Aaron was back in Brisbane city and was out for a run when he came across the incident.

The driver was out of the car and swaying, so Aaron grabbed the man to steady him. It was obvious the man was in a state of shock. A few people came and assisted Aaron. They sat the man down where his view of the body was obscured. Aaron thought the driver looked familiar—maybe they had crossed paths sometime in the past.

The ambulance arrived in less than ten minutes. The paramedics worked on the young woman for a while, and then placed a white sheet over the body. Aaron told the police he didn’t witness the accident, but arrived just after the event. They still took his details. One of the paramedics came over and checked on the driver of the car. Aaron stood back and looked around. There were gawkers everywhere. Why didn’t these people leave and go to work or wherever they were to be going?

A stranger stood beside Aaron. “Terrible thing this, and will you look at those gawkers. And look at those taking pictures.”

Right on! Why were those idiots taking pictures? The person’s dead. Rage was building up inside of Aaron, best he continue his run.

“Excuse my insensitivity,” the stranger said, “but where do you think that person has gone: heaven or hell?”

Aaron looked at him. He didn’t know how to react. “You’re right mate. That’s a bit insensitive. Maybe you’re as bad as those gawkers.” He walked off, angry and keen to continue his run. Just before he started running he turned and looked back at the scene and the stranger, there was something odd about him. The stranger was gone, a funny sort of gone, like he just vanished. Aaron decided that the man had just ducked around the corner. He felt better thinking that. Besides, what else could he think?

<°)))><

Mackenzie and Paul heard the sirens and then saw the Emergency vehicle lights flashing as they came out of Central Station. Paul nudged Mackenzie to cross the road in the opposite direction, as their normal route was closed off. They crossed, and Mackenzie looked back, wondering what had happened. She saw a sheet being placed over a body and a man sitting down on the footpath with a few people around him. A man with a runner’s singlet and shorts stood out among all the business attire. He looked a lot like Aaron, but she didn’t think he was in town. The lights changed, and Paul told her to cross. She turned and obeyed.

Mackenzie had a funny feeling, a premonition. Normally, the clutter of the day drowned out the presence of the Spirit but she sensed him now—it got her attention. She turned again to look at the scene. She felt the blackness of the road drawing her. Something else was going to happen here, something that was going to rock the harmony of the place.

<°)))><

Aaron thought as he ran along the Story Bridge walkway, thought about the question the man asked about heaven and hell. It bothered Aaron. Why did it matter? When you’re dead, you’re dead.

Thoughts of his dad popped into his head. Dad’s death was still quite raw.

Back in the base, they’d a big discussion about the subject of death and the conclusion that seemed to be reached involved good people going to heaven and bad people going to hell, as simple as that. Nik the Muslim summarised it nicely for them, saying that no one shall enter hell who has an atom of faith in his heart. Most of his mates had nodded their heads in agreement with his view. A few wanted to know more about the virgins in paradise that were often mentioned with suicide bombers.

Aaron looked down at his runners pounding the walkway. Past his runners he could see the water through the cracks in the bridge’s walkway. The Brisbane River flowed down there, a long way down. A CityCat glided past.

Suicide bombers. Suicide. There had been a number of suicides from this bridge. Such things saddened Aaron. The despair or desperation a person reached to commit such an act confused him—wrong thought patterns, illness—he just wasn’t sure. He asked Mackenzie about it. She preferred not to talk about suicides, but rather she felt for the people that were left behind and believed the people that did such things were not in their right minds. She believed they were influenced by evil.

They had moved on to talking about heaven and hell, and Mackenzie said that non-believers must get a real shock when they end up in hell. But then Aaron would get confused about the good person thing. Mackenzie told him bluntly, a few times, that unless he was saved he will be going to hell. But then Aaron would say he was a good person and she would say, “You are, Aaron, but you’re not saved.” Aaron wondered about the suicide bombers and their virgins in paradise. They couldn’t be going to paradise—they kill people.

He came off the bridge, and ran along the riverside. He missed the breeze that cooled him on the bridge. He started getting hot. Mackenzie . . . thoughts of her darted in and out his head.

Ping pong in the head, he called it. One voice told him that he joined the army to run away from his feelings for Mackenzie. The other voice told him not to be stupid, and to get on with his life. But Mackenzie took up prime real estate in his head. At every opportunity, a thought of Mackenzie jumped to the front of the thought queue. He needed to build a Mackenzie firewall but had not quite worked out how to do that.

His thoughts went back to the accident. Life could be so sad. The driver of the car would have to deal with accidently killing someone. The parents of the girl were going to get some shattering news— maybe they already had. Then that man raising the subject of heaven and hell . . . there was something strange about him.

As he ran, he passed a house with a huge FOR SALE sign planted in the lawn. It reminded him of the first time he met Mackenzie . . .

<°)))><

Aaron had been 10 years old when he first set eyes on Mackenzie from his front balcony. He peeked from behind a bush and watched as a pretty girl and her family walked past the FOR SALE sign on the house across the road, and walked up the stairs to the front door. A man greeted them. Mum told him that man was a real estate agent. He knew about agents. He was going to be a secret agent when he grew up. The man had a dark suit on and probably carried a gun. Aaron hoped no shooting took place.

The next time he saw Mackenzie was at school. Their teacher, Mrs Trewin, welcomed Mackenzie to the class. He remembered praying to God that Mrs Trewin would sit her close to him. God heard his prayer and she ended up in the seat right next to him. He was too scared to say anything to Mackenzie, so he just smiled every time she looked at him—which wasn’t often, because she really paid a lot of attention to the teacher.

He decided to follow her home after school because he wanted to know where she lived. The bell rang, and few of the girls in the class came over to Mackenzie. One of the girls practically pushed him out of the way to get to Mackenzie, but that was okay because he needed to fade into the background because he was going to be a secret agent and follow her home.

He walked behind her after school. She didn’t see him as he blended in with all the kids, bikes and bags. A lady met Mackenzie at the school gate. Aaron thought it must be her mum. He followed them down the street, but he felt grumpy because they headed in the opposite direction to where he lived—so they didn’t buy the house on his street. Rats. As they turned into Thorpe Street he remembered that he rode his bike to school, so he ran back to get the bike.

He peddled madly back to continue his following act but could not locate them. To make things worse, the bike chain broke, so he had to push the bike home. He headed home with his shoulders hunched, kicking anything he found on the footpath. He happened to look up as a car passed, and got a shock—it was the car he was looking for, and Mackenzie sat in the front seat. She looked at Aaron, appeared excited, and waved. Aaron straightened up and headed home with the biggest grin, but a bigger surprise was around the corner. Their car was parked across from Aaron’s house and that man with the black suit was back. He stuck something on the sign outside the house and shook hands with Mackenzie’s mum. Aaron’s grin got even bigger when he saw the thing on the sign read SOLD. He was in love.

<°)))><

Back from his run and back to his city accommodation. His short stay had been adventurous so far.

Aaron hoped his mum wasn’t going to be annoyed. They sent him back to Brisbane for some training and then he decided to take leave for a few weeks after that. He had to stay in the city for a few nights due to his training requirements.

A shower cooled him down from his run. He walked out on the balcony and called his mum. Pictures of his mum walking out in the passageway and heading towards the phone came in to his mind. Her shoulders were not hunched, but tall and straight. That was the image he wanted. One where she is strong and on the mend. It had only been a few weeks but he wanted these things. He didn’t want to think of his mum struggling with the loss of her husband.

Aaron told his mum that he would drop round, pick up his fishing gear and have a cuppa with her. He would bring her up-to-date with what he was up to. He told his mum he’d catch the ferry there, and asked if it was all right to borrow the car. That was fine.

Aaron planned to work things out with a fishing rod in his hand.

Chapter 6

THE WHITE VAN CRAWLED along. Movement was snail’s pace, at times even slower, the congestion due to the incident. Lucas had to get the Professor to walk a few blocks before he could pick him up.

After a good hour or so he finally picked up the Professor, then manoeuvred the van onto the Pacific Motorway and relaxed. Lucas told the Professor that he saw one of their ‘test dummies’ sitting on a bench. They hardly spoke the rest of the trip. They nearly hit a wallaby as they turned into the property, which generated a brief sparkle of excitement in the van.

Lucas pressed the button and watched the garage door open. He drove the van in and told the Professor he would join him soon, as he needed to shut down a few things first. After tidying up things he went over to the shed. He saw a mannequin on the floor and assumed that they must have done some testing. It was just as well they didn’t do a transfer, as this would have spooked the people. They slipped up—it should have been removed. He picked it up and carried it out with him and threw it on a pile of rubbish. The face on the mannequin stared back at Lucas, so he covered it with some of the other rubbish.

He lit up a smoke because he knew he wouldn’t get another chance for a while. The image on the cigarette package was gruesome. It reminded him of the face of the mannequin. He hoped they’d fixed things up, because he wouldn’t want to see these things happening to humans. There had been signs of problems—the first human test they did, the man stayed intact. He died from the fall, not a deformity. He thought of the man with the red and blue cap—he was intact and seemed to be functioning okay.

Another car was coming down the road. It was his boss, the Minister for Urban Movement. He quickly put out his cigarette as the minister didn’t particularly like smokers. Tony the chauffeur got out of the car, raised his arm towards Lucas, and pretended to get him in a headlock. The chauffeur opened the car door for the minister. The minister nodded to the chauffeur and headed for the steps. He waved Lucas over.

“How are you, Lucas?”

“Not bad, sir.”

“You’re nearly looking as good as my chauffeur. Maybe you two should get into wrestling and form a tag team or something.” He laughed.

Lucas had heard it all before. In fact, the minister’s constant referral to his chauffeurs and wrestling gave birth to Tony getting the nickname of Tag. Lucas missed out on a nickname. He wondered if he might end up being called Tag2.

“I heard we had to delay things this morning. Bit of an accident, I believe,” the minister said.

“That’s what I heard.” He hoped the minister would expand a bit more, because Lucas hadn’t heard much.

“Sad, a person died, just because she didn’t follow the rules. What are we meant to do with these idiots? They think they’re immortal.”

Lucas just nodded.

“Come join us, Lucas. You’re a part of the team. And one other thing Lucas . . . you’re not immortal either, so you better give up those cigarettes. You people just don’t realise, you can smell a smoker a mile off.”

Lucas followed. He imagined grabbing the minister in a head lock and blowing smoke in his face. They both reached the top of the stairs when the door opened.

“Ah,” the minister said. “The mad professor. Are we safe to enter your domain?”