The two smaller tigers leaped into the air when just five yards away, perfectly calculating the distance. They would land on Finn, crushing him, then snap his neck with their powerful jaws and start the feast.
Finn braced for the end.
59
PHILBY’S AND WAYNE’S AVATARS HAD, only five minutes earlier, moved around the right wall of the Dino Institute, as it appeared on the virtual schematics.
philitup: if you helped create the place, how about a little hint of how to reach that room?
Near the south wall of the institute, the purple cables terminated. The blueprint showed a series of walls around them, but no door. So was the server in a closet? A workspace? The ceiling? The hiding place in the floor?
[ ]: computers came way after my time. I have no idea where that is.
philitup: none? are you sure? they don’t need much space, but it has to be a cool room, and they require a lot of cabling, so they would be over a tunnel or sewer, or—
[ ]: storm sewers.
Wayne’s avatar lifted its arm to point.
[ ]: I remember a meeting, years ago, where routing data lines over the storm sewer pipes was discussed, storm sewers carry the rainwater out of the park, the sewer lines are in maintenance conduits throughout the park.
philitup: but this is a server they want to hide, that they don’t want anyone to find.
[ ]: the employee bathroom in the Dino Institute is way too cold, and every bathroom has drains, right? some drains feed the storm sewers.
Philby grabbed hold of the DS. It was worth a try.
philitup: dhi server is in an employee bathroom close 2 the south wall.
mybest: on our way.
philitup: wayne and i will try 2 cut the cables, u try 2 find server.
Philby looked back at the VMK screen and, as he did, the screen popped and sparkled. It occurred to him that someone could be monitoring them. The Overtakers could know that he and Wayne were online. Could they trace their locations? If so, both he and Wayne were at great risk.
philitup: hurry up! we have to cut the cables.
Wayne’s avatar rushed to keep up with Philby. It forced Wayne to keep his hands on the mouse and off the keyboard: he couldn’t type a message as long as Philby kept him moving.
They traveled around the corner of the institute and back to the catwalk that carried the data cables. Philby struck the purple cables with his sword. Once…twice…three times. All the cables were cut. They immediately turned gray—the data stream was dead.
Why wasn’t Wayne helping? Philby turned his avatar to look.
Wayne’s avatar wasn’t moving.
philitup: come on! hurry!
The white-haired avatar just stood there not doing anything.
Philby wished he could scream at Wayne, instead of just typing. Why wasn’t the old guy following him?
Then the impossible happened: Wayne’s avatar dissolved.
60
MAYBECK AND WILLA occupied the backseat of one of the exploration vehicles inside the Dino Institute. The front seat stood empty, and given the size of the crowd lined up for the ride, this should have told them something; but they’d been too preoccupied with Philby’s instructions to pay much attention to anything beyond looking for doors offering employees backstage access.
The ride was dark and very cold, with stunningly real dinosaurs appearing at every turn. Asteroids fell to Earth in a shower of fiber optics. The vehicle rounded a long turn. The prehistoric creatures looked up and turned toward the truck.
“How are we going to do this?” Willa asked Maybeck in a whisper. “We can’t jump from the car without setting off the alarms.”
“We’ll find a way backstage,” Maybeck promised. “The trick is to know where we’re going.” He indicated the part of the ride to their right. “This section is all interior to the track. Philby said a workshop or bathroom. Those rooms are going to be in spaces between the ride and the exterior walls—or currently to our left.”
“Are you sure about that?” she asked.
“I’m not sure about anything,” he conceded.
The next scene showed a tyrannosaurus eating a lizard.
“It’s creepy the way their eyes move,” Willa hissed. “It feels like they’re looking right at—”
But her words were cut off as the dinosaur’s giant tail swiped over the engine of the open-topped vehicle. Maybeck reached out and pulled Willa down onto him a fraction of a second before the massive tail nearly beheaded her. The tail broke some equipment off the vehicle, and it tumbled to the track.
Maybeck dared to sneak a look and pushed Willa back up.
“Was that…supposed to happen?” she gasped.
Maybeck pulled at a lap belt at his waist; then he tried Willa’s. The belts wouldn’t release—they were locked shut. The kids couldn’t jump out of the vehicle even if they’d wanted to.