While it seemed much longer, the power was only out for 5 seconds and then auxillory power kicked in. Still, that was 5 seconds longer than it ever should have taken.
"What's our situation? What happened?" I asked Arnold.
"Not sure just yet," Arnold answered, clicking through various prompts on his computer.
The monitors of the Jeeps were no longer working. An unfortunate side effect from having to switch to auxillory power. I did not like the thought of my grandkids being stranded in the park with a potential power issue.
"Well, how's it coming? Why aren't we back to full power?" I demanded.
"There seems to be some sort of unmarked program running with the operational programs but its preventing the operational programs from being able to restore full power. I'm trying to figure out what it is but it seems to have been initiated by Nedry a couple hours ago," Arnold explained.
"Fix it! I'm going to find Nedry myself and drag him here if need be. And the way I'm feeling about him, I might not bring him back alive," I angrily huffed and went out of the control room.
The main lodge was full of chaos. With the storm and only the auxillory lights, people were starting to panic. And as crew and park rangers were directing them to the safety bunkers, their anxiety was only getting raised further. People kept grabbing me and shouting in my direction for answers. I managed to finally get through the main lobby of the lodge and made my way to the staff residency. I heard someone jogging up to meet me. I turned around to see it was Ian Malcolm.
"Why aren't you with others going to the safety bunkers?" I asked wearily.
"Ah-ha. Well, uh, why aren't YOU, uh, with the others, *ahem*, uh, going to the uh, the uh, safety bunkers?" he countered with, smiling away.
"I have responsibilities to carry out to make sure this park stays safe and make sure this inconvenience doesn't become a disaster," I answered.
"Ah-huh. Well, uh, that's, uh, that's clearly what's happening," he said seriously, lifting a couple fingers to scratch at his nose, "Has this, uh, this sort of, um (he began gesturing wildly in the air), ah, sort of... inconvenience, uh, happened before?"
I tried to ignore him and keep my focus on Nedry. We walked on in silence for a bit.
"Heh, well, I must say, I, uh, I never expected my warning you... to uh, to have been so dramatically and swiftly proven correct. But, uh, here we are!, with the um, this er, powerful storm raining down on us and, um, uh suddenly, this, this feeling of impregnable security you've created, well, it um, it's just evaporated. It's what I've tried to tell you John. The kind of control you're attempting simply is... it's not possible. If there is one thing the history of evolution has taught us it's that life will not be contained. Life breaks free, it expands to new territories and crashes through barriers, painfully, maybe even dangerously, but, uh... well, there it is," mused Malcolm.
"There it is," I sardonically replied.
I had arrived at Nedry's room.
"Nedry! Are you in there? Get out here at once! Why aren't you at the command center?" I shouted through the door. No answer. I banged on it and called out a few more times. Finally, I turned to Malcolm and asked "Do you think you could make yourself useful for once and knock this door down?"
He grinned at me then turned and started hurling his body into the door. Slowly it started to give way and then finally it blew up with him tumbling on inside. I walked in looking for him. His room was a pigsty which wasn't a shock to me considering what his desk looked like in the command center. After a brief search of his place revealed he wasn't there, I exited and wondered where to look for him next. I settled on the next most obvious choice and started down the hall towards it.
"Hey, where you going?" asked Ian.
"The kitchen," I answered, not bothering to even look back.
Coming back into the main lobby, there were still a few guests arguing with the staff about leaving their rooms to go into the bunker. One guest by the name of Spak-Spang didn’t see what the fuss was about since it was just a storm. Someone else started screaming that the dinosaurs are loose, the dinosaurs are loose. Spak-Spang was incredulous and asked the manic guest if he actually thought the dinosaurs were real because they are just animatronic. I paused for a moment at that to get a look at him. How can people be so daft?
Searching the kitchen, still revealed no Nedry however. Now I was starting to wonder if it wasn’t a case of his usual laziness but something more serious. I wanted to get back to the command center to start regrouping and figuring things out. There was something more going on than just a storm. As I was exiting the main lodge, I heard the roar of a Jeep and then two headlights in the distance. It came speeding up to the entrance. It was Muldoon and he had the children with him as well as Dr. Grant and Dr. Sadler. The kids and Ellie were upset and crying. Dr. Grant was all looking beaten up and pale. Muldoon swung out of the Jeep and picked up Grant in his arms and started carrying him in to the lodge.
“Out of the way! Injured man here!” Muldoon shouted at the people standing on the steps and blocking the door. Ellie got out of the Jeep and ran along behind Muldoon. The children came up to me hugging my sides and crying and talking hysterically about an attack but they were all over the place.
“It’s all right. It’s all right!” I assured them, “Come inside and let’s get you warm and dry.”
The other guests that were standing started demanding answers as to what was going, how safe were they, why are they going to bunkers and these people are going inside. I told them it was just a precautionary measure because of an accident that has occurred. Please keep going to the bunkers. It will only be a for a brief moment until all is clear. I then continued on with the children to the medical ward.
When I got there, Dr. Grant was lying on a medical bed being treated by Dr. Harding with Dr. Sadler and Malcolm beside him. Muldoon was leaning against a wall and smoking a cigeratte in deep thought. See me enter, he raised himself from the wall and started walking over in my direction. I had the children both get on the end of a bed and gave them a couple blankets and told them I’d be right back. I walked to meet up with Muldoon.
“Well, Mr. Hammond, your damn bloody raptors have gotten loose and they might not be the only ones,” Muldoon said bitterly.
“What happened?” I asked.
“Well, after I radioed you from around Pen 12, there was a blackout around the park,” Muldoon started to explain.
“Yes, Arnold is looking into it. It must be the storm but we’ve never had a problem like this from the storms before. Nedry’s missing and we need him to fix the program to get us back to full power but according to our design, the auxillory power should keep running for a week so we should be alright for awhile,” I interjected.
“We are not alright, Mr. Hammond. The power is down on all the fences,” Muldoon hissed.
“That can’t be! Systems are showing that the fences are still getting power,” I insisted.
“Every fence I drove by showed a red light indicating negative power,” Muldoon replied.
“Did you actually check to see?” I asked.
“No, I was too busy driving to stop and what did I have to test it with?” Muldoon answered.
“Then the lights could be a side effect of running on auxillory power. We’ve never done it before,” I reasoned.
“If the raptors are loose, than I think it is a safe bet to assume all the fences are done. I think we need to apply Operation: Extinction,” Muldoon urged.
“Extinction? You’re overreacting Muldoon! We don’t even know if there’s been any other…” I started to say.
“Overreacting?" said Muldoon, "You weren’t the one that was attacked by Velociraptors. Let me tell you what happened out there. When I caught up with the Jeeps, I got out my rifle taking no chances and approached the vehicles. It was raining hard and the windows were starting to fog up. Everyone was alright although a bit anxious having hit the raptor earlier. I told them it didn't think it was safe to be in the park right now and was going to bring them back with me. They got out of the Jeeps and were coming with me to my vehicle when out of the bushes on the left side of my Jeep, one of the raptors stepped out and snarled at us. Knowing these bloody things, I realized we were in an ambush and the others were probably watching us in the bushes. I carefully started to get my rifle free and told the group to get to the side of the of the second Jeep and then get into it. We slowly inched back towards it as the raptor took a couple steps toward us. Then there was a rustling of leaves and another raptor came out from the bushes in front of all the Jeeps. It howled at us and they both charged."
"Grant swung a Jeep door open and threw Lex in. I fired blindly at the raptor close to my Jeep and it darted around to the other side of it. Grant was getting Tim into the vehicle while I turned and fired in the other raptor's direction. It also then darted to the other side of the Jeeps. I grabbed Dr. Sadler who was standing by me and turned again and fired in the darkness on the other side of my vehicle where the first raptor had fled while taking us both over to it for safety. I hadn't seen the leader of the pack yet so I was expecting her to pop out at any moment. Suddenly, the second leapt on to the top of the Jeep with Grant and the kids. Grant had been scambling to get in but when the raptor jumped on top, it shook the vehicle causing him to fall over on his back. The force of the raptor on top of the vehicle busted the sunroof's glass and it's left leg fell into the vehicle. I told Dr. Sadler to get into my vehicle and I turned back to kill that raptor with it stuck like that. However, the first raptor then jumped on top of my Jeep. I shouted for Dr. Sadler to get down and fired at the raptor while backing towards the second Jeep. Dr. Sadler dove to the ground and started crawling under my Jeep. The raptor leapt off if it and bit towards me but ran fast into the bushes."
"When I turned back to the second Jeep,
Quick story notes:
Muldoon's gun is out of ammo. In this attack, Grant ends up crawling under a Jeep. One of the raptors sticks its head under the Jeep biting away at Grant's leg. It finally clamps down on it and starts pulling him out from under the Jeep. There is a big crash as Ellie drives Muldoon's Jeep into the raptor biting Grant and killing it in the crash.
This brings us back to present time as the characters suddenly feel the tremors of the T. Rex. Muldoon realizes it has escaped and is coming to them. There is a loud crash as it bursts through into the lodge. Muldoon and Hammond start leading everyone to the armory. As they escape, they hear the sounds of Spak-Spang screaming at the coming T. Rex attack suddenly realizing the dinosaurs are real. He is eaten.
At this point, other guests are running around and screaming in fear of their lives. The T. Rex follows after them, eating and attacking them at random. This causes it to block the path to armory. Dr. Grant, high on painkillers, thinks he can distract it. He does allowing the others to get to the armory but due to the velociraptor injury, he is unable to get away from the T. Rex and is killed.
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Philosoraptor's Thought of the Day