Chapter 7

Departure

The rotors of the big bellied Sikorsky helicopters began to whir and swirl on the landing pad. As Malcolm jumped down from the large SUV he looked over at them as they're engines began to whine. There were two of them, large and grey against the clear blue sky. Blue stripes ran down their flanks, bearing the InGen logo. They're rotors were long and heavy looking, the cockpits cavernous. It was a beautiful day, the sun shone brightly and the sky was almost cloudless. It was hard to imagine anything threatening. Tim jumped down from the passenger door, dressed in camouflage shorts and T-Shirt, sturdy boots and a slouch hat. A pair of sunglasses were positioned atop his forehead. His rugged appearance surprised Ian, having become accustomed to seeing him dressed in expensive suits. The last time he had seen him this informal was at Hammond's mansion, almost a decade before. Guiterrez, Harding and Wu appeared from the back of the SUV; Wu wore sun faded Khakis, Harding had donned a worn green shirt tied around her midriff and Guiterrez had a simple cool blue cotton shirt. All of them carried a light rucksack, Ian also carried a bag containing a laptop computer. They stood inside the perimeter of a small airstrip; the helicopters were stationed on a pair of flashing landing pads near the rear. A control tower stood erect a few hundred meters away, and a long runway ran down the very centre. Except for the choppers, there were no aircraft within the airstrip. Engineers were running about beneath the rotund fuselages of the helicopters, making final inspections before they left. Malcolm could see that plates of thin armor had been welded clumsily to the frame of both choppers. He frowned.

Turning to Tim he had to shout over the roar of the choppers. "Won't that armor weigh us down?"

Tim turned to him and smiled. "Usually it would, but seeing as they're taking such a light load they can handle it. These helicopters are usually used for heavy duty transportation." Well that's pretty obvious, thought Ian as he looked up at the choppers. Each one looked as if it could carry at least two dozen people, if not more.

"You consider it necessary to add extra protection to the choppers?"

"I don't think it will be needed, but it's better to be safe than sorry."

Malcolm raised his eyebrows at Tim, who now showed the first signs of irritation.

"Ian, we're not fools here. I do understand that this could be very dangerous indeed. Believe me; we are taking all of the necessary precautions."

"If you don't mind me saying so Tim, I'm afraid that you have not."

Tim snorted. "Well we'll see won't we?"

"Yes. I believe we will," said Malcolm gravely.

Ian was concerned, but pushed it to the back of his mind as they approached the pad. Guiterrez looked pale in the warm afternoon light and was covered in a cold sweat, the choppers only a few meters away, ruffling their clothes and making them stagger. Marty stopped short of their chopper and looked up at it, his eyes blank.

"What's the matter with you?" asked Tim, his arms over his head to protect his head.

"I don't like to fly. It's a childhood thing," Marty shouted.

"You know, you could have mentioned that before we got here!"

"Sorry, I just forgot. The prospect of visiting Jurassic Park doesn't leave much room in one's mind to remember something like this!"

Tim closed him eyes, as if praying for patience. "Well?"

For a moment it looked as if Guiterrez was simply going to turn on his heel and run in the other direction.

But after a few seconds he took a deep breath and climbed shakily aboard the helicopter on the left and looked around, blinking in the sudden darkness. It was surprisingly gloomy inside, the small plexiglass windows let in very little light. He walked along and took his seat along the far wall as Tim, Malcolm, Harding and Wu slowly clambered in, buckling up in their seats and fitting their headsets over their ears. The pilots were scribbling on a checklist and were speaking to the tower, requesting permission to leave. The engineers were running about the landing pad shouting to each other, one rushed forward and pulled the heavy door shut with a clang. They were plunged into almost complete blackness, except for the intermittent shafts of light permitted by the windows. Looking out, Ian now saw the men running backwards, away from the blades. On his right he saw several armed men in black uniforms clambering into the other Sikorsky. Soon the rotors became a mere blur and the pilot eased the collective stick upwards. The whine of the engine grew loader in their ears and slowly they lifted into the air, retracting the landing gear as they went.

"How long will it take to get there?" said Guiterrez into his microphone from the back.

"We'll arrive in San Jose to refuel sometime in the morning," answered Tim, who was sitting closest to the cockpit. "From then we'll fly west, over the mountains and on to the island, which will take around an additional three hours."

"What's the other chopper for?" asked Harding, who was checking the straps on her rucksack.

"It's an escort; they'll make sure we get there alright. Just a precaution," said Tim.

Guiterrez didn't look comforted by this news and refrained from the looking out of the window, as they were now several hundred feet in the air, flying over countless suburban houses. Instead, he turned to Ian, who was fiddling with the small laptop computer in his lap.

"I'm surprised that you and Dr. Harding agreed to come on this expedition," he said, turning off his headset so that they could talk privately.

Malcolm didn't answer immediately, but continued to fiddle with his computer for a few moments.

"Truthfully, I don't want to go. But if I'm right, and out course I very well may not be, this expedition is going to go to hell. Returning to Jurassic Park is a very bad idea; its very existence is a bad omen. But humanity is now facing a disease that to our knowledge the likes of has never been present on this Earth, at least not in the last 65 million years. InGen had a several year head start on us developing some kind of cure. Quelling this disease is really the only reason I would ever return."

"You consider it a bad thing that Jurassic Park exists?" asked Marty, raising his eyebrows.

Malcolm slapped the lid of his computer down and turned to face Marty. "Of course I do. And Tim is making the same mistakes as his grandfather had. He still believes that that the dinosaurs are his property. And they very well may be by political human standards, but he believes that because his company made them he owns their very soles and in turn expects them to his bidding, by leaving us alone. But nature cannot be controlled by man; man is at the mercy of it. But the very essence of Jurassic Park requires man to control nature. It simply isn't possible. I told Hammond the very same thing before he ever started construction on Isla Nublar. And now his grandson is making equally drastic mistakes. He underestimates the fact that they are living creatures, however unnaturally they came to be. Trust me; this 'simple' mission is inherently unstable. Tim's little trip will not go as planned."

"How do you work that out?" Marty asked, a little bewildered by the pessimistic view Malcolm had just given on one of the greatest scientific achievements of all time.

"Chaos theory," said Malcolm simply, and then he bent over his computer once more.

"I don't understand," said Marty.

"No, I wouldn't expect you to. But you will Martin, of that I am sure," murmured Malcolm, tapping a few keys on his laptop.

They flew long into the night, going over the helicopter landing patterns and the exact sequence of events that were to take place. Malcolm seemed more detached than the rest of them, observing the situation rather than being involved. He seemed to be calculating, sometimes tapping on his computer, sometimes listening to Tim speak, shaking his head. At dusk the pilot had turned on the large interior lighting, making their work far easier. Tim had lain out various satellite images and infa-red displays of Isla Nublar all over the floor and was pointing to various points on them as he spoke. The maps showed Isla Nublar as a lone island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, an inverted teardrop shape covered in forest. Wu went over what he had to do with the power and computer systems, making sure that they all knew how to do it properly just in case something went wrong. Tim looked highly discomforted by this, stubbornly pressing that nothing could possibly go wrong. They all felt fairly fatigued after a while, but the load thumping of the rotors and the occasional turbulence prevented them from getting any rest at all. Instead they sat in a state of mild drowsiness, each enveloped in their own thoughts, going over what they were to do in their minds. It was almost four in the morning when the pilot announced that they were making their final approach to San Jose, and that they were to sit down and buckle themselves in. Guiterrez looked out of his window for the first time and gave a long, drawn sigh and sagged slightly. He rubbed his shoulders to ease the tension. He looked longingly at the ground as the chopper glided steadily down, eventually coming to rest on the tarmac with a gentle shudder. Tim smiled, and then told them all that they could get out and walk around for a while if they wanted while the Sikorskys refueled. Guiterrez was the first to the door and scrambled out into the night as soon as the pilot opened the door. Harding saw Marty walk slowly towards a slight rise a short distance from the chopper, where the faintest trickle of blue was starting to appear on the horizon, taking deep breaths. Climbing down a little more gracefully, Harding lent against the fuselage of the chopper, pulling her legs up to her rear with her hand, stretching the muscles to release the tension. She sighed in relief and look around as her eyes adjusted to the darkness. Malcolm and Wu were having a murmured conversation, walking towards a small diner like building a few hundred yards away. To her left the other helicopter circled overhead, getting ready to land. A light breeze caressed her face and she took a few deep breaths, glad to be free of the cramped confines of the chopper. She heard Tim chatting with the pilot, who was connecting a thick tube to the helicopter with the help of several airport personnel. She walked slowly over the Guiterrez, who was now standing motionless, looking out over the airport.

"Motion sickness?" she asked as she reached his side. Guiterrez seemed momentarily surprised by her sudden appearance, but then a smile spread across his face.

"No, I had an accident when I was a kid," he said slowly.

"What happened?"

"Well, I was on holiday. My dad rented a plane for the weekend, we were flying around Canada. On our last day as we were flying back we hit a flock of birds. The windshield just shattered, there was glass everywhere. My dad was all messed up, so I had to land the plane myself. We only just made it, but my dad lost his vision. I haven't flown since," he said simply with a small shrug. Harding just stood for a moment, taking in what he had just said.

"You didn't seem bothered when we were on the jet."

"I didn't have time to think about it. But I had all night to remember," he said, laughing.

"Why did you agree to come then?" she asked.

"Are you kidding?" he laughed, harder. "Who would pass up a chance to go Jurassic Park? And we may very well be saving humanity here."

"Fair enough", Harding said. They both stood in silence for a while. The sun had just broken the horizon, the sky turning from blue to shades of gold and pink, throwing everything into silhouette. It was a beautiful sight; everything was silent except for the occasional twitter of tropical birds. Behind them they heard the other Sikorsky touch down, the engine dying with a low whine. Tim came to stand beside them both, rubbing his hands together briefly.

"We'll be ready to go in no time. This time tomorrow we'll be back in New York and nobody will ever know what happened," he said with a smile.

"What do you think of this whole thing?" said Wu as he and Malcolm pushed open the doors of the diner, a strong smell of cooking fat reached their nostrils.

"Well, I can pretty much guarantee that something of this carefully planned out mission that Tim has set up here will go horribly wrong at some point," answered Ian as they ordered food and coffee for everybody.

Wu frowned. "Surely Chaos Theory cannot come into play in something as simple as this?"

"Hammond said the very same thing when I first told him that Jurassic Park wouldn't work. Systems such as this are simply too unpredictable to be considered plausible."

"But we aren't trying to control anything here, like we were before. We're simply extracting some research data."

"And yet Tim expects no trouble from the dinosaurs simply because he owns them. He underestimates them, he doesn't expect them to act the way a living thing will act. To act alive. In short, he is trying to put a measure of control over something that is inherently unpredictable. Uncontrollable."

"I hope to god that you are wrong," sighed Wu, taking the food from the clerk over the counter.

Malcolm turned towards the door to look out at the sunrise. "As do I."

"Malcolm thinks that something will go wrong", said Marty, turning to face Tim.

"Yes, well Ian is famous for his pessimism, you must see that by now," answered Tim, seemingly unfazed.

"I don't know Tim, Ian's usually correct in his predictions," Sarah said.

"Yes well I think it's safe to say that he is human like the rest of us and he makes mistakes from time to time. After all, what we are attempting to do here it far less ambitious than what my grandfather attempted," said Tim, now a little irked. Harding and Guiterrez shared a look, and then looked away. Wu and Malcolm had exited the diner building and were now approaching the group carrying several brown shapeless packages, which were made translucent by grease.

"They didn't have much in the way of a good hot meal, but I got us some cheeseburgers and coffee," said Wu with a small laugh. They all took a wrapped burger and a steaming cup of coffee appreciatively.

"Oh thank god," said Guiterrez, unwrapping his burger and taking a large bite. He sighed as the food reached his stomach. Even this impossibly greasy junk food seemed appetizing after so long cooped up in the helicopter.

"I got you a veggie burger," said Ian, handing it to Harding. "Although, I'm starting to wonder why I bothered. I doubt there's any real meat in these things anyway." They all gave a brief chuckle as they tucked in hungrily. The pilot called over to them from the chopper; they had finished refueling.

Tim took a gulp of coffee and threw the cup into the waste bin. "Okay guys, let's go,"

Ian looked down at the mountainous terrain below as they soared overhead. They were now flying west, over the highlands of Costa Rica. The terrain had obviously once been rich rainforest, but now the landscape was bare and ground up. Tiny stumps of once great trees were littered everywhere. Malcolm shook his head.

"The deforestation is this area is almost unbelievable" he said into his microphone. "Once more man shows his arrogance in the face of nature, never thinking of the consequences." The others remained silent, but Guiterrez looked slightly amused that Malcolm had managed to keep this constant flow of pessimism up since they had left. Tim however, looked slightly more annoyed than he had done when they had stopped a few hours before. The chopper climbed steeply as they crested the mountain's peak, to reveal miles of pristine jungle in every direction.

"But at least hope remains," smiled Malcolm, staring at the endless jungle before them. They soared downwards, accelerating. They only stopped losing altitude when the belly of the Sikorsky was a mere five feet from the tops of the trees below. Trees whipped past below as they went faster still. In the distance he could see that the tree line ended abruptly to give way to an endless blue mass. They had reached the coastline. Ian was surprised to see that the other chopper had managed to keep up with them, skimming the treetops to their right. It was almost seven in the morning now and the sun shone brightly to the East.

"Mr. Murphy, we're just passing over the Cabo Blanco Biological Reserve now, it will only be an hour or so before we arrive on the island," said the pilot.

"That's where the guy was found," said Guiterrez, looking down as they passed over a crescent of pure white sand, his fears of flying momentarily forgotten. "The guy who died in the hospital that night. I sure hope that nothing else has washed up." But as he scanned the beach he saw no dark shapes, just endless pristine sand. Then the beach was gone; they were past the mainland. They were now passing over clear water, a coral reef visible below. Soon the sea turned a deeper blue, reflecting the sunlight magnificently. Martin sat back in his seat as they flew out into the ocean beyond.