Chapter 2: Training Hailstorm
Jake tried to get up, but the thing on his back would not let him. It only snarled in response to his movement.
"What is this?" asked an amused Jake. "Are you trying to scare me? That's so cute!"
The creature released a bloodcurdling roar, but Jake only shook his head in response.
"Okay, you know what?" Jake began. "This isn't working. Not even a little."
When the animal began to sniff Jake for biochemical signs of fear, he abruptly grabbed its neck and threw it over his head, onto its back.
He calmly got up as it sprang to its feet. White as frost, it was a young indominus rex, standing just under four feet tall. Her piercing, predatory eyes were tempered with a kind of child-like innocence. Bowing her head, the I. Rex looked disappointed. After all, she couldn't frighten Jake, and he had thrown her off like a rag doll.
"Don't feel bad, Hailstorm," Jake comforted. "That was a really good ambush".
Her eyes lit up upon hearing that. She turned so that he could see her side and some of the colour-changing scales darkened to form markings, letters, words:
DID YOO SEE MEE?
Hailstorm wouldn't be winning any spelling bees with her poor grammar. Still, it was a miracle that she had learned the English language in the first place, let alone understood enough about letters to try to spell. From the time of her birth, he had visited her, sometimes for days at a time, talking to her, teaching her. Now, she had the vocabulary of young child.
Jake glanced up at the cameras on the walls. He didn't want anyone knowing about Hailstorm's colour-changing abilities, at least not yet. Luckily, she had positioned herself so that none of the cameras could see what she did. He had taught her well.
"Okay, training time," he declared. "You ready?"
She bobbed her head enthusiastically, nodding.
He walked into the bunker and returned about a minute later, carrying what appeared to be several dinosaur toys, from a hand puppet modeled after a T. rex head to stuffed raptors attached to broomsticks. If anyone had to guess, they might have thought that he was about to put on a puppet show. In a way, they would have been right, but this was far more serious than that. Regardless, Hailstorm found it as fun as anything else.
Jake slipped his arm into a K9 training protective sleeve and attached the T. rex puppet to his hand. The pupped was roughly the size of Hailstorm's head, and she stared at it as if it were her mortal enemy.
Suddenly, he lunged the puppet head forward and made it try to bite her. She slipped away from the bite and tried to get in a bite of her own. Jake wrestled her with everything he had, fighting to clamp his rex's plastic jaw around her neck. After practicing this so many times, she was swift and crafty. He couldn't quite get a hold of her.
"Remember, use your claws, but don't let it bite your arms," he coached.
He hardly had to coach her at all. Her claws were already shredding the plastic head. After a few quick bites and well-placed scratches, she seized the puppet's neck with her jaws and forced it to the ground, not letting go.
"Careful, not so hard," Jake warned. "My hand's still in there."
Hailstorm loosened her grip. Then she released the puppet, darted to the other side of Jake's arm and continued to subdue it with her jaws from behind. It was a swift, simple move that allowed her to avoid the T. rex's imaginary, thrashing legs.
"Don't kill it if you don't have to," Jake warned. "Just show it who's boss."
Hailstorm got up and backed away from the T. rex head. Jake lifted it and pointed it at her, as if it were staring her down. She did her best to read its body language for potential signs of attack. Again, Jake thrust the head at her.
*WHACK!*
In the blink of an eye, she had smacked it off his hand with her tail. His fingers stung with the force of the impact.
"Good," he commented. "That's enough. At ease."
She relaxed and watched as he picked up two of the stuffed toy raptors attached to broomsticks.
"Okay. Fight," he commanded.
She struck both of the raptors with a sweep of her tail. He moved them to surround her but she constantly re-positioned herself, making his attempts difficult. She often attacked with her tail, sometimes claws and seldom jaws. The spinning motion of the tail attacks would have made it hard for the raptors to attach to her, if they were real raptors.
He lifted the toy dinosaurs into the air and tried to put them on top of her.
"Raptors on your back. How do you fight 'em?" asked Jake.
Hailstorm vigorously rolled across the ground and the raptors were forced off her body. Then she stood with incredible speed, rushed to a wall and turned to face the imaginary raptors. It seemed as if she had cornered herself, but with a wall behind her the raptors could not attack from the back. It was a clever, strategic move.
"Good, very good," Jake praised. "At ease."
Once again she relaxed.
He dropped the raptor toys and picked up a foam-padded bat. "Okay, ankylosaurus. Fight."
She rushed towards him but drew back just as he swung his bat. She baited him, coming just close enough for him to try to hit her but far enough to move away in time. She was saving her energy. He was wasting his. He swiped his bat over and over until his swipes grew slower. Finally, she rushed in after a swing of the bat and toppled him over with her head. Placing a foot on top of him, she made sure that he would not get up.
Jake grinned. "Excellent, simply excellent."
The electronic door hissed open and Henry Wu stepped in, giving a slow clap of admiration.
"I've been watching you on the surveillance cameras," the Asian scientist explained.
"So you were in the observation room?" asked Jake. "Then how did you get here so quickly?"
Henry raised his tablet for Jake to see. "I can access the cameras with this. You know how anything can be portable these days."
Jake nodded.
"So, what is it you hope to accomplish with these … toys?" asked Henry Wu.
"Simulated combat," Jake explained. "What I do with these 'toys' represents potential, real-life scenarios. I'm testing her ability to learn to fight other dinosaurs."
"And why is that?" asked Henry.
Jake gestured Hailstorm. "Look at her. She's unusual – teachable, easy to get along with yet undeniably dangerous. Just think, what if one of the more unfriendly dinosaurs escaped and rampaged across the island? What if no one could stop it?"
"We have the non-lethal weapons to do the job," Henry stated.
"Yeah, but that's just it," Jake continued. "Non-lethal weapons aren't gonna work on a raging tyrannosaurus, but you're not gonna want to kill it either. It costs too much money. What if she could fight it? What if she could beat it at its own game, without killing it?"
Henry rubbed his chin in thought. "That is … certainly a prospect worth considering."
"Most of the larger, more dangerous dinosaurs on Isla Nublar don't hunt in packs," Jake added. "However, Hailstorm's one of the few exceptions. She's a social, like a raptor. If she were to work with her sister, I imagine nothing would be able to overpower-"
Henry interrupted. "You know I can't let you have her sister."
"Why not?" asked Jake.
"She's already displaying antisocial tendencies," Henry explained.
"That's because she's alone," Jake stated, "and whatever you're doing to her, it's not helping."
"What are you insinuating?" asked Henry.
A shade of seriousness nuanced Jake's friendly personality. "I can hear her screams at night through the ventilation system. Her screams wake up Hailstorm, and Hailstorm is very concerned."
"Hailstorm is concerned?" Henry asked incredulously. "I can't believe you. An I. rex doesn't scream. It's not a person. You need to stop looking at these animals and seeing them for what they're not."
"Dr. Wu," Jake continued in his gently persuasive manner, "what are you doing to Firestorm?"
"That's none of your business," the scientist asserted. "If you didn't want to get attached to her, you shouldn't have named her."
"She was my charge," Jake explained.
"Well, she's not your charge anymore," Henry proclaimed.
Henry didn't notice, but Hailstorm looked devastated. She didn't understand all the words they were using, but she knew enough to know that Henry didn't want to give her back her sister.
"If the noise is disturbing the subject – I mean 'Hailstorm', then we'll work on soundproofing the room," Henry offered. "You spend days at a time with her. She doesn't need her sister. You're all the social life she requires."
The young I. rex lowered her head slightly. It was a sign of hopelessness.
"Anyway, let's move on to more constructive subjects," Henry declared. "From the looks of it, you've got Hailstorm eating out of your hand. I'm very impressed, though I do have one concern: this I. rex is not scary."
Jake froze and furrowed his brow in confusion. "Excuse me?"
"She's not scary," Henry repeated. "Most of the predators here are like thunderstorms: they growl, they snap, they do things that make you jump out of your skin as if you've seen a lightning bolt and heard its boom. I'm supposed to be afraid of coming anywhere near Hailstorm, but here I am in her paddock, and I don't get so much as a chill. I'm comfortable! I'm not supposed to be comfortable around her! Kids these days? They don't want to see Barney the big, friendly dinosaur. They want to see something scary."
Jake cracked a grin and nodded. "Hailstorm? Show him 'scary'."
In an instant, she transformed into a completely different creature. Her feral eyes fixed on Henry Wu, sending icy shivers down the man's spine. Then she darted into the bushes and vanished.
"W-where is she?" asked Henry.
"Try looking behind you," Jake suggested.
Henry felt hot breath on his back. He slowly turned to see a mouth full of razor-sharp teeth grinning up at him. That mouth opened and released a nightmarish roar that sent shockwaves of terror through his body.
"Stop! Stop! You've made your point!" Henry shouted in panic.
"Hailstorm, at ease." Jake commanded, quietly but firmly.
The dinosaur immediately returned to her normal self. A glint of mischief was in her eye as she trotted back to Jake's side. It almost seemed as though she were holding back a laugh, due to Henry's reaction.
"Okay, I get it," Henry declared, still breathing hard from the fright. "She is obedient, but she's scary when you want her to be."
"There we go! Everyone's happy, right?" Jake stated jokily.
Henry gave a nervous nod. "Right."
With quick steps, he hustled for the door, casting Hailstorm a wary glance over his shoulder every now and then.
The door hissed shut behind Henry, and once again Jake and Hailstorm were alone.
Remembering her concern for her sister, the young I. rex's spirits dropped. She released a long, mournful moan. In its own way, it sounded like crying, and that's exactly what it was. It just about broke Jake's heart.
"Hey, Hailey, don't worry," Jake comforted. "We've been training for this. It doesn't matter what Henry says. One way or another, we're gonna get your sister."