“And if you think about it, it couldn’t possibly be true. Hammond was claiming to manufacture extinct animals using cutting-edge technology. But with any new manufacturing technology, initial yields are low: on the order of one percent or less. So in fact, Hammond must have been growing thousands of dinosaur embryos to get a single live birth. That implied a giant industrial operation, not the spotless little laboratory we were shown.”
“You mean this place,” Thorne said.
“Yes. Here, on another island, in secret, away from public scrutiny, Hammond was free to do his research, and deal with the unpleasant truth behind his beautiful little park. Hammond’s little genetic zoo was a showcase. But this island was the real thing. This is where the dinosaurs were made.”
“If the animals at the zoo were destroyed,” Eddie said, “how come they weren’t destroyed on this island, too?”
“A critical question,” Malcolm said. “We should know the answer in a few minutes.” He shone his light down the tunnel; it glinted off glass walls. “Because, if I am not mistaken,” he said, “the first of the manufacturing bays is just ahead.”
Arby
Arby awoke, sitting upright in bed, blinking his eyes in the morning light that streamed in through the trailer windows. In the next bunk, Kelly was still asleep, snoring loudly.
He looked out the window at the entrance to the big building, and saw that the adults were gone. The Explorer was standing by the entrance, but there was no one inside the car. Their trailer sat isolated in the clearing of tall grass. Arby felt entirely alone—frighteningly alone—and a sudden sense of panic made his heart pound. He never should have come here, he thought. The whole idea was stupid. And worst of all, it had been his plan. The way they had huddled together in the trailer, and then had gone back to Thorne’s office. And Kelly had talked to Thorne, so that Arby could steal the key. The way he had set up a delayed radio message to be transmitted to Thorne so that Thorne would think they were still in Woodside. Arby had felt very clever at the time, but now he regretted it all. He decided that he had to call Thorne immediately. He had to turn himself in. He was filled with an overwhelming desire to confess.
He needed to hear somebody’s voice. That was the truth.
He walked from the back of the trailer, where Kelly was sleeping, to the front, and turned on the ignition key in the dashboard. He picked up the radio handset and said, “This is Arby. Is anybody there? Over. This is Arby.”
But nobody answered. After a moment, he looked at the dashboard systems monitor, which registered all the systems that were operative. He didn’t see anything about communications. It occurred to him that the communications system was probably hooked into the computer. He decided to turn the computer on.
So he went back to the middle of the trailer, unstrapped the keyboard, plugged it in, and turned the computer on. There was a menu screen that said “Thorne Field Systems” and underneath that a listing of subsystems inside the trailer. One of them was radio communications. So he clicked on that, and turned it on.
The computer screen showed a scrambled hash of static. At the bottom was a command line that read: “Multiple Frequency Inputs Received. Do you want to Autotune?”
Arby didn’t know what that meant, but he was fearless around computers. Autotune sounded interesting. Without hesitation, he typed “Yes.”
The static scramble remained on the screen, while numbers rolled at the bottom. He guessed he was seeing frequencies in megahertz. But he didn’t really know.
And then, suddenly, the screen went blank, except for a single flashing word in the upper-left corner:
LOGIN:
He paused, frowning. That was odd. Apparently he was required to log into the trailer’s computer system. That meant he would need a password. He tried: THORNE.
Nothing happened.
He waited a moment, then tried Thorne’s initials: JT.
Nothing.
LEVINE.
Nothing.
THORNE FIELD SYSTEMS.
Nothing.
TFS.
Nothing.
FIELD.
Nothing.
USER.
Nothing.
Well, he thought, at least the system hadn’t dumped him out. Most networks logged you off after three wrong tries. But apparently Thorne hadn’t designed any security features into this one. Arby would never have made it this way. The system was too patient and helpful.
He tried: HELP.
The cursor moved to another line. There was a pause. The drives whirred.
“Action,” he said, rubbing his hands.
Laboratory
As Thorne’s eyes adjusted to the low light, he saw they were standing inside an enormous space, consisting of row after row of rectangular stainless-steel boxes, each fitted with a tangled maze of plastic tubing. Everything was dusty; many of the boxes were knocked over.
“The first rows,” Malcolm said, “are Nishihara gene sequencers. And beyond are the automatic DNA synthesizers.”
“It’s a factory,” Eddie said. “It’s like agribusiness or something.”
“Yes, it is.”
At the corner of the room was a printer, with some loose sheets of yellowing paper lying beside it. Malcolm picked up one, and glanced at it.
“It’s a reference to a computer database,” Malcolm said. “For some dinosaur blood factor. Something to do with red cells.”
“And is that the sequence?”
“No,” Malcolm said. He started shuffling through the papers. “No, the sequence should be a series of nucleotides. . . . Here.”
He picked up another sheet of paper.
SEQUENCE
“Does this have something to do with why the animals survived?” Thorne said.
“I’m not sure,” Malcolm said. Was this sheet related to the final days of the manufacturing facility? Or was it just something that a worker printed out years ago, and somehow left behind?
He looked around by the printer, and found a shelved stack of sheets. Pulling them out, he discovered that they were memos. They were on faded blue paper, and they were all brief.
From: CC/D-P. Jenkins
To: H. Wu
Excess dopamine in Alpha 5 means D1 receptor still not functioning with desired avidity. To minimize aggressive behavior in finished orgs must try alternate genetic backgrounds. We need to start this today.
And again:
From: CC/D
To: H. Wu/Sup
Isolated glycogen synthase kinase-3 from Xenopus may work better than mammalian GSK-3 alpha/beta currently in use. Anticipate more robust establishment of dorsoventral polarity and less early embryo wastage. Agree?
Malcolm looked at the next one:
From: Backes
To: H. Wu/Sup
Short protein fragments may be acting as prions. Sourcing doubtful but suggest halt all exogenous protein for carniv. orgs until origin is cleared up. Disease cannot continue!