Disclaimer: Jurassic World and the Jurassic Park franchise are the property of Universal Studios, Michael Crichton, Steven Spielberg and Colin Trevorrow. I own nothing from this story aside from the plot.
Authors Note: Greetings dear readers! and welcome to the first exciting chapter of Chaos Effect! For long time readers, sorry for the long delay in release. Been very busy with college internship for the past few months so I had to put this on the back-burner for a while.
I want to thank my beta readers who have been a big help in helping me polish this story, you guys know who you are.
Comments, criticism and suggestions are always welcome, I always love reading them.
Hope you all have a fantastic day and see you all in the next chapter.
INGEN Research Facility, Parts unknown.June 2017
"Team one entering paddock."
"Roger that." Came the reply from the radio. "Maintain radio silence from this point."
The gate in front of them swooshed open and Dennis Johnson, along with his teammates, advanced into the thick jungle before them. The door behind them closed and the team proceeded, Dennis taking point.
It was a dark, misty night. A slight breeze blew as the team trekked through.
Dennis was fit, middle aged, ex-military type. Exactly the kind of veteran the company needed apparently. He and his team were some of the best mercs money could buy.
"So, what's the op today D-man?" Charlotte, who was covering the six o' clock said, sweeping her M-60 machine gun around the area for targets.
"One of the fences broke down," He said, "Our objective is to tranquilize the animals so the maintenance crews can come in and fix that section, lethal force is a last resort."
"It's just a harmless dinosaur, what's the worse it could do, right?" That was Eric, the resident loudmouth.
"That "harmless" dinosaur you're talking about is a Velociraptor, and it's not alone, remember? They have a whole pack in here." Renee, their tech specialist snapped towards Eric. Then she went back to scanning the area with a tracker to find the location of the animals.
"Velocirapteryx, it's a Velocirapteryx. A hybrid between a Velociraptor and an Archeopteryx. About 16 feet long, 8 feet tall and insanely territorial." Austin, the ever present genius in the room. "Weren't you listening at orientation?"
Renee replied back, shrugging, "Yeah, whatever. I'm just in this for the paycheck, alright? So save that science lecture for a time where I give a damn."
"You should've been paying attention then, these things are dangerous. Eggheads clocked one going 50 miles an hour last week, they could kill you faster than you can blink."
"Then why do they still give us those lectures every time they make a new one of these things? God knows I lose focus after a quarter hour staring at those slides." Eric said in a matter of fact tone
Austin looked at him with a mixture of disbelief and disappointment, "What the hell are you complaining for? You want a brochure to make it easier for you?"
Charlotte piped in, "Still gives me the creeps though, what kind of park are they planning to run with these things?"
The question was left unanswered as the team trudged deeper into the jungle. Truthfully, none of them really cared, the company paid them well enough and since they have never negotiated with mercs before, they get double the flat rate of most mercs with generous bonuses and as long as the paychecks came in, it didn't really matter what they wanted to do with these dinos.
"Renee, progress report." Dennis said.
They arrived near an outcrop of trees, where the animals had marked their territory. Corpses of cows littered the forest floor, flesh stripped from the bone.
"Nothing yet, boss." She replied, looking at her scanner. "Maybe we should-"
But then, there was movement up ahead. It was fast but they could see that it was the unmistakable silhouette of a dinosaur.
Eric ran headfirst after it.
"I got movement! Engaging!"
"Eric, stick with the team!" Dennis yelled, following after him. The rest of the team followed suit.
Had he known what would happen, Dennis would have left the poor bastard alone.
Dennis ran towards him, but he lost sight of Eric, only hearing a scream and a burst of gunfire before he made it to where the other soldier ran to.
He swept his rifle around the area to find it. The trees in this zone were purplecone spruce trees, thick and tall and had a high concentration here, enough for an agile raptor to weave through and surprise him.
When the rest of the team caught up to him, they looked justifiably pissed off. All of them except for Renee, who was looking at her radar tracker with a fearful expression on her face.
"Boss, something's not right." There was a quiver in her voice and her hands were trembling. "Scanner says there's ten of them here."
"Where?" Dennis said.
"Here…"
He looked around, confused. "But there's nothing here. Unless…"
"Unless what?"
"Quiet," Austin cut in, voice barely above a whisper. "Anybody hear that?"
They examined the surroundings, hearing nothing but the wind blowing.
Except it wasn't.
The sound of what they thought was the wind blowing wasn't the wind at all. It was hissing.
The team looked upward, into the trees and they all froze.
Up in the trees, using their claws as anchors were a pack of angry Raptor hybrids.
Their bodies were thin and sleek, bone white in color with a thick red stripe running from the tip of the nose all the way over the back to the very end of the tail. This stripe was outlined by three thin black stripes, one on each side of the red stripe, and one running exactly over its center.
The area around the eye socket was pitch black and its eyes were so red you could barely see the pupil at the center.
The hands held fearsome claws with a third extremely long finger, with protrusions that looked like feathers and the feet had the traditional raptor sickle claw.
The raptors snarled and hissed as they looked down on them. Their jaw muscles pulled back to reveal razor sharp teeth that could rip flesh straight from the bone.
"Run, as fast as you can. Back to the gate, just run…." Dennis whispered, thumbing the safety off his M4 carbine and bringing it to bear on the animals.
His teammates burst into sprints heading for the gate just as the raptors dived down onto the forest floor. The former spec ops let off a burst of assault rifle fire but the raptors were undeterred, running towards him, overwhelming him in a flurry of teeth and claws that tore Dennis limb from limb.
The rest of the team ditched their gear as they ran through the forest trying to lighten their load but the raptors swiftly caught up to them.
Renee was the first to go, ambushed by two raptors attacked her from the sides.
Austin was next; he tried to hide in amongst some bushes but luck wasn't on his side. The raptors caught his scent
That left Charlotte as the lone survivor.
She was currently lost, stopping somewhere in the jungle to try and regain her bearings.
But her respite was short. Denise could hear the nearby bushes rustling with movement. She put her M-60 tight against her shoulder. Her palms were slick with sweat, beads of it rolled down her face as she snapped her machine gun to and fro.
It seemed like the damn things were everywhere. Either that or she was jumping at shadows.
Her senses were so on edge that a simple twig snap sent her into a frenzy, emptying the entire 300 round magazine of her machine gun into a random corner of the jungle.
Suddenly, she saw a blur of movement out of the corner of her eye and felt something knock her to the ground.
It was a raptor, ready to clamp its jaws into her neck.
She put her gun up just as it lunged forward, making it bite on unyielding steel instead. Denise took this opening to grab her combat knife from its sheath and stab it repeatedly in the throat.
The raptor flailed, blood pouring from the multiple stab wounds in its neck.
With the raptor down and out she ran for her life towards the security gate. Her heart hammered in her chest and her lungs were on fire as she tried to run towards safety.
She sighed with relief as the gate came into view and desperately punched in the security codes when she reached it.
"Come on, Come on!"
ACCESS DENIED scrolled across the screen.
"NO! NO!"
She punched in the codes again.
ACCESS DENIED
"Goddamn it!" The soldier punched the key pad in anger, tears streaming down her face, "COME ON!"
Behind her, Denise could hear a snarling noise. She slowly turned around to see a raptor facing her, its body coiled into striking position.
As the raptor launched itself at her, Denise could only scream.
Up in the control room, the director watched with glee as the raptors tore the security team to shreds and noted the test completion time.
Claire Dearing's office, Jurassic World.
June 2017
Claire Dearing stepped through her office door with a weary sigh, wanting nothing more for the day to be over and just go home and lay in bed.
She was absolutely spent, having spent half the day in board meetings about budgets, the rebuilding plans and the conditions for the sponsors to return to the park.
Claire plopped herself onto the couch next to Zara's desk with a sigh, finally able to put it all behind her for the moment.
"How did the meeting go?" Zara asked, turning to face her.
"Tiring," Claire replied, "Just a lot of negotiating and budget allocation."
"Sounds boring," Zara said.
"It comes with the territory, I guess. No one ever said rebuilding a multimillion dollar theme park was easy."
"Then I'm glad all I have to do is just sit here, type in your schedule and handle VIPs when necessary." Zara said, turning back to face her desktop screen. "Much more enjoyable than attending some board meeting."
"Not just that, you make for pretty good moral support." Claire said, eyeing the body hugging, sleeveless red dress Zara wore. It skimmed her figure in just the right way to accentuate her lovely curves and
The British woman smiled, well aware of the redhead's eyes on her. "That I do."
"Did you hear about that new company, I think Delos was the name?" Zara said as she typed up Claire's weekly schedule on her computer. "They're planning to open a park just like ours, but with animatronic cowboys and knights instead of dinosaurs. Top of the line AI from what I heard."
Claire couldn't help but chuckle a bit. "You'd be better off going to a renaissance fair or a theme park."
Zara paused, making her way to the office couch where Claire sat, laying her head on the woman's shoulder. "Could be fun. They said the park will feel like you were actually there."
"If I really felt like surrounding myself with surly people who love guns and beer, I'd just go to Texas." Claire said, then looked at the schedule on Zara's desktop and let out a sigh, the whole week barring the weekend was packed. "Don't tell me that's for this week…."
The British woman chuckled, "When did you start complaining about work?"
"Last year…" Claire muttered, looking down at the scar on Zara's thigh, a constant reminder of the fact that she almost lost her.
"Claire," The British woman gently lifted the redhead's chin to look at her directly, "You shouldn't get too hung up on that, none of it was your fault…."
Doubt creeped across the redhead's face and she looked down. "I can't help it…"
It wasn't an emotion that she usually felt, being the confident and proud woman that she was but after last year's incident, Claire couldn't help but take a more critical look at all the decisions she made over the past few years and all the corners she cut in the name of keeping the park on budget.
And most of all, almost losing the woman she loved.
The British woman couldn't help but notice this and knew one way to allow Claire a bit of a reprieve from all of it.
"Then let me." Zara said, moving over to straddle Claire's lap, giving her a long, drawn out kiss then looked her in the eyes, "Take your mind off of it, hmm?"
Claire gently grasped Zara's shoulder, stopping her. "Zara, we're in the office…"
The British woman tilted her head, giving Claire a sultry look while she twirled a lock of her hair, green eyes dark with arousal, "So?"
"People could see," She replied, blushing furiously as she cast a wary look at the door.
"Relax, Claire." Zara said, taking Claire's hand off her shoulder. "It's not like people don't know we're in a relationship and you've been so stressed lately."
"But…."
"But what?"
The redhead tried to find an argument, but the words died on her tongue as Zara started to insistently kiss her way up Claire's neck.
Claire couldn't help but relent, "Oh, alright."
The British woman pulled away and looped her arms around Claire's waist, meeting their lips in a kiss, her lips matching perfectly with the redhead's. Claire closed her eyes and sighed gently as Zara kissed her, melting into the other woman's embrace.
After what felt like hours, the pair separated, leaning their foreheads against one another as they panted for breath.
"Thanks," Claire breathed out, as Zara buried her head at the hollow of her neck. "I needed that."
Glancing towards the other woman's desk, Claire saw something peculiar. "What's in that?"
The other woman leaned over to pick it up and opened it, showing Claire that it was a framed Lindstradt tranquilizer rifle. The weapon had dings and scratches that marred the olive green paint.
"You had a rifle framed?" The redhead asked.
"It's not just any rifle. This was the rifle that saved my life, Royce gave it to me before he died. Without this, I would probably be Mosasaur food."
"Wow…"
"Oh! And speaking of parks." She said, gently dropping the frame onto the table, "A letter came in for you."
Zara handed Claire an envelope. It was a red envelope embossed with a golden logo of a Chinese letter and beneath it read: THE GRAND ZOO OF CHINA.
The redhead raised an eyebrow. Receiving a physical letter was an oddity in the age of E-mail invites and private messages.
Claire tore open the letter with one quick slice of her letter opener.
It read:
Dear Miss Dearing,
You are graciously invited to attend a tour of our brand new biological theme park on the 3rd of June. We have invited you so you could provide your expert opinion on the park's exhibits, we believe you will find them quite fascinating.
We are sure that you will be pleased with what our park has to offer and are anxious to show you our attractions.
They are right up your alley.
Sincerely,
Zou Hu
Deputy Director, the Grand Zoo of China.
Claire set the letter down and leaned her head back against the couch, trying to think of what the letter meant.
"They're right up your alley. That doesn't mean what I think it means right?"
"Another dinosaur theme park? But I thought we were the only park to have that kind of technology."
"But Hoskins' INGEN goons took some of the equipment off site remember? You don't suppose….."
"That they might have sold some of it? And this new zoo might have used it?" Zara replied.
Claire nodded, "It's a possibility but we don't have any evidence."
"I think we should go, consider it an opportunity to scout the competition, see if this new park is something we should be worried about and maybe prove that they're using our technology." Zara glanced at Claire's schedule, "Besides, your weekend's free."
"When you put it that way….."