The Fortress, Mt. Sorna: At the last moment, Jake's climbing rope snagged stopping him from going completely over the edge into the caldera; but he was still halfway tumbling over the abyss unable to regain his footing.
"Hang on Jake I'm coming!" Henry shouted though he knew his colleague was likely unable to hear him with all the debris still crashing down around him. He grabbed his fellow scientist's rope and yanked on it with all his might but found himself struggling to get enough of a grip on it to pull his friend back up.
Inside the Fortress: Sheila Matula was monitoring the shutdown process of the computers in the building while pulling various files to her portable terminal that Jake, Henry, and Dr. Sorkin had requested. It was so routine that when the building violently shook she fell out of her chair and spilled unceremoniously onto the floor.
"What the-?" she began looking around confused when suddenly alarms began blaring and the emergency lights lit up glaring red. Then all the screens in the room switched from their normal view and displayed two words in yellow "Seismological Alert" on a black background.
The sounds of running footsteps was heard and Lori Ruso burst into the room out of breath and all wet having likely been in the hot tub when whatever had happened, happened.
"C'mon, kid, we gotta go!" she shouted urgently over the alarms. She'd barely had time to pull her clothes over her bathing suit that was how little time she knew they had once the alerts went off.
"But-," began Sheila still in shock and unsure what to do, just knowing she still had work to do; as Lori groaned, rushed in, and grabbed the younger woman's arm and then pulled her from the room. Sheila barely had time to unplug and grab her portable terminal as she was pushed down the hall.
"Now!" she shouted and soon the two were rushing down the hallway. The alarms for their part stopped blaring non-stop but instead went off at set intervals.
"What's happening?" the naïve programmer asked frightened.
"I'm not exactly sure but Mt. Watson clearly just rumbled and that means we might be in imminent danger of an eruption," Lori said trying to remember the evacuation protocols she had had to go through in this place back when the Fortress was still in normal operation.
Sheila gave a noticeable "eep" at that as Dr. Laura Sorkin and David Banks appeared around the bend of the hallway. Both of them looked frazzled but otherwise calm.
"Do you know what's going on?" asked Lori to the two of them. Laura shook her head.
"We tried looking for the seismology room to see if might tell us anything but unfortunately neither of us can remember where it is," the female scientist admitted sheepishly.
"It's in room 2-37 but I don't think we have time to go over there and look," Lori said as the group moved down the hallway.
"No, I agree," Laura said with a nod of her head. "For all we know the equipment is shut off in there anyway."
"So what now?" asked Sheila curious. Laura shrugged.
"We follow standard evacuation procedures and head for the chute," she declared. Abruptly Lori stopped walking and turned white as a sheet upon hearing that. Her face oddly illuminated by the emergency lighting.
"Oh God, I'd forgotten about the chute," she said with a deep sense of dread. David for his part began coaxing her to keep up with them.
"What's the chute?" asked Sheila again, completely clueless.
"You remember how much I hate the tour vehicles?" asked Lori to the young programmer. Sheila nodded her head remembering the test run they'd done only a few weeks prior.
"Well I hate the chute even worse," Lori told her. Sheila drew back at that, wondering what it could possibly be that was so upsetting.
"Then what-,"
"You'll find out when we get there, let's just not talk about it anymore," said the Head of Production on the island wanting to desperately change the subject.
"Hey, there's Nicolette Stefrassa," said David Banks unexpectedly bringing up a new topic. The Head of Strategic Planning had appeared briefly as she was running up one bank of stairs to the next to reach the observation deck when she paused, noticing the group out of the corner of her eye.
"Hey where are you going Stefrassa, the chute is this way!" said Laura jerking her head in the direction they were headed.
"I have something I need to take care of first," Nicolette informed them. "Go without me."
Then she was gone and up the stairs without another word.
"Shouldn't we go after her?" asked Lori asking the important question.
"She's senior staff, she can do whatever the hell she wants," Laura said not wanting to waste time talking when the hallways could potentially be filling up with deadly molten lava. "Besides, none of us have seniority over her to force her to do otherwise."
Sheila was continually surprised by hearing how long Nicolette had been on the island. But she had little time to dwell on it as the group continued down the hallways hoping everything would be alright.
Nicolette for her part reached the observation deck and looked through the observation magnifying glasses frantically but still in a search pattern around the rim of the volcano. While relieved nothing seemed out of the ordinary, her heart nearly stopped when she spotted the situation Jake and Henry were in on the cone and then she tore off out of the room and back down the stairs.
Workers Village: Due to the concerns about possible volcanic activity on the island that provided the geothermal power on the island, InGen had a small group of resident geologists in addition to those geothermal engineers who were there strictly to work on the related power stations. Since InGen was not really in the business of mining, their job was mainly to do periodic checks of the grounds surrounding the fences for any possible instability as well as to monitor the island for geological activity.
Often this meant they had stretches of time with little or nothing to do aside from assisting the geothermal engineers which is why during their boredom they would sometimes stay up late at night playing cards and drinking bootleg hooch from the still they had hidden amongst the geothermal equipment. Sam would occasionally threaten to find and shut down their moonshine operation as part of the official company line but in practice pretty much let them be as long it didn't disrupt the island's operations.
This is why after a long night of cards, in the morning the loser found themselves stuck in their small office with their seismometer. They were required by company mandate to monitor the machine for a few hours each day which in practice meant the one watching it was often asleep nursing a hangover.
*Flash*
The lights in the room abruptly and unexpectedly flared and woke up the unfortunate worker, Carl, who groaned and held his head in pain as the needle on the seismometer started shaking, drawing out a brief jagged line where before it had been smooth. After a moment of this the needle went back to normal and continued making a slightly wavy line. Carl looked bleary eyed down at the seismogram and despite still not being fully conscious his scientific training still had enough of a hold on him that he recognized something was amiss as he tore off chart and looked at it. His eyes narrowed briefly at the disturbance as he became and more awake with each passing moment while he looked at the jagged line and then pushed his chair over to the computer where the same information was being recorded digitally.
Tapping some commands, the computer showed the same jagged line and then gave a listing of coordinates on the island before displaying a topographic map of the island with a dot on it indicating the epicenter of the activity. This time Carl's eyes nearly bulged out of his head as he hurriedly wrote the coordinates onto the chart with a pen and then ran from the room with the printout.
Base of Mt. Watson: Smoke rose from the base of the volcano where Minnie May Hopkins had detonated her plastique. Just beyond the tree line the Food Investigation Team stumbled out having had the wind knocked out of them. Internally each of them were grateful to have no broken bones or a concussion as they could easily have slammed into a tree after being blown off their feet from the shockwave.
"Nicely done Hopkins," said Frances White sarcastically as she brushed dirt off of her already caked clothes. Everyone else was staring at her for what she had done.
"Hey, if you're going to go, go big!" the pint-sized woman said proudly. "Besides, Mr. Levine was the one who pressed the button."
Levine just shook his head in annoyance at her trying to pin the blame on him as the group watched the smoke slowly start to dissipate. After a few moments the air seemed to clear enough to proceed and it revealed-as they had suspected-a cave hidden by the artificial landslide.
Stopping briefly at the mouth of the cave which did not illuminate much within the team was about to enter when they became startled as Katrice Maken walked out of the shadows in front of them. Somewhere she had found an old miner's hat with a flashlight on top that barely worked.
"Hi," she said excitedly with a big grin as she motioned them to follow her. "Look what I found!"
The team flipped on their flashlights and after a few minutes of walking their lights illuminated something unnatural in the cave.
"Well I'll be damned," said Thorne in a rare moment of profanity as he rubbed his jaw in thought at what he saw. "So that's where it went."
Operations Building, Workers Village: Sam Stone and Daniela St. Ives were in his office discussing various island operations along with some other various odds and ends.
"So how are things with trying to figure out who let Nedry through without a thorough search of his stuff," asked Sam, curious, as he enjoyed some early morning soup.
Daniela shrugged. "I've been interviewing more members of the Indigo crew for a better idea of what was going on and found some interesting stuff, especially in regards to the Anne B. I've also got some people looking into the communications side of things. Once I know anything more substantial, I'll pass it along."
Sam nodded his head and then reached down and pulled out a thick bound document and tossed it to her.
"This came through the fax this morning and Stephanie retyped and reformatted it to make it look professional," he said simply, wanting to gauge her reaction to what it was.
InGen's Official Report on the Jurassic Park Incident.
"It's about freaking time," Daniela stated as she immediately dove right into the document.
"There's a lot there, but I'll be curious to know your thoughts on the whole thing. I've given this report to the heads of the departments that are in the Village and will have a formal meeting with the senior staff once they all back from their excursion," the Head of Sorna told his counterpart. Daniela then closed the report to read later as the two began to discuss their planned topic on island management when there was a knock on Sam's open door and Carl burst in immediately thereafter and shut the door behind him to not be disturbed.
"What's up, Carl?" Sam inquired as he sat up in his chair to give him his full attention. It had to be important because he rarely saw the seismologist team except when he was doing his routine inspections of the geothermal facilities.
"Sir, we just recorded a noticeable seismological event," Carl declared as he dropped the seismogram on the desk and stepped back as Sam and Daniela observed the disturbance on the chart.
"And if you're wondering, this is outside the range of normal dinosaur movement activity. I spoke to the boys for their input and we all agree that we definitely had an event," Carl declared frantic.
"Is that why the lights flared a moment ago?" asked Sam putting two and two together but trying to maintain calm. The boys down in the geology section had been known in the past to get excited over nothing. Carl nodded his head.
"There was a brief surge in the geothermal output outside normal anticipated fluctuations," the geologist told him.
"Meaning?" Daniela asked bewildered.
"Whatever this was it was both unexpected and given the sudden and brief occurrence of the event possibly artificial in nature," Carl continued disturbed by that idea.
"Artificial, you mean by an explosion?" asked Sam now very concerned. For her part, Daniela hoped this wasn't the result of Samantha Brown's concerns over how the Lockdown would affect the island's personnel and facilities.
Sam was reaching for his phone to contact switchboard to get an immediate headcount of the personnel in the field when Carl held up his hand to stop him.
"That's not the worst part, the worst is where we think the epicenter is," he said starting to break out into a cold sweat as he picked up the chart and went over to a topographical map Sam had on his far wall. Looking at the coordinates, Carl dropped the sheet again and then put his hands together from longitude and latitude and then took a thumbtack from a nearby corkboard and stuck it into the map.
The thumbtack was right at Mt. Watson.
Sam and Daniela were left pretty much speechless at that revelation.
"Oh not problems with Watson, that's the last thing we need right now," Sam said to himself aggravated. He had enough problems to deal with and now this. "Are you sure?"
"We triple-checked the coordinates," Carl told him exasperated by the whole situation as he wiped some sweat from his brow with his sleeve.
"Was there an explosion at the Fortress?" asked Sam next deeply concerned. Getting through to that place was spotty at best when the place was still in heavy use. After they had relocated the communications infrastructure to that place had largely gone to pot.
Carl reluctantly shook his head. "Based on the strength of the jolt we think it was land-based somewhere on the eastern side."
"So you do think Watson is going to blow?!" asked Daniela pretty much controlling her emotions but a slight edge of hysteria crept into her voice.
"That's the odd part we can't figure out," Carl revealed bewildered. "If there were problems with Watson the epicenter should have been the center of the cone not the base of the mountain. We can't understand it."
Sam turned reflective at this to try and calm his nerves. "So you're saying somebody likely detonated a bomb at the base of the volcano?"
"Pretty much, yes," Carl agreed with a nod of his head. The boys had briefly discussed trapping of volcanic gasses in a lava tube finally bursting loose but the geothermal techs had dismissed the idea saying that would have resulted in a brief surge then abrupt drop in power levels but they had only experienced the surge before it levelled off.
"Who would be stupid or insane enough to do that?" Sam continued. Carl shrugged helplessly as Sam finally picked up his phone and dialed switchboard.
"Get me asset tracking," he said into it. It took a moment for the line to connect.
"A.T.," said the voice on the other end.
"Tracey, its Sam, do we have anybody in the Watson area aside from the group up at the fortress?" he asked. Asset Tracking was responsible for tracking the movement of all personnel and material on the island. They were a vital component to the operation of the island as direct communication between remote parties was not possible at all times and it could be days in some instances. There had been too many incidents with the dinosaurs and just random accidents that they could not afford to just 'lose' someone like had happened with Dr. Frances White. Safety was paramount to the operations and stability of the island.
"I can check but it might be a few moments. Do you want to stay on the line or should I call you back?" asked the female worker.
"I need to make another important call first so just let me know when you have something," he stated. He was about to hang up when Tracey spoke up before she was disconnected.
"Hey, boss, what's going on? The whole electrical system surged and tripped the breakers so we had to restart some of the computers hence the delay," she had to ask.
"I'll tell you when I know something," he responded not wanting to cause a panic despite knowing that statement would likely cause the opposite and then hung up. Already he noticed the silhouettes of a cluster of people outside his door. Sam then motioned to Daniela.
"Tell them we'll keep them aware of any developments and to get back to work. Then get down to Tim in the control room and make sure everything's working like it should. First priority is the fences if they're not," he told his counterpart. Daniela nodded her head and rushed from the room. Carl looked unsure what to do and Sam motioned for him to sit in the chair Daniela had vacated.
Dialing switchboard once more he again spoke to the operator. The switchboard operator was largely unnecessary since he could direct call anyone but was helpful to have in cases of emergencies.
"Hey, Cheryl, it's me again. Is the line to the Fortress still receiving a signal?" asked Sam.
"Sure, let me test it…yep, it looks like we've got a signal," Cheryl confirmed.
"Buzz Laura Sorkin's office phone for me,"
After a couple minutes.
"Call went through but no one picked up,"
"Try Jake Whitacre's office,"
A couple more minutes.
"Nothing,"
"Henry Wu's?"
A couple more minutes.
"Same story."
"You're sure we're getting through?"
"It's as clear as it's ever been since we largely stopped maintaining the lines up there,"
Sam pondered for a few moments to himself. "If I were in the Fortress and the alarms went off, I would go to…"
Straightening up in his chair he became all-business.
"Dial the Chute,"
The Chute: "No way in hell am I getting into that deathtrap. I'd rather take my chances with the volcano," Lori swore looking at a contraption in the middle of the room.
"What is it?" asked Sheila bewildered.
At the center of the Fortress was a room with a giant rollercoaster-like track leading down and out-of-sight with small lights illuminating the path into the distance. But rather than a rollercoaster or mine cart to ride down it, instead was something that looked like a giant cast-iron bullet. One side was opened revealing twelve seats within, six rows with two chairs apiece. And there were about six 'shells' that could be hoisted onto the track and sent off into the abyss.
"It's basically what it looks like," Laura answered. "You get in there, we close and lock the side door, then are then fired down the chamber with a brief burst of acceleration. The route leads through the side of the volcano so this cast-iron like outer shell should protect us from any possible lava long enough for the capsule to reach the base and have our momentum bring us to a halt. Then we quickly hop out, run for the vehicle bay where the track ends, and hope we make it out of the area alive."
"If there are any vehicles down there," David wondered aloud largely rhetorically.
"How often have you used this thing?" Sheila asked, as she poked her head in and noticed no electronics inside. Basically it looked like a giant coffin as well.
"Never…except for the test run," Laura informed her as she wondered just what was going outside the room. There was a bank of monitors showing the external cameras that worked but nothing appeared out of the ordinary. The birds that had scattered during the initial tremor had since returned to roost.
"Which yours truly got suckered into participating," Lori glowered still angry over that.
"You're the Head of Production, you had to participate," Laura responded snarkily as she leaned against the wall and crossed her arms.
"Boy you sure do have the worst luck when it comes to testing technology," Sheila lightly joked trying to lighten the mood. Lori's look at her silenced that notion of it working.
"Luck has nothing to do with it…fate, maybe," she figured before throwing up her hands. "Look, do we really have to ride this thing out of here now?"
Laura and David held up their hands at a loss. "Emergency procedures say yes but it would take a long time to get back up here if we're wrong," Laura pointed out.
Silence then descended on the group and-unfortunate connotations aside-it was as quiet as a tomb.
*Ring, Ring, Ring*
The landline phone ringing breaking into their silence startled all of them and cause them to jump. Laura recovered her senses and immediately walked up to it with slight trepidation and concerned as she then slowly picked up the receiver.
"Hello, this is Dr. Laura Sorkin," she said into it, the experience being almost alien to her as she had not used a telephone in quite some time due to her self-imposed isolation. Talking to David rarely warranted any formalities.
"Yes, I'll hold," she acknowledged to the person on the other end.
It was so deftly silent in the room you could almost hear a pin drop.
"Oh, hi, Sam," said Laura next into the line. That the Head of Sorna was checking up on them was a relief to the group.
"No, whatever it was wasn't at the fortress. But we did get rocked pretty hard. We don't know what the hell happened," Sorkin told him at a loss. "But with the alarms and all we figured we should at least follow as much of the emergency procedures as we could. Do you want us to evacuate down the chute?"
Lori whispered a silent prayer for her preferred response.
"Alright, sounds good. We'll keep in-touch if anything changes then," said Laura about to hang up the phone as Lori gave a sigh of relief. "Huh? Oh we're all here except for Whitacre, Wu, and Stefrassa. We saw Stefrassa earlier but she said she had somewhere important to be that wasn't here. Well, it's not like I had any grounds for stopping her short of dragging her here. As for Whitacre and Wu, you know them, completely unphased in the face of danger. They're probably just hanging around somewhere…"
Rim of the Volcano: Henry was continuing to try and drag Jake up the volcano by his safety cord but was still having difficulty.
"This is what we get for not following Bobbie's instruction to go the gym more often," Jake quipped from down below.
"Are you trying to make me laugh and let go of the rope?" Henry demanded upset as he continued to tug little by little but it almost seemed like a losing battle.
All Jake could do was grunt below as he again tried his best to gain purchase to try and pull himself up. But the fall had taken a lot out of him and he was in quite a bit of pain.
"It would nice if we could get some help, but too bad nobody knows…," began Henry.
SKRRIITTTCHHHH!
All of a sudden Nicolette skidded to a halt next to him and grabbed ahold of the rope with her bare hands and began pulling on it.
"What in the hell are you doing here?!" demanded Henry as if he was more upset at being found out than having another body to help haul his fellow scientist to safety.
"Focus on that later, right now we need to get out-of-here," Nicolette replied curtly ready to pull.
"Hey, what's going on up there?" asked Jake having noticed he was being pulled out faster but that had since stopped. Henry regarded the new arrival a little with some distrust before grabbing hold again of the rope and after a few moments they had hauled Jake Whitacre to safety.
Jake rubbed his wrists before noticing Nicolette's raw palms and decided to keep his sarcastic quips about his condition to himself.
"Thanks," he said gratefully but also unsure what to make of her sudden appearance out here. Nicolette opened her mouth to say something but then slowly closed it as if she now seemed to be wrestling internally with something that she did not appear to be willing to divulge. So the scientist looked thoughtfully at the seeming serenity of the place despite his recent near death experience. Clouds were in the air, the sun was shining, the birds were chirping… The only thing really out-of-place was the excess of smoke rising from the far side of the volcano whose origin was out-of-sight down below.
"So what now?" he had to ask frustrated with everything that was going on, the Lockdown, the Lysine Contingency issues, why they were out here at the summit of a volcano, Nicolette's unannounced presence, everything.
"Can't it wait until we're indoors?" Henry had to ask feeling as if the mountain was a ticking time bomb ready to blow.
"It's as good a time as any," Jake disagreed as they were in a place where no one could really overhear. "It's not like we can let her in the same way we came. She'll have to walk around to the front entrance to get to the Chute."
Henry appeared concerned at that even though he too didn't want to let Nicolette into that room to get to the Chute. But on the other hand he didn't want her to die if it took her longer to get there by going the long way.
Nicolette meanwhile was still struggling with whatever it was she couldn't decide whether to say whatever it was that was on her mind.
"We can't just-," began Henry knowing it was a futile argument to be having as he threw up his arms. Jake just sighed in response as he was also not happy about that before turning back to the newcomer.
"Neither do I. But then at the risk of sounding cliché, Nicolette, give us one reason why we should trust-,"
And then at that same moment all of Nicolette's doubts and fears fell to the wayside as she decided upon what the correct course of action was for her next move. The entire future and safety of the island and everyone on it depended on what she said next and what the two other scientists response would be.
"Let. Them. Die,"
Time stopped.
Words. Three words only. Three words harboring both a deadly secret and a gnawing guilt that felt like it had lasted a lifetime. Three words whose revelation would potentially alter their entire situation going forward.
The woman's expression briefly dropped as she glanced away in a brief moment of shame before regaining her resolve and looking at the two thoughtfully. For the two scientists there was no sign of surprise or shock or dismay. Just silent recognition of a fact that had eluded them for so many years. Resignation just short of despair almost set in, but they too were professionals and put that thought behind them.
"So it was you," said Henry looked at her. He wished he had sympathy for her but after the ensuing events tied to those three words, sympathy was something the two-now three-of them did not deserved.
"You knew?" Nicolette had to wonder with a tip of her head. Jake and Henry shook their heads.
"No, not really. Except that aside from us you have been here the longest so we had our suspicions. But we always wondered if whomever sent that suggestion survived what happened. For Graves and the two of us we tried to put it far behind in the past. But it kept gnawing away at Muldoon and he always said that when Jurassic Park got fully on its feet he was going to find out who sent that message," Henry informed her. That gave another mild pang of guilt for Nicolette in regards to her now missing colleague whose death may have resulted from actions taken so long ago.
"What he hoped to gain by finding out, we don't know. But perhaps some sort of closure," Jake guessed not that any of that mattered now. That caused Nicolette's guilt to vanish and be replaced by a bark of a laugh.
"There will never be closure for what happened that evening. We're still dealing with those repercussions to this day. We wouldn't even be here if…,"
"Which is why only the future matters now," Jake agreed as he again focused on the current situation.
"So why are you helping us?" he had to ask. Nicolette had an agenda, she always did. And being read like an open book like this was not something she enjoyed.
"I am conducting an investigation of my own and I have exhausted just about everything I can uncover on my own without being discovered by those who might stop me. And so I find myself needing to turn to two people in particular for assistance and information," she said all matter-of-factly despite knowing her future was on the line. That was news to the two scientists as Nicolette really only turned to others if she was really at the end of her rope.
"Investigation into what?" Jake had to ask.
Nicolette didn't respond.
"Figures," said Henry rolling his eyes. That woman never changed.
"It's not as if you would tell me why you were out here," she challenged. An evil smirk cross Jake's face.
"You know blackmail won't work on us," he stated as if that were obvious.
"I know," the Head of Strategic Operations admitted, not sure where that fact would have helped or hurt her current situation. "Therefore I have prepared an olive branch in advance."
That really surprised the other two. "An olive branch? You? You never give information without demanding something in return," said Jake in disbelief at her actions. At the back of his mind he realized they had forgotten about the issues with Mt. Watson. Whatever might be going on was pennies compared to where this conversation was now going.
"I hope it will go to show how serious this entire situation is that we find ourselves in," Nicolette informed them.
"Then we're all ears," said Henry a little smugly as he crossed his arms eager to hear whatever Nicolette might have that could sway them.
"17," she said simply.
"What?" asked Jake a little confused but having a slight idea of what she was getting at.
"You were right. The cleanup team on Isla Nublar had 17 directives, not 16. One of them was completely off the books but only known to the groups who might encounter either eggs or juvenile dinosaurs on the island to destroy any they might encounter. Someone did not want word getting out about whether or not the creatures could breed," she told the duo of something she knew they desperately wanted to know.
"Authorized by whom?" said Jake demanded angrily the tension rising in his voice.
"I don't know," Nicolette began, though she had her suspicions. But suspicions were not enough to go on for what she was trying to find out. "Not conclusively. That is one of the many things I am trying to find out. The future and stability of this island both depends on what I am trying to uncover as well as what you find out about the variances regarding the dinosaurs' genetic code. That is why I need your help."
The two scientists barely gave a glance to each other to make their decision.
"Let's go," said Jake motioning to the building and the trio headed their together to a room marked: E.L.E. and a now much more uncertain future.