Code Name Flood

by Laura Martin

  The helicopters landed, and Chaz raced forward just as the door of the first one opened and Boz hopped out. Chaz froze, staring in wonder, and then continued running, laughing, and crying.

  “Well, hello,” Boz called as he walked towards our raggedy group, followed by twenty other men and women exiting the helicopters and approaching us.

  “You survived the bombing!” Chaz exclaimed, her voice high and squeaky with excitement. “Did the lab not sustain too much damage, then? Was the entire conference wing lost? We didn’t lose any dinosaurs, did we? What other parts of the lab got hit? What are you doing here? Wasn’t the lab locked down?”

  Boz chuckled, motioning for her to be quiet. “One question at a time. One question at a time. Obviously, I survived. The lab sustained some damage, and we lost a few lives, but not as many as we could have thanks to your early warning. And yes, the lab was locked down, although overriding the system wasn’t nearly as difficult as getting our helicopters out without the Noah’s men spotting us. Honestly, I was all for waiting a few days until things quieted down, but then we got a message from someone at East Compound urging us to hurry.”

  “My message made it through!” Shawn yelped, pumping his fist in delight. “I knew it would.”

  “That message came from you?” Boz asked, eyebrow raised. “Impressive work, young man.” Shawn shrugged modestly, and Boz turned back to Chaz. “So after we got the message, we came here to stop the Noah. Although,” he said, glancing at each of us, “it appears we may be a little late?”

  “You are,” Ivan barked, stepping forward. “But now that you’re here, we could use your help.”

  Boz blinked at Ivan in surprise for a moment before holding out a hand for him to shake. “Ivan,” he said with a smile. “The last time I saw you I was a young man studying biology right here at East Compound, and you were telling the Colombe about living life aboveground. It’s good to see you’re still alive.”

  “The last time I saw you, you were a lot skinnier,” Ivan said gruffly as he shook Boz’s extended hand.

  Boz snorted. “The same charming personality I remember.” He glanced around at our bedraggled group again and raised an eyebrow. “Am I to understand the Noah’s plan has been successfully stopped?”

  “It has,” Chaz cut in. “We used the plug we stole from you.”

  “You stole one of our plugs?” Boz asked in surprise.

  “We did,” I confessed. “We were planning on giving it back once we saw what it did. But then with the attack and everything, that obviously didn’t happen.”

  “Those plugs were untested,” he said. “We ended up having to redo over half the batch because of a destructive defect.”

  “What do you mean by destructive defect?” Shawn asked.

  “They exploded,” Boz said.

  “Oh, that,” Chaz said, waving her hand dismissively. “That happened. We blew up the entire command centre with the Noah still in it.”

  “Really?” Boz said, sounding impressed.

  “Yeah.” Chaz shrugged. “About five minutes after Sky put it in the Noah’s port, the whole thing went up in smoke.”

  “You put it in the Noah’s port?” Boz exclaimed. “But his port would have had access to all of the controls and circuits in the entire East Compound! Putting it in there would disable the entire East Compound’s electrical systems. Permanently. Did all the lights go out? What about the electronics? Did they shut down too?” he asked, glancing at us for confirmation.

  I nodded. “Even the marines’ guns stopped working.”

  “That’s because they ran off the main electrical current of the compound,” Boz explained. “My technicians told me that might happen, but I didn’t dare hope.”

  “The lights going out and everything breaking is exactly why we need your help,” Ivan cut in. “You see, my granddaughter let dinosaurs into the tunnels, and the citizens of East Compound are now sitting in the pitch-dark without any way of getting out unharmed.” My jaw dropped in horror as he said this. I hadn’t really thought about the over 200 people left stranded underground. Ivan saw my look and put a reassuring hand on my shoulder. “Can you and your people get them out?” he asked Boz.

  “We can try,” Boz replied. “We brought a large supply of tranquiliser guns in case we saw any species of dinosaur we wanted to transport back to the lab, so we should be able to make the tunnels safe for people to evacuate.”

  “Good.” Ivan nodded.

  Shawn grabbed ahold of Ivan’s arm, looking alarmed. “But the people of East Compound have never been topside before,” he protested. “They don’t know how to survive up here.”

  “I guess they’ll have to learn,” Ivan said sternly. “It’s high time the human race got over this silliness of living underground. This world is big enough for everyone. Humans and dinosaurs.”

  “I believe you’re right,” Boz said as he turned to the group of men and women clad in the blue jumpsuits of the Lincoln Lab. “We have work to do,” he said. “And if you run across those nuclear weapons, do be good enough to bring them up. I think we should drop them in the ocean for safekeeping.”

  “And while you’re down there,” Jett cut in, “could you see if there is a way to get the Noah’s helicopters out? I think I speak for my entire village when I say that we’d really like to go home.”

  “Certainly.” Boz smiled. “I’ll have my pilots navigate them for you. Although would you mind waiting a bit? We can accommodate a few refugees in our lab, but if you could take some back with you and help them get their footing topside, I’m sure they would appreciate it.”

  Jett gave a curt nod. “We can do that,” he said. “But don’t give us any of those marines. I’ve seen enough of them for a lifetime.”

  “Fair enough,” Boz agreed.

  After that, everything started happening fast. The people of the Oaks began setting up a makeshift camp in the trees while Boz talked with Ivan and Jett, making complicated plans to evacuate the now-uninhabitable East Compound. No one asked for our help or opinions, which was absolutely fine with me. The adrenaline that had kept me going ever since I’d woken up to the marines trying to force their way into our hiding spot was long gone, and I was content to stand next to my friends and listen to other people make plans for once. We’d saved the world, after all; someone else could worry about what we’d all eat for dinner. The feeling of something squirming on my back pulled me out of my exhausted daze, and I yanked off my quiver to discover a disgruntled and very much alive Sprout peering up at me reproachfully. Pulling her out, I sat down on the warm, sweet-smelling grass as everyone bustled about me.

  “Are you OK?” Shawn asked, sinking down next to me as he pushed his sweaty hair back from his face.

  “Are you kidding?” Todd said from the other side of me, where he’d plopped down. “She just saved the entire topside world. She should be fabulous.”

  “Not the entire world,” I said, blinking hard as tears pressing against the backs of my eyes.

  “Oh.” Todd frowned. “Chaz told us. I’m sorry, Sky. I can’t believe you got your dad back just to lose him like that.”

  I nodded, staring down at Sprout, who was busily investigating a bumblebee.

  Shawn shook his head. “It should have been me. I made such a mess of things.”

  “No,” I said, my head snapping around to stare at my best friend. “You didn’t. You risked everything to help me get here even though you thought it was a bad idea from the very beginning. Without you, we’d still be wandering the tunnels of East Compound with no clue where to look. Todd’s entire village and Ivan would still be captured, and all of this,” I said, gesturing to the beautiful remains of Central Park, “would be gone in a matter of weeks.”

  “Does this mean you forgive me for not telling you about the tracker?” he asked, his face painfully hopeful.

  I nodded. “Of course.”

  “But,” Shawn protested, “you lost your dad.”

  I nodded, still bl
inking back tears. I’d grieved for my dad five years ago when I’d thought I’d lost him, but this time was worse. A heavy finality had settled inside my chest, leaving a bone-deep sadness in its wake that I knew was not going to go away anytime soon. I needed time to think, time to come to terms with everything that had happened, time to grieve for my dad in private. My friends were eyeing me in concern, and I forced a watery smile as I ran a hand over Sprout’s knobby head. Friends, I thought as I took a deep breath to steady myself. Friends I didn’t have five years ago; friends who’d practically become family somewhere along the way. I would get through this, I told myself, and this time around I realised I wouldn’t have to do it alone. “I’m not saying I’m OK,” I sniffed. “Because I’m not.” I brushed away tears as I watched Boz’s people arm themselves with tranquiliser guns and headlamps before following Ivan towards the compound entrance. “But I think I will be.”

  “You can’t be serious,” Shawn said, his face an unnatural shade of green. “Is this really where eggs come from?” He looked about ready to vomit as he wiped at the yolky mess covering his hands, and I did my best not to laugh. “You let me eat this stuff for months, and it came from them?” he accused, pointing to the nests of bug-eyed rhamphorhynchus, who rustled their webbed wings indignantly as they resettled themselves. I eyed the strange creatures with their long, lethal beaks and rows of razor-sharp teeth, remembering the first time Todd had taught me how to collect eggs.

  “Yup.” I grinned. “And you loved every minute of it.”

  “I could have lived without this particular lesson,” Shawn complained.

  “Not an option,” I said, grabbing my basket of eggs. “If we are going to live here, we need to do our part.”

  Shawn paused from picking up his own basket to crouch down on the floor, his brow furrowed as he studied something. I was about to ask what he was doing when he stood up, something small, black, and oval-shaped in his hand. “Todd was right.” He laughed. “That plug of Boz’s you used really did look like rhamphorhynchus poop.”

  I snorted and leaned in gingerly to look at the small pellet in his hand. Resettling the basket on my arm, I turned towards the door. “Just make sure you wash your hands before you make breakfast, OK? I don’t really want my eggs seasoned with poop.”

  Shawn tossed the pellet aside, wiping his hands on his pants as though he’d just realised what he’d been holding. I laughed again, and ducked out of the small door and back into the early light of dawn.

  “Helping save all this wasn’t enough?” Shawn whined, gesturing to the snow-covered tree branches that lofted over our heads. “I really have to learn how to cook too?”

  I shrugged. “Only if you want to eat.” An icy December wind whipped past, and I hunched my shoulders inside the thick sweater Todd’s mom, Emily, had knit for me. The snow on the deck of the rhamphorhynchus’s small wooden hut swirled up and disappeared over the edge, falling forty feet to the ground below.

  Shawn stood next to me as I looked out over the snow-covered village nestled snugly in the bare tree branches. Comforting curls of smoke rose from the top of each tiny house, and a warm glow issued from their mismatched windows in the early light of a winter morning. I let out a contented sigh as the smell of frying dinosaur bacon met my nose and my stomach rumbled. Shawn picked up one of the large speckled eggs from his basket and held it up to inspect it. “You know,” he said after a moment, “I actually kind of miss compound food.”

  “You can’t mean that,” I said, turning to start across the rope bridge.

  “No.” Shawn sighed. “But it had one thing going for it.”

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “I didn’t have to battle featherbrained dinosaurs for it.”

  Laughing, I glanced over my shoulder to see him marching across the bobbing bridge without even holding on to the railing. I bit back a smile. If Shawn wasn’t careful, he was going to start being mistaken for a native topsider by one of the many East Compound refugees who had made their homes among the people of the Oaks. Another gust of icy wind had us hurrying back towards the treehouses we’d been calling home for the last two months.

  Todd’s village had reclaimed their homes among the trees, quickly fixing the damage the Noah’s marines had caused and building new makeshift houses for the East Compound refugees before winter set in.

  “Isn’t it odd how quickly this all feels normal?” I asked Shawn, as my new treehouse came into view. It was easy to spot among the other houses of the village. Where the other houses were made of wood, mine was made primarily of brachiosaurus rib bones and a few strategically placed T. rex femurs.

  “You mean living forty feet above the ground or in a house made out of bones?” Shawn asked.

  “Both.” I laughed.

  Shawn wrinkled his nose. “I still can’t believe you live in that thing.”

  “Ivan offered to build me a house.” I shrugged. “Who was I to argue over what he used to build it?”

  “I would have argued,” Shawn said. “It gives me the creeps.”

  “I think it’s perfect,” I said, defensive of my little house.

  “Are you still going to think it’s perfect if Chaz moves back to the lab?”

  “I think so.” I shrugged. “I don’t think she’ll go back, though. She seems to be enjoying treetop living a bit too much.”

  “Treetop living,” Shawn snorted. “I never would have believed it.” I studied my friend’s profile for a second, thinking how treetop living would lose some of its perfection if he’d decided to move back to North Compound. But I knew now that he never would. He’d loved living with his aunt, but she’d been part of the lie that had encased our entire life underground. A lie I knew he wouldn’t be able to forgive her for any time soon. And besides, he’d never admit it, but he was really starting to enjoy fresh air and sunshine.

  “Don’t act like you don’t love living with Emily and Todd,” I accused. “She treats you like her own son.”

  “Her cooking is amazing,” he admitted with a sheepish grin that quickly turned to a scowl. “So why am I being forced to learn about eggs again?” he asked.

  “Did you get them?” Chaz called, interrupting our conversation, and I looked up to see her leaning in the open doorway of our little house.

  “All by himself,” I said proudly as Shawn grimaced. I gave Chaz a conspiratorial wink.

  “Wonderful!” Chaz smiled, clapping her hands. “Now you get to learn how to cook them!”

  “Lucky me,” Shawn grumbled.

  Chaz leaned forward to grab his arm and drag him inside impatiently. “Will you hurry up and get in here already before my nose freezes and falls off?”

  Shawn groaned, but she ignored him and pushed him the rest of the way inside, giving me an inquiring look. I shook my head, not quite ready to go inside yet despite the cold. She nodded and shut the door. Brushing a few stray wisps of snow off our small deck, I sat down, my feet dangling off into thin air. It was something that would have made me want to vomit a mere month ago. I heard Shawn yelp from inside, followed by a splattering noise.

  “Well, that could have gone better,” I heard Chaz mutter.

  “Isn’t it a little cold for sitting outside?” Todd called, and I looked up to see him crossing the rope bridge that connected our house to his. He wore a heavy coat made of stitched-together allosaurus hide with a fox fur lining. It had been a thank-you gift from Ivan for all the help he’d given us. I knew just how warm a coat like that was, having an almost identical one inside my small house. I shivered, wishing now that I’d thought to put it on this morning. Verde trotted behind Todd, chirping and scolding Sprout, who was close on her heels. My tiny dinosaur was not so tiny anymore, and I realised that I wasn’t the only one who had adjusted to life in the trees. Coming up to just below my knees, she paid no more mind to the swinging bridge than Verde did. Upon seeing me, she let out a little croak of delight and almost knocked Todd over in her hurry to say hello.

 
Todd righted himself quickly, shaking his head at Sprout, who was busy snuffling my neck and receiving scratches behind her tiny horns. “She’s going to kill me one of these days,” he said.

  “She didn’t mean it.” I smiled as Sprout let out a huff of contentment and flopped down on my left, her comforting warmth a soothing barrier against the cold. “And you’re right,” I agreed, “it is way too cold to be sitting outside, but I figure I have twelve years’ worth of sunrises to catch up on. So a little thing like frostbite shouldn’t stand in my way.”

  “If you say so,” Todd said, sitting down on my unoccupied right side. We sat in companionable silence, enjoying the simple beauty of the sunrise until the calm of the morning was shattered by a crash behind us. Todd jumped in alarm, turning to look back at my house.

  “Not that way!” Chaz cried from inside. Shawn muttered something unintelligible, and Chaz’s infectious laughter pealed out.

  “What’s going on?” Todd asked.

  “Cooking lessons.” I smirked, raising a skeptical eyebrow.

  “Nice,” he said. “Oh, by the way. Mom said you guys should come over for dinner again tonight. She likes to pretend she’s the mother of four kids instead of just one.”

  The prospect of one of Emily’s meals was a tantalising one, especially since breakfast sounded like it was going to be a little rough this morning. But I felt a twinge of guilt as I thought about just how many times we’d eaten there over the last few weeks. Just two nights before, Emily had invited us over for a meal of roasted apples and vegetable soup in honor of Boz visiting with an update.

  I smiled, remembering the way Boz had scrutinised the contents of his bowl so carefully that his nose had almost touched its steaming surface. Even though Emily was careful now to not serve dinosaur when Boz was present, he always double-checked before taking a bite.

  That night, after determining the soup held only vegetables and broth, Boz had sat back, smiling. “So many exciting things are happening that I hardly know where to begin,” he’d practically crowed. “Your grandfather sends his love, Sky, but he was too busy with East Settlement to come this trip.” I nodded in understanding, although I was disappointed. Ivan had been flying back and forth between the East Compound refugee camp, now called East Settlement, and the Oaks for the last three months, much to his well-vocalised annoyance. The last time I’d seen him he’d called the East Settlement refugees a bunch of “coddled idiots who don’t know a tree from their own blessed left leg.”