by Steve Cole
Table of Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Copyright Page
Acknowledgements
Chapter 0 - THE HUNTING
Chapter 1 - DANGER CITY
Chapter 2 - CHASE MANHATTAN
Chapter 3 - CALLING OUT
Chapter 4 - STORIES SHARED
Chapter 5 - SURPRISE VISITORS
Chapter 6 - OCEAN CARNAGE
Chapter 7 - FIRST SIGHTING
Chapter 8 - FINDING HARMONY
Chapter 9 - THE SURVIVORS
Chapter 10 - STOLEN PREY
Chapter 11 - BRUTE TERRITORY
Chapter 12 - DEATH ROW
Chapter 13 - KILLING TIME
Chapter 14 - SLEEP LESS NIGHT
Chapter 15 - POWER PLAY
Chapter 16 - DEATH STRIKE
Chapter 17 - NOT ALONE
Chapter 18 - OUTSIDE IN
Chapter 19 - ALTA-VITA
Chapter 20 - BEING HUMAN
Chapter 21 - ME, KILLER
Chapter 22 - EARTH SHOCK
Chapter 23 - SLIPPING AWAY
Chapter 24 - START ENDING
FOR JAMES THORNTON
PHILOMEL BOOKS
A division of Penguin Young Readers Group. Published by The Penguin Group. Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014, U.S.A. Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.). Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England. Penguin Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd). Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd). Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi - 110 017, India. Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd). Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa. Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England.
Copyright © 2011 by Steve Cole. All rights reserved.
This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher, Philomel Books, a division of Penguin Young Readers Group, 345 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014. Philomel Books, Reg. U.S. Pat. & Tm. Off. The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Cole, Stephen, 1971- Z. Raptor / Steve Cole. p. cm. Sequel to: Z. Rex.
Summary: In New York City to spend Christmas with his father, thirteen-year-old
despite his father’s objections, Adam finds himself drawn back into the struggle against
hyper-evolved, deadly velociraptors determined to wreak havoc and spread terror.
[1. Dinosaurs—Fiction. 2. Virtual reality—Fiction. 3. Fathers and sons—Fiction.
4. Islands—Fiction. 5. Science fiction.] I. Title. II. Title: Z Raptor.
PZ7.C67356Zac 2011 [Fic]—dc22 2010041650
eISBN : 978-1-101-51612-6
http://us.penguingroup.com
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Special thanks to Michael Green for a true z-edit and Tamra Tuller for shepherding those rambunctious raptors along. Thanks also to Justin Richards for helping me steer the Pahalu through an earlier draft and to those who’ve helped along the sometimes difficult way—to Jill, Tobey, Amy, Mike, Jason, Paul, Holly, Annie and Philippa.
0
THE HUNTING
After a night spent searching the black cracks of memory, the creature was certain now. I have a name. I am not like the others. I have a name.
The wind ruffled the tough, ragged feathers that half covered the creature’s hide. As dawn picked at the darkness, he stayed staring out from a grassy cliff top over the ancient spite and wildness of the ocean. The sea hurled itself relentlessly at the rocks, hissing and frothing as it was thrown back, gathering itself again to strike.
The creature understood the strike of the sea, the way it battered furiously at its boundaries. The name, he thought. What is my name?
A rustle—a stamp from the forest behind him. Something was coming. Not one of the humans; the tread was too heavy. He turned and peered into the windblown darkness, scanning for unnatural movement. His snout twitched at traces of reptilian scent. His sensitive ears caught the clack of heavy claws and the sweep of a thick tail through foliage.
The creature’s heart beat a little faster. He was being stalked by one of the Brutes again. All they cared about was hunting and killing.
My name . . .
He tensed himself as the stealthy footsteps drew nearer . . . nearer....
In a sudden rush of movement, the Brute broke cover and pounded over the open grassland, a roar building in its thick, scaly throat as it spat a stream of yellow liquid.
Nimbly, the creature threw himself to the side, dodging all but the last burning drops. Hide stinging from the acid, he hit the ground and twisted under the Brute’s belly, raking two sets of long, deadly claws through the unprotected flesh.
Blood pumped from the wounds in a grisly shower. The Brute bellowed its pain, turned and raised a huge, clawed foot, ready to stamp down on the creature’s rib cage.
But the creature was too swift. He extended his sickleshaped claws and jammed them up through the sole of the Brute’s foot before scrambling clear. With a savage scream, the Brute lashed out with its heavy, barbed tail and struck him in the jaw. He was stunned for a moment, but then coiled his own tail around the Brute’s good ankle and tugged hard. Losing its balance, the Brute was forced to fall back with all its weight on its ruined foot. The agonized howl as it collapsed to the ground was deafening.
Panting for breath and tasting his own blood, the creature watched his wounded enemy squirm on the ground, pure hatred in his stare. The Brute wouldn’t stop now until one of them was dead. Why? Why did you come for me when other prey is so much easier?
Because you know I am different.
The creature flinched as another stream of acid jetted from the Brute’s hanging jaw. Spatters fell across his legs, burning, enraging. A red haze fell over his eyes, and he darted forward, grabbed the injured foot, twisted hard. This was the only way to end the conflict. The Brute convulsed with pain and clawed at the grass and earth around it, heaving itself closer to the cliff edge in its struggles to be free. The creature clung on through a rain of bone-jarring blows and kicks that tore blood and quill feathers from his side.
“See?” the creature hissed. “Should’ve . . . left . . . me . . . alone. . . .” But as he spoke, with a sudden jolt, he let his grip on his victim go slack. The words had sparked a connection, a clue, plucked from the bloodred crevices of his brain—it was that he needed to hold on to now.
Less than a meter now from the precipice, the Brute broke free at last. Slavering, it tried to roll clear but was too close to the edge. Panic flared in its cold eyes as, with a last despairing roar, it fell from sight, plunging to its death on the distant rocks below.
Alone again. Panting hard, the creature sank to the ground. He smeared his wounds with mud to slow the bleeding, the stir of the ocean soothing him now.
The last stars faded from the sky. Feeling stronger, he stared across the bay to where a stone building stood in semi-ruins, hiding so many secrets.
He had been trapped in there for so long. He had felt so alone.
Alone . . . He could see black capital letters in his mind, hear ghostly voices. Low. No. Kneel low . . . Lone . . .
LONER.
“That’s what I am,” he whispered. “Loner. I don’t belong here. I will not stay.”
And the animals who did this to me will pay.
1
DANGER CITY
Someone’s following me.
Adam Adlar quickened his step. He couldn’t shift the feeling. Fighting his way through the Christmas crowds along Fifth Avenue, he told himself to chill for the hundredth time. Of course someone’s following me. There’s got to be a gazillion people on this street.
It was close to six P.M., and with only ten days to go until Christmas, New York City was heaving. Wide-eyed tourists soaked up the sights; weary office workers pushed past in huddles, hurrying home.
Adam supposed the evening rush hour was probably not the best time to head downtown to meet his dad. But he wasn’t about to pass up the one time his father had actually suggested a meal out together. Normally Bill Adlar was so into his computer work he didn’t get back to the hotel until late, so Adam was seizing the invitation for pizza with both freezing cold hands. It was a long walk to his dad’s office, and he supposed no self-respecting New Yorker would dream of making the journey from Midtown to Greenwich Village on foot. But Adam had ninety minutes to kill, and he couldn’t face the even greater crush of the subway or figuring out which bus to take.
Besides, walking had its advantages. He could hit the “R” Zone inside the giant Toys “R” Us on his way—sixteen hundred square feet of the latest electronic games and DVDs. Dad had left him money for a taxi, but Adam figured if he put the cash toward a new game for his DSi, it would be a much better investment.
He tried to lose himself in the cold, Christmassy moment. The scale of everything here made him feel like a tiny kid playing in the land of a giant. It was all so big and bright. Skyscrapers rose up all around like sheer cliffs disguised with glass and metal. A jigsaw piece of night hung high above, impossibly black. Holiday lights strung about the trees and gaudy displays in store windows tugged at the eye. Steam drifting up through subway vents mingled with the smoke from hot-dog carts and the charred aroma of roasting chestnuts. Even the heavy traffic seemed festive tonight—the big cars bumper to bumper in a parody of paper chains, fairy lights reflecting off windows and bodywork, the honk of horns sounding tonight more like greetings than rebukes.
But Adam’s feeling of being watched persisted, and the nagging voice inside wouldn’t shut up. Someone knows what happened over the summer, it said. They know about Geneflow Solutions—what went down in New Mexico and Edinburgh. There might even be a Geneflow base here in New York.
They know about the dinosaurs.
When he stopped to think about it all, it still scared him stupid. Geneflow was a secret scientific group with huge resources and even larger ambitions. Somehow they had not only brought to life an actual T. rex, they forced it to evolve to the ultimate level—creating a Zenithsaurus rex—known to its creators as Z. rex. Four months ago, they’d kidnapped Adam’s dad, used his programming skills and pioneering video game technology to warp the mind of their creation, to turn it into a living weapon to be unleashed on any target they chose. But that “Think-Send” gaming tech had been developed using Adam’s own thought control, and he’d found himself taken too—by the Z. rex itself. ...
Adam loosened his scarf about his neck; it was starting to feel like a noose against the flesh. Sure, in the nightmare struggles that followed, he and his dad had eventually broken free, and Geneflow had suffered a major setback to whatever plan it was hatching. But the hidden heads of that organization were still active. Still plotting . . .
What if they’re after you again, to use against Dad? What if they’re waiting till you get downtown where it’s quieter and—
He was doing a good job of spooking himself. But then, it wasn’t as though his imagination had nothing to go on. He knew firsthand the stark terror and helplessness of being alone and trapped a million miles from the everyday world. He never, never wanted to go through that again.
He ducked into a clothing store that wasn’t so crowded. The guys’ section was on the ground floor, so he positioned himself behind a mannequin and kept a careful eye on the entrance, watching for anyone suspicious. He jumped as a woman passed him, saw the tartan scarf draped around the collar of her winter coat and felt a homesick pang for his native Scotland.
The irony was that coming to New York had been supposed to make him feel safer. He’d struggled through a term at school in Edinburgh, doing his best to adjust to normality again after the horrors and wonders he’d lived through. But it was hard. Especially when his dad accepted a short-term contract with a Manhattan research firm, leaving Adam to crash at friends’ houses till he returned.
He had no choice, Adam reminded himself. To stay sharp, cutting-edge video game architects needed to operate at the forefront of new technology. And his dad had explained that Mindcorp’s pet project was pushing at the boundaries of modern science in all kinds of ways.
At first he’d only stayed away during the week and flown back for weekends, but the commute was a killer. So for the last few weeks of his contract, Mr. Adlar had taken Adam out of school and moved him into his hotel suite on West Fifty-fourth Street, just a few blocks from Central Park. The park was Adam’s favorite spot, with rocks and rivers and meadows and hills. But always he saw the tops of the skyscrapers looming over the trees, guardians of the city’s bustle, determined to keep this green space in its place. And after several long days spent alone, Adam was beginning to feel a prisoner of the city himself. He was feeling lonely, vulnerable and—
Paranoid, he decided, having studied the sidewalk traffic for several minutes and seen nothing suspicious. You’re imagining the whole thing. Just get yourself over to Dad’s office and drag him out to the restaurant.
“Somewhere warm, with pepperoni pizza and a stack of garlic bread.” Adam smiled to himself. “Sounds good to me, and it’ll taste even better.”
He strode purposefully outside. As he did, he thought he glimpsed a gaunt man in a dark coat with a gray cap stepping back into a shop front. Annoyed with himself for reading menace into everything, Adam pressed on with the dodge and dance through the thronging crowds.
At least Midtown was hard to get lost in, a gigantic grid that was sensibly numbered and divided into east and west. Adam had studied his guide map long and hard in his hotel room so he wouldn’t need to bring one out on the street and advertise to everyone that he didn’t belong here. He turned right onto West Forty-sixth Street, hoping for some brief respite from the thicker crowds of tourists. He wasn’t far from the neon cacophony of Times Square, with its glowing electric billboards and acres of animated signage. To Adam, it was one of the coolest places on Earth, a million miles away from the stately, soot-blackened sandstone of Edinburgh.
As he reached the crosswalk on Sixth Avenue, again he caught movement from the corner of his eye. There was the gaunt man in the dark coat and the gray cap, leaning into the driver’s window of a silver Lexus parked at the side of the road.
It means nothing, Adam told himself. It means . . . Slowly, the man in the cap turned his chiseled features straight at Adam and pointed him out to the driver. Headlights flicked on, dazzlingly bright, as the car started toward him.
2
CHASE MANHATTAN
Oh, no. Adam felt his guts lock. He turned away, kept his gaze dead ahead as he ran across the road. Sometimes, people are paranoid with good reason. Struggling to think clearly, he stayed on West Forty-sixth Street because the traffic could only flow east—the Lexus at least couldn’t follow him. But that still left the other guy on foot.
Why didn’t I spend Dad’s money and let the hotel call me a cab? What do I do now? As his heart began to pound, half-formed ideas began to snap through Adam’s mind. Find a
cop. Put on a lost little boy act and say you need a ride home. But he knew that home here meant an empty room in an impersonal hotel. Anyone could get to him there. No, he needed to reach his dad. A taxi.
Doing his best to dodge people, he ran down Seventh Avenue and found himself in Times Square. Strange, alien light bathed the world from house-sized plasma screens and floodlit billboards. The sidewalks were insanely crowded, a slowly flowing river of people, and yet he’d never felt so alone. He saw tons of cabs, but none for hire. Across the sea of people, there was a huge police dispatch area. Would anyone really be crazy enough to try anything here?
But Geneflow had turned the police against him once before in New Mexico. Turned him into a fugitive. He realized how easily he could be taken in this neonsoaked throng. Whose word would the police believe, anyway? “The boy’s overtired, Officer, we’re taking him home. . . .”
Adam felt panic rising inside him. He stepped off the sidewalk and into the blare of the rush-hour traffic where Seventh Avenue met Broadway, looking frantically all around. A gridlock was fast forming; even if he could find a cab, he wouldn’t make much of a getaway traveling at five miles per hour. He scanned the crowds. No sign of Gray Cap. But what if there were other watchers, walking toward him? Or right next to him already?
Desperate to put some space and traffic between him and any pursuers, Adam again broke into a run, apologizing under his breath as he half collided with an endless stream of indignant shoppers. He picked up speed, turned right onto West Fortieth Street, his cheeks burning and his breath beginning to rasp in his throat. No sign of the Lexus or Gray Cap.
Then he saw the Lexus, making a right turn at the far end of the block, coming toward him.
Adam turned frantically to a young couple walking along behind him. “Help me,” he panted. “Please, someone is after me. . . .”
