Jurassic World: Return to Isla Nublar – Chapter 23: The Slothful Claw
A/N: Thanks to everyone who's been posting reviews and reading my story up to this point! And remember, if you have any questions regarding the story, please feel free to ask via comments. By the way, don't think that Grant, Dr. Sorkin, Levine and the others have seen most of the dinosaurs that their going to see on this adventure, because plenty more are coming their way (and not all of them are friendly!). Please enjoy this chapter!
Disclaimer: I don't own anything related to Jurassic Park except the very characters I've made up.
"So, Dr. Sorkin," Grant began as he, Ryan, Taylor, soldier #1 and #2 followed Dr. Sorkin through the maintenance tunnels. "There's a question that's been bugging me ever since I left Isla Sorna in 2001."
"Ask away," Dr. Sorkin responded.
"The Velociraptors we met on Nublar, back in 1993 and last night looked pretty similar, but the raptors we met on Isla Sorna in 2001 were . . . different. Their coloration was vastly different from the other raptors for one thing. What's up with that?"
Dr. Sorkin smiled, "Initially, when we were cloning Velociraptor, we incidentally bred two variations. They were both dangerous; they were both ravenous pack-hunters; they were both extremely intelligent. We never had the opportunity to figure out if they were two different subspecies of Velociraptor altogether, but we classified one as Velociraptor antirrhopus nublarensis and the other as Velociraptor antirrhopus sorensis. We decided to have nublarensis in the park on Nublar (hence its name) instead of sorensis because they behaved better in a caged setting than sorensis did. The sorensis subspecies didn't behave very naturally in the park setting and prefer a particular habitat in order to behave normally, so we left them a relatively large enclosure on Sorna, hence their name sorensis for study purposes. Meanwhile nublarensis is the more adaptable of the two subspecies and can live in a number of different settings and habitats and still behave naturally. That's why they exist on both Nublar and Sorna. There are also slight differences in the behavior of the two variations: sorensis uses less physical signals to communicate and instead uses vocal means of getting the message across to another raptor. Nublarensis on the other hand uses more physical signals, a snap of the jaw, a twitch of the claw or tail or even a slight movement of the eyes to communicate, but they will use vocal calls as well."
Grant nodded. Then he asked, "And remember the large female Velociraptor we saw yesterday? At least, I think that was the alpha female, but she kind of reminds me of the Big One."
"The Big One?" Taylor asked. "Who's that?"
"The Big One was one of the most ferocious Velociraptors we ever recreated – granted, none of them were what you'd call 'friendly', but the Big One was of an entirely different league. You know, we originally bred eight raptors to be shipped to Nublar, but when we brought the Big One from Sorna, she killed most of the pack, leaving only two others . . . AND she single-handily killed our gatekeeper! Yet, despite the accident, Hammond ordered another pack of five raptors to replace the ones the Big One killed. I really couldn't understand the guy."
Ryan said, "It probably would have been better if they had all been destroyed, then we'd never be in this mess."
"Where's the fun in that?" Grant asked him.
Just then, something came to Ryan's mind. "Um, you do realize that Lester's ship is supposed to be coming to the North Dock this morning, right?"
"Yes, I know that perfectly well, Mr. Ryan," Dr. Sorkin almost snapped.
"Well, instead of exploring around here, maybe we should attempt to go back through that ventilation shaft and into the Visitor Center. Maybe the predators are gone by now."
"I strongly doubt it. Maybe the Troodon are gone, but who's to say the raptors didn't return after the Troodon left. Troodon hate light, and most of the Visitor Center is too bright for them when the sun is pouring through the windows. They prefer dark places – the shadows. If a Velociraptor or another dinosaur cut us off in the Visitor Center, we might not escape this time. It's best we just continue traversing through here and hope that Levine's group can reach the docks and prevent Lexico from leaving us here."
"How long are these tunnels?" Taylor questioned. "'Cause I'm getting tired of all this walking."
"No time for rests," Grant told her. "We've got to get out of here as soon as possible!"
Levine continued to scroll through the computer files he'd sorted until he finally found something. "Hey, Lex," he said. "I think I've found something here."
"Something about the Troodon?" Lex asked, scooting next to him.
"No, but it's some behind-the-scenes stuff from Jurassic Park's pre-demise days. This is an update Dr. Wu emailed to Hammond very shortly after his most recent visit to the island. Seems like Hammond spent a great deal of time at the island to watch the park's progression. That explains why these emails are rather few and far between. This stuff might be important to know:
'June 14, 1992
Dear Hammond,
Lot's of work's been accomplished here on the island in the past few weeks; I'm really glad that all our hard work has been paying off! We've finally acquired just about all the dinosaurs that are planned to be present on Nublar for Phase A. Here's the official list of creatures planned for Phase A that have been transported to the island:
Velociraptor antirrhopus nublarensis
Brachiosaurus brancai
Parasaurolophus walkeri
Triceratops horridus
Tyrannosaurus rex
Gallimimus bullatus
Proceratosaurus bradleyi
Herrerasaurus ischigualastensis
Segisaurus halli
Compsognathus longipes
There will be 11 species of dinosaurs for Phase A. Since your last visit to Sorna, the Stegosaurs still are acting up. Gerry thinks it's a bad idea to even plan to have them in the park by the time we open, so we'll just have to take them off the list. However, with the laboratory in the Visitor Center up and running pretty soon, we should be able to clone Stegosaurus right on Nublar itself and not have to worry about transporting the ones from Sorna here. There also hasn't been much of an update concerning the studies on the 'Baryonyx'. Their hump development isn't stopping . . . in fact, it's seems to be growing into a sail! I guess we might not have a real Baryonyx after all and they won't be included in the park. Even though the Dilophosaurus' condition isn't improving, I still think they'll be ready to transport to the park itself pretty soon.
Also, in your last email, you asked how Dr. Sorkin is coming along after we had to divert half of her research funding to 'urgent needs'. Well, she's doing . . . fine I guess. Lately, she's been doing a thesis on the park's Triceratops. I hope that by the time the park opens, she won't be conducting her research in the field because it's going to look very unnatural if park guests see scientists working in the dinosaur enclosures. Maybe we should move her operations to Site B?
As for dinosaurs planned for Phase B, I agree with you completely. Here's the proposed list of creatures we've planned for Phase B, and unless otherwise mentioned, they are already cloned:
Stegosaurus stenops (since they won't be ready for Phase A)
Metriacanthosaurus shangyouensis
Pteranodon
A species of pliosaur or plesiosaur (at the moment, we haven't any DNA samples for these creatures and our amber-finding team doesn't think it likely we'll get a hold of these creatures, but I'll see if we can get some kind of marine reptile for the park)
That's about it for now, catch you later!
Sincerely, Henry Wu.'"
"So it seems that things were running pretty smoothly by the summer of 1992," Lex said.
"Yeah," Levine agreed. "They were already planning things for Phase B, which as we know, would never happen. They must have been transporting animals for that phase for quite some time, which explains the existence of Pteranodon on the island . . . I wonder if they made a Nublar Aviary."
On another tree branch, Tim began to stir. He opened his eyes and yawned. "Good morning, Lex and Levine," he said. Then, upon seeing the computer he cautioned, "You probably shouldn't be wasting the battery power on that thing. We might need it later."
Levine chortled. "It's solar-powered! All we need is sunlight and this computer works just fine."
Tim shook his head in astonishment. "You and your gadgets."
"And that's not all this computer can do," Levine continued. "It's also water and fireproof and can withstand intense heat, chill, immense weight and long falls . . . I discovered that it could survive long falls by accident."
Tim looked at his sister. "So what time is Lester coming back to the island? That's the perfect time to alert them that the others are missing."
Lex gasped. "I almost forgot! We've got to reach the dock and stop them from leaving before they think something happened to us! Come on, we've got to get going!"
With that, they quickly woke Kailey up and the four of them climbed down the tree and reached the forest floor. They looked around their surroundings, but they had no idea where they were in the jungle. Perhaps they had run a bit further from the Visitor Center than they'd originally thought.
"OK, OK," Kailey said, trying to calm everyone down. "The sun rises in the East, right? So all we have to do is use that to determine where the sun is . . . which is right over there, and use that to tell us which direction we should go."
"But we don't know in what direction we ran from the Visitor Center," Levine argued. "Nor do we know which direction the North Dock is. Sure we know that it's north, but the northern part of Isla Nublar is quite . . . extensive. I guess the real question is if we should try to find the North Dock or the Visitor Center?"
"I'd say the Visitor Center," Tim suggested. "We traveled quite a ways away from the North Dock, and we can't possibly be that far from the Visitor Center."
Levine nodded. "He's right. See what looks a bit like a pathway through those ferns to the left? Maybe that's where we ran last night to reach our tree." As they started walking, Levine glanced at his watch which read: 9:08 a.m.
Dodgson quickly flipped through his book entitled, How to Pitch a Tent for Dummies. "No, that pole's supposed to go on the other side, Howard!" Dodgson instructed.
"This isn't as easy as it looks, you know," Howard told him. Dodgson's group had found a clearing in the forest that he figured was the perfect place for a campsite. Now all they had to do was finish setting up a tent before they could start searching for dinosaur nests.
Halley wasn't helping in the least; despite having slept on the helicopter ride to the island, she was still sleeping in their jeep. Dodgson sighed. Man, that girl loves to sleep! he thought.
"I think I have it!" Baselton exclaimed as he made the finishing touches on the tent. "It's all assembled."
"Great!" Dodgson exclaimed. He lightly slapped his sister on the shoulder so that she'd wake up.
"Go away," she mumbled, half sleepily.
"No, I'm not going away. It's been time for you to be up! Look at the time! The days getting away from us!"
Halley's eyes remained closed. Dodgson smiled slyly, for he had the perfect trick to get her awake.
"Sorry, Barbie!" Dodgson yelled to an imaginary Barbie. "But your #1 fan Halley Dodgson's not interested in getting your autograph."
"Barbie's here?!" Halley asked as she shot out of her sleep. She looked around the clearing expectantly. "Dodgson! Quit doing that!"
"What? It's time to get going and you're sleep!" After turning to Howard and Baselton he said, "Everyone climb in. We've got dinosaur nests to track down!"
Once on the bumpy, but still drivable road, Dodgson turned to Baselton and asked, "What exactly are we looking for?"
"Well," Baselton began, "many species of dinosaurs nested in colonies. So what we need to do is first locate the dinosaurs and then if we're fortunate, they might lead us to a nesting ground."
"But what exactly are we looking for? How are we supposed to know where the dinosaurs are if we–"
All of a sudden, a loud groaning sound was heard from somewhere in the forest. Dodgson came to a halt. He turned the jeep off and listened. The sounds of rustling foliage was heard – a large animal was definitely nearby! Dodgson grinned.
"We've got ourselves our first dinosaur," he told the others. He quickly got out of the jeep and took out his sonic device. He attached the power box (it was like the battery of the device) to his belt and started walking. The other three people were still in the jeep. "Well, what are you waiting for? Come on!"
Howard reluctantly exited the jeep. Even though the jeep was little protection from a tyrannosaur, it felt so much safer than traveling on foot. Dodgson and his group headed off the road and into the jungle, hoping to find some dinosaurs.
This part of the jungle was full of all sorts of green plant life – the trees were relatively tall and shrubs and ferns covered the forest floor. Baselton bent down and picked up a large leaf he found. He let out a gasp of surprise.
"My goodness!" Baselton exclaimed. "Are you aware of what this is? This is a previously extinct species of plant called serenna veriformans! This thing is absolutely amazing! Did you know that veriformans are one of the few plant species that–"
"We're not here to find plants!" Dodgson interrupted. "Plants aren't going to save the business."
"Well, we might want to bring back previously extinct species of plants too. People would pay big money to see and touch a plant species that's been extinct for so long."
Dodgson rolled his eyes. "Sure, let's bring it back. We'll even make a theme park featuring extinct species of plants called Plantastic Park! It will bring in droves of people from all over the world!"
"Aw, really?"
"No. Put that thing down. About the only thing we'll get from Plantastic Park is a few yawns of boredom. Oh yeah, 'Ooh, ah!' is how it always starts – coming from scientists – but then later there's yawning, drooling and then, snoring."
Baselton reluctantly placed the leaf back on the ground and followed the rest of the group.
No more than a few seconds later, the foliage moved to the group's right. They looked over in time to see an animal with an graceful neck and an elongated snout rise into view from behind a large bush. Halley, Baselton and Howard gasped in surprise and Dodgson grinned – they had finally found a dinosaur.
The creature stood around 10 feet tall and 15 feet in length. It was quite bizarre for a dinosaur though – following its long neck was a muscular body and stood upon two stout hind legs. The animal also had a relatively short tail and a large pot-bellied abdomen. Its arms were what got the most attention though – they were long and bore three humongous and sharp foot-long claws on each hand. The dinosaur's skin was a shade of light brown and mottled white. It made a braying sound as it curiously glared at the new arrivals.
"Oh my gosh! I think we've run into a carnivore!" Howard almost screamed. He tuned and began to run back toward the jeep when he felt a sudden tug on his collar. "What are you doing, Baselton? Run for your life!"
Baselton made a hearty laugh at Howard's antics. "Silly, this isn't a carnivore. Though it's a member of the theropod group, this creature is in fact an herbivore. It's called Nothronychus – meaning 'Slothful Claw'. It's a member of the therizinosaurid family."
True to Baselton's word, after the dinosaur assumed that Dodgson's group wasn't a threat, it walked toward a small tree and began using its long claws to gather up leaves from the tree, but instead of eating them, it merely kept them in its mouth.
Great, Dodgson thought, soon I'll have a bunch of these guys at our own facility! No more dreaming about making hundreds of millions of dollars! We're going to make a fortune on these guys!
After gathering a bunch of leaves, the dinosaur looked back at Dodgson, made a loud braying sound and walked out of the area on its stout legs. As it walked, it sort of waddled from side to side because of its enormous stomach; it walked in a similar fashion to a pot-bellied bear.
"Say, notice how it didn't eat the leaves it gathered?" Baselton asked.
"Yeah, so?" Dodgson remarked.
"It might be using those leaves to cover its nest with. Otherwise it would have quickly consumed the leaves."
Dodgson shrugged and decided to follow the dinosaur, just in case it would lead them to a nest . . .
The Nothronychus left the forest and entered a small clearing in the forest. Ahead of her were six other Nothronychus, each of them lying next to a large mound of dirt with a bowl-like shape in the middle of it – this was a small nesting colony!
Dodgson and his group stopped at the edge of the forest and watched the dinosaurs. There were six nests and each one had a parent sitting beside it. The mother Nothronychus that Dodgson had seen in the forest went over to her nest and began clearing away from dead and decaying leaves from the nest and replaced them with the fresh leaves she'd gathered. This was just like Dodgson had imagined a dinosaur nesting colony would be like . . . only a great deal larger!
He turned to the others and said, "Alright, let's execute this plan."
"What is the plan?" Halley asked.
"Easy. Thanks to my sonic device, all we have to do it go in, turn it on, grab the eggs and run. The dinosaurs won't know what to do!" Just as he said, Dodgson led the group out of the foliage and into the open. The mother Nothronychus' looked up passively. They didn't seem to view the humans as a threat.
Dodgson turned the nozzle of the device to "on". All of a sudden, a loud blast of high-pitched noise erupted from the device and sent the animals into a noisy panic. The creatures rose to their feet and began shaking their heads, as if this would help get rid of the loud noise. Halley, Baselton and Howard covered their ears, but even still the noise was too loud for them.
"How many dinosaur species do we need?" Howard yelled above the noise. "'Cause this sound is going to drive me nuts!"
"What's that?" Baselton asked. "I can't hear you!"
"What?"
"What?"
"What?"
"Oh hush you two!" Dodgson told them. With the device in hand, he slowly progressed toward the nesting colony. As he drew nearer, the dinosaurs became more and more agitated. Not sure of what else to do, the Nothronychus began to very reluctantly back away from their nests while emitting loud braying sounds. It was obvious that they really didn't want to leave their nests, but if they wanted to preserve their eardrums, they didn't have much of a choice.
Once the six herbivorous animals had left their nests, Dodgson's group rushed into action. They stopped at the first nest they saw – inside the salad-bowl-like shape were five eggs lying among leaves that had been gathered to keep the eggs warm. Each egg was a pale color and around nine inches in diameter. Dodgson sat the device down and grabbed one of the eggs in his hand: the texture was a little rough, but he felt the warmth resonating from inside.
"How many eggs are we getting?" Howard asked, trying to hurry this process up so that Dodgson could turn the awful device off.
"Just get the whole nest worth," Dodgson answered.
Quickly, Dodgson took an egg in his hand, then Howard and Baselton grabbed two each. Then they left the clearing and Dodgson finally turned the device off. Phew!
As soon as the sound died down, the anxious mother dinosaurs rushed back to their nests to see what damage had been done. They'd never experienced egg thieves like these before! The mother Nothronychus whose eggs were stolen looked into her empty nest. Weeks of tender loving and caring for her precious eggs had gone to waste . . . or had they? She let out a sorrowful braying call before bending down to sniff her nest; she could still smell the scent of the humans on the fresh bed of leaves. Looking up in the direction that the humans fled in, she bellowed lowly. She'd need the human's scent she could smell in her nest later on . . .
"Yes!" Dodgson shouted with joy as he loaded each egg tenderly into the medium-sized containers specifically designed to hold dinosaur eggs of all sizes. Five little eggs had just been added to the collection.
"Now why couldn't I hold any eggs?" Halley asked.
"And let you accidentally destroy a decade worth of research and bio-engineering that we need desperately to save Biosyn? I don't think so, sissy!" Dodgson hopped into the jeep.
"I never get to have any fun," Halley complained as she got into her seat.
Dodgson asked, "Now that wasn't so hard, was it?"
"No actually," Howard admitted. "I just wish we could do something else other than that noisy sound-box! My ears are still ringing."
"Ah, that's the sound of victory you hear! Let's move on to out next nest! I can just hear the money we'll make with these things!"
Dodgson turned the jeep on and he continued driving down the road.
The USS Mars sped swiftly through the ocean waters of the Pacific. Lester stood on the bow of the ship and looked out over the horizon toward Isla Nublar, which was directly ahead of them. He had tried to contact his wife multiple times this morning, but to all of his calls, he received no answer.
The ship's mechanic – who's name was Jimmy – walked up to him and said, "Don't worry, Lester. I'm sure Lex and the others fine." Lester remained silent, so Jimmy continued. "Lex is a strong and leader-type woman. She's more than capable of helping the others survive and–"
"Jimmy," Lester began, "if there's one quality I dislike in people, it's sympathy."
"Sorry, sir," Jimmy apologized.
"We're approaching Isla Nublar!" the captain yelled.
As the ship approached the North Dock, many members of the ship's crew rushed onto the deck, anxious to see if the group was there. Unfortunately, there was no sign of life on the dock.
"What happened here?" Jimmy asked as he spied the part of the dock that had been destroyed during the mosasaur attack. Chunks of wood from the dock were still floating in the water.
One of the Lexico soldiers walked up to Lester and asked, "Should we disembark and mount a search for the expedition members, sir?"
"No, I'd rather not," Lester said. "If we were to go out in the search group we're prepared for at the moment, we might end up getting lost as well. Then we'd have to send another search crew and the process continues. The last thing we need is multiple groups of rescue parties lost on a dinosaur-infested island."
"So what do we do now, sir?"
"We go back to base."
"What? You don't want to make a search just a little for them? Why not send helicopters over the island to conduct a search?"
"And have it brought down by a pterodactyl and get the helicopter rescue parties stranded?"
"Actually, the correct term is 'pterosaur'."
Lester ignored this comment and continued, "We're going back to home base at Lexico's California headquarters to mount a rescue mission consisting of people who actually know what they're doing. We're going to need a number of people who've either been on the island before or had something to do with InGen and/or the dinosaurs in the past. And I can safely assure you that none of us are qualified."
"But that could take a while!"
"Yes, thank you. I'm well aware of that, but would you rather have us send search parties out there, have them get lost, stranded or eaten by ravenous dinosaurs? Of course it's undesirable, but it would be far worse to risk putting more people's lives at stake."
"So we're heading back to base?" the captain asked as he came out onto the deck.
Lester nodded. "Yes, as hard as it may be for us to . . . accept. But I believe that's the best option. I know this decision stinks, but the correct decision is often painful. That's the burden of the government."
So the captain reluctantly had the ship turned around and the USS Mars slowly headed back toward the mainland.
A/N: As you might imagine, this is the great turning point in the story. In the next few chapters, be expecting major decision-making by Lester and other Lexico staff, the nefarious work of Dodgson's team, and the life-and-death struggles of Grant's and Levine's teams as they try to survive on Isla Nublar. By they way, what did you all think of the Nothronychus? For those of you who don't know, Nothronychus is a member of the therizinosaur family – they are known for their long claws and pot-bellies. If I remember correctly, Nothronychus hasn't appeared in any other Jurassic Park-related work, so my story might very well be the first one where this dinosaur makes an appearance. The Nothronychus nesting ground mentioned in this chapter is based upon a real-life find in Asia in 2013 – they've actually discovered therizinosaur nests with eggs! I was originally thinking about having Dodgson and his team steal eggs from a hadrosaur nest, but I figured Nothronychus deserved some time devoted to it. (And yes, we will be seeing more of Nothronychus later on) What do you think will happen next? What dinosaurs do you think are going to appear in the story? Please feel free to express yourself via comments! R&r!