Jurassic Park

by Michael Crichton

  “Yes,” Gennaro said. “I can go on.”

  Muldoon was walking back toward the Jeep, carrying the leg. “I guess we better bring this along,” he said. “Doesn’t seem right to leave it here. Christ, it’s going to make a mess of the car. See if there’s anything in the back, will you? A tarp or newspaper …”

  Gennaro opened the back door and rummaged around in the space behind the rear seat. He felt grateful to think about something else for a moment. The problem of how to wrap the severed leg expanded to fill his mind, crowding out all other thoughts. He found a canvas bag with a tool kit, a wheel rim, a cardboard box, and—

  “Two tarps,” he said. They were neatly folded plastic.

  “Give me one,” Muldoon said, still standing outside the car. Muldoon wrapped the leg and passed the now shapeless bundle to Gennaro. Holding it in his hand, Gennaro was surprised at how heavy it felt. “Just put it in the back,” Muldoon said. “If there’s a way to wedge it, you know, so it doesn’t roll around …”

  “Okay.” Gennaro put the bundle in the back, and Muldoon got behind the wheel. He accelerated, the wheels spinning in the mud, then digging in. The Jeep rushed up the hill, and for a moment at the top the headlights still pointed upward into the foliage, and then they swung down, and Gennaro could see the road before them.

  “Jesus,” Muldoon said.

  Gennaro saw a single Land Cruiser, lying on its side in the center of the road. He couldn’t see the second Land Cruiser at all. “Where’s the other car?”

  Muldoon looked around briefly, pointed to the left. “There.” The second Land Cruiser was twenty feet away, crumpled at the foot of a tree.

  “What’s it doing there?”

  “The T-rex threw it.”

  “Threw it?” Gennaro said.

  Muldoon’s face was grim. “Let’s get this over with,” he said, climbing out of the Jeep. They hurried forward to the second Land Cruiser. Their flashlights swung back and forth in the night.

  As they came closer, Gennaro saw how battered the car was. He was careful to let Muldoon look inside first.

  “I wouldn’t worry,” Muldoon said. “It’s very unlikely we’ll find anyone.”

  “No?”

  “No,” he said. He explained that, during his years in Africa, he had visited the scenes of a half-dozen animal attacks on humans in the bush. One leopard attack: the leopard had torn open a tent in the night and taken a three-year-old child. Then one buffalo attack in Amboseli; two lion attacks; one croc attack in the north, near Meru. In every case, there was surprisingly little evidence left behind.

  Inexperienced people imagined horrific proofs of an animal attack—torn limbs left behind in the tent, trails of dripping blood leading away into the bush, bloodstained clothing not far from the campsite. But the truth was, there was usually nothing at all, particularly if the victim was small, an infant or a young child. The person just seemed to disappear, as if he had walked out into the bush and never come back. A predator could kill a child just by shaking it, snapping the neck. Usually there wasn’t any blood.

  And most of the time you never found any other remains of the victims. Sometimes a button from a shirt, or a sliver of rubber from a shoe. But most of the time, nothing.

  Predators took children—they preferred children—and they left nothing behind. So Muldoon thought it highly unlikely that they would ever find any remains of the children.

  But as he looked in now, he had a surprise.

  “I’ll be damned,” he said.

  Muldoon tried to put the scene together. The front windshield of the Land Cruiser was shattered, but there wasn’t much glass nearby. He had noticed shards of glass back on the road. So the windshield must have broken back there, before the tyrannosaur picked the car up and threw it here. But the car had taken a tremendous beating. Muldoon shone his light inside.

  “Empty?” Gennaro said, tensely.

  “Not quite,” Muldoon said. His flashlight glinted off a crushed radio handset, and on the floor of the car he saw something else, something curved and black. The front doors were dented and jammed shut, but he climbed in through the back door and crawled over the seat to pick up the black object.

  “It’s a watch,” he said, peering at it in the beam of his flashlight. A cheap digital watch with a molded black rubber strap. The LCD face was shattered. He thought the boy might have been wearing it, though he wasn’t sure. But it was the kind of watch a kid would have.

  “What is it, a watch?” Gennaro said.

  “Yes. And there’s a radio, but it’s broken.”

  “Is that significant?”

  “Yes. And there’s something else.…” Muldoon sniffed. There was a sour odor inside the car. He shone the light around until he saw the vomit dripping off the side door panel. He touched it: still fresh. “One of the kids may still be alive,” Muldoon said.

  Gennaro squinted at him. “What makes you think so?”

  “The watch,” Muldoon said. “The watch proves it.” He handed the watch to Gennaro, who held it in the glow of the flashlight, and turned it over in his hands.

  “Crystal is cracked,” Gennaro said.

  “That’s right,” Muldoon said. “And the band is uninjured.”

  “Which means?”

  “The kid took it off.”

  “That could have happened anytime,” Gennaro said. “Anytime before the attack.”

  “No,” Muldoon said. “Those LCD crystals are tough. It takes a powerful blow to break them. The watch face was shattered during the attack.”

  “So the kid took his watch off.”

  “Think about it,” Muldoon said. “If you were being attacked by a tyrannosaur, would you stop to take your watch off?”

  “Maybe it was torn off.”

  “It’s almost impossible to tear a watch off somebody’s wrist, without tearing the hand off, too. Anyway, the band is intact. No,” Muldoon said. “The kid took it off himself. He looked at his watch, saw it was broken, and took it off. He had the time to do that.”

  “When?”

  “It could only have been after the attack,” Muldoon said. “The kid must have been in this car, after the attack. And the radio was broken, so he left it behind, too. He’s a bright kid, and he knew they weren’t useful.”

  “If he’s so bright,” Gennaro said, “where’d he go? Because I’d stay right here and wait to be picked up.”

  “Yes,” Muldoon said. “But perhaps he couldn’t stay here. Maybe the tyrannosaur came back. Or some other animal. Anyway, something made him leave.”

  “Then where’d he go?” Gennaro said.

  “Let’s see if we can determine that,” Muldoon said, and he strode off toward the main road.

  Gennaro watched Muldoon peering at the ground with his flashlight. His face was just inches from the mud, intent on his search. Muldoon really believed he was on to something, that at least one of the kids was still alive. Gennaro remained unimpressed. The shock of finding the severed leg had left him with a grim determination to close the park, and destroy it. No matter what Muldoon said, Gennaro suspected him of unwarranted enthusiasm, and hopefulness, and—

  “You notice these prints?” Muldoon asked, still looking at the ground.

  “What prints?” Gennaro said.

  “These footprints—see them, coming toward us from up the road?—and they’re adult-size prints. Some kind of rubber-sole shoe. Notice the distinctive tread pattern.…”

  Gennaro saw only mud. Puddles catching the light from the flashlights.

  “You can see,” Muldoon continued, “the adult prints come to here, where they’re joined by other prints. Small, and medium-size … moving around in circles, overlapping … almost as if they’re standing together, talking.… But now here they are, they seem to be running.…” He pointed off. “There. Into the park.”

  Gennaro shook his head. “You can see whatever you want in this mud.”

  Muldoon got to his feet and stepped back. He looked down a
t the ground and sighed. “Say what you like, I’ll wager one of the kids survived. And maybe both. Perhaps even an adult as well, if these big prints belong to someone other than Regis. We’ve got to search the park.”

  “Tonight?” Gennaro said.

  But Muldoon wasn’t listening. He had walked away, toward an embankment of soft earth, near a drainpipe for rain. He crouched again. “What was that little girl wearing?”

  “Christ,” Gennaro said. “I don’t know.”

  Proceeding slowly, Muldoon moved farther toward the side of the road. And then they heard a wheezing sound. It was definitely an animal sound.

  “Listen,” Gennaro said, feeling panic, “I think we better—”

  “Shhh,” Muldoon said.

  He paused, listening.

  “It’s just the wind,” Gennaro said.

  They heard the wheezing again, distinctly this time. It wasn’t the wind. It was coming from the foliage directly ahead of him, by the side of the road. It didn’t sound like an animal, but Muldoon moved forward cautiously. He waggled his light and shouted, but the wheezing did not change character. Muldoon pushed aside the fronds of a palm.

  “What is it?” Gennaro said.

  “It’s Malcolm,” Muldoon said.

  Ian Malcolm lay on his back, his skin gray-white, mouth slackly open. His breath came in wheezing gasps. Muldoon handed the flashlight to Gennaro, and then bent to examine the body. “I can’t find the injury,” he said. “Head okay, chest, arms …”

  Then Gennaro shone the light on the legs. “He put a tourniquet on.” Malcolm’s belt was twisted tight over the right thigh. Gennaro moved the light down the leg. The right ankle was bent outward at an awkward angle from the leg, the trousers flattened, soaked in blood. Muldoon touched the ankle gently, and Malcolm groaned.

  Muldoon stepped back and tried to decide what to do next. Malcolm might have other injuries. His back might be broken. It might kill him to move him. But if they left him here, he would die of shock. It was only because he had had the presence of mind to put a tourniquet on that he hadn’t already bled to death. And probably he was doomed. They might as well move him.

  Gennaro helped Muldoon pick the man up, hoisting him awkwardly over their shoulders. Malcolm moaned, and breathed in ragged gasps. “Lex,” he said. “Lex … went … Lex …”

  “Who’s Lex?” Muldoon said.

  “The little girl,” Gennaro said.

  They carried Malcolm back to the Jeep, and wrested him into the backseat. Gennaro tightened the tourniquet around his leg. Malcolm groaned again. Muldoon slid the trouser cuff up and saw the pulpy flesh beneath, the dull white splinters of protruding bone. “We’ve got to get him back,” Muldoon said.

  “You going to leave here without the kids?” Gennaro said.

  “If they went into the park, it’s twenty square miles,” Muldoon said, shaking his head. “The only way we can find anything out there is with the motion sensors. If the kids are alive and moving around, the motion sensors will pick them up, and we can go right to them and bring them back. But if we don’t take Dr. Malcolm back right now, he’ll die.”

  “Then we have to go back,” Gennaro said.

  “Yes, I think so.”

  They climbed into the car. Gennaro said, “Are you going to tell Hammond the kids are missing?”

  “No,” Muldoon said. “You are.”

  CONTROL

  Donald Gennaro stared at Hammond, sitting in the deserted cafeteria. The man was spooning ice cream, calmly eating it. “So Muldoon believes the children are somewhere in the park?”

  “He thinks so, yes.”

  “Then I’m sure we’ll find them.”

  “I hope so,” Gennaro said. He watched the old man deliberately eating, and he felt a chill.

  “Oh, I am sure we’ll find them. After all, I keep telling everyone, this park is made for kids.”

  Gennaro said, “Just so you understand that they’re missing, sir.”

  “Missing?” he snapped. “Of course I know they’re missing. I’m not senile.” He sighed, and changed tone again. “Look, Donald,” Hammond said. “Let’s not get carried away. We’ve had a little breakdown from the storm or whatever, and as a result we’ve suffered a regrettable, unfortunate accident. And that’s all that’s happened. We’re dealing with it. Arnold will get the computers cleaned up. Muldoon will pick up the kids, and I have no doubt he’ll be back with them by the time we finish this ice cream. So let’s just wait and see what develops, shall we?”

  “Whatever you say, sir,” Gennaro said.

  “Why?” Henry Wu said, looking at the console screen.

  “Because I think Nedry did something to the code,” Arnold said. “That’s why I’m checking it.”

  “All right,” Wu said. “But have you tried your options?”

  “Like what?” Arnold said.

  “I don’t know. Aren’t the safety systems still running?” Wu said. “Keychecks? All that?”

  “Jesus,” Arnold said, snapping his fingers. “They must be. Safety systems can’t be turned off except at the main panel.”

  “Well,” Wu said, “if Keychecks is active, you can trace what he did.”

  “I sure as hell can,” Arnold said. He started to press buttons. Why hadn’t he thought of it before? It was so obvious. The computer system at Jurassic Park had several tiers of safety systems built into it. One of them was a keycheck program, which monitored all the keystrokes entered by operators with access to the system. It was originally installed as a debugging device, but it was retained for its security value.

  In a moment, all the keystrokes that Nedry had entered into the computer earlier in the day were listed in a window on the screen:

  13,​42,​121,​32,​88,​77,​19,​13,​122,​13,​44,​52,​77,​90,​13,​99,​13,​100,​13,​109,​55,​103 144,​13,​99,​87,​60,​13,​44,​12,​09,​13,​43,​63,​13,​46,​57,​89,​103,​122,​13,​44,​52,​88,​9 31,​13,​21,​13,​57,​98,​100,​102,​103,​13,​112,​13,​146,​13,​13,​13,​77,​67,​88,​23,​13,​13

  system

  nedry

  goto command level

  nedry

  040/#xy/67&

  mr goodbytes

  security

  keycheck off

  safety off

  sl off

  security

  whte_rbt.obj

  “That’s it?” Arnold said. “He was screwing around here for hours, it seemed like.”

  “Probably just killing time,” Wu said. “Until he finally decided to get down to it.”

  The initial list of numbers represented the ASCII keyboard codes for the keys Nedry had pushed at his console. Those numbers meant he was still within the standard user interface, like any ordinary user of the computer. So initially Nedry was just looking around, which you wouldn’t have expected of the programmer who had designed the system.

  “Maybe he was trying to see if there were changes, before he went in,” Wu said.

  “Maybe,” Arnold said. Arnold was now looking at the list of commands, which allowed him to follow Nedry’s progression through the system, line by line. “At least we can see what he did.”

  system was Nedry’s request to leave the ordinary user interface and access the code itself. The computer asked for his name, and he replied: nedry. That name was authorized to access the code, so the computer allowed him into the system. Nedry asked to goto command level, the computer’s highest level of control. The command level required extra security, and asked Nedry for his name, access number, and password.

  nedry

  040/#xy/67&

  mr goodbytes

  Those entries got Nedry into the command level. From there he wanted security. And since he was authorized, the computer allowed him to go there. Once at the security level, Nedry tried three variations:

  keycheck off

  safety off

  sl off

  “He’s trying to turn
off the safety systems,” Wu said. “He doesn’t want anybody to see what he’s about to do.”

  “Exactly,” Arnold said. “And apparently he doesn’t know it’s no longer possible to turn the systems off except by manually flipping switches on the main board.”

  After three failed commands, the computer automatically began to worry about Nedry. But since he had gotten in with proper authorization, the computer would assume that Nedry was lost, trying to do something he couldn’t accomplish from where he was. So the computer asked him again where he wanted to be, and Nedry said:

  security. And he was allowed to remain there.

  “Finally,” Wu said, “here’s the kicker.” He pointed to the last of the commands Nedry had entered.

  whte_rbt.obj

  “What the hell is that?” Arnold said. “White rabbit? Is that supposed to be his private joke?”

  “It’s marked as an object,” Wu said. In computer terminology, an “object” was a block of code that could be moved around and used, the way you might move a chair in a room. An object might be a set of commands to draw a picture, or to refresh the screen, or to perform a certain calculation.

  “Let’s see where it is in the code,” Arnold said. “Maybe we can figure out what it does.” He went to the program utilities and typed:

  FIND WHTE_RBT.OBJ

  The computer flashed back:

  OBJECT NOT FOUND IN LIBRARIES

  “It doesn’t exist,” Arnold said.

  “Then search the code listing,” Wu said.

  Arnold typed:

  FIND/LISTINGS: WHTE_RBT.OBJ

  The screen scrolled rapidly, the lines of code blurring as they swept past. It continued this way for almost a minute, and then abruptly stopped.

  “There it is,” Wu said. “It’s not an object, it’s a command.”

  The screen showed an arrow pointing to a single line of code:

  curV = GetHandl {ssm.dt} tempRgn {itm.dd2}.

  curH = GetHandl {ssd.itl} tempRgn2 {itm.dd4}.

  on DrawMeter(!gN) set shp_val.obj to lim(Val{d})-Xval.

  if ValidMeter(mH) (**mH). MeterVis return.

  if Meterhandl(vGT) ((DrawBack(tY)) return.

  limitDat.4 = maxBits (%33) to {limit .04} set on.