The first chapter for the sequel to PUP has just been posted. It's called Three Steps Forward, One Step Sideways. It takes place 3-4 months after PUP ends and is mostly action/adventure. It's also much shorter - looks like it'll be about 9 chapters total (I'm writing #6 right now). If you enjoyed PUP, you'll probably enjoy the end of the trilogy, that was meant to be a single story. :P

Below is the first scene of the sequel (not the entire first chapter).

Preview of Part of Chapter 1

"Hold," Owen called down to the raptors, one hand raised in a fist while his other was clutching the clicker. He watched as the three raptors stayed in place, their gazes holding steady on him, even as they twitched slightly. He counted to three, before lowering his arm. "And, go." Pressing the clicker, he watched the three raptors hurry off, disappearing into the jungle cover of their paddock.

Owen unhooked the now-empty treat bucket from the railing and started walking back along the catwalk. He could see Stephen Parker waiting for him, but the man had remained quiet throughout Owen's entire demonstration, which was a far change from how Hoskins used to act. Owen wasn't quite sure what he thought about it. He didn't miss Hoskins — far from it — but he was still adjusting to this new normal, and still found himself expecting to see Hoskins waltzing through his office door, or swaggering across the field towards him.

Claire had told him, repeatedly, that Hoskins would never be setting foot back on Nublar or Sorna. And he believed her. Yet, it still seemed almost too easy, how they'd finally managed to get rid of him. Although, he knew that that thought was stupid. Owen still firmly believed that Hoskins should've been dismissed back when the Indoraptors had been running around.

However, even ignoring that, there had been nothing easy about Owen's recovery after the escapades at the Lockwood Estate. And now, just over three months later, he continued to deal with stiffness and a decreased range of motion in his shoulder. But, he was diligently doing the exercises his physio had prescribed (Claire never let him forget about them, and she'd somehow managed to rope both Barry and Zia into being her Sorna spies if he skipped out). He knew the exercises were helping. His physical therapist was optimistic that he'd regain his full range of motion in a few more months.

As Owen reached the end of the bridge, Parker fell into step beside him as they headed for the stairs.

"They're looking really good," Parker commented, and Owen just nodded. "Any more issues between Blue and Echo?"

The first couple of months after Blue had returned to Sorna, she and Echo had continued to get into occasional skirmishes. Echo had become used to being the "alpha" in Blue's absence and she wasn't all that excited about giving up the role. Blue, however, was not about to relinquish it without a fight. While there had been the odd occasion where Owen and Barry had been concerned the raptors were going to end up seriously injuring each other, for the most part, the fights had been small, and the animals had been easily distracted.

"Not for a few weeks now," Owen told Parker. "They seem to finally be settling back down. I think it helps that we play around with the order during some of the drills. It gives Echo — and even Charlie — a chance to somewhat lead. It's not the same as being the beta, but…" Owen shrugged.

He and Barry had debated for a long time on how to deal with Echo and Blue's fighting. It had always been clear to them that Blue would win, but they were concerned about Echo getting hurt, or the pack fracturing and Echo becoming an outcast. Thankfully, time, and some drill changes, seemed to be working well enough as a solution. That, and Owen sort of thought that after everything the raptors had been through, that none of them really wanted to lose a pack member again.

"That's good to hear," Parker nodded, as they stepped back down onto the ground. "What about the others?"

Before answering, Owen spotted a paddock tech and waved him over. He handed off the empty bucket he'd been carrying, before turning back to Parker.

The "others" was the generic name that often was used to refer to the two baby raptors whose eggs had been rescued from the Lockwood Estate, as Blue, Charlie and Echo still got referred to as his girls or the pack. The name bugged Owen a bit, but he tried not to get defensive, usually just making a point to call the two raptors by their names, instead. He didn't see how it was any more work to do that versus call them "the others. "

"Olive and Grape are doing well," Owen said, before glancing quickly at his watch. "It's a bit early for their afternoon training session, but we could still go and say hi."

He started across the field with Parker towards the nursery. Olive and Grape were almost three months old now, and so they continued to spend most of their time indoors. It would probably be another month before they moved them to an outdoor paddock. That was not to say that the raptors hadn't been outside yet, Owen had taken them out for various drills. They had a small area set up that he could put them in, but it wasn't secure enough for them to stay out there all night. And they were still young, still learning to regulate their body temperatures. It was easier, and safer, to keep them indoors for now.

When Owen had first arrived back on Sorna after spending the couple of weeks recuperating on Nublar, he still hadn't decided if he was going to take on the new raptors. To be fair, Claire had only dropped the news on him the night before he'd returned. But, on his second day back (his first had been spent out with his girls), he'd found himself walking into the lab building and approaching the three eggs. He'd felt a bit silly over it all, considering there was nothing that he could do except look at them. But, seeing them in front of him had made it all that much more real.

Owen had spent much of the next few days talking with Barry, Zia, Parker and Claire about the whole thing, trying to figure out what he wanted to do. Parker had been the one to tell him that they — Jurassic World and InGen — were thinking, hoping, to be able to have the raptors eventually end up as an attraction on Nublar. Owen had been pretty stunned when he'd heard that, and he still hadn't gotten over it by the time he'd talked with Claire later that day. A conversation that still made him wince when he recalled it now. He hadn't been all that… civil, and had had to profusely apologize to Claire the following day for some of his comments.

He had been — and still was, really — surprised that anyone was considering having any raptors become an attraction, especially since Jurassic World had been extremely against the idea for years. But, then he'd learned more about the raptors. And what he'd learned was what had actually made him agree to take on training them, even if it was information that still made his blood boil to this day. The raptors were more than just like Blue. They had been created using some of Blue's DNA. They weren't clones, but they weren't exactly offspring, either. More a hybrid mix of the regular raptor DNA that Eli and Wu had stolen from the park, combined with some of Blue's, along with a few other tweaks that Wu had thrown in (but that Owen still didn't quite understand the significance of).

The discovery of Blue's DNA had come from the extensive notes that Dr. Wu had left behind; notes that it had taken a while for the Jurassic World legal team to get access to. Because of the mixture that had been used, no one was quite sure what the results would be. If Olive and Grape were going to end up with similar traits to Blue, such as being more empathetic, or if the use of Blue's DNA would end up being unnoticeable. Owen knew that everyone was hoping that they'd have Blue's empathy, as it would mean they'd more likely be a successful attraction.

While he still wasn't all that excited about the idea of Olive and Grape ending up as an attraction period — and, most of the time, he tried his best to not even think about it — he did like knowing that with that option on the table it meant that no one was currently thinking about or pushing the same idea for his girls. In a way, it felt sort of like he was sacrificing Olive and Grape, for Blue, Echo and Charlie.

So far, the baby raptors had just seemed just like regular baby raptors to him. Then again, Blue's empathy hadn't really been distinguishable until she was closer to six months, so there was still time for that to show up. Owen was also finding it a bit more difficult to work with just two of them. Two didn't feel like a pack, and the dynamic between them was different than it had been for his girls when they were that little, or even Sky, Pepper, Fern and Snow. Owen kept telling himself that that was good — that it would be better, easier, if he was able to keep all the raptors separate, and see them all as their own beings.

"How are Olive and Grape doing?" Parker asked, interrupting Owen's musings. "I mean, I've seen the reports, but I'll admit that I mostly just skim them over. The details don't mean a whole lot to me." Parker laughed as he said that, and Owen forced out a chuckle, while mentally rolling his eyes. This was one of the big reasons he hated all the paperwork he did. It never felt like those who demanded it actually ever took the time to read or understand it.

"They're doing well," Owen said. "Thriving, which is good. They're still really little, and so most of the activities we do with them are focused around helping them develop their gross motor skills. Things like climbing, going up and down little ramps, and walking over uneven ground. It all sounds pretty basic, I know, but it's important for their development. The better their coordination, the more we'll be able to work with them going forward."

As they approached the nursery, Owen held open the door and then followed Parker inside. At the moment, there were only two sets of baby animals in the nursery, the compys and the raptors. Both were sets that had been rescued from the Lockwood Estate. Owen led Parker down the short hallway, past the door where he could hear the compys squawking from behind to another door at the end of the hall that led to the raptor pen.

Opening it, he and Parker entered a small area that was separated from the raptors by a chain link fence that had a door in the middle. Olive and Grape started chittering the moment they saw them, the two raptors approaching the fence, clutching at it with their claws. After Owen made sure that the door to the room was shut firmly behind him, he moved towards the raptors, crouching down across from them, the fence separating them.

"Hey girls," he greeted them. "How are you doing today? Both of you behaving?" He reached out and gently tapped them both on their snouts, which were pressed up against the fence. Grape tried to lunge for his finger, but Owen was faster, pulling his hand back.

"Which one is which?" Parker asked, reminding Owen that he wasn't alone.

He stood back up, looking down at the two raptors who abandoned the fence to go attack one of the many rubber balls that were spread throughout their cage when they realized they'd lost his attention. The balls that were currently almost as big as the raptors. In fact, only a month ago the balls had been bigger. Another reminder that they were growing up fast.

"The grey-ish one with the purple-ish stripe is Grape," Owen told Parker, pointing as he spoke. "And the green one is Olive." He wasn't really sure why Parker had even asked the question, considering their names plus colourings should've been indication enough. But, since he still wasn't quite sure why Parker had even come out to Sorna, he didn't press.

"That makes sense," Parker replied. "Are you enjoying working with them?"

"I am," Owen admitted, hesitating only briefly.

It was the truth, though. Even though he still felt uneasy over some aspects of it all, it was hard to remain upset with how playful the two raptors were. And it was nice to work with ones who still seemed excited to see him, and happy to attempt whatever drills he had in store for them, even if they didn't always seem to grasp what he was asking them to do. He loved his girls, but they could be moody and difficult to work with when they chose to be (which was still more often than he liked), so the change of pace could feel refreshing.

"You must be pretty busy now, with both sets of raptors," Parker continued, and Owen looked over at him, confusion furrowing his brow. Well, yeah, of course Owen was busy, but, that shouldn't be a surprise.

"It's a lot to juggle," he acknowledged, carefully. "But, Barry and I've got a system worked out. And since we're not training these two the same way as we did the others, that's helped."

That was actually another part of what had convinced him to finally agree. Yes, he was interested in what (if any) traits from Blue the raptors would show, but he'd also been adamant that he wasn't going to go back on his promise to figure out a way to get back to Nublar more regularly (even if he had agreed to never use the word promise around Claire). Knowing that the raptors were going to (likely) end up as an attraction, had meant that they didn't need the same stringent training schedule that Blue and the others had gone through. They could be more relaxed with these two, focusing more on play and helping them develop strong social skills and a good relationship with humans, and focus less on developing their problem solving abilities.

And that meant that he and Barry had been able to sort out a schedule. In the end, they had decided to go with a 10 days on, 4 days off plan. Although it was more like two full days off, and two half days, as whoever was leaving would usually end up doing some work the morning before they caught the boat back to Nublar, and then in the afternoon on the day they returned. They had also staggered their schedules so that they always had a few full days together before the other left.

"You've been able to spend more time back on Nublar recently, as I understand it," Parker commented, continuing to stare through the fence at Olive and Grape.

Owen looked at Parker in surprise at the words. The arrangement that he and Barry had come up with had had to be approved by Parker. The fact that Owen was spending that time on Nublar shouldn't be a surprise.

"Do you enjoy that?" Parker asked, finally turning to look at Owen.

"Uh, yes?" Owen winced when his answer came out hesitantly, quickly following up. "It's been nice to get back there more regularly." He managed to cut himself off before he made a comment about Claire. He knew that Claire would not want him to be mentioning their relationship (even if it was more than common knowledge amongst all the staff).

"Hm," Parker nodded. "Would you be interested in spending more time back on Nublar?"

The question made Owen pause. He felt like he could suddenly see warning lights flashing all over the place. He wished he knew where this conversation was going, because he felt like whatever he said next may land him somewhere he didn't want to be.

Thankfully, Parker didn't seem to actually care about getting an answer, as he continued to talk.

"With Hoskins gone, we've been trying to figure out a replacement for him. But, even more so, we've been re-thinking his position. Not only have we lost him, but the actual activity on Sorna has been picking up. You've got the two sets of raptors now. The lab has more eggs incubating. There's been talk about working on new species development again, not just more of the same…" Parker trailed off.

Owen wasn't really sure what he was supposed to say in response. He'd had two sets of raptors before, so he didn't think that that was all that new. And Claire had already mentioned the new species development to him, so he'd known about it, even if it hadn't actually been given a greenlight yet. As for Hoskins's position, well, Owen didn't really know everything that Hoskins had done, but he wasn't all that interested in taking on that job, from the bits he did know. Owen preferred to work directly with the raptors, not just observing from afar.

"I… I'm not really sure what you're asking here," he said, watching Parker closely.

"We've been thinking about creating a new position," Parker stated. "Someone who would take on overseeing everything happening here on Sorna. Both the lab side and the research side. Right now, the information we get out of here, and the supervision that happens, is often disjointed. What you and Barry work on is completely separate from what the lab guys are working on."

Owen nodded, although he didn't really see anything wrong with that. There really wasn't any connection between the two.

"The work you've done with the raptors, the work that any of our trainers do with the animals, is incredibly beneficial. And as the lab continues to produce more, both of the species we already have, but also new species, we want to bring in behaviourists earlier. Not to the level of what you two are doing with the raptors, but to bridge the gap of understanding. To make it more circular, so that there isn't the same disconnect with the lab once the animals hatch. That they have and use more of this knowledge as they continue their work."

Okay, well that Owen could actually sort of get behind. He did always find it frustrating that Wu never seemed to care about the dinosaurs once they'd hatched. To Owen, he had always felt that yes, creating viable embryos was important, but that the final result, the living, breathing animal, mattered just as much, if not more. Because just because you could bring something to life, didn't mean it should be brought to life. And the Indominus and the Indoraptors were perfect examples of that.

"Anyway, the position hasn't been completely sorted out yet," Parker said, seemingly oblivious to the fact that Owen hadn't actually said anything in a while. "We're still figuring out exactly how it would work. But while it would be based here on Sorna, it would require frequent travel to Nublar, as there's coordination that needs to occur between here and the lab there. I wanted to bring it up, though, because your name has come up a few times now in discussion. There's been more than one person who thinks you'd be perfect for this role, what with the work you've done with the raptors, and the connections you have back on Nublar."

Owen had to hide his scoff with a cough. Of course his "connection" to Claire would be considered an asset here. Even if, to Owen, it felt like it would probably actually be more a liability. Like the two of them needed more things to potentially argue over.

"It's not a done deal. But I wanted you to start thinking it over," Parker said. Owen felt like a deer in the headlights, not sure how to answer, but thankfully Parker continued. "You don't have to answer today, of course. And it's not just up to me, either. But, I hope you'll think about it. I think you'd be good at it."