Chapter 5
Grave Mistake
Vector Levine pressed his face to the warm rock cliff, and paused to catch his breath. Six hundred feet below, the ocean surged, waves thundering brilliant white against the black rocks. The boat that had brought him was already heading east again, a small white speck on the horizon. It hat to return, for there was no safe harbor anywhere on this desolate, in hospitable island.
For now, they were on their own.
Vector took a deep breath, and looked down at Diego, twenty feet below him on the cliff face. Diego, a red salamander, was burdened with the backpack that contained all of their equipment, but he was young, strong and a native to the area. He smiled cheerfully, and nodded his head upward. "Have courage. It is not far now, señor." He had to shout over the roar of the ocean below.
"I hope so," Vector called back. When he had examined the cliff through the binoculars on the boat, this had seemed like a good place to make the ascent. But in fact, the cliff face was nearly vertical, and incredibly dangerous because the volcanic rock was crumbling and friable.
Vector raised his arms, fingers extending upward, reaching for the next handhold. He clung to the to the rock; small pebbles broke free and his hand slipped down. He gripped again, then pulled himself upward. He was breathing hard, from exertion and fear.
"Just twenty meters more, señor," Diego said encouragingly. "You can do it."
"I'm sure I can," Vector muttered. "Considering the alternative." As he neared the top of the cliff, the wind blew harder, whistling in his ears, tugging at his clothes. It felt as if it was trying to suck him away from the rock. Looking up, he saw the dense foliage that grew right to the edge of the cliff face.
Almost there, he thought. Almost.
And then, with a final heave, he pushed himself over the top and collapsed, rolling in soft wet ferns. Still gasping, he looked back and saw Diego come over lightly, easily; he squatted on the mossy grass, and smiled. Vector turned away, staring at the huge ferns overhead, releasing the accumulated tension of the clime in long shuddering breaths. His legs burned fiercely from the climb.
But no matter – he was here! Finally!
He looked at the jungle around him. It was primary forest, undisturbed by the hand of man. Exactly as the satellite images had shown. Vector had been forced to rely on satellite photographs, because there were no maps available of private islands such as this one. This island existed as a kind of lost world, isolated in the midst of the Pacific Ocean.
Vector listened to the sound of the wind, the rustle of the palm fronds that dripped water onto his face. And then he heard another sound, distant, like the cry of a bird, but deeper, more resonant. As he listened, he heard it again.
A sharp sizzle nearby made him look over. Diego had struck a match, was raising it to light a cigarette. Quickly, Vector sat up, pushed the younger man's hand away, and shook his head, no.
Diego frowned, puzzled.
Vector put his finger to his lips.
He pointed in the direction of the bird sound.
Diego shrugged, his expression indifferent. He was unimpressed. He saw no reason for concern.
That was because he didn't understand what they were up against, Vector thought, as he unzipped the dark-green backpack, and began to assemble the big Lindstradt rifle. The rifle had been specially manufactured for him in Sweden, and represented the latest in animal-control technology. He screwed the barrel into the stock, locked in the Fluger clip, checked the gas charge, and handed the rifle to Diego. Diego took it with another shrug.
Meanwhile, Vector removed a black pistol in its holster, and buckled it around his waist. He paused, removed the pistol, checked the safety twice, and put the pistol back into the holster. Vector got to his feet, and gestured for Diego to follow him.
Vector paused often, to consult his wrist compass. The dense jungle all around made it difficult to find a sense of direction. They were heading west, toward the interior of the island. He knew that the island. He knew that the island was the remains of an ancient volcanic crater, eroded and decomposed by centuries of weathering. The interior terrain consisted of a series of ridges that led down to the floor of the crater. But particularly here on the eastern side, the landscape was steep, rugged, and treacherous.
Suddenly the foliage opened up, revealing a vantage point. Vector was able to see to the far side of the island, a rim of hard black cliff, miles away. Between here and the cliffs they saw nothing but gently undulating jungle.
Beside him, Diego said, "Fantástico."
Vector quickly shushed him.
"Sir," he protested. "We are alone here."
Vector sighed, he told Diego, over and over on the boat. No talking once they reached the island. But it was now clear the salamander had not paid attention. At that moment, they heard a deep, rumbling sound, an unearthly cry that arose from somewhere in the forest below them. After a moment, the cry was answered, from another part of the forest.
Diego's eyes widened.
Vector mouthed: Birds?
Diego said nothing. He bit his lip, and stared out at the forest.
To the south, they saw a place where the tops of the trees began to move, a whole section of the forest that suddenly seemed to come to alive, as if brushed by wind. But the rest of the forest was not moving. It was not the wind.
Diego crossed himself quickly.
They heard more cries, lasting nearly a minute, and then silence descended again.
Vector moved off the ridge and headed down the jungle slope, going deeper into the interior.
He was moving forward quickly, looking at the ground, watching for snakes, when he heard a low whistle behind him. He turned and saw Diego pointing to the left.
Vector doubled back, pushed through the fronds, and followed Diego as he moved south. In a few moments, they came upon two parallel tracks in the dirt, long since overgrown with grass and ferns, but clearly recognizable as an old Jeep trail, leading off into the jungle. Of course they would follow it. He knew their progress would be much faster on a road.
He gestured to Diego, who took off his backpack. It was Vector's turn; he shouldered the weight, adjusted the straps.
Then together in silence, they started down the road.
They came to a stream, muddy banks on both sides. Here Vector paused. He saw clear three-toed footprints in the mud, some of them quite large. The palm of his own hand, fingers spread wide, fitted easily inside one of the prints, with room to spare.
When he looked up, Diego was crossing himself again. He held the rifle in his other hand.
They waited at the stream, listening to the gentle gurgle of the water. Something shiny glinted in the stream, catching his eye. He bent over, and plucked it out. It was a piece of glass tubing, roughly the size of a pencil. One end was broken off. There were graduated markings along the side. He realized it was a pipette, of the kind used in laboratories everywhere in the world. Vector held it up to the light, turning it in his fingers. It was odd, he thought. A pipette like this implied-
Vector turned, and caught a glimpse of movement out of the corner of his eye. Something small and brown, scurrying across the mud of the riverbank. Something about the size of a rat.
Diego grunted in surprise. Then it was gone, disappearing in the foliage.
Sitting on his haunches, Vector heard a soft squeak coming from somewhere to his right. Looking over, he saw the ferns moving slightly. He stayed very still, waiting.
After a moment, a small animal peeked out from among the fronds. It appeared to be the size of a mouse; it had smooth, hairless skin and large eyes mounted high on its tiny head. It was greenish-brown in color, and it made a continuous, irritable squeaking sound at Vector, as if to drive him away. Vector stayed motionless, hardly daring to breathe.
He regonized this creature, of course. It was mussaurus, a tiny prosauropod from the Late Triassic. Skeletal remains were found only in South America. It was one of the smallest dinosaurs known.
A dinosaur, he thought.
Malcolm eat your heart out.
Even though he had expected to see them on this island, it was still startling to be confronted by a living, breathing member of the Dinosauria. Especially one so small. He could not take his eyes off it. He was entranced. After all these years, after all the dusty skeletons – an actual living dinosaur!
The little mussaur ventured farther out from the protection of the fronds. Now Vector could see that it was longer that he had thought at first. It was actually about ten centimeters long, with a surprisingly thick tail. All told, it looked very much like a lizard. It sat upright, squatting on its hind legs on the frond. He saw the rib cage moving as the animal breathed it waved its tiny forearms in the air Vector, and squeaked repeatedly.
Slowly, very slowly, Vector extended his hand.
The creature squeaked again, but did not run. If anything it seemed curious, cocking its head the way very small animals do, as Vector's hand came closer.
Finally Vector's fingers touched the tip of the frond. The mussaur stood on its hind legs, balancing with its outstretched tail. Showing no sign of fear, it stepped lightly onto Vector's hand, and stood in the creases of his palm. He hardly felt the weight, it was so light. The mussaur walked around, sniffed Vector's fingers. Vector smiled, charmed.
Then, suddenly, the little creature hissed in annoyance, and jumped off his hand, disappearing into the palms. Vector blinked, unable to understand why.
Then he smelled a foul odor, and heard a heavy rustling in the bushes on the other side. There was a soft grunting sound. More rustling.
For a brief moment, Vector remembered that carnivores in the wild hunted near streambeds, attacking animals when they were vulnerable, bending over to drink. But the recognition came too late; he heard a terrifying high-pitched cry, and when he turned he saw that Diego was screaming as his body was hauled away, into the bushes. Diego struggled; the bushes shook fiercely; Vector caught a glimpse of a single large foot, its middle toe bearing a short curving claw. Then the foot pulled back. The bushes continued to shake.
Suddenly, the forest erupted in frightening animal roars all around. He glimpsed a large animal charging him. Vector Levine turned and fled, feeling the adrenaline surge of pure panic, not knowing where to go, knowing only that it was hopeless. He felt a heavy weight suddenly tear at his backpack, forcing him to his knees in the mud, and he realized in that moment that despite all his planning, despite all his clever deductions, things had gone terribly wrong, and he was about to die.
"Tell me you didn't contact Rouge?"
Big sighed, "In animal behavior Rouge Harding is one of the best in her field, there was no way her father would work for me again anyway. Rouge is on the frontier of that field-"
Shadow shook his head, "Oh-no."
"-Her theories on parenting and nurturing amongst carnivores have started the debate."
Shadow turned around pacing around, searching.
"What are you doing?" Big asked.
"Searching, where is your phone," Shadow said. He found it under a stack of papers before Big could answer and quickly dial Rouge's number.
"It's too late."
He paused, turned his head slightly, "What?"
"She's already there."
Shadow shut the phone off, and turned to face Big. "The others were going to meet her in three days after the finished testing the field equipment."
The air became thick and Shadow found it hard to breath as he leaned back against the desk. "You….you sent my girlfr- one of my closest friends to that island alone?"
Big scoffed, "'Sent' is hardly the word, she could hardly be restrained. She was already working in Africa doing some research on the animals there. It's not too difficult to book a flight to Costa Rica from there." He poured a drink and walked over to Shadow, "And she was adamant absolutely adamant about- here you go," he paused to hand Shadow the drink before continuing, "about making the initial foray by herself. 'Observation without interference' she said. And she went on and on, well you know how it is."
Shadow just kept shaking his head, he was not hearing this, he was dreaming, this senile old man did not call Rouge to go down to the island. He was not hearing this! His throat felt thick and stuck, unable to swallow as the words kept coming. God would this man just shut up!
But Big kept going, "After you were injured in the park, she sought you out. Then she went all the way to the hospital in Costa Rica to ask you if the rumors were true."
"And I told her they weren't." Shadow sighed. "Ugh. If you want to leave your name on something, fine. But stop putting it onto other people's headstones." He stood up, slamming the glass down as he made his way to the exit.
Big followed, "Oh but she'll be fine. She's spent years studying African predators, you know, sleeping downwind and all. She knows what she's doing." Shadow stopped at the door, glancing back slightly. "And believe me the research team will-"
He held up his hand, taking a deep breath as he faced the man, "It is no longer a research expedition team. It's a rescue operation, and it's leaving right now!" and with those final words, Shadow turned walking briskly away.
Big watched him go, before walking slowly back to his desk, counting the people on his hand. One photographer, one field equipment expert, one animal expert, and one…. he glanced at his paperwork, one Dr. Malcolm.
And then Big smiled.
"Watch closely and examine the different lenses used in these action shots as the lionesses are hunting." Manic Van Thorne, explained as different photographs displayed on the screen, "See how lens with greater zoom and higher ISO are used to capture the image…"
Ex Curtis yawned in the darkness of her ninth-grade classroom. Sitting at her desk, she propped her chin on her elbows, and tried to stay away. She already knew this stuff. Dr. Thorne had already explained all this to her before.
"Next week we will be focusing on panorama shots and how to make a still clear picture. But this will be enough today. So that's it kids."
The lights came up. Their teacher, Mrs. Palanio , stepped to the front of the class and turned off the computer which had been running the display, and lecture.
"Well," she said, "I'm glad Dr. Thorne gave us this recording. He told me he might not be back in time for today's lecture, but he'll be with us again for sure when we return from spring break next week. Ex, you and Miles are working for Dr. Thorne, is that what he told you?"
Ex winced, in truth. Dr. Thorne was not very far from here. He was ordered to teach at the school by the local judge, for receiving multiple speeding and parking tickets and then failing to appear before the court. Half the time, he was teaching by video recording, while he worked at his shop not too far from the school.
"It's not like I hate you kids," he explained, "It's just that I have a very important project I'm working on and I need it done in time."
Ex glanced over at Miles, who was slouched low in his seat, frowning.
"Yes, Mrs. Palanio," Ex said.
"Good. All right everyone, the assignment for the holidays is all of chapter seven in your history book" – there were groans from the class – "Including all of the exercises at the end of part one, as well as part two. Be sure to bring that with you, completed, when we return. Have a good spring break. We'll see you back here in a week."
The bell rang: the class got up, chairs scraping, the room suddenly noisy. Miles drifted over to Ex. He looked up at her mournfully with sky blue eyes. Miles was a golden yellow fox, with black hair on his head, whilst Ex was a black hedgehog with short bright red hair, and orange streaks. Miles was a good head shorter than her; he was the shortest person in the class in fact. He was also the youngest. Ex was fifteen, like the other ninth-graders, but Miles was only thirteen. He had already skipped two grades, because he was so smart. And there were rumors he would be skipped again. Miles was a genius, particularly with computers.
Miles put his pen in the pocket of his white button-down shirt, and pushed his glasses up on his nose. Both of his parents were doctors in San Jose and made sure he dressed very neatly, like a collage kid or something…Well a very nerdy collage kid anyway. Which, Ex reflected, he would probably be in a couple of years, the way he was going.
Standing next to Miles, Ex always felt awkward and gawky. Ex had to wear her sister's old clothes, which he mother had bought from Kmart about a million years ago. She even had to wear her sister's old shoes, which were so scuffed and dirty that they never came clean, even after Ex ran them through the washing machine. Ex washed and ironed all of her clothes; her mother never had time. Her mother was never even home, most of the time. Ex looked enviously at Miles's neatly pressed pants and his polished penny loafers, and sighed.
Still, even though she was jealous, Miles was her only real friend – the only person who thought it was okay to be smart. Ex worried that he'd be skipped to the tenth grade, and see wouldn't see him anymore.
Beside her, Miles frowned. He looked up at her and said, "Why isn't Dr. Thorne here?"
"I don't know," she said. "Maybe something happened."
"Like what?"
"I don't know! Something…"
"But he promised he would be here," Miles said, "He promised he's take us on a field trip as a reward for all our hard work. It was all arranged. We got permission and everything."
"So? We can still go."
"But he should be here," Miles insisted stubbornly. Ex had seen this behavior before. Miles was accustomed to adults being reliable. His parents were both very reliable. Ex on the other hand, was not troubled by such ideas.
"Never mind, Miles," she said. "Let's just go see Dr. Thorne ourselves."
"You think so?"
"Sure. Why not?"
Miles hesitated. "Maybe I should call my mom first."
"Why?" Ex said. "You know she'll tell you that you have to go home. Come on, Miles. Let's just go."
He hesitated, still troubled. Miles might be smart, but any change in plans always bothered him. Ex knew from experience he would grumble and argue if she pushed for them to go alone. She had to wait, while he made up his own mind.
"Okay," he said finally. "Let's go see Thorne."
Ex grinned. "Meet you in front," she said, "in five minutes."
As she went down the stairs to from the second floor, the singsong chant began again. "Ex is a brainer, Ex is a brainer…"
She held her head high. It was that stupid Brittany Stone and her stupid friends. Standing at the bottom of the stairs, taunting her.
"Ex is a brainer…"
She swept past the girls, ignoring them. Nearby, she saw the hall monitor, paying no attention as usual. Even though the assistant principal, had recently made a special homeroom announcement about teasing kids.
Behind her, the girls called: "Ex is a brainer…She's the queen…of the screen…and it's gonna turn her green…" They collapsed in laughter.
Up ahead, she saw Miles waiting by the door, a bundle of gray cables in his hand. She picked up speed and hurried towards him.
When she got to him, he said, "Forget it."
"They're stupid jerkoffs."
"Right."
"I don't care anyway."
"I know. Just forget it."
Behind them, the girls were giggling. "E-x and Mi-les….going to a party…take a bath, in their math…"
They went outside into the sunlight, the sounds of the girls thankfully drowned out in the noise of everyone going home. Yellow school buses were in the parking lot. Kids were streaming down the steps to their parents' cars, which were lined up all around the block. There was a lot of activity.
Miles ducked a Frisbee that whooshed over his head, and glanced toward the street. "There he is again."
"Don't look at him," Ex said.
"I'm not, I'm not."
"Remember what Dr. Thorne said."
"Jeez, Ex. I remember, okay?"
Across the street was parked the plain gray Taurus sedan that they had seen, off and on, for the past two months. Behind the wheel, pretending to read a newspaper, was that same man with the steely gaze. This hedgehog had been following Dr. Thorne ever since he started to teach at the school. Ex believed that man was the reason Dr. Thorne asked her and Miles to be his assistants in the first place.
"You're job would be to carry equipment for me," Dr. Thorne had explained.
They thought it would be for class. But it turned out there never was anything to be done for the class; Dr. Thorne did all that himself. Instead, he sent them on lots of little errands. And he told them to be careful and avoid the hedgehog in the car. This wasn't very difficult seeing as the man never paid any attention to them.
"Ah, it's just the cops making sure I'm being good." Dr. Thorne had joked, "Don't want me speeding anymore."
Ex didn't believe that. Her mother had been arrested for drunk driving twice, and there was never anybody following her. So Ex didn't know why this man was following Thorne, but clearly Thorne was doing some secret work and he didn't want anybody to find out. Ex knew one thing, he was obviously very busy on the work he was doing because he was almost never prepared to teach the class. Often he would teach things off the top of his head. Other times he would walk in the front door of the school, hand them a taped lecture, and walk out the back. They never knew where he went on those days.
The errands he sent them on were mysterious, too. Once they went to Stanford and picked up five small squares of plastic from a professor there. The plastic was light, and sort of foamy. Another time they went downtown to and electronics store and picked up a triangular device. Another time they picked up a metal tube that looked like it contained cigars. They couldn't help opening it, but they felt uneasy to find four sealed plastic tubes of straw-colored liquid. The tubes were marked EXTREME DANGER! LETHAL TOXCITY! and had the three-bladed international symbol for biohazard.
But mostly their assignments were mundane. He often sent them to libraries at Stanford to Xerox papers on all sorts of subjects: Japanese sword-making, X-ray crystallography, Mexican vampire bats, Central American volcanoes, the mating behavior of mountain sheep, sea-cucumber toxicity, flying buttresses of Gothic cathedrals…
Occasionally Ex wondered what the steely eyed hedgehog would make of all this. She wondered whether he knew something or not. But actually, the hedgehog seemed kind of lazy. He never seemed to figure out that Ex and Miles were doing errands for Dr. Thorne.
Right now, the hedgehog glanced over at the entrance to the school, ignoring them. They walked to the end of the street, and sat on the bench to wait for the bus.
Another chapter! Yay!
And more characters for you to keep track of. Less of a yay! lol.
Now remember the Miles in this story is Anti-Tails in the Sonic World. So this is not "Tails" from Jurassic Park. Remember that now. :) Anyway I hope you enjoyed this chapter of The Lost World!
P.S. If you haven't read Jurassic Park yet. WHAT ARE YOU STILL DOING HERE? Go back and read the first one, then come back and read this one lol, it will make so much more sense.
See ya'll soon!