1 Life 2 Die 4 by Dean Waite

learning about
projectile motion in Science and just had time to think about how
much better our class might have done on the test if Mr Edgerton
had had access to a car like this to demonstrate some of the
concepts … then Veronica hit a red button at the side of the
display and I was smashed into the seat again as the car leapt into
the sky.
    As our car arced up through the air like a
giant football that had been punted down-town, I peered out through
the windscreen and boggled at the view. To our left were the
densely packed high-rises of the City centre, while straight ahead
lay the leafy, green Botanical Gardens, with the buildings of the
Queensland University of Technology scattered about in the
foreground, the tiny figures of students wandering about between
them. Behind the Gardens, off in the distance, sat the imposing
Story Bridge, an intricate latticework of grey, steel beams
spanning the River a couple of kilometres downstream, while off to
our right the River turned back sharply left as it flowed beneath
the long white bridge supporting the Riverside Express then drifted
on past the rugged orange and brown cliffs of Kangaroo Point.
    For a moment I felt fortunate to be seeing
all this from a perspective few, if any, would ever have enjoyed
before. Then we began to drop and reality set in as I abruptly
recalled one of the snippets of information we’d learned in
Science: barring a slight slowing due to air resistance, the speed
at which a projectile leaves the ground is the same speed at which
it returns. The memory of how I’d been slammed down into my seat on
‘take-off’ told me we’d left the ground fast … and that meant we
were in for one mongrel of a landing!
    I stared down through my window as the
sheet-metal roof raced up to meet us. This was going to hurt a lot!
Then I heard another powerful ‘whoosh’ and felt the car’s descent
slowing. Of course! I should have realised the thruster rocket
would be programmed to fire on landing as well, to slow the
vehicle’s descent. The stress really must be getting to me.
    When we touched down on the roof, the jolt
was little worse than driving over a speed-bump. But as we raced
on, my relief lasted about 0.3 of a second before the air outside
my window was torn apart by another of the tank’s huge, explosive
shells. The wide gap in the roofing had given the gunner a clear
view of us, and he was once more doing his best to turn us into a
smoking mess!
     
    *****

16
    At the same time, I realised we were going to have to
take another space-trip. Ahead, the Riverside Expressway ran at
right angles over the top of the Goodwill Bridge, and the roof we
were hurtling along ended abruptly about a metre from its solid
concrete edge!
    While Veronica’s fingers flitted over the
keypad, obviously programming in our next jaunt, I peered up at the
four lanes of traffic racing either way along the Expressway … just
as another of those damn tanks appeared out of nowhere across the
lane closest to us! Its gun was pointing just to our left, and as
the turret swung towards us I braced myself for lift-off.
    But we just sped on ...
    Panicking, I glanced at Veronica and
discovered she was still punching buttons. The sound of screeching
tyres had filled the air as the drivers in the westbound lanes of
the Expressway struggled to avoid the tank which had inexplicably
appeared before them, blocking two of the three lanes. Then, as I
peered down the barrel of the huge gun and suddenly wondered what
it might feel like to have a ten centimetre diameter shell enter my
mouth at about four hundred kilometres an hour, we finally lifted
off. At the same time, I saw a flash from the end of the tank’s
barrel and knew my last supper was on its way!
    Instead of blowing my head apart, however,
the powerful vibrations from it rocketing past beneath our car sent
nervous shivers up my painfully compressed spine. A moment later my
head whipped towards the sound of a massive explosion behind