Workers Village: A pair of workers was guarding the entrance to the village as others patrolled around the inside of the perimeter fence looking for any signs of movement. Up above the clouds were heavily overcast, but didn't look threatening.
"I hate this waiting," said the first worker, Collin, as he shakily held his rifle.
"I hear that," said the other worker, Catreece, as she stood next to him looking out into the jungle. "It's so creepy out here."
"Yeah, it'll nice to get a reality check when we finally go home," agreed Collin shivering. A roar erupted from the jungle startling them both.
"This is Catreece, we've got incoming," said the terrified worker into her radio. Collin snapped off the safety of his rifle and swung it towards the jungle as a pair of workers appeared on both sides of him.
"Got it," Gerry Harding confirmed. "I'm sending more workers to assist."
"Better hurry-aaahh!" shouted Catreece as she covered her eyes. A pair of bright lights suddenly emanated from the jungle blinding the team as a loud noise was heard coming closer and closer.
"Steady," said Gerry over the radio. "I'm on my way."
The four workers were then joined by others as a loud crashing began filling the depression that the village was in.
"There must be a thousand of them out there!" said Catreece in shock.
"Be reasonable, this island can't support that many dinos!" snapped Collin. "And calm down, you're my fidgety than my cat."
Catreece was about to respond when a massive tree came crashing down right in front of them and a large object appeared from behind it.
"Fire!" shouted Collin.
"No!" said Gerry appearing through the front gates. "Stand down."
"But-," began Collin pointing to the bright lights.
"What exactly could make a light like that?" asked Gerry mockingly. "Because it's no dinosaur I've every heard of."
"Oh," said Collin as Catreece began nervously laughing. Collin glared at her as Catreece suddenly gasped. Gerry just shook his head as the advancing figure that had knocked over the tree came to a halt. Instantly a pair of shadowy figures appeared from the sides and advanced towards the group of workers.
"Jake, Thomas," Gerry acknowledged with a tip of his head.
"Hey Gerry, long time no see," said Jake with a grin before he advanced into the village as a light rain began to fall. Thomas also gave him an acknowledgement before turning around and waving his hands in. A group of heavily damaged vehicles appeared from the jungle and rumbled into the village before the gate was closed again leaving Collin and Catreece with nothing left to do but argue with each other over what had happened. Jake, Gerry, and Thomas just continued walking in silence towards the Operations Building only to enter into it and head immediately for the amphitheatre. The trio entered into it only to spot Sam sitting in one of the seats.
"Hey guys," said Sam. Jake nodded and sat down on the stage before rubbing his head vigorously before growling.
"That bad huh?" asked Gerry handing Jake some water sitting down.
"Like you wouldn't believe," said Jake before he down the water in one gulp and wiped off his lips with his sleeve.
"We barely made it back in one piece," Thomas explained. "We got attacked multiple times along our route back from roving gangs of dinosaurs and dinged up all of our vehicles very badly. And let's just say it took some original thinking to get elude them in order to permanently escape."
"What did you do?" asked Gerry bewildered.
"You know the place where Geothermal Station 3 was?" asked Thomas. "Well it's a crater now."
"I guess there goes any chance of charging up the fences again," Gerry mused. "Still though, I'm sure the dinos that were chasing you were probably wiped out."
"Yeah. It's just too bad they're all working together against us," Thomas admitted.
"Well except for the dimetrodons," Jake pointed out. "They just can't seem to make any friends."
"Is that relevant?" asked Gerry confused.
"Maybe," Jake responded. "Right now they seem to be the only allies we have available to us. The enemy of the enemy so to speak."
"You think they can help us?" asked Sam. "They don't seem like much of an ally to me."
Jake picked up his radio. "Logan can you get in here?"
"On my way J," came the response. Jake nodded and put down the radio.
"He should be able to give us a second opinion," Jake explained.
"So how long did you hold out?" asked Thomas to Sam.
"A week," Sam snorted. "How pathetic is that?"
"Considering you had to go against the larger carnivores not as much as you might think," Jake responded. "At least you held out for as long as you did, ever minute counts. This is why me and whatever workers I can take with me need to quickly reload and get back out there and keep fighting."
Gerry was about to response when Logan walked in.
"What's up?"
"Sit down, we need your opinion on something," said Jake.
"Uh-oh," said Logan with a laugh. "That can't be good."
"We just need your opinion on the dimetrodons," said Thomas. "Do you think they can help us against these other dinosaurs?"
Logan just stared at him.
"Under what circumstances?" asked the scientist confused.
"We're thinking about letting some loose on the advancing armada and seeing if they can at least slow them down," said Jake. "We just want your opinion on what would happen if we did let some loose around here."
"Well it stands to reason they'd go after the advancing dinosaurs once they learned they couldn't get in here. The dimetrodons love a challenge and will take on anything larger than themselves to prove their superiority. But do you really want to unleash such a deadly threat so close to home? They're probably worse than anything else on this island," said Logan reserved.
"Yeah, after all J you're the one who keeps warning us to always be wary of the dimetrodons," Gerry pointed out. "And all of this speculation is avoiding the real question, how the hell are we supposed to even get them here?"
"I know how," said Jake. "And it doesn't even involve us leaving this village."
"How?" demanded Gerry before his eyes went wide with realization. "You can't be serious."
"We are scientists," Jake pointed out. "And right now acting like commandos hasn't helped us out that much. Maybe our callings may be able to help us out for once."
"Look I may not be a scientist, but shouldn't it take at least several weeks if not months to breed a fully developed dino?" asked Thomas confused.
"Yes, but you also have to remember that Ingen is a conglomerate. They need a profit in order to survive," said Sam knowing where this was leading. "So naturally they made a park to show off their assets and provide those profits. But let's say one of your assets suddenly dies off? What do you do? In a normal zoo you quickly replenish your missing asset with a new one from somewhere else. But when you're assets died off millions of years ago you kind of don't have many options. You could wait for your supplier to create a new one, but that could potentially take months and you'd be loosing an incredible amount of profit. Or you could come up with a way of instantly producing said missing product though with a greatly reduced life span. This product would have to constantly be replaced while the permanent substitute was being created, but ultimately the visitors would never know and you'd have avoided a major financial loss."
"And you guys came up with a way to do that?" asked Thomas astounded.
"Yep," said Jake with a grin. "Course we never actually put it to use, but it's all ready."
"Project Quickie-Clone," said Gerry with a grin. "I still think that name was stupid."
"Then you shouldn't have had Catreece name it," Jake shot back. "Anyway we should be able to make at least twelve dimetrodons in the next 24 hours. Course they'll burn out in about 5 days, but we can easily make more in the meantime."
"But we'll need to watch our power consumption," Gerry pointed out. "This is going to take a large chunk out of our remaining reserves."
"Either way we're in enough trouble that I doubt this could make it any worse," Sam said.
"Then it's settled, we make 'em," said Jake getting up finally glad to be taking action. "But I at least want a team out there to keep slowing down the dinos."
"I'll lead it," Thomas offered. "I'm no scientist."
"I'll go too," said Sam. "I need to get out of here and see a change of scenery even if it is a bloody one."
As the workers got up to leave Sandy ran in out of breath.
"We've had a fax come in!" she shouted. She handed the paper to Jake before slumping down into one of the chairs.
"Attention remaining scientists on Ingen's Site B. This is John Brown of Pacific Pharmaceuticals. Recently Ingen has come to realize that keeping you on that island is no longer 'financially sound', I take it you know the connotations behind that reasoning, so they have authorized my company to begin evacuating your island. Unfortunately it'll take me at least a week to even get the necessary equipment to the island and another week or so to get all of you off and back to Costa Rica. Just stick tight for the moment and just as a heads up, there's a hurricane heading your way and should hit during the end of the evacuation. John Brown," said Jake reading the letter. "Well that's just great."
He threw the letter away disgusted as Sam picked it up.
"Guess they decided we're worth less alive to them than dead," Gerry said bitterly. "And that's accounting for all the losses we've already received too."
"And they won't even bother to spend money rescuing us," said Jake equally annoyed. "Well we'd better resume our original course of action, getting overjoyed and ready to leave isn't going to stop the dinos from still trying to tear us to shreds."
The rest nodded apprehensively before heading out of the auditorium.
"What should I do?" asked Logan following them.
"You're the only other expert on dimetrodons on this island except for Jake so you should stay here for when release them," said Gerry.
"Well then we'll get going," said Sam as he took out his radio. "All workers itching to get another shot in at the dinos meet me at the parking garage."
Then the two groups split ways.
"I hope I remember how to make a dinosaur," Jake confessed. "It's been at least six months since I've tried. As strange as it sounds to say this: I'm out of practice."
"And how many other people in the world can say that?" said Gerry knowingly. "Not many."
"Life's a bitch," said Jake as the two entered the genetics laboratory wing of the Operations Building.
"Can you do this even with our help?" Gerry asked. "I'm more of a veterinarian than a scientist."
"Yeah and I'm just a behavioral scientist, not a geneticist," Logan pointed out.
"We should be fine," said Jake assuredly. "And Gerry you're selling yourself short on the scientist end."
"Yeah I guess I am," said the veterinarian with a laugh. "I guess I did do more with Project DRP than I care to admit."
"So let's get cracking," said Jake as he cracked his knuckles. "Logan if you could get the embryo."
"Right," said the worker walking off. He approached the embryo storage chambers at the far side of the room and opened one of them.
"What happens if I accidentally pull the wrong one?" Logan asked cheekily. "Mistakes have been made."
"Let's just put it this way. If you pull the dipolodicus and we Quickie-Clone it, it'll destroy half the building. And if you pull the dilophosaurus, then we won't have long to realize our mistake when we drown in a flood venom globs," said Jake. "So don't screw up."
"Right," said Logan swallowing hard. He found the dimetrodon slot and took out a pellet. "How many do you need?"
"Twelve," answered Jake. "Although we could quick flash it onto the other specimens no problem thanks to this particular cloning process, better safe than sorry. Normal cloning though definitely requires separate embryos."
"Which of course is a contradiction in terms given that they're all pretty much the same specimen anyway," said Gerry as he began powering up the various devices in the room. Outside the lights began flickering in the village.
"That's normal, the fences should still stay powered," said Gerry into his radio. "Right, Tim?"
"There's a one percent drop off but that's about it," responded the technician over the radio. "Course I had to shut off power to most of the buildings here in order to do that."
"Yeah, yeah," said Jake over the radio. "How about my computer program?"
"Up and running for the past couple weeks now," Tim responded.
"Excellent," said Jake as he began prepping the maturation chamber. "The pellets please."
Logan handed them to him and Jake placed the twelve embryos in a slot on the side of the device. He then walked over to a freezer on the left side and opened it up revealing several ostrich eggs. He, Logan, and Gerry began transferring the eggs into the chamber until twelve were lined up before he shut the device closed. Jake then pressed a red button on the side of the chamber and it began powering up.
"And away we go," said Jake as he flipped on a computer and began examining the results as outside a group of vehicles departed heading for the front lines.
Costa Rica: A massive Osprey Helicopter appeared overhead before landing on a pad just outside Pacific Pharmaceuticals.
"Excellent, we're slightly ahead of schedule," said John Brown. "Just a few more to go and we should be able to begin evacuating the island."
"It should probably be soon," said Kevin Steele, on loan from Ingen. "That hurricane isn't going any slower."
"Yeah," said John looking out at the ocean, which was still calm for the moment.
"I hope things aren't going to hell over there," John admitted.
"Oh I think they are," said Kevin knowingly as he too looked out to the sea. "I think they are."
Morning: A heavily exhausted Jake Whitacre collapsed on his keyboard as the screen finally read: Quickie-Cloning Complete.
"And we only lost one specimen," said the scientist yawning. "All in all not too bad."
In ten crates behind him were the unconscious forms of several adult dimetrodons. He then collapsed and fell asleep as a well rested Logan entered with a group of workers and loaded the newly formed dimetrodon into another cage before hauling the eleven cages out of there.
"Watch out for Gerry," said Logan as the team walked around the second unconscious worker who was holding a syringe in his hands that was half-full of iodine. The dinos were immediately carted into a semi-truck outside which quickly moved out into the island. After only an hours drive, they reached the front lines where several vehicles were slowly backing up through the jungle as the workers aimed at a group of stegosaurus that were making their way through the jungle towards them.
"Alright give us some cover," said Logan into his mic. Sam and Thomas nodded as the various vehicles ceased their movement and the workers began firing more intensely than ever. Logan and the workers that came with him quickly began offloading the cages out of the truck until they were all setting on the ground in a row.
"Alright let's go!" shouted Logan as the vehicles rumbled off. The stegosaurus looked confused at the cages as a trio of velociraptors appeared and roared up at the stegosaurs in confusion before a series of mechanical noises was heard. Each dinosaur watched with trepidation as each lock popped off one by one down the row. The cages immediately opened and a series of roars erupted from them. The stegosaurs and velociraptors reared backed in confusion before turning and running as eleven shimmering objects burst from the cages and chased after them. A few miles away, the fleeing team heard the angry roars of the dinosaurs.
"I hope this works out into our favor," said Thomas. "Because if those dimetrodons manage to wipe out the nearby would be attackers, then they're going to come straight for us."
"I guess it's just a case of better the devil you know," said Logan. "Better the devil you know."
The convoy vanished into the jungle.