CHAPTER 99
Hector had been up all night patrolling the grounds. Come sunrise he was resting on the front steps of the main operations building. Gary, Dr. Conners and a few other locals were also there. Nobody had slept, and everyone looked tired.
Hector looked at his empty liquor bottle and shrugged. "Shit, I guess it's time for a coffee. Eh, Humberto?"
The local squatting next to him was carving a stick to a sharp point with his pocket knife. His face was meditative. He did not avert his attention or offer a change in facial expression as he answered, "si."
Humberto was quiet and rarely showed emotions of excitement, intrigue, or happiness. He was young, just over eighteen, but was known for possessing the most ingenuity among the bunch. Between him and Hector they were also the most well versed in English.
As the morning sun was growing brighter Humberto unhooked a pair of mirrored aviator sunglasses from his teeshirt collar and placed them over his eyes. As he bowed his head back to the stick he was whittling the brim of his baseball cap hovered down around his face in such a way that made him seem to have vacated the premises all together.
On another part of the steps Gary and Dr. Conners were looking over the file that had come from Dr. Wu. Dr. Conners had mentioned nothing of impending corporate conspiracies. As things were, he didn't want to involve any more people than he already had.
Gary was saying, "this is incredible. I mean, its almost kind of like time travel, right? We cloned a species of dinosaur that didn't appear in the fossil record, and now here it is. They found it." Gary continued to turn the pages in the file. "So, who gets to name it? I'm just saying, technically we did find it first."
Dr. Conners said, "I don't think the paleontology community would be quite fond of the bland string of numbers, letters, and dashes that Dr. Wu assigned it."
Gary handed the folder back to Dr. Conners. "I've just been calling her humungosaurus. I vote for that."
Dr. Conners chuckled, "Yeah, I don't think they'd ever name it something so absurdly juvenile as that either."
The unnamed theropod was a large carnivore that rivaled tyrannosaurus rex in size. Though to the untrained eye they appeared to be similar beasts their likeness was no more close than a dog to a cat. The two hunters sported very obvious variances in their features. Even the shape of their teeth was different, which meant that the style in which they killed and ate their prey was not the same.
The steps crackled with noise as everyone's walkie talkies came on. "Hey, guys." It was Carrie Bolton.
Hector was the first to pick up his radio. "Si?"
"Can you go over to the main gate? I need you to check something for me."
"¿Que pasa?"
"I can't really tell. There's something in the trees, but the branches are obscuring it from the cameras. I need you to just go over there and check it out."
By this point Dr. Conners and Gary were hovering next to Hector. They had both picked up on the tone of concern in Carrie's voice.
Hector responded, "Si, Ms. Bolton."
He clipped the radio to his belt and shouldered a shotgun. With a small wave he motioned for Humberto to accompany him. As Dr. Conners followed with Gary tailing close behind Hector said, "Let's see, Amigo."