Max Arena Page 27

  Casting a quick glance around the ring of bystanders, Max noted that the crash itself was no longer the centre of attention. He was. All eyes had turned to him. He could even see a few hopeful people holding out notepads and pens for autographing. Max clenched his fists. He had not come down here to turn the situation into a circus. He had come to help.

  None of the firemen had noticed Max and his security detail’s arrival, so Max walked across to the two firemen attending to the injured people off to the side. One of the men sensed movement and looked sideways to find two orange shoes. He then flicked a look up and found the rest of Max. After a full two seconds of his brain registering the image, the fireman’s eyes widened.

  ‘Chief?’ he called out. ‘Look at this!’

  Max turned back to the wreckage and watched as one of the firemen, who was bent over and attempting to lift a twisted piece of steel, turned without straightening. He squinted through the rain and similarly to his colleague, after a few seconds’ cogitation, realised who he was looking at. Releasing his grip on the wreckage, the Fire Chief jumped down to the bitumen and walked over, finger pointing at Max.

  ‘Tell me you’re not just a Max groupie?’ he shouted.

  ‘I’m not just a Max groupie,’ Max replied, stepping toward him. ‘It’s really me. We got caught in the jam like everyone else and seeing as your buddies are still aways back down the road, I wanted to see if there was anything I could do to help?’

  The Fire Chief stood and thought for a moment, his composure astonishing amidst the screaming, the rain and hundreds of onlookers now surrounding them. Then he nodded.

  ‘Maybe there is something you can do,’ he said. ‘Come with me.’

  Max followed the chief as he turned and led him around to the far side of the wreckage. Peter and his team hurriedly moved with them, trying to keep an unbroken shield between Max and the surrounding crowd. The chief stopped and Max stepped up next to him.

  ‘Our hydraulic tools aren’t working and we can’t wait for the other crew to get here to help,’ the chief started. ‘This girl’s in a bad way and we’ve got to get her out now, but all we’ve got are our manual tools and our bare hands.’

  ‘So what do you want me to do?’ Max asked, inspecting the wreck.

  ‘We need to lift her car about three feet higher to clear her door of the wreckage next to it and get it open, but the car obviously weighs a tonne and we can’t get enough hands around this bit of chassis here to lift the thing,’ the chief said, putting his hand onto a crumpled part of the rear of the girl’s car. ‘There’s only enough space for one set of hands.’

  As he finished his explanation, the chief looked up at Max, his meaning crystal clear.

  Max held his hands up. ‘They’re all yours’, Chief.’

  A grim smile lined the fireman’s face. ‘Put these on, mate,’ the chief ordered as he took off his own gloves and handed them over. ‘I’ll get a spare set and get the boys organised.’

  The Fire Chief turned to jog back around the mass of twisted junk, but then stopped and turned back.

  ‘Max, we don’t get this girl out now, she dies,’ the chief said, his eyes hollow and dark. ‘You really think you can lift this thing?’

  Max’s eyes gleamed blue steel in return, his gloved hands clenched by his sides. ‘Get your boys ready to open that door.’

  The chief nodded silently and turned away to start jogging again. Max watched him go and then looked down at where he was going to grip his hands onto the steel. Off to the side, but not far away, Peter stood mute, transfixed by the transformation Max had undergone. He had seen it many times already, but it never failed to stun him.

  Instantly, Max could go from calm and relaxed to pure, lethal purpose and right now, Max was all purpose. He radiated it from head to toe. His entire frame was taut and cocked, but fully controlled. Peter had never, ever seen anyone or anything like it.

  A shout from the other side of the wreck dragged Peter’s attention away. Max also looked up and he found the Chief with three of his team all standing by the blocked driver’s door of the girl’s car. Her screams had become weaker. Time was almost out.

  Even the crowd sensed the heightened urgency. They had become restless. The camera flashes were incessant. The shouts of encouragement even louder. Peter’s team were really starting to struggle to hold the crowd back from pushing in to where Max stood. Something had to be done, right now.

  ‘Ready, Max?’ the chief shouted.

  Max half squatted and gripped the piece of chassis with both hands, squaring his feet up on the bitumen as he did, the soles of his feet scratching and crunching. The wet steel was slippery in his gloved fingers, but his hands gripped the wreckage like twin vices, clamped and firm. Then without looking back at the chief, Max’s eyes fixed level and unseeing on the wreckage in front of him.

  ‘Ready!’ he called back.

  ‘Lift!’ the chief yelled.

  Max’s focus instantly drew inwards. While he remained aware of the world around him, it faded into the background. The rain softened. The shouts of the masses dulled. The screams of the young girl drifted away. Inside himself, Max searched for energy and like turning on a switch, he found it.

  Power ripped through every molecule of his body like a mass of unleashed lightning bolts. Energy surged out from his core to every point in his being. Through the taut mass of muscles in his legs and down to the soles of his feet flat on the rain-soaked bitumen. Up the length of his bunched back and along his arms to the tips of his fingers as they gripped the steel through his heavy gloves. Even into his eyes as they blazed brilliant blue in the gathering gloom, and then Max lifted.

  Grinding steel screeched and unbroken glass popped as the mangled chassis started to rise, Max’s brute strength forcing it to come clear of the ground. The four firemen screamed encouragement. The throng of onlookers raised a supporting roar. Only Peter looked on silently, his awe overwhelming him.

  The wreckage continued to rise higher. The cheering rallied even more, but Max heard nothing. All his focus fixed on every straining muscle, tendon and sinew in his body. He could feel the bite of the steel through his gloves. He could feel the unforgiving hardness of the bitumen beneath his feet. He could especially feel the weight of the wreckage trying to drive him through the ground as it begrudgingly rose upwards.

  ‘One more foot, Max!’ the chief shouted. ‘One foot higher!’

  Max’s awareness plucked the chief’s voice out from the background. He knew he was close to success, but Max also knew that if he dropped the wreckage now, it could injure the young girl even more and maybe even kill her instantly?

  Upwards Max drove, his thighs and back as rigid as the steel he gripped. Inch by painful inch he lifted, adrenalin coursing through his system like a wildfire. Life for Max was all about right here and right now. He had to give the best of himself to save the girl.

  The chief’s wide eyes stayed glued to the rising edge of the car door. Slowly, it crept up. He held a simple pocket knife in his left hand, ready to cut through the seatbelt when he needed to. Beside him, his three colleagues also stood transfixed on the rising car door. Time slowed as their sights tunnelled in. Then it happened.

  ‘It’s clear!’ the chief yelled. ‘Pull!’

  Simultaneously, all four firemen reached forward to grab the frame of the car door and pull it open. Their combined strength went even further as they ripped the entire door clean off its hinges, the battered hunk of steel flying away from the wreck to slide to a halt some distance back. The chief lunged forward and with his pocket knife, he cut the seat belt away.

  The firemen reached desperately into the wreck to catch the girl as she fell clear. As a team, the four men quickly, but gently, extricated the young girl out of the darkened interior of the wreckage and out into the grey drizzling rain. Feverish applause filled the air.

  ‘We’re clear, Max!’ the chief shouted. ‘Let her go!’

  Suddenly, the world flooded back int
o Max’s life. Unclenching his vice like grip and pulling his hands away, the steel crashed back to the road, screeching and squealing like a thousand finger nails scraping down a black board. Stepping back, Max watched the twisted pile settle uncomfortably back onto the bitumen, making sure no errant pieces of shrapnel came flying out.

  Then he heard the chief’s voice coming at him. ‘You did it!’ the fireman shouted as he jogged over, a massive grin across his face. ‘You, son of a bitch, you did it!’

  Max slid his gaze up from the wreck to take him in. The flash of cameras was eye popping, the intensity lighting up the entire scene. The chief reached Max and clapped his hands down hard onto his shoulders.

  ‘You, bloody legend!’ he shouted. ‘You’re a hero!’

  Max held his gaze on the chief for a moment and then looked over the man’s shoulder to where the young girl was already having first aid bestowed upon her as she lay on the petrol slick asphalt. She was alive and that was all that mattered.

  ‘You’re a hero, Max!’ the chief persisted, taking his hands off his shoulders. ‘I can’t believe you actually lifted that thing!’

  ‘I’m no hero, chief,’ Max said as quietly as he could in the surmounting din, while looking down to watch his own hands remove his gloves. It’s not about me.’

  From where Peter stood, he could see and hear the entire conversation. Silently he listened in. Max’s quiet, controlled tone rang out in sharp contrast to the fire chief’s exuberance. Max’s reverse transformation was complete. Instantly, he had changed back from all purpose to pure calm.

  ‘What do you mean, it’s not about you?’ the chief shot back. ‘I’ve been at this job for over twenty years and I’ve never seen anything like that! That was real hero stuff!’

  Max looked up, his eyes blue and piercing. ‘It was team work,’ he said simply. ‘That girl doesn’t get to live without all of us doing our bit. On my own, she dies, but with you and your team, she lives.’

  The chief’s smile softened a little as he took in the words. Max continued.

  ‘Tonight the headlines will probably be all about me,’ he said, ‘but I know better. I stood here and watched you guys pull that girl out of there. You’re as responsible as I am and as for me being a hero, no way. I’ve helped save one life. You guys save lives every day. You’re the heroes. I can’t wait to go home and tell my kids I got to hang out with a bunch of fireys today. They’re going to love that.’

  The chief was speechless. Peter could see him searching for words and failing. Then Max held out a hand and the chief looked down at it, still dumbfounded. Then, after a long pause, he clasped Max’s hand and looked back up into his gleaming blue eyes. The flash of cameras broke out afresh, capturing the moment forever.

  4th October (almost 1 month later). Peace

  2pm, 4th October, Brisbane, Australia

  Looking up at the sun, Max could feel the sweat already dripping off his skin and beading on his forehead. Winter had well and truly been hurried away by the onset of an unseasonably heated spring. Spreading his gaze across the horizon, he found the expected anvil-shaped thunderhead clouds brewing over the sea. There was a storm coming, but the cooling rains would come too late for him this afternoon.

  Lowering his sight, he looked around the boundary of the suburban football ground and found the usual throng of people, thirty, forty deep all around, a small army of security and military personnel managing the crowd. Overhead, the now routine sounds of circling helicopters, both media and military, added to the background noise of the thousands of onlookers chattering and shouting. It was just another Tuesday in front of the public, but complacency was the furthest thing from Max’s mind. He was here, as always, with purpose.

  ‘You good to go, Max?’ Kris’ voice sounded in his miniature ear piece.

  Turning around, Max found Kris striding up from the Pain Train, her wireless comms set on her head, looking around at the equipment laid out on the playing field.

  ‘Let’s get busy,’ Max replied through his miniature microphone that was held in place around the base of his throat by a thin ribbon circlet.

  ‘This crowd keeps getting bigger every week,’ Kris added. ‘They’re going to need more soldiers soon.’

  ‘They’re always well behaved. The most trouble we’ve had yet is a few errant pairs of undies sailing over the fence. Could be a lot worse.’

  Kris smiled. ‘What makes you think those undies were for you?’

  Now Max smiled. ‘Don’t make me laugh. Not when you’re just about to run me into the ground. It’s too evil.’

  ‘Right then. Enough chit chat. We’re getting the wind up from the director anyway.’

  Max flicked a glance to the top of the Pain Train where a woman stood with her hand in the air indicating the live media broadcasts were about to commence.

  ‘What do you want first?’ Max asked, roaming his gaze over all the equipment.

  ‘Straight into thirty handstand presses and then run on down to the dumbbells at the far end,’ Kris replied, walking away towards where the dumbbells lay.

  ‘Run down to the other end?’

  ‘Yeah, run, on your hands of course. Those fancy orange shoes of your’s aren’t going to get dirty today. You’ll be upside down most of the time.’

  ‘Remind me again why we’re friends?’

  ‘You got ten seconds. Quit your yapping,’ Kris shot back as she continued to walk away from him, waving her hand back at him.

  Max shook his head and smiled as he lowered his hands to his sides. A voice sounded a ten second countdown over the loud speakers. Max’s eyes narrowed.

  11:12am, 4th October, Bangkok, Thailand

  Patpong Road broiled like a living sea as the throng of people heaved and surged along its length. Thousands and thousands of locals and tourists swarmed in the space, the noise deafening as the masses roared and rumbled like ocean swells crashing onto the shore.

  Up and down the street, massive, three storey high television screens sucked in the masses’ collective attention, keeping them absorbed and well behaved. It was Tuesday and this event was now a regular, weekly event on the city’s calendar. Everyone was here for one reason and right now the giant screens were filled with that reason. Max.

  Suddenly, the crowd erupted as one. The cheer rumbled the ground and the buildings over a full city block away. A vast field of orange flags with black “X”s sprouted from the mass, turning the street into a vibrant tempest. Up on the screens a single figure stood, his muscle clad frame almost ten metres tall, his stance firm with feet apart after having just landed from a quadruple somersault, while sailing over one of his own Team Max Land Cruisers, completely unassisted.

  The vision then showed Max doing a backflip and landing cleanly on his hands to hold himself inverted on the grass. Kris then dashed past him and Max turned to chase after her, still on his hands. Max’s pursuit took him through an obstacle course, over benches, under low level bars and even up a stack of boxes arranged like stairs, not faltering once.

  Patpong Road oohed and ahhed with every obstacle crossed and then when Max eventually flipped back onto his feet, the applause thundered like an army of horses, loose in the city streets.

  Smiles warmed the multitude of faces comprising every colour, race and creed. Joy consumed the crowd, with laughter and cheers the common language.

  8:21am, 4th October, The Empty Quarter, Sultanate of Oman

  Heat and dust filled the air of the tiny village, its ramshackle huts clustered together around a central well. Surrounding the little enclave, the desert rose, the towering, rust red sand dunes dwarfing the village, drifts of sand whisking off the lofty crests of the intricate, wind carved masses.

  At midmorning, the village would normally bustle with activity as the locals busied themselves with routine chores. Hauling water. Tending to the camels or repairing the huts, but not today. Today was Tuesday and that meant only one thing. Max day.

  Inside the largest of the huts, the
majlis, the villagers gathered in front of the solitary television, seated on the floor on a tapestry of woven rugs, the deep rich colours of the threads matching the multicoloured abayat of the women and in stark contrast to the white, flowing dishdashas of the men. Dancing around the seated adults were the children, their shrieks and cries a symphony of fun as the vision on the screen played out.

  Max had just picked up a barbell and placed it across his shoulders, the massive weight plates on each end making the steel bar wobble as he moved. The camera then cut to Kris who flicked a finger and instantly, Max turned and started to hop, great bounding hops, down the length of the field.

  Suddenly, one of the Omani men jumped up and grabbed a broom from the nearby wall and slipped it over his own shoulders, mimicking Max. The whole room broke into cheers and laughter as the man proceeded to hop the best he could around the rugs. All the children jumped up and copied him, the hopping parade laughing and giggling its way around the majlis.

  Then one of the women pointed at the television and called out. The man with the broom paused, looked at the screen and then dashed back to the wall to grab the mop as well. Then holding the broom in one hand and the mop in the other, he started to jump as high as he could. The children followed suit and the majlis broke out into a fresh round of cheers.

  Suddenly, the door to the majlis flew open and everyone turned. An Omani man stood there, framed and unmoving against the stark sun of the desert outside. Everyone stopped, watching him. Then in a flurry, the man produced something from behind his back and held them up in front. Orange running shoes.

  The majlis exploded. Applause and shouts drew the man inside to wild embraces from his fellow, male villagers. His trip to the capital had been successful. In moments, the man had the shoes on, the broom and the mop in hand and he was leading the children around the room, pretending to be their hero.