Fast (50 page)

            But she wasn’t going to make it. Bora’s A-frame maneuvered alarmingly well with a driver at both ends. Vanessa’s small gap was disappearing. No amount of wild driving could fit a square peg through a round hole.

            Coleman prepared to clamber over the cab and into the tray. He could see she needed to slow down to avoid another collision with the A-frame, but she wasn’t slowing.

            He peered at her through the
windshield
, expecting to see the panicked expression of a person speeding towards an inevitable high-speed accident. Vanessa only looked determined.

            Coleman glanced back and saw the southern end of the arcade was now completely blocked.

            She can’t mean to ram the A-frame! She’ll squash me!

            Coleman felt himself pressed towards the windshield as Vanessa laid on more speed.

            The tray-back was heading straight towards the corner of the arcade.

            At the last moment, Vanessa swerved the tray-back and
crashed
ram-raider-style through the glass front of a clothing boutique. The thin shop-glass crashed over Coleman’s back, and then Coleman was riding the bucking tray-back as it ploughed through the boutique.

            Hardly slowing, she bulldozed through the shop. A stand of display shoes exploded off the left fender. Shoes rained down over Coleman. A family of naked mannequins tumbled over the hood.

            Coleman had just recovered from the first impact when Vanessa smashed clean through a second glass wall. They were back out on the pedestrian loop, ahead of Bora!

            Coleman shook off the glass and kicked away a naked manikin torso hitching a ride beside him.

            The breakneck maneuver had given them an extra ten meters on the A-frame.

            Where on earth had she learned to drive like that?
Coleman dismissed any doubts about Vanessa’s skills behind the wheel. She was driving like a woman with a misspent youth. Coleman remembered the cry from inside the truck and tried to see if she’d been injured. He couldn’t tell, but from his vantage on the hood, Coleman saw three quad bikes buzzing through the arcade. Bora maneuvered the A-frame to ram them again. King and Forest were picking up speed and approaching at an intercept angle across the pedestrian loop, still dragging the massive wrecking ball.

            If Bora moved the A-frame up beside Vanessa, he could easily pin the tray-back against the wall.

            Why doesn’t she cut right while she still had a clear path? She could cross in front of Bora and get away from the solid wall.

            ‘Vanessa!’ he yelled through the windshield. ‘Cut right. Cut right!’

            But she didn’t answer. She was ignoring him! She was talking into the CB radio microphone while she steered the racing tray-back in a straight line along the wall. She had to be talking to Forest and King.

            Coleman peered through the windshield, trying to see what she was planning. The next corner of the habitation level was approaching fast, so she needed to act in the next few critical seconds.

            Vanessa tossed the radio mike back onto the dashboard and nodded towards the scorpion truck.

            Coleman followed her nod. Instantly, everything became clear.

            Their intent was unmistakable. Not to mention crazy. It had to be King’s idea.

            Vanessa was driving
into
the wrecking ball’s path. King was veering the scorpion truck so the wrecking ball described a huge bouncing arc towards the tray-back and the A-frame.

            Off the top of his head, Coleman saw two problems. The tray-back was squarely in the wrecking ball’s path, and Vanessa couldn’t brake to avoid the oncoming wrecking ball with Coleman perched on the hood. If she hit the brakes, Coleman would go flying off the hood. Coleman’s precarious position was about to doom them both.

            Coleman read her lips through the windshield.

            Jump.

            Coleman jumped – dove – over the cab. Vanessa hit the brakes. They couldn’t have stalled the maneuver a second longer.

            The tray-back’s brakes squealed. The wrecking ball was right on top of them. It was a solid grey storm cloud sweeping into Coleman’s peripheral vision. It even sounded like thunder. Careening towards the braking tray-back, it seemed to blot out half the level.

            As Coleman flew through the air, the moment seemed charged with deadly energy.

            The wrecking ball bounced up, clipped the front of the tray-back, and then
sheared
through Bora’s cab.

            At the same moment, Coleman landed on the terrorist just finding his feet on the webbing. Crashing into the man mid-flight, Coleman’s shoulder drove into the man’s kidneys. The impact completely threw off his trajectory.

            Instead of landing in the tray, Coleman just caught himself on the edge. His body thumped down. His legs and hips slipped over the side. His boots touched the floor and instantly tore out from under him. The tray-back was still moving too fast to find his footing.

            Only the pinch bar had saved him. The hooked end had snagged in the webbing. Coleman snatched another handful of webbing. Now he had one hand on the pinch bar and the other holding the webbing.

            The terrorist hadn’t fared much better. Vanessa’s sudden braking had violently shifted the river stones. The man’s left leg had slipped through the webbing. He had been pinned up to the knee when the stones slid up the tray. The man grasped the pick handle. He grunted as he yanked the pick head free from the cab.

            Coleman’s eyes widened as the man pivoted.

           
Oh, shit!

            He had nowhere to move. If he climbed up the tray, he would be climbing straight into an attack. When he looked up, the pick was already racing towards his head.

            Stone shards spattered over his face as the pinned terrorist’s attack fell just short. Blinking away the stone fragments, Coleman tried to get a better grip on the webbing and keep his legs from dragging under the tray-back’s rear wheels.

            The terrorist repositioned his hands on the pick handle, gaining more range, and swung again. This time the attack was right on target.

            Clinging desperately to the side of the tray-back, Coleman watched the pick race through the air towards his head.

#

Bora sat up in the wreckage of the A-frame’s cab.

            Filthy bastards!

            He groped at the steering wheel. The wheel felt stiff. The steering was misaligned. Bracing himself, he managed to steer the giant A-frame away from the wall. The scientist had lured him straight into the path of the wrecking ball.

            The cement ball had sheered away three-quarters of his cab. The passenger side door, the roof, the windshield - everything was ripped away in a second of screaming metal. Bora had been so focused on cutting off the tray-back that he noticed the wrecking ball too late. The ball came literally within an arm’s length of pasting him against the wall.

            Everything had been torn from the cab. Everything except his seat and the steering wheel. Only the driver’s actions from the rear cab had prevented Bora’s forward cab from being completely wiped out. The man must have slammed on the brakes at the last moment.

            Bora saw the cab-to-cab intercom was intact. He thumbed the button.

            ‘Good work,’ he said the rear cab operator. ‘They almost had me.’

            ‘I thought you were dead!’ came the startled reply from the rear cab.

            Bora didn’t answer. He searched over his shoulder, looking for his target. The scorpion truck pulled away, keeping its dangerous payload in motion. The tray-back passed up the inside length between the A-frame and the solid habitation level wall. The Marine riding the hood had fallen and was hanging over the side of the tray.

            He wouldn’t last long. A gunman stood in the tray. He had a pick. The pick already raced towards the Marine’s head.

           
Just in case
, thought Bora, swinging his wheel hard to the left. The A-frame swerved into the tray-back. The gap between the vehicles disappeared with a bone-crushing sideswipe. More debris shook away from Bora’s damaged cab. As the trucks came apart, Bora saw the tray-back veer away without the Marine.

           
About time
, thought Bora, checking his mirror for the body. The mangled pile of flesh should be rolling behind the truck any time now.

            There was no body rolling behind the truck.

            Where is he?

            He hit the ‘talk’ button on the intercom. ‘Did you see that Marine’s body fall away?’

            ‘No, sir.’

            Bora felt his top lip twitch in irritation. ‘Go out and check that he’s dead. He must be crushed back there somewhere.’

            ‘Yes, sir.’

            Bora felt the steering change as the rear operator shifted full control to the front cab.

           
Just in case
, thought Bora, scanning the A-frame’s platform in the mirror.
No more assumptions until these Marines are all dead at my feet.

            Suddenly the rear cab operator blurted over the intercom, ‘Look out ahead!’

            Bora snapped his attention forwards again.

            A maelstrom of creatures came swarming out of the administration hub.

            They scrambled straight into the A-frame’s path and lunged towards the tray-back. The lighter tray-back swerved through the pack of creatures. It barely avoided a dozen grasping tentacles.

            Bora was driving too fast to maneuver like the tray-back. The A-frame was too heavy. The pack of creatures formed into a solid mass of grasping tentacles directly in the A-frame’s driving line.

            He only had one choice.

            Bora grabbed the steering wheel with both hands, braced his legs in the wrecked cab, and then held on tight as he ploughed the A-frame truck straight into the writhing pack of creatures.

#

Cairns leapt agilely onto the fountain.

            He surveyed his makeshift roadblock.

            Unhitched from the electric cart, the heavy pallets had been lined up either side of the fountain. In the gaps between the pallets idled six quad bikes.

            As the last pallet rolled into place, Cairns critically surveyed their arrangement.

            It should be enough.

            He had a simple plan.
Stop the tray-back at any cost.

            About to bark out more orders, he noticed the water in the fountain near his boots. It was moving. Shuddering. The surface of the water was turbulent and uneven. As he watched, the water started rapidly shaking.

            Something is wrong here.