Threshold shift

Chapter 29

Svensson set up the scan for the day after Owen had walked into her office and requested it. Grady was right on time, looking tense and apprehensive.

Annika had cleared her schedule for the day.

It was exciting, frightening and confusing in one.

Owen's brain looked like an artist's surreal landscape, colors in places where there were none in a non-preternatural, and little to none in those who had had their MRIs taken before.

Annika did a full round of scans, with whatever she had at her disposal. She knew that to interpret what she saw it would need a lifetime.

Owen Grady had already done something no one had ever come out sane before, had inherited a strong talent from his grandfather and his great-aunt, who had lost herself to that talent. Now he had stepped beyond that.

She would really need the raptors' scans to make sense of maybe one percent of what she saw.

She told him that.

Owen looked at the screen, the colors on the black and white image. He appeared thoughtful, but also a little bit relieved.

"No brain damage then?" he finally asked.

"None I can see."

He nodded.

"Owen..."

He sighed. "I know I might have received damage, non-traditional brain damage, because you can't compare my brain to anyone else's. I feel okay, Annika. Really fine. I can walk outside, in the park, and the other animals don't bother me. I was on Sorna, without a problem, could push my mind at the Sorna raptors. Nothing happened afterwards. I didn't break down."

"Because you have the pack. It's a symbiosis," she told him, realization dawning in her as well. "They protect you. They are the four corner stones of your mind shields."

Owen didn't answer. She could read it in his eyes, saw it in his stance. And she knew he didn't want to hear it, but he was the alpha of the island.

"I can only begin to interpret what I can see here. I'm not a neurologist. I can only say that whatever is going on, you have a brain that has fired up areas that don't shine so brightly in other scans I've seen, and you might have been running on all cylinders when you shot past your natural limits. You're still quieting down and your girls are your guards. It'll take a while to heal completely, I guess."

Owen was silent, looking at the screen. "I feel no different than before now."

Annika could read the little lie quite clearly. He might not be as susceptible as he was right after they had brought him in, but Owen Grady was more sensitive to the dinosaurs on Isla Nublar than he was telling.

"Should anything change, anything at all, if you experience symptoms... please call me, Owen," she only said, not calling him on his little obfuscation of the truth.

He nodded. His expression was serious. "I will."

And Annika knew he would.

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"I sometimes forget how beautiful this is."

Alan's voice was warm, wistful, filled with wonder. And Amazement.

Owen gave him an understanding smile. "Yeah. It's pretty amazing. And very, very beautiful. Especially without the tourists."

They sat at the edge of the river, on one of the platforms usually used by the keepers. On the other side the apatosaurs moved slowly, measured and graceful despite their massive size. Ankyls, stegs and trices lay or grazed among them.