1 Life 2 Die 4 Copyright 2014 Dean Waite Published by Dean Waite at Smashwords Smashwords Edition License Notes This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your enjoyment only, then please return to Smashwords.com or your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. 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.