The Great Zoo of China Read online

  She wasn’t concerned for Director Chow or the Communist Party big shots. They had known the risks of this place when they’d come here.

  But Minnie was different. She was innocent. She didn’t deserve to die this way: abandoned, alone and in total fear.

  And so CJ had dashed out of the office, holding the yellow training remote and snatching a heat suit off a wall-hook.

  She’d slid into it, then mounted Lucky and swooped down to the floor of the chamber and fired her flamethrower across the face of the superemperor.

  Now, she sat astride Lucky, in front of the two enormous master dragons. The bulky heat suit made her look like the Michelin Man and with the hood flung back, her helmeted head was exposed.

  The two master dragons glared down at her, their eyes furious.

  CJ leapt off Lucky’s back and placed herself squarely between them and Minnie.

  ‘Get back!’ she yelled.

  The masters growled.

  The army of surrounding dragons began to hiss ominously . . . and slowly move in.

  Maintaining eye contact with the superking, CJ loosed another spray from her flamethrower.

  The masters arched back. CJ hoped they figured that any other fire-breathing animal was to be respected. The ring of dragons paused, wary of the flames.

  She pushed Minnie toward Lucky.

  ‘Hi, Minnie,’ she said. ‘Get on.’

  The little girl’s face was streaked with tears, but she nodded. She edged toward Lucky—

  —when suddenly the superking raised its head to the heavens and sent a geyser of fire shooting up into the sky.

  Then the big animal swung its head down so that it stared directly at CJ . . .

  . . . and it opened its jaws . . .

  . . . and CJ’s eyes boggled as she saw the dragon’s giant mouth yawn wide, saw its many teeth, its pink tongue and the depths of its throat—and rising from those depths, a surging ball of flames.

  The next second, the dragon sent a horizontal pillar of fire spraying right at CJ and Minnie.

  CJ flipped her hood over her helmet and pushed Minnie hard toward Lucky before she herself spun on the spot, turning her back to the dragon.

  Superhot flames slammed into her, lashed around her. It was unbelievably hot, unbearably hot. The flames totally consumed her body.

  Then the inferno stopped and in the smoke haze that followed it . . . CJ remained standing.

  The master dragons reared back in surprise, stunned that CJ could possibly still be alive. Clearly, no animal had ever survived such a blast.

  ‘Still here, motherfuckers,’ CJ said.

  As she said this, CJ saw the superking’s left thigh, saw the brand on it: R-02.

  She quickly pulled the yellow training unit from her suit and punched its touchscreen display with a gloved hand: R-02 then SHOCK.

  The superking immediately squealed in agony and clutched at its head, causing all the dragons ringing the confrontation to look at each other in confusion.

  CJ dashed over to Minnie and threw her onto Lucky’s back. ‘We can’t stay here.’

  No sooner was CJ in the saddle than Lucky sprang into the air—a nanosecond before a horizontal tongue of fire lanced out from the superking’s mouth and liquefied the floor where Lucky had been standing.

  CJ didn’t care where Lucky went so long as it was somewhere else, but with dragons flanking them on every side, it turned out there was only one direction Lucky could go: down.

  Lucky dived into the vertical tunnel and shot down it at rocket speed.

  With Minnie seated between her thighs, CJ quickly clipped herself in. She also attached a clip to Minnie’s belt, but as she did so, she lost her grip on the training unit and it went tumbling away into the tunnel.

  ‘Shit!’ CJ reached after it, but it fell into the darkness, never to be seen again.

  CJ spun in her saddle to see three red-bellied black princes sweep into the tunnel behind them in hot pursuit.

  The two masters, she noted, didn’t follow.

  The walls of the circular tunnel swept by at phenomenal speed. There were dim orange lights spaced along its length: ageing military-grade glow sticks.

  At first the tunnel was dizzyingly vertical, then it bent at a forty-five-degree angle. CJ held on to Minnie while Lucky streamlined her body to get maximum speed.

  CJ flung back the hood of her heat suit, revealing her commando helmet. She flicked on the flashlight mounted on its side.

  Then, without warning, the walls of the tunnel simply disappeared and CJ found herself flying out in wide open space above a vast underground cavern.

  Hundreds of glow sticks illuminated the cave in a faint orange glow. Mainly used by the military and by cave explorers, glow sticks were a clever choice of light source by the Chinese: powered by a mild chemical reaction, they required no external power or cabling and, importantly, they made no noise, so they would never have disturbed the dragon eggs. These glow sticks, however, were at the end of their chemical lives and many had gone out. The ones that still worked gave off a sickly orange glow.

  The cavern itself was shaped like a gigantic funnel, wide at the top, narrow at the bottom. Sweeping down its flanks in a wide spiral was an irregular shelf-like path on which sat dozens and dozens of oversized leathery eggs. At the very base of the funnel CJ saw a small steaming pool of water, a natural spring of some sort that had kept the cavern moist for millennia.

  The dragons’ original nest, CJ thought.

  The eggs, she noticed even in her haste, were of different sizes: the larger ones, she assumed, were for the emperors and kings, the smaller ones for the princes.

  All were hatched, open.

  A small demountable booth had been erected at the top of the cavern beside the exit tunnel, but it looked long abandoned, covered in dust and dirt. Once all the dragons had hatched, it had lost its usefulness and, like the glow sticks, the Chinese must have simply left it here.

  With three whooshes, the three pursuing red-bellied black princes sped into the cave. Two covered the exit tunnel, while the third hovered in the air and bellowed a roar of the utmost fury at CJ, Lucky and Minnie.

  CJ recognised the dragon instantly.

  It was Red Face.

  ‘Not you again,’ she said.

  Lucky landed on the spiralling path on the side of the cave and said, ‘White Head . . . off . . .’

  CJ hesitantly obeyed. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Lucky . . . fight . . . red princes . . . Lucky help White Head . . .’

  Before CJ could protest, Lucky took to the air and, hovering in front of CJ and Minnie, she roared back at the red-bellied black princes, a terrifyingly fierce shriek that CJ had not thought her capable of.

  The electronic voice in CJ’s ear said: ‘ . . . Begin challenge . . .’

  CJ stared at the scene in amazement: there was Lucky, hovering on one side of the cavern, while high up on the other side, guarding the exit tunnel, were the three red-bellied black princes, also hovering.

  Red Face snarled at Lucky, then nodded at one of his companions and it flew forward.

  It was another red-bellied black prince that CJ knew. She recognised its hideously melted snout. It was Melted Face. She had to hand it to the dragon: he was a survivor.

  Melted Face shot down toward Lucky.

  Lucky answered the roar and flew up at Melted Face.

  The two dragons raced toward each other and CJ realised that she was seeing what Zhang had called a ‘joust’.

  The two prince-sized dragons raced at each other at shocking speed and as they passed they lashed out with their claws.

  There was a cry of pain—CJ couldn’t tell if it had come from Lucky or Melted Face—and then suddenly they were past each other and hovering again, ready for another pass.

  They sped toward each other again, faster this time. Lucky streamlined her body, beat her wings. Melted Face flexed his claws.

  And they clashed again . . . only this time Lucky r
olled at the moment of impact . . . and again there was a shriek of pain . . . and once again they both kept on flying . . . only this time, Melted Face did not pull up into a hover. He just went careering into the opposite wall, smashing into it—lifeless, dead—before his body dropped down the length of the cavern and splashed into the little pool at its base.

  CJ snapped round to look at Lucky.

  Lucky held a ragged chunk of flesh in her right foreclaw. She had landed a killer blow on the second pass.

  Red Face squealed and flew into a jousting position.

  Lucky readied herself for battle again.

  But then the third red-bellied black dragon took up a position beside Red Face.

  CJ looked on in horror. It was two against one.

  ‘Lucky!’ she called.

  The dragon turned.

  ‘White Head and Lucky fight!’ she yelled.

  In answer, Lucky swooped around in a tight circle and allowed CJ to leap onto her back before resuming her face-off with the two red-bellies.

  CJ felt her heart beating loudly in her head. She reached inside her heat suit and pulled out her MP-7. She couldn’t believe she was doing this.

  She was partaking in a dragon joust . . .

  The three dragons sprang forward, racing toward each other, two against one.

  CJ had never felt Lucky accelerate so quickly. She saw the two red-bellied black princes speeding toward her across the massive cavern. They were going to pass by on either side of Lucky and double-team her.

  Then she saw Lucky extend her left foreclaw—Red Face was coming at them from that side, so CJ levelled her gun at the dragon on the right. It wasn’t exactly a lance but in this aerial joust, it was the next best thing.

  They all came together in a blur of claws and roars—Lucky shooting in between the two oncoming dragons—and CJ loosed a burst of fire from her MP-7, aiming as best she could at the right-hand dragon’s head.

  She saw blood-spurts erupt from its snout, mouth and eyes—while on the other side, Lucky and Red Face extended their claws and slashed at each other and then—swoosh!—the two red-bellies rocketed past.

  The right-hand dragon, hit in both eyes by CJ’s gunfire, crashed at full speed into the far wall in a starburst of rocks, breaking its neck with the impact.

  Red Face squealed as he banked away and CJ saw a trail of blood dripping from his ribcage and he landed on an egg-shelf, whimpering and wounded. He cried to the heavens, a squeal of agony.

  Lucky continued flying, wings beating powerfully—

  —before she jerked unexpectedly, faltering, and lost speed.

  Worried, CJ looked down to see that Lucky’s entire left flank was slicked with blood.

  ‘Oh, no . . .’ she gasped.

  Lucky may have wounded Red Face, but Red Face had also landed a serious blow on her.

  CJ tried to figure out what to do now.

  Then it hit her: the infirmary in the Birthing Centre. If she could get Lucky there, maybe she could patch her up. But that would mean getting past all the dragons upstairs.

  CJ rolled back the sleeve of her heat suit and looked at the battlefield display unit duct-taped to her left forearm, to check on the dragons up in the Nesting Centre.

  What she saw surprised her:

  The crowd of red crosses was no longer massing around the Nesting Centre. There were now only three red crosses at the Nesting Centre. CJ figured they represented Red Face and his two buddies.

  The rest of the red-bellies were flying like a coordinated flock to the northeast, in the direction of the worker city.

  Their plan was now clear to CJ: having freed their masters, they were heading for the first of the two sources of the outer electromagnetic dome, the worker city.

  This was bad. This was very bad.

  CJ turned back to Lucky.

  ‘Lucky hurt?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes . . .’

  ‘Lucky fly?’

  ‘Lucky . . . fly . . .’

  CJ said, ‘If Lucky fly now, White Head help Lucky later . . .’

  In response, the wounded yellowjacket beat its wings with extra strength.

  CJ brought Lucky around to where they had left Minnie and scooped her up. Then as Red Face remained on the egg-path licking his wounds, they flew over to the exit tunnel and swooped up into it, heading back to the surface.

  After a short time, the mouth of the tunnel came into view.

  CJ slowed Lucky. She was cautious even though the BDU said there were few or no dragons still here.

  Rising to the rim of the tunnel, CJ peered out.

  The Nesting Centre was deserted.

  Apart from the smouldering remains of the eight dead master dragons, their wretched charred corpses still fastened to the floor, there was not a single dragon to be seen.

  A shout made CJ turn and she saw Li running from the stairs near the observation booth.

  CJ landed Lucky on the floor near him.

  ‘They all took off as soon as you flew down into the nest!’ Li said.

  CJ gazed off into the distance. ‘They freed their masters and now they’re going after the outer dome. They’re heading for the emplacements at the worker city.’

  Lucky groaned painfully and CJ looked back at her, concerned. She saw the wound on Lucky’s side: a gaping bloody gash.

  ‘We have to stop them bringing down the outer dome,’ she said to Li as she dismounted. ‘But first I have to mend this brave dragon. Come on.’

  In the café at the base of the curving waterfall, Hamish Cameron stood. ‘We’re no good to anyone just sitting around here. We’ve got to find a radio and get in touch with CJ.’

  ‘If she’s still alive,’ Seymour Wolfe said sourly.

  ‘My sister’s a tough nut, Mr Wolfe,’ Hamish said, ‘and surprisingly hard to kill. Ask the bull alligator that tried.’

  ‘We also have to be out of this valley by the time the Chinese regain control of it,’ Ambassador Syme said. ‘If we’re not, they’ll just hunt us down and kill us.’

  Hamish peered out through the window beside him, gazing westward across the lake. The rain had diminished to a light drizzle and the lake’s surface was eerily calm. Hamish saw the ruins of the administration building beyond the castle on the opposite shore.

  ‘There was an exit in that waste management facility,’ he said, thinking aloud. ‘That’s our way out. We cross this lake and make for the waste management facility.’

  ‘And how exactly do we cross this lake?’ Wolfe asked.

  Hamish nodded at one of the six wide-beamed, glass-roofed boats tied to the dock near the café. ‘On one of those.’

  ‘Won’t that make us an instant target for any dragon that’s watching?’ Wolfe said.

  Hamish said, ‘It will. But I have a plan for that. Let’s move.’

  Five minutes later, the three of them dashed out of the café, running across the dock toward the six parked boats.

  No dragons pounced.

  Each man powered up two boats, untied them and set them off from their moorings. Then they all jumped aboard the last boat and sped away from the dock.

  The six boats fanned out from the café, heading onto the lake in a star-like pattern.

  Still no dragons attacked.

  From the controls of his boat, Hamish scanned the dark sky. It was entirely empty of dragons.

  The boat they’d jumped on was specially designed for sightseeing cruises. Not only did it have a broad glass-domed roof to allow for easy viewing of the dragons, it also, he now saw, had a glass bottom. Running up the middle of the boat’s hull was a long glass trough about eight feet deep. It had curved glass walls and clear plastic seats on which visitors could sit and look out at the underwater world of the lake.

  Right now, in the deep of the night, that world was inky black.

  Hamish kept looking up at the sky. ‘Where have they all gone?’

  ‘Maybe they got out?’ Syme asked.

  ‘Fine with me,’ Hamish said.
‘If they’re not here, it’ll give us a clear run across this lake.’

  As he said this, one of the five other boats puttering along beside theirs suddenly cracked in the middle, folded into a V-shape, and was violently pulled under the surface by some unseen force. It shattered, spraying glass, before disappearing into the lake.

  ‘Shit!’ Syme yelled.

  Hamish’s face went pale. ‘They’re not above us, they’re below us.’

  He searched his control panel for a switch, found the one he was looking for—UNDERWATER FLOODLIGHTS—and hit it.

  Instantly, the eerie underwater world outside the boat’s glass hull came alive and Hamish saw the enormous head of a green-skinned emperor dragon not far away, gripping the boat that had just been yanked under the surface and looking back at Hamish like a child who has been spotted with a stolen candy bar.

  It was crouched on the bottom of the lake, wings flat on its back, tail curled. A king-sized green dragon lay beside it—also looking right at Hamish’s lights—while three green princes slithered through the underwater haze like oversized lizards, their four walking limbs hanging beside their bodies while their tails propelled them powerfully through the water.

  Then the emperor moved.

  It opened its jaws and Hamish saw two rows of terrifying teeth, and then the animal heaved upward, pushing off the lakebed, and Hamish’s stomach lurched sickeningly as the surge of water created by the beast’s movement lifted his boat high into the air.

  The massive green emperor dragon rose out of the lake in all its terrifying glory.

  Framed by the beautiful curving waterfall behind it, the colossal creature rose to its full height, standing two hundred feet tall and spreading its wings. As it did this, it sent a huge wave of water flowing outward from its body, a wave that pushed Hamish’s boat—infinitesimally small compared to the mighty dragon—away from the animal, toward the ruined castle on the western shore.

  Hamish held on tight as the boat sped away from the dragon like a surfer on a wave. The dragon, unaware that it had aided their escape with its sudden movement, spun where it stood, snatched up the nearest decoy boat in one of its foreclaws and crushed the entire boat in an instant.