Disclaimer: Unless Steven Spielberg asks me to write 'Jurassic Park IV', I don't own anything. Not even a private attack raptor to sic on my enemies…
Dedication: As always, this story is dedicated to that live firecracker T.
Quick Warning guys – this is where things start to get intense!
Author's Note: UC Berkeley really is one of the top ten leading paleontology colleges in the U.S. Two others are Yale and University of Chicago. Just in case you were looking for paleontology courses.
P.S. Let me tell you, you have NO idea how long I studied pictures of Sam Neill (who played Dr. Alan Grant in the films) to get his description down. Thanks to that, I am now hooked on the television show 'Alcatraz'. Thanks, J.J. Abrams. And I was just getting over your ending to 'Lost', too.
Blue looked at her trusty watch. It was a small watch, gold and silver, with a tiny, delicate face. It wasn't terribly expensive, but Blue liked it. It had once belonged to her mother, but she'd given it to Blue once she'd received a more expensive one.
It was almost one o'clock.
Blue wasn't surprised that the time had flown. Dr. Grant was said to be as cranky as they came but he wrote convincingly and articulately, presenting his arguments well and in a way that was easy to understand. His latest book was engrossing, showing his theory on raptor intelligence. His basic argument was that raptors were almost as smart as modern-day monkeys, working together in a highly sophisticated pack similar to modern day wolves. He had tried to base as little evidence on his time on Isla Nublar as possible, and had made few references to it. Blue was disappointed, but understood. From what she'd heard, his time there had been stressful, to say the least.
She flipped the book over and looked at the picture of the author on the back cover. Dr. Alan Grant had a wide, tanned face with snapping blue eyes that crinkled in the corners when he smiled. His mouth was wide but flat, and his lips curled inward instead of outward.
The biography on the back inner flap of the dust jacket read as follows:
Dr. Alan Grant is one of the world's leading paleontologists, having studied at UC Berkeley. He has been out in the field digging up dinosaurs for the past fifteen years, and has discovered and helped to document over eighteen new species of dinosaur. When he's not out in the field or giving a lecture, Dr. Grant spends time with his wife, Ellie, and his stepson, Charlie.
It was short and to the point. Blue wondered if the Ellie mentioned was Ellie Sattler, the paleobotonist who had also gone to Isla Nublar, but she thought Dr. Sattler had married a Mark Debson, who was involved in international treaties or something like that. Well, it did say 'stepson', so maybe…
Blue stood up to stretch her legs, which had started to cramp. She walked over to the window and peered down. The hotel room was on the far right, and overlooked what appeared to be an abandoned pen of some sort, and the dark, foreboding jungle. The pen was high-tech, to say the least, and upon closer inspection, actually looked like a deep, plant-filled pit with electric barbed wire and metal bars covering it.
What were they trying to house in there – a dragon? Blue thought sarcastically.
Then she saw it.
A frond growing next to a large tree moved… was moved by something… something that was definitely not human. There was a ghost of a shape, a glimpse of (was that stripes?), the gleam of what might have been an eye or perhaps teeth glinting off the light shining out from the windows…
And then it was gone.
It.
Blue's throat seized up, and her fingernails dug into her palms. Some unidentifiable, primal feeling surged through her, nearly choking her. The intellectual part of Blue's brain was forcefully shut off as the subconscious fight-or-flight part of her was jolted awake, screaming at her to hoist the sails, weight anchor, all hands on deck because something was very, very wrong here!
Blue stuffed her book back into her backpack, zipped the backpack shut, and placed it carefully behind the chair so it wouldn't be immediately seen by anyone – or anything – that entered the room. She turned and inspected herself in the mirror. Faded jeans, a plain white t-shirt, and a dark purple cotton hoodie. She looked down at her sensible running sneakers ruefully. She looked like she was going to watch television or play at a park – not go to a nightclub. She hadn't packed any fancy outfits, either.
Part of her wanted to sit back down, turn on the TV and forget what she'd seen, but that clenching feeling in her stomach refused to dissipate. Something was wrong, and she needed to talk to Nathan.
"And here I said I wouldn't go into a nightclub if you paid me." Blue muttered, pulling open the hotel room door and leaving.
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Sneaking to the nightclub was easier than expected.
First off, the nightclub was pretty much the entire first floor, so it would have been difficult to post bouncers at every point. Secondly, no one expected anyone underage to even be on the island, never mind trying to sneak in. Third of all, it was easy to blend into the crowd. The sheer number of people was astounding, and the crowd was kind of crushing. The music was so loud the base made the walls pound, sending pulses of rhythm through the floor and up your body, forcing people to yell into one another's ears if they harbored any hope of being heard over the din.
So yeah, Blue was pretty sure she'd lucked out on this one.
Finding Nathan once she was in the nightclub, however, was another matter. Blue wasn't even 5'4", and if you added that plus the fact that ninety percent of the women were wearing ridiculously high heels, it made it pretty difficult for her to find anyone in the crowd.
Eventually, she decided to head to the bar. Maybe she could hop up onto a barstool and get a bird's eye view of the area. But luck was with her that night, and while it took her roughly half an hour to even reach the bar, once she got there she found Nathan, Robbie, and Phil tossing back shots with a gaggle of girls (half of them with dyed blonde hair) and a gang of African-American guys.
"Nate!" Blue yelled, coming to stand in front of him.
Nathan blinked, and then frowned. "This had better be an effect of alcohol and not real, Primary." He yelled.
Blue grabbed him by his shirt sleeve and yanked him down so that his ear was by her mouth. "Something's really wrong here!" She shouted.
Out of the corner of her eye, Blue saw an employee handing someone what looked suspiciously like a back of nose powder – the kind that went up your nose, not on it.
Nathan followed her gaze and rolled his eyes. "More wrong than drugs?" He asked.
Blue glared at him. "I'm serious! There's something out there in the jungle; something big! And it's definitely not human!" She yelled.
Robbie leaned in. "What's wrong?" She asked, concerned.
"I saw something in the trees surrounding the building!" Blue shouted. "It was some kind of creature! I think it had scales or something!"
"I think you've had too little sleep and too many dinosaur books!" Nathan yelled. "You shouldn't be here, Bluebird!"
"Oh, and you should?" Blue shot back.
She took a deep breath and tried again. "I know this sounds crazy, but I know what I saw! My gut is telling me that something is very wrong here! We need to get out! You heard the InGen rumors same as I did – hell, the entire business world did! Maybe there was some truth to the crazier rumors! Maybe what happened in San Diego wasn't a stunt!"
"I think you're overreacting!" Nathan yelled. "It's not like a Tyrannosaurus is going to burst through the walls–"
While they burst through the windows and not the walls, and they certainly weren't Tyrannosaurs, Robbie would later half-heartedly joke that Nathan had jinxed them, because at that exact moment all hell broke loose.
The InGen rumors weren't true.
This was worse than any rumor Blue had ever heard.
Hee hee hee… aren't I evil? I don't usually increase the tension this way, as I'm all about getting right to the good stuff (hence all my Caskett oneshots) but in this case I just couldn't resist!
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