A/N: Saw Jurassic Park last week, immediately read every piece of fanfiction I could get my hands on, and went to a second showing, because I had become so obsessed that I lived, ate and breathed velociraptors. (So obsessed, in fact, that I learned to spell "velociraptor" correctly, which is a serious achievement for me!)But, as it turns out, it was a trap. They set a trap.

This feral, carnivorous bunny and its pack hunted me down and cornered me. They slashed cruelly at me with vicious claws, and the point is, I was still alive when they forced me to write this. (If you have not seen the original 1993 Jurassic Park and don't know what I'm talking about, go on YouTube and look up "Annoying Kid from Jurassic Park." That stuff about carnivorous bunnies will make a lot more sense after a two-minute clip!)

Research Purposes

"It's simply too dangerous." Around the long ovular table, men and women in suits and dress-pants shifted uncomfortably, rifling through papers and taking little sips of coffee out of silver mugs with the Masrani Corporation logo printed artfully along the handles. On man stood, on the left side of the table, three chairs away from the head—he was the one voicing his doubts.

"The board agreed to 'a few small herbivores,'" he listed, counting the concessions of on his fingers, "then they agreed to larger herbivores, then packs, then small carnivores, then the T-Rex! We've already gone too far here—we cannot sanction the creation of not one but a pride of velociraptors! You've already said they'd be too dangerous to ever use as a park attraction. Tell me, Dr. Wu, just what safety measures can you possibly have cooked up to make you think it's wise to create such monsters?"

At the foot of the table, a middle-aged Asian gentleman sat, poised and calm—a strong contrast to the agitation in the board members. Two women sat on either side of him, the one in his right taking careful notes in short-hand, the one on his left looking through some papers on the table in front of her, waiting for her boss's cue to speak.

"We believe that the raptors' intelligence and adaptability can be used to help us control them," Henry Wu explained. "If they are raised correctly, since they are possessing of near-human mental faculties, they may be taught to 'listen to reason,' if you will." Snorts of derision, raised eyebrows and confused stares were the only response he received from the other people at the table.

"I assume," a low, accented voice said from the head of the table, and the rest of the board fell silent immediately, "that when you put it like that, you actually mean you have a more complex, more viable plan in place?"

"Of course, Mr. Masrani," Dr. Wu assured him, a small smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. That was the fantastic thing about men with vision. Simon would never dismiss an insane idea off-hand without at least giving the lunatic the chance to explain himself fully. Of course, that behavior was likely to get the businessman into some pretty hot water one day, but for now, it would be Henry Wu's salvation. "Ladies and gentlemen of the board, allow me to introduce my colleague, behavioral psychologist Dr. Zara Young."

The woman seated to Dr. Wu's left stood up as his words and took a step back from her chair, pulling a small remote out of her pocket and directing it at a ceiling-mounted projector.

"If you would all please direct your attention to the screen," she requested politely as her slideshow began. "I'd like to introduce you to Project Symbiosis."

Zara spent a full hour tossing around phrases like "engineered imprinting" and "social habits" and "learned mannerisms." Henry was already fully aware of the details, but he listened carefully anyway—it wouldn't do to slip up and stray from the official story.

It would be rather difficult to recover from the uproar he'd create if he told them exactly how they'd envision this working. After all, even the most progress-minded businessmen tended to get irrationally protective of children, didn't they?

It wasn't like the kids would be in any serious danger, after all. The raptors would be smaller than Yorkshire Terriers during the first phase, and if that didn't go down successfully, then they'd have no reason to proceed to the second phase. The worst thing that could possibly happen would be that one of the children would pull a raptor's tail and get the same reaction—with about the same level of damage—that they'd receive from a housecat for the same offense. And of course, they'd be closely supervised at all times, by both scientists and security personnel. Still, admitting that the intended age-range for the "human counterparts" was between 6 and 9 probably wouldn't go over very well with the board. They had to be young enough that the raptors would perceive that they were growing up "with" their handlers.

However, Zara made sure not to mention any of the more delicate details, and spoke so persuasively and professionally that by the end of her presentation, even the nay-sayers were starting to nod thoughtfully.

"If anything goes wrong, we can always pull the plug, using the lysine contingency if necessary," she finished. "And in that event, we'd have the opportunity to perform autopsies and biological studies with the remains, so it wouldn't be a total loss."

"And speaking of monetary concerns," Wu jumped in at last, "I'd like to point out that we still have the embryos in cold storage that we recovered when we first reclaimed the island, so the cost would be extremely minimal. We stand to lose very little, and gain very much, by making this attempt."

The board members began tossing out comments—concerns, objections, agreements—all of which Zara and Henry took in stride, easily answering in calm, smooth voices. They had talked this over at length between themselves, anticipating possible questions and the best answers they could give, both to convince the board and to avoid saying anything that might condemn them.

Of course, he'd had to convince Zara that the latter was mostly due to the former; she didn't really need to know about his ties to InGen. All she needed to do was help him create a pride of trainable velociraptors, a task for which she would be compensated beyond her wildest dreams if she was successful. With something like that dangling in front of her, she wasn't the sort of person likely to probe too deeply into his reasons for wanting them.

"For research purposes" was enough to satisfy her.

"You have the green light, Dr. Wu," Mr. Masrani said after a lengthy discussion, a wide, even-toothed smile on his swarthy face that made his eyes crinkle good-naturedly at the corners.

"Thank you, sir," Wu said with the easy, natural grin he'd perfected over years of playing both ends against the middle and getting away with it.

A/N: This is more of a prologue than a first chapter, but it drives me completely bonkers when I have a prologue, and then the site insists on calling the first chapter the second chapter. So, a "half chapter" to start since I can't mark it "Chapter 0." Next up, meet the kids!