Ch 4:

Sierra had always had the habit of "falling down the rabbit hole". Especially when it came to researching stuff that she found interesting. Owen always complained that she couldn't do that with certain school subjects as a teenager. But if it was boring, like math, of course she couldn't spending hours researching it without falling asleep.

Anyway, falling down the rabbit hole is what lead to Sierra looking up from her laptop to find herself alone in the dark living room. A small light in the window lead her to look outside, finding everyone gathered around a bonfire. Wrapping her worn blanket around her shoulders, Sierra grabbed her laptop and went outside, closing the front door behind her.

"Well, look who decided to show up." Owen joked. "We were making bets on how long it would take you to notice we all left. How long was it?" he asked Zach, who sat one log over.

Zach shook his sweatshirt sleeve back to look at his wrist. "Two hours and…twenty-eight minutes. So, you won Owen."

"Called it." Owen smirked. Sierra stuck her tongue out, sitting on the log next to Zach. Maisie was sharing a log with Owen, and Claire was sitting on a lawn chair next to Owen. "So, what did you find in your deep, dark rabbit hole?"

"Well, I obviously can't confirm anything, just a bunch of theories." Sierra pointed out.

"Do you think one of the raptors changed genders? Like in the first park?" Maisie asked eagerly.

"I don't think so." Sierra answered hesitantly. "None of them looked any different, granted I didn't exactly get the chance to look between their legs." she added wryly. "But the scientists learned from that experience and made sure that couldn't happen again. They made sure to use the DNA of animals that didn't have that ability."

"So, then how did they end up with two babies?" Zach asked before taking a sip of beer, passing a mug of hot chocolate to Sierra.

"I actually think I found a decent theory." Sierra answered, clicking one of the many open tabs on her computer where it sat on her lap. "Parthenogenesis. Otherwise known as asexual reproduction."

"And in English?" Zach urged.

"The ability to fertilize an egg without sperm. Basically, the ability for a female to reproduce on her own without a male."

There was a long silence where, if it weren't late winter, Sierra was sure she'd hear crickets.

"Wait, so your saying Blue, and probably one of the others, had a baby by herself." Claire specified.

"It looks like it." Sierra agreed. "With Blue's baby, she looks almost identical to Blue. The only thing I noticed was that her stripes weren't the exact shade of blue. They were more of a teal. Which I figure could be because of the blood transfusion we had to give Blue. I mean, between Delta being teal and Charlie being green, that could have some effect on Blue's baby not looking identical to her. It might not have changed Blue's DNA a lot, but it could possibly have some minor effects on her offspring."

"Okay, so asexual reproduction. Is there something in Blue's DNA that would give her that ability?" Owen asked, elbows propped on his knees.

"Yes, there is, actually. Her monitor lizard DNA. There are cases of monitor lizards being able to reproduce asexually, without a mate, basically creating almost a clone of themselves. That has to be how Blue was capable."

"What about the other one?" Claire asked. "Maisie and Owen said they couldn't get a good enough look at the other baby to be able to tell whose it was."

"Ah, that one I fell down a whole other rabbit hole." Sierra admitted, pulling up another tab on her screen. "So, I got a decent look at the other baby. It's definitely not an exact replica of any of the raptors, but aside from a few traits, it looked like Delta."

Owen's brow furrowed in confusion. "How? I could see Charlie because she has green iguana DNA, but all we know of Delta's is that she has bird DNA. Birds can't reproduce asexually."

Sierra silently raised her brows and smiled somewhat smugly, earning a baffled look from her brother, and the others when they caught on.

"They can?!" Owen exclaimed in shock.

"Well, it's very rare, but there are recorded cases of birds reproducing asexually. So, theoretically, yes Delta is capable of it."

"So, if they're all capable, why are there only two?" Zach asked curiously. "Why didn't Charlie, or…why are there only two?" Sierra ignored that Zach had clearly been about to mention Echo. She was trying not to think about the fact that one of the raptors had been missing that evening.

"I have a few theories on that, too."

"What don't you have any theories on?" Owen joked.

"Your lack of brain cells." Sierra answered without looking up from her computer. Maisie giggled and Zach covered a laugh with a cough.

"So, I looked up the breeding behavior of different pack animals. I mostly focused on wolves, chimpanzees, and the Harris' Hawk, the only known raptor to work in packs. One thing that stuck out was with wolf packs. In most cases, only the alpha pair will breed in wolf packs. The only reason other pack members are allowed to breed is maybe because the alpha pair isn't as dominant, or if there's plenty of food. So basically, if there's a famine or food shortage, most of the pack won't breed. They won't want to have multiple litters if there's not enough food to feed them."

"Well, Blue's obviously the most dominant, as the pack's Beta. And you've always said Delta was basically her second in command as the biggest and strongest raptor, even with her leg injury." Claire pointed out.

"I also noticed Charlie's behavior earlier." Sierra added. "While Blue and Delta were focused on us, the babies went right to Charlie. Like in wolf packs, usually the younger, less dominant adults are basically babysitters. So, Blue and Delta basically sent the babies to Charlie while they focused on protecting the pack."

"So, she's like the fun aunt." Maisie joked.

"Pretty much." Sierra agreed with a grin.

"Okay, so, why does Delta's offspring look so different?" Owen asked.

"This is where it gets interesting." Sierra grinned. "So, I found this article about how gender is determined in parthenogenetic offspring. It's determined in the same way as with the actual species. For creatures with XX and XY chromosomes like insects, fish, and reptiles, the female can only produce offspring with the chromosomes she has. Females have XX chromosomes, so she can't pass on a Y chromosome to her offspring. So, she can only have female offspring."

"Makes sense." Owen nodded.

"However, bird chromosomes are the opposite. Birds have ZZ and ZW chromosomes, where the male is ZZ and the female is ZW. So, the female could pass on both Z and W chromosomes to produce a female, but she could also pass on two Z chromosomes and produce a male."

There was another long silence as everyone let that sink in.

"So, let me get this straight." Owen finally spoke up, his elbows on his knees and hands folded in front of his face. "Not only does Delta's bird DNA enable her to reproduce alone, it also allows her to have a male, a son."

"Essentially, yes. And I'm not done yet." she added in a singsong voice. Claire playfully groaned.

"Of course, you're not. Because you haven't blown our minds yet." the redhead joked.

"Okay, so I'm the only one who got a good look at Delta's baby. But he basically looked just like Delta as a baby, but he had little quills or something sticking out of the back of his head. And he had stripes like Blue, going from his eyes to his tail. Except his stripes were white."

"Okay." Owen nodded, probably wondering where this was going.

"Kinda like this." Sierra pulled up a photo and passed her laptop down. Zach took it and passed it to Maisie, who also passed it to Owen. Claire leaned over so she wasn't the only person left out.

The computer screen showed an old file photo of a velociraptor. Only this one had the same nodules on it's face that Delta did, and it had quills on the back of it's head, colorful red and yellow spots, and white stripes down it's sides from the eyes to the tail tip.

"Wait, isn't this the second variation of the raptors?" Owen guessed, recognizing the photo.

"Yep."

"Wait, second variation? What does that mean?" Zach asked.

"Well, you know how there were two islands back in the day? Isla Nublar, and Isla Sorna? Well, there were a couple different variants of the raptors between the two islands. There was one pack on Isla Sorna that was more colorful than the other packs, and they had those little nodules on their noses. And the males had quills on their heads and stripes. Like a lot of animal species, the males of that pack were generally more colorful and impressive."

"Okay, so it looks like how you described Delta's offspring. But…where are you going with this?" Claire asked. "Most of those raptors were destroyed before Jurassic World opened."

"Technically, yes." Sierra nodded, looking at her brother.

"Sierra and I always had a theory that they used DNA from these raptors when they made Delta." Owen explained. "Because of her having the same bumps on her nose, as well as her bigger size and generally more aggressive nature. And her offspring seems to confirm that. If how you described him is accurate," he added to Sierra, "it seems he's taken after these raptors."

"This is a whole new beginning for them." Claire noted quietly. "If most of the pack has the ability to reproduce alone, that in itself gives them the ability to grow their species. But on top of that, Delta can give the pack males. That gives them the chance to add more genetic diversity in later generations. Like, Delta's son could breed with Blue's daughter in a few years or so. That would add a whole new genetic combination."

"But we have to protect them to give them that chance." Sierra pointed out.

"Sierra's right." Owen agreed. "If the wrong people find out the pack is here, and that they have babies, they might try and take the babies. Wu's people didn't want to kill Blue because of how important her DNA is. But if she now has a genetically identical infant, they might just take out the adults and grab the babies. We can't let that happen."

Sierra saw Claire glance at Maisie. "But we can't stay here much longer, either. If people are onto us, we might need to leave anyway. How are we supposed to leave with a whole pack of raptors?"

Owen took a deep breath, looking over at Zach. "Would you be willing to help?" he asked. "I don't want to drag you into this anymore than you already have been. I don't know what our first step is going to be, but we could use any help we can get."

"After all this, you think I'm bailing?" Zach asked rhetorically. "Whatever you need, just let me know."

"Thank you, Zach. You don't have to do this." Claire told her nephew, the light from the fire highlighting her worried expression.

"Hey, you're all family. And I came this far. Go big or go home, right?" Zach shrugged, grinning.

Owen offered his hand, shaking Zach's in response.

"Well, it's late, and we have a lot of planning tomorrow." Claire decided, standing up and wrapping her blanket more tightly around her shoulders. "I'll set up the couch for you, Zach."

"Thanks, Aunt Claire." Zach stood, too.

Sierra looked over and met Owen's eyes. He glanced pointedly toward Maisie before nodding toward the cabin. Sierra nodded, understanding he was going to try and talk to Maisie about going into town.

"I'll help you, Claire." Sierra decided, standing up and following Claire and Zach into the cabin. She was sure Owen's conversation with Maisie wouldn't go over too well. But maybe after her talk earlier with the teen, Maisie would be more open to listening.

AN: Sorry this was mostly a filler chapter, but it had a lot of info. Sierra basically did what I did when researching for this story: fall down the rabbit hole. Finding a website that explained that some birds not only could potentially reproduce asexually, but have male offspring, is what made me decide to have Delta reproduce over Charlie or Echo. Charlie would also be able to, because of her green iguana DNA. I don't think there was any confirmation on what DNA was used for Echo, but I think I read somewhere that some people think she has snake DNA.

Anyway, let me know what you all thought of this little plot twist!