Disclaimer: i do not own Owen or Jurassic World elements.
Hoskins took a calming breath as he watched the lights from the Wrangler and Scrambler disappear from the surveillance of the furthest camera that survived after they shifted operations to the edge of the island. For now, they are the least of his worries.
He flipped his phone back up and noted the number of miss calls and decided to ring one back.
"Where the hell have you been?!" the voice came immediately after one ring.
"I'm in the control room." he said calmly. "Everything is under control."
"Under control?" the voice scoffed angrily. "It has never been under control. You've just sent them on a fruitless hunt, and-"
"Stop. I know what I'm doing." Hoskins said sternly.
"Do you?"
"Yes, and it'll do you good if you trust me." he turned threateningly. "Go get some rest. It'll be over in the morning."
Wu stared at his phone as the call ended. In the moment of fury, he almost threw it across the room, but upon remembering that he still need it later, he stopped and steadied his breath. It will be a long night, and there's no way he could get any rest.
…
The interior of the island had grown vast with thick vegetation, the roads that were once used on a daily basis have almost disappeared. Zeng watched her tablet, which is functioning like a GPS at the moment, closely and noted they are coming up quickly to the facility that was abandoned. Sure enough, in the darkness, the roads started to be more man-made and building silhouettes blocked out most of the sky ahead of them. Zeng turned on the high beams on the Wrangler and slowed. She rolled down the windows on both sides so she could see her surroundings clearer.
Up ahead, was the recently abandoned training facility. There were paddocks, fences and sheds just like the ones at the front of the island, except there were much more in quantity on both sides of the road. Paddock doors and fence gates were all opened, and despite the dark, they could make out abandoned crates, supply barrels and a few vehicles. Zeng stopped the Wrangler and stepped out with her flashlight. Owen and Dugan both stopped with their animals.
Zeng moved the flashlight around, taking in as much as she can. The ground was bare and weeds have taken over the sidewalks and parts of buildings. It was clear to her that the place has been abandoned for quite some time. She turned her flashlight towards one of the buildings and walked towards it. Another light joined her and she felt Owen come up behind.
It was a supplies shed, one of the many that were fitted between the paddocks to store what was needed for the immediate vicinity. There were cabinets, shelves that are empty, boxes that were scattered, haystacks and giant containers. Zeng smelt the air. The lack of decay meant that they cleared out before any carnage. She stepped back outside and walked towards the next street behind the shed. More paddocks, more sheds, more roads. It felt like a never ending compound.
Aquila gave a cry that brought everyone's attention back. Owen hurried over and found that she had went to the other street on the opposite side. Zeng emerged and ran towards them where the other raptors have gone over, leaving Dugan and Duchess back on the road they came by.
"What is it, Aquila?" Owen said as he approached. The raptor gave another cry and lowered her head to sniff the ground. Owen and Zeng pointed their lights onto the area she was sniffing. There was a stain on the dark concrete ground. Zeng moved her light a little to create more illumination area.
"It's a tire track." Owen said as he crouched to examine it. "It's been here for a while, but it's not from one of the jeeps that we have."
"That's because it isn't." Zeng said, moving her light further down the street where the track was heading. "It's a track from an Armored Vehicle."
Owen looked up at her as she followed it closely, then turned around to check the other areas. She stopped and bent low, kicking the sand away from the ground. Orion came up next to her and sniffed the ground where she's pointing the light to and gave a quick huff. Owen came over and took a sharp breath. Zeng then stepped away from the tracks and shone her light around the compound. It was nothing like the previous street.
"O'Grady, Ms. Zeng," Dugan's voice came from the next street. "Is everything alright?"
"Look for yourself." Zeng shouted back and shone her light high. Dugan climbed onto Duchess' head as she straighten herself, giving more height to herself, allowing Dugan to see across to the other street.
"Holy shi-" the larger man began but stopped short as he saw the lights moving around, illuminating what looked like debris from a catastrophic disaster. The paddocks over the other side were reduced to concrete rubble, fences lay on their sides in twisted angles, vehicles stuck between buildings, and broken glass laid everywhere.
Owen stared at the blocks of concrete on the base of a paddock and recalled that day back on Jurassic World main street. It was like a replica of what happened then. The Indominus wrecked everything in its way while putting up a fight. There was faint blood stains on the broken walls, rifles that were snapped in half and shotgun shells littered the ground. It was then all came crashing back down on him, as though the past three years trying to get over the incident had never happened.
Lyra nudged him gently, bringing him back into reality. Owen reached out and stroke her head with affection, but caught the look in her eyes, and it reminded him of the other three raptors that perished in the previous incident. He was at a conflict again. He had promised himself to protect them, but he had originally came to stop them. And now history is repeating itself in which he seemed to be letting it. His breaths started getting shorter and sharper, and Lyra tensed.
Years of suppressing the horror and shock of what really happened on Isla Nublar only proved that he was just running away. The adrenaline that kept him on his toes that day came from every ounce of military experience he had, but none of that prepared him for the aftermath of dealing with the recurring nightmares that followed. Claire's presence helped a little, but it was back to square one when she left. He desperately searched for that man three years ago, venturing out with nothing but his Marlin and a Jeep. But he wouldn't come, he couldn't, because he was long gone. Who is he now? Will he live to see daylight?
A flash of light swept past his face, blinded him for a moment. He looked up to see his classmate looking at him closely.
"One thing at a time." she said quietly and turned back to her surroundings. He needed to hear that, but at the same time couldn't help but wonder how did she even know what he was thinking about, but as Lyra nudged his neck, he realized that it probably had shown up on his face.
"Let's get going then." Owen said, pressing a palm to his chest to steady his breathing, Zeng nodded and turned back. As they both carefully step over the debris, Zeng stopped at the area where she had kicked away the sand. She shone her light on the ground and placed her boot next to it for scale.
The three-toed print on the ground was larger than her own body size, with more room to spare. She took another look around before heading back to the other street where the Wrangler is. She looked up and saw Duchess' head popping above the buildings and felt her hairs standing on ends on her back. She shone the light back at the print on the ground, and bit her cheek again. There's a good chance that the print is bigger than Duchess'.
"Zeng?"
She whipped her head back and hurried over to her Wrangler and got in. The tablet showed that they are still a few ways more till the crater Hoskins mentioned. She turned on the beam and rolled up the windows and started off. From her rearview mirror, she could see Owen on his Scrambler with a dark face.
"Are you okay?" she asked as she moved the vehicle towards the adjoining street and followed the wreckage.
"I am." Owen's voice came. "And thanks."
The ground was uneven but they pressed on. The raptors leapt with little effort over the fallen concrete and fences, while Duchess merely trampled over them. They drove past more wreckage of paddocks and training grounds and she couldn't help but wonder, just how many dinosaurs did they have before, and more importantly, where are they now? If all of them were transported to Isla Nublar, it is no wonder the facility there couldn't handle and they all broke out. But at the same time, it could also mean that they had built these many paddocks to accommodate for when the real production starts. Sure enough, as she drove on, on the tablet a few rectangles indicated large facilities on both sides. It must be the manufacturing plants.
She rolled down her windows and shone her light out of the car towards her left and saw the remains of a factory, that was eerily quiet and abandoned.
"What is that?" Owen's voice came.
"Factories, for making dinosaurs." she answered. "These must be the ones responsible for the earlier batches that were transported to Nublar I supposed. It would seem like they used back the original factory buildings to make the first park that was abandoned."
"Is it just me, or is there still power in those buildings?"
"Geothermal." Zeng replied. "They made use of the volcanic activity on this island to power most of their equipment and operations. As Hammond once said, they spared no expenses."
"So they evacuated this place and stopped manufacturing large scale just because of the Rex?" Owen asked with apprehension.
"I know, something's not right." Zeng concluded for him. "It wouldn't make sense given they could just kill it, especially after they have brought in armored vehicles."
"What if they swapped the islands?" Owen asked, watching the beam of light from the Wrangler disappear from the left and emerging weaker on the right. "They manufactured on Nublar instead?"
"Which still doesn't make sense given all the facilities are here." she replied but did not snap back as Owen would have expected. "It would take an enormous feat to reconstruct the manufacturing plant over on Nublar and they couldn't have done it in a year or two."
"Well, most of Nublar was for the theme park, but there's the big restricted area at the top where the first Rex was kept. The raptor paddock was also there but on the other side. There's a lot that weren't opened to us."
"Makes you wonder what else were they planning at that time." Zeng mused. "Okay so assuming that this time, they didn't evacuate Nublar fully, and there's a production facility in the restricted zone and they have indeed manufactured there, then why restore this one here and build all the paddocks here? For what, storage?"
"Maybe it isn't as complicated, after all they are amassing an army, they'll need the space." Owen asked, swerving away and coming close to the Wrangler.
"I hope you are right, but that still doesn't explain why they would sacrifice the production of one island and evacuate all of these paddocks over to Nublar." she said, turning her head and seeing Owen coming up in her side mirror. "Also, if they indeed have a manufacturing plant there, wouldn't the island be overpopulated by now?"
"Maybe that's why it got out of control, and the animals broke free." Owen said after a moment of enlightened.
"I appreciate your evaluation Grady, but something tells me this isn't that simple." Zeng said quickly and swerved to avoid a fallen tree, and she heard a laugh.
"Ooo, appreciate." Owen slurred the word slyly. "Zeng, is that you talking, or someone else inside that head of yours?"
"Well, keep talking like that Grady and she'll go away." She replied with a big smile. "And the Dowager that Ruscitti was talking about will come back."
"Ah, so who shoots better?" Owen decided to try his luck further.
"Depends on what is the target." Zeng said, smiling a little. It felt comfortable, to be able to joke like that with Owen. She hasn't felt like this for a long time, in fact as she recalled far back to the days being out in the field, she hasn't felt that comfortable around people ever. It must have been that comment about having each others' back, she thought, because that was ultimately the missing link to all her missions so far.
She looked at the side mirror and see Owen just coming up behind her and the raptors following close, and Duchess' silhouette in the rearview mirror. It was an odd feeling being out in the open with these animals which have always thought of as fearsome and vicious. Zeng bit the side of her cheek again as she recalled how Orion's head felt as he nudged her playfully. There was a heavy weight upon her shoulder that she now know she wouldn't be able to depend on Owen anymore, given their prior conversation.
They drove past the paddocks and soon the ground turned from pavement to dirt. Zeng checked her tablet again and it indicated forest for a few more miles. She reached out and shifted the tablet's focus back to the main buildings, and little dots on the screen indicated various cellular receiving devices moving around. Their patterns indicated that they are in a frenzy, scattered about the main compound. A few have ventured out to the back of the paddocks, no doubt having discovered their secret mission. She looked over to the bunches of keys on the passenger seat and smiled to herself. There are a few dots that remained where they are, particularly one in the main building. Zeng concluded that it must be Hoskins. There were no other dots around him, and so for the time being, it is safe to assume that he has yet to make contact with anyone.
She shifted the focus upwards to check what's ahead of them, but she only saw trees ahead. Looking up ahead, there was a faint path that she could continue driving the Wrangler amongst the forest and shrubbery, no doubt made by the armored vehicles and the Rex from a year ago. Her Wrangler bounced up an down over the terrain and she grunted in annoyance. Squinting at her tablet, she tried to make out any signs that might indicate how far they are from the crater. Frustrated at the tiny screen, she reached out with two fingers and zoomed in on her little dot while keeping her eyes ahead where the beams from her headlights bouncing off the trunks.
As she zoomed in, she noticed her dot was approaching a few lines on the screen dotted with shrubbery and trees, she looked up and squinted, but saw that her lights were no longer illuminating anything, but diffusing into nothing.
She gasped and slammed on the brakes as the Wrangler skidded to a stop. She felt herself thrown forward if not for the seatbelt that held her in place with a choke. Owen skidded to a quick stop just behind her.
"Zeng," he hopped off the bike and hurried over. "Zeng what happened?"
She coughed as she unbuckled the belt and stared ahead. Owen pulled open the door on her side as she got out.
"Why, what's going on?" he asked, reaching out to hold her arm but she waved him off.
"I'm fine." she said as she inhaled a long and hard breath. Pulling out her flashlight, she pointed to the ground. "That, is what's going on."
Owen clicked his light on and followed suit. His light found the ground and then disappeared. He pulled it back, and there's the ground again.
"O'Grady, Ms. Zeng." Dugan hollered as he came up to them.
"No, no!" Owen quickly turned and held out his hand. "Not any further."
"Why what's…" Dugan said and looked ahead. The crescent moon was weak, but it did its job. Dugan, sitting atop of Duchess saw the ground fell at where the Wrangler had stopped, beyond that was the top of a lush forest. "Oh my…"
"So this is the crater." Owen said softly, and a glint far out caught his eye. "Is that…"
He turned to ask Zeng something but she had went back into the car and was digging around for something. Her head popped out and she was wearing a pair of enormous googles that covered half her face and she walked over to the edge.
"Yeah, that's a lake." she said, looking around. "This is our crater all right."
"Do you see it?" Dugan asked as he got off Duchess' back. "Do you see the thing?"
They both turned back to look at the larger man.
"What, I don't know what it is." Dugan said as-a-matter-of-fact-ly. Zeng tried to bite back a laugh and turned back to the crater.
"No. I don't see the," Zeng paused, no doubt fighting back a laugh. "Thing. But I think it's safe to say, we need a plan. And a plan B."