As Glen crouched down, a black 4WD parked between the shop and one of the petrol bowsers. A tall man in a flannel shirt got out of the ute and grabbed one of the pumps. As he turned to put the nozzle into the tank, Doug saw his face.

  It was Glen Durras. No, Doug quickly realised—it was the man Viper had replaced him with.

  The real Glen saw the face too, and let out a gasp. ‘Who is that?!’

  ‘Shh!’ Doug hissed back.

  The man’s head snapped around to face the shop. He stood still for a long moment. Then he started walking towards the shop, leaving the nozzle plugged into his ute.

  Doug looked around frantically for a place to hide. Behind the counter was too obvious, and they would have to walk past the window to get there. A nearby door was marked STAFF ONLY, but Doug could see muddy footprints next to the handle. Someone had tried and failed to kick it open.

  ‘Bury yourself!’ Doug hissed. He started digging deeper into the junk all over the floor, like a fox trying to tunnel under a fence. When he reached the floor he lay on his back and dragged debris onto his body. Hopefully Glen was doing the same thing.

  They were out of time. Doug lay still as he heard the man crunch into the room.

  Cobra peered around the dark interior of the petrol station. He was sure he’d heard something. It could have been an animal, rummaging around in all the rubbish on the floor, looking for food. But it could also have been a person.

  ‘Hello?’ he called out. ‘Can anybody help me? I’m having trouble with my car.’

  Silence. Either no-one was in here, or someone was in here, but they knew who he was, so they weren’t coming out.

  The Durras kid and his friends. It had to be.

  Cobra climbed in the window and trudged through the debris into the first aisle, looking for hiding places. He had intended to be long gone by now. Soon Viper would realise that Cobra’s cover was blown and that he had lost the kid. Viper would remotely trigger the POISON capsule in Cobra’s hand. Cobra’s plan had been to dump his phone, collect his secret getaway vehicle—the one Viper didn’t know about—and drive deep into the desert, where there was no coverage. Hopefully he would be out of range before Viper sent the signal. Then Cobra could find a doctor or a vet who might remove the capsule without asking too many questions. The two million dollars in cash he’d saved up over the years would probably help.

  But if the kid and his friends were still in Kelton, he could capture them and lock them in the spacious boot of his 4WD. Then he could call Viper and ask what to do with them. Viper might be annoyed that Cobra’s false identity had been exposed, but he wouldn’t poison Cobra over it. Not when Cobra had a potentially useful prisoner or two.

  No-one was hiding in the first aisle of the shop. Cobra turned the corner, passing the giant coffee machine, and entered the second aisle.

  He was unarmed, but Jarli was small. And if there were others, Cobra could pick Jarli up and use him like a human shield.

  Something rustled in the debris at his feet. Cobra glanced down sharply. Had that been a rat, looking for scraps? Or was there a human shape under all those magazines and chip packets?

  Cobra bent over—

  And saw movement out of the corner of his eye.

  He whirled around. But it was just a mirror in the corner. His own reflection, staring back.

  Then his reflection charged.

  Cobra nearly jumped out of his skin. He swore and stumbled backwards as his doppelganger—the real Glen Durras, he realised—sprinted through the shop towards him, an empty petrol can raised above his head. Durras’s eyes were wild. Cobra couldn’t tell if he was angry or terrified, or both.

  Cobra tried to back away, but a hand snaked out of the rubbish at his feet and grabbed his ankle. He tripped and crashed into the shelves, knocking them down and landing on top of them.

  He rolled over in time to see Glen Durras and a kid—one of Jarli’s friends—pushing over the next row of shelves. They smashed down onto Cobra’s legs, trapping him. Pain shot up his thighs. He struggled with the shelves, but couldn’t get them off him.

  ‘You’re dead!’ he screamed. ‘You hear me? Dead!’

  The two were already scrambling back out the broken window.

  ‘Go!’ Doug was yelling. ‘Hurry!’

  Glen was already sprinting towards the road. As Doug passed the black 4WD, he looked through the window and saw the keys in the ignition.

  ‘Wait,’ he said. ‘We can take his car!’

  ‘What about keys?’

  ‘They’re in here. Quick!’

  Glen ran back and jumped in the driver’s seat. Doug hopped in on the passenger side and looked in the rear view mirror. The fake Glen Durras hadn’t come out of the building yet. He must still be trapped under the shelves.

  The engine roared. With a screeching of tyres, the ute launched itself forward. The petrol nozzle ripped itself out of the tank with a squeal of metal on metal.

  Doug watched as the station shrank in the mirror. Still no sign of the bad guy.

  ‘That was a good plan,’ he said. ‘Distracting him like that.’

  ‘Plan?!’ Glen was still trembling. ‘I just saw a guy who had my face, and I grabbed the nearest solid object. Who was that?!’

  In the mirror, Doug saw something on the back seat. He turned. His eyes widened.

  ‘I don’t know, exactly,’ he said. ‘But he was loaded.’

  There was a clear plastic crate on the back seat. It was full of cash. Thousands of dollars, maybe millions. Doug was so entranced that it took him a minute to notice the item resting on top of the crate.

  He reached over and picked it up. ‘And hey,’ he said. ‘Now we have a phone.’

  A FIZZING, BURNING SENSATION

  Anya held her breath, her feet still braced against the cubicle door. There was no sound from the robot. Was it still in the bathroom? Or had it left so quietly she hadn’t noticed?

  That seemed impossible, given how much hissing and clanking it had made when it entered. But the robot wouldn’t just be standing in the doorway, wondering what to do next. Robots didn’t wonder. They made decisions in a microsecond. Actually, they didn’t decide at all. They just did whatever they had been programmed to do.

  So maybe this robot had been programmed to stand still and listen for a while. Anya tried to keep quiet, but her legs were cramping up. It was getting harder to resist the urge to move.

  A minute turned into two, then three, then four.

  Robots didn’t get impatient, either. Anya was starting to worry that it was programmed to stand there until something else triggered it. Anya could be trapped in this bathroom for hours. She could still be here when the botulism was released.

  Or worse, her father would come looking for her. He would call her name, and when she didn’t answer, he would walk right into this bathroom. The robot would catch him by surprise.

  It was this thought that got her moving. She had to do something.

  She very carefully slipped a hand into her back pocket, where she always kept some coins.

  The toilet seat creaked under her. She froze.

  No sound from outside the cubicle. The robot hadn’t heard, or didn’t care, or wasn’t there at all.

  Only one way to be sure. She pulled out a ten-cent piece and chucked it over the right-hand wall into the next cubicle.

  The coin chimed against the floor.

  That got a reaction. With a sudden whirring and hissing, the robot stomped past Anya’s cubicle, searching for the source of the sound. Anya watched under the cubicle door as the robot’s carbon fibre claws scuttled past, left to right. Soon after it was out of sight, silence fell again. The robot had stopped moving.

  It was closer now, so she had to be even quieter. But it wasn’t between her and the exit anymore. There was a chance to escape. She couldn’t open the cubicle door, though. It would see her.

  Very carefully, Anya took her feet off the back of the door. She stood on the seat, braced one shoe against the toilet paper dispenser and grabbed the top of the left-hand cubicle wall.

  It shouldn’t have been a difficult climb. Anya was a skilled gymnast. But having to move silently made it almost impossible.

  Almost. Wincing at every rustle of fabric and creak of chipboard, Anya hauled herself up onto the cubicle wall. She could see the exit. Freedom. Maybe she could even trap the robot in the bathroom, giving the others plenty of time to search the rest of the building.

  Bang. She heard the robot smash open the door of the next cubicle along, where the coin was. Her cubicle might be next.

  Anya dropped to the floor like a cat.

  The robot heard. It immediately started towards her, joints clicking like maracas.

  Anya sprinted for the exit. The robot hiss-clanked after her as she ran out the door and turned right, back towards where she had last seen her father. No time to try to shut the bathroom door—the robot was right behind her.

  She pelted up the corridor, desperately looking for something she could use to defend herself. As she turned the corner, she saw a mop and bucket—not much of a weapon. A window in the distance—not much of an escape route, given that she was two stories above the ground. A computer chair on wheels.

  Individually, these things were useless. But together, they might just get her out of this.

  The robot was gaining on her. She could hear a faint whine as its stun gun warmed up.

  Anya snatched up the mop. The handle was plastic, not wood. Hopefully it would take her weight. As she ran, she kicked the computer chair as hard as she could. It rolled towards the window on squeaking wheels, but stopped halfway there.

  Gritting her teeth, Anya caught up to the chair and kicked it again. This time it skidded all the way to the window and kept going, smashing the glass and plummeting out into the darkness.

  Anya put on a burst of speed, sprinting towards the empty window frame. She held the mop horizontally above her head, like a chin-up bar.

  Then she jumped, feet first.

  She hurtled out the window, but the mop was longer than the window frame was wide. Both ends banged against the frame, jarring her shoulders in their sockets. The mop handle landed in the brackets, where the curtain rail should go. The brackets held Anya’s weight.

  She pulled her knees up to her chest just in time. The robot leapt at her and flew out the window, right under her heels. One of its outstretched claws brushed against her leg. There was a fizzing, burning sensation, and all Anya’s limbs spasmed wildly. She lost her grip on the mop handle, and fell. Her torso thudded painfully onto the windowsill, and she gasped. She scrabbled at the frame and just managed to grab it in time.

  The robot fell like a stone, and hit the concrete far below with a crash that echoed through the street. Looking down, Anya saw that parts of its carbon-fibre armour had SHATTERED, exposing the cables, hydraulics and steel skeleton underneath.

  But it stood up, and started pacing back and forth next to the building. Looking for a way in. Anya was glad they had closed the door behind them. The robot seemed to be indestructible.

  She hauled herself up over the windowsill and back into the corridor. She touched her chest gingerly. She would have some nasty bruises tomorrow, but she didn’t think she had broken any ribs. She was lucky the chair and the robot had knocked out most of the glass—she could have ended up with a spike through the heart.

  Be careful, Anya. Her father’s voice echoed through her mind. She wondered if he would think she should have stayed in the bathroom.

  Where was her father?

  ‘Dad?’ she called.

  No answer.

  Anya started hurrying back towards the offices her father had been searching. ‘The robot is gone,’ she called. ‘But I did not find the canister anywhere. Where are you?’

  She smelled anaesthetic from outside one of the offices and slowed. She pushed the door open and found her father face-down on the floor, splattered with anaesthetic, burn marks from a stun gun on his neck.

  THE CELLS IN OUR LUNGS

  ‘We have to get out of here,’ Eaton said. ‘Fast. Who else is in the building?’

  She and Jarli had moved out of Plowman’s earshot, but he wasn’t out of theirs. They could hear him bellowing and kicking the bars in his cell.

  Jarli still couldn’t quite believe it. ‘But if he’s Viper—’

  ‘There’s no doubt in my mind,’ Eaton said.

  ‘Then shouldn’t we be trying to make him tell us where the botulism canister is?’

  ‘He doesn’t know. He doesn’t even think he is Viper. His surgery was very thorough. Even if we had something to bargain with, we wouldn’t get any useful intel from him.’

  Jarli touched the scab on the back of his own head. Now, more than ever, he wished he could remember what information had been removed from his brain.

  ‘So what do we do, then?’ he asked.

  ‘Get out of Kelton. I can escort you most of the way.’

  ‘But what about the toxin?’

  Eaton shrugged helplessly. ‘Kelton is a small town, but not that small. I don’t think you’ll find it before it’s released.’

  ‘It’s not going to be released,’ Jarli said. ‘The defence minister is planning to drop a bomb on the town.’

  ‘He what?’

  ‘He’s trying to kill the botulism with a thermo-something or other warhead.’

  The colour drained from Eaton’s face. ‘Thermonuclear?’

  Jarli shook his head vigorously. ‘No, something else.’

  Eaton didn’t look reassured. ‘Thermobaric? A fuel-air bomb?’

  ‘I think that was it. What does it do?’

  ‘It’s the most powerful non-nuclear explosive. If we’re close to the detonation, we’ll be vaporised. If we’re further out, the shockwave will rupture the cells in our lungs, and we’ll suffocate. When’s the launch?’

  ‘One hour before Viper’s deadline,’ Jarli said.

  Eaton spat on the floor and wiped her mouth. ‘That son of a . . . Fisher probably won’t even evacuate the soldiers who are searching for the botulism. He doesn’t care if they live or die.’

  ‘He did actually order the troops to leave.’

  ‘Really? I wouldn’t be so sure.’

  Jarli had met Fisher before. He had seemed friendly and genuine. But later the façade had fallen away, revealing an angry, thoughtless man. Eaton was probably right.

  ‘But he cares about his image,’ Eaton continued, as if to herself. ‘He’s obsessed with it, in fact. If there’s a public outcry, he won’t drop the bomb. Can you get in touch with your journalist friend?’

  ‘Reynolds? She’s not really my—’

  Anya appeared near the stairs. She was dragging her father along the ground.

  ‘Help me!’ she wheezed.

  Jarli ran over. ‘What happened?’

  ‘The robot got him. Stunned him, and anaesthetised him.’ Anya wiped the sweat out of her eyes. Jarli could tell how anxious she was. ‘Do you think—’ She noticed Eaton for the first time. ‘Miss Eaton? What are you doing here?’

  ‘I came here to tell Jarli that Kellin Plowman is Viper,’ Eaton said bluntly. She crouched down next to Scanner’s unconscious body. ‘Did the robot get any anaesthetic on his face, or just here, on his hand?’

  ‘I don’t know, I didn’t see . . . What do you mean, Plowman is Viper?!’

  Eaton just nodded.

  ‘It’s true,’ Jarli said. ‘We locked him in a cell back there. But he doesn’t know where the botulism is—he erased his own memory.’

  ‘He erased . . .’ Anya shook her head, giving up.

  ‘This is Anya’s dad,’ Jarli told Eaton. ‘He’s been investigating Viper with us. Can you help him?’

  ‘Maybe.’ Eaton bent to get a closer look. When she saw his face, her eyes narrowed. ‘Huh.’

  ‘What?’ Anya asked.

  ‘I’ve seen him before. You said this is your father?’

  ‘Yes. Where did you see him?’

  ‘Never mind that now. Help me roll him over. Don’t touch his hand, or anything wet.’ Eaton sniffed the air. ‘That’s etorphine hydrochloride. It can penetrate skin. If you get any on you, you’ll pass out too.’

  The three of them gingerly rolled Scanner onto his side. Eaton pressed a finger to his neck. ‘Strong pulse. But if we don’t get him out of town before the warhead is dropped, he’ll die—just like the rest of us. I’ll grab his legs. You two take his arms.’

  They lifted Scanner. He didn’t seem so heavy at first. But after a minute of carrying him towards the exit, Jarli could already tell that they would get exhausted quickly.

  ‘We can’t leave Plowman,’ he said. ‘Not if the warhead—’

  ‘It’s not safe to take him with us,’ Eaton said. ‘We have to stop Fisher from dropping the bomb.’

  Plowman’s yells and protests faded as they moved away from the cell block, through the corridors of the prison. Eaton stopped at an intersection.

  ‘I don’t want to go outside,’ she said. ‘Plowman’s drones are still circling the town. I don’t know exactly what he’s programmed them to do.’

  ‘Oh, and I just remembered,’ Anya said. ‘The robot is out there.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It fell out the window when it was chasing me.’

  Jarli stared. ‘And it’s still operational?’

  ‘Yes. It is pacing right outside the door. If we go out there, it will stun us.’

  Jarli’s heart sank. Scanner’s body felt heavier than ever. ‘And there’s no other way out. Viper sealed the hole in the wall.’

  ‘Yes, but Viper made some other renovations,’ Eaton said. ‘This way.’

  ‘Finally.’ Bess lifted a magazine off the shelf. It was wrapped in dusty plastic, like all the other publications in the compactor.

  The compactor filled the whole archive room—a row of metal bookcases, all mounted on wheels and tracks so they could be pushed together to save space. Bess had been fascinated at first, but an hour of searching in it had dulled her enthusiasm.

  ‘The May issue?’ the librarian asked.

  ‘From five years ago. Right.’

 

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