Z. Apocalypse (16 page)

‘I’ve gone mad,’ Adam whispered, tears stinging the backs of his eyes. ‘This is another of Geneflow’s sick stunts. I’m wearing the Ultra-Reality helmet, right? It’s just another simulation—’

‘It’s me, Ad.’ The thing that sounded like his father held up scaly hands as if to calm him down. ‘It’s Dad.’

‘What did they do to you?’ Adam
wanted to scream and shout. ‘I mean, they only took you a few days ago . . .’

‘No, Adam. I’ve been here for months. I told you, Josephs made me lie to you.’ A deep shuddering breath in the dark, then more words, slurred and bitter. ‘Geneflow cloned me from a blood sample they took back in Edinburgh. While they were holding me they mapped my mind, replicated my memories and made me into this.
A half man who remembers you, loves you – even if I don’t
look
like the man you care about.’

Adam swallowed back bile. ‘They made you . . . a monster.’

‘Josephs calls me a pioneer of New Humanity.’ The half-human Adlar turned away again as if ashamed. ‘See, they needed me for my skill with Think-Send. But once the bulk of my duties had been performed, they made me a part of their controlled
evolution programme.’

Adam couldn’t help but stare again. ‘Josephs said about making human-reptile hybrids . . .’

‘Yes.’ The reptile-man turned round to face Adam again, a harder rasping edge to his words. ‘Stronger, powerful bodies, harder to break than yours. Bodies that heal faster, that resist radiation, like the Z. beasts – so much better suited to post-apocalyptic conditions.’

Adam froze.
‘Post-
what
?’ He remembered Josephs’ words –
your world will perish
– and the Geneflow sim that had got him into this whole mess. A landscape of endless ruins . . .

‘The apocalypse, Adam. Total destruction.’

Adam stared helplessly at the creature confronting him. ‘Geneflow are working for Russia, aren’t they? They’re going to start World War Three . . .’

‘There’ll be a nuclear war, yes. But
Geneflow aren’t working for the Russians. And Geneflow don’t have nuclear weapons. They don’t need them.’

‘Then how can they start a war . . .?’

‘Don’t you see, Ad? All these high-profile attacks, on the White House, on the British and Israeli parliaments . . . the one they’re planning on Mongolia’s capital . . .’ The half-man shook his hideous head. ‘Geneflow have set the nations of the world
at each other’s throats, breeding suspicion, trying to push the planet to the brink of war . . .’

Adam clutched at a forlorn hope. ‘But . . . if Russia’s not to blame, there’ll be no real evidence.’

‘That’s where I come in. Me and those kidnapped experts . . .’ The reptile-man looked at the floor. ‘Their minds have been mapped and copied, ready to be uploaded into hybrid bodies like mine. So
now Geneflow can allow a few of the originals to think they’ve escaped – and make things even worse.’

‘I don’t get you.’

‘I’ve Think-Sent false memories in these people’s heads. Whole scenes, rendered in Ultra-Reality and placed directly in the brain.’ A boasting tone began to edge his words. ‘I’ve made a Russian scientist believe he’s been held in secret by the CIA, and a Western scientist
believe he’s been a prisoner of the Kremlin . . .’ He laughed, short and hard. ‘That’s
real
programming skill, Ad. That’s game design like nothing else.’

‘It’s horrible,’ Adam whispered. ‘They’ll really believe they’re telling the truth . . .’

‘And as witnesses they’re so well respected, their countries won’t doubt them. The global situation will worsen further with accusations and counter accusations
– until someone pushes the big red button.’ The cloned Bill Adlar twitched. ‘If we’re going to reboot human existence, we must wipe out all the obsolete peoples of the world and replace them with our own.’

‘That’s not you talking, it’s Josephs.’ Adam felt sick. ‘She’s brainwashed you! Used my dad’s –
your
– invention to make you think what she wants you to think!’

‘
Homo sapiens
will be launched
all over again, only this time our species will thrive by intelligent design. Think-Send will educate new humans, unite them in creating one global nation.’

‘Ruled over by Josephs and her friends,’ said Adam bitterly.

‘Course, it’ll be at least ten years before conventional farming and food production is possible again.’ The half-man seemed lost in the nightmare picture he was painting. ‘During
that decade, the Z. beasts will hunt down all survivors of the Apocalypse and kill them. The last of old humanity, gone . . .’

‘But if there’s no food . . .?’

‘We clone our meat and grain here, we recycle our waste water.’ The hybrid crossed to the couch and stared down at him. ‘Above us the city’s ready to fall, but down here we can go on for forty years or more – sealed off from the surface,
and powered by our own atomic plant. Chartered planes are bringing all personnel here to sit out the nuclear winter . . .’

Adam had heard enough. ‘Great! You can all sit around playing sims for years.’

‘With the old world razed, we can go out and begin a better one.’ The hybrid smiled. ‘We can withstand the radioactive conditions. We can work for hours without tiring. We’ll pave the way so that
human beings reach their true potential, their
zenith
 . . .’

As his dad’s clone moved away, Adam could see the security monitor again. He stared miserably at Keera’s half trampled form. Then with an electric
shock in his chest, he caught sight of a quilted bundle lying in the crook of one of the pterosaur’s giant wings.

Oh my God
.

‘Zoe!’ Adam struggled uselessly against the straps that pinned
him to the couch. ‘They’ve put Zoe in there!’

‘Who’s Zoe?’

‘She is!’ Adam jabbed a finger at the screen. ‘We’ve got to get her out. She’ll be torn to pieces!’

‘The Z. beasts would do the same to you.’ The reptile-man was holding a length of wire, and took a step towards him. ‘It’s OK, Adam. In a short while now . . . We’ll be together again.’

‘What are you doing?’ Adam watched, skin crawling,
as his cloned dad drew closer – then remembered Josephs:
A new era is beginning . . . and you, Adam, with your Think-Send skills and with the ear of the United States military . . . you are going to help to bring it about
. ‘You’re going to put fake evidence in
my
head too, aren’t you?’

‘I have to, Ad.’ The reptile man looked ashamed. ‘I’ve so longed to talk with you . . . but once you’re conditioned
you’ll forget all we’ve said. You’ll only remember what we tell you to.’

‘Please—’

‘But I still need to tell you, the only reason I’ve helped them, is because they promised to clone you
too.’ The creature’s scaly flesh puckered in a sad smile. ‘Josephs just showed me the start of the process that will bring a new you into the world.’

‘A new me?’ Adam’s voice cracked with emotion. ‘Dad, you
can’t do this.’

‘I must.’ The clone sounded so tired. ‘Everything’s prepared. Fake memories, impressions, dialogue for you to recall and pass on . . .’ The half-man pushed the wire into a connector on the Think-Send helmet. A pulse of energy buzzed through Adam’s brain and he gasped with pain.

‘I’m . . . sorry,’ the half-man said.

‘My real dad would never hurt me.’ Adam swallowed the threatening
tears. ‘He’d never settle for a different me, something fake.’

‘You’ll be just the same, Ad.’

‘I’ll hate you for ever!’

‘We can change the way you think. Make you forget what I’ve done.’ Though the reptilian skin made it hard to read emotion, the clone’s grey eyes glistened as if with tears. ‘I lost your mother. I won’t lose you too.’

‘Please!’ Adam’s voice grew higher, more urgent. ‘If you
let me go, I could help you, warn my real dad and Oldman that—’

‘Josephs would have me killed.’ A pause. ‘And I want to survive.’

The thing that called itself Bill Adlar walked to
the desk and curled scaly fingers around the computer mouse. Adam strained with all his strength to break free. But it wasn’t enough. He realized with hard, terrifying clarity that this was the end – no last minute
rescue, no friend to save him.

‘Forgive me,’ came his father’s whisper.

Adam heard the click of the mouse – and then a digital express train hurtled into his head. The slam of sound and images broke his mind like bone, and then—

Chapter 17: Looking at You

WHERE AM I
now
? Adam woke sharply and flinched from the bright light. He wasn’t strapped to a couch; he was lying on a kind of hospital trolley. The room was small, bare and painted white. A cracked striplight buzzed above him, and there was a door either side of the bed. He realized he was wearing thermal gear; proper warm clothes, clean and dark, like the ones the
Geneflow personnel had worn. His phone was in his pocket. Hopes rising he fished it out, but the battery had died. He sat up. New boots, too, thick and insulated. Like he was due to go outside. Why was that? He couldn’t think clearly, couldn’t remember what had just—

Zoe
.

Adam sat bolt upright and scrambled off the trolley. Dizziness overwhelmed him and he leaned heavily against the wall. He
saw a clock opposite and struggled blearily to make sense of the figures.
I’ve got to get her out. Got to
 . . .

It was coming up to five o’clock in the morning.
I’ve been asleep for thirteen hours. By now, Zoe and Keera will be
 . . .

Closing his eyes, Adam tried not to picture what must surely have happened hours ago. He waited for tears to build, for some release to come. But there was something
blocking his ordinary thoughts, a memory that sat awkwardly in his mind.

A memory of that hateful reptilian face.

‘You were right about me, Ad.’ His father’s voice, devoid of all emotion, played over the image, tinnily in his head like an answerphone message. ‘I started the process, but . . . I couldn’t go through with it. So, I’ve uploaded just the basic audio-visual files, but without the
mental conditioning to make you believe they’re real.’

Even as Adam thought about this, he triggered a vivid image of Russian soldiers in green uniform, crowding around a Z. rex.
A memory of something I’ve never even seen
.

‘You’ll need this information to play along, ’cause Josephs will want to be sure her “escaped prisoners” tell the right story to their national embassies.’ Mr Adlar’s voice
paused. ‘If she guesses that you’re faking it, she’ll kill us both. But if you can fool her, if you can play her game and win, you’ll be flown to the nearest city, St Petersburg, and released. It’s your ticket out of
this whole mess. Then you can do what they want you to – go to the authorities, tell your story. But of course, what they won’t know is, you’ll be telling the actual truth about everything.
As for what happens then . . .’ His father’s distorted face was fading now. ‘I don’t know. Either the good guys will win, or the bad guys will. But whichever side makes it . . . at least there’ll be a you and a me. Somewhere.’

The message ended and the image disappeared.

‘Oh, Dad . . .’ Adam breathed.
Have you saved me – or is Josephs going to kill me right here?
Then he thought of Zoe lying
crumpled on Keera’s body, sleeping soundly while hungry creatures gathered around her.
I hope you didn’t wake up. I hope you
 . . .

Now the tears began to come. But with them came a pressure. Adam shook his head; a burning pain was building in his temples. Some side effect of tampering with the brainwash technique?

Wiping his nose, breathing deeply, Adam pressed his forehead against a panel of
cold safety-glass in the door.
You can do this. You’ll be released, get back to Dad for real, warn everyone
 . . .

Then he realized he could see an eerie green glow through the glass. There were four large glass
tanks lined up like coffins in the middle of the next room.
What the . . .?

He saw long red hair inside the nearest tank. It floated like some exotic seaweed, hiding whatever else was
inside from view.
Zoe?

Adam tried the door handle.
Zoe could still be alive. Maybe Josephs needed her for some other experiment
 . . . The door opened easily and gave on to a futuristic hospital room suffused with that soft, undersea shine. A huge silver vat loomed beside him and he recognized it in a moment;
a bio-regenerator – Geneflow’s machine for regenerating cells, that helped create Zed at the start of all this
. Cables stretched from the vat to the tanks, feeding them with power and nutrients.

With a dull chill, Adam looked at girl inside the glass, shrouded in white plastic and floating in the green-lit liquid. The hair was the same but it wasn’t Zoe – at least, not the way Adam had known her. She had two legs. Her neck was straight, her fingers even and regular. This Zoe had
been cured, her disability discarded, her old body recycled like so much cheap packaging.

The clone was covered in scales, a glistening hybrid creature. The ridges and cracks in her reptilian skin made it hard to judge age, but Adam reckoned this Zoe was only nine or ten. Her form
was still evolving to its new design.

At least she’s not dead
, Adam told himself.
She’ll live on in a way. But . . . how can this ever be the Zoe I knew . . .?

Adam looked away, confused and upset. As he did so, he saw that the tank beside Zoe’s held another reptile hybrid.

The world seemed to tilt sideways.

He was looking at himself bobbing in the flood of nutrients – himself as a young child. Adam crouched closer to see, his own reflected face superimposed over the clone’s.

What have they done?
He
felt angry, violated, help-less as he pressed a hand against the tank.
No person should have the power to do this
, he thought.
No one should be able to choose how someone will look, or act, or be
.