1 Life 2 Die 4 (4 page)

Scrambling awkwardly to my feet, I spun away
towards the door we’d dived through, and while it slid quietly shut
I peered discreetly down, nervously checking that nothing looked
out of place.

Somewhat relieved to find everything looking
normal, I turned back to Veronica.

“Urr … how did you, um, know this place was
here?” I stammered, awkwardly trying to cover my embarrassment.
“That door was shut …”

“…until I opened it,” she interrupted
smoothly while a kind of playful half-smile flickered across her
face as if she knew exactly what I’d been trying to hide from her.
The next moment she turned away and I realised the wall behind her
was sliding sideways.

“Come on,” she called as she turned and
strode off through the opening. “They haven’t given up yet.”

My heart sank as I stepped forward, following
her through the doorway. Incredibly, with everything else that had
just happened, I’d momentarily forgotten about the lunatics with
guns!

As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I
spotted a large, squat shape crouched in the gloom ahead. While I
drew nearer, a dim light came on above us and I caught my breath.
The sleek machine oozed speed! Except for the fact that it had six
wheels instead of skis, it looked a lot like a large, unpainted
bobsled. All the surfaces I could see were bare shiny metal and I
noticed there was a section of railway line beneath it which ended
abruptly at the far wall.

How did this thing get here?

“Hop in front,” Veronica said before I had a
chance to ask.

She jumped nimbly into the back seat and as I
climbed awkwardly into the front, I was just opening my mouth to
demand some answers when I heard an explosion from behind us. My
head whipped round and I saw that the door just behind us was
closing … and that beyond it, the one we’d dived through from the
railway tunnel had just buckled inwards alarmingly! Just before the
inner door closed completely, I saw the damaged outer door topple
forward and caught a glimpse of Baseball Cap man standing behind it
with his monster gun raised towards us!

Thankfully, the next moment the gap sealed
and the inner door seemed to absorb his bullets without too much
fuss. Then the smoothest, most powerful ‘whir’ you could imagine
began building steadily beneath me, and when I turned back round I
saw that another door had opened ahead of us.

“Better buckle up and get your helmet on,”
Veronica warned. When I glanced back at her, she flashed me an
adorable smile.

I started to smile back then kinked my neck
as our ‘bobtrain’ lunged forward and I was shoved roughly back into
the padded seat. While we raced into the murky darkness of a narrow
tunnel, I had a heck of a time wrestling with my seatbelt and
helmet.

*****

5

I felt the
bobtrain veering gently to the left before a dim crack of light
appeared ahead of us and rapidly grew wider. Thankfully I’d managed
to get both my helmet and seatbelt on by the time I was close
enough to see that our small tunnel was about to merge with a
second railway tunnel. I couldn’t help thinking that if there was a
train coming along this one then I may as well have strapped myself
in with strands of spaghetti and put an eggshell on my head. The
next second we were hurtling along the empty tunnel in the
direction I estimated would take us towards Roma Street
Station.

The cool air raced past at incredible speed
and the surprisingly quiet, unbelievably powerful whir of the
‘bobtrain’ hardly had a chance to echo off the side walls before
we’d left it behind.

I twisted round as far as possible and could
just make out Veronica from the corner of my eye.

“We made it!” I shouted triumphantly. There
was no way in the world those guys were going to catch us now!

“Don’t bet on it,” she replied simply.

I couldn’t believe it - her tone left little
doubt that, as far as she was concerned, we were far from out of
the woods.

When would all this madness end?

While we rocketed onwards in silence, I felt
as deflated as a balloon in a prickly pear patch. But at least I
finally had a chance to think through everything that had happened.
Where had this gorgeous woman and those two terrifying bad guys
come from? And why had Veronica grabbed me and brought me with her?
How did she keep making these impossible escapes through doors and
tunnels which simply shouldn’t be there? Sadly, it quickly became
clear that all I had were questions.
What I needed were
answers
.

Despite the noise, and the fact that Veronica
was behind me, I was about to try asking her when the words died on
my lips. Ahead of us, the tunnel was emerging from beneath the
ground. The sunlight was blindingly bright following the dull
subterranean light I’d grown accustomed to, but it wasn’t hard to
make out a second train hurtling towards us round a slight
bend!

I expected Veronica to slam on the brakes,
but to my astonishment she did absolutely nothing. I had precious
little time to worry about it though. Unlike our foot-sprint
towards the first train, at this dizzying speed I barely had time
to close my eyes and wonder how good Brisbane’s forensic guys were
– they’d need to be absolute legends to identify our remains after
we hit the train at what would probably be a combined speed of
close to two hundred kilometres an hour!

Then I opened my eyes again and my deep sense
of relief was quickly overwhelmed by embarrassment. Our tracks had
converged beside another set … and the train had been on the
adjacent line, not ours. I was suddenly thankful Veronica couldn’t
see my face - hopefully she had no idea how petrified I’d been.

Trying to forget my embarrassment, I peered
around and realised we had to be very near Roma Street Station by
now. My mind suddenly turned to what would happen when we arrived.
There was certainly no way we were going to pull up in this thing
without attracting a mountain of unwanted attention. I was pretty
sure driving a ‘bobtrain’ along a public railway line at over a
hundred wasn’t the tiniest bit legal. Would the guards arrest us?
Would Veronica use that gun of hers if they tried? Despite some
insane line about being my wife, I still had no idea who she really
was … nor what she was capable of. The one thing I knew for sure
was that she handled that gun of hers with the self-assured
confidence of a Special Forces veteran. If people got in her way, I
was guessing there’d be casualties.
Lots of
casualties
.

Understandably, I felt immensely relieved a
couple of seconds later when the bobtrain unexpectedly veered left,
off the main track, and through yet another concealed doorway.
Moments later, I was flung forward into my racing harness as the
machine stopped on a dime. Almost immediately the room grew dim and
I glanced round to find the door swiftly sliding shut behind us. A
dull light came on above us and when I heard Veronica unbuckling
herself, I did likewise.

We both climbed out, dropping our helmets
onto the seats. As she stepped nimbly past me, her arm brushed
lightly against my chest and it felt like an electric charge passed
between us.

“Let’s go,” she said in that strangely husky
voice of hers, while she threw a sultry look over her shoulder.
Then a second, smaller door slid open ahead of us and she strode
through into a low, dimly lit corridor while I followed in a kind
of euphoric daze.

*****

6

While my head
spun, she glided ahead of me though the corridor and began climbing
a nondescript flight of stairs toward a plain grey door. Before I
got my thoughts together again, she had opened the door and we were
stepping through into a busy walkway. I estimated we must be
somewhere in the Roma Street Transit Centre – the building which
caters for railway and coach services to and from the Brisbane CBD.
A few people glanced our way but besides the lingering stares which
most of the guys gave Veronica, I was please to notice no one
seemed particularly interested in us. I glanced back when I heard
the door close behind me and was amazed to see nothing but a blank
wall. There was no handle on this side and the door’s edges were as
near invisible as you could get.

Before I had a chance to examine it more
closely, Veronica led me to the right and we melted into the crowd.
I still had a million questions but I knew a crowded area like this
wasn’t the place to be asking them. Instead, I glanced around at
the people passing by and wondered how long it would take for news
to reach them of the chaos that had erupted on Queen Street a few
minutes ago.

Then I saw him
. One second there was
a small gap in the crowd … the next he was right there, bold as
brass, bumping into a largish woman while she and a few nearby
people frowned at him in confusion. The flow of the crowd was
strong, however, so the surprised few were quickly forced on their
way. I’d heard that people never really trusted their senses when
something they believed to be impossible appeared to happen. Still,
it was bizarre watching these dazed witnesses merge back into the
crowd and continue on their way with little more than a shake of
their heads and a persistent frown to mark the unfathomable
appearance of a man from thin air. I imagined them laughing it off
later with some mates or their partners and promising they’d try to
get more sleep in future.

I was different though. Following my
experiences during the last few minutes, I was now a veteran of
‘impossible’ things, which made me far more accepting of what my
eyes told me. I nudged Veronica and nodded in the stranger’s
direction. Wearing a baggy black jacket and jeans, he had a small
moustache and was busily searching the wide, packed corridor
through eyes that brought to mind a snake’s dull, emotionless gaze.
The second Veronica spotted him she spun away and herded me in the
opposite direction. We had almost reached the exit onto Roma Street
when I felt something bump my arm and whoosh past an instant before
the sound of a gunshot reached my ears. Ducking down, I glanced at
my forearm to find blood oozing to the surface of a shallow gash. I
was lucky - a centimetre to the left and I’d have been seriously
wounded and in need of medical attention.
Twenty and I’d have
been dead
.

In a heartbeat, Veronica had her gun aimed
through the parting crowd of panicking pedestrians. When I glanced
round, I wasn’t too surprised to see brilliant flares of light
erupting from just behind us as her shield-field halted Snake Eyes’
next volley in mid-air.

The second the guy released the trigger, she
lobbed a smoke bomb over the top of her force-field and we bolted
for the street.

*****

7

Two more smoke
bombs saw us safely down the steps and across the street, racing
down Makerston towards the River. While we ran, I imagined the
Queensland Police Headquarters suddenly bursting to life on our
right … armed officers pouring onto the street from every exit to
protect us. But I knew it wasn’t likely. Nearly every last one of
them had probably evacuated a couple of minutes earlier, heading
for Post Office Square, on Queen Street. By now there’d be no one
left but a bunch of pencil pushers filling out paperwork while they
waited for retirement.

My thoughts were cut short by a strafing
burst of gunfire that sent us diving for cover behind a parked blue
Commodore. Fortunately, a quick glance back through its windows
confirmed the smoke-screen was still making it impossible for our
pursuer to get a bead on us. It had just been a shot (or more
accurately, about twenty!) in the dark.

Raising her gun above roof level, Veronica
returned the gesture, rather eloquently impressing upon Snake Eyes
that he should probably think twice before plunging through the
smoke-screen after us. She was still firing as she dragged me to my
feet and we sprinted off down the street.

Seconds later, we swerved left onto North
Quay and began weaving our way to the other side through thick
streams of traffic. Fortunately, everything was almost at a
standstill, the interest created by our smokescreens having added
the killer punch to an already sluggish stream of afternoon
commuters. Before long we were two blocks down and heading onto
Kurilpa Bridge, one of two CBD pedestrian overpasses spanning the
wide, silt-laden city reaches of the Brisbane River. Following our
mad sprint, I was breathing heavily and it looked like a
particularly long way to the other side. Beside me, however,
Veronica seemed as relaxed as ever while she glided along, her wary
eyes darting about us in search of danger.

As we sprinted along the gentle incline and I
looked across at GoMA (the Gallery of Modern Art) on the opposite
bank, our run of luck finally ended. I heard the whoosh of the
missile moments before I realized its laser was painting the back
of my hoodie! And I panicked. I could clearly remember what one of
its mates had done to that solid metal bus back in Queen Street.
Now this one was coming for me at about the speed of sound and I
was betting the thin fabric of my hoodie wouldn’t lessen the impact
anywhere near as much as the bus had!

Instinctively (and quite pointlessly,
considering I had never run faster than the speed of sound before)
I sped up. Thankfully, Veronica had her brain switched on and
quickly dragged me to a halt. I felt her ripping at my clothes, but
despite having already day-dreamed of something tantalisingly
similar, I found my excitement lessened considerably by the nasty
little son-of-a-sidewinder screaming towards me.

A moment later, she had my hoodie off and was
hurling it up and out over the River. We hit the deck and the
hoodie barely had a chance to begin its long descent before the
tiny missile rocketed past a mere metre above our heads and sent it
to hoodie-hell in a raging ball of flames.