Age of Monsters by John Schneider (a book to read txt) 📕

both occupying the same niche, without prey animals to complement their numbers, that was nothing but a declaration of ecological warfare.

Tom noted something else interesting – in terms of demographics, the tyrannosaurs seemed largely out-numbered in the conflict – at least as infected giants – but at the same time, were particularly aggressive.

Carnosaurs would mingle with ceratosaurs or megalosaurs – T. rex walked alone – there was no instance in any record of a rex tolerating a rival predator species in its territory – and every instance was a death-fight.

They even seemed to go after those tiny little sickle-clawed scavengers – it didn't seem to like them at all.  Or maybe 'like' wasn't the word, because they were eating those little guys just like popcorn.

And none of it seemed to be an effect of the Food of the Gods – the 'normals' out in the sticks clashed along party-lines, and tore at each other every bit as savagely as the infected giants.

The pattern endured – three days in, and they had been at each other's throats.

Just territorial aggression?  Aggravated by steroid-rage?

In any case, it was apparent that the global war wasn't over, just because humanity had cashed their chips in early.

Tom's eyes turned to a particular screen he had reserved for the young woman still trapped, barricaded inside her cabin in Alaska – where sickle-claws continued to make periodic raids.

She talked to her camera a lot.

Tom could relate – it was the sort of thing you did when you were isolated and alone.

The young woman was currently in relatively good-spirits – she was obviously capable, and well-supplied – but Tom knew that eventually her resources would be spent – even if she'd been stocked for the entire winter – and how much ammunition could she possibly keep on hand?

To Tom's knowledge, there wasn't even anyone left to help.

He hadn't heard from his own command since almost the moment it all began.

Still, if he could just connect with that Eureka tower – constructed specifically to function as liaison to the EITS station.

If he could get that activated, he might actually be able to restart the Internet out of his own database – most satellites should still be operational.

If lines of communication could be opened up, that might change things.

It could at least change the fortunes for a few survivors – the kids in Japan – the young woman in Alaska.

Her name was Kristi.

On short acquaintance, Tom found he liked her.  And he very much did not want to watch her die.

Like he had, Rebekah Adams, KAB, Houston.

In the days since it all went down, Tom believed he had personally seen more death than any human being in history had ever witnessed.

Perhaps it was optimistic that he still found himself fearing for a few remaining lives.

Or perhaps it was just a defense mechanism to keep from thinking about his own.

That was better, he decided – it was colder – rational and scientific – at the immediate moment, detachment was his only friend.  He consciously knew he was six-ways-from-Sunday past section-eight trauma and would have to adapt his behavior accordingly.

So he ran his simulations and he collated his data.  He looked for patterns, and tried to raise towers on Earth.

And he continued to read files – following further and further down the rabbit hole.

Chapter 10

In the hills just south of Siskiyou Pass, there was a new King under the Mountain.

It was not a matter of vote, or even primitive ritual.  It was simply existential reality.

The rex stood on the hill, framed by the flickering light of an oncoming storm.

It towered well over sixty meters.  Its eyes glowed green.

At its feet, the creatures in the valley simply fled.

A predator would not normally be so high-profile – when stalking, T. rex could move with surprising stealth.

Today, however, the rex simply announced its presence.  It had quickly learned that, these days, that was enough.

In the valley basin below, lay the corpse of another infected giant – a large sauropod, stretching nearly half-a-mile from head to tail – a mountain of meat that was currently being gnawed on by every critter in the forest.

The rex uttered an impatient grunt and the scavengers broke like flies, vanishing into the trees.

Less than two short weeks ago, he had been one of them – skittering around the ankles of the giants.  It had sorely tested his tyrannosaur-pride.

But things had changed.  And while the rex itself did not directly associate this change to its battle with the infected sickle-claw back in Siskiyou Pass, or devouring its opponent's corpse, that was when he had felt the first slow onset – similar to the way alcoholic euphoria sets in after ingestion.

Initially, the sensation was simply an over-caffeinated feeling of power and energy.

Once its growth topped out, however, all that energy would have nowhere to go, and deterioration would begin.  Along with it, would come madness.

For the moment, however, the rex was only aware of a mild-buzzing in its head.

At the perimeter of the basin, some of the smaller scavengers were back, and had started to encroach.

There was no native fauna among them.

Even all the lions and tigers and bears who might have dared to directly contest the new wildlife, pound-for-pound, soon discovered the toxic taste of these giant, seemingly free mountains of carrion.

As somewhere up in space, Major Tom had listed among its primary flaws, the chemical killed.

And while there was nothing in the available text that specifically described the effect of the chemical on a normal, non-engineered organism, there was reference that it was always fatal – and it wasn't pretty – something about that DNA fusion-reactor going into meltdown.

The rex, of course, knew none of that, but did take note of