[Recent report: An unmanned vessel has crossed the Atlantic and run directly aground in Rose Tooth. The ship shows varying degrees of deformation and damage across its structure. According to the shipping company, their port was attacked by dinosaurs several days ago, during which the freighter went missing.]
"WTF? How did they sail that ship?"
"What is that?"
"Sea monster! It's a sea monster!"
The perspective switched from the news anchor to a video, with red-and-white subtitles floating across the screen: Provided by an insider.
The massive freighter was shown dominating the beach, with tourists crowding the perimeter to catch a glimpse. Suddenly, strange, indescribable noises emanated from the freighter's hold, followed by the head of a massive squid emerging, sending everyone present into a panic!
The video froze on the image of the tourists fleeing, then switched to a wide-angle aerial shot, likely filmed by a helicopter.
Carlo's figure didn't look nearly as enormous compared to the freighter. He stood beside the ship, gazing toward the mainland.
Moments later, the lens zoomed in to capture the silhouettes of three Velociraptors.
[The ship was carrying four dinosaurs: one Giganotosaurus and three Velociraptors, all of which previously resided in America.]
[We discovered skeletal remains of a creature suspected to be a whale inside the hold, but no traces of human life were found. Experts have boldly speculated that these four dinosaurs crossed the Atlantic Ocean without any human assistance.]
The video shifted again, this time with a small note in the top right corner: Provided by the Primeval Organization.
Carlo was seen charging onto a human street. His towering frame stood in stark contrast to the human architecture. The Velociraptors scaled the buildings, sprinting alongside Carlo.
They all stopped in front of a two-story street-side shop. From the aerial view, it was clear that Carlo had headed directly for this location.
The human structures were like paper in his path, shredding upon contact and collapsing at a touch.
The camera zoomed in to lock onto the scene inside the building: countless corpses of dinosaur hatchlings.
[Upon reaching the shore, the Giganotosaurus did not cause any casualties. Instead, it launched a direct attack on an illegal dinosaur marketplace, which is truly astonishing.]
A reporter holding a microphone approached a resident of Rose Tooth for an interview.
"Retribution! This is all retribution! We killed dinosaurs, and now they've come to kill us! They're coming for us!"
[As of now, the Giganotosaurus and the Velociraptors are still roaming in the wild. Rose Tooth officials have urged citizens to stay home, lock their doors and windows, and stay off the streets.]
[This incident forces us to confront the cruelty and dangers of the dinosaur black market. How are humans to treat dinosaurs? How should we deal with the Giganotosaurus roaming the wild? How did they cross the Atlantic? And what is their goal?]
…
Far away from the phone screen, Dodgson stood listlessly before the chalkboard in his lab, staring at the latest news in silence. He felt as if something were crawling up his spine.
Why did he have the sinking feeling... that these dinosaurs were coming for him?
No, perhaps they were coming for him.
He had underestimated these dinosaurs. They had been in America, and BioSyn was in the Dolomites of Italy; no matter how he looked at it, they shouldn't have been able to intersect.
But now, they had all arrived in Europe, and they had struck a heavy blow against the dinosaur black market; it looked exactly like they were tracking down their own kind.
Could they be locking onto the locations of other Giganotosaurus?
Based on Carlo's current path, the probability of reaching Italy was 80%, and the probability of reaching the BioSyn Ecological Zone was 50%.
Even if Carlo himself had no clue, Dodgson didn't dare underestimate him anymore.
Crossing the Atlantic… that was simply impossible for a dinosaur. Although there were many questions surrounding the event, the fact remained: Carlo had crossed the Atlantic.
"Damn it..."
He cursed under his breath as he began to weigh his options.
He absolutely could not let the military or any other organization intercept the Giganotosaurus. If they did, its impervious nature would be exposed, and he would lose his intelligence advantage.
He had to make a public statement, then send his own team to "capture" it. If that failed, he would lure it away, he could not let it reach BioSyn.
One of the reasons Dodgson hadn't captured Carlo earlier was the fear that the beast ate too much; the maintenance costs were astronomical, and there was a high chance it would outright collapse BioSyn's ecosystem.
He had to get Ramsay to...
"Dodgson, you aren't listening. The prehistoric DNA in the locusts has made them too powerful. They are reproducing rapidly, and their lifespans are increasing. Do you have any idea what that means?"
Dr. Wu, sitting beside a locust incubator, interrupted Dodgson's thoughts. Wu couldn't fathom why the locusts, which were so docile and refused human crops in the lab, had turned into such a plague once they were outside.
"I understand, but we cannot predict everything."
"All the locusts in the wild must be destroyed."
"What?!"
Dodgson had been distracted, but Wu's proposal pulled him back to reality.
He had worked so hard to get people to release the locusts, how could they kill them?
He didn't doubt for a second that Dr. Wu could do it. Wu had learned his lesson after the Indominus rex and had surely prepared "preventative measures."
Footsteps…
Dodgson walked over in two strides, sat down beside Dr. Wu, and tried to persuade him with feigned patience.
"When we are afraid, what do we do? What have we done before? ...We carry on, right?"
Wu didn't respond. Dodgson's actions were no different from gambling the life of the entire human race for scientific advancement. Wu's vision was to use technology to give back to humanity; he could never agree with Dodgson's methods.
"We found the girl. I've hidden her in Poland to lie low for a while. We'll pick her up in Malta in a few days... How is the Giganotosaurus genome decryption coming along?"
Seeing that he couldn't convince Dr. Wu directly, Dodgson shifted the topic.
Wu was clearly startled at the mention of Maisie's whereabouts and seemed about to say something, but he answered the question first:
"Not well. We haven't been able to extend the target's DNA chain..."
Dodgson, seeing his goal achieved, said nothing more. He patted Dr. Wu on the shoulder and left the lab.
He couldn't sit still anymore. He had to contact Ramsay to issue a capture statement before Carlo ran into the military or clashed with other organizations.
"You found her..."
Dr. Wu watched Dodgson leave, his sentence trailing off. Struggling internally, he looked at the locusts in the incubator before him and suddenly noticed something strange.
One locust was eating the rice plants, while the others from the same batch were not.
Dr. Wu seemed to realize something. He summoned an assistant and asked:
"Is the crop in that incubator the same as the others?"
"I'll go check."
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