Dr. Alan Grant's Arc

Chapter 6 of 11

Grant pushed himself up off the floor. The steel door held, but the timer on the console kept counting down. Ellie said it again so the children heard it plain. Forty minutes. When the main power dropped, the keypad lock would drop with it. The bolt would slide back on its own and the door would open to whatever was waiting in the hall. Grant walked to the console and looked at the screen. Rows of green text he did not understand. He was a man who read bone, not code. He asked Ellie if she could stop the timer. She said the shutdown was hardwired. Someone had to reroute the lock to auxiliary power before the main cut. She pointed at a panel under the desk. Grant crouched and opened it. Wires in bundles. Labels worn off. He sat back on his heels. He had pulled a claw the size of his arm out of Montana dirt when he was eight, and he could read a hipbone in a slab of shale, and none of it helped him now. Malcolm was on the floor with his leg out straight. He looked at the panel and shook his head. He said he could talk Grant through math but not this. The girl held the puppy. The boy stood at Malcolm's shoulder and watched Grant's hands. Then the boy spoke. He said his grandfather had shown him the control room on the tour. He said his grandfather had made him sit at the console and try the menus. Grant looked at the boy. Ellie looked at the boy. The boy said his grandfather's name was John Hammond, and that the system had a screen for the doors, and he thought he could find it. Grant lifted the boy onto the chair. The boy's hands were small and fast on the keys. Menus opened and closed. He found a page labeled SECURITY. He found a page labeled DOORS. He found a line for the control room lock and a box beside it. He clicked the box. The screen asked for a password. The boy typed something. The screen said no. He typed something else. The screen said no. Grant watched the timer. Nineteen minutes. Eleven. The boy tried a third word and the screen changed. A green light came up on the panel under the desk. The lock had a battery now. Grant let out a breath he had been holding for a long time. He told the boy he had done it. The boy nodded once and did not smile. Ellie put her hand on the boy's shoulder. Something scraped the outside of the steel door. Slow. Testing. Then a second sound farther down, at the vent. Grant looked up at the ceiling. The vent cover was screwed in from the room side, but the duct behind it ran out into the hall and out into the building and out into everything the raptors had already learned.