The Great Zoo of China

by Matthew Reilly

  There was no gunfire anymore and less movement. The dragons had taken care of the gun-wielding Chinese workmen and all the office workers were either dead or had fled onto the ring road in the hatchback cars.

  ‘That truck over there!’ CJ pointed at a garbage truck over by the inner doors. It was even aimed at the open doors of the ring road tunnel, ready to go.

  The four of them made a break for it, running fast, keeping low, dashing from garbage truck to garbage truck.

  Johnson scooped up an AK-47 from beside a dead Chinese workman’s body and threw CJ a Glock pistol.

  As they hurried past an overturned garbage truck, they heard a groan.

  CJ ducked to see Zhang huddled inside it. Hu Tang, she recalled, had stayed up in the building earlier.

  ‘Come on, Zhangman,’ Hamish said as he leaned in and dragged the zoo’s deputy director out.

  CJ, Hamish, Johnson, Syme and now Zhang hastened toward the garbage truck by the inner doors.

  At one point, Hamish and the other three ducked left around an overturned truck while CJ went right . . . and suddenly stopped.

  Beep-beep . . . beep-beep.

  She knew that sound.

  Slowly, very slowly, CJ peered around the corner of her upturned truck.

  She saw the yellowjacket dragon—Lucky—inside its caged trailer behind the pick-up truck, looking extremely agitated.

  CJ came further around and she saw why.

  Lucky’s handler, Yim, in her black bodysuit and with her yellow-streaked hair, stood in front of Lucky’s cage, facing four red-bellied black princes arrayed in a threatening semicircle around her.

  ‘Get back!’ she yelled in Mandarin, waving a broom at the four dragons. ‘Back, I tell you! Stay away from her!’

  The lead black prince lowered its head, extending its long neck, and hissed at her, a deep low hiss of anger.

  It was Red Face. He still had Na’s beeping earpiece lodged between his teeth.

  Beep-beep . . . beep-beep.

  But there was more to this scene than just a confrontation between rival dragons, CJ realised.

  She saw small camouflaged boxes attached to all four of the red-bellied black princes’ heads, and she realised that these four dragons, including Red Face, were the same four dragons that had performed alongside Lucky earlier, up in the amphitheatre.

  It appeared that they didn’t like their fellow performer.

  They circled Lucky’s cage like hungry wolves.

  ‘Stay back!’ Yim yelled. CJ saw that she still wore her earpiece with its inbuilt microphone—

  Suddenly Yim moved, reaching for the yellow remote on her belt but, quick as a whip, Red Face launched himself at her and suddenly Yim was on the ground and the dragon was astride her and her hand holding the yellow remote was pinned to the floor.

  With a sharp stomp, Red Face smashed the remote to pieces.

  Then he hissed into his trainer’s face, drooling into her eyes.

  Yim screamed and Lucky shook the bars of her cage—straining to open them, crying out—as Red Face’s claw came rushing down again, this time at the handler’s head.

  There was a foul burst of blood and brains as the dragon’s claw came down and the trainer’s head exploded and a pool of blood fanned out beneath Red Face’s claw. Yim’s body went limp.

  Lucky roared with helpless rage and then, to CJ’s surprise, began to whimper, a soft keening that seemed like genuine grief.

  It’s pining, CJ thought in amazement. Pining for its handler.

  But then the four red-bellied black princes turned their attention to Lucky and the yellowjacket stopped whimpering and took a wary step back, even though it was still inside its cage.

  The yellow dragon, with the saddle on its back and with its bright yellow colouring, suddenly looked very different from the other dragons: it looked tamed, civilised; a collaborator who had been caught.

  Red Face swatted at the cage, his razor-sharp claws clattering across the bars. The other three male princes hissed, surrounding the cage.

  CJ watched, horrified and captivated.

  The red-bellied black dragons, she noticed, didn’t just hiss and snarl: they made distinct burring sounds plus long exhalations. It sounded to CJ like—

  Jesus, she realised. They’re communicating with each other.

  CJ also had to admit that she felt sorry for the yellowjacket. The lone female dragon had just lost her human companion and now, outnumbered and surrounded, she was about to be slaughtered.

  ‘CJ . . . !’ Hamish whispered urgently. ‘Come on . . . !’

  She turned. Hamish and the others had reached the garbage truck by the inner doors.

  CJ frowned, looking back at the four red-bellied black princes surrounding the yellowjacket. One of them punched the cage, making it rock. They were toying with Lucky.

  Surprising herself, CJ waved Hamish away.

  ‘Go!’ she whispered. ‘I’ll catch up!’

  Hamish frowned, not quite understanding. But then he must have seen something in her eyes—a stubborn conviction that he’d seen before—because he just said ‘Okay,’ and keyed the ignition on his garbage truck.

  At the vibration of the garbage truck firing up, the four dragons surrounding Lucky whipped around. But after deciding that it was of no concern to them, they turned back to face Lucky.

  Only when they did so, they found someone standing between them and the yellowjacket.

  CJ.

  She stood between the four dragons and Lucky, Glock pistol held in one hand and something that looked like a thick plastic suitcase in the other.

  It must have made for a strange sight, she thought: her—five foot six inches tall and armed with a single handgun—facing off against four red-bellied black princes, each of them nine feet tall, huge and menacing.

  The imprisoned Lucky seemed the most surprised of all. She appeared to watch this unexpected development in shock.

  Red Face glared at CJ, lowered his head and growled.

  Beep-beep . . . beep-beep.

  The dragon stepped forward—

  Blam!

  CJ fired her pistol into the concrete floor at the dragon’s feet. The round sparked as it pinged away.

  The dragon paused in mid-stride.

  CJ was standing beside the pool of blood that had been Yim’s head, and, glancing downward, she saw something: the dragon handler’s earpiece. It must have been expelled from Yim’s ear when Red Face had stomped on her skull.

  Still aiming her gun at the dragons, CJ put down the suitcase-like object and scooped up the earpiece with her spare hand. If she got out of here alive, she might need to get in radio contact with Hamish and the others.

  She put it in her ear—and immediately heard a garbled electronic voice come through it, a man’s voice speaking in Mandarin.

  CJ translated: ‘—black dragons attack—’

  The rest of the zoo must be under attack. Jesus.

  Red Face growled again, a sound laced with menace.

  Then, without warning, one of the other dragons lunged at CJ from her left. But she was ready for it and she swung around, scooping up the suitcase-like object and flinging it at the incoming prince.

  That object was a jerry can, half-filled with gasoline.

  The jerry can hit the dragon in the snout just as CJ pivoted with the gun and fired, hitting the fuel can, and the container exploded into flames.

  Liquid fire flew in every direction. All four of the dragons were hit and they recoiled, while some of the flames hit CJ herself and the sleeve of her jacket caught fire.

  But the biggest victim had been the incoming dragon. That dragon squealed as flames engulfed its head and the animal immediately began rolling around on the floor, trying to extinguish the gasoline-fuelled fire raging on its face.

  CJ flung off her flaming jacket and took the opportunity to fire at a fuel tank mounted on an overturned garbage truck behind the dragons.

  Her shot hit its intended target and t
he fuel tank exploded, issuing a massive fireball that billowed out all around her foes.

  The dragons leapt away from the flames as CJ bolted, dashing down the side of the caged trailer and diving into the cab of its pick-up truck.

  She keyed the ignition and floored the gas pedal and the truck-and-trailer shot off the mark.

  The pick-up blasted out of the waste management facility, racing into the ring road tunnel with CJ at the wheel, driving hard and not daring to look back.

  The pick-up swept into the tunnel.

  CJ wanted to go right—to the south, to get to the main entrance building and out of this fucked-up zoo—but no sooner was she in the tunnel than she realised that that wasn’t an option.

  The remains of the fallen control tower filled the road in that direction. It looked impossibly huge, out of scale with the two-lane road: the multi-level tower lay crumpled across the roadway, completely blocking it.

  Tyres squealing, CJ swung left—north—accelerating quickly to eighty, then ninety kilometres per hour, the caged trailer behind her bouncing wildly. Inside it, Lucky was tossed against its barred walls like a rag doll.

  One hundred metres ahead of her, CJ saw Hamish’s garbage truck arriving at the tunnel’s northern entrance. The gate there was still closed, but Hamish must have had a remote in his truck, because as the truck arrived at it, the big gate began to rise.

  CJ needed to get in contact with him. She touched her earpiece. Like a cell phone earpiece, it contained a microphone as well.

  She went to press the TALK button on the earpiece, but as she did so, a garbled woman’s voice came through it, speaking in Mandarin.

  CJ translated. ‘—Run . . . White head . . . Run—’

  She didn’t know what the hell that meant. Busy channel. Clearly, the dragons were running amok all over the zoo.

  The fluorescent lights of the tunnel flashed by outside.

  She keyed the mike: ‘Zhang! Hamish! Anyone! Can you hear me?’

  No reply.

  She stole a glance in her rear-vision mirror and to her relief saw that the tunnel behind her was empty.

  She scanned the cab for weapons or anything else she could use. On the seat beside her, she saw Yim’s black-and-yellow leather jacket, with its armoured spine and neck.

  That can only help, CJ thought, so she wriggled into it as she drove.

  The truck-and-trailer sped through the tunnel.

  Still no dragons behind it.

  CJ came to the tunnel’s mouth and burst out into bright sunshine. She immediately brought the pick-up to a skidding halt.

  Then she leapt out of the cab and ran to the back of the trailer, glancing down the tunnel—

  —when, like bats out of Hell, the four red-bellied black princes came banking out of the waste management facility, flying low and fast.

  CJ ignored them.

  With Lucky looking on curiously from the other side of the bars, she fumbled with the bolt securing the dragon’s cage.

  She flung open the gate.

  ‘Go on! Out! Get out of there!’ CJ yelled at the yellow dragon. ‘Do you understand me? Out!’

  The dragon just stared at her in what appeared to be amazement.

  Then, glancing at the dragons roaring down the tunnel behind them, it clambered out of the cage.

  The yellowjacket—still wearing its saddle—slunk up onto the roof of the cage and with a final look at CJ, took to the air.

  Then CJ was moving again, sliding back into the pick-up’s cab and jamming down on the gas pedal. The truck shoomed off down the ring road as the four black princes burst out of the tunnel a bare second later.

  They immediately looked skyward—to see Lucky soaring away toward Dragon Mountain, out of reach.

  But CJ wasn’t out of reach.

  They took off after her.

  CJ drove fast. Faster than she had ever driven in her life.

  Her truck-and-trailer combo shot down the ring road, gaining on Hamish’s heavier garbage truck.

  Ahead of the garbage truck, she could see one of the Great Zoo of China hatchbacks that the Chinese office workers had sped off in, fleeing from the waste management hall.

  That was strange, she thought. She could have sworn she had seen six or seven of the little white hatchbacks speed out of the—

  Wham!

  A white hatchback landed on the road right in front of her pick-up!

  CJ swerved instinctively, avoiding the falling car by centimetres. The car had come flying out of the sky from the right and it went bouncing away to her left where it slammed against the rock wall on the outer side of the ring road.

  CJ peered upward to see a pair of red-bellied black princes soaring away, having dropped the car at her.

  She saw a second pair of princes coming in toward her, carrying another hatchback in their talons. They swooped in low and released the little car.

  This car flew across CJ’s bonnet in a flash of white, missing by millimetres. Then it was gone, smashing into the rock wall and exploding.

  CJ’s pick-up was rocked by the blast, but she managed to keep it going down the ring road.

  Holy shit, she thought. The dragons are throwing cars at me!

  There came a sudden shuddering whump and her speeding truck was lifted momentarily off the ground. CJ turned to see that one of the four red-bellied black princes from the waste management hall had landed on the roof of her trailer.

  CJ saw its head and she gasped.

  Its black-and-red face was horrifically melted and blistered, exposing its jaw muscles and tendons. Some of the spikes of its crest had also melted, causing them to bend over. It was the black prince who had been closest to the jerry can when CJ had shot it, the one whose face had been engulfed in the fuel fire.

  It roared at CJ, a shriek of unadulterated rage. Then, one claw at a time, it made its way forward along the top of the empty trailer, coming for her.

  As it shrieked at her, CJ could have sworn she heard a garbled electronic voice coming again through her earpiece. It said in a stilted male voice in Mandarin: ‘—Fear . . . me—’

  It was almost as if . . . no . . . CJ shook the thought away. That was crazy.

  Ahead of her, she saw Hamish’s garbage truck swerve around something, which she quickly realised was an overturned hatchback lying on the road, and suddenly she was almost on it herself, with Melted Face on the trailer behind her.

  CJ hit the brakes, causing her pick-up to fishtail past the overturned hatchback, at the same time causing her trailer—with Melted Face on it—to slide right into the overturned hatchback.

  The trailer hit the upturned car with a mighty bang and the impact stopped it dead in its tracks, separating it from CJ’s pick-up and sending Melted Face flying forward onto the roadway, tumbling and rolling in a squealing mass of wings, tail and claws.

  Never stopping, CJ hit the gas again, righting her pick-up from its dry skid, and now free of the weight of the trailer she zoomed off at greater speed. Within seconds, she was right behind Hamish’s garbage truck.

  She pulled up alongside its driver’s door and waved at Hamish, indicating her earpiece.

  ‘What channel?’ she called.

  Hamish pulled Zhang over and asked him, and the deputy director—still wearing his own earpiece—looked over at CJ and held up four fingers.

  CJ grabbed her earpiece and flicked it from 22 to 4.

  ‘Zhang! Can you hear me?’

  ‘Yes, Dr Cameron,’ his voice came through loud and clear.

  ‘Where can we go to that’s safe?’

  ‘About three kilometres up this road is the Nesting Centre, the site of the original dragon nest. It’s secure. We can take shelter there.’

  ‘Good enough for m—’

  CJ’s truck jolted violently and she turned to see Red Face land in the tray of her pick-up, right behind her!

  The dragon punched through the cab’s rear window and CJ was showered with glass and suddenly a giant claw was clutching a
round the cabin trying to get at her.

  CJ ducked low, lying flat on the seat of the cab. She couldn’t stay here.

  ‘Zhang!’ she yelled into her mike. ‘Tell Hamish I’m coming over!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Just do it!’

  CJ reached up and hit the pick-up’s cruise control. It now sped along beside the garbage truck as dragons wheeled and banked overhead.

  She wriggled across the cab, underneath Red Face’s scrabbling claw, and pushed open the passenger-side door.

  Wind rushed into the cabin. CJ saw the garbage truck’s running board only a couple of feet away, the road rushing by beneath it.

  Do it now, before you think about what you are doing! her mind screamed.

  Then Red Face rammed his head through the rear window of the cabin. His splotchy red head all but filled the little space, and the Bluetooth earpiece in his mouth was still bizarrely beeping, but by the time his head was inside the cabin, CJ was jumping out of it, diving out its right-side door, hands outstretched, hoping to catch hold of—

  —her fingers latched onto the garbage truck’s running board and they clung on tightly as her boots hit the roadway and bounced wildly.

  The now driverless pick-up truck—with Red Face half inside it, half outside it—peeled away toward the rock wall on the left-hand side of the road. The dragon yanked its head out of the cabin and took to the air an instant before the pick-up hit the wall at speed and exploded in a ball of flames.

  With CJ dangling from its left-hand side, the garbage truck thundered down the ring road.

  ‘CJ! You still with us?’ Hamish’s voice came through CJ’s earpiece. He must have appropriated Zhang’s.

  ‘Just!’ CJ called over the rushing wind.

  Whump!

  A dragon landed on the garbage truck right above her.

  It was another red-bellied black prince. Its hind legs gripped the roof of the garbage truck while it hung upside-down on the side of the big truck, glaring at CJ. It opened its saliva-filled jaws in what could only be described as a broad, self-satisfied grin.