Z. Raptor (22 page)

Adam shook his head. “How does making two kinds of dinosaur fight each other to the death achieve anything?”

“You're missing the point entirely.” Josephs switched on a monitor set into a console beside Loner, and it began to fill with data. “Our original aim with the Z. rex project was to create a highly trained, obedient slave animal. When that beast developed free thought, however primitive, it suggested more exciting possibilities.”

“Oh, I bet you just peed yourselves with excitement,” drawled Chen.

“Our ultimate aim is to combine the human and dinosaur forms into a hybrid creature,” said Josephs, ignoring him. “The raptors are among the most intelligent dinosaurs, but it's still not possible to upload a human personality into the brain of an animal and expect it to remain stable. We will have to manipulate many generations of raptor to achieve the proper balance. Evolution is a multilayered story.”

Haskins nodded with enthusiasm. “Starting with the marriage of human ambition and bestial instinct.”

Adam felt he was starting to understand. “You took the minds from human predators 'cause they were closest to
animal
predators.”

“It was my job to assess the prisoners,” Haskins revealed. “They were split according to their IQ score and how they performed on the Ultra-Reality simulation.”

“The smartest ones were made into Vels,” said Adam, “and the others became Brutes?”

“Both raptor breeds were programmed with the instinct to feed human to their young at the first hatching.” Josephs gestured to Harm. “By keeping people like her prisoner—people we brought to the island—they would have the opportunity to study human behavior over a period of months, awakening unconscious connections within their minds . . . reminding them of their own human inheritance.”

Chen shook his head in disgust. “All these men and women fighting so hard to stay alive . . . dragged here just to help along your sick experiment.”

Haskins ignored him. “The Brutes had more of their humanity repressed than the Vels,” he said. “You've seen the difference, I'm sure. The Brutes would occasionally kill humans despite their conditioning. They've behaved like typical animals in the wild. But the Vels cooperated as a tribe, learned to use human tools and weapons . . . even went so far as to move their camp from the wilds outside into the base itself, make themselves fully at home in a human dwelling place.”

Josephs glanced at the screen, which still showed a blurred view of Brute eggs. “Unfortunately, with their human traits closer to the surface, the Vels have proved more prone to mental breakdown.”

Chen nodded. “Lucky for your ‘studies' that your hidden door backed onto their sickroom, huh? If they'd been playing all-night card games in there, you might've found the coming and going harder.”

“We had hoped the Vels' offspring would prove more stable,” said Haskins. “But now we'll never know.”

“We can look to enhance and strengthen the human genes in the Brute hatchlings,” Josephs said to him. “What we learn from dissecting the brain of Loner could offer several shortcuts through the process.” She held up a sinister-looking surgical tool. “He's survived the mental imbalance and seems to have come through with plenty of human traits intact—”

“Just say you crack this crazy process of yours,” Chen said. “Do you really think anyone's going to thank you for sticking their mind into one of these dinosaurs?”

“When this technique is perfected, the finest scientific minds need never die,” Josephs proclaimed. “The bodies that house them will be close to indestructible—and should the worst happen can easily be uploaded again to a
new
form.”

“This is all wrong!” Adam shouted.

“It is simply radical and different, so you fear it instinctively. I suppose you feel that no one should have such power.” Her sympathetic smile hardened to a sneer. “Well, they do, now. And they will use it.”

“But you don't have to cut Loner open,” Adam protested. “Just talk to him.”

“His cells will talk to me, clearly and honestly.” Josephs looked at Loner's body on the slab. “Lowe lay here while we took his mind . . . now here he is again as we take his life.” She turned to the guard. “Ford, we've wasted enough time enlightening our guests. Take the children to my office.” She turned to the Asian woman. “Dr. Lee, once you've finished setting up here, start recording their impressions of Loner's behavior. If they give you any trouble . . .”

Dr. Lee looked unhappily down at the floor, but nodded.

“As for Agent Chen . . .” Josephs shook her head. “Too dangerous. I think we'd best take you through the hidden door upstairs and let the Brutes find you. Give them one more for their feast.”

“You just can't let those monsters kill so many innocent people!” Chen shouted. The guard—Ford, Josephs had called him—hauled Chen roughly to his feet, but as he did so, Chen butted him in the stomach, shoving him back against Loner on the slab. Haskins ran forward to help restrain Chen, but the agent planted a boot in his stomach and sent him tumbling into a tray of instruments that clattered all over the tiled floor. The guard, staggering back from the slab, blasted Chen with the shock gun. With a high-pitched yell, Chen collapsed to the floor.

Josephs stared at him, flustered and seething with anger. “Deal with him first, Ford. Do it.”

Ford nodded, and Adam stared helplessly as the guard hauled Chen's body out of the room and the door swung shut behind them.

“Now.” Josephs glared down at Adam. “I trust you and the girl will prove a little more cooperative?”

“Sam, wait.” Dr. Lee sounded concerned as she pointed to the screen. “What's this?”

Through the camera implanted in the alpha male Brute minding the makeshift hatchery, Adam recognized One Eye and the rangy female, the two Brutes who'd attacked Loner back by the bone pit. They bobbed their heads low, turned down their claws, acting passive. Then, without warning, they started trampling the eggs, cracking them open, stooping to devour the fleshy innards. The alpha Brute rushed to the attack, spitting acid at One Eye and slashing the smaller one with his claws.

Haskins, still on his knees, was watching in horror. “What're they doing?”

“Those are the last of the eggs!” Josephs had bunched her fists. “If they're destroyed, we'll have no hatchlings for study at all!” She yanked a two-way radio from her lab coat. “Ford, come in. Come
back
.” She shook it crossly. “Damned batteries . . . Ford, this is Josephs; forget Chen, you've got to—” As the carnage on screen continued, she gave up on the radio and ran to the door, hurling it open and pursuing the guard down the corridor. “Ford! Ford, get back here!”

But Adam saw that One Eye had something clamped in his clawed hand. Something small and metal. One Eye rammed it into the alpha Brute's jaws. The point of view blurred as the beast staggered backward—and then the screen flared red before sputtering into static.

Haskins seemed shell-shocked. “Was that a
grenade
?”

Dr. Lee nodded. “Must've been taken from the armory. Explosion took out the cameras. . . .”

“My cue to take out
you
.”

Adam started at the sound, the now-familiar unearthly whisper. Again, as Loner jerked upright on the slab, his terrible injuries seemed all but healed. He looked stronger, more fearsome than ever.

Haskins flinched. “What the—?”

He'd barely said a word before the raptor swung his arm in a lethal arc, slicing open the man's chest. Haskins fell soundlessly, eyes wide, a huge red patch spreading through his shirt.

“You can't be awake!” Dr. Lee backed away. “I gave you enough sedative to keep down an animal twice your size.”

She grabbed one of the surgical tools. But as she lunged forward to use it, Loner kicked her into the blank screen on the wall so hard that glass and skull split open together. She slid down the wall, leaving a bloody trail on the whitewashed bricks.

Just then Josephs re-entered. There was no sign of Ford.

Loner loomed over Josephs.

“Don't kill her, Loner!” Adam shouted. “We need to know what else Geneflow is planning, where their other bases are.” He shut his eyes and covered his ears as Loner attacked.

It was over quickly.

Adam looked at the scarlet pool spreading beneath Josephs and felt his stomach twist with nausea. Worse, Josephs's eyes were open . . . and they were focused directly on Adam.

“It's all right,” she said in a ragged whisper. “I'm still alive. I won't be killed quite so easily. . . .”

She's in shock,
thought Adam, fear and revulsion clouding numbly inside him.
She's lost it.

“I won't be killed,” she whispered again. Then she grinned as a trickle of blood leaked from her mouth and her breathing stopped.

Josephs was dead.

A
dam trembled as Loner reached behind him and cut his ropes with a flick of one claw. He rubbed his aching wrists, his mind reeling from all that had just happened, all he had learned. Since he'd washed up on the island, he'd been thinking of the raptor as another Zed, a misunderstood monster acting basically for good. But now he knew Loner's true heritage.

And alone with him, Adam was terrified.

“It's over now.” Loner lifted him gently onto the slab. “What is wrong?”

“Nothing,” Adam whispered.
Just what crimes did you commit to land you on death row?

“Where is Chen?” Loner asked.

“A guard took him up above to be given to the Brutes for the feast.”

“With the eggs destroyed, there will be no feast. The prisoners are safe.” Loner glanced around. “The guard didn't come back?”

“Not yet.”

“And Harm is still asleep?”

“She hasn't woken since the fire.” He looked into Loner's lantern eyes. “Look—Lisa, David, Dr. Stone and the others . . . surely we need to—”

“I told you, they're not in danger anymore.” Loner kept his gaze fixed on Adam. “My followers have smashed the eggs and killed the other Brutes. They won't harm the captive humans.”

“Followers? You mean the one-eyed Brute and his girlfriend . . . they serve you?” Adam frowned. “But they attacked you yesterday. Half killed you.”

“And I beat them,” Loner bragged. “That proved my power to them, made them willing to follow me. Especially once I'd killed their queen.”

“But why would they kill their own kind just 'cause you told them to?” Adam didn't get it. “You're a Vel, the enemy—”

“I was an outsider, just as they were,” Loner insisted. “You saw their pathetic gang—bottom of the pecking order, always fed last and passed over for breeding. I encouraged them to take revenge on those who spurned them—just as I did.”

Adam swallowed dryness in his throat. “So . . . now what?”

“They planned to have hatchlings of their own to feed on the humans. . . .” The raptor barked his laughter. “But now that they've done what was required, I will kill them—before they kill me. Lisa and David will be so happy, won't they? They'll be pleased with me. All the humans will. Everything has gone according to plan.”

Adam's unease was growing. Loner sounded wilder, rougher. “Uh . . .
your
plan?”

“Did Josephs say things to you about me?” Loner asked suddenly. “About who I used to be?” Loner stared down at him, his scaly lips twitching. “Bad things?”

“N . . . no.” Adam couldn't keep the tremble from his voice. Sitting on this cold slab, surrounded by bodies, alone with . . . what?

A psychopath,
Josephs had said.
A manipulator. One of the most dangerous men here.

“She did, didn't she?” Loner tipped his head to one side. “You know about me now. Don't you?”

“I . . . I know you've been through things I could never imagine,” Adam began. “I mean, it's no wonder you wanted to help the people here. Deep down, you must've known that
you
were human once.” He hesitated, looking into Loner's eyes. “And I know that whoever you were before this happened and whatever you did, you're different now. You . . . you've changed.”

“Changed.” Loner seemed to taste the word in his mouth, jaws twitching. Then he sighed, a gust of hot, wet breath. “Oh, Adam. I haven't changed at all—”

Suddenly the raptor pounced forward, claws splayed, jaws cranking open. Adam shouted out in horror as Loner grabbed hold of him by the shoulders and slammed him back against the slab.

“What are you doing?” Adam struggled helplessly. “Let me go.”

“You kids, you're so trusting, aren't you? So stupid. I told you, stupid is good. People like me, we
love
stupid.” Loner's jaws swung shut, the scaly muzzle grazing Adam's cheek. “Oh, but I'm forgetting—there
are
no people like me. Not now.”

“Josephs said it wasn't really possible yet to put a human mind inside an animal,” Adam whimpered, as if parroting the words might make them true.

“Then we know better than she does,” Loner hissed. “Because I know exactly who I used to be . . . and all that I can become.”

“But you . . . you helped us.” Adam couldn't accept what was happening. “Harm and Lisa and David and me—you risked your life for us over and over.”

“Of course I did. That was the plan. I
had
to keep you alive.” Loner bared his teeth in a crocodile grin, his voice harder, rougher. “I always knew that when this was over I'd need witnesses. Grateful survivors who'd testify to my goodness, my kindness.” A quiet chittering sound rose from his throat like a snake's rattle—or like laughter. “That's why I can't leave any incriminating evidence behind. Like Josephs and her scientists. Like those files.”