Case 2: The InGen Conspiracy, Part 4
Disclaimer: Same as before. Hope you don't mind a little fluff before the main action. Also, the anecdotes about Diane will tie together at a later date. I could use some suggestions, though, about how Ivy could find out about Diane.
~ ~ ~ ~
14 May 2000: "He's late again?" Malcolm said to Ivy, "I do notice Detective Olden has a habit of being late."
"You have no idea." Ivy said, rolling her eyes, "He'll either arrive barely in time or about ten minutes after he's due."
"Speak of the devil." Malcolm said.
Hal walked into the Discovery Room, the private party dining area which featured an elaborate tropical motif with a few mockups of fossilized amber and dinosaur murals on the walls, "Sorry I'm late."
"It's alright." Hammond said, "We were just starting breakfast."
"Hal, you should really invest in a good alarm clock." Ivy joked.
"You wound me, fair lady." Hal replied.
'Anyone else, Olden, and you'd be flat on your six, I kinda like hearing that from you though.' Ivy thought. Instead she merely rolled her eyes and said, "Sit down."
"So which tour are you taking today?" Hal asked, "The River Cruise or the Ground Tour?"
"I'm taking the ground tour." Ivy said, "With Dr. Sattler and Lex."
"It's a girl's day out. We're taking that tour because it finishes earlier than the River Cruise." Ellie said, "And so we can talk about you guys uniterrupted..."
Alan Grant rolled his eyes and Malcolm chuckled followed by Hal after he swallowed his last measure of his cup of coffee. They split off into their groups after breakfast and got onto their respective tours.
~ ~ ~ ~
Ivy, Lex, and Ellie got onto the electric Ford Explorers that traveled on a loop through the park. They had one to themselves since it was still earlier and the tourists were just waking up. Ellie touched monitor display for the computer in the front seat that controlled the language that the tour would be conducted in. She picked English and said, "It's an interactive CD ROM. It automatically updates the tour based on which part of the park we're in."
The tour started and Richard Kiley's voice began to speak, "Welcome to Jurassic Park."
The doors of a large, fairly imposing gate opened up. "So what's it like being an ACME detective?" Lex asked.
"It has its ups and downs." Ivy said, "Like anything else."
"Because I'm going to work for them as a computer programmer when I finish college." Lex said, "I got a tour of HQ last week when you and Hal were working on that sniper case. Are you guys going out?"
"What?" Ivy said, laughing as she said this. 'Though I wouldn't mind, I really want to figure that man out. He's so mysterious, so guarded though....'
"No we aren't." Ivy replied.
"I thought you guys were at first, because you seem to get along so well." Lex said.
"Normally we do. Though sometimes Hal does have a tendency to go his own way when he thinks he's right about something." Ivy said, "That's his most frustrating trait. He's also full of surprises it seems. Sometimes I worry about him though."
"Really, what for?" Ellie asked.
"Lately he's seemed a little distracted, like something's wrong with him that he's not telling me." Ivy said, "I really don't want to intrude on his personal affairs, but..."
"Trust me, he needs to get it off his chest." Ellie said, "You need to ask him too."
"If you'll look to the right, you'll see one of the first dinosaurs on our tour, called Dilophosaurus. One of the earliest carnivores we now know that Dilophosaurus is actually poisonous, spitting its venom at its prey causing blindness and eventually paralysis allowing the carnivore to eat at its leisure. This makes Dilophosaurus a beautiful but deadly addition to Jurassic Park." Richard Kiley's recorded voice spoke.
~ ~ ~ ~
The Jungle River cruise was on tour boats that ran along a track through the river. Tim Murphy, John Hammond's sixteen-year-old nephew sat with Ian Malcolm, Alan Grant and Harold Olden.
The first place the boats went through was the pterodactyl aviary. The pterodactyls were kept in a dome shaped aviary with a lot of space for the five birds inside. "The airborne reptiles you see now are not considered dinosaurs. Pterodactyls are flying reptiles...."
"So Tim, how's that scholarship application coming along?" Grant asked.
"It's going well." Tim replied, "I'm actually the top competitor in my school for it."
"Great Alan, now you've got another version of you running around." Malcolm joked.
Hal observed their banter just as an older fellow approached him, "Excuse me, is that a G-Shock diver's watch?"
"Yes it is." Hal replied.
"How much did it cost you." The older Englishman asked him.
"A little over 100 pounds." Hal replied, "I bought it when I was in London last."
"Really, what's your job?" the gentleman asked. He had graying brown hair and looked to be in his mid forties.
"I test Land Rovers for a living." Hal replied.
"I saw you yesterday. Where's your wife?" an older woman, the gentleman's wife, presumably, asked.
"Oh, we're not married." Hal replied.
"Are you dating?" the woman said.
"No, we're just friends." Hal replied.
"You seemed quite interested in her." The woman said.
"Oh for God's sake Brad, leave the man alone." The older man said, "Sorry for that."
"It's alright." Hal replied.
"So, Hal," Malcolm asked, "Who was this Diane that you were talking about with Ellie?"
Malcolm hadn't heard the whole story because he'd excused himself to go to bed. "She was a good friend of mine I met when I was stationed in the Royal Marine Barracks in London. She and I took night school classes together. She was eighteen, I was nineteen when we met. She was American, and an ACME detective, I was a British Royal Marine....."
Hal went through the whole story, how Diane had already had a boyfriend when he had fallen in love with her a year later, how their friendship had been strained over his feelings for her for a few years, and, "...It was early last year when I was being shipped out to Belize for a deployment. We had plans to go to her parent's cabin by the lake near her home in Indiana afterward to talk about if it was possible to start a relationship. I said I'd give her the length of the deployment to answer my question, 'Do you think we can have a real, meaningful relationship?' I got the answer three days before I was set to return...."
"What did she say?" Grant asked.
"Yes." Hal replied. He'd told that story twice in two days and he didn't want to talk about it anymore.
~ ~ ~ ~
"How'd the tour go, Ninja Girl?" Hal asked Ivy with a grin.
"Not so bad, Limey, yours?" Ivy asked.
The two groups had gotten together as Grant asked to see the Raptor Containment area. They walked through a large, imposing gate where two sentries stood watch. "The gate is controlled by the control shack on the hill. It's remotely controlled access, not just anyone can go into the Raptor Containment Area. We haven't been able to fit them into the park setting still....." Hammond explained.
"You've been saying that for the past seven years John. All you've done is dug a moat around the raptor, pen, added more fencing and...." Malcolm began as they crossed a footbridge.
"Feeding time." Hammond explained as a steer was being lowered into a large concrete structure with a San Quentin style gun tower and sporting electric fences and electrified metal cage bar roof.
The roof opened up as they climbed to the top of the observation deck. As soon as the steer was lowered to the ground they could hear animal yowls in the depths of the pen. Then the sounds of tearing flesh and breaking bone could also be heard as well. Within fifteen seconds the steer was dismembered and eaten. A severely torn up and destroyed harness was winched up from the pen.
"They should all be destroyed." Came a voice with the sort of accent Hal knew was associated with former British colonists. A fellow wearing a bush hat, khaki shirt and shorts and a khaki safari vest came walking over, a holstered pistol at his side.
"Ah, Robert, Robert Muldoon, my game warden in Kenya. Bit of an alarmist I'm afraid but knows more about Raptors than anyone...." John Hammond began, "Robert, this is Harold Olden and Ivy Darren, two ACME detectives."
"These things are lethal at eight months and I mean lethal. I've hunted most things that can hunt you but the way these things move. Fast for biped, cheetah speed, fifty-sixty miles per hour if they got out in the open. And they're astonishing jumpers." Muldoon continued.
"Yes, yes, that's why we're taking extreme precautions..." Hammond began.
"They're extremely intelligent. Even problem solving intelligent. Especially the big one. We bred a dozen originally but when she came in she took over the pride and killed all but four of the others. That one, when she looks at you, you can see she's figuring things out. That's why we have to feed them like this, she had them all attacking the fences when the feeders came. They never attack the same place twice. They remember...." Muldoon began.
Hal stared into the pen, as did Ivy. Both of them were thinking the same thing. If even one of those things got loose, even one, it could cause tremendous havoc around the park before it was killed or captured.
"Have any ever escaped?" Hal asked.
Peter Ludlow, who had been hovering outside the group said, "I assure you, none have done so recently."
~ ~ ~ ~
Some time later, Hal and Ivy hung back from the main group. "I don't trust him." Ivy said.
"Neither do I." Hal replied, "I can't help but wonder about those velociraptors though. If they ever escaped...."
"Hal, nothing's gonna happen." Ivy said, with more confidence than she actually had, "Well let's see what information we can garner from Mr. Ludlow tonight at the ball."
"Right." Hal said, "I'll go see what I can garner from Muldoon. It seems like he knows more than he lets on. But Ludlow seems to have him under his thumb."
"Now, I've got a ball to get ready for." Ivy said, smiling.
"I'll pick you up at six-thirty." Hal replied.
"Don't be late, like you've been all week."
"You're never letting me forget that, are you?" Hal replied.
"I'm not." Ivy said, "But just remember, we've got work to do."
"I know." Hal replied as Ivy walked off to her hotel room.
~ ~ ~ ~
TBC
Disclaimer: Same as before. Hope you don't mind a little fluff before the main action. Also, the anecdotes about Diane will tie together at a later date. I could use some suggestions, though, about how Ivy could find out about Diane.
~ ~ ~ ~
14 May 2000: "He's late again?" Malcolm said to Ivy, "I do notice Detective Olden has a habit of being late."
"You have no idea." Ivy said, rolling her eyes, "He'll either arrive barely in time or about ten minutes after he's due."
"Speak of the devil." Malcolm said.
Hal walked into the Discovery Room, the private party dining area which featured an elaborate tropical motif with a few mockups of fossilized amber and dinosaur murals on the walls, "Sorry I'm late."
"It's alright." Hammond said, "We were just starting breakfast."
"Hal, you should really invest in a good alarm clock." Ivy joked.
"You wound me, fair lady." Hal replied.
'Anyone else, Olden, and you'd be flat on your six, I kinda like hearing that from you though.' Ivy thought. Instead she merely rolled her eyes and said, "Sit down."
"So which tour are you taking today?" Hal asked, "The River Cruise or the Ground Tour?"
"I'm taking the ground tour." Ivy said, "With Dr. Sattler and Lex."
"It's a girl's day out. We're taking that tour because it finishes earlier than the River Cruise." Ellie said, "And so we can talk about you guys uniterrupted..."
Alan Grant rolled his eyes and Malcolm chuckled followed by Hal after he swallowed his last measure of his cup of coffee. They split off into their groups after breakfast and got onto their respective tours.
~ ~ ~ ~
Ivy, Lex, and Ellie got onto the electric Ford Explorers that traveled on a loop through the park. They had one to themselves since it was still earlier and the tourists were just waking up. Ellie touched monitor display for the computer in the front seat that controlled the language that the tour would be conducted in. She picked English and said, "It's an interactive CD ROM. It automatically updates the tour based on which part of the park we're in."
The tour started and Richard Kiley's voice began to speak, "Welcome to Jurassic Park."
The doors of a large, fairly imposing gate opened up. "So what's it like being an ACME detective?" Lex asked.
"It has its ups and downs." Ivy said, "Like anything else."
"Because I'm going to work for them as a computer programmer when I finish college." Lex said, "I got a tour of HQ last week when you and Hal were working on that sniper case. Are you guys going out?"
"What?" Ivy said, laughing as she said this. 'Though I wouldn't mind, I really want to figure that man out. He's so mysterious, so guarded though....'
"No we aren't." Ivy replied.
"I thought you guys were at first, because you seem to get along so well." Lex said.
"Normally we do. Though sometimes Hal does have a tendency to go his own way when he thinks he's right about something." Ivy said, "That's his most frustrating trait. He's also full of surprises it seems. Sometimes I worry about him though."
"Really, what for?" Ellie asked.
"Lately he's seemed a little distracted, like something's wrong with him that he's not telling me." Ivy said, "I really don't want to intrude on his personal affairs, but..."
"Trust me, he needs to get it off his chest." Ellie said, "You need to ask him too."
"If you'll look to the right, you'll see one of the first dinosaurs on our tour, called Dilophosaurus. One of the earliest carnivores we now know that Dilophosaurus is actually poisonous, spitting its venom at its prey causing blindness and eventually paralysis allowing the carnivore to eat at its leisure. This makes Dilophosaurus a beautiful but deadly addition to Jurassic Park." Richard Kiley's recorded voice spoke.
~ ~ ~ ~
The Jungle River cruise was on tour boats that ran along a track through the river. Tim Murphy, John Hammond's sixteen-year-old nephew sat with Ian Malcolm, Alan Grant and Harold Olden.
The first place the boats went through was the pterodactyl aviary. The pterodactyls were kept in a dome shaped aviary with a lot of space for the five birds inside. "The airborne reptiles you see now are not considered dinosaurs. Pterodactyls are flying reptiles...."
"So Tim, how's that scholarship application coming along?" Grant asked.
"It's going well." Tim replied, "I'm actually the top competitor in my school for it."
"Great Alan, now you've got another version of you running around." Malcolm joked.
Hal observed their banter just as an older fellow approached him, "Excuse me, is that a G-Shock diver's watch?"
"Yes it is." Hal replied.
"How much did it cost you." The older Englishman asked him.
"A little over 100 pounds." Hal replied, "I bought it when I was in London last."
"Really, what's your job?" the gentleman asked. He had graying brown hair and looked to be in his mid forties.
"I test Land Rovers for a living." Hal replied.
"I saw you yesterday. Where's your wife?" an older woman, the gentleman's wife, presumably, asked.
"Oh, we're not married." Hal replied.
"Are you dating?" the woman said.
"No, we're just friends." Hal replied.
"You seemed quite interested in her." The woman said.
"Oh for God's sake Brad, leave the man alone." The older man said, "Sorry for that."
"It's alright." Hal replied.
"So, Hal," Malcolm asked, "Who was this Diane that you were talking about with Ellie?"
Malcolm hadn't heard the whole story because he'd excused himself to go to bed. "She was a good friend of mine I met when I was stationed in the Royal Marine Barracks in London. She and I took night school classes together. She was eighteen, I was nineteen when we met. She was American, and an ACME detective, I was a British Royal Marine....."
Hal went through the whole story, how Diane had already had a boyfriend when he had fallen in love with her a year later, how their friendship had been strained over his feelings for her for a few years, and, "...It was early last year when I was being shipped out to Belize for a deployment. We had plans to go to her parent's cabin by the lake near her home in Indiana afterward to talk about if it was possible to start a relationship. I said I'd give her the length of the deployment to answer my question, 'Do you think we can have a real, meaningful relationship?' I got the answer three days before I was set to return...."
"What did she say?" Grant asked.
"Yes." Hal replied. He'd told that story twice in two days and he didn't want to talk about it anymore.
~ ~ ~ ~
"How'd the tour go, Ninja Girl?" Hal asked Ivy with a grin.
"Not so bad, Limey, yours?" Ivy asked.
The two groups had gotten together as Grant asked to see the Raptor Containment area. They walked through a large, imposing gate where two sentries stood watch. "The gate is controlled by the control shack on the hill. It's remotely controlled access, not just anyone can go into the Raptor Containment Area. We haven't been able to fit them into the park setting still....." Hammond explained.
"You've been saying that for the past seven years John. All you've done is dug a moat around the raptor, pen, added more fencing and...." Malcolm began as they crossed a footbridge.
"Feeding time." Hammond explained as a steer was being lowered into a large concrete structure with a San Quentin style gun tower and sporting electric fences and electrified metal cage bar roof.
The roof opened up as they climbed to the top of the observation deck. As soon as the steer was lowered to the ground they could hear animal yowls in the depths of the pen. Then the sounds of tearing flesh and breaking bone could also be heard as well. Within fifteen seconds the steer was dismembered and eaten. A severely torn up and destroyed harness was winched up from the pen.
"They should all be destroyed." Came a voice with the sort of accent Hal knew was associated with former British colonists. A fellow wearing a bush hat, khaki shirt and shorts and a khaki safari vest came walking over, a holstered pistol at his side.
"Ah, Robert, Robert Muldoon, my game warden in Kenya. Bit of an alarmist I'm afraid but knows more about Raptors than anyone...." John Hammond began, "Robert, this is Harold Olden and Ivy Darren, two ACME detectives."
"These things are lethal at eight months and I mean lethal. I've hunted most things that can hunt you but the way these things move. Fast for biped, cheetah speed, fifty-sixty miles per hour if they got out in the open. And they're astonishing jumpers." Muldoon continued.
"Yes, yes, that's why we're taking extreme precautions..." Hammond began.
"They're extremely intelligent. Even problem solving intelligent. Especially the big one. We bred a dozen originally but when she came in she took over the pride and killed all but four of the others. That one, when she looks at you, you can see she's figuring things out. That's why we have to feed them like this, she had them all attacking the fences when the feeders came. They never attack the same place twice. They remember...." Muldoon began.
Hal stared into the pen, as did Ivy. Both of them were thinking the same thing. If even one of those things got loose, even one, it could cause tremendous havoc around the park before it was killed or captured.
"Have any ever escaped?" Hal asked.
Peter Ludlow, who had been hovering outside the group said, "I assure you, none have done so recently."
~ ~ ~ ~
Some time later, Hal and Ivy hung back from the main group. "I don't trust him." Ivy said.
"Neither do I." Hal replied, "I can't help but wonder about those velociraptors though. If they ever escaped...."
"Hal, nothing's gonna happen." Ivy said, with more confidence than she actually had, "Well let's see what information we can garner from Mr. Ludlow tonight at the ball."
"Right." Hal said, "I'll go see what I can garner from Muldoon. It seems like he knows more than he lets on. But Ludlow seems to have him under his thumb."
"Now, I've got a ball to get ready for." Ivy said, smiling.
"I'll pick you up at six-thirty." Hal replied.
"Don't be late, like you've been all week."
"You're never letting me forget that, are you?" Hal replied.
"I'm not." Ivy said, "But just remember, we've got work to do."
"I know." Hal replied as Ivy walked off to her hotel room.
~ ~ ~ ~
TBC