Jurassic World: Return to Isla Nublar – Chapter 45: Tying Things Together
A/N: OK, I know that with Grant, Dr. Sorkin and the lot trapped again, it might seem to a few readers that the story is going in a never-ending circle and not really going anywhere. This is not the case, folks! The story is reaching its end and this trapped situation won't last for too long. This chapter is one that I'm sure many of you guys (and gals) will be really excited to read about, as it begins to tie everything together – from DNA Project #1, to the Troodon, to the Anurognathus, to the laboratory Grant's group has come across . . . everything this chapter will make known what all these things have in common with each other. Please enjoy!
Disclaimer: I don't own anything related to Jurassic Park except the very characters I've made up.
Richard Levine retrieved his laptop from his bag, turned it on and scrolled down the list of Dr. Wu's messages to Hammond. He finally found one that was unread.
"So what are these messages from?" Eric asked.
"These, my friend, were emails sent to Hammond himself from Dr. Wu before the park shut down. We're hoping to gain some insight into what was happening then to better understand not only the incident itself, but what happened after."
"So far," Kailey started, "we've learned that Dr. Wu and Dr. Sorkin had a sort of love/hate relationship with each other after Dr. Sorkin was demoted from being head geneticist at the laboratories. We also learned just how unaware InGen was that all the things they'd done in the park would eventually add up and come back to bite when the park went haywire. Dr. Wu and his team had begun secretly engineering new dinosaurs on Nublar."
"Did they not do that on Isla Sorna?" Stanley questioned.
"Most of it they did. But since the Site B labs were busy, Wu had some of the operations take place on this island. He calls the process DNA Project #1, implying he intended to conduct other projects there. Another reason why the operations were carried out on Nublar is probably because they wanted secrecy; most InGen employees didn't know about it."
Tim said, "Not that we've actually found these labs. But we haven't traveled the whole island either."
Levine read:
"April 5, 1993
Dear Hammond,
After all the births that have happened in the park over the last month or so, I'm quite exhausted, but pleased at the same time! All the animals for our DNA Project #1 are quite healthy, including the Anurognathus specimens. They are quite precocial upon hatching, as we theorized they would be based on how are Pteranodon were and on the way they appeared upon hatching. Despite their small size, they are quite tenacious little beasts! Several times they've tried to bite the hands of my assistants and my own. One assistant nearly lost a finger. We've had to keep them in an enclosed area. I've observed that they prefer live prey, such as insects and small animals, but they've been known to gang up on their caretakers in large flocks and try to attack them. I regret cloning so many (dozens) of them. They behave much like piranhas; once they've decided you're food, they will stop at nothing to try and get you and have been known to strip prey to the bone in a matter of minutes! In order to prevent the deaths of their caretakers, they have to wear protective clothing and I'll be putting the creatures in some sort of special enclosure to ensure they don't get out easily. Escaping Anurognathus could be a disaster for the park. Thank goodness they're all female so they can't breed and that they're not as intelligent as raptors! Then we'd have a HUGE problem! Upon your return to the park, you should inspect them and see if I should add them to the list for euthanization. I don't see them as fitting your vision for the park. I'll keep them to study them further for a while, to see if they calm down as they mature, but I doubt they will.
The other specimens are doing much better. The extinct bird we have is likely the strangest bird known to science: it has not two, but four wings, one on each limb! And they also bear a sickle-shaped claw on each foot like a Velociraptor! This unique configuration is seen nowhere else in nature. I've checked the DNA we used to clone the creature and found no evidence of it being a cloning glitch, meaning it's a legitimate specimen. As we've been unable to identify them, we've un-officially named them Ornitho-raptor, meaning "Bird Thief". Despite being similar in many ways to raptors, they don't behave like them. In fact, they're no more ferocious than a parrot and we're able to hand feed them. Unlike modern birds, they don't fly but use a gliding method to get around.
The oviraptorids aren't improving their growth situation either and are growing faster and larger than to be expected, even with the growth enhancer in their food! They've attained the size of the largest known oviraptorid, Oviraptor, last week and have since put on at least a dozen more pounds. Their heads are also quite different from Oviraptor in that they lack a large crest. Instead they have a strong beak. They omnivores, eating mostly vegetation, fruit and small animals, but they can behave quite nastily toward their caretakers.
After the Ceratosaurus mature, we'll send them to Site B, as there really isn't a permanent enclosure on Nublar to house them in. The other carnivore we have, . . ." Levine stopped reading; the next few words were disfigured and could not be read clearly. He squinted to try and see them better.
"What's wrong?" Lex asked.
"For some reason the next few sentences are unreadable."
"They are?" Lex asked. She scooted next to him and nodded. "Let's see, I might be able to fix this. Just give me a second here."
Grant, Ryan, Chuck and Malcolm glared nervously at the jungle, where the loud sounds originated. A loud braying sound emitted from the unseen creature.
Grant winced. "No raptor I've ever encounter sounds like that."
A moment later, a trio of dinosaurs exited the jungle, some of the most bizarre dinosaurs the group had ever seen! They had large abdomens, long necks that ended in small heads, strong back legs and greatly-clawed forearms. The sound they made sounded like a braying.
"What on earth are those?" Ryan asked in surprise.
"Nothronychus," Grant responded. "Members of the nothronychid family. They were some of the strangest of all dinosaurs."
The Nothronychus group continued walking forward; apparently, they were just passing through the area to reach a new feeding site nearby. They walked no more than ten or so yards in front of Grant's team. The three looked at the group timidly as they passed by. Grant noticed how the dinosaurs seemed rather cautious about this place; something was making them nervous and they wanted to be out of the area as soon as possible.
"They're really strange beasts," Malcolm noted. "I'm assuming they're herbivorous."
Grant nodded.
Before long, the Nothronychus reached the edge of the village and trekked quickly back into the forest. Chuck grinned and held his gun ahead of him, ready to fire at a potential threat.
"I'm not taking any chances out here," he said. "So what's the plan now, Dr. Grant?"
Grant shrugged. "Not entirely sure yet. We've got a working helicopter, but I don't think anyone knows how to fly it. We'll just have to wait it out until the Lexico crew comes to pick us up. I'm sure they will come to our last recorded location once they notice we're not responding to them. We weren't that far away from where we last contacted them." They couldn't use the radio in the chopper because they'd need to turn on the chopper first in order to do that, and the now-dead pilot had the keys.
Ryan nodded. He didn't exactly like Grant's plan, but he didn't have a better one, so he had to live with it. I am not going to end up being stuck on this island for another couple of days! "And there's no other way to get off this island you can think of?" Grant shook his head. "Drat."
With a gesture toward the damaged enclosures ahead of them, Grant said, "Well, let's go make a closer inspection of this area before it gets dark. What time is it?"
Malcolm glanced at his watch. "It's 4:15 p.m. It will be getting dark pretty soon. If those raptors were spooked by something, we really don't want to bump into it."
"My point exactly," Grant agreed.
Dr. Sorkin opened the door on the left and she, soldier #1 and #2, Taylor and Sarah walked into a hallway with many doors on either side. They walked until they found a door labeled laboratory and they entered a large room filled with incubators for dinosaur eggs, multiple rows of tables and chairs, a large round desk in the room's center and even a relaxation area. However, despite the fact that the people who worked here must have abandoned the building in a hurry, it was pretty tidy, aside from the mold, water damage and filth built up over two decades. It looked almost move in ready.
"What is this place?" Sarah asked.
Dr. Sorkin answered, "I . . . I don't know. I've never seen this place in my life. This building has nothing to do with Biosyn though like your husband suggested, that I do know."
"How do you know?"
The older scientist pointed to a large sign with the words "InGen" plastered on a nearby wall.
"What I don't know," Dr. Sorkin continued, "is what they were doing here. I was never informed about a laboratory other than the one in the Visitor Center. Then again, they didn't tell me about a lot of things."
Taylor walked over to one of the incubators – it was completely empty with the exception of a comfortable bed of moss for the eggs to lie in. "Where are the broken egg shells like the ones we saw in the Visitor Center laboratory?"
"Perhaps they either didn't start producing eggs in this facility or they already cleaned out the shells from the last time the eggs hatched." She and the others walked down one of the halls in the dark laboratory.
Soldier #1 rushed in front of the group. "Keep your eyes open," he said. "Something tells me that this is a great place for predators to leap out." He glanced over at soldier #2. "You, get behind the others and keep a look out."
Soldier #2 obeyed. Eventually, they reached the desk in the center of the room. Taylor walked closer to get a better look. Wow, I bet this hasn't been used in ages! I wonder if they've got anything cool in here.
She went behind the desk and spotted what looked like a walkie-talkie radio! Did it work? Could they contact Lexico with it?
"Hey guys!" she exclaimed. "I found another radio."
The others rushed over to where she was. Sarah was the first to speak.
"I think I've seen this model before. This looks like a radio similar to the ones we found in the lobby, but has the capabilities of communicating with other radios."
"Can we contact Lexico?" soldier #2 asked.
"I don't think so. It seems like the part of the device that enables that ability is worn out, which is to be expected considering how long it's been in here. Let's see if it still works."
She took the radio from Taylor, clicked the power button and lightly hit the radio with her hand. To their surprise, it came on! The battery was rather low, as indicated by the flashing symbol on the screen, but perhaps they'd be able to contact someone. There was a small chance that the device would be able to contact another radio other than its "twin".
Sarah quickly tried finding an appropriate frequency. She frowned and shook her head. "I'm afraid this won't be able to reach anything but its twin, and I doubt someone actually has it. It's probably in this laboratory somewhere."
"But what if someone does?" Taylor asked. "Would it hurt to check?"
Sarah shrugged and pressed one of the radio's buttons. "Hello, this is Sarah Malcolm speaking, over."
Lex tried to return the disfigured words to their original state; so far, she'd managed to convert most of the words, but there were still a few which remained unreadable. She handed the computer back to Levine. "Sorry, Levine. I couldn't fix them all. It's not your computer that is making some of the words disfigured, it's the email itself."
Levine frowned. "That's pretty strange."
Suddenly, a voice emitted from their radio: "Hello, this is Sarah Malcolm speaking, over."
"Hey!" Eric exclaimed. "It's the other members of the search team!" He snatched up the radio and said, "Hello, this is Eric Kirby."
"Oh, hi Eric. How is your search for the survivors going?"
"We've found them and are bringing them back."
"Really! That's great!"
"Yeah, and that's not all they found out. They were able to get some more data from Dr. Wu's emails. Levine can give you more details."
"Alright then."
Eric passed the radio to Levine. Levine answered, "Hey, Sarah!"
"Levine! It's good to hear your voice again! How are the others doing?"
"Well, we've been chased by dozens of ravenous dinosaurs, suffered in the blazing tropical heat and down one soldier, but other than that, we're good."
"Alright. So what did you find out?"
"OK, here's the skinny: apparently, before the Jurassic Park Incident . . ." Levine went on to explain all of what they had learned from the emails they'd read; about how Dr. Henry Wu had a secret laboratory on Nublar in which they recreated new species of dinosaurs, many from a batch of amber bought from an amber collector. After cloning the species, they'd noticed how some appeared to be unidentified dinosaurs, such as the large oviraptorid and the four-winged bird, Microraptor. He also talked about the Anurognathus. Sarah switched the radio to Dr. Sorkin.
After the typical greetings, Dr. Sorkin said, "Funny you should mention Anurognathus, we've that species already."
Levine frowned. "You have?"
"Twice, actually."
"What are they like? The email described them as piranhas with wings."
"They're pretty bad. First we ran into them in the Visitor Center, during the raptor attack, and the other time we ventured into the caves where they nested and got attacked again. They like to gang up on their prey in large flocks numbering many tens of individuals."
"Oh, they do sound bad. The email also said that Wu was considering euthanizing the species because they were almost as dangerous as the Velociraptors."
"He was considering euthanizing another species? The nerve of that guy."
"We weren't quite finished reading the email that I was on now. Here, I'll read the rest aloud."
Levine placed the computer on his lap and began reading the email, skipping past the disfigured words the email read:
"' . . . this species is quite unique among theropods, able to conceal themselves before rushing out to attack the goats we feed them. We've bumped up the security requirements for this dinosaur species, because I'm sure it will be hard to keep track of if it escapes, and I've already had the Site B laboratories start cloning some individuals. They might be a great addition to the park for the Phase C project. While I'm on the subject of strange dinosaurs we've recreated recently, the herbivorous theropods would definitely draw a crowd to the park. Because they're theropods, I had expected them to be carnivores, but their teeth aren't made for eating meat, nor are their bodies for that matter. They don't tend to move too fast and are generally happy to browse on tree leaves. They've showed no aggression to their caretakers. As we have yet to actually identify them, we've nicknamed them Longychus, meaning "Dragon Claw". We've found their arms to be remarkably similar to those of the Asian dinosaur, Therizinosaurus, what's believed to be one of the largest carnivores to walk the planet. However, my assistants and I are wondering if Longychus are related to Therizinosaurus; if so, Therizinosaurus might not be the terrible killer it's believed to be. This might lead to one of the most incredible paleontological discoveries of the 20th century! The strange unidentified pachycephalosaurs have fully-developed horns by now. I'm not sure why a pachycephalosaur would have horns instead of the dome-skull most of the members of that family possess. Possibly for display?
Dr. Sorkin's brood of Troodon pectinodon are starting to mature, and they aren't any less nightmarish than when we witnessed them hatching. Though we expected that they would probably have excellent eyesight, needle-sharp teeth, grasping clawed hands and good intelligence, we never excepted their other features. Salivary tests have confirmed that they are indeed possessing a venomous bite. Our studies haven't concluded how victims react to the venom, but we are sure it isn't good. They also tend to like being in dark areas and are largely nocturnal. I agree with you that this species is a not suited for your park, Hammond. So far, it seems Dr. Sorkin is responding well to the news that they must be euthanized. Like I've said before, she's hard to read sometimes, and this time she did show a little reluctant toward the idea, but I believe she understands. The Troodon are one species of dinosaur that should really remain extinct.
Sincerely, Henry Wu.'"
The group sat in silence for several seconds as they contemplated on what Levine had read. Levine looked thoughtful. So Troodon are venomous! he thought, now it all makes sense! Levine remembered how Dr. Sorkin had told him a few days ago to avoid getting bitten by the Troodon at all costs; but she hadn't told him why.
"Dr. Sorkin," Levine said softly into the radio, "you never said those Troodon were venomous!"
"I know. I did that intentionally so that you guys wouldn't suffer from any unnecessary worry."
"Unnecessary worry?" Tim asked, loud enough so that his voice could be heard through the radio. "Those things were after us!"
"They were?" Stanley inquired. "When was this?"
"Back at the Visitor Center. The raptors that were chasing us at the time ran away when a pack of Troodon showed up. Troodon are pretty similar to Velociraptor, but they're slightly smaller and, as we've just learned, they have a venomous bite."
Stanley snapped his fingers. "That's what those tracks were from! I thought they looked slightly different from those of raptors!"
Kailey leaned toward the radio. "What else can you tell us about Troodon?"
"As you already know, they're pack-hunting animals," Dr. Sorkin explained. "They are also nocturnal and remain in dark places. They don't normally rush out and attack like raptors do, they prefer to hang back a bit; stalking their prey. Then one – or more individuals depending on the circumstances – will rush forward and bite the prey before stepping back and waiting for the venom to take effect. The venom makes the prey go into a state of disorientation and nausea. After this, the victim will often suffer from seizures; afterward, they enter a shaking stage, in which the victim shakes uncontrollably. Past that point, there's no going back and the prey becomes brain dead and the Troodon have you."
Kelly shivered. "Sounds like a horrifying dinosaur. I'm glad I haven't seen one yet."
"You don't want to," Lex told her. "Believe me."
Suddenly, static was heard through the radio – Dr. Sorkin's radio was running low on power and it would be hard to make out what she was saying.
Dr. Sorkin uttered, "Oh, by the way, we're – our helicopter – rescuing."
"Dr. Sorkin!" Levine exclaimed. "You're breaking up! Say that again!"
"Helicopter – down. –tact – Lexico. We need rescu–" The call dropped.
"Sounds like they're at a stopping point for now. What I got from that was that their helicopter is down and need rescuing."
Eric nodded. "Alright then. I'll notify Lexico. They'll know what to do."
"Then after that," Stanley said, "we might want to get moving if we want to reach the Visitor Center before dark."
One of the soldiers groaned. "Back into that cramped jeep again. Real nice."
Dr. Sorkin placed the radio on the desk and looked back at the others.
Taylor giggled. "See? See? What'd I tell ya? I told you someone might have the twin walkie-talkie. Think they got the message?"
"We can only hope they did," Dr. Sorkin answered. "I guess we should have given them that news first before I started talking about the Troodon."
Sarah said, "So, these Troodon . . . they were supposed to be euthanized, right?"
"Yes."
"So why did you guys run into them?"
The older woman sighed before going on to explain, "They were supposed to be put down, but I didn't agree with that motion. In fact, I didn't agree with much of what InGen was doing to the dinosaurs. I felt that the dinosaurs had a right to live, the exact same way they had done in the past. I had compromised with the whole park plot, but that was where I drew the line. I never agreed with the lysine contingency plan; I never agreed with the use of frog DNA; I never agreed to the activity of euthanizing animals for no good reason. It was unnecessary and cruel to kill off any of the dinosaurs just because they weren't suited for the park. That's why I just played along. I kept the Troodon in some quarantine pens not too far away from my field lab – for study. The main occupation of my assistant, David Banks, and I after I demoted was not only studying a small herd of Parasaurolophus at my lab, but also to study the Troodon and study the balance that could be kept between them and human beings."
"David Banks? I think I recall that he was your assistant. What happened to him?"
Dr. Sorkin sighed again, clearly distressed, before continuing. "I'm afraid he didn't make it off the island. I told him not to get too close to the quarantine pens and I'm afraid he did just that. I never saw him again."
Sarah nodded in understanding. "I'm sorry."
"Um, I hate to break up the moment," soldier #1 began, "but we should really get back to the lobby so that we'll be there when Grant and the others return."
Grant was standing in front of the enclosure that once held a very interesting dinosaur: Ceratosaurus nasicornus, as indicated by the battered-up sign on the fence. He'd only had less than a minute to observe a living Ceratosaurus, and that was when he and the Kirby's were trapped on Sorna in 2001 when they were digging through Spinosaurus droppings to find the satellite phone. Fortunately, the carnivore didn't attack them, either due to the fact that it was fearful of Spinosaurus' scent, was more curious than hungry, or wasn't interested in eating prey covered in dung. "InGen, InGen, InGen, what were you doing?" Grant asked rhetorically.
He continued walking down the line of fences; many of the signs indicating what species were once held inside were missing or broken, but some of the ones that were still present included: Hypsilophodon foxii, Unidentified Pachycephalosaur, and an Unidentified Therizinosaurid.
Malcolm slid his pointer finger across one of the fences and removed a thick layer of moss. He grimaced and rubbed the moss off. "This has definitely been abandoned for a while."
"Sure," Ryan agreed, "of course it has. Why would one think otherwise?"
"Who knows. InGen was a very mysterious company. For all we know, Hammond could have returned to this island with some of his men, without our consent, and tried to establish another laboratory."
Chuck shook his head. "No, Hammond hasn't been to this island since '93. I'm sure this area of the island was used before the incident. I don't know why they'd need another facility though; they've got a large one on Site B."
Upon seeing the signs of InGen's "unidentified dinosaurs", Malcolm snapped his fingers and chuckled to himself. Ryan winced. "What's so funny?"
"InGen didn't even know what creatures they were recreating," Malcolm answered. "That's an extremely risky move. If they weren't careful, they could have brought back something worse than the Velociraptor without even knowing it – they could have brought back a monster. And I bet they didn't just clone a few to see how they'd behave. Oh no. I'm sure they cloned a large batch of them. InGen made a lot of errors while making this theme park; most of them were relatively harmless by themselves, but with one swift move from Nedry, everything else came into play and broke the pillars holding this park together. Perfect example of the Chaos Theory in action. Might be worth another book."
"Let's hope it's more accurate than your first one," Ryan told him.
Malcolm looked back in Ryan's direction. "My book is plenty accurate, it just has some creative license in it."
While Malcolm and Ryan started a conversation over Malcolm's novel, Grant and Chuck continued to move down the line of fences. Eventually, upon reaching the end, Grant looked near the edge of the jungle . . . and saw what appeared to be the carcass of a large dinosaur on the ground.
"Hey Chuck," Grant began.
"Yeah?"
Grant gestured toward the dead dinosaur and the two men hurried in that direction. Upon closer inspection, they observed it was the carcass of a dead Parasaurolophus. The stench of decay was strong and musty; it was so strong that would leave an "after-scent" in one's nose after leaving the area. A multitude of flies buzzed around the dead animal. The stomach and neck of the animal had been ripped open, revealing a horrifying view of the creature's innards – there were signs that this animal had been savagely killed by a predator. The thing Grant found most horrifying was that it was no more than several hundred yards from the laboratory.
"Phew! Man this thing smells nasty!" Chuck exclaimed. "I can handle the typical military carnage, but this . . . this is too much. What killed it?"
"I don't know." He called Malcolm and Ryan over so they could get a look.
Ryan was the first to speak. "Whatever killed it must have been pretty big. Just look at these footprints!"
Grant and Chuck looked at the ground, only just realizing that they'd been so focused on the carcass that they'd completely missed the tracks. The footprints of a medium to large-sized theropod – perhaps two individuals – were all around the Parasaurolophus; however, it was unclear whether the dinosaur was actually killed in this area or was moved here by the killers. Either way, the men knew the creature wouldn't hesitate to kill them as well. Eventually, Malcolm and Ryan noticed Grant and Chuck looking at the carcass and went over to join them.
"Is this a recent kill?" Malcolm asked.
"I don't know," Grant admitted. "I study dead dinosaurs . . . well, dead fossil dinosaurs anyway."
"Sarah would know. I bet she can give us a precise identification of the killer too."
Needless to say, the next thing they did was call Sarah to come over to where the dead Parasaurolophus was located. Following her was Dr. Sorkin (Taylor and the soldiers remained in the lobby).
Dr. Sorkin and Sarah gasped when they saw what Sarah had been called over to identify the killer. Sarah swished some flies away from her face and approached the dinosaur. "This is definitely a recent kill," she said.
Ryan nervously asked, "How recent?"
"Last couple of days or so. There aren't even any compies scavenging this thing, so that's the first major clue. We know this wasn't a tyrannosaur attack, because T. rex wouldn't have just eaten the most of the meat – they would have consumed the bones as well. I don't see any broken teeth on or around the carcass, so I'm afraid I can't identify what dinosaur killed the Parasaurolophus."
"Nice." Then he said to Dr. Sorkin, "So what candidates do we have, Doc?"
Dr. Sorkin said, "If you'd asked me an hour or so ago, I'd have said that there aren't any medium-sized carnivores on the island. The largest ones, aside from T. rex of course, are Dilophosaurus – once they're full grown (the ones they ran into earlier were a pack of juveniles). Herrerasaurus is also a medium-sized carnivore, but they're not large enough to make a kill like this or leave these footprints."
"And now?"
"It turns out that this village was the location of Dr. Henry Wu's secret laboratory; here is where he conducted what he called DNA Project #1. What they did, in utmost secrecy, was clone new species of dinosaurs; they did this here because the Site B facility were quite busy."
Malcolm chuckled. "Hammond: the dark side of Walt Disney and a man of secrecy," he murmured.
"In this facility, they recreated many previously unknown species – such as Microraptor, Dracorex and–"
"Ceratosaurus?" Grant asked. "We saw the sign for the enclosure that once held them. We also saw some Nothronychus pass by not too long ago."
"That must be the unidentified therizinosaur in the email," Sarah said.
Dr. Sorkin continued to explain. "They also recreated a flock of Anurognathus here. They found the species so vicious however, that they were being considered for euthanization."
"Serves the little creeps right," said Ryan. "Dr. Wu was going to do something right for a change. How'd you know about all this, anyway?"
"We had brief communication with the other half of our team and–"
"They're alive?!" Grant exclaimed.
"Yes, they are. They've already been rescued and are on their way back to the Visitor Center."
"Thank goodness!" Ryan said.
"They were able to give us some information about DNA Project #1 from those emails that they've been reading. Remember? The ones that you, Grant and Lex were looking at for a while? Well, they've continued reading through them and found a load of information. We also told them that we are in need of rescuing, so I'd imagine that there will be someone to pick us up soon." Then she turned to Sarah. "Could the dead Parasaurolophus have been killed by a Ceratosaurus, Sarah?"
Sarah shrugged. "It's hard to say. There might be broken teeth further in the carcass, but without gloves, I'm not too fond of going in there to find them."
Before anyone else could say something, a loud haunting cry from a Parasaurolophus in the distance was sounded. The sun was starting to fall further and further below the horizon and it was quite evident that night would soon be upon Isla Nublar. Malcolm sighed. "Well, it's 4:50 p.m. now. We should get back to the laboratory lobby where it's safer. Hopefully whatever killed the para won't come back."
The others nodded and with that they returned to the laboratory.
Back at the Visitor Center, a soldier named Lewis had just finished a call with Rebecca: she had told him that she'd received word from Eric Kirby that the Malcolm's pilot had been killed and that they were in need of rescue. Lester's not going to like this, he thought.
He quickly left the trailer (not the research team's trailer, but the trailer that had brought here by the Lexico rescue teams) and walked into the Visitor Center main rotunda where Lester and Hammond were standing, giving the searching soldiers orders.
"Why do we have soldiers still searching in here?" Hammond asked Lester. "We've found both halves of the team already."
"True," Lester said, "but we wouldn't want to miss any potential clues left behind by Biosyn, would we? While they may be here for eggs, it's anyone's guess what else they might want to do with this island."
Lewis walked up to Lester and said, "Lester, I've got good news and some bad news."
Lester sighed. "Alright then. Spill."
"The good news is that Eric's rescue team is returning to the Visitor Center with the survivors. The bad news is that the Malcolm's helicopter is down and the pilot's dead."
Sighing again, Lester said, "Oh terrific. It's happening again! Just what happened to the helicopter?"
"We don't know, sir. And some bug in the system prevented us from getting a clear reading from the helicopter's exact location, so we don't know exactly where it is, just the approximate area. However, the bug's been eliminated."
"Alright then, tell Rebecca to have the ship's captain to send out a couple more helicopters to search the area." The soldier nodded and turned to leave as Lester added, "And make sure that the helicopter with the survivors actually makes it this time!"
"Yes sir, Lester!"
Hammond shook his head. "Oh dear. This isn't good. I wonder what caused their helicopter to go down. I hope it wasn't a Pteranodon."
"If it was, then you're taking full blame for even issuing a helicopter search in the first place. After all, it was your idea."
A/N: I hope everyone enjoyed this chapter. Are things starting to come together for you guys? Initially, I wasn't planning on giving the Anurognathus such importance in the story, but hey, things have changed greatly since I conceived the idea for the story. They may or may not make another appearance in the story. I'm not quite sure yet. Anyways, if you're liking the story and if you haven't already, be sure to take a look at my poll, like and favorite my story. Also, be sure to feed me your ideas about how this story should end. Like I said before, I can't use everyone's ideas, but every little bit helps. Also, be sure to check out Chapter 46 once it's published to find out what species of dinosaur killed the Parasaurolophus. R&r!