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Prologue[]
"...Has he come back yet?"
"No sir."
"No sign at all?"
"No sir."
"...Fine then. We're switching to Plan B..."
In the jungle, the crashing noise sent birds from their perches up into the sky. A distinct trail of trampled foliage was formed amongst the trees. The noise grew louder, and louder, and louder, and---
Barney Fellows wiped his brow and took a swig of water. He capped the canteen and continued on through the jungle.
For most of the time he was a technician for this frankly crappy company called Symbolics. He tried not to think about it that often. It was so damn bad he took the entire summers off, to travel. Simply put, Fellows was an eager tourist. But not any old eager tourist. He was a serious breed, of the ones who never gave up until they found their targets, of the ones that ventured off the beaten path. He was certainly off the beaten path today.
He was searching for a rare type of lizard. It had been dubbed Basiliscus amoratus, the Santa Cruz Basilisk, after the town where the scientist that described it lived. It was extremely rare, only a half dozen individuals had been found. Fellows made sure that he brought the camera for this occasion.
Fellows admired this part of Costa Rica. At the moment he was in the Cabo Blanco Nature Reserve. He heard it had beautiful beaches. But the jungles were pretty beautiful too.
Suddenly, he saw a dark shape run across his path. He stumbled, startled.
He got a good look at the animal. Just another howler monkey.
Sighing, he brushed himself off and kept walking.
Fellows walked on for a long while, not noticing the faint roaring.
He pulled aside some ferns to a surprise. He was at the beach, and the ocean was there. Clouds of fog slowly drifted across the surface of the water.
Now why would that be there already?
He probably got lost. Still, “lost” wasn’t a word in his vocabulary. But there was almost no chance of finding lizards here.
He’d better get his bearings and figure out where the hell he was.
Fellows was about to turn around when he noticed the water. There was something in it.
And then, a tall, dark, looming shape, half-submerged in the water, emerged from the fog.
“What the?” Fellows started.
And then he felt himself turning around to run, and then he felt something grabbing him, and then he felt something sharp digging into his neck, and then Barney Fellows felt no more.
Chapter 1: Solving the Mystery[]
There was a message on the phone. It said:
“Hello all! How have you all been? Fine, fine I’m imagining. It’s me, John. I’ve sent this message to many people, so that’s why it’s not referring to any of you by name. Anyway, down to business. We need you. There’s something going on at the arena. You know, the amphitheater in San Diego. We’ll need you all down there, so you can help us. Yes, I know what you’re thinking, that it’s all going to be another rampage disaster. But just as an extra incentive to go, you are not going to be on the islands. I’ve bought you tickets, I’ll see you down there. Cheerio!”
And the message ended.
10:03 am. April 23, 2012. San Diego, California.
The men walked along the street. They turned into a hotel, the pre-arranged meeting point. They walked up the stairs, to room 203. Room 203 was not a private room, but a meeting hall. The men walked in and took a seat. And saw the people already there.
“This had better be good,” Alan Grant said.
“Ha ha, my boy, how have you been?” John Hammond walked up and said. “What’s it been, 10 years since we last met?”
Grant was persistent. “Yeah, but---why is he here?”
The other man in the room was familiar to Grant. He had only seen him before once, and only for a few minutes nearly 20 years ago, the image remained. Henry Wu.
“Same reason you are,” Wu said. “John contacted me about the place, and together we made a list of who else we should bring.”
“So others are coming. Figures,” Grant sighed. “I had to come down from an important dig in South Dakota.” He glanced at the other two men he arrived with, and added, “Because of the surprise call, I had to bring the two Bills along. So this whole show better be worth my time.”
The two “Bills” he referred to were Billy Brennan and Billy Fields. Fields was a volunteer that worked with Grant from time to time. He was good with computers.
“We’ll explain everything once the others arrive. We have a slideshow for you all,” Hammond said. There was a large projector in the middle of the room, enclosed by the loop of tables, and a gigantic screen at the back of the room that spread up to the ceiling.
Soon a menagerie of people walked in the room. Hammond walked up and greeted them, whereupon they took their seats.
“These are the last living InGen employees.” Hammond explained, “They were kind enough to come down from Palo Alto and come to this event.”
“Who exactly are they?” Grant asked.
“Well, we have Dr. Harding from the original park, and Norman Atherton, who’s one of our geneticists. You won’t have heard of the rest. We have our public relations co-managers, a few scientists---as I said, you wouldn’t know them.”
The next to walk in the room were familiar faces. Very familiar.
“I only came because she wanted to,” Ian Malcolm said as he walked into the room. Sarah Harding was with him. Grant had heard they were married now.
When they saw Grant, they seemed both pleased and surprised. “Well, if it isn’t you,” Sarah said. “How’s it going?”
“Good, I guess. Billy’s here too,” Grant said. “Of course, your appearance raises a bit of a question---“
“Yeah. If you’re here, InGen must have something big going on,” Malcolm said. “You got that message, right?”
“Seems everybody did.”
“And if we’re here, who else is going to be?”
That sent them all into silence for a few moments.
Then Grant spoke up. “By the way, Henry Wu is also here. You remember him?”
“Ah yes, I do,” Malcolm said. “I think I’m going to have a word with him.”
And he and Sarah walked over to Wu. Faintly, Grant could hear something along the lines of “you’re still wrong.”
He hadn’t changed a bit.
Grant mostly kept to himself for a while, occasionally talking to the two Bills.
A few more people gradually slithered into the room. One of them was a photographer, whom Malcolm and Sarah were happy to see. Apparently the guy’s name was Nick. From what Grant heard, he was important.
And then the kids came.
Except they weren’t kids anymore. Tim and Lex Murphy had grown so much. They went in and hugged their grandfather. How old were they now---25, 30? Something like that.
Well, that just put Grant’s age in perspective. It was a long time since that first trip to Costa Rica.
His thoughts were shattered when Ellie walked in.
He had to blink a few times before properly registering it. Ellie hardly ever had contact with InGen. Whatever they had going on, it had to be big enough to convince Ellie to come.
And her husband---Mark, Grant remembered---was there too.
Now he was starting to piece together what InGen was doing. It obviously had something to do with the island or the animals. Probably something that would cause lots of attention.
But why?
Grant was about to find out. The lights dimmed, and Hammond walked to the front of the room.
“I thank you all for coming on such short notice. These have been…troubling times, as of late. My health is deteriorating, as I’m sure you’ve all heard---I’m an old man. But that is not why we have gathered today.
“We have gathered to discuss a problem in the facilities. InGen is almost a dead company---we hardly do any genetic work anymore---but we do still own the amphitheater in this city.”
An image of the amphitheater lit up on the screen.
“Most of you know that the facility has optimum biological storage. And that is why some animals do exist there at this very moment.”
Grant only just concealed his urge to speak up, as the image on the screen clicked to a winged figure in the sky.
“After the incident in 2001, some of the Pteranodon left the island. We retrieved most of them quite soon, even though a few stragglers had spread north into Canada. But eventually, they were all picked up.
“We could have easily returned them to Isla Sorna, but money was disappearing, and we had no choice but to keep them in a makeshift aviary here.
“However, a few weeks ago, they have all started acting…strangely. They have become far more aggressive, even by their normal standards. Even the green-chinned morphs, which are usually quite calm, seem to have gone rogue. We don’t know why.
“This is why we are here today. We have to discuss what we are doing with these creatures. Do we return them to the islands? Do we find a way to treat them here? Or do we discover something else entirely?”
Wu spoke now. "Hammond and I have discussed the possibility that genetics could be a factor in the sudden change in mood," he said. "But we've already gone through the Pteranodon genome thoroughly, and we couldn't find anything that may have caused it. The synonomous change among the population is also rather strange, because most are of different ages." Hammond nodded. "And we must figure out what to do in this situation. If any of our geneticists could determine what may be happening with the pterosaurs, that would also be helpful."
TO BE CONTINUED...