by Dean Waite
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.<
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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.