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Chapter Text

Author's notes

Warning about the age limit

Just like my previous story, The Red Queen is a darker and more adult story than those of the films. Thus, if I have to give an age limit, I would advise against children under twelve reading it, due to the presence of the following elements:

— Scenes of violence.

— Coarse language.

— Horror scenes.

— Nudity and sex.

— Presence and use of drugs.

I'm aware that those elements might not be to everyone's taste but I wanted to write my story as it came in my mind, without censoring myself.

Soundtrack suggestions

In their notes in the upper part of the pages, a number of chapters will have soundtrack suggestions, which the readers can use to enliven their reading.

Hypothetical casting of original characters

The physical appearance of many of the original characters I introduced in the story are based upon those of real actors. You'll discover which in the notes of the chapters which will see their first appearance or at least their first notable scene.

However, those will be my inspirations, and the readers have the freedom of imagining other actors in those roles as long as their appearance is coherent with the descriptions of said characters. For example, the character of Jocelyn Hodgson, the manager of InGen's Site D and a rather important character of the story's first half, is based upon the actress Lili Mirojnick (Friends with benefits; Happy !) and thus described as a small thirty-four years old brunette. But using that description, a reader can totally imagine a younger version of Rashida Jones (The Office Parks and Recreations) in the role for example since this actress, who is currently in her forties, matched that description a few years ago.

FAQ

Can I read Jurassic World : The Red Queen without having read the Jurassic World rewrite which precedes it ?

Technically yes, if you don't mind spoilers. The different characters and elements are reintroduced in such a way that a reader who stumbles by chance on this story can understand the essential, even if they haven't read the previous installment or even seen the films. However, I think that The Red Queen is more enjoyable if you've read the previous story, in order to note the evolution of certain characters among other things.

To the most impatient among you, I'll announce that a chapter at the beginning of the story, titled The Fall of Jurassic World, could be used as a "crash course" on the story depicted in my rewrite of the first Jurassic World.

I haven't read the Jurassic World rewrite but I wish to read The Red Queen. What are the notable differences between the alternate universe depicted in those stories and the universe shown in the films?

Lore differences:

— The Fall of Jurassic World occurred in 2017 and not 2015 like in the film. Two factors are behind it: The Indominus' rampage and a major eruption of Mount Sibo, Isla Nublar's volcano.

— Isla Sorna, and the rest of the Five Deaths archipelago, have still populations of dinosaurs and other de-extinct animals whereas the film Fallen Kingdom establish that Nublar's dinosaurs are the last on Earth, implying that the ecosystem last seen in Jurassic Park 3 no longer exists. In this AU, the Five Deaths became a zone of international cooperation where scientists study the dinosaurs while the archipelago and its animals are protected from intruders by the Grey Guard, a paramilitary organization (mercenaries some would say) backed by the United Nations and Costa Rica. This organization also had troops on isla Nublar when Jurassic World collapsed.

— Way before Jurassic Park, Isla Nublar saw the fall of other human endeavours. The island once housed one of the most advanced civilizations in the area, a civilization which collapsed during a disastrous civil war, leaving behind only skeletons and the troglodyte ruins of a city and a necropolis, and in the 16th century, the Spaniards built a colony on the island but it was destroyed during a volcanic eruption, triggering the freeing of those who became the Tun-Si, the tribe who lived on Nublar when InGen arrived in the eighties.

— Outside of InGen, other organizations managed to clone extinct species. In the previous story, a Russian safari park which houses mammoths and other species from the Ice Age is mentioned. For now, InGen has the monopoly of dinosaurs but things will change.

— Unlike the park depicted in Colin Trevorrow's and Juan Antonio Bayona's films, the Jurassic World of this AU, in addition of having a layout, an architecture and a collection of animals which differs from those of the films, housed several species of feathered dinosaurs and most of its animals were scientifically-accurate.

— The appearance of certain characters originally created by the writers of the Jurassic World saga differs more or less from those of the actors who portray them in the films. In Jurassic World : The Red Queen, the only notable case is Owen Grady (in the previous story, Katashi Hamada was concerned too, as he was ten to fifteen years older than his film counterpart). For me, the character as depicted in Colin Trevorrow's saga looks too much like your typical 2000s-2010s action blockbuster hero, and even fills the "ex special forces member" cliché. In the AU I created, Owen has a more modest past (he was just part of the US Navy marine mammal program and had never been in the special forces) and his character shines more through his knowledge on the animal kingdom or survival than action-man prowess. This influenced the way I portrayed the character and the Owen Grady portrayed by Chris Pratt seemed more and more out of place in my AU, pushing me to imagine another actor in the role, with a different appearance, closer to that of the "Barbarian" hero from those fantasy or historical dramas works than that of the modern American action hero. Elsewhere, I wrote that I imagined German actor Alexander Dreymon (Uthred of Bebbanburg in The Last Kingdom) but if you want to imagine a much more famous actor, Jason Momoa is your man as his appearance and his acting also inspired me for that alternative version of the Raptor Whisperer. On a physical standpoint, the Claire Dearing of that AU differs also from her film counterpart, portrayed by Bryce Dallas Howard, but those differences are actually more minor than those between the Owen of the films and the one of my writings as she remains a fair-skinned thirtyish redhead: She's a bit taller and while being still beautiful, she has more intimidating facial-features. As for the other characters created by Colin Trevorrow and Derek Connolly, they look like their actors from the films. Thus, for example, the version of Benjamin Lockwood, Zia Rodriguez and Ken Wheatley who appears in The Red Queen still look like James Cromwell, Daniella Pineda et Ted Levine respectively.

What's canon to this alternative universe, what isn't?

Are canons:

— The Jurassic Park trilogy.

— Some elements from Telltale's Jurassic Park: The Game.

— Some elements from the Masrani Global website.

Are not canons:

— The Dinosaur Protection Group website's content.

— Tess Sharpe's The Evolution of Claire.

— Netflix's Camp Cretaceous in its current form (some of its characters will be mentioned, or will even appear in The Red Queen but the events they experienced are different from those depicted in the show, and so is the fate of some of them).

I've read the Jurassic World rewrite. What do I have to expect from The Red Queen?

A story quite different from the first, less epic and more introspective and personal. Whereas my Jurassic World rewrite was a large epic fresco with influences drawn from historical (or pseudo-historical) dramas, mythological peplums or dark fantasy, The Red Queen is mainly a thriller which mixes espionage, horror elements and satire.

Surprisingly, the story proved to be less dark than its predecessor, and some dialogues might recall Kaamelott or some sketches from the Joueur du Grenier to french-speaking readers while some parts which actually happens in quite serious parts of the story have been partly inspired by humorous parts of the Indiana Jones saga and some adventure comedies like La Grande Vadrouille or the 7th Company trilogy.

By the way, though it's based on an American franchise and that a large number of the characters are from that country, I consider Jurassic World: The Red Queen (and also its predecessor in a lesser extent) as a French Sci-fi work, because of its type of humour but also its references and how it treat certain topics.

What are the main differences between it and Juan Antonio Bayona's film?

Aside from many additional subplots, characters and creatures, the main differences concern locations and genre. Like in Bayona's Fallen Kingdom, the prologue is set in Isla Nublar, in an abandoned Jurassic World, and the second half of its story in California. But unlike in that film, the first half will be set in mainland Costa Rica, mostly in the fictional canton of Burgo Nuevo, the home of InGen's Site D, the facility which houses the animals who survived the fall of Jurassic World. Whereas Bayona's film mixed the spectacular action of its first half to the suspense and the horror of the second, the tone and the genre are here more homogenous, with an investigation aspect present all along the story and action scenes which are rarer, and perhaps less spectacular for some, than those of my first story. I'll let you discover the other differences ;).

Chapter Text

The storm was raging off the Pacific coast of Costa Rica. It was raining buckets, thunder rumbled almost continuously and the ocean was rough.

Riding the waves, a black speedboat cut through the dark waters, lifting up splashes. Aboard, partially sheltered from the wind and the rain by the roof of the cockpit, seven hooded people were seated, preparing themselves to accomplish the mission they had been tasked with, a mission which consisted in recovering an important item on an island located a few kilometres away.

The latter eventually appeared amidst a flash of lightning, as a dark mass on the horizon, and as the speedboat headed for its south-eastern coast, its passengers heard a rumbling in the sky, different from that of thunder, and another lightning flash definitely betrayed the presence of a helicopter nearby. The hooded individuals looked at the aircraft as it overtook the speedboat, heading also towards the island.

Dirty looks were cast at it and swear words were uttered among the group but its leader, Viggo, a middle-aged brown-haired Dane, had a more impassive attitude and he just watched the helicopter disappear in the middle of the inky sky, where no star shone. Then he turned to his colleagues and gave them a barely perceptible nod to inspire confidence in them.

As the lightning bolts came one after the other, the island got closer and closer and its hills and mountains rose. Squinting, the group even made out buildings. To the south, in the shadow of a mountain that overlooked the coast, stood a complex which was made of a pentagonal building and three docks; to the north, a peninsula jutted out into the ocean; between, a ridge line covered with houses and what appeared to be gardens stretched out, overlooking a long sandy beach.

Iago, the Costa Rican sailor the team had hired due to his knowledge of the surrounding waters, steered the speedboat towards a cove located between the complex and the beach and hidden from the latter as well as from the marina adjacent to the complex by the landscape and the dense tropical vegetation.

The speedboat slowed as it approached the cove and looking to port, the passengers saw several boats docked at the marina, including yachts, but they were far from being numerous enough to fill it. The marina was a sorry sight and actually, a large proportion of the boats that were moored there had deserted it. Beyond the marina, one of the towers built on the nearest wharf was half-ruined. An entire section of the wall had collapsed, leaving the interior of the structure visible. When they were close enough to the shore, they saw that a grey sprinkling still covered the vegetation here and there.

After having a look at the small red cross on the island's map that he was holding in his hands, Viggo raised his eyes and directed his gaze beyond the bow, the entrance to an underground canal, blocked by a steel gate. Next to the entrance was the end of a dock that ran along the north side of the canal, continuing past the gate.

The speedboat stopped beside this end and the group's hacker, an African American named Hudson, disembarked and opened a panel attached to a concrete wall built into the rock wall, revealing a terminal to which he plugged his tablet. As the rest of the team watched him, the call of an animal was heard amidst the storm and they turned their heads to the north, where the call came from. This call was neither that of a monkey, nor that of some big cat. It was deep and sounded like a mix between a bovine bellow and a whale song.

"I'm in the system," the hacker announced a few moments later.

He tapped on his tablet for another moment or two and the gate finally opened, swinging upward. Hudson closed the panel and came back aboard the speedboat that entered the tunnel. Its spotlights penetrated the total darkness that reigned there while the entrance gate was left wide open.

The team removed their hoods and the ponchos they were wearing, revealing the wetsuits everyone but Hudson and Iago were wearing.

With signs, Viggo ordered his colleagues to be on the look-out and he, Hudson and three other members of their team took pistols or rifles, lined up along the starboard, and lit the dock with their weapons' lights. He looked at each of them. In addition to Hudson, there was Arno, a tall, muscular Swiss with thick blond hair, a square jaw, and hard eyes; Rhys, a short, stocky, pot-bellied Scottish man with a red beard and a big nose; and Selena, a tall young blonde Californian whose wetsuit accentuated her slim and shapely figure. Behind them, the last members of the team, a young red-haired woman named Trish, also American, and her assistant Michael, a bald man equally young and who also turned to be the tallest member of the team and one of the burliest. They were busy doing a few final checks on the diving gear and a container that had the size and the shape of a suitcase, with handles on both sides.

The tunnel continued for several hundred of meters, curving along the way, and they passed in front of the entrance of a passage. After a turn, the speedboat faced a lock, closed. Coming from beyond the lock, a draught brought the smell of salt water to their nostrils. Thanks to the boat's spotlights, they noticed that the water level was the same on both sides of the lock.

"They didn't tell us fibs, the earthquake damaged their flood control system," Trish said in her raspy voice, similar to that of an older woman and which sharply contrasted with her youth.

"It will make our job easier," Hudson added.

The hacker grabbed his tablet again, tapped away, and the first lock gate opened. The speedboat moved into the lock itself, Hudson first engaged the closing of the door behind them and then the opening of the one in front of them.

Once this second lock gate opened, they proceeded and came out of the tunnel at a cove surrounded on either side by thick groves that stood on now-submerged terraces. The group's lights first passed over a school of dead fish, floating on the side at the surface, and then among the trunks and the foliage, which was also still covered with the same grey sprinkling they had seen on the coast. Volcanic ash.

The group's eyes focused on a gap between the two groves. It opened onto a much larger stretch of water, a lagoon of about twenty hectares. Another lightning ripped through the sky and its glow revealed constructions on the opposite shore of this lagoon and beyond, including a set of bleachers, a promenade that overlooked the northern edge, and what looked like to be an artificial mountain. This was Jurassic World's Lagoon and the island was Isla Nublar.

Four days earlier, on Christmas Eve, the famous theme park had collapsed in fire and blood during an apocalypse that Costa Ricans nicknamed La Larga Noche, the Long Night. Receiving up to nearly twenty thousand people per weekend, the park was now nothing more than ruins haunted by creatures of another age.

Iago stopped the speedboat, turned off the lights, and Viggo congratulated him with a friendly pat on the shoulder.

"We're in. Excellent work, Iago."

The whole team, except Iago and Hudson, put on their diving gear. Viggo, Arno, Rhys and Selena slipped into the water first, amphibious assault rifles in hand, and after making sure there was no danger nearby, they waved to Trish and Michael. The latter two hoisted their container over the edge of the speedboat and let it float on the surface while they immersed themselves. Then taking the container by its handles, one on each side, they then joined their four colleagues who spread out around them, as an escort.

Swimming ahead, Viggo led the group forward, towards the gap and once they passed over the now submerged fence that stood at this level, they disappeared under the surface, moving like shadows. They passed by a carcass that floated near the surface, that of a six-meter-long marine reptile whose general shape evoked that of a dolphin, an Ophthalmosaurus. One of the divers noticed that much of the abdomen had been ripped off, leaving only the bite marks of a large predator...

From the speedboat, Hudson could make out a few distant lights in the northwest, about a kilometre away, at the park's administration building that overlooked the city and the Lagoon from the top of its promontory. The InGen corporation, once the master of this island, only controlled a few small enclaves within this fallen kingdom, including the Administration, and the men of the small garrison it had left did not even dare to go out at night in the ruins of the dead city of Burroughs that bordered the Lagoon, afraid of falling into some ambush and being dragged into the darkness by the predators that prowled there.

A hooting sound caught the attention of both men. An uninitiated person would have believed in the nearby presence of an owl or a swan and though their knowledge of the animal world was more limited than that of other people, Hudson and Iago both knew it was unlikely that the sound was made by some ordinary bird. Pistol in one hand and flashlight in the other, the hacker and the sailor warily scanned the lush vegetation around the cove, on the lookout for any new manifestation from the hooting creature. As it seemed to have moved away, the two returned under the sheltered part of the speedboat, and while Hudson kept an eye on the footage from the divers' GoPro cameras, Iago beheld the ruined park under the storm.

A little further to the northeast, the helicopter seen earlier by the speedboat's passengers had landed behind the Grand Nublarian, the largest hotel in the park, and two of its passengers had left it.

The latter, Jack and Hannah Sommers, two black-clad young people with brown-blond hair, had reached the bottom of the hill occupied by the hotel and had stopped under the arcade at the entrance of the casino and a nightclub called The Chicxulub, both located under the hotel, within the hill itself. Between them and their destination, located under the imposing volcano-shaped Discovery Center, a relatively large pond stretched out and just like the Lagoon, its level had risen, so much that the siblings had their feet in water and that their path was flooded.

To reach their destination, located at the level of a wing of the center that was topped by a dome depicting Earth at the end of the Jurassic, two paths were possible: Either they took the long stone bridge which cut the pond in two parts of very unequal size; or they skirted the pond by the south, walking by a series of shops under tree-filled terraces before reaching the opposite end of the road, not far from the objective.

"Which way, sis?" Jack asked Hannah.

Hannah looked at the flooded bridge. The road it made up to the center's wing was more or less in a straight line but there, they would be in the open and if they were spotted, they would have no hiding place or not the time to reach one. Although it was longer, the path past the shops was perhaps safer.

"The one under the terraces."

"Okay".

They put on the hoods of their raincoats, Jack pulled out a pistol and they made their way to the dock along the south side of the pond, trotting as quietly as possible through a greyish water, still tinted with ash. While Jack glanced quickly inside the shops in order to detect any eventual nasty surprise that would be lurking in their dark corners, Hannah stared straight ahead, watching the edge of the terraces and the path in front of them. At the level of the Zoo's trees, north of the pond, white birds suddenly flew away, letting out screams, and having heard them, the siblings slowed down and looked in the direction of the opposite bank for a moment before resuming their journey but as they were about to reach the point where the bridge and the quay met, Hannah stopped.

"Jack…" She whispered in a worried voice.

Her eyes were fixing a gazebo fifty meters from their position, built on top of an outcrop that overlooked the pond. He wondered what worried her about this kiosk but then, looking up at its roof, he knew what and a shiver ran down his spine.

Perched on the roof like gargoyles on top of a cathedral, huddled together with the wings folded against the body, three pterosaurs rested. Jack and Hannah were too far away to see them clearly but they noted that they were the size of a large eagle, had a spotted coat similar to that of a leopard, and that the elongated snout that ended a crested head was that of a predator.
The Sommers looked at the pterosaurs and then at the rest of their path and noted that whatever they did, they had to pass nearby. Quietly, Jack checked the magazine of his pistol and noticed that he had a sufficient number of bullets, if ever the situation turned sour. He and his sister exchanged a determined look and stepped forward to resume their journey, moving slowly, sliding over the slabs instead of taking long, sonorous strides.

They reached the end of the quay and the beginning of the bridge that cut across the pond, and took the latter, beginning to skirt the gazebo's outcrop.
Suddenly one of the pterosaurs lifted its head and saw them. It snorted but its agitation was not to the taste of one of its congeners who snapped at it, urging it to keep still and not disturb their rest anymore. The first pterosaur hissed in frustration as a response but calmed down. The third had seen the Sommers too, but unlike the first, he remained quiet and just watched them pass below and reach the quay at the base of the dome-topped wing.

The Sommers reached their destination, the exit door of the Discovery Center's IMAX cinema. It had been locked but Jack took out some lock picking tools from the backpack his sister was carrying and after several attempts, as Hannah continued to watch the trio of pterosaurs, he managed to open it.
They rushed inside, closed it behind them, and with their flashlights' beams, they swept the hundreds of seats and the gigantic hemispherical screen of the dome.
As they walked up towards the upper part of the room and the cinema's entrance, Jack contacted the one that was overseeing the mission from the helicopter.

"Rankin. We're inside," he announced in his microphone.

"Good," the voice of a middle-aged man answered in their earpiece, speaking with a British accent. "The servers are at the back of the lab and the building's back-up generator is one level below. A stairwell connects the server room to the generator room. Jack, be careful when you will restart it. The less you will use it, the longer it will take for InGen's men to realize that you are there. However, your sister needs as much time as possible to retrieve the data she is looking for. If you get caught, there is nothing I will be able to do for you and if you come back to the helicopter empty-handed or with the wrong data, the boss has the right to not honour the terms of your contract. And if you ever have to flee, I will tell you to avoid the tunnels. Not only it's easy to get lost there but many predators have turned them into their lairs. You would never leave them alive... Contact me once you will have the data. Rankin, over."

"No pressure…," Hannah said once Rankin ended the transmission.

"Go in an abandoned theme park by a stormy night, just after an apocalypse, cross a ghost city where all kinds of nightmarish predators lurk, break into the center, find the laboratories, turn on the power, retrieve the data and get out before you get caught! Super easy, barely an inconvenience!" Jack said ironically. "Limey jerk!"

"If things go south, I say it's better to get caught by InGen's goons than to be eaten."

They left the cinema, took a back door to their right and soon ended up in the section of the building occupied by the laboratories, into which they entered. Following the directions on a map that Hannah held in hand, they walked through it, passing in an area hidden from the visitors, who could observe the laboratories and some of its activities from a gallery that overlooked it.

"I hope the data is still there…," Jack said.

"According to Rankin, they initially thought about deleting the data. Then the insurgency happened and the geneticists had to flee and it didn't cross the mind of anyone else during those four days. I'll bet that they will do it only when InGen will pack up and leave this island for good."

Within this backstage area, they found the room that housed the servers and a nearby stairwell door. They went down said stairs, reaching a mechanical room and found, as expected, the building's emergency generator. As Hannah opened its panel, revealing an array of breakers and switches, Jack looked around the room and saw another door. He moved closer.

"Hey, where do you think it leads?" He asked his sister who was busy charging the generator.

"To the tunnels I think..."

To his relief, he noticed that it was closed, but he was quick to block and barricade it with various items found in the room, including full boxes and a broom. Then he began to nervously check every corner of the room.

"What are you doing?" Hannah asked.

"Protecting my back. I've seen too many movies where characters in those kinds of places and in our situation get killed like the worst dumbass."

Once he was done, he walked over to the generator's control panel and had a look at it.

"Okay, it's not rocket science," he whispered, noting that each switch was associated with a specific system.

He saw the one associated with the servers. Then he and Hannah synced their watches, started a countdown, and she hurried back to the servers and unzipped her bag to pull out a tablet and a cable. When the countdown came to an end, Jack pressed the servers' switch and one level above, the servers began to purr soon after. Hannah connected her tablet to them and started looking for the data they came for. Jack went up the stairs soon after.

"I swear, playing Ethan Hunt on a post-apocalyptic island full of dinosaurs... It was a job for only two people on Earth: Us," he complained. "Luckily, InGen's security sucks as much as that of the Empire from Star Wars."

"Well said. It's like being in Rogue One with all those servers and the data to steal. Problem is, they all died in that movie..."

Gradually swimming down towards the dark depths and always following the direction of the north-west thanks to their compasses, Viggo and his companions continued their crossing of the Lagoon and their lights illuminated large rocks soon enough. As they passed by one of these, Selena had a recoil and shivered when she saw a cluster of tentacles retreating into the darkness.

"You're okay Selena?" Viggo enquired.

"I saw some tentacles..."

"Meh, you must have seen a squid or a big cuttlefish," Rhys said casually. "No need to wet your pants."

"You must have seen a Titanites giganteus," Trish said.

"A tita what?" Selena asked.

"A giant ammonite," the scientists clarified.

"What's an ammonite?" Arno asked.

"Have you read the file that Michael and I had made?" Trish worried

"Uh…," Selena started.

"No," Arno answered bluntly.

"There was a file about the creatures we might encounter?" Rhys asked.

"Are you doing this on purpose?!" Trish asked, irritated.

"Well I started but there were a lot of complicated words… And I don't like reading," the Swiss mercenary replied.

"And what does this kind of beast eat?" Rhys asked with a certain curiosity.

"No human-sized prey if that's what you want to know," Michael replied. "And they are not aggressive creatures."

"Shit…," the Scotsman swore. "I wouldn't have said no if one took Selena."

"Hey!" She protested.

"A pity, it could have been like in a Hentai," Viggo whispered.

"You were saying Viggo?" Selena asked, thinking she misheard.

"Uh… no nothing, just that it's a pity that this mask is like a ventail," he lied.

"I think this was the first time we've heard you on this mission, Michael," Rhys said. "You're not usually talkative and hardly speak, except to Trish, but you didn't say a word there. You have the willies?"

"There is a bit of that and by not speaking I tire less quickly and I stay more focused," the assistant explained.

"Yeah, well if we all stayed quiet like you, hello boredom," Rhys said. "By the time we reach the objective, that you take the samples, that we make the return trip and that we pass the decompression stages, we're here for a good half an hour, if not three quarters of an hour. And three quarters of an hour is quite long in a place like this, gloomy as a cemetery."

"That said, it is literally one," Trish pointed out. "There must be corpses all across the Lagoon. And the rest of the island is no better ... After the recent apocalypse, the animals of the park are experiencing a Mad Max-like situation."

"Only the strongest and the most cunning ones will survive," Arno said, words that saddened Selena.

"According to some assessments, more than a thousand people lost their lives to the disaster," Trish told them. "I think that the whole truth about the fall of this island will never be known."

"Then again, those idiots built their park on an island with an active volcano," Rhys pointed out.

"Yeah, they could have built in Florida like Disney and Universal did", Viggo added. "Michael is right about staying silent for a better concentration. Some should follow his example. We were told to watch out for the mosasaur."

"The mosasaur? Isn't it the giant fish-dinosaur thingy that had a Seaworld-style show?" Rhys enquired.

"It's not a dinosaur but a squamate," Selena corrected him.

"Who cares if it's a dinosaur or a squatate?" Rhys retorted. "It could be a giant aquatic unicorn or a mutant muskrat that it wouldn't change anything."

"And besides the mosasaur, what else?" Arno asked.

"If the information we received are correct, it's the only truly dangerous species we are likely to encounter as the others are still contained in their respective lagoons, which are not in our way," Trish stated. "If it can reassure you, I think that the risk she'll hunt us is minimal given the feast she had at Christmas."

"Ah, I am reassured," Selena breathed.

"We'll see if Trish is right," Viggo said.

"It's lame! This place sucks!" Arno complained. "I wanted some brawl..."

"If you want some brawl, you can just go to the surface and pick a fight with the carnivores that are lurking around," Rhys suggested.

"It would be really cool if we were left alone on this mission," Viggo said. "If we come across the mosasaur and that she decides to vary her menu, we're screwed so let's keep a low profile and avoid messing around. I know this place was a zoo a few days ago but now it has become some sort of a war zone so don't behave like a bunch of kids on a field trip at the local aquarium."

The sandy bottom of the lagoon, along with some sort of rail, appeared beneath them and right ahead, at the end of their lights' beams, a huge mass loomed out of the ground. Viggo led them towards this mass and a school of fish that came from it swam past the group.

"Hey Michael? Do you like fish sticks?" Rhys asked the scientist's assistant.

"Yes, why?"

"Can you repeat the phrase I love fish sticks at a quick pace."

Michael played the game.

"I like fish sticks. I like fish sticks. I like fish sticks…."

But as he repeated the phrase, the words eventually mingled, he slipped and ended up saying:

"I like fish dicks".

But as he realized his slip, Rhys laughed,

"You like fish dicks? What are you? A gay fish?!"

"Oh boy... What a drag...," Trish sighed. "And you just stole a joke from South Park".

The gigantic dark mass took a clearer and clearer shape, until they had some kind of a small underwater mountain before their eyes, as tall as an apartment block. Just like the rocks seen earlier, it was built by Man.

They entered the mountain through a rectangular opening at its base. This opening was crenelated by the remains of a long bay window, and they walked past a cafeteria's counter. Going deeper into the heart of the submerged building, they reached a large hall dominated by several balconies and which resembled quite a bit, in terms of shape and size, to that of a shopping centre.

As the group cautiously moved into the hall, a lull in the middle of the storm allowed moonlight to reach the Lagoon of Isla Nublar and dimly illuminate what was once the Great Hall of Mount Thetis. To the north-west and the north-east, two gigantic acrylic panels once stood, each towering over a small hemicycle, but in their place, remained only two gaping breaches that opened onto crushing darkness. While a part of the divers felt like they were swimming amidst the ruins of Atlantis, others had the impression of being the protagonists of a science fiction work that were exploring a derelict space station. Like the cafeteria bay window, the acrylic panels had both yielded following some event and a surge had flooded the whole building, mixing and scattering every item inside and light enough to be carried away. Thus, many chairs, tables, and even shop shelves littered the floor, while plushies, toys and books among other things floated here and there.

They had almost reached the middle of the hall when a high-pitched cry, similar to a moan carried away by the wind, sounded.

"What was that?" Arno wondered, on the alert.

"A mermaid?" Viggo said in a strange tone, that Trish would have called dreamy.

The group got their answer soon enough. From the northwest, passing through the gap left by the viewing bay of the Western Interior Seaway's lagoon, came a small group of broad-bodied animals with a long neck, a small head and flippers as limbs.

Seeing them slowly swimming towards them while making clicking sounds and letting out high-pitched vocalizations that sometimes sounded like whistles, Viggo, Rhys and Arno lined up in front of Trish and Michael and prepared to repel the attack. Unlike her three comrades, Selena kept her calm.

"Stay calm, they're harmless," Trish reassured them. "I think they're Cryptoclidus".

"How do you know they're not a danger?" Rhys asked her.

"When the park was open, you could dive in their lagoon as part of a guided tour," the scientist explained. "There are pictures on the internet if you don't believe me."

"I did when I visited the park a few years ago. With the guide, we even fed them with small fish and squid," Selena told them.

"A fat lot of good that does to me...," the Scotsman retorted.

Riding a ray of moonlight that penetrated into the mountain through the gigantic breach, the Cryptoclidus reached the middle part of the hall and while they described tighter and tighter circles around the divers and continued to let out vocalizations, the group could observe them lengthily.

The body of these animals was as big as that of an American manatee, and their short, broad skulls were lined with long needle-like criss-crossing teeth. Though their fragile constitution prevented them from hunting human-sized prey, they could inspire dread in some people, and their ghostly colouring didn't help. While the upper part of the body was dark grey and sprinkled with white-girded dark spots and that the underside was pure white, the rim of the mouth was black, with badly-defined dark streaks that ran between it and the front flippers.

When the described circles were very narrow, they went down to swim close to the floor and the furniture strewn over it. One of them passed only at one meter or two from the group and it looked at them curiously. Trusting Trish a little, they had let their guard down a bit but the mercenaries were still a little nervous, except for Selena. She had moved forward a few meters and the plesiosaurs noticed this soon enough and, being more interested by her than the other humans, they converged towards her. One of them swam so close to her that it brushed past her body and she reached out her arm towards its side.

"Look, they're harmless," she said while petting it.

"Yeah, they seem to behave a bit like dolphins…," Viggo noticed.

As Rhys chuckled at his observation, the Cryptoclidus moved its long, flexible neck to give their colleague a gentle head butt and she swam a few meters up, towards the other plesiosaurs.

"What is she doing?" Arno worried.

"I was watching a documentary about dolphins the other day," Rhys began. "And well, they are twisted bastards whose behaviour is closer to that of some ghetto scum than Flipper the heroic dolphin, saviour of the widow and the orphan! They're in gang bangs, bestiality and all kind of shit, including masturbation with dead fish..."

"Spare us that kind of details, Rhys!" Trish interrupted him.

"Some even tried to rape female divers!" He continued. "So Selena, I would advise you to watch your arse!"

But she ignored him, doing nothing but floating six meters above the floor and gently swinging her flippers as her eyes followed the different individuals. For several seconds, the Cryptoclidus continued to swim around her, like ghosts dancing in the ballroom of a haunted castle or palace. From her companions' point of view, Selena seemed bewitched by their vocalizations. They sounded like a beautiful but sad song, a lament about the abandonment of which they had been victims of. But as if to put an end to the moment's magic, the light of the moon disappeared and was then replaced only occasionally by that of the lightning in the sky.

Suddenly, a loud, low-pitched roar sounded, coming from a tunnel in the east, the one that led to The Reef, an underwater hotel, and whose entrance overlooked the hall. Looking towards the origin of the sound, the rest of the group lit up the stairs that led to this entrance and then the latter, where, amidst a flash of lightning, they saw the long jaws of the gargantuan creature that had remained hidden in the tunnel's darkness without their knowledge. Viggo turned his gaze to the middle of the room where the Cryptoclidus and Selena had frozen.

"Selena!" He shouted before rushing towards her.

Bursting out of the tunnel like a dragon from its lair, the monster rushed towards the plesiosaurs, using its long and bilobed tail as a propeller, and its mere sight struck the divers with terror.

"God almighty…" Arno swore as the Cryptoclidus scattered and Viggo swam frantically towards Selena, still as a statue.

In the eyes of the Swiss, the predator, which he knew to be the mosasaur mentioned earlier by his companions, evoked the mix between a crocodile and a whale since it had the jaws and the skull of the former and the barrel-shaped body, the smooth skin, and the size of the second. He looked at the beast then at Selena and finally at Viggo.

He's not swimming fast enough… It's too late for her.

But to his surprise and relief, the mosasaur went down when it was almost on Selena and instead chased one of the Cryptoclidus which had reached the bottom.

As the squamate caught up with the plesiosaur, the latter quickly turned to change direction, returning to the eastern part of the hall. But in doing so, he passed right over Arno, Rhys, Trish and Michael, bringing the mosasaur straight towards them.

"Watch out!" Viggo shouted.

Where Arno and Rhys flattened themselves to the floor, hoping the predator wouldn't crush them on its way, Trish and Michael hurriedly moved aside to take refuge behind the cafeteria counter, dropping their container in the process. Although the Cryptoclidus was nimble, he wasn't particularly fast, unlike the mosasaur who easily caught up with it before it could leave the hall, grabbing the unfortunate animal between its jaws and then slamming it against the floor. But as its teeth sliced the plesiosaur's body in half and Rhys stood up unlike Arno, its tail made an abrupt lateral movement that created a sudden displacement of water that carried the Scotsman towards the cafeteria.

Still in shock, the divers preferred to wait for the mosasaur to devour the Cryptoclidus and leave the hall, looking for the others and disappearing into the utter darkness of the lagoon east of the mountain.

"Are you still alive guys?" Hudson's voice asked them in their earpieces as, stunned, he had witnessed the mosasaur's attack.

"It wasn't after us," Viggo told him as he and Selena swam back to the bottom. "I am whole. Selena as well, though she probably had the fear of her life."

"I feel like I was hit by a train. I almost got my skull smashed by the container," Arno growled.

"Nothing broken, thank you," Michael replied.

"I'm fine too," Trish added. "Have you seen the receptacle?" She inquired with undisguised concern.

"I think I wet the inside of my suit...," Selena confessed in a weak voice.

But from Rhys, the answer he got was:

"Godfucking bollocks!"

"Where are you Rhys?"

"I'm stuck, dammit! And I don't even know where I am!"

As Arno helped Trish and Michael find the container amid the mess created on the mosasaur's wake, Viggo and Selena set out to find Rhys and they found him soon enough.

"Hurry up! I'm starting to feel like puking..."

He was floating upside down, with a table leg stuck between his back and his rebreather, and swinging his bandy legs, a sight that sparked a scornful chuckle from Selena.

"What are you laughing at, you tart? It's your fault if I'm in this situation. If we hadn't lingered with the Clitoclidus, we'd be swimming now in the former mosasaur lagoon," Rhys muttered as Viggo gently lifted him to keep the table leg from hurting him or damaging the rebreather.

"Blah blah…," Selena sighed while imitating a speaking mouth with her hand.

Disentangled, Rhys put himself on the right side and the three of them joined the other part of the group. They had found the container, much to the relief of the scientist and her assistant.

"Rhys is right," Hudson said. "Though Iago and I are supposed to be safe in the cove, it doesn't mean that we're chilling with a cocktail in hand. We're just as in danger than you underwater so if you could avoid fluttering around, it would be great. The sooner you reach the objective and take the samples, the better, and the faster we will be home."

"Yeah, we lingered here a little too long," Viggo said. "Let's move!"

They headed to the opening left by the great viewing bay in the west and left the hall and the mountain.

"I think she's going to leave us alone for tonight after that," Trish said about the mosasaur.

"I hope so," the Dane replied. "It would be another source of worry gone."

They swam even deeper and reached the sandy bottom of the former mosasaur lagoon.

"He's a funny one Hudson!" Rhys complained. "We're just as in danger than you underwater... Twaddle! In addition to the eventual predators, we have all the risks inherent to diving. Why that big coward didn't came down with us instead of probably playing Candy Crush on his phone? Iago would have been enough to keep the boat."

"Because he's the only hacker in our group and if he croaked during this dive due to an accident or some kind of bullshit, the others would be in trouble, unable to leave the island," Viggo pointed out.

"So what? If we can't go from below, let's go above. There are roads that lead to the marina. We steal one of the remaining boats and that's it! Sayonara InGen, the dinosaurs and this shitty island!"

"Are you sure you would have been able to walk such a distance or even run to escape a predator with your bandy legs?" Selena sneered.

"Do you know what my bandy legs tell you?!" Rhys retorted.

Meeting nothing but a few fish on the rest of their journey, they continued for about two minutes before the beams of their lamps illuminated the pale and half-devoured carcass of what looked like a large predatory dinosaur. It was over sixteen meters long and had an enormous skull with a moderately narrow snout and a voluminous cranial box.

"Here she is… The Indominus rex," Viggo announced.

"Masrani's Bane...," Trish added in a voice that mixed dread and admiration.

"Holy shit, that beast is bloody Smaug!" Rhys exclaimed, as he thought that the Indominus looked more like a dragon than a dinosaur because of the crown of horns that adorned its skull and the shape of its teeth at the back of the mouth, particularly curved towards the back, like those of snakes.

"More like Smaugette, I've read that she's a female," Viggo corrected him.

"To think that even without the earthquake and the volcano eruption, this beast would still have destroyed the park by itself," Hudson shuddered after recontacting them.

Although she was killed on Christmas Day, the body was in a bad state, as dislocated as a puppet. Of her long neck, nearly only the vertebrae remained as most of the flesh had been devoured. The forelimbs were missing, probably devoured by the mosasaur which, according to Trish's deductions, was also the creature that had ripped off chunks of the thighs and the tail, and a large part of the abdomen in order to reach the viscera while the entire body had traces of the action of various aquatic scavengers, mainly fish.

As the group made their way to the gaping cavity in the abdomen, Arno's gaze was drawn by a large steel bolt, similar to that of a ballista, which pierced the monster's palate, sticking out between the two small twin crests atop the snout. He also noticed that the left part of the creature's face had been burnt to the third degree.

Trish swam towards the cavity in order to look inside the body but suddenly, she quickly moved back and a shark came out of the Indominus' body. A little over three meters long, it was a medium-sized shark and quite similar to a Grey reef shark in terms of general shape and colour but its snout was not as streamlined as the latter's and was more flattened, giving it a look that could be described as repulsive.

When it passed by Trish, the shark half-opened its mouth but didn't attack and turned. However, it ended up swimming straight towards Arno, who had just picked up a sword broken at one third from the guard. Thinking he was attacked, Arno punched the shark's snout.

"Down!" The Swiss growled.

Changing direction, the shark opened its mouth and snapped its jaws before leaving without further ado.

"Did you really needed to give that shark a sailor's punch?" Viggo asked. "I remind you that we are not here to look for trouble with the wildlife."

"Yeah, it didn't do anything to us and was just feeding on the carcass. It was gratuitous spitefulness!" Selena scolded.

"It gave me a dirty look," Arno pretended. 'And I don't like sharks."

"Another one traumatized by Jaws...," Trish muttered and whose reaction had been more out of surprise than true fear.

Arno grunted and Trish and Michael put their container on the bottom.

"Okay, Michael. Let's get down to it," the scientist said, looking at the Indominus' bursted abdomen.

Viggo turned to his comrades.

"Guys, let's set up a security perimeter around this carcass and keep your eyes open."

The four mercenaries set up said perimeter and the two scientists opened the container and took out some tools in order to take samples from the Indominus.

"To be honest, I would feel safer with a shark suit and some chemical repellent," Michael confessed.

"I asked the number two, believe me, but he refused because he said it was tonight or never," Viggo told him.

"On that point, I think he was right. The storm is hiding our operation and after tonight, it will be too late. Remember what the spy reported about the incineration of the bodies," Trish reminded him. "They will try to get the body out of the lagoon in the coming days."

"Yeah. If you want my opinion, the number two didn't want to increase our budget," the Dane said, skeptical. "He's really stingy".

"Yeah, worse than a Jew!" Selena said.

"Hey, the other prig is anti-Semitic!" Rhys laughed. "My ribs!"

"But I'm not an anti-Semite! It's an expression," her colleague explained to him.

"No but I know! I'm pulling your leg, you muppet. And even if you were, I would care about it as much as I cared about my first slippers."

"Um, guys?" Trish called them out. "You remember that I'm Jewish?"

"Oh boy... If we can no longer make fun of our colleagues...," the Scotsman grumbled.

"Avoid talking too much," Viggo told them, annoyed by their bickering. "We must save oxygen".

"What a phony excuse," Rhys retorted. Those rebreathers have good autonomy. I know this because I was the one who chose the models. Arno was too busy ogling the saleswoman's knockers."

"It's true that she was… very charming," Viggo recognized. "Too bad we were in a hurry because I would have stayed longer to take a longer look at her… uh, her… her fanny... her fanny pack," he stammered.

"Her fanny pack…," Trish repeated incredulously. "Of course…"

Rhys, who stood by the Indominus' mouth, was busy gazing at her teeth while thumb-sized fish gnawed at the flesh by the jaws.

"Those teeth must be worth a fortune on the black market," he said. "Do you imagine? It would be like selling Osama Bin Laden's beard! I… We would be rich!"

But Trish put an end to his dream.

"Except that we can only carry a limited weight. Priority is given to the piece of rib that's being cut and the samples of flesh and skin."

"However, nothing prevents you from taking a few," Viggo said. "But you will carry them all alone and if you are slowed down, it will be your fault."

"You're a pain in the arse, you bunch of killjoy! You better not leave me alone in this hole or I swear I'll cane your balls or your cunt," Rhys growled.

A few meters from him, Selena suddenly swam forward, attracted by the reflection of some shiny object half buried under the sand and that her rifle's light had lit. She leaned towards said object and noticing that it was a red gem, she uncovered it a bit, revealing a silver ring adorned with two snakes, wrapped around the gem. She reached out to retrieve it but it wasn't the only thing she pulled out of the sand as the ring was still on the index finger of a woman's hand and Selena moaned out of disgust at the sight of the severed forearm that floated in front of her. She removed the ring from her hand, let the forearm sink, then put the ring on her own index finger and looked at it.

"This ring suits me well," she said, noting that it was just the right size for her fingers.

"Hey! I saw the gem first!" Rhys suddenly called out to her while swimming towards her. "It's mine!"

"By which right? It's too late for you!"

"Give it to me, you slut!" He ordered her as he rushed towards her arm.

She brutally pushed him away.

"Keep your hands off, you dirty dwarf! You wouldn't even be able to fit one of your big fat fingers in!"

"You know what my big fat fingers tell you?!"

"Rhys! Selena! Have some discipline please!" Viggo yelled at them. "The entire Lagoon must be hearing you! Shut up before the neighbourhood comes to complain for night time disturbance!"

But the two did not obey and began to fight. Viggo then turned to Arno, who was silent and alert.

"Arno, please..."

Arno sighed and joined his two quarrelsome comrades. He separated them by pushing them aside, grabbed Selena's arm, then pulled the ring off her finger forcefully, raising her a small cry of pain.

"Ow! It hurts, you ape!" She told him off.

But he ignored her and she and Rhys watched him swim to the Indominus' head, disappear behind, to only come back a moment later, without the ring.

"Problem solved," the Swiss declared.

"Thank you," Viggo said. "Swap positions with Rhys."

Arno nodded and the Scotsman finally obeyed, heading towards the posterior end of the corpse. Meanwhile, Michael was sawing off one of the ribs and Trish putting pieces of flesh and skin in small plastic bags that she put in the container.

"Hey, what kind of shark do you think it was?" She asked her assistant.

"I would have said a particularly large Grey reef shark but the snout doesn't match. And none of the other modern species that InGen has put in those lagoons matches either. It's neither a sand tiger, nor a blacktip, certainly not a hammerhead..." He finished sawing the rib and put it in a glass tube which he placed inside the container.

"The parcel is wrapped!" Trish announced.

"Copy that," Hudson's voice replied. "I tell Iago".

"Okay, guys. We're leaving," Viggo said.

"The money is ours!" Rhys exclaimed enthusiastically.

He and his fellow mercenaries spread out around the two scientists and their precious container, and they escorted them towards Mount Thetis, oblivious to the danger lurking nearby, a danger other than that of the mosasaur.

Two jeeps adorned with InGen Security's logo pulled up on Obelisk Plaza, just in front of the steps at the foot of the Discovery Center's entrance, and a squad of men in ponchos came out, guns and torches in hand, and rushed towards the large breach that stood in place of the front door, located between two life-size stone statues of brachiosaurs.

When he saw beams of light sweeping the rotunda in the heart of the building, Jack, who was on the lookout at the entrance of the laboratories, knew that InGen had finally realized that there was an intrusion. How exactly he didn't know. Perhaps one of the control room technicians who had remained on the island discovered that someone was copying some of the data from the servers and he or she had therefore raised the alarm. Jack did not wait to be found and hurried to join his sister whom he warned.

"Hannah. The pigs are showing up!" He hissed into his microphone.

"Shit… I'm still downloading," her voice answered in his headset.

At the end of the path once taken by the park visitors, he reached the door, closed it behind him, and met his sister in the servers' room.

"Come on, come on…," she repeated, tapping the edge of her tablet, as the download progress bar was not moving fast enough to her liking.

"How long?"

"A few minutes."

"We don't have a few minutes. They'll have us cornered like rats by then. Put down your tablet and help me barricade the door."

She put the tablet on the floor and followed him to the only door that gave access to that part of the lab.

"But if we barricade that door, we won't be able to get out, you smartass," she pointed out to him as they brought a table up against the door. "Unless you plan to leave by the tunnels?"

"I don't know. We need to let the download finish. We'll decide later."

Above the table, they placed a few chairs and then they returned by the servers and Hannah took her tablet back in hand. The download was still not complete.

"There they are," Jack whispered.

Beams of flashlights swept across the lab and Jack, hidden like Hannah from InGen's men thanks to the layout of the premises, drew his pistol and looked back to the door they had barricaded.

As expected, the doorknob moved but the door remained close and InGen's men became agitated. They knew the intruders were still there.

"Show yourself and surrender, you Biosyn scum!" One of them roared.

"How do they know that we indeed work for them? It's not written on our foreheads", Hannah muttered.

Then they began to knock the door down. Jack turned back to the waiters and Hannah, whose pale and sweating face was fixing the tablet's screen.

"Hannah… Hurry…"

The sound of shattered glass brought Jack's attention back to the barricade and he removed his pistol's safety.

Shortly after, the barricade yielded and InGen's guards rushed into this part of the lab. But when they turned to enter the server room, no one was there and the stairwell's door was open. They carefully walked down the stairs and reached the back-up generator room. As they searched it, they saw that the door that led to the Depths was wide open. Two of the men stepped forward and pointed their torches into the darkness before exchanging an uncertain look.

"They went to the Depths. I'm afraid we've lost them," one of those who came down reported to another team that had just arrived as reinforcements.

"What they will see there will push them to go back here," said the leader of this second team. "We'll stay in the area to pick them up..."

But the wanted intruders were much closer than they thought and they had heard their short conversation. The Sommers, hidden behind an air vent, waited for the guards they had duped to walk away before beginning to crawl through the pipes.

"Guys? Do you remember the amount we were promised?" Rhys asked his companions as they were about to reach Mount Thetis.

"One million seven hundred and fifty thousand, I think," Viggo replied.

"So, if we exclude Iago… If we divide one million seven hundred and fifty thousand by seven, the result is… Two hundred and fifty thousand!" The Scotsman calculated.

"How many months of salary is that?" Selena asked.

"Almost ten and a half years!" Rhys exclaimed after a brief calculation in his head, before mumbling.

"But that's awesome, isn't it?" Selena said, surprised by his annoyance about it. "Earning overnight the equivalent of ten years."

"No, my nose is out of joint because Hudson, that prick, will have the same amount as us while he spent three quarters of the mission doing bugger all!"

"And he spent the remaining quarter plugging in cables," Arno said.

"Oh, drop it guys!" Hudson retorted in their earpieces. "Hacker is not an easy job, you know. Without me, the mission would have been much more complicated."

"We'll talk about this later," Viggo said. "Stay strong, and above all watchful! We're not out of the woods yet..."

While conversing, they had begun to ascend towards the large observation bay and the hall beyond, and the two scientists carrying the container felt in their arms the consequences of this ascent of the lower slopes of Mount Thetis because the container had a tendency of dragging them towards the bottom.

"It's not too heavy?" Viggo asked the scientists.

"Oh, it could be worse…," Trish answered. "Fortunately, Michael is strong."

"We should have attached balloons to this thing," Rhys said. "We could have thus let it go up to the surface once in the southeast lagoon, and the boat would have picked it up. It would have saved you some effort and you would swim easier, and the whole group faster."

"The thing is, if the boat leaves the cove, is that its chances of being spotted by any eventual InGen guard posted on top of the buildings on the northern edge would increase considerably, and they would corner us before we could escape from the island," Hudson aroused.

They reached the bay and passed over its hemicycle. As the mosasaur's attack on the Cryptoclidus was still fresh in their minds, they did not intend to linger inside the mountain and those to the scientists' right glanced suspiciously at the entrance of a tunnel in the south.

Seeing a Sand tiger shark swimming peacefully further in the hall, Michael thought of the shark that had surprised them at the Indominus' carcass and he shared his thoughts about it with Trish.

"I've been thinking about the shark's identity," Michael said. "What if it was a de-extinct species?"

"Yes, of course! Trish exclaimed. "They had several of them. Let me remember the list… Hybodus, Ptychodus, Squalicorax…" She listed. "And I think that's all."

"We can already strike Hybodus and Ptychodus off. The shape and especially the size don't match."

"Only Squalicorax remains," she concluded.

"Thinking about it, it might be one, but I don't remember which lagoon they inhabited."

As they left the building through the cafeteria bay, they thought about it but when Trish remembered a moment later where the Squalicorax lived before the disaster, she paled.

"Oh shit…," she said in a low voice. "I just remembered which one. It's…"

"Hell's Aquarium…," Michael finished, as he had remembered too.

"If it could have left it, then…," she began.

"Maybe its friends too…," she finished.

"And what do those friends look like?" Asked Arno, who had listened to their conversation with interest.

"I think you really should have read the file we made," the scientific assistant replied.

"What else lived in that lagoon? Tell us!" Rhys begged them.

They had stopped where they had planned to begin to start going back to the surface, to a stage six meters below the surface. After this, the plan was to swim for a minute at this depth before going up three meters and continuing at this level up to the gap before the cove and they would thus emerge only by the speedboat. The purpose of all this was to prevent decompression sickness, something they couldn't allow to have on this island.

"Oh you know, nothing interesting," Trish said in a half-sarcastic half-nervous tone. "Small species of mosasaurs and lovely predatory fish called Xiphactinus..."

But hardly had she uttered this name that a thunderbolt illuminated their surroundings for a short time, during which they saw a sinister shadow moving nearby, and which wasn't that of the mosasaur, nor that of some other marine reptile, but rather that of a fish. Darkness fell again and they raised their weapons, whose lights chased only a tiny fraction of the first.
Their beams swept over the bottom of the lagoon for long seconds, then one met the elongated body and the greenish back of a huge fish. Its silvery sides had thin black stripes and the fins' tips were reddish but what stood out was its size. The animal was as big as a Great white shark, and its slow but steady swim seemed to be definitely that of a predator.
Before the light's beam met its head, the creature retreated into the darkness and with dread in their hearts, the group looked around.
While Viggo was thinking about a plan to get out of this trap, Arno heard something swimming near him and pivoting in order to determine what, he let out a scream. Coming from above, a bulldog-like head swooped down on him and panic and confusion struck the group as more of those heads emerged from the darkness.

Their screams, followed by the sound of their weapons, reached Hudson's and Iago's ears and the two men were stunned when they watched the cameras' footage. They saw some sort of gargantuan fanged tarpons attacking the group and when Hudson, who had taken a look at the file created by Trish and Michael, saw that the lower jaw of those fish was prominent and protruded further forward than the rest of the face, he recognized the species. Xiphactinus, one of the most nightmarish predators of the Cretaceous seas.
Once the surprise was gone, they scrambled to help the group. As Iago restarted the engine, Hudson entered the command to open the lock gates in preparation of their retreat. The doors opened and the speedboat left the cove, while the divers were suffering the Xiphactinus' merciless assault.

Arno's body laid in the sand, torn to shreds by several bites, and Rhys had just been grabbed by one of the fish which, thanks to movements from its lower jaw, was gradually swallowing him.

Protecting the container, only Viggo, Selena, Trish and Michael remained. The two scientists had drawn the pistols that were given to them at the beginning of the mission and the four were barely repelling the predators' attack. One of them, riddled with several darts and bolts, had crashed into the sand while another, wounded, had retreated but there were more coming and the group would be short of ammunition if the assault thus continued. Protecting Trish and Michael with Viggo, Selena frantically looked around, looking for a good target. As one of the Xiphactinus seemed to rush towards Viggo, she aimed at it, intending to shoot it in the eye, but another of the predators came behind her and tore her head off with its jaws. The weapon fired anyway, but the bolt did not pierce the Xiphactinus' eye but Viggo's chest, hitting him near the heart, and the bodies of the two mercenaries were quickly torn to shreds amidst a cloud of blood.

When Selena got killed, Trish had abandoned the container and started fleeing the scene, hoping that Michael would do the same. She turned to him and saw that he was still carrying the container.

"Drop it! Save yourself!"

He listened to her, abandoning their precious cargo, and frantically flapping his flippers to join her, but he too was grabbed and carried away under the helpless eyes of his colleague.

Being the last survivor, seeing no shelter nearby, and the Xiphactinus seeming to have an insatiable appetite, she had only one solution. Get back to the surface as quickly as possible, hoping that the boat would arrive on time. Although she greatly risked decompression sickness or a barotrauma by doing this, certain death awaited her if she remained at the bottom. She dashed towards the surface and the Xiphactinus began to follow her, all but one, the one who had swallowed Rhys and which was choking on it. But while they could have been able to rush on her with a few flutters of their tails, they scattered for some reason. Trish didn't wait to know what and hurried to reach the oncoming boat, even though she suffered from a pain in the chest.

When she reached the surface, Hudson and Iago reached out their arms to hoist her aboard and removed her rebreather before laying her gently on the bottom, with her head protected from the rain by the cockpit roof. As Iago took his place back behind the latter, Hudson leaned over Trish and removed her mask. She was out of breath and from the corner of her mouth, a bloody foam was trickling down.

She tried to speak, with a voice even hoarser than usual, but the words made were unintelligible.

"What's happening to her?" Hudson stammered, very worried.

"Pulmonary barotrauma," Iago replied. "We must leave this place!"

The speedboat set out again and headed for the cove, leaving a trail of foam behind. But as they were crossing the lagoon, something suddenly struck the speedboat with such a tremendous force that it toppled it over and projected its passengers into the water.

Opening his eyes seconds after the impact, Hudson looked around for his two companions. Iago was nowhere around him but in the dim light of the speedboat's searchlights he saw Trish, sinking.

He wanted to dive to save her, but Iago's arm held him back and the sailor pointed at something with a horrified look. The hacker turned and saw the mosasaur rushing jaws wide open towards the speedboat, about to swim between the scientist and the two men at any moment. No sooner did the sailor and the hacker begin to move away, heading for the gap and the cove, that the mosasaur reached the speedboat and bite off an entire section of it.

During the struggle between the reptile and this inanimate prey, Trish was struck with full force by its tail and projected straight into the darkness. If the tail blow hadn't killed her instantly, drowning or some opportunistic carnivore still lurking around would.

While the marine squamate was busy tearing the boat to pieces, the two men swam frantically, with all the energy they could muster.

"We're almost there!" Iago yelled, as the gap was only a few meters away.

Behind them, the water began to bubble and glancing over his shoulder, Hudson saw the back of the mosasaur and the top of its tail fin breaking through the surface. As it approached them at a frightening speed, Hudson let out a cry but he and Iago passed over the fence unknowingly and it was a sudden loss of speed from the reptile that told them this. Hudson turned and the exhaustion from the flight dragged him underwater for a moment. During the latter, he noticed that the space between the top of the fence and the surface was too narrow for the mosasaur to swim over the first one without scraping its belly. It attempted to fight its way through by striking the fence with its imposing snout. The fence bended but didn't yield. Hudson, who was only a few meters from the jaws, promptly turned and went back to the surface.

Iago had not stopped and had outdistanced him, swimming not towards the submerged dock at the entrance to the tunnel, just below a staircase that led to the upper part of the lock and blocked by a fence, but towards the lock itself. As the mosasaur turned around, Hudson hurried to catch up with the Costa Rican.

But a few seconds later, the mosasaur rushed back, rammed the fence head first where it had bent, and brought it down.

With a few flutters of its tail, it then swooped on Hudson and cut him in half between its jaws, letting his upper body sink.

As the hacker's lower body was swallowed, Iago entered the tunnel, reached the lock, and passed the first gate. The water bubbled again behind him. He swam twice as hard, finished the crossing of the lock and passed the second door, passing into the canal. He felt the vibration produced by the jaws' snap behind him but he didn't stop.

Behind him, the mosasaur had stopped, unable to continue further. The canal was not deep enough for its enormous body. As her prey was now out of reach, the reptile swam out of the lock, not without difficulty, and returned to the lagoon, grabbing Hudson's upper body on the way.

Further in the canal, Iago found a ladder and climbed it. Once on the dock, he crawled to the wall opposite of him and sat against it, shivering, trying to get a grip on himself. His companions were gone and his boat had been sunk. How would he leave this island and return home?

His lighter had of course been wet and he panicked for a moment at the thought of wandering blindly with only the random and distant lightning's flashes as a source of light, which moreover could only illuminate the ends of the tunnel. Then he remembered a trick taught by a relative long ago.

He turned the lighter over and rubbed it against the wall, while spinning the spark wheel directly on the surface. He rubbed it like that for about thirty seconds, and to his relief, a flame erupted when he tried to relight it again, giving him some reassurance.

Where do I go now?

He looked to his left and began to walk along the dock in that direction, remembering the outward journey and the entrances of other tunnels they had seen. Those tunnels were the only exits he had. Iago wasn't sure about what he was going to do once he would be out and he was seriously considering to surrender to InGen's men. If he decided that, he would also take the opportunity to warn them that they had opened the canal and that it would be wise to close it. It was out of the question to see the monsters of Isla Nublar's Lagoon again on a future fishing expedition or close to the mainland's beaches. He would have closed it himself, but he didn't know how. Hudson would have been able to do so however...

Tip.. Top..

His blood ran cold at that sound of footsteps, light, like a bird's. But a large one, judging by the noise created by the movement, as audible as that of a person advancing as quietly as possible on wet ground. He was not alone on the dock.
While holding his breath, Iago squinted, trying to better discern what stood beyond the area lit by his lighter. He saw only one shape in the darkness, that of a bipedal animal with a long tail, a slender body and neck, and a narrow head topped by two large twin crests.
As cold sweat beaded from his forehead, he saw that the head was turned towards him and that the animal towered over him, as it had the height of a tall man. Iago knew his time had come and the last thing he heard was a rattling sound.

After long minutes of navigation in the pipes, the Sommers came to an air vent that appeared to open into a corridor, not far from the rotunda according to Hannah's estimations. They were relieved to see that it was located at ground level and after listening carefully to make sure there weren't any InGen guards nearby, Jack kicked the grid. It yielded, he slipped out of the pipe and quickly stood up, pistol in hand. He indicated to Hannah that the way was clear and she also left. Looking around, they found a sign that pointed the direction of the rotunda and followed it.

But hearing voices coming from that direction, they slowed down and began to walk along the wall to their right. In the rotunda itself, they saw two guards, standing next to the broken gigantic model of the island, their eyes turned towards the laboratories' entrance.

Using as cover the massive columns that demarcated the colonnade that surrounded the rotunda, the Sommers moved quietly toward the entrance to a shop further away, hidden by the darkness while the guards talked.

"The board hired a mercenary company to help us clean up the island. It's led by Ken Wheatley."

"Ken Wheatley? Never heard of him."

"I know someone who worked with him. He's not a joker and sometimes an asshole, but he takes care of his men. Let's just hope the board doesn't try to take him for a ride. I'm aware that it's a time of crisis but one must still have a minimum of principles... We know how it ended up when they took the grey guards for idiots and used them like guinea pigs...

"Yeah, a fucking insurgency. Short but bloody. Have you heard the rumors? That the Slayers were literally slaughtered by the insurgents and not by the Indominus and the Pack. To think that there were guys we knew among those who were with them. Since the result of the shooting that took place here wasn't a pretty sight, I can't even imagine the slaughter it was in the Cartago Valley."

"Wasn't it in those parts that Sylvester claims to have seen those famous Chupacabra-like dinosaurs yesterday, the ones with the gleaming eyes?"

"What, those we supposedly exterminated all those years ago after blaming the proceratosaurs but who reappeared after the eruption as if by magic? Oh don't listen to Sylvester, he's one hell of a mythomaniac. He must have taken some mushrooms, again."

The Sommers safely made their way to the shop and went down to its lower level, heading towards a large breach in its patio door. They left the building there and immediately reached the nearby bushes, in order to hide from the guards on the plaza.

"You might laugh, but I miss the roar of the old T. rex," one confessed wistfully amidst the pouring rain to another.

"I don't know if you heard the news but they found her body this morning in the mountains," the other replied seriously.

"Oh crap…," the first said, saddened. "Damn, everything is falling apart…," he added, looking at the abandoned city around him.

Crouching between the bushes and the center's frontage, the Sommers reached the entrance of a tunnel dug under one of artificial mountain's spurs, and whose gate had been destroyed by some colossal force. But there was a problem. One of InGen's men was looking towards the tunnel. If they came out of the bushes, he would see them immediately.

Jack and Hannah feared for a moment to wait a long time in the pouring rain before they could continue but another guard hailed his colleague and asked him to come and join him. When the two had their backs turned, the Sommers left the bushes and entered the tunnel.

On the other side, they turned left and ended up shortly after on a restricted parking lot that stretched just next to the high walls of an enclosure, whose door was wide open, and which itself adjoined a blockhaus-like building. Hannah took advantage of this moment of respite to contact Rankin.

"Rankin, we've got the data."

"Ah, about time! I was getting impatient ... I thought you were caught."

"It was close. We're at the parking lot near the Tyrannosaur Kingdom, but InGen has a few men in the area. You can't land there."

"Then go to the plaza behind the Mosasaur Stadium," he ordered. "It's about five hundred yards southwest of your position."

"Copy that, we'll recontact you there", she answered before ending the transmission.

"Five hundred yards? Oh come on…," Jack whimpered while looking at the storm around them.

Out of the corner of their eyes, they spotted a few bicycles, abandoned under a tin-roofed shelter, and went to take each one.

Just as they were about to leave the parking lot, the InGen jeeps they had seen in the square suddenly appeared on their left.

The Sommers, frozen on the spot, thought they had been spotted, but the jeeps continued without stopping and disappeared soon enough. Jack sighed in relief before raising his head when he thought he heard a rustle amidst the thunder.

The siblings finding the hasty departure of InGen's men suspicious, they decided to not linger and headed southwest, traveling on service roads surrounded by dense vegetation. Since some of the directional signs were still covered by ash, they had to ignore them and instead remembered to continue to their left at each intersection, since the south and the Lagoon were on that side. They thus passed under a monorail station, came to the western end of the Promenade and turned right, rolling straight towards an archway that rose above the road that led to the plaza and the stadium mentioned by Rankin.

The Sommers stopped on the plaza's rim and abandoned their bicycles.

"We're there, Rankin," Hannah announced.

"Okay, we'll pick you up," he replied.

As they waited for the helicopter to arrive, they scanned the surroundings. Behind them, in the middle of a strip of trees, was the monorail, which skirted the square and linked the Promenade in the north to the Aquatic Park in the south; to the west, opposite of the stadium, was a food court near which a themed playground stood; to the south, beyond the playground, the lightning flashes revealed the slopes of a roller coaster while opposite, next to the stadium, one could glimpse the low wall of an enclosure that contained a rocky outcrop and a beach, that of the Hesperornis. The plaza itself was nearly empty since there was only an abandoned mantellisaur-drawn tram, whose team had probably fled into the jungle.

The helicopter's lights appeared in the northeast but as they watched it land, a loud boom echoed over the sound of the storm, that of a falling tree, and leaves fell from their trees. Worried, the Sommers decided to leave the trees' cover and walk towards the helicopter. The vegetation of the strip of trees rustled, making the siblings look behind their shoulders. They saw nothing among the thickets but they nevertheless hastened their pace. It was then that a fiftyish balding man with slightly protruding ears that was sitting inside the helicopter, Jeremy Rankin, began to frantically move his arms, telling them to hurry, but without shouting however, as he was afraid of drawing the attention of something nearby. But Jack and Hannah suddenly felt a sort of vibration in their bodies that sent a chill down their spines and frozen them on the spot, like if anchors tied to their feet were sinking into the ground, and Rankin paled.

When the Sommers turned, a lightning bolt illuminated a large and sturdy bipedal dinosaur that was towering above them, with its head at a height of almost four meters. The beast's skull was long and narrow, with turquoise-coloured spots by the ears, orbits and nostrils, while the body was overall dark yellow with a greenish hue. Its most remarkable feature was the long hump that ran down its neck and back up to the anterior end of the tail, and long red vertical marks ran down from its top, towards the belly. Its relatively short but sturdy arms equipped each with three clawed fingers told the Sommers that the animal in front of them was not a Tyrannosaurus but another species of large predatory theropod. An Acrocanthosaurus.

The dinosaur was looking at them with an inexpressive reptilian gaze and was keeping its mouth half-open while large drops trickled down its well-rounded sides. Its throat started to quiver. No sound came out of its mouth but the Sommers felt a vibration similar to the one that had frozen them. Then the predator let out a crocodilian throaty growl.

The Sommers, aware that Jack's pistol was not going to be of any help against such a monster, eventually succumbed to fear and ran for their lives, rushing towards the helicopter which was already taking off.

"Wait!" Jack yelled, thinking that Rankin was abandoning them.

But the mercenary unrolled a ladder and its end touched the ground while the Sommers, chased by the Acrocanthosaurus, narrowed the distance between them and it. Hannah, the faster of the two, reached it first and jumped to grab the rungs. She climbed a few of them and turned to see where Jack was. He was trying to grab the base of the ladder but the acrocanthosaur was preventing him from doing so by snapping its jaws behind his back, distracting him.

But as she was looking at her panicked brother, Hannah was surprised by a second Acrocanthosaurus, bigger than the first, that burst out of the darkness behind her, jaws wide open and about to grab her, and she was only saved only by a sudden move from the helicopter. The acrocanthosaur snapped its jaws in the air and, as it had poorly planned its attack, it accidentally crashed into the other predator who immediately growled. Taking advantage of the confusion, Jack reached the tram in the middle of the plaza and disappeared into it, only to come out at the opposite end a moment later, while the two predators had barely stopped biting each other. However, the first individual had set off in pursuit of the ladder and Hannah, preventing Jack from being immediately rescued.

"The other side! Go to the other side!" She shouted at him, pointing at the bleachers, her voice almost carried away by the wind.

Jack then rushed towards the stadium, and the wide ramp that allowed guests to access the feeding show area. The second acrocanthosaur followed him and with a head butt, it hurled the cart that Jack had just skirted. Though the animal wasn't a fast runner and was rather made for hunting slow and large prey like sauropods, it was catching up with him. Jack gathered his remaining strength, reached the ramp and launched himself on a final run to the catwalk where a host stood during the feeding shows, taking care of not tripping on the way. The weather had indeed made the ramp slippery and this worked against the theropod who was about to catch up with Jack. In order to avoid breaking a bone due to a fall, the Acrocanthosaurus slowed down and cautiously walked up the ramp, letting Jack outdistance it. Seeing the ladder waiting for its prey just beyond the walkway straight ahead, the dinosaur growled, in vain. Jack made it to the top of the ramp, rushed to the end of the catwalk, climbed the guardrail, and jumped on the ladder before the acrocanthosaur could catch him.

While holding tight on the rungs, Jack looked up and saw his sister at the top of the ladder. But as the helicopter was ascending, the ladder suddenly began to wriggle, destabilizing the Sommers who barely grabbed hold of the rungs while Rankin was staring in their direction with wide eyes. The acrocanthosaur had grabbed the ladder between its teeth, just below Jack. The ropes tightened and some sort of a tug of war took place between the dinosaur and the helicopter. The former's situation was precarious. Indeed, the catwalk cracked under his feet, threatening to collapse if it stayed too long.

Rankin helped Hannah to climb into the aircraft, then he pulled out a dagger and began to unhook the ladder. Hannah looked at him with wide horrified eyes.

"Are you out of your mind?!"

"We're all going to die if I don't cut it!" He replied urgently, alluding to the sound of the helicopter's stabilization system's alarm.

If this tug of war didn't stop soon, they were going to crash and this whole mission would have been for nothing.

"No, Rankin! Wait!" Jack yelled as he tried to climb the ladder as quickly as possible.

Luckily for them, the ladder snapped where the Acrocanthosaurus held it with its teeth. The dinosaur promptly backed away and the catwalk collapsed before it, tumbling down into the lagoon below. Still hanging on, Jack was tossed around at the end of the remaining section and he turned his head to watch the Acrocanthosaurus growling out of frustration by the base of the bleachers. As they flew over the Lagoon and its now submerged barrier reefs, flying towards the opposite end and the coast, Jack let out a long sigh of relief.

"Jack!" Her sister called him, still worried.

He looked up at her and Rankin.

"Don't stay there! Climb!" She urged him.

He looked down and noticed that the Lagoon and its dark waters were only a few meters below his feet. He knew that it might be better if he climbed, just to be sure. It was out of question to fall into the water like the worst idiot when he had just been saved. But no sooner had he finished thinking about this that the mosasaur leaped out of the former Oxford Seas' lagoon with its mouth wide open and swallowed the end of the ladder and Jack with it.

The section bitten by the mosasaur yielded almost instantly, but the traction exerted by the marine reptile during that short moment destabilized the helicopter, making Hannah fall.

She barely clung onto the aircraft's skid, wrapping first her arms around it, then her legs, while they finished flying over the Lagoon and were about to pass over the Eastern Residential District of Burroughs. Hannah hurried to climb back into the cabin, sobbing during the process.

She eventually passed her arms over the edge and put them inside. Rankin knelt down and put his hands on hers. She gratefully nodded and saw out of the corner of her eye that her backpack secured in a compartment. Returning her gaze straight ahead, she saw a strange glow in Rankin's eyes and shuddered. The mercenary's hands closed around the young woman's wrists and he said to her:

"Sorry love, but this is the end of the road for you."

He lifted her arms and pushed her out of the aircraft. Hannah's back hit the skid first, raising a tremendous pain, then she fell straight into the rough ocean. The surface hit her at full force, knocking her out momentarily, and she began to sink. When she regained consciousness, she swam to the surface and sought the shore. A few hundred meters from her position, she saw, among other things, the small bay at the entrance of the underground canal. She wanted to swim in that direction but her strength was abandoning her, and the waves were pushing her hard. She was never going to reach it.
Before losing consciousness, she noticed that the canal's gate had been left wide open. Jaws then closed on her lower body, but Hannah's numbness was such that she barely felt the teeth sink into her flesh. Her face sank under the water and darkness greeted her, preventing her from realizing that a Xiphactinus had caught her.

While moving, it swallowed her whole, and the predator was soon after joined by two other Xiphactinus. The trio then moved away from the island, swimming towards freedom.

Chapter Text

At International Genetics' port complex in Puntarenas, barely four hundred animals were unloaded, a bit more than a third of Jurassic World's total collection, and then shipped by road, rail or even flown to the Farm, another facility located in the Ismaloya Mountains and also known as Site D. There, InGen intended to keep them in quarantine for a few weeks, in order to ensure their good health or put them back on their feet, before sending them to California where they were to be sold.

This transport to the United States was the last stage of Operation Fallen Kingdom, planned in great secrecy in the months that preceded Mount Sibo's eruption and the park's fall, but it needed authorizations from the United States government, authorizations which InGen didn't received, putting the operation on hold and disrupting its plans.

The fall of Jurassic World had been such a dramatic event that many in the United States expressed concern at the arrival of a large number of prehistoric animals, especially since the memory of the San Diego incident, which took place twenty years earlier, still lingered. This feeling of concern apparently influenced the US government, encouraging it to avoid giving InGen the necessary authorizations. But this was only a pretext and some, including within InGen, suspected senators and some government members of receiving backhanders from Biosyn or other bio-engineering corporations, who wished to weaken InGen as much as possible. When a member of the United States government was questioned about this decision, he justified it by declaring without any embarrassment that if a new incident were to occur soon, it would occur in Costa Rica and not in the United States, sparing American citizens from another San Diego incident, it aroused strong reactions in Costa Rica and many of its citizens expressed their displeasure on social networks or during demonstrations in front of the United States Embassy in San José.

During an entire year, debates raged and other demonstrations occurred. The United States congress ended up organizing a special commission tasked with reconsidering the issue and answering the following interrogation: Should InGen be allowed to transport its animals to the United States?

The hearing was held the last week of February 2019 within the capitol complex in Washington. The committee of senators were sitting behind a long curved table and facing the audience. In the latter's first rows, several notable personalities were seated. To the left of the central aisle which connected the door to the senators' table, were a seventyish woman with bobbed grey hair and a tall and slender fiftyish African American man: Susan Lyton and Alistair Iger, InGen's CEO and public relations director respectively. To the right of the aisle, sat a bespectacled young septuagenarian with a similar build to Iger's, a neatly trimmed white beard and black clothes: Professor Ian Malcolm, a mathematician from the Santa Fe Institute in Berkeley. Nearby, sat the Costa Rican ambassador to the United States, whom the commission had made sure to also invite.

The session's beginning was announced and after an introduction which re-established its context and purpose, the commission let Susan Lynton and Alistair Iger explain InGen's situation and argue in favour of the operation's resumption.

Once they were finished, they were thanked for their account and then the floor was given to Professor Malcolm, whom the commission had invited in order to benefit from a clear and impartial opinion on the matter, as the mathematician had witnessed the Jurassic Park incident in 1993 and San Diego's in 1997. In both, he had close encounters with the dinosaurs resurrected by the corporation.

"I think that InGen should have never brought its dinosaurs on the mainland," he declared a few moments later.

"We should have left them to die on their island?" asked Senator Sherwood, an overweight old man with a stern face.

"As cruel as that would have been, yes," the scientist replied.

This aroused several murmurs in the room and Senator Sherwood was forced to ask for silence.

"To be honest, Professor Malcolm, your stance is strange to me," said Senator Delgado, a small willowy forty-something woman with curly hair. "I remember that during the San Diego incident, you and Doctor Sarah Harding acted in favour of the rampaging Tyrannosaurus and its infant, saving their lives and allowing them to return to their island."

"Indeed. But I was involved in those events only unwillingly and for personal reasons due to John Hammond's little schemes, may he rest in peace. During the incident, Sarah… Dr. Harding was the one taking the decisions and I was just following her. But unlike her, the very preservation of the dinosaurs has never been among my biggest concerns."

"So what do you recommend?" Senator Delgado asked. "The euthanasia of the animals housed in InGen facilities in Burgo Nuevo?"

"It wouldn't change a lot of things," Malcolm replied with a shrug, "InGen probably has embryos stored in its vaults in addition to the equipment necessary for their development," he explained, glancing sideways at Lynton and Iger. "But we could take measures against genetic power. Prohibiting the de-extinction of prehistoric species could be a start."

"Without InGen's research in genetics, Medixal Health, another subsidiary of Masrani Global, would not have been able to achieve its advances in medicine," Iger said. "Lives have been saved thanks to them."

"And how many were destroyed because of your negligence and greed?" Malcolm asked him curtly. "Hundreds!"

"Most victims of the Fall of Isla Nublar can be attributed to the earthquake that preceded the eruption and to the various panic reactions that occurred. Unfortunately, Man can do nothing against such a natural event," InGen's director of public relations retorted. "Although a number of people have been killed by the animals we have cloned, this number is still lower than those of lives that have benefited from our research."

"According to some sources, you knew for months that Mount Sibo was going to experience a major eruption and you did nothing!" Malcolm accused them. "And that's without mentioning the Indominus rex…. A predatory dinosaur larger than any created by Nature but with the intelligence of a great ape, or a human being. The child born from Nature's rape by Man. Chaos in all its glory. When some claim that this monster was the prototype of a biological weapon, I'm greatly tempted to believe them. The fall of Jurassic World was a mass slaughter with falsification of evidence!"

"Professor Malcolm, you are playing in the hands of conspiracy theorists!" Lynton exclaimed, outraged. "I thought you were smarter than that! The Indominus is nothing but the result of Claire Dearing's megalomania. She threatened Henry Wu and forced him to modify the Indominus genome for her personal ambitions, with dire consequences."

"As the investigation made by federal authorities at InGen's premises found nothing, I'm afraid that those are indeed unfounded accusations," Senator Sherwood intervened.

"Yes, flights of fancy from resentful former employees and traitors," InGen's CEO said.

"Anyway, the Isla Nublar crisis ended months ago. Let's get back to the matter of the surviving animals," Senator Delgado suggested.

"Is it? The ambassador can confirm what I'm going to say but while we are discussing, some of InGen's creations are on the loose in Costa Rica and even beyond," Malcolm pointed out, drawing the attention of the Costa Rican Ambassador who nodded while listening to him with attention. "Incidents have already taken place, some resulting in injuries and even deaths. Some villages are terrorized by a band of small carnivorous dinosaurs, pterosaurs fly in the skies, and fishermen have strange encounters at sea with creatures which, according to the statements of Mr. Iger in the press, couldn't have left Jurassic World's lagoon.

"Except that those incidents were provoked or favored by our enemies," Lynton said. "We had a team dedicated to handling external incidents of this kind. Unfortunately, it was slaughtered during the Fall by the same paramilitary organization to which Costa Rica entrusted a part of its territory and which it continues to finance."

"You're quick to blame others, Mrs. Lynton," Malcolm replied. "You're definitely Peter Ludlow's worthy successor."

At the mention of the name of one of InGen's CEOs, the one who had removed John Hammond, his own uncle, from InGen's management and died during the incident in San Diego, the businesswoman sketched a rictus. She had known Peter Ludlow well and considered herself much better than him.

"Hammond and I differed on a lot of subjects," the mathematician continued, "but I think he would be ashamed to see what his legacy has become. No, the Isla Nublar crisis is not over and I fear that it's only a prologue."

"A prologue of what?" Senator Sherwood asked.

"You'll see if you allow InGen to bring its creatures to the United States and sell them," Malcolm said.

Both InGen executives looked up and sighed as he got into another of his famous tirades.

"Over the past century, we have accumulated tremendous technological power and consistently failed to harness it. Eighty years ago, who could have predicted nuclear proliferation? And now there is the genetic power. Fifteen years ago, InGen was the only entity mastering the de-extinction of long-gone species and Jurassic World the only establishment to house them. Today, that is no longer the case and the days of InGen's unchallenged monopoly are numbered, for better and for worse. Especially the worst because it won't stop with de-extinction, theme parks and a few animals on the loose..."

"I don't understand. What's your point?" Senator Sherwood asked.

"I am talking about cataclysmic man-made changes."

"What kind of changes?" asked another of the commission's senators.

"Change is like death. You don't know what it looks like until you're standing at its gates," Malcolm said.

Chapter Text

Created at the turn of the millennium, the World De-extinction Monitoring Center, more commonly known as WDMC, occupied an old hotel in San Francisco's Japantown. Part of the United Nations Environment Program, it was in charge of the de-extinction question within the UN.

Its activities included conducting studies on de-extinction and its ramifications, of not only environmental and economic nature but also socio-political and ethical; the creation and the management of databases about de-extinct species, the entities which are housing them and/or the territories they live on, and the organizations that have recreated them; as well as thinking about policies concerning de-extinction.

The agency employed around a hundred scientists and technicians which mostly worked either at the agency's headquarters in San Francisco or at its scientific station in Caer Draig, the Grey Guard's stronghold on Isla Sorna. In addition to these scientists and technicians, there was a continuous turnover of interns, doctoral students and honorary members, while a small administrative team supported the whole agency.

When her desk's phone rang, Peggy Zubiri had just settled in and the coffee she had bought a few minutes earlier was still hot. Born in Darwin, Australia, and of Filipino ancestry, the young woman had lived in the United States since the end of her studies and worked at the WDMC as assistant of the general director. Keeping a pen and post-it handy, she picked up:

"Hello, this is the World De-extinction Monitoring Center."

"Hi, I'm Alexander Singer, founder and president of the Dinosaur Protection Group, better known as the DPG," the caller introduced himself. "I am calling you because I would very much like to meet the new director of your agency, Mr Guillaume Vuillier, and have a discussion with him."

"Why would you like to talk with him?"

She, along with other staff members at the center, had already heard of the Dinosaur Protection Group, a then burgeoning NGO also headquartered in San Francisco, in a pre-war building in Mission District.

While Alexander Singer explained to her that he wanted to speak with Guillaume Vuillier to discuss the current debate surrounding InGen's animals and to know his positions, she went to the DPG website and read the preface on the homepage, written by the NGO's founder. The latter appeared on the thumbnail of a video next to the preface and Peggy saw that he was a bespectacled man in his late forties, bald, clean-shaven, and with a thin, if not frail, build.

"Okay, I'll let him know you've contacted us," she said after he explained the reason behind his call. "Mr. Vuillier hasn't arrived yet and his schedule is very busy at the moment so if he agrees to meet you, don't expect an interview before next month. Give me your contact details so we can send you an answer later."

Singer gave her his email address and phone number, she wrote them down, then thanked him and ended the call.

She looked at the time in the lower right corner of her computer screen. It was a quarter past eight. Mr Vuillier would arrive in any minute, if he wasn't already there.

She got up, walked past the various offices in the center's administrative part, and reached the reception and the adjacent waiting room. She asked the receptionist if Mr. Vuillier had arrived and the woman replied that he had indeed. Peggy then went to the staff lounge.

Rather large, it was furnished with several sofas, chairs and tables, while a kitchen occupied the opposite end. Like the agency's other main rooms and the hallways, it featured a Japanese style, with wooden flooring, white walls and black skirting boards, and its walls were decorated with artwork depicting prehistoric animals along with some which died out during the Holocene like the Dodo, the Thylacine or the Pyrenean Ibex. Not far from the sofas, a television screen hung on the wall and was broadcasting the national news. Opposite it, near the large bay window that overlooked the patio, Peggy recognized the lean figure and the short black hair of the agency's director. A black shoulder bag was at his feet while a wet umbrella rested against the glass.

Turning his back on Peggy and sipping tea, Guillaume Vuillier watched raindrops fall in the patio and slide on the bushes' and bonsai's leaves. As he was dressed not in a suit but in a simple sweater and jeans, a visitor could have easily thought that he was only an employee and not the general manager.

Having heard the tapping made by his assistant's short heels, he turned and greeted her:

"Hello Peggy. How are you?"

"Good morning sir. I'm fine thank you," she replied as she approached. "And you?"

"Oh... I'm concerned about the decision being taken in Washington," he told her, glancing sideways at the television screen.

Although he spoke with a slight French accent, Peggy thought it wasn't unpleasant, and even pleasing to the ear, which went hand in hand with his trust-inspiring appearance. Mid-forties, average height, pleasant face and impeccably trimmed goatee and moustache, she even thought he was a rather nice-looking man.

"The Dinosaur Protection Group just called us. Its founder and president would like to meet you. I told them that you were busy at the moment and that it wouldn't be possible until next month."

"The Dinosaur Protection Group?" He repeated as he pulled his laptop out of its bag to put it on a nearby table.

"Think PETA for dinosaurs."

Hearing that comparison, Guillaume squinted and stroked his goatee, hoping that the DPG was not as controversial as PETA.

"Mr. Singer, its founder, was a keeper at Jurassic World for a while before quitting," Peggy continued. "I don't know if they're famous abroad but they're starting to make some noise in this country. Their popularity has skyrocketed since the park fell," the assistant explained before looking at the television, which showed large numbers of people protesting outside the Capitol complex in Washington, with some expressing their support for the dinosaurs, and others the opposite stance.

Guillaume also took out his glasses, put them on and entered his password. His home screen appeared and his assistant noticed that it was a picture of a savanna, somewhere in Africa judging by the presence of a small group of giraffes.

Probably Kenya…, she guessed.

Peggy knew that before arriving in the United States and taking up his post as General Director of the World De-extinction Monitoring Center just a few weeks ago, Guillaume Vuillier worked in Nairobi, at the headquarters of the United Nations Environment Program. But as much as she was aware that he had travelled a lot during his career and that he had lived in several countries, she did not know who his previous employers were and which positions he had held.

As he went on a search engine, Peggy couldn't help but gaze at the long thin scar on his scalp, just above his left ear, a scar that had caught her eye since the first day.

Eventually she looked away and as she ran her hand up her bun, a small green Stegosaurus, the DPG mascot, trotted on the screen while the site loaded. While Peggy thought the animation was cute, Guillaume thought it was a bit amusing but nothing more.

The site's home page finally appeared and he read the names of the different sections under the banner: Home; Our Cause; Support our Actions; News; Blog; Media; Shop; Children Section. Under these columns, there was a large photo showing Alexander Singer in a classroom, taken when the DPG was invited in some school. Guillaume scrolled down the screen and saw the preface and the presentation video. He played it.

It showed Alexander Singer and two other members of the NGO, a Hispanic woman in her early thirties with bobbed hair and a young bespectacled mixed-race man. They were in an elementary school classroom, probably the same as the one in the photo, doing a presentation and supervising various dinosaur-themed games and activities, and that footage was interspersed with interviews of the NGO's founder and his two colleagues. In those, they talked about the reasons behind the DPG's creations, its missions, and their personal journeys.

The Hispanic woman was named Zia Rodriguez and had trained as a paleo-veterinarian at the InGen-Masrani Global Academy in San Diego, housed in what was once a Jurassic Park under construction. Her training was cut short by the fall of Jurassic World and its aftermath. But as she wanted to act in favour of the dinosaurs, Zia had ended up joining the DPG, of which she had heard of through a fellow student.

The young man was named Franklin Webb and like Alexander Singer and Zia Rodriguez, he was familiar with InGen since he previously worked as a computer technician at the corporation's headquarters in Palo Alto where he had been tasked of managing certain parts of the park's website among other things, and he had left InGen on his own accord shortly after the park fell.

While Guillaume thought the interviews were interesting, mainly because of the links that the three featuring members had with Jurassic World and/or InGen, he was less convinced by the rest of the video. Several elements made him wince, such as showing a child's drawing of questionable quality to present a Velociraptor, which he didn't consider as very educational, while the high fives between the DPG members and the children as well as the enthusiastic group shout at the end were clichés.

When the video ended, he quickly browsed a few pages of the site out of curiosity.

"They talk about dinosaurs, but what about pterosaurs, marine reptiles, and non-mammalian synapsids? Do they stink?" he asked.

"Non-mammalian synapsids?" The assistant repeated hesitantly as she just heard the word synapsid for the first time.

"Better known as mammalian reptiles. You should hang out more often with the people from the Species program, Peggy," he quipped.

"Maybe I should," she laughed. "You knew this word before coming here?"

"Let's say that being this agency's general director is not my first experience related to de-extinct animals...," he replied.

One of the agency's employees in the room suddenly hailed them:

"Guys!"

Guillaume and Peggy turned to him and noticed that not only had many of their colleagues joined the room since her arrival, but that they were all staring at the television. The WDMC director walked towards the latter and a senate's spokesman appeared on the screen, announcing the government's decision:

"After much deliberation, the committee has decided to authorize International Genetics to transport its creatures to the United States…"

The reactions aroused among the employees of the WDMC were mixed and the staff lounge became silent. While many, including Guillaume Vuillier, were distrustful towards InGen due to its various controversies and thus did not look favourably on this government decision which would help InGen avoid collapse; others actually thought that a strong InGen would prevent an uncontrolled spread of its technologies, that it was less dangerous than Biosyn for example, and that the government should have given its authorization way earlier, which would have prevented the protests in Costa Rica; and others believed, not without irony, that this decision would give an additional reason for the WDMC to exist, and would therefore preserve their jobs.

Once the report on the senate's decision was over, Guillaume took the remote and turned off the television.

"Well, I think we're going to have a lot of work in the future...," he declared.

As the employees slowly left the room to head to their respective offices, he heard one of them say:

"Fairy Blowie leaned over the senate."

"Indeed. How many senators did Lynton sucked for the adoption of this decision?" A female colleague asked him.

"Ian Malcolm must be eating his books ...," a third added.

Guillaume stood there thoughtfully, his chin resting between the thumb and forefinger of his right hand.

When the room was almost deserted, he called Peggy.

"Tell programs' heads that we'll have a meeting this afternoon, to discuss this decision and its consequences," he ordered her.

She nodded and while she carried out her task, he walked back to his office.

Chapter Text

A few days later, as he left his office to leave the agency and return home, Peggy informed Guillaume about a call she had just received:

"A man named Eli Mills just called us."

"I never heard of him," the director replied.

"He's the manager of the Lockwood Foundation," she said while tidying up her workstation.

She put on her coat, grabbed her bag, and the two being ready to leave, they then headed for the exit. Guillaume was intrigued by the foundation's name.

"Lockwood," he repeated, "like Benjamin Lockwood? InGen's former CEO?"

"Yes, exactly. He called us to inform you that you were invited to a reception at Benjamin Lockwood's manor in Orick, in the northernmost part of the state. It will be held on March the twenty-third and begin at six o'clock."

He paused for a moment, then said:

"This reception would be the opportunity to meet him… You can be sure that InGen's board of directors and the local elite will be there too. It would be wise for me to accept the invitation. I will have to leave earlier that day."

"You'll have to be away the whole day and the next one I'm afraid. From here to Orick, it's a five-hour drive. Six with traffic."

"A six-hour drive...," he sighed. "I forgot that some US states are just as large as France. As an Australian, you must be more used to long drives than I."

"Not really, because I rarely went out of Darwin and Brisbane, where I started my studies. I almost know California better than my own country, of which I've only seen a very small percentage..."

But while she wanted to ask him about the places where he spent his youth, she returned to the initial subject of their conversation:

"Mr. Mills also told me that you could be accommodated at the mansion for free."

"For free? They're very thoughtful…," he said suspiciously. "I prefer to be accommodated outside."

"Very well, but since Orick is a small town, there are only motels, campgrounds and cabins in the area. I'll look for a hotel in Eureka."

Guillaume laughed softly at this suggestion, leaving his assistant surprised while they stepped outside and crossed the agency's parking lot.

"You know… I grew up in a small countryside town and slept in camps in the middle of the African bush or the jungles of South Asia. A night in a motel or a campground won't kill me, Peggy," he reassured her.

"Oh…" her assistant said, surprised. "In this case, I will book a room in one of Orick's establishments. This should be done as soon as possible since this reception is likely to be very crowded."

"Okay, thank you very much Peggy. Let me know when it's done."

Exiting the parking lot by Post Street, they said goodnight and parted ways. While Peggy turned right to walk down Laguna Street to join her bus stop along Geary Boulevard, Guillaume turned left, heading for Buchanan Street and its restaurants.

Twenty minutes later, he arrived at his apartment near Lafayette Park, his keys in one hand and a paper bag in the other, which contained the meal he had ordered on the way at one of Buchanan Street's restaurants. Leaving his keys on top of a cabinet near the entrance, right next to a frame containing a picture of his three children, he went straight to the living room, putting his shoulder bag and his lunch bag there.

Shortly after, he was sitting on his couch, eating his beef ramen while doing further research on Jurassic World's downfall on his laptop, which rested on the coffee table, opposite of a copy of the Time magazine. The latter's cover was a picture of the decapitated head of a John Hammond statue, and the title was The Collapse of a Dream.

Like many, Guillaume had seen all these videos which spread around the world at the very end of December 2017 and at the beginning of 2018, and which showed a stampeding herd of herbivores, who threatened to make a truck fall over a cliff's edge; the city of Burroughs being ravaged by a devastating earthquake; Mount Sibo erupting and spewing ash while its plume gradually plunged Isla Nublar into darkness; a swarm of pterosaurs swooping down on a huge crowd; the island being consumed by fires and shining in the middle of the ocean like a gigantic brazier while a cloud full of lightning hovered over it; the passengers of a boat who had approached the island to observe the eruption being struck by the shock wave which resulted from the slide of an entire section of the volcano; refugees being slaughtered by raptors in a hotel; Simon Masrani, the Indian tycoon who founded Jurassic World, being burned alive on an improvised pyre by the Indominus, an abomination whose mere presence drove men mad with terror and which was dinosaurian only in appearance, as her behaviour evoked more that of a human warlord than a predatory animal; or the Indominus confronting a Tyrannosaurus in the ruins of the park's main avenue in the middle of a storm, a sight worthy of a Kaijū film. But there was another video that had particularly struck the WDMC director, the one that showed a confrontation on a bridge between the Indominus and an armoured person armed with a sword, a mysterious individual who had been nicknamed The Ghost of Nublar. Their identity had been a source of questioning and more than a year later, he wondered if it had been discovered.

He found and read an article titled Who is the Ghost of Nublar?, accompanied by an illustration of this character from the site DeviantArt, and which proposed three theories.

The first was that the Ghost was one of the Slayers because the visored helmet and the gauntlets they wore were the same as those of this troop of soldiers who constituted the elite of InGen Security's forces and carried out all the corporation's black operations, acting in the shadows. Information about them was very rare and they were shrouded by an aura of mystery, reinforced by the terrifying aspect of their visors which imitated monstrous mouths, and the only notable occasion when civilians could have seen them in action was during the pterosaur attack in Burroughs.

The second was that the Ghost was a member of the Grey Guard, which had a garrison of ninety soldiers on Isla Nublar at the time of its fall, and the theory was supported by the fact that the surviving Grey Guards had launched their counterattack while the Indominus was distracted by the Ghost and that the latter was wearing a chest plate and leg protections from their armoury.

The third, the craziest according to the editorial team, was that behind the Ghost, was hiding Claire Dearing, the director of the park. Originally proposed by a YouTuber specialized in conspiracies and occult matters, who supported his claim with pictures, this theory was based on the fact that the ring worn by the Ghost was similar to the one often worn by Claire Dearing, a silver ring adorned with two snakes wrapped around a red gem, as well as the colour of the clothing under the armour pieces, which appeared to be white while the Slayers were dressed in black and the Grey Guards in greenish-grey uniforms. Additionally, she was seen at Nicoya Hospital a few hours later, and a later appearance at a press conference revealed that she had lost a forearm and been disfigured, highly suspicious injuries according to the YouTuber. However, the quality of the rare footage of the Ghost prevented its ring from being correctly distinguished and nothing proved that there was a relationship between the fallen director's injuries and the Ghost, while her reputation was controversial. This theory was generally considered highly improbable, if not ridiculous.

It was also commonly accepted after studying the figure that the Ghost was probably a woman, which none of the three presented theories disproved given that both the Slayers and the Grey Guards had women in their ranks, and in online discussions, some Costa Ricans were proud to now have their own warrior heroine and street artists were passionate about her, as evidenced by some graffiti in the Greater San José Metropolitan Area. Of the three theories discussed, that of Grey Guard's member was the most accepted and probable, as the then relationship between the Grey Guards and the Slayers would have prevented one of the latter from being the Ghost.

In parallel to the eruption of Mount Sibo and the Indominus' rampage, Isla Nublar was also affected by an armed conflict between the Grey Guard and the troops of InGen Security.

The casus belli was the organization of the massacre of a Grey Guard platoon by the Slayers, who used the Indominus as a proxy, as well as the murders of three survivors of the massacre. According to several of the Grey Guards, their comrades had been murdered because they had discovered that the platoon's massacre was an experiment ordered by InGen to prove the effectiveness of the Indominus as a new kind of biological weapon, something which Susan Lynton categorically denied when questioned about it in the press.

Guillaume Vuillier and most people did not know what had happened to the Slayers, but the latter, as well as the mercenaries with them, had never left the jungle of Isla Nublar and the forest fires had erased all traces of their probable slaughter by the insurgent Grey Guards.

However, it was only a part of the Guard that had risen up and Marshal Helmut Störmer, the leader of the organization, had formally condemned it and ordered the expeditionary force sent to the island to arrest the Nublar garrison's officer which had sparked the insurgency, the French Gilbert Brunet, a former mercenary who committed various crimes and encouraged atrocities in Central Africa and Libya in the 1980s and early 1990s.

The insurrection had aroused strong reactions, especially in the United States where the president and part of the political sphere were quick to call the insurgent guards terrorists while a caricature published shortly after in a newspaper had depicted the insurgents, led by Brunet mounted on a monstrous black horse, like a barbarian horde which evoked the Vikings and the Mongols, brandishing a black standard which shown a crescent of five human skulls and a roaring dragon, and seeming about to sack what remained of the park.

The insurgency had ended on the morning of December 25th, when Gilbert Brunet was shot by his own right-hand woman, and the other guards owed their salvation to the intervention of the officer in charge of the expeditionary force as well as that of the Costa Rican state and several members of the United Nations Security Council. Otherwise, the US soldiers sent to Isla Nublar would have arrested them and imprisoned them in one of their Central American bases, which would have caused a diplomatic incident. Subsequently, the Costa Rican Public Force preferred to deploy police officers in a preventive manner in front of both the Grey Guard's mainland office near Juan Santamaria airport and InGen Security's base in Alajuela in order to deter any attempt at reprisals from each of the two antagonistic factions.

Given the cold war situation that had subsequently developed between InGen and the Grey Guard, the latter did not take part in InGen's Operation Fallen Kingdom, organized in a hurry and whose purpose was to bring on the mainland the animals which had survived the park's fall.

Guillaume entered "Operation Fallen Kingdom Isla Nublar" into a search engine and he saw keepers and veterinarians looking after the animals that had been captured but also mercenaries guarding a camp and military vehicles driving through a post-apocalyptic landscape, while others showed a convoy of transport trucks driving on a Costa Rican road. The few photos of the island after the disaster showed lava fields, charred forests, polluted rivers, meadows greyed by ashes, scavengers feasting on the corpses of large animals… These were haunting visions and were not without evoking the artistic depictions of the Cretaceous-Paleogene Crisis which had seen the extinction of non-avian dinosaurs approximately sixty-six million years ago.

During his research on the operation, Guillaume found an article from a Costa Rican newspaper which reported the words of an anonymous source. The latter, an InGen employee who was fired after the animals were taken to the mainland, claimed that strange attacks had occurred during the operation, perpetrated by a mysterious species of small nocturnal and troglodytic carnivorous dinosaur with a venomous bite. After being chased from the surface by InGen Security troops in the early 2000s, they apparently survived all these years in the depths of the island, feeding on fish, bats or even their own kin, fuelling the local urban legend which said that the island's underground was inhabited, and that the eruption cleared a path to the surface for them.

However, many considered this a hoax, and the deaths that occurred during the operation could be entirely attributable to other species, especially since Jurassic World hosted a few venomous species such like Dilophosaurus or Moschorhinus, a therocephalian.

Returning to the images category of the search engine results, Guillaume saw a photo taken on the sly which showed the Indominus' carcass being hoisted out of the lagoon by a flying crane and others showing it and the corpses of other large animals such as sauropods or the mosasaur being incinerated with flamethrowers by InGen men while soldiers and officers of the United States army as well as envoys from the Public Force and the Government of Costa Rica observed the scene from a respectable distance, in the company of those in charge of the operation.

The WDMC director then searched about the current fate of Isla Nublar and on YouTube, he found videos taken by raiders and urban explorers, showing the dead city of Burroughs and its Lagoon, which level had risen so much that the lowest areas of the city, including the water park, the beach south of the Lagoon, its overwater bungalows and the ground floor of the Cascades Hotel, were flooded or even submerged under water, reinforcing the image of modern-day Atlantis that now stuck to Jurassic World.

To date, Isla Nublar had still not been reclaimed by the Costa Rican state, which cited the geographical remoteness of the island and the low profits gained from a reclaiming (some local politicians even lamented that InGen and Masrani Global had turned it into a hellhole), while the US navy ships that had monitored the island during Operation Fallen Kingdom had left, their task being over.

Despite its sinister reputation, the island was still frequented and the family and recreational tourism linked to Jurassic World had recently been replaced by another form of tourism, black tourism. The park had become like a new Chernobyl, minus radioactivity, and some more or less legal tour operators saw this as an economic windfall.

When he finished his meal, Guillaume got up to go to the kitchen and returned with a beer. He uncapped it and noticed that he had just received a notification about the receipt of an email from a sender named CCSurvivaurs. The subject was "Something you would like to know…", which left the WDMC director wary. Intending to have a look at it later, he resumed his reflections and research, swallowing a sip of beer from time to time.

He thought back to all those disturbing rumours about the Indominus, Henry Wu, and other InGen executives, and wanted to know more. Of course, no employee of the corporation was going to provide him with information that could jeopardize its already tarnished image. He had to ask someone who had once been quite high-ranked within it, and the only person he could think of who could give him answers was none other than Claire Dearing. Guillaume wondered what had become of her after her hospitalization and while searching, he found a video dating from March 2018, taken when she had agreed to meet with journalists to expose her point of view and answer certain questions.

A red-haired woman in her mid-thirties appeared on the screen. A sporty figure, fair-skinned, an elegant and well-defined jawline, noble features, she was a beautiful woman. A white half-mask covered the left half of her face, hiding most of the wound that disfigured her and leaving only a bit of scar between the corner of her mouth and her chin while a bionic prosthesis had replaced her lost right forearm.

As she answered reporters' questions, a tall, well-built man of a similar age stood nearby with his arms folded, eyeing the reporters with wary eyes, like a bodyguard. With his long brown hair and athletic figure, Guillaume thought he looked like Conan the Barbarian or Tarzan. Having read that the boyfriend of the former director of Jurassic World was one of the park keepers, he knew it had to be him.

While the first questions were general, they became more and more insidious and uncomfortable for Claire. Her jaw clenched, her deep voice tightened and her emerald eyes looked away momentarily but she remained dignified and answered as best she could to questions, not failing to accuse InGen of having favoured and profited from the crisis. She had lost everything or almost, was probably deeply broken, but nevertheless, she showed strength and Guillaume Vuillier began to be fascinated by her. When she ended the interview soon after, her boyfriend escorted her away from the reporters, laying a hand on her back and looking behind them to make sure they weren't following them.

This was Claire Dearing's last public appearance because although she was talked about whenever the subject of the fall of Jurassic World was brought up, she had simply kept a low profile and also retired from social networks after having suffered numerous harassments. For the majority, she was either a coward who abandoned her responsibilities when things went south, or an opportunist who had taken advantage of the Grey Guards' insurgency to reclaim power and who did not hesitate to threaten her own subordinates when they were reluctant to obey her, and the various statements of Susan Lynton, Alistair Iger and Henry Wu were in line with this, making her one of the most controversial woman in the United States.
Some claimed to have seen her last September in the maternity ward of a hospital in the Sierra Nevada, but the latter refused to comment and some paparazzi had subsequently tried to find her, but in vain. It was as if she had vanished into thin air.

Chapter Text

Claire Dearing and Owen Grady had taken up residence in a remote cabin somewhere on the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada, several miles from Hope, the nearest town.

The cabin, built by one of Owen's ancestors, stood in the middle of a meadow by a lake, frozen at this time of year. It was a chalet built on two levels, neither too big nor too small, simple but comfortable, a place which inspired solitude but also tranquillity, with an open fire which provided the necessary warmth in winter.

As the former head of the IBRIS (1) program had found work in a local wildlife park, his girlfriend and Sigurd, their five-month-old son, conceived during the Fall, were alone at the cabin that afternoon.

Claire was sitting on the living room sofa, looking focused and determined, staring at the TV screen in front of her while clutching a PlayStation controller.

Dressed in old jeans and a black hoodie with red and white stripes and a N7 (2) logo, her long hair hastily gathered in a ponytail, she seemed to have nothing to do with the elegant white-clad woman who once appeared in the media as the director of Jurassic World. And that was without mentioning the long gash on the left half of her face, which started near the hairline and went down to the chin, bisecting her left eyebrow in its path and only interrupted at eye-level. Claire, who avoided mirrors since the Fall, thought that this gash made her look like a James Bond villain.

She was playing the latest God of War and had reached the part where Kratos and his son Atreus, the game's two protagonists, were taking some sort of large lift inside a mountain and repelling waves of enemies who were jumping on the lift. Claire's fingers twitched nervously on the controller's joysticks and buttons and her mouth muttered swear words, catching the attention of Sigurd, who was sitting on the other end of the sofa and staring at the screen with curious eyes.

"Sorry Sigurd, I shouldn't swear in front of you," she corrected herself. "But die, you son of a bitch!" She uttered against a particularly tough enemy.

She managed to defeat the last enemies and then a dialogue scene ensued where the father and the son discussed their quest's objective and what would happen next. But suddenly a burst of lightning, spat out by a monster hidden until then in a nearby tunnel, passed over them. The monster emerged from the darkness, revealing a large scaly body with two vestigial wings, clawed hands, a horned skull, red eyes, and jaws lined with sharp teeth. A shiver ran down Claire's spine.

A dragon… It had to be a fucking dragon.

The dragon dug its claws into the lift, holding it in place with one hand while it tried to reach Kratos and Atreus with the other and its fangs. Claire, whose heart was beginning to race, knew that the objective was to strike the beast's fingers, those digging in the lift. But as she was about to move Kratos forward, the dragon let out an ear-splitting scream before striking and in Claire's head, this scream turned into that of another creature, one that had existed in real life, one which had brought her downfall and mauled her.

The fallen park director ended up paralyzed and dropped the controller on the floor while her heart rate quickened and she began to hyperventilate. With a few attacks, the dragon killed Kratos and a failure notification appeared on the screen.

With a shaking hand, Claire took off her glasses to put them on the coffee table and pressed the palm of her prosthetic hand against her panicked face. She let out a long sigh and Sigurd, as if he sensed his mother's distress, fidgeted. Noticing this, she sniffed and took him in her arms to reassure him.

"Hey, it's nothing. Mom just got scared. Hush, don't worry about that."

She rocked him for a while and then, looking at the time on the microwave in the kitchen, she remembered that it was time to breastfeed him.

"It's time, huh?"

She turned off the PlayStation, took her son upstairs to the bedroom and there she breastfed him while watching the snowflakes fall outside. Once they were done some time later, she put Sigurd in his crib and waited for him to fall asleep before heading downstairs.

Eager to get some fresh air and clear her mind after her earlier moment of panic, she put on a pair of boots and an anorak, then pulled a rifle from a cabinet in the entrance hallway. She went outside and the cold winter air ruffled her face.

While moving out of the cover provided by the veranda's roof along the entrance facade, she scanned the surroundings and especially the nearby coniferous forest and its undergrowth.

Neither she nor Owen hunted, and the latter had inherited the rifle along with the cabin. Black bears and cougars lived in the area but they never had any problems with them. No, Claire preferred to go out with the rifle to defend herself from another eventual danger, although she had never been bothered since her arrival in the Sierra Nevada, not even during the few times she went into town.

Since she had not yet mastered her bionic prosthesis, she was still unfit to drive, so it was Owen or his mother, Cait, who took her there, usually for her visits to the psychologist. The simple fact of imagining herself back in his office, with her sweatshirt's hood pulled down over her head and her eyes looking at the floor, tapping her foot while listening to him or telling her misfortunes, was enough to fill her with self-loathing.

Apart from Cait, who lived in Hope, and the psychologist bound by medical confidentiality, no one knew her true identity and when people asked what she did before coming to the Sierra Nevada and how she met Caitriona Grady's son, they replied that she was a veteran of the war in Afghanistan who was introduced to Owen through one of his former Navy comrades, and she was known locally only as The Zookeeper's wife.

She reached the tool shed on the cabin's eastern side and opened it to pull out an axe, which she took to a chopping block a few meters away and which stood near the log rack that adjoined the shed. Claire put the rifle against the log rack, grabbed one of the logs to put it upright on the block, and split it with one axe blow.

Before moving to the cabin, she had never cut wood but after being instructed on this matter by her boyfriend, she had taken a liking to it because striking with the axe helped her unwind and clear her mind, usually at least.

She didn't know if it was because of the moment of panic she had earlier while playing on the PlayStation or because of the development in InGen's situation but she couldn't relax. As she split one log after the other and put the cut pieces in the rack, she couldn't help but think back to the future resumption of Operation Fallen Kingdom. InGen might just make it out of this while she would be doomed to live as an outcast or, worse, as an inmate if she ended up summoned to court and found guilty of causing Jurassic World's collapse. All these sufferings she endured during it...to end up suffering even more afterwards. She was never going to forget what she went through, nor forgive what InGen did to her...

Her mind was swarmed with negative thoughts and her axe blows became more and more violent, until it threatened to slip out of her hands.

Claire stopped, digging the axe blade into the block, wiped the sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand, and sighed. She had to be careful, especially since her prosthesis was stronger than the forearm it replaced, and she was even sure she could beat Owen at arm wrestling with it.

The snap of a branch somewhere in the wood startled her and she immediately grabbed the rifle, aiming its barrel towards the trees. She listened carefully, on the alert for any new suspicious noises, and watched the pine needles rustling in the wind.

At that part of the edge, the fir trees' lowest branches were so dense that they almost formed a wall between the cabin's meadow and the wood's undergrowth. Here and there at the level of the middle and upper branches, gaps opened on the wood's penumbra. It was such that Claire could easily imagine seeing the shadow of a predatory dinosaur among the fir trees, watching her from the undergrowth.

Claire shook her head slightly. There were only bears and cougars in those woods and not a single dinosaur. A cawing caught her attention and she saw two Common ravens perched on a nearby branch, watching her.

Not a single dinosaur aside from the local birds, she corrected herself.

She lowered her rifle and sighed.

"Who sent you? The All-Father?" she asked them. "Or your distant cousins from Costa Rica?"

One of the crows cawed.

"Never mind…" she muttered.

Then she laughed disdainfully at herself. Her social interactions were so limited that she started talking to animals in order to ease her loneliness.

Talking to crows... I really look like a madwoman.

She turned away from them and went to put the axe back in its place in the tool shed. As this woodcutting session had not relaxed her, she considered another activity and returned inside the cabin.

She took off her boots and her anorak, put the rifle down where she had taken it and went back to the bedroom, to check that her son was sleeping well and to change.

She went down again, this time in jogging and tank top, heading towards the room which served as their gym as well as a storage space for the move boxes which they had not yet unpacked. The sport equipment were neither numerous nor bulky and part of the room was still occupied by boxes. There were dumbbells, a stepper, a dart board, and a punching bag. Near the dart board, A2 pictures of Henry Wu, Susan Lynton, the journalist Cassandra Landis and other people Claire hated with all her being piled up on top of a cardboard box and showed many holes. Claire put her phone atop another of the boxes and started a music playlist.

It was to the rhythm of drums and guttural choirs of Heilung, an experimental folk group from Northern Europe, that she warmed up and began to strike the punching bag. Carried away by the music and the exercise's effort, her mind cleared and she finally relaxed a little. She kept striking, until she was too tired to continue.

When that was the case, she looked out the window and noticed that daylight was fading. Claire then went to the kitchen, to drink a large glass of water but also to start preparing dinner. Although she was not bad at cooking, she wasn't as passionate in this activity as Owen, who was the cook within the couple. However, cooking dinner was the least she could do in the week, on the days he worked and didn't return home until around six o'clock.

Such was Claire's daily routine since several months. Video games, sports, cooking, and, when she had the motivation, check InGen-related news and prepare her defence strategy for a possible trial...

While setting the table, she heard Owen arrive and after taking off his shoes and his anorak, he came to see her in the living room. He was still wearing his Sierra Wildlife Park keeper uniform and snowflakes were melting in his hairs and in his beard.

"Good evening, honey."

"Hi."

They kissed and seeing that dinner was almost ready, he went to the sink to wash his hands.

"Yeah, wash your hands. You smell like wet dog and raw meat…," she remarked half-jokingly.

"It's because I fed the wolves. How was your day?"

"Oh you know, same as usual… I chopped some logs this afternoon and exercised," she replied. "It will be ready in two minutes," she added, talking about the dinner.

"Okay. I'll get Sigurd…"

He went upstairs and returned soon after, holding their son in his arms. He settled him in his chair and took his place around the table, inhaling the steams which rose from the dishes.

"It's very good," he complimented her a few minutes later as they ate, occasionally spoon-feeding their son. "At this rate, you'll soon be rivalling me."

"Thanks."

As they continued to eat the main course, she sighed.

"I had another moment of panic earlier…while playing on the PlayStation," she said weakly.

"You reached the level with the dragon?" He guessed.

She nodded and sighed again. He gently placed his hand on her wrist.

"It's just ridiculous," she said. "I keep seeing her in any dragon. How it's gonna be when we'll watch the eight season of Game of Thrones? Am I going to have Vietnam War-like flashbacks in front of the scenes with the dragons? Especially since certain scenes are likely to evoke the Fall according to the showrunners. And it will be the same with the next Godzilla... Dammit, I come to wonder how I could have been the Ghost of Nublar…"

"Perhaps you should avoid anything dragon-related. You need to think about something else."

"Yeah, I think you're right," she said, before changing the subject. "Did you get news from Blue?"

"Juan answered me. He wrote that she's fine, at least physically speaking."

His voice tightened.

"She's all alone," he continued. "Her sisters are dead, Barry returned to France and InGen won't let me see her. If they don't sell her but want to resume the IBRIS program, I'm afraid she won't be cooperative and that they'll euthanize her..."

Seeing him moved, Claire took his hand and gripped it tenderly.

Later that evening, he was sitting in the office, dressed in a T-shirt and boxers, drinking a beer while being busy on his laptop. The office had been set up in the room opposite the bedroom and on a cork board fixed to one of the walls, Claire had hung with drawing pins a whole bunch of articles related to InGen and Masrani Global, which were mainly about their controversies. Certain parts had been highlighted and others had comments written in red by the fallen park director, comments which often ended with exclamation marks. On a corner of the desk, rested a binder filled with documents and on which she had written "Defence" in marker. Owen gently rolled the desk chair sideways, so he could see what Claire was doing in the bedroom.

She was sitting on the edge of the bed, holding Sigurd in her arms. She was showing him a dinosaur figurine while talking to him, probably telling him some little story.

This scene warmed his heart and he admired Claire, the strength and the courage she showed in the face of many problems. He knew that her decision to keep their child had been influenced by her tragic experience with the Indominus. During the Fall, Claire had discovered with horror that Masrani's Bane had human DNA, hers, making the monster her daughter biologically-speaking, a sordid relationship reinforced by the fact that, like many other dinosaurs, the Indominus had imprinted on the first being she had seen at birth, which had been none other than Claire. However, unaware of the bond that had been created between her and the creature, Claire had abandoned her to the care of the geneticists and then to the keepers of Jurassic World, who treated her like any other high-risk predator in the park, and a social predator abandoned at birth by her mother figure and kept in isolation could only become a ticking time bomb. For Claire, Sigurd had been the chance to become a decent mother and Owen thought that she was doing great, better than he had imagined. He even thought she was a better parent than him.

He felt a little ashamed. There he was, sitting in the desk chair in front of the laptop, sullenly drinking a beer alone instead of being with his girlfriend and their son, with whom he spent very little time after all. He hated the thought but he almost felt like being his own father, who left when he was an infant, forcing his mother to raise him alone and the family name he adopted was hers and not his father's.

"I'm going to bed," Claire told him, taking him out of his thoughts as she stood against the office's doorway. "You're coming?"

"Soon, honey."

She turned on her heels and the bedroom's light went out soon after, but as he was about to turn off his laptop, he felt the urge to dive back into old memories.

Opening a subfolder named "IBRIS", he put on headphones and viewed a series of videos from mid to late 2014. They consisted of video logs where he reported on the growth and behaviour of his four Achillobators (3), who were then all very young, as they were born in May of that year. In the videos from the summer, they looked like ostriches or vulture chicks with the short down that covered their bodies and they were seen following him wherever he went, walking in a single line, like young geese. He himself seemed much younger and more cheerful, although he had had a serious accident the previous year. His hairs were shorter, only going down to the nape of his neck, and his face only sported a moustache. As they grew, the achillobators became more confident in their movements and their behaviour became more aggressive. Owen smiled and laughed softly as he watched those videos, which showed them bickering during a feeding in their holding cage or chewing on his boots. Another showed Blue ordering her sisters to calm down after Owen had asked her, something that surprised him at the time.

Letting a long, bitter sigh, Owen turned off the laptop, took his empty beer bottle down to the kitchen, brushed his teeth and went to bed, entering the darkened bedroom to slip silently into bed and lay down next to his already sleeping girlfriend. As sleep gradually took over him, he felt Claire stir and knew that she had one of her nightmares again.

Chapter Text

Wearing a long white dress, she was wandering barefoot in a dark and cold world where a light wind blew amidst a heavy silence. To this wind, was mingled some kind of murmur, muffled voices, and Claire looked around her, seeking their origin, but all around, there was only a strange mist, so thick that she couldn't distinguish anything beyond a stone's throw. It was then that the voices began to call her:

"Claire…"

Without waiting for her mind's consent, her body followed those whispers, bringing her to the edge of a river which waters were so dark they seemed almost black. Looking at it, Claire noticed that the current was strong and on the opposite bank, she was able to see dark, trembling figures in the middle of the mist. The voices became more distinct and she recognized several of them. They were people who lost their lives in the Fall, people she knew. There was Zara, her assistant; Katashi Hamada, the captain of Isla Nublar's Grey Guard garrison; Victor Hoskins, director of InGen's security division; Simon Masrani; and Gray, the youngest of her nephews.

While Zara's voice was apologizing for betraying her, those of Captain Hamada, Hoskins, Masrani and Gray were accusing her. They blamed her for sending men to their deaths, for destroying the lives of her colleagues and many other people, for tipping Jurassic World into the darkness and her nephew's voice asked her where she was when he was killed.

"I failed…," her lips kept whispering while she was overwhelmed.

And in an almost mechanical way, she moved into the river, desiring to join the spectres on the other bank. Her robe stained and soaked, the water rose to her waist, but as she progressed the spectres receded, disappearing into the mist and their voices died away. It was as if they had never been there. Looking down in defeat, Claire saw her reflection in the water. While the only audible sound was the lapping of the river, she stared at her reflection for a moment but at the same time, a large shadow moved underwater, getting closer to Claire.

The water rippled and her reflection disappeared, giving way to the head of the Indominus. Claire froze in terror and watched the monster rise from the waters and tower over her in a great spray of black water while hissing and growling, appearing as she had last seen her, with half of her face burned and the right forearm missing.

Claire fell backwards and sank under the water, but her back did not met the riverbed. Instead, she continued to sink, and the Indominus plunged her head and neck into the water, opening her jaws wide to grab her...

Claire woke up with a start and sat, and Owen was awakened by her heavy breathing. He sat and put a hand on his girlfriend's back. She was shaking and her forehead was sweating. He hugged her and gently stroked her hair, whispering soft, comforting words to her while she cried against his chest.

Chapter Text

On the afternoon of the following day, Claire returned to their gym and when Owen, who came back home earlier the eve of his days off, joined her there, she was finishing her series of push-ups. He chose a playlist on his cell phone, played it, warmed up, and started exercising with the punching bag while the playlist played songs from various European metal bands.

After finishing her last push-up, Claire stood up, stretched and picked up one of the dumbbells. She sat in the chair that remained permanently in the room and performed a series of fifteen arm bends. At the end of the last bend, she put the dumbbell down on the floor with a heavy sigh and wiped her forehead with the back of her hand.

"Easy, spare yourself Claire. You've been exercising for almost an hour."

"If I can't have a healthy mind, I would like to have at least a healthy body. If I slack off, I risk staying on the couch and being too lazy to do anything else. I don't want to end up drinking and smoking all day while being fat as a sow. I'm already repulsive enough."

Owen interrupted his exercise and crouched down before her.

"Claire, Claire… please stop saying you're repulsive. Many people depreciate you, don't rub it in. And you already exercise fairly regularly, unlike many women in your situation. And if you ever slack off, then I'll behave like Viggo Mortensen's character in G.I. Jane if that's what you want..."

"It will be in your interest to do so..."

He got up, went to the kitchen and came back with two uncapped beers. He gave one to his girlfriend.

"You're my wife," he said, "maybe not on a legal standpoint but there is almost no difference. You're my queen."

"Queen of nothing but ashes…," she replied before taking a sip.

"Queen of my heart."

Her beer almost went down the wrong way and she shook her head, laughing mockingly.

"You're really ridiculous when you're romantic," she pointed out.

"Maybe," he admitted with a smile, happy to see her more relaxed.

She began to play nervously with her fingers.

"Speaking of wife, you haven't proposed yet. It's not like there's any suspense about it. You know I would say yes..."

"Don't think I don't want to marry you, I really do. I mean… We live together, we're raising a son. I'm just waiting for the right moment, for things to settle down, in order to not have a wedding which suddenly turns into an assassination attempt."

"If things settle down..."

The playlist had started a new track, which mixed heavy metal and traditional Mongolian music, and the sounds produced by the Morin khuur's strings and the guttural khöömii singing proved to be pleasant for Claire's ears.

"I like this music," she said.

"A friend in Caer Draig sent it to me."

The next day, he could see that she had listened to the advice he had given her the other night, the one about avoiding works with dragons. She had postponed God of War to instead resume Uncharted: The Lost Legacy, an action-adventure game whose atmosphere and plot were similar to that of the Indiana Jones films or the Tomb Raider saga. She had reached the last segment of the game, which consisted in a chase that involved a train carrying a bomb and which had to be stopped. However, the level seemed to be more difficult than the previous ones because Owen heard Claire swear several times, uttering "Asshole!", "Son of a bitch!" or "Go fuck your goat!" whenever the heroine she played was shot by an enemy or failed.

Following several consecutive failures, Claire decided to take a break and got up from the sofa to grab her phone from a nearby piece of furniture. She surfed the internet for a while but it quickly bored her. Before closing her browser, she went to check her private mailbox and her eyebrows rose when she saw that she had received an email from some man named Elijah Mills, a name that was a bit familiar to her. She opened the email:

From: [email protected]
Subject: Invitation to the reception of March 23rd.
(2) Attachments

Hello Mrs Dearing,

I don't know if you remember me, but if you don't, let me reintroduce myself. My name is Elijah Mills and I'm the manager of the Lockwood Foundation.

As you must have learned through the media, the government recently authorized International Genetics to transport the surviving animals of Jurassic World to American soil. To celebrate this, as well as the future resumption of Operation Fallen Kingdom, Benjamin Lockwood will be hosting a reception at his manor on March 23, starting at 6 p.m., and he would very much like to invite you and your partner Mr. Grady. You will find the invitations as attachments.

Mr. Lockwood and I are aware that you and InGen have a difficult relationship following the disastrous events of Christmas 2017, but know that Benjamin bitterly regrets the treatment of which you have been the victim and that he invites you not as the former CEO of International Genetics and member of its boards of directors but as a friend. He and I would also like to talk to you privately as we have an offer for you.

Rest assured that you will be on neutral ground at the reception and anyone who will bother you will have to answer to Mr. Lockwood.

I sincerely hope that you and Mr. Grady will accept this invitation and I hope you'll answer very soon.

Yours sincerely,

Eli Mills

Elijah Mills
Manager of the Lockwood Foundation
Lockwood Estate
Old State Highway
Orick CA 95555

"Is everything alright, honey?" Owen asked.

"I got an email from the Lockwood Foundation… We're invited to a reception."

"A reception?"

He came over to her and she handed him her phone so he could consult the email.

"Elijah Mills," he read, "who's that prick? He claims to know you."

"Lockwood's flunky, he manages his foundation. I last saw him years ago. He made advances to me but I rejected them. He was just another boring suit, not the kind of man I was looking for..."

Owen smiled and she added:

"My gash has an advantage: You don't have to worry about other men…"

"Oh you know, some are like me and others who're into scars," he said, making her chuckle. "You want to go to that reception?"

"I do not know. I've been keeping a low profile for a year. Since we moved here, I've been left in peace. I would like for things to go on like this, for his sake...," she replied, looking towards Sigurd who was sitting nearby. "And I'm afraid that this reception is a trap. On the other hand, I would like to know what their offer is. It might be the only one for a while..."

"Whatever you decide, I'll be with you. If it ends up being a trap whose purpose is to humiliate you, you can count on me to trash their little party."

She smiled and laughed softly.

"Reception means evening wear," she pointed out. "Do you have a tuxedo? I didn't see any among your clothes."

"Uh…"

"You went to your high school prom?"

"Yeah, but I wasn't in a tuxedo."

"Your date must have appreciated... And when you were in the navy?"

"Ceremonial uniform. And I didn't have a tuxedo in my luggage when I arrived on Nublar."

"It's true that I've never seen you wear one. We'd better go buy you one, it might come in handy."

He nodded.

"In any case, we have the invitations," he said. "Take the rest of the day and tomorrow to think about it. You'll let me know of your decision when I return from work. I will have to take a couple of days off if we're going".

The next morning, instead of staying in bed a little longer as she usually did, she got up and went down to the kitchen while he was having breakfast.

"Owen, I've made my decision. Tell your boss you'll be absent on the twenty-third and the twenty-fourth. We'll go to Orick."

Chapter Text

Leaving Sigurd with Cait, Claire and Owen set out on the morning of the 23rd and drove for long hours northwest, leaving the snow-capped mountains and forests of the Sierra Nevada for the coast, and they only reached Humboldt County, the shores of the Pacific and then the very gates of Redwood National Park late in the afternoon.

Entering their motel room in Orick, a town populated by only a few hundred souls, they put their suitcase on the bed and put out their clothes for the evening: A tuxedo and pants for Owen, a long purple dress with a high neckline and long white cloth gloves for Claire.

"I look like a bloody penguin," the keeper grumbled when he finished buttoning his tuxedo.

He was in the bathroom, looking at himself in the mirror above the sink. He brought a hand to his face, stroking his beard, which Claire had trimmed the night before after she insisted, then gathered his hair into a bun. He had never been so neat and tidy and it was making him nervous.

Being ready, he came out of the bathroom and saw that his girlfriend was standing by the bed in her underwear and was about to put on her dress.

"Well, hello worries when the cyclops has to proceed to some check-up," he murmured while looking at her.

"He'll have to be patient for a few more hours," she replied with a smirk as she pulled up her dress. "It would be silly if you got those pants dirty right before going to the reception..."

She put high heels on her feet and then went to the bathroom with her cloth gloves and a small bag. She put it on the chest of drawers and took out her half-mask and a silicone glove which imitated a forearm. She turned to the mirror, wincing at the sight of her gash as always, and put the half-mask over the disfigured part of her face, securing it under her bun with a small strap.

People are right, I really look like the Phantom of the Opera, she thought, looking at herself in the mirror.

She put on some makeup, put the silicone glove over her prosthesis and the two cloth gloves on her forearms before returning to the bedroom once she was ready.

"How do I look?" she asked Owen.

"Oh là là ! Ma chérie, tu es magnifique !" He said, speaking in French with a little bit exaggerated Iberian accent, certainly stupid but which made her giggle each time.

She joined him and with her heels hidden under her dress, Claire appeared taller than she was, which was not to displease her boyfriend, who thought she was more regal-looking that way. He grabbed Claire's coat and helped her put it on out of gallantry.

"I would have liked to review some dance steps with you but I don't know if we can dance at this reception and even if it's the case, I don't think I will," she said.

"I wasn't too bad at that masked ball at the palace (1) five years ago," he replied casually as he opened the room's door.

They got out, he closed behind them, and they headed to their car parked a few meters away.

"Oh I remember, I had to go out of my way to keep you from looking ridiculous," she reminded him.

Eight kilometres south of Orick, the main entrance of the Lockwood Estate was a massive wrought-iron gate adorned with the crest of the Lockwood family and built within the great stone wall that bounded the estate at this level.

The couple showed up shortly after 6:30 p.m. and the security guards at the gate checked their invitations before letting them through and they took the road to the manor itself, built on a wooded plateau that overlooked U.S. Route 101 and the two lagoons the latter passed by.

After the winding and fairly steep ascent of the escarpment, the road finally flattened and turning right at an intersection, the couple saw the imposing manor and its many lights, at the very end of a long gravel-covered driveway. As they crossed a stone bridge which spanned a ravine at the bottom of which flowed a stream, Owen noticed that the building had a Victorian and Gothic style.

"What's in there? Nosferatu?" He wondered aloud.

Beyond the bridge, the driveway crossed a large lawn dotted with a few sculptures and it joined the large gravelled area which served as the main car park, extending to the base of the entrance facade as well as part of the wing right of it.

The couple parked their vehicle alongside those already there and took the grand winding staircase up to the front door, making them pass between the two statues of sitting lions that decorated it.

Under the watchful eye of the guard posted near the door, the couple rang and a houseboy opened the door for them.

"Mrs Dearing. Mr. Grady," he greeted them politely. "Please come in."

"Thank you," Claire replied.

They walked into the entrance hall and he closed behind them. A young housemaid came to them.

"Mr. Mills should be here soon. Let us take your coats," the houseboy suggested.

They agreed, handing their coats to the housemaid, and she disappeared in a hallway with them.

The entrance hall was a richly decorated room, with a wooden staircase leading up to the first floor and walls decorated with portraits. Straight ahead, an archway opened into Benjamin Lockwood's private museum, at the very heart of the manor. The couple noticed that many of the reception guests were there and noise was also coming from a hallway to their right, the one that led to the large lounge in the southern wing.

Claire's eyes ended up drawn to a large glass frame hanging on one of the walls and which contained several photographs.

In the one placed in the middle of the frame, she saw a group of men and women, and judging by their clothing and the picture's grain, she knew that it had been taken several decades earlier, probably in the seventies and reading the legend confirmed her supposition. The photo was taken in 1975, the year InGen was founded, and in the background, Claire saw the iconic blue and white letters of InGen's logo. She recognized several persons in the photo.

In the centre of the group, stood a middle-aged white-clad man and he wasn't very tall, quite small even, and slightly chubby. To the left of this man, who was none other than John Hammond, she saw a fortyish Indian man who seemed to be almost the spitting image of Simon Masrani, although with broader shoulders and a thicker moustache. Claire knew that he was Sanjay Masrani, the founder of the conglomerate that later became Masrani Global, and she saw that he had his hands resting on the shoulders of a boy of about five or six who stood in front of him, his son Simon. Standing behind Sanjay Masrani and John Hammond was a young man of about twenty, with very short hair and glasses, Peter Ludlow, Hammond's nephew. To the right of InGen's founder, stood a tall, athletic thirtyish man in a black suit, with an angular jawline and a beardless face, Benjamin Lockwood. To Lockwood's left, stood a blonde woman of a similar age, dressed in a business suit and rather attractive, Susan Lynton. Claire noted that she was standing very close to Lockwood, almost huddling against him.

Claire's gaze drifted to other photos. In one, taken a few years after the first, Hammond was seen having a warm handshake with a man in his early sixties, Doctor Norman Atherton, while Lockwood, who stood behind Hammond, was smiling and looking at a slender young woman with chestnut hair behind Atherton.

Claire turned her head to look at what Owen was doing. He was a few steps away from her, standing in front of a display case and observing what at first appeared to be a large elephant figurine. Actually, it was a stuffed individual, something which had surprised quite a number of people since it had the size of a big domestic cat. Anyone well-versed in InGen's history knew that this miniature elephant was one of the first, if not the first, of the corporation's creations.

"Ah, you're here," a male voice said.

The couple turned to the voice's source and saw a tall thirtyish man in a suit walking towards them.

"Good evening, I'm Eli Mills, Benjamin Lockwood's aide," he introduced himself as he shook hands with them. "I wanted to welcome you personally. How long has it been, Claire? Six or seven years? Maybe you don't remember..."

"That fundraiser?" I remember," Claire answered. "Don't you manage Mr. Lockwood's foundation...

"…since I graduated," he finished. "You remembered it."

"Indeed."

"Cool," the aide said. "He wanted someone who could bring youth and dynamism to his foundation."

Owen chuckled, to avoid letting out a raucous laughter at the pronunciation of the words youth and dynamism, which had reminded him of what Barry, his French colleague at Jurassic World, was saying about his country's new president. Like Emmanuel Macron or Elon Musk, this Eli Mills, brown-haired, fit, attractive, with an impeccable smile and an affable attitude, at least in public, seemed to conform to the very archetype of the young and dynamic businessman which appeared in advertisements and other marketing products, a type of men who deeply bored Owen and in whom he had no trust.

Elijah invited the couple to follow him towards the museum.

"Mr. Lockwood is busy right now, but don't worry, you didn't come here just to sip cocktails and nibble on appetizers. The trip you made is worth it, trust me. I have to leave you for a moment as I've small matters to attend to. But I'll fetch you as soon as he is ready to receive you. Enjoy the reception in the meantime."

The manager of the Lockwood Foundation left them at the museum's entrance and disappeared from their sight among the guests. Owen scanned the museum and its exhibits and whistled in admiration.

"That's quite a collection..."

The museum was a large rectangular hall, topped by a glass roof and overlooked by a mezzanine which described a U oriented towards the eastern end of the hall, the one opposite the entrance. At the level of this mezzanine, was the manor's library, with shelves full of books and reading spaces with small coffee tables, armchairs and even sofas. This library could be accessed from the museum thanks to two spiral staircases in the western part of the room.

Several replica skeletons were spread throughout the museum and smaller replicas or fossils were also displayed in cases along the walls, mostly on the entrance side and at the back of the hall on either side of a recess.

Six glazed dioramas, three on the northern side and three on the southern side, completed the exhibition and were occupied by life-size reproductions of various prehistoric animals, similar to those which populated those Prehistoric theme parks with life-sized sculptures of animals, which became considerably rarer after the San Diego incident in addition of being now hardly more frequented than parks filled with works of contemporary art.

The couple began their visit of the museum, with Claire turning to their left, taking Owen by the arm, in order to stay in the part covered by the mezzanine at first, making them progress in a clockwise direction. She walked with Owen to her right and kept her face directed towards the display cases and the exhibits along the wall as well as the dioramas. From behind, she was just another woman in the eyes of the other guests and the combination of the cloth glove and the silicone one hid her prosthesis. Thus, she hoped to remain discreet and to not attract too much attention.

When they passed by one of the spiral staircases and reached the second diorama along their route, which depicted an adult Dilophosaurus emerging from an undergrowth with its jaws wide open in order to grab a small prosauropod which had been distracted by a rather cute young dilophosaur, a waiter carrying a tray of champagne flutes came to meet the couple, skirting a Teratophoneus (2)'skeleton on the way.

"Champagne?" he offered.

"Yes please," Claire replied, taking a flute.

Owen also picked up a flute, thanked the waiter, and the latter went to serve other guests, letting the couple continue under the mezzanine.

By the large horned skull of an Agujaceratops which stood near the centre of the hall, a copious buffet had been set up on several tables covered with a white tablecloth and arranged in such a way as to form a U around the skull's pedestal. One of the guests, who was serving himself, hailed another:

"Mr. Rugy? There is some lobster over here. It's excellent, you should have some."

The hailed guest then ran to the plate of lobsters and Owen looked at this scene with disdain.

"Well, it's not a crisis for everyone," he commented, seeing the evening's pomp.

"Lockwood was indeed CEO of InGen, but his foundation is an independent entity, although the two have close ties. Thus, it wasn't significantly impacted by the Fall," Claire explained to him.

He came to wonder how the estate and the foundation were financed, then he remembered that he had seen a large marquee when they had parked and deduced that the estate made money by hosting various events such as business meetings or weddings, not to mention the profits of the hotel activity, as the manor rented out some of its rooms.

They passed between the third diorama and a hadrosaur skeleton and got out of the area covered by the long mezzanine on this side of the hall, arriving at a wide and tall window that looked out into the woods on the outside of the manor.

A few meters away, a tall fiftyish man with slicked back dark hair was looking at a large model of the city of Burroughs and its Lagoon, which stood halfway between the Agujaceratops' skull and the recess at the back of the museum.

The man turned his head to his left and saw the couple standing by the window. Although they showed him their backs, he recognized Claire's figure and hairs and he covered the distance between them. He gently patted the former director of Jurassic World on the shoulder and she, fearing some harassment, turned around quickly but relaxed when she saw the long face, the thin moustache and the blue eyes of the man who was looking at her.

"Well Claire, why didn't you said hello to an old friend?" he asked her, speaking with a West Country (3) accent.

"Lor... Francis!" She exclaimed, pleasantly surprised.

They hugged and she introduced the Englishman to Owen.

"Owen, this is Lord Francis Clayton, CEO of Clayton's Beverages and one of Jurassic World's former patrons."

The two men exchanged a handshake.

"Lord Clayton…" the keeper repeated. "Aren't you the owner of Lofting Wild Animal Park, one of Britain's largest zoos? If I'm not mistaken, you bought some animals from InGen and Jurassic World a few years ago."

"Indeed. Mainly small species and herbivores. It's a pleasure to finally meet you Mr. Grady, Claire told me a lot about you and the IBRIS program back then."

"I received your letter by the way," Claire told him, "and thank you for writing to me. I am sincerely sorry for not having replied to you."

"No worries," replied the aristocrat. "Arnold and I were very worried when we learned about what happened on Isla Nublar. It was really dreadful."

"Had I listened to Arnold, I wouldn't be here...," she lamented. "All the anger he might have against me is justified I'm afraid."

"Oh, don't torture yourself too much. He may be resentful, but that resentment is similar to that a loving father might feel toward a daughter who put herself in trouble despite his advice. He is aware more than anyone that being director of Jurassic World was tantamount to developing in a nest of vipers."

"How is he?" the former park director asked.

"Oh, that old boar is doing alright, be sure of that, though his retirement in Yorkshire must not be as exciting as his years in Kenya and then on Nublar. We sometimes talk about the good old days and of the moments the three of us shared. You remember that trip to San Jose and when we went to the Mariposa?"

"The Mariposa? But isn't it a...," Owen began.

"Yes, yes, a brothel," Lord Clayton confirmed, "but a very respectable establishment. You should have seen us, Arnold, me and Claire, each taken by a lovely fille de joie for a night of pleasures…. Not in the same room, Owen, be reassured" he added after seeing the keeper starting to be uncomfortable.

Owen's eyes widened and looked at Claire strangely for a moment, then he seemed to relax and the expression he had was that of someone disappointed that he had not been told of a funny and juicy anecdote sooner, and not that of a man who had the unpleasant surprise to learn that his girlfriend had once particular habits.

"I especially remember of your daughter bursting into your room and then yelling, telling you to hurry up because you were late for your flight, and you leaving the room almost naked, dressing up and walking at the same time while Arnold and the prostitutes laughed and the madam looked at the scene with a jaded look," Claire recounted.

"Don't be too witty, Claire. At that moment, you were standing in the doorway of your bedroom, with a huge hangover and so unkempt that if a draft a little too strong blew, your blouse would have flown and fully revealed your bust to all those standing in the hallway."

She and Lord Clayton laughed and told Owen about other episodes they had shared.

Guillaume Vuillier had arrived at the manor shortly before the couple and was then in the lounge, which was as vast as or even larger than the entirety of his apartment in San Francisco. It was lavish, with several sofas and armchairs, paintings hanging on the wall, and even an imposing old grandfather clock that reminded the Frenchman of the Comtoise clock his grandparents had in their house, somewhere in the Dombes (4).

He had just spoken with Fay Delgado, Senator of California, about the Senate's decision. Delgado was among those who voted to let InGen resume its operation and Guillaume had inquired about her reasons, listening intently and politely but cautiously. During this conversation, he had also learned that she knew Benjamin Lockwood and had met him several times in the past.

Aside from the senator and the director of the World De-extinction Monitoring Center, there were also, among others, representatives of Japanese investment consortia that have been partners of InGen since its very beginning, as well as various InGen executives. At the other end of the lounge, he saw Susan Lynton, Alistair Iger, and a rather short bespectacled and plump septuagenarian with a balding head. He knew that man was Dominick Silverman, InGen's chief financial officer, and Guillaume Vuillier, who didn't want to speak to InGen's management, at least not for the moment, headed for the museum, of which he had only seen a part.

Elijah Mills entered the lounge at the same time, greeting the mayor of Orick as he passed by. The manager of the Lockwood foundation was accompanied by another man. The latter had blond hair, was older, shorter and also uglier, with a face similar to that of an English Bulldog.

Guillaume Vuillier stopped, pretended to be interested in one of the paintings and discreetly followed the two men with his eyes. They went to join InGen's management, with Elijah seeming to be introducing them to the other man, but Guillaume was too far away and the reception too loud for him to hear their conversation.

He left the lounge by its eastern entrance and took the hallway that connected the lounge to the museum. Once in the museum, he turned left, planning to do a complete tour of the museum. The first diorama along his path depicted a Homotherium prowling through a snowy set. Looking more closely at the background, Guillaume saw a campfire, painted on the back wall, and the feline seemed both frightened and attracted by it. The director of the CSMD then felt observed.

Nearby, Alexander Singer, the DPG founder, had his phone in hand, comparing Guillaume Vuillier's photo on the WDMC website with the man who stood in front of the sabre-toothed feline diorama. He decided to meet him and Guillaume, who had recognized him, let out a barely audible sigh.

"Mr. Vuillier?"

"Good evening sir."

"Alexander Singer, Dinosaur Protection Group," the NGO's leader introduced himself, believing that Guillaume had uttered the word sir in an interrogative tone. "Good evening," he added, holding out his hand.

"I know who you are."

Guillaume shook Singer's hand, giving him a firm handshake, neither too cold nor too warm, a tepidity which calmed the DPG founder's excitement.

"I saw that you were alone and seemed bored," the latter explained. "I thought we could talk a bit."

"I wasn't bored. I intended to calmly walk around the exhibition, but let's have now the interview we set for the end of next week..."

Noticing a slight annoyance in the voice and attitude of the WDMC director, Alexander Singer froze for a moment and tightened his tie, smiling stupidly as he was intimidated by the Frenchman even though the latter was barely taller than him and was showing a calm demeanour.

"Moreover," Guillaume added, "I want to make some comments about what I saw on your website..."

"So Claire told you about the IBRIS program," Owen said. "I suppose that you're interested in raptors."

"Absolutely," Lord Clayton answered. "My last de-extinct resident is actually a Microraptor, Lao. I have pictures of him on my phone. I'll show them to you."

He took a cell phone out of his pocket and looked for pictures of Lao the Microraptor in his photo gallery.

"Oh, here they are..."

On the screen, the couple saw a small dromaeosaurid with a black, shiny and iridescent plumage, and whose tail ended in a diamond-shaped fan of feathers. They saw him standing on a perch in an office, gliding in an aviary, or being fed by a young woman in her twenties, Lord Clayton's daughter.

"I don't really like the old scaly varieties that InGen created in the eighties and nineties," he admitted while they looked at the pictures, "I much prefer them with feathers. They're more beautiful that way."

"Beautiful but no less dangerous," Owen replied, looking up at the aristocrat.

"But isn't the mix of beautiful and dangerous very attractive? That's what I think anyway and I believe it's your opinion too given your experience," Lord Clayton said before giving him a small wink, referring not only to the achillobators but also to Claire.

"True," the keeper admitted. "So you would be interested by Blue?"

"Indeed."

"You realize it's a predator more than five meters long and weighing more than six hundred pounds? It's like having a terrestrial bird of prey as tall as you and I and as heavy as a European brown bear. She's more dangerous than the lions and the tigers in your park."

"Yes, I did some research but I understand your concern. Know that I recently spoke with your former manager, Jonas Roth. I proposed to him to work in my park and he is interested. His experience and his advice will be valuable for the management of the animals I will buy during the auction. If Blue ends up being one of those, I will carefully listen to your advice and criticism, Owen. You, Claire and your son could come to England for a short stay. Know that I would gladly welcome you in my castle."

"That would be fantastic," Claire said.

"Did you finish your tour of the museum?" he asked them.

"Not yet."

"I'll let you finish, then, and enjoy the reception before your interview with Mr. Lockwood. I've seen him earlier, going out in the courtyard with a woman. She had a slight Germanic accent. I wonder who she was but it must be for business. I wish you good luck, and if we don't see each other again afterwards, I wish you both a good and pleasant evening."

"Thank you, Francis. Good evening to you too."

The couple took their leave of Lord Clayton and continued their tour, looking at the exhibits at this end of the museum.

"You never told me about that time at the Mariposa," Owen pointed out to his girlfriend.

"Times"

He looked at her in astonishment.

"They must have been good then… Was that before or after we started sleeping together?"

"Before. But I returned there after we broke up… Now you know, and I'm glad the media didn't dig this up, or at least not yet. Who knows what new funny nickname people would give me... Probably something like the whoremongering queen."

But he wasn't listening and seemed distracted while a small smile sketched on the corner of his mouth.

"Oh no… I know that look, similar to that of a little dog about to do something stupid. I'm well aware of your erotic tastes, but postpone your reverie for later. Your sailors shouldn't raise the mast without their captain's authorization. Especially on an evening like this one, unless you want me to die of shame..."

He ended his reverie as soon as it started and focused again on his immediate surroundings. They left the recess in the east wall behind them, heading for the area covered by the southern mezzanine and its dioramas. On their left, a door led to the courtyard behind the museum, but as he scanned the guests, his eyes stopped on a tall fortyish woman, whose long black dress covered an athletic body. She stood near the next diorama along their tour, and which showed a Dolichopithecus, a baboon-sized colobine monkey, battling a large eagle and a Laophis crotaloides, a large viper nearly four meters long, in a scenery depicting northern Greece during the Pliocene (5). The woman's long, dark hairs were tied back in a ponytail, and a dolphin-shaped pendant rested in the middle of her chest.

"Owen?" Claire asked, noticing that he was staring at this woman.

"I know her," he told her.

He then walked towards her.

"Maya?"

The woman turned to him, squinted slightly and stared at him, trying to recognize him.

"Owen? Is that you?" She asked.

"Yup."

"I knew I recognized that big clumsy oaf's gait. I didn't recognize you right away because of your long hair and especially your beard."

"I witnessed their growth," Claire said.

"Well, you look like a barbarian now," Maya joked, "a far cry from the pretty boy who showed up one day in my unit."

My barbarian, Claire proudly thought before stepping forward to position herself next to her partner and forcing Maya to look at her too.

"Good evening," she greeted her.

"Good evening, Mrs. Dearing..." Maya said in a more neutral tone.

"Claire, this is Maya," Owen introduced her. "We were colleagues in the navy's marine mammal program."

"Cool," Claire said.

"I absolutely didn't expect to see you here to be honest," the keeper told Maya. "What brings you to Orick?"

"I work for InGen now so I got an invite," she replied, raising an eyebrow from Owen. "They hired me some time ago. They want to clone some kind of small prehistoric whales and I serve as a consultant."

"Interesting, although it's curious that they launched this new project amidst an economic crisis," her former colleague pointed out. "Let's hope that they won't annoy you with some unexpected militarization project."

Maya's face froze for a moment and she blinked, as if to say I beg your pardon?

"Sorry, it's a private joke. It's from the IBRIS program."

Maya relaxed and laughed hesitantly at Owen's joke.

"Ah, the IBRIS program…," she sighed. "Hadn't you been around, I would have worked with raptors. I guess it was amazing."

"Yes, it was. But things ended badly… How are your husband and your kids?"

"Excuse me Maya but where are the ladies' restrooms?" Claire interrupted her, feeling an urgent desire.

The ex-soldier turned to point at the entrance of a nearby hallway.

"Take the hallway after this diorama and the restroom will be on your left, opposite to the lounge's entrance and before the stairs."

"Okay, thanks."

"Do you want me to escort you to the door?" Owen asked her considerately.

"I'll be fine...," she assured him. "I faced dinosaurs. Some asshole in a suit or a dress won't scare me. And I still have trouble controlling my prosthesis' strength. An accident can happen very quickly...," she added. "And you've probably got a lot to talk about."

Following Maya's indications, Claire entered the hallway and headed for the toilet's door. Along the way, she peeked into the lounge and saw InGen's management and other executives of the corporation among the guests.

As the toilets were just vacated, she rushed into it and locked the door behind her, just before the members of InGen's management decided to go to the museum.

"… I also noticed that in several of your articles, you tended to depict Simon Masrani in a very positive manner," Guillaume Vuillier told Alexander Singer, "even calling him the dinosaurs' greatest champion. However, if we are to believe some Costa Rican news agencies, he seemed to have been aware that a large-scale eruption was brewing, so why didn't he launch the evacuation of Jurassic World and its residents in time?"

"Perhaps the park director, Claire Dearing, ignored his instructions," the DPG founder replied. "You know what the media says about her…," he added disdainfully.

"Unlikely, she would have shot herself in the foot by doing that, even if truly is as the US media portrays her. Due to her position, Dearing was the perfect scapegoat for InGen and Masrani Global. And given the whole personality cult aspect that existed in the latter, they would have never let Simon Masrani be accused of anything."

Alexander Singer cleared his throat and changed the subject.

"What do you think should be done with Jurassic World's surviving animals, currently housed at InGen's facility in Burgo Nuevo?"

"When an animal park is destroyed by a natural disaster or a war, its surviving animals are sent to other parks or sanctuaries if it's possible. That would be the best that could happen for those of Jurassic World."

The director of the WDMC noticed that Singer just nodded weakly while looking glum. He must have taken umbrage with the remarks he had made to him.

"You seem unconvinced. Yet, if I've read your website carefully, one of your objectives is the welfare of de-extincted animals. However, to guarantee it, they must be housed in establishments which can meet their needs and not mistreat them. Let's hope of course that InGen doesn't sell them to the first comer..."

"Yes," Alexander said in a voice that lacked conviction. "But I wonder if these animals should perhaps deserve to live free after all they've been through. In a place without fences, without cages, without tourists, just as Nature intended."

Guillaume's eyes widened in surprise. As much as the intentions and objectives of the Dinosaur Protection Group were noble at first sight, he hadn't heard any truly absurd position contrary to what he had initially feared and even shared some of the expressed opinions, but here Alexander Singer was skating on thin ice.

"You want to put them in a fenceless preserve? Like Isla Sorna?" he asked, fearing the answer.

"For example, and Sorna is the best place I can think of."

The WDMC director's eyes described a quarter of a turn in their orbits before stopping.

"Oulah…," he sighed embarrassedly before squinting.

"Sir? Did I say something wrong? I mean… Animals have been successfully introduced to Sorna…"

"Yes, but species that were already in decline or whose numbers had completely plummeted," Guillaume replied with mild irritation, "such as Gallimimus, whose original population was decimated by a specific disease. In order to maintain the ecosystem's cohesion, the decision to introduce new individuals from Jurassic World's stock was taken, explaining why we can see today feathered Gallimimus in the archipelago even though the original population consisted of only scaly individuals. You see, despite the considerable impact that Site B's animals had and continue to have on the local ecosystem, the new one they were able to create against all odds is a major scientific stake which might end up having a great importance in the future, especially if Jurassic World's animals are sent all across the globe. Releasing new species on Sorna would jeopardize this ecosystem, and that's not to mention the animal cruelty this action would cause. It would be a shame for an association like yours to support an idea with such consequences..."

Chapter Text

Claire came out of the toilets but as she was walking back to the museum, one of the guests in the lounge saw her. Apologizing to the group he was chatting with, he followed her down the hallway and called out to her:

"You've got some nerve to show yourself after all that time, Claire. How can you attend to this reception?"

As she just entered the museum, Claire turned around, recognized the voice, and saw a middle-aged Japanese-American approaching her with a brisk step and a stern expression.

"Mr. Lockwood invited me, Mr. Kon."

Daniel Kon, a wealthy businessman and a member of InGen's board of directors, snorted in a disdainful way and moved closer.

"For which purpose?" He asked her. "He's going to make you an offer, isn't it? But do you really believe he will help you? I don't think so. And you don't deserve any help. This mask barely hides the monster you are. Kids died because of you, including Kenji..."

"You think I planted bombs in the island's underground and triggered the eruption of Mount Sibo and the earthquake that preceded it? I was trudging through the jungle, looking for my own nephews, when the volcano began to show signs of an imminent awakening. It was up to Vic Hoskins, who replaced me, and Masrani to order the evacuation of Camp Cretaceous and the Cartago Valley when those signs began to show. You want to blame someone? Blame Lynton and her pack! Not only did they and Masrani hid from everyone, me included, that Nublar was about to be destroyed in a cataclysm, but according to the testimonies of Kenji's surviving comrades, it's probably InGen's fault if he drowned in the ocean," she retorted. "Torres sent a helicopter after them for a reason. You should ask them which one!"

He got angry.

"Those kids were exhausted and panicked! They weren't thinking clearly. They probably misinterpreted the intentions of Torres' men... What were they thinking? Sailing in the middle of a storm, and towards the Five Deaths on top of that? Because of one of them, I was denied proper goodbyes to his body..."

"Is everything alright?" Guillaume Vuillier asked.

As he recognized Claire and was alerted by the conversation, he had interrupted his debate with Alexander Singer, which was sparked by the latter when he evocated the idea of having the US army monitoring and managing the Five Deaths instead of the Grey Guard, an idea which displeased the WDMC director.

"Nothing that concerns you, sir," the businessman replied curtly. "Claire Dearing, the infamous Queen of the Ashes, owe us an explanation."

He looked back at Claire.

"You can't hide forever, Claire. Sooner or later, you will pay for your crimes. My son will get justice..."

And he left her, crossing the museum. Nearby, Claire noticed that Owen had stopped talking with his former colleague and was glaring at Daniel Kon. He looked at his girlfriend.

"I'm fine, Owen," she reassured him.

He nodded and resumed his discussion with Maya, turning on the way to look at her again.

Claire turned to the director of the WDMC and gave him a nod, as if to thank him for his intervention, but at the sight of her half-mask and the visible part of her scar, Alexander Singer flinched slightly, gave a faint smile and took leave of the Frenchman, pretending he had to go to go to the toilet, supposedly because of the champagne.

Once he was far enough away, Guillaume Vuillier let out a barely perceptible sigh.

"Vous cassait-il les pieds?" Claire asked him.

"Plutôt, oui. Il n'est pas méchant mais il est un peu lourd et c'est loin d'être une flèche…," he complained in his native tongue. "Je présume que vous savez qui je suis."

"L'avantage d'être chômeuse, c'est qu'on a pas mal de temps pour faire des recherches sur divers sujets et étant donné que votre centre avait de grandes chances de me contacter dans un avenir proche, j'ai jugé pertinent de me renseigner à son sujet."

"I didn't know you could speak French, Mrs. Dearing,"

"I studied it at school and I've been to France several times."

"Where?"

"Paris when I was younger and the Loire Valley while on a business trip when I was deputy director of Jurassic World."

"When the Beauval Zoo bought herbivorous dinosaurs from you? I was able to see them during a brief return to my own country between two jobs abroad. You seem to have a good level and though you have an accent, it's much more pleasant to the ear than that of many of your compatriots."

"Thanks. Your accent in English isn't unpleasant either. Who was he?" She inquired, alluding to the WDMC director's previous conversation partner.

"Alexander Singer, founder and president of the Dinosaur Protection Group. He claims to have worked at Jurassic World in the past."

"I've never heard of him. Maybe he left before I moved to Isla Nublar."

Looking towards the opposite side of the museum, she noticed that Daniel Kon had joined Susan Lynton, Alistair Iger and Dominick Silverman.

"If I understand correctly, Mr. Kon's son is one of the victims of the fall of Isla Nublar?" Guillaume asked.

"Yes. Many lost family members or friends," Claire replied in a thoughtful manner, like if her eyes were gazing into the past.

"It must have been difficult for him."

Claire's face tilted.

"Perhaps, but Mr Kon's son had to disappear for him to realize that he cared about him, unless this is playacting, an excuse to condemn me. I especially think he must be still furious that plunderers found his condo and stole several valuable artworks, including a totally ostentatious golden Sinoceratops head. A gift from Masrani…"

She looked back at Guillaume.

"I remember his Kenji, one hell of a little jerk who had to be constantly pulled back into line when he brought him during his visits. The monitors of Camp Cretaceous must have suffered with him."

"It's surprising that Mr. Kon didn't withdraw after the disaster and the tragedy he experienced. Especially if we take into account the testimonies of his son's four surviving comrades..."

"Lynton had to move heaven and earth to keep the investors, promising everyone a pony and a blowjob."

Surprised by such a salacious reference from the fallen park director, Guillaume Vuillier could not help but smile and then laugh.

Out of the corner of his eye, he suddenly saw a girl on the mezzanine and surprised by her presence, he slightly turned his head to observe her. Nine or ten years old, she was thin and had long brown hair tied in a ponytail. She moved forward discreetly, crossing a few meters before suddenly stopping to look at her surroundings and then resuming her advance shortly after, like a cat on the hunt.

But as she neared her objective, one of the bookshelves in the library, she looked down into the museum and saw that Claire was watching her too. Much like the DPG founder earlier, the girl recoiled at the sight of Claire's half-mask and she retraced her steps, disappearing in a hallway.

"Odd...," Guillaume commented.

"Scaring kids and giving parents nightmares became part of my life...," Claire said, remembering what Masrani had said about the Indominus on the eve of Jurassic World's fall.

"I thought the mansion was receiving only people related to InGen and its partners tonight. It has to be the daughter of one of the estate's employees," the Frenchman guessed.

"No, it's Maisie, Mr. Lockwood's granddaughter," Claire told him. "I met her years ago when they visited Isla Nublar. I doubt she remembers me."

They sat on the bench facing the diorama, still conversing in French.

"Do you have children?" Claire asked.

"Yes, three teenagers: two girls and a boy. If I'm not mistaken, you recently became a mother."

Claire's brow wrinkled.

"How do you know that? Are you a secret agent in addition of being the WDMC director?"

"No, I read the rumours."

"Of course...," she muttered in English, remembering said rumours.

"But I used to work at Interpol, as a field agent," he added. "Some professional quirks must have remained. I was specialized in wildlife-related crime."

She widened her eyes in surprise and nodded in amazement.

"I'm sure you must have a lot of questions for me."

"Indeed."

"I don't know when Mr. Lockwood will see me, so let's satisfy your curiosity in the meantime."

"He invited you to this reception, right?"

"Yes. As I told Mr. Kon, he has an offer for me. I don't know what it consists of but I'll consider it whatever it is. I'm out of options..."

"Have you considered changing your career?"

Crossing her fingers, she sighed.

"Changing careers? How could a disfigured thirty-six-year-old woman, one of the most hated in the United States and who is at high risk of being imprisoned in a more or less distant future, change careers? This world no longer wants me. I've read that some mentioned presidential pardon and I wouldn't have said no a few years ago but being pardoned by the Big Oompa Loompa would be too dishonorable. If only I could disappear forever. I could change my identity, go to France and become a saleswoman in a fry stand at Parc Spirou, but with my face, I might scare away the few guests this park has. Or I could become a chair bottomer..."

"But some very good people are chair bottomers."

Although she had noticed it earlier, Claire was intrigued by the scar on Guillaume's scalp.

"Nice scar…" she said.

"Yours isn't bad either," he replied.

Surprised by his frankness, she laughed.

"And yet, you haven't seen everything… I would be willing to show you more if you wish. You speak frankly, I appreciate that."

"You know, I've seen things during the Interpol operations I've been involved in, including animal mauling on human bodies."

"Oh, let's forget that all things considered. If it's for some other guest to pass out and others calling an ambulance... Without wishing to be indiscreet, how did you get yours?"

"During a skirmish against Bangladeshi pirates. They were poaching tigers."

"So you were a man of action," she concluded, very impressed. "And now, you spend most of your days in an office… Don't you miss field missions too much?"

"They had their share of risks but they allowed me to travel a lot and to learn many things. My ex-wife reproached me for acting like a James Bond-wannabe... And you, what happened?"

Her eyes looked at the floor, she took a deep breath and answered evasively.

"A large carnivore. I was in the wrong place at the wrong moment. She took my beauty first and then my forearm."

"I saw the images of that famous hero, the Ghost of Nublar. Do you have any idea of who was hiding under that armour?"

"I don't know. Probably one of the Grey Guards," she lied. "If you've read the testimonials and seen the videos, you should know that they counterattacked the Indominus and her pack soon after. He or she must have been used as bait."

"Weren't you there?"

"No, I was in another part of Burroughs. Who do you think they are?"

"A lot of people say the Ghost of Nublar is a woman, some kind of modern version of Joan of Arc. The wounds you got are quite suspicious. I would be tempted to say that you and the Ghost of Nublar are one and the same."

She looked him straight in the eyes with a serious look and then burst out into laughter.

"Come on Mr. Vuillier, don't tell me that you believe in this kind of theories made by some young Internet users who fantasized over me?"

"Let's say I'm considering every hypothesis possible," he replied simply.

Chapter Text

The door leading to the courtyard opened, letting three people into the museum. Leading the way was a blonde woman of about sixty, short and plump; closing it was another woman, an emaciated septuagenarian dressed in black and with hair tied in a bun; between the two, an old, bearded man with a balding head was turning the wheels of his wheelchair: Benjamin Lockwood.

Once the woman in black closed the door behind them and returned to position herself behind the manor's owner, he and the blonde woman shook hands and took leave of each other. Whereas Lockwood, followed by the woman in black, went to chat with a group of Indian businesspersons standing opposite of the courtyard door, the blonde woman walked towards the buffet.

While she was putting appetisers on her plate, a fat, bald octogenarian with a small goatee, also busy serving himself, greeted her in his drawl:

"Hello Amelia."

"Jeff… I didn't expect to find you here," she replied, speaking with a slight Germanic accent.

"I'm more surprised that you crossed an ocean and a continent for a courtesy visit."

Having finished serving themselves, they both moved away from the buffet to chat nearby while nibbling on appetisers.

"Because you're here for a courtesy call?" Amelia asked Jeff.

"Benjamin and I are old friends. And I retired years ago. Why would I come here for anything but a courtesy visit?"

"No, but look at that!" Susan Lynton suddenly exclaimed.

Amelia and Jeff turned and saw her walking towards them, with Alistair Iger and Dominick Silverman right behind her.

"Amelia Grendel and Jeff Rossiter, Grendel and Biosyn, under Benjamin Lockwood's roof at an InGen-related reception," InGen's CEO observed scornfully.

"I've retired from Biosyn six years ago," Jeff Rossiter reminded her.

"Once Biosyn, always Biosyn…" Iger replied. "You didn't come with your vulture? Did you leave him on his perch, sitting in his own droppings while flies fly around him?"

InGen's spokesman then folded his arms to his sides and began to let out imitations of a vulture scream, punctuated by "My name's Lewis..." and "New research, must steal them!" as he edged closer to Jeff Rossiter while Amelia Grendel giggled and shook her head. When he got too close for his liking, the former CEO of Biosyn raised his hand to stop him.

"Alistair," he said calmly. "Your mockery of Lewis is very entertaining and I really appreciate it, believe me, but let me remind you that we are not alone. You are making a fool of yourself my dear. InGen has enough image problems and it would be a shame if its spokesman and public relations director was caught clowning around at a reception."

Iger took two steps back and looked around, making sure that none of the other guests had turned their gaze in their direction, although his imitation could have passed for a simple joke. Then he grabbed one of the appetisers that Jeff Rossiter had on his plate, much to the older man's displeasure.

"What are you doing here Jeff?" Dominick Silverman asked. "Were you invited at least?"

"Invited by Benjamin himself. My invitation is in my pocket…," the retired CEO replied, pulling a hand closer to one of his pants' pockets.

"Meh, don't bother! We believe you," Susan Lynton interrupted him. "Your relationship always surprised me. Even when you were both CEOs of enemy companies, that didn't stop you from playing golf or dining together. At least you have an excuse. Unlike Amelia whose presence is more questionable."

InGen's CEO turned her gaze to Grendel's.

"Oh, I know you guys have been talking in secret lately," she continued, "but you must be aware that Benjamin no longer has any power. Whatever discussion you had in secret, I'm afraid it was just hot air. I'm InGen now, and it's not for sale."

When her face was just a few centimetres from that of the Swiss businesswoman, she added:

"I would rather cut my wrists than become your bitch, even for a day…"

"You talk about independence, and yet you've been nothing but Masrani Global's unruly vassal all these years," Amelia Grendel replied while eating one of her appetisers. "Without its intervention, InGen would have belonged to the past. However, they are about to get rid of you like a smelly old sock, desiring to distance themselves after the trouble you brought upon them."

"Oh, you mean all those trials Masrani Global, and not InGen, went through? I guess we should posthumously thank Simon Masrani, who made the huge mistake of swearing that no serious incident will ever happen at Jurassic World, promising, on behalf of his conglomerate, to accept full responsibility should the worst ever happen, making us, on a legal standpoint, poor underlings," Dominick Silverman rejoiced.

"What would a new master change for you, concretely? Jeff Rossiter asked them. "You'll soon retire, Susan. It will change nothing for you on a personal level. A buyout offer would be a blessing for InGen given the current situation."

"Oh don't rub it in, Jeff!" Iger complained. "And don't tell me you're on Amelia's side..."

"I never said I wished to see Grendel buy InGen," Biosyn's former CEO said.

"After Jurassic World, your reputation is not looking good," the Swiss reminded them. "Especially with all those talks about the Indominus... If there's another incident in the near future, you'll be finished."

Susan Lynton glared at her.

"Is that a threat? If any of your employees is caught lurking near our facilities or attempting to sabotage our operations, I will order our men to feed them to the animals. They will join in Hell their little comrades who had the intelligence of taking a dip in the Lagoon just after the disaster. Too bad the Slayers were destroyed. I would have gladly paid them plane tickets to Zurich…"

She then turned to Jeff Rossiter.

"Jeff. You will repeat to Lewis what I just said to Amelia."

"I'm not your errand boy, Susan. And the less I see him, the better I am. Just give him a call or send an email."

It was then that Susan Lynton saw Lockwood rolling towards them.

"Ah Benjamin… We were so impatiently waiting for you. How are you, you and your granddaughter?" She asked him.

"Spare me from your hypocritical politeness, Susan," he answered curtly.

"No need to be rude…" InGen CEO replied.

Lockwood came to exchange a cordial handshake with Jeff Rossiter.

"Good evening Jeff."

"Good evening Benjamin. How is your retirement going?"

"Oh, it started years earlier… You can imagine that my health prevented me from carrying out my duties as I would have wished."

"Your position was almost a fictional work. Luckily, I was there…," Susan Lynton murmured reproachfully.

Lockwood ignored her and shook hands with Alistair Iger and Dominick Silverman. Scanning the museum, Lynton then noticed the presence of Claire Dearing, whom Owen Grady had just fetched to tell her about Lockwood's arrival. The couple, along with the director of the World De-extinction Monitoring Center, watched them from their position under the mezzanine, near the Homotherium diorama.

"I see you dared to invite the person responsible for this whole clusterfuck," she said to Lockwood. "You are dealing with our enemies," she added after looking at the couple and then Amelia Grendel.

"This is my house Susan, I invite whoever I want. And the reasons for their invitation are none of your business."

"If these reasons concern InGen and its activities, they concern me! I don't know about you, but I have InGen's interests at heart, and I will defend them jealously."

She sighed.

"I need another drink. Good evening Benjamin. Enjoy your retirement..."

"Just go…," he muttered.

She turned around and walked away, looking for one of the waiters, and the other two InGen senior executives also took leave of Lockwood, but much more politely.

Returning to the lounge, they then passed near Claire and Owen.

"Your mask is pretty, Claire, but I'm afraid that Mardi Gras was a few weeks ago...," InGen's spokesman quipped.

"You've got a beautiful dress," the CFO commented in his turn. "Did you soak it in the blood of the Fall's victims?"

"No, but I'll dip the next one in yours if you continue to accuse me of your own crimes," Claire retorted.

Dominick Silverman turned to her with alacrity, looking offended.

"Did you hear that, Alistair? That slut just threatened me!"

Owen glared at him.

"Insult her again and you'll regret it, you scumbag!" He threatened while rolling up his sleeves.

He frightened the CFO so much that by stepping back hastily, he threatened to stumble and fall backwards.

Elijah, informed by the woman in black who had accompanied Lockwood outside that he would soon be receiving the couple, stepped between the latter and the two InGen executives in order to calm the situation.

"Come on…"

With an arm gesture, Elijah encouraged the couple to move forward in the direction of Lockwood and Guillaume wished Claire good luck.

"Don't bother with them, Dominick," Iger told his colleague. "Come."

"Eli? You heard it too!" The CFO said. "We can't leave this unpunished!"

Elijah turned to InGen's CFO, muttered something, and the latter became silent. Along the way, the couple crossed paths with Lynton, who had just been served a flute of champagne, and she spoke to Claire:

"Let me give you some friendly advice, Claire. Leave this manor, go home and don't stick your nose into InGen's business ever again. Whatever Benjamin promises you, it will be nothing but hot air. Trust my experience..."

Her gaze met Elijah's and with that warning which seemed to have been said just to discourage the fallen park director, she left them and went to join her two colleagues in the lounge while sipping her champagne.

Benjamin Lockwood apologized to Jeff Rossiter and Amelia Grendel, informing them that he would soon have to see other guests privately, and turned to the arriving couple.

"Claire."

He rolled over to her and shook her hand.

"It's good to see you again," he told her.

"Likewise, Mr. Lockwood," she answered.

He then exchanged a handshake with Owen.

"Owen Grady, I presume? I heard about you."

Behind him, the emaciated septuagenarian looked at her watch.

"Sir," she said.

"Um? Ah yes, my bloody medicine...," he muttered. "Thanks Iris. Excuse me."

Rummaging through a small bag attached to his wheelchair, he found his medicine box, opened it and swallowed two pills. He put the box back in the bag and saw Guillaume Vuillier, still standing near the Homotherium diorama and watching them.

"Monsieur Vuillier," he hailed. "Don't stay in the shadows. Come here."

He then turned to his aide.

"Eli. Take Mrs. Dearing and Mr. Grady to your office. I'll join you there soon."

Elijah complied and led the couple out of the museum. They went up to the first floor but as they followed a long hallway, Owen heard footsteps farther behind them. He turned around and half hidden behind a wall's corner, he saw Maisie Lockwood spying on them. He shrugged and leaned closer to Claire's ear.

"An old man in a wheelchair and a weird girl in a huge manor...," he whispered to her. "Nosferatu may not dwell in this manor but I think the Doom Patrol lives here."

As Lockwood just promised to have a discussion with him after his private talk with Claire Dearing, Guillaume Vuillier was still in the museum, waiting for the return of InGen's former CEO. While he resumed his tour, Jeff Rossiter, then a few steps away from him and looking at one of the dioramas, approached him.

"Nice exhibition, isn't it?" he asked.

"Indeed," the WDMC director replied after barely looking at the older man. "Mr. Rossiter...," he added coldly.

The ex-CEO of Biosyn, taking no offense at the tone with which the Frenchman pronounced his name, merely raised an eyebrow.

"I see you know who I am," he remarked, "but know that I came only as a guest and have no desire to talk about Biosyn."

"I don't doubt it," Guillaume replied, turning to him, "but I'm not going to lie to you. I've got some concerns about your sinister successor."

"Yes, Lewis can be…unpleasant, among other things…His appointment was in no way my responsibility but a whim of the board of directors who thought my policies were too passive and soft. Swimming alongside sharks was something Benjamin and I had in common."

"From what I remember, your policies were not the most passive, judging by the number of active agents you had in Costa Rica at the beginning of the previous decade and the nature of their missions. I dealt with some of them when I was still an Interpol field agent."

Jeff Rossiter then noticed the scar above Guillaume Vuillier's left ear.

"I hope they are not responsible for your scar. If so, I sincerely apologize."

"Don't be sorry. I only got it years later..."

"You were living dangerously. It's admirable."

The retired businessman looked around the museum contemplatively.

"To say that this is where it all began. Before San Diego, Sorna, Nublar... Hammond, Atherton and Lockwood built a laboratory under our very feet. This is where they extracted the first paleo-DNA from a piece of amber. It's a place full of history... Who knows what secrets these walls hold…"

He looked back at Guillaume Vuillier and nodded weakly.

"I'll let you continue your tour. Good evening, Mr Vuillier."

Then he went to another part of the museum. Guillaume had noticed that when Jeff Rossiter talked about secrets, he was looking towards the back of the museum, beyond Burroughs' model, where the recess was.

"Why did Benjamin invite them?" Dominick Silverman asked his two colleagues.

"I don't give a fuck, but I'm sure he did that just to annoy me," Lynton replied before taking a sip of champagne.

"I bet he's going to invite them to participate in the operation as interns for his foundation," Alistair Iger said.

"Nonsense," the CFO retorted.

"You bet?" the spokesman proposed.

"Okay," Silverman agreed. "The loser will have to pay for dinner at the restaurant."

"Agreed."

"If that's the case, we'll have to sweep before they arrive..." the CEO said thoughtfully.

"From what I've seen, our dear Claire seems to be already getting along with Mr. Vuillier," Iger reported.

"I didn't had the opportunity to speak to him, but he seems haughty and presumptuous," Lynton said.

"Bah, he's French," the spokesman shrugged. "What did you expect?"

"And he kinda looks like a younger, smaller and prettier version of that damned Gilbert Brunet," she added. "I hope the Grey Guards will remain in the Five Deaths during the operation..."

"May they rot there!" Silverman added before drinking some of his champagne. "I don't want to badmouth," he continued later, "but I think I had more fun at my grandson's bar mitzvah than at this reception. The girls were prettier there…," he specified in a libidinous tone. "And I've been in student parties and brothels with a stricter selection of guests or customers."

"Anyway, Benjamin's state of health isn't improving over time..." Iger pointed out. "I'm afraid he doesn't have long to live…"

Lynton's eyes went to one of the portraits hanging on the lounge's wall.

"Let him die, and the sooner the better!"

Said portrait depicted Benjamin Lockwood and his wife Elizabeth, née Adams, shortly after their marriage. Benjamin had first met her when he and John Hammond went to visit Norman Atherton. Elizabeth Adams, having been the latter's assistant, was the same woman Claire had seen earlier in one of the photos in the entrance hall.

Chapter Text

Elijah Mills' office was a lavishly furnished room, with a large personal desk, bookshelves, a conference table and even a fireplace. Claire and Owen were seated at the table, facing the desk.

"Would you like some wine?" Eli asked them.

Standing near his desk, he showed them a bottle of red wine.

"It's French. A Cabernet Franc from an estate near Chinon," he said. It was gathering dust in Benjamin's cellar. If I'm not mistaken, you're a fan of wine, Claire."

"Indeed. If you propose, I'll have some, please."

Eli grabbed a glass and started pouring wine.

"Owen?" he asked.

"No thanks. I've already had a glass of champagne and I'm the driver," the keeper replied, still watching Eli's hands.

Once the first glass was filled, the manager of the Lockwood Foundation grabbed a second glass, not to serve Owen but himself. He then returned to the conference table and handed Claire her drink. She thanked him but as she was about to grab her glass to take a sip, Owen ran his hand over his girlfriend's triceps and pinched it lightly, stopping her, and waited for Eli to drink first before moving his fingers away. Claire then raised her glass to her mouth and as she analysed the wine's taste, the office's door finally opened, letting in Benjamin Lockwood.

"Thank you, Iris," he said. Could you go check if Maisie is in her room? It will soon be the time for her bath."

"I'll go right away, sir," the governess replied.

Iris closed the door and they heard the sound of her heels fading away as she walked away. Lockwood moved to position himself in front of the couple, at the spot where Eli had earlier removed one of the chairs so that the manor's owner could roll to the edge of the table with his wheelchair. Eli went back to his desk to get a folder and then sat next to Benjamin Lockwood.

"You wanted to make an offer to us? Which one?" Claire asked them.

"It's related to the resumption of Operation Fallen Kingdom. We would like to invite you to be involved as interns of our foundation," Eli began, opening the folder to take out documents. "Here's the contracts..."

He gave each two copies of the contract and a pen.

"And InGen is okay with letting two resentful ex-employees take part in an operation crucial to its survival?" Owen asked.

"My foundation is one of the operation's funders. They will be forced to accept, Benjamin answered. "And you are the best people I know for this job."

"If I understand correctly, you want to send us to Costa Rica to help InGen transfer the last animals of Jurassic World to the United States so they can sell them at an auction?" The keeper summarized.

"Broadly, yes," Eli confirmed.

"And who will those buyers be?" Owen asked more and more inquisitively. "We saw Lord Francis Clayton at the reception and he told us about his wishes to acquire several animals, including Blue, but what guarantees us that others will be as well-intentioned as he is? What if there are representatives of pharmaceutical companies among the buyers, or emirs who wants a baby dinosaur for their kid, or even mobsters? If it's the case, I fear for the animals' fates and I don't know about your stance Claire, but I won't be a part of this."

"We understand your fears, Mr Grady," Eli said, "but let us reassure you. Although extinct species don't have the same rights as modern endangered species, selling the disaster's survivors to the kinds of individuals you described would be bad for InGen's image, which is already fragile after the fall of Jurassic World. And it would be bad for ours as well, since we will be hosting the auction. Given that the operation's resumption will probably be heavily covered by the media, the revelation of a scandal could have catastrophic consequences."

"These animals cannot be released in the Five Deaths, and neither InGen nor my foundation have the means to build and operate a sanctuary," Benjamin added. "The buyers will be exclusively representatives of zoological organizations and their list will be provided to the World De-extinction Monitoring Center. These animals deserve a new home. It's much better than letting them waste away at the Farm. I think you agree, Mr. Grady, since animal welfare is your domain."

"You said you will host the sale. Does that mean the animals will be transported here? Claire asked.

"Do you have anything to house them?" Owen added.

Benjamin nodded and Eli pulled out more documents from the folder. He gave them to the couple and they looked at them. They consisted of plans and photos of construction work.

"When the operation was set in motion in the greatest secrecy after we learned that an upcoming eruption of Mount Sibo was going to destroy Isla Nublar, I launched the construction of enclosures in this estate, in a basin just behind the ridge that overlooks the manor," the ex-CEO told them.

At the mere mention of Operation Fallen Kingdom's secret preparation, Claire tensed and sighed, still resentful of those who had left her in the dark. Were it not for a visit from an official of the Costa Rican government during her convalescence at Nicoya Hospital, she would still think the eruption had occurred without noticeable warning signs. Benjamin Lockwood noted her aggravation.

"I wanted you to be informed," he told her after a moment of silence, "so that you prepare as much as you could on your side, and it was even among my instructions but when I learned that those got lost along the way, it was too late. Probably Susan's fault…," he grumbled.

"And Sim…" Claire began in a strangled voice before getting a grip on herself, "Masrani, when did he intend to tell me about it?"

"Simon thought his park was going to be like Rome, eternal. He did fund most of the operation, but he thought Jurassic World would recover from the eruption."

Learning that Simon Masrani had more or less sacrificed her out of arrogance, Claire felt anger rising within her and she ended up thinking that he might have deserved his atrocious death in the Indominus' claws after all.

"Why are you telling me all this?"

"Because you deserve the truth, and know that I deeply regret the treatment you have suffered," he replied. "Life teaches us cruel lessons sometimes," he added, looking first at Claire's half-mask and then at his own wheelchair.

Claire remembered the photos they had seen in the entrance hall, where Benjamin Lockwood appeared full of vigour, a far cry from the frail old man in a wheelchair in front of her. Remembering the photos taken when she was beautiful and promised to a great future, she could not help but approve of the implied comparison between them.

"Yes," she said in a low voice.

"Of the triumvirate that I once formed with John and Norman, I am the only survivor and since Simon is no longer of this world and that Masrani Global seems to distance itself from InGen and the dinosaurs, guaranteeing the integrity of John Hammond's dream and righting wrongs are my responsibilities," Benjamin explained. "I would love to see InGen get back on the right track before I die..."

Owen wanted to point out to him that this so-called integrity had already been undermined by Simon Masrani and that the point of no return had been reached for InGen, but he refrained. If he contradicted Lockwood, he feared to offend him and jeopardize the deal he was about to make with Claire.

The ex-CEO of InGen looked Claire in the eyes.

"For you and me, this operation is a last chance of redemption," he said.

The fallen park director nodded.

"What will be our missions during this internship? Owen asked.

"For you, Owen, it won't be so different from your past occupation at Jurassic World because you will join the team of keepers," Eli explained. "You, as well as Claire, will assist them in their tasks throughout the operation's duration. As for you Claire, you will also help the estate in the organization of the animals' reception and the auction but the bulk of your work will consist of acting as a liaison between us, InGen, and the Dinosaur Protection Group. They'll be in too and you will have to organize their trip and their stay in Burgo Nuevo."

"The DPG?" The keeper repeated, surprised by their future involvement in the operation.

"Hence the presence of Alexander Singer at this reception," Claire concluded. "I saw him earlier."

"They and us have both the dinosaurs' welfare at heart," Benjamin Lockwood said, "so why shouldn't we work hand in hand?"

"There's something else…" Eli said. "We would also like that you report us on the situation there and if you see or learn about anything strange or suspicious about InGen's local activities, you will have to inform me in private, even if they're nothing but crazy rumors or fears. This part of our meeting must remain secret of course."

"You're basically asking us to spy for you…" Owen said.

"The word spy is a bit excessive," Benjamin replied. "I may be old and sick, but I'm not senile as Susan would have you believe. I would just like to be reassured about the animals' welfare and the safety of the facilities as well as InGen's transparency. I hope that the Farm hasn't been hit too hard by the imposed budget restrictions, but I fear that this is just wishful thinking. Hammond liked to say he spared no expense. He indeed did in many areas, but as idealistic as he was, he neglected others and it just needed a poorly paid computer engineer to doom Jurassic Park. And it happened when InGen was flourishing and we are in a time of crisis… Who knows what will happen if similar mistakes happen again in Burgo Nuevo?"

Another San Diego or worse, Owen answered in his head.

"What will we gain in exchange for this internship?" Claire asked.

Benjamin cleared his throat.

"Forgive me for the indiscretion of the question I'm going to ask you but have you already been summoned in court?"

"Not yet, but I know it's only a matter of time," she replied in a tight voice, greatly fearing the day when it will happen.

Benjamin Lockwood and his aide both gave her a sympathetic look.

"Claire," Eli began, "you will need allies in your future trial. Informants have told us that people loyal to Susan Lynton are seeking to set your own half-sister against you, using the death of her younger son during the Fall and encouraging her to take you to court. Symbolically speaking, they would give you a huge blow..."

Unpleasantly surprised by this news, Claire clenched her fist.

What a bitch!

"Let me be your ally," Benjamin told her. "If you carry out your missions, I promise to testify in your favor during your future trial. And if anything ever happens to me in the meantime, Eli will do it on my behalf… What do you say?"

Claire let out a barely audible sigh and looked up at Owen. He looked at her, waiting for her decision. In his eyes, she read that whatever she decided, he was going to follow her.

"You have nothing to lose and everything to gain by accepting this internship," Eli added. "Would you like a moment in private to confer?"

Claire turned to the foundation's manager.

"That won't be necessary," she replied, sliding her copies of the contract towards her.

But as she and Owen filled in the lines associated with their contact details, doubt gripped her. It was too good to be true.

Still, she wanted to believe in Benjamin Lockwood, whose fatherly attitude towards her was comforting, and the person in the room she trusted least was Elijah. He had certainly behaved with courtesy but it was as if he was being too nice. He hadn't reprimanded them in any way for their altercation with Dominick Silverman, even offering them Cabernet Franc as soon as they arrived in this office, a Cabernet Franc which had a weird taste but she had not drunk any for years so one thing explained the other.

Deep down, she knew something was wrong with this whole affair, something she couldn't put her finger on. But she was out of solutions, it was this or nothing. If she refused, she would have no support during her future trial, would lose it, be sent to prison and Sigurd would grow up without his mother...

She was taken out of her thoughts by some noise in the hallway, that of someone walking with difficulty, frequently stumbling and occasionally bumping into the walls. Eli got up to lead the drunken guest away. The latter was humming:

...
But when it came down to the wire
I called my family to my side
Stood up straight, threw my head back, and I...

While Owen, who was waiting for her to sign before signing too, tried to remember from which song the lyrics belonged, Claire looked up to Lockwood and saw a benevolent look in his eyes. She put the tip of the pen on the sheet and signed.

Chapter Text

The Shadow of Cabo Blanco has struck again! Another baby abducted in Montezuma! Read the article's title.

Said article, which was taken from the English version of a Costa Rican daily newspaper, was part of a recently updated file being consulted by Guillaume Vuillier. The WDMC director had heard of this Shadow of Cabo Blanco, described by some inhabitants of the Nicoya Peninsula as a blood-drinking spectre, an abomination that dwelled in the trees, stole fish or meat through an open window, or worse, a newborn from the crib once in a while. Thanks to certain testimonies, the creature could have been identified as an Ornitholestes, a small carnivorous dinosaur from the Late Jurassic, mainly nocturnal and which could climb trees as easily as a feline.

Feared on Nublar only by small animals and mothers, the species being a raider of nests, the Ornitholestes had spread terror in the south-eastern end of the peninsula for more than a year. Not only did it decimate the troops of monkeys and eliminate all the cats he encountered, both small wild felines such as ocelots, margays and jaguarundis, and domestic cats, seeing them as rivals, but above all, it had developed a taste for human babies and did not hesitate to enter dwellings in search of infants to abduct, forcing the inhabitants to lock doors and windows. But the Ornitholestes wasn't the only scourge from Isla Nublar which tormented the locals.

Indeed, the Shadow of Cabo Blanco also sometimes referred to the Ornitholestes' traveling companions and their offspring: a troop of Compsognathus, chicken-sized carnivorous dinosaurs which gregarious habits and voracious behaviour were often compared to that of piranhas. Not only they attacked babies but also children and even disadvantaged isolated adults, small dogs and certain farm animals such as poultry, goats and pigs, while bites had even been identified on the legs of cattle and horses.

The Compsognathus were also more reckless than the Ornitholestes, as they did not hesitate to venture in the middle of villages and towns unlike the latter, which remained on the outskirts and in the jungle. Occasionally one or more Compsognathus would be captured and killed, to be even sometimes thrown to the dogs, but these animals were like a dinosaurian equivalent of rats and reproduced easily and quickly.

Some even claimed that like the raptors and the proceratosaurs which served Masrani's Bane during the Fall of Isla Nublar, the Compsognathus were led by the Ornitholestes and obeyed its orders, but Guillaume knew that this relationship was different and was more a form of cooperation or alliance, akin to others which could be seen between some animal species which collaborated to access the same source of food or to protect themselves from predators. Moreover, according to reports from the police and the Ministry of Environment and Energy, the Compsognathus and the Ornitholestes had mostly been together in the weeks following their landing and had since separated, with attacks from each taking place sometimes almost simultaneously in places several kilometres apart. And while the Compsognathus were concentrated for the time being near Cabo Blanco, with pioneers venturing north and west, the Ornitholestes had no fixed territory and tended to stay near a village for a while, making an attack or two there and then leaving, never staying long in one area, acting almost like a bandit on the run and making its tracking difficult.

The sudden appearance of these animals on the outskirts of the Cabo Blanco Reserve had caused a great stir among the local population and people wondered how they had arrived there, until the authorities discovered during an investigation that some residents of Bahia Anasco and the surrounding villages had gone to Isla Nublar shortly after the island's abandonment by InGen and the diminishing of its monitoring by the authorities. From their expedition, the plunderers had brought back a yacht which owners had perished during the fall of Cloud Island and on which the Ornitholestes and the Compsognathus, which escaped InGen's cleanup crews, had boarded. No one had noticed these stowaways which, like Odysseus and his Achaean comrades inside the Trojan Horse, had remained hidden and had shown great discretion until they reached their destination.

The dinosaurs had first struck in Bahia Anasco, where a baby was abducted and killed whereas her mother, a young woman named Pilar Morales, was found seriously injured by other villagers. Not only the Ornitholestes had injured her in the abdomen with its claws but the Compsognathus had started to eat her alive and when Pilar reached the hospital, she was between life and death. The doctors had been able to save her, but the loss of her child and her attack had been such a trauma that she had still not resumed a normal life and had separated from her husband, who had been part of the plundering expedition on Nublar.

Guillaume closed the file on the Shadow of Cabo Blanco and went through the other Central American files.

There was one dedicated to Mesozoic marine animals observed off the Pacific coast of Costa Rica and that of neighbouring countries. After initially denying the presence of these animals in Costa Rican waters, InGen claimed they didn't escaped from Jurassic World but were created by another genetic engineering company and released in the ocean, or that they may even have been animals created in Site B on Isla Sorna and which had left the Five Deaths before the arrival of the Grey Guard and the UN scientists. It wasn't until quality pictures and videos of these animals emerged in the second quarter of 2018, showing that they were similar to those that lived in the lagoons of Jurassic World, that the corporation admitted that a sabotage occurred a few days after the park's fall, with agents of a rival corporation opening the gate of the underground canal which connected the lagoons to the coast.

According to the various observations, individuals of at least six species had been able to escape and in addition to maps locating these observations, the file included several photographs and videos. Those showed, among other things, the head of what experts presumed to be a Cryptoclidus briefly surfacing not far from Isla Nublar; the lifeless body of Mixosaurus (1) among the content of a fishing net; a Platecarpus (2) carcass washed up on a beach in the northern part of the Nicoya Peninsula; an Ophthalmosaurus swimming around a scientific sailing boat in the Sea of Ghosts, inside the Five Deaths exclusion zone; a small group of Elasmosaurus swimming amidst the waves very close to a boat somewhere on the high seas; a Xiphactinus grabbing between its jaws a Sailfish that sportfishermen were pulling on their boat, only a few kilometres from a seaside town; another of these giant carnivorous fish hanging from a crane while a group of fishermen posed on either side of it, proud of their catch.

Alistair Iger had commented on this minor news item, stating that these fishermen had no right to fish animals that belonged to InGen but when reminded of the latter's inaction and the denial on the issue of marine animals, the corporation suddenly became quieter. Since the Costa Rican government had not granted any special legal status to the species, nor to the other escapees from Isla Nublar, the fishermen weren't summoned to court and were able to bring their catch home and there were rumours which said that agents of the Ministry of the Environment and Energy encouraged them to fish all the individuals they encountered, in order to try to stop the beginning of a biological invasion.

The next file was about the pterosaurs and the other flying animals that had escaped from Nublar between the devastating earthquake of December 24th and the island's definitive abandonment by InGen in January. These had sought refuge in the first haven they found and the reports mentioned, among other things, a couple of Tupandactylus in Arenal, the beginning of Pterodaustro colonies on the shores of Lake Nicaragua and in the Five Deaths, where other pterosaurs as well as Ichthyornis (3) had migrated. Wallace Fitz, an ecologist who worked in the Five Deaths for the WDMC, was surveying them and he sent reports to San Francisco from time to time.

Unlike the aquatic animals, most of the land and flying animals of Jurassic World had a subcutaneous implant that allowed Vishnu, a Mascom Network satellite, to track them and send their localisation to Masrani Global and InGen, who could thus track them. The latter had sent its Asset Containment Unit, better known as ACU, to retrieve the pterosaurs that had reached the mainland but capturing flying reptiles in the wild was not easy and some of the animals had gone beyond the borders of Costa Rica. Not only in Nicaragua but also in Mexico, Cuba and the French West Indies and while certain nations had authorized InGen to intervene on their soil, others had refused and declared that their own authorities would decide the fate of the pterosaurs. And that was without mentioning the capture attempts sabotaged by civilians, who wanted the animals to be left alone.

They were indeed explained that pterosaurs could potentially become an invasive species and that it was better to capture them as quickly as possible before their population grew and became too large, but it was of no use and they were supported by several personalities and notable collectives, including Alexander Singer of the Dinosaur Protection Group, at least for a time. Coincidentally, he had not written about it on social networks since the reception at Lockwood's manor but still opposed the fishing of Xiphactinus, which he considered cruel.

In the end, only a few pterosaurs were captured and taken to InGen's facility in the Ismaloya Mountains, Site D (4).

The director of the WDMC arrived at the last file, the one dedicated to Operation Fallen Kingdom and which only needed to be updated as soon as would receive news. It was supposed to resume soon with the departure of the animals from Burgo Nuevo during the summer. Guillaume looked at the lower right corner of his computer screen, where the date of May 6th was indicated. He went to his inbox, opened the message Claire Dearing had sent him, where she was telling him about the offer Lockwood had made to her. Consulting it again, he noticed that her internship was supposed to start the next day and that the couple and the small DPG group led by Alexander Singer would depart for Costa Rica in the second half of June.

Guillaume turned his head, looking through his office's window. Outside, daylight was fading as the day drew to a close, bathing the San Francisco Bay Area in a golden halo. As he contemplated Japantown and its Peace Pagoda, the director of the WDMC hoped with all his heart that things would go well between now and the animals' auction in early August and that Claire Dearing would carry out her missions and earn considerable support. She was going to need it.

Turning back to the computer, his eyes stopped on a frame with a photo, in which he appeared alongside several colleagues from Interpol's anti-poaching division and was smiling. They were in the middle of the jungle, somewhere in Asia, and the group was made up of both local agents and foreigners such as Guillaume, whose face then sported no goatee or moustache and his scalp no scar. Memories of the operations around the world he was involved in as a field agent, before he was injured in Bangladesh in 2010 and became an executive, returned, including those of the operation Interpol had carried out in Costa Rica in the first half of the 2000s, Operation Wyvern.

Working until then at Interpol headquarters in Lyon, Guillaume remembered the excitement he felt when he was told that he was being sent there as a field agent, but also the strange and mixed feeling he had felt when he first saw live non-avian dinosaurs with his own eyes. During one of their missions, he and his partners had found a warehouse in which cages were stored. They contained small species such as Compsognathus or Microceratus as well as babies of larger species, both herbivorous and carnivorous. It had been a sad sight and knowing that, if they hadn't intervened, these animals would have been shipped to various destinations outside of Costa Rica had troubled him greatly. Where some of the dinosaurs could have been returned to the Five Deaths, those that couldn't had been given to InGen for lack of anything better, and InGen kept them at Site D before sending them to Jurassic World.

Guillaume saw live extinct animals again only ten years later during various trips, in New York, Orlando, Singapore, Saint-Aignan… in zoos to which InGen had sold specimens. But it had only been a handful of individuals or species each time and although he wanted to, he had never been to the Costa Rican islands inhabited by dinosaurs. Jurassic World was gone but the Five Deaths and their fauna were still there. Every year, the United Nations' Committee on the Containment and Control of De-extincted Lifeforms organized a visit to Caer Draig and Guillaume's predecessors had always been part of the trip. The date of this year's trip hadn't been announced yet, but his desire to see whole herds roaming the lush valleys, predators prowling under the jungle foliage and pterosaurs flying over the coastal cliffs might be granted by December.

He smiled and laughed softly when he realized that Costa Rica was once more among his main preoccupations after all those years, like if he came full circle.

Returning to the home page of his mailbox, he noted that several employees of the center had sent him messages in which they asked if they could take their leave on the morning of May 24th. He also saw that he had received an email from a sender named AttoliniEnthusiast about some Bethany. Doubtful as he didn't knew this sender, Guillaume opened it and read the email:

From: [email protected]
Subject: Bethany

Hello Mr Vuillier,

I know you were at the reception in Lockwood Manor in Orick on March 23 rd . Before you become friends with Benjamin Lockwood, I'll suggest you to investigate a project called Bethany.

Best regards,

Though he initially wanted to put this email in the trash, Guillaume hesitated. This AttoliniEnthusiast knew that he was at Lockwood's reception, but the director of the WDMC had only mentioned it to Peggy and other of his subordinates. They were either one of the center's employees, either one of the reception's guests and the latter were relatively numerous. Guillaume had noted that this mysterious sender almost seemed to warn him against Benjamin Lockwood, who had nevertheless struck him as quite a nice and respectable person when he had spoken with him that evening. He was a more decent person than InGen's current management anyway.

Suggesting that I investigate that Bethany project is nice and all, thought Guillaume, but he gives me no information about it, not even the beginning of a lead. Does he want me to investigate on hot air?

There was a knock on his door.

"Come in," he said.

The door opened. It was Peggy.

"Yes, Peggy?"

"I wanted to ask you if I could be absent on most of the morning of the 24th to attend a conference at the University of Berkeley. Actually, I won't be the only one to go there. The others should send you their requests by the end of the day."

"I've already had a few. I haven't opened their emails yet. What's the conference's subject?"

"Life on the edge of chaos. It starts at ten o'clock and the lecturer will be Ian Malcolm."

Hearing that the famous mathematician and survivor of the 1993 and 1997 incidents was going to give a lecture on the other side of the bay, Guillaume's attention grew.

"Ian Malcolm? I think it's going to be a very interesting conference. Since you're telling me about it, I even wonder if I'm also going to be absent on Friday morning to attend it."

"If you wish, you can come with us," Peggy suggested. "Claudia has an eight-seater minivan and there's one seat left."

"With pleasure."

"Thus, you can make sure that we're attending the conference and not having beers in some pub."

"That could be another reason. Is that all?"

"Yes."

But as she turned, he stopped her:

"Before you go… When I say Bethany, what do you think of?" He asked her.

"Bethany…," the assistant repeated. "Bethany from Accounts? Does she interest you? Know that she'll be with us next Friday."

Guillaume smiled and shook his head.

"No. I must admit that Bethany is a pretty woman but it's not about her, although you raised the fact that Bethany is a first name."

"Why did you ask me that question?"

"A friend is writing a novel, some sort of thriller, and he asked a riddle about a story element named Bethany."

"In Bethany, there is Beth, which is also a diminutive of Elizabeth," she suggested, "but that's no use to you since there are countless Elizabeths."

"Indeed. I'm afraid I might be in a dead end with this enigma. That will be all, Peggy."

She got out of his office and, thoughtful, he settled back in his chair.

He then had the idea of writing Bethany in the search bar of an online encyclopaedia and noticed that in addition to being a first name, Bethany was also the name of several localities, mostly from the Anglo-Saxon world. Among those located outside the latter, one of them caught his attention because it was mentioned at the top of the search results: Bethany, the English name of a village mentioned in the Bible, located near Jerusalem and known today as Al-Eizariya, the place of Lazarus.

Lazarus, the saint famous for his resurrection and whose name was given to taxa (5) that disappears for one or more periods from the fossil record, only to appear again later. The coelacanth was the most famous example of a Lazarus taxon, as this order of fish was thought to have been extinct for sixty-six million years before living specimens were discovered off the coast of South Africa in 1938.

From a certain point of view, species de-extincted through genetic engineering, "resurrected" by Science, could be considered as Lazarus taxa and if one of InGen's dinosaurs end up fossilized following an exceptional conjunction of circumstances and that alien palaeontologists visit the Earth millions of years in the future, it would be a safe bet that those, circumspect, would indeed consider non-avian dinosaurs as a Lazarus taxon, since they would have disappeared at the end of the Mesozoic era just to reappear suddenly during the Holocene period.

And Guillaume was the director of an organization whose objective was to study and monitor De-extinction. The fact that he was encouraged to investigate a project named after the resurrecting saint was no accident. But why did this AttoliniEnthusiast want him to do that and what was this Bethany project all about?

Chapter Text

"Maisie!" Iris' voice shouted inside the manor. "Oh, Maisie! Damn, that girl is asking for trouble. Maisie!"

Looking for the girl, the governess entered the museum, where Maisie often hung out. She scanned the huge hall and its exhibits. Nobody. A heavy silence prevailed there but suddenly it was broken by the rustling of leaves in one of the dioramas. Iris followed the direction of the noise and then her gaze stopped on one of the dioramas on the northern side of the museum, the one with the two dilophosaurs and the small prosauropod. She began to stare at the adult dilophosaurus because a monkey cuddly toy was hanging from its mouth and recognizing it, Iris sighed. Then she heard footsteps, footsteps approaching, approaching fast. Before she could react, a creature suddenly burst in front of her.

"Boo!" Maisie shouted.

Iris jumped, frightened by the girl's little joke.

"You fool!" she exclaimed.

Maisie laughed.

"You'll be the death of me, you know that," the governess added. "One day, my heart might really stop. What would you do? Would you go live in the forest with the lions?"

"There are no lions in the forest, Iris," Maisie chuckled.

"And what are cougars? Alley cats perhaps?" Iris retorted sarcastically.

She leaned over and started adjusting Maisie's hair and clothes.

"Your grandfather wants to see you," she informed her.

"Really?" the gril asked with interest.

"Go see him and then go straight to your bath," Iris ordered.

"I don't want to take a bath," the girl sighed.

The pronunciation of the word bath caused Iris to pause. Whereas she had spoken it with Received Pronunciation, an accent she inherited from her father, Maisie had said it with an American accent.

"What?! The Queen's English, young lady. Bath."

"Bath," Maisie said lazily, still in her native accent.

"Bath," the governess insisted with a received pronunciation.

"Bath," the girl said at last in the required accent.

"Bath. Not bath, you're not a savage."

Maisie startled Iris again by roaring at her.

"Now calm down," she told her. "And you better behave yourself in the presence of your grandfather."

They left the museum and headed for the southern tower, as Benjamin's room was at its summit.

"Hi Grandpa," Maisie said as she entered.

Benjamin Lockwood was sitting in his bed, opposite of the door. He was connected to a monitor which showed his life signs. In his hands, a scrapbook was open. He raised his head and looked at his granddaughter.

"Ah, here you are," he welcomed her, putting the scrapbook aside. "Come and sit next to me. I missed you."

Walking around around the coffee table and its chess set and the small couch that stood between it and the bed, Maisie moved closer and sat down next to him.

"I went back in time to the Triassic, passing through the Cretaceous and the Jurassic, all in a single day," she said.

"Oh my! What did you see?"

"Only herbivores. There was one T. rex though. There were casualties of course."

Maisie turned to Iris, smiling. Lockwood looked at her too.

"Ours included. She had the fright of her life," she added.

He laughed softly.

"You have your mother's wicked sense of humor."

Maisie looked at the closed scrapbook her grandfather was holding.

"Do I look like her?" she asked.

"Oh yes. You are the same."

She smiled and then looked behind her to her left.

Atop a table was a model of Jurassic Park's Visitor Center and its surroundings. In front of this large building with three thatch-covered conical roofs, there was a pond with water lilies and between the pond and the center, some kind of rail passed, skirting the center before going around the pond and then bifurcating before crossing a tall electric fence at a large gate built with black basalt. Benjamin had told his granddaughter that the gate was inspired by the one that could be seen in the first King Kong, the one released in 1933, a film of which he and John Hammond had been fans. The huge wooden panels of the gate were open, letting two green and red Ford Explorer pass. Beyond, the rail passed through a bucolic plain populated by dinosaurs. Near the fence were a pair of ankylosaurs with black armours and mauve faces; to the left of the rail, there were a few Gallimimus with brown and orange scales; on the right, a group of greenish Parasaurolophus with black stripes; near a small lake and a grey jeep with red stripes, were three apatosaurs with light grey bodies and dark blue mottles; and at the other end of the plain, at the edge of the jungle, a brown tyrannosaur with grey stripes on its back was on the lookout. Those who had made the model in the very late eighties did not know it then, but in their specifications, Hammond and Lockwood had provided them with precise descriptions of the clones that InGen was breeding at Site B on Isla Sorna,

However, the model didn't turned out to be a completely faithful representation of reality. Unlike its successor, Jurassic Park never housed apatosaurs and ankylosaurs, the distance between the visitor center and the main gate was larger, the bucolic plain and the waterhole which inspired those of the model. were actually two or three kilometres southeast of the center, and near this iconic building, the park's management had to build a containment pit for raptors, which turned out to be a serious mistake during the 1993 incident, during which they killed two of the employees and tracked down the survivors inside the visitor center itself.

But no matter, Maisie knew that there was now nothing left of Jurassic Park, as its few remaining ruins have been destroyed during the volcanic eruption which, along with the terrible Indominus rex, had caused the collapse of Jurassic World. For her, that place, that bygone world that no longer existed except in the minds of those who knew it, was as distant as the England of Richard Lionheart, the Egypt of the pharaohs, Ice Age North America, or even the world at the end of the Cretaceous could be. However, Maisie was surprised to feel a form of nostalgia while contemplating the model, as if Jurassic Park evoked happy memories for her even though she had never visited it.

"Did my mother visit the old park?" she asked her grandfather.

"Once," Benjamin Lockwood replied with a sad face. "A long time ago. If she was still with us, she would have gone to Costa Rica to help them. She would have helped them all..."

Chapter Text

The seventh day of May marked the start of the internship for Claire. That day, Elijah Mills organized a videoconference with her and also Alexander Singer. The aim of this videoconference was to introduce them and remind them of the context and objectives of their collaboration. He also revealed them that the animals would be leaving Costa Rica on the first day of July and he told Claire that she needed to contact Jocelyn Hodgson, Site D's manager, to arrange for an arrival date in Burgo Nuevo in the second half of June, so that she, Owen and the DPG members could assist Site D's staff in the transport's preparation.

Alexander informed them that in addition to him, there would also be the NGO's veterinarian, Zia Rodriguez.

Searching her memory, Claire remembered seeing an internship candidate file under that name among all those that Kurtzmann, the park's human resources manager, had transferred to her shortly before the Fall. Since being an intern at Jurassic World had been the ultimate dream of any student at InGen-Masrani Global Academy, Claire felt some guilt towards Zia and hoped that the latter would not accuse her of shattering her dream.

The DPG founder added that a third member of their association might come with them but that he still hasn't decided. Initiating action and impressing Eli on that occasion, Claire reminded Alexander that his team needed to be assembled as soon as possible so that she could book plane tickets and transport between San Jose and the Ismaloya Mountains, and therefore asked him to contact her again within the week to confirm the number of DPG members joining the operation.

During this videoconference and those that followed, Claire took care to wear her half-mask, in order to not make the others uncomfortable. Although he was polite, Alexander Singer was nervous with her and Claire suspected that the founder of the Dinosaur Protection Group was unlikely to like the woman accused of being responsible for the fall of Jurassic World, and Guillaume Vuillier, who had given her his email address during the reception, had confirmed to her that the ex-keeper had spoken of her with disdain.

At the end of this introductory videoconference, Alexander left but Eli chatted with Claire a bit afterwards, to inform her that InGen did not want her, Owen and the DPG members to be accommodated at Site D and that they therefore had to find accommodation outside, preferably in Burgo Nuevo. The Lockwood Foundation was willing to pay their costs but for that, Claire had to send them the bills for the various reservations. But she needed Alexander's answer before making these.

Later that day, Claire emailed Jocelyn Hodgson, asking when they could come to Burgo Nuevo and if there was the possibility for Zia Rodriguez to assist the veterinary team during their stay. She also took the opportunity to ask her the list of animals housed at Site D.

Hodgson answered her at the end of the week, asking her if the date of June 22nd suited her, and that she would see with Brice Le Goff, Site D's veterinarian, about Zia. However, she could not give her the list of animals, at least not before the press conference scheduled for June 1st.

Claire was in no way surprised by this refusal. How could the woman who destroyed Jurassic World and who was blacklisted by InGen's higher-ups be trusted? It was hard to prove her wrong and had their roles been reversed, Claire knew she probably would have had the same attitude. She had only seen Jocelyn Hodgson on a couple of occasions in 2017, when she had just taken up her post, and Claire recalled that Palo Alto appointing an American employee as Site D's manager had been widely criticized in Costa Rica because it was a position that had been until then occupied exclusively by InGen's Costa Rican employees.

Claire told Elijah about that and during the weekend, she received an email from the manager of the Lockwood Foundation, which contained the much-requested list as an attachment file and which she forwarded to the DPG. She and Owen consulted it:

Species Headcount

Dinosaurs

Saurischians

Achillobator 1

Acrocanthosaurus 2

Amargasaurus 2

Ampelosaurus 1

Anzu 2

Apatosaurus 6

Archaeopteryx 2

Avimimus 12

Baryonyx 3

Carnotaurus 3

Coelophysis 11

Compsognathus 30

Deinocheirus 1

Dilophosaurus 2

Gallimimus 9

Gargantuavis 2

Guanlong 7

Herrerasaurus 4

Masiakasaurus 1

Metriacanthosaurus 1

Mononykus 4

Mussaurus 3

Nigersaurus 1

Ornitholestes 1

Oviraptor 3

Pelecanimimus7

Rugops 1

Therizinosaurus 1

Unenlagia 3

Velociraptor 5

Yi qi 1

Ornithischians

Achelousaurus 3

Corythosaurus 5

Dryosaurus 37

Euoplocephalus 2

Homalocephale 5

Hypsilophodon 16

Kunbarrasaurus 2

Lambeosaurus 4

Maiasaura 6

Mantellisaurus 4

Microceratus 9

Ouranosaurus 5

Pachycephalosaurus 6

Panoplosaurus 3

Parasaurolophus 7

Pegomastax 1

Scutellosaurus 2

Shantungosaurus 4

Sinoceratops 5

Stegosaurus 5

Triceratops 6

Udanoceratops 1

Yinlong 6

Pterosaurs

Cearadactylus 3

Dimorphodon 2

Europejara 2

Geosternbergia 3

Germanodactylus 5

Harpactognathus 3

Pterodactylus 10

Tupandactylus 2

Other archosauriforms

Baurusuchus 3

Euparkeria 1

Kaprosuchus 2

Proterosuchus 5

Simosuchus 1

Synapsids

Didelphodon 1

Diictodon 4

Dimetrodon 3

Estemmenosuchus 1

Lycaenops 2

Moschorhinus 2

Placerias 2

Purgatorius 2

Amphibians

Beelzebufo 2

Miscellaneous

Longisquama 1

Nothosaurus 1

Seymouria 1

With that list, they could finally work with Elijah on the matter of housing the animals in the estate.

The weekend arrived and the couple took advantage of the mild weather on Sunday's afternoon to go fishing at the lake next to their cabin. Seated in camping chairs at the end of the small wooden pontoon that jutted out over the water, they were gazing at the lake and its surroundings, occasionally glancing at the ends of their fishing rods' threads. Claire had only recently learned to fish when Owen encouraged her to go fishing with him at the start of the season, explaining that it was a relaxing activity that would do her good, but for her, this was only half true because waiting for a fish to come and bite the bait was wearing her patience. Nevertheless, she had agreed to participate in this activity with her boyfriend because it allowed her to get some fresh air and enjoy the sun as well as the pleasant warmth of the spring air. Although the snow at their elevation had melted more than a month earlier, it still lingered at the peaks to the east, beyond the opposite shore of the lake.

At one point, the couple ended up talking about the founder of the Dinosaur Protection Group, who hadn't given his answer to Claire about his colleagues, which was starting to seriously irritate her:

"I remember that Jonas and the others talked about him sometimes," Owen said.

"What were they saying?" Claire asked him, not taking her eyes off her line, waiting for a fish to finally come and bite.

"Some called him Muppet, others just called him Moron. Jonas also told me that he got his job at the park just because one of his parents worked for Masrani Global."

"Hence the bootlicking of Masrani on their website… Mr. Vuillier doesn't have a high opinion of him either and despite all his stupid smiles, I know that our friend from the DPG doesn't like me much."

"I spoke to Jonas about our internship. He wishes us good luck with him..."

"I have a feeling we're going to have a lot of fun in Burgo Nuevo…," she muttered. "In the meantime, he still hasn't given me an answer about his companions' number. I wonder if we'll wait for them before booking our tickets..."

A few days later, while studying the reactions of Internet users to the resumption of the operation, she came across a variation of the Internet meme Perfection (1) which made her snort and then sigh because it reflected what people thought of her. She appeared there between two characters from Game of Thrones, Queens Cersei Lannister and Daenerys Targaryen and in this variant of the meme, she saw Michael Fassbender asking to be shown the real Queen of the Ashes, a sinister title that was also given to the two queens, the first due to the bombing she staged at the end of the sixth season and in which her political opponents and the Sept of Baelor were burned to ashes in a powerful explosion of Wildfire, and the second because she had purely and simply slaughtered the population of the city of King's Landing with her dragon and her army in the fifth episode of the eighth season, which aired only a few days earlier, and this act had earned her to be considered the real Queen of the Ashes by the Internet user who created this variant of the meme.

Claire had not seen the episode but Owen had and at her request, he had told her what had happened in it and judging by his descriptions, it seemed that certain parts evoked strongly the Fall of Jurassic World, more particularly the pterosaur attack at Burroughs and the later invasion of the city by the Indominus and her pack and the massacres they committed. She had also inquired about episode three, also influenced by the Fall and whose title was The Long Night, but her boyfriend had only said that it was disappointing and afterwards, she had seen someone had wrote that the series' long-awaited Long Night ended up being a mummer's farce compared to the one thousands of people trapped on Isla Nublar had experienced.

The similarities between certain parts of the Fall and the events depicted in the eighth season of HBO's series were such that the episodes mentioned had made many of the survivors of Isla Nublar's collapse uncomfortable and smart alecs had fun creating other montages. One was some kind of Spot the difference game with King's Landing and Burroughs side by side, both in flames and hovered by one or several flying reptiles, and a video montage had taken the sequence of the King's Landing slaughter, except that the editor had replaced the Dragon Queen's head with that of the Indominus, those of her soldiers had been replaced with the heads of neoraptors and proceratosaurs, the Lannister lioness' with Claire's.

Her cell phone, which rested on the coffee table next to the laptop, vibrated. Claire grabbed it and saw the name she had assigned to the calling number: Alexander, DPG.

"Yes," she snapped, still annoyed by the meme.

"Yes, hello Claire. I'm calling you to confirm that we will indeed be three and that you can therefore book the plane tickets…"

"About time," she replied irritably. "I don't know if you saw the message I sent you Sunday, but you were supposed to answer me at the start of the week. Know that I have already booked my ticket and Owen's. He and I will depart from Reno. Therefore, we'll only meet with you in San José the next morning."

"Alright… I apologize for the delay, truly…"

"Yeah yeah...," she interrupted him. "Look, I'm going to book your plane tickets along with the transport and the hotel. I'll send you an email once it'll be done, by the end of the day. Send scans of your IDs, and within the hour please. I might need them for the different reservations... Call me when it's done."

"Okay," he replied in a low, timid voice.

She ended the call and put her cell phone back on the coffee table.

"Muppet…," she sighed.

Alexander complied and sent her the requested scans just under an hour later. Looking at the ID cards, Claire saw that the third NGO member who was going to be part of the adventure was the manager of their website and IT technician, Franklin Webb, whom she had already seen in the photo of their site's home page. She booked plane tickets for the three DPG members as well as hotel rooms and looked for transportation between Juan Santamaria airport and Burgo Nuevo.

Once all the reservations were made, she gathered all the associated documents in a ZIP folder which she sent to Elijah.

While waiting for the press conference on the first day of June, she continued the work she had started with Owen when they got the list of the animals. Him using his knowledge of animal biology and zootechnics and her using her better ease with math as well as her managerial skills and sense of logistics, working in a complementary way, they studied the plans and photos of the enclosures which Eli sent them, in order to think about the animals' distribution in the enclosures, the necessary small construction works and the enrichments to add, and they calculated the necessary amount of food for the entirety of their stay at the estate. Claire ended up contacting various wholesalers as well as almost every farmer in the counties of Del Norte, Humboldt, Trinity and Siskiyou so they could start supplying the estate by the last days of June.

Chapter Text

"... Why do complex animals die out? Why don't they just adjust? Physically, they seem to have the capacity to survive. There appears to be no reason why they should die. And yet they do.

"What I wish to propose is that complex animals become extinct not because of a change in their physical adaptation to their environment, but because of their behaviour. I would suggest that the latest thinking in chaos theory, or nonlinear dynamics, provides tantalizing hints to how it happens.

"It suggests to us that behaviour of complex animals can cease to be responsive to the environment, and lead to decline and death. It suggests that animals may stop adapting. Is this what happened to the dinosaurs? Is this the true cause of their disappearance? We may never know. But it is no accident that human beings are so interested in dinosaur extinction. The decline of the dinosaurs allowed mammals – including us – to flourish. And that leads us to wonder whether the disappearance of the dinosaurs is going to be repeated, sooner or later, by us as well. Whether at the deepest level the fault lies not in blind fate – in some fiery meteor from the skies – but in our own behaviour. At the moment, we have no answer. But I have a few suggestions..."

The conference was held in Wheeler Auditorium, located in a century-old Neoclassical-style building right in the heart of the campus of Berkeley University. The auditorium being the latter's largest, the university had naturally chosen it to host the conference of a personality such as Ian Malcolm. With his leather jacket and black pants, he evoked a rock star to Guillaume Vuillier. He attracted crowds like one because there was not a single unoccupied seat left in the auditorium and the WDMC group had been lucky to find some in the middle rows.

While listening Malcolm carrying on with his analysis of chaos theory applied to evolution, Guillaume discreetly scanned the audience.

He had noticed earlier that the first rows were mostly occupied by women who, being among the first to arrive, had sat there in order to be closer to the professor and it was not surprising. Rather well preserved for his age, Malcolm was popular with the fairer sex, not only among women of his generation but also among students. Guillaume was certain that he had recently shaved off his beard in order to please his many female admirers. The mathematician even had a few at the World De-extinction Monitoring Center and near its director, Peggy and several of her female colleagues listened to Malcolm with the greatest attention.

Among the audience, there were also several people, mostly students, who wore T-shirts that mocked InGen or Jurassic World. Guillaume had seen one with the sentence Iurassica mundi delenda est written on it and another that parodied the logo of Isla Nublar's fallen park by replacing the park's name and the Tyrannosaurus skeleton with the name Fisti World and a clenched fist respectively. Not only these listeners were also very attentive, but they seemed to almost hang on the professor's every word, frequently nodding their heads in approval.

One of the few people who didn't seem to find the lecture to his liking was a man in a shirt and tie and with tousled hair, seated in the far corner of the auditorium, opposite of the university cameraman who was filming the conference so it could be later uploaded on the university's website. Slumped in his seat with his face glued to his fist and his head half oriented towards the middle of the audience and Guillaume, the man obviously had all the trouble in the world to not fall asleep.

Malcolm shifted on the dais.

"But even more important," he said, "is the way complex systems seem to strike a balance between the need for order and the imperative to change. Complex systems tend to locate themselves at a place we call 'the edge of chaos'. We imagine the edge of chaos as a place where there is enough innovation to keep a living system vibrant, and enough stability to keep it from collapsing into anarchy. It is a zone of conflict and upheaval, where the old and the new are constantly at war. Finding the balance point must be a delicate matter – if a living system drifts too close, it risks falling over into incoherence and dissolution; but if the system moves too far away from the edge, it becomes rigid, frozen, totalitarian. Both conditions lead to extinction. Too much change is as destructive as too little. Only at the edge of chaos can complex systems flourish..."

In the audience, heads were nodding. This was familiar thinking to most of the attendees. Indeed, the concept of the edge of chaos was very nearly dogma at the Santa Fe Institute and among the professor's disciples. Several of the attendees were taking notes.

At eleven o'clock, Malcolm finished his speech and came the question and answer session. From the lecturer's point of view, there had been only the predictable objections: that mass extinctions were important; that human beings owed their existence to the Cretaceous extinction, which had wiped out the dinosaurs and allowed mammals to take over. As one questioner had pompously phrased it, "The Cretaceous extinction allowed our own sentient awareness to rise on the planet."

Malcolm's reply was immediate.

"What makes you think human beings are sentient and aware? There's no evidence of it. Human beings never think for themselves, they find it too uncomfortable. For the most part, members of our species simply repeat what they are told – and become upset if they are exposed to any different view. The characteristic human trait is not awareness but conformity, and the characteristic result is religious warfare. Other animals fight for territory or food; but uniquely in the animal kingdom, human beings fight for their 'beliefs'. The reason is that beliefs guide behaviour, which has evolutionary importance among human beings. But at a time when our behaviour may well lead us to extinction, I see no reason to assume we have any awareness at all. We are stubborn, self-destructive conformists. Any other view of our species is just a self-congratulatory delusion. Next question."

When the clock showed noon, the dean announced the end of the lecture and invited the audience to leave. But as he exchanged a handshake with Malcolm, part of the audience converged towards the dais, each carrying a copy of one of the books the professor had written. The latter laughed and took the microphone again:

"I would love to sign autographs but unfortunately I can't. I have to lunch too, you know. But let me suggest you to try intercepting me if you ever hang around the Santa Fe Institute. You might be lucky if I'm in the mood."

Slightly disappointed, his admirers turned around and headed for the exit. Higher up in the auditorium, Guillaume and the other employees of the WDMC had also stood up and refolded their seats.

"See you this afternoon," the employees of the WDMC said to their director.

"See you this afternoon."

And they left, leaving him alone in the row with his bag slung over his shoulder. He had explained to them earlier that he had asked if he could meet Malcolm after the conference and that he accepted.

Before going downstairs and meeting the mathematician, Guillaume took his phone out of his bag, opened its case and turned it on to check if he had received any important messages in the meantime. Suddenly, someone bumped into him and the cell phone fell from his hands, falling on the folding seats to his right:

"Oh, sorry," mumbled a male voice behind him.

Guillaume let out a slight irritated sigh and began to search for his phone among the row of folding seats. He didn't see it, but the man who had bumped into him jumped over the folding seats and crouched down to look for the cell phone under them. Seeing a disheveled hair and a shirt and tie, Guillaume realized that it was the man who had spent most of the conference dozing at the back of the room.

"Ah, here it is..." The man finally said after several long seconds of searching.

Shortly after, he sat up, revealing to Guillaume his cheeks eaten away by a two-day stubble and his features marked by fatigue. He handed the phone to its owner.

"I'm really sorry," he added.

"Thank you," Guillaume answered in a rather cold tone.

The man gave an embarrassed smile.

"Have a nice day sir."

"Have a nice day...," the WDMC director wished him back, still in a cold tone.

Then the man left, heading for one of the exits near the dais. Guillaume looked around the auditorium's rows and exits. He was the last listener in the middle of the folding seats and wondered why the man in the shirt and tie had passed through his row when there was hardly anyone in the others when he had jostled him, but also, above all, why he had not taken one of the exits at the back of the room, much closer to his place than the row where the WDMC director stood.

On the dais, a woman waved at him while Malcolm chatted with the dean and several of the university's professors. It was Beverly, the mathematician's assistant, with whom Guillaume had arranged the interview. Stepping onto the platform, he greeted the small group.

"Professor Malcolm."

The mathematician stared at him.

"Hello, you are..."

"It's Mr. Vuillier," his assistant told him. "From the World De-extinction Monitoring Center."

They shook hands and then Malcolm exclaimed:

"Ah yes, the Frenchman! The former Interpol agent. Sarah recently told me about you."

"Yes, I met Dr. Harding when she passed at the centre last month," Guillaume replied. "She has been a long-time collaborator of the WDMC, since its earliest days."

"I wonder how she manages to still be passionate about dinosaurs after all the events from the last twenty or so years. I guess she must have told you about our little getaway to Sorna and our burst of heroism in San Diego?"

"She did."

Guillaume mingled with the small group and discussed with Malcolm and the professors about the questions asked at the end of the lecture. Fifteen minutes later, Malcolm finally took leave of the academics and invited Guillaume to have their talk outside.

"Have you seen the other survivors again since the incidents?" Guillaume asked as they left the iconic Sather Tower behind and began to walk through Memorial Glade, a green space located over a hundred meters north of Wheeler Hall.

To their left was the university's main library and on the large lawn that stretched to their right, several students were sprawled out in the grass in small groups, enjoying the good weather and taking a well-deserved rest after the recent period of final exams. Hearing them speak, some looked up and the two men heard "Hey, look. It's Ian Malcolm.". However, seeing that he was in the middle of a conversation, no one dared to disturb him and those who saw him just watched him pass by.

"I suppose you mean Professors Grant and Sattler as well as the others? I haven't seen them since twenty or so years. Yet, Sarah met Grant and Doctor Brennan when the three of them worked for the Center and were studying the first dinosaurs-related data from the Five Deaths. Maybe I should have stopped by and said hello or invited him for dinner when I had the chance. That was rude of me. A big family reunion where we could remember the good old days and our island misadventures... It's not a bad idea when you think about it. It might even be nice… I liked Doctor Sattler, she had nice legs… Do you know what she became?"

"I think she is a university lecturer and researcher on the East Coast. Back then, the Centre also offered her to be a fellow scientist but she declined the offer."

"She seems to have totally left InGen's dinosaurs behind her. It's totally understandable."

Reaching the end of Memorial Glade, they came to an intersection and stopped momentarily to let a cyclist pass before continuing, turning left. Malcolm then remembered about the other survivors.

"I saw Hammond's grandchildren briefly before my little excursion to Sorna. All I know about them is that they stayed away from InGen. And that only did them good. Imagine if they had meddled in its affairs and sought to gain influence within it. The power struggles would have crushed them or worse, made them so unrecognizable that it would have horrified the good old John if he was still alive."

They turned right, passing between Moffitt Library and California Hall.

"As for my other companions in misery from 97…," the mathematician continued, "… Nick Van Owen… vanished into thin air after our return from Sorna. I heard he did some jail time afterwards... There was also that big game hunter hired by Ludlow. Ah… I no longer remember his name."

"Roland Tembo," the WDMC director said.

"That's it. Tembo. I don't know what happened to him."

"I met him years ago in a bar in Kenya. He has since died of cancer. Do you know the adage which says that the worst poachers make the best gamekeepers?"

"I've heard similar things."

"Well, that sort of applied to our great white hunter friend. After the turn of the millennium, he gave up sport hunting and invested heavily in the conservation of African megafauna."

"His experience on Sorna must have had something to do with it," Malcolm said as they passed in front of Chan Shun Auditorium. "These islands and what they contain can change a person. I'm in a good position to know that."

"This is what I have seen in some of the survivors of Jurassic World's Fall. It saw heroes rise..."

"And lunatics showing their true colors... When I first saw the pictures and read the articles in the press, God… Next to it, the Jurassic Park incident looks like an episode of Daktari. And I'm the one saying it... We reached a point of no return I'm afraid, Hammond's dream has been corrupted to the core. To think that it all started out as a simple family theme park on an island off Costa Rica. And that's where we are now… Power struggles, conspiracies, and a lot of violence and death… Basically an HBO show with dinosaurs instead of drugs, warring kingdoms or defective robots."

"The Butterfly Effect. A pebble thrown on one side of the ocean leads to a tsunami on the other."

"Exactly," Malcolm said. "Who are those survivors you met?" He asked after a short silence.

"Claire Dearing and Owen Grady. I mostly spoke with her."

"The Queen of the Ashes and the Raptor Whisperer? Two fine specimens, and they seem equally crazy. How did you meet them?"

"During a reception at Benjamin Lockwood's Manor, last March."

Walking past the large building that contained not only Chan Shun Auditorium but also the Natural History Museum, they stopped in front of the latter's entrance stairs. Next to it was a parking lot where Beverly waited for the mathematician's return. With the Santa Fe Institute being located in a former convent built on the heights east of the campus, Malcolm resided in the area and Guillaume knew he was not bothering him significantly.

"I see…," the mathematician said thoughtfully. "I suppose you also saw Susan Lynton and Alistair Iger at this reception?"

"Yes, but I didn't speak to them," the WDMC director answered.

"You were lucky. I dealt with them in Washington when the Senate made its decision about the surviving animals of Jurassic World. Simon Masrani had his flaws but at least I didn't want to punch him when I debated with him at the United Nations in 2000."

"Did you meet Benjamin Lockwood?"

"No, and I only heard about him for the first time after the San Diego incident, when he became CEO of InGen after Ludlow died. Hammond never told me about him, neither when I was a consultant for InGen, nor during our visit on Isla Nublar, nor when he summoned me to his residence in New York before he sent me to Isla Sorna..."

"Odd," Guillaume observed, "as Mr. Lockwood likes to tell that he and John were the best friends in the world, that Jurassic Park was their idea etc.…"

"It's indeed curious that John forgot to tell us about his so-called best friend and partner. If you want my opinion, there is something troubling about this."

"Maybe they were on bad terms at that time? I did some little research in the meantime and found that Lockwood was on Ludlow's side when Operation Harvest and the San Diego Incident happened."

"Surprise, surprise... Something must have happened at some point, before that disastrous visit of June 1993… I would wonder what but to be honest, I'm no longer interested in Hammond's various quarrels with his friends and relatives."

Looking behind Malcolm, towards Sather Tower, Guillaume then saw the same man in shirt and tie who had jostled him in the auditorium. He was half hidden behind the foliage of some small tree bordering the path and although he had a telephone on his ear and was answering from time to time to some conversation partner on the line, Guillaume knew that it was more or less playacting and the fact that the man watched them from time to time more or less confirmed his suspicions. He had indeed noticed that he had followed them since Wheeler Hall, turning around or pretending to be a simple walker whenever the director of the WDMC looked behind him. He looked down at his shoulder bag, intending to check his phone once back in San Francisco. Guillaume wondered who this man was, why he was spying on him and for whom?

"I've given enough with InGen…," Malcolm resumed. "I must admit that you have courage, for having accepted this director position. I think you're going to have a lot of work to do."

"It's already the case and things are going to get worse before they get better."

Malcolm nodded.

"Let's hope that nothing goes wrong in Costa Rica."

As the end of their interview approached, Guillaume offered:

"You know, the World De-extinction Monitoring Centre also hires mathematicians. If you wish, you can become a fellow scientist of the WDMC."

"Thank you for your offer, but I'm going to decline it," Malcolm replied. "For the moment, I don't know what else I can bring... I might reconsider it later. For now, I think I'll just write more books."

He looked at his watch.

"Oh, the clock is ticking. Beverly will grumble again... I regret to inform you that we have to end our interview."

He held out his hand to the WDMC director.

"Farewell Professor Malcolm," the latter said while shaking hands with him, "speaking with you was a pleasure."

"All the pleasure is mine, Mr Vuillier. I'm going to wish you good fortune for the future, you will surely need some."

Then he left for the nearby parking lot, leaving Guillaume in front of the museum's entrance.

Chapter Text

On the first day of June, the couple, along with Elijah and the DPG, went to the YouTube channel of a Costa Rican news agency to watch InGen's press conference live, held at San José's convention centre. The purpose of this conference was to explain the unfolding of the end of the operation in Costa Rica and to discuss InGen's withdrawal from the country.

The press conference was hosted by several InGen executives. As the corporation's spokesman, Alistair Iger had of course travelled to San José and next to him, Claire recognized three other people. There was a small brunette with shoulder-length hair and a little younger than her and Owen, none other than Jocelyn Hodgson; Pedro Merced, regional director, a middle-aged Costa Rican with olive skin and shoulder-length swept-back hair; and finally a fiftyish bald man with a goatee, Edward Torres, who became director of the security division following the death of Victor Hoskins, his predecessor. Torres previously commanded the Security Division's forces and was also present on Isla Nublar during the Fall, and had narrowly escaped from the island with Henry Wu after being chased by the insurgent Grey Guards.

The couple felt uncomfortable seeing him again, as they suspected him of having taken over the military dinosaurs project, of which the Indominus had been a foretaste and they knew that they had to be on his radar since they had access to some of Henry Wu's secret data, data which were contained in a flash drive that had ended up in the maw of Masrani's Bane along with Claire's forearm. Thus, they apprehended the idea of possibly having to collaborate with him during the operation.

The conference began with a retrospective by Iger on InGen's history in Costa Rica, from John Hammond's overflight of Isla Sorna in the early eighties to Operation Fallen Kingdom, including Jurassic Park, the dry period after Hurricane Clarissa, the 2000s comeback and the golden age in the first half of the 2010s. Like the couple expected, the spokesman omitted or skimmed over some of the most controversial points of that history and Iger claimed that InGen had listened to the Costa Rican people and that the decision to leave the country was a result of that listening.

"We have understood you," he said during that part.

Of course, many in the chat linked to the video were aware that it was all an outright lie, but InGen had done worse things than lying.

Once Iger's retrospective was over, the conference continued with a provisional assessment of Operation Fallen Kingdom and an inventory of the Farm, presented by Jocelyn Hodgson, who showed photographs of the operation, the Farm and the animals rescued from Nublar. She also revealed the number of animals currently housed at the Burgo Nuevo facility: Seventy-nine species, three hundred and thirty-nine animals, approximately one-third of the prehistoric inhabitants of Jurassic World at the time of its fall. Among these, many were individuals of small species and juveniles.

Next, it was Edward Torres' turn to speak and he talked about the unfolding of the remaining part of the operation.

The bulk of the animals were scheduled to leave on the first day of July, and InGen intended to send them by rail to its port facility near Puntarenas. Between the Pacific coast and the vicinity of Burgo Nuevo in the mountains of Ismaloya, a century-old railway line stretched on approximately sixty-six kilometers, and once transported logs and ore to Puntarenas. InGen had leased a disused mining train station and this was where the animals would be loaded onto the train. It would then follow the railway, descending from the mountains through the Celeste River Gorges, and once at the port facility, the animals would be transferred aboard the Arcadia, an amphibious transport dock which InGen and Masrani Global bought together from the United States Navy years earlier. Finally, traveling on the same ship on which they left Isla Nublar, the animals would spend a week at sea and land only in Eureka, just over sixty kilometres south of the Lockwood estate.

However, not every animal would be put in the Arcadia and the smallest but also the largest of them, such as the sauropods, the shantungosaurs or the acrocanthosaurs, were going to be sent to the United States by cargo plane, since a long transport of these by boat posed too many constraints.

Edward Torres added that the operation's security would be handled by his division, but in the chat, mocking messages appeared, calling InGen's security division a joke and some began to bet on where and when the operation would go wrong.

Once the director of the security division had finished his part, Pedro Merced spoke about the operation's aftermath and the gradual withdrawal of InGen from Costa Rica. Since the corporation would no longer have anything of value in the country, the various facilities and properties were going to be sold and to the employees who would end without a job as a result, the regional director promised that they would receive financial compensation but there again, chat participants were sceptical. When the conference drew to a close, some of them ironically relayed the hashtag #MIGA, MIGA being the initials of the Make InGen Great Again slogan, created by some internet users.

"Do you have any questions?" Alistair Iger asked the audience.

Many hands were raised but the spokesman was in no way surprised.

"Does anyone have a question that is not related to the attacks in the Nicoya Peninsula..."

A large number of hands went down.

"Nor to the sightings of prehistoric marine creatures in Pacific waters and pterosaurs in the countryside?"

Other hands went down, leaving only part of the hands that were originally raised.

"Yes?," he said, pointing to one of the remaining hands.

Once the conference was over, Elijah had a video call with the couple and Alexander Singer to discuss it and the revealed information about the operation.

Later the same day, Claire and Owen learned that a protest had taken place in front of the convention centre during the conference and on a video, one could see a line of policemen holding back the protestors and those chanting slogans hostile to InGen or outright calling them a company of crooks and murderers, and Alistair Iger's refusal to answer questions about the animals on the loose did nothing but add fuel to the fire.

The weekend before they left for Costa Rica, the couple returned to the Lockwood estate to tour the enclosures and the associated facilities. As Lockwood had told them, and as they had noticed on the plans, most of these enclosures had been built in a depression beyond the ridge that overlooked the manor. Stretching along a north-south axis and longer than it is wide, encompassing an area of more than ten hectares, the depression was surrounded by the thick forest of conifers that covered most of the estate and the flatness of its bottom had pushed Benjamin Lockwood and InGen to choose it as the location of the enclosures where the animals would spend a quarantine period before being sold.

Coming from the manor, Claire and Owen, guided by Elijah, approached the depression from the southwest and came in sight of some kind of camp that was being set up in a clearing. They saw old trailers being parked and a crane putting prefabs on the grass and Elijah explained to them that these trailers and prefabs were going to be used as kitchens, food stores, veterinary block, and sleeping quarters for the keepers, veterinarians and guards throughout the stay of the animals while the largest of the trailers would also house the terrariums and the cages of the smallest animals.

They walked past this camp and a collection of cages and aviaries of various sizes, and following the dirt road which they had followed thus far, they descended into the depression and, when the ground flattened, they crossed a large metal sliding gate, tall and wide enough to let transport trucks take it, and the couple began their tour of the enclosures.

Occupying the entire bottom of the depression, those had been organized along a grid plan, with rectilinear transverse aisles which separated different islets of enclosures of rectangular or square shape, a large central lane which started from the large gate to the south to stop at two large grassy paddocks in the heart of the depression and a peripheral lane, which ran along a large fence erected just at the base of the embankments, except at the level of the northeast corner where this lane passed in front of the high concrete walls of enclosures designed to contain the largest carnivores, enclosures which were built against a cliff. This peripheral lane and the central lane were also wide enough for the transport trucks to drive through and manoeuvre to unload the animals in their respective enclosures.

The couple walked past several different types of enclosures, each suited to different categories of species. There were for example small enclosures with simple chain-link fences, intended for small species such as Hypsilophodon, Unenlagia or Pelecanimimus; larger ones with sheet metal walls topped by a walkway, evoking miniature versions of the achillobators' paddock in Isla Nublar but instead of Blue, they would accommodate the Baurusuchus, the dimetrodons as well as the dilophosaurs, whose ability to spit venom had forced the couple to assign them to one of those pits where the crested dinosaurs wouldn't be able to spit on their neighbours; others delimited by palisades or cable fences similar to those of pachyderm paddocks in many zoological parks and which would of course accommodate large herbivores such as ceratopsians; while the two largest enclosures in the heart of the depression, each the size of a small soccer field and whose fence had a concrete base and steel bars, were to be those of the apatosaurs and the hadrosaurs. Carnivore and herbivore enclosures were not mixed, with the former occupying the northernmost part of the camp.

Given the intended purpose of those enclosures and their expected duration of occupation, they were often limited to a square or rectangle of grass or dirt, sometimes with bushes or a water hole to quench their thirst or cool off, and whereas the enclosures of the small and medium-sized animals had shade from a few trees spared by the construction, the larger enclosures were often treeless, with the only notable exceptions being the two large enclosures in the heart which had one or two trees in their centre.

The whole place was not without reminding Owen of a military or prison camp, a comparison reinforced by the presence of a few watchtowers along the peripheral fence and the large dimensions of the latter, similar if not identical to some of those from Jurassic World. Thus, should an animal ever escape from its enclosure, it would still remain contained inside the camp, unless it was light and agile enough to climb the fence. The keeper just hoped that InGen and the estate would take security very seriously since they were no longer on Nublar but on the mainland. Tracking down a dinosaur on an island and recapturing it was already a difficult thing, doing the same in a whole county, state or even an entire continent... would be even harder.

After their tour, the couple and Elijah return by the manor, where Claire spoke with the manager of the Lockwood Foundation about the Operation's logistics within the estate as well as the auction's organization, which she had to take care of after their return from Costa Rica, while the animals would be in quarantine. Elijah also showed them the big marquee where the estate usually hosted various events when the weather allowed it, usually during the spring and the summer, and when everything was in order, the couple took their leave and he wished them good luck in Costa Rica.

"Luggage's check-list, done… Plane tickets, check… Transport, check… The hotel, check… The rendezvous with the Farm's folks, check… And Sigurd is going to stay with his grandmother," Claire summarized.

She looked over her shoulder, towards the meadow dimly by the lights of the cabin, where Cait was taking care of Sigurd.

The couple was sitting on the edge of the pontoon, drinking beers while dipping their legs in the water and gazing at the starry sky on that beautiful and warm night of mid-June.

"I think we're almost ready," she concluded. "Tomorrow, we pack."

Owen raised his beer.

"To the animals," he said.

"To the animals," she answered, raising hers.

They toasted and finished their beers, then set the empty bottles behind them, near the lantern they had brought.

While he was looking at the moon, Owen remembered one of their dates on Isla Nublar, where they had gone for a midnight swim in a small lake at the base of a cliff, a remote place in the middle of the jungle. He could never forget the vision of her beautiful alabaster body, similar to that of a goddess, rising above the water under the moonlight while drops of water trickled down her bust and her stomach. He remembered the bewitching look she had given him while he was slowly stepping into the lake to join her…

Claire noticed his dreamy look and as if she knew where his mind was wandering, she looked down at his crotch and bit her lip.

"The water is good tonight," she said, swinging her legs slightly. "And it's hot… Perfect for swimming," she said suggestively before taking off her tank top shortly after.

He watched her take off the rest of her clothes and then slide into the lake and disappear underwater. Her head and neck resurfaced shortly after a little further and she turned, returning to the pontoon. She put her hands on Owen's lap.

"You're coming?" She asked him lasciviously.

While undressing, he replied:

"I'd follow you anywhere."

Chapter Text

"See Franklin, it was alright," Zia Rodriguez pointed out. "As I told you, you're more likely to have a fatal horse-riding accident than dying in a plane crash."

"Well, I've never ridden a horse and I don't intend to start," Franklin Webb replied. "Not interested. I'm glad that we'll take the boat for the return trip."

"Have you already traveled by boat at least? Because if you also tend to get seasick..."

The Dinosaur Protection Group's veterinarian and IT technician stood in the middle of the parking lot of Juan Santamaria airport, near San José. As the sunrise occurred shortly before, the entire Central Valley of Costa Rica was bathed in the golden light of dawn and the morning temperature was pleasant, neither too hot nor too cold.

Zia, Franklin and Alexander had departed from San Francisco the day before in the late afternoon, had a stopover in Los Angeles during the night and had landed in Costa Rica shortly before daybreak, arriving before the couple. When the trio had crossed the airport's main hall, they had seen that the plane from Dallas-Fort Worth, where Claire Dearing and her boyfriend had their stopover, had no delay. However, Claire had instructed Alexander to not wait for them in the arrivals hall if they arrived before them, but rather in the parking lot outside, where she had arranged to meet the taxi for Burgo Nuevo. The DPG members had found it without much trouble and their luggage was already stored in the trunk of the van brought by the driver, a short, chubby-faced man dressed in shorts and Hawaiian shirt.

While Alexander was talking with the latter, Zia and Franklin saw a man and a woman in their mid-thirties walking towards them, each carrying a backpack and a large duffel bag slung over their shoulders. The couple was made of a tall, muscular bearded man in a black singlet and whose brown mane fell freely over his shoulders, and a red-haired woman, dressed in jeans and a white tank top, and decked out in a wide-brimmed fedora, a pair of aviator sunglasses, and a white half mask that covered the left half of her face.

"Here they are…" Alexander said, joining his two colleagues.

Zia and Franklin had trouble realizing that the woman was the former director of Jurassic World because she was absolutely unrecognizable to them and looked more like a cross between a rancher and a character from an eighties action film. At least that was what the vet thought and looking at her friend, she saw that he had taken a step back, intimidated by the arriving woman. Poor guy, Claire Dearing was probably reminding him of some comic book villain with her half-mask and the bit of scar visible by her mouth and chin.

Alexander waved at the couple.

"Hello Claire," he greeted her.

"Hello Alexander," she replied before turning to the other two members of the DPG. "Miss Rodriguez, Mr. Webb."

The trio and the couple then shook hands. While those between Owen and Alexander's two colleagues were friendly, those between the keeper and the DPG founder as well as those between Claire and the three members of the NGO were colder and made only out of politeness. Claire, aware since the internship's beginning that the DPG was unlikely to like her, tried to ignore the prevailing unease and went to meet the driver.

The latter, satisfied that all his passengers had arrived, opened the trunk of the van and allowed the couple to put their large duffel bags inside. Claire gave him the address of the hotel in Burgo Nuevo where they would be staying, but as they were about to climb in the vehicle, Alexander spoke to her:

"Claire? Do you mind if I sit at the front? I'm car sick you see..."

"No problem."

Alexander sat next to the driver, the couple sat in the back, and the youngest of the group, Zia and Franklin, sat in the middle row. Finishing settling in, Claire removed her sunglasses and hat along with her silicone glove, revealing her bionic prosthetic to the eyes of Franklin, who was seated in front of Owen.

"I'll put it in my bag before it starts to stink...," she said to her boyfriend while opening her backpack placed at her feet.

The van exited the parking lot and as it left the airport behind to reach the entrance of the nearby highway, Claire remembered the first time she came to Costa Rica, when she was about to become deputy director of Jurassic World. It was more than six years ago and she was then full of dreams and ambitions, and of a certain naivety too.

They headed west at first and next to the highway they saw a large billboard with a ramshackle bill of Isla Nublar and Jurassic World still hanging on it, as if they were there to remind the fallen park director what she had lost, and further on, as they drove along the outskirts of Alajuela, the eyes of the group were drawn to a huge mural, painted on an entire wall. The mural depicted the Ghost of Nublar, defying, with nothing but a sword, the Indominus and the raptors and proceratosaurs which acted as her minions. Claire was amazed to see, if only for a moment, that the artists had depicted the Ghost as a noble figure standing upright with a resolute attitude, brandishing her sword gracefully like a Tolkienian hero and fearlessly defying the gaze of Masrani's Bane. She thought it was quite an embellished portrait because she remembered her nearly uncontrollable shaking, her guts and her bladder put to the test, her desire to turn around and run away at full speed, the tears that flowed down her face behind the helmet's visor…

"Did you film the mural?" Zia asked Franklin, snapping Claire out of her memories.

"I don't know. I'm afraid I didn't. We went too fast."

Claire saw that the DPG IT technician was holding a camera and filming the surroundings.

"Franklin, what are you doing?" she asked him.

"Taking footage for the report."

"The report?" Owen repeated in surprise. "What report?"

"Franklin's job is to film the operation," Alexander said. "With the footage he will take, we'll edit a documentary that will be posted online by the end of the year."

But before she could ask him if they had the permission of the Lockwood Foundation and even InGen's, he added:

"Benjamin Lockwood gave us his blessing. And Mrs. Hodgson has been briefed."

Claire tensed. She hadn't been told about any documentary and resented being left in the dark whereas everyone else involved in the operation seemed to know about this.

"Odd, no one told me about that," she said in a slightly annoyed tone. "Alright... Shoot whatever you want. Everything except me. You'll see with the Farm's folks and InGen for the rest."

But as Alexander turned to speak to him, the young man was still filming the highway and its surroundings.

"Franklin," she called out.

He lowered his camera and turned around. With a small head gesture, Owen encouraged him to listen to Claire.

"You're not filming me," she repeated. "Do we have an understanding?"

"Uh yes ma'am," he mumbled while his eyes were looking at the bit of scar visible under the fallen park director's half-mask.

"Good."

She leaned back in her seat.

"Damn it," she sighed. "I'm knackered… I hardly slept during the flight and people back home pissed me off with the looks they gave me… Next time I go to an airport or some equally busy place, I think I'm going to put on a bloody burqa. Sure, I'll still get weird looks but at least they won't look at me like I'm some kind of freak."

"If you're going to wear a burqa, I'll have to wear a djellaba so we can be believable as a couple," Owen pointed out. "Don't think about it... Seriously, you're picturing me in a djellaba? I would look like one hell of a clown... And besides, I like to have a ham and cheese sandwich before a long transport…"

While Claire chuckled softly, Zia and Franklin looked at each other and Alexander turned around for a brief moment. Given his frowning expression, the couple noticed that their last exchange had not been to the liking of the DPG founder.

"I think we're going to have a lot of fun with him," Claire whispered to her boyfriend.

"Poor guy…" Owen said. "He must be thinking that we're huge rednecks."

She took his hand and said:

"I'm glad you're with me. I'd be lonely otherwise..."

Seeing that the DPG members were busy watching the road, chatting or listening to the folk songs on the radio, Claire tilted her head forward and took off her half-mask, which she put in her backpack. She then took her hat back and put it on her head, slipping it over her eyes in order to hide her gash the best she could. Since she was seated on the left side of the vehicle, her gash was on the side of the window and the only amongthe DPG trio who could have seen it was Franklin, who did not turn to face her for the rest of the trip. She sunk into her seat and finally finding a comfortable position, she prepared to take a nap.

"Wake me up when we get there," she asked Owen.

He let her take her nap and watched the landscape go by outside. The suburbs and the industrial, business and commercial areas were gradually giving way to the countryside and its fields and woods. Soon, they were going to take the direction of the northwest, and that of the city of San Ramón at first.

He studied the attitude of the veterinarian and the IT technician. Whereas Zia seemed excited about seeing dinosaurs, Franklin was more nervous.

"Relax," the keeper told him, "it's not like we're going to Sorna or a post-Fall Nublar illegally. You will sleep in a hotel bed every night and have the opportunity to go to a bar. Some didn't have that luxury when they participated in missions involving dinosaurs…"

Shortly after, while they were discussing the DPG, he asked them:

"Are you familiar with the Coalition for the Liberation of Itinerant Tree-Dwellers? I have a friend, Justice, who's part of that organization."

"I don't know that NGO," Zia replied.

"Never heard of it," Franklin said.

"It's okay," Owen told them. "They're not very famous. I wonder if it's not defunct by the way."

As soon as the two DPG members turned away from him, he smirked.

"Coalition for the Liberation of Itinerant Tree-Dwellers?" Claire repeated, surprising him as he thought she was already asleep. "C.L.I.T...," she added in a low voice. "Subtle Owen, subtle..."

He let out a quiet chuckle.

"They don't even know Jay and Silent Bob," he whispered. "Late millennials..."

The keeper leaned back to the side to talk to the two DPG members.

"According to the short interviews in the video on your site, you also worked at InGen, Franklin?" he asked.

"Yeah, at HQ. In the basement with the other geeks from the IT department."

Zia turned to Owen.

"Since you were a keeper at the park, you've been to the San Diego academy I presume?" she asked him.

"Yup, Fall 2012 class. Do they still have the Kentrosaurus? I remember they were bloody mules which freaked out for nothing."

"They were still there when I was doing my training. They really were lily-livered..."

"Have you ever been to Jurassic World?" Owen asked them a few moments later.

"Never," replied Franklin. When I was younger, my parents weren't wealthy enough to take me there and later, after I was hired, a trip to Isla Nublar was still quite costly, despite the ticket discounts we benefited as company employees."

"And you Zia?"

"I asked for an internship there," she began, adjusting her glasses, "but then the Fall occurred… Some of my classmates got lucky at the time by getting places at the academy itself but the others were left high and dry because aside from InGen, organizations hiring paleovets are very rare. Some even tried to ask the Tula Pleistocene reserve, but the Russkies told them that they were reluctant to take Americans and that working with large mammals was not the same as working with dinosaurs and other reptiles…"

"And the WDMC Field Veterinary Hospital in Caer Draig? I thought they took interns from time to time."

"One of the students got a place there, but after the Fall and the deterioration of relations between InGen and the Grey Guard due to the insurrection of those who were on Nublar, his internship was canceled and the training managers told us that it was verboten to do an internship there. They said that the Grey Guards might lash out at us, that Caer Draig and all places controlled by the Guard were not safe."

"Damn…" Owen swore. "In terms of propaganda, InGen's current management has nothing to envy the Nazis…"

Zia shrugged.

"From what I've heard, the Grey Guards aren't all victims and innocents either. Anyway, a few months after the Fall, InGen closed the doors of the academy and kicked us all out, so you must imagine that we didn't even get our diplomas. And the animals which lived there have already been sold."

They became silent and three quarters of an hour after their departure from the airport, they left the highway by San Ramón to take a first road which crossed the countryside northwest of the city and entered the Ismaloya Mountains, whose foothills were close to San Ramón. Since the latter was located at an altitude of around one thousand one hundred meters, the eastern slopes of the range didn't rose dramatically in this sector and its roads were known to be gentler and less vertiginous than those of the western slopes, and the ascent was therefore gradual for the rest of the trip, first in the middle of pastures then among a thick and misty jungle.

Seeing Franklin filming the scenery from time to time, the driver became curious and began to ask him questions in Spanish about the report they were making and what they were going to do in Burgo Nuevo, but the young man, who had only elementary notions of Spanish whereas his four companions spoke it fluently, had difficulty answering him, especially since the driver was as good in English as Franklin was in Spanish, and Alexander came to his aid, acting as a translator. The driver listened to them attentively and even asked if he could appear in the report, which they accepted, filming him driving.

A bit more than twenty kilometres after San Ramón, just before the road descended towards the village of San Antonio, they turned right and took another road, which climbed higher in altitude and led straight to Burgo Nuevo. Between this intersection and the surroundings of Burgo Nuevo, there wasn't a single village or hamlet, just a road that twisted gently along a line of ridges in the middle of the jungle.

Claire had finally fallen asleep in the meantime, but when she moved in her sleep, Owen knew she was probably having another nightmare. Having seen on a sign earlier the number of kilometres left before reaching Burgo Nuevo, he looked at his watch and gently shook his girlfriend to wake her up.

"Claire"

She woke up with a start and looked at him.

"Claire, we're almost there," he informed her.

She nodded and put her half-mask and silicone glove back on.

"You were fitful. You're okay?"

"I'm fine," she replied in a tired voice. "Just a stupid nightmare."

The van arrived on the top of a slope and the town of Burgo Nuevo appeared farther ahead, at a slightly lower elevation.

Chapter Text

Built on the range's western slopes, Burgo Nuevo was not a large town, a few thousand inhabitants at most, thus barely smaller than the one in the Sierra Nevada near which Owen and Claire had taken up residence, but it was the biggest town and the main tourist hub of the Ismaloya.

Around it, one could find many plantations and pastures, and beyond these, a cloud forest covered dells and spread over the slopes. About ten kilometres northwest of the town, two high mountains rose among the clouds, dominating the jungle and the rest of the landscape. While the flanks of the westernmost mountain were beginning to show signs of erosion with particularly hollow flanks in addition to having been partly cleared to make way for pastures, the flanks of the other mountain seemed more regular and were entirely covered by lush vegetation. But when a cloud moved and revealed the conical peak of the mountain, Franklin shivered. Not only was this mountain even higher than the other, but its shape reminded him of another Costa Rican mountain that had recently got itself talked about, and not in good.

"Uh, is the mountain over there a volcano?" He asked with a hint of concern.

"Looks like one to me. Costa Rica is like Japan. Lots of volcanoes," Zia shrugged.

The driver pointed to the mountain in the northwest, then the one in the north.

"Monte Nebuso. Pilar del Cielo."

"The Cloudy Head and The Pillar of Heaven in English," Owen translated. The latter is the highest peak of the northern half of the country. The Celeste's sources are there. And yes, it's a volcano, but it has been dormant for thousands of years. It shouldn't cause any problems…"

"Yeah, let's hope this one stays calm unlike its island cousin…" Claire muttered.

Knowing that Burgo Nuevo was at an altitude of about one thousand five hundred meters, Franklin estimated that the Pillar of Heaven peaked at just over three thousand meters, almost twice as high as Mount Sibo on Isla Nublar. His gaze fell on Burgo Nuevo.

Like many towns in the Americas, it had been organized according to a grid plan, with a long main street where the key services and the busiest places were found and which had the particularity of being oriented along a northeast-southwest axis, as it had been built along a road that connected the two opposite sides of the Ismaloyas. Said road started in the coastal plain that bordered the Gulf of Nicoya and joined the road between San Ramón and La Fortuna in the north, running along gorges and taking passes along the way.

Coming from the southeast, the group quickly reached the town's boundaries and shortly after crossing the main street at an intersection, a few blocks from the latter, the driver pointed to a large white one-story high building with large windows and surrounded by grass.

"The Cañada de las águilas hotel, Señorita Dearing."

He parked in front of the hotel and as he got out of the van to get their luggage out, several members of the group were surprised by the temperature's coolness, including Owen who had been used to warmer mornings on Isla Nublar. Once Claire had paid for the trip, the driver took his leave, waving at them before getting back in his vehicle and driving off.

The group then made their way to the hotel's front door with Owen carrying his large duffel bag slung over his shoulder, Claire carrying hers by the handle, Zia carrying a military backpack nearly as big as her, and Alexander and Franklin wheeling their suitcases on the path. In addition to his suitcase and his backpack, the IT technician also had a bag for a tripod, which he carried over his shoulder.

Claire, walking ahead, opened the door and entered the hotel. Behind the reception desk, a small woman in her forties with thick curly hair was leaning on her elbow, with an open newspaper in front of her and a telephone to her ear. Claire knew she must have been the one who had sent her the email confirming their reservation, Sybil Pabellón, the hotel owner's wife and also its co-manager.

"Oh I know... I know...," she repeated in Spanish to her conversation partner in a sympathetic tone.

Having heard the group enter, she looked up and called her husband, then in the office behind the reception:

"Basil!"

As she turned to the five Americans to greet them, her husband came out of the office. He was so tall and thin that he looked like a stick insect with a moustache and Claire even thought he was the spitting image of British actor John Cleese when he was younger. The hotel owner clapped his hands and then rubbed them.

"Hello ladies and gentlemen," he greeted them in English. "What can I do for you?"

"Hello," Claire said. "I booked three rooms."

"Under which name the reservation was made?"

"Claire Dearing."

With Sybil busy reading the paper, Basil opened the register and found Claire's reservation.

"You're here for the dinosaurs?" He guessed.

"Yes," Claire replied, becoming slightly tense.

"You can hear their bellows and roars even downtown," Basil told them. "People here are not unhappy that they're leaving. However, there was a way to find common ground… With everything InGen has in their facility, they could open a new park here in Burgo Nuevo. Of course, it would be far from being as grandiose as Jurassic World, but it would automatically become one of the biggest zoos in Costa Rica. Imagine the number of additional guests we would receive in this hotel…"

Claire relaxed, Basil obviously didn't realize he was speaking with the former director of Jurassic World. Unless he knew but didn't care.

He handed them the keys to their rooms and began to tell them about their location.

"Basil. These gentlemen and ladies had a long trip," Sybil interrupted him, speaking in Spanish. "Help them carry their luggage upstairs."

"Don't worry, we can…" Owen began in Spanish.

"No worries," Basil assured him in English. "Manuel!"

"He's busy in the courtyard," his wife told him.

"Shit...," he swore in a low voice. "Polly!"

"She's in the laundry room. Come on Basil," Sybil urged him impatiently.

He sighed.

"Alright, follow me."

Alexander's suitcase in one hand and Franklin's in the other, the owner took the stairs, followed by the group. When they got upstairs, he pointed out three doors:

"The room with the double bed is for you and your boyfriend," he said to Claire, opening the first door.

The couple entered their room and Basil continued with the DPG members. He opened the second door.

"The next room with the two single beds is for the two gentlemen…"

"Uh we actually wanted to go in the same room," Zia interrupted him suddenly, looking at Franklin.

The owner looked at them in surprise.

"You too are…" he began hesitantly.

"No," Franklin interrupted, anticipating what he was going to say. "We're friends, that's all."

Basil grew circumspect.

"You know Miss, for more privacy it would perhaps be better for you..."

"Don't worry, there's no risk," the vet insisted. "I'm not his type and he isn't mine. I actually scare him a little bit."

"Alright, if you say so… One couple can make a lot of noise," he said, looking at Claire and Owen's room, "then two… I'll have to come and ask for silence," he added, laughing in such a strange way that they ignored if he was joking or not.

He let Zia, followed by Franklin, enter that room. He opened the third door.

"And here's the last room, the one with a single bed,' he said to Alexander.

The DPG founder entered his room and as soon as Basil returned to the ground floor, Claire came out of her room and called the NGO members.

"Drop your bags and get ready to go to town," she instructed them. "There is no restaurant at the Farm, just an area with microwaves and a kitchenette that acts as a dining room. We thus have to do some shopping if you want to have lunch. We'll be picked up here at quarter to eleven. See you downstairs in five minutes."

She went back to her room and Franklin waited for her to disappear before mockingly muttering:

"Ja, ja, mein General!"

"Stop," Zia told him as she unpacked her bag, "I have the impression of being back with the Marines..."

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

The exit leading to InGen's Site D was three kilometres away from town, before the hilltop from which the group had first seen the latter. The exit was indicated by a large sign with InGen's logo and its slogan, We Make Your Future, almost hidden behind the tags and insults in Spanish and English that covered the sign. Among these, the group saw two sets of numbers followed by an exclamation point: Those were the number of victims of the fall of Jurassic World as well as the number of victims directly and indirectly attributable to InGen, a total which took into account all the incidents that had taken place since the corporation's arrival in Costa Rica more than thirty years earlier.

"For how long have you worked for InGen, Mr. Taylor?" Claire asked their driver as they passed the sign to take the exit that led down into a wooded valley.

"Almost three years. Before working at the Farm, I was in Isla Nublar. J-SEC. You're unlikely to remember me though, Mrs. Dearing, and I only saw you for the first time five minutes ago."

Claire, and Owen as well, didn't remember Valentine, but that was no surprise, since Jurassic World had several thousand employees and the J-SEC between one and two hundred men at the time of the Fall. The park was so big that it was considered by some as a quasi-independent microstate, and its organization so complex that two employees from different sectors could never met, even if they worked on the island for several years. For Claire when she was director, Valentine must have been just a number in a spreadsheet, while for him she had been just a name and a face from public photos, both associated with the tower of the administrative building which overlooked Burroughs from its promontory, and whose orders were relayed by several intermediaries.

"So you were at Jurassic World when…?" The DPG founder started.

"During the Fall?" Valentine finished. "Yes. But before you asked me, I was not on the front lines. When the pterosaurs attacked Burroughs, I was evacuating the Cartago Valley and when that thing and the raptors slaughtered those defending Hammond Plaza and then invaded the Palace, I was affected at the ferry terminal. Had it been otherwise, I'm not sure I would be here today..."

The road flattened and on both side, a tall fence stood while ahead, a gate blocked their way.

Valentine stopped the minibus in front of it for a moment, while a security camera was directed towards them, and then the gate began to slide. As they passed it, he waved to thank his colleague in the adjoining sentry box, a security guard in navy blue pants and short-sleeved shirt.

At a crossroads a few meters further on, they went straight ahead, following an oak-lined driveway which led to what looked like a large house. Behind the oaks, two large meadows stretched out and beyond the one on their left, the group saw several farm buildings while on the opposite edge of the one on their right, several bungalows lined up.

Probably housing for the workers, built when the estate was a big farm, years before InGen bought it, Claire thought.

Her gaze then turned towards the hacienda at the end of the driveway. It was a beautiful building, built on two floors, with white walls, a tiled roof and organized around a courtyard, hidden from view by a wall covered with climbing plants.

In front of the door to the courtyard, built in the centre of the wall, a young Hispanic woman was waiting for them instead of Jocelyn Hodgson. Judging by the dress and the sandals she was wearing, Claire assumed she had to be someone from the Farm's administration, probably a secretary or even a simple intern.

Valentine stopped the minibus near the young woman, let them get off with their bags, and then drove off, following a track that passed near what looked exactly like a horse paddock and seemed to lead to the farm buildings they had seen, located more than a hundred meters from the hacienda.

"Hello," the young woman told them in English with a smile. "Mrs. Hodgson asked me to tell you that she'll be ready soon. Let's wait for her here."

But the sound of tree foliage being shaken and branches snapping, coming from beyond a thick grove to the left of the hacienda, caught the group's attention and Zia was the first to follow the direction of the noise, taking advantage of the fact that the employee had turned her back on them to chat with a colleague who had just exited the courtyard.

She found the entrance to a path that crossed the grove a little further and followed it, quickly arriving in front of a tall fence with thick steel bars and strong posts with wide bases. Behind, dense vegetation prevented her from seeing anything but having guessed what the paddock contained, the veterinarian quickened her pace while her excitement grew. There was another rustle, and to her left the grove ended to make way for the same horse paddock that Valentine had passed on the other side with the minibus when he drove away from the hacienda. However, said paddock housed animals different from horses and Zia would have realized that soon enough had her eyes been looking in the opposite direction. When the vegetation on the side of the tall fence thinned out, the vet stopped abruptly, speechless, and the rest of the group arrived soon after, joining her in her contemplation of the animal on the other side of the fence.

It was a dinosaur, with a dark brown body and white-striped legs, and it was gigantic, more than fourteen meters long and four meters high at the hips. With its slightly flattened beak, it plucked leaves from the lower branches of a tree and then chewed them while watching the group. Above its nostrils, a red-streaked blue skin flap swelled slightly and then deflated as it breathed.

Alexander and Franklin moved closer to Zia, leaving the couple further back by the wooden fence of the paddock behind them.

"A Shantungosaurus," she said in wonder. "I thought I would never see one alive."

"He's so huge," the IT technician said, impressed by the dinosaur's size.

"She," Owen corrected him. "It's a female."

The giant hadrosaur then stood up on her powerful hind legs and put her forelegs, shorter and frailer-looking than the hind legs, on the tree's trunk in order to reach the crown's leaves.

Once she had torn off several loads of leaves, she put her forelegs back on the ground and moved away from the fence and the group to instead head for the paddock's interior. Stepping out of their field of vision, the shantungosaur revealed a meadow and other dinosaurs.

There were two other female shantungosaurs, an adult and a juvenile, and a larger, scarred, ebony male with a silvery back, whose name was known to anyone who worked at Jurassic World as he was one of the park's star animals: Bucephalus, the fratricidal shantungosaur; a little more than half a dozen bipedal feathered dinosaurs with powerful legs, long necks which ended with a small head, brown and orange bodies and whose size varied among the individuals, with a few emu-sized juveniles and one of the adults being eight meters long and three meters high: Gallimimuses; and finally, the group discerned two ceratopsians at the opposite end of the paddock, where they were quenching their thirst at a waterhole. Said animals were between six and seven meters long, had a relatively short nasal horn similar in appearance to that of a rhinoceros, and their bodies were moss green with a cream-coloured belly as well as orange and cream markings on their curved frill, which had small forward-curved horns which made it look like a crown. Those were Sinoceratops and whereas Alexander had never seen them in the flesh as they had become part of the park's collection only after his departure, Owen and Claire had been able to see them on a few occasions, in the Jungle Cruise attraction.

While the couple and DPG members observed the herbivores, the young employee came to join them.

"Mrs. Hodgson will be soon ready. Please follow me."

Chapter Text

The group followed her and they returned to the hacienda. They walked through the courtyard door and immediately turned right, passing under the open veranda which surrounded the courtyard, whose central point was occupied by a fountain. They entered the building's northern wing and ended up in the hallway of the Farm's administration. Like in the rest of the house, the ceiling was high and the walls white. The employee led them to an open door a little further to their right, that of the conference room, empty for the moment.

The couple and the DPG trio sat around the table, on which several pens had been placed, and while waiting for the manager, they looked out the bay window, which overlooked another large paddock, which the hacienda dominated and where a herd consisting of several species of hadrosaurs, smaller than Shantungosaurus, was grazing. Among them, the group recognized the tubular crests of the Parasaurolophus, the high ones of the Corythosaurus which evoked the crest of a Corinthian helmet, as well as the axe-shaped ones of the Lambeosaurus.

They heard the tapping of heels on the hallway's tiles and the Farm's manager finally arrived, dressed in a beige shirt and canvas pants and wearing brown cowboy boots. She was carrying a folder and was followed by two men. The first was an African-American man in his forties with close-cropped hair and wearing a blue and black camo shirt, grey military pants and combat boots: Commander Joel Austin of the Asset Containment Unit and the Farm's security overseer. The second was a slightly older man, Costa Rican, tall with a ponytail and a thick, long moustache, and he was dressed in an olive-green T-shirt and shorts: Juan Baró, the head keeper.

Jocelyn Hodgson positioned herself at the end of the table, in order to have the whole group facing her. While she scanned them, Claire saw her stare at Owen a little longer than the other members of the group.

"Greetings ladies and gentlemen. Let me welcome you on behalf of the Farm's entire staff and I sincerely hope that our collaboration will go well," the manager began while her two colleagues were standing behind her. "I won't be here long however as I must prepare for the local councilors' and press' visit, planned for this afternoon, and I'll go straight to the point."

She put her folder on the table and opened it to take out some documents.

"First of all, you must sign these non-disclosure clauses. Mr. Merced from regional headquarters was adamant: He won't allow you into the facility until you sign."

Zia and Franklin exchanged a concerned look and the couple's eyes rolled slightly. They had expected InGen to bother them. Alexander reassured his two colleagues and signed his clause first. After sighing discreetly, Claire and Owen also signed and as their three older companions had complied, the two youngest of the group signed in turn. Then Commander Austin passed by each of them to take the clauses back and when he had collected them all, he gave them to Jocelyn.

"Good," she said in a tone of satisfaction. "I assume you watched the press conference held in San Jose earlier this month?"

"Yes," Claire and Alexander replied.

"In that case, I think it's useless to repeat what was said there. If you forgot things or have any doubts, feel free to ask questions during your tour or later. As agreed, you will help the keepers in their tasks. Juan will give you more details about those and your integration within the team."

Claire raised her pen to ask to speak.

"Uh excuse me Jocelyn?"

"Yes, Claire…," Jocelyn replied in a tone that the fallen park director perceived as almost disdainful.

"As I wrote in the email I sent you last month, Miss Rodriguez here trained as a paleovet at the San Diego Academy. Did you talk to Brice about her?"

Zia, as well as Franklin, looked at Claire in surprise.

"Yes, I did," Site D's manager replied in a slightly annoyed tone. "She'll start collaborating with him Monday. In the meantime, she'll be with you and the keepers."

"Understood," Claire said, "thank you."

"You will see during your stay that the animals are in good health and that their welfare is one of our priorities," Jocelyn assured them while looking more specifically at the DPG trio.

That may be true, but you still have to admit that a healthy animal has more monetary value than a malnourished and sick one, Owen thought.

Jocelyn noted his thoughtful expression and brushed a strand of hair on her forehead.

"Mr. Grady," she said with a voice oddly nervous for Claire's liking. "You seem thoughtful."

"Oh, it's nothing. I was just thinking about the upcoming tour."

"Okay. Since we were just talking about the specific assignments given to some of you, Elijah… Mr. Mills told me about the documentary you're making, Mr. Webb. Like I told him, you have our permission but we ask you in exchange to let us see the footage that you'll take."

"No problem ma'am," Alexander assured her, answering instead of his young colleague.

She pulled out other documents from the folder and passed them to the group.

"Here's maps of the facility, so you don't get lost."

Zia picked up her copy of the map, which was titled The Farm, Burgo Nuevo - Site D, and she looked at it. Since it was oriented along a north-south axis, she immediately noticed that the hacienda and the long driveway with the oak trees had been built along an east-west axis. The hacienda bordered two large paddocks, the one that contained the hadrosaurs and the one of the Shantungosaurus, Gallimimus and Sinoceratops. The herbivores' paddocks were in the central part of the estate, where most were organized around a loop, while the carnivores' paddocks were concentrated in the western part, with the majority within an enclosed rectangular space near which was written an annotation reading Predators' Camp. Between the eastern and southern boundaries and the central paddocks and buildings, forming some sort of a belt, Zia saw the limits of a number of fields, meadows and plantations as well as the outlines of a few greenhouses. She also saw the eastern gate and its crossroads, the bungalows north of the oaks driveway, the old farm south of the hacienda, and the site of a large building, The Ark, named that way because of its shape, similar to that of a ship.

Here and there within the limits of the estate, small annotations indicated the presence of small abandoned buildings and structures of agricultural nature.

As he looked out of the corner of his eye at the copy given to Owen, something caught Austin's attention. He leaned over the Raptor Whisperer's shoulder to check the map. Owen was surprised when the ACU Commander grabbed his copy and showed it to the manager.

"You photocopied the wrong map Jocelyn…," he whispered to her.

She took one, looked at it carefully and realized her mistake. She looked up at the group.

"Ah, excuse me," she said nervously. "Commander Austin has just told me that those maps are outdated. I'll take them back and you'll receive the updated ones later. Sorry."

She picked up each copy of the map, put them back in the folder, and checked the time on her phone.

"Jesus, time flies... I'm very sorry but I must leave. I'll leave you with Commander Austin and Juan. I wish you a pleasant stay with us. Claire, can I talk to you alone for a moment?"

"Sure."

The two women left the room and went to talk privately in the hallway. Being quite close to each other, Claire was struck by the smell of cigarettes that emanated from Jocelyn's mouth and looking closer at her face, she saw dark circles under her eyes. Poor thing, she probably had trouble sleeping because of her job's stress and the noise made sometimes by the dinosaurs during the night.

"It's about the councilors' and press' visit. Its purpose is to reassure them but your sudden appearance might not go unnoticed and kick up a fuss. You must be aware that the less media attention we get, the more the operation has a better chance of going well. I made arrangements with Juan so that you wouldn't run into their group."

"That's good Jocelyn because I don't want to be filmed or photographed, and I even asked Mr. Webb earlier to avoid taking footage of me. The only thing that matters to me is fulfilling the mission which Benjamin Lockwood gave me. Don't be afraid, I won't be under your feet, neither today nor the rest of our stay here. I will be like a ghost."

When Claire turned her half-mask towards Jocelyn, she saw the latter become tense and swallow, disturbed by the mask and what it hid as well as the visible piece of scar.

Claire could read the disgust, as well as fear in the manager's eyes, and for her, she had to be some kind of bird of ill omen. Like her, Claire was a young, beautiful and ambitious administrator who held a position of responsibility within InGen. But it just needed one disaster to turn her into a mauled pariah. Jocelyn must have thought that if another incident were to occur, this time not at Nublar but at the Farm, she would suffer a similar or worse fate.

"Claire, although you were an InGen employee and held a much more high-ranking position than the one I'm currently holding, let's avoid familiarities. If you have to address me in front of the others, it will be either Mrs. or Manager Hodgson."

"Okay. As you wish…"

"I'll let you go back to the meeting. I wish you a good stay with us, Claire."

Then Jocelyn turned around and walked away, heading for her office.

"Have a good day, Manager Hodgson," Claire muttered mockingly.

She returned to the conference room. While Commander Austin waited for her return with folded arms and silent, Juan, much friendlier than his colleague, was chatting with Owen. The Costa Rican's face was familiar to her unlike that of the commander, because she had seen him a few times at Jurassic World, and she knew that he probably became head keeper after the disaster and the resignation of Jonas Roth, his predecessor, who returned to the United Kingdom since and was probably helping Lord Clayton to prepare the reception of the animals that the aristocrat was going to buy for his park.

The meeting resumed with a short briefing from Commander Austin on the safety rules inside the facility and when Owen asked about Torres, he replied that the latter wouldn't be coming to the Farm until the end of the following week, which reassured the couple a little.

Once the soldier had finished, Juan led them out of the conference room, preferring to explain to them what he had to tell them throughout the tour of the facility that they were about to undertake.

Chapter Text

Before lunch break, Juan intended to show them a part of the facilities and leaving the hacienda by the courtyard door, they turned left, to take the large loop that Zia had seen on the map, the one around which the herbivores paddocks could be found. As they passed the hadrosaurs enclosure, which the employees dubbed the Cretaceous Plain and which also housed maiasauras, dryosaurs, pachycephalosaurs, the ceratopsian Achelousaurus, and the ankylosaurians Euoplocephalus and Panoplosaurus, the group noticed that the bamboo grove near the workers' bungalows and many of the northern fields had been abandoned and only the meadows were still cultivated, as their grass was being used to make hay for the animals. In the middle of one of the abandoned fields, the group noticed the presence of a grassy mound which the head keeper looked at with melancholy. They only learned later why there was a mound there.

As they followed the loop and looked at the various enclosures and their occupants, Alexander realized that the Farm had nothing in common with Jurassic World except the presence of dinosaurs. In Isla Nublar's park, everything was done to immerse the visitor in another world, with spectacular enclosures and backstage areas hidden by the scenery, while guaranteeing their comfort with pedestrian paths on which it was easy to walk, the Farm's enclosures were above all functional, relatively austere and containing the bare necessities for the animals, either waterholes or troughs to drink from and trees and bushes providing shelter against sun or rain. Some had night buildings, others did not, and the enclosures containing the most dangerous or aggressive animals generally had one or more smaller adjoining enclosures, which allowed them to isolate said animals when it was necessary to intervene inside the main enclosure. All the enclosures and the night buildings were connected by a network of dirt roads used by the service vehicles and which the group was taking, passing here and there beside ruts created by the passage of tractors and other heavy machinery, and they were watching their step in order to not trip over a rock.

About half an hour after their departure from the hacienda, they finished the loop, but instead of returning directly to the hacienda by the same path from which they had observed the Shantungosaurus and the other occupants of her paddock, they turned right at a fork, to head towards a large concrete and glass building: The Ark.

On their left, two paddocks were passed by, the first containing an Udanoceratops, unseen, and the second, which was a little larger, two Placerias and three Mussaurus, two adults and a young. Although the group did not see the former either, as they probably were in their night building or hidden behind a corner, they did however see the latter, which rested a few meters from them, lying on top of each other.

They were pale green animals with black lateral stripes, strangely proportioned, with a rather long neck, a small head and limbs which ended in clawed hands, and their appearance was not the only aspect that could arouse curiosity. There was also the difference in the mode of locomotion according to age, with bipedal adults but quadrupedal juveniles, a difference which was explained by a displacement of the center of gravity backwards following changes in the body's relative proportions during growth, and so the adults' forelimbs were more arms than legs. But this kind of sauropodomorph had mainly attracted attention because of its size.

For years, Mussaurus, whose name means "Mouse Lizard", had been thought to be a tiny dinosaur, no bigger than a rat, given that the only skeletons found were between eight and thirty-seven centimetres long, tail included. This small size had been the factor that encouraged InGen to recreate the species when it obtained its genetic material in the early 1990s, wishing to exhibit it first in an eventual area dedicated to small species at Jurassic Park then, after the incidents of that decade and the subsequent buyout of InGen by Masrani Global, at Jurassic World's Children's Zoo where it would have had its place with its juvenile-like appearance. However, the corporation's geneticists were somewhat surprised to see the cloned individuals exceed the length of thirty-seven centimetres and grow, grow... until reaching a length of six meters. They were certainly dwarfs compared to their distant cousins like Giraffatitan, Apatosaurus and Mamenchisaurus, but six meters was quite a respectable length for an early sauropodomorph. It was first believed that misidentification occurred or that the geneticists who created the individuals had used the DNA of larger species but a few years later, adult specimens of Mussaurus were described by palaeontologists and their estimated size being consistent with that of Jurassic World's individuals, InGen realized that there had been no mistake.

One of the prosauropods watched the group pass, blinking softly a few times, then went back to sleep. Juan pointed out to the group a long glass roof at the top of the Ark which, with its curved prow-like western end, helped give the building a shape reminiscent of some representations of Noah's Ark.

"It's the roof of a part of the old laboratory, built a little less than twenty years ago when Simon Masrani was preparing the Jurassic World project and was in negotiations with the government and the United Nations," Juan explained, speaking more to the DPG members than to the couple, who he knew were familiar with this part of InGen's history. "Since Site B labs on Isla Sorna could not be reused for reasons you can imagine, and since the San Diego plant was too far from Nublar, InGen decided to build a lab here, using as a new bridgehead in Costa Rica what was once a simple farm who provided Jurassic Park with plants, both modern and de-extinct. This is where some of the animals present at the park's opening were born, and some of the paddocks you've seen were used to study them before their shipping to Nublar. We'll see the interior after lunch."

They arrived in sight of the eastern entrance, located not far from the Ark's "stern", and stopped in a parking lot where several vehicles were parked, both the personal cars of some of the employees and some service vehicles. .

"We'll meet here every morning, in the old canteen, and at the end of the day, the minibus departs here. Exceptionally, Valentine drove you today because the usual driver had a hold-up. You will not be alone because those who don't have their accommodation at the hacienda or in the bungalows have one in town or in the surrounding area. There should be enough seats for everyone but be on time. If the minibus ever leaves without you, you can still use the taxis in town, but I doubt that the administration will agree to pay your expenses. I'll just pick up my lunch inside and we'll eat at the hacienda."

He came out of the building a few moments later with a backpack and they headed for the hacienda, passing by a place right next to the farm buildings that the employees had nicknamed the Coop because of the presence there of paddocks which contained Gallinaceous-like dinosaurs, two species of oviraptorosaurs: Oviraptor and Avimimus. After the Coop, they walked past the horse paddock they had seen twice earlier and found out that it contained not equines but ornithopods. Those were muscular and tall as Percherons, with a sandy-yellow skin speckled with light green while the head and limbs' extremities were black: Mantellisaurus. In Jurassic World, these animals pulled tramways through the streets of Burroughs, much like the draft horses in Disneylands.

As they left them behind, they saw keepers and security guards entering the courtyard, heading too for the canteen.

The latter was a spacious room, located in the western part of the hacienda, with large openings looking out on one side to the courtyard's veranda and on the other to the patio's upper level. As Claire had told the DPG trio, it only had a few microwaves and a kitchenette. There was a kitchen nearby, but it was mostly used in the evenings to cook dinner for those accommodated within the facility, and in a later discussion, the group learned that the current crisis had forced management to hire cooks only for evening meals.

The group reached the canteen before the keepers they had seen moments earlier, but the security guards had already taken their places at one of the tables. Among these they saw Valentine Taylor, who had meanwhile put on his uniform again, and nearby Commander Austin and several of the ACU troopers could be seen while Jocelyn Hodgson and several employees of the administration were already eating at another table.

The DPG members sat down at one table and the couple at another, in the canteen's opposite side to where Jocelyn was, and after talking with a colleague from the administration, Juan came to join the couple at their table soon after, sitting across from them while they took out their lunch.

It was then that keepers entered the canteen and saw their former colleague with their direct supervisor. One of them, a skinny thirtyish Japanese-Canadian, greeted him:

"Yo, Owen!"

Owen looked up and recognized Judd Matsumoto, whose lips were so big and thick they looked like a duck's beak, which had caused him to be the subject of jokes given that he was in charge of the hadrosaurs back in Nublar.

"Judd!"

Owen stood up and went to hug Judd and the three other keepers who were with him. There was Allison, a twenty-something blonde American; Alfredo, a tall, skinny Costa Rican man in his fifties with short hair and a goatee; and Pasqual, also Costa Rican but smaller and paunchier than his colleague, with white hair and a thin moustache.

Meanwhile, Claire remained seated, wondering what the keepers would think when they noticed that their controversial former boss is sitting there, wearing simple green T-shirt and pants, hiking boots, and eating a salad of rice and beans in a plastic box.

"Hello," she said shyly as they approached the table.

"Hello," they replied politely.

Claire didn't know if they would have said hello to her if Owen hadn't been there, but regardless, the four keepers sat down at their table with their lunch, with Alfredo to his left, Pasqual in front of him, Judd in in front of her and Allison on Pasqual's right.

Turning around, Pasqual saw the DPG members at their table and recognized Alexander. He turned to the couple.

"I see you brought the Muppet with you," he said quietly.

At the other end of the room, Jocelyn, who had just finished eating, got up and walked over to the table occupied by the security guards. Watching her, the couple and the keepers saw her ask Valentine Taylor for a lighter and she went out on the patio to smoke a cigarette.

"So, what do you think about Jocelyn?" Alfredo asked the couple.

"Hard to say," Owen replied, "she didn't stay with us for long."

"This is between us," Juan told him. "You can say whatever you want. Nobody's going to snitch about what you'll say, believe me."

Then Claire spoke up.

"Looks like me two years ago, only worse. It's like if the gods saw fit to parody me…"

Surprised, the keepers looked at her for a moment, before suddenly bursting into laughter.

"Yeah, that's not wrong...," Alfredo admitted.

But she didn't take offense and laughed with them. Owen laughed too and the atmosphere at the table relaxed.

"Haven't you met her before, Claire?" Allison asked her.

"Before the Fall? Yes, on a couple of occasions, but we barely spoke."

"Hey guys," Alexander's voice said suddenly. "It's been a long time, huh?"

Those with their backs facing him turned and watched him sit down with his lunch to Alfredo's left, in the vacant chair across from Allison. Zia and Franklin were following him with their belongings.

"Do you mind if we come to eat with you?" The DPG founder asked.

"No, not at all," Pasqual answered in a neutral tone.

The IT technician and the veterinarian sat at the end of the table, with the second sitting next to Allison. Since the latter only started working at Jurassic World shortly before its downfall, she and Alexander didn't know each other and he introduced himself. As they shook hands, Alfredo cleared his throat.

"It's true that we haven't seen you in a while, Alex," he said. "What did you do in the meantime?"

"Oh you know, odd jobs as a zookeeper here and there back in the States. Then I left that field and worked in a community college."

"Poor souls…," Judd sighed softly.

"And finally, I created the Dinosaur Protection Group," Alexander added proudly.

"Never heard of that…" Alfredo said.

The DPG members widened their eyes in surprise.

"Seriously?" Franklin said. "I don't want to brag but we're starting to make some noise online."

"In the United States perhaps," Alfredo said, "but we're pretty busy here, kid. And we have other concerns..."

Other keepers arrived in the canteen and also came to greet Owen before taking their places at the neighbouring tables.

"Do you know what they planned for us after the tour?" Zia asked moments later.

"You're going to feed the carnivores," Pasqual replied.

"Carnivores?" Franklin repeated. "Like the T. rex?"

They turned to him, and Claire and Zia both gave him looks that could have been described as embarrassed. Had he even skimmed the list of animals housed at the Farm, which Claire had received and forwarded to the DPG?

"We don't have a T. rex here, and never had one," Juan told him, "Roberta died before we could save her. May she rest in peace and may her hunts in dinosaurs' heaven be successful..."

"No T. rex. Good...," the IT technician said in a reassured tone.

"We still have a nice panoply of predators," Alfredo said. "You'll see them this afternoon... Be assured, they're not evil. They'll just be very hungry..."

"Yeah. I prefer herbivores. They are nicer."

Pasqual began to sneer.

"Herbivores, nicer? Oh, it's not guaranteed. You see Bucephalus, our Shantungosaurus bull? Well he killed half a dozen people during the Fall and he wasn't even euthanized. He's a star you understand, and stars are untouchable, especially when they can bring in a lot of money. InGen would have paid him a lawyer in other circumstances. And wait to meet Yuriko the therizinosaur. She's a real bitch..."

"Or worse, Caerbannog the Pegomastax," Allison said. "Little but incredibly nasty, with sharp canines and quills... And Dren, the female, was no better."

"In short, we have some particular specimens among the herbivores…," Juan said. "On the other hand, the acros are quite chill, easier to take care of than Roberta or the Indominus. They're a bit like really huge dogs... Though they would gladly eat you if they get a little peckish."

"I think that the guys who infiltrated Burroughs a few days after the fall noticed that," Judd added.

"Listen," Pasqual began, "when you break into a property which you know is guarded by a potentially dangerous dog, you shouldn't be surprised if it tries to bite your balls."

The keepers continued to chat with the group and Owen ended up inquiring about others of his former colleagues.

"Kate also quit?" He asked Allison.

"Yeah, Jeanie's disappearance was the last straw," Allison replied. "We've lost all our Stenonychosaurus… Martin was very sad when she left."

"Trust me, I know how she feels..."

He nodded and then turned to the head keeper.

"Juan, can I see Blue before we resume the tour?"

"Sure. Though I don't guarantee a happy reunion… And I will have to accompany you. You'll need someone to open the Predators Camp's gate for you... and to reassure Jocelyn and Austin."

"I'll go with you," Claire told Owen.

Having heard her, Juan nodded and when the three had finished eating, they left the table, told the DPG trio that they were coming back soon, and left the hacienda.

Chapter Text

Occupying an area of half a dozen hectares, the Predators' Camp was bounded by a six-meter-high chain-link fence topped with a coil of barbed wire and it was built right on part of the estate's western border, with the fence on the west side simply being part of the estate's large perimeter fence of the estate. In each of the corners of the camp, a watchtower stood and one entered inside that part of the facility through a gate.

Upon arriving, Juan took a bunch of keys from his shorts pocket and inserted the camp's key into the gate's lock. He partially opened it, just enough to let him and the couple, and closed it behind them once they were inside.

Owen and Claire looked around the camp. Between its fence and those of the paddocks there was a path which followed the inner perimeter, wide enough for a tractor and its trailer, and stretching straight ahead of them was another while on their right, there were small enclosures which, according to Juan, housed a Masiakasaurus and a couple of Lycaenops, but the vegetation inside was too dense to see the occupants right away.

The trio followed the path ahead of them for about fifty yards, skirting one of the sides of a large rectangular paddock before turning right to follow another path in the middle of a wide grassy strip, perpendicular to the one they just came from and which led to a dead end two hundred meters ahead. On either side of the grass strip, other rectangular paddocks were lined up and Owen looked at their fences, identical to those for large carnivorous mammals in zoos, with electrified wires for some in order to provide additional security.

Juan pointed to the dead-end.

"Blue's paddock is there."

Along the way, the head keeper approached one of the paddocks on their right, in order to check what its occupants were doing. While Owen continued straight, Claire also looked inside the paddock and saw three animals sunbathing in the middle of a sandy area. Nearly four meters long, they resembled crocodiles but their snouts were laterally flattened, giving the skull an appearance closer to that of carnivorous theropod dinosaurs instead of modern crocodilians. Their backs were dark bronze, with faded blackish blotches and stripes of varying width along the spine, while their bellies were dull yellow, and the sides, which had a greenish-yellow colour, had dark blotches arranged in oblique stripes.

"Baurusuchus," Juan said. "A cousin of crocodiles with the head of a dinosaur and a behaviour halfway between that of a Komodo Dragon and a hyena's. We have to keep an eye on them, they like to dig..."

Claire, who remembered having seeing these animals at Nublar in the Mesa near the Discovery Center where they lived in a pit that mimicked an arid environment, indeed saw several holes here and there in the paddock. One of the predators got up to walk a little and she noticed that its legs were not semi-bent like those of modern crocodiles but straight.

Claire and the head keeper left, catching up with Owen who had almost reached Blue's paddock.

It was the largest in the camp, the size of a soccer field, and the fence around it was identical to the one around the camp. The couple heard a faint electric hum along the fence and between it and them was another fence, low and made of wood. They had seen other of these low fences around the paddocks with the tallest fences, which usually housed the most dangerous animals and had electrified wires. The couple knew that they acted as railings and encouraged employees to keep their distance with those paddocks, although one could easily cross these railings by hopping over them or by stooping to pass between their posts.

Behind the wire mesh, they saw clusters of ferns tall as an adult man. Owen heard some sort of nasal growl, then footsteps. A long silence ensued.

"I can't see anything," Claire finally whispered.

They waited. A few seconds passed. Flies buzzed around them. Claire still saw nothing. Owen patted her shoulder and pointed her something.

Amidst the ferns, Claire saw an elongated and relatively narrow bare snout and then realized that the raptor had grown. In her memories, Blue's head just reached her chest while it was now at the same height as Owen's eyes. If Claire and the Achillobator were facing each other, then the predator would look down on her. Blue was motionless, mostly hidden by the fronds, and her large black eyes were fixed on the trio.

"There you are," Owen said softly."

He moved forward slowly, stopping only at the railing.

"Hey gorgeous, did you miss me?" he asked her.

But there was no form of response from the Achillobator. She continued to stare them straight in the eyes without making a sound, in a manner very reminiscent of birds of prey. She ended up looking away from the humans and her snout disappeared among the ferns.

"Come on, you know me Blue," her former keeper, worried by this behaviour, "look at me."

She stood like that for a moment, hidden from their sight. Finally, she snorted and walked away from the fence and the trio. Her long tail covered with grey-blue feathers emerged from the ferns for a moment but soon disappeared and the sound of her delicate footsteps gradually faded away.

Owen sighed and bowed his head. Juan put a hand on his shoulder.

"Sorry Owen. I hoped that it would turn out differently with you. With her it's simple, either she sulk, either she attacks us..."

"It's alright. She needs time."

"Maybe she'll show up at the feeding this afternoon," the head keeper hoped.

The former head of IBRIS program nodded and slowly turned away from the paddock, following Juan towards the exit with Claire walking to his right. Seeing her boyfriend's eyes riveted on the grass, she put her hand on his back and rubbed him gently, trying to distract him from the reunion's disappointment.

They returned to the canteen, where the DPG trio was waiting for them, and resumed their tour shortly after one o'clock. This time, the head keeper took them to the southern part of the estate and they visited the farm itself and the neighbouring greenhouses and wire-meshed growing tunnels. In several of them, InGen still cultivated horsetails, grasses, mosses, pawpaw and cycads, which many herbivores were fond of, but Juan told the members of the DPG that in addition to these species and the bamboos that they had seen at the start of the tour, more plant taxa had been cultivated at the Farm: Various ferns, including Serenna veriformans, a de-extinct species; ornamental plants such as the West Indian lilac; many flowers, including several Heliconia species… Beyond the greenhouses and growing tunnels, they saw other fields as well as plantations of tropical and subtropical conifers, ginkgoes and palm trees.

Once they had toured the cultures production area, they headed for the Ark. The group was surprised to see a big domestic cat running across the alley in front of them and while Juan explained to them that it was the farm's cat, they saw two keepers running towards the Ark's eastern entrance. They were about the same age, around fifty, and whereas one of them was a tall, mustachioed man with curly brown hair, the other was a shorter man with androgynous features and mid-length black hair. Owen recognized them: Horatio and Vinny, a pair of British expats. Juan asked them what was going on.

"We've got two velociraptors on the loose. They're still in the building," they replied.

Hearing that, Franklin froze and his face had a shocked expression.

Chapter Text

Juan turned to the group and seeing that only the DPG IT technician showed signs of fear, an idea germinated in his mind and he exchanged a knowing look with the couple as well as Zia and Alexander, as the four were much calmer.

"Okay, this is an unusual situation," he declared in a rather serious tone, "but I ask you to keep your calm and do whatever I say. OK?"

They nodded, Franklin included, but he did so with more nervousness than the others.

"Alright," Juan said, "follow me."

Under the young man's stunned gaze, his four companions agreed to follow the head keeper towards the building. Reluctantly, he followed on their heels.

"Shouldn't we head for a bunker or something?" he asked Juan.

"The thing is, we don't have a bunker here. We could go to the hacienda but the raptors are smart. They would find a way to get inside... We have to make sure they don't leave the building."

They entered the Ark, where a few keepers were gathered near the entrance of a hall to the left of the newcomers, the old canteen mentioned by Juan earlier. There was Allison and Pasqual, but also Marisol, a portly fifty-something Costa Rican with short brown hair.

From a nearby hallway, one of the ACU men, a dark-haired man in his thirties with a stubble, came out, radio in hand. He hailed the keepers:

"Should I call the guys for reinforcements or not?" he asked.

"Just tell them to watch every entry and exit, just in case," Allison replied. "We can handle them alone. They're only velociraptors after all. They're too delicate for brutes like you."

"Hey! You wouldn't be showing off that much had it been bigger creatures!"

The ACU trooper returned to the hallway he had come from and Juan joined his colleagues. He whispered something to them, and then invited the group to come closer. Allison turned to him.

"We locked them in the kitchen, but I need someone brave to help me capture them and bring them back to the kennel."

"I'm in," Owen offered.

Juan nodded approvingly and said:

"Who better than the former head of the IBRIS program to help you catch velociraptors, Allison? I'll go with you. While two will wrangle one of them, the third will distract the other."

Franklin leaned into Zia's ear and whispered:

"But they're crazy! They should let the ACU guys do this."

But she only answered with a nod. Trembling, he took a look into the old canteen. Franklin saw several cupboards and lockers there, which most likely contained the keepers' usual equipment, a few tables against the walls, a desk in a corner as well as, in the centre of the room, a circle of about fifteen chairs. On the other end, Alfredo stood against the kitchen door, looking impassively through the porthole while his body showed no noticeable signs of stress. Not even a shiver… Franklin wondered how he was doing, because from the little knowledge of velociraptors he had, he knew they were powerful and fast animals which could kill a grown man in the blink of an eye and even open doors with their hands or their jaws. Thinking that his companions and the keepers had a strange behaviour, the IT technician came to wonder if there wasn't something fishy.

The ACU trooper then returned to the keepers.

"Hodgson just called me. She wants those raptors back in their cages before the councilors' arrival. Or shit's going to hit the fan!"

"And when do the councillors arrive?" Vinny asked him.

"In ten minutes."

"Shit," Juan swore. "Well, we have to use the hard way. Oscar, I need two of your ear pieces."

Oscar nodded and ran to the ACU headquarters, located at the other end of the building, and Horatio and Vinny followed him. The others opened the cupboards in the old canteen to take out pairs of leather gloves, visors and a sheet. Pasqual even took the lid of a large bin to put it with the rest of the gear they had taken out.

Oscar and the two British keepers returned soon after with not only the requested earpieces but also stabproof vests and protections for limbs.

"Put that on though," Oscar urged them, speaking about the protective equipment. "If you ever get hurt, Austin and Mrs. Hodgson are going to bawl me out, so be careful."

"They'll need eyes to help them spot the raptors," Juan said. "Marisol, take the group and go to the windows by the delivery area."

He gave her one of the earpieces and the keeper asked Claire, Alexander, Zia and Franklin to follow her out of the building.

"Which ones escaped?" Owen asked Allison as they and Juan put on the protective gear, including the leather gloves and the visors.

"Randy and Kim."

"I remember them. Escape masters and natural thieves."

"We put them in the kennel after a fight with the other three, but that lousy Pedro didn't closed their cages correctly," she grumbled. "Oscar must have made one hell of a face when he saw them coming here."

"Let's hope they didn't trash the kitchen too much," the head keeper said.

Once they were ready, they headed for Alfredo and the kitchen door with all the gear. Owen had the sheet, Juan carried the muzzles and two hoods in a small bag, and Allison led the way because she was the one who had the bin's lid, holding it by the handle in front of her body like a shield, and she was ready to use it to fend off the predators if they tried to get out while she and the two men entered.

Behind, Pasqual, Horatio and Vinny were ready to receive the animals, waiting with transport cages, and with a nod, Juan indicated to Alfredo that they were ready and he opened the door, letting the trio enter quickly. He closed behind them and they looked around the kitchen before moving forward in search of the velociraptors. Looking to their left, above a row of shelves, Owen saw the faces of Claire, the DPG members, and Marisol glued to the small and rectangular windows.

Since those were on the upper part of the wall, the five stood in the back of a pick-up that Marisol had parked alongside the wall. They were peering out the best they could at the aisles as well as the three rows of low cabinets and work surfaces in the centre of the room.
While Owen and Allison each walked down a different aisle, he in the one between the wall and the first row and she between the latter and the second row, Franklin frantically searched for the raptors, fearing to see them suddenly appear and pounce on the unarmed keepers to tear them to pieces. But apart from them, the kitchen seemed quite deserted and from what they saw, it didn't appear to be trashed and the only unprotected foods they saw were fruits and vegetables, uninteresting for the velociraptors, and the meat was stored in closed large refrigerators.

"We have the whole kitchen on sight, but I don't see any raptors," Franklin observed. "They're young?"

"No, they're adults," Marisol answered.

But as Juan made his way down the second aisle, the same one his colleague had entered, Franklin saw, out of the corner of his eye, an animal moving stealthily, finishing up the aisle in the opposite direction to that of the chief keeper and turn to disappear immediately behind the corner of a cabinet at the end of the third row. Invisible until then since it had advanced very close to the furniture of the second row, out of their field of vision, the animal had been too fast for the IT technician for him to see it clearly but he had noticed a bipedal silhouette, a small size of about two meters in length and fifty to sixty centimetres in height, and a body covered with feathers.

"Did you see something?" The keeper asked.

"There was… some kind of bird…" Franklin replied hesitantly.

"Describe this bird."

"It had a long tail, a narrow head and a dark brown back."

"It's Randy."

"Randy?"

"The male."

The male?

Turning his head sideways, Franklin noticed that his companions were looking at him with a somewhat amused air and he then realized that he had been bamboozled.

"Wait, it wasn't a Velociraptor. That thing was barely bigger than a turkey. You're kidding, aren't you? All this mess for clawed turkeys..."

Meanwhile, Marisol had just informed Juan about Randy's location, using her headset's microphone.

"Have some respect, young man!" Marisol told the IT technician. "They can send you to the hospital if you don't handle them properly."

Claire then turned to him and said:

"Tell me, wouldn't you be one of those still stuck at the end of the last century or the early 2000s, when the neoraptors were called velociraptors?"

"Uh ..."

He grew ashamed of his confusion and saw Alexander smirking while Zia was giggling.

"You could have warned me," he whispered reproachfully. "I look like a huge dimwit now. Thanks guys!"

In a more audible voice, he added:

"It's also the fault of the people at HQ! When talking about man-eating raptors, they used the word Velociraptor, not Neoraptor."

"We're lucky that Wu classified them as a new taxon before the opening of Jurassic World," Zia said, "because the previous reports as well as Spielberg's films had already caused quite a bit of confusion ..."

The three DPG members looked back into the kitchen, where Allison retraced her steps, heading for the cabinet behind which Randy had disappeared.

Juan passed her on the way and joined Owen at the other end of the kitchen. They made their way to the third row as well, but when they reached the aisle between it and the second row, Juan pointed to it and Owen moved there with the sheet. The head keeper gently put his small bag on top of a worktop and took out a muzzle and a hood, similar to those used in falconry. He grabbed the muzzle, looked at Owen, who nodded, then at Allison, who had stopped just before the corner of the opposite end of the third row, ready to turn. She nodded as well and only with his hand, Juan counted down, starting at five. When the countdown reached zero, Allison finally skirted the cabinet and did come across a male Velociraptor.
Those could be distinguished from females by their dark brown and black-streaked plumage, their red head crown, and the presence of a black stripe through the eyes, reminiscent to Zorro's mask for some people.
Randy had turned around, and while looking at her with his head tilted sideways, he was purring very softly.

"Okay Randy. Recess is over. It's time to get back to your cage," the keeper told him calmly.

She walked slowly towards him but he spread his arms, stuck out his chest, stretched his neck and directed his long, narrow bluish snout towards Allison's throat. His jaws half-opened, letting out an irritated hiss.

"Randy!" She scolded, positioning the bin's lid towards the animal, ready to push him back if he ever decided to pounce on her.

She didn't let herself be intimidated and stepped forward. The velociraptor continued to hiss, before suddenly turning around and scampering towards the wide open door at the other end of the aisle, that of an adjoining room which served as a storage area and where the healers suspected Kim to be, hidden in the dark. It was then that Juan appeared in his path and slammed the door. Randy swivelled swiftly, snapping his jaws at him and heading for the wall with the windows, but he let out a cry of surprise when a sheet landed on him, stopping him dead in his tracks and covering his entire body but the tip of the tail. In the heat of the moment, the sheet bothered him a lot, but strangely, the darkness it provided calmed him down.
Owen and Juan rushed on the animal. While Owen held him on the spot, placing his hands on his legs to prevent him from kicking, the head keeper lifted the sheet a little to clear the velociraptor's head. In a split second, Randy projected his snout towards the keeper's face but the latter grabbed his neck, stopping the snout a few centimetres from his visor, and he moved it away from his head.

As Juan muzzled the predator, being careful not to cover his nostrils, and also put his hood on, the keepers heard something scratching against the storage room's door and the head keeper looked up in its direction, knowing that Kim was probably trying to jump on the door handle and lean on it long enough to open it. He noticed that instead of watching it, Allison was looking at them.

"The door!" He shouted.

But before she could block it, the handle lowered and the door swung open from the inside, letting a velociraptor with a beige plumage and a pale grey head crown emerge from the dark all claws out. Like the male, her plumage was streaked with black, her throat white, and her chest and underside pale whitish pink.
Kim jumped up on the nearest counter and hissed at the keepers, like if she was telling them to release Randy, and her eyes fixed Allison's, then nearly at the same level and only a few steps away from her.

Seeing that Kim seemed to be about to pounce on her, Owen turned to Juan:

"Help her distract her! I can handle him."

Blinded by the hood, Randy had calmed down enough for Owen to put a hand under the sheet and grab his legs with it. Juan pulled back the sheet, revealing the male Velociraptor, and Owen picked him up, keeping the animal's body against his chest by pressing his arms against him with his other hand, while maintaining Randy's legs tucked under his body.

He carried him like this to the kitchen's entrance and while Juan and Allison were distracting Kim, Alfredo opened the door and Randy was carefully taken from Owen's arms and put in a transport cage, placed on a cart.

Owen returned inside the kitchen to help the other two keepers and they chased Kim through the kitchen as she leapt from one row to another, knocking over various utensils and bags of food on her way, and even climbed the shelves while uttering small high-pitched mocking-like calls.

"Get down right now, you feathered monkey!" Juan grumbled in Spanish at one point while Kim watched him from the top of a shelf.

After much effort, they managed to capture her too, repeating the operation done with Randy, and Marisol brought Claire and the DPG members back inside.

While the keepers pushed the carts with the cages in the austere hallways of the Ark, heading for an elevator near the ACU headquarters, Oscar, who had gone out to inform his comrades that the situation was under control, ran to them.

"Hodgson and the councillors are heading for the building!" He warned them.

Pasqual shrugged.

"Why so much panic, Oscar?"

"What if they see you?"

"Meh, we'll say we took them for a walk and we're bringing them back to the kennel," Alfredo said.

"Take them for a walk? But we have no leashes! Our story doesn't hold up," Vinny pointed out jokingly.

"But Hodgson said..." the ACU soldier resumed.

"That she wanted those raptors in their cages before the mayor's arrival? We know, and that's easier said than done!" Marisol cut him off. "It took the time it needed."

Realizing that it was highly likely that they would meet the mayor and the councillors if they stayed in the Ark, Claire then informed Juan about what Jocelyn had told her back in the hacienda's hallway.

"Ah, indeed," the head keeper said after listening to her. "No worries, we'll come out the other side and return here later."

"Reminds me of that time when they found an Avimimus in the hacienda's courtyard," Pasqual remembered as they entered the elevator. "Isn't it Alfredo?"

"Yeah...," his colleague muttered in an annoyed tone, as he had some responsibility in the animal's escape.

"It was being chased by the cat," the white-haired keeper continued. "Unless it was the other way around? Anyway, they were running in circles around the fountain. It was really funny! To say that some at the hacienda wanted to catch it and cook it."

"What, the cat?" Alexander asked as the elevator doors closed.

"No, the Avimimus!"

"We're lucky to have the tracking implants and the satellite," Juan said. "We wouldn't have found some of them otherwise..."

After it descended one level as requested, the elevator opened its doors and let the group and the keepers exit with the carts. They separated just outside, with the latter taking a double door, that of the kennel.

Juan and the group heard Pasqual continue their conversation.

"Avimimus cooked in broth, I wonder what it tastes like..."

Chapter Text

They took to their left, exiting the building through an emergency exit and then taking an alley which made them pass between several small aviaries and further ahead, two domes rose above the dense vegetation and housed the largest pterosaurs.

A few minutes later, they left this sector dedicated to flying animals and arrived at the entrance to the Predators' Camp, which they also visited, more thoroughly than the couple earlier. Owen and Claire tried to see Blue in her paddock, in vain.

When they came out of the camp, the group saw that a pickup was waiting for them and Juan told them that they were going to drive to the mining station and the railway line, in order to, among other things, avoid meeting the press and councillors' group guided by Jocelyn Hodgson. The head keeper found the keys on the ignition and the group climbed in the back, with the couple sitting on one side and the DPG members on the other.

Skirting the aviaries' area and passing again in front of the Mussaurus' paddock as well as the car park by the old canteen, they followed a gentle slope and the path made them pass between the buildings of the old farm and a curtain of trees which more or less concealing an octagonal enclosure delimited by concrete walls six meters high, the observation enclosure sometimes used by the veterinary team.

They arrived in sight of a fleet of transport trucks and a few crane trucks, parked in a meadow. Driving past it, the pickup passed first in front of the gate of the Ark's warehouse, then in front of the entrance to the driveway that led to the ACU garage, located under the Prow, on the lowest level. Shortly after, they passed through the estate's western gate and headed north, driving along a forest road.

"We're almost there," Juan announced more than seven kilometres later, as the pickup came within sight of a bridge.

They took an exit on their right and descended into a small valley, crossed in its center by a railroad. They followed the latter in the direction of the upstream and two hundred and fifty meters further, a group of wood and sheet metal buildings appeared. Just before this cluster, the track split in two, to describe a large loop that surrounded this century-old station as well as part of the surrounding plot. Not far away, at the very end of the valley, they saw the sealed-off entrance of a mine, dug into the side of the mountain which overlooked the area.

Approaching the station, the group discerned the silhouette of a guard, seated inside a wooden shed which acted as a sentry box. Juan honked his horn, startling the guard and recognizing the pickup and its driver, he didn't move and just waved at them.

As they circled the station, the group did see a few wagons parked near one of the warehouses, but the train which would carry the bulk of the animals was nowhere to be seen.

"The train isn't here?" Franklin asked.

"It's coming on Monday," the head keeper replied. "They still had some maintenance work to do on it."

They turned around, returned by the bridge and took it, passing over the railway. Further ahead, they turned left, as the right junction led to the entrance of the Pillar of Heaven Nature Reserve, and soon enough, they passed over a river and its rocky bed, the Celeste. Shortly after, they turned left again and the railroad reappeared under the bridge they were taking. Looking to the right of the pickup, the couple and the DPG trio noticed that after stretching westward for three kilometers, the track turned southward by that bridge and then continued more or less in a straight line through jungle, plantations and pastures, straight towards the gorges. Following a cliff road they then drove along the eastern side of the track and at one point they passed through a short tunnel and as they descended towards the track, Juan was asked if the tunnel they had just passed through was dug under another railway line. He replied affirmatively, explaining that once, a project aimed to connect Burgo Nuevo's mining station to San Rámon and even San José by rail, but that it had been abandoned due to a combination of unfavourable economic conditions and an accident that occurred fairly early on during the construction of this new railway, something about a viaduct which collapsed before it was even finished. Only two kilometres of track had been laid and without the local farmers' goats, it would have already disappeared under dense vegetation.

After driving for a while just beside the rail, they steered west to climb higher and a few minutes later they were back at the western gate of InGen's Site D. It was already mid-afternoon and they ended their tour with the Ark, parking right next to the warehouse entrance.

In addition to the supplies needed to keep Site D running smoothly, there were also shelves full of Jurassic World merchandise boxes, small and medium sized crates and cages, and even a few stuffed animals, including a Styracosaurus. The latter, a brick-red male, stood on a cart held in place by wedges.

"Ah, Iiníí…" the head keeper said. "I would advise against touching him. Some people did things on him… They were inspired by some video game about a white-haired monster hunter."

They then moved on to the other sections of the building: The vivarium, the aquatic animals tanks, the two-level kennel, the ACU headquarters and security offices and the helipad just above, the disused laboratory and its hatchery very reminiscent of Site B's in Isla Sorna, the nursery which had still recently been used, the veterinary premises...

"Because of that little incident with the velociraptors, we have to shorten the tour if we don't want to be behind schedule," Juan told the group as they headed for the door near the old canteen. "But the only part left was the large carnivores paddocks, at the very back of the estate, and their feeding is planned for soon. I therefore invite you to come and help us prepare it."

As they left the building, they turned to their right as if to go towards the parking lot and the old canteen's unloading area, where Marisol had taken Claire and the DPG trio earlier. Carried by the wind, an acrid odour reached the group's nostrils and soon enough, they discovered a pile of plastic bags full of meat, pieces of carcasses and corpses of sheep, goats and even calves, piled up on a lawn next to the car park. Not far away, a tractor with a trailer and a Jurassic World van were parked and three keepers were waiting for the group next to these vehicles. Allison, Marisol and a middle-aged man of average build with a clean-shaven face and short brown hair, whom they had seen earlier in the hacienda's canteen and whom Owen knew: Mark, a German who tended to medium-sized carnivores back on Isla Nublar.

As they got closer, the group also noticed the presence of a cow's lifeless body a few feet from the cadaveric heap, and Franklin suppressed a retch.

"That's horrible..."

"When one of their animals dies, the farmers in the area gladly call the Farm, since giving the corpse to us is much cheaper than summoning the butcher, while the slaughterhouses, butchers and supermarkets are very happy that we take some of their leftovers and unsold pieces," the head keeper explained. "For InGen, it's more economical than dealing with a wholesaler and in this period, you can imagine that there are no small savings."

Having seen Claire take off her silicone glove a few moments earlier, Juan said:

"I exempt you from the activity, Claire. It would be a shame to dirty or even damage your prosthesis, I guess it must have cost a fortune. Let's see if Franklin is okay with handing you his camera so you can take whatever footage they might need while he gets his hands dirty instead of you."

"Are you sure you want him near the meat?" She asked him in a low voice. "He seems very nauseous to me… The smell is unpleasant, I agree, but I faced worse."

Walking by her side, Owen looked at the prosthesis and then at the head keeper, also fearing that she would degrade it during the activity.

Claire had been lucky that her father, Tobias, had helped her finance her prosthesis, as he couldn't support the thought of having his daughter being crippled and one-armed for the rest of her life while her disfigurement was horrible enough. If that hadn't been the case, she would have ended up with a mediocre prosthesis that could only perform much more limited functions than the one she had.

Owen had only met Tobias Dearing once, when she was in the hospital in Nicoya, and with his appearance and attitude, he had evoked the unlikely mix between Ron Howard and Tywin Lannister. Once greatly proud of his daughter, Tobias was uncertain about what to think of her due to the premature end of her professional career as well as the crimes she was accused of and the death, during the fall of Isla Nublar, of one of his wife's grandsons, whom he also considered his own and greatly appreciated, had not helped, and once Claire had recovered, he had distanced himself from her, like many of her relatives and former colleagues and friends.

Owen disliked Tobias, mainly for ideological reasons, as he was an executive in a pharmaceutical corporation, the kind of people the keeper usually despised and he had even thought that he wouldn't have been out of place among InGen's board of directors. Tobias had returned him that dislike, for also ideological motives and he was disappointed that his daughter's boyfriend was just a simple mountain man from the Sierra Nevada, a barbarian in his eyes, but for some strange reason, Tobias had implied to the keeper that he trusted him in taking care of his daughter.

"I've been a fop for too long, Juan. I want to get my hands dirty as you say. Just give me something to protect it. Do you have a spare trash bag or something like this?"

"Better, veterinary gloves long enough to cover your whole arm. We'll get you some in a minute."

"Thanks."

They joined the three keepers and they were told what to do. At the end of the afternoon, the keepers had to feed the predators, including those in the camp, and the group's task was to help Juan and Marisol collect the meat intended mainly for the larger species. For this, they had to put in the tractor's trailer a number of carcasses and bits. Meanwhile, Allison and Mark were going to prepare the meal of the smaller predators as well as those of the baryonyxes, Kaprosuchus, dilophosaurs and the omnivorous synapsid Estemmenosuchus, as these four rather large species were never fed with livestock or rarely but rather with fish, poultry, rabbits and rats.

"I need two of you in the trailer to grab the pieces we'll hand them and spread them, two with Marisol to choose from the pile, and finally one to help me cut up this cow," Juan told the group. "Split up."

Owen walked over to the cow, tying his hair in a bun for convenience; Claire to the trailer; Alexander, who didn't want to go with her, chose by default to help Marisol; while Franklin was hesitant. On the one hand, he too was reluctant to be paired up with Claire, but on the other, the heap's stench was unbearable to him. He turned to Zia but before he could speak to her, she chose her task:

"I'm going with her," she said.

He watched in surprise as she headed to the trailer and then he turned back to the pile.

"Oh fuck…," he muttered in disgust, knowing that they were going to ask him to help them once he got the footage.

Shortly after, the five were given pairs of gloves suitable for their tasks. Owen had a pair of thick gloves, the DPG trio latex gloves, and Claire another of these for her left hand and for her right arm, a long transparent glove, similar to those used by veterinarians when they had to insert an arm inside a large animal for insemination or prostate examination operations. She put it on, pulling it up to her shoulder, and she and Zia climbed onto the tractor's trailer.

While Juan held one of the cow's legs outstretched and Owen struck it with the axe to separate it from the body, Alexander and Marisol picked up one of the sheep and brought it to the trailer.

"Step back ladies!" The keeper said to Claire to Zia, then at the edge.

They complied and the body was tossed the next moment into the trailer. Listening to the instructions they were given, they then moved it to the opposite end of the trailer and waited for the next one.

"Looks like I have to thank you for pulling the strings with Mrs. Hodgson," the veterinarian said to the fallen park director while Franklin filmed the meat's preparation from a good distance.

"Don't claim victory just yet. It is to be hoped that she has not forgotten and that things go well between you and Mr. Le Goff. And it was the least I could do. After all, I brought chaos into the lives of most people here."

A second sheep was tossed into the trailer and they put it next to the other.

"I'll be honest and not take you for an idiot by admitting that I don't really like you," Zia confessed, "but I'm not ungrateful and I had to say thank you."

Claire nodded.

"I'm not asking you, Franklin and Alexander, to like me. I'm just asking for some respect."

A goat landed in the trailer and since it was not very heavy, Claire picked it up and brought it alone near the sheep.

"Understandable," Zia said. "Know that you have at least my respect. Theme park directors who can touch corpses without flinching are rare."

"Let's just say that's not the most disgusting thing I've done."

The vet's eyes widened slightly in surprise.

"I don't want to be indiscreet," she began a little more hesitantly, "but what was more disgusting for you than this?"

Claire looked her in the eyes.

"Can I tell you a secret?" she asked.

"Yes," Zia replied with a nod. "My lips are sealed."

"The most disgusting thing I've done... is snogging a fat beer-drunk sea lion."

A look of surprise appeared on the younger woman's face but before she could say anything, Owen joined the trailer. Carrying one of the cow's legs on his shoulder like a club, the two women thought he looked like a Cro-Magnon returning from a hunt.

"You kissed Steven Seagal?" He asked his girlfriend, adopting a falsely surprised and shocked tone. "Oh, the horror!"

"Don't be a fool, Owen," Claire said. "I've already told you this story and even shown the pictures."

He gave them the severed leg and they put it at the back of the trailer.

"A sea lion drunk on beer?" Zia repeated. "How? You're serious?"

"It happened one summer some fifteen years ago. A friend had invited me to spend a holiday at her house. She and her colleagues had organized a party at their workplace, which happened to be an oceanarium. It was a boozy evening and we started making bets. I lost one and had to kiss Andre, a seven hundred pound male California sea lion. I was drunk and so was he. He had knocked back several bottles without our knowledge. That bastard was smart and had developed bad habits with his former trainer. I stank so much for the rest of the evening and the following days that I was nicknamed Herring mouth."

As Zia laughed softly, they saw Mark, Allison, and a third keeper coming out of the kitchen, carrying together a two-meter-long Arapaima to put it in the back of the van.

A few minutes passed and the trailer was gradually filled with more goats and sheep, the carcass pieces designated by Marisol and brought by Alexander to Zia, those cut from the cow, and even a calf while buckets of rats, others of trout and tilapia, another Arapaima as well as chickens and rabbits were brought to the van.

But Franklin was still filming and Claire noticed that.

"Will he have enough battery left to last until the end of the day?" she asked Zia.

The vet sighed and hailed her colleague:

"Franklin! You've got enough footage. Come and help us!"

Reluctantly, he stuffed his camera into his bag, put on the latex gloves, and approached the pile, which Alexander and Allison were rummaging through, opening the bags of unsold material in search of prime bits for the predators. The DPG founders showed him several pieces of carcasses that they had to bring to the trailer or the van.

Grimacing at the unbearable stench that prevailed, the IT technician complied.

"I want to puke…," he moaned.

Mark heard him.

"Avoid doing it on the meat. Otherwise we'll have to throw you into the paddock instead, poppet," he said while he, Owen, Juan and Marisol were carrying a beef carcass towards the second van someone parked there in the meantime.

Chasing with his hand some of the pestering flies, he picked up one of the pieces and brought it to the trailer, handing it to Claire while Alexander gave the pieces he had to Zia.

When he returned to the pile, he discovered with horror a decapitated calf's head between two bags.

"Is that normal?" He asked Allison in a worried tone.

"It happens. We'll take it."

But seeing that the IT technician was slow to grab it, Owen arrived, took it and turned to the trailer.

"Claire! Catch!"

Waiting to be given another piece, she looked up and saw him throw the calf's head in her direction.

When she caught it mid-air, she surprised the keepers and some applauded, impressed.

"I see you trained her well," Marisol pointed out to Owen jokingly. "The Claire from two years ago would have never have done that."

"You don't give me a rat?" Claire asked her boyfriend, looking at the bucket of rats in the back of the first van. "And where's your clicker?" She added, making the keepers laugh.

"Although you are as fierce as them, you are not a raptor, Claire!" He replied.

She turned to Zia.

"We almost became like Mike and Kathryn, a couple of trainers and former colleagues from Ocean World in Florida," she told her. "Due to professional tics, they adopted a certain fetishism..."

While watching Franklin, the veterinarian saw Mark uncover a cow foetus, hidden until then within the heap, and approach the DPG IT technician with it. Alexander noticed this too, but before he could warn Franklin, Mark mimicked a mooing, making the young man turn around. The latter almost had a heart attack when he ended up face to face with the closed eyes and the naked body of the stillborn calf and the German, satisfied, began to laugh loudly and uncontrollably, while Alexander looked at him askance, thinking his joke was of bad taste. Mark's hysterical laughter was peculiar, sounding like that of a hyena and unpleasant to the ears of Franklin and several others. He handed him the foetus.

"Take it," he told him while still chuckling.

"Uh, no thanks..."

"Take it…" the German insisted.

Franklin looked at the other keepers.

"What do I do with it?" he asked them. "We're not going to feed them that, are we?"

"Oh, we'll give it to Clafoutis, the Estemmenosuchus," Marisol told him. "That beast is a dumpster on legs."

Mark motioned again for him to take the foetus but Franklin backed away.

"Don't be a faggot and take that foetus," Zia urged him.

"Calling people faggots is wrong, Zia," Alexander said. "It's an offensive word."

But she shrugged and the other keepers rolled their eyes. Franklin finally grabbed the stillborn calf and joined the trailer but seeing him hesitant about how to give it to Zia, Owen moved closer.

"Take it by the armpits and lift it up, in the same manner as Rafiki when he show Simba to the animals of the savannah in The Lion King," he suggested.

The young man nodded weakly and lifted the foetus, turning his head, afraid of suddenly receiving some fluid in the face. While Zia put it in the pile, Juan grabbed one of the bags they had emptied and turned it over, in order to pour out the blood that remained at the bottom.

Chapter Text

Still hot, the coffee exited the pot to pour into a cup that had just been emptied.

"Would you like another cup of coffee, Mr. Mayor?" Jocelyn Hodgson asked the man sitting across from her.

"No, thank you, Jocelyn," replied a lean man in his sixties with cropped white hair and a clean-shaven face.

Jocelyn put the coffee pot back on the table, right next to an ashtray containing a still-smouldering cigarette butt, whose smell was carried by a light wind towards of the mayor of the canton of Burgo Nuevo, Enrique Ordóñez, who wrinkled his nose.

Once their tour of the estate and their subsequent meeting with the manager was over, the local councillors and the press had left and only the mayor remained. He and Jocelyn had sat on the upper level of the hacienda's patio, which overlooked the lower level and its sunshades, deckchairs and a very well-maintained swimming pool. Although it bordered the shantungosaurs paddock and the Cretaceous Plain, the patio mostly overlooked the latter, and the fence and the edge of the pool were so close that if the paddock had contained large sauropods like Giraffatitan or Mamenchisaurus, these could easily have passed their long necks over the fence to drink water from the swimming pool. In addition to this viewpoint on the paddock and its denizens, the patio offered a panorama of Monte Nebuso, the surrounding dells and ridges, as well as some sort of plateau crossed by the railway and the Celeste, upstream from the latter's gorges. Looking in the direction of Monte Nebuso, a careful observer would have noticed the presence of a destroyed railway viaduct which overlooked the track that InGen's train was going to take.

Enrique picked up his half-empty cup and stirred it slightly before bringing it to his mouth. While drinking, he watched the dinosaurs in the paddock, trying to remember their names.

Quenching their thirst at the waterhole, there was a herd of a dozen duck-bill dinosaurs, consisting of two different species. The mayor counted five Corythosaurus, four adults and one young; and seven Parasaurolophus, five adults and two young. In addition to the particular shape of their respective crests, the two species could be easily differentiated by their colours. Whereas the former had a mauve crest and a body with yellow mottles and black spots, the latter showed two varieties: While some individuals were green with black stripes, others were beige with a russet back and crest and dark brown stripes.

While hadrosaurs occupied one side of the waterhole, on the other stood two bipedal dinosaurs with particularly pronounced blue mottling and a large, thick bony dome at the top of their skulls, Pachycephalosaurus.

Finally, near the fence, eating the bushes' leaves or scratching the ground, there was a small troop of other bipeds with white speckled backs, much more slender than the Pachycephalosaurus, with muscular legs and a long tail. Where a somewhat larger individual had a rufous body and red wattles, most had a beige body and lacked wattles. Those were Dryosaurus, which were to Jurassic World what impalas and gazelles are to safari reserves.

Enrique still remembered the day when InGen announced that it was returning in force to Costa Rica to prepare a large-scale project with the support of Indian billionaire Simon Masrani and his conglomerate, and that they were going to reinvest in their experimental farm south of the town, a facility which they had neglected in the years following the Jurassic Park incident. That was twenty years ago and he was then part of the former mayor's team. InGen's return had aroused mistrust, but Simon Masrani himself had assured Burgo Nuevo that he had things under control and he showed to be generous towards the canton and its councillors, dispelling many of the fears that some had, and when the animals raised by InGen at the Farm left for Isla Nublar, the situation was totally relaxed, as only plants remained there. Subsequently, the Farm returned to its original role and was only occasionally used as a quarantine centre for animals that InGen shipped to foreign zoos around the world. Thus, an understanding prevailed for years between InGen and Burgo Nuevo, until the fall of Jurassic World. When the corporation's management had announced that the Farm would house those whom the Costa Ricans were quick to nickname The Nublar Refugees, the fears from the beginning of the millennium returned, stronger than ever and once again, certain reluctances were calmed with backhanders. But Enrique knew that the situation was different from when Masrani came, and since the Fall, he felt like a sword of Damocles was hanging over his canton. He also regretted that he had to deal with Jocelyn Hodgson and not the former manager. The latter, Costa Rican unlike her, had even become one of his best friends.

A long, loud, resonant call, let out by a hadrosaur out of sight, snapped him out of his thoughts.

'They make one hell of a noise," he said to the manager.

"Yes they does, I'm well aware of that. Those blasted animals keeps me awake. And when it's not them, it's the cicadas or the frogs," she grumbled.

"You still aren't used to them? A pity, their singing has some charm. In the United States, did you grow up in the city or in the countryside?"

"In the countryside though. My parents have a ranch with horses a few hours north of New York. But we were never bothered by frogs, cicadas or crickets."

The mayor nodded.

"As you can imagine, you're not the only one bothered by dinosaurs," he pointed out. "Residents sometimes come to the town hall in order to complain about the noise disturbances they cause and all I can tell them is to be patient. The announcement of their imminent departure was a relief. It will be good for all: Us, Neoburgenses, and you, Jocelyn. Sure, some locals will lose their jobs, and I hope they will receive the compensation you promised them, but InGen's Site D has always represented only a minor part of the local economy, far behind tourism, agriculture and forestry. Things should go back to how they were before and like rain, InGen will have just passed."

Looking towards the paddock, Jocelyn saw that grey clouds were gathering in the west and slowly approaching. It was going to rain tonight.

"Yes," she replied while lighting another cigarette, "and you can tell neighbouring foresters and farmers to stop spying on us. Commander Austin told me about that months ago. »

Enrique crossed his fingers and sighed.

"If I'm keeping an eye on this place, it's because I'm worried Jocelyn… Masrani Global is abandoning you, the UN considers you with suspicion, and so does the government… In politics, it's never good when you have almost no allies left. Face it. InGen is a crumbling empire whose survival absolutely depends on those animals. If I was one of your enemies, I would strike here, and it doesn't matter if Burgo Nuevo ends up becoming a collateral victim if things don't go exactly as planned."

Jocelyn inhaled the smoke from her cigarette, then heaved a long, nervous sigh.

"Jocelyn. Don't take it personally. I like you. You are not a bad person. If only I could say the same about your superiors… I'm just asking you to be very careful in the next two weeks. Don't make the same mistakes as Claire Dearing on Isla Nublar."

"I won't. Be sure of that."

"You better. My canton's safety depends on it, and I will take to court anyone who put it in jeopardy, be it InGen or one of its rivals. Concerning Mrs. Dearing, do you know how she is doing?"

"I don't know," she lied. "She must still be hidden in some godforsaken hole in the United States, waiting to be flushed out like a hunted fox."

"You will be surprised to learn that she was seen this very morning in town, shopping at the supermarket."

"Maybe it was someone else? After all, you receive a lot of foreign tourists, including thirtyish redhead women sometimes I suppose."

"Not only those are quite rare, but you have to admit that ones with a white mask covering the left half of their face are even rarer."

"Indeed."

He looked into her eyes and nodded.

"At the end of the operation, do yourself a favour," he suggested. "Leave that adrift ship called InGen, return to your husband and children and find another job because this one is destroying you."

Then he gathered his belongings and got ready to get up.

"I'm not going to linger any longer. I'm expected in town."

"No problem. I'll walk you to your car."

Leaving the cups, the coffee pot, and the ashtray on the table, they left the patio, returned briefly indoors, and exited the hacienda by the courtyard. Enrique Ordóñez's car was parked nearby, in the trees' shade.

"May the end of the operation go well," he wished her when he took his leave, "for your sake."

As he was about to open the door, a roar stopped him. It came from the northwest part of the estate, where the biggest predators were contained. He had seen them during his tour and had then thought that they were terrifying monsters, capable of spreading terror in the countryside if they were let loose.

"And especially for ours," he added in Spanish with a hint of worry.

Jocelyn, who still had her cigarette, watched the car take the oaks driveway and disappear in the distance. She returned to the hacienda.

Chapter Text

Awakened by the smell of meat and his neighbours' agitation, Boomer opened his eyes, raised his head and yawned, opening wide his jaws lined with sharp teeth. Boomer was an adult male Metriacanthosaurus, eight meters long and over two meters tall, with a dark brown body, orange and black stripes from tail to head, and the latter also featured beige and lime stripes as well as small crests above the eyes.

His paddock, located north of the Predators' Camp, included a clearing, a few trees and a waterhole. It was big enough for him to stretch his legs and trot if he was in the mood but he had learned fast to know its slightest corners and outside of the feedings every two or three days and the futile roaring contests with neighbouring carnivores, Boomer's existence had become very mournful. A few local animals would occasionally enter his enclosure by accident, but he had grown tired of chasing them, so much that he wouldn't have moved if one of them had been within a few paces from him. The worst was that he felt lonely. Metriacanthosaurs did not necessarily hunt in packs and some in the Five Deaths were content with a solitary life, but Boomer always had company and, in Jurassic World, a pack of two adult females and four juveniles, which he had with one of the females. All but him had perished when the park fell.

Aware it was feeding time, the carnosaur got up and left the shade of the tree it had dozed under, heading for the fence a few feet away. Pressing his scarred muzzle against the steel bars, taking care to not touch the electrified wires between them however, he watched the keepers and their vehicles approach.

Boomer hated Men. Not because one of their sabres had scarred him, but because they had killed two of his sons and their mother and then taken his freedom back. In the realm of ashes that Isla Nublar became, the Metriacanthosaurus had carved out a territory for himself in the southern high plateau, where he had followed the herds that had fled from the north and the heart of the island when the great mountain had thundered and spewed its smoke into the sky and its fire at its base, burning the forests and soiling the streams with ash and soot... Each day, refugees had arrived in the south, which had been left intact compared to the scorched north, and among them, there had been other predators, large and small. Boomer had been able to repel some of them for a while, but some were either bigger than him or acted in groups, chasing him from the best carcasses. Then the Men, who had retired to their caves and their trees of stone around the large salt lake and who had for the most part left the island, had returned in large numbers, reclaiming the territories they had lost, putting many of the animals they found in the bellies of their metal monsters. As for the others, they killed them and Boomer had seen them bring down the mighty Mamenchisaurus before burning their corpses. It had been a huge waste of good meat... They ended up capturing him too and when he woke up after being stung by one of their stingers, there was nothing but walls of metal and he had only seen the Sun again when he was put in that paddock, located in an unknown land cooler than the island where he had lived.

The Metriacanthosaurus heard excited grunts and coos, coming from a paddock to his right. They were those of the carnotaurs, those damn horned and long-legged Easterlings which had invaded his territory on Nublar, just before the men captured them.

The keepers and the group had just fed the animals at the Predators' Camp. While Mark and Allison had fed those in the southern part of the Camp, mostly small species, Juan, Marisol and the group had fed those in the paddocks on each side of the wide grassy strip in the northern part. Thus, they had fed the largest animals in the camp, with the exception of the Kaprosuchus and Clafoutis the Estemmenosuchus which occupied marshy paddocks in the southern part, and among these were the Baurusuchus and Blue. She finally showed up, but she ignored Owen again, much to his disappointment, contenting herself with carrying her food deep into her paddock, letting the group observe her only for a short moment.

While one of the vans was parked at the edge of a grove straight ahead, the group and Juan were walking next to the tractor, driven by Marisol. The other van, driven by Allison, had gone ahead of them and was already parked at the back of the large predators area, whose paddocks were organized around a loop. Beyond the grove, which bordered part of the Metriacanthosaurus paddock, was another enclosure, set further back and hidden behind dense vegetation. It could be accessed only by a path and by its entrance, nailed to a trunk, there was a panel, on which was drawn the head of a Dilophosaurus, a predator from the early Jurassic which featured two twin crests on its head. The dinosaur had its mouth open and its frill, similar to that of the Frill Lizard, was opened. Under the drawing, the following message was written in both Spanish and English:

Warning, Dilophosaurs!

Wearing a visor, long-sleeved clothing and gloves is mandatory!
Management declines all responsibility in the event of an incident where this instruction wasn't followed.

"At Jurassic World, visitors could only watch the dilophosaurs through bay windows," Juan explained to Franklin and Zia, "but here, their fence is made of mesh, and thus, they can very well spit on you even if you're several meters from the fence. If the venom lands on your skin it will tingle a lot but by rinsing it thoroughly, it will pass and you will just have some red blotches for a day or two. On the other hand, if you get some in your eyes, you'll be good for the hospital and there will be high chances you'll become blind. Usually, only Mark takes care of them and if you ever want to see them, it will only be in his presence or mine. Understood?"

"Yes," they replied.

Marisol stopped the tractor in front of Boomer's paddock and the keepers left a calf in a smaller adjoining paddock. Shortly after, the gate between the two paddocks slid open, letting the Metriacanthosaurus enter the secondary enclosure and while the carnivore fed, the gate closed behind it, locking it there for the night. Thus, keepers could clean his main paddock the next morning without running the risk of being eaten.

Continuing, they passed in front of the entrance to an alley on their right, which passed between Boomer's secondary paddock and another, which contained a pair of Carnotaurus, then sitting in the grass and sunbathing. They were theropods of light build and medium size. Whereas one of the individuals, pale red with black mottling, was about seven meters in length, the other, mostly black with orange markings on its face and along its back, exceeded it by about a meter and had a broken horn. Juan told the group their names: Ariadne and Asterion.

Their arms were tiny, stump-like, and the fairly thick and sturdy-looking skull contrasted with a thin lower jaw, while the eyes placed at the front of the skull provided binocular vision and depth perception. Looking at their skin, composed of thin scales and rows of larger bulbous scales which ran on the sides from head to tail, Claire shivered as it reminded her of the Indominus, which had received carnotaur DNA.

Like some of the Predators Camp paddocks, those of the large carnivores were surrounded on part of their perimeter by a low wooden fence which acted as a railing. As they walked along the carnotaurs paddock, the group noticed that the grass between the railing and the paddock's large fence was quite tall, enough for the strands to almost touch the lowest electrical wires.

"We really need to cut the grass there," Juan said to Marisol with a worried look, speaking in a low voice and in Spanish in order to not worry Franklin, who was watching the predators with a bit of nervousness.

She nodded.

"If the others aren't overloaded tomorrow, we'll send them here," she said, designating the group with a slight nod. "Because if we ask that Yank to send the workers, she will forget or do it only at the end of the week. And by then, those two ugly may very well realize they have an opportunity…"

Two paddocks further, the group saw a third carnotaur, which was also pale red with black mottling but he was larger than the other two, with a length of nine meters. Zia noted in horror that his body was covered in burns.

"That one took a hit…" Franklin remarked.

"Ah Toro…," the head keeper said, "or Toro-800 as we started to call him after we retrieved him. Third degree burns, broken ribs, abdominal injuries, nothing can stop him..."

"Hugh Glass can eat his heart out," Owen commented.

"How did he got his burns?" The DPG veterinarian asked.

"We're not sure. The carnotaurs had their paddock in the Cartago sector, but a good chunk of the valley was ravaged by a forest fire during the Fall. We assume he was burned during it. It's a miracle that he survived."

For her part, Claire thought it was surprising that the operation saved this animal instead of culling him, if only out of pity. Given his repulsive appearance, she knew InGen would probably sell him for less than the other two. And if no one ended up wanting him, what would be his fate?

Allison joined them, they fed the carnotaurs and then moved on to the next animals: Miriam and Pierce, the Acrocanthosaurus pair. The group saw them lying in the middle of the paddock, one with its head resting on the back of the other.

They reached the gate of the acrocanthosaurs' night paddock, which Juan opened and the van reversed inside, only stopping at the edge of a particularly trampled area of grass. Meanwhile, one of the predators, the one whose head was resting on the ground, had opened its eyes and was watching the keepers and the group busy by the back of the vehicle. It got up, abruptly waking up the other which hissed in displeasure.

While they were unloading the first beef carcass, Franklin noticed their awakening and seeing one of them approaching the fence with a heavy tread, he gulped and winced, intimidated by the predator. The latter stopped at the fence between the two paddocks, watching their every move and sniffing the carcasses' smell while the other joined him.

The first carcass having just been placed, the group started unloading the second but the two predators, excited, got agitated, biting each other or head-butting the portal, startling several within the group, including Franklin who immediately turned his gaze towards the portal, fearing that it would break under the blows and let the acrocanthosaurs reach them. They were so big that he was sure they would still be hungry if they ate them all and the two beef carcasses. Most of the keepers hadn't stopped however, contenting themselves with watching them with one eye and they didn't seem very worried. Anyone would think that all this agitation was normal…

The IT technician wondered how they managed to be so calm and in a joking mood when they were in the presence of some of the most dangerous animals on the entire planet. Earlier, in the Predators Camp, they had had a fit of craziness during which Mark had climbed onto the trailer and showed to the heavens the same cow foetus he had given him earlier while one of his colleagues had put on the music from the Lion King, making some sort of trashy pastiche of that famous scene from Disney's animated film.

Once the second carcass was placed not far from the first, the group and the van left the paddock and shortly after, Juan entered a code in a box and the gate between the two paddocks slid, finally allowing the two acrocanthosaurs to access to their meal and devour it hungrily, tearing off great shreds of flesh with their long, curved teeth.

They watched them for a while and then ended their tour of the area with the baryonyxes, whom Mark and Allison had fed fish and chickens earlier while the group was busy with the carnotaurs.

The carnivores' feeding being over and the day coming to an end, Juan took the couple and the DPG trio to the keepers' office. There, he described more precisely the tasks they were going to have in the following days, explaining the instructions and their assignments in the different sectors.

Chapter Text

The group was dropped off at their hotel by the Farm's minibus shortly after nightfall, and still smelling of raw meat or even carrion, they went straight up to their rooms to wash and change before going to dinner.

While Claire, who had come out of the shower not long ago, was drying her hair, someone knocked on the room's door. Ignoring if it was one of the DPG members or a hotel employee, Claire replied in Spanish:

"I'm coming."

As she just put on some new clothes, she grabbed her mask on the table, quickly put it on and opened the door. It was Sybil, the hotel co-owner.

"Excuse me for disturbing you," she said in Spanish with a smile, "but I've been asked to give you a message."

"A message? From whom?"

"He didn't say his name, but he pretended to be a friend."

Thinking it was highly suspicious that a supposed friend tried to deliver a message to them the evening of their arrival, Claire frowned in distrust.

"Was he a foreigner or a Costa Rican?" she asked.

"Hard to say, but he could pass for a fellow countryman, though I've never seen him in town. He was in his forties, dark hair, tall with a horseshoe moustache and a rather attractive face, but he looked like a vagabond in his old jeans and sweatshirt if you ask me."

"Your description doesn't remind me of anyone in particular. I'll still take this message please."

Sybil handed her the message, which was written in a single sheet folded in four.

"Thank you," Claire told her as she took it.

"If you need anything, don't hesitate. I'll leave you, I have to make sure the service is going well downstairs. You're planning on having dinner here?"

"No, we wanted to have a look in town."

"Okay. Good evening then."

"Thanks, you too."

Sybil walked away and Claire closed the door. As she took off her mask and was about to read the message, Owen came out of the bathroom, wearing only a towel around his waist.

"What happened?" he inquired

"Someone left a message for us."

She then unfolded the sheet, revealing a message handwritten in English. They read it.

Mrs. Dearing, Mr. Grady.

I heard that you arrived in town today and went to Site D. Beneath its farm and quarantine centre appearance, it seems to hide dark secrets. You see, I have information about Henry Wu that I think you would like to know. Tonight, I'll be at the Laden Mule Inn. Come and meet me there around 9 p.m.

Hoping to see you there,

El Manigordo

PS: They're announcing some heavy rain for this evening. For convenience, it would be a good idea for you to dine at the inn. The food is good there and we could even meet before the scheduled time.

"El Manigordo?" Owen said, intrigued by this name. "The Ocelot… Our friend likes code names. But who is he?"

"I don't know, but he seems to have some information about Wu, that's all I care about."

"Ok, so we're going to eat at the Laden Mule," he concluded. "I'll look where it is."

As he was getting dressed, Claire looked out the window, which faced the street. Rain had started to fall and the road was lit by streetlights and vehicle headlights.

Under an arcade across the street, a man stood, alone and wearing a hood that left his face in the shadow. While smoking a pipe, he looked up at the hotel's first floor.

Wrapped in their raincoats, the couple exited the hotel and headed for the main street, which they reached soon enough before turning west.

The heavy rain had caused most people to stay indoors or use vehicles to move across town and beyond, and thus Claire and Owen only saw a few passers-by, hooded like them and walking briskly.

As they walked like this on a rainy night in a small isolated town, heading for an inn named after an equine, where they had to meet some vagabond, Claire would have almost expected to glimpse a dishevelled Peter Jackson eating a carrot.

Amidst the downpour, they heard a song, similar to that of a whale and quite distant. The couple recognized it, because that kind of song had echoed throughout much of Isla Nublar until recently and it was that of an Apatosaurus. They turned south and while they half-expected one to appear at the end of the street, a car drove through a large puddle a few steps from them, and they stepped aside, narrowly avoiding being splashed.

Further along the main street, they reached an archway and passed under it, finally seeing the inn and its lights, filtered by thick curtains on the upper floors. Built of stone and featuring two floors, it was the oldest building in town and had a pleasant appearance from the outside, with a facade parallel to the main street and two wings that ran in the opposite direction. Above the front door, lit by a lantern, a large sign swung. It depicted a mule carrying loads on its back.

Between the arch and the building, there was a gravelled area on which a few cars and a line of motorcycles were parked. The couple crossed it and entered the inn.

They sat at a table against a wall, dined quietly, and then ordered each a tankard of beer while they waited for their mysterious contact to show himself. As he drank, Owen looked around the inn, observing the activities going on there. Opposite of him, Claire had her back turned to the bulk of the room and the hood of her sweatshirt was pulled over her head, as she didn't wanted to be noticed.

"They're really going to make the movie about the Fall," Owen announced as he looked at his phone. "It will be released exactly in two years. Filming will begin in Hawaii and New Orleans next spring."

"What? So that wasn't bullcrap?" Claire said, surprised. "Bloody hell, I wonder how they'll deal with depicting certain scenes... I would be surprised if it ends up R-rated given the necessary budget for such a project. They're going to struggle to keep their stupid PG-13. Spielberg will be behind it like for the others?"

"Only as a producer. The director will be some guy named Colin Trevorrow."

"Who's that twat? Never heard of him."

"If I'm not mistaken, he was supposed to direct one of the new Star Wars movies at some point."

"Ah yes! He was on episode nine but he got kicked out for "artistic disagreements" ", the fallen park director recalled while air quoting. "Jar Jar Abrams replaced him."

"They already revealed some of the actors involved. We were cast. You'll be portrayed by Bryce Dallas Howard, Ron Howard's daughter. You know, the one who played in the Shyamalans and in that Terminator movie with Christian Bale and the dude from Avatar…"

"Oh, I see who she is. She is often confused with Jessica Chastain. The latter is perhaps too old to portray me and too small too. She's just over five feet, she's a dwarf! How tall is that Houston Howard?"

"Bryce? Wait, I'll look on IMDb… One meter seventy," he said a moment later before passing his phone to his girlfriend so that she could look at the actress' profile.

"One or two inches shorter than me. Oh, it's alright..."

Claire looked at several photos of the actress and saw that like her, she was in her mid-thirties, with fairly long red hair and a rather angular jawline, but her slightly upturned nose made her face less intimidating than hers. She nevertheless thought that she could have passed as some secret sister of hers.

"It's true that she looks like me. We just need to see her acting... She better play me correctly."

"Why don't you just propose to her to meet you if you're worried," he suggested to his girlfriend before swallowing a sip of beer.

"If she accepts... They chose an actor for you?"

"Yup. You see the guy from Guardians of the Galaxy?"

"I don't watch Marvel movies. It's crap for retards."

"Well you see the funny fat guy in Parks and Recreations? Andy? The one who is a bit stupid and who ends up in a relationship with Aubrey Plaza's character?"

"What, Chris Pratt? Did they smoke ganja or what? You don't even look alike and outside of comedy, I don't think the guy is amazing. I bet they'll make you say lame jokes. Don't be mistaken, you sometimes have a shitty sense of humor... but it's your shitty humor, and I like it the way it is!"

"Oh you know, they have to attract fans of sups' and childish humor."

"But still. Why didn't they take Jason Momoa instead? He looks way more like you than the other clown. And I think he's much more attractive. Ah Khal Drogo, what a man...," she said dreamily. "If they Marvelize the Jurassic World incident… it's going to be a lot of fun... Either they're going to turn me into an ingénue, a Mary-Sue, or into a huge bitch. Or a mix of all that."

"Honestly, I don't give a fuck about how they'll depict me. Even though it's supposed to be some kind of serious biopic and disaster movie, a bit like Deepwater, I think I'm gonna watch it with one of my hands holding a beer, and the other in my pants."

He smirked and chuckled.

"You might think I'm pulling your leg but when I was in the navy, I knew a guy who was also called Owen Grady," he added. "It was quite funny and he actually looked like Chris Pratt. And he was in the SEALs… He also wanted to apply for the marine mammal program and you can imagine that chances of getting the position were uncertain for me then. But during the interview, he had a problem... of gastric nature let's say, which put him in deep embarrassment. He allegedly accused a woman called Helen of being behind this incident. That's kinda how I got the job."

"How was that other Owen Grady?"

"I can't really tell you, I wasn't friends with him, but from what I remember, the guy seemed straight out of an actioner and succeeded in everything he undertook… He was a bit of a hotshot and even more of a hick than me... I'm not sure you would have liked him, and you would have been too good for him."

"I'm glad to have you anyway. To that Helen, whoever she is," she toasted.

"To Helen."

As he watched the waitress weave through the customers, carrying tankards as well as a plate of Bocas (*) towards a large table where a group of bikers were seated and whose hoarse laughter echoed throughout the room, Owen noticed that one of the customers, who had recently arrived and was sitting alone at a table in the opposite side, was staring at them. Dressed like Claire in a sweatshirt and jeans, he was a Hispanic man in his early forties, tall with short dark hair, a horseshoe moustache and a dark expression on his face.

Having noticed that Owen's eyes stopped, Claire followed them and saw the man as well. Given his figure, his moustache and his rather attractive features, she knew that this had to be the man described by Sybil.

"I think it's him," she said.

Soon, with a hand gesture accompanied by a nod of the head, he invited the couple to sit down with him.

"Let's talk to that Costa Rican Strider…" Claire added.

As they approached with their tankards, the vagabond put his aside and his phone on the table. He greeted them in English:

"Good evening."

"Good evening," Owen replied. "You're the Ocelot?"

The man nodded.

"Mr. Grady, Mrs. Dearing, it's a pleasure to finally meet you," he said, speaking, to their astonishment, neither with a local accent, neither an American one, but a British one.

"Don't say my name, please," Claire said.

"I could shout Claire Dearing is here! Claire Dearing is here! while pointing at you, but people here wouldn't pay attention and they would even tell me to shut up," the man explained to her. "Many already know you're here, including the mayor. But nobody cares. You can therefore remove your hood if you wish..."

She kept her hood on, far from feeling comfortable under the steady gaze of his piercing eyes.

"Your message said you had information on Wu," she reminded him. "Which one?"

The man grabbed his phone, turned it on, and showed them its screen shortly after. It displayed the photo of a short Chinese-American man in his mid-fifties, dressed in a T-shirt and wearing sunglasses, casually walking down a sunny street. Henry Wu.

The man swiped his finger across the screen, in order to move to the previous photo in the gallery, which had been taken just before the one he had just shown them. In this new photo, the couple saw that the sunny street behind Wu was one of Burgo Nuevo.

"This photo is from mid-December 2017, a few days before the Larga Noche," El Manigordo explained.

"Just before the conference where we presented the Indominus," Claire concluded. "I thought he was in the United States. What was he doing here?"

He showed them a third photo of Henry Wu, taken another day. In this one, the geneticist was dressed differently, wearing a hat as if he thought it would make him incognito, and he had a different attitude. He seemed in a hurry and nervous, glancing sideways at the photographer while he joined a vehicle parked nearby and whose door had been opened from the inside. He was closely followed by a taller and stronger man, whom the couple knew was a bodyguard despite his civilian clothes.

"This one dates from January 2018," El Manigordo said. "This is the last we have of him here."

"After fleeing Nublar, Wu stayed in Costa Rica for a few weeks, guarded by Torres' goons," Owen recalled. "Had those pictures been taken in San José or on the coast, I wouldn't have been surprised, but they were taken here according to you, before and after the Fall. What was he doing? Nothing required his presence at the Farm."

"If I did my research correctly, the only recent genetic research in Site D concerned plants," the Costa Rican said.

"That's right," Claire replied.

"Then why did the director of InGen's genetics division frequently came to Burgo Nuevo back then?" he asked them. "I can accept a simple visit, but several, if not a whole stay? I don't think he was there for vacations, especially since he was working on very important projects at the time. I suspect Professor Wu of having conducted secret research in Site D, probably related to Masrani's Bane."

Claire and Owen exchanged a look, both remembering the documents on Zara's flash drive, who had broken into Wu's office to steal information for one of InGen's rivals. In one of these documents, which was about the Indominus' creation, her genomic composition as well as the applications of her abilities, there was mention of future subjects raised in a more secretive and secure place. Was that place in the Farm?

"You had access to sensitive information, didn't you?" He guessed, studying their expressions. "I would ask if there is any way you could send them to me, but I doubt you could, even if you were willing to."

"Indeed, the flash drive containing that intel was either burned with the Indominus' corpse, or buried under the sands at the bottom of Jurassic World's Lagoon," Claire told him. "Even if you found it, it would be unusable."

"But who are you?" Owen suddenly asked, suspicious. "Who says you're not a Biosyn or Grendel agent who intends to use us as pawns to access Wu's research? Between InGen's hands or theirs, the result will be the same and it won't be pleasant."

El Manigordo nodded slightly.

"You're cautious," he said, "and rightly so in this day and age, but it's in your interest to cooperate with me. I work for people in high places, concerned about the impact of InGen's activities in this country and who are waiting for the slightest misstep from it to drag it to court. As those same people wish to see the dinosaurs leave Costa Rica, they will not interfere with Operation Fallen Kingdom. Their interests and yours aren't in conflict and a collaboration is even in your interest because you see, Mrs Dearing, my employers will be in your debt if you help us in this investigation, and you might need a lot of support in the future. The Lockwood Foundation has offered to be your ally if you carry out the missions they gave you during this operation? Good, but it's better to have as many allies as possible and not just one. You never know, anything can happen in the meantime... I think I heard that you and Professor Wu were enemies. Wouldn't you like to see him behind the bars of a cell?"

"Oh believe me, I do. I really do."

"Then let's work together. What do you say?"

"If we agree to work with you, what would you expect from us?"

"I need your help to investigate. You see, I can't break into the estate, as InGen Security men would immediately arrest me and throw me to the dinosaurs!" He half joked.

"That's where we would come in," Claire deduced.

El Manigordo smiled.

"Yes. As participants in Operation Fallen Kingdom, you have access to the estate during the day. Does your schedule contain a few breaks?"

They nodded.

"I'd suggest you take advantage of these to comb the estate and search for evidence of Wu's clandestine research. The Ark's lab would be a good place to start."

"We went there today," Owen told him. "There is nothing left. Only the nursery has been used since the Fall and normal animals were born there, not hybrids. If I was him, I wouldn't have conducted sensitive research there. It's only a few doors from the veterinarian's office and that of the keepers..."

"Too close to potentially prying eyes..." El Manigordo concluded. "Then look for everything that could have housed a small laboratory: Bunker, warehouse, house, garage, cellar... I will stay in town until the departure of InGen's animals. If you ever decide to help me and find out something, don't hesitate to come and see me, I'll be here every evening at the same hour and if I'm not here, contact me at this number or this email address."

He handed them a piece of paper with his phone number and email address on it, then got up from his chair and finished his tankard.

"Have a good night," he wished them. "I hope to see you again soon."

They watched him leave, put his empty tankard on the bar's counter and disappear in a hallway, probably heading back to his room somewhere in the inn.

"Well, it seems our stay here got more interesting," Claire said before swallowing a sip of beer.

Chapter Text

The next day, the minibus picked up the couple and the three DPG members at a quarter to eight, as planned. It was driven by one of Site D workers and the group saw the other passengers from the previous day. There were other workers, a few security guards and administrative employees, including the young woman who had greeted the group when they arrived at the hacienda, as well as Pasqual, Alfredo, Marisol and a fourth keeper, Costa Rican too. Fairly old, on the verge of retirement, not very tall, bony, he had long curly hair that fell over his shoulders and like his beard, they had a shaggy appearance. It was the Pedro mentioned by Allison in less than complimentary terms and the group had only seen him briefly late the day before. Owen did not recognize this man and that was normal, as he had never worked on Isla Nublar and had recently been hired by InGen to compensate for the resignations of several keepers.

The group and the four keepers arrived at their office a few minutes later, joining those who had arrived before them in the circle of chairs. Among those were Judd, Allison, Horatio, Vinny, Mark, but also Nala, a slender Kenyan taller than most of her colleagues; Suraj, an Indian man; Dana, a second-generation Costa Rican who had the distinction of being blonde, a rare hair colour in the country; and Alex, an American close in age to Mark, chubby and with a pleasant face.

In one corner, a radio was on and broadcasting national news.

"…Now the minor news items. After a long chase, San José police arrested three people last night for drug trafficking. The culprits were indeed selling Unicorn Candy to the customers of a nightclub located near Obrero cemetery. As a reminder, the Unicorn Candy is a psychotropic drug appreciated for its soporific and calming effects and today widespread throughout the metropolitan area of San José. It first appeared in the Barrio Mexico district almost a year ago and the drug is so popular and is spreading so fast that authorities fear it will soon be sold in other cities across the country, and this while its traffic and accidents related to its consumption have already caused five deaths. For now, the secrets of its production as well as the identity of the people behind the traffic remain a mystery, although the police suspect one of the city's gangs."

"That affair reminds me of the mushroom and Lioplo traffics on Nublar," Pasqual said, "although we didn't have any fatalities."

"Quite a few people smoked ganja in that clearing near the lake," Alfredo added, "the den of all of the island's hippies. There was that French guy who kept drumming and singing flat about society or whatever... We heard him at the village and probably even on the other side of the lake. If the dinosaurs bellowed, it was to tell him to shut up."

"I remember that some dealt Lioplo in the Chicxulub's toilets," Vinny recalled. "Some were completely stoned on the sofas."

"You can tell that, you used to buy some, Vinny," Alfredo pointed out.

The Briton shrugged.

"Maybe."

"It's true, you bought some," Horatio added. "You even said that you had the impression of being in a Ralph Bakshi film."

"I said Ken Russell, not Ralph Bakshi," Vinny corrected, "though some of the hallucinations seemed to be straight out of his adaptation of The Lord of the Rings."

"Who was your dealer?" Judd questioned him. "Wasn't it Getafix or some other weird alias?"

"No, it was Panoramix."

"How did they manage to get their bearings with all those code names?" Marisol wondered. "The organization of this traffic must have been a hell of a mess!"

"We never got to the end of this story," Claire said. "They never found the manufacturing lab or knew who was behind the traffic."

"There are rumors saying that corrupted J-SEC officers were running the whole thing," Alfredo told her.

"No wonder the investigation went nowhere then...," the former park director concluded.

Meanwhile, Franklin and Zia listened to the conversation in amazement.

"Burroughs wasn't Chicago, but almost," Alex told them. "And we didn't even talked about the orgies that some executives organized in their residences. We had the impression of being back to Roman times... We may be criticizing the park where we worked, but if you want my opinion, there must be some similar interesting stories at DisneyWorld too."

"If it hasn't been found since, the stock must be rotting somewhere in the Depths," Vinny said, "probably near one of the squats one could find there."

"Didn't one of them became a Herrerasaurus lair?" Judd raised. "Apparently, they shit on the mattresses. They might have eaten all the stock and been on a trip for days. That would explain the state in which they were found..."

"Once, some people found a box containing a whole bunch of accessories, including an imitation of a certain uniform designated by Hugo Boss if you know what I mean. A woman's uniform. It didn't have the logo, thank God, and when we searched the box, we also discovered an old beret for men as well as script pages, those of the romantic-masochistic adventures of Isla the SS she-wolf and Gaston, member of the Resistance. We've always wondered about the identity of the two idiots who played them…"

Two young and pretty Costa Rican women, Aura and Inès, entered the room and shortly after, Juan arrived, accompanied by a third woman and a fortyish man with a round face and a balding head. They were Brice Le Goff, Site D veterinarian and Breton expatriate, and Maribel, his assistant.

They greeted those they hadn't seen yet, and with the keepers' team complete, the head keeper gave the group their assignments for the morning:

"…Owen, you'll be with Mark and me; Alexander with Aura and Inès; Zia with Judd and Nala; Claire with Horatio and Vinny; and Franklin with Alex and Pedro. And this afternoon, we'll send you scythe in front of the carnotaurs."

As Juan had told them about the sectors where each had a good chance of being affected, none of the five was surprised and when the clock showed eight o'clock, they followed their respective duos of keepers. Claire joined the two British keepers, whose sector included the Asian Plain (name given to the paddock which contained the shantungosaurs, the gallimimus and the sinoceratops) and the Marsh, an enclosure located next to the Asian Plain and which housed species which formerly lived in the Jungle Cruise attraction on Nublar. She followed them out of the building and to a room where buckets and large bins were stored. They took several buckets and one of the bins, which they put in the back of a van. Before climbing in the vehicle, Horatio looked up at the sky. It was grey, cloudy, and the air was humid.

"Do you have a raincoat?" he asked Claire. "Because I think it's going to rain..."

She nodded and climbed into the front of the vehicle with the two men, taking the middle seat.

"Where are we going?" she asked.

"We're going to collect stones in the streams," Vinny answered, seated on the right.

"Gastroliths for herbivores?" She guessed.

"That's right," Horatio replied from the driver's seat. "We were supplied back on Nublar but since they cut the gastroliths budget, we have to go and collect them out there ourselves. Without them, some animals have digestive issues."

They left the estate by the western gate and went to a first stream, located a few kilometres away, in the middle of the jungle. When Horatio parked the van next to the path, it had already been raining for a few minutes, so they put on their rain jackets before getting out of the vehicle. As they took out the buckets and the large bin, Vinny said to the fallen park director:

"You know Claire, you can take off your mask. You'll be more comfortable without it."

She froze, wondering if they were mocking her.

"We promise to not scream," the androgynous keeper added.

"It's better if I keep it," she said. "What's under isn't a pretty sight."

"One of my friends had an accident with an iron when he was little and Horatio knows a guy who got mauled by a leopard. You can take it off, we're not wimps. And I think the pals can tolerate its sight."

She hesitated for a moment, then sighed.

"You can't tell me that I didn't warn you..."

She took off her mask, revealing her gash, barely hidden by the hood of her raincoat. Their eyes widened slightly, but their faces showed no sign of horror or disgust. Claire exhaled softly in relief.

"You see? No problem," Vinny said with a shrug. "Sure, it might surprise when you see it for the first time but I think we'll get used to it. If it can reassure you, you look more like Blofeld from the James Bond saga than Two-Face from Batman."

"I guess I'll take that as a compliment…Owen says it reminds him of the one Commander Shepard might have. The Renegade version though."

"Shepard from Mass Effect? Mine was Paragon but it's true that there's resemblance," he admitted.

Before they went down to the creek, Horatio also took a pistol, which he hid under his jacket. Although there were jaguars and pumas in that part of Costa Rica, Claire knew that Horatio carried a weapon rather to protect themselves against potential human attackers, whether they were locals who hated InGen so much that they were ready to attack simple employees like them or agents of the corporation's rivals.

"Without wishing to pry, Claire, what did this to you?" He asked her as they descended a small slope.

"A Baryonyx," she lied, thinking of the first predator other than the Indominus that could have scarred her like this.

"A Baryonyx? It was very surgical," Horatio said sceptically. "They are usually rougher."

"I don't remember what attacked me. I was in one of Burroughs streets, got suddenly attacked and then I woke up in a hospital bed in Nicoya with this gash and one arm missing. It must be some kind of amnesia."

"If we believe what the control room folks said, you were by the Tyrannosaur Kingdom. But Roberta couldn't have done that. Unless it was the Indominus, which was at the Avenue at the same time? I think that my brain would have also erased any memory of a confrontation with that thing."

"Maybe it was her."

At the stream, they took a number of stones from the bottom, filling the buckets which were emptied into the bin. Once it was full, Claire and Vinny took it to the van to empty its content at the back, before taking the empty bin back to the stream, where Horatio continued the gathering. They filled the bin again with buckets of stones, emptied it into the back of the vehicle and then drove off towards another stream, with Horatio explaining to Claire that they were doing this in order to avoid over modify the streams' hydromorphology too much by taking too many stones from a single place.

Overall, their collection of gastroliths lasted a good hour and a half, if not more, and when they returned to the Farm, they dumped the stones accumulated at the back on a concrete surface under a tin roof and hosed them to clean them.

While Horatio filled a wheelbarrow with gastroliths, Vinny took Claire to the kitchens where they prepared the Marsh animals' food. They filled two buckets with fish which they brought to the van and the trio then drove to the enclosure, parking the vehicle along the path that connected the hacienda to the Predators' Camp.

A group of seven bipedal dinosaurs with grey blue feathers, about two meters and a half long and one meter twenty tall, were massed behind the inner gate. They had a long, narrow skull with a small crest of keratin at its back, an orange gular sac reminiscent of that of pelicans, and a large white stripe which extended from the beak's end to the top of the skull before running down the neck where it separated into two smaller stripes. Pelecanimimus, an early Cretaceous ornithomimosaurian whose fossils were found in the Cuenca province in Spain.

The keepers and Claire went through the gate with a wheelbarrow containing gastroliths and then entered the paddock, with Horatio clapping his hands to make the dinosaurs move back.

"I'm going to see what the ouranos and the niger are doing," he informed his two companions before disappearing behind a curtain of small trees shortly after.

"Okay, I'll feed those little lads in the meantime," Vinny replied, holding the buckets of fish.

Before he started giving the fish to the pelican imitators, Claire, who was pushing the wheelbarrow, asked him where to dump its content. He then pointed to an area a few meters from them, at the edge of a pond.

She went there, forming several piles with the stones like Vinny had told her. Behind her, he fed the Pelecanimimus the same way zookeepers fed pelicans elsewhere, handing each one or more fish which they grabbed and then swallowed greedily.

Hearing the stones sliding on the wheelbarrow's metal, an animal that had been hidden behind the thick foliage of a large tree at the opposite end of the pond showed up, striking Claire in amazement due to its large size and its unique appearance.

As long as an Acrocanthosaurus and bipedal like them, it was humpbacked and massive, with broad flattened feet, relatively short hind legs, huge clawed arms over two meters long, and a head featuring a grey duckbill.

The body was covered with a sort of pale yellow, shaggy-looking down, reminiscent of sloth hairs, while the bare skin of the face and legs was bright red. A male Deinocheirus.

Claire had of course already seen Deinocheirus in Nublar on a few occasions but there had always been a fence between her and them and here she was in the paddock with one of those strange giants. She knew their diet was mainly herbivorous but that didn't mean anything and she remained on her guard. Many of Jurassic World's herbivores could prove dangerous for an adult person, and the animal in front of her was heavy, weighing around six tons. He could trample her easily while a single blow from his claws could kill her instantly.

As he trod heavily on the pond, moving towards her, Claire stepped back, but Horatio, then returning to them, said to her:

"You can stay. He's not aggressive, he's quite gentle actually. He's not Yuriko, the Therizinosaurus. You just have to stay calm."

Walking calmly, he came to join Claire near the gastroliths and the giant ornithomimosaur reached their side of the pond. Towering over the two humans, he gazed at them placidly while rumbling softly. He didn't have a pleasant smell, which reminded one of both duck and sludge, but Claire didn't care. She stood still and didn't want to alarm the animal.

He lowered his neck and took several gastroliths with his beak. He tilted his head back to swallow them then started the operation again, collecting this time gastroliths in the pile closest to Claire. He swallowed those too and then lowered his head again but stopped it at the same height of that of the fallen park director and, since his eyes were on the sides of the head (as in waterfowl and most herbivores), turned it to inspect with one eye the stranger who accompanied his two keepers. He rumbled more audibly.

"Claire…," Horatio whispered. "Give him that fish..."

She grabbed the trout he gave her in her left hand and slowly handed it to the Deinocheirus, hoping he wouldn't rip her hand off with it. The dinosaur saw the fish and opened its beak to grab it. Claire was relieved to see it close just before her fingers and the trout disappeared shortly after into the animal's mouth. He rumbled again, contentedly. Claire looked into his eye and any apprehension she had about the animal disappeared. Amazed by this encounter, she even smiled.

The Deinocheirus eventually moved away a bit, staying in the pond, and once Vinny was done with the Pelecanimimus, the three returned to the van and spent the rest of the morning in the service building adjoining the paddock, cleaning the premises and preparing fodder or branches for the Ouranosaurus and Nigersaurus which also occupied the enclosure.

Chapter Text

When they went to the hacienda for lunch, Claire noticed that Franklin was already there, seated at one of the tables, but that the others hadn't arrived yet. While waiting for Owen, Claire sat at another table and pulled out her phone. She went to an online mapping service and entered the address of Site D into the search bar. Satellite pictures of the compound appeared and Claire compared them to the escape map she had photographed on the way, in order to try to spot any differences and begin to establish a search strategy. While she scribbled a diagram on a sheet of paper, Zia and Alexander arrived with their respective pairs of keepers.

"So Franklin, what did you do this morning?" Alexander asked his colleague as he and Zia sat next to and across from him.

"Cleaned cages and fed their occupants. Damn Compys… They almost bit me!"

"In San Diego, a few of us got bitten by Compys during our training," Zia said, "and in Nublar, it must have happened a lot I guess. It's like being bitten by a grass snake or pinched by a bird."

"Venomous birds!"

"You might have been high for a while due to the toxin in their saliva, but nothing too serious," she reassured him.

"You saw Caerbannog?" Alexander asked.

"What, the Pegomystyx?" Franklin replied.

"Pegomastax," Zia corrected him with a hint of annoyance.

"Yes, quickly. Alex took care of it. This thing is so ugly that it looks like a chupacabra."

Owen finally arrived, followed by Juan and Mark. As they walked to her table, Claire put away her unfinished diagram and turned off her phone before pulling out her lunch. While they recounted their respective mornings, Claire saw one of the administration employees joining Jocelyn Hodgson, who was seated further away. She handed her a key attached to a chain.

"Did you close?" The manager asked her colleague.

"Yes."

Jocelyn grabbed the key and its chain and put it around her neck, hiding it under her blouse. Then she turned back to Claire's table and the fallen director pretended to be more interested in her lunch than in the manager's every move.

Once they had finished eating, they returned to the keepers' office and at one-thirty, Juan encouraged his subordinates to get back to work and asked the group to follow him to the shed, where the keepers stored various tools. The head keeper pointed to the tools needed for the scything work that awaited them:

"We need the scythes, the rakes and the pitchforks."

"There's no strimmer?" Claire asked.

"They're all out of order and management is dragging its feet to buy new ones."

She nodded. They also took two wheelbarrows, put them and the tools in the back of a pickup truck and went to Ariadne and Asterion's paddock. Juan and Mark gave the instructions and then let the group divide the tasks between them while they headed to the other paddocks in the sector.

"You were drawing something when we arrived," Owen reminded his girlfriend as he scythed the tall grass in front of him. "A map for our search?"

While pulling out of the strip with a rake the scythed grass he left in his wake, Claire turned her head towards him.

"Yes." she replied, "I'm trying to determine the areas where Wu's secret lab might be located. But I have to finish it first..."

Hearing the clink of Juan's big bunch of keys, she turned and saw the head keeper walking towards them.

"Is everything alright?" he asked them.

"We're getting there," Owen replied.

Juan looked at the entire area they had already scythed and nodded with satisfaction.

"Good."

He then headed to the side of the paddock that was being scythed by the DPG trio. Claire put down the rake and grabbed the pitchfork to start putting the scythed grass into their wheelbarrow.

"We can't search today," she said, "but we absolutely have to start tomorrow."

"At lunch break?"

"Yeah, we eat quickly and we go straight after."

"Okay, let's proceed like this."

While joining the DPG trio, Juan was confronted with a vision that amused him.

"Hey, you're doing alright you backseat drivers?" He asked aloud in Spanish.

Franklin, then scything and startled by the sound of his voice, raised his head and turned to the keeper. But he noticed immediately that not only had he not talked to him or his two colleagues, but that they were also looking in his direction. The IT technician then looked behind him and jumped when he saw that Ariadne and Asterion were just behind the fence, only a few steps away from him, and they were watching him with great interest. As he had stared straight ahead as he scythed, he hadn't seen them approaching. And of course, Zia and Alexander, respectively pulling the grass and putting it in their wheelbarrow, hadn't warned him...

After this brief interruption, the trio got back to work and Franklin continued his task, but the carnotaurs followed him, moving step by step.

"But go away...," the young man complained. "You're stressing me out by looking at me like that!"

The next day, the couple put their strategy into action, having a quick lunch before starting their prospecting. Using the map Claire had completed the previous evening, they went to the southern part of the estate, the one occupied by the plantations, and explored it in search of some place that could house a clandestine cloning laboratory, but the only structures they saw in this area were small sheds and one or two open storage spaces.

In the evening, after dinner, Claire crossed out this area on her map and studied the latter, calculating the time needed to explore all the areas.

"We'll never be done by Monday!" She grumbled, almost throwing her pen on the table in their bedroom. "I think our friend the Ocelot can say goodbye to his intel!"

Owen, then lying on the bed, stood up and leaned over her shoulder.

"It's not Monday yet. We'll find that fucking lab by then."

"I would like to believe you, but we only did a part of the plantations today. We still have all that to search!" She showed him on the map.

"Let's forget the plantations, I'd be surprised if we found anything there. For tomorrow, I'm in favor of searching the area near the bamboo grove, along the eastern border," he pointed. "The bungalows are nearby, maybe Wu and his team stayed there."

"Maybe they did, maybe they didn't. I have no idea…"

He put his hands on her shoulders and began to gently massage her.

"Leave that map, okay? Relax… We'll work on it tomorrow."

"You're right. Maybe things will clear up if I take a step back."

She put the map away and he led her to the edge of the bed to continue their massage session more comfortably. He felt her muscles relax little by little and as she relaxed, keeping her eyes closed while occasionally letting out small moans of satisfaction, she tilted her head back and leftwards, exposing her neck and inviting him to kiss her. As he kissed her skin, she grabbed his right hand and guided it under her T-shirt, gently passing it over the long scar she had on her sternum and right breast so he could fondle the left breast. He didn't need to be asked twice and as his hand groped her, Claire shivered with excitement, desiring nothing but him at the moment.

Each seated on their respective beds, Zia and Franklin were discussing the footage that the latter had taken in the afternoon when they began to hear the bed in the couple's bedroom moving and then the sound of their throes of passion, as their rooms' soundproofing were of questionable quality. Ignoring how long this would last and wishing to end the awkward silence that prevailed in their room, Franklin spoke up:

"Do you have movies on your laptop?"

"I've got Sexcrimes," Zia replied, looking at her laptop screen.

"I never heard of it."

"It's an erotic thriller, a bit like Basic Instinct," she said, turning towards him. "Have you seen that one?"

"I only know by name."

"You didn't saw it? Seriously? You should."

"Not my kind of movie."

"Oh, maybe you'll like Sexcrimes. There is a certain scene between Denise Richards and another girl in a swimming pool if you know what I mean… So hot that if you were a girl, I would say that you would be very tempted to caress the dilophosaur's crests while watching it."

"What else do you have?"

"What, you don't like movies where you see naked pretty girls?" She asked him in a surprised tone. "You don't know what you're missing… Tell me Franklin, have you ever seen a naked woman?"

But while he hesitated about the content of his answer, she added:

"No, your mother doesn't count..."

The couple realized they had been heard when they saw the two DPG members imitating them at lunch break the next day:

"Oh yes! My virile Elk, harder!"

"Oh my doe… You're my queen… You're my queen…"

Sitting several tables away from them, Zia and Franklin thought they were far enough away and speaking low enough to not be overheard. In a more or less discreet way, Alexander and the few keepers seated at their table gave the couple a sidelong glance while sporting a grin. Meanwhile, Jocelyn Hodgson was out on the patio to take a phone call. Being only a few meters from it, the couple heard her:

"I told you I don't know when I'll be back from Costa Rica," she replied irritably. "…Yes, most of the animals are leaving on Monday but there is still a whole lot of stuff to do here before they let me go home… No, the dinosaurs are not going to escape and eat me. We take security very seriously and you don't repeat it but HQ is sending us not only Edward and his men but also a private military company as reinforcements... I know that you and the children miss me but you'll have to be patient… What do you mean, you've been patient enough so far?! Damn, but we're not going to have the same conversation every time! Oh fuck, you're pissing me off with your whining! I'll call you this weekend..."

She hung up and sighed.

"What an idea to have married such a moron...," she muttered.

Then she returned to the canteen and having finished lunch, the couple got up and left the hacienda.

"The last thing we needed was our sex life becoming a big topic of conversation," Claire said later as they walked to their prospecting area, the one near the bamboo grove. "Lucky for us, we were more or less discreet back on Nublar because otherwise, I think we would have been entitled to a special section in Radio Nublar."

"Alec's show, the one he was broadcasting from the Administration?"

"Yeah, Alec Rath. As soon as there was the slightest gossip, that pasty little jerk came forward. When we started fucking, he had even declared "Our deputy director mated!" and in another occasion, he even implied I was pregnant all because some saw me puking in the bushes after a boozy evening. I even went up to his studio to advise him not to spread another rumor about me."

"I remember that time. I freaked out like hell after listening to his show because we had split up shortly before. I don't even know what I would have done if it had been true..."

"I would have summoned you anyway, even if seeing you again would have made me furious. But you would have come before to talk about it with me, I'm certain. After all, you know what it's like when a woman raises a child alone."

"Unfortunately yes…"

She took his hand affectionately.

"According to what your mother said, your father would have made sure that I went to live in Wisconsin with my parents if he had been in your place, whether I was pregnant or not. You did not ask to be a father and yet you respected my decision to keep our child, fully accepted your role as a father and above all, you took me in when everyone turned their back on me, my own family included."

"It was the least I could do..."

They stopped for a moment and she said to him:

"You are not your father, you are better than him, better than many men..."

"I was too late to save you during the Fall. It's my fault if you're in this condition..."

"Hey, we've had this conversation a hundred times already. It wasn't your fucking fault! It was only mine! I had the opportunity to join you and Zach, and I didn't take it. The only thought on my mind was to have an honorable death, like if I wanted to dine alongside my ancestors in Valhalla. If there's a weak link in our couple, it's me."

He leaned down to kiss her tenderly.

"Bullshit," he told her. "You are stronger than you think. Let's agree that there is no weak link in our couple. Just you and me, two alphas."

She sketched a smile and they resumed their walk shortly after.

"What were we talking about two minutes ago?"

"Of Zia and Franklin who heard us having sex."

"Ah yes... Come on, I have the right to have sex with my boyfriend, yes? I shouldn't give a fuck about what other people think!"

"Absolutely. And when a couple of alphas copulate, it's often good for the pack's cohesion. I have nothing to blame myself for, I am not the most immodest in bed…"

"Fuck you!"

Finishing crossing the bamboo grove, they passed into the wooded area along that part of the estate's eastern boundary and searched the area, even going as far as the peripheral fence.

"There could be a cellar or even a secret bunker just below one of the bungalows, and a hidden entrance in the slope," Owen imagined.

"Do you think Wu and co. stayed in one of the bungalows and that a lab was built under it? Yeah… I'm not sure he wanted to be seen by the keepers and the workers living in the others," Claire replied, sceptical.

"It was just a guess."

"The best we can think of…because I don't see where they could have built a clandestine laboratory and housed Wu and his team. Unless there is a Civil War bunker hidden somewhere in the middle of the woods?"

"Highly unlikely. It only lasted a month and a half, they didn't have the time to build one. And this part of the country hasn't been affected by the conflict."

Then they heard leaves being trampled. There was someone else in the woods and not only was he or she close but they were getting closer.

"Someone's coming…" she hissed.

"Wherever we go, we'll be heard," he said after looking around.

"Our presence here might be considered suspicious. Fuck…"

"We have to come up with a bogus excuse..."

"Yeah something, quick!" She urged him.

"I don't know… Absolutely no idea."

Running out of solutions, she then suddenly pinned him against the nearest trunk.

"Unbuckle your belt!" she hissed.

Guessing her idea, he complied, letting her pull down his pants and kneel before him, but he suppressed a sound of surprise when she pulled down his underwear without warning. The security guard, who was none other than Valentine Taylor, surprised them like this and believing he had interrupted them in a moment of intimacy, immediately looked away and apologized:

"Oh, sorry…"

As the guard retraced his steps and walked away, Owen, somewhat embarrassed, pulled up his boxers and pants and he and his girlfriend resumed their search. But there too they drew a blank, finding only a few sheds and not the slightest door or hidden hatch...

When they returned to the keepers' office a few minutes late, Alfredo and Pasqual turned to them and the second looked at his watch and then tapped it with his index and middle fingers while looking at them.

"Well then, it couldn't wait this evening?" he joked. "You're lucky Juan is late too."

The head keeper arrived in the room the next moment and the couple separated to go to work in their respective sectors.

In the evening, after dinner, they updated Claire's map and their rate of progress worried them.

"Okay, we're actually in trouble. We won't be done by Monday!" Owen said minutes later, before drinking some tequila from a glass. "If only Jocelyn could give us the maps she promised. We would see a little more clearly…," he added the next moment.

"The maps…" Claire repeated, remembering the ones Jocelyn had taken from them at the first day's meeting.

Kneeled until then in front of him, she put her hands behind his back and stood up, rubbing her naked body against his as she rose. He placed his hands under her buttocks, lifted her up and sat her on the edge of the table.

"We need access to those maps," she said, spreading her legs before grabbing the glass of tequila and taking a sip, "the ones she would have given us if Austin, that asshole, didn't intervene."

She lifted the glass to the level of her upper torso and tilted it against her skin, gently pouring some of the alcohol on it, with drops trickling down her chest and abdomen, toward her pubic hairs.

"How?" he asked, rushing forward to lick the drops on his girlfriend's chest and kiss her breasts. "They must be in his office… We aren't going to break in, right? How would you explain why we broke down the door or the window? It would be highly suspicious and Lockwood is likely to hear about it."

"We need the key…" she said, shivering a little while he delicately kissed the area around the scar on her right breast.

"The key to her office? She has it on her all the time. I'm sure she showers and sleeps with it."

"And yet we need it."

"And how?" he asked as he gradually moved down on her stomach. "We can't show up, grope her, steal the key and run away with it."

His head stopped between her thighs and she began to stroke his mane.

"Indeed, we must be subtle Owen, subtle...," she said before letting out a moan of pleasure.

Gods she enjoyed making love with him! When he honoured her, she no longer felt like a scarred pariah with a bionic prosthesis, a walking corpse, but like the most desirable woman on Earth, the Claire not from just before the Fall but rather the one from a time anterior to their breakup three years before the latter, when they had their secret romantic idyll and when no shadow seemed to hang over Isla Nublar, before the Indominus' spectre and everything that was associated with it began to corrupt her...

Arnold Mountbatten, her predecessor, had warned her of the power that came with being the director of Jurassic World, but she barely listened to him. What a mistake! She was then just an arrogant and ambitious young executive, seduced by the opportunity of power and who was too young when she became head of what was practically a microstate. If she had known she would have been nothing but a puppet, both some kind of colonial governor under Masrani's orders and a disposable slave of InGen's board of directors. Ironically, only the Fall had allowed her to break those chains... If Jurassic World had never collapsed, if she had kept her position and climbed the ranks of InGen's hierarchy even more until ultimately integrating its board of directors, thinking to acquire more power and independence to ultimately become the slave of other desires and even more overwhelming and corrupting powers, would she have ended up becoming another Susan Lynton? Whatever the answer was, it didn't matter anymore.

She was never going to know another position of power again. The only thing she could aspire to was a quiet but peaceful life with Owen and Sigurd. And even that was an uncertain thing...unless she managed to gather as many allies as possible on her side. Forging an alliance with the Ocelot's employers would be a good start, but they had to succeed in the mission he had given them, they had to find Wu's damn clandestine laboratory. For some reason, she was sure that the first map Jocelyn gave contained clues which could lead them to the latter. But how could they put their hands on her key? They had to get closer to her... Get closer...

Of course, Claire had no chance of getting closer to Jocelyn, whether it was in romantic or just friendly terms, but Owen… She remembered the argument the Farm manager had on the phone with her husband and remembered the way she had looked at Owen the first day. He had better chances than her. No wonder, how could a woman not be attracted by his tall strong body and his rugged beauty? Several conversations with her female colleagues at Nublar had taught her that many of them would not have said no to a night with him. But how could Owen get closer to Jocelyn?

While his mouth and tongue were working miracles in her lower districts and were going to make her come at any moment, her eyes looked down at him, a mischievous smile formed on the corner of her mouth, then she looked back straight ahead of her.

"I've got a cunning plan…"

Chapter Text

"Seriously?" Claire said. "I can't believe you left me!"

"Replay the conversation in your head, okay?" Owen suggested. "You said, "Do you want to live in your bungalow like a hillbilly? Go ahead Owen." And I said, "Okay."

"How is it possible you're the one who left?"

"Because I left."

"I left you."

"You left because… I asked you to.

"And then I left."

Seated at another table nearby, Alexander, Franklin and Zia listened as the couple argued about their previous affair back on Isla Nublar years earlier and its breakup. Apart from them, there weren't many people in the hotel's restaurant, as the other guests usually had their breakfast a little later.

"Who prints an itinerary for a date?" Owen asked.

"I'm an organized person," she replied.

"I'm an organized person," he repeated, caricaturing her facial expressions and intonation.

She suddenly kicked him in the shin, making the table and cutlery move a little.

"What was that?" she hissed.

She leant forward.

"Don't you dare make fun of me in public again," she whispered.

Zia and Franklin did not know what to make of this feud, which seemed serious. Of course, it happened that even the most close-knit couples sometimes argued, but this one had been sudden and seemed to have happened without a warning sign because the day before, the two youth had again heard the couple making love passionately.

After looking at each other, they shrugged slightly and thought it was going to be okay, but during the lunch break, the couple had another argument, during which Owen ended up saying:

"Your lower districts reek so much of cod that it's like being in Dutch Harbor!"

"You're saying that because I'm a redhead? This is so low!" Claire replied, offended. "I thought you were better than that..."

Being nearby and having heard them, Jocelyn had listened attentively to their conversation and when they left their table, she followed Owen with her eyes, something Claire noticed.

Hours later, after dinner, Claire was in their hotel room's bathroom, taking a bath alone. Sitting in the hot water, she was taking from time to time a sip of rum straight from the bottle while staring blankly at the wall beyond the opposite end of the tub. When the handle on the then closed door clicked, she put the bottle on a chair positioned right next to the tub and turned her head towards the door. Owen walked in in his underwear, closed the door behind him, looked at her up and down, and took off his boxers.

She tucked her legs up against her chest and watched him as he joined her in the tub. Once seated, he flicked his mane back, grabbed the bottle of rum to take a sip and got comfortable, stretching and spreading his legs a little to take up two-thirds of the tub. They stared into each other's eyes gravely for a long moment, then a smile sketched at the corner of Claire's mouth and Owen laughed.

"Damn, how we fooled those idiots!" he said.

His laugh grew louder, as Claire lunged forward to clasp her hand over his mouth, fearing he was laughing too hard.

"Keep it down!" She told him. "I bet they're listening at the door."

He quieted his laughter and she regained her end of the tub. She grabbed a washing mitt and he pivoted, exposing his scarred back. Spreading her thighs and stretching her legs forward, she moved closer to him and put his hair to the side to fully clear his back. While he caressed her legs, she gently passed the mitt over the long claw marks a raptor had dug six years earlier, the year they both started working at Jurassic World and met.

"The fish spotted the maggot," she said.

"Eh?"

"Jocelyn heard us at lunch. She thinks we're going through a rough patch. Let's continue to argue for bullcrap like fucking indecisive teenagers."

"The fish must be tempted to swallow the maggot," he guessed.

"That's it, and the fish has to be caught within three days.

As she just finished washing his back, Claire put the mitt down, knelt and put her arms around her boyfriend's chest.

"The maggot has to wiggle if it wants to be swallowed," she whispered in his ear before nibbling it and kissing his neck.

Switching roles, he grabbed the mitt and she presented her back to him.

"The lines we learned, did you make them up or did you find them somewhere?" He asked while washing her.

"While I made up some of them, the others come from a thread on a discussion board about writing, where I first saw them over a dozen years ago. An aspiring screenwriter had written them. Last I heard, he's working in Hollywood."

"The movies he writes have to be something…"

"You said it…"

But the next day, Claire, then assigned to the small carnivores sector and working under Marisol's and Allison's supervision, realized that they had failed to convince everyone when Marisol expressed doubts, telling her that she saw through their little game but that she will not judge them if they seek to spice up their relationship. Realizing that others must be thinking similarly, Claire sent a message to Owen, informing him that they needed to step it up.

That was what they did the same evening, during a dinner in town. They purposely went to the same bar-restaurant where the DPG trio went every other evening since their arrival and located in the same street as the Cañada de las águilas. When they entered the place and spotted Alexander, Zia, and Franklin at a table in the back, they pretended to be tense and while they started drinking, they barely spoke to each other. The place being relatively quiet, Claire listened with one ear to what Zia was saying about her days with the veterinary team to her two colleagues.

She thus learned that Brice and Maribel had been watching Zia's every move since they had caught her reading medical reports from the previous year and especially those of the weeks following the fall of Isla Nublar. When Alexander asked her what she had read, Zia told him about some story of compsognathuses dying in bizarre circumstances and reports being oddly poor in detail. She added that while Juan seemed trustworthy, Brice was suspicious and she even raised the possibility of a traffic which involving him and other Site D employees and outsiders. Claire thought this story was interesting to say the least, but having other priorities, she quietly gave a sign to Owen when the time came and they faked another argument, which gradually grew in intensity until he said what she liked to call the final blow line.

"You planned your move well!" He accused her. "You knew it was the time of the month when you were the most fertile and you threw yourself on my crotch like your life depended on it! Sigurd is just a way to keep me with you and avoid being thrown straight into jail. And here I am, stuck with a wreck!"

Deeply angry, Claire threw her drink at his face, slapped him, and stormed off the table.

"Everybody betrays me!" She said while she was about to burst into tears. "I'm fed up with this world."

She walked out of the bar and Owen remained sitting for a moment, doing nothing and staring at the chair in front of him with a stunned expression. He let out a heavy, bitter sigh and stood up, heading for the bar while trying to ignore the DPG trio's stares. He ordered another drink, it was brought to him and as he took a big sip, the bartender asked him in English:

"You're okay?"

"She's a stupid bitch," Owen replied, setting the glass down and wiping off the liquid still on his face. "She wants to control my life. I'm not going to put up with that. I'm going to do what I want to do, and that's it. What do you think I should do?"

"Shall I pour you another drink after this one?"

Hailing from a small village on the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica, Gerardo, a pot-bellied thirtyish man with a moustache, had come to Burgo Nuevo for business and was staying at the Cañada de las águilas hotel. Returning from the hotel's lounge bar, where he had a few drinks and chatted with other guests, he went back to his room, located upstairs like those of this group of Americans he had seen at breakfast that morning. As he had just entered the corridor, he was suddenly surprised by a loud voice in one of this group's rooms.

"You're lying! I never hit you! You're tearing me apart, Owen!" Claire yelled, showing by the occasion an acting talent superior to that of Tommy Wiseau.

Gerardo stopped and listened to the conversation.

"I hate you!" She added.

Gerardo then heard objects being thrown across the room.

"Come on, hit me!" Owen replied. "Hit me, you bitch!"

Gerardo's eyes widened when she hurled herself on her boyfriend, screaming like an insane person and thinking that he had heard enough, Gerardo left, hoping that the fight would not last too long. Otherwise, he intended to inform the hotel managers so that they could intervene.

"Calm down! Or I make an armlock to your cock!" She threatened.

But hearing someone rushing up the stairs, he turned and saw Basil, who had been alerted by the noise.

"Those Americans are nuts," Gerardo told him while tapping the side of his head with his index finger.

Then he went to his bedroom and Basil knocked on the couple's door. They interrupted their fight and soon after, Claire opened the door. Her hair was dishevelled and she was wearing nothing but a robe, not even her half-mask, which she had forgotten to put on in her rush.

Seeing her gash for the first time, Basil recoiled slightly and his face had an expression of surprise, but he cleared his throat and spoke:

"I know that relationships can be… strained sometimes," he said in English, "and I and Sybil sometimes have a few fights in the presence of guests, but you're making such a racket that the entire hotel must be hearing you."

"We're so sorry," she mumbled.

"It will be fine this time. If you have to argue, do it somewhere else than my hotel, please. Otherwise I would have to call the police. Understood?"

"Understood. I promise it won't happen again."

"Good. Have a good evening."

"Good evening."

Basil left and Claire closed the door. She turned to Owen, who was sitting naked on the bed, with only a piece of sheet covering his crotch. He had a hand resting on the right half of his face, sore from the hook Claire gave him like he had suggested to her, hoping that the resulting mark would draw Jocelyn's pity. Although she had no choice for the sake of their plan, Claire couldn't help but feel a little guilty for hitting her boyfriend.

"Oh, my elk…" she said softly in a pitying tone.

"You didn't miss me!" he moaned.

"Hush…" she soothed him, stroking his head.

She then went to the bathroom and came back with a damp towel, which she applied to her boyfriend's face.

"If Jocelyn doesn't take the bait…" he began.

"You'll make sad puppy eyes," she suggested.

She placed a kiss on his lips and turned on the bedside lamp. Taking the towel from her, Owen laid on his back and held it against his skin, waiting for the pain to go away. While looking at the ceiling, he wondered if they hadn't gone too far with this fake fight inspired by the one he had seen in the film Borat. When they had their affair years earlier, on Nublar, they had a few arguments, including the one after which they had broken up, uglier than the others, but they had never come to blows. It had been an unprecedented situation for them, fighting hand to hand, even if it had only been a sham and they had felt like two teenagers having fun. The fact that they were naked had added a certain spice and both had to fight against their libido in order to give a believable duration to their fake fight… If Basil had not interrupted them, she would have ended up straddling Owen on the floor.

After turning off the lights of the bathroom lights and the bedroom's ceiling, Claire stripped, letting her robe fall on the floor, and joined Owen in the bed, leaning on her side next to him.

"After effort, comes comfort… What would you like me to do to you? She asked him while describing circles on his chest with her fingers.

"I don't know. I have to think about it."

"Say what's on your mind," she said, passing one leg over his.

He turned his head towards her and replied:

"A threesome with a beautiful lady of the night."

She slapped his shoulder.

"No, but you really want your lesbian porn! All you want to do is stay on the side and touch yourself while I bang another woman, you pig! Since Francis told you about our escapade at the brothel, you haven't stopped making allusions to them. He should never have told you that! You can forget because the closest brothels are in San José and I can't see myself paying a taxi for a whore. And that's not to mention venereal diseases like Syphilis and co. In order to have a whore clean on that level, you have to put the price."

"More seriously...," he began, before leaning into her ear and whispering the rest of the sentence.

She shook her head.

"You need to stop watching Westworld! My prosthesis is not a toy and I am not sure that its caress is the most pleasant."

Her left hand then moved down to his crotch.

"It's not worth flesh...," she added while starting to stroke him. "And I'm afraid I'll break it. What would I do without it?"

"Yeah, you're right. Or we could try new positions from the Kâma-Sûtra? I have the impression that we only did a small fraction of them during our many fucks."

"Oh, that's sexy! That will sell!" She said. "Too bad the copy I bought in India is still in the boxes at home."

"You have a copy of the Kâma-Sûtra? You should have told me earlier. I would have gladly taken a look at it."

He grabbed his cell phone and suggested:

"Internet search?"

"Internet search," she agreed, leaning against him to look at the screen.

Their ploy worked because the next morning, Jocelyn went, as if by chance, to the large predators' paddocks.

Having heard by word of mouth that the couple had a violent argument, she decided to see Owen. Knowing where he was assigned, she went to the large predators' paddocks and saw him with Juan and Mark at the acrocanthosaurs paddock. The three men stood in some sort of cage, designed for cleaning and medical training (*) sessions. While the outer side of the cage was a fence identical to the one that delimited the enclosure, the inner side consisted of a fence whose bars were spaced enough to allow an adult man to pass between them. Of course, no one was doing this in the presence of the enclosure's occupants and the three keepers then stood at a respectable distance from the bars, as Pierce was lying on his stomach directly behind them. While Mark sprayed the animal's back with a hose, Juan and Owen scrubbed it with long brush brooms. From time to time, Juan stopped for a moment to reward the dinosaur for his cooperation, throwing him pieces of meat which the carnivore immediately swallowed after an abrupt snap of his jaws. Jocelyn was always amazed by the fact that such monsters let the keepers check and clean them and take their rewards without particular brutality whereas they would not have hesitated to devour them in other circumstances.

The head keeper noticed the manager's presence:

"Yes, Jocelyn?"

"Can I speak to Owen for a second?"

"No problem."

He nodded to Owen, and the latter pulled his broom from the enclosure, put it on the ground, and went to talk to the manager, who was standing behind the fence.

"You wanted to talk to me?"

"Yes. Excuse me for being indiscreet but I noticed that you and Claire were going through a rough patch. I heard that you had several arguments, with some of them being quite violent… I wanted to make sure that it was not going to interfere with the operation…"

"Have you spoken to her about it?" He asked her, half mumbling.

"Not yet, but I intend to..."

It was then that she noticed the mark of the blow that Claire had given him, by the cheek. She winced.

"She did this to you?" She asked in an almost inquisitive tone.

He nodded weakly.

"What a bitch…," she muttered.

Keeping his eyes on the ground, Owen nodded in agreement.

"Hey," she said, reaching her arm between the fence's bars to touch his.

He then raised his head, looking at her with an expression that could have been compared to that of a sad puppy, just like Claire had suggested.

"You can't go on like this," Jocelyn added. "I'm going to see if you can stay at the hacienda tonight until the situation calms down or you find something else. I'll tell you about that at lunch, okay?"

"Okay."

She smiled at him and then walked away, heading back to the hacienda while he returned to his post.

As she left the acrocanthosaurs paddock behind her, Jocelyn felt watched. She turned to the paddock on her left and noticed that Toro, the burnt carnotaur, was staring at her, watching her without making a sound. He reminded Jocelyn of a horror-film serial killer studying his next victim. Troubled, she shivered and looked away.

Chapter Text

During the lunch break, Jocelyn waited for Owen to arrive in the canteen. Before speaking to him, she scanned the room, looking for Claire. She wasn't there, but given that she hadn't been told she was absent, the Farm's manager knew that she must have preferred to eat alone in some quiet corner in the estate, away from the hostile gazes others would give her.

Good, she thought.

Jocelyn then went to inform Owen, seated a little apart from the others, that there was a free guest room upstairs and he accepted her offer. Satisfied, the manager returned to her table and texted the cook, informing him that there would be an additional guest for dinner.

The afternoon passed really fast, the sun set and dinner time arrived. In the evening, there were fewer people in the canteen than at lunchtime and the table was set only on a few, where the employees accommodated within the estate generally grouped together according to their respective departments, with the workers on one side, the guards and ACU troopers on another, the keepers and the veterinary team at a large table… Owen eventually went down and while he looked for a free seat, as all the chairs of the keepers' table were taken, Jocelyn noted that he had washed, combed his hair and put on new clothes, consisting of a polo shirt and jeans, both black. She waved at him, inviting him to take a free seat at her table. In the latter, were not only seated other employees of the Administration but also Valentine Taylor and one of his colleagues, Benito, as both had just finished their shift. As for Juan, he was seated as usual with the other keepers and the only other Costa Rican keepers to stay on site were Dana, Aura and Inès, which hailed from other parts of the country. Jocelyn remembered that the free accommodation at the Farm was one of the arguments that had encouraged them and their foreign colleagues to stay.

Owen sat down in the free chair at her table, directly across from Austin, who gave him a wary look, and he ate with them. Throughout the dinner, Jocelyn asked him questions about his former job at Jurassic World, the IBRIS program and the raptors, his Navy background, and himself. Facing the keepers' table, she noticed several of them occasionally glancing at Owen, whose back opposed them, and whispering. They were divided on the matter of the conflict that the couple was going through: Whereas some accused Claire of pushing him to his limits, others reminded them, without fully taking the fallen director's side, that Owen was not totally innocent and had looked for trouble a little bit by making inappropriate remarks about her while others made fun of the whole matter and even argued that it was nothing but an act.

Once dinner was over, Site D's employees dispersed. While some went into town to go to the bars and other leisure places, others stayed inside the estate, with most of those returning to the bungalows, while the night shift's guards and ACU troopers headed for their respective posts, generally on the borders of the estate and by the paddocks with the most dangerous occupants. Horatio, Vinny, and Mark proposed to Owen to play cards with them in the canteen, where some of them sometimes stayed until quite late at night, but he declined, telling them he was tired and wanted to rest. The three keepers then took leave of him but Jocelyn knew that he wasn't that tired and just wanted to be left alone in this rough time. All he needed was a good drink and the company of a pretty woman. She watched him go upstairs and then returned to her office, continuing to work a little while waiting for the cooks to leave. As usual, they finished work around 9:30 p.m, and she then went outside to look at the lower patio and its swimming pool, where some people sometimes bathed when the nights were warm enough. Seeing no one in or around the pool, Jocelyn was satisfied and went back inside. She went upstairs and knocked on the guest bedroom, hoping Owen wasn't asleep. He opened soon after and she was relieved to see that he was still dressed. It would have been a shame to disturb him while he was sleeping.

"Hey. I was wondering if you'd like to have a drink?" she asked him.

"Where, in town?"

"No, in the patio, but if you want to go to town, we can do that too."

"I'm for the patio. I've got one little thing to do and I'll join you."

"Very well. I'll wait for you downstairs."

He waited for her to disappear further down the hallway before closing his door, then he texted Claire, informing her that they would be at the patio. Once he was ready, he went down to the canteen and scanned the ceiling. He and Claire had made sure earlier that there were no surveillance cameras there or in the administration, but he preferred to check one last time.

"Owen?" Jocelyn's voice called.

She was standing in the kitchen's doorway. She had two glasses in her hand and a bottle of red wine, which she handed to him.

"Could you take this to the deckchairs by the pool please? I'm coming soon."

"No problem."

He grabbed the bottle and the two glasses and went to the edge of the swimming pool. He chose two deckchairs between the edge of the swimming pool and the upper patio's wall, brought a small table between the two and placed the bottle and the two glasses there. Jocelyn arrived soon after, carrying a candle and its holder. Setting them on the table, she then lit the candle with her lighter and said to Owen she had to turn off the light on the upper patio.

"I can fill the glasses in the meantime if you want," he proposed.

"Very good idea."

She went back to the upper patio, turned off the light and went back down to the lower patio, lit only by the candle and the light from the few rooms still lit in the hacienda and filtered by curtains. Owen was lying on his side in one of the deckchairs and he had poured wine into the two glasses. When Jocelyn settled into her deckchair, he raised his glass.

"To Operation Fallen Kingdom," he toasted.

"To the Operation," she toasted back, raising her glass.

They each took a first sip of wine and then put down their glasses. Suddenly, Jocelyn heard a faint stomping sound, coming from the bushes between the pool and the paddock fence beyond. She froze.

"I heard a noise," she said.

"Oh it was probably a female monkey."

She looked at Owen.

"You know if it's a female or a male monkey based on the noise they make?"

"Females are more active than males at night."

"Interesting."

Owen sighed inwardly, relieved that Jocelyn had bought his fib. Of course, a female monkey wasn't behind that sound but the Farm's manager had to ignore this.

Her initial worry gone, Jocelyn asked Owen more questions and while slowly and gradually emptying their respective glasses, they talked about various topics. While alcohol began to cloud her mind, Jocelyn felt discomfort in her ring finger and took off her wedding ring, putting it on the small table. She ended up talking about her husband and her married life:

"... oh he's so annoying, you have no idea!" She said in a voice that tended to fluctuate more and more. "I think I'm going to ask for a divorce once I get back home… The only thing that makes me hesitate are the kids. We'll have to organize shared custody, agree on alimony… That kind of stuff…"

"Somethings, when things don't work anymore, they don't... You have to avoid forcing yourself before you hurt yourself too much."

Jocelyn reached out and put a hand on Owen's shoulder.

"You're a good guy, Owen, you know that… you're brave, smart, caring, and handsome as a Greek god!"

She hiccuped.

"No, but really!" She added. "Any woman who could have you is a lucky one."

"I agree."

Already there, the manager's feeling of fatigue increased and she put a hand on her forehead to massage it.

"You're alright?" he asked her.

"Oh, I'm very tired all of a sudden…it must be the wine. And work…"

She let her head fall back against the cushion and fatigue completely overwhelming her, she closed her eyes. The next moment, her arms relaxed.

"Jocelyn?"

But she didn't answer. He stood up and approached her face. Once he was sure she was breathing, he relaxed, relieved that the soporific substance he had put in her drink while she was on the upper patio was working without unwanted effects. He looked towards the bushes on the other side of the pool, where he heard a succession of sounds.

First there was a metallic click, then some kind of small sigh and finally a sound of liquid falling on the dead leaves and the dirt. He motioned for whatever was inside to come closer, and soon after, Claire emerged, buckling her belt. Hooded, she wore black sweatshirt and trousers and had left her work clothes and her half-mask in her backpack, hidden somewhere in the middle of the vegetation.

As she walked towards them, her face had a satisfied expression.

"Excellent work, Owen."

"It was close. A few more minutes and we would've been frolicking in the pool. However, if I had to bang her, I would have banged her. I believe you told me that I had your permission."

"I never said that."

"Yes you did."

"Oh, maybe but I probably added that you better bang me twice as hard afterwards."

"Anyway, that's no longer possible. I don't want to be Harvey Weinstein's cellmate."

"Good, now that the bitch is sleeping, let's get to work."

"I hope we won't wake her..."

"You're the one who wanted to use some common sleeping pill from the drugstore."

"But at least we're sure she'll wake up. I don't know how she would have reacted with the horse tranquilizer you suggested, but I think we would have been in trouble."

Claire grabbed the bottle and emptied the rest of its content by the pool before placing it under Jocelyn's deckchair.

"What the hell?"

"A smokescreen, Owen. Always improvise a smokescreen," she explained while emptying the two glasses at the edge of the pool. "Take the key."

Carefully, he removed the chain from Jocelyn's neck and put it and the key in his jeans pocket. Claire put the two glasses back on the small table and they then went to the stairs but as they climbed them, he stumbled against a step and had to lean against the wall to stabilize himself. She turned.

"It's nothing. I drank a little..."

"I'm well aware of that. The monkey has been hanging around in the bushes the whole time. My bladder couldn't wait any longer..."

"What did you tell the others?"

"That I had something to settle with Jocelyn and that I would take a taxi."

They reached the upper patio and entered the house by the canteen. Thanks to the light of Claire's cell phone, they navigated between tables and chairs while Owen began humming the Pink Panther theme. She reprimanded him before they alerted someone:

"Owen!"

"Sorry, I couldn't help it...," he apologized in a whisper.

"Watch out, you're drunk...

"I can't help it if I had to drink for the good of this mission."

They entered a hallway to their left. Jocelyn Hodgson's office was not far away, only a few meters away, but its door almost faced the administration's main hallway. If anyone was there, they would see them right away. So Owen approached the intersection of that hallway and the one they were in. He listened. The only audible sound was that of their breathing and the songs of insects and frogs outside. He then looked beyond the wall's corner and of course saw nothing.

"Nobody?" Claire asked.

"Nope."

"Then let's go."

She walked to the office door and took the key Owen handed her. She handed him her cell phone to light the lock while she opened it.

"Open sesame…" he said.

The door unlocked and Claire gently pressed the handle before slowly pushing the door open. They both moved into the office and Claire closed behind them. She scanned the desk with her cell phone's light.

"Okay, where are those fucking maps?"

They separated in order to each search a part of the office. Claire noticed the presence of several piles of documents, binders and folders stacked on the desk while the computer keyboard was half buried under sheets.

"She better clean up. It's a mess!"

After several minutes of intense searching, Owen found the maps among one of the piles on the desk.

"Aha…"

Claire pulled her own map out of her trouser pocket and compared it to one of the copies. At first glance, there seemed to be no difference. Claire had plotted the buildings and other structures on her map, and they all seemed to be there. Afraid she hadn't looked at it attentively, she scanned it again and again, until she finally found the only difference between the two. On the old version, there was a building indicated in the north of the domain, a building that was missing from her map and the plans she had used to draw it.

"Bingo. I think I've found it."

She put the copy on the floor and asked Owen to light it up with his cell phone, so she could take a picture with hers. As soon as she had taken several decent pictures of it, they put the copy back in its pile and put the pile itself back on the desk where they had found it and put things back as they were as best they could.

Making sure first that there was no one in the hallway, they ventured out of the room, locked the door, and returned to the canteen to regain the patio. They went back down to the deckchairs by the pool and Claire put the chain and its key back around the neck of the drugged and sleeping manager, taking particular care to put the key back under her blouse.

"Good night, Jocelyn… Sweet dreams," she said mockingly.

The couple walked away from her and went to retrieve Claire's bag in the bushes.

Chapter Text

"Now where are we going?" he asked once it was done. "I was supposed to spend the night in the guest room but I'm not comfortable with leaving you hanging around alone until morning. And you can't go back to town. The gates are guarded and under video surveillance."

"If I'm seen tomorrow morning inside the hacienda with you, it will be highly suspicious. Let's find a quiet corner. You can always come back to the hacienda later."

Going around the terrace and then the hacienda itself, they hugged the walls, in order to avoid being seen by the occupants of the rooms, and once they had passed the house, they turned right, as if to go to the Predators Camp. This part of the estate having more trees and bushes, they could hide more easily if they ever encountered guards patrolling the paths and alleys. However, these being content to patrol the outskirts of the estate and guard its gates, they saw none that night and the only being which reacted to their passage was a Mantellisaurus, which mooed to attract their attention, probably to ask for food or even caresses. The animal was standing close to the fence of its paddock, following them with its eyes. Fearing that the animal would wake up the neighbourhood, Owen turned to him and said:

"Hush... Go back to sleep!"

The animal became silent and Owen and Claire continued down the path, passing between the Asian Plain and several small enclosures to their left. The clouds parted, letting the moonlight illuminate the estate a little and arriving in sight of the Predators' Camp, the couple turned right, passing between the Plain and the Marsh in order to avoid the camp and the ACU troopers on duty there, posted in two of its watchtowers and keeping an eye on the predators. They passed the Marsh' night building as well as that of the Triceratops and the latter's paddock but Claire led her boyfriend a little further, towards the large night building between the Titanosaurs' paddock and the Jurassic Plain.

Unlike the elephant and giraffe barns that may be seen in temperate countries' zoological establishments and just like the other barns of Site D, most of this building had no walls, just a large roof and strong pillars supporting it, letting them see an array of stalls and boxes where the animals spent the night. Of course, since the keepers locked the building's front door when they left, making the service rooms inaccessible, Owen guessed that the destination Claire was heading to had to be one of the unoccupied stalls, which they could access by taking a certain detour.

They left the path, Claire pulled out a flashlight from her bag and they walked around the Titanosaurs' paddock by the west. Once they reached two isolation corrals at the back of the building, they entered the one adjoining the Jurassic Plain, as there was enough space between its posts to allow a grown human sneak between them while neither bars nor fence prevented them from doing so. The couple sped through the corral and sneaked through the heavy steel bars of a gate large enough let a truck pass. Thus entering the barn, they ended up in a wide corridor and were greeted by the half-muffled bellow of the Stegosaurus standing behind the high and solid steel barrier of the stall ahead them. The animal was enormous, as long as a bus and with dorsal plates raising above the top of the barrier, which was a little over four meters high by Claire's estimate. Although the herbivore's spiky tail wasn't moving, she and Owen avoided getting too close to the fence and they turned left, passing two other stalls which also containing stegosaurs, but smaller individuals than the first.

As the fourth stall in this series was empty and the last before a dead end, Claire slipped through its bars, followed by Owen, and after checking that there was no droppings among the layer of straw that covered the floor, she sat down against the fence on the opposite side of the stall, by the service corridor used by the keepers during the day.

While she pulled out her phone and her map, Owen looked toward the nearest security camera, mounted near the ceiling on top of one of the pillars. The light was too dim for him to see it, but having been there earlier during the stay, he knew its approximate location and had noticed the layer of dust covering it and its lens. They had known then that they wouldn't have to worry about the cameras and that they would just have to leave the place before the keepers' arrival in the morning. To their right was another stall, much larger than theirs and that of the stegosaurs and with sort of baskets filled with leafy branches, suspended about five meters above the ground. Between those baskets, he saw a small group of apatosaurs, motionless and rumbling softly as they slept while standing. The group consisted of two adult females, two Parasaurolophus-sized juveniles and a third big as a horse. Owen knew there were also three sheep-sized babies born at the Farm earlier in the month, but he didn't see them and thought they had to be either in another part of the stall or hidden behind the older individuals. The adult male was locked in a separate stall.

Claire called him:

"Owen…"

He came to sit next to her and she pointed with her flashlight the area she had just circled on the map, the same one where she had seen the mysterious building on the copy she had photographed in the office.

"On Jocelyn's map, there was a building in that area. And it was not indicated on recent maps. It must be an abandoned old farm."

Owen took out his phone and went to Google Maps to zoom in on this area. He described what he saw to his girlfriend:

"This building seems to be in a small clearing. It doesn't seem to be a farm but more some kind of a house."

Being on the satellite pictures layer, he switched to the Map layer.

"And there is a forest path that connects it to the road…," he added, "…without having to cross the estate…"

"Wu and co. could have come and gone unseen by most people here, with only Jocelyn and Austin aware of his presence and activities. We've got that damn lab!"

"If not, I'm willing to cut one of my balls off."

She pulled out a blanket from her bag, and put the map and her phone back in. She got up and began to harmonize the thickness of the straw a little further ahead in preparation for laying down there.

"Well done," she congratulated him.

"You can say. I did the worst while you played Lady Macbeth in the shadows. I almost prostituted myself for you," he reproached her in a joking tone. "If we were in a movie and our sexes were inverted, it would get ripped apart on social media."

She laughed.

"My plan still worked. It was so cunning that you could have pinned a tail on it and called it a fox."

As they finished preparing their layer of straw, the couple sat down, took off their shoes and spread the blanket over their bodies. Claire turned off her flashlight and sighing at ease, they cuddled together.

"I don't think I'll ever be able to thank you for your devotion," she told him.

"What can I say? I am loyal," he answered. "You are my wife. My captain. My queen…"

She smiled.

"You're paraphrasing Boromir now? Well, it's better than just repeating "You're my Queen" all the time."

"I can't help it if Jon Snow's lines in the last season of Game of Thrones were quite limited. Because of them, as soon as I say you're my queen, you're laughing at me."

"That's not true."

"You're my queen," he said, mimicking Kit Harington's accent and acting, making her smirk. "You're my queen. You're my queen," he repeated in the same tone.

She couldn't help laughing at him and he threw some straw at her face in retaliation.

"You see?"

She grabbed a handful of straw and answered by stuffing it under his polo shirt.

"Hey!" He protested in an amused tone as the strands scratched his stomach and lower torso.

And they bickered like children, trying to put as many straws as possible under each other's clothes to inconvenience them. When they were done, they rolled onto their backs, looking at the ceiling while they started to be lulled by the soft rumble of the apatosaurs in the stall to their right.

"Reminds me of the time Isaac caught us having sex in the hay," Owen said with a sigh, "in one of the barns back on Nublar."

Claire, then removing strands of straw from her hair and her hood, asked for clarification:

"Isaac? Isaac Clement from marketing?"

"No, Isaac, one of the interns. Remember…"

"Ah him ... I knew it couldn't have been Clement, that vicious tongue. We would have had problems soon enough otherwise…"

Then remembering this episode, the intern's appearance came back to her mind.

"Wasn't this Isaac skinny and dark-haired, barely adult, always climbing everywhere like Tarzan and snooping where he shouldn't be, probably still a virgin at the time?"

"Yup."

"I remember how you caught him and grabbed him by the collar. You even threatened to smash his face if he said anything about what he saw. I thought for a second that you were going to defenestrate him."

"And you threatened to fire him from his internship."

"True."

"It's a pity we didn't allow him to brag to the other interns that he saw you naked. This is the kind of bawdy anecdotes we love at his age. Well, this incident at least gave him an unforgettable memory."

"Stop, I must have haunted several of his naughty dreams… Poor boy… When he left the barn, I bet that some noticed the fucking stiffy he had. The shame he must have felt..."

"You can't blame him for standing to attention in front of the deputy park director."

Claire's attention was suddenly drawn to a whine coming from the stall to their left. She turned to look at it and saw a young Stegosaurus behind the bars. It kicked them, which woke up its mother, lying a few meters behind. She growled and called it back with a sort of yelp. The juvenile Stegosaurus stopped kicking. It went back to lay down next to its mother, which gave it a little nudge before nestling it up against her with her tail to keep it warm.

"Do you remember the first time you saw a dinosaur?" Claire asked. "The first time you see one is like a miracle. You read about them in books, see the bones in museums. But you don't really believe it, like they're some kind of myth. And then you see one… in the flesh."

"We'll give them a new home," Owen assured her.

"I owe them that… They are all what remains of a kingdom I was supposed to protect. Like them, I'm not sure I have a place in this world... Blamed for all these deaths, treated like a monster but victim of Men's greed and power games. It's like I became one of them and I risk having the same fate, by being locked up for many years... And I was also, despite myself, the mother of one of them. We say that the Tyrannosaurus is the king of the dinosaurs but even Roberta did not survive… They have no king or queen, no homeland…"

He passed an arm around her waist.

"They have you..."

"Some indeed call me the Fallen Queen of Isla Nublar, but that is only out of mockery. Anyway, I no longer have any power, and even with the responsibilities Lockwood gave me, I can't do much for them. Had InGen's intentions been more sinister for them, I fear I would have been unable to protect them. What is a king or a queen unable to protect their people? If only I was filthy rich... I would have bought them all and created a sanctuary for them. Not one like Alexander would like, some kind of discount Sorna whose result would be nothing more than a Battle Royale… No, think of something more like that sanctuary for elephants in Tennessee or the one where they filmed that movie we once watched at your place on Nublar, with the guy who had all those lions in his house… Tippi Hedren is the president of that sanctuary…(*)"

"Shambala Preserve?"

"Yeah, that's it. Shambala Preserve. Basically, something like that but adapted to dinosaurs, without tourists if possible... I would build it in some remote place, where they and I could live in peace for the rest of our days... Another idea that will be nothing other than a sweet dream, a utopia, like many things..."

They chatted a little longer, then closed their eyes and drifted off to sleep.

Chapter Text

But that night, Claire had another nightmare. In that one, she was again in a white dress and barefoot, and treading a frozen landscape, freezing and walking with a slow and hesitant step in the middle of a blizzard, which was such that she could only distinguish her immediate surroundings. As rocky outcrops and a slope appeared ahead of her, she suddenly heard a voice:

"Well, I must recognize you schemed well... Poor Jocelyn... Playing with her feelings... Her nerves were already put to the test... I think you've made yourself a new enemy..."

The fallen park director shuddered as she recognized her own voice. It was more booming, and sibilant at times, in addition to speaking with Received Pronunciation for some obscure reason, but it was definitely her own voice.

"I had no choice," Claire replied, scanning the slope and its outcroppings with worried eyes, searching for the source of the voice. "And her feelings are of little importance in this whole affair. It will be over soon anyway."

"Over soon?" The voice repeated before letting out a mocking laugh. "All this is only the beginning and many trials await you, along with suffering."

"I…"

"You will find the house? And after that? Do you think InGen and Wu are stupid enough to not clean up after them?!" The voice boomed. "Perhaps you will find evidence of their presence and research, and perhaps the Ocelot will keep his word…. But don't think you're out of the woods… Not only you and the survivors of Isla Nublar haven't left Costa Rica and reached the Lockwood Estate yet, but your so-called allies still have to keep their word… I hope you are aware that you are only a pawn in this whole affair. However, pawns tend to be expendable! Beware Mother, be careful in the coming days!"

As soon as the voice finished the sentence, the basin and its surroundings were struck by a tremor. Claire staggered, struggling to stay upright, but eventually collapsed to her knees in the snow. The tremor stopped and Claire finally got up but as she was about to continue straight, her body froze with fear because in the middle of the blizzard, lying on a rocky platform further ahead, she discerned a large dark figure and recognized the line of spines, the long clawed arm, and the horned skull of the monster that had destroyed her life.

"Stop haunting my dreams...," Claire begged. "Why don't you leave me in peace?! I killed you!"

"You gave me a fatal blow, yes, but you didn't finish me off. Had you thrusted that bolt in my skull instead of taking that flash drive, you would still have your forearm. You lost it, and your beauty, for what? Nothing! It is truly regrettable that your heroism has been in vain. People don't know what you've done, and you're just a monster in their eyes!"

"I'm not like you…," Claire replied, shaking her head.

The Indominus' silhouette rose and she walked over to the edge of the platform where she placed her left hand. Her half-burnt head emerged from the snowstorm and her different coloured eyes, one blood red and the other emerald, the same colour as Claire's, stared into hers.

"For them, we are two opposite sides of the same coin."

Claire suddenly felt a sharp pain on the left half of her face and cried out as a gash formed there, stretching from her hairline to her chin. While she was bent over in agony, Claire noticed a frozen puddle in front of her. She saw a face there, whose right was that of the Indominus and whose left half was hers. A monstrous, scarred, half-scaly face.

"The sad thing is that they are somewhat right because you and I are much more alike than you would like to admit."

As if to further emphasize their similarities, the Indominus leaned forward to reveal the stump she had in place of her right forearm and by reflex, Claire looked at hers. Where it had been present until then in that dream, it had now disappeared. She didn't even have her prosthesis, just a stump at the end of the elbow.

"Enough…"

Claire began to back up and the Indominus descended from the platform.

"The truth is often hard to accept, Mother," she said.

"Stop using that word…," Claire answered with disgust.

Continuing to back away, she heard a crack and stopped. She looked down at her feet and as she realized she was standing on ice, the latter, weakened by the tremor, gave way under her weight and Claire narrowly avoided being dragged with the collapsing ice's block by digging the fingers of her left hand into a crack near the edge. She immediately tried to climb back, but the wall of what she assumed was a crevasse was too slippery for her to hang on with her frost-numbed feet while she had no other arm to help her climb. Hearing the Indominus approaching, Claire looked down and saw that at the bottom of the crevasse, more than a hundred meters below, a river was flowing. But its waters were so fast that they formed rapids and she knew they had to be frozen. If she fell into the river, hypothermia and drowning awaited her, and that was not to mention the fall's height. She looked back above her and saw the Indominus tilt her head towards her.

"Be gone!" She ordered her.

"You want me to go away?" The Indominus asked, putting his hand right in front of Claire's, even touching her skin with the tip of one of her claws. "You are a part of me, and I am a part of you. I will never go away..."

As she was exhausted and didn't desire to let the Indominus catch her, Claire let go and fell straight towards the river.

"Mother!" The predator shouted while leaning over the crevasse.

Claire's vision darkened before she even landed in the water, and the nightmare ended.

Chapter Text

Owen was awakened by the stegosaurs' bellows and the gentle caress of dawn. He opened his eyes, yawned, but as he stretched, he noticed that Claire and her shoes were gone.

She's probably taking a piss, he thought.

He continued stretching, grimacing, and sat up. He looked at his watch: Half past five. Since he had to be back at the hacienda by a quarter to eight at the latest in order to have breakfast there, and doubted that Claire would want to go back to bed while the day was breaking and the dinosaurs in the neighbouring stalls waking up, he grabbed his girlfriend's backpack and opened it to put the blanket in, right next to the machete they had "borrowed" the previous day at the shed.

Coming from further away, he heard a kind of squealing, and then heard Claire giggle. He stood up and looked around. From the stall they had slept in, he saw neither her nor the source of the squeak, but the noises were coming from behind him, further along the apatosaurs' large stall.

"Hey! Easy," he heard Claire say. "You're worse than Sigurd..."

Owen put on his shoes and slipped out of the stall on the side of the service corridor, taking the bag with him, and after a turn, he saw Claire further ahead, in front of the barrier. She was handing branches through the bars to a baby Apatosaurus which made the squeaks he had heard. The young animal stretched its neck and its snout through the bars without taking its eyes off Claire, who was feeding it.

"Take your time," she said, stroking its head. "Don't worry, you'll get as much as you want. You like it, huh?"

She turned around and saw Owen looking at her.

"Isn't that sweetie adorable?" she asked him.

"It is."

He looked around the stall and saw that the adults and subadults were busy feeding from the large hanging baskets while at their feet the other two babies had their necks stretched upwards, waiting for bits to fall from the shaken baskets or from the mouths of the older animals. Unlike them, the babies had no spines on their backs and under the neck and were grey-brown, whereas the adults had a light grey body with dark blue mottling, a yellowish underside, and a striped tail whose whip-like end sported black rings.

Farther behind Claire, he saw the stall of the male Apatosaurus. Its occupant, which stood motionless behind the barrier, was staring at them and Owen gave him a sideways glance. Although female apatosaurs were sturdy beasts, the males were even sturdier and resembled the sauropod equivalent of a bodybuilder due to their muscular build and unusually broad neck, a far cry from that of giraffatitans, more graceful animals described by many as scaly giraffes of tremendous size. The male apatosaurus locked up alone in his stall was also distinguished from females and immature males by more developed and pointed spines, which were used during combat. If no barrier had separated him and Claire, Owen would have been no more comfortable with him than in the presence of a large carnivore because under certain circumstances, male apatosaurs could pose an equally important danger. Some in times of musth had even attacked other dinosaurs and vehicles in the Five Deaths without any provocation while those in Jurassic World had been isolated and confined during breeding periods to avoid possible disastrous incidents with the safari trucks. Not only were they big and powerful, but they were also not very smart and had a tendency to be reckless, like this individual which, during the fall of Isla Nublar's park, attacked the Indominus herself at the exit of a wood and had wounded her back. He made a huge mistake and Owen and Claire had then found his body in a sorry state.

The baby Apatosaurus looked up at Owen while still raking the branch with its teeth. A few leaves sticking out from its mouth fell on the ground.

"He's a bit more delicate than Lindsay," Claire said.

"Lindsay?

"That's how I nicknamed one of the baby Triceratops. Since she's fat and a bitch which can't stop growling, she reminds me of a certain Lindsay."

The young animal swallowed the leaves it had just grabbed and opened its mouth to ask for more. Owen moved closer and gently put his hand on the neck of the Apatosaurus, whose skin was dry and warm. The sauropod let out a small squeak as the keeper began to pet it.

While raking its branch, the baby Apatosaurus looked alternately at Claire and Owen without showing the slightest sign of fear. The Raptor Whisperer smirked and chuckled.

"Why are you laughing?" His girlfriend asked.

"It reminds me of that stupid movie with Sean Young and the Brontosaurs in Africa. On one side, it's supposed to be a Disney production for the whole family but on the other, you've got shootings, some blood and even a sex scene. It's quite amazing. Ah, that was another time...," he answered in an almost nostalgic tone.

Owen's gaze wandered behind the bars, towards the stall's gate and the dimly lit meadow beyond. If they wanted to have the maximum amount of time to look for the house in the woods and search it, they had to leave soon.

They heard a kind of sneeze, a loud breath similar to the snorting of a big horse, and the baby stirred. It stepped back and brought its head and neck back inside the stall. Suddenly, a shadow fell over the three of them and a huge leg, as big as a tree trunk and equipped with a single curved claw, appeared.

The couple looked up and saw that it was one of the adult females. The huge animal looked up at Claire and Owen, then she blinked slightly and returned her attention to the baby. She lowered her neck and nudged it gently, leading it away from the bars, like if she didn't trust the two humans.

The baby turned away from the barrier and walked towards the other apatosaurs. From time to time, the adult nudged it with her snout to indicate the direction to follow and the two dinosaurs slowly moved away.

Claire turned and saw that Owen had picked up her backpack.

"You're ready?" He asked her.

"Yes. Let's find that cabin in the woods."

Retracing their steps, they returned to their stall and left the barn by the same path they had taken during the night. Once they'd left the corrals behind, they turned due north and moved deeper into the jungle.

Chapter Text

While humming a song, Valentine entered the hacienda's courtyard and passing by the fountain, he walked towards the canteen and the terrace beyond. Dressed in nothing but a T-shirt and gym shorts, carrying a towel over his shoulder and wearing flip-flops, he had goose bumps and someone else wouldn't have said no to a sweatshirt but not him. He thought that the mountains' morning freshness was invigorating and even encouraged him to do some exercise before work or after when he was on night shift. Finishing crossing the canteen, he went out on the upper patio and descended the stairs while continuing to whistle cheerfully. A few more seconds and he would be in the pool…

But as he got downstairs, he was surprised to see Jocelyn lying on one of the deckchairs, seeming to be sleeping soundly while a group of white-faced capuchins was busy around the patio, making Valentine roll his eyes. It was not uncommon for the monkeys to come down from their trees and walk around, and sometimes inside, the hacienda whenever there was hardly anyone in the vicinity. Many thought they were cute when they first saw them, but like many other monkeys, capuchins were thieves, acting when people weren't looking, and the cooks hated them while everyone living on the estate had been instructed to lock up behind them if they did not want to have their bedrooms ransacked by monkeys in search of food. Those before Valentine's eyes drank the water from the swimming pool, had fun running after each other at its edge or playing on the deckchairs while one inspected Jocelyn a little too closely from the guard's perspective. Said monkey was a stride away from her deckchair and looking at her neck. Suddenly, it jumped on the deckchair but just as he was about to pilfer the chain, Valentine clapped his hands loudly, stopping it dead in its tracks.

"Hey!" he shouted.

All the Capuchins froze and turned to him, before scampering away, running towards the trees between the residence and the neighbouring paddocks and letting out barks and coughing-like sounds.

Awakened by the noise, Jocelyn shifted in her deckchair, moaned and asked:

"Owen… what time is it?"

She opened her eyes, noticed first that the sun had risen and then that Valentine was there. When she saw his towel and flip-flops, she knew it had to be a little after seven, when he sometimes swam lengths in the pool.

"Valentine. Is it morning already?"

He replied with a nod. Having a headache, she put a hand on her forehead.

"You're alright?" He inquired as he moved closer.

"Owen and I were drinking. I felt tired all of a sudden, I laid down and fell asleep straight away. Have you seen him?"

"No."

"He left like that? He could have at least brought me back inside. What a boor."

"There were Capuchins. One of them almost stole your chain."

She wanted to sit on the side of the deckchair, but seeing shards of glass at the base of the small table near it, Valentine warned her:

"Careful. There is a broken glass. One of them must have knocked it over."

Jocelyn looked down and saw the broken glass, the one Owen had been drinking from. She sighed and shifted in order to not put her feet on the shards. She then looked at the small table, where her glass and the candle remained. And nothing else.

Nothing else?!

She got up to take a better look and there was indeed nothing else. A feel of worry took over her and she crouched down to look frantically under and around the small table, making sure to put her knees and hands on safe spots. At that moment, she saw that the bottle of wine had been put under her deckchair and that it was empty, but her concerns were about something else.

"Jocelyn?" The guard asked.

"My wedding ring!" She exclaimed in a panicked voice. "I put it on the table. Those damn monkeys stole it!"

"Hey, we'll find it," he assured her in a calm, soothing voice. "They went that way," he added, pointing to the line of trees near the fences. "I'll look under the trees."

"Thank you, Valentine.

He then walked around the pool and went into the bushes in search of the lost wedding ring. On the other side of the pool, Austin had just come down the stairs and was walking towards Jocelyn. The ACU commander noticed that she was dishevelled and looked like death warmed up.

"Joel," she greeted him.

When he saw the bottle of wine, Austin's face frowned, his arms crossed, and his mouth let out a sigh.

"Jocelyn. Did you get drunk again?" he asked, not without annoyance.

"I only had one drink," she said defensively. "And when I fell asleep, that bottle was far from empty," she assured him.

"And who emptied it and put it there? The Capuchins? You were with Grady? Where is he?" the ACU commander asked, his tone growing more inquisitive.

"I don't know. Maybe he preferred to not wake me and went back to his room."

Austin then grabbed the remaining glass and held it up to his nose.

"Maybe this, maybe that… You're just lucky you didn't get eaten," he pointed out while sniffing the glass' interior.

As he smelled nothing particular but alcohol, the commander put the glass back on the table.

"Do I need to remind you that one of the Homalocephale was killed by a jaguar a few months ago?" he added.

"Come on. He couldn't have left me like that if he was aware of that kind of danger."

"I'm not sure of anything, but his attitude and that of Mrs. Dearing have been rather strange these past few days. We have to watch them closely. If I were you, I would make sure everything is in order in your office."

He then changed the subject of conversation.

"Wheatley and his men will land in the afternoon," he informed her. "They are expected at Alajuela's base. The convoy should arrive here at the end of the day."

"Okay, thanks Joel."

"Jocelyn. Have a shower and put on some new clothes. If you're still in that state when Wheatley will arrive, I'm afraid he'll interpret it as another mockery from InGen. We have to make sure he's well received.

Jocelyn nodded weakly and looked towards the trees.

Chapter Text

"But thinking about it, we left Jocelyn on her deckchair," Claire recalled while they descended into a small valley. "I hope a jaguar didn't eat her..."

In front of her, Owen struck his machete's blade on a branch which blocked their way.

"No chance," he replied. "Jaguars only attack humans if cornered or injured. Unlike Old World cats, they didn't evolve alongside apes and thus don't see us as natural prey. If that hadn't been the case, you can imagine that I would have raised this issue. We would have been in deep shit if she had been killed by a predator during the night."

It was past six o'clock and the forest's diurnal inhabitants were already awake. Monkeys chattered, birds sang and frogs croaked. Following the map's directions on Claire's phone, the proximity of batrachians told the couple that they were heading in the right way and shortly after reaching the bottom of the dell, they soon stumbled upon a stream. Beyond, at the edge of their field of vision, they glimpsed a wooden house, nestled in the middle of the forest.

"Here it is!" She exclaimed.

They jumped over the stream and headed for the abandoned house. Surrounded by tall trees, including an old mahogany, it was a teak dwelling built on two levels, with a large balcony upstairs and a patio below, and it seemed large enough to have housed an entire family.

Between the couple and the house was a fallow plot, once a well-kept garden. On either side of their path, they saw banana trees, other fruit trees as well as orchids but also and above all a large number of bushes and creepers, which assailed the house like kraken's tentacles on a ship, slowly smothering it in an endless embrace. Here and there large webs, sometimes a yard wide, had been woven, and their filaments appeared like golden threads in the sunlight.

Golden orb-weavers' webs…, Owen observed, shivering a little.

"What is this set straight from an eighties horror movie?" He said aloud as he was making their way through with the machete.

"It gives goosebumps... We should have borrowed one of the guns from the armory. Just in case. All I have is a steak knife I pinched from the restaurant."

Owen glanced over his shoulder and saw that his girlfriend had pulled out said knife and was pointing its blade now to the left and then to the right.

"Be careful with that knife, Brutus, you could hurt someone," he joked. "Since the bearing of arms is restrictive in this country, I'm not sure that walking around like that with a gun is a good idea. What if we ran into cops..."

"Except we're still on InGen property," she pointed out. "I only remembered this morning that they bought some land two years ago, to expand Site D. This plot was probably part of it. So I'm not sure the cops are allowed to walk around here without a warrant."

"True."

"I would still feel safer with a gun. How do you think a single pretty young woman could have avoided being bothered by the first bastard who came along back in New York and Florida?"

As they got closer, they noticed that the house had an annex on its northern side. Not built of wood but of cement, it had a rectangular shape and a flat roof. The couple surmised that it had to be a garage, large enough to shelter several vehicles and added to the house only later, rather crudely for Claire's taste. Amidst the dead leaves, she could make out the outline of a driveway connecting the garage's door to a gate further ahead. Consisting of two large wooden doors, the latter was closed and barricaded from the inside.

Taking the steps at its entrance, the couple climbed into the patio, advancing towards the front door. On either side of it, large bay windows showed dusty curtains. Owen stuffed the machete into Claire's bag and kicked the door open. Eventually the door gave way and they entered, letting daylight flood into the house and illuminate the living room and kitchen as well as the dusty furniture. The impression given by the house was that the owner had suddenly disappeared but that no one had come to take the furniture away. On their left, a spiral staircase led upstairs; to their right, the kitchen had been built in a corner and featured furniture made of precious wood.

"Okay… let's search this place," Claire said, looking at the furniture as well as the doors and recesses visible in the back, leading to other rooms. "They may have forgotten some stuff."

"Do you think that documents could have slipped from their folders and slid under the sofa?" Owen asked her.

"Unlikely, but worth considering. The slightest packaging or receipt could have some use for the Ocelot."

She opened the bag to take out the machete, then ventured to the back of the house to search the rooms there while he dealt with the living room. He first slid the couch to the side, trying to see if the house's most recent occupants had left anything under it, but he saw nothing but dust. He then took a look at the rest of the living room's furniture, opening them when possible to peer inside. But as he moved a chest of drawers near a low piece of furniture on which a television must have rested, he suddenly cringed.

"Fucking hell!" he hissed.

He had just disturbed a tarantula, which quickly scampered off, crawling on the tiled floor only a few feet from his shoes. He froze, with his eyes nervously following the huge hairy spider as it headed for the front door.

"I just searched the laundry room and the toilet," Claire informed him. "I found nothing."

She then noticed his frightened expression.

"You're alright?" She inquired.

"There was a tarantula," he replied.

"Compared to other spiders, a tarantula isn't that dangerous, is it?"

"Indeed, but it's still a big disgusting spider."

"So when you have big boas lying around on the terrace of your bungalow, no worries. Acting like Kevin Richardson (*) with raptors, no worries either. On the other hand, a spider which happens to be a bit bigger than the others, hello anxiety!" She scoffed. "The next time you see one, just think it's an eight-legged vagina."

"Stop saying bullshit like this, I'm going to have nightmares..."

Claire then went to the kitchen to search it, opening the drawers and cupboards one by one.

"The bushwhacker is more afraid of spiders than the suburbanite. How ironic!" he grumbled.

"Indiana Jones is afraid of snakes," she reminded him.

"You'll excuse me but unlike spiders, snakes have the merit of being beautiful."

"I'm not a fan. I think they're cold and sinister."

"And yet your ring had snakes if I'm not mistaken."

"My ex from Florida claimed that the snake was the animal that symbolizes me the most. Back then, I thought it was some esoteric bullshit but I didn't care since the ring was a nice gift."

"Your ex, the smith and ring maker... Rama, right?"

"Yes."

Remembering that she had never told him the name of the boyfriend she had before she was hired by InGen, Claire froze for a moment before resuming her search.

"Wait, how do you know his name? I never told you."

"I saw the letter he sent you while you were recovering. He has nice handwriting. Rama Ian Nantor, that's not a very common name. I went to his shop's website."

Claire stopped and her eyes widened in excitement.

"You went on this website? Oh you rascal, I think you're hiding something from me… Don't act like you're innocent."

"Sorry if I disappoint you, but I didn't buy anything. I just did some virtual window shopping."

"Oh!"

"Then I heard he got into trouble over a story of chipped rings he allegedly sold to some of his wealthiest and most powerful clients. I also read that he had a penchant for the occult and I put the idea aside. In any case, all the boyfriends you've had are far from boring. Between him, who would be the type to live in a big Gothic castle, the metalhead fan of Norse mythology and role-playing games whom you dated in high school, the fencer and medievalist when you were a student… and me, a mountain man who trained raptors..."

Then about to close the cupboard under the sink, Claire saw out of the corner of her eye an abandoned box at the bottom of it. First she took a photo of it with her cell phone and then held out her prosthesis and not her hand in order to not be bitten or stung by some hidden venomous critter. She grabbed the box and pulled it out, showing it to Owen.

"Jasmine tea…," he observed.

"We're getting warmer ... Henry loves jasmine tea."

She put the box on the counter and took a second photograph of it.

"If I was him and had to work in secret here, where would I set up a clandestine laboratory?" Owen wondered, scanning his surroundings. "Upstairs? No… The wooden floor wouldn't have hold under the weight of some lab equipment, not to mention transportation issues… The laundry room? I'm afraid it's too small..."

"The 'garage,'" Claire suggested, looking toward the door opposite the kitchen, near the spiral staircase. "I don't think it was here in the beginning and if I was the owner of this house, I wouldn't have commissioned something so ugly. InGen had to add it in a hurry. Let's take a look."

They went to that door and Owen kicked it. Lighting their way with Claire's phone and the flashlight, they moved a little forward, stopped at the small wooden staircase behind the door's threshold and swept the garage with their lights.

"There's nothing…" Claire noted, disappointed.

The garage was empty. There was no furniture or equipment, just bare walls, a few electrical outlets, a large sliding door closed, cobwebs in the corners and on the ceiling, and a layer of dust on the floor. While the flashlight beam zigzagged across it, Owen noticed marks on the floor. They were a little faded but if one looked carefully, they could see them.

"Wait. Look at the marks on the ground," he said to Claire while passing the light over the marks.

"Traces… Large enough to have been those of furniture, laboratory equipment… Light them up while I take pictures."

They went down the small staircase and started taking pictures of the marks they saw. Most were located near the sockets and had rectangular shapes, except for one in a corner, which was rather circular.

A development vat, Claire thought after her phone's flash lit up that part of the garage. Like in the lab annex back on Nublar, where the Indominus was born.

When they had taken pictures of all the marks they saw, Claire scanned the garage for more clues. Looking back towards the door they had taken, she saw a thin, white item under the stairs' steps.

A sheet! It must have slipped out of a folder or a binder when they left.

As for Owen, he too had just found a potential clue, in the form of a mortar stain at eye level on one of the walls. Passing the lamp's beam below and above this stain, he noted the presence of other mortar stain, evenly spaced all the way up the wall. Approaching the stain by eye level, he saw that a small metal object protruded from it. Stepping forward again, until he was almost pressed against the wall, Owen noticed that the edges of the object were sharp and he crouched down to look closely at the mortar stains below. They too had these same kinds of metal objects protruding from them. Realizing the likely nature of the mortar stains and pieces of metal, Owen backed away from the wall and illuminated the one about two meters to his right. When the lamp's beam met a vertical series of mortar stains, he stopped and passed his lamp first along an imaginary straight line on the ground between that wall and him, then along another which started from his feet to join the wall ahead of him, following the probable contours of an enclosed space that had occupied that corner of the garage.

"Owen?" Claire asked.

He looked to the left and saw that she was holding a sheet of paper in her hands.

"You see the mortar smears in front of me? Come closer and tell me what you see."

She carefully folded the sheet and put it in her trouser pocket.

"What was that sheet?"

"No idea, I didn't have time to read it. I found it under the stairs. We'll read it later."

She moved closer to the wall.

"There are bits of metal sticking out of the mortar," she noticed. "They look like they were sawed off or at least cut... Those who did that proceeded like slobs."

"Exactly. Railings were attached to these two walls. Bars... And who says bars, says cage, says animal..."

"What else this place could be? Wu's sex dungeon? If they built a cage, that would mean..."

"These marks remind you of anything?" He asked her suddenly.

She turned around and saw that he was crouched down and directing the flashlight on a part of the floor within the rectangle the cage once described. She positioned herself at his side and saw on the concrete three irregular streaks stretching across two dozen centimetres. Claw marks. Terrible memories came back and she couldn't help but put her hand on her gash.

"Yes, the ones on the wall of the Indominus enclosure," she replied. "Fuck…" she added in a low voice with a hint of dread.

"So InGen probably has another Indominus or a similar creature somewhere," he concluded.

"I don't think they sent it to Palo Alto," Claire said, pulling the sheet out of her pocket. "There are too many people and no room for a monster like the one born here."

"Maybe Site H. InGen wanted to move the IBRIS program there before the death of Blue's sisters."

"The one in the desert? Good luck infiltrating the place if the Ocelot asks us. The employees working there are carefully selected."

"And Torres must have turned the place into a fortress if they sent that thing there…"

"Indoraptor. That's how they called their new horror..."

Claire had just read the name on the sheet and when Owen leaned over it, he noticed that it was a photocopy of a health record. As the sheet had been left in moisture, it was stained and most of the information had become illegible, but the name Indoraptor was clearly visible in the Species box.

"Losing that photocopy wasn't very smart…" she added.

"Given the name, it must be a cross between an Indominus and a raptor. The second stage of their diabolical project. A miniaturized version of the first… I don't dare to imagine the appearance and the abilities of this creature."

"I think we have enough evidence. Let's search the rooms upstairs and leave. You have to go back to the hacienda afterwards."

They turned away from the claw marks and returned into the house proper, unaware that a micro-camera concealed at the top of the garage's large sliding door had watched them the whole time.

Chapter Text

They went upstairs to search the bedrooms but found no additional items. Given the size of the rooms and the number of beds or sofas, Claire estimated that a dozen people at most could have been accommodated in the house. Wu but also most likely Ivan Preston, his right-hand man and boyfriend, a few other scientists and a guard or two to ensure their safety. If the team that worked there was larger, its other members were accommodated elsewhere, probably in one of the hotels in town in order to not arouse the suspicion of some of Site D's employees.

"Indoraptor…the Indian thief…what a stupid name," Owen said as they walked back to the front door.

Claire noticed that he had his phone in his hand.

"I just typed it into a search engine, just for fun, and it's a name that's already taken, for a kind of fictional small dragon created by some Kraut on DeviantArt," he added.

"You're aware that's the least of InGen's worries," she replied.

"In any case, you would sell toys with that name."

They closed the house's door as best they could and crossed the fallow garden.

"Stop, you remind me of all those unsold Jurassic World toys Mattel has on their hands," she told him. "To think that they would also have sold toys at the effigy of the Indominus…"

"Mattel, aren't they those who make Barbies?"

"Yes they are."

"I didn't recall that InGen had a partnership with them. I must admit that I was never interested in their plastic crap who filled the shelves of some shops in the park. I think they're overrated. The icing on the cake would have been the presence of Barbies in park uniforms... Barbie the shop clerk, Barbie the tour guide, Barbie the keeper, Barbie the geneticist, Barbie the veterinarian, Barbie the Camp Cretaceous monitor, Barbie the J-SEC officer…"

"And that wouldn't have been the worst. I know I was unofficially named Miss Isla Nublar the year I arrived, but by the gods, can you imagine Barbie dolls at my effigy? Help!"

They crossed the creek and continued south, but they did not take exactly the same path as on the outward trip, deviating further west. They realized this shortly after they finished climbing the slope when they ended up facing not the corrals adjoining the sauropods' night building, nor the two large grassy and open paddocks connected to the latter, but a densely vegetated enclosure delimited by a three meter high chain-link fence.

"Where are we?" Claire wondered. "We're not by the sauropods."

Not recognizing the paddock either, Owen listed in his head the other northern paddocks, all located in the large predators' area. First he crossed out the acrocanthosaurs', then those of the carnotaurs and of Boomer the metriacanthosaur, as the enclosure's interior and the fence's type didn't match. Only one remained, and when Owen remembered the identity of its occupants, his body tensed. He listened and they heard a fairly audible noise in the thickets. Then nothing. Owen looked around the paddock and grabbed Claire's wrist.

"Turn around, very slowly," he whispered to her. "We must move away."

They heard the noise again. It was definitely made by something quite large, which was moving slowly through the vegetation and coming towards them.

"Is that…?" she began.

"Yes."

As if to confirm their fear, the animal hidden in the vegetation hooted.

"Turn around!" he hissed.

They turned around but as they walked away with a brisk step, the animal leapt out of the thicket, the couple heard a rattling noise and a jet of black and viscous matter splashed against a trunk just inches from Claire's face. Dilophosaurus' spit.

"Duck!" Owen told her.

They ducked and started running but at that moment, they heard a second Dilophosaurus charging out of the vegetation in its enclosure and also spitting. Owen felt something wet crash down on his back, just below his collar. Instinctively, he wanted to wipe himself but he held back. He knew that if he touched the spit, his skin would quickly itch, like if he had touched acid. The couple continued to run in a bent position over a few additional meters and only stopped once they were out of reach of the dilophosaurs' spits. Frustrated, the predators let out a hoot that sounded disappointed.

"You're okay?" Owen asked his girlfriend while they caught their breath.

"I think I'm alright," she assured him. "I should return the question to your polo though."

Then they laughed, as if to release all the accumulated tension and adrenaline. Knowing where they were exactly, they headed southwest, continuing under the foliage for a good hundred meters, and finally stepped out of the woods just by the Titanosaurs' paddock.

"It's going to be a hassle to wash that," she noted a few minutes later.

"If someone asks, I'll pretend I went for a morning walk and fell in mud when I tried to approach one of the paddocks," he replied as he stood bent over and shirtless by a tap outside the sauropods barn, trying to wash off the spit on his polo shirt. "As simple as that."

Owen turned off the tap and looked down at his polo shirt. The spit was gone but a large dark stain remained. He held his polo shirt up to his nose and sniffed. The spit's acrid smell was still there.

He sighed and looked at the time on his watch: Almost half past seven.

"Okay, I should go," he said, putting his polo shirt back on. "I have to change and have my breakfast. I hope you've got something to eat?"

"Yeah, don't worry. We meet by the keepers' office. You remember your lines?"

"Yes. See you later!" He told her as he headed towards the hacienda, following the herbivore loop.

"See ya!"

Chapter Text

A little over twenty minutes later, they met in the parking lot near the Ark's kitchens and acted out their reconciliation scene while the minibus disembarked the DPG trio and its other passengers. As they whispered, kissed, expressed their respective regrets and mushiness worthy of a bad romantic drama, several stopped for a moment to listen and watch them.

Once their scene was over, they entered the Ark together and went to sit side by side in the circle of chairs inside the keeper's office, greeting the others shyly. Nearby, Zia and Franklin were whispering while watching Claire from time to time. The latter noticed this and gave them a wary look, fearing that they were not talking about her in a very positive way. Then Franklin got up and went to see her.

"Claire?" he asked in a hesitant voice.

"Yes."

"I… We wanted to ask you if you could give us an interview. For the documentary... and also for the organization."

Surprised, she stared at him silently for a moment, then said:

"I know what you're up to, my sweethearts. Since my little press conference when I got out of the hospital, no journalist managed to get a hold of me. What a publicity stunt it would be for the Dinosaur Protection Group to have an exclusive interview with Claire Dearing, the infamous last director of Jurassic World… If you put it on Youtube in a few months, buzz will be guaranteed. People would love to see it I'm sure... to make fun of me, like if I was a caged circus freak... Don't get me wrong, I'm sure you have good intentions but I have to say no. And didn't I tell you at the beginning that I didn't want you to take footage of me?"

"Yes, I remember, but the thing is, Zia and I think it's a bit of a shame.

And Alexander, what does he think? She wondered, casting a furtive glance at the DPG founder, whom Franklin's offer also seemed to have surprised. Oh wait… I know. He doesn't like me and I'm sure he wouldn't mind passing off my efforts as his own.

"Even if you did everything some accuse you of, it would be unfair for you to be a ghost in this operation," the IT technician continued.

"Maybe it's better that way."

She took a deep breath and then said:

"Did you know I was clinically dead for five minutes? According to some of the doctors who tended to me in Nicoya, they expected me to stay dead. Neither dead nor totally alive... What am I if not a ghost? Anyway, I sometimes have the impression of being one."

"And yet you are here with us, among the living. You're involved as much as we are, the animals are important to you... But you don't appear once in the footage I took, or so furtively that you could easily be mistaken for another woman. Without footage of yourself, how could you prove people that you were involved in this operation? A picture is worth at least ten testimonies."

"Do you think this interview would help me get a new image?"

"Don't you think so?"

"A new image? Come on, Franklin... It's obvious you've never seen me without this mask. If you take it off, give me black clothes, put on some makeup, and eventually shave my head, I'll look like a villain from the Star Wars Expanded Universe. The old one at least, before Disney came in. How do you expect people to have sympathy for you when you don't have a good reputation and look more like a villain than a hero?"

"You're… intimidating, true, but you don't seem as bad as some pretend. Some might even think you're cool."

"Cool?" she repeated. "Franklin, have you been deaf and blind in the past few days? I hit my boyfriend in a fit of anger for fuck's sake! And that's not to mention..."

"You mean your 'fight' with Owen?" He interrupted as she was about to mention the fact that she had nearly killed Wu's right-hand man during the Fall. "No matter how hard you try, half of the people in this room know it was bluff and the other half have doubts."

He leaned closer and, in a low voice, he added:

"With Zia, we've heard you laughing and making love the last few nights. We don't know what you're up to, but if you have sadomasochistic tendencies, that's none of our business."

He suddenly realized he was going a bit too deeply into their private lives and instinctively recoiled slightly. She looked him straight in the eyes but while he expected her to retort curtly, she just smirked and laughed softly.

"I also know The Room by the way," he added. "You have succeeded where Tommy Wiseau failed."

"Thanks."

"The documentary we're making would be a way to sway public opinion in your favor," Franklin said, "even if it's just a little. And I'm asking you now because we're leaving in two days. If we could take some footage of you here, taking care of the animals..."

"It's true that animals have an endearing or down to earth aspect. Why do you think some politicians go to agricultural shows, pose with lambs, or share pictures of their pets? You've got a few points, Franklin," Claire replied thoughtfully. "I'll think about it. I'll give you my answer at lunchtime."

"OK cool. Cool, cool, cool…," he repeated nervously before returning to his seat.

At the same time, Juan arrived in the office, followed by Jocelyn. She looked around the room and when she saw the couple side by side and seemingly at peace, she bit her lower lip. She then went to the DPG trio, whispered something to them and then invited the couple to join them with a hand gesture.

"Owen. Claire. Could you come over here please?"

The couple stood up and joined them.

"As the end of your stay in Burgo Nuevo is nearing, I wanted to inform you five that you are invited to dinner tonight at the hacienda," the manager announced. "Think of it as a farewell dinner."

"But there's still tomorrow evening," Alexander pointed out.

"Not only do I think you'll be busy with the departure preparations, but I'll also be receiving the mayor as well as Mr. Merced, Mr. Torres and Mr. Iger," Jocelyn replied. "I think it's wiser to avoid having those last two stay long in the same room as Mr. Grady and Mrs. Dearing."

"I think so too…," Owen said.

"Juan will release you earlier today so you can get ready at your hotel," the manager added. "A driver will pick you up at 7 p.m. Mr. Wheatley, the head of the private military company hired by HQ, may be joining us."

"I met him during the operation on Nublar," he told her. "I heard that he and his men will arrive at the end of the day, as will the InGen Security soldiers and the reinforcing vets and keepers."

"Correct," Jocelyn confirmed. "Well I have to go. See you this evening," she told them in a monotonous tone.

She left and like every morning, Juan announced to the small group their respective assignments.

Chapter Text

"The Ocelot answered me. He told me to text him back once we'll be back to town," Claire informed Owen later that morning, speaking quietly in order to not be heard by Judd and Nala, the keepers in charge of that sector and then at the other side of the barn.

Having seen fit to have them work together so they could talk things over and eventually end their conflict, Juan had tasked the couple with cleaning the triceratops barn. When he noticed that they had made peace, the head keeper had been very reassured, as their conflicting situation had, according to some, almost created a shitty atmosphere within the crew.

"I'm also thinking of telling Eli about our discovery," she added.

Owen stopped swiping to look at her.

"You're sure you want to tell him?" He asked her. "I'm not trusting him yet."

"You remember what he and Lockwood said. If I want them to help me, I have to carry out my commitments, even if our instincts tell us to be guarded."

"I know. Let's wait until we're back home and the animals at the estate before telling him about that. Many things can happen in a week," he said while looking at the Triceratops which stood behind the bars of the gate that led to the paddock.

It was sniffing their scent and had trouble seeing them due to its poor eyesight.

Soon after, Jocelyn arrived at the barn, having been told that Juan had assigned them there. As she was showering when Owen returned to the hacienda, she had only seen him again at the keepers' office and the combination of him leaving like a thief to seeing him with Claire had left a bitter taste in her mouth. When she had returned to her office afterwards, she had hurried to check that everything was in order, following Joel's suggestion. She hadn't noticed anything out of the ordinary, but that hadn't been enough to ease her conscience. Owen's attitude being the source of many questions on her part, she had decided to go see the couple in the barn, to check how they behaved.

Making sure to remain discreet, she did not enter the service corridor which ran along the stalls and stayed right at its entrance. Hidden by a corner of the wall, she ventured a look in the direction of the stall where they were and when she saw them working cheerfully while humming together some merry song, she had the final confirmation that they had buried the hatchet and that it was like they never had a fight during their stay and were a really happy couple.

Having heard that Claire took off her mask when she worked with the keepers, Jocelyn didn't dare to stay any longer, fearing that she would glimpse the hideous scar it must be hiding. She left the barn and as she returned to the hacienda, she harboured a great distrust of the couple. She thought their reconciliation was too easy and too sudden.

What if all that was just playacting, like some of the employees assume? Claire must have noticed I was attracted to Owen and that nasty vixen used that against me, making me invite him to stay at the hacienda out of pity and have some time alone with me! Did he drug me last night? That would explain why I fell asleep so quickly. But why did they do that? They didn't rape me as far as I know and don't seem to have stolen anything. Unless they didn't steal but just borrowed? Yes but what?

Realizing what the next moment, she touched her chain and pulled out the key out of her blouse to look at it.

But what in my office could have possibly interested them?

Then she remembered that Valentine and several other employees had seen them wandering all across the estate whenever they had free time, like if they were looking for something.

What if they had heard of the house and Wu's stay there?

Jocelyn feared that was the case and wondered who had instructed them to snoop.

Joel is right, we have to keep an eye on them, she thought. They could be spies.

Chapter Text

At 4:30 p.m., a large bus from Moucheto, a local transport company, crossed the estate's eastern gate and dropped off its fifty or so passengers not far from the hacienda. Those were the reinforcing keepers and vets and although many came from other InGen facilities, the majority were temporary workers with no prior experience with de-extinct animals. They were led by a coordinator, who came from Palo Alto headquarters, and she exchanged a few words with Jocelyn, who had come out to greet them. The two women then led the group into the meadow south of the oaks driveway, the one by the old farm, where Site D's workers had built a camp during the week, which consisted of a dozen or so large green tents organized around an even larger tent which acted as a canteen. In one corner, there were also two rows of sanitary cabins, similar to those found on construction sites.

Jocelyn let the new comers settle into the tents and half an hour later, while the couple and the DPG members were driven back to their hotel early, a roar began to be heard, growing louder and louder, and looking southeast, Jocelyn saw two large transport helicopters in the sky. Two Boeing Chinook in the colours of InGen Security.

The manager stood in the large meadow that stretched between the oaks driveway and the bungalows, waiting for the aircrafts' arrival with Austin and an armed group of ACU soldiers and guards, among whom was Valentine Taylor.

Arriving above the estate, the two transport helicopters slowed down and began their descent. As soon as they landed on the meadow's grass, at a respectable distance from the welcoming committee, their doors opened, letting armed individuals come out and form two groups.

The first consisted of about twenty-five men in midnight blue uniforms and wearing helmets, Kevlar protection and bulletproof vests bearing InGen Security's logo. Their balaclavas were lowered below the chin and the leader of this platoon of InGen soldiers saluted Austin before positioning himself with his men to the side to let the second group assemble in front of the welcoming committee. The latter was larger, about fifty individuals in tactical vests and fatigues and armed with assault rifles and pistols. As several among the welcoming committee looked suspiciously at these mercenaries, one of them stepped forward. He was in his sixties, with a balding head and a square jaw, dressed in light brown and wearing a cap and sunglasses. He greeted the manager:

"Jocelyn."

"Mr. Wheatley. Did you have a nice trip?" She asked with a hint of nervousness in her voice.

"It was alright."

He scanned the group, met Austin's gaze, and his jaw clenched.

"Tell me. Where is Torres?" The mercenary leader asked Site D's manager and the ACU commander.

"Mr. Torres had an impediment and was unable to come today," Austin replied. "But he asked me..."

"Alright, I got it...," Wheatley interrupted him before letting out a small sigh.

The mercenary looked at the bungalows along the northern end of the meadow.

"Our quarters are there?" he asked Jocelyn.

"Yes. I asked their occupants to move to the camp on the field across the driveway. Meals will be given in the big tent from 6 p.m. Will you join us tonight?"

"I would be a very rude guest if I refuse."

"Very well."

Wheatley turned to his men.

"Okay ladies and gentlemen! Drop your bags in the bungalows, go to the toilet and be here in ten minutes for exercises! You have to stretch your muscles after all those hours of flight!"

"On the double!" Urged his right-hand man, a middle-aged black man.

As the mercenaries complied, heading for the bungalows with their gear and baggage, the platoon of InGen soldiers headed for the camp, where they had been assigned two tents, one of which they shared with the ACU soldiers and some of the estate's guards. Austin sent his men and the welcoming committee guards back to their usual posts, but before Valentine walked away, Jocelyn hailed him:

"Valentine? When do you finish your shift?"

He turned around.

"Six o'clock," he replied. "Why?"

"There is one seat left for tonight's dinner at the hacienda. I'm inviting you as a thank you for this morning, for stopping that Capuchin from stealing my chain. And for taking the time to look for my wedding ring, even though we couldn't find it..."

She then looked in Austin's direction and made sure he wasn't listening.

"And with Joel, Brice, Mr. Wheatley, Mrs. Dearing and Mr. Grady at the table, I will need a friendly and reassuring presence such as yours," she added in a low voice.

The security guard nodded.

"I accept your invitation. What's for dinner if I may ask?" he asked.

"Braised oxtail with rice."

"Sounds delicious… Seven o'clock, right?"

"Yes. I'll go to the kitchens to check how the cooks are doing. See you this evening."

"See you this evening. Thank you for this invitation, Jocelyn."

"No, thanks to you Valentine. You're saving my life."

She let him go back to his post and then she returned to the hacienda, passing through the kitchen and the canteen, making sure the dinner's preparation was going well before heading to her office.

Chapter Text

When Jocelyn came down to the canteen at ten to seven, Brice and Austin were already there. No wonder, the veterinarian often being first and last at the table, liking to stay there for a long time. Soon after, Juan and Valentine joined them, as did the DPG trio and the couple who returned from Burgo Nuevo. They, along with Jocelyn's four colleagues, had washed and swapped their work clothes for more casual ones. Due to the evening's relative coolness, both Claire and Owen wore black leather jackets, which they took off when they arrived and put on the backs of the chairs they chose. While he was wearing a polo shirt, also black, she was wearing a red T-shirt and hadn't forgotten to put on her fake skin silicone glove and her half-mask.

Black, red, white. Like a venomous snake, Jocelyn thought, considering Claire as the element which had the largest chances of ruining the dinner.

Finally, Wheatley arrived last, dressed just like at this arrival and the only thing he did was leaving his weapons, cap and sunglasses in the bungalow where he was staying with his officers. The mercenary recognized Owen, Juan and Brice, as the three men had been on Nublar in the first part of Operation Fallen Kingdom, and he greeted those he hadn't met.

Then, they all chose their chairs around a large table that had been prepared and on which were already the plates, cutlery, glasses, two carafes of water, a bottle of rum, as well as two plates of Bocas. . Jocelyn took a seat at the table's end closest to the kitchen, as if to preside over the dinner, with Austin on her left and Valentine on her right. On the same side as that of the ACU commander, back to the patio, Wheatley, Franklin, Claire and Owen also sat, while on the side of the security guard, back to the court, Brice, Alexander, Zia and Juan also sat.

While drinking rum and eating Bocas, they talked about the Operation's progress and what would happen next, but also lighter topics. While Jocelyn was pleased to see that the atmosphere, without being friendly between all, remained decent, the cooks brought the main course, consisting of braised oxtail bathing in a sauce with pieces of tomatoes, carrots and onions, forming a hearty stew that looked tasty to the hungry diners, and two large salad bowls containing white rice were also placed on the table.

"… The guy was as stupid as an Edaphosaurus (1)," Juan told Owen while putting rice on his plate.

"Ah the edaphosaurs…," Brice said with contempt. "They were always roaring and strutting around, showing off while they were nothing but fatsos with the charisma of a rotten oyster and a pain in everyone's ass."

"I remember the one which wanted to lash out at one of the Ampelosaurus (2) for some stupid reason, a few days after the incursions in the lab and the Lagoon...," Owen narrated. "You should have seen it, charging the ampelo with the same fervor and stupidity as a flabby inquisitor attacking a taller and stronger heretic", he told Claire and the DPG members. "The ampelo sent our poor edaph flying, and it fell on its side among mud and shit. You should have seen its face. What a moron..."

"Was it still alive? Were you able to get it out of this mess?" Zia inquired.

"We were too late. The Saurosuchus (3), which was wandering nearby, rushed on it and turned it into shreds," the Raptor Whisperer told her.

"But that's horrible," Franklin said.

"Oh well, that was post-fall Nublar," Owen replied with a sigh. "What should I say?"

"Which ones were those edaphosaurs?" Wheatley asked them.

"The herbivorous version of the dimetrodons. You know, the big quadrupedal lizards with the huge sail on their backs," the vet described, taking the care of simplifying his description and avoiding mentioning that Edaphosaurus and Dimetrodon weren't lizards but mammalian reptiles, a word which would have confused Wheatley.

"Ah, I see…," the mercenary said.

"Yeah, if we had had to elect a King of Morons among Jurassic World's collection, it would have won with an African dictator score," Owen added.

"It makes you wonder how the species endured during the Permian," Juan wondered. "I think it might not be a bad thing that this species is once again extinct, few liked them. It shall give a nice break to everyone."

"In the meantime, they're still gone," Alexander said seriously while sorting the contents of his plate. "I think it's not a topic on which we should joke".

"We're kidding Alexander, alright," Owen sighed. "Are you familiar with the concept of humor?"

"It also bothers us that we couldn't save them," Brice added. "But we have to admit that they were dumbasses and a huge pain in the ass. We were just less attached to them than to other animals, that's all."

"And those weren't the only ones you weren't so attached to…" Zia said in a low voice.

But the veterinarian had heard her mumble.

"You were saying, Zia?"

"Nothing," she replied, as she didn't want to trigger an argument.

From the end of the table, Jocelyn then noticed that Alexander had separated the meat from the vegetables.

"Is something wrong with the meat, Alexander?" She inquired

"I don't eat meat. I'm vegan," the DPG founder replied.

"Ah. I forgot…," the Farm manager apologized.

"Give your pieces to someone," Juan suggested to Alexander. "It would be a shame to spoil such good meat."

"Yeah, give it here...," Brice volunteered.

The veterinarian passed his plate to his table neighbour, who moved his pieces of meat inside it.

"Thank you," the Breton said.

As he was cutting his vegetables, Alexander looked up at Wheatley.

"So you and your company participated in Operation Fallen Kingdom?"

"Yeah. And I lost men in the process. Godforsaken island...," the mercenary grumbled before swallowing a sip of rum.

"Okay," Alexander said awkwardly.

Realizing that Wheatley didn't have the best opinion on the animals, he decided to not continue the conversation.

"Have you heard about this encephalitis epidemic on the coast?" Juan suddenly asked the diners.

"On the coast?" Claire repeated. "Where?"

"Nicoya Peninsula," the head keeper replied.

"Is it viral?" Zia asked.

"No one knows for the moment. Epidemiologists only know that the disease seems to mainly affect the inhabitants of rural areas, people in contact with animals, cattle. And it's a real encephalitis: severe headache, mental confusion, fever, delirium."

"Deadly?" Franklin inquired with a hint of concern.

"So far the illness doesn't seem too severe and it lasts about three weeks. But the public authorities remain worried. This country depends on tourism, nobody wants to hear rumors about an unknown disease, as if it isn't enough that some of our animals are messing around in some areas already..."

"Thinking about it," Owen recalled, "aren't the Compys and the Ornitholestes loose exactly in the Nicoya Peninsula?"

"Yes," Juan confirmed. "It just recalled that".

"When did this epidemic start?"

"Last year, in March."

"Shortly after the Ornitholestes' attack in Bahia Anesco..."

"The one where a baby was abducted and where the mother was almost eaten alive by the Compys?" Wheatley asked.

"Exactly," Owen replied.

"What a horrible story…," Jocelyn commented. "Do you think there is a link between the encephalitis and the attacks?"

"Birds carry all sorts of viruses," Zia shrugged. "They are known vectors. It's therefore not unreasonable to think that the same is true for dinosaurs and to establish a causal relationship."

"If this encephalitis isn't contagious and that the dinosaurs are its vectors, that would mean that its spread depends on them," Owen added. "That would explain why it is still confined to the eastern part of the peninsula. The Compys' invasion just has to be stopped."

"Actually, it was also recorded here, at the Farm," the DPG vet told him, "but humans weren't those touched."

Brice, who was looking at his plate, raised his head and turned it towards her.

"Some animals had it?" Claire asked.

Zia nodded.

"Yes. If I believe some health records, the same symptoms appeared in some of them, soon after their arrival here. Brice can confirm this."

The couple then looked at the French vet.

"Yes, it's true that we had some cases within a month after the Fall. Mostly carnivores were touched," he admitted. "We didn't know what was happening to them. We panicked a little at first but with fever medication, we managed to calm the symptoms. Moreover, most cases were mild. The animals just looked more tired than usual and they recovered in two weeks. They seem to be more resistant to this encephalitis than the people of the Nicoya Peninsula anyway, if theirs and the one observed here are the same."

"You still lost all of your remaining Camptosaurus and Stenonychosaurus during that period," Zia reminded him.

"Hence my use of the word most. I'm well aware that some of the animals died. It's not like I haven't been at their bedside…," Site D's vet retorted, annoyed. "Not to mention the mound in the field which is there to remind me of that every day..."

"We would have liked to have known about it…," Owen reproached him. "Luckily Blue didn't get it. You would have heard from me otherwise..."

"So the encephalitis likely came from Nublar...," Juan concluded. "It wasn't there when the Fall occurred and I don't remember that anyone had it during the operation. How did it appear?"

"Who knows?" Brice shrugged.

"Unless this is another case covered up by the board?" Claire said, making Jocelyn's eyes roll.

At that moment, Zia noticed that Wheatley, until then busy mixing the rice with the vegetables and the meat on his plate so it could soak up with the sauce, had slowly raised his head when Juan mentioned the lack of case among the operation's participants, that the mercenary was now looking in Jocelyn's direction and that the ACU commander stared at him for a moment. Right in front of Austin, Valentine was absentmindedly munching his food, as if he had remembered something important.

"In any case, it must have spread across the island thanks to the predators," Juan supposed. Some encephalitis spread through the consumption of contaminated meat. For example, it would have needed for patient zero to get devoured by a predator and that the latter has transmitted it to other animals through bites, causing a domino effect at the end of which the encephalitis has spread across the island, including among the Compys and the Ornitholestes which now lives in the Nicoya Peninsula."

"If this is the case, the Five Deaths should be warned," Owen worried. "Some animals from Nublar migrated there. Including occasional scavengers."

"The pterosaurs and the Ichthyornis have been there for over a year," Brice pointed out. "The encephalitis may already be there."

"So what are you waiting for to inform the government or the WDMC? The 12th of Never?" The Raptor Whisperer asked.

"Owen, you can imagine that at a little more than a month from the sale, we cannot allow the spreading of some rumor about animals contaminated by the same disease encountered in the Nicoya Peninsula," Jocelyn replied. "Our operation would be disrupted and..."

"… InGen would lose money because of delays and so on," Claire finished. "Don't bother, Jocelyn. I know those arguments by heart."

"The Lockwood Foundation would also be impacted in this scenario," the manager retorted. "I doubt that Mr. Lockwood and Elijah would appreciate if you make them lose money. I've heard that their support is important to you. It would be silly to lose it for such unimportant reasons... You are free to inform the competent authorities, but only after the shipping of the animals to their new homes. Not before."

Owen and Claire both smirked. Why were they still surprised by InGen's negligence?

"Unimportant reasons… Uh, we're talking about a potential epidemic within an ecosystem of high scientific value," Zia pointed out to the manager. "Who knows what it can cause, even if it is more or less benign?"

After a brief silence, Wheatley spoke:

"Haven't you been once in the Five Deaths, Brice? Among the savages?"

"Yes, for an internship dedicated to wild dinosaurs. Well, it's like Brittany except it's hot all year round. There are pinnipeds, the coasts are magnificent, the forests are lush, the food is excellent but it rains often, there are birds who can't stop screaming, diehards who are resistant to change..."

"And alcoholics," Claire added jokingly.

"You would feel at home there then?" Austin quipped.

And Jocelyn too…, he thought.

"Where? In the Five Deaths or in Brittany?" The fallen park director asked.

"Both."

"I'm sure you would like to see me exiled to an island lost in the middle of the ocean," she retorted, "like bloody Napoleon."

"Since we're talking about those, Masrani really pissed us off when he handed the Five Deaths and their animals over," Austin said.

"I can't imagine the damage if InGen and Masrani Global had to deal with the crisis the archipelago was experiencing alongside Jurassic World's construction and the Saurian Wars," Owen said.

"Yeah, Masrani would have helped himself on Sorna to fill Jurassic World," Claire added.

"I very much doubt it," Alexander retorted.

"He would have found an excuse to make a good impression but he would have done it anyway," she insisted, "even if it meant breaking his promise to Hammond."

"The ecosystem would have collapsed in a few years. A world where the Five Deaths no longer have any wild dinosaurs would be a very sad one," Owen said.

"In the meantime, no ecosystem in the Five Deaths would have meant no Grey Guard," Austin said. "No Grey Guard, no insurgency on Nublar, and a less disastrous outcome for the Fall."

"Especially less disastrous for InGen Security," Claire corrected him. "And don't worry, Lynton would have found other guinea pigs for her experiment with the Indominus, be sure of that. Probably you and your team by the way..."

The ACU commander chuckled.

"All of this is nothing but a conspiracy theory invented by murderers and traitors to justify their bloody crusade," he replied.

"Do you know what's also a theory?" Brice added. "Human DNA in the Indominus' makeup..."

The table suddenly fell silent and while the majority looked at him as if he had just let a flatulence escape, Claire and Owen stared intensely at him, knowing that this wasn't a theory, not at all, much to her dismay.

"What? Don't you look at Youtube comments or hang out on discussion platforms?" Site D's veterinarian asked them, surprised by their looks. "Many are talking about it..."

"This is ludicrous," Jocelyn said with great scepticism.

"The comments you talked about. Under whose videos were they? Byron Fratelli's?" Franklin asked.

"Certainly not him," Owen replied. "Talking about sensitive topics like the Indominus' genetic makeup is not his thing."

"Byron Fratelli? Who is this guy?" Wheatley asked.

"A young man who owns a Youtube channel where he talks about our parks, animals, everything related and a bit of the company itself," Austin told him. "Byron the milker as I like to call him... The Jurassic franchise was his channel's cash cow."

"Isn't he the one who makes ten-minute long videos based on two poor lines of news?" Zia asked.

"Yes," the ACU commander confirmed. "And he keeps going on and on about the same topics."

"I think that his videos are silly," she said.

"And the ugly CGI dinosaurs and the roars at the start of each video are so annoying...," Brice added. "That kind of slacker pisses me off..."

"He also has an audience mostly made of gullible kids and he dares to defend InGen no matter what…," Claire grumbled.

"I wonder what he's going to do once the sale will be over?" Juan said.

"He could cover Claire's trial," Austin suggested.

"I hope not," the fallen park director replied.

"Don't worry," her boyfriend told her. "If he badmouth you, I'm gonna pay him a little visit and smash his face in. I already suspect him of being Iger's whore..."

"Yeah sure," Austin scoffed. "You like to say that so-and-so are the board's whores or dogs but you are Claire's own dog. And hitting a poor helpless geek, what a fine example for youth!"

"I was joking for fuck's sake! I'm not going to hit him," Owen retorted. "Just shake him a little bit..."

"These youtubers seem to take the same route as journalists," Wheatley stated. "They will either be unemployed or be whores..."

"Jeez, don't you think you're going a little hard there?" Jocelyn pointed out to him, a little shocked by those words. "Saying that all journalists are whores..."

"Sheep," Claire said suddenly. "Many fans of the Jurassic franchise are spineless sheep. One day, you are like a queen in their eyes but the next, you are hardly better than a whore, all because they lap up everything their shepherds say and did not think about stopping a moment to think instead of following the herd. Well, that's when they're not busy with faction squabbles. Between the fundamentalists who revere John Hammond like a god and swear only by the first park..."

"Nublar or San Diego? Zia asked.

"Nublar of course. There are also those who considered Jurassic World to be the best park in the whole world even though everything wasn't perfect, far from it… The Awesomebros who don't like feathered dinosaurs and who would like the dinosaurs to be like those of the toys that they had when they were in diapers… Those who are a little bit materialistic and are obsessed with the toys, even past the age of thirty… Those who insist that dinosaurs are for children and that the park shouldn't have occasionally shown or talked about the harsh realities of nature… Those who jerk off in front of everything genetic-related and Wu's work... Those who were there just for the gossips, the behind-the-scenes stories that could be straight out of some telenovelas etc. Among those, there were some who had a strange cult about me. Probably because of the glamourous aura that followed me when I took up my post..."

"If there's one thing that bothers me about the fans," Juan started, "it's that it's often the same ones that are put forward and that are being listened to with attention."

"Those are a sort of an exclusive club that you can integrate only by meeting certain criteria," Owen said. "While some end up fast-tracked into it in a year or less, others toil for years and receive little to no recognition..."

"Yes. An elite, mostly Anglo-Saxon," the head keeper summarised.

"An aristocracy even," Brice said, "and like the Habsburgs, there is a certain consanguinity. In terms of opinions but also cultural as you have implied, Juan. Take their fanzine for example. Every year, it's always the same guys who get interviews, with most of them being Yanks. Couldn't they interview Costa Rican, French, Indian, Russian, Japanese or Chinese fans for a change, just to have a little more diversity?"

At the pronunciation of the word diversity, Alexander looked up but before he could say anything the vet added:

"Real diversity."

"Of course not. It's well known that every non-Anglo-Saxon community is full of toxic people," the head keeper retorted, not without irony, remembering a story that his son had told him some time ago about an online discussion platform.

"I wonder what they're going to do now, with the park being gone?" Jocelyn wondered.

"I'm wondering the same thing," Claire said. "Mickey's suckers are rubbing their hands with glee in the meantime, as their beloved company lost a notable rival in the theme parks field. It's regrettable that we can't blame them for the Fall...," she added before swallowing a sip of rum.

"Stop, I'm imagining a guy under Mount Sibo and screaming "Mickey akbar! Mickey akbar!" before blowing himself up and triggering an eruption," Valentine told them, making most of his eating companions laugh, with the notable exception of Alexander.

"Or one in a Mickey Mouse costume making the Indominus escape," the ACU commander added before imitating the voice of the big-eared mouse, "Oh oh. It's funny ... Have fun, big lizard! Oh oh… Claire Dearing can try to stop me. I'm gonna fuck that bitch to death. Oh oh… InGen will burn in Hell! Oh oh ... Ah, I can't wait to tell Goofy and Minnie about all this. Oh oh…""

"All this reminds me of that South Park special episode…," Claire sighed.

She noticed that Owen had turned towards Austin and was giving him an unfriendly look, even though he knew he was only joking. He mustn't have liked that the commander's version of Mickey said such odious words about her. She appreciated that her boyfriend was so willing to defend her honour, but she put her hand on his wrist and gently massaged it with her thumb, as if to tell him that it was okay and that he could relax.

Having noticed this tension, Jocelyn returned to the previous topic:

"Disney still has a few rivals. There are the Universal parks, the Six Flags..."

"Please Jocelyn, not the Six Flags," Claire told her. "There is nothing blander than them."

"Aren't there Warner Bros parks as well?" Brice asked. "I think there is one in Germany. I went there with some friends one summer when I was a student."

"There was. It was sold in the meantime," Claire informed him.

"I would have said the SeaWorld parks, but they're no match for Disney," Valentine proposed.

"As long as you don't mention the Parc Spirou," Site D's veterinarian told him before giggling.

A moment of silence ensued as the others looked at each other confusedly, wondering what was triggering his hilarity. The only one who understood the reference was Claire, who smirked.

"Another of your typical French references which only you can laugh at...," Austin complained.

"What's so funny about this park?" Valentine finally asked.

"Well, it's so crappy that even Jurassic World during and just after the Fall was a better place to visit," Brice replied. "On the matter of French theme parks, Disney's biggest rival in France is the Puy du Fou. Aside from Claire, who knows it?"

He got only negative answers.

"Anybody? A pity… Compared to his fans, those of Jurassic World are a bunch of Philistines."

"How many are those Puy du Fou fans?" Austin inquired. "A few thousand? Even if they were hundreds of thousands, they would be nothing compared to the millions of fans that Jurassic World had."

"The important, my friend, is not the number but the quality," the vet said.

"I think I've heard of it. Isn't it a right-wing park?" Alexander said.

"Why would you give a rat's ass about it if it's the case?" Claire retorted.

"Isn't the Puy du Fou where you applied for, Brice?" Jocelyn asked.

"Indeed," he replied. "Birds of prey, lions, horses and farm animals will be almost like a vacation after all those years at InGen."

"And just after your arrival, the Roman legionaries, knights, musketeers and Vikings go berserk and start attacking the audience, with you saying, "Shit. Here we go again...," Claire joked.

"Like in Westworld," Owen said with a sneer.

"Isn't Westworld just a Puy du Fou for adults?" The veterinarian said. "No, the worst that can happen there, if we only take into account elements internal to the park, is a strike. They're actors, not robots. It would really stink to high heaven if the first start to get replaced with hyperrealistic androids..."

"A violent uprising in a theme park involving nutcases with swords and horses…," Austin summed up. "We're familiar with that at InGen."

"The presence of Grey Guard troops on Nublar never inspired trust in me," Alexander said.

"Me neither," recognized Valentine. "They looked like they were straight out of Game of Thrones..."

"And some say that a lot of them are fascists...," the DPG founder added.

"Do you know any of them personally?" Owen asked him.

"No but…"

"So what?" The Raptor Whisperer curtly interrupted him. "Do you really know that some are fascists?"

"I read in a recent article that they tend to brutally treat their prisoners," Alexander continued, "and that during the early 2000s crisis, torture and summary executions of poachers and mercenaries by the guards were common in the Five Deaths. We are talking about violations of basic human rights."

"Regardless if there are violations of human rights or not, we must admit that they guard the archipelago with a certain efficiency," Claire recognized. "Aren't you satisfied that the animals of these islands are protected?"

"Not when there is a violation of basic human rights," replied the DPG founder.

"You have to know what you want."

"Have you heard of the Whitfords?" Wheatley asked.

"Weren't they a couple of trophy hunters who disappeared on Sorna a little less than twenty years ago?" Zia replied.

"Yes. Mitch and Tiff Whitford... I met them during a hunt in Zimbabwe in 1992. They had just got married and it was their honeymoon..."

Realizing that the mercenary was a trophy hunter too, or at least in the past, the DPG members began to consider him with suspicion and being at the same table as him made them feel uneasy. As for Owen and Juan, they had learned about it back on Nublar but were also far from seeing the mercenary as a friend.

"They knew what to expect before going to Sorna," the Raptor Whisperer said. "Those assholes didn't listen, endangered other people's lives and paid for it by getting eaten. They got what he deserved and that's all."

"You've got quite a nerve for saying such things, Owen," Wheatley told him. "Had the Whitfords been more than simple acquaintances and if I hadn't seen you in action on the island, this dinner would have taken another turn, believe me. The Fall has shown that your backward barbarian friends can be just as bloodthirsty as some of the dinosaurs. How many people have been captured by the guards, held captive in secret prisons, tortured, even raped and then sacrificed to dark heathen gods or savagely executed before their bodies were thrown to the wildlife? I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out that Tiff had suffered such a horrible fate, instead of accidentally stumbling upon some Baryonyxes like the Grey Guards claim."

"You have a lot of imagination Ken...," Owen retorted. "You should write fiction once you retire."

"And we barely talked about the mutineers during the Fall…" Austin said. "Which shows that the rest is far from innocent. I even read that they inflicted the blood eagle to a poacher leader years ago."

"The blood eagle?" Franklin repeated.

"A method of ritual execution that was allegedly practiced during the Dark Ages by Claire's barbarian ancestors. It consists in opening the ribs from..."

"Yes, I know what it is," the IT technician interrupted him, while his appetite was really put to the test by the topics being discussed and the palpable tensions around the table. "I watched Vikings."

"We're eating," Jocelyn reprimanded them. "Stop talking about such horrible things, please."

"If Costa Rica keeps hesitating about the Five Deaths and how to manage them, it will soon have a rogue state off its coast," the ACU commander continued. "The UN would have already been forced to demand the dissolution of the Grey Guard if the latter wasn't backed by some members of the Security Council and several other foreign countries."

"A rogue state? Come on Joel, you're going a little bit too far," Juan told him. "To hear you, one could think that Caer Draig is some pirates' lair, like Nassau three hundred years ago. The Grey Guard is only there because Costa Rica doesn't have an army."

"And what represents Costa Rica's sovereignty in the Five Deaths? Some poor cop and a small wooden shack with the Costa Rican flag in front of it, in the middle of a fortress full of what's basically foreign mercenaries. Do you know who else was too dependent on foreign mercenaries? Carthage. And it ended badly for her… You shall see the day when the Grey Guards declare that the Five Deaths are theirs and no one else's. Your country will lose the archipelago first, then Nublar and only God knows what after..."

"The balkanization you are referring to started when InGen bought Sorna and then Nublar," Claire pointed out, "so…"

"Tell me Joel, who are your so reliable and objective sources?" Owen asked. "Iger's propaganda department officially called Public Relations? The CIA, who wish for the end of the Grey Guard so US corporations can exploit the Five Deaths' resources, and who, according to some, had Bleidd Pennant assassinated because he defied them?"

"You're not very objective either, Owen," Austin retorted. "You have friends and former sexual partners in the Guard."

"As one of prime targets of what Owen aptly called a propaganda department,'' Claire interjected, "allow me to express an opinion that you might find more objective. At least, this is what I hope. My history with the Grey Guard wasn't the happiest since despite Arnold Mountbatten's warnings, I screwed up by making bad decisions and alienated the guards and their captain, Hamada. May he rest in peace…"

As she spoke of Captain Hamada, memories of the Fall came back to her and she paused, feeling a terrible sensation in her chest, as if some cold and gaunt hand was closing around her heart. She saw herself in that hallway among the ruins of Jurassic Park's Visitor Center, with Hamada lying in front of her, dying and begging her to put an end to his suffering. She remembered him gripping her wrist to guide a dagger's blade straight into his heart. His blood staining the blade and her hands...

"As for the Slayers…," she resumed after a moment of silence. "Gregor Sherman, their leader, seemed nice to me when I met him during the Long Night, but when I learned what he and his men did, you can imagine that my opinion changed considerably and that their death, as horrible it might have been at the hands of the Grey Guards, ended up leaving me indifferent. If I had been in the guards' shoes, if I had learned that comrades and friends had been brutally murdered, I think I would have done the same..."

"Me too," Owen added.

"You approve the ambush and the murder of about forty people? How dare you?" Alexander said, offended. "That said, you must get along well with them, as they and you are both edgelords."

"You weren't on Nublar during the Fall, Alexander. Shut up," the Raptor Whisperer snapped at him.

"Maybe it's not such a bad thing that the insurgency happened," Claire continued. "With InGen no longer having an elite black ops commando, I have the impression that it can harm less and that I can sleep easier. Am I wrong, Joel?"

"What do I know, Claire?" The latter retorted with irritation. "I'm nothing but the Farm's security overseer and the ACU commander. You should ask that question to Torres instead. It's none of my business..."

"Let's talk about something else please," Jocelyn proposed, annoyed by the recent conversations and the various innuendos and provocations made by some. "My father was definitely right. We should never talk about politics at the table."

"It's fortunate that we're not talking about the elections," Wheatley added. "Otherwise, I fear that the cutlery will start to fly..."

"Arguments ruin my appetite," Franklin confessed, wishing they went to Aurelio's, one of Burgo Nuevo's restaurants, instead of this dinner.

"He is sensitive. He doesn't like when people yell," Zia whispered to the couple in a slightly mocking way.

The IT technician sighed.

"I know I'm a delicate person, a numbskull, a failed clone of Moss from The IT Crowd, and that I bloody suck when it comes to dinosaurs but damn, you're not forced to belittle me in front of everyone, Zia!" He complained. "You can be such a hick sometimes…"

"Oh, but I was kidding, Franklin," she assured him. "You little faggot...", she added teasingly and in a low voice.

"Zia," Alexander reprimanded her.

"You know I have the right to say faggot jokingly? It's like the N-word privilege when you're black."

Alexander then turned with alacrity to Austin, who hadn't reacted.

"Why are you looking at me?" He asked the DPG founder. "She can say the word nigger, if the usage is appropriate. I don't give a fuck, I'm above that kind of bullshit..."

"All of that is very interesting," Brice began, speaking with his mouth half full, "but you see young lady, the problem is that we don't care if you're into mussels rather than sausages."

"I won't let you," Zia retorted, offended by the veterinarian's lack of manners.

"She's right, Brice," Jocelyn said to her colleague. "You're not being taught good manners in Vannes (4)?"

"Well, there are a lot of pigs in Brittany," Claire added.

"How do you know this, along with the fact that Brice's compatriots are alcoholics? Have you ever been to France, Claire?" The manager asked.

"Well, she did business with the Delords," the vet replied.

"Who?"

"The family who run the zoo in central France to which we sold animals a few years ago… Yes, there is some alcoholism issues in Brittany here and there but it's not as catastrophic as in Chtis (5), those tuning-loving subhumans. Speaking of alcohol, Caer Draig is like Rennes (6) but much nicer-looking and with fewer gutter punks. Dieu merci…," Brice continued, once again leaving the rest of the table behind with references that only a person who knew France well would understand. "You've got quite a few drinking sessions there, so much that some are tasked with picking up those sleeping outside before they start to get eaten... You see, Geosternbergias and compys don't make the difference between a dead guy and one sleeping it off."

"Cities with serious alcohol problems should have some of these creatures then," Wheatley suggested jokingly.

"Except that they would also eat the bums," Juan retorted.

"And good luck for stopping a Compy invasion in a big city like Los Angeles, Paris, Mumbai, Shanghai or even San José," Owen added.

"More than twenty years ago, we thought we could prevent an eventual dinosaur uncontrolled proliferation with the lysine solution," Claire said, "but the thing was bloody useless, with even Wu and his teams thinking "Fuck that shit!" and removing that dependency in the later generations of animals. Things were more or less fine when the animals were on islands but we have to admit that Burgo Nuevo, the Lockwood Estate and all of the animals' future destinations are less isolated places."

"You must be aware that we wouldn't like that to happen," Austin said. "It would be bad for the company image and capture operations are expensive."

"If the animals escape into the wild…", Juan worried.

"Oh, come on. You sound like that mathematician in the media…," Wheatley scoffed. "You know, the one who survived the dinosaurs twice?"

"Ian Malcolm?" Alexander said. "That Hari Seldon (7) wannabee is nothing but a pseudoscientist."

"Just your average preacher of the end of world," the mercenary added. "People like this have existed since ages..."

A moment of silence ensued during which Jocelyn saw the DPG founder move on his chair and open his mouth, as if he wanted to speak.

"Do you want to say something, Alexander?" She asked.

"No, it was nothing…," he replied after giving the couple a quick nervous look.

"Don't be shy," the manager said kindly. "Speak freely..."

"Big mistake…" Owen whispered to his girlfriend.

Alexander cleared his throat and spoke:

"I was thinking of the speech that John Hammond made after the San Diego incident… After everything that has happened since, I wonder if the best thing is not to send them to other parks but to let them live freely."

"Oh for God's sake...", Juan sighed in Spanish and in a low voice.

"But Alexander, you know that is impossible, for a whole lot of reasons," Jocelyn said. "InGen cannot let its animals go like that. They belong to us and..."

"… You created them, patented them etc.…" Owen added. "This speech has been repeated for more than twenty years. We know the song."

"If we don't sell those animals," the manager said, "InGen will fail and a lot of people will lose their jobs. I hope you are aware of this, Alexander."

"Even if we could let them go, that doesn't mean we should," Owen added.

"I think that most of the people around this table agree that sending these animals to other parks is the best solution," Brice said. "Except for Ken who doesn't care and just wants his check..."

"Old Hammond's speech was nice but between speeches and reality, there is an entire world," Juan said. "If we had applied his speech to the letter, there would be almost no dinosaurs left in the Five Deaths as we speak."

"I don't want to sound mean, but I especially think that he didn't care much since he knew that he was dying," Brice added. "He must have been thinking: After me, the flood!"

"Let's imagine a scenario in which Jurassic World collapsed years before the eruption of Mount Sibo and InGen didn't retrieve the animals following the park's fall for x or y reason," Claire began, "but that Alexander wants to save them, because the Sibo threatens to erupt and destroy the whole island or some bullshit…"

"It would have made a good plot for a movie," Brice interrupted. "You should send the idea to Hollywood."

"Free-roaming dinosaurs and erupting volcanoes? It would have been hell if we had to go to Nublar," Franklin said. "I would have needed to be taken by force there I think and I would have been such a burden that some would have been tempted to throw me to the first encountered carnivore."

"Let's say that the Alexander of this scenario ends up having one or more funders," the fallen park director resumed, "manages to mount the expedition, land on Nublar and capture a certain number of animals, all without being betrayed by the mercenaries hired as muscles, since dinosaurs could be sold for a lot of money on the black market..."

She was interrupted again, this time with a slight noise to her right, that of a quiet laugh from Wheatley.

"Let's suppose the mission is not deviated from its objective and is a success," she continued without paying attention, "where would you put the animals, Alexander? Even if we could, I think that Guillaume Vuillier explained to you why the Five Deaths were a no-no."

"I don't know... Other islands..."

"As long as they are not volcanic too, otherwise we would have to start all this mess all over again," the mercenary said.

"Except that islands safe on a geological standpoint, with a climate suitable for dinosaurs, large enough and preferably uninhabited... aren't numerous," Juan pointed out. "And that's without mentioning the ecological impact, islands being often biodiversity hotspots..."

"Well, on the mainland then...," the DPG founder concluded with a somewhat hesitant voice.

His words were greeted by a sudden silence, which prevailed for a moment in the canteen, before being suddenly broken when the couple burst out into laughter together. Juan and Brice joined them in their hilarity, as did Austin, Wheatley and Valentine soon after, and even Jocelyn couldn't help but smirk while Zia and Franklin were torn, feeling bad for their colleague and friend on one hand but thinking he was going a little too far on the other.

"And where on the mainland?" Owen asked.

"As far away from humans as possible," Alexander replied.

"In the last pieces of wilderness then...," the Raptor Whisperer concluded. "And once they're brought there, what do we do? We let the carnivores eat all the wolves, bears, beavers, bison, mustangs and deer? Let the sauropods raze the forests? Our wildlife already has many problems... Releasing dinosaurs into our ecosystems or leaving them free could be the ecological equivalent of Christopher Columbus's arrival in America. Take the idea of the mammoth's reintroduction in the Russian tundra: It's causing controversy even though they disappeared from mainland Eurasia only ten thousand years ago..."

"But dinosaurs have the right to be free," the DPG founder insisted.

"The freedom of some ends where that of others begins, in this case the freedom to live peacefully in one's homeland without seeing it being invaded by alien newcomers who will become dominant..."

"Whoa, your speech reeks of far right ideology," Alexander interrupted him.

"I was going to add that some of my ancestors actually suffered following the arrival of immigrants with destructive tendencies. Come on, Alexander, don't tell me that you consider the indigenous populations who resisted their displacement and slaughter during the glorious construction of our country as a bunch of intolerant and anti-progress fascists?"

Finding this speech about the United States' history ridiculous, Wheatley smirked and shook his head.

"Oh," the DPG founder stammered, unsettled by Owen's precisions. "I…"

"How he broke you...," Claire mocked him. "By the way, how are your Paiute cousins, Owen?"

"They are fine, thank you. Chip got a job and Asta's daughter passed her exams. She will enter high school next September."

"Let's get back to our discussion, Owen," Alexander suggested, "you mentioned Mustangs a few moments ago, but weren't they brought to America by the Spaniards? They are an exogenous species and yet they are perfectly integrated into the Great Plains ecosystem."

"There is a huge difference between mustangs and dinosaurs," replied the Raptor Whisperer with a sigh, starting to lose patience. "The first Mustangs were indeed horses from Europe, but tens of thousands of years ago there were several species of wild equines in North America. The Mustangs have only reclaimed a vacant place in the ecosystem. You will agree that between two different species of equines separated by only tens of thousands of years and on the other the Mustang and the Parasaurolophus for example, separated by more than seventy million years, there is a whole world. Twenty thousand years is nothing but small potatoes next to that."

"So what? We keep them locked up?"

"Our dinosaurs are phantoms," Juan declared, "as majestic as they are, as alive as they are. We brought them into a world that is no longer made for them, and we have a responsibility to keep them isolated and out of reach from our ecosystem. It's not a question of rights but of responsibility."

"I respect your opinion," Alexander replied, looking at Owen and the head keeper, "though to be honest, I'm surprised by the lack of consideration you have for the animals."

"Excuse me?!" The Raptor Whisperer replied in an offended tone while the head keeper was facepalming.

"You're the one saying that to them?" Brice asked Alexander. "That people accuse me of that kind of stuff, fine, but them?! You're quite a piss taker, my friend! They were risking their lives saving the animals from the park's ruins while you were probably sipping a Starbucks in San Francisco. No, but be careful! By dint of picking a quarrel with people like this, you'll end up in deep trouble one day. And one question: Where did you get your keeper diploma? In a Christmas cracker?"

"No, he got it thanks to mom and dad," Owen said scornfully. "Jonas told me."

As he was about to tell about his experience with the raptors on Nublar, including the most tragic parts, Claire stopped him by gently putting her hand on his arm.

"Don't bother with him, honey…," she whispered to him.

She then turned to Alexander.

"Alexander…" the fallen park director began with a sigh. "I think you should stop trying to say things. First, you're tiring yourself, and you have no idea what it does to others. When you do it, it's really creeping us out... I think we could kill you. Out of grief, mind you!"

"She's kinda right, that kind of reasoning is dangerous," Austin said while the DPG founder was giving a dark look to the couple, and especially to Claire who had just humiliated him. "As we speak, some eco-terrorist organizations might be planning the sabotage of this operation, with its members genuinely believing that dinosaurs have the right to be free, with the rest not mattering."

"We had that kind of idiots in Europe, who released American minks and Red-eared turtles in the wild," Brice explained. "Upshot: Today it's our minks and turtles that are suffering from the "good" intentions of those kinds of people. Does the concept of invasive species speak to you Alexander? I don't know how it goes in the United States, but in France, you learn that in high school."

"You don't even have to learn that in high school. A minimum of culture and common sense are enough," Austin added.

"However, Brice, there is a difference between minks and turtles on one side and multi-ton dinosaurs on the other," Wheatley said. "They are bigger and do not multiply as easily. If the dinos end up being a real problem, just put a price on their heads. Many hunters would be happy to take care of them. Especially in America," he added, making the DPG members cringe.

"At which cost? You're in a good position to be aware that tracking dinosaurs isn't a walk in the park, Ken," Owen told him. "And having half-drunk guys bumping off everything is a solution I dislike. Human solutions must be considered instead."

"I would like to talk about the eventuality of a sabotage that Joel mentioned," Jocelyn proposed "I urge everyone to be very vigilant in the coming days and report any suspicious behavior to Joel or me so that we can take action in time and prevent some people's fears from becoming true. We must work hand in hand."

Wheatley chuckled.

"Is there a problem, Mr. Wheatley?"

"When you want everyone to work hand in hand as you say, you should avoid keeping your little secrets to yourself," the mercenary replied. "I've been fooled once..."

While everyone else at the table, including Jocelyn, wondered what he was talking about, Zia spoke:

"I have to admit that I agree. It's like that story of missing compys..."

"Zia…" Alexander reprimanded her, as he didn't want to be caught in the middle of a possible argument between his colleague and Site D's veterinarian.

"No no…," Wheatley said. "Let her ask the sore questions."

"What's that story?" Jocelyn asked her.

"A few days ago, I found out that seven Compsognathus suddenly died during the night, early last year," the DPG vet replied. "I read the reports. Those were oddly poor in details, but I remember that it was specified that the bodies had been taken off-site."

"Is that true, Brice?" The manager inquired.

"Those were the dead compys I told you about, Jocelyn…," the vet said. "Pedro had found them dead in their cages one morning. Fearing that they had caught some germ and that there could be an epidemic outbreak, I took the decision of removing the bodies and keeping them in the veterinary wing until someone picked them up for incineration."

"You couldn't incinerate them here?" Claire asked.

"No. There was once an incinerator in the lab, but it was shipped to Nublar fifteen years ago. Fortunately, we had someone outside who was willing to incinerate them for us and they were taken to his place. Period."

"Who was that someone?" Zia asked, in a tone a bit too inquisitive to InGen employees' taste.

"A guy from an incinerator in San José licensed in the incineration of biological and medical waste. People from the security division took them away. Some people would have been tempted to steal them..."

Listening to the conversation with great interest, the couple then noticed that Juan held his right fist against his mouth and twirled his fork with his left hand while seeming absent-minded. The ongoing conversation was making him nervous. Of course, Brice was his colleague and friend and he appreciated Zia but did he knew things about those Compsognathus?

"I saw Pedro in the meantime," Zia said. "When I told him about this matter, he didn't seem very comfortable."

"He wasn't because he knew that he screwed up that time, that's all!" Brice said, irritated. "Even though they were just compys, we're still talking about a loss of several million dollars for the sale, as a single compy is worth a million. Yes, a compy is expensive and they're nothing but small fry within our collection. It's a loss that could have been avoided if Pedro had been more vigilant. I'm willing to be patient, young lady, but there is a line! If you continue to imply that I'm involved in some sort of traffic or something like this, I will send you back to the keepers."

"Young lady… Young lady… I would point out that I'm barely younger than Mrs. Hodgson," Zia retorted.

"Enough!" Jocelyn said. "If you have any scores to settle, it will be outside. Please don't spoil other people's meals. What I just said applies to everyone."

The two vets sighed and turned away from each other to resume their meal. Jocelyn believed for a moment the effectiveness of her call to order when silence returned. And then Claire intervened:

"Well, that compys story seems quite intriguing to say the least... Between this, the bodies of the other animals which died here being dumped in a mass grave in the middle of the fields when it's not very straight, the broken down equipment... That's nice, Jocelyn. I think that the report I will send to Mr. Lockwood is going to be very interesting."

"And whose fault are the budget restrictions, eh?" Jocelyn snapped back at the fallen park director. "When you bring the downfall of an entire empire, you usually avoid being so full of yourself!"

During this last exchange, Alexander's eyes had looked first at Jocelyn and then at Claire. Seeing the latter not saying another word, he believed that the Farm's manager had succeeded in silencing her and shaking her wall of false assurance. Noticing a breach and eager to take his revenge on Claire for the humiliation experienced earlier, he rushed into it and spoke to the fallen park director:

"Didn't the fall of Jurassic World find its origins in a tasteless joke you made about Henry Wu at a soirée years ago?"

"Oh, get off your high horse a little, you moralizing white knight!" Austin told him, thinking that the DPG founder had quite the nerve to talk this way about a dramatic event he had not experienced.

"Alexander, you're making a fool of yourself," Claire retorted.

"Do you think that the Fall wouldn't have happened if everyone had been beautiful, everyone had been nice?" Brice asked the DPG founder. "The Sibo didn't decide to wake up just because Claire made a bit of a daring joke while she was drunk!"

"What was that joke she made?" Wheatley asked, curious.

"A story about friends' circle that Wu likes to widen if we believe some witnesses...," the Frenchman recalled. "It reminds me a bit of that Fry's condom joke, which is the Anglo-Saxon variant of a joke we have in France about one of our TV hosts. Note that we also have our own variant, which concerns Mark…," he added, managing to get a smile from Juan.

"What is this Fry joke?" Franklin asked, looking strangely at the vet. "Sounds like it's from Videogames.com's 18+ forum."

"You never heard of it?" Valentine asked him, surprised. "So, how do you think Stephen Fry (8) takes his condom off?"

"I have no idea," the IT technician replied, fearing the answer.

"By…"

"Valentine," Jocelyn interrupted, a little coldly she realized the next moment. "We're eating."

"And those jokes are so gross..." Alexander said disdainfully. "To get back to a more serious topic, I wonder how some here manage to sit at the same table as Claire... Valentine, Brice, Juan, Owen… How can you tolerate her when her actions brought chaos to your lives?"

"Who are you to imply that we shouldn't tolerate her?" Juan snapped at him. "Who are you?! We were on Nublar during the Fall, not you! So it's up to us to be willing to have dinner with her if we wish."

Brice then turned to the DPG founder and looked him straight in the eye.

"No, but did you listen to me earlier? You're going to get hit before you could react," he warned him. "I'm saying that for you, now. I don't care. However, if you need to hit him," he added to the couple who were glaring at Alexander, "do it away from the table please. If someone ruins my plate, I'm going to punch him or her in the face."

"No one shall hit anyone! You're not savages for fuck's sake!" Jocelyn said angrily while Franklin and Zia nervously eyed the couple and their co-worker. "If ever some dare to use physical violence, I shall order Joel and Valentine to send them to spend the night in the Marsh. They are going to sleep on the straw, that will teach them!"

"Yeah yeah…" the ACU commander said with little conviction, as he was more amused by the situation than anything else.

"Oh no, not the Marsh!" The veterinarian complained. "The Niger stinks and the Ouranos fart."

"So calm down," Austin said. "Because if I have to call my guys to get the brawlers under control..."

"I knew that this dinner was going to suck. I wanted to eat at Aurelio's…," Franklin whispered as, out of the corner of his eye, he looked at Claire's fingers tense.

"Please, Alex," Zia said. "Leave her alone. Some would like the calm to return..."

"How can you think she's cool?" The DPG founder asked his two colleagues in a disappointed tone. "She doesn't deserve your friendship. Zia, it was because of her that you couldn't fulfill your dream… She is untrustworthy. Didn't she tell you that she almost killed someone with her own hands during the Fall?"

"Yeah. Actually that's right," Austin recalled. "We had completely forgotten... It must also be said that so many things happened during it..."

"Who has she…," Zia began.

"Doctor Ivan Preston, Wu's right-hand man," Claire replied in a weak voice, her eyes riveted on her plate.

"Right-hand man and boyfriend," the ACU commander clarified. "She's lucky he didn't press charges. Yet..."

"I heard you almost threw him off a balcony," Alexander added. "The joke mentioned a few moments ago and this act says a lot about you..."

"Are you implying that I'm homophobic, Alexander? I've slept with women you know," Claire retorted, raising a surprised look from Zia. "But unlike some on social media, I don't make a big deal out of it and consider myself interesting enough so that I don't have to use my sexuality as the main argument to define myself."

"I don't want to say some bullshit but I'm not sure that the Mariposa's hookers can be taken into consideration," Austin said. "But I'm not gay, so what do I know…," he added, looking at Zia, as if he wanted an answer from her and was trying to improve the climate around the table in his own way.

Owen's eyes widened, surprised that the ACU commander knows about Claire's past visits to the brothel. However, thinking about it, it was not impossible that InGen Security had spied a little bit on Claire during her stays on the mainland, in order to ensure that a key employee like her was not involved in any shady business. Thus, Austin must have been told about those visits by a colleague from the division or he might have looked at her file himself.

Ignoring the revelation he had just made, and knowing that it was only a matter of time before it leaked out, she looked up, turned to Alexander, put her hands on the table and slowly leaned forward.

"Listen to me, you nasty little pyjak (9)..," She said, looking him in the eyes. "If you ever make another inappropriate remark about me or provoke me again gratuitously, I shall go for your throat and choke you like a chicken! I hope that I won't get to that because you see, my prosthesis is stronger than the hand it replaces, so much that I'm afraid of crushing your vocal cords with it if I get to such extremities. Thinking about it, it will give us a nice break though..."

"Alexander. Be quiet, like a mouse…," Owen growled.

Intimidated by the couple, Alexander remained silent and finally looked down. He resumed his meal soon after and avoided all eye contact with Claire or Owen. Next to the DPG founder, Zia did not know what to think of everything she had learned about the couple during this meal, whether it was their daring positions on certain topics like the acts of violence perpetrated by the Grey Guards or the latest revelations made about Claire, especially the fact that she almost killed Wu's right-hand man. Clearly, Claire Dearing was a very ambiguous woman, capable of both goodness and brutality. She and Owen were a compelling and charismatic but ruthless couple and Zia could easily imagine them at the helm of a pirate galleon or leading a group of outlaws in a Western.

"Whether you're homophobic or not, you're still a nutcase," Jocelyn said. "A nutcase and a liar."

"I had my share of responsibility in the Fall," the fallen park director admitted, "but I wasn't the one who hid from everyone that Mount Sibo was going to erupt! It wasn't I who turned the Indominus into a genocidal monster with near-human intelligence! I tried to limit the damage but I failed! You're happy?"

"Aren't you also the one who faced the Indominus on that bridge and defeated it before the mosasaur grabbed it?" Jocelyn asked curtly. "Because if you want to tell tales, go the whole hog!"

"Claire Dearing the dragon slayer… Yes, I've heard about that theory," Austin added. "If some hadn't pulled out their cellphones or cameras, I would have been tempted to believe that the Ghost of Nublar was nothing more than a fairy tale. If you were that Ghost, Claire, who could prove it? Owen, your doggie? Not a very objective witness… Those traitors called the Grey Guards? Only if they recognized you... And you're not in the few pictures we have of the fight between the T rex and the Indominus. Even if it was true, no one would believe it. And it's not some netizen's crackpot theory which will try to persuade people of the opposite."

"And what if some sort of censorship happened in the meanwhile?" Owen raised. "That the footage where she could be distinguished have been deleted? People shouldn't have started to see her as a hero, otherwise they would have looked for someone else responsible for the Fall and turned to the board. InGen still needs her as a scapegoat..."

"Oh please Owen, you're making a fool of yourself for trying to pass off your bitch for the new Joan of Arc," the Farm's manager retorted. "I really think that she went hiding in a hole when the Indominus invaded Burroughs and that she was found like that, with a missing arm. Who knows? Maybe she scarred herself in an attempt to arouse compassion?"

"You asked for it!" Claire exclaimed, infuriated.

She stood up abruptly and removed her fake skin silicone glove, revealing her prosthesis to those who hadn't seen it yet, including Jocelyn who shuddered, as the artificial hand had a skeletal appearance to her eyes. When Claire then grabbed the bottom of her T-shirt to pull it up, some exchanged surprised looks and in an uncertain voice, Valentine asked her:

"Uh, what are you doing?"

She didn't answer, put her T-shirt on the back of her chair and as most were looking at the large scar that crossed her chest and disappeared under her bra, as well as the one on her left side, inflicted by a sword's blade and that only Owen knew to be a trace of her suicide attempt during the Fall, she put her hands behind her bun and began to undo the strap of her half mask.

Jocelyn swallowed and looked away.

"I don't want to see that…"

Claire finally removed her half-mask from her face, put it down next to her plate, and then went to stand at the nearest end of the table, between Owen and Juan. From there, she showed her long gash to all the diners.

"What a horror show…," Alexander said with a grimace.

He hiccupped in surprise when Zia suddenly nudged him in the ribs.

Claire suddenly slammed the table with her hands and putting them on top of it, she leaned forward, as if to better display her scars. Her furious eyes focused on Alexander, Austin and Jocelyn in particular.

"Do those scars belong to a coward?!" She scolded, speaking in an even deeper voice than usual. "Do they?!"

Looking around the table, Claire looked at the reactions of everyone except Owen. Juan, Brice, Zia and Valentine were looking at her in silence and she saw in their eyes that it was not a very pleasant sight she was giving them but they still maintained eye contact, a sign of respect. After a moment's hesitation, Franklin raised his head and looked at her too. He swallowed when he saw her gash but he dared to confront her terrible gaze.

He is much braver than he thinks, she observed. More than Alexander anyway.

The latter wasn't even looking at her and seemed to have suddenly taken a strong interest in his cutlery, which he skimmed nervously with his fingertips while he waited for the situation to evolve.

He is a hopeless case. I don't give a shit about that loser anymore!

As for Wheatley, he was in no way disturbed and while giving the fallen park director a neutral gaze, his eyes looked at the scars.

He must have seen worse in his career.

To the mercenary's right, Austin was sipping his glass of rum as he was looking at her, but his smug expression was gone.

Opposite of Claire, Jocelyn kept her head sideways, with her eyes looking at the tiles to Valentine's left.

"Do they, Jocelyn?!" The fallen park director asked her severely, still in the same voice tone.

Having no response from the Farm's manager, Claire then started to move, passing slowly behind Owen, Franklin, Wheatley and then Austin while looking at those sitting opposite of them and Jocelyn. Even though she was only wearing a bra above the waist, none of them looked at her lustfully.

"Do they?!" She repeated.

Jocelyn still didn't respond and kept her head sideways while remaining still. She was frozen out of fear.

"Look at me!"

As Jocelyn wasn't reacting, Claire stepped forward and grabbed her chin with her prosthetic hand.

"Leave me alone, you monster!" The Farm's manager protested after jumping at the hand's cold touch.

Fearing she might hurt Jocelyn, Valentine stood up.

"Hey, let her go!" He ordered her.

But Austin stopped him with a hand gesture while keeping his eyes on the two women. He was ready to step in if necessary.

"Keep calm," Wheatley said to Valentine. "Let those ladies sort their issues out."

Claire didn't back down and turned Jocelyn's chin towards her to force her to look at her.

"Answer me!" She commanded forcefully as she leaned over her, towering above her like a large theropod about to grab a small prey.

Jocelyn's eyes first met the prosthesis, and looked up to where it was attached to the arm, before passing on the chest, where they plunged between the breasts. They lingered on the right breast before following the scar there to the upper part of the breastbone and beyond, eventually reaching the face and what was there. Jocelyn shuddered and winced at the sight of the red and deep gash and scar tissue that accompanied it. Amidst Claire's skin as white as a dairyperson's shit, it evoked her a lava-filled chasm in the middle of a snowy tundra. Finally, Jocelyn dared to go up to Claire's cold green eyes, which reminded her of those of a reptile, and the predatory gaze the infamous Queen of the Ashes gave her made her yield.

"I don't know!" She finally answered, all trembling.

"Of course you don't know!" Claire retorted. "You have no idea how much I suffered, no idea of the sacrifices I made... Be careful, Jocelyn. This face could soon be yours if you're not careful."

"Is that a threat?!" Jocelyn asked in a frightened voice.

"No, a warning."

Claire's voice had slightly softened and although she did not show it, she herself had been frightened by the one she had adopted since she had taken off her mask, as it recalled her of the deep and booming voice with which the Indominus spoke in her nightmares, a voice that had probably been influenced by those of various speaking animals and fantastic creatures in some films she had seen.

The fallen park director finally took her hand off Jocelyn's chin and returned to her chair.

"That's it, Darth Vader. Put your shirt back on," Austin taunted the fallen park director when she passed by him.

"Do as he says and put this mask back on your face, dammit! You're ruining our appetites," Jocelyn begged her, still shaking while she couldn't help but to compare Claire to some ghetto thugs due to the aggressiveness she had shown and the fact that she had walked around the table shirtless.

"I shall put it back on, out of decorum, but only if you promise to not provoke me again for the rest of the dinner," Claire replied as she put her T-shirt back on.

"Alright!" The Farm's manager conceded.

"Thank you," Claire said coldly while putting on her fake skin silicone glove.

Then she grabbed her half-mask, put it back over her gash, much to Jocelyn and Alexander's relief, and proceeded to finish her plate while Wheatley slowly nodded in admiration, impressed by Claire's show of force. Jocelyn turned to Austin:

"Joel. Send a message to the driver. I want them to leave as soon as the dinner is over," she said quietly.

"Very well."

Still shaken, she grabbed her glass and swallowed the rest of rum that remained.

Soon after, while a deafening silence ruled at the table, the cooks left the kitchen, bringing the dessert.

"Ah, here's dessert!" Brice announced as the dessert plates were placed on the table. "Coconut flan, I think I'll miss it..."

"But how do you manage to still be hungry after that disaster of a dinner?!" Jocelyn asked him. "Didn't seeing her gash ruined your appetite?"

"You know, I've seen some gross stuff in my veterinarian career. Some James Bond villain's scar won't prevent me from eating my coconut flan."

"You don't give a fuck about anything anyway! That's why you're pissing off once the operation is over while the company has yet to be rebuilt...," she scolded him.

"Rebuild? What do you want to rebuild? Sometimes, I wonder if I shouldn't have done the same thing as Jonas, Kate, Barry and so many others, and jumping ship before getting into trouble..."

As if she believed he had just confessed that he wasn't innocent, Zia turned to the vet but said nothing. In addition, Brice was looking at the woozy manager.

"Oh but why this face? Don't worry, I'm going to remember you when I'll be back in France, my little Jocelyn," he said affectionately.

The vet then looked around the table and saw that several had not yet started to eat their slices of flan.

"However guys, please eat," he suggested. "The cook isn't going to be happy otherwise... And it's good moreover," he added after swallowing a spoonful.

But as they were about to touch their shares, Jocelyn grew impatient:

"Eat, for Christ's sake!"

Looking at her, Brice noticed that she hadn't touched her part either.

"Jocelyn. That goes for you too."

The manager sniffed, sighed, and then decided to attack her flan with her spoon.

A few seconds later, Valentine cleared her throat and spoke, wishing to avoid the return of the deafening silence that prevailed before the dessert's arrival.

"Has anyone seen Game of Thrones' last season?" He asked in a hesitant voice.

"Yeah, let's talk about Game of Thrones," Claire replied sarcastically. "Long Night, dragons, mad queen, warlords, mad scientist, betrayals, violence, innocents dying by the dozen here and there ... It will bring back good memories to some..."

"Yeah, besides the last season was shit," Brice stated. "As soon as that dumbass half-stuttered "no elephants, your grace", I knew that it was going to be rotten as fuck."

"Eh, I don't think it was that bad...," Austin said.

"What? You're joking, right?!" The vet cried.

And another heated discussion ensued, this time about the famous fantasy saga and its controversial eighth season. While some defended it, others were ripping it apart and things got stormy when some began to show their support for certain characters.

"Please, shut up! Shut up!" Jocelyn yelled, at her wits' end, before looking at Wheatley, who was one of the few who had not taken part in the ongoing debate and who seemed to be wondering if he should have slept before accepting InGen's offer."

"There's no doubt about it, as soon as there is some dessert, the meal is immediately warmer," he declared.

Chapter Text

"Hé bé! That was quite a dinner...," Brice sighed.

"You said it," Austin said.

While the cooks cleared the table, the veterinarian and the ACU commander had gone to the terrace to finish their glasses. Juan, Valentine and Wheatley had also left. Whereas the first had returned to the camp and the third to the bungalows, the second, following an order from Austin, had accompanied the couple and the DPG trio to the minibus, in order to ensure that no other excesses occurred within the compound itself. If a fight between Alexander Singer and the couple broke out on the road or in town, it wasn't going to be Site D security overseer's problem. As for Jocelyn, she had left the table as soon as she had finished her slice of flan, without saying a word. The others had just seen her heading for the stairs.

"Do you think she went upstairs to her room and is now crying?" Brice asked his colleague.

"Probably. She was stupid for inviting them though. She knew a fight had high chances of breaking out."

"You did nothing to fix things."

"I plead guilty. I couldn't help it."

"They should have eaten at Aurelio's. We would have dined in peace and so would they."

"Because of Lockwood, we have to deal with Red Sonja and Conan the Barbarian, snoopers and troublemakers."

"As you might have noticed, they're not the only snoopers... The dyke is one too. Luckily, Pedro didn't tell her that the Compys were actually alive. On that matter, you knew what they did with them in Alajuela?"

"I never got an answer. I just received a message telling me that Torres needed Compys for a special project, I gave you the word and that's it..."

"I just hope Juan won't snitch about that... I should have never told him about what I did."

"He won't. He knows when to be reserved and can keep a secret, but Jocelyn wasn't very credible when she acted like an ingénue."

"Anyway, all of that is behind us. At least I hope so."

"And Wheatley who rubbed it in with his innuendo... The worst is I don't even know what happened between him and Torres on Nublar. All I know is that the latter and the board have pissed him off and that he was on the verge of sending us packing when we contacted him a few weeks ago."

"The worst was Alexander. That guy is stupid, but so stupid!"

"Like an Edaphosaurus?"

"Exactly! We told him "No, just shut up!" but he persisted."

"I pity those who will share his cabin aboard the Arcadia."

"You can laugh. You're going to the United States by plane with the very last animals. As for me, I risk having to deal with him for a week in the ocean. And there will also be the other two along with Owen and Claire. If things go on like this evening, someone might end up thrown overboard before we're off the coast of Mexico. I think it's going to be festive aboard the Arcadia..."

With their eyes turned to the lower terrace and the paddocks beyond, the two men had not seen Jocelyn, dressed in a sweatshirt, descend and pass through the canteen quickly to reach the courtyard. She crossed it but before passing its door, she waited for the group to climb into the minibus.

When the latter left, Jocelyn trotted to her car, sat behind the wheel and started the engine, taking in her turn the oaks driveway.

On her left, she saw the lights of the bungalows and on her right, those of the camp and she saw several people coming and going between the tents. Looking back ahead of her, she saw the crossroads as well as the gate and its adjoining sentry box beyond.

Shit, the gate! I had forgotten! If the watchman tells Joel that I left, he will think that, after this shitty dinner, I went out to drink in a bar or worse, visit a male prostitute to cheer me up. He's going to be a pain in the ass with that. I know that my marriage is hanging on by a thread but still! I'm not like Claire, that whoremonger!

As she approached the gate, she slowed down and after glancing in her direction, the sentry opened. Jocelyn passed without thanking the guard for a wave, pulled the hood of her sweatshirt over her head and accelerated to try to catch up with the minibus she had lost sight of.

He must be wondering why I'm leaving the estate right after the group.

She reached the road and after a quick glance to her right, she entered it, heading to town. Further ahead, she saw the minibus again but bit her lower lip due to the presence of another car between her and it, and annoyance gave way to irritation when she noticed that the latter was driving at a dozen kilometres per hour below the authorized limit.

Probably a little old man, the manager supposed with a sigh.

After estimating the distance between this car and the minibus, Jocelyn cocked her head leftwards to look at the left half of the road. Seeing no headlights coming from the opposite side, Jocelyn overtook the vehicle and went to insert herself between it and the minibus. However, she slowed down in order to not be too close and be seen by its passengers.

The first buildings of Burgo Nuevo then appeared on both sides of the road and they soon arrived near the crossroads downtown. The light being green, the minibus crossed it but just after, the light turned orange and then red.

"Shit…," Jocelyn hissed between her teeth, hesitating between going through a red light or stopping at the line.

She chose to continue and as she crossed the line, she mentally crossed her fingers and hoped that other road users would see her and react in time. Fortunately, Burgo Nuevo was not San José and sometimes, there was no one at this crossroads. And Jocelyn was aware that doing the same in a city like New York or even Palo Alto would have been suicide.

She jumped when she heard a horn blast, from of a motorist arriving on her right and who had been forced to urgently brake, stopping only a few centimetres from Jocelyn's passenger door. She looked at him for a moment and saw him waving his hands angrily.

"Fuck you asshole!" the manager exclaimed.

But looking back in front of her, she noticed the presence of a surveillance camera high on a pole, aimed at the intersection.

"Fuck…"

Enrique and his bloody cameras! If I'm lucky, I'll be back in the US when the cops will send the ticket.

Jocelyn arrived in sight of the Cañada de las águilas soon after and parked alongside the sidewalk as the minibus dropped off the group.

Let's hope that they don't recognize the car.

While preparing to lean over to the passenger seat and pretend to be looking for something in case anyone looked her way, Jocelyn watched the minibus drive off, the couple entering the hotel first with Claire walking with a brisk step, then the DPG trio a few seconds later, as Alexander seemed to want to leave at least a few meters between him and the fallen park director.

No wonder. I thought they were going to hit him earlier.

Then Jocelyn waited, for several minutes that seemed endless, waiting for the couple to come out. When they walked back out the door and headed downtown, Jocelyn ended up torn. On the one hand, she was satisfied that she was not going to receive a ticket for nothing but on the other, she saw her fear taking shape little by little.

She followed them out of the corner of her eye and once they were far away enough, she started the car again and followed them as quietly as possible through the town's centre, up to the Laden Mule inn.

While the couple finished crossing its parking lot, Jocelyn got out of her car and also walked towards the inn's entrance but did not enter. If the inn was full and if the only free seats were near their meeting place, the couple would notice her and all this improvised tailing operation would fail. However, large windows looked into the dining room. Maybe she could see them through.

Jocelyn then took a cigarette and her lighter from her pocket and, pretending to be a inn patron who had gone out to smoke, she approached the windows.

She saw the couple walk into the dining room and scan it for a moment before finding their contact, a moustachioed fortyish man sitting in the opposite side of the room.

Pivoting in order to have the windows on her side, she watched them join the man, who seemed satisfied to see them, and sit down opposite of him, with their backs to the windows. Ignoring who the moustachioed man was and thinking that the latter would not recognize her, even less with a hood over her head, Jocelyn let out a sigh of relief. She would be able to observe them without fear, especially since there were other tables with customers between them and the window. Moving a few steps to the side, she managed to find a suitable angle, with which she could see the man, the table and the couple's hands.

It's perfect.

She saw Claire put her phone on the table and their contact grabbed it to look at what was displayed on the screen. He nodded, spoke and Claire then took out a sheet of paper which she unfolded on the table before the eyes of the moustachioed man. He inspected it carefully, muttered something, and looked up at the couple. He exchanged a few words with them and held out his hand. Claire and Owen shook it hesitatingly and then left him.

Jocelyn quickly moved away from the inn, got back inside her car, drove south and parked in the parking lot of a supermarket on the town's outskirts, where she would be away from the couple's path and could relax for a moment. Once her car stopped, she let out a heavy sigh, pulled out her phone, and started typing a message with shaking hands.

Chapter Text

I just saw Claire Dearing and Owen Grady in the company of a strange man at the Laden Mule inn, in Burgo Nuevo. My suspicions are confirmed: they're spies! Please do something about them before something bad happens!

June 29. 2019 09:45 pm
From: Jocelyn

Having just read the message, Edward Torres turned off his phone, put it in his pocket and watched the street go by outside the taxi's window.

I'm already on it, Jocelyn. Already on it...

Torres had decided to take action against the couple even before Site D's manager sent him that message. The spy camera he had left at the abandoned house in Burgo Nuevo had taken footage of the couple in the clandestine laboratory and transmitted it back to the Alajuela base, where he had viewed it on his laptop. Confident that the couple would investigate as soon as rumours of secret research would reach their ears, that they would not give up and do their best to find the house before they left, Torres just waited patiently for them to take the bait and to his great satisfaction, they had. He had even left on purpose a photocopy from the health record of the Indoraptor born there, a photocopy that Claire Dearing had of course picked up and shown to their mysterious contact at the Laden Mule. That poor and naive Jocelyn believed he was an agent of one of their rivals but the director of the security division would have rather bet that he was one of the government, who had been sticking to them like glue since the Fall and sent spies in Burgo Nuevo's area.

The cab slowed down and pulled up next to the sidewalk a little further on, near a nightclub whose purple neon sign depicted an owl: The Athene.

Located near the Obrero cemetery, in the Hospital district, it was one of the busiest nightclubs in the urban area of San José and the director of InGen's security division had an appointment with its owner, a local businessman named Sebastián Bonel.

Torres paid the driver and got out of the vehicle, heading for the nightclub's entrance. A long line, mostly made up of young people, stretched out on the sidewalk but Torres did not enter it and walked past it, raising some protests among those waiting. Seeing him heading in his direction, the bouncer posted at the entrance frowned.

"Señor?"

"I have an appointment with Mr. Bonel," the director of InGen's security division answered in Spanish.

"Wait a moment, sir. What's your name?"

"Torres. Edward Torres," he replied. "InGen," he added quietly.

The bouncer activated his ear piece and asked if his boss was expecting someone with that name. When that was confirmed, he nodded and looked at Torres.

"It's okay. You can come in."

No sooner had he moved away than Torres entered the nightclub. He walked past the reception desk and quickly stepped into the main room, which was crowded and very noisy. The dance floor in the centre had disappeared under the countless dancing bodies of patrons who moved according to the techno music chosen by the disc jockey, posted on a platform in a corner. But Torres was not there to have fun. He headed to the back of the nightclub, where Sebastián Bonel's office could be found. This made him bypass the dance floor and the surrounding furniture and as he made his way through the clientele, heedless of his presence, he saw several of the customers, including teenagers barely over the age of majority, swallowing some sort of violet pills. Unicorn Candy, the latest drug in the country and a potential future scourge among Costa Rican youth according to the police.

Passing by an octagonal bar, Torres took a short flight of stairs and came to a part of the club that was quieter than the dance floor below, with long sofas and small tables. Most were occupied by small groups or couples busy drinking, chatting or just slouching with a dazed look.

They're really stoned.

In one of the sofas, a young man in his twenties took a Unicorn Candy from his pocket and gently put it in the parted mouth of his girlfriend, who was at least a few years younger than him. Then they kissed, languorously, passing the candy from one mouth to the other with their tongues, wishing to share together the sensations provided by that drug.

At the entrance to a small hallway a few meters away, a burly man in a singlet with a rattlesnake tattoo on his shoulder and an earpiece was waiting for Torres. The latter recognized him.

"Good evening… Bruno, is that right?"

"Mmh…," he growled.

Bruno invited him to follow him with a hand gesture and he opened a door on their right. They entered a long room with two desks, a long sofa, a coffee table, several shelves, as well as a series of chairs lined up in front of curtains that hid a bay window which overlooked the Athene's main room.

"Mr. Bonel will see you in a moment."

Torres sat on one of them and lifted his polo shirt a little to unbuckle the pouch he had hidden under it, in order to avoid having it stolen in the crowded nightclub. He buckled it back, this time over his polo shirt, and felt it, as if to check that its precious content was still there. Looking up, he noticed that Bruno had a bandage on his right index finger.

"Have you done any DIY recently?" he asked.

"What do you think, sir?" Bruno replied in a slightly mysteriously tone which confirmed Torres' suspicions.

"Oh, I see."

The door to the office opened soon after and two men appeared in the doorway. The first was a skinny thirtyish young man with stubble and wearing a T-shirt, and the second was a fat middle-aged man dressed in a shirt and pants, with long curly hair tied in a ponytail and a neatly trimmed beard: Sebastián Bonel.

"Drive carefully, Luca," he told the other man in a soft, friendly voice. "The road between here and Jacó is dangerous at night. Contact me shortly to inform me of business developments."

"It will be done. Good evening, sir."

"Have a good evening. Exit through the back door. Bruno will show you the way… He will escort you to your car."

Luca nodded slightly and then left, following Bruno while rolling a large suitcase on the floor. Torres was sure of one thing: The suitcase carried everything but clothes.

"Ah, Mr. Torres," Sebastián Bonel greeted him in English. "Please come in."

They went into the office and after closing the door, the owner invited him to sit on one of the two armchairs facing his.

"How is business going?" The director of InGen's security division asked

"Good. Our small business is growing and destined for a bright future despite some... negativity in the media. Our product is a great success in the Central Valley and soon, the merchandise will be sold throughout the country and even beyond. All thanks to you and InGen. How can I return the favour to you? I've heard that InGen will soon leave the country."

"It will. But before returning to the United States, I have one last thing to ask you. A commission."

"A commission? Of what kind?"

Torres crossed his fingers and leaned forward slightly.

"There are two ex-company employees involved in the ongoing operation in Burgo Nuevo," he told Bonel.

He then took out some pictures and put them on the desk. Sebastián Bonel picked them up and looked at them. They were photos of Claire and Owen, taken without their knowledge at Site D.

"Isn't she the former director of Jurassic World?" he asked Torres. "She was fired from InGen. How is she involved in your operation?"

"She and her boyfriend are here on behalf of one of our partners, but they got snoopy and found things they shouldn't have."

"What kind of things?"

Torres then put a wad of cash on the table. He let Bonel take it and inspect it.

"Oh, my question was indiscreet," the latter said. "Your secret business has nothing to do with the Cascabels. You want me to send my people to pay them a visit?"

Torres took another wad from his pocket, thicker than the first.

"Before Monday at sunset. The boat leaves in the evening."

The gangster picked up that second wad and leafed through it.

"That's all?" he asked once he was done.

"The rest will come once I have confirmation that they have been... dealt with."

"Mr. Torres. I must inform you of recent changes in the company's policies. From now on, we ask our customers to pay the full amount before we can accomplish the requested service. I'm sorry, but too many unpaid commissions forced us to adopt this change."

"Alright. Take the rest from the royalties you owe me for this quarter. Is it possible?"

"It should be."

"So it's a deal?"

"It's a deal."

They shook hands, stood up and headed for the door.

"You have my number, Sebastián. Give it to those who will be tasked with this mission. I'll give them the green light when the time comes."

"Very well."

"Have a good evening."

"Good evening, Mr Torres. And good luck with the operation."

Bonel watched Torres walk past Bruno and out of the room that acted as the waiting room and an office for the employees. Bruno closed the door behind the InGen executive and the leader of the Cascabels gang approached the curtains which he moved aside a bit so his eyes could follow Torres amidst the Athene's clientele. When he was sure that the director of InGen's security division was indeed leaving, he closed the curtain.

"Bruno?" he asked over his shoulder.

"Sir?"

"Call Jesse and Mateo."

"Jesse and Mateo? But we have more experienced men for this kind of missions. They're juvenile delinquents, not professionals."

"Certainly Bruno, but the time has come for them to prove their worth if they want to be part of the family in the long term. A crippled former white-collar and a zookeeper shouldn't be much of a problem for them..."

"Very good sir."

Complying, Bruno left the room and Bonel returned to his office, where he sat down in front of his laptop. After a few clicks, CCTV footage popped up on his screen, showing a clandestine lab where several of his men were busy making Unicorn Candy. In one corner of the lab, there were several rows of cages containing Compsognathus, which venom was a key ingredient in the Unicorn Candy's recipe. The leader of the Cascabels sketched a smile.

I'm making a huge fortune with those animals.

Chapter Text

The next morning, the dinner organized by Jocelyn was on everyone's lips within the estate. During breakfast, many crowded around Juan and Valentine to ask them to tell the dinner's juiciest parts, and more particularly Alexander's moments of ridicule as well as the quite tense confrontation between Claire and Jocelyn. They did, and many InGen employees as well as several of Wheatley's mercenaries admitted they would have liked to be there to witness those scenes.

While some were still having breakfast in the large canteen tent, the minibus transporting the group and the employees accommodated outside arrived at the same time as usual and dropped off its passengers in the parking lot by the Ark. But instead of heading directly to the keepers' office, Franklin took his tripod and camera, walked through the old farm and went to stand with his back to the sun in the meadow at some distance from the camp, in order to have its tents, the hacienda and part of the oaks driveway in the frame, especially since it was a beautiful morning.

Standing on the camp's periphery, Pasqual, Marisol, Horatio, and Vinny noticed him and waved at the camera. Alongside the keepers were also two ACU soldiers: Oscar and Meyers, a thirtyish brunette with a ponytail.

"He's filming again?" Pasqual noticed.

"Yeah. He almost reminds me of that other pink-haired stuck-up bitch," Marisol said, "although he has the merit of filming with serious equipment and not a stupid cellphone."

"Who?" Horatio asked.

"You know, the influencer they sent to Camp Cretaceous. What was her name again? Sydney? Paris? Kimberly?"

"Brooklyn," Oscar said.

"Yeah, anyway. A reality TV contestant's name," Marisol grumbled. "With the behaviour that went with it."

"My daughter was a fan…," Meyers sighed. "This Brooklynn couldn't stop bragging… Blah blah I picked a door lock in a Kathmandu hotel… Blah blah I climbed Everest… Blah blah this… Blah blah that… A bunch of crap! I would've gladly bought her a plane ticket to Syria! She would have bragged a lot less..."

"Don't talk about that. Every time she opened her mouth, you wanted to tell her "Shut up!"", Vinny added while a few of Wheatley's mercenaries passed by on their way back to the bungalows after having breakfast. "Like Balthasar from the Grey Guard said: Someone needs to be struck with a shield!"

But as he and his five colleagues laughed, one of the mercenaries froze and turned his head in their direction, glaring at them. Middle-aged, he was a bruiser with an unshaven face and rather short dark hair. Of all of Kenneth Wheatley's men, he was one of the most intimidating due to his build and height of over one meter and ninety centimetres. The keepers ignored his name but knew he was very probably from east London because Horatio and Vinny had recognized his accent the night before at dinner. Looking at him with a wary gaze, Oscar noticed that amid the mercenary's stern expression, there seemed to be another feeling, a painful one. What was it actually? Sadness? Guilt? Shame?

"What does this one want? What is he staring at?" Marisol wondered, speaking a little loudly for her colleagues' taste.

"Stop, the Londoner doesn't seems to be easy-going," Horatio pointed out. "Personally, I don't want to receive a blow..."

Suddenly, the mercenary was hailed by one of his comrades:

"Hey, Theo!"

He finally looked away and joined his comrade.

"We can no longer laugh like we used to these days...," Marisol complained.

It was then that Valentine Taylor and Benito arrived, returning from the large canteen tent. The keepers and the two ACU soldiers greeted the two security guards:

"Yo guys!"

"Hi," Valentine replied. "Is everything alright?" He inquired, glancing warily towards the English mercenary further away.

"Just a joke that didn't seem to have been to his liking," Oscar replied.

"Anyway," Vinny said as the pair of guards joined them, "I also remember the time she was prowling at night with two of her comrades near the achillo paddock. She wanted exclusive footage for her vlog you see…"

"It almost ended with a fistfight between Owen and Dave, who was defending the three kids," Oscar said. "Luckily, Owen is rather nice because he would have boned Dave like a chicken if he pissed him off too much."

"Well, some in the group weren't the sharpest knives in the drawer," Pasqual added.

"And the poor Roxie who had to manage this fine team of Einsteins, in which I include Dave," Marisol said.

Pasqual looked up and stroked his moustache dreamily.

"Ah Roxie, one of the island's most beautiful asses…"

"Before or after Claire's?" Vinny asked him. "Because that one... It looks like it was carved by the gods themselves."

"Going back to that Brooklynn, may she rest in peace, wasn't Owen the one who found some pink hair in droppings?" Marisol asked them.

"Not sure it was her," Horatio replied. "There had to be several Pink-haired numbskulls on the island. Natural selection must have done its work during the Fall."

"If you ask me, she probably ended up in a ditch, eaten by maggots, or croaked in a swamp or a pond, or devoured by the guanlongs or something else…" Pasqual supposed.

"Yeah, Pectinodons for example," Vinny suggested.

"Pectinodons, or troodons as they used to be called...," Horatio said thoughtfully. "An urban legend if you ask me, probably invented by Wu to demonize a former rival or whatever."

"Yeah, a bit like the legend who says that Mark Hamill was a worker during the park's construction, working under a false identity," Valentine compared.

"I've never heard of that story," Vinny said.

"Some people claim to have seen him on the construction sites. He would have played the gallery by throwing over his shoulder a dirty-looking old can of Barbasol shaving foam into a garbage container," the guard said.

Vinny cleared his throat.

"In Warhammer, Skavens were an urban legend too," he reminded Horatio, "until they decided to invade the surface…"

"And where are those pectinodons if they're not a legend?" Oscar asked. "Last I heard, we don't have any here and none of you have seen one with your own eyes."

"And what killed Wheatley's guys?" Vinny retorted. "From what I heard, the injuries and symptoms were neither those of a dilo bite nor those of a moscho."

"Adrian saw them," Benito suddenly said.

Valentine turned to him and looked at him gravely.

"Adrian? Filip and Kilian died because of that man-child. If he hadn't gotten drunk, he could have been more vigilant and warned them of the presence of the Acrocanthosaurus which ate them."

"That's Torres' version. That man is kneed-deep in shady business and the board's dog!" Benito retorted. "Adrian saw everything. There was no Acrocanthosaurus. He said they were attacked by smaller and faster animals and that they started to hallucinate after being bitten. Those hallucinations drove them mad, up to the point where Kilian gunned down Filip before starting to shoot at Adrian who fled. When he returned to the scene, the two had disappeared, taken to God knows where, probably by the same creatures that had attacked them."

"When he spoke to you, he was delirious because of his encephalitis! And Adrian's word has always been worth nothing, and he isn't more believable than Sylvester when he's drugged on mushrooms," Valentine reminded him. "It's all a bunch of bullcrap."

"Then why did they send him straight back to the mainland and then unceremoniously fired him?"

"Because he was a burden, that's why!" Valentine said angrily as his thoughts turned to their two late colleagues. "He must be getting drunk in some small bar in the middle of nowhere, if he isn't still sleeping with the pigs."

"Do you really believe Torres' version, Val?" his colleague asked.

"As there is no alternative, yes."

"Okay everyone! Gather up!" The Temp coordinator shouted.

Horatio looked at his watch.

"Wow, it's eight o'clock. We must start working..."

"Yeah… See you later," Valentine told his colleagues, including Benito.

Whereas the keepers and the two ACU soldiers headed for the Ark and Benito for the western gate, Valentine went to join another of his colleagues to patrol along the estate's borders.

Being then also at the camp, Wheatley had also heard the coordinator announce the gathering. He knew that the temp keepers and veterinarians were about to begin their tour of the estate, whose purpose was to show them briefly the different sectors where they were going to be spread out and to give them a first glimpse of the animals in the flesh. The mercenary leader then thought that this tour might prove useful for the latest recruit of his organization, who had only recently joined them and therefore had not been on the island with them.

He walked away from the camp and his gaze stopped on a woman sitting in the grass against the trunk of one of the oaks. In her thirties, she was not very tall, had fine, straight blond hairs cut at shoulder-level, an angular face and blue eyes. Idle, she stared absently at the sky and daydreamed while biting the end of a stalk she must have picked nearby. Her tank top, fatigues pants, and combat boots indicated that she was one of his mercenaries.

"Oven," he called her.

"Yes Boss?" She replied in her raspy voice.

"Get McLagen and join the group there for the tour. He must get to know the animals... You will take the opportunity to brief him and tell him about what happened on the island."

"Everything?" she asked hesitantly.

"Everything. It will be for the best."

"And if he chickens out?"

"He is free to return home by his own means and without pay."

The mercenary nodded.

"Aye aye, sir," she said while struggling to get up.

While Wheatley walked towards the hacienda, Fanny Oven crossed the driveway and then the meadow, heading towards the bungalows. In front of one of them, she saw several of her comrades, also idle and waiting for the morning exercises. Within the group, Fanny saw a twenty-something young man with thick but short brown hair: McLagen, the youngest of the troop. He might be part of an organization full of seasoned mercenaries, but he looked so young and innocent with his sweet face and blue eyes. He had not witnessed the horrors of this hellish island that was Nublar. Just thinking about it sent shivers down her spine.

"Hey, rookie!" She hailed him. "Come with me!"

"I'm coming," the young mercenary replied.

He joined Fanny in the middle of the meadow.

"The boss wants us to join the group," she told him. "We're going to see the big lizards."

"OK."

They then walked to the group of temp keepers and vets gathered on the other meadow and listening to the coordinator from Palo Alto, Juan and Brice.

"Tell me, what's your name again?" She asked him, curious.

"Danny."

"Okay, Danny. I hope you like living dangerously."

"I wouldn't have made this career choice if it wasn't for me."

"Oh, I was joking... Half-joking."

The InGen employees having finished their speech, they invited the group to follow them in the direction of the hacienda first and the two mercenaries accelerated a little to catch up with them.

"You avoided the worst part of this operation, believe me," Fanny added. "I'll tell you about it at the end. What's left is just a big FedEx quest."

"A FedEx quest? Because we help transport the dinosaurs from point A to point B and we get a reward at the end."

"Basically, yes. We'll just have to serve as extra pairs of arms and keep the InGen guys safe by fending off nuisances. You're a gamer?"

"Yeah."

"What kind of games do you play?"

While getting to know each other better, they followed the group and passed in front of the different enclosures to observe the animals. Whereas Danny gazed at them in wonder, Fanny looked at them with indifference at best.

Unlike Claire, Owen and the DPG members on the day of their arrival, the group headed towards the large carnivores paddocks after passing by the Sauropods and the Triceratops and did not walked immediately towards the Marsh and the Asian Plain.

"Those are weird," Danny commented a few moments later. "I wonder what they eat..."

"I'll let you guess," his comrade told him.

The two animals they observed were bipedal dinosaurs with a pale olive-green body and an elongated, narrow skull with a small lacrimal horn and a laterally enlarged spoon-like anterior extremity. They had a length of more than nine meters as well as powerful arms equipped with a very large claw on the first finger. Baryonyx. One of the individuals, which was standing motionless under a tree, had particularly pronounced orange markings on the back of the skull, the tip of the tail and the snout. Those of the other, which was bathing in the small waterhole that had been dug in the paddock, were much more discreet, but both had on their heads and necks many grey, black and brown spots circled with cyan.

Closer to the two mercenaries and the rest of the group, there was a third individual, a young one, no bigger than an American black bear and with eyes proportionally larger than those of the two adults, a feature which aroused a number of tender looks among the group of temps.

"Look at the teeth and you'll have your answer," a male voice suggested to the mercenary in an annoyed tone, speaking with a French accent.

The two mercenaries turned their heads to the right and saw that the veterinarian was also standing near the fence, observing the animals with a watchful eye, checking that they were okay.

Danny listened to him and took a closer look at the animals' snouts. From its end, hung two pairs of barbels similar to those of catfish or Chinese dragons, with one pair long and thin and the other shorter and thicker. Whereas the first, the closer to the snout's tip, was of similar length in both adults, the other was remarkably longer in the individual with the distinct orange markings, the male. As for the young, its barbels were still just small protrusions and it had no orange markings either. When it opened its jaws, the mercenary noticed the presence of a large number of conical shaped teeth which reminded him of those of alligators and crocodiles.

"They're pointed," he observed.

"Nice observation Sherlock," Brice told him with undisguised sarcasm. "You can imagine we don't give them cheese pies."

"I was just wondering…," Danny replied to the vet's rudeness.

The two mercenaries resumed their turn and passed behind Brice, following the rest of the group towards the acrocanthosaurs' paddock.

A few seconds later, they heard him grumble in his native language:

"Putain mais qui nous a refourgué des débiles pareils? Aucune jugeotte ces gens-là…"

"Hello my sweethearts!" Mark said in a cheerful tone.

Their internal clocks knowing feeding times, Zaza and Blume waited impatiently for their keeper behind the fence of their enclosures and hooted in excitement at the sound of his voice. But when they saw he was being followed by the same two individuals who had prowled near their enclosure the previous day, their eyes locked on them, they unfolded their multi-coloured frills, and showed their long, backward-curving teeth.

"It's all right," the keeper said to the two dilophosaurs. "They are friends. Friends. Freunde."

Seeing that he was calm with them and still sensing a softness in his voice, Zaza and Blume stopped hissing, closed their narrow mouths and folded their frills back against their necks.

"They're a little shy, as you can see," he told Owen and Claire, who, like him, wore long sleeves, gloves, and visors, as per the rule associated with this paddock. "It's better if you stay there," he suggested.

Still eyeing the couple warily, the dilophosaurs looked down at the bucket Mark was carrying. He approached the fence.

"Who are the mickeys for? Who are they for? They're for you, huh?" He asked them in a childish tone, talking to these two-meter-tall and six-meter-long predators the same way one would to a friendly dog.

They hooted in response, and he pulled a rat out of the bucket and handed it through one of the fence's meshes. But as Blume, the leaner and calmer of the two dinosaurs, was about to grab it gently between her teeth, Zaza suddenly launched her head forward and stole the rat right under the snout of the other dilophosaur.

"But! Zaza! You vile cheeky beggar! Wait for your turn."

While Zaza swallowed the rat, Mark pulled another one out of the bucket and showed it to Blume.

"This one for you, Blume. Do you hear Zaza? For Blume! Not you!"

He held out this second rat through the mesh closest to Blume's jaws, but the fatter dilophosaur protested by unfolding her frill, without opening her mouth or hissing, however.

"Hey…," Mark said, turning his head to look at her.

Zaza folded her frill back, but as soon as he looked back at Blume, she began to unfold it again...

"Hey…" he stopped her.

Zaza folded her frill against her neck and waited for Mark to hand her a second rat.

While he alternately fed them, the couple admired the slender, dark green bodies of the dilophosaurs and their red, yellow, and white mottling. They were both magnificent and dangerous dinosaurs.

Claire looked at the time on her phone and noted that it was a quarter to ten. They had a meeting scheduled for ten o'clock at the hacienda and while waiting for it, they had assisted Mark with some tasks.

"Mark. It's nearly ten o'clock," she informed the keeper. "We have to attend the meeting."

"Okay," he answered without turning around, looking closely at the dilophosaurs. "See you later."

"See ya," Owen told him.

They walked away from the paddock and removed their visors once they passed the warning sign at the entrance of the path leading to it.

"He's really close to them…," Claire pointed out as they left the large carnivores sector behind them and returned to the heart of the estate.

"More than me and the girls. All this almost reminds me of those fanfictions shared by some on the forum…"

"The ones that had you and Blue as the main characters?"

"Yeah… As much as I had nothing against those where we lived fictitious adventures, I even remember one that was pretty good, that an intern had written and where we formed a duo similar to Jack Tenrec and Hermès the Allosaurus from Xenozoic Tales. It even had some nice fanart… But there were other fics that were downright sick…"

"Let me guess, there were sex scenes with you two and you were often turned into a raptor by some genetic manipulation or "Shut up, it's magic!" event to make the pill pass."

"You said it all. No but gods! You know that Blue is like a daughter to me. You have to be quite a degenerate to write scenes that are not only zoophilic but almost incestuous and think it's romantic! There's one in Palo Alto HQ who better stop consulting Project IBRIS stuff and seek psychological help..."

They left their long sleeves, visors and gloves at the keepers' office and went to the hacienda's conference room, joining the DPG trio, Juan, Brice, Austin, the temps coordinator, the leader of the InGen soldiers squad as well as Wheatley and his main officers. Jocelyn arrived last and the meeting began. She, the head keeper, the veterinarian and the ACU commander explained or reminded the other people present in the room of the precise course of the afternoon and the next day, the measures taken by the local authorities to facilitate their operation, the roles of each, potential risks and the rules and instructions which had to be followed.

Meanwhile, outside, Site D's keepers and Maribel the assistant veterinarian formed eight teams of eight people with the temporary keepers and veterinarians, one for each of Site D's animal sectors and made up of a pair of supervising keepers, five temporary keepers and a veterinarian. Those sectors were: The old farm; the Ark; the Aviary; the Asian Plain and the Marsh; the Predators' Camp; the Large Carnivores; the Jurassic Plain and the titanosaurs; the Cretaceous Plain and the Triceratops. Once the teams were formed, each went to their sector where the pair of supervising keepers presented the animals to the temps and explained to them the operation's unfolding within their sector.

At eleven o'clock the meeting ended and while some, mainly the Costa Rican employees, went into town to attend Sunday mass, the others were already making some preparations and doing exercises before the lunch break.

Chapter Text

During the afternoon, other preparations and exercises were carried out. The transport cages and containers that had not yet been brought to their sectors were transported there, and a whole platoon of drivers arrived at the estate, bringing with them the last vehicles needed, both transport vehicles and jeeps and even some armored personnel carriers in the colours of InGen Security, and by the meadow where the group had seen the fleet of trucks the day of their arrival, a few flying cranes landed.

While the day drew to a close, a final vehicle of the corporation arrived on the estate, flying over the pastures and woods of the eastern slopes of the Ismaloya Mountains on the way. Said vehicle was a white Agusta A-109 helicopter with blue stripes, inbound from the regional headquarters, located in the América Free Zone, a business district located between San José and the city of Alajuela. Like the Boeing Chinooks the day before, it landed in the large meadow near the bungalows and disembarked its eight passengers. Among them were regional director Pedro Merced, Edward Torres, and Alistair Iger, who came to represent the board.

The latter had traded his usual suit for a shirt and canvas pants much more comfortable in the tropics and when he got off the aircraft, he put on his sunglasses and looked at Jocelyn, who had been waiting for their arrival. She shook hands with the passengers who got out before him, including Merced and Torres, and when the public relations manager stepped onto the grass too, he turned to Site D's manager and spread his arms wide in a friendly way.

"Jocelyn!"

"Ali!" She replied with a slight smile.

While the other passengers made their way to the hacienda, they hugged and exchanged a few words before joining the other newcomers at the hacienda, where bedrooms had been assigned to them. Jocelyn waited for Alistair to come down and then they went for a walk in the estate. He noticed that she was tense and that she smelled quite a bit of tobacco, more so than the last time he had seen her.

She's so stressed she's smoking like a chimney, InGen's spokesman thought.

"Hey, you're not looking good?" he inquired.

"Oh, it's nothing. Work's stress,' she replied with a shifty look.

He nodded and looked at the paddocks on either side of the path they were walking on. To their right was the Asian Plain and to their left was the Marsh.

"Stay strong! It's the final push. We will finally get out of this crisis without having to prostitute ourselves. Baby-face and Milka will be screwed!"

"Milka?" Jocelyn repeated, unaware of who he was referring to while she knew that Baby-face was an allusion to the Biosyn's CEO, Lewis Dodgson, whose soft features hid the deceit of his soul.

"Swiss. Fat cow. You know who I'm talking about?"

"Oh yes. Grendel…"

"I heard it was a free-for-all last night," Alistair said after a silence. "I assume that Claire and Mr. Grady acted like smartasses?"

"Stop, let's not talk about that. The only one who behaved properly was Valentine."

"Valentine?"

"Valentine Taylor, one of the guards. He had done me a favor so I offered him to have dinner with us."

"OK, cool."

Hearing yelps, Jocelyn turned her head to the right and saw the Triceratops getting impatient by their barn's door. She sighed.

"I hope all of this will be over soon because I'm sick of it," she declared. "Between the antics of some of our guests, the employees here who barely respect me, Ordonez who's being a pain in the ass, and Jerry's whining… I'm at the end of my rope…"

"Things aren't going well with him?" he asked, worried.

"Oh, we keep fighting. He's always whining for a yes or a no..."

Alistair shrugged a bit.

"I always thought he was a pussy," he said. "No offense, huh?"

"Not at all, Ali. Not at all… And you, how are things going on your side?"

The Public Relations manager laughed.

"Oh… My daughter keeps calling me a crook and a cartoon villain. What did she say to me recently? Ah yes, that I was a black Goebbels. Do you realize? She compared me to a fucking high-ranking Nazi!"

"How did you react?"

"I grounded her for an entire week. I thought that would teach her. That said, I don't blame her. Youths aren't very smart at her age, that shall pass... Adolescence is the worst period for a parent. You'll find out when your kids have grown."

"That's not very encouraging..."

"I prefer to warn you so that you can be ready."

Arriving at the Jurassic Plain, they noticed the presence of a cattle truck and four other transport trucks parked near the sauropods barn's loading bay, which allowed the animals to go inside the vehicles without having to take ramps. Within the paddock itself, the team in charge of the sector, led by Aura and Inès, was busy rounding up the twenty or so dryosaurs which also lived there to bring them inside the building. They usually went in on their own but sensing that something was afoot, the animals were more nervous and less cooperative. Having anticipated that this might happen and desiring to intervene in the paddock safely, the keepers had locked the male Apatosaurus and the stegosaurs in the adjoining corrals or their stalls inside the barn earlier. Thus, the team formed a crescent around the dryosaurs and clapped while moving forward, gradually narrowing the crescent and pushing the animals back toward the entrance to the corridor that led to their stalls. When one of the dryosaurs moved away from the group and tried to scoot towards the other end of the paddock, two security guards aboard a two-seater motorcycle equipped with a sidecar intercepted it and the dryosaur, intimidated by the sound of the engine and the screams, returned to its herd.

Further away, the female and young apatosaurs watched the ongoing operation with placidity. Unlike the dryosaurs and the majority of stegosaurs, they were not going to leave the next day but later in the week and were going to be sent to the United States by air, in gigantic cargo planes.

Near the fence, Franklin had set up his tripod and camera, filming the keepers and the animals. A few steps from him, Edward Torres and Pedro Merced were also watching the operations.

"Claire and Owen not only pissed me off, but they also stuck their nose into our business," Jocelyn said.

"Yeah, Ed told me about this. He said he made the necessary arrangements," he informed her. "If Lockwood told them to snoop, there's going to be a fight with Susan."

"I don't think it's Lockwood. If it was him, they would have just sent an email once they got back to their hotel. However, they talked to a suspicious guy in an inn downtown. I'm scared, Ali. Not only they're probably spies but they are ruthless and Claire is downright mad. I thought she was going to attack me last night. She forced me to look at her horrible gash… That maniac needs to be sent not in jail but in an asylum."

"Don't worry. Sooner or later, she'll screw up again and end up in court. Even if Lockwood continues to support her, I doubt she'll get through. She will soon be nothing but a bad memory for you. Nothing more."

Once all the animals had returned to their night buildings or paddocks, the keepers and veterinarians returned to camp for dinner. However, unlike most other evenings, the minibus did not leave once the employees had finished their day. Some keepers had indeed organized a small party at the Ark to celebrate the animals' departure and they had invited the couple and the DPG trio. Claire and Owen accepted, as did Zia and Franklin, but Alexander, due to the fact the keepers liked the fallen park director more than him and that they had only invited him out of politeness, declined and preferred to call a taxi to return directly to town.

As he walked alone along the Oaks driveway, he passed several cars coming from outside the estate, those of Enrique Ordonez, other local councillors, and high-ranking members of the local police and the province's Public Force, all invited by Jocelyn to a dinner she was hosting at the hacienda with the InGen executives.

Thus, the couple and the two remaining members of the DPG had dinner at the big tent with the keepers and then went to their office, where the party was taking place. Jocelyn didn't know about it and when Franklin asked a question on that matter, Juan replied that she didn't have to know and that she had the dinner with the other executives and the local councillors to manage first. The head keeper also added that the party had been prepared a bit in secret and that guards had to be bribed to smuggle kegs of beer inside the estate. And Juan was not the only key Site D employee present at this evening because Brice arrived shortly after, mingling with the others. The vet said he would have been willing to demonstrate the Bretons' legendary tolerance to alcohol but that he couldn't, preferring to remain sober should he be called for an intervention during the night. Austin quickly passed at the party, taking a look at it before leaving, not without asking the attendees to not overindulge in alcohols and not use drugs or he would have them sleep with the carnotaurs. Neither he nor the vet were willing to tell Jocelyn about the evening, with the ACU commander even claiming he was too lazy for that. In addition to the keepers and Brice, there were also several workers, a few administration employees and even guards and ACU troopers supposedly off duty. At one point, Owen was even surprised to see two of Wheatley's mercenaries, none other than Fanny Oven and Danny McLagen, join them for a while. When asked if other mercenaries intended to join them, she replied that her comrades were having their own little party at the bungalows, given for the birthday of Stan, one of their comrades, and that they wouldn't probably come there, especially since the InGen Security soldiers were watching them, as if they feared there would be misbehaviours. Shortly after, Fanny was seen outside by the kitchen door, smoking a joint with Horatio and Vinny.

"Yeah! The trip, California and it will be over," Pasqual told Alfredo a little later while they were getting some fresh air outside, not far from the office's glass door which opened on the parking lot. "Only a month left."

"You can talk. You're retiring right after," his colleague replied. "You're getting back to your parrots..."

"Who'd have thought? I won't totally leave dinosaurs behind me. So, have you found a job for the few years left before you retire too?"

"Yes. I'm going to work on my brother-in-law's farm."

"The one who lives in Guanacaste, right?"

"Yes."

Pasqual nodded thoughtfully.

"Thinking about it, does your brother-in-law know the Rodriguez?" he asked shortly after.

"Those who supplied the island with beef? Oh maybe, I never asked him. But they're indeed from the same area."

"I thought about it because we were talking about the Camp kids this morning with Marisol and the others. Damn, the Rodriguez must have been really worried for their girl. I wouldn't have liked to be in their shoes."

"It's been quite an odyssey that she, her comrades and Jeanie, may she rest in peace, had… Jesus, they made it to Isla Sorna on their means. It was almost too late when the riders of the Grey Guard found them..."

"It's a miracle ... Fortunately for the four who survived, all of that is behind them. The Fall is going to follow others like a shadow until the end of their life..."

People shouted behind them.

"One!"

They turned around and saw the others crowded around Claire and Suraj, their Indian colleague. Each had a full glass of beer in hand.

"Two! Three! Go!"

The two contestants raised their glasses to their mouths and began to drink the contents. Suraj turned out to be the fastest, swallowing the beer like if it was whey, and by the time Claire finished the first third of her beer, he was already halfway through. But suddenly, as he reached his last third, he staggered and even spilled a few drops on the floor, and by the time he regained balance and put his glass back to his mouth, Claire was down to the last quarter of her glass, having accelerated the pace of her gulps. She finished a few seconds before him, put her glass on top of the nearest piece of furniture and the others applauded her.

"And the winner is Claire!" Vinny announced.

Satisfied with her victory and as she had no such fun for a long time, she let out a shout of euphoria.

So that everyone could have a minimum of sleep, the party ended at 11:00 p.m. and while most were returning to the camp, the minibus brought its usual passengers back to town. Some, such as Zia and Franklin, had left a little earlier and the two DPG members had been taken back to the hotel by Benito the guard when he returned home.

Claire and Owen, drunk as lords, had a bit of trouble getting into the minibus and sitting into the back seat, and they spent the trip singing Johnny Cash's Jackson together, with him covering the lyrics of the famous singer and her those of June Carter, her partner. They were surprised when the minibus slowed down and stopped.

"Guys! You arrived!" the driver announced.

"Already?!" Claire exclaimed after hiccupping.

She looked outside and recognized the white walls of the Cañada de las águilas and its lawn.

"Oh, indeed!" She realized.

She and Owen got up with difficulty and headed for the exit.

"After a while, crocodiles!" He said to the other passengers.

"Don't forget, it's a quarter to six tomorrow!" Pasqual reminded them.

"We'll break down your room's door if you don't get up!" Marisol joked.

"We'll drag you out of bed naked if necessary!" Alfredo added.

Laughing, the couple got out of the minibus and staggered towards the hotel entrance, not noticing at all that a big jeep with an unusual logo had parked across the street during the day. The logo depicted an armadillo which shell bands were each a different colour, like a rainbow, but what would have caught their attention if they had turned around and looked at it up close would have been the license plate, which was from San José metropolitan area and not Burgo Nuevo or any nearby town.

The couple entered the hotel and went up to their room. While they were exhausted, Claire thought she had done well to tell Basil and Sybil that they would be leaving early the next day, and to pay in advance for their stay. The hotel owners had just told her to put the keys on the counter when they would leave. Having anticipated that they would be home late, they had even packed most of their luggage, keeping outside only the bare necessities and their clothes for the next day. At the base of the bed, over their underwear, was a black singlet and cargo pants for him, and a white tank top and green cargo pants for her.

They undressed, had a shower together, and crawled into bed, where they snuggled and almost immediately drifted off to sleep. A long day awaited them.

Chapter Text

When the group arrived the following day at the Farm shortly before six o'clock, the estate was already in full effervescence while the sun was rising. It looked like a military base on the day of a major operation. Shortly after crossing the gate and the crossroads, the minibus passed a group of mercenaries trotting in the opposite direction and further on, many participants in the operation were coming and going between the camp and the hacienda. When it arrived by the latter, it had to let an ACU pickup pass, driving towards the Cretaceous Plain, while to the west, one of the flying cranes took off and headed north, to the station where the train was waiting for its passengers.

As he had just cleared his place at the camp, Valentine took his luggage to the hacienda and put it alongside those of his colleagues' in one of the rooms prepared for this purpose. Thus, he would carry on with his various tasks without having to worry about his belongings, as some employees were going to be tasked with transporting them to the Arcadia or to the Anne B, one of Jurassic World's former supply ships and which InGen was also bringing back to the United States, intending to sell it. Once it was done, Valentine headed for the exit, but while he crossed the courtyard, Jocelyn hailed him:

"Valentine?"

He turned and greeted her:

"Hello, Jocelyn. How are you?"

"I'll get by, thank you. Ready for the big trip?"

"I have to."

"Since we will both be very busy today, I don't know if we'll see each other again and I wanted to say goodbye in case we don't. I…"

She paused, struggling to find words, and Valentine looked at her carefully, wondering what she meant. Then she ended her awkward silence with a sigh and moved forward to hug him. Valentine's eyes widened in surprise.

"Oh…" he said before wrapping his arms around her hesitantly.

"Have a safe trip," she wished him. "Thanks for staying cool in these crazy times…"

Watching the scene from the canteen, Austin rolled his eyes and shook his head, thinking that Site D's manager was ridiculous.

On their side, the couple, the DPG trio and the keepers had done the same thing as Valentine and left their luggage in the keepers' office.

"We have ten hours to put the animals on the train!" Juan reminded them as they left the office. "Let's go!"

"The Shitpiercer awaits," Horatio added, pronouncing the nickname they gave to the train due of its size and its role as an animal carrier (1).

"Let's hope there is no cock-up," Nala said.

"Let's touch some wood," Allison added, putting her hand on the closest wooden element.

Joining the temps just outside the Ark, the various teams then headed to their respective sectors, and whereas Owen went to the Predators' Camp with Marisol's and Allison's team, keen to oversee the smooth running of Blue's transportation, Claire went to help Pasqual and Alfredo at the paddocks near the old farm, Alexander mixed with the first team who accepted him, Zia joined one in particular need of vets, since Brice had told her at the party that he didn't need her help, as Maribel was there if needed.

In the morning, the veterinarian went from sector to sector, checking that the temp veterinarians were working correctly and intervening where he had to. He was not the only one to walk through one end of the estate to the other, as Franklin, exempt from the most physical tasks, did the same, seeking footage for the DPG documentary.

Around eight o'clock, vehicles began to leave the estate and among them were, among others, the Gallimimus' and Dryosaurus' livestock trucks as well as several cars pulling horse trailers, which contained certain species of small herbivores. Unlike the others, those didn't go to the station but went directly to InGen's port facility by road with a small escort. The trucks that left for the station returned to the estate a little later, in order to take other transport containers, cages or crates.

The vehicles exited not through the eastern gate, which was soon besieged by journalists thirsty for footage of the estate's interior, but through the western gate, which was more discreet and opened almost directly onto the woods. The first convoy had not crossed path with anyone on the road between the Farm and the station, as the local authorities had blocked all access to the road to facilitate InGen's operation. After all, as Enrique Ordonez had implied during his visit more than a week earlier, the sooner the animals left, the better it would be for him and many townsfolk.

But whereas some stayed at home or at work waiting for it to happen, many were taken by curiosity and wanted to see the convoys, parking their vehicles before the signs or site barriers placed across the roads and going beyond them on foot to reach the edge of the one taken by InGen's convoys. The police reacted by tasking officers to watch those onlookers and prevent them from going on the road, but as the onlookers flocked, including tourists, families and even single children who had reached the place by bicycle from the town, the canton's police, which was going to be overwhelmed if things went on like this, considered calling for reinforcements.

Shortly after, an InGen Security officer accompanied by one of Wheatley's forces and several of the latter's subordinates, went to give new instructions to a group of Site D guards waiting near several of the division's vehicles.

"Okay, guys. I have a mission for you. I don't know if you've been listening to the radio, but the cops' roadblocks were useless and we now have a whole bunch of schmucks on the roadside. Torres asked Mr. Wheatley to reinforce the convoys' escort with his men and they will need drivers and chaperones."

As the two officers began to form teams, Valentine, who was part of the group of guards, frowned upon noticing that the English bruiser, Theo, was among the mercenaries.

"…Theo, go with him," Wheatley's officer ordered, pointing at Valentine.

The Englishman nodded and walked towards the Texan but the latter stepped back.

"I refuse to team up with a little girl killer!" He protested indignantly.

Theo stopped and sighed.

"Fuck…" he growled in a low, husky voice.

The InGen officer looked at Theo and then at Wheatley's officer with wide eyes.

"Woah! What the hell is this?" he asked. "I want some explanations!"

Wheatley's officer took InGen's aside and they quietly talked while the guards eyed Theo warily.

"What's that little girl story?" asked one of them, a young woman with a tight bun of brown hair. "Because if we have to take a psychopath with us..."

One of Theo's comrades, a bald man about the same age and sporting only a thin goatee on his chin, joined them and explained his case to them, speaking in a low voice, as if to not be heard by him or at least as little as possible.

"He won't talk about it, so I'll do it for him. It will be better I think… It was an accident. Theo was part of the British anti-riot police. Like his job asked him, he was called one day for a demonstration. Except that things escalated and it ended up being such a mess that bystanders were caught by the chaos. While charging at protesters, Theo's shield accidentally met a girl. She died instantly. You can imagine the parents were pissed… Theo narrowly avoided prison but he lost his job and his wife left him. He fought in the Irak War before joining the riot police so that helped him find odd jobs like this one and leave England behind. That's it... As long as you keep your distance with him and avoid uttering the words girl and shield in his presence, it should be alright..."

The InGen guards nodded and the officers returned, changing the teams in order to not put Theo with Valentine. The last thing they needed was for a fight to break out between members of both factions, especially since problems soon piled up.

"Uh… We have a little problem between kilometres four and five," someone said in English on the radio. "Protesters are blocking the road..."

Chapter Text

As she was then part of this convoy, Claire was surprised to see the vehicles stop. Wondering what was going on, she leaned to the side, out of the truck's bed she was on. Being at the back of the convoy, she couldn't see what was going at the head and after making sure that the InGen Security guards bringing up the rear were watching their backs, she got out of the truck and began to trot up the line of transport vehicles.

She found Juan, Mark, Zia, Alexander and the convoy's other keepers, veterinarians and drivers a little further and reaching them, she saw that the motorcycle with sidecar at the head of the convoy was stopped only a few meters from a group of protesters which were blocking their way. The InGen Security employees aboard the motorcycle had dismounted to stand between the convoy and the protestors, who were shouting not in Spanish but in English. Staying behind the others, Claire scanned the protesters and saw that there was only a minority of Hispanics among them and listening more carefully to the accents, she realized that they were mostly Americans. As for the locals, they had stayed by the side of the road and would have contented themselves with quietly watching the convoys' passing. The stern and irritated looks given to the protestors said a lot about their opinion on the situation.

"Why didn't you stop them?" One of the InGen guards asked in Spanish to one of the police officers.

"But we're outnumbered, don't you see?!" The policeman cried, pointing his few colleagues, overwhelmed by the number of onlookers and protestors. "We've called in reinforcements, but the closest are in San Ramón. They will be here only in an hour."

Observing and listening to the protest, the fallen park director learned that these activists had not accepted the decision taken by the United States justice, which authorized the animals' importation into the US. Fearing, among other things, that another San Diego incident might occur, they wanted the dinosaurs to stay in Costa Rica and they had brought the international press with them. Some of the protesters held copies of Ian Malcolm's books in their hands and Claire couldn't help but compare them to those religious activists who held holy books high during their demonstrations. She wondered what the famous mathematician would think of some of his followers' behaviour. It was one of fame's downsides. Sooner or later, it attracts all kinds of individuals, including fanatics of whom one could be ashamed.

As she scanned the various placards, Claire was surprised to find the Dinosaur Protection Group's little stegosaur among them. She wanted to point this out to Zia and Alexander, but one of InGen Security's guards did it first:

"Guys. Isn't that your logo by any chance?" He asked them rather curtly, pointing to the placards.

"Looks like it," the fallen park director said. "Have you told your members about your participation in the operation?"

"Of course, we're not stupid," the DPG founder replied.

"Is he one of our members though?" The NGO's veterinarian wondered. "Because it's easy to copy a logo on a placard."

"Well, if he is, tell him to leave this demo," the guard asked them. "I thought you were with us and not against us."

"Neither of that…" Zia muttered.

Seeing one of the press cameras coming too close to them, Claire preferred to move away, returning at the back of the convoy.

"We are worried. It's not good for the animals to be held like this," Juan said a few moments later to the protesters' leader, speaking in English and as calmly as possible. "We have to move."

But the leader, a middle-aged woman in a yellow T-shirt, wouldn't have any of it and the situation bogged down. It was hot and humid and the animals became tense, sensing that something was wrong.

While the escort's leader and Juan were still grappling with the protestors, some journalists bypassed the group of InGen employees through the undergrowth and emerged by the middle of the convoy. They began to come and go between the vehicles, getting as close as possible to the containers and crates to try to get footage of the animals. Smelling their scent, one of them got agitated, which caught the attention of the two InGen Security guards at the back of the convoy. They then saw the journalists and reached them, ordering them to move away.

But it was a waste of time because they had hardly chased a journalist from the road than another emerged from the undergrowth further behind them to continue filming, in a scene that was very ridiculous in the eyes of Claire, who was watching it discreetly from the back of the truck to which she was assigned.

She was sitting right next to a large wooden crate which contained the Udanoceratops (1), which could only be seen through small holes in the sides of the crate. The animal, large as a cow, slept peacefully unlike the others and Claire could hear its hissing snores. Like the rest of the convoy, she was growing impatient and very much wanted them to leave as soon as possible. As the journalists continued to prowl near the vehicles, her concern grew and she began to consider the possibility of being recognized, even with her sunglasses, because she wore her characteristic half-mask although her prosthesis was hidden under her silicone glove. Since she had disappeared from the radars for more than a year and that her participation in the operation hasn't been announced yet by anyone in the media, people would not expect to find her at the back of this truck but if someone ever recognized her, she was sure to see all the journalists present in the vicinity running up to her, even those then busy interviewing the protestors and onlookers further away.

I should have taken my hat, she thought. So I could disguise myself a little bit...

When a reporter and his cameraman, hidden until then in the undergrowth, emerged and headed for her truck, she knew this eventuality had come and she let out a curse before turning around and bowing her head forward.

"Am I dreaming or what?" The journalist asked his colleague. "Damn if it's her... I think we hit the jackpot!"

"You can't be here," she told them. "Please, leave."

"Mrs. Dearing?" the reporter asked while he and his colleague still approached.

She sighed.

Just piss off, you morons! You'll rouse the others.

"No you're wrong," she replied without looking at him. "My name is Sonya. Sonya Howard. I'm a temp keeper."

"Nice try but I recognized you. Thirtyish redheads with a white half-mask and a close connection to dinosaurs aren't legion. I was at the conference you gave when you got out of the hospital, you know."

"At least I tried…," the fallen park director muttered while the camera was directed towards her.

She turned her head in their direction and seeing the reporter's face closer, she realized she had indeed already seen his face somewhere.

"However, I didn't expect to find you in the back of a truck like this one," he said.

"Wait, isn't that Claire Dearing over there?" They heard another reporter ask.

God fucking dammit.

The other journalists and their colleagues then came running at the back of the convoy, with the two InGen Security guards on their heels. Claire stood up and watched them approach.

"Hey, can you try to make them leave?" She ordered the two guards dryly. "They're making the animals nervous."

"What do you think we've been doing for several minutes?" One of them retorted. "And if we use force, we'll be in big trouble. You see, if one of them sprains their ankle after tripping over a rock, they could blame us, InGen would have other image issues and we'd get fired. Moreover, we have no orders to take from you."

"Yeah, let us remind you that you're no longer our boss," the other added.

"Why are you here? You're fucking useless!" Claire told them in exasperation.

If we were still at Jurassic World, I would have fired those two clowns right away!

"Claire Dearing!" a female voice barked.

She turned to the voice's source and among the group gathered at the base of the truck like a pack of hungry hounds, she saw a podgy little snub-nosed woman with blue-coloured hair and thick-rimmed glasses resting on her pointed nose. For some reason, this reporter was also familiar to the fallen park director.

"Cassandra Landis," she introduced herself. "You remember me?"

Cassandra Landis, that bitch?! Gods! Thought the fallen park director, surprised, as she remembered that the reporter was much skinnier and her hair shorter and browner at the press conference and the tour of the I. rex Coliseum she had organized the eve of the Fall.

"Oh, Miss Cassandra Landis… I didn't recognize you," Claire said with a forced smile. "But you've gotten fatter since the last time I saw you. Are you having a contest with Lindsay Ellis? You have to stop Twitter and exercise instead, my dear."

While several of her colleagues were holding back their laughter, Cassandra Landis glared at the fallen park director, fighting the urge to immediately retort.

"I heard you left the San Diego Herald because of an offer," Claire added. "Congratulations on getting your new position. It's at BuzzFeed, right?"

"No, the Huffington Post," the reporter replied with a hint of irritation in her voice.

"Indeed, it's not the same thing. The big difference being that unlike the Huffington Post, BuzzFeed unfortunately cannot be used as toilet paper in an emergency…"

Another journalist, who worked for a rival of the two organizations Claire named, laughed.

"Well said!"

"My word, you are on fire Mrs. Dearing!" Complimented the one who approached her first. "Do you mind if we ask you a few quick questions?"

"You've retired from public life for more than a year. What have you done in the meantime?" One of his colleagues asked.

But before Claire could answer her, she was asked a whole bunch of other questions almost simultaneously. While some were interested in her participation in this operation and the state of her relations with InGen; the others inquired about her private life, including her pregnancy and her presence at the maternity ward of a hospital in Sierra Nevada; and one even dared to ask a question about her alleged visits to the Mariposa.

Someone has snitched since, the fallen park director realized. It's only a matter of time before someone write an article about it. This is also going to influence my reputation.

"Enough! Not all at once please," she begged them before looking at the road past the InGen motorcycle.

Knowing that Torres and Iger would be quick to react to the protest in order to remain on schedule, she knew it was only a matter of time before reinforcements from the Farm arrived and make the protesters and the reporters move away from the road. Whereas she was not motivated to answer their questions, an idea germinated in her mind.

"I only have enough energy for one of you," she told the reporters. "I offer you a deal: You see, I owe an interview to Miss Landis here since over a year. Assuming her questions are similar to yours, I suggest she join me in the back of this truck. So while we have our interview with a magnificent Udanoceratops sleeping in this crate, you can stay there to listen and take notes. Silently. What do you say, Cassandra?"

"If we must do that so you can finally talk to me...," the journalist said.

Looking at the back of the truck, she wondered how she was going to climb on it, doubting the strength in her legs while the only grips she saw were quite high. Cassandra stepped forward and held her arms up. Although she reached the bottom of the rear doors with her hands, she knew that she was not going to have enough strength in her arms to pull herself up to them and her young cameraman then entrusted his camera to someone to go help her.

"No," Claire told him. "Miss Landis must manage to get on this truck by her own means and without the help of others."

"Are you serious?!" He exclaimed, indignant.

"You know the expression," she replied. "No arms, no chocolate…"

Cassandra backed up and looked at Claire.

"But don't you see that I can't climb on this truck without help?"

"Then imagine that you have a dinosaur on your ass," the fallen park director suggested. "Fear gives you wings… I can release the Metriacanthosaurus a few trucks ahead if you want."

Realizing that she was making fun of them, the reporters became agitated.

"No, but this is ridiculous!" One of them protested.

"You know what?" Cassandra said to Claire. "Either you climb down and we have the interview on the ground, or you stay up there and I'll rip you apart in a new article."

"Fine! Do that, you blue-haired land whale! It won't change anything for me. After all, you already insinuated that I was the worst bitch ever in a previous article!"

As offended gasps rose among the reporters, the two helpless InGen Security guards commented on the situation:

"Is it me or is she spinning out of control? And she's not even drunk."

"And in front of cameras moreover. Her acts will soon ends up being talked about alongside those of other celebrities. At this rate, she'll make Trump himself looks like an amateur in that field..."

"She better be careful. If I understand the whole imbroglio which concerns the operation, the Lockwood Foundation and her, she's in a precarious situation. When Lockwood will hear about her behaviour... And Land Whale, what a nice fatphobic insult."

"That's not very 2019…"

"Hey, Chip and Dale!" Claire hailed them. "Shut up!"

"Yeah yeah," one of them replied without much conviction. "You won't be a smartass for long..."

"Guys! It's heating on the other end!" One of the reporters suddenly announced after reading a message on her phone.

"What do we do?" One of her colleagues asked.

"She's not going to give an interview anyway. Let's go!"

She and her colleagues then began to trot up the convoy and the other journalists rushed after them.

"Move!" One of them said. "I want to be there if there's a fight."

"The last one there is a loser!" Another exclaimed.

After giving Claire another glare, Cassandra and her cameraman also left.

"I'll have you one day. I'll have you!" The humiliated journalist shouted to the fallen park director.

"Sure," she replied.

In addition to her, the truck driver who had remained in the cabin and had absolutely not reacted, and the two guards, there was only a journalist and his cameraman at the back of the convoy.

"You didn't follow them?" She asked them, noticing that they didn't intend to move.

The journalist, a man in his fifties or early sixties of average build and height, with a bearded face and a balding head, replied:

"What's the point? They will all take the same footage and then make similar comments."

"What's your name?"

"Bernard."

"You know what, Bernard? You seem nice. You and your cameraman were kind enough to stay and not run away like savages. I will allow you to interview me."

"Should we climb in the truck?" the cameraman asked.

As a response, Claire laughed and then jumped off the truck's bed.

"We can do it on the ground," she replied while approaching them.

"No, but that's not going to be possible," one of the guards interjected. "Return to the other civilians, please, if you can't move away from the road..."

Claire looked at the two guards disapprovingly.

"You guys are waking up now? When there are only two left?"

Forced to cooperate, Bernard sighed slightly, but before leaving, he pulled a business card from his pocket and handed it to Claire.

"If your offer still stands," he said.

She grabbed it and nodded as she read it. The journalist and his cameraman then went up the convoy, followed by one of the guards who wanted to ensure their good cooperation. When the protest came into sight again, they knew what had caused their colleagues' excitement a moment ago.

Seeing that the police were distraught and refused to intervene because they were being watched by reporters, many locals had lost patience and started insulting the protestors and ordering them to clear the road. In response, some of the protestors had responded by calling the locals collaborators and the police came to stand between the two antagonistic groups, trying to calm the situation as best they could while insults in English and Spanish were hurled, with, for example, "Yankee morons!" on one side and "Ticos assholes!" on the other. If a fight broke out between Neoburgenses and Americans, they feared that it would even end up as causing a small diplomatic incident. The participants in the operation watched with a certain helplessness and the animals became more and more agitated. They could hear the angry crowd and it scared them. Lying on top of one of the containers, with his head just above some sort of trapdoor, Mark was doing his best to calm Boomer the Metriacanthosaurus, who kept shaking his head and growling.

"Shhh... It's nothing Boomer," the German keeper said very softly. "Relax, it will be over soon..."

Hearing the engine of a rather large vehicle, Mark turned and saw one of InGen Security's armoured personnel carriers rolling past the stopped convoy. Behind the APC, two jeeps were following and the keeper noticed that Wheatley's mercenaries were sitting in the back of them. The three vehicles passed the truck transporting the Metriacanthosaurus and reached the head of the convoy, where they stopped. The APC's rear door opened and a squad of armed mercenaries came out to deploy between the first truck and the motorcycle with sidecar at the very head, keeping a certain distance between them and the protestors.

"Remember, we're in a civilized zone so no blunder guys," Wheatley told them over the radio. "The first who commits one will have big problems…"

Intimidated, the protestors retreated and the squad of mercenaries advanced under the dumbfounded gaze of onlookers and police officers, who felt even more helpless than before, shocked by InGen's show of force while the journalists were actively recording it.

The squad moved past the lead motorcycle and the group of protestors finally split up against its advance, joining the roadside where several were even dragged by some of the locals.

The InGen guards at the head of the convoy re-boarded their motorcycle and drove off while the transport vehicles started up again. But no sooner had the first truck moved across a few steps than the protestors' leader returned on the road and forced it to stop, even putting her hands on the bumper, as if she intended to hold it back with the sole strength of her arms. Two police officers rushed to bring her control.

"Don't take them away!" she cried while struggling as they pulled her away. "Please don't take them away!" She added hysterically.

The truck drove off and let the InGen Security vehicles pass it. Whereas the APC came to the side, forcing the civilians to move away, the two jeeps continued, rolling slowly while the rest of the convoy followed. Sitting in the back of one of them, Theo watched some of the protestors carrying on with their demonstration:

"Bloody hell, I think we got involved in another messy business, Manny," he said to the mercenary sitting across from him, the bald one who told his story earlier to the InGen guards.

"It was tense indeed," Manny replied, looking at the rest of the convoy and the crowd. "I almost had the impression of being back in Baghdad."

Hearing of the deployment, Enrique Ordonez went to the scene and insisted on seeing Torres urgently. The director of InGen's security division eventually arrived, followed a few moments later by Jocelyn and Iger. The Farm manager saw the two men arguing:

"Who gave you the right to deploy mercenaries in the presence of civilians?" The mayor asked in an outraged tone. "You think you're in Iraq? Upholding law and order is not your responsibility!"

"Do you want those animals to leave, yes or no?!" The director of InGen Security retorted with irritation.

"I do!"

"Then let us do whatever is necessary! Because you were unable to block the roads!"

"What should I have done?! Erect a fence on both sides of the road between Site D and the old station?!"

Iger then stepped between the two men and after saying a few words to Torres, he took Enrique aside and spoke to him, trying to calm tensions.

The mayor of the canton of Burgo Nuevo only relaxed a little when police vans arrived, coming from San Ramón but also from Ciudad Quesada. Wearing riot gear, the newcomers made the civilians move away from the road and in some way, urged them to return to town. When everyone withdrew beyond the site barriers and the signs blocking the accesses, they deployed there, guarding them to prevent any further incident.

Chapter Text

Calm returned to the road between the train station and Site D, and at the same time, Owen and a few others finally managed to get Blue into her transport cage and it was hoisted onto a truck's bed. But as the latter was about to leave for the station with Owen, who stood in the bed next to the cage, one of the guards came to fetch the Raptor Whisperer.

"Owen. Mrs. Dearing wants to see you," he told him. "She said it was urgent."

What does she want? And why didn't she come directly? The former head of the IBRIS program wondered cautiously.

After letting out a sigh, he knocked on the side of the truck's cab to get the driver's attention.

"Wait for me, please," he asked him.

He then jumped out of the bed but hardly had he walked a few meters that he turned to the driver.

"You're not leaving without me. Understood?"

"Yes, yes," the driver replied absently.

He growled and left the Predators' Camp behind as he headed towards the old farm area, where she had gone earlier. He found her team soon enough, at the enclosures just north of the Ark, and Owen saw the latter putting the Mussaurus into their transport container, but he was surprised to not find his girlfriend among them. He then asked Pasqual where she was and he replied that she went to lend a hand to Horatio's and Vinny's team. He went there, looked for said team for a while before finding some of them by the Asian Plain's barn. Horatio and a few others, including Claire, were crowded around the bed of a transport truck, on which rested a container where a Sinoceratops had just entered. The container's back door was lowered, locked, and soon after Horatio indicated to the driver he could leave.

"Good job everyone! We just have to finish the Swamp and then we'll go help Nala and Judd with the triceratops and the last animals of the Cretaceous Plain," he told his team. "But first, let's eat," he added after looking at his watch.

While Horatio informed Vinny by walkie-talkie, Claire noticed the presence of her boyfriend.

"Hey…" she said.

"You wanted to see me?"

She raised her eyebrows.

"I was going to tell you we were going to eat, but you're already here," she replied.

"I was told it was urgent," he added in a slightly annoyed tone.

"Urgent? But there is nothing particularly urgent on my side. Who told you that?"

"One of the guards. He arrived at the Predators' Camp and told me you wanted to see me urgently."

"But I didn't ask anyone to fetch you."

Owen's eyes suddenly widened.

"Shit!" He swore before running away.

"Owen?"

Worried, Claire followed him to the Predators' Camp.

"Where the hell is it?!" Owen cried angrily shortly after, noticing that the truck carrying Blue's cage was gone. "I told him to not leave without me!"

"Austin told him to leave," Allison said. "He said we couldn't afford to wait for you."

"And is there someone with the driver?" Owen asked her.

"No," the blonde keeper replied in a weak voice, intimidated by her ex-colleague even though she knew he wasn't mad at her.

Owen kicked the grass.

"The trip better go well for him," he said. "Otherwise, I'm going to smash his face in. Let me know when she'll be at the station."

"Let's get something to eat," Claire suggested to him, gently touching his arm. "You can check if she's okay later."

Owen nodded weakly and the couple went to the canteen tent to pick up their lunch. But while they were eating and Claire was telling her about her confrontation with the reporters from earlier, Meyers, the ACU trooper, ran to them. They looked up at her.

"Owen. Blue escaped," she warned him.

"What?!"

"How did she escape?!" Owen asked Austin curtly.

"When the truck headed for San Ramón's road instead of going north, the guards blocking the exit stopped it. When they found out the driver was an undercover agent and was planning to take Blue away, probably to San José, he turned and fled. They chased the truck for more than a mile but cornered, the driver got out of the cab and opened the cage door. The Achillobator leapt out and disappeared into the jungle before the guards could do anything."

"And when did that happen?" Claire asked him.

"More than half an hour ago."

"Meyers told us there was nobody at the monitoring station when she saw that Blue wasn't on the way to the train station," Owen told her.

"Why weren't we told right away and only found out through her?" His girlfriend added.

"You wanted us to trigger panic inside and outside the site? You reproaching me for this decision is a bit strong, Claire, when we know how you handled the Indominus' escape..."

Claire didn't answer and just glared at him. Owen was staring at two large screens above the desk next to them.

On the right screen, a satellite map of Burgo Nuevo and its surroundings was displayed. Claire looked at it carefully.

Site D, Burgo Nuevo, the nearest villages as well as the most notable geographical features appeared on it, and certain locations were even clearly indicated. To the west, she saw the Celeste River and a line she guessed was the railroad. Following it to the northwest, she arrived at a large concentration of red dots four kilometres from Burgo Nuevo, by the mine's station. Between the latter and Site D, a few other red dots moved along the road that skirted the town from the west, crossed a bridge in the middle of the woods a little less than a kilometre from the abandoned house, and circumvented Site D by the west and then the south, to join the road to San Ramón. Within Site D, there was still a noticeable concentration of dots, and Claire noticed a lone moving dot in the jungle south of Site D, which Owen was following intently.

In one corner of the screen, the characters VISHNU were visible. Without that Masrani Global satellite, they would have been unable to track the animals in a relatively large territory such as the Burgo Nuevo canton.

As for the screen on the left, it displayed a black and blue map of Site D. The buildings and enclosures were delimited by thick lines and the locations of the different animals indicated by dots.

"Where's the driver? I'd like to talk to that son of a bitch for a minute," the keeper asked.

"I'm afraid that's impossible, Mr. Grady," Edward Torres replied. "I had him taken to Alajuela for questioning. He's already gone."

The couple turned around and saw the director of InGen Security walking with Jocelyn and Wheatley into the ACU and security offices, located in the Ark's "bow".

"I need a vehicle. I'll get her and the ACU better follow me," Owen said. "No one here wants Blue to run into civilians."

"My men are overwhelmed with the animals' containment and transport!" Austin replied. "We'll see when I can send them."

"It's an emergency, dammit!" The keeper insisted angrily. "I'll go alone if I have to!"

"You can't do that, it's too dangerous!" Jocelyn pointed out.

"Go capture her alone if you think you can do it, Mr. Grady," Torres said. "We're not holding you back."

"He won't be alone. I'm going with him," Wheatley informed him as he stood away from the InGen executives.

"Mr. Wheatley," Torres began in an annoyed tone, "I need you and your men to secure the convoys."

"I will only take a small team with me," the mercenary replied. "If you need the rest for specific tasks, ask Mickey, my second in command."

"I'm coming too. Blue could be hurt," Zia suddenly said as she and Franklin joined them by the desk.

"Miss, things could go awry out there," Wheatley told her.

Zia turned, walked over to him, and grabbed one of the darts from his bandolier. She showed it to the mercenary as he looked down on her.

"Those are powerful sedatives. One too many and she could have respiratory failure."

She put the dart back in his bandolier.

"Besides, I'm not as weak and stupid as you think."

Wheatley said nothing and pulled out his cell phone to gather a squad.

As she didn't want to stand idly by while others helped her boyfriend, Claire took an ear piece and a small tablet from a nearby shelf.

"Owen. I'll stay here and guide you by radio, okay?" She proposed, handling them to him.

"Okay," he replied before grabbing the items.

"You aren't going with him?" Torres asked the fallen park director. "Surprising."

"He'd rather have me safe her, especially since Blue doesn't like me too much," she replied. "You know, daughters and stepmothers… And I think I will be more useful within the walls of Site D."

"So be it," the director of InGen Security said in an odd tone, which sounded almost like disappointment to Claire's ears.

While pouting, Jocelyn scanned the security offices. Aside from them, there was no one else, as Austin sent Meyers to help her comrades outside while the guards were all busy elsewhere.

"You can't be left unattended in this room, Claire," Site D's manager said. "I'll stay with you."

"But you don't know how the system works, Jocelyn," the ACU commander pointed out.

He turned to Franklin.

"Mr. Webb, can you manage on your own with that?"

The DPG IT technician walked up to the desk, looked at the screens, and began typing on the keyboard under the watchful eye of the commander.

"Yeah, it should be alright...," he replied, slightly hesitant while he was getting to know the system.

"Can you isolate the raptor?" Wheatley asked him.

Franklin quickly found the menu where the animals' list could be found, but when he clicked on "Achillobator" and wanted to have only the dot associated with Blue displayed on the screen, a query appeared, asking him to enter a code. Since he didn't knew the codes associated with each species, he looked at Austin.

"A-9," he said.

Franklin entered the code and all the dots except Blue's vanished from the right screen.

"It seems you're doing alright," the ACU commander noted with satisfaction.

"Alright, I'm staying to act like a chaperone," Jocelyn sighed.

Ignoring her, Austin pointed to a black notebook on a corner of the desk.

"The codebook is right there if needed."

"You don't need me anymore?" Torres asked them impatiently. "I should go, I have other fish to fry. Joel, could you come for a moment?"

Austin followed his superior up to the room's exit.

"Go with them," the director of InGen Security ordered the ACU commander in a low voice. "I want someone trustable like you in their company. Miller should be able to manage your unit while you're away."

"As you wish, sir," Austin replied in a neutral tone. "Does Iger know about this escape?"

"No. And let's not bother him with that. He must soon leave for Puntarenas. Keep me informed about the evolution of this... situation."

Torres then left the room and the commander turned back to the group massed near the desk. He noticed Wheatley looking suspiciously in his direction.

The mercenary leader then turned to the desk and the screens.

"Is there any dwellings near her location?" he asked.

Franklin zoomed in to the area where Blue was. Since she was heading south, running down a slope, Franklin moved in that direction as well and they noted that soon after the base of the slope, the jungle gave way to more open areas of varying size and separated from each other by more or less thick and straight corridors of trees. Meadows, maybe even pastures. The only infrastructure they saw was a road linking the village of Zapotal to the west to that of San Antonio to the southeast, not far from the junction they had taken the day of their arrival, just before driving up to Burgo Nuevo. Along the way, the road twisted, sometimes in the middle of the pastures, sometimes among the groves and even crossed the jungle at one point.

"I see a village to the west and another to the southeast, but there seems to be only jungle and fields between.

"Good," Wheatley said.

"I think there are only farms around there," Jocelyn added. "And I heard that many were abandoned..."

Halfway between the two villages, which were about four kilometres apart from each other, the road crossed a strip of forest that meandered southwards from the jungle at the foot of the slopes. Owen knew it was a gallery forest there and that there had be a stream under it, a stream whose source had to be somewhere in the middle of the area of the jungle currently crossed by Blue.

"If we could intercept her before she reaches them…" he mumbled.

Hearing someone running towards the room's door, he turned his head and saw that the keeper he had approached on the way a few minutes earlier had arrived with a small plastic box, which contained pieces of meat.

"Ah, there you are."

Owen took the box from him, thanked him and then sent him away. He turned to the others.

"Come, we've wasted enough time."

Before he left the room, Claire called out to him:

"Owen."

He stopped and looked at her.

"Good luck," she said in a slightly worried voice.

He retraced his steps and took her hand.

"I'll be fine…" he replied.

"Let's go Beefcake!" Zia told him over her shoulder.

Claire nodded and he joined the DPG veterinarian, the ACU commander and the mercenary.

"Why are you helping me?" Owen asked the latter. "I know you're not doing this out of goodness of heart."

"Indeed. I wanted to have a stroll and see the area. And the less I see Torres, the better."

"I understand that feeling."

Taking a staircase, they descended two levels and reached the ACU garage. In front of its door, one of InGen Security's armoured personnel carriers was waiting for them with a squad of six mercenaries, which included Theo, Fanny and Danny. A hastily summoned replacement driver joined them there a moment later, they got into the vehicle and drove off, leaving the estate through the nearby western gate before turning left.

They arrived soon enough in sight of the transport truck immobilized in the middle of the track and after crossing a stream, frightening a group of coatis which came there to drink, they parked on the side, near the truck and its cage, whose door was wide open. Whereas the driver went to close the cage door before climbing into the cab, Owen, Zia, Austin and the mercenaries regrouped on the side.

"Look alive, stay alive," Wheatley told his men. "We've got your back, buddy," he said to Owen.

"Yeah yeah," the latter answered without conviction.

Leaving the APC behind them, the tracking party moved into the dense vegetation, making their way through ferns and foliage. Quickly, their clothes started to stick to their skin because of the ambient humidity and the heat of the afternoon did not help. As he held in one hand the small tablet Claire had given him earlier, occasionally glancing at the screen where Blue's direction was indicated, Owen noticed that Wheatley was looking at the device with contempt. Owen didn't like depending on technology either, but this was an emergency. If they took too much time, Blue could have a bad encounter with a hunter or a farmer determined to fiercely defend their land and livestock, no matter if the animal facing them was a dinosaur and not a jaguar, puma or a stray dog.

"If we didn't have to depend on that stuff, I wouldn't use it," the mercenary leader said. "It takes the fun out of it."

Owen looked at Wheatley seriously, knowing he was talking about hunting.

"I don't get any pleasure out of that sort of thing."

"Tracking animals is the oldest sport in the world. It's true, it's in our DNA. Aim, run, teamwork. Virtually everything we like to do outdoors has something to do with our original hunting instincts."

Zia looked at the mercenary leader in annoyance.

"You do realize we're not hunting that animal, do you?" she asked him.

"Hunting. Tracking. It's the same."

Shortly after, a gap in the foliage faced them and offered them a choice panorama of the surroundings. To their left was nothing but jungle-covered slopes, but the rest of the landscape was much more interesting to them. They noticed that the ground sloped relatively gently toward the southwest, toward a valley crossed by the creek that Owen had glimpsed on the map. Two kilometres in that direction, the jungle began to give way to pastures, verdant in this wet season, and on the other side of the valley, more than four kilometres from their position, the ground rose again, dramatically, and they knew that the Celeste Gorges were just behind. Looking south, they could see the coastal plain on the horizon and they were high enough in altitude to see as far as the Pacific Ocean, about thirty kilometres away as the crow flies.

In one of the meadows on the edge of the jungle, they saw several dark spots and looking at them through a pair of binoculars, Owen noticed that they were sheep.

"There are sheep in this pasture," he described.

"You think that she might attack them?" Danny inquired.

"She is an animal born in captivity and accustomed to humans. If she is hungry, she'll go after the easiest prey. Back on the island, our farm animals were decimated by starving carnivores in the days that followed the park's fall."

They then heard a roar in the distance and realized soon enough that it was that of a helicopter. Looking towards the Celeste's gorges, he saw a white helicopter with blue stripes flying south, towards Puntarenas.

Iger, Austin guessed.

"I know you don't give a damn about InGen's problems and all that matters to you is getting paid well," the ACU commander added, "but if Mr. Grady's former protegée slaughters those sheeps, we all risk having trouble."

"She's moving in that direction anyway," Owen said after looking at the tablet.

The keeper turned to Wheatley.

"I suggest you take your men, go back to the vehicles, take Zapotal's road, and deploy at the edge of the jungle. I'll continue on foot."

"You're sure? I think you could use some help."

"It's too dangerous. I need to approach her from a certain angle to prevent her from detecting my scent. If there are people with me, she might run away before I even reach her."

Wheatley nodded slightly.

"If you say so," the mercenary replied with a touch of reluctance.

He looked at Austin who responded with a shrug and didn't object.

The ACU commander, the mercenaries and Zia thus turned around while Owen began to descend the slope, heading towards the creek he had glimpsed on the map.

"Claire. I'm going to track her alone. The others returned to the vehicles in order to wait at the edge of the jungle, about halfway between the two villages, near the westernmost creek. I need you to be my eyes. Do you copy?"

"Copy that."

Claire put the radio back on the desk and looked at the satellite map, following, with Franklin, Blue's movements as well as those of the animals being transported to the station.

A little later, a radio placed on one of the shelves in the room began to sputter. Believing at first that they were given news of the track, Claire and Jocelyn approached the radio but the first noticed that the frequency displayed was not the one used by the tracking team but the one usually used by the keepers and other Site D employees. Alex, one of the two keepers in charge of the animals housed in the Ark, was heard:

"Folks, we've got quite a problem! Some moron opened the door of Caerbannog's cage as well as the kennel. And that quilled bastard is gone!"

"An animal escaped?" The manager realized in a voice that mixed annoyance and stress.

Jocelyn wanted to ask Alex more details and took the radio. She tried to communicate with Alex but he didn't answer her, even though they heard other keepers were talking to their colleague.

"Alex, do you copy? Alex, do you copy?!" She repeated.

Claire, who had just rolled her eyes, took the radio from her, pressed a button and spoke into it:

"Claire's speaking. You said that Caerbannog is not in his cage?"

"Affirmative," Alex replied.

"Caerbannog? Which one is it?" Jocelyn asked after sighing in irritation.

"Caerbannog? Like in Holy Grail. The rabbit…," Franklin thought aloud. "It's the Pegosomething!"

"Find its code in the notebook, Lowery," Claire instructed.

Franklin grabbed the notebook, opened it and looked for said code.

"Lowery?" He repeated.

"Oh sorry, Franklin," she corrected herself. "Old habits… He was the control room's chief technician at the park…"

Luckily, the animals were listed in alphabetical order and Franklin fairly quickly found the one associated with the Pegomastax. He entered it into the computer and another dot appeared, highlighted, on both maps, within Site D and specifically in the Ark itself. The DPG IT technician tapped on the keyboard for a moment and a map of the building appeared on one of the screens, with a slowly moving red dot in the centre.

Jocelyn took the radio from Claire's hand and informed the keepers of the animal's location.

"He's still in the Ark. At the heart of the building."

"Which level?" Alex asked.

Which level? The manager repeated in her head while looking at the Ark's map.

"Can you try to find out at which level he is?" She asked Franklin.

He turned to her and said:

"I'm afraid that's not possible. The satellite can only give us longitude and latitude, not altitude."

Franklin then pressed a key to display the plans of the Ark's four levels.

"The Pegomastax' cage is in the kennel's second level," he said, pointing to a part of the kennel on Level 2's map. Logic would dictate that he wouldn't be far from it. We're on the same level, I hope the door is closed..."

"If he got away like twenty minutes ago, he could have gone up or down a level already," Claire assumed.

"Jocelyn?" Alex asked.

"We... We don't know...," the manager stammered.

There was a silence and then the keeper said:

"I started searching Level 2. I asked for the others to be searched as well. Benito will arrive shortly to check the CCTV footage. Whoever let Caerbannog escape will hear from me!"

"Copy that, Alex."

Jocelyn put the radio down and massaged her sweaty forehead.

Benito soon arrived at the security offices and headed for a small room next to that of the ACU monitoring station. Inside, there was a desk with a whole array of screens where footage from Site D's CCTV cameras were displayed in real time. Jocelyn followed the security guard, as did Claire, who asked Franklin to keep an eye on Blue's movements, and the two women came to position themselves behind the security guard, sitting at the desk and looking for the kennel cameras' footage. When he saw that one of them was no longer showing anything, he frowned and checked the camera's location on another screen, where it was indicated on a map with a code associated to it. Said camera was located in the western half of the kennel, on its second level, where the Pegomastax' cage could be found. Wondering if the person who freed the animal also touched to the camera, Benito rewinded until something suddenly stuck to the lens.

"What is that?" Jocelyn wondered. "Paint?"

Oh no, not again…, Claire thought.

The mention of painting had brought back a bad memory from the Fall, that of the treason and death of Zara Young, her assistant. During the Long Night, they had discovered that she had broken into Wu's office to steal sensitive data from his computer, data which she would have sent to one of InGen's rivals if a Harpactognathus had not made her fall in a flight of stairs on the way back. To avoid being detected by the cameras, Zara had used a paintball rifle and shot on the lenses.

"Shit," Benito swore.

Even though he had rewound a bit more, he couldn't see the whole saboteur on this camera's footage. All he saw was a vague silhouette as well as a leg, an arm and the torso. He then searched through the footage of the cameras in the nearest corridors.

"Bingo!" He exclaimed a few moments later. "I got you, you fucking asshole!"

Claire and Jocelyn then looked at the screen he was staring at, where the saboteur, a young man with short hair, an ascetic-like physique and Caucasian features, appeared relatively clearly.

"Who's that guy?" Jocelyn wondered, not recognizing what was one of the temp veterinarians, a taciturn named Connor.

"I think I saw him yesterday in the camp," Claire said.

"He's not one of the employees from here anyway," Benito added.

"Probably one of the temps. I have to talk to Stella about it," the manager director declared, taking out her phone to find the number of the temp's coordinator. "If he is a saboteur, maybe there's others among them?" She added shortly after, as her voice became more and more stressed. "Could they be undercover agents sent by Biosyn, Grendel, Mantah or God knows who? Or even eco-terrorists? Oh, God…"

"And temporary workers aren't the only one concerned. I would recommend you to also be wary of those who have been working here for months or even more…," Benito suggested gloomily.

"By botching its recruitment campaign for the operation's relaunch, InGen invited wolves into the sheepfold…," Claire noted.

For her, there was no doubt. If she was in charge of an organization hostile to InGen and her objective was to sabotage Operation Fallen Kingdom through undercover agents in Site D, she would have ordered to one or several agents to respond to the offers shared on internet and to falsify their CVs if necessary to maximize their chances of getting recruited. In their haste, InGen's human resources department must not have taken the time to check the candidates' backgrounds and make sure they had good intentions. Once again, InGen's negligence threatened its own survival and innocent people were going to pay the price...

Meanwhile, Owen was still moving through the jungle. While following Blue's implant signal on the tablet's screen, he frequently looked at the ground, partly to look for clues of the Achillobator's passage and partly to avoid stepping on a snake or foolishly tripping over an obstacle. He was far from the road and if anything happened to him, he wasn't sure the others would find him in time. His eyes also scanned the surroundings, though the vegetation was too dense to make out anything beyond a stone's throw or two, and he listened for any significant noise. At one point, he heard flapping wings and looking above him, he saw parrots flying over him. A good half hour had already elapsed since he had found the creek and he was following it downstream.

Continuing straight as he seemed to be getting closer to Blue according to the tablet screen, he soon put his foot in the stream and walked into it, moving slowly to avoid making too much noise and startling the raptor. Suddenly he heard bleating, probably from the sheep they had spotted earlier. He was close to the edge and the pastures.

At a bend, he left the creek, as the signal was leading him away from it and the impression he had was confirmed when he noticed that the trees were becoming a little more scattered and that the luminosity was increasing. This allowed him to spot a footprint on the ground, a didactyl footprint as big as his hand, if not larger. He took out his radio.

"Austin, Wheatley. I found a fresh track," he told them. "What's your situation?"

"We entered the pastures," Austin replied. "We'll soon be at the edge, near her location."

"Okay. Wait for my signal."

He continued and about an hour after he separated from the rest of the group up the creek, he stepped into a small clearing where he was surprised to find the overturned and rusted carcass of an old car. As it resembled some of those which could be seen in films whose plot took place during the 1930s or 1940s, or even to a Citroën 2CV, Owen thought that this car must have been rotting there for decades and that it may have dated from the Civil War. Straight ahead, he noticed that the daylight penetrated more into the woods between the trees and he knew that the edge was near, and so was Blue. According to the tablet, she was less than a hundred meters from him and knowing that she must be hidden in the surrounding thickets, he moved forward. He heard a rustle in the bushes behind the car and stopped for a moment before moving forward again.

"Here you are," he said quietly in a low voice.

Suddenly, an opossum emerged from the vehicle, running towards Owen. As he watched it pass him and disappear behind, he suddenly jumped when he heard the carcass creak. A familiar hiss sounded the next second and turning his head, Owen saw that Blue had leapt out of the vegetation and was standing on top of the car.

"Hey gorgeous. Did you enjoy your walk?"

The Achillobator jumped from the vehicle and approached him. She stuck out her black-spotted white chest and spread her arms.

"Easy. Hey! Hey."

She growled and he pulled a piece of meat from one of the pockets of the sleeveless leather jacket he wore over his T-shirt.

"I brought you something."

Blue hissed while her keeper handed her the piece but she showed some semblance of interest in it.

"Here you go. That's it."

He threw the piece at her, but it only crashed against the Achillobator's snout before falling to the ground. She snarled, and on the back of her skull, a crest of black feathers similar to that of the Crowned Eagle (*) (although proportionally shorter) bristled, forming a kind of small crown. This was a sign of irritation and Owen was well aware of that.

"Okay."

Stretching her neck forward, Blue got closer as Owen showed her the open palm of his hand. In the other, he held a clicker and his thumb pressed on it, making clicks that made her hiss.

"Look at me."

The Achillobator moved her head back while she looked at her keeper. She moved closer, adopting a calmer attitude than before.

"Yes, that's it…"

As Owen's hand nearly caressed the top of the Achillobator's snout, the latter's nostrils flared and her body tensed. She had picked up a new scent, one of a potentially hostile newcomer. He also tensed.

Don't tell me that Wheatley...

Suddenly, a gunshot rang out and Owen heard the bark of a tree trunk to his left split, crack and shards being projected. Someone had just shot in their direction.

Just as surprised as he was, Blue let out a shrill sound and spun around to face the threat but in doing so, she made Owen fall when her tail stuck his legs.

"For fuck's sake!" He roared furiously, thinking that Wheatley had betrayed them and decided Blue would be a prime target.

He straightened up immediately and actively sought out the shooter while Blue snarled. They heard the dense vegetation at the top of an embankment to their right rustle, the shooter came out and Owen widened his eyes in surprise but also in fear because he was not afraid of the shooter himself, but feared for the latter's life. It wasn't Wheatley or one of his men, but a frail old man in stained clothes, pointing a simple shotgun at Blue. Owen surmised that it must be the farmer who owned the sheep in the pasture and who, sensing that his animals were in danger, had ventured into the woods to seek out the threat and remove it. Despite the fear that inhabited him, the farmer dared to brave Blue's gaze and seemed determined to confront her.

"Don't come any closer!" Owen warned him, speaking in Spanish.

The shivering farmer then mumbled something unintelligible to Owen, who wondered if he was speaking in some sort of local dialect. However, he recognized the word Cordero, which meant lamb, and quickly scanning the area, he saw a small body lying in the distance, half hidden under a bush. A delicate little body which coat was stained with blood: The lamb the farmer was talking about. Owen noticed that its throat had been bitten off and part of its belly had been torn away, exposing the flesh and viscera above which gnats were already flying.

Blue, what have you done?

"Stand back," he told him softly. "I won't be able to stop her if she decides to attack."

The old man then looked at Owen and spoke to him in an aggressive, accusatory tone. Did he believe that Blue was a trained animal and that he ordered her to go after the herd of sheep? Whatever he thought, how did he hope to emerge alive from a confrontation with a predator six meters long and as tall as an adult man, taller than most modern land carnivores, an animal he knew almost nothing about? If he missed his shot, Blue wouldn't give him a chance and the raptor, already provoked and on edge following the first shot, sensed his aggression towards Owen and grew even more irritated, hissing loudly and making her crown of feathers bristle again. The farmer noticed this and his index finger pressed gently on the gun's trigger.

"No, don't shoot!" Owen begged.

But having no weapon on him and unable to control Blue in any way, the keeper could do nothing but watch helplessly the scene which took place before his eyes.

Blue quickly moved away from the line of fire and the bullet only grazed her back, making her screech, and flew away in the woods. While the old man realized he had missed his shot again, she disappeared into the nearest thicket and he heard the sound of her footsteps on the forest floor, a sound that was getting closer, and fast. Instead of charging in a straight line, she was going to flank him.

Knowing that he wouldn't have time to reload his rifle and that his current position so close to the dense vegetation was precarious, he abandoned the top of the embankment and began to descend it, towards a fallen log. Knowing the place well, he knew that it was hollow and big enough for him to take shelter inside. He would reload his weapon there and fire at the animal when it would try to dislodge him. The next moment, Blue emerged from the vegetation, all claws out, leaping in his direction and he let out a small frightened cry as his legs threatened to trip.

Having miscalculated her leap, Blue only landed a few meters from him and by the time she regained her balance, the farmer reached the bottom and threw himself with his weapon inside the trunk, starting to crawl towards the opposite end while the smell of rotting wood rose through his nostrils and his heart raced.

"Blue! Stop!" Owen shouted.

Reaching the middle of the trunk, the farmer stopped crawling and laid on his back while the dinosaur growled outside. He feverishly searched his pockets for his last bullet, managed to find it, but as he inserted it into the magazine of his rifle, something landed on top of the trunk, something heavy, and in the next moment, a whole section of bark collapsed on its lower body and the clawed feet of the predator landed on its legs. Instinctively, the farmer tried to back away, but the animal's sheer weight, equivalent to that of a tapir or a zebra, pinned him to the ground. He felt his muscles and bones put to the test and he began to ache, but the pain was nothing compared to the one he felt next, when the iconic sickle-shaped claws of this family of predatory dinosaurs dug into his flesh like butcher hooks into a carcass, causing him to scream in pain.

"Stop!" Owen repeated.

Blue retracted her claws and stepped back. At first the farmer thought she had finally obeyed the long-haired man he had seen with her but that hope was short-lived as her jaws closed on his calf and she began to drag him out of his fragile shelter. He wanted to kick her with his free foot but he could barely bend his leg, as if all the strength it had was dwindling due to the inflicted injuries. Aware that he would soon be out in the open, he clutched his rifle against him with both arms and waited for a shooting opportunity. Ironically, this one showed up as soon as there was no more bark above his torso to act as an obstacle. He then raised his torso, aimed the barrel of his rifle at his attacker's fluffy chest, but a sudden pain within his chest distracted him, making him move the rifle's barrel to the right. As Blue was about to rush on his throat to rip it out and kill him, the farmer's fingers squeezed the trigger and the gun fired.

Under the appalled gaze of her keeper, Blue screamed, staggered to the side, out of the burst trunk, and collapsed on the ground, hit in the side. The farmer struggled to his feet, limped out of the trunk, looked at his bloody legs, then at the downed dinosaur, and finally at Owen. But suddenly, he put a hand on his chest while moaning and also collapsed, victim of a heart attack.

With panicked eyes, Owen looked at the dying farmer and then at his badly injured raptor.

"Shit… Shit. Shit!"

He rushed to the farmer, put his arms around his waist and pulled him away from Blue. Once at a respectable distance from the latter, he laid him on his back to start giving him a cardiac massage. He did several series of chest compressions but he got no positive reaction from the old man.

"Come on!"

While Owen attempted to save the old man's life, Zia, Austin and the mercenaries, alerted by the gunfire, rushed to the scene and the DPG veterinarian was shocked to see the Achillobator lying on the ground, growling in pain, and her keeper kneeling beside the farmer, with his back facing her. Blue being her priority, Zia cautiously came closer to look at her wound while Wheatley's men set up a security perimeter.

When she saw Owen striking the ground with his fist in defeat, as the farmer let out his last breath, Fanny Oven murmured:

"Fuck... Blunder..."

She noticed that Theo, then a few feet away, had heard her and was giving her a severe look.

"Sorry Theo," she apologized. "I tend to forget that I should avoid using the B-word in your presence…"

"I don't think blunder is the right word for this situation," he said.

Overseeing the whole thing, Austin turned back to the edge, where they had left their vehicles.

"Bring the MVU (**) closer!" Austin ordered the driver over the radio.

The ACU commander then went to join Wheatley and Owen by the farmer's body. Unable to do anything more for him, Owen returned to Blue, letting Austin stare at the victim in silence for a moment. Austin then took out his phone and called Torres:

"It's me. We found the Achillobator. She's injured and there's been a civilian casualty. An old farmer."

"She killed him?"

"No. Though she wounded him, I think he died of a heart attack."

"Put me on speakerphone," InGen Security's director said.

While the truck finished backing up and Blue was being prepared for the transport, Austin motioned everyone to be quiet and then pressed the speakerphone button.

"All of you, listen to me! What just happened is a tragedy and all my thoughts are with the victim's loved ones of the victim…," Torres began.

"Of course," Whealtey growled in disbelief.

"LOL, like if we believed that," Fanny added in a low voice.

"However," Torres continued, "I'm asking you all to keep this incident quiet for the time being. If you inform the authorities, they'll want to launch an investigation. But who says investigation, says delay. Who says delay, says annoying complications and in the end, we'll all be in a disadvantage."

"So what do we do?" Owen asked while helping Zia tranquilize Blue and administer first aid.

"The asset must be returned to Site D for medical treatment. It would be highly regrettable to let such a specimen die. Instead of taking the train and the Arcadia as originally planned, it will be sent to the US by plane. Mr. Wheatley, I'll task you and you men with escorting it to the site with Joel."

"And what about the victim?" The mercenary leader inquired in a neutral tone.

"He died because of Mr. Grady's pet, didn't he? It's therefore up to him to dispose of the body."

"How?" Owen asked in a tight voice.

"You'll sort it out," Torres replied.

"But it's a crime!" Owen protested.

"What's this madness?!" Zia exclaimed, flabbergasted.

"It's called a Tuesday in the business," Fanny told her.

"You're afraid of being accused, Mr. Grady? Come on, the farmer was old. The same would have happened if he had come across a ferocious jaguar or a particularly intimidating sheep stealer. The day the authorities will discover that you were here when he died, you'll be far from here. Believe me…"

"I refuse to do that. Go to Hell!"

"Mr Grady! If you ever pull the wool over our eyes, I promise I'll have you be the one responsible for this mess! And you can try to persuade Mr. Wheatley to side with you. I'm paying him, not you!"

"I'm sorry, but he has a point," the mercenary leader whispered to Owen.

"Do we have an understanding?" InGen Security's director asked.

Owen sighed in defeat.

"Yes…," he replied weakly.

"Good. I'm going to hang out. You have much to do…"

On the other end of the line, Torres hung up and Austin put his phone back in his pocket.

"This guy is such an asshole!" Zia cursed out loud.

"You said it," Wheatley told her.

"You heard him? So hurry up!" The ACU commander urged them. "We have to leave as soon as possible!"

He then turned to Owen, who was still by Blue's side.

"Mr. Grady," he said. "Miss Rodriguez can handle her. Instead, hide the body somewhere in this wood. Make sure to protect it from scavengers. The better you hide it, the less you'll be likely to have problems. We're leaving. We'll pick you up later."

Disgusted by what he was being asked to do, Owen put his hands on his knees and sighed.

"Hey," Zia said to him softly. "I'm taking care of her. She'll be fine, I promise."

"Thank you, Zia."

He got up and went to take the farmer's body, carrying him on his shoulder. Wheatley watched him head for the opposite direction of the edge. He hailed one of his men:

"Stan."

A handsome man with a pleasant face and chestnut hair replied:

"Yes sir?"

"Help him. We'll pick you up at the same time as him."

"Understood."

Keeping his weapons, Stan went to catch up with Owen deeper in the woods.

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

"...We just left the station," a voice said on the radio, that of the ACU helicopter's pilot. "Hold on!"

While Claire and Franklin coordinated Site D's teams as best they could, Jocelyn stood silently behind them, doing nothing but staring at the screens, following the various dots.

The male Apatosaurus was moving along the Cretaceous Plain but the others were still in their paddock, which had just been closed; Horatio and Vinny had closed the Asian Plain's gate but attacked by one of the carnotaurs, they had to seek refuge in the paddock, where Bucephalus was chasing them; the other two horned predators were just north of the Ark, with one in the aviaries' area and the other by the parking lot near the keepers' office; the therizinosaur was south of the Ark, and the Pegomastax was still wandering in the building's hallways. Beyond the southern limits of the facility, the MVU carrying Blue had just left the wood where the day's first deadly incident had taken place.

Another disastrous day in InGen history. And this time, I'm the one in charge. Ordonez was just waiting for this. He'll send the cops after me and Lynton will want my head.

Franklin's agitation from stress snapped her out of her thoughts.

"Take this job, son. Develop your social skills. Yeah well thanks dad!" He grumbled, wishing he was somewhere else.

Benito being slow to return, the manager headed for the exit to see what he was doing.

Outside the security offices, in the hallway, the guard was still on the phone:

"Rankin? What's all this?" he asked in an alarmed tone. "I thought you weren't supposed to act now."

"Before accusing me, can you at least explain why you're panicked?" Inquired a male voice speaking with a British accent.

"Several animals were freed by undercover saboteurs. It's shit here! I thought your plans concerned only the train!"

"And that's the case!" Rankin replied irritably. "Who are those infiltrators?"

"Temporary workers, who arrived as reinforcements two days ago."

"Neither I nor my employer sent them! Your temps must be probably some fucking spliff-smoking hippies sent by PETA or some other stupid animal rights organization! Bollocks! Those morons are going to ruin everything! InGen will be extra careful because of them!"

"What do I do?"

"Stick to the plan. Notify me if there are any changes."

"Rankin? You intend to have the train evacuated before... right? That's what we agreed. There will be people on board I know and I..."

But Rankin hung up without answering that question and Benito put his phone back in his pocket.

"Benito. Who were you talking to?" Jocelyn's voice asked him.

Startled, Benito jumped and spun around to face her.

"Torres, ma'am," he lied.

"Don't think I'm an idiot, Benito," the manager said, annoyed and disappointed. "Torres doesn't speak with a British accent. Who was he? You were talking about the operation and the train! What is this man planning to do?! Answer me?!" She questioned him in an increasingly alarmed voice.

Caught in the act, Benito said nothing and froze for a moment, not daring to look his boss in the eye. Then he exhaled loudly and let out a nervous laugh.

"Fuck…" the guard swore under his breath before reaching down to his belt.

"Benito?" She asked in a scared voice.

He had just drawn his pistol and was pointing its barrel at her.

"I told you to be suspicious of the employees too, Jocelyn," he told her.

Instinctively, she put her hands up but it was then that Claire came out of the offices, looking for the manager:

"Jocelyn. We must..."

Seeing her threatened with a gun by Benito, she froze and her eyes widened in stupefaction and fear. The guard immediately pointed his gun in her direction.

"Stay still, Mrs. Dearing," he told her before motioning Jocelyn to move forward, so they could get to Claire's level.

"Benito, don't tell me...," the latter began.

"No, I'm not in league with the saboteurs!" He cut her off before taking her earpiece off and stomping on it. "I'm just as surprised as you are on that matter. You see, their action turned not only InGen's plans upside down but mine too..."

With the two women now side by side, Benito ordered them to stand with their backs to him and return to the office.

"Put your hands down, act like nothing happened. Proceed calmly. No sudden moves."

They complied. Claire entered first, followed by Jocelyn and Benito brought up the rear, keeping his barrel aimed at the manager's back. When they were back within earshot of Franklin, still seated at the ACU station, Benito shifted to the side and aimed his gun at the DPG IT technician and the station before Claire could silently indicate to him with some sign that they were in danger.

"What the…" he began.

"Sorry Franklin, you're a good lad and I wish you hadn't gotten involved in this. Move away from the station and come! Now!"

Slowly and shaking, Franklin got up and joined them, keeping his hands up in the air.

"Give me your phones," the guard ordered them. "One after the other."

They passed them their phones as requested and he put them in his pockets.

"Good. Walk past me. The first one who'll try something will regret it. Understood?"

They nodded weakly.

"We're going down to the warehouse. Come on, move!"

He waved his gun sideways and they set off, heading for the same staircase Owen, Zia, and Wheatley had taken earlier. If either of them had remained in the CCTV room, they would have been reassured to see that Horatio and Vinny had managed to escape Bucephalus, slipping through the bars of a barrier in the barn just in time.

"At the warehouse?" Claire repeated. Why?"

"My car is nearby," replied Benito. "We're leaving."

"To go where?" Jocelyn asked.

But the treacherous guard did not answer.

"Where?" The manager repeated insistently while Claire and Franklin were about to walk down the stairs.

"I don't know!" Benito replied irritably as he locked the landing's door behind them.

"You're taking us hostage but you have no plans?" Claire raised.

"It wasn't planned! I intended to be off when the time would be right, but Jocelyn had the good idea to follow me. This is what it costs to spy on people."

"Then why are you doing this? Maybe we can work out a deal," Jocelyn stammered. "If it's a money issue..."

He grabbed her arm sharply and shoved his gun against her spine.

"It's too late to try to redeem myself, Jocelyn. What is done is done. None of us can go back."

He released her and ordered her to move on.

"Thinking about it," he added, "I might have killed two birds with one stone. I have here two executives at my mercy. I could ransom you for a nice sum."

"You've got problems with Jocelyn? Alright," Claire said, "I wasn't here those past months so I don't know about the state of your relations and I don't care to be honest! Could you at least release Franklin? He did nothing to you. I didn't do anything to you either."

"You didn't do anything to me?!" the guard exclaimed. "Are you at least aware of the issues I'm facing?"

"You won't be eligible for a transfer and InGen will cut your job?" The fallen park director guessed. "You are not the only one in that situation. I even want to say: Welcome to the club!"

Keeping his gun pointed on Jocelyn, Benito grabbed the back of Claire's neck with his other hand, stopping her in her tracks.

"Keep your sarcasm, Dearing! The cutting of my job, and that of many others, is a consequence of your actions! If you hadn't behaved like a megalomaniac empress, the crisis would have been less dire and we might still have our jobs!"

"Take that!" Jocelyn muttered.

"Don't get smart with us, Jocelyn, because you would have behaved exactly like her!" Benito told her.

Having descended one level, they stopped on the landing, and while Franklin opened the door on Benito's order, Claire gave Jocelyn a reproachful look.

You imbecile, you could have used this moment to give him a blow!

They went through the door, emerging into a wide hallway, and Benito closed it behind them before locking it.

"But in the end, you're just puppets," he said, leading them to their right, toward a double door at the end of the hallway. "The real culprits are higher up in the hierarchy. All this madness must stop… Hammond and Masrani wanted to make children dream with their parks? Smoke and mirrors! Their family parks were built with the sweat and blood of Costa Rican workers, whom they saw in the same manner as the pharaohs of Egypt saw those who built their pyramids: Sacrificial labor force! InGen sent men to die by the dozens in the wars it had started, whether those against dinosaurs and those against Men!"

Franklin opened one of the panels and the guard and his hostages passed into the warehouse beyond. The exit being close, Benito didn't even bother to close behind him and didn't pay attention to the noise he heard, a footstep, very light, as if a small animal was walking in the corridor behind them.

In the opposite end of the warehouse, daylight poured in abundantly through the large opening left by the raised gate.

"InGen claimed that its work would benefit the world? Lies!" the guard continued. "It's a factory of nightmares where merchants of death work! And it couldn't be content by acting like the Creator by resurrecting extinct animals, it had to start making monsters from scratch! The Indominus at Jurassic World! Its probable successor here, in Burgo Nuevo, in the abandoned house! And this is without mentioning the abominations they created in the Jurassic Park era and drove to the depths of Isla Nublar, where they thought they were locked up until the end of times."

"But what are you talking about?" Franklin asked him.

"Pectinodons!" Benito exclaimed. "Perhaps you know them as Troodons?"

"I thought they were just an urban legend, made up by old employees to scare newbies," Claire said.

"I thought so too! Until the proof of their existence appeared before my eyes. While innocent people wandered the aisles of Jurassic World, while children enjoyed the attractions, these creatures recovered their strength in the abyss, under the subterranean city of the kings of old and its necropolis, waiting for the day when God... or rather the Devil would allow them to return to the surface and devour the survivors of Mount Sibo's eruption. They took Filip and Kilian! They must have laid their eggs inside their bodies while they were still warm! Adrian didn't lie, he was telling the truth! InGen kicked him out and made him look like a madman! Then Torres ordered Wheatley's guys to capture some. Many never returned. That's one of the reasons why Wheatley hates him."

"But if several of these pectinodons were captured, where are they since they're not here?" Claire raised.

As they walked between the rows of shelves, they heard a whirring sound, that of a helicopter. The ACU had returned.

"I don't know, probably where the monster born in the garage was also sent," Benito replied before urging them to move faster. "Another conspiracy!"

But as they were halfway between the hallway's door and the warehouse's entrance, they heard footsteps outside, quite audible and succeeding each other rather quickly. Benito and his hostages froze when they heard them because they weren't those of a human but those of a much larger being. A dinosaur, probably running away from the helicopter they were hearing too. And the sound didn't seem to be that of a quadruped…

"Shit. It's a carnotaur. It's a carnotaur!" Franklin moaned.

"Shut up!" Claire hissed.

Noting that the animal's steps were too noisy, she added:

"It's not a carnotaur. Probably…"

Turning towards the warehouse's entrance, the animal appeared before their eyes and revealed itself to be not a Carnotaurus but a creature that the average person would have described as a giant giraffe-sized paunchy goose with non-webbed broad feet, each equipped with four clawed toes.

"See, it's not a carnotaur," Jocelyn pointed out to the IT technician.

Despite its fear of the helicopter, it was unable to run very fast, its sturdy legs preventing it from doing so, and it could only trot while prancing in a rather comical manner, like a goose. But the resemblance with geese, swans and ducks ended there because the tail, bushy like that of an anteater, was longer than those of Anatidae and the feathers were only a fluff, dark brown streaked with buff on the back and the arms, and cream-colored on the chest. And that was without mentioning the large arms and their scythe-like claws. A Therizinosaurus.

"Yuriko... I'm not sure if it's better," Claire said in a low voice.

Having just crossed the warehouse's threshold, the Therizinosaurus continued and only stopped a few meters further ahead, looking behind to make sure that the helicopter had not spotted her. In truth, the ACU knew she was near the southern side of the Ark but neither the helicopter's pilot nor the shooter aboard had seen her enter the warehouse. Moreover, the carnotaurs were their priority, not her.

The strange theropod looked around her refuge, probably thinking of going deeper into it in order to hide. She perceived a noise, that of the breathing of four humans, and turned her small head in their direction. It was elongated and narrow, ended with a beak and its skin was blue, except around the eyes, where it was black. The Therizinosaurus' dark eyes stared at the quartet.

"That big obese goose isn't going to scare me," Benito said in a voice that was a little too loud for his hostages' liking.

Yuriko arched her head backwards and Claire then remembered what Horatio had explained to her during the week, that this manifestation reflected a beginning of annoyance in therizinosaurs, and that it was necessary to be very careful, as it could be precursory of an attack. She saw her sniffle. She must have sensed their fear and nervousness, which many dinosaurs and other animals interpreted as a sign of aggression. She motioned for Franklin and Jocelyn to start backing up slowly.

"It's obvious that you've never been chased by an angry goose…" the manager of Site D replied to the disloyal guard, remembering a misadventure she had experienced when she was a child.

As Benito still hadn't moved, Yuriko spread her arms and Claire added:

"And that one has Freddy Kruger's claws…"

She shuddered at the sight of the claws, long as katana blades. As she imagined what they could do to a human body, the fallen park director felt her heart rate quicken and a strange, tingling sensation soon began to be felt on her chest and the scarred half of her face. Yuriko might have no connection to the Indominus, but her claws were enough to send Claire back to the final hours of the Fall of Jurassic World, when Masrani's Bane had mauled her.

Her annoyance growing, the Therizinosaurus stretched forward her scarred black-striped beige neck. Under it, a pink wattle hung but unlike that of the males who lived in Jurassic World, it wasn't very developed and was almost reduced to a small flaccid fold of skin. Along the spine, a column of protofeathers bristled and those, long as a human forearm, formed some kind of a thick mane reminiscent of the Striped Hyena. If they didn't move away soon or provoked her in any manner, she was going to attack.

"Benito! Step back for god's sake, you moron!" His boss hissed. "You're going to be turned into salami if you stay there!"

Keeping her neck outstretched, Yuriko moved her head up and down and simultaneously, she opened her mouth to let out a hiss. Her attack was imminent.

Benito finally decided to copy the attitude of his hostages. While not taking his eyes off the dinosaur, he took a step back, then another, but suddenly he heard a succession of tips tips and a sound of rubbing in the shelves on his left.

He looked towards the origin of the noise, somewhere in the shelf at the level of his head. He scanned the boxes and crates but saw nothing at first. Suddenly, as he was about to bring his gaze back to the giant herbivore in front of them, Benito noticed the presence of something strange between two boxes: A head, motionless and oriented in his direction. Said head was not very large, about the size of a tennis ball, and for a brief moment the guard thought it was that of a toy that someone had pulled out of the boxes and left there or even that of one of the stuffed animals kept in the warehouse, as the texture seemed to be too detailed to be that of a toy. As his gaze lingered, Benito's eyes widened in surprise as he saw the head move slightly but before he could look at it carefully, the little being backed up a little in the shadows, leaving only the front part of its head in the dim light.

All Benito could see was a short beak and a sturdy lower jaw with a pair of protruding canine-like teeth.

Oh, here's the chupacabra!

Benito then decided to bring his gaze back to the aisle, towards the Therizinosaurus which had made a step or two since he had stopped and looked at the smaller creature. The guard turned pale and thought he'd better go join the others and leave the shelves' imp alone. The others will take care of him. It was no longer his business.

But suddenly, the so-called imp rushed forward, having sensed the fear that the brown giant who had spotted him felt towards the Kaiju that Yuriko was in its eyes. Startled, Benito barely had the time to take a step back and let out a well audibly curse that the animal leapt off the shelf, straight towards his face with its beak wide open.

"Benito!" Jocelyn shouted.

Helpless, the two women and Franklin watched Benito endure the attack of the creature that was clinging to him, and Yuriko growing angry beyond them. About the size of a howler monkey, the attacker was a small bipedal dinosaur with a black-mottled light grey body whose top was covered with long structures similar to the spines of a porcupine, with yellowish tips and alternating black and white bands. The horrible head that was trying to bite Benito evoked that of a parrot that would have evolved in an environment as inhospitable and nightmarish as Skull Island from Peter Jackson's King Kong remake or Mordor. It was the runaway Pegomastax, the one some had thought it was right to call Caerbannog, in reference to Monty Python and the Holy Grail's terrible man-eater rabbit. As a member of the Heterodontosauridae family, Pegomastax only ate plants, small animals and sometimes carrion, but its nasty temper and the fact that it didn't hesitate to attack anything larger than itself for sometimes petty reasons had given it a bad reputation among InGen employees and for the keepers, working with a Pegomastax was like working with the hybrid of a sneaky monkey, a moody parrot, and a vindictive porcupine.

"Go away, you hellspawn!" Benito yelled at his small opponent while trying to move him away from his face before he bit it.

The Therizinosaurus had enough. She honked and walked towards the fighting guard and Pegomastax.

"Benito!" The manager of Site D shouted again.

But the Costarican's attention was totally focused on his little opponent. He had just bitten a finger, causing the guard to cry out in pain, and the dinosaur's tail began to whip his abdomen, thrusting some quills in it. Like David against Goliath, the Pegomastax was winning the fight and Benito knelt, groaning as he moved the little omnivore away. Thus, he didn't notice that Yuriko had reached them and raised one of her arms. Under the powerless eyes of Claire, Jocelyn and Franklin, the Therizinosaurus struck the guard with her claws and those passed through his body as easily as sword blades. Benito was killed instantly and his shredded body slumped on the concrete, raising a scream of terror from both Jocelyn and Franklin. Caerbannog, who had been miraculously spared by the claws of the larger dinosaur, landed on his feet as nimbly as a cat and immediately scampered towards one of the shelves while uttering a succession of dry and gravelly sounds which evoked a jeer to human ears.

"Run!" Jocelyn cried.

She and Franklin began to flee and having heard the small brunette, the Therizinosaurus rumbled and moved towards them. But Claire remained frozen. She wanted to run away too, but to her dismay, her body couldn't move, as if her feet had been nailed to the ground, and her eyes couldn't turn away from the drops of blood that were running down from the animal's claws and Benito's mauled body. She punched her thigh with her fist. Nothing changed.

Dammit, move away you dumb bitch! She internally insulted herself while hyperventilating.

Helpless, she saw the Therizinosaurus close the distance between them. Each of her heavy footsteps on the concrete rang in the fallen park director's head like hammer blows. Dark thoughts flashed through her mind.

I can't die in such a stupid way! Odin will throw me out of Valhalla! I cannot leave a widower and an orphan behind me!

Something suddenly grabbed Claire's arm.

"Claire!"

As if freed from a dark spell, Claire regained control of her body and immediately turning to flee while the Therizinosaurus had already raised her arm, the fallen park director noticed that it was Jocelyn who had returned to help her. The claws cut through the air just a few centimetres from Claire's back and running at full speed, the two women fairly quickly left some distance between them and Yuriko who honked in frustration.

At the other end of the aisle, Franklin had stopped to wait for them.

"Franklin! In the hallway!" Jocelyn shouted at him.

But at the moment he rushed towards the opening left by its open door, which Caerbannog had taken earlier when their backs were turned, the other door was pushed from the inside and surprised, Franklin stopped dead in its tracks before shuddering in terror when he saw what had pushed the door.

Asterion, the black Carnotaurus with the broken horn, entered the warehouse and sniffed the air attentively, picking up and differentiating the scents of four humans, a Therizinosaurus and a Pegomastax. Turning to the scent of humans, his gaze met Franklin's.

"Oh shit…" the latter swore before rushing towards the nearest shelf and starting to climb it.

The carnotaur targeted him and caught between the predator and the therizinosaur, the trio had no choice: They had to go up or it was certain death. But with the large-clawed herbivore on their heels, Claire and Jocelyn could not stay in this aisle and spotting holes or objects that seemed easy to move at the bottom of the shelves on either side, each went to one side, Site D's manager on their left and the Jurassic World's fallen one on their right. They threw themselves under the shelves to escape Yuriko and crawled to the other side.

While heading towards Franklin, who had already climbed one half of the shelf, with fear giving him wings or something like this, Asterion had stopped when he saw the two women separate and did not know who seemed to be the easiest prey. But the trio's scattering was not the only problem he faced because only a stone's throw from him, Yuriko stood and already quite irritated, she became angrier when she saw that the carnotaur had approached.

She honked and while taking a few steps forward, she began to slash the air in front of her with her claws, deterring the predator from approaching. He snarled and looked at Franklin, who continued to climb and threatened to escape him if he didn't rush at him immediately. But the therizinosaur didn't care about his intentions and speeding up, she rushed towards him and raised her hand to prepare to strike the other dinosaur. As she passed him, Franklin flattened himself against the shelf and prayed that she would ignore him. Against such a demonstration, Asterion immediately backed away and left the aisle, letting Yuriko position herself at its entrance. Having reached the top of the shelf, the IT technician was now beyond the carnotaur's reach, but the latter still had two other potential prey.

Going around the shelf on his right, he entered the next aisle and further, he saw Jocelyn climbing the shelf. Having already climbed three meters, she only had one and a half or two left before reaching the top. Hearing the carnotaur growl in excitement at her sight, Jocelyn turned her head, saw him, and let out a small cry of terror. He lunged forward and opened his jaws to grab her. Those closed with a sharp snap only centimetres from Jocelyn's feet. In the next moment, Site D's manager pulled herself up to the last shelf, where she joined the DPG IT technician. As the two managed to escape him, Asterion growled in frustration.

For her part, Claire had also reached the top of her shelf and was now standing on top of it. In the aisle, Yuriko had started to turn around and she walked past the fallen park director, heading back towards the warehouse entrance. Claire then saw Jocelyn and Franklin walk to the opposite end of their shelf, the one closest to the warehouse's large entrance gate. The young man turned around and called her.

"Claire!"

At the moment, she thought it would be a good idea for her to join them and then looked at the top of her line of shelves. Seeing no object likely to hinder her run, she rushed forward, running to gain momentum, which did not fail to attract the attention of Yuriko, which turned her head towards her, following an instinct that told her to be wary of any agile animal overhanging her. When Claire leapt from one shelf to another only a few meters from her head, the therizinosaur arched her neck back in surprise and then growled as she watched the fallen park director land on the other shelf. Suddenly, while Franklin helped her up, Yuriko walked towards them, hissing in her advance.

"Watch out!" The IT technician shouted.

As she just put her knees on the top of the shelf, Claire looked over her shoulder and turned immediately to avoid being bitten in the side by the therizinosaur. As the latter snapped her beak, Claire crawled backwards on her elbows while Franklin tried in vain to get the herbivore's attention with screams. In the aisle below her back, Asterion sat and watched the scene with some interest, hoping for one of the humans to fall. To parry another of her attacks, Claire kicked the therizinosaur's snout. But the latter, reaching her irritation's climax, hissed loudly at the fallen park director, who froze in fright. Yuriko also leaned with her hands against the shelf with all her weight and doing so, she destabilized it and Claire crawled back, afraid of slipping just like some items. When some of them landed on the carnotaur's skull and back, he growled, shook his upper body, then looked up, watching the shelf tilt under the therizinosaur's action. Cautious, he moved away a few meters before resuming his observation.

Seeing that Claire had only retaliated to defend herself, Yuriko finally moved her head back and walked away from the shelf, which stabilized again. Then, the therizinosaur headed for the back of the warehouse to get away from Asterion, whose presence was unbearable. The fallen park director went to find Franklin and Jocelyn at the end of the shelf.

"What do we do now?" The young man asked, looking at the warehouse's entrance, a dozen meters from their position.

"We grin and bear it while waiting for the ACU," Claire replied. "I don't think she will come back to us. She believes she intimidated us," she added, watching the therizinosaur disappear down the aisle between the back wall and the opposite end of the shelves.

"He might be a problem, though," Jocelyn said, looking at the carnotaur lingering near their shelf.

Site D's manager couldn't help but think they were like castaways stuck on a raft around which a shark was swimming. It was then that Asterion noticed the presence of the guard's mauled body. He went to the aisle where he had fallen, approached him and leaned over to take a closer look. A few meters from the slain, Jocelyn saw Benito's pistol, which he had dropped when the Pegomastax had jumped on him. She watched the predator's jaws brush against the body.

Eat him. Please, eat that traitor. Perhaps your hunger will be satisfied, you'll no longer be interested in us and you'll walk away. We should be able to escape the therizinosaur. She's much slower than you, Site D's manager hoped.

But the carnotaur noticed that Benito had quills stuck in his abdomen. Pegomastax' quills. He looked up and lost interest in the body, which surprised Franklin.

"Why doesn't he eat him?" he asked.

"Because of the toxin in the quills," Jocelyn recalled with a sigh. "It's not enough to poison him but it apparently gives the flesh a bad taste. I believe he ate something quilled by a Pegomastax in the past and had an unpleasant experience."

Claire looked at Site D's manager in surprise.

"How do you know that?"

"I sometimes listen to my subordinates."

"Or maybe he's not hungry and just wants to play..." Claire assumed while Asterion looked back at them.

Franklin suddenly got tired of doing nothing and turned toward the warehouse entrance. He approached the edge of the shelf and shouted at the top of his lungs:

"Hey! Is someone there?! We're trapped! Come and help us!"

But Yuriko, who had just reappeared near the warehouse's corner where several forklifts were parked, turned to them, honked and took two steps in their direction while spreading her arms.

"Quiet!" Claire told him, having noticed that shouts irritated the therizinosaur.

Franklin agreed to be quiet and the therizinosaur returned near the forklifts, watching them and the carnotaur, which was going back and forth around their shelf. It was then that the carnivore leaned against the shelf with all his strength, growling in the process. Then he backed up a few meters and then, having gained enough momentum, charged the shelf and at its top the trio staggered. They realized that he was trying to destabilize it to bring them down and they knew that they had to find a way out or a shelter. They scanned the warehouse.

Claire's gaze was first drawn to the warehouse office to the right of the door, but not knowing if its door was locked or not, she crossed out the idea of reaching it, not to mention Asterion. Not only would he catch them effortlessly as soon as they would climb down, but if they ever managed to enter the office, nothing would prevent him from destroying its window, putting his front body inside and reaching them. She turned to her two companions and shook her head. Pivoting, they then turned towards the entrance to the corridor from which they had come but thought that if Asterion had arrived from there, nothing prevented them from stumbling upon Ariadne or Toro in the maze of hallways. They had to find a place where a carnotaur would be unable to follow them. Remembering the Ark's maps, Jocelyn set off for the opposite end and her two companions followed her while Asterion hit the shelves intermittently. When they were near the end, Jocelyn turned her head to the left and saw a door in the northwest corner of the warehouse, near the hallway where the stuffed styracosaur was. If she wasn't mistaken, the door led to the ACU garage and from there they might be able to walk back up to the offices. The door being of regular dimensions, she knew that a carnotaur was not going to be able to cross it and she just hoped that it was not locked.

The trio discussed what to do next. They would jump from shelf to shelf until they were closest to the door, climb down, run to it, and pray for everything to go smoothly. However, the fact that the carnotaur was going to follow them quickly came to mind and they realized that at least one of them had to stay behind to distract the predator long enough.

"I'll do it," Claire volunteered, not out of a sense of sacrifice but because she knew she was the one in the trio who had the best chance of accomplishing that task successfully.

Leaving Jocelyn and Franklin at that end of the line of shelves, Claire began trotting toward the southern end, making various noises to get the carnotaur's attention.

"Asterion… My big sweet carnotaur, come over here…"

Being almost back to the southern end, she then clung to the edge of the shelf, on the side of the aisle where Benito was, and stretched an arm, and then a leg in the air.

"Look, I'm going to offer myself to you as a sacrifice…" she said to the predator while Franklin prepared to jump to the other end of the line. "I'm sure I'm delicious with bechamel sauce."

Rising almost vertically, he stretched upwards and reached for her. Still standing near the forklifts, Yuriko watched this strange scene curiously. It was then that the fallen park director and the carnotaur both heard a crash, a scream, and then a thud. Intrigued, Asterion began to turn away from Claire, who feared the worst.

"Hey! Hey! You want me! Not him!" She barked at him, waving her leg with more energy.

But he didn't care about her and as he rounded the end, she climbed back onto the shelf. When he passed the latter, he saw Franklin at the other end of the aisle, struggling to his feet after having failed his jump. The carnotaur looked at Claire, growled, then rushed to the young man. The fallen park director stifled a curse and tried to follow Asterion, yelling at him to get his attention.

"Run!" Jocelyn shouted at Franklin from the top of the shelf."

The young man began to run towards the door at the northwest corner. A few seconds later, the carnotaur reached the spot where he had fallen and arriving at the intersection of the alley and the corridor along the northern wall of the warehouse, he turned but its species having difficulty taking sharp turns. , he swerved to his right and hit the wall, which delayed him and bought Franklin a few seconds. Accelerating in the last few meters, the IT technician rushed for the door leading to the ACU garage but pressing the handle, he realized with horror that the door was locked and that their whole plan had been for nothing. He turned and saw Asterion let out a small roar as he charged towards him. Franklin mumbled a swear but at the last moment he swerved, darting down the hallway to his right and then right in the middle of his charge, the carnotaur couldn't slow down in time and he slammed into the wall.

He growled in displeasure and shook his head before turning to follow his prey, but when he saw the aisle the young man was in, he growled again, facing an unpleasant surprise. In the middle of the aisle, a Styracosaurus stood, blocking his path. Asterion roared but the ceratopsian made no reaction and didn't even move. If it wasn't going to move, the carnotaur was going to make it do so. The young man scurrying past the herbivore as if he didn't considered it as a threat and threatening to escape, Asterion charged and expecting the styracosaur to seek to thrust its long nasal horn up in his throat, chest or abdomen, the carnotaur swerved to the side when he reached its level and then attacked the herbivore on the side, opening his jaws wide to grab the herbivore's back. His teeth punctured the skin, sank into the body and with a powerful move, the predator tore off a section of the styracosaur's back. But quickly, while Franklin crawled between two crates a few meters away, Asterion realized something was wrong. He did not feel the blood flowing in his mouth, the piece did not have the slightest taste of flesh but a very unpleasant artificial one. The Styracosaurus was a fake. Asterion spat out the torn piece and angrily charged the shelf under which Franklin had disappeared moments earlier.

The shelf being smaller and frailer in build than the others, it bent under the carnotaur's onslaught and Claire, who was standing in the aisle along the northern wall of the hall, saw crates and boxes falling right on the DPG IT technician, who had just reached the other side of the shelf. He raised his arms above his head to protect himself but he disappeared under the cascade of boxes and Claire saw him fall backwards.

"Franklin!" She screamed helplessly.

In the second that followed, he was buried under part of the shelves' contents and with a heavy crash, it tipped over and came to lean against the one opposite the aisle, which was much more solid and together, they formed some kind of a triangular tunnel. On the other side of it, Asterion approached, knowing that Franklin was under the collapsed shelf. The carnotaur lowered the front of his body to enter the "tunnel".

"We can't do anything for him. To the hallway! This is our chance!" Jocelyn shouted at the fallen park director.

Following her voice, she saw that Site D's manager was standing near the hallway's entrance. Reluctantly, she decided to join her.

Under the shelf, Asterion spotted Franklin, stretched out and unconscious amidst Jurassic World-stamped toys and other merchandise spilling out of the open boxes. He tried to get closer to him but the shelf was too low. He squatted down even more and was able to move forward, almost dragging his stomach on the floor. His jaws ended up less than a meter from the IT technician… It was then that he heard light footsteps on his right.

Shortly after, the warehouse resounded with yelps, those of the carnotaur and they were similar to those of a dog bitten by a bug. Intrigued, Yuriko turned towards the aisle the predator had entered and saw him come out, advancing with the front of the body bent while shaking his head. The therizinosaur noticed that Pegomastax quills were stuck on his snout. Suffering failure after failure, the predator was irritated and frustrated, and noticing that the therizinosaur was watching him, he raised his head to roar at her aggressively. Yuriko, thinking he was going to attack, braced herself, spread her arms and claws, arched her head back while hissing... Positioning himself between her and the alley where Benito laid, Asterion looked at the claws of the Therizinosaurus and stepped back. Then, hearing the strides of Claire and Jocelyn, he turned around, observed them for a short moment and then brought his gaze back to his opponent, tilting his head slightly to the side, before turning around. Between two harmless humans and a five-ton adult Therizinosaurus and her deadly claws, he had made his choice. He was aware that attacking Yuriko would have been sheer foolishness.

As her opponent seemed to have chickened out in her perspective, the therizinosaur lowered her arms and let out a rumble while watching the carnotaur step over Benito's body to rush towards the hallway. Yuriko didn't care about that but between the carnotaur's irruption and the two women's escape, the guard's gun had disappeared.

Chapter Text

Arriving at the stairwell's door, the one they had taken earlier on the way down from the security offices, Jocelyn rushed to it and pressing frantically on the handle, she tried to open it, forgetting that Benito had locked it. Claire, whom she had outrun by dashing earlier, passed her and realizing her action was futile, Jocelyn abandoned the door and followed the fallen park director to the back door at the very end of the hallway, the same taken by the traitorous veterinarian Connor Goyer after his first misdeed. As it was big enough to let him through, they knew Asterion had probably come in that way. As the carnotaur had just turned away from the therizinosaur to chase them, Claire suddenly stopped when she saw that their way was blocked. Another animal had just crossed the threshold, a second carnotaur, Ariadne. The female carnotaur watched the two women and then her paddockmate growling and running in their direction.

"The door," Claire whispered suddenly to Jocelyn.

Said door was only a few meters to their right while Ariadne was a dozen meters away. If they dashed ahead of her, they could reach her and enter the kennel beyond, where a staircase would allow them to escape the carnotaurs which would be delayed by the door for a moment. They rushed towards the latter and Ariadne moved inside the building, gradually gaining speed while Asterion joined them. Claire and Jocelyn hoped no one had locked it. Otherwise, they would only emerge from this hallway in several pieces. Fortunately, the door came towards them when Claire pulled on the handle and Jocelyn immediately rushed into the kennel which resounded with the cries of various animals, agitated or even frightened due to the presence of the carnotaurs. Claire followed her immediately, slipping between the two panels and behind her, jaws snapped in the air. The opening she had left being insufficient to allow the passage of a carnotaur, even that of a subadult such as Ariadne, she and Jocelyn should be able to reach the staircase before they're caught up. Behind her, beyond the door, she heard grunts and hisses from the two carnotaurs which were probably bickering after accidentally bumping into each other. Claire focused on the metal spiral staircase further into the kennel, which Jocelyn had almost reached.

Suddenly, the doors of the kennel door were pushed inwards and the cries of its residents redoubled when Asterion and Ariadne entered that part of the building. The gazes of the two carnotaurs immediately turned to the two women and they swooped down on them, beginning to close the distance between them at a frightening speed. Jocelyn began to climb the dilapidated staircase at speed, the metal creaking under her feet, and Claire started climbing in her turn soon after. But when the fallen park director reached the middle part, a brutal shock made her lose her balance and fall backwards. Asterion had just charged the staircase, which began to creak audibly. Claire narrowly interrupted her fall by clinging to the bars of the guardrail and blocking her shoes under the edge of a step. Seeing her in a precarious position, Asterion tried to tear the fingers of her prosthesis, which she brought back inside the stairs just in time. Reaching the lowest steps, Ariane passed her front body inside the staircase, gently set foot on the first step, and to Claire's astonishment, tried to climb it. As for Jocelyn, she had been able to reach the top of the stairs in time and started heading for an exit door, taking a mezzanine which ran along the room's entire periphery.

"Jocelyn!" Claire shouted, begging her to help her while her mask slid off her face and its strap began to slide down her ponytail.

The manager of Site D paused, looked at her and the carnotaurs seeking to grab her, then ran off, heading for the exit door. At the same time, the mask slipped from Claire's head and began to slide down the stairs towards Ariadne, which shifted sideways and grunted as she moved haphazardly up the stairs, threatening to stumble at every step.

"Craven!" The fallen park director yelled furiously.

She straightened up with a grunt, started to climb the remaining steps on all fours, then got back to her feet when Asterion's assaults on the staircase threatened to make it yield at any second. Seeing this, Ariadne gave up her pursuit of Claire and sought to leave the staircase, sliding backwards. Claire finally reached the top and as soon as she stepped onto the mezzanine, running towards the door taken by Jocelyn, the staircase came down off the mezzanine and the two carnotaurs moved away as it collapsed. Their pursuit of the two women proving unsuccessful, they growled in frustration and left the kennel.

Passing other cages, some occupied and others not, Claire reached the door, opened it, walked through it, and closed it behind her before leaning against the nearby wall to catch her breath for a moment.

She was in a dark service corridor, which stretched in a straight line from side to side for a considerable distance. Opposite the wall separating it from the kennel, the corridor was bounded by long glass walls, which revealed a huge empty hall whose middle part was dimly lit by a series of windows on the roof, leaving its sides in shadow. On its ceiling, Claire saw rails that once supported robotic arms: This was the hatchery and once, rows of incubators had occupied the room.

Further along the glass walls, the fallen park director saw a door ajar and wondered if Jocelyn had been there. She took it, passing in the hatchery. Once in the middle of the hall, she scanned it.

"Jocelyn! Hey, Jocelyn!" she hissed. "Where are you, you fool? We can't stay here."

It was then that Jocelyn stepped out of the shadows, walking slowly towards her. Hearing the sound of his footsteps, Claire turned around but raised her hands when she saw Site D's manager pointing a gun at her.

"Okay, honey. Put that gun down before you hurt yourself," she said as calmly as possible.

But Jocelyn didn't lower her weapon, continuing to give Claire a hateful look while grimacing at the sight of her gash. Instinctively, Claire began to back away.

"Run and I'll shoot you in the legs," Site D's manager threatened. "You don't want to be crippled even more, right?"

Claire stopped and sighed. They had better things to do than quarrel.

"You don't like me, alright. But why are you threatening me with a gun?" she asked.

Jocelyn gestured to the kennel door with her other hand.

"All that! It's all your fault!" she accused her, talking about the incident.

"What do you mean?"

"You orchestrated this attack with your friend from the Laden Mule. I mean, it makes sense. You want revenge on InGen. Sabotaging the operation is the best way to achieve that."

"As much as I hate InGen's board, neither Owen nor I sabotaged the operation! We don't care about you, we're here for the animals!" Claire retorted.

"And did you talk of the animals to your friend from the inn? I don't think so. Who is he? Who is he?!"

Who is he?

Jocelyn had put her finger on a problem. About their mysterious contact at the inn, Claire and Owen just knew his code name and that he worked for a Costa Rican organization which didn't trust InGen at all.

"We don't know exactly who he works for, but he…" the fallen park director began hesitantly.

"You don't know? Great!" Jocelyn exclaimed, rolling her eyes. "I thought you were cunning but actually, you're just morons!"

"The only topic of our conversations was the research Wu conducted here, before and after the Fall, in the house in the middle of the woods north of here," Claire explained. "Those about the Indoraptor."

"The Indoraptor…" Site D manager repeated dismissively. "What the hell is this shit? Another invention of your sick mind? I never heard of it."

"Liar! The house was indicated on your map!"

Jocelyn shook her head and sighed, lowering her weapon a little.

"I was kept out of this! Hoskins and Torres just told me to get this damn garage built, greet Wu and his team in secret, and shut my mouth about it. Nothing more! I never set foot in that house and I never knew what they did there exactly!" She confessed.

Claire nodded slightly.

"Alright, I believe you on that. But you're still one hell of a goose."

Jocelyn raised the gun and glared at her.

"And you're a traitor and a whore! Maybe you didn't help organize this…eco-terrorist attack, but you stuck your nose behind our backs nonetheless. You remain a nuisance to InGen. The board... The board will reward me for exposing a spy like you!"

Claire sneered.

"You really think you'll be rewarded after this mess? You see Jocelyn, InGen treats its employees like condoms. Once you're used, they throw you away! I'm not sure you'll keep your job for long. You should have left this drifting ship when you still could."

Completely in denial, Jocelyn shook her head sharply.

"I see you're trying to scare me. It won't work. Despite what happened today, we will assume control again, send the animals to California and sell them. InGen will be saved! It will survive this crisis, like it survived the incidents of Jurassic Park and San Diego…"

"You're forgetting Masrani's role..." Claire pointed out.

"Over time, public opinion will soften and then, we'll announce other projects, other parks," Jocelyn continued, ignoring her. "We will have learned from past mistakes in the meantime. Those parks will be built in safe places, away from hurricanes and volcanoes. Advances in genetic engineering will allow us to populate them with docile, controllable animals designed to please the guests and be safe for children, not bloodthirsty monsters which appeal to the fantasies of some nerd who wanted some thrill in her sad life! Those parks will thrive, more than Jurassic World… Your reign on Isla Nublar will be only a dark page in our history and the place you once coveted, that at the head of InGen's Destinations division, will be mine! I will climb the ladder, join the board of directors…"

Beyond Jocelyn, behind the glass wall which separated the hatchery from the insemination room, Claire had just seen a tall, dark, bipedal figure with tiny arms and a horned head, oriented in their direction.

"Jocelyn…" she whispered, trying to warn her that a carnotaur had probably spotted them.

"Shut up, Claire! I'm the one who give orders here!" Site D manager barked as she waved the gun. "Not you! I'll succeed where you crashed like a turd! We'll bring you to court! Bars are waiting for you! Maybe even the chair..."

"Carno…" Claire began before being interrupted by the sound of glass bursting.

The predator had just charged the wall, sending shards all around the breach. Startled, Jocelyn quickly turned around and froze when she saw it take a few steps in the hatchery. When he got to the edge of the lighted area, they saw the burns on his body and recognized Toro. While they and Franklin were busy with the Therizinosaurus and Asterion at the warehouse, he must also have entered the Ark, either through the door near the keepers' office or its bay window, or through the door on the southern side, near the entrance to the veterinary wing and that of the aquatic wing's upper level. They were Level 2's only two exits that could have been used by an adult carnotaur.

As drool dripped from Toro's parted jaws, Claire looked around for a way out. She saw one, on her left, an arch which opened onto a corridor, the one separating the laboratory from the upper level of the aquatic wing. Just as the fallen park director thought of taking it, Toro rushed forward. Claire didn't think and rushed towards her exit but Jocelyn remained on the spot, like a doe surprised by car lights. Shaking in terror, she raised the gun, aimed at the animal's head, and pulled the trigger. There was a click. She pressed again and there was another click. She looked at the gun with panicked eyes.

What the hell!

Then, as Toro lowered his head, she remembered one essential thing:

The safety! How do I take it off?

She never had the opportunity to find out because immediately after, the carnotaur rammed her with his skull. In the instant that followed, Jocelyn let out a gasp as she felt something long and sharp thrust itself inside her abdomen like a sword, tearing apart many of her muscles and internal organs. Just as she realized he had gored her, she was thrown upwards by the carnotaur's headbutt and landed hard on the cold, wet concrete several meters away.

Hidden behind the arch, Claire watched Toro approach Jocelyn with a slow but steady step. Of course, the burnt carnotaur had also seen her but he was only interested in Site D's manager, who was lying on her back ahead of him. Claire knew she could do nothing for Jocelyn and even hoped she had been killed instantly, but when Jocelyn's arms began to move feebly and her mouth spat blood, the fallen park director shuddered in horror. Jocelyn wanted to use her arms to straight up, but her body was in agony and she was too weak to do so, too weak to cry out. Her strength was failing her and her clothes were stained with blood and other bodily fluids. Reaching her, Toro pinned her to the ground, putting one of his feet on her torn abdomen. When he opened his mouth and lowered it towards the head of his dying prey, Claire immediately looked away trembling and fled. As she ran down the hallway, she heard the carnotaur's teeth ripping through flesh and crushing bone.

She soon crossed an intersection, where she continued straight, passing between the veterinary premises and the aquatic wing. She reached a service door, opened it and went outside without bothering to close it in her escape. After climbing down a ramp, she turned right and started running along the southern side of the Ark. As she approached the warehouse's entrance, she passed several parked vehicles and in one of them, an old grey Toyota, she saw a familiar curly hair.

Franklin?

She stopped, looked inside, and indeed saw the DPG IT technician, lying in the back seat in a recovery position. She was reassured that he had survived the warehouse's ordeal but wondered how he had gotten into that car before locking it. Then she remembered Benito's intentions towards them and knew that it had to be his car and that the young man must have taken the keys from his body.

She tried to open the door but realized it was locked. She then started banging on the window to get Franklin's attention.

"Franklin! Franklin! Open to me!"

He lifted his head, looked at her, and as she walked around the vehicle to the door by the driver seat, he took the keys from his pocket and unlocked the doors. She immediately entered to sit behind the wheel and turned to ask him to pass her the keys. She noticed that the IT technician's face was wet.

"Where is Mrs. Hodgson?" he asked in a low voice.

Claire shook her head.

"She didn't make it," she said laconically.

"Fuck…"

Seeing her put the keys in the ignition and start the vehicle, he worried.

"What are you doing?"

"We're getting out of here," she replied. "We'll pick up Owen and then we rush to the police station to warn them about all this mess."

"I got our cell phones back," he informed her.

"Good. Do you remember where they found Blue?"

"More or less…"

"Guide me there. You can do that?"

He nodded and she then gave him the opening code for her phone. But as he went to a mapping app, something quickly passed by the vehicles and turning her head, Claire saw it was Toro. She couldn't see whether or not he was holding Jocelyn's body in his mouth, but she noticed he was heading for the western gate. She had an idea.

"This is our chance…" she said. "Hang on."

Franklin buckled up and they pulled out of their parking spot, following the carnotaur. Glancing in the rear-view mirror, Claire saw armed men, probably in pursuit of Toro, running behind them. Seeing two guards posted in front of the open gate, the carnotaur roared at them to make them move away. Panicking at the sight of the charging dinosaur, they did, and under the bewildered gaze of the guards pursuing the animal, he crossed the gate and disappeared into the jungle. As the gate guards returned to their position, Claire sped up and the Toyota rolled through the gate, turning right.

"Wait, wasn't that Dearing behind the wheel of Benito's car?" One of the sentries asked.

"Uh I think so," replied his colleague.

One of their running colleagues, an officer, suddenly yelled at them:

"Goddammit! Not only did you let two carnotaurs escape the facility, but you also let Benito, that traitor, go?! You're fucking losers!"

"It wasn't Benito but Dearing…" one of the sentries pointed out in a weak voice.

The officer rolled his eyes.

"But that's even worse! She's also a traitor!" he exclaimed.

"Really...? What did she do?"

The officer did not answer and turned to his colleagues.

"Prepare some vehicles," he commanded. "We must chase her."

"That won't be necessary," Torres said suddenly.

They turned to the Security division's director, who had just been brought back to Site D by helicopter. They looked at him in surprise.

"But sir ... What if she warns the authorities?" One of the guards asked him.

"She won't."

He noted his subordinates' circumspection.

"She and Mr. Grady played a role in this sabotage, I'm certain," he told them. "She'll first fetch him and then they'll seek to leave the area. But they won't go far... Let's cross them off the passenger list. I'll inform the board and the Lockwood Foundation of their betrayal."

Torres pulled out his phone and when he was far enough from the guards, he put it away and pulled out another, a disposable device which could be bought in many shops around the country. With it, he dialled a Costa Rican number, that of some Jesse.

"Yes sir?" A young man's voice asked shortly after in Spanish.

"She's in an old gray Toyota. She's going to pick up her boyfriend. You got the green light. You have until sunset. Send me a picture of the bodies and let me know when it's done."

"Okay," Jesse replied before talking to his partner. "Mateo, we got it!"

Torres hung up, put that disposable phone back in his pocket, and pulled out his official phone to contact San Jose, Palo Alto, and Orick.

Chapter Text

About five hundred meters from Site D's western gate, Claire and Franklin arrived at an intersection, where they turned left, driving down a winding road for a kilometre or two. While it led them towards the railway line, the young man turned around and noticed that no vehicle was behind them.

"No one is following us for now," he informed Claire.

She nodded and asked Franklin to call Owen to let him know that they were coming for him and tell him about the last events. When they were relatively close to the railway, they stumble upon an intersection where they turned left, and two to three minutes later they reached the next one and turned right, heading for the village of Zapotal, which they crossed. Shortly after, they found Owen and Stan the mercenary on the roadside.

"You have no idea how I'm glad to see you," Claire said to her boyfriend, relieved to see that he was unharmed.

The two men climbed in the vehicle. The latter turned around and headed for Zapotal. Behind them, a jeep pulled up the road to follow it, leaving a dirt road half hidden behind a line of trees. On its body, it sported a logo depicting an armadillo with multi-coloured bands.

While the couple, Franklin and Stan drove north, skirting the railroad in a more or less parallel manner, the jeep passed them, sped up and disappeared further. When they reached the second intersection the fallen park director and the IT technician took on the way, Claire turned left, not right, continuing north instead of heading up to the slope east to reach Site D. This did not fail to question Stan, who had taken care to spot geographical landmarks when he and his colleagues as well as Austin and Zia had reached the site of Blue's attack by road.

"Hey, that's not the way to the facility," he pointed out to Claire.

"I know. We're heading to town," she replied frankly.

As few words had been uttered since they were picked up, an expression of surprise appeared on the mercenary's face. He took his phone.

"I need to contact Wheatley. I'm not sure if I can let you do that. You know how it is. Orders are orders..."

Claire and Owen looked at each other, wondering if it wouldn't have been better if he walked away from him and left him in the middle of the countryside. And in his haste, the keeper had sat in the front passenger seat when he could have sit next to Stan, in order to be able to bring him under control if necessary. Franklin, meanwhile, stared at the pistol in the mercenary's belt and the rifle he held between his legs. On either side of the road, thick jungle surrounded them, and to their right the terrain formed a steep slope. On their left, by an exit, they could guess the presence of another vehicle behind the thickets.

"Yes, it's me," the mercenary said to his boss. "We just got picked up by Dearing. They intend to…"

The phone fell from Stan's hands when a violent shock pushed the four of them to the right. Owen's and Franklin's seatbelts barely prevented them from slamming into their doors.

"Hey, what was that?!" The keeper yelled, greatly surprised.

When they straightened up, they saw that the rainbow armadillo jeep had just rammed them from the side with force and was pushing them into the embankment with its bull bars. The eyes of the two young men who occupied it were imbued with anything but guilt.

Claire restarted the engine and tried to get away from the ambush, but they were pushed out of the road and began to slide down the slope before they could do anything.

"Hang on!" Owen shouted.

He, Franklin, and Stan clung to anything they could while Claire tried to slow their descent and avoid the larger trees and rocks in their path. But despite her best efforts, they hurtled too quickly through the undergrowth, tearing up vines and smashing many bushes and shrubs in their path, breaking the silence which prevailed a few seconds earlier in the jungle. Losing its balance after rolling over an outcrop, the car began to barrel-roll. While Franklin let out a howl of panic, Claire closed her eyes and tried to shield her skull with her hands, but lost consciousness when her forehead hit the steering wheel hard.

More than two hundred meters from the road, the car finally stopped rolling when it arrived on a more or less flat ground but ended up on the roof, with its four passengers hanging upside down. Still conscious, Owen, Franklin and Stan unfasted their seatbelts and let themselves fall. Still panicking, the IT technician threw himself on his door and, to his relief, managed to open it and get out. Unable to open his, Stan followed him out of the vehicle. At the same time, Claire was slowly regaining consciousness. Owen, who had just kicked down his door, shook her.

"Claire!"

She moaned but struggled to keep her eyes open for long. He shook her even more vigorously.

"Claire! We have to move!"

She finally kept her eyes open and realizing the precariousness of their situation, she immediately unbuckled her belt and let herself fall into the outstretched arms of her boyfriend. He then helped her leave the car and once they were outside, they saw Franklin straight as a ramrod a few metres away. In front of the car, Stan had drawn his pistol and was watching the slope. There was a smell of gasoline in the air. Faintly, they heard male voices debating in Spanish.

"Show yourselves, cowards!" Stan shouted.

But suddenly the couple and Franklin, who had moved a respectable distance from the wrecked car, saw an object being catapulted from behind a bush to their right. When he saw that the object was a bottle with a flaming piece of cloth sticking out of it, they widened their eyes in horror.

"Stan!" Owen shouted.

But it was too late. Before Stan could move away, the Molotov cocktail slammed into the car, right next to the leaking tank. The next moment, it exploded in a great ball of fire among which the mercenary disappeared with a scream.

Terrorized, Franklin immediately ran for his life with a cry and, unable to do anything more for Stan, the couple fled too soon after. They tried to follow Franklin, but he ran so fast that they lost him as they went deeper into the jungle. Not wanting to lose sight of his girlfriend, Owen let her pass in front of him. They hoped to outrun their mysterious attackers, but when they heard the sound of running over the fallen leaves and twigs, the couple knew they would not give up easily. When they had left a few hundred meters between them and the vehicle, one of them emerged from a thicket to throw himself on Owen, pinning him to the ground.

Alerted by the grunts of her boyfriend, Claire turned around and saw that a burly twentysomething with very short hair was on top of him, trying to put a chain around his neck to strangle him. Grabbing a thick branch, the fallen park director rushed towards them to help the Raptor Whisperer defeat the thug but suddenly, the latter's sidekick jumped across her path, machete in hand. He was a young man of the same age as the first but much leaner and slender, with medium-length hair and a narrow face on which a perverse smile had sketched. The Jesse called out by Torres was that one while Mateo was the one struggling with Owen. On their shoulder, both sported a tattoo depicting a rattlesnake. The skinny assassin lunged at Claire, who parried the first machete blow with her branch, before raising it again to parry the next attack, using it like a sword.

With a sideways roll, Owen managed to throw Mateo off balance. He elbowed him in the face, grabbed his chain and threw it away where it slid amidst a bush, robbing the assassin of his weapon. Mateo being still a little stunned, Owen took the opportunity to get up and he wanted to attack Jesse from behind but Mateo grabbed his leg, tripping him before approaching him. The keeper turned around and the two men fought hard on the ground. During the struggle, the tablet which had helped Owen track Blue slipped out of his pocket, but the keeper didn't care, his attention being required elsewhere.

As the blade of his machete was stuck in the branch, Jesse punched Claire in the abdomen, making her drop the branch. He pulled the blade out of the wood and slashed with a sweeping gesture accompanied by an intimidating shout. The blade only grazed Claire's arm and, scared, she began to move backwards quickly, straight into a root. When she tripped over it, her panic grew and she sought to kick and throw dirt in the face of the approaching assassin. The latter, satisfied with the success of his tactic, avoided the feet and the thrown dirt. He punched her in the face and brandished his machete, preparing to slit her throat.

"No!" Owen screamed, powerless.

It was then that the keeper and the assassin saw a person emerge from the vegetation. When he saw what they were holding in their hand and who they wanted to throw it at, Mateo wanted to shout to warn his sidekick but he couldn't because of Owen's hand clasped in front of his mouth.

Receiving a stone on his head, Jesse let out a scream of surprise and tilted his head, struggling to focus on Claire because of the pain. When he looked over his shoulder, he saw Franklin, who had frozen after throwing the stone at him. The assassin growled.

"You bastard!"

Before the IT technician could react, Jesse ducked down, picked up the stone, and threw it back at him. Franklin was hit on the forehead and collapsed to the ground. Meanwhile, Owen and Mateo were still struggling. Suddenly, Jesse felt a pain in his chest. Thanks to the distraction Franklin had provided, Claire was able to kick him, making move back a step or two. She immediately tried to crawl away, but he grabbed her leg firmly, pulled her towards him, then leaned over her, pressing his forearm against her throat. Seeing this, Owen then knew he had no choice regarding Mateo.

"Too bad I have to kill you now, I would have liked to have fun with you ...," Jesse said to Claire. "Oh, you don't have to be alive. And I could hide your scar…."

Suppressing a scream, Owen placed one hand on the top of Mateo's head, the other on his jaw, and twisted his head around. He heard a snap and Mateo stopped moving. As Jesse was about to thrust his machete into Claire's stomach, Owen rushed forward, roaring in his advance, and forcefully grabbed the arm that held the machete. Jesse's eyes widened in surprise, but before he could react, Owen stretched his arm and elbowed it in the middle. Jesse's bones broke under the shock, the assassin let out a howl of pain and he dropped the machete. Claire backed up on her elbows then kicked the assassin's neck hard with one of her feet, repelling him. He ended up on his back and Owen immediately picked him up, grabbing him by the collar. Then he punched his face. Once, twice, thrice... Claire, struggling to her feet, realized that Owen wasn't going to stop until Jesse's face would be reduced to bloody pulp by his blows. She looked at the other assassin, who laid lifeless, his neck twisted.

"Owen!"

But he didn't answer and continued beating Jesse.

"Owen! Stop!"

He stopped his fist right in front of Jesse's already broken nose and bloody lips. He listened to his girlfriend.

"Don't kill him! He must talk."

Finishing to straighten up, Claire noticed that Franklin was stirring while moaning and was reassured to see that Jesse's blow had not killed him. She then grabbed the machete and approached Jesse, whom Owen kept kneeling.

"It wasn't supposed to happen like this…" the assassin whined. "Mateo!"

He raised his head and looked at the couple

"Release me! Release me!" He shouted, spitting blood.

Claire put the tip of the blade on the assassin's neck.

"If you answer my question, we'll let you go. Who sent you?"

"I don't answer to gringa bitches like you!"

She gave him a kick in his privates so powerful that she thought she had castrated him.

"Who... Sent... You?"

"I won't tell you. My boss will kill me if I do."

She then thrust the machete's blade into his thigh, making him moan.

"Your boss must be far from here. If you don't answer, I'm going to kill you!" She retorted, twisting the blade in the flesh. "I repeat my question: Who sent you?!"

"I don't know his name! Bo... Our boss told us to go to Burgo Nuevo and wait for the contact's instructions. We attacked you as soon as we got the green light. We've never seen him in person, all we have is a phone number."

Owen then searched his pockets, pulled out a cell phone, and handed it to Claire, who turned it on. As it required its owner's fingerprint to unlock, the fallen park director grabbed the assassin's index finger and placed it on the screen. The phone unlocked and Jesse's wallpaper appeared. It was a picture of him at a party. He was bare-chested and a gold necklace hung around his neck, his face was raised up in a smug air and a hand was placed in front of his chest with the index and middle fingers spread. Judging by the half-vacant look he had, he was drunk or had taken drugs. Facing that display of vulgarity, Claire grunted in contempt and searched through the latest communications. She found a recent series of exchanges with an unknown number and looked at the text messages associated with it. She quickly saw that it was about them and the mysterious sender had even sent a photo of them, taken without their knowledge at Site D.

"Please take me to the hospital after. It hurts…," Jesse moaned.

"Don't worry, the pain will soon stop...," Claire told him, barely taking her eyes off the cell phone.

She called the unknown number and motioned for the others to be quiet. Owen put his hand over Jesse's mouth to prevent him from speaking. Someone picked up soon after.

"Hello? Hello?"

The couple remained silent, recognizing the voice.

"Hey, answer! I've got other fish to fry... Is it done? Did you eliminate them?" Torres' voice asked.

"But it's…" Franklin began, shocked that the one behind the attack was the director of InGen Security, a man he had met a few times when he was still working in InGen's IT department in Palo Alto.

Having the information she wanted, Claire hung up and put the phone in one of her pants' pockets. Owen moved his hand away from the assassin's mouth and exchanged a look with his girlfriend. They both knew that this assassination attempt must have had something to do with their discovery of the abandoned house's clandestine laboratory. The fact that a man such as Torres sought to eliminate them surprised them little. He, and probably the rest of InGen's management, saw them as a threat to their plans for the Indoraptor and even for the company's future. The couple would not have been surprised if it turned out that Susan Lynton, who had after all started a war with the Grey Guards, had encouraged Torres to use the services of these thugs to get rid once and for all of the thorn in their foot they had become.

"I knew it!" Owen exclaimed. "Blue's escape was a set-up! He wanted to lure us into the jungle so we could be eliminated there with a minimum of witnesses around. Had Wheatley not left Stan with me, Torres would have ordered them to kill me while I was alone with the farmer's body. And then he would have probably sent you into a trap..."

In the hands of the Raptor Whisperer, the assassin fidgeted.

"You know who it is! Now honor your word, you scarred whore!" He said looking Claire in the eyes.

Insulted, she growled and her grip closed around the machete.

"Release me…" he added. "I swear I'll find you one day, finish the job and avenge Mateo. Know that I will make you..."

Claire's growl turned into a scream of fury which silenced the surrounding jungle. Seeing her wielding the machete, Owen barely had time to back away before she struck Jesse's head with it, cleaving his face. Behind the fallen park director, Franklin suppressed a cry of surprise and horror. Unfortunately for the assassin, the blow was not enough to kill him and he screamed. Claire withdrew the blade and no longer supporting his screams, she slit his throat with a sweeping move. The blade striking the carotid artery, a spurt of blood spattered the fallen park director' tank top, and Jesse put his hands on his throat, trying in vain to stop the blood from flowing out.

The assassin's body having already been put to the test by the couple's blows, his last strength abandoned him almost immediately and under Claire's contemptuous gaze, he collapsed face down on the ground, where his body stirred a little more. Then she put her boot on the back of his neck, raised it and stomped as if it was a large bug she wanted to smash. She heard a crack and the dying body stopped moving. Then she took a step or two back and bent over, letting out a heavy sigh while her body twitched nervously and that some muscles of her face were tensed, like if she wanted to cry and laugh at the same time.

"You…you said you would let him go," Franklin muttered, shocked by what he had just witnessed.

Claire raised her still ruddy face to look at him. At that moment, the IT technician thought that her gash helped make her more terrifying than the assassins, even as much as some predatory dinosaurs.

"I let him go...to Hell! Where he belongs!" She hissed before turning her head to spit in Jesse's face.

She had already taken a human life, that of Katashi Hamada, but it had been a completely different context, although the experience had proven to be traumatic. She wouldn't have called Hamada a friend, as he had many arguments with her, but during his lifetime, he had been a noble and respected man, and his death had not left her indifferent. Although he was the one who asked her to end his suffering and even guided the blade to his heart, Claire still felt like a murderer when he took his last breath while she held the hilt of the dagger. A few people explained to her afterwards that there was nothing criminal or shameful about her action, but she couldn't help feeling remorseful when she thought of the Japanese captain of Nublar's Grey Guard garrison. Thus, this Jesse was the first person she had willingly killed and aside from the stress and anguish of the life or death situation they had just experienced, she felt no other negative feelings. She was even satisfied that the two assassins were dead. She was glad to have killed the little son of a bitch who laid next to her, drowned in his own blood.

No, don't feel guilty! She thought. That filthy scum deserved death! You did well!

Catching her breath, Claire cleared her head and was surprised by the relative ease with which her mind was beginning to put this ordeal behind her and that calm was returning. Then she remembered that having faced, defeated and survived the Indominus, certainly not without a heavy price, had been some sort of baptism of fire, that it must have shaped her, both in a bad and a good way, and that this experience, horrible as it had been, was now helping her in this one. She came to think that the Claire from before the Fall would not have survived this assassination attempt or that she would have naively made a mistake that would have cost her dearly later.

Nietzsche might have been right. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.

Knowing that she would need Jesse's fingerprint to unlock his phone and show the messages and the associated number to the authorities, she crouched down, grabbed his right hand and sliced off his index finger with the machete, not without arousing an expression of disgust from Franklin who looked away to instead observe the surrounding jungle. She then ripped off part of the assassin's tank top and wrapped his index finger around it before stuffing the whole thing into a closable pocket in her pants once she stood up.

She then saw Owen staring at Mateo's body and noticed that his limbs were shaking and his complexion was livid, nauseous almost. He placed his clenched fist in front of his mouth as he suppressed a retching.

Owen hadn't killed anyone to this day and he had never even opened fire or faced enemy combatants in hand-to-hand combat while in the Navy. As he sometimes liked to recall, he more often handled fish and training equipment than firearms and said that he had not been a particularly remarkable soldier, only shining within Navy's Marine Mammal Program. In the fight that had just occurred, the wrestling contests with friends, various brawls in which he had been involved, and especially the accident with Andromeda the Neoraptor, were experiences that had helped him more than his time in the Navy.

They escaped by the skin of their teeth, and the situation would have been hopeless if the Slayers were still alive and Torres had sent them and not these two scum from San José's suburbs. He and Claire would not have stood a chance against what used to be InGen Security's elite troop and whereas some of its members were decent, at least as good as the members of a team carrying out black operations from time to time could be, others were part of the dregs of humanity. Oath-breakers, raiders, arsonists, murderers, and rapists featured among their ranks… They would have killed him first or worse, would have forced him to watch them do unspeakable things to his girlfriend and put an end to her suffering once they would have been tired of her. Imagining such horrors filled him with great rage, and he greatly felt the urge to hit something, no matter if it was a tree trunk or a rock.

He had always supported the Grey Guard, but now he couldn't help thinking that it was a good thing that the insurrection of its Nublar garrison had taken place and that its leader, Gilbert Brunet, the terrible Black Lion, decided to slaughter the Slayers to the last man or almost, as only one of its members managed to flee and disappear to not be seen again. In his head, Owen thanked the Black Lion posthumously. His impulsiveness and fury had saved them that day.

Claire's voice pulled him out of his thoughts:

"Owen. Look at me," she said softly.

But still in shock, he couldn't look away from Mateo. She moved closer and put her hand on his shoulder.

"Hey, look at me," she repeated, shaking him slightly.

She stepped between him and the body, placed her bloodstained hands on his temples and made him look into her eyes.

"You did the right thing," she told him. "You had no choice, they were going to kill us. Defending your own life and that of your wife is not a crime. Those bastards deserved death. They will no longer harm."

"I know. I just didn't imagine it would be that hard," he replied in a choked voice. "Yet, I know people who told me about that sort of things."

As she nodded, he saw her eyes watering and he took her in his arms, letting her cry silently against his chest. He himself felt the tears welling up in his eyes but he held them back. She saw him as her rock in the middle of the storm, he had to hold on.

"Hey. We're alive. It's over," he whispered.

"No, it's not over. First Isla Nublar, now Site D... Are we cursed, Owen? How many corpses are we going to leave behind us? And Torres… InGen put a bounty on our heads… I just want to go home and see our son again. Nothing else... Screw the operation and screw Lockwood's promise..."

"We'll see Sigurd again, we'll be fine, you'll be fine... I promise you. We're going to go to the police and explain what happened… Torres is not going to get away with this. Let's leave this place."

"How? They wrecked the car."

"Let's take their jeep."

"Yeah. Let's loot them. Take anything that could be useful. Car keys, money, weapons…"

Franklin, too disgusted by the sight of the bodies and still too dazed to do anything, let the couple search them but all they found on them were the keys to their vehicle. Claire and Owen hoped they would find more in the latter. It was then that the keeper heard footsteps coming from the north.

"Someone is coming…" he said quietly.

Then he motioned for them to follow him behind a large rock to the south, where they hid as the footsteps grew louder and louder. They became silent and discreetly spy on the newcomers. About half a dozen of them emerged from the thickets, weapons in hand, and inspected the scene. Like the two assassins, they were Costa Rican but unlike them, they were dressed in pants and T-shirts, although one or two wore tank tops, and their weapons were more impressive than the Molotov cocktail, the chain and the machete used by Jesse and Mateo, consisting of pistols, shotguns and even machine guns, weapons that had nothing to envy to those of the local police. On their neck they had a tattoo depicting the head of a bird of prey. The trio assumed that these men were also gangsters. One of them, a rather short middle-aged man with a gaunt face, stared at the lifeless assassins.

"What's this? It looks like some mayhem just occurred," he noted, speaking in Spanish with a hoarse voice.

Fearing that those men were other assassins sent after them, Owen grabbed his girlfriend's hand and looked into her eyes before glancing at the vegetation in front of them. Realizing that he was asking her to flee if they were flushed out and not to wait for him, she shook her head, looked at the machete, then looked back at her boyfriend. She would not abandon him and be ready to die by his side. He shook his head again, but before she could insist with any gesture, the newcomers indicated them that they had not come for them:

"Cascabels? What are they doing so far from San José?" The gaunt wondered as he cocked his head sideways to look at the tattoo on Mateo's arm. "Did they get lost?"

"They were probably sent on a commission…" another replied, looking at the bodies. "It looks like they met someone tougher than them."

"That one bled like a stuck pig…" a third observed, leaning over Jesse's body.

A fourth spat on Mateo's.

"I say it served them right!" He exclaimed. "Those damn snakes should have never crawled out of their suburbs."

"They got looted and the ruckus just happened a few minutes ago," the gaunt pointed out. "Whoever did this to them can't be far. If we catch him, we might get some benefit."

"Him? I think it's a her actually", corrected one of his companions, a long-haired man built like a tank and who spoke in a deep voice.

"Are you referring to the woman's scream you heard? We told you it was your imagination!" The gaunt retorted.

"But I have good hearing! More than you anyway. By dint of staying too long by the amps, you became deaf as posts!"

The gaunt thug began to scan the clearing, searching for traces of whoever had killed the two Cascabels. He then spotted the rock and walked towards it, intending to walk around it to see if there was anything behind it.

"Let her run, we've got other fish to fry," the long-haired hulk said after picking up the ACU tablet Owen had dropped. "The Englishman gave us orders. Back to our positions! The train is leaving soon!"

After sighing in frustration, the gaunt turned away from the rock and returned to his companions.

"There's going to be one hell of a fireworks display by the viaduct!" One of them said in a high-pitched voice full of excitement.

"We'll have to act quickly before the cops arrive," another added.

Claire, Owen and Franklin waited in silence a little longer, until that gang of thugs was far enough.

"What were those guys talking about?" Franklin asked, as he only understood a few words.

"They were talking about the train," Claire replied.

"Let's return to the road and take the jeep," Owen suggested.

They left their hiding place but remained in the shade of the undergrowth as a precaution. They found Benito's Toyota and as they ran around it, they avoided looking too much at the horrible state of Stan's body, ravaged by the assassins' cowardice. Then the trio set out to follow the trail of flattened vegetation the car had left behind when it hurtled down the slope.

"The train...the viaduct..." Claire listed, trying to guess the plan of the Englishman mentioned by one of the gangsters.

Remembering where they were in Burgo Nuevo's area, she suddenly turned in the middle of their ascent, searching for geographical landmarks.

The next moment, she froze as she spotted something in the distance. Owen, and then Franklin, followed her gaze, to the northeast and the forested slopes. A few hundred meters away, above a valley, tall pillars stood, supporting a collapsed deck at its centre. It was the railway viaduct and the couple guessed the plan of that Englishman mentioned by the gangsters:

They want to divert the train so it can jump from the top of the broken viaduct, in order to kill those on board: Animals, keepers and veterinarians, InGen guards and Wheatley's mercenaries alike. The gangsters would then kill the survivors and loot the wreckage. The Englishman mentioned by these men must be an agent of an InGen rival. If he succeeds, InGen will never recover from this attack disguised as an accident.

"We must warn the others!" Owen said urgently.

But as he was about to rush forward to reach the vehicle as quickly as possible, he saw that Claire was hesitant. He knew that she felt so much hatred towards InGen that she might be considering letting the Englishman carry out his plan in order to get revenge on those who had dishonoured her and tried to eliminate them.

"Claire…" he said softly. "This changes everything. InGen may have tried to kill us, but the animals and innocent people are on this train."

A troubled expression appeared on his girlfriend's face but she didn't answer.

"What do we do?" Franklin asked.

Claire exhaled, clenched her fists, bent her head, and then looked at them:

"We've got a train to catch," she replied before rushing forward, passing in front of her two companions.

They finished their ascent and found the assassins' jeep parked on the side of the road near where Benito's car had exited it. Claire opened it, sat behind the wheel, and while Owen and Franklin were still getting settled in, she put the key in the ignition and sped off, racing to the train station.

Chapter Text

"How could they make the train fall from the viaduct?" Franklin asked.

"By making it take the track that leads to it," Owen replied.

"And how do you make a train change tracks?"

"Through the switch!" Claire exclaimed suddenly.

"The switch?" The IT technician repeated.

"The situation is the same as in the last Uncharted, the spin-off with Chloe. Except we have to do the opposite…" she explained, remembering her game a few months earlier and its final act. "Do you still have your phone, Franklin?"

"Nope. I left it in Benito's car..."

"I still have mine," Owen said. "But I have very little battery left," he added after looking at his screen, where a value of barely ten percent was indicated next to the battery sign. "Just enough to make a call..."

"Warn someone you trust," his girlfriend said.

He nodded and called Juan.

At the station, the Shitpiercer's final preparations were underway as the day drew to a close. The train was so long that, laying on the loop around the old station, it completely encircled its buildings and stretched almost to the barricade erected in view of the road bridge, with its huge locomotive seeming to defy the journalists and onlookers gathered at the top of the bridge. In all, the Shitpiercer had more than sixty wagons and was about half a mile long. It was quite possibly the largest train that ever ran in Costa Rica.

Locked in containers, cages or crates, all the animals it had to transport were there and Brice Le Goff and the other veterinarians present had administered sedatives to the largest and most powerful of them. There was indeed no question that they would panic because of the transport and make the train derail. So when they woke up, it would not be until hours later, after the convoy's arrival at the port facility. The only missing animals were Toro and Ariadne, which were still in the jungle between Site D and the village of Corrales, which adjoined the railway. The ACU helicopter was hovering over that area, waiting for them to leave the cover of trees. The sabotage at Site D having delayed the schedule, Torres had given the order to bring the two carnotaurs back to Site D and remove them from the Arcadia's list because they would later charter a plane to transport them to the United States.

Having just been called by Juan, Valentine Taylor looked for the director of InGen Security. The guard's face was very dull and the edges of his eyes were still wet. He had learned about Benito's betrayal and Jocelyn's death, and it had affected him a lot, so much he wanted to pick up his luggage inside the train and volunteer to be part of the team remaining in Costa Rica. But while he was still undecided about that, he spotted Torres further away and after taking a deep breath, he hailed him:

"Sir!"

The director of InGen Security turned to his subordinate.

"Yes?"

"Mr. Baró told me of disturbing news. Enemy agents are seeking to send the train to the broken viaduct."

Torres laughed softly.

"The switch is monitored. This train will take the right track, be sure of that. What's Mr. Baró's source?"

"I don't know. He said that some friends overheard a conversation in town."

"A conversation overheard by friends…," the director of InGen Security repeated in a mocking tone. "I don't like to be disturbed by this kind of gossip, Mr. Taylor."

"Sorry, sir... But it wouldn't hurt to make sure no one tampered with the switch."

"I told you it was being watched. Stop being impertinent and get on that train. We're leaving. We're already late..."

"As you wish, sir," Valentine answered in a slightly hesitant voice before heading for the carriage where he was to travel with his fellow guards.

Torres huffed and walked away too, looking pensive. It was then that he saw a trio of guards conversing casually further away and he sighed. The first of the guards was a thickset man in his forties or fifties and not very tall; the second was of similar age but of medium height, with a rather thin, almost emaciated face; and the third was a tall, burly man of Italian descent in his late thirties. Torres had recognized the trio, as he heard bad things about them after the fall of Jurassic World and Operation Fallen Kingdom. Pierre, John and Henry, InGen Security's Three Stooges, notable slackers and buffoons.

"Hey you three! Go in the locomotive!"

The trio of guards obeyed and heading for the first train car, Torres followed them.

"You're a train aficionado?" Peter asked John.

"Well, papa was a locomotive driver. He often took me with him."

When Torres arrived at the first car, he radioed an order and the next moment the phrase Ready to go! relayed from the barricade to the station.

"Juan said he was passing the info on to Torres?" Claire asked Owen.

"Yes."

They had just joined the road linking Burgo Nuevo to the entrance of The Pillar of Heaven nature reserve.

"Fuck!" The fallen park director suddenly exclaimed before speeding up.

"Where are we going?" Franklin asked noticing this.

"At the switch. If you see anything that looks like a lever near the rail, let me know."

"But Torres has been warned…"

"Something tells me he doesn't give a fuck and that we'll have to do it ourselves."

Straight ahead, the bridge spanning the railroad came into view.

"Wouldn't it be better if we called the cops?" Franklin suggested.

"We do not have time. By the time they'll decide to send someone, if they do, it will already be too late," Owen told him. "We're the only ones who can prevent that!"

"Let's hope Torres doesn't actually decide to send his goons there. He wants our heads!" Claire reminded them.

"Mine too?" Franklin asked.

"Since you ended up with us, probably yes," the keeper replied.

"Jesus fuck…" the young man moaned.

"At least we'll have the means to defend ourselves," Owen said, looking first at the machete, then at the sawed-off shotgun stowed behind the driver's seat, and finally at the pistol he'd just taken out of the glove compartment.

When they started crossing the bridge, Claire slowed down a bit, as a large crowd occupied the sidewalk just to their right. Between the onlookers, Owen could see the barricade and the Shitpiercer's locomotive. He saw it approaching the bridge.

"The train is leaving," he informed his companions.

"Ok, it's time to act like Paul Walker," his girlfriend declared before suddenly accelerating again. "The first who utters the word Family shall be left on the roadside like an old mutt!"

They reached the northern end of the bridge and under the surprised eyes of the local police officers in charge of watching the journalists and the onlookers, the jeep bolt away. Behind it, some of the civilians crossed the road to follow the moving train.

"Logic would dictate that we find the switch by the fork," Owen pointed out while they drove above the speed limit. "We find the fork, we find the switch."

"We're approaching the second bridge," Claire pointed out. "I take it or I continue straight?

"Straight. The vegetation is less dense on our side."

Passing in front of the entrance to the second bridge, the one they had taken during their tour with Juan, they continued on the same road, following a sign which indicated the direction of the village of Cedral. Before descending there, the road skirted the railway line, overhanging it by about forty meters. Owen and Franklin began scanning the landscape to their left, trying to locate where the rail forked. Meanwhile, the sun was gradually approaching the horizon line.

Nearly a kilometre and a half from the second bridge, they saw the rail split in two, with the left track going up through the jungle to regain elevation.

"The fork!"

However, no road seemed to lead there and theirs began to curve to the right, towards Cedral. But they had neither time to make a long detour through that village, nor time to walk down.

Claire slowed down and carefully observed the scenery to their left. The slope down to the railway line was covered by jungle but most of the trees growing in that area hadn't a very thick trunk while the bushes were sparse enough to let something the size of a jeep pass between them. The slope was also gentler than the one they had descended with Benito's car.

"Hang on. We're having another ride," she declared.

"Having another ride? Franklin repeated apprehensively.

She suddenly steered the wheel to the left, the jeep left the road, and the IT technician let out a frightened cry before closing his eyes while Owen gripped tightly to the top door handle. The jeep began to descend the slope in the straightest way possible, avoiding slaloming unnecessarily and taking the risk of losing its balance. They descended faster and faster, so much that Claire lost control of the vehicle. As it smashed through the bushes in its path, she and Owen widened their eyes to see that in the flattened portion ahead of them, a huge tree trunk laid, resting on huge boulders.

"Trunk!" The keeper shouted.

The trunk and the rocks were comparable to an archway because between the trunk and the ground, there was a space as wide as a small road but not very high, less than two meters, if not barely one meter eighty. The jeep was too high for this passage which they were approaching at full speed and could no longer avoid. Owen shouted again.

"Get down!"

Franklin more or less laid back in the back seat, Owen hunched forward, and Claire nearly flattened herself against the steering wheel while trying to control the car. The next moment, the jeep reached the trunk. They first heard a shock, then a major tearing of metal, a very unpleasant scraping for the ears and then something falling behind the jeep. Looking up, Owen and Franklin saw that they no longer had a roof over their heads, as the trunk had turned the jeep into a convertible by ripping off the entire upper bodywork.

"You still have your heads?" Claire asked them, raising her head immediately to regain full control of their trajectory.

"Yes!" they replied.

They emerged from the dense vegetation shortly after, almost bursting onto the rail. They began to follow it, heading towards the fork which was not very far, about a hundred and fifty meters away. Owen turned around and saw the Shitpiercer on the horizon. The train was still far away, but it was gradually closing the distance between them.

"Hurry, it's coming," he said.

Quickly, they saw the beginning of a maintenance track and a large lever near the rail.

"There's a lever over there!" Franklin pointed.

"That must be it," Claire said, kicking the throttle.

She stopped the jeep by the lever, they got out and approached the lever. Looking at the tracks, they noticed that in the current state, the Shitpiercer was indeed going to be shunted onto the track leading to the viaduct. Not only had someone changed the switch, but Torres had done nothing about it.

"It's not the right track," Franklin observed.

"So let's change it!" Claire pressed them.

The trio grabbed the lever, starting to push it.

"This was Don't touch that, you little jerk!" John said, pointing to one of the levers.

He then showed Pierre and Henry one of the buttons on the locomotive's driving station.

"That was Don't touch that, you little jerk! too"

Then gathered around the driver and his station in the locomotive's cab, the three guards saw through the windshield that some people had parked near the fork and were busy with some kind of lever.

"Hey, what's the lever over there?" Pierre asked the driver.

"The switch…" the latter replied nervously.

Pierre took his radio.

"Boss. Three people are tampering with the switch."

"Make them move away!" Torres ordered them.

"How?" John asked, standing next to Pierre.

"Shoot in their direction! Hurry!"

John looked around the inside of the locomotive. He didn't see how he could shoot the trio.

"How can I do that?!" He exclaimed, looking at his two companions.

Henry responded with a shrug. Meanwhile, the train hadn't slowed down and they were now close enough for the three guards to recognize those at the lever.

"Wait, isn't that Dearing and her boyfriend?" John pointed out aloud.

With their radio being still on, Torres heard them.

"What?!"

"Push!" Claire said as the lever resisted, creaking under their assault.

Owen couldn't help but stare at the approaching Shitpiercer.

"Come on! Come on! Come on!"

He, Claire and Franklin then pushed with all their strength and just in time, the lever finally moved, changing the switch. The next moment, the train's locomotive passed the switch lever and the trio, deafening them and sending a great rush of air into their faces. The train went straight ahead, on the main track, heading towards the Celeste Gorges as planned. From one of the windows of the passenger car attached behind the generator car, which itself followed the locomotive, Torres had given the couple a look filled with frustration and hatred. The train moving too quickly, they had not seen him.

"We did it!" Claire exclaimed with relief as the shipping containers passed before their eyes.

"We saved them. Let's go fix our own problems now," Owen suggested.

"If it means getting out of life and death situations, I'm all for it," Franklin said.

Claire nodded and they got back into their jeep. Following the maintenance track along the rail, they began to drive parallel to the Shitpiercer.

"Have you seen their jeep?" Henry asked his two companions. "It looked like a cauliflower!"

"But wait, we're continuing on the right track," Pierre pointed out. "Does that mean the switch was set incorrectly? And that they helped us?"

"It seems to be the case," John said. "If I knew the idiot who changed it!"

He took his radio and informed Torres of the situation.

"False alarm, boss. In fact, they put us back on the right track."

"I don't give a fuck! They are dangerous fugitives, saboteurs and killers! They must not board this train! They have to be stopped!"

Torres ended the communication on his end. John looked out the window.

"Anyway, they're far behind us now. It's up to the chums to take care of them."

"You believe in that story of dangerous fugitives?" Peter asked him.

"To be honest, I don't give a fuck about their crap... I'm not paid for that."

"What do we do now?!" Franklin asked the couple, shouting to be heard above the noise made by the train a few meters away from them.

"We're trying to find the road!" Claire replied. "We're heading to the police station in town!"

"There! A fork!" Owen suddenly exclaimed a few seconds later.

Looking down the track, Claire noticed that it did indeed split in two a little further on, with the lane on the right descending into a tunnel. Recalling the map of the surroundings, the fallen park director knew that the ridge to their right separated them from Cedral and supposed that this tunnel led to the road connecting the latter to Burgo Nuevo. But as they were about to take that lane, they suddenly saw headlights in the tunnel. Unaware of who was approaching and whether the tunnel was wide enough to allow two vehicles to pass each other, they stopped just in front of the fork. As the last cars of the Shitpiercer passed them, the other vehicle moved into the daylight, revealing itself to be a green-grey humvee. On board were individuals wearing bulletproof vests over familiar midnight blue uniforms.

"Shit! Torres' soldiery!" The keeper realized.

Claire pressed the accelerator pedal and their jeep sped along the maintenance track, continuing to follow the valley. Reaching the top of the slope, InGen's humvee turned and sped after them. With its windows rolled down, its passengers pulled their upper bodies out of the car, aimed their weapons at the trio's jeep, and fired. Owen and Franklin ducked and the bullets narrowly missed their target.

"They're shooting at us!" Franklin shouted.

"Thanks, we had noticed that!" Claire answered.

When the InGen soldiers sent another salvo, she accelerated and said:

"They'll soon puncture our wheels at this rate! Someone use the shotgun!"

"It's a sawed off shotgun, we're too far to fire with it," Owen pointed out, taking instead the pistol.

After checking it, he turned to their pursuers and fired, aiming at the front wheels and not the soldiers themselves. If they killed them, they would give credence to Torres' version of events. When they retaliated, he immediately took cover and waited for another opportunity. In the meantime, they had almost caught up with the train. Suddenly the door at the back of the last car, an old passenger carriage similar to the one Torres was in, opened and a man with a balding head and light brown clothes stepped onto the small platform which could be found there. The trio recognized him. Wheatley.

Having seen who was in the jeep following the train, the mercenary leader drew his handgun and aimed at them.

"But what is he doing?!" Franklin asked in a worried tone.

They heard a series of gunshots and bullets hit the track just in front of the jeep and the front of its hood.

"That was for Stan!" The mercenary leader shouted at them harshly.

Realizing why he was shooting them, the couple and Franklin adopted a shocked expression.

"Great! Torres also pitted Wheatley against us!" Owen observed.

"But we didn't killed him! Torres' assassins did!" The IT technician complained.

"Good luck for convincing him of that!" Claire said before accelerating, in order to pass the caboose and the mercenaries it contained as quickly as possible.

A little further on, on a promontory overlooking the railway line and the valley it followed, Jeremy Rankin was scanning the landscape with his binoculars. The mercenary's gaze was fixed on the east, where the destroyed viaduct stood. From time to time, he gazed at the jungle and pastures on the opposite side of the valley, eagerly awaiting the moment when he would see the long form of the Shitpiercer advancing at full speed towards the doom he had reserved for it. The English mercenary was not alone. Next to him were three other men. There was another Briton, William McSweeney, a forty-something, slightly stout, bespectacled man of average height; Dr. Erik Scherrer, a tall lanky middle-aged brown-haired man with a goatee, added to the team by Rankin's current employers; and Adrian Bentley, a handsome thirtyish man with dark hair and an unshaven face. Where the first two were also scanning the surroundings for the train, the third was drinking from its flask. Rankin let out a small sigh at this sight and recalled the day he and his team recruited the ex-InGen Security employee.

They had found him in a seedy bar in the middle of nowhere in the Costa Rican countryside, drunk and having a quarrel with the owner who was telling him to go home to the United States and find a job. It was two weeks before and since then Adrian had told them about the InGen facilities, the equipment and strategies of the security division forces, the information sent to him by his former colleague Benito… Rankin had met with the latter ten days earlier in a café in Burgo Nuevo, near the Cañada de las águilas hotel. That same morning, the ex-secret agent had been surprised to see Claire Dearing across the street while he was sitting quietly in the cafe and waiting for Benito.

Turning away from the American, Rankin turned south, where the last three members of his team, British too, were deployed.

"I see the train!" McSweeney suddenly exclaimed while looking north.

Rankin turned to his compatriot and long-time colleague.

"Where is it?"

"On the wrong track..."

Rankin approached the other mercenary briskly and through his binoculars he saw the Shitpiercer coming from the north, rolling on the main track and not the one that led to the broken viaduct.

"How is it possible?" McSweeney asked.

"Someone got wind of our plan!" Rankin exclaimed irritably.

He turned to Adrian and gave him an accusing look.

"Don't look at me like that. I didn't tell Benito about the switch. I swear it," the former InGen employee argued.

Rankin looked north again.

"Plan B! Unleash the Buzzards!" he ordered.

McSweeney then picked up a phone, wrote a short message, and sent it.

"Everyone in the jeep!" Rankin said to his three companions. "Let's take a closer look at this hunt..."

They descended from the promontory, got into their jeep parked nearby and driving down the slope, they headed for the railway line.

Chapter Text

"Stop that fucking Humvee, Owen, so we can get out of here!" Claire shouted while they were still being shot at.

"Easier said than done!" Her boyfriend said while shooting at InGen's vehicle.

They were passing a flatcar loaded with vehicles and various crates, the fourth from the end. The door at the end of the third wagon, a passenger car, opened and a few InGen soldiers came out, leaping onto the next wagon to take up position there and try to shoot the couple. Claire pressed the accelerator pedal, getting out of range before they could take aim.

At the same time, Theo Lomas and Fanny Oven got out of the third wagon in turn and continued straight, passing behind the InGen soldiers, as Wheatley had ordered them to follow the fugitives' jeep.

The mercenary leader didn't want them dead, he just wanted to intimidate them and purposely targeted their vehicle to try and stop them. Before Torres and his minions took them to God knows where, he wanted to speak with them about Stan's death, and thus it was crucial for his two subordinates to prevent InGen soldiers from killing them. Fanny turned, making sure that those were well behind.

Ahead of the fugitives, a gate stood across their path. It had been left ajar and with the jeep the fallen park director had no great difficulty in bursting through it and they entered a large, gently sloping pasture. The latter extended between the valley's eastern slopes, covered by the jungle, and the rail, which separated it from the Celeste in the middle of the valley and its dense riparian vegetation. About a kilometre downstream, the pasture gave way to a forested area, and the valley was joined by the one spanned by the viaduct a little further east, the same one where the assassins had been killed.

Not far from the entrance gate, which InGen's Humvee passed in turn, was a sizable group of grey-coated Brahman cows. They were driving straight towards them.

"Cows!" Franklin shouted, thinking Claire hadn't seen them.

"I saw!" she replied.

But she did not turn the steering wheel and pressed the horn. The herd emitted a chorus of bellows and the animals in their path suddenly moved aside when the jeep reached them. Frightened by the shots fired from the Humvee, the cows began to run downstream.

"Stop shooting! If we kill a cow or two by accident, we're going to be called murderers again!" One of the InGen soldiers told the shooter while the fugitives were mingled with the herd.

"Who cares?! Torres want them stopped at all costs! Collateral damage will be PR's problem, not ours!"

The driver turned the steering wheel to the right, avoiding the herd. As they rounded the latter, passing between it and the wood on the slopes to the right, the InGen soldiers noticed that they were going faster than the fugitives amidst the herd. If they continued at this rate, they might be able to cut them off a little further. But while their eyes were fixed on their targets, they didn't see a small group of motorcycles emerge from the shadows of the woods and swoop down on them. Three in number, the motorcycles were equipped with two seats. While a driver handled the vehicle, a passenger behind them held a gun. The one on the lead motorcycle aimed at the InGen trooper whose upper body was out of the Humvee and he shot him in the back of the neck. The soldier stiffened and fell into the grass. Startled, his comrades looked back and saw the bikers reaching them. Before they could roll up the passenger side window, the passenger of the lead motorcycle threw bangers through the opening left and crackling sound inside the Humvee, followed by the shouts of the soldiers. Soon the driver lost control of the vehicle and after driving too quickly over a rocky outcrop, it lost its balance and began to roll towards the rail and the bottom of the valley, passing through the middle of the herd and hitting a cow or two along the way. The panic of the rest of the herd redoubled. Fortunately, the fugitives had finished crossing it a few seconds earlier.

Alerted by the noise, Owen and Franklin turned and saw that not only the Humvee stop in a flat area near the rail but also the group of bikers immobilized higher up, beyond the charging cows.

One of them raised his fist.

"Death to InGen!" he cried in Spanish.

Surprised by the sudden irruption of those bikers, the fugitives looked at each other.

"Who are these guys?!" Franklin exclaimed in panic.

"Out of the frying pan...," Owen began.

"Into the fire," Claire finished.

The motorcycles roared and raced down the slope, driving towards the jeep and the train. Farther downstream and behind the fugitives, more gunshots rang out, telling them that the Humvee's attackers were far from alone. Danger was everywhere and they couldn't turn back. They could only move forward and pray that they weren't targeted. Franklin slid between the back seat and the front seats and stayed there, hoping that this nightmare would end soon, whatever the outcome and the manner.

The group of bikers who defeated InGen's Humvee arrived almost at the jeep's level and the couple noticed that the criminals had the head of a bird of prey tattooed on their necks, the same as those of the men they had seen at the site of their fight against the assassins. They knew that they were part of the same organization and that they were the pawns of that Englishman who ordered the destruction of the Shitpiercer and the death of its passengers. While Claire focused on the driving, Owen eyed the approaching bikers and kept the sawed-off shotgun in hand, ready to fire should they act in a threatening manner. They hoped they would just ignore them and pass them after they saw that InGen had sent men after them but when the man sitting on the back of the nearest motorbike started to get up to turn towards them, Owen knew that wasn't going to be the case.

"Back-off or I shoot!" He threatened.

But the gangster did not react and when he seemed ready to jump, Owen readied the shotgun, intending to use it to strike the assailant as soon as he grabbed the jeep. He didn't have the chance because suddenly, Claire swerved to the side and the jeep hit the motorbike violently, knocking down the driver and his partner. Surprised and irritated, the gangster duo cursed the fugitives but their insults quickly became cries of terror and pain when the herd of Brahmans trampled them in their stampede.

Further ahead, the trio saw another group of three bikers. They rode close to the railroad track, parallel to the train, and the passengers on each of the motorcycles watched the wagons intently, probably looking for handholds to grab.

"They're trying to board the train!" Owen noticed.

While Claire accelerated, he turned to Franklin, who was still sitting behind the passenger seat and staring at his lap.

"Franklin?!"

The IT technician didn't answer. The Raptor Whisperer bent down, grabbed his shoulders and shook him a little.

"I know you're scared, but we need you," he said, looking at him in the eyes.

He then passed him the sawed-off shotgun and the machete, keeping only the pistol in hand.

"Keep that, please!"

"But I don't know how to use a gun..."

"Use the machete then. If one of them tries to board us, stick 'em with the pointy end."

Franklin nodded weakly and Owen stood up, stooping his gaze on the bikers.

Hearing an engine noise different from that of their vehicle, the mobster sitting in the back of the motorbike closest to the jeep turned and saw their pursuers. Seeing Owen take aim at them, he informed his driver and the latter swerved to avoid the shot. The bullet just missed one of the other two motorcycles.

"Deal with them!" The driver of the last motorcycle told his passenger.

He spun around and as the jeep was about to crash into them from behind, he stood up and leapt towards the hood of their pursuers. Before they could do anything, he landed on it and managed to grab onto it, obstructing Claire's visibility. Owen wanted for a moment to shoot him through the windshield before realizing that it might hurt his girlfriend. While he tried to reach the front passenger seat, Claire then began to make sudden movements with the jeep, making him stumble and the boarder to slide on the hood. The gangster tried to hold on but to no avail and he finally fell, biting the dust violently.

"Mediocre!" The fallen park director exclaimed with contempt.

In the Shitpiercer's last wagons, the InGen soldiers deployed there as well as Wheatley and his mercenaries had reached their positions and were in the process of subjecting the attackers to heavy fire.

"Let's repel those Mad Max rejects!" one of the mercenaries declared.

Two motorcycles and their crews west of the rail were strafed, but no sooner had these opponents been defeated than others appeared. East of the rail, on the side of the river, an all-terrain truck accompanied by three motorcycles appeared and the train's defenders noticed that the truck's bed was occupied by five men, each equipped with a grappling hook. With them, those boarders could cross the ditch between the rail and the track taken by the truck. On the motorcycles, those seated behind the drivers began to fire towards the wagons occupied by the defenders.

"The truck! Kill the driver! Its boarders mustn't come any closer!" Shouted one of them.

In their carriage, Manny looked at Danny.

"Kid! Stop those bikes!"

Danny nodded and the goatee mercenary then turned to other of his comrades.

"Is that surprise coming?!"

While Danny and a few other mercenaries were in the middle of a firefight against the motorcycles' shooters, their comrades finished preparing the surprise, consisting of a machine gun. They placed it by one of the carriage's windows, stabilized it, aimed its cannon at the track between the rail and the river, and Manny called out to the attackers:

"You want to witness?! Witness this!"

The machine gun then fired, turning the truck's cabin and its occupants into sieves before mowing down the motorcycles. As several of the boarders had thrown their grappling hooks and were about to jump, the truck veered off course and left the track, starting to roll down the embankment which sloped down to the Celeste. The vehicle immediately lost its balance and rolled a few times before falling into the river, where the few boarders remaining in the truck's bed drowned. As for the others, they had either ended up on the track or into the ditch after the mercenaries had cut the ropes of their grappling hooks.

Having just witnessed the death of their comrades, the group of attackers on the other side of the rail, made up of another truck and two motorcycles, hastily moved away and accelerated to pass the mercenaries and the InGen soldiers as quickly as possible. They did not return to the track until they began to pass the first animal containers (at least the first from the train's rear) and the men in the truck's bed threw their grappling hooks at the top of one of the containers and jumped to the train. After climbing it, the group headed for the junction between the wagon of vehicles and equipment (the one where Theo and Fanny had passed the InGen soldiers, soldiers who since returned to their wagon) and the one on which the first animal container rested. This container and those that followed it were large, so much that they could each contain an animal the size of an elephant, and on the first were written the characters STEG. Its task accomplished, the truck pulled away from the rail and disappeared into the nearby jungle while the two motorcycles sped straight ahead, continuing to drive parallel to the train.

When they reached the junction, some of the boarders leaned over the space between the two wagons and the other two continued towards InGen soldiers' carriage, taking cover behind one of the vehicles or the crates. For the moment, they must not betray their presence.

At the same time, the jeep carrying Rankin and his three companions reached the bottom of the valley. Not far from their position, on their right, they saw a jeep with a torn off roof pursuing a motorcycle of the Gavilanes, the gang they had hired. They noticed that the jeep was driven by a redhead woman and that a tall long-haired man was standing behind, pistol in hand. McSweeney, busy driving, paid no attention to their faces, but his three companions recognized the occupants of the other jeep.

"Is that…?" Doctor Scherrer began.

"Yeah, it's them," Adrian confirmed.

Claire caught up with the bike and slammed into it like a bumper car, knocking it over. Further upriver, Rankin saw another knocked down motorcycle and noticed that the one being pursued had no longer a shooter, who had likely been knocked down or shot.

"She thinks she's in a demolition derby?" He said aloud while shaking his head in disbelief, surprised to see the fallen director of Jurassic World behaving like an action heroine.

He picked up his phone and made a call.

"Dorian. Take the Monkeys and wait in the gorges," he ordered.

"Aye aye," a male voice replied.

Rankin put his phone away.

"Follow that jeep!" he ordered McSweeney.

His subordinate obeyed and as they rode along the rail and the Shitpiercer, they were overtaken by the two motorcycles which had escorted the truck whose boarders had managed to climb on the train. Hearing them, Rankin turned to them and pointed to the other jeep further ahead.

"Stop them! Come on!"

The bikers complied and a little further, they rushed in their turn into the opening left by a broken gate and leaving the pastures, they passed under the forest's shade.

The fugitives' jeep was following somekind of track, just wide enough to allow two cars to drive side by side. Looking behind their vehicle, Owen saw the new bikers.

"But how many are they?! For fuck's sake!" He exclaimed.

Still holding the pistol, the keeper pointed it at the bikers and fired. He managed to shoot one of the drivers, but when he wanted to shoot the other, he heard a click. The last bullet had been fired.

"Dammit!"

He crouched down and left the pistol on the bench seat.

"Shotgun!" he immediately commanded Franklin.

He handed him the sawed-off shotgun and once he had it in his hand, Owen straightened up, ready to fire at the other motorcycle. While the one whose driver he had hit was immobilized further behind, the other had disappeared. The keeper looked frantically for it, until he heard a roar to his left, at the top of an embankment. Driving alongside it, the motorbike overhung them and in the back, the driver's partner had stood up and pivoted to face the jeep. Timing his move well, he eventually jumped off the bike and managed to reach the jeep, landing hard on Owen. The shotgun slipped from the keeper's hands and the two men fell on the backseat, where they began to fight in hand-to-hand combat.

Worried, Claire couldn't help but look behind her, but when she brought her eyes back to the track, she saw in her mirror that another motorcycle was catching up with them from the left. It was the one Owen had immobilized by shooting its driver. His partner had taken the wheel in the meantime. She saw the biker beginning to stretch out his right arm.

"Do something, Franklin!" she screamed.

Holding the machete close to him, the IT technician watched Owen and the Gavilanes fight right in front of him. He wanted to help his companions but didn't dared to strike the Costa Rican thug, being on one hand afraid of him but also afraid of hurting Owen by failing his attack. However, he was aware that the three of them would soon die if he did nothing. The biker to the left of the jeep was already trying to grab Claire's arm and while keeping one hand on the steering wheel, she was trying to struggle against him. The feeling of being a passive burden gnawed at Franklin. He was tired of that. Suddenly, he let out a scream and thrust the machete blade forward, straight into the gangster's shoe. He felt the blade pierce the latter and then sink several inches into something harder than the shoe's rubber. The attacker suddenly let out a cry of pain and Franklin realized he had just stabbed his foot. His opponent having just loosened his grip, Owen took the opportunity to free himself and push him away with his feet. The back of the thug's head hit the door and the keeper then lunged forward to punch him in the face. Then he pulled the machete from the Gavilanes' foot, lifted him up, and threw him overboard.

For her part, Claire got rid of her assailant by suddenly opening the door, pushing the motorcycle to the side. Before he could react, the biker began to slide down the slope towards the railway, but he ended up on the way in a tangle of vines, in the middle of which he struggled under the curious gaze of a Capuchin.

While the trio sighed in relief after winning that fight, Franklin remembered that there was still a motorcycle somewhere to the right of the track. When it reappeared and the biker took out his pistol and pointed it at Claire, the young man immediately grabbed the sawed-off shotgun and fired in the direction of the bike without taking care to aim. Of course, he didn't hit the target but surprised, the biker deviated from his trajectory and went straight to skewer himself on a branch. Franklin retched when he saw that and, in an anguished voice, he exclaimed:

"What did I do?!"

"You saved our lives!" Claire replied.

"Thanks, kid!" Owen added, giving him a friendly pat on the shoulder.

As the occupants of the rainbow armadillo jeep defeated the bikers they had sent, Rankin ordered McSweeney to speed up.

On the other side of the rail, one of the motorcycles lost its balance and slipped off the embankment after being shot at, but a loud crash in the vegetation announced the arrival of a larger vehicle. Shortly after, a pickup truck rolled onto the track and Wheatley noticed that it was equipped with a heavy machine gun in the back. Its operator began to rotate it.

"Take cover!" The mercenary leader shouted.

His men had just enough time to lie down before the machine gun began to spit. Bullets whistled above them, destroying the few windows still intact after the previous shootings and the carriage ended up as holed as an Emmental cheese. The mercenaries stayed like that for several long seconds, until the machine gun stopped firing. Danny, then near one of the east side windows, carefully looked outside and saw that the vegetation at the top of the embankment was too dense for the pickup to continue driving along them. It seemed to have disappeared.

"That was close," the young mercenary noted.

"We got lucky," said another.

After looking at his men and checking that none had been killed, Wheatley stood up and looked outside as well.

"That pickup hasn't said its last word. Brace for anything," he told his men.

"Since when do gangsters in this country have heavy machine guns?!" Manny wondered. "I thought this was Costa Rica, not Mexico!"

"Who's the son of the bitch who gave them such a weapon?!" Mickey exclaimed.

Frightened by the heavy machine gun fire, a group of Capuchins left the trees closest to the railway line to reach those further west. Hearing their cries amidst the surrounding racket, Owen looked up and saw them swinging from branch to branch or vine to vine as they fled.

The only missing thing is Shia LaBoeuf acting like Tarzan, the Raptor Whisperer thought.

It was then that Rankin's jeep caught up with that of the fugitives and rolled to its left. McSweeney swerved to the right, in order to collide sideways with the other vehicle. Just shaken, its passengers turned and Owen aimed the sawed-off shotgun at them.

Rankin waved at them.

"Good evening Mrs. Dearing! I'm a huge fan!" He said to the fallen park director.

You're a fan of me because InGen's is up to shit creek because of me, at least according to some people? She guessed.

"What a pleasant meeting, isn't it?!" he asked.

"Who the fuck are you?!" she shouted at him.

"Jeremy Rankin, humble contractor and former member of Her Majesty Elizabeth II's Secret Service!" He introduced himself with feigned humility.

He then pointed to his companions.

"Here's part of my team! You might meet the rest, if you're lucky..."

As he studied them, Owen swore he'd encountered Adrian somewhere before, and digging into his memory, he remembered seeing him once or twice on Isla Nublar.

"InGen wants you dead!" Rankin continued. "Why are you defending that bloody train?! Because your former colleagues are on board?! They should have left InGen when they had the chance! If this train is destroyed, it will sound its end! Join us! My employers could make you a generous offer!"

Crossing the gap in the vegetation made earlier by one of the boarders' trucks then still further ahead, they came out on a road and passed just in front of an immobilized post van. The truck had hit it violently, deforming the hood and smashing one of the headlights into pieces. They passed so quickly that they couldn't see if its driver seemed to be still alive.

"I'm not doing this for InGen!" Claire retorted as they entered a banana plantation on the other side of the road. "So back off Mickey Mouse or you'll end up like the bikers!"

She swerved left, hitting Rankin's jeep, then sped up, leaving them behind as McSweeney maneuvered to avoid the banana tree they nearly hit. Rankin shrugged.

"At least we tried," he sighed.

He turned to the ex-InGen Security employee.

"Adrian, shoot them!"

Adrian gulped, nodded weakly, and raised his rifle, ready to fire as soon as they would be near the fallen park director and her companions again.

"No one mocks my ears," Rankin said, staring at the rainbow armadillo jeep between the banana stems and leaves. "No one..."

Driving in a row parallel to the one taken by the couple and Franklin, the mercenaries narrowed the gap between the two jeeps and Adrian pulled the trigger on his gun, firing at the other vehicle.

Having seen this ex-colleague about to fire, Owen warned his companions. He and Franklin flattened out but Claire could only bend over and move closer to the steering wheel, careful to keep her eyes above it so she could see where she was going. In addition to the jerky spit of Adrian's rifle, they heard that of the Gavilanes machine gun.

While the latter was firing on the back of the train and more particularly InGen soldiers' carriage, the postman regained consciousness in his damaged vehicle. When the machine-gun pickup crossed the road on the other side of the rail and he caught a glimpse of it between the wagons, he was frightened at the sight of this scene, which seemed to be straight out of a war movie. As the shooting continued, the postman hurriedly got out of his van and fled the scene.

"They're nuts! They're nuts!" he screamed.

Fortunately for the train, the vegetation on its left side became too dense for the machine-gun pickup to continue to drive alongside the rail.

Noticing that the attacking vehicle was moving away, Theo and Fanny, then clinging to the front end of a container bearing the letters STEG, slowly pulled themselves up in order to look at the rear end. At the other end, one of the Gavilanes was standing, overlooking the InGen soldiers' wagon, his two comrades on the equipment wagon between and the two busy between the latter and the wagon with the STEG container. He had his back facing the two mercenaries. Suddenly, Fanny whistled, attracting the gangster's attention. The Costa Rican, a thin and rather short man, turned quickly, pointed his gun forward and stepped onto the roof of the container. But while he was taking care to walk around a hatch made of thick steel bars, he was shot by Theo in the chest. The Gavilanes lost its balance and fell between the hatch's bars, inside the container, where he impaled himself on the thagomizer of a tranquilized Stegosaurus. The two mercenaries then hoisted themselves completely onto the container's roof and moved forward.

At the same time, InGen soldiers came out of their wagon and after a brief exchange of fire with the two Gavilanes on the equipment flatcar, they managed to defeat them, leaving the last two defenceless, especially as Theo and Fanny threatened to take them from behind.

But as they passed the hatch, the two mercenaries saw the rear of the train suddenly move away and the space between the Stegosaurus container' wagon and the equipment's widen considerably, until they realize that the gangsters had managed to separate the two. On the one carrying the equipment, one of the Gavilanes was trapped and tried to escape the InGen soldiers by jumping out of the wagon and fleeing into the jungle, in vain as he was shot before he could even reach the bushes. The other, then between the container and the edge of the wagon, wanted to do the same but Theo jumped on him, pinning him against the metal before knocking him out.

Meanwhile, the last wagons of the train had come to a halt just before a bridge over the river and soon Gavilanes arrived in large numbers to attack the mercenaries and the InGen soldiers entrenched in the Shitpiercer's amputated tail. Hearing the first shots of this engagement, Theo and Fanny hoped that their comrades would hold steady.

Letting out a curse, Adrian lowered his rifle and waited for another shooting opportunity. Beyond those damn banana trees which prevented him from hitting the bull's eye, the jeep with the rainbow armadillo was still speeding by and none of its occupants seemed to have been injured. Rankin grew impatient:

"You're bad at your job, Adrian! Are you too drunk to aim properly?! Bugger, I have to do everything myself... Doctor Scherrer, give me the rocket launcher!"

Scherrer nodded weakly and passed him the rocket launcher stowed in the back of the jeep.

"Rocket!" Rankin commanded him.

The scientist took one of the rockets and passed it to the former Secret Service agent, who loaded it into the weapon before raising it and aiming for the other vehicle, firing at the first opportunity.

The couple and Franklin gasped in surprise as the rocket blew the top of the banana tree they had passed under, throwing pieces of stems, leaves and even bunches of bananas into their jeep. Turning around, the two men realized that their pursuers were armed with a rocket launcher. In the rear-view mirror, Claire saw Rankin's jeep pull into the same row as them, but the banana trees on either side being either too big, either too close from each other in that part of the plantation, they could not escape for the moment. If their pursuers fired again, they were finished. They had to shake them off.

"Throw those bananas on their way!" The fallen park director commanded to her companions.

Owen complied first, grabbing one of the bananas' bunches and throwing it behind the jeep. Startled, McSweeney was forced to swerve, preventing his boss from firing, which angered him. Copying the keeper's example, Franklin took another bunch and threw it overboard as well. The mercenaries could not avoid this one and when they rolled on the bunch, they skidded and ended up outdistanced by the fugitives, who continued to throw bananas on their way.

"They think they're in Mario Kart?!" Rankin exclaimed in a half-amused, half-dismayed tone while McSweeney did his best to catch up to them.

The couple and Franklin managed to get out of the row and out of the plantation, back into sight of the Celeste. That part of the river followed some sort of ravine towards a small waterfall a little further, but Claire noticed that a trench had been dug on both sides of the river at the level of a ford, in order to allow agricultural and/or forestry vehicles to pass from one bank to the other without making a huge detour. The fugitives followed the trench and the fresh motorcycle tracks on the ground, took the ford but as they left it, Rankin fired the rocket launcher again. But he aimed badly and the rocket hit the rock wall near which the jeep passed and not the latter, projecting stones all around. One nearly crashed on Franklin's skull, however, and he jumped when it landed right next to his feet. Further upstream there were gunshots, those of a fight between Wheatley's men and the Gavilanes who had surrounded them at the bridge.

Following the dirt track out of the trench, the rainbow armadillo jeep momentarily passed through an area of uncultivated jungle and left the tree cover soon after, emerging into another pasture, bounded to the east by the railway. Unlike the one further upstream, it was flat, appeared to be empty and the fugitives saw only four motorcycles further ahead. As they accelerated to catch up with them, they saw a new vehicle appear above the jungle on the other side of the rail. The ACU helicopter.

Leaving the forest area between the two pastures in their turn, Rankin and his companions also saw InGen's aircraft. They and the fugitives wondered what he was doing there.

Shortly before, the pickup truck with the heavy machine gun had reappeared on the east side of the railroad and was driving parallel to the central wagons. After shooting at the train car which contained some InGen soldiers as well as Valentine Taylor and the other security guards, the pickup continued, aiming to reach the head of the train before it reached the gorges. A little further, the pickup's driver spotted two passenger carriages, those that Operation Fallen Kingdom's participants had nicknamed Midway. He accelerated to be right at their level and pointed them to the machine gun's operator. In those two wagons were the keepers and the veterinarians and at the beginning of the attack, they had been instructed to barricade themselves, to take cover and to remain hidden. Crouching under one of the windows of the first Midway car, Pasqual saw the pickup and shuddered in horror as it slowed down to keep up with them.

"Machine gun!" he shouted.

The operator pointed the cannon at the carriage, sketched an evil grin but just before he pulled the trigger, he suddenly felt a sharp pain in his chest and had the impression of receiving several stab wounds at the same time. In the next second, something pulled him away from the machine gun and even from the back of the pickup before shaking him roughly. The daggers dug deeper into his flesh and the Gavilanes let out a cry of pain which alerted his driver. Looking in the rearview mirror, he saw his comrade caught in the jaws of a horned bipedal dinosaur with pale red skin and black mottles. A carnotaur, one of two fugitives from Site D. Ariadne.

Frightened, the driver lost his concentration and noticed too late that he was going straight into a thick tree trunk. The shock was so brutal that the front of the pickup was dented and the driver was killed instantly.

Behind, a motorbike tried to go around the carnotaur but inadvertently received a tail blow which knocked it over. Witnessing this, the driver of a boarding truck swerved to the left to avoid the animal, unwittingly hitting another motorcycle that was passing him on that side. But in his haste, the driver had miscalculated his overtaking and losing its balance on the sloping terrain, the truck tipped over halfway between the pickup embedded in the tree and Ariadne.

From the top of the container on which they were advancing with their prisoner, Theo and Fanny saw the carnotaur throw the mutilated remains of the machine gun operator to rush on the overturned truck's boarders, whose moans had attracted her attention and caused her frenzy. Above them, they saw the ACU helicopter turning, seeking a position for neutralizing the escaped predator. The two mercenaries were about to continue on their way, desiring to reach a covered wagon before another eventual pickup equipped with a machine gun or worse arrived and mowed them down, but it was then that Theo spotted the fugitives on board of their jeep.

He saw that they were chasing four motorbikes and were themselves chased by another jeep. Looking to his left, the mercenary saw two motorcycles coming from the south. Having probably attacked other parts of the train before turning back, they were heading towards the fallen park director, her boyfriend, and the IT technician from the Dinosaurs NGO, intending to flank them. Theo didn't know if the fugitives had noticed the presence of these new attackers, but if they were ever surprised, he feared they wouldn't make it. But Wheatley wanted them alive. In their eyes, it was better that they manage to escape this battle than they die in it. The mercenary turned to his comrade.

"Keep moving!" He said to her. "I just need a minute."

While Fanny dragged their prisoner to the next container, Theo took his rifle, pointed the motorcycles coming from the south and fired. He managed to hit one, which collapsed in the grass immediately afterwards, but before he shot the second, it also fell, hit by a shot from the jeep. Those two vehicles neutralized, Theo let out a sigh and went to join Fanny and the captive Gavilanes.

The fugitives were then able to refocus on the motorcycles between them and the train, neutralizing another while the helicopter positioned above them. Turning around, Franklin noticed that Rankin had armed his rocket launcher again.

"They're going to fire again!" he shouted to the couple.

But the former British Secret Service agent raised his weapon, aiming for the ACU helicopter instead. The rocket went off, heading straight for the craft.

On board, the embarked shooter was aiming at Ariadne when the pilot suddenly shouted:

"Rocket!"

The shooter barely had time to hang on before the helicopter quickly spun around to try to avoid the rocket. They couldn't dodge it, but instead of entering the cockpit, it hit the tail.

On the ground, Owen and Franklin watched as the helicopter began to spin, losing altitude before disappearing behind the trees. The noise of the train and the chase preventing them to perceive any eventual explosion sound, they did not know if the helicopter had crashed or not.

On the other side of the rail, the two men and Claire saw one of the Gavilanes reach a pickup embedded in a tree. As he climbed in the back, Ariadne the carnotaur reappeared nearby, chasing a man who was crawling on the ground while screaming in fear like a piglet about to be butchered. When she saw the gangster in the pickup take the machine gun and aim it at the dinosaur, Claire felt troubled. The machine gun fired and the predator let out a bloodcurdling howl as the bullets riddled her. She staggered and collapsed on her side with a wheeze that was painful to listen to. Then the Gavilanes rushed at the carnotaur like a pack of rabid dogs. The couple and Franklin did not see what they did to her but they knew they were probably avenging their fallen comrades in some very barbaric way.

A fierce veil of rage passed before the eyes of the fallen park director and she hesitated. For a brief moment, her companions even thought that she was going to abandon the pursuit of the train and instead go after the gangsters on the other side of the track, but after tensing her fingers and grimacing, she accelerated and rushed straight at the three motorcycles in front of them. She spilled one, then the other, deliberately rolling over one of the bikers.

Having seen his companions being knocked down one by one, the driver of the last motorbike took fright and wanted to flee. But noticing this, Claire accelerated to catch up with him and when she was at his level, rolling to the left of him, she grabbed the sawed-off shotgun with her prosthetic hand, lifting it with more ease than she would have with her natural hand, pointed the barrel at the biker's head and pulled the trigger. Part of the gangster's skull exploded like a watermelon and with his driver still having his hands on the handle, the motorcycle continued straight for some distance before falling. Already nauseous from Claire's crazy driving, Franklin leaned over the edge of the jeep and vomited his lunch, sickened by what she had just done to the biker's head. The trio then headed for a gate further south.

Still following them, Rankin and his team passed by the last biker killed.

"Good heavens!" He huffed after seeing the burst skull.

He laughed in disbelief.

"Adrian, your ex-boss is a fucking nutter!" He told the former InGen Security employee. "You should have told us she had a taste for savagery! I'm suddenly starting to believe that she could be that ghost."

"Well, I've trouble believing it's the same woman," the American replied. "The Claire Dearing we're chasing is not the one who signed my checks but a real she-devil..."

It was then that they heard the voice of one of the Gavilanes on the radio.

"Mr. Rankin! Our team at the bridge has been repelled by the mercenaries! The casualties are too heavy, we're falling back!" The Costa Rican announced.

Rankin rushed on the radio.

"That's out of the question! Continue the attack!" He ordered them.

"But InGen reinforcements are coming from the north! If we don't leave, we'll all be killed or captured, including you!"

On the other side of the rail, near the carnotaur's body, the two British mercenaries, the American and the scientist saw motorcycles and two trucks picking up the stranded Gavilanes and disappear into the jungle.

"Cowards!" Rankin yelled at them.

"You heard them," Dr. Scherrer said. "We have to leave."

"Yeah," Adrian agreed. "McSweeney, get us out of this mess! Now!"

The bespectacled mercenary looked at his leader.

"What do we do?" he asked.

Rankin sighed.

"We clear off," he grunted.

While McSweeney took them to an exit, Rankin looked at the rail.

"They only won the first round…," he said.

Crossing a cattle grid, the couple and Franklin exited the fields and followed a new track, which soon brought them to an intersection where they had two choices. Either they continued straight along the railway line or they turned right and skirted the fields for some distance before probably joining a road that led to the nearest village.

Thinking that Rankin was still on their heels, they continued straight ahead, fearing that they would give him the chance to hit them with the rocket launcher if they decided to take the other route. As they passed container after container of large herbivores and a wall of vegetation stretched to their right, they noticed that, far behind them, Rankin's jeep had disappeared and assumed that they probably turned around and abandoned the pursuit. Now the fugitives overhung the train, which was going through a kind of trench and had slowed down. Ignoring how far the track continued and thinking it would be a good idea for them to board the train and try to reach Torres, Owen knew it was time to abandon their vehicle.

"Can you bring us closer to the edge, Claire?" he asked his girlfriend. "We board it and deal with Torres!"

After having studied the left edge of the track and noted that they could circulate there without incurring too much risk of tipping over in the trench and ramming into the train, the fallen park director brought the jeep closer to the edge and Owen looked at the wagons that they overlooked. They were still containers and their roofs would be a safer landing place than the arched roofs of the tarped wagons and the passenger carriers farther forward.

"Franklin!" he called.

The young man came close to him and Owen pointed to him the container closest to the first tarped wagon.

"You see that container?"

"Yes," Franklin replied hesitantly.

"Prepare to jump on it. Claire, speed up until I tell you to stop!"

As the fallen park director complied, pulling them closer to the chosen container, Franklin looked at Owen in astonishment and dread.

"I'm not going to jump on that!"

They reached the container's level.

"Stop! Keep up that speed!" The keeper shouted to his girlfriend.

He immediately turned to Franklin.

"Jump!"

Franklin shook his head.

"No, I can't!" He protested in a frightened tone while looking at the container just below.

Owen lost patience.

"I'm going to count to three!"

He grabbed him and started counting.

"One..."

But just as Franklin thought he was going to say two, Owen threw him with all his strenght out of the jeep. The keeper heard the IT technician cry out in terror as he approached the train and the container, on which he landed hard on his stomach.

"The stone behind the passenger seat. Put it next to me!" Claire said to her boyfriend as he looked at the motionless IT technician on top of the container, hoping he hadn't hurt him or worse.

Owen grabbed said stone and placed it on the passenger seat.

"Give me the wheel!" he said.

"You're standing. Go!" she replied.

He noticed that the track would soon cease to overhang the rail and begin to descend toward a depression. Owen didn't know what the rest of the track would look like or even if it continued but only one of them would have time to jump on the train.

"I want you to go first!" The keeper insisted.

She grew impatient.

"Owen, now is the not the time to be chivalrous! Jump, damm..."

She was interrupted by a loud crash in the vegetation to their right, a crash that was followed by a beastly hiss. Alerted, Owen turned his head and instinctively recoiled when he saw a carnotaur emerge from between the trees. He barely had time to hang on and let out a curse before the dinosaur's skull slammed into the back of the jeep, knocking it off course a bit. While the carnotaur spun, Owen recognized it thanks to its burns. He knew that Toro had emerged from the jungle at least a few minutes before Ariadne, had crossed the railroad and reached the vegetation on that side before the ACU helicopter arrived at his level. While they prepared for Franklin's jump, he must have either started to hear them or caught their scent. Aware that the jeep could only move forward on the track, Toro just had to wait for them to pass within range. The keeper's gaze met that of the predator.

"Go! Go!" He said to his girlfriend.

Claire regained control of the trajectory and pressed the accelerator pedal. Seeing them escaping, Toro growled and rushed after them. The track deviated from the rail and soon it began to descend and the couple took advantage of the incline to go even faster and increase the distance between them and the predator. When they arrived at a lower crossroads, at the bottom of a dell, just in front of a tunnel, they thought they would outdistance him too much for him to continue the pursuit but as they went straight, they came into sight of a dead end.

"Shit! A dead-end!" Claire exclaimed.

She stopped the jeep, making the stone slide from the passenger seat. She looked at her boyfriend.

"Reverse! Let's take the tunnel!" He told her.

The fallen director engaged the reverse gear and backed as quickly as possible towards the intersection.

"And if he's still behind?!" she asked.

Owen checked the sawed-off shotgun's magazine. It was empty.

"Let's hope we'll reach it before he does. Otherwise, we'll force our way through!" He replied, dropping the firearm in front of the seat before grabbing the machete.

The tunnel reappeared but the keeper noticed that the carnotaur was finishing running down the slope.

"Hurry up, honey! He's getting closer!"

They arrived in front of the tunnel and as Claire started to spin, Owen stared at Toro and brandished the machete high with a scream. To some, he would have evoked a caveman trying to intimidate some wild beast. The objective was to gain a few seconds because if the carnotaur reached them, they could do nothing, the machete being a paltry weapon compared to his jaws. The keeper's scream and posture didn't impress Toro, which darted forward while Claire finished her manoeuvre.

"Claire!"

"Hang on!"

She pressed the throttle, and Owen narrowly avoided Toro's jaws again. As the jeep sped through the darkness of the tunnel, the carnotaur slowed down, took the time to turn around, then resumed running, entering the tunnel in his turn while growling. His prey and he came out on the other side and the track going to the right to follow the rail, Toro had to slow down again to change direction. But the predator having not stopped moving during the last two hours, fatigue was starting to be felt, especially as the track was going up, and the couple distanced him quite easily. Eventually he stopped running and gave up the hunt. Hearing no helicopters, he did not seek refuge in the vegetation and walked on the track.

Farther ahead, the couple was driving up the train, looking for the container on which Owen had thrown Franklin. As the first tarped wagons came into view, a head with dark curly hair appeared atop one of the containers, staring in their direction. Owen breathed a sigh of relief.

"There!" The keeper quickly pointed.

Claire noticed the presence of the DPG IT technician but at the same time, they passed in front of a sign indicating the presence of a dead end at the very end of the track as well as a risk of falling. To their left, the jungle was too dense for them to navigate with the jeep, and if they ever abandoned Franklin and turned around, they would stumble upon Toro, which would give them no chance. They no longer had a choice. They had to continue and successfully board the train. Since the containers had no grips, the couple continued on to the first tarped wagon, which had a small platform at the nearest end.

"The platform!" Claire shouted.

Her boyfriend nodded and when they reached its level, she ordered him:

"Now you jump!"

He complied and managed to cling to the platform's railings. His legs wobbled for a moment in the air just above the railroad's rocks, then he pulled himself up and passed to the other side of the guardrail. He then looked at his girlfriend with a worried face, wondering how she was going to manage to jump on the train without anyone driving the jeep. She had a plan however.

As soon as Owen jumped off, the fallen park director began to slow down and the jeep eventually stopped. Keeping the engine running, Claire then grabbed the rock she had asked for earlier and which ended up under the glove box. She put it on the passenger seat.

Farther back, Toro paused when he saw this and intrigued, he cocked his head sideways. Hoping for a moment that maybe he was going to have a chance, he started to trot, but she stormed off in a cloud of dust. Aware that he wouldn't be able to catch up with her, the carnotaur stopped trotting, growled in frustration and when the last wagon had passed him, he crossed the railway line to reach the woods on the other side.

From the platform at the back of the wagon, Owen saw the jeep reappear on the track and race to catch up. He then thought back to the stone, the one Claire had requested, and guessed her plan.

Once she came back into view of the DPG IT technician and the keeper, the fallen park director took her foot off the accelerator pedal, grabbed the stone and placed it instead of her right foot, maintaining pressure on acceleration. As the jeep continued on its own, Claire got up immediately, left the driver's seat, gave a slight swerve to maintain a straight trajectory, and joined the right side of the jeep, preparing to jump. As she approached the tarped wagon and Owen's outstretched arm, she began a countdown and hoped she was right in her calculation. At the end of the long straight line formed by the track, a frail wooden fence stood, a fence that the rail passed before taking a bridge built over what Claire presumed was a wide ditch or a ravine. She had to jump.

When she reached the end of her countdown, the jeep was about to reach the platform of the tarped wagon and Claire jumped up to her boyfriend. He leaned a little more over the platform's railing and her prosthetic fingers closed tightly around his right arm, making him wince in pain. Not waiting for her to slip, he put his other arm behind her back, lifted her with all his strength and stepping back on the platform, he passed her over the railing.

"I got you!" The Raptor Whisperer said to Claire while her legs were still hanging in the emptiness below her.

Behind her, the driverless jeep rammed through the fence and jumped into the ravine beyond, crashing against a rock a dozen meters below.

A little tired, Owen staggered back as Claire hugged him and stabilized her feet on the platform. Before he fell, he leaned against the nearest wall and loosening her grip, she did the same, positioning herself between him and the railing on the right side. They didn't know if there were any guards nearby, but after this gruelling chase and all those high-risk stunts, they just wanted to catch their breath. Across from them, Franklin climbed out of the container and walked towards them, glaring angrily at Owen. The Raptor Whisperer laughed softly and the fallen park director looked at the landscape to her left. The rail was running once more next to the Celeste and on the opposite bank of the river was a small village, Corrales. Behind its peaceful abodes and the jungle beyond, the sun reached the horizon.

"What a day. What a lovely day," Claire sighed wryly.

Chapter Text

"We have to go. I saw two of Wheatley's guys heading towards the front of the train," Franklin informed the couple. "I think they have a prisoner with them."

As Claire and Owen struggled to their feet, the young man stared intently at the keeper.

"You asshole! You could have killed me by throwing me like that, like if I was a potato sack!" He reproached him.

He then turned to the fallen park director.

"I'll never go back in a vehicle driven by you again. You're a danger!"

"Danger will soon become my nickname with all the things that are happening around me," she replied.

After peeking inside the wagon, Owen ventured inside and his two companions followed.

"What do we do?" Franklin asked as they walked past a large shipping crate containing a Panoplosaurus, hidden from view and asleep.

"We have to try to get as many people on our side as possible," Owen replied. "The keepers would be a good start."

"Are you suggesting to start a mutiny and take control of the train car by car until we confront Torres in the locomotive?" Claire asked him.

"Kinda."

"To the Midway cars then!" Claire said.

"There is no guarantee that the way will be clear," the keeper explained. "Our pirouettes will have been useless if we are captured a few cars further."

"If we can't pass inside the cars, we'll pass outside of them," his girlfriend concluded.

After passing two smaller transport crates each containing a Placerias, they exited the wagon and as the rail cut through the jungle and passed over several meanders of the Celeste, Owen stepped inside the next one, asking Claire and Franklin to stay outside for a moment. This wagon was shorter than the previous one, with two rather bulky transport crates, each large enough to contain a bison-sized animal. The first of these crates was that of the Udanoceratops, and from the second came a kind of growl, that of a Pachycephalosaurus. There was no one in that wagon, but just as he was about to call his two companions, Owen heard someone approach the door at the opposite end of the wagon. The keeper came out without delay and discreetly told Claire and Franklin to hide. When the new arrivals, actually Brice and a guard, had finished crossing the wagon, the trio had disappeared.

Unaware of their presence, the veterinarian and the guard entered the Placerias' and the Panoplosaurus' wagon. They crossed paths with Theo and Fanny there.

"I didn't know you were on that part of the train. I thought you were with your comrades," the InGen guard said, lowering his weapon.

"Have you heard from them?" Fanny suddenly inquired.

"They repelled their attackers. They have no casualties on their side, only minor injuries," the guard replied. "One of our Chinooks will pick them up and take them directly to the port facility."

"Good," the blonde mercenary said, reassured. "And your helicopter, the one we saw in the last pastures?"

"They managed to land. The two guys who were on board are just injured. Thank God."

Fanny nodded slightly and the guard's gaze fell on the Gavilanes carried by Theo.

"We've got a little present for you," she added. "Where can we leave it?"

The guard's radio sputtered.

"They have a prisoner?" Torres asked.

"Affirmative," the guard replied.

"Escort them and make sure they deliver him to your colleagues."

"It's good to know we're trusted," Fanny ironically commented.

"But Mr. Le Goff asked me to escort him," the InGen guard told his boss. "He wanted to check if the animals are okay."

"He'll wait a bit."

"Except that the sun is setting," the veterinarian pointed out in annoyed tone. "I would like to be done with that as soon as possible!"

"I can escort him," Theo said. "You'll help them with the prisoner," he told Fanny.

She and the guard nodded in approval.

"I'm taking the prisoner to the car," the latter informed Torres.

"Good," he replied. "Interrogate him and let me know."

The guard and the blonde mercenary began carrying the Gavilanes to the guards' wagon, leaving Brice with Theo. The two walked to the opposite end of the wagon.

"I didn't pay attention to the animals on the way, but none seemed hurt," the Englishman said.

Brice widened his eyes because the mercenary had spoken not in English but in French.

"Let's see if that's the case," the veterinarian said.

As the scenery became steep-sided on either side of the rail, the two men exited the wagon.

"You speak French?" he asked shortly after.

"Un petit peu," Theo replied in Molière's language. "My mother is from Kent but I was born in France."

"Where?" Brice inquired, curious.

"A town in Brittany. Fougères."

"Fougères? Hey, I know people from there!" Brice exclaimed.

After hiding from Brice and the guard by clinging to the side of the Udanoceratops' and Pachycephalosaurus' wagon, the couple and Franklin had taken a nearby ladder to climb on the roof. When the guard returned with Fanny and the captured gangster, they hunkered down and waited for them to pass. Now they were crawling to the next car, which was not a freight car like the two they had just passed through, but a passenger one. Thinking that the guard was coming from there and that there had to be more inside, the trio doubled in caution and decided to continue on the rooftops until at least the Midway cars. As they passed onto the next one, the trio heard a rumble, which grew louder and louder, until a large waterfall appeared to their right around a bend. Ahead, the train twisted along the railway, built on a ledge on the east side of a great gorge, magnified by the last glimmers of the setting sun. Although the exit of the gorges was only a little less than ten kilometres as the crow flies, the difference in height between the latter and the top of the waterfall was so great, about a thousand meters, that the rail meandered abundantly to ease the descent while the train had to slow down to travel safely. If they remembered correctly what had been said during one of the meetings, the couple knew that the crossing of the gorges would take two hours. It was the longest stage of the trip to the coast.

Crawling in front of his two companions, Owen stopped when he reached a skylight and stopped Claire and Franklin with a hand gesture. He turned his head towards them, put his index finger in front of his mouth and then pointed it towards the skylight. He whispered:

"Guards."

He began to crawl around the skylight cautiously, and Claire and Franklin copied his example.

Beneath them, Fanny awaited Theo's return while some of the guards tended to their injured comrades with the help of two veterinary assistants. The captive Gavilanes had been seated in a corner, and one of the guards was watching him. The mercenary, seated nearby, also kept an eye on the gangster.

"You're a veterinarian, not a doctor," one of the injured whined while one of the assistant veterinarians approached him. "Where is the nurse?!"

"Stay quiet. Some dinosaurs are more cooperative than you!" The assistant retorted

Once the guards' carriage was behind them, Claire, Owen and Franklin sped up. Between them and the Midway cars, characterized by the presence of two decks, there were four freight cars. They got up and while trotting, they started to look for an access. Seeing almost none by the freight cars, just a locked skylight before the first Midway car, and preferring to enter the train as carefully as possible, they continued. They passed over the two Midway cars, found no skylights on the roof to possibly signal their presence to the keepers, continued and although there were several skylights on the cars beyond, they were either impossible to open without breaking the window, or they were too small for an adult person to pass through. They decided to go and try their luck by the tarped wagons located even further towards the front of the train.

At the same time, the locomotive reached the entrance to a tunnel dug into the slopes and one after another the wagons disappeared into the darkness and when it was the turn of theirs, a freight car located behind the tarped wagons, Claire, Owen and Franklin flattened out. The crossing of the tunnel was very short however, only a few seconds, and as soon as it was behind them, the trio got up and resumed their advance. But soon after, they froze when they saw about twenty dark human figures moving quickly on top of transport containers about two hundred meters away. A dozen of them were heading towards the locomotive, the rest in the opposite direction, jumping from container to container.

"Who the fuck are those guys?!" Claire wondered, in a voice that mixed surprise and fear.

The strangers indeed seemed to have appeared out of thin air as there was nothing on top of that part of the train a minute earlier. The couple quickly realized they must have jumped on the train at the tunnel's exit and remembering Rankin's words about the rest of his team, they knew it had to be the latter. The Shitpiercer was once more threatened.

They briefly considered getting in the way of these new assailants, before remembering that they only had Owen's knife as a weapon, as they had left the others in the jeep, not to mention the fact that the boarders were too numerous. Confront them openly would be madness, while the first of the Midway cars was about forty meters behind them. The boarders would be upon them before they could reach it and warn the passengers. They had to hide, but where? Since the guards' car, they had seen no platform on which to descend before entering inside the train through a door, as it was articulated by bogies on this portion, in order to allow an easier movement of passengers.

As he just came up with an idea, Owen took out his knife, bit the handle and while keeping it in his mouth, he went to hang on the edge of the wagon, urging his companions to copy his example. Once stabilized, the keeper took his knife and dug it into the tarp. As soon as he had created an opening big enough, he motioned for Claire and Franklin to go ahead.

One by one, they passed through it and landed against a transport cage similar to the one that had briefly contained Blue, with opaque walls featuring small holes. On the wagon's roof, they perceived a trampling, that of the boarders' feet as they ran. The sound of their running faded quickly and not hearing anyone open the door to flush them out, the trio let out a sigh of relief. But awakened by the noise, the animal contained in the cage let out an irritated hiss. By reflex, Franklin, then stuck against the cage, recoiled but Owen immobilized him. Behind them, there was no wall but only a tarp. If they leaned against it too much, the keeper feared they would enlarge the tear and end up tipping backwards, off the train. Peering into the holes, they saw a bipedal dinosaur between five and six meters long, with a bright red body with dark stripes, a white belly and yellow spots: An adult Herrerasaurus. Continuing to hiss, the animal had its mouth ajar, showing off its blue mouth and tongue. In the same wagon, there were two other similar cages, with each also containing an adult Herrerasaurus.

Hesitating between continuing to the head of the train to find Torres or turning around to help the passengers repel the new attackers, the trio remained hidden for a moment between the cage and the tarp.

Dressed entirely in black, hooded and wearing ski goggles, the twelve boarders running towards the back of the train were not Gavilanes but members of another gang that Jeremy Rankin had recruited: The Black Monkeys. Arriving on the Midway cars, four stopped and looked for entrances while the other eight continued. When they passed on the freight cars between the Midway cars and that of the guards, their steps were heard by Fanny, who was then in the process of joining the centre of the train. She took out her phone and called Theo.

"You'd better turn back," she told him. "I think we've got company..."

But before all the passengers could be warned, the eight companions of the four Black Monkeys stopped at the Midway wagons arrived at the guards' carriage. After spotting the doors, they first blocked them, then smashed the skylight and threw smoke grenades inside the car, startling the guards and the other people inside. At the Midway cars, their four accomplices also took action, entering the train without throwing smoke grenades however, having deemed it unnecessary. Like the guards, the keepers and veterinarians were taken by surprise.

"We have to help them fend off these guys," Owen declared.

"I know, but Torres is on the other end. We have an opportunity, let's reach him while we can," Claire argued. "If we help them, who says the guards won't arrest us afterwards? Once in their grasp, we won't be able to do anything... Torres will have us thrown to the crocodiles! Let's catch him before we get caught!

Her boyfriend looked in the direction of the Midway cars.

"Fuck…" he hissed.

"Guys? Wouldn't it be better if we stay hidden here? Franklin asked them.

"No," Owen replied.

"We must keep going," Claire said.

But just as they were about to leave their hiding place, someone approached, coming from the next car. The trio remained crouched in the half-light between the herrerasaur's cage and the tarp. They heard a radio crackle.

"We're under attack!" someone shouted.

Knowing that it was probably a guard, the couple and Franklin hoped to not be flushed out.

"We're being attacked?! Again?!" Alexander Singer asked in a fearful voice.

"I'm afraid so," Torres replied.

"Alexander, hide in the toilet," Horatio said authoritatively to the Dinosaur Protection Group's founder.

He didn't need to be asked and went to the toilets at the back of their car, just behind the generator car.

"Hide too, Mr. Bingham," Torres suggested to the keeper, who was acting as head keeper since Juan had stayed at Site D.

However, the Englishman had already taken a pistol and joined the InGen soldier and the three guards, none other than the Pierre-John-Henry trio, who were preparing to leave the car in order to help the besieged. Torres had ordered the other soldier in the room to stay with him.

"My colleagues and the animals are threatened. I won't sit idly by," Horatio replied.

The soldier nodded to Henry, and the latter opened the door.

"Let's go!" The soldier shouted as he rushed out of the carriage, followed by the three guards and the keeper.

But no sooner had he opened the door that he was shot in the head by a sniper lying on top of a large container beyond a long flatcar which should have accommodated the containers of two of the carnotaurs. The soldier collapsed and as half a dozen Black Monkeys, accompanied by two men armed with assault rifles, ran towards their wagon, John and Horatio dragged the body of the soldier away from the door. Pierre and Henry immediately closed the latter and barricaded it while the attackers tried to break it down. Soon they heard the Black Monkeys climbing onto the car. The InGen employees looked at the windows on either side of them. If they stayed there, they were going to be surrounded.

"To the generator-car! Fall back!" Torres shouted.

He, Horatio, Alexander, the three guards, and the remaining soldier exited the passenger wagon and entered the generator car, with the latter firing at the Monkeys who were entering the wagon through the windows and skylights, managing to shoot one down.

While returning to the central wagons, Theo and Brice saw the Black Monkeys on the top of the guards' carriages.

"Am I dreaming or there's fucking ninjas on this carriage?!" Theo exclaimed, flabbergasted.

"Worse, yamakasis!" Brice said after seeing one making acrobatics. "You just need hookers and Audis and you'll think you're in something produced by Luc Besson! I think Costa Rica could do without a French import like this one."

They heard the trapped guards' shouts. Keeping his rifle in one hand, Theo drew his pistol and handed it to Brice.

"I'm going in. You know how to use this?" he asked him.

The veterinarian took the gun, checked its magazine, and turned the safety off.

"Of course I know how to use a weapon. Let me remind you that I'm a veterinarian."

Theo nodded.

"If you have to use it, imagine that they're rabid dogs you need to put down."

Then the mercenary dashed towards the wagon of the guards.

At the front of the train, Marion Grewal, an athletic woman of Indian descent, slung her sniper rifle over her shoulder and climbed down from the container to join Dorian Faraday and Eric Aubrey, her two companions, at the entrance of the passenger car. Aubrey, a tall and slender blond with an elegant moustache, turned towards her.

"They went to hide in the generator car," he told her.

Inside the wagon, Faraday, a man of medium height but broad-shouldered and a little well padded, gazed at the Black Monkeys gathered near him.

"Come on, you macaques! Climb on the roof and take control of the locomotive! Hurry up, we don't have all evening!" He yelled at them.

As the Monkeys complied, Grewal and Aubrey went to join Faraday and the trio of British mercenaries moved cautiously into the generator car.

Having just seen a tear in the tarp on his left, behind one of the transport cages, the InGen guard turned on his flashlight and began to walk around the cage.

Just as the beam of his lamp was about to illuminate the couple and Franklin, he heard another noise to his right, coming from the next wagon, and turned his head in that direction.

"Stop!" He shouted while raising his weapon. "Stop or..."

He collapsed before finishing his sentence and from his hiding place, the trio saw one of the boarders join the lying guard. The thug stared straight ahead for a brief moment, then dragged the guard between two cages. In a hurry, he didn't try to hide it between the cages and the tarp, and thus he didn't see Claire, Owen and Franklin. The Black Monkey then passed into the next wagon and the trio heard him move away. Owen crawled up to the guard and leaning over him, he saw that he had a dart stuck in his neck. He then put his fingers on the latter and was reassured to find a pulse, although it was weak. He then returned to Claire and Franklin.

After making sure that there were no other guards in the next tarped wagons, the Black Monkey walked back through the one where the fugitives were hiding and returned to the Midway wagons, where things were not going as planned.

Indeed, the keepers and veterinarians didn't intend to give up without a fight and after some trickery from them, the three Monkeys who remained there were caught off guard. At three against thirty, they were outnumbered and one had already been neutralized. While Marisol tackled him to the ground, her colleagues tied up the thug who moved like a calf just caught by a cowboy. Meanwhile, the other two, soon joined by the one seen by the trio of fugitives, were fighting hand-to-hand against other keepers and vets. Although they did not hold back their blows, they did not use their pistols, knives, or shurikens against the civilians, as if they did not wish to kill or seriously injure them. Rather, they were looking to get out of the fray to flee. The keepers and the vets were lucky that the Black Monkeys seemed to follow a code of honour because the situation would not have been the same against Gavilanes.

In the guards' car, the situation was just as chaotic. While the guards were looking to get out of the smoky carriage, the Gavilanes undid his bonds and began to lash out at his captors, attacking them with a knife he had stolen. To better protect himself from the smoke, the gangster had thought of raising his scarf up to his nose and was therefore a little more comfortable than the coughing panicked InGen employees. However, they pulled themselves together and tried to stop the thug, who had already stabbed one of their own. It was then that six of the eight Monkeys entered the car through the skylight and joined the fray.

Suddenly there was a crash on the roof, then a second and they saw one of the Monkeys fall from the train, land in the middle of the bushes next to the rail and begin to slide down in the gorge. Having noticed this, one of the Monkeys came out through the skylight to see who had shot his comrades. He was also neutralized in the next second.

Soon, someone started banging hard on the door and eventually kicked it down. While fighting one of the Monkeys, Valentine Taylor saw that it was Theo. As most of the InGen guards and the two assistant vets rushed out of the carriage, the English mercenary walked over to the nearest Monkey, grabbed him and knocked him after punching him hard in the face. Due to this unexpected turn of events, the Monkeys changed their strategy and the three still standing began a retreat, leaping nimbly from the benches to reach the skylight but Theo shot one in the back before he could get out. One of the other two wanted to shoot the guards fleeing the wagon but he was suddenly shot in the shoulder and very much in pain, he knelt down and screamed. The last guards were surprised to see that the shooter, posted at the entrance of the tarped wagon which followed that of the guards, was Brice.

"What are you waiting for? Tie up that asshole!" The vet ordered them.

Inside the wagon, Theo's eyes fell on the body of the Gavilanes, inadvertently killed in the melee. Suddenly, the mercenary felt a searing pain in his chest and saw that a shuriken thrust in it. With a grunt, he took it off and looked up at the skylight, above which the last Monkey was staring at him. The latter fled and after letting out a curse, Theo gave chase, getting out of the carriage to climb on the roof. The Monkey, who was heading towards the front of the train, was already well ahead.

In the middle of the train, two of the Monkeys had ended up cornered by the keepers in an animal transport wagon, just before the two Midway cars.

"Get them!" One of the keepers shouted.

While one of the thugs opened the sliding door behind them, the other bought time for him by confronting the approaching group of keepers, consisting of Alfredo, Pasqual, Nala and Mark. The four of them threw themselves on the Monkey, who did not have the time to retaliate properly, but the other managed to open the door. He looked outside. The train was taking a ledge and just beyond the edge of the railway, the ground formed almost a sheer drop. If he decided to jump, he would have to be very careful. If he jumped too far and/or at the wrong time, he could tumble all the way down to the bottom of the gorge. It was then that Mark, repelled by the other Monkey, inadvertently jostled him.

"Entschuldigung!" the German keeper exclaimed.

Startled, the thug lost his balance, tipping out of the Shitpiercer. He could only cling at the very last moment with one hand to the outside handle of the wagon's door. With Nala, Alfredo, and Pasqual subduing the other Monkey, Mark stood by the open door, unsure what to do about the thug hanging over the edge of the cliff. Should he help him despite the fact that he was among the attackers or should he make him fall, and be responsible for his death? Very uncomfortable with the idea of dooming another man to death, Mark reached out his hand to the Black Monkey.

As he just wanted to survive, the masked man attempted to grab it with his free hand, going as far as trying to swing towards the keeper. His head being turned towards the latter, he did not see the large branch jutting towards the rail.

"Watch out!" Mark shouted.

But it was too late and the thug hit the branch head-on and let go of the door handle. Given the speed at which the train was traveling and the dimensions of the branch, thicker than a bodybuilder's arm, the keeper feared the blow had seriously injured or killed the Black Monkey, who now laid motionless on the edge of the railway, threatening to slide towards the sheer drop at any moment.

"Scheiße!"

Locked in a cage a few feet away, the juvenile Baryonyx stared at him with wide, astonished eyes.

Meanwhile, Allison and Judd had chased another of the Black Monkeys. When they were about to catch up with him in the wagon which followed the two Midway cars, one which contained the Pelicanimimus' transport crates, the thug turned around and seeing that they were alone, he wanted to intimidate them by making a whole series of lively gestures with his hands which they believed to be some sort of martial art figures. Those were interrupted when a sudden detonation sounded and blood spurted from the Black Monkey's skull. Then the latter collapsed dead in front of the keepers who only noticed then that Fanny had joined them. Too shocked to react, Allison and Judd looked at the mercenary, who was standing behind the fallen thug. She looked at him and in a blasé voice, she said:

"Yeah yeah, we got it... You should avoid wasting your time like that in your next life, you lousy show-off..."

She then raised her gun vertically and blew on the end of its barrel. That's when they heard someone running on the roof.

Chased by Theo, then several wagons behind, the fleeing Black Monkey passed the Midway wagons and seeing a broken skylight in his path, he jumped into the opening left just before the mercenary could fire. Landing in sight of Mark, Alfredo, Pasqual and Nala, he got up immediately to resume his flight. The two Costa Ricans and the Kenyan decided to chase him, leaving the German with the Monkey they had neutralized, instructing him to take her to the Midway wagons.

Seconds earlier, Claire, Owen and Franklin had decided to leave their hiding place near the cage to go to the front of the train. But hardly had they had the time to pass the two other Herrerasaurus cages as well as a third in the next wagon that they had to hide again when they heard the Monkey arriving.

Although he saw them disappear behind one of the large transport cages, the Costa Rican gangster ignored them and continued. Half a dozen wagons from the one with the broken skylight, the fugitive stopped to turn around. Seeing that the three keepers were quite far behind and thinking that the mercenary must be even further behind, he knew that he had time to accomplish a misdeed. Their attack may have failed, but the Monkey did not intend to leave without complicating the passengers' trip. He had stopped in this specific wagon after hearing a hoot in a large cage to his left. Noticing that the cage's opening was controlled by a box, he hastened to sabotage it.

When Nala and her two Costa Rican colleagues entered this wagon, the Black Monkey managed to open the cage's door and immediately fled, going outside and taking care to close it behind him, so force the cage's occupant to go only in one direction. The keepers initially wanted to rush to the cage to close it before it was too late but seeing the end of the occupant's rather thin jaws as well as its long teeth, they refrained and knew that it would be suicide . They had to consider another strategy and for now, falling back was the best thing to do. They began to back away, slowly, making as little noise as possible, hoping to not trigger the predator's attack. Hearing them move away and driven by curiosity towards this new environment which the train was, the predator left its cage entirely and the keepers, then a wagon away from it, froze in horror for a moment. It was one of the dilophosaurs, Zaza. Nala, Alfredo and Pasqual were aware that she could, at any moment, not only dash and catch up with them quickly, but also spit venom on them. They resumed their retreat and with the door to her right closed, the dilophosaur moved in the opposite direction, slowly, cocking her head sideways to watch the retreating keepers.

Hidden behind a transport cage two wagons from that of the dilophosaurs, Claire, Owen and Franklin saw the three keepers backing towards the centre of the train. Seeing that they seemed to be holding their breath and their eyes were wide, the fugitives wondered what was causing their dread. Was it one of the boarders? Or something else?

A snort, coming from the cage which separated the two trios, startled them. Peering through the holes, Claire saw a quadruped animal the size of a hippopotamus, with a pinkish underside and a midnight blue upperside tinged with moss green. The skull, long and massive with a purple-mottled face, was its most striking feature, as it had several sets of horn-like structures growing on the sides of the head while the maw contained large canines. It was Clafoutis the Estemmenosuchus, a synapsid from the Permian era, a creature older than the dinosaurs. Due to its strong smell, comparable to that of swamp or compost, Franklin kept one hand in front of his nostrils and mouth. It was then that they heard the Dilophosaurus' characteristic soft hoot and the dread felt by the three keepers spread to the fugitives.

While Alfredo, Pasqual, and Nala moved on to the next car, the Dilophosaurus arrived by the Estemmenosuchus' cage. Picking up new smells, the dinosaur turned its head towards the cage and approached its nostrils from it. Fearing that she would flush them out, Owen pulled out his knife, a derisory weapon against an adult Dilophosaurus. The latter began to sniff with vivacity but irritated by her presence, the Estemmenosuchus emitted a dull growl before striking the walls of its cage with its skull. Surprised, Zaza stepped back, hissed and unfolded her frill for a short moment before folding it back. Due to the mammalian reptile's strong scent, she had difficulty distinguishing those much weaker of Claire, Owen, and Franklin. She decided to ignore the cage and what it could hide.

Suddenly, the Dilophosaurus heard someone stumble and looked back at the keepers. One of them, Alfredo, had just tripped over one of the cables which stabilized one of the Herrerasaurus cages. The predator's gaze was fixed on the keeper with the goatee, and aware of their situation's precariousness, Pasqual and Nala hastened to help their colleague to get up and to run for their lives. The Dilophosaurus spat, but the venom only crashed two or three meters behind the keepers. The predator changed her strategy and instead lunged forward to run after them.

As soon as she was far enough away for her liking, Claire saw an opportunity and snuck out of their hiding place. Followed by Owen and Franklin, she rushed to the Dilophosaurs' wagon.

While she has had left the herrerasaurs' wagon behind her, Zaza heard them and stopped to look behind her and hesitated for a short moment between the two trios. With the couple and the IT technician being too far away, she finally decided to resume her pursuit of the keepers, who were still running and were about to escape her. Their objective was to reach the Midway cars because the first, unlike the wagons they had to cross, had a door which was theoretically capable of holding back an adult Dilophosaurus.

Two wagons away, Mark and other keepers were crowded together.

"Don't stay there!" Alfredo shouted at them.

The German and his colleagues went into the first Midway car, and one of them decided to prepare the door. He pulled on it but it did not come and remained blocked. After trying again unsuccessfully, he let out a curse.

"The door is jammed!" he screamed.

Having heard him, Alfredo, Pasqual and Nala redoubled their efforts and the others had to fall back beyond the next door, the one between the second Midway car and the Pelicanimimus' wagon.

Alerted by his comrade and having lost the Monkey, Theo decided to abandon the pursuit and turned back, returning to the Midway cars. If he had decided otherwise, he would have seen Claire, Owen and Franklin get out of the Dilophosaurs' wagon and climb onto the container transported by the preceding wagon. Between it and the passenger car behind the generator car, a small score of transport containers were lined up and attentive eyes would have seen the fleeing Monkey running up them towards the locomotive. From where he was, the latter saw one of his comrades fall from the locomotive.

Seeing that the passenger car was open, the Monkey rushed into it and saw the three English mercenaries beyond the opposite end, at the entrance of the generator car. While Aubrey and Grewal were backed against a wall, Faraday was shooting at the defenders.

"They repelled us!" the Costa Rican announced.

Aubrey sighed.

"What happened?!" he questioned him.

"We were taken by surprise by one of the mercenaries. The Gavilanes did their job poorly!"

Faraday turned to the masked thug.

"Well you too obviously! So join your colleagues and help them take the defenders from behind!" He ordered him

The Monkey nodded and headed for the exit.

"We have to gain ground! Hurry up!" Faraday growled.

Half leaning against one side of the carriage, Alfredo, Pasqual and Nala caught their breaths while Judd and another stood close to the door of the Midway car, listening to Zaza on the other side. Behind them, the other employees were agitated while Fanny wondered how they were going to solve this predicament.

"We've got nothing to tranq her!" Mark suddenly exclaimed. "The rifles and doses are on the other side."

"Shit…" Marisol grumbled.

"How are we going to do this?" Allison wondered fearfully.

"Wait, you're saying you can't neutralize her?" The mercenary asked.

"We need someone to go in the car and take them," Alfredo suggested.

"It would be a suicide mission. We can only succeed if someone distracts her," Pasqual pointed out.

When some started looking at her, Fanny shook her head.

"I've seen what those nasty creatures can do. I wouldn't volunteer unless you offered me a big reward, and I doubt you'd be able to have one ready for me with your keeper's salaries," she told them.

"InGen is paying you to keep us safe," Alfredo reminded her.

"That doesn't mean we're cannon fodder!" The mercenary retorted, with her tone getting angry.

"Dinosaur fodder actually…" Judd corrected her.

Fanny let out a groan.

"We'll see what we can do with Theo. Think of a plan in the meantime. You know this animal personally, I don't. Is it still behind the door?"

"No, she's moved away…" someone replied.

Still walking back up the train, Theo passed by the skylight the Monkey had jumped out of during the chase. With the dusk light fading, the mercenary had difficulty seeing if there was anything in the wagon below him and although Fanny had warned him about the escaped Dilophosaurus, he leaned over the skylight to look inside the carriage. Suddenly, darkness fell around Theo as they passed through a tunnel. The light returned a few seconds later, but in the carriage's darkness, Theo could make out the sinister silhouette of a long and rather narrow head with twin crests.

"Oh shit..."

He barely started getting up when a ball of dark substance crashed on his chest. The Dilophosaurus spat on him.

Not intending to give her the time to aim for his face, Theo preferred to fall back on his buttocks in order to be out of reach of the Dilophosaurus. He hurriedly crawled back a meter or two on the carriage's roof, then stopped to stare at the venom splattered on his shirt.

"Lovely…" he sighed.

He got to his feet, carefully walked around the skylight and continued, passing over the Midway carriages. Several cars beyond them, he saw a group of InGen guards moving on the roofs.

Reaching the wagon where the keepers and veterinarians had taken refuge, Theo stopped at the first skylight on his way and opened it. Fearing that it might be another boarder, the InGen employees had immediately turned, projectiles in hand. With a hand gesture, Fanny invited them to relax.

"You're there," Theo noticed. "No deaths on your side?"

"Nope. I don't know how things are going in other parts of the train but we're all alive here," Marisol answered.

They saw the spit on his chest.

"I see you've met Zaza," the Costa Rican keeper remarked.

"Zaza?" Theo repeated.

"She made you a widower's tie," Judd observed. "You got lucky. One facial and you would have been blind."

"You called that bitch Zaza?" The English mercenary asked them in an incredulous tone.

"I can't let you say she's a bitch, you Schweinehund!" Mark replied. "Do you have a problem with this name?"

"Whether her name is Zaza, Bessie, or Hostile 17, I'm afraid we'll have to kill her," Theo said.

"Kill her? That's out of the question!" Mark protested. "Blaeda depp! Hurensohn!"

"She's a threat for this entire bloody train," Theo retorted. "She needs to be dealt with before someone opens one of the doors and lets her escape. The ACU might be able to track her down but who guarantees they'll find her before she kills someone out there?"

"We have to put her back in her cage, we agree on that!" Marisol said. "What we mean is that there are alternatives to bullets."

Fanny intervened:

"They're right, Theo. Our job consists a bit in escorting those animals. InGen won't be happy if we kill one while its death could have been avoided."

"Then why don't you volunteer, Fanny?"

"Because you're already on the roof and I'm too small to reach it," his comrade replied casually.

"Du bisd doch z blaed zum sheissn," Mark muttered, looking at Theo with contempt.

"What did you just say, you effeminate Bavarian?" the Londoner growled.

"Nothing important…"

"You just need to make her move away from the rifles and the tranquilizers in the car you just passed... Try to lure her into a dead end," Marisol explained.

"In a dead end?!" Theo repeated. "She's not going to offer me to play cards you know."

"Pray for us to arrive in time," Alfredo told him.

"Great! And how do I protect myself from her spits? I don't want to end up like Stevie Wonder!"

"Take that!"

They threw him the balaclava and the ski goggles of the Monkey killed by Fanny.

"And if you see anything that can be used as a shield, take it," Judd advised him. "Dilophosaurs spit but also kick. And like kangaroos, they can knock you down… in addition to gutting you."

As Fanny looked at Judd oddly, a little embarrassed that he had used the word shield in Theo's presence, the latter made a barely perceptible nod.

"Find an improvised shield, noted," he said in a neutral tone.

Judd then asked him to help him climb on the roof, because he, Nala and a few others were planning to split up at the skylights between this carriage and the one where the other Dilophosaurus was still locked up. They wished him well, and as he strode atop the dilophosaurs' wagon, Valentine Taylor and several other guards ran past him, weapons in hand. Noticing their haste, Theo knew that the locomotive and Torres' wagon were probably under attack as well, and that it was pointless for him to ask for help with the Dilophosaur's situation. He watched them walk away.

Laying on their stomachs on top of the large shipping container within sight of the locomotive and the first two wagons, Claire, Owen and Franklin watched helplessly the head of the train being besieged. Gunshots echoed inside the carriages and they had seen one of the Monkeys fall from the train after trying to enter the locomotive. As the fight's outcome seemed uncertain, the trio were reluctant to continue.

'Torres is probably entrenched either in the locomotive or in the generator car. Let's take advantage of the fact that his guards are busy with the attackers. We'll take the roof and grab the weapons of whomever we come across," Claire said.

Just as she was about to straighten up to get out of the container, Owen grabbed her arm.

"Torres is beyond our reach. Crossing this shootout would be suicide," he pointed out. "Do you want to take a stray bullet?!"

"I agree with him," Franklin said.

Claire looked towards the locomotive without saying anything for a moment and realizing that her boyfriend was right, she struck the top of the container with her fist.

"Dammit!" she swore.

"And we wouldn't have had time," the IT technician added.

Turning around, the couple saw that he was looking behind them. Further behind, they saw a group of guards going up the train, jumping from container to container.

The trio couldn't move forward, backward, or jump off the train. They were still in the gorge, in the middle of nowhere. They had no idea where the nearest village was, or even if there were roads nearby. If they ever got lost while trying to get out of the gorges, they would be in trouble, especially since they had no water or food. They were cornered.

"Shit!" Claire hissed.

Calculating the guards' speed, Owen knew they would be upon them shortly and that they had time to seek a hiding place only by the container they were on. They could hide between it and the one behind, but one of the guards just had to decide to look down and they would be spotted. It was very risky and surrender seemed to be the best possible solution from the Raptor Whisperer's perspective, even if it literally meant walking into the lion's den. Unless…

Half a dozen meters behind them, a hatch opened inside the container. Owen turned around, crawled over to it, and seeing that he could open it in time if he hurried, he hailed his companions.

"Over here!"

They crawled up to him and given the container's large dimensions, a dozen meters long and about three high, Claire knew that it had to house either one large animal or several medium-sized animals. Apprehensively, she leaned over the hatch and seeing which one was contained below them, she opened her mouth and shook her head slightly.

"No, you have to be kidding me…" she complained.

Noticing in turn the approach of the InGen guards, one of the Monkeys saw fit to inform his accomplices.

"Guards are coming!"

Struggling to make progress in the generator car, Rankin's three mercenaries were still exchanging fire with the defenders. Taking advantage of the fact that he was protected and that Aubrey and Grewal were covering him, Faraday was pensive for a brief moment.

"All of you, get out! Slow them down!" He ordered the Monkeys.

The Costa Ricans obeyed and then he motioned for Grewal to get out of the van and try to take the defenders from behind. Maybe she would have a better chance than the Monkeys.

The remaining four left the front of the train and headed towards the guards. When they passed over the large container, the couple and Franklin had already disappeared.

After a brief exchange of fire during which one of their own fell, the Monkeys charged the guards and a hand-to-hand fight broke out atop the container of Boomer the Metriacanthosaurus, two wagons from where the fugitives had disappeared. Hearing the noise, the dinosaur woke up and curiously looked towards the hatch on the roof. When the arm of one of the guards, that of Valentine, passed between its bars, the predator suddenly straightened up and opened its jaws to grab it. But they closed in the air, as Valentine had pulled out his arm just in time. Frustrated, Boomer growled. However, another arm passed between the bars and in the blink of an eye, the Metriacanthosaurus grabbed it, tugged a little and ripped it off, causing its owner to scream in pain.

Standing a few feet from the hatch, Valentine was defeating one of the Monkeys. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the one who had just been amputated trying to straighten up and raise his pistol with his remaining hand, but one of the guards shot him in the head. As for the last of the thugs, he was projected out of the train with a well-placed kick.

On the generator car's roof, Grewal witnessed the Monkeys' defeat and immediately informed her two comrades.

"The Monkeys are KO! We're going to be sandwiched!"

In her earpiece, Faraday growled:

"Jeremy isn't going to be happy. We clear off!"

While the InGen guards closed in, Grewal looked to the right of the rail. Amidst dense vegetation, the terrain sloped steeply. She began to calculate her jump and when bullets started to whistle around them, she darted towards the trees and was greeted by the lashing of foliage before landing on a branch.

Faraday and Aubrey also jumped off the train and disappeared from the defenders' sight as they slid down the steep slope among trees and brush. Once at a respectable distance from the rail, the two mercenaries tried to slow their descent and clung to the first rock or tree they came across.

Her situation on the branch being precarious, Grewal wanted to fix it by reaching for the tree to which she belonged but just as she began to move, the branch cracked under her weight and with a scream of surprise, she began to slide down the slope.

"Marion!" Aubrey shouted.

While the fall dragged her towards a steep cliff a bit further down, she was fortunately caught by Faraday.

"I've got you, sister," he said.

Her fall interrupted, Grewal was able to stabilize her feet and find grips for her hands. Once out of danger, she thanked Faraday with a nod. Without him, she would have ended up in the bottom of the gorge.

Meanwhile, Theo was carrying out the mission entrusted to him. Although the Monkey's balaclava and ski goggles protected his face and eyes from any eventual venom splash, the mercenary was far from feeling safe and without any shame, he would have admitted that he was scared. He glanced over his shoulder at the door at the other end of the dilophosaurs' wagon. As he made his way towards the Midway cars, he looked at the large cages to his left, considering going to take refuge behind them as soon as he would be spotted by the crested dinosaur. He hoped to find in time a corner wide enough for him but also narrow enough to not let Zaza reach him, which was far from easy, as dilophosaurs were rather thin for their size.

The mercenary passed through the Estemmenosuchus' wagon, then that of the adult herrerasaurs, where he saw the body of the guard behind one of the cages, the one that the fugitives had seen when they were hidden. Thinking he had been killed by Monkeys and having other priorities, Theo didn't stop to check him. He finally arrived at the four wagons which separated them from the two Midways cars and on either side of the central aisle, transport crates were lined up. They were smaller than the cages seen by Theo shortly before, but as he didn't cared about their contents, he did not linger to look inside their sides' small holes and their occupants, small carnivores, contented themselves to chirp, coo, or hiss when the mercenary passed by. Whereas the crates of the first two small carnivore wagons were large enough to hold an animal the size of a panther or a wolf, those of the third of these wagons were a bit smaller, containing animals the size of a lynx or a medium-sized dog. In one of those, Kim, the female Velociraptor which had caused so much trouble the day the couple and the DPG trio arrived, peered at Theo with wary eyes.

Following a series of bends until then, the train arrived on a more or less straight section of rail and when it was the turn of that part of the train, the small carnivores wagons and those following them ended up aligned, which allowed Theo to see up to the first Midway car. In the one before the latter, he saw the Dilophosaurus, leaning towards one of the cages. The mercenary immediately hid behind an obstacle, as he didn't want to be spotted before the right moment. From his hiding place, he heard a hiss, not that of his target but that of the cage's occupant, the young Baryonyx, probably worried by the proximity of the large crested predator.

Turning around, Theo spotted the wagon's skylight and discreetly, he went to position himself below and above it, he saw Nala. She looked at him and he started a countdown with one of his hands. Once he got to zero, he coughed and stamped his foot before stepping back.

Hearing the noise, Zaza raised her head and turned it towards the front of the wagon. Curious, she left the young Baryonyx and went to investigate the noise's source, approaching Theo who had just crouched behind a crate.

Standing above the Baryonyx wagon's skylight, Judd saw Zaza leave and yelled:

"She's taking the bait!"

At the next skylight, one of the temp keepers repeated the message, shouting it to another at the following skylight and so on, relaying it to the skylight on top of the wagon where the bulk of the keepers and vets were. If they had decided to proceed like this instead of letting Theo text Fanny, it was because they feared that a sudden lack of phone signal would ruin their plan.

"Go!" Marisol ordered the temp veterinarian who had volunteered to fetch the tranquilizer.

He opened the door of the Midway car and dashed quickly and nimbly towards the opposite side of the car, where the suitcases containing the tranquilizers' doses were. Theo prayed that he would return to his colleagues in time, so that they could close the door and prepare the tranquilizer while he remained hidden, expecting to reveal himself only when they would come out, in order to distract the Dilophosaurus while the InGen employees would shoot at it.

Alas, Zaza heard the vet and turned away from the mercenary's hiding place. Seeing that the keepers had opened the door, she immediately rushed in that direction. Theo let out a curse.

"She's coming back!" They warned the volunteer.

Having just slung one of the tranquilizer guns, the temp vet grabbed one of the suitcases and turned around, rushing towards his colleagues while the Dilophosaurus crossed the other Midway wagon. Too busy running, Zaza didn't spit, relying on her speed and her teeth to grab one of the humans. The temp reached the threshold of the door, but just as they were about to close it, it was blocked by the front of the Dilophosaurus body. The keeper holding the door tried to prevent her from entering with all his strength, but it was in vain as a simple sideways push from the dinosaur pushed the door back and sent the keeper slamming into the wall behind him. Stunned, he collapsed to the ground and after crossing the threshold, Zaza immediately spat venom towards the group of employees massed a few meters from her, splattering the neck and lower face of one of the temps with black substance. Panicked, he cried out and began to gesticulate, hurrying to remove the venom from his skin. In their crates, the Pelecanimimus stirred in fear and some of the temporary workers, losing their composures in the face of a rampaging dinosaur, fled. In the ensuing melee, Mark was only narrowly able to grab the gun and the briefcase, as the vet who retrieved them ended up yielding in to fear. While the Dilophosaurus hissed and reared upright with her frill extended, preparing to pounce toward the nearest employees, pounding sounds were heard. Those coming from behind her, Zaza stopped, wondering what was causing them. It was then that someone whistled at her.

"Oi! Cunthead!"

The Dilophosaurus turned around and saw Theo in the passage between the two Midway cars. Having deemed it too cumbersome, he had put his rifle not far away, thinking that his handgun would be enough should the worst happen. Taking advantage of this, the keepers and veterinarians still in the wagon moved away from her.

"Face someone of your size!" The mercenary added while making big moves and hitting the nearest metal wall.

Zaza heard a door close, the one between the Pelicanimimus' wagon and the next one. The keepers and veterinarians had escaped her. The crested dinosaur hissed in displeasure and angered by the pounding as well as the mercenary's attitude, she gave in to his provocation and rushed at him. He fled.

"Hurry up Mark!" He heard one of the keepers shout.

My life is in the hands of that Boche poof. I'm screwed, Theo thought while Zaza closed the distance between them.

Aware that she would catch up with him before he could open the door of the toilets at the end of the first Midway car, Theo suddenly turned, taking the stairs to the upper deck instead. The stairs being rather narrow and forming a sharp bend, he hoped she wouldn't dare take it. She proved him wrong by following him up the stairs, even though she climbed them with far more difficulty than he did, threatening to stumble with every step she took. Flabbergasted by this, Theo lost his concentration and stumbled against a step, knocking him forward. By the time he straightened up, Zaza's jaws were almost within reach of his feet. They darted forward, snapping just behind his heels. The mercenary reached the upper deck, stepping out on an aisle surrounded on both sides by luggage.

"Bollocks!" He groaned when he noticed that the aisle ended in a dead end.

Continuing, Theo stopped in the middle of the aisle and turned to face Zaza, which was finishing up the stairs. When she reached the top, she hissed and unfolded her frill, intending to intimidate him before striking.

While eyeing each other, the two adversaries studied their surroundings. Unlike the lower deck, the ceiling was too low to allow the dilophosaurus to stand upright and kick like a kangaroo and as her glands had to produce venom again, she had no choice but to use her jaws as weapons.

When she lunged forward and opened her mouth to bite him, Theo grabbed one of the bags next to him, a large silver duffel bag he had spotted seconds earlier. Noting that it was quite light, he put his arm through between the straps and the bag, lifting it up and brandished it like a shield just as Zaza projected her head forward to bite. When the teeth sank into the bag, the Dilophosaurus froze for a brief moment in surprise, then pulled her jaws back… before striking again, this time aiming for Theo's belly. He parried this new attack with the bag, hitting her from above. After hissing vehemently at this tougher-than-expected opponent, she backed up to the top of the stairs, and as Theo wondered what she was planning to do next, an idea sprung up in his mind.

If I could make her fall by dragging a suitcase in her path… She's tall but not very sturdy. By leaning on her and keeping her jaws closed, I might be able to hold on until the keepers' arrival...

He did not have time to execute it because she charged him without any warning and hitting him with full force, she knocked him down. Now on his back and unable to lift the bag in this position, he ended up entirely vulnerable. As the keepers weren't still there, he decided to draw his pistol with his free hand.

It's my life or hers!

But when he reached for his pistol, he realized it wasn't there.

I gave it to the vet…, he recalled.

Just when she wanted to lunge forward to bite him on the neck, Zaza staggered and Theo had just enough time to roll sideways before the Dilophosaurus collapsed on her side next to him. He noticed the presence of a hypodermic dart stuck in the dinosaur's neck and sitting up, he saw Mark and Brice at the top of the stairs. The first held the tranquilizer gun in his hands.

"Bitteschön," Mark said, looking at the surprised mercenary.

Theo looked at him oddly, ignoring the meaning of that word.

"It means you're welcome," the veterinarian explained, passing his colleague to lean over Zaza.

Mark then looked at the tranquilized predator.

"Oh… Schatzi…" he said plaintively.

Theo stood up, passed the keeper and the Dilophosaurus, then descended to the lower level. He found Fanny there and a group of employees passed them to take the stairs. One of the guards came to meet the two mercenaries, handing them a radio.

"Torres wants to talk to you," he informed them.

"Have you seen Mrs. Dearing or Mr. Grady and Mr. Webb?" The director of InGen Security abruptly asked the two mercenaries.

"I think I saw them in a jeep while the carnotaur dealt with the attackers," Theo said.

"And on the train?"

"We haven't seen them," Fanny said.

Torres let out a sigh and turned to Alexander Singer.

"I'm afraid Mr. Webb is in the hands of these dangerous individuals."

"Oh God…" The DPG founder huffed, worried for his colleague.

"That's all I wanted to know," Torres told the mercenaries. "Have some rest in the Midway cars. You'll meet your colleagues at the port."

Leaning back in the corner of the carriage and applying a piece of cloth to a scrape on his scalp, Horatio looked at Valentine and the three other guards standing in front of Torres. The keeper then turned to Alexander.

"Let's go see if the animals are okay," he proposed before grabbing a flashlight.

Torres looked at one of his subordinates.

"Go with them," he ordered.

The guard nodded and followed the two men out of the carriage. The director of InGen Security then asked the others to report.

"Is the rest of the train secure?" he asked.

"Yes sir. All the attackers we encountered have been neutralized," Valentine replied. "Several were taken prisoner."

"Good. Lock them up. They'll be taken care of once we're at the port."

One of Valentine's colleagues cleared his throat.

"What do we do with the bodies of those who died?"

"When we'll pass over the river, throw them overboard," Torres ordered quietly. "They'll feed the crocodiles and the fish. We don't have time to explain to the authorities what happened."

The guard swallowed.

"Yes, sir…"

"You may leave," Torres said in a more audible voice.

The three guards turned on their heels and left the carriage in their turn.

Climbing back up the ledge, Dorian Faraday, Marion Grewal and Eric Aubrey reached the rail, crossed it and went to rest under the trees on the other side. While Grewal and Aubrey inspected with their flashlights the minor injuries they had received during the assault and the slide, Faraday pulled out his phone and called Rankin.

"Jeremy. The train is still moving. We had to retreat. There were too many defenders."

"Fucking hell!" his boss exclaimed. "And the Monkeys?"

"All dead or captive. They were unable to deal with the guards and the keepers."

Rankin sighed audibly.

"Screw Padilla and Iglesia! Their men were worthless! Where are you?"

While Faraday relayed their current coordinates to him, they began to hear the roar of a helicopter. As a precaution, they went to hide deeper in the vegetation and turned off their lights. Listening carefully to the sound, Aubrey knew it was a large aircraft and his guess was confirmed when a Boeing Chinook in the colours of InGen Security passed by them, following the gorge downriver.

"Keep climbing, there's a road less than a mile from your position," Rankin informed them soon after. "We'll send you the extraction coordinates in a minute."

"Copy that. We're going," Faraday answered.

The mercenary put his phone away and as soon as his two companions were ready, he led them towards the extraction point. As they climbed the slope in front of them, they couldn't help thinking that if Rankin had incorporated Adrian Bentley, a decent element when he wasn't drunk, into the assault squad and left Doctor Scherrer somewhere safe before joining them too, they could have taken the front part of the train in time and make it derail.

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