1 Life 2 Die 4 by Dean Waite Page A

us.
Despite the pain in my back, I grinned. Sahissi really wasn’t
having a good day: the shell had scored a perfect hit on one of his
jeeps, which had somehow managed to navigate through the rubble of
the boulder wall. It was now little more than a flaming chassis,
the top having been blown clear off by the explosive impact.
    Still smiling, I turned back to discover we
were sailing through the air above the Expressway and had already
reached our highest point. As we began dropping back to earth, I
glanced down and realised I could no longer see the tank. I guessed
this was because it was now directly beneath us and found my smile
fading as I wondered how our car might cope with landing on a tank!
Thankfully, I was pretty sure our forward motion would take us past
it. Not that that necessarily meant we’d be safe, of course. If the
tank could get its gun lined up on us, we’d be in for a serious
hammering at close range!
    I’d barely had this thought when I heard a
‘ whoosh ’ and the world started to spin sickeningly. For a
moment I thought we’d been hit. Then I noticed the flames shooting
from our car looked very different to what you’d expect if we’d
just been shot by a tank. This incredible little car must be
equipped with smaller thruster rockets which were now firing to
spin us round horizontally, lining us up with the direction of the
road beneath. My gut told me they were slowing our forward motion
too, and by the time we’d passed through about ninety degrees, we
were dropping pretty much straight down towards the southbound
lanes of the Expressway.
    The side thrusters cut out and there was a
brief moment of silence before others fired to arrest our spin.
Then they stopped as well and I felt the primary rocket kick in to
cushion our landing.
    This car … rocket ... whatever it was … was
unreal!
    I just hoped that tank wasn’t lining us up
for the kill at this very moment.
    When we touched down, we were pointing the
wrong way along the centre eastbound lane of the Expressway with
cars veering crazily to either side in a desperate attempt to avoid
a collision. I threw a nervous glance towards the tank, over on the
westbound side, to find its gun rotating rapidly towards us. Then I
heard the squeal of our own wheels over the blaring horns and
screeching tyres of the other cars. Our tyres gripped and we leapt
forwards, heading the wrong way along the Riverside Expressway,
dodging cars while we tried to stay ahead of the tank’s rotating
gun turret.
    Just like back on the Victoria Bridge,
Veronica’s reflexes were astonishing as she weaved us through the
oncoming traffic, even daring to take one hand off the wheel so she
could punch in another little excursion for us on the keypad. A
couple of seconds later, she swung the car left and we launched a
few metres up through the air before barely clearing the west-bound
lanes and dropping towards the mangroves lining the edge of the
River. I thought we were about to end up embedded in the mud … then
the rocket thrusters fired again and shortly afterwards we touched
neatly down on a pedestrian pathway that hugged the water’s
edge.
    Moments later, we were hurtling along the
path while I cringed at how narrow it was and wondered whether the
reason they hadn’t painted this awesome machine was that a coat of
paint would have made the thing too wide to fit on this particular
path!
    “Incoming! Brace yourself!” Veronica said
unexpectedly.
    I instinctively spun round to look behind
us.
    Thankfully, it didn’t seem to matter much.
The air behind shimmered and the missile that had been speeding
towards us simply stopped in mid-air.
    I was halfway through a relieved smile when
the thing exploded and the car jolted forwards, kinking my neck
painfully.
    “Must have had a proximity fuse,” Veronica
pointed out evenly.
    I rubbed gingerly at my neck. “You could have
warned me,” I grumbled.
    Despite our dizzying speed, and the fact that
she was driving,