Free Jurassic Park: A Novel by Michael Crichton Page A

“Power/Desalinization/Support,” “Hammond Res.,” and “Safari Lodge.” Grant could see the outline of a swimming pool, the rectangles of tennis courts, and the round squiggles that represented planting and shrubbery.
    “Looks like a resort, all right,” Ellie said.
    There followed detail sheets for the Safari Lodge itself. In the elevation sketches, the lodge looked dramatic: a long low building with a series of pyramid shapes on the roof. But there was little about the other buildings in the visitor area.
    And the rest of the island was even more mysterious. As far as Grant could tell, it was mostly open space. A network of roads, tunnels, and outlying buildings, and a long thin lake that appeared to be man-made, with concrete dams and barriers. But, for the most part, the island was divided into big curving areas with very little development at all. Each area was marked by codes:
    /P/PROC/V /2 A , /D/TRIC/L/ 5(4 A +1), /LN/OTHN/C /4(3 A +1), and / VV/HADR/X /11(6 A +3+3 DB ).
    “Is there an explanation for the codes?” she said.
    Grant flipped the pages rapidly, but he couldn’t find one.
    “Maybe they took it out,” she said.
    “I’m telling you,” Grant said. “Paranoid.” He looked at the big curving divisions, separated from one another by the network of roads. There were only six divisions on the whole island. And each division was separated from the road by a concrete moat. Outside each moat was a fence with a little lightning sign alongside it. That mystified them until they were finally able to figure out it meant the fences were electrified.
    “That’s odd,” she said. “Electrified fences at a resort?”
    “Miles of them,” Grant said. “Electrified fences and moats, together. And usually with a road alongside them as well.”
    “Just like a zoo,” Ellie said.
    They went back to the topographical map and looked closely at the contour lines. The roads had been placed oddly. The main road ran north-south, right through the central hills of the island, including one section of road that seemed to be literally cut into the side of a cliff, above a river. It began to look as if there had been a deliberate effort to leave these open areas as big enclosures, separated from the roads by moats and electric fences. And the roads were raised up above ground level, so you could see over the fences.…
    “You know,” Ellie said, “some of these dimensions are enormous. Look at this. This concrete moat is thirty feet wide. That’s like a military fortification.”
    “So are these buildings,” Grant said. He had noticed that each open division had a few buildings, usually located in out-of-the-way corners. But the buildings were all concrete, with thick walls. In sideview elevations they looked like concrete bunkers with small windows. Like the Nazi pillboxes from old war movies.
    At that moment, they heard a muffled explosion, and Grant put the papers aside. “Back to work,” he said.
    “Fire!”
    There was a slight vibration, and then yellow contour lines traced across the computer screen. This time the resolution was perfect, and Alan Grant had a glimpse of the skeleton, beautifully defined,the long neck arched back. It was unquestionably an infant velociraptor, and it looked in perfect—
    The screen went blank.
    “I hate computers,” Grant said, squinting in the sun. “What happened now?”
    “Lost the integrator input,” one of the kids said. “Just a minute.” The kid bent to look at the tangle of wires going into the back of the battery-powered portable computer. They had set the computer up on a beer carton on top of Hill Four, not far from the device they called Thumper.
    Grant sat down on the side of the hill and looked at his watch. He said to Ellie, “We’re going to have to do this the old-fashioned way.”
    One of the kids overheard. “Aw, Alan.”
    “Look,” Grant said, “I’ve got a plane to catch. And I want the fossil protected before I go.”
    Once you began