Ian Leaves His Capsules

Ch 12 - The Hack

Ellie made it back safely to the visitor center. She jogged as best she could given her age, and hoped she was in time to see Ian moist again. She jumped when she bumped into Dr. Grant coming towards her.

Alan said, “You’re alive! Thank goodness! I saw what happened to Donald. Is Ian ok?” He looked weary and dirty but generally in good health. Ellie had more pressing matters as Ian might be drying.

“He’s actually pretty great right now. Can we talk later, maybe? I’m kinda busy,” said Ellie as she walked past her friend.

Dr. Grant offered, “We can walk and talk. Let me follow you.” She did not stop and he managed to keep pace. The kids lagged slightly behind.

Tim and Lex found Ellie tending to Ian’s wounds again while Dr. Grant looked on with some concern.

Ian was using a spray bottle to keep his glistening fresh. “I’m so glad you’re all safe. I would have gotten up but you can see why I can’t. It looks like the 386, that computer over there, is restarting, but the software isn’t running. The park is only half online. Power yes, but the control programs aren’t running.”

Lex perked up at anything non-ape related. “Can I take a look? I love hacking computer interfaces and I’m pretty good at it.” She was making her way across the room when a familiar call echoed from the open doorway.

“WHARFROM! WHARFROM! ACCENT? ACCENT?” said the two Icky at the doorway.

Ellie’s eyes went wide. There was no way the Icky would believe Ian was from Savannah — even with valid identification. She had to act and threw herself at the open doorway, “NOOOOOO!”

Her body slammed the door closed, but the red Icky placed a heavy, fat, bony foot paddle in the way. Ellie pushed with all of her might while Dr. Grant stood supervising the effort.

The yellow double-frilled Icky was now behind and both Icky breaths made the door’s window fog with each breath. The frilled Icky shook its shoulders to communicate its relative status and yelled, “ACCENT? ACCENT?”

Alan urged Lex, “Quick, get the park back online so the door will lock! We can’t let the Icky in here. Dr. Malcolm is obviously not from Savannah originally or anything!”

Lex ran to the 386. Her talons worked the Logitech rat and she watched the Dindows 3.1 startup splash on the yard-deep VGA CRT. She saw stacks of raw meat on screen. Lex yelled, “This is Dindows 3.1! I know this! We just need to find the raw meat stack with the park’s operating system in here somewhere?”

She used the rat to open one stack of meat. Meatlications. Good. Maybe the park’s system is a meatlication? She tried the first named Meatcel. A gridded list of meat bars and their relative price appeared with “Nedry’s shopping list” on the top. “Dead end,” said the female hacker.

Meatlook? She opened that next. It was a list of e-Meatmails asking when Nedry would finish his roadmap planning deck for the team. “Nothing here either,” Lex noted grimly.

She knew better than to try Meatcess. “Far too dangerous,” she thought.

“Hurry! I can’t hold them forever!” yelled Ellie from the door. The Icky hands were grabbing at her through the gap as the dinopod pushed back as hard as she could.

Dr. Grant looked over at her with some concern, “Put your back into it, ok, Ellie? We’re hacking over here and it’s hard to concentrate over the yelling,” he said while looking over Lex’s shoulder at the CRT screen.

“MeetAndCry is for communications,” said Lex.

“WHARFROM! IckyIckyIckyIcky! ACCENT?” yelled the humans as they pushed hard on the door. Ellie, for some reason, did not get a wedge and simply pushed back as hard as she could. Everyone else just watched as she struggled to keep the Icky from getting into the room.

Dr. Grant looked at Lex and asked, “Can you find it in all that meat, Lex? The operating system has got to be there.”

Lex gave up on the Meatlications folder. There was a “Work” folder next. She found a meat icon that read “Project1” and tried to execute it. The park’s systems started to seize and start up. The lights in the visitor center brightly shone.

Ellie managed to slam the door on the pressing Icky and heavy locks slammed into place. The Icky seemed upset for a moment.

Then the yellow-frilled one yelled, “ACCENT? ACCENT?” at an unseen object, and the two humans left the door. “IckyIckyIckyIckyIckyIckyIckyIcky! HALT!” could be heard in the distance.

Ellie fell to the floor exhausted from her efforts. She looked over at Ian. “Thank goodness,” she thought as she saw that his abs remained damp. Lex was beaming, “I DID IT!” and Tim congratulated his awesome sister for saving them all.

Ian moistly offered, “Phew. That was close. I’ve learned something at this park, and I have a plan.”