Michael Crichton - Jurassic Park

Hammond shook his head. "Who could have imagined it would turn out this way."

Ellie said, "Apparently Malcolm did."

"I didn't imagine it," Malcolm said. "I calculated it."

Hammond sighed. "No more of this, please. He's been saying 'I told you so' for hours. But nobody ever wanted this to happen."

"It isn't a matter of wanting it or not," Malcolm said, eyes closed. He spoke slowly, through the drugs. "It's a matter of what you think you can accomplish. When the hunter goes out in the rain forest to seek food for his family, does he expect to control nature? No. He imagines that nature is beyond him. Beyond his understanding. Beyond his control. Maybe he prays to nature, to the fertility of the forest that provides for him. He prays because he knows he doesn't control it. He's at the mercy of it.

"But you decide you won't be at the mercy of nature. You decide you'll control nature, and from that moment on you're in deep trouble, because you can't do it. Yet you have made systems that require you to do it. And you can't do it-and you never have-and you never will. Don't confuse things. You can make a boat, but you can't make the ocean. You can make an airplane, but you can't make the air. Your powers are much less than your dreams of reason would have you believe."

"He's lost me," Hammond said, with a sigh, "Where did Tim go? He seemed such a responsible boy."

"I'm sure he's trying to get control of the situation," Malcolm said. "Like everybody else."

"And Grant, too. What happened to Grant?"

Grant reached the rear door to the visitor center, the same door he had left twenty minutes before. He tugged on the handle: it was locked. Then he saw the little red light. The security doors were reactivated! Damn! He ran around to the front of the building, and went through the shattered front doors into the main lobby, stopping by the guard desk where he had been earlier. He could hear the dry hiss of his radio. He went to the kitchen, looking for the kids, but the kitchen door was open, the kids gone.

He went upstairs but came to the glass panel marked CLOSED AREA and the door was locked. He needed a security card to go farther.

Grant couldn't get in.

From somewhere inside the hallway, he heard the raptors snarling.

The leathery reptile skin touched Tim's face, the claws tore his shirt, and Tim fell onto his back, shrieking in fright.

"Timmy!" Lex yelled.

Tim scrambled to his feet again. The baby velociraptor perched on his shoulder, chirping and squeaking in panic. Tim and Lex were in the white nursery. There were toys on the floor: a rolling yellow ball, a doll, a plastic rattle.

"It's the baby raptor," Lex said, pointing to the animal gripping Tim's shoulder.

The little raptor burrowed its head into Tim's neck. The poor thing was probably starving, Tim thought.

Lex came closer and the baby hopped onto her shoulder. It rubbed against her neck. "Why is it doing that?" she said. "Is it scared?"

"I don't know," Tim said.

She passed the raptor back to Tim. The baby was chirping and squeaking, and hopping up and down on his shoulder excitedly. It kept looking around, head moving quickly. No doubt about it, the little thing was worked up and-

"Tim," Lex whispered.

The door to the hallway laadn't closed behind them after they entered the nursery. Now the big velociraptors were coming through. First one, then a second one.

Clearly agitated, the baby chirped and bounced on Tim's shoulder. Tim knew he had to get away. Maybe the baby would distract them. After all, it was a baby raptor. He plucked the little animal from his shoulder and threw it across the room. The baby scurried between the legs of the adults. The first raptor lowered its snout, sniffed at the baby delicately,

Tim took Lex's hand, and pulled her deeper into the nursery. He had to find a door, a way to get out-

There was a high piercing shriek. Tim looked back to see the baby in the jaws of the adult. A second velociraptor came forward and tore at the limbs of the infant, trying to pull it from the mouth of the first. The two raptors fought over the baby as it squealed. Blood splattered in large drops onto the floor.

"They ate him," Lex said.

The raptors fought over the remains of the baby, rearing back and butting heads. Tim found a door-it was unlocked-and went through, pulling Lex after him.

They were in another room, and from the deep green glow he realized it was the deserted DNA-extraction laboratory, the rows of stereo microscopes abandoned, the high-resolution screens showing frozen, giant black-and-white images of insects. The flies and gnats that had bitten dinosaurs millions of years ago, sucking the blood that now had been used to re-create dinosaurs in the park. They ran through the laboratory, and Tim could hear the snorts and snarls of the raptors, pursuing them, coming closer, and then he went to the back of the lab and through a door that must have had an alarm, because in the narrow corridor an intermittent siren sounded shrilly, and the lights overhead flashed on and off. Running down the corridor, Tim was plunged into darkness-then light again-then darkness. Over the sound of the alarm, he heard the raptors snort as they pursued him. Lex was whimpering and moaning. Tim saw another door ahead, with the blue biohazard sign, and he slammed into the door, and moved beyond it, and suddenly he collided with something big and Lex shrieked in terror.

"Take it easy, kids," a voice said.

Tim blinked in disbelief. Standing above him was Dr. Grant. And next to him was Mr. Gennaro.

Outside in the hallway, it had taken Grant nearly two minutes to realize that the dead guard down in the lobby probably had a security card. He'd gone back and gotten it, and entered the upper corridor, moving quickly down the hallway. He had followed the sound of the raptors and found them fighting in the nursery. He was sure the kids would have gone to the next room, and had immediately run to the extractions lab.

And there he'd met the kids.

Now the raptors were coming toward them. The animals seemed momentarily hesitant, surprised by the appearance of more people.

Grant pushed the kids into Gennaro's arms and said, "Take them back someplace safe."

"But-"

"Through there," Grant said, pointing over his shoulder to a far door. "Take them to the control room, if you can. You should all be safe there."

"What are you going to do?" Gennaro said.

The raptors stood near the door. Grant noticed that they waited until all the animals were together, and then they moved forward, as a group. Pack hunters. He shivered.

"I have a plan," Grant said. "Now go on."

Gennaro led the kids away. The raptors continued slowly toward Grant, moving past the supercomputers, past the screens that still blinked endless sequences of computer-deciphered code. The raptors came forward without hesitation, sniffing the floor, repeatedly ducking their heads.

Grant heard the door click behind him and glanced over his shoulder. Everybody was standing on the other side of the glass door, watching him. Gennaro shook his head.

Grant knew what it meant. There was no door to the control room beyond. Gennaro and the kids were trapped in there.

It was up to him now.

Grant moved slowly, edging around the laboratory, leading the raptors away from Gennaro and the kids. He could see another door, nearer the front, which was marked TO LABORATORY. Whatever that meant. He had an idea, and he hoped he was right. The door had a blue biohazard sign. The raptors were coming closer. Grant turned and slammed into the door, and moved beyond it, into a deep, warm silence.

He turned.

Yes.

He was where he wanted to be, in the hatchery: beneath infrared lights, long tables, with rows of eggs and a low clinging mist. The rockers on the tables clicked and whirred in a steady motion. The mist poured over the sides of the tables and drifted to the floor, where it disappeared, evaporated.