Combustion (16 page)

‘Second lesson! When you pedal, push down hard to stay balanced.’ Corey does it and they pick up speed. Judd turns them towards the wreck of a semitrailer twenty metres away. If they can reach it, it might offer them some cover.
If.
Spike gallops ahead.

Tyres screech. Judd looks back, sees the Prius swerve around the burning SUV and head straight towards them.

~ * ~

Kilroy watches the two men on bikes. Interestingly, one doesn’t seem to know how to ride and is held steady by the other - not something you see very often. They furiously pedal towards a wrecked semitrailer because, Kilroy guesses, they think it will offer them some cover.

It won’t. He mashes the pedal and the Prius surges forward. With the car running on battery power its acceleration is swift, much better than with the petrol engine.

~ * ~

The wreck is close, but is it close enough? Corey hears the thrum of the hybrid engine behind him. He glances back.

The car is three metres away!
Jeez!
Fear twists in his chest. Who’d have thought a
Prius
could be so menacing?

Judd yanks him right, pulls him behind the wreck as the Prius whips past. Its bumper grazes Corey’s back tyre and the bike wobbles violently, but he pushes hard on the pedals and keeps balance.

‘The gap in the wall!’ Judd nods at the right side of the freeway. There’s a narrow service gap in the cement retaining wall three lanes away, wide enough for a bike but too small for a car.

Corey ups his pace. ‘Okay. I got this.’

‘You sure?’

‘Bloody oath.’

‘I have no idea what that means.’

‘It means you can let go now.’

Judd lets go and aims for the gap, the Australian follows and Spike bounds ahead of them both.

The Prius’s tyres screech on the bitumen, but Corey has no idea where the car is. He’s too focused on getting to that gap -

Wham.
‘Jeez!’ Corey looks back. The Prius’s nose has slammed into his rear wheel. The bike shudders, wobbles violently, but he hangs on and keeps it upright.

The gap in the wall is close. The dog bounds through it, then Judd follows. They disappear from view.

Wham.
The Prius hits Corey’s rear wheel again, but this time it propels the bike forward and he spears through the gap to safety.

Or not.

‘Sweet Jesus!’

The ground drops away like it’s the Grand Canyon and suddenly Corey’s airborne, ten metres above a steep, grassy hill, his bike’s gears clicking as it freewheels through space.

He has time to turn and watch the Prius slam into the cement retaining wall. Then he looks forward to see where he’s headed. The hill is thirty metres long and ends abruptly at a steep drop-off to another road three metres below.

Spike slides down the hill and reaches the drop off. Hard as he tries he can’t stop himself from sliding over the edge, so he jumps and lands nimbly on the road below. Next, Judd lands his bike just before the drop-off, then, like one of those Red Bull stunt rider guys, jumps again and lands safely on the road too.

As Corey’s bike arcs through the air he realises he’s not travelling fast enough to land
beyond
the drop-off and not slow enough to land
before
it. That big nudge from the Prius has increased his pace just enough so the bike comes down right
on top
of the dropoff, after which it will flip or snap or do God knows what.

He pulls back on the handlebars and tries to alter the bike’s trajectory.

It doesn’t work.

He then pedals hard, thinks that might increase his speed.

It just looks silly.

Now what?

He lets go of the bike and watches it fly away as he falls to earth.

The bike lands right on the drop-off and violently flips onto the road as expected. A split second later Corey slams into the hill, back first.

Crunch.
His head thumps the ground and rattles his teeth.
Jeez-it-hurts!
He slides towards the edge, snatches at the ground to stop himself going over -

Slam.
He catches hold of a clump of grass and jerks to a halt, right at the edge. He takes a deep breath. His head vibrates like a tuning fork and his back aches from the impact but he’s in one piece. Groggy, he looks over the edge at Judd and Spike on the road below. ‘I really didn’t enjoy that —’

‘Move!’ Judd frantically points back up the hill.

‘Huh?’ Corey turns to see the slab of cement retaining wall the Prius hit slide down the slope - directly towards him. ‘Oh, man!’ He pulls himself up, but he’s slow. His back screams and his head feels light and he slumps back down to the grass.

Spike barks.

‘I’m trying!’

The cement slab picks up speed. It’s the size of a single bed and must weigh a tonne.

Judd watches it. ‘Get up, man!’

‘I said I’m trying!’ Corey wobbles to his feet and the slab’s
right there.
He jumps awkwardly and it thunders under him, flips off the edge and shatters on the road below.

Corey crumples to the grass. ‘Jesuschweppes.’

‘Come on. We gotta go!’ Judd’s voice is low but firm, his eyes pinned to the Prius at the top of the hill.

Corey raises his head, concerned. ‘Is Ponytail coming?’

‘Not yet, but I don’t want to be here when he does.’

‘Can you see him?’

‘No, that’s why I want to get going! Hurry up.’

Corey slides over the edge and drops down to the road as Judd quickly picks up his bike. It’s scratched and dinged and the seat is skew-whiff but otherwise appears functional. He straightens the seat and presents it to the Australian. ‘She’ll be all right.’

‘It’s “she’ll be right” -’

‘Just get on the friggin’ bike.’

Corey does it. ‘I’m really getting the hang of this —’ The bike instantly keels over and Judd catches him. Corey takes a moment to compose himself. ‘Maybe I should walk.’

Judd’s eyes flick back to the Prius. ‘We don’t have that much time. Come on.’ The astronaut grabs his own bike and they ride away. Corey wobbles violently.

Spike follows, lets out a sharp bark.

‘I’ll put training wheels on
you
if you don’t zip it.’ Corey picks up speed then finds his balance.

They ride on.

Judd looks back at the Prius one more time, sees no sign of Ponytail, then pulls the iPhone from his rear pocket, swipes it open and dials Rhonda. He’s hoping word of what’s happened in Los Angeles has reached her flight and it’s been diverted to another city, which hopefully isn’t experiencing the same problems. Her phone rings and rings - then goes through to voicemail.

‘Damn it.’ He hangs up, prays she’s okay.

~ * ~

22

The Southwest Boeing 737 rips across the deep blue empyrean at forty-one thousand feet.

Rhonda Jacolby sips a bottle of water and reads the
Atlantis 4
screenplay on her iPad. She laughs then shakes her head, incredulous: ‘Fuckin’ Hollywood.’ She turns to Severson to discuss the outrageous liberties the screenwriter has taken with their story, but, with his headphones and eye mask on and his mouth half open, he’s clearly asleep. She turns and looks out the window -

‘What the hell?’ She leans forward and focuses on the turbofan attached to the aircraft’s wing. The exhaust has a light purple tint to it. She works the touchscreen of the entertainment unit built into the headrest of the seat in front of her then swipes through the various menus until she pulls up four windows that show different views of the aircraft’s exterior, including the engines. Yes, a light purple exhaust billows from
both
engines.

She elbows Severson. ‘Wake up.’

He turns away, unhappy at being disrupted. ‘Sleeping.’

She elbows him again. ‘Now, Buttercup.’

‘Be nice. I saved your life six months ago.’

Rhonda grits her teeth. The fact that it was
Severson,
of all people, who saved her and Judd and Corey outside the Imax Theatre is a source of deep annoyance to her. She sends in another elbow. ‘You need to see this.’

Severson pushes up his eye mask, annoyed. ‘Omigod,
Na
gatha Christie,
what?’

She points at the touchscreen. ‘What’s going on here?’

He blinks rapidly and takes a moment to focus on it. ‘What? Oh. Is that - why is that - is that purple?’

‘Ever seen anything like it?’

He shakes his head, unnerved. ‘Never.’

Rhonda turns and sees the aircraft’s captain, grey-haired, mid-fifties with a slight paunch, exit the cockpit and move down the aisle with a concerned expression. The passengers quietly watch as he stops midway down the fuselage, five rows ahead of Rhonda and Severson, leans across the empty seats and looks out at the engine. He studies it for a long moment and his expression morphs from concerned to troubled.

Severson watches him. ‘That doesn’t look good.’

A strange noise cuts across the soundscape, reverberates like gravel inside a cement mixer. Rhonda looks out at the turbofan again. ‘And that doesn’t
sound
good —’

~ * ~

Bang!

All the air abruptly leaves the aircraft.

Rhonda is yanked against her safety belt by the cabin’s explosive decompression. Dust swirls through the air, momentarily blinds her as the airframe convulses and yellow oxygen masks drop from the ceiling. She blinks the grit from her eyes and takes a moment to find her bearings.

Five rows in front of her there is now a gaping, two-metre long gash in the starboard side of the fuselage. The captain is gone, and so is the row of seats he was leaning across. The gash is like a giant vacuum and sucks everything into it. Stunned, she looks out the window and sees the starboard turbofan is gone, a smoking nub all that remains. It has exploded.

The 737 noses down abruptly and Rhonda realises the shrill noise she can hear is not just the rush of air leaving the cockpit but the screams of passengers. She looks up the aisle to the cockpit. The vibrations are severe and the door swings open and shut so she can’t see very clearly - and then she can. One of the aircraft’s cabin crew, a flight attendant, is kissing the copilot.
What the hell?

Rhonda looks closer. No, the flight attendant isn’t kissing the copilot, she’s giving him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
Oh damn.
The flight attendant turns and sprints from the cockpit as the co-pilot slumps in his seat, a large gash across his head.

The flight attendant runs down the aisle, fights to keep her balance, reaches a point three rows before the gash in the fuselage and shouts at the top of her lungs. Rhonda can just hear it over the screaming passengers and the roaring air: ‘Can anybody fly a plane?’

Rhonda unbuckles her belt, levers herself over Severson and lands in the aisle -

Hey!
The 737 noses down again and Rhonda grabs hold of the nearest seat back to stay on her feet. She moves forward, but the torrent of air is overpowering and drags her towards the gash in the fuselage. She keeps a tight hold of the seat back beside her, then grabs the next, then the next, edges past the gash - and reaches the flight attendant. ‘I’m Rhonda Jacolby. I’m a pilot.’

The expression on the flight attendant’s face is one of abject relief. ‘Come with me, please.’ They turn and head for the cockpit as a smattering of applause rises from the passengers.

Severson’s worst nightmare, of dying in an aircraft accident, is about to come true. His second-worst nightmare, of someone else getting all the kudos, is
also
about to come true. The combination is a particularly unpleasant double whammy. If they die they die, but if they survive he’ll be the one who sat around and did nothing while Rhonda Jacolby saved the day. He can’t have that. He has to at least
look
like he’s involved.

He unbuckles his belt, pulls himself out of the seat and moves down the aisle towards the cockpit, grabs hold of seat backs as he goes. He watched Rhonda do exactly the same thing only a moment ago so it can’t be that hard -

Whoa!
The jet lurches to the right and he loses his grip. The buffeting rush of air drags him towards the gash. He grabs a seat back with his right hand, stops himself from being sucked out, the rip in the fuselage just a metre behind him. The blast of air is overpowering. His hand slips. He won’t be able to hold it for long. He glances back, sees nothing but blue sky and clouds through the jagged tear. His hand slips again. He’s about to die because he couldn’t stand the idea of someone else getting all the credit. His hand slides off the chair and he’s dragged out of the aircraft -

Slwump.
Rhonda grabs his hand, yanks him away from the gash and pulls him down the aisle to safety. He takes a breath, his pale face a portrait of relief and terror. ‘Thank you.’

She looks him straight in the eye. ‘I saved your life so we’re even. Never speak of what happened at Imax again.’

He nods, surprised. ‘I didn’t know it bothered you so much —’