Fight for Survival Read online

  ‘I want to believe you,’ Abby continued, looking down at her feet. ‘I really do. But it’s just so hard.’

  ‘I know,’ Cutter said, smiling reassuringly. The fact that Abby was curious enough even to ask about Claudia was enough for him at the moment.

  Anyway, they didn’t have any more time to talk. Somehow, they had to get the adult Raptors back through to the Cretaceous era before they woke up and the anomaly closed.

  Cutter stood up and brushed himself off, checking the two Raptors beside him. They both appeared to have survived the drop OK.

  Cutter looked back up behind him. Just moments ago, Stephen and Connor had helped him push the dinosaurs through into the Cretaceous era, and then he’d gone through himself. But he hadn’t been expecting the atmospheric rip to be sitting on top of a hillside. Losing his footing on loose rock as he emerged, Cutter had tumbled head first, gathering scratches and bruises along the way.

  Cutting the bonds of the dozing Raptors, Cutter turned to make the treacherous climb back up the hillside. With the dinosaurs still unconscious, he took the chance to get his bearings. From his vantage point on the hill, he could see a landscape dotted with huge forests – giant conifer and ginkgo trees towered over cycad ferns. Small, stony hillsides, like the one he was on, were scattered in between them. He’d travelled back over 125 million years, and the view was breathtaking.

  Cutter sighed as a majestic winged reptile soared above him. It reminded him of a Pteranodon. The first time he’d seen one, it had been flying over a golf course in the south of London. The creature had come through an aerial anomaly, and Cutter smiled as he remembered that Claudia had, at first, been terrified of it. The Pteranodon had even knocked her out with its powerful beak. But when the time had come to return it, she’d been as amazed by its beauty as he was.

  Cutter looked up at the anomaly on the hillside above him. Just as Connor had predicted, its bright light was growing weaker, and Cutter knew it wouldn’t be long before it ceased to exist at all. But thinking about Claudia had set his mind in motion. What if he was to stay here? There had to be some way to find her. Maybe he could just stay in the past until he could figure out how to fix the present.

  ‘I thought you might try something like this,’ a voice said loudly, tearing into his thoughts.

  Cutter spun round, shocked to find Stephen standing behind him.

  ‘That’s why I followed you through,’ the lab technician added, proving just how well he’d come to know the professor over the years. ‘Just in case you had some crazy idea about not coming back.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Cutter said, shrugging unconvincingly. He wasn’t surprised when Stephen sighed and raised an eyebrow. He’d never been any good at lying. ‘Well? So what?’ he continued, becoming upset. ‘Maybe it’s for the best.’

  ‘What?’ Stephen replied, trying not to lose his cool. He might think Cutter wasn’t his usual self these days, but there was no way he was going to leave him here to be eaten by hungry Raptors. ‘Dying out here in this godforsaken place, millions of years away from everything you know?’

  ‘But that’s just it!’ Cutter cried, clearly frustrated. ‘I don’t know your world any more.’

  ‘And what if there is no way back?’ Stephen reasoned. ‘What if this world is the only one there is? It’s suicide!’

  ‘I don’t want to die, Stephen,’ the professor said matter-of-factly. ‘I just want to make things right again.’

  Stephen finally lost his patience. ‘Right now, that world back there is the only one there is!’ he exploded. ‘And you’ve still got a job to do. So the real question is, are you going to do it or not?’

  Stephen turned towards the fading anomaly. Cutter’s heart sank. He was right – they were still a team. If Cutter stayed here, then Lester could do whatever he liked with the creatures that came through the anomalies. And then they’d have a lot more problems than just one person going missing.

  ‘OK,’ he heard himself say reluctantly. But as Stephen reached out to give Cutter a hand up the rocky hillside, his eyes widened in terror. Cutter followed his gaze to see the giant Utahraptor staggering to its feet, finally waking up from the tranquillizer dose. As the two men turned to scramble up the steep slope, the creature was right behind them, snapping furiously at their heels with its razor-sharp teeth.

  As they reached the light at the top, Stephen pushed Cutter through, the anomaly glimmering weakly. As Abby and Connor pulled the professor out into the bowling alley on the other side, the light began to fade.

  ‘Where’s Stephen?’ Abby shouted urgently, just as Stephen’s head appeared through the shivering glow. Cutter and Connor grabbed hold of his arm, but it was clear they were in a prehistoric tug of war – the Utahraptor had caught up with Stephen and was pulling him back from the other side.

  As Cutter threw his arms round Stephen’s waist, Connor was horrified to see the anomaly continuing to grow weaker. It almost seemed like Stephen was becoming a ghost before their very eyes. His face and body were fading along with the pulses in the anomaly. As he desperately kicked at the creature, it clamped on to his leg and Stephen cried out in pain.

  With his last reserve of energy, Stephen twisted round and reached back into the Cretaceous era. Grabbing a rock, he smashed it into the face of the angry carnivore. The Raptor reeled back in shock as Cutter finally managed to pull Stephen through the light to safety.

  But it wasn’t over yet. The team watched in dismay as the snapping head of the enraged creature appeared once again through the anomaly. When the Raptor was only halfway into the bowling alley, the light glimmered and froze for a second before disappearing completely. As the dinosaur let out a forlorn shriek, its head and shoulders fell with a thump to the polished wood floor. The rest of its body was lost back in the Cretaceous era, where it belonged.

  Stephen looked at Cutter gratefully. There was no need to say anything. They both knew they owed each other. But what on earth were they going to do with half a Raptor?

  The next day, Abby, Cutter, Stephen and Connor stood in an ARC office, called in by Lester to wrap up the events of the latest anomaly and meet a new member of the team.

  ‘Some sort of PR wizard,’ Lester had said on the phone the night before. ‘Basically, he’ll be our cover-up specialist, protecting the public from what they don’t need to know.’

  Cutter had agreed wearily. By that stage he’d been so exhausted and so confused by the events of the day that he would have agreed to just about anything.

  As it happened, the new team member wasn’t a he, but a she. As the team crowded into the room, the smartly dressed woman sat in a dark corner. But Cutter didn’t even glance at her. He was too busy riling Lester.

  ‘You’re late,’ the government official barked.

  ‘So fire me,’ Cutter replied coolly, taking a chair and fixing his eyes on the floor.

  ‘We can only dream,’ Lester said, forcing a smile. ‘Anyway, now that you’re finally here, I’d like you all to meet your new colleague.’

  Cutter sighed, resigned to the fact that Lester hadn’t even bothered to consult with them about bringing in someone to handle the media. No one understood the situation better than the four people on his team. Whoever this woman was, she probably wasn’t going to believe dinosaurs were travelling into the modern day anyway.

  The professor finally looked up as the woman came out of her corner into the light.

  Cutter couldn’t believe what he saw. The same brown eyes, the same slight figure, the same long, perfectly styled brown hair.

  It was Claudia.

  ‘This is Jennifer Lewis,’ Lester trumpeted, puffing out his chest and running a hand through his hair. He’d been dubious when Leek had said it was a woman, but as Lester ran an eye over her perfectly pressed suit, he couldn’t help but be impressed. The girl had class.

  But Cutter was dumbfounded. His mind was racing. Looking over at Connor, Abby and Stephen, it was obvious from
their muted reaction that they’d never seen her before.

  Cutter’s mind spun as the woman walked over to greet him, holding out her hand.

  ‘Jenny,’ she said, smiling nicely. ‘Pleased to meet you.’

  He stared at her dumbly. It was clear that as far as Jennifer Lewis was concerned, she had never seen him before either.

  Cutter tried to compose himself as Lester continued talking. His air of superiority was infuriating – it was obvious he was trying hard to impress Jennifer.

  ‘Ms Lewis has been appointed to a senior position in the team,’ he said. ‘That means she answers to me, and you lot answer to her.’

  ‘I didn’t know we answered to anybody,’ Stephen glowered.

  Lester straightened his tie and smiled winningly at his star recruit.

  ‘Scientists, Ms Lewis,’ he apologized, as if sharing a private joke.

  ‘It’s quite all right, James,’ the woman replied, smiling at him flirtatiously. ‘I’m used to working with creative people. And do call me Jenny.’

  It was too much for Cutter. He’d watched the exchange with disgust. The sight of creepy James Lester making eyes at Claudia, or Jenny, or whoever she was, was just too much. He had to put a stop to it.

  Without thinking, Cutter stepped forward and grabbed the startled Jenny by both arms.

  ‘Claudia!’

  The woman was clearly taken aback. ‘My name’s not Claudia.’

  ‘You’re Claudia Brown,’ Cutter repeated slowly. Jenny grimaced. This strange man was beginning to make her seriously nervous.

  ‘You must be confusing me with someone else,’ she stuttered.

  ‘You only think you’re Jennifer Lewis,’ Cutter insisted, tightening his grip. ‘You’re really a woman called Claudia Brown.’ He searched her eyes desperately, looking for any hint of recognition. How couldn’t she know him, after everything they’d gone through? ‘You’ve changed somehow… I can explain… there’s a reason for this… there has to be!’

  Jenny looked over at Lester, visibly shaken. She tried unsuccessfully to force a smile as the government man intervened.

  ‘Meet Professor Nick Cutter,’ he sighed, as if Cutter was an exhibition in a zoo. ‘A fascinating case study of the tipping point between inspiration and lunacy.’

  ‘Are you feeling all right, Professor?’ added Leek, craning to look over Lester’s shoulder.

  ‘Claudia, please!’ Cutter persisted, ignoring the comments. ‘I know this sounds insane, but you’re not who you think you are. Just listen to me!’

  Connor watched as Jenny finally managed to free herself from the professor’s grip and anxiously took a step back. He felt genuinely sorry for Cutter. Whatever was going on, it was obviously very real to him. Lester was just standing on the sidelines smirking at him, as if Cutter really was insane.

  Connor realized he had to get the palaeontologist out of here before he completely flipped out.

  ‘The anomaly detector, Professor…’ Connor said, stepping in and making Cutter look him in the eye. ‘You said we should discuss it, remember?’

  Cutter finally drew his gaze away from Jenny and looked at Connor blankly. For the first time in minutes he was aware of other people in the room and suddenly realized how ridiculous this must look. He followed Connor out to the corridor.

  ‘It’s Claudia,’ Cutter said quietly, leaning tiredly against a wall.

  ‘I know,’ Connor said gently.

  Cutter’s eyes widened in hope.

  ‘Then why didn’t you say something?’ he whispered urgently.

  ‘I mean, I know that’s what you believe,’ Connor said, furiously backtracking. ‘Me? I’ve never seen her before in my life.’

  Cutter shook his head as if trying to dislodge something. It was all too much.

  ‘Listen, Professor, you can’t go flaky on us now,’ Connor pleaded. ‘It’s nearly midday already and we’ll probably have to save the world again before bedtime.’

  Cutter managed a tense smile. He never thought he’d see the day that Connor would be the one talking sense into him.

  ‘All right,’ he lied. ‘I’m OK.’

  ‘No more of this Claudia stuff?’ Connor added bravely. Cutter was the one who told him what to do. He couldn’t help but feel uneasy when it was the other way around. ‘At least until you can work out what’s going on?’

  Cutter shrugged despondently in agreement. He had no other choice.

  After apologizing to Jenny and saying he must have made a mistake, Cutter, along with Leek and Lester, sat down with the ARC’s new public relations representative to discuss her role. To say she doubted them when they told her she would be working with real live dinosaurs was an understatement.

  ‘Your job is to come up with convincing cover stories,’ Lester added. ‘In essence, that means convincing people they didn’t see what they actually did.’

  By the end of the conversation, Jenny still didn’t look like she believed them. Cutter couldn’t blame her. As a first day on the job went, so far, this one had been pretty implausible.

  Helen Cutter walked slowly through the rocky terrain of the late Cretaceous era. In her mid-thirties, with her long, dark hair pulled back into a ponytail and wearing dark green overalls and a neck scarf, she looked like any other adventurer undertaking an important exploration. Only Helen Cutter wasn’t just any other adventurer. And this exploration was taking place in another world, over 75 million years ago.

  She’d been walking for a long time. Unlike her usual kempt appearance, she was dirty and looked exhausted. Her attempts to find the future anomaly had so far proved unsuccessful, and she hadn’t had a decent meal for ages. She was getting frustrated.

  Pulling out a radio transmitter, Helen switched it on, trying to detect any sign of an anomaly. It blinked at her for a second and then flicked itself off. Growing increasingly desperate for a glimpse of the familiar shimmer, Helen scanned her surroundings.

  She was surprised to find herself among a small outcrop of rocks. A large Pteranodon nest was built in the middle. With relief, she spied two large eggs sitting unattended inside it. Moving swiftly, she jumped into the ragged mass of twigs and brushwood and placed both of them inside her sturdy rucksack.

  Her heart skipped a beat as an ominous shadow flew over her. Letting out a furious squawk at the intruder in its nest, a massive adult Pteranodon swooped towards her. As she crouched down, one of its fierce talons tore through the leg of her overalls. Helen pulled out a large hunting knife from her belt, watching the creature circle and dive down towards her once again.

  But Helen was too fast for it, stabbing the Pteranodon deeply in the stomach as it swooped just metres above her. Shrieking in protest, the dinosaur clawed at her again before flying off into the huge forests.

  Pulling out a first-aid kit, Helen ripped the material on her overalls and prepared to dress the wound. But suddenly, another thought occurred to her. With a look of stubborn determination, Helen tossed the kit back into her pack and pulled out her anomaly detector. But she didn’t flick it on. Instead, she inspected the small wound the Pteranodon had made and picked up her hunting knife. Crying out in agony, she buried it deep into her leg.

  As Helen smeared the blood from the wound over her clothes, her mind ticked over with a fresh plan.

  Stephen rejecting her advances in the Forest of Dean had humiliated her. But maybe he could prove to be useful yet.

  Back in the present that same day, Abby and Connor ambled through the video store. As usual, they were arguing about the evening’s viewing.

  ‘You chose last week, remember?’ Connor said, watching Abby pull a face. It was the same kind of look she gave when Rex, her pet Coelurosauravus, left surprise deposits of dinosaur poo around the flat.

  ‘Oh, come on,’ Abby huffed, putting her hands on her hips. ‘Do you really think I would have chosen The Texas Chainsaw Massacre? What about something romantic for a change?’

  ‘My worst nightmare,’ Connor replied, rolling
his eyes. ‘Two hours of stupidly handsome people crying a lot and pretending nobody fancies them.’

  Abby continued looking down the aisle as Connor watched her thoughtfully. Even though he knew she had a crush on Stephen, it couldn’t hurt to drop a hint or two about how he felt.

  ‘Anyway, these movies are all the same,’ he added, flashing her a sly grin. ‘The heroine spends the whole time chasing some handsome creep then finally realizes she’s been in love with her wacky but lovable best friend all along.’

  Abby spun round so that the two of them were face to face. She knew exactly what game Connor was playing. He had been playing the same one since he arrived at her front door over two months ago, looking for a place to stay. And she wasn’t in the mood for it.

  ‘I see your point,’ she said, smiling sweetly. ‘I mean, that’s not going to happen in real life, is it?’ Connor’s face fell, but Abby continued. ‘I’m going home. You choose. But no horror, no action and definitely no kung fu.’

  Connor felt a lump rise in his throat as he wandered over to the horror section. So that was that. Stephen had broken Abby’s heart with his affair with Helen, all those years ago. Connor thought how unfair things were that she didn’t realize what a good guy he was and come running straight into his arms. All Connor wanted to do was to protect Abby and look after her.

  Connor sighed as he picked up a movie from the rack, smiling appreciatively at the suitably gory picture on the front cover.

  ‘A classic,’ said a female voice appreciatively. ‘Good choice!’

  Connor turned round to be confronted by the most gorgeous woman he’d ever seen. She looked around the same age as him, but their style was worlds apart. While Connor looked like he’d just raided the local charity shop, the girl in front of him was fashionably dressed and had perfectly applied makeup. And she was smiling. At him.