Chapter Seventeen

KELLY AND MIA CAUTIOUSLY MADE THEIR WAY through the deep jungle brush. She hadn't heard any of the raptors in some time – and she assumed the two dinosaurs were tending to their wounds. She was sure she had shot the orange raptor, and Mathews had probably shot the brown one. Hopefully, the dinosaurs were mortally wounded.

The jungle began to give way to open, grassy fields dotted with occasional trees. We must be nearing the border of the herbivore enclosure. The park's more docile dinosaurs – the giant Brachiosaurus, the Parasaurolophus, and the Gallimimus all shared a massive habitat that covered the southern half of the park's area functioning area. A handful of other Brachiosaurs had their own enclosure near the main gate as well. Hammond liked them. He liked their symbolism. The long-necked dinosaurs were absolutely massive – thirty to forty feet tall, weighing forty to sixty tons. Hammond dotted them around the park; if possible, he wanted one of them to be the first dinosaur anyone would see. They showed the power – the majestic feat – of Jurassic Park.

Each step she took sent a bolt of pain up her left side, but it was not enough to stop her. She had gotten lucky. Really lucky. The raptor's claw had probably torn into one of the muscles that connected her femur to her pelvis, but it had apparently missed any of her major organs, veins, or arteries. She worried that exercising it would cause further tearing and damage, but it wasn't debilitating yet. She would need medical attention quickly of course, but at least she was not in danger of dying within the hour.

The two kept a strict eye on their surroundings as they approached a tall electric fence with warnings and lights. Kelly turned to Mia. "Got an idea where we are?"

She nodded. "North goes into the big herbivore paddock. We cross it and get to the service road, head east and get near the reserve enclosure, where that Ranger outpost is and hopefully a boat. That's probably where the other guys ended up."

"We gonna hop the fence, or…?" Kelly looked up; it was probably forty feet tall.

"There's an access gate close by." They followed the fence down a ravine, keeping an eye on the horizon until they reached the gate and entered the enclosure.

As they crossed the large fields, Mia could see a herd of Brachiosaurus in the distance – their calls to each other sounded like big whales. The long-necked dinosaurs were grazing on the trees – stripping leaves off branches three or four stories high with ease. Near their legs and feet, she could see the Parasaurolophus as well – standing to look around the group like bus-sized Meerkat, grazing on whatever fell from above them. She wondered if the other dinosaurs had bothered them yet. Although it was miles away, near the big 'Jurassic Park' entrance gate, she knew the Tyrannosaurus now had access to this enclosure. Certainly, the big Brachiosaurus might as well be invincible – there was probably nothing that ever existed that would be a natural predator of such a huge creature – but the Parasaurolophus could be taken down easily by the Rex or a pack of raptors. That's probably why they stuck so close to the big sauropods – it was like having your own sixty-ton bodyguard.

Kelly abruptly grabbed Mia by the arm, startling her. Without saying a word, he pointed to something in the distance.

She strained to look, and he slowly brought his rifle up to his shoulder.

She felt a wave of dread as she saw the orange Velociraptor. It was nestled against the trunk of a tree – in the shade – laying down with its tail curved around its body. There was movement around it, but she did not see the raptor itself moving. "Is it dead?"

Kelly kept his gun trained on it as he slowly moved his head to check their surroundings. They were completely in the open – but he didn't spot any other dinosaurs nearby. Where's the other one?

Mia strained her vision. The raptor was laying completely still – even its eyes were open. It should have sensed them coming. If it were sleeping, the eyes would be closed. Are those more Compsognathus?

Kelly tugged on her arm, urging her to go. She refused. Just a second longer…

Finally, she got a good look at one of the little dinosaurs. There were six of them – hopping and strutting around the adult raptor. They were babies. Hatchlings. She couldn't hear them from where she was, but she felt positive they would sound exactly like the little chirps she had heard at the Raptor Pen during the storm. They were small enough to sit in the palms of her hands and a flat, tan coloration.

The tiny raptors chased and bit at each other, hopping on top of their parent, running in circles around the tree trunk – but the adult raptor lay motionless, never blinking. It was hard to tell for certain, since they stalked with such control over their movements – but Mia felt like it was dead. The combination of Kelly hitting it with a tranquilizer and her – and probably Mathews – shooting it multiple times…

That's it, then. Absolute proof of dinosaur breeding within Jurassic Park. Her mind raced. She wasn't sure how she was going to convince Kelly and the others to go to Isla Sorna, but she had to. Hopefully, there would be multiple boats, and they would just go their own way.

Kelly tugged a little harder at Mia. "Come on." She slowly began to move, careful to put all her weight on her good hip. She kept glancing back as they continued, but the tiny dinosaurs were completely oblivious that humans had ever been near them.

Mia and Kelly reached the access gate out of the herbivore enclosure and followed a narrow dirt road. The flora and fauna turned into something that looked like the Florida Everglades. It was a crude service road that had been built to allow the Jeeps access beside the Reserve Paddock – really no more than a two-track. Just as the Baryonyx was not officially listed within the Ranger's computerized data pools, the enclosure and infrastructure weren't even completed yet.

They were still learning about the dinosaur – Hammond and the park's accountants didn't want to spend the money on outfitting the enclosure with paved service roads and the small infrastructure for Ranger operations until the needs of the dinosaur could be satisfied and met completely – otherwise they would risk tearing everything down in renovations. Dr. Wu and Dr. Harding had guessed from the fossil records that the dinosaur was a piscivore – mainly preying on fish or other aquatic animals. This delighted Hammond – another thrilling-looking addition to Jurassic Park that was likely to be non-aggressive toward humans – and it just so happened to be one of England's most famous dinosaurs. It was sure to draw a crowd from thrill seekers to English investors alike.

Unfortunately, Baryonyx seemed to be a bit of a hermit. The Ranger team observed it hiding within the water most of the time – which surprised Dr. Harding. The bones were built in a way that suggested it was better suited to land-based locomotion. Thinking it might have been environmental stress, he and Dr. Wu began to work together to try to find something that worked. Wu modified the genome while Harding made environmental changes – he tried less trees, more trees, no trees, more water, less water…

Wu tried inserting genes from different animals in an effort to reduce the dinosaur's need for roaming space and territory. A few of the specimens had died during this process.

What Jurassic Park ended up with was a Baryonyx that seemed to prefer submerging in stagnant waters, concealed by vegetation, and snapping aggressively at anything from fish to cows. It was the worst thing Hammond could have envisioned. Instead of a fascinating, relatively harmless English fisherman, his team had delivered him a painfully shy, incredibly aggressive garbage disposal.

The Ranger team kept a maintenance shed with a few outboard motorboats just outside the enclosure. In the case of an attack – or a dinosaur emergency – the Ranger team could quickly access a water vehicle as well as the land-based Jeeps. As Mia had explained before, there was a risk that there were no boats at the outpost – but if all else failed, they could follow the service road on foot, and head south to the East Dock.

The access road became waterlogged and their feet sunk in the mud as they approached the Outpost. The storm overnight had flooded the swampland, and the road all but disappeared – a thin layer of a green aquatic plant called duckweed covered the surface of the water like a carpet.

To the left of the Outpost building was the Baryonyx's enclosure fence. Mia noted that it seemed intact – but she remembered the fence error when she checked the computer in the Ranger Station. It might have escaped. She hoped its shy demeanor kept it in its enclosure, where it was most familiar. She could see the small Islander boat docked at the far side of the Outpost building.

Kelly slowed his pace as the building and the boat came into view. He was being cautious. His experience in the military conditioned him to take it slow at the finish line: a lot of guys got careless when they could see the goalposts. He had seen it firsthand – a botched mission behind enemy lines in Iraq had led to the death of one of his squad-mates when the soldier sprinted toward their extraction convoy and got shot by an enemy sniper. Some of the higher-ups in special forces units had a saying: "Slow is smooth, and smooth is fast."

He saw part of Mathews' tactical vest floating near the boat, and he wished his men had remembered that mantra.