Matthew Reilly - The Great Zoo of China

Aaron Perry had already progressed to anger. ‘It’s FUBAR, is what it is: Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition.’

CJ noticed that Hu Tang was saying nothing. He just walked along with his head bent, lips pursed, deep in thought. Deputy Director Zhang walked beside him, desperately avoiding eye contact.

Glancing behind her, CJ saw the grim silhouette of Red Face at the northern gate. He had been joined by the other black prince and the two dragons paced back and forth on the other side of the bars.

It’s only the red-bellied black dragons that are attacking , she thought. She wondered why. Was there something about them that was different to the other dragons?

Then, abruptly, the two dragons stopped, turning to face something that had caught their attention, and took to the air.

CJ was happy to see them go.

About a hundred metres down the tunnel, her group came to a set of oversized garage doors embedded in the wall.

‘This is our waste management facility,’ Zhang said.

As the group arrived at the doors, one of them rumbled open and three Chinese men in suits came running out. They raced straight to Hu Tang, babbling with concern, but he brushed them off with a few sharp words.

CJ entered the waste management facility.

A fleet of twenty-four brand-new garbage trucks were parked in perfect rows. They were big Isuzu trucks, with large hydraulic compacter units at their rears and THE GREAT ZOO OF CHINA painted on their white sides.

Clearly the Chinese hadn’t got around to changing the logos on them yet, CJ thought. After today’s attack, she wondered if they ever would.

Beyond the fleet of garbage trucks was a gigantic concrete pit—sixty metres by fifteen metres—that was partially filled with refuse. Along one of its long walls were several huge piston-driven compacters, designed to compress the waste against the opposite wall. Overhead cranes then lifted the compacted waste into dump trucks that were parked in loading docks on the opposite side of the great pit, facing some more oversized garage doors that led westward, out of the crater.

On the left-hand side of the space, parked by some diesel pumps, was a collection of fire trucks. Painted bright red and glistening with newness, there were four mid-sized water pumpers and two superlong ladder trucks.

It was an impressive facility, even if the whole massive place did stink of garbage.

There was one other thing about the hall that struck CJ.

There was a dragon here.

But it wasn’t on the loose or on a rampage. Indeed, quite the opposite.

It was the yellowjacket prince that CJ and the others had seen do tricks in the amphitheatre: the one named Lucky.

Right now, Lucky sat obediently, if a little nervously, inside a caged trailer that was coupled to a Great Dragon Zoo pick-up truck. The dragon still wore the saddle on its back.

Its female handler, the young woman with yellow-streaked hair—CJ recalled her name was Yim—stood beside the cage, stroking Lucky through the bars. Yim was still wearing her black bodysuit and her radio earpiece but not her armoured black-and-yellow leather jacket.

‘What’s happening, sir?’ Yim called to Hu in Mandarin.

‘Some of the dragons have become… aggressive,’ Zhang replied as he kept walking. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘Lucky is hurt. After we did our fly-by past the cable cars, she landed on a loose rock and rolled her ankle. I hope it isn’t broken. Our truck was here getting refuelled. I was about to take her to the Birthing Centre when all the alarms sounded.’

‘Just stay here,’ Zhang said, not stopping.

Looking very confused, the handler stayed with her caged yellow dragon.

CJ didn’t care. She just followed Zhang and Hu, who were drawing a crowd as they strode toward a pair of elevators in the right-hand wall.

‘Where to, Chipmunk?’ Hamish asked.

‘I need to find a suture kit,’ CJ said. The entire left shoulder of her brown leather jacket was now stained with blood. ‘Then I want to get on a plane, go back to the hotel in Hong Kong and take a long hot fucking bath.’

She jerked her chin at one of the suits fawning around Hu Tang and said curtly in Mandarin: ‘Where is the infirmary?’

The suit nodded quickly. ‘Level three,’ he said in English. He then spoke into a radio in Mandarin.

An elevator arrived. CJ got in. The others followed.

Greg Johnson stood close beside CJ.

Amid the noise of all the others talking, he said softly: ‘Dr Cameron, in your professional opinion, what just happened here?’

CJ glanced sideways at Johnson. ‘You move well… for an embassy aide. You’re not just an ambassador’s assistant, are you?’

He raised an eyebrow. ‘That’s not relevant right now. What is relevant are our chances of survival. What just happened?’

CJ said, ‘These animals are clearly smarter than our Chinese friends have given them credit for. The Chinese came up with what they thought was an ingenious system to protect their cable cars—the sonic shields—but the dragons scratched off their own ears so they could attack the cars. They also know about our watches. They’re problem-solvers, Mr Johnson, and that’s what I find most worrying.’

‘Why?’

‘Because intelligence in the animal kingdom is directly proportional to brain size. As a percentage of body size, humans have the biggest brains of any creature on this planet, hence we are the dominant species. Chimps and apes and whales and dolphins come next, and all of them exhibit problem-solving skills: the ability to use X to achieve Y.

‘Crocodiles have medium-sized brains, but the reptilian brain doesn’t waste space with notions of empathy or conscience. When a crocodile looks at something, all it is thinking about is how it will go about hunting it and eating it. Crocodiles also exhibit problem-solving skills both in their trap-setting and in their evasion techniques: it is well known that you will never capture a crocodile with the same technique twice.

‘What worries me is these dragons have really big brains. The sonic shields on that cable car and on our watches were preventing the dragons from getting to us. So they solved the problem: they tore off their own ears or wrenched off those workmen’s arms, removing their watches.’

Johnson looked at her for a long moment. Then he spoke in a low voice. ‘There could be other problems for us here as well.’

‘What do you mean?’ CJ said, wincing. Her shoulder burned.

‘I mean—’

Just then the elevator doors opened onto the third floor of the administration building. After the artificial underground light of the tunnel and the waste facility, CJ was assaulted by brilliant daylight.

A wide bank of floor-to-ceiling windows met her, windows that opened onto a glass-domed balcony overlooking the valley. CJ could see the rear of the ruined castle and beyond it, Dragon Mountain.

A female Chinese secretary hurried up to CJ and, bowing, handed her a shrink-wrapped first-aid kit.

CJ took the kit and walked out onto the glass-domed balcony, followed by Hamish.

Seymour Wolfe’s traumatic reaction had progressed to anger. He yelled at one of the Chinese suits: ‘You are gonna get me on the first fucking flight out of here! You cannot imagine what I am going to write about this in the Times when I get back! Go! Make it happen!’

Aaron Perry was also shouting, ‘Get me out of here right now so I can get on the fucking Internet!’

Hu Tang was speaking animatedly to the other suits, giving orders and directions, pointing at Ambassador Syme and the two journalists.

‘Bring my plane here from Hong Kong,’ Syme said to Hu. ‘We’ll fly direct to Beijing from here.’