by Steve Cole
Suddenly, Adam remembered his old piggy bank. He’d kept it hidden in the drawer under his bed ever since his mate Kevin had teased him about it, saying it was babyish. Perhaps it had escaped discovery.
It was just as he crouched down to see that he looked over and saw the broken length of thread trailing from the windowsill.
His blood ran cold. The thread must have pulled tight and snapped as he’d clambered through the window, triggering . . . what?
Holding his breath, Adam followed the thread to a tiny electronic device screwed to the underside of the sill. It was too small for a bomb, surely—and why hadn’t it gone off as soon as he’d entered? Maybe it was broken?
A signaling device, he realized. Whoever planted it knew the bedroom window was someone’s best bet for getting in.
And now I’ve set it off, and they know I’m here.
With fumbling fingers, he grabbed the piggy bank and jammed it into the sports bag. Then he unplugged the charger and his phone and stuffed them in after it. He swung the bag onto his shoulder, grabbed his bike and wheeled it out of the apartment. Stopping briefly to slam the door behind him, he carried the bike down the stairs, the crazy rebounding echoes of his feet on the steps like the pounding of his heart. How long had he been in the flat—maybe twenty minutes, tops? And it was barely six A.M. on a Monday. Surely they—whoever “they” were—couldn’t have sent anyone so fast?
The screech of rubber on tarmac gave him his answer as he threw open the outer door. Feeling sick, Adam jumped down the steps and froze as a large car, a burgundy Daimler, slowly rounded the corner.
He stared. Oh, my God. . . .
One of the Daimler’s rear windows was opening. The next moment, a gun muzzle appeared, and the car started screaming down the street toward him.
13
PURSUIT
Heart bouncing off his ribs, Adam jumped recklessly onto his bike and raced away. Behind him, the growl of the Daimler’s engine rose to a roar. He glanced back.
There was good old Frankie Bateman, in the front passenger seat. Josephs’s head of security, back on his tail.
A bicycle against a V-8, thought Adam, pushing himself harder, faster. Not much of a contest. He swung right onto Howe Street. There were no alleyways to duck down, no shelter.
Behind him, he heard the thrum of the Daimler as it pulled out into the road. No rubber-burning antics this time. It accelerated smoothly, deliberately.
As though the driver knew that his prey could not escape.
Adam powered along the street on his bike, the wheels humming over the flat cobbles. Muscles in his calves burned as he pedaled. The wind wolfed at his ears. He kept heading north, a single, desperate plan solid in his frantic thoughts. He knew he couldn’t outrun the car, but if he could just turn left up ahead. . . .
Luck was with him—if you could call it that. As he leaned into the sharp turn, a van was filling the road, heading straight toward him. Its high-pitched horn blared at him and the driver made obscene gestures. Yep, thought Adam, swinging his bike clear of the obstacle, I know I’m going the wrong way up a one-way street, thanks very much. But the driver of the Daimler was forced to screech to a halt as it tried to take the corner and found the van blocking its path. The horn sounded a second, longer time. Adam glanced back over his shoulder; he saw the Daimler trying to reverse out of the way while the van driver yelled more abuse through his window.
Adam cycled onward, his little victory lending him new strength, careening to the end of the street and the posh private gardens he saw there. He braked, jumped off and, with a mad rush of adrenaline, threw his bike over the railings and into the dense bushes. Then he scrambled over himself, using his sports bag to blunt the black arrowheads that dug into his ribs, and dived into the shrubbery. Dry mouthed and gasping for breath, he pulled off his gray shirt and changed it for a red top. The hat ought to help disguise him too.
He waited in the bushes, watching out for burgundy Daimlers. The mere clamor of the early weekday traffic was starting to build and he decided to stay put for a while. It would be trickier for Bateman to give chase if he spied him in the Monday morning rush hour.
Finally he emerged from the greenery, looking very different now as he lowered his bike over the locked gates of the private gardens and hauled himself after it. He cycled along India Street, looking all about for signs of trouble.
It was going to be a long old ride back to Granton.
Adam made it back across the suburbs of North Edinburgh without spotting the Daimler, and no one appeared to be following him, not even mysterious shadows in the sky.
The thought of returning to the dark warehouse and the deadly creature that hid there made his bones cold. But what choice did he have? For a start, the files he needed to show Hayden were in the rucksack. Somehow, he had to persuade Zed to let him out on his own again—with the top secret notes—back across the city to the scientific sprawl of the BioQuarter.
Is that all, he thought.
He cycled onward, the road starting to get busier now with grimy trucks and pickups. But no traffic ventured up the turning that led to the old warehouse. Adam slowed down, enjoying the malty smell blowing over from the breweries, the feel of the strengthening sun on his skin.
But then he saw a huge pile of mud and broken concrete in the wasteland beyond the warehouse. It looked like a dirty great bomb had gone off there.
“Zed?” Full of foreboding, Adam quickened his stroke on the pedals. The metal roll-up at the delivery entrance was fully closed. He bombed up to the fire doors at the side of the building instead, jumped off the bike, took a deep breath and pushed open the doors.
He wasn’t expecting the glare. Harsh and yellow, it shone from fluorescent strip lights in the ceiling, the bulbs wrapped in thick scarves of cobweb. There was a hole in here too, concrete and mud piled up high around it. And there was Zed, sitting up in a curiously human posture beside a tangled spaghetti junction of black leads snaking down into the hole.
“What happened here?” Adam stared at him incredulously. “I left you sleeping a few hours ago—when I come back, you’ve got the electrics working!”
Zed’s lethal jaws stretched open in a wide yawn, and he shrugged as if to say, “And your point is . . . ?”
“Did you tap into the power supply from the gas place next door? How would you know how to do that?” Adam marveled at the thick knot of cables. “It’s like the bomb disposal stuff again, or the way you flew us halfway around the world to reach Edinburgh right on course. You can do all these incredible things, but still Josephs goes and orders you killed. Why?” He licked his lips. “What did you do?”
Zed scrambled up a little shakily and stalked closer. Adam held himself very still, hoping desperately he hadn’t gone too far. The dinosaur creature reached out one muscular, concrete-dusted claw toward him. . . .
And snatched away his sports bag.
“Hey!” Adam protested halfheartedly. “That’s just some stuff I packed. In a bit of a rush.” The events of the morning piled back suddenly. “I . . . I was chased by Bateman and some other guys out there. They’d rigged a transmitter in my room and I set it off when I broke in. I dunno if it was meant for me, or my dad if he ever escaped. But now Bateman knows I’m here.”
Zed stared at him coldly, seeming scarier than ever in the stark shadows thrown by the lights.
“I got away though,” Adam quickly continued. “Hid out for a bit, changed my clothes. Lost them.”
Suddenly, Zed thrust his face forward, massive teeth bared, and growled a single syllable: “Trick?”
“No!” Adam protested, shaking his head. “They didn’t see me come here, I’m sure of it.”
Zed clawed open the sports bag and emptied out the contents. The piggy bank cracked open on the damp concrete, bleeding copper change over the damp floor. Adam didn’t dare protest as dexterous claws sorted through his belongings—and then closed on the framed photograph of Mr. Adlar and Adam.
&nbs
p; The dinosaur beast lifted it slowly, staring at it intently. Then without warning, he opened his gigantic jaws and shoved the picture inside.
“Wait!” Adam shouted, reaching on instinct for the photo.
Zed roared in his face. Adam recoiled, stumbled over and pushed himself away with his feet, terrified. The huge reptile stared down at him, face twisted in a savage snarl.
“Why did you have to do that?” Adam whispered.
“Get. Dad,” Zed growled slowly, as if tasting the words and liking them.
“Yeah, well, you can’t get my dad, can you?” Adam muttered. “You can’t find him, or any of the others, not when they’re wearing that spray stuff.” He raised his voice recklessly, too angry and frightened to much care about the outcome. “Right now, for all your tricks and growls, you’re useless, aren’t you?”
The creature raised himself to his full, horrifying height and bellowed in anger. He stamped a great scaly foot and the floor jumped and cracked beneath Adam.
“Shout about it all you like!” Adam yelled back. “But think for a second—Bateman saw me today. That means he’ll be looking for me. He might try and catch me again, not realizing you’re here too—you could follow my trail back to their hideout and surprise them or something. . . .”
Zed glared down at him, panting hard, his claws flexing.
Cautiously, feeling sick and light-headed, Adam crawled over to his scattered things and picked up his phone. There’d be hardly any juice in it, of course, after five minutes’ charging, and if someone was able to track his mobile here. . . .
Right now, he had to take that chance.
The screen glowed into life. Adam called up Dad’s last text and held it up to Zed. “Can you read? Do you understand?” he said shakily. “It’s like I said, whatever he did to you, they made him do it.”
Zed stared down at the phone.
“Let me take those notes you have to this friend of Dad’s,” Adam urged him. “He can explain them to me, like you wanted Sedona to do.”
“No . . . ,” Zed growled. “Notes. Y . . . Z. . . .”
Adam frowned. He thought Zed had been listing the last letters of the alphabet because of his name. But what if he was talking about some kind of alphabetical order? “Um . . . I’m sorry, the papers got mixed up,” he said. “All the more reason we show them to someone who really understands them, right? Jeff Hayden is a scientist, and Dad must have chosen him for a reason. He might even know how to find Josephs. We both want that, right?”
“NO!” Zed stamped his foot again, cracking the moldering concrete. “Zed find.”
“How?” Adam demanded. “What’ll you do, fly around the city till you get lucky?”
Zed pushed his face toward Adam’s and bared his deadly teeth. “Stay,” he hissed.
Adam nodded dumbly, cowed into submission. To him, I’m the animal, he realized.
Then Zed turned, his wings unfolding from the crevice in his back. He whacked a red button in the wall with his tail and the roll-up door started clanking open.
“If you’re seen, you’ll start a panic!” Adam warned him. “There’ll be police, army, riot squads coming after you. You won’t be able to stop them all. You’ll die, and this time you won’t come back!”
But the huge animal ignored Adam, launching himself into the air.
Adam ran over to the doorway, watched Zed fade from view to become little more than a blur against the sky’s pale blue. “And I hope you do die,” he yelled after him, “you scaly son of a . . .”
He can probably still hear you.
Adam turned away and kicked the wall in frustration. “Ow!” he shouted, crossly. He slammed his palm against the red button on the wall and the door clanked down to shut out the sky.
His phone chimed suddenly.
Adam stared down, his heart flipping. Three messages, left queuing all this time, had finally found their way through. Nothing from Dad. Just the usual stuff from his mates—a forwarded joke, and some good-natured abuse for not bothering to keep in touch. He touched the little words on the screen with his fingers.
Josephs could be tracking me through this, he thought. Right now.
As Adam turned off the phone, he had never felt lonelier. Here he was, in a crumbling, damp ruin, with men out to get him, monsters ready to kill him, Dad out of reach—and him an escaped fugitive with not a clue what to do about any of it.
He sat down on a square of old carpet and put his head in his hands.
Adam woke with a start. The door was clanking open. He got unsteadily to his feet and hid behind one of the giant rolls of carpet, checking his watch. It was past seven in the evening. He’d slept the whole day away.
It was Zed who came thumping inside, alone, and Adam didn’t know whether to feel relieved or afraid. The giant’s eyes looked darker and meaner than ever as he hit the door button and the metal segments clanked back down behind him. He stood quivering for a few moments. Then, with a deafening roar he smashed his tail against the wall. As the impact boomed out and damp concrete jumped from the wall in showers, Zed stamped over to the rolls of carpet and hurled himself down on top of them, his breath coming quickly in short rasps. Adam backed away, transfixed as Zed turned first one side of his face to the rotten fabric, then the other.
That’s what I do, he realized. He could picture himself after a typical row with Dad, chucking himself on the bed and pressing his hot face against the cool pillow, trying to calm down. . . .
“It’s one thing to take my moves from Ultra-Reality,” Adam whispered. “But this is me you’re ripping off. The real me.”
The creature did not respond. Adam raised his voice. “You didn’t find Josephs or Dad or anyone out there . . . did you?”
Zed looked over at Adam as if noticing him for the first time. Then, slowly, he shook his head. Adam saw that there was wetness in the animal’s sharp, black eyes.
“Maybe”—Adam swallowed hard—“maybe we could try it my way, then. Tomorrow?”
The dinosaur turned away, hunched over on his side.
Adam nodded and walked slowly, quietly away, giving the beast his space. He understood. He’d lost enough arguments himself in the past. In time, Zed would come around.
“How about that.” He looked over at the dinosaur’s vast, alien bulk and shivered. “I know just how you feel.”
14
CONTACT
It was past three in the morning, and Adam couldn’t sleep. The lights were out now in case anyone came looking, but the power cables were still humming loudly, a sound like giant flies circling in the darkness. The noise, anxious thoughts about his dad and fears that a burgundy Daimler might be pulling up just outside were all keeping Adam horribly alert.
Zed’s snoring wasn’t helping matters. The creature had said and done little more after his giant sulk, falling into a deep slumber, his head crushing the collapsing rolls of carpet. Somehow, Zed’s heavy silence was almost as unnerving as his full-on rage.
Hoping for distraction, Adam turned on his dad’s phone. There was a little power left in the battery, even after all these weeks, and the glow of the screen was like a tiny night-light in the cold, dark warehouse. As the wind blew haunting notes through the broken panes, he started browsing the files.
There were loads of really boring work emails that went way over his head. He skimmed over most of them. One was from Jeff Hayden, sent a few months back, asking how Dad was doing and mentioning he’d won this amazing amount of funding for his company. Addresses for both work and home were stored in his profile, much to Adam’s relief.
Then he saw an email sent from Sam Josephs.
Adam sat bolt upright, staring at the phone. “So you already knew him,” he murmured, opening the file. It was dated over a year ago.
Josephs was ranting at Dad for firing him from the Ultra-Reality gaming project. He’d wanted to take the research in other “more valuable” directions.
“Repetitive, manual labor could be taken over by anim
als instead of robots for a fraction of the cost,” Adam read aloud under his breath. “Stray dogs could be turned into perfect helpmates for the disabled overnight. Primates could be instructed to perform complex tasks in high-risk environments in minutes. . . .”
He looked across at Zed. Or dinosaurs could be trained to hack into power supplies and defuse bombs.
Made into modern-day killing machines.
“But how do you get your hands on a living dinosaur?” he whispered into the darkness. “And why would you want to?”
The grunts and growls of Zed in his troubled sleep were Adam’s only answer.
Zed was sullen later that morning. He didn’t respond to Adam’s nervous attempts at conversation, apparently absorbed by the MP3 player he’d found in the sports bag. It looked tiny in his huge hand, but using the tips of his claws he had got it working. A Kings of Leon track was ringing tinnily from the in-ear headphones. The dinosaur sniffed the little device suspiciously.
“It’s just a music player,” Adam said. “Dad used to plug it into the car stereo on journeys. A lot of the songs on there are his old rubbish, but he let me stick on a few albums. . . .”
Zed growled as if telling him to be quiet. The beat went on spilling from the headphones.
“I was going to take it with me on the bus,” Adam said boldly. “I’m going to the BioQuarter.”
“Adam, back,” he grumbled. “Two hours.”
“That’s not long enough,” Adam protested. “People like Mr. Hayden, they have appointments and stuff. I don’t know when he’ll be able to see me.”
Zed snorted and jabbed a claw at a button. The song changed to one of Dad’s—“Ruby Tuesday” by the Rolling Stones.