Send Simon Savage #1 (19 page)

Simon shuffled to the edge with Danice.

‘Put the boots on!’ the guard said. ‘Quick!’

Simon and Danice slipped their feet into the rubber boots that Dan had given them. Their opponents on the other side of the pond did the same. The taller boy glared at Simon and held up the middle finger of his right hand.

Simon gave him an upright clenched fist in reply. As a sportsman, he knew he should try and dominate his opponent from the start.

‘All right, take it easy.
Now
put on the gloves,’ the guard ordered.

Simon drew them on and exchanged a nervous glance with Danice. ‘Just remember our plan,’ he said.

‘As our competitors approach the Pond of Death,’ the warden roared, ‘here are the rules of today’s contest. When I say, “Go!” each competitor will throw eels at their opponent until one of them drops. Either from exhaustion, or from electrocution!’

‘
Woo! Woo!
’ the prisoners yelled.

The two teenage boys slapped high fives.

‘The young man can go first,’ the warden said, pointing to Simon. ‘Let the contestants enter the water!’

A guard got behind Simon, shepherding him like a cattle dog.

‘He’s mine!’ the taller boy said, stepping straight into the knee-deep water.

The warden’s ‘Go!’ echoed around the stadium.

Simon stared at the sinuous shapes surging in the water. He knew there was no avoiding this contest. He had no desire to hurt anyone, but he had no alternative. Failure to hurt his opponent meant death or injury to himself. Simon punched his wrist pilot to activate his helmet. With a faint metallic buzz, it covered his head, leaving a transparent visor protecting his eyes, and giving him about twenty minutes’ breathing time inside the suit.

‘Boo! Make him take it off!’ a female prisoner yelled.

Simon ignored her and stepped into the water. He saw a hazy blur of faces on the benches above him.

Six or seven metres away, his rival was already in the pond. He grabbed a thrashing eel and hurled it at Simon’s head.

Simon ducked and the eel splashed into the water a metre to his right.

‘Boo! Get him off!’ a man yelled with all the fervour of a fanatical football spectator.

‘Fight on! Fight on!’ the warden ordered.

Simon and the boy circled around the edge of the pond.

They kept their distance, their eyes constantly on each other’s slightest movement. Like his opponent, Simon held one hand underwater and kept feeling around for an eel.

‘Boo! Boo!’ the crowd complained, getting restless.

A grin split the youth’s face as he whipped his hand from the water, swung a snapping-mouthed eel around his head and let it go. The eel zipped over the surface of the pond. Simon arched his body to one side to avoid it and slipped on the slimy bottom of the pond. As he fell, he was vaguely aware of the cheers from the prisoners. They thought the eel had brought him down. He reached out with his hands to break his fall, pushed against the bottom of the pond and resurfaced. He struggled to his feet, plunged his hands back into the water and grabbed hold of an eel. He twisted around to confront his opponent, aimed, and then threw the eel with one arm.

The boy took a dive, too, and the eel cartwheeled over his head to land on the ground, flopping and gasping in front of the wildly cheering prisoners.

Then Simon’s opponent got to his feet, another eel at the ready. He waded closer and tossed his eel at Simon. The creature’s deadly tail flicked the side of Simon’s helmet. He heard a crack of electricity and felt a stab of pain through his head. He gasped, but he had no time to think. A dozen frightened eels swirled at his feet. He plunged both his hands into the water and clasped onto one.

‘NOW!’ he yelled to Danice. ‘Grab the first one you find!’

As Danice jumped into the water, Simon pretended to aim his eel at his foe. But then he suddenly turned and threw it at the front row of prisoners.

There was instant turmoil. Prisoners leapt in all directions.

‘Control those prisoners!’ the warden yelled.

Simon saw the confusion on his opponent’s face and knew his plan had a chance of working.

‘Got it! A big one!’ Danice shouted.

‘Me too!’ Simon grabbed hold of another. ‘Toss them. As far as you can!’

They heaved the eels with all their strength. One dropped flat onto the head of a guard, making him shriek in agony and stagger into a group of prisoners. The prisoners scattered in terror as the eel thrashed amongst them.

‘Stop! Stop there!’ the warden bellowed. ‘No one moves.
No one!
’

Simon turned to Danice. ‘I’m going to grab one more, and then we go!’

There was chaos as the guards tried to corral the prisoners and stop them storming the gates.

Simon pounced onto a final eel. He tossed it into a group of guards who were closing in. They fell over each other in their panic to get away.

‘Game over! Let’s run!’ Simon shouted.

Simon and Danice lumbered through the water to the edge of the pond. They struggled to shed their boots.

‘Stop there!’ a guard yelled, running around the edge of the pond.

Simon and Danice dashed straight into a mass of rioting prisoners and were immediately swallowed up in the mob. They pushed their way through the crowd and Simon came face to face with the boy he had been fighting.

‘Good luck!’ Simon grinned.

The boy scowled and took a swing at Simon. But the jostling of the other prisoners quickly separated them, and the boy soon disappeared into the pack.

‘Nearly there!’ Simon shouted back to Danice.

They pushed hard through the last knot of prisoners and emerged on the open ground beside the hill.

‘The fence!’ Simon panted. ‘Don’t forget to activate your springers!’

‘Two prisoners are escaping!’ the warden roared behind them.

The fence was about six metres high, its top trimmed with sharp shards of wire.

‘I’m ready!’ Danice shouted.

‘One—two—!’

They hit the ground like a drill team, bounded into the air, cleared the fence and broke their landing by tumbling down the sloping bank beyond. For a few seconds, they lay there, puffing to catch their breath.

Simon activated his wrist pilot and retracted his helmet. ‘Let’s go. The guards’ll be after us any minute!’

‘Into the forest!’ Danice pointed at the wall of redwoods in front of them.

Wet and bedraggled, they got back to their feet and hobbled into the shelter of the trees.

26

‘T
he mission time has now passed forty-eight hours,’ Harry reported to the professor and Captain Cutler. ‘It’s into midmorning of the third day.’

The mood was tense. Cutler and McPhee were silent as they assessed the options. Behind them, Taylor, Ivan and Nick anxiously kept their eyes on the Operations Screen.

‘What’s the latest on Simon and Danice’s position?’ Cutler asked.

‘Our satellite’s just returned over the area,’ Harry replied. ‘They’re in the forest now, near that agricultural land we identified earlier.’

The two red dots flashed on the screen.

‘Stationary?’

‘Hard to tell, sir. Stationary, then some movement, then stationary again. That’s been the pattern.’

Cutler frowned with concentration. ‘How far are they from our original timeline? The point to which they had to return for pick-up?’

‘About thirty k’s,’ Harry replied.

‘Difficult terrain?’

‘Could be, sir. Forests and rocky gorges, from what we can work out.’

‘Anything to stop us sending in a new timeline and picking them up?’ McPhee asked.

‘No, sir.’

‘Could I advise against that, Professor?’ Cutler interrupted.

‘We have two temponauts a long way from their intended zone of operation. And they’re way overdue,’ McPhee said. ‘Your reasons for not sending a new timeline?’

‘My reason is the mission,’ Cutler said bluntly. ‘We need to give them a chance to get the information we need. From our monitoring so far, they’ve not reached the Chieftain’s fortress. That is our principal objective. We should give them extra time to complete their mission.’

‘And what if they’re in real danger?’ McPhee asked.

‘We’ve no evidence of that yet.’ Cutler’s eyes flicked to the screen and then back to the professor. ‘Yes, they’re way off course, and yes, the mission’s gone forty-eight hours. But there might be a good reason for that. We look for initiative from our temponauts. I say we give them a chance to show it.’

McPhee looked thoughtful. ‘Very well, your assessment is valid. But we’ll activate our emergency response mode, all the same.’

Cutler turned to Ivan, Taylor and Nick. ‘I suggest the three of you suit up. We may need you for a rescue operation at short notice.’

‘Sir! Yes, sir!’ the three temponauts replied.

‘Keep down!’ Simon dragged Danice from the track into the cover of a thick patch of chest-high ferns. They had discarded their tattered overalls to let their time-travel suits provide automatic camouflage. But there was no point taking risks.

There was a pounding of hoofs and a mounted guard urged his horse along the path and past them. He galloped on into the forest, scattering a flight of small grey birds.

There were shouts from more guards in the distance.

‘We have to keep moving,’ Simon said. ‘How far away is the Chieftain’s fortress?’

‘Thirty k’s to the north,’ Danice replied. ‘It could take us a couple of days to get there.’

‘That’s too long!’ Simon muttered. More hoof beats approached along the track. There was a flash of a horse and rider coming through the trees towards them.

Simon leapt to his feet. ‘I’ve got an idea!’ he said.

‘What are you doing?’ Danice hissed.

‘Stay down and wait here!’ Simon said. He grabbed a broken branch about two metres long and scurried to the edge of the track. To his right there was a metre-high slab of rock. He ran to it and crouched behind, out of sight, timing his next move.

The beating hoofs drew closer. Just as they reached a crescendo, Simon leapt onto the rock.

‘
Yaaaaa!
’ he shouted.

He swung the branch and thumped the rider a powerful blow on the chest.

The man’s face froze in shock and he fainted. Then he slid off the still-moving horse and toppled soundlessly into the long grass at the side of the trail. His arms and legs twitched slightly.

‘Let’s get out of here before he recovers,’ Simon said, jumping down from the rock.

Danice had chased after the horse, and already held the reins of the dun mare in her hands. ‘Easy, whoa there!’ she said. Then she turned to Simon. ‘You can ride, can’t you?’

‘A bit. How about you?’

‘No.’

The horse whinnied and skittered a few flighty steps sideways.

‘There, girl, easy now, easy,’ Simon said softly, taking the reins and stroking the mare’s neck.

The horse snorted and swished her tail.

‘Good girl,’ Simon said, and in a flash he was up on her back. ‘Now we can get back to our next objective,’ he grinned. ‘Check out the Chieftain’s place!’

He held out his hand and helped Danice climb up behind him.

Danice placed a hand on Simon’s shoulder. ‘I’m not sure the Chieftain’s fortress is such a great idea. Perhaps we should call the mission off. We should get back to the pick-up point and wait until they send back the TPS. That’s correct procedure, and I want to do things by the book. If we go AWOL, the Bureau might change their minds about helping my family.’

Simon turned in the saddle. Danice had got it all wrong. He was sure that if they failed to meet all their objectives, their mission status would be downgraded. They would be removed from priority assignments. He couldn’t let that happen. ‘You’ve got to be kidding. The mission isn’t finished yet!’

He flicked the reins, the mare sniffed the wind and they galloped off.