If you're expecting The Lost World, sorry to disappoint. I'll get to it.

Yes, this is a wide detour around canon, but I'll get there eventually. At least I did something fun with it.

[0000]

Nigel smashed that little cart like a pancake. Meat flipped into the air like bloody graduation caps. A couple slapped her in the face, which didn't make her especially happy. Truly impressive trajectory. If we'd been better friends, I would have proposed several experiments with propelling objects with a lever and fulcrum.

Sadly, Nigel preferred to stomp me into a little pancake shape. I rushed for the safety of the Visitor Center.

Nigel followed me up the stairs, long neck and head smashing through the hanging bits of glass and metal Rexy had left behind.

I tripped over a bowling ball, slipped on cleaning chemicals. My graceless performance resembled a Disney character learning to ice skate for the first time.

Nigel, still seeing red, bellowed and came crashing after me — I do mean crashing, too. She stumbled over pipes and bowling balls, her big heavy body demolishing the scaffolding, and what remained of those reconstructed dinosaur skeletons.

I rushed below the stairs, into a small theater containing some amusement park machinery with seats and a safety rail.

The moment I climbed up, a movie started: Mister Molecule, explaining how they extracted DNA from fossilized mosquitoes from somewhere. I immediately thought of Hammond's lucky cane, and wondered where it gone to.

Bummer about the loss of his company, too. I still wanted to ask him why he didn't let me watch The Prisoner.

I didn't get much out of the presentation except a twangy voice going "Diiinosaurs!" for at that moment, Nigel smashed some vital piece of A/V equipment. The rest of the program came out as a moan and ripped projector film.

Nigel smashed and bashed what she could, but couldn't fit into that tight space.

Before she could knock down some walls to give it another go, I bailed out of the `ride,' darting into a laboratory.

The first thing I encountered: A hatching station.

Babies! I squealed when I saw them.

Not sure how long they'd been there, but I found a couple Velociraptor infants, and a duck billed Parasaurolophus. The others, ummm, I guess the baby raptors got hungry. Anyway, couldn't resist picking them up and squeezing them to my chest. I found baby bottles in a cooler, feeding the raptors meat and the Parasaurolophus something I hoped to be milk.

Although Nigel couldn't fit her gargantuan body into the room, she had a long neck, and her head had been watching me.

I didn't know a Brontosaurus could make the "Aww" sound, but when Nigel noticed me feeding the little babies, the sound came out her mouth.

The sight seemed to diminish Nigel's rage somewhat, possibly due to her softball sized brain, for she backed out of the room, returning to the lobby.

I winced at the subsequent crashing sounds. It sounded like she'd brought the whole building down.

The lights remained on, so I fed the babies and wandered around looking at stuff.

The lab contained a lot of confusing equipment. I peeked into a couple microscopes (couldn't identify the squirming round things), watched the big refrigerator sized computers blinking and turning over reels of magnetic tape, poked at computers (all security locked). They had rows of locked cold cases containing vials of something, DNA, I guess, plus a bunch of chemicals in flasks, retorts and test tubes. Didn't know what any of it meant. I'd later find out someone stole a few of those vials, but what could I really do about it?

The lab connected to a board room with a long table and a bunch of projectors beaming pictures of the park onto the walls. Kind of a waste of electricity. Containers of ice cream melted at the far end, and someone had left a Jurassic Park lunch box and other promotional items at the other, in addition to a pile of manila folders full of boring business junk.

Oh, and a children's book entitled `How Do Dinosaurs Go to School.' I loved that one!

Doors led back out to the lobby.

Ummm...So, look, uh, I know I have witnesses about the whole `Front-of-the-Visitor-Center-Being-Demolished-by-the-T-Rex' thing, but I swear I had nothing to do with the staircase being demolished. Yes, I kinda brought a Brontosaurus into the facility, and yes I take part of the responsibility for the destroyed equipment in the A/V room, but c'mon, Nigel has to take some blame for the staircase. I wasn't even in the same room!

"Squee!" Splat! A Brontosaurus steak fell to the floor.

Zelda stood at the main stairs, giving me this lovestruck admiring look. "Awww!"

I bashfully showed her the babies.

Zelda made noises to the effect of "Stay right there, be back in a minute."

I stared in shock as she picked up the steak with her mouth and claws, lugging it off to the kitchen.

I looked outside. No steaks. "What? Really?"

My astonishment grew as I watched her open the kitchen door, drag the meat into the kitchen, open the freezer door.

Zelda, just a regular raptor female, had figured out how to not only open doors, but put away meat in cold storage! I guess she had a good teacher, huh?

"I love you!" I cried when she came back out.

The raptor speak she made in response meant she felt the same way about me, and I'd make an excellent father, though she felt the Parasaurolophus would grow up to be a very confused, flesh eating animal.

"Hey, I got a human brain. How are our kids not going to be weird?...Of course we didn't make these little cuties..."

A sudden shriek interrupted our moment.

"Cynthia!" I offered Zelda the infants. "Honey, can you hold these?"

She purred like she'd been waiting all day to cuddle them, so I thrust them into her open claws.

"Thank you, sweetie." I rushed downstairs.

I guess Zorro recovered from her tummy problems on her own, because I now found her growling and snapping at Cynthia's door.

Buttface clamped her teeth on the raptor's leg. Not terribly effective. Zorro only pulled her along.

I expected munch munch munch and no Cynthia. Instead the woman popped out her doorway bearing an electric fan and a large bowl of what appeared to be burning clumps of green manure.

The stuff smelled terrible, skunk-like odors filling the entire hallway and employee coffee area, wafting up the staircase. Great clouds of the stuff blew into Zorro's face.

I've never seen a dinosaur get high before.

Zorro's head rolled around, glassy eyed, like she'd just landed on Mars and didn't know where she was. She snorted, actually laughed.

Slowly, she moved her claws and bounced on her feet like an astronaut in space.

Cynthia gaped at her, suppressing giggles.

When I crept down the stairs to get a better look, I breathed in some of the stuff, and my vision got a little blurry.

Cynthia had changed clothing in my absence. I guess employees got rare one-off T-shirts, because her Jurassic Park logo shirt bore the image of a Stegosaurus instead of the classic T-Rex. The short shorts she wore, well, as a naked dinosaur, I don't know much about the rationale behind most human clothing (Coolie hats don't make sense to me either). I planned to ask her about the subject later. To be truthful, I kept making mental comparisons to chicken drumsticks.

"Quick!" she hissed to me. "Go get me some of those Brontosaurus burgers!"

I coughed, furrowed my eyebrow ridges, trying to focus. "Why?"

"Your friend is going to get the munchies, and I don't want her to start nibbling on me. Hurry up and get something!"

I rushed back upstairs, lickety split, slipped on cleaning stuff and fell on my butt.

The infants now slept in Zelda's arms. "Hello, handsome raptor," she chirped in raptor speak (Incidentally, sorry, but I can't really put our language into words. It's a lot of `Grrr Grrr Grrr Chirp Chirp' and other funny noises I can't figure out how to write — I don't know what letter they start with).

I waved. "Hello, beautiful. Still enjoying the babies?"

She smiled, rocking back and forth. "A little tired."

I nuzzled her. "I'm sorry. Be right back."

I fell on my butt again. I resolved to clean the floor sometime, but I don't know, in between the place already being trashed and it being a good way to stop predators...Plus I'd begun to learn how to skate.

I rushed a Brontosaurus steak out of the freezer, skiing across the floor until I reached the stairs.

"Honey, I just put that away," Zelda called after me, but I was already downstairs.

I deposited the meat beside Zorro and she immediately dove in.

Cynthia breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank you."

"Um, what's that burning stuff you got there?"

She reddened. "It's pot. Don't tell anyone, okay? It's not like I smuggled it in, it's growing all over the island if you know where to look. Like, in the field behind the building for example. I may or may not have helped it along a little. My brother has magazines."

Zorro gulped down the flood, then, looking very relaxed, rolled over on the carpet and giggled.

"I wouldn't breathe this stuff in too much. I need you to help me with this guy."

Zorro smiled and woozily waved to us.

"Seems harmless to me."

"Yeah, but if he gets the munchies again, he might snack on my foot or something."

"What do you propose we do with her?"

"I definitely think we should hog tie this guy. I got a jump rope, maybe some electrical cords or regular rope..."

I frowned. "Yeah, but what do with her after? We can't leave her tied up forever. She could chew through them."

Cynthia put her hands on her hips. "Okay...how about...locking her in one of these apartments?"

"Ummm...I guess that might work for a couple hours, but you know how my people figured out door handles and stuff. She might get out."

"There's always the Raptor Paddock..."

"She's kinda heavy. How would we get her over there?"

"There's a forklift in the lobby."

"Yeah, but there's a staircase down here. Also, my people got past the electric fencing on top of the paddock, and I don't know how we can safely lower her in, when I saw the thing they use to drop in cattle all shredded and torn up."

She groaned. "So what can we do, Ebert?"

"It's Albert, Cynthia. Albert."

Cynthia rolled her eyes. "Albert. Whatever. You shot down all my ideas. The only thing I can think of at this point is killing her. Either that, or leaving her to roam around and eat me. I really, really don't want to get disemboweled and eaten, Albert. Do you want me to get disemboweled and eaten?"

"No..." I tapped my chin thoughtfully. "And you're right, we don't want to resort to murder...If only we could somehow get her into my old room...of course we don't have a staircase now..."

Cynthia's eyes bugged out. "What? No staircase?" She scowled. "I thought I heard something banging around up there! What the hell did you do?"

"Me? Nothing! It was Nigel!"

Blank look. "Who's Nigel?"

"You know, the one hundred ton Brontosaurus that lives out by the lagoon?"

"And...Nigel...just randomly strolled into the lobby and broke the stairs."

"Well..."

She smacked her face. "Dammit, Ebert!"

"Albert."

"Whatever. You just had to piss off the wildlife." She took a few deep breaths to calm down. "Look, uh...there's a freight elevator, and maybe the guy left some of those tranquilizer darts upstairs. Maybe we can—oh how cute!"

Zelda had come down with the infants. Cynthia squealed and petted them. "Awww! Are these yours?"

I swallowed. "Ummm...In a manner of speaking? I and Zelda definitely intend to have physical relations, but so far have not yet consummated our union. I actually found these in a lab..."

She snickered. "Guess that answers my next question about your affair with the Parasaurolophus."

We both laughed. Even Zelda giggled, though I don't think she understood the joke.

I think we should have ventilated the area a bit more, because throughout our conversation, my head had gotten kind of swimmy.

Not sure what happened after that, I just know we all woke up in a...slumber party type situation.

Someone had spread cushions and pillows all over the floor in the employee break area. I lay curled up against Zelda's back, with Cynthia sandwiched between us. The woman pressed all close against me, arm and leg slung around my body, drooling on my neck.

Yeah, kinda weird. I guess she got really comfortable with me somehow.

I had my mouth around part of her head, tongue in her hair, but gentle, you know, like tasting ice cream.

Zorro snuggled close to me, head resting on my shoulder. She smelled of pot and diarrhea.

I had the baby Parasaurolophus and a baby raptor sleeping on my head (sorry, hadn't named them yet — had I?) Another dozed on Zelda's shoulder. Zelda herself cuddled Buttface like a teddy bear.

I groaned, rubbing my head. How did we not kill and eat each other?

My eyes focused, and the answer presented itself: A bunch of coffee tables had been pushed together, and on every surface, a smorgasbord had been piled up, burgers, loaded nachos, fries, tacos, pizza, ribs, brownies...

Okay, I know drug usage doesn't make me a good role model, but it's not my fault. Cynthia filled that whole hallway with pot. I couldn't really avoid it.

"Uh...Cynthia?"

She smiled, rubbing her face against my chest. "Mmmm hmmm?"

"What in the hell just happened?"

"I don't know. I was high." She drifted off for a moment. "Guess I didn't get eaten, huh?"

"Uh, yeah. Somebody cooked a bunch of food."

"Oh yeah!" Cynthia giggled, eyes still closed. "That Brontosaurus meat kicked ass! It was like deer or buffalo. Kinda gamey, but it was really good. You didn't eat any of those brownies, did you? I don't think animals like you are supposed to eat chocolate and coffee."

I stared at the brown crumbs on my chest and swallowed. "Uh...I don't think so. Important question: Did I or did I not have intimate relations with Zelda...whilst all this transpired?"

Cynthia furrowed her brow, rubbed her eyes. "Um...I think I would have remembered that. I'm kinda lonely and you guys smashed up my TV, so I really think I would have remembered." She rubbed her face. "Wait, no, take it back. That was an inside thought. You weren't supposed to hear that."

"Did I sleep with Zorro?"

"Poopy dinosaur?" she laughed. "Like I said, no."

Cynthia drifted off again. So did I.

I awoke to screaming.

And swearing.

The woman wiggled out from between me and Zelda, jumping onto the carpet.

6 meters. A pretty good jump!

"Where am I? What the hell is going on! Did I...What the eff did I just do?" She straightened her shirt and shorts. "I...didn't do anything inappropriate, did I?"

Zorro gave her a huge lazy yawn.

"Uh...I don't know. Things got kinda foggy. You ate a Brontosaurus burger and drooled on me." A music machine had been set up near the barista station, wordlessly playing I'm Just a Singer by The Moody Blues. I had a brief flashback of myself singing that song. "You might have sung karaoke. Did you cook all this stuff?"

She stared at the mess. "Looks like stuff I know how to cook...You don't cook, do you?"

"Not...well...Did you make rice?"

"Just because I'm Korean doesn't mean I eat rice all the time. I like tacos." Cynthia looked sideways and her jaw dropped. "Wait, is that Poopy Dinosaur?"

"I call her Zorro, you know, because of the eye markings."

"And she didn't try to kill us?"

"No ma'am. I think you got her pretty stuffed with all this...stuff."

Cynthia wrinkled her nose. "You think you can do me a favor?"

Challenging, to say the least: Coaxing Zorro into the shower of the neighboring apartment. It required a Bronto burger, all of us pushing her into the shower, me taking a shower first to demonstrate its safety. Zelda got jealous, thinking we were trying to make eggs, but I told her in raptor speak that we were just fighting.

"I want to fight in the shower with you!" she protested.

"We can do that later, honey." I poured a fruity herbal soap on Zorro, scrubbed her with a mesh sponge.

"Wow, that's too rough. I don't think I'd like that."

"Yeah..." I made the "She stinky" noise. "Bad smell."

Cynthia's hand raised, and something sharp poked into my rear flank. "Ow! Hey! What's the big idea?"

"Injecting the T-R-A-N-Q," she hissed. "What do you think I'm doing?"

I could just see it now, me knocked out next to the drain with Zorro, Cynthia waiting hours for me to regain consciousness so she could drug the correct dinosaur. "You're injecting it into the wrong fanny!"

"Then keep her s—" Cynthia slammed the dart into Zorro's hindquarters. Zorro yelped in protest, tried to bite her arm off, but I wrestled her away from my friend, and she slumped unconscious on the shower floor.

We let her get a little more clean under the spray. Cynthia shut off the nozzle.

"She's going to be really mad when she wakes up."

The woman shrugged. "That's why we gotta get her into your room."

"You could have done all that without the shower."

"Ebert, these are nice clean clothes. I don't want them smelling like poop." She sniffed her shirt and frowned. "Help me with this wet thing, okay?"

We wrapped Zorro in some blankets and sheets, dragging her across the carpet.

"You think about what to name the babies yet?" Cynthia grunted.

I tugged the blankets. "We didn't go over that when we were high and eating Bronto burgers?"

She fell silent in thought. We pulled Zorro into the hallway. "I think I suggested Huey, Dewey and Louie, but you said that would only be appropriate for a family of Parasaurolophuses."

"Hmmm. Maybe Edmond and Percy for the raptors, and Webbigail for the duck dinosaur."

Cynthia laughed. "Whatever. They're your babies."

I glanced around. "Is the freight elevator down here? Or are we lugging Zorro up the stairs?"

"Good Lord, no! Not the stairs! We got a regular elevator right around the corner from the laundry room." She nodded to the hallway behind us, and we kept dragging the blankets.

Zelda set the infants down next to Zorro, helping us pull.

"How are my names worse than what you suggested?"

"They're just old fashioned European names, like you pulled them out of some stuffy drawing room mystery."

I could smell the laundry room as we dragged Zorro past it, heard the soft `chock-chock' of the stuff scraping around in driers, the wet whooshing and squishing of the washers. "What's wrong with a drawing room mystery? I like Sherlock Holmes. I mean, I guess I could call them Leonardo and Michelangelo, but I kinda think that would be a copyright infringement and not very original."

We neared the elevator. Cynthia hit the up button. I found the delay a bit odd for an absolutely empty building, but I've been told they program those things that way, peak high traffic times and so forth. "You named your girlfriend Zelda."

"Zelda isn't green. She's an elf princess."

"Gee, you've put a lot of thought into this."

"Thank you."

Ding! The doors slid open.

The elevator sagged the moment we brought Zorro in. Cynthia scowled at the weight limit sign. "How much do you weigh?"

I shrugged. "I don't know, somewhere around one hundred pounds?"

She quietly mouthed calculations, but urged us to drag Zorro all the way in. Buttface panted and hopped in beside her.

Cynthia pushed 3 and the doors closed. A tight, uncomfortable fit. Oh, and we had to pull the blankets away from the door real quick before it shut.

The elevator groaned as it traveled upwards.

"We going to the lobby?"

She shook her head. "Too much work. The way I figure, we're a total of four hundred pounds. We should be okay without using freight."

The floor indicator changed to L.

"Cynthia, you got a Sat Phone?"

She scratched her head. "Why? Want to call a babysitter or something?...Oh wait, you missing Mr. Hammond already?"

I smirked a little, embarrassed. "Well, I do think I should thank him for the house keys at some point, but what about you? What if you break your leg or something?"

"Good Lord, Ebert! Don't burn bread!"

The door dinged open at the upstairs hallway. The moment we got out, the elevator made a snap and a thwip thwip sound, the car dropping down a foot. We all stared and sucked in our breath.

"Is it going to drop into the basement?"

"No, that only happens in movies. There's a metal thing that clamps down and catches it. The part that sucks is if you're caught inside and can't get out. Funny, I thought we were under five hundred pounds."

We pulled Zorro into the place between the control room and the little break room where I'd played Adventure of Link.

"So...returning to the question: What happens if you have a medical emergency?"

"Perish the thought!" Cynthia groaned. "Look, we all get Sat Phones when we work here. It's expensive, so we try to keep the calls short, or use the radio instead."

"You think I could borrow it sometime?"

"Honestly? I need it more than you..." We lifted and dragged a few more yards. "Okay, I guess it wouldn't hurt to test the thing out to make sure it's working..."

She stopped at the door to my cell, giving me an expectant look.

"What?"

"You know what, Ebert! Open it up!"

I shrugged. "How?"

"You...don't have a key."

"I only got out because of the power failure."

Cynthia slapped herself in the face. "So you're telling me we lugged this guy all the way up here for no good reason?"

"Well, I guess we could go into the control room and open the doors that way, but I don't know, all the computers downstairs were password protected." Zorro grunted and snorted, wiggling her claws. "How long does that stuff take to wear off?"

"Hell if I know."

In our defense, we both were still recovering from the cannabis.

"Do you know for a fact they're locked?"

"Well, no..."

"Poopysaurus is already up here. The least we can do is try the computers...stay here."

I did what Cynthia said, and watched Zorro twitch while the woman...tried a locked door.

"Ebert! Get over here!"

I glanced nervously at Zorro, wondering when she'd be awake enough to run away. "Zelda, honey, can you watch and make sure Zorro doesn't move?"

My girlfriend made a confused sound, both about the instructions, and something to the effect of "We inhaled pot, ate and literally slept together, this seems unnecessary."

"I know, but Cynthia is afraid."

Zelda nodded. "I will watch."

I jumped through a broken control room window, letting Cynthia in.

She pulled a chair up to a computer, frowning at the overturned tables, the spilled liquids, the scattered stuff from the desks. "Why's it such a mess in here?"

"Long story."

We spent a good ten to twenty minutes trying to figure out how to make that computer work.

Well, she did, at any rate. I already told you about the unusual arrangements they made for my personal computing needs. I mostly kept going back to check on Zorro, to make sure we didn't need another dose of tranquilizer.

Every time Cynthia tried to log in the computer, a cartoon of the Nedry guy said "Ah ah ah! You didn't say the magic word."

"Did you try typing please?" I suggested.

"Why would that work?" She typed it in, just to prove a point. "That would just be—"

Cynthia scrunched up her face when a series of menus appeared on the monitor. "Stupid."

It took a few minutes, and changing computers a few times, but she found the locking controls to my cell. "All right, Ebert. It's open. Hurry up and get Poopysaurus into the cage."

"Um," I stammered. "She's kinda heavy. I don't know if—"

"Ebert, excuse me, Albert, I can't simultaneously work these controls and help you move Poopysaurus. I mean, what would happen if the door locked while we're all inside? You're strong, you got your girlfriend to help you, just pace yourself and you'll get it."

She did kinda have a point. I rushed back to my cell, where the green `Go' light showed on the security pad.

I opened the door, set about the awkward business of wedging it open and dragging Zorro into the little hallway beyond. I and Zelda took turns lifting and dragging the blankets, pushing Zorro's body along with our shoulders and heads. Buttface tried to help, but her `aid' consisted of chewing on the blankets and tugging in the opposite direction. I scolded her, but she kept on doing it. We still got inside the door.

I pried the inner door open. The moment we got Zorro partway in, her eyelids popped wide open, and she squawked at us. "Hey! What's the big idea?" She squirmed, doing half sit-ups as she prepared to bolt out of there.

Honestly, not the most insurmountable problem. The outer security door had clicked shut, so none of us could get out. We could just herd her into the next room. Still, I didn't want a fight.

Cynthia had left a tranquilizer dart for her on the blanket. I quickly snatched it up and stabbed Zorro in the thigh.

Out like a light. We got her into the observation room.

Still a mess. Staff had left the trash scattered on the floor. Guess you couldn't blame them, with the hurricane and all. I moved Zorro to my cell door, propped it open, and in went Sleeping Beauty's upper body.

My TV only showed snow. I guess something happened at the station.

"Honey, hold that door—" I warned as Zelda pushed the rest of Zorro across the threshold.

Click. I stared in frustration at the locked door. "Bullocks."

I pressed my face against the observation window. "Cynthia!" I pushed the intercom button. "A little help?"

No answer.

I pounded the glass with my fists, pushed the intercom. "Hello!" The button mainly amplified my voice into the observation booth. "Cynthia!"

I faced the closed circuit television camera, scowling when I realized that only Hammond (and maybe Wu) watched that camera, from a different room. The unethical raptor-with-a-human-brain thing was supposed to be kept a secret.

A reddish tint flushed behind Zelda's scales after she tried the door. "You dumb head! You have locked us in a cage!"

"Me? You're the one who didn't prop the door open!" I took some deep breaths to calm down.

"This is not my fault! It is yours!"

Well, I still loved her, so I knew I had to eat some humble pie, admit guilt, even if it wasn't completely mine. "Okay, okay. Fair's fair. It's a mistake. Let me fix this." I put my claws on my hips, examining my computer.

Again, limited communication. I could contact non-existent kitchen staff with food orders, or send Hammond or Wu messages.

Oh, and I had the Batphone.

I rubbed my chin. Never really figured out the location of the other end of the line.

I pushed dial, hoping it wouldn't be like that episode of The Twilight Zone with the downed telephone line in the cemetery, or a serial killer from a scary movie.

"Oh thank God!" a voice cried. "This is Cynthia Yu, I work for Jurassic Park and I'm still on The Island. I'm in the Visitor Center control room, the T-Rex and raptors are loose! I got three of them caged—"

"Um, about that..." I stammered.

"...Ebert? What the hell are you doing on this phone?"

"Uh...I call it the Batphone. Me and Mr. Hammond use it to talk to—"

She hung up.

"That was rude."

"You dimwit, you have locked us in this cell!" Zelda repeated.

I sighed. "I know, babe. Would you let me work on it?"

I booted up my computer, searching for some access to the door locking system.

Nope. Pretty basic. I just had a `chat' box at the bottom of my desktop, for Hammond and Wu. Zelda shrieked and battered the triple reinforced windows.

Her dramatics made the infants cry. I cuddled them to my chest, making consoling sounds. "Honey, I already tried that. A lot."

She kept banging around. She even knocked over my bookcases and broke my Master Splinter toy."

"Honey!" I took a deep breath. "Never mind. Get it out of your system."

I showed the babies my other dolls, my Audubon Society Pocket Guide to Familiar Dinosaurs ("Hey look! This Dilophosaurus has no neck fins!").

Crash! There went my TV. No more shows...or static. No Nintendo, for that matter.

"How can you so calmly accept this imprisonment?" Zelda shouted.

"Been at it awhile."

I brought Percy, Edmund and Webbigail together, reading from E. Nesbitt's Phoenix and the Carpet. I only got halfway into the part where they're watching The Water Babies and the theater burns down when my hard drive and computer crashed to the floor, the monitor developing a nice ugly crack across the middle. I doubted any of it would work again.

You know how I smashed those Nintendos?..."I should be furious, but actually...that was totally hot." I translated this into raptorese.

"I'm still mad at you," she growled back, but a smirk crept up her face.

Beep. Clonk.

Beep. Clonk.

Beep!

Cynthia propped the door to the observation booth open with a fossilized dinosaur egg (clonk!) plopping her butt down on the bench next to the window.

I and Zelda rushed to the glass.

"How'd you get in here? I thought you said you had to stay in the control room."

"There's a delay before it locks again. As long as I prop the doors open with something, it's good to go. It would be nice to find a security badge so I don't trigger an alarm, but I haven't found one yet."

"Okay, look. We got Zorro in here, but she's about to wake up."

She rolled her eyes. "I know."

"Okay, so, me and my girlfriend are not people eaters. You can let us out."

Cynthia just gave me a look like a boss who's about to fire somebody. "How about `No'?"

I laughed like this were a gag. "C'mon! We're friends! We had a party last night!"

"Some friends! You stuck my head in your mouth."

"I was high! You drooled on me! It got all weird for everyone! I don't eat my friends, okay? Especially if we don't smoke anything! I just saved a bunch of humans the other day, doesn't that count for something?"

Cynthia rubbed her eyes. "Full disclosure: You trashed my apartment. I take Hammond's place, and you live here. It's only fair. You stay here with your friends. I promise I'll stop by and visit you every day, and bring food and water."

"Yeah, but you could be anywhere on the island! You could be miles away! And what if something happens?"

"Relax. I got my Sat Phone and radio. I'll try to get someone to help out."

Zelda squawked at her, to the effect of "I'm smarter than him. Let me out!"

I expected the meaning of those noises to be lost on Cynthia, but she answered, "Sorry, girl. If I make an exception for you, I'll have to make an exception for everybody. Plus Ebert can't take care of those babies by himself."

Zelda growled that I could.

Cynthia shook her head. "Nope. Sorry."

"Cynthia!" I pressed a fist against the glass, trying to keep my temper in check. "What if that T-Rex or Moriarty comes by and disembowels you?"

"I'll keep a low profile."

I slapped my face. "Or you could be dead! And you'll have five dead raptors and their babies on your hands!"

Her expression got very stern, eyes narrow, mouth like a little line. "Bye, Ebert. See you tomorrow."

Cynthia got up, marching to the door.

"But Cynthia! You need somebody to watch your back!"

"I said bye!" she slammed the door shut.

I gazed dejectedly at the locked door. "That went well!"

Zorro groaned, rolled over, and slowly rose to a standing position. She shook her whole body like a dog.

The moment our eyes met, she bared her fangs and shrieked. "You! Asshole! I'm going to kill you!"