Ramifications: Day 19

Word Count: 114,031

Summary of Events:

Lachlan woke up in Angelo's impressive — and very white — suite, where he was fed breakfast before being given a new motorcycle that looked exactly like his old one, except better. Dom read the article Mr. Abbott wrote about him and was pleased with it before receiving a call from a contractor who gave him a quote of no less than five million to redo the roof, which was far more than they had at their disposal; he soon found out that they were a rather disreputable company. Lachlan, enthralled by his new bike, decided to take it out for an evening drive out on the highway . . .

Excerpt of the Day:

"He turned his focus back to the road, however, and kept driving, enjoying the bliss of riding his magnificent bike on the rather open highway, as not all that many people were out and about; in fact, even for a winter's night the traffic seemed low.

Lachlan checked his rearview mirrors and saw only a single headlight some ways behind him. His guess was a fellow biker was the owner, being as it looked too centred to be a car with one light out.

Ahead of him there wasn't a single red taillight.

Glancing up at the sky, Lachlan spotted a few stars finally shining out now that the daylight had faded enough, although the stars looked feeble and weak compared to Brisbane's streetlights.

He heard the sound of the motorcycle catching up to him, and as he glanced in his rearview mirror he saw that, indeed, it was catching up to him, and fast.

The next moment the bike had shot past him.

Lachlan could've sworn he'd seen red and chrome, which would mean the bike of the Golden Shadow.

The only way to find out was to get faster.

His bike could now do that easily, so Lachlan squeezed the accelerator.

It didn't take long before the bike — which had quickly become a rather distant red taillight — started to get closer.

Lachlan glanced down at the speedometer. He was going a hundred and eighty kilometres an hour.

He kept accelerating until he reached two hundred and seventy — fifty kilometres faster than his old bike had been able to go, and yet still a hundred slower than this one could go.

This sort of speed, however, was almost panic-inducing, and Lachlan was grateful when he could slow down by seventy kilometres once he got closer to the bike.

Carefully he manoeuvred into the same lane as the bike, giving him a clear shot of the rear fender of the bike in his headlight: shiny metallic red.

The exhaust pipes were shining chrome. He was right on the tail of the Golden Shadow.

Lachlan read the sequence of numbers and letters on the plate and repeated it to himself until he could look elsewhere and easily recite it correctly. He was not going to lose the Golden Shadow this time.

In fact, as soon as the Golden Shadow dared stop — or run our of petrol, which Lachlan still had three quarters of a tank of — he was going to get that package back, and absolutely nothing was going to stop him.

He was going to get his paycheque back, he was going to get the threat of being killed by Harrison off his head, he was going to remain the last one standing.

The Golden Shadow started to slow, so Lachlan did the same, following him as he merged onto the exit ramp and around the wide, arcing circle up onto the overpass, and straight into the artificial starlight that illuminated the city of Brisbane."