CHAPTER 283
Marty Guiterrez sat in the first seat in a short row of seats that went along the right side of the chopper. On the opposite wall there was an equal amount of mirroring chairs. Aside from this handful of seats that were positioned up near the cockpit the rest of the fuselage was more or less barren.
Marty's knees were shaking. He was sweating profusely, and his skin was turning pale. He took his glasses off and mashed his hands against his face. Rubbing his temples, his fingers traveled up through his hair. In a splash of sweat the glasses went back on, and he breathed into his fists.
"You ok?" Diego had plopped down into the seat next to Marty.
"No," Marty answered while scratching obsessively at his beard. "Do I look ok?"
"No."
"Well, at least that adds up."
Arby sat down next to Diego and said, "you know you don't have to go, Dr. Guiterrez."
Marty's knees shook even harder. "And stay on this boat. No thank you. Ten weeks later they'd find my body parts hacked up in a shipping container in Singapore."
Arby felt someone sit down next to him. He turned. It was Baselton. Arby mouthed the word, "shit," and then realized he'd done it right to Baselton's face, though to his relief it seemed the foible had gone unnoticed. Arby was in the midst of making a mental note that he should really make an effort to stop mouthing out his thoughts involuntarily when he realized Baselton was already talking at him.
"Hi!" George's face was bright with a corporate kind of friendliness.
Arby turned to Diego. "Trade seats with me."
"No. I good, Arby."
"Damn it, Diego. What are we paying you for?"
"To carry the bags, Arby. Baselton is no my job."
Arby leaned past Diego, but Marty cut him off before he could even ask.
"Not a chance in hell, Arby."
"Damn." Arby leaned back in his seat only to have a fistful of dry beef sticks waving in his face.
"Slim Jim?" Baselton grinned.
Arby shook his head.
"No? I've got Cheetos."
As Baselton reached into the pocket of his blazer the Slim Jims scattered to the floor.
"Fiddlesticks!" He rolled his eyes. "Clumsy me."
While he was crouched out of his seat to gather them Kelly seated herself on the other side of Baselton with a frown.
"What the hell is up with this guy?" she mouthed over his back at Arby.
Arby shook his head and sighed into the air. As he sat there he started to look almost as ill as Marty.
"What's wrong?" Kelly said.
"What do you mean, what's wrong? We should be going home. That's what's wrong. We sure as hell shouldn't be doing this! That's what's wrong."
"You're not the least bit excited? Or curious?"
"I'm exhausted. On top of which, this could be dangerous. Has that ever occurred to you?"
"Dangerous?"
"Yeah, dangerous. You saw that thing on the beach. I know it was rotted to hell, but it was pretty obvious it was some kind of dromaeosaurid. And not the little turkey sized ones either, the big enough to rip out your intestines with one stroke of its claws kind."
The look on Kelly's face showed a glimmer of the notion of danger and how it hadn't crossed her mind until that moment, but she didn't let it sink in very far. "Arby, you're worrying too much. You're blowing it out of proportion. You always do. This is what we've been looking for this whole time."
"Not exactly."
"Well, what did you think it was going to be? Even if we had found an actual "Lost World" what were you expecting? There were going to be dinosaurs, little ones, big ones, docile ones, aggressive ones, all kinds of ones, and where there's prey there's predators."
Baselton popped back up on his seat between them. He was facing Arby. "So that thing you found on the beach, it's the same as the one in the photograph?"
"Maybe," Arby shrugged.
"Cheeto?" George ripped the bag open.
Arby shook his head.
"Cheeto?" George had turned to Kelly.
She shook her head.
George tilted the bag at his mouth and rattled in a few. Through a crunch he said, "veloci-r-ra-"
"Velociraptor?" Arby raised an eyebrow.
"Sure." George crunched. "Dodgson said something like that. Those claws. My God! Kids are going to go nuts over that one. I can't wait to see what else there is."
Kelly narrowed her eyes at him. "George, what exactly is Biosyn going to do with these animals?"
A shadow fell over the three of them, and they looked up. Dodgson was standing there. He was no longer in a suit, but rather had changed into a pair of casual slacks and a button down, much the same as Howard King was dressed. Dodgson had a grin on his face that made Kelly and Arby's skin crawl. It looked like he was trying to appear friendly while at the same time wanted to gleefully murder them.
Through his grin Dodgson said, "these creatures are going to provide an exciting and bright future not just for the Biosyn corporation but for all of humanity. However, as I was explaining to George just a moment ago, any discussion of that would be premature until we have the assets securely back at our facility in Cupertino."
Dodgson's eyes honed in on Baselton with an underlying scowl.
George shrank a little in his seat.
Dodgson stabbed his eyes at him a bit further and then said, "George, why don't you come and sit on the other side of the chopper and give our friends some space."
George's eyes darted around self consciously, and he clenched the bag of Cheetos closed in his fist. Cheese powder clung to his lips and scattered down his blazer like a light dusting of orange snow.
"Sure, Lew." Baselton's dejected expression channeled the energy of a sad lonely puppy. He hoisted himself up and traversed to the other side of the aircraft.
Dodgson let his chilling grin linger over Kelly and Arby for a few more seconds before following Baselton.
Arby leaned over to Kelly and whispered, "does it bother anyone else that that guy smiles just like The Joker?"
Kelly was going to respond, but another shadow fell over them.
"Mr. Benton?" Dr. Levine was motioning for Arby to move aside so she could sit down.
As Arby shifted to his own seat Dr. Levine scrunched her face at a littering of Cheeto crumbs in the chair.
"Uhk." She brushed them away before sitting down. "What a vile pig."