Fast

by Shane M Brown

  ‘I know,’ said Coleman. ‘Run for compound! Go!’

  Third Unit ran through the compound’s collapsed rear fence. Forest limped as he ran, dazed from his impact with the boulder.

  Coleman glanced back and saw the terrorists reach the bottom of the slope. Breaking through the line of terrorists was just the start of any escape for Third Unit. The recreational reserve had two exits. At this very moment, Cameron Cairns would have men racing to cover both.

  There was no way out of the reserve.

  No way on foot, at least.

  Coleman’s eyes locked on the collection of crazy vehicles parked in the compound.

  #

  Bora dropped from the suspended walking platform.

  Smirking, he studied the fleeing Marines. The Marines had punched through Cairns’s line of gunmen. They were racing over the rear fence of the caretakers compound.

  No surprises there, thought Bora. They weren’t going to be caught that easily.

  In a way, Bora found himself slightly pleased at the Marines’ escape.

  I want to be the one who catches them. I want to be the one that kills him.

  Up until his near-death in the cinema, this had been just another operation for Bora. More was at stake, yes, but otherwise there was nothing personal invested in the outcome.

  Things had changed when the black Marine threw the chair. Bora should have seen it coming. Understanding vibrations was his specialty. He should have acted first.

  He outsmarted me at my own game. I sensed the trap in the elevator, but I didn’t foresee that stunt with the chair.

  Bora scanned the four running men. He spotted the one he was after.

  There he is. There’s the big bastard that almost finished me.

  The huge Marine was worthy prey. It wasn’t that the Marine had almost killed Bora, it was the way he had done it. He had stood and pointed Bora out, then made a cutthroat motion with his hand. That chair, that attack, had been directed personally at Bora. And it wasn’t an empty threat. It had very nearly been realized.

  Bora no longer cared about the templates. He just wanted to get that one man alone.

  Face to face.

  Where are you going now? Bora asked under his breath, watching the Marine run. We’re covering all the exits, but you must already realize that.

  He knew perfectly well that the Marines would find something. They seemed extremely adaptable. It was becoming amusing to predict how they would improvise their way out of the next situation….

  ‘The trucks!’ Bora radioed. He was starting to see exactly how they thought. ‘Stop them reaching the trucks.’

  Before Cairns could ask any questions, Bora switched off his radio and sprinted down the slope.

  #

  Coleman jumped into the nearest truck. It was the tray-back loaded with river stones. The stones were covered in the tray by orange rope webbing.

  The cab was a snug two-seater.

  Forest and King raced to the next vehicle. As Vanessa jumped into Coleman’s passenger seat, Forest and King piled into the scorpion-shaped truck.

  The trucks were the answer to Coleman’s prayers, but the keys in the ignition were nothing short of a miracle.

  Coleman gunned the engine.

  ‘Let’s go,’ yelled Vanessa, peering into the mirror and winding up her window. ‘They’re right behind us!’

  Coleman jammed the tray-back into first gear and floored it. Even with the load of river stones, Vanessa was thrown back in her seat as the oversized wheels kicked up gravel.

  ‘The gate!’ she warned, pointing ahead. ‘The gate’s still locked.’

  Coleman checked that Forest and King were following. ‘Screw the gate. We’re driving the key.’

  Coleman kept the gas pedal pressed hard to the floor. The truck screamed for a gear-change. He aimed straight for the gate.

  The chain-wire gates didn’t stand a chance. They burst open like rotten saloon doors. One side tore right off its hinges and tumbled into the ferns.

  Coleman glanced into the mirror. Forest and King drove right behind them, a giant steel scorpion chasing the tray-back down the gravel road. In seconds, both trucks overshot the intersection leading back to the service entrance.

  ‘Where are we going?’ cried Vanessa, looking back at the intersection. ‘The only way out is the service entrance.’

  ‘Cairns will be all over the service entrance like a rash,’ said Coleman. ‘We need to find another way.’

  ‘There is no other way,’ she exclaimed. She hooked her thumb over her shoulder. ‘I helped design this reserve, and that’s the only way out.’

  ‘There’s always another way.’ Coleman swung the wheel hard right. The tray-back veered off the road and ploughed into the undergrowth.

  It wasn’t the smooth move that he’d hoped.

  ‘Holy shit!’ yelped Vanessa.

  The tray-back careened down a pine-covered slope. Tree trunks raced by left and right. Coleman and Vanessa bounced like they were sitting on trampoline seats. At this speed, if it wasn’t for the big wheels and high suspension, Coleman would have already buried the vehicle’s front-end or skidded off-course into a tree.

  ‘Watch out!’ Vanessa jerked in her seat. A tree trunk screeched up her side of the truck.

  ‘Slow down!’ she yelled, gripping the ceiling bar and pointing ahead. ‘The glass wall’s just ahead.’

  Coleman floored it.

  Vanessa gaped sideways at him. ‘What are you doing! We’ll never turn at this speed.’

  ‘We’re not turning,’ hissed Coleman, struggling with the rocketing truck’s steering.

  Vanessa slapped the back of the cab. ‘We’ve got a tone of rocks in the back of this thing.’

  ‘We’re not turning. It’s too late.’

  Vanessa fumbled for her seat belt, eyes locked ahead. ‘You’re mad! You’re going to kill us!’

  The expanse of glass wall loomed before them.

  Coleman lifted the P190 from between the seats. He hung the weapon out the window and fired. Dinner-plate sized holes exploded across the wall.

  ‘Hold on,’ he yelled, dropping the empty weapon out the window.

  Ten meters, five meters, two meters….

  Vanessa grabbed the dashboard with both hands. Coleman braced the steering wheel and turned his face into his shoulder.

  At seventy miles an hour, with the two passengers bracing in the small cab, the tray-back truck collided full-speed into the plate glass wall.

  #

  Cairns watched the tray-back rocketing towards the glass wall.

  The truck bounced over the pockets of pine needles, shaving paint on both sides against trees.

  They have to turn….

  From the reserve’s service entrance, he’d watched the vehicles overshoot the intersection. Then the two trucks – first the tray-back, then something that looked like a giant steel scorpion – suddenly veered off the road and ploughed into the forest, cutting back towards the habitation level where Cairns and his force waited.

  The tray-back was still out in front, careening towards the plate glass wall at a ludicrous speed.

  They can’t be serious. They have to turn….

  But in the back of Cairns’s mind, he wasn’t so sure. His men were spread in single file formation against the plate glass wall. Unless the tray-back turned, it would hit the wall at a point fifteen meters behind his men.

  With growing alarm, Cairns took in the height and width of the glass wall, the thickness of each plate, the joins where each glass panel rigidly interconnected with its neighboring panel….

  ‘Everyone get down!’ he warned.

  Half of Cairns’s force already had their weapons trained through the glass on the approaching tray-back. Hearing his warning, they desperately searched for the new threat, not yet recognizing the massive deathtrap they stood against.

  It was too late.

  The tray-back burst through the wall in a cataclysm of exploding glass. For
a second, the truck was totally haloed in a cloud of shining glass fragments….

  Then the glass plates on either side of the truck simultaneously exploded.

  The effect was like a hand-grenade in a row of fish tanks.

  Blossoming outwards from the point of collision, the shockwave tore through the glass plates in both directions. One after the other, a split-second apart, the plates were domino-exploded into millions of high-velocity razor-sharp fragments.

  The shocking spectacle came roaring towards Cairns.

  It was an airborne tidal-wave of glass.

  Furthest back along the wall, the last two gunmen were engulfed in the blue-white razor storm. One moment they were gaping statues, and the next moment they simply disappeared as the glass-cloud poured around their bodies and washed away their flesh.

  Only three more gunmen stood between Cairns and the wave-front. All three men were only moments from certain death. In the time it took Cairns to blink, the glass shredded the next man where he stood.

  This close, Cairns saw the effect on the human body was like standing in a ring of detonating fragmentation mines.

  As the second-last panel exploded, with less than a second to act, Cairns grabbed the last living gunman by the body armor and wrenched them both backwards towards the service entrance.

  #

  ‘Fuck-ing-hell!’ yelled Vanessa as the airborne truck, weightless under them, flew out through the exploding glass wall.

  The truck hung in the air for a second above the habitation level floor -

  - then everything crashed forward as the truck touched down.

  Both were hurled forward in their seats.

  Coleman struggled to control the steering wheel. The tray-back’s suspension bottomed-out, punching them both hard in the tail-bone, then the over-sized suspension bounced the truck back up into the air. Vanessa’s head hit the roof. A second later, the river stones smashed back down onto the tray.

  The truck bounced twice more before Coleman regained control.

  Vanessa spun to see Forest and King copy the maneuver, minus the glass and the speed. Now both trucks were on the habitation level, accelerating across the floor.

  ‘They made it,’ she reported. ‘They’re behind us. Oh, no. You must be joking.’

  ‘What is it?’ asked Coleman.

  A thunderous boom sounded behind them. Coleman felt the tray-back actually shake through the steering wheel.

  ‘What the hell was that?’ he demanded.

  Vanessa spun forwards again. ‘It’s Bora.’

  Coleman glanced into his mirror. ‘Ho-ly shit!’

  #

  Cairns lay in a tent of broken glass.

  Above him, a dead gunman formed the backbone of the tent. Cairns had collapsed into the service entrance the moment the last glass plate exploded. The unfortunate gunman’s body had made a conveniently fleshy shield.

  Convenient for me, anyway.

  He eased aside the lacerated corpse. Jagged pieces of glass stuck from the body at a hundred angles. Glass slid away as Cairns found his feet.

  That was too close.

  Four red humps in the carpet of glass marked the rest of his force.

  Two trucks accelerated across the habitation level.

  Where is Bora?

  Cairns’s ears still rang from the roar of shattering glass, so the first he sensed of Bora was when the floor shuddered up through his boots.

  What the…?

  He looked up and spotted Bora pursuing the Marines. Bora was driving a gargantuan truck with a steering cab at either end. Between the cabs, a large A-frame structure was fixed to the flatbed. How Bora had ever managed to maneuver the giant vehicle down the forested slope, Cairns had no idea.

  But it certainly had something to do with speed.

  The truck launched through the spot where the smaller tray-back had breached the wall. The vibrations shuddered through the floor again as the A-frame’s wheels crunched down. Cairns spotted a gunman sitting in the second steering cab, controlling the A-frame’s rear end. The arrangement made the oversized truck very maneuverable.

  Right after the truck came a dozen four-wheeled quad bikes. The quads hit the habitation level floor and accelerated after Bora’s A-frame.

  Cairns found his dangling radio earpiece. He fitted the earpiece, ready to issue orders, but Gould’s voice was already coming over the line.

  ‘Gould,’ snapped Cairns. ‘Get off the line.’

  ‘There’s too many vibrations,’ warned Gould. ‘I can’t distract the creatures. They’re heading right towards you.’

  Cairns spat out a piece of glass he found in the side of his mouth.

  ‘Distract as many as you can,’ he ordered.

  Glass crunched under Cairns’s boots as he sprinted across the habitation level.

  #

  ‘That’s a big truck,’ said Coleman, tracking Bora in his rear-view mirror.

  Then he saw the twelve quad bikes. Here comes trouble.

  Like scrambling jet fighters, the quad bikes hit the floor and zoomed around Bora’s truck. The bikes were much faster than the A-frame. In seconds they drew level with King and Forest, who defensively veered the scorpion truck left and right to keep the quad bikes at a safe distance.

  Coleman tested the tray-back’s handling on the habitation level floor.

  Not promising.

  The pedestrian loop was made for shoes, not tires. He couldn’t outmaneuver the agile quad bikes in the heavily-loaded tray-back.

  He certainly couldn’t stop.

  Four quad bikes overtook the scorpion truck and powered straight towards Coleman and Vanessa. Coleman searched the route ahead. They were approaching the eastern wall fast.

  ‘We’ll have to do a lap,’ he said. ‘We can’t stop or they’ll catch us.’

  ‘They’re right behind us!’ warned Vanessa.

  ‘What’s that? Right there. What’s that in the wall?’ Coleman pointed out his window.

  ‘They’re trying to jump on the back of the truck!’ she warned.

  Coleman knew exactly what the quad bike riders were doing, but something else had hijacked his attention. ‘I know. Just listen, Vanessa. What’s that system in the recessed cage in the wall?’

  She glanced out Coleman’s window. ‘That’s an electrical substation. The main power runs behind that substation.’

  Coleman scanned the dashboard and then snatched up the CB radio. He thumbed the switch on the microphone as he began the broad right-hand turn to start his lap around the pedestrian loop. The caged electrical substation flew past on the truck’s left side.

  Please let their radio be switched on.

  ‘King, Forest, you hearing me?’

  Forest’s voice immediately came back over the dash-mounted speaker. ‘We hear you, Captain. This is a pretty crappy situation, right here.’

  ‘I need you to distract those quad bikes. Whatever it takes.’

  ‘You got it. But, Captain, you got two on your tail already.’

  Before Coleman could respond, two solid weights landed on the tray-back. Two riderless quad bikes peel away from the truck.

  ‘They’re on the back,’ squawked Vanessa, turning in the cab.

  Coleman dropped the radio and the steering wheel at the same time. ‘Take the wheel.’

  Vanessa scooted across the seat, grabbing the wheel as Coleman climbed out the window.

  ‘What’s the plan?’ She called after his heels.

  ‘Don’t stop,’ Coleman yelled back. ‘And stay out of King’s way.’

  Chapter 10

  Forest tossed the CB microphone back onto the dashboard.

  Ahead, he saw Coleman climbing out the tray-back’s driver side window. The Captain faced off against the two gunmen who had jumped onto the tray-back from the quad bikes.

  Forest and King had their own problems.

  The remaining quad bikes wove in tight patterns around the scorpion truck. Forest counted three bikes on their left, two
on the right, and at least five more right behind them.

  Worse, behind the quad bikes and gaining fast, Bora sped through the pack like a white shark charging baby seals.

  ‘They’re everywhere,’ moaned Forest. ‘How can we distract all of them?’

  King grunted, unconcerned. ‘I’ve got a surprise for them.’

  ‘What surprise?’ Forest knew trouble when he heard it. King’s capacity for creative thinking bordered on the dangerously insane. Forest suddenly wanted to swap trucks with Vanessa. ‘What do you mean? What surprise?’

  King winked at Forest. ‘You’re going to love this. Hold on.’

  Forest braced himself for god knew what.

  What’s he going to do? Trust me to pick the wrong truck.

  King yanked a control lever under the steering column. Red warning lights flared over the dashboard. Forest felt the scorpion shake as its giant legs began unfolding down either side. King released the lever when the hydraulic braces extended halfway to the ground.

  Forest was confused for a moment. Then he felt something shift in the back.

  The retracted legs had formed a cage-like barrier in the back of the truck. The barrier had been restraining something. With the legs halfway down, whatever they were carrying began shifting around.

  Forest spun and stared at the scorpion truck’s single piece of cargo.

  It was a chunk of concrete rubble the size of a big refrigerator.

  No wait….

  It wasn’t just rubble. It had steel reinforcing inside. The reinforcing bars ran through the huge chunk and ended in three heavy-duty anchor points. The anchor points all stuck from one end of the rough sphere. Thick steel cable from the mini-crane looped through these anchors.

  Forest remembered the type of testing carried out on the terrorism-proof building materials.

  Destructive testing.

  Suddenly he recognized the object.

  This was part of the equipment used to test new building products. The large uneven sphere could be accelerated into test structures to simulate structural impact damage.