Chapter 36: Isla Norte TV


Marcus Envoy was the last one to wake up, after a very long night. He looked up and saw Daniel typing on his laptop computer. He looked at the clock on the table. It was 5:06am. Envoy, Bodan, Jacob and Daniel had called it a night and stayed at the employee section of the lodge, on the second floor. The same lodge Alan and company were in. Neither party knew of one another.

"What are you doing, Daniel?"

"Checking park integrity, Mr. Envoy. I want to make sure nothing has escaped, or that Ethan didn't change things again."

Envoy was still shocked about Ethan. He wanted to get Daniel's take on the whole thing.

"What would make young Ethan betray us?"

Daniel was about to try to provide a noteworthy answer, when Jacob spoke up. He was on the other side of the room, getting some guns ready.

"He seemed to know Ian Malcolm. I think he has been working for Hammond the entire time," Jacob said.

"Well, that is just unforgivable, if true," Envoy said.

Bodan had been out in the hallway. He walked in, just catching the last part of the conversation.

"Ethan will pay, Mr. Envoy. I can assure you of that."

Envoy nodded.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


While asleep on the fifth floor of the lodge, Ellie was having another dream. This time, though, it wasn't a nightmare, like it had routinely been. This time it was pleasant. She was dreaming about the first time her mother had met Alan Grant:


Ellie had been dating Alan for about three months at that point, and had finally talked Alan into having dinner with her mother, Patricia. Alan had talked to Ellie's mother on the phone twice, and he was very aware that she did not want Ellie to have anything to do with him. She had actually told him personally, that she thought he was too old for her daughter and that teachers shouldn't take advantage of their students in that way. Understandably, Alan was not looking forward to the in person meeting, but Ellie had convinced him that it was the right thing to do. For some reason, Alan was frightened of Patricia. Ellie had figured that her mother had said a lot more things to him. Things that he just neglected to mention to her.


Ellie stirred once, smiling in her sleep, as the dream continued.


Now she was at the restaurant with Alan. Her mother had been late, so she and Alan sat at the reserved table, waiting. Since her mother was flying in, just for the occasion, Alan had let Patricia pick the restaurant. She had picked the second most expensive restaurant in all of Montana. Ellie tried to protest, knowing that Alan had insisted on paying before he even knew where they were going, but Alan had told her not to worry. She watched him look nervously around, as they waited . . . and waited. Finally, her mother showed up, about 30 minutes late. Alan had quickly gotten up, to assist Patricia with her chair. Her mother's response was civil and courteous, but somewhat standoffish. Ellie could see that she was having a very pleasant time making Alan nervous. After about an hour, Ellie could see that her mother was warming up to him slowly. Very slowly, as she could see the whole ordeal was torture to poor Alan, but she decided to let the two of them sort it out. Eventually, they did sort it out, and Alan was magically able to become one of Patricia's favorite people.


Ellie smiled in her sleep again, as she was coming to the good part. She fondly remembered this as being when her mother had started to like him.


They were about ready to leave the restaurant, and Alan had stood up to assist Patricia with her chair. An unsuspecting waiter ran into him with a tray full of food, hitting him in the head with it. Alan had fallen down, and soon after, all the food on the tray came falling down on top of him. Ellie could still hear him yelling.

"Ouch! What the . . . ? Hey!"

Still dreaming, she remembered looking over at her mother. Patricia was laughing. She was laughing so hard, she hard tears in her eyes. The waiter, totally embarrassed by what had just happened, simply ran away back into the kitchen. Ellie had helped Alan up, and when the two of them had looked at each other, with her mother laughing in the background, they started to laugh, too. Then, Ellie heard Alan again.


"Ouch!"

Ellie woke up, as she realized that Alan wasn't talking in her dream. He was really saying ouch. She sat up in the bed, stretched out a little bit, and was reminded immediately about her hand hurting. She winced, as she got up from the bed and headed to the bathroom, which was where Alan's voice was coming from. She reached the open door of the bathroom and peered inside. Lex was already awake and she was taking another look at Alan's shoulder. Ellie watched, as Lex pressed and examined all around the wound, making Alan mad . . . again.

"Ouch. Will you stop that? I'm fine."

"I just wanted to check for an infection," Lex said, continuing the examination.

"Quit being a baby," Ellie interrupted.

Alan looked up and saw Ellie standing in the doorway. He instantly smiled at her, in that warm and loving way that he used to, all those years ago. Then his mood changed some.

"Oh, hey, look at that," he said, glancing at Lex, "now you can examine Ellie, and leave me alone."

Lex shook her head.

"Okay, okay, you can go. Just let me put a new bandage on that."

Ellie watched Lex bandage Alan up, and then he quickly got up and walked into the bathroom doorway. He stopped right next to her. She looked up at him, and when she did, he quickly kissed her.

"Good morning, sunshine," he said quietly.

Ellie smiled, her arms crossed in an attempt to stop her hand from hurting.

"Good morning," she whispered back.

Lex was still in the bathroom. She had watched Alan kiss her. As Ellie came into the bathroom, Lex laughed.

"I guess you two got along very well last night."

Ellie had already been smiling, but she somehow managed to smile even more.

"You could say that, yes."

Lex laughed again.

"Well, let's get your hand fixed up. Ethan brought me some medical supplies. He and Ian had gone out to do something with the computer control rooms earlier, and when they came back, he handed me a first aid kit."

"Where did they go?"

"They went to turn off some of the park systems and reboot them. And Ian said they also did something to every jeep that they found along the way."

"Any idea what?"

"No, Ian didn't have a clue. He said Ethan had attached something to the inside of the glove compartments."

Ellie was impressed.

"That's great. It seems that Ethan thought of everything. What a bright kid," Ellie said.

"And good looking, too," Lex added.

Ellie laughed.

"And he's just about your age."

"Yeah."

Ellie noticed that Lex was looking a little uncomfortable about the subject, so she changed it.

"So, what can you do for my hand?"

"I've got a hand splint here. Let's try that."

Alan walked back into the bedroom, moving his arm around, checking for mobility. It was healing very well. He was very lucky to have Lex. Holding his shoulder, he sat down on the side of Jodie's bed. She was still sound asleep. He reached over and gently shook her awake.

"Hey, Jodie. Rise and shine," he said.

Jodie opened her eyes, looked around the room, and then rested them on Alan.

"What time is it?" She asked, groggily.

"5:30am," he answered.

Jodie sat up.

"Are you crazy? 5:30am? Why are we up so early?"

Alan laughed.

"I get up everyday by this time. This is not too early."

"Oh, man. You are crazy," Jodie said, snickering and stretching.

Alan ignored that last remark.

"Well, now that you're up, I'm going to see what Ian, Ethan and Tim are doing," Alan said, getting up slowly.

"Yeah, okay," Jodie said, laying back down.

Alan looked back at Jodie.

"Get up. I don't want to have to pull you out of bed."

"Okay, okay. I'm up. I'm up," Jodie said, getting out of the bed.

Alan smiled.

"Good. The shower is empty. Go use it."

Jodie laughed.

"You sound like a dad."

Alan shook his head, and then went into the next room. Ian was the only one in the room and he watching television. He looked up, as he saw Alan come into the room.

"Did you know that on Isla Norte, you can get Triceratops rides?"

"What?"

Ian pointed to the television.

"Yeah, according to this station here, you can ride a real live Triceratops . . . for a very big fee, I'm guessing."

Alan laughed. He walked over to Ian, and the two of them watched the television. In the lower right hand corner of the screen, were the words Isla Norte TV.

"Do we get any other channels?" Alan asked.

"Nope. This is it, I'm afraid," Ian answered.

"Where's Ethan and Tim?"

"Ethan is on the balcony, doing something with the laptop. He said he needed to be outside. Tim is taking a shower."

Alan nodded. They continued to watch Isla Norte TV in silence, for about 10 minutes.

Ethan was on the balcony, making some final tweaks on a program that he had written. If all went well, when he executed the program, he would get complete control of the Isla Norte computers. He had been working on it, almost from the time he started working for Daniel, about five months. Everything was ready to go. He came back into the room and handed a walkie talkie to Ian and Alan.

"I'm sorry, but I only have three walkie talkies. I wasn't expecting to need any more than that."

Alan and Ian nodded.

"This should be enough," Ian said.

Ethan nodded.

"Okay, everything is set. At 6:00am, I'm going to take over the computers."

Tim was out of the shower now and dressed, watching the television with Ian and Alan. All three of them looked at Ethan.

"How?" Ian asked.

"I've written a program. It's long and complicated . . . and probably a very boring topic. It should override the entire park system, taking away any control that Daniel has."

"Wow. Impressive," Lex said from the doorway of the other room.

Ethan turned and smiled at her.

"Thank you."

Ethan walked back out to the balcony and Lex followed. She turned to look at Alan.

"I looked at Jodie's leg. It's fine. I bandaged it up for her."

Alan nodded and smiled, as Lex went to the balcony. Tim was closest to the balcony and he could hear Ethan and his sister talking about computers. He didn't understand much of what they were saying, but it was quite impressive. Tim looked at Alan.

"Well, at least she has someone to admire, besides you."

Alan nodded and walked back into the other room. Jodie was sitting at the small table in the room, all cleaned up, looking through a copy of National Geographic Magazine that was in the room. Ellie was just coming from the bathroom, fully dressed. Everyone was ready to go. Alan looked at the clock on the table. It said 5:48am. In twelve minutes, everything was going to change, hopefully, for the better.