Laura looked at The Bull, then at Ernest. To his mild surprise, she said, “We need your help.”
Chapter Forty-Three
Having to actually implore Ernest Roden for help was a distasteful business, but Laura had made up her mind that it was a fair price to pay to save Jan. Plus, at least she had the video footage. She did hope, though, that sending it to everyone on the base wouldn’t be necessary since that might require her to actually watch it. She’d seen quite enough already.
“So you need my help,” the man began. Some of his customary smugness had begun to return and he put a hand to his chin. “Well, explain what it is you need my help with, exactly—and allow me to get dressed while you’re at it if you would.”
“By all means, please get dressed,” said Laura and looked intently at the floor. She tried not to shudder.
He took a few steps around the end of his bed and retrieved his clothes. For some reason, he put his socks first on, unfortunately, but then proceeded to his pants and shirt without delay. And his tie, of course.
As he re-garbed himself, she explained their proposal to him.
“We need to mount a rescue mission to save Hauptmann Shalwar,” she stated. “I know he’s still alive out there. One of those primaraptors dragged him away. That means he was taken somewhere to be stored as a spare food source or something. They tried to do it with me, and they already did it with several other troops who disappeared in the jungle.”
“Mm, yes, I seem to have heard something about that,” Roden replied as he smoothed and straightened his checker-patterned tie.
“This means,” she continued, hoping he paid full attention to her words, “that if we located Jan, we might find Klaus and some of the others while we’re at it. Those creatures seem to be fond of storing large numbers of captives in the same place, after all.”
Ernest nodded without looking at her. The set of his mouth and eyes suggested growing irritation. He had turned back toward his full-length mirror and now licked a comb to coat it with saliva, the better to return his hair to a respectable state. Having to pull his shirt on so quickly had mussed it somewhat.
“You must help us with this,” she insisted. “Leutnant Ferris here has said we ought to take a minimum of two squads and an armored vehicle of some kind—or better yet, two armored vehicles. That will enable us to get out there as quickly as possible and with proper protection and sufficient firepower. It’s the only way to ensure we can rescue both senior officers still serving this base. You must understand that—”
“Must? Why must I understand anything?” he snapped and spun toward her as he pocketed his spit-lathered comb. He glared at her. “I understand that you are trying to blackmail me into authorizing a very risky, expensive, and ill-advised venture. And this when you, madam, are not exactly in much of a position to make demands.”
The Bull took a single fast, heavy step forward, looked directly at Roden, and folded her arms over her chest. He recoiled. The threat he had tried to make trailed off and died in his throat, and he swallowed.
“Ahh, mm, yes…” he stammered and adjusted his tie again. “So, aside from the fact that you are blackmailing me—and indeed, the whole base, with the potential undermining of my leadership—why should I help you? I ask that as an honest question.”
Ferris looked at Laura as if unsure if he was allowed to make this query.
“Because,” Laura said, “you have something I want.”
He fluttered his eyes, obviously confused now. “Oh? What?”
“My freedom,” she stated. “The power to keep me here at this base and let me do the research I was always meant to do. And, really, this is an opportunity to improve your track record as director, also.”
Ernest raised an eyebrow. By suggesting that he might benefit himself, she had caught his interest. Now it was the stalwart German who looked at her with befuddled incomprehension.
“Think about it. If anyone finds out about a civilian getting past security to enter the Zoo, there could be questions about how this place is run. I won’t say anything, especially if I am permitted to continue my work unhindered.”
She said all of this in a neutral tone in an effort to convince him of her point through force of logic, rather than trying to insult or accuse him specifically. Both of them were still well aware that she had the video. Thus, at this point, she wanted to make sure he sided with her willingly.
“But why risk having to deal with all that and possibly emerge looking bad,” she continued in response to his frown, “when instead, you can come out looking like a hero?”
The director leaned forward a little now and she knew he was hooked. The Bull, for her part, rolled her eyes but tried not to be too obvious about it. She must have guessed the gist of what she was about to propose.
“And how exactly will we accomplish that?” Roden asked. “Are you only talking about this rescue mission, or…”
Laura moved her hand toward her side, into her satchel, and withdrew a large brownish egg. She held it in front of her face, balanced on the flat of her palm.
“What on Earth is that thing? Some kind of…egg, or something?” he inquired.
“Quite right, congratulations,” she quipped. “It is. More specifically, it’s a primaraptor egg laid by one of those awful new creatures—the monkey-velociraptor hybrid mutants. Possessing this, we could be on the verge of a major breakthrough in Zoo research. Previous attempts to study captured adult creatures never got very far. They always killed themselves too quickly. But this is an infant waiting to hatch. By studying it from birth, we can learn so much more than we have in the past.”
“And what, pray tell, does this have to do with me looking like a hero?” he asked. His tone was shrewdly skeptical, but his eyes already glimmered in a way that suggested he had ideas of his own.
She took a deep breath. “You can take credit for the discovery,” she said. “Well, I’d appreciate it if you would at least mention me, but you can tell everyone that it was collected because you gave instructions to look for something of the sort, and you can be the one to give all the interviews and bask in the glory. Rather like Thomas Edison, who only invented some of the things ascribed to him. The rest were developed by a team in his name. Anyway, it would be a tremendous boon to your later career.” She tried to smile, if only a little.
Roden rocked on his heels, his gaze distant. He was having an internal debate, she surmised, thinking it over and trying to tease out any extra pros and cons. “How do I know this isn’t some kind of trick?” he asked.
“No trick,” Laura replied. “There would be no point to that. I want to be allowed to continue with my work and I want to save Jan Shalwar. That, sir, is all.”
“Why do you want to save him?” He pretended to turn half away from her as though bored.
“Rule Number Three,” she replied briskly. “Never abandon your team.”
The Bull, watching the two of them haggle, smiled with understated satisfaction.
Ernest sighed. “Now he even has you doing it. How many rules does he have, anyway? No matter. I will allow this rescue mission. Of course, I may have to explain myself for budgetary reasons, but you’ve already given me several of those. However…”
She braced herself.
“There is one condition.” He smiled and, for the third time, straightened his tie.
Chapter Forty-Four
Jan settled the sharp rock firmly in his left hand. It would be nowhere near as good as a proper knife, but it would do the job.
It was oblong and the portion he’d fitted into his palm and clasped his fingers around was the duller portion. The protruding section included an edge that was moderately sharp, having probably broken off its parent rock along a natural fault line. And it felt strong, which was encouraging. The primaraptors’ glue-like phlegm was thick and tough, so any tool used against it would suffer at least some risk of breaking.
“All right, Klaus…be ready,” he whispered.
After a deep breath, he stabbed the point of the makeshift knife into the top edge of the hardened substance that trapped his right hand. It penetrated the stiff surface and began to separate the layers of softer, more viscous material beneath. He sawed and jabbed but took care not to overdo it so he wouldn’t hurt himself. Nonetheless, he worked with haste. Once the rock had split one side of the binding from top to bottom, he simply flexed his right hand and broke through the rest. It came free, coated with only a slight brownish residue.
He then switched the rock to his right hand and began to cut through the adhesive that bound his midsection to the tree stump. This took longer as there was far more of it, but the impromptu blade did its work with surprising efficiency. In another minute or two, he was free.
Chunks of the brown, cheese-like material fell away from him and he ripped the remainder free with his hands. Once he was clear, he resisted the urge to stand immediately. First, he had to determine how closely the primaraptor sentries might be watching.
Warily, he looked around. Their silhouettes were still visible beyond the dome, but they seemed relaxed and not focused on him or his activities. They paid hardly any attention to the interior of their lair, perhaps still focused on threats from the outside after they’d repelled the egg-snatching foray by the snakecat a few moments before.
Jan turned to the left and rolled onto his hands and knees. His legs and feet flared with pinpricks of tingling pain as the blood began to circulate to them again. He had no idea how long he had been unconscious while attached to the stump, but it must have been a while.
Cautiously, he made another quick visual scan to ensure he was not being watched. The mutants standing guard had still not noticed him. He gave silent thanks for that as well as the rock and crawled over to his fellow hauptmann.
“Klaus,” he said softly, “I will give you my back-up knife after I free you. I will use this rock since you are weaker right now.”
The man tensed and his eyes narrowed.
“Weaker from exposure, I mean.” He sighed in exasperation. “Now is not the time to interpret the basic facts of our situation as insults.”
As he said this, he drew the real knife at his hip which had been inaccessible before, covered as it was with the brown phlegm. With it, he was able to slash and saw through the adhesive that bound the other man’s hands much more quickly than he would have with the rock.
The brown paste fell away and Klaus’s arms slumped to the ground. He groaned in a weak voice and struggled to his knees.
“You can do this, Klaus,” he encouraged him. “Take this and start to free the other men who look like they might still be able to move and fight.” He pressed his weapon into his palm.
“Is that an order, Hauptmann?” he gasped and turned it into a laugh, but he crawled over to the nearest captive soldier regardless.
Jan scuttled past him at a faster pace toward the next man down from the one Klaus had chosen. He had thought about moving in the opposite direction, but that would essentially divide their force, and splitting up was rarely a good idea.
The first man he encountered was half-conscious but otherwise, looked like he might be capable once freed. He stabbed and ripped at his bonds to free first his hands and then his feet.
“What is…are we…” He groaned and blinked himself awake.
“We are still in the Zoo,” he told him. “Take your knife and cut that man over there free. I will work on another. We need to get everyone up and moving again so that we can all get out of here alive.”
The man nodded and shuffled in the direction he had indicated.
Jan glanced at Klaus. The other hauptmann was functioning, albeit slowly. If anything, he did better than he would have expected. Being released had inspired him to draw upon all that remained of his strength. And stroking his ego had probably helped, as well.
Satisfied that his comrade was doing his part, he crawled over to the next man in line. Once he was cut loose, the numbers of those liberated would increase to five, since Klaus had released his first. It wasn’t a bad start for what was, essentially, a prison break.
The soldier in front of him now lay more or less flat on his back beside a long, thick root rising from the earth. He was a young man, perhaps twenty-five at most, with the rank insignia of a hauptgefreiter and looked fairly healthy despite probably having been there as long as Klaus had. His blue eyes were open and stared upward. He had been secured to the root with an extended band of phlegm across his wrists and hips, plus another gob of it to attach his left ankle.
“Stay calm, hauptgefreiter,” he whispered to the man. “I will cut you loose. Then, you have to stay quiet and help me free everyone else. Can you do that?”
He did not respond. Jan frowned but went to work cutting and gouging at the phlegm near the man’s wrists. It took a while to free the man’s hands since the tool he had for the job was not optimal. He glanced at the name badge—Linzer.
“Hauptgefreiter Linzer, answer me,” he snapped in a soft but sharp tone. “Raise your hands to your face.”
The soldier jerked but did as he was instructed very slowly. His hands trembled so much that he was suddenly afraid the man was sick. He looked at his palms and began to make an odd sound that seemed to be a mixture of both laughter and crying, and his eyes grew shiny and wet.
“Get a hold on yourself, Linzer,” he said as he hacked at the brown phlegm that bound the man’s waist. “You will be free in a moment and I need your help, dammit.”
Linzer’s gaze snapped toward him and his eyes widened. Then, he looked up, to the sides, and all around. His face fell in an expression of abject horror and lengthened as his mouth started to open.
“Oh, scheisse…” Jan murmured as a sinking sensation roiled within him. The soldier must have been delirious and now felt as though he were waking from a dream, only to find that his actual situation resembled a nightmare.
He was about to scream.
The hauptmann pushed himself forward and over the younger man with the intention to cover his mouth, but he wasn’t fast enough. His high-pitched wail broke the relative silence of the domed nest and rose in volume and power as he found his breath. Jan knelt directly over him and clamped a hand hard over his mouth as he looked him straight in the eye.
“Be quiet!” he ordered.
A screeching hiss uttered behind them. His gut and spirit sank together even further and into the morass of near despair. This was not going well.
He turned slowly. The nearest primaraptor had leaped into action and the silhouette grew larger as it approached the edge of the dome. It moved directly to the flap-covered “door” and pushed its way in.
Jan realized his error at once —the badly-weakened Klaus was now closest to the entrance while he had moved farther away. Now, they had no choice but to fight and he might be the only one still both strong enough and with enough presence of mind to do so.
Without hesitation, he snatched up another, bigger, rounder stone, bolted to his feet, and charged the creature. Its focus had been on Klaus but now, it turned to look at this new threat, slight indecision visible in the cold gaze of its fiendishly intelligent eyes.
He hurled the big rock. The mutant sidestepped it deftly, but the brief moment it took to do this gave him an opening. He lunged toward it, thrust his makeshift stone knife viciously toward its eye, and jumped back almost immediately when it lashed out with its foot-claw. It swung its arms toward him and he ducked under them and stabbed the creature’s stomach. The jagged rock pierced the skin, but barely.
Before he could dart away, one of the monster’s hands descended on his head to both smack and shove him. The blow contained sufficient force to tumble him, but it at least allowed him to roll away from the beast. Within a second, it covered the short distance and launched another assault.
“Klaus! Linzer!” Jan grunted as he raised his arms in fr
ont of his face and tried desperately to protect himself. He fully expected the primaraptor to either bite his arms off or simply disembowel him with its foot claw but instead, the creature grasped his arms with its nimble hands and pried them apart. He and his attacker stared at each other, face to face.
Klaus threw a rock—seemingly the same one his comrade had thrown a moment before—and it struck the mutant’s shoulder but glanced off. It opened its mouth and its jaws clamped over Jan’s head.
He screamed but the sound was mostly muffled by the raptor’s gullet. Thick, hot, stinking wetness engulfed him, and the jaws and teeth dug into his chin and the back of his neck as the creature swung him to the side. The motion was so sharp, so fast, and so powerful, that his right leg was twisted out of place as he fell in its grasp, and he shrieked in pain. There was no doubt that the muscle was torn and possibly the tendon sprained. He was fucked.
His captor released his head from its mouth and simply dragged him with its hands. He gasped, barely able to see or breathe through the coating of saliva and brownish phlegm-residue that covered his face. His right calf throbbed with agony and he was unable to move, think, or fight in the slightest.
The primaraptor hauled him toward the center of the nest. As the slime fell away from his face, he saw that two more of the creatures had entered the dome and subdued Klaus, Linzer, and the other two men. They threw them around, bit, and clawed them without killing them, and hacked up more wads of disgusting organic glue to return them to their imprisonment. Hauptgefreiter Linzer continued to scream in terror.
Jan screamed too from the unendurable pain as he was dragged over rows upon rows of eggs. Finally, the mutant found a suitable place and simply dropped him on a bare patch of ground. His leg blazed horribly, and he felt like he might vomit. The creature hissed at him, turned, and left.
“Uhhh.” He moaned and tried to orient himself. He had at least landed in a natural position, rather than twisted in some awful way that would require him to try to move his leg. His face contorted in a grimace, he raised a hand to his face and wiped away the rest of the raptor’s repulsive mouth-gunk to smear it instead on the dirt at his side.
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