The Lost Moments
The Red Queen Part I
Thefestivities ended, Malcolm turned to Levine. Sarah was in the kitchen, fixing lunch for the kids, who had decided to stay around a little longer. Levine was tapping on the computer again, and Malcolm had to know what was going on before his mind exploded.
"Richard….what are you doing?" Levine was hitting keys on the computer so fast, it was hard to see what he was typing exactly. But Malcolm did see that he was wearing the tee shirt he'd gotten for him.
"I," Levine stated, "am doing a system check on our Lost World."
"Levine, do you mean to say that map was in fact a map of Isla Sorna?"
"Ian, I thought so many years in school would give you more intelligence." Levine stood back and let Malcolm see the computer monitor, which showed a map with tiny red and blue dots moving on it. "The red are carnivores and the blue are herbivores. See? The carnivores are staying on the interior, except the raptors, who go wherever they want-"
"Richard, this doesn't make any sense. How can the computer know what Isla Sorna looks like? And how do we have contact with the animals there, let a lone know the difference between herbivores and carnivores?"
"Elementary, Ian! When we left the island, I left a few things there; The video monitors. I told you when we were leaving we might have a chance of observing these animals."
"Yes," Malcolm nodded, "And drawing conclusions about extinction."
"Ah, that," Levine said very matter of factly, "yes, that's a bit of a sticky spot."
Malcolm was taken aback. "Why?"
"Well, you see," Levine hesitated.
Malcolm wasn't going to get any more information on this subject, and he was beginning to notice it. Levine suddenly switched positions, so that he seemed to be covering part of the screen in particular. Malcolm immediately noticed. "Richard...what are you doing?"
"Ah, covering the, ah, aberrant..."Malcolm shoved Levine out of the way, and looked at the upper left had corner of the computer console. He saw, within a tiny green box, letters that read 'F7'. Malcolm immediately pushed the F7 key, and waited.
But it didn't take very long...
After a very short time, Malcolm saw little black and white bars across the screen. "What's going on?"
Looking behind him, Richard looked pale. He was staring at his shoes. A beep was heard, and Richard looked up, suddenly intrigued. "It's trying to stream..."
"Stream?" Malcolm asked, "Fish? I don't care! What is going on?"
"No, no," Richard corrected, "Trying to stream video, and hopefully audio, too."
Malcolm was afraid of what he was hearing. "So we can view the animals from the monitors that were originally on the island? The ones you set up?"
"No," Richard stated, "The ones InGen put up...ten long years ago."
Malcolm stared, not believing. "We can hack into InGen's network/streaming systems?"
"Yes. In fact, it's easier than getting feed from any of my monitors, for this simple reason: InGen has no security. It arose in a time when safety systems on computers were just beginning to emerge, and had few of the nifty tricks they have now."
Malcolm nodded, and frowned. "Won't the animals"-
"Eventually disrupt the feed? Probably."Levine agreed. He smiled, pushing his incredibly dorky glasses up farther on his nose, rising to magnify his eyebrows. Levine looked like he knew everything in the world. He snorted. "But it will probably take some time, Ian. Long enough for your little science project."
Malcolm stared. You know, that man can be quite annoying on occasion.