Matt: Thank you
Old Chuck: They are intelligent, and this story does use humor
Archmage: thank you. I do admit that my Naruto stories just aren't becoming equals to Mysterious Power. I wish I knew where I went wrong with them
Arian: Don't expect 20 reviews a chapter though.
Offshore of the island of dinosaurs, itself being approximately 100 square miles in total size, 48% of its land being the southern plains and dry forests, 48% being the northern jungles and swamps and 4% the volcanic center, floated a international fleet of ships, hailing from the United States, Canada, Britain, France, China, Russia, Mexico, Peru, Venuzuala, Columbia and Brazi.
After what happened with Eric Kirby and his para sailing disaster, the presence of naval vessels to keep more idiots from being eaten was nearly universally desired by the U.N and domestically worldwide, the lone dissidents being conspiracy theorists who believe that the San Diego incident was really a Government massacre.
But, ignoring those who believe that Kennedy was killed by Canadians or Columbine was done by the government to get rid of the second amendment.
Ian, Sarah and Wu were on board the ship who had captured the rogue scientist, the U.S.S John Paul Jones.
"You know, they could have used a Battleship" Ian commented to Wu.
"Battleships are no longer in service anywhere"
"Well I'd rather have those big guns trailed on a Rex than these tiny guns"
A couple of naval officers gave the Mathematician dirty looks.
Sarah elbowed her husband, making him shut up before the sea men kicked him off the boat.
"The prisoner is down this way" a young looking officer saluted and pointed them down a narrow staircase that was practically vertical
"You couldn't put tax dollars into safe staircases?"
"Go to hell" the sailor commented in the very same tone of voice he had just talked to them earlier.
"...Anyone bring a magnet?"
"One more comment from you and it's the couch Ian" Sarah deadpanned as she descended.
Professor Laura Sorkin was sitting on a chair, guarded by a pair of marines. She was about 50 years of age, with graying blond hair and glasses, dressed in a white lab coat and the kind of rugged fashion Sarah liked.
"Wu" she said darkly.
"Sorkin" Wu deadpanned back "I was told you were eaten"
"Wu, unlike you, animals happen to like me" Sorkin pointed out "I' hand fed Compies, flossed the Big Rex and was the one who gave the larger herbivores their gastrolith stones that completely slipped Ingen's mind .The only creatures at the park who actively hated me were your Velociraptor mutants"
"No need to be personal, his cat loves him" Ian pointed out as Wu gave him a look "Now, regardless of your status as dino food being proven false...mind telling us what you've been doing, and why you've been playing god"
"I'm hardly playing god" Sorkin replied "I am merely making my dream come true, my original hope for what the Jurassic Park project would be, a Dinosaur preserve. A healthy, thriving ecosystem, like our world before humanity ruined it. Ever since Ingen left, I've been creating the perfect self contained ecosystem, fixing every flaw I would observe, creating the perfect lost world."
"I lectured Hammond that you can't keep something like that from affecting the world or being affected by it, and I think San Diego proved me right" Ian deadpanned.
"Ludlow is the devil and Hammond would have been a perfect fit for the Gilded Age's millionaires" Sorkin commented darkly "Though I admit Hammond attempting to redeem himself and turn Site B into a nature preserve shows some humanity I didn't realize he possessed"
"Yes yes, before he died Hammond showed himself to be a human..." Ian still didn't like him.
"However, he did not create the perfect ecosystem. Ingen's island would be deforested by the dinosaurs, even with the genetically enhanced growth of their trees, by 2034. Too many predators roamed the island, and the most common of them, Wu's Raptors, would kill everything they could. The fish eating carnivores would leave the coastal reefs, rivers and lakes lifeless. The Lysine inefficiency you bred into the poor creatures. They and a myriad of other problems I've been solving to create the perfect lost world."
"Yet of the six known creature's you've put on the island, three of them include the Spinosaurus...."
"That was a mistake. I had hoped it would drive out some of the smaller fish eating dinosaurs, like Baronyx. As you might have noticed, I only brought one"
"Koolasuchus the crocodile newt..."
"The mountain lake was where I had been allowing the freshwater species I was adding in accumulate and eventually move down into the river systems, because the Baronyx and Suchomimus did not go up there. Their job is to give them reason to leave"
"Freshwater species...so I was right. You had been creating prehistoric fish!"
"They deserve life too. Who says the only creatures who should be brought back?"
"The fish aside...you made new Velociraptors" Ian particularly disliked that one
"New, hardly. Velociraptors are perhaps the second most intelligent race on the planet, with Humans only first because of their lengthier period of intellectual evolution. The Raptors I raised could figure out how to open jars, could learn hunting techniques from television and played an decent game of Basketball with a reinforced ball. Wu's creations were feral child serial killers"
"Raptors and basketball...have you been hiding in Toronto?" Malcolm had to ask
"No, on the other islands of the five deaths: Isla Matanceros, Isla Muerta, Isla Pena, and Isla Tacaño. "
"Don't those islands also have dinosaurs on them?" Wu asked. From what Sarah had noted, and paleontologists like Grant had theorized, most dinosaurs could swim, and some sauropods could probably even walk the distance. The Five Deaths weren't particularly far from another, and were rather shallow at times. Costa Rica had closed off the other four islands as a precaution in case dinosaurs migrated across Mosasaur filled waters.
They'd have put cameras there, but they had a budget.
"Some species, yes. However, the islands are mostly where I would develop the DNA for new species to be added to the island as needed to fix imbalances, as well as where I observe the growth of the species I return to life. When the Tylosaurus drove the sharks from these five islands, I've had to breed some smaller fish killers: the ancient bird Hesperornis, who are capable of taking the smaller reef dwelling sharks place."
"Hesperonis...aren't those the toothed penguin-heron hybrid things?" Ian asked.
"You make them sound demonic. They are nice when you get to know them"
"I still think toothed birds are creepy"
"Well you obviously need to know more birds."
"So, Hesperornis makes 7+ species...exactly how many species have you made" Wu questioed her
"All of them" she said simply. "I've created eggs of every species on the island Ingen made that is still present and breeding. These eggs are lysine free and frog free. I replace these eggs with dead eggs in nests: which due to air pollution and differing atmosphere conditions occurs to about a third of the nest eggs. They grow up and slowly make the gene pool self sustaining and exact. But I guess your curious as to what, other species I have brought back on all the islands?
"You do realize that Costa Rica created a department of lawyers employed by its government specifically for these islands and lawsuits for people who try to sue for a right to vacation here, create a dinosaur for the drug cartels, or nuts trying to go and prove it doesn't exist?" Ian pointed out.
"The law says I can't create dinosaurs via Ingen technology, as it does in most of the nations of the world. However, I am not using the methods you used, I am using my own."
The loophole used to one day allow for the return of Quagga and Dodos, was now giving Sorkin as much legal freedom she could to create her creatures.
"You could be arrested for trespassing" Sarah said very darkly.
"Hey, technically Ingen never fired me. And my cousin is a good lawyer. And as the phone lines at my work station were cut off during the hurricane, it would be easy for me to defend myself on international court. So, you could continue this discussion, and get utterly nowhere, or you could let me tell you what now exists on the island, let me continue my work of creating the perfect lost world, and your friend can fulfill his dream"
When the island was surveyed, there were five investigators. Sarah as a behavior expert, Ian as a Ingen man eating dinosaur expert, Roland Tempo the hunter to complement Sarah's expertise and two of the world's foremost reptile experts.
Nigel Marvin of England, and Steve Irwin of Australia.
The last was particularly thrilled to be there, however he did have one wish, to wrestle a Deinosuchus. Unfortunately...he never did get a chance due to time limits, and the fact that he did in fact study crocodiles before he tested them, there wasn't a chance.
Steve Irwin's dream could be in fact met.
"So, what will it be?"
In the end, it was best to get information from Sorkin directly, as she revealed everything she had created with Atherton's method, on five islands of enhanced Ingen flora and Sorkin made and expanded fauna, many raised by the creature from that menagerie owner she had killed, like the Asian elephant on Sorna.
From north to south in the The Five Deaths, aside for Sorna, species created for the island included...
Isla Matanceros: a smaller jungle island. Home to the giant ape Gigantopithicus, Balian and Javan tigers, massive Elephant Birds, colonies of the Carolina Parakeet, ostrich like Moas, the world's largest turtle of all time, the Stupendemys, sheep sized Echinda Zaglossus, several types of giant lemur such as Monkey Lemurs and Sloth Lemurs, prehistoric mangrove dwelling ancient hippo like elephant Moeritherium giant ancient platypus Obdurodon and monkey Apidium, ancient California Tapir, giant flying Haast's eagles capable of eating all the above, and dozens of other post 65 mil species, as well as a few dinosaur species who once lived on Sorna, such as Plateosaurus, Thescelosaurus, Leptoceratops, and Muldoonraptor, as well as some exant species from Sorna like Pteradon and Baronyx. The island's tigers could apparently kill all but the solitary raptor and fish eater Baronyx.
Isla Muerta: A temperate forest like the forests of Sorna's south. The island's population included super bird killer Gastornis, the Thylacine, the human killed cow and horse Aurochs and Tarpan, the little Leptictilium, ancient horse Propalaeotherium, the large Caspian Tiger, flocks of Passenger Pigeons, super wombat Diprotodon, large Irish Elk, some colonizing California Tapir, Hast's Eagles and Moas from Matanceros and some dinosaur species, including Triceratops, Comsognathus, Ornithomimus and Ouranosaurus.
Sorna would go here, but this one will go last for simplicity sakes.
Isla Tacano: an island of plains with a volcanic mountain shadowing them all. Inhabiting this island were the ancient african Quagga and Bluebuck, the Falkland Island dwelling wolf Warrah, Gastornis descendant Phosorachus, Sauropod like horn lacking rhinocerous Paraceratherium, dinosaur sized sloths Megatherium and its semi aquatic Thalassocnus, ancient Rhino Teleoceras, car sized Armadillo Doedicurus, Super Kangaroo Procoptodon, extended nosed herd animal Macrauchenia, large herd herbivore Toxodon, giant lizard Megalania, super cat Smilodon, pack hunting Dire Wolf, mega bear the Short Faced Bear, the Columbian Mammoth home island, as well as other island immigrants including Irish Elk, Aurochs, Tarpan, Iguanadon, Triceratops, Hypsilophodonts, Carnotaurs and Dilophosarus.
Isla Pena; The smallest island, a small little jungle island where Sorkin lived, as the most remote island it was the hardest for dangerous creatures to get to. The creatures she kept there would be called in most likely to become extinct once again due to how they evolved, in isolated locations with virtually no predators. The creatures located here included Dodos, Moa-Nalo the giant Hawaiian goose, Microceratops, the Caribbean Monk Seal and the Great Auk, the penguin like fish eater of the north. Isla Pena was, in a sense, the Madagascar to the other four island's four quintessential Africa's: the Desert, the Savannah, the Sahel and the Rainforest.
Last but not reach, Isla Sorna; the island that we all know of and see in our nightmares, and sometimes in 3D. Residing there, according to the not so good doctor, were Allosaurus, Metriacanthosaurus, Yangchuanosaurus, Tyranosaurus Rex, Dilophosaurus, Baronyx, Suchomimus, Velociraptors, Oritholestes, Oviraptor,Troodon, Compsognathus, Carnotaurs,Ceratosaurus,Microraptor,Archaeopteryx, Gallimimus,Ornithomimus, Hypsilophodonts, Dryosaurs, Othniela,Therizinosaurus, Incisivosaurus, Homalacephale, Pachycephlosaurus, Saurolophus, Maisaurus, Edmontosaurus, Lambeosaurus Corythousaurus, Parasaurolophus Iguanadon,Muttuburasaurus, Ouranosaurus, Triceratops, Styracosaurus, Chasmosaurus, Protoceratops, Apatasaurus, Diplodocus, Camarasaurus, Brachiosaurus, Mamenchisaurus, Titanosaur, Stegosaurus, Ankylosaurus Polecanthus, Minmi, Euoplocephalus Pterodon, Quetzalcoatlus, Deinosuchus, Tylosaurus, Koolasuchus Dictodon, Hesperornis, Columbian Mammoth, Stupendemys, the still incubating eggs of the Cretaceous Sauropod Alamosaurus and Argentinosaurus, Thalassocnus, Haast's Eagle, Passenger Pigeons, Carolina Parakeet, Moetherium, Apidium, Smilodon and Megatherium.
In the oceans around the islands, stalked by Mosasaurs, lived the giant turtle Archelon, giant manatee Stellers Sea Cow, as well as various species of prehistoric Sturgeon, Stingray, Salmon and other species who did not leave the coast line for some reason: apparently Sorkin had improved Ingen's aquatic electric fence to keep the creatures in, and modern creatures out.
All in all, it looked like there was whole new world for Steve Irwin to dive in to...
When everything changed.
And with that cliffhanger, project Savage is complete.