Z. Apocalypse

by Steve Cole

  ‘CNN, quickly . . . Turn it on. I don’t believe it . . .’

  His guts grinding with fear, Adam reached for the remote on the bedside table. As the set on the wall flickered on he started scrolling through the unfamiliar channels, until—

  The screen showed flames flaring orange and red against the black of night. The walls of some great, ornate building suddenly exploded inwards amid the terrified screams of onlookers. Horrified, Adam sat up straight, trying to make sense of the footage blurring in and out of focus to a soundtrack of screams and gunfire. Then he saw the rolling headline along the bottom of the screen in a blood-red stripe: London, England – The Houses of Parliament destroyed in terror strike. Hundreds believed dead. Similar methodology to White House attack, experts claim.

  ‘No way . . .’ Fear clutched at Adam’s throat as a blur in the air passed over the huge, imposing clock tower of Big Ben. Suddenly, the building cracked in two, the upper section teetering forwards as if in slow motion. A wave of panicked screams distorted over the speakers. Mid-descent, the footage blurred out of focus as the camera’s owner turned and fled for his life.

  Adam switched off before the final impact, afraid of what he might see. Starting to shake, he huddled back down under the covers. Just like the White House. It’s stood for so long, with history in every stone. And now – it’s just gone . . .

  Nothing lasts for ever, Adam thought gloomily, even when you’re brought up to believe it will.

  He wished he could see Keera now; get the fear, the ordeal that lay ahead, all over and done with.

  ‘I’d give anything to feel safe again,’ Adam murmured.

  Chapter 9: Late-night Reunion

  ADAM AND ZOE stayed silent on the way to Fort Meade, lost in their thoughts. They were being driven together in an armoured car in the middle of a convoy of military vehicles. The noise of the engine was mind numbing, the ride enough to turn bones to jelly. Each cradled a gas mask on their lap – ‘to be deployed in case of an incident’.

  Images of Westminster in flames still haunted Adam’s mind. The death count had risen to over seventy. He wondered what fresh horrors would follow.

  It was after eleven when the armoured car reached the base, and yet the grounds were still a floodlit hive of activity. Helicopters with searchlights swept the surrounding treetops on patrol. Rocket launchers and field guns were being positioned on the lawns, their operators hidden behind gas masks. Tanks guarded the driveways.

  Zoe looked out through the thick, huffed-up window. ‘Looks like they’re ready for visitors.’

  ‘Will they ever be ready enough?’ Adam muttered.

  The armoured car pulled up outside the on-site apartments. Barbed wire fencing stretched right around the property now, and a well-manned checkpoint marked the entrance. Rocket launchers had been sited outside the building, pointing up at the night. The lights of a jet plane traced a circle high above.

  ‘Adam!’ came a familiar yell from the apartment block. ‘Adam, are you all right?’

  ‘Dad!’ A soldier pulled hard on the heavy-duty door and Adam ran into his father’s waiting arms. As Mr Adlar started fussing gently over his bandaged hand, for a few moments the world felt better.

  ‘Zoe? Sweetheart!’ Eve Halsall pushed past them to where her daughter was being helped into her wheelchair by two soldiers, and flung her arms around her. ‘Thank God you two are all right.’

  ‘Yes, indeed.’ Dr Marrs, wrapped up as ever in overcoat, hat and scarf, came shuffling out onto the porch. ‘It sounds as though the pair of you had a very close call.’

  ‘Dr Marrs!’ Adam was surprised. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘In the wake of that meeting you attended, I’ve been appointed special adviser on the Geneflow threat for the United Nations.’ Marrs patted him on the back and smiled. ‘I’ve been catching up with your parents to see what progress they’ve made with our scaly house guest.’

  ‘And then we saw what had happened in London,’ said Mr Adlar. ‘The devastation . . .’

  ‘I couldn’t believe it,’ said Zoe, steering her chair to join them. ‘So many people killed . . .’

  ‘A deplorable act,’ Marrs declared. ‘Let us hope the work with Keera will lead us closer to its perpetrators. In the meantime . . .’ With a sad smile, he shook Zoe warmly by the hand. ‘Delighted to see you again, my dear. So pleased that you and your mother are on board for this project.’

  Eve’s arms were tightly folded across her stained lab coat. ‘If I’d had one inkling of the danger Zoe would find herself in today I’d never have accepted.’

  ‘I appreciate today has not been easy,’ Marrs said gently. ‘But this whole base is operating on the highest security alert. And if you come inside, I’ve a further safeguard.’

  Adam stood aside while Zoe steered herself a little erratically after Marrs. Then he, his dad and Eve followed them into the main entrance hall. He saw lights on behind the front door of the apartment opposite, but Marrs had beckoned Zoe into the Adlars’ rooms, and was spraying her with a fine mist from an unmarked canister.

  ‘What is this stuff?’ Zoe spluttered.

  ‘Anti-stink.’ Adam ran up gratefully to get a coating. ‘Geneflow came up with the stuff themselves. It takes away your scent so Z. beasts can’t hunt you.’

  Marrs nodded. ‘Given today’s events, to wear a little would seem a sensible precaution.’

  ‘Where did you get it though?’ Adam closed his eyes as Marrs crossed to him and sprayed him too. ‘Raptor Island?’

  ‘There were supplies kept at the Geneflow base there, yes.’ Marrs removed his hat and waved it at the cloud of aerosol, then pushed a hand through his short, silvery hair. ‘The military analysed the formula and created batches of their own for use in covert operations – seems it puts guard dogs off the scent as well as dinosaurs.’

  ‘What about electroshock weapons?’ asked Adam. ‘They’re the only guns I’ve seen that can slow down a dinosaur.’

  ‘Colonel Oldman has requisitioned experimental Tasers not yet off the secret list,’ Marrs informed him. ‘Everything that can be done is being done.’

  Eve harrumphed. ‘A little late in the day. If the soldiers at Patuxent had been properly armed, maybe Adam and Zoe wouldn’t have needed hospital treatment today.’

  Marrs nodded. ‘To live in hindsight is to live in paradise.’

  Zoe looked about the spartan apartment, un-impressed. ‘Paradise is a long, long way from this place.’

  ‘Would you rate it better or worse than Keera’s cage?’ Adam joked. ‘How is Keera, anyway?’

  ‘Difficult,’ Mr Adlar said with feeling.

  ‘I’ve never seen anything like her.’ Eve sat down wearily in an armchair. ‘Disgusting . . .’

  ‘Mum,’ Zoe protested.

  ‘I mean, what’s been done to her. That circuitry inserted into her brain . . .’

  Adam’s dad nodded. ‘It contains a kind of security system designed to govern her thoughts. It’s not that Keera won’t answer questions – she physically can’t.’

  ‘The fit she had on the tower block could have been due to a malfunction in the software,’ Dr Marrs speculated, sinking into an armchair. ‘Most likely caused by an injury in battle; something made her break off from the attack on the White House to grab you.’

  ‘Since the breakdown, we think Keera’s been pretty much deaf, dumb and blind,’ Adam’s dad went on. ‘Anyway – we’ve made some progress. Eve’s brainwave modifiers put Keera into a temporary coma, and once her mental activity was down to near-zero I was able to start disabling the first layers of the security system.’

  ‘You mean,’ said Zoe, ‘Geneflow hid Keera’s real self behind a bunch of locked doors – but between you both, you’ve started unlocking them?’

  ‘Well put,’ said Eve.

  ‘What about Geneflow’s snooping raptor,’ said Adam quietly. ‘There’s been no sign of it?’

  ‘No,’ Marrs confirmed. ‘Only some unconfirmed rep
orts of a much larger creature glimpsed in the skies around here.’

  ‘Hence the firepower outside,’ Mr Adlar muttered, ‘courtesy of Colonel Oldman.’

  ‘It’s possible the raptor was collected by another Z. beast and taken to report to its masters,’ Marrs said thoughtfully. ‘It may have had all kinds of surveillance technology inserted into its brain.’

  ‘So Geneflow must know we’re holding Keera,’ said Eve, ‘and that we’re trying to get through to her.’

  Adam felt sick. ‘Will they try and get her back?’

  All eyes turned to Dr Marrs.

  The old man gave a reassuring smile. ‘They won’t find that easy. The defences outside are ten times stronger around the hangar at Patuxent.’ He paused. ‘The fact that Geneflow sent this raptor to inspect and attack suggests that Keera does possess important information as to their plans – if only we can get to it.’

  ‘Well, we’ve left the computers number-crunching the most likely bandwidths and wavelengths for communication.’ Eve glanced up at Mr Adlar, who nodded. ‘We should be able to start trying first thing tomorrow.’

  ‘But there are layers and layers of security in that poor creature’s brain,’ Mr Adlar told Marrs. ‘Our lash-up may not work. And if that’s the case, I’m getting Adam on the next flight out of Washington, far away from this whole affair.’

  ‘Given recent developments,’ said Marrs, ‘I’d say that this “affair” is not confined to the United States. It is one of global concern.’

  Eve looked at the old man. ‘Are you talking about Westminster being stamped into the ground – or something else?’

  Marrs seemed to hesitate. Then he stood up and began pacing slowly about the room, hands knitted behind his back. ‘We’ve been assuming that Geneflow are still in charge of their own creations. That reasoning could be flawed.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ asked Mr Adlar.

  ‘General Winters and Colonel Oldman don’t believe that Geneflow has the resources to carry out attacks of the kind we’re now witnessing without help.’ Marrs paused again. ‘They suspect the involvement of an enemy power – most likely the Russian Federation.’

  ‘But surely Geneflow as a group is beyond politics,’ Mr Adlar argued. ‘Jeff Hayden and Sam Josephs thought and planned only on scientific lines.’

  ‘Both deceased, Bill,’ Marrs reminded him. ‘We don’t know who’s in charge now.’

  ‘I know Russia and the US used to be at each other’s throats,’ said Eve, ‘but surely the Cold War ended long ago.’

  Zoe spoke up: ‘Didn’t you read about the US launching their Anti-Ballistic Missile programme in Europe? Russia responded by strengthening their Air and Space Defence system. All those arms treaties all gone to . . .’ She realized everyone was looking at her, and raised her eyebrows. ‘What? I may be on wheels but I can still surf the news.’

  ‘You’re quite right, my dear,’ said Marrs. ‘The bad blood endures. Of course, the Russian Federation can’t act openly against the West – it would be MAD.’

  Adam didn’t follow. ‘Mad? How?’

  ‘MAD as in Mutual Assured Destruction,’ murmured Mr Adlar. ‘A nuclear war between East and West would have no winner. Each side has the power to inflict lethal damage upon the other – even after absorbing a surprise first strike.’

  Marrs nodded. ‘But if Russia attacks with Geneflow’s living weapons – weapons so different and so powerful that traditional defences are useless . . .’

  ‘They could weaken their enemies,’ said Eve fearfully, ‘and take control.’

  ‘Colonel Oldman showed me the footage from that simulation you played, Adam.’ Dr Marrs nodded gravely. ‘It seems likely the simulation was designed for training Z. beasts in the aftermath of a nuclear holocaust. That would also explain why Geneflow have stolen seeds and livestock DNA from the world’s genetic reserves – to give them control over food supplies in the aftermath.’

  ‘All right, Jeremy, that’s enough.’ Mr Adlar stood up. ‘You have no facts to back this up, and you’re scaring the children.’

  Adam opened his mouth to deny he was afraid on principle. But the words wouldn’t come. ‘Like we weren’t scared already,’ he managed, and Zoe nodded.

  ‘I’m sorry, Bill, everyone. You’re quite right.’ Marrs solemnly bowed his head to his audience. ‘Forgive an old man with too much on his mind. This has been a difficult day for you all; I must let you get some well-deserved sleep.’ Abruptly he raised his hat and hurried to the door. ‘Transport will be sent to collect you at six o’clock tomorrow morning. Sleep well, all.’

  The door clicked shut behind him.

  ‘Sleep well.’ Zoe’s voice was heavy with sarcasm. ‘After that bombshell?’

  ‘Don’t mention bombs,’ said Adam.

  Mr Adlar rubbed his eyes. ‘I just can’t believe Geneflow would ally themselves with any government.’

  ‘Let’s just hope we can get the truth out of Keera tomorrow,’ said Eve.

  ‘It is tomorrow.’ Zoe checked her watch and groaned. ‘It’s one a.m.’

  Adam crossed to the window, looked out over the troops and the defences lined up outside in the floodlit grounds. We’ve got to get through to Keera, he thought miserably. Whatever Geneflow are planning, they have to be stopped. Or else . . .

  Apocalypse?

  He shook his head, breathed out softly.

  Z. Apocalypse.

  Chapter 10: ‘Who Controls You?’

  THE BUZZ OF helicopters haunted Adam’s dreams. He got up at five-thirty, his eyes feeling full of grit. His dad, Eve and Zoe were already sat at the dining table picking at toast. Tired smiles were turned his way but it seemed no one felt much like talking, Adam included.

  He sat in silence the whole way to Patuxent, toying with the gas mask in his lap, listening to his bones rattle in the armoured drum of the military transport. Only once did Zoe speak, an exclamation at the sheer size of the army presence all around the wildlife refuge.

  That should be comforting, Adam told himself.

  Once their driver had negotiated the various security requirements, in triplicate by the sound of things, and once Zoe was eased into her chair, the group was shepherded quickly into the hangar complex by armed guards. As they approached the laboratory, Adam could hear voices.

  ‘ . . . sightings of giant flying creatures over Beijing, sir. But no indication of an actual attack on Chinese soil as yet.’

  ‘Could be the Z. beasts were in transit, sir, on their way to their next target.’

  ‘Or on their way home to their masters.’ That was Oldman’s voice, Adam was sure. ‘Did the Chinese military attempt to intercept?’

  ‘Planes were scrambled, sir, but no contact was made.’

  ‘Uh-huh. That’s the official story.’

  ‘No satellite evidence as yet, but . . .’

  An aide opened the door, and Adam saw Oldman had been talking with two junior officers, while three men in suits were inspecting Eve’s miniature mountain of equipment, tweaking connections and trailing wires.

  ‘Ah.’ The colonel dismissed the men reporting to him and greeted his new arrivals, his smile looking a little more forced than usual. ‘Good morning, all. Are we set?’

  Eve looked set to do some serious damage to the men messing with her stuff. ‘Could you kindly get away from that? It’s a very delicate set-up.’

  ‘Some very important people are going to set a lot of store by what we learn here,’ said Oldman evenly. ‘They want to know the systems are entirely accurate and reliable. So my friends here are going to work with you today.’

  Mr Adlar looked at Eve. ‘It’s nice to be trusted, isn’t it?’

  ‘C’mon,’ Oldman cajoled them. ‘Everyone wants this effort to succeed. We’re all on the same side . . .’

  ‘Well then, don’t pull too hard on that cable!’ Eve bustled off to accost the men, Oldman and Mr Adlar in tow, while the soldiers watched on, trying not to smirk.

  Zoe gave Adam a
long-suffering look. ‘They’re nothing to do with us.’

  ‘Right.’ Adam tried to smile but he was dwelling on the words he’d overheard. ‘A sighting of Z. beasts over China but no big attack,’ he said quietly. ‘I thought Russia was the enemy?’

  ‘Not too much love lost between China and the US either,’ Zoe mused. ‘They’ve clashed over trade, currency, foreign policy . . .’

  ‘You know too much,’ Adam complained.

  ‘Probably,’ Zoe agreed wryly. ‘I’m beginning to think ignorance is bliss.’

  Suddenly one of the suited men approached Adam. ‘Are you the interrogator?’

  ‘Let’s call him the voice, Charlie,’ said Oldman, breezing over. ‘I’ll be directing the show, telling Adam here what to say through an earpiece.’

  Charlie hurried over to Adam and fitted something like a hearing aid to his ear and a small wireless microphone to his T-shirt. ‘Hopefully the computer’s calculated the wavelength that’ll get us past the remaining barriers in Keera’s head – she’ll understand you and be able to respond.’

  ‘Right.’ If Charlie felt Adam’s heart thumping against the back of his hand he made no comment.

  The man looked at Zoe for a moment and turned to Oldman, discomfited. ‘And is, um, this person the interpreter?’

  ‘Yes, I am,’ said Zoe loudly.

  ‘She is,’ said Oldman. ‘Dr Halsall will fit her daughter with the necessary equipment – now she’s quite finished vetting my science majors here . . .?’

  Still grumbling under her breath, Eve got busy with a well-rehearsed drill, efficiently adorning Zoe with bundles of cables and pressure pads all round her head and neck.

  ‘Mobile phones switched off, or call disabled please, everybody,’ Mr Adlar instructed. ‘We don’t want random signals messing up our connection.’

  Those with phones duly obeyed, and as Adam set his own mobile to airplane mode, Oldman steered him out of the lab and signalled to Mr Adlar to join them in the corridor that led to the hangar itself, where Keera was waiting.

  ‘The Z. dactyl will be less sedated than yesterday,’ said the colonel, ‘but she’s still all-but glued to the floor.’