Z. Raptor

by Steve Cole

  Adam snatched his hand from Lisa’s grip. “I’ll catch up with you,” he called, and ran back to the doorway. The Brutes were advancing steadily. “Loner, please, come on.”

  “Your queen is dead,” the Vel bellowed at his enemies, holding up the mangled band of barbed wire their leader had once worn. “I killed her.”

  The words had a varied effect on the Brutes. Some growled, some sniffed the air, others barked and yelped like dogs or wolves. He could see two of Loner’s allies—the one-eyed Brute and his friend with the broken teeth—hanging back at the jungle’s edge, impassive.

  The Brute that Loner had knocked down kicked away the corrugated iron and got back to its feet. It stared down at the broken, stinking eggs at his feet. “I will kill you,” it croaked.

  “No.” Another shook its huge head. “I will kill the Vel.”

  “Who among you is strong enough to wear this crown?” Loner bit through the circlet of barbed wire to Brute yowls of anger, then hurled it out into the clearing. The creatures fell upon the token, snapping and slashing at each other to get hold of it.

  “Now.” Loner turned and snatched Adam away, holding him around the waist like a fullback running the ball upfield, and darted into the building.

  “Cool distraction,” Adam gasped as Loner’s quill points bit into his skin, his pounding footfalls echoing the thump of Adam’s heart. “I can’t believe they’re so stupid they’d fight among themselves before they come to get us.”

  Loner looked down at him as they ran, and Adam could’ve sworn he was smiling. “Stupidity is good.”

  Maybe, Adam thought. But when they’ve sorted that little spat, the Brutes will really be out for blood.

  Like they weren’t already.

  Lisa, David, Harm and Stone were waiting for them at a junction between two corridors. JJ was leaning against the stained concrete, pale and sweating. Loner put Adam down beside them with surprising gentleness.

  “He was brilliant.” Adam smiled nervously at the raptor. “Bought us some time.”

  Lisa pressed a hand against Loner’s side. “Bless you.”

  “Uh-huh, God bless the talking dinosaur.” Stone looked around distractedly. “Where’s John? We need him. Where is he?”

  “My people must have got him,” said JJ, starting off uncertainly down the corridor to the left. “Let’s go.”

  David held him back. “So Geneflow can kill us too, like they killed the people we loved?”

  “I won’t let them hurt you,” JJ promised. “You helped me, I help you, right?”

  Lisa chewed her lip. “Maybe he means it—”

  “We can’t trust him,” Stone insisted.

  The concrete floor carried the vibration as heavy clawed feet pounded in the distance. “The Brutes will kill us all if we stay here,” hissed JJ.

  “The armory,” Loner said. “The Vels kept human weapons . . .”

  “From the war.” David nodded. “Like the tear gas they used on us at the dugout.”

  “The armory is on the way to the hidden door,” Loner said as the stamping steps drew closer. He curled his tail urgently, as though beckoning the humans to follow, guiding them through the twists and turns of the base. David and Lisa went first while Adam ran with Harm, his legs feeling leaden, praying they didn’t have much farther to go. He turned to ask JJ—just as the guard stumbled and fell to the ground.

  Stone, already out of breath, dropped to examine him. “He’s out. Lost too much blood.”

  While Loner and Harm ran on ahead, Adam hesitated. And before David could stop Lisa, she had run back to Stone and JJ. “We’ll have to carry him,” she said.

  A hunting roar echoed hard off the concrete. The Brutes weren’t far off.

  “There’s no time, Lisa,” David argued. “Those things will smell his blood and get straight on our trail.”

  “We can’t just leave him here,” Lisa insisted as she and Stone struggled to lift the big man. “Whatever he’s done.”

  David marched back to her, grabbed her arm. “Please, Lisa—”

  “Someone loves this man, just like you loved your sister and I loved Andy.” Lisa took JJ’s feet as Stone lifted the man under his arms. “I’m not leaving anyone to die.”

  David shook his head, but he helped them anyway. “I guess neither am I,” he muttered. “Least of all you.”

  “Quickly!” Harm barked from along the corridor, and Adam ran on to join her. Loner stood in front of a metal doorway, his claws raking through rust as he tried to pry it open. At his feet was the body of a Vel in a thick pool of blood, two bands of orange material wrapped around its right arm. Adam looked at Harm. “Did Loner . . . ?”

  “No. It was already dead,” Harm informed him. “Sides split open.”

  “Leader of the Council of Blood,” Loner grunted.

  “Must’ve been trying to get to the weapons,” Adam supposed.

  “Come on, Loner,” Harm urged him. Lisa, David and Stone came up with JJ and set him down, catching their breaths. Slobbering, bestial grunts and growls carried eerily through the corridors.

  And then Adam heard a scuffling from the other end of the passage. It didn’t sound big enough to be a dinosaur. He edged closer—there looked to be a single door at the end of the corridor, debris that might once’ve been a barricade scattered before it. It was closed, but muffled voices still carried.

  “What is it?” Harm had come to join him.

  “Not sure,” Adam admitted. “But this must be the way into the Geneflow base, which means it’s the sick bay. Maybe Loner was wrong about all the Vels being dead; maybe some were injur—”

  BOOM!

  A colossal explosion threw Adam and Harm into the air. Adam cracked his head on something and lay reeling as the world seemed to spin in scarlet clashes of sound and vision. He felt Harm’s hand on his arm pulling him up, heard her shout, “Lisa! David!”

  At least I can still hear this time, thought Adam. Smoke was pouring from the armory, and dust and plaster were raining down from the roof.

  Loner staggered out, bloody welts rising all over his battered body. “Door,” he breathed. “Booby-trapped. Stop intruders getting hold of the weapons.”

  “Harm?” Lisa’s voice sounded through the roiling smoke. “Adam?”

  “We’re okay!” Harm started forward.

  But then a Brute loomed out of the smoke, teeth bared. One of its arms looked withered, like the Brute back at the bone pit.

  “Lisa!” Harm yelled.

  “Get away!” Lisa screamed.

  “Get off her!” Stone yelled.

  Then the human voices were drowned out by the Brute’s hungry shriek. Loner turned and grabbed Adam and Harm, carrying them toward the sick bay. “No!” Harm sobbed. “They can’t . . . can’t be—”

  Another Brute pushed through the swirling cloud. It was a giant whose powerful body was raked with battle scars—and the barbed-wire coronet of rule was clutched in its claws. Adam flinched as it bellowed and stamped after them. Please let us get away, was all Adam could think. Please, if there’s anyone listening . . .

  Someone was. As they reached the door at the end of the passage, it flew open—to reveal Agent John Chen. He looked bruised and shaken and was fighting for breath.

  Loner let Adam and Harm go, and Chen tossed Adam an electroshock gun. “Catch.” He pressed another into Harm’s hands. Adam stared dumbly at the weapon for a moment, then raised it and pulled the trigger. The gun almost shook itself out of his grip as coruscating blue sparks arced along the passage, catching the pursuing Brute in mid-stride. Chen fired too, and then Harm. The beast slumped to its knees, jerking and shaking in the cobalt-blue haze before finally collapsing.

  “Now we get Lisa and the others.” Harm started forward, but three more of the nightmarish monsters stamped into sight. Loner ducked inside the sick bay as Chen fired again, Adam and Harm joining in a beat later. But the Brutes were slowly gaining ground, roaring and barking their defiance.

&nbs
p; “No good.” Chen shook his head. “We can’t stop them.”

  Harm kept on shooting. “But Lisa and David are out there,” she shouted. “Your friend Stone—”

  “Getting ourselves killed won’t help them,” Chen told her. “What’s keeping your pet raptor? Adam, go chase him up!”

  While Chen and Harm continued firing, Adam went into the darkened sick bay. It stank—the ripe, pungent smell of muck and decay. There were two long-dead Vels, curled up in a heap, with two human guards slumped over their remains. Loner turned around quickly as Adam entered, his back flat to the wall as a hidden door in the moldering cinder blocks slid open.

  “You did it!” Adam stared at the modern, red brick walls beyond, and he almost threw himself inside to the safety it promised. “Agent Chen, Harm,” he shouted, “Loner did it! He’s got the door to the Geneflow base open.”

  Chen charged in, dragging Harm behind him, to roars of triumph from the Brutes in the corridor. “Move,” he ordered Adam, bundling him and Harm through the door. Only once they were all inside did Loner follow. He slammed his tail against a large black button in the wall. The concrete-clad door slid soundlessly shut. A steel shutter hummed down from above, sealing the entrance completely. Built into it was a plasma screen that appeared to be linked to a hidden spy cam, giving a virtual view of the room beyond as two Brutes slammed their way inside. They kicked at the bodies on the floor, staring around in agitation, teeth bared and acid dribbling from their jaws.

  Harm leaned against a wall and sank down it slowly, her bony brown legs folding under her, her eyes tightly shut. Adam wanted to say something comforting, but nothing came to mind. He released a long, shuddering breath he didn’t know he’d been holding.

  Loner padded across the room stealthily to the far door. “I must remind myself . . . where to go. Check it is safe.” His claws scraped against the metal handle as he pushed it open. “Wait.” Then he moved quietly down a flight of crude concrete steps.

  No hanging around, thought Adam. His head was throbbing where he’d knocked it in the explosion, his ears were still ringing, and he felt sick with nerves and fatigue—and at the thought of what had happened to Lisa, David and Stone outside. If they hadn’t stopped to help JJ, they might have been closer to us when the booby trap went off and we’d all have escaped in here together.

  Chen was studying the colored wires connecting to the screen in the shutter. “The camera on the other side of that door feeds straight into here. It’s like a spy hole in the door, not routed through to any main security.”

  “Makes sense,” said Adam. “Loner got in and out through it lots of times.”

  “Should mean we’re safe here for a little while.” Chen’s eyes flicked about the antechamber as he thought things through out loud. “Two guards in there, like JJ—either dead or out of the way. If he wasn’t snowing us, that leaves one more in here someplace; most likely Josephs’s personal minder, looking after her and her scientist buddies.”

  “I think it was a scientist who took a Vel egg back here,” Adam said, trying to get his breath back. “They’re most likely tied up now, studying it.”

  Chen nodded. “They wouldn’t be expecting a bunch of prehistoric animals to be real good with hidden entry codes.”

  “Where were you?” Harm spoke at last, trembling with rage as she glared up at Chen. “If you hadn’t left us waiting so long, we wouldn’t have had to run from those Brutes, JJ wouldn’t have passed out, Lisa and David—”

  Chen held up a hand. “You can yell at me all you want once I’ve got the facts straight. Adam, what was that explosion?”

  “The armory was booby-trapped,” Adam said. “Some kind of bomb. Loner was trying to find weapons to fight off the Brutes.”

  “And what about Doc Stone?”

  “I heard him call out.”

  “David and Lisa called out too,” Harm said quietly.

  Chen nodded. “I don’t think those things will kill them. Not yet.” He looked at Harm, his breath coming hard, his eyes haunted. “See, the reason I left you waiting was because . . . I found the other survivors.”

  Adam swallowed. “You did?”

  “Maybe thirty of them.” Chen looked haunted. “They’re thin as sticks, but still alive. I tried to get them out of this stinking hole they’re shut up in, some old officers’ mess hall or something. But I couldn’t. Two of Josephs’s guards caught me, started dragging me in here. When that explosion went off, it gave me the distraction I needed to deal with them.”

  Adam saw the Brutes still rampaging on the screen. “They’ve been dealt with now, all right.”

  Chen shook his head wearily. “I’m sorry. You’re just a kid; you shouldn’t be seeing this stuff. Some Christmas, huh?” He started pacing the room. “I’m sorry I got you messed up in everything. Truly, I am. This was meant to be my fight—a fight I never really planned on walking away from.” He looked at Adam beseechingly. “I’m already under investigation. I’ll most likely go to jail. I came here because I had nothing left to lose. . . .” He slammed his fist against the wall. “At least, that’s what I thought.”

  “Oh, don’t you dare start feeling sorry for yourself.” Harm jumped up, her eyes dark and blazing. “Don’t you dare. At least this was your choice. The rest of us—”

  The words choked off. But she refused to cry. Adam laid a hand on her wrist. She didn’t move it.

  Suddenly the door to the stairwell squeaked and banged open. Chen whirled around, raising his electroshock gun. But it was only Loner, eyes bright in his scorched, muddy face. “Come with me,” he croaked.

  Aching but alert, Adam, Harm and Chen followed the huge reptile to the top of the dingy stairwell. There was an elevator, but Loner took the long flight of stairs down into the gloom. Chen and Harm followed first, their footsteps echoing and re-echoing against the bare rock walls.

  Adam took a deep breath and went after them. Just barely out of the frying pan, he already had to descend into the fire.

  19

  ALTA-VITA

  It seemed the staircase would never end. What kind of a job must it have been, Adam wondered, excavating the cliff face beneath the old military base so Geneflow could work and plot safely off the world’s radar?

  Like rats in a hole, thought Adam. And as he and Harm followed Chen and Loner deeper and deeper, he couldn’t think of a less likely group of exterminators.

  “Doesn’t look like they ever finished this place,” Harm remarked.

  “They saved their money for their whole weird science thing,” said Adam.

  “Let’s hope they didn’t spend it on CCTV,” Chen muttered.

  “In here,” said Loner as they finally reached another level. A short corridor extended left off the stairwell, leading to another elevator and a set of large doubledoors. Chen opened them up to reveal a vast storeroom lined with shelves and littered with crates and boxes and half-empty cartons.

  Harm stared around suspiciously. “This has to mean . . .” She ran over to a crate and pulled out a huge bag of potato chips. “Oh, my sweet lord.” She tore open the bag and shoved a handful into her mouth. Tears began to roll down her cheeks. She grinned, tried to speak again, but it only came out as chip shrapnel. Adam ran over but stopped as he saw a rack of two-liter bottles of purified water. It felt as though he’d just found a chest of solid gold. He waved a bottle at Harm, who barreled over and snatched it from him, tearing off the lid, swigging deeply. There were dozens more bottles. Chen took one, Adam opened another and gulped greedily, almost choking. Then he tasted the salty chips, and it was like crunching through heaven.

  Chen threw a bottle to Loner, who emptied it down his scaly throat in seconds. Adam gave him another bottle and then found a huge can of chicken soup, which Loner tore open and lapped at hungrily.

  “Three months,” Harm muttered. She’d moved on to a can of pasta in tomato sauce, emptying it into her mouth and spilling most down her top. “Three months of starving and thirsting . . .”
She wiped her mouth and licked her fingers, still laughing and crying. “Oh, David, Lisa, why couldn’t you be here for this?”

  With the initial euphoria of finding fresh supplies fading a little, Adam could feel his stomach turn at the thought of what would come next. He wished he hadn’t eaten so quickly.

  “Check this.” Chen swigged from his bottle again and pointed to a diagram on the wall. “Looks like a map of the place back when it was a playpen for the death row cons.”

  “Three levels underground,” said Adam.

  “I’d never dreamed it was so big,” Harm said.

  “Half of it below sea level, by the look of it.” Chen pointed to a smaller block on the lowest level adjacent to a long passageway that extended off the plan. “Yeah, they’ve got their own hydropower station here—using tidal energy to generate the electricity.”

  “I’m happy for them.” Harm drank more water. “What’s that next to the power station, a tunnel?”

  “It leads to a cave system,” Loner announced, his voice sounding louder and colder still in the confined space. “One that stretches for miles. One tunnel leads to a concealed entrance close to the Brute camp.”

  Adam nodded. “I suppose that would make sense. If Josephs and her team are studying both tribes, they’d need easy access to both camps.”

  “But if the Brutes are moving into the Vel camp, the beach will be safe,” Harm realized. “If we could only get David and Lisa and everyone else out—”

  “If we want to get off Raptor Island, we have to find the Think-Send system and try to turn off those sea monsters,” Adam reminded her. “And contact your boat, Agent Chen. And send another e-mail to Marrs, warning him what’s happening—”

  “Plus, we have to find Josephs,” Chen said.

  “Is that all?” Harm muttered.

  “I believe . . . we must descend to the lowest level.” Loner ran across in that loping, birdlike gait to join them beside the map. “Food storage is here on the first level below ground, the laboratories are on the second level. And on the third level . . .” He reached out with a claw to a number of adjoining rectangles. One of them read A-V UNIT.