Free Max Arena by Jamie Doyle Page B

leaves me with only one question to
ask and I need a straight answer here. Absolute truth.’
    ‘Fire away,’
Max replied.
    ‘Are you on any
drugs, performance enhancing, medicinal or otherwise that could
explain your...your high levels of fitness and strength? I don’t
care if you’re a steroid freak. I’m not here to judge you and if
you need to be on roids to make you fit enough to fight off aliens
and save the world then so be it. Bring it on. I just need to know
because if you are on something, it makes a huge difference to how
I train you?’
    ‘No, I’m not on
anything,’ Max said straight faced. ‘Never have been. Wouldn’t even
know what to take.’
    Kris stood
stock still, her arms crossed as she studied Max’s face. The
silence stretched. Elsa crossed her gaze to Peter who was not
watching, but she knew he was listening.
    ‘Okay,’ Kris
finally said. ‘You are what you are, even though I’ve never seen or
heard of anyone like you.’
    ‘So, what do
you say?’ Elsa chipped in. ‘Are you in?’
    Kris shifted
her gaze to Elsa for a few moments and then turned to look at one
of the silent televisions hanging from the wall in front of the row
of empty treadmills. The images consistently showed emergency
services in action all over the country as fear grew unchecked.
People in pain. Lives being randomly destroyed and then an image
appeared depicting Max’s face carved on to the Himalayan Range and
her mind was made up. Turning back to Max and Elsa, she fixed them
in her focus.
    ‘If the world’s
going to end,’ Kris said, ‘then you’re the guys I want to be with.
I’m in.’
    ‘Thank you!’
Elsa shot back, running over to embrace Kris. ‘Thank you. Thank
you. Thank you.’
    Kris returned
the hug, but over Elsa’s shoulder she kept her eyes on Max who
looked evenly back. She may have had a smile on her face, but
inwardly, deep inside Kris’ head, alarm bells had just started
ringing.
     
    3pm, 2 nd July (later the same day).
Isolation
     
    While Max and
Elsa left to pick up the kids, Kris was whisked into one of the
security detail’s black, armoured Land Cruisers and driven straight
back to her apartment. Once there, she had precisely two hours to
pack. If it didn’t find its way into a bag in that time, it stayed
behind.
    She was then
bundled back into the Land Cruiser and driven away without being
given any indication of where they were going. After about thirty
minutes of silent travel in the back seat on her own, Kris looked
through the windscreen and noticed that another of the Land
Cruisers had returned and linked back up with them to take the
lead. Turning around, she then found the other two Land Cruisers
behind her’s, all four vehicles lined up in convoy. Somewhere
enroute to wherever they were going, the entire security entourage
had rejoined them. Kris assumed Max, Elsa and the kids were in one
of the other four-wheel drives, probably the other middle one
behind her’s, which made her feel a little better. If the star of
the hour, Max was with them, they were going somewhere safe.
    Relaxing a
little, Kris started to actually take notice of what was beyond her
window instead of fretting about what she might have just agreed
to. They were hurtling along on a freeway, on the way out of
Brisbane by the looks of it with not much traffic on the road
around them. However, even though they were speeding, several other
cars were still passing them. Then suddenly, their Land Cruiser
flew past the still smouldering wreckage of a multi-car pile-up
that had just been pushed off to the side of the road. Whipping her
head round, Kris tried to get a longer look at the scene, but it
flashed by too fast.
    ‘Was that a car
crash back there?’ she asked the driver and his front seat
passenger.
    ‘Yes, ma’am,’
came the simple reply from the passenger.
    Then Kris heard
a siren. Turning around, she found a red Lexus careering towards
them with a police car in pursuit.
    ‘Hold your
line,’