The Red Quarry #3
The motor continued pressing.
Darren stared at Mara.
He was still conscious.
“Don’t let it take me.”
The dinosaur pulled.
Something broke deep inside his pelvis.
Mara felt the vibration through his vest.
The closing door compressed his abdomen.
Blood poured from his mouth.
Noah gripped the belt with both hands.
“Mara.”
She knew what he was asking.
She could not answer.
The animal wrenched backward.
Darren’s body opened below the ribs.
His lower half vanished into the transfer corridor.
His upper body struck Mara and Noah.
Heat spread across Mara’s arms.
Jules crawled backward as intestine spilled across the operations floor.
The door sealed.
Darren’s hands opened and closed once.
Then stopped.
Nobody moved.
Behind the door, claws scraped over metal.
The animal began feeding.
Noah sat against the wall with Darren’s blood across his face.
His left foot was bare. Their father’s boot remained caught beneath the sealed door, its electrical-cord lace extending into the transfer corridor.
The lace tightened.
The boot disappeared beneath the door.
Mara released Darren’s vest.
Jules moved forward and pressed two fingers against his neck.
After a few seconds, she sat back.
Bell stood against the wall with both hands covering her mouth.
Mara looked at her.
“You said the containment areas were empty.”
Bell lowered her hands.
“I was told they were.”
“By whom?”
“The company handling the receivership.”
“Names.”
“I don’t know which individual prepared the technical report.”
Noah laughed once.
“You brought us here because an anonymous document said the dinosaurs were gone.”
“I did not know they were dinosaurs.”
“You saw the egg.”
“I suspected engineered avian research.”
Rina looked through the observation window on the far side of operations.
“Continue this while moving away from the door.”
The room contained three rows of control consoles and a wide glass wall overlooking the handling chamber below.
Four adult dinosaurs moved between the lanes.
One stood over Darren’s lower body.
Another waited nearby, its head raised.
A third paced behind a closed gate.
The fourth stood beneath the observation window and looked directly up at them.
Noah whispered, “How many did the report say were here?”
Bell said nothing.
Rina went to the main console.
The screens remained active.
A facility diagram appeared, crossed by red routing lines.
BEHAVIORAL CONDITIONING CYCLE 4STATUS: INTERRUPTEDRECOVERY MODE ACTIVE
Mara looked at the map.
Six blue dots had appeared when they crossed the guardhouse line.
Now the screen showed seven.
One remained beside transfer access nine.
Darren’s badge.
Five clustered inside operations.
Mara.
Noah.
Rina.
Jules.
Bell.
The seventh moved through a service channel beneath them.
Mara counted again.
“The screen showed six when we entered.”
Rina enlarged the lower level.
“I know.”
“What is the other tag?”
Bell moved beside her.
“There were only six visitor badges.”
The seventh dot passed through a locked gate without pausing.
Noah looked at the animals below.
“Could one of them have a transmitter?”
“Animal trackers display in red,” Rina said.
The blue dot stopped directly under operations.
A faint tapping sounded beneath the floor.
The dinosaur below the window turned its head toward the same spot.
Mara stepped away from the glass.
The tapping moved into the wall.
Rina opened the building plan.
“Cable chase.”
“Large enough for one of those?” Jules asked.
“No.”
A ventilation grille near Noah’s bare foot trembled.
He backed away.
Something chirped inside the wall.
The sound was thin and birdlike.
The grille bent outward.
A small snout appeared between the slats.
Dark feathers pressed around it.
For an instant Mara saw something else beneath its throat: a square of blue plastic striking softly against the metal.
Then the grille burst into the room.
* * *
The juvenile struck Noah in the shin and tumbled across the floor.
It was no larger than a turkey, though its body was longer and its tail nearly doubled its length. Dark feathers covered its shoulders and forelimbs. The rest of it was narrow muscle, scaled feet, and teeth.
A blue identification badge hung from a torn lanyard around its neck.
The animal recovered before anyone else moved.
It sprang at Bell.
Mara caught a metal chair and swung.
The chair struck the juvenile in the ribs and threw it against the console. It landed badly, one leg folding beneath it, but twisted upright with its mouth open.
A second chirp came from the vent.
Then a third.
“Block it,” Mara shouted.
Rina dragged a rolling cabinet toward the wall.
Two more juveniles forced through before she reached it.
Jules swung her medical bag. One animal caught the canvas in its teeth and rode the bag upward as she lifted it. Its claws tore through the side, spilling gauze and sealed instruments across the floor.
She threw the bag.
The juvenile landed near Darren’s body and immediately began tearing at the exposed tissue beneath his ribs.
Bell screamed.
The first animal launched from the console.
It did not go for her face this time.
It went for her hand.
Bell raised her arm. Teeth closed around her smallest finger.
The juvenile’s weight drove her against the observation glass.
Mara seized the animal by the tail.
It twisted with startling speed, its claws cutting through her sleeve.
Bell pulled in the opposite direction.
Her finger tore free at the base.
The juvenile fell with it still between its teeth.
Bell stared at the end of her hand.
Blood poured over her wrist.
Jules reached her.
“Sit down.”
“My finger.”
“I know.”
“It took my finger.”
“Sit down before it takes the rest of you.”
Noah kicked the juvenile feeding on Darren.
Their father’s remaining boot caught the animal in the chest and sent it skidding beneath a desk.
The third juvenile came at his unprotected left foot.
He tried to step away.
The oversized right boot shifted under him.
He lost his balance.
The juvenile bit above his left ankle.
Noah shouted and kicked with the booted foot. The steel toe struck its jaw. Teeth tore through skin as the animal was knocked loose.
Mara brought the chair down across its back.
Bone cracked beneath the seat.
The juvenile continued clawing at the floor.
She struck again.
It stopped.
Rina had forced the cabinet over the vent, but something behind it kept hitting the metal grille. The cabinet jumped with each impact.
The juvenile beneath the desk darted toward the observation wall.
Noah caught it with the heel of the work boot.
The steel cap crushed the neck against the floor.
The body convulsed beneath him.
He stared down at it, breathing through his mouth.
Mara turned toward the first animal.
It had retreated beside the console.
Bell’s severed finger was gone.
The blue badge still hung beneath its throat.
The juvenile hissed.
Rina lifted a fire axe from the emergency rack.
The animal sprang sideways.
Rina swung.
The blade caught it behind one forelimb and entered through the chest.
The juvenile struck the floor with the axe still buried in it.
Its claws opened and closed around nothing.
Rina planted one foot on its neck and pulled the blade free.
Silence returned except for Bell’s sobbing and the repeated impacts inside the wall.
Jules tightened a belt above Bell’s wrist.
Bell cried out.
“You said you were medical.”
“I said occupational health.”
“That isn’t helping.”
“It is keeping you from bleeding to death.”
Mara knelt beside Noah.
Four punctures surrounded his left ankle. One tooth had cut a shallow groove toward the heel.
“It missed the tendon.”
“That makes this a good day?”
“No.”
She opened a sealed water bottle from the emergency cabinet and washed the wound.
Noah hissed.
“You’re lucky it got the bare foot.”
He looked at her.
Mara heard the sentence after she had said it.
She looked at the large right boot.
The other had made him stumble. The boot he had lost had trapped him at the door. Now the one he still wore had broken the juvenile’s neck.
None of that made her right.
“You were right before,” she said.
“About what?”
“The boots don’t fit.”
He watched her for a moment.
“That isn’t quite an apology.”
“No.”
“It’s close for you.”
She wrapped the ankle with gauze Jules tossed across the floor.
Rina crouched beside the juvenile she had killed.
The badge had turned backward.
She pulled the card free of the feathers and wiped blood from the photograph.
NADIA PIERCEBIOLOGICAL SYSTEMS
Bell looked over.
“That name was on the maintenance report.”
“You said you couldn’t retrieve it,” Mara said.
“I remembered when I saw it.”
Rina examined the torn lanyard.
One end had been chewed through. Dried blood darkened the fabric.
“The seventh dot,” Noah said.
Rina looked at the facility screen.
Seven blue indicators remained.
Darren’s badge beside transfer access nine.
Five living badges in operations.
One beneath the dead juvenile at Rina’s feet.
She unclipped Nadia Pierce’s badge from the torn strap.
The seventh indicator moved with her hand.
The chirping inside the vent intensified.
Noah looked at the badge.
“It carried her through the doors.”
“Not intentionally,” Bell said.
Rina disagreed.
“The animal moved through multiple secured gates.”
“It could have found the badge on a body.”
“And learned that doors opened while it wore it.”
Bell looked toward the blocked vent.
“That would mean—”
“They can use the building,” Noah said.
The main console chimed.
A file opened without Rina touching it.
HANDLER PRESENCE CONFIRMED
The juvenile’s old badge was highlighted.
Rina dropped it onto the desk.
The system continued:
“Recovery route available.”
A section of the observation wall began descending.
Mara stood.
The wide glass panel lowered into the floor, exposing the room to the chamber below.
Warm air entered carrying the smell of waste, blood, and wet feathers.
The adult dinosaur beneath the window stared up.
A platform began rising along the wall toward them.
The animal stepped onto it.
“Can you stop that?” Mara asked.
Rina worked across the controls.
“No manual authority.”
“Cut power.”
“To the room?”
“To the lift.”