Chapters (45)
- Title Page
- Copyright Page
- Contents
- Prologue
- 2046
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Thirty-Three
- Thirty-Four
- Thirty-Five
- Thirty-Six
- Thirty-Seven
- Thirty-Eight
- Thirty-Nine
- About the Author
‘Indeed,’ Ben says, and finally pulls his gaze away from the window to look at her. In the surrealness of the moment he takes in the cat-like shape of her eyes.
‘Outside,’ she whispers, ‘they’re dinosaurs.’
Ten
Ten
Extracted. Drugged. Waking up in a bunker. Fighting. Beaten. Drugged again. Waking up again. A slight shift in the perception of each in the belief that the other two believe they are who they say they are. Confusion. Fear. Anxiety. Disorientation and now dinosaurs.
‘Actual dinosaurs,’ Ben murmurs.
‘Outside,’ Safa whispers into the silence of the room. ‘Actual dinosaurs outside.’
They stare through a thick pane of glass at a huge open vista of a view. Lush grass, long and vividly green. Everything is vivid and striking in colour and depth of hue. It could be the drugs in their bodies and that sense of disorientation, but right at that second they see the sky in a shade of blue none of them have ever seen before, so pure, deep and rich.
They look out from the side of a very big hill with flat ground outside that drops away in a long sweep down to a wide valley floor full of thickets of trees the size of which Safa never thought possible. Wide plains between the forests and the unmistakable sight of long-legged, long-necked dinosaurs. Hundreds. Big ones, smaller ones and what look like baby ones staying close to the rest.
They stay silent, staring dumbfounded out the window to the grey-coloured beasts in the valley below and Ben thinks of elephants. The same shades of grey and they also look peaceful like elephants do, like they’re content to just plod about munching on grass and reaching up to eat the leaves from the trees. ‘Shit.’ Ben makes the connection as his eyes finally start sending the right messages to his brain. ‘The trees. Look at the trees.’
‘Huh?’ Safa mumbles and cocks her head until she makes the same connection. ‘Big trees,’ she says slowly. ‘Really . . . really big trees.’
That the creatures are enormous is beyond doubt. They are a great distance away, but even so they can tell the creatures are enormous but still lifting those long necks to reach the branches of the trees, which must also be gigantic.
‘No scale,’ Harry cuts in.
The door unlocks behind them but they don’t move or do anything other than stare at the sight of a herd of dinosaurs at the bottom of a valley.
‘Everyone okay?’ a tentative voice asks as the door swings open.
‘Ha!’ Ben exclaims at Safa and Harry, who both flinch at his outburst. ‘I was bloody right . . . what did I say?’
‘What?’ Safa asks. ‘Oh . . . oh that . . .’
‘Dead, are we?’ he asks with a smug grin.
‘Alright,’ she groans.
‘In a German camp, are we?’ he asks Harry.
‘Might be,’ he rumbles.
‘No,’ Ben scoffs. ‘They’re dinosaurs. That means it’s time travel.’