The Great Zoo of China

by Matthew Reilly

  She hoped she wasn’t too late.

  Abruptly, the two emperors reappeared, barked something to their superking and the superking dashed inside the tunnel. The emperors then took up positions by the entrance, facing outward, standing guard.

  ‘What are they doing?’ she said aloud.

  ‘Master . . . warm eggs . . .’ Lucky’s voice said. ‘Wake nest . . .’

  ‘We have to get in there and stop it—’

  A mighty roar cut CJ off.

  The two emperor dragons were staring directly up at her and Lucky. They had spotted them.

  One of the emperors took to the air with a great beating of its wings and charged right at them, roaring with rage.

  CJ looked left and right for options, and saw something. She pulled Lucky into a steep dive and the chase began.

  With its larger wings, the red-bellied black emperor was much faster than Lucky, but the yellowjacket prince was more manoeuvrable and as she and CJ shot down toward the fog layer, Lucky made a sharp turn that took the emperor by surprise and it overshot them by three hundred yards.

  But then it banked around like an aeroplane and kept on chasing.

  ‘Lucky! Down!’ CJ called and with the emperor closing in behind them, they dropped into the mist.

  From CJ’s point of view, it was like being on a superfast rollercoaster without any tracks and with only ten metres of visibility.

  The walls of buttes and cliffs emerged from the soupy haze with frightening suddenness and Lucky banked and bent superbly.

  Crouched low over Lucky’s neck like a jockey, CJ risked a glance over her shoulder—

  —and found herself looking right into the jaws of the pursuing emperor! It was only a foot behind the tip of Lucky’s tail!

  CJ snapped to look forward and saw it.

  ‘Lucky! Up! Now!’ she yelled, pulling on the reins, and Lucky went vertical, avoiding a cliff-face shrouded in mist right in front of them.

  The red-bellied black emperor, bigger and less agile, didn’t.

  It slammed into the cliff-face at full speed, head-first. An almighty crash could be heard and a spray of rocks went flying out from the cliff-face and CJ heard a sickening crack.

  The emperor didn’t emerge from the fog.

  CJ swung Lucky around and they risked a peek down at the base of the cliff. There they saw the body of the emperor, curled in a ball, neck twisted at an impossible angle. Dead.

  ‘One down,’ CJ said. ‘Two to go.’

  CJ and Lucky looped around and returned to Crater Lake.

  Lucky landed halfway up the rim of the crater, a few hundred metres from the second emperor standing guard at the tunnel’s mouth.

  CJ was trying to figure out what to do when Lucky’s voice spoke in her ear.

  ‘Lucky fight red dragon . . . White Head fight red master . . .’

  CJ frowned. ‘What?’

  ‘Lucky fight red dragon . . . White Head fight red master . . .’ the dragon repeated. ‘Lucky . . . challenge . . . red dragon . . .’

  CJ wasn’t sure she understood until Lucky bucked gently, suggesting she get off.

  CJ dismounted.

  And immediately Lucky flew off, zipping out into the open, positioning herself right in front of the red-bellied black emperor.

  Lucky pulled into a hover, lowered her head and barked fiercely: an invitation to joust.

  The emperor snorted with contempt before issuing a low growl of pure anger.

  With a lazy beat of its wings, it rose into a hover of its own and lowered its head menacingly.

  Challenge accepted.

  CJ was torn. She didn’t like Lucky’s chances at all against the emperor, but she knew what Lucky was doing: Lucky was drawing the emperor away from the tunnel so that CJ could run to it and get inside . . . even if it meant an almost certainly suicidal joust with an emperor.

  So CJ ran, dashing through the forest toward the tunnel’s yawning entrance.

  As she ran, the two hovering dragons glared at each other, sizing each other up.

  CJ was almost at the tunnel when, with a blood-curdling shriek, the emperor charged at Lucky.

  Lucky launched herself forward in response.

  Dragon rushed at dragon: the huge red-and-black emperor against the tiny yellowjacket prince.

  The emperor flexed its massive keratin claws.

  Lucky streamlined herself as she sped forward.

  CJ came to the tunnel entrance and looked up just as the two hurtling dragons came together.

  Lucky rolled. The emperor lashed out. There was a slash of claws and an explosion of blood and . . .

  . . . to CJ’s horror . . .

  . . . Lucky went peeling off to the left, her body lifeless, her wings and tail unmoving. Her body flew downward toward the edge of the lake before it slammed into the shallows in a spray of water.

  ‘No . . .’ CJ breathed.

  A far louder smashing noise made CJ snap around to look in the other direction.

  The emperor, also wounded, went crashing into the hillside not far from her. It crunched through trees, turning their trunks to splinters before it too came to a crashing halt.

  It moaned painfully, deep and loud. It wasn’t dead, but it wasn’t doing very well either. It tried to get up but instead it dropped back to the ground with a heavy boom, unable to lift itself.

  CJ risked a glance around a tree trunk and saw that the great beast had a ragged gash running right up the length of its belly. Its huge intestines were pouring from the wound.

  Lucky had completely eviscerated the emperor.

  But at great cost. CJ turned to see the gutsy yellowjacket lying in the shallows of the lake, also still. She couldn’t believe Lucky’s courage. She had done this to give CJ a chance to stop the superking and CJ wasn’t going to let Lucky’s sacrifice be in vain.

  Suddenly the emperor moaned again and CJ jumped in fright, but then the great beast slumped and, with a final sighing exhalation, went completely still.

  CJ turned and gazed at the tunnel’s yawning mouth.

  It was just her and the superking now.

  She hurried into the tunnel on foot.

  The tunnel stretched downward at a steep angle, in a dead-straight line, cutting through the nickel.

  CJ flicked on her helmet flashlight and hastened down it.

  As she ran, she noticed the occasional flare of fiery orange light illuminating the lower end of the tunnel.

  When she arrived at the base of the tunnel, she saw the reason for those flares.

  CJ stood on a ledge high above an enormous—enormous—underground cavern. Like the nest back at the zoo, it was funnel-shaped—wide at the top, narrow at the bottom—with a single curving ledge running in a spiral all the way down its nickel-sided walls.

  And lined up neatly on that spiral were dragon eggs: hundreds and hundreds of them.

  CJ gasped. The nest at the zoo had held 88 eggs. There must be over 2,000 of them here.

  In the middle of it all was the red-bellied superking, blowing gentle bursts of liquid fire around the cavern, warming it, creating the right conditions for the eggs to . . .

  . . . an egg not far from CJ cracked. CJ saw a tiny snout pecking at the shell from within.

  The egg was hatching.

  Consumed with its task, the superking hadn’t seen CJ arrive.

  ‘Okay, genius,’ CJ said to herself. ‘What are you going to do now? How do you stop a ten-ton fire-breathing dragon?’

  She checked her weapons: the MP-7 with its taped-on grenade launcher and the flamethrower with its liquid propane tank.

  She looked out at the superking as it blew another tongue of fire.

  That was its greatest strength—the ability to breathe fire—but perhaps it was also its greatest . . .

  ‘Go hard or go home, Cameron,’ CJ said aloud. ‘Win or die trying.’

  And so she laid her trap. It took her three minutes.

  Then she sprayed fire from her flamethrower out int
o the cavern and called, ‘Hey! Fire-breather! Are you looking for me!’

  The red-bellied superking turned at her shout.

  CJ was standing in the mouth of the tunnel at the top of the enormous cavern, waving. She loosed another burst from her flamethrower.

  The superking accepted the challenge and rocketed up at her.

  CJ immediately turned and hurried back up the tunnel, making it about twenty metres by the time the superking appeared in the tunnel’s entrance, filling it.

  It roared, a deafening sound in the confined space.

  CJ froze, as any normal prey would do.

  The superking responded by doing what any normal predator would do: it folded its wings, stomped up the tunnel, reared its head and blew a great extended blast of fire right at CJ.

  At which point, two things occurred that most certainly did not happen in the usual predator–prey dynamic.

  First, CJ flipped on the hood of her heat suit, so that now her whole body was protected, just as the wave of fire rushed over her.

  Second, the dragon’s great tongue of fire ignited the pool of liquid propane that CJ had poured onto the tunnel’s floor from her flamethrower’s tank . . . a pool that extended out from where CJ stood down to the spot where the superking raged.

  The propane pool immediately lit up in a curtain of blazing fire and suddenly the superking itself was engulfed in flames!

  The dragon shrieked as its wings and skin caught alight. It bucked and thrashed against the walls of the tunnel.

  Then its head was consumed by fire and the hideous flaming thing turned and locked eyes with CJ—to find her holding her MP-7 aimed directly at its face.

  Braaaaaaaack!

  CJ loosed a burst on full auto and the rounds slammed into the superking’s eyes and forehead, ripping its skull apart. Its eyes exploded, shredded by bullets.

  And the superking dragon fell.

  It hit the floor of the tunnel with a monumental thump, its body still on fire. Its muscles twitched and then it went completely still.

  The superking was dead.

  CJ exhaled, utterly spent.

  But she wasn’t done.

  Without hesitating, she strode past the burning body of the superking and headed into the cavern, still holding her MP-7.

  Then, standing at the mouth of the tunnel above the massive cave, she fired off nearly every grenade she had in her grenade launcher.

  Explosions rocked the cavern. Eggs blasted out in sprays of albumen before they caught fire and burned. The squeals of dying infant dragons cut through the air.

  Then CJ aimed her grenade launcher at the ceiling of the cavern and fired off more grenades.

  Under the weight of those explosions, the cavern’s ceiling crumbled, dropping great boulders of nickel down on the eggs, smashing them, crushing them, while the curved spiralling ledge containing the eggs just fell away from the cavern’s walls.

  Eggs and nickel dropped down into the giant funnel-shaped cavern. Owing to the shape of the cavern, they all fell into the narrow base, where they were more easily crushed by the falling rocks.

  In a final move, CJ stepped back up the tunnel, moving past the remains of the dead superking, and fired off her last few grenades there, causing the tunnel’s roof to collapse and cave in.

  The roof came down, flattening the corpse of the superking and blocking the exit, and leaving CJ Cameron standing there, breathing hard, her face blackened with soot and dust but her victory achieved.

  Her ammunition spent, CJ tossed her MP-7 to the ground and began the long trudge back up the tunnel.

  CJ emerged from the tunnel to see the first rays of sunlight peeking over the crater wall to the east.

  She had survived the night.

  No sooner was she out of the tunnel, however, than she dashed for the lake. She splashed to her knees beside Lucky.

  The yellowjacket lay on her side in the shallows, moaning painfully.

  She jerked suddenly at CJ’s arrival—probably assuming CJ was the other dragon coming to finish her off—but then she relaxed when CJ began stroking her forehead.

  ‘Easy, girl. Easy.’

  CJ saw a large gash running down Lucky’s right hind leg: a terrible wound. She embraced the dragon, resting her head against Lucky’s huge cheek.

  Lucky sighed, a pained braying noise.

  ‘White Head . . . fight master . . . ?’

  ‘Yes,’ CJ said. ‘White Head fight master. White Head kill master.’

  Lucky grunted, still lying on her side. ‘Lucky like White Head . . .’

  And for a short while the two of them just lay there together in the shallows of Crater Lake as the sun crept over the horizon.

  After a time, CJ rose and took a look at Lucky’s laceration.

  It was an awful wound—right across the top of her thigh—but CJ figured if she could stitch it up, it would only affect Lucky’s ability to walk. She should still be able to fly.

  ‘This is not going to be pretty and not very hygienic either,’ CJ said as she fashioned a needle out of a sharpened stick and used her own bootlaces as thread. ‘And it’s going to hurt like hell.’

  It hurt all right.

  Lucky howled in agony throughout the operation but eventually CJ stitched up the wound, drawing the skin firmly together.

  Lucky panted quickly.

  ‘Lucky stand?’ CJ asked.

  The dragon tentatively rose to her feet . . . and promptly fell down as the leg failed to bear her weight. But she tried again, favouring her other legs, and managed to hold herself upright.

  CJ grinned. ‘You are one tough chick, you know that, Lucky?’

  ‘Lucky no understand White Head . . .’

  ‘White Head like Lucky.’

  The dragon nuzzled CJ. ‘Lucky like White Head . . .’

  CJ then got Lucky to test her wings and the dragon proved able to fly. Not exactly powerfully; it was more gliding than flying, but it was enough.

  And so, soon after, they were soaring over the forests and rock formations of southern China, heading back toward the zoo.

  The sun had risen fully by the time CJ and Lucky beheld the vast rectangular crater containing the Great Dragon Zoo of China.

  In the harsh light of day, the amount of damage that the dragons had done to the zoo was simply astonishing. Columns of black smoke rose from numerous sites around the megavalley, from smashed helicopters and destroyed buildings. The revolving restaurant at the top of Dragon Mountain had literally been ripped apart. Its two levels yawned open to the elements.

  At 6:20 a.m., CJ keyed her radio to channel 20. ‘Bear? You out there? Bear, come in?’

  Static . . . then: ‘I hear you, Chipmunk.’

  ‘Are you good?’

  ‘Lying low after a shitstorm of a battle but not in enemy hands yet. Whatever you did, sis, it worked. The dragons are contained. The outer dome is working. I’m gonna guess that whatever you got up to was character building?’

  ‘You better fucking believe it,’ CJ said. ‘What about the Chinese? What are they doing now?’

  ‘They suffered heavy casualties, but those who are left are on the move. Saw a fleet of jeeps zoom in toward the zoo ten minutes ago. What do we do now, Chipmunk?’

  CJ was thinking the same thing. ‘Now we have to find a way out of this place—’

  ‘CJ?’ Another voice came on the line. A male voice, speaking in English. ‘CJ, is that you? It’s Ben Patrick.’

  Patrick, CJ thought. She’d last seen him in the revolving restaurant, when he’d said she was crazy to be going into the Nesting Centre.

  ‘Ben? Where are you?’ she said.

  ‘I’m at the main entrance building. On the roof. I came over on a maintenance cable car. I can’t believe you’re still alive.’

  ‘Only just.’

  ‘CJ, the zoo is under control again, which means the Chinese are about to go into serious damage control,’ Patrick said. ‘They’ll kill all of us now to keep this disaster a sec
ret. It’s time to get the hell out of here and I know a way out. If you’re still riding your yellow friend, meet me on the roof of the main entrance building as soon as you can.’

  CJ thought about that. ‘Okay. We’ll be there as soon as we can. Bear?’

  ‘Yeah?’ Hamish’s voice replied.

  ‘I’ll contact you shortly.’

  CJ and Lucky made two stops on their way to the main entrance building: the first was at the Birthing Centre, where they picked up Minnie. CJ grabbed a portable surgical kit from the infirmary there: scalpels, stitches, anaesthetic, cleaning alcohol. She also took the opportunity to clean and restitch Lucky’s new wound with a sterilised needle and proper thread. She finished by giving the dragon a shot of epinephrine to make sure her heart rate and blood pressure stayed up.

  Then, with Minnie riding pillion, they took off.

  Their second pause was a quick stopover at the mountainside monastery on the eastern side of the zoo where Lucky’s pack of yellowjackets lived.

  CJ, Minnie and Lucky arrived to find Lucky’s family very agitated by recent events, but after a short series of barked communications between Lucky and her pack, CJ performed a quick surgical operation on each of the four other yellowjacket dragons: on their left eyes.

  Then CJ and Lucky, with Minnie, took to the air again and headed for the main entrance building.

  The colossal main entrance building still stood at the southern end of the valley, but it was not looking its best.

  The huge white building had been assaulted at some point by the rampaging dragons: many of its windows were shattered. The large eye-like circular window of the master control room had been smashed and the control room now lay empty, trashed and blood-smeared.

  Suddenly, lights began to wink on all over the building . . . and all over the zoo. The Chinese must have driven the airfield’s cable repair truck to the waste management facility and reconnected the internal main there.

  As she soared in toward the main entrance building from high above, CJ saw the broad sunken amphitheatre on its roof, the same amphitheatre in which she had first seen Lucky.