Chapter Twelve

BEFORE RACING THROUGH THE PARK, Mia wanted to know which fences had been damaged. If there was a break in a fence, it would disrupt the circuit and would read on the computer either as an error or as completely off. She could venture into the Control Room and use that computer – but she remembered the gaping hole in the window and the unfinished doorway. Instead, she would use the Ranger Station's computer. She had seen that it was on when she went to grab her gear – at least it had power and was connected, probably, to the network.

She told the men what she was about to do and then quietly opened the door to the bunker. Once she was sure the path was clear, she gently closed it behind her and tiptoed to the Station.

The thought crossed her mind that the men might take the Jeep and head to the docks themselves. She was okay with that. They probably weren't aware that there was plenty of other Jeeps available – and probably enough of the Ranger boats. At least then they won't be my problem.

She felt a pang of guilt as she thought of that sentiment.

She entered her number into the keypad and entered the Ranger Station, checking again to make sure it was empty first. Just as she thought, the computer near the wall of the station read:

PRESS ANY KEY TO START.

She stood over the keyboard and hit the enter key. The screen went completely black, then turned blue as the system booted up.

Version 4.0.5, Alpha E

Terminal: RANGERS

An electronic beep startled her as a smaller screen popped up on the monitor:

ERROR:

DEVICE DID NOT SHUT DOWN PROPERLY.

PRESS ANY KEY TO CONTINUE.

She impatiently hit the enter key again. The screen disappeared, and the blue screen returned.

RESUMING STARTUP…

The screen went dark one last time before a custom user interface took over. It was made of simple gray boxes with several menu items, which she scanned over quickly:

PARK MAP

METEOROLOGICAL

MEDICATION LOGS

BEHAVIOR LOGS

FEEDING LOGS

SCHEDULING

INVENTORY

EMERGENCY

She hovered the mouse over 'Park Map' before 'Emergency' caught her eye. After a quick decision, she clicked it instead.

Another screen came up and began to populate with names and numbers: they were Ranger staff members and their room and phone numbers for the Lodge. Mia slumped in disappointment. There was nothing here about contact information for anyone off-island.

She closed the screen out and clicked on 'Park Map.' A new screen popped up and took what seemed like hours to load. Finally, a satellite image of the island dominated most of the screen – she could see a yellow line that represented the Safari Tour path and orange lines that showed all the access roads. Within seconds, red lights and buzzers began to flash on the screen.

EXP 04 OFFLINE…

VEHICLE STALLED

POWER FAILURE

EXP 05 OFFLINE…

VEHICLE STALLED

POWER FAILURE

EXP 06 ONLINE

EXP 07 ONLINE

MAIN GATE: MANUAL OVERRIDE…

MAJOR MALFUNCTION

FENCE FAILURE!

She hovered over a small white box near the bottom that read:

SCREEN – OVERVIEW

She clicked it and it cycled to a different layout, using the same image of the island.

SCREEN – ANIMAL PADDOCKS

A red border flashed across the image of the island as more buzzer sounds began to emit from the computer's tower. She frantically looked around her to make sure there was nothing in the room or outside the windows. Dammit, it's too loud! The image began to flash, each dinosaur's enclosure outlined in red and white lines.

FENCE FAILURE!

GALLIMIMUS PADDOCK

FAILED: QUADRANT QP15

FAILED: QUADRANT QP16

FAILED: QUADRANT QP17

RAPTOR PADDOCK

FAILED: QUADRANT QP35

FAILED: QUADRANT QP36

FAILED: QUADRANT QP37

RAPTOR CONTAINMENT

FAILED

BRACHIOSAURUS PADDOCK

FAILED: QUADRANT QP23

FAILED: QUADRANT QP26

FAILED: QUADRANT QP27

TYRANNOSAURUS PADDOCK

FAILED: QUADRANT QP96

FAILED: QUADRANT QP97

FAILED: QUADRANT QP130

FAILED: QUADRANT QP131

FAILED: QUADRANT QP132

DILOPHOSAURUS PADDOCK

FAILED: QUADRANT QP220

FAILED: QUADRANT QP232

FAILED: QUADRANT QP233

RESERVE PADDOCK

FAILED: QUADRANT QP260

PERIMETER SHUTDOWN

Mia's mouth gaped as she watched the errors come through. There had been a lot of things that went wrong over the past twenty-four hours. Every dinosaur had broken free except for the three Triceratops. The Reserve Paddock was also worrisome: it was where the park's Baryonyx lived.

It wasn't labeled as such because the Rangers hadn't finished taking notes about the animal's behavior yet – they didn't want it included in the park's official roster until they were sure it was cared for and its behavior could be predicted. To further automate the park, the tourist's information systems in the Visitor Center and the guest hotels took data pooled from the Ranger's computers. This way, little factoids and interesting tidbits could be entered by the Rangers and automatically updated in real-time to entertain guests.

Keeping the Baryonyx off the roster meant it would not be updated into this database – basically allowing the Rangers to get their data straight before broadcasting it to guests. It was a somewhat cumbersome system, but Hammond had loved the idea of new information being beamed to the guests' fingertips as soon as it was discovered.

She knew the perimeter fence was down, at least near the main gate. She wondered if there were other areas where it had been broken as well. The perimeter fence was a sort of fail-safe. It enclosed the entire park from the rest of the island, and in the event of a dinosaur escape – it would have to also break through the perimeter fence in order to access the rest of the island. Guess no one thought all the fences would go down at the same time.

After the computer was done beeping and all the errors had been accounted for, Mia looked past the red lines and studied the roads. As she had thought, the quickest routes were to go through the Safari Tour and then to turn onto the small access roads to each dock. She could use the longer access roads that ran outside the perimeter fence, but if it was down, there would be little sense in hoping for less dinosaur encounters anyway.

The staff's access roads ran between the fences of each enclosure – and sometimes joined up with the main Safari Tour roads. Without drawing a map – which would take too long – it would be impossible to remember exactly which fence sections had breaks. She traced each path with her finger.

The North Dock would be a twenty-minute drive or so, nestled at the mouth of a river delta in the northeastern part of the island. The roads that led to it crossed in front of the Dilophosaur and Triceratops paddocks. At least one of those species was contained still, and the Dilophosaurs were probably not going to act aggressively to a moving vehicle. Seems like the good choice.

Still, the East Dock was around the same distance, and now the Tyrannosaurus had at least one tranquilizer in it. The service roads to the East Dock bordered the Brachiosaurs, Parasaurolophus, and Gallimimus paddocks, which all posed exceptionally low risks. The raptors, as terrible as it was to think, were busy and recently fed. Like big cats or reptiles, they would probably be basking in the sun or sleeping off their meal. Also seems like a good choice. Probably the safer choice.

She nodded to herself as she left the computer on and made her way back to the emergency bunker. Mia took a moment to look at the outside of the bunker door – there were a few dents but otherwise it held strong. She made a mental note about it – Could be a backup plan.

The group quickly gathered their things and quietly boarded the Jeep: Mia in the driver's seat, Mathews in the passenger seat, and Kelly and Davies in the back seats. Kelly turned his body to face backwards and shouldered the tranquilizer gun in a ready position. With a nod, Mia started the engine.

Once more, she sped the Jeep toward the giant Jurassic Park gate. As she drove down the Safari Path, she wondered if she should have stopped to close the gate. Oh well. The fence is trampled anyway.

She took a right turn as the path split into a fork and headed southeast.