Matthew Reilly - The Great Zoo of China

In the middle of the hall was a broad rectangular pit, about the size of two Olympic swimming pools. A series of catwalk bridges spanned the pit while rung-ladders led down into it.

Two levels of glass-walled offices ringed the perimeter of the hall. They were variously filled with computer servers, microscope labs and centrifuges. There were even a few cages and some rooms fitted with surgical tables and medical equipment.

CJ stopped at the edge of the huge pit and peered down into it.

At its base, about seven feet below CJ, were dozens of rectangular cages packed tightly together in long rows, all half-submerged in a couple of feet of water.

CJ winced at what she saw inside the cages.

Saltwater crocodiles.

Big ones. Huge. And there were a lot of them, maybe seventy all up.

The usually fearsome reptiles, however, didn’t look fearsome at all. Rather, they looked pathetic and miserable, for not only were they being held captive in the tiny cages, but their limbs were manacled to the cages’ walls, immobilising them. At the rear of their cages were flaps that appeared to allow any eggs the crocodiles laid to fall into catching trays. The trays were then taken away on conveyor belts.

The crocs bellowed plaintively.

CJ recognised the vocalisations. She had heard them many times before. They were female calls, the kind a mother croc made to gather her offspring to her. But these calls got no reply.

As she gazed at the wretched crocodiles, CJ thought: They look like battery hens .

The saltwater crocodile was one of the deadliest predators in the world, cunning and intelligent, cold and ruthless. It was hard to feel sorry for one, but CJ found herself feeling sorry for these crocs now.

She saw a smartboard nearby, a kind of high-tech whiteboard. It featured a map of the zoo and some handwritten notes which, curiously, were written in English:

CJ read the handwritten notes. It seemed that the dragons at the Great Dragon Zoo had been doing unpredictable things.

One note asked: Why are they digging?

An arrow beside it pointed at the map, and at a series of randomly arranged Xs marked on it.

The dragons were digging and their keepers didn’t know why.

Other notes referred to the red-bellied black dragons—questioning whether they were of higher status than the other dragons and that perhaps they and the yellowjacket dragons were rival clans. CJ recalled noticing earlier that all of the dragons involved in the initial attacks had been red-bellied blacks.

A rather ominous notation at the bottom of the smartboard read: They are starting to figure us out.

One note, however, captured CJ’s attention: Brain defects in croc-born variants—why are they so aggressive?

‘The croc-born variants…’ she said aloud.

And suddenly the full horrific meaning of the name ‘Birthing Centre’ became clear.

These crocs were battery hens.

CJ now also understood the answer to one of her previous questions: how the zoo could have 232 dragons when the Chinese had at first only found 88 eggs.

The answer was right here in front of her: to breed more dragons for their zoo, the Chinese had been using the ova of saltwater crocodiles—the archosaur’s closest living relative—as hosts for dragon embryos. All the high-tech equipment around the perimeter of the Birthing Centre—the microscopes, computers and centrifuges—was for the purpose of nuclei insemination and fertilisation.

But one needed lots of ova to get just a few viable embryos, hence the water pit filled with female crocodiles.

The scientists of the Great Dragon Zoo had created a donor egg–making factory .

But the smartboard revealed that all had not been well with the Great Dragon Zoo even before the events of today.

‘CJ? CJ, we need you.’ Hamish’s voice snapped her out of her thoughts and she returned to the present.

Hamish said, ‘Which exit do we take?’

CJ saw two possible exits from the Birthing Centre: security doors at each of the far corners of the lab. The one off to her right was closed. The one to her left, open.

She stared at the open door. She wasn’t certain but she thought she could hear a muffled whumping sound coming from the tunnel beyond it.

‘Which one, Chipmunk?’ Hamish asked.

‘We could go back—’ Johnson said, glancing down the tunnel behind them.

They could see the dragon still scratching at the barred entrance, seventy metres away, but then Johnson cut himself off as a new shadow slunk out of the side door halfway along the tunnel and snarled at them. It was another red-bellied black prince with no ears and it was inside the tunnel!

‘Whoa, shit…’ Hamish breathed.

‘ Hey! CJ! ’ a voice called. ‘Don’t stay out in the open! Get to one of the cages now !’

CJ spun, surprised to hear someone shouting her name in English, and she saw three people cowering inside a cage recessed in the right-hand wall.

The speaker was Go-Go, the pony-tailed Chinese guy she’d seen in the revolving restaurant on Dragon Mountain. With him in the cage was the twenty-something female Chinese grad student he’d been dining with.

The third person in the cage was a handsome Caucasian man wearing horn-rimmed glasses and a lab coat.

They must have sought refuge inside the cage when the dragons had stormed this place and now they were all waving frantically at CJ and her newly arrived group.

CJ peered at the Caucasian man and for the second time that day, found herself recognising someone here at the zoo.

‘Ben?’ she said. ‘Ben Patrick?’

‘ Go! ’ the man in the lab coat yelled urgently. ‘Before they smell you! There are two of them in the tunnel leading to the Nesting Centre and if they catch your scent—’

A long low hiss made them all turn.

Two red-bellied black princes stood in the open doorway on the far left-hand side of the pit.

They were earless.

Their snouts were smeared with blood. Rags of human flesh dangled from their teeth.

They sprang forward, moving with astonishing speed around the rim of the croc-filled water pit. They ran like jungle cats, with fluidity and balance, their heads held low, their tails held high, their wings folded onto their backs.

CJ calculated her best move in a nanosecond.

She was at the front edge of the water pit. The nearest escape was the heavy door in the right-hand corner on the other side of the pit, if she could get it open.

‘That door!’ she called to the others. ‘Go!’

She broke into a run across the nearest catwalk spanning the pit. Hamish followed. Johnson, Syme and Zhang dashed around the pit.

As she ran, CJ called, ‘Go-Go! What’s the code for that door?’

‘6161!’ Go-Go yelled back.

One of the black princes veered toward CJ and Hamish, bounding onto the catwalk bridge after them.

But the bridge wasn’t designed to carry its weight and as it leapt onto the narrow span, the whole catwalk dropped into the water pit, taking the dragon, CJ and Hamish down with it.

CJ landed flat on her chest on top of a cage containing a very angry female saltwater crocodile.

Only inches away from her face, the croc bellowed and bucked. But there was a thin mesh of steel between them, plus the crocodile’s limbs were shackled.

Hamish landed on the cage next to CJ’s. Being heavier, he created a dent in his and the crocodile inside it roared.

CJ rolled off her cage and leapt to her feet, and standing in the knee-deep salt water, searched for a ladder leading out—