Z. Rex (14 page)

It was close to one-fifteen by the time Adam got off the bus in Leith and started walking back toward the warehouse. He wondered how much he should tell Zed, shivering at the thought of going back into the clammy darkness of the monster’s lair. He wanted to hold on to the sunlight just a little longer. He wanted Mr. Hayden to ring him right away, with good news.

At least I’ve told someone,
he reflected, pausing beside a large, muddy field.
It’s out now.

There were five horses in the field. Three of them were lying down, legs folded, while two others cropped the short grass.

Then one of the feeding horses, large and gray, looked up at the trees on the outskirts of the field and snorted nervously. The horse beside it lifted its head. A shiver of unease seemed to run through the group. Those lying down got to their feet, ears moving nervously backward and forward, eyes wary and nostrils wide. Something had them spooked.

Adam watched, curious, as the first horse started to circle the group at a trot, his tail high. The younger horses in the middle jostled together anxiously.

Then, Adam felt his insides lurch as a blur of green scales suddenly appeared, bounding out of the trees. The horses scattered, ears back, muscles bunching and stretching as they galloped away.

“Zed, no!” Adam yelled, but the words were lost beneath the pounding of hooves. “Don’t!”

The horses couldn’t escape. The wood and wire fence was there, hemming them in. Zed burst into flight, overtook the large, gray horse that had scented him first and landed directly in front of it. It swerved aside but too late to avoid a tail swipe that knocked it to the ground with a sickening crunch. Eyes wide and terrified, it tried to rise but the huge, crushing teeth were already sinking into its sides. Adam turned away, nauseated, and the smallest horse caught his attention. It was cantering in frantic circles, whinnying in distress. Zed flapped briefly into the air like some terrible dragon and landed right on top of it, stamping its hindquarters into the muddy earth.

As Zed began to feed, Adam crouched down behind a fencepost and tried to hold on to his lunch.

This was not the sharply skilled bird-killer he’d seen on the beach in Ontario, or the cunning shark fisher. As the remaining horses dodged and shied in blind panic, Zed turned from the bloody remains of his meal to goad them—hopping about, roaring and clawing at whichever came closest. There seemed no strategy at work. He was playing with his food.

Finally Zed landed a heavy blow to another of the horses. It collapsed to the ground, bloody stripes marking its neck. The dinosaur roared in triumph, bore down over it, jaws widening. As he did so, just for a moment, his eyes met Adam’s.

Adam recoiled. There was no recognition in the beast’s gaze. Only crazed hunger.

Then suddenly the monster shut his eyes, shook his head like something sharp was stuck inside it. The remaining horses cowered back as Zed’s vast bulk seemed to shimmer and all but vanish, before the dinosaur left his kill and launched himself up into the sky and away from the carnage.

Adam stared after the dragon shadow on the air, feeling sick to his stomach.
He didn’t even seem to know who I was.

The rising note of an engine roused Adam as a car drove past. Lucky for the driver he hadn’t chanced by just two minutes earlier.

Adam walked unsteadily onward. Visions of the hunt pooled in his thoughts, vivid as the bloodstains slowly baking into the mud and grass.

It was well past two o’clock by the time Adam neared the warehouse. He had lingered as long as he dared, in no hurry to face the dinosaur again. Obviously Zed had to eat meat, but it was the pleasure he seemed to take in the slaughter that gave Adam the chills. When would Zed next need to feed?

Reluctantly, Adam quickened his step as he turned up the quiet lane that led to the warehouse yard.

“I’m here,” he called warily as he approached the fire doors. He didn’t want to go inside. “Are you back?”

There was no reply beyond the angry hum of the lashed-up cables and a slow, ragged panting. That answered his question.

Steeling himself, Adam went in—and frowned. The lights were on, showing Zed sprawled awkwardly over his bed of dank carpet. He seemed pale again and he was shivering. In the space of half an hour, he’d gone from lethal attacker to feeble animal; the difference couldn’t have been greater. The MP3 player was on the floor, the ghostly echoes of music still sounding from the headphones, slurring slightly as the batteries wore down.

For a few seconds, Adam hung back by the door and regarded him, warily silent. The wild, hideous strength he’d seen Zed use in the field seemed to have fled the dinosaur’s body, but he was taking no chances.

“You’re not looking so good,” Adam said at last, a hard edge to his voice. “Maybe something you ate disagreed with you?”

“Ad,” Zed croaked. “Am . . . Ad . . . am.”

Adam frowned. Zed had never called him by his name before. He moved cautiously closer. “You grabbed your head out there when you . . . Well. Is it your head hurting?”

The black eyes gazed at him, unfocused. “Pain. Brain.”

Adam chewed on a fingernail. This wasn’t the confrontation he’d been expecting. Feeling an unexpected tug of sympathy, he came closer still and stooped to switch off the MP3 player.

Zed thumped the tip of his tail suddenly, growling like a guard dog. Adam left the player alone and quickly straightened up again. “I don’t know what to do,” he said. “It’s not like I can call a vet.”

“Jo . . . sephs.” Zed struggled weakly to rise, but couldn’t do it. “Jo . . . sephs. Pain. Dark.”

Maybe he had some kind of fit,
thought Adam.
That’s why he went crazy out there.
“I wish I knew what you were really trying to tell me,” he said
.
“I found out stuff about Josephs. She’s a woman for one thing—could you not have told me that?”

“Pain, dark,” Zed repeated. He closed his eyes, pursed his scaly lips carefully. “Past . . . pictures. Dark.”

“Past pictures?” Adam had a flash of inspiration. “You mean, memories? You can’t remember stuff?”

“Get.” The dinosaur strained again to lift his head. “File. Man read?”

“Uh . . . he’s started to, yeah.” Adam shifted uncomfortably. “He’s going to help us find Josephs.

“Files,” Zed snarled. “Files tell Adam. Y, Z.”

Adam frowned. “Uh, I did tell you the order got all messed up. But I’m sure he’ll read through them all.”

“FILES!” roared the dinosaur. Struggling up angrily, he towered over Adam. “Y . . . Z!”

“I’m sorry!” Adam cowered away. “I didn’t know you wanted the last files straight back, I . . .” He trailed off, his thoughts racing around a sudden possibility. Wait a second. . . .
Y, Z.

“You don’t know any more than I do about where you came from . . . do you?”

Zed stared down at him, panting hard.

“Is that why you wanted Sedona to read the files at Fort Ponil out loud—to ‘tell Zed’? Is that why you bothered to keep him alive?”

The dinosaur sat back down heavily, shaking the entire warehouse. “Am Ad. Why Zed.”

“Am Ad . . . ?” Adam felt the concrete seem to lurch beneath him, and wiped a sweaty hand through his hair. “Oh, boy. When your brain was hurt, maybe those bits of my brain waves you picked up from Ultra got tangled with your own. . . .”

Making you more dangerous and unpredictable than ever
.

“
Jo . . . sephs,” Zed said again, hoarsely. “Dark.”

“I can shed a bit of light on her,” Adam murmured. “Mr. Hayden said she’s some sort of corporate spy. She steals, like, technology secrets and sells them to whoever pays the most.”

Zed closed his eyes and took a deep, shuddering breath.

“Thing is, was she trying to sell you, or did she steal other secrets to make you?” Adam pondered. “‘Forceevolving cells,’ that was one of the things Mr. Hayden said. And ‘rejuvenation of fossil matter’—I think that means making it younger. Ring any bells with you?”

The question was answered with a wet snort.

“Thinking about it, though . . .” Adam chewed a fingernail, musing aloud. “What if she stole secrets from my dad last year? From the Ultra-Reality system, I mean. And she’s been working on her own version, but something happened that meant she needed
Dad
as well as his Think-Send tech. . . .” He felt a speck of excitement start to snowball. “And it was her, or Bateman, who robbed Dad’s employers in New Mexico to get the U-R equipment—which had my fight moves stored in the memory! Don’t you get it, Zed? That would mean Dad really
isn’t
the one to blame for what happened to you.”

Zed didn’t answer for a while. When he did, his voice was husky and faint. “Dad . . . hurt. Why Zed?”

“I don’t know,” Adam murmured, the brief rush of elation draining away. There were so many questions, so many ifs and maybes—and Zed, the focus of them all, lying there like a fallen giant, unable to give any answers because they’d been burned from his brain. “I’m sorry.”

What if Zed died?

Wouldn’t that be best?
thought Adam, with a twinge of guilt. No more risk of him tearing into the people of the city. Or tearing into Dad, if he ever found him. He didn’t belong in this world. It was like Bateman had said—Zed was a freak.

But for all that, Adam still felt conflicted. This was a real, live genetically modified dinosaur for heaven’s sake, capable of the most incredible things. Including murder and destruction. . . . What he’d seen today with those horses was only the tip of the iceberg.

He glanced toward the fire doors.
Perhaps I could try going outside?
He chewed his lip.
Perhaps I could run. I could find Mr. Hayden again; now that he’s got the files, I can tell him what really happened.

“Ad not go,” Zed ground out suddenly, as if listening in on his thoughts. “Stay.”

Adam closed his eyes. “It’s all right, Zed. I’m not going anywhere.”

He sat down and listened to the whine of power resonating through his concrete prison, and the tinny drone from the headphones. Sat there, waiting for another day to end.

D
ad’s phone went off in Adam’s pocket. He woke with a start, fumbling for the handset, blinking away the sleep. His watch showed it was past eleven o’clock, and the lights were still burning in the warehouse; Zed didn’t seem to have stirred, his breathing still ragged and labored.
What if someone’s seen we’re here?
Adam thought frantically.

Then he saw the words on Dad’s screen: JEFF MOBILE. He felt a jolt of anticipation and accepted the call. “This is Adam, hello?”

“Adam, hey, it’s Jeff Hayden. I’m sorry to call you so late.”

“It’s fine,” Adam said quickly. “I’m up. Um, everyone’s up. Have you heard anything about Dad?”

“I’m making progress.” There was a pause. “Adam, those files you gave me . . . are there any more of them?”

“No . . .” He glanced over at Zed. “That was all I could take with me.”

“It’s incredible, Adam.” Hayden’s voice sounded strained. “If these notes are genuine, then I believe these people have managed to re-create a living, breathing dinosaur. What’s more, they used stolen Symtek bioregenerator technology to help them achieve it.”

“They . . . they did?” Adam swallowed hard.
Zed had healed so quickly after the shark savaged his arm, and he’d survived the brain-blast—it made sense that he’d been exposed to something that helped his body fix itself faster.
“That’s uh . . . wow. So, have you found out where Josephs might be?”

“I’ve got nothing on Geneflow Solutions so far, but I managed to track down an address for Josephs herself, off the Royal Mile. This could be the biggest breakthrough in modern science since we split the atom. It could literally change the world—but if they stole Symtek’s technology to make it happen. . . .”

“They could’ve taken Dad’s too,” said Adam.

“Intellectual property theft is Josephs’s specialty,” Hayden agreed. “She must have been helping herself to all sorts of cutting-edge technology.” He paused, as if marshaling his thoughts. “My first instinct was to go straight to the police—”

“My dad said not to.”

“I know. And in any case, if it gets out that blueprints for our bioregenerators have been given to another company . . .” Hayden whistled. “Believe me, Symtek can do without that kind of publicity. Our stock value would plummet.”

Adam glanced over at Zed, whose eyelids were twitching, and lowered his voice. “So what
are
you going to do?”

“
I’m going to call on Josephs tomorrow morning and insist that she speak with me at Symtek with lawyers present,” Hayden declared. “I’ll confront her with the evidence you’ve given me—and I think perhaps you should be there too.”