Read Online Flyers by Scott Ciencin - Free Book Online

busy himself in another corner of the room, checking out a control manual.
    Alan went over to Manly. “You know how to do this?” Alan asked.
    “Yes, not a problem,” the reporter said. He was wearing Alan’s flannel shirt. Alan still wore his T-shirt and hat. “Local and state authorities. Animal control. On-site security. The e-mail addresses you gave me for your people on Isla Sorna. You name it, I’ve got ’em covered.”
    “Good.”
    “I want to get through this just like anyone else. All we have to do is log on and hit send.” Manly hit the sign-in button. The computer made several attempts to log on, but the Net was busy.
    “It’ll just keep trying until it gets through,” Manly said. He looked at his watch. “Must be getting dark by now.”
    “Maybe they’ll go to sleep,” Amanda said. “Then everyone can just sneak out of the lagoon. We could go, too.”
    “I don’t think so,” Alan said.
    Eric agreed. “There’s been plenty of sightings of these guys since they left Isla Sorna, but none of them mentioned the young. So I’d say all the stories of people spotting them were made up: people looking to get their names in the papers, or thinking they saw something they didn’t see.”
    “It would make sense that the flyers would adopt a nocturnal lifestyle,” Alan said. “Sleep during the day, hunt at night, keep away from highly civilized areas to avoid detection and capture.”
    “Pteranodons spent most of their time in the air,” Eric said. “They had to eat almost constantly to have the energy to fly.”
    “Then those people out there . . . they’re a food supply!” Manly said.
    “It might not be that,” Eric said quickly, realizing Josh might panic. “Back on the island, all the dinosaurs and the Pteranodons were caged. Humans kept them penned. Maybe they just want to keep the people where they can see them. That way, they won’t feel threatened.”
    Josh nodded and looked away.
    Eric exchanged glances with his mom and Alan. None of them were buying that story for a minute.
    Neither was the reporter. Manly leaned against the wall as he waited for the computer to connect. “All right. So you want to deal with this head-on? Let’s. What did you mean before about how Pteranodons ‘did’ this or they ‘did’ that? What we’re dealing with outside are Pteranodons, right?”
    “That’s actually the first intelligent observation I’ve heard you make,” said Alan.
    “Boys,” Amanda broke in, “don’t fight.”
    Alan drew a deep, shuddering breath. “Keep in mind, we’re not dealing with Pteranodons plucked out of time and dropped on our doorstep. These are genetically engineered replicas based on limited DNA, the current scientific thought at the time of their ‘construction,’ and whatever whims the human programmers had when they were designing these flyers. They may have thought the Pteranodons could be trained like seals to perform in shows, so the creatures were given a more advanced intellect and the strength to perform stunts like plucking an actor from a crowd and flying away with him. Who knows what was on John Hammond’s mind?”
    “More dinosaurs,” Amanda said.
    Alan shook his head. “Ah—no. Pteranodons aren’t actually dinosaurs. Their anatomy is different, so they’re not classified that way. They’re flying reptiles that existed pretty much through the Mesozoic, the 250-million-year span when dinosaurs walked the Earth.”
    Amanda crossed her arms over her chest. “Well, whatever they are, they’re not our problem this time. People will come and deal with them, and until then, we’re safe and we’ve got everything we need. We’ve got food and water, we’re in a defensible locale—”
    “For the moment,” Alan said.
    “There’s no reason for going out there, for risking any of our necks. Let the trained professionals deal with this.”
    “Yeah, about that,” Manly said, pointing at the computer screen. The machine had finally logged