"Forget about your damn hat!"
Grant and his group fled toward an iron-barred gate. Fresh, sweet air waited just on the other side, but the door was locked tight.
Roar!
A Dimetrodon closed in relentlessly, blocked only by a mining cart. Two adults and a child threw their combined weight against the cart to keep the creature at bay.
Hey, let me run too! I want to get out as well!
Engine roaring.
A Jeep screeched to a halt by the gate, its headlights cutting through the darkness to illuminate the iron bars and the cave entrance. Malcolm stepped out, his tall, slender frame unmistakable in the glare of the high beams.
"Ian!"
"We're over here!"
Hearing their shouts, Malcolm sprinted over, only to freeze in place as he stared at the digital keypad mounted beside the gate.
"Do you know the code?"
"I didn't know it needed a code... Why does it even have a code?"
Malcolm stepped up to the keypad, falling deep into thought as he stared at the input panel. Inside the cave, Grant and the others fought desperately against the Dimetrodon with the mining cart, though their efforts yielded little progress.
"Push harder!"
"Hmm... There are a million possibilities here."
"Hurry up, Ian!"
"1984... No, that's not it."
"Come on!"
"Miles Davis's birthday? 0526? Nope."
"Ian!"
"Ruben Carolini's?"
You have to admit, Ian's signature mathematician composure and calmness could easily skyrocket someone's blood pressure, even if he really was trying his absolute best to help.
"Huh? Wait, that's actually it?!"
The iron gate swung open abruptly. The three of them scrambled out of the cave, making sure to slam the iron gate shut behind them to keep the Dimetrodon from following.
Selfish humans! You ran away and didn't take me with you!
Only a few employees remained in the control room. Dodgson was nowhere to be found, leaving Ramsay in command of the situation.
As for Ramsay? Having just unlocked the gate for Dr. Grant and the others, he let out a quiet sigh of relief as he watched the group escape via the monitors.
Thud!
The building trembled slightly, accompanied by the distant sound of steel and concrete collapsing.
"I quit!"
Panic gripped the remaining staff in the control room as employees began abandoning their posts to flee.
Ramsay quickly calculated how long it would take Carlo to tear his way here. Making sure no one was paying attention, he pulled up the surveillance feed for the locust breeding incubator.
As expected, Dodgson was right there, preparing to exterminate the locusts to destroy the evidence.
The camera feed reflected in Ramsay's eyes. With a subtle shift in expression, he clicked the right mouse button.
"Do it."
Looking down at the life's work he had cultivated, Dodgson took a deep breath and ordered the researchers to destroy the locusts.
How much had he sacrificed to breed these things? Behind Dr. Wu's back, behind Ramsay's back, behind everyone's back, he had pinned all his ambitions on these insects, only to have to destroy them with his own hands now.
"Sigh..."
Dodgson let out a heavy sigh, his thoughts racing as he pieced together the sequence of events.
That son-of-a-bitch Dr. Wu had been dissatisfied with his capture of the Giga family from the very beginning. Who would have thought he'd leave such a massive landmine behind... Why was he so certain that he would make a move against the Giga?
And now Wu was nowhere to be found. Damn it... They were all a bunch of bastards. He needed to get Ramsay and get out of here fast.
Bang!
Suddenly, the sound of shattering glass rang out!
Bathed in the encroaching flames, the locusts retained their ferocious vitality. They slammed against the glass, communicating and passing information among themselves, until they finally found the most vulnerable spot in the incubator—the ceiling!
They smashed through the glass, soaring thousands of feet high along with the open skylight! In the dead of night, they formed a roiling black cloud rimmed with fire.
It was a spectacle far more dazzling than the aurora borealis, but... it was the prelude to destruction, paid for with the currency of burning lives.
Buzz-buzz-buzz-buzz—
The beating of countless wings drowned out all other sound. They painted the shape of churning sea waves across the sky, blotting out the moon and stars. Wherever they passed, a rain of fire fell, igniting the forests and hills.
"Aunnng!"
Along the riverbanks, herds of Parasaurolophus and Edmontosaurus let out terrified shrieks in unison.
"Roar!"
Locusts plummeted into the forest, raining down onto the bodies of Giga One and Giga Two, scorching their hides.
The apocalyptic scene was enough to dredge up a fear buried deep within their genetic code.
"Is... is this right?"
Inside the Jeep beneath the sea of fire, the occupants tilted their heads upward in awe.
"ROAR—!"
A piercing bellow shook the heavens, momentarily overpowering the roar of the swarming locusts.
Carlo tore through the metal with a single motion, ripping the iron cage apart before casually tossing the twisted fragments up into the sky.
The torn metal sheet cut through the atmosphere like a shooting star, punching an insignificant hole straight through the swarm of locusts blanketing the sky.
Another fire?!
Carlo stared at the encroaching forest fire, bad memories echoing in his mind once more.
Fire, fire... Did fire have some kind of personal vendetta against him?!
THUD.
The behemoth's massive foot crushed the solid concrete floor, and its titanic frame launched forward from a dead stop.
Moments later, a shadow that nothing could swallow joined the raging pillars of fire reaching toward the sky.
Rumble…
Chunks of rubble crashed to the ground. From within the fractured, crumbling buildings, dinosaurs from all over the world poked their heads out from their enclosures, only to shrink back in horror upon seeing the apocalyptic scene unfolding outside.
"Order an evacuation. We have to let the dinosaurs in."
"The regulations are very clear. If a Level Two incident occurs..."
"Shh!"
A staff member in the control room prepared to follow protocol, only to be cut off by a frantic shushing from Dodgson, who had just rushed in.
He watched helplessly as the locusts destroyed everything, turning his decade-plus of hard work to ashes... The company would go bankrupt for sure.
If they let the dinosaurs into the company plaza, it would indeed preserve their living assets, but it would undoubtedly cause even greater devastation.
What other choice was there... What other choice...
"Jeffrey..."
Dodgson looked toward his personal bodyguard and risk management specialist, only to be met with a slow shake of the head.
There was no saving it now.
Dodgson straightened up, staring blankly at the sea of fire miles away. Suddenly, he seemed to snap, beginning to flail wildly and beat at the empty air like some deranged Therizinosaurus!
"God... damn... it!!!!"
He seemed to have temporarily lost his mind; after accidentally swatting the back of a chair, he began pummeling the furniture furiously, as if furiously berating it: How dare you hurt my hand!
His madness didn't last long. Resigned to his fate, Dodgson leaned one hand heavily against a chair, planted his other hand on his hip, and spoke in a defeated tone:
"Just do it."
Malcolm was actually right. The talent he recruited had been built from the start on a shared fascination with dinosaurs. Once the dinosaurs were gone, the very foundation of his enterprise vanished with them.
"Attention, this is an emergency evacuation order! The remote migration system has been activated! All living assets are moving toward the emergency containment shelters!"
BioSyn's internal alarm echoed across the facility once more. Crowds surged toward the shelters as the massive gates connecting the company plaza to the Primeval Ecological Zone slowly ground open.
Hum—
As if guided by a singular target, an electrical stimulus pulsed through the neural chips embedded in the dinosaurs' brains, forcing them to lift their heads and gaze toward the BioSyn facility.
"ROOAR—"
Carlo let out a booming roar, pressing forward along the riverbank toward the heart of the inferno, swimming against the tide of fleeing dinosaurs as he searched for his family.
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This fanfic is now complete! If you want to read the whole story ahead of everyone else, head over here ——— pa-tre-on.c-om/AlexandrusTL [remove the hyphen for normal access]