dragonspy from the spot where Luther went underground back to the restroom. On the way he counted eight cameras. It wouldn’t take Butch and Blackwood long to review the surveillance video and figure out where he was hiding. Even if they missed him on the video, security would find him during their sweep.
Dylan had talked to the ticket woman about Ark security. He had learned that the park had only one entrance and one exit. When the Ark first opened years earlier, they tried to keep track of how many people entered and exited, but they could never reconcile the numbers. Now security did a sweep through the park at closing with cameras, and on foot, to find stragglers. Dylan had found a good place to hide next to the Antarctica concession stand. Marty needed to find a good hiding place, too, and the restroom wasn’t it.
He flew the dragonspy around to the back of the building. There were no cameras he could see. A row of narrow windows ran across the back of the stalls. He climbed onto a toilet and found, to his relief, that the window opened.
• • •
There were four tiers of video surveillance at the Ark. The first was for the zookeepers located on Level One. It was called AnimalCam, or AC for short. Each keeper had a station where he or she could monitor every move the animals under their care made. Noah Blackwood did not believe in having zoo-keepers wander around the grounds or the exhibits when visitors were there. He felt that the human presence took away from the natural beauty of the animals people came to see. The keepers arrived at the Ark early in the morning. All cleaning had to be finished and the animals let back into their exhibits an hour before the gate opened in order to let the animals settle in. Feeding was done with automatic feeders throughout the day. The feeders were in different places in each exhibit and programed randomly so the animals never knew where, or when, the food would appear. This kept the animals active and gave the visitors a decent chance of seeing them in the large exhibits.
The second surveillance tier was for human surveillance, known as PEDS. It was also located on Level One. The six people watching the monitors were responsible for observing zoo visitors as well as staff members.
The third surveillance tier was located on Level Four. It was called PI. Noah Blackwood and Butch McCall were the only ones who knew it existed. The surveillance room was twice as big as PEDS, but only one person sat in front of the wall of high-definition monitors. His name was Paul Ivy. As far as Butch knew, Paul hadn’t been out of his surveillance room since the Ark was built. He had a small apartment connected to the surveillance room and lived on food lowereddown from the concession stands on dumbwaiters. Paul weighed at least five hundred pounds, although it was difficult to tell because he never got out of the wheeled office chair he scooted around in.
It was Paul who had identified Luther Smyth. He used the same facial recognition software used by casinos around the world to track and identify cheaters. Paul had nothing better to do than run the software on random visitors coming through the gate. Over the years he had caught several people wanted by the police, but instead of turning them in, Noah Blackwood had hired them to do his bidding, threatening them with exposure if they balked.
Blackwood had given Paul the names and photos of everyone on Cryptos Island and aboard the Coelacanth and told him to keep an eye out for them. Paul had zoomed in on the boy with the newly shaved head and had gotten a positive identification. People could change their outward appearance, but they could not change the bone structure of their face. The software Paul used could see through all disguises.
Butch walked into PI’s dim domain and grimaced. It didn’t smell much better than Lab 251 with the farting dinosaurs.
“Did you find Marty O’Hara?” Butch asked.
“Of course,” Paul
Dylan had talked to the ticket woman about Ark security. He had learned that the park had only one entrance and one exit. When the Ark first opened years earlier, they tried to keep track of how many people entered and exited, but they could never reconcile the numbers. Now security did a sweep through the park at closing with cameras, and on foot, to find stragglers. Dylan had found a good place to hide next to the Antarctica concession stand. Marty needed to find a good hiding place, too, and the restroom wasn’t it.
He flew the dragonspy around to the back of the building. There were no cameras he could see. A row of narrow windows ran across the back of the stalls. He climbed onto a toilet and found, to his relief, that the window opened.
• • •
There were four tiers of video surveillance at the Ark. The first was for the zookeepers located on Level One. It was called AnimalCam, or AC for short. Each keeper had a station where he or she could monitor every move the animals under their care made. Noah Blackwood did not believe in having zoo-keepers wander around the grounds or the exhibits when visitors were there. He felt that the human presence took away from the natural beauty of the animals people came to see. The keepers arrived at the Ark early in the morning. All cleaning had to be finished and the animals let back into their exhibits an hour before the gate opened in order to let the animals settle in. Feeding was done with automatic feeders throughout the day. The feeders were in different places in each exhibit and programed randomly so the animals never knew where, or when, the food would appear. This kept the animals active and gave the visitors a decent chance of seeing them in the large exhibits.
The second surveillance tier was for human surveillance, known as PEDS. It was also located on Level One. The six people watching the monitors were responsible for observing zoo visitors as well as staff members.
The third surveillance tier was located on Level Four. It was called PI. Noah Blackwood and Butch McCall were the only ones who knew it existed. The surveillance room was twice as big as PEDS, but only one person sat in front of the wall of high-definition monitors. His name was Paul Ivy. As far as Butch knew, Paul hadn’t been out of his surveillance room since the Ark was built. He had a small apartment connected to the surveillance room and lived on food lowereddown from the concession stands on dumbwaiters. Paul weighed at least five hundred pounds, although it was difficult to tell because he never got out of the wheeled office chair he scooted around in.
It was Paul who had identified Luther Smyth. He used the same facial recognition software used by casinos around the world to track and identify cheaters. Paul had nothing better to do than run the software on random visitors coming through the gate. Over the years he had caught several people wanted by the police, but instead of turning them in, Noah Blackwood had hired them to do his bidding, threatening them with exposure if they balked.
Blackwood had given Paul the names and photos of everyone on Cryptos Island and aboard the Coelacanth and told him to keep an eye out for them. Paul had zoomed in on the boy with the newly shaved head and had gotten a positive identification. People could change their outward appearance, but they could not change the bone structure of their face. The software Paul used could see through all disguises.
Butch walked into PI’s dim domain and grimaced. It didn’t smell much better than Lab 251 with the farting dinosaurs.
“Did you find Marty O’Hara?” Butch asked.
“Of course,” Paul
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