Chapter Three:
Defects
a/n: you know what I love? fucking dinosaurs. you know what this stupid-ass part of the movie has? a distinct dearth of fucking dinosaurs. I'm gonna try to condense all the foreshadowing into this chapter so we can get to the good shit next chapter. oh and just so you know this isn't a rigid, by-the-movie story. it combines elements of the film and the book, along with a LOT of altering and scene changes. k? cool. enjoy.
To the group's joint surprise, Alan was the only one who fainted.
Admittedly, Misty had expected herself to lose consciousness once it became apparent that this dinosaur, among several others, was quite real. She had felt lightheaded and even had to extract her inhaler from the pocket of her shorts for a quick puff (which seemed to, regrettably, only ramify her dorkiness). But it was Alan who swooned upon being informed that Jurassic Park was also the home of a living Tyrannosaurus Rex. Before Misty could imagine the millions of little boys who would collectively piss themselves at the sight of a real Rex, Doctor Grant began to collapse.
Oh my God, what am I witnessing? Misty stepped forward to help, then immediately stepped back. She had learned a great deal about fainting at her First-Aid class, but that certainly did not prepare her for dealing with an overjoyed and weak-kneed paleontologist. Out of the corner of her eye, her father smirked at the sight.
"P-Put your head between your knees, honey." Ellie helped her fiancé to the grass and gently pushed down on his shoulders. Alan would have waved her away had he possessed the strength; instead, he gazed out at the expansive, verdant plains. Packs of dinosaurs were roaming the fields, as content as a flock of sheep grazing in their pasture (if not a touch speedier and meaner). "Herds… they do move in herds."
John Hammond was practically bursting with pride at his test audience's reaction. He had anticipated excitement, of course, but… well, not excitement at Doctor Grant's degree. With a grandeur sweep of his cane, he uttered the words he had been waiting to say for the past decade: "Doctor Grant, my dear Doctor Sattler, young Misty… Welcome to Jurassic Park."
A fresh wave of reality swept over Alan and he found himself able to collect his wits. Hammond hadn't just been a finicky benefactor: he had been the brainchild behind… this. InGen had somehow extracted these beasts from the pages of textbooks and breathed life into their once dormant lungs (lungs! Did they have lungs?) Still awash in awe, Alan proposed the question on everyone's mind. "How'd you do this?"
Hammond smiled. "I'll show you."
.
.
"Dad, this is real. This is a real thing that's really happening. For real."
"Now, are you telling me it's real?" Ian Malcolm teased. His daughter laughed, which was a welcome change from the typical eye-rolling he got from her after a sarcastic comment, and rested her head on his shoulder. Surprised, he gently situated a hand on her crown. They hadn't been this close since she was a child and had to sleep in the master bed with him in case her breathing went sluggish during the night.
"But really," she sighed contentedly, "this is amazing. I had no idea that this was possible. I mean, I'm sure you had no idea this was happening. You thought Hammond was just a bas- -"
"Not in front of the guests, honey."
"Sorry, a, um… shyster? Is that a word? Whatever, you thought he was just a cheat. But look!" She pointed out the Jeep's window. Stout, rodent-like figments flickered spectrally between crops of artfully arranged brush. "He actually brought them back to life! They're real!"
"It's a Compy. Procompsognathus." Alan had joined them at the window; he caught Misty's eye and tapped a finger against the glass. "There seems to be a lot of 'em. I don't know what they're doing in the forest like that…"
"Alan, look at that!" Ellie exclaimed from the passenger seat. She twisted against her safety belt and gave Alan's sleeve an urgent tug. "There's flora here from the Triassic Period. Some of its poison Alan, and it's just out here. If this park really does open, what if a kid tries to touch it? Or worse? Did they do any research?"
"Hammond's people? I don't know- -"
"A bastard like Hammond would probably let the T-Rex carry park guests around in its mouth," Ian interrupted, voice marred with false delight. He chuckled at himself; Misty rolled her eyes. Thus was the bond between them.
"Give him a little slack, Dad. I mean, he helped build this place. Maybe it's just a mix-up," Misty added with a nod towards Ellie. The woman smiled, albeit uncertainly, and turned forward in her seat again. She wasn't entirely convinced though. John Hammond hadn't struck her as the sort to be particularly concerned with the placement of plants and their affects on humans. It just sickened her to envision the suffering a child would endure if he or she blithely collected a fistful of those toxic leaves.
The pair of Jeeps wound around the corner and trundled down an unpaved road that unfurled beyond Misty's realm of sight. She glanced up at the building they were approaching and was suddenly frightened. It was a modern structure, a gleaming conglomeration of angles and beige and polish, but something about its stark juxtaposition against the luxuriant landscape marbled her skin with goose bumps. With a shudder, she rubbed her forearm, adjusted her glasses, and stepped out of the stalled vehicle.
Hammond limped over to the party, disgruntled lawyer in tow. The elderly man could have tossed his cane aside and danced a jig he was so excited. "Come along! We have so much to see! I'm sure you're all curious to see how this, ah, little project works!" Curious? Doctor Grant would probably snap my dad's neck and wear his head as a trophy if it meant he could see how this works, Misty thought. Despite the thought's absurdity, she cut her eyes to the paleontologist and stepped between him and her father.
"G'day, g'day, g'day!" Hammond greeted his workers with all the mirth of a Sunday School teacher welcoming her class. There was about a dozen men, attired in salmon dress shirts, exiting and entering through a massive sheet of plastic tacked to the lobby's missing back wall. Aside from the ongoing construction, the lobby was beautiful: sun-drenched, commodious, steeped in opulent splendor that rivaled the natural treasures outside. In its center, a Tyrannosaurus Rex stood, jaws bared and tiny forelimbs posed to grab. Unlike its siblings, this dinosaur was made of bone and steel wire.
"Dad, look! It's a male T-Rex skeleton!" Misty rushed over to the display. Ian smiled at his daughter's enthusiasm, then aimed said smile toward the extremely pretty Doctor Sattler. She was gazing up at the Rex's football-sized teeth with perceptible awe, visage bathed in the golden slants of sunlight. Every wisp of her blonde hair glowed with individual cadence. God, was she beautiful.
Ellie noticed his stare and reciprocated the smile. "Misty's really interested, isn't she?"
"Oh, oh, definitely. Although, not as interested as I am in you, Doctor Sattler," he said matter-of-factly. Her cheeks went pink as her button-down shirt, but she didn't disagree with his sentiment. A bemused twinkle sparked in her baby blue eyes.
Hammond led the group to the steel staircase that spiraled around the Rex. It took Ellie a moment to register the new direction of her party and she quickly caught up with Alan. He didn't seem particularly pleased. To lighten his spirits, she gave his hand another squeeze; this gesture got his heart thumping hard again. "So, honey, what do you think?"
Alan stole a glance at the T-Rex display, so similar to the ones he had unearthed back in Montana, and shook his head. "I think we're out of a job." "Don't you mean extinct?" Ian called out in reply. Ellie sensed a fresh wave of hatred come off her fiancé.
The visitors were shepherded into a small, dim theater, ornately furnished with plush carpets and velvet seats. A blank screen occupied the entire front wall. Misty shot her father a glance; he merely shrugged. "Can't expect him to pull out all the big guns at the beginning," Ian whispered as they took their seats.
"I thought we were getting a behind the scenes look, not an educational video," she murmured. She bit her knuckle in spite of herself.
Hammond moved to the head of the theater and looked expectantly at the display. Sure enough, Hammond himself strolled into frame, cane in hand. "Hello, John!"
"Hello, John!" the virtual man chirped. The real Hammond gestured for his enthralled and slightly befuddled audience to echo the salutation; they did, if not with a mite less enthusiasm.
"How are you?"
"Oh, fine, fine, but… uh, how'd I get here?"
"Dad… what am I witnessing?" Misty said quietly.
"Nothing good, honey." He clapped a hand down on her knee and watched as the two bastard extraordinaires traded pointless banter. Eventually, flesh-and-blood Hammond jabbed his counter-part's finger with a pin. Ian briefly wondered if this interminable charade was about to get interesting. Unfortunately for him, nothing intriguing followed the small act of violence. An animated double-helix spiraled out of the two-dimensional man's fingertip, complete with large eyes and cartoonish front teeth.
Misty stole a glimpse of Doctor Grant. His expression could have curdled milk.
"If I wanted animation, I would've gone to Disney World," Ian declared. Judging by the volume of his voice, he had spoken with the intention of everyone hearing.
"Oh, father. For once, I agree."
.
.
Doctor Henry Wu consulted his clipboard once more, even though he had already perused the document in its entirety and committed every word of it to memory. The numbers did not falter: the dinosaur population of Jurassic Park had increased by one.
He had Caitlin print the population spreadsheets everyday as a formality, just to insure a Compy hadn't been trodden upon by its larger brethren. Wu was quite accustomed to the number decreasing by one or two- - never before had it gone up. The chart declared that there was seven Sauropods, compared to the six that had been alive the day before. Unless the document had been misprinted… dinosaurs were reproducing by themselves. Which was impossible. He had tweaked codes and woven DNA like macramé just to ensure those numbers remained in check. It had to be wrong.
"Caitlin." His intern, a sweet-faced college girl, scurried to his side. Her cloying optimism had always perturbed him: it was as if she didn't know the genetic duplicity they were engaged in. She was reliable though, if not a tad officious. "Check the system for any errors. The population spreadsheets… they're not reading right."
"Oh! Let me see…" She took the clipboard and adjusted her pink-rimmed spectacles before skimming her work. "You're right. Maybe the system just- - hey, look at that!"
Wu followed her pointing finger to the laboratory's glass wall, which typically overlooked nothing but a dishearteningly blank space. Not really a room with a view. Today though, they had company in the form of the rotating theater Hammond had told him to look for. Whenever the theater passed them, the technicians and scientists were supposed to evade eye contact and carry on robotically. Caitlin had just broke that rule.
"Caitlin, stop!" Wu hissed, snatching the clipboard back. She flinched instinctively; her ever-present smile was gone. He glanced back up at the guests and was shocked to see that the first row had been vacated. Hammond's visitors were rushing into the lab like it was their only shelter. "Oh, god damn… just-just go check the system. Okay?"
She all but sprinted into the Control Room, frenzied footsteps resonating throughout the tiled space. Wu cursed and turned his attention to the gaping group. There was Doctor Grant- - wow, how had Hammond snagged him?- - and a stunning blonde woman and a bespectacled father and daughter pair. Time to put on a good ol' fashioned suck-up show. "Ah, good day, sir."
"This is our top geneticist, Henry Wu," Hammond introduced. Before Wu could modestly insist that he wasn't the top geneticist (merely part of the performance: Wu knew the project would have collapsed without his contribution), Hammond hurried over to the central incubator. Wu bit his tongue and followed the exuberant man.
"Perfect timing, really. I'd hoped they'd hatch before I had to go to the boat."
"These were about to hatch?" The elderly man gazed lovingly at the steel and plastic nest, which was the home to about six or seven speckled eggs. Awash in the yellowish light of thermal fluorescents, they looked like oversized hen eggs. Wu opened his mouth to speak. "Henry, Henry, Henry… I've told you, I want to be present for every hatching!"
Wu sank his teeth deeper into the spongy meat of his tongue. He tasted the metallic zing of blood. "Of course, sir."
One of the eggs quivered and then expanded like a bubble. Hammond pulled a pair of disposable latex gloves from the station box, snapped them on, and gently cupped the egg in his hands. A crack raced up its dome. The egg was hatching.
"Alan, the egg's hatching!" The blonde woman seized the paleontologist's forearm as the two watched the egg shudder. Wu tried to match their excitement, but it was an arduous task for someone who had witnessed the hatching of hundreds of clutches. He reminded himself that these eggs were of Velociraptor origin and that they would begot a new flock. Hopefully, these raptors wouldn't maul one another the moment their teeth were sharp enough.
"Come on, little one! Come on…" A tiny snout poked through the shell, followed by a beady pair of eyes the size of sesame seeds. Hammond stripped the minute shards of eggshell from its scaly visage and used the rubber-clad tip of his pinky finger to clear the amniotic fluid from its mouth. He heard the paleontologists gasping in astonishment and he knew he had gotten them. "There we go, push! Push! They imprint on the first living creature they come into contact with. That helps them to trust me. I've been present for the birth of every animal on this island. Oh, just look at that."
Bullshit, Wu thought darkly. The two women were fawning over the infant raptor, showering it with the affection one would show a human newborn: even Doctor Grant was pointing absently to himself, as if hoping the raptor would imprint on him instead. It was the bespectacled man who seemed indifferent to all the hullabaloo (well, him and the lawyer, but corporate lawyers tended to have a stunted sense of awe).
"Surely not the ones that have bred in the wild," the man said in regards to Hammond's speech.
Wu recognized his cue and launched into his practiced spiel. "Actually, they can't breed in the wild. Population control is one of our security precautions here. There is no unauthorized breeding in Jurassic Park." Unless, of course, something went to hell in the backyard and my spreadsheet was right.
The man was unimpressed. His daughter noticed and slowly withdrew her finger from the raptor hatchery, eyes trained on him. "How do you know they can't breed?"
Good God, Hammond had bagged a stubborn one. Wu forced himself to keep his smile unforced and tone pleasant. "Because all the dinosaurs at Jurassic Park are female. We engineered them that way." The conversation was over.
Hammond had barely freed the creature before Doctor Grant took it into his own hands and began to examine it. If these dinosaurs were real, he was going to study the systems existing above the skeletons he knew so well. "Temperature feels like a high eighties."
"Wu?"
He consulted the monitor. "Ninety-one."
A robotic arm snatched up the raptor's shell in its hinged claw. Doctor Grant regarded it with flagrant disdain, as if it had harmed him in some way. He turned his attention back to the squealing creature nestled between his palms. "Homoeothermic? It holds that temperature? Incredible."
The man with all the questions could not be sated. "But, again, how do you know they're all females? Does someone go into the park and, ah- - lift the dinosaur's skirts up?
His daughter slapped his wrist like a frustrated mother. It was a queerly comical sight. Wu was far beyond the point of humor though. Between this man's tedious questions and Hammond, he was scarcely maintaining his patience. "We control their chromosomes. It's not that difficult. All vertebrate embryos are inherently female anyway. It takes an extra hormone at the right developmental stage to create a male, and we simply deny them that."
"John, that kind of control you're attempting… it-it's not possible. If there's one thing evolution has taught us, it's that life will not be contained. Life breaks free. It expands to new territories. It crashes through barriers. Painfully, maybe even… dangerously, but- - and- - well… there it is." He gestured to Alan's dinosaur, which was writhing and squeaking.
Wu didn't make an effort to mask his scorn. These guests were supposed to be enraptured and astonished and all that shit: Hammond had promised him that. "You're implying that a group composed entirely of females will breed?"
The man shook his head, the corner of his mouth quirked into an arrogant smirk. "No, no, I'm simply saying… life, uh, finds a way."
Wu resisted the urge to roll his eyes.
Doctor Grant continued to covet the infant and was counting its vertebrate obsessively. He turned her over on his callused palm to peer at her clawed middle toe. Frightened, the raptor cried out in a tremulous, high-pitched voice, attracting Wu's attention. "Doctor Grant, please, don't touch her like- -"
"I just wanted- -"
"Doctor Grant!"
"Fine." He set the raptor on the incubator's steel rim; she scampered around its curvature until she reached Misty. The girl gasped as the terrified creature leapt into her arms and burrowed her head into the crook of her elbow. She could feel the poor creature's thumbnail-sized heart thudding swiftly against her chest.
Doctor Grant stared at the raptor from afar a moment. "What species is this?"
"Uh- - it's a Velociraptor."
The visitors exchanged mildly horrified glances that confirmed to Wu that they knew the damage Velociraptors could inflict. Misty gently set the raptor back in the incubator, her fondness replaced with the first traces of fear. She glanced up at Wu, then back to Doctor Grant.
"You breed raptors?"
.
.
Alan Grant was a man on a mission. He had demanded to be shown the Velociraptor pen and no amount of Hammond's anxious twaddle could deter him. If Hammond was idiotic enough to reawaken the blood-thirstiest species from its million year sleep, he had to see where they were kept. Velociraptors were not petting zoo animals: they were the greatest hunters the world had ever known.
Misty admired his passion, but her interest in the park's raptors was wearing thin. There was an entire island of dinosaurs to explore (as well as a meal to eat). So what if there were a few Velociraptors? They were confined in a steel compound strung with electrified cables that could kill a full-grown human on contact, much less a cranky dinosaur. Why was Doctor Grant so paranoid?
"Doctor Grant? We planned to show you the raptors later, after lunch," Hammond said persistently as they ascended the Velociraptor compound's stairwell. The paleontologist didn't regard Hammond until they had reached the railed footbridge overlooking the forested depths of the cage. He leaned as far as the balustrade would allow him, dying to catch a glimpse.
Hammond was tapping his cane again- - this time, out of unease. "Doctor Grant- - as I was saying, we've laid out lunch for you before you head out into the park. Alejandro, our head chef- -"
"What are they doing?" Alan interrupted curtly. Above them, a massive crane slowly made its way into the pen; in its grip was a plump steer. It was mooing idly, unaware that it was about to meet its maker (or, rather, meat its maker). Misty knew what was happening: the poor creature was on the Velociraptors' menu.
"Uh, feeding them," Hammond said. He despised the shadow of horror that eclipsed Doctor Sattler's face as she ogled at the disconcerted steer. Time to distract them, lest he lose Grant's approval for good. "Alejandro is preparing a delightful meal for us. A Chilean sea bass, I believe. Shall we?"
Alan stepped onto the viewing deck, back to the elderly man. He felt Ellie's hand on his own and started rubbing his thumb into the delicate whorls of her joints. She was tense. At his left, Misty set her hands on the railing and bent down, peering past the wide boughs and fronds. All was completely silent.
Suddenly, the crane's wire jerked like a fishing line and there came a blood-curdling squall. The group simultaneously flinched as the vegetation began to shake violently, followed by a sound like someone shredding wet wallpaper. Alan heard and recognized it with a sickening confidence: the sound of flesh being torn. It may not be the prey they were accustomed to, but a steer was meat enough for Velociraptors.
The feral shrieks died away, replaced by a near ethereal silence that only contributed to the horror felt collectively by the group. Misty leaned forward again in the hopes she might be able to see a raptor at work with its meat. What she came face to face with was a raptor- - an enraged one. She slammed herself against the wires and yowled as a hot burst of electricity torched her body. Terrified, Misty fell back from the railing and into her father's extended arms. "Oh, shit."
Ian didn't bother admonishing her for her language; he simply twisted to Hammond, silently demanding an explanation. "Astonishing jumpers, they are."
"They should all be destroyed," a sonorous voice asserted. A burly, broad-shouldered man dressed in khaki was coming up the staircase, creased face contorted into something of a sneer. Misty, still gripped in the throes of terror, found herself agreeing with his trenchant assessment of the situation.
"Ah, Robert. Robert Muldoon, my game warden from Kenya. Bit of an alarmist, I'm afraid, but he's dealt with the raptors more than anyone," Hammond explained, trying to remain upbeat. Muldoon detected the fabricated cheer in his voice and deduced that something must have gone wrong. No surprise there. Jurassic Park should have been renamed "Nothing-Can-or-Will-Ever-Go-Right Park" to save them the trouble (unfortunately, it just didn't have a nice ring to it).
Grant wasted no time shaking Muldoon's hand. He wanted information on the raptors. "Alan Grant. Tell me, what kind of metabolism do they have? What's their growth rate?"
"They're lethal at eight months and I do mean lethal. I've hunted most things that can hunt you, but the way these things move- -"
"Fast for a biped?"
Muldoon nodded with a certain tiredness that made Misty cast a second glance into the raptor enclosure. They had settled down- - for now. "Cheetah speed. Fifty, sixty miles per hour if they ever got out in the open. And they are astonishing jumpers, I'm afraid."
"No kidding," Misty murmured. Ellie squeezed the girl's shoulder before returning to the discussion.
"Yes, yes, yes, which is why we take extreme precautions," Hammond insisted. No one listened to him. Muldoon's tempered tales had captivated them.
"Do they show intelligence? With a brain cavity like theirs, I assumed…" Alan gestured for him to confirm this theory. After all, raptors had some of the largest cranial cavities to ever be recorded: he speculated that an adult specimen could have the intelligence of a young human.
"They show extreme intelligence, even problem solving. Especially the big one. We bred eight originally, but when she came in, she took over the pride and killed all but two of the others. That one- - when she looks at you, you can tell she's working things out. She's the reason we have to feed 'em like this." He pointed to the crane still poised over their heads. "She had them all attacking the fences when the feeders came."
"But the fences are electrified," Ellie said.
"That's right. But they never attack the same place twice. They were testing the fence for weaknesses. Systemically. They remembered." His voice had taken on a grim note that did not bode well with his audience, especially Misty. She held onto her father's arm and continued to look down at the cage, feeling vaguely sick with fear.
The wire jolted again and began to reel itself back into the crane. What was once a healthy steer was now nothing more than a bloodied harness, barely held together by tatters of cerulean plastic and broken rods. Not a scrap of meat remained.
"Well!" Hammond exclaimed. "Who's hungry?"
.
.
By the time Misty was seated in the darkened dining room, she had lost her appetite. Between the memory of the gory harness and the long drags she had taken from her inhaler, she still felt a little sick and definitely less enthusiastic than she had been a mere hour ago. It certainly didn't help that the entrée being served was beef. She shuddered and shoved it away.
The dining room was a wide, shadowy space, furnished with a long oak table and a glassy buffet the color of polished onyx. A projector beamed sun-drenched images of future projects onto the far wall; John Hammond's pre-recorded voice described various rides through overhead speakers. Two waiters served the last of the dishes and graciously left the guests to their meal.
Hammond gestured to a slide of a potential aviary, which depicted a happy family watching pterodactyls circle around a glass dome. "None of these attractions have been finished yet. The park will open with the basic tour you're about to take and then the other rides will come on line after six or twelve months. Spectacular designs. Spared no expense."
Bastard, Ian thought. He glanced at his daughter and, after fretting over how pale she still was, held up four fingers. She smiled. Hammond had spouted that particular phrase four times now.
Gennaro had expected dinosaurs- - the horror stories he had heard were evidence enough- - but this was beyond anything he could have imagined. InGen had brought the beasts back to life and with extraordinary sights came extraordinary prices. "And we can charge anything you want! Two thousand a day, ten thousand a day, and people will pay it! And then, of course, there's the merchandising- -"
"Donald, Donald, this park was not built only to cater to the super rich. Everyone in the world's got a right to enjoy this park," Hammond said. Misty had to admit that she admired his benevolence. She knew her family could never afford a ten thousand dollar park ticket: in fact, there wasn't a single family she knew that could cough up that much.
"Sure, they will, they will. We'll have a-a coupon day or something." Gennaro laughed as if he had said something of remarkable hilarity and Hammond joined in; the others merely eyed them with joint dislike.
Ian shook his head at the two men and snorted in derision, attracting their attention. "Th-The lack of humility before nature that's been displayed here staggers me."
Oh, good. Dad's five-o'-clock rant, right on time. Misty folded her arms and got comfortable. With everything he had witnessed today, her father would have more than his fair share of insight to share.
"Thank you, Doctor Malcolm," Gennaro deadpanned, beady eyes trained on the man in question, "but I think things are a little different than you and I feared."
"Yeah, I know. They're a lot worse."
The lawyer's brow seemed to gain a fresh layer of wrinkles. "Now, wait a second, we haven't even seen the park yet. Let's just hold our concerns until- -"
"Alright Donald, alright, just let him talk. I want to hear all viewpoints, I truly do," Hammond said. He gave Ian a warm smile, which Ian did not return.
"Don't you see the danger, John, inherent in what you're doing here? Genetic power is the most awesome force ever seen on this planet. But you wield it like a kid whose found his dad's gun." Misty was surprised by his analogy: she hadn't thought of InGen's work that way at all. They had seemed so confident… so certain that nothing horrible could occur if they moved around enough cash and hired enough specialists.
Hammond attempted to offer a rebuttal, but Ian beat him to it. "If I may… I'll tell you why. The problem with scientific power you've used is it didn't require any discipline to attain it. You read what others had done and you took the next step. You didn't earn the knowledge yourselves, so you don't take the responsibility for it. You stood on the shoulders of geniuses to accomplish something as fast as you could, and before you knew what you had, you patented it, packaged it, slapped in on a plastic lunch box, and now you want to sell it. You're selling it." He slammed his fist against the tabletop to emphasize his point. Misty could tell he was just getting started.
"You don't give us our due credit," Hammond accused. "Our scientists have done things no one else could ever do before."
Ian rolled his eyes and jerked a thumb towards the laboratory that had visited earlier. "Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn't stop to think if they should!"
Hammond swallowed his resentment and struggled to remain composed in the presence of his female visitors. "Condors! Condors are on the verge of extinction…"
"No, no, no… hold on, this is no species that was obliterated about deforestation or-or the building of a dam. Dinosaurs, uh, had their shot and nature selected them for selection." Misty inadvertently looked over at Doctor Grant. To her surprise, the emotion he was communicating was not devastating hatred: it was genuine interest. Doctor Alan Grant was actually listening to her father without holding a blade to his neck.
"I-I don't understand this Luddite attitude, especially from a scientist. How could we stand in the light of discovery and not act?"
Malcolm snorted again, this time with a condescending grin that made Hammond's blood boil. "What's so great about discovery? It's a violent, penetrative act that scars what it explores. What you call discovery… I call rape of the natural world."
Ellie was tired of their dry banter and leaned in before another angry remark could be made. "Well, the question is- - how much can you know about an extinct ecosystem, and therefore, how could you assume you could control it? I mean, you have plants here that are poisonous. You picked them because they looked good, but these are aggressive living things that have no idea what century they're in and will defend themselves. Violently, if necessary."
Inspired by Ellie's excellent point, Misty spoke up. "She's right. There've been textbooks and studies, sure, but these were just theories. No one really knows what these creatures are like or what they'll do- - not even your scientists. Mister Hammond, if these creatures aren't regulated, if they aren't studied, something's going to go wrong. Horribly wrong. Someone could get hurt and-and then… well, I don't know what you would do."
Exasperated, Hammond turned to the only person who had kept his opinion to himself. "Doctor Grant… if there's one person who can appreciate all this."
Grant shifted, as if Hammond had roused him from a doze, and slowly shook his head. He had absorbed too much information in the past few minutes to have an eloquent response prepared. "The world has just… changed so radically and we're all struggling to keep up. I don't want to jump to any conclusions, but look… Dinosaurs and man- - two species separated by sixty-five million years of evolution- - have just been suddenly thrown in the mix together. Really- - how can we have the faintest idea of what to expect?"
Hammond surveyed his table of guests again, flabbergasted by their abrupt reluctance. He chuckled darkly and shook his head, wide-eyed. "I don't believe it! I expected you to come down here and defend me from these characters and the only one I've got on my side is the blood-sucking lawyer!"
Gennaro seemed simultaneously offended and elated. "Thank you."
One of the waiters stepped back into the dining room and leaned down to whisper in Hammond's ear. In an instant, the elderly man's affronted expression was replaced by one of grandfatherly affection. He laughed to himself and stood up.
"They're here."
a/n: Oh my godddd this is so long and boring and awful, but I REALLY think this part of the movie- - though important- - is kind of a drag. I think I got fucking carpal tunnel from all this fucking typing. I know Misty didn't get as much attention in this one, but I really wanted to focus on some other characters and start exploiting Hammond as a darker, more controlling figure than as he's portrayed in the film. so yooo next chapter will have more Misty and more cute Murphy kids. Thanks for the favorites and review, I love you guys.
