Max Arena (37 page)

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 into 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.

4
^th
October (almost 1 month later).
Peace

2pm, 4
^th
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, 4
^th
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, 4
^th
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.

Outside the
desert rolled on, the constant whistle and dull roar of the wind
punctuated only by the joy bursting from the tiny village deep
within its heart.

6:36am, 4
^th
Paris,
France

The faintest
predawn colour tinged the eastern horizon, while overhead, a clear
palette of inky blackness flooded the sky, a smattering of stars
still twinkling through. Reaching up from the ground below, the
Eiffel Tower’s needle-like tip soared above the urban panoply of
Paris, its metallic structure fully aglow like a giant, golden
sceptre defying the nocturnal shade.

In the shadow
of the tower, the full length of Avenue Anatole had become a
fairground, its grassed parade crowded with revellers. A string of
enormous television screens lined the twin edges of the elongate
space with stalls and makeshift cafes set up to keep the thousands
entertained, despite the very early hour. Orange t-shirts
emblazoned with black “X”s were the standard uniform with orange
shoes generously spread throughout.

Right now
though, the crowd stood hushed as they raised their eyes up to the
huge electronic screens, watching Max thunder down the field. His
orange shoes blazed as he sprinted over the turf, his entire body a
powerhouse of motion. As Max ran and without slowing down, he
plucked up kettlebells from the ground and with unbroken, fluid
movements, hurled them diagonally away to smash into randomly
placed targets. As the last target disintegrated into a cloud of
splinters, Avenue Anatole cheered as one, filled champagne glasses
rising together and sparkling like a field of diamonds.

Then Max
stepped off his left foot and changed direction. Almost immediately
back up to full speed, he fixed his focus on a new target. The
camera panned across to Kris who was pointing to an object fifty
metres down field, an object the rugby union mad, French people
recognised. It was a scrummaging sled, padded on one side and
loaded up with weights on the tray on the other side. Normally this
contraption would be pushed by eight men in structural unison, but
today, there was only Max, at full tilt.