The Great Zoo of China (40 page)

CJ didn’t feel the need to tell Patrick that she was already aware of the three thermobaric bombs held somewhere at the zoo.

Patrick went on. ‘There is a secondary protocol, however, that doesn’t go as far as that. It involves the implants in the dragons’ heads, the chips in their brains that emit an electric shock if a dragon comes into contact with one of the electromagnetic domes.

‘When we train the dragons, we use what we call “training units” to trigger those implants. Pain is a swift teacher.’

CJ recalled the trick show and the moment during it when Red Face had baulked at doing a trick. The trainer Yim had held up a yellow handheld remote and Red Face had performed. Yim had been threatening the dragon with a shock. CJ also now knew why Red Face had smashed that same remote to pieces when Yim had reached for it in the waste management facility moments before her death.

‘Lucky’s trainer had a yellow remote,’ CJ said. ‘Is that one of these training units?’

‘Yes. As you will have seen, each dragon has an alphanumeric ID code branded onto its left thigh. You enter a dragon’s code into the training unit and then you can shock that individual dragon.’

‘How many of these training units are there and where can I get one?’

‘There aren’t many, maybe five or six, kept in the Birthing and Nesting centres, since that’s where we train the young dragons.’

‘Shocking them is a temporary measure, Ben. How about killing them?’

‘Let me finish,’ Patrick said. ‘Those implants in each of the dragons’ heads were equipped with a
second
capability for use in the event that a dragon or dragons got excessively violent or out of control.’

‘Yes . . .’

‘Each implant contains two grams of the plastic explosive PVV-5A inside it; not a lot, but enough to blow a dragon’s head apart from the inside.’

‘Now you’re talking,’ CJ said. ‘So how do we detonate these implants?’

Patrick said, ‘A regular training unit can’t detonate those chips. It requires a special detonator unit. And there are only two detonator units in the whole zoo. They look exactly like the training units, only they are red, not yellow. For obvious reasons, both of these detonator units are kept inside high-security safes, the combinations for which are known only to a few senior people.’

‘Who?’

‘Director Chow, Colonel Bao . . . and me.’

‘Why you?’

‘Because Chow is just an administrator and Bao is simply muscle,’ Patrick said dismissively. ‘By virtue of my research, I know more about these dragons than anyone else at this zoo; more than anyone else alive, for that matter.’

‘So where are the safes?’ CJ said.

‘The first is at the military airfield to the southwest of the zoo. That airfield is basically the zoo’s second command centre; you could run the whole place from there. I imagine that’s where Colonel Bao has gone, if he’s still alive.’

‘That’ll be tough to get to. And the second detonator unit?’

‘It’s inside the Nesting Centre.’

‘Of course it is,’ CJ said. ‘Where exactly?’

‘Bao has an office there, inside the observation booth overlooking the main chamber of the Nesting Centre. The main chamber houses the master dragons and the opening to the dragons’ original nest.’

‘What’s the combination to the safe?’ CJ asked.

‘9199,’ Patrick said.

CJ nodded, memorising the code. She started walking around the side-turned truck, peering at some objects on the floor near it.

As she did so, she said, ‘Ben, they knocked out the
inner
dome by trashing the generators and cutting the main power cable. If they go after the
outer
dome, how will they go about bringing it down?’

Patrick said, ‘The inner dome only had one set of laser-emitting emplacements. Since it’s a back-up barrier, the outer dome has two sets. The first set of emplacements is at the airfield. The second set is over by the worker city to the northeast, on the opposite side. Both sets of emplacements are fed by separate main power lines, so if one set of emplacements is cut, the other set still maintains the dome.’

‘Tell me more,’ CJ said from behind the truck. ‘Describe them for me, so I know them when I see them.’

Patrick shrugged. ‘There are fifteen emplacements in each set. They project the outer dome both into the sky and into the ground, forming a diamond-like shield around the zoo. Each emplacement is made of nine-foot-thick concrete. They are each about the size of a house but they look like World War II pillboxes.’

‘Is there, like, a central pillbox?’

‘Yes. Of the fifteen laser emplacements, one is paramount: the middle one. It alone is connected to the external main power line—it then onsends power to the other emplacements. If that central emplacement is destroyed,
all
the emplacements on that side of the zoo will lose power.’

CJ reappeared from behind the truck, carrying a helmet, some weapons and a roll of duct tape.

‘These dragons can sense electrical impulses,’ she said. ‘They’ll be able to spot the large amounts of electrical energy entering those central emplacements. They’ll go for them.’

She put on the helmet. Taken from the body of a Chinese commando, it was a lightweight model with a flashlight mounted on one side and a flip-down visor. CJ tore off the arms of her special UV glasses and duct-taped the glasses onto the fold-down visor.

She also held a Russian-made ROKS-5 flamethrower. She wriggled the flame unit’s propane tank onto her back while she gripped its gun-like nozzle in her left hand. She taped an M79 pump-action grenade launcher to her MP-7 and slid the combined weapon into a thigh holster. Finally, she used the duct tape to crudely affix her battlefield display unit to the left forearm of her leather jacket.

It was an ad-hoc uniform to say the very least, but CJ Cameron suddenly looked ready for battle.

Patrick said, ‘A flamethrower? You ever used one before?’

‘No. How hard can it be? You aim it and pull the trigger. Hell, I made my own earlier,’ CJ said. ‘And since I can’t talk to the dragons in the Nesting Centre, I thought fire might be a language they understand.’

‘You’re not seriously going into the Nesting Centre
right now
?’ Patrick said.

‘Somebody has to. And I’m going to need help.’

‘You want me to go with you? Are you out of your fucking mind? There must be forty red-bellied black dragons in there! Plus the masters! We won’t last ten seconds. I won’t go—’

‘I will go,’ a soft voice said.

CJ turned to see the young electrician, Li, stepping forward.

‘I will go with you,’ he said in English.

‘Thank you, Li,’ CJ said. ‘Grab yourself a gun, a helmet and a flashlight.’

She stepped over to Lucky and placed a foot in one stirrup.

Patrick said, ‘Don’t do this, CJ. You’ll be dead inside half an hour.’

‘Then at least I won’t be scared anymore,’ CJ said.

Li returned wearing a flashlight-mounted helmet and carrying an MP-7. CJ pulled him up onto Lucky behind her. ‘Hold on tight. This is gonna feel weird.’

Li wrapped his arms around her waist like a motorcycle passenger riding pillion.

CJ leaned close to Lucky’s ear. ‘Lucky. Go nest.’

Lucky keened and the electronic voice replied: ‘
Lucky . . .
go nest.
’ Then she turned slightly and grunted something else. ‘
Lucky . . . no like . . . Big Eyes.
Big Eyes . . . bad human.
’

‘What’s she saying?’ Patrick asked.

CJ looked over at Patrick, standing there in his broken glasses and dirty lab coat.

‘She’s saying she doesn’t want to go to the nest either, but she’ll go anyway,’ CJ lied.

‘Good luck, CJ. You’re gonna need it.’

L
ucky took to the sky from the smashed-open restaurant with CJ and Li on her back. She soared out over the zoo, wings spread wide, gliding.

As Lucky banked westward, CJ saw the shadows of the last few red-bellied black dragons ahead of them: all flying west, out over the rim of the crater toward the Nesting Centre.

Staying high, Lucky swept over the rim and the Nesting Centre came into view.

CJ caught her breath at the sight that met her.

The Nesting Centre was covered in dragons
.

Red-bellied black dragons of all sizes—princes, kings and emperors—crawled all over it, a writhing mass of leathery bodies and bat-like wings.

The Nesting Centre was no small structure either. It was perhaps the size of four aeroplane hangars, square in shape but with a circular cage-like structure on its roof, a hemispherical steel-barred dome.

As they came closer to the Nesting Centre—but not too close—CJ saw six emperors attacking the steel dome from the outside, tearing it apart. The squeal of rending steel cut the air as the immense dragons, working together, wrenched the girders away, creating a huge ragged opening in the great metal dome.

When the opening they’d created was wide enough, prince-sized red-bellies slithered into the Nesting Centre. When it became wider still, the kings entered, and then finally the emperors dived in as well, tails slinking behind them.

CJ swallowed hard. She couldn’t believe she was doing this, literally going into the dragons’ den.

Okay
, she thought.
How do I get in there?

She gazed off to the right and saw the Birthing Centre, and she recalled that there was a tunnel that connected it to the Nesting Centre. That was the way in and hopefully an entrance that the multitude of red-bellied black dragons wouldn’t be watching. She checked her battlefield display unit, but it was hard to tell if the dragons shown on it were
inside
the Birthing Centre or above it. She had to take the chance.

She guided Lucky down to the right, toward the ring road and the entrance to the Birthing Centre.

The Birthing Centre was deserted.

CJ and Li entered it on foot. Li held his MP-7 raised, while CJ led with her flamethrower. Lucky loped along behind them, eyeing their rear.

CJ saw the smartboard with the map on it again and the dead bodies. The female crocodiles down in the water pit still bellowed and groaned. Looking down into the pit, CJ saw the corpse of the red-bellied black dragon she had encountered before—it was in the process of being eaten by the olive-coloured swamp dragon that had attacked it. The swamp dragon glanced up at CJ and Li, growled, then continued its feast.

CJ saw a glass cabinet attached to the wall. It had been smashed and battered. On the floor beneath it were the shattered remains of five yellow training units. The dragons, keenly aware of the shocks the remotes gave, had taken care of them when they’d come through here.

‘Clever things,’ CJ said.

She approached the doorway in the far left-hand corner, moving silently and cautiously.

The door was open.

A corridor stretched away beyond it. From the end of the corridor, she could hear dragon calls and roars. It sounded like a gladiatorial arena.

With great trepidation, CJ edged down the corridor, leading with her weapons. Li and Lucky crept down it behind her.

At the far end of the corridor was a door. It dangled off its hinges. It had been smashed open at some point. A large dark space was beyond it.

CJ came to the end of the corridor just as a deafening chorus of dragon roars echoed out from within the Nesting Centre and, to her horror, a great, hundred-foot-high column of yellow flame extended into the sky, lighting up her corridor.

She slammed herself against the wall.

Then, holding her breath, she peered around the doorframe.

‘Mother of Mercy . . .’ she gasped.