Jurassic Park (Norminah)

Chp. 7: Rescue Mission

Mark was boiling with anger. It was safe for him to assume that Dennis was the cause behind all that was happening, essentially putting his nieces in terrible danger. He didn't even know what to do with himself.

"I will kill Nerdy," he exclaimed.

Chris busted through the double doors of the control room, Mark looking at him expectantly.

"Well?" he asked.

"There's no sign of him anywhere," Chris answered. "Wherever he went, he's long gone."

Ray hovered over Dennis's computer, his cigarette practically burning his lips. The screen before him was just a mass of incomprehensible commands that scrolled by quickly as he futilely examined each one of them. As he did so, Chris began to pace the room. Dinah was the last person to enter the double doors, panic laced in her eyes as she looked to everyone in the room. Mark looked back to her before going over to place a gentle hand on her shoulder.

"Were you able to find them?" he asked, referring to Normani, Victoria, Michael, and the girls.

"No," Dinah said in defeat. "The entire park is completely dark. What about you guys? Are we getting anywhere with these procedures of yours? What's hanging us up?"

"I ran a key check on every stroke Nerdy entered today," Ray said. "It's pretty standard stuff. Up until this one, at least..."

Dinah joined the rest of the men around Dennis's computer. She followed Ray's line of sight to a specific series of commands on the screen.

"'Key check/space'..." he uttered as he read what he was seeing, "'key check off safety'...he turned off all the safety systems. He didn't want anybody to see what he was up to. Now look at this next entry. It's the kicker. 'Wht.rbt.obj.' Whatever that did, it did it all. But with key check off, the computer didn't file the keystrokes. Only way to find them now is to search the computer's lines of code one by one."

"How many lines of code are there?" Dinah asked.

"About two million," Mark answered.

Dinah looked at the man in disbelief.

"Two million..." she said, "...great."

"Chris," Mark said, turning to the burly man, "please bring back my nieces. Take the next available gas jeep. They're out there with no protection."

Chris nodded, Dinah catching up with him as he neared the exit.

"I'm going with you," she said.

Chris nodded before ushering her out the door first. Mark watched them leave before staring blankly out the windows. He grew pale as a million, negative thoughts of the well-being of his nieces ran through his mind.

"Mark..." Ray called to him, "...Mark."

The Korean-American was shaken out of his thoughts before turning around to Ray.

"I can't get Jurassic Park back online without Dennis," Ray informed him regrettably.

Mark let out a breath before running his fingers through his hair. Back in the park, Dennis continued to speed his way to the docks as fast as he possibly could. The rain was still pouring down hard, making it difficult for him to see much of anything on the road.

"Should've been there by now..." he uttered to himself as he adjusted his glasses.

The sight of a white, wooden, guard railed fence suddenly appeared in front him, causing him to stomp hard on his brakes. The jeep fishtailed as a result, skidding out of control in the mud towards the fence. Dennis hauled the wheel to the side to try and control the skid, but the jeep went off the road. It went halfway over the muddied embankment.