Matt Reilly Stories (3 page)

The
giant creature’s eye exploded, torn from its socket and the monster squealed
and fell out of the air, crashing down on top of its ship, writhing and
convulsing.

Now
only five Marines remained on the spiral staircase.

Armstrong
and two of them made it to the top of the stairs just as two of the
super-adults wrenched on the staircase itself, ripping
the entire structure
from its ceiling mounts, causing the whole high-and-narrow staircase to
topple…and fall…
with the last two
Marines on it!

Like
a slow-falling tree, the staircase fell, crashing down onto the silver
spaceship and the web formation on the floor, crushing through the suspended
catwalk on the way.

No
man would be going down there ever again.

THE
RACE OUT

Armstrong
found his two rear-guards—Twohy and de Souza—lying dead at the top of the (now
destroyed) spiral staircase, their corpses
being eaten
by three of the
smaller dragons!

Disturbed
by Armstrong’s sudden arrival, the three mini-dragons looked up from their
gobbling—their snouts smeared with fresh blood. Then, with astonishing speed,
they made for Armstrong and his two surviving men—Doc and Rockmeyer.

The
three Marines ducked as one and the dragons overshot them. Then the Marines
turned and firing their MP-5s
after
the beasts, ripping them to shreds,
causing them to peel downwards like three damaged fighter planes.

Running
again.

Hard
and fast.

Desperate
now.

Into
the giant receiving dock…and Armstrong saw the exit doors and thought of the
safety of the outside cold beyond them.

At
which point, the super-adults emerged from the depths of the complex. One
landed on the concrete floor of the loading dock with a great boom, upturned
its massive head and roared fiercely.

The
deep-bass sound of its roar shook the walls.

And
suddenly, as he turned to look back, Armstrong tripped on a corpse and fell
awkwardly forward, flat onto his face.

The
fall saved his life—but not so Doc and Rockmeyer.

For
as Armstrong had fallen, a super-adult creature had come swooping down and had
sliced the other two Marines in half, clean across the waist.

They
fell, in pieces.

Armstrong—alone
now—ran, staggered, stumbled, the last few metres, clawing his way out through
iron doors of Complex 13, under the words
abandon all hope, ye who enter
here.

He
dived into the doorway, into the long tunnel his men had bored, and immediately
felt the colder air, spun to look back—

—just
in time to see the wide-open jaws of a super-adult come rushing at his face!
All he saw was teeth and tongue and the monster’s deep dark yawning throat and
then—

* * * *

CHOMP!

The
jaws clamped shut,
one single inch
away from Armstrong’s nose.

And
John T. Armstrong lay there…on his butt, on the icy ground…
right in front
of
four of the gigantic winged super-adults, these great alien dragons, all
of them towering over him, looming over him, glaring at him with their foul
evil faces and their bloody man-eating grins.

But
they didn’t step forward through the great iron doorway.

Couldn’t
step forward.

It
was too cold.

Armstrong
had made it. Just.

And
so he left the tunnel, left Complex 13, with a backpack full of information.

Once
outside, he was collected by a long-range pick-up chopper, from which he
radioed his prized information back to the States…

…back
to Groom Lake, Nevada…

…the
home of Area 51, the notorious secret base, where a group of American military
scientists were currently under attack from a rapidly-multiplying colony of
dragon-like aliens that they had disturbed from their slumber in the lone alien
ship that was kept in the underground hangar there.

________________

_____________

Time
Tours

OFFICES
OF TIME TOURS INTERNATIONAL

AUSTIN,
TEXAS

12
noon

1
JANUARY, 2006

The
giant letters blared ‘WELCOME TO TIME TOURS!’, and in front of the great
billboard stood Mitch Raleigh, along with five other celebrities.

An
army of media photographers and reporters took photos of them and yelled
questions.

‘God,
I hate these things,’ Raleigh muttered.

‘Oh,
come on, Mitch. Lighten up,’ the pretty blonde beside him whispered as she
smiled for the cameras. ‘This is going to be
awesome
. And we’re going to
be the first to experience it.’

Mitch
Raleigh was a novelist from Australia, here in Texas on a book tour for his
latest novel,
Seven Deadly Wonders
. The current success of that novel
had got him an invitation to this, the much-hyped launch of Time Tours.

He
turned to the girl beside him. An old family friend, Laura had done very well
for herself. Not only was she a Calvin Klein model, she was also—

‘So,
Humbert! How do you think you’ll review this!’ a reporter shouted from the
crowd.

The
hunch-backed, bespectacled man to Mitch’s right cleared his throat. In his
mid-fifties, Humbert Hughes was a much-feared book reviewer from the
New
York Times
. It was a very brave move by the people at Time Tours to invite
him.

Interestingly,
Mitch Raleigh knew something about Humbert Hughes that few others did: a year
ago, Hughes had submitted a manuscript for a novel to publishers in New York
and London. It had been awful, unreadable, and had been rejected by everyone.

Today,
however, the usually dour Hughes was in fine spirits.

He’d
even brought a bottle of vintage 1932 Dom Perignon to celebrate the occasion
with his fellow travellers—Mitch, Laura and three sporting stars.

Suddenly,
the lights dimmed, and a new figure stepped up onto the stage: Tad Ellis, the
dashing CEO of Time Tours Inc. ‘Ladies and gentlemen!’ he proclaimed.
‘Welcome...to Time Tours!’

He
raised his hands, and the giant billboard on the stage divided into two halves,
revealing the Travelling Room.

The
Travelling Room

It
looked like an ultra-modern laboratory.

In
its centre was a ring of six silver recliner chairs, each of them bolted to the
floor like dentist chairs and each fitted with a dome-shaped device on the
headrest.

‘This
is where the magic happens!’ Tad Ellis proclaimed. ‘This is where our guests
will commence their journeys to…’

A
video screen sprang to life, a voiceover man intoning:

‘…
The Ancient Empire!
 Go to the world of Ancient Egypt, where you will
live like a pharaoh.
Overlord:
experience the action of World War II
first hand! Or
Dinosaurland:
for the naturalists, take a scenic tour of
the Earth as it was 75 million years ago. Or, for the not-so-naturalist, how
about going on a T-Rex hunt?’

There
were three more worlds: including one called
Superstar
where you lived
in a world where you were the most famous person alive.

Tad
Ellis said, ‘To create our worlds here at Time Tours, our expert programmers
have joined forces with the world’s foremost historians, scientists and
satellite surveyors. Our proprietary engine program, Ultimate World v.2.0, uses
their input to create realistic environments based on the actual terrain and
cityscapes of our planet. So when you storm the beach at Normandy, you’re
storming a replica
of the actual beach
.’

The
media wrote frantic notes, filmed the images.

During
the pause, Mitch turned to Tad Ellis: ‘Sounds a bit like
The Matrix
.’

‘This
is way better than the fucking
Matrix
,’ Ellis whispered before moving
away and continuing his presentation. ‘Ladies and gentlemen! You can do all
this and more at
Time Tours
! How?

Well,
it all takes place in your mind.’

All
in Your Mind

Humbert
Hughes popped the cork on his 1932 Dom Perignon and the six celebrity time
tourists toasted each other and drank.

Then
they all stepped into the Travelling Room.

Mitch
reclined in one of the dentist’s chairs, while a technician lowered the chair’s
dome-like headpiece over his face.

Tad
Ellis proclaimed, ‘Our patented non-invasive headpieces beam microwave signals
directly into the client’s cerebellum, disrupting cortical activity and slowing
the synaptic pulse-rate, inducing a quasi-coma. We then replace real-world
sensory inputs with our own constructed ones: convincing the client that they
are in another world.’

A
journalist asked, ‘What do you say, Mr. Hughes? How’s it feel to be going back
to World War II?’

‘I
shall reserve my judgment.’

Another
reporter called to Laura: ‘Hey Laura! What’s your uncle think about you
participating in this?’

Laura
turned. ‘My uncle has always supported American innovation. He’s thrilled. As
for me, I’m ready to be a superstar.’

‘Okay,
everyone!’ Ellis called. ‘It’s time for our celebrity guests to head off on
their journeys!’

At
that moment, the technician standing over Mitch switched on the headpiece—and
for a fraction of a second, Mitch felt a strange buzzing in his head. He felt
instantly tired, drowsy. Then darkness overcame him.

Land
of the Dinosaurs

When
he opened his eyes, he was in another place, another time.

He
was standing on a modern helipad on a hilltop overlooking a verdant river
valley. A hovercopter stood beside him, rotors turning.

A
polite (computer-generated) pilot invited him aboard.

‘Hello,
Mr. Raleigh, I am PI-5A26X, and I shall be your guide and pilot program for
today.’

‘Great.
What was your name again? PI-5A2…’

‘PI-5A26X.
My programmers have not yet given me a formal name yet.’

‘How
about I just call you Pi.’

‘Very
good, sir.’

Within
moments they were zooming low over the treetops, scanning the plains and
riverbeds. Plains and riverbeds that were filled with—

Dinosaurs.
Lots of dinosaurs.

‘Mother
of God…’ Mitch breathed.

Global
Superstar

Laura
stepped out of the limo onto the red carpet—and was instantly assaulted by a
lightning storm of flashbulbs.

The
red carpet led to the Odeon Theatre in Leicester Square in London, and her face
was on every poster in the square. People everywhere were shouting her name.

Photographers:
‘Laura! Laura! Over here!’

Journalists:
‘Laura! How does it feel to have the number one movie and the number one album
in America!’

Awesome,
Laura thought. Just awesome.

Austin,
We Have a Problem…

As
the media watched the monitors in awe, a technician came alongside Tad Ellis
and whispered,

‘Sir.
We might have a problem.’

‘What
is it?’

‘We’re
getting some strange synaptic readings on Mr. Hughes’          monitor.’

They
came to the computer monitoring Humbert Hughes, where they saw him in a command
room, directing Operation Overlord, the Allied invasion of Europe in World War
II.

The
tech said, ‘Have a look at his synaptic pulse-rate. It’s slowed to sub-normal
levels.’

‘He’s
going into a deep-state coma…’ Ellis said softly.

‘He’s
going into a
very
deep-state coma, sir. Mr. Hughes must have taken some
kind of sedative before he went under, and a large amount of it.’