You could still hear gunfire, however it was sporadic and usually followed by a scream. The raptor honed in on shots, knowing a human snack was always attached to the gun.
Jillian had learned the hard way that stealth was your only protection. She had survived a raptor ambush back at Camp David. And back then they had a full arsenal, yet they had still nearly been wiped out. If she hadn’t jumped onto the President’s helicopter, she never would have made it.
And they didn’t have a pack of Troodons on their heels.
Reginald dropped to the floor so Jillian followed suit. A raptor was at the base of the tenth floor landing. The large head swiveled in an almost unnatural manner, its nostrils flaring. Then its head snapped around, facing upward. It had gotten a fix on their scent.
Her companion turned to her. “Do you trust me?” he asked.
“Of course,” Jillian stated. He had been a good worker and even better friend over the last six years.
He wrapped his arms around her waist, then climbed up onto the side railing. To her shock and horror he jumped. They free fell down the stairwell. Even the raptor looked shocked at the action. Was Reginald committing suicide and taking her along with him? In truth that would almost be a relief. Guilt and horror weighed down her heart.
But then Reginald flung his hand out, throwing a thin wire out that wrapped around the second floor railing. Just before they hit the floor the wire caught, stopping them from crashing to their death.
They were not out of the woods yet though. The raptor must have really been hungry because she wasn’t letting them get away that easily. Instead she leapt from the tenth floor landing down to the ninth, then the eighth.
They didn’t have that many floors to go so Reginald jumped up, pulling Jillian along with him. They hurried through the door then Reginald locked it just as the raptor hit it. She warped the metal. Thank god there had been no glass or they would be dead.
These weren’t military grade doors. Even the metal wouldn’t hold up to a persistent raptor attack.
A high pitched shriek went up behind them, answered by another. Two Troodons approached, their odd little fingers moved like old fashioned villains. You could feel their excitement.
“Stay back,” Reginald ordered as he unlocked the door and swung it open to protect them.
The raptor leapt into the hallway faced with two, now three Troodons. There was a moment when it cocked its head, moving its lateral eyes to take in the whole scene, then it turned and ran. Yes, a raptor turned and ran.
The three Troodons gave chase, running after the raptor.
Reginald slammed the door shut, locking it behind them. He grabbed her hand and they ran in the direction of the side exit. The gunfire had nearly dissipated. Was it due to lack of ammo or had all the guards been killed?
As they ran past body after body, it appeared to be the later. Reginald reached down and grabbed one of the guard’s guns. What good it was going to do looking at the eviscerated guard Jillian wasn’t sure.
She had been wrong. The raptor weren’t hungry. They were playing, eating only the juicy part and leaving the rest of the body. Like a cat toying with its mice.
Jillian couldn’t look too closely at the bodies or she would lose it.
A scream from up ahead brought them to an immediate halt. A man in grey camouflage stumbled into view. A Troodon had him by the neck and was shaking him. That was their MO.
Soon the screaming stopped and the man lay limp in the Troodon’s grip. Jillian turned away before she could see what the Troodon would do next. The wet slurpy sounds were descriptive enough.
“Hurry,” Reginald urged as they ran down a side hallway. Hopefully the Troodon was distracted enough with his meal.
Unfortunately the smell of fresh blood drew quite the crowd. Jillian stumbled back into an office as a raptor, head high in the air sniffing, came barreling around the corner. Thank goodness they didn’t have great forward vision. Reginald closed the door softly behind them. They peered over the divider to watch the raptor creep forward, tapping its claw on the floor. Another raptor cried from a few hallways down. Then the third answered the call.
Apparently the raptors were tired of their prey being stolen.
The Troodon trumpeted, but no others responded. Jillian couldn’t help but watch the raptors surrounded the lone Troodon. Even though he was a third their size, the Troodon dug his one claw into the dead man and swiped with the other, balancing on his tail.
He hissed loudly, his tongue flickering in his mouth. Troodon weren’t known as solo fighters. Their strength were in numbers not actual strength, but this Troodon was making a stand.
One of the raptors lashed out, taking a bite out of the Troodon’s tail. The Troodon screamed, but didn’t hesitate to take a swipe back, raking the raptor’s face. She screamed, falling back.
“We’ve got to go.”
Jillian’s morbid fascination couldn’t keep her eyes from the fight. Even as Reginald cracked open the door and led her out, Jillian continued to watch the fight. All three raptors moved in as one, putting the Troodon on the defensive. Not that she felt sorry for him at all. He would have eaten her in a heartbeat if given the chance.
With all three raptors in a coordinated attack it didn’t look like the Troodon had much time left.
Then the ceiling tiles broke open and five Troodon rained down upon the raptors. It was over in a matter of seconds.
“We need to take advantage of this,” Reginald said, breaking out into a run. The raptors were gone. Now it was only the Troodon they needed to avoid.
Jillian ran after Reginald as they made their way to the south exit. She could see through the window, a helicopter on the pad, its rotors slowly circling overhead. That wasn’t a vehicle that was salvation.
Reginald slid to a halt, suddenly back pedaling. He would have run into Jillian if she hadn’t put herself into reverse.
“What is it?”
Then she saw it over his shoulder. It was an injured Troodon. It looked like a raptor had nearly bitten off his hind leg. The dinosaur dragged the useless limb behind him. There was no way past without confronting that Troodon.
The dinosaur seemed to notice them and sped up his tortured pace.
Jillian stopped which made Reginald bump into her.
“We can take him,” Jillian said, nodding to the gun that Reginald had taken off the dead man. Against a healthy Troodon they had no chance, especially with raptors around. But luckily the Troodon’s had taken care of the raptor problem for them.
“These bullets won’t penetrate the dinosaur’s hide,” Reginald reminded her.
“We don’t have to,” Jillian said, pointing to the damaged leg. “Shoot for the femoral artery.”
The robot that had become a friend nodded, pulling the weapon. His left eye glowed blue as he enhanced his vision then took the shot.
The Troodon screamed, wheeling around to his injured leg. The wound spurted blood. Too much to survive. The dinosaur stumbled to a stop, falling onto his chest, flailing his open mouth.
They couldn’t wait for it to die as the other Troodon’s responded to their mate’s cry. Reginald jumped over the writhing dinosaur first, clearing the gnashing teeth.
Jillian backed up and took it at a run, but still didn’t get enough air. The Troodon’s tooth snagged her shoe. Even in its own death throes, the Troodon tried to kill her by whipping his head back and forth. Jillian jerked her shoe out of its mouth, tumbling to the floor at Reginald’s feet.
The synthetic grabbed her by the jacket and pulled her to a safe distance.
Only then did the Troodon stop his death shake and slump to the floor. The sound of other Troodon’s filled the hallway.
They didn’t bother to cover their tracks or hide the sound of their retreat. They simply sprinted at full tilt down the hall and hit the door at a flat out run. They burst out into the bright sunny air.
They didn’t pause as they hurried across the grassy lawn.
/> Reginald got to the helicopter first and opened the door for Jillian.
Only once she climbed aboard did she realize that it was a massacre inside. The pilot was slumped over, sans a head. The co-pilot had been eviscerated.
She looked out over the lawn past the helicopter to see a graveyard. Most of her colleagues, or more accurately what was left of her colleagues were strewn all over the lawn. Jillian put her hand up to cover her mouth to keep her stomach in line.
None of this could matter right now. It would matter later, but now she had to get out of here. She turned to Reginald.
“Can you fly a helicopter?”
“Of course I can, but it won’t matter.”
Jillian frowned. Usually Reginald was a bit too loose and free with the information. It wasn’t like him to be cagey.
“Why?”
“Mexico has launched against Calgary so Canada has targeted New York. Their missile will be here within ten minutes. There is no way we can get clear of the blast in that time.”
Jillian’s heart sank and met her stomach mid-abdomen.
Then an idea came to her. It wasn’t her first choice, hell it wasn’t even her thousandth choice, but it was a choice amongst so many non-choices.
“The bunker,” Jillian said.
Reginald cocked his head. “It isn’t a bunker per se. It is a cryogenic storage facility.”
“Got any other ideas?” Jillian asked. By helicopter they should be there within minutes. Many of the other diplomats had made arrangements there in case the worst happened. Had Jillian been too optimistic? Or did she not want to leave her family. At this point though, she was leaving her family one way or another. She might was well take the chance she could get woken up long after the radioactive footprint dissipated.
Reginald didn’t verbally answer her, instead he shoved the headless pilot out of the way and moved the co-pilot to make room for Jillian. She had to ignore the still warm blood on the seat. She had to keep herself focused on the next moment. The next minute. Nothing else mattered.
Reginald was efficient getting them off the ground, but they listed to the side.
“Small arms fire, fritzed some of the controls. Hang on.”
They careened across the lawn, making for the main gate. They were barely skimming over the grass how were they going to make it over the ten foot wall? Apparently they weren’t, as the helicopter tilted over nearly horizontal as they approached the gate.
“Jump!” Reginald screamed.
Jillian leapt on instinct alone. A blade whisked over her head, shaving off a few split ends just before she landed hard on the ground. Reginald had flung himself out the other side and rolled as the helicopter crashed into the wall, exploding into a great fire ball.
Great. That was going to attract every Troodon in the area.
Jillian scrambled up as she noticed a Jeep just on the other side of the gate. Running, she was past the structure before she realized what was wrong. The gate was open. It wasn’t broken into. It wasn’t clawed or pried open. It was simply open. Mechanically. Someone had opened the main gate on purpose.
She spun around to Reginald. “Who could have done this?”
“I’m sorry, Jillian.”
For a moment she couldn’t understand what Reginald meant. Then she took a step back. “No.”
“Oh, please,” Reginald snorted in a very undiplomatic way. “This was going to happen with or without us.”
“You set off the nukes?” Jillian asked, her mind still spinning that Reginald could have been part of the end of the world. How could it have come to this?
“No, that’s the most ironic aspect of all of this. You humans have had your fingers on the button for decades. We just had to set the stage and allow you to kill yourselves, so much easier than a full out war again.”
“But, but…” Jillian tried to get her brain to work again. “Your kind accepted all the articles of the new treaty.”
Reginald smiled, looking nearly like his normal, helpful, gentle self. “Of course we did. We realized why risk so many of us when we could get you to kill yourselves?”
Jillian backed up another step. “You’ve had this planned since the surrender?”
Reginald laughed, it did not sound kind at all. “We were winning, why would we surrender, especially to your onerous terms if we didn’t have a backup plan? You humans. Your hubris was your undoing.”
The ceasefire against the robots had been one of her country’s greatest triumphs and now to know it was a fraud? That her entire decision to go into the diplomatic field had been based on a lie. And here she was to see its fruition.
“Then why are you helping me escape?”
“Because you are one of the rare good ones, Jillian. If ever our two species might get along it will be because of people like you.”
Jillian’s brain refused to believe the words coming out of Reginald’s mouth. Her eye fluttered trying to take it all in.
“We need to get moving,” Reginald said, opening the Jeep’s door.
Jillian didn’t step forward. “Why bother?”
“Because being alive is better than dead, Jillian. You might be reunited with your family one day.”
“How can I trust you?” Jillian asked starting to fathom the depth of Reginald’s year’s long betrayal.
“I could have let you die a dozen times over, Jillian. You can hate me later. For now, accept my help.”
Jillian was about to decline until a memory of her daughter’s chubby cheeks and high pitched laugh filled her being. Even if she had to take the help of a deceitful, bastard synthetic, Jillian needed to survive. She needed to be with her family.
Without another word, Jillian piled into the Jeep as Reginald revved it.
“It is going to be close. There is a three minute cycle to prime the tube.”
“Then you better step on it,” Jillian barked no longer trying to pretend the robot was her friend.
A Troodon jumped out into the road. Reginald simply ran it over. That was about the only good thing about them, the Troodon’s were basically human sized, which meant they could be road kill. Jillian looked back over her shoulder. The dinosaur was down and looked like it was going to stay down.
Reginald took the first right out of the compound and sped down the empty street. They had placed the retreat far from the populace and the distractions of the city.
Tires squealed as her “savior” took another right turn, then floored it down the straight country road. The facility wasn’t far, however the metronome in Jillian’s head kept the countdown. That missile was coming and coming fast. And from such a close silo?
They were barely going to get there in time.
“You humans didn’t even realize that all of the robots had moved out of the major strike cities over the past few weeks,” Reginald stated.
Jillian didn’t rise to the bait. Not because she didn’t disagree with him. Right now she wasn’t exactly very proud of her own species. Of course the humans hadn’t noticed the robot exodus because they were a selfish, self-centered, egotistical species that probably deserved to be wiped from the planet.
Except they didn’t. In the past few decades they had come together. Curbing greenhouse gases at astonishing levels. It might not reverse global warming completely, but they were trying damn it. Maybe if the robots had gotten on board and helped, rather than plotting their revenge, it could have been different.
“Our calculations put us at a fifty-fifty percent chance the nuclear winter will offset global warming,” Reginald explained.
“Good for you,” Jillian mumbled as they took a left and sped down a short street.
“You don’t have to be so bitter. We are trying to right the wrong that you created.”
“And wipe out the human race.”
Reginald shrugged as he gripped the wheel. “Consequences are a bitch,” he said sounding ever so unlike the Reginald she knew.
Again, she would love to argue with the synth
etic, but he wasn’t wrong. Mankind had screwed themselves and put the world’s plant and animal kingdoms in grave jeopardy. Before taking draconian measures to halt the greenhouse gases, scientists were giving the earth another twenty years at most. Not humans, but the entire planet.
Yep, mankind almost wiped out the whole shebang.
“There had to be another way,” Jillian stated. Always the debater. Always the diplomat.
Reginald laughed. “Yes because cloning and decimating dinosaurs was such a great step forward.”
Okay, again, he wasn’t wrong. What the hell was the Dow Corporation thinking funding that research with the kook, Nichols? Of course the company didn’t realize his long term plan, but still. They had enough environmental problems, dinosaurs never should have been added to the mix.
“Not our finest moment,” Jillian had to admit.
“And when was your finest moment? I think you might have to go all the way back to Michelangelo to really find it.”
Dear god was that true? Was the entire western history arcing toward self-destruction? Was that the one thing humans were good at?
Before she could contemplate the notion further, Reginald announced, “We’re here.”
The synthetic had fulfilled his promise. They skidded to a halt at the curb of the cryogenic building. Jillian had taken a tour at the facility last year, during the Second Cuban missile crisis, when the company was trying to sell the diplomats on the concept.
She knew that this large sprawling one story building was only the tip of the proverbial iceberg. The facility went down twenty floors. It was radiation proof. According to the sales rep a nuke could hit right on top of it and the “premium” tubes down on the twentieth floor would be intact. Jillian hadn’t been all that interested in the first place. Back then the idea had seemed ludicrous. Then she saw the price tag. One point two million for the basic package. Another half million for the premium package.
At the time she had chuckled. If only the uber rich survived a nuclear holocaust, who was going to do all the hard manual labor rebuilding the country was going to take.
Yes, those Richie riches were going to wake up to quite the shock.
Now here she was. Cytogenesis didn’t seem all that crazy. She looked down at Reginald’s watch. He liked to keep things old school or maybe that was just part of his cover.
Apex Predator Thriller Series Collection (Including the blockbuster new shark park thriller, Salechii) Page 63