Read Send Simon Savage #1 for Free Online

run!’ Damien said.
    He ran down the slope, between a stand of towering redwoods, and was first into the clearing beyond. The last rays of the sun lit the very top branches of two massive trees in the clearing. Their ancient trunks had fused together at the base to form a colossal column a hundred metres high.
    Damien reached into a hole in the trunk’s fibrous bark and took out a short wooden club.
    ‘Hurry … hurry … up!’ Alli puffed, glancing fearfully over her shoulder.
    Damien took a step away from the base of the tree and bent down to a small, hollow log which had been stripped of its bark. He drummed on the log three times, then waited and tapped it another three times.
    After a moment, a long rope ladder tumbled down the trunk. It swung wildly as the bottom rung reached the ground. Damien yanked at the ladder until it was tight and even.
    ‘Best to tell Mama the news straightaway,’ Alli said, grabbing the bottom rung.
    ‘I will. But how do you reckon she’ll take it?’
    ‘With Dad gone, and now Danice?’ Alli replied. ‘Badly.’
    Damien nodded. ‘You first!’
    Alli started to climb.
    The frightened whoop of a bird echoed sharply through the clearing. Damien spun around. The bushes rustled a short distance away.
    Damien leapt onto the ladder and followed his sister up into the thick green canopy of branches.

8

    The year 2000, New York City
    S imon was getting annoyed. He was also getting worried.
    He stood by the news stand with a copy of the latest issue of The New Yorker magazine rolled up and inserted into the pouch on the right thigh of his travel suit. That part of his first mission was completed and on schedule. Now all he had to do was meet up with Danice, then return to their timeline in a quiet alley near Grand Central Station. They were supposed to have met five minutes previously. Simon stepped out from the side of the stand and looked up and down the street. Cars, trucks and yellow cabs beeped loudly and crowds of office workers scurried along the pavements.
    ‘So, buddy, where’s your bike?’ the news vendor asked.
    Simon looked away. He was supposed to be inconspicuous! He’d told the man he was a bicycle courier. This was the explanation he had been ordered to give to anyone who asked. With his helmet retracted, and a big T-shirt over the top part of his time-travel suit, he looked like any of the couriers who buzzed around the city.
    ‘It’s over the road,’ Simon lied. ‘I’m just waiting for a friend.’
    The man turned to a new customer and Simon breathed a sigh of relief. He checked his wrist pilot, pressing a finger to the touch screen and activating a series of yellow grids. A red locator dot and a set of figures flashed in the right-hand corner. They indicated the timeline would stay open for another seven minutes, which meant that in two minutes he would have to go back alone. He wasn’t crazy about the thought of reporting: ‘ Sorry, sir, got one magazine, lost one time traveller! ’
    ‘So, Simon, what are we waiting for?’ a voice said. It was Danice, wearing a bright-red coat over her travel suit.
    ‘What took you so long?’ Simon demanded.
    ‘I had to find the right clothes,’ she replied. ‘A woman from the Bureau took me shopping a couple of times. But this was my first go by myself.’
    ‘How could you afford that? How much did they give you?’
    Danice shrugged. ‘Two hundred dollars.’
    ‘They only gave me five!’ Simon held out a couple of coins. ‘And I was ordered to bring back the change.’
    ‘I need modern clothes,’ Danice replied.
    ‘Because you’re so old-fashioned?’ Simon asked. ‘Maybe you could tell me what era you are from?’
    The day before, Simon and Danice had spent several hours in the underground zone that housed the Time Accelerator, learning about its basic operations. He had still discovered nothing more about her, except detecting that she had a slight American accent. But she wouldn’t tell him what year she