The book of Raxworthy

Chapter 18

The Black Holden Commodore sedan screeched round the corner, dark smoke from molten rubber obscuring the vision of the dark 1990’s Nissan Primera that was vaguely familiar to most of the people on the road at that time of the night. The chase had taken them round the southern edge of the city, hugging the hills, and now, as the route took them back in to the city it was just a matter of time before the chase would be over, the Holden having only so large a tank, and with 6 cylinders it was a thirsty machine.

The driver of the Holden glanced at the rear view mirror and frowned. “The Lights!” yelled the synthetic voice from the on board digital traffic officer on the rear seat, giving the driver an idea. Throwing the car into sixth, he barrelled on through the orange, almost losing control on the slick surface of the well travelled road, but leaving the Nissan well behind. Even the Agent’s of propaganda at the department of historical corrections needed to obey the law with the new legislation that required all cars to carry an on board digital traffic officer. Car chases had become more of a timing issue – get to the lights just before the change, and you hopefully would lose anyone tailing you. As long as a car kept within the law, it was fine, but as soon as you exceeded your allotted number of minor infringements, it would shut down, and you could only crawl at 20kph to your nearest LTNZ to pay the fines. Various government agents had been recently pushing for the ability to change the lights themselves – ability that ambulances had been using for years. The Truck! where was the truck? Round one more bend and there it was, parked like they said with the left brake light off, the signal that all’s well - proceed with the mission as planned. The back was down, and the Holden drove up the ramp into the safety of the truck, immediately being blasted by the abrasive white coat which within 5 minutes would transform the car from a sinister black muscle car into a sparkling clean white that its previous Japanese owner knew it by.

The driver, Lionel sighed, and offered up a prayer – for the mission, but also for the old lady that he had narrowly missed running over that morning. It had been a hectic day, now if only the others did their thing, they could all pack up and go home. Home. If only they knew when I said that I was going into missions training that it wasn’t going to be in ‘deepest darkest Africa’, he thought to himself, but of course, if his family knew, it would only endanger them. Opening the door, he carefully manoeuvred round the car to the front, being careful not to get paint on his new trousers, climbed into the cockpit with the truck driver and pulled out the PDA which had his minesweeper classic edition that he had almost clocked.

“What took you?” muttered the truckie, his mouth barely moving – he was a ventriloquism hobbyist before turning to missions, though his skill in pronunciation was lacking somewhat. “yeah, the usual” countered Li, waiting for his PDA to boot, “traffic was epidemic”. “other than the traffic, how was your trip?” asked Kev the truckie, who was now more awake than before, as he reached over to turn down the cricket on the radio. “not too bad” Lionel yawned – “what’s the score?” “we’re 276 for 8” said Kev gloomily “we’re chasing 340-odd.” With that, he leaned over with his right arm, retrieved his sudoku puzzle from on the floor where it has fallen, and with his left toe, he changed channel, the metallic acoustics of the truck cab resounding with the kryptomaniacs recent remix of Beethoven’s 9th which was playing on the Edge. Li settled down for the few hours until he would be able to drive the Holden back to it’s musty smelling garage 2.7 Ks south of Dunsandel. He would then get to drive that Suzuki van Cecil had mentioned. Booting up his PDA, he sent the financial report to home base, and started on an advanced game of Minesweeper Classic.

On the other side of the city, earlier that day, Darren crouched on the roof of the hospital, his digital camera being plastic didn’t set off the metal detectors on the way up, and so he used it now to record the movements, appearance and number plate of entity#1. Suddenly a black Holden Commodore blazing along at just under 70kph (the legal limit plus the 10ks grace) – no doubt it’s on board digital traffic officer screaming digitised warnings, narrowly missing an old lady walking her Doberman, careened past the car where entity#1 was sitting. Darren glanced at his digital watch. Right on time. Good on ya mate he thought as he watched Li, take the agent entity#1 on the beginning of a wild goose chase.

Pulling out his PDA, he noticed another WiFi point in range that wasn’t there yesterday I’ll have to check that one out later he thought so much technology, so little time. He sent off the financial report, detailing that operation vista was underway. – Vista. For whatever reason, the missions co-ordinator always seemed to choose names of antiquated operating systems….


Shopping. Cecil hated it. But this was shopping with a cause greater than just to get another jersey – shopping that could – if he chose something out of place, could endanger the whole mission. He chose a bluish greenish woollen cardigan with patches on the elbows and a sheep on it, and a pair of grey chords for Darren – who had always preferred the neo-agri-grunge style. For himself, he was deciding between a pale grey neojacket with black waistcoat, and matching trousers, or the mustard sawn off trench coat with jeans when he realised that this time, with so much at stake, he was actually enjoying the experience – he decided to buy them both, and set off to the #1 shoe warehouse for some footwear.

The dark aisles towered above him as he tried to stroll down them with what was more like a scurry at the shoe warehouse. Making his way past skate shoes, business shoes, retro golf/rugby shoes, he reached the corner of the shop that not many except the most intrepid bargain hunter ever ventured to. The deep leather scent oozed from some of the older residents of the shelves, and Cecil wondered if it was synthetic. Lifting a likely looking pair from its box, he compared the sole to the database on his PDA. It was close enough to one of the more common varieties, and so he purchased two pairs paying with an Eftpos card in the name of one ‘Arthur van Beek’. Only one more thing, he mused as he trudged his way back to the subway, the oppressive vibe he felt in the shoe shop lifting as he swiped his card and climbed aboard the tube to the central city.

The stark white surroundings contrasted extensively with the dishevelled vehicles and the dishevelled people drifting around the auction room at one of the more successful auction houses in the city. Today at 5:00 was the under $1,500 cars. Those for sale consisted mainly of older Japanese imports – imported before 2007 and the total trade embargo New Zealand suffered after the coup – rumoured to have been among the militants was one certain martial arts expert, and one mysterious individual with the unusual name of Raxworthy.

The auction started with a nice Black Nissan Pulsar, a dented silver Mitsubishi, a dirty looking Diesel Toyota, and so on. The cars rolled past and the crowd started their bidding. Some people just have no idea thought Cecil as he saw someone buy a battered Toyota corolla for almost $1,400. then again, maybe I have no idea… he considered as he recalled an article about car restoration that he had read somewhere, and about how Corolla was now a status symbol in some circles, and how many wanted to relive their glory days through a restored version of the car of their youth. Cecil leaned against the wall, and waited for one particular item. A cream coloured Suzuki van. Finally, a cream coloured Suzuki van rolled around. “….a real beauty and a bargain starting at $300...” Cecil caught the end of the highly embellished description of the vehicle and then the whole room erupted.

“Get Down!” yelled Cecil as globules of molten lava splattered themselves on the wall behind his head, burning their marks on the concrete wall as the paint started to blister around them because of the heat, people gathered in clumps, behind the more robust looking hatchbacks they could find, sheltering from this unknown terror, the hysterical screams drowned out any other sound, and Cecil, looking through the shattered windscreen of a dark green Nissan, could see the fiercely burning wreck of what used to be a car, perched precariously on the edge of a crater. What the Heck? thought Cecil, but no one could hear him because of the fire alarm that had gone off the instant the explosion happened, crawling on the ground, trying to avoid broken glass and still red hot lava, he slithered his way into the office, where the receptionist was hiding under the desk wearing a gas mask. With a well practiced manoeuvre, he pulled out a rubber glove, and stretched it over one hand. With his gloved finger he dialled emergency services, thankful he had the presence of mind not to leave any fingerprints. Forensics might later establish that he was there, but that was unlikely, given that it was a spectacular natural disaster, but not a crime scene. Still, can’t be too careful... he thought, glancing behind him, as he walked down the alleyway that led through a circuitous route to the subway, the sirens wailed as the emergency services rushed to the scene of molten carnage.

Out on the street, he dumped the glove in the nearest rubbish bin – his mum taught him well, and walked to the tube station, unconsciously limping. Reaching the train, he sat down and began to take stock of what happened. What the Heck? He thought again, his mind numb, as he tried to think. Plan b. First though, I need so make contact with home base. He felt his pocket where his PDA normally sat and felt blood. Good thing I got that extra set of clothes he absently thought, his mind beginning to work again, as was his hearing which had been deafened by the blast. He then noticed that his favourite song was playing - the kryptomaniacs recent remix of Beethoven’s 9th – such a great violin piece – I’ll have to download the sheet music for that one when I get home he thought, and pencilled it into his digital diary on the PDA. He began to hum one of the hymns from church, which strangely matched the chorus of the next song on the canned music piped through the train, but then decided against it and went to get himself cleaned up in the nearest bathroom.

Two hours later this press release was sent from a mail server in Côte d'Ivoire, through a proxy server in a modem pool in Myanmar – past this it became untraceable.

Attention:

It has come to our attention that the planned mission to the heathen of Xchurch city on the morning of April the 11th has come to an abrupt and unfortunate conclusion. Enough has already been said about the effects of one certain volcanic anomaly, which has intruded itself upon our operations in this city. All good peaceful, but conscientious citizens in the surrounding districts will be sad to hear of this, but we hope to commence missions in this city at a later date unlikely to be advised. After careful prayer and much deliberation, our agents on the ground are being advised to pull out or to lie low for the time being until advised otherwise.

Kia Kaha

	Raxworthy