by Steve Cole
—It’s working! Keep going. I . . . I can’t help us any longer—
What is it? Adam felt suddenly frightened. What’s happened?
—You happened. You made Dad see what he’d become— The voice was rising, getting really upset. —Made him decide what he had to do about that—
What? I don’t get it.
—Just make sure you have the best life. The best life ever, for both of us, OK?—
The voice stopped, bringing a sudden emptiness to Adam’s head. Confused and afraid, all he could do was keep his focus on that one command – Stop flying, stop flying . . .
Like a CD skipping, his thoughts stammered suddenly – stopfly stopfly stopfly stop—
And he was out of the darkness, wide awake, sweating and sprawled on the conference room floor, his weird encounter with himself fading in his mind like a dream. Did any of that even happen? His dad was holding the headset, staring down anxiously. Eve was on the couch beside Zoe, squeezing her hand.
Automatically, Adam looked to the screen. He saw a pterosaur tumbling out of the sky, wings rigid, and a Z. rex claw uselessly at the air as it plunged towards the icy wastes.
‘It worked,’ Adam breathed.
‘Yes, they were the last.’ Mr Adlar nodded slowly. ‘Incredible. You stopped the Z. beasts, Ad. You literally knocked them out of the sky.’
Adam saw no triumph on his face, only fear. ‘What about Zed?’ He propped himself up on his elbows. ‘Where is he?’
‘The two C17s got clear,’ said Eve brightly. ‘But with most of their strike force lost, Oldman ordered them back to Finland—’
‘Zed?’ Adam insisted, his voice cracking.
‘He was caught in a scrum of Z. animals when they dropped out of the sky.’ Zoe’s voice sounded as watery as her eyes. ‘But it’s not just him we have to worry about now . . .’
Adam didn’t understand. Then he realized the nasal drone of the stealth generators had silenced. Even the regular rush of the engines sounded thin and sickly. The jet lurched, listed sharply to one side. ‘What’s happened?’
‘The stealth systems blew out and took most of the plane’s electrics with them.’ Mr Adlar took a shaky breath. ‘If we hadn’t got you out of there when we did—’
‘This is Oldman.’ The colonel’s voice crackled over the intercom like an arctic blast. ‘We’ve lost three engines. Can’t get ’em restarted. We’re losing altitude fast . . . Assume brace positions.’
Adam felt sick. ‘We’re going to crash? We got through so much and now . . .’
Zoe was choking back tears. ‘It was all for nothing.’
Mr Adlar led Adam to the couch. They sat beside Zoe and Eve and fastened their safety belts as the plane dipped downwards. The whine of the last working engine built to a despairing scream.
Chapter 25: Point of Impact
‘MY GOD,’ WHISPERED Eve. The big TV screen was still showing the different views from the outboard CCTV, and Adam saw a toothy ridge of snow-dusted rock looming up before them. The plane was bucking wildly on the air currents, its single engine reaching a crescendo.
‘This is it!’ Mr Adlar clutched Adam’s hand and shut his eyes, but Adam couldn’t help but stare as the crag grew larger and larger . . .
‘OMG, look!’ Zoe breathed. ‘Look!’
Adam saw that Zoe was staring out through the window – then yelped as the plane heaved with some massive impact, slamming them up into the air so hard his butt left the seat.
And then he glimpsed a mass of green scales beneath the wing.
‘Zed?’ Adam couldn’t believe it, even when he saw the familiar tail snaking into view, dark against the glaring tundra far below. ‘Zed!’
‘You had his back,’ Zoe half laughed, half sobbed with relief, ‘now his back’s holding us up!’
The plane shook again, and Mr Adlar began to babble. ‘I don’t believe it, he’s trying to use his body weight to give us enough height to—’
All four cried out as the plane lurched upwards once again and the jagged, icy rock scraped by just below them. Now on the screen they could see the flat, wintry wilderness surrounding the empty ghost town that marked the spot of Geneflow’s underground HQ.
The ghost town that was breaking apart.
By now, Adam was feeling so shell-shocked it took him a few moments to properly process what he was seeing. Whole tower blocks were collapsing in on themselves, violent storms of dust exploding into the air to mingle with the snow. Cracks spread wide through rows of buildings as roads were buried in an avalanche of rubble.
‘What’s happening?’ he yelled.
Mr Adlar stared in disbelief. ‘Earthquake? Or—’
Whatever his theory, it was swallowed whole by Eve’s screams as the plane dipped sharply to port once again. Zed had lost his grip and was struggling to regain it.
Adam saw the thick welts gouged in his friend’s head and neck, saw the mangled mess of his wings and could hardly believe they still functioned. The fierce wind was whipping blood from the wounds and steam snorted from his nostrils as he fought doggedly to keep pace alongside the jet.
‘You can do it,’ Adam muttered fervently. ‘I know you. I know you won’t give up.’
Zed beat his wings faster, forcing himself to fly higher. With agonizing slowness the plane began to level out – as the plains of snow and ice came hurtling closer. Adam turned from the window and watched the nightmare action on TV; it made things seem less real somehow. He saw the rising whiteness of the ground, the concrete city still shaking itself apart on the horizon.
‘Lower your heads, hold yourselves tight, be ready for impact.’ Oldman’s terse report haunted the room for just a few moments before—
The plane grazed the surface in a spectacular explosion of snow; and as Zed was snatched from sight, Adam realized no one could ever be ready for this.
The impact was deafening. The safety belt bit into his waist as he was jerked this way and that, uncomprehending of anything but pain and fear. Metal screeched on rock and ice. A thunderous vibration shook Adam’s skeleton as they sped on through . . . what? The TVs were dead. He felt his safety belt slackening, tried to pull it tighter. We’re still going so fast . . . The room darkened as snow piled up over the windows. Again and again, the plane struck the frozen ground. Each time we hit it must be slowing us down just a little, Adam told himself. Just hold on, just hold on, just hold on . . .
Then suddenly the plane was dark and still and quiet, and someone was moaning loudly with fear, an awful, panting for help. It took Adam fully half a minute to realize he was making the sound himself.
‘It’s all right.’ He felt his dad’s hand on his. ‘We made it.’
‘We . . . made it . . .?’ Adam tasted blood in his mouth, guessed he’d bitten his tongue in the shake-around, and gingerly moved his arms and legs, testing for damage. His ears were ringing. His neck burned with whiplash, and the whole left side of his face felt bruised. But he was in one piece.
In the faint grey glow from the one emergency light in the room that hadn’t failed, Adam saw that though his dad had lost his glasses, and Eve had lost her breakfast down her top, and Zoe’s nose was bleeding, they were all still here with him. Dizzily he took in that the plane was now angled sharply to one side; it was as if they were strapped in at the top of a steep, carpeted slide.
‘How do we get out?’ came Zoe’s hoarse whisper.
Adam looked automatically towards the door to the corridor beyond – but couldn’t find it. The oak table and executive chairs had broken free of their fixings and tumbled across the floor to block the exit.
‘If this thing had tipped the other way,’ Eve said slowly, ‘we’d have been crushed.’
‘What d’you think happened to Zed?’ asked Adam quietly. ‘Was he under the plane when it . . .?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Mr Adlar. ‘But Zed’s tough. We’ve seen him survive worse. It’s ourselves we need to worry about right now.’
‘So wha
t are you sitting there for?’ Chairs were pushed away from the doorway to reveal Colonel Oldman’s bloodied face looking in. ‘Time to go.’
Eve had unfastened her belt and was making her shaky way to Zoe, balancing on the sloping floor. ‘Did everyone make it? The pilot, the secret service guys—’
‘No one but us.’ Oldman was still wrestling fiercely with the chairs, which seemed locked together. ‘And we’ll die too if we don’t move fast.’
Familiar fear filled Adam’s guts. ‘But we’ve stopped moving, haven’t we?’
‘There’s over three hundred kilometres of wiring on board this plane, and our electrics shorted out. If any part of it is sparking near something flammable . . .’ Oldman forced another chair clear with a heavy clatter. ‘Let’s make survival count and move.’
Eve and Zoe were first down the slope, shuffling down on their backsides. Adam was about to do the same when his dad’s hand grasped for his wrist.
‘Ad, I can’t see so good without my glasses. Can you find them for me?’
Adam looked around grimly at the wreck. ‘No sign. It could take us for ever to find them.’ He squeezed his dad’s hand. ‘I . . . I’ll help you.’
Together they stood, poised at the top of the tilted floor. Clinging together like tenth-rate dancers they staggered down to join the others. Oldman had hauled Zoe through the gap he’d cleared and Eve was climbing over the chairs to follow her. Adam came next, leading his dad behind him. In the tense silence, his mind was full of the voice of his clone.
Just make sure you have the best life. The best life ever, for both of us.
‘Dad, I have to tell you,’ Adam began. ‘When I was trying to Think-Send, I—’
‘Later. Talk when we’re out of here.’ Oldman helped Adam clamber through the gap and drop down on the other side. ‘Put on the thermals. Come on!’
Braced against a locker to help her balance on the sloping floor, Eve was helping Zoe dress in thermal clothing, mittens and boots. There was a big pile of similar garments and footwear on the floor.
Oldman planned ahead, thought Adam. He quickly put on a thick quilted jacket and trousers over his jeans and T-shirt, and a pair of insulated gauntlets. It was a relief when Eve followed suit, and the stench of her barf-stained top was masked by a couple of fleeces.
Once Mr Adlar was out too, Oldman picked up some of the thermal gear and pushed it into his arms. ‘Put this on and let’s go.’ He tapped a large red case with his boot. ‘Eve, I’ll carry Zoe; can you take this first-aid kit?’
‘Of course.’ Eve helped Zoe into Oldman’s arms. ‘Thank you.’
Oldman led the way through the cracked and slanted corridors at a serious pace. Eve followed with the first-aid kit, and Adam helped his dad negotiate the narrow corridors like they were clambering through some sick carnival funhouse. Finally, a shiver of freezing air spoke of an exit ahead. In fact it was a huge V-shaped split in the side of the plane.
‘The steel either side’s razor sharp,’ Oldman warned them, holding Zoe close to him as he climbed carefully out. ‘If you cut an artery out here, well – it’s been a long time since my field medic course, OK? So watch it.’
The protection afforded by Adam’s gloves allowed him to swing himself down into the churned up snow without much danger. He looked around for Zed, but there was no sign of him – only a white desert of snow, and the ruined skyline of the ghost town. Still stunned and shocked at what he’d just lived through, Adam helped his dad down onto the frozen ground.
‘Come on,’ Oldman hollered. ‘Away from the plane. If she goes up now . . .’
Adam, his dad and Eve followed Oldman and Zoe as fast as they could across the snowy plain, the cold turning their ragged breaths to steam.
‘All right,’ Oldman commanded once they were maybe three hundred metres clear of the wreck. ‘This ought to be far enough.’
He put Zoe down, who thanked him self-consciously and turned to her mother. Eve clutched her tightly, and smiled weakly at Adam and his dad. To their right, just a stone’s throw away, the huge body of a Z. dactyl lay sprawled in an icy crater. Its body was a gory mess, a weighty bag of scales and flesh that had burst clean open.
I did that. Adam closed his eyes. I mean, we did . . .
‘Well, if we get desperate for shelter,’ said Oldman, ‘we can always do a Luke Skywalker and hide in that thing.’
Mr Adlar squinted at the monumental spread of crimson through the snow all around the body. ‘The force of the impact destroyed it.’
‘And then some.’ Adam found he could take no pride in what he’d done. He was glad a dusting of snow now hid the worst of the mess. ‘D’you think all those things are dead?’
‘It’s likely. Dead weight, falling from twenty thousand feet . . .’
‘You did a good job, kid,’ Oldman muttered.
‘It wasn’t just me,’ Adam shot back.
‘No, I know – Zed as well, of course. I just hope he can protect us on the ground as well as in the air . . .’
‘I didn’t mean Zed either,’ Adam broke in. ‘When I was hooked up to Think-Send, I . . . I kind of made contact with someone who said Geneflow were going to be stopped, and then all the buildings fell down and . . .’
Mr Adlar peered at him. ‘Made contact with who?’
As Adam opened his mouth, a colossal explosion ripped the VC-25 apart and lit the landscape an incandescent orange. The blast threw Adam to the ground with a wave of heat that felt hot enough to strip his skin from his back. Rolling over, he found the pale blue sky replaced by a mass of smoke and flame billowing from the plane wreck, dancing over the desolation. His dad and Oldman lay sprawled in the snow beside him, while Eve cradled Zoe in her arms, both staring wide-eyed at the wreck.
‘Is everyone OK?’ Mr Adlar asked hoarsely.
‘Maybe one day,’ muttered Zoe.
‘Well, this is terrific.’ Oldman scrambled up, coughing. ‘Just in case those Russian fighter planes have any trouble finding us, we’ve lit them a signal fire.’
The thick drone of engines stole into the frozen stillness.
Eve put an arm round Zoe on the ground. ‘Is that them now?’
Oldman shook his head, staring about. ‘Sounds like a small plane, getting ready to take off.’
‘Geneflow’s airstrip,’ Zoe realized.
‘Josephs,’ breathed Adam. ‘It’s got to be.’
‘And we can’t stop her.’ Oldman raised his gun up to the sky, pointing as a small white passenger aircraft climbed into the air from behind the ruins of the city. ‘She’ll start this whole damn thing again somewhere else, and there’s not a thing we can do . . .’
He broke off, as the churning pillar of smoke gusting up from the wrecked jet parted and a massive blur of scaly flesh scythed through high overhead. Mr Adlar cried out in alarm, Oldman swore, Eve screamed.
Zed, Adam hoped for one desperate second.
But no, the wings were too large, the jaws long and pointed; a pterosaur was speeding from the smoke and flame like some twisted phoenix.
Adam closed his eyes, overwhelmed by frustration and fear, unable to bear the scene before him any longer. Then . . . we didn’t stop all the Z. beasts. Josephs will escape, and now this one will complete its task as ordered – and kill us all.
Chapter 26: Instinct to Survive
THE PTEROSAUR SOARED low, blotting out the sun, bearing down on Adam and his friends.
‘Look! It’s Keera!’ Zoe screamed. ‘See? The scars on her wing . . .’
Adam felt a surge of impossible hope. ‘It can’t be her! She was so sick.’
‘That misfiring circuitry in her head was the only thing holding back her powers to regenerate.’ Mr Adlar stared up in wonder. ‘Her healing cycle must’ve kicked into overdrive.’
‘And she came after us . . .’ The rest of Adam’s words were drowned out as the Geneflow plane flew overhead – and with a screaming howl Keera made straight for it.
‘She knows who’s on that pla
ne.’ Zoe sounded utterly certain.
Keera was perhaps a third of the plane’s size but way more manoeuvrable – swooping underneath the starboard wing she doubled back in a graceful turn and clamped her jaws down on the tail fin at the rear of the plane. Then she bent her body double and dug her talons in either side; once secured, she started scissoring through the plane’s hull with those monstrous jaws.
Adam felt a shiver that went deeper than the cold as he watched Keera systematically demolish the plane, biting and tearing at its steel flanks. Suddenly flames erupted from the shattered tail section, engulfing Keera completely so that for a moment she resembled some monstrous demon wreathed in hellfire. As she let go and flapped away her triumphant shriek all but drowned out the tortured engines.
‘It’s finished,’ said Eve, as the aircraft started going down fast. But the pilot of the plane managed to lift the craft from its fatal dive; it scraped the icy ground on its belly and cut a huge, curving swathe through the snowy landscape.
‘Oh, no,’ breathed Adam.
The plane was making like a missile straight for them.
‘Run!’ bellowed Oldman, half leaping, half striding through the thick snow. ‘Try to use my tracks.’
‘I can’t even see them,’ hissed Mr Adlar.
‘That way.’ Adam shoved his dad after Oldman, then turned to Eve and helped her carry Zoe. They shambled desperately through the heavy, clinging whiteness. But the plane was ploughing towards them with horrible speed.
‘We’ll never make it!’ Eve shouted.
But then Keera sailed down low, her scaly hide blackened by the flames, and slammed her entire body into the front end of the plane. The aircraft was sent scraping away from Adam’s group and towards the blazing remains of the VC-25. The snow piled up around it, finally halting its horrible progress just a stone’s throw from the first wreck. The gusting wind had changed direction too, cloaking both planes in dark, stinking smoke as if trying to draw a veil over the whole sorry scene.