Chapter 44
Online
With a creak the large wooden double doors of the visitor centre slowly opened. The wood splintered under the strain of the movement, and the loud cracks made unsettling booms which floated into the cavernous space before them, echoing off the walls.
Anderson wiped his hand clean of the grime which had accumulated on the door after so long. Wu, Tim, Guiterrez and Edgar stood slightly behind him, apprehensive to approach all of a sudden. They were arcing their necks and peering into the building before them, but they waited for him to lead them in.
The mist outside had been very thick, and even though it had filtered into the visitor centre somewhat, he was startled by the clarity of his vision. The fog outside seemed to clog and distort everything. Now everything was in sharp focus. Not that it did much use, as it became very dark after the first ten feet past the doorway.
Anderson raised his rifle to eyelevel, and clicked on the light attached underneath the barrel. He shielded his eyes as a strong beam shone into his face, and he faced the rifle forwards into the building. A strong pool of light appeared on the floor, and a steady beam cut through the building until it hit the opposite wall. The original paneled, glossy floor showed through in patches, but it was mostly covered in a thick growth of vines and leaves. Other detritus and dirt was liberally smattered around the foliage and on the walls. From the ceiling the roots of several plants hung suspended in mid air, and somewhere out of sight a dull dripping sound echoed placidly. And to cap it off a thin layer of mist was slowly creeping into the building through the doorway, crawling along close to the ground.
Anderson took ten steps into the building, his footsteps accompanied by the crunching of plant matter. He slowly trained the shaft of light from left to right, and then did so again, higher up. Firstly, he saw a mural which adorned the majority of the back wall. It had a few vines smeared on it, but other than that it was in good condition, covered by a laminate screen. It showed a jungle scene, with a scattered herd of Parasaurolophus feeding peacefully. Off to one side however, several man-sized predators skulked in the underbrush, ambushing them. In the light they seemed very lifelike, and Anderson moved the light on quickly.
Two cracked, concrete bases stood solitary in the middle of the room, but he didn't know what they were for, and moved on.
An elaborate, spiral staircase led upwards to the second level, the design futuristic and sleek. But now it has heavily covered in dust, and the expensive wooden banister was crumbling. Moving the light upwards slightly Anderson could see the second level. It extended all the way around the back wall, and several corridors could be seen extending further into the building.
Looking upwards, he could see that the roof was well over sixty feet above them, a cascade of water droplets falling towards the ground in one place.
There was a definite sense of luxury, despite the dilapidation.
"This place is creepy," said Guiterrez from behind him, his voice booming off the walls.
"Feel free to go back outside then," said Anderson, glancing back at them for a moment. Guiterrez looked struck for a moment, and then shrugged.
Wu was observing the structure with interest, as if he were seeing an old friend. Edgar gave a whistle, admiring the architecture of the building.
Tim hadn't moved from the doorway, and wasn't looking around like everybody else. He had a troubled look on his face, and was staring at the floor of the rotunda before them.
Anderson frowned, and turned back to face forwards, and cast the light on the ground before them.
Guiterrez and Edgar leapt backwards as the remains of two immense skeletons were thrown into sharp relief. They were in pieces scattered fairly evenly across the floor, yet they retained their basic shape. The first was long and thin, the skull massive and filled with razor sharp fangs.
The second skeleton was even longer, the tail arcing around in a circle, yet it was noticeably heavier built and rounder, ending in a tiny head.
"Don't worry;" said Wu, "they were display pieces. They weren't real animals."
"Thank you, I feel so much better now," said Guiterrez, eyeing up the fangs on the head of the first skeleton.
"What's that then?" murmured Anderson, shaking his light over several small areas on the ground around the skeletons. The thick marble tiling on the ground had cracked and disintegrated in places, forced down into the earth by almost a meter, making miniature craters.
"Must have been the Tyrannosaur," said Tim. "It weighs seven tons, easily. It could have caused the floor to buckle like that."
"I thought you said they weren't real animals," said Edgar, scratching his head.
"No, not this Tyrannosaur; one of the animals out in the park."
"It was in here?" said Guiterrez uncomfortably, looking around.
"Yeah, it did."
"Where from?" asked Wu, and then said, "Ooh," and looked to his left.
Anderson swung the light over, and a forty foot high hole in the wall was revealed bored into the side of the building, the tattered remains of a blue tarpaulin clinging to its periphery.
"How did that happen?" he said.
"It didn't; the visitor centre was still under construction."
"Ah."
They all moved forwards, Anderson still checking the area around them with his rifle's light. The area outside the light's beam was surprisingly dim; almost pitch black despite the brightness of the sun outside. Even though the large hole in the wall remained, all that could be seen outside was a thick layer of fog and the hint of the jungle behind. The fog whipped around in the air currents, and played tricks on their minds in the darkness.
A loud, drawn out creak emanated from the large double doors behind them as they autonomously floated closed, followed by a deep boom as they rattled closed. The air seemed to vibrate momentarily due to the echoes, and a cloud of dust floated down from the ceiling.
"What's on the ground floor?" said Anderson.
There was a momentary pause, and then Tim's voice said, "Nothing important. Offices, storage and a staff lounge."
"And the second floor?"
"Pretty much everything else. A kitchen, dining room, staff department offices, genetics laboratory, Hatchery, Nursery, and the control room."
"So that's where we need to go," said Anderson, and walked off towards the bottom of the staircase. He stepped carefully around the scattered bones of the skeletons, ignoring the crunching sounds beneath his feet.
The light swung slightly as he walked along, causing the shadows to grow and move, creating the effect of an ominous shape approaching.
Behind him Edgar made a noise of surprise, and there was a halt in the footsteps as the others heard him and stopped. Anderson turned and saw Edgar crouched on the ground, holding up a six inch, curved, sickle like claw in his hand, holding it up to the light of Anderson's rifle.
"There's a whole bunch of smaller bones here," said Guiterrez, observing the ground in front of Edgar. He was right; a collection of smaller, almost human sized bones adorned the space next to one of the pillars which had held up the display skeletons. The collection was mixed up, there was no form; it was simply a pile of bones.
"Come on," said Tim, walking off towards the staircase, his form disappearing into the darkness.
Anderson turned and followed him, beckoning to the others. He saw Edgar shrug, his hands slipping into his pockets. They approached the staircase, the finish still gleaming in the light through the coat of dust.
They travelled upwards steadily, and their footsteps sounded hollow and loud in the near silence which surrounded them. The stairs creaked and groaned as they stepped on them, but they held firm. As they neared the halfway point, Guiterrez gave a grunt.
"What is it?"
"There's another one of those skeletons here," said Guiterrez, poking a long femur bone with his foot. He leaned over the banister, and nodded. "There're more bones down there too," he said. "Whatever it was, it must have died here, leant over the banister."
"What do you think they are?" said Anderson.
"Beats me," said Wu quietly.
"You're supposed to be the expert," said Guiterrez, dusting his shoe off.
"I'm a geneticist, not a biologist," Wu snapped defensively.
Anderson sped up slightly, overtaking Tim, and trained his rifle at the balcony above them as they followed the stairs around in a semicircle until they reached the second level.
They were now around twenty feet up, looking down into the rotunda. Oddly, Anderson felt more secure up here. It was like lifting your feet off the ground when a mouse was crawling around.
Still, the sight of the mist creeping into the building underneath the crack of the main double doors was creepy in the light.
"Where's control?" he said.
Tim pointed off to their right, towards one of the wide, dark corridors. Anderson nodded, and moved off towards it, casting roots and vines out of their path with the barrel of his gun, keeping his eyes watchful.
The ceiling leaked here too, and water rained down on their shoulders. There was no signs of life up here aside from the roots above them, there wasn't even any detritus on the floor; it was pretty clean considering it had been over a decade since the cleaner had been around. They turned a corner, and entered the wide corridor.
The walls were painted a uniform sterile white color, with the off crawler winding its way through the cemented ceiling. Anderson swung his light over the floor, revealing a film of grime coating the artificial material. The corridor extended for a considerable distance into the building, stretching away out of the pool of night into darkness. Doors lined both sides of the walls at intervals every few meters or so.
"Which one?" said Guiterrez from somewhere behind him.
"None of these," said Wu, "keep going."
They all moved off, stalking along behind Anderson, leaving the darkened, fog cloaked rotunda behind. Anderson read off the label tags on the doors as they walked past them, the stenciled writing lime green.
'Public Relations', 'Administration', 'Warden's Office'.
They had small, simple locks on them, and were made of flimsy wooden material; and appeared to be nothing more than working space, perks of high status jobs. He didn't bother looking inside them, and nobody else seemed that much interested either. Tim came up to walk alongside him, walking with a strange look on his face.
"Something wrong?" he said.
Tim didn't react for a moment, and then shook his head slowly. He seemed to be walking through the corridor as if it would infect him; he walked stiffly and mechanically.
Anderson glanced up ahead again before looking back at Tim, catching a fleeting glance of more doors, the end of the corridor still not in sight. For a moment he was reminded of a scene in a film he had seen, where the characters walked down an endless corridor of doors. He remembered the walls were white in the film too, although they were much brighter.
Tim was frowning now, a strained tension playing across his cheeks.
"Memories?" murmured Anderson.
Tim nodded slightly, but didn't say anything.
Anderson looked back forwards, and then to his surprise the pool of light in front of him flared outwards as the walls expanded to the sides, and the corridor came to an end. They came to the entrance of a large room; which had once been a very pleasant diner-like restaurant setting. The wooden chairs and tables looked expensive, and were carved articulately. But now they were covered in dust, long strands of cobwebs draped over their darkened forms. Two of the chairs were toppled over; their pieces sprawled over the thick carpet.
All around them, the walls were painted in the same mural scene which they had seen downstairs in the rotunda; the Parasaurolophus feeding in almost the same pose. However the image was longer and more elaborate given the larger space of the room. And the image seemed to glow slightly; Anderson suspected that the pain glowed in the dark. Two other corridors led off in different directions on either side of the hallway from which they had just come.
The opposite wall had a sturdy, steel door built into it, a circular section of window glass cut into it at eye level.
"What's in there?" said Anderson, pointing to the large door.
"A kitchen," said Wu, laughed Wu, "they had the most amazing ginger ice cream."
Tim pointed to the corridor on their left.
"Left to control," he said.
Andersons swung his light over, and saw that it led only a short way before the floor disappeared, but the pool of light didn't extend beyond that.
"Right to genetics," Tim was saying, pointing in the opposite direction.
Swinging his light over once more, Anderson glimpsed a clean, long corridor extending away into the distance.
"Which one do we take?" he said.
Wu gave a grunt. "Go to control."
Anderson shrugged, and looked at Guiterrez and Edgar, who were standing on the left side of the group. Guiterrez looked disgruntled for a moment, and then gave a cough, before moving off towards the staircase. Edgar however edged backwards towards Wu.
Anderson gave him a look before walking past him with Guiterrez.
"Be my guest, go right into the dark old death-hole," murmured Edgar from behind.
"Shut it for a bit," said Tim, his footsteps heavy and deliberate.
Guiterrez was looking around in an interested fashion, staring down at the carpet, and then up at the walls. He was like a small child in a colorful environment.
"What's wrong with you?" said Anderson, smiling as he trained the spotlight over the area in which the floor seemingly disappeared up ahead.
"Nice change of scenery," said Guiterrez, "after being in the magic forest for that long, even this haunted mansion seems like a decent place to stay. You think I could find an ice-cold beer somewhere around here?"
As Anderson grinned the pool of light ahead dipped down, and a short staircase was revealed, leading down into another corridor which extended off out of sight. At the foot of the stairs, on the left wall was an extensive, large window which ran several meters across. The double layered glass had wire meshing running through it for extra structural integrity. However, a great hole had been bored straight though the glass, easily large enough for a person to fit through. The pieces of broken glass still littered the floor, untouched. Next to the window was a strong, steel door glistening in the light, bearing a surprisingly large locking mechanism which looked like it belonged to a prison.
"Looks like it'd be at home in a bank vault," said Guiterrez.
"How did that happen?" said Wu quietly, indicating the broken glass.
"How do you think?" said Tim, pattering down the flight of steps down, his feet clanging on the metal. The crunching of his feet on the glass was intermingled with the sound of the other's footsteps as they followed him down. They all stood there in front of the window for a moment, peering in.
The room was almost as large as the dining hall, but it looked very different. The entrance of the room was rather like a balcony, and then the floor of the room was filled with computer terminals placed onto cluttered desks. Along the back wall was a large screen at least 80 inches across. Along the sides of the room were metallic, cupboard-like structures which Anderson guessed housed vast amounts of electronics. Everything was dark and inactive.
"How do we get in?" said Anderson.
"Don't have to," said Tim, pulling the heavy door open, "the powers off, remember?"
Guiterrez, who was up on the ledge beneath the whole in the window, his hands placed gingerly on the jagged edges of the broken glass, said "I knew that."
Anderson walked through the doorway first, swinging his light around, although he doubted anything would have made it this far. His spotlight showed nothing but dusty work surfaces and computer terminals. He relaxed, and waved for the others to come in.
"Do you have to go all commando every time we turn a corner?" said Guiterrez, walking into the dark room wrinkling his nose as waves of dust floated through the air.
"It's kept you alive so far," said Anderson, running his hands over the railing of the balcony. He trotted down into the room, followed swiftly by Tim and Wu.
"What do you think?" said Wu, eyeing up the cobweb coated computer monitors.
"Let's see," said Tim, walking forwards to a terminal which seemed to be far more cluttered than the others. He grabbed the strands of cobwebs and ripped them off, and pulled his sleeve over his hand, using the surface to rub the screen of the monitor and the keyboard clean of dust. Arcing his arm through the air he sprayed Jolt cola cans and candy bar rappers all over the floor, leaving a free workspace. He punched the chair, a puff of dust exploding into the air.
Anderson watched bemusedly as Tim smiled to himself slightly and sat down at the terminal. Guiterrez and Edgar had shut the door, and had sat down on two abandoned office swivel chairs, putting their feet up on the desk. Guiterrez was sighing with relief, rubbing his legs absent mindedly.
Anderson watched Tim and Wu, who were clustered around the computer terminal, while glancing from time to time at the hole in the window. After a few seconds he cleared his throat. "Is it alright if I move some of these containers?" he said, pointing to two large metal stands eight feet high, full of machinery.
"What for?" said Tim, climbing off the chair.
"I want to cover the windows," Anderson murmured, walking up onto the balcony and inspecting the stands. They were heavy, and sturdy. Better yet, they were mounted on wheels for easy transportation and inspection.
"Sure," said Wu, "just don't snap any of the cables attached to them.
As Anderson gripped the side of the stand, Guiterrez appeared next to him, and went over to the other side. Together they hauled the heavy object along the balcony, until it rested over the window next to the door, covering most of the hole in the window. A minute later they had the second in place, completing the shield, covering the long window completely. Reaching down Anderson found that the wheels had locks on them, to prevent them from moving around. Anderson grasped them, and shook the stand. It barely moved.
"How is it?" Wu was saying.
Tim had clambered down underneath the desk, and was rooting around. Anderson could hear him coughing from the accumulated detritus, and the clunking of him pulling on electrical wiring.
"The insulation's all still here; no mice have chewed on anything. I can't guarantee anything; it's been over a decade since anybody used any of this stuff. But there's one way to find out."
He got up, and walked over towards one of the metal lockers, pulling them open with a wrench of his arm. The door squealed in protest, and a spray of rust fell to the ground. Over Tim's shoulder, Anderson could see that the locker was indeed a holding place for electronic equipment, and with a glance he saw that bundles of tubing ran between the lockers at ground level.
However, the locker Tim had opened looked relatively simple. It was filled with rows heavy flip switches with stenciled labels beneath them. Above them he could faintly see pinprick circular lights.
One of the lights was glowing a strong green color.
"Ah," said Tim in a satisfied voice.
Anderson walked over to the locker where Tim stood, and shined his light on it. The labels came into sharp relief, the buttons above them brown with grime. The green of the glowing light still shone strongly through the glare of his rifle light. He looked at the label.
"Geo-Power Main," he read out loud.
He turned to Tim. "That means it worked?"
Tim nodded, and was running his hands over the labels of the buttons, running from left to right, going from row to row. Anderson stood to the side to give him more room to work, keeping his light trained on the inside of the locker.
"If it worked why is the power still off?" said Guiterrez, his chair squeaking as he swiveled from side to side.
"We have to start the system manually. Think of it like an SUV. Now we have some gas in the tank, but we still have to turn the ignition to get the engine going."
"Why doesn't it just start up automatically?" Guiterrez answered exasperatedly. "Wouldn't that just make things easier?"
Tim shook his head, his fingers coming to rest at an area of the locker less populated with switches, instead having just a few and a single large switch underneath.
"If there was a fault with the system, and it was automatic, then it'd get stuck in a loop. It'd start up, the fault would occur, the system would shut down, and then it'd start back up again. So you do it manually so that you can see where the faults are, if there are any."
"And it's time consuming," said Wu from the computer.
"I didn't say it isn't a pain in the ass," said Tim.
Tim reached down towards three red buttons which lay on a horizontal row, with three plastic guard caps placed over them. He popped off the protective caps, and flicked them all on in quick succession. Nothing seemed to happen, and Tim smiled.
Anderson frowned. Taking a step closer, he saw the labels.
'Safety-1', 'Safety-2', 'Safety-3'
"What's that about?" he said.
"Just precautions," said Tim. "They initialize surge protection, make sure that all the capacitors are viable, that sort of thing."
"What if something was broken?"
"They'd automatically turn themselves off."
"But they haven't."
"Right, so we're good."
Tim reached down to a large, isolated switch underneath, and stopped, his fingers almost touching it. Anderson watched his face for a moment, which was held in a steady stare.
"What? What is it?" called Guiterrez.
"I'm about to flip the main power switch, and if this doesn't work then not only have we wasted a trip, but we can't even call for help."
The room was silent for a moment.
Then Guiterrez said, "Oh."
Tim took a breath, and then curled his finger under the switch. With a heave, he hauled the switch upwards and the locker gave a clunk.
Tim stood back as the electronics all around them shuddered unanimously, and a loud whine began building from the walls and floor all around them. The whine became louder until it sounded as if an airplane propeller was blaring on the other side of the wall. Sparks exploded from the lockers on either side of them, and Anderson pulled Tim back out of the way, into the centre of the room. Guiterrez and Edgar leapt to their feet, looking around at the sizzling electronics. Wu stepped away from the computer terminal hesitantly.
And then, everything stopped. The shuddering died, and was replaced by a somewhat familiar buzz; it reminded Anderson of an office full of computers. There was a single beep from the computer terminal from which Wu had stepped from, and then the whooshing of fans settled into a continuous rhythm.
Wu clapped his hands, and took a seat before the terminal, Tim coming up to stand behind him. Anderson could see that Wu was now driving them forwards; Tim had no knowledge of the park's systems.
The monitor clicked, and then slowly faded into a strong black glow. In the top left hand corner, a green blipping cursor winked at them.
Edgar and Guiterrez clambered over to Tim and Wu, while Anderson remained a few steps backwards, glancing between them and the door.
He watched as Wu began typing on the keyboard. But the cursor remained stationary, and nothing appeared on the screen.
"The things broken, it doesn't even work," said Guiterrez angrily, turning away from the terminal.
"No, no, wait," said Wu, pausing with his fingers poised over the board, "give it a second."
They all waited for ten seconds in utter silence aside from the computer's fans, but nothing happened. Wu cursed.
He scratched his head, seemingly at a loss of ideas.
Tim reached over his shoulder, and before Wu could react he pushed the return key.
The computer beeped, and two bright green words scrolled onto the screen.
'System ready.'
Wu relaxed, his shoulders sagging. "There we go. Now…"
He began typing more confidently now.
: Goto main
The green writing disappeared from the black screen, and the disks whirred behind them monitor. Then, to their surprise, a new complicated screen popped up, the left side of which was predominantly occupied by a posing woman, half naked. They all shielded their eyes for a moment as the glare of the bright screen shone into the dark room.
On the right side of the screen was a blue print of a large, complex building. After a moment Anderson realized he was looking at the building plan for the visitor centre. Dots and lines overlaid the blueprint all over the place, and strange writing was scrolling down the screen at the bottom.
"Oh, this is good," said Wu, rattling on the keyboard.
"How so?" asked Guiterrez.
"This is the power distribution control system for the visitor centre, it means we can directly interface with this building without having to access the other systems."
"You mean we can activate everything right now?" said Tim, looking at Wu.
Wu shook his head. "No, we still have to do that manually. What I mean is that we can provide power to the entire building. Like this."
He typed on the keyboard, and hit enter.
A hum built over their heads, coming from the above the lockers, and spreading outwards, filtering out of the room and into the building. A moment later, large strip lights which hung overhead flickered for a moment, and the entire room was lit up brilliantly before being plunged back into darkness. A second later they flickered once again, and then again. After a few seconds the flickers became more frequent, until the lights were turned on continuously. The pleasant white light reached into every corner of the room, and they could see that the control room was indeed painted a matte black, a start contrast to the rest of the white-walled building. Anderson glanced outside, and saw that outside in the corridor an electronic sizzle was followed swiftly by a clank and a bright light illuminated the white walls.
Wu and Tim were inspecting the monitor, and were counting what looked to Anderson like red dots placed at intervals all over the map of the building. One by one, the dots were turning green.
"Looks like we have lights and power to almost sixty percent of the building," said Tim, pointing to some of the red dots which had not changed.
"Yeah," said Wu quietly, "the lower floor is mostly out, probably due to the condensation from the fog. But control is fully operational, and genetics looks good. The hatchery is out, and so is the kitchen, but no matter. It looks good."
Guiterrez was standing in the middle of the room now, sighing as he looked up at the strip lights. "What a fucking great creation," he said to them. "I never appreciated lights until now."
Edgar had sat back down, and was twisting in his seat idly, merely observing the group. He had no purpose here, he was just tagging along.
"I'm worried about Sarah and Ian," said Guiterrez.
Wu and Tim looked up suddenly; they had forgotten.
"Malcolm's leg was pretty bad when we left," said Wu, "do you think they're ok?"
Anderson shrugged. "They should be. The bars on that shed were thick; I don't think anything could have gotten through them."
"I'd be worried," said Tim, typing something from over Wu's shoulder, "They haven't been on the radio."
"They probably just ran out of batteries," said Anderson, a little begrudged by Tim's lack of sensitivity. It was important that they all remained calm at this time.
"Hell, no point standing here speculating," said Tim, still typing. "Take the car, go get them. There's a medical unit next to the hatchery down the hall."
Tim walked over to another locker and pulled it open, retrieving three radios. He flicked them on, and they sprang to life with a hiss of static.
"How are those still powered?" Edgar said, puzzled.
"They're hooked into the building power system. They've been charging since we activated the geothermal plant. Here, take it."
He gave one to Anderson.
Anderson nodded, and made for the door.
"I'm coming with you," said Guiterrez, jumping up onto the balcony. Anderson smiled; he was starting the like the man. He was quirky, and strange, but likeable.
He reached the door and pulled it open, training his rifle on the outside. There was nothing within the lit corridor, except an old carpet.
"I better get down to genetics," said Wu, getting up from the terminal.
"What do I do?" said Tim. "The systems aren't activated yet."
"We're into the mainframe now," said Wu, "I've input the codes, you have full access. You knew your way around the geothermal systems pretty well. If you have any problems, radio me."
Wu took one of the radios from the desk where Tim had set them down, and made to follow Anderson out the door when Tim pointed to Edgar.
"Take him with you; I don't want him in here."
Edgar looked insulted for a moment, and then got up and followed Wu grudgingly.
Anderson looked at them all for a moment, and Tim hunched over the console by himself. It had taken them a long time to group together, and now they were splitting up again so quickly. It wasn't a good idea.
"Will you be okay here by yourself?" he said to Tim.
Murphy looked up, a spasm of irritation playing across his face. "Of course I will. You better get going; Malcolm's time must be limited by now."
Anderson still didn't move.
Guiterrez reached behind himself into his waistband, and pulled out Anderson's pistol. He handed it Wu.
"Take this, just in case," he said.
Wu took the gun gingerly, as if it might bite him, and slipped it into his waistband as Guiterrez had stowed it.
Anderson smirked, and then led the way out of the control room into the corridor.
The four of them entered the dining room, and were surprised at how pleasant it looked. Aside from the accumulated dust, it looked pretty good. The tables were set and neat, and the mural had been lit up by bright lights from behind, enhancing the glowing effect.
As Anderson and Guiterrez turned right to enter the passage to the rotunda, Wu and Edgar kept going, entering to corridor leading towards the genetics laboratory.
Anderson pressed the transmit button on the radio he was holding. "Testing," he said, "everybody hear me?"
"Yeah," said Wu, his voice overlapping from the radio and from his solid form mere meters away.
"I hear you," murmured Tim's voice, scratchy and hard to hear over the crackling.
They headed down the lid corridor, past the stenciled offices. It was comforting to have something as simple as the lights on in this place; it was the most civilized building they had seen in what seemed like forever.
After two minutes they emerged into the rotunda, and were greeted with the ominous reappearance of the fog which continued to seep into the building, crawling along the floor.
They approached the staircase, and descended downwards, Anderson keeping his rifle trained around them. You never know; something could have come inside since they had gone upstairs. And there was definitely something out there.
Unsettlingly, the power to downstairs was offline, and therefore there was no light; it remained dark. And so they descended into darkness, their footsteps making isolated, booming echoes in the cavernous space.
But nothing around them stirred; it was like floating down into a tomb. Looking up for a moment Anderson saw the bright orange glow of the lit rooms above. It almost looked like they were moving away from the pearly gates.
Their feet disappeared into the mist as they came to ground level, and picked their way carefully towards the hole in the wall where the building had never been finished; Anderson didn't want to go out of the front door as they made too much noise and there was no way of knowing what was on the other side.
Peering out, Guiterrez looked left and right into the white mist, and then waved Anderson forwards.
Together they crept from the building out at the side of the building, to the sound of faint trickling water. Anderson frowned as they moved around towards the front entrance, the concrete of the building the only thing they were able to pick out in the fog.
"Why does it sound like a stream?" whispered Guiterrez, "there wasn't any sound when we got here."
They stepped off the grass and onto the tarmac of the building, and then they looked towards the steps leading up to the wooden front doors. On either side of the steps were pools of water going up in levels, which added to the pleasant architecture of the building. But now the water was being pushed in jets down the levels, in a series of waterfalls.
"Must be a water feature," said Anderson, "the power's on."
"Stupid thing to have going when everything else is off," said Guiterrez, walking around to the other side of the car, opening the door, "whoever designed those systems must have been an idiot."
As Guiterrez got into the car, Anderson took a brief look around at the mist. He still couldn't shake the feeling of being watched. He had a lot of field experience in military situations, and he had learned to never take for granted the instinctual feeling that humans had for sensing the presence of another organism. Yet he saw nothing, and heard nothing.
Squinting, he opened the driver's door, and entered the vehicle, not taking his eyes off his surrounding, and closed the door quickly.
"You know where the maintenance shed is?" said Guiterrez quietly next to him.
Anderson thought for a moment, momentarily caught off guard; he hadn't given any thought as to where the shed was. After a moment he thought of Tim.
"Don't have to," he said.
He pressed the transmit button on the radio. "Tim, we need some help."
Tim rattled on the keyboards of several computers in the silence of the control room, moving backwards and forwards between them. It was a relief to have the others away from him for a while, so that he could hear himself think. First priority was to check the system, and so he had several diagnostic programs running on different terminals; the various screens around him showing scrolling lines of code and images.
The genetics files which Wu needed would be stored with all of the archived files in the system, which would take a while to get up and running. So first, he tried to get a few security features online.
He sat at what he was sure was once Nedry's old terminal.
The blueprints of the building had disappeared from the screen, and a three-dimensional interface, made up of multicolored blue blocks set up on top of large pink rectangles, positioned in different sections within cyberspace. Each pink block housed a set of systems, smaller pink blocks leading off of larger ones to cater for the subsystems. Right now he was in the central system.
Tim grabbed the cursor and guided the view of the screen left, the cursor switched from one blue block to another, which was labeled, 'Security Node'.
He double clicked it, and another window opened in the middle of the screen, which was deep blue. Lines of white text began to scroll across the screen, until and then the cursor jumped to the next line, ready for command input. Tim read it briefly.
Central Park Security Console
Jurassic park, System Security Interface
Version 4.0.5, Alpha E
Ready...
Operations:
VC_Illum(set to: on);
Diag-prog_1 – TERMINAL 5
Diag-prog_2 – TERMINAL 6
…
He typed: : system_directory.
Hitting return, the screen quickly filled with a list of text. Individual security programs were listed before him. He began to peer through a few of them.
Perimeter Fence System
Animal paddocks
Holding facility
VC
Geo_Plnt
Hydro_Plnt
Safari Lodge
Dock
Inn-Hotel
These were sections of the park, not the systems themselves. He moved the cursor, and double clicked on 'VC'. The screen changed again, and a shorter list scrolled onto the screen.
Auto_Monitor
Safety_1
Safety_2
Safety_3
Lock_Central
Tim guessed that 'Auto Monitor' was what he was looking for, and clicked on it. The screen changed once again, and he smiled as several live camera feed images popped up onto the screen. Several of the images showed just black, where the cameras were not working, but he had the whole of the top floor covered; he could see Wu and Guiterrez strolling down the genetics corridor. As well as this he had a sizeable area of the outside of the building. Through one of them he had a high placed view of the front, where he could see Guiterrez and Anderson sitting inside the car parked up, with the safari lodge in the distance behind them in the fog.
As Anderson raised his hand with a black device in his hand, his mouth began moving soundlessly on the image before him.
His radio crackled.
"Murphy, we need directions," said Anderson's voice.
"Ah, right," said Tim, kicking off from the desk, causing his chair to sail across the floor horizontally, coming to rest against the terminal next to Nedry's.
He hit the return key, and the three dimensional interface popped up before him. He moved the cursor around the blocks, peering closely at the labels of each of them, until he found one subsystem inside the geographical imaging module called 'Mapping'.
He clicked on it, and the display disappeared, followed by a single line of code.
Would you like to initialize tracking system? Y/N
Tim punched in 'N'; they couldn't afford the power it would cost them. The text flashed off, replaced by a second line of code.
Would you like to initialize island mapping? Y/N
Tim punched in 'Y'. The terminal beeped, and nothing happened for a moment. A moment later he jumped as the huge screen on the wall in front of him hummed, and a massive image of the island was displayed in front of him, complete with a key and the correct location of all the paddocks, roads and buildings. It was impressive.
"Okay, got it," said Tim. "Head east along the road until you reach the large main gate. Go through that, and you'll come to the main road which leads north to south. Take that down to the lagoon. A small service road leads into the jungle to the shed. Call me if you have any trouble."
The radio crackled, and then Guiterrez's voice said, "Thanks."
On the screen the car started forwards, and then moved off, out of the frame, leaving nothing but the fog. Tim stared at the image for a moment, sighing. His eyes widened as he saw a black form bulge out of the whiteness for a moment, and then disappear. He felt a sudden chill, and the hairs on the back of his neck stood up. He moved laterally to the other terminal, and began to type furiously, accessing the system which would allow Wu to download the genetics data. He had to work quickly, because it was too dangerous to be here.
They were coming.