Chương 15: Indominus Rex (15)

The weather was turning colder. It was time to store fat again. Just as squirrels gathered nuts, beavers reinforced their lodges, and elk grew thicker coats, Asset had her own way of preparing for winter. In previous years, her appetite had always increased dramatically once late autumn arrived. Perhaps it was an animal's instinctive anxiety about the season of scarcity. Perhaps the dinosaur genes within her carried an ancient fear of the Ice Age.

Whatever the reason, she would unconsciously consume enormous quantities of meat and spend two months accumulating fat. Even though the old sector's meat supply had never been interrupted, she never felt that she had eaten enough. She always wanted more. Fortunately, Isla Nublar lay off the southwestern coast of Costa Rica. Under the influence of its tropical climate, the island had no winter in the traditional sense. Its seasons were divided by rainfall into wet and dry periods.

The wet season came in summer and the dry season in winter. Although temperatures fell somewhat, the overall change was minor. Even so, animals had their own thresholds for sensing winter. When their genes said it was time to prepare for the cold, their bodies obeyed. Once the body began preparing, the mind followed. Having experienced this twice before, Asset calmly waited for her "biological season" to arrive. Unexpectedly, the humans increased her food supply—but her appetite failed her. She appeared to be ill.

Not only could she no longer eat, but her energy had also fallen alarmingly low. She stopped basking in the sun. She stopped touching the electric fence. She no longer played in the water or struck the boulder. Every day, she merely lay curled inside her hiding place, unwilling to move or interact. Even when Susan visited, Asset refused to emerge.

"Good girl, are you sick?" On the third day after Asset stopped eating, Susan ran out of options and called the laboratory personnel. To her surprise, Dr. Wu arrived in person with a collection of equipment. He directed the staff as they erected tents and assembled a temporary laboratory. His orders were not to disturb the "Asset," but merely to observe it around the clock.

"Dr. Wu, she's sick," Susan reminded him cautiously.

"Seriously sick. She can't eat anything. If you only watch without treating her, she'll die." Henry lowered his binoculars and answered lightly.

"Don't worry. It's perfectly healthy."

"Its skin has merely changed color, it can no longer see, and it hasn't eaten in three days." Before Susan's expression could change completely, Henry ended the grim joke and gave her the correct explanation.

"These are symptoms displayed by snakes before shedding their skin. The Asset is no different. That is the stage it has entered."

"A snake?" Susan murmured. Dr. Wu revealed nothing further. He instructed the mercenaries beside him to escort Susan away, then returned his attention to the observation. With the help of advanced imaging equipment, the second Asset's body soon appeared on the monitors. It lay "weakly" in the shadows. Its once silver-gray hide had become dry and deathly pale. Its golden-brown slit pupils were cloudy and lifeless.

A thin "shell" was beginning to rise from the scales covering its eyes, becoming more distinct by the moment.

"Increase the humidity," Henry ordered. A researcher raised a water cannon, and rain began to fall over the enclosure. Sensing the increased moisture in the air, the "Asset" finally moved out of hiding and allowed the water to soak its body. Snakes required suitable humidity and temperature to shed their skin. Apparently, so did it. While recording the new data, Dr. Wu instructed his assistants, "Do not miss a single frame. Every change it undergoes is critical."

If he remembered correctly, its first shedding had occurred inside the laboratory and had not lasted long. Afterward, its body had grown noticeably larger, and its appetite had doubled. Losing the old skin had also removed its scars and parasites, providing exactly the same benefits a snake received from shedding. Now its second shedding was taking place in the old sector, almost three years after the first. What changes would follow this time? One thing, at least, was certain.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. The Asset had integrated its serpentine genes almost perfectly. It had practically "devoured" the advantages of a snake without inheriting the weaknesses. If it could shed its skin periodically like a snake and grow a little larger each time, then in theory, it could continue growing until the day it died. That was how snakes developed. They shed repeatedly and continued growing.

Only the end of their lives stopped the process. If so, the second Asset had no such thing as a "fixed adult size." If it lived long enough, it might reach unimaginable proportions. Several researchers had clearly reached the same conclusion. Unlike the unruffled doctor, however, they appeared deeply uneasy.

"Dr. Wu… how large could it eventually become?"

"I don't know." Henry spread his hands.

"Some information isn't secret within this laboratory. You already know that I incorporated genes from deep-sea species when I created them. Those genes were intended to support bodies capable of continuous growth." Deep-sea creatures might be bizarre in appearance, but many could grow to enormous proportions. They were true giants. Octopuses in particular had inspired the legend of the Kraken, a creature feared by generations of sailors.

Over the following centuries, people had dismissed it as little more than a myth, stripping it of its mystery. But when Dr. Wu added octopus genes to a new species specifically to enhance its growth, the implication changed completely— In a sense, science was beginning to prove certain myths in reverse.

"Whether it breaks through the limitations of its genes or dies when those genes collapse," Henry said, "I look forward to either outcome." Meanwhile, after standing in the rain long enough, Asset felt as though a membrane covering her body had begun to split. Her skin itched terribly, as though swarms of ants were biting her. Unable to endure it, she dropped onto her side and rubbed herself violently against the ground.

Just as a snake crawled over rough surfaces to help strip away its old skin, Asset pressed herself against the sharp edges of the rocks and scraped along them, using the external force to tear away broad sheets of dead skin. Once the sharp edges had been worn smooth, she rose and rammed herself against the trees, rubbing against the bark as she circled their trunks. During the process, she covered her face with one claw.

The hooked tips caught a thin membrane and peeled it away from her neck to the back of her skull, then from her eye scales to the tip of her snout. The membrane hung intact from her claws. The cloudy layer fell away from her eyes. Suddenly, she could see with astonishing clarity. She could follow the path of every raindrop falling from the sky. They seemed to descend at less than half their normal speed, and she felt certain she could catch each one precisely.

She could see the veins spreading through every leaf and the layer of tiny water droplets covering its surface. An insect unfolded its wings atop one of those droplets, and every strand of hair around its hind legs was perfectly distinct. She could clearly see every person standing a hundred yards away—their expressions, their eyes, and every movement they made. She could even identify the color of the liquid inside a test tube on a storage rack and count the bubbles forming within it.

It was as though she were seeing the entire world clearly for the first time. She became completely absorbed in the novelty of the experience.

"What's it doing?"

"Perhaps it's getting to know itself all over again?" someone joked.

"The first time I experienced the changes of puberty, I screamed on the toilet. I thought I was going to bleed to death."

"…Isn't sex education taught in elementary school? Didn't your teachers or parents explain any of that?"

"Unfortunately, I'm from Texas. You should know that the state favors abstinence-only education. The law doesn't require schools to teach children about these things, so…"

"Well, that's unfortunate. You must have been terrified." Just like the "Asset" appeared to be now. Unfortunately, humans and dinosaurs did not share the same perspective. Asset had already shed once before. She knew what it meant and felt no fear whatsoever. She casually tore away the remaining skin, then remained beside the discarded hide and refused to move. She knew that after making such elaborate preparations, the humans would never leave empty-handed.

They would inevitably want to take her old skin away for research. And there was only one way to retrieve something from beneath her claws— They would have to tranquilize her. Before long, Asset got exactly what she wanted. Only this time, her "sleep" was even shorter. Half a month later, Susan arrived in the old sector with two other keepers. They carried several brightly colored plastic buckets and brought a cart loaded with chopped raw meat.

"This is insane! They genuinely want to put her into the public feeding attraction!" Susan looked furious. She picked up one of the plastic buckets and stared at it in disbelief.

"They want us to divide the chopped meat among these buckets and take turns feeding her until she becomes accustomed to being fed by humans this way. Oh God! What idiot invented this method? Why doesn't he come here and feed her himself?" Susan called Asset it when speaking to Dr. Wu, but she when speaking to the keepers. She knew exactly who would take her side. Sure enough, the other two keepers looked equally unhappy. They understood how dangerous the assignment was.

No matter how stable a predator's temperament might seem, it was still a predator. If they portioned an entire cart of meat into tiny buckets and the animal grew impatient with hunger, the keepers themselves might become part of the meal.

"Damn it, we need to protest! They can't treat us like this. We aren't tools!"

"In their eyes, that's exactly what we are—tools and expendable resources," the other keeper replied.

"Think about George. He lost an arm, and none of us even knows where they sent him to recover. I only hope it wasn't the abandoned Camp Cretaceous." The three fell silent. Under the surveillance cameras, each of them carried a bucket onto the elevated feeding platform and waited anxiously for the Asset to appear. Perhaps because there was too little meat, or perhaps for some other reason, the "Asset" emerged from the forest and fixed its attention upon them—but did not attack.

One keeper's hands shook so badly that he spilled the meat. The "Asset" lowered its head and examined the sesame-sized scraps. Then it released a clearly audible snort of utter disdain, flicked its tail, and walked away. It departed without the slightest concern. The humans on the platform, however, were drenched in cold sweat.

"No. I'm never doing this again! I swear! Just because it didn't eat me today doesn't mean it won't eat me next time!"

"Even the dinosaur looked down on that portion of meat… Wait. A dinosaur just deliberately expressed an emotion. I didn't imagine that, did I?" Susan released a breath of relief and quickly said, "Send all the meat inside. Every bit of it. Children become irritable when they're hungry, and so does she." She threw the bucket aside.

"Then we can report that the job is finished. If they object, they can come here and do it themselves." Chunks of meat rained onto the ground, piling into a small hill. Only then did Asset open her jaws. She swallowed more than ten kilograms in a single bite and quickly devoured half the pile. But then— Asset raised her head. Susan had already climbed down from the platform. Asset stopped eating and estimated the distance between herself and the structure. In the next instant, she suddenly broke into a full sprint.

Like a black gale, she tore through the forest. At precisely the right moment, she kicked off the ground and leaped high into the air, clamping her jaws around the underside of the platform. She held on tightly. Her claws severed the ropes. The suspended metal basket and Asset plunged together in free fall. She tore the iron basket down with ease. It crashed into the enclosure with a deafening boom, terrifying the last keeper climbing off the structure so badly that he nearly collapsed.

"Oh God! No! It can reach the platform! No!" In truth, Asset could do more than merely reach it. She could jump onto it. Had the electric fence not stood in her way, her target would not have been a single basket. She would have torn the entire feeding structure apart. Her instincts told her that her claws were now capable of leaving marks in steel. She wanted to test them. It was that simple.