"In the conservative region far from the chaotic edge, individual elements coalesce slowly, showing no clear pattern."
-Ian Malcolm
FOURTEEN YEARS AFTER
THE EVENTS OF JURASSIC PARK;
EVENTS HAVE BEEN HUSHED
ONLY THE MEMORIES
OF SURVIVING VICTIMS REMAIN:
THREE YEARS BEFORE THE OPENING OF JURASSIC WORLD
-
Castiel Malcolm was a tall man, with dark hair and blue eyes. He stood outside a bookstore, leaning into the shade and out of the summer sun.
He watched people bustle like herded cattle, picking out raised voices, or one-sided cell phone conversations. Evaluating and classifying accents and languages. As a celebrated linguist with a doctorate in phonetics, Malcolm often did this for fun. He spoke over twenty languages, and traveled the globe, studying the delicate shifts and layers in dying tongues.
Currently, he was in the sweltering heat of Costa Rica, finishing research on the dialect of the Cabecar Indians, spoken by a mere four thousand people in this area of Central America.
"¡Señor!" Malcolm tore himself away from his thoughts, recognizing the voice of his guide, Braulio. "¡Alguien te quiere en San José!"
Ian Malcolm, Castiel's father, had been quite reluctant for him to come to Central America.
It was only now that Castiel wondered why.
"¿Quién?" He inquired cautiously. Braulio looks confused, shaking his head incredulously.
"Yo no lo puedo creer, pero me dijeron que eran de InGen."
"C'mon, Dean!" Paleoecologist Samuel Winchester argued with his brother Dean, a seasoned ethologist. "We are not staying any longer in this rainforest."
The elder Winchester kept his focus, ignoring his brother's pleas in the headset. He watched the give and pull of the jaguar's shoulder blades, shuddering with unnamable power beneath her black fur. She was beautiful, smart. She belonged to this jungle, like a cell in a vein that pumped through the body of the earth. They'd been tracking her for a week now, and Winchester had gotten all the information he needed for his thesis. Today was their last, and he'd taken an extra hour to observe another hunt.
Her prey was an old tapir, and Winchester watched, eyes cunning and green as the jungle around him, as she lurked in the cover of the foliage. She kept quiet, her strong legs tensing in anticipation of a pounce. She was intelligent; by far the smartest Winchester had come across. She took her time.
She was on the tapir in seconds, a calculated blur that sent Winchester's heart racing. She locked her jaws on the back of its neck, before purposely breaking it with a resounding snap.
"Dean." Samuel sighed. Dean took one more appraising glance, before gathering his supplies and heading back to the Jeep.
"Heading back, Sammy." He assured. "Be there in five."
Dean Winchester was a towering man, although short compared to his younger brother, who grew to an impressionable six 'five. The older Winchester, at six 'three, was a handsome man, fine features painted with graceful age at thirty five, four years his brother's senior. His hair had bleached blond in the Costa Rican sun, and it clung to his head in short sweaty spikes, a modern mockery of a uniform buzz cut. Freckles and sunburn settled high on his sharp cheekbones, and his shoulders stood broad and powerful, toned from lugging equipment and handling animals.
He had graduated from Yale with his doctorate in ethology and PhD in zoology at the age of twenty five. After being raised at a wildlife preserve his mothers ran in Africa, he'd developed a fascination with the behavior and habituality of large cats and other predators. He'd been offered a scholarship by his stepmother's old employer, a mysterious man he'd never met, who'd insisted he was a prodigy in the field. At seventeen, he was thrown into college, and he'd dedicated his life to the hunting behavior of carnivorous wildlife ever since.
His brother was equally clever, if not more, with his own doctorate in paleoecology, PhD in both paleobotany like their stepmother, and ornicology like their mother.
Sam finally came into sight, sitting impatiently in the jeep with a book in his lap. His hair, long and chestnut red in the wet sun, was pulled tightly out of his eyes to leave room for dark, androgynous sunglasses. While Dean and Sam were used to heat, the suffocating humidity was different from the dryness of the savanna. They hadn't yet taken fondly to Costa Rica outside of its jungle's fauna and flora, and Dean's dramatic groan as he threw himself into the jeep attested to that.
"Hey." Sam began intently, blind to his brother's obvious exhaustion. "Do you remember InGen?"
"Wasn't it the company Ellie worked for back in her twenties?" Dean humored as he started the jeep and pulled onto the trail.
"Yeah, but get this." Sam began excitedly. "It wasn't just a company. It was huge, influential. It spat out billions of dollars on preserves and parks all over the world. Then out of nowhere during the late eighties, it went quiet, completely off the map."
Dean grunted for him to continue.
"Then something happened off the Coast of Costa Rica, and they went bankrupt. Nobody knows what happened, even more than twenty years later."
Dean clenched his fingers tighter around the steering wheel. "But they paid our tuitions." He pointed out. Sam nodded, enthused.
"Exactly. They've been taking care of Ellie and mom and us for years. InGen may not be running anymore, but the Hammond family is old money."
"What're you getting at, Sammy?" Dean grumbled.
"Well, I just got a call. InGen wants to meet us in San José."
"Look, dad, I'm fine." Celeste Grant reassured into a satellite phone. "Costa Rica has the best hospitals in the world. Even though I doubt I'll get mortally wounded from setting up my babies, if I did, I'd be in good hands."
Gruff expletives rumbled over the phone. Celeste heaved a sigh, leaning against the cliff facing. Her inventions laid at her feet in a violet duffle. They were state of the art, miniature satellites, designed specifically for survivalists and research teams in the jungle to connect to the internet, report to a base, or contact nearby emergency care. Satellite phones weren't cutting it anymore, and that's where Celeste had come in. Easier, safer access that had already proved to save lives all over the planet. She had taken a chance to visit Costa Rica to help set them up in their most popular jungle, and had taken a field trip the last few days. Her father did not approve.
Twisting her brilliant red hair into a small ponytail to spare her neck the damp heat, she listened to her father rant.
"Look, Dad, I'll call you after I get back to the city. I'll be fine. I've been called up to San José by some company InGen who wants to buy my shit. I'll talk to you then. Love you." She said firmly, before hanging up in frustration.
She didn't even think her father had been to Costa Rica.
Bum bum bum! Four more chapters to post! Review! Love is appreciated!