“Somebody’s opened these doors recently,” Eddie said.
“Yes,” Thorne said. “Somebody wearing Asolo boots.” He opened the door. “Shall we?”
They stepped into the building. Inside, the air was hot and still and fetid. The lobby was small and unimpressive. A reception counter directly ahead was once covered with gray fabric, now overgrown with a dark, lichen-like growth. On the wall behind was a row of chrome letters that said “We Make The Future,” but the words were obscured by a tangle of vines. Mushrooms and fungi sprouted from the carpet. Over to the right, they saw a waiting area, with a coffee table, and two long couches.
One of the conches was speckled with crusty brown mold; the other had been covered with a plastic tarp. Next to this couch was what was left of Levine’s green backpack, with several deep tears on the fabric. On the coffee table were two empty plastic Evian bottles, a satellite phone, a pair of muddy hiking shorts, and several crumpled candy-bar wrappers. A bright-green snake slithered quickly away as they approached.
“So this is an InGen building?” Thorne said, looking at the wall sign.
“Absolutely,” Malcolm said.
Eddie bent over Levine’s backpack, ran his fingers along the tears in the fabric. As he did so, a large rat jumped out from the pack.
“Jesus!”
The rat scurried away, squeaking. Eddie looked cautiously inside the pack. “I don’t think anybody’s going to want the rest of these candy bars,” he said. He turned to the pile of clothes. “You getting a reading from this?” Some of the expedition clothes had micro-sensors sewn into them.
“No,” Thorne said, moving his hand monitor. “I have a reading, but…it seems to be coming from there.”
He pointed to a set of metal doors beyond the reception desk, leading into the building beyond. The doors had once been bolted shut and locked with rusted padlocks. But the padlocks now lay on the floor, broken open.
“Let’s go get him,” Eddie said, heading for the doors. “What kind of a snake do you think that was?”
“I don’t know.”
“Was it poisonous?”
“I don’t know.”
The doors opened with a loud creak. The three men found themselves in a blank corridor, with broken windows along one wall, and dried leaves and debris on the floor. The walls were dirty and darkly stained in several places with what looked like blood. They saw several doors opening off the corridor. None appeared to be locked.
Plants were growing up through rips in the carpeted floor. Near the windows, where it was light, vines grew thickly over the cracked walls. More vines hung down from the ceiling. Thorne and the others headed down the hallway. There was no sound except their feet crunching on the dried leaves.
“Getting stronger,” Thorne said, looking at his monitor. “He must be somewhere in this building.”
Thorne opened the first door he came to, and saw a plain office: a desk and chair, a map of the island on the wall. A desk lamp, toppled over from the weight of tangled vines. A computer monitor, with a film of mold. At the far end of the room, light filtered through a grimy window.
They went down the hall to the second door, and saw an almost identical office: similar desk and chair, similar window at the far side of the room.
Eddie grunted. “Looks like we’re in an office building,” he said.
Thorne went on. He opened the third door, and then the fourth. More offices.
Thorne opened the fifth door, and paused.
He was in a conference room, dirty with leaves and debris. There were animal droppings on the long wooden table in the center of the room. The window on the far side was dusty. Thorne was drawn to a large map, which covered one whole wall of the conference room. There were pushpins of various colors stuck in the map. Eddie came in, and frowned.
Beneath the map was a chest of drawers. Thorne tried to open them, but they were all locked. Malcolm walked slowly into the room, looking around, taking it in. “What’s this map mean?” Eddie said. “You have any idea what the pins are?”