When the elevator doors open, Owen and Claire are immediately struck by how quiet the room is. There isn't nearly as much frantic typing, or blank stares fixed on computer screens. The tension is broken when Zara rushes over to Claire and embraces her quickly before stepping back. "Thank goodness you're alright."
"What's going on?" Claire asks. "Did something happen?"
"We…we just…got word that Mr. Masrani… he… the Indominus…" Lowery doesn't need to finish.
"Oh god," Claire says, putting her head in her hands. Had she not succeeded in finding the boys, then this would surely have been the final blow to her mental stability.
"It's worse," Vivian says. "It took out one of the evacuation vehicles. It was full of visitors…including two young children…"
"Christ," Owen whispers, feeling a painful sickness bubbling in his gut.
Owen, Claire, Vivian, Lowery, and Zara all exchange defeated looks, the kids understanding nothing more than the group's depression. Eventually, Grey asks, "What are you gonna do?"
The question catches Claire off guard. It carries far more weight than Grey intends. What is there to do? What can they to do? Claire begins to slowly nod to herself. "Right…right…" she says, pacing around the control room slowly. "We're never going to get everyone off this island. Not with that…that monster out there. Our only chance is to take her out."
"We tried that," Owen points out grimly.
"Hoskins was in here earlier," Lowery points out. "He said he was able to get some more soldiers and weapons from the mainland, bigger ones."
"Well that's it then, isn't it?" Zara asks.
Owen shakes his head. "No, far from it. This thing can camouflage itself in pretty every way possible – sonar, thermal, visual. Finding her, and then getting a clear shot – those are the real problems."
Claire suddenly punches the wall with her bare knuckles, causing most in the room to jump. As she pulls her fist back from the dent made in the wall, she says, "Damnit! Come on people! There's got to be some way…some way to find this thing. I don't care how many animals this things is made of, we can still kill it, somehow."
"She's too unpredictable," Owen says. "No one's ever dealt with an animal like this before."
"What about keeper reports?" Grey asks. All the heads in the room spin toward him. Suddenly bashful from all the attention, he pauses before going on. "I…I went on a field trip to the Denver Zoo last year, and they told us that every day, the keepers fill out a report of the animal's behavior that day…I was just thinking maybe…"
Owen rushes forward and scoops up the 8 year old boy in his arms, spinning her around twice and smiling widely before setting hi back down again. "Kid, you are a genius! Of course! We've got three years' worth of documentation on her behavior. If we search it thoroughly enough, we might be able to discover some patterns that will help us track her down."
"Where are these keeper reports?" Zara
"They're stored electronically," Owen says sitting down at a computer. "I just need access to the file…" He begins typing on the keyboard, searching the shared drive for the park. He searches a file labeled 'Animal Care' and inside finds another folder entitled keeper reports. The reports are first categorized by year. Owen selects 2012, and fines a list of folders each labeled with a different animal's name. Finding the Indominus', he clicks it, only to be informed by a pop up that he doesn't have access to this file. "Damn," he says.
"Here, let me," Claire says, leaning over him and punching in a password. "There, you're in."
Owen looks at her with a cocked eyebrow and says, "Was that 'KGillan' I saw you type in…?"
"Shut up and search," Claire says half playfully. "Here, Grey, Zach, why don't you help Owen search," she says, setting up two more computers beside him.
"Ah come on," Zach says.
"Please, Zach," Claire says. "People's lives could depend on this."
He can't argue. "Okay, what are we supposed to be looking for?"
"Patterns.," Owen says, still looking at his screen. "Any patterns you notice, no matter how insignificant they may seem, could provide vital clues."
"I'm on it," Grey says, sitting down to Owen's right and clicking furiously. Zach doesn't show quite as much enthusiasm as his brother, but he nonetheless takes a place at a computer.
From across the control room, Dr. Wu watches them over a sheet of paper, pretending to be in the middle of intense reading. He's remained quiet and unseen ever since Owen and Claire made it back to the control room. Over hearing their conversation, he wonders if they may actually be on to something. Tracing the Indominus' behavior over time might be the most effective way of determining patterns that might lead to her destruction. More importantly, it draws attention – and suspicion - away from him.
Or so he thinks.
Without warning, Owens eyes flash from the screen over to Wu, and for the briefest of moments, their gazes lock. Wu breaks off eye contact by looking down at the paper, focusing on a random word in the middle of the page – 'sector' – to preserve the illusion that his attention is focused on reading.
"Hey Claire," Owen says, still eying Wu. "Come take a look at this…"
Excited, Claire leans over and looks at the screen. "What, what is it?"
He lowers his voice and says, "Nothing, I need to talk about something important, but we can't be overheard."
"What do you mean?" she asks, confused.
Owen pauses before asking her, "Do you trust Dr. Wu?"
"What are you-" she begins instinctively before shifting mid-sentence to question at hand. "For the most part. He's always done everything we've ever asked of him…"
Owen senses there's something she's not saying. "'But?'…" he says, leading her on.
"But…" she says, "He's always been sort of…guarded about his work. I've never pushed him about it because of the number of times he's saved my ass from the boarders, but I'd be lying if I wasn't just a little suspicious about what he gets up to in the lab."
"Good to know I'm not the only one," Owen says. "When the Indominus first hatched, I wondered why she was so aggressive and jam-packed with nasty features. I mean, I know that's what the public ordered, apparently, but this seemed like over kill. So I emailed Wu about it, and he just waved if off as unexpected side effects of filling in the gaps in the DNA strand."
"You didn't believe him?" Claire asks.
"I wanted to," Owen says. "But with everything that's happened, it's really starting to feel…deliberate."
"Deliberate?" Claire asks. "You think he meant for it to be so destructive?"
"Maybe, I mean…" Owen stops himself before he can make a claim that he can't back up. "That's just the way it feels. I mean, this thing is completely resistant to small arms fire, can spit noxious chemicals, has incredible physical strength, and an array of senses on par with a military satellite. Now, don't tell me that that's all by accident."
Claire looks briefly over at Wu, who still maintains his position behind the papers. "But why though? What could he possibly get out of it?"
"No idea…" Owen says.
"Did I ever tell you that Wu was the first person ever to suggest a hybrid dinosaur as a new attraction?"
"No, but it doesn't surprise me," Owen says. "Though it does make me a hell of a lot more suspicious."
"What do you think we should do?" Claire asks.
"Just keep an eye on him for now," Owen says. "I want to concentrate on the Indominus."
"While you do that, I'm gonna go through the Masrani Workers' Electronic Archive to see if maybe Wu let something slip in an email maybe." She gets back up and heads over to her office.
Sensing that something is about to happen, Wu decides that Park Control is no longer the best place for him. He gets up slowly from his chair, though not too slowly. He does his best to convince his body that he's only going to use the bathroom, and there's no need for nausea or sweat. Making sure that both Owen and Claire are examining their screens, he moves along the wall of the Control room toward the elevator.
By the time Owen looks up from the computer, the elevator is already heading down.
"Shit!" Owen shouts, flying from his chair toward the door to the stairs, only to suddenly turn around to pick up his rifle by the door to Claire's office.
As he races past Zara, she asks him, "Owen, what are you-?"
"Talk later," he says, not bothering to look back at her. He bolts down the stairs as fast as he can, leaping about 4 or 5 steps at a time. When he finally reaches the first floor, he explodes into the hallway, turning to face the door to the employee parking lot – where he sees Wu's foot disappear outside.
"Son of a bitch!" Owen mutters to himself as he darts across the hall. By the time he makes it outside, Wu is already pulling out of the parking lot in Owen's jeep, the only vehicle left. "Fuck!" He shouts out, aiming his rifle at the jeep. But in the dark, he doubts that he can get a decent shot, and so resigns himself to stamping his foot on the pavement.
Wu is so focused on making it far away from park control – and Owen's rifle - that he doesn't notice the flat tire at first. He figured that the bumpiness of the ride was down to his going nearly 100 miles an hour, heading South toward the ferry landing. But as it becomes increasingly impossible to steer, he brings the car to a gradual halt by the mosasaur stadium. Grabbing a flashlight on the floor of the passenger's side, he goes out to investigate, shining the beam of the light on the rear left hand tire. As to be expected, the tire lies flat on the dirt road. But more than that, Wu notices something else. The rubber appears ragged and torn all over. Looking more closely, he sees what appear to be tiny tooth marks puncturing the outside.
"Goddamn compys!" he snarls, slamming his fist into the side of the jeep. Henry Wu can create an artificial hybrid dinosaur that's invulnerable to gun fire and can spit burning chemicals, but he's never learned how to change a tire. Since there is not AAA on Isla Nublar, Wu is faced with a difficult decision. Either head back toward park control and face Owen's wrath, or try to make it the several miles to the ferry landing on foot, with numerous large, powerful wild animals lurking in the jungle.
Anxious to find a third option, takes out his cellphone and dials Hoskins' number.
The other line merely rings for a while before Hoskins manages to pick up. "Wu? What's going on?"
Wu says to himself, "Hoskins, thank god," before he answers. "Look, I, uh….I'm out by the mosasaur stadium, no one else is here. I need someone to come pick me up."
About 30 seconds pass before Wu gets another answer. "Look Wu, I was able to get away from the rest of ACU, so talk – what the fuck is going on over there?"
"Grady knows," Wu says. "Or, he's close to finding out at least. I tried to leave park control, but the minute he saw I was gone, he ran after me. I made it out in his jeep, but one of the tires is flat. I need to get to the ferry landing," he adds quickly.
Wu can almost picture Hoskins putting his face in his palm. "Jesus Fucking Christ, Wu. We're in the middle of something important, I'm not running a goddamn taxi service!"
"Hey, you listen here," Wu says. "If I go back to park control and tell Owen everything, you're going down just as hard as I am. So either send someone out here, or you're fucked."
"Don't try to play tough guy with me, Wu," Hoskins says derisively. "You're a limp-dick science major who's way out of his element. I could always just leave you out there, let the dinosaurs take care of you. Wouldn't need to worry about you blabbing then."
Wu's blood runs cold. "You…wouldn't…"
Hoskins pauses. "I wouldn't, but I could. Remember that. I'm in charge here, so you do exactly as I say. With any luck, we'll both make it out of here, Scott free. You got that?"
Licking his lips, Wu answers. "I get it."
"Good," Hoskins says. "Now where exactly are you?"
"I'm by the-" Wu begins, but is immediately cut off when a sharp, stabbing pain cuts into his left calf and something tugs him so hard he falls flat on his face. Before he can even notice the tooth that falls out when his face hits the pavement, he is dragged off the road and into the surrounding forest. He feels himself come to a stop, only to feel something heavy and sharp stab him in the back.
A face looms down from about 10 feet over him. Its short-snouted, and bears a small pair of horns of its yellow, shining eyes. The squat mouth opens up to reveal small, need-like teeth and it engulfs his entire head. At first, Wu knows nothing the teeth piercing through his face, and the Carnotaurus' hot breath blasting his nose. But after a few more minutes, Wu knows nothing at all.
Back on the pavement, the walk talkie likes face up, Hoskins voice crying through the speakers. "Wu!? Wu, do you hear me?! Fucking damnit!"