Code Name Flood. Laura Martin
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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 we 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,