The following day after the woman investigated Billy and James' camp, the boys filtered through reproduced InGen logs that, at this point, were some 20 or so years old. James was skeptical that the logs were even true—if InGen had no problem hiding site B from the investors or that they had begun to create males AND females. He was almost positive that they wouldn't find anything.
By seven that night, James came across a weekly newspaper that circulated the compound and living quarters of the scientists housed on the island. Within the thirteen page spread was a large article on the mysterious disappearing of a 15 year old girl.
"Alan, listen to this," Billy began, lifting the paper up to see it better in the dull orange light of the trailer, "Rhodes reported his 15 year old daughter missing in the early morning of October 19th. Lily Rhodes was last seen in the atrium with William Holt, the 17 year old son of Carley Holt. Holt has been held for questioning in the disappearance. Search teams went out on the evening of October the 19th and will continue until Rhodes has been found."
Alan sat back, the video chat screen buzzing with interference, "What year was that?"
"1996," James piped in, pulling out a microwave dinner for himself.
"She's 29, Alan," Billy said softly, flipping through the paper. He folded the paper over and held it up for Alan to see the small mug-shot like picture of the girl. She grinned in the image, but it was evident that she did not want to be photographed. "That was her then… and," Billy brought up image sharing on the laptop, then clicked on the image of raptor girl—aka Lily Rhodes—from the bone yard when she was covered in blood. "This is her now."
A few moments of silence passed before Alan spoke, "Billy… what are your intentions with her?"
Billy sighed heavily. He was given specific instructions to keep his and InGen's plans a complete secret. "They want contact with her. I am to 'collect the specimen,'" he said in a mocking tone, "they want to bring her back to the mainland headquarters for testing. That's all they told me."
The paleontologist on the other end of the video chat nodded his head, his lips pursed in agitation. Oh how he loathed that company which nearly ended him. "How much?"
James lifted his eyes from his meal as Billy lowered his head, gazing down at the keyboard of the laptop. "Enough," Billy finally said.
Alan nodded, "You call me if you need me."
He ended the video chat session before Billy could even think of something to respond with. James spooned another mouthful of the cheap chicken alfredo into his gullet, looking at Billy.
Lily scaled the tree that she'd called home—or at least thought it to be the safest place she knew—and nestled beneath a car hood that she used as an overhang. Rain began to fall again for the fifth time that day, only now it was a cold, long rain that would last most of the night.
She lay on the mattress that she'd recently re-furbished with a hospital type blanket found in the compound, sewn closed with agave threads. She curled up, rolling from one side to the other before flipping onto her toned stomach. Her arm stretched up above her head, dangling over the branches that came off of the trunk in her tree. Cool rain fell onto her hand, dripping off her fingertips and her long, strong fingernails. Below her, under the fronds of a number of ferns and ancestors of the great-leafed ginkos, the raptors that she knew as her family curled up to sleep.
Bored, unable to sleep, shivering and hungry, she reached blindly into a tattered backpack that was so warn it barely held its contents and removed a few outer layers of Cohune palm. The layers came from right around the heart of the palm and helped keep her teeth clean and strong. It was sweet, made her tongue tingle, and when it got stuck between her teeth, she could grab some fibers and pull them through almost like floss.
She chewed on the Cohune palm for a while, listening to the sounds of Stegosaurs migrating from the north side of the island to the south where they went to breed. They bellowed lowly, so low that she felt the tree vibrate and shake the water free of its mossy bulk. The ground rumbled with their harmonious marching, something she'd grown so used to that it became almost a lullaby. She got the best night's sleep when the Brachiosaurs, Diplodocus, Stegosaurs and Trikes were on the move.
In the morning, before the sun rose, Lily was back on the ground collecting strawberries for herself before going on a hunt. Just like each morning, she hunted with the raptors. It was her duty to provide along with the alphas, not because she was considered an equal, but because she had to continuously show her worth.
There were three days out of the 12 years she'd lived with the raptors that she wasn't able to produce a kill. On those days, she was tormented, cast out of the troop and left for dead.
The first time she had tried for a Corythosaur infant, missed the kill shot and ended up alerting the entire valley of hadrosaurs. No one in the troop ate that day. It was the night she'd been clawed on the face, left in the jungle. Two weeks later she presented a kill to the troop: a pregnant deer. They let her back into the troop, but she wasn't allowed to feed from their kills. For two years she hunted for herself and ate for herself—unless of course a raptor showed interest in her meal. In which case, she would have to back down or face violent retaliation.
The second time she did not make a kill was dealt with in a less aggressive manner, but only because a virus had claimed half of the troop. They needed her, and they knew it.
The third time, most recently—about three weeks before the strange men came to the island—she missed killing a boar by two inches. The poison dart landed instead in a stump and made such a sound that the family of warthogs squealed, alerting a nearby buck and doe of her presence. For the following two weeks, every kill that she made was stripped of all meat until there was nothing left for her but bones and ligament.
Now though, with a new female alpha, she was back in the pack and working with them for every kill. After taking down a young stegosaurus the pack sat down to eat. Years of eating raw meat had hardened her stomach, so much so that she rarely ever suffered from an upset stomach. She ate the stegosaur flesh and ate well, so well that she wouldn't eat for the rest of the day.
At high noon she ventured due east to a spring where she sat on the smooth river rocks, letting the cool water cleanse her body. Before leaving, an hour or so after she arrived, Lily caught a catfish, a gnarly big one that liked a murky offshoot of the spring. Only once or twice had she caught a catfish in the pond, but whenever she did, she never ate it. Catching the fish for her was more of a test.
Lily was curious about the fish and how it was able to, when set down on the bank, find its way right back into the pond as it had been meant to find its way back. She watched it flop around and then use its fin to push itself into the water where it disappeared into the murkiness.
Billy sliced the apple into eight wedges and rubbed lemon on each side so it wouldn't brown. He arranged them on a paper plate, then set an open granola bar on the plate beside the apples. He covered the plate with another plate, walked outside and set the plate down on the grass beside the trailer.
When he went back inside, he made sure that the surveillance cameras on the trailer were positioned on the gift for the raptor girl—assuming that she'd return to investigate their campsite again.
There were three days left on the island for them to do what had been asked of them. Billy was reluctant to get the girl; he was worried that again he'd do something horrible with the best intentions. He couldn't screw up as he had in the past. This, if anything, was a chance for the paleontologist/photographer to get his name back out there in a good light.
He had to keep everything, the entire operation, absolutely under wraps. Within InGen there had been quite some displeasure at the mere thought of taking a jungle woman from her home with the raptors and bring her back to safe civilization. It was almost a 50/50 split between the employees at InGen: half wanted the girl to come back to the mainland where she could get tested, maybe even rehabilitated, and have her story be the basis for helping InGen crawl out of bankruptcy while the other half wanted to take a humanitarian 'Amazonian aborigine' type approach where she would be left along, monitored remotely via satellite and have absolutely no more contact with anyone that isn't native to the island—ie: no human contact.
"Is this going to work?" James asked, skeptical that the girl would even take the food.
Billy nodded, stepping up into the trailer and smiling, "Absolutely. If she will take this, we can harmlessly give the sedative and get her back to the mainland without a hitch."
"Nothing is ever that easy, Billy."
His deep hazel, army-green eyes turned up to the geologist. His Adam's apple bobbed as he nodded, swallowing hard. "I know."