staircase leading from the centre of the mall up to the grassed Square above, before flying on toward the Adelaide Street exit at the far end. Before we got there, we were finally forced to slow as we caught up to the mass of terrified people trying to escape. Even so, we were ducking left and right past them so fast I only caught blurred glimpses of their frightened, confused faces. Then we were through the mall and I spotted Anzac Square on the far side of the road with Central Station looming up behind it. On our way through the mall, I’d finally had a few seconds to think, and it hadn’t taken long to realise my best chance of survival lay with getting as far away from Jessica as soon as I possibly could. If she and her friends wanted to play rough with each other, that was up to them, but it was obvious I’d be safer somewhere else. Anywhere else. Still, I’d also realised it wasn’t that simple. I had no idea why Jessica had decided to use me as a human shield, but I had to admit that some part of my twisted teenage mind was actually thrilled to be with her, no matter what the reason. Whether she was an innocent victim trying to escape some criminal organisation, or a murderer on the run, I couldn’t shake the memory of her pulling me tight against that amazing body of hers each time we were fired at by one of those goons. If I went my own way, she’d be gone forever. If I stayed with her, I might be killed; but I might also be able to help her stay alive, and it surprised me to realise the thought of those guys catching up to Jessica and blasting her to hell was almost worse than the thought of them doing it to me. I glanced about, sizing up our options. We could go left or right along Anne Street, or across the road at Anzac Square. I figured Jessica would go straight ahead, seeking to extend her lead over her pursuers. Instead, she caught me by surprise by dragging me left along the sidewalk and I began to suspect my personal debate about whether to stay with her had been a waste of time. She was so strong I felt sure I wouldn’t be able to break her hold even if I tried! Like it or not, for the moment I was stuck with her. While we ran, I noticed Jessica glance up and realized she was trying to stay under the cover of the overhanging roof. Of course! The bad guys might not have followed us down into the mall. If they knew the area, they’d be aware that we could only come out either here or back at the top of the spiral staircase, and that both exits could easily be covered from the grassed rooftop of the Square. If they’d been smart enough to run straight across, they’d already be waiting up there with guns at the ready. I swallowed uncomfortably. If I’d decided to go my own way and had somehow managed to break free of Jessica, I’d probably have been gunned down in seconds! Keeping under cover as best we could, we sprinted along the concrete pavement till we were directly under the pedestrian overpass. Then Jessica veered across the road, horns blaring and wheels screeching as the traffic tried hard not to flatten us. A big green BMW 4WD, tyres squealing, ended up sideways next to us and the driver and I were exchanging startled looks when its back window exploded. I didn’t bother searching for the source of the bullets. It was obvious that at least one of the bad guys had a bead on us and that pausing to see who it was would probably prove fatal. Instead, Jessica and I crouched as low as we could and kept running. A heartbeat later the bitumen ahead and just to our right erupted as a cascade of bullets started slamming into it. While I ran, I watched in horror as the line of tiny explosions closed in on us. Then we were off the road, racing past one of the thick concrete pedestrian bridge supports while I listened to the slightly changed tone of bullets smashing into concrete instead of bitumen. I couldn’t help thinking how much better it sounded than the sickening thud of them slamming into our bodies. Two strides later I heard something metal hit the ground behind us and nearly had a heart attack! It sounded like a grenade bouncing along the concrete path! I heard a hissing sound and when I glanced back there was smoke pouring far more quickly than I’d imagined possible from a small metal cylinder on the ground behind us. A surge of relief ran through me - Jessica must have dropped it to give us some cover from the sniper. When the shooting stopped, I guessed it had worked. The guy must have lost his line-of-sight and would be coming after us now, hunting for a clearer shot. We sprinted on along the path beneath the walkway while Jessica tossed a couple more smoke grenades further out to our right. Then I felt my pulse quicken as she unexpectedly dragged me out towards them, heading across open ground towards the steps to the Shrine of Remembrance. While I sprinted over the grass beside her, I glanced up at the Shrine and recalled being there at the Anzac Day dawn ceremony a few years back. I’d only gone because my dad had insisted, so I’d been amazed when the emotion- charged atmosphere had actually brought tears to my eyes while I’d thought about all those guys who’d died in wars over the years, fighting for my right to live free in my own country. Now, as we neared the stairs leading up to the eighteen columns of the memorial (symbolizing the year World War I had finally ended, I recalled out of the blue), I suddenly wondered if I would be joining all of those brave, lost soldiers far sooner than I’d ever imagined. I’d just started to worry about the fact that we’d be even more exposed while we raced up the steps, when Jessica veered towards the area beneath them. She tossed another smoke bomb ahead, and by the time we skidded to a stop under the staircase, there was smoke everywhere. A moment later – inexplicably - a square hole began opening in the paving right in front of us! “Follow me,” she said with surprising calm. It was the first time I’d heard her speak and I was shocked at how smoulderingly sexy she sounded, particularly under the circumstances. After she stepped into the hole and dropped from sight, I realised there was simply no way I could have stopped myself from following her. The sudden hail of gunfire that strafed through the billowing smoke and raked swiftly across the sandstone wall towards me just added that extra little bit of incentive. I didn’t know how far I’d fall, but right then the one clear thought in my mind was that there was no way I was letting this incredible woman out of my sight!

***** 3

As it turned out, my head had barely dropped below ground level before my feet hit solid ground. While I bent my knees to absorb the impact, the access hole above me was already closing. I looked ahead and felt slightly dizzy when I found Jessica’s stunning face inches from mine. A dull, greenish glow from several small circular lights embedded in the stone walls reflected off the glossy red lipstick smeared precisely across her gorgeous lips while her concerned eyes peered directly into mine. “Are you okay?” she asked in an oddly husky tone. I really tried to make sound come out of my mouth. But it was hopeless. Hell … it was easier staying calm under fire than while I stared into those mesmerising brown eyes of hers! As time stretched out uncomfortably, I finally gave up trying to speak and just nodded dumbly instead. Then I saw her smile for the first time and, incredibly, I suddenly knew that I’d do anything for this woman! More than that - I desperately wanted to do something to impress her. For a moment, I actually thought of asking for her gun so I could cover her escape! Then I thought of those hoodlums following us and realised a kid who’d never fired a gun in his life wasn’t likely to slow them down much. Her best chance of escaping was to keep her gun and keep running, and whether she liked it or not, she wasn’t getting rid of me until I knew she was safe. While all this flew through my mind, Jessica turned away and crouched down on all fours. “Good - let’s go,” she whispered over her shoulder before crawling off along a narrow tunnel. From its direction, I realised the dimly lit tunnel must go under the Memorial. But that was about the last sensible thought I had as I obediently followed her. As incredible as it seemed, I discovered there was something even more visually stunning about this woman than the things I’d already noticed from the front … and I was getting a perfect view of it while she crawled cat-like along the gently sloping shaft in her tight-fitting rust- coloured leather pants! Lord have mercy, I thought as my heart-rate accelerated and I fought to remember my manners. I couldn’t recall my mother covering this particular situation in any of her uninvited etiquette advice over the years, but somehow I suspected ‘don’t touch’ might be appropriate. Still, I knew that trying to follow the more gentlemanly restriction of ‘don’t even look’ just wasn’t possible. It’d be like visiting the Louvre without bothering to see the Mona Lisa! Suffice it to say that, with two gun- wielding killers hot on our tails, those were thirty of the best seconds of my life. Then, all too soon, Jessica was climbing out into a dimly lit, underground railway tunnel and I abruptly remembered the rest of the world and how nasty it had turned. Struggling to put some of the pieces of this bizarre puzzle together, I dropped down beside her. Then, after straightening from a crouch, I looked her in the eye and felt myself frown heavily. “Who are you?” I demanded more bluntly than I’d intended. Jessica peered back blankly for a moment before a sudden look of understanding crossed her face and she gave me what I can only describe as a deeply caring smile (though it made absolutely no sense that she should care for me at all!) “I’m sorry, Dan,” she said, inexplicably knowing my name. “In all the excitement, I’d forgotten how confusing this must be for you.” Then her smile changed to a look of deep concern as the distant sound of an explosion carried from the far end of the tunnel. Her head snapped round and she peered back into the now pitch black void. “I’m Veronica …” she continued in a far-off voice, clearly more focussed on what was going on at the other end of the tunnel. When her eyes widened suddenly, I glanced back into the tunnel. Way back, a tiny swaying pin-prick of light had appeared – a torch beam! I turned back just as Veronica launched herself off along the railway tunnel. “… I’m you wife,” she added, and I would have fallen flat on my face if she hadn’t been firmly gripping my hoodie while she once more dragged me after her!

***** 4

If it wasn’t for all the other crazy stuff, I’d have felt certain Veronica had a few screws loose in that gorgeous head of hers. As it was, I didn’t really know what to think. The only thing that seemed crystal clear to me was that something extremely weird was going on and that, like it or not, I was smack-bang in the thick of it. While my brain did cartwheels, we bolted on along the track, our footsteps echoing hollowly about the enclosed tunnel. Then the hairs on the back of my neck slowly stood up as I registered a dull rumbling coming from somewhere ahead. I felt Veronica lift her pace, even as I began pulling back. “What are you doing?” I asked incredulously. “Can’t you hear it?” “I hear it,” she replied simply. Was it possible she was hearing something different? “There’s a train coming straight for us!” I elaborated, understanding that now was not one of those times when you chuckled afterwards about how you’d both been unwittingly talking about different things. “I know.” She glanced at me and added: “Trust me,” before turning back to watch her footing while we raced on over the rough rocks scattered between the lines. I stared incredulously at Veronica a moment longer before turning back to peer ahead along the dim tunnel. What should I do? I’d already endured all sorts of dramas during the last few minutes, yet she had somehow managed to keep me safe. Did that mean I should trust her again? On one level this seemed reasonable. While on another (the one where a speeding train weighing about a hundred tonnes was bearing down on us and she’d decided we should charge towards it!) it made absolutely no sense at all. It was a pivotal moment … one of those times in your life when you recognise that the wrong decision will probably cost you your life. If I’d been on my own, there’s little doubt I would have turned and run. But I wasn’t. And crazy as it seemed, I realised I’d rather run headlong into a train with this crazy, beautiful woman than go back alone only to hear the sound of her being smashed to a pulp behind me. So on we ran; racing together towards oblivion… Butterflies filled my gut and I could feel my hands shaking. I noticed Veronica’s shoulder-length hair start flying madly about as the approaching monster’s blunt nose shoved cold, stale air towards us along the confined tunnel. The flurry of wind whipped up a chip packet and I turned away sharply as it nearly hit me in the face. When I turned back, my eyes widened and my heart stuttered as the train roared round the bend not more than a hundred metres ahead of us, its powerful light beaming towards us like one huge, soulless eye. Until now, in the back of my mind I’d been hoping Veronica knew of a platform nearby; that we could beat the train to it then somehow jump up out of the way before being smashed to a pulp. Now, as the train’s dazzling headlight lit up the straight section of tunnel between us and it, my heart sank. Not only was there no platform, the curving concrete sides and ceiling were bereft of anything that might even suggest salvation. Not a single door or recessed area; not even the smallest grill hinting at a ventilation shaft. Just one long archway of solid uninterrupted concrete curving up over our heads like we were sprinting madly through some gigantic mausoleum! I wondered if Veronica was planning on us flattening our bodies against the side wall as the train sped by. If so, I knew she was sadly mistaken. There’d be barely enough room for an anorexic stick insect. And that was assuming it somehow managed to keep still as the huge metal monster charged past. Gritting my teeth, I thought grimly of the time I’d nearly fallen off my bike after being buffeted by an air gust from a passing bus. How much stronger would the gust be from a hundred metre long train inside this enclosed tunnel? It was like some kind of surreal dream, racing towards the speeding train with zero chance of survival. And I was caught completely off guard when I abruptly realized I was totally at peace with it all. Incredibly, I felt convinced I’d be happy to die with this goddess by my side. Just the two of us together on a mad dash for freedom. The ultimate freedom of death. Then a long burst from the train’s horn nearly split my eardrums and brought me back to my senses with a start. What the hell was I thinking? I’d only just met this stunning woman who seemed to think I was her husband! The last thing I wanted was for it all to end! But how could I possibly get us out of here alive? In a flash, the answer popped into my head. I couldn’t. The train was less than twenty metres away and still travelling fast when I heard its brakes bite. And as I peered up at the helpless look of horror on the driver’s face, I knew it was far too late. I thought of my mum and dad and wondered what they’d think of me heading to a dental appointment only to have every single tooth in my mouth smashed to dust against the solid steel bumper of a passenger train. Would they ever understand how I’d ended up here instead of lying back comfortably in Dr Morton’s dentist chair while he patiently poked around in my mouth? I still didn’t understand it myself. In a last vain effort to avoid oblivion, Veronica threw herself to the right, lifting me through the air with her. Knowing it was futile, I braced myself for the impact with the concrete wall, and for the far more sickening collision that would follow… But neither came. A second later, we landed roughly on the floor of a small room and rolled several times before coming to rest. Everything went from my mind the moment I realised Veronica had finished up on top of me. I could feel the warmth of her breath against the top of my head while I peered up at her milky, smooth neck. I swallowed self-consciously. Until that moment, I’d had no idea how sensual a neck could be, having been far more preoccupied with certain other features of the female anatomy. Now, as I felt the warmth of her body and caught a steamy whiff of her perfume, every ounce of my consciousness suddenly diverted itself to the sites where her firm yet surprisingly soft body pressed provocatively against mine. Somehow I managed to reclaim enough of my senses to register that James Bond would have said something witty like “You know, my dear, it takes an exceptional woman to get on top of me.” But the words never got near my lips. Instead, feeling suddenly embarrassed, I rolled sideways and shoved Veronica away from me more roughly than I’d intended. In all honesty, I would have gladly remained there beneath her for a few more centuries. It was just that I’d realized if we stayed like that for even a few more moments, she was going to feel something I simply wasn’t prepared for. As much as I liked her - or perhaps because of it - I couldn’t bear the thought that she might simply burst out laughing at my teenage body’s inevitable and rather over-eager response to her touch. Scrambling awkwardly to my feet, I spun away towards the door we’d dived through, and while it slid quietly shut I peered discreetly down, nervously checking that nothing looked out of place. Somewhat relieved to find everything looking normal, I turned back to Veronica. “Urr … how did you, um, know this place was here?” I stammered, awkwardly trying to cover my embarrassment. “That door was shut …” “…until I opened it,” she interrupted smoothly while a kind of playful half- smile flickered across her face as if she knew exactly what I’d been trying to hide from her. The next moment she turned away and I realised the wall behind her was sliding sideways. “Come on,” she called as she turned and strode off through the opening. “They haven’t given up yet.” My heart sank as I stepped forward, following her through the doorway. Incredibly, with everything else that had just happened, I’d momentarily forgotten about the lunatics with guns! As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I spotted a large, squat shape crouched in the gloom ahead. While I drew nearer, a dim light came on above us and I caught my breath. The sleek machine oozed speed! Except for the fact that it had six wheels instead of skis, it looked a lot like a large, unpainted bobsled. All the surfaces I could see were bare shiny metal and I noticed there was a section of railway line beneath it which ended abruptly at the far wall. How did this thing get here? “Hop in front,” Veronica said before I had a chance to ask. She jumped nimbly into the back seat and as I climbed awkwardly into the front, I was just opening my mouth to demand some answers when I heard an explosion from behind us. My head whipped round and I saw that the door just behind us was closing … and that beyond it, the one we’d dived through from the railway tunnel had just buckled inwards alarmingly! Just before the inner door closed completely, I saw the damaged outer door topple forward and caught a glimpse of Baseball Cap man standing behind it with his monster gun raised towards us! Thankfully, the next moment the gap sealed and the inner door seemed to absorb his bullets without too much fuss. Then the smoothest, most powerful ‘whir’ you could imagine began building steadily beneath me, and when I turned back round I saw that another door had opened ahead of us. “Better buckle up and get your helmet on,” Veronica warned. When I glanced back at her, she flashed me an adorable smile. I started to smile back then kinked my neck as our ‘bobtrain’ lunged forward and I was shoved roughly back into the padded seat. While we raced into the murky darkness of a narrow tunnel, I had a heck of a time wrestling with my seatbelt and helmet.

***** 5

I felt the bobtrain veering gently to the left before a dim crack of light appeared ahead of us and rapidly grew wider. Thankfully I’d managed to get both my helmet and seatbelt on by the time I was close enough to see that our small tunnel was about to merge with a second railway tunnel. I couldn’t help thinking that if there was a train coming along this one then I may as well have strapped myself in with strands of spaghetti and put an eggshell on my head. The next second we were hurtling along the empty tunnel in the direction I estimated would take us towards Roma Street Station. The cool air raced past at incredible speed and the surprisingly quiet, unbelievably powerful whir of the ‘bobtrain’ hardly had a chance to echo off the side walls before we’d left it behind. I twisted round as far as possible and could just make out Veronica from the corner of my eye. “We made it!” I shouted triumphantly. There was no way in the world those guys were going to catch us now! “Don’t bet on it,” she replied simply. I couldn’t believe it - her tone left little doubt that, as far as she was concerned, we were far from out of the woods. When would all this madness end? While we rocketed onwards in silence, I felt as deflated as a balloon in a prickly pear patch. But at least I finally had a chance to think through everything that had happened. Where had this gorgeous woman and those two terrifying bad guys come from? And why had Veronica grabbed me and brought me with her? How did she keep making these impossible escapes through doors and tunnels which simply shouldn’t be there? Sadly, it quickly became clear that all I had were questions. What I needed were answers. Despite the noise, and the fact that Veronica was behind me, I was about to try asking her when the words died on my lips. Ahead of us, the tunnel was emerging from beneath the ground. The sunlight was blindingly bright following the dull subterranean light I’d grown accustomed to, but it wasn’t hard to make out a second train hurtling towards us round a slight bend! I expected Veronica to slam on the brakes, but to my astonishment she did absolutely nothing. I had precious little time to worry about it though. Unlike our foot-sprint towards the first train, at this dizzying speed I barely had time to close my eyes and wonder how good Brisbane’s forensic guys were – they’d need to be absolute legends to identify our remains after we hit the train at what would probably be a combined speed of close to two hundred kilometres an hour! Then I opened my eyes again and my deep sense of relief was quickly overwhelmed by embarrassment. Our tracks had converged beside another set … and the train had been on the adjacent line, not ours. I was suddenly thankful Veronica couldn’t see my face - hopefully she had no idea how petrified I’d been. Trying to forget my embarrassment, I peered around and realised we had to be very near Roma Street Station by now. My mind suddenly turned to what would happen when we arrived. There was certainly no way we were going to pull up in this thing without attracting a mountain of unwanted attention. I was pretty sure driving a ‘bobtrain’ along a public railway line at over a hundred wasn’t the tiniest bit legal. Would the guards arrest us? Would Veronica use that gun of hers if they tried? Despite some insane line about being my wife, I still had no idea who she really was … nor what she was capable of. The one thing I knew for sure was that she handled that gun of hers with the self- assured confidence of a Special Forces veteran. If people got in her way, I was guessing there’d be casualties. Lots of casualties. Understandably, I felt immensely relieved a couple of seconds later when the bobtrain unexpectedly veered left, off the main track, and through yet another concealed doorway. Moments later, I was flung forward into my racing harness as the machine stopped on a dime. Almost immediately the room grew dim and I glanced round to find the door swiftly sliding shut behind us. A dull light came on above us and when I heard Veronica unbuckling herself, I did likewise. We both climbed out, dropping our helmets onto the seats. As she stepped nimbly past me, her arm brushed lightly against my chest and it felt like an electric charge passed between us. “Let’s go,” she said in that strangely husky voice of hers, while she threw a sultry look over her shoulder. Then a second, smaller door slid open ahead of us and she strode through into a low, dimly lit corridor while I followed in a kind of euphoric daze.

***** 6

While my head spun, she glided ahead of me though the corridor and began climbing a nondescript flight of stairs toward a plain grey door. Before I got my thoughts together again, she had opened the door and we were stepping through into a busy walkway. I estimated we must be somewhere in the Roma Street Transit Centre – the building which caters for railway and coach services to and from the Brisbane CBD. A few people glanced our way but besides the lingering stares which most of the guys gave Veronica, I was please to notice no one seemed particularly interested in us. I glanced back when I heard the door close behind me and was amazed to see nothing but a blank wall. There was no handle on this side and the door’s edges were as near invisible as you could get. Before I had a chance to examine it more closely, Veronica led me to the right and we melted into the crowd. I still had a million questions but I knew a crowded area like this wasn’t the place to be asking them. Instead, I glanced around at the people passing by and wondered how long it would take for news to reach them of the chaos that had erupted on Queen Street a few minutes ago. Then I saw him. One second there was a small gap in the crowd … the next he was right there, bold as brass, bumping into a largish woman while she and a few nearby people frowned at him in confusion. The flow of the crowd was strong, however, so the surprised few were quickly forced on their way. I’d heard that people never really trusted their senses when something they believed to be impossible appeared to happen. Still, it was bizarre watching these dazed witnesses merge back into the crowd and continue on their way with little more than a shake of their heads and a persistent frown to mark the unfathomable appearance of a man from thin air. I imagined them laughing it off later with some mates or their partners and promising they’d try to get more sleep in future. I was different though. Following my experiences during the last few minutes, I was now a veteran of ‘impossible’ things, which made me far more accepting of what my eyes told me. I nudged Veronica and nodded in the stranger’s direction. Wearing a baggy black jacket and jeans, he had a small moustache and was busily searching the wide, packed corridor through eyes that brought to mind a snake’s dull, emotionless gaze. The second Veronica spotted him she spun away and herded me in the opposite direction. We had almost reached the exit onto Roma Street when I felt something bump my arm and whoosh past an instant before the sound of a gunshot reached my ears. Ducking down, I glanced at my forearm to find blood oozing to the surface of a shallow gash. I was lucky - a centimetre to the left and I’d have been seriously wounded and in need of medical attention. Twenty and I’d have been dead. In a heartbeat, Veronica had her gun aimed through the parting crowd of panicking pedestrians. When I glanced round, I wasn’t too surprised to see brilliant flares of light erupting from just behind us as her shield-field halted Snake Eyes’ next volley in mid-air. The second the guy released the trigger, she lobbed a smoke bomb over the top of her force-field and we bolted for the street.

***** 7

Two more smoke bombs saw us safely down the steps and across the street, racing down Makerston towards the River. While we ran, I imagined the Queensland Police Headquarters suddenly bursting to life on our right … armed officers pouring onto the street from every exit to protect us. But I knew it wasn’t likely. Nearly every last one of them had probably evacuated a couple of minutes earlier, heading for Post Office Square, on Queen Street. By now there’d be no one left but a bunch of pencil pushers filling out paperwork while they waited for retirement. My thoughts were cut short by a strafing burst of gunfire that sent us diving for cover behind a parked blue Commodore. Fortunately, a quick glance back through its windows confirmed the smoke-screen was still making it impossible for our pursuer to get a bead on us. It had just been a shot (or more accurately, about twenty!) in the dark. Raising her gun above roof level, Veronica returned the gesture, rather eloquently impressing upon Snake Eyes that he should probably think twice before plunging through the smoke- screen after us. She was still firing as she dragged me to my feet and we sprinted off down the street. Seconds later, we swerved left onto North Quay and began weaving our way to the other side through thick streams of traffic. Fortunately, everything was almost at a standstill, the interest created by our smokescreens having added the killer punch to an already sluggish stream of afternoon commuters. Before long we were two blocks down and heading onto Kurilpa Bridge, one of two CBD pedestrian overpasses spanning the wide, silt-laden city reaches of the Brisbane River. Following our mad sprint, I was breathing heavily and it looked like a particularly long way to the other side. Beside me, however, Veronica seemed as relaxed as ever while she glided along, her wary eyes darting about us in search of danger. As we sprinted along the gentle incline and I looked across at GoMA (the Gallery of Modern Art) on the opposite bank, our run of luck finally ended. I heard the whoosh of the missile moments before I realized its laser was painting the back of my hoodie! And I panicked. I could clearly remember what one of its mates had done to that solid metal bus back in Queen Street. Now this one was coming for me at about the speed of sound and I was betting the thin fabric of my hoodie wouldn’t lessen the impact anywhere near as much as the bus had! Instinctively (and quite pointlessly, considering I had never run faster than the speed of sound before) I sped up. Thankfully, Veronica had her brain switched on and quickly dragged me to a halt. I felt her ripping at my clothes, but despite having already day-dreamed of something tantalisingly similar, I found my excitement lessened considerably by the nasty little son-of-a-sidewinder screaming towards me. A moment later, she had my hoodie off and was hurling it up and out over the River. We hit the deck and the hoodie barely had a chance to begin its long descent before the tiny missile rocketed past a mere metre above our heads and sent it to hoodie-hell in a raging ball of flames. “TLGM: Target-lock laser-guided missile,” Veronica explained shortly. “Nasty little buggers.” A heartbeat later, she had me back on my feet and we were once more bolting across the bridge. When I glanced to the side I noticed a faint red beam spearing through the air. There’s not much smog in Brisbane, so I couldn’t see it all that well, but it seemed to be pointing at the side of the bridge up ahead. A moment later, when I heard the distant, tell-tale whoosh, I knew it was really bad news. I could get by without my hoodie, but right now the bridge was the only thing between us and a killer drop to the River, perhaps thirty metres below. If at all possible, I was particularly keen for it to stay in one piece for the next twenty seconds or so! I turned to give Veronica the bad news, but realised she already knew. Her worried eyes were flicking nervously between the bridge ahead and the incoming missile, carefully judging our chances of getting past the impact zone before the missile hit. I thought they were non-existent, and she seemed to reach the same conclusion. I felt her slowing and wondered whether she was crazy enough to think we had a chance of getting back the same way we’d come before Snake Eyes cut us off. “Stay close!” she ordered, peering intensely into my eyes. “And don’t be shy!” I wasn’t sure what she meant, but the firm note in her usually calm voice left me in no doubt we were in a very tight spot with precious little room to manoeuvre. Whatever she had in mind, it was clear there would be no margin for error and no second chances. The moment she’d finished speaking, I felt her accelerate forwards, dragging me with her while she glanced up at the multitude of thick posts jutting skyward at various angles from the bridge. I’d just decided she must be trying to beat the missile after all when she caught me completely off guard by veering sharply to the left and leaping up over the railing, taking me with her over the side of the bridge! I was pretty sure the fall to the River would kill us both. By the time we reached the water, we’d be travelling so fast it would be a lot like landing on dried concrete! Even if we lived, we’d probably be knocked unconscious. Then, assuming we didn’t drown, we’d be sitting ducks for the next TLGM! My heart sank as we sailed out through open air. On top of my despair I couldn’t help feeling cheated that I still had no idea what all of this was about! What did all these guys have against Veronica? And who was she really? A wave of bitter disappointment washed over me as I glanced sideways at the glamorous mystery woman and tried to accept that I would never discover the truth. In just a few seconds, it would die along with the two of us. Then I caught sight of Veronica’s determined expression and noticed she had her arm raised, her gaze fixed firmly on a point high on the bridge. The next moment I heard a sound like a powerful electric discharge and something shot from her sleeve at enormous speed. It took me a moment to notice the hair-thin cord trailing behind as the mystery projectile hurtled upwards. Despite accelerating toward the brownish depths of the river, I found myself cautiously daring to hope. Moments later, a distant metallic clunk told me the projectile had struck one of the uprights poking out further along the bridge. And out of the blue I understood Veronica’s earlier advice to me. I flung my arms around her narrow waist, thankful that the sensual widening of her hips made it impossible for me to slip down so long as I kept my hands locked together behind her back. I barely had time to register that the side of my face was now tucked tightly in between her breasts … before the killer missile found its target. Instinctively, my head spun towards the massive BOOOMMMM and I swallowed hard as a huge, orange fireball engulfed the section of bridge just ahead of us – the section we would have been standing on if we’d kept running. Pieces of metal railings and chunks of concrete pathway hurtled out in all directions, several whizzing by within a couple of metres of us. At the same time, I felt our motion change as the cord took our weight and we began swinging round in a wide arc past the devastated section of bridge and up towards the railing on the other side. As we looped round and up like Tarzan and Jane swinging on a jungle vine, I couldn’t believe the narrow cord connecting us to the upright would possibly hold our combined weight much longer. A second later, I was sensationally glad to be proven wrong as we swung smoothly up over the rail and touched down on the still intact southern section of bridge. I didn’t see how Veronica released the projectile, but I heard the rapid whir of a tiny motor as the cord wound swiftly back in and a couple of seconds later I caught a glimpse of a small, silver hemisphere disappearing up her sleeve. Under cover of the explosion and its slowly dissipating cloud of evil black smoke, we sprinted down the gentle incline towards the far bank while my head reeled. This woman didn’t just look like a goddess - to pull off a stunt like that she must surely be one!

***** 8

Seconds later we were racing down the spiral ramp at the southern end of the bridge. Following the explosion, an eerie silence now hung over the area, broken only by the sounds of traffic from the Riverside Expressway back on the city side of the River, and by the distant wail of sirens. Apparently the authorities had finally caught on that the sphere of action had shifted. “He made a mistake taking out that bridge,” Veronica said calmly as we followed the path up towards the imposing, gawkily-modern GoMA. I knew she was talking about Snake Eyes and the fact that the smoking ruins he’d created at the centre of the bridge meant he was now going to have to make a detour. Even so, she didn’t slow at all. After racing down the side of GoMA, she followed the wall round to the entrance on the eastern side while I ran at her heels. “What are we going in here for?” I asked between heaving breaths as Veronica headed for the doors. “Shouldn’t we just … keep on running?” When she stopped and turned back to face me, she wore a sad but determined expression. “There’s nowhere to run,” she told me with a level stare, sounding apologetic. “Or at least, nowhere they can’t find us.” I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. Nowhere they can’t find us? For a moment I wondered whether now might be the right time to say goodbye and head our separate ways. But the thought had barely popped into my head before I discounted it. There was just no way I could leave Veronica to the mercy of those thugs. Despite knowing it was a crazy move, I was determined to stay and do whatever I could to protect her. “What are we supposed to do then?” I asked, struggling to keep my voice even. “Stay alive … kill them,” she replied flatly as she turned away and headed for the doors. When she glanced back and realised I hadn’t moved, she turned and jogged quickly back over to me, placing her hands comfortingly on my shoulders. “I’m sorry, Dan. There’s no time to explain right now. You just have to trust me.” I stared into her beautiful eyes a moment longer before finally facing facts. She knew far more about what was going on than I did: I had to trust her judgement or we could easily both be mince-meat before dinner-time. When I nodded, she smiled that gorgeous smile of hers and spun away. “Let’s go then.” Dazed, I followed Veronica into the almost vacant foyer. Ten metres in, she turned left, grabbed me by the arm and began striding up a flight of stairs, dragging me with her. While we moved, I couldn’t stop thinking about our brief, but confronting conversation: What are we supposed to do then? Stay alive … kill them. If I was to believe Veronica, the only way these guys would stop was if we killed them … or they killed her, and maybe me as well! Neither option offered much hope. Already today I’d had more ups and downs than a yo-yo with bi-polar disorder, and now I felt my hopes tumbling into the depths of despair. How had this all come about? And why did they want Veronica dead, anyway? I still had absolutely no idea and as I puffed up the stairs beside her, I couldn’t even spare the breath to ask. While I vainly wished I hadn’t gotten out of bed this morning, we reached the top of the stairs and headed left towards the eastern wall where a walkway led across to the northern gallery area. The walkway was one of two spanning the huge open space that stretched up from the foyer floor to the ceiling three storeys above. I’d just managed to catch my breath enough to ask one of the hundred or so questions buzzing through my head when Veronica abruptly dragged me to a crouch and fired up her shield-field over my shoulder. An instant later, the wall of windows behind us erupted to the sound of automatic gunfire. I whipped my head round and saw a new bad guy standing down in the foyer, getting rid of bullets in a hurry. How many of these guys were there! This one was stocky and powerful like a weight- lifter, with bright red, crew-cut hair. Like all the others, he’d obligingly dressed himself in ‘bad-guy’ black … mostly leather, as far as I could make out from up here. Whoever these goons were, they were obviously cocky enough to believe they didn’t need any kind of disguise. At least that gave us a slight edge, I thought, trying to stay positive. Of course, it wasn’t easy with huge sheets of jagged glass cascading onto the walkway around us and shattering over the outside paving three storeys below! And it was even harder when I guessed his next move before he made it. The gunfire stopped, and while I listened to the sound of huge chunks of glass continuing to explode on the ground around us, I watched him reach for one of those damned midget missiles they all seemed so fond of. We were running before I realized it … sprinting back round the southern edge of the huge open space towards the other walkway that ran across its centre and offered better protection from our attacker. While we moved, the guy did his best to lock the missile’s laser on to one of us. But he was a fraction of a second too slow. Within a few strides, the floor had hidden us from his line of sight and I felt a fleeting sense of relief. While I listened for the sound of footsteps that might signal his pursuit, I heard the whoosh of another missile and realised my relief had been premature - he’d decided to take a pot shot at us anyway, obviously suspecting we were heading for the central walkway! As we cut right onto it and raced across, I pushed as hard as I could, yet once again Veronica had drawn that tiny bit ahead, and was dragging me after her. The next thing I knew, we were diving through the air, aiming for the relative safety beyond the mouth of the large hallway at the northern end of the walkway. This time I was ready to do my bit when we landed. As the missile exploded at the edge of the landing behind us and tore it to shreds, we hit the ground just inside the northern gallery area and rolled smoothly to our feet without Veronica having to help me much at all. While we sprinted off down the hallway leaving the flaming, shattered walkway behind us, she flicked me an impressed smile. “Fast learner,” she grinned approvingly. Then her eyes focussed ahead and while my spirits lifted a little, we did our best to break the indoor sprint record.

***** 9

At the end of the hall Veronica turned sharp left and we raced into the large, open area of the north-eastern gallery. It was filled with paintings by well-known Australian artists, along with a mob of terrified people who hurried past us, frantically searching for an exit. I thought they had the right idea, but Veronica ignored them, heading instead towards a series of pencil sketches of Brisbane icons which hung in the far corner. I guessed she must know of an exit up ahead, but a second later, while I peered about at the solid walls confronting us, it became clear that she’d mistakenly led us into a dead-end! I slowed, preparing to backtrack and mentally calculating where Redhead might be by now. If he’d been able to get across the shattered walkway at the far end of the main corridor, we’d be in deep do-do once we turned back onto it! Then I saw a crack appearing where a dogleg in the wall met the ceiling, and while I watched in amazement, the entire section of wall slid smoothly down into the floor! A few steps later, we were inside the previously hidden area and climbing onto the meanest looking motorbike I’ve ever seen. Like the bobtrain, it was made almost entirely of raw, shiny metal, but its most striking feature was the abnormally wide back wheel. At around three-quarters-of-a-metre wide, this thing had to have phenomenal gripping power! While I hurriedly secured yet another helmet, I looked over Veronica’s shoulder and noticed an unusual sculpture dead ahead on the far side of the adjacent display area. It had curving slabs merging in towards a wider central one which appeared to rise out of the floor and curve up towards a massive window behind it. I felt a chill run through my body. I was sure I knew what Veronica had in mind, and for a moment I couldn’t help wondering if I’d be better off waiting here for Redhead! My adrenaline surged as the engine suddenly roared to life with a deep, throaty snarl that sent a nervous, excited shudder through my guts. “Hang on!” Veronica yelled over the noise, and I willingly slipped my arms around her slender waist for the second time that day. I almost lost concentration when I tightened them and felt my body pull in hard against hers. I could sense every bump and curve from her shoulders down to her award-winning backside and it was almost impossible not to get lost imagining doing so under very different circumstances. Still, the thought of what we were about to attempt kept my blissful daydream disappointingly short. Despite the back wheel’s abnormally wide rubber, when Veronica threw the engine into gear and turned the throttle it seemed as if it squealed forever, spinning madly on the tiled floor while a cloud of burnt rubber boiled up around us. That had to be one hell of an engine between her legs! When the massive tyre finally bit into the tiles, despite feeling as if I’d been holding Veronica far more tightly than necessary, I was almost thrown off the back as the machine leapt forwards like a wild tiger that had just had its cage door thrown wide. In the blink of an eye, we were rocketing past the main corridor and I only got a few milliseconds to register the surprised expression on Redhead’s face as he bolted towards us along it. Before he could react, I heard Veronica fire. But when I looked round, I saw she had her gun raised toward the window ahead instead of our enemy. When we hit the sloping, central slab of the sculpture, the huge sheet of glass in front of us was already exploding into a million tiny fragments. I ducked down behind Veronica as we shot up the ramp and blasted through the shattered window … then sailed up, up, up though empty air. When I looked down, we were already about forty metres above the ground, the air tearing wildly at our clothes as it raced past. For a moment, despite rocketing forwards, we seemed to hang in the air while I glanced around at the stunning view of the City. Then my stomach rose into my throat as we began dropping towards the large, flat roof of the State Library. I peered down at the solid concrete roof far below us and reality hit hard - we had zero chance of surviving when the bike landed. By the time we fell that far, it’d be like dropping out of a five storey window onto flat concrete! Sick at the thought of all those splintered bones, I stood up, preparing to dampen the impact as much as I could with my legs. If I timed it just right, perhaps I could avoid compressing all of my vertebrae! For a moment, I kidded myself that if I was really lucky I might even walk again someday; but the truth was that once we crashed, we’d be sitting ducks for Redhead and his mates. I pulled myself a bit more tightly into Veronica, her body feeling just that little bit more fantastic thanks to the knowledge I might never feel anything from my neck down ever again. Then I was caught completely by surprise when I heard a sudden whirring sound and the wheels began reaching down towards the roof! It took me a moment to register that the stems on which they were mounted were growing longer. Once the whirring stopped, they were at least three metres long, and when we hit the roof a moment later, the impact was cleverly absorbed as they returned to their normal position, obviously under the intricate control of some cunningly designed computerised suspension system. Incredibly, it felt just like we’d landed on a gently sloping ramp! Hardly bothered by the impact, we sped on along the roof and I heard myself laughing out loud, ecstatic that we were both still in the game! Veronica glanced questioningly back at me before grinning. Then her eyes focused behind me and her face twisted into a fearful scowl. I heard the ‘whoosh’ before I had a chance to look around. When I did, I got a strong and unwelcome sense of déjà vous - another evil red laser beam stretched from an incoming missile straight to my back! Behind it, I could just make out a dark silhouette of Redhead standing in the shattered GoMA window we’d recently driven through. Already he was too far away to make out properly, but I could imagine his evil, victorious grin and I wished to God there was some way of turning that missile around and sending it straight back down that ugly throat of his! Despite our bike already moving incredibly fast, I felt it burst forward as Veronica slammed the throttle to the max. When I peered ahead, the far edge of the library was coming at us more swiftly than I’d thought possible. For a moment I even felt like we might outrun the missile. Then I looked back and saw that it was still gaining on us at a frightening rate. Remembering how the earlier missile had been locked onto my hoodie, I tried to work out whether I could get my shirt off without toppling from the speeding bike. If I fell at this speed, I knew I’d be dead. But if I did nothing, I was about to experience extreme acupuncture with a high-explosive needle! It didn’t take Einstein to tell me I had to at least try. Just as I was about to let go of Veronica, I heard a tiny explosion from beneath me. My head whipped round and I saw something flying lazily back towards the incoming missile. While I watched, it seemed to expand and at first I couldn’t work out what was happening. Then, as the lethal missile closed on the mysterious object, I realised it was a net, with strands so fine they were near-invisible. A moment later, the missile hit the net and detonated. “Thanks!” I yelled to Veronica as I turned back round. Then the sound of the explosion caught up and its powerful shockwave slammed into my back. I felt the bike swerve suddenly, but thankfully I realised Veronica – not the shockwave - had been responsible for the abrupt change of direction. A moment later the roof disappeared beneath us and we were falling again, dropping off the edge of the library towards the mouth of a tunnel leading under the Victoria Bridge southern access. Ironically, this time I found myself wishing we’d fall faster – if we didn’t get beneath the level of the tunnel’s roof, we were both literally about to lose our heads! I reckon Redhead must have been a pretty caring kind of guy ‘cause he chose that exact moment to distract us from our predicament. The air came alive with whistling chunks of speeding lead, and in the space of a heartbeat I stopped worrying about the danger ahead and focused instead on the swarm of bullets whizzing past my ears. His thoughtfulness inspired both of us to duck that little bit lower, and a moment later, the roof shot past in a blur as we rocketed into the safety of the tunnel. Having already extended themselves, the wheel stems once more absorbed the impact and once again it felt for-all-the- world as if we’d landed on an invisible ramp rather than hard, flat bitumen. Unfazed, we raced on through the short tunnel, its rows of yellow lights zipping past in a hazy blur. “We’ve lost them this time!” I called excitedly over the howl of the engine. “Nuh uh,” Veronica replied as she slammed on the brakes and I was thrust roughly into her back. My chin came to rest on her right shoulder, and from there I got a clear view of the lethal looking pair of killers sitting astride silver and purple motorcycles in the centre of the tunnel ahead of us. They were everything Veronica wasn’t – short, stocky and bereft of any trace of femininity. At first I even mistook them for guys. It was only the girly way they threw their two enormous grenades that tipped me off. As the melon-sized explosives lobbed through the air towards us, Veronica swung the bike sharply to the right, twisted the throttle hard and we shot into the Queensland Art Gallery’s underground car park.

***** 10

While we flew towards the ticketing booths, I jumped at the withering burst of machinegun fire that erupted from the front of our bike. The boom-gate blocking our path disintegrated in a storm of red and white splinters and by the time the over-sized grenades exploded we were already thirty metres away, hurtling through the packed car park as Veronica took us swiftly back to top speed. The nearness of the roof emphasized our dizzying acceleration and, despite the danger, I felt myself smile while I listened to the up and down revving of our meaty engine changing rapidly up through its gears. The noise reverberated powerfully off the concrete walls, floor and ceiling around us and thumping relentlessly into my eardrums. Even so, I couldn’t stop grinning. The scattered people wandering through the car park shrank back towards the cars parked along either side of us, their shocked looks seeming strangely normal to me after having seen little else for the last fifteen minutes or so. Halfway along, Veronica ducked the bike nimbly round a car that was pulling slowly out of a parking space, and I noticed that our back wheel stayed flat on the ground while the rest of the bike tilted over and then back up again. Talk about keeping maximum rubber on the road. This thing must corner like a dream! Which was fortunate I realized when I looked ahead again, because we were approaching an unforgivingly solid concrete wall at breakneck speed! My heart pounded even more wildly while my adrenal glands served up more of their specialty dish. A moment later they started dishing out seconds when the unusually loud whoosh of missiles reached my ears. I threw a fearful look behind us and wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or terrified – this time there weren’t any lasers painting my back, but the two over-sized rockets blasting out of side-mounted tubes of the pursuing bikes made those puny ‘Target-lock laser-guided missiles’ look like kiddies’ toys! “Left,” Veronica shouted obscurely, and I somehow grasped her warning. At this speed, if I leaned the wrong way when we turned, I’d be flung from the bike like a marble from a slingshot! I leaned steeply to the left while both she and the entire body of the bike did likewise. My left hip skimmed along centimetres above the ground as we flew round the corner at a speed that would have sent any normal bike skittering across the concrete to become a permanent fixture in the wall. A second later we shot into a pedestrian tunnel just as the missiles hit the wall behind us. The explosion was unbelievable! Flames billowed out through the confined spaces, consuming the area in a searing, deadly heat, and the noise felt like someone was hammering on my eardrums. Thanks to our brute of a bike, however, we managed to outrun the bulk of the blast wave. A few seconds later, when I peered back at the aftermath, I felt a deep admiration for the engineers who’d designed this car park. I’d been imagining the whole thing collapsing in on itself, but somehow the structure held despite the utter devastation which had just been visited upon it. Relieved that the whole place hadn’t come crashing down around us, but hoping the explosion had taken out the bikie chicks, I turned to peer ahead over Veronica’s right shoulder. The narrow, brightly-lit pedestrian tunnel we were flying along kept going straight for a hundred metres or so and I noticed it had a set of steps leading up to the left about halfway along. A few panicked people were racing towards them and I couldn’t resist a dry smile as I wondered if their eagerness to get out of there was due to the massive explosion or the hog of a bike screaming along the underground passageway towards them! Possibly both, I decided as the last of them leapt from the tunnel and scampered up the steps just as we rocketed past. When I looked ahead again, we were approaching a T-junction way too fast to stop! Then Veronica slammed on the brakes and they bit hard – much harder than I’d thought possible. Of course - I’d forgotten about the phenomenal gripping power of that monstrous back tyre! Even so, I found I had to squeeze the bike hard between my legs to keep from shoving Veronica forwards off the bike as my momentum did its best to send both of us careering into the wall ahead! A second later we veered into the left branch of the intersecting tunnel and I waited for Veronica to slam the throttle forwards and get us out of there. Instead, she caught me completely by surprise when she kept the bike turning hard left through 180 degrees and along a short ramp that sloped up beside the tunnel we’d just come out of. She caught me even more off guard when she stopped! “What are you doing?” I demanded incredulously. Now that the bellow of our engine had died away, over its throaty idling I could clearly hear the distant sound of the other two bikes roaring towards us along the tunnel, their riders having clearly escaped the worst of the explosion too. In a flash, Veronica was off the bike and stepping over to the wall on the far side of the corridor we’d just turned off. Ignoring my question, she whipped something from her pocket and pushed it against the wall. Then, still holding the object, she stepped back to my side of the tunnel and slammed it hard against the wall. This time it stuck. “Improving our odds,” she said. Puzzled, I peered closely at the device while she slipped back onto our bike and gunned the engine. Just before we leapt forwards up the ramp, I made out a hair-thin thread leading back across the opening to a small, grey dot on the far side. We were ten metres away and already moving fast when the first bikie chick came round the corner and her front wheel hit the trigger-line. I was looking back at the time, so I got a crystal clear view of what happened. The device she’d just triggered must have been a cleverly directed charge on a very slight delay, ‘cause she managed to get her bike halfway through the opening before it exploded towards her. I’d expected yet another powerful, uncontrolled explosion, so at first I thought the thing must have miss-fired. There was a surprisingly soft bang accompanied by a thick cloud of smoke as the detonation fanned out vertically in a thin, directed line. Then, as I worried about how many more of those rockets the woman might have on board, her bike skidded from the smoke and toppled onto the ground in two halves. It was as if some giant chainsaw had just sliced the thing cleanly in two about halfway along! I felt pretty sure I’d have recurring nightmares about what the charge had done to the rider of the bike. It helped a bit to remind myself that, just thirty seconds ago, bike-chick had tried to blow us into a million pieces. And that, technically, that meant Veronica had been 999,998 pieces less nasty to her. All in all, I suppose you could say she got off quite lightly! Despite my efforts to laugh it off, however, I swallowed uncomfortably and turned to peer dully ahead. That was the end of any lingering doubts I’d had that this game we were caught up in was deadly serious and that Veronica had come ready to play. I probably should have felt sick. Instead, as I thought some more about it, I felt a massive sense of relief. For the first time, I dared to think that maybe we could actually beat these crazed killers and live to see another day. Then I remembered the second biker and realized I couldn’t afford to think too far into the future. All that mattered was staying alive from second to second … and taking out the rest of those maniacs before they turned us into worm food!

***** 11

Moments later, we blasted out of the tunnel and turned right onto Melbourne Street. Just ahead, the Victoria Bridge arched gently away from us, over the River towards the Queen Street Mall. In different circumstances, I might have dwelt on the fact that this madness had all started about a kilometre and a half dead ahead of us, on the far side of that Mall. As it was, I was too preoccupied with all the cars driving straight at us! Not to mention the fact that we were trapped on the wrong side of the road by a concrete and glass barricade to our left, which ran along the centre of the bitumen for another fifty metres. Veronica didn’t seem at all fazed by the wave of cars racing towards us, their occupants no doubt made reckless by their desire to get away from all those explosions around the CBD. In fact, she continued to accelerate as she dodged left, past the first car. The squeal of skidding car tyres filled the air as she zigzagged smoothly past four more. Then we were on the bridge, past the end of the barrier, and crossing onto the left side of the road. I let a relieved sigh go just before I spotted a bus about fifty metres ahead, coming at us way too fast. It was one of those ‘stretch buses’ that are like two separate buses joined in the middle by a concertinaed section. What made my heart skip a beat, however, was the unmistakable figure of the driver - Baseball Cap Man had found us! I saw his mouth twist into an evil grin as he wrenched the wheel hard over. The bus veered sharply to the right … too sharply … and began to tip. Seconds later it was sliding along the road on its side, stretching all way from one edge of the Bridge to the other, thick showers of sparks spraying out where the metal sides ground along the rough bitumen. There was no way past. But at least I knew we could just turn around and ride away from it. Then, over the grinding scraping racket of the sliding bus, I heard several bursts of gunfire and noticed windows shattering all over the side of the bus which now faced skywards. A moment later, bad-guys’ heads started popping from the smashed windows like rabbits from a warren! Well, not quite like that I guess, since rabbits don’t usually pull evil-looking guns out of their burrows with them! Now I knew we were in trouble. Even if we turned back, we’d look like sieves before we made it ten metres. When I glanced at Veronica, however, she didn’t look at all defeated. Instead, while I’d been enjoying the ‘evil bunny show’, she’d pulled up her sleeve and raised her arm to point at a lamp-post ahead and to our right. A moment later, just as had happened back on Kurilpa Bridge, something shot from what I could now see was a gun-like device strapped to her forearm. I heard the dull clang of it hitting the lamp-post and only managed to spot the almost invisible thread stretching from her arm to the post because I knew it was there. At the same time, the fingers of Veronica’s other hand had been dancing across a keypad at the centre of the handlebars. My concern over the fact that this meant neither of her hands were on the handlebars quickly paled into insignificance when three words started flashing on a small display at the top of the panel: “SELF-DESTRUCT ON IMPACT”! “Hold tight!” she ordered. I strengthened my grip around her waist an instant before we passed the lamp post and the cord dragged us smoothly from the bike, arcing us round to the right. The g-forces built rapidly as we swung up and round, barely clearing the railings before flying out over the edge of the bridge. I could hear the sound of about five automatics firing simultaneously and I grimaced, expecting to feel a succession of sickening impacts. But when I glanced round I discovered Baseball Cap man and his mates had correctly guessed that right now the bike was far more of a threat than we were. Thankfully, they were all desperately firing at it instead of us. I guess the front of the speeding motorbike must have been heavily reinforced, since they didn’t have a lot of success with triggering the bomb early. Unfortunately though, just before it tore into the centre of the bus, I saw Baseball Cap Man scramble from the shattered front windscreen and hurl himself up and out over the edge of the bridge. He was one guy I’d really have preferred to see taken out of the equation. While he dropped out of sight on the far side of the bridge, the intense g-force I’d felt as we swung round the lamp-post abruptly vanished, and while I listened to the rapid whir of the line reeling back in, Veronica and I began to fall. I completely missed what must have been a pretty impressive fireball ‘cause my head instinctively whipped round to see where we were going to land … and how many limbs I was likely to break. Lots, I immediately realised. A moment later we crashed into the top of a tree while the enormous boom of the bike and bus exploding together drowned out the sound of its upper branches giving way under our combined weight. At least they were the kind of limbs I didn’t mind breaking. And I felt suddenly glad I’d worn jeans and a long-sleeved shirt, otherwise my legs and arms would have been shredded as we crashed down through the branches. As it was, I got little more than a nasty cut on my left hand before we finally lost our momentum and came to rest in the more sturdy lower branches. Without pausing, Veronica scrambled down onto a staircase just below us that lead up the side of a very old-looking rock structure. I quickly followed her lead and a few seconds later we emerged from the stairs onto a rough, rectangular concrete platform. She bolted towards an archway perched on top and while I followed closely I glanced sideways at a plaque attached to the side of the arch. I wasn’t surprised to see it was a bronze relief of a young boy’s face – I’d already realised we were now standing on the last remaining section of the original Victoria Bridge, which had been left standing as a monument to an eleven-year-old boy who’d been accidentally killed near here around the end of World War I. My year six class had been here a few years back as part of a ‘History of Brisbane’ excursion and now, as we raced by, I was intrigued to spot the faded remnants of Joey Spettini’s chewing gum still wedged beneath the plaque where I’d watched him carelessly shove it so long ago. While I marvelled at Joey’s spearmint legacy, I turned to Veronica and was surprised to discover her growing shorter! When I glanced down at her feet, I realised it was because she was disappearing into the ground on a small platform. Hurriedly, I jumped down beside her, and while we descended swiftly into darkness, I glanced nervously about in search of bad-guys. Thankfully, there were none in sight. Moments later, when a trapdoor slid silently into place above our heads, the unwelcome thought popped into my head that it felt like I was descending into a grave … and that there’d be plenty of room for a second plaque up there on that arch - say, one to a fourteen-year- old boy killed by a hoard of mysterious assassins on this very day!

***** 12

I suspected the chamber we were now in hadn’t been part of the original bridge specifications, but there was absolutely no doubt about the car that was crouched beside us. I was pretty sure nothing like it could exist now, let alone back when the original bridge was built! Like the other machines which Veronica kept mysteriously stumbling across, it was made of bare shiny metal, glinting faintly in the dull, greenish lights that had come on at various points around the chamber. The mere sight of it brought an ecstatic smile to my lips. Narrow and short, it seemed barely big enough to encase two seats side-by-side and, presumably, a motor at the back (though it must have been impossibly small to fit into the available space). Although the vehicle sat higher on its surprisingly wide wheels than any racing car normally would, it seemed likely that someone equipped with a particularly efficient wind-tunnel had abandoned their family and friends for countless hours to perfect its streamlining. As I stared at it in awe, I had the giddying feeling it was capable of things I’d only ever dreamed of. Still smiling, I reached for the door and climbed in as Veronica stepped round to the driver’s side. While I settled into the steeply-reclined, black leather seat, she squeezed in beside me and I became suddenly, and very acutely, aware of her faint but deeply intoxicating perfume. “We should be okay here for a while,” she told me softly, and I noticed an odd inflection in her voice. When I turned to look at her I saw a confused jumble of emotions playing across her face. Our eyes met and for a moment there was electricity in the air again. Then she frowned and abruptly turned to peer ahead through the windscreen. I frowned too. Besides a vague hint of fear and her usual air of gritty determination, I was sure I’d detected an unfathomable sadness in her big, beautiful eyes. Yet the overriding impression I’d received was of a fierce, thinly veiled sense of longing. It instantly brought back the words that had never been far from my dazed mind since she’d spoken them: “I’m your wife.” “Veronica … why do you think we’re m ... married?” I asked, surprised to discover my voice sounded strangely husky, like hers, while I forced the final bizarre word out. I watched her smile silently to herself while she peered ahead through the windscreen at the rough, dimly lit rock wall. It was clear that she was seeing something quite different in her mind’s eye. “I remember when I first met you,” she began obscurely, “as if it was only yesterday.” Her voice sounded kind of dreamy, and there was a hint of laughter, as if she found the thought amusing somehow. Naturally, I assumed it was because she was joking about remembering when she first met me. We both knew it had been less than half-an- hour ago! She couldn’t possibly have forgotten if she’d tried! “You seemed so terribly sad,” she continued. “And at first you just stared oddly at me, as if you were looking straight through me. Then your eyes suddenly focused on mine and you smiled so warmly that it felt like the sun had risen inside me.” She smiled again and it was such a genuine look of joy that it left me feeling deeply shaken and confused. That wasn’t how I remembered it at all! By my reckoning, I would have had a look of absolute shock and horror when I’d seen her for the first time, as I’d stumbled across the pedestrian crossing and she pulled out that mean-looking gun of hers! As if reality was quite irrelevant to her, Veronica’s expression stayed like that for long seconds before she gave a sudden, girlish giggle. “You know, ever since I was a little girl, I’d always imagined some incredibly romantic marriage proposal … perhaps at the top of the Eiffel Tower … or over a candle-lit dinner in a beautiful garden somewhere.” I felt myself turning red. Her mushy feelings about wedding proposals weren’t exactly what I’d been trying to find out about when I’d asked why she thought I was her husband. Particularly given that she somehow believed I had a starring role! She continued to stare ahead at the wall while she carried on, oblivious to my glowing red cheeks. “Then, one night we were having pizza at your flat and I was in one of those foul moods we women are prone to now and then.” I blinked. What on Earth was she talking about? “I’d just torn strips off you about something - I don’t even remember what anymore, probably ‘cause it was so trivial.” She sounded as if she honestly believed the crazy words she was speaking! “But you just smiled at me … which, of course, made me even more furious! I was so angry that when I went to stand up I shoved my chair back too hard … it tipped over and smashed your beautiful engraved glass coffee table into a million pieces! I could only stare uncomprehendingly at her, wondering how she had managed to create this bizarre fantasy world of hers. “I was far too furious and embarrassed to apologise,” she continued, “so I just stormed for the door instead. I had it open and was just about to walk out when I heard you say those wonderful words: ‘Veronica - I’m so crazy about you! For God’s sake, marry me.’” She turned to peer affectionately at me and I didn’t know where to look, or what to do. Was she simply mad, or was it possible she’d mistaken me for someone else? “Even in the midst of my rage, it felt like the most romantic proposal ever,” she whispered. “You were telling me that even at my absolute worst, you still loved me … still wanted to spend the rest of your life with me!” In the blink of an eye, Veronica’s intensely blissful expression unexpectedly became a devastated grimace. For a moment, I thought she was about to cry. Instead she lowered her head and peered silently down at her lap for what seemed like an eternity. I still didn’t know what to say, so I kept quiet. How the heck’s a kid supposed to respond when a gorgeous woman he’s only just met explains how he proposed to her?! It was insane! In desperation, I resorted to the age old (and terribly lame) tactic of changing the subject. “Veronica - who the hell are all these dorks chasing after you?” Although she continued staring silently down at her lap, I could almost hear her brain change gear. When she glanced up at me, her beautiful lips were now set in a thin, determined line. “Government assassins who’ll do anything to see you dead.” Despite the fact that she was obviously making all of this up, I blanched. “What?!” I asked incredulously. “Me? Why would they want me dead? What did I ever do to them?” Veronica threw me a proud smile. “Because you spearheaded the defeat of Salim Sahissi, the inaugural president of the UNE.” “The what?” I asked incredulously, feeling my feeble grip on reality weakening further. “The UNE … the United Nations of Earth – the governing body for the unified nations of our world. Less than fifteen years from now, all the countries of the world will finally be united under a single government – the UNE. The unification will be driven primarily by deep financial turmoil across the globe, the seeds of which were sown back in the ‘07 World Financial Crisis. This new government structure will be created primarily to allow a more uniform system of trade between countries and a fairer treatment of workers throughout the world – a bit like the failed European Economic Union, but with greatly improved guidelines and on a far larger, global scale.” I could only stare at her in stunned disbelief. She seemed to have entered a whole new realm of self-deception! Could she really believe all this stuff? “In truth,” she continued, apparently failing to notice my look of utter disbelief, “it’s really more of a technical restructuring than any truly revolutionary change. Countries even get to retain their own Governmental organisation, as well as their Heads of State. None-the-less, it allows unprecedented power to be focussed under a single individual – the President of the UNE. And despite incredibly rigorous checks, the very first person to hold this influential position, Salim Sahissi, uses that power to gradually seize control of the entire planet.” My mind was well and truly reeling now. When I eventually spoke, I decided to pretend I was discussing the plot of a movie to avoid dealing with the fact that she obviously believed every crazy word she’d spoken. “But how could one guy possibly take control of the entire world without super-powers like the US and China moving against him?” I asked sceptically. “I can assure you that’s a question one hell of a lot of people have asked since!” she told me bitterly. “Put simply, he’s unbelievably brilliant and cunning, an adept master of political deception, and bereft of the slightest hint of morals. Too late, people discovered he’d conducted a host of cleverly orchestrated secret meetings with various Federal Governments around the world. And that he’d managed to shrewdly draw on the bad blood and hatred littering the past few thousand years of our World’s history to manipulate groups of nations with common, deep-seated animosities to play them off against one other. While he was promising one group he’d further their interests by eroding the power of their long-time enemies, if only they kept their forces at bay, he was secretly promising the opposing parties the exact same thing.” “That’s one hell of a juggling act,” I said dubiously. “Exactly,” she responded evenly, still ignoring my scepticism. “Before anyone realised they’d been duped by the biggest con in history, he and his supporters had seized control of every nuclear weapons arsenal in the world.” She paused and swallowed hard before resuming in a strangled voice. “Then, simply to make the point that any attempt to stop him would be most unwelcome, he wiped New York, Washington, Bejing, London, Paris, Berlin, Capetown, Rio de Janeiro … and Brisbane, completely off the face of the map.” A tear trickled down her lovely cheek. “Over one hundred and seventy million people lost their lives in a single day … and about three hundred million others were left inhabiting radioactive wastelands, with little chance of surviving even a few short years.” I goggled at her. What a story! It was just as I’d feared - the woman was a certified loony! Worse still, for some unknown reason she’d chosen me to share her insane visions with! And yet, far too much had happened for me to so simply discount her crazy tale. Hell, at that very moment I was sitting in a car that any major automotive manufacturer would have killed to get their hands on - a car that looked to be years ahead of even the most advanced concept cars in existence! And what about the bobtrain, and that fat hog of a bike? If she was feeding me a lie, then what the hell was really going on? “So you’re from the Future?” I asked weakly. “Yes – 2031.” “And w …” I had to stop to clear my throat. “We’re … married?” “Yes,” she replied, her voice sounding oddly dull all of a sudden. I blinked. There it was again – that haunting, hollow kind of sadness I kept noticing. “And I stop this guy … Salim, what’s his name?” “Sahissi … yes. You create a computer virus that’s able to infiltrate the World’s defence networks and put most of the World’s nuclear launch stations off-line.” My eyes widened in shock. If she was making this up, she was either very lucky or she knew more about me than I’d realised. I had always been fascinated by computer viruses. I’d done stacks of research on them and written quite a few myself - though I never went for any of that sociopathic ‘wipe-the- hard-drive, wreak-havoc’ kind of stuff. I just got a kick out of discovering a way past on-line security systems, the way some people get a thrill from finding a way past their opponent’s defences in a game of Chess. It was just a bit of harmless fun. I’d certainly never dreamed it could lead to anything as monumental as saving the world from a madman! This whole thing was just way too crazy. I had to be missing something. Then, all at once, it came to me: this had to be some kind of elaborate setup! Some complex new ‘reality’ TV show. At this very moment, millions of people world-wide were probably watching me and laughing their heads off! I thought back over all the things I’d seen and it wasn’t hard to see that this was a far more likely explanation than the outrageous alternative Veronica was proposing. Yes! There had to be a colossal movie crew working feverishly behind the scenes across the Brisbane CBD. That would explain the inexplicable tunnels and rooms we kept encountering. And I had no doubt special effects crews could have been responsible for the various machines, explosions and stunts I’d seen and been involved in. The bikie woman I’d witnessed being cut in two was probably nothing more than a spookily life-like, ‘Myth Busters’-style ballistics gel dummy, pumped full of fake blood! The more I thought about it all - including the smouldering Goddess sitting next to me and claiming I was her dream-guy - the more I realised this had to be a setup. And I was suddenly determined to prove it. “So how the hell do these doors just keep miraculously popping open for you all the time?” Although I tried to sound merely curious, I knew straight away I’d failed. Even to my own ears, I sounded like a prosecution lawyer cross- examining an uncooperative witness. I was caught completely off guard when she smiled calmly across at me, almost as if she’d shared a private joke with someone. Then her teeth separated slightly and I saw her tongue twist over until the tip pressed against one of her lower molars. Despite my determination to find answers, I felt my will fail and my heartbeat accelerate as I peered past her glossy red lips and sparkling white teeth into the moist, sensual darkness of her mouth. Then she drew her tongue back from her tooth and I jumped at the sound of the engine roaring to life just a few inches behind me! On top of everything else, I felt a thrill of excitement at the raw power vibrating through the back of the seat and reverberating throughout the tiny chamber. I’d been right about one thing – this sophisticated little mini-car obviously had tonnes of grunt! I watched Veronica’s open-mouthed grin spread. Then, still without a word, she opened her mouth a little wider as if urging me to peer inside again. For a split second I found myself imagining leaning over and sealing my lips over hers in a passionate kiss. If I was going to be the butt of some reality TV joke, surely I deserved to at least get something worthwhile out of it. I felt furious when I realised I simply couldn’t bring myself to be so brazen. Shaking myself back to reality, I saw that her tongue was now resting on the molar directly above the one it had touched earlier. As my frown deepened, she separated tongue from tooth and the engine abruptly died. In the deep silence that followed, I found myself staring dumbly back at her, concerned that this seemed to be turning into an embarrassing habit of mine. “I’ve had quite a bit of dental work,” she informed me. “Rather unconventional dental work, as you’re probably guessing.” “Your teeth are switches?” I asked incredulously. She smiled widely, proudly displaying them to me. “Exactly - thermal switches. I turn the system on by touching a series of teeth in a particular order. Each tooth senses the change in temperature and the correct sequence puts the whole system into ‘active’ mode. Then I can touch my tongue to the one I want and it goes to ‘standby’ mode. As soon as I pull it away, the switch detects the temperature change and sends out an encrypted radio signal.” And I’d thought things couldn’t possibly get any more bizarre! If I was to believe Veronica, she could open and close doors, turn motors on and off - and who knew what else - without lifting a finger! All it took was a few subtle movements of her tongue! “You’d want to make sure you didn’t get mixed up,” I pointed out, imagining her trying to open a door to escape those goons and forgetting which tooth to use. She grinned suddenly. “While I was training, I actually did forget a couple of times,” she admitted. “That’s why they put in a failsafe. If I ever forget which switch to use, I can trigger the top two front teeth simultaneously, three times within two seconds, and all receivers within ten metres are automatically activated.” She paused for a moment before adding: “Of course, it’s not a great idea if there’s any chance a remotely detonated bomb is planted nearby!” I smiled stiffly, wondering whether there were any around here and wondering how easy it would be for her to accidentally touch her two front teeth with her tongue three times in two seconds! Then my cynical streak returned. How could I possibly believe such craziness? There had to be some techie- guy on the TV special effects team watching us on hidden cameras and activating things remotely. “So what about all these hidden rooms and tunnels?” I asked, changing tack and still determined to catch her out. “How did they get there? And how do you know about them?” That same secretive smile touched her lips yet again. “They were manufactured at a covert military factory in the Simpson Desert, in the Australian Outback, then sent back through time during the early hours of this morning,” she replied matter-of- factly. Her smile spread into a broad grin. “And I know where they are because you told me.” I frowned disappointedly. If she was here to deceive me, she’d certainly come prepared. She seemed to have all the answers … and they were consistently the last ones I expected! “What do you mean I told you about them?” Her smile became suddenly mischievous. “Well surely you don’t think that after we got married we just lay in bed kissing all the time?” she asked innocently, and I felt my face flush yet again. “Believe it or not, we actually used to talk every now and then. And for some reason, the events of today always seemed to be one of your favourite topics.” I gave her what was fast becoming my trademark, dumbfounded stare. Yet again, her story seemed vaguely plausible – I could certainly imagine that if I survived today then I would have a hard time not telling absolutely everyone I knew about the incredible things that had happened to me! Amidst my confusion, I felt terribly frustrated. Despite her whole argument being wildly outlandish and seeming to run in circles, I still couldn’t put my finger on any particular flaw that I could use to disprove it once and for all. If I was going to catch her out, I obviously needed to think of some better questions that might reveal a more serious flaw in her story. Before I had a chance to try, however, something about her expression yanked me from my thoughts. When I focussed on her face, the smile had disappeared and she looked utterly gutted. I’m not sure how I worked it out. Call it intuition. Or perhaps my subconscious had already caught on but hadn’t quite built up the courage to fill me in yet. Whatever the reason, out of the blue I suddenly registered that her last statement had talked about me in the past tense: we actually used to talk every now and then. I swallowed hard. Somehow, I felt eerily certain that this wasn’t just because time-travelling had left her confused over which tense to use. “I’m dead, aren’t I,” I stated flatly, and then watched while her face slowly crumpled and tears appeared as if by magic, streaming down her perfect face to cascade onto her thin white cotton top. There was no need for her to answer. All of a sudden every one of those sad, haunted looks she’d given me made perfect sense. As I leaned over and she buried her face against my neck, I felt a deathly chill run up my spine. For some reason, I was now alarmingly certain that this was no ‘reality’ TV show. That everything she’d told me – every single bizarre detail - was the truth … and that before she had come to rescue me, she had learned of my death in the future, no doubt at the hands of Sahissi’s cronies.

***** 13

I’m not sure how long we sat there in silence with Veronica’s head resting on my shoulder and her warm, wet tears sliding down my neck. It felt like years; but it was probably only a few minutes. Then we both jumped as a deafening explosion boomed through the tiny room. Huge chunks of debris smashed against the roof of our car as Veronica straightened and we peered up through the obviously heavily reinforced sunroof. Above us, a gaping hole had opened in the ceiling of our hidden room and bright sunlight was now streaming through. My eyes were still struggling to adjust to the unexpected glare when a silhouette appeared at the side of the jagged opening. At the same time, I heard – and felt - our motor roar to life. “They’ve found us,” Veronica snapped unnecessarily, her words a hurried blur. A stream of gunfire strafed across our car while I listened to our tyres squeal and prayed this micro-machine had a very thick skin. I looked ahead just as the wall before us exploded outwards and we blasted forwards. The g-force slammed me back so hard into the padded leather seat that I decided the car must be rocket-powered. Except for the fact we were moving horizontally, it felt like we’d just lifted off from Cape Canaveral! Blasting out through the air, we easily cleared a hedge growing beside the old bridge footing before landing ten metres further on, in the middle of a long section of lawn. “How’d we do that?” I breathed incredulously. “Magnetic catapult,” Veronica replied shortly, her attention focussed on the view through the windscreen. When she steered sharp right, our wheels dug in, spraying huge chunks of turf through the air like a breaking wave of brown and green surf. Then we were off the lawn and onto a wide pathway leading towards the Wheel of Brisbane, a massive Ferris wheel filled with tourists who were now gawking down at us in astonishment. I glanced sideways at Veronica and did a double-take. Except for a faint sheen on her cheek and a slight redness to her eyes, there was now no sign of her deep distress just a few seconds earlier. I still remembered how devastated my mum had looked for hours after Dad backed over our cat on the way to their tenth anniversary dinner: her eyes blood- shot and swollen; dark lines of mascara streaking her face. Even allowing for some pretty impressive advances in non- smudge makeup during the next fifteen years, Veronica’s surprising composure was hard to accept. My rock-solid conviction that she had been telling the truth seemed suddenly foolish. Of course, it was possible, I conceded, that she was simply exceptionally good at blocking out everything else when she needed to focus on something as important as keeping the two of us alive! But I couldn’t escape a sudden nagging doubt that perhaps she had only been acting back there after all. Either way I had no time to worry about it now. There were more important things to worry about as we raced past the Wheel and shot into the mouth of the Grand Arbour, a tunnel formed from Bougainvillea plants covered in bright magenta blooms, weaving their way over a seemingly endless series of curling, tendril-like steel columns joined by thin stainless-steel cables. Things like the gorilla of a man standing in the middle of the path ahead of us with what looked like an oversized bazooka resting on his shoulder and pointing straight at us! It wasn’t till I noticed a red dot hovering on the open barrel of the guy’s weapon that I realised Veronica’s right hand was nimbly manoeuvring a small joystick on the armrest of her door. A split-second later, her thumb pressed a red button on top of the joystick and I glanced back to see what looked like a bolt of lightening shoot from somewhere at the front of our car. Faster than the eye could follow, it reached the barrel of the enormous weapon … and the gorilla- man, along with his bazooka, was enveloped within a thunderous explosion! I guess whatever he’d been about to fire at us from that thing must have had a really powerful explosive charge, ‘cause a moment later, when we hurtled through the spot where he’d been standing, the car encountered nothing but smoke and air. It was like the guy had literally been blown to dust!

***** 14

We flew onwards, the steel supports of the living tunnel of vines disappearing past us, one after the other, in a blinding blur while the tunnel curved gently round to the left. Then, for the first time since Snake Eyes had materialised before my very eyes, I actually saw it happen again. One moment the tunnel ahead was clear except for a few panicked pedestrians diving for cover. The next, there was something I could only describe as a tank, crouched forty metres ahead and blocking the entire passageway! Watching a man appear out of thin air back at the Transit Centre had been nothing short of astonishing. But an entire tank was on a whole new level! I felt a sickening wave of nausea. All of a sudden, my doubts about Veronica’s story had vanished into thin air, just like Gorilla man had a few seconds ago. There was simply no way that any movie crew, no matter how talented, could have made that happen! This was real … and Veronica and I were fighting for our lives! “That really cost ‘em,” I heard Veronica murmur cryptically while we hurtled towards the tank. While I wrestled with the frightening truth and also tried to guess what she meant about it ‘costing’ them, I saw flames erupt from the mouth of the tank’s over-sized gun and heard it bark. Veronica yanked the wheel hard right and I braced myself for the impact with the steel girders along the side of the Arbour … as well as with whatever that tank had just sent our way. But as I felt the shockwave of something deadly blasting past just outside my door, I realised there was a gap about twenty metres long down the right-hand side of the arbour. With a healthy dose of relief, I remembered that these sorts of large openings were situated all along the arbour to provide easy access to the walkway. Rocketing from the Bougainvillea tunnel, we veered sharply towards a large building. I immediately recognised it as the Piazza – a circular performance area with banks of seats rising up away from a bare concrete floor. As we flew in through a large opening, I heard a loud screeching sound from behind us. When I looked round, I realised the ‘tank’ was actually quite different to what I’d first thought. Rather than one of those heavy, lumbering hulks I was familiar with, this one must have ultra-light armour and a brute of an engine, ‘cause it was accelerating after us with phenomenal speed while its gun turret swivelled smoothly round, trying to get us in its sights! I remembered the power I’d sensed outside my window as whatever that thing had fired earlier had whizzed past us. Whatever protection this car might have, there was little doubt in my mind that it was going to be completely trashed if one of those scored a direct hit. And us with it! We flew across the circular performance area towards a large exit tunnel on the far side. But I knew we weren’t going to make it before the tank’s gun zeroed in. Fortunately, just when I felt sure the tank must have us lined up, Veronica flung the wheel hard left. There was a second muffled explosion from behind us and another lethal projectile skimmed past - this time on Veronica’s side. She held the wheel hard over until we’d spun through almost one-eighty degrees, and when she finally straightened it, we were pointing diagonally away from the low wall that curved round most of the performance area. Peering through the windscreen, I now had a perfect view of the tank, which had skidded to a halt at the centre of the Piazza, its gun once more swivelling round, trying to line us up. This time, however, the gun wasn’t my only concern. Veronica’s lightning-fast turn might have momentarily gotten us out of the firing line, but it had hardly altered our momentum at all. We’d gone from racing headlong towards the exit at about 80km/h, to hurtling backwards and sideways at about 75km/h on a collision course with the curved concrete wall just to the left of the exit! While I prayed this thing had heaps of air-bags, Veronica flattened the accelerator. The fat tyres spun crazily, struggling to arrest our momentum as thick, black smoke billowed up around us. Then we hit the wall, but incredibly it was little more than a rough jolt, the powerful wheels having done their job of bleeding away most of our momentum. I heard the high-pitched screech of metal on concrete as our sideways motion scraped the back of the car along the wall for a metre or so, then we pulled away and began accelerating around the big circular area. The tank was still stationary at the centre of the Piazza, its gun turret swinging after us while we screeched around the concrete floor like hoons doing massive donuts in the local car park. Unfortunately, with the gun arcing round behind us, I knew we couldn’t escape the building yet - the only thing keeping it from lining us up was our sideways motion, so straightening up to make a mad dash for the exit would be a fatal error. Thankfully, Veronica was doing an impressive job of increasing our lead on the tank’s rotating barrel. Within seconds, we’d done one complete revolution of the area and I estimated we’d soon have enough of a lead to risk making a break for it. Then the gun suddenly stopped and started moving in the opposite direction! “The gun’s changed direction!” I snapped anxiously at Veronica. “I know,” she replied tensely, her face a study of concentration as she watched it spin swiftly round toward us. I was still staring at her, so I saw her tongue move oddly in her mouth and guessed she’d just activated one of her ‘tooth switches’. A moment later, I heard a rapid series of ‘pops’ from somewhere above us as she threw the steering wheel back to the right. The car swerved round, seemingly out of control. But moments later we were pointing back out at the Arbour and she hit the gas hard. When I glanced up through the sunroof, I nearly had a heart attack. The huge collection of heavy spotlights used to light up the performance area was supported by a massive, circular complex of trusses suspended from the ceiling. The scaffolding was almost as big as the circular floor area and a large screen measuring perhaps two metres high and three wide hung at its centre. Somehow, this entire network was now plummeting towards the floor … and we were under it! I watched the thing fall every inch of the way … and saw it miss the back of our car by just millimetres as we shot back out of the Piazza the same way we’d gone in. The tank wasn’t so lucky. The thing hadn’t even started to move when the screen hit it and the entire weight of the scaffolding drove it through the light armour like a guillotine blade through an unprotected neck, severing the vehicle in two. I was only halfway through a sigh of relief when I noticed a motorbike flying towards us round a curve in the Grand Arbour.

***** 15

It was the bikie chick whose partner was lying back in the Melbourne Street underpass with a serious case of split- personality. And even from twenty metres away, she looked really pissed off! While we shot across the Arbour toward the River, she greeted us with another of those over-sized missiles of hers. Thankfully, with Veronica’s foot planted firmly on the accelerator, our car shot forward so quickly the thing rocketed past our back window and annihilated a sizeable chunk of the Grand Arbour instead. As we briefly became airborne and then touched back down on the concrete path on the other side, I thanked my lucky stars again that those bigger missiles weren’t laser targeted! Still gathering speed, we zigged right then zagged left, hugging the side of the path as it wound down to the River. I knew bikie-girl had to be right behind us when, over the noise of our engine, I vaguely made out the sound of one of those smaller laser-targeted missiles! Glancing back, I almost had a heart attack – the thing looked like it was just outside our back window! There was no time to avoid it so I knew we were in for some pain. Then all of a sudden the air behind us shimmered and the missile simply stopped in mid-air before dropping towards the path. I let out a sigh of relief, feeling far happier now that I knew our car had a shield-field powerful enough to somehow neutralise the propulsion system in those things! A moment later, Veronica hit the brakes and flung the car sharp right onto the wider River walk that hugged the river bank, stretching ahead of us for a couple of kilometres. When I glanced back again, I saw the missile hit the ground and explode just after bikie-girl had driven past it. I was very impressed that she somehow managed to stay on the bike. Still, the shockwave must have stunned her pretty badly, ‘cause instead of turning to follow us, she kept speeding straight at the low rock wall at the edge of the River. The last I saw of her, she was doing a pretty good impression of an emu soaring out over the Brisbane River (if you didn’t know, an emu is a large, flightless Australian bird which would probably look almost as awkward as bike-girl did if you hurled it through the air at ninety km/h!) I would have loved to have seen her landing, but sadly I was forced to turn back when the g-forces from our phenomenal acceleration threatened to snap my neck. When my head was once again supported by the seat’s headrest, I actually felt myself smiling at the incredible sensation of raw speed as we raced along the River walk with panicked pedestrians diving frantically out of our way. I noticed that the ones diving left into the River didn’t seem to have their swimmers on; but for some reason that didn’t seem to worry them too much. After a couple of hundred metres or so it occurred to me that the path ahead of us was still noticeably clear of enemies. “They’ve lost us,” Veronica said as if she’d read my mind. “The woman on the bike mustn’t have had time to report our movements.” “Huh?” I asked insightfully. Despite our blistering speed, as we followed the gently curving path round to the right past the lagoon area, she threw me a quick glance. “That’s how they manage to get these bozos to appear right where we’re headed all the time – the previous guys send an update on our movements back to the future so the team there knows where to send the next assassins.” “So we’re safe now?” I asked hopefully. A wry grin touched those sensational lips of hers. “Not for long – they know where we were, so they’ll just send assassins to various points around there until they locate us. I’m afraid it won’t take them long. But it’ll certainly cost them.” I frowned. “Why do you keep talking about it ‘costing’ them?” “Energy-wise, it’s an expensive exercise sending something back through Time. Sahissi might have access to enormous quantities of energy from power stations right across the globe, but eventually he’ll run out. The question is will our meagre supply, courtesy of the tiny Australian energy grid, outlast his.” “How could we possibly outlast him if he’s got so much more than us?” I asked doubtfully. “It’s not just about who’s got more,” she explained. “It’s also about how they use it. For instance, Sahissi used up almost half of his entire supply just opening the Time Channel through to here. Yet we were able to locate it and piggy-back things through using only a tiny fraction of the energy he burnt up. “And think about the types of things both sides have sent back. Pound for pound it takes heaps more energy to transport a living thing, so we’ve relied more on sending equipment than personnel. Meanwhile, Sahissi has been sending anything and everything he damn well pleases. Although he can certainly afford that luxury for some time, his wastefulness and over-confidence will be costing him big-time. He probably thought he’d wipe you out with his very first assassin, ‘cause at that point, he hadn’t realised I was in the game. But by now, I reckon he’ll be starting to sweat about how little energy he has left.” A dry smile touched her lips. “Of course, given the type of arrogant bastard he is, instead of being more careful, he’ll just try hitting us even harder before he completely runs out.” While she’d been speaking, Veronica had slowed and veered the car smoothly to the right, off the River walk and onto a path leading diagonally away from it. Now, up ahead I could see the bright blooms of the Grand Arbour again. Before I knew it, we were turning back into the living tunnel of bright purple flowers and accelerating away to the east. Despite Veronica’s insistence that they would find us again soon, I felt myself beginning to relax as I glanced around at our decidedly non-hostile surroundings. “Perhaps he’s already run out,” I ventured. “Maybe we’ve won!” “’Fraid not,” she replied matter-of- factly. I felt myself bristle at her pessimism. “What makes you so sure?” I asked shortly. She threw me a quick grin. “Have you forgotten already? You told me.” While I struggled to digest her words, we flew out of the end of the Arbour and she cut left, heading for the Goodwill pedestrian bridge which arced back over the River. I told her! “What do you mean, I told you?” I demanded. “Try to keep up, Darling - you told me pretty much everything you know about today,” she reminded me matter- of-factly. Turning red again at being called ‘Darling’, I blinked. I had almost forgotten. Or perhaps it was just that my mind had refused to accept it at the time. Either way, as we accelerated up the gentle rise of the bridge, I struggled to get my head around the ludicrous idea. She actually believed she knew exactly what was going to happen because I had told her about it in the future! “So if you know it all, why the hell don’t you just avoid these mongrels?” I frowned as a dark shadow seemed to pass across her face before a determined grimace settled on those exquisite features of hers. “Because nothing’s set in stone,” she told me flatly, her voice thick with emotion. “If I change anything, you might not survive today after all. And I simply couldn’t bear that.” Once again, I was lost for words. Could it really be true? She was deliberately acting out this bizarre drama as closely as possible to a script which I had taught her … all because she thought it ended with me still breathing! Before I could even begin to think it through properly, I saw her eyes widen and whipped my head round to stare ahead. About forty metres in front of us, a three metre high wall that completely blocked the bridge had just materialised out of thin air! A wall built out of boulders the size of refrigerators! “We’ve gotta turn back!” I told her frantically. “We can’t,” she replied evenly as her left hand flew to a keypad at the centre of the steering wheel. Confused, I twisted round to peer back along the bridge … and the bottom fell out of my stomach when I saw three more motorbikes and two jeep-like vehicles appear from nowhere and accelerate up the bridge after us! Veronica had been right – Sahissi was trying to hit us hard, determined to finish the job before his energy gave out! From what Veronica had told me, it had really ‘cost him’ this time. Unfortunately, it was about to cost us a whole lot more! I spun back to find the massive wall looming just thirty metres ahead of us. “Can’t you blast through it?” I asked, desperately hoping our car had some kind of serious fire-power capability that Veronica hadn’t yet deployed. “No point … even if I could, those pursuit vehicles will blow us to bits any second now. And anyway, there’s another one of those tanks waiting just on the other side.” As if to confirm the first part of her gloomy prediction, I heard what sounded like about four of those thuggish missiles racing at us from behind. She was right. We didn’t stand a chance. I suddenly wondered whether she’d lied about me surviving today. Perhaps my ‘future self’ had actually told her this was where and when we both got blown to pieces! And as I wrestled with the idea that if this was true then I wouldn’t have been alive to tell her in the first place, my eyes settled on the display above her steering wheel keypad. Curiously, the three glowing blue letters said ‘6mv’. While I puzzled over what this might mean, I twisted round and was less than overjoyed to discover I’d underestimated - there were actually six huge red missiles rocketing towards our rear bumper! I made the mistake of thinking about how I should spend my last half-second on Earth … and nearly used it all up in the process. After that, I didn’t even have time to lean over and kiss the delectable lips that were pursed in concentration beside me. Feeling seriously disappointed, I braced myself for the shattering impact of the first missile... Instead, a roar filled my ears and a powerful force shoved me down as if a giant hand was pushing me hard into my seat. I was completely disorientated for a second. Then I glanced out the window and realised I was feeling the g-force caused by our mini-car suddenly blasting upwards into the air! We were already high enough to see the tank Veronica had predicted, waiting in ambush about twenty metres back from the far side of the wall. And sadly, my relief at getting out of the way of the missiles died abruptly - judging by the way our vertical motion was already slowing, we’d soon be falling back toward the bridge and we were going to land almost directly in front of that tank! Whatever kind of rocket propulsion system this thing had, apparently it wasn’t powerful enough to keep us in the air for any decent length of time. I peered down at the tank, recalling the one we had scuffled with in the Piazza. I imagined the gunner licking his lips as he watched us nearing the top of our flight-path and realised his gun was already pointing at the exact spot where we we’d soon be touching down. At the press of a button, one of its powerful explosive shells would rip through our car, turning it into a wasted wreck! I felt my stomach rise into my mouth as we reached the top of our flight-path and began falling. Then I heard the sound I’d been dreading: an enormous ‘BOOM’ that blasted up through the air around us. I didn’t need to look back to work out that the six beefy missiles had just turned the massive rock wall into a million deadly projectiles that were now hurtling out through the air in all directions. Naturally, I was thankful it was the wall that had been blown to bits, rather than our car. But considering we were flying through the air not far from where the pile of huge rocks had been, I knew we were in for one hell of a battering from the shrapnel, even before we landed and got blown to bits by the tank! Then I saw it. I’d been so fixated on the tank, I hadn’t noticed that just ahead of us was the beginning of a steel roof which ran along the middle of the bridge. A tentative smile grew on my face as our car flew forwards and landed on top of it, bouncing a little before racing away to the sound of deadly chunks of the obliterated boulder wall smashing into the metal sheeting beneath our wheels. I imagined the gunner in the tank below swearing as he struggling to bring his gun up and over, and to guess exactly where our car was on the roof above him. “Nice trick,” I complimented Veronica, thankful that our rocket- powered escape seemed to have worked. “Liquid fuel rocket boosters,” she told me in her usual understated manner. The next moment, I jumped as the roof just ahead of us exploded leaving a jagged, gaping hole. Luckily for us, the tank’s gunner had misjudged our speed. But as our wheels raced either side of the void and we sped on, we both knew he’d caught a glimpse of our car and that it would give him a pretty clear idea of where to fire next time. Of course, Veronica wasn’t about to make it easy for him. I felt our car slow dramatically as she applied the brakes. A moment later the roof ahead of us exploded at the exact spot we would have been. Once again, we gave the tank a sneak-peek at our motion as we drove over the hole. This time, as soon as we passed it Veronica slammed her foot down hard on the accelerator. The machine leapt forward and a half-second later the roof blew apart just behind us while we thanked our lucky stars the trick had worked again. Better still, with the hole behind us this time, the tank’s occupants wouldn’t get a glimpse of our speed as we hurtled onwards, making it harder to judge the next shot. “Don’t panic,” Veronica said calmly. I turned questioningly towards her, but when she just continued to stare fiercely ahead through the windscreen, I followed her eyes ... and realised what she meant. Ahead of us, the roof we were travelling along ended abruptly. Thirty metres further on, I could see where another section of roof continued on across the bridge, but for some reason the designers had apparently thought it would be a really neat idea to leave a thirty-metre gap (perhaps in support of the local umbrella industry, I thought wryly). I knew that when we dropped back to the road, we’d be sitting ducks for that tank, along with any of the jeeps and bikes that had made it past the wreckage of the boulder wall. When I looked back at Veronica, she’d already finished using the steering wheel keypad again. This time the display read ‘40mh’ and all of a sudden I clicked what it meant: ‘40 metres horizontally’. And ‘6mv’ must have meant ‘6 metres vertically’. The rocket booster control system must be programmed so you just have to input a horizontal or vertical distance. From there, it apparently knew enough about projectile motion to work out exactly how much thrust was needed. I remembered learning about projectile motion in Science and just had time to think about how much better our class might have done on the test if Mr Edgerton had had access to a car like this to demonstrate some of the concepts … then Veronica hit a red button at the side of the display and I was smashed into the seat again as the car leapt into the sky. As our car arced up through the air like a giant football that had been punted down-town, I peered out through the windscreen and boggled at the view. To our left were the densely packed high- rises of the City centre, while straight ahead lay the leafy, green Botanical Gardens, with the buildings of the Queensland University of Technology scattered about in the foreground, the tiny figures of students wandering about between them. Behind the Gardens, off in the distance, sat the imposing Story Bridge, an intricate latticework of grey, steel beams spanning the River a couple of kilometres downstream, while off to our right the River turned back sharply left as it flowed beneath the long white bridge supporting the Riverside Express then drifted on past the rugged orange and brown cliffs of Kangaroo Point. For a moment I felt fortunate to be seeing all this from a perspective few, if any, would ever have enjoyed before. Then we began to drop and reality set in as I abruptly recalled one of the snippets of information we’d learned in Science: barring a slight slowing due to air resistance, the speed at which a projectile leaves the ground is the same speed at which it returns. The memory of how I’d been slammed down into my seat on ‘take-off’ told me we’d left the ground fast … and that meant we were in for one mongrel of a landing! I stared down through my window as the sheet-metal roof raced up to meet us. This was going to hurt a lot! Then I heard another powerful ‘whoosh’ and felt the car’s descent slowing. Of course! I should have realised the thruster rocket would be programmed to fire on landing as well, to slow the vehicle’s descent. The stress really must be getting to me. When we touched down on the roof, the jolt was little worse than driving over a speed-bump. But as we raced on, my relief lasted about 0.3 of a second before the air outside my window was torn apart by another of the tank’s huge, explosive shells. The wide gap in the roofing had given the gunner a clear view of us, and he was once more doing his best to turn us into a smoking mess!

***** 16

At the same time, I realised we were going to have to take another space-trip. Ahead, the Riverside Expressway ran at right angles over the top of the Goodwill Bridge, and the roof we were hurtling along ended abruptly about a metre from its solid concrete edge! While Veronica’s fingers flitted over the keypad, obviously programming in our next jaunt, I peered up at the four lanes of traffic racing either way along the Expressway … just as another of those damn tanks appeared out of nowhere across the lane closest to us! Its gun was pointing just to our left, and as the turret swung towards us I braced myself for lift-off. But we just sped on ... Panicking, I glanced at Veronica and discovered she was still punching buttons. The sound of screeching tyres had filled the air as the drivers in the westbound lanes of the Expressway struggled to avoid the tank which had inexplicably appeared before them, blocking two of the three lanes. Then, as I peered down the barrel of the huge gun and suddenly wondered what it might feel like to have a ten centimetre diameter shell enter my mouth at about four hundred kilometres an hour, we finally lifted off. At the same time, I saw a flash from the end of the tank’s barrel and knew my last supper was on its way! Instead of blowing my head apart, however, the powerful vibrations from it rocketing past beneath our car sent nervous shivers up my painfully compressed spine. A moment later my head whipped towards the sound of a massive explosion behind us. Despite the pain in my back, I grinned. Sahissi really wasn’t having a good day: the shell had scored a perfect hit on one of his jeeps, which had somehow managed to navigate through the rubble of the boulder wall. It was now little more than a flaming chassis, the top having been blown clear off by the explosive impact. Still smiling, I turned back to discover we were sailing through the air above the Expressway and had already reached our highest point. As we began dropping back to earth, I glanced down and realised I could no longer see the tank. I guessed this was because it was now directly beneath us and found my smile fading as I wondered how our car might cope with landing on a tank! Thankfully, I was pretty sure our forward motion would take us past it. Not that that necessarily meant we’d be safe, of course. If the tank could get its gun lined up on us, we’d be in for a serious hammering at close range! I’d barely had this thought when I heard a ‘whoosh’ and the world started to spin sickeningly. For a moment I thought we’d been hit. Then I noticed the flames shooting from our car looked very different to what you’d expect if we’d just been shot by a tank. This incredible little car must be equipped with smaller thruster rockets which were now firing to spin us round horizontally, lining us up with the direction of the road beneath. My gut told me they were slowing our forward motion too, and by the time we’d passed through about ninety degrees, we were dropping pretty much straight down towards the southbound lanes of the Expressway. The side thrusters cut out and there was a brief moment of silence before others fired to arrest our spin. Then they stopped as well and I felt the primary rocket kick in to cushion our landing. This car … rocket ... whatever it was … was unreal! I just hoped that tank wasn’t lining us up for the kill at this very moment. When we touched down, we were pointing the wrong way along the centre eastbound lane of the Expressway with cars veering crazily to either side in a desperate attempt to avoid a collision. I threw a nervous glance towards the tank, over on the westbound side, to find its gun rotating rapidly towards us. Then I heard the squeal of our own wheels over the blaring horns and screeching tyres of the other cars. Our tyres gripped and we leapt forwards, heading the wrong way along the Riverside Expressway, dodging cars while we tried to stay ahead of the tank’s rotating gun turret. Just like back on the Victoria Bridge, Veronica’s reflexes were astonishing as she weaved us through the oncoming traffic, even daring to take one hand off the wheel so she could punch in another little excursion for us on the keypad. A couple of seconds later, she swung the car left and we launched a few metres up through the air before barely clearing the west-bound lanes and dropping towards the mangroves lining the edge of the River. I thought we were about to end up embedded in the mud … then the rocket thrusters fired again and shortly afterwards we touched neatly down on a pedestrian pathway that hugged the water’s edge. Moments later, we were hurtling along the path while I cringed at how narrow it was and wondered whether the reason they hadn’t painted this awesome machine was that a coat of paint would have made the thing too wide to fit on this particular path! “Incoming! Brace yourself!” Veronica said unexpectedly. I instinctively spun round to look behind us. Thankfully, it didn’t seem to matter much. The air behind shimmered and the missile that had been speeding towards us simply stopped in mid-air. I was halfway through a relieved smile when the thing exploded and the car jolted forwards, kinking my neck painfully. “Must have had a proximity fuse,” Veronica pointed out evenly. I rubbed gingerly at my neck. “You could have warned me,” I grumbled. Despite our dizzying speed, and the fact that she was driving, Veronica turned and raised an eyebrow at me. “Exactly which part of ‘Incoming! Brace yourself!’ did you not understand, dear?” She sounded far too smug for my liking, and I was about to say something stroppy before it finally sank in that when I’d looked back, one of those bikes – obviously the source of the missile - had been tailing us about fifteen metres back. I threw another nervous look over my shoulder – it was still there … and gaining fast! “I hope you’ve left that shield thing on,” I said. “Can’t,” Veronica replied bluntly. “It uses a mountain of energy … we only ever had enough power for ten seconds.” “Ten seconds!” I exclaimed and cringed at how embarrassingly screechy my voice sounded. “Eight point one now that I used it to stop that missile and the one just after we left the Piazza,” she elaborated. Then her expression became suddenly tense and her hand shot to the control panel. A moment later, an explosion jolted us forwards again. “Make that six point four,” she said when she pressed the same button again to turn off the shield. I looked nervously ahead while our car veered away from the water, following the main path to the right, under the Expressway. Beside us, a narrower path continued along the River’s edge on the other side of the massive concrete supports holding up the Expressway. When I glanced back, for a moment I thought the biker had given up. Then I spotted him emerging from behind one of the supports, heading along the smaller path parallel to us. “Do those shields work on the side of the car, too,” I asked hopefully. “Not as well,” Veronica admitted. “Why?” “’Cause the bike’s just about level with us,” I informed her, pointing weakly to my left. An instant later, bullets raked along the side of the car and Veronica had to hit the shield button yet again. The next twenty or so bullets stopped one after the other in the shimmering air outside my window before dropping harmlessly to the bitumen. I knew we were lucky – the weaker side-shields were unlikely to have stopped a missile, but thanks to his forward-facing missile tubes, the rider had been forced to use his gun instead. Even so, our luck was almost spent – the shields were rapidly running out of juice. Soon they’d be flat out stopping a speeding mosquito! At least the guy obviously had no idea we were close to losing our only protection. He ceased fire and Veronica immediately flicked off the shield-field to save energy. “Three point two seconds,” she murmured, calmly spreading the joy. “Is this glass bullet-proof?” I asked hopefully. “It’ll probably break if you breathe on it too hard,” she informed me humourlessly. “When you want a car to fly, I’m afraid you have to sacrifice anything and everything that adds unnecessary weight.” A heartbeat later she hit the shield button again as the guy resumed his attack. Meanwhile, my hopes plummeted. I probably had about three- point-three seconds left to live! Terrified, I glanced ahead and noticed the path rose up a gentle incline before emptying out onto a quiet lane. I peered to the left and felt a sudden spark of hope: the path the bike was following must be an old pathway that had been there before the Expressway went in over the top of it, because it kept going level for another fifty metres before ending abruptly at one of the massive Expressway supports! I flicked my eyes back at the bikie guy and felt a further glimmer of hope when I saw that he was still focussed on us, paying minimal attention to where he was going. Now all I had to do was keep him looking this way for about two more seconds… I’m not really sure what the guy thought when I did a blow-fish on the side window, and I don’t really care. All I know is it kept him looking towards me just long enough. Then, as we shot up the slope towards the road, he finally glanced forwards and his jaw dropped. A moment later, he and his bike disintegrated into the three metre thick concrete pylon.

***** 17

After slowing to navigate a tight s-bend, we were soon racing up the gently sloping road towards the intersection with Queen Street. As we emerged at the top, with the Victoria Bridge on our left and the Queen Street Mall to our right, I glanced left and swore at the sight of another motorbike waiting in ambush. Veronica saw it too and spun the wheel right, sending us into a dangerously fast, skidding turn. As we accelerated towards the mouth of the underground bus tunnel leading in under the Mall, I heard the sounds I dreaded most – the soft ‘whoosh ..... whoosh’, of a pair of those smaller, laser-targeted missiles being dispatched one after another, perhaps two seconds apart. Veronica and I were both painfully aware our shields were completely dead. And that despite getting a bit of a head-start while the guy had been painting our car with the killer missiles’ targeting lasers, the glowing Cyclops eyes would keep both missiles glued to us until they caught up and remodelled our fragile little vehicle the way a stick of dynamite remodels a paper bag. When I threw a frantic look over my shoulder, I could see their red devil eyes closing fast, the lead one almost on us. Then I heard a familiar noise and something flew from the back of the car to engulf the first missile – one of those nets Veronica had used earlier when we were on the bike. The missile was so close when it blew that the car was slammed forwards by the shockwave, and I couldn’t help imagining what it would have felt like if the explosion had been inside the car. We wouldn’t stand a Paddle Pop’s chance in Hell! And there was another one hot on our tail! “Tell me you’ve got more of those nets,” I pleaded while my eyes scanned the billowing smoke behind us for any sign of the remaining missile. Perhaps the explosion had detonated it too. “Nope,” she told me calmly. “Had to get rid of them to allow for the extra weight of the rear booster rocket.” At first, I didn’t register anything after ‘Nope’ - I was too distracted by seeing the second missile punching out through the smoke and high-tailing it towards us. Then Veronica’s words clicked into place in my frazzled brain and I threw her a baffled look just as she hit a blue button on the steering wheel console. We were about to enter the underground busway tunnel when an ear- splitting roar filled the air and I was flung viciously back into my seat. For a moment I thought the missile must have caught us. Then I looked back and saw flames and smoke bursting from the back of the car and realised Veronica had ignited the ‘rear rocket booster’ she’d just told me about! The noise was thunderous in the enclosed tunnel and the ceiling lights blurred past us, but I hardly noticed - I was too distracted by the eerie sight of the missile shadowing us at a distance of maybe sixty metres. Incredibly, we were now doing almost exactly the same speed as it was, so that despite the fact that we were both rocketing along far faster than anything had in the history of this tunnel, the missile seemed to be hovering in the air behind us! Naturally, I was relieved that it was no longer closing on us. But after all of Veronica’s comments about minimising weight, I felt a nagging sense of doom as I wondered what powered our booster rocket. “How much fuel do we have for that booster?” I yelled nervously over the roar. “Not much,” Veronica replied as she hit the blue button again and the din abruptly died. I goggled at her in disbelief! Already we were losing speed and when I spun round I could see the missile closing on us again! “What are you doing?!” I demanded, my eyes riveted to the incoming missile. Surely we could have at least waited until the fuel ran out, so we could have enjoyed a couple more seconds on Earth! “We can’t outrun it,” she told me with an intense frown of concentration while her eyes danced between the rear- vision mirror and the tunnel ahead. While I tried to absorb this dismal news, I tore my eyes away from the incoming missile and spotted what looked to be a tunnel branching off the main one up ahead. A fraction of a second later, Veronica slammed the wheel hard right so that the car was skidding sideways along the main tunnel! When I glanced across through her side window, I could see the missile’s evil, unblinking red eye bearing down on us faster than ever. A heartbeat later, she hit the blue button again and our booster roared back to life. Once more I was flung back into the seat as the car burst forward towards what I could now see were two tunnels leading off the main one at slightly different angles. My side of the car glanced roughly off the side wall as we shot into the left-hand fork, shattering both of the flimsy windows down that side of the car. Then we were away again, still mostly intact and rocketing along the side tunnel. If it wasn’t for the missile tailing us, I would have been far more concerned that this new tunnel appeared to end just eighty metres ahead at a solid rock wall! When I glanced back I saw the missile struggling to make the sharp turn into the tunnel after us, and I realised what Veronica had been planning. The thing obviously didn’t have any brakes. In fact, like any missile, its controls would almost certainly consist of little more than ailerons on its fins to allow it to turn, and perhaps a variable-speed thruster. As it tried to take the sharp turn, there was a good chance it would go wide, hit the wall and detonate safely behind us. I swear time slowed down as I watched it arc round towards the wall … its eerie red laser painting a perfectly straight line along the wall as it fought to make the turn in time … the translucent red beam grew shorter and short as the missile drew closer and closer to the wall … then all of a sudden the beam was growing longer again and a moment later it had swung round to paint the back of our car once more. “It didn’t work,” I muttered flatly, my voice sounding dull and defeated to my own ears. Incredibly, when I turned to Veronica I noticed a faint smile. “I should have let it get closer to us so it had less time to turn,” she told me, sounding as if she was discussing tactics in a game of Ping pong! Her finger tapped the blue button and the booster’s roar died once again. At the same time, she threw the wheel hard right and held it there while we spun round, our tyres screeching in protest as the wind tore at us through the shattered side windows. Not till we’d done a full one-eighty did she correct the spin, throw the car into reverse and slam her foot on the accelerator … then my eyes went wide as we flew backwards and watched through the front windscreen while the missile closed in on us! As terrifying as the sight was, it suddenly occurred to me that I should feel equally as concerned about how far we’d already come along the tunnel … and more specifically, about how close the solid rock wall at its end must now be! Whipping my head round, I caught my breath. The end of the tunnel was even closer than I’d thought, and it seemed to be racing towards us far too quickly for my liking! As I contemplated soon becoming 2- dimensional, something about the end of the tunnel caught my eye … and I realised it wasn’t actually a dead end at all but a T-junction with a second tunnel running across it almost at right angles. Sadly, it made little difference. The back of our car was racing to meet the wall on the far side of the intersecting tunnel so fast that the only way I could see us avoiding being killed by the collision was if the missile blew us to pieces first! I didn’t know which way to look - death was racing to meet us from both directions! I spun back around and gasped at how close the missile had come since I had last looked. In reverse gear and without the booster, we were bleeding speed fast, already down to what felt like a mere 190km/h or so. The rocket had to be less than forty metres away now. I remembered how I’d told myself earlier today that I’d be happy to die with Veronica. Now the idea seemed like little more than foolish bravado. Terrified, I turned to find her already peering at me … and, despite everything, I felt myself smile. She really was one magnificent lady … every curve of her face and body exactly how and where it should be! And whatever was going on here today, while I peered into her eyes I suddenly felt convinced she genuinely cared for me. Yes, if I really had to meet my maker, I felt sure this was who I wanted to spend my last seconds with. Veronica seemed to decipher the look I was giving her. “We’re not done yet,” she smiled. Then she slammed the car into first and floored the accelerator while she turned the wheel slightly. The tyres screamed madly as they struggled to grip the bitumen, the front of the car veering slightly to the left as we slowed. While the missile closed on us with increasing speed, the car slid steadily closer to the left wall. Then the intersecting tunnel appeared on our left and I saw that it turned immediately right after crossing the one we were on, heading back almost parallel to it. The wall on our left was little more than a two metre-thick dividing barrier separating them. While our momentum carried us back and to the left, the front of the car began scraping slowly past the end of the wall with centimetres to spare, gradually edging into the parallel tunnel. Meanwhile, the thick tyres and gutsy engine had been working hard, and incredibly, by the time the right side of the nose squeezed past the corner, we were virtually stationary. While the missile leapt the final fifteen metres towards us, Veronica hit the blue button one more time… With the combined grunt of the powerful motor and the mighty rocket booster, we blasted forwards into the parallel tunnel, and this time there was simply no way the hurtling missile could make the turn after us. An instant later, it ploughed into the wall behind us and detonated. While the roar of the explosion thundered about the tunnel, the booster spluttered and died, its fuel finally spent. I felt Veronica hit the brakes and looked up to see the motorbike rider who’d fired the missiles just veering off the main tunnel ahead and into ours. “OUT!” Veronica shouted and I didn’t argue as the red laser of yet another missile settled on the front of our car. Whipping off my seatbelt, I threw the door open and leapt out while Veronica scrambled across to my door. I heard the angry ‘whoosh’ of the missile as I grabbed her arm and pulled with all my strength. Somehow we both managed to stay on our feet after she shot from the doorway and we bolted for the glass doors beside us. The area on the other side was little more than a long, glassed-in corridor running along the side of the tunnel, with rows of hard plastic seating where people could wait for their buses. We’d just flung the doors open and were in mid-air, diving for the ground, when the car exploded. An instant later, the glass along the entire length of the tunnel shattered, sending the few frightened bystanders who hadn’t already fled, diving for cover while glass rained noisily down over the tiled floor. Veronica and I hit the floor too and slid along it while everything went suddenly quiet. When we skidded to a stop, I flinched at the throaty roar from behind us - the biker was coming!

***** 18

Scrambling to our feet, we bolted along a short, closed-in passageway and into a narrow shopping arcade. As we emerged into the brightly lit area, a few brave (or perhaps foolish) people were crowded round the corridor mouth trying to see what had caused the explosion. Meanwhile, pretty much everyone else was heading for the doors in a mad panic. The bold few melted back as Veronica led me left, and I threw a nervous look back along the corridor just as the biker smashed through the glassless doors at the far end. A moment later, the air was filled with gunshots as the guy opened fire with a gruntish automatic. Thankfully, we were out of the firing line in no time, but I quickly realised we weren’t about to make a rapid escape this way: ahead, the narrow arcade was jammed with the throng of panicked shoppers fighting to reach the exit! While I wondered what to do, I suddenly realised Veronica wasn’t beside me anymore. When I looked round, I spotted her sprinting back the ten or so metres we’d just covered, hugging the wall on the side closest to the corridor we’d come out of. I could hear the growing throb of the motorbike’s engine as it neared this end of the corridor. Then, with a final burst of acceleration, Veronica launched herself into the air and flew feet-first into the guy’s chest just as he emerged on his bike. Caught by surprise, the rider never had time to swing his gun round. The two of them tumbled to the ground on the far side of the bike which slowed before toppling pathetically onto the ground at the centre of the arcade. The motor idled quietly as Veronica stood up from beside the unconscious rider and signalled for me to follow. A few seconds later we were racing along the arcade, back towards the heart of the Myer Centre.

***** 19

As we sprinted through the arcade, I noticed a Target variety store about thirty metres ahead and it occurred to me I’d never again feel the same about the store with the big red and white target logo. For some reason, today it was as if someone had painted one of those things over my back, and a bunch of loonies hadn’t stopped trying to hit the bull’s-eye with anything and everything they could get their hands on. Rousing myself from my thoughts, I gave a puzzled frown as Veronica veered left to an abandoned Woolworths trolley loaded full of groceries. Could she have a sudden fetish for a packet of Tim Tams or a drink of warm milk? Apparently not, I realized when instead of raiding the trolley, she latched onto the handle and accelerated swiftly forward, pushing it in front of her while she steered towards an escalator rising towards the next level. It didn’t make a lot of sense to me until a small guy with a handgun unexpectedly materialised just metres in front of us. The weasely little man was holding one of those bullet- proof shields the riot police use, but Veronica didn’t even bother testing its ‘bullet-proofness’. Instead, before he had a chance to point his gun round the side of his shield, she adjusted the direction of the trolley a touch and slammed it full-speed into the reinforced plastic sheet. The solid impact sent the screen crashing back into him and catapulted the nasty-looking little guy through the air like a seal being tossed about by a killer whale. While he was still in mid- air, Veronica abandoned the trolley and snatched the shield off the ground. Then, as the killer’s unconscious body smashed through a huge plate-glass gift- shop window, we raced up the escalator two steps at a time to the sound of shards of glass shattering across the floor behind us. “Sahissi’s nearing his limit,” Veronica said with more than a hint of satisfaction. “What do you mean?” I managed between breaths as I raced after her doing my best not to get distracted by the way her coat was flying up behind her as she ran, revealing the way her skin-tight pants hugged those perfect legs of hers. “Think about it - he’s gone from four ton tanks with huge gun-turrets to little guys with handguns! He has to be all-but out of juice.” A cautious sense of hope flared inside me. “So we’ve won?” The sound of the panicked shoppers behind us had faded now that most of the mad stampede had escaped out onto Elizabeth Street. As we neared the top of the escalator, I could hear similar faint noises somewhere in the distance ahead of us, no doubt coming from the exits on the Queen Street side of the Centre. It was clear that we now had the Myer shopping centre virtually to ourselves. “I didn’t say he was completely out,” she cautioned. “And don’t forget about all those guys he’s already sent here. Most of them are still alive, and they’ll have been receiving updates on our position from the bikers. They’ll be making a bee-line for this place as we speak.” I shuddered. I’d almost forgotten about Baseball Cap man and all his buddies who we’d left behind us in our mad dash across town. If they’d been getting news bulletins detailing our progress, they could already be inside the Centre! We reached the top of the escalator and I followed Veronica cautiously to the left along the edge of the food plaza, glancing nervously about in search of bad-guys. Tables and chairs covered much of the floor-space around us, and deserted fast-food outlets lined the edges, food of all descriptions still steaming in their bay-maries. “So even when Sahissi runs out of energy,” I whispered, “we still have to deal with all the guys who’ve already been sent back?” “Thankfully, no,” she whispered back. “It still takes a small amount of energy to keep them here, so when Sahissi’s power supply runs out completely, they’ll be dragged back.” “How long till that happens?” “It depends what else he sends to try to stop us,” she told me. I frowned. “What do you mean?” Out in the food court, it was as if the designers had cut huge rectangles out of all four floors above us, leaving little more than a wide balcony running around the edges of each floor. This meant that away from the balconies there was nothing but empty space all the way up to the ceiling, five storeys above. So far, we’d been moving along under the cover of the next level’s balcony. Then, out of the blue, a rough concrete wall suddenly materialised just a few metres in front of us, blocking our path! Veronica glanced warily to the right, out into the open area we’d now be forced into to get past the wall. Meanwhile, I boggled at the wall. “He can’t be all that short of energy if he’s still sending back something that big!” I breathed disappointedly. Veronica smiled cheekily at me. “You boys are all the same. No matter what we women tell you, you still all think size is the only thing that matters!” The smile lingered at the edges of her lips as she continued. “In truth, time travel is like impressing a woman … it’s more about the details. The more intricate detail there is in the object being sent back, the more precision you need to send it successfully. And a linear increase in precision means an exponential increase in energy consumption.” Despite being okay at mathematics, I only had a hazy idea of what ‘exponential’ meant. But I got the gist: intricate object equals massive energy consumption! As I thought about this, something clicked into place in my head. “So that’s why it takes such massive amounts of energy to transport a living thing like a person?” “Exactly,” she confirmed. “After all, we are by far the most intricate objects in the world.” While we’d been talking, Veronica had wisely positioned the shield on our exposed left side. The next moment gunfire erupted from somewhere up to our right and the shield began bouncing about as bullets smashed into the bottom of it one after another. Veronica quickly braced it with both hands while I moved in close behind her, feeling only slightly guilty that I was pushing a bit nearer than was really necessary to keep within the shield’s safe-zone. I tried to see who was shooting at us, but the overhanging balcony above made it impossible so I turned to scan the area behind us, wondering what we’d do if another guy appeared back near the escalator and we were trapped in a cross-fire. Probably die, I conceded as I crossed my fingers that Veronica was right about Sahissi being low on energy! I felt her step away from me and hurriedly followed while she headed past the wall towards the open area of the plaza. All the while, bullets continued slamming into the toughened shield and it wasn’t long before we were far enough out to spot the guy shooting at us from up on the first-floor balcony opposite. It was our old friend Snake Eyes. Although I couldn’t make out his dull, lifeless eyes from this distance, I felt a cold shiver run up my back as I remembered peering into them back at the Roma Street Transit Centre. I felt sure this was one guy who would thoroughly enjoy watching us die. Now that we had moved out from the cover of the balcony, I looked round and my heart sank - the section of wall that had forced us out here wasn’t the only one that had appeared. Another one led away at right-angles from the first one, blocking our way back under the balcony for another four metres or so. We began shuffling towards the far end of that section, bullets still slamming loudly into our shield with every step. Then I blinked as another section of wall appeared next to the second one, blocking off a further four metres! Before I could say anything, another appeared beyond it … then another … and another! By now, alarm bells were ringing deafeningly in my head as I watched the wall spread away from us like it was nothing more than a huge computer graphic being copied and pasted across a screen! On a sudden whim, I snatched up a nearby chair and swung it hard at the wall beside us. Perhaps it wasn’t actually as solid as it looked… Bad idea. The chair rebounded and almost knocked me over. The vibrations jarred my wrists and elbows and rattled my teeth till I thought they would drop out! That was certainly no computer graphic! And there was no way we were getting through it without either a big wad of C4 or a very large bulldozer. Feeling dumb, I dropped the chair and did my best to avoid eye contact with Veronica, focussing instead on the rapidly-growing wall which was progressively cutting off our way back under cover. Then movement to the right caught my eye and I looked round to find a second wall was growing along the far side of the food hall! Almost as fast as my eyes could follow, the sections of magically appearing wall swiftly closed in on each other from opposite sides. Moments later, they met, completely blocking our way forwards! “Time to retreat,” I whispered nervously. But when I turned back I got an even bigger shock: the same thing had obviously been happening behind us! The mysterious wall now ran all the way round the edge of the open food court, completely sealing us inside! “I feel like a Christian waiting for the lions to be released,” I breathed nervously, even more acutely aware that if anyone appeared up on the opposite balconies, we’d have no chance out here with only a single shield to protect us. It didn’t help my nerves when I peered back at Snake Eyes and noticed his mouth moving as if he was talking to someone. A split second later, Veronica glanced up and yanked me sideways as a lump of rock the size of my head smashed into the tiled floor right where I’d been standing! “That probably would’ve hurt,” I whispered dryly, trying my best to appear cool, calm and collected while my heart raced. Then I glanced up and nearly had a heart attack - directly above us, a boulder the size of a large refrigerator was dropping towards us in much the same way that a large refrigerator would drop towards us! Without a word Veronica lunged forwards, dragging me with her. A moment later, I glanced back and saw the mammoth boulder smash onto the tables and chairs we’d bolted past, the flimsy furniture disintegrating as the rock pulverised it into the floor. Powerful vibrations rippled up through my feet like the shockwave from an earthquake, and for a moment I thought the boulder might continue on through into the lower level, perhaps even cracking the floor enough to send us down with it. But somehow the floor held. Relieved to still be alive, I looked up and blanched when I saw another boulder, even bigger than the last, dropping towards the floor ahead of us. We veered sharply away, further out into the open, and watched in awe as the monolith crushed a steel drink vending machine like it was nothing more than a single flimsy aluminium Coke can! Once again, powerful shockwaves rippled out across the reinforced concrete floor, this time accompanied by geysers of brown, fizzing Coke gushing out across the floor. When I tore my attention from the devastation, I realised we were getting ourselves deeper into trouble. The tables and chairs were more densely packed out here in the middle of the food court, and Veronica was finding it increasingly difficult to navigate through them with the riot-shield. Without warning, she stopped and whipped out that vicious looking pistol of hers. In the blink of an eye she’d levelled it round the side of the shield at Snake Eyes and fired. At the same time, I glanced up and saw something dropping towards us again, but this time it was so big it took me a moment to register what it was. When I did, my jaw nearly hit the floor. An entire four by two-and-a-half metre section of concrete wall, like the ones that had trapped us in here, was falling towards us on its side! Without hesitation, Veronica dropped the shield and we bolted through a gap in the tables, hurling ourselves forwards, diving as far as we could and praying we wouldn’t feel the crushing weight of the concrete slab flattening our legs behind us like blobs of Playdough under a sledgehammer. Ironically, after having slowed us down so much, the thing that saved us was all the furniture. Its combined strength slowed the slab’s fall by the extra three or four milliseconds we needed to get our feet completely clear. As I hit the floor and slid, I heard multiple metal rods snapping and groaning and the crunch of wood dissolving into splintered dust. Then a gush of air hit me and an enormous boooommmm echoed through the cavernous open area. We were alive, but I wasn’t about to celebrate. In the instant after the impact I couldn’t help thinking our escape was pointless. Snake Eyes must already be taking aim, preparing to fill us with lead now that our shield – our only protection - lay crushed beneath the section of wall! If Veronica was three times as fast as I thought, she might be able to fire up her shield-field in time to save herself. But I knew it was game over for me. I was simply too far away for her to protect me as well. Hell … even if we didn’t get shot, with the help of Snake Eyes’ directions they’d be sending another of those humungous slabs down on top of us any moment now! I knew we were done for. Yet I rolled to the side as fast as I could, determined to make it as hard as possible for Sahisi. I was already on my feet when I registered that not only were there no bullets ripping through my body, but the whole area had descended into an eerie silence. Confused, I flicked my eyes up to Snake Eyes … and saw a motionless arm pressed awkwardly against the bottom of the glass railing where he’d been standing. It took a second for my brain to catch up with everything … then I realised: Veronica’s single, hurried shot must have caught him off-guard and found its mark, leaving Snake Eyes stretched out on the ground, where all good snakes belonged. “Awesome shot,” I complemented her. “What do we do n…?” The rest of my question was drowned amidst a tremendous din like rolling thunder. Amidst the roar, I felt the floor tremble beneath my feet as if a frightening number of very heavy, very hard objects were slamming into things and doing untold damage to them. When I spun round, I was confronted by one of the most astonishing sights I’d ever witnessed. At the far end of the walled in area, a row of rocks the size of basketballs lay embedded in the floor, all the way from one side to the other, amidst shattered chunks of furniture; while above them, and slightly closer to us, a second row of similar rocks was plummeting toward the next line of tables and chairs. A second later, when this second row impacted and sent pieces of mangled furniture flying about through the air, another row was already dropping from above and just ahead of the previous one. When I looked up, I saw yet another row materialise three storeys above and begin its lethal descent. Each row was perhaps half-a- metre closer to us than the previous one, leaving no hiding space untouched. The entire walled-in area was being systematically sterilised! “Come on,” Veronica yelled above the deafening racket. But I was already moving, having cleverly worked out all by myself that we needed to get away from the plummeting lines of deadly boulders! I’d never seen or heard anything like it in my life. Whenever I threw a glance over my shoulder, there were always about four rows of boulders stretching right across the plaza, each at a different stage of their descent. And as soon as one row smashed into the floor, another would appear about eight metres up and half a metre closer, to begin its deadly dive. It gave the disturbing impression of a massive wave of destruction bearing down on us as we bolted towards the far wall. And I knew that when the wave of rock reached that wall, nothing would be left alive anywhere within the walled-in food court! I could easily guess why it was happening. Having lost Snake Eyes’ updates on our position, but knowing we were trapped inside the walled-in area, Sahissi had decided on the far less subtle approach of obliterating absolutely everything within the walls. And right now I couldn’t help thinking he was doing a damned impressive job of it! I felt a glimmer of hope as a sudden thought occurred to me: perhaps he would run out of energy before he completed his methodical demolition. Then movement up to our left caught my eye and I swore. It wouldn’t matter anyway: running along the second floor balcony was a hulking figure with an almost bald head and a gun that looked as if a tank driver somewhere must be wondering who’d stolen his cannon. Baseball Cap Man had found us again!

***** 20

As we sprinted away from the mind- numbing roar of the lethal wave of rock, I watched Baseball Cap Man smile and raise his enormous gun towards us. Just our luck - apparently he was one of those proactive types who liked to dive straight in and get the job done! I’d hoped he might at least kick back and wait to see if his bosses plan worked first. Instead, he was taking full advantage of the fact that we were restricted to running flat out in a dead- straight line to avoid being caught and flattened like road-kill by the unending cascade of boulders. It was hard to believe things had just gotten worse, but they had. A child could probably have made the shot (though the entire under- tens footy team wouldn’t have had a chance in Hell of handling that ludicrously over-sized weapon of his!) As he swung the barrel towards us, I heard a familiar short sharp sound from beside me, like a powerful electrical discharge. Once I’d whipped my head round, I saw Veronica’s arm raised towards the roof and a thin line rapidly playing out from somewhere up her sleeve. “Grab on!” she yelled over the bellowing crash of the wave of rock which was now almost on top of us. I swerved towards her and locked my arms around her narrow waist yet again before my eyes followed the line upwards, searching for the tiny hemisphere I knew was attached to the end of it. I couldn’t see it from here, but when the line suddenly went taught and we began lifting off the ground, I knew it had found its mark somewhere on the ceiling five storeys above us, and that the tiny motor was swiftly reeling the line back in. Desperately hoping the change in direction would throw Baseball Cap Man’s aim, I looked up just as the next row of rocks appeared directly above our heads and began their descent. We were now being lifted towards them as they accelerated down at us, effectively doubling their closing speed! But we also had the forward momentum we’d built up from running. As the row of boulders plummeted towards us and we flew upwards, we were also swinging forwards on the line. A heartbeat later I felt a gush of air and the closest of the deadly row of rocks shot past us, one of them smacking into my shoes on its way past. Thankfully, in mid-air there was nothing for it to grind my foot against, so I copped little more than a jarring bump before we continued on our way, sailing upwards and forwards while the rocks obliterated yet another row of tables and chairs beneath us. I’d already noticed the four parallel rows of escalators running diagonally up to the left across the otherwise open space ahead of us. Now when I looked up I realised we were accelerating towards them at a frightening rate! In the usual, thoughtful way of these guys, Baseball Cap Man tried to distract us from the danger by sending several large and lethally fast chunks of lead zooming past within centimetres of us. A second later, when he stopped shooting and headed for the lift, I looked back to discover we were a couple of seconds from smashing squarely into the side of the top escalator! Of course, being in front, Veronica would bear the brunt of the impact. But besides this thought giving me no joy at all, I realised the bones in both my arms (which were clutched tightly together in front of her) would also be shattered and my grip would fail. After I’d completed the gut-churning drop back to the ground floor, I’d look more like a blob of tomato sauce than anything human. Then the wave of boulders would reach me… There was nothing I could do but stare in horror as we hurtled towards the solid side wall of the top escalator. Well, there was one other thing, I realised: I could close my eyes and think about the incredible body my arms were wrapped around. Sadly, I’d barely begun to do this when I realised our motion had changed. Snapping them open again, I discovered Veronica was somehow slowing the play of the cord, subtly changing out direction so that we were now heading more forward than up, straight at the gap between the top two escalators. My relief didn’t last long once I realised we were actually no better off. If she was planning to jump onto the lower escalator as we flew through the gap, she was kidding herself. She could play around with our direction, but we had no way of slowing ourselves, and at the speed we were now moving, we’d be slammed into the far railing before we’d even dropped far enough to land on the escalator. I had a sudden flashback to the movie ‘George of the Jungle’, with George swinging headlong into yet another tree. Unfortunately, I knew his repeated rapid recoveries belied the truth that such impacts would, at the very least, see him left unconscious for hours before spending weeks in intensive care. And sadly, the metal railing of the escalators looked even more unyielding than rainforest trees. As we reached the gap, the whole cavernous mall suddenly fell into an eerie silence, the wave of crashing boulders having presumably completed their brutal demolition of the area behind and below us. “Don’t let go!” Veronica urged abruptly, her voice sounding startlingly loud amidst the sudden, unnatural silence now blanketing the deserted shopping arcade. Of course, I had no intention of doing so, having already decided it would result in every bone in my body being shattered against the far railing. But it didn’t take much thought to realise holding on was going to be equally as painful. Our thin supporting line was just about to hit the side of the escalator above us, so in a moment we’d be whipped straight up into its concrete underside! I wondered if we’d end up embedded in it forever, like a couple of old dinosaur fossils. But even if we bounced off and dropped onto the lower escalator - and somehow survived – I knew we’d be lucky to regain consciousness before Baseball Cap Man arrived to show us a close-up view of that outrageous gun of his. I gritted my teeth as we shot into the gap between the two escalators. Then I heard the whir of the tiny motor again and realised Veronica was now cleverly playing the line out, allowing our momentum to carry us straight through between the two escalators. A split- second later, when we came out the far side, the whirring stopped and my momentum almost yanked me free as we whipped up and over - like a yo-yo going ‘round-the-World’. As we arced upwards, gravity slowed us enough that when we were finally dumped in an awkward heap on the slowly moving steps of the top escalator, we avoided serious injury. It took me a moment to realise I was now lying on top of Veronica’s back with my head resting on her wonderful backside while the escalator carried us slowly up towards the top floor. And just as had happened back in the room beside the railway tunnel, despite our perilous situation I felt instantly and acutely aware of every single point of contact between myself and that magical body of hers. “Go, go, go!” she urged, snapping me back to reality, and despite her slightly husky voice, I had enough of my wits about me to realise she wasn’t coming on to me. At the same time, I heard a soft click and noticed the thin line which had supported us drop to the floor, obviously severed from the contraption on her arm by some built-in cutting mechanism she’d activated so we could make a swift escape. With the line gone, we wouldn’t be doing any more Tarzan impressions today. Scrambling to my feet, I noticed Veronica seemed stunned, as if she might have hit her head when she’d landed. I quickly helped her up while throwing a hasty look over my shoulder … and spotting Baseball Cap Man rising slowly into view inside one of the glass elevators, still holding that ridiculous gun of his that would have had a casual observer thinking he was out hunting dinosaurs. I caught a fleeting glimpse of Veronica’s gun lying three steps below us before I spun back and began helping Veronica up the slowly moving escalator steps. We were four steps away and moving fast when the glass lift wall exploded under the impact of a cascade of brutal, oversized shells. Moments later, while the escalator behind us shook violently at the powerful impacts, we reached the top and crouched as low as we could while we scrambled frantically for the Myer entrance.

***** 21

We both knew Baseball Cap Man was only seconds behind us as we bolted into the store and veered right along a railing which ran around a second escalator shaft. The escalators both left from the far side, and I could only hope Veronica wasn’t planning to lead us round to them. By the time we got there Baseball Cap Man would almost certainly be turning us into mush with his mega-gun. We were sprinting forward along the aisle when Veronica abruptly skidded to a halt and I barely managed to stop before slamming into her. Confused, I peered over her shoulder and spotted the reason for her sudden stop - just five metres ahead, a man had appeared in the centre of the aisle and was pointing a pistol straight at us! At least I think it was a man. He had two legs, a head and a body. But his left arm was half missing and blood was spurting from the end of the stump, splattering all over the white tiled floor in front of him! His face looked repulsive too – almost as if some gruesome surgeon had roughly divided it into small chunks before removing every other piece, rotating it through one- eighty degrees and sowing it back in place! I was sure we were both done for – no matter how nightmarish he looked, the guy couldn’t possibly miss from that range… Then he let out the most awful sound I’ve ever heard … a sort of mournful, agonised groan that made every hair on my body stand on end. And while we stood there mesmerised, his entire body just crumbled into a mushy heap, as if it was made up of hundreds of small chunks that weren’t even connected! From what Veronica had told me about detailed objects requiring more energy to send through Time, I guessed Sahissi mustn’t have had enough juice left to do the job properly. But true to form, he’d done it anyway and this was the grisly result. For precious moments, we both stood there, transfixed by the revolting pile of flesh, blood and bone spreading across the aisle in front us. Then Veronica finally snapped out of it and went to step carefully past. At the same moment, I heard footsteps to our right and realised Baseball Cap Man had caught up. “Duck!” I yelled as I threw myself forward and dragged Veronica to the ground behind the low shelves separating us from the muscle-bound killer. At the same time, the air around us exploded with heavy gunfire and the terrifying sound of shelving and their contents disintegrating grew steadily nearer. I estimated we had maybe three seconds until it reached us and changed into the far more terrifying sound of our bodies disintegrating! Obviously realising the same thing, Veronica turned to me and hurriedly motioned back the way we’d come. With shattered pieces of electrical equipment and shelving spewing through the air above us, I didn’t need any more hints. Crouching low, I bolted back along the aisle while Baseball Cap Man obliterated the shelving we’d been hiding behind. After fifteen seconds of mayhem, the area fell into a sudden, deep silence, broken only by the dull metallic clicks of a weapon which had obviously run out of ammunition. A moment later, the heavy thump of the useless ‘cannon’ being dropped to the ground echoed throughout the department store. Shortly afterwards, Veronica and I were hiding in the kitchen appliances section, nervously listening to the clump, clump, clump of the killer’s approaching footsteps.

***** 22

I knew there was simply no way a guy that size could walk silently. Yet the inordinate amount of noise he was making as he stalked after us soon had me wondering whether he was one of those creeps who aren’t content just to kill their prey - they have to ‘play’ with it … as if terrorising living things gives them some kind of primitive thrill. On the other hand, I guessed he might merely be trying to make us panic and break cover. Either way, it didn’t really matter. Whatever his motivation, Veronica had told me to stay put, so there was no way I was budging an inch. I was still terrified though. I’d known it would be scary sitting there helplessly waiting for him to find me. Yet I was shocked at just how nerve- wracking it was listening to the slow measured footsteps of the enormous killer gradually drawing closer and closer to my hiding place. As hard as I tried, I found it almost impossible not to imagine what those powerful arms of his could do to my body … and how much pain it would cause me. When I heard him enter the aisle, my legs started shaking and I knew I simply had to distract myself or I’d panic and try to run. So, mustering every ounce of creativity I had, I summoned a mental picture of Veronica standing in a figure- hugging black leather suit in front of a warm, crackling fire. Then I imagined her slowly unzipping the suit all the way down the front… It almost worked too well! I had her standing there right in front of me with the suit dangling from her smooth, shapely knees onto a soft, white sheepskin rug … when all of a sudden I realised the footsteps were coming from pretty much directly in front of the fridge door that I’d opened and pulled back to make a hidey-hole between two large refrigerators! The glorious vision vanished in an instant, and I felt a sudden, unexpected surge of anger. I really wanted to kill the guy for disturbing that particular daydream! Of course, if I’d been able to see him peering at the toes of my shoes poking out from beneath the fridge door … well, I just might have wet myself instead. A moment later, when I heard him wrench the door open, I gave him the game show ‘wrong answer’ tone. “Er, urrrrr!” The guy barely had time to discover my feet weren’t actually inside my shoes anymore before he instinctively spun towards the sound and peered up in surprise. Having just climbed up onto the second top shelf in the adjacent aisle, where I’d previously been hiding between two stoves, I was now leaning over into his aisle with my arm outstretched, finger poised on the trigger. Before he could react, I let him have it … right in the face! Of course, the jet of hot air from the hair dryer I was holding didn’t do a whole lot of damage. In fact, it didn’t even upset that stupid hairdo of his. But it did have the desired effect. Hardly believing his eyes, the big brute just stood there blinking for a couple of seconds, unable to comprehend what was happening. He’d just gotten himself together enough to angrily snatch the dryer from my hand when the refrigerator hit him square in the middle of the back. Our hastily formulated plan had worked! From her hiding spot behind the second refrigerator, Veronica had taken advantage of the covering noise from the dryer to tilt the massive appliance right on top of him! He grunted at the impact and a look of shocked surprise crossed his big, ugly face as he toppled forwards and was pinned against the floor and the shelving on my side of the aisle. For a second I thought he was dead. Then I saw the fridge move and realised I’d been overly optimistic. Without really thinking about what I was doing, I scrambled onto the top shelf and leapt into the air like a wrestling champ flying high for the kill! Then as the fridge began tilting back up, I landed on it with all the force I could muster, keeping my legs straight to maximize the impact. I was only a feather-weight compared to Baseball Cap Man. But the fact that he already had a Whirlpool 640 litre ‘frost free’ on top of him seemed to swing the balance in my favour. The fridge abruptly dropped back down and a pained groan emerged from beneath as it came to rest. After topping the fridge, Veronica had moved out into the aisle. Now she stood a couple of metres away to my left and when I glanced at her, she flashed an admiring grin and a wink up to where I was perched atop the fridge. I was struck yet again by just how spectacular she looked, even with her clothes on! More gorgeous than any woman I’d ever seen, and a thousand times more full of life! Earlier today, I’d decided I’d be prepared to do anything for Veronica … even die for her. Now, I was gripped by a sudden and unwavering conviction that I would be insanely happy spending the rest of my days with her … even if we were doomed to share them with that lunatic Sahissi and his cronies. I grinned back …just as Veronica’s smile abruptly vanished to be inexplicably replaced by a defeated, haunted kind of look that made absolutely no sense to me. I shuddered as goose-bumps rippled over my skin. Considering we’d just whipped our enemy’s butt, her devastated look seemed completely out of place. Had I missed something vital? I whipped my head round, convinced I’d find a gun pointing at my head. But the aisle was empty. Then I felt the fridge wobble beneath me and I suddenly remembered that if things were still going according to plan, Veronica knew exactly what was about to happen. When I spun back to stare into her deeply troubled eyes, I was seized by an ominous sense of dread - what could she possibly know that had left her looking so utterly shattered?

***** 23

“This way!” she screamed at me, and her voice held a genuine, gut-wrenching fear I hadn’t heard before now. She was obviously desperate to get away from there. Yet for some reason she just stood at the end of the aisle while I leapt down from the fridge and ran to meet her. After guiding me past her she ran at my heels while we bolted off along the aisle. When I glanced back I was startled to see Baseball Cap Man had already managed to scramble from beneath the fridge and was now taking his first wobbly steps after us. He was recovering fast though, regaining his balance and rapidly building up speed as he lumbered towards us. We only had a lead of about ten metres, and I couldn’t help feeling bitter that it would have been at least a couple more if only Veronica hadn’t been so condescending as to wait until I was past her before fleeing. That couple of metres might end up making all the difference, yet she had decided to treat me like some inept child who had to be herded in the right direction! After everything we’d been through together, I felt angry that she could still think so little of me. “Keep going straight,” she called from behind me, and despite my irritation - and the powerful urge to get out of Baseball Cap Man’s line of sight - I did as I was told. Ten metres on, when I glanced over my shoulder and caught a glimpse of Veronica’s face, an eerie tingle ran up the back of my neck. Her expression had that same look of inconsolable sadness I’d noticed in her eyes when we’d first encountered each other on the zebra crossing earlier today - only this time it was a thousand times stronger. Baffled, and feeling increasingly nervous, I turned back to see a small opening appearing in the wall up ahead. As I sprinted towards it, I realised it was a small door sliding upwards. Soon the opening would be big enough for us to fit through, and although I had no idea where it led, I was sure Veronica had opened it using one of her ‘tooth switches’ … and that it was our only hope of salvation. We bolted madly on through the kitchen section, shelves full of pots and pans and all sort of kitchen paraphernalia disappearing past in a blur as we closed on the small opening. Then I was close enough and I dived head-first … sailing through the air … hitting the polished floor … and sliding through into darkness. It came as a shock when my outstretched hands hit a wall barely two metres inside the doorway. Thankfully, I managed to absorb most of the impact with my arms before my head slammed solidly into the wall. Dazed, I looked back just as Veronica slid in after me. I drew a sharp breath when I glanced past her. About fifteen metres back, Baseball Cap Man was standing beside a shelf full of kitchen utensils, clutching a fistful of knives and grinning wickedly. “Shut the door!” I yelled. When the silence dragged on for an interminable half-second, I peered down at Veronica. My eyes suddenly widened and my heart felt as if it had stopped - protruding from Veronica’s back was the solid, stainless-steel handle of a large carving knife! I was paralysed with horror, unable to even blink as I stared down in disbelief. This couldn’t be happening! Then I caught movement from the corner of my eye and glanced up to see Baseball Cap Man launch himself towards us, racing for the small opening. My survival instincts kicked in. “Veronica - you have to tell me how to shut the door!” I urged while I quickly rolled her onto her side, desperately hoping there’d be time afterwards to stem the bleeding before it was too late. The moment I stared into her wide, lifeless eyes, it felt like someone had reached inside my chest and ripped out my heart. Gutted, I reached round and yanked the knife from Veronica’s back. I almost felt like plunging it into my own chest. It was simply unbearable knowing she was gone … unthinkable that she had come back through Time to save my life and that it had cost her her own! In a sudden flash of realisation, I understood all of those sad, haunted looks I’d spotted during the afternoon. The whole time, while we’d been trying to escape Sahissi’s ruthless assassins, Veronica had known she was going to die! Yet she’d doggedly stuck to the plan which I had personally outlined to her in the future, refusing to take the risk that if she tried to change things then I might end up being killed instead of her! On top of my devastation, I felt an unbearable stab of guilt at my sadly misguided anger a few seconds earlier when she’d waited for me to pass her before racing for the safety of this tiny ‘panic room’. Now it was suddenly all too clear - she’d knowingly placed her own back between mine and the deadly knife which she knew Baseball Cap Man would hurl at us. She hadn’t been condescending at all – she’d been sacrificing her life for mine! Rage surged through my body as I looked up to find the muscle-bound murderer of my gorgeous future wife accelerating towards me with a fistful of evil-looking kitchen knives in each hand. And more than anything I wanted to go to him – to take the bloodied knife I held in my own hand and to do whatever I could to avenge Veronica’s death! I had already begun to rise before my brain kicked into gear. Was I a complete idiot? It would be suicide against a monster like that. And dying now, no matter how much I felt I wanted to, would be unforgivable after the dreadful sacrifice Veronica had made to keep me alive. Instead, as Baseball-Cap Man sent a bunch of lethal knives rocketing towards the opening, I leaned forward and kissed my stunning guardian angel on the mouth, shocked at the sound of my own agonised groans as knife after knife slammed brutally into her back. Trying vainly to ignore the dreadful impacts, I slipped my tongue past the smooth softness of her warm, lipstick covered lips so that it came to rest on her two front teeth – the ‘override’ switch she’d told me about. Her body shook one last dreadful time as yet another knife slammed into her exposed back while I broke then remade the connection twice before pulling my lips back from hers and separating my tongue from her teeth for a third and final time, activating the switch. Through watery eyes, I peered over her shoulder to see Baseball Cap Man diving towards the shrinking opening… Moments later, the door sealed and I heard his huge body thump solidly against the far side.

***** 24

I don’t really know how long I sat there cradling Veronica’s soft, limp body in the darkness and listening to Baseball Cap Man smashing things against the door in a frantic effort to get at us. My watch had a light, but I didn’t bother using it. Time seemed irrelevant now. Everything did. After an eternity, the banging stopped abruptly and I knew Sahissi had finally used up every last drop of energy he had. Baseball Cap Man had been dragged back to the Future and I could only hope his boss would be insanely unimpressed with his failure to complete his mission, and that he would want to drive this point home to Baseball Cap man in a thousand different and very painful ways. I sat there in silence for what felt like ages more before Veronica’s lifeless body suddenly vanished too. One second she was lying peacefully in my arms and the next I was holding nothing but air while the door slid silently open in front of me. In a state of shock, I stumbled from the tiny room, squinting under the dazzling fluorescent lighting while I slowly pushed my way past the huge pile of assorted objects which Baseball Cap Man had used to try to get through what was obviously a very heavily reinforced door. The place now seemed utterly deserted as I shuffled back towards the now-stationary escalators before realising how completely drained I felt and deciding I needed to take the lift instead. While it slid slowly down the side of the open food court, I peered out through the broken glass walls at the devastated scene below. The furniture still lay in splinters all across the shattered floor tiles, but the boulders and wall sections had vanished, obviously dragged back to the future, just like Baseball Cap Man, now that Sahissi’s machines had shut down for good. The lift reached the ground floor and I stepped out, wondering what everyone else would make of the ruin in here and elsewhere along our twisting, turning escape route through the City. One thing was pretty certain - they’d never guess the truth. And I certainly wasn’t about to tell them. Despite all the witnesses to some of the stuff that had happened here today, I knew that could easily be a one-way ticket to the crazy farm. Still in a daze, I walked weakly down the Myer Centre stairs then out into the Queen Street Mall before turning north. The sound of blaring sirens carried from a couple of blocks away, but the entire Mall area now seemed deserted too. A few minutes later, I was approaching a barricade near the end of the Mall, wondering what kind of reception I’d get from all the people clustered behind it – especially the five or six stern-looking police officers milling about on this side of the barricade. When one of them spotted me and hurried over to see if I was okay, I put on a brave face and said I was fine. I told him I’d been shopping when I’d heard all the commotion and had hidden in some toilets inside the Myer Centre until things quietened down. I said that now I just wanted to go home. After writing down the false name I gave him, he was happy to let me go, probably imagining all the extra paperwork he’d just saved himself by not interviewing me in-depth. And as I made my way through the inquisitive crowd, I couldn’t really blame him. After today, I figured a hell of a lot of people were going to be buried under mountains of paperwork. Once I’d navigated through the crowd, I plodded slowly to the end of the Mall, hardly noticing the scattered pedestrians who were doing their best to get on with their lives despite all of the day’s dramas. I didn’t really know where I was going. I just wanted to find somewhere quiet. Somewhere away from the place where Veronica had died. That’s when I realised I’d reached Edward Street and I looked up to see the zebra crossing just eighty metres ahead - the one where I’d first seen Veronica earlier that afternoon. Without warning, the full force of what had happened today suddenly hit me. I had met the most incredible woman – my future wife – and we’d been harassed by brutal assassins for hours until I was eventually left cradling her lifeless body in the darkness of a tiny safe-room. The rush of emotion flattened me like a speeding semi, bringing me to an abrupt halt at the edge of the pavement with tears welling in my eyes. I’d never felt so utterly crushed and hollow. Or so horribly guilty, knowing that Veronica had died to save me. Then I felt my anger surge. Damn her! Why did she have to stick so stubbornly to a plan she knew would cost her her life? Why had she stayed here in the city where Baseball Cap Man and his mates could so easily keep up with us? Once we got in that car she should have just kept on driving! We could have been halfway to Sydney by now … hundreds of miles from those killers and both still alive! I could feel myself trembling with bitter rage. All the more bitter because deep down I knew Veronica had done the right thing. As difficult as it was for me to comprehend, according to her, without me in the future the entire world was in grave danger. She hadn’t sacrificed herself just to save me. She’d also done it to save the billions of innocent people being oppressed under Sahissi’s ruthless future regime. I just wished to God she could have found some other way! Frustration and anger continued to swell inside me until I felt sure I’d explode. Then, as swiftly as it had come, the raw, angry emotion abruptly left me. I still felt utterly devastated, but I found I could suddenly think clearly again, and I realised my mental ranting about potentially being halfway to Sydney and both safe was little more than a sadly misguided delusion. No matter where we’d gone, Sahissi’s men would have followed us … and killed us both. Now I felt a sudden blaze of pride for the beautiful woman who had saved my life. Veronica had planned it all, down to the last minute detail, exactly the way she’d had to. And she’d executed that plan to perfection, despite knowing that it would end her life. Just the thought of her going through everything while carrying that awful knowledge was nearly too much to bear. Although I hated the thought of what had happened, at least most of it made perfect sense now that I could see, in hind-sight, why Veronica had done it. As I looked ahead at the crossing, however, it suddenly seemed odd to me that this whole insane ‘game’ had almost come full circle: following our wild and convoluted flight, here I was standing less than twenty metres from where it had all begun. Out of the blue, it occurred to me that it was almost as if Veronica had planned that too, though the idea made no sense at all to me. “Are you okay?” Startled, and suddenly feeling terribly self-conscious about my watery eyes, I roused myself from my baffled thoughts and turned to see a woman of about forty peering sympathetically across at me from the pavement nearby. Mortified that someone was seeing me in this state, I hurriedly turned away, wiping roughly at my eyes. I was still in a public place – I really needed to get my act together! A second later, I looked back and blinked when I sensed something vaguely familiar in the woman’s face. Then, while I puzzled over whether I knew her from somewhere, my eyes flicked across to find a gangly teenage girl standing just behind her, giving me a concerned look. For one endless, astonished second, I peered into those strangely familiar brown eyes. Then it felt oddly as if the sun rose inside me; like it was the dawning of a brand new day. Despite everything, I felt myself smile. “Umm … actually, I’ve just had a pretty crummy day,” I stammered, turning back to the woman while my mind did summersaults. “I came into the city to go to the dentist and got caught up in all this madness. Now the buses aren’t running and I’ll have to call my parents then wait till one of them can pick me up. I guess I’ll be stuck here for a couple more hours at least.” “Where do you live, dear?” she asked sympathetically. “Sherwood,” I replied as an intense sense of expectation flared inside me. “Park Terrace.” I threw another smile at the girl and she grinned back shyly. “Well that’s just amazing,” the woman replied with a wide-eyed smile of her own. “Almost like it was meant to be! We’re heading home to Laurel Avenue – it’s just over the train line in Graceville, only a couple of minutes away from Park Terrace! Would you like a lift, dear?” I glanced at the girl and her grin widened into that wonderful smile I’d grown to love so much during the last few hours. “Yes. I’d like that, thanks,” I said as the last piece of this crazy puzzle finally slotted into place. And despite my misery at what had happened today, I found I couldn’t wipe the grin from my face as I headed off across Edward Street with Veronica and her mother.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

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If you enjoyed reading 1 Life 2 Die 4, keep an eye out at your favorite ebook store for the sequel. Here’s a sneak-peek at the first few chapters ...

2 Lives 2 Live 4 by Dean Waite

I’d thought I’d come to terms with it all. But I hadn’t. Not by a long way. The full force of it only hit me once I was well out of the City centre, sitting opposite teenage Veronica in the back seat of her family car and staring out at the slow-moving waters of the Brisbane River flowing along-side us. Out of nowhere, crazy visions began racing through my mind. Visions of insane things that before today I would never have believed possible, even in my wildest dreams. Or nightmares. Visions of things that had happened to me during the last few hours while I’d raced madly across the CBD with a woman I now felt convinced was the very same person sitting beside me as a gangly teenage girl! A woman who’d insisted she was my wife! With my mind reeling, I turned to teenage Veronica and found her peering intently, though a little shyly, back at me. Then, like a B-grade movie fade, her face seemed to slowly dissolve to be replaced by a vision of her gorgeous older self staring up at me with wide, unblinking eyes while I cradled her lifeless body in my arms. It was too much. I spun away and peered out the side window again, embarrassed by the tears I could feel pooling in my eyes, blurring my view of the sleek CityCat ferry slipping smoothly past along the River, heading back towards the City. Back toward the chaos I had left behind me. I’d never felt so confused. I didn’t know whether to be overjoyed that the younger Veronica now sat safely beside me, or devastated that earlier that afternoon her older self had been brutally murdered by an assassin from the future. And it was killing me that her murderer had escaped with barely more than a scratch! I’d never really thought of myself as an overly aggressive guy, but right now I felt like I’d gladly do unspeakable things to that guy if I was given the chance. “So, Daniel, what was it you said you were doing in the City today?” Jolted back from my vengeful, confused thoughts, I flicked my eyes across and noticed Veronica’s mum tilting her head slightly, trying to see me in the rear vision mirror. Without turning, I leaned away a little while pretending to scratch the side of my forehead, doing my best to obscure her view of my eyes. “Just a check-up at the dentist, Mrs Kale,” I reminded her, thankful that at least my voice didn’t betray my dismal state-of-mind. From the corner of my eye I watched Veronica’s dark-haired, well-groomed mother frown faintly. “All on your own?” she asked, though I’d already explained that this was the case. Clearly she was having a little trouble accepting the fact. I nodded. “Yeah - my parents are both really busy people. Dad lectures in Engineering at UQ and he’s always doing some research project or other on the side. And Mum’s always got more work than she can handle for her web page business. Most days, I hardly get to see them at all.” I noticed Mrs Kale's eyebrows rise a little. “My goodness … they do sound terribly busy.” Her eyes went back to the road as she caught a green light and turned right onto Moggill Road, heading sedately past the shops lining both sides of the street. “You must get pretty lonely,” Veronica commented after a few seconds thought. “I don’t know what I’d do if Mum had a job.” She smiled at her mother. “She’s always there for me when I need her.” Mrs Kale smiled too. “We’re always there for each other, dear,” she pointed out, her fondness for her daughter clearly evident in her voice. “You know you help me out at least as much as I help you.” She grinned suddenly as her eyes flicked back from the road, trying to find me in the rear-view mirror again. “I don’t think I’d ever have gotten on-line if Veronica hadn’t been so patient and helpful. And she taught me how to use my mobile phone, the I-pod, the … what’s it called again … oh, yes, the PVR, …” She chuckled. “To be perfectly honest, without Vee, I’d still be trapped back in the twentieth century!” I turned to Veronica and couldn’t help smiling. She looked really good, even though her early-teenage body and face still only hinted at the rare beauty she would become. And it wasn’t just her looks that made me smile. Even at this age, she was showing the same loyalty and devotion to her mother that she’d shown to me during the few short hours I’d known her. Despite her brutal death earlier today – no, I corrected myself - because of it, I knew I was damned lucky to have her in my life at all! I blinked. Despite peering at Veronica, I’d been so completely lost in thought that I'd missed the confused half- smile she was directing at me. When I finally spotted it, I swallowed uncomfortably - I’d been staring at her with the kind of idiot grin that probably had her wondering whether I was some kind of half-wit stalker-type! My embarrassment deepened further when her smile wavered and I realised she’d noticed my reddened eyes. Spinning back to the window, I cringed, hearing the older Veronica’s words echo inside my head: nothing is set in stone. Lucky to have her in my life. Who was I kidding? She was as much 'in my life' as I was in the life of the old, balding guy with the bad breath, who’d sat beside me during my bus ride into town today. And if I didn’t stop acting like a complete moron, she’d never want to see me again once her mother dropped me home. The realisation shook me to the core. And it finally drove home just how attached to Veronica I’d become during the few short hours we’d spent together. She was – or at least, would be - my ideal mixture of Lara Croft action hero, Playboy centrefold and devoted friend. A one-in-a-billion lady. Hell … before today, I was more devoted to my skateboard than to any girl! Now I suddenly discovered I couldn’t imagine life without Veronica in it. When I snuck a look back at her, she was staring ahead through the windscreen and I had the awful suspicion that she might be thinking about what a dope I was. Unable to help myself, but feeling a little guilty about it, I flicked my eyes down over her lithe body then back up to rest on her lips. Deep down, things began to stir - even at this age those lips already had that full, sexy, Jessica Alba pout. I heard her words inside my head again: nothing is set in stone. If I really wanted her to become a part of my life – and I really did - I needed to start giving her some reasons to want to be a part of mine. ***** 2

Before long, we were gliding down the hill towards the Indooroopilly roundabout. Behind it, the huge Indooroopilly Shopping Complex sprawled across the side of a low hill, almost filling the vast area between the two roads that speared out almost at right angles from the far side of roundabout. While I wracked my brain for some way to win over Veronica, her mum veered onto the first of these roads - Coonan Street – and headed on towards Sherwood. Summoning my courage, I turned to Veronica. With maybe three or four more minutes left to make an impression (other than the ‘I’m an imbecile’ one I’d already nailed!), I really had to get a move on. “So, what does your dad do?” I asked before wincing uncomfortably at how tense I sounded. Before replying, Veronica gave me a long, quizzical look, as if she sensed something odd in my manner but was unsure what it meant. “He died when Vee was six,” Mrs Kale replied for her. Nice one, Dan, I thought miserably. While the car headed down beside the Eldorado Cinemas, with the Indooroopilly railway station disappearing past on our left, I looked out the window and wracked my brains for some way to recover. Ahead, I could see the old Walter Taylor Bridge stretching across the western reaches of the Brisbane River. I’d always been fascinated by the Bridge which was unusual in that it had living quarters built into the main supports above either end. It reminded me a little of London Bridge, though it didn’t lift up in the middle and was nowhere near as grand. Still, ever since I was a little kid, I’d wondered what it would be like to live up there. Of course, now that I was a bit older and wiser, I’d realised ‘noisy’ would feature pretty prominently in the description, but the idea continued to fascinate me. I peered absently up at the living quarters closest to us, barely noticing the figure standing way up on the rooftop balcony. I knew time had pretty much run out for me to think of something to say that would let Vee know how awful I felt about her Dad having died and would have her pleading to be my girl. But I still had nothing! Then I squinted as a bright, green light flitted briefly across my face. My worried eyes focussed on the figure up on the balcony and I noticed he had some kind of laser mounted on a stand! After everything I’d been through, my heart went ballistic while my eyes swivelled madly about, nervously searching through the car windows for signs of danger. It took me a second or two to come back to earth. Veronica had assured me Sahissi was out of energy. Which meant this guy was most likely just a surveyor using something like a laser alidade, perhaps to help map the area in preparation for future road works. Our science or math teacher – I couldn’t remember which – had told us about them, though I wasn’t sure exactly how they worked. Anyway, if it had been anything sinister, I’d probably be watching the guy launch a missile at me right now! I really needed to chill. Smiling wryly to myself, I peered more closely at the guy as we drew nearer … and frowned when I noticed he was dressed entirely in black and that his lips were moving as if he was talking to someone on a phone. As we cruised closer still, then beneath him and onto the bridge, I felt the hairs on the back of my neck prick up – was it just my imagination, or did he look one hell of a lot like Snake Eyes? Nervously reassuring myself that I’d seen that particular scumbag lying dead back inside the Myer Centre, I glanced ahead, once more scanning the area for signs of trouble - right at the exact moment that two enormous tanks appeared out of nowhere, crouched side- by-side across the far end of the bridge! ***** 3

At the same time, a different guy in black with a massive tripod-mounted cannon appeared up on the balcony of the southern living quarters, directly above the row of tanks. My heart-rate went through the roof as the cars ahead of us squealed to a halt. Alarm bells were blaring crazily in my head as I whipped my head round, terrified of what I’d find. Sure enough, behind us two more massive tanks were now crouched across the entrance to the bridge, blocking our retreat! The sound of screeching tyres carried from behind the pair of huge war machines, while up on the balcony above them, a second gunner was swinging his massive tripod- mounted gun towards us! I didn't need to look to know the first one would be doing the same thing. We were trapped on the bridge … and about to be blown to hell in a devastating cross-fire! My mind raced. For some reason, despite what Veronica had told me, Sahissi’s energy supply was obviously in fantastic shape! Hell … he’d probably just sent through more heavy firepower than I’d seen during the entire day up to that point! And with a flash of despair, I realised this was a completely new game for another very important reason. Beside me, Veronica was now little more than a girl, and obviously had no idea what was even going on. Last time she’d saved my life so many times I’d lost count. This time I was pretty certain she’d have trouble looking after herself, let alone me! I drew a deep breath and tried to ignore the way most of my body seemed to be shaking. If we were going to get out of here alive, it was going to be up to me. The realisation hit hard. I had no weapon and I’d never even learned karate or boxing! How could I possibly beat even a single unarmed man, let alone two trained assassins with cannons? And that wasn’t even factoring in the four wicked-looking mega-tanks that had me suddenly wondering if a closer inspection of the ones we’d fled from earlier that day might have revealed the word ‘Matchbox' engraved into their chassis. As Veronica’s mum hit the brakes hard and the gunners lined us up, I knew we had absolutely no chance. But I wasn’t about to just lie down and take what these mongrels were dishing out. “OUT, OUT, OUT!” I screamed as I unclipped my seatbelt and reached across Vee’s lap to grab the door handle while my other hand unclipped her belt too. Throwing the door open, I shoved her roughly out ahead of me and we tumbled awkwardly onto the road beside the car. "Stay low," I told her as I scrambled up into a crouch, glancing back through the side window just in time to catch a glimpse of some guy wrenching open the passenger-side front door. My eyes flicked to the left and I felt my stomach churn - Veronica’s mum was still in her seat! I felt like throwing up. There was no way I could get Mrs Kale out and away before that guy put a bullet in her … or one of those huge guns obliterated the entire car with her still inside it. I’d just end up getting Vee and myself killed as well. I’d only known Veronica’s mum for perhaps twenty minutes, yet the realisation gutted me as much as when I’d sat in the safe-room cradling Veronica’s dead body. But I had no time for sentiment now. I knew that if she could speak to me, she’d beg me to just get her daughter to safety. And that’s what I intended to do. Yanking the terrified girl to her feet, I started dragging her towards the side of the bridge. At least if we jumped we’d have a slim chance of survival – which was a lot better than our chances if we hung around here. I was still accelerating when we reached the railing that separated the footpath from the road, my mind set on trying to launch the two of us up and over both it and the one a metre further on at the edge of the bridge. Just as it occurred to me I might be being a little ambitious, a volley of cannon fire erupted from either end of the bridge. The air around us shook violently with a massive explosion and Veronica dragged me to sudden a halt. I turned to see what was left of the car ablaze, dark smoke and long, wicked tongues of orange and red flames billowing up through a jagged hole in its roof. “MUUUMMMM!” Veronica screamed, and her shrill, terrified cry sent a deathly chill up my spine. I knew the sound would haunt me forever. Just as I knew there’d be no way to reason with Veronica right now. A minute ago, she’d been relaxing in the back of her family car listening to some idiot her mother had picked up in the city. Now the woman she cared most about in the whole world had just died in a flaming inferno right before her eyes! I peered miserably across at the trembling, distraught girl and abruptly recalled my bewilderment earlier today when people had first started shooting at me for no apparent reason. And, I also thought of the devastated sensation I’d felt when I’d discovered the woman I cared most about in the world was dead. Now poor Vee was struggling to come to terms with both of these situations simultaneously, and as I peered at her wide, disbelieving eyes, I felt my heart melt. But I had a job to do. “It’s okay, Vee – I saw her get out and climb over the far side of the bridge,” I lied, barely meeting Veronica’s eyes before I spun back to the railing. “Now we’ve got to go too or we’re both dead!” I knew she’d be sceptical; but I also knew she’d desperately want to believe me. “Come on!” I urged as I threw a leg up over the first railing and scrambled over, painfully aware that the thick smoke which had temporarily screened us from our enemies was rapidly dissipating. When I glanced down over the second railing, I breathed a sigh of relief – at least our luck hadn’t entirely deserted us. Almost directly below the spot where we stood, a ladder ran down the side of the bridge! Perhaps we could avoid jumping after all. Spinning back, I helped Veronica up over the first railing, thankful that despite her shock she came willingly. Then we both scurried over the second railing and I directed her down the ladder ahead of me. Just as my head sank below the level of the road, I glanced between the rails and through the clearing smoke I saw the eastern gunner aiming directly at us. A moment later, the entire bridge shook as a shell hit the surface just above us, blasting heavy chunks of bitumen and concrete out through the air above us. A second later, I was standing beside Veronica on a small platform at the base of the ladder while we stared in surprise at a rope which hung over a hook protruding from the ladder. Bizarrely, attached to one of two loops which were knotted into the end was a small piece of paper with some writing on it. When I bent closer to read it, my eyes widened in surprise: “Swing or die!” ***** About the Author

Dean Waite is a teacher from Brisbane, Australia. Like many authors, he is forced to write in spare snippets of time while spending most of his time doing a job that pays a regular income. Fortunately, he also enjoys teaching. Like almost every other author, however, he would love more time to create new stories for others who love losing themselves in intriguing imaginary worlds.

Dean has also written the first book in another series for young readers, but hopes to find time to write book 2 in the series before publishing.

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