Z. Rex (22 page)

Get out, Zed,
Adam willed him,
just get away
. Then Bateman stepped over him, blocking his view. Still struggling for breath, Adam watched the big, sneering man draw back his fist, a slow and measured movement—like a blunt arrow being readied for flight. Zed’s roar of pain and fury rattled the speakers and tears blurred Adam’s view as the fist hurtled down toward his face.

T
here was a booming crack—as Bateman’s fist hit the floor and the rest of him followed in a crumpled heap.

Adam wiped his eyes. His dad was standing over him now, wielding the Think-Send keyboard in shaking hands. He chucked it away and scooped up Adam into his arms.

Feeling sick with relief and about a hundred miles tall, Adam pressed his head against his father’s chest. “My dad, the action hero.”

Mr. Adlar pulled away, squeezed his arms. “Very clever, bringing that dart down on my watch strap. Seemed to fool the others.”

“Dad, look!” Adam pointed up to the monitor screens with a jolt of excitement. The Y. rex had started moving its arms up and down again and shaking its head, the “calm-down” routine Adam had seen earlier. And rather than press home his advantage, the wounded Zed was scrabbling at the heavy doors blocking the west exit with bloodied claws.

“I put Y out of attack mode,” said Mr. Adlar, studying the switches on the door console. He jabbed one, and both doors to the Ring began to crank slowly open. “I don’t know how long it’ll remain harmless but—”

“What have you done?” Hayden, a blackening bruise on his forehead, struggled up, stumbled over Josephs’s fallen body and started hammering at her computer keyboard. “You just killed your son, Bill. I hope you know that. The Y. rex will—”

“I’m sick of your threats, Jeff,” Adam’s dad shouted. “I won’t be your prisoner a minute longer.” He started forward to confront Hayden—but Bateman had stirred and made a grab for his ankle. Adam quickly kicked Bateman’s wrist away before he could make contact. Seeing the danger, Adam’s dad retreated back to the door console and yanked a cable from the back of the unit. Sparks spat from the metal housing. “That’ll jam the doors. Come on, Adam.”

“How far d’you think you’ll get?” Hayden screamed after them.

Mr. Adlar didn’t answer as Adam followed him into the fetid darkness of Y. rex’s pen. Hayden’s voice echoed weirdly after them: “All security to the Ring, west exit. Doors jammed open—proceed with caution. Eliminate anyone and anything that tries to leave.”

Adam stepped carefully over the shattered rib cage of some long-dead animal. “Does this tunnel lead anywhere else?”

“Only to the Ring. So we’ve got to be fast.” His dad led the way through the passage. “Y. rex is liable to snap out of the trance at any moment—bleeding, sore and very, very angry.” He looked seriously at Adam. “Zed is our one hope now for getting out of here.”

Wading through the gloom they reached an archway in the back of the wall guarded by a huge, half-raised door. The dented steel was scored with deep scratches. Adam shuddered as he ducked down beneath it and into another huge tunnel, just like the one in Fort Ponil. His heart felt tight as a drum. He was sure he could hear scuffling behind them. Bateman? Guards? Maybe even Hayden himself. . . .

His dad caught his hand and squeezed it. “It’s okay, Ad. We’re going to get out of here.”

“You honestly think that?” Adam squeezed his hand back and pulled away. “You don’t have to treat me like a kid, Dad.”

“Maybe if I’d remembered you
were
a kid instead of treating you like luggage to carry around with me, we wouldn’t be in this mess now, huh?” Mr. Adlar sighed. “I am unbelievably proud of you, you know that? I should have told you more often.”

Adam looked at him. “Now you’re sounding like you really
don’t
think we’re going to get out of here.”

His dad’s only answer was a wry smile. Adam smiled back and stayed close to him. Somehow, the silence between them felt more comfortable now.

They moved quickly, quietly into a smaller cave, studded with bright spotlights. “This antechamber is where Y. rex is inspected for damage after missions,” Mr. Adlar explained. “The Ring’s straight ahead.”

“And so are Bateman’s mercenaries.” Adam tensed up as he heard the sudden blast of shock-guns and the crack of bullets. “They must be finishing off Zed. He’s hurt already, he won’t be able to—”

A soft, broken whining sounded from up ahead.

“Zed?” Adam broke away from his dad, ran through into the arena—and almost collided with the bloody, slobbering chops of a fallen dinosaur. His heart lurched—this was not Zed, but the Y. rex. It still had all its teeth, and the wounds on its neck caused by Zed’s raking claws were still bubbling blood. The scaly eyelids were screwed up tight, and claws and tail were twitching in time to the rattle of the gunfire, as though it were having bad dreams.

“It’s already throwing off the programming,” Adam’s dad muttered, running up behind him. “It may be hurt, but will be blood-crazed, unstoppable. We have to be quick.”

Adam started to make for the gaping metal mouth in the wall opposite, the west exit. “Zed must be through there.”

“Easy, Adam,” his dad held him back. “Zed can stand up to a firefight better than we can.”

“And now I get to prove it!” shouted Bateman from behind them.

Adam’s heart catapulted against his ribs. He whirled around to find the big man’s paunchy silhouette in the well-lit antechamber.

“Hayden told me to shoot to wound,” Bateman went on, raising his gun. “Although, frankly, the way I’m feeling right now—”

But the rest of the threat was lost in a deep, earsplitting shriek. Y. rex must have snapped out of its trance and seen the human intruders. It lunged for Adam, long neck outstretched, jaws snapping. Mr. Adlar saw it coming and shoved his son clear—just as Bateman’s gun spat thunder. Adam heard a whistle of air as the great jaws swung shut and a blast of foul breath broke over him. Bateman cried out as Y’s flailing tail smashed his legs from under him and sent him crashing into Mr. Adlar. The two men went tumbling across the arena, their twisted limbs intertwined.

“Dad!” Adam yelled, backing away from the Y. rex on all fours. The drooling monster watched him with cold, crocodile eyes. The pits of its nostrils twitched. It snapped its jaws and scraped its claws together like some hideous butcher sharpening his knives. Roaring like a thousand tigers, Y. rex prepared to pounce, corded muscles twitching and dancing under its reptilian skin.

“No . . .
no
. . .” Adam screamed as that twisted, inhuman face came flying forward to devour him—

Only to crunch against a wall of solid, scaly flesh instead, as a huge figure dived forward protectively.

“Zed!” Adam gasped.

The Z. rex kicked Y’s face aside with savage force and followed it up with a blow from his bloodied tail that clubbed the beast to the floor. Crimson saliva dripped from his swollen, gap-toothed jaws as he sliced through the chain that joined Adam’s handcuffs with one claw.

Adam stared up at him. “I . . . I’m glad you’re okay.”

“Get . . . Dad,” Zed panted. “Go.”

Glancing back at the west exit, Adam swore. “More guards!”

Zed pounded back toward the entrance where three men had appeared, shock-guns aimed to fire. Within seconds, Zed was engulfed in a storm of blue light, snarling and snapping with pain. But he kept on going, staggering to the side of the huge metal doors. Grunting with effort, his whole body shaking, he scored his claws down a seam of cement to expose copper piping, then twisted it away from the wall. Steaming hot water came spurting out under pressure, as though a hose had just been switched on, full blast. Zed angled it at the attacking mercenaries, dousing them with scalding water. A chorus of screams went up. Blue energy hissed and fizzled out as the guards retreated.

“Adam!” Mr. Adlar skirted the fallen Y. rex and sprinted over to join his son. “I managed to shake off Bateman. Let’s get out of here.”

Zed reacted to the familiar voice, shuffling backward. “Dad. Got Dad.”

Mr. Adlar looked up, unafraid, into the creature’s clouded eyes. “Yes, Zed. You got me.”

“Ad. Dad.” Zed opened his gruesome, gory jaws and reached into the side of his mouth. He hooked out something small and rectangular and dropped it on the ground at Mr. Adlar’s feet.

Adam gingerly picked it up. It was the framed photo of him and his dad he’d taken from the flat. The one he thought that Zed, consumed by hate, had devoured. But he’d only been storing it in one of those pouches in the flesh of his cheeks. The glass was cracked and bloody, but the picture was otherwise intact.

The dinosaur’s voice was raw and weak. “No Zed.”

“No.” Mr. Adlar pressed a hand against the dinosaur’s battered, bleeding face. “I’m so sorry. Sorry for all that’s happened. But thank you . . . for Adam. And for coming back.”

“Dad.” The word sounded like it had been wrenched from one of the dinosaur’s wounds. “Zed . . . Ad—”

The sight of an ominous shadow stopped his words.

“Look out!” Adam saw that the Y. rex had risen again.

Zed turned and roared full force at the Y. rex. But the creature held its ground. It shifted its weight from foot to foot, snapped its teeth and let loose a gut-clenching screech, like some insane, inhuman declaration of war.

“Go,” Zed said to Adam, any tenderness in his eyes now lost.

“What about me?” Bateman shrieked. “My legs are busted up! I can’t move!”

Mr. Adlar turned to Adam, uncertain.

“Don’t leave me!” Bateman yelled again. “Help me, and I’ll watch out for you. I’ll see you get out of here alive!”

The Y. rex turned to him, as a human might turn at the hum of a mosquito. Adam clutched hold of his dad’s arm as Y raised its scaly foot over the fallen man.

Bateman screamed.

The impact—a quick, wet scrape of flesh on rock—was fast and sudden. For Bateman, everything was over.

“Good riddance,” said Adam’s dad hoarsely.

One victim gone, the Y. rex unfurled its wings and turned its attention back toward Zed.

“Go! NOW!” Zed growled, his own gory wings beating in time with Y’s. The steady slicing rhythm built like a menacing soundtrack, louder and faster.

Y. rex rose into the air, followed by Zed. They looked weirdly graceful despite their size and dripping wounds, circling as if gusted on a ghostly breeze.

Snarling and spitting, Y swooped in, reaching for Zed’s throat. Zed dodged aside, but smashed into the wall, shaking the Ring with the impact. He tore more cables from the wall, two as thick as pythons and spewing yellow sparks—Y knocked them from his grip and lunged again for Zed’s throat, jaws hanging wide.

Zed’s going to lose,
Adam thought fearfully. Seeing the fight for real and not on a TV screen brought home the scale of the conflict, the sheer, pounding damage of each strike and counterstrike. The creatures’ roars were like pealing thunder. A rain of rubble fell from the vaulted ceiling.

“Come on, Ad.” Mr. Adlar took his son’s hand and started to haul him toward the doorway where the high-pressure steam was beginning to dissipate. “We can’t help him.”

“And we can’t leave him either!” Adam yanked his arm away, staring up in horror. Y. rex had seized Zed’s bad wing again, clawing and biting. Zed was weakening. He managed to rip himself free—but the pain and effort left him tumbling into a nosedive. Adam closed his eyes as Zed piled headfirst into the base of the wall. The shock waves knocked Adam off his feet, and he prayed it was stone and not Zed’s bones he heard splintering.

When he dared to look again, he saw Zed lying in a crater, crumpled and still. The dinosaur’s eyes were closed. Hovering above like some grisly angel of death, Y. rex gave a grim howl of triumph as debris and dust rained down from above. Chunks of rock struck Zed’s prone body, but he didn’t stir.

Mr. Adlar pulled Adam around, yelled in his face. “This place is falling down around our ears!”

“I don’t care! Zed saved us. He—” Adam broke off as the Y. rex swooped down from the shadows to land beside its prey. “Get up, Zed,” he said quietly, almost to himself. “Please, don’t let it end like this. Get up.”

Mouth wide open, Y made ready to bite chunks from Zed’s neck. Zed, his eyes barely open, raised both clawed arms and gripped hold of those heavy jaws, trying to force them back. But slowly, inexorably, Y. rex’s huge, ivory teeth were edging closer to Zed’s throat.

“Please,” Adam whispered again. “Please.”

“Come
on,
Ad.” His dad’s grip was harder now; he meant business. He hauled Adam through the haze of steam that hid Zed and the victorious creature from view.

Defeated, Adam ran with his dad along a wide, deserted access tunnel, matching him mechanically, pace for pace.

“The Y. rex will have our scent now,” Mr. Adlar panted. “It won’t stop hunting us. We’ve got to find weapons, more guards.”

Adam stared at him blankly. “Now we want to
find
the guards?”

His dad nodded. “They’re the only ones with the firepower to hold that thing back.”

“Sorry, Bill. The guards have gone.” A suited figure stepped out of the shadows a few meters ahead of them.

Hayden.

He seemed confused, swaying from side to side like a man concussed, or in shock—or who had lost it completely. He was holding a gun.

Adam almost laughed—as if a gun could scare them, knowing what was coming up behind.

“Let us pass, Jeff,” said Mr. Adlar quietly.

“Perhaps I should. Everyone else has given up and run out.” Hayden gave a short, bitter laugh. “Samantha, the technical staff . . . even Bateman! He must’ve taken his mercenaries with him.”

“Your guards may have gone, but Bateman’s dead,” said Adam. “Your precious Y. rex killed him, and now he’s about to finish off Zed while you stand here—”