1 Life 2 Die 4 (9 page)

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!