Notes
Hypothetical casting:
Characters introduced in the previous story:
Tom McBeath as Dominick Silverman.
New characters:
Jerome Flynn as Lord Francis Clayton
Kyra Zagorsky as Maya Harris
Soundtrack suggestions:
In the manor's entrance hall:
- Theropod Preservation Society - Michael Giacchino, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (from 01:50 to 02:20).
The reception:
- Gossamer Tennis - Abel Korzeniowski, Penny Dreadful: Season 2.
- Explorer's club - Abel Korzeniowski, Penny Dreadful: Season 3.
- Civilization - Basil Poledouris, Jungle Book.
-o-
Leaving Sigurd with Cait, Claire and Owen set out on the morning of the 23rd and drove for long hours northwest, leaving the snow-capped mountains and forests of the Sierra Nevada for the coast, and they only reached Humboldt County, the shores of the Pacific and then the very gates of Redwood National Park late in the afternoon.
Entering their motel room in Orick, a town populated by only a few hundred souls, they put their suitcase on the bed and put out their clothes for the evening: A tuxedo and pants for Owen, a long purple dress with a high neckline and long white cloth gloves for Claire.
"I look like a bloody penguin," the keeper grumbled when he finished buttoning his tuxedo.
He was in the bathroom, looking at himself in the mirror above the sink. He brought a hand to his face, stroking his beard, which Claire had trimmed the night before after she insisted, then gathered his hair into a bun. He had never been so neat and tidy and it was making him nervous.
Being ready, he came out of the bathroom and saw that his girlfriend was standing by the bed in her underwear and was about to put on her dress.
"Well, hello worries when the cyclops has to proceed to some check-up," he murmured while looking at her.
"He'll have to be patient for a few more hours," she replied with a smirk as she pulled up her dress. "It would be silly if you got those pants dirty right before going to the reception..."
She put high heels on her feet and then went to the bathroom with her cloth gloves and a small bag. She put it on the chest of drawers and took out her half-mask and a silicone glove which imitated a forearm. She turned to the mirror, wincing at the sight of her gash as always, and put the half-mask over the disfigured part of her face, securing it under her bun with a small strap.
People are right, I really look like the Phantom of the Opera, she thought, looking at herself in the mirror.
She put on some makeup, put the silicone glove over her prosthesis and the two cloth gloves on her forearms before returning to the bedroom once she was ready.
"How do I look?" she asked Owen.
"Oh là là ! Ma chérie, tu es magnifique !" He said, speaking in French with an Iberian accent a little bit exaggerated, certainly stupid but which made her giggle each time.
She joined him and with her heels hidden under her dress, Claire appeared taller than she was, which was not to displease her boyfriend, who thought she was more regal-looking that way. He grabbed Claire's coat and helped her put it on out of gallantry.
"I would have liked to review some dance steps with you but I don't know if we can dance at this reception and even if it's the case, I don't think I will," she said.
"I wasn't too bad at that masked ball at the palace (1) five years ago," he replied casually as he opened the room's door.
They got out, he closed behind them, and they headed to their car parked a few meters away.
"Oh I remember, I had to go out of my way to keep you from looking ridiculous," she reminded him.
Eight kilometres south of Orick, the main entrance of the Lockwood Estate was a massive wrought-iron gate adorned with the crest of the Lockwood family and built within the great stone wall that bounded the estate at this level.
The couple showed up shortly after 6:30 p.m. and the security guards at the gate checked their invitations before letting them through and they took the road to the manor itself, built on a wooded plateau that overlooked U.S. Route 101 and the two lagoons the latter passed by.
After the winding and fairly steep ascent of the escarpment, the road finally flattened and turning right at an intersection, the couple saw the imposing manor and its many lights, at the very end of a long gravel-covered driveway. As they crossed a stone bridge which spanned a ravine at the bottom of which flowed a stream, Owen noticed that the building had a Victorian and Gothic style.
"What's in there? Nosferatu?" He wondered aloud.
Beyond the bridge, the driveway crossed a large lawn dotted with a few sculptures and it joined the large gravelled area which served as the main car park, extending to the base of the entrance facade as well as part of the wing right of it.
The couple parked their vehicle alongside those already there and took the grand winding staircase up to the front door, making them pass between the two statues of sitting lions that decorated it.
Under the watchful eye of the guard posted near the door, the couple rang and a houseboy opened the door for them.
"Mrs Dearing. Mr. Grady," he greeted them politely. "Please come in."
"Thank you," Claire replied.
They walked into the entrance hall and he closed behind them. A young housemaid came to them.
"Mr. Mills should be here soon. Let us take your coats," the houseboy suggested.
They agreed, handing their coats to the housemaid, and she disappeared in a hallway with them.
The entrance hall was a richly decorated room, with a wooden staircase leading up to the first floor and walls decorated with portraits. Straight ahead, an archway opened into Benjamin Lockwood's private museum, at the very heart of the manor. The couple noticed that many of the reception guests were there and noise was also coming from a hallway to their right, the one that led to the large lounge in the southern wing.
Claire's eyes ended up drawn to a large glass frame hanging on one of the walls and which contained several photographs.
In the one placed in the middle of the frame, she saw a group of men and women, and judging by their clothing and the picture's grain, she knew that it had been taken several decades earlier, probably in the seventies and reading the legend confirmed her supposition. The photo was taken in 1975, the year InGen was founded, and in the background, Claire saw the iconic blue and white letters of InGen's logo. She recognized several persons in the photo.
In the centre of the group, stood a middle-aged white-clad man and he wasn't very tall, quite small even, and slightly chubby. To the left of this man, who was none other than John Hammond, she saw a fortyish Indian man who seemed to be almost the spitting image of Simon Masrani, although with broader shoulders and a thicker moustache. Claire knew that he was Sanjay Masrani, the founder of the conglomerate that later became Masrani Global, and she saw that he had his hands resting on the shoulders of a boy of about five or six who stood in front of him, his son Simon. Standing behind Sanjay Masrani and John Hammond was a young man of about twenty, with very short hair and glasses, Peter Ludlow, Hammond's nephew. To the right of InGen's founder, stood a tall, athletic thirtyish man in a black suit, with an angular jawline and a beardless face, Benjamin Lockwood. To Lockwood's left, stood a blonde woman of a similar age, dressed in a business suit and rather attractive, Susan Lynton. Claire noted that she was standing very close to Lockwood, almost huddling against him.
Claire's gaze drifted to other photos. In one, taken a few years after the first, Hammond was seen having a warm handshake with a man in his early sixties, Doctor Norman Atherton, while Lockwood, who stood behind Hammond, was smiling and looking at a slender young woman with chestnut hair behind Atherton.
Claire turned her head to look at what Owen was doing. He was a few steps away from her, standing in front of a display case and observing what at first appeared to be a large elephant figurine. Actually, it was a stuffed individual, something which had surprised quite a number of people since it had the size of a big domestic cat. Anyone well-versed in InGen's history knew that this miniature elephant was one of the first, if not the first, of the corporation's creations.
"Ah, you're here," a male voice said.
The couple turned to the voice's source and saw a tall thirtyish man in a suit walking towards them.
"Good evening, I'm Eli Mills, Benjamin Lockwood's aide," he introduced himself as he shook hands with them. "I wanted to welcome you personally. How long has it been, Claire? Six or seven years? Maybe you don't remember..."
"That fundraiser?" I remember," Claire answered. "Don't you manage Mr. Lockwood's foundation...
"…since I graduated," he finished. "You remembered it."
"Indeed."
"Cool," the aide said. "He wanted someone who could bring youth and dynamism to his foundation."
Owen chuckled, to avoid letting out a raucous laughter at the pronunciation of the words youth and dynamism, which had reminded him of what Barry, his French colleague at Jurassic World, was saying about his country's new president. Like Emmanuel Macron or Elon Musk, this Eli Mills, brown-haired, fit, attractive, with an impeccable smile and an affable attitude, at least in public, seemed to conform to the very archetype of the young and dynamic businessman which appeared in advertisements and other marketing products, a type of men who deeply bored Owen and in whom he had no trust.
Elijah invited the couple to follow him towards the museum.
"Mr. Lockwood is busy right now, but don't worry, you didn't come here just to sip cocktails and nibble on appetizers. The trip you made is worth it, trust me. I have to leave you for a moment as I've small matters to attend to. But I'll fetch you as soon as he is ready to receive you. Enjoy the reception in the meantime."
The manager of the Lockwood Foundation left them at the museum's entrance and disappeared from their sight among the guests. Owen scanned the museum and its exhibits and whistled in admiration.
"That's quite a collection..."
The museum was a large rectangular hall, topped by a glass roof and overlooked by a mezzanine which described a U oriented towards the eastern end of the hall, the one opposite the entrance. At the level of this mezzanine, was the manor's library, with shelves full of books and reading spaces with small coffee tables, armchairs and even sofas. This library could be accessed from the museum thanks to two spiral staircases in the western part of the room.
Several replica skeletons were spread throughout the museum and smaller replicas or fossils were also displayed in cases along the walls, mostly on the entrance side and at the back of the hall on either side of a recess.
Six glazed dioramas, three on the northern side and three on the southern side, completed the exhibition and were occupied by life-size reproductions of various prehistoric animals, similar to those which populated those Prehistoric theme parks with life-sized sculptures of animals, which became considerably rarer after the San Diego incident in addition of being now hardly more frequented than parks filled with works of contemporary art.
The couple began their visit of the museum, with Claire turning to their left, taking Owen by the arm, in order to stay in the part covered by the mezzanine at first, making them progress in a clockwise direction. She walked with Owen to her right and kept her face directed towards the display cases and the exhibits along the wall as well as the dioramas. From behind, she was just another woman in the eyes of the other guests and the combination of the cloth glove and the silicone one hid her prosthesis. Thus, she hoped to remain discreet and to not attract too much attention.
When they passed by one of the spiral staircases and reached the second diorama along their route, which depicted an adult Dilophosaurus emerging from an undergrowth with its jaws wide open in order to grab a small prosauropod which had been distracted by a rather cute young dilophosaur, a waiter carrying a tray of champagne flutes came to meet the couple, skirting a Teratophoneus (2)'skeleton on the way.
"Champagne?" he offered.
"Yes please," Claire replied, taking a flute.
Owen also picked up a flute, thanked the waiter, and the latter went to serve other guests, letting the couple continue under the mezzanine.
By the large horned skull of an Agujaceratops which stood near the centre of the hall, a copious buffet had been set up on several tables covered with a white tablecloth and arranged in such a way as to form a U around the skull's pedestal. One of the guests, who was serving himself, hailed another:
"Mr. Rugy? There is some lobster over here. It's excellent, you should have some."
The hailed guest then ran to the plate of lobsters and Owen looked at this scene with disdain.
"Well, it's not a crisis for everyone," he commented, seeing the evening's pomp.
"Lockwood was indeed CEO of InGen, but his foundation is an independent entity, although the two have close ties. Thus, it wasn't significantly impacted by the Fall," Claire explained to him.
He came to wonder how the estate and the foundation were financed, then he remembered that he had seen a large marquee when they had parked and deduced that the estate made money by hosting various events such as business meetings or weddings, not to mention the profits of the hotel activity, as the manor rented out some of its rooms.
They passed between the third diorama and a hadrosaur skeleton and got out of the area covered by the long mezzanine on this side of the hall, arriving at a wide and tall window that looked out into the woods on the outside of the manor.
A few meters away, a tall fiftyish man with slicked back dark hair was looking at a large model of the city of Burroughs and its Lagoon, which stood halfway between the Agujaceratops' skull and the recess at the back of the museum.
The man turned his head to his left and saw the couple standing by the window. Although they showed him their backs, he recognized Claire's figure and hairs and he covered the distance between them. He gently patted the former director of Jurassic World on the shoulder and she, fearing some harassment, turned around quickly but relaxed when she saw the long face, the thin moustache and the blue eyes of the man who was looking at her.
"Well Claire, why didn't you said hello to an old friend?" he asked her, speaking with a West Country (3) accent.
"Lor... Francis!" She exclaimed, pleasantly surprised.
They hugged and she introduced the Englishman to Owen.
"Owen, this is Lord Francis Clayton, CEO of Clayton's Beverages and one of Jurassic World's former patrons."
The two men exchanged a handshake.
"Lord Clayton…" the keeper repeated. "Aren't you the owner of Lofting Wild Animal Park, one of Britain's largest zoos? If I'm not mistaken, you bought some animals from InGen and Jurassic World a few years ago."
"Indeed. Mainly small species and herbivores. It's a pleasure to finally meet you Mr. Grady, Claire told me a lot about you and the IBRIS program back then."
"I received your letter by the way," Claire told him, "and thank you for writing to me. I am sincerely sorry for not having replied to you."
"No worries," replied the aristocrat. "Arnold and I were very worried when we learned about what happened on Isla Nublar. It was really dreadful."
"Had I listened to Arnold, I wouldn't be here...," she lamented. "All the anger he might have against me is justified I'm afraid."
"Oh, don't torture yourself too much. He may be resentful, but that resentment is similar to that a loving father might feel toward a daughter who put herself in trouble despite his advice. He is aware more than anyone that being director of Jurassic World was tantamount to developing in a nest of vipers."
"How is he?" the former park director asked.
"Oh, that old boar is doing alright, be sure of that, though his retirement in Yorkshire must not be as exciting as his years in Kenya and then on Nublar. We sometimes talk about the good old days and of the moments the three of us shared. You remember that trip to San Jose and when we went to the Mariposa?"
"The Mariposa? But isn't it a...," Owen began.
"Yes, yes, a brothel," Lord Clayton confirmed, "but a very respectable establishment. You should have seen us, Arnold, me and Claire, each taken by a lovely fille de joie for a night of pleasures…. Not in the same room, Owen, be reassured" he added after seeing the keeper starting to be uncomfortable.
Owen's eyes widened and looked at Claire strangely for a moment, then he seemed to relax and the expression he had was that of someone disappointed that he had not been told of a funny and juicy anecdote sooner, and not that of a man who had the unpleasant surprise to learn that his girlfriend had once particular habits.
"I especially remember of your daughter bursting into your room and then yelling, telling you to hurry up because you were late for your flight, and you leaving the room almost naked, dressing up and walking at the same time while Arnold and the prostitutes laughed and the madam looked at the scene with a jaded look," Claire recounted.
"Don't be too witty, Claire. At that moment, you were standing in the doorway of your bedroom, with a huge hangover and so unkempt that if a draft a little too strong blew, your blouse would have flown and fully revealed your bust to all those standing in the hallway."
She and Lord Clayton laughed and told Owen about other episodes they had shared.
Guillaume Vuillier had arrived at the manor shortly before the couple and was then in the lounge, which was as vast as or even larger than the entirety of his apartment in San Francisco. It was lavish, with several sofas and armchairs, paintings hanging on the wall, and even an imposing old grandfather clock that reminded the Frenchman of the Comtoise clock his grandparents had in their house, somewhere in the Dombes (4).
He had just spoken with Fay Delgado, Senator of California, about the Senate's decision. Delgado was among those who voted to let InGen resume its operation and Guillaume had inquired about her reasons, listening intently and politely but cautiously. During this conversation, he had also learned that she knew Benjamin Lockwood and had met him several times in the past.
Aside from the senator and the director of the World De-extinction Monitoring Center, there were also, among others, representatives of Japanese investment consortia that have been partners of InGen since its very beginning, as well as various InGen executives. At the other end of the lounge, he saw Susan Lynton, Alistair Iger, and a rather short bespectacled and plump septuagenarian with a balding head. He knew that man was Dominick Silverman, InGen's chief financial officer, and Guillaume Vuillier, who didn't want to speak to InGen's management, at least not for the moment, headed for the museum, of which he had only seen a part.
Elijah Mills entered the lounge at the same time, greeting the mayor of Orick as he passed by. The manager of the Lockwood foundation was accompanied by another man. The latter had blond hair, was older, shorter and also uglier, with a face similar to that of an English Bulldog.
Guillaume Vuillier stopped, pretended to be interested in one of the paintings and discreetly followed the two men with his eyes. They went to join InGen's management, with Elijah seeming to be introducing them to the other man, but Guillaume was too far away and the reception too loud for him to hear their conversation.
He left the lounge by its eastern entrance and took the hallway that connected the lounge to the museum. Once in the museum, he turned left, planning to do a complete tour of the museum. The first diorama along his path depicted a Homotherium prowling through a snowy set. Looking more closely at the background, Guillaume saw a campfire, painted on the back wall, and the feline seemed both frightened and attracted by it. The director of the CSMD then felt observed.
Nearby, Alexander Singer, the DPG founder, had his phone in hand, comparing Guillaume Vuillier's photo on the WDMC website with the man who stood in front of the sabre-toothed feline diorama. He decided to meet him and Guillaume, who had recognized him, let out a barely audible sigh.
"Mr. Vuillier?"
"Good evening sir."
"Alexander Singer, Dinosaur Protection Group," the NGO's leader introduced himself, believing that Guillaume had uttered the word sir in an interrogative tone. "Good evening," he added, holding out his hand.
"I know who you are."
Guillaume shook Singer's hand, giving him a firm handshake, neither too cold nor too warm, a tepidity which calmed the DPG founder's excitement.
"I saw that you were alone and seemed bored," the latter explained. "I thought we could talk a bit."
"I wasn't bored. I intended to calmly walk around the exhibition, but let's have now the interview we set for the end of next week..."
Noticing a slight annoyance in the voice and attitude of the WDMC director, Alexander Singer froze for a moment and tightened his tie, smiling stupidly as he was intimidated by the Frenchman even though the latter was barely taller than him and was showing a calm demeanour.
"Moreover," Guillaume added, "I want to make some comments about what I saw on your website..."
"So Claire told you about the IBRIS program," Owen said. "I suppose that you're interested in raptors."
"Absolutely," Lord Clayton answered. "My last de-extinct resident is actually a Microraptor, Lao. I have pictures of him on my phone. I'll show them to you."
He took a cell phone out of his pocket and looked for pictures of Lao the Microraptor in his photo gallery.
"Oh, here they are..."
On the screen, the couple saw a small dromaeosaurid with a black, shiny and iridescent plumage, and whose tail ended in a diamond-shaped fan of feathers. They saw him standing on a perch in an office, gliding in an aviary, or being fed by a young woman in her twenties, Lord Clayton's daughter.
"I don't really like the old scaly varieties that InGen created in the eighties and nineties," he admitted while they looked at the pictures, "I much prefer them with feathers. They're more beautiful that way."
"Beautiful but no less dangerous," Owen replied, looking up at the aristocrat.
"But isn't the mix of beautiful and dangerous very attractive? That's what I think anyway and I believe it's your opinion too given your experience," Lord Clayton said before giving him a small wink, referring not only to the achillobators but also to Claire.
"True," the keeper admitted. "So you would be interested by Blue?"
"Indeed."
"You realize it's a predator more than five meters long and weighing more than six hundred pounds? It's like having a terrestrial bird of prey as tall as you and I and as heavy as a European brown bear. She's more dangerous than the lions and the tigers in your park."
"Yes, I did some research but I understand your concern. Know that I recently spoke with your former manager, Jonas Roth. I proposed to him to work in my park and he is interested. His experience and his advice will be valuable for the management of the animals I will buy during the auction. If Blue ends up being one of those, I will carefully listen to your advice and criticism, Owen. You, Claire and your son could come to England for a short stay. Know that I would gladly welcome you in my castle."
"That would be fantastic," Claire said.
"Did you finish your tour of the museum?" he asked them.
"Not yet."
"I'll let you finish your tour and enjoy the reception before your interview with Mr. Lockwood. I've seen him earlier, going out in the courtyard with a woman. She had a slight Germanic accent. I wonder who she was but it must be for business. I wish you good luck, and if we don't see each other again afterwards, I wish you both a good and pleasant evening."
"Thank you, Francis. Good evening to you too."
The couple took their leave of Lord Clayton and continued their tour, looking at the exhibits at this end of the museum.
"You never told me about that time at the Mariposa," Owen pointed out to his girlfriend.
"Times"
He looked at her in astonishment.
"They must have been good then… Was that before or after we started sleeping together?"
"Before. But I returned there after we broke up… Now you know, and I'm glad the media didn't dig this up, or at least not yet. Who knows what new funny nickname people would give me... Probably something like the whoremongering queen."
But he wasn't listening and seemed distracted while a small smile sketched on the corner of his mouth.
"Oh no… I know that look, similar to that of a little dog about to do something stupid. I'm well aware of your erotic tastes, but postpone your reverie for later. Your sailors shouldn't raise the mast without their captain's authorization. Especially on an evening like this one, unless you want me to die of shame..."
He ended his reverie as soon as it started and focused again on his immediate surroundings. They left the recess in the east wall behind them, heading for the area covered by the southern mezzanine and its dioramas. On their left, a door led to the courtyard behind the museum, but as he scanned the guests, his eyes stopped on a tall fortyish woman, whose long black dress covered an athletic body. She stood near the next diorama along their tour, and which showed a Dolichopithecus, a baboon-sized colobine monkey, battling a large eagle and a Laophis crotaloides, a large viper nearly four meters long, in a scenery depicting northern Greece during the Pliocene (5). The woman's long, dark hairs were tied back in a ponytail, and a dolphin-shaped pendant rested in the middle of her chest.
"Owen?" Claire asked, noticing that he was staring at this woman.
"I know her," he told her.
He then walked towards her.
"Maya?"
The woman turned to him, squinted slightly and stared at him, trying to recognize him.
"Owen? Is that you?" She asked.
"Yup."
"I knew I recognized that big clumsy oaf's gait. I didn't recognize you right away because of your long hair and especially your beard."
"I witnessed their growth," Claire said.
"Well, you look like a barbarian now," Maya joked, "a far cry from the pretty boy who showed up one day in my unit."
My barbarian, Claire proudly thought before stepping forward to position herself next to her partner and forcing Maya to look at her too.
"Good evening," she greeted her.
"Good evening, Mrs. Dearing..." Maya said in a more neutral tone.
"Claire, this is Maya," Owen introduced her. "We were colleagues in the navy's marine mammal program."
"Cool," Claire said.
"I absolutely didn't expect to see you here to be honest," the keeper told Maya. "What brings you to Orick?"
"I work for InGen now so I got an invite," she replied, raising an eyebrow from Owen. "They hired me some time ago. They want to clone some kind of small prehistoric whales and I serve as a consultant."
"Interesting, although it's curious that they launched this new project amidst an economic crisis," her former colleague pointed out. "Let's hope that they won't annoy you with some unexpected militarization project."
Maya's face froze for a moment and she blinked, as if to say I beg your pardon?
"Sorry, it's a private joke. It's from the IBRIS program."
Maya relaxed and laughed hesitantly at Owen's joke.
"Ah, the IBRIS program…," she sighed. "Hadn't you been around, I would have worked with raptors. I guess it was amazing."
"Yes, it was. But things ended badly… How are your husband and your kids?"
"Excuse me Maya but where are the ladies' restrooms?" Claire interrupted her, feeling an urgent desire.
The ex-soldier turned to point at the entrance of a nearby hallway.
"Take the hallway after this diorama and the restroom will be on your left, opposite to the lounge's entrance and before the stairs."
"Okay, thanks."
"Do you want me to escort you to the door?" Owen asked her considerately.
"I'll be fine...," she assured him. "I faced dinosaurs. Some asshole in a suit or a dress won't scare me. And I still have trouble controlling my prosthesis' strength. An accident can happen very quickly...," she added. "And you've probably got a lot to talk about."
Following Maya's indications, Claire entered the hallway and headed for the toilet's door. Along the way, she peeked into the lounge and saw InGen's management and other executives of the corporation among the guests.
As the toilets were just vacated, she rushed into it and locked the door behind her, just before the members of InGen's management decided to go to the museum.
"… I also noticed that in several of your articles, you tended to depict Simon Masrani in a very positive manner," Guillaume Vuillier told Alexander Singer, "even calling him the dinosaurs' greatest champion. However, if we are to believe some Costa Rican news agencies, he seemed to have been aware that a large-scale eruption was brewing, so why didn't he launch the evacuation of Jurassic World and its residents in time?"
"Perhaps the park director, Claire Dearing, ignored his instructions," the DPG founder replied. "You know what the media says about her…," he added disdainfully.
"Unlikely, she would have shot herself in the foot by doing that, even if truly is as the US media portrays her. Due to her position, Dearing was the perfect scapegoat for InGen and Masrani Global. And given the whole personality cult aspect that existed in the latter, they would have never let Simon Masrani be accused of anything."
Alexander Singer cleared his throat and changed the subject.
"What do you think should be done with Jurassic World's surviving animals, currently housed at InGen's facility in Burgo Nuevo?"
"When an animal park is destroyed by a natural disaster or a war, its surviving animals are sent to other parks or sanctuaries if it's possible. That would be the best that could happen for those of Jurassic World."
The director of the WDMC noticed that Singer just nodded weakly while looking glum. He must have taken umbrage with the remarks he had made to him.
"You seem unconvinced. Yet, if I've read your website carefully, one of your objectives is the welfare of de-extincted animals. However, to guarantee it, they must be housed in establishments which can meet their needs and not mistreat them. Let's hope of course that InGen doesn't sell them to the first comer..."
"Yes," Alexander said in a voice that lacked conviction. "But I wonder if these animals should perhaps deserve to live free after all they've been through. In a place without fences, without cages, without tourists, just as Nature intended."
Guillaume's eyes widened in surprise. As much as the intentions and objectives of the Dinosaur Protection Group were noble at first sight, he hadn't heard any truly absurd position contrary to what he had initially feared and even shared some of the expressed opinions, but here Alexander Singer was skating on thin ice.
"You want to put them in a fenceless preserve? Like Isla Sorna?" he asked, fearing the answer.
"For example, and Sorna is the best place I can think of."
The WDMC director's eyes described a quarter of a turn in their orbits before stopping.
"Oulah…," he sighed embarrassedly before squinting.
"Sir? Did I say something wrong? I mean… Animals have been successfully introduced to Sorna…"
"Yes, but species that were already in decline or whose numbers had completely plummeted," Guillaume replied with mild irritation, "such as Gallimimus, whose original population was decimated by a specific disease. In order to maintain the ecosystem's cohesion, the decision to introduce new individuals from Jurassic World's stock was taken, explaining why we can see today feathered Gallimimus in the archipelago even though the original population consisted of only scaly individuals. You see, despite the considerable impact that Site B's animals had and continue to have on the local ecosystem, the new one they were able to create against all odds is a major scientific stake which might end up having a great importance in the future, especially if Jurassic World's animals are sent all across the globe. Releasing new species on Sorna would jeopardize this ecosystem, and that's not to mention the animal cruelty this action would cause. It would be a shame for an association like yours to support an idea with such consequences..."
-o-
Notes
(1) Owen is alluding here to the Palace of the Lost Valley, one of Jurassic World's largest hotels and the most luxurious.
(2) Teratophoneus: Mid-sized tyrannosaurid.
(3) West Country: Region of south-west England which stretches from the tip of Cornwall to Gloucestershire.
(4) Dombes: Natural region of the french department of Ain. It has countless ponds and is located more than thirty kilometres north of Lyon.
(5) Pliocene: Geological epoch which started roughly 5.33 million years ago and which ended 2.59 million years ago. The famous Australopithecus lived during that epoch in Africa.