MAL WAS STANDING at the rear of the packed ferry, watching a deck hand getting set to unhitch the stern hawser.
Alice had failed to turn up. Mal feared the worst. Ratsso cruised over with a beer in hand. The music on the ferry’s sound system was so loud he had to yell to be heard.
“’Sup Mal?” he roared. “You look worried.”
“Al’s late,” Mal yelled back, ruefully. “I reckon those mongrels at Oceana HQ have nailed him. I bloody-well warned him!”
“Alice is too tough for them, ain’t he?” Ratsso thundered. “What if he’s just running late like he normally does?”
“Too late now,” replied Mal. “We’re about to get underway. He’s got less than five minutes.”
“You reckon they’ve nailed him coz of that sheila jumpin’ off the building onto that
Official?”
“Dunno. I reckon they’ve been planning on getting him for a while. He just wouldn’t listen to reason … got pig-headed after Stain died.”
Blue had pushed his way through the throng to overhear the conversation. “I dunno, Mal, he seemed all right when we saw him at the club,” Blue said, taking a swig of beer.
“Not to me mate,” said Mal. “He was somewhere else in his head, somewhere real friggin’ weird.”
Lightning flashed and thunder cracked ominously.
“Speakin’ of Ratsso,” said Blue, “I saw you carrying a guitar case and amp on board, what the stuff for, going to have a blow?”
“That was the paint cannon yer dill,” Ratsso barked.
“Might be hard to get a clear shot, with it being such a stinker of a night,” said Blue, with cackle. “Be wrong if a big swell blows up out on the harbour with the storm and all. There’ll be dudes chucking their guts up all over the boat.”
Mal wasn’t listening. He was watching the road leading to the wharf. He wasn’t giving up on Al. After all, the peace rally was his gig.
Alice had real concerns he was going to miss the ferry. The road ahead blurred and shimmered. A patina of sweat beaded on his forehead. He began to drift in and out of consciousness, fragments of thoughts swirled in his head, accompanied by strange visions. His hands, grasping the steering wheel, were beginning to shift in and out of phase, like something was interfering with his very existence. Somehow, he managed to keep steering while fresh images intruded on his sentient self. The visions were quite unintelligible … a desert, tracer bullets streaking through the inky sky, oppressive heat, a battle, ordinance exploding all around him, making the ground tremble under foot. Then, just as quickly as changing a TV channel, a bathroom, shaving in a mirror, but it wasn’t his face ... Then a flickering montage of stills, coming in fast: a Cyborg monster, half man, half machine coming at him menacingly. A pretty girl with blonde hair, speaking with Secta’s voice, repeating her name ‘Morrigan Hud’ over and over again. More battles: this time he was on a motorbike, powering in loops at breakneck speed around the inside of a giant metal globe. A brutal, one-on-one swordfight with a gladiator in a ring. Four men wearing tunics, carrying a golden chest, struggling with its weight with looks of great reverence on their faces. They were moving through destruction, fire, past white marble buildings with Ancient Greek columns, toppling in last throes of a besieged city’s existence. A gigantic UFO, hovering over a building, missiles exploding all around. Death and destruction.
Life and death seemed to be both calling him at once. A disjointed thought went through his mind: These aren’t visions. These are real. He could feel them, taste and smell them, hear them but not recognise them. He wondered if they were an indication that he’d succeeded in stopping the collision and a portent of things to come. Were they glimpses into the future? But why did some seem to be in an ancient time? That couldn’t be the future — could it?
A shiver shot up his spine, and he was suddenly overcome by a strange calmness, a warm comforting feeling. He could no longer hear the sound of the engine. His grasp of reality had all but vanished. But his mind had found a heavenly place: a place of bright light and positive energy. He realised he was moving, speeding through empyrean light towards a dot on a liquid horizon. Not death — his future. It reminded him of falling back through time. Only now he was shooting forwards.
As the dot increased in size, his sense of anticipation also increased. He felt sure he was heading towards something vitally important. There was a pulsating ball, an orb at the end of a tunnel. It had a consciousness, it was alive — and calling him, controlling him. He closed his eyes, prepared to let it happen. He’d been so close to death of late he feared it no longer.
Then sound began to return. It was difficult for Alice to recognise at first, but as it got louder he started to make sense of it. At first, he thought it was a song in his mind. Then he realized it was his own voice speaking to him. But his mouth wasn’t moving, he wasn’t speaking. His voice quoted; on wings of leather I take you, to a world beyond the skies, were fantasy becomes reality … life and death wear no disguise. He knew the lyrics — he’d written them, after all, but this was the first time his words had related to his present circumstances. A revelation struck him — perhaps he’d been having premonitions for longer than he thought, manifesting them in his lyrics all along, and he just hadn’t realised it.
The dot on the horizon was now much larger now. It was no longer an orb. Suddenly, all sound and vision returned to normal. Tyres on the wet road, the car engine. He noticed he could now make out the dot on the horizon: it was the ferry leaving the dock, and the liquid horizon was the harbour. He could see the wharf and the ferry the distance.
Shrugging off the cloak of uncertainty he growled to himself with a steely smile, “If I’m gonna fade away into oblivion, then so be it! But first I’ve got a gig to do!”
Hope knew it was going to go right down to the wire. Turning onto Bayview Street, which led between two long warehouses and onto the wharf, she expected to find the ferry moored at the end, figuring she was only moments away. But when she emerged at the end of the wharf, the ferry had just cast off and was pulling away. With no chance of boarding in a conventional manner, she only had one option left: she made some quick mental calculations and executed a fast U-turn, backtracked to give herself a run up and hit the throttle.
The bike raced towards the end of the wharf. There was a six-metre gap between the stern of the ferry and the wharf. Dodging the bollards, going like a rocket, she hurtled into the air, leaping off the bike at its apogee. It plummeted into the water with an almighty splash, but her momentum carried her a lot further.
A loud thump on the canvas canopy above them killed the conversation between Mal, Blue, and their friends Prissy and Meg.
“What the hell was that?” Blue gasped. Very nearly spilling his beer, he looked up at the ceiling.
“Sounds like someone’s up there,” Prissy slurred, tipsy.
The answer became clear when a pair of sexy legs came dangling down and tried to slip onto the main deck. Blue took hold of the legs and helped Hope inside.
“It’s all right, it’s all right … I’ve got ya,” said Blue, reassuringly.
“Who’s she Blue?” said Prissy, jealously. “Friend of yours?”
“Don’t know her,” said Blue.
Hope pulled away from him. She wasn’t hanging around to get acquainted, and she pushed her way through the crowded deck, trying to get to the bridge.
Blue yelled after her, “Where are you going?”
Mal shrugged, but thinking she might be a government agent, he made a beeline after her through the crowd.
With a screech that smoked the tyres, Alice hung the back of the car out as he turned into Bayview Street. He jammed his foot down hard and fanged it along the narrow service road between the warehouses. When he reached the end he hit the anchors, skidding to a stop. Leaving the car running, he raced to the edge of wharf. The ferry was two hundred metres from him. He’d missed the boat.
Lightning cracked and thunder rolled, warning that the storm was about to hit. With the ferry beyond reach, Alice was shattered. In frustration, he tore the Shine from around his neck. The ball was firmly in Hope’s court. Even though he had no reason to doubt her ability to get the job done, he feared the odds were stacked too heavily against her. He turned away, racking his brain, when a flash of lightning caused him to look up. Through the rain, he saw an apparition under an awning at the end of one of the warehouses. Long curly blonde hair, a knee-length red dress that showed off a very pregnant belly, and a small suitcase parked at her feet. The girl was a dead ringer for Djard.
Alice was blown away. He ran over to her, but before he could say anything she asked: “Hey, aren’t you Black Alice?”
“Geez,” he said. “You look like … Nar, couldn’t be … Listen, your ferry ain’t gonna arrive. Take the car and wear this.” He handed her the Shine. “It’s called the Shine. Drive west.”
He kissed her cheek. She looked puzzled, and studied the shining chrome object he’d placed in her hand.
If the future was going to be as it had when Alice was there, this was it. Alice didn’t know if they’d succeed in stopping the ferry. But if not, then the Shine would ultimately make its way into the world of the bikers, eventually ending up with Ex. Full circle.
Suddenly, two troopers appeared on the upper level of the warehouse. Spotting Alice, they started down a staircase towards him.
Looking about frantic to escape, Alice spotted a guy working on a speedboat further along the wharf. The girl realised what was happening and said, “That’s my friend over there.”
Alice turned back to her. “Give the Shine to your child,” he said. “It’s the key to the future.”
Taking the amulet, she said hurriedly, “He can help you. Go!” She watched him race off.
The troopers arrived and pushed past her in a desperate bid to catch their prey.
Alice was moving like a rat up a drainpipe, aiming for the guy with the speedboat and away from the troopers. As he reached the end of the wharf, he looked down at the boat. The massive V8 inboard motor was purring like a contented tiger. Alice took his chance. Whipping off his boots and socks, he climbed onto a bollard at the end of the jetty, and jumped the three metres down, landing with a thump on the long, pointed bow of a bright red Camero Nordic.
The jolt frightened the crap out of the guy under the dashboard, and he bumped his head trying to get out quickly. “Hey buddy, follow that ferry!” yelled Alice, pointing in the direction of the ferry.
Then the guy sighted the two troopers, coming towards them with weapons drawn. It wasn’t difficult for him to sort out it was Alice they were after. An Octagon sympathizer, he had recognised Alice. Moving quickly, he unhitched the rope securing the boat to the jetty, dived into the bucket seat, fastened himself in and yelled: “Hang onto that bow rope buddy!”
The big block Chevy engine let out a deep-throated roar, and the arrow-shaped clinker ski-boat shot off like a missile, planing across the water almost instantly.
The two troopers stopped at the end of the pier, Alice was well out of firing range.
Hope had spotted the companionway to the bridge, but had to fight through people to reach it. Mal burst out of the crowd behind her and grabbed her by the arm.
“Hey!” he shouted. “Where do you think you’re going?”
Hope turned and beamed him a big smile. “Just looking for some company,” she said. “Why d’you ask?”
He tried to drag her down the stairs.
The speedboat caught up with the much slower ferry in no time. Alice was on the prow, intending to leap onto the ferry once they were close enough. But they were in a squall. The rain was bucketing down, with flashes of sheet lighting illuminating massive, rolling storm clouds. The wind had whipped the waters into frenzied, one-metre whitecaps, charging across the swell with only seconds in between.
The speedboat driver was forced to steer the boat to the windward side of the ferry, ploughing through the oncoming waves. The boat reared as it broached every wave, which broke over the bow as the boat crashed over the crest. Each one almost swept Alice overboard. The only thing saving his life was the bow rope, which he held in a vice-like grip.
As they closed on the ferry, Alice inched along the slippery foredeck, closer to the low gunwale of the speedboat. To the passengers aboard the ferry, Alice looked for all the world like the figurehead on the prow of a great sailing ship, the wind blowing his ponytail out behind him in a long mane, and his muscular upper body drenched with spray from the waves.
He glanced quickly at his driver, feeling the time had come, and got a nod back — the go signal. This was it. The boats were level.
A huge wave belted over the bow and swamped Alice. The water was way rougher between boats. He needed to time his jump carefully, but even then it was going to be a jump on a wing and a prayer.
As they drew level with the ferry, and were as close as possible without colliding, Alice took a deep breath, let go of the rope and jumped. His life flashed before him. Then a gust of wind lifted him like the hand of God, depositing him into the waiting arms of supporters on the ferry’s quarterdeck.
Job done, the speedboat driver pulled a sharp one-eighty and hightailed it back to Jones Bay Wharf.
Alice had to fight his way into the main cabin through the crowd of supporters who had converged on him in welcome. Amid the chaos, he caught sight of Hope and Mal at the companionway stairs to the bridge.
“Hope!” he yelled, his voice carrying over all the chatter, the music, the crashing of waves and the general mayhem of the howling storm.
She turned to see Alice, and in doing so released her grip on Mal. He immediately let fly with a kick, which knocked her backwards and into Alice’s waiting arms.
Thundering towards Alice like a madman, Mal screamed: “Watch out for that bitch, Al! She’s SSD! Hold her!”
When he got to them, he tore Hope out of Alice’s grip.
The crowd cleared space around them, and the DJ cut the music.
Mal raised his hand, threatening to belt Hope. “Who the hell are you?” he screamed. “You’re the cop they planted on board, aren’t you?”
Alice pulled Hope aside and slipped between her and Mal. He was frustrated, and he lined up a punch.
Mal suddenly twigged. “Al?”
“Let her go mate. We have to get to the bridge … stop the ferry.”
Mal couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “No way man, not on your life.”
“Get to the bridge Hope,” Alice ordered, then turned back to Mal, who was having none of it. Alice had no choice and belted Mal with a powerful right hook. Mal hit the deck and lay there, holding a bleeding lip with an incredulous look on his face. Alice, already moving, shouted back, “I’m sorry mate … no time to explain! Just stay out of this!”
Agitated by the fight between their leaders, the crowd surged. Hope got caught up in the throng and was carried off, away from Alice.
Blocked from the companionway, Alice made for the starboard exit, trying to find another route to the bridge.
Mal scrambled to his feet and yelled furiously at big Joe the bouncer standing nearby, “Joe, stop Alice!”