by Laura Martin
“Ten new species just last year. We have an above-ground facility where we release them. It’s really amazing.”
“Amazing is not the word I would use,” Todd said sarcastically.
“Spoken like a true savage,” Schwartz said drily as he rejoined our group. He turned to Chaz. “Dr Robinson is sending a team out to tag the carnotaurs we stunned. Please accompany him. I’ll escort these three to see Boznic.”
Chaz nodded and was turning to go when one of the men in lab coats trotted up, a worried look on his face. He whispered something quietly in Schwartz’s ear, and Schwartz scowled and nodded. With a resigned sigh he turned to Chaz, who had stopped to watch this interaction. “Change of plans. Escort them to conference room B. I’ll alert Boznic and meet you there after I deal with this.” With a curt nod to the man in the lab coat, Schwartz turned and followed him at a jog.
“Looks like you’re with me,” Chaz said as Pip hopped from her shoulder and scampered away. “Which,” she said confidentially, “is kind of shocking. I’m not sure if you noticed, but Schwartz isn’t my biggest fan. He only tolerates me because he owes my dad a favour.” She stared after Schwartz’s retreating form, her forehead scrunched in thought. With a shrug, she motioned for us to climb back into the elevator. Todd’s face still had a sickly green colour to it, and I saw him give the tranquiliser gun hanging by Chaz’s side an assessing look. Not wanting him to pull anything stupid, I gave his shoulder a shove with my own, and he stumbled forward into the elevator. Shawn followed us inside, a preoccupied scowl on his face. Despite the disturbing revelation that these people were breeding dinosaurs, I couldn’t help but feel a tingle of excitement. This had to be what my dad had put on his map. It just had to be. As soon as the doors slid shut behind us, Chaz pushed a few buttons and took the tranquiliser gun off her shoulder with a grin.
“I’ll make you a deal. If you promise not to deck me, I’ll put this thing away. Makes me twitchy pointing it at people anyway.” She shuddered and slung the large black weapon onto her back. “Besides, it’s about out of battery anyway, and running away is impossible now that you’re down here.”
“What do you mean impossible?” Todd asked, eyeing the panel on the side of the elevator speculatively.
“Well, you saw how touchy Schwartz was about you guys finding out about this place. It’s because no one knows about us – not the Noah, not the compounds, not anybody,” Chaz explained. “We’re top secret.”
“I thought the Oaks was top secret too,” Todd muttered darkly, and I winced. His village had been captured when the Noah’s marines somehow tracked me and Shawn all the way from North Compound.
When I’d left the compound with nothing but my dad’s compass and a poorly drawn map, I’d never expected that the Noah would send General Kennedy and his marines after me. Why would the Noah, the man who controlled all four of the compounds, waste his time on a twelve-year-old girl? The whole idea was mind-boggling, but it was one I’d had to come to terms with.
In fact, there were a lot of things about the world that I’d had to adjust to after coming topside. For one, that people like Todd existed: people who lived outside the Noah’s control and the compound’s protection. For my entire life, I’d thought survival topside was impossible due to the dinosaurs. Now I was face-to-face with yet another example of that lie. Chaz and the rest of the people in the lab were obviously not descendants of the people the original Noah had shepherded underground over 150 years ago. Which meant that, like Todd, they’d never believed the Noah was the great saviour of the human race like Shawn and I had. It was simultaneously unnerving and exhilarating.
“What?” Todd cried, and I focussed back in on the conversion. Chaz had continued talking while I’d been lost in my own thoughts, and from the look of horror on Todd’s face, I’d missed something big.
“Like I said,” Chaz shrugged. “We’re always short-handed, and lab kids start working early. It’s not that great a job really. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a step up from mucking out stalls, but Dr Schwartz isn’t the most personable guy.”
“We noticed.” Shawn scowled. “About the time he tried to feed me to a sea monster.”
“Well, in his defence, you did hit him,” Chaz said. “I don’t think he really would have thrown you overboard.” Shawn shuddered and Chaz smiled apologetically. “Yeah, Pretty Boy’s a mean one all right. But pliosaurs and plesiosaurs are the only vicious creatures we help proliferate, and that’s only to protect the lab.”
“Proliferate?” Shawn asked.
“Help multiply,” Chaz supplied. “Our main focus is herbivores.”
“OK,” I said, trying to wrap my mind around this new information. “Then why didn’t you kill that carnotaurus herd on the beach? They were definitely not herbivores.”
“It’s a lab rule,” Chaz said. “It all goes back to the ecosystem balance I mentioned before. No one likes spiders either, but if we killed them all, the bug population would take over. If we kill off all the carnivores, we throw the entire ecosystem off balance.”
“Wait a minute,” Shawn said, his brow wrinkled in confusion. “Didn’t you say this lab had been here since before the pandemic?”
“It has.” Chaz nodded. “Originally it was a top-secret testing centre for the dinosaurs. Scientists back then were interested in discovering what else the dinosaurs might be useful for besides entertainment. This lab has discovered thousands of uses for everything from the oils in their skin to their dung. Medicines, tools, food, you name it, dinosaurs provide it way better than cows or chickens ever could. Which is good, considering all those domestic animals are extinct now. Plus dinosaurs are exceptionally trainable if you start them as hatchlings, and they make pretty fabulous pets.”
“But what about the pandemic?” I asked. The pandemic was one of the main reasons the human race had been struggling to make a comeback for the last 150 years. The small portion of the population that had survived it had done so because they’d been blessed with immunity to a disease that should have been extinct for millions of years. And while that immunity did seem to be passed down from generation to generation, it wasn’t foolproof.
“Oh, that,” Chaz said, waving her hand dismissively. “All the dinosaurs we breed are genetically modified so they help eliminate the bacterial strain that caused the pandemic. I’m not sure how well you know your history, but all attempts at a vaccine have failed. But if the genetic modifications work like Boz thinks they will, we might be able to eradicate it completely in the next thirty years. Pretty awesome, right?” When we didn’t say anything, she went on, unperturbed. “Anyway, after the pandemic, the scientists that survived realised that if they didn’t step in, the fragile balance of life topside might implode completely. Without us, there might not be a viable ecosystem topside.”
“The dinosaurs make it impossible for the human race to survive topside, so who cares about the viable eco-whatever?” Shawn asked
“It’s not impossible,” Todd said. “It’s just not real easy.”
“The word you’re looking for is deadly,” Shawn muttered.
“That’s the thing,” Chaz said excitedly. “Boz has a plan for us to live in harmony with the dinosaurs. We already have quite a few scientists living in our aboveground facility. Boz says that evolution has proven it isn’t just survival of the fittest, but survival of the adaptable!”
“Wait a second,” Todd said, “I think I heard about a place like that. Some of the traders mentioned a settlement of scientists near the lake.”
Chaz nodded happily. “That was probably us. We trade with some of the tree people from time to time.”
“I thought we were all savages,” Todd said, his face tight with anger.
Chaz cringed. “Not everyone is as biased at Schwartz,” she said apologetically.
“I still think you’re all nuts,” Shawn said.
“We’re not,” Chaz countered, sounding slightly insulted. “We do some really amazing stuff here.” When w
e still didn’t seem convinced, she huffed and punched a new button on the elevator.
“What are you doing?” Todd asked nervously.
“Proving to you just how awesome this place is,” Chaz said. “We have some time to kill before Schwartz gets to the conference room anyway. We’ll hit the hatchery first, and then the breeding pens. The dorms and school aren’t that exciting.”
The elevator dinged, and we stepped out into the gigantic laboratory and my jaw dropped. It was one thing to hear about people breeding dinosaurs; it was a whole other thing to actually see it. Scattered around the room were large metal contraptions with glass domes and heat lamps. I peered inside the closest one. It was filled with five eggs the size of footballs, and the silver plaque on the side let me know that these were apparently ankylosaurus eggs.
“Those are really cool,” Chaz said from behind me, making me jump. “They have this fused armour built into their skin. Makes them nearly impossible to tranquilise. Real sweethearts, though, so you almost never have to. We used to have a male named Bubba who would let the little kids climb all over him like he was a jungle gym. He would do just about anything for a cookie.”
“I’m not sure if this is impressive or disgusting,” Shawn admitted as he turned in a slow circle.
We passed through the enormous hatchery and walked up a massive set of glass stairs. I looked back and calculated roughly one hundred incubators, each with at least three or four eggs inside.
Chaz punched a code into a large glass door. It buzzed and clicked open, and the smell that wafted through was enough to make me gag. Shawn and Todd immediately covered their noses with their hands. Chaz didn’t seem to notice.
We walked into the massive room of dinosaurs we’d caught a glimpse of earlier. With the soaring ceilings and gigantic windows, it was hard to believe we were really underwater. Row after row of oversized glass and iron stalls stretched as far as I could see, each one containing a different breed of dinosaur. We followed Chaz up a ramp that led to a walkway over the top of the cages. We had to manoeuver around teenagers in dirty overalls who were busy wheeling wheelbarrows full of a coarse grain, obviously on their way to fill the enormous feed troughs below. A few of them shot us interested looks, but everyone else seemed much too busy to care about us.
I looked down into the first stall. A small family of triceratops was inside, the female bellowing at three tiny greenish adolescents who head-butted one another and rolled around the floor of the cage. My heart lurched when I saw a small girl in among them, a wheelbarrow and pitchfork in hand as she worked at clearing out a mound of dinosaur poop almost as tall as she was.
Chaz waved down. “Hey, Joyce! How are the three musketeers doing today?” Joyce set down her pitchfork as the three young dinosaurs raced around her in an impromptu game of tag.
“Driving their poor mother crazy. I think we’ll move them to their own pen tomorrow.”
Suddenly Shawn was gripping my shoulder. “Did you see what was outside those windows?” he whispered.
“What?” I asked, turning to look out the floor-to-ceiling windows that wrapped around the entire enclosure. Outside, swimming in graceful arcs, were plesiosaurs. These had longer necks and smaller heads than Pretty Boy. Their bodies moved smoothly in the water, propelled by four muscular fins. They periodically opened their mouths in soundless calls, giving me a good view of their gleaming rows of teeth. I gulped, and hoped the glass was thicker than it looked.
Chaz turned back to us. “Oh, you spotted our audience. The elasmosaurs like the light the lab gives off. Did you know that some people believe that that particular breed was never actually extinct?” she asked, jerking her head at the long-necked plesiosaurs. “Before the pandemic hit, people claimed that there was a small family of them located in some lake in Scotland. The locals called them Loch Ness monsters or something. Can you believe it? Dr Schwartz said it’s really unlikely, but I would love to travel there someday to see for myself.”
Todd craned his head back, taking in the enormity of the space. “What I want to know is how you got all these dinosaurs down here. I know you didn’t squeeze them into that tiny glass elevator.”
Chaz laughed. She had a low chuckling laugh, and I thought that, under different circumstances, like ones where she wasn’t holding us prisoner, I might actually like her.
“We have gigantic freight elevators at entrances A and G,” she explained. Before she could go on, the crackle of a loudspeaker reverberated around the room. Everyone froze, looking up as though expecting the voice of God. However, it wasn’t the voice of God that came through the speaker. It was Schwartz. And he sounded furious.
“Chastity McGuire! Report to the conference room immediately!”
Chaz froze as everyone’s eyes turned to stare at us. It looked like our tour was over.
“Your real name is Chastity?” Todd asked, his familiar smirk back in place.
“My name is Chaz,” she snipped as she hustled us off the walkway. “If anyone but Dr Schwartz called me Chastity, they’d get a black eye. Consider yourself warned.”
We reached another glass door and Chaz punched some numbers in quickly. It buzzed open and she pushed us inside. This room had lower ceilings and seemed to be some kind of office space. She hurried us down hallway after hallway until we finally reached conference room B. Inside was a fuming Schwartz.
“Did they enjoy your nice little tour of our top-secret facility, Chaz? You are officially demoted from your position as my assistant. I need someone who can follow a simple order when it’s given.”
Chaz’s face flushed red, but she set her mouth in a stubborn line and didn’t reply. She had guts. I liked her more for it.
“Relax, Dr Schwartz,” said a large man I hadn’t noticed before. His clothes had the pressed appearance of authority. His pale blue eyes were stern, but the wrinkles around his mouth and eyes betrayed that his face was more accustomed to smiling than frowning. “I’m sure Chaz didn’t mean to be disrespectful. I actually think it might be a good thing to give our guests a glimpse of the importance of our work.”
“Sir,” Dr Schwartz said stiffly, “you saw the girl’s map. Our safety here might be compromised.”
“And if it is?” the man replied with a carefree shrug. “We are not without protection. Before you jump to the grimmest scenario, let’s at least hear the girl’s story. And for heaven’s sake, untie them. They’re only children.”
Todd snorted. I had to agree. I hadn’t felt like a child in a long time. Regardless, Chaz stepped forward to untie us. She looked relieved and gave us an apologetic smile as she deftly unwound the rope.
“Take a seat, please,” the man said. “I am Dr Bartholomew Boznic, head paleontologist here at the Lincoln Lab, but everyone calls me Boz.” He was perched at a long glossy metal table set against another one of those floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out on the lake, complete with frolicking plesiosaurs. Their huge bodies slid past the glass, and some even pushed off it to launch themselves in the opposite direction.
“We didn’t tell anyone about your lab,” I said as I took a seat across from Boz. “I had no idea what was in the middle of this lake when I got the map.”
“That’s good to hear.” He smiled. “I’d hate to think that the Noah’s stealth bombers were winging their way here to destroy my life’s work as we speak.”
“The Noah doesn’t have stealth bombers,” Shawn protested, but then he paused, taking in Boz’s serious face and raised eyebrows. Deflated, he sank into the seat beside me. “Of course the Noah has stealth bombers,” he said flatly, “why am I even surprised?” I rolled my eyes. Even after watching Todd’s entire village get captured, and everything that Ivan had told us, it had taken Shawn forever to come around to the idea that the Noah wasn’t the saviour of humanity we’d always been told he was. I’d been an easier sell. Between my dad’s note and the revelation that villages like Todd’s existed, I’d very quickly come to terms with the fact that the world wasn’
t what I’d always been told. Not that I could blame Shawn for taking a little longer. We’d both grown up believing that only one aeroplane existed, and that the aeroplane’s sole purpose was to deliver mail and supplies four times a year between compounds. Then the helicopters had shown up at Todd’s village, so Boz’s claim of stealth bombers was not all that far-fetched. Unfortunately.
“I can assure you that he does have stealth bombers,” Boz said seriously. “And if given the opportunity, he would use them. Our position with the current Noah is tenuous to say the least.”
“Tenuous?” I asked.
“He acts like we don’t exist, mainly because he can’t find us, and we act like he doesn’t exist. But I don’t want to talk about that now. What I want to know is where this remarkable map came from.” He had my dad’s map spread out before him, and I could tell he’d been studying it before we came in. I looked at Shawn and Todd, hoping for some guidance about how much to tell. Shawn just shrugged. Todd laced his fingers into the straps of the pack he was still wearing and stared in grim silence at the plesiosaurs outside the window. I decided to proceed cautiously. Boz seemed nice enough, but he and Schwartz worked together. And there was something about Schwartz that made my skin crawl.
“My dad sent it. Just like I told Schwartz before he tried to feed Shawn to that monster Pretty Boy.”
“It was an accident,” Schwarz sniffed. “The boy attacked me, and he lost his balance.”
Boz shot Schwartz a disapproving look, clearly skeptical of this explanation, and Schwartz seemed to shrink a bit.
“Our Dr Schwartz can be a bit overenthusiastic. I’m sorry you had to experience any unpleasantness, Miss, Miss – what’s your name, my dear?”
“Sky Mundy.”
Boz sat up as though his chair had electrocuted him, leaning forward to look at me over the top of his thin wire-framed glasses. “Are you any relation to Jack Mundy? The biologist in North Compound?”