by Tess Sharpe
About fifteen minutes into Lovelace’s personal concert, Tanya’s voice starts to crack, and Art takes over while Justin offers her some water. I pull my own bottle out of my bag, eager to rinse my hands off. I’m just uncapping it when Art stops singing abruptly, and everyone goes quiet.
I look up and gulp.
It’s not Bertie or Tim, but Oscar, the head of the security team. He’s staring right at me, and I look down at my clothes covered with dirt and my hands streaked with blood, and I swallow hard. This does not look good. I should have waited for Bertie or Tim to come back. They’re trained to deal with this, and I…am not. I probably just broke about a dozen rules.
But I couldn’t just let her suffer. Not when I could do something about it.
Oscar’s frown deepens as he looks me up and down.
“What exactly is going on here?” he demands.
I swallow hard, not knowing what to say. He’s glowering at me.
“Were you antagonizing her?” he demands, looking at my bloody hands.
“What? No!” I say, horrified.
“Claire was helping her,” Justin rushes to explain. “Lovelace was thrashing around and got this”—he bends down and grabs the thorn branch carefully, holding it up—“stuck right in her wound.”
“The thorns were causing more damage,” Art adds. “She was bleeding all over.”
“We needed to get it out,” I say, but Oscar’s expression is still the definition of glowering.
“And you didn’t think to call one of the highly qualified medical professionals less than half a mile away?” he asks.
“You left us alone,” Tanya points out, coming to stand next to me. Lovelace backs up in the gully, trying to track her music source.
“That’s beside the point,” Oscar says. “You—”
“What’s up?” Bertie comes jogging over to us, followed by Tim and the rest of the vets. They have enormous duffel bags slung over their shoulders, and Tim’s pulling a large wagon filled with a huge stack of silver foil packages—the fusion bandages for Lovelace’s wound.
“The interns decided to play vet,” Oscar says, pointing to the branch in Justin’s hand. “That one”—he points to me—“seems to be the ringleader.”
“We weren’t playing vet,” I protest, looking pleadingly at Birdie. “She was in pain, and bleeding! Was I supposed to just sit back and let that continue when I could do something about it?”
Bertie looks at me and then at Lovelace.
“You pulled that out of her?” she asks, sounding skeptical. “And she didn’t stampede or lash out? No biting or bellowing or panic?”
“Tanya’s singing calmed her down enough for Claire to get the branch,” Eric pipes up. “Lovelace barely noticed. She was grooving to the jazz.”
A few titters erupt in our group.
“Singing,” Bertie echoes. She looks down at Lovelace, who is positively chilled out, still watching Tanya hopefully. She shrugs. “Okay, then. Go ahead and sing, everyone, if it makes her happy.”
“Bertie—” Oscar protests.
“They’re fine, Oscar,” Bertie interrupts him. “They problem-solved a tricky situation. Isn’t that what we want from them? No one’s hurt. Claire, are you hurt?”
I shake my head quickly.
“And Lovelace isn’t in distress either. So we’re fine,” Bertie says firmly to Oscar. “Just…next time, everyone, call us on the radio first, okay? That’s why I gave it to you.”
“We promise,” Justin says.
Oscar sighs. “I’m going to go back to perimeter patrol,” he says. “Radio me when you’re ready to transport out.”
When he’s gone, Tim and the vets get to work. They clear us out of the way, and we end up a good ten feet back from the gully, watching them. Tanya gets to stand closer, because her singing is really helping. I hear Bertie tell Eric to be sure to forward her the footage for future training ideas, and I try not to smile, because Tanya is so not going to like that.
The fusion bandages are this weird, jellylike material that Tim loads into this thing that looks like an old-fashioned cookie press, but ten times bigger. Using this gel gun, Tim spreads the goo over Lovelace’s wound, and we watch as the substance activates in the air, expanding to a firm, foamy white seal on her skin. Instantly, the trickle of blood slows and then stops completely.
“Don’t you need to clean the wound first?” Art asks.
“The compound we use is an antiseptic and propellant—sterilizes the wound as it lifts all the dirt and debris, which will come out in the foam—see?” Tim points to specks of dirt and splinters of branches already popping up to the top of the high-tech bandage.
Art’s eyes widen, and he leans forward to examine this amazing new tech.
“That’s so cool. When is something like that going to be available to us non-dino vets?”
Tim grins. “Soon, I hope. The military is also interested, but we haven’t gotten it to adhere to anything other than dinosaur skin yet.”
He straightens up and hands the gun to one of his teammates. “I want to get her out of there before we start any fluids or antibiotics,” Tim says to Bertie. “What’s the plan?”
“Sarah’s team’s bringing the ramp,” Bertie says, nodding to the group of trainers carrying large, flat steel segments toward us to assemble. “We back Lovelace up about ten feet, place the ramp, and then use her favorite snack to lure her out.”
“You think we’ve got enough strawberries for that?” Tim asks, sounding skeptical.
“It’s less stressful than using a winch and dragging her out,” Bertie points out.
He nods decisively. “Okay. We’ll get out of your way. All you interns, move over here with us. We need to give the trainers room to do their thing.”
We scramble to obey as a team member hands Bertie a large basket of strawberries. She walks to the ledge and waves a particularly juicy-looking one in Lovelace’s line of sight, and the dinosaur’s frill ruffles excitedly when she detects the scent.
“Come on, Lovelace,” Bertie coaxes, backing up so the berry’s about to disappear out of the Triceratops’s field of vision. She lures the dinosaur down the gully a few feet and then tosses it to her. Lovelace catches it neatly in her beaklike mouth, exactly like a giant, fifteen-thousand-pound horned dog grabbing a treat.
“Good girl. Just a few more steps.”
It takes five minutes to get Lovelace backed up enough from the front of the gully to install the ramp securely across it, and another twenty to convince her that really, stepping on the ramp is okay and not scary. But with patience and a lot of strawberries, they finally get her across the gully up over the ledge to safety. We’re all rejoicing inside as the vets hurry to administer her medications. She makes a noise of protest when she gets jabbed with a big needle, but I’m surprised at how docile she is, standing there and letting Tim and his team check her over.
“All done,” Tim announces. “The wound doesn’t look too bad. We’ll need to monitor her more closely the next week, and the bandage will come off then.”
“Should we send her off, then?” Bertie asks, and Tim nods.
She looks over her shoulder at us, flashing a wide smile. “Watch,” she says. She cups her hands around her mouth and lets out a trilling call. Almost instantly, her call is answered, followed by a rumbling sound—the Triceratops in the valley stomping their feet in anticipation.
Lovelace trots off toward the sounds. Full of strawberries, with her wound no longer bothering her, she doesn’t even look back at us.
It’s such a relief that the whole group breaks into a spontaneous cheer. After we dismantle the ramp, we follow the trainers out of the thicket, carrying the parts with us. There are jeeps and trucks parked along the tree line, and beyond that, the rest of the Tri-ceratops have gathered, surrounding Lovelace, who i
s totally going to be the drama queen of the herd, I can tell. Always getting into trouble—and getting all the strawberries as a result.
“Load up, everyone,” Bertie calls. “We’re running a little behind, and Beverly won’t like it if you’re late for your afternoon assignments.”
We hop into the jeeps, and I turn around as we drive away, staring out the back window, keeping them in sight for as long as I can.
Next to me, Tanya hums, a smile on her face.
* * *
After our first few days on the island, we begin to settle into our routines. Two weeks in, and it’s like we’ve always been here. Like I belong in a way I never have before.
The roads to the Gyrosphere Valley are familiar now—and so are some of the dinosaurs. I can identify a few of them by sight, and even more by behavior. You haven’t lived until you see a pair of Brachiosauruses tussle over a particular tasty patch of monkey puzzle tree. Agnes and Olive, the old ladies of the bunch, live up to their names: they are crotchety. We’ve also been able to observe the Gallimimuses, herbivores that remind me a little of ostriches with their powerful legs, and sleek heads. They do this thing where they like to race against the jeeps. Not that Bertie and her team are, you know, trying to outdrive a dinosaur, because that’s a terrible idea. They’re the most birdlike of the dinosaurs so far. It’s in their heads and how they tilt them sometimes, like, Hey, you, time to run!
While we’ve caught brief glimpses of the Parasaurolophuses with their huge crested heads, we haven’t gotten a good look at them, which is a disappointment. I want to hear them, because there are all sorts of theories about how their crests might actually function as a resonating chamber for low-frequency sounds. But we haven’t gotten close enough to them yet.
We’ve spent the last two weeks mainly with the trainers and the vets—apparently Dr. Wu is dragging his heels about letting us into his lab, if the conversation I overheard with Beverly and Jessica was right. Not that any of us are complaining. Well, except Wyatt, who seems to think it’s beneath him to catalog dino droppings and review drone footage of the herd’s behavior around the watering hole.
The trainers haven’t integrated the Ankylosauruses into the valley with the rest of the herbivores. The armored dinosaurs are still very little, all hatched from the same cloning round, and Bertie told us that picking the right moment in their development to integrate them is crucial—choose too early and the Triceratops might get territorial; choose too late and the Ankylosauruses’ tails might cause some major damage.
Choose wrong, and they’ll have a dinosaur war on their hands instead of a peaceful coexistence.
“Hey, Claire, are you sure you don’t want me to stay and help?” Tanya asks.
I look up from my notebook. “No, it’s fine. Go ahead.”
“You sure?”
“Totally. I could use some quiet time anyway.”
Tanya smiles. “Introverts,” she says, shaking her head as her eyes shine with an affectionate acceptance.
“That’s me!”
“Okay, well, I’m going to drive with Eric, so there’s still a jeep for you to get back,” Tanya says, tossing me the keys.
I catch them and slide them into my pocket.
“See you at dinner!”
“I’ll be there.” I turn my attention back to my notebook as I hear the door swing shut behind her and the muffled sound of Eric greeting her outside. I tap on my tablet, turning up the music to work up some motivation.
We’ve spent the afternoon in one of the trainers’ supply sheds, taking inventory. I chose one of the hardest, nitpickiest jobs: counting and cataloging all the tranquilizer darts. About two hours ago, just as I finished the second row of boxes, Wyatt stumbled into the remaining stack, scattering the darts everywhere. The look he shot me afterward told me it was anything but an accident, but I bit my tongue as my friends hurried to help me get them back into the boxes. Of course, I had to recount them after that. Everyone offered to help, but I wasn’t about to keep them from dinner, so I insisted I was fine.
And now I have the supply shed to myself. I have to admit, it’s kind of neat to be in here alone. They call it a shed, but it’s really a two-room building that opens onto a dirt training yard with a larger, wooded habitat area beyond. The two spaces are divided by a sturdy, welded fence, and the thick walls enclosing the entire habitat and the supply building tower are so high I wonder if this is where they kept the Brachiosauruses before moving them to the valley. I’ll have to ask Bertie next time I see her.
The supply area itself is sectioned off, with the normal training tools hanging and boxed, and the more dangerous stuff like the stunners and the tranquilizers locked in a large steel cage that takes up most of the room. It reminds me of those evidence lockers in TV police shows. I prop the door to the cage open with a box, since the trainers didn’t leave us a key, and I check the box from time to time because I don’t want to get caught inside—or locked out.
It takes another hour and a half, but I work through most of the boxes till there’s finally an end in sight—just five to go. Thank goodness—my neck is killing me from hunching over. My music stops playing, and I glance down to see that my tablet’s gone dark. The battery’s dead.
There’s a socket on the other side of the wall, so I get up and plug it in. It flashes back on, but before I can get the music going again, a scuffling noise behind me makes me whirl around, and the tablet falls from my hands.
It crashes to the floor, but I’m not paying attention.
“Hello?” I call out, leaving the tablet on the ground and stepping over the box and out of the supply cage. “Tanya?” Has she come back for me?
I walk into the supply building’s second room—the trainers’ break room. There are some tables and chairs, a coffeemaker, and a stainless-steel fridge, which is open just a crack.
My frown deepens. I grabbed a soda out of there less than an hour ago. I’m sure I closed it.
Is someone messing with me? The twins wouldn’t…and anyway, I heard them drive off.
Wyatt, maybe? Has he come back to annoy me further? That’d be more than a little likely…and creepy.
Determined not to act scared in case it is Wyatt—that’s what the jerk would want—I square my shoulders and walk briskly toward the break room door that leads to the outside training area. I may not be acting scared, but my heart’s thundering in my ears and that prickly sensation of being watched fills me as I step outside. I remember Wyatt’s talk of the phantom intern and shiver as I scan the horizon, searching. If this were a horror movie, I’d be seconds away from getting attacked by a guy wielding a comically huge knife.
I hesitate once I step into the dirt training area—I didn’t realize darkness had already fallen. It’s late. I breathe in the oppressive, moist heat, the night reverberating with the sounds of the jungle, its insect, bird, and amphibian inhabitants singing their symphony.
I peer into the darkness, at the thick twist of trees and vines that spreads beyond the training area, past the fence that bisects the training yard and the larger habitat. Is there something out there? My instinct is to call out, but I stop myself. What if something got loose? Even if it isn’t a dinosaur, surely other kinds of predators roam this island. Removing them would be too much of a hassle—especially when you can just let nature take its course.
Clang. The sound of metal on metal, like a door swinging shut, fills the air.
My stomach tightens and I turn on my heel, racing back to the door.
The closet! Crap, I just left it open!
I rush inside, through the break room and into the supply areas, my blood pounding under my skin, but there’s no one in sight.
But the box—the one holding the metal door open—is hanging askew, almost off one corner. That’s not how I left it.
Someone was in here. My stomach sinks as I
hurry over to the stacks of boxes of tranquilizer darts and frantically count, then recount them. A hundred thirty-four…is that right? I grab my notebook where I set it and I flip through the pages, breathing a huge sigh of relief when I see I’ve written 134 boxes.
But then I feel sick as I look around at all the other equipment in the cage. I don’t have counts for any of it. I have no way of knowing if something’s missing.
I swallow hard. What am I going to do? I should never have gone outside. That was so stupid. If someone sneaked in and stole something…
“Claire?”
I’m so on edge that the sound of my name in the quiet room makes me jump, my hand knocks against the boxes, and to my horror, the stack closest to me begins to teeter. Not again!
I grab the top few boxes just before they fall, and manage to pin the stack up against the wall. I look over my shoulder and realize it’s Beverly who called my name. She’s standing right in front of the door that leads to the break room, and she does not look happy.
“Um, hi,” I say, pushing the boxes back into position before I turn to face her.
“What are you doing in here so late?” she asks, looking down at the watch on her wrist. “You’ve missed dinner.”
“I’m sorry. The boxes of tranquilizers I was cataloging got knocked over halfway through my count, so I had to start over again,” I explain. “I didn’t want to make my friends wait for me and miss dinner, so I stayed behind to finish up. I didn’t realize how late it was.”
I’m not sure if I should tell her that I think someone might have been sneaking around the supply room. I’m not sure if that’s what happened. What do I have as proof? A scuffling noise, an open fridge door, and a box that might have been moved a little? I’m already starting to doubt myself. Ever since I discovered that notebook under my bed, I’ve been thinking about Wyatt’s tall tale of the phantom interns. Maybe it’s making me paranoid. He has to be making it up. I know big corporations like Mr. Masrani’s always have a lot to lose, but a cover-up like the one Wyatt described…it seems absurd.
