by Dean Waite
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 ther
e 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.