JurassiQuest – Chapter 4: On the Brink of Great Discovery
A/N: In this week's chapter, we'll be introduced to a third perspective of the story and you'll also find out just what great discoveries InGen is on the brink of making. Please enjoy!
Disclaimer: I don't own anything related to Jurassic Park except the very characters I've made up.
It was two days after Dr. Grant's lecture, on Friday, that Luke sat in his desk in his ninth grade classroom during the last period. He watched boringly as his teacher, Mrs. Chloe Brown, pointed to certain figures on the black board. She was lecturing about cell division, something that Luke normally would find interesting on a normal day. But it was late in the school day and all Luke wanted to do was get his backpack and head home.
"Now as you can see here," Mrs. Brown said, "cells are able to replicate themselves when one cell divides into two daughter cells. This triggers the growth of multicellular organisms and procreation. In some organisms, the separation of cells is also how they reproduce. Simple amoeba are a terrific example of this. The way the cells in an amoeba work are quite different from more complex organisms. Multicellular organisms replace worn-out cells through cell division. In some animals, cell division eventually halts, however. And this leads to–"
The school bell rung; school was finally finished for the day! Luke was glad. He and other students erupted from their chairs, but before they could do much else, Mrs. Brown said, "Before you all go, I'd like to remind you that you're to study page 352 in your biology text books and then write your 10-page analysis on that topic. Class dismissed."
Luke hurried out of the classroom. He was anxious to get home so his dad and him could go bowling like Grant had promised after the plan to go to the movies was ditched. Luke opened his locker and took some papers out of his backpack. Quickly glancing at each one, he placed them into his locker.
"Hey, Luke," said a male voice from behind.
Luke turned around to see his friend Tom. "Oh, hi Tom. Glad to see that you're all better." Today was Tom's first day back at school after he had gotten sick. Tom was one of Luke's best friends and was about his height. He had a freckled face and reddish-blond hair.
"Did you get to see the movie on Wednesday night. You seemed really excited about–"
"Dad couldn't take me."
"What? Why not? You said you'd have plenty of time after his lecture–"
"He was really beat up at the end of the lecture. He was really tired. Didn't feel like doing much. We just dropped Ellie at her house and went home that night."
"That's a bummer."
"Yeah, I guess," Luke grabbed a stack of books from his locker, shut the locker's door and began walking down the hall with Tom. "To tell you the truth, dad's just been really busy lately. Ever since we started loosing money to support his digs–"
"Why did you guys start loosing money?" Tom asked. "I forgot. Was it because of Dr. Baselton's constant degrading of your father's public image or something else?"
"I'm not exactly sure, but I think that's a major part of it. Thanks to Baselton, my father's kind of viewed as a numbskull by a lot of people, including the investors. Therefore, the investors aren't helping to support my dad's excavations. The Black Hills Institute will have to quit the digging operation within a couple of weeks."
"That's just sad. I mean, it's not like your dad's theory involves aliens and zombie-dinosaur werewolves or something."
"I know, right? That's why my Dad's been lecturing at other institutes and colleges in an effort to raise more money. But that's when Baselton keeps publicly criticizing his work."
"Can't Dr. Grant just teach on something else to raise money?"
"It's not that simple. One of his most frequently studied dinosaurs are dromaeosaurs, and even when he doesn't specifically mention his controversial theories on raptors, it's always brought up because they're so well-known, by either Baselton or someone else."
A familiar trio of teens suddenly rushed past Luke and Tom. The tallest of the trio roughly knocked into Luke, causing him to drop his books. "Oh my!" he said. "I'm so sorry about that! Need help picking those up, Luke?"
"Sure," Luke said.
The taller kid snickered. "I was being sarcastic, loser."
Luke and Tom picked up the fallen books and turned to face Logan Mullings and his "gang" of troublemakers, John Suckling and Matt Peterson. Logan was taller than Luke and Tom and had short blond hair, wore dark shades and always wore a purple and blue sports jacket (the two colors of his favorite football team); he was one of the most popular guys in the entire school and when he didn't have a flock of girls swarming around him, he was busy bullying the less popular kids (including the older ones), specifically Luke.
"What do you want, Logan?" Luke asked.
"With you? Nothing," Logan answered. "It's just funny whenever you drop your stuff or make some dumb mistake."
"Come on, just give it a rest, will ya?" Tom argued.
"It's true though," John said. "And he's destined to always be a loser, just like his father."
Luke scowled, but said nothing.
"Anyone with a crack-brain father really should lay low," Logan said, "I mean, it's not actually as if your father is actually doing the research."
"He does know what he's talking about and he did do the research," Luke argued. "What would you know about it anyway? When's the last time you read a book on paleontology?"
"Everyone knows your father's a lunatic, kiddo. All the other scientists think his theories are ludicrous. I don't know why you want to follow in his footsteps. He's a loser and destined for failure." Luke sighed and he and Tom started walking away as Logan continued. "And now, because your father won't renounce his crazy ideas, he's losing money. He doesn't even have time to spend with his own son! What kind of a father is he?"
"Ow, burn!" Matt exclaimed.
Logan and his followers began trailing behind Luke and Tom. "You know, I kinda shocked he still has a girlfriend. She must not be too bright, you know, if she's staying with the money-loosing loser your father is–"
Luke whirled around and snarled, "Look, everyone things my Dad's a lunatic now, but you just wait. One day, he will prove his theories everyone else will see that he was right all along! He just needs more time."
"Time? He's had years! You and your father are just a couple of losers."
"Losers! Losers! Losers!" Matt and John chanted.
Luke and Tom headed down the bustling school hall.
They finally reached the entrance to the school building. Because school was over for the day, there were lots of other students around waiting to either board one of the buses or get a ride home with their parents. Those that could drive were already waiting in their cars. Tom and Luke made their way through the crowds so that they could see the parking lot.
"What if he's right?" Luke asked.
"If who's right?" Tom asked.
"Logan, Dr. Baselton and everybody else."
"Don't you get sucked into believing any of that garbage. The real issue here isn't who's right and who's wrong, it's how everyone relates to everyone else due to their beliefs."
"True but–"
"We may never know if Dr. Grant's right about his theories or not. I mean, no one alive today has ever seen one of those animals alive! I don't know if he'll ever get affirmative proof for his theory, but I do know that you can't keep letting yourself get constantly mentally knocked down by what other people think. My dad says that sometimes, we just have to ignore those people and not let them effect us. Otherwise, we might miss the very thing that could turn our lives around."
Luke nodded. "Thanks, Tom."
"Anytime." He looked at the parking lot and gasped. "Oh, my rides here. I'll catch up with you later, Luke."
"Yeah, see ya, bro."
Luke watched as his best friend rushed to the crosswalk to get to his parents car. He sighed, wondering where his dad was. He hoped his father hadn't gotten extra busy at the dig site today so that he'd have to be waiting here for hours on end. Why can't he ever be here on time? he thought.
Just then, his cellphone made a quick buzzing sound – his text notification. He looked at it and read: Sorryy, can't pic youk uop from scholl te bus hoe. Lovemyou, Dad. Luke sighed again and glanced up at the parking lot, He's texting with his gloves on, again. Despite the major grammatical typos, Luke was able to decode the message: "Sorry, can't pick you up from school today. Catch the bus home. Love you, Dad." Not having another reason to remain on the school campus, Luke walked over to the nearest bus that would take him home.
Dr. Henry Wu led John Hammond, followed by Dianthus, into his genetics laboratory. It was a wide open room with quite a few long tables and chairs and desks to conduct science experiments and lab tests. This was where Henry used to spend most of his time, months before he started working on the time portal. Now that the time portal was created, he hoped he could spend most of his time in here once again. This room was normally bustling with activity, but all the lab scientists were out to lunch this time of day. Even with no one actively working in this laboratory, it was easy to see that this where the core work (aside from the time portal) of InGen took place. On the far side of the room, Henry glanced at the shelves housing lots of pieces of fossilized tree sap – amber.
Hammond's little elephant rested on the floor as Hammond began to speak. "Henry, now that we're alone, please tell me why on earth you're so concerned about the time portal? You created it, and you – we all – deserve to be able to use it."
"True, but time travel could be very dangerous," Henry argued. "As far as we know, we're the first people in history to travel back in time. We're pioneers in this realm of science; we need to be careful how we use it. We can't just go blindly blundering about; that could cause some serious consequences."
"What type of consequences, Henry?"
"Well . . ." for once Henry had to stop and think. This is when one rather obvious consequence came to mind. "The space-time continuum. If we change something in the past, it could alter the present and–"
"Space-time continuum," Hammond chuckled. "To my knowledge, it's just a theory. Some scientists have suggested that if time travel is possible, it would not effect the time line due to it happening in a sort of . . . simultaneous reality. You worry too much, Henry. However, having a working time portal, you can test the space-time continuum theory."
"But there are other precautions that must be made, John. Time travel is just plain dangerous. About all we can know from the past and places we'd be exploring is gained from the fossil record. And the fossil record is still kind of vague on many details. There might be loads of dangerous predators for example; predators we haven't even discovered yet. Now-extinct dangerous diseases could be present, and for all we know, the oxygen levels could be drastically different from today. John, you know what we've been interested in studying after creating the time portal – dinosaurs. Based on what paleontologists believe about them, many of these creatures are far more dangerous than many of the modern carnivores alive today; crocodiles, elephants, chimpanzees, African buffalo and big cats kill hundreds of people every year. Many dinosaurs were much larger. I want to go into the past as much as you do, but it's too dangerous to do this foolishly."
Hammond gave a deep sigh. "Are you implying I'm not skilled enough to go back in time?"
"No, but you're too–"
"Don't say 'old'."
"I wasn't going to say 'old'. But you're too important to this company. If we loose you, Ingen will go out of whack. We're on the brink of too many revolutionary scientific discoveries to have a re-shifting of InGen employees. We both know that that's exactly what would happen."
Hammond sighed again. "Well, perhaps you're right."
"Besides, if I continue working on the time portal project – or at least, spending most of my time in that area – I won't be able to finish my other important science projects." Henry started walking over to the shelves of amber. Hammond and Dianthus followed.
"Bioengineering," Hammond breathed.
"Over the past ten years, Laura and I have caused our knowledge into the workings of DNA has increased dramatically," Henry explained. "If we keep up our pace of research on this topic, we'll be able to produce living creatures using their DNA, not within the next century, but in a few months to a year, through the process of cloning."
"Yes, I'm aware of that." Hammond looked down at Dianthus. The little elephant was peeking underneath a desk, curious as to what lie under it. His trunk probed curiously under the desk when . . . achoo! Dust got caught up the elephant's trunk and it was quickly sneezed out.
Dianthus was not produced via cloning, in the technical sense of the word. In 2008, Dr. Wu retrieved the embryo of an Asian elephant and was able to turn on and turn off certain genes. He found it possible to turn off the genes that would cause the mammal to grow to normal size. Two years later, the female Asian elephant at a nearby zoo gave birth to Dianthus. The purpose of Dianthus was initially to help get investors support the InGen company. It was a very easy process. Hammond would bring Dianthus into the office of potential investors in a little cage covered with a blanket. After explaining a bit about his company, he'd whip off the blanket, show off the elephant and ask for the money. Needless to say, investors were quite easy to come by.
Hammond looked back up at Henry as the scientist continued speaking. "Based on my latest research, I believe we're fairly close to cloning extinct animals. The science of cloning has greatly increased our knowledge of the topic. Other laboratories around the world have been studying the science of cloning and have had great success. I believe it's not long before we will be able to clone creatures that have been extinct for eons of time. The Pyrenean Ibex and gastric-brooding frog were already been brought back from extinction, and I don't think it will be long before we – International Genetic Technologies – will be able to clone animals far more ancient than that."
"Dinosaurs," Hammond said. "Yes, we've discussed all this already–"
"I know, but we're getting extremely close to actually doing so!" Henry grabbed a piece of amber from off the shelf and held it up to the light on the ceiling – the piece of hardened sap glowed and illuminated the tiny body of a mosquito, long since trapped inside. "We have sources of dinosaur DNA from amber and dinosaur bones. Laura says we should have more than enough DNA to create a living dinosaur. In fact, we're so close to actually cloning one, that we're going to have to start thinking ahead. I have very good theories on how we can grow a dinosaur embryo and how to produce a living dinosaur from the unfertilized egg of some living creatures. I haven't narrowed it down to exactly what just yet, but I'm suspecting alligators, crocodiles, emus or ostriches might work. Arnold tells me that Nedry's close to programming a computer system that will be able to decode the DNA we find. All I need is the time to conduct a little bit more research and then we'll be able to clone dinosaurs. But in order to do that, I need to spend more time here in the bioengineering labs, rather than seeking to go back in time and study the ancient world. Laura's working full time in this lab and not as much work can get accomplished unless we're both doing it. We're a team."
"But couldn't we just go back in time and get dinosaurs?" Hammond inquired. "I appreciate all you two have done in this lab, but–"
"I don't think we should meddle with the past too much," Henry interrupted. "When we time travel, we need to make as small of an impact as possible. Besides, if we want dinosaurs in the present to study, we'll need to produce our own stock."
"Agreed."
"But we can't clone any dinosaurs unless this laboratory is where I'm spending most of my time."
Hammond nodded. He could see Henry's point. "Then . . . what do you suggest we do?"
Henry looked thoughtful. He remained silent for several seconds before speaking. "Well, I think, we'll need to get a group of scientists," he said, "that we'll send back in time. Scientists that can take the time to study the dinosaurs in the past, and maybe collect a few – and I do mean a few – specimens to bring back; that way, we'll be able to continue our work here."
"I guess that sounds like a good idea. Who should we send?"
Henry shrugged. "Hey, don't ask me. You'll have to speak to your other people you have working for you: Gennaro, Ludlow, Ed Regis. They could probably find a group of scientists to bring into this project." He paused. "Now that I think of it, we're financing some scientists aren't we? You could recruit them, since they're already associated with us."
Hammond nodded again and said, "Well, I'm glad we had this talk. It's cleared up a few of my concerns."
"Yes, mine too."
Nedry and Arnold, with Dr. Sorkin at his side, sat at their desks in the time portal room, doing work on their computers. Nedry looked at his watch: 12:45 p.m. "Well, I'm going to be taking my lunch break now," he told Arnold.
"Already?" Arnold asked without looking away from the computer screen in front of him. "You've been eating snacks all this time and you're still hungry?"
"Yeah, but it's also just nice to get out of the office and not think about work for a bit."
"Figures," Dr. Sorkin sighed. "We're trying to figure out computer programs and he's ready for lunch."
"Alright then, no one's stopping you."
Nedry got up, took his soda and most recent bag of chips and left the room, shutting it behind him. OK, I've still got time, he thought. Quickly, he headed won the hall, down the elevator to the first floor and began walking toward the exit. The guard on duty at the time nodded to Nedry, who was in deep thought, so he didn't see the guard. Nedry got in his car and drove downtown.
Fifteen minutes later, Nedry pulled into the parking lot of the local Mexican restaurant, Cafe Brio. He got out and briskly walked into the building. The restaurant was rather crowded; customers were talking amongst themselves at their tables, and Mexican waitresses hurried around the room, trying to serve everyone. Mexican chiefs yelled at each other in the usual fashion in the kitchen. Perfect, it's nice and busy, Nedry thought.
"Hello, sir," said the maitre'd. "How many will be dining with you today?"
"Uh, one other person. His name's, Dodgson. Is he here?"
"Yes, he's at that table by the window."
Nedry nodded and rushed over to him. "Yo! Dodgson!" he said as he sat down. The man he was sitting across from was named Lewis Dodgson; he had a straw fedora with a brown rim on his head and was wearing tortoise-shell wayfarer sun glasses, a red polo shirt and light gray slacks. Presumably, the hat and glasses were to make him look less conspicuous.
"You shouldn't use my name," Dodgson responded.
Nedry chuckled. He stood up and proclaimed, "Dodgson! Dodgson! We've got Dodgson here!" No one in the restaurant even looked in their direction. He sat back down and turned to Dodgson. "See? Nobody cares." Then he noticed the hat Dodgson was wearing. "Nice hat, what are you trying to look like? A secret agent?" Nedry removed the hat from Dodgson's head.
"So, you probably want the money," Dodgson said. He retrieved a small duffel bag and handed it to Nedry, who eagerly accepted.
"How much is in here?"
"$50,000. That's for the information you're about to give me right now. Another $50,000 will be given to you at our next meeting."
"Alright then."
"So what's the scoop?"
Nedry sat the bag beside him and began to explain. "Well, I don't remember what I told you last . . ."
"You, Arnold, Sorkin and Wu were programming the time portal. You had some sort of technical problems and couldn't get it to work."
"Oh yeah. So, we just tested the time portal today, and to my surprise, we solved the bug problems and–"
"Wait, tell me all the details," Dodgson said. "If we hope to obtain that technology, we need to know how to work it and fix any bugs."
"But that's the thing. They were all fixed! Today!"
Dodgson leaned in closer. "But that means the prototype should be working. Are you telling me . . . that you four have created a working time portal?"
"Yes."
"You're kidding."
"No, I'm not. I'm dead serious. The two pistons fire energy to the center of the empty space in between them and after they fuse, this ball of light and energy appears and–"
"And what does the time portal look like?"
"It's a glowing orb of light with what looks like these shards of glass floating and swirling around it. It's pretty amazing."
"Did you travel through it?"
"No, but Henry and Hammond did. Two giant dragonflies came through and they're kept in InGen's biology department."
"Two giant dragonflies came through the time portal? You're sure they're from the past?"
"These dragonflies have a wingspan of over two feet."
Dodgson nodded. "OK, is there anything else I need to know?"
"Nope. That's pretty much it."
"Alright then. This is great. I appreciate the information you gave me."
"Hey, when I get paid, I'm yours."
"When can I meet with you again?"
"Soon, but I'm not sure exactly when. I don't know when the next substantial update is."
"OK. Just remember, once you feel that the prototype is progressed enough so that we have all the data we need, you need to thwart their progress. Otherwise they'll be ahead."
"Don't worry, Dodgson. You can count on me."
A/N: These early chapters aren't nearly as adventuresome as later ones I plan to write, but they're necessary in order to build up the story so that when it gets to the adventure-filled parts, it won't seem hollow. I know some of you might want to read about action and dinosaurs and stuff, but these chapters are crucial for character development. Without that, the story won't be nearly as good. Don't worry though, soon we'll have some actual dinosaurs in the story. Anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter. Please be sure to favorite, follow and review on this story. Next week, look forward to when I will start taking these three perspectives on the story (Dr. Grant's, Henry's and Nedry's) and link them together, slowly but surely. R&r!
