me, showing up two, nearly three years late with Starbucks: sup
chapter title from Tranz by Gorillaz
Barry is giving him a look. Owen doesn't much care for it.
"You're telling me you told someone outside the raptor program, someone you barely know, someone who could have every reason to expose you, or worse, tell everyone you're insane, about your abilities?" Barry scolds incredulously, voice sharp enough to make Owen wince.
"It's been a week and nothing's happened, it's fine Barry", Owen assures him, pushing his own doubts away, though some part of him heavily agrees with the concern in Barry's eyes.
Barry pauses to give Owen a long and hard look, settling a box of supplies on his hip and wiping sweat from his forehead. Quiet chatter persists around them, other park employees helping to unpack the massive load of supplies the island inhabitants demand. Owen doesn't squirm under his dark gaze, his own eyes matching Barry's intensity. Barry sighs and his shoulders slump.
"You're lucky that Adam guy really likes you", he huffs, moving to put his box on one of the trucks waiting to be filled up.
Owen grins, tension melting away, picking up another pile of cardboard boxes.
"Please Barry, there's not a single person on this island that doesn't like me", he laughs, ignoring the eyeroll Barry gives him.
"Don't confuse people for animals, raptor man. The humans think you're insane," Barry retorts without malice.
They let silence settle around them, unbothered by it, the sounds of the island echoing in the distance. Owen can hear the dull roar of the animals buzzing in his head, though less prominent beneath the brilliance of the pack bond, his girls lazing around in their paddock (or more accurately, pretending to laze around and keeping sharp eyes on the ACU keeping watch over them). Echo's off supervising the construction of the Indominus paddock again, Charlie and Venizia joining in to watch and catalogue weaknesses in the building for later.
Roma and Delta squabble over a stray lizard and Blue patrols the fences, amusing herself by thinking of the many many ways she could so easily escape from the so-called high security paddock. There's an underlying thread of discontent within all of them though, something sharp, malignant, a hot wire that coils uncomfortably around the bond.
The girls trust Owen's judgment, trust him to be able to handle things, but they don't trust Adam. They're sure he's nothing like Hoskins, but they don't know him like they do Barry and Adam's motivation for keeping the secret, in their eyes, is fickle at best. They understand that Owen had little choice in the matter, and he promised he'd be able to deal with any repercussions that may come their way, but they remain wary, the chance that their Alpha could be taken away heavy on their minds.
Owen mentally soothes them and the tension melts just slightly in the face of his warm reassurance. He, Barry, and the rest of the volunteers continue their work under the gleaming sun, a slow progress that started in the early dawn hours and lasts well into the afternoon.
Owen swings on his hammock, eyes roving tiredly over the tome of an itinerary Claire had handed to him at the last meeting. Everyone had gotten one, details and lists and instructions planned down to the second for when the park's celebration comes about and Owen is sure he's not the only one who thinks it might be a little overboard. The words blur together and he closes the packet before the dull ache in the back of his head worsens.
"Hey Owen, ACU wants to go over the details for security for the girls' paddock", Barry calls from inside the bungalow, satellite phone in hand, a cupcake he'd stolen from the breakroom in the other.
"Again?", Owen groans, head slumping backwards onto his pillow. "I wrote this stuff down for them, what more could they possibly want?"
Barry shrugs, amusement twinkling in his eyes and slips back inside, unhelpful as ever in Owen's quest to understand humans. Why couldn't they be as easy to please as animals? Who even care about dumb social constructs? Owen grumbles as he drags himself out of his hammock, stretching and messaging at his stiff neck and shoulders. He drops his itinerary onto his pillow and heads toward his bike, making a mental checklist of things he'd need to ask about concerning the inclosure for the I-rexes.
The girls chitter in his head as he climbs onto his bike, excited at the prospect of having more space to explore, though not quite so at the idea of having to be separated for a while. Owen doesn't interrupt them and instead concentrates on speeding through the dirt roads and whipping foliage of the wilder part of the island until he reaches the outer wall, showing his security badge to the man on post and speeding off onto the much neater, paved roads of the park.
He can hear the murmur of voices from the people on the main street and the gentle rumbles of the baby herbivores thrum quietly underneath his pack bond, joined by far off calls of the adults and the slightly sharper flares from the predators. Rexy is one of the more prominent presences on the island, tired and old and sniffing lazily at the goat that's been set in front of her to eat for the amusement of the several hundred people eagerly watching from the log. In the center of the park is the other most prominent attraction, large, aquatic, with a mind vast enough to put even Venizia and Roma on edge. Owen skims over the minds of a few other animals (checking in on the trike baby with a cold, the gallimimus that had sprained her ankle a few days ago, and a baryonyx with a mighty awful toothache) before he finally arrives at his destination, parking his bike in a lot full of atvs and trucks.
Owen taps in his passcode and enters the building, the blast of cool air from within making him shiver after the brief walk through the blistering sun, the wind from the speed of his bike having only kept him somewhat cool on his ride over. His dusty green flannel shirt and worn vest and jeans make him feel a little out of place in the impeccably clean silver-and-white building, but his confident stride doesn't stutter and he even greets a few people as he makes his way into the elevator.
It's a quick ride up to the meeting room in the third floor, his head resting on the chilled metal of the elevator doors. He tunes in again to his girl's chatter, soft lazy murmuring while they hide out in the jungle's shade from day's humid heat. If Owen wanted to, he could stretch his mind beyond his girls, find the compies scattered throughout the unsecured but otherwise cleared island, clumped in their vicious little packs, or if he were being ambitious, to the outer edges of Isla Sorna, to brush against the animals living wild around the beach.
His girls are too possessive though, and even if it's just a fleeting thought as the doors slide open to allow him into the hall, the walls of the pack bond tighten around him, as chiding as they are soothing. Owen can't help the light smile that plays at his lips at that, though he manages to school his face into something more neutral by the time he enters into the meeting room.
Several pairs of eyes turn to meet his, members of the ACU, general park security, and a few other trainers giving him a glance before turning back to the plans on the table.
"Heard you guys needed me to discuss the paddock plans for the new… assets?" He doesn't like calling his girls that, but Claire doesn't want their names used until the Grand Unveiling and even without her in the room, he feels she'll find out somehow. She has her ways, most of them through Zara, who Owen suspects might actually be psychic.
Maybe.
"Specifically, the security measures to keep the assets in. The other handlers have expressed concern about them getting out if the walls aren't tall or thick enough, and from what we've heard, the assets are growing at an accelerated rate."
Owen heaves a great sigh, picks a pen out of his pocket, and gets to work.
"How is he?" Masrani asks, eyes serene as he looks through the glass doors to watch the scientists work.
Henry shuffles his papers, though they're already in a neat pile, eyes flicking through the lines of a report his eidetic memory has already memorized and filed away. He knows Masrani isn't asking about his results, fascinating as they may be, but Henry isn't here to talk about Owen Grady's well being.
"I hear he's well", Henry answers, a polite reminder that while he's frequently in contact with Grady, it's not exactly Grady they speak of. Grady is much more comfortable talking about his raptors' progress than he is talking about himself.
"I should hope so", Masrani says with a light chuckle, finally turning to face the other man, a fond smile on his face.
"The raptors and the assets have proven to be quite receptive to him, haven't they?"
Henry nods, more at ease with this line of questioning.
"As I hypothesized, his gift was strong enough to draw the raptors in, but his mental shields were too weak to block them out before they bonded with him. They stabilized him", says Henry, "enough that his mind wasn't torn to shreds when the assets honed in on him."
"And the assets were made to be especially receptive to him?" Masrani queries further, intent on having his questions satisfied. Henry nods again, flipping through his papers to find the right one.
"Yes. Due to concerns over the predator behavior born of exaggerated predator features, we needed to find a way to curb those instincts. Bonded with Grady, they're much safer for public viewing as, like the raptors, they aim to please their alpha. From my assistant's observations, Grady was already powerfully gifted, but being stabilized has made him stronger and in exchange…" Wu hesitates, eyes narrowing at the page in front of him, "he makes them stronger and… more intelligent."
There's a pregnant pause at that revelation. Wu had seen the fierce intelligence of the first pack he'd created, read Malcolm, Harding and Grant's accounts of the raptor packs on Isla Sorna. He'd thought about curbing the intelligence of the new batch of raptors he'd created for Grady, but that could have thrown the balance of their genetics, made them even more aggressive, and not receptive enough for Grady's human mind. Worse, they would have torn him apart as soon as they were old enough to do so, without the intelligence to handle the human mind, or even turn Grady completely feral.
It'd been a tricky balance to strike. In the end, they'd been born smart as any raptor Henry had created, and now they're smarter, fused as they are with Grady's mind.
"Is that safe?" Masrani sounds more cautious now, his earlier calm shifting from warm to cool.
Henry takes a breath.
"I believe", Henry says slowly, "as long as Grady is content, then we have little to worry about."
Masrani's lips slip into a small smile.
"Then we'd best keep him happy."
Claire is having a day. There'd been protesters today, the very loud and very stupid kind that were liable to open up the aviary rather than just the normal birds and lizards they kept on the island for the guests to learn about the basic genetics of the animals they came to see. Half of them were in holding cells with a couple of teenage idiots who'd thought to try and sneak into the suchomimus enclosure, but thankfully the others had dispersed peacefully. She has yet to find the teens' parents and there's a shareholders meeting due in an hour.
Clair doubts they'll get anything done, honestly, it almost always dissolves into bickering. Her attendance is still necessary though, if only to keep them at least slightly on track. The quiet vibration of her phone catches her attention and she sighs when she sees it's a message from Owen, the complete and finalized paddock for the Indomini.
Finally, they could begin working on more than the basic walls (and even those were taking a frustratingly long time because supplies from the mainland were being waylaid by flash storms). At least that's one thing taken care of, the construction and surveying crew had been in constant meetings for weeks with an increasingly irate Owen. Claire had had to deal with both sides and the whole ordeal gave her a headache.
"Excuse me, Ms. Dearing?" says a voice from behind her.
She pauses, takes a deep breath and turns to face a young man in an intern uniform, nervously wringing his hands.
"Yes?" she says crisply, after a pause where the intern-Adam, crush on Grady-simply stares wide-eyed at her, mouth agape.
"I uh. I was um. Wondering. I was-was-" he stumbles over his words, hands becoming increasingly twitchy, lips becoming white while his face slowly pinks with embarrassment.
"Take a breath", Claire instructs, taking pity on him, "and tell me what you need." She doesn't let her tiredness or impatience leak into her voice, though her eyes clearly warn him to get to business. Claire is a busy woman after all.
"Iwaswonderingaboutthe procedureforwhenyoufindhandlerssleepinginthepaddock", says Adam, almost too fast for Clair to untangle the words. When she does, her eyes widen in alarm and her lips press together. She doesn't think she's hired any idiots (and she would know, she's the one who does the interviews) who would ignore the blaring alarms around the paddocks of even the herbivores.
"Who's been sleeping in what paddock?" she asks, delicate brows furrowing.
Adam seems to lose his nerve because he won't look at her anymore, ducking away from her gaze, hands sliding into the pockets of his uniform shorts. Claire's frustration grows, Adam is one of the rotation interns and he works with too many handlers to pin down who would pull a stupid stunt like sleeping in a paddock.
"Nevermind", he mumbles and rushes into the crowd and Claire doesn't go two steps before she loses him in the throng.
She sighs, shoulders slumping minutely. Well. She'll bring it up with Masrani when she has time. No one's been stampeded or eaten yet, but she can't risk incidents in her park.
When's it going to be done, hisses an impatient voice in his head.
Owen turns a flat stare on Roma, ignoring her whining chuff to give her an even flatter look.
"It's a giant enclosure for you and your sister because the both of you're gonna be too big for this one in a few more months, it's gonna take a while", he says, bemused.
Roma wuffles at him, proving his point about her getting big by putting her chin on top of his head, not needing to really stand up straighter because she (and Venecia) are starting to outgrow his raptors. Owen huffs at her, but gives her neck a gentle pat anyways, rolling his eyes at the jealous screech audible from nearly the other end of the paddock, Delta's running footsteps thumping lightly against hard packed earth.
"You're both ridiculous", Owen grumbles when she nearly knocks him over, her nose buried into the soft flannel of his shirt. He strokes her head too, rumbling quietly at the good good content good that bounces between the two of them.
It lasts for all of a minute before Owen is knocked off his feet by a squalling, tangled ball of raptor, all far too large and vying for his attention. An unfortunate endeavor, really, because Owen only has two hands.
Settle, settle, Blue calls, finally taking pity on Owen and pushing her sisters to the side.
She helps a wobbly, dusty, and slightly scratched Owen to his feet, crooning lightly at the thankful glide of Owen's hand against her side. The rest of the pack crowds in, more careful this time in lieu of Blue's protective snapping. The bond buzzes and Owen feels cloudy with it, loose and warm in ways he'd never thought possible.
"You and your girls would give Alan Grant an aneurysm", says a light, slightly accented voice.
Owen goes stiff and his pack all snap up to see Simon Masrani smiling at them from the catwalk. They go into their formation, Alpha in the center, hissing and snapping at each other, furious for having not noticed the possible threat.
"Calm down, I'll handle it", Owen snaps at them, using the bond to push them back and ignoring Blue's sharp reproach. Though tugging at the bond is effective, they're clearly not happy about having him step forward to face Masrani. He doesn't register as another Alpha like Claire does, and he's an outsider to them. They seem to sense something that Owen can't, and it's agitating them. Owen's hold on the bond is strong though, and he steps to the front with nothing more than a warning his-snap at his elbow from Delta.
"How can I help you, Mr. Masrani", Owen asks, pretending his heart isn't pounding out of his chest.
No one but Barry knows about how close he is to his to his girls, no one knows he's connected to them-his breath hitches.
Adam.
Oh god, what if they took his girls away, experimented on them, poked around with the bond because he'd trusted the wrong person? It wouldn't have been Barry, he knows that for a fact, but both his pack and Barry had warned him about telling Adam, and now he was facing the consequences of that.
"You can start by calming down, Mr. Grady, and coming up here to talk to me please. Give us a bit of equal footing." Masrani's voice is still light, cheerful even, and looking at him through the bond from the raptors' eyes doesn't show any malicious intent. He wonders, what then, is bothering them, and reigns in the link so that his calm washes over their anxiety.
Owen nods up at him, raises a fisted hand and whistles, throwing his hand in the direction of the jungle. The pack stumbles forward, but stop, eyeing him and then eyeing Masrani, Blue the brightest in her displeasure. Owen has to give them a mental go, I'm not in danger, the pack's not in danger, before they scatter into the underbrush, and Owen pushes back the niggling thought of but we might be.
He's broken a pretty big rule, being in the paddock with six deadly prehistoric murder lizards. Without Barry, Owen doesn't have the particular charm he needs to convince his boss's boss that snuggling with the raptors is beneficial to the behavioral study.
Owen exits the paddock as protocol demands, waiting in the ready cage to make sure the primary door is securely locked. (He's not stalling. He's just being a good employee).
It's not too long before the secondary door is closed and locked behind him and he's climbing up the stairs onto the catwalk, not shying away from Masrani's warm eyes, but wary nonetheless. His pack's calmed down now, and he can sense them nearby as little more than shadows at the edge of the jungle. Blue is steady in the back of his mind, his anchor, as always.
"It's impressive how far you've come with the raptors", Masrani says.
He's relaxed, posture-not lazy, per say, but not holding any tension either, and his eyes glow with something that Owen might call pride.
"Thank you", Owen responds, mostly neutral, but he can't help it if he's proud of his bond with his girls too.
Masrani straightens, a smile curling on his face. He seems to be always doing that-smiling. He lays a hand on Owen's shoulder and Owen manages not to flinch at the unexpected and unfamiliar contact as he's lead off the catwalk and into the observation deck next to the paddock. Owen's curious, Masrani never comes out this far and while the man had never acted hostile toward Owen, had sought him out himself for the raptor job, Owen's never been sure of his motivations. His girls hadn't thought much of him when they stumbled upon him in his memories, not until now that he's there in person, something about him putting them on edge.
"Mr. Grady-Owen? May I call you Owen, yes? Thank you. Owen, I believe this talk is long overdue." Masrani's face is earnest, but it doesn't ease the light tension from Owen's shoulders. What's he talking about?
"Talk about what?" Owen asks, genuinely confused, hands resting on his hips, slightly demanding, mostly to hide his discomfort.
"Your gift, of course", says Masrani matter of factly, gestering at him as if commenting on his hair rather than a secret ability Owen had been warned never to reveal. (Nevermind that he'd told two people, the fact of the matter was that no one else was supposed to know).
Naturally, Owen stiffens, eyes wide and sharp, and from outside the pack's caws are audible, calling for their Alpha after feeling a flash of-not distress so much as shock-through the bond. Owen reigns himself back in, mentally calls for his girls to settle, though he's very tempted to just have all of them run into the wilds of Isla Nublar where ACU could never find them.
(The pack would rather just tear the humans apart, but no, that would not be productive in letting Owen keep his pack together so. The humans live.)
"I'm… not sure what you mean", Owen says slowly, tilting his head.
Masrani gives him a benign smile, shaking his head like a parent dismissing a child's obvious lie with amusement.
"Now Owen, no need for that, I promise I don't mean any harm", Masrani assures him gently, raising his arms in a placating gesture. Owen eyes him warily, not moving back but not moving out of his defensive stance.
Masrani heads to the door of the observation deck and Owen, cautious, follows him. The older man opens the door slightly, holding out his hand and Owen watches in astonishment as, not a minute later, a small gray-brown bird lands on his dark hand. He stumbles back inside, free hand rubbing at his temple before moving to stroke the tiny bird's head. Owen can hear it's chirped thoughts-not words, no, it wasn't quite smart enough for them like his girls but-.
Calm calm quiet safety quiet no food safety, it chirps, pecking at Masrani's head in hopes of finding something to eat. It-no he- loses interest after finding nothing and glides over to Owen's shoulder, nibbling at his ear in mild interest. Owen barely notices. His eyes are still on Masrani, wide and a more than a little surprised.
Oh, he thinks faintly, that's why the girls were on edge.
Weak challenger, snarls a voice in his head, and Owen resists the urge to roll his eyes. He doubts Masrani is actually interested in leading the pack.
"I don't know how you handle six of them", says Masrani, interrupting his thoughts, "that one small bird is nearly enough to give me a migraine." He rubs at his temple again, and Owen notices that that his hand is trembling.
"Are you alright?" he asks, still a little shocked that the CEO of Masrani Global was… like him. Masrani waves him away, going to the mini fridge and plucking out the last water bottle.
"I'm fine, I just hope I've made my point", he says after taking swig from the bottle and Owen bobs his head in a startled yes. But that he has questions.
"How did you know. About my… gift, I mean."
Masrani's smile returns, knowing in ways that make Owen feel uncomfortable.
"We have much to discuss."
So, uh, hey, bet you thought this fic with dead. Short catch-up time, high school got too overwhelming for me to continue writing, I lost the original set of notes I had for this story and I sort of lost all motivation to update. I'm 19 now, I've graduated, have a job, and though I don't have as much time to write, I've got a new set of notes and this story is gonna end up in a different place than originally planned
