Chapter 48

Too Good To Be True

It was beginning to get dark.

The trees were losing their ethereal green glow, and were looking blacker, cloaked in the shadows of their neighbors. The leaves, which blocked out most of the sunlight even in the middle of the day, were now inhibiting the dying light to the point that on the jungle floor, it was twilight.

Walking through the thick undergrowth and thick tangles of vines and roots was a serious impediment, and moving undetected was becoming increasingly difficult as even the trees themselves seemed to come to life, creaking gently in the evening breeze. The calls of a thousand different animals emanated from every direction, unseen in the dense forest. Cries of pain and fear were intermingled with those of predatory frustration, and hunger.

The trees swirled in circles all around, and the dizziness would not cease. Without water, it was difficult to get a clear head.

Dodgson grunted in pain, falling to his knees as another streak of pain shot through his skull. The force of the impact from the fall rippled up his body, and Dodgson gritted his teeth to stop himself from crying out as the sensation of having a hot knife pressed into his ribcage soared up his spinal cord to his brain.

He had awoken in the jungle ten minutes before, alone. He found it difficult to remember what had happened; something about a radio…and Malcolm.

With his makeshift walking stick in pieces it was harder to move around with his injured body, and finding his way across the island had proven almost impossible at first.

However, he was now pretty sure that he was moving in the right direction, and that he was near the boat. He didn't care about the dinosaurs anymore; he just wanted to go home.

There was a snarl in the jungle behind him in the distance, followed by a hollow scream. Dodgson's eyes opened wide in the darkened jungle at the sound. In a muddle puddle at his feet he could see his white eyes glowing palely against his mud soaked face.

He took a deep breath as he felt his heart begin to beat faster in his chest, and grabbed a thick stalk of a nearby fern. He pulled hard, lifting himself to his feet, biting his tongue against the pain. His boots sloshed in the mud as he stumbled forwards slowly in the midst of the jungle, casting the eight foot tall ferns out of his way. He walked steadily down a slight downwards gradient. He found this slightly relieving; he didn't have to put so much effort into walking, and he could simply let gravity do most of the work. A small part of him felt the urge to simply sit down and slide along the floor. He sighed as he trudged downwards through the island, cradling his injured abdomen with one hand.

By his estimates he was less than a mile from the eastern shore of the island; the decline confirmed it. The island was pretty much a hollowed crater from an old volcanic eruption. The east side of the crater wall seemed to have fallen into the ocean a long time ago, leaving it lower that all of the other sides of the island.

The boat was parked up along the eastern dock; and he was close. He was sure of it.

He almost stopped; he was surprised at how much he had been degraded from such a short time on the island. One day had turned him from a powerful manager of a biotech firm traveling to collect the biggest paycheck of his life to a groveling cripple scrambling through some god-forsaken jungle on an island in the south pacific.

No discovery was worth this. The technology was invaluable to BioSyn, and of course there was no way that they would be able to replicate the technology themselves in any adequate time frame; other biotech firms were competing with them for the same thing; albeit, they didn't have the knowledge about InGen that he did. But the truth was that the San Diego incident had created a real public knowledge about the possibility of replicating extinct animals with the use of the emerging field of biotechnology. Before InGen, all the field had offered the general population was the promise of new health and recreation, and cosmetic opportunities.

But now everybody knew that it was possible to bring back the dinosaurs, and anything else that was now extinct on earth.

It was just that nobody could quite get the hang of it the way InGen had. It was just too difficult to get the DNA in sequence, and to get a live birth. It was a fiercely competitive race to monopoly.

But nothing was worth this. Hell, he thought, this island wasn't going to be here much longer. If he couldn't have the technology, then nobody else was going to get it. So there was no worry. They could still cash in on some of the findings that BioSyn had managed to salvage—

He felt a jolt in his heart as it leapt in his chest as all of a sudden he lost traction on the soft mud. His feet shot out from underneath him, and he crashed to the ground, pain searing throughout his body. On the incline he felt himself sliding along the ground, heading steadily downhill. Through pain-streaked, watering eyes, he made a desperate grab for the stalk of a nearby vine, grappling at the ground with both of his blood stained hands.

But he couldn't quite reach, and his body flipped over horizontally, and he was face down in the mud. He felt cold soil on his lips, and he closed his mouth tightly. His head span as he felt himself already spinning over once more. Dodgson was spinning out of control, falling down the hill.

How far down did it go? Surely it wasn't this steep.

But regardless of his thoughts, he felt his body begin to spin faster, and he twirled helplessly on the muddy ground, hurtling down the hill. Ferns and leaves slashed at his face, torn up from their roots as he flew down towards the floor of the island, his hands flailing uselessly.

He felt his body being compressed, and pushed, and crumbled. Pain seared all over his body; especially from his shoulders and his ribcage; which felt more like his internal organs were in a cage made of nails.

Dodgson yelled in agony as he careened down the hill, spinning so fast that he didn't know where he was. He felt the blood in his body surge to his extremities from the centripetal force of his spinning, and he felt his face blush red fiercely, threatening to pop.

And then, with a bone crunching thud, his body crumpled in a heap, face down in the mud. His legs remained up at forty five degrees to the rest of his body, lying on the gradient of the beginning to the hill.

For a moment he felt nothing but the blood flying back around his body, and he waited for the inevitable pain. He tried to inhale, and then it hit him, and he squeezed his eyes shut as his ribcage burned with such intensity that he almost lost consciousness.

For a moment he didn't move, and simply lay there, breathing as shallowly as he could. He saw spots erupt in front of his eyes, and his body throbbed all over. Every nerve in his body was crying out to him.

Dodgson growled through gritted teeth, and began crawling forwards, his fingers digging into the earth. He dragged himself along slowly, making large raking tears in the ground.

He wasn't going to be beaten by this island; he was nearly there, he could sense it. Only another mile, and he would be on the boat, and he could go home.

Clink.

Dodgson's right hand came to an abrupt halt as it hit the ground, his fingertip numbed by pain as it came into contact with something solid. Dodgson frowned, and tried to push past it; to pull himself along. But it wouldn't budge.

Dodgson opened his eyes narrowly, breathing heavily, and looked ahead of him. His hand was buried two inches into the soil, which looked the same as the rest all around him.

He frowned, and took his fingers out, revealing four round holes in the ground where they had been. He groaned in pain as he dragged himself forwards and he looked down.

Through the gloom, behind the grit and mud, he could just about make out a metallic sheen, glinting in the dying light. Dodgson put his hand back into the hole, and raked away at the mud, pulling away a streak of soil. He propped himself up on his elbows, wincing, and tore at the ground weakly with his hands.

He stopped, and for a moment he simply stared. Dodgson's brain ceased all thought as he looked at the object in the ground, dumbfounded. In the ground was a round cylinder, roughly six inches long. Most of the body of the cylinder was grayish, and the rest was blue, with a hint of red. In disbelief, he pushed the back with his palm, and to top popped up from its resting place, revealing a standard spray nozzle.

Dodgson took the muddy canister in his hands, and turned it over, looking at it from all angles. He eyed it warily, and then gingerly wiped the mud away, revealing the logo beneath.

It was a Barbasol can of shaving cream.

Dodgson's eyes widened and he looked up at the ground before him, and inhaled sharply. A vehicle lay in front of him; well, at least, what was left of it. It had once been a Jeep, a standard issue for the Nublar facility. But it was heavily rusted; the entire paint scheme was now undetectable beneath the copper colored rusted surface. The driver door lay open, hanging off of its hinges. The windshield was smashed, a few tendrils of glass adhering to the frame. Most of the Jeep had been overgrown in vegetation; vines and ferns covered the entire back half, and had engulfed the front wheels.

Dodgson crawled forwards a few inches, and gave a tug, pulling away a chunk of the ferns which covered the Jeep. They cracked, and the entire bundle came away from their moorings in his hands. He tossed them aside, and jolted in fright.

A skeleton lay on the ground before him, its legs still lying on the decaying leather of the driver's seat. Its arms lay outstretched before him, the stick-like fingers curled over into tight fists. The skull stared up at him, the bottom jaw lay open wide, balanced on the ground.

Nedry.

"Son of a bitch," Dodgson whispered.

Two minutes later he had struggled to his feet, and was looking down at the skeleton before him, shaking his head. After all this time, Nedry had gone through with it. At least, he had planned on it. Dodgson had forked out well over a hundred and fifty thousand dollars for Nedry, and he hadn't entirely trusted him. But it turned out that he had been reliable all along, and he had always intended to keep up his end of the bargain. He was close to the dock too.

Dodgson looked down at the Barbasol can, and crouched awkwardly, wincing in pain, and placed the can next to Nedry's body.

He looked down at the body, and sighed to himself.

The mangled body was the embodiment of everything Dodgson was trying to do. There was the intention, the willpower and the ability to make this work, and to make a lot of money, but just before he could achieve his goal, it slipped through his fingers.

Dodgson looked down at Nedry's body one more time, and then turned away, and walked forwards through the small clearing in which the Jeep lay. He reached the other side within a few steps, and was about to cross the threshold into thick jungle once more when a distant snarl caused him to freeze, and whirl around. He froze, crouching instinctively, his eyes moving in his sockets. He saw nothing but foliage, the Jeep, and Nedry's body. Dodgson remained where he was for a few moments, and then made to leave once more.

But as he turned, something white caught his eye, and he stopped, frowning. In the bushes, three feet away, a group of elongated white blobs adorned the ground. He felt a sudden elation as he ambled forwards, the white blobs becoming larger in his field of vision, and he cast the bushes aside.

He gasped to himself in the gloom as the nest of eggs lay before him. They were thin, and long, speckled with light brown intermittently along their shells.

He crouched down in the dark, and examined them closely. He counted eight in all, arranged in concentric circles; all intact. Dodgson looked around warily at the stationary foliage; any nest wouldn't be left unguarded for too long. Regardless of the species to which the nest belonged, it wasn't worth taking any chances.

All of his past doubts and frustration were gone from his mind immediately, forgotten in a flash. Opportunities burst forth into his mind; they had come for live animals, sure. But all the DNA they needed was right here, even if the embryo didn't survive.

Glancing around, Dodgson tore a strip of his shirt, and rolled it up into a cradling pillow. He gingerly picked up the nearest of the eggs, and wrapped it up in the muddy material, breathing slowly to calm himself. He could feel his heart beating heavily in his chest as he stood up slowly, and moved off, treading carefully.

He passed into twilight as he crossed the threshold into the thickness of the jungle. In the distance he heard a ship's fog horn blare out, echoing in the enclosed space of the forest. He could hear the crew already.

Dodgson smiled to himself, his eyes twinkling as he trudged through the jungle towards the dock.