Australis Incognito, Book 1: Bus Bait Blues Read online

chance of collateral damage if there was a confrontation. I turned left once we reached the street.

  I heard a Russian word yelled that most likely meant stop and I urged the girl to run. We ran past office blocks, closed for the night. Their brightly lit foyers illuminated the footpath. We soon came to a gap between the buildings. We raced into the gap and came out in a courtyard. Six nights a week the space was empty. On Friday the small wine bar inside the Charteris Building put out tables and chairs to cater for the worker drones celebrating the conclusion of another working week. Like an idiot, I'd forgotten what day it was. There was nothing else for it. Melody and I began to weave through the tables.

  I took the chance to glance back, and saw that the second Steroid brother was displaying severe 'roid rage and pulling a gun. This lunatic was going to open fire into a crowd of people.

  "Gun!" I yelled.

  That had two effects. 'Roid rage quickly put away his gun. The second effect was the crowd panicked and began to run offering us cover. Melody and I rode the flow of panicked patrons out onto Adelaide Street. There was a gap in the traffic and a number of us jaywalked across the street. It looked like several people were also headed to the police beat.

  I was working on the assumption that there had also been several calls to 000 alerting the police that trouble was brewing.

  A rather shell-shocked junior constable stood behind the police beat counter as a wave of people flooded into the station. There was no way of being heard over the noise and Fresh-from-the-Academy wasn’t going to change that any time soon. I rummaged in my bag for a Question Mark business card and a pen.

  "This is Judge O'Sean's daughter, Melody. She was kidnapped by Varan Eadnic to blackmail her father." I wrote on the back.

  "Give this to the police officer," I said almost directly into her ear. I felt rather than saw her nod her head.

  I joined the trickle of people leaving the station. If I looked down the bob wig covered enough of my face that it was difficult to realise I was wearing a mask. There was no yelling and I eventually made it back onto the street. I stepped into the darkened doorway of The Record Exchange and removed the mask and wig. A couple of turns folding up my cuffs, a button or two undone, the return of my costume jewellery and I was ready to return home. Simmo had finished for the night or gone into hiding as I walked past his spot to Central Station and caught the train home.

  The next morning, I rolled out of bed at some god awful hour and sat down in front of the TV with my cereal to watch the morning news. The top story was the bad boy behaviour of some stupid sportsman, caught driving at insane speeds with a woman who was not his wife. That was soon followed by the shocking kidnap and rescue of Melody O’Sean. For the most part, the story was fairly faithful except they never mentioned that Melody was a bus bait runaway, or a certain female vigilante’s involvement. While the footage of the father daughter reunion and following shots of the Steroid Twins in handcuffs warmed my heart, my day was made by footage of Eadnic being arrested outside the Honey Trap. However, I nearly squirted milk through my nose when the news anchor announced a special interview with the hero of the night, Matthew McArthy. The shot of The Little General with his broken nose taped and talking in a thick nasally voice had me in hysterics. He claimed that he was trying to rescue the girl when one of the Steroid Twins broke his nose.

  I was still laughing when the sounds of Question Authority’s one hit “Rage Against Injustice” rang out. The ringtone for The Question Mark’s mobile purchased in the name of Lucy Weise, one of many fake identities I keep. I dug in the bag and pulled out the vibrating mobile. It was Anton calling.

  “Anton, good to hear from you. Seen the news?” I answered cheerfully.

  “Da, Da my babushka, I have. Is good these men go to gulag.” He said in a tone that did not match his words. Instead of elated, he sounded scared.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “I have transcripts for you. Meet me at Tavern.”

  Worried, I quickly dressed and made my way to the Tavern. The doors had only been open for five minutes and there were already people on the pokies, the machines’ cheery jingles making an eerie soundtrack to this meeting. Anton sat in his normal spot, with a strained look on his face. He looked like he hadn’t slept and I swear he was chewing on his moustache.

  “Lucy, you cost me more hair than last five races. What you get me into?” He said as he pushed the printout of the translation across the table to me. “Second call.”

  I flipped to the third page where I saw a break. “Call in English” was the note at the top. Eadnic was talking to someone. He never said his name, but the mystery man was telling Eadnic not to spoil the O’Sean matter as Eadnic knew the penalty for failure. I pulled out my phone and listened to the audio track. The conversation went just like the transcript. Much to my surprise Eadnic was polite and respectful of this man, he didn’t yell or get angry as I would have expected he might.

  I looked at Anton. “Who the hell bosses Eadnic like that?”

  The TV above the bar broke into the morning chat show with an update that Varan Eadnic had been found dead in his watch house cell.

  I had said nothing to Anton but I recognised the voice, I'd heard it before on the night that Mark Weise the original Question Mark had disappeared. This was getting too big for me. It was time to call the others.

  The End of One Story, but there is more to come in future installments of

  AUSTRALIS INCOGNITO

  By Brad Mengel!

  You have just finished reading

  BUS BAIT BLUES

  by Brad Mengel

  This story is part of the Single Shots Signature Series.

  Edited by Tommy Hancock

  Editor in Chief, Pro Se Productions-Tommy Hancock

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  Cover Art by Jeff Hayes

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