A.I.

Chapter 7

       Anna screamed and turned back around to see the three figures on the ground.
"What have you done? You've killed them!" she shouted at the man with the weapon.

He smirked at her, but said nothing. He and Leo started walking towards to launch.

"Oh Anna," Leo called back at her in a casual voice, "Thanks for the robot, and you might want to check your bank account again. You think you have seven hundred mil, but in actual fact you've got zilch. You see I'm good at hacking. The money went into your account for five minutes and then was sent back to the depositor."

"What?" Anna looked at her phone again which was still open to her bank details.
Account balance zero it read.

"Nooooo," she screamed, "I'll kill you!" Anna wasn't armed, but she still had the compact laser which she had used to injure Doug Watson the previous afternoon in the park. She reached into her jacket pocket, pulled it out, flipped off the safety and pointed it at Leo, but before she could fire it she heard the sound of the machine fire again. She felt a great blow to her chest as two bullets struck her.

There was no pain at first as she saw the ground rush up to meet her, then she found it hard to breathe. She watched as Leo and the man with the weapon ran down the jetty and disappeared onto the launch. A moment later she heard the sound of its motor as it sped away from the jetty into the bay.

It was getting harder to breathe and her vision seemed to be blurred as the faces of two people were suddenly looking down at her. It was Brad Sullivan, and was that Tracy Hammond?

"Anna," Tracy said, "Lie still. We've called an ambulance. Where's Ryan? Is he on that boat?"

It was hard to talk, but she managed to gurgle the words, "He's gone. They tricked me, I didn't get my money." Then something dawned on her. "Insurance," she croaked, "I have insurance."

"What do you mean?" Tracy asked.

I took a lot of effort, but Anna managed to slide her right hand into her jacket pocket. Yes it was still there. A small metal box with a button. Her fingers were shaking as she managed to slide a release switch allowing the button to engage.

"What are you doing?" Brad said urgently, "Tracy, what's she doing?"

"It's my insurance," Anna whispered, "I'm sorry, Ryan."

She pressed the button.

*****

The bay and the jetty lit up like daylight for a few seconds as the launch, which was almost a kilometre from the shore, disappeared in a fireball. A few seconds later the booming sound of the explosion reached them.

Brad and Tracy stood watching in disbelief as fiery pieces of wreckage dropped out of the sky into the water where the launch had been.

"It's beautiful, isn't it beautiful?" Anna murmured softly, then her eyes turned glassy as they stared sightlessly at the sky.

"Nooooooo!" a female voice screamed.

Brad and Tracy turned to see Lisa sinking to the ground and sobbing with tears running down her face. "Ryan, Ryan," she kept saying over and over.

Tracy turned to Brad. "Anna must have wired an explosive into Ryan and detonated it with a remote control. Fuck! All hell is going to break loose around here in about three minutes. Anna is dead, we can't do anything for her now. Brad, get Lisa to the car and drive back to the hotel. You've got to go before the police get here. I'll get things sorted out with them, I'll work out a story to cover us."

"How will you get back to Perth?"

"I'll find somewhere to stay here overnight and get a bus back in the morning. Now take Lisa and go. Leave everything to me."

Lisa was still sitting on the beach moaning with tears in her eyes. Brad helped her up and they walked quickly back up the path to the car.

Tracy found the compact laser device which Anna had dropped, and also retrieved the detonator switch from Anna's jacket pocket. It would be better if the police didn't find them. She then sat with Anna until an ambulance and police arrived a few minutes later.

Brad, Lisa and herself had been lucky not to get killed by the gunman. Tracy had seen him aim the weapon in their direction and she had screamed at the others to dive to the ground. They had made it with micro seconds to spare as the bullets had harmlessly passed over the top of them.

She put on a suitably distraught face as she explained to the police her carefully made up version of the events.

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