Code Name Flood

by Laura Martin

  “This is what your parents wanted,” he’d told me two months ago outside the ruined East Compound when I’d burst into tears upon finding out that he wasn’t planning to fly back to the Oaks with me. “Now don’t do that,” he’d said, wiping at my face with the rough cuff of his sleeve. “I won’t be gone forever, but I feel like I owe it to your mom and dad to give these people as much help as I can. It was their dream to have the human race living aboveground again. This is the first step. If these people can survive, we can send delegates to North, South, and West Compounds in the spring. They will be quite low on some key supplies by then, so they might just listen. If I can do anything to help that happen, then this is where I need to be.” After a speech like that, how could I possibly have been selfish and demanded that he come back with me?

  Ivan, as well as a group of volunteers from both the Oaks and the Lincoln Lab, had helped set up East Settlement just outside the borders of New York City. The East Compound citizens had been less than thrilled when Boz’s team had extracted them from their dark and dinosaur-infested tunnels. Upon learning that the compound’s electrical system was destroyed beyond repair and that so many dinosaurs had flooded the tunnels that getting them dinosaur-free again was impossible, they’d eventually come around to the plan that Boz, Jett, and Ivan had devised.

  With Ivan and Boz’s help, they had quickly built temporary shelters in the trees to protect themselves from the dinosaurs that roamed the abandoned streets of the once-great New York City. Teams of volunteers had ventured back into the abandoned compound’s tunnels armed with tranquiliser guns and headlamps to salvage what technology, materials, and food stores hadn’t been destroyed by the compound’s newest occupants. Those who chose not to stay at East Settlement had split up, some going to the Lincoln Lab and the rest to settle with the people of the Oaks. Under Ivan’s gruff guidance, the people of East Settlement were learning how to navigate this beautiful and dangerous topside world. Someone, and I had a sneaking suspicion it was Ivan, had even created a small patch for the citizens of East Settlement to sew onto their worn grey compound uniforms. When I asked him about why, he’d muttered something about the people needing something of their own to identify with, but I knew the simple silhouette of a rainbow was more than that. Just seeing that patch filled me with a sense of hope that maybe we would be able to convince the other compounds as well.

  Even now plans were being made to send a group of volunteers to the three remaining compounds in hopes of convincing the inhabitants to move topside. Shawn and I had already put our names on the list for the team going to North Compound, and I wondered what it would feel like to walk those familiar tunnels again. I wasn’t sure if we’d be able to convince everyone to give up the safety of life underground, but it was worth it to try. Life in the sun was too dazzling to miss. My parents had died pursuing the dream of humans and dinosaurs sharing the topside world again, and I was excited to be a part of making their dream a reality.

  “I don’t always approve of your grandfather’s methods,” Boz had said, and I’d jerked myself from my musings to focus in again on what he was saying.

  “Methods?” I repeated.

  “The hunting of dinosaurs.” Boz sighed. “But I understand that the citizens of East Settlement do have to eat. He’s been very good about only shooting the species that have become overpopulated in the area, so that’s something, I suppose.” Boz grimaced. He’d worn a very similar look the day that Ivan had flown in with supplies for the citizens of the new settlement. Rolled hides, bones, claws, and teeth of over fifty different kinds of dinosaurs, thirty bows made of carved dinosaur rib bones, and enough rib bones to make over one hundred more. Ivan had shown up at East Settlement like a short, grumpy, one-armed Santa Claus with his loot, and Boz’s face had gone white. Over the next few weeks, the refugees of East Compound had used it all.

  I’d thought Ivan had cleaned out everything he had, until the day a helicopter had landed at the Oaks, and he had appeared with four burly men. Out of the depths of the helicopter had come a small fortune’s worth of T. rex femurs, allosaurus vertebrae, and brachiosaurus ribs. Up until that point, Shawn, Chaz, and I had all been staying in Todd and Emily’s tiny house. Ivan had taken it upon himself to build me a proper home before winter hit. The result was the strangest and most wonderful house the Oaks had ever seen.

  Constructed of the thick and surprisingly light rib bones of a brachiosaurus, its walls and roof arched gracefully, giving it a unique curved shape unlike any of its boxy neighbours. Ivan had insisted on weaving the stretched and dried hides of a T. rex through this structure for added insulation before finishing off the inside with wood. The main deck and floor were also made of wood, and two compact beds had been built to fold down neatly from the walls at night, making the small house almost roomy during the day. Inside, it had a fireplace and even a kitchen table, dragged up from the depths of East Compound. It was small, but it was mine, and it felt more like home than North Compound ever had. Of course, convincing Chaz to live in a house made primarily of dinosaur bones had been a bit of a challenge, but she’d eventually come around.

  Thinking of my house brought me back to the present, and I ran my hand across the smooth boards of my deck and glanced over at Todd, who was leaning back on his elbows to enjoy the view, oblivious to the cold or the fact that snowflakes had begun to drift down to settle on his eyelashes.

  “Tell your mom we’d love to come to dinner,” I said as Shawn yelped again from inside. “We may be really hungry after Shawn drops our entire breakfast on the floor.” Verde headed into the house to take advantage of Shawn’s clumsiness, and Sprout lumbered to her feet and followed, clucking quietly to herself.

  Todd grinned after them, shaking his head. “What are you going to do when Sprout gets too big to live up here? She’s going to be gigantic, you know. I’m sure you haven’t forgotten what a full-grown pentaceratops looks like.”

  “I haven’t,” I said, thinking of how I’d been almost smashed by one in the tunnels of East. I shrugged. “I’ll worry about that when it happens.”

  “If you say so,” Todd said, sticking his tongue out to catch a particularly fat snowflake on its tip. He missed and barked a laugh that echoed out through the sleepy woods. He doggedly tried for another one, and I grinned. He’d turned into a better friend than I’d ever imagined.

  I pulled my old battered journal out of my pocket to add a bit of information about the rhamphorhynchus nesting habits and paused. Now that I had Chaz, Todd, and Ivan, walking dinosaur experts, it occurred to me that I didn’t really need the journal anymore. I ran my thumb over its water-damaged cover. Just like me, it had beat the odds and survived the trip from North Compound all those lifetimes ago. Boz had brought it for me from the Lincoln Lab on his last visit. I’d greeted it like an old friend and spent hours filling page after page with pictures of pentaceratops, condorraptors, and Grand Central Terminal.

  Flipping back to the beginning, I’d read a few of my early entries. The Sky Mundy of the compound was so scared and beaten and unhappy. My entire life had revolved around finding out what happened to my dad. For five years his abrupt disappearance had haunted me. It didn’t anymore. I finally understood why he’d done what he’d done, and I knew he’d made the right decision leaving me behind all those years ago. Besides, I’d gotten to see him again, to hug him, to hear that he was proud of me. It was more than I’d ever hoped for. And in the end, that would have to be enough. Besides, I knew where he was now, buried on a hill in the beautifully overgrown remains of Central Park. It was where Ivan had buried my mom over twelve years ago, and after all this time they were finally together again.

  He’d set everything in motion, and his actions had allowed me to do what I did. The day we’d buried him had been the same day Boz had finally located the Noah’s nuclear armoury. I’d stood by my parents’ graves and watched the long metal tubes get dropped one by one out of the belly of a helicopter to sink to the bottom of the ocea
n.

  I looked at my journal one more time. It was scarred and broken, but I wasn’t anymore. Before I could think too much more about it, I tossed it off the deck. It flew through the air, pages spread, and then fell, disappearing in the swirl of ever-increasing snowflakes.

  “What did you do that for?” Todd asked in surprise.

  I shrugged. “It was time,” I said.

  “If you mean time for breakfast, then you’re right!” Chaz called cheerily from behind us. She was standing in the open doorway and a warm gust of air blew out behind her, carrying the scent of cooked eggs with a definite undertone of something burned.

  “Did someone say breakfast?” came a rough voice from directly below our feet, and I yelped in delight as Ivan threw open the small trapdoor in the floor of the deck and emerged, shaking the snowflakes off himself and smiling broadly.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked as I gave him a quick hug. He smelled of pine and earth, a combination I’d grown to love.

  “I thought it was high time I visited my favourite granddaughter,” he said. “Make sure she’s getting along all right. Besides, I needed a break from those blasted refugees. Always snivelling about the cold or the wet. Bah,” he said, making a face that clearly described his feelings on the matter.

  “Well, I’m glad you’re here.” I grinned. “You must be freezing. Let’s go inside. Shawn just finished making breakfast.”

  “He did, did he?” Ivan said doubtfully.

  “Be nice,” I hissed. “He’s trying.”

  “I’m always nice,” Ivan retorted, looking offended.

  Todd snorted from behind us, but Ivan pretended not to hear. He turned to me, my tattered journal held in his good hand. “I believe you dropped this. It about hit me on the head as I was climbing up here.”

  “Oh,” I said, feeling silly as I took it from his hands. “I was going to get rid of it. I didn’t think I needed it anymore.”

  “Keep it,” Ivan advised. “Sometimes knowing who you were and what you came from is just as important as knowing where you’re going.”

  “Will you guys get in here?” Shawn called, opening a window to glare at us. “I went to a lot of trouble, and it’s getting cold.”

  “I hope you like your eggs crunchy, Chaz muttered under her breath as we headed towards the door.

  “I heard that!” Shawn scowled.

  “If I wasn’t so hungry, I would pass,” Todd said, already heading inside. “But I’m starved.”

  I was the last one on the deck, and I hesitated a moment, looking out over the horizon. The glow of dawn was just beginning to illuminate the tops of the frost-covered trees, and in the distance I could see green-and-brown speckled dinosaurs moving in a large herd over a snow-covered hill. I let out a contented sigh. The topside world had turned out to be more amazing and dangerous than I ever could have imagined, and I still had so much of it to see.

  “My word, boy, these things have more shell in them than eggs!” I heard Ivan complain through the open door. Smiling, I headed inside, my journal a familiar lump in my back pocket. The next chapter of my life was going to be an exciting one, filled with friends and tree houses and, of course, dinosaurs.

  Dear Reader,

  I grew up on the border of Indiana and Illinois near Lake Michigan, so I spent a large part of my childhood playing on Lake Michigan’s beaches, diving beneath its waves, and running up its dunes. But I was never able to look at that massive body of water without my imagination getting the best of me. Logically, I knew there probably wasn’t anything monstrous living in those murky depths, but secretly, I wanted there to be. Scotland supposedly had a monster, why couldn’t Lake Michigan have one too?

  Many have theorized that Scotland’s Loch Ness Monster, nicknamed Nessie, is really a plesiosaur left over from the age where creatures the size of yachts used to swim around snacking on dinosaurs. The mere idea of Nessie has haunted and terrified generations, so when I sat down to write Code Name Flood, I couldn’t help but wonder … how much scarier would an entire lake full of these prehistoric sea monsters be? The answer? Terrifying.

  Plesiosaurs, mosasaurs, pliosaurs … you name it, I had them swimming in Lake Michigan for book two. Then I dumped my main characters into the water

  and let the fun begin. However, as delightful as writing about sea monsters was, I kept stumbling over the fact that they weren’t considered dinosaurs, just prehistoric marine reptiles. And it annoyed me in the same way that Pluto getting demoted to a dwarf planet did. My editors even asked me at one point to have Sky explain why the terrifying creatures swimming around in my book weren’t considered dinosaurs. And I begged them not to make me. Why? Because the reasoning behind it is confusing and downright dull. It has to do with things like the position of the animal’s hip bones and the exact placement of the eye sockets … snore. Besides the boredom factor, none of this information felt normal or natural for Chaz or Sky to explain. Thankfully, my editors agreed.

  Elasmosaurus, the long-necked guy on the cover, is probably the most iconic of the plesiosaurs. Described as looking like a snake threaded through a turtle’s body, it’s the one most often credited as a Nessie look-alike. But that snake-like neck is the reason I had to rewrite the entire scene where Sky almost gets eaten. In my original draft, Sky was attacked from above as the elasmosaurus hoisted its neck and head out of the water. Turns out, the elasmosaurus couldn’t do that. Paleontologists aren’t really sure why it had that long neck, but they do know it couldn’t carry it around like a swan like many of the most famous and fraudulent early photos of Nessie seem to show. Oh, and the bit about them being attracted to light? That is purely from my imagination. Without any research proving the contrary, creative license allowed me to make the Lincoln Lab a beacon for these toothy and terrifying creatures.

  Pretty Boy, a kronosaurus, was probably my favorite sea monster to research, although Shawn in particular didn’t appreciate its addition to the story. Kronosaurus, named after the unsavory Greek god Cronus, was one of the big hitters for prehistoric marine reptiles, and Sky’s unlikely savior in this book. Which is one of the reasons it earned a spot front and center on the cover of this book. I wanted the image to have the same feeling as the original poster for the movie Jaws. You know, the one where that poor girl is swimming along peacefully, completely unaware that Jaws is coming up from below? Yeah. That one. The obvious difference would be that Sky knew exactly how much trouble she was in. But using Pretty Boy on the cover created a bit of a problem as its profile view looked a little too similar to the spinosaurus from The Ark Plan, who is the only swimming dinosaur to date. What can I say? I apparently have a thing for toothy crocodile-like dinosaurs! Our solution was to turn it so that readers could clearly see that this toothy beast had flippers.

  Dinosaurs and now prehistoric marine reptiles (see what I mean about that feeling awkward?) have been a blast to research and write about, and I hope that I created novels that brought dinosaurs thundering off the pages of history books for you. If I did my job right, you’ll never look at dusty dinosaur bones again without imagining how our world would be different if they ever made a comeback.

  Until next time,

  Laura Martin

  How do you begin to thank the people who helped make the most passionate dream of your heart a reality? Somehow, a paragraph in this book doesn’t seem to cut it. But until I win the lottery and can fly everyone somewhere exotic and warm, this will have to do.

  First, I have to thank my parents, Jim and Joyce Van Weelden, who gave me a magical childhood, supported me in my every endeavour, and prayed for me. For my dad, who taught me the importance of a strong work ethic and a good left-handed lay-up. For my mom, who read too many versions of my book to count and worked tirelessly to help make my dream a reality. Without her this book never would have happened. I am who I am, what I am, and where I am because of my amazing parents. Thank you both from the bottom of my heart.

  For my brother, Aric, who reminds
me constantly not to take myself or this life so seriously. When I wrote the character of Todd, it was with your mischievous and big-hearted personality in mind. For Allison and Jenna and too many friends and family members to mention, who have always been in my corner no matter how awkward or uncoordinated I was.

  For the countless teachers in my life who pushed me to be better, specifically the teachers of Illiana Christian High School and Butler University. For Jeff DeVries, for challenging me even when I didn’t want to be challenged, and Dan Barden for telling me to stop making excuses and just write a good book.

  For the countless middle school students who walked through my classroom door every year at Clay Middle School. This series was inspired by and written for the quirky kids who made teaching the best job in the world.

  For Alec Shane, who first pulled my book out of the slush pile and told me it would make a great middle grade novel. For Jodi Reamer, my rock-star agent, thank you for your excitement, feedback, and unwavering belief in this series.

  For my team at HarperCollins: after years of dreaming of publishing a book, this experience has been better than I could have ever hoped. For Tara Weikum and Harriet Wilson, thank you for the brainstorming and insights that helped turn the Edge of Extinction into the series it is today. You are both brilliant. Thank you to my cover artist, Eric Deschamps, and the entire art department for making my characters and vision for these books come to life.

  For the most important person in my life, my husband, Josh. I cannot begin to thank you for being my rock, my supporter, and my best friend through this entire journey. I couldn’t ask for a better partner in this life. For my daughter, London, and son, Lincoln, you two are the inspiration that lights up my days and the push that makes me want to be better.