The Great Zoo of China Read online

  ‘Quick! Inside!’ Greg Johnson called, jumping out and ushering them all through the entrance.

  They hurried inside. Johnson slid the thick barred gate shut behind them just as another red-bellied black dragon smacked against the bars, screeching wildly.

  As the dragon raged at the gate, the group dashed down the darkened tunnel.

  CJ ran out in front.

  For some reason, the ceiling lights here were out. The tunnel was almost completely dark: the only illumination came from the daylight behind them and from some dim artificial light coming from the other end of the tunnel. The dragon at the gate behind them continued to fume.

  About twenty metres down the tunnel, CJ saw a thick steel door sunk into the left-hand wall. It was open. A warning sign on it read DIESEL GENERATORS—NO NAKED FLAMES in English and Mandarin. Inky darkness lay beyond it.

  ‘I don’t think we’re going in there,’ CJ said. She preferred the dimly lit space at the far end of the tunnel. When it came to fleeing from creatures that could see in pitch darkness, even a small amount of light was better than total blackness.

  They kept running and eventually came to a pair of wide security doors, also open.

  They passed through them and emerged inside the Birthing Centre. They all stopped dead in their tracks.

  CJ swallowed. ‘We shouldn’t have come here.’

  CJ stared in horror at the Birthing Centre—at what it was and at what had clearly happened in it over the last hour or so.

  The centre itself was a broad two-storey-high hall with glistening white-tiled walls and floors. The whole place had a feeling of antiseptic cleanliness.

  But it wasn’t clean anymore.

  The Birthing Centre was bathed in blood and gore. Dead bodies dressed in lab coats littered the floor; Chinese technicians who had been torn apart by rampaging dragons. Equipment had been smashed. Wires hung everywhere. Lights hung askew from the ceiling, giving off sparks.

  The whole space—no doubt usually brightly lit—was cloaked in grim semidarkness.

  In the middle of the hall was a broad rectangular pit, about the size of two Olympic swimming pools. A series of catwalk bridges spanned the pit while rung-ladders led down into it.

  Two levels of glass-walled offices ringed the perimeter of the hall. They were variously filled with computer servers, microscope labs and centrifuges. There were even a few cages and some rooms fitted with surgical tables and medical equipment.

  CJ stopped at the edge of the huge pit and peered down into it.

  At its base, about seven feet below CJ, were dozens of rectangular cages packed tightly together in long rows, all half-submerged in a couple of feet of water.

  CJ winced at what she saw inside the cages.

  Saltwater crocodiles.

  Big ones. Huge. And there were a lot of them, maybe seventy all up.

  The usually fearsome reptiles, however, didn’t look fearsome at all. Rather, they looked pathetic and miserable, for not only were they being held captive in the tiny cages, but their limbs were manacled to the cages’ walls, immobilising them. At the rear of their cages were flaps that appeared to allow any eggs the crocodiles laid to fall into catching trays. The trays were then taken away on conveyor belts.

  The crocs bellowed plaintively.

  CJ recognised the vocalisations. She had heard them many times before. They were female calls, the kind a mother croc made to gather her offspring to her. But these calls got no reply.

  As she gazed at the wretched crocodiles, CJ thought: They look like battery hens.

  The saltwater crocodile was one of the deadliest predators in the world, cunning and intelligent, cold and ruthless. It was hard to feel sorry for one, but CJ found herself feeling sorry for these crocs now.

  She saw a smartboard nearby, a kind of high-tech whiteboard. It featured a map of the zoo and some handwritten notes which, curiously, were written in English:

  CJ read the handwritten notes. It seemed that the dragons at the Great Dragon Zoo had been doing unpredictable things.

  One note asked: Why are they digging?

  An arrow beside it pointed at the map, and at a series of randomly arranged Xs marked on it.

  The dragons were digging and their keepers didn’t know why.

  Other notes referred to the red-bellied black dragons—questioning whether they were of higher status than the other dragons and that perhaps they and the yellowjacket dragons were rival clans. CJ recalled noticing earlier that all of the dragons involved in the initial attacks had been red-bellied blacks.

  A rather ominous notation at the bottom of the smartboard read: They are starting to figure us out.

  One note, however, captured CJ’s attention: Brain defects in croc-born variants—why are they so aggressive?

  ‘The croc-born variants . . .’ she said aloud.

  And suddenly the full horrific meaning of the name ‘Birthing Centre’ became clear.

  These crocs were battery hens.

  CJ now also understood the answer to one of her previous questions: how the zoo could have 232 dragons when the Chinese had at first only found 88 eggs.

  The answer was right here in front of her: to breed more dragons for their zoo, the Chinese had been using the ova of saltwater crocodiles—the archosaur’s closest living relative—as hosts for dragon embryos. All the high-tech equipment around the perimeter of the Birthing Centre—the microscopes, computers and centrifuges—was for the purpose of nuclei insemination and fertilisation.

  But one needed lots of ova to get just a few viable embryos, hence the water pit filled with female crocodiles.

  The scientists of the Great Dragon Zoo had created a donor egg–making factory.

  But the smartboard revealed that all had not been well with the Great Dragon Zoo even before the events of today.

  ‘CJ? CJ, we need you.’ Hamish’s voice snapped her out of her thoughts and she returned to the present.

  Hamish said, ‘Which exit do we take?’

  CJ saw two possible exits from the Birthing Centre: security doors at each of the far corners of the lab. The one off to her right was closed. The one to her left, open.

  She stared at the open door. She wasn’t certain but she thought she could hear a muffled whumping sound coming from the tunnel beyond it.

  ‘Which one, Chipmunk?’ Hamish asked.

  ‘We could go back—’ Johnson said, glancing down the tunnel behind them.

  They could see the dragon still scratching at the barred entrance, seventy metres away, but then Johnson cut himself off as a new shadow slunk out of the side door halfway along the tunnel and snarled at them. It was another red-bellied black prince with no ears and it was inside the tunnel!

  ‘Whoa, shit . . .’ Hamish breathed.

  ‘Hey! CJ!’ a voice called. ‘Don’t stay out in the open! Get to one of the cages now!’

  CJ spun, surprised to hear someone shouting her name in English, and she saw three people cowering inside a cage recessed in the right-hand wall.

  The speaker was Go-Go, the pony-tailed Chinese guy she’d seen in the revolving restaurant on Dragon Mountain. With him in the cage was the twenty-something female Chinese grad student he’d been dining with.

  The third person in the cage was a handsome Caucasian man wearing horn-rimmed glasses and a lab coat.

  They must have sought refuge inside the cage when the dragons had stormed this place and now they were all waving frantically at CJ and her newly arrived group.

  CJ peered at the Caucasian man and for the second time that day, found herself recognising someone here at the zoo.

  ‘Ben?’ she said. ‘Ben Patrick?’

  ‘Go!’ the man in the lab coat yelled urgently. ‘Before they smell you! There are two of them in the tunnel leading to the Nesting Centre and if they catch your scent—’

  A long low hiss made them all turn.

  Two red-bellied black princes stood in the open doorway on the far left-hand side of the pit.
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br />   They were earless.

  Their snouts were smeared with blood. Rags of human flesh dangled from their teeth.

  They sprang forward, moving with astonishing speed around the rim of the croc-filled water pit. They ran like jungle cats, with fluidity and balance, their heads held low, their tails held high, their wings folded onto their backs.

  CJ calculated her best move in a nanosecond.

  She was at the front edge of the water pit. The nearest escape was the heavy door in the right-hand corner on the other side of the pit, if she could get it open.

  ‘That door!’ she called to the others. ‘Go!’

  She broke into a run across the nearest catwalk spanning the pit. Hamish followed. Johnson, Syme and Zhang dashed around the pit.

  As she ran, CJ called, ‘Go-Go! What’s the code for that door?’

  ‘6161!’ Go-Go yelled back.

  One of the black princes veered toward CJ and Hamish, bounding onto the catwalk bridge after them.

  But the bridge wasn’t designed to carry its weight and as it leapt onto the narrow span, the whole catwalk dropped into the water pit, taking the dragon, CJ and Hamish down with it.

  CJ landed flat on her chest on top of a cage containing a very angry female saltwater crocodile.

  Only inches away from her face, the croc bellowed and bucked. But there was a thin mesh of steel between them, plus the crocodile’s limbs were shackled.

  Hamish landed on the cage next to CJ’s. Being heavier, he created a dent in his and the crocodile inside it roared.

  CJ rolled off her cage and leapt to her feet, and standing in the knee-deep salt water, searched for a ladder leading out—

  The red-bellied black dragon rose up before her.

  Nine feet tall, with its long swooping neck, spike-like crests and fangs protruding from its snout, it towered over her, blocking the way to a rung-ladder on the wall of the pit.

  There was nowhere for CJ to go.

  The dragon was crouching to lunge when a greenish-brown blur slammed into it from the side and the dragon went flying into the water.

  There was a great thrashing and splashing and at first CJ didn’t know what was going on. Then amid all the spraying water, she saw that there were not one but two dragons in it: the red-bellied black prince and another prince, a greenish-brown one.

  The greenish-brown dragon was quite possibly the ugliest thing she had ever seen in her life. Where the black prince had a majesty to it, this animal was something else entirely. It was mud-coloured and looked like a cross between a crocodile and a giant salamander.

  But it was equal in size to the black prince and a match for it, and the two dragons fought with terrible violence, exchanging blows and slashing at each other with their teeth as they rolled around in the water.

  ‘Come on!’ Hamish hauled CJ toward the rung-ladder and within seconds they were out of the pit and running for the door in the right-hand corner.

  Johnson and Syme were already there. Johnson, ever cool under pressure, was punching in the code and the door unlocked, popping open with a gaseous hiss. They both slid inside it.

  Zhang, slower than Johnson and Syme, was still running around the edge of the pit, with the second red-bellied black prince closing in on him. It flew fast and low across the broad hall.

  CJ and Hamish hurried for the same door.

  They bolted side by side, stride for stride. The dragon saw them, switching its gaze back and forth between them and Zhang, as if trying to choose which prey to go for.

  And suddenly Zhang slipped on a puddle of blood and he went sliding clumsily onto his butt across the tiled floor.

  It sealed his fate.

  The dragon made its choice and descended on him. It all but enveloped Deputy Director Zhang as it came down on him with its claws raised. Zhang screamed as the dragon mauled him, raising his arms in defence, but the dragon just tore his chest apart before biting his throat out.

  CJ and Hamish squeezed through the open doorway and Johnson slammed the door shut behind them. The lock clicked. They were safe.

  Fifteen feet away from them, through a small window in the heavy door, they saw the dragon feast on Zhang’s body, his still-warm blood dripping from its jaws.

  CJ turned away from the grisly sight.

  Still breathing hard, she took in the dark tunnel in which she now found herself.

  The door they’d all just slid through was actually a seriously secure door: it was big and solid—even the glass in its little window was thick—and it had a rubber lining at its edges that created an airtight seal.

  As the dragon feasted on the other side of it, cracking Zhang’s bones, CJ could barely hear it. The door was almost soundproof.

  ‘Everybody all right?’ she asked.

  ‘Only just,’ Hamish said.

  CJ looked down the tunnel on her side of the door.

  All the lights were out. The grim passageway ran for about a hundred metres or so, ending at a doorway that stood rather ominously open.

  The glare of daylight came through that distant doorway.

  CJ started walking down the tunnel toward it.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Syme asked.

  ‘Down there.’

  ‘Why not just stay here where it’s safe?’

  ‘Because we don’t know it’s safe.’ CJ peered down the tunnel. ‘And we won’t know that till we know what’s on the other side of that door down there.’

  She kept striding down the long, dark tunnel. The others took off after her.

  The door at the other end of the tunnel was just like the one at the Birthing Centre—thick and rimmed with air-sealing rubber—only it lay wide open.

  CJ peered through it cautiously and found herself looking at a compact room with black-painted floors and black-painted walls. A lone door on the opposite wall stood open, allowing daylight to come in.

  The black floor and walls left CJ with an odd sensation: she felt like she was backstage at a theatre. Two black-painted side-tunnels branched away to the left and the right, disappearing into darkness.

  ‘I don’t like this,’ Johnson said, looking around the empty space.

  ‘What is this place?’ Hamish asked. ‘I’m guessing it isn’t on the regular tour.’

  CJ wanted to know the same thing.

  She stepped out from the tunnel, heading for the open outer door.

  ‘Dr Cameron . . .’ Johnson said. ‘I think you should come back inside the tunnel and get behind this door.’

  CJ arrived at the outer door and looked out through it.

  She saw a small yet very beautiful valley enclosed by high rocky walls. It had lush savannah grass, a river and a forest. In the exact centre of the little valley was a grass-covered hill on the summit of which was an opulent-looking wooden building. It oozed wealth and privilege. It looked like a golf clubhouse or a hunting lodge.

  CJ ’s eyes narrowed.

  Stepping out through the door, she looked back—and saw that the entrance to the small room was superbly camouflaged. Its doorway was sunken into a rocky cliff and the door—still open—had rock-camouflage material on its outer side, camouflage that made it blend in perfectly with the cliff.

  Hamish came alongside CJ and he saw the camouflage, too.

  ‘I repeat,’ he said. ‘What is this place?’

  CJ was thinking quickly. ‘It’s like a—’

  With a squeal, a grey prince-sized dragon came charging out of some nearby bushes, bounding directly for CJ and Hamish.

  It spread its wings and swooped at them, doubling its speed in an instant, and CJ glimpsed that it had no ears.

  She and Hamish ducked back inside the doorway and slammed the camouflaged door shut and, through a little window in it, saw the dragon pull up short, foiled. It screeched at them, furious.

  CJ and Hamish caught their breath, looking out at the raging dragon.

  Then the grey dragon’s head exploded, spraying blood all over the little window, and CJ and Hamish
yanked their heads back in shock.

  ‘Dr Cameron,’ Johnson whispered from the doorway to the tunnel, ‘come back here right now.’

  CJ turned at his tone and as she did so she saw a shadow emerge from the left-hand side-tunnel: another grey prince, head bent low.

  It shrieked as it broke into a run and suddenly CJ and Hamish were sprinting, racing back to the tunnel door. They dived, sliding across the last few feet of floor as Johnson slammed the airtight tunnel door shut behind them and the dragon skidded to a halt outside it, bellowing—

  Blam!

  The dragon’s head burst apart and dropped from view and suddenly CJ saw soldiers in Chinese Army uniforms fanning out into the black-painted room, guns up and shouting.

  ‘Clear! Clear!’ they yelled in Mandarin before one of the soldiers came up to the door and peered in at CJ and the others.

  ‘Ni hao?’ He saw CJ and switched to English. ‘Hello? Please. Open the door. The area is secure. The zoo is secure. You are safe now.’

  CJ slumped to the floor, relieved.

  The man who fights too long against dragons becomes a dragon himself.

  —FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE

  Things happened very quickly after that.

  CJ, Hamish and the two American diplomats were ushered out of the black-painted room and into the beautiful little valley, where they quickly found themselves surrounded by anxious zoo staff, much movement and lots of noise. About a dozen Chinese Army jeeps and a few troop trucks were parked nearby while overhead, three Z-10 helicopters hovered. Concerned paramedics attended to their scratches and scrapes.

  Radios squawked. Junior officers barked into telephones. In the middle of it all, coordinating everything, was the grey-haired uniformed colonel CJ had met briefly when she had arrived at the zoo: Colonel Bao.

  CJ picked up the odd phrase amid the cacophony of voices speaking in Mandarin:

  ‘—we counted twenty-six dragons with their ears severed—’

  ‘—forty-seven people dead in the administration building. Twenty-six in the Birthing Centre—’