by Rick Chesler
JURASSIC DEAD 2
Z-VOLUTION
Rick Chesler and David Sakmyster
Copyright 2015 by Rick Chesler and David Sakmyster
www.severedpress.com
Part 1: Mesozoic rising
1.
Washington, D.C. – 3 months after the volcanic eruption on Adranos Island. 9:45 AM.
Alex Ramirez left the United Nations special assembly council meeting after two hours of testimonies, questions and presentations to a select body of members, journalists and others. Frustrated and exhausted, he stepped out into the crisp fall air and a blast of bright sunshine, and for a moment he thought back to a day only a year ago, before the nightmare of Antarctica and Adranos Island, before… a similar release into a similar fall day. Only a year ago, after a week in a jail cell, locked up indignantly for a cause he championed but no longer remembered, only to be released with no attention, no fanfare or respect, with no one waiting for him on the other side. Not his father, who was off at the South Pole hunting frozen bones from distant eras, and not his mother, who Alex learned had paid his bail but was currently in her third round of chemo treatments, keeping her disease from the son she was likely too ashamed of at the moment in any case.
Now, a year later, the feeling passed, the déjà vu replaced by one glaring difference on this day of freedom: the steps were far from empty.
He walked into a dizzy greeting of the press, of cameras and microphones, snapping flashes brighter than the sun.
Alex held up his hands and then glanced around, expecting someone of far more interest behind him. He cleared his throat and decided to go for it. “What’s up, people? Slow news day?”
“Mr. Ramirez!” Someone from Channel 7 thrust a microphone into his face. “Only three months ago, you sabotaged a Russian research facility in Antarctica and caused the deaths of over a dozen men, not to mention countless millions in lost research. And now, instead of fighting for the protection of an almost extinct ancient life form, you’re here arguing for its destruction?”
Alex sighed. “Sounds about right.” He tried to sound as jovial as he could. He was tired, dejected, and had been through this countless times, his words falling on deaf ears. “As I’ve said to the Council, over and over, and to our government, to anyone who would listen…what we found in that lake is something I believe has the chance to unleash an unstoppable biological contagion on the world.”
“Then where’s the evidence?” a reporter from NBC yelled out. “Why isn’t anyone acting?”
“Ask them,” Alex insisted, even as something caught his eye on the street. A black limousine pulled up. A window lowered and a flash of auburn hair pulled from the shadows. “Ask them,” he repeated, “about the restrictions and the zoning, ask about the private corporation the Security Council decided to grant full access, or how they’ve managed to deny any such site access to anyone else, including both the U.S. and Russian interests, tying up our efforts in red tape for months. Ask about…”
He saw the door of the limo open, and a hand emerged, waving to him. “Screw it, I gotta go.”
He pushed through the crowd, broke into a run and then slid into the back seat. He slammed the door.
“’Bout time you rescued me,” he said, out of breath. “This better be good.”
Veronica Winters gave him a sly shake of her head. “Nice to see you too. Let’s go, debrief on the way.”
“Where to?” Alex held off the urge to sweep her into his arms. It had been too long since they’d been together, but the two sunglasses-wearing goons in dark suits sitting across from them were like bad-ass chaperones. Complete mood killers.
“Langley,” Veronica said. “We’ve got some intel that might finally help us break through that red tape you’ve been on about.”
She set her hand on his leg and leaned in, and right in front of the goons, placed a big kiss on his lips. “It really is good to see you. Now let’s go, you won’t believe what we’ve got.”
Alex leaned back, smiling smugly at the expression-free faces of the other agents.
Then the smile vanished and for a moment he recollected the smell of sulfur and volcanic smoke, of blood and gore—and terror. Pure horror amidst the high-pitched screeches and roaring of things that should have died and stayed extinct.
“You know,” he said quietly, “after what we’ve been through, I’d believe just about anything right now.”
#
Langley, Virginia, CIA Headquarters. 11:34 AM.
“What are we looking at here?”
The speaker was a senior intelligence officer, Malcolm Nesmith, a hard-ass and pain to work for, but he’d gone to bat for Veronica on more occasions than she felt she deserved. She only hoped he could come through one more time.
Standing and taking up the laser pointer, she directed everyone in the briefing room to focus on the wall-length screen and the visual presented there.
“Satellite photographs from Oh-Eight-Hundred yesterday.” She looked around the room at the familiar and unfamiliar faces. New blood and higher ranking intelligence agents. These were the people she needed to convince. These were the ones with the influence. What they said in their ops reports made it to the president’s daily Security Briefing. So she had to nail this.
“We’ve been here before,” a woman at the front of the table said. Debbie Harris, Veronica recognized her from previous briefing meetings. She had been a real back-stabbing bitch back then too, and no doubt was going to cause an issue now. “We know about your operation to Antarctica. About the unsuccessful investigation into William DeKirk, and your assurance that wanted bio-terrorist and murderer Xander Dyson was killed on some island in the South Pacific, but as for your other claims…”
Nesmith cleared his throat. “Let’s not rehash the past, Agent Harris. This isn’t about Agent Winters’ vendetta against Dyson, as you keep harping on.”
Harris glowered, her lips pulled back taught as her jaws tightened. Her slate-colored eyes gave away nothing as her voice bristled. “Xander Dyson killed Agent Winters’ fiancée. It’s only natural that we suspect our agent here of a certain lack of objectivity.”
I’m right here in the room, Veronica thought, shaking her head. She looked to Nesmith for help, widening her eyes.
He held up a hand. “Just please hear us out. This has nothing to do with Dyson.”
“But possibly everything to do with our initial objective,” Veronica added, speaking up for herself. “DeKirk. You tasked me with tracking him down, something no one’s been able to do in ten years. Why is that, by the way?” She asked the pointed question, glancing around at the faces in the room. Faces that looked down.
“Because,” she offered, “he’s better at hiding than we are at searching? Or because maybe he’s isolated himself so well, and has the help of other countries, or possibly…other agencies?”
A man at the back looked up sharply. “What the hell does that mean?”
“Agent Winters,” Nesmith snapped. “Stay on focus.”
Veronica took a deep breath. He was right. As much as she wanted to vent her anger and lash out at this august group of know-it-alls—people who continually censured her and ignored her routine requests for follow-up missions and priority satellite searches— she had to stay on target.
And while her pleas had fallen on deaf ears for over three months, at last they had caught a break. Nesmith pulled some strings and got himself some time on the polar satellite. He surveyed the Lake Vostok area as she had been demanding. She would just have to focus on those findings and hope this group saw the same things she did. Maybe that would be vindication.
And maybe, she thought, we’re not
too late.
Before their rescue, she and Alex had agreed to get their stories straight. On the plane, flying away from Adranos Island, they had both understood that if they wanted the world to believe them at all, they had to stay on the right side of crazy. No mention of living, ravenous zombie dinosaurs. Focus on the biological threat. The microbes—or what did Xander Dyson call them?—Prions? Some sort of prehistoric protein, a failed or mutated enzyme string, complete with reptilian aspects which attacked a host body’s proteins, turning them into structures like itself. Not just sickened, but wrong. Like Mad Cow Disease, this process affected the brain quickly, turning the intelligence centers, memory and speech areas to mush, effectively taking over and creating a mindless organism while firing up the hypothalamus to exaggerate hunger and accelerate metabolism, along with speed and strength.
That part they could talk about and have people buy into—they hoped. It wasn’t stretching credibility too far, especially when instances of prion-related disease were out there already. Some tribe in New Guinea had almost been wiped out by such a thing in the 1950s. Of course that was because they had been eating the brains of dead ancestors, and all it took was one infected case. That was a little closer to the truth here, but again, by sticking to the facts about the biological threat—an ancient lake, preserved micro-organisms—the public could easily understand the potential threat if something we’re unprepared for, something like that, was suddenly unleashed upon a world with no defense.
Alex had devoted the last three months to just such an effort, working the public, U.N., and state and federal agencies to warn them of the threat, doing everything he could to again—not sound crazy. Unfortunately there had been no evidence. Adranos Island was a burning pile of lava, fumes and wreckage. Toast from end to end after the volcanic eruption and the detonation of DeKirk’s arsenal of munitions. No help there in terms of proving the more radical aspect of the threat.
Everything they would need to corroborate Veronica’s insistence of a more far-reaching threat was to be found at the Antarctic site. Despite the American presence that had been there, racing against the Russians in a friendly competition to investigate the lake, the U.N. had promptly stepped in and isolated the zone in the aftermath of the accidents reported on scene. Both teams had gone missing, and reports of explosions and mass deaths had been confirmed. Then, to Veronica’s dismay, the U.S. government had subsequently bowed to international pressure to back off.
“What you’re seeing here,” she said, regaining her composure, “is a satellite feed, two minutes in duration, over Lake Vostok in southwestern Antarctica. Only two minutes, during a window in which the usually thick cloud cover cleared up.”
She wished Alex could be in here with her to see this, but he had been relegated to the waiting room in the lobby. Eyes Only, and despite all he’d seen, they still were not granting security clearance to a guy who had a history of eco-terrorism, a rap sheet and an allegation of international espionage against the Russians.
The people in the room leaned in, trying to get a better look. Agent Harris cleared her throat and said, “How did we get this? I thought by U.N. order 567-A45, no interference or surveillance of the area was permitted.”
Yeah, Veronica thought. But why the hell not, and what was that all about?
Nesmith cleared his throat. “We had authorization. Leave it at that, Debbie.”
Ha, he first-named her! Take that. Veronica’s respect for her boss just doubled. Still, she recalled all the head-butting and late night arguments she’d had with him during the past few weeks before he relented. Seriously, she’d argued, we’ve had the NSA spy on every foreign government leader and two-bit ambassador, wiretap and email snoop on everyone and everything, even U.S. citizens, but we can’t check out a remote pile of thawing ice where there just might happen to be the greatest threat to civilization operating without the slightest interference?
He gave her a slight smile. “Go on, Agent Winters.”
“Thank you. Now as you know, by that same U.N. order you just referenced, access had been restricted since shortly after my return from the field. Not coincidentally, I would suggest, but as you’ve all pointed out, we’ve been here before. This time I want you to focus only on what we can see. And as you can see, there’s a lot of activity going on down there at a supposedly quiet, supposedly restricted and potentially hazardous site.”
She aimed the red laser dot at various points on the screen, allowing the agents to follow the movements of what appeared to be giant cranes here, ice drills there, bulldozers and pulley systems, hundreds of men, trailers and trucks, cargo containers and crates. Clearly an elaborate operation.
“And here,” Veronica said, aiming the beam lower, “at the port. Notice what could only be called a fleet.”
“Jesus,” somebody at the back whispered.
Several dozen oil-tankers, ice-chippers and two vessels the size of cruise ships. More in the shadows.
“What the hell is going on down there?” someone asked.
Agent Harris stood up, her bony frame blotting out the projector’s light. She trembled.
“Agent Nesmith… We need to speak in private. Who else has seen this feed?”
“It’s been seen by the right people.”
She sat back down, hesitated, then got up again. “I need to make a call.”
Veronica shot Nesmith a glance and he held up a hand. “People, listen. I’ve got this feed in the hands of our analysts and techs. They’re going through the enhancements and trying to determine what’s going on.”
“What do we know about this GlobalSkyTech? The private company the U.N. contracted to take care of this site?” The question came from a junior analyst next to Veronica.
“Not much,” Veronica responded. “I’ve been trying for weeks to get information on them, but all I’ve come up with is that it’s a private shell company that’s been involved in various international water drilling missions and salvage operations. Connections appear to be strong at the higher levels of the U.N.”
She wanted to add more, wanted to pull up the flow chart that hung on her office wall, the threads tracing all the connections from this shell company to known DeKirk contractors, associates and business partners. Not to mention the one glaring and uncomfortable connection that it all led back to the current General Assembly Speaker of the U.N. However, Nesmith had made it clear: stick to the facts. Stick to what we could actually see. Satellite imagery didn’t lie, and this…this unexplained and suspicious amount of activity down at the South Pole, where nothing lived or should be of this much consequence, was certainly unfurling some red flags.
Veronica shut off the projector after the video ran out. “Again,” she said, silencing the muttering and shared whispers around the room, “this was taken yesterday. Since then, we have had no eyes on the situation. No idea if those tankers have been filled and, if so, with what. No idea if they’ve left, and for where, but we need to know. We need that authorization. We need birds in the sky, fish in the sea, we need that surveillance detail, and I would suggest…”
Nesmith cut her off before she could say it by raising his hand.
She couldn’t resist though, and continued anyway. “The Arleigh-Burke class destroyer USS Montana is off the coast of Brazil. It’s the nearest presence we have, and I only mention—”
“Thank you, Agent Winters.” Nesmith motioned her to the door, then took her spot at the head of the table. “I’ll call a meeting to review in short order and we’ll discuss next steps. Again, thank you all for your time.”
Veronica glanced around the room, eyes settling on agent Harris, who stared at her cell phone, clearly eager for that meeting to be called. Then, nodding, Veronica headed for the door.
My part’s done. The rest, God help us, is in their hands.
2.
Lake Vostok research site
For Glenn Taggart, who held the inglorious title of Chief Research Consultant for GlobalSkyTech, the past thre
e months had been the longest of his life, and yet when he looked back on that life, he couldn’t recall anything approaching the significance of what he had accomplished here.
He stood on the railing in the cold and bitter winds, braving the sub-zero temps and the icy air for just a few more minutes, watching the operation he had overseen close up shop. He smiled as the last cargo crates were loaded and the ice trucks roared away down straight roads toward the port and the last of the container ships, waiting for its precious cargo.
From the vantage point where his predecessor, Marcus Ramirez, once oversaw the raising of the first perfectly preserved dinosaur in history, Taggart smiled and let the cold do its worst.
This is history, this is evolution.
DeKirk had hand-chosen Taggart for this mission, entrusting him with the most vital of operations, and Taggart had risen to the occasion. He imagined himself no less than a demi-god at this point, a modern Prometheus defying the gods and their plans for humanity, digging up that which most would say should never be unearthed. Preparing to give a gift every bit as powerful as fire to the unsuspecting—but deserving—masses.
He smiled one last time before he worried his lips would lose all feeling. He had to go back inside and give the final status report to DeKirk, but just wanted one last fond gaze. Down in the pit, the excavation leading a mile below the surface, to that gloriously mysterious lake, its waters nurtured by eons of pressure and geological processes. A natural womb for the microscopic prions that drifted mindlessly in its nutrient bath, waiting…waiting for birth into the new world. Waiting for new hosts…
…and keeping a few cherished old hosts for the journey.
Finally giving in to a shiver, Taggart watched the departing trucks and could just make out the glittering lights from the bay, where the largest of the ships undocked and made its way out, carrying something straight out of a nightmare. Something that rivaled anything even Ramirez had found.
