Day of the Predator - Alex Scarrow [37]
‘Those are huge,’ uttered Kelly. ‘Good grief! … Two-foot, three-foot wingspan at a guess?’
‘Uh-huh,’ said Franklyn. ‘They’re really big and I’m pretty sure I know what species that is.’
The others looked at him.
‘It’s a petalurid, I think … yeah, I’m sure that’s the right name.’
‘Great,’ said Laura, ‘so now we know.’
‘No, that’s not the important bit,’ said Franklyn. He looked at her. ‘They should be extinct.’
‘Well, obviously they’re not,’ she replied.
‘Oh yes they are. We’ve only ever had fossils of insects that size.’
Whitmore stood up. ‘Oh my God! He’s right!’ He watched the two dragonflies emerge from the overhanging branch and dart out into the open, their wings buzzing noisily like airborne hairdryers. ‘Insects haven’t been that size since …’ He swallowed, looked at the others. ‘Well … I mean, millions and millions of years.’
‘Petalurids,’ uttered Franklyn again. ‘Late Cretaceous. I’m pretty sure of that.’
Kelly got to his feet and stood beside Franklyn. ‘What are you saying?’
The boy wiped a fog of moisture from his glasses, blinking back the bright day from his small eyes. ‘What I’m saying, Mr Kelly, is those things haven’t existed, alive … in, like, well, I guess something like sixty-five million years.’
CHAPTER 22
2001, New York
‘Maddy! Where are you going?’
Maddy ignored Sal’s pleading voice as she strode across the archway, cranked up the shutter and stepped out into the backstreet.
I can’t do this … I can’t do this.
She felt the first tears roll down her cheeks as she picked her way along the rubbish-strewn sidewalk towards South 6th Street at the top. Her first proper mission in charge and she was already going to pieces. An impetuous decision on her part, stupid and hot-headed enough to go against Bob’s reasoned advice, and now she might just be responsible for killing Liam and the support unit. Not only that, but she’d probably also caused the deaths of dozens of others. And, most importantly, Edward Chan.
‘I can’t do this,’ she muttered. ‘I’m just not ready for this.’
She stepped out of the backstreet on to the corner and watched the busy intersection for a while: traffic turning right to pick up the bridge road, left towards the river; pedestrians making their way over to their jobs in Manhattan … all of them oblivious to the commercial jets already in the air and heading towards their doom.
She wanted Foster back. Needed him back. What possessed him to think for one moment she was actually ready to run a field office? His pre-recorded ‘how to’ answers stored on the computer just weren’t enough. She needed him to talk to, to explain the technology to her more fully, to tell her more about the agency and their place in it. There were so many gaps in her knowledge she didn’t even know enough to have an idea what questions to ask. She was floundering.
‘Damn you, Foster!’ she hissed under her breath, and wiped at her wet cheeks.
The old man could be anywhere in New York, if, indeed, he’d decided to stay on in the city. He’d walked out on her on one of the Monday mornings, walked right out of the Starbucks with a bag over one shoulder, leaving her alone with her coffee. It was Tuesday today. If he was that desperate to see the world before he died, then he might just as well be on a Greyhound bus to some other state or even on a plane to somewhere exotic.
Face it. He’s gone for good.
‘She just got up and left!’ said Sal.
> I sensed emotional stress markers in her voice.
‘Well, duh! Of course she’s upset! She’s just … I mean, she may have just killed Liam!’
Sal realized her own voice sounded shrill and loud. ‘Oh jahulla! Is he dead? Did she kill him?’
> Insufficient data. The residue signal suggests a sudden and violent enlargement of a dimensional pinhole, releasing a vast amount of energy.
‘Like a bomb?’
> Correct. Just like a bomb.
She slumped down in the office chair.