Jurassic World: Return to Isla Nublar – Chapter 6: The Pteranodon Colony
A/N: Yes, you've read the title right! So in this chapter, I've decided to reveal what happened to the Pteranodon that flew off of Isla Sorna after the events of Jurassic Park III. In this chapter, we're also going to meet a character you might not know about too well unless you've seen Jurassic Park: The Game.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything related to Jurassic Park except the very characters I've made up.
Squawk! A large male Pteranodon called out and stretched its wings to their full width of 30 feet. This huge creature is one of the largest members of a group of animals known as pterosaurs (not dinosaurs). It has a long beak with sharp, tooth-like projections inside, a bright-red crest on the back of its skull and otherwise an overall bat-like body, but a lot bigger! Unlike a bat though, its wings are made up of fibers that are used to strengthen the wing membrane. The wing of a bat meanwhile, is made up of its long fingers with flaps of membrane in between. This was only one of the many that were now populating the coast of a rocky California beach. This flock is made up of the descendants of the Pteranodon that escaped the aviary of Isla Sorna during the Kirby Incident of 2001. While initially, three made the first escape, they have since reproduced and other Pteranodon from Isla Sorna also followed suit and now made up a bustling colony on the cliffs of a bay several hundred miles from San Deigo. Many thought the Pteranodon would wreak havoc after leaving Isla Sorna just like the T. rex did to San Deigo in 1997. However, to everyone's surprise, the once ferocious pterosaurs live a peaceful existence; wild and free. The waters of this bay are filled with plenty of fish, and this makes it perfect habitat for the fish-loving pterosaurs who take full advantage of it.
It's the breeding season for these Pteranodon, and the males are trying to establish harems. They show off their colorful head crests to females who are walking among or flying above them. A female Pteranodon glides gracefully toward the ground and lands on top of a cliff overlooking the bay and the males take notice. They squawk loudly and slowly wave their head crests from side to side to fully capture her attention. The female's eyes scan the area as she gets a good look at all the males – she wants to choose the one with the best crest.
Walking on all fours, she strides toward a large male with an already rather large harem of females and becomes captivated by his beautiful red-colored crest. She approaches the male, her head dipped in submission. When the proud male spots her coming toward him, he caws excitedly and beckons her closer. He continues to show off his crest, waving it from side to side in an elaborate courtship display. She accepts his proposal and copies his movements. In unison, the two continue with their courtship ritual. Soon, she'll join the other members of his harem and have eggs of her own.
Looking through the eyes of her binoculars, Dr. Laura Sorkin couldn't be anymore pleased.
These courtship dances are so amazing, she thought with glee.
Dr. Laura Sorkin was one of the paleogeneticists that worked at Jurassic Park before the fatal 1993 incident took place. At one time, she had been the chief geneticist of Isla Nublar's laboratory. Back in the day however, as she was completing her geneticist studies in college, Dr. Sorkin was a big-time protestor for animal conservation, which got her into trouble a few times. But that was ancient history. In the 1980's and early 1990's, Dr. Sorkin had been persuaded to work at InGen partly by John Hammond himself, but mainly by his nephew, the now-deceased Peter Ludlow. She remembered the day vividly.
"Ah, Dr. Sorkin," Ludlow had said when he approached her at the end of her geneticist class. "May I have a brief moment of your time?" She turned to face him and he introduced himself as Peter Ludlow. During the early part of their conversation, Ludlow asked her how she liked working as a geneticist, about her passion with animals and what she decided to do after she graduated.
"I really don't know," she responded. "I suppose I'll put my studies to good use and use my skills to help create medicines and–"
Ludlow let out a brief snicker. "Medicines?" he asked with a chuckle. "Honestly? I thought you would rather do something dealing with animals. Personally, I think that suits you better." Dr. Sorkin smiled sheepishly at this comment. She didn't know at the time how slimy and money-loving Ludlow was at the time, otherwise InGen might not have gotten her to work for them at all and would have been destined to remain without their dinosaurs.
"Well, I would work with animals," Dr. Sorkin answered. "But don't you think humans could use help in the medicine department? Perhaps later I can devote my work to animals, but I'm trying to get myself on my feet before mounting anything that big. That's why I've chosen to help mankind for now instead."
"That's a terrible idea," Ludlow said as he took some papers out of his suitcase. "A very poor use of new technology. Helping mankind is a very risky business and personally, I would never help mankind."
After a bit more small talk around the subject, Ludlow explained that he was prepared to offer Dr. Sorkin a career that would involve cloning reptiles and since he was offering to start her off with $50,000 to do so, she really couldn't say no. So she instead went to work at Jurassic Park to find a way to bring dinosaurs to life.
She wasn't a fan of the idea of using dinosaurs for an amusement park. Instead, she wanted to use the miracle of cloning to turn Isla Nublar into a nature reserve, but the Board of Directors (headed by the money-loving Ludlow) told her it would be too much of an expense. "A nature reserve would use up more money than it would make," they said. But she helped them find a way to create dinosaurs anyway.
Now the only problem they had that prevented them from cloning dinosaurs was that they needed complete DNA strands to use for cloning. Dr. Sorkin wanted to use the complete DNA strands to clone the dinosaurs with, but the board didn't want to spend the time dealing with that, so they went with an assistant of Dr. Sorkin's, Dr. Henry Wu's, idea. His idea was to use frog DNA to fill in the gene sequence gaps and complete the DNA codes. Dr. Sorkin was demoted while Dr. Wu was promoted as the chief geneticist and in her own words, Dr. Sorkin "took to the field."
Long story short, Dr. Sorkin was involved with the "Jurassic Park Incident" but successfully made it off Isla Nublar. The years following, she continued her conservation work with endangered animal species until she learned that the Pteranodons had left Isla Sorna and started a permanent laboratory base to study the flying creatures and that's where she's been ever since.
Dr. Sorkin now sat comfortably in an old lighthouse that had been converted into a laboratory she used to further study the Pteranodons. She continued looking through the binoculars to get a good look at their elaborate courtship behaviors.
"Anything new?" asked a female voice from behind. Dr. Sorkin looked back to see a young woman named Kailey Harding, standing behind her. She had raven-black hair and fine features. "What's up with the Pteranodons?" she asked curiously.
"Oh, I'm just watching another one of their courtship rituals," Dr. Sorkin answered. "They're ever so elaborate. It gets me every time I watch."
"Cool." Kailey looked back down at a book she was holding in her hands.
"What are you reading?" the older scientist asked.
"Just The Lost World," Kailey responded.
Dr. Sorkin sighed, not taking her eyes off of the pterosaurs outside. "What else is new? Everyone's reading Malcolm's inaccurate portrayal of what really happened at Jurassic Park."
"He calls it 'creative license'."
"My point still remains. At least it's got the 'we can't control what we've created' part right."
Then Kailey looked up in the same direction Dr. Sorkin was facing. The Pteranodons outside were still engaged in their courtship ritual. "It's amazing to think that none of us would be studying these pterosaurs right now if it hadn't been for your Kirby sister."
Dr. Sorkin smirked. "Yeah, I'm shocked she even went to Sorna in the first place. Amanda never was the adventurous type. She always was staying home and twiddling her thumbs all summer while I was outside and exploring area around the farm we grew up in when we were little. But she and Paul did find Eric, so that's the important thing."
"It was a nice rewedding between Paul and Amanda after they returned though. Bet you don't remember."
"Oh stop, will you?" Dr. Sorkin kidded as she gave her a playful slap on the arm. "I'm just glad Eric was rescued from Sorna. But I'm glad that the Pteranodons are free now; free to go where they please and live where they want to, just like their ancestors did before they went extinct."
"Hey, Dr. Sorkin," Kailey paused, "the name Pteranodon means 'toothless flier', right?"
"Yes, and let me guess: you're wondering why they have teeth." Kailey nodded and Dr. Sorkin continued. "Well, let me tell you, Wu's frog DNA hatch was not only a shortcut, but it also might have resulted in many of the anomalies we see in InGen's animals from those we find in the fossil record. I can't say for sure because I haven't had the opportunity to study that issue more heavily. But you are correct, Pteranodon was supposed to be toothless."
Dr. Sorkin had recognized many other differences in InGen's pterosaurs that were different from the ones in the fossil record: InGen's were a bit larger (fossil Pteranodon only weighed 30-40 lbs, but InGen's weighed at least a couple hundred as adults) and they could lift objects with their feet. But they were exactly the same ones from the fossil record in nearly any other respect.
Just then, a loud ringing sound came from her cellphone sitting on her desk and interrupted her thoughts. She picked it up and saw: "Richard Levine" on the screen. She pressed "answer" and said, "Hello, Levine. What have you been up to?"
"Well, I've been at Grant's dig and . . . 'various stuff'," Levine answered. Dr. Sorkin knew he didn't mean "various stuff" and got the hint. She looked up at Kailey. "Can you excuse me a moment?"
"Sure." Kailey turned to leave and as she exited the door she yelled back, "Let me know when you're finished with your phone call."
Dr. Sorkin put the side of her head to the phone and spoke into it. "Do you have any news on anything Levine? Did you talk with Dr. Grant and Dr. Malcolm."
"Yes," Levine said from the other end. "I spoke to both of them two days ago and we talked a bit about Isla Nublar."
"And?"
"Negative, I'm afraid. I know how you thought they might know something about the possibility that something from Isla Nublar might have survived the napalm bombing, but they don't know any more than we do."
"Drat!" Dr. Sorkin exclaimed. "Yes, that's what I was hoping."
"I also told them that I suspected that something having to do with Isla Nublar survived . . . since that's what everyone's talking about now after the recent 'incident', but they know about as much as anybody. They seem to think an investigation is a waste of time. Malcolm and Dr. Grant seem to believe that more evidence is needed before everyone goes on a wild goose chase with this matter. You know how Dr. Grant really despises the idea of having anything to do with both Nublar and Sorna, especially after your sister tricked him into going so they–"
"Yes, yes, yes, I know very well what my sister did. Is there anything new from Lexico? Have they uncovered any more evidence or incidents they haven't shared with the press?"
"No. No more incidents have occurred since the one with the jet-skiers."
Dr. Sorkin frowned. This wasn't the outcome she had been hoping for. Ever since the jet-skier incident a two weeks ago, news of their disappearance hit the street like wildfire and Dr. Sorkin, Lexico, Levine vowed to get to the bottom of this. If a creature that ever had anything to do with Isla Nublar was responsible, Lexico wanted it stopped. For all they knew, Isla Nublar was destroyed in 1993. But Levine, Lex and Dr. Sorkin had other ideas.
"Is there any good news you have for me?" Dr. Sorkin asked hopefully.
"Well, Lex firmly believes her grandfather might know something the rest of us don't. She wants to wait until more evidence arises before taking the matter more seriously. She knows that if we do, the nosy public will be on our tails for sure and she wants to keep the press as uninformed as she can."
"Alright, thanks anyway, Levine."
"No problem, see you soon." Dr. Sorkin hung up the phone and sighed. As she looked back at the colony of Pteranodons outside, she thought, Levine's right. Something's missing from the puzzle. All we need is more evidence of something occurring before Lexico can seriously take on this matter. That's all we need! Maybe something has survived on Isla Nublar; my life's work would not have gone in vain after all! But I need proof!
A/N: Did you enjoy this chapter? Now at long last we FINALLY know what became of those Pteranodons that flew from Isla Sorna at the end of Jurassic Park III! For those of you who don't know, Dr. Sorkin is not from the Jurassic Park movie, but from TellTale's Jurassic Park: The Game which was released in 2011. In the game, her character was killed by a reptilian predator during the Jurassic Park Incident, but in my fanfiction, I've decided to change the story a bit and make it so that she in fact did survive. In my story, she was also a great deal younger when she was at Jurassic Park than she is in the game. I did that so she's not as old as John Hammond is in the first movie so she can experience a little adventure later on in the story . . . Until then, please be sure to express your opinions through comments! Will Dr. Sorkin and Levine get the much-needed proof they need? Find out in the next chapter!