Combustion (22 page)

He doesn’t feel great about letting Corey ride off on his own. He worries about him like he would a kid brother, feels responsible. After all, he’s the one who brought him to this country in the first place.

Judd takes in the road, astounded by the amount of destruction. He doesn’t know what he’ll find when he reaches the school, but hopes he’s up for the challenge. He can feel the weight of the pistol in his jacket pocket. He’s glad he has the weapon with him.

~ * ~

Corey pedals the bike so hard Spike has trouble keeping up.

The dog barks.

‘Well, you’ll just have to lift, won’t you? We’re in a rush. There’s no time for a rest stop.’

Another bark.

‘I miss having the chopper, too.’ He doesn’t add that he’s not sure if he’d be able to fly it even if he had one.

Another bark.

‘No, I’ve never seen a “shark pit”.’

Another bark.

‘I guess it’s like a snake pit but worse, because it has sharks.’

Another bark.

‘I don’t know. It must be full of water otherwise the sharks would be dead and that wouldn’t be scary, it’d be sad.’

The Australian takes in the road before him, littered with smoking wrecks and displaced people. The number of buildings and houses on fire is the biggest surprise. He keeps an eye out for any vehicle with a dark exhaust, though it looks like every car has already exploded, is on fire or has been abandoned.

The dog barks once again.

Corey glances at the map app on the iPhone. ‘Not far.’ He stops pedalling and freewheels past a line of wrecks that litter Doheny, the bike’s gears ticking furiously, and scans the road before him. ‘Where is it?’

He sees it in the distance, the towering white building with the large blue stripe Lola mentioned in her voice message. It’s not that far away -

Boom.
The explosion is enormous, blows him off the bike and knocks him clean across the sidewalk. He hits a building ten metres away, then slumps to the ground. It feels like he’s been bitch-slapped by Goliath.

His head throbs and his ears ring. He opens his eyes. His vision is blurred. Smoke cloaks the road. He can just make out the burning wreckage of the car that exploded on the opposite side of the street. He pulls himself up unsteadily, the bike crumpled against a shop-front, both wheels buckled, the iPhone smashed on the sidewalk in front of him. He can feel something licking his ankle. He turns to look at it, but his eyelids get very heavy very quickly and he needs to have a little lie down. He rests his head on the warm pavement and can’t help but think Judd was right: he really needs to be careful. Maybe if the astronaut had told him a
third
time he would have paid better attention.

~ * ~

Spike bounds over to Corey. His master is unconscious.

The dog barks.

There’s no response.

Spike turns, sees the cuff of Corey’s left jeans leg is on fire. He barks again.

Corey does not wake up.

Spike trots over to the left cuff, assumes the position and releases a short squirt of urine. The flames are instantly extinguished - but Corey does not wake.

The dog lies down beside him.

~ * ~

28

Finally.

It took Bunsen five one-hundred-litre rhino drums to do it, but the Item is now filled with the Swarm.

He removes the electric water pump’s hose, screws on the radiator cap, then uses an oxy-welder to seal it tight. He eases the trolley loaded with the Item out onto the helipad. It’s both heavy and unwieldy, but he eventually parks it beside the Tyrannosaur, where Enrico continues to remove the water tank from the airframe. Bunsen then pulls out a swathe of black-green netting from the trolley’s bottom shelf, which will be used to camouflage the Item’s true shape and nature.

He returns to the garage and rolls out a second trolley. The contents of this one are not as visually arresting as the Item, but just as important to the mission. Bunsen deposits two long bags, one black, the other light grey, into the chopper’s rear cabin, then joins Enrico in removing the tank. Once it’s detached they will fasten the Item to the Tyrannosaur’s airframe.

He glances at his Patek. The only thing he’s concerned about at this point is the same thing that has concerned him all day:
Kilroy.
After sending a text about making sure Bunsen posted the video online, the old guy has gone AWOL again, hasn’t responded to any texts or picked up his phone.

The old man is really cutting it fine. He should be here by now.

~ * ~

29

‘Come on, Scott! Where are you?’

Lola turns and looks at the fire. The flames are much higher now. The insulation is well alight and produces a thick blanket of acrid smoke that hangs in the air and smells like cancer.

She coughs, pushes on the beam that lies across her thigh, can’t even lift the damn thing off her leg now. She has no energy and feels nauseous, the charming effects of crush syndrome kicking in as it dumps those deadly chemicals into her system.

She hasn’t heard anything from Scott since she spoke to him last. That must have been thirty-five, forty minutes ago. She guesses that’s how long it would take for him to get here on foot, which means he should be here any minute. She’d tried 911 a couple more times but couldn’t get through.

The flames flare and the smoke billows. Lola realises she’s not going to burn to death, or die from the crush injury, she’s going to be asphyxiated. She pushes her face low to the ground, the air a little fresher down there, and takes in shallow breaths.

‘Come
on,
Scott.’ Her head throbs and her lungs are tight and her eyes sting. Jesus Christ, she came in here to take shelter, not to die -

A sound, to the far right.

She turns to it.

Twenty metres away a towering figure is silhouetted through the smoke haze.

She’d know that outline anywhere.

Scott Ford.

The Blue Cyclone.

Yes!
He came! Just in the nick of time. The guy is a hero, on screen
and
off. He has something in his hands. A long cylinder - a fire extinguisher! He rushes towards the flames, releases a blast of fire retardant, instantly douses them. He pivots, cuts through the smoke towards her, drops the extinguisher, grabs the beam across her thigh and in one fluid motion lifts it off and tosses it to the side.

Lola’s relief is overwhelming. She looks up as he drops through the haze to kneel beside her.

‘G’day.’

‘Corey?’

The Australian looks like he’s been to hell and back, his face covered in cuts and soot, blood and grime, his hair singed, clothes ripped, torn and burned. Then he grins his crooked grin. ‘Sorry I didn’t get here sooner.’

Lola takes him in, stunned, thrilled and confused all at once. It’s the strangest feeling.

He sees it. ‘You look surprised.’

‘I was expecting —’ Someone else. She doesn’t finish the sentence, changes the subject instead. ‘What happened to you?’

‘I’m pretty sure it was a Chevy Impala. Or maybe a Buick Riviera. Either way, the explosion was a humdinger. Took a few minutes to wake up. Still feel a bit groggy, actually. How are you?’

‘Better now. Thank you.’ She nods at the fire extinguisher. ‘Where’d you find that?’

‘It was on the wall beside the roller door.’

‘How’d you know I was here?’

‘I, it was - I heard your message. On Bowen’s phone.’

‘Oh, right. Where is he?’

~ * ~

Corey realises he should have devised a lie so he could delay telling her about Bowen until a more suitable time and place. But then he’s terrible at lying, and when he thinks about it there will never be a suitable time and place for news like this. So he tries to find the right words. ‘We were at CNN and - and there was an explosion.’

‘Oh, God.’ Her hand covers her mouth. ‘Is he okay?’

Corey blinks, then shakes his head.

‘No.’ She buries her head in her hands, grief-stricken.

‘It was - it happened fast. He didn’t suffer. We tried to help, but there was nothing —’

‘He’s my best friend.’ Her tears flow.

Corey rests a hand on her shoulder. ‘I’m so sorry.’

Spike moves to Lola, nuzzles against her leg. She rubs his head absently.

A moment passes.

‘I didn’t want to tell you like this. I just didn’t know how else to do it.’

‘It’s okay.’ She wipes her eyes. ‘I’m glad you did.’

A harsh squawk bursts from Corey’s pants.

Lola looks at him. ‘What was that?’

‘Sorry.’ He dives a hand into his trouser pocket and pulls out Ponytail’s walkie-talkie. A distant voice echoes from its speaker:
‘Where are you? I haven’t heard from you in over an hour. We’re on the way to Moreno High now. Do you need assistance?’

Corey takes it in gravely, thinks aloud. ‘Moreno High. Damn. He was right. They really are going there.’

Lola looks at Corey, then the walkie-talkie, then Corey again. ‘Who’s going where? Who is that?’

‘The people responsible for the explosions.’

‘Say what?’ She looks at him like he’s mad.

Corey sees it. ‘I know it sounds crazy, but Judd’s on the way there and I need to tell him they’re coming.’

She’s confused. ‘To Moreno High School?’

‘Yes, but my phone’s screwed. Do you have Judd’s number?’

‘Um, no. We dealt with him through a NASA liaison. And I don’t have that number either.’ She still doesn’t really understand what’s going on. ‘Why do you need to tell him they’re coming?’

Corey’s expression is grim. ‘Because I’m pretty sure they will try to kill him.’

‘What?’ She half laughs as she says it because it sounds so strange. ‘What are you talking about? Why would they do that?’

‘Because they have something else planned and he wants to stop it.’

‘What do they have planned?’

He opens his hands wide, palms up. ‘No idea.’ He nods at her phone. ‘Can I borrow that for a sec?’ She passes it over and he launches the map app, works the screen.

She watches him. ‘What are you doing?

‘I need to go there.’

‘Moreno High?’

‘Yes. Can I. . . run there?’

‘Not unless you’re training for a marathon. It’s on the other side of town.’

Corey stops working the iPhone’s screen and exhales. ‘Man, I wish I had my chopper.’

‘You couldn’t fly it anyway. Everything with a combustion engine explodes.’

‘Not everything.’ From his pocket he draws the aluminium canister containing the counteragent. ‘Not if I use this.’

‘And that is - what?’

‘A counteragent to the virus that’s making the engines explode.’

She studies him for a long moment.

‘I wouldn’t believe me either.’

‘No, I. . . actually do.’

‘Then why are you looking at me like I’m insane?’

‘I’m not. I’m having a thought - which I’m turning into an idea.’

‘And it is?’

‘Hero car.’

His brow furrows. ‘You’ve lost me. What does that mean?’

‘It means I think I know a quick way to Moreno High.’ She stands, gingerly puts weight on her injured leg and winces.

‘How’s it feeling?’

‘Fuck!
is how it’s feeling, excuse my French.’ She puts a little more weight on it. ‘I need to run it off. Come on, follow me.’

~ * ~

They move quickly, navigate the dent in the roller door and step out onto the sidewalk. The sky is slate grey with a purple hue, much darker than it was before Lola took cover in the building. Fat tendrils of purple-grey smoke hang above the bitumen like serpents in the still afternoon air. The road is littered with the burning shells of vehicles, including the charred remains of the semitrailer that exploded and caused Lola to be trapped in the first place.

‘This way.’ She points them left and they jog down a quiet side street that has not seen much action. Even with a painful leg, Lola is quick. Corey follows, a little confused. ‘So we’re going to the school?’

‘Yes. It won’t take long. I want you to tell me everything, but I need to make a call first.’

‘Sure. Okay.’ Corey gets the hint and drops behind her a polite distance, Spike in tow.

She dials the phone and puts it to her ear. The call is answered.

‘Hello?’

‘Scott?’

‘This is he.’

She can barely hear his voice over a high-pitched flapping noise. It’s a familiar sound, but she can’t quite place it. ‘Hey, it’s Lola.’

‘How are you, sweetness? I was just about to call.’

‘Are you close?’

‘Well, we haven’t made a lot of headway —’