Contest

by Matthew Reilly

  ‘Daddy,’ Holly said, ‘What’re we doing?’

  ‘We’re getting out,’ Swain said, reaching up for the ceiling, yanking on some of the thick black wires.

  ‘How?’

  ‘Through the window.’

  ‘Through that window?’

  ‘Yep,’ Swain yanked some more wires out from various other outlets. He began to tie them together, end to end.

  ‘Oh,’ Holly said.

  Swain walked over to the open window again and with the butt of his gun, broke the glass. Then he tied the end of the length of wire around the window’s now-exposed horizontal pane and knotted it tight.

  He looked back to Holly.

  ‘Come on,’ he said, jamming the gun back into his waistband.

  Holly stepped forward tentatively.

  ‘Jump on my back and hold tight. I’ll climb us both down to the ground.’

  Just then, they heard shouts from inside the First Floor. Swain listened for a second. They sounded like directions, orders. Someone telling someone else what to do. The NSA were still searching. He wondered what had happened to the Karanadon. They mustn’t have found it yet.

  ‘Okay, let’s go,’ he said, helping Holly onto his back, piggyback style. She gripped him firmly.

  Then he threw the length of wire out the window and began to climb out onto the ledge.

  ‘Sir!’ a static-ridden voice said.

  James Marshall picked up his radio. He was now standing outside the main entrance to the library. The majestic glass doors in front of him were now shattered and broken, totally destroyed by the NSA’s bold entry only minutes earlier.

  It was the radio operator in the van.

  ‘What is it?’ Marshall said.

  ‘Sir, we have visual confirmation, I repeat, visual confirmation, of contact on two floors. One in the lower parking structure and one on the Ground Floor.’

  ‘Excellent,’ Marshall said. ‘Just tell everyone not to touch anything until I say so. Sterilisation procedures are in force. Anyone who comes within twenty feet of one of those organisms will be presumed to be contaminated and quarantined indefinitely.’

  ‘Roger that, sir.’

  ‘Keep me informed.’

  Marshall switched the radio off.

  He rubbed his hands together and looked up at the burning library above him. It was the building that would skyrocket his career.

  ‘Excellent,’ he said again.

  Swain dropped to the grass and set Holly down beside him.

  They were out.

  At last.

  It was raining more heavily now. Swain looked for an escape. They were near the south-west corner of the building. He remembered coming out of the subway before. Over on the eastern side of the library.

  The subway.

  Nobody would care if they saw him on the subway—his clothes ragged and torn, Holly’s not much better. They would just be another bum and a kid living on the subway.

  It was the way out, the way home.

  If they could get past the NSA.

  Swain pulled Holly eastward into the shelter of the southern wall of the library building, the rain pelting down around them. They passed the broken window at ground level that he had used to get inside before. Using the cover of the rain and the shadows of the oak trees in the night, Swain hoped they could get past the NSA undetected.

  They came to the south-east corner.

  Beyond the row of oaks, Swain could see the great white rotunda. And beyond the rotunda, the subway station.

  Yellow police tape still stretched from tree to tree around the library, forming a wide perimeter. Swain saw a few NSA agents armed with M-16s stationed on that perimeter, their backs to the building, keeping the small crowd of helpless firefighters, local cops and late-night onlookers at bay. There weren’t many NSA agents, just enough to secure the area. Swain guessed that most of the others were now inside the building itself.

  ‘All right,’ he said to Holly. ‘You ready? It’s time to go home.’

  ‘Okay,’ Holly said.

  ‘Get ready to run.’

  Swain waited for a second, peering around the corner of the building.

  ‘All right, now!’

  They dashed out from the building, across the open ground and into the treeline. They stopped beneath a big oak, catching their breath.

  ‘Are we there yet?’ Holly asked, breathless.

  ‘Almost,’ Swain said. He pointed to the rotunda. ‘That’s where we go next. Then on to the subway. You want me to carry you?’

  ‘No, I’m okay.’

  ‘Good. Ready?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then let’s go.’

  They ran again. Out from the treeline. Out into the open.

  Boom.

  Marshall felt the ground beneath him shudder.

  He was still standing at the main entrance to the library. He looked inside, through the broken glass doors, to see what was causing the vibration.

  Nothing. Darkness.

  Boom.

  Marshall frowned.

  Boom. Boom. Boom.

  Something was coming. Something big.

  And then he saw it.

  Motherfucker . . .

  Marshall didn’t wait for another look. He just turned and ran—down the steps, away from the entrance—a bare two seconds before the library’s enormous doors were blasted from their hinges like a pair of matchsticks.

  Swain and Holly were halfway to the rotunda when it happened.

  A booming, thunderous roar echoed across the park behind them.

  Swain stopped and spun. The pouring rain pelted down against his face. ‘Oh no,’ he said. ‘Not again.’

  The Karanadon was standing at the top of the steps of the main entrance. The huge glass doors of the library, now totally destroyed, lay in pieces in front of the enormous black beast. NSA agents were running in all directions to get away from it.

  The Karanadon paid no attention to the people fleeing from it. In fact, it didn’t even acknowledge their presence at all. It just stopped at the top of the steps and stood there, its head turning in a slow, wide arc.

  Scanning the area.

  Searching.

  Searching for them.

  And then it saw them. Exposed between the treeline and the big white rotunda, standing there in the pouring rain.

  The huge beast roared loudly.

  And then it leapt forward and with frightening speed, covered the distance between the library and the treeline in seconds. It bounded quickly forward, charging through the sleeting rain, its every step shaking the muddy earth beneath it.

  Boom. Boom. Boom.

  Swain and Holly ran for the rotunda. They reached it and climbed the steps, up onto the circular concrete stage.

  The Karanadon hit the treeline and crashed through the branches of one of the giant oaks, charging toward the rotunda.

  Then it stopped. Ten yards away. And watched them for several seconds.

  They were trapped on the stage.

  Marshall had his radio out.

  ‘I’ll give you fucking confirmation! The damn thing just charged out the front fucking doors! Get someone over here right now!’

  The radio crackled back.

  ‘I don’t give a flying fuck what you’re looking at! Get someone over here now and tell them to bring the biggest gun we’ve got!’

  Swain led Holly over to the far side of the stage. He picked her up as the Karanadon moved slowly closer. The rain drummed loudly on the roof of the rotunda.

  ‘Stay down,’ Swain said, as he lowered Holly over the railing at the edge of the stage. She dropped lightly to the ground, six feet below.

  The Karanadon reached the base of the rotunda. The pouring rain had wet its fur, slicking it down like a dog’s. A running trickle of rainwater ran down a crease in its long black snout, dripped ominously off one of its huge canine teeth.

  The big beast took a slow step up the stairs.

  Swain moved in a
n arc around the circumference of the stage, away from Holly.

  The Karanadon stepped up onto the stage.

  It stared at Swain.

  There was an endless, tense silence.

  Swain drew his Glock.

  The Karanadon growled in response. A low, angry growl.

  Neither of them moved.

  And then suddenly Swain made a break for the railing and the Karanadon bounded forward after him.

  Swain reached the railing and had just started to vault over it when a giant black claw snatched his collar and snapped him backwards, and he landed in the centre of the concrete stage with a loud smack.

  The Karanadon stood astride Stephen Swain and lowered its snout until it was face-to-face with him. It had his gun hand pinned to the stage beneath one of its massive hairy claws.

  Swain tried in vain to turn away from its hideous fangs, its foul hot breath, its dark wrinkled snout, set in a perpetual sneer.

  The Karanadon cocked its head slightly, seemingly daring him to escape.

  It was then that Swain turned his head and saw the beast’s hind foot step forward.

  A wave of terror flooded through his body as he saw the wristband that he had worn for the duration of the Presidian right in front of his eyes.

  ‘Oh, man . . .’ he said aloud.

  The countdown was still ticking downward.

  1:01

  1:00

  0:59

  Only one minute to detonation.

  Holy shit.

  He began to wriggle and squirm, but the Karanadon held him down. It seemed totally unaware of the bomb attached to its foot.

  Swain looked around the rotunda for an escape—at the white lattice handrail that circled the stage, at the six pillars supporting the dome-like roof. There was a small wooden box attached to the handrail, but its door was padlocked shut. In a detached corner of his mind, Swain wondered what the box was for.

  There was nothing here. Absolutely nothing he could use.

  He had finally run out of options.

  Then suddenly, there came a voice.

  ‘Hello . . . ?’

  The Karanadon’s head snapped up instantly, turned around.

  Swain could still see the numbers counting down on the wristband inches away from his face.

  0:48

  0:47

  0:46

  ‘Hello? Yes. Over here.’

  Swain recognised the voice.

  It was Holly.

  He looked up. She was standing over near the edge of the stage, the rain slanting down behind her like a curtain. The Karanadon swivelled to look at her—

  —and abruptly something small smacked against the Karanadon’s snout. It dropped to the ground next to Swain’s head. It was a black school shoe. A girl’s school shoe. Holly had thrown it at the Karanadon!

  The big beast growled. A deep-chested rumble of pure, animal anger.

  0:37

  0:36

  0:35

  Then it slowly lifted its foot, moving toward Holly.

  ‘Holly!’ Swain yelled. ‘Get out of here! It still has the wristband on and it’ll blow in thirty seconds!’

  Holly was momentarily startled. Then, in an instant, she understood and she began to run, leaping down the steps, vanishing from Swain’s sight out into the park.

  The Karanadon took one step forward in pursuit of her and then it stopped dead in its tracks.

  And turned around.

  0:30

  0:29

  0:28

  It still hadn’t released Swain’s gun hand—still had it pinned down against the stage.

  Swain struggled vainly against the giant creature’s grip, but it was useless. The Karanadon was just too damn strong.

  0:23

  0:22

  0:21

  And then, just then, as he squirmed, something on the stage scraped against Swain’s back.

  Swain frowned—and saw that he had brushed up against a part of the stage that wasn’t perfectly flush against the floor.

  A small square of wood, sunken fractionally into the stage.

  It was a trapdoor.

  The same trapdoor that he had seen used in the summer pantomimes over previous years.

  He was lying on top of it.

  And then, realising, Swain’s head snapped around—and his eyes fell on the small padlocked wooden box that he had seen attached to the lattice handrail before.

  Now he knew what that box was for.

  It housed the controls for the trapdoor.

  0:18

  0:17

  The Karanadon stood over him, growling.

  0:16

  0:15

  Even though his gun hand was still being held down by the beast, Swain’s pistol was aimed roughly at the trapdoor’s control box.

  0:14

  0:13

  Swain fired. Hit the top corner of the box. The Karanadon roared.

  0:12

  0:11

  He adjusted his aim. Fired again. This time the bullet hit the box closer to the padlock.

  0:10

  Third time’s the charm . . . he thought, narrowing his eyes.

  Blam!

  Swain fired and . . . shwack! . . . the padlock snapped open, smashed by the bullet!

  0:09

  The control box’s door swung open, revealing a large red lever inside. Simple operation: you pulled the lever down and the trapdoor on the stage dropped open.

  0:08

  Swain fired again, this time at the lever. Missed. He stole a glance up at the Karanadon—just in time to see one of its mighty black fists come rushing down at his face! Swain swung his head to the side, just as the gigantic black-clawed fist smashed into the stage right next to his ear, punching a hole clean through the trapdoor. The Karanadon raised its free claw again, for what would no doubt be the final blow.

  0:07

  Swain saw the big claw rise. He loosed several shots at the lever in rapid succession.

  Blam! Blam! Blam! Blam!

  Miss. Miss. Miss. Miss.

  0:06

  The Karanadon’s claw reached the height of its backswing. Its knuckles cracked loudly as it tightened into a fist.

  ‘Goddamn it!’ Swain shouted at himself. ‘Focus!’

  The Karanadon’s fist came rushing down—

  Swain looked down the barrel of his gun—

  —and suddenly the lever came into crystal-clear focus. ‘Gotcha,’ he said.

  Blatn.

  The gun discharged and the bullet whistled through the air and this time . . .

  . . . crack! . . .

  . . . it slammed into the lever, severing it at its hinge in an explosion of sparks, causing the whole lever mechanism to snap and fall and—

  0:05

  Whack!

  Without warning, the trapdoor beneath Swain dropped away.

  0:04

  The Karanadon’s fist hit nothing but air as it came rushing down, missing Swain’s nose by centimetres as he dropped unexpectedly from beneath the massive beast, falling like a stone into the belly of the stage.

  Swain landed with a dusty thump in darkness.

  0:03

  He saw the Karanadon on the stage above him, standing in a square of light, glaring down at him through the hole that only moments before had been the trapdoor.

  Move!

  He looked right and saw a vertical sliver of light in the darkness—a sliver of light that indicated the small wooden door that led out from underneath the stage.

  0:02

  Swain scrambled toward the little wooden door, firing his gun as he did so, pockmarking the door with holes, hoping to God he would hit the padlock on the other side.

  0:01

  And then he rammed into the door with his shoulder and it burst open before him and he flailed out into the pouring rain and landed clumsily on the wet grass that surrounded the stage.

  0:00.

  Cataclysm.

  The explosion from the wristband—w
hite-hot and blinding—blasted out horizontally, like a thousand-mile-an-hour ripple in a pond.

  Swain scrambled on his hands and knees and pressed himself up against the concrete base of the stage as the white-hot wall of light expanded laterally—and spectacularly—above his head. He saw Holly on the ground over by the trees, her hands covering her ears.

  The Karanadon simply disappeared as the brilliant white explosion shot outward from it, shattering all six of the pillars supporting the domed roof of the rotunda—reducing them to powder in an instant—and the massive white dome, without its supports, came crashing down onto the stage.

  Behind Swain’s back, the thick concrete base of the stage cracked under the weight of the explosion, but held.

  White concrete dust and about a billion flakes of paint fluttered in the air before the pouring rain broken them up, dispersing them.

  Swain stood up slowly and stared at the rotunda, its huge domed roof now crumpled flat on its stage, the rain beating mercilessly down upon it.

  There would be nothing left of the Karanadon, the explosion had been too big, too hot. The Karanadon was gone.

  Swain hurried over to Holly and picked her up.

  He saw NSA agents running toward them through the rain, and was about to break for it, when it happened.

  Suddenly.

  Unexpectedly.

  Concurrent explosions—six of them—white-hot balls of light, bursting spectacularly from different sections of the library.

  The biggest explosion came from the Third Floor. It seemed to be a combination of two separate explosions, twice the size of the other white fireballs that boomed out from the Ground and Second Floors of the library.

  Glass blasted outwards from nearly every window of the New York State Library. People all around the building were diving for cover when suddenly an underground explosion—strangely, right where the underground parking lot was situated—dispatched a large oak tree clear from its roots, sending a gout of soil and grass flying into the rainsoaked sky.

  Shrouded by a veil of slanting rain, the whole library was ablaze with fire now. Flames poured out from every window and as Stephen Swain led his daughter inconspicuously away from the pandemonium, he saw the Third Floor cave in on itself and crumble downwards, crushing the Second and First Floors.

  The building’s roof was still intact when the sixth and last explosion rocked the library and the strangest sight of all appeared.

  An empty elevator—rocketing upward through the shaft—burst through the roof of the building and shot up into the sky, reaching the height of its parabolic arc and then falling, flying, crashing, back down onto the roof.