Chapter 9

Finding Levine

Kenya

24 hours Earlier

Through the busy and crowded tables of the Mombasa Bar, Charles Sidhu made his way through the crowds, as the hedgehog snuck his way behind an old friend.

He slowed his steps, as he neared the hedgehog, pausing and the hedgehog lifted his head, before turning around pointing right at him.

"Chuck!"

Charles laughed, "How did you know?"

Rob o' Tembo stood and gave him a firm hug, "That cheap aftershave I send you every Christmas," he laughed as he pulled away, "You actually wear it?"

Charles laughed, "I do,"

Rob O' laughed with him, "Sit down, sit down," as they sat, "What on earth brings you to Mombasa?"

Charles tapped him on the chest, "You."

Rob O' leaned back, "Me?"

He smiled, "Yes." Crossing his arms Charles leaned back into his chair, "I got a call from a man, who is going to Costa Rica. He claims he is going to the most unique expedition, and very well funded."

Rob O' frowned slightly, taking a sip of beer, "Well I'll have you know, I am a very well funded old son of a bitch." he shook his head, "You go."

Charles snorted, "What? Without you? Alone?" he smirked, "But we've always had such great success together, you and I."

"Just a little too much I think," Rob O' sighed.

"What do you mean?"

"Well for one, a true hunter doesn't mind when the animal wins." Rob O' explained, taking another shot, "But between you and me, there were not enough escapes. It started to look like a firing squad. Don't you think?"

Charles nodded, "I suppose, but I have good reasons to believe you will find this challenging."

"Then it's probably illegal," Rob O' said bluntly. As Charles laughed, Rob O' smirked, "These days it's a worse crime to shot a tiger than your own parents."

"Tell me the truth Rob O'," Charles said, "You are not even the least bit interested in the quarry?"

Rob O' sighed, "Chuck, go up to my ranch, take a look at my trophy room. And tell me Chuck, what kind of quarry, could possibly be of any interest to me."

Then, to Rob O's surprise, Charles smiled.

Two large swinging doors at the front of the main complex led into a darkened lobby beyond. The windows were scratched and dirty; the chrome handles on the door were pitted with corrosion. But it was clear that the dust, debris, and dead leaves in front of the door had been disturbed.

"Someone's definitely opened these doors recently," Rouge stated.

"Yes," Thorne said, "Someone with very large feet. He opened the door, "Shall we?"

They stepped into the building. Inside the air was musty and still. The lobby was small and hardly impressive. The reception desk was covered in a brown filthy blanket. In the waiting area, one couch was speckled in mold; the other was probably as well but was currently covered with a tarp.

"Not much to this place," Snively noted.

Shadow shook his head, "There wouldn't be. This is the shadow of the park."

On the coffee table were two empty plastic bottles, a satellite phone, a pair of large filthy hiking boots, and several crumpled candy bar wrappers. A dark green snake slithered past as they approached.

"So this is InGen," Rouge mumbled.

Shadow merely nodded.

Snively bent over and reached for Levine's backpack, he ran his fingers slowly along the tears in the fabric. It confused and scared him, the fabric was built to be sturdy and strong, only strong and sharp objects could make tears this large. What had done this? As he ran his fingers over a rather large hole, a large rat about the size of a small cat jumped from the pack.

Snively jumped, and then cursed. "Chaos!"

The rat scurried away, squeaking curses of its own. Snively watched it go before slowly looking back into the backpack. "I don't think anyone is going to want the rest of these candy bars," he said. He turned to the pile of clothes in the bag, "Hey Manic, are you getting a reading from this?" Some of the expedition clothes had micro-sensors sewn into them.

Thorne shook his head, moving the monitor in his hand, "No. I have a reading, but...it seems to be coming from there."

He pointed to a set of metal doors beyond the reception desk, leasing into the building beyond. The doors had once been bolted shut and locked with now rusted padlocks. But the padlocks lay on the floor, broken.

"Well, let's go get him," Snively said, heading for the doors, "What kind of snake do you think that was?"

"I don't know."

"Was it poisonous?"

Thorne let out a shrug, "How the hell should I know?"

The door opened - somewhat unwillingly- with a loud creak. The four adults found themselves in a blank corridor, with broken windows along one wall, and dried leaves and debris on the floor. the walls were dirty and darkly stained in several places with what looked like blood.

"We're getting stronger," Manic said, looking at his monitor. "He must be somewhere in this building."

Manic opened the first door he came to, and saw a plain office consisting of a desk and a chair, with a map of the island on the wall. The desk lamp had toppled over from the weight of vines and the computer monitor was covered in a thin layer of mold. Malcolm moved over to the wall, staring at the map, his eyes cloudy and full of thought.

Harding moved down the hall and opened the second door, and saw another office, set up in a similar way.

"We must be in an office building," Snively grunted.

The group made their way down, there were more doors, but they didn't bother to open them. They followed the signal transmitting from Levine.

At the end of the corridor was a pair of sliding glass doors marked NO ADMITTANCE AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. Manic peered through the glass, but he could not see much beyond the glass. He had a sense of a large space, and complex machinery, but the glass too dusty and streaked with grime. It made seeing nearly impossible.

Manic turned to Malcolm, "You really think you know what this building was for?"

"I know exactly what it was for now," Malcolm said, "It's a manufacturing plant for dinosaurs."

"Why," Snively said, "would anybody want that?"

"Nobody would," Malcolm said, "That's why they kept it a secret."

"I don't get it," Snively said.

Malcolm smiled. "Long story," he said.

"We've got time," Rouge pointed out.

Manic shrugged and slipped his hands between the doors, and tried to pull them open, but they remained shut fast. He grunted, straining with effort. And then suddenly, with a metallic screech, they slid apart.

They stepped into the darkness beyond.

Their flashlights shone down an inky corridor, as they moved forward. "To understand this place, you have to go back ten years, to a man named Big Hammond. He had a dream, if you even had the smallest fragment of DNA, you could clone an animal, even extinct ones. Dinosaurs for example."

"Where could you get dinosaur DNA?" Thorne asked.

"Well in truth," Shadow explained, "Paleontologists have been finding DNA for years, but only fragments, not too much to get worked up over. It didn't seem to have any value."

"But to recreate an animal, you'd need more that DNA fragments," Rouge said. "You would need a whole strand."

"That's right," the ebony hedgehog said. "And the man who figured it out was Hammond. He reasoned that when dinosaurs were alive, insects like mosquitoes drank their blood. Some of those insects became trapped in sticky sap, which turned to amber. Hammond decided that if you frilled into insects preserved in amber, and extracted the stomach contents, you would eventually get some dino-DNA."

"And did he?"

"Yes. He did. And he started InGen, to develop this discovery. Big has a true talent for raising money, he managed to get enough to money to start the research of taking a strand of DNA and making a living animal out of it. Although making dinosaurs was indeed an exciting venture, it isn't exactly the cure for cancer," Shadow explained, "So money took a bit to come in. So Big Hammond decided to make the dinosaurs a tourist attraction, to replace the money spent on research. He would put them in a park, a reserve of sorts, and pay admission for it."

Thorne raised an eyebrow, "You're joking?"

"No Hammond actually did it," Shadow said. "He built the park on an island called Isla Nublar, just north of here, and he planned to open it to the public six years ago. I was there, shortly before it was meant to open. " Shadow paused, thinking back on the long weekend, so long ago, "But, Hammond had problems, the park systems broke down, and the dinosaurs got free. Some visitors were killed. Afterward, the park and all its dinosaurs were destroyed. Costa Rica covered the whole thing up, and the survivors were sworn into silence...We never told anyone. Jurassic Park was forgotten."

They passed a window where they could look out over the plain, all the herds of dinosaurs were by the the river, browsing through the grass. Thorne spoke up, "If they were all destroyed, what's this island then?"

"This island," Shadow explained, "is Hammond's dirty little secret. It's the dark side of his park.

Rouge walked next to Shadow as he explained his theory. "You see," the male said, "visitors at Hammond's park were shown this very impressive genetics lab, with computers and gene sequences, and all sorts of facilities from hatching and growing young dinosaurs. Visitors were told the dinosaurs were made right there, at the park, the whole tour was actually very convincing."

"But the tour skipped several steps in truth. The whole show was too good to be true. For example, he had a hatchery where the little dinosaurs pecked their way out of the eggs. There were never any problems there, no still births, no deformities, just perfect little dinosaurs. Which frankly is impossible, Hammond had to be making all these dinosaurs in mass quantity, thousands just to get a single success. That was this island was for, nothing like the pristine lab on Nublar.

"So he built a factory here," Rouge said.

"Yes. Here, on this island, away from the public. Big Hammond was free to do his research, and deal with the unpleasant truth behind the park. Jurassic Park was a showcase. But this island was the real thing. This is where the dinosaurs were made. "

"But if the animals at the zoo were destroyed," Snively said, "How come these dinosaurs weren't destroyed?"

"A critical question," Shadow said, "We need to find out why." He shone his light down the tunnel. "If I'm not mistaken," he said, "the first of the manufacturing bays is just ahead."

Miles awoke, sunlight blinding his vision. Sitting upright n the bed, he blinked his eyes multiple times in the morning light that streamed through the trailer windows. In the next bunk, Ex slept soundly, snoring softly.

He looked out the window, towards the entrance of the large building complex in the valley below, he noticed the adults were gone. The Explorer was the only thing standing by the entrance, no one in the car. The trailer itself sat isolated in the clearing of tall grass by the cliff. Miles felt truly alone - chillingly alone - he felt a brief flash of panic and worry that made his heart ram against his chest. He should have never come here, he thought.

This whole idea was stupid, and worst of all it had been his., the way they had huddled together, in the trailer, and then gone to Thorne's office. As Ex had talked to Dr. Thorne, Miles had stolen the key. The way he had set up a delayed radio message to transmitted to Thorne so that Thorne would think they were still home. He had felt very clever at the time, thinking it through so well, but now he regretted it all. He needed to call Thorne right now, he had to turn himself in. The desire to confess was strong, Thorne didn't deserve being lied to.

Actually...

He just needed to hear a voice, anyone's, someone's. That was the truth. There was guilt in there too, but mostly the need to hear, the solid comfort that he was not alone. He walked from the back of the trailer, where Ex still slept, to the front, turning on the ignition key in the dashboard. He picked up the radio handset and said, "This is Miles. Is anyone there? Over. This is Miles."

But no answer came. After a moment, he looked at the dashboard systems monitor which registered all the systems that were operative. He didn't see anything about communications. it occurred to him that the communications system was probably hooked into the computer. He decided it best then to turn the device on.

He went to the middle of the trailer, unstrapped the key board, plugged it in, and turned the computer on. There was a menu screen that said "Thorn Field Systems" and underneath a listing of subsystems inside the trailer. One of them was radio communications. So he clicked on that, and turned it on.

The computer screen showed a scrambled wave of static. At the bottom was a command line that read: "Multiple Frequency Inputs Received. Do you want to Autotune?"

Miles wasn't familiar with the term, but when it came to computers, he was fearless. Autotune sounded interesting. So without hesitation, he typed: " Yes."

The static scrambled remained on the screen, while numbers rolled at the bottom. He guessed it was frequencies, but he didn't really know.

And then, the screen went blank, save for a single flashing word, in the middle of the screen.

LOGIN:

He frowned. That was odd. Apparently he was required to log into the trailer's computer system. That meant he would need a password. He tried : THORNE

Nothing happened.

He waited a moment, then tried initials next: MT

Still nothing. Miles tugged on his bang, a habit that only occurred when things began to get frustrating.

THORNE FIELD SYSTEMS.

Nothing.

SNIVELY.

Zilch.

USER.

Nada.

Well, he thought, at least the system hadn't kicked him out. Most programs now-a-days would kick you out after three failed attempts. But apparently Thorne hadn't installed any security features in this one. Miles himself would have never made it this way, this system was too patient and helpful.

So he tried : HELP.

There was a pause, then the drives began whirring.

Miles grinned, "Action," he said, rubbing his hands together eagerly.

Manic's eyes slowly adjusted to the low lit room. And slowly but surely the enormous space around him became visible, consisting of row after row of stainless steel boxes, each fitted with a plastic maze of tubing. In the corner of the room was a printer, with some loose sheets of yellowing paper. Manic picked one up, glancing at it.

The page was covered with countless letters, numbers, and sequences, causing Manic's eyes to swim. It all looked like gibberish to him.

"Genetic sequences," Malcolm stated, from somewhere behind him.

"Does this have something to do with why the animals survived?" Manic asked.

"I'm not sure."

Manic looked back at the paper, pondering. Was this sheet related to the final days of the manufacturing plant? Or was it just something a worker printed out years ago and merely forgot about?

Malcolm stepped around Manic, reaching towards a stack of sheets, all packed together on a shelf. Pulling one out himself Manic realized they were memos. They were faded on the blue paper, and all were brief.

To: C. Wu

Need to minimize aggressive behavior in finished orgs, must try to alternate genetic backgrounds. We need to start this today.

From: CC/ D. Jenkins.

And again.

To: C. Wu/ Sup

Short protein fragments may be acting as prions. Sourcing doubtful, but suggest halt all exogenous protein for carniv. orgs until origin is cleared up. Disease cannot continue!

Rouge leaned over his shoulder, "Looks to me like they had problems.

"Undoubtedly they did," Malcolm said, "It would be impossible to not have them...It seems they had an infection and contamination in the production line. Maybe in even other sources as well. The next memo says they were having problems keeping the new-born animals alive, so they tagged them and released them."

Snively shook his head, "They let dinosaurs loose on the island? They must have been crazy."

"I'd say more along the line of desperate." Malcolm replied, "I'm sure they were keeping track of the animals and probably able to bring them back in whenever they pleased. It must have worked, because when they became older they shipped them to Big's zoo."

" But not all of them..."

"No, not all of them. But be we don't know everything happened yet, we don't know what happened here."

They made their way down the to the next room, a long hallway filled with lockers. One was open, revealing a pair of shoes, and even a coat. Giving Manic an unexpected discomfort, did everyone just leave?

It was a crunch of paper however that caught Manic's attention. He looked down, lifting his foot as he did so. He reached down, grabbing the faded piece of paper. The others stopped walking, looking over. Manic unfolded the paper, reading the words aloud for the others to hear:

Safety Is Everybody's Business!

Report Genetic Anomalies!

Dispose Of Biowaste Properly!

Halt The Spread Of DX Now!

"What's DX?" Snively asked.

"Sounds like the name of their disease," Rouge said.

They made their way down the hall and swung the door at the end wide. They found themselves in a long corridor, with floor-to-ceiling glass panels along the right wall. The glass was scratched and dirty, but they peered through, staring at the room beyond. It was unlike anything Manic had ever seen.

The space was massive, easily the size of a football field. Conveyor belts criss-crossed the room on two separate levels , one very high, the other to the height of the average anthro's shoulder. At various stations all around the room, clusters of large machinery with complex tubing an swing arms, stood beside the belts.

Manic shone his flashlight on the belts, "It's an assembly line!" he said.

"But it looks untouched," Malcolm frowned, "Like it's still ready to go. There are only a couple of plants growing on the floor over there, but overall, it's remarkably clean."

"Too clean," Snively stated.

Manic shrugged, "If it's a clean room environment, then it's probably air-sealed." he said. "I guess it stayed the way it was for years."

Snively shook his head, "For years? Manic, I don't think so."

"Then what do you think Snively, do share."

Malcolm frowned, peering through the glass. "How is it possible for a room this size to remain clean after so many years? It doesn't make any-"

"Hey!" Snively called.

Manic caught it too, in the far corner of the room, a small blue box, halfway up the wall, cables running into it. It was clearly an electrical junction boxy. Mounted on the box was a tiny red light.

It was glowing.

"This place has power!"

Manic moved close to the glass, looking through, "That's impossible! It must be some kind of stored charge, or a battery..."

"After six years? No battery can last that long," Snively grinned. "I'm telling you Manic, this place has power!"

Miles stared at the monitor as white lettering slowly printed out.

ARE YOU A FIRST TIME USER?

He typed: YES.

There was another pause.

He waited.

YOUR FULL NAME?

He typed in his name.

DO YOU WANT A PASSWORD ISSUED TO YOU?

Miles almost laughed. Are you kidding, he thought. This was going to be a snap. It was almost disappointing. He really thought Dr. Thorne would have been cleverer.

YOUR NEW PASSWORD IT VIG849 PLEASE MAKE NOTE OF IT NOW.

Sure thing, Miles thought. There was no paper on the desk in from of him, patting down his pockets he found a scrap of paper, plucking a pen of the desk he wrote his password down.

PLEASE RE-ENTER YOUR PASSWORD.

He typed in the series of letters and numbers.

There was another pause, and then more printing appeared across the screen. The speed of the print was oddly slow, halting at times. After all the work Thorne had put into it, the system wasn't working very -

THANK YOU. PASSWORD CONFIRMED.

The screen flashed, and turned a dark blue. There was an electronic chime. Miles read the words that printed across the screen and his jaw dropped.

International Genetic Technologies

Site B

Local Node Network Services

It didn't make any sense. How could there be a Site B network? He had read up on InGen when the title appeared on the one of the files he had delivered to Thorne. InGen was out of business, long since bankrupt, and now on the verge of going under. What Network? he thought. And how had he managed to get on it. The trailer wasn't connected to anything, no cables or anything. So it had to be a radio network, already on the island of Isle Sorna. Somehow he's managed to log onto it. But how could it exist? A radio network required power, and there was no power here.

Was there?

Miles waited.

Nothing happened, the words just sat there on the screen. He waited for a menu to pop up, but it never did. Miles started to think that the system was bugged, or hung up at least. Maybe it just let you log on, and couldn't get you past that.

Or maybe, he thought, he was supposed to do something. He didn't the simplest thing he would think of, which was to press RETURN.

A list of network services appeared. The last modification date had been from years ago. It was an old system. Curious to see if it still worked, He clicked on the file: VIDEO NETWORK. And to his amazement, he saw the screen begin to fill with tiny video images.

There were fifteen in all, crowding the screen, showing various parts on the island. Most of the cameras were high up, probably in trees, and they showed-

Miles stared.

They showed dinosaurs.

He squinted. It wasn't possible. These were movies or something he was seeing, because in one corner there was a herd of stegosaurs. In an adjacent square, some odd green lizard looking things, in high grass, with only their heads sticking up. In another a single triceratops, ambling along the planes.

They have to be movies, he thought. The dinosaur channel or something.

But then, in anther image, Miles could clearly see the two connected trailers, sitting in the clearing. He could see the black panels glistening on the roof, and he almost imagined himself sitting by the window in the trailer.

Oh, my God, he thought.

And in another image, he saw Thorne, and Malcolm, and Snively, and another woman, get quickly into a green Explorer, and driver around the back of the massive building complex. And it was then he realized, almost in a state shock:

The pictures were all real.

Hi Guys!

I'm back...It's been awhile hasn't it. I found myself in a dinosaur mood the other day, and instead of watching movies, I decided to work on my stories. So get ready from some more dinosaurs action!

BTW Thanks to all of those who have faved and followed my stories while I was away. Welcome aboard my leaky (but not sinking) ship! I look forward to seeing your opinions in the future, and I hope you enjoy my stories as much as the others.

And to my loyal friends...

I missed you :)

Pop and give me a hi, I'll message you in a heart beat!

P.S. I got a surprise for you guys ;)

So let's get back into action! Here we go!