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This is unbeta'd, so if anyone is available to help out, please let me know :)
Promise, the action picks up soon. The dinos will be showing up starting Chapter 8...and every chapter after that.
Not mine, posted for funsies, not making any money on this.
As always, this is crossposted with the same name to AO3.
Admittedly, they could have gotten to the warehouse faster, but they had decided to wait until well after dark and drive on backroads only to avoid possibly being recorded. Lennie had called Jess to let them know she would not be in the office tomorrow, but to call if they needed anything. Not the most fun conversation she had ever had.
Now they were pulling off of the road leading to the warehouse and driving through the desert, their headlights turned off so as to avoid detection. Chewing on her bottom lip, Lennie looked out the window at the desert landscape. The moon was pretty bright, so it was easy enough to see without the headlights. Off in the growing distance behind them she could see the road illuminated by sporadic streetlights. Up ahead was…nothing. Sand and rock and that was about it.
In the mirror, she saw Barry taking in their surroundings as though he expected the shit to hit the fan. It seemed a bit dramatic of him to assume that, but if Mantah Corp had any dinosaurs in the warehouse, it was likely not a far out there assumption.
It was not long before the lights from the warehouse rose up over the horizon in the distance. Lennie tensed up as they approached, looking away only to send a quick message to Claire via the burner phone Lowery had set up.
When they neared a rock formation at a safe distance away, they parked the SUV behind it and hopped out. Lennie kept her eyes on the bright lights ahead as she walked around the rocks, then scanned the immediate area.
"No dinosaur tracks or footprints," she muttered as Owen and Barry joined her.
Barry pocketed a pair of lock cutters and turned to Owen. "What do you think?"
Owen sighed and scrubbed a hand across his chin. "So far so good," he muttered. "How much longer before it all goes to shit?"
Lennie snorted a laugh. "Knowing our luck? We won't make it to the fence."
Without looking at her, Owen snaked an arm around her waist and pulled her closer. "Just…stay close, okay?"
Pushing up on her toes, Lennie reached up to force him to look at her and kissed him. When she pulled back she grinned and whispered, "No. I'm a big girl, Owen. You need to trust me some time."
Before Owen could argue, Barry started walking. "Allons-y," he muttered.
Lennie dropped back down onto her feet and turned to follow him, only to be swung back to face Owen. "Be careful," he muttered.
"I will if you will," she replied, smirking. As she turned back to Barry, she heard Owen grumbling, but ignored it and pushed ahead.
Despite Len's, probably accurate, worry, they managed to reach the fence without incident. Barry handed her the lock cutters and let her cut through the wired fence while they both kept watch. Owen was not sure if letting her cut and go in first was a dig at his worrying about her or not. Knowing Barry? Probably.
He tossed a glare at his friend's back as he glanced over his shoulder at Len. The fence was almost cut through, only a couple of links to go and she would be crawling in. God, he hoped there was nothing dangerous on the other side. Guard dogs…hell, guard raptors or some shit.
When he heard the last ring of the fence snap and the metal shake as Len caught it, he turned to watch her crawl through to the other side. The second she was through, he ducked down and followed her, then pulled her behind a set of large boxes nearby and waited for Barry. To his amazement, Len kept quiet and did not run out alone.
The moment they were all gathered, he and Barry did a quick scan of the area, and agreed using hand signals that he would take the lead while Barry picked up the rear. Before he started guiding them across to the building, he gave Len a pointed look that he hoped she would understand was to be careful.
As luck would have it, a delivery truck pulled in as they were picking their way across the lot, so they made their way over and tried to blend in with the workers. Pulling his cap down lower, Owen handed Len a box and smiled a little at the way she immediately followed the other workers with her head down. She was not half bad at blending in.
Off to the side he saw Barry in a set of warehouse workers overalls. He gestured toward a door with a restroom sign on it, then disappeared around a corner.
Picking up his pace, Owen closed in on Len. "Ask where the bathroom is," he muttered into her ear as he put down a box next to her. He walked away to grab another box and crossed his fingers mentally.
When he neared the truck he barely heard her asking, "Excuse me, where's the bathroom?" A brief pause, then, "When you gotta go, you gotta go, you know?"
He bit back a smile and grabbed another box, then walked back to where he had dropped the first box off. A few trips and boxes later, he asked where the bathroom was, hoping the guy he was talking to was a different one. The man pointed to the door with the restroom sign and Owen tossed the man a thank you.
Slowly he pushed the door open and found some resistance, so muttered, "it's me." The door swung open and he slipped inside, closing it behind him. Len was halfway into the jumpsuit, the sleeves tied around her waist. "Don't think that's gonna cut it for sneaking around, baby."
She rolled her eyes and asked, "Help me with the sleeves? I keep getting stuck. Stupid jumpsuit."
Chuckling, he turned her around and reached around to untie her sleeves, then helped her in one arm at a time.
"It's not funny," she muttered as he spun her around again and zipped her up. The jumpsuit was a bit big on her, so she started rolling up the sleeves, then bent to roll up the legs. It was not as though Len was petite or anything, but the jumpsuit was clearly designed for someone closer to his size and he had a good half foot or so on her. In the end she managed to make it look like she had just rolled them up for comfort.
"It's a little funny," he shot back, echoing her words when she was hanging over the mosasaurus tank back in Isla Nublar.
Len righted herself when she finished with the legs, grabbing the other set of overalls, and threw them at him as she glared. Teasing her was one of his favourite hobbies; he could not stop grinning at her, despite the glare. "Just put yours on," she said, reaching for the door knob.
His hand shot out to stop her. "Wait til the truck leaves," he breathed. "Be easier to hide and less likely they'll notice us."
She nodded and kept an ear to the door while he pulled the overalls on.
"Where the hell did Barry find these?" she whispered. "How the hell did he know what size to get?"
Owen laughed softly. "You're swimming in yours, baby, I don't think he sized them." He took off her cap and said, "Turn around."
Again she rolled her eyes, but did as he asked.
He pulled her hair out of its ponytail and gathered it up again, pulling it higher on her head, then did his best to stuff her hair into the cap. A sigh escaped her as he worked, making him grin. God, if they were not in the absolute last place for it….
Not that the bathroom at Michael's place was the right place for it either.
When he was satisfied with his work, he spun her around and smiled at her. She still looked like Len and anyone giving a hard look at her would easily recognise her. But with the cap pulled at the right angle, it was less likely someone on the security cameras would notice.
She arched an eyebrow at him in question and he tugged a little at the rim of the hat. "Hot," he said.
Slapping his hand away with a smile, she turned back to the door and listened. "I think I hear the truck."
Swapping places with her, he slowly cracked the door open and saw the workers in the room all busy with their regular jobs and no truck. He led Len out and found Barry around the corner waiting for them.
Barry arched an eyebrow at Len's appearance, but Owen shook his head. They were going to have to deal with it and hope nobody else noticed.
Claire could not concentrate on the screens in front of her. If it had not been for the fact that she was a recognizable figure in Masrani Global and getting caught would be bad for the company, she would have volunteered to go with Lennie, Owen, and Barry. Instead, she was stuck waiting. She hated waiting. With a passion. Especially waiting for someone else to do something.
Sure, she had managed to find a few public records on Mantah Corp, but that was about it. Now it was down to Lowery and his hacking skills, and the trio out alone at the warehouse in the middle of nowhere. Lennie had promised to text her anything important, send her anything they found. So she was stuck answering corporate emails.
If one more shareholder asked her to schedule a meeting instead of having a thirty second phone call, she was going to lose her shit.
Locking her laptop, she pushed out of her chair and walked out onto the balcony of Michael's office. Rather than looking out over the landscape, she glanced down at the pool area and focussed on the water flowing around the filter. Michael was far enough removed from the city that she could even focus on the sounds the water was making. It relaxed her.
"You okay?"
It surprised her that Joan Grant would be the one to come check on her. They had barely spoken more than a handful of words to one another over the years. "I'm fine," she sighed, not bothering to turn around.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw Joan lean on the balcony next to her. "It's frustrating."
Claire huffed a laugh. "Just a bit."
"How do you think it's going?"
It had been almost an hour since Lennie had texted to say they were at the warehouse. Not a word since. "I don't know," she sighed. "It's been…I mean, I've never been involved in something like this so I have no idea how long it should take, but an hour seems like a long time, right?"
"You're asking me?" Joan asked with a smile.
"HOLY SHIT!" Lowery's exclamation startled her.
Exchanging a glance with Joan, they both ran back inside. "What? What did you find?" she asked.
Lowery was sat at his workstation, jaw practically on the floor as she stared at one of his screens. "I…this…."
It must be bad if Lowery was speechless. She circled around to his workstation and tensed when she saw his screen. There was a folder called 'IBRIS Gen 2', so she clicked on it. Files called 'animal species' and 'training techniques' were listed amongst the contents of the folder. One file called 'locations' piqued her interest, so she opened the file and found addresses for warehouses and labs around the world, from here in Sacramento to the middle of the Australian desert.
"This is bad," Michael muttered behind her.
"Is this…is this because of what Owen did with Blue?"
"Looks like they're trying to recreate it," Claire replied, clicking through more documents. "Hoskins and Owen were working on a project called IBRIS - Integrated Behavioural Raptor Intelligence Study. Seems like Hoskins managed to get at least some of the research off Isla Nublar after all."
"Unless Hoskins was feeding them information the whole time," Michael muttered.
"Or it came from what was taken when the island was looted," Jo added.
"It gets worse," Lowery said. "That warehouse? It's the hub for...whatever they're up to. All their global operations are being run out of there. Like Hank Scorpio's lair."
Everyone blinked at him.
"Hank Scorpio!" he insisted. "You know, the Simpsons? Had a volcano lair? Homer got a new job so they -."
Just then Claire's phone dinged and she pulled it out, ignoring Lowery's continued rant. On the screen was a photo from Lennie of a redesigned Project IBRIS logo.