Chapter Two

MIA FROZE IN TERROR. Had the power really gone out? She foolishly tried the door again – of course, it didn't open. She looked across the path to the Ranger Station. The pouring rain made it hard to see, and now she wasn't sure if she was hearing thunder or more bellowing from the Tyrannosaurus.

In an instant, her thoughts flashed rapidly through her head. There were numerous oversights that had led up to this situation: the dinosaurs, the fences, the power grid…

Much like other animals, the dinosaurs seemed to become agitated during storming weather. It was likely one of three culprits, or perhaps a mixture of them. Infrasonic sensitivity – specifically to those frequencies produced by hurricanes or thunder - barometric pressure, or hydrostatic pressure. In any case, the dinosaurs seemed to adopt a heightened state during severe weather. They became more aggressive and territorial, roaming around their paddocks and turning quite vocal.

It seemed innocuous enough, after all, this behavior was well noted in contemporary species. However, an erratic forty-foot-long Tyrannosaur, or the lightning fast Velociraptors, or the thirteen-thousand-pound Triceratops could turn frighteningly dangerous in a split second.

Muldoon's solution was to sedate the more dangerous animals when a storm drew near. He was an accomplished park warden, but Dr. Harding and Mia had fought him on this issue. It might prevent the one-in-a-million chance catastrophe, but it would take an unnecessary toll on the animals themselves. Finding the correct dose was a bit of trial and error – calculated against the animal's weight and metabolism. Since there was no precedent for sedating a dinosaur, it was entirely guesswork – and the risk was too high.

Instead, Muldoon settled for electrified fences. Mia had argued that regular iron bars would have sufficed – replacing the electrification with the strength of thicker metal bars across the fence posts. Hammond disliked this idea as it hindered the view of the dinosaurs. Muldoon disliked it because he wanted to shock them. Not out of malice, but to condition them. A few instances of touching the ten-thousand-volt fence would be enough to make even the slowest dinosaur learn – and before long, they would avoid the fences, whether the power was on or not.

The problem with this was twofold – it made the dinosaurs weary of the boundaries of their enclosures – which was a problem when you had a Safari Tour full of visitors hoping to catch a glimpse of an animal. The second problem… well, that was happening right now. If the power to the fences ever shut off, they would be reduced to a bundle of useless wire – and the dinosaurs got very antsy during storms – which is when the power was likely to go out.

Mia snapped out of her thoughts at another flash of lightning. She could go to the Ranger Station – the multi-tiered concrete building that was the headquarters for the park's field staff. Inside was a multitude of handy equipment – from gasoline and road flares to tranquilizer guns and medicine. The problem, however, is that the door was opened by an electronic keypad – just like the Lodge. When the park opened, it would have been irresponsible to allow wayward visitors access to such equipment.

She could try to meet up with others in the Visitor Center; Hammond, Muldoon, Arnold – the park's chief engineer, and Nedry – the park's computer systems engineer, would probably still be on the island. They were the minimum crew needed for the park – actually, the computer systems designed by Nedry could keep the park running for three or four days without a single person on the island – but Hammond and Arnold hardly ever left. Hammond had too much pride and Arnold had too much anxiety to ever leave the park during a storm.

They were probably busy troubleshooting the power issues, and if the dinosaurs had escaped, it was risky traveling the path to the Center anyway.

Could they really have escaped? Mia thought. Well, even so, the Tyrannosaurus is miles from here.

She tried to think of her location in relation to the enclosures. Most of the dinosaurs were housed on the east side of the island – fenced off along the Safari Tour path that the endorsement team had taken. There weren't any enclosures nearby –

Oh, shit. The raptors. The Velociraptors were quick, agile dinosaurs with a viscous streak. Muldoon hated them and thought of them as a major liability. A major liability. He had them rehoused from their enclosure into a holding pen – more of a dinosaur prison – and tried to keep them calm until Hammond and Wu could decide what they wanted to do with them. Muldoon's Raptor Pen was within walking distance of the Ranger Station.

If they had escaped… Mia's stomach dropped to her knees. She became cold and clammy in the hot, humid storm – and burst into a sprint. She had seen what the raptors were capable of doing to prey. Hell, even to each other. Each foot had a six-inch razor-sharp curved claw – like a sickle – that could slice flesh open like a scalpel. Each leg was muscular enough that the animals could leap a good distance – all it would take was one kick with that claw and you'd be cut nearly in half.

She was headed for the emergency bunker within the Worker Village. It was a triangular concrete building with a single door and as she ran to it, she tried to remember how the door worked: the staff had only done one emergency drill, and this was when Mia was a new hire – maybe one, one and a half years ago. She couldn't remember right now.

She skidded to a halt, slammed her body into the heavy iron door, and quickly reached down for the handle. She wrenched it and swung the door open – flipping her body around inside the bunker and slamming the door shut.

She took a quick glance at the inside face of the door and instantly remembered how it functioned. She rotated the large wheel and several steel bars within the door extended out into the doorframe. With a final turn, the wheel clicked, and the bars were fully extended – like a huge safe. Mia was eternally grateful for this design consideration. It seemed obvious, now that she was inside and safe, that the door would need to be accessible during power outages. She let out an exasperated laugh as she felt embarrassed at her panic.

Inside the bunker was a small landing platform that led to an iron staircase. The basement of the bunker, at least ten feet underground, was a large open room with basic supplies: flares, flashlights, batteries, a phone, and military style rations.

She fumbled her way in the darkness – complete darkness – until she found one of the flashlights hanging on the wall. With the press of a button, the bunker was flooded in light.

She shone the light around, taking stock. Everything was here. She could stay for a week, maybe two. And there was a phone!

Mia ran to it and tried – nothing. Not even a dial tone. She slumped to the ground and turned off the flashlight, listening to the pounding rain – the rolling thunder – and the occasional roar of the Tyrannosaurus – as she tried to slow her heartbeat.

She lit another cigarette to calm her nerves. She felt a twinge of rebelliousness as she smoked in the basement of the bunker. Oh well, she reasoned, it's an emergency. And Arnold smokes like a chimney in the Control Room anyways.

She failed to calm herself, however, as she thought of Arnold. And the Control Room. If there were people in the Visitor Center, and the Velociraptors had escaped… Well, the entire island would be in danger. If the phones were down in the emergency bunker, then maybe the monitors were down in the Control Room. They would have no idea the dinosaurs had escaped.

She began to look at the shelves around her again. There were no tranquilizer guns here, no cattle-prods or other weaponry. That was all in the Ranger Station, and there was no way to get in there without the power on. Even if she could break one of the windows, they stood at least ten to fifteen feet off the ground. There would be no way to quickly get in – and if she managed to climb on top of something to get inside – any escaped dinosaurs would hear the commotion and inspect it.

She briefly considered wielding a fire extinguisher, but it was probably not heavy enough to do any real damage to a dinosaur. A dinosaur, she thought, No. A raptor.

She wasn't afraid of running into any of the other dinosaurs, except for maybe the Tyrannosaurus. Even the venomous Dilophosaurs didn't scare her much – they usually kept to themselves and didn't have that great of aim with their venomous spit anyways.

Really, the main concern were the raptors. They were smart. Mia had always thought of them as toddlers – in the sense that parents always had a sense of dread when their infants learned to walk and open doors and such. Raptors seemed to have similar problem-solving abilities. Just imagine that the toddlers were six feet tall and had enough sharp claws to match their attitude.

Against her better judgement, she grabbed only a flashlight and stomped her cigarette on the floor before walking upstairs. She knew that she couldn't get inside of the Ranger's Station. She reached for the door. She knew that she probably couldn't even get inside of the Visitor's Center. But she had to know…

Maybe I'm overreacting, she thought as she reached for the locking wheel. She spun it counterclockwise. Maybe it's just a hiccup in the power. Maybe it's no big deal at all.

The door clicked, and she slowly cracked it open. Outside, the thunder and lightning had almost subsided completely, but the rain was still coming down heavily.

She had to know if the dinosaurs had escaped.

She had to know if they had escaped.