1 Life 2 Die 4 (8 page)

“Even in the midst of my rage, it felt like
the most romantic proposal ever,” she whispered. “You were telling
me that even at my absolute worst, you still loved me … still
wanted to spend the rest of your life with me!”

In the blink of an eye, Veronica’s intensely
blissful expression unexpectedly became a devastated grimace. For a
moment, I thought she was about to cry. Instead she lowered her
head and peered silently down at her lap for what seemed like an
eternity.

I still didn’t know what to say, so I kept
quiet. How the heck’s a kid supposed to respond when a gorgeous
woman he’s only just met explains how he proposed to her?! It was
insane!

In desperation, I resorted to the age old
(and terribly lame) tactic of changing the subject.

“Veronica - who the hell are all these dorks
chasing after you?”

Although she continued staring silently down
at her lap, I could almost hear her brain change gear. When she
glanced up at me, her beautiful lips were now set in a thin,
determined line.

“Government assassins who’ll do anything to
see you dead.”

Despite the fact that she was obviously
making all of this up, I blanched.

“What?!” I asked incredulously. “
Me?
Why would they want
me
dead? What did I ever do to
them?”

Veronica threw me a proud smile.

“Because you spearheaded the defeat of Salim
Sahissi, the inaugural president of the UNE.”

“The what?” I asked incredulously, feeling my
feeble grip on reality weakening further.

“The UNE … the United Nations of Earth – the
governing body for the unified nations of our world. Less than
fifteen years from now, all the countries of the world will finally
be united under a single government – the UNE. The unification will
be driven primarily by deep financial turmoil across the globe, the
seeds of which were sown back in the ‘07 World Financial Crisis.
This new government structure will be created primarily to allow a
more uniform system of trade between countries and a fairer
treatment of workers throughout the world – a bit like the failed
European Economic Union, but with greatly improved guidelines and
on a far larger, global scale.”

I could only stare at her in stunned
disbelief. She seemed to have entered a whole new realm of
self-deception!
Could she really believe all this
stuff?

“In truth,” she continued, apparently failing
to notice my look of utter disbelief, “it’s really more of a
technical restructuring than any truly revolutionary change.
Countries even get to retain their own Governmental organisation,
as well as their Heads of State. None-the-less, it allows
unprecedented power to be focussed under a single individual – the
President of the UNE. And despite incredibly rigorous checks, the
very first person to hold this influential position, Salim Sahissi,
uses that power to gradually seize control of the entire
planet.”

My mind was well and truly reeling now. When
I eventually spoke, I decided to pretend I was discussing the plot
of a movie to avoid dealing with the fact that she obviously
believed every crazy word she’d spoken.

“But how could one guy possibly take control
of the entire world without super-powers like the US and China
moving against him?” I asked sceptically.

“I can assure you that’s a question one hell
of a lot of people have asked since!” she told me bitterly. “Put
simply, he’s unbelievably brilliant and cunning, an adept master of
political deception, and bereft of the slightest hint of morals.
Too late, people discovered he’d conducted a host of cleverly
orchestrated secret meetings with various Federal Governments
around the world. And that he’d managed to shrewdly draw on the bad
blood and hatred littering the past few thousand years of our
World’s history to manipulate groups of nations with common,
deep-seated animosities to play them off against one other. While
he was promising one group he’d further their interests by eroding
the power of their long-time enemies, if only they kept their
forces at bay, he was secretly promising the opposing parties the
exact same thing.”

“That’s one hell of a juggling act,” I said
dubiously.

“Exactly,” she responded evenly, still
ignoring my scepticism. “Before anyone realised they’d been duped
by the biggest con in history, he and his supporters had seized
control of every nuclear weapons arsenal in the world.” She paused
and swallowed hard before resuming in a strangled voice. “Then,
simply to make the point that any attempt to stop him would be most
unwelcome, he wiped New York, Washington, Bejing, London, Paris,
Berlin, Capetown, Rio de Janeiro … and Brisbane, completely off the
face of the map.” A tear trickled down her lovely cheek. “Over one
hundred and seventy million people lost their lives in a single day
… and about three hundred million others were left inhabiting
radioactive wastelands, with little chance of surviving even a few
short years.”

I goggled at her. What a story! It was just
as I’d feared - the woman was a certified loony! Worse still, for
some unknown reason she’d chosen me to share her insane visions
with!

And yet, far too much had happened for me to
so simply discount her crazy tale. Hell, at that very moment I was
sitting in a car that any major automotive manufacturer would have
killed to get their hands on - a car that looked to be years ahead
of even the most advanced concept cars in existence! And what about
the bobtrain, and that fat hog of a bike?
If she was feeding me
a lie, then what the hell was really going on?

“So you’re from the Future?” I asked
weakly.

“Yes – 2031.”

“And w …” I had to stop to clear my throat.
“We’re … married?”

“Yes,” she replied, her voice sounding oddly
dull all of a sudden.

I blinked. There it was again – that
haunting, hollow kind of sadness I kept noticing.

“And I stop this guy … Salim, what’s his
name?”

“Sahissi … yes. You create a computer virus
that’s able to infiltrate the World’s defence networks and put most
of the World’s nuclear launch stations off-line.”

My eyes widened in shock. If she was making
this up, she was either very lucky or she knew more about me than
I’d realised. I had always been fascinated by computer viruses. I’d
done stacks of research on them and written quite a few myself -
though I never went for any of that sociopathic
‘wipe-the-hard-drive, wreak-havoc’ kind of stuff. I just got a kick
out of discovering a way past on-line security systems, the way
some people get a thrill from finding a way past their opponent’s
defences in a game of Chess. It was just a bit of harmless fun.

I’d certainly never dreamed it could lead to
anything as monumental as saving the world from a madman!

This whole thing was just way too crazy. I
had to be missing something. Then, all at once, it came to me: this
had to be some kind of elaborate setup! Some complex new ‘reality’
TV show. At this very moment, millions of people world-wide were
probably watching me and laughing their heads off! I thought back
over all the things I’d seen and it wasn’t hard to see that this
was a far more likely explanation than the outrageous alternative
Veronica was proposing.

Yes! There had to be a colossal movie crew
working feverishly behind the scenes across the Brisbane CBD. That
would explain the inexplicable tunnels and rooms we kept
encountering. And I had no doubt special effects crews could have
been responsible for the various machines, explosions and stunts
I’d seen and been involved in. The bikie woman I’d witnessed being
cut in two was probably nothing more than a spookily life-like,
‘Myth Busters’-style ballistics gel dummy, pumped full of fake
blood!

The more I thought about it all - including
the smouldering Goddess sitting next to me and claiming I was her
dream-guy - the more I realised this had to be a setup. And I was
suddenly determined to prove it.

“So how the hell do these doors just keep
miraculously popping open for you all the time?” Although I tried
to sound merely curious, I knew straight away I’d failed. Even to
my own ears, I sounded like a prosecution lawyer cross-examining an
uncooperative witness.

I was caught completely off guard when she
smiled calmly across at me, almost as if she’d shared a private
joke with someone. Then her teeth separated slightly and I saw her
tongue twist over until the tip pressed against one of her lower
molars. Despite my determination to find answers, I felt my will
fail and my heartbeat accelerate as I peered past her glossy red
lips and sparkling white teeth into the moist, sensual darkness of
her mouth. Then she drew her tongue back from her tooth and I
jumped at the sound of the engine roaring to life just a few inches
behind me! On top of everything else, I felt a thrill of excitement
at the raw power vibrating through the back of the seat and
reverberating throughout the tiny chamber. I’d been right about one
thing – this sophisticated little mini-car obviously had tonnes of
grunt!

I watched Veronica’s open-mouthed grin
spread. Then, still without a word, she opened her mouth a little
wider as if urging me to peer inside again. For a split second I
found myself imagining leaning over and sealing my lips over hers
in a passionate kiss. If I was going to be the butt of some reality
TV joke, surely I deserved to at least get something worthwhile out
of it. I felt furious when I realised I simply couldn’t bring
myself to be so brazen.

Shaking myself back to reality, I saw that
her tongue was now resting on the molar directly above the one it
had touched earlier. As my frown deepened, she separated tongue
from tooth and the engine abruptly died.

In the deep silence that followed, I found
myself staring dumbly back at her, concerned that this seemed to be
turning into an embarrassing habit of mine.

“I’ve had quite a bit of dental work,” she
informed me. “Rather unconventional dental work, as you’re probably
guessing.”

“Your teeth are
switches
?” I asked
incredulously.

She smiled widely, proudly displaying them to
me.

“Exactly - thermal switches. I turn the
system on by touching a series of teeth in a particular order. Each
tooth senses the change in temperature and the correct sequence
puts the whole system into ‘active’ mode. Then I can touch my
tongue to the one I want and it goes to ‘standby’ mode. As soon as
I pull it away, the switch detects the temperature change and sends
out an encrypted radio signal.”

And I’d thought things couldn’t possibly get
any more bizarre! If I was to believe Veronica, she could open and
close doors, turn motors on and off - and who knew what else -
without lifting a finger! All it took was a few subtle movements of
her tongue!

“You’d want to make sure you didn’t get mixed
up,” I pointed out, imagining her trying to open a door to escape
those goons and forgetting which tooth to use.

She grinned suddenly. “While I was training,
I actually did forget a couple of times,” she admitted. “That’s why
they put in a failsafe. If I ever forget which switch to use, I can
trigger the top two front teeth simultaneously, three times within
two seconds, and all receivers within ten metres are automatically
activated.” She paused for a moment before adding: “Of course, it’s
not a great idea if there’s any chance a remotely detonated bomb is
planted nearby!”

I smiled stiffly, wondering whether there
were any around here and wondering how easy it would be for her to
accidentally touch her two front teeth with her tongue three times
in two seconds!

Then my cynical streak returned. How could I
possibly believe such craziness? There had to be some techie-guy on
the TV special effects team watching us on hidden cameras and
activating things remotely.

“So what about all these hidden rooms and
tunnels?” I asked, changing tack and still determined to catch her
out. “How did they get there? And how do you know about them?”

That same secretive smile touched her lips
yet again.

“They were manufactured at a covert military
factory in the Simpson Desert, in the Australian Outback, then sent
back through time during the early hours of this morning,” she
replied matter-of-factly. Her smile spread into a broad grin. “And
I know where they are because you told me.”

I frowned disappointedly. If she was here to
deceive me, she’d certainly come prepared. She seemed to have all
the answers … and they were consistently the last ones I
expected!

“What do you mean
I
told you about
them?”

Her smile became suddenly mischievous.

“Well surely you don’t think that after we
got married we just lay in bed kissing all the time?” she asked
innocently, and I felt my face flush yet again. “Believe it or not,
we actually used to talk every now and then. And for some reason,
the events of today always seemed to be one of your favourite
topics.”

I gave her what was fast becoming my
trademark, dumbfounded stare. Yet again, her story seemed vaguely
plausible – I could certainly imagine that if I survived today then
I would have a hard time not telling absolutely everyone I knew
about the incredible things that had happened to me!

Amidst my confusion, I felt terribly
frustrated. Despite her whole argument being wildly outlandish and
seeming to run in circles, I still couldn’t put my finger on any
particular flaw that I could use to disprove it once and for all.
If I was going to catch her out, I obviously needed to think of
some better questions that might reveal a more serious flaw in her
story. Before I had a chance to try, however, something about her
expression yanked me from my thoughts. When I focussed on her face,
the smile had disappeared and she looked utterly gutted.