Laura Martin - Code Name Flood

First published in Great Britain by

HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2017

HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd,

HarperCollins Publishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

The HarperCollins website address is:

www.harpercollins.co.uk

Text copyright © Laura Martin 2017

Cover artwork © Fred Gambino

Cover design © HarperCollins Publishers 2017

Laura Martin asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of the work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008152925

Ebook Edition © 2017 ISBN: 9780008152932

Version: 2017-03-03

For all the teachers, librarians, and parents working to instill a love of reading in the hearts of the next generation. You are the true heroes of stories.

And to my mom, who first did that for me.

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2017 HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd, HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF The HarperCollins website address is: www.harpercollins.co.uk Text copyright © Laura Martin 2017 Cover artwork © Fred Gambino Cover design © HarperCollins Publishers 2017 Laura Martin asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of the work. A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins. Source ISBN: 9780008152925 Ebook Edition © 2017 ISBN: 9780008152932 Version: 2017-03-03

Dedication For all the teachers, librarians, and parents working to instill a love of reading in the hearts of the next generation. You are the true heroes of stories. And to my mom, who first did that for me.

Map

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Epilogue

Author’s Note

Acknowledgments

Also by the Author

About the Publisher

This was a bad idea. Spectacularly bad, actually. It went against everything I’d learned in my short time topside, but all that didn’t change what we had to do. I glanced back down at my dad’s map, but it showed the same thing it had always shown. The only way to get to Lake Michigan was to leave the shelter of the trees and make a run for it – in the open. My eyes flicked up to take in the sprawling grassland in question, filled, as I knew it would be, with dinosaurs.

A large herd of what I thought had to be Dracorex hogwartsia was grazing close enough for me to count the spikes that bristled all over their bony heads, making them resemble the dragons of fairy tales they were named after. But these creatures were not the stuff of fairy tales or history books. At least not anymore. Behind the herd of dracorex was a grassland that used to contain houses, roads, cars, and everything else humans had used to stake their claim on this earth. All that was gone now. Which made sense, I guess, considering the dinosaurs were the ones who ruled things these days.

“I can’t believe we’re doing this,” Shawn muttered, running a hand through his blond hair so that it stood up in sweaty spikes. “There’s no way we can make it to the lake without getting eaten.”

“What’s your point?” Todd asked as he swung his arms in lazy circles to stretch out his shoulder muscles.

“My point,” Shawn said, grimacing, “is that there has to be a way around this, a way that isn’t so exposed. We’ve always gone around the open areas. Except,” he amended, “for that time we almost became a T. rex’s lunch.” He paused a moment, stifling a shudder. “At least in the trees the only dinosaurs we encountered were little ones. Out there,” he said, gesturing in front of us, “there’s nowhere to hide, no trees to climb, and nothing to slow down those massive monsters.”

“We knew that the closer to Lake Michigan we got, the more open it was going to be,” I said flatly. His attitude shouldn’t have surprised me. I’d grown up with Shawn in North Compound, and unlike Todd, who’d grown up topside, being aboveground was still an uncomfortable and terrifying experience for both of us. I just hid it better.

“Yeah, but I didn’t think it was going to be this open,” Shawn grumbled, and I tried not to roll my eyes as I turned my attention back to the grassland. I’d read that dinosaurs liked to congregate near a source of water, but this was a little ridiculous. Herds of green-, brown-, and amber-coloured dinosaurs were scattered in every direction as far as I could see. To our left, a large group of stegosaurs grazed quietly in the knee-high scrub grasses, the sun reflecting off the wide flat plates that sat in single file down their sloping backs.

“Try to relax,” I said, even as the knot in my gut twisted a little tighter. “If we read the map correctly, the lake should be just on the other side of those hills.”

“Dunes,” Todd corrected. “Those things that look like hills are called dunes.”

“What’s a dune?” Shawn asked.

“Big mounds of sand,” Todd explained. “They border the lake.”

I glanced back out across the tall wavy grasses, silently wishing Shawn was right and there was another way. While the prospect of finally getting to the lake sent a thrill of excitement through me, Shawn’s reminder of our last dash into the open made my already edgy nerves buzz uncomfortably. After a lifetime underground, we hadn’t known any better than to run across an open meadow. It had been the first of many near-death experiences. The note and map my dad had left for me, urging me to take his compass and the small memory plug it contained to Lake Michigan, hadn’t said anything about how to actually survive topside. That part we’d had to figure out the hard way.

I tugged at my ponytail to free it from the snarled thorns of the bush. A few curly red strands got caught in the branches, and they fluttered gently in the wind. I snatched them and shoved them in my pocket. I wasn’t taking any chances. North Compound’s marines had found us twice now. We’d eliminated any chance that we were carrying a tracking device, so that left the old-fashioned way of finding us. By foot. Ever since we’d realised this, we’d gone out of our way to hide all traces of our movements. Hopefully it would be enough. I took a deep breath to calm my nerves. The tangy, earthy flavour of this topside world still felt foreign, but unfortunately, it did nothing to slow my hammering heart or shaking hands, so I balled them into fists and mentally commanded myself to get it together.