Chương 9: Indominus Rex (9)

Ignored by everyone else, Mr. DNA became the teacher Asset seemed destined to have. With a key shaped like a double helix, he opened the sealed gate to her subconscious. Everything she could not remember and every word she could not understand intertwined into coherent images and entered her dreams. They repeated again and again. Frame by frame. Asset did not know whether other dinosaurs dreamed. She knew only that her dreams were flowers blooming from the depths of consciousness.

Their roots penetrated every cell in her body and wound around her bones like vines. They traveled through her like an electrical current. Drawing nourishment from her soul, they excavated the deeper layers of what she already "knew" and opened them for her to examine. It was as though she had been pushed back to the beginning of everything. Time reversed. Scenes and sounds converged. In an instant, she stood inside a mine shaft and watched humans lift a piece of amber from the earth.

Under the beam of a lamp, a perfectly preserved mosquito could be seen trapped inside. Its corpse had remained unchanged for tens of millions of years. Its abdomen was swollen, revealing a tiny spot of dark red beneath the light. The warm yellow glow abruptly turned cold white. A long needle pierced the amber and entered the mosquito's abdomen. It withdrew gently. The needle and the crimson blood twisted together, transforming into a double helix.

The helix became a succession of spinning ova, then rows of oval eggs. Asset heard frogs calling. She saw venomous snakes flicking their tongues. A chameleon appeared in the shadows. Then seawater suddenly surged in. An enormous deep-sea octopus wrapped its arms around her body. Countless immortal jellyfish climbed along her hind legs. Amid the chaos, she found herself staring into Dr. Wu's eyes.

"You've arrived," he said.

"We—all of us here—are parts of you."

"So is everything outside." He pointed through the window. Asset followed his hand and looked out. The laboratory vanished. The ceiling disappeared. The cage imprisoning her melted away. Everything around her twisted into a double helix. When the strands separated, they became a lush primeval forest filled with layer upon layer of deep, secret shadows. The stars shone brilliantly overhead. A fiery light fell from the heavens, dragging a long tail across the sky. The earth trembled. The ocean roared.

Countless dinosaurs erupted from the forest in blind panic. They resembled her, yet each was different. Images as immense as mountains swept through her body as the creatures fled toward an unknown destination. BOOM! The stars struck the earth. A wave of heat swept across the sky. Once again, agonized cries filled Asset's ears. This time, they did not belong to humans. They came from millions of dinosaurs with nowhere left to run. How strange. Why had she thought once again?

Had she experienced something like this somewhere before? The explosion arrived. Every dinosaur caught within it shattered into smoke and blood mist. Their bodies also transformed into drifting strands of double helix. Then heaven and earth began to close, sealing those strands inside amber. The appearance of every dinosaur suddenly flashed before Asset's eyes. She knew their names. She could feel their pain. Then, as if bewitched, she heard Dr. Wu's quiet voice again. His figure overlapped with Mr.

DNA until even their voices became one.

"The core of a dream is the accumulation of the soul's experiences. It can open the door to the collective unconscious."

"You were brought here by the fragments encoded in your genes. You have entered the collective unconscious of the dinosaurs."

"How was it? Did you enjoy this ancient dream?" This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience. Enjoy it? The dream began to collapse, burying everything she had seen and heard beneath her feet. Asset watched the ocean become fertile land. Then she watched the fertile land turn to yellow sand. When the dust finally cleared, she found herself surrounded by dinosaur skeletons. Their empty eye sockets stared at her as though she were the final inheritor of their existence.

Tens of millions of years passed in an instant. The old forms of life had become desolation. The new life was called a monster. You must live… the countless skeletons "said" to her. Survive. Asset awakened. The familiar laboratory surrounded her. She was inside the familiar habitat. The clock on the wall pointed to three in the morning. Uneven snores drifted from the humans' sleeping quarters. It was quiet. It was safe. The lingering traces of the dream gradually faded.

The entire night had been filled with chaos and terror, yet shortly after waking, Asset discovered that she could no longer remember most of the details. Only a few specific scenes remained. What was a dream? Her claws scratched aimlessly across the ground. Perhaps out of boredom, she began drawing crooked English letters in the dirt, matching each written shape to its pronunciation. She spent nearly three hours this way.

Then she swept away the marks with her tail, curled beneath the broad leaves, and pretended to sleep. Less than twenty minutes later, a roar sounded from the neighboring enclosure. The researchers climbed out of bed, cursing. Mercenaries opened the laboratory's sealed doors from outside.

"Fuck! We have to get up at six? I didn't wake up this early even during finals at Stanford!"

"Damn it! My goal was to become a leading figure in my field, not a dinosaur's babysitter! Look at what I'm doing now. God, I have to clean up its shit before I've even brushed my teeth!"

"Remember to collect samples for testing. It's time to examine its intestinal bacteria again." The new day began with human complaints and ended with the clattering of machines printing reports. Asset hunted, ate, and studied as usual. While the humans were away, she "interacted" with Mr. DNA. When night fell, she closed her eyes and slept. Her life was peaceful and stable. Through day after day of disciplined practice, she gradually learned the human language.

Her command of it remained imperfect, and she still could not write properly, but she could now understand ordinary speech without difficulty. Perhaps her "gentleness" had given the humans a false impression. They seemed to believe that the first Asset's vicious temperament could also be changed. Asset was almost five months old, yet the other hatchling still remained in the enclosure next door. According to the researchers, the cramped habitat could no longer withstand her attacks.

After the first Asset broke three steel bolts holding the enclosure together, Dr. Wu finally decided to transfer her to an outdoor habitat. The enclosure had been designed by the finest architects in the world. Its builders had described it as "a cage she absolutely cannot escape—unless you're stupid enough to open the door." The laboratory could no longer afford to house a dinosaur with such a violent temper. Its valuable equipment was also company property, after all.

The transfer was carried out that same afternoon. After receiving a tranquilizer injection, the first Asset was blindfolded and removed from the laboratory. The corridors outside the two enclosures connected, and the humans made no attempt to conceal the transfer. Asset stretched her neck upward and saw one of her own kind for the first time. It was a fairly large gray-white dinosaur. Asset could not see its eyes, but she saw the black claws protruding from beneath the restraints and the thick, powerful tail.

Black spines rose along its back, resembling the quills of a porcupine. Its hide possessed a peculiar sheen. For a fleeting instant, its coloration seemed to match the surrounding environment. The creature blended into the corridor almost like a chameleon. Hmm? Perhaps Asset had imagined it. The impression vanished in an instant. The humans disappeared around the corner, and the laboratory became quiet again. From that day onward, the laboratory devoted more of its resources to Asset.

She encountered a greater variety of prey than before. Another month passed. The electric eel she had been longing for still failed to appear. Instead, Dr. Wu came to stand before her habitat. He issued an order that brought her peaceful life of solitude to an end.

"Transfer this one to the outdoor enclosure as well."

"But the second Asset isn't as large as the first…"

"Are we supposed to wait until she reaches adolescence?" Henry asked. Certain experiments needed to be performed early. Once a specific stage of development had passed, the hatchling's behavioral flexibility would disappear. Time waited for no one. At last, the fire had reached Asset herself. She desperately wanted to tell the humans that there was no need for needles or tranquilizers. She would not bite them. She could walk into the outdoor habitat on her own.

But the humans' needle struck too quickly and accurately. When she awakened, she was already somewhere else. To prevent the other dinosaur from attacking her while she was unconscious, the humans had placed her inside a passageway. Once she regained consciousness, a gate rose upward. Sunlight poured in. Asset shook her head. After briefly testing her limbs, she ran through the opening. The outdoor habitat was genuinely enormous. When she raised her head, she saw lush green trees and an endless sky.

When she lowered it, she found clear streams and soft meadows. She could run as much as she pleased, leap and climb freely, roar at the top of her lungs, and hide wherever she wished. At that moment, even though she had merely been transferred from one cage into another, she felt as though she had finally gained freedom. She raced into the forest, as joyful and swift as the wind. But happiness was always brief. First, she discovered surveillance cameras hanging from the trees.

Then she caught the scent of another dinosaur. It was not far away. It had to be somewhere nearby. But Asset could not see it. It was almost as though— She spun around abruptly, instinctively locking onto one direction. All she saw was a mass of dark green, broad-leafed vegetation. There was no sign of another dinosaur. But just because her ordinary vision could not see it did not mean her second sight could not.

Through her thermal perception, Asset could clearly detect her own kind hiding among the leaves, watching her without making a sound. Well, then! The foliage began to shake. Her own kind slowly emerged. The camouflage faded from its body, replaced by gray-white skin that made it immediately conspicuous. It stepped forward. Its scarlet eyes never blinked. It breathed in Asset's scent, apparently trying to determine what she was. Asset did not relax.

The unease inside her continued to grow, forcing her to lower her body into a defensive posture. So she had not imagined it before. Her own kind truly could camouflage itself, blending into the environment like a chameleon crouched among dead leaves. Asset suspected that the humans did not know about this ability. Otherwise, they would never have released the creature from its cage so readily. Such a gift made escape far too easy. It appeared that both of them possessed secret advantages unknown to their creators.

"Rrrr…" A low growl emerged from the other dinosaur's throat. It did not seem openly aggressive. It began walking slowly toward Asset. But it was too close. Far too close. Its size and scent exerted immense psychological pressure upon her. Asset did not fear fighting it, but she understood that once a battle began, the consequences would be terrible. To avoid conflict, she also released a low growl and adopted the appearance of friendly social behavior. At that exact moment, everything changed.

The other dinosaur suddenly opened its jaws and lunged viciously for Asset's neck. Her mind had not yet processed the attack when her body sprang aside on instinct. Her long tail lashed across the other dinosaur's face, knocking its head sideways. It shrieked in pain. Both claws shot forward, carving a deep gash across Asset's body. Asset retaliated without hesitation. Claws and teeth tore through the other dinosaur's hide. Then both animals locked their jaws onto each other and crashed to the ground.

Blood began to flow. Its scent excited their minds. The difference in size placed Asset at a disadvantage, and the larger dinosaur slammed her into a tree. Ignoring the pain, Asset immediately rolled back onto her feet and faced her opponent. As their eyes met, she somehow understood the meaning in the other dinosaur's gaze. It did not regard her as one of its own kind. It regarded her as food. It had concealed itself to prepare an ambush.

Its seemingly peaceful approach had only been a way to move close enough to attack. It had detected Asset's scent long ago—a scent almost identical to its own. Yet it possessed no concept of kinship. The only thing occupying its mind was the desire to devour her. Yes. It wanted to eat her.