'At what point did we decide any of this was a good idea.' The guy next to me leaned back on the wire chain fence and dug his heels into the dirt.  

'When Drayman took our computer files, the algorithms, the prototype designs, everything and then told us to take a walk. ' I stepped back from the lamplight into the shadows and watched an old Ford pickup rumble slowly by, its driver cautiously picking his way through the mouths of the gaping potholes that pitted the road. It was getting dark. 'A walk that had a rather terminal end planned for both of us it appears.'  

'Shows you only really know someone when the cards are down. He really did intend to kill us, didn't he? Shit, if only we'd thought it through. We're supposed to be smart guys.' He banged his head with the palm of his hand. 'Stupid, stupid, stupid.' 

I pulled his arm down and pushed it gently back by his side. 'Come on David you didn't know what was going to happen. Neither of us did. We got away, we've got some time to sort this out. Perhaps Drayman did us a favour, he's made us see the reality of what we've done. No good has any come of any real radical engineering invention like this. The Wrights thought airplanes would end war, Alfred Nobel couldn't have dreamt where explosives would have ended up, Robert Oppenheimer, the atomic bomb. In the end they all regretted what they'd made. What we've created could be far more devastating.'  

'Do you think he'll try to come after us?' 

'How can he, we've brought the prototype here, and he'll have to be bloody quick to build another to catch us up. God we were lucky to get away you know.' 

'Tell me about it. And what would the cold lizard do with it I wonder, when he builds it?' David spat out bitterly. 

It was more of a statement than a question but I answered it anyway. 'Lots no doubt, none of it good.'  

I looked around the parking lot. It was empty. A bin rolled out in the early evening breeze and slowly clanked its way across the tarmac and came to rest in the gutter. I pulled a screwdriver out of my jacket. 'Come on lets go.' We strolled across to a battered Beetle and I stuck the blade into the door and leveraged the lock. 

David looked around and pulled off his jacket and slung it over his arm. 'Blimey, summer of 69 do you remember it?' He drew in a lungful of the dusty air still warm from the heat of the day.  

'It was the year I got my second degree, I didn't see much of the sun.' 

'I'd composed the Randers Symphony four years earlier.' 

'Yeah, I remember they said in the papers you were a prodigy, like Mozart.' 

'They did didn't they, they were pretty wild about that piece.' 

'Yeah well I thought it was rubbish,' I grinned and poked the handle of the screwdriver into his ribs. 

'Just open it please and let's get going. You're a mechanic.' 

'Engineer please, and theoretical physicist.' The lock gave way with a snap. 

We climbed in and I threw my bag on the back seat. I yanked the console off the steering column and dragged the mass of wires out of the ignition. The engine spun erratically and rattled nosily into life. 

'I hope you're running on unleaded?' 

'Right,' I said grinding it into first gear and we jerked forward across the lot. 

David sat back 'Dam, vinyl seats I'd forgotten about vinyl. Jesus an eight track! Holy Moses do you remember these.' 

'I bet your symphony isn't in there.' 

We laughed 

He fumbled through the plastic boxes, stuck one on, sat back and closed his eyes.  

'All the leaves are brown and the sky is gray. 

I've been for a walk on a winter's day. 

If I didn't tell her I could leave today; 

California dreamin' on such a winter's day.' 

'I was just thinking about Grace Fellows.' He turned to me, suddenly earnest. 

Your first girl friend at Stanford.  

'My only girl friend at Stanford,' he smiled to himself. 'I took her down to the beach on Thanksgiving Day. She drank all my beer and then went off with Phillip Crow.' 

'That turkey?' 

'He was your best mate.' 

'Actually if you recall, you were.' 

He shuffled to get comfortable. 'Sure, you were weren't you?' 

The rear lights on the cars on the freeway flowed by, an endless stream of blinking red eyes on the back of a giant snake trailing away into the distance. 

'Hey look a Ford Mustang. I loved those, couldn't afford one though.' 

'You could now.' 

'Maybe.' He looked out of the window at the trees flicking past, watching the shadows tear at us as if we didn't belong here. For a while it was hard to tell if he'd fallen asleep, sitting there as still as a manikin. Then he turned, his face pink in the passing taillights. 'You know we could have done something with this, we really could.' 

'You were always the altruistic one David, we could have but how long before someone would have worked out what we had and taken it for their own means. Someone like Drayman.' 

'Yes Drayman. I supposed we could have destroyed everything and taken our chances.' 

'Spend the rest of our lives on the run from Drayman, waiting for him to find us. Anyway if he caught one of us- can you imagine not being able to tell him everything he needed to know? 

'He can be very persuasive.' 

'Very David, we both know it.' 

'Music, physics and engineering, the keys with which to unlock time. I wonder how long it will be before someone else figures it out. Harmonics, chords, electric circuits, computer chips...' He tailed off.  

'A long, long time hopefully,' I looked at him, he was drumming his fingers on his leg to stop his hands shaking. 'The chances of you and I stumbling on it were remote- with any luck it'll take a hundreds of years before anyone else chances on it.' 

I turned off, and tracked round the exit road off the freeway. 

The bar was off Main Street, a rodeo themed Neon sign flashed on and off, blue, red, blue, red, a cowboy on a rearing horse. We parked under a broken light, I turned and pulled the bag off the back seat.  

Just as we getting out David put his hand over mine, 'We were the best of mates, those were good times weren't they.' 

I clasped mine around his, 'The best David. Come on let's go. It's time.'

It was a student hangout, in dark recesses girls were laughing, blokes huddled together telling jokes loud enough, they hoped, to catch the girl's attention. Good Vibrations was playing in the background, a couple clung together on a wooden dance floor swayed together oblivious to the beat. A suntanned footballer type with a long haired girl resting her head on his chest. 

'Over there,' I motioned toward a couple of geeks sitting chatting in the corner cradling half-drunk glasses of Budweiser's. 

The girl behind the bar had braided hair and an anti-war badge with 'Peace' written on it. She looked us up and down and wondered if we'd come into the wrong place. 

David slipped twenty dollars bill on the bar, 'Two whisky's, double, keep the change.' 

She showed us her brittle white teeth and took the twenty and exchanged it for two shorts. 

'Chin-Chin then,' muttered David draining his. 

'Chin-Chin,' I swallowed the fiery liquid. 

I unzipped my holdall.  

We pulled our shotguns and walked across the floor to the table in the corner. In the background the jukebox cheered us on- 

'Time, time, time, see what's become of me. 

While I looked around for my possibilities, 

I was so hard to please.' 

The students at the table looked up from their beers and stopped laughing. Someone shouted, 'they've got guns.' 

David raised his gun and pointed it at the geeks and yelled, 'Now!' 

He shot me and I shot him. That was the deal.