Z-Volution Read Online Free PDF Page A

his voice. “Sir, I…”
    Alex’s blood went cold. Veronica was gripping his hand so tightly it hurt. “It’s…”
    On the peripheral screens, with feeds from the Montana , a wicked silvery blur slid into view, something like an enormous tusk that reared out of the water then slammed down onto the deck amidst planes and men and turrets.
    Three of the screens turned to static.
    On the main monitor, the satellite transmission captured the impossible. The water erupted between the destroyer and the first tanker, and something rocketed upward with the force of a launching missile.
    “Is that a whale?” someone asked, without any degree of certainty.
    Alex squeezed Veronica’s fingers hard, then let go.
    “I said, report !” the president yelled. “What’s happening? Why aren’t we firing on them?”
    The commander barked into the phone, but just then his head turned and stared at the screen—at the whirling figure thrashing on the deck, snapping and whipping its tail and massive jaws. In the blur from the satellite feed, it was almost impossible to see with any degree of precision, but Alex thought he saw enough: the telltale massive sail on its back .
    “That’s no whale. It’s a Spinosaurus.”
    “What?”
    “I saw that thing enough growing up with my dad, who kept correcting me when I insisted that a T.rex was the largest meat-eating dinosaur ever.” He swallowed hard and pointed with his free hand. “No, it was that thing.”
    The room remained in mute, horrified shock, while the president stared at the images. The rest of the cameras went to snow after a chaotic sequence of rapid blurs, crashing water, shattered metal and a crewman’s mangled body tossed into the air—almost ripped in half. On the main screen, something like a giant lizard stood on the sinking, smoking ship and seemed to be digging into its metallic guts with its snout, all the while shaking its prehistoric head.
    Then everything—the Montana’s remnants and its attacker alike—sunk beneath the waves.
    “Holy shit.” The president looked back to Alex. “Perhaps you two better give us more detail on what really happened down there. And no more bullshit about proteins and microscopic bugs.”
    Veronica swallowed hard but stepped forward, keeping her eyes on the screen, where the maritime convoy continued on, transporting a cargo more deadly than anyone had dreamed. “Sir…we thought…we thought wrong. We thought there were only a few of the creatures, but now…”
    Alex completed the thought. “We’re all screwed if any of those ships reach land.”

4.
     
    Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Headquarters, Atlanta—5:45 PM
    Dr. Arcadia Grey fought off the urge to throw the package out, or to call the bomb squad or the hazmat team. Her slender hands trembled and she felt as if someone had just thrown her a ticking time bomb. Director of Pathogen Research for the CDC, she was the main line of defense for the agency charged with defending America against all manner of disease outbreaks, pandemics, epidemics, infections, plagues, scourges, contagions and weaponized biological threats. Right now, she wished she could be anywhere else, or anyone else. Someone who wouldn’t have to face this responsibility.
    The parcel was addressed to her and wrapped tightly in a bubble wrap folder, but it was the return address that had made her wish she had never come in today.
    A single letter—the letter D.
    Dyson.
    It had to be. That was the way Xander Dyson had always signed his correspondence to her, whether they were love letters, business propositions, or late night emails waxing about the nature of single-celled life and whether it sprouted consciousness or housed elements of a soul, Xander was always one for brevity in signing his name.
    Or was it arrogance?
    Arcadia didn’t know, but that was long ago. A relationship she had ended in what seemed like a prior lifetime, after she and Dyson had embarked on radically different