“Genocide,” Shawn said quietly. “The word you’re looking for, Todd, is genocide.”
“You are absolutely correct,” Boz agreed. “They are going to kill everything this lab worked so hard to preserve and foster. The years we’ve spent selectively breeding dinosaurs to even out the population numbers and stabilise the ecosystem. For nothing!”
“I wasn’t talking about the dinosaurs!” Todd yelled, slamming his hand down on the table.
“We all just need to relax a moment,” Boz said, sinking weak-kneed into his chair. Chaz slumped down into the chair next to me, and I jumped. I’d forgotten she was in the room.
“Why would the Noah have filmed this?” Todd asked as he paced back and forth in front of the long window like a caged animal. “It seems stupid. If this was supposed to be top secret, why document it?”
“My best guess,” Shawn said, “was that he was eventually going to show this to us.” When everyone gave him a strange look, he jerked his head at me. “To the people in the compounds, I mean. I’m betting that after it was all said and done, after the bombs had been dropped and everything wiped out, he would have sent this to the compounds along with an explanation. It would be considered of historical importance, wouldn’t it? The day the decision was made to wipe the world clean and start over again? Of course, he couldn’t let it get out before it had all happened or people might freak out.”
“So how did my dad get ahold of it?” I asked, thinking out loud. “This had to have been under lock and key.”
Boz ran a hand through his thinning hair and looked at us. “Your father was a brilliant man, Sky. If anyone could have hacked the Noah’s communication system, it was him.” I felt a faint surge of pride for my dad, but it washed away as Boz leant forward, his face concerned. “How long ago did you say your father disappeared?”
“A little over five years ago,” I said. “Why? Do you think maybe the Noah changed his mind since then? That this may be outdated information?”
“No,” Shawn said, shaking his head before Boz could respond. He stared at me. “Think about it, Sky. For the last five years, what have we been putting every spare ounce of manpower towards in North Compound?”
I felt the blood drain from my face as realization hit. “Topside fortifications,” I whispered. “Of course.” I turned to Boz and Todd, feeling numb. “For the last five years, at the Noah’s orders, we’ve been increasing the thickness of the concrete barrier that separated North Compound from the topside world.” I inhaled sharply as something else occurred to me, and I turned to Shawn. “The supplies. Remember at the last assembly we went to?”
Shawn nodded. “They talked about how we were going to have to lay up the key supplies we needed from the other compounds in case the mail plane ever couldn’t make it. This was why! The Noah wasn’t worried about the plane; he was preparing us for this.”
I turned to Boz. “We don’t have much time. When we escaped North Compound, we were about a month away from being done with topside fortifications. And that was almost a week ago.” Everyone fell silent as they took this new information in. The thump thump thump of Todd’s booted feet on the glass floor was the only sound in the room as he paced back and forth in front of the long windows, oblivious to the giant plesiosaur that was gliding across their surface. Chaz bit her fingernails, her eyes flicking nervously from Schwartz’s angry face to Boz’s thoughtful one and back again.
“So what now?” she finally asked, breaking the silence.
“Well,” Boz said, hefting himself to his feet. “We can’t just let the world end. We have work to do.”
“So, um, this is it,” Chaz said as we walked into the small room I’d be sharing with her for the foreseeable future. It was three levels higher than the conference room, but still too far down for any sunlight to penetrate. It contained two twin beds, two small closets, and a lamp. One whole wall was glass and looked out into the lake. Were there any rooms in this place without a monster-infested view? Next door I could hear Shawn and Todd arguing over who would get which bed.
“It’s not much,” Chaz apologised as she attempted to push a pile of dirty clothes under her bed with a booted foot. “I can get you your own room if you want. I’m sure Boz could arrange it.”
Shaking my head, I walked over to press my hand against the cool glass of the window. “It’s great,” I said, turning to her with what I hoped was an acceptable smile. “Really.”
Chaz nodded, flopping down on her rumpled bed. After the shock had worn off from viewing the video, Boz had got himself together and begun giving orders. The first thing he did was swear us all to secrecy. The information would do nothing but cause chaos and panic if it got out, he said.
Todd had been the hardest one to convince. As soon as he heard that the big plan was to do nothing until further notice, he’d pitched a fit. Not that I could blame him. If I hadn’t been so overwhelmed by the information overload, I would have joined him.
In the end he’d agreed to a compromise. We would let the lab’s head council discuss a course of action before he did anything. Although it wasn’t like we had any choice. Boz was incredibly kind about it, but he’d made it clear that leaving wasn’t an option.
I jumped as someone knocked loudly on our door.
“Come in!” Chaz called, not bothering to get up from her bed, where she was fiddling with a port screen. Todd stormed through the door, followed by a glum-looking Shawn. I shot him a questioning look, but he just shook his head and plopped down on the foot of my bed.
“How can you stand it?” Todd asked, pacing our small room like a caged animal. “Being underwater. It’s horrible. My skin is crawling, the air has no smell, and I feel like my head is going to explode.” He looked to Shawn and me for backup, but Shawn just shrugged apologetically.
“I feel at home for the first time in days,” he admitted. “This is like North Compound, but bigger and better because of all the windows.”
“I don’t get how anyone lives like this. It’s awful,” Todd said. Then he looked over at Chaz. “No offence.”
“None taken.” Chaz shrugged. Just then a long-necked plesiosaur, what Chaz had called an elasmosaurus, emerged from the darkness, yellow lamp-like eyes glowing, and I jumped instinctively away from the window.
“That is so creepy,” Todd breathed.
“You can say that again,” Shawn said as we watched the creature disappear back into the murk of the lake.
“Do you realise,” Todd said a moment later, breaking the silence, “that your dad might have just saved the entire world by getting that plug into Boz’s hands?”
“It hasn’t really sunk in,” I admitted. “I’m not sure how to wrap my brain around the Noah’s plan, let alone that my dad was the one who somehow stumbled upon it.” Even though my dad had hinted at the world being at stake in the letter he’d hidden inside his compass, I guess a part of me hadn’t really thought he was being literal. Kennedy and his marines coming after me made a lot more sense now.
“What’s scary,” Shawn said, interrupting my thoughts, “is that I can totally understand why the Noah thinks wiping the planet clean of dinosaurs is going to solve everything.” Todd and Chaz shot him identical disbelieving looks, and Shawn held up his hands defensively. “Let