AS THE ANDROID lumbered forward, Alice jinked around, then scrambled onto the giant android’s back, his hand searching its skull. Gripping the 8-ball in the palm of his hand, he punched his fist into the top of the android’s head. It broke the seal covering its central processing unit. As the creature swung around like a mechanical bull, furiously trying to throw Alice off its back, he threw a second punch. This time his fist disappeared inside the android’s head. Sparks flew as the dome exploded and Alice was catapulted off its back, bouncing off the wall and onto the floor.
The android staggered around in confused circles, what remained of it head sparking and crackling, then collapsed against the wall and slid down until it was sitting on the floor, systems blown and short circuiting. The elbow of its left arm was jammed in its crotch, and its forearm was jerking up and down, one finger extended like it was giving Alice the bird.
“Alice! Hurry!” Hope’s voice echoed down the corridor.
Honor’s face had paled. She knew she was a sitting duck and was eyeing off an emergency Stingray in a glass box mounted on the wall.
Before she could make a move, Alice grabbed her arm. Holding her tightly, he smashed the glass box with his elbow, seized the Stingray, took the ball out of the wristlet and stabbed it into her cheek. He turned the dial to full.
“No … Argh!” she screamed and erupted into convulsions.
This was his chance for retribution. He turned down the juice. “A bit of your own medicine,” he snarled. “This is for my girl Stain?” He turned up the juice. She contorted.
“Who killed my girl, who killed Stain? Was it Drago? Was he acting for you?” He turned it down.
“I … I have no idea who you are talking about! Who is zis Stain?”
He cranked up the juice, and she screamed in agony.
“I … I … know no one by zat name!”
He wound it down, then cranked it again. Her body contorted violently, her knees buckled.
She held up a hand in surrender. “Alright, alright,” she sobbed. “I tell you!”
Alice turned the Stingray down. A look of abject relief broke across her face. “It vos an executive order,” she moaned. “I personally had nothing to do vith it.”
“You think I’d believe that?” Alice growled, turning up the juice again. She screamed as he manoeuvred her backwards, just as she’d done to him back in Secta’s lab. She couldn’t resist the Stingray: it had a grip on her nervous system.
He allowed her to flop down, straddling the android’s lap.
Its hand, still rising up and down between her legs, delivered a shock to her lower body with every thrust.
He flung the Stingray wristlet at her feet.
She squealed as the android’s forearm rose and seared the inside of her thighs.
“Chaa!” he said sarcastically, with a quick wave of his hand.
When he reached the base of the staircase, Hope asked, “When’s the collision?”
“Midnight,” he said. “I reckon we’ve got about forty-five minutes.”
“We should go up to the lobby, the moving footway would be a death-trap.”
“Lead the way.”
Alice followed her up the winding fire stairs. It was six floors to the top.
The art deco Bent Street entrance to Oceana was grandiose by any standards. Four blue marble columns extending two storeys, an expansive yellow marble floor, and a wide, palatial central staircase with a bright red carpet and gold balustrades. Carefully concealed around the entrance and all its 1930s grandeur, armed SSD agents waited in silent ambush.
Hope led Alice into the lobby on the lower mezzanine level. They both stopped when they spotted the first agent blocking their path. Madder than if he’d come off the back fence like a wrecking ball, Alice whipped up a hand to stop Hope.
“Leave this to me!” he growled, shaped up to the agent. With no time for Alice’s theatrics, Hope pushed past him up to the agent, and whacked the unsuspecting man with a powerful right hook that dropped him to the deck like a rock.
Alice spread his hands, shrugged, and conceded: “All right!”
Immediately, another agent appeared from behind the columns ten metres away. This one Alice would take on. As the agent went to draw his pistol, quick as a flash, Alice threw the 8-ball with all his might. It sank into the agent’s forehead and he dropped, dead as a doornail.
Sitting in a grand chair at the head of the palatial staircase, watching the melee below, Karzoff was reading a newspaper by the light of an art deco lamp on a table at his side. Alice and Hope had walked right into a trap. Two agents stepped out from behind columns at the foot of the stairs, blocking the exit, weapons trained on them.
Karzoff had set up the ambush in case Alice managed to escape and attempt to leave the building, having been alerted by Honor via their mastoid implants that Alice had returned. On such short notice, he had only managed to rustle up four agents. He figured they would be more than adequate to apprehend a woman and a rock singer on the run.
Karzoff lowered his newspaper and casually yelled orders to the two agents: “Take them…”
Alice and Hope raised their hands in surrender.
Karzoff slowly made his way down the long staircase, a smug look on his craggy dial. He was visualising being presented with a medal for bravery for apprehending the dangerous escaped dissident.
With hands still raised, Alice shot Hope a sly wink. She got it. Like greased lightning, they each simultaneously brushed away the gun hand of their opponent. Both guns fired and missed. With precision timing and brute force, Alice and Hope each landed knockout punches on their opponents … both went down, out cold.
Alice turned to Karzoff who was stuck, frozen in time, halfway down the staircase, his face now wearing a look of incredulity. He figured Alice might have packed such a punch, but he had no idea Hope would be so handy with her fists.
“Check the exit,” Alice growled at Hope. “I need to take care of this.”
“Leave him, Alice, there’s no time…”
But Alice wasn’t listening. He had an all-important score to settle with the red-haired man. Mad as a cut snake, he stalked to Karzoff. The man panicked.
“What have you got to say for yourself?” Alice growled, slowly climbing the stairs, forcing Karzoff back on visibly shaky legs. “You’re a miserable bloody liar, aren’t you?”
“What are you talking about?” wheedled the cowardly officer. “You’re not into violence, remember? You’re a peace activist!”
“Is that right?” Alice was having none of it. Loping up the staircase like a panther closing in on a kill, he forced Karzoff to all the way back up to the top landing. “You’ll be able to tour as a hologram, you said,” he snarled. “You bloody liar! a feeble excuse for a human!”
Terrified, Karzoff bleated: “But, but … they made me do it…” He flopped into the chair on the landing and pleaded: “I was only following orders!”
Alice stood over him, swinging a boot onto the arm of the chair, pinning Karzoff into it. “Orders?” he hissed. “This is for the order to kill my girl!” Alice grabbed the lamp from the table beside the chair, inverted it and jammed it on top of Karzoff’s head. The globe shattered on contact with the red scalp, and sparks flew. Karzoff’s legs kicked wildly, his body convulsed uncontrollably. He screamed as two hundred and forty volts blasted into his skull. Even Alice got a shock. He let go of the lamp, stepped backwards, and left Karzoff to fry.
Watching the scene from the glass exit doors, Hope stood with arms folded, impatiently tapping her foot as Alice ran across the marble floor.
“Was that really necessary?” she rebuked.
Alice spread his hands in resignation and said, insolently: “Yeah.”
Shrugging aside her annoyance at his cavalier attitude, Hope asked: “So, where do we go from here?”
“I dunno. I just gotta follow my instincts.”
“Fine, what do we do? Commandeer a car, catch a taxi, what?”
“We’ll have to hoof it.”
He pushed open the doors, and they raced out into the street, only to be greeted by the sound of approaching sirens. Alice led the way.
The street was wet. A cold wind was blowing in their faces as they ran. Thunder rumbled, warning the approach of another storm. Seeing lightning crack in the distance, Alice felt like the storm was a metaphor for impending doom. They were lucky that at this time of night, mid-week, there were few cars on the road, and even fewer pedestrians. Alice guessed the troopers would try to encircle them. His instincts told him to head for the nearest subway entrance and go underground. Then he remembered a back alley that would get them close to the subway and avoid the main streets, which the troopers would certainly be patrolling.
When he finally found the alleyway, Alice and Hope shot up it, emerging beside a major hotel onto a main street. They found heavy traffic from cars exiting the underground car parks at the Opera House — a show had just finished. This was good and bad; the traffic would impede the patrol cars, but the pedestrians would obstruct their progress. Alice stopped.
“If we run we’ll be more noticeable,” he said, panting breathlessly. “Let’s just walk along to St James subway station. Act like nothing’s happened, okay?”
Hope nodded, gassed.
Slowing to a walk restored some energy, but as they rounded a corner they came upon troopers random-checking ID’s. They recognised Alice immediately. A trooper pointed, and all four quickly brushed aside the people they were checking and headed towards Alice and Hope.
“Cross the road and head for St James Station, I’ll distract them,” he said. “See you there.”
Hope got across the road without attracting the attention of the troopers: they were more interested in Alice anyway.
Alice checked his surroundings. Cars were jammed a long way back from the traffic lights, and he could see the strobing blue lights of patrol cars trapped in the gridlock. The troopers on the footpath ahead were coming towards him, Tasers drawn. He scanned the scene for a way out, found one, and took it. Running up the back of the nearest gridlocked car, he followed a route over the tops of the stationary vehicles, jumping from one to the next. As his feet banged on the roofs, irate occupants popped their heads out of windows to yell abuse after him.
The heavily-armed troopers were doing their best to run after him between the cars, but the vehicles were jammed so close together that their progress was slow.
Up ahead of Alice, a single-deck tourist bus offered an obstacle. The driver stared at him, wide-eyed, as he gave a thumbs up and, to the driver’s shock and wild cheers from the busload of Japanese tourists, scrambled up the front of the bus, onto the roof and along it towards the rear.
From this vantage point, Alice could see Hope closing in on the St James subway station entrance, only a short distance away.
Next to the bus, a shelter provided Alice the means to leap back down to street level. He jumped to its flat roof and slid down an adjacent light pole. The troopers following him were left dumbfounded — and with no chance of catching him. After a short jog, Alice arrived at the entrance of St James station, where Hope was waiting.
“That was amazing,” she conceded, shaking her head, half laughing. “I don’t believe you.”
“Comes from riding missiles on stage and fighting angry androids,” he said, puffing.
Just then, a siren sounded — a small patrol car had made its way through the traffic by mounting the footpath and scattering pedestrians, and was charging towards them.
“Quick, let’s move,” he said.