Combustion

by Steve Worland

  Against his every instinct the Australian does as he’s told and doesn’t help his mate. He pulls open the pilot’s door, vaults into the cockpit - and is immediately dragged out by Ponytail, his nose bloodied but his spirit unbowed. The old codger hasn’t found the pistol either.

  Corey kicks out a foot and hits him in the thigh, not hard, but hard enough to knock him off balance. Ponytail trips backwards, falls awkwardly, whacks his head on the grass - and doesn’t get up.

  Corey clambers back into the cockpit, slams the pilot’s door shut and takes in the controls. It doesn’t look that complicated. He flicks a series of switches, his feet find the pedals, he takes the cyclic and collective controls in hand - and powers up.

  Thump, thump, thump. The turbines howl as the rotors turn, slow then fast. The Tyrannosaur lifts off in a blast of dust and smoke.

  A metre off the ground Corey looks down at Judd as he Greco-Romans the pilot, who now has a clear advantage. Corey knows he promised to get on with the job and not worry about Judd, but can he really leave him like this?

  Judd looks up at Corey and mouths: ‘Go now!’ Well, that answers that question - wait! Did he say ‘Go now!’ or did he say ‘Tomato!’? No, it’s neither of those. He said, ‘Behind you!’

  ‘Behind you?’ Why would he say ‘Behind you’? What’s behind me? Confused, Corey turns.

  Ponytail! He wrenches the passenger door open and dives inside the cockpit. Bloody hell. Isn’t he lying on the ground unconscious? The old bastard slams into Corey and drives him against the pilot’s door. It flies open and they tumble out -

  Slam. Corey hits the grass hard and Ponytail lands right beside him. The Australian elbows him across the jaw and Ponytail cries out in pain. Corey looks up as the now pilotless Air-Crane ceases to fly and its huge front wheel drops directly towards his chest -

  Jeezus! Corey rolls left as the tyre slams onto the grass beside him. The chopper bounces twice - then turns and rolls straight towards him. He scrambles clear, finds his feet, realises he’s right beside the open cockpit door again and climbs inside -

  Crunch. Ponytail crash-tackles him to the grass.

  *

  39

  Bunsen takes in the destruction. The wellhead is gone, leaving a five-inch-wide pipe from which a low-pressure stream of crude oil flows. He kneels beside the hole, unzips his bag, and draws out a long, thin aluminium cylinder, same as the one he used at Moreno High School. He works the iPhone’s screen and the cylinder’s propeller spins to life. He then slides the cylinder down the pipe and it disappears.

  He studies the numbers which update on the phone’s screen: forty, one hundred and twenty, three hundred and seventy. Seconds pass until the number reaches fifteen hundred and stops. One point five kilometres. It’s at depth and all systems are nominal.

  He heads for the exit. He’s happy and there’s a spring in his step. Phase Three is almost complete.

  *

  Lola watches the handsome guy move towards the exit. What the hell did he just send down that well? Didn’t Judd say he did something similar at Moreno High? She moves off quickly and quietly, follows him through the jungle of pipes and tanks as she dials Judd’s number.

  It rings, but nobody picks up.

  Come on!

  *

  Judd feels his phone buzz in his pocket but his hands are full and he can’t answer it. The pilot, he now realises, may not be trained in the art of hand-to-hand combat but he’s one strong son of a bitch. He’s currently on top of Judd and has him pinned to the ground.

  Whik, whik, whik. The spinning tail rotor cuts through the smoke haze and swings straight towards them as the Air-Crane continues to turn. Judd sees it coming and realises the bottom edge of the blade is in line with the pilot’s head. Excellent. All Judd has to do is hold him in this position and the guy is toast.

  The pilot sees the rotor, instantly collapses an elbow, rolls right and flips Judd over so now he’s on top. Now the bottom edge of the blade is in line with Judd’s head. Not so excellent.

  Whik, whik, whik. The thundering rotor is three metres away. Judd tries to roll clear but the pilot has the arm strength of a silverback gorilla and holds him tight. Christ! Judd shifts his knee, pushes it down into the guy’s cahones and presses as hard as he can.

  Whik, whik, whik. The rotor is right there. Judd presses harder. The pilot flinches -

  Whik, whik, whik. Judd rolls clear as the rotor sweeps overhead. The astronaut scrambles to his feet, searches for his opponent -

  Crunch. The pilot tackles Judd from behind and drives him into the ground.

  *

  Bunsen exits the building - and takes in the scene in the park. He’s no longer happy and has most definitely lost the spring in his step. ‘What the fuck is going on?’

  The Tyrannosaur spins around in circles. To the right Enrico fights - is that Judd Bell? And to the left, Kilroy fights - the Australian whose name he can’t remember.

  Apoplectic, Bunsen draws his pistol and sprints towards the park.

  Judd Bell dies first.

  *

  Ponytail has Corey in a headlock and try as he might he can’t get free -

  Something soft and grey brushes against the Australian’s face, then again. What the hell is that?

  It’s Ponytail’s ponytail.

  Errr, gross - but also, potentially useful. Corey reaches up, grabs at it, misses, tries again, gets a handful of it and yanks hard.

  Ponytail’s head jerks to the right and Corey wrenches himself free, twists the hair around his fist, pulls it hard and slams Ponytail’s head into the Air-Crane’s cockpit door.

  Ponytail bounces off and drives an elbow into Corey’s gut. Winded, the Australian backpedals - then sees the pistol lying on the grass five metres away. Ponytail sees it too and they both sprint, dive, slide across the grass for it -

  Ponytail gets there first, grabs the weapon with his right hand and swings it towards Corey’s face. The Australian shoves Ponytail’s arm up -

  Bam. The pistol fires into the sky -

  Whik, whik, whik. The tail rotor swings around and the bottom edge clips the gun and all five of Ponytail’s fingers.

  They’re instantly vaporised. Ponytail screams blue murder and slumps to the ground, tries to stem the flow of blood from the nub that is now his right hand. Covered in a fine mist of the red stuff, Corey rolls left and finds his feet -

  Whik, whik, whik. The tail rotor is right in front of him! He stops dead as it swings past, centimetres from his face, then runs for the Air-Crane’s cockpit. He’s going to fly this thing out right now.

  *

  Why don’t they answer?

  Phone jammed to her ear, Lola clears the doorway and sees the handsome guy run on to the park, a pistol in hand.

  Damn it.

  What did Corey say? ‘Whatever you do, don’t engage these people. Please. Do. Not. Engage.’

  He was very clear. He said it twice. He even said ‘please’.

  What does she do?

  She can’t just stand here and watch this guy shoot them. She breaks into a run, picks up speed instantly, sprints directly towards the handsome guy. She’s fast, but most importantly, she’s faster than him, all those years spent on track at UCLA finally proving useful in the real world. She catches him quickly, armed with nothing but her iPhone, a brass telescope and the element of surprise.

  She hopes it’s enough.

  Slam. She tackles him hard, drives him into the grass. Wow. She feels like a damn superhero! Now what? She wants his gun. She springs to her feet, scrambles forward, bends to grab it. This is working out brilliantly -

  Wham. Handsome swings around and kicks her in the breadbasket.

  Damn, that hurts!

  All the air leaves her body. She stumbles backwards, arms wind-milling, and crashes to the ground.

  She doesn’t feel like a superhero any more.

  *

  ‘What is that bloody woman doing?’

  Astonishe
d, Corey stares out at Lola from the pilot seat of the Air-Crane, which continues to rotate because he can’t find the wheel brake. He told her twice. Do. Not. Engage. But what did she do? She engaged, and is now laid out flat on the far side of the park. Pistol in hand, Handsome pulls himself to his feet and turns to her.

  Jeezus. This is exactly what he feared would happen. He can’t fly the Air-Crane out now, can’t leave her like this. He pushes the door open, jumps out of the cockpit and runs -

  Whik, whik, whik. The tail rotor swings towards him.

  ‘Oh, come on!’ He sprints hard, outruns it, sets a course for the handsome guy, who’s a good thirty metres away. The only thing Corey has going for him is that the bloke won’t hear him coming over the Air-Crane’s turbines. The Australian has no idea what he’ll do when he gets there, he just knows he must get there.

  *

  Slam. Judd Bell nails Enrico with an uppercut.

  Groggy, the pilot slumps to the ground. He takes a moment to shake it off, looks up - and can see no sign of the astronaut. Where’d he go? Enrico can see Kilroy, though, and he doesn’t look well. What happened to his hand?

  Whik, whik, whik. The tail rotor thunders towards Enrico again. He needs to get that chopper under control and help Kilroy. He pulls himself up.

  *

  Bunsen studies the young woman who tackled him. Who the hell is she and why did she do that? It doesn’t actually matter. She dies now. He raises the pistol.

  *

  Lola feels the weight of her phone in her hand. It’s an older iPhone 4S so it’s quite a bit heavier than the new version, so that’s good. Even so, it’s not much of a weapon, but then she doesn’t have time to pull the brass telescope out of her jacket pocket so it’s the only show in town. Man. She can’t believe she bought an iPhone to a gun fight. She draws her arm back and hurls it at the handsome guy.

  *

  Bunsen watches the white shape rocket towards him.

  What is that -?

  Whack. It hits him flush on the cheek and stings like hell.

  ‘Hey!’ He touches the point of impact. Whatever it was has split the skin and really hurts. He glances at the ground, sees the woman threw an iPhone, looks back at her, re-aims and squeezes the trigger.

  She won’t need a phone where she’s going -

  *

  Whump. Corey hits Handsome Guy like a train.

  The Australian drives him into the grass and the guy doesn’t fire the shot. He scrambles to his feet and swings the pistol towards Corey. Before he can pull the trigger the Australian springs forward, twists the weapon from his grip and kicks him in the gut.

  Handsome staggers backwards, trips and lands on the ground with an almost comical exhalation of breath.

  Corey steps forward and points the pistol at him. ‘Not so tough without your gun, are you?’

  The man looks up at him and grins.

  ‘You got nothing to smile about, mate. You are done.’

  ‘What is your name?’

  ‘You can call me “the Australian who just kicked your arse”. It doesn’t really trip off the tongue but I think it captures my general vibe.’

  The man’s grin widens. ‘You’re going to die today, like all the others. You just don’t know it yet.’

  ‘You’re kinda mouthy for a guy without a gun.’

  ‘That’s because I’m a guy with a detonator to a really big bomb.’ Bunsen holds up a cigarette-pack sized box, his finger touching the green button on top. ‘I guess I have something to smile about after all. Now tell me, do you think you can shoot me before I press this button?’

  Corey hesitates.

  ‘Drop the gun or we’ll find out.’

  Corey reluctantly does it.

  *

  Thump, thump, thump. The Tyrannosaur skims across the park directly towards Bunsen, Enrico in the pilot’s seat. The rotor wash kicks up a blizzard of smoke and leaves that blasts into Bunsen and almost knocks the Australian off his feet.

  A rope ladder drops from the rear cabin door and swings low. Kilroy steadies it as Bunsen grabs hold. He quickly climbs it to the cabin as the giant chopper lifts into the purple sky.

  Corey recovers his balance, picks up the pistol and aims it at the Air-Crane. He’s pretty sure that if he hits one of the rotors the chopper will auto-rotate to the ground and the landing will be soft enough not to detonate the weapon. Unfortunately ‘pretty sure’ isn’t really good enough. So he releases the trigger and lowers the weapon - and immediately has second thoughts. Will history be kind to him? Would it be better for this neighbourhood to be destroyed rather than whatever location the weapon is being transported to now? Is it on the way to a crowded Disneyland? Or the Santa Monica Pier? Or Universal CityWalk? He can’t help but think it was better that Flight 93 crashed into a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, rather than its intended target on 9/11. Did he just send that bomb to the equivalent of the White House?

  What did that prick have planned for it? Corey knows there’s only one way to find out. He must follow it. He turns for the Loach then catches sight of something under the rising Air-Crane and stops dead. ‘You’ve gotta be kidding me.’

  Judd lies on top of the giant weapon under the chopper’s airframe, his face a picture of steely determination. He waves at Corey.

  Dumbstruck, Corey waves back. Suddenly he’s very glad he didn’t shoot down the Air-Crane. Lola approaches, her retrieved iPhone in hand. ‘What on earth are you waving at?’

  Corey just points at the climbing chopper. She looks up and sees Judd. Stunned, she instinctively waves too. ‘Is he insane?’

  Corey turns and runs for the Loach. ‘We gotta follow them.’

  Lola’s right beside him, astonished. ‘Why would he do that?’

  ‘To prove a point.’

  ‘What point?’

  ‘That he’s the hero everyone thinks he is.’

  ‘But he is a hero.’

  ‘He doesn’t believe it.’ Corey takes a moment. ‘I just realised I probably shouldn’t have told you that. Please keep it to yourself.’

  ‘Of course. And thanks for helping me out with that guy back there.’

  Corey doesn’t respond. They run on, their footfalls and breathing the only sound. After a moment she turns to him. ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘When someone says “nothing” it’s always “something”.’

  ‘You ignored everything I said.’

  ‘See? Always something.’

  ‘Do not engage those people. I said it twice. I even said please. It was just dumb luck that I got to that guy before he shot you.’

  ‘That guy was marching across the park to shoot you. And Judd. I wasn’t going to let that happen so I tackled him.’

  ‘Don’t help me, please. I can look after myself. I don’t want you to die trying to help me unnecessarily.’

  ‘I wasn’t “trying to help you” I was actually helping you and it looked pretty necessary to me. You should thank me.’

  He shoots her an incredulous look. ‘You don’t get thanked for doing crazy-dangerous stuff. There’s no thanking for that. Just please, don’t do it again.’

  ‘But you do it all the time. Flying the chopper through those skyscrapers was the most crazy-dangerous thing I’ve ever seen in my life.’

  ‘I didn’t choose to do it. I was forced to.’

  ‘And so was I. That guy was going to kill you. That’s why you should thank me.’

  ‘And we’re back to where we started.’

  They run on in silence, their footfalls and breathing, which is heavier than it was a moment ago, the only sound.

  He glances at her. ‘You’re good at arguing your side.’

  ‘That’s why I’ve got such a big house.’

  He can’t help but smile at that. ‘I just - I don’t want you to get hurt.’

  ‘And I don’t want me to get hurt either.’ She looks at him. ‘I’ll be careful.’

  He regards her for a moment and
realises that’s the closest they’ll get to an agreement. ‘Okay. And thanks, for tackling that guy.’

  She nods. ‘Anytime. And thank you for doing the same.’

  He sees the Loach appear out of the gloom. A young guy lies on the ground in front of it, terrified. That’s because Spike stands on his chest and growls at him with bared teeth, his snout inches from the poor sucker’s nose.

  Corey takes in the tableau. ‘You picked the wrong dog, mate.’

  The guy’s voice trembles. ‘I was just looking at the chopper, I didn’t mean anything by it, honest.’

  Lola climbs into the passenger seat. ‘I think we all know anyone who says “honest” at the end of a sentence usually isn’t.’

  ‘You gotta get this crazy mutt off me.’

  Corey slides into the pilot’s seat. ‘You’ll need to be much nicer than that.’

  ‘Get this … lovely animal off me?’

  Corey fires up the Loach’s turbine. ‘And what’s the magic word?’

  ‘Please?’

  The rotors start to turn. ‘Not in the form of a question.’

  ‘Please.’

  ‘There you go. Spike, get behind.’

  The dog hops off the guy, who immediately scrambles away. Spike chases him for a moment, then doubles back and leaps into the cockpit and lands beside Lola. She rubs his head. ‘Oh, you’re a good boy.’ He nuzzles against her. Corey takes this in as he works the controls and the Loach springs off the roadway.

  They both pull on their headsets and survey the horizon. The haze is thick and Corey can see no sign of the Air-Crane. ‘Where is it?’

  Lola drags the telescope out of her jacket pocket, scans the smoke. ‘There!’ She points to the far left and up. ‘It’s high.’

  Corey looks high and sees a distant black dot. ‘Right. Thank you.’ He sets a course for it and shakes his head. ‘What the hell was he thinking?’

  Lola holds up her phone. ‘Why don’t we find out?’

  Corey points to a cable that protrudes from the communications panel. ‘If you plug it in we should both be able to hear him.’