by Dean Waite
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, no
t 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!