"Half-hour, James. We have to get back to camp before sundown or god-knows what'll happen to us," Billy warned, walking around a Tyrannosaur femur to snap a photo of the same beast's skull.
James nodded his head and finished a rough sketch of the entire scene. He moved to crouch before a Spinosaur skull, sketching it quickly. Billy watched as the geologist stowed the sketchbook only to remove a small leather covered kit with one latch that snapped onto the cover. It looked like a book and when he opened it, the geologist's eyes lit up.
In the impression of the earth that was no more than 50 yards in diameter, made of dark basalt. It was sharp, sometimes crumbly, sometimes found in sheets. The foliage that grew around the bones was interesting: brand new sprouts of grass and flowers. There weren't any ferns or trees that one would expect to find in a caldera. The geologist frowned and walked halfway up the slope, taking note of the small size of the caldera—maybe a failed mini-volcano? He sighed and walked half around the concave dome, admiring how the bones were absolutely clean of all muscle, ligament, or any sign other than grooves in the bleached white masses.
He smirked, tapping a small ceramic tile used to help identify minerals against the rock identification kit in his hands. "I think I know what's going on here, Billy."
Billy looked up from a tooth he'd wiggled free of a Spinosaur skull. "What's that?"
James shifted on his heels, excited that he could for once exercise a bit of his intelligence. "We're standing in a small caldera-" he paused, seeing Billy nod in understanding, "It's still active… that's why the bones are so clean and the flora is so new. Everything gets cooked every so often by the volcanic activity."
The photographer grinned, "Now figure out why they all came here to die."
"Well…" James started, his mouth opening and closing like a guppy gasping for air as he tried to figure out what to say, "I don't know. That could take forever to find out. I'd need samples and readings and…" Billy stood there, staring at James for a few moments. James laughed, lowering his head, "Right… I'll get on that."
"Jesus, these are amazing," James admitted, dragging his finger across the screen of the iPad where Billy had uploaded all the images taken from the events of the day. Strumming his finger across the bottom of the screen, he watched the images mold together in a sort of video revealing the stand-off between raptor and Parasaur. He continued and then stopped, gazing at image 483. "Hey, Billy…" his voice held a certain air of wonder that piqued Billy's interest.
The geologist, hunched over a small cup of microwave Easy Mac, glanced up, his eyes bright above the glistening rims of his glasses. "Whumph?" he asked with a full mouth.
James immediately went to him and laid the iPad on the miniature table of the trailer. He put his middle and thumb finger on the screen and spread them, making the image zoom in. He moved it a bit, then repeated the zooming twice until what he'd seen came into view.
"Holy shit," the photographer whispered, the plastic cup of macaroni and cheese tipping over with the weight of the spoon.
In the image of the caldera from the very middle where Billy had stood for most of the time they were at the site, the raptor girl could be seen in the upper left. She was just beyond the rim of the caldera in the tree line, half hidden by large fronds of a fern that hid all but her bust and right arm. Her face and chest were red, absolutely red. Her amber hair was pulled back into a messy ponytail, the long strands hanging over her left shoulder.
"I'll be damned…" Billy said softly, smiling as he cropped the section that the girl was in and copied it into a document to send to Grant. "She followed us."
"Is that blood?" James whined.
Billy shook his head, "You know, for someone as big as you—you sure as hell have a weak stomach."
Rain began to fall in heavy sheets outside the trailer. James attempted a few more times to start a conversation with Billy before calling it a night. Billy shut off all the lights in the trailer, double-checked the lock on the door and every window, made sure that the security system was on and charged before laying in his bunk above James'. He continued to gaze at each image he took, looking for any other signs of the girl. She was unintentionally in four different images: two from the bone yard, one from the compound (she's barely visible in the background when Billy had shot off a few images facing the clearing from inside the lobby) and then clearly in one accidentally on the way back to camp.
Meanwhile, unbeknownst to Billy, the raptor girl emerged from the jungle. She had been watching since the men returned from the bone yard, keeping an eye out and deciding that it was safe to investigate. Her slender hands reached out in the rain while she walked. Something in her gut panged with familiarity. She'd seen the logo on the side of the trailer before.
"EenGeh," she spoke, her tongue awkwardly twirling in her mouth. She spat, the sensation of her tongue curling against the back of her bottom teeth felt awkward, alien, weird.
Crouching down low to the ground she crawled towards the vehicle, her eyes wandering from each glint of light that bounced off the contours of the trailer. On the ceiling of the bunk where Billy lay half-asleep, a dull light came on for three seconds and then faded, coming on again and fading. He sat up slightly, being pulled from his fatigue-induced daze.
"James…" he whispered, testing the eerie silence. No reply.
The woman slipped off of a small grassy knoll, her feet landing in moist sand. For a moment she wiggled her toes into the grains, contemplating silently what to do next. She walked around the back of the trailer where the bunks were and leaned close to the glass, the windows at the side of the bunks. Her palm pressed against the bottom window, wiping it soundlessly. She peered in but saw nothing due to the curtain over James' window. Standing straighter she leaned in, wiping the rain from the window and peering in.
Billy remained absolutely still. He didn't move, tried not to breathe, didn't blink. His eyes burned from not blinking in so many seconds. She looked right at him, her fingers squeaking dully on the window. Her lips moved, only then did he notice three scars going across the right corner of her mouth, gnarling her lips and cheek. They were deep and puffy, minor keloids spanning from one edge of the scar to the other in small bumps that only slightly hampered her beauty. She was beautiful, and older than Billy would've thought her to be. She must be in her late twenties early thirties.
Her fingers slid over the window, making a far louder squeak than she must have hoped. She jumped back, landing on her backside and sliding off the grass into the sand. Turning over once she got to her feet and crouched down, looking up at the window. Climbing up the grass she ran towards the jungle, disappearing into the foliage.
Billy flopped onto his back panting, smiling uncontrollably.
"That's illegal."
"Yes, I know that," Billy said in agitation, breaking through the InGen firewall. "But I need to find out who she is and how long she's been here. I got a hunch that she's older than we thought—she's been here longer than we thought."
James frowned, sliding a small dish with a crumbled shale beneath a gun that would read the rock and determine the chemical composition. "Where did all this come from? Did you have some great epiphany?"
"Yes, I did. Problem?"
"N-no…" James looked up from the dish, glaring at Billy for a moment, "I think you're hiding something though."
"Not hiding anything."
"Oh really?"
"Yes really. Cool your jets there, buddy,"
"You saw her didn't you?"
"No."
"Yes you did."
Billy raised a brow, looking up from the screen. James glared harder at him until Billy sat back. "Yes, last night I saw her."
"What!" James stood up, knocking rocks onto the metal floor of the trailer.
"Yes, I saw her last night. After you want to bed she came out of the jungle-" he raised his hands to block the protest, "You were sleeping and she was only here for a minute during the storm."
"It rained last night?"
Billy ignored the question, "She looked into your bunk window then looked into mine. Got spooked when her hand slipped on the glass and made a squeaking sound. She fell into the sand and then ran off into the jungle again. That's it."
James shook his head, lifting up rock after rock specimen and setting them back onto a white cloth. "So you saw her up close then?"
Billy nodded.
"And?"
"She's got a scar on her mouth. Well, a few scars. Some deep ones on the right corner of her mouth. Don't know what they're from, but they're pretty gnarled. Her eyes are light colored too—couldn't see what color in the night though. We need to find out who she is…"