Название: Code Name Flood
Автор: Laura Martin
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Детская проза
isbn: 9780008152932
isbn:
“Home sweet home,” Chaz crowed later when Schwartz cut the motor down to a crawl. She stood up and stretched, a wide grin on her face. I glanced around in confusion. Surrounding us on all sides was a seemingly never-ending expanse of rolling waves with no land in sight. What was she talking about?
“Are you sure you should stop here?” Shawn asked, sitting up for the first time to peer nervously at the surrounding water. He hadn’t spoken since he’d thrown up, and his voice still sounded shaky. Not that I could blame him. The image of Pretty Boy swimming towards my best friend was one I wouldn’t be forgetting anytime soon. It had been too loud to do any talking on the trip, and we’d spent what felt like an eternity huddled together on the floor of the boat trying to stay warm as the wind sliced right through our wet clothes.
“Of course I’m sure,” Chaz said. “Get ready to duck.”
“Duck?” Todd asked, glancing up at the sky. “I thought those went extinct years ago.”
Chaz snorted. “They did. Sorry, I meant duck your head. I forgot how hard it is for people to spot the boat dock the first time. Look dead ahead. See where those waves are crashing sort of funny?” I followed her pointing finger and blinked in surprise. About ten feet in front of us the waves were behaving oddly, seeming to hit an invisible object before careening back in the opposite direction. I squinted and then jerked back in surprise when my eyes finally made sense of what they were seeing. Rising from the water was a gigantic mirrored bubble, ingeniously camouflaged with reflective glass so that it melded with the shifting waves of the lake. If I hadn’t known exactly where to look, I could have passed within a foot of it and missed it. Before I could marvel anymore, our boat slid into a small circular hole in the side of the bubble, and into a network of floating wooden docks that spiraled out from a circular centre deck like the spokes on a wheel. Tied to the docks were other small boats like our own, as well as a few larger ones, but the most prominent feature of the entire space was the large glass box on the centre deck. The sound of the water lapping against the walls of the bubble echoed around us as Chaz tied up the boat, and we all got out.
“What is this place?” Todd asked.
“Entrance C,” Schwartz said briskly, leading us towards the glass box, where he pushed a few buttons on a side panel. Moments later a glass elevator emerged, dripping. It seemed so out of place surrounded by the water and waves.
“So this lab?” Shawn said as the doors slid open. “It’s …?”
“At the bottom of the lake,” Chaz grinned. “The place was built as a top-secret testing facility pre-Jurassic domination.”
“Jurassic domi-what?” Todd asked.
“Jurassic domination is the term we use for when the power shift occurred after the pandemic that decimated the human race,” Schwartz said stiffly as he grabbed my upper arm and manoeuvered me roughly into the elevator. Todd and Shawn followed with Chaz right behind. The elevator was cramped, and I found myself pressed against the cool glass wall, my bound hands smashed awkwardly in front of me. My wrists ached, and I twisted them in an attempt to ease the pressure without much success. Still being tied up seemed redundant at this point. We had nowhere to run, and after what had happened to Shawn, none of us was going to attempt to escape by swimming. Although I wasn’t so sure I’d make a run for it even if I had the opportunity. Schwartz and Chaz were my only shot at getting some answers, and after coming this far, I wasn’t going to leave without them. The elevator doors slid shut, and with a soft hum we were sinking. The docking area disappeared and the dark blue of Lake Michigan enveloped the elevator shaft.
Schools of silver-and-blue fish swam in dizzying swirls around the elevator as we sank. Larger, darker shapes were also visible, but they were too far away to see distinctly.
“Are those what I think they are?” Shawn asked, pointing to the hazy blobs.
Chaz turned to squint where he was pointing. “Yup, those are Pretty Boy’s buddies.”
“You seriously named that thing that almost ate Shawn?” I asked. “Why?”
Chaz shrugged. “We’ve named the big ones. Pretty Boy is a kronosaurus; they are particularly nasty. They can eat you in one bite. But I think I’d actually prefer to be eaten by one of them. It would be better than having an elasmosaurus nibble on you a while.” She didn’t seem to notice the look of absolute gob-smacked astonishment on our faces because she went on as though this were all completely normal. “We have regular old plesiosaurs and pliosaurs too.” She began ticking them off on her fingers. “Let’s see, we have the nothosaurs, simolestes, and mosasaurs here. Oh, and a few dunkleosteus. Those suckers have jaws on them like you wouldn’t believe! Dr Schwartz gets the credit for all of them,” she said proudly. “If he hadn’t tweaked their genes, they couldn’t live in fresh water, or our climate for that matter. Most of them lived in the oceans originally.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, sure I hadn’t heard her right. “Do you mean you are still bringing dinosaurs back to life?”
“Well, yes. Sort of,” Chaz said with a worried look at Schwartz. “It’s a little more complicated than that.” All I could manage was to shake my head at Chaz. Were people really still resurrecting the creatures responsible for almost wiping out the human race? I swallowed the tirade of hot anger that bubbled inside me as I imagined them bringing back the very monster that had almost eaten my best friend just moments before.
“You made all those plesiosaurs? That’s just sick,” Shawn said, my own disgust reflected in his face.
“Swimming dinosaurs,” Todd sniffed. “I don’t care what fancy name you call them.”
“They aren’t technically dinosaurs. They’re swimming marine reptiles,” Chaz corrected.
“To savages, dinosaurs and plesiosaurs are nothing but something to eat. You are wasting your time with explanations, Chaz. So, yes, Todd was it? They are just swimming dinosaurs,” Schwartz sneered. Todd bristled.
“They protect this lab,” Chaz said with an apologetic shrug at Todd behind Schwartz’s back. “No one comes poking around plesiosaur-infested waters.”
We continued our steady descent in silence, and soon the sun no longer penetrated the water far enough for us to see the fish or the plesiosaurs. I shivered as the temperature in the elevator became markedly cooler.
Todd was starting to tremble too, but not from the cold. I noticed that his face was white and sweat was running down it. If I hadn’t known any better, I would have thought he was the one who’d been thrown in the lake with Pretty Boy.
“Are you OK?” I asked, pulled momentarily from my thoughts about this mysterious lab and the monsters they’d created to protect it. “You look horrible.”
“I don’t like small spaces,” he said tersely, clenching and unclenching his fists.
“Wonderful,” Schwartz drawled drily, “a claustrophobic savage.” He’d pulled a small port screen out of the duffel bag at his feet and studiously ignored us as he began typing something into it. I gave Todd’s shoulder an awkward pat with my bound hands. I wasn’t especially fond of the tiny space either. My ears were starting to ache and throb. Noticing my wince of pain, Chaz quickly explained how to clear our ears to relieve the pressure from our descent by holding our noses. A minute and one satisfying pop later and the stabbing pain in my head was gone. I made СКАЧАТЬ