Z. Rex (18 page)

That was it, Adam realized. He’d been shocked, not drugged, and no one had noticed the difference. And now he was awake, presumably earlier than intended, as his transport was still rumbling through the dark roads around Holyrood Park.

The truck grumbled into a gas station. No lights were on, but they turned left into a big shelter at the back, a car wash, maybe, or a service garage.
Maybe this is my chance to leg it,
he thought.
If I could only get outside somehow.

Then the realization hit him: Where would he go? Where
could
he go to, all alone now? He was as much a prisoner of circumstance here as he’d been in New Mexico.

The situation was taken out of his hands in any case. A few moments later, the ground lurched. They were going down into the darkness.

Adam kept faking sleep, but it wasn’t so easy when you were descending into some creepy underground lair, eerily aglow with orange hazard lights. He wondered vaguely if he was still knocked out, if this was a dream.

The truck came to a halt in a large, rocky hangar. He heard a clamor of echoes—men’s shouts, running footsteps, gruff bursts of two-way radio static, the piercing bleep of the truck’s reversing sensors.

“Place the Z. rex in the holding pen.” The female voice was English and cultivated—Josephs’s voice. “I need to apply the brain sensors, so be quick. The tranquilizers won’t keep it quiet forever.”

Adam risked opening his eyes a crack to see the woman up close through the truck window. She was in her thirties maybe, barely taller than he was, slim and striking with smooth, dark skin. Her gaze held an unsettling intensity.

“We filmed everything that went down at the warehouse, Miss Josephs,” one of the men said. “D’you want the tapes—”

“Drop them at my workstation,” she snapped. “As for the boy . . . the tranquilizer should keep him out a while yet, but you’d better cuff him. Then leave him in the cell with Hayden.”

So they
did
get Hayden,
Adam thought. He looked down at the dart piercing his jacket, its tip embedded in the plastic shell of the phone. Perhaps there was some of the tranquilizer left inside—enough to use as a weapon?

Quickly, he pulled out the dart and slipped it into his jacket pocket. Then he shut his eyes as the truck door he was slumped against abruptly opened and he fell into the arms of some sweat-ape thug. The man wrestled him none too gently into some handcuffs and then carried him away.

Adam heard heavy doors grinding open somewhere behind him, more deep voices:

“I’m not going near that thing.”

“The auto-loader will dump it for us. Get ready to pump in the tranquilizer gas.”

At least Zed’s alive,
thought Adam. Then the sounds were swallowed up, as he was carried deeper into the cold, volcanic tunnels.

He wasn’t sure how long the journey lasted, and though he tried to memorize the turns they were taking, he soon lost track. A heavy door squealed on its hinges, and he was laid down roughly inside. He gasped, unable to keep up the pretense of sleep any longer.

“Adam?”

As the door was closed and locked, he opened his eyes and found Mr. Hayden hovering over him, wild wisps of combed-over hair dancing about his pate. His suit and shirt were a bit crumpled, but otherwise he seemed well. The two of them were in a bare, rectangular room with rough stone walls, a table, a toilet and a single hard bunk. It felt like a prison cell.

Adam felt a rush of relief that he wasn’t on his own. “Mr. Hayden! Have you seen my dad? Is he okay?”

“Josephs says he’s just fine,” Hayden assured him. “As fine as he can be, anyway. Sounds like he’s cooperating.”

“He is?” Adam tried to shrug off a stab of disappointment.
“
Cooperating on what?”

“So far as I can tell, Geneflow Solutions is developing a whole range of projects in facilities all over the world. But don’t think badly of your dad. I’m sure he’s only doing what he has to.”

Adam nodded glumly and forced his thoughts away from that. “How did they get you?”

“I had a visit in the night. Took me by surprise, knocked me out cold.” Hayden mimed being hit on the back of the head. “But, Adam, listen. This thing is massive. You know, we’re inside a secret nuclear shelter, hidden under Arthur’s Seat.” He helped Adam rise. “It was bought from the government by property developers in the 1990s hoping to turn it into a tourist attraction. But when that fell through . . .
they
stepped in.”

“Geneflow Solutions?” Adam rubbed the back of his aching neck. “Who are they?”

“Geniuses, if the Z. rex project is anything to go by. I still don’t believe they could pull off something like that.” He looked hard at Adam. “But you do, don’t you?”

Adam sighed. What was the point in holding out now? “I guess Josephs told you that Zed’s been keeping me a prisoner, of a sort.”

“Zed? That’s your name for it?” Hayden raised his eyebrows. “So, you’ve spent time with the actual dinosaur?”

“Around twelve days,” said Adam, with a strange feeling of pride. “Just him and me, pretty much.”

“What patterns of behavior did you notice?” asked Hayden eagerly.

“Huh?”

“Sorry. I mean, did it display intelligence, or aggression, or . . . ?”

“Uh . . . he showed both, I guess.” Adam took a deep breath. “When I first ran into him, he was really mad. Josephs had tried to burn his brains out. He killed some people—”

Hayden looked at him worriedly. “You had to witness that?”

“It wasn’t his fault,” blurted Adam, surprising himself.
Since when did I start sticking up for him?
“Zed was hurt, people were trying to kill him, and he fought back.” Adam shuddered. “Fought back hard. But he was clever too. He actually defused a bomb—and set it again. Over here, he dug his way down to the electricity supply and ran power through to the old warehouse we stayed in.”

“So it displayed real initiative!” Hayden seemed staggered. “That’s incredible!”

“That’s nothing,” Adam went on. “He actually flew us across the ocean from America, all the way here. It took days and days, and after what he went through, I think it was all too much. He got sick—”

“Physical exhaustion can lead to lowered immune system functioning. But Zed could still communicate? Verbally?”

Adam wondered for a moment at Hayden’s interest.
Dad would be the same,
he reminded himself,
if he heard something like this. “
Zed can speak a bit, read and write even. But like I said, his brain was hurt in New Mexico. He kind of lost his memory, and . . .” He trailed off, his head starting to spin. “Actually,
my
brain’s not feeling too good.”

“Must be the effects of the anesthetic wearing off.” Hayden perched on the edge of the bunk. “Sorry. I guess you expected an interrogation from the bad guys, not me!”

Adam forced a smile as the dizziness passed. “It’s okay. I just wish I knew why they ever made a dinosaur. And so does Zed.”

“Well, I can’t tell you why,” said Hayden. “But I think I can tell you
how
. Since it was my technology that kicked off the whole deal.”

“Of course,” Adam recalled. “When Josephs stole the blueprints of your bio-things. . . .”

Hayden nodded, looking pained. “Our bioregenerators release microscopic molecule machines into the patient’s bloodstream. They work with the body to undo damage and replace it with healthy tissue. But in tests, we found our bioregenerators weren’t only restoring damaged cells, they were
enhancing
them. Making them better than before! I found that, if stimulated correctly, the regenerators can even work on certain fossil remains.”

Adam tried to look as though he had conversations like this every day. “Old bones and stuff?”

“The petrified remains of ancient animals. I thought—if I could only restore those ancient relics for proper study, think what we could learn. . . .” Hayden shook his head gravely. “But these people’s ambitions ran far higher. And it seems they had access to actual soft tissue preserved at the heart of a T. rex femur recovered from hydrated sandstone in Wyoming some sixty-six million years old.” He started to pace about the room. “Somehow they managed to make my molecule machines
fuse
with the dinosaur DNA. Instead of simply regenerating the original dinosaur design, they accelerated its potential evolution through millions and millions of years.” He shook his head, marveling. “Brilliant. Extraordinarily brilliant.”

Crazy, more like,
thought Adam, uneasily. “But I thought dinosaurs evolved into birds,” he said. “How come they didn’t end up turning a T. rex into . . . I dunno, a chicken or something?”

“Evolution is the way in which a life form develops and adapts in response to changes in its environment,” Hayden answered. “Something that happens naturally over millions of years. But there was nothing natural about what they did to those cells.” He drew in a breath and let it out slowly. “I shudder to think what mutations they must have created in their first experiments. They were able to take control of the evolution process. Played a game of prehistoric ‘What if?’ by the sound of things. . . . What if the T. rex had grown wings that would carry him to fresh hunting grounds? What if he developed a kind of advanced chameleon skin, allowing him to blend in with his environment to creep up on prey?”

Adam joined in. “What if he could be made as smart as a human being?”

“Or smarter,” Hayden shot back. “And he had four fingers and a thumb on each hand as we do, the better to shape his habitat?”

“You’d get the ultimate dinosaur,” Adam murmured.

“The ultimate
predator,
” Hayden corrected him. “A highly evolved, highly intelligent killing machine. Do you see now, Adam, why those papers you left with me are so vitally important? They contain information about how the bioregenerators can be applied in the different fields of biology.” He leaned in urgently. “You’re sure you don’t have any more of these notes anywhere?”

Adam shook his head. “It’s like I said—all the ones we took from New Mexico, I gave to you.”

“And the others?”

“Buried in New Mexico. The lab there was blown up.”

Hayden nodded, turned and paced toward the door, his wispy hair standing on end. “So, there’s not a shred of evidence left, you say?”

Adam shook his head, frowning. Something felt wrong. “Um . . . no.”

“Nothing that could incriminate these people or shed light on the process?”

“Nothing.” Adam went suddenly very, very cold. “Mr. Hayden?” He swallowed hard. “You say you got hit on the head. Where, exactly? There’s no mark.”

Hayden turned slowly to face Adam. He smiled reassuringly. “It was the back of my neck they struck.”

“And you said I felt bad ’cause the anesthetic they gave me was wearing off.” Adam’s heart was sinking and dragging every other organ with it. “If you were clobbered by these people, why would you think I was given an anesthetic?”

“Josephs told me, before you . . .” Hayden tailed off, and then sighed. “No, I shan’t insult your intelligence. You’re more astute than you appear, aren’t you, Adam? A little of your father’s analytical ability creeping into that young head, huh?”

Each soft-spoken word was like a nail thumped into Adam’s chest. He found he could hardly speak. “What . . . what’s going on?”

Hayden shrugged. “I guessed you were far more likely to speak honestly about the Z. rex’s operational status and the existence of any further files if you trusted me. And I was right.” He banged on the door of the cell; it swung open at once to reveal Frankie Bateman, standing impassively with a pistol aimed at Adam’s chest.

Adam froze, his eyes hardening as he glared at Hayden. “You were never a prisoner here.”

“That’s right, Adam. I’m actually head jailer.” Hayden gave him a regretful smile. “And if your dad causes me any further problems—you’re dead.”

F
or several seconds, Adam remained stunned by the sudden shift of events. Hayden had been tricking him right from the start. How could he ever have trusted this man?
Because Dad told me to,
he realized,
and because I needed to believe
someone
was on my side
. “You’re in charge of Geneflow Solutions?” he asked finally.

“Let’s just say I’m an influential figure,” Hayden told him.

“But . . . I don’t understand.” Adam glanced at Bateman, saw the gun barrel, looked quickly away. “Your head of security over there tried to get me when I broke into my home, but blew it. How come you didn’t just grab me when I came to your office?”

Hayden smiled. “That would hardly have suited our purpose. We had tried to contain and collect you in America, of course, but assumed you’d perished with the Z. rex when the bomb went off in New Mexico. A pity, we thought, since having your life in our hands gives us good leverage over your father.” His green eyes were gleaming. “When Bateman sighted you outside your apartment, I was glad his attempt to capture you didn’t work out.”