Send Simon Savage #1 by Stephen Measday Read Free Book Online

Alli added as she covered the bar with nano-spray and tossed it into the wormhole. ‘As many as you can, quick as you can.’
    ‘And this works?’ Lee asked, taking a bottle from his own pouch.
    ‘Sure,’ Alli replied. ‘A squirt of this stuff sends the gold through time and pops it back into its original form at the other end.’
    ‘Like us, when we get back?’
    ‘Yep. That’s how it works.’
    ‘This hole’s only open for fifteen minutes,’ Damien said. He checked the position of the spinning TPS, which now emitted a bluish gleam that gave them enough light to work by.
    ‘Damien, that sound, can you hear it?’ Alli asked, nodding towards the solid wooden door at the end of the cellar.
    ‘Keep working. I’ll check.’
    There were clinks of gold against gold as Alli and Lee lifted, sprayed and tossed the gold bars.
    ‘They’re heavy,’ Lee said.
    ‘We haven’t even started!’ Alli replied. She glanced at her brother. ‘You hear anything?’
    Damien pressed his ear against the door. ‘The guards are belting out some sort of song.’
    ‘Hopefully they won’t hear us, then!’
    For the next five minutes they sweated hard, tossing bar after bar into the swirling vortex.
    ‘Lee, we’re doing all right here,’ Alli said, looking at the gold ornaments stacked around the repository. ‘Must be dozens of those candlesticks. Grab a few!’
    ‘The Tribunes in Old City love those,’ Damien said. ‘The Chieftain buys his favours with stuff like that.’
    Lee crossed to a shelf which ran along one wall of the cellar. A dozen gold candlesticks stood in a gleaming row. He grabbed for the first one.
    ‘Weighs a ton!’ he exclaimed. ‘ Oops! ’
    The heavy candlestick slipped from his sweaty grip and fell against the next one. The whole row toppled over with a resounding crash.
    ‘Sorry!’ Lee said lamely.
    There were shouts from beyond the door.
    ‘That’s wrecked it!’ Damien hissed. ‘I’ll distract the guards while you two get going!’
    Alli grabbed Lee. ‘You first. Move!’ She gave him a shove and he was sucked into the wormhole.
    Keys rattled on the far side of the door.
    Damien turned to Alli. ‘Get out—quick! I’ll be right after you!’
    ‘Don’t wait around!’ Alli yelled as she jumped into the wormhole and vanished.
    Damien heard the metal bolts being thrown back. He dashed for the wormhole as the door swung open. A guard stormed in and fired his musket wildly. The round of shot tore into a wooden beam in the ceiling.
    ‘ Adiós, amigos! ’ Damien cried, leaping into the time tunnel. He hoped the gold would please the Chieftain.
    The TPS spun for a second and its light swirled around the chamber. Then it was gone and the wormhole closed.
    The guards gasped and sank to their knees.
    ‘ El diablo, el diablo! ’ one of them cried.
    It was his only explanation for a phenomenon he would never understand.

11

    ‘G ood to see you, Savage,’ McPhee said, glancing away from the Timeline Operations Screen that dominated the Command Centre.
    For most of Simon’s stay at the manor the centre had been the Forbidden Zone. No entry, no surprise drop-in visits, nothing without security clearance. On their first guided tour, the temponauts had merely glimpsed the centre through a thick barrier of armoured glass from the neighbouring viewing room.
    Now Simon was close enough to take in every detail. He stood by the command console, where an Operations Officer was permanently on duty, keeping a close watch on movements across time. The screen was about six metres by three and showed a series of coloured bands. There were twenty vertical lines indicating blocks of one century each, dating back two thousand years from Present Time, and four bands going forward four hundred years. Horizontally, two broader, yellow lines showed current missions. Nick Spenser was still in the year 1798, and Taylor Bly was in 1900.
    Simon felt a shiver of anticipation. This is where I want to be, he thought.