1 Life 2 Die 4 (13 page)

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.

Now that we had moved out from the cover of
the balcony, I looked round and my heart sank - the section of wall
that had forced us out here wasn’t the only one that had appeared.
Another one led away at right-angles from the first one, blocking
our way back under the balcony for another four metres or so. We
began shuffling towards the far end of that section, bullets still
slamming loudly into our shield with every step. Then I blinked as
another section of wall appeared next to the second one, blocking
off a further four metres! Before I could say anything, another
appeared beyond it … then another … and another!

By now, alarm bells were ringing deafeningly
in my head as I watched the wall spread away from us like it was
nothing more than a huge computer graphic being copied and pasted
across a screen! On a sudden whim, I snatched up a nearby chair and
swung it hard at the wall beside us. Perhaps it wasn’t actually as
solid as it looked…

Bad idea. The chair rebounded and almost
knocked me over. The vibrations jarred my wrists and elbows and
rattled my teeth till I thought they would drop out! That was
certainly no computer graphic! And there was no way we were getting
through it without either a big wad of C4 or a very large
bulldozer.

Feeling dumb, I dropped the chair and did my
best to avoid eye contact with Veronica, focussing instead on the
rapidly-growing wall which was progressively cutting off our way
back under cover. Then movement to the right caught my eye and I
looked round to find a second wall was growing along the far side
of the food hall! Almost as fast as my eyes could follow, the
sections of magically appearing wall swiftly closed in on each
other from opposite sides.

Moments later, they met, completely blocking
our way forwards!

“Time to retreat,” I whispered nervously. But
when I turned back I got an even bigger shock: the same thing had
obviously been happening behind us! The mysterious wall now ran all
the way round the edge of the open food court, completely sealing
us inside!

“I feel like a Christian waiting for the
lions to be released,” I breathed nervously, even more acutely
aware that if anyone appeared up on the opposite balconies, we’d
have no chance out here with only a single shield to protect
us.

It didn’t help my nerves when I peered back
at Snake Eyes and noticed his mouth moving as if he was talking to
someone. A split second later, Veronica glanced up and yanked me
sideways as a lump of rock the size of my head smashed into the
tiled floor right where I’d been standing!

“That probably would’ve hurt,” I whispered
dryly, trying my best to appear cool, calm and collected while my
heart raced. Then I glanced up and nearly had a heart attack -
directly above us, a boulder the size of a large refrigerator was
dropping towards us in much the same way that a large refrigerator
would drop towards us!

Without a word Veronica lunged forwards,
dragging me with her.

A moment later, I glanced back and saw the
mammoth boulder smash onto the tables and chairs we’d bolted past,
the flimsy furniture disintegrating as the rock pulverised it into
the floor. Powerful vibrations rippled up through my feet like the
shockwave from an earthquake, and for a moment I thought the
boulder might continue on through into the lower level, perhaps
even cracking the floor enough to send us down with it.

But somehow the floor held.

Relieved to still be alive, I looked up and
blanched when I saw another boulder, even bigger than the last,
dropping towards the floor ahead of us. We veered sharply away,
further out into the open, and watched in awe as the monolith
crushed a steel drink vending machine like it was nothing more than
a single flimsy aluminium Coke can! Once again, powerful shockwaves
rippled out across the reinforced concrete floor, this time
accompanied by geysers of brown, fizzing Coke gushing out across
the floor.

When I tore my attention from the
devastation, I realised we were getting ourselves deeper into
trouble. The tables and chairs were more densely packed out here in
the middle of the food court, and Veronica was finding it
increasingly difficult to navigate through them with the
riot-shield.

Without warning, she stopped and whipped out
that vicious looking pistol of hers. In the blink of an eye she’d
levelled it round the side of the shield at Snake Eyes and fired.
At the same time, I glanced up and saw something dropping towards
us again, but this time it was so big it took me a moment to
register what it was. When I did, my jaw nearly hit the floor. An
entire four by two-and-a-half metre section of concrete wall, like
the ones that had trapped us in here, was falling towards us on its
side!

Without hesitation, Veronica dropped the
shield and we bolted through a gap in the tables, hurling ourselves
forwards, diving as far as we could and praying we wouldn’t feel
the crushing weight of the concrete slab flattening our legs behind
us like blobs of Playdough under a sledgehammer.

Ironically, after having slowed us down so
much, the thing that saved us was all the furniture. Its combined
strength slowed the slab’s fall by the extra three or four
milliseconds we needed to get our feet completely clear. As I hit
the floor and slid, I heard multiple metal rods snapping and
groaning and the crunch of wood dissolving into splintered dust.
Then a gush of air hit me and an enormous
boooommmm
echoed
through the cavernous open area.

We were alive, but I wasn’t about to
celebrate. In the instant after the impact I couldn’t help thinking
our escape was pointless. Snake Eyes must already be taking aim,
preparing to fill us with lead now that our shield – our only
protection - lay crushed beneath the section of wall! If Veronica
was three times as fast as I thought, she might be able to fire up
her shield-field in time to save herself. But I knew it was game
over for me. I was simply too far away for her to protect me as
well.

Hell … even if we didn’t get shot, with the
help of Snake Eyes’ directions they’d be sending another of those
humungous slabs down on top of us any moment now!

I knew we were done for. Yet I rolled to the
side as fast as I could, determined to make it as hard as possible
for Sahisi. I was already on my feet when I registered that not
only were there no bullets ripping through my body, but the whole
area had descended into an eerie silence.

Confused, I flicked my eyes up to Snake Eyes
… and saw a motionless arm pressed awkwardly against the bottom of
the glass railing where he’d been standing. It took a second for my
brain to catch up with everything … then I realised: Veronica’s
single, hurried shot must have caught him off-guard and found its
mark, leaving Snake Eyes stretched out on the ground, where all
good snakes belonged.

“Awesome shot,” I complemented her. “What do
we do n…?”

The rest of my question was drowned amidst a
tremendous din like rolling thunder. Amidst the roar, I felt the
floor tremble beneath my feet as if a frightening number of very
heavy, very hard objects were slamming into things and doing untold
damage to them.

When I spun round, I was confronted by one of
the most astonishing sights I’d ever witnessed. At the far end of
the walled in area, a row of rocks the size of basketballs lay
embedded in the floor, all the way from one side to the other,
amidst shattered chunks of furniture; while above them, and
slightly closer to us, a second row of similar rocks was plummeting
toward the next line of tables and chairs. A second later, when
this second row impacted and sent pieces of mangled furniture
flying about through the air, another row was already dropping from
above and just ahead of the previous one. When I looked up, I saw
yet another row materialise three storeys above and begin its
lethal descent. Each row was perhaps half-a-metre closer to us than
the previous one, leaving no hiding space untouched.

The entire walled-in area was being
systematically sterilised!

“Come on,” Veronica yelled above the
deafening racket. But I was already moving, having cleverly worked
out all by myself that we needed to get away from the plummeting
lines of deadly boulders!

I’d never seen or heard anything like it in
my life. Whenever I threw a glance over my shoulder, there were
always about four rows of boulders stretching right across the
plaza, each at a different stage of their descent. And as soon as
one row smashed into the floor, another would appear about eight
metres up and half a metre closer, to begin its deadly dive. It
gave the disturbing impression of a massive wave of destruction
bearing down on us as we bolted towards the far wall. And I knew
that when the wave of rock reached that wall, nothing would be left
alive anywhere within the walled-in food court!

I could easily guess why it was happening.
Having lost Snake Eyes’ updates on our position, but knowing we
were trapped inside the walled-in area, Sahissi had decided on the
far less subtle approach of obliterating absolutely
everything
within the walls. And right now I couldn’t help
thinking he was doing a damned impressive job of it!

I felt a glimmer of hope as a sudden thought
occurred to me: perhaps he would run out of energy before he
completed his methodical demolition. Then movement up to our left
caught my eye and I swore. It wouldn’t matter anyway: running along
the second floor balcony was a hulking figure with an almost bald
head and a gun that looked as if a tank driver somewhere must be
wondering who’d stolen his cannon. Baseball Cap Man had found us
again!

*****

20

As we sprinted away from the mind-numbing roar of the
lethal wave of rock, I watched Baseball Cap Man smile and raise his
enormous gun towards us. Just our luck - apparently he was one of
those proactive types who liked to dive straight in and get the job
done! I’d hoped he might at least kick back and wait to see if his
bosses plan worked first. Instead, he was taking full advantage of
the fact that we were restricted to running flat out in a
dead-straight line to avoid being caught and flattened like
road-kill by the unending cascade of boulders. It was hard to
believe things had just gotten worse, but they had. A child could
probably have made the shot (though the entire under-tens footy
team wouldn’t have had a chance in Hell of handling that
ludicrously over-sized weapon of his!)