Code Name Flood. Laura Martin

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СКАЧАТЬ tranquiliser gun hanging by Chaz’s side an assessing look. Not wanting him to pull anything stupid, I gave his shoulder a shove with my own, and he stumbled forward into the elevator. Shawn followed us inside, a preoccupied scowl on his face. Despite the disturbing revelation that these people were breeding dinosaurs, I couldn’t help but feel a tingle of excitement. This had to be what my dad had put on his map. It just had to be. As soon as the doors slid shut behind us, Chaz pushed a few buttons and took the tranquiliser gun off her shoulder with a grin.

      “I’ll make you a deal. If you promise not to deck me, I’ll put this thing away. Makes me twitchy pointing it at people anyway.” She shuddered and slung the large black weapon onto her back. “Besides, it’s about out of battery anyway, and running away is impossible now that you’re down here.”

      “What do you mean impossible?” Todd asked, eyeing the panel on the side of the elevator speculatively.

      “Well, you saw how touchy Schwartz was about you guys finding out about this place. It’s because no one knows about us – not the Noah, not the compounds, not anybody,” Chaz explained. “We’re top secret.”

      “I thought the Oaks was top secret too,” Todd muttered darkly, and I winced. His village had been captured when the Noah’s marines somehow tracked me and Shawn all the way from North Compound.

      When I’d left the compound with nothing but my dad’s compass and a poorly drawn map, I’d never expected that the Noah would send General Kennedy and his marines after me. Why would the Noah, the man who controlled all four of the compounds, waste his time on a twelve-year-old girl? The whole idea was mind-boggling, but it was one I’d had to come to terms with.

      In fact, there were a lot of things about the world that I’d had to adjust to after coming topside. For one, that people like Todd existed: people who lived outside the Noah’s control and the compound’s protection. For my entire life, I’d thought survival topside was impossible due to the dinosaurs. Now I was face-to-face with yet another example of that lie. Chaz and the rest of the people in the lab were obviously not descendants of the people the original Noah had shepherded underground over 150 years ago. Which meant that, like Todd, they’d never believed the Noah was the great saviour of the human race like Shawn and I had. It was simultaneously unnerving and exhilarating.

      “What?” Todd cried, and I focussed back in on the conversion. Chaz had continued talking while I’d been lost in my own thoughts, and from the look of horror on Todd’s face, I’d missed something big.

      “Like I said,” Chaz shrugged. “We’re always short-handed, and lab kids start working early. It’s not that great a job really. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a step up from mucking out stalls, but Dr Schwartz isn’t the most personable guy.”

      “We noticed.” Shawn scowled. “About the time he tried to feed me to a sea monster.”

      “Well, in his defence, you did hit him,” Chaz said. “I don’t think he really would have thrown you overboard.” Shawn shuddered and Chaz smiled apologetically. “Yeah, Pretty Boy’s a mean one all right. But pliosaurs and plesiosaurs are the only vicious creatures we help proliferate, and that’s only to protect the lab.”

      “Proliferate?” Shawn asked.

      “Help multiply,” Chaz supplied. “Our main focus is herbivores.”

      “OK,” I said, trying to wrap my mind around this new information. “Then why didn’t you kill that carnotaurus herd on the beach? They were definitely not herbivores.”

      “It’s a lab rule,” Chaz said. “It all goes back to the ecosystem balance I mentioned before. No one likes spiders either, but if we killed them all, the bug population would take over. If we kill off all the carnivores, we throw the entire ecosystem off balance.”

      “Wait a minute,” Shawn said, his brow wrinkled in confusion. “Didn’t you say this lab had been here since before the pandemic?”

      “It has.” Chaz nodded. “Originally it was a top-secret testing centre for the dinosaurs. Scientists back then were interested in discovering what else the dinosaurs might be useful for besides entertainment. This lab has discovered thousands of uses for everything from the oils in their skin to their dung. Medicines, tools, food, you name it, dinosaurs provide it way better than cows or chickens ever could. Which is good, considering all those domestic animals are extinct now. Plus dinosaurs are exceptionally trainable if you start them as hatchlings, and they make pretty fabulous pets.”

      “But what about the pandemic?” I asked. The pandemic was one of the main reasons the human race had been struggling to make a comeback for the last 150 years. The small portion of the population that had survived it had done so because they’d been blessed with immunity to a disease that should have been extinct for millions of years. And while that immunity did seem to be passed down from generation to generation, it wasn’t foolproof.

      “Oh, that,” Chaz said, waving her hand dismissively. “All the dinosaurs we breed are genetically modified so they help eliminate the bacterial strain that caused the pandemic. I’m not sure how well you know your history, but all attempts at a vaccine have failed. But if the genetic modifications work like Boz thinks they will, we might be able to eradicate it completely in the next thirty years. Pretty awesome, right?” When we didn’t say anything, she went on, unperturbed. “Anyway, after the pandemic, the scientists that survived realised that if they didn’t step in, the fragile balance of life topside might implode completely. Without us, there might not be a viable ecosystem topside.”

      “The dinosaurs make it impossible for the human race to survive topside, so who cares about the viable eco-whatever?” Shawn asked

      “It’s not impossible,” Todd said. “It’s just not real easy.”

      “The word you’re looking for is deadly,” Shawn muttered.

      “That’s the thing,” Chaz said excitedly. “Boz has a plan for us to live in harmony with the dinosaurs. We already have quite a few scientists living in our aboveground facility. Boz says that evolution has proven it isn’t just survival of the fittest, but survival of the adaptable!”

      “Wait a second,” Todd said, “I think I heard about a place like that. Some of the traders mentioned a settlement of scientists near the lake.”

      Chaz nodded happily. “That was probably us. We trade with some of the tree people from time to time.”

      “I thought we were all savages,” Todd said, his face tight with anger.

      Chaz cringed. “Not everyone is as biased at Schwartz,” she said apologetically.

      “I still think you’re all nuts,” Shawn said.

      “We’re not,” Chaz countered, sounding slightly insulted. “We do some really amazing stuff here.” When we still didn’t seem convinced, she huffed and punched a new button on the elevator.

      “What are you doing?” Todd asked nervously.

      “Proving to you just how awesome this place is,” Chaz said. “We have some time to kill before Schwartz gets to the conference room anyway. We’ll hit the hatchery first, and then the breeding pens. The dorms and school aren’t that exciting.”

      The elevator dinged, and we stepped out into the gigantic laboratory and my jaw dropped. It was one thing to hear about people breeding dinosaurs; it СКАЧАТЬ