"If he's so bright," Gennaro said, "where'd he go? Because I'd stay right here and wait to be picked up."
"Yes," Muldoon said. "But perhaps he couldn't stay here. May the tyrannosaur came back. Or some other animal. Anyway, something made him leave."
"Then where'd he go?" Gennaro said,
"Let's see if we can determine that," Muldoon said, and he strode off toward the main road.
Gennaro watched Muldoon peering at the ground with his flashlight. His face was just inches from the mud, intent on his search. Muldoon really believed he was on to something, that at least one of the kids was still alive. Gennaro remained unimpressed. The shock of finding the severed leg had left him with a grim determination to close the park, and destroy it. No matter what Muldoon said, Gennaro suspected him of unwarranted enthusiasm, and hopefulness, and-
"You notice these prints?" Muldoon asked, still looking at the ground. "What prints?" Gennaro said.
"These footprints-see them, coming toward us from up the road?-and they're adult-size prints. Some kind of rubber-sole sboe. Notice the distinctive tread pattern.
Gennaro saw only mud. Puddles catching the light from the flashlights.
"You can see," Muldoon continued, "the adult prints come to here, where they're joined by other prints. Small, and medium-size… moving around in circles, overlapping… almost as if they're standing together, talking… But now here they are, they seem to be running. He pointed off. "There. Into the park."
Gennaro shook his head. "You can see whatever you want in this mud."
Muldoon got to his feet and stepped back. He looked down at the ground and sighed. "Say what you like, I'll wager one of the kids survived. And maybe both. Perhaps even an adult as well, if these big prints belong to someone other than Regis, We've got to search the park."
"Tonight?" Gennaro said.
But Muldoon wasn't listening. He had walked away, toward an embankment of soft earth, near a drainpipe for rain. He crouched again. "What was that little girl wearing?"
"Christ," Gennaro said. "I don't know."
Proceeding slowly, Muldoon moved farther toward the side of the road. And then they heard a wheezing sound. It was definitely an animal sound.
"Listen," Gennaro said, feeling panic, "I think we better-"
"Shhh," Muldoon said.
He paused, listening.
"It's just the wind," Gennaro said.
They heard the wheezing again, distinctly this time. It wasn't the wind. It was coming from the foliage directly ahead of him, by the side of the road. It didn't sound like an animal, but Muldoon moved forward cautiously. He waggled his light and shouted, but the wheezing did not change character. Muldoon pushed aside the fronds of a palm.
"What is it?" Gennaro said,
"It's Malcolm," Muldoon said.
Ian Malcolm lay on his back, his skin gray-white, mouth slackly open. His breath came in wheezing gasps. Muldoon handed the flashlight to Gennaro, and then bent to examine the body. "I can't find the injury," he said. "Head okay, chest, arms…"
Then Gennaro shone the light on the legs. "He put a tourniquet on." Malcolm's belt was twisted tight over the right thigh. Gennaro moved the light down the leg. The right ankle was bent outward at an awkward angle from the leg, the trousers flattened, soaked in blood. Muldoon touched the ankle gently, and Malcolm groaned.
Muldoon stepped back and tried to decide what to do next. Malcolm might have other injuries. His back might be broken. It might kill him to move him. But if they left him here, he would die of shock. It was only because he had had the presence of mind to put a tourniquet on that he hadn't already bled to death. And probably he was doomed. They might as well move him.
Gennaro helped Muldoon pick the man up, hoisting him awkwardly over their shoulders. Malcolm moaned, and breathed in ragged gasps. "Lex," he said. "Lex… went… Lex…"
"Who's Lex?" Muldoon said.
"The little girl," Gennaro said. They carried Malcolm back to the Jeep, and wrested him into the back seat. Gennaro tightened the tourniquet around his leg. Malcolm groaned again. Muldoon slid the trouser cuff up and saw the pulpy flesh beneath, the dull white splinters of protruding bone.
"We've got to get him back," Muldoon said.
"You going to leave here without the kids?" Gennaro said.
"If they went into the park, it's twenty square miles," Muldoon said, shaking his head. "The only way we can find anything out there is with the motion sensors. If the kids are alive and moving around, the motion sensors will pick them up, and we can go right to them and bring them back. But if we don't take Dr. Malcolm back right now, he'll die."
"Then we have to go back," Gennaro said.
"Yes, I think so."
They climbed into the car. Gennaro said, "Are you going to tell Hammond the kids are missing?"
"No," Muldoon said. "You are."
Control
Donald Gennaro stared at Hammond, sitting in the deserted cafeteria. The man was spooning ice cream, calmly eating it. "So Muldoon believes the children are somewhere in the park?"
"He thinks so, yes."
"Then I'm sure we'll find them."
"I hope so," Gennaro said. He watched the old man deliberately eating, and he felt a chill.
"Oh, I am sure we'll find them. After all, I keep telling everyone, this park is made for kids."
Gennaro said, "Just so you understand that they're missing, sir."
"Missing?" he snapped. "Of course I know they're missing. I'm not senile." He sighed, and changed tone again. "Look, Donald," Hammond said. "Let's not get carried away. We've had a little breakdown from the storm or whatever, and as a result we've suffered a regrettable, unfortunate accident. And that's all that's happened. We're dealing with it. Arnold will get the computers cleaned up. Muldoon will pick up the kids, and I have no doubt he'll be back with them by the time we finish this ice cream. So let's just wait and see what develops, shall we?"
"Whatever you say, sir," Gennaro said.
"Why?" Henry Wu said, looking at the console screen.
"Because I think Nedry did something to the code," Arnold said. "That's why I'm checking it."
"All right," Wu said. "But have you tried your options?"
"Like what?" Arnold said.
"I don't know. Aren't the safety systems still running?" Wu said. "Keychecks? All that?"
"Jesus," Arnold said, snapping his fingers. "They must be. Safety systems can't be turned off except at the main panel."
"Well," Wu said, "if Keycheeks is active, you can trace what he did."
"I sure as hell can," Arnold said. He started to press buttons. Why hadn't he thought of it before? It was so obvious. The computer system at Jurassic Park had several tiers of safety systems built into it. One of them was a keycheck program, which monitored all the keystrokes entered by operators with access to the system. It was originally installed as a debugging device, but it was retained for its security value.
In a moment, all the keystrokes that Nedry had entered into the computer earlier in the day were listed in a window on the screen:
13,42,121,32,88,77,19,13,122,13,44,52,77,90,13,99,13,100,13,109,55,103
144,13,99,87,60,13,44,12,09,13,43,63,13,46,57,89,103,122,13,44,52,88,9
31,13,21,13,57,98,100,102,103,13,112,13,146,13,13,13,77,67,88,23,13,13
system
nedry
goto command level
nedry
040/ # xy/67 amp;
mr goodbytes
security
keycheck off
safety off
sl off
security
whte_rbt.obj
"That's it?" Arnold said. "He was screwing around here for hours, it seemed like."
"Probably just killing time," Wu said. "Until he finally decided to get down to it."
The initial list of numbers represented the ASCI keyboard codes for the keys Nedry had pushed at his console. Those numbers meant he was still within the standard user interface, like any ordinary user of the computer. So initially Nedry was just looking around, which you wouldn't have expected of the programmer who had designed the system.
"Maybe he was trying to see if there were changes, before he went in," Wu said.
"Maybe," Arnold said. Arnold was now looking at the list of commands, which allowed him to follow Nedry's progression through the system, line by line. "At least we can see what he did."