X-Factor Chapter 21
By drucifer67
"I need to rest," Alan said breathlessly.
"Here," Lex said, holding out her hands, "right over here." She took his arms and guided him to the shade of one of the few trees on the plain.
"I'm sorry," Alan said, shaking his head.
"You have nothing to be sorry for," Lex chastised. "Sit and rest."
"Let's have a look at those bites," Rick said.
Alan hesitated, then slowly, cautiously lifted the right leg of his pants a few inches. Lex drew in a quick, shocked breath.
"God," Rick whispered.
The inch-wide lesions had swollen and turned a sickly yellow color. Radiating from the raised, lumpy bites were large, circular red blotches. Some of the spots trickled a thin, yellow-clear fluid.
Dr. Cross leaned over, studying the bites closely. Her mouth twisted into a moue of disgust. "That's attractive. Let me see if I have anything for that."
She slipped her pack off her shoulders and removed several items from it, among them a battered, well-used roll of gauze and a plastic tube of antibiotic ointment.
"Take off your pants," she ordered.
Alan looked at her as if she might be insane.
"Come on, Dr. Grant, you're wasting time. Take off your pants. It's not as if it's something I haven't seen before." Then she stopped, looking around at the others sheepishly. Rick covered his face with his hand, hiding a smirk, and Lex's eyes grew wide.
"I don't mean I've seen his," she explained. "But I have seen a few naked men."
"Oh," Lex said, trying not to smile. "I see."
"Well, not just a few," Dr. Cross continued. "I mean…"
"Strictly in the textbooks, I bet," Tim interrupted, and Lex lost all control. She laughed out loud.
Alan smiled a little, despite his pain and fatigue. "You win, Doctor," he said at last. "But only because there are witnesses present."
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Alan stood up slowly, holding his pants in front of him. The others turned away to allow him to dress privately--except for Dr. Cross.
"Do you mind?" he asked.
"Not at all," she answered, smiling slightly. "Just noticing you look good in gauze."
She had slathered the bites with antibiotic, emptying the tube, and wrapped Alan's lower legs in a double layer of gauze from the ankles to the knees. He felt like a mummy.
She turned around and went to talk to Tim.
Alan got back into his pants and gently sat back down. "Tim," he called, "how far would you say we are from the valley?"
"Not more than an hour or so, I'd guess…if I had to guess."
"We should stay here, then," Dr. Cross suggested. "We can start fresh in the morning. Al--Dr. Grant should have some of his strength back by then, and we won't be crossing the valley at night."
Alan looked at Lyndsey Cross and nodded acknowledgment. He felt a slight spark of gratitude to her for her efforts at caring for his wounds. He hadn't wanted to be the one to suggest they stay here, so that he could rest, and was glad she had brought it up instead.
"It's hours 'til dark," Rick protested.
"Still," Tim said, "we couldn't get across the valley and into the compound before sunset, and I don't want to be caught out there at night."
"Not many trees here," Lex noted. "We'll have to stand watches."
"Trees don't help much anyway," Tim said soberly, thinking of the night that Reilly had received the wounds that would eventually kill him. "They can climb, when they have to."
"I've never observed them climbing," Alan said.
"I have. Believe me, I've seen it."
Alan nodded. "I wonder if that's an adaptation as a result of InGen's trick genes."
"I don't know," Dr. Cross said, "but we've seen other signs here."
"Such as?"
"We documented a triceratops with an incomplete neck crest," Tim answered. "And some of the hadrosaurs have elongated forelimbs."
"We also found a dead velociraptor on the other side of the valley," Dr. Cross added. "It had a pair of rather large nodules on it back, just below the shoulders."
"Nodules?" Lex asked.
"Two big fleshy growths," Tim explained. "Physical deformity. Dr. Reilly speculated that it may have been killed by members of its own pride, because it was mutated."
Alan stared away across the vast plain, a cloud of concern on his face, as if considering what the deformities might imply.
A cow-like lowing sound came to them on the wind, and Tim jumped up quickly.
"Ozzie and Harriet," he said, smiling at Dr. Cross.
Cross stood and scanned the plain in the direction from which the sound had come. "I think so," she said. "Sounds like them."
Alan and Lex exchanged a puzzled look, but Rick asked the question first:
"Who the hell are Ozzie and Harriet?"
"The only two surviving Diplodocus specimens on the island," Cross explained.
"Reilly named them. Something from some T.V. show as old as the dinosaurs."
"I remember that show," Alan protested.
"So do I," Cross said sharply, popping Tim's arm playfully with the back of her hand.
"I hope they're coming this way," Tim said. "They're unbelievable, Dr. Grant, you've got to see--"
"There!" Dr. Cross shouted, pointing into the distance.
The others got to their feet and joined Lex and Lyndsey.
Several hundred yards away, two sauropods moved slowly and grandly onto the plain from the adjoining forest. They were clearly enormous, even from this distance--Alan guessed that the larger female was at least ninety feet long, with half its length comprised of its slender, whip-like tail. Their forelegs were somewhat shorter than their hind legs, and all four terminated in elephant-like, five-toed feet.
The two exchanged occasional sounds as they slowly and gracefully marched across the plain.
"Extraordinary animals," Alan said in a hushed voice.
"Look at Ozzie's back," Tim said, pointing. Alan squinted, and spotted the considerable U-shaped notch in the male's back.
"Something almost got him," Lex guessed.
"That's what we figured, too," Tim said. "T. Rex, or Allosaur, maybe."
As if on cue, a giant theropod crashed through the forest on the far horizon, breaking into the clearing in front of the two herbivores. It lowered its massive head and bellowed.
The mating pair spread out, walking sideways with surprising agility for animals their size. They moved apart, forcing the attacker into making a choice between them.
A second allosaur burst from the treeline in roughly the same spot from which the diplodocus pair had come.
"God, no," Dr. Cross whispered. "The last of their kind."
The group watched as the two fierce predators flanked their prey. The female lifted her front legs off the ground and came back down with a crash, then swung her tail from side to side. Her tail made a double gunshot sound as it whipped left and right.
"She's trying to scare them off," Rick guessed.
"It's not working," Tim observed, as the second allosaur charged toward the weaker, slower male.
In defense of her mate, the female lashed out with her long tail, cracking it in the air directly in front of the allosaur's gaping mouth. She drew it back and struck again, this time making contact with the attacker.
"Should we do something?" Tim asked.
"No," Dr. Cross answered. "It's part of the natural--"
She was interrupted by a shotgun blast of sound as the female's whipping tail struck gold. The second allosaur, setting up for the perfect attack on the smaller diplodocus, took a direct hit to its right eye. It staggered backward, shaking its head violently and wailing.
She didn't stop there. She lashed violently, cracking her tail repeatedly at the wounded predator's face. The explosive sounds echoed across the open plain.
The second allosaur left the fray, lumbering away to a measured distance before looking back to reevaluate the situation.
In the meantime, the male diplodocus was making every effort to hold his own against the lead allosaur. He drew his head up and back, guarding the back of his vulnerable neck. With his forelegs planted, he moved his hind end around in a semicircle, getting into position to use his tail against the vicious predator.
It turned out he moved too slowly. The second allosaur, having regrouped and studied the situation, found an opening. It lunged forward, sidestepping the relentless defense of the thrashing tail, and sank its teeth into the male's back. It latched on with its clawed hands and threw its head back, rending the sauropod's flesh. Unable to spare the time to stop and eat the morsel, it cast the hunk of bloody meat aside and struck again.
The stricken diplodocus bellowed with agony and terror, the sound of impending doom. The second allosaur had worked itself into a feeding frenzy now, invigorated. It dug its teeth and claws into the great herbivore repeatedly, snarling and growling and roaring as it ripped away chunk after chunk of its prey.
The female whipped her tail in the attacker's face, but the predator wouldn't relent; the taste of blood had made it berserk. Finally, her mate bellowed and fell on his side.
The first allosaur saw the opportunity in the female's distraction and took advantage. It lunged forward, tilting its head slightly, enveloping the sauropod's graceful, slender neck in its massive jaws. It took hold there and refused to let go.
The female raised her head and bleated weakly at the sky as she struggled with her strong legs to break free of her attacker's death-grip. The second allosaur, having immobilized its prey, turned to assist its fellow hunter. In less than a minute, the second of the two--and the last of the species--went down with a final, thin groan of agony.
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"We should have shot the damned things," Rick said.
"It's not our job to disrupt the natural order," Cross argued.
"There's nothing natural about this place," Alan said sourly.
"So," Cross said stiffly, "by that rationale, we should just shoot all these animals."
"No, Dr. Cross," Rick said. "I'll tell it to you straight--I don't really care about the dinosaurs getting eaten. I'm worried about me getting eaten. We should have shot the damned things."
"They weren't posing a threat to us," Cross reasoned, "at least not directly."
"At least not today," Tim added. "Tomorrow, maybe."
"Well, then," Cross said in a falsely-sweet voice of sarcasm, "if they do come back here looking for another meal, it will give the "great hunter" Rick his chance to shoot something."
"Lady, I don't know what the hell your problem is," Rick said angrily, "but at the rate you're going, I won't need an excuse to shoot …something."
She stared back at him, ignoring the threat.
"Maybe you should know," Tim explained, "Dr. Cross hates guns."
"Hates guns?" Lex said, incredulous. "What the hell is she doing in a place like this, if she hates guns?"
"I hate guns," Cross reiterated, "but not so much as I loathe people who are too eager to use them."
Rick had been around enough haughty academics to know how to formulate the perfect response for Cross' comment. Slowly, methodically, he raised his fist and held it in the air at eye-level. After a short pause, he popped his middle finger out.
Lex slapped his arm, but with no real force. "Come on, now, none of that."
"Miss Murphy," Cross said coolly, "you cannot expect mature behavior from someone of his caliber. Your boyfriend's a real piece of work."
"Boyf---he's not my boyfr--"
But Cross had already stormed away.
"What a bitch," Rick said, shaking his head. "She's going to really hate guns when mine's up her ass."
"He is not my boyfriend," Lex repeated, and could think of nothing more to say.
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Dark had settled. Will Bradford lay on his belly in the high grass, peering through what appeared to Ian to be a very expensive pair of binoculars. They were perched on a low hill, a hundred yards or so from an imposing structure enclosed in a twelve-foot-high fence.
"How bad does it look?" Ian whispered.
"Bad," Will answered.
"So what do we do?"
"You stay here. I'm going to see if I can get a better vantage point."
Bradford got to his feet and trotted ahead, bent at the waist, trying to stay low. Ian watched as he disappeared into the darkness.
Several minutes ticked away. Ian glanced at his watch periodically as time unraveled. Five minutes. Ten. Fifteen. He was beginning to think that maybe Will Bradford had either been caught or had decided to give up and go home.
Then he heard the strident, metallic buzzing of an alarm in the distance. Two rapid gunshots followed, then a third. He had to resist the urge to go down the hill and investigate.
There was silence for a minute or so. Then, suddenly, after Ian had all but given up hope, came the mechanical whine he had been waiting to hear. He leapt to his feet and turned back in the direction from which he and Will had come nearly an hour before.
"Here we go," he told the empty night, and ran.
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Lex couldn't imagine how her turn at watch could have been any worse.
A repetitious hooting from the distant forest kept her on edge for well over an hour, before whatever was making the sound finally retreated deeper into the island interior. Alan moaned in his sleep almost constantly--the pain was apparently much worse than he let on. Her own arm, which had healed enough to be taken out of the sling the previous day, was beginning to throb, and her attempts at recreating Rick's makeshift work were in vain--it was nearly impossible to tie the bandanas with the use of only one arm.
Then, as if all that weren't enough, Lyndsey Cross woke up.
At first the doctor only stirred in her sleep, and Lex was sure that whatever had disturbed her would pass. No such luck, as it turned out. Dr. Cross sat bolt upright, startling Lex a little.
"What time is it?" she asked, peering into the blackness.
"Late. Nearly two in the morning."
Cross yawned and rubbed her cheeks with her palms. "You need a break?"
"No," Lex answered coolly. "I have another hour on my watch."
"You can go to sleep early, if you want," Cross said amiably. "I seldom go back to sleep when I wake in the night."
"That's okay," Lex replied. "I'll stay up." She was still struggling with the bandana sling, trying to get it over her shoulder and under her right arm using only her weaker, less coordinated left hand.
Dr. Cross, her eyes finally adjusting somewhat to the nearly perfect darkness, stood and crossed to where Lex was seated. "Here, let me."
Lex resisted at first, but knew it would be senseless to fight about it. She didn't like Cross, but she had nothing to lose by letting her re-tie the sling.
Dr. Cross slipped the widest part of the fabric under Lex's forearm and brought the two ends together on the opposite shoulder, gently tying them in a neat, orderly knot.
"That should hold it," she pronounced.
"Thanks," Lex said, but with no real feeling.
"What happened?"
"Fell down a hill," Lex explained. "Sprained it, and dislocated my shoulder. Rick popped it back in."
"Rick seems like a--"
"Rick isn't anything to me," Lex said quickly. "I don't know what makes you think that he is."<
Dr. Cross smiled at Lex, raising one eyebrow. "Okay. Point taken."
Alan moaned in his sleep, a low, pained sound that ended in a breathless grunt.
"We need to get him off this island," Lex said.
"Soon enough," Dr. Cross replied soothingly. "In the meantime, try not to worry too much about him. He's pretty tough. He'll be fine."
"He's sick. He's weak. What makes you think he'll be fine?"
"The same thing that makes me think there's more to you and Rick than you want to admit," Cross said knowingly. "Years of experience."
"Rick's a Neanderthal," Lex argued.
Cross shrugged. "That's got little to do with anything."
"Oh, please."
"Suit yourself," Cross said, raising her hands to chest-level, palms facing forward. "You can believe whatever you want. It's none of my business anyway."
"Damn right."
Cross shook her head and laughed to herself. "You've got one hell of a chip on your shoulder, don't you?"
"You're a fine one to talk about that," Lex retorted.
"Okay, look," Cross sighed. "I know you think very highly of Alan, and with good reason. He's a great paleontologist and a good man."
"So why can't you seem to resist the urge to treat him like dirt?"
"We have a little more history than just in the field," Cross explained. "I admit I've been too hard on him, but he deserved every bit of it."
"I doubt that. There are people on Death Row who don't deserve what you've been giving Dr. Grant."
Cross waved a hand, dismissing the remark. "I haven't been that bad," she said.
"Like hell you haven't," Lex said vehemently.
They were interrupted by Tim, who turned over and grunted something unintelligible, and both women stopped their heated discussion long enough to laugh quietly about it.
"Wonder what he's dreaming about," Cross whispered.
Tim spoke up suddenly, startling them both: "I was having this great dream where you both shut up."
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