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The South Wind
By Darc-Man
In the age in which we live, industrial espionage takes electronic form almost exclusively. Blueprints for a new mixing machine can be quietly attached to an otherwise innocent e-mail. A digital camera can sit in a cubicle among other, similar electronic devices, and not seem a bit out of place these days. A determined individual or organization could use still more sophisticated equipment to get past tight security.
Governments in North American and European countries, to name a few regions, generally have strict laws when industrial espionage is involved, and go so far as to keep tabs on companies that have been known or rumored to dabble in this trade. Countries in other, less democratic regions however, have more open views.
Communist China for example, is more than willing to look the other way, and even go so far as to cover up misdeeds by companies and organizations under its rule, so long as the State can benefit from them. In any country, an individual trained by the government in almost any trade can always find employment among his or her countrymen, or abroad.
1993, Isla Nublar
Vivian Zhu walked the corridors of Ingen’s facility at Isla Nublar. As she did every other day, she ate in the cafeteria, joked with colleagues, and complained about the food. A 43 year-old biologist, her medium height was carried in a physically fit frame. Her green eyes peered at the world from beneath hair neatly piled on her head in a conservative bun. She worked on a wide range of projects at the Jurassic Park facility, taking the shuttle to Isla Sorna as work required. Not really an expert in any one specific area, she was a generalist in many. Colleagues gladly accepted her help when workloads got too heavy, or when things went wrong, or when one pair of hands or a single mind was not enough to sort things out. Her ability and willingness to assist in the many tasks made her popular among the staff.
It was evening now, and announcements had been made over the PA that due to an approaching storm, the boat would be boarding passengers for the mainland very soon. On the way to her quarters, Zhu glanced at her watch, then at the clock in the corridor to make sure she had the correct time. Timing would be everything this evening. She had allowed for the unexpected; the early boarding call would make things tight, but she was confident she could still do what she had in mind.
Once she entered her quarters she immediately changed the lab coat she wore for an identical one she kept in a drawer. The key difference between the two was the inside pockets lining the one she now wore. They contained a variety of small electronic devices and flattened containers, all undetectable to the passerby. One of the devices was a sophisticated lock-picking device. Another used an electrical charge to quickly wipe a hard drive. Still others were used for data storage. These last ones were full of data on InGen genetic engineering techniques, slowly stolen over the course of several months.
Several of the flattened containers were slightly cold to the touch; they had a tiny coolant system that would last for one week. By the time that ran out, she intended to be far, far away from this place, and a wealthy woman. Checking to make sure nothing about her appeared out of place, she turned and left her room, heading for the cryogenics lab.
Vivian Zhu was what western intelligence services called a Spook. This term can be applied to all sorts of nefarious characters, but in Vivian’s case, it referred to her as an intelligence agent, one who worked for whomever wanted to pay her. She was born in Hong Kong, and through the efforts of a lover at university, had begun work for Chinese intelligence. She received training during trips for Communist China, and became skilled at gathering electronic data, as well as small items of hardware. On a trip to Canada, she had stolen the plans for an advanced industrial welder, an act for which she received a commendation.
Times change, however, and so do a government’s needs. Vivian was informed that the People’s intelligence services had no assignment for her at present, and that she was free to pursue other endeavors, with a polite reminder that they would be keeping an eye on her.
As she strode down the hall towards the cryogenics lab, she moved carefully, remembering the arcs through which the security cameras moved. She passed no one, as most were already at or in transit to the boat. She stood near the cryogenics lab door, and withdrew her lock picking device, inserting it’s card into the slot. A sound down the hall made her quickly remove it before she could start. She stepped behind a pop machine several meters up the hall. Footsteps neared, and, peeking around the corner of the vending machine, she saw the overweight, sweaty Dennis Nedry. His very existence annoyed her; his working space was a dump. Nedry was moving in a way that set off alarms in Vivian’s head. She knew the way an untrained person moved when they were nervous or didn’t want to be seen. He stood out like a signal fire. Her curiosity increased as he stopped at the cryogenics lab door, and consulted his watch. After a few seconds, she heard the door lock click open. What was he doing?
Nedry moved inside, and Vivian went to the window to see what he was doing. To her astonishment, he began removing frozen embryos from one of the cryogenic units, placing them in a cleverly designed cryogenic unit disguised as a can of shaving cream. Though the can was impressive, she was certain it was beyond Nedry’s capabilities to manufacture. He was working for someone else. She would have to follow up on this, but for now she retreated to the far side of the vending machine; Nedry was making a great deal of noise, and if anyone was alerted, better they find only one thief and not two. Once Nedry was finished, he left the lab and went back in the direction from which he came. Vivian was fast, noting with a shake of her head that Nedry had left the door ajar. Keeping an eye on the windows and the door leading back to the corridor, she quickly but quietly removed pairs of frozen embryos, putting them in the cryogenic container in her coat’s lining. Once she finished removing them, she moved to the next machine, one Nedry had not touched. Before she could open it, someone walked past in the corridor, forcing her to take cover.
Once they were gone, she quickly repeated her earlier process of taking pairs of embryos. This machine was familiar to her. Inside were what could be considered ‘second-string’ species, of which no final version had yet been made. No matter; her employers would be happy to take up that work, with the stolen data as their guide. Once finished, she had a total of 30 different species of dinosaur embryo with her. She left everything as she found it, making sure to close the lab door all the way. Shortly after, she had gathered her belongings, and was on a truck heading for the dock, happy that she had someone on whom to pin the theft is she needed to. It was weeks later that she heard that all the employees had been terminated, and that the park and the research facilities on both islands were closed. She was relieved she had not chosen to stay behind and make her move when almost everyone was back on the mainland.
Lekang Island, southeast of Zhanjiang, off the Luichow Peninsula, 10 years later
The South China Sea was calm this night, with little breeze. The half moon shone forth it’s rays on a peaceful scene of calm waters. The silence was broken by sounds of a boat. The craft was moving along slowly, its motors barely above idle. Still, a throaty bellow came from its exhausts, indicating the high-performance nature of the triple outboard motors. The boat help six occupants. They were all armed with sub-machine guns and short swords. They laughed and joked about crude things, but in muted tones. They were pirates.
While in most of the rest of the world such things have long since faded into history, in the South China Sea, they flourished. There were many places for pirates to hide, and a very strong black market on which to sell their stolen goods. Pirates usually preferred small boats rather than ships, because ships had large crews, and powerful fire hoses. All cargo vessel crews who regularly traveled the area were trained to use the fire hoses to repel boarders.
This evening, the pirates were about a different business. They followed a sensible logic; where there are poorly protected valuables, there was a great opportunity for profit, so long as the risk was acceptable.
Through contacts on the mainland, and their own observations, they had chosen the island they now approached. Lekang Island was the property of a large Chinese corporation called South Wind Inc. The pirates knew the company dealt in technology, and they had seen few people on the island. They suspected there were manufacturing facilities on the island’s interior, but could not see them.
The main dock of the island was located in a large bay. There were sturdy breakwaters running from either side of the bay towards the center with an opening for a small ship to pass between them. The breakwaters were almost 1.5 KM from the dock.
Li Haung, the group’s unofficial leader, thought the bay would make an excellent safe anchorage for ships when the monsoon season arrived. Returning to the task at hand, Li expertly turned the boat towards a small sandy beach, tilting the motors upwards more and more until he felt the hull touch the sandy bottom. He and his fellows quickly disembarked, and pushed and pulled the boat further up on land. They then removed several camouflage nets and carefully covered the boat. Once this was done, they wasted no time heading inland.
The walk was hard, even for the pirates, who were fit from the exertions of murder and flight. Up a short cliff and onto a rocky ridge they went, looking for high ground. They passed through light vegetation, but could smell jungle on the breeze. Li lead them to a rocky outcropping that seemed to be the only high point in the immediate area with a view of the island’s centre. He looked towards the interior of the island, and was surprised to see clusters of lights here and there rather than a huge manufacturing facility with floodlights, smokestacks and vents belching out the smoke and fumes of industry. He pulled out his binoculars and let his gaze sweep slowly across the island.
The interior of Lekang Island was mostly thick jungle. Li could make out at least one river winding through the trees, and several bodies of water ranging from small ponds to lakes. In the darkness, he thought he could also make out horizontal lines running among the trees. Were there dim lights atop some of those lines? Power lines? Li put the binoculars down and shook his head; straining his eyes in the darkness was a sure way to get a headache, and he needed to stay sharp.
Li had just passed the binoculars to his brother Chiang. Both had been born in Hong Kong and had recently graduated from the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Thus educated, they did not hesitate to recruit a crew for their original ambition of raiding shipping in the coastal waters. They recognized the fact that having an education gave them an important advantage, and had already made an impressive profit.
An animal cry sounded from the jungle below them. The six turned in that direction and listened intently. It was difficult to determine exactly where it had come from, but it sounded far off.
“Brother, what sort of animal was that? I’m sure I’ve never heard anything like it,” Chiang said.
In the darkness, Li and the others only nodded. Gathering himself, Li took back the binoculars and put them away.
“Mating monkeys. Hunting hogs. Vomiting birds. Does it really matter? We’re wasting time here. We’ll head for the nearest lights to see what this place has to offer. Once we’ve had a look around, we’ll figure out what to do and make camp somewhere safe. Come,” Li said as he led off down the rock and into the thickening jungle.
It was the vibration that alerted Chiang, who had taken the lead after 30 minutes of walking. The air was humid, and he could feel it more than any other sense. He stopped, and the others stopped behind him. They were smart enough to wait until he was ready to indicate what he had found, than to break the silence and ask him. Li put a hand on his shoulder; he felt it too. They slowly advanced, and soon could detect a humming sound. It was the unmistakable sound of high voltage running through machinery or wiring.
“Light,” Li whispered.
Hsia dug out his flashlight and passed it to Li, who covered part of the lens with his fingers before turning it on. The beam uncovered a large concrete foundation from which a metal pole rose. He let out a startled grunt as he leaned back to direct the light to the top of the pole, which was at least 20 meters tall. Thick cables ran through insulated loops on the pole. It suddenly dawned on Li what they were looking at.
“This is an electric fence! It must have thousands of volts running throughout it to be heard and felt through the moisture in the air. And so tall! I’ve never seen such security,” Li exclaimed, leaning forward to shine the light on a sign on the fence’s concrete foundation.
Chiang, seeing this, felt he could not pass up the opportunity. If not for this, then what else were brothers for? He stepped forward and shoved Li towards the wires, catching him just before he made contact. Li yelped, and quickly turned and checked his still-laughing brother to the ground. In the darkness, at least one of the men was taking shallow, quick breaths trying hard not to laugh.
“You were adopted and mother and father told me they never loved you. Just you wait, you turtle,” Li said as he turned back to the sign.
Chiang groaned, still giggling. He knew Li would get him back when he least expected it.
The sign illuminated by Li’s light warned of the high voltage, and warned against trespassing in several languages. After reading the sign, Li inspected the fence, and was surprised to see that a man could get up on the concrete foundation and slide under the bottom wire with inches to spare.
“Look at that. Perhaps the security here is not as tight as it might seem. That will cost them,” Li said as he took off his pack and slid under the wire. Chiang passed his weapon and pack to him and repeated the process with himself and the other men. Once they were all through, they set out anew for the cluster of lights, which they could now see through the trees.
The jungle thinned around them. Li paused for a moment, and went down on one knee. He examined the grass and plants.
“This has been grazed. There must be cows around. Watch your step,” Li said, looking directly at his brother, who indicated that anyone else was free to walk in front of Li.
The group made their way through the darkness towards the lights. Twice they heard animals moving in the jungle, but saw nothing. They did not come across any dung piles, to Chiang’s relief.
Again, they same to a section of the tall fence, and after a brief search found a place where they could once again slide under the humming bottom wire. A quick shine of the light indicated a road lay on the other side. It had rained earlier in the day, and they could see that the water in the puddles was clear and undisturbed; no one had driven or walked along this road for several hours at least.
Once they were on the road, they saw that on the other side was another fence, identical to the one they had seen. Rather than cross this new fence, they started following the road in the rough direction of the lights. They had their weapons out now, with their short swords at the ready. They had walked for several hundred meters down the road between the fences when they heard a stick crack from behind the new fence. They turned to look, but did not break stride; more cows, or perhaps horses if they are kept in a second area. They discussed that in low voices. Two separate fences? It must be for security purposes. They must want to keep some parts of their facility separate from others. It was not unheard of for corporations to make their workers take even greater security measures than this. It increased their certainty that whatever work was going on here was worth a great deal. More sticks broke in the darkness, and Li could make out footsteps. He smiled. Cows and horses were curious things. They would likely keep pace with them until their fence stopped them.
Li’s mind was alert, his senses straining to make out any sound which might indicate that men were approaching or that they had been discovered. In the back of his mind, he thought the sound of the cow’s footsteps were a little odd, but he paid it no heed. Shortly, they came around a corner and found themselves faced with the source of some of the lights; a security gate. It had several lights, and a guard station that was empty. A camera pointed down at the entrance to the gate.
Li surveyed the situation, and decided the camera would have to be dealt with. He quickly took off his pack and pressed his face into a shallow drainage ditch that ran along one side of the road. He crawled on his belly towards the camera until he was sure he was close enough to be outside its field of view.
He climbed up part of the concrete structure of the gate, and located some wires protruding from the back of the camera. He tore them out, then carefully placed them back but not quite touching where they had been torn. It would not stand up to close scrutiny if someone came to investigate, but was a decent temporary measure. He signaled the men forward.
Hsia examined the gate’s locking mechanism with interest.
“Look here, how the moving parts have fresh oil on them. See also how it seems to have been made so that a man can work the mechanism and have the door open very quickly. But I don’t understand the purpose of this strange guard around the handle. It almost looks like it was designed specifically so that someone with an opposable thumb could work it but no one else. I wonder if they have problems with apes here? They can open doors, and have been known to make nuisances of themselves,” Hsia said.
They advanced through the gate, careful to close it behind them. The gate was set up like an airlock; there were two gates with an enclosed are in the middle. There was a box mounted on the wall which, when opened, revealed food bars, water, medical supplies, a radio, and a pistol equipped to fire darts from a sealed clip using compressed CO2. A label on the box indicated that the contents had been checked the previous day.
“We’ll leave this stuff where it is for now. I wonder what it’s for? It’s almost as though this gate is meant to double as a prison….or as a small fortress,” Li said, looking again at the handles. “Look at this! Both of these gates can be locked from the inside, allowing whoever is in here to barricade themselves. This place seems to get stranger with our every step.”
“Li…..”
Li turned to see his brother holding the box containing the strange supplies. He wore a strange expression on his face. He was pointing to something that had escaped their notice during their inspection of the box. It was a small glass ampoule in a plastic container. It was marked with a skull and crossed-bones. He carefully opened the container, and pulled the ampoule out. He read the label aloud.
“Cyanide,” Li said in a flat voice as he read the instructions on the ampoule, which indicated the user should snap off the thin end and consume the liquid within.
There was stunned silence. Finally Hsia spoke.
“What kind of place has giant electrified fences, security cameras covering gates that can be used as forts which have supplies to last several days along with the means to defend one’s self, communicate via radio and……..the means to kill one’s self? Where are we?” Hsia asked. No one had an answer.
Li was only partly listening. His mind was poring over the details of everything he had seen tonight. Giant fences, behind which cows grazed. He wondered how many cows, like the one he heard, there were? It was the cows that bothered him, that tickled at the back of his mind. Their existence on the island at all, behind great fences no less, was strange, but it was the sound the curious cow that had kept pace with them on the other side of the fence that made absolutely no sense.
Li’s head snapped up, his eyes wide. The steps he heard obviously belonged to a heavy animal, but it was the rhythm of those steps that had been bothering him. Li thought to himself that, if he did not know better, those steps sounded like they were being made by an animal walking on two legs, not four. It’s large size was not in doubt from the sound of the breaking sticks and branches, but what animal of that size walked on two legs? Li could not think of any. He turned to the others who were still trying to make sense of what they were seeing.
“Listen to me now. When we leave, or if we have to move, we will take a road like this one towards the outer fence. We won’t pass through any more fences in the interior of the island.” Li explained why.
From their expressions, they didn’t have any better idea about what was making those sounds than Li did. They had grown up watching all sorts of science fiction and horror movies. In spite of themselves, their minds briefly went to the worst images imaginable. Chiang shook the images from his head.
“Right. Let’s go then. You can go first, brother!” Chiang said cheerfully.
Li ignored him, certain he could find some way to repay his brother’s sense of humor.
The men exited the gate/fort and proceeded towards the nearest cluster of lights, which appeared to be several large, squat buildings.
End of part 1
4/3/2002 1:46:36 AM
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