Luciana
III
"Your nephews and their nanny seem nice," Althea comments and Claire half smiles.
"Yes, they do."
It stays awkwardly quiet for the entire walk to the control room after that.
III
The control room consists of numerous consoles and workstations facing a huge wall of monitors, the centermost of which displays a map of the island. Technicians work diligently to keep eyes on every part of the park.
We enter through the elevator pass the security guard and Claire wants to the back center of the room. She prefers to stand between Vivian and Lowery's workstations.
Althea quickly sits in a chair beside Lowery and looks over his station. She gets along best with Lowery because he acts her age.
Lowery's desk as always is covered with toy dinosaurs and he's wearing a Jurassic Park shirt instead of a Jurassic World one.
"What's the live count?" Claire asks.
"Twenty-two thousand, two-sixteen," Vivian reports.
Her and Lowery are in a sharp contrast. She wears a cardigan and a skirt with nicely styled dirty blonde hair. While he wears t-shirt and jeans with messy brown hair and an unkempt mustache.
"Any incidents?"
"Yeah, six kids in the lost and found, uh, 28 down with heat stroke, and some-"
Claire abruptly notices his shirt of the ill-fated and famous Jurassic Park and frowns.
"Where did you get that?" she questions.
"Oh, this? I got it on eBay. Yeah, it's pretty amazing. I got for 150 dollars but the mint condition one goes for 300, easy-"
"Didn't it occur to you maybe that's in poor taste?" Claire says harshly cutting off Lowery's excited gushing.
"The shirt? Yeah, no, it did. I understand people died. It was terrible, but..." his contrite reply quickly turns back into gushing. "That first park was legit! You know, I have a lot of respect for it. They didn't need these genetic hybrids-" Claire sighs deeply but he stays oblivious to her annoyance. "They just needed dinosaurs, real dinosaurs! That's kind of enough-"
"Okay, please don't wear it again," Claire snaps and he goes quiet. I resist laughing, Lowery is one of the only people in this park who isn't afraid to totally be himself around Claire.
"Yeah, wasn't gonna," he grumbles with a pout.
"Did you close the deal?" Vivian queries to change the subject.
"Looks like it. Verizon Wireless Presents the Indominus Rex," Claire muses and Althea huffs. She never liked the idea of someone sponsoring Isla.
Lowery exhales and lowers his head.
"Ugh, that is so terrible!" Lowery mutters in exasperation and lowers his head. He also hates corporate sponsorships. Lowery looks up and gives an incredulous stare. "Why not just go the distance, Claire? Let these corporations name the dinosaurs. They've got all the ballparks. Why stop there?"
Claire ignores him and looks at the screen, she notices something and interrupts him.
"Why are the West Plains closed?"
"Another Pachy roaming outside his zone, but he's fully sedated and ready for relocation," Vivian reports.
"Pepsisaurus. Tostitodon," Lowery mutters to himself while Claire fumes.
"Security said the invisible fences were a no-fail. That is the second time this month!"
On one of the screens, there is a sedated Pachycephalosaurus being treated by the vet and asset containment crew.
"Well, the Pachys short out their implants when they butt heads," Vivian explains.
"Poor babies," Althea mumbles sourly.
"How much longer until they get it out of there?" Claire asks flatly.
"He just got five milligrams of carfentanil," Vivian says, she seems surprised by Claire's callousness.
Claire has to act that way, she runs the entire park, she can't be hung up on emotions.
"Yes, he's very stoned. So why don't we show a little sympathy?" Lowery remarks and Althea giggles. Even Claire smiles in amusement. "I mean, you do understand these are actual animals, right?"
"Of course she does," I interject, speaking for the first time since the conversation started. Lowery doesn't reply only stares at Claire.
Claire glances at him with an uncomfortable look and instead of answering, she draws attention to his desk. It's a simple redirect that he doesn't notice.
"Clean up your workspace. It's... chaotic," she comments offhandedly. Althea is poking one of the toy dinosaurs on his desk.
"I like to think of it as a living system. Just enough stability to keep it from collapsing into anarchy," Lowery murmurs intently and reaches to adjust the dinosaur Althea misplaced.
With her foot, Claire nudges a trash can over. Lowery, still fixing the dinosaur, knocks a soda cup off the desk, and because Claire nudged the trash can over, it falls into that instead of hitting the floor. Fortunately, the lid remains on, so it doesn't spill.
I chuckle and Claire throws a sly wink at me.
Now embarrassed Lowery retrieves it from the trash and returns it to his desk.
"Inbound chopper, Jurassic 1. ETA five minutes."
"That's our cue," I say and Claire nods. "Come on Althea." The girl leaps up and goes straight for the elevator, she's always excited to see Isla.
Claire and I follow behind at a reasonable pace in our high heels.
III
Outside, a blue a blue Eurocopter Colibri with 'JW001' on the tail flies in shakily and lands on the helipad with a thump.
We all hop aboard and sit in the backseat. Althea immediately pulls on a headset and starts messing with the microphone in the front.
Up front sits park owner Mr. Masrani and his flight instructor. Masrani removes his sunglasses and twists in his seat to face us.
"Claire, Luciana, Althea," he greets and Claire gawks.
"Mr. Masrani! You're... flying!" she exclaims and he shrugs as if it's no big deal.
"I got my license."
"Two more," his instructor corrects.
"Well, two more days," he rephrases. "So, how's my park doing?"
"Great," she replies and I hand her the small binder with all her important paperwork. She opens it up and starts reading facts to Mr. Masrani. She always makes a show of consulting binders when talking to him.
"We're up two and a half percent over last year, a bit lower than our initial projections-"
"No, no, no, how's it doing? Are the guests having fun? Are the animals enjoying life?" he questions interrupting Claire's report.
"Well, guest satisfaction is steady. In the low nineties. But we don't have a way to measure the animals' emotional experience," Claire replies professionally.
"Sure you do. You can see in their eyes, right?"
"Of course," she agrees to appease him and he turns back around, satisfied with her answers.
"Okay, now show me my new dinosaur!"
Everyone braces against the seats except for Althea who appears fearless.
Claire gasps as suddenly the aircraft lifts up awkwardly into the air and grabs my arm. I smile despite the fear of crashing and take her hand. Mr. Masrani could care less about us.
Feeling a little wobbly, it zooms off over the park.
"Got it, got it... got it!" Mr. Masrani insists to his nervous instructor.
The copter continues and barely smoothly flies off over the jungle.
Masrani is a mediocre pilot at best, but his inexperience despite only two days of training left is made up for his sheer enthusiasm for flying.
He appears to be having the time of his life. Claire and I not so much. We remain braced against the seat, very terrified.
The flight instructor for his part seems to be keeping his cool.
Althea is reveling in flying along with Mr. Masrani.
"You look tense, Claire, Luciana," Mr. Masrani observes.
"Maybe you should just... focus on the controls," Claire stammers.
"The key to a happy life is to accept you are never actually in control," he returns.
Up ahead, Claire and I spot a bird flying in the way.
"Bird!" We shout and the instructor jerks, finally losing his cool.
Masrani begins imitating the bird's cawing sound and swings abruptly right to avoid colliding with the animal.
My stomach lurches and I close my eyes tightly.
"You two should spend a day at the beach. Get some sun," Mr. Masrani suggests nonchalantly.
With the plane steadied Claire reopens her binder to speak business again.
"Uh, right, so marketing thought we could offset some of the costs-"
"Ah, enough about costs! John Hammond entrusted me with his dying wish, and not once did he mention profits. 'Spare no expense', he used to say," Mr. Masrani exclaims in a dismissive tone.
"I appreciate that, but the reality of operating a theme park is that it requires-"
"Don't forget why we built this place, Claire. Jurassic World exists to remind us how very small we are. How new. You can't put a price on that. Now please..." he trails off as he turns in his seat to face us again. "We're flying!"
Althea responds to his cheerful point by laughing and clapping making him smile.
"Breathe," he coaxes and pushes the helicopter downwards towards Paddock 11.
Claire and I brace ourselves once more as the helicopter flies past a waterfall and comes in low over Paddock 11.
