“Sarah? It’s Doc.”
And the radio crackled. “Doc? I’ve had to stop for a minute”
“Why?” Thorne said.
Sarah Harding was stopped on the ridge road. Fifty yards ahead, she saw the tyrannosaur, going down the road away from her. She could see that he had Dodgson in his month. And somehow, Dodgson was still alive. His body was still moving. She thought she could hear him scream.
She was surprised to find she had no feeling about him at all. She watched dispassionately as the tyrannosaur left the road, and headed off down a slope, back into the jungle.
Sarah started the car, and drove cautiously forward.
At the computer console, Kelly flicked through video images, one after another, until finally she found it: a wooden dock, enclosed inside a shed or a boathouse, open to the air at the far end. The interior of the boathouse looked in pretty good shape; there weren’t a lot of vines and ferns growing over things. She saw a powerboat tied up, rocking against the dock. She saw three oil drums to one side. And out the back of the boathouse there was open water, and sunlight- it looked like a river.
“What do you think?” she said to Thorne.
“I think it’s worth a try,” he said, looking over her shoulder. “But where is it? Can you find a map?”
“Maybe,” she said. She flicked the keys and managed to get back to the main screen, with its perplexing icons.
Arby awoke, yawned, and came over to look at what she was doing. “Nice graphics. You logged on, huh?”
“Yeah,” she said. “I did. But I’m having a little trouble figuring it out.
Levine was pacing, staring out the windows. “This is all well and good,” he said, “but it is getting brighter out there by the minute. Don’t you understand? We need a way out of here. This building is single-wall construction. It’s fine for the tropics, but it’s basically a shack.”
“It’ll do,” Thorne said.
“For three minutes, maybe. I mean, look at this,” Levine said. He walked to the door, rapped it with his knuckles. “This door is just – ”
With a crash, the wood splintered around the lock, and the door swung open. Levine was thrown aside, landing hard on the floor.
A raptor stood hissing in the doorway.
A Way Out
Sitting at the console, Kelly was frozen in terror. She watched as Thorne ran forward from the side, throwing the full weight of his body against the door, slamming it hard against the raptor. Startled, the animal was knocked back. The door closed on its clawed hand. Thorne leaned against the door. On the other side, the animal snarled and pounded.
“Help me!” Thorne shouted. Levine scrambled to his feet and ran forward, adding his weight.
“I told you!” Levine shouted.
Suddenly there were raptors all around the store. Snarling, they threw themselves at the windows, denting the steel bars, pushing them in toward the glass. They slammed against the wooden walls, knocking down shelves, sending cans and bottles clattering to the floor. In several places, the wood began to splinter on the walls.
Levine looked back at her: “Find a way out of here!”
Kelly stared. The computer was forgotten.
“Come on, Kel,” Arby said, “Concentrate.”
She turned back to the screen, unsure what to do. She clicked on the cross in the left corner. Nothing happened. She clicked on the upper-left circle. Suddenly, icons began to print out rapidly, filling the screen.
“Don’t worry, there must be a key to explain it, Arby said. “We just need to know what – ”
But Kelly was not listening, she was pressing more buttons and moving the cursor, already trying to get something to happen, to get a help screen, something. Anvthing.
Suddenly, the whole screen began to twist, to distort.
“What did you do?” Arby said, in alarm.
Kelly was sweating. “I don’t know,” she said. She pulled her hands away from the keyboard.
It’s worse,” Arhy said. “You made it worse.”
The screen continued to squeeze together, the icons shifting, distorting slowly as they watched.
“Come on, kids!” Levine shouted.
“We’re trying!” Kelly said.