"Fury?" Bruce asked in astonishment.
"Excuse me?"
"Ah, Doctor Banner, let me introduce you to Mr. Ray Arnold. He is one of our computer specialists," Hammond said. "As you may have noticed there has been a glitch. Unfortunately, Dennis Nedry, one of our employees appears to have…tampered with our computer system."
He introduced Bruce to a man in a white lab coat who looked exactly like a young Director Fury. The man took a drag of his cigarette and looked at Bruce curiously as he shook Bruce's hand.
Not Fury then, Bruce decided as the man rattled off technical information about the disabled security system. Bruce's anxiety rose as it became clear security wouldn't magically start working anytime soon.
"John, I can't get Jurassic Park running again without Dennis Nedry," Mr. Arnold said.
Hammond's face fell and he turned to Muldoon with a grave expression. "Robert, I wonder if you would be good enough to take out a guest jeep and bring back my grandchildren," he said.
Muldoon nodded, efficiently moving around the room to gather supplies.
"I'll join you," Bruce said, pulling on a yellow rain jacket. Sooner than Bruce would have liked, he was following Muldoon outside. The two hopped into a jeep and sped toward the T-Rex paddock, Bruce's eyes peeled for movement. Steve warned him the T-Rex would be loose, but Bruce hadn't realized until they approached the vacant vehicle and damaged fences just how unsettling that thought would be.
Knowing there was something waiting in the dark, and unable to see it.
They skidded to a stop, and Bruce burst from the passenger seat. His flashlight slashed through the air from one spot to the next, pausing where the other car should have been.
"Tony! Steve!" Bruce yelled. "Natasha! Clint! Is anybody here?"
The flashlight beam caught on the debris of a wrecked building. A foot sticking out from under the rubble caught Bruce's attention as he drew closer, and Bruce blanched at the lack of an accompanying body.
"I think this is Gennaro," Muldoon muttered, his own flashlight glinting off a wristwatch several feet away.
An echoing roar sent a shiver down Bruce's spine. He backed away and moved his flashlight across the trees. "Is it ahead of us?"
"It could be anywhere," Muldoon said. "With the fences down, it can wander in and out of any paddock it likes."
A groan caught their attention. The debris shifted to their right. Bruce rushed over to find Tony slowly regaining consciousness. Bruce gently removed the remaining debris, revealing a tourniquet around Tony's leg. The ugly gash below it sluggishly oozed blood.
"We need to move him," Bruce said. "He can't walk on this leg."
The T-Rex suddenly roared again, the sound closer than it was before.
"Definitely, move him," Tony said, pushing himself upright. "I don't think I can take another dinosaur rodeo."
Between Bruce and Muldoon, they managed to get Tony situated in the back of the jeep.
"The jeep went over the wall," Tony gritted out. "You better check to make sure they're not there."
"Yeah, okay. Sit tight." Bruce said.
"Can't do anything else," Tony said. He tried to laugh, and it came out as a groan.
Bruce nodded and ran after Muldoon toward the T-Rex enclosure. Muldoon led them to a side entrance and the two raced along the wall back toward the damaged fence. Bruce felt fear pool in his stomach when he saw the flipped jeep and ran faster.
"Steve! Natasha! Clint!"
Except there was no one there.
Bruce's knees were shaky, shock threatening to cripple him on the spot. He nearly collapsed with relief when he saw three pairs of footprints walking away from the site.
"We've got to move," Muldoon urged as the snap of breaking branches grew louder.
The race back to the jeep seemed to take twice as long. Feet slipping in the mud, and out of breath, Bruce saw Tony frantically waving them down.
"Come on, come on! We've got to get out of here right now!" Tony yelled. "Go! We've got to go!"
They were too late.
The door had hardly closed behind Bruce when Muldoon floored the gas. The jeep rocketed forward just as T-Rex tore into the clearing.
Muldoon changed gears, pushing the vehicle harder.
The T-Rex was still gaining on them.
"Go faster!" Tony yelled.
Bruce swore as the dinosaur loomed over them. Tony's shoulder rammed into Bruce as Tony pushed himself roughly into the front seat, but Bruce was too focused on the low hanging tree sitting directly in their path to notice.
"Look out!" Bruce screamed.
The three of them ducked just in time for the branch to rip off the windshield. Glass rained down on them, the T-Rex suddenly level with the car.
The T-Rex rammed its leathery head against the side of the jeep, jolting them violently. It's angry roar drowned out their screams as they cowered away.
By some miracle, Tony managed to reach around and shift the car into a higher gear.
Maybe it was the higher speed. Maybe the T-Rex was tired from the sprint. Either way, the distance between the jeep and T-Rex finally increased until the dinosaur appeared to give up and sauntered away. They all breathed a sigh of relief.
"Thank god that is the last dinosaur I see," Tony muttered. He collapsed against the seat and exhaled sharply. "Good luck to you, Bruce, but I am done with Sharptooths."
Bruce tended to Tony's wounds as best as he could when they rejoined Hammond and Mr. Arnold at the visitor's center, placing a dressing and splint around Tony's injured leg before giving him a dose of morphine and letting him drift off into a medicated sleep. After several minutes of quiet discussion, they decided it would be best to get some sleep and reconvene early in the morning. It was too dangerous to send anyone out looking for the others, and the island was too big.
They bunkered down in different areas of the main computer room. Bruce had taken a chair next to Tony and tried to sleep, but anytime he started to drift off, his eyes began playing tricks on him. Shadows seemed to move in every corner of the room, jerking him awake, mind screaming that something had managed to get inside.
Except there was nothing there.
Bruce compensated for his lack of sleep by busying himself looking over Tony, confirming he was still asleep and comfortable.
The few times he was able to doze, he had nightmares about the T-Rex. Its head would loom menacingly over Bruce. Sometimes it would knock Bruce out of the vehicle, and Bruce would watch the others drive off without him. The T-Rex would crush him under a large scaly foot, pinning him in place, and blood would drip horrifyingly from its teeth.
Bruce always woke up before the actual eating part. And after the third time, he decided it was best if he just stayed awake. He watched the minutes tick by on the wall clock, praying that dawn would come soon and the day would pass quickly.
It was almost eight when the others started to move: first Muldoon, then Hammond. Mr. Arnold woke up soon after and immediately started fiddling with the computer systems, mumbling under his breath in frustration. Eventually, Tony propped himself up against several blankets and quietly watched the others argue.
Needing to do something with his hands, Bruce decided to change Tony's bandages. "Mr. Arnold could be Director Fury's twin, am I right?" Bruce said.
Tony blinked, tired eyes refocusing on the man in question and stared blankly. "Huh," he said. "I don't see the resemblance."
Bruce chuckled, thinking that Tony was making a joke, but the serious expression on Tony's face caught him off guard. "Are you serious?" Bruce stuttered. "He looks-"
"No, no, no, that's crazy! You're out of your mind," Mr. Arnold's raised voice interrupted their conversation. "We absolutely cannot shut down the entire system!"
"What would shutting down the system mean?" Bruce finished the wound dressing and turned his full attention to the others.
"We're talking about a calculated risk, which is about the only option left to us." Hammond said. "We will never find the command that Nedry used to disable security and communication. He's covered his tracks far too well. And I think it's obvious now that he's not coming back. So shutting down the entire system- "
"You can get somebody else, because I won't do it."
"Shutting down the system is the only way to wipe out everything that he did." Hammond paced around the room. "Now, as I understand it, all the systems will then come back on to their original start-up mode, correct?"
"Theoretically, yes. But we've never shut down the entire system before. It may not come back on at all."
"Is there anything you can do to get it back?" Bruce whispered to Tony while Hammond argued with Muldoon over a lysine contingency.
"If I had the time, sure." Tony replied. He winced and shifted position. "But that's not how this works, remember? We've got to let them disable the entire system."
"People are dying," Hammond appealed. His voice wavered; his gaze locked imploringly on Mr. Arnold as he limped over to stand in front of him. "Will you please shut down the system?"
Mr. Arnold took a long drag of his cigarette and nodded. Slowly, he grabbed a set of keys from the desk and headed over to the main controls. His hand hesitated before starting to turn off the switches. First the computers went black with a static hiss. Then the lights flickered off.
A resigned click sounded through the darkness, and the eerie beam of Muldoon's flashlight landed on Mr. Arnold's wary face.
"Hold onto your butts," Mr. Arnold said.
Everyone held their breath as Mr. Arnold flipped the main switch.
A small insistent beep chimed from the computer as Mr. Arnold walked over to examine it.
"It's okay. Look. See that?" he said. Mr. Arnold smiled in relief. "It's on. It worked."
"But everything's still off." Bruce stated.
"Maybe the shutdown tripped the circuit breakers. All we have to do is turn them back on, reboot a few systems…telephones, security doors, half a dozen others…but it worked," Mr. Arnold said confidently. "System's ready."
"Where are the breakers?" Muldoon asked.
"Maintenance shed, the other side of the compound." Mr. Arnold was already moving toward the door. "Three minutes, I can have the power back on in the entire park."
Bruce helped Tony to his feet and they walked to the more secure emergency bunker while Mr. Arnold packed supplies and left.
"You'd think knowing they're movie characters would make letting them die feel less conniving," Tony said. "I'll give it to whoever did this, they made it feel real."
"It doesn't feel good," Bruce agreed.
"It feels shitty, Bruce." They reached the emergency bunker and Tony settled down around several blueprints, thumbing through them idly. "You should take a seat and rest. You didn't sleep much and you're going to be doing a lot of running."
"How do you know I didn't sleep?"
Tony stared at Bruce, the dark smudges under Tony's eyes standing out. "Takes one to know one."
Bruce took a seat, his knee bouncing. He tried to meditate. He couldn't. His mind felt like it was simultaneously racing and obnoxiously empty. Frustrated at not being able to calm himself, Bruce realized with a pang that he felt unbalanced without the Hulk lurking and making noise in his head. Everything was disturbingly quiet.
"How long has it been?" Tony asked eventually.
"Twenty minutes," Muldoon replied.
"He should have been back by now," Bruce muttered. He looked to Hammond who had a sullen look on his face. "Something's wrong. Something's happened."
"This is just a delay," Hammond said.
"No, something's wrong," Bruce said. He swallowed hard and stood up, starting to pace. He reminded himself that Steve, Natasha, and Clint were still out in the park and that they were relying on him. "I'm going to go get the power back on."
"You can't just stroll down the road," Muldoon said, already heading for the weapon's cache. "I'm going with you."
Muldoon opened the cabinet and pulled out a shotgun, prepping it with a couple of rounds while Hammond busied himself grabbing blueprints for the power station. Hammond set them out next to Tony and tapped them nervously.
"Now, this isn't going to be like switching on the kitchen light, but I think I can follow this and talk you through it," Hammond said.
Tony pulled the blueprints closer to himself, ignoring Hammond's protests, and pointed to a shelf of walkie talkies. "No offense, Hammond, but this is my specialty. Hand me a walkie talkie, Bruce. I'll get you through this."
Bruce nodded, plucking two walkie talkies from the shelf, and handed one to Tony. They switched them to the same frequency, and with a short nod, Bruce followed Muldoon out of the emergency bunker.
Bruce's stomach dropped when they passed the raptor enclosure on their way to the power station and saw the stiff wire bars snapped and bent outward. Bruce knew it was going to happen, but seeing the broken cage and Muldoon's cautious, almost fearful, gaze as he examined their tracks that made Bruce's blood run cold.
They continued through the jungle, freezing at the sound of every branch breaking and every rustle of leaves. Bruce kept behind Muldoon, feeling exposed and inadequate. Even though he knew he shouldn't, Bruce breathed a sigh of relief when the shed came in view.
"We can make it to the shed," Bruce said.
"No, we can't." Muldoon's gaze fixed on a spot in the bushes, intense concentration written on his face. "We're being hunted."
"Oh, god."
"It's alright. Run. Towards the shed." Muldoon didn't move, but an excited gleam shined in his eyes. "I've got her."
Bruce didn't wait. He ran toward the shed as fast as he could, bolting through the open fence door, and not stopping until he was inside the shed and standing at the top of the stairs. He stood in the dark, his heart racing, and he felt utterly alone.
He didn't bother calling for Mr. Arnold.
The man wouldn't answer.
Bruce fumbled for the walkie talkie, and pulled on the associated headset with shaky hands. "Tony, I'm in."
"Great. Go down the stairs. At the bottom, look up and you're going to find a set of thick cables and pipes headed in the same direction," Tony's voice spoke over the line. "Those are the main cables. Follow them."
"Okay."
Bruce looked up and saw a set of thick black cables and pipes heading straight down a narrow walkway. A small fenced-in area with a fuse box labeled 'high voltage' came into view, and Bruce made a beeline for it. He opened the metal door and stared at the neat row of switches and priming system. "I'm here," Bruce said.
Hammond's voice replaced Tony's over the walkie talkie. "Bruce, you can't throw the main switch by hand. You've got to pump up the primer handle in order to get the charge. It's large, flat, and gray."
"Alright, I've got it." Bruce grabbed the primer handle, surprised by the force it took to push the handle up in order to charge it. He raised the lever four times until it clicked and seemed to lose tension. "It's charged. What next?"
"Under the words 'contact position,' there's a round, green button which says 'push to close.'" Hammond paused dramatically. "Push it."
Bruce did.
All of a sudden, the switch board came to life. A column of placards listing locations in the park illuminated, and next to them, a corresponding series of green buttons glowed brightly.
"The red buttons turn on the individual park systems," Hammond added. "Switch 'em on."
Bruce wasted no time opening the glass casing next to the first placard and hitting the red button, watching the placard light up red as the green button faded back into the darkness. Steadily working his way down the column, he felt a sense of dread rising as he approached the last button. The red which had initially filled him with a sense of hope, now felt dangerous and foreboding.
He paused when he reached the last switch, his hand hovering over the red button of the perimeter fence.
Tony and Steve warned him what would happen when he pressed the button. In the movie, Ellie pressing the switch had electrocuted Tim and stopped his heart. Steve had promised he would get Clint off the fence before that could happen. He said it was a minor plot point, it didn't have to happen, and he had spoken with such conviction that Bruce couldn't help believing him.
Except it was different now that he was in the room, staring at the red button which felt more like a kill switch than a safety measure.
"Bruce?" Tony's voice broke over the line again.
How important was the perimeter fence anyway? Surely, they had enough power to get the phones working and call in a helicopter.
"Bruce! Answer me!"
They didn't need the perimeter fence. Did they?