1 Life 2 Die 4 (12 page)

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.

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!