Free 1 Life 2 Die 4 by Dean Waite Page A

out
of it. I felt furious when I realised I simply couldn’t bring
myself to be so brazen.
    Shaking myself back to reality, I saw that
her tongue was now resting on the molar directly above the one it
had touched earlier. As my frown deepened, she separated tongue
from tooth and the engine abruptly died.
    In the deep silence that followed, I found
myself staring dumbly back at her, concerned that this seemed to be
turning into an embarrassing habit of mine.
    “I’ve had quite a bit of dental work,” she
informed me. “Rather unconventional dental work, as you’re probably
guessing.”
    “Your teeth are
switches
?” I asked
incredulously.
    She smiled widely, proudly displaying them to
me.
    “Exactly - thermal switches. I turn the
system on by touching a series of teeth in a particular order. Each
tooth senses the change in temperature and the correct sequence
puts the whole system into ‘active’ mode. Then I can touch my
tongue to the one I want and it goes to ‘standby’ mode. As soon as
I pull it away, the switch detects the temperature change and sends
out an encrypted radio signal.”
    And I’d thought things couldn’t possibly get
any more bizarre! If I was to believe Veronica, she could open and
close doors, turn motors on and off - and who knew what else -
without lifting a finger! All it took was a few subtle movements of
her tongue!
    “You’d want to make sure you didn’t get mixed
up,” I pointed out, imagining her trying to open a door to escape
those goons and forgetting which tooth to use.
    She grinned suddenly. “While I was training,
I actually did forget a couple of times,” she admitted. “That’s why
they put in a failsafe. If I ever forget which switch to use, I can
trigger the top two front teeth simultaneously, three times within
two seconds, and all receivers within ten metres are automatically
activated.” She paused for a moment before adding: “Of course, it’s
not a great idea if there’s any chance a remotely detonated bomb is
planted nearby!”
    I smiled stiffly, wondering whether there
were any around here and wondering how easy it would be for her to
accidentally touch her two front teeth with her tongue three times
in two seconds!
    Then my cynical streak returned. How could I
possibly believe such craziness? There had to be some techie-guy on
the TV special effects team watching us on hidden cameras and
activating things remotely.
    “So what about all these hidden rooms and
tunnels?” I asked, changing tack and still determined to catch her
out. “How did they get there? And how do you know about them?”
    That same secretive smile touched her lips
yet again.
    “They were manufactured at a covert military
factory in the Simpson Desert, in the Australian Outback, then sent
back through time during the early hours of this morning,” she
replied matter-of-factly. Her smile spread into a broad grin. “And
I know where they are because you told me.”
    I frowned disappointedly. If she was here to
deceive me, she’d certainly come prepared. She seemed to have all
the answers … and they were consistently the last ones I
expected!
    “What do you mean
I
told you about
them?”
    Her smile became suddenly mischievous.
    “Well surely you don’t think that after we
got married we just lay in bed kissing all the time?” she asked
innocently, and I felt my face flush yet again. “Believe it or not,
we actually used to talk every now and then. And for some reason,
the events of today always seemed to be one of your favourite
topics.”
    I gave her what was fast becoming my
trademark, dumbfounded stare. Yet again, her story seemed vaguely
plausible – I could certainly imagine that if I survived today then
I would have a hard time not telling absolutely everyone I knew
about the incredible things that had happened to me!
    Amidst my confusion, I felt terribly
frustrated. Despite her whole argument being wildly outlandish and
seeming to run in circles, I still couldn’t