As they walked toward the Administration entrance, the group realized that things were no longer the same at Burroughs.
In the middle of the parking lot, a lacerated piece of cloth was burning and between the flames, Dearing saw some of the letters that formed the InGen logo.
Looking up, they saw that instead of InGen's flag, a banner was floating. It depicted a roaring dragon and a crescent of five human skulls on a black field.
Grady knew this flag, having already seen it in one of the Grey Guard residences' common rooms.
It was their unofficial flag, considered as being too sinister by the UN authorities.
What happened?
They moved on, going in front of the two J-SEC sentries that guarded the bridge.
"Okay. Is there anyone to explain me why this standard flutters instead of InGen's and why the latter was set on fire?" Dearing asked them.
"Mrs Dearing. We must warn you that things have a bit changed since you left," one of them declared.
The officer took them to the reception and he narrated everything that had happened since the launch of the mission to the mountain.
He told them about the identity of the murderers that Dearing's nephews had seen, the fact that the Indominus is a new kind of biological weapon according to the guards, the confrontation in the rotunda between Torres and the guards led by Brunet, the shooting and the chase that had followed.
Before leaving to hunt the InGen's troops that had been deployed upstream of the Cartago valley, the guards had penetrated en masse in the Administration, ignoring the civilians there, captured the two men that Torres had left behind in the control room and brought down the InGen's flag that floated near the bridge, leaving it in the state in which Dearing and her companions had seen it, to put instead their ominous banner.
The captured mercenaries and scientists were now locked at the J-SEC headquarters, in the lowest levels of the Administration.
The J-SEC officers, scattered within Sector One and being for most of them were visitors had been gathered, in the southern part of Burroughs as well as in the Grand Nublarian, they hadn't been able to help Torres and his men and those whom the guards had encountered had immediately surrendered, very well aware that resisting would be useless, as the insurgents were much better trained and equipped than they were.
Leaving some men at the Administration, Brunet had allowed the J-SEC officers who were there to stay at their posts, as they were for nothing in the conspiracy hatched by InGen Security' higher-ups.
However, the J-SEC officers and the insurgents now showed great distrust to each other but Brunet had announced that talks would took place upon his return and whose objectives would be to establish a number of conditions for the best collaboration possible, for the sake of all, and the civilians evacuation was a priority of both groups, although it was then rather the J-SEC that dealt with it.
Mistrust was also prevalent among many InGen employees, who experienced the situation like if their country had just been invaded by a foreign army with unclear motives.
"This island is becoming as unstable as your average African country..." Dearing declared when she entered the control room without even asking permission.
Behind her, Grady and Sembène had been stopped by the grey guard stationed near the door. He asked them to hand over their rifles to him and it was only after they complied that he let them pass.
Corporal Chapuy and another guard stood behind the rows of working stations, watching the technicians, and as she scanned the control room, Dearing saw Zach and Gray sitting against one of the walls, half dozing, with packets of crisps and sodas at their feet.
Krill had brought them to the room when Cruthers and Harriman witnessed the rotunda's shooting on their screens and noting that they had been very worried, Dearing came to reassure them before turning to the main screen, like she was still the park director, while the exhausted keepers and Leon, still on the edge after having escaped death several times, sat half-way between the door and Dearing's nephews in order to rest.
She noted that some of the Reserve's animals had already crossed the Long Lake and were now moving through the employee village, which had been evacuated just after the explosion on the Sibo's eastern side. The rest of the horde followed, swimming across the lake en masse, even though some still seemed to want to stay on its northern side.
As she analysed the information on the screen, she was struck by the strong smell of coffee and pizza in the room as many cups had been swallowed by the technicians whose bins were brimming over with sandwiches or pizza boxes. On some of the stations, there were even some opened pizza boxes, exposing some slices that still hadn't been eaten and which had cooled.
"I was fired just a few hours ago and now this place is a pigsty!" Dearing noticed. "Hoskins and Commander Torres didn't cared about cleanliness?"
"Glad you returned Claire," Cruthers retorted.
"I also see that you agreed to collaborate with the guards. You would have fared well in Europe during the forties...," she said not without sarcasm.
"It doesn't seem to bother you either," Krill said.
"True. After what the board did to me and facing the prospects that are being offered to me, collaborating with the insurgents would bring me some satisfaction I admit."
"What are you doing here Madam since you have been fired?" Connors asked her. "Aren't you taking advantage of the insurgency to take back the helm? This is the equivalent of a putsch!"
"No one cares, Daniel! We have other fish to fry!" Cruthers inveighed.
"If you obey her, you must be aware that you are going against the orders of the board!" Connors warned them. "You risk being fired for that."
"Are you dumb?!" Krill castigated him. "InGen will not be disposed to keep all of us after this crisis. Most of us will be soon unemployed!"
"Certainly but by collaborating with her, you are heading to a lawsuit. I won't take that risk."
He got up from his chair, grabbed his belongings and as he was walking up the alley towards the door, Dearing stepped in his way, positioning herself above the two steps, thus towering above him.
All became silent and looked at her.
"Listen me, my little buddy: The board is not here and it doesn't care about your pitiful existence! The only thing they are worrying about is the money you are going to make them lose if you die... By disappearing, Hoskins left this drifting ship without a captain and who better to replace him than the former, me...," she said. "Unless you know a better candidate?" She asked the other people in the room.
There wasn't any oral answer but Cruthers, Krill, Harriman, Quintero and several other technicians nodded approvingly.
"We are not going to waste time in organizing a meeting and elections so stop acting like a cock of the walk because you're nothing but a cuck!" She told Connors. "I learned about your wife, quite a story..." She added in a lower voice before raising once again her tone. "I shall repeat what I told you earlier: Shut the fuck up! And if you run away instead of helping the others, trust me that I will catch you and take you with me to pay a visit to Aunt Roberta, dragging you by the scruff of your neck if I must. She must be hungry. She hadn't her evening goat..."
Connors swallowed and paled. Behind Dearing, Corporal Chapuy and his colleague exchanged a puzzled look, wondering if they should not intervene.
"You wouldn't do that? D... Do you?" He stuttered out of fear while Dearing slowly went down the steps.
"Of course not, you moron. You won't taste her teeth but my fists."
He finally lowered his eyes and when she stopped in front of him, she gave him some small slaps on the cheek.
"Come on, be a good boy and go back to your post!" She commanded him condescendingly.
Dearing turned to Corporal Chapuy and his colleague.
They gave her a respectful look, impressed by her demonstration of authority.
At that moment, she knew they had to think that her knowledge of the park and her relations with its employees could be useful to them.
"We're all aboard the same sinking ship, Isla Nublar. Add USS, SSV or Battlestar in front, whatever... Our common goal is to ensure the evacuation of the island and the Indominus' defeat," she stated. "How many people are still on the island, Vivian?"
"Seventeen thousands."
Between the end of the Battle of Burroughs and midnight, the cruise ship that Zach and Gray had seen moored at the terminal when they arrived had left with its passengers, around four thousand people.
Aside from that, three of Ogen fleet's giant catamarans had also left, embarking each about two thousand people. Two of them were docked at the terminal when the Sibo erupted and the third had arrived at nine and left at midnight.
Another of its catamarans was still docked, as it had reached the island less than an hour earlier and was being prepared before evacuees could be allowed on board.
Thus, the evacuation process was relatively well underway and other ships would arrive in the coming hours. Meanwhile, rescuers were taking care of the wounded in the hotels.
Whenever a ship was ready to take passengers, the J-SEC and the Costa Rican police officers sent urgently on the island escorted them to the ships and ensured that they boarded and that the ship left. They also had blocked off the Marina, thinking that there was too many risks for the boats' owners to sail away.
"When the evacuation will be finished?"
"If the waves aren't unleashed in their turn, and hoping that they aren't, the last visitors shall leave Isla Nublar in the middle of the morning," Cruthers answered.
"Perhaps sooner," Quintero added. "Many fishermen have volunteered to rescue the souls stuck on this island with their boats and have formed a flotilla. The police and the coast guards sent them an escort. They should be here by the first light of the day."
"Ah, a good news!" Dearing said. "We shall prepare an anchorage area. And about power level, what is the situation?"
"Despite its proximity with Mount Sibo, the plant was not affected by the eruption as you can see on the map," another technician answered.
On the real-time map, the areas affected by the eruption were displayed in red.
The latter's immediate damage were mainly concentrated south of the mountain, in an area that stretched from the surroundings of the hot springs resort to the sound in the east, encompassing Little Gorgoroth, San Fernandez's ruins and the I. rex Coliseum, now largely destroyed.
The northern coast, where the power plant was located, had been miraculously spared, firstly because the relief prevented the lava flows from reaching it, and secondly because the explosions projected the volcanic bombs mostly towards the island's interior.
"It was however evacuated in the beginning of the afternoon on Masrani's order," he continued. "When they left, the operators set up the production system in automatic mode. Normally, the machinery should still run for another thirty-seven hours before stopping."
"So no worries on this side. We should still have electricity tomorrow," Dearing concluded.
"I hope so too, especially since we disconnected all the facilities in the northern half of the island and every irreparable or empty paddocks to save power as much as possible, but one thing worries me. It's the state of the power lines."
He made the areas affected by the eruption disappear and instead displayed said lines and the park's power grid on the map.
The different lines' portions weren't of the same colour however.
There were three of them, each corresponding to a certain state: Green for a good state, orange for an average state, and red for a bad state. While most of the lines in the southern half of the island were in good condition, some in the middle part were displayed in orange and as one moved closer to the volcano, and the epicentre of the earthquake that devastated the park, the more the proportion of lines displayed in red increased.
"The aftershock felt when you were still by the achillobator paddock has put them to the est. If another of a magnitude equal or superior to six strikes, you can be sure that they will eventually give way and then it's going to be dark."
"Okay. We must gather anything that could allow us to light à l'ancienne, just in case. Tell the employees in the rest of the city to do the same if it hadn't been done already.
Corporal Chapuy's radio started making sound and Darbinian's voice was heard, asking her colleague to report to her.
While he did this, Wu's whereabouts crossed Dearing's mind.
"With all of this, I forgot to ask you what happened to Wu. He managed to fly away, didn't he?" Dearing asked the French grey guard.
"Unfortunately, yes," the latter replied.
"He did the Ernst Stavro Blofeld trick!" Darbinian added.
"The Ernst Sta...?" Leon repeated uncertainly, as he sat on the floor next to the keepers.
"Have you ever watched the James Bond films kid? It's the name of a villain. In You Only Live Twice directed by Lewis Gilbert and released in 1962, he flee as his base is exploding."
"I only saw the last ones with Daniel Craig," the intern said.
"You should watch those with Sean Connery, they're the best."
"I prefer those with Roger Moore," Grady said as he got up.
"Owen, we've had this debate before," Darbinian told him. "Let's not put it back on the table..."
"Hey, can we refocus on the subject?" Dearing asked them, which was not displeasing to Chapuy, who was originally speaking with Darbinian to report to her. "Warrant Officer Darbinian? Is Lieutenant Brunet with you?"
"Well, now it's captain for Brunet and lieutenant for myself. But yes, he is near. Why?"
Dearing was momentarily surprised by these changes of rank. She then remembered that since Lieutenants Laurence and Glenmore had been killed, there was no else than Brunet to fill the Captain's position left vacant after Hamada's death, and to replace Brunet himself in his previous position, it was not surprising that Darbinian got promoted, and this was only one of the rearrangement that happened within the garrison' hierarchy following the suffered losses.
"Could you please pass him to us," she asked. "We have important information to transmit to him."
"Alright."
Wherever they were, Darbinian passed her radio to Brunet.
"I'm listening, Dearing," the latter voice said.
"Owen and Barry survived the mission at the mountain and they saw things that you should be told of. I must also inform you that I have unofficially taken back the crisis' supervision, on the civilian side of course."
"As long as you don't put a spoke in my wheels, Claire, I don't care. Pass them to me."
She gave the radio to Grady.
"Gilbert, the Indominus control the neoraptors and the proceratosaurs," he told him. "Be on your guard."
"Ah, I almost forgot about her! And now she has found a pack, like if we needed that... How is this possible?"
"I don't know yet," Grady replied.
"Ok. Please contact me if you have any answers or new intel."
Grady gave the radio back to Corporal Chapuy and then turned to Cruthers.
"Lowery, can you search through the video archives of the quarantine paddocks and especially those from when the Indominus lived there?" He asked the chief technician.
"I'm on it."
"Do you think that the fact she was their neighbour during her youth may explain this?" Sembène asked his colleague.
"I'm afraid so, but it's only the only thing. Can someone give me the list that Wu had sent before the mission?"
One of the technicians, who had received a printed copy of the list, passed it to him.
"Here it is."
When Grady had it in his hand, he browsed it:
- Giganotosaurus carolinii
- Megaraptor namunhuaiquii
- Carnotaurus sastrei
- Majungasaurus crenatissimus
- Proceratosaurus bradleyi
- Tyrannosaurus rex
- Eudyptes chrysocome
- Melanerpes carolinus
- Kaprosuchus saharicus
- Boa constrictor
- Bothriechis schlegelii
- Smaug giganteus
- Phrynosoma cornutum
- Gonocephalus liogaster
"The proceratosaur is on it, that's what I thought," he said.
"How does this help us?" Dearing asked.
"In this species, the dominant individuals produces a certain type of pheromones that is recognized by the subordinates. Even if you know how to make their calls, they won't follow you if you don't produce this pheromone."
"If I understand correctly, since the Indominus is part proceratosaur, she can synthesize this pheromone?"
"Broad strokes, yes. But about the neoraptors, I'm still wondering. Their communication is much more verbal and gestural than that of the proceratosaurs. The mere fact that she had learned their language was enough for her to dominate them. I would not have dismissed the idea that she didn't actually have neoraptor DNA if I hadn't seen the morphology of her foot. The large claw she had on the innermost toe seems halfway between that of a raptor and that of the larger theropods. I believe that Wu must had used neoraptor DNA but why did he hide this fact and not the presence of proceratosaur DNA while the problem is similar?"
"I bet you that this list is incomplete, especially with that militarization story and since that filthy little pyjak is now far away, he dumped us in a beautiful pond of shit," Dearing grumbled while returning near the railing behind Cruthers and Krill.
The two technicians were suddenly absorbed by the screen of his station.
Among the CCTV windows on the right side of the screen, there was a group of people locked in a room and separated from a corridor by a transparent partition. It was one of the J-SEC's cells and the prisoners were the geneticists captured by the guards during Wu's escape.
Seeing that two of the scientists were standing and facing each other with clenched fists, Cruthers clicked to enlarge the window and turned on the sound.
Dr Preston's voice was heard.
"...fucking traitor!"
The latter was seen suddenly punch the face of his colleague.
He tried to answer by striking Preston's temple but the younger geneticist being smaller and more agile, he dodged the blow with a ducking move and grabbed his opponent by the waist and tackled him, making him fall.
They began to fight on the floor and their colleagues tried to separate them but in vain.
"Do you realize what you did? This man is dangerous, Robert! You put us in trouble!" Preston yelled.
The guard tasked of watching them appeared on the other side of the partition. He violently punched it with his fist, drawing the scientists' attention.
"Hey, calm down you monkeys!" He ordered them. "It's not a zoo here! Don't force me to use a water hose to separate you!"
"What's that fight in the cells?" Dearing inquired.
"We discovered that Robert, one of the geneticists, was a Biosyn spy," Harriman told her. "The officer sent by Commander Torres before the shooting in the rotunda caught him copying data from the servers on his hard drive. When the guards captured them shortly after, they were fighting."
"Another twist?" Dearing complained. "What is this mess? A Night Shyamalan movie? I'm sick of this crap... Nothing surprises me anymore."
As she sighed, her gaze was drawn to the list of genomes hold by Grady. One of the scientific names she had seen on it had intrigued her.
She took the list from his hands.
"Smaug giganteus?" She read. "Wu never mentioned a submarine expedition in the depths of Esgaroth to recover the genetic material of good old Smaug."
"Smaug giganteus is the scientific name of the Giant girdled Lizard," Grady told her.
"Oh..."
"You think that the Indominus looks like Benedict Cumberbatch? Whoa, you're good..." Cruthers said ironically.
"For having seen her face to face, I would say she looks a little like Jessica Chastain," Grady claimed.
Dearing gave him a wary look.
"How can you say that she looks like Jessica Chastain? It's a fucking dinosaur!"
"I had the opportunity to have a look at her facial features from up close. I don't know why, I would say that they look like those of Jessica Chastain."
"Okay," Dearing said, not convinced in the least.
"Since we were talking about Smaug a moment ago, I'm sorry to announce that Ed Sheeran is dead," Adamson said.
"What, the singer? Shit..." Zach asked, surprised. "My ex was a fan of him."
"No, he's one of our male Parasaurolophus," the technician retorted. "He was northeast of the achillobators' paddocks when the area was set ablaze. Because of its popularity, he was one of the animals to be put in the Arcadia in priority."
When Adamson had mentioned the achillobators enclosure, Grady's face had suddenly darkened.
The flight to the south followed by the search of the laboratories, the news of the insurgency, and the reflections on the explanations behind the communication between the Indominus and the neoraptors and proceratosaurs and totally occupied his mind until then but fast enough, memories of the paddock returned to him, especially the vision of Charlie's body and the bullets' holes on her.
"Please excuse me," he said with a tight voice as he left the room.
The guard on the other side of the door handed him back his weapon and he disappeared around the corner. Dearing and Sembène exchanged a worried look, unsure about Grady had in mind, and he decided to follow him.
