Sorry for the long absence. It was just one of those months or however long I was gone. Enjoy
Maisie led them along the hallway. Emily brought up the rear, Briana limping along in front of her. Maisie stopped by a few small windows, "Here. We can see the auction room from here I think."
"Good job kid," Briana ruffled her hair.
Maisie grinned, and Emily followed Lizzy over to the window.
"Well, this just gets better and better," Briana muttered as they peered in.
Emily sighed, "You can say that again."
Spread out roughly a story below them were rows and rows of chair, packed with men and woman in suits. At the front of the room, there was a podium and a large screen, displaying the statistics of the auction.
When she squinted, Emily could read several of the dinosaur names listed there. Ankylosaurus, Allosaurus, Triceratops and far too many more to count or read. She swore under her breath. This was bad, this was very bad.
"And now, ladies and gentlemen, that we are halfway through the evening, we'd like to offer a special treat to our discriminating buyers."
"Emily," Claire said softly, "Come look at this."
Emily glanced over, and never once took her eyes off the auction room as she crossed over to Claire.
"This evening," the man continued, "we will preview a new asset that we have been developing."
Emily frowned, knowing before she even saw this 'asset' that this would not be good.
"A creature of the future, made from pieces of the past!"
Claire put a hand on Emily's arm, "They've got Sam. Over there—" she pointed, "—tied to a chair."
Emily swore and muttered, "Bastards."
"Ladies and gentlemen, please be warned. This is the perfect blend of the two most dangerous creatures that have ever walked the Earth. We call it, the Indoraptor!"
The doors at the far end of the room began to slide open. White light illuminated a cage from behind, revealing the vague silhouette of a raptor like dinosaur.
It screeched, the raspy noise eliciting gasps from the audience. Slowly, the cage began to move forward on the tracks, and a man with a taser stepped forward. He stuck it between the bars and jabbed the Indoraptor.
It screeched in pain, the noise nearly deafening the cavernous room. The audience gasped and some even screamed.
As if he had rehearsed it, the man at the podium said, "The perfect weapon for the modern age. Built for combat, with tactical responses more acute than any human soldier."
"What the hell is that thing…?" Emily murmured.
It screeched again, pacing its cage and snapping at the guards beside it. There were quills along its spine, and its long, sinuous body was jet black, save for a bright yellow. Emily had spent years studying Owen and Lizzy's raptors.
This was different.
This thing observed the audience and the guards like everything was prey.
"They made it," Maisie said.
Claire turned to look at her, "Who did?"
"That man, right there, and Mr. Mills."
Emily looked right at the man Maisie was pointing at, and swore, a lot less quietly this time.
Briana dryly asked, "What the hell kind of dinosaur did Wu make now?"
"That," Lizzy said, almost sounding scared, "is not a dinosaur."
"It's one of Wu's monsters," Emily said.
"Designed by Mr. Henry Wu—" the man at the podium had to speak loudly to be heard over the Indoraptor's screeches, "—with an intelligence quotient comparable to the velociraptor; bio specs include a heighten sense of smell and trained to respond to a pulse coded laser targeting system."
Emily felt sick. She knew Mills and Wu had her notes, had her research, Owen, and Lizzy's years of hard work. But they'd trained this monster using her work.
"Enabling it to isolate and track prey in complex environments."
"They made a weapon," Briana muttered.
The man at the podium gave a signal and a guard stepped forward and raised a gun, turning on a laser attach to it.
The guard turned, and trained the laser on Sam.
"Shit," Emily swore, stepping as close to the window as she could get.
"Now first, the laser sets the target."
The Indoraptor turned in its cage, following the laser and training its horrible yellow eyes on Sam with a low growl. Sam looked down at the laser, then up at the Indoraptor.
"Once locked on, the acoustic signal triggers the attack."
The guard held the gun steady, and with a press of his finger, a shrill noise erupted from the gun.
The Indoraptor slammed against the bars, roaring, screeching and scrabbling. Sam flinched, leaning away from it. Even from this distance, Emily could see the fear written all over his face. She took a shaking step back, unable to look away as that monster threw itself again and again at the bars of its cage.
"This animal is relentless. Now, modifications are still being made—"
"Twenty million!" a voice from the back of the room shouted.
"This is a prototype." The man sounded uncertain. "Uh, not for sale."
"21!"
"Well, it is still a prototype…"
"22!"
"But…"
"23!"
The bids continued to rise as the man glanced at Mills, who hesitated, then nodded. "24 million dollars."
The same person from the back shouted, "25 million!"
"Do I hear 26?"
Turning, Emily said, "That thing cannot leave this building."
"I'd go so far as to say it can die in this building," Owen added, glancing around. His gaze, and Emily's, landed on the Pachycephalosaur from earlier. It was roaming around the end of the hall, still looking dazed.
"Grant, find the stairwell down into that room." Owen started for the Pachy. "I'll get this guy in that elevator and cause some chaos. You get Sam, and I'll make sure that thing is stuck."
"I should come with." Briana said, "They've got armed guards down there."
"You're hurt. That would not be smart," Owen responded.
Briana opened her mouth to respond, looking annoyed, but Claire gently cut her off.
"Why don't you stay up here? Maisie and I aren't going down, and I'd rather someone were up here in case guards find us."
"That'll work," Lizzy jumped in, "I can go with and help Owen."
Briana grumbled something but nodded.
Emily adjusted her hat, "Let's get going, before they decide to move that thing."
Emily peered through the small, square window on the stair well door.
"Any sign of Owen?" Lizzy quietly asked, two steps behind Emily.
"Nope."
Lizzy sighed, muttering, "It's taking him forever."
Without looking at Lizzy, Emily deadpanned, "Just relax. He's putting a Pachy in an elevator."
As if Emily had cued him, the elevator doors slid open, and after a brief pause, the very confused Pachycephalosaurus charged out. The crowd screamed and scattered before it.
After another couple seconds, Owen ducked out of the elevator and Emily opened the door, saying, "Let's move."
Lizzy ran past her, hurrying to catch up with Owen. Emily double checked to make sure that the knife Briana had given her was securely fastened to her belt before racing out of the stairwell. She jumped over several fallen chairs, running for Sam.
Ahead of her, the Indoraptor slammed against the bars, scrabbling and screeching to get at Sam.
Emily raced for him, slowing as she neared the cage.
"Emily!" Sam called.
She reached his side, "I'm right here. Just sit tight, I'll get you free."
He nodded as she unsheathed the knife and moved behind the chair. Carefully, ignoring the screaming of the bidders and the screeching of the Indoraptor, Emily slid the knife in between Sam's bonds and cut them.
She quickly cut the rope around his waist too, sheathing the knife. She grabbed Sam by the arm and pulled him up.
"You okay?"
Sam hissed in pain, holding his left hand to his chest. He answered Emily, just loud enough to be heard, "Broke my hand trying not to get tied to this chair. But otherwise, yeah."
"We'll deal with that in a second, come one."
Emily grabbed his good hand, pulling him toward the elevator. Behind them, the Indoraptor roared, slamming against the bars, still trying to get Sam. Something in Emily snapped, and she whipped around, staring that thing straight in the eyes.
She took a step back toward its cage, holding its gaze, pouring her anger at Mills, Wu, InGen, hell, even her anger at herself, into her glare.
"Fuck off, you overgrown lab experiment," Emily snapped, hand still in Sam's.
The Indoraptor took a step back, quieting.
Emily Grant grinned.
"Emily, Emily come on." There was a panicked tone to Sam's voice. "Let's go; come on."
With one last glare at the Indoraptor, Emily let Sam pull her toward the elevator. The second they crossed the threshold; Lizzy began repeatedly pressing the close door button.
"Stupid doors," Lizzy muttered as the elevator doors slid shut. She turned, gripping a taser she must have picked up somewhere, "Now what?"
"That," Owen said, "is a good question."
Sam swallowed, "We get the hell out of here is what."
"That seems like our best bet. That thing—" Emily jerked her head toward the closed doors, "—should just die in there. At the very least, it won't be able to get out. Meaning—"
"We can send someone back to kill it," Lizzy finished for her.
Owen leaned over and pressed the button for the ground floor as Sam sighed and slid down the elevator wall.
Emily looked down at him, murmuring, "Sam?"
"Hmm?"
She crouched in front of him, "You alright?"
"Yeah…" he lifted up his broken hand. "This hurts like hell and I really just want to go home."
Emily leaned forward and pressed a gentle kiss to his cheek.
"I know the feeling." She stood, holding out her hand. "Come on, we're almost out of this."
Sam took a deep breath, and grabbed her hand, letting her pull him up.
Maisie, Claire and Briana were thankfully right where they'd left them. Claire had an arm around the little girl, who looked frightened.
Emily would've been concerned if she hadn't been.
She held out Briana's knife, "Here, I don't need this anymore."
"Give it back when we're out of here, you may still need it Grant."
Emily nodded and clipped it back to her belt.
"So," Claire asked, "what's the plan?"
Owen stopped next to her, "Get out of here. We trapped that thing pretty much for good."
"Knowing dinosaurs," Briana said, "it'll find a way out."
Lizzy hefted her taser and used the strap to sling it over her shoulder. "Let's not be here if it does."
"I second that," Sam murmured.
In the end, they decided that Owen would lead the way down the hall, with Emily and Lizzy in the back, and Briana in the middle, so she had easy access to both sides of the group.
It didn't take long for them to run into someone.
Said someone being Eli Mills, with two of his henchmen behind him.
Emily took a step forward, blood boiling.
"Mills! What the fuck is—"
Sam set a hand on her arm, "Em. It's okay."
Emily swallowed, taking a deep breath. Letting herself calm down.
Mills fully ignored Emily, motioning for Maisie, "Maisie, come on."
Briana put a hand on the little girl's shoulder, "Like hell she'll go with you."
"I'm her legal guardian now, she's coming with me whether you like it or not."
"No," Claire said firmly, "she's staying with us."
"Do you even know what she is?"
Emily's brow furrowed with confusion, and Sam asked, "What is that supposed to mean Mills?"
Mills chuckled, "Lockwood never had a granddaughter. Why do you think Hammond stopped working with him? Lockwood used InGen's resources to do something truly monstrous."
Emily gasped, taking a step back as she realized exactly what Mills was saying.
"She's a clone."
The Indoraptor shot out of a side hallway, the two henchmen screaming as it tackled them out of sight.
Emily pivoted, grabbing Sam by the hand again.
"Run."
Please, leave a review if you liked it. It really helps with like everything.