Z-Volution Read Online Free PDF Page B

inside what felt more like an interrogation chamber than a waiting room. He imagined there were cameras behind the walls watching his every move, and half expected that when the doors opened, the water-boarding would begin. Or the men with the white coats would rush in to take him away after he continued ranting about dinosaurs and zombies and evil plans to annihilate civilization.
    He was still somewhat in shock that a room full of some of the most powerful people on the planet actually seemed to believe what he and Veronica had described, but he supposed seeing was truly believing. Especially when seeing a prehistoric sea monster cut through a naval destroyer and a contingent of highly-trained soldiers in a matter of seconds.
    Before Alex had been ushered out of the strategy room, he overheard Veronica and the advisors talking hurriedly about defense initiatives, about aircraft carrier repositioning, about sealing off borders and putting the nation on high alert.
    Alex had tried to butt in and tell them to make sure they alerted nearby countries. The coastline of South America for one—Brazil, Peru—any number of highly-populated regions could be hit first, and Alex could only imagine how fast the zombie virus—or whatever they should technically be calling this scourge—would spread. He could envision them losing the entire southern continent and then trying to contain the damage by sealing off borders, but could that even work?
    Even as he ran through the scenarios in his mind, feeling helpless like a toddler standing before a towering unstoppable tsunami, he thought for the first time in days about his mother.
    He hadn’t heard from Elsa Ramirez in more than a week. After his return from Adranos Island and after the loss of his father just as they had been repairing old wounds, he had sought out his mom. Maybe it was the guilt finally settling in, or maybe it was just finally his maturity—or maybe it could have had something to do with surviving a string of brutal attacks from zombies and dinosaurs—that had given him new perspective. He had to reconcile with his mother too, while there was still time.
    Veronica encouraged him, even insisted. Regret would be a lifelong scar on his soul if his mother passed before he could patch things up with her, before he could thank her for so many things, before he could share all that had happened with his father. Maybe, just maybe, his presence could even give her strength, help her beat the cancer.
    So he had gone. It hadn’t been easy, seeing her like that after so many chemo treatments and multiple surgeries. Not after he had been gone so long, and after being such a distant, ungrateful son. Not after putting the concerns of exotic species and microscopic life forms over the lives of his family, but of course, his mother hadn’t seen it that way.
    Surprisingly, and in a rush of emotion Alex hadn’t expected, she had been proud of him. Instead of his father’s initial shame and disappointment, Alex’s mother greeted him with open arms and brought him into her little two-room apartment where to his shock, he found himself surrounded by a veritable resume of his life: framed newspaper articles, his diploma, even media clippings about his eco-warrior convictions were on the walls in places of distinction, as if his mother had been proud of his every misstep and had celebrated his flaunting of authority.
    “You acted and remained true to your values,” she had said as they sat and shared a cup of tea. “I didn’t like you taking chances with people’s safety, including your own, but you always did what you thought was right. That’s how I raised you, and you never, ever let me down.”
    So floored by this, Alex could say nothing, but just wept and held his mother—bald and frail—and he wept even more, feeling her ribs and her brittle bones and knowing that he was going to be too late.
    Far too late to this reunion, far too late to save her. Too late for anything