Indigo: "Impossible," said Daniela astounded as she looked at the message Ross Daniels had received and printed out. It showed a message to Ross Daniels from her telling him to let Nedry pass that day no matter what.
"Oh," said Ross finally realizing the truth. "You really did have no idea about this."
"None, whatsoever," she said in a hushed tone as she scrutinized the message. "I'll need to make a copy of this and try and…"
Daniela couldn't even think about where to go with this line of thought or her investigation and Ross just nodded his head in silently understanding as he made a copy of the page and handed it to her. And she slowly nodded her head and left the room in a daze back to her office. What had started as a simple investigation into whether someone had sold out InGen besides Nedry, had just become a whole lot more complicated than she had originally anticipated. And she was secretly afraid of where it would lead her to once she found some answers.
Sorna: "I really don't want to do this," Lori confessed for the umpteenth time. She and Sam were standing by one of the Jurassic Park tour vehicles as Sheila was working with the onboard navigation system and talking with Tim back at the Control Center via the vehicle's radio.
"It'll be fine," said Sam trying to sound reassuring. The group was out in the middle of a large field and had created a circular track to test out the tour vehicle while workers across the island were continuing to lay out track elsewhere to all locations on the island. "Isn't that right Sheila?"
"Uh, sure," said the female technician unconvincingly as she looked up from her portable terminal that she was using to update the vehicle's operating system. She typed in a few commands on her device and then gave a half-hearted smile.
"Ready?" she asked. Lori shot a death glare at Sam before walking towards the vehicle and getting in the driver's seat as Sam sighed and got into the back seat.
"Now the guided tour vehicles are designed to run on a track in the middle of the roadway and use a combination of GPS positioning and mileage tracking to determine what animals are located where. It then displays that information on the screen along with the appropriate commentary and…," began Sheila until she saw the blank stares from Sam and Lori. "What?"
"I think we both know how the system operates," Sam commented as Lori nodded her head in agreement.
"Well excuse me, but I take some pride in this system since I helped work on its design," said the programmer haughtily. "So as I was saying…"
"Just get it started already," Lori complained as she felt green at the prospects of this vehicle starting up with no driver at the wheel.
"Genius is never appreciated in its time," Sheila complained with a statement that Nedry tended to utter a lot to Hammond. "But, fine. As Ray always said, 'hold onto your butts'."
Sheila told Tim they were going to get started and then tapped a command into her device and the engine on the car started up.
"We're gonna die!" shouted Lori immediately as he gripped the dashboard tightly with her hands.
"At least wait to say that until after I've entered in the commands to move!" Sheila shot back and then made a couple more taps on her device. The wheels started to turn and the vehicle slowly began moving on the track.
"It's alive!" shouted Tim over the radio as Lori turned completely green upon hearing that.
"What's her problem, motion sickness?" asked Sheila to Sam in the backseat.
"She was one of the first to test the tour program and needless to say it still needed some issues to be worked out at the time," said Sam trying not to divulge any more details while Lori could hear them. Besides, Sheila was fully aware about what had happened when the tour vehicle had gone 'rogue' and took off on a wild jaunt across the countryside. Everyone onboard had been fine once the vehicle finally came to a halt, but Lori vowed never to ride in one again.
"Well we'll be fine," said Sheila dismissively as she began inputting commands into the vehicle and it started moving faster than before.
"If you look to the right, you'll see the first dinosaur on our tour called Dilophosaurus," began the voice from the box in the center of the dashboard.
"Awesome!" said Sheila impressed as she took out a pen and paper and noted the reading on the odometer. "This is great because it means the update we did to the tour program worked otherwise we wouldn't be hearing anything about Jurassic Park."
"That's great, but how are we doing?" asked Sam in response. Sheila gave him a confused look.
"We're still alive aren't we?" she retorted and began reading the display on her terminal and then picked up the radio. "Tim, are you ready to take over?"
"Affirmative," said the voice. Lori shot Sheila an enraged look.
"What are you talking about?" she demanded fiercely. Sheila defensively leaned back against the door away from her.
"We can't permanently run these cars off of portable terminals. They need to be run by the servers back at the Operations Building," Sheila explained. "So we're going to test it out now."
"I want off this ride," Lori demanded of Sam. Sheila began typing commands on her terminal to avoid listening to her hysterics.
"Lori," began Sam trying to calm her down. "I wouldn't be sitting here if I wasn't convinced it was safe."
"But why do I have to be here?" Lori pleaded.
"Because the workers trust you when it comes to OSHA compliance," Sam told her. "If you're here, it means you're confident the program works."
"But I'm not!" Lori told him. Sam nodded and put his hand on her shoulder for reassurance.
"I know, but that's just the way this job works when dealing with dinosaurs," he responded and then turned to Sheila. "Go ahead."
"Oh," said Sheila a little surprised as she looked over at them having forgotten they were there before she produced a piece of gum and began chewing on it. "Well while you two were having your sappy heart to heart I transferred the controls over to Tim."
Lori began using breathing exercises to calm herself before noticing they were no longer in the field.
"Where are we going?" she demanded next.
"We need to check how well the track works so back to the Village we go!" said Sheila with false excitement and then popped a giant bubble with her gum and began reading through the data scrolling on her terminal. "Yeah, Tim, the lights are running but try the command I told you earlier…yeah, that's got it, they're turned off. So I was thinking…"
Sheila continued to ramble on about the tour program with Tim as Sam sat staring out the window looking at the miles of fences pass by while Lori simply shut her eyes and wished it was all over soon.
San Jose: Jake and Henry were sitting once more in the outdoor café that Nedry had once recommended to Carly.
"I don't know whether to feel fortunate that Marty's not here bothering us or terrified that he'll be on Sorna in less than week," Jake admitted taking a bite of his burger.
"What do you think they'll have to say?" asked Henry a little concerned. Jake shrugged.
"Marty will claim the entire project should be scrapped, Levine will want to study those dinosaurs unto eternity," Jake shuddered. "Thorne will give us the most level headed evaluation and it's his that I want to read the most. I really want to read what he thinks about our current setup."
Henry nodded and then something caught his eye.
"Is that John again?" he asked. Jake instantly looked up and saw the Pacific Pharmaceuticals Executive with a small ground of individuals across the way talking with some workers at the café.
"Oh great," said Jake annoyed as he threw down his burger in disgust. "I swear if he starts talking nonsense with us again so soon after the last time, that I'll let him know Ludlow is after him."
"I actually don't think he's here for us," Henry amended as John was talking with the café owner in Spanish and showing him a photo that Jake and Henry couldn't make out.
"Then what?" asked Jake confused. "I don't think a pharmaceuticals company would care about a business like this."
"Unless it's E. Coli," Henry chuckled and looked pointedly at Jake's burger. Jake shot him a look before taking another bite and staring at the entourage across the way.
"Should we go in for a closer look?" asked Henry curious. Jake shook his head.
"I'd rather not know," Jake confessed. Henry look at him disappointed before leaning forward and trying to hear what he could of the conversation. His Spanish was rusty, but from what he could hear, John Brown was intent on knowing if a pair of customers had visited the establishment. A few moments of talking and then the owner of the restaurant called over a waiter.
"What do you make of that?" Henry asked during the pause, knowing that Jake had been listening in as well.
"I think that woman with them looks uncannily like Sheila," Jake observed instead. Henry lightly shook his head as his friend's refusal to answer the question, but he knew Jake would offer his opinion once all the facts were in. Henry returned to the conversation as the waiter appeared but took a moment to glance at the woman with the group that was messing with a PDA. She did look like Sheila he had to admit.
"Dodgson!" said the waiter cutting into his thoughts. "Soy Dodgson."
Jake began choking on his burger at that as Henry was so stunned that he dropped his drink and it shattered on the ground below. John Brown looked around briefly upon hearing the noise and noticed the two scientists. His eyes briefly widened before returning to their normal size and he turned and exchanged more words with the owner and waiter and then walked towards them as one of the other members pulled out some cash and paid them both.
"You son of a b-," began Jake when John calmly held up a hand to stop him before he finished that thought.
"What you heard you have no context for," he reminded them harshly and then left without another word. Jake and Henry watched him go at a complete loss.
"Let's go," said Jake disgusted. "I've lost my appetite."
Henry nodded and both paid their bill and left the café behind both ruminating over this turn of events and what it meant.
Later, Sorna: The tour vehicle finally came to a halt inside the Village as Lori bolted from the vehicle without trying to make it too obvious she wanted to get as much distance between her and it as possible.
"Rock on," said Sheila pleased as she finished collecting data on her terminal and then shut it down. "I'd call that test run, successful."
"You exceeded my expectations," Sam agreed as he got out of the back of the vehicle and stretched. "How long before we can implement it in all the tour vehicles?"
"Probably not for another month or two," Sheila confessed. Sam looked surprised by that estimate.
"We need to conduct some more tests first. After that it's a matter of needing the track to be laid out first and then figure out distances between each location etc. etc.," Sheila explained as she exited the vehicle. "Then we'll do a little bit of reprogramming with each vehicle and back at the hub and then we'll be ready to go."
"Keep me posted then," said Sam heading for the Operations Building before another thought occurred to him. "Oh and worry about reprogramming the voice box tour after the vehicles are fully operational."
"Ah, c'mon!" protested Sheila. "You're telling me that you wouldn't like to learn about these creatures as you're going to and from work?"
"I work here, so no," Sam responded lightly. "I'm not saying you can't work on it afterwards, but unless we extend our fuel reserves, that tour information won't be of much use if the attractions are running wild throughout this island."
"Right," Sheila said, having no choice but to agree. "We'll get moving on this as quickly as we can."
Sam nodded his head in agreement and proceeded with her back to the Operations Building.
San Diego, California: Lewis Dodgson was on the phone listening to Howard King's report on the movements of John Brown and his team.
"I can see they're moving faster than I had anticipated," Dodgson realized aloud. "No matter, I'm ready to make my move when they get closer to the truth."
"Who did you think the two men at the table were?" asked King curious.
"Likely Doctors Whitacre and Wu of InGen," Dodgson replied, unconcerned with their presence in all of this.
"But if InGen finds out…," began King.
"Ludlow likely already suspects Biosyn's involvement but he has much more important things to be worried about right now," Dodgson answered. "Get back here to HQ on the double; we've got work to do."
"Yes sir," said King and then Dodgson hung up the phone. Dodgson sighed heavily before looking down at this desk. Laying there was a topographic map of Site B complete with the locations and descriptions of all the dinosaur pens and the identification of the various buildings all over the island. Rather than immediately voice anything out loud, he stared at the map for several moments deep in thought.
"One day," he swore and then rolled up the map and put it away.
Palo Alto, California: Sarah Harding was out in the grass field behind Mobile Field Systems as she used the tracker to find her satellite phone.
"Found it, Eddie!" she yelled across the way to Eddie Carr who was watching her use the device. He smiled and gave her a thumb's up as Sarah returned with the phone. "Works like a dream."
"Thanks," said Eddie pleased with her appreciation of his work. Sarah put her phone back in her lucky pack and then looked around confused.
"Where's Doc, I was hoping to say hi," she confessed. Eddie shrugged.
"He's busy preparing for a field trip," Eddie told her. Sarah was surprised at that.
"Doc never goes on field trips if he can avoid them," she reminded Eddie, fully aware that he knew that. Eddie nodded his head and briefly yawned.
"Yeah, but Richard isn't offering him much choice. There's some bigwig corporation willing to pay them big bucks to go check out the safety of an island of theirs," he told her as the two headed back to the assembly plant.
"Really, which one?" asked Sarah curious. Eddie stopped in his tracks wondering if he should tell her. Doc hadn't made it a secret to him, but still it was probably better that the whole world didn't know.
"Promise not to tell?" he asked, sounding like a child as he said it.
"Absolutely," Sarah promised and her word was good enough for him.
"Some company called InGen," he answered and kept walking only now it was Sarah who was stopped in her tracks.
"That mean something to you?" he asked. Sarah slowly nodded her head.
"My dad works for InGen as sort of a consultant," she admitted. Eddie nodded his head.
"Then you should know what they're up to," he responded pleased. "I'm sure Doc would love to talk to you about whatever it is he's getting into. Richard was a little light on the details was my understanding."
"But that's just it," said Sarah at a loss. "I don't know anything either. My dad has never said what he's doing over there. Lately, all I gathered is that something went wrong on an island of theirs a week or so back and people died. I had a talk with my mom after she went down to Costa Rica after it happened to see him and my sister. But he wouldn't say anything about what happened and my younger sister, Jess, was apparently terrified out of her mind."
"Well that doesn't sound good," said Eddie a little put off by her comments. "But from the sounds of things, Doc isn't going to that island. He's going to another one of InGen's where they're scared the same thing may happen."
"Then I have to go with him," Sarah insisted. "If my father's life is at stake, I can't just sit by and do nothing."
"I really don't think that little trip is open to outsiders," Eddie figured as the two entered into the building and walked past workers putting together various pieces of research equipment including the twin trailers. "Besides, don't you have work to do already back in Africa?"
Sarah sighed and rubbed her forehead. "Yeah. But that doesn't mean I won't go have a talk with Doc and InGen."
"Good luck," said Eddie shrugging lightly. "You'd never catch me on an island like where they're going if something had gone wrong."
Sarah laughed at that. "Ah, but Eddie, we both know you'd come if it meant rescuing me. I'm your most loyal customer!"
Eddie hung his head at that for a moment before straightening back up and giving her a light smile.
"Be safe," he requested. Sarah gave her longtime friend a brief hug.
"Always," she swore and then was gone to go back to her apartment and find a phone to call her father, Gerry Harding.
San Diego: Peter Ludlow was examining detailed plans drafted to liquidate Jurassic Park in the event an incident occurred. Aside from a post-it note Jake had slapped to the front page with the words 'blow everything up', the plans were basically fool proof. It was just a matter of finding the funds to pull it off. That was why they were going to compress the staff of the two islands together and then sell off everything non-vital on Indigo.
Samantha was already prepping for her trip over there and he knew the fur would fly when they found out, but there was nothing they could do. All that mattered was finishing up this mess with Jurassic Park and moving on to making the company profitable once more. The current estimates from various contractors about how much it would cost to finish Jurassic Park San Diego were sitting on a folder on his desk that he had yet to look through. The only thing he knew right off the bat was that there would likely be questions from the contractors about what exactly was supposed to be housed in the giant facility but InGen had remained intentionally vague on the issue.
But so far things were slowly starting to settle down and go according to plan for the first time since the park had fallen apart. All that mattered now was continuing to prevent outside elements from causing any more problems. And so Ludlow accessed his computer, he pulled up a series of files showing what it was that Daniela St. Ives had been up to at Indigo. According to his reports from contacts he had on the island, the female leader had gotten more erratic since Jurassic Park's demise and was questioning workers about something related to the last boat ride to Nublar.
She would need to be watched more carefully Ludlow decided. The same went for Henry Wu and Jake Whitacre who had gone through the stacks of personnel transfer form during their time in San Jose. The last thing he needed was for them to start drawing conclusions about things they had no real understanding of. It would only cause further misunderstandings down the road.
Sorna: Sam was at the airstrip chatting it up with Jennifer and Kevin as the two pilots had pretty much taken the helicopter apart and were cleaning each individual part to dispose of any remaining dilophosaur venom. As it currently stood, there were now parts scattered all over the open hanger and around the lone DC-3 plane which was the only other craft capable of flight that the island possessed.
"So how long before you can clean it up and put it all back together?" Sam asked of the duo.
"Depends on how much goop we find," said Jennifer as she intentionally wringed some out into a nearby bucket. "A week at least, but a best guess would be two weeks to a month. We have to be thorough otherwise we'll risk a short out during flight."
Sam inwardly sighed at that number, but he knew that while the two often liked to give wild estimates in order to be left alone to their own devices, that the proper maintenance of the vehicles was always their top concern. Without them, if anyone needed to get to the mainland quickly, they'd have to wait for the boat to pick them up. So if it would take that long to properly fix, it would just have to take that long.
"So, anything else you'd like to discuss?" Kevin asked from the cockpit of the craft as he had the instrument panel pulled out and was testing the connections.
"Yes, but only in confidence," he told the two of them. The two pilots exchanged a glance and then nodded their heads.
"We don't get many visitors out here anyway," Jennifer pointed out, lightly. "I mean we didn't even go to your dinner when you announced what had happened. We just sat around in the office eating canned soup watching the broadcast. Sorry."
Sam waved her concern off. It was true that the two felt somewhat detached from the rest of the personnel on Sorna, but they didn't seem to mind. It basically meant the chain of command for them was Jennifer then Kevin and then Sam and he was often too busy to issue them orders on a regular basis. So in effect they had really had no boss which was fine by them.
But that wasn't his concern at the moment when talking to them, only one thing was.
"If we ever had to completely evacuate Sorna, how long would it take?" Sam asked solemnly. That got Kevin and Jennifer's attention and they both stopped what they were doing to think about it.
"With or without outside help?" asked Kevin as Jennifer rubbed the grease off her hands with a rag as she too thought about Sam's question.
"Assume without," he told them. Jennifer and Kevin sat for a few moments thinking.
"I couldn't tell you right away," Kevin admitted. "The DC-3 can hold twenty-one passengers and it's about forty-five minutes to an hour to Costa Rica depending on weather conditions. We've got around three hundred workers on this island and assuming on-loading and off-loading and refueling and…"
"I get the idea," said Sam butting in. "Just come up with an estimate as soon as possible. Assume that we're not taking anyone to Indigo and with no cargo but what they're carrying on them. I'd like those numbers as soon as possible."
Kevin and Jennifer nodded their heads in understanding. And then both went back to cleaning the helicopter parts, each wondering what the situation would be like when they had to evacuate the island.
It wouldn't be a good day, no matter what happened.
85 days until total fence failure.