The Red Quarry #6
They wrapped the belt around Jules’s thigh and tightened it with the handle of the restraint pole.
The bleeding slowed but did not stop.
Below, the cloudy-eyed dinosaur dropped the severed leg.
It looked up again.
The tether still trailed from the red vest.
Jules’s blood dripped through the grating onto its face.
It opened its mouth.
Mara saw the broken end of the restraint pole.
Jules had driven it beneath the animal’s tongue during the conveyor attack. The metal remained lodged through the lower jaw, though it had broken shorter against the maze wall.
The dinosaur jumped.
Its claws caught the torn edge of the walkway.
Noah struck them with his boot.
The animal fell.
The entire service bridge shifted.
Rina looked toward the far door.
“We cannot stay on this.”
Mara slid her arms beneath Jules.
“Help me carry her.”
Jules caught Mara’s wrist.
“No.”
“We are not doing this here.”
“You can’t carry me across that.”
“We can drag you.”
“The grate is already failing.”
“We’ll take the weight one section at a time.”
Jules shook her head.
Sweat covered her face.
“Mara.”
“No.”
“Mara, look at me.”
She did.
Jules’s fear was plain. She had not become calm, noble, or prepared.
She was trying to speak before the pain took away her ability to decide.
“The tourniquet won’t hold,” she said. “We don’t have enough dressing. No transfusion. No surgery.”
“We don’t know how close the surface is.”
“I do know what this injury is.”
The cloudy-eyed dinosaur jumped again.
Its forelimb entered through the broken grating.
The claws swept blindly.
Noah struck it with the restraint pole.
The animal bit the metal and pulled.
Noah released it before he was dragged through.
The pole fell to the wash floor.
Jules watched it land.
“Give me the prod.”
Mara held it tighter.
“No.”
“If you drag me, it follows all four of us.”
“We can shut the door.”
“Maybe.”
“Rina has the badge.”
“The building has the doors.”
The walkway groaned beneath them.
One of the support bolts tore loose.
Jules unclipped the two badges from her vest.
She pressed them into Mara’s hand.
Her own.
Bell’s.
“Take these.”
Mara stared at them.
“The doors may read one when they reject the other.”
“You’re coming through the door.”
“No.”
“Stop saying that.”
Jules gripped her shirt.
“You are not listening.”
Mara heard Noah move beside her.
She expected him to argue for Jules.
Instead he said quietly, “She knows.”
Mara turned on him.
“You don’t.”
“No. She does.”
Jules looked at Noah.
“Get her across.”
Mara shook her head.
“Noah.”
He caught Mara around the waist.
She drove an elbow into his chest.
His grip loosened, but he did not let go.
“You asked me to make decisions.”
“This isn’t yours.”
“No. It’s hers.”
The cloudy-eyed dinosaur jumped.
Its head broke through the damaged grating.
The pole protruding from its jaw caught against the metal and tore the mouth wider.
Jules grabbed the electric prod from Mara’s loosened hand.
She drove it between the bars.
The charge snapped inside the dinosaur’s open mouth.
Smoke rose from its tongue.
It dropped, shrieking.
Rina pulled Mara toward the far side.
Noah pushed from behind.
Mara fought them for three steps.
Then the grating beneath Jules collapsed.
She slid toward the opening.
The far door stood only ten feet away.
Jules caught the walkway rail with one hand.
The rest of her body hung over the wash room.
Mara stopped.
Jules looked at her.
“Go.”
The cloudy-eyed dinosaur circled below.
Jules aimed the prod down at it.
The final charge light blinked.
Mara clipped both badges beside her own.
Jules saw her do it.
She nodded once.
Rina opened the far door with Nadia’s badge.
Noah pulled Mara through.
The service walkway failed behind them.
Jules fell with it.
Metal and plastic curtains collapsed into the wash room.
The cloudy-eyed dinosaur disappeared beneath the wreckage.
Mara turned back.
Jules lay among the broken grating.
Her remaining leg had folded beneath her.
She tried to crawl.
The dinosaur rose beside her.
The red vest hung in ribbons from its neck. Blood filled its damaged mouth.
Jules placed the prod against the side of its head.
The animal lunged.
The charge cracked once.
The dinosaur’s jaws closed around her shoulder and upper chest.
It lifted her from the floor.
Jules’s body struck a hanging pipe.
Her head snapped sideways.
The dinosaur shook her.
One arm tore loose at the shoulder.
It struck the tile several feet away.
Mara heard Noah say her name.
She could not move.
The dinosaur lowered Jules’s body and bit again across the ribs.
Bone broke under the pressure.
Rina closed the service door.
The final image disappeared.
Mara stood with her face inches from the steel.
On the other side, the animal fed.
Noah remained behind her.
He did not touch her.
The speaker above the door announced:
“Three subjects remain.”
Mara put one hand over Bell’s and Jules’s badges.
Then she turned.
The utility stair climbed through three concrete levels.
Noah went first because Mara no longer trusted herself to choose the order.
His left ankle bled through the bandage. His right boot scraped every step.
Rina followed with Nadia’s badge.
Mara came last.
Nothing pursued them.
The facility had received what it wanted from the wash gallery.
At the top of the stair, Nadia’s badge opened a reinforced door.
Central control overlooked the quarry.
Banks of monitors curved around a wide window. Most were active. Papers, empty food containers, and blankets covered the floor.
Two people had lived there after the facility shut down.
One sleeping bag lay beside the console.
The other had been pushed into a corner near the washroom.
A satellite phone sat on the main desk.
Noah reached it first.
The screen remained black.
Rina checked the charging cable.
“Control circuits have backup power. Room outlets don’t.”
“Can you fix it?”
“Maybe.”
Mara crossed the room.
A maintenance badge lay beneath the console.
CALVIN ROSSSYSTEMS TECHNICIAN
She crouched.
A hand extended from the space behind the desk.
The fingers had dried inward like claws.
Mara moved the chair.
Calvin Ross’s body had been forced beneath the equipment. His chest was open. The ribs had been picked nearly clean.
Noah looked toward Nadia’s badge in Rina’s hand.
“The other maintenance worker.”
Rina opened a washroom cupboard.
A human skull rolled against the door.
The lower jaw was gone.
Behind it, scratched into the metal wall, were the words:
DON’T USE GREEN
Mara looked at the floor lights outside central control.
Green.
Rina found a stack of notebooks beside the sleeping bags.
The first contained maintenance readings.
The next recorded failed attempts to contact the receivership company.
The final entries became shorter.
Rina read aloud.
“Day four. Automated system continues reporting normal completion status to remote monitoring.”
She turned the page.
“Day five. Nadia believes the juveniles are using our badges. One passed the handling gate twice after taking Calvin’s.”
Noah looked at Mara.
“The seventh dot.”
Rina continued.
“Day six. Removed transmitters. System opened all handler routes.”
The final line had been written heavily enough to tear the paper:
It was never confused. We were the replacement group.
No one spoke for a while.
Mara sat on the floor.
Her back had stiffened where the first adult’s claws had torn through her shirt. Blood had dried beneath her waistband.
Noah lowered himself beside the window.
Below, the quarry spread under floodlights.
The triceratops stood near the slaughter tunnel.
One black-feathered adult circled it from a distance.
The russet dinosaur had entered the loading sector.
The cloudy-eyed animal remained somewhere below the wash gallery.
At least three predators still lived.
Rina removed the satellite phone’s battery.
She connected it directly to the control backup with two stripped wires.
The screen flickered.
No signal indicator appeared.
Noah looked at it.
“Can it call?”
“Not through several hundred feet of stone.”
“Surface?”
“Possibly.”
Mara looked through the quarry window.
A freight elevator stood at the far wall. Its tower climbed toward a shaft in the cliff.
The facility map identified it as SURFACE TRANSFER.
“That reaches the access road,” she said.
Rina brought up the elevator controls.
“Manual call disabled.”
“What does it accept?”
“Animal transfer.”
Noah leaned over the console.
“Then transfer one.”
Rina selected the cloudy-eyed animal’s code.
ECHO-3.
Destination options appeared:
HABITATMEDICALSLAUGHTERSURFACE
She selected SURFACE.
The system responded:
HANDLER ESCORT REQUIRED
Noah looked at the three badges on Mara’s vest.
“One of those says handler.”
“Nadia’s definitely does,” Rina said.
Mara unclipped Bell’s badge.
“Corporate might authorize transfer.”
“Or do nothing.”
“We test it from here.”
Rina found a gatehouse reader on the network.
Bell’s badge granted partial access.
Jules’s badge granted medical-response access.
Nadia’s badge opened the full handler menu.
Rina studied the routes.
“The animal enters the elevator from the transfer lane. A handler scans inside the cage, then a partition separates the specimen section.”
“How do we get to the cage?” Mara asked.
“A catwalk reaches the loading gatehouse. Stairs descend into the yard.”
Noah pointed toward the other animals.
“What keeps those away?”
Rina opened the slaughter-transfer route.
The remains of several carcasses lay behind a closed gate.
One was the body of a horned animal. Another had been stripped to the spine.
She activated the gate on the opposite side of the quarry.
The black-feathered dinosaur turned immediately.
The russet animal lifted its head.
The triceratops moved toward the same smell.
Rina released the carcass conveyor.
A dead animal rolled into the open.
The black dinosaur reached it first.
The triceratops charged.
The predator avoided the horn and tore at the dead flesh from the side.
The russet animal left the loading area and joined them.
For several seconds all three fought over the carcass.
The triceratops lowered its head and drove forward.