Chương 25: Indominus Rex (25)

It was the first time Asset had ever seen dinosaurs that could fly. Their wingspans stretched several yards. Their beaks were sharp as spikes, their wing bones thick, and their talons curved like iron hooks. The only problem was... they did not look as though they had much meat on them. Presumably to make flight easier, they were all sharp angles and lightweight frames.

Yet they were astonishingly strong, capable of carrying heavy loads into the air with ease—such as the unlucky men who had fallen from the helicopter. Out of the corner of her eye, Asset noticed that one of those unfortunate men appeared to be Simon. She spared him a single glance before looking away. She had no intention of turning back to save him. She barely knew him. Besides, things had already reached the point where human-centered rules no longer applied to survival on Isla Nublar.

From now on, natural selection would prevail. Nature's contest was fair to every living creature. Whether one lived or died came down to luck; whether one ate or starved depended on ability. Asset would not interfere with the pterosaurs' hunt without reason, just as they had better not try to steal food from her jaws. Under ordinary circumstances, she would have taken the time to study the pterosaurs and work out the easiest way to hunt them. Today, however, was different.

She ran on the ground while they flew through the sky, yet they had entered the same race. Until one side reached the destination, there would be no winner. Faster. She had to go faster! Experience was the best teacher, and Asset quickly realized that flying was faster than running because the pterosaurs encountered almost no obstacles along the way. They could also attack her simply by diving. She, meanwhile, could not fly into the sky to retaliate. How infuriating!

To survive and grow stronger, she had learned to hunt and camouflage herself, to swim and conceal her presence. But how was she supposed to learn to fly? That was a genetic barrier she could never cross. With no other choice, Asset lowered her head and ran harder, accelerating with every stride. Before long, she had overtaken more than half the flock and was steadily pulling ahead. Along the way, she unexpectedly encountered those two remarkably lucky boys again. They had somehow acquired an old vehicle.

It did not even have a roof, and they were driving it at full speed toward the more populated part of the park. The moment they saw her charging up behind them, their faces went white. Then they spotted the flock of pterosaurs flying alongside her, and their eyes widened in terror. They looked ready to fall apart.

"Zach, faster!"

"This is as fast as it goes!" They shouted themselves hoarse, but the battered vehicle refused to move any faster. Without making a sound, Asset drew level with it. The boys went deathly pale, convinced they were about to die between a dinosaur's jaws. Asset, however, had no interest in such meager portions of meat—especially when they belonged to the human species, which she found thoroughly unappetizing. She gave a disdainful snort, spraying both boys with mucus.

Then, under their stunned gazes, she took one enormous stride past the vehicle and surged ahead of the pterosaurs, leaving them with nothing but a receding silhouette wrapped in clouds of yellow dust. Both boys stared after her in disbelief. Zach slapped the steering wheel.

"I wasn't imagining that, was I? She looked down on us! I'm driving this thing like a race car, and I just got mocked by a dinosaur. She might as well have eaten me!" His teenage pride continued to crumble.

"It wasn't your imagination," Gray muttered.

"I don't think she eats people at all... Oh no! Zach!" he suddenly screamed.

"The pterosaurs are catching up! Go!" And so a remarkable scene unfolded on one of the park's dusty roads. A gigantic dinosaur raced at the front, followed by an outdated tour vehicle. Dust billowed behind them until it blotted out the sky, only for the airborne newcomers to scatter it and send it drifting into the forest, staining the deep green foliage a muddy ocher. After running for what felt like an eternity, Asset saw a wall ahead.

A warning sign was mounted over the gate, and two armed guards stood on top of it. Her instincts told her she had arrived. Airborne attackers advanced in silence, making them ideal for ambushes. A massive creature traveling over land, by contrast, announced its approach from far away. Humanity had learned that lesson when dinosaurs first returned to the world twenty years earlier.

When enormous dinosaurs such as Tyrannosaurus rex, Giganotosaurus, or Spinosaurus moved, the ground trembled beneath them, ripples spread across nearby water, and a deep rumbling filled the air. It was like listening to one's own heartbeat accelerate faster and faster... The same thing was happening now. Under the blazing sun, some of the visitors heard a series of heavy, rhythmic booms growing steadily closer. The earth shook. Water in cups on nearby tables rippled, then splashed over the rims. Tables tipped.

People struggled to keep their balance. Just as the visitors realized something was wrong and turned toward the source of the noise, the central announcement system rose to maximum volume and delivered a chilling warning.

"Ladies and gentlemen, a containment breach has occurred. Please seek shelter immediately."

"A containment breach has occurred. Please—" The announcement was electronic, and they understood every individual word. Yet when those words were put together, their minds refused to process them. Which containment area? What had escaped? How badly had things gone wrong if the park was telling visitors to find shelter on their own? Where was the security team? What in the world had—"ROAR!" Before the announcement's echo had faded, a tyrant's roar tore through the air.

The crowd watched in horror as an enormous silver-gray dinosaur leaped onto the protective wall near the visitor center. Its powerful hind legs crushed the top of the structure. Using the impact to launch herself higher, Asset raised her head, swept out her tail, and opened her jaws toward the sky— Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original. She had barely a second in the air, but her hunting instincts made perfect use of it.

Her jaws snapped shut around the lead pterosaur, and two rows of serrated teeth sheared it in half. With a violent jerk of her neck, she flung the dead creature away, scattering the formation behind it. Blood rained onto the ground. Entrails smeared across the wall. Asset's ambush bought the humans a few precious moments to react, but for people accustomed to comfort and safety, those moments were nowhere near enough.

Only when she came crashing down and crushed an expensive car of unknown make beneath her feet did screams erupt throughout the plaza. The visitors finally scattered in blind panic. Mercenaries aboard an off-road vehicle immediately raised their rifles and opened fire on her. The first bullets struck her lower jaw. Asset swung her tail in response, hurling a six-ton military vehicle through the air and smashing it into a wall hard enough to cave the structure in.

The humans tried to concentrate their fire on her, but the pterosaurs disrupted them before they could. As the creatures swooped down on the tourists and carried people away as though helping themselves to a buffet, the soldiers had no choice but to turn their weapons skyward. They decided to deal with the airborne threat first. Asset paid them no attention. She kept drawing in the surrounding scents, desperately trying to locate Susan.

There were too many people, however, and the buildings stood too close together. Asset did not know which one was the hospital, nor could she find Susan. All she could do was raise her head and release a thunderous roar, hoping Susan would hear and know that she was there. No answer came. With no other option, Asset followed the pterosaurs. They might have been fragile creatures with little meat on their bones, but they were exceptionally good at finding humans.

No matter where someone hid—even among the rubble—the pterosaurs could drag them out. Surely finding one Susan would be easy enough for them.

"ROAR!" Before the pterosaurs could lead her to Susan, however, a group of armed humans began closing in. They wore matching uniforms, drove armored vehicles, and had trained their heavy weapons on her. Asset understood that this place would soon become a battlefield between her and humanity. She was confident that she could survive. But survival would require her to kill countless members of Susan's species before going to her with their blood covering her body.

For reasons she could not quite explain, that felt wrong. If possible, Asset wanted the only thing smeared across Susan's hands to be her mucus, not human blood and flesh. While she was still wondering how she might "kill" the humans a little more gently, a familiar scent suddenly reached her. It came from beside her hind leg, mingled with the sharp odor of sweat, yet unmistakably clear. Asset remembered what Susan had told her back when the old woman could still walk freely. Remember this scent. Find him.

He'll help you. Owen is raising four Velociraptors... Owen? That man? Just as the humans were about to open fire, Asset tilted her head with an unmistakably human air and lowered it to look beside her hind leg. There she saw Claire, whom she had encountered twice before, embracing a tall, powerfully built man. The two familiar boys stood nearby. What? Asset had difficulty understanding why humans embraced one another.

As far as she knew, when one dinosaur wrapped itself around another, the next step was either a crushed throat or a torn-open belly—just as it had always been between her and the other Indominus. Humans were different. Their embraces appeared to have nothing to do with killing. Apparently, it was simply a way of expressing affection. Perhaps her presence was too overwhelming, because they soon noticed her staring. After the first flash of shock, Owen hurriedly pushed the others behind him.

He stepped forward to shield them and raised his rifle at her. A gun again... How annoying. If Asset had wanted to kill them, they would never have had time to raise their weapons. She only wanted to know where Susan was. How was she supposed to make them understand that she bore humans no hostility? For the moment, at least. An opportunity arrived without warning. A pterosaur plunged from the sky and snatched Claire's assistant off the ground. Claire retreated with the two boys while Owen opened fire.

But the pterosaur's flight path was erratic, and it dodged every bullet as it climbed higher— Asset's tail came crashing down from above. The blow struck the pterosaur with perfect accuracy and sent half its body plunging into the distant lagoon. The assistant fell to the ground and broke her leg. Asset did not move. She simply stared directly at Owen. She had helped them save one of their own. That was her gesture of goodwill. Owen had better be intelligent enough to accept it.

Otherwise, her next tail strike would be aimed at him. Claire dragged her injured assistant away.

"Owen! Come on!" Instead, Owen raised one hand toward Claire in a clear signal to stay back. Keeping his eyes fixed on Asset's slit pupils, he began to move slowly. Inch by inch, he placed himself directly in front of her, shielding her from the humans' heavy weapons. A soldier roared behind him, "What are you doing? Move! We're about to open fire!" Owen did not flinch. He signaled for them to stop. Drawing on ten years of experience with dinosaurs, he studied Asset's behavior and reached a firm conclusion.

"Hold your fire! She isn't hostile!"

"What the hell are you talking about?" Owen turned and shouted, "She isn't hostile! Take down the pterosaurs! If she wanted to kill people, do you think any of you would have time to run? How many bodies do you think would already be lying on the ground?" He stood before an inhuman giant amid a disaster in which people were fleeing in every direction, yet he still had the resolve to speak the truth despite the risk to human lives. That took extraordinary strength of character.

Strength, however, did not mean the absence of fear. Owen looked up at Asset, uncertain how to communicate with something so enormous or how to persuade her to remain where she was. The human body was small, and fear of giants came naturally. Beneath his composed exterior, he was nowhere near as calm as he appeared. With no better idea, he spoke even though he knew dinosaurs were not supposed to understand human language.

"Do you want food? It's over there!" He pointed toward a warehouse to the east. Asset snorted, forcing Owen to contend with a fresh spray of mucus. Yet that reaction made him realize two things: she did not eat humans, and she seemed to understand him. She wanted something. Impossible... Velociraptors could understand simple commands, but this enormous dinosaur—one that looked like Indominus One—could apparently understand human speech? No. The two creatures were not the same. They did not even feel the same.

Deciding to test his theory, Owen called out, "Do you want water? There's a reservoir to the west!" Asset answered with another snort. The two exchanges between man and dinosaur left everyone staring in disbelief. Owen holding Indominus Two at bay for fifteen full seconds was impressive enough, but Asset's apparent comprehension was far more astonishing.

"She understands what we're saying?"

"It has to be a coincidence."

"Hell, you want to talk about coincidence in front of a creature like that? Why don't you go challenge the Grim Reaper while you're at it? Enough coincidences make a pattern. She understands us!" The fragile truce between human and dinosaur shattered when a pterosaur's beak punched through the glass of a nearby building. They saw Indominus Two's pupils contract to narrow slits. Her enormous head snapped toward the sound. Then she released a furious roar and charged away in long, thundering strides.

"Is that the hospital?"

"There are people in there..." Most of the crowd had already fled. Asset moved so quickly that she exposed her entire back to the armed humans. They mistook her charge for an attack on the hospital. Owen barely managed to shout, "Don't fire!" before the soldiers took aim. An explosive round streaked toward her spine. Asset neither turned nor tried to evade it. As the projectile screamed toward her, she spread every spine along her back, raising the strongest defense her body possessed.

She understood that if she dodged, the building ahead—the one containing Susan—would be destroyed. If she held her ground and took the blast, both of them might survive. Asset did not care if she was injured. She cared if Susan died. Opening her jaws, Asset tore the pterosaur clinging to the window away from the building. She looked inside. Susan lay on the floor beside her overturned wheelchair. Susan was old. Her knees had deteriorated until she could no longer walk.

When disaster struck, she had no hope of escaping. As chaos consumed the world outside, Susan knew that the tragedy of twenty years ago had returned. She had survived it once; surely she would not survive it a second time. But she had never imagined that when death came beating against her window, her dinosaur friend would arrive beside her and crush the Grim Reaper between her jaws. Susan smiled.

"Little tyrant..." You got out.

"BOOM!" The explosive struck the dinosaur's back, erupting in heat and flame. Susan's smile was still on her face. She did not even have time to cry out before an enormous silver-gray claw smashed into the hospital room and closed around her body, shielding her faster than the shattered glass could reach her. Her dinosaur—her companion—had thrown herself into danger to save an old woman already nearing the end of her life. Again. Asset dug Susan out of the ruins.

With remarkable gentleness, she opened her claws and lowered her to the ground. A moment later, the "little tyrant" stepped over Susan and planted her hind legs on either side of her body, forming a solid barrier above her. Then her tail lashed out, swatting away one attacking pterosaur after another and rejecting every form in which nature tried to claim Susan's life. Susan watched the pterosaurs fall one by one, then gazed across the park engulfed in smoke and flame. After a long silence, she sighed.

"I never expected to live through another apocalypse before I died. My life experiences just keep getting richer." At last Susan lowered herself to the ground, while the tyrant at the top of the food chain stood over her and roared amid a haze of blood, proclaiming the full force of her protection. Asset turned the ruins of the hospital into her den and barred death from approaching Susan.

"ROAR!" Stay away from her.