The two days passed quickly for Allison who struggled not only with her poor sense of direction around the island but also with the large amount of people on it every day.
The Scarlet Lady seemed to love facts as much as she loved her brightly colored art and was constantly rattling them off every time she saw Allison.
According to her, the park was split into two sides: Attractions and Restricted, The Attraction side held eight attractions; the Bamboo Forest, Botanical Gardens, Hammond Creation Lab, Innovation Center, the Aquarium, T. Rex Kingdom, Cretaceous Cruise and the GTG.
GTG stood for Gyrospheres, Triceratops, Gallimimus and was the large stretch of grasslands where the Triceratops Territory and Gallimimus Valley were used by the Gyrospheres.
There were currently seventeen dinosaurs species living on the island and the vast majority lived in their attraction areas with paddocks over in the Restricted side for sick, injured or young animals. There was over sixty handlers between the seventeen species, some requiring more personal than others.
The Restricted side of the island held the paddocks for different species as well as the employee dorms and another dorm for security and was cut off from the attractions by a large barrier.
Aside from the Dorms, some employees, with permission from the owner Mr Masrani, had built properties on the restricted side, Mr Masrani, Miss Dearing, Dr Wu were some of the few.
Another was someone named Owen who was, according to the Scarlet Lady, hot and friendly but trouble for a newbie like her. He worked with the parks newest addition, the Velociraptor who was only three weeks old, in the Carnivores Nursery on the Restricted side. He had resided in Dorm One when he first came to Jurassic World to help them learn about the Raptors they transported over from Isla Sorna but after an altercation with another employee last month he had been requested to find a new point of residency. Now he lived on the coast of the island in a bungalow he'd built himself and toed the lines constantly with an on-going Prank War.
Allison, in between the constant facts and gossip, kept very much to herself. She stayed in her room for most of the time studying the map and her battered genetics textbooks, other than that she walked the route to the lab so that she would know it and traveled to the Attraction side to buy a few more clothes and some food and basic supplies.
She couldn't afford a desk yet and finished the remainders of her paper work sitting awkwardly on the edge of her bed to use the bedside table as a surface.
She could already tell that a few people had started talking about her and one of the girls next door had entered the bathroom while she was there and audibly gasped before slamming the door and giggling loudly to her roommate on the other side, by the time they had entered the bathroom to introduce themselves to her, Allison had already slipped away to her room.
And now it was Wednesday, her first day of work and Allison was freaking out. She'd felt too sick to eat anything except for a few bites of toast she'd stuffed down her throat and had spent most of the time she had making sure she looked appropriate. Her hair was in a high ponytail and she'd straightened the life out of it, her make up was simple but perfect and she'd redone her eyeliner four times to make sure of that. Her skirt and blouse were clean and crease free, her shoes shined and a bag packed with her folders and a neatly tubbed lunch were all prepared and now all she had to do was-
'Out of my way,' he growled, 'before you make me really angry.'
The metal of the knife pressed coldly against her stomach and she swallowed in fear before stepping away from his red, angry face. He slammed the door behind him and she started to shake. She hadn't been payed and now she knew she'd pay for it tonight in blood.
She looked towards the motel door and knew she had to try one last time, with sore legs she stumbled towards the exit, pulling it open and holding back tears, she was nearly out, nearly safe, nearly-
'Hey Allison, you ready to go?' The Scarlet Lady's face popped up in front of hers and Allison shrieked, stumbling backwards.
'Whoa! Sorry!' the Scarlet Lady said reaching out to steady her and frowning slightly when Allison shook her hands off. 'You weren't answering when I called out to you and I thought-'
Her voice trailed off as she looked around Allison's room.
'Wow. I forgot how bleak the rooms are at first.' She turned to grin at Allison, 'We can fix that up though, we could order some paint and I could help you do the walls and if you need some help I could chip in some cash for bed sheets that are less, you know… boring.'
Allison stared firmly at her toes and the Scarlet Lady seemed to wilt a little bit.
'Okay well… uh… we should probably get going then,' she said awkwardly, 'y'know, before we're late and all.'
Allison nodded and picked up her bag before walking past her roommate and heading towards the apartment door.
The walk to the labs was fifteen minutes and the Scarlet Lady had to go on ahead to the Nurseries.
The lab was a large, gray, three story building that probably shouldn't have made Allison as scared as she was. She made her way past a line of desks, some with people and some without, towards the elevator where she meekly showed the guard ID and made her way upstairs.
On the second floor was equipment and on the third floor was room after room of closed doors. A guard directed her to the fourth last room of the hallway and Allison wanted to cry and curl up under a large doona as she opened the door.
'Excuse me…?' Allison asked quietly as she peaked inside the room and a pair of green eyes snapped up to meet hers.
'Ah, you're the new geneticist right?' The man grinned. 'I'm Doctor Cook or, as most of the workers around here call me, Cookie.' He laughed before putting down his clipboard and extending his hand.
'Feel free to call me Ryan though.' He grinned.
Ryan's accent was clearly British although it was marred slightly from living in America, he was handsome in a boyish sort of way with ruffled brown hair and a bright smile, he was the kind of person who made people relax just by looking at them and Allison breathed a quiet sigh of relief.
Allison's brain jerked her back to the present as she realized that he was still holding out his hand and the silence was becoming awkward. She quickly grabbed his hand and shook it and he laughed again although this time Allison was pretty sure it was at her.
'So your name was… Alyssa? Alyssa Princeton?'
Allison smiled awkwardly, too shy to correct him and more willing to be called the wrong name for the rest of her life than to open her mouth but Ryan must have seen her small grimace because he scratched his head.'
'No that's not right is it? What was your name?'
Her tongue caught in her throat and she accidentally made a loud gurgle before managing to spit out her name. Ryan looked at her in surprise for a moment before breaking down into laughter.
'Henry said you were shy but I didn't think it was this bad.' He stuffed his fist in his mouth trying to stop the laughter and Allison turned bright red, seriously considering getting back on the boat and leaving right that minute.
He giggled one last time before shaking his head and apologizing.
'Sorry that was mean, I shouldn't have laughed.' He smiled at her kindly, 'So, Allison Princeton, welcome to the Laboratory of Jurassic World.'
Allison avoided his eyes and gripped onto the strap of her bag until her fingers felt like they'd break and Ryan winced.
'Hey I really am sorry about laughing.' He scratched at his jaw thoughtfully for a moment before his eyes lit up in excitement.
'How about I make it up to you? Come take a look at this!'
He pulled her gently over to the large table in the center at the room. A wall of frosted glass lined the edges with an incubator hanging over the top and in the middle, in a mess of straw and leaves, sat five large, cream colored eggs. Allison looked at them amazed, she had seen ads for Jurassic World since she was twelve, it was what had sparked her interest in genetics and her dream to become one but now she was seeing the real thing in person and Allison didn't know if she'd ever been happier.
'They were meant to hatch five days ago and three of them only started tapping the sides this morning so we're getting a little worried.' Ryan spoke softly as one of the eggs gave a small wiggle and then nearly tipped over with the strength of the next one.
Suddenly a small crack appeared in the surface of the shell and Allison and Ryan both gave a small cry of delight.
'She's pipped!' He whispered excitedly and Allison turned to him confusedly.
'Pipped?' She asked curiously and Ryan nodded.
'Yeah that's what it's called when they first break the eggs surface.'
Allison smiled excitedly, 'So how long until it comes out?'
'Don't know, sometimes it can take an entire day or even longer, it must be really tiring for the poor things though because they usually take breaks.'
'Do you think-'
The sound of the door opening made both Ryan and Allison jump in surprise and Doctor Wu looked at them derisively.
'If you two are done whispering like school girls then maybe we could actually get some work done around here Dr Cook?'
The comment was scathing and it was obvious beyond belief that Dr Wu disliked the man but Ryan simply laughed and went back to his clipboard leaving Allison to face the Asian man.
'Princeton you're the intern here so make yourself useful and get me the three blue folders from my office-'
'All of your folders are blue.'
'After that you can help Mr Collin's complete his paperwork-'
'You're going to make her work with that old pervert for the whole day?'
'And then you can sweep all the rooms, ask the cleaners where the brooms are-'
'Why the hell are you making her sweep room when the cleaners are here?'
'Do you mind?' Wu growled at Ryan who looked up cheekily from his clipboard.
'Not at all, how about you?' Wu opened his mouth to yell at him but Ryan just shook his head.
'Oh come on Henry, you've never been this hard on any of the other newbies, cut her some slack she's practically still a kid.'
'That's exactly the point!' Snapped Wu, I have hand picked my team from among the brightest scientists in and out of America, I've had a hand in choosing every worker inside this lab and now this little girl shows up out of the blue and Masrani demands I let her work here! Babbling on about how "he has a good feeling about this" and that "she's the best of her year", sounded like something out of Harry Potter for Gods sake.'
'So you're having a temper tantrum because you think she might be smarter than you.' the brunette scientist remarked dryly.
Dr Wu's head snapped up and glared murderously at Ryan.
'I'm warning you Dr Cook, you may have Masrani on your side but don't you think for one second-'
'ohhh,' Dr Cook grinned, 'so is that why you don't like Allison, does she remind you too much of me?'
Dr Wu looked like he wanted to murder his colleague and Allison wished she could just vanish into the background of the plain white walls.
'Fine,' Wu spat, 'you can watch the girl, but if she stuffs up anything, and I mean anything, it'll be your head on the line do you hear me?'
Ryan gave a military solute to Wu's disgust and he span on his heel and slammed the door behind him. Ryan turned to Allison and apologized about Wu's rudeness before turning back to the clipboard.
'Right, I do actually need you to do something for me Allison, everyone else is really busy at the moment on one of Mr Masrani's projects so no ones really free and neither Yvaine or her second, Nathan, have been answering their com links this morning and Yvaine needs to get here if this little guy's started pipping.'
He saw her nod hesitantly and laughed softly.
'Yeah apparently you haven't really met with anyone have you? Listen, just go to the GTG nursery, they should be there at this time checking on the littlies, call out their names and they'll answer.'
Allison wanted to laugh hysterically, just call out their names, in front of other people, with her mouth, her. But Ryan was nice, and he'd defended her against Dr Wu, Allison really didn't want to disappoint him so with a brave nod and a mumbled goodbye Allison left the room after one more look at the crack lining the egg.
The Nursery's were harder to find than the Lab and Allison's heels were killing her by the time she got there.
There were three nurseries all together that surrounded a large clearing the size of three football ovals, the GTG Nursery, the Cretaceous Nursery, and lastly the Carnivore Nursery which was positioned further away from the others. In the middle of the clearing there was a number of paddocks for animals to integrate the animals together in preparation for being released into their attractions.
There were six or seven people around as far as Allison could see and they were mostly inside or gathered around one of the high metal fences and Allison crept over to see if it had any Triceratops inside.
A blonde woman in the corner of the paddock was crouching down beside a greyish colored dinosaur the size of an American bulldog and a man was pulling a needle out of it's shoulder. The man had a grave face as he said something to the woman before shaking his head, the woman buried her face in her hands and another man came over to comfort her.
'Do you know what's happened?' One of the watchers asked.
'No but this is the second baby now, and you heard about Old Sue just yesterday right?' His friend replied.
'What? No, what happened to Old Sue?'
'They found her lying on the edge of the herd grounds, Gussy said she'd been dead since early morning.'
The first man shook his head, 'I get that it's only been Triceratops so far but I'm worried about the rest of the GTG animals, what if it's contagious?'
'I think the board is meeting up about a possible quarantine,' his friend shrugged, 'other than that I don't have a clue.'
Allison crept closer to the fence and peeked over the top, she could see the Triceratops now, it's eyes were glassy and there was blood splattered on the grass by its head, the other Triceratops had been herded inside the Nursery and Allison tentatively tapped a curly haired brunette with glasses next to her.
'Excuse me…' She mumbled and looked at her shoes as the woman turned her head. 'Are either of those people Nathan or Yvaine?'
'Nathan or Yvaine?' The woman said, 'Yeah that's them in the paddock there. Hey are you one of them Lab Rats cause you don't look like a handler.'
Allison nodded hesitantly. 'Dr Ryan asked me to get them, the T-triceratops have started pipping.'
The brunette scowled at her, 'Right, because who cares if the babies die, you can just cook up some replacements in your fancy kitchen can't you.'
Allison flinched at the woman's hateful tone as she began to rant at her about about these were living breathing creatures and not just sacks of money laying around for them to pick at and-
'Geez Marice do you ever shut up?' A voice mused behind her and Allison spun around, nearly tripping over her own feet, and came face to face with the man from outside Wu's office. He spared a glance at her before firmly crossing his arms and leaning against the fence.
'She's a Lab Rat, she gets told to do something and she does it, that's her job, just like your job is cleaning out the Baryonyx' paddock and not critiquing other people, hm?'
He raised his eyebrows at her and Marice turned bright red, although Allison had a feeling it wasn't just from being called out in front of a large group of people. The man was handsome and not in the clean high school prep way, he was more rough with stubble lining his chin and eyes that studied your every move.
Marice scoffed and walked away as Grady turned to Allison, eyeing her up and down as if to make sure she was alright, before scratching his nose and leaving a smudge of dirt behind.
'So what are you doing out here Kid, shouldn't you be behind a desk?'
Allison didn't know whether to look at her shoes or the dirt smudged on his nose that was annoying her so in the end she grasped the gate firmly, if a bit desperately, and called out the names of the Triceratops Handlers loudly to both her surprise and the amusement of Grady.
The man and woman looked up at her and Allison wanted to duck behind the fence and turn invisible. Grady pointed to the small girl next to him and called out.
'She needs to talk to you about something.'
Nathan said something to Yvaine and rubbed her shoulder reassuringly before jogging over to the fence.
'Hey Owen,' Nathan greeted the man, 'This your niece or something?'
'No, she's the new Lab Rat.' Owen laughed, 'She needs you for something.'
The two men turned to Allison expectantly and she swore she felt herself die a little on the inside.
'Dr R-Ryan asked me to… uh… to ask you t-to uh…'
Nathan and Grady looked at her curiously before glancing at each other as if to ask "you understand?'.
'Did Cookie need you for something?' Owen asked and Nathans face lit up in realization.
'Has something finally happened with the Triceratops clutch?' He asked excitedly and Allison nodded.
'Th-they've p-pipped.' Allison smiled shyly. 'H-he asked me to get y-you or Y-Yvaine right away.'
Nathan grinned at her thankfully before turning and running back to Yvaine and explaining to her the good news, calling over his shoulder that they'd be there soon and that it was nice to finally meet her.
Allison nodded and headed back down to the labs, leaving Owen to stride after her.
'Hey Kid!' He called, catching her arm as she tripped over a pothole in the road. 'Whoa, whoa, whoa. You gotta be careful out here in those shoes Kid.'
Allison gave a nervous smile and made to keep walking but Owen pulled her to a stop and, gently but firmly, steered her around back towards the Nurseries.
'Don't be stupid, I'll give you a ride back to the Labs, I'm going there anyway.'
They reached one of the company quad bikes and Owen swung a leg over the seat before patting the seat behind him, gesturing for her to hop on and offering her a helmet.
'Hey Barry!' Owen called back towards the nursery, cupping his hands around his mouth, 'You okay checking on the Raptors until I get back?'
A black man looked up and grinned, white teeth bright against his dark skin, and made a shooing motion with his hands.
Owen turned back to Allison and raised his eyebrows as if to say "why are you still standing there?" and Allison quickly sat on the back of the quad, uncertain where and how to sit.
'You're gonna fall off like that,' the man scoffed and he squashed the helmet rather unceremoniously on her head, destroying her neat pony tail, he clipped it together and grabbed her hands.
'Right, hands are either on my waist,' He began, placing her hands just above his hips, 'or on my shoulders. Which one?'
'Shoulders.' Allison squeaked out and Owens eyes crinkled up in amusement before turning around and starting up the engine, forcing Allison to move closer so as not to fall off.
The ride back was far shorter on the quad and Allison had to admit that it was surprisingly fun, the air whipped her ponytail behind her and she would have rathered the helmet off and her hair out so that she could feel it better but she didn't dare take her hands off Owens shoulders.
They pulled into the driveway of the Lab and Allison stumbled off, forgetting about her heels and nearly face planting.
Owen helped her steady herself, 'You can't walk in those for crap, why're you wearing them?'
Allison nervously pointed to the Lab in explanation and struggled to take off the helmet before feeling her now messy hair in horror.
'Oh,' Owen chuckled as he watched her attempt to fix the ponytail, 'Sorry. Might want to dust off your skirt as well…'
Allison groaned and began to brush the dust off the back of her deep blue skirt before mumbling a thank you to Owen and hurrying towards the doors. She went to push them open but they wouldn't budge and it wasn't until a hand reached past her and pulled it open that Allison realized her mistake.
Face blushed bright red she mumbled another thank you and almost ran past Owen who was struggling to stop the laughter from bubbling past his lips.
He quietly followed her past the desks and all the way up to the third floor making Allison begin to panic as they walked along the empty hallway.
Eventually Allison span around to "bravely confront" Owen only to find him opening one of the doors on the right.
He raised an eyebrow at her as she slowly closed her mouth and quickly spun back around to continue to the room she had met Dr Ryan in before.
She closed the door behind her with a sigh of relief and Ryan looked up at her with a soft smile.
'Outside world is scary isn't it.' He teased her kindly. 'Did you find either of them?'
'Yes.' Allison nodded, walking cautiously over to the table in the middle. 'They'll be here in a bit.'
She smiled as she looked at the Triceratops eggs, one of which now had a very large and definitive crack running diagonally across it's surface.
She looked up in confusion as Ryan laughed softly.
'You didn't stutter,' He explained, 'I feel special.'
Allison blushed and ignored the doctors green eyes as she looked back at the eggs.
'Th-there was a problem at the um… Nurseries.' Allison spoke slowly, 'I think that's w-why they didn't, y-you know… uh…'
Ryan looked up concernedly, 'What problem? Did something happen with the Raptors?'
'N-no?' Allison shook her head forcefully. 'It was o-one of the b-baby Tricerat-tops.'
Allison gripped the top of the frosted glass wall tightly.
'Poor baby.' She whispered gently and Ryan obviously understood what had happened because he sighed and ran a head through his hair messily.
'A second baby died?' He asked softly and sighed again when Allison nodded.
'Somethings going on with the Triceratops lately. They've always been tricky breeders but only about a quarter of the last three clutches have hatched and now two babies have died, and poor Old Sue wasn't really that old.' Ryan rambled before pausing and looking at her.
'Is Yvaine okay?'
Allison shrugged uncomfortably, she hadn't even spoken to the woman, she'd barely spoken to a tenth of the employees at the park, in fact she was pretty sure that she'd spoken to Ryan more than she'd spoken to her own roommate so…
The egg that was furthest along gave a dangerous wobble and Ryan gave an odd little dance before turning to her desperately.
'I'm so sorry to ask for another favor already but I was up all night and I downed an entire can of red bull this morning, do you mind if I duck off to the loo and you keep an eye on the eggs?'
Allison looked at him in surprise and began to stutter a halfhearted objection.
'Please Ally? I just can't leave them alone at this stage for legal reasons I promise they're not even close to hatching!' Begged Ryan.
It was the nickname that made Allison cave, mostly because she was too frozen to even respond to it and Ryan gave a rapid gush of thank you's before darting out the door and leaving Allison alone in the room with five dinosaur eggs.
She turned to the table slowly and leant over to get a closer look with a soft smile on her face.
'Allison,' she whispered, 'no one's called me Allison before.'
It felt silly to whisper to herself like this while hovering over a clutch of eggs that couldn't even begin to understand her but there was something about the name "Ally" that gave her a bubbly feeling in her chest and she couldn't stop her smile from blossoming into a wide grin.
'What do you guys think?' Allison whispered, 'Do you think Ally's a good na-'
A violent push knocked the cracked egg completely over, fracturing a large section of it, and Allison froze with her eyes wide as the creature inside stubbornly pushed through the remaining shell and, with an almost pop, it's head appeared on the other side and it's eyes blearily opened with a few blinks before staring her right in the eyes.
It was like a scene in a movie had been paused with neither Allison or the baby Triceratops moving an inch until the spell was broken by it making an indignant noise that sounded something in between a squaw and a moo and began to try and move closer to her, only being able to roll it's prison of shell closer to her inch by inch.
And as another egg began to twitch, the door behind her began to open and the baby Triceratops rolled towards her like some kind of demented bowling ball, Allison realized just how screwed she was.
