Sorna: Gerry Harding was in the Veterinary Clinic with Jake and Henry as the last of his supplies that were stockpiled on Indigo were being brought in.
"That everything?" asked Jake curious as he looked at the crates with identification numbers that he didn't understand.
Gerry nodded his head. "Yes and barring any unforeseen accidents with the animals, should last at least until when the fences fail."
"If you say so," responded Jake and then he headed for the door with Henry. "We'll we'd better be off, work to do."
"Speaking of, what's with those dinosaurs corralled in the holding pens back at Embryonics Administration?" asked Gerry. Henry shrugged.
"Research," he confessed lightly. "We want to see how the lysine contingency really works."
Gerry gave them a slightly surprised look at that. "You haven't found out before now?"
"We've never had to worry about it until now," Henry responded and then tipped his head and he and Jake left the building to go back to work. As the veterinarian watched them leave, he gave a couple of orders to his staff about unboxing what was in the crates that they knew they'd need immediately. The rest could wait until later when they figured out their storage situation. With that done, he then walked into his small office and began reading through the reports from his staff about the wellbeing of the various animals on the island now that the DX fiasco had finally been eliminated.
He was making various notes on the reports when his phone rang.
"Hello?" he said into it distractedly as he yawned into his hand.
"Hi, dad," was the enthusiastic response on the other end. Gerry immediately sat up at that.
"Well, well, nice to hear from my absent child after all these months," he said pleased. "How're things in Kenya?"
"Oh, daddy, that's next month," said Sarah Harding chiding him.
"Oh, right, I forgot what day it was," her father responded as he flipped his calendar over to August and then realizing August was virtually over, then flipped it to November. "So what are you up to now?"
"Hanging out in Palo Alto with Doc and Eddie," Sarah answered. Gerry nodded his head as he threw up his feet on his desk.
"I'm actually going to be seeing Jack Thorne soon, I think he's coming down here where I work," Gerry told her.
"Yes, I think I heard something to that effect," Sarah began coyly. "That's actually why I'm calling. I want to come with him to see you."
Gerry's began coughing when he heard that.
"Any particular reason?" he rasped out.
"Yeah, because I don't want whatever happened to you and Jess to happen again," said Sarah bluntly. Gerry sighed at her renowned tenacity. At times it was helpful, at other times could prove to be her worst enemy when it got her into trouble.
"What happened then was an accident," he told her. "It won't happen again."
Whether both of those statements were technically true wasn't up to him to decide. They were true enough for the purposes of this conversation.
"Yeah, but I want to be sure of that myself," Sarah responded. "Especially since you've never told me what InGen is up to where you are."
"And you know that I can't tell you that," Gerry said for the thousandth time whenever she asked that question. "Really, it's not as exciting as you might think it is."
Through his open doorway, he could see a couple of workers hauling in a bruised and bloody gallimimus that was heavily tranquilized.
"Look, I've got to go, duty calls," he told her. "But I'm planning on being back home in a couple of weeks, so maybe I'll see you then."
"Yeah, sure," said Sarah distantly with just a hint of tension in her voice. Gerry could tell she wasn't happy about his continued dismissal of her concerns over his safety, but there was nothing he could do about it. Besides, the further away his daughter stayed from this island the better. He'd nearly lost one child to these creatures and he couldn't afford to take that risk again. All he could do would be to make it up to Sarah one day. He then made his goodbyes to her and then hung up the phone and went back into the clinic to get to work on the new patient.
As for the woman on the other end of the phone call, she was not going to give up that easily in getting her way onto that island.
Embryonics Administration: Colin Maken, Abby Nakajima, and Derrick Hoyle were walking past the cages and observing the dinosaurs inside. They had collected a fair sample of creatures that were small enough to fit inside the enclosures and were now just checking up on their current status. So far there was no change, but the animals had only been corralled up for a couple of days.
"Maybe the blood tests will reveal some early changes," Derrick figured. Colin nodded his head and nodded to the DRT team who came in and walked up to the shackled dinosaurs and forcibly drew blood samples without any sedatives. The lack of sedatives meaning the blood tests wouldn't taint the samples, although in Abby's mind it seemed a little cruel to the animals as they had to use a larger needle to pierce their thick skins to draw the samples. But it had to be done because they needed those results and fast.
Meanwhile Jake and Henry silently filtered past them, both thinking once more about the possibility of the dinosaurs being able to breed and whether or not the Lysine Contingency was hereditary.
A couple days later: Peter Ludlow was once more reviewing the plans that had been drafted by Gustavius Graves, Jake Whitacre, and Henry Wu and then looked at the estimates he had received from various private contractors about the costs of getting it done. He then looked at the reports from the Treasurer on the Board and saw that with selling off certain assets on Indigo and Nublar, they'd just barely have enough to cover the costs of liquidating Nublar and start on finishing Jurassic Park: San Diego.
And then his phone rang interrupting his deliberations.
"Yes?" he asked into it.
"Sir, Doctor Harding is here to see you," said the front door receptionist. As she said that, Richard Levine entered into his office and silently took a seat. The two had already planned a final meeting to go over arrangements and it was just about to start. But now that Dr. Harding had mysteriously shown up, that threw a strange wrench into things.
"You don't mind do you?" he asked of Levine. Levine had a broad grin on his face after hearing that question for reasons Ludlow couldn't identify.
"Go for it," he said encouragingly.
"Well send him up," said Ludlow not sure what else to say. This situation was getting stranger by the moment and Levine evidently knew something he didn't but was being coy about it. Ludlow was beginning to sense the same irritation that Jake and Henry felt towards the man, but he wouldn't give anyone the satisfaction of acting on that feeling. Levine for his part just sat there twiddling his thumbs.
"Should we get started before Doctor Harding gets up here?" asked Ludlow raising an eyebrow at the multi-millionaire across from him. Levine shrugged lightly.
"I have a suspicion that when Harding gets up here that the topic will be the same," he responded cryptically with another big grin. Ludlow barely avoided a groan at that and just sat and waited for the Harding to arrive.
"Well in the meantime, is your team prepped?" asked Ludlow. Levine nodded his head.
"We're ready for Friday," he said rubbing his hands together. "I just need from you what it is you want us to find out and report back on."
"Samantha Brown will present it to you upon arrival on the island," Ludlow answered simply. Levine chuckled at that.
"Full of secrecy are we?" he stated offhand.
"Being the owner of a famous line of dolls, surely you know and understand the need to prevent leakage of information on your product," Ludlow pointed out. Levine nodded his head.
"That I do," he agreed as the door to Ludlow's office opened. "But I think one of your secrets has slipped out."
"What do you mean?" the other man asked pointedly and then looked up to see Doctor Sarah Harding enter into his office. Ludlow's look of shock at her appearance turned to a glare at Levine who had clearly known she was the Doctor Harding being referred to. The head of the Becky Doll Corporation just gave him a bemused expression of apathy. His trip was set in stone; there was no way out of it now and Levine would not be refused access Isla Sorna.
"I'll make this brief, I need to be on that research team you're sending to that resort island of yours," said Sarah Harding cutting into his thoughts. Levine looked at her surprised before his expression narrowed.
Evidently Levine wasn't the only one with a strong desire to be on that island.
San Jose, Pacific Pharmaceuticals Field Office: John's team was sequestered into one of the conference rooms of the building going over the results of their 'scratch and sniff' mission from the prior day.
"We still don't have any proof that Dodgson and Nedry made an arrangement to obtain embryos. Although given that an apparently large bag was transferred between them at the café and Nedry was given a can of shaving cream with a detachable bottom, that gives us good circumstantial evidence that something was going on," Jeff informed the group. John nodded his head absently as he tapped the conference table with his pen trying to think.
"Well since Nedry never left Costa Rica before heading back to Nublar, he had to have deposited that money somewhere around here," said Lorne. He then turned to Cassie.
"I don't suppose you could hack the files of the local banks?" he asked hopeful. Cassie shook her head.
"There are no data connections down here. I don't even know if they have computers to house their data anyway," Cassie replied dismissively. "I suppose we could wait to see if any of the taxi cab companies report back on picking up Nedry. That would likely give us a better idea of what bank he used. Course even if they did tell us something, I don't think the banks can be bribed as easily as the taxi cab companies."
"Maybe there's an easier way," Lorne speculated. "If he had a large sum of money, I'd imagine there are only so many banks that would accept such a large influx of cash."
"Good point," Jeff agreed. "Course we may need to take some unorthodox steps if we can't coerce them into telling us what we want to know."
John again absently nodded his head as he continued to ruminate on his troubled thoughts.
"What we really need to get our hands on is the delivery device that Dodgson gave Nedry," Serena noted. "Course, where that delivery device is, I don't know. Hey boss, have you found out anything new on that end?"
John was too lost in his thoughts that he didn't even notice he was being spoken to.
"Boss?" asked Jeff a little concerned. John blinked upon finally recognizing his name and escaped his funk.
"Based on what I've gathered from the report cobbled together during InGen's disastrous attempt to investigate what happened on Nublar; Nedry never made it to the East Dock," he told the group. "They also haven't recovered the delivery device which means it is still on Nublar."
"We need to go there and get it," Jeff declared. "We need to get it before InGen finds it or worse Biosyn. I don't think they're going to sit idly by and leave their company in the lurch like this with a damning piece of evidence not in their control."
"Nublar is a dangerous place," John reminded them. "I could get you and a small team in there, but you'd be on your own. If InGen discovered you, I can't promise an easy extraction."
"Nothing is without risks, but we promised the CEO that we'd have the evidence implicating Biosyn in what happened to Nublar," Jeff reminded him. "I'm in."
"Me too," said Cassie surprising everyone. "At least in the sense that I'd like to take a crack at the computers I've heard are at the Nublar location before they're wiped clean and then put up on the auction block. If that happens, who knows what data we'll be able to get off of them."
"That's going a little far isn't it?" Lorne said, concerned. "We're here to implicate Biosyn, not ourselves, in industrial espionage."
"Nedry may have kept records of these things on his terminal, it couldn't hurt to look," Cassie responded innocently. It was clear she had an ulterior motive for wanting to gain access to InGen's computers, but for what purpose was still a mystery. Still, she was loyal to Pacific Pharmaceuticals, John made sure of that with all of them on the team.
"Well boss?" asked Jeff of their commanding officer.
"If you want to go, I won't stop you. But I can't officially or unofficially assign you to this task," he warned them. "And while I still can't tell you what you'll find on that island, it will change your life forever."
The team wasn't sure what that meant and they sat in silence for a few moments thinking what to do.
"We'll go," Jeff finally decided. "If you could just find out who they're planning on contracting out the work to, we should be able to be hired on with no problem."
"I'll have it to you by this tomorrow," John promised. Jeff nodded his head and turned to the others and dismissed the group. As they filed out, John was again completely oblivious to them as he still was immersed in his own thoughts. He then noticed a shadow hovering over him in the form of Lorne.
"Something's wrong isn't it," the psychologist stated. John shrugged lightly.
"I'm not sure yet," he responded truthfully. "I just get the feeling we're overlooking something. Dodgson hasn't really made a move yet and that has me a little concerned. I think he knows something we don't and I just can't figure out what that something is."
"Well I'm sure you'll figure it out," Lorne said encouragingly. He then made his goodbyes and exited the room. John sat and looked up at the empty room and sighed again deeply. He just hoped when he figured out Dodgson's game that he made the right move in time otherwise they'd all be in trouble.
San Diego: "I don't know what you're talking about," Ludlow told Sarah Harding after she had explained why she knew he was sending a team to one of InGen's islands.
"I think you do, otherwise he wouldn't be sitting here," Sarah pointed out as she tipped her head in Levine's direction. Levine chuckled at that, clearly amused by this turn of events, as Ludlow's scowl grew deeper.
"Fine, Dr. Levine is here because we are building an island resort centered on the Becky Doll Line and we need him on as a consultant," he decided on a new tact. Levine's jaw dropped at that before he turned thoughtful.
"Yeah and it will have all these great rides because we're thinking about introducing prehistoric animals to the Becky Doll Jungle Explorer Line," he mused aloud. Ludlow had to resist glaring at him for that comment but thankfully Harding seemed to shrug it off as him saying stuff off the top of his head.
"The point is that something very bad happened on one of your islands and my dad and little sister got mixed up in it," Sarah continued. "And there's no way I'll just sit by and let my father risk his life by having a similar situation happen on a second island of yours. I'm an animal behaviorist and I think you could use me on your team."
"I'd be happy to have her along," Levine added. "Because we all know the real reason she wants to come along is to be close to me."
Sarah groaned and rolled her eyes at that as Ludlow was now at the point where he wished he wasn't hearing this conversation.
"I appreciate your concern but this trip has already been planned out and there's no room for anyone else," Ludlow told her in the most diplomatically way possible. "Rest assured that your father is very safe and as for what your sister experienced, I offer my sincerest apologies. Now please leave us because our time is vital and we need every minute of it."
"I'm going to that island," Sarah swore as she got up. "Maybe not right now, but I will someday. And I'll tell everyone what happened on that other island of yours."
"You do and you'll regret it for the rest of your life," said Ludlow finally taking the bait. "The door is that way. I trust I don't need to show you the way out, Doctor Harding. Have a nice day."
Sarah gave Ludlow a piercing look of pure anger before getting up as Levine had taken out a piece of paper and was writing on it.
"You ever want to call me, don't hesitate," he said with a wide grin as he handed her the paper. Sarah snatched the paper out of his hand and squeezed it tight in her fist and then stormed out of the room. Levine and Ludlow watched her go before Levine turned back to Ludlow.
"Can we get this meeting under way, I am a busy man," he informed the head of InGen. Ludlow sighed and then pulled out a dossier and slid it across the desk to him.
Outside, Sarah Harding angrily left the building. She hadn't really expected Peter Ludlow to allow her to go, but the conversation wasn't making her any happier about that fact. In fact she'd been so frustrated that she'd forgotten to throw out the piece of paper Richard Levine had passed to her. She was about to throw it away in the nearest trash can when she decided to at least read what he had written.
"Talk to your friend Malcolm," she read aloud, wondering why he had written that down. She hadn't spoken with her on again off again boyfriend for a little while but last she'd heard he was going away on some weekend excursion.
And then she put two and two together and realized the truth of the message. Without another word, she ran for her car to try and find the man the message referred to and with a little luck the truth about what happened to InGen.
A couple days later: Ludlow had finished making the necessary arrangements with the appropriate parties to liquidate Jurassic Park and was just finishing up a special round of interviews.
"Your credentials are impressive," Ludlow had to admit as he looked over the resume and various letters of recommendation for his interviewee.
"Well thank you," responded Cassie. Over the past couple of days, the Pharmaceuticals team had created forged identities for themselves and infiltrated the organization Ludlow had contracted out the work to. Although the others had been primarily hired on as laborers, Cassie was chosen to try and get hired on as a part of the programmers who would be responsible for taking care of the computer systems on-site.
"I'm curious why you never applied for a job with us when we were looking for qualified programmers a couple years back," Ludlow asked. Cassie shrugged.
"I'm a freelance programmer at heart. I don't like doing the same thing for very long," Cassie explained. "That's why I'm interested in this position now because of how temporary it is."
Ludlow nodded his head.
"You ever do any work for Biosyn?" he asked. Cassie shook her head.
"How about Pacific Pharmaceuticals?" asked Ludlow next.
"Occasionally," Cassie told him nonchalantly. She had no reason to suspect that the man knew who she really was; he just had an issue against that company.
"Doing what?" asked Ludlow curious.
"Databases, mainly," Cassie told him. "So do I have the job?"
Ludlow raised his eyebrows at that. "Forward, aren't we?"
Cassie shrugged. "Being a freelancer, I don't have time to play games."
"Nor do I," said Ludlow approvingly. "You're hired."
"Thank you," said Cassie. "When and how do I start?"
"You'll actually be leaving today for an undisclosed location of ours where you'll meet up with the other temporary programmers we've hired in preparation for your journey to our other facility. There you'll be given instruction by our head programmer on what your work will entail,"
That revelation caused Cassie to start to panic.
"What for?" she demanded. "I'm a pro with any system. I don't need any prior training."
"Well we insist. If not you can find some other work to do," Ludlow said bluntly. "Be at the airport in an hour and don't be late. The secretary can give you further instructions."
Cassie gave an insincere smile and left the room before Ludlow caught on that something was wrong. She got her instructions and then exited the building and stood out in the hot midday sun as she considered her options. She couldn't back out now, but at the same time if they were sending her where she thought they were, she'd likely be found out.
And she was on her own in coming up with a solution because Jeff and the rest of the team were busy in their new positions and couldn't be contacted and John had told them never to contact him until the mission was over.
So that left her with few options in the one hour time period she had. And then an idea occurred to her and she ran for the nearest beauty salon and bought several makeover kits and ran to her apartment and quickly began applying them without any regard and then quickly dyed her hair with whatever bottles she could get her hands on and then rushed out the door without waiting for it to dry.
Making her way to the airport, she carried her duffel bag with her and got bizarre stares from the male and female pilots of the DC-3 who were checking everyone's names and appearances with their passenger list.
"Do I even want to ask?" asked the female pilot perplexed. Cassie shrugged.
"Whenever I take a new job I give myself a makeover," she responded simply, which was an utter lie. "I just didn't have much time this go around to make myself look good."
"I can tell," said the female pilot unabashedly. "Well, take your seat because we're taking off."
Cassie gave him a forced smile and then tipped her head and bordered the plane where she got even stranger glances from the other programmers aboard. She just stowed her gear and took a seat in silence.
"Well, ladies and gentlemen, my name is Jennifer Flores and I'll be one of your pilots today," said the female pilot to them. "Our trip isn't going to last very long, but for security reasons you won't be able to open your window shades to see where we're going. I know it seems like cloak and dagger stuff, but it's really for your own good. Also, I'm a pilot and not your stewardess so refreshments are secured in the back and when we reach cruising speed, you are free to help yourselves to them. Otherwise, enjoy your flight."
She then slammed the cockpit door shut behind her and the plane soon took off. Unfortunately the lack of scenery visible because the windows were shut meant that she attracted most of the stares. But if her appearance meant she'd be able to complete her mission, she'd be able to put up with the brief embarrassment.
And so she powered up her portable terminal and began reading through the files John Brown had managed to dig up on InGen's Isla Sorna Facility. All the reports again indicated that they were working on genetic research, but what kind John had refused to tell them even up until now.
"But why…?" she whispered softly as she again looked at each report in meticulous detail. Seeing no answers she closed up her terminal and put it away and decided instead to focus on making herself more inconspicuous. Because there was one source she had access to that could give her answers but if she contacted that source, her cover would be blown. And so she used her makeup to further disguise herself from her regular appearance.
After a few hours flight time, the plane touched down and the team was shepherded outside. They found themselves on a dirt runway with a jungle on one side, a clearing on the other, and a single hanger and office nearby with what looked like a disassembled helicopter inside. The group was then quickly moved into a set of green SUVS that appeared which had mud covering the sides of the vehicles but Cassie could just make out the words Park on one end and she thought there was another word before it that began with a J and ended with a C. But the group was seated into the vehicles that had all the windows darkened, even the front. The vehicles then started up on automated program which surprised some of the passengers in the car but not Cassie.
After several minutes of driving, the doors opened and the group found themselves in a village that had jungle all around it along with a high perimeter fence.
"Ladies and Gentlemen," said a new voice interrupting their thoughts. They all looked over to see a man standing in front of them on a bridge over a moat with a large operations building behind him. "I'm sorry for the arrangements but we do like to maintain our secrecy on this island. So if you'll all come with me."
The group was quickly herded into the building and off to the left side where they passed a tarp covering a portion of the wall that didn't appear to need any maintenance on it. But what the tarp was concealing, no one was quite sure.
After a few more moments of walking, the group entered into a conference room where a slightly overweight man with a light beard and long hair dressed in hippie clothes greeted them.
"Fellow programmers, I bid you welcome!" he said jovially. Some of the programmers who had been hired recognized the man and they breathed a collective sigh of relief that everything was back to normal.
"My name is Tim and I'm the lead programmer on this island," the man began. Cassie looked around a little anxiously.
"Are you the only programmer on this island?" she asked trying to sound genuinely curious and not scared.
"I'm not at liberty to say how many work on this island but they'd be manning the shop while I'm with you here now. Personally speaking I highly doubt you'll encounter any of them but me," Tim answered as all the tension drained from Cassie and she breathed a long inward sigh of relief. "Nice hair by the way. But anyway, let's go over the work I'll need you to do tomorrow when we get to our final destination."
Cassie relaxed and listened to Tim as he handed out the assignments. Cassie listened intently and then drew up strategies to get the information she needed without anyone knowing. Her plan had gotten past the one major hurdle that had required her to change her appearance and so she was glad that things were back on track.
After several hours of technical talks, the group of programmers was escorted to the lodge by Sam and the group was told to enjoy a warm meal on them and then go to the lobby desk and they'd be assigned their rooms. The one warning he gave was that they were not to leave the building until the next day when called upon. And so Cassie ate a meal with her fellow programmers and engaged in jovial talks about the work they were currently doing and what they hoped to be doing in the future.
One by one they filtered out to get some sleep until Cassie was the only one left writing furious notes in her notebook about what she had learned from Tim about InGen's OS and how she could temporarily circumvent it and dump the data she needed. She was so wrapped up in her work that she barely registered someone enter the dining area behind her and start serving up some food. Cassie didn't bother to acknowledge the person as she was interested in quickly finishing up her work so she could go to sleep. Tomorrow would be a very busy day for her.
Behind her, the individual picked up some silverware and then made their way to a table. Cassie continued to be oblivious to the other individual until the tray was slammed down on the side of the table across from her. Instantly looking up and ready to snap at the new individual, it was upon seeing who it was that the color drained from her face. Standing there was a young woman about her age with an InGen identification badge showing she worked in the tech area.
The woman sat down across from her and slowly began munching on some toast with a bemused look on her face.
"Can I help you?" asked Cassie trying to fake a British Accent in an attempt to delay what she knew was the inevitable outcome of this situation.
"No, I'm okay," Sheila Matula responded with a big smile as she looked over the woman's appearance with the multi-colored hair and strange choice of makeup application and shook her head in shame.
"So then what do you want?" Cassie continued, wishing this conversation wasn't happening. Sheila ran through a number of different things she could say before she broke out into a large smile and knew there was only one thing to say.
"I swear, Cassie, there are some days when I'm embarrassed to be your twin sister," Sheila responded simply as Cassandra Matula's head instantly dropped to the table in defeat as her sibling laughed her head off.
She was busted big time.
San Diego, Biosyn HQ: Lewis Dodgson sat at his chair as Howard King came in.
"Well?" he asked.
"Our team has successfully infiltrated the organization Ludlow is using to dispose of Jurassic Park assets," King confirmed.
"And what about Pacific Pharmaceuticals?" asked Dodgson next. King nodded his head.
"It looks like they've infiltrated as well," King told him. A broad smile broke out across Dodgson's face as he leaned back in his chair and propped his feet up on the desk.
"Then everything is going as planned," he responded, pleased.
"I don't suppose I could be let in on this plan?" asked King hopeful. Dodgson shook his head.
"In time, perhaps, but for now just rest easy," Dodgson reassured him. "At the moment, it's up to John Brown's team to make the correct move. He'll think he's making the right move, but it'll be the wrong one and his whole plan will begin collapse from under him. And then victory will be ours."