by Tess Sharpe
“You radio us, and whoever’s closest will come assist,” Oscar says. “Screen is here. Controls are here.” He points to the screen affixed at eye level in the front of the sphere and the joystick controls. “Brake is the red button.” He walks us through the process twice, and then we’re climbing inside and the doors are encircling us.
It’s an odd feeling, the sphere moving around us as we descend into the valley, the guards in their own spheres following us and branching out.
The seats are comfortable, and I check three times that my buckle is secure—and then I check again, remembering the other night in the jeep. Crashing in a Gyrosphere would be extra horrible, even though the aluminum oxynitride glass is supposed to be stronger than any steel.
It’s like gliding across the grass rather than driving…almost floating along. Once I get the hang of the joystick steering wheel—what a weird throwback for such a modern invention—it’s fun. And the view it provides…
“You couldn’t get this in a jeep or on the monorail,” Justin says as we whiz through the valley, following the map on the screen. It’s exhilarating. Oscar’s sketched out a route for us to follow, and for a few miles, it’s like the Gyrosphere knows exactly where to go. But as we reach the trees and a deep dip in the terrain, it begins to slow, and the words Scanning the Area replace the map on the screen. The sphere hovers, and a red light appears in front of us, blinking as it takes in the foliage.
We inch forward and then, almost as if the sphere is gaining confidence, speed up again. Which is…not exactly reassuring. I’m already gripping the edge of my seat hard when we hit a patch of rocks and sway back and forth.
“You good?” Justin asks, grabbing the joystick and urging the sphere over a fallen tree. We land with a teeth-rattling thump on the other side.
“Yeah,” I say, but then I realize we’re not moving.
“Are we stuck?” I twist in my seat, looking behind us. Justin pushes the navigator forward, but all the Gyrosphere does is knock back and forth against the fallen tree at our back.
“I think we’re caught on something,” Justin says, looking down. He fiddles with the navigator again, doing the equivalent of the gunning-the-engine thing, but Gyrosphere-style. We rock back and forth harder against the tree, but we’ve got no momentum. Something’s gumming up the works.
“We should call for help,” I say. “If I get out and try to push and Oscar finds us, he’ll ban me from the valley.”
“He’s not so bad,” Justin says. “He just likes rules.”
“So do I!” And it makes him laugh. “What? I do!”
“For a girl who likes rules so much, you’re pretty willing to break them when it comes to certain things,” he teases. “Especially dinosaurs.”
“You’re the one who helped me with Lovelace.”
“And I’d do it again,” he says firmly. “You were right. We needed to help her.” He pushes at the navigator again, and the screen flickers alarmingly. I gasp as it suddenly goes dark.
“Um,” Justin says, eyes wide. “That’s not good.”
“Leave it to us to get the faulty Gyrosphere,” I say, tapping on the screen. “Can we restart it or something? We can radio them without the screen, can’t we?”
“I don’t think so,” Justin says.
“Okay. What do we do now?” I look around. We’re in a wooded area, but through the trees, I think I see a glimpse of blue. One of the dinosaurs’ watering holes? We could get out and try to dig the Gyrosphere out of whatever it’s stuck on….Oscar will be livid, but it’s not like we can call him.
I bite my lip. I don’t want to get in trouble, but we also can’t just stay stuck. Oscar’s warning about “sitting ducks and all that” is playing and replaying in my mind right now.
“I think we need to get out and see if we can unstick ourselves,” Justin says. “You okay with that?”
“I don’t see what else we can do,” I say reluctantly, hitting the blue button near my seat. Our doors pop open, and a wailing alarm sound fills the air.
“Crap!” I yell over the din. It’s a disorienting sound, and even when Justin and I leap out and slam the doors shut, it keeps on going.
“Well, I guess we don’t have to worry about security not finding us,” Justin shouts over the noise.
I’m about to make some wisecrack when something stops me. A vibration in the ground. At first, I think it’s the blare of the alarm, but as it grows to a rumble, the branches of the trees begin to shake, leaves raining down on our heads.
I look up, and everything inside me flips over.
Because Pearl the Brachiosaurus is moving toward us at a startling speed.
And her eyes are on the prize: the Gyrosphere, aka Pearl’s favorite toy.
I’m frozen, unable to move as Pearl barrels up, birds scattering as her long neck bends toward us. She’s aiming for the Gyrosphere, but I’m right there, in her path, and oh my God, she’s going to bop me with her giant dinosaur nose and flatten me like a pancake.
My heart feels like it’s about to jump out of my chest and do a tap dance there on the jungle floor and I’m just…stuck. Like my feet have decided not to work. The fear is that swift, it blots everything else out. Even my motor functions.
“Claire!”
And then I’m not right there anymore: Justin grabs my arm and yanks me out of the way just a second before her head whips around to where I was and makes contact with the Gyrosphere. Our shoulders knock together and I almost sag against him in relief. But there’s no relief coming yet—she’s still in play mode. And an herbivore in a playful mood can be just as deadly as a carnivore in a hunting mood.
At first she noses at it, a croaky sound burbling from her throat as it pops up out of the hollow it was stuck in and bounces on the tree trunk.
We scramble out of her way, crouching against a turned-up stump that’s almost big enough to shield us, but she’s stomping all over and tapping the Gyrosphere with her nose, and every time it bounces off a tree like she’s playing a giant pinball game, she makes this satisfied crowing noise, like best thing ever!
We dodge as her foot lands right next to the stump we’ve just been crouching behind. I dive out of the way, Justin right behind me as she steps back, her foot crushing the stump, wood flying everywhere. My hands fly up to shield my eyes, and sharp bits spray against my skin, luckily not hard enough to cut me. It’s more like someone’s thrown a handful of splinters at me.
“Oh my God, we’re gonna die,” I mutter, scrambling to my feet and helping Justin up. Bits of wood scatter off our clothes as we sidestep Pearl’s tail whipping toward us.
“Oscar and the guys will show up in a minute,” Justin assures me, but he doesn’t look one hundred percent convinced. One tap of Pearl’s nose to the Gyrosphere and the alarm has stopped blaring. Who knows if they even heard our distress signal?
They’ve gotta have extra trackers on these things, right?
I gulp, my throat dry and my heartbeat still so loud in my ears I’m afraid I won’t even hear Oscar and his guys coming if they do come. Justin’s sweating next to me, his glasses hanging off his nose like they don’t have a prayer.
I look around, trying to find some sturdier cover than the stump as Pearl bops the Gyrosphere particularly hard and it slams against a rock, causing the lights to go a bit wonky. But it’s pretty tough to hide from a dinosaur as tall as Pearl. Climbing a tree is no use, running is risky, and hiding behind anything is just an invitation to be squished.
I clench my fists, trying to think it through. But it’s hard to think clearly when every molecule in your body is screaming at you. I feel like I’m going haywire, like any second my head’s just going to pop off from the adrenaline.
I look at Justin, who looks back, just as torn as I am. Do we leave a hugely expensive piece of equipment in the hands—or rather maw�
�of a dinosaur that thinks it’s a soccer ball—or do we stay and try to distract her?
Pearl chooses this moment to kick the Gyrosphere with her hind legs, donkey-style.
We look back at each other—yeah, there is no distracting her. She has what she wants. If we try to take it from her, it might not be pretty.
“Bail?” I ask Justin.
“Bail,” he agrees.
“Okay.” I scan the area again, trying to figure out the best way around Pearl without getting knocked off our feet by her frolicking. Trees. Rocks. Clear open space beyond them. We need to get out of the trees. She seems to like knocking the Gyrosphere against them.
Sweat trickles down the small of my back, which aches from all the running and falling.
“We need to get to clearer ground. It’ll be easier to avoid her away from the trees. She doesn’t want us. If we head that way”—I jerk my thumb behind me—“we’ll run into whoever’s hanging out at the watering hole, and they might not like us interrupting their relaxation time. We go that way”—I point ahead of us, toward the valley—“and we’ve got a dino-Gyrosphere dodgeball match to get through.”
Slam. The Gyrosphere slams the tree so hard it knocks off the bark. Pearl leaps forward, pouncing like it’s going to get away from her.
I see an opening: her back’s to us, and she’s got the Gyrosphere pinned against the tree. Even with the glass’s reputation for strength, I’m kind of surprised it’s held up so well.
It’s now or never. A risk, but one we need to take.
“Let’s go!” I grab Justin’s hand, and we run across the small clearing, leaping over Pearl’s tail in the process and making it to the other side of the trees before she starts rolling the sphere across the ground again. I let out a huge sigh of relief as we gallop through the trees that thin into valley after about a half mile, and then I promptly start coughing because I’m so out of breath.
Justin pulls off his glasses. The frames are bent badly, and when he tries to bend them back, they snap in two.
He lets out a short laugh. “That about sums it up,” he says.
“That was…I don’t even know,” I say. It was terrifying, sure. But now that we’re far enough away from getting squished…
It was also kind of amazing.
I scan the horizon, looking for any sign of Oscar and his guys. Sure enough, I see the sun glinting off something in the distance that’s fast approaching. The ACU’s Gyrospheres.
“Look, they’re coming,” I say. “Do you think they’re gonna be mad we got out?”
Justin shakes his head. “Are you kidding me? If we’d stayed in that thing when Pearl charged toward us, we’d be concussed or squished by now.”
“Bertie did say she only chased the empty ones,” I say.
“Do you believe that?” he asks. “Did you see the look on her face?”
“I was a little distracted by mind-numbing fear,” I admit.
Oscar and his guys are getting closer. I hold up my arm and wave so I’m sure they’ll see us.
“They’ve got to get that dinosaur some toys or she’s gonna be chasing tourists,” Justin says, shaking his head. “Talk about a legal nightmare.”
“But if the toys look like the Gyrosphere, she’s still gonna associate them with play,” I point out.
“You’re right,” he says. “So she needs something that gives her the same satisfaction but looks nothing like the spheres.”
“That’s gonna be hard, considering how happy she was to make it roll all over,” I say as the security guard’s Gyrospheres draw close enough for us to see Oscar’s thunderous expression. He gets out of his sphere and looks expectantly at us.
“We got stuck,” Justin explains. “And then Pearl happened by.”
Oscar’s grouchy expression melts away to worry. “Are you two okay?” he asks immediately.
“We’re fine,” Justin says. “The Gyrosphere, however…”
“Don’t worry about that.” Oscar waves off Justin’s concern. “She charged at you? While you were in the sphere?”
“No,” I say. “We got stuck, then got out of the sphere to unstick ourselves, and she came running when she saw the empty one.”
The grouchy expression is back. Did he want Pearl to play with a human-occupied Gyrosphere?
“That animal,” he mutters. “They need to put her away.”
“She wasn’t being vicious,” I say, compelled to defend Pearl. “She just wanted to play. The other Brachiosauruses are older than she is, right? So she probably doesn’t get to expend her energy.”
“Expending her energy by attacking our guests is not acceptable,” Oscar says shortly. “I’ve told Bertie time and time again that Pearl needs to be in isolation.” He lets out a sigh. “She’ll have to listen to me now,” he says.
Irritation prickles inside me. “She just needs a different kind of toy to distract her.”
Oscar shoots me a look. That look. The “you’re a silly girl” look that only guys seem to give. It’s condescending and tinged with frustration. I think about Pearl. Yeah, it was scary when she came running toward us, but she wasn’t interested in us at all. She wasn’t targeting us—she just wanted to play with a ball. That’s a problem, sure, but it’s a fixable problem.
My chin tilts up. “You can’t tell Bertie she needs to be isolated. It’s months before the park opens. There’s plenty of time to redirect her attention and give her better outlets for her energy. She’s not malicious—she’s playful. You can’t expect dinosaurs to behave perfectly. They’re not robots.”
“Get in the Gyrosphere and get back to the parking area,” Oscar says, like I haven’t said a word. “You’re both off for the rest of the day. Go to the nurse at the hotel to make sure you’re not injured.”
“We aren’t hurt—she barely even noticed us,” I go on, worried he’ll use the nurse as another way to convince Bertie to lock Pearl away.
My lips press together, and Justin glances at me nervously.
“Claire…”
“Fine,” I say, because I don’t want him to get in trouble. Plus, if we leave now, I can talk to Bertie before Oscar does. With a plan forming in my mind, I walk away and get into the Gyrosphere Oscar drove over.
“I thought you were going to yell at him or something,” Justin says as he guides us up the rolling hills toward the gate.
“They just can’t lock her up somewhere,” I insist. “That’s not fair.”
“I agree that they have time to train her into better habits,” Justin says. “But also…Oscar’s job is to keep everyone safe around enormous wild animals that are dangerous. They could be as docile as a cat—”
“Have you met a feral cat?” I ask skeptically.
“Okay, docile as a bunny, then,” Justin says. “My point is, no matter how sweet or slow the herbivores are, they still pose a significant risk just because of their size. I don’t even know how Mr. Masrani managed to get whoever’s insuring the island to agree to let him build an attraction like this valley.”
“Maybe he bought an insurance company,” I say.
“This park can’t exist if the dinosaurs hurt someone,” Justin says softly.
“I know,” I say. “I just…” I look up at the sky through the Gyrosphere, trying to gather my thoughts. “It’s the Bone Wars argument again, I guess,” I say. “Knowledge and advancement versus consequences. The consequence here is if Pearl is her normal self, she gets isolated. And that’s not fair.”
“So what’s the solution?” Justin asks.
“I don’t know,” I say. How do you teach a creature who never existed around humans to exist around them? How much is nature? How much is nurture? How much instinct is written in those precious DNA strands? Can you undo it?
Should you?
I think about the owner of the journ
al. About how Iz wrote about the dinosaurs. The care. The concern. The connection.
“I don’t know,” I say again. “But I’m going to figure it out.”
The gate comes into view. It’s closed, but as the Gyrosphere approaches, it triggers a sensor and the gate swings open. It closes behind us as we clear it, and we get out of the sphere, the fresh air hitting our faces. I take a deep breath, the tightness in my shoulders beginning to ease, and adrenaline drains out of me.
“You want to head back to the hotel?” Justin asks. “You’re gonna have to drive, though. I don’t have a spare pair of glasses on me.”
I shake my head.
He shades his eyes from the sun, looking at me. “No, you won’t drive?”
“No, I don’t want to go back to the hotel,” I say. “I want to go find Bertie before Oscar gets a chance to talk to her.”
* * *
Bertie isn’t at the first training center, but I get Mr. DNA on my tablet to give us directions to the one on the north side of the island. It’s a little out of the way, and the jungle is denser over here. We pass several groves with gigantic cranes towering next to the trees, where they’re assembling enormous walls.
“Those are the carnivore habitats,” I say, rolling down the window and peering out.
“Look, that one’s complete,” Justin says, pointing ahead to the paddock. The walls look solid, but there’s a part of me that still can’t wrap my head around the fact that we’ve contained something so powerful. That cement and steel and whatever reinforcements Masrani’s scientists have whipped up are enough to keep that kind of strength, that kind of predator, in check. I slow down a little as we approach the paddock. “I wonder if it’s occupied,” Justin says.
Before I can answer, a roar splits through the air. Birds go flying from the trees all around us and I jerk in my seat, practically rising off the cushion. My foot taps the brake and we stop in the middle of the road, and for a second, we just sit there, frozen in shock.
The sound…her sound, her call…I can feel it in my bones. A primal sort of feeling that’s written in my DNA, into my species, one that says danger and run.
