Free The mayan prophecy (Timeriders # 8) by Alex Scarrow Page A

you provide a location stamp for …’ He leaned forward to read the name of the town. ‘For San Marcos de Colón, in the country Honduras.’
    > Of course. One moment … retrieving data.
    Adam sat back in the chair and whistled. ‘Oh, that is just sooo mint! Voice-recognition-enabled AI!’
    Liam grinned. ‘Let me guess, that would be the fancy technical term for a computer that you can talk to, I presume?’
    ‘Oh, yeah.’ Adam nodded. ‘Jesus … this is so
sci-fi
! Can I have a go at talking to it?’
    Liam shrugged. ‘Be my guest.’
    Adam looked around the cluttered table. ‘Do I need to talk into a mic or something?’
    ‘Nope. You just need to talk. He’ll hear you.’
    He craned his neck forward. ‘Uhh … hello? Computer? You there?’
    ‘He answers to the name computer-Bob.’
    ‘Computer-Bob? Really? Who came up with
that
name?’
    > Liam, I detect a voice pattern that has 99.87% probability of belonging to previously authorized user – Adam Lewis.
    Liam was taken aback for a moment. But then he remembered Adam had been here before. ‘Ah, of course! I forgot. You twohave actually already met.’ It was a seven-years-older Adam Lewis who had worked with Maddy and computer-Bob while Liam, Bob and Becks had been back in 1194.
    Adam looked boggle-eyed. ‘Really?’
    ‘Aye. You were some years older than you are now, but I suppose your voice never completely changes.’ He turned back to look at the dialogue box. ‘Aye, computer-Bob, the voice you just heard belongs to Adam Lewis. He’s come back to help us again.’ He nodded at Adam. ‘Go on … why don’t you say hello to him.’
    ‘Errr … OK. Computer-Bob? Hellooo?’
    > Hello, Adam Lewis. Welcome back.
    Adam slapped the table with his hand. ‘That is just … incredible!’
    Out of a dark corner of the dungeon, something squat, yellow and cubed waddled towards them, drawn by the noise of Adam’s laughter – curious, like a moth drawn to light.
    Liam smiled as he saw that SpongeBubba had been roused from his ‘slumber’ and was shuffling towards them. ‘Well now, Adam, if you enjoyed that you’ll probably love
this
.’
    ‘What?’
    Liam nodded into the dark and Adam followed his gaze. Two bulbous eyes framed with thick cartoon eyelashes; beneath them, a wobbling gherkin nose and two goofy tombstone teeth. The lab unit stared back at Adam.
    ‘Howdy! Howdy! I’m SpongeBubba! What’s
your
name?’
    Adam stared down at the unlikely creature and for a moment considered that maybe, just maybe, he really had experienced some kind of complete nervous breakdown and was locked into a completely convincing delusion. Perhaps, right now in the REAL world, he was busy rocking to and fro on a creaky sanitarium bed, wrapped up snugly in arestraining harness, all glassy-eyed and drooling from a generous dose of pentobarbitone.
    ‘No,’ said Liam. ‘You’ve not gone insane. That thing’s Rashim’s pet.’

Chapter 10
     
1994, San Marcos de Colón, Honduras
     
    A small, malnourished mongrel dog, tan fur worn bald in places down to its scab-encrusted skin, growled at the rat he could hear scratching around beneath the heavy car tyre. The dog’s pronounced ribs flexed beneath his skin as he snuffled and worried at the black rubber before he began pawing in the dry dirt beneath to dig a space wide enough to push his muzzle and small head through.
    The rat squeaked with alarm. For the moment it was safe, but inevitably it was doomed, with nowhere to run to. The dog’s paws scratched frantically at the ground, widening and deepening the hole.
    A chain-link fence enclosed the back lot of an abandoned colonial-era
cortijo
, the dog the only living thing there, scratching away at the dirt to get a meagre meal of one frightened rat. Cars that dated from the forties and fifties lay abandoned and rusting in the hot sun. Rubbish and sewage, tossed over the fence in equal measure by the local inhabitants into this unofficial dumping