Chapter 3 Chapter Three
Holloway's ship was about halfway home when the information panel warned that his home had been broken into, and the motion-sensing siren on the emergency alarm system activated.
"Oops," Holloway said.He waved the ship into autopilot, and the ship tilted, picking up a signal from Holloway's house to determine its course.There were hardly any other ships on the way—the site Holloway was surveying was deep in a transcontinental forest, far from any populated centers, and far from all human beings—so the route was almost from above the top of the treetops to his home. a straight line.With the autopilot activated, Holloway picked up the information board and clicked on the security surveillance camera image.
There is nothing in the shot.Holloway mounts the lens on a workbench, which basically acts as a hat stand.The condition of his home, and intruders, were kept out by a dirty flat hat he'd worn for fun during his second year at Duke Law School.
"Stupid hat," Holloway swore.He turned on the radio on the security surveillance camera, put his ear to the speaker on the message board, and if he was lucky, the intruder might speak.
unlucky.No one spoke, and what little else he could hear was drowned out by the ship's engines and the wind whistling into the open cabin.
Holloway snapped the information board back into its bracket and looked down at his ship's instruction panel.The spaceship was moving steadily at a speed of 80 kilometers per hour, which was a safe speed in the woods, otherwise the birds might jump up from the trees and crash into the spaceship.Holloway didn't need to look at his GPS to know he was still twenty kilometers away from home; for Mount Isabel could be seen to his right.The eastern slope of the mountain is completely bald, and the four kilometers in front of the mountain are fenced, and the vegetation on the ground has also been dug away. The Zara Group dug it, which is called "smart mining"-in fact, it is still mining, but it promises on the surface Minimize pollution and restore the original environment of the area after the end of mining.
When the Zara Group first started digging Mount Isabel, Holloway also casually thought about how the Zara Group had mined all the good things and how this area could return to its original environment, but what he really cared about at the time was not this thing.He was the one who first surveyed Mount Isabel, and the small sunstone deposit he first found was hollowed out within weeks, but the mountain is still rich in anthracite coal, and the rarer hardwood trees stretch from the top to the foot of the mountain. by the river.He gets a handsome income, 0.25% of the mine's value, and forgets about it.
According to Holloway's cautious eye, in a year or two there would be nothing left of Mount Isabel but the mound.At that time, the Zara Group will send a plane to remove the equipment, leaving behind a group of panicked summer interns, one by one hastily scattered the hardwood tree seeds on the ground-this is considered "restore the original environment of the local area"- Also pray that the fence surrounding the excavation area will be strong enough to last until they finish spreading the seeds.
Fences usually hold up.Few interns are eaten by Zara Athlon these days, but the motivational effect of fear is really not bad.
There was a bang from the message board, and the guy who broke into Holloway's house broke something.Holloway cursed, and pressed the button to close the spaceship cover to increase the jet horsepower.In this case, you can get home in five minutes, and the birds on the treetops can ask for blessings.
As the spaceship approached his home, Holloway switched it to stealth mode, dropping considerably but traveling almost silently.He hovered a kilometer from home and picked up his binoculars. Holloway's home is a treehouse—more precisely, a platform set between several tall thorn logs, with a modest integrated cabin on the edge for his residence, plus Holloway's survey equipment. of two sheds.High in the air, the turbine kite, connected to the electrical equipment on the platform, has solar cells on top, which can power the cabin, as well as Holloway's water collection system and sewage system.In the center of the platform is a landing pad, enough for Holloway's spaceship to dock, and another small spaceship is also enough. Right now Holloway was staring at the tarmac, empty. Holloway breathed a sigh of relief.The easiest way to get to Holloway's house was by airship. It was possible to walk up to the tree house and climb up, but one had to be very lucky or very daring.The jungle floor is ruled by the Zara-velociraptor, as well as local crocodile-like and python-like creatures, all of whom regard limp, sluggish humans as grabable, tasty snacks.Holloway lives in trees because all the big predators are on the ground except pythons, and pythons don't like thorny wood - just look at the name of the tree and you'll see why.Climbing thorny wood is a major challenge for any creature over half a meter, including humans over half a meter. Anyway, Holloway scanned the platform and the foliage-shaded area for climbing ropes and the like.nothing.Another possibility is that someone got off the spaceship hovering at a high place, and left in the spaceship after it was over.But Holloway drove the automatic navigation system, and he could lock on to any vehicle within a 100-kilometer radius.But he saw nothing. Verdict: Unless there's a super ninja assassin lurking in his cabin and knocking over his stuff; they're just stupid animals.Although Holloway couldn't completely rule out the possibility of Bourne sending someone to assassinate him, especially after today, he didn't really believe that Bourne could find such a brilliant assassin in such a short time.The best candidates he could find were Zara Group security guards with low IQs, such as the aforementioned Joe Dries.They (especially Dries) wouldn't bother to sneak up on him. It's almost certain, then, that it's just a stupid animal; in fact, it's probably a native lizard.They were about the size of an iguana—just enough to avoid the spikes on the thornwood—vegetarian, and dumber than a rock.They will go wherever they get the chance.When Holloway arrived at Zara 23 to build his treehouse, the house was overrun with lizards.At the beginning, he installed the power grid, but every morning when he got up, he saw and smelled burnt lizards in his eyes and nose, and he was almost worried to death.Then another surveyor told him that the lizards were very afraid of dogs.So Carl came. "Hey, Carl," Holloway said to his dog, "I think we've got lizard trouble." Carl instantly perked up.It is especially happy to play the role of "lizard terminator".Holloway smiled, turned off the hover mode, and began to descend. Holloway turned off the engine, opened the canopy, and Carl rushed out of the spaceship.It sniffed with interest and headed for one of the storage sheds. "Hey, little fool," Holloway yelled at Carl's tail.The tail wagged back and forth so happily.He stepped forward to the dog and gave it a light stroke on the side. "You're going the wrong way. The lizard's in the house." Holloway pointed in the direction of the cabin, followed his eyes, and saw a cat staring at him through the window above his desk.He stared at the cat too, and after a second remembered that he didn't have a cat. It took him another second to remember that cats don't usually stand on two legs either. "What the hell is that?" Holloway yelled. Hearing the master's voice, Karl turned around and saw the ball of fur in the window. The little furball opened its mouth. Carl barked like a mad dog and rushed to the door.It didn't, it couldn't open the door, but Holloway put a dog door in it.He couldn't bear to keep getting up in the middle of the night to let Carl out to pee.The dog door's locking device sensed the corresponding signal from the chip implanted in Carl's shoulder, and it popped the lock about a quarter of a second before Carl, head and body, slammed into the door, and it rushed into the cabin effortlessly. From his vantage point, Holloway saw the kitten swing away from the window.In less than a second, Holloway heard a lot of ping-pong of smashing things. "Oops!" Holloway whined, running for the door. Unlike Carl, Holloway doesn't have a sensor chip implanted in his shoulder, and he rummages around for the key to unlock the locked door, all the while the house barks and ping-pongs incessantly.When Holloway finally unlocked the lock and pushed the door open, the little furball just happened to come towards the door. The little furball looked up, saw Holloway, stopped abruptly, and ran back desperately.Carl was following closely behind the kitten, but at this time he was forced to jump up to avoid colliding with the little thing that was slamming on the brakes. It turned around in mid-air, and hit the door with its waist, and the door slammed To Holloway's forehead and nose, so painful that he cursed and knelt in front of the closed door, clutching his nose.The sound of things falling in the room continued. After several minutes, Holloway realized two things: first, that his nose, though swollen, was not bleeding;Holloway stood up, touched his nose again to make sure it wasn't bleeding suddenly, and opened the door cautiously. The room resembled the scene at the end of each semester in the dormitory of Holloway University: the papers and sundries that were originally on the shelves and desks were scattered on the floor, and the dishes placed in the sink in the house were also broken. The spare information board was lying face down on the ground, and he couldn't muster up the courage to see if it was still usable. Carl rested his front paws on the only bookcase in the hut, standing up and barking.It only takes one glance to see that it has trapped the furball on top of the bookcase.All the folders and books fell out of the cabinet. Either the little thing pulled it off when it climbed up, or it fell off when Carl was chasing it.The bookcase is very high, the little fur ball can't jump up directly, and now it can't jump down, let alone Carl is still waiting below.The little hairball is far away from Karl at present, but there is nowhere to escape, and it is tightly trapped.It lowered its head and stared at Carl, then at Holloway, its eyes flickering between them, eyes wide open, looking scared. "Quiet, Carl!" Holloway yelled.But the dog was too excited to chase the cat, and he didn't pay attention to obeying his master's instructions. Holloway looked around the room, and among the ruins found the entrance through which the little fur ball entered the room—a small slanted window above the bedroom.Holloway must have forgotten to lock it, and the little guy somehow managed to slip through the window.Easy to get in but hard to get out.For the furball, the window is easier to reach from the outside, but the bed or the floor inside the room is too far away from the window, and it has no way to crawl back. Holloway looked back at Furball, and Furball stared at him, then at the slanted window, and back at Holloway.It seems that it also knows that this human understands how it got in. Holloway walked to the sloping window in the bedroom, closed it and locked it.Then he walked over to his dog and grabbed its collar.Carl stopped barking in surprise and pawed at the floor with his heel, but it didn't help.Holloway dragged it through the cabin, opened the door, and threw it out.He put his leg against the dog door, locked the manual lock, and walked back into the middle of the room.There were two "bangs" and "bangs" from behind, and it was Carl banging his head on the door.After a few seconds, its paws and head emerged from the window on the table, whimpering and begging to return to the hut regardless of dignity. Holloway ignored his dog and turned to face the little furball, who looked at him too, still terrified, but seemed better than before. "Okay, you furball," Holloway muttered, "it's just you and me now."
Notes:
As the spaceship approached his home, Holloway switched it to stealth mode, dropping considerably but traveling almost silently.He hovered a kilometer from home and picked up his binoculars. Holloway's home is a treehouse—more precisely, a platform set between several tall thorn logs, with a modest integrated cabin on the edge for his residence, plus Holloway's survey equipment. of two sheds.High in the air, the turbine kite, connected to the electrical equipment on the platform, has solar cells on top, which can power the cabin, as well as Holloway's water collection system and sewage system.In the center of the platform is a landing pad, enough for Holloway's spaceship to dock, and another small spaceship is also enough. Right now Holloway was staring at the tarmac, empty. Holloway breathed a sigh of relief.The easiest way to get to Holloway's house was by airship. It was possible to walk up to the tree house and climb up, but one had to be very lucky or very daring.The jungle floor is ruled by the Zara-velociraptor, as well as local crocodile-like and python-like creatures, all of whom regard limp, sluggish humans as grabable, tasty snacks.Holloway lives in trees because all the big predators are on the ground except pythons, and pythons don't like thorny wood - just look at the name of the tree and you'll see why.Climbing thorny wood is a major challenge for any creature over half a meter, including humans over half a meter. Anyway, Holloway scanned the platform and the foliage-shaded area for climbing ropes and the like.nothing.Another possibility is that someone got off the spaceship hovering at a high place, and left in the spaceship after it was over.But Holloway drove the automatic navigation system, and he could lock on to any vehicle within a 100-kilometer radius.But he saw nothing. Verdict: Unless there's a super ninja assassin lurking in his cabin and knocking over his stuff; they're just stupid animals.Although Holloway couldn't completely rule out the possibility of Bourne sending someone to assassinate him, especially after today, he didn't really believe that Bourne could find such a brilliant assassin in such a short time.The best candidates he could find were Zara Group security guards with low IQs, such as the aforementioned Joe Dries.They (especially Dries) wouldn't bother to sneak up on him. It's almost certain, then, that it's just a stupid animal; in fact, it's probably a native lizard.They were about the size of an iguana—just enough to avoid the spikes on the thornwood—vegetarian, and dumber than a rock.They will go wherever they get the chance.When Holloway arrived at Zara 23 to build his treehouse, the house was overrun with lizards.At the beginning, he installed the power grid, but every morning when he got up, he saw and smelled burnt lizards in his eyes and nose, and he was almost worried to death.Then another surveyor told him that the lizards were very afraid of dogs.So Carl came. "Hey, Carl," Holloway said to his dog, "I think we've got lizard trouble." Carl instantly perked up.It is especially happy to play the role of "lizard terminator".Holloway smiled, turned off the hover mode, and began to descend. Holloway turned off the engine, opened the canopy, and Carl rushed out of the spaceship.It sniffed with interest and headed for one of the storage sheds. "Hey, little fool," Holloway yelled at Carl's tail.The tail wagged back and forth so happily.He stepped forward to the dog and gave it a light stroke on the side. "You're going the wrong way. The lizard's in the house." Holloway pointed in the direction of the cabin, followed his eyes, and saw a cat staring at him through the window above his desk.He stared at the cat too, and after a second remembered that he didn't have a cat. It took him another second to remember that cats don't usually stand on two legs either. "What the hell is that?" Holloway yelled. Hearing the master's voice, Karl turned around and saw the ball of fur in the window. The little furball opened its mouth. Carl barked like a mad dog and rushed to the door.It didn't, it couldn't open the door, but Holloway put a dog door in it.He couldn't bear to keep getting up in the middle of the night to let Carl out to pee.The dog door's locking device sensed the corresponding signal from the chip implanted in Carl's shoulder, and it popped the lock about a quarter of a second before Carl, head and body, slammed into the door, and it rushed into the cabin effortlessly. From his vantage point, Holloway saw the kitten swing away from the window.In less than a second, Holloway heard a lot of ping-pong of smashing things. "Oops!" Holloway whined, running for the door. Unlike Carl, Holloway doesn't have a sensor chip implanted in his shoulder, and he rummages around for the key to unlock the locked door, all the while the house barks and ping-pongs incessantly.When Holloway finally unlocked the lock and pushed the door open, the little furball just happened to come towards the door. The little furball looked up, saw Holloway, stopped abruptly, and ran back desperately.Carl was following closely behind the kitten, but at this time he was forced to jump up to avoid colliding with the little thing that was slamming on the brakes. It turned around in mid-air, and hit the door with its waist, and the door slammed To Holloway's forehead and nose, so painful that he cursed and knelt in front of the closed door, clutching his nose.The sound of things falling in the room continued. After several minutes, Holloway realized two things: first, that his nose, though swollen, was not bleeding;Holloway stood up, touched his nose again to make sure it wasn't bleeding suddenly, and opened the door cautiously. The room resembled the scene at the end of each semester in the dormitory of Holloway University: the papers and sundries that were originally on the shelves and desks were scattered on the floor, and the dishes placed in the sink in the house were also broken. The spare information board was lying face down on the ground, and he couldn't muster up the courage to see if it was still usable. Carl rested his front paws on the only bookcase in the hut, standing up and barking.It only takes one glance to see that it has trapped the furball on top of the bookcase.All the folders and books fell out of the cabinet. Either the little thing pulled it off when it climbed up, or it fell off when Carl was chasing it.The bookcase is very high, the little fur ball can't jump up directly, and now it can't jump down, let alone Carl is still waiting below.The little hairball is far away from Karl at present, but there is nowhere to escape, and it is tightly trapped.It lowered its head and stared at Carl, then at Holloway, its eyes flickering between them, eyes wide open, looking scared. "Quiet, Carl!" Holloway yelled.But the dog was too excited to chase the cat, and he didn't pay attention to obeying his master's instructions. Holloway looked around the room, and among the ruins found the entrance through which the little fur ball entered the room—a small slanted window above the bedroom.Holloway must have forgotten to lock it, and the little guy somehow managed to slip through the window.Easy to get in but hard to get out.For the furball, the window is easier to reach from the outside, but the bed or the floor inside the room is too far away from the window, and it has no way to crawl back. Holloway looked back at Furball, and Furball stared at him, then at the slanted window, and back at Holloway.It seems that it also knows that this human understands how it got in. Holloway walked to the sloping window in the bedroom, closed it and locked it.Then he walked over to his dog and grabbed its collar.Carl stopped barking in surprise and pawed at the floor with his heel, but it didn't help.Holloway dragged it through the cabin, opened the door, and threw it out.He put his leg against the dog door, locked the manual lock, and walked back into the middle of the room.There were two "bangs" and "bangs" from behind, and it was Carl banging his head on the door.After a few seconds, its paws and head emerged from the window on the table, whimpering and begging to return to the hut regardless of dignity. Holloway ignored his dog and turned to face the little furball, who looked at him too, still terrified, but seemed better than before. "Okay, you furball," Holloway muttered, "it's just you and me now."
Notes: