Chương 13: Indominus Rex (13)

Over the past year, Isla Nublar had gradually opened to the public. As visitor numbers rose and the population of herbivorous dinosaurs increased, Susan found it almost impossible to make time for the old sector. She was forced to travel constantly between feeding stations throughout the new park. Asset was therefore left in exile within a forgotten kingdom. The only voice that "interacted" with her each day was the park's public-address system. It came from somewhere far away, created to maintain order.

Mixed with the clamor of human voices, it repeated the same instructions so often that the words began to sound distorted.

"Ladies and gentlemen, it is now seven a. m., San José time. The park's breakfast facilities are open. We hope you and your family enjoy your meal."

"The park tour train will be departing shortly. Please prepare to board… In just a moment, we will enter the Triceratops habitat…"

"Ladies and gentlemen, it is now twelve noon, San José time. The park's lunch facilities are open. We hope you enjoy your meal. If you feel unwell after leaving the carnivore sector, complimentary vomit bags are available at the central convenience store." Occasionally, the speakers played popular music, but most of the broadcasts consisted of weather reports.

"Hurricane Seth will make landfall on the western coast of Costa Rica at eighteen hundred hours tonight. Isla Nublar will be affected. This is not a drill. All personnel must begin evacuation procedures and reinforce the park's dinosaur enclosures immediately." The storm arrived that night, exactly as predicted. Gale-force winds howled, and rain poured from the sky. Beneath the flashes of lightning, the forest wailed like a host of ghosts. Even the electric fence emitted a teeth-grating creak. Thunder exploded.

A deathly white arc split the sky. Water streamed from the broad leaves and spilled across Asset's silver-gray hide. She first raised her head and watched the unending curtain of rain. Then she emerged from her shelter and headed toward the edge of the enclosure in search of a particular plant. From her observations, she knew that the plant became sticky when wet and could easily be worked into a lather. She had discovered it entirely by accident.

After another storm, the plant's dripping sap had collected into a small puddle. While wandering through the enclosure, Asset had stepped directly into it. By pure chance, the foam rising from the puddle dissolved the bloodstains on her hind leg. That was how she discovered its use, and ever since then, she had used the plant to clean herself on rainy nights. Tonight was no different. Asset stood beneath the tree and allowed the sticky sap to drip over her.

Then she extended her claws and swung her tail, whipping the sap into foam and washing away the crusted blood and dried mud clinging to her body. The rain carried every trace of filth away. Her silver-gray hide looked new again, gleaming with a metallic sheen. It felt wonderful. Asset stretched her neck in satisfaction and was just about to throw back her head and roar— Then every alarm inside her mind erupted at once. Adrenaline flooded her body.

It felt as though an immensely powerful predator had fixed its gaze upon her. The prickling sensation across her scalp filled her with terror. What was happening? Her mind had not yet processed the danger, but her body had already reacted. She launched herself away from the spot. Yet no animal's instinct for natural disaster could compete with the power of nature itself. In the next instant, lightning descended from the sky. BOOM! It struck the exact place where Asset had been bathing.

The tree, the flowing water, the ground, and Asset's body formed a complete electrical circuit. Lightning exploded throughout the area. Scattered arcs twisted into deadly lines, like Satan's outstretched claws closing around the young dinosaur's life. Asset did not even have time to cry out. The current plunged her vision into darkness, and she struck the ground with a heavy thud. Had she not regularly trained herself with electric shocks, she would probably have died on the spot.

So one should not stand beneath a tree or expose oneself to running water during a thunderstorm? She had certainly… learned something new. Agony filled her entire body. It took a long time before sensation gradually returned. Then, inch by inch, she dragged herself into one of the old transport cages that had once housed the velociraptors. Only after reaching shelter did she release a shaken breath. Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

That had been close. She had nearly died. After the hurricane, Isla Nublar lay in ruins. The park's operations manager assessed the losses: windows, protective barriers, trees and flowers, tunnels, attractions… The longer his calculations continued, the more distressed he became. He could practically see countless dollar bills sprouting wings and flying away, while he failed to catch a single one.

"According to the current figures, four Brachiosauruses, two Triceratops, two Dilophosauruses, and one Carnotaurus were killed by lightning last night. Nearly one hundred additional dinosaurs suffered injuries of varying severity."

"The electrical grid in the eastern sector failed. A subadult Allosaurus escaped its habitat and entered the Mamenchisaurus territory. Unfortunately, it did not survive. The herd had been panicked by the storm and trampled it to death."

"One of the western habitats was damaged. Three Stegosauruses are missing, but only one is still appearing on the tracking system." The operations manager made his decision with trembling hands.

"Effective immediately, the Isla Nublar dinosaur park is closed. Damn it! Why do these dinosaurs always hide beneath trees during thunderstorms? Don't they know that only makes them more likely to die?"

"Sir, they're dinosaurs. Living among trees is part of their nature."

"Damn it! Goddamn it! The park's enclosures need to be upgraded. At the very least, they need protection against lightning! My God, do you have any idea how much money we lose every time a dinosaur dies?" The operations manager clutched at his hair in frustration. Then, in the middle of his outburst, he abruptly stopped. His eyes narrowed.

"Contact those wealthy collectors. Find out whether any of them want dinosaur carcasses or skeletons, and make sure you drive up the price. Anything we can't sell can be dumped in the old sector. After all, there's a 'semi-automatic garbage disposal' living there." He paused.

"Wait. Is the electric fence in the old sector secure?" Fortunately, it was. After an entire night of violent weather, the old sector's electrical grid had not suffered the slightest damage. Once the staff confirmed that the second Asset was still alive inside the enclosure, they released a collective breath of relief. Then they used a large crane to lift the carcass of a Triceratops and lower it into the enclosure as the second Asset's lunch.

"Does it eat carrion?"

"Buddy, that Triceratops has been dead for less than twelve hours. I don't think it qualifies as 'rotting flesh.'""It won't eat spoiled meat," said another employee with more experience.

"It'll feed on the same carcass for three days at most. By the fourth day, it won't touch it. We once gave it a fully grown wildebeest. It didn't finish the carcass, and the island's rats and seabirds ate everything that remained." The Triceratops carcass reached the ground. The "Asset" emerged from the shadows. It seemed to be seeing the body of another dinosaur for the first time. It appeared fascinated and kept circling the carcass. After a while, it began testing the Triceratops's neck and back with its teeth.

Then it tried cutting through the skin with its claws. Only after a lengthy examination did it return to the neck and bite down again. This time, it tore through the flesh with ease, lowered its head, and began to feast.

"What was it doing just now?"

"Assessing the prey, probably. It has always had that particular 'dining habit,'" the experienced employee explained.

"It experiments on the carcass first so that the next living specimen will be easier to handle. Didn't you notice? It was testing which part of the Triceratops had the softest hide." Perhaps the "Asset's" hunting behavior appeared a little too intelligent. Their conversation gradually faded into silence. They observed it through the electric fence for a long time. Only when they were satisfied that it had not noticed them did they relax.

"But it's still only a dinosaur." Then they left. Asset ate dinosaur carcasses for an entire month. The bodies she received during the first week were at least mostly intact. Over the following weeks, however, her food consisted of severed pieces—chunks taken straight from cold storage and delivered before they had fully thawed. The meat nearly made her vomit. Unfortunately, her body seemed to crave dinosaur meat. Whenever she saw the frozen meat, she lunged for it as though she hadn't eaten in a month.

For a time, she could not understand her own tastes. Then, after half a month of eating dinosaur meat, she noticed how rapidly she was growing. The change was almost explosive. Only then did she realize that her body had made the correct choice. Her body knew what it needed in order to grow, and dinosaur flesh clearly contained some nutrient she required. For the sake of her development, Asset gradually became accustomed to its flavor.

Eventually, she even grew fond of it and began considering dinosaur meat her natural staple food. Then, one day after that first month, she noticed that meat from the same kind of dinosaur tasted different. Her body no longer responded to it with the same desperate hunger. What had changed? Asset was not the only one confused. Her current keepers had questions of their own. But before they could determine the reason, she discovered the truth.

Every dinosaur she had eaten during the first month had been killed by lightning. The dinosaurs delivered after that month had mostly died from disease. The flesh "processed" by lightning must have acquired some special form of "nutrition," causing her body to crave it intensely. The bodies of diseased dinosaurs, by contrast, were filled with viruses. Her body rejected them, and her appetite vanished accordingly. Still, Asset possessed exceptional control over her physical impulses.

Even though the diseased meat revolted her, she forced herself to bite into it and swallow its flesh along with the viruses it carried. The reason was simple. Disease was another part of her development. If she could overcome viruses that killed most other dinosaurs, the humans would have one less means of controlling her. In the end, she swallowed.

"Supervisor Pritt was right. It really is like a semi-automatic garbage disposal. It'll swallow almost anything."

"Don't you find a dinosaur like that terrifying? It's the only carnivore in the entire park that ate meat from diseased dinosaurs without dying. It even developed immunity. An adult Spinosaurus was exposed to the same thing and didn't survive."

"A juvenile has a stronger immune system than a fully grown Spinosaurus? How is that remotely reasonable?" It was clearly unreasonable. Yet it had happened. Perhaps that was why the laboratory had insisted on keeping the second Asset alive. They wanted to use it for experiments, collect blood samples, study its antibodies, and apply their findings to the first Asset so that their prized specimen would not die prematurely.

But judging by the laboratory's infrequent blood-collection schedule, the viruses inside the second Asset would have accumulated to an uncontrollable level by the time they finally came to draw another sample. No dinosaur other than Asset herself could withstand such a complex reservoir of pathogens. Not even the other member of her species.

"It doesn't seem like a dinosaur anymore. We're practically raising a monster."

"Oh, there's something I forgot to tell you. Pritt isn't the park's operations manager anymore. Apparently, he was selling dinosaur carcasses without authorization, and Dr. Wu caught him. I imagine he'll be spending the rest of his life in prison."

"The new operations manager will arrive on the island in a week. Claire Dearing… Yes, that Claire—the infamous workaholic." The keepers never spoke for very long, but every conversation contained an extraordinary amount of information. Asset deliberately slowed her eating and committed the most important details to memory. After she finished, the keepers recorded the duration of her meal, estimated how much meat she had consumed, and soon drove away.

Once they were gone, Asset did not continue eating the diseased dinosaur. Instead, she dragged its remains beneath a tree beside the pool and the electric fence. Ever since the lightning strike, her senses had become noticeably sharper. She could detect the salty, fishy scent of the sea in the air, and she understood that whenever the odor intensified, a storm was approaching. So she waited. She waited for the next thunderstorm. Asset intended to test her theory.

Would food transformed by lightning appeal more strongly to her body— Even if it came from a disease-ridden dinosaur that would otherwise be almost impossible to swallow?