The clean up crew, as they were dubbed, had done a pretty damn good job of fixing Isla Nublar. All evidence there used to be a theme park there, a dinosaur theme park, had been erased. All human evidence was packed up and shipped out - all the old buildings and metal parts were gone. The island had suffered a number, and it needed time to recuperate. Meaning the botanists had a field day.
So there I was, surveying the island and writing up numerical reports and estimates, when I saw an egg. Not a bird egg, unless that bird was an ostrich. No, this egg was large and oval shaped. It was partway buried in the ground, the insulation from the dirt could have kept it alive. I crouched down and poked it, my finger froze as I nudged it. It was warm, and very much alive.
I quickly backed away, panicking only slightly. There weren't any dinosaurs left on the island, were there? No...no that would be impossible. All prehistoric life forms had been, per say, dealt with after the Jurassic World disaster. The island had been under government contamination task force for that past half year, the goal was to restore the entire island back to its original state for its next experiment.
So why was there an egg less than an inch away from my foot.
The better question, what was I going to do?
"Neilson, Parr, get over here!" I called out to my assistants. They jogged over to me and hovered over my shoulder. I didn't need to point out what I had seen, they were looking right at it.
"Is that..."
I nodded. "Head over to the base and phone Dr. Richard," I ordered quietly. Parr turned to run off, I grabbed his sleeve and whispered urgently in his ear.
"This remains top secret until Dr. Richard says otherwise,"
Andy Parr gave a terse nod to say he understood. I released him and watched him jog off to base camp, little more than a few tents and a helicopter.
"Do you think there are more eggs out there?" Mark Neilson said as he motioned to the jungle before us.
"If the clean up crew missed one they could have missed hundreds," I muttered more to myself than to Mark.
"Well it shouldn't be too much of a problem anyways, its an Anchiceratops, an herbivore," Mark gave a half shrug.
"How can you tell?" I scoffed. He pointed to the egg.
"See it's shape? All dinosaur eggs have different shapes. I used to work in the labs you know. Now I'm trying to fix the mess I helped create," he sighed. I whirled around to face him.
"You worked in the labs?" I exclaimed. He didn't need to affirm I had heard him correctly, the distanced look in his eyes said it all.
"Over a hundred people died, a fact easily overlooked by the media once they got wind that there would not be a reopening of the park," Mark said bitterly. "Over a hundred families were destroyed, and the world didn't give a damn once they found out they weren't going to go pet a dinosaur over spring break,"
I didn't know how to respond. I reached out to hug him, and I settled on awkwardly patting his back once. I let my hand fall away and we stood in silence. Andy came up behind us and scared the living daylights out of me as he began talking in a rush.
"Dr. Richards said to package the egg and take it back to his tent at the base where he would examine it. He notified the classified clean up crew members to go out and hunt for more eggs,"
Without question I delicately picked up the egg and slid it into a padded and insulated pack Andy had brought back.
"Let's go," I instructed once the egg was secure.
"Arbor," Mark said suddenly, I stopped walking at the sound of my name.
"They aren't rebuilding the park, are they?" he asked warily, his eyes on the egg. I moved it out of his view in a protective gesture. I didn't know if I could answer his question. I didn't know for myself what the government had planned for the island. At first I thought rebuilding he park would have been impossible. Most of the DNA information and genetic coding had been lost after the disaster. But now we had an egg, a living egg which would hatch in a few weeks.
Without responding I spun around and headed over to Dr. Richards tent, the egg securely in my clutches.