CHAPTER 29
"Where are they?" Gary panned through the clusters of tropical foliage within the raptor paddock. He didn't see a single velociraptor.
The enclosure was roughly the size of a gymnasium. Much of it was open area, but there were several groves of trees.
"Over there." Dr. Conners pointed past Gary to the far left corner.
Though the cage had been saturated with sleeping gas for several minutes now, they still proceeded with caution. On the ground they passed one of the canisters hissing out the last of its vapors.
"Pick those up, Gary." Dr. Johnson ordered. "We don't want to leave them behind."
Gary proceeded to collect three canisters as they went along. While crouching down to stuff them in a small duffle bag he took note that the pen was sporadically littered with the unconscious bodies of gassed compsognathus. He wasn't sure why, but the sight of them gave him an uncomfortable feeling. Each time he paused to acquire a canister he hustled to catch up with the doctors.
"You gettin the heebie jeebies, Gary?" Dr. Conners nudged him with an elbow.
"You aren't?" Gary swallowed as he eyed all of the little green dinosaurs lying like corpses throughout the enclosure.
Dr. Conners chuckled. "Relax. Have a hamburger." He motioned with his taser prod to a disemboweled cow festering near by.
"No thanks." Gary swallowed down a small amount of vomit that gurgled up into the back of his throat.
Dr. Johnson shook her head. " I've told them a dozen times to clean this cage out more regularly."
"Can you blame them." Gary muttered.
"Over here." Dr. Johnson nodded.
They had reached the back left corner of the enclosure where all eight velociraptors lay in a loose heap.
"That's convenient." Dr. Conners shrugged.
Gary leaned in to look. "Creepy."
"They were probably fleeing the gas cloud and got backed into this corner." Dr. Johnson stretched on a pair of rubber gloves and knelt beside the nearest raptor. "A little help here, Gary."
Gary knelt with Dr. Johnson and positioned the base of the tail to be examined.
After minutes of studying the specimen Dianna lifted her head and sighed. "There's nothing unusual here. She's definitely a female."
"I can't say the same for this fellow, Dianna." Dr. Conners was hunched over the body of another velociraptor.
"What?" Dr. Johnson turned to Bryce.
"Come and look for yourself." Dr. Conners leaned away from the body.
"Seriously?" Gary jumped to his feet and walked over. "It looks exactly like the other females."
"I know." Dr. Conners nodded. "It is a curious detail. This male that we engineered expresses no sexual dimorphism, whereas the ones that were bred naturally and escaped to the outside are clearly different."
"What are you thinking, Bryce?" Dr. Johnson was examining the raptor for herself now.
"I'm thinking its a major clue, but I'm not sure what it means yet." Doctor Conners got to his feet. "When we saw the problem manifest among the compsognathus and coelophysis communities we blamed it on simple human error. We assumed that somewhere in the process of engineering them a mistake was made. Dr. Wu's geneticists never did track down the error. Between the two species, they were bred in such large batches that it made the task an arduous and meticulous feat to begin with." Dr. Conners furrowed his brow. "It seems clear that these raptors are the source of our rogue clan. In which case there ought to be a nest. We'll have to search the entire enclosure."
By the time Dr. Conners was finished speaking Dianna had gone around to the other six raptors and examined them as well. "Three of our eight females are not what they appear to be."
"That means we could potentially be looking at a minimum of five clutches of eggs." Dr. Conner's face grew serious.
"Right." Dianna agreed. "As for the nests, I think I know where to start looking."