Operations Building, Isla Sorna: "You sure Jake and Henry didn't just tell the staff members what was going on to try and get leverage over the Board," Samantha asked conspiratorially. Harding shook his head.
"They said after it was all over that they didn't and I believe them," he said. "I mean after the workers found out about A-1 we had a complete panic on our hands. Who actually did tell them was something we still never found out."
Samantha returned to looking at the report and flipped to a new set of pages.
"But maybe we're getting ahead of ourselves a little bit," she confessed. "Tell me how things broke down between the Board and the two top scientists after they found out about the alleged cover up."
Harding had to think hard to remember the exact sequence of events as it was largely a blur of one bad moment after the next.
"Okay, I remember Jake and Henry calling a special meeting of the senior staff of Nublar and Indigo," Harding began tentatively as he wanted to make sure he was being correct. "We met in the Visitors Center, had lunch, made idle chitchat, and then Jake and Henry presented copies of numerous board reports over the past week and a half; all with evidence of the pending cover-up. InGen wasn't only planning to hide what had happened on Costa Rica from the world at large but also from their own staff."
Samantha was reading that part in the report as well as excerpted attachments of those board reports the two scientists had somehow obtained.
"It says here that the documents were anonymously mailed to Jake and Henry," Samantha noted. Harding nodded his head.
"But they were all genuine," he pointed out. "We figured the then current head of HR had sent them; but he always denied it. Regardless, he really had his hands full with the firestorm that came next."
Samantha continued reading her report.
"The senior staff made the decision to confront the Board with the information," she noted. "Ludlow was pretty much in charge at that time because Hammond had had to step away earlier to deal with 'familial' issues. Ludlow denied the reports and then demanded to know where Jake and Henry had gotten them from."
Harding nodded. "At that point Sam really didn't really want to further compound the issue, but Jake and Henry being who they were refused to back down. They threatened to shut down dinosaur production if Ludlow didn't admit to the truth and do something about preventing it from happening again in the future."
"Making demands would've really set Ludlow off," Samantha knew from experience. "But before he got a chance to give a response it looks like the island staffs found out about A-1 and were really fearful for their safety on the islands," she stated from her notes.
"At which point production wasn't really as big an issue anymore as nearly all work ground to a screeching halt until matters could be resolved," Gerry admitted.
"To which Ludlow then threatened to place Sites A and B under permanent lockdown under the provision of there being a hostile takeover," said Samantha a little surprised by that rationale but she shrugged it off and moved on. "Jake and Henry ordered Lori to immediately shut down egg production at that point. Things continued to escalate verbally between the two parties and any attempts at negotiation through the HR Director repeatedly failed. Ludlow refused to meet the demands of rogue employees and the staffs of Nublar and Sorna then refused to speak to anyone other than Hammond. Nedry then took things up a notch when he jammed nearly all the phone and modem lines leading from the islands to the outside world meaning the Board could no longer freely monitor what was happening on Nublar and Sorna."
"Probably the only time he actually worked extra tasks without complaining. If he actually agreed with our concerns or just wanted to take out some of his frustrations on the company is anyone's guess," Harding said a little miffed. "But at that point Hammond re-entered the picture after getting wind of what had been happening in his absence. He immediately fired the old HR director for letting things escalate out of hand and I think this was about the point where you entered the picture."
Samantha nodded her head as she yawned briefly and poured herself some water from her thermos.
"InGen had been trying to poach me away from my old job for a few months at that point," she told the veterinarian. "They then offered me a large lump sum of money if I would work just temporarily to settle an 'internal dispute' which some behind closed doors was more thought of as a 'civil war'. I did my best, but it wasn't easy. Especially since Hammond seemed to take the side of the employees and Ludlow the bottom line."
"I can imagine. Jake, Henry, and Muldoon then used the incident to force the Board into implementing a series of sweeping security changes to all the islands. Formal recognition and implementation of a more deadly form of the lysine contingency was immediately done. The emergency bunkers were built on all the islands and Muldoon stocked them with heavy weaponry. Plus concrete moats, motion sensor trackers, the fences being upped in wattage from 5000 to 10000 volts were all put forward. The facilities at Indigo were also created almost overnight as an additional safety measure and Daniela was transferred over from Ingen Waterfront: San Diego to oversee them. That was just the start, but those were the major changes.
In turn, Ludlow was allowed to cover up the incident as far as the Costa Ricans were concerned. The families of those killed were offered large sums of money seemingly out of the personal welfare of a rich entrepreneur who had heard about the village and felt sympathetic," Harding revealed. "Honestly your handling of the situation by working with both sides evenly won a lot of our respect. So we're glad you stuck around afterwards. But on the flip side, Jake and Henry never trusted the Board of Directors again," he fully admitted.
"And that was when E.L.E. became a more contentious issue," Samantha thought to herself. What Harding didn't know was that right before Hammond's return, Whitacre and Wu had played their final trump card by saying they would activate E.L.E. if Ludlow didn't back down. Ludlow had then begun seriously considering contacting the Costa Rican government and requesting they retake the islands by force. Without the CEO's return, things could've gotten very violent very quickly. And A-1 might've only been the beginning of future incursions.
"I wonder why E.L.E. had already been thought up well before the A-1 incident…," Samantha wondered to herself a little perplexed.
"So why the trip down memory lane?" asked Harding now that the reminiscing was over. Samantha shrugged.
"Because once more the company finds itself in a similar situation," she pointed out. "There's a lockdown going on, tension between the islands and the Board, and most importantly a threat of the dinosaurs getting loose. I needed to make sure I know what to expect as the days until the fences fail really winds down."
"If push comes to shove, Jake will shove back regardless of the consequences," Harding warned. Samantha nodded her head, expecting no less from the scientist.
"I also need to know one more thing. Do you think the dinosaurs could get from Sorna to the mainland?" she had to ask. Harding swallowed hard, nervously at that question.
"I've thought about that ever since and I don't know," the veterinarian told her. "By all accounts they shouldn't have been able to get from Nublar to the mainland, but they did."
"I'd like you to look into it to try and find out," Samantha requested before closing up her notebook. "And that's about all I have for you today. Was there anything you needed from me?"
Harding stared at her for a few moments as he silently debated an idea back and forth.
"What are Jake and Henry up to?" he asked finally. Samantha's expression didn't betray a hint of emotion as she looked up at him.
"You think they're up to something?" the Board member asked calmly. Harding nodded his head.
"Not too long ago they brought a series of dinosaur carcasses into the clinic and refused to answer my questions about where they had come from," Harding told her. "Dinosaurs don't usually die from gunshot wounds."
Samantha clasped her hands in front of her and rested them on the desk before leaning forward.
"If those two are up to something then I'm sure it concerns genetics and wouldn't be something we'd understand," Samantha figured truthfully. She wasn't going to lie that she was aware the two scientists were up to something, but until she had all the facts she wasn't going to freely admit to it either.
"If it concerns the dinosaurs once they're no longer in eggs then it is my concern as head veterinarian on this island," Harding said bluntly. "76 days isn't a lot of time to prepare for the worst."
"And how would you suggest we do that?" asked Samantha refusing to be baited. "If they won't tell us, we can't force them to admit the truth."
"Maybe not," Harding agreed with a nod of his head. "But that doesn't mean we can't find our own answers," He said frankly as he produced a vial of blood and placed it on the table. "I took that sample from one of the dinosaurs Jake and Henry brought it that day. If you get that sample analyzed then you'll have your answers."
Samantha looked at the blood sample with its tantalizing promises of answers trying not to show any signs of emotion as she slowly picked it up.
"You're taking a big risk giving me this," she warned Harding. "There're probably about a dozen company statues you're now breaking. Plus, I could let Jake and Henry know about this."
"You could but at this point I don't have any other choice if I want to figure out what's going on. The lockdown forced my hand," Harding said frankly. "So it's up to you now."
Samantha held the vial in her closed hand as she made her decision.
"I haven't decided what I'll do with this yet," was all she said as she put the vial away securely in her bag. Harding nodded his head but inwardly breathed a sigh of relief that she hadn't said she would report him. The workers were right to trust her because she was the only one on the Board who really cared for their wellbeing.
"Is there anything else you needed?" Samantha asked one more time. Harding shook his head.
"Just…if either of my daughters ever comes and talks to you, please tell them I am doing this for them and I promise to come back alive," Harding requested, uncomfortable about the whole thing. Samantha gave a small but heartfelt smile at that.
"I will," she promised. "But tomorrow's July 4th, you should call your family."
Harding shrugged noncommittally before giving his goodbye and leaving the room. Behind him, Samantha crossed her fingers together in front of her face and stared out the window and at the village deep in thought about what would happen in 76 days. And what would happen after…
San Diego International Airport: Passengers waiting for their planes turned their heads and looked out the windows as amongst the more modern Boeings, McDonnell-Douglass's, and Airbuses; a vintage DC-3 rolled past the terminals. It then moved past the terminals before coming to a halt inside a small InGen airplane hangar. The rear hatch of the plane opened and Jennifer popped out and went down the steps to the ground below.
"Alright ladies and gentlemen, thank you for flying InGen air," she began to those disembarking. "InGen personnel will be placing your luggage in rows here inside the hangar. One you have picked your suitcases up, please walk over to the far door where the ropes are leading from and you will find a meeting room where you will be given a final debriefing and will then be put on a bus waiting to take you to the main terminal. On behalf of InGen and myself, we thank you for your assistance."
The programmers collected their things and left the hangar as the large hangar doors closed shut cutting off the view of the airport. From the back of the airplane, Tim finally emerged with Kevin and the two stood next to the female pilot.
"Do I need to go to the debriefing also?" Tim teased. Jennifer gave him a dim look before softly shoving him towards the exit door.
"Be here bright and early tomorrow. We're leaving at 7 a.m. and allow at least one hour to get through security," Jennifer cautioned. Tim gave a mild salute with his hand and then was gone as well before the female pilot looked over at the other plane in the hangar, a Learjet that had originally been housed on Sorna, and sighed.
"Can we please take that plane back and leave the DC-3 here?" she pleaded lightly. Kevin hung his head in shame.
"For the thousandth time, no," the male pilot replied. "Now c'mon let's go before I have to get a crowbar to pry you off the landing gear. Or stop you from stealing a 747."
Jennifer laughed at that as the two pilots exited the area.
InGen Headquarters: Peter Ludlow sat at his desk typing up his speech for the next day on Nublar when a knock was heard on his door. A bit startled that no one had warned him about an approaching visitor, he chided himself by remembering it was Saturday and aside from security roaming the building, no one else would be in the building without proper authorization. And anyone wanting to cause trouble wouldn't have knocked first.
"Enter," Ludlow said as he turned to the door. It opened and Ludlow was surprised to see John Hammond's butler enter the room.
"As my employer's previous attempts to leave a message for you have apparently failed, I am only here to say that he requests your presence tonight at his dwellings," the Butler stated simply before Ludlow could say anything first. He then placed an invitational card on the desk and then left.
The COO could only sit and be surprised by this as he stared at the invitational card wondering what he should do. And then he scowled briefly at yet another intrusion in the delicate affairs of InGen by his uncle before brushing the invitation into the trash.
San Diego International Airport: Cassie Matula sat at the sidewalk debating whether or not to hail a taxi or take the bus when a car rolled up in front of her. From the other end, the door opened and Jeff Thomas appeared.
"Hi Cassie, I thought I'd offer you a ride," he said. Cassie nodded her head.
"Thanks," she said distantly, which Jeff immediately noted, and he helped put her back in the trunk of the car and then the two drove off. From a nearby entrance, Ed James watched the two with interest before writing down the license plate number of the vehicle in case Dodgson needed it later. He then hailed a cab to return to Biosyn Headquarters.
In the car, Jeff glanced every so often at Cassie who was being completely quiet.
"Cass, are you okay?" asked the Team Leader concerned for her. Cassie sighed softly.
"If there's something wrong, I need to know," Jeff insisted. Cassie's expression turned sour at that.
"I've lost her," she said angrily. Jeff wasn't sure she was referring to before an earlier conversation in the lodge on Isla Nublar came back to him.
"Your sister?" he asked for clarification. Cassie nodded her head as her expression became saddened.
"She's a programmer working for InGen. She knew I was there and I promised her I wouldn't be looking for anything in their system that wasn't related to Dennis Nedry's actions," Cassie told him. "I lied," she said with a simple shrug of her shoulders implying that it was no big deal, when clearly it was.
"Nobody said the job was easy," Jeff reminded her, while also reminding himself of that following his encounters with Samantha Brown.
"I haven't forgotten. But there's no reason we should've been on that island in the first place," said Cassie at a loss for why they were. "InGen is no threat to PacPharm; they aren't even in the same line of work. And BioSyn couldn't have gotten anything from those busted embryos and neither can we. Something stinks about all of this. If we're not doing this for professional reasons then we're doing it for personal reasons. And the boss always said that if things get personal during an operation, it's time to walk away.
So why are we still here? Why are we still involved with InGen?"
"I don't know," Jeff confessed, also troubled like she was. "I do know the boss and Samantha Brown were married for a time. But if she was the reason we were there, then he would've ordered us to give her the embryos, not keep them for ourselves. It's a mystery."
"Well I'm going to find out," Cassie promised angrily. "I didn't lie to my sister just to be left in the dark about why I did it."
Jeff sat in silence for a few moments as raindrops started to splatter against the windshield.
"I'll help you," he decided finally. To say Cassie was surprised was an understatement given her physical reaction to that statement.
"Thank you," she said, grateful.
"Don't thank me yet," Jeff disagreed as he forcefully shifted into a higher gear. "We both know what crossing the boss means if we're caught. We'll be lucky to turn up on a missing persons report."
He pushed down the accelerator and the car leapt forward into the storm.
Workers Village, Isla Sorna: Dusk was setting across the land as Jake Whitacre and Henry Wu wandered into the village. Jake was hunched over dejected as Henry patted him reassuringly on the back.
"I wouldn't be too discouraged, I'm sure you'll catch her eventually," Henry said, trying to keep a straight face about the whole situation. Jake grumbled something unintelligible as Henry broke out into a large smile and could barely stop himself from laughing. The two walked past the giant trailer/grill which was fired up for testing for tomorrow's barbeque.
"Hey Alejandro, how 'bout something good this year?" Jake called out to the resident chef. The chef turned to regard the scientist thoughtfully.
"Just for that I'll be sure your meal is extra special," he said, his voice dripping with malice. Jake shook an angry fist at him but before he could launch into a war of words over food, an extremely exhausted Colin Maken walked up the steps to the platform next to the grill.
"No luck, huh?" asked Henry. Colin nodded his head as he took out a small wrapped package from his lab coat.
"No, but if you can't outrun her, you have to outthink her," Colin began as he began unwrapping the package. "And that means pulling out the big guns."
A large salmon was what had been in the package and he gingerly laid it out on the grill and it began smoking. The young scientist then took out his watch and began counting down on it.
"Five…four…three…two…one…,"
WHHHOOOOOOOOOOSSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHH!
A pink and blonde blur suddenly materialized on the grill platform from out of nowhere and began jumping up and down.
"Fish! Fish! Fish!" shouted Katrice excitedly as began salivating.
"Hold on there for a moment," said Colin cutting into her mood as he had one hand on the temperature dial. "You don't go brush your teeth right now and this thing gets charbroiled."
Katrice's face turned downtrodden at that prospect of an overly well done piece of fish…especially salmon, her absolute favorite food.
"But don't worry because once you come back it'll be done just the way you like it," Colin promised with a smile. Katrice grinned back and happily skipped off towards the lodge. She paused briefly in front of Jake and Henry.
"I wouldn't be too discouraged, I'm sure you'll catch me eventually," she said intentionally repeating what Henry had said earlier. "But if you touch that fish I'll kill you," she swore. And then she was back skipping happily towards the lodge and out of sight. The two scientists watched her go before turning their attention to Colin who was now sitting on the edge of the platform.
"You come up with anything regarding the special project?" the younger scientist asked, curious.
"We're running a DNA map between the records on file and the blood of the original Rex," Henry answered. "Where are you and your team?"
"Katrice and I dissected some of the test subjects and now we're working on doing some genetic tests," Colin began. "Abby and Derrick are reviewing some of the hard copies of the lysine contingency and cross comparing them with hypothetical models for a lysine producing gene to see if there's any correlations."
The two scientists nodded.
"It's just too bad about the Crays, though," Colin sighed. "We could've used them more now than we have recently."
Jake and Henry laughed at that.
"When we started out, Crays were a luxury we couldn't afford…in fact they didn't even exist," Henry informed him. "We had to make due with slower processors, less computer memory, an intranet connection that only seemed to work when the weather was right, and spit and bailing wire to get things done. If it weren't for floppy disks, I don't know how the DRP project would've succeeded."
"Yikes," said Colin shuddering at such dark ages.
"So we'll manage just fine. The work will be long and hard and often times frustrating, but the results will be much more worth it," Jake promised. "If the dinosaurs can thrive 65 million years into the future, we can survive living ten years in the past for a couple months."
The two scientists then continued on towards the Operations Building for some dinner. Colin watched them go while thinking of the future before he was nearly run over by his sister whose teeth were apparently finally brushed…all the while never realizing she had lied to him about not brushing her teeth earlier that morning. She just wanted his company for the day rather than him being stuck in a lab always working.
San Diego, California: Peter Ludlow steeled himself for what he knew was coming next as he entered into John Hammond's loft and was directed once more towards the dining area where several weeks ago he had exchanged heated words with his Uncle. Words would no doubt fly tonight and the COO wasn't looking forward to it.
Nevertheless he was escorted to the dining hall of his uncle and entered to find the older man alone at the end of the table sipping some soup with his spoon.
"Ah, Peter, please sit down," Hammond requested after putting down the spoon. "How have you been?"
"It's been a very stressful time for me lately, but I've been managing to cope as best I can," Ludlow acknowledged with a tip of his head. "You are looking much healthier than when I last saw you."
"Thank you," said Hammond appreciative of the comment…or at least giving that impression that he was.
And then his expression became deadly serious.
"What the hell have you been doing to my company?"