ISLA NUBLAR

120 Miles West of Costa Rica

The moon hung high in the night sky as the forklift began to lower the cage down to the ground, closer to the high-security enclosure.

Game Warden Conrart Weller prepared his shotgun as the cage was finally set onto the ground. "Get ready, men! Set your tasers to full charge. Remember, this creature is like nothing you've ever seen before. Don't let your guard down!"

"Don't hurt her too much!"

Conrart sighed as he heard the familiar voice, lowering down his shotgun to face the ground. "Julia, why are you here?"

Veterinarian Susannah Julia von Wincott pushed her glasses further up the bridge of her nose as she walked towards her long-time friend. "Why wouldn't I be here? As you know, I'm supposed to supervise the transfer of my patient into her new habitat and see to it that she does not become further injured in the process."

"Yes but, given the fact that this particular patient of yours was injured from killing six other of her kind, I'd believe that it'd be more prudent to put your safety as your first priority instead of supervising the transfer of a creature that has already shown signs of highly aggressive and violent behavior."

Julia raised an eyebrow at that. "It's because of the six deaths that I'm supposed to be here to supervise, Ms. Spitzweg very much wants to insure that my patient wouldn't be further injured in the transfer. It took about $16 million dollars to breed and raise just those six, she doesn't want to risk any more loss in investment."

Conrart snorted. "And what about worker safety? If your fiancé were here, he wouldn't have let you 60 feet anywhere near here."

"Adelbert is busy with establishing new security protocols for another enclosure. He's been locked up in the control room with Voltaire trying to inscribe the protocols into the main computer program since this afternoon."

Conrart rubbed the bridge of his nose as the back of his eyes began to ache. It was dangerous for Julia to be here, especially since it involved one of the more volatile creatures in the park. If Adelbert knew Julia was here, he'd rip his head off.

However, Julia was stubborn, especially when it came to any of her patients. Even if they were a vicious predator, Julia would still insist on staying by their side. Trying to get her to leave would be hassle given the tight time schedule he was on.

"Fine. But I want you to stay away from the cage, ok?"

Julia smiled as she clasped her hands together in glee. "Great!"

Conrart then turned to his men and spoke up. "Loading team, you're up!"

The team of six men grabbed the side handles of the cage and began to push it to the enclosure, only stopping when they heard the click of the cage connecting with the gate of the enclosure.

"Loading team, back up! Gatekeeper, proceed! Guards, begin surrounding the cage!"

Conrart then stalked to the other side of the cage where the side ladder was, making sure to keep his eye on the creature inside, watching it for any signs of erratic behavior.

The loading team backed away from the cage and allowed the eight guards to take up their positions around it. The gatekeeper went to the side ladder that Conrart was standing near and began to climb up onto the rooftop. He then went to the side of the cage that connected with the enclosure and began to pull up the gate.

While this happened, Julia brushed off the warnings that Conrart gave her and, instead, went closer to the place where the cage was connected with the enclosure. Since he was on the other side of where she was, she took the chance to further observe her patient up close.

The animal hissed and snarled as she stared at the people surrounding her temporary prison, her reptilian eyes scanning her environment before landing on her. There was an intelligence in her eyes as she gazed at her, a type of comprehension not commonly found in animals. She seemed to almost leer at her as she held her injured leg closer to her body, the bloody, inflamed gash on her thigh a stark contrast in color against her natural brown scales.

Conrart saw movement from the other side of the cage and almost mistook it for the creature inside if it wasn't for the flash of white that came into his line of sight. It was then that he realized that Julia had come closer to the cage despite his warnings. He growled to himself and began to walk angrily to Julia's side so he could pull her away from the danger she put herself in.

"Goddamn it, Julia- "

Before Conrart could make it to her side, the creature in the cage let out a terrible shriek and rammed itself at the slowly opening gate. This caused the cage to be shoved away from the enclosure and pushed back the guards surrounding the cage, causing them to fall onto the ground in disarray. The gatekeeper slipped off of the rooftop and screamed as he fell onto his ankle, shattering it into pieces.

More importantly, the shove also opened up a silver amount of open space between the enclosure and the cage, right in front of Julia.

Before anyone could react, the beast rushed forward to the small amount of open space and lunged towards Julia. She screamed as one of the beast's claw sunk into her chest, pulling her closer to the beast. Her other claw slashed across her face, knocking her glasses to the ground and sinking into her eyes, gouging them out violently and with a terrifying ruthlessness of a savage monster.

Conrart dropped his shotgun onto the ground and ran towards Julia, grabbing her firmly around the waist and trying to pull her away from the creature. However, the creature simply dug her claw deeper into Julia's chest in response while her other claw simply went from gouging out Julia's eyes to latching onto the back of her shoulder with her snout clamping onto her head, pulling her further back into the cage.

"Work her back!"

The six of the guards stood back up and began using their tasers to push back the beast towards the back of the cage as one of the guards dragged the screaming gatekeeper away from the ensuring chaos. Another guard dropped his taser and grabbed Conrart's shotgun, trying to aim at the snarling beast.

The sounds of screaming and animalistic hissing were loud in Conrart's ears as Julia kept flaying her arms around, making it harder for him to pull her back. His eyes were locked right onto the creature's bright, green gaze as his hands become wet with blood.

"Shoot her! Shoot her!"

Conrart stepped back onto Julia's glasses, crushing them beneath his heels just as her body began to jerkily stop moving, slowly slipping from his grasp. The sound of a gunshot echoed in the night as the creature let out one last haunting shriek.

BIELEFELDTECH HQ

Near Leipzig, Germany

Gunter von Christ stepped into the room and made his way to the only chair in front of the desk, not saying a word to the other occupant of the room as he sat down. He turned to stare at the other, knowing that they would become irritated enough to simply start up a conversation with him. The only sound in the room was the typing of the keyboard as he waited for his plan to come to fruition.

It took about three minutes before they spoke.

"What are you doing here, von Christ?"

Gunter merely smirked, waiting for the other person to face him instead of staring at the computer. Another tactic that he employed to frustrate the other, something he enjoyed doing whenever he had to engage with the problematic individual.

It took about another minute before they snapped.

With an aggravated sigh, Wolfram von Bielefeld turned to face him. "Well, what do I owe the pleasure of having the lawyer of Shin Mazoku International (SMI) here? Or are you here to simply waste my time?"

Gunter tsked. "Really, Bielefeld, it's a wonder that BielefeldTech still manages to be the top technological brand in the world with you as the CEO. You should learn some manners."

"If all you're going to do is criticize me in my office then get out."

Gunter rolled his eyes at the expected response before donning on a serious expression.

"There has been a death on Isla Nublar."

With those words, Wolfram's green eyes snapped straight to Gunter.

"What?"

"Ms. Spitzweg is currently with the family of the worker who died, settling the 20 million dollar lawsuit around the entire incident." Gunther began, "With the accident, the underwriters have raised some very serious safety questions about the park. Our investors are deeply concerned about it and they want to launch a serious investigation of the stability of the island. If the on-site inspection doesn't pass, then they'll pull the funding for everything."

Wolfram scoffed, not surprised at predicament. He's been telling the Board of Directors that this was a bad idea but do they listen, no! Still, at least they were finally seeing some sense now instead of keeping their heads up their asses. Soon they'll come to the eventual outcome that he had already reached a long time ago; the shutdown of this ridiculous flea circus.

"Can't you be serious for once, Bielefeld! Ms. Spitzweg is trying her best to open the park despite the threat of being closed down and all you can do is scoff at her troubles."

"I am serious. From the moment you've begin to work on this mad experiment, I've told you that it'll all go wrong. There's unpredictability in complex systems and this is perhaps the most complex system you've ever tried to recreate. You think you can control that, that you can predict what'll happen, but you can't. And now, someone is dead."

Gunter narrowed his eyes at him. "Don't think that just because you disagree with this project of ours that you're not involved in the situation that's brewing now."

"Oh, and how am I involved?" Wolfram crossed his hands in front of his chest, waiting to hear the pathetic excuse Gunter would make.

"Given how BielefeldTech is in a partnership with SMI for the creation of the park by supplying them with the latest security systems and supercomputers, the investors thought who better to conduct an evaluation of the park with me than a representative from the company itself? I asked Waltorana if he would give me someone for the inspection and he pointed me right in your direction."

"No."

"Yes."

Gunter relished the look of anger and frustration on his face. He knew that Wolfram couldn't simply decline the request to performing the inspection, especially given that it was Chairman of BielefeldTech who volunteered him for the job. Not to mention, as the son of the Chairman of SMI and the CEO of BielefeldTech, he's in the perfect position to judge the park given his familiarity with the concept and his own company's investment in it.

Wolfram grit his teeth in anger. Of course Waltorana would volunteer him for the on-site inspection. It was probably the only way he could push him to actually patch up his relationship with Cecilie after she basically abandoned him to build the goddamn park. This is what he gets for having such a meddlesome uncle, always trying to be helpful and fix things even if it wasn't any of his damn business.

"Are we the only ones doing the on-site inspection?"

Gunter shakes his head, "No, we'll be bringing in two experts to the island. If they sign off on the island, then the insurance men will back off."

Wolfram had an incredulous expression on his face. "Two experts? Who the hell could be experts for this?"

"Why, it'd be-"

BADLANDS

Near Snakewater, Montana

"Dad! Dad!"

Dr. Yuuri Shibuya wiped the sweat off his forehead and he carefully brushed dirt off the skull of the Deinonychus antirrhopus that they have just uncovered. It was almost mindboggling how long the skull was, with a length of 410 mm compared to the 25 cm length of their smaller cousin, the Velociraptor.

"Daddy!"

"Ow!"

Yuuri bent forward with the sudden weight on his back. He quickly put his hands on the floor to support himself and the person on his back. He turned his head to regard the person who jumped on him and felt himself smile as he realized who the person was.

"Greta! Really, you can't just jump on my back like that. You're not that small anymore."

Greta sheepishly smiled, "Sorry, Dad. But I kept calling you and you wouldn't respond!"

"And what exactly were you calling me for?"

At that, Greta's face lit up as she grabbed his hand and began dragging him into one of the main tent's on the dig site.

"Uncle Ken finally got the computer working! We can finally see the D-deinonychus skeleton."

Yuuri's eyes widened at the news in surprise before he began to run along with Greta to the tent.

"Really?!"

"Yes!"

Dr. Ken Murata turned around from the computer he was facing when he heard the tent flap rustle and smiled when he caught sight of the duo who had just rushed in. Yuuri was bent at his knees, trying to calm down his racing heart, while Greta tried to catch her breath from running under the blazing heat in the Badlands.

"Good job in dragging your old man down here, Greta."

Greta threw a thumbs up, "No problem!"

"I'm not old!" Yuuri protested.

Ken raised an eyebrow. "Uh huh. Anyways we're ready to try again."

"Great!"

Yuuri moved up right behind Ken's shoulder, waiting for an image to come on the computer screen.

Greta came up on Ken's other side, watching what was happening behind the computer. One of the dig sites volunteers loaded a lead bullet into a mechanical machine before blasting the bullet into the ground. Soon, the computer screen began flashing.

Yuuri frowned at the computer, "Did it work?"

Ken kept a close eye on the screen as he began typing on the keyboard. "You'll be getting a reading out of that."

"How long does it usually take?" Greta leaned a bit further to see what Ken was typing.

"Should bring immediate return. Shoot the radar into the ground, and the bone bounces the image-" Ken flicked a switch on the computer desktop. "-back. Bounces it back . . ."

Right after that, the computer screen shows the image of a completely intact Deinonychus skeleton.

"Amazing," Yuuri gazed at the skeleton with awe. "Look at the post-mortem contraction of the posterior neck ligaments here. This is definitely another Deinonychus here. Perhaps even on of the packmates of the Deinonychus skull we found earlier."

"Yes. It's in good shape as well. Almost eleven feet in length." Ken added on.

"And look at this extraordinary-" Yuuri lightly touched the screen causing the image to flicker.

"What'd you do?"

Ken tried to bring the image of the skeleton back but the screen kept flickering.

Greta giggled, "Dad's not machine compatible. Computers hate him."

Yuuri grumbled as he raised his hand away from the screen, "The feeling's mutual."

Ken typed a couple of things into the computer before the image was displayed once more.

"Got it back. Now, Shibuya, I hope you won't touch it again."

"I won't, I won't!" Yuuri pouted, it wasn't his fault that computers had got it in for him.

Greta giggled at the face her dad made. Despite being in his thirties, Yuuri was surprisingly childish. It was one of the reasons why Greta enjoyed staying with him when her mom dropped her off for visitation. He always managed to make digging in the dirt for dinosaurs such fun.

"Anyways," Yuuri gave a quick smile at Greta before focusing his attention back onto the screen. "Check out the half-moon shaped bones in the wrists and the retroverted pubic bones, not to mention the tail vertebrae. It seems to have a series of ossified tendons and super-elongated bone processes."

Ken kept his eyes on the image but spoke directly to Yuuri. "Those features make the tail into a stiff counterbalance, correct?"

"Yes, in fact, it closely resembles the fossil of the related Velociraptor mongolirnsis. See, it has an articulated tail skeleton that is curved laterally in a long S-shape. This means that the tail could bend to the sides with a high degree of flexibility."

"What about the vertebrae, it has hollows and air sack. This gives a lot of credence to the fact that dinosaurs and modern-day birds are related."

"It does, doesn't it? The small body, sleek, horizontal posture, ratite-like spine, and enlarged raptorial claws on the feet does share a striking similarity to bird anatomy. If this active, agile predator was the ancestor of modern-day birds than that means that they might've been warm-blooded."

"Then that could possibly-" Before Ken could even finish what he was saying, he was interrupted by another person.

"That basically means that they're giant turkeys, right? That's doesn't seem scary, more like lame."

Yuuri looked behind and blinked, a little shocked at the laughing crowd that had somehow gathered in the tent with him being none the wiser. He then turned to face the person who spoke and raised an eyebrow. It was Brandon, one of the kid volunteers who are only staying at the dig site for the summer. And, with the way he was glancing at Greta with blushing cheeks, he had a pretty good idea on why he spoke up.

Still, disrespecting his work like that and being infatuated with his daughter to boot, this guy definitely needs to be taught a lesson. And Yuuri had the perfect idea, too!

"A turkey, huh?"

Ken snorted, eyeing the sly grin on Yuuri's face. This ought to be good.

"Okay then. How about this, imagine yourself in the Cretaceous period. You get your first look at this 'giant turkey' as you enter a clearing. He moves like a bird, lightly, bobbing his head- and you keep still 'cause you think that maybe he'll lose you if you don't move -but no, not the Deinonychus. You stare at him, and he just stares right back. And that's when the attack comes not from the front, but from the side," Yuuri swings his fingers right in front of Brandon's face, smirking as his eyes go crisscross as it follows them.

Ken smothers a chuckle at the reaction, he knew that soon Yuuri would be picking up his game and he couldn't wait.

"From the other two creatures, you didn't even know were there. Because Deinonychus' are pack hunters, they used coordinated attack patterns to hunt their prey and you, my small friend, are on their lunch menu. And so he slashes at you with this," at that, Yuuri pulls out a stone replica of a raptor claw that he carried with him since his first dig site.

Brandon's eyes grow large with shock as he stares at the huge claw and he takes a step back in unease.

"A six-inch, retractable claw. He doesn't bother to bite your jugular like a lion, say, no, no. He slashes at you here!" Yuuri then pretends to slash the boy's mid-torso, "or here." He then pretends to slash the boy's groin.

Greta shakes her head in disappointment as she watches her dad terrorize a kid for fun, "Dad . . ."

"Or maybe across the belly, spilling your intestines. The point is, you are alive, when they start to eat you. So ya know, try to show a little respect."

"Okay." Brandon then turns to the crowd, glassy eyed and terrified of the imaginary situation he was involved in.

Yuuri smirked in satisfaction.

Notes:

~ Having Julia's eyes gouged out was a reference to her canonical blindness.
~ Yuuri, Ken, and Wolfram are in their 30s
~ Conrart, Adelbert, and Julia are in their 40s
~ Cecilie and Gunter are in their 50s
~ Greta is 10 years old