Z-Volution by David Sakmyster, Rick Chesler Read Free Book Online

bluffing.
    Now, three treatments later, and DeKirk—the sole beneficiary of the zombie protein modifications—was on his way to perfection. By all projections, he should be fully transformed within the next twelve hours. Unstoppable, immortal and in control of all that power. All the benefits of being a zombie with none of the drawbacks. A god to a new race that, he found, would answer to him through a combination of naturally-occurring electromagnetic field radiation that the prions used to communicate and control other hosts, as well as implanted microchip technology where necessary (as with the dinosaurs, which could be overly unruly and chaotic without properly directed discipline).
    Grinning, DeKirk flexed and then interlaced his fingers as he stared at another screen depicting some kind of medical chamber, where a frail bald woman lay on a table, IVs in her arms. A bevy of technicians stood around monitoring her vitals.
    DeKirk licked his lips, anticipating the delicious irony to come. He had scores to settle with more than a few people, but this selection of Patient Zero would be a more than fitting assault on someone who had come oh-so-close to derailing DeKirk’s ambitions—something not easily done nor readily forgiven.
    One final screen captured his attention: a view from atop a mast looking down on a flat ship’s deck where the largest of the lizards he had ever imagined lay strapped down, still in frozen slumber.
    My dreadnought , he mused. At forty tons and twenty-five meters long, it was a smaller individual than some of the fossils they had discovered in South America. It had been found in a cavern, frozen almost throughout, just a short distance from Vostok. It had certainly been part of that same lake, lured there from whatever it had called home while the rest of the Earth began its methane or asteroid-induced climate change. Whatever it was, DeKirk didn’t really care. Let the eggheads argue about what caused mass extinctions, because he was pretty sure he had the answer.
    The prions did their work, and hunger did the rest. If an animal was hungry enough, it would eat anything—do anything—to sate itself and kill those relentlessly nagging impulses. A person would literally eat his neighbor’s child, DeKirk had always thought, if things got bad enough. And dinosaurs, well…a mere reptile possessed not the faintest shred of restraint or morality. They were no match for starvation.
    Hunger was the ultimate constant. Every species feared it, every organism experienced it at one time or another. Hunger drove migrations, and hunger—more specifically, the fear of it—gave birth to civilization, agriculture, and everything that came with it. Stars burned energy just as every organism consumed prey. A living thing was merely a biological machine, and machines must be fueled or they stop running.
    Only now, DeKirk could control the perceived sensation of hunger in a zombified organism—human or dinosaur. Direct it, shut it off once necessary, once his goals had been achieved.
    But first, he thought, as he perused his monitors once more, his army would feed.
    And feed well.

7.
     
    Grenada
    Alex made a less than perfect landing, but a landing nonetheless. His late friend Tony’s words came back to him from Antarctica, haunting him… Any landing you can walk away from…
    He climbed out of the cockpit on the deserted airstrip, a little curious as to the lack of a reception. No maintenance people, no security, just the disembodied voice from the tower clearing him to land.
    Curious, but not alarming. Yet.
    He shrugged off the nagging concern and turned to the sound of an engine approaching him. The day was hot, humid and somehow overly dry at the same time. It was like his mouth was full of sandpaper filings and he had the unshakeable notion that trouble was coming, with his mother at the center of it.
    Why was she here? Did it have to be treatment outside the continental U.S.? Was that all it was?