"Ugh... ow, god, where... where am I?! I... ugh... shit..."
She'd been caught, they got her. Karla? Someone worse? Who knew? Why did it matter? All that mattered was that she had been caught, and the dinosaurs had been caught as well.
Maisie shot to her feet from the bed she was lying in, frantically looking for some avenue to freedom from the compact, simple, four-walled room. She tugged hard on the handle of the large door at the front of the room, but it was bolted shut and it was made of an old, rusty metal too thick for her claws to cut through. She wasn't going out this way.
"Window... window!"
Just what she needed. It was a blue circle at the back end of the room, the handle was a simple twisting valve and it's diameter looked just wide enough for her slim little body to crawl out of.
"Yes!" she darted over to the window and put her hand on the valve, twisting it upwards to unlock the window and pulling it open. She was immediately taken aback by the bright sunlight, the cold air and the salty, wet smell that had suddenly assaulted her senses as she poked her head out of it.
The blow of the wind and the scent of the sea seemed to indicate that she was on a boat, and once her eyes had adjusted to the light she was able to see that she was actually on a large, metal cargo ship. The blue sea was surrounding it and reached far into the distance with no islands or landmarks in sight, so Maisie quickly realised that it was a good long distance from the Hammond and Lockwood Reserve. She had to figure out where this thing was heading and get off before it got there.
With her fingers latched onto the window, she clambered the rest of her body through and held onto it's circumference so she could hang off of it. The room she was in was quite a high distance from the nearest deck floor and if she were to fall down it would almost definitely make a noise that would alert her captors to her escape, so she had to think about this.
After about a minute of arguing with herself, and extending the claw-like nails from her levft hand, Maisie removed it from the window and slowly dug it's nails into the metal wall that she was currently hanging off. Once she knew their grip on it was firm and tight enough, she removed her other hand from the window and dug these nails into the wall at a lower position than her right.
"Hmm... easy enough..."
With her left hand's grip continuing to pin her to the wall she then removed her right hand from it's spot and used it to lower the rest of herself down. She repeated this process for a good few minutes until she was only about five feet above the floor, at which point she felt it safe enough to remove both her hands and let herself drop down the rest of the way.
She made a three-point landing on the floor, with her right kneecap, left foot and right palm breaking her fall. There was an old amplifier attached to the wall in front of her, and the red light on the bottom of it wasn't on to indicate that it wasn't switched on either. With no one else visible in this area, Maisie sat back against the wall with a sigh.
The dinosaurs they took had to be locked away somewhere on this ship, so she had to find them and find someway to get them all out. But she was alone, and she couldn't fight any of the crew members herself, especially since they most likely had tranquillisers like that mysterious hooded figure who shot her before. Escaping was going to be a lot more difficult that preferred, especially with the dinosaurs.
After a few moments of thinking about this, she was just about to develop an idea when... SSSSSCCCCCHHHAAACCCHHH!
"Agh!" shrieked as the amplifier pierced her ears with a sharp, painful screech, as if the microphone on the other end of it was just being plugged in.
"Everybody, we have a red alert!" the female voice boomed out of the amplifier. "The Lockwood girl broke out of the room and she's somewhere on the ship. Somebody get out there and find her before she jumps off and tries to swim for it. Just bring her to the main quarter, don't harm her, and don't scare her."
"Shit... shit-shit-shit!" Maisie's eyes darted around, ravenously searching for some kind of escape route. She couldn't swim for a mainland from the middle of the ocean and she definitely wasn't leaving the dinosuars here, and the men on the ship knew she'd escaped and were most likely on the hunt for her now. She was trapped.
"Maisie!" a familiar, instantly recognisable voice said this from behind her, causing Maisie to freeze on the spot with wide eyes as she turned to face the person that it belonged to. She landed in a three-point position, otherwise known as a "superhero landing" with her right kneecap, her left foot and her right palm breaking her fall.
"Z... Zia... what... what are you... what are you doing here?!"
"Maze... alright, just calm down..." Zia had one hand up and open while her other hand hovered over the holster on her belt. "Easy, kid... just come with me and I'll explain everything..."
"You're... you're one of them... how could... you... you bitch!" Maise felt a strong, animalistic rage overcome herself as she extended the claws on her fingers and bared her fang-like canines with a snarl. "I'll rip you apart!"
Zia immediately pulled the tranquiliser gun from her holster and held it up as Maisie darted towards her, taking the safety off and aiming it right forward. "Maisie, stop!"
Zzzip! Maisie suddenly went wide-eyed and wheezed out in shock as a different tranquiliser dart flew into the back of her neck, taking a few seconds before she fell face-first onto the floor and passed out.
One Hour Later
"Right... the cages are opened. The Doc's moving them all out."
"Good. So... how much longer is Maze gonna be out for?"
"I hit her with an extra dose... so she'll sleep it off... or she'll wake up and walk it off..."
Maisie heard the two voices, the second of which belonged to Zia, from the other side of the door as she slowly woke up. She was in a different room this time, one that didn't have any windows and just a simple, unlocked wooden door. The rage that had been festering within her seemed to have burned out, and she was struggling to even keep her eyes open. She wasn't nearly old enough to have been near narcotics, but this was how she always imagined being high would feel like.
Forcing herself to her feet, Maisie clambered over to the door and twisted the knob to open it. Zia and the bearded, bespectacled man she was talking to both jolted back as they saw her, the man trying not to go for his tranquilliser gun again. It was clear by this that he was the one that had shot her earlier, but he seemed to have too different a build from the first masked man that had shot her at the reserve.
"Uh... hey kid... what's up?" he said worriedly, his voice being surprisingly nervous and high-pitched. Maisie didn't answer him directly, still feeling queasy while also trying to figure out if she'd seen this man before. Zia cleared her throat a bit, saying "um, Maze, this is Lowery Cruthers... he used to work for Claire at..."
"At Jurassic World... I know..." she groaned out a bit, blinking a few times to get her vision back on track.
"Well, actually... I didn't technically work for her, we were uh... colleagues, I guess... but uh, anyway... cool to meet you, kid... Lockwood's uh... dinosaur girl...?"
Maisie didn't acknowledge that remark and tried to walk away again, only to collapse back in exhaustion on the chair behind her. Zia knew that the serum hadn't worked it's way out of the girl's system yet, so she put her belt and holster on the floor edged herself a little closer to Maisie.
"Maze, I know this looks bad, but believe it or not, we're not working for Karla Sealy, if that's what you're thinking..."
"Oh why would I ever think that...?" Maisie lay her head back on the chair and looked up at the ceiling. "All you did was steal the dinosaurs from our reserve and kidnap me when I tried to stop you..."
"And if we hadn't done that, the HLF would have gotten to you guys first..."
Zia and Cruthers both looked up as a woman about Cruthers' age with brown hair that went to her shoulders opened the door and came into the room. "Guys... they're all on their way out... you coming?"
"Yep. Thanks Viv..." Cruthers said with a nod as he and Vivian went out the door, prompting Zia to grin as she looked to Maisie.
"Alright, kid... I think you need to see something..."
Maisie slowly followed the three of them outside of the captain's quarters down the plank onto the dock, looking down to the platform below where the large herd of herbivorous dinosaurs from the reserve were walking onto the island.
"We've been rescuing dinosaurs from all over the mainland, Maze..." Zia explained, before Vivian added "keeping them hidden from Sealy and her hunters, we've been bringing them all here..."
Maisie's eye twitched a bit as they stopped at the bottom of the plank and saw the old, battered sign in front of them, having heard a couple of interesting stories about this place.
Isla Sorna.
"Wait, so how many dinosaurs do you ha... oh..." Maisie froze and swallowed her words as she looked up past the sign, seeing the massive field of green pasture that went on for miles and miles. She took a few steps forward and her heart started beating at a much more rapid pace than before.
The fences and buildings of the factory that used to operate here were nothing more than rubble now with a sizeable watering hole in the centre of the field, and most if not every square inch of the land was populated with dinosaurs, of all size, species and feeding behaviours. The dinosaurs from the reserve immediately sped outwards in all directions on their new safe-haven, and Maisie was so preoccupied with observing this from afar that she didn't notice the jeep that was driving towards the sign where she and the others were standing.
The jeep skidded to a halt in front of the group, and Maisie finally looked over to see the two people that stepped out while the driver stayed. One was a black man that seemed to be in his mid sixties, with a moustache, glasses and a folded right sleeve where an arm should have been. The other was a blonde woman in her fifties, who wore sunglasses and a sun-hat that were surprisingly casual for what they were all doing here.
"Whoa!" the one-armed man suddenly pulled the woman out of the way as the Parasaurolophus came thundering past them and everyone ducked as it's tail knocked the sign over. "Motherfu... shit, man!"
"Hoo... thanks a lot, John..." the woman straightened back up again as everyone looked at her. "So... how many'd you guys save?"
"All of 'em, Doc." Cruthers seemed smug and proud of himself as he said this, prompting Zia to roll her eyes in both amusement and annoyance. "All two hundred and twenty three... well, twenty four if you count the, uh... you know..."
"Oh, right!" the woman turned around excitedly to see Maisie standing there, kneeling down a bit as she reached a hand forwards to cup the girl's face. Maisie tensed for just a split-second, but quickly softened up as the woman removed her sunglasses and her hat to let Maisie finally see who she was.
"Wait, you... you're Ellie S..."
"Dr. Ellie Sattler... yeah honey, that's right... and you're Maisie, the dino-girl... Lockwood's little miracle..."
"Miracle, me? Wow... hoo... god, it's just..." Maisie was starting to hyperventilate a bit as she still struggled to process what was happening right now and tried not to cry with excitement. "I hope this isn't awkward, but I'm actually a huuuuuge, huge fan of yours, Dr. Sattler, no joke..."
"Hmm, ha ha... yeah, Zia's told us about you..." Ellie was clearly still mesmerised by Maisie's face and all the details of her scales and spikes. "God... you really are something, kid..."
"Wow. Wow-wow-wow, I... wait." Maisie tensed again. "Wait-wait-wait, so... if you're Ellie Sattler, and... and you're... you're all you lot, then who... who was the creepy one in that mask who shot me at the reserve?!"
Maisie suddenly froze on the spot as she heard the footsteps behind her, being stiff as a statue as she turned to see that masked man standing there silently. "Um... right... uh..."
The figure straightened up a bit, holding a hand out as a silent indicator for her to remain calm as everyone else grinned. Maisie exhaled a little, only to go very wide-eyed with a high-pitched gasp as he removed his hooded mask and revealed his aged yet familiar face to her.
"I'm Dr. Alan Grant... welcome to Jurassic Sanctuary, Miss Lockwood..."
