Matt Reilly Stories Read Online Free Page A

nothing and no-one
could stop them.
    They
headed directly for the Odeon Cinema.
     
     
    The
Rescue Begins
     
    Mr.
Black arrived in Lab Two, a working lab.
    He
strode casually into the lab, tall and fit, and slid into the lone dentist’s
chair. ‘All right. Who’s the target?’
    He
was informed of the situation.
    ‘I
don’t give a shit about Humbert Hughes,’ Tad Ellis said.
    ‘It’s
Laura Bush I care about.’
    Indeed,
it was the danger to Laura Bush that terrified them all.
    For
if Humbert Hughes captured and killed Laura inside Time Tours, it would
cause a paradox in her heavily-sedated brain.
    Hughes
hadn’t been trying to drug all the celebrity guests—just her. He just
needed her in a deep-state coma. The others were collateral damage.
    At
which point, like an overloaded computer, her brain would freeze up and go into
meltdown. Brain death. She would become a vegetable, or worse, suffer a
cerebral aneurism.
    And that was Time Tours’s worst nightmare.
    Black
was set to go.
    He
said, ‘Send me into Dinosaurland . I don’t want to go directly into Superstar and bump into a divison of Mr. Hughes’s Nazi troops. The EEP in D i n o l a
n d  is identical to Superstar’s —plus I can also pick up some
heavy-duty weaponry from the hunters’ armoury. I’ll sneak into Superstar from there.’
    And
with that, the domed headset was lowered over Black’s head and within moments
his eyes closed…
     
     
    Dinosaurland
     
    …and
he found himself standing on the low hilltop overlooking Dinosaurland .
The River Thames lay before him snaking through the primordial forest.
    On
his hilltop sat a concrete structure, with a helipad and a shed on it. In the
shed were racks of superweapons used by tourist-hunters to bring down
dinosaurs: Remington mega-shotguns, plasma-based RPGs, Steyr pulse rifles.
Black took one of each, plus boxes of ammo and a few sulfuric acid grenades.
    A
noise disturbed him.
    He
spun—shotgun up—to see the D i n o s a u r l a n d hovercopter landing
on the helipad outside.
    It
was the author, Mitchell Raleigh, with his computer-generated pilot, returning
from their scenic tour of Dinosaurland .
    Raleigh
got out of the hover-chopper, saw Black.
    ‘Hey
there! Geez, this is awesome—’
    ‘I’m
sorry, Mr. Raleigh,’ Black said quickly, ‘but a situation has come up. I need
you to come with me and exit Time Tours right now.’
    ‘What’s
happened?’
    Black
told him as they walked.
    ‘He
drugged us all…’ Mitch said. ‘Is there any way I can help?’
    ‘The
best way you can help me is just by going home.’
    ‘Oh.’
    Mitch,
Black and Pi made their way to the meadow that would one day house Westminster
Abbey. There they found a small steel cabin the size of a telephone booth: the
Emergency Exit Portal. Near it was another weapons shed.
    Mitch
said to Black, ‘Go. Go and save Laura. She’s a friend of mine. I can get back
from here. You need to hurry.’
    Black
nodded, then he stepped into the steel booth, pressed a button and— ZAP! —the
booth blazed with white light and he was gone.
    Mitch
shrugged, turned to Pi. ‘Thank you for the tour, Pi. You were great.’
    ‘It
was my pleasure, Mr. Raleigh. I shall endeavour to have one of your books
downloaded into my program files, so that next time we may converse about it.’
    ‘Cool.’
Mitch stepped into the booth, saw a wall-panel with a button for each world
plus a large red button marked ‘EMERGENCY EXIT’.
    But
then he paused.
    He
was worried about Laura, and he wondered if one man, Black, was enough to save
her from Humbert Hughes’s super-army.
    Surely
it couldn’t hurt to take a look…
    He
pursed his lips, and made the call.
    And
stepped out  of the booth. ‘Hey, Pi. Got any more of those big-ass
dino-guns nearby? I think we should visit Superstar .’
     
     
    Entering
Superstar
     
    Blinding
light. Then normal vision returned...
    ...and
Mitch Raleigh found himself standing in a silver booth positioned in the