Life Will Not Be Contained
The tropical storm had already broken out on Isla Nublar, as dangerous ocean waves were crashing all around the island and it was being watched in the form of primitive digital models on the Visitor's Center computers.
At Nedry's workstation, he was watching the video labeled EAST DOCK, wearing a microphone headset. On screen, waves were crashing around the supply ship, a crew member speaking into a nearby telephone.
"There's nothing I can do!" He insisted. "The Captain says we gotta go, we gotta go!"
"No, no, listen to me. You've got to give me this time!" Nedry begged. "I did a test run on this thing and it took me twenty minutes. I thought I could maybe push it to eighteen, but, you've got to give me at least fifteen minutes. Give me the fifteen minutes!"
"No promises!" replied the mate, hanging up.
Nedry watched the other end of the room, still fingering the Barbasol can, sweat dripping down his forehead.
Hammond was spinning his walking stick around, closely eyeing the mosquito inside the tip, while Arnold was watching the return journey of the Fords on the monitors.
"Visitor vehicles are returning to the garage," he announced.
"So how much for our first tour," Hammond sighed. "Two no-shows and one sick triceratops."
"It could have been worse, John," Arnold assured him. "A lot worse."
"Anybody want a soda or something?" Nedry interrupted, trying to hide the fact that he was shaking in his shoes.
"Cause I'm going up to the machine. I thought, you know, maybe I'd get somebody something, cause I've had only sweets and I think I'm gonna get something salty. I thought maybe somebody would... Oh, I finished de-bugging the phones. I was gonna debug, so I did. You told me to, so I debugged the phones and... I thought maybe I should tell you the system is gonna be compiling for eighteen to twenty minutes. So, some of the minor systems may go on and off for a while. But there's nothing to worry about. It's a simple thing."
Hammond and Arnold stared at Nedry briefly, but once their heads were turned away, he moved his cursor to a section of the monitor, which read, Debug Island Overview.
Underneath was a large red button reading EXECUTE, which Nedry clicked before opening a digital timer on the monitor, setting it for one minute.
Once the timer started ticking, he picked up the Barbasol can and swiftly exited the room.
Back on the road, it looked as though it was raining hard enough to sustain all the plant life.
Stretched in the front seat of Ford 6, Dr. Grant thought Dr. Sattler was probably in heaven. He was attempting to straighten his focus towards Ford 7 up ahead, except his windshield was repeatedly spattered with rain.
A straight-laced Malcolm was sitting next to him, drinking from a flask.
"You got any kids?" Grant asked.
"Oh, hell yeah, three," Malcolm confirmed. "I love kids. Anything at all can and does happen. Same with wives, for that matter."
"You married?" Grant pondered.
"Occasionally," Malcolm replied. "Yeah, I'm always on the lookout for a future ex-Mrs. Malcolm."
Grant slouched, although he didn't notice the car monitor turning off completely.
"By the way, Dr. Sattler, she's not, like, available, is she?" Malcolm asked.
"Why?" Grant demanded.
"Oh, I'm sorry," Malcolm realized. "You two are..."
"Yeah," Grant confirmed.
He still spoke with a tinge of jealousy, even as the Ford came to an unexpected halt. Still, he should have been lucky he wasn't in the car ahead, where Harry was trying to drown out something else.
"So, like I was saying before," Tim continued. "About Dr. Grant, well, my teacher also says he'd know that Bakker came up with all that stuff about the dinosaurs being warm-blooded. And..."
Had Hermione stayed with them, Harry was sure she'd be in heaven spewing knowledge with Tim.
Lex, behind him, was busy fanning herself with her cap, while Genarro in front of Tim, stretched his head back, snoring. Harry noticed the rain seemed to put him to sleep, though not as perfunctory as his uncle.
He boredly planted his hands on the wheel, attempting to focus on the road ahead. Although his windshield was spattered with rain, he pushed his hat further and stretched his neck forward.
Lex glanced over at her occupied brother, then at Genarro, but when her eyes finally fell on Harry, she tugged on his shirt.
"What?" he replied, his hat falling off.
"Are you as bored as I am, right now?" Lex asked
"No," he shrugged. "Not here, anyway."
"What are thinking you thinking about?" she requested.
"I'm expecting something technically unexplainable to happen in a just few minutes," Harry mumbled.
"You 'expect' that?" Lex pondered.
"Yeah," Harry sighed. "Just happens every now and again, you know."
Lex opened her mouth, but before any words could come out, Harry took a brief glance at the car monitor.
"Strange," He pondered. "Monitor's out."
"We stopped." Lex added.
Over at the Visitor's Center, the monitor showing the car diagrams was also showing park security maps. Hammond sipping from his park mug, Muldoon, Phipps, and Fobbs waiting aside, Arnold lit up a cigarette when he noticed red lock symbols popping onscreen, reading UNLOCKED.
"That's odd," he murmured.
"What?" Hammond puzzled.
"Door security systems are shutting down," Arnold replied.
"Well, Nedry said a few systems would go offline, didn't he?" Hammond replied.
Arnold turned to another monitor, showing a more detailed park diagram, where he found the different sections being highlighted in yellow, reading UNARMED in red.
"Whoa, whoa, what the hell..." he repeated.
"What now?" Hammond requested.
"Fences are failing all over the park," Arnold replied.
Hammond sniffed and turned his head to the only three people in the room who weren't occupied at the moment.
"Find Nedry!" he ordered. "Check the vending machines!"
Phipps and Fobbs, having not said a word all day, slipped through the blue door and climbed up the outside stairs before Muldoon could even open his mouth.
But at the back of the room, all the monitors were out, eliciting tense stares from the three people left.
"Maybe we can access the main grid." Arnold suggested.
"Use Nedry's terminal," Hammond recommended. "Get it all back on. He can de-bug later."
He huffed as Arnold seated himself at Nedry's desk, disgustedly shoving off a stack of papers, folders, wrappers, cans, and whatever else amounted to the mess he'd left.
"Look at this workstation!" He cried. "What a complete slob!"
"The raptor fences aren't out, are they?" Muldoon requested.
Arnold keyboarded the request for said fences into the terminal, his response beeping in quickly.
"No, they're still on," he replied.
"Why the hell would he turn the other ones off?" Hammond mused, raising an eyebrow.
But there was no answer to his question as Arnold's fingers were still clicking away on the keyboard.
"Access security program," he muttered.
He tried entering requests twice more, but all that came upon the screen were the words, PERMISSION DENIED followed by the repeating phrase, YOU DIDN'T SAY THE MAGIC WORD.
On the other monitor, an animated gif opened onscreen, showing Nedry's head superimposed on an Elvis jumpsuit, shaking his finger, saying,
"Uh uh uh. You didn't say the magic word."
"Please!" Arnold shouted, furiously banging his hands. "Goddamn it! I hate this hacker crap!"
"Call Nedry's people in Cambridge," Hammond suggested, offering him a white landline phone.
Arnold picked up the receiver and dialed, but heard no tone.
"Phones are out too," he added, before turning to Phipps and Fobbs. "What about yours?"
Phipps drew out his brick phone, pulled up the antenna, and dialed, but he heard no dial tone either. He shook his head as Hammond turned his back to Muldoon.
"Where did the vehicles stop?" he asked.
Back on the tour route, Harry glanced out the right window, rubbing fog away, pinpointing that they'd stopped at the T-Rex paddock, where the goat remained, bleating nervously.
Had Harry been able to see the back, he'd have shaken his head at the sight of Ford 5 still bouncing around.
Inside the car, Petunia was clutching one hand to her stomach, the other to her mouth.
"Duddy please!" Petunia demanded. "You're going to make me carsick!"
"Petunia!" Vernon pleaded. "What else is the kid going to do now, eh?"
Their nerves weren't exactly calmed by the car door opening, or the sight of Dr. Grant all wet.
"What are you doing here?" Vernon bellowed.
"Just came to see if anything was wrong?" he requested.
"I suppose this doesn't look wrong to you?" Vernon grumbled, gesturing to his blank monitor.
"Wait here," Grant ordered, holding on a sigh as he double took two cars ahead. "I'm going to go check on the other car."
Vernon grunted just before he slammed the door shut, but Grant was too rushed to shake his head.
When he reached the front of the line, he found all of Ford 7's passengers sitting tightly, as if nothing was happening. Even Genarro had awoken, though not looking irritated at all, which made Harry gladder to be sitting where he was, at least until his door was opened.
"Is everyone alright?" he requested.
Harry opened his mouth to reply, but frowned as the words came from Genarro's mouth first.
"Our radio's out," He replied.
"You too?" Grant mused.
"Yes," Genarro confirmed. "And in situations like this, I would ordinarily suggest staying put, especially in the presence of an expert."
He gestured towards the kids in the back, which made Harry frown more, but not as much as the single glance Genarro directed at him, which appeared more condescending than concerning.
"Right," Grant sighed.
He closed the door and raced back towards Ford 6, completely soaked, trying not to get his seat wet as he closed the door behind him, a nervous looking Malcolm fogging up his glasses.
"Their radio's out too," he sighed. "Gennaro said to stay put."
"The kids okay?" Malcolm requested.
"Well, I didn't ask," Grant declined. "Why wouldn't they be?"
"Kids get scared," Malcolm replied with hesitation.
"What's to be scared about?" Grant scoffed. "It's just a little hiccup in the power."
"I didn't say I was scared," Malcolm insisted.
"I didn't say you were scared," Grant denied.
"I know," Malcolm defended.
But up ahead in Ford 7, someone else was about to be scared already;
A swift dragging was heard on the floor mats, but Harry and Genarro's visions were hindered by their sitting positions. Lex would have noticed more easily, had she not resorted to brooding out a rain-spattered window.
The plastic clicking that followed would have been easier to ignore, had it not been followed by the same dragging sound. Then came the sound of fabric sliding against the seat leather, some more plastic clicks drowned out by the pouring rain.
The silence was finally broken by a familiar voice springing up, shouting,
"Boo!"
Harry and Genarro's heads shot back, though Harry really did at the sound of a girlish gasp behind him, as they noticed Tim wearing a bulky, green-striped headband with yellow goggles, painted not unlike the car.
"Hey, where did you find those?" Genarro asked, dryly.
"In the box under my seat," Tim replied, cheerfully.
"Are they heavy?" Genarro continued.
"Yeah," Tim confirmed
"Then they're expensive," Genarro resolved. "Put 'em back."
He slowly turned his eyes forward, again thrusting his head back, while Harry simply shook his head, for he was used to this kind of adult reaction. Even more so as Tim climbed into the rear of the car, while Lex slapped him with her cap.
"Don't scare me!" she grumbled.
Tim clicked a few switches on the goggles, zooming in on the car behind them, from which Dr. Grant appeared to be sticking his hand out the door, filling a canteen with rainwater.
"Cool!" Tim exclaimed. "Night vision!"
Harry's head was now backwards, for he must have heard the gears shifting on the goggles.
"Hey... Tim," Harry called, almost forgetting his name. "Can I borrow those a minute?"
"Sure," Tim replied.
He quickly pulled the goggles off, struggling with them a little, before handing them to Harry, who slowly climbed into the back himself, trying not to step on Lex.
"Excuse me," he softly requested.
"Lex slid over as far as she could, while Harry adjusted the goggles to focus on Ford 5. He could just barely see it, but it wasn't that hard to notice the car's shaking. Still, there was one thing behind him, catching a glance he didn't notice.
"What are you looking at?" Lex asked.
"Nothing," Harry muttered.
He removed the goggles, handing them back to Tim until he heard a faint boom outside. Harry suspected Dudley made the car come down a bit hard, but after a few seconds, he heard another boom. This one slightly more audible, seeing he felt a slight vibration pour through the car.
Lex still fanned herself, but Tim was quick to stop her hand from moving any further.
"Do you feel that?" he whispered.
"Yeah, I felt it," Harry replied.
He gestured to Genarro's side of the dashboard, where two cups of water rested, its contents vibrating every few seconds.
Harry noticed Genarro's expressions through the rear view mirror;
Eyes widened, eyebrows raised, although not at the level of amazement he had that afternoon.
"Maybe it's the power trying to come back on," Genarro gasped.
"I don't think so," Harry dismissed.
Genarro narrowed his eyes at Harry, who noticed Tim crawling into the back of the car again.
"What is that?" Lex asked.
"Tim... goggles please?" Harry requested firmly.
Tim quietly handed the goggles back to Harry who, after refocusing the lenses, widened his eyes to the same extent as Genarro's, although his eyebrows remained furrowed.
"Oh no..." he gasped.
Removing the goggles, Harry and the others found a bent stake in the paddock with part of the chain broken off. This elicited quite a bit of panting from the only female member of the party.
"Where's the goat?" Lex pondered.
In a split second, a bloody, mangled goat leg dropped upon the sunroof, resulting in a terrified gasp from Lex and Genarro, who shrank to the edges of their seats, as opposed to Harry and Tim, whose expressions remained disturbingly neutral.
They watched an unusually large reptilian claw clipping off the the electric fence's warning sign... unusually large for all except Harry. But looming above, viewable through the sunroof, was the head of the Tyrannosaurus Rex herself, swallowing what was left of the goat.
In moments like this, Harry recalled a time in his first year when Hagrid had smuggled in a Norwegian Ridgeback dragon egg, naming its hatchling 'Norbert'. If that wasn't bad enough, Hagrid even planned on feeding it chicken blood.
Still, the sight of lamb's blood on the sunroof was enough for Genarro to slip into a panic himself.
"Oh Jesus!" he cried.
He threw his door open and rushed out of the car, keeping an eye on the Rex, hoping she wouldn't notice. Instead, there was one displeased look in the car from someone who was beginning to wish some other members of the entourage had run away instead.
"Unbelievable!" Harry muttered.
He swiftly shut the door, but the other passengers were blessed with the same look of panic.
"He left us!" Lex cried. "He left us!"
But Harry was quick to shush them, for he'd been in a similar scrape not too long before. Even so, it was rather humiliating watching a soaked Genarro run and hide in a nearby rattan bathroom stall, mostly for the whimpering.
Some not so dissimilar opinions were coming from the car behind them, as well.
"Where does he think he's going?" Grant mused.
"When you gotta go, you gotta go," Malcolm replied, shaking his head.
Yet Grant and Malcolm were lucky, for in the car behind them, there was all the same whimpering, at least in shotgun.
"Pet, stop whimpering!" Vernon ordered in hushed tones, before they were stopped by a metallic twang.
Their heads shot to the window as the fence wires snapped. Two cars ahead, Harry kept a cool head, but the remaining children tried holding their breath as the other side of the fence was falling.
"Harry..." Lex gasped. "Dr. Grant..."
Outside a car, a cry for help would not be heard, but the roar of a newly escaped mother T-Rex would from the inside. In Ford 6, one man's eyes were terrifyingly directed upward, while the other man's were forward.
"Boy, do I hate being right all the time," Malcolm muttered.
"Keep absolutely still," Grant whispered. "Its vision is based on movement."
He was too fixated to notice the car behind, seeing it was no longer shaking. Vernon was busy clutching Petunia's hand, neither noticing their son climbing into the trunk, removing a sheet of bubble wrap to find a hard plastic case.
He opened it to discover a supply of three flares and a flashlight, which he gleefully grabbed, leaving a fire extinguisher. Had Dudley not been so stupid, he wouldn't have also grabbed the book of matches from the case, again printed with the park logo.
"Duddy," what are you doing?" Petunia stammered.
Of course, he was going to light the flares, as he completely rolled down the left window to fit his chubby arm out. But Dudley's arms were built more for throwing punches, so his first attempt didn't go far.
After two more throws, the inside of the car took some punches, despite a plush interior. Finally, Dudley picked up the large, bulky flashlight, switched it on, and slipped it out the window, waving it above the roof of the car ahead.
Still, enough people ahead would have seen the light, seeing that Dr. Grant cocked his head back.
"Is he nuts or something?" he muttered.
The light didn't go into the back windshield of Ford 7, but the kids still saw it, considering Lex had grabbed the same flashlight from the back, though much more panicked.
"What are you doing?" Harry gasped.
The Rex was following Dudley's light, yet she seemed unfazed by his instigation, narrowing her eye on a panic-stricken Petunia. Vernon stroked her tiny palms with his sausage fingers, but with Rex's other eye on the opposite side of her head, she saw the light coming from Ford 7.
Now, a sign of T-Rex's intelligence would be to follow her senses, as she noticed the kids in Ford 7, all terrified except one.
"Turn that off!" Harry cried. "Are you mad?! Get down!"
He grabbed the flashlight from Lex, switching it off, which may have been a stupider move without him realizing, since he accidentally shined it through the sunroof. Before they could duck, the Rex smashed its jaws through the top, horrified screams bursting from Lex.
Still, the Rex was intelligent, realizing she couldn't get through the glass. But she had other ways of taking down prey, as she slowly nudged the car with her head, quickly realizing it brought out further screams.
She tipped it over completely and began eating her way through the chassis, crushing the top under her weight.
Dr. Grant, needing no more to see, sifted through the survival pack in his car and pulled out one of the flares. Once lit, he jumped out of the car and began waving it at the Rex.
"Hey!" he shouted.
The Rex roared back as Grant waved his flare, but in Malcolm's eyes, he needed help. He picked up another flare and jumped out after them, as Grant threw his into the paddock.
The Rex began to follow it, but Malcolm, at that moment, was either unlucky or just inconsiderate.
"Hey!" he repeated a minimum four times, still waving.
"Ian, freeze!" Grant commanded.
"Get the kids!" Malcolm yelled.
""Get rid of the flare!" Grant ordered. "Get rid of the flare!"
Malcolm backed away, running for his life until he hit something hard, specifically Ford 5's bumper. His eyes weren't blinded by a white beam from behind, but still he fell and dropped his light source.
For now, the Rex was distracted, as the beam was higher than the red flare, which Malcom quickly picked up before making for the outhouse. The white beam was shined on him, but the Rex was quick to discover the light wasn't going anywhere.
Malcolm was lucky, but Dudley was shining his flashlight out the window. His glee came to a halt as the Rex smashed her huge muzzle into the side of the car, knocking it on its left.
Like a dog, the Rex placed her three-toed foot on the tire and tore the right side away completely. The light was gone, but she remembered where it came from;
Dudley slowly lost his nerves from the Rex grabbed him in her mouth, tearing his body to shreds, gulping him down like mash.
Petunia screamed harder than ever, but Vernon was the purplest he'd ever been in his life.
"Hey!" he cried, raising a sausage finger.
But the Rex flashed her teeth, as another Dudley was in her midst to present with the same fate.
Petunia was probably lucky to jump out of the car and rush towards the outhouse. It didn't take long for the Rex to finish off Vernon, as she heard her whimpering and narrowed in on her tracks.
Petunia slammed the door behind her, where Malcolm also awaited, but even as outhouses fall, some (mostly Malcolm) are taken down with it. Petunia was about to pull the loo door open, but a cowardly Genarro seated upon it was all that remained, at least until he was caught in the Rex's mouth.
Petunia made a break for it again, ignoring the remaining limbs, but this was the last marathon she'd ever run, for her fate also awaited behind her between a set of sharp teeth.