TIM, Defender of the Earth Read online

  ‘Sarge?’ he asked. ‘Sarge? Come in please, over.’

  The radio crackled. ‘What the hell d’you want, Draper? Over.’

  ‘Sarge . . .’ Draper gulped. He hadn’t been a grenadier for long, and he was nervous. ‘Sarge, I think we’ve got a problem.’

  ‘What sort of problem?’

  ‘There’s some kind of disturbance over at Trafalgar Square,’ said Draper, doing his best. He stared as hard as he could down the long avenue of trees that led to Admiralty Arch. He could hear the thin, oddly inhuman sound of distant screaming, but he couldn’t see what was causing it, not yet.

  ‘Sarge,’ he said, ‘I think you’d better come ’n’ ’ave a look. There’s . . . wait.’ He paused. ‘I can see something! Something’s coming into view over the top of Admiralty Arch. Some sort of . . .’ He paused again and gaped.

  ‘What’s that, Draper?’ barked the radio. ‘What did you say? Come in, Draper! Over!’

  Draper could see Tim now. The great silhouette of him seemed to be growing as the monster got to his feet – getting taller and taller until it reached an impossible size, standing black against the violet of the London night sky. For a whole ten seconds the young grenadier’s jaw worked up and down uselessly while the words simply failed to come out. There’s a giant monster standing in Trafalgar Square, he wanted to say. But he couldn’t. Even now, the thought of what his superior officer’s reply might be stopped the words at his lips.

  ‘Send backup,’ he spluttered finally.

  ‘What’s that, Draper? You’re breaking up!’

  ‘Send everything you’ve got!’ said Draper. ‘NOW!’

  For a long time Tim just stood there, experiencing an emotion he had never felt before. The tiny people far below him were staring up at him in terror, aghast at the simple size of him. Tim, as it happened, was feeling something similar.

  All his life he had lived in a box. To Tim, the box had become something akin to the warmth and security and enclosedness that he still dimly remembered from his egg, but now – as if he’d hatched again – he was free. He was out in the open, outside in the world for the very first time. The night sky gaped around him, impossibly, immeasurably vast. He looked up at it, looked everywhere, searching for where the walls were, but he couldn’t find them.

  Tim felt the London night air on his reptilian skin and saw the horizon and how far away it was, even for him. There was a swelling sensation inside his chest; his tail began to thrash the air, and his claws opened and closed on nothing, helplessly. For a wild second he wanted to climb back underground again, back to his enclosure, but there was no going back, only this huge cold emptiness that seemed to expand around him the further he looked.

  For the first time in his life Tim, huge as he was, felt small. He felt exposed, and alone, and horribly, horribly scared. It was scary, he decided. The whole situation was scary! Alone, helpless, he opened his mouth . . .

  And he screamed.

  It was an astonishing sound. It was louder than aeroplanes taking off. It was as if the hole Tim had come out of was a great mouth in the Earth and the whole planet was bellowing in terror. Some who heard it just collapsed on the spot, their legs turning to jelly underneath them. Some turned tail and fled, and were tens of metres away before they’d even realized they were running – crying and screaming themselves as the hideous sound continued on and on.

  Tim screamed. The people far below him screamed. For a long moment they stayed like that, a stalemate of fright . . .

  And that was when the first helicopters arrived.

  The airwaves crackled with radio transmissions. ‘Dear God, look at the size of that thing! What the hell is—?’

  ‘Cut the chatter, Eagle Two. Control, this is Eagle Leader. Target sighted. Permission to engage?’

  ‘You can’t leave a thing like that running round the centre of London, for Christ’s sake! I say we drop him where he stands.’

  ‘I’m with you, Eagle Six. Eagle Four? Eagle Three? Cover me, I’m going in!’

  ‘Negative!’ barked their leader. ‘Wait for orders! Do not, repeat, do not engage until we are authorized to—’

  ‘Target locked. FIRE!’

  ‘FIRE!’

  ‘FIRE AT WILL!’

  ZOOSH! A volley of missiles split the night sky with their trails. The squadron of attack choppers peeled outwards as the missiles found their target and detonated to flashes and thunder.

  Tim staggered. The missiles had struck him on his side, in his ribs. For a moment, the combined weight of the impacts and the explosions threatened to knock him off balance – but he wasn’t wounded; mostly he was just surprised. When the onslaught finally paused, Tim turned to face the direction the attack had come from. Six rattling, clattering objects were hovering around him, all keeping a cautious distance.

  ZOOSH! More missiles flew at him.

  FOOM! Their explosions flowered briefly, then vanished. But Tim was ready that time. Experimentally, he swiped at the nearest one with his right forepaw, oblivious to –

  ‘EVASIVE! EVASIVE!’

  – the screams and panic that this caused in the cockpits. The rattling thing he’d tried to grab just danced back in the air out of his reach – and the rest of them . . .

  ZOOSH! FOOM! FOOM!

  . . . just shot at him again with more of their irritating weapons. More rattling things were coming to join them. Tim could hear them coming from all around. Well, Tim thought, there was no other choice. He had to try to get away from them. He had to move. Almost swatting a couple of them just by accident with the resulting swing of his tail, Tim turned . . . and set off.

  He leaned forward, trying to get himself up to the loping trot that was his top speed. For a moment Tim felt almost like he should have been enjoying himself: because of his fast growth this was the first chance he’d had to flex his muscles and really move in more than a year. But he was constricted. The streets were too narrow and too full of things. His giant hips barely fit between the buildings. The outer walls of Whitehall offices buckled and shattered as he passed. With each step cars were squashed flat; streetlamps were knocked to the ground; windows and concrete shivered into powder at the slightest touch of his thrashing tail. And still the clattering things kept shooting their little missiles into Tim’s back.

  With rising annoyance, Tim did his best to walk faster. As ever, he had no clear idea where he was going or what he was doing. But the shape of the street was forcing him in one direction: the Houses of Parliament.

  NEWS FLASH

  THE BBC’S NIGHTLY News at Ten broadcast was drawing to a close: apart from one tense moment when Colin McLenahan (one of its presenters) had fluffed the pronunciation of the name of an important visiting Russian dignitary, the programme had been an uneventful one. So far . . .

  On set, Mr McLenahan suddenly put a hand up to his earpiece. ‘And . . . I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘we’re going to have to interrupt that item as reports are coming in of dramatic events taking place while we’ve been on the air. Right now, in the centre of London, it seems that . . .’ He paused and frowned.

  As an experienced newscaster, Mr McLenahan was used to having to maintain a calm front while chaos reigned backstage. What he was hearing in his earpiece now, however, was testing his professionalism to the limit. His face turned red. ‘Look,’ he said, glaring off camera, ‘is this some kind of joke? What sort of idiot do you take me for? I’m not reading out that!’

  ‘Er . . . thank you, Colin,’ said Fiona Pilkington, his copresenter, taking over smoothly. ‘News is breaking as we speak of dramatic scenes in the centre of London tonight. The military has been mobilized. The West End is being evacuated, and the use of live ammunition has been authorized. Approximately fifteen minutes ago . . .’ She too paused and gulped: her throat seemed to have gone suddenly dry. But the pictures were up on her monitor now. What was happening was, it seemed, really happening.

  ‘Eyewitness reports all confirm that approximately fifteen mi
nutes ago, London came under attack from a giant monster. No, ladies and gentlemen: this is not a hoax. A giant monster is on the rampage in the centre of London. First sighted in Trafalgar Square, the monster is estimated to be about one hundred metres tall and similar in build to a . . .’ She paused again and blinked. ‘A tyrannosaur. The monster left Trafalgar Square in ruins and appears to be heading towards the Thames. Our BBC helicopter was scrambled as soon as the news came in.’ She waited, one hand to her own earpiece. ‘And . . . yes: we can now go live to our correspondent in the helicopter, Nelson Akubwe. Nelson, what’s going on?’

  The camera shuddered yet kept its focus on the incredible events unfolding below. Even under the heavy whup-whup-whupping of the BBC chopper’s rotor blades, the excitement in the young reporter’s voice was obvious.

  ‘Thank you, Fiona. As you can see, the military have swung straight into action – in fact, we’re having trouble getting any closer because they’re warning us to keep back. But such is the scale of this extraordinary scene that you can easily make out what’s going on even from here. Ladies and gentlemen, what you are watching is not a film: it may look like something from Hollywood or Japan, but I can definitely confirm that this is really happening, right now, in the heart of Britain’s capital. A gigantic monster has emerged from under Trafalgar Square and is now, as I’m talking to you, making its way down Whitehall . . .’

  In minutes, reports of Tim’s appearance had flashed right around the globe. All over the world, via the Internet, satellites, television and radio, the news was spreading, creating astonishment wherever it went.

  Watching the scene on monitors in his bunker, deep underground in an undisclosed location, Mr Sinclair was less than happy. With supreme efficiency the men and women of the Secret Service had spirited him and his family away from their home at 10 Downing Street and out to safety. So great had been their efficiency, however, that the prime minister had yet to have time to change out of his pyjamas, and the air in the Crisis Room (the top-secret nerve centre from which Britain could be run in the event of catastrophe) was, he found, decidedly chilly. From where he sat, Mr Sinclair could access most of the country’s significant computer systems and all of the world’s media. But nobody – neither his minions nor himself – seemed able to find the switch that controlled the air-conditioning.

  ‘So,’ said the prime minister, in a voice as cold as the room, ‘it seems the good Dr McKinsey’s “little secret” is now out.’ He eyed his aides. ‘Well? What are we going to do about it?’

  Field Marshal Clement ‘Clem’Thompson, commander in chief of the British army, cleared his throat. He disliked the prime minister’s disrespectful tone and, frankly, he disapproved of his choice of dressing gown. But as a military man he appreciated that this probably wasn’t the time to mention these things.

  ‘Two battalions of tanks are at present en route to the area,’ he said. ‘Our plan, sir, is to force the creature out into the Thames, where it can do the minimum amount of damage. Then, in a combined effort with my colleagues in the navy and air force’ – he nodded to the Admiral of the Fleet and the Marshal of the RAF, who were standing beside him – ‘we shall drive it as far as the Thames barrier, where we are setting up a barrage of our heaviest artillery as we speak.’

  ‘Will that work?’ asked Mr Sinclair.

  ‘It’s the best chance we have,’ Thompson replied. ‘While air-to-air missiles and cannon fire have failed to penetrate the creature’s hide so far, it’s still pretty clear that he . . . er . . . doesn’t like it when we shoot at him.’

  ‘But the big guns,’ said the prime minister, annoyed: ‘are they going to be enough to kill the monster? That’s what I’m asking you.’

  The field marshal, the admiral, and the air marshal exchanged a look.

  ‘We . . . don’t know, sir,’ Thompson admitted.

  ‘What do you mean, you don’t know?’

  ‘Our tech boys are attempting to retrieve Dr McKinsey’s data from the lab complex now,’ said Thompson. ‘But all the indications so far are that . . .’ He paused again. ‘Well, we think the monster may be immune to conventional weapons.’

  ‘What?’ asked Mr Sinclair with some emphasis.

  ‘We’ll, ah, see how the tank battalions get on,’ said Thompson. ‘But I’m afraid it . . . doesn’t look good.’

  The prime minister stared at him. ‘Oh, brilliant,’ he said slowly. ‘That’s absolutely brilliant. I can really see why the taxpayers spend so much money on you. All right, let me ask you something else.’

  He gave his advisers a long look.

  ‘Did it never occur to anyone else to think before about what might happen if this creature ever escaped?’

  The silence in the Crisis Room lengthened.

  ‘God help us!’ said Mr Sinclair, throwing his hands in the air. ‘God help London. God help us all.’

  MEET THE MONSTER

  SO FAR THAT evening Chris had managed to keep the bracelet a secret. This had mostly been achieved by wearing his longest-sleeved top and constantly pulling at the left cuff as if from some kind of nervous tic. But it had worked: all through dinner and his family’s trip to the theatre his parents hadn’t noticed, and now they were on their way home. They were in the car. His mum was driving. Chris’s dad was safely wittering about the play they’d just seen. They were about to cross the Thames via Westminster Bridge when it all began to go horribly wrong.

  First, the bracelet suddenly started glowing again, even more brightly than before at the museum. Instantly Chris stuck his hand behind his back – but not instantly enough, apparently.

  ‘What was that?’ said his father.

  ‘What was what?’ Chris tried.

  ‘That glowing thing. The one on your wrist. The one you’re trying to hide behind your back,’ said his dad infuriatingly.

  ‘What . . . this?’ Chris asked as casually as he could. The bracelet’s eerie greenish light seemed to glitter all around him, reflected in the windows of the car. ‘It’s . . . er . . .’

  ‘I don’t think you’ve shown me that before,’ said his dad with a frown. ‘It’s new, isn’t it?’

  ‘Oh . . . yeah,’ said Chris weakly. ‘It’s, ah . . . the latest thing. Everyone’s got them at school.’

  ‘It’s really bright,’ said Chris’s dad. ‘How’s it work? Batteries? Let’s have a look—’

  But then the car screeched to a halt.

  ‘Ah . . . what?’ said Chris’s mother. ‘What on Earth’s going on now?’

  In front of them was a motorcycle policeman: he was waving frantically.

  ‘I think he wants us to turn round,’ said Chris’s dad.

  ‘Why?’ asked Chris.

  ‘How should I know?’ Chris’s mum replied. ‘Maybe the bridge is closed.’

  The three members of the Pitman family peered out of the windscreen. By the orange light of the streetlamps, they could see that the bridge did indeed seem to be empty. Apart from the solitary motorcycle cop, nothing stood between their car and (on the far side of the bridge) the Houses of Parliament, rearing up out of the darkness.

  Chris’s mum rolled down the window.

  ‘I’m sorry, ma’am,’ said the policeman, ‘but I’m afraid this whole area is being evacuated.’

  Chris noticed that the bracelet was glowing brighter and brighter with every second that passed. He sat on his hand.

  ‘What’s going on?’ asked Chris’s mum.

  ‘You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,’ said the policeman. ‘But take it from me, it’s really best that you just get out of here right now. For your own good,’ he added. ‘OK?’

  ‘Not really,’ Chris’s mum announced. ‘No. I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what’s happening.’

  ‘Ma’am—’

  ‘No, really. Either you tell me or I’m just going to stay here.’

  The bracelet’s glow was now searingly bright. It was filling the car with its yellow-green glow – even from under Chris’
s bottom.

  The policeman sighed. ‘All right, have it your way. I’ll tell you. It’s—’

  BOOM! A sudden tremor rattled the car, and the rest of the policeman’s words were lost.

  ‘What was that?’ asked Chris’s dad.

  BOOM! The noise came again, louder this time.

  ‘Oh God,’ said the policeman, turning white with fear. ‘It’s coming this way!’

  ‘Now, come on,’ said Chris’s mum kindly. ‘I’m sure that there’s no need to panic. What is it? An earthquake?’

  BOOM!

  ‘Is it terrorists?’ asked Chris’s dad. ‘I bet it’s terrorists! I—’

  BOOM! BOOM!

  ‘Look,’ said the policeman, quite firmly now. ‘For heaven’s sake, will you please just do as I say and leave the area! Run for your lives! While you still can!’

  And at that moment something rather surprising happened on the other side of the river. One of the buildings on the opposite bank of the Thames – not the Houses of Parliament but another block, uncomfortably close to it – suddenly vanished.

  Its facade exploded: hunks of jagged masonry flew out and splashed into the Thames. The rest of the building sagged in the middle before finally losing its battle with gravity and toppling in on itself entirely, making dust and debris fountain into the night sky in a cloud that, for the moment, was impenetrable. At the same instant, the air seemed to come alive with the thunderous chatter of helicopters, flying so low that Chris felt the wash from their blades through the window even from where he was sitting. The choppers shuddered to a halt in the air around the wreckage of the building. Lines of smoke sizzled out from all of them as their terrified pilots unleashed their missiles, and the night was set alight by a shattering bloom of explosions.

  An unfamiliar tingling sensation travelling up his arm briefly reminded Chris of the bracelet. Its light was almost unbearable now. The inside of the car was awash with it: a brightness brighter than day. But still, as what had destroyed the building finally stepped into view, Chris simply could not spare the mysterious artefact anything more than a cursory glance.