Chapter Seven:
Fissures
a/n: get wrecked on dinosaurs, kids. also go see Jurassic world. unless you don't have the money. then I shall act it out in its entirety for you. ahead: blood, gore, children in peril, vomit.
"More coffee?" Hammond asked politely.
"No, thank you." Henry Wu almost attached a habitual "sir" to the reply, then withdrew his tongue. Their meal had been casual, uncomfortably so, and Wu found it cloyingly tacky to revert back to his pet scientist persona after a mere hour of pleasant conversation. Outside the bungalow, rain lashed against the roof.
The bungalow itself was surprisingly sparse. Hammond had commissioned it several months ago, taking care to locate a building site far removed from the park's Visitor Center and resort areas. Unlike the aforementioned buildings, it was simple brick masonry, garnished with green shutters and a quaint wildflower garden. It was almost modest—a word Wu had never once associated with Hammond.
The interior was unfussy, clean, elegant. A mahogany table, polished and pristine, was the site of their meal; the overhead tealights would have basked them in a soft, buttery glow had the electricity not failed just after a new-fangled coffeemaker—perhaps the place's only modern appliance—spit out two cupfuls of rich Costa Rican brew. Hammond had fetched a few candles and placed them on the table, making the meal a comically romantic affair. Wu paused on more than one occasion to pinch himself as he realized he was having a candlelit dinner with the man he had loathed this morning.
It was like something out of a dream. Or a nightmare.
Hammond was now staring pensively out of the window behind Wu. His odd behavior had been enchanting at the beginning of the meal, but was becoming more and more troubling as the night progressed and Wu became plagued by a vague sense of dread. He wanted to return to the lab, to ensure that the rise in dinosaur population was nothing more than an error. They couldn't breed, of course… of course not. An error. That was all it was.
Thunder crashed raucously above them and Wu stiffened. Error or not, he had to confirm it.
Before Wu could even consider excusing himself though, Hammond abruptly returned to reality. "Now, Henry, you must save room for ice cream," he said, pushing away from the table. "Maria makes the most wonderful ginger ice cream."
"All right." Casual dining or not, Wu was still in no position to decline such a courteous invitation. He glanced at the telephone parked on the minimal buffet dividing the dining room and kitchen, and frowned. "Is the phone out?"
"Would it be?"
"The lights went out. I'm just wondering, I might want to take a Jeep back to the center. I think I left my keys."
Hammond picked up the receiver; both men could hear the mosquito buzz of a dead line. "Lines must be down," he said as he returned it to its cradle. "Or maybe Nedry's still doing data transmission. He has quite a few bugs to fix this weekend. Nedry's a genius in his way, but we had to press him quite hard, toward the end, to make sure he got things right."
"Maybe I should go to the Control Room and see," Wu said. He did his best to mask the edge in his tone.
"Oh, no need for that. If there was a problem, we'd hear about it. Ah."
The serving girl called Maria, pretty and long-legged, returned with two porcelain bowls. She set them down and, upon receiving no thanks from either man, ducked back into the kitchen.
"You must try a little, Henry. It's wonderful. It's an old man's vice, ice cream…"
Wu dutifully dipped his spoon and took in a mouthful. It was, as described, wonderful, even redolent of the ginger-infused dishes his grandmother had made for him so many years ago. He had another spoonful before speaking again, this time to regard the nasty weather. "I hope the children aren't frightened by the storm."
"I wouldn't think so." The contemplative, distant vacancy touched Hammond's eyes again. "I can't help but hold some fears about this park, Henry."
"What kind of fears?" His mind flashed to the data sheet, with its glaring error in the population column.
"You know, Jurassic Park's really made for children. The children of the world love dinosaurs, and the children are going to delight in this place. Their little faces will shine with the joy of finally seeing these wonderful animals. But I am afraid . . . I may not live to see it, Henry. I may not live to see the joy on their faces."
The answer was far too maudlin for Wu's liking. "There have to be other problems, though."
"But none so pressing on my mind as this," Hammond said, "that I may not live to see their shining, delighted faces. This is our triumph, this park. We have done what we set out to do. And, you remember, our original intent was to use the newly emerging technology of genetic engineering to make money. A lot of money."
It was a familiar speech, one Hammond had a penchant for launching into. Wu held up his hand. "I'm familiar with this, John—"
"If you were going to start a bioengineering company, Henry, what would you do? Would you make products to help mankind, to fight illness and disease? Dear me, no. That's a terrible idea. A very poor use of new technology." Hammond shook his head sadly. "Yet, you'll remember," he said, "the original genetic engineering companies, like Genentech and Cetus, were all started to make pharmaceuticals. New drugs for mankind. Noble, noble purpose. Unfortunately, drugs face all kinds of barriers. FDA testing alone takes five to eight years—if you're lucky. Even worse, there are forces at work in the marketplace. Suppose you make a miracle drug for cancer or heart disease—as Genentech did. Suppose you now want to charge a thousand dollars or two thousand dollars a dose. You might imagine that is your privilege. After all, you invented the drug, you paid to develop and test it; you should be able to charge whatever you wish. But
do you really think that the government will let you do that? No, Henry, they will not. Sick people aren't going to pay a thousand dollars a dose for needed medication—they won't be grateful, they'll be outraged. Blue Cross isn't going to pay it. They'll scream highway robbery. So something will happen. Your patent application will be denied. Your permits will be delayed. Something will force you to see reason—and to sell your drug at a lower cost. From a business standpoint, that makes helping mankind a very risky business. Personally, I would never help mankind.
"Now," Hammond said, "think how different it is when you're making entertainment, Nobody needs entertainment. That's not a matter for government intervention. If I charge five thousand dollars a day for my park, who is going to stop me? After all, nobody needs to come here. And, far from being highway robbery, a costly price tag actually increases the appeal of the park. A visit becomes a status symbol, and all Americans love that. So do the Japanese, and of course they have far more money."
Wu noticed a lull, a rarity in any of Hammond's soliloquies, and seized it. "It's easier to sell science to the rich than to give it to the poor."
An enigmatic smile found its way across the man's contoured, sun-speckled face. "Why, my dear boy, how right you are. You've found your way at InGen, haven't you?"
Perhaps he had. His misguided, cloyingly naïve dreams of contributing to mankind had been ousted after only a week of employment at InGen. There was no profit in charity, no glory in nobility. No one would pat him on the back for doing something nice: his selfish endeavors had made that quite clear. It didn't even needle him that Hammond was right, however much of a bastard he was, because it meant he at least acknowledged they weren't just patting little kiddies on the head and handing them stuffed Triceratops.
They were guilty of greed, of a financial corruption greater than any figure on a check. And Wu could still sleep soundly at night.
"Yes," Wu finally answered. He had another bite of ice cream, relishing its deep, fruity echoes and the warmth of the room and the comfort that Hammond sympathized with his moral struggle (or, rather, lack thereof). "It certainly has."
Outside, the rain continued to fall.
.
.
Misty Malcolm was wet, distraught, and overtaken by a seeping fatigue that seemed to have sapped her of the very will to live. And the Rex was still coming.
The beast had made her way from the wreckage of the chintzy hut—her appetite presumably piqued by her meal of the lawyer and whichever of the two men she had snagged first—and was now thundering towards the crushed Land Cruiser. It sickened Misty to think of what injuries the kids must have sustained during the first ordeal and what the Rex would do once she reached them.
The mere notion of sitting idly while the Rex massacred a pair of innocent children was impetus enough to bring Misty, however shakily, to her feet. She was wont to pause and contemplate her current situation so she could contrive a logical solution, but there was no time. There was no rationality anymore, no semblance of reason left to govern the universe: it was her and the Tyrannosaurus-Rex.
Fuck me, I thought I'd be in a hotel right now, she thought in a sudden fit of hysterical glee.
A horror-scream shattered the night like a bullet through windowglass, rising in a horrible crescendo until it was nothing but shrill, screeching noise. It drove every hair on Misty's neck to stand erect; she jolted and stumbled back, as if the sound had torched her. Fuck, she thought, scrambling across the pavement.
Misty launched into a heedless sprint, her muscled legs churning, her arms pumping pendulously, her sight a pinprick framing the whole gut-tweaking affair so beautifully it could've been mistaken for Renaissance art. The closer she drew to the Rex, the more terrified she became. This was a creature who hunted by movement, after all, and she was practically marshalling a goddamn parade down the roadway.
It was a concept that left a piercing moment of hideous clarity in its wake, where Misty visualized herself being picked off by the Rex like a flower plucked from its field. She skidded to a halt several yards from the wreckage, out of the Rex's line of sight. The dinosaur was still trundling towards the Land Cruiser; she seemed to be in no hurry. For a moment, Misty assumed the Rex was mocking her and felt a surge of fury unparalleled by any argument or inequality she had experienced in her short fifteen years.
If the Rex wanted to dine here, she would have hell to pay.
Misty streaked across the road. It was a perilous journey that almost turned a few ankles, but she managed to survive and found herself at the helm of the decimated Jeep mere seconds later.
The car was flattened. Its undercarriage bowed menacingly, as if on the verge of cleaving in two, and its acrylic siding was peeling off in great, flaky sheaths. Shards of broken window, some large as mailboxes, glinted like constellations on the pavement. For a moment, Misty could scarcely tell where the entrance to the Jeep was or if there was even any use in finding one. Her flaring panic was quelled by the sight of two thrashing silhouettes behind the windscreen. They were alive. And for whatever reason, Misty had never been so relieved.
"Kids!" Her voice was not her own; it sounded barky, frightened, odd. She knelt down and slid as what appeared to be solid ground collapsed into the mud bank that was threatening to overwhelm the Land Cruiser. The front of the car had been buffeted into a misshapen, tortuous vestige of itself that protruded like a wonky lip over the windscreen. The children were trapped beneath it: appropriately bloody and frantic, but alive.
Lex spotted the other girl first and immediately descended into hysterics. "Misty! Misty! Misty Misty please help help us!"
Her cries sent chills skittering down Misty's spine; they were also quite loud and most likely attracting the Rex's attention. "Shh! Lex, it's okay, it's okay, I'm here. I'm going to get you out," Misty said, this time recognizing her own voice and surprising herself with its tenderness. She got down on her belly, wincing as her inhaler's nozzle caught on the spade of her hip, and extended her hands to Lex. "Come on, sweetie."
"you made a great point back there, sweetie"
Doctor Sattler, gentle and levelheaded, putting words in her mouth. It was what Misty imagined having a guardian angel was like.
Lex scrambled for her hands and winced as Misty's strong biceps extracted her quickly and jerkily from the body of the vehicle. The chill of the night stung her flushed flesh like rubbing alcohol, but the shock managed to snap a little lucidity into her hazy mind. She scrambled onto her knees, testing them for any sign of serious injury. Other than her smarting right wrist and muzzy mental state, she was relatively unscathed.
Misty held her gaze with Lex for a moment longer, still awed that she was alright, then dove back into the muck. Tim's name had only just escaped her lips before Lex began to scream again.
She pulled herself upright just as the Rex stomped forward, menacingly close to the overturned vehicle. And Lex was still screaming how the fuck can she keep screaming like that how have her vocal cords survived? Misty hurled herself at the younger girl and clamped a hand over her muddy mouth; seconds later, she realized that she was stronger than Lex and had probably clocked her a good one in her haste.
"Don't move," Misty hissed. Lex went quiet, but trembled in the crook of Misty's arm. The Rex was only a few yards away from their crouched, statuesque forms.
Sniffing deeply, she tilted her head to the sky, then lowered it until she was hunched over comically. The peaks of her vertebrate rose from her arced back a mountain chain; a thin, vein-streaked lid slid lazily over her dull eye. Her nostrils flared and released twin jets of sulfurous breath that clouded the lenses of Misty's eyeglasses. Lex whimpered quietly.
Suddenly, as if she had somehow gained dexterity and speed since escaping her pen, the Rex reared her head around the pair and slammed it thickly against the Land Cruiser. The defeated vehicle spun in accordance. Misty remembered Tim, wide-eyed and uncharacteristically silent with terror, and felt her heart twist. He was still trapped in there.
The Rex shoved her billboard-sized brow against the Jeep; the sound of her skull plate colliding with it was nauseating. It began to rotate again on the rain-lubricated plane of its roof. Misty crouched up on her hams, Lex still clutched fiercely under one arm, and chased their side of the car. Her thighs burned like kerosene. She could've lit a match on her tongue her mouth was so dry. Every sound that escaped her was hoarser and more agonized than the last.
And the Rex kept coming.
She shoved the Land Cruiser beyond its limits. The vehicle lurched onto the edge of the road, which dropped at a ninety-degree angle into the steamy jungle below. It took Misty's exhausted brain a decent minute to realize the two of them were crouched right on the precipice and were scant inches away from falling. There was no way to avoid it. No way to retrieve Tim either.
Her voice broke. "Oh, God. Oh, God."
It was still raining.
"Misty!" Lex's voice was impossibly shrill. "The rope!"
The older girl glanced down and saw not a rope, but one of the paddock fence's metal crosswires. It extended deep into the canopy below. Misty didn't know where it led or just how much weight it could bear, but with the Rex starting to lose interest in its battered toy, she wasn't willing to wager.
Misty grabbed Lex by the forearm, abandoning any gentility in favor of brusquely swinging the blonde onto her back. Once Lex's arms were wrenched around her neck, Misty took the wire in both hands and began to scale the concrete paddock wall. They had traveled no more than a few feet before an excruciated squeal punched through the patter of rainfall. Lex screamed accordingly.
The Land Cruiser was dangling over them. And so was the Rex.
"Lex! I'm letting go!" Misty yelled.
This registered with the hysterical girl. "No! No no no no no"
time to be more than a bastard dad baby
Misty released the wire just as the Jeep sailed over them like an impending meteorite and as her world was reduced to a verdant funnel of greens and pulsing greys, her last conscious thought was: I hope to God this doesn't hurt her too much.
.
.
Robert Muldoon was waiting for her when Ellie finally arrived at the resort. The sight was comical: burly Muldoon perched on the ledge of the stone check-in desk, hunched over a bit of crochet work. She would've afforded a giggle had she not been so damn tired from the day's excitement.
"Doctor Sattler," he said pleasantly, setting his needles aside, "how was the ride?"
"Wet. But I've had a wonderful day."
"I'm thrilled to hear it. You're the only one who hasn't completely rained on Hammond's parade." The two laughed at his unintentional pun, momentarily breathing life into the otherwise funereal lobby. A peal of thunder sobered them both.
"Have the others come back yet?" she asked. A maid had appeared at the sound of the doors and offered to take Ellie's damp shoes; the woman stepped out of them and sent her off with an earnest "thank you".
"Oh, they'll be here any second now. After that, Ray will shut down the whole bloody thing for the night and we'll get a good night's sleep in us before tomorrow." Muldoon rolled his eyes, though a good-natured smile pulled at his lips. "Hammond's got the bloody red carpet rolled out. Have you ever ridden a Triceratops, Doctor Sattler?"
She grinned in amusement. "I can't say that I have."
"Well, get ready to have that changed."
Ellie laughed again, but it was glaringly halfhearted. As enjoyable as Muldoon's company was, her legs felt as if they were camping tents in a hurricane and the vaguely musky scent of her shirt suggested she was due for a shower. "I'm sorry, but I don't know if I can wait for Alan. Do you think I could see my room?"
"Of course, where are my manners? Hammond all your things brought up, so you'll have all you need. I took the liberty of putting the children a floor down," he added. Muldoon led her to a bank of elevators, each named after a different epoch—Jurassic Elevator, Triassic Elevator. Ellie knew Alan wouldn't find them at all charming, but she thought it was a cute detail.
"Oh, I don't mind the children."
"Sure, you don't mind them now, but children get fussy as hell when they're tired and excited. Got a boy of my own. Angel until he doesn't get his forty winks, ya know?"
"Oh."
Muldoon punched in the "up" arrow and settled back on his heels. He was a tall man, much taller than Ellie, but there was nothing intimidating about his stance. The set of his finely-sculpted jaw was always calm; his sharp brow shaded a pair of clear, engaged eyes that Ellie felt she could trust. It was these traits and her crippling lethargy that spurred her to ask a rather heedless question. "Muldoon, do you think what's going on here is right?"
His eyebrow arced curiously. "Whatever do you mean?"
"Do you think what Hammond's doing… the park, the dinosaurs… well, do you think it's right?"
The lobby seemed as vast and empty as a black hole. Its gold trimmings and opulent furniture absorbed her question, leaving a nerve-pinching silence in its wake. Finally, Muldoon looked to Ellie, his expression unreadable. "Well," he said sagely, "that depends on what your opinion of Playing God is."
The elevator pinged. Ellie nearly jumped out of her skin.
"Your room number is 243. There are no room keys yet, so it'll be unlocked. Have a pleasant night, Doctor Sattler."
She rode up to her room, took the first luxurious shower of her short life, and crawled gratefully into bed. Sleep came easily, but her dreams were haunted by the mild echo of Muldoon's words and a hulking figure that loomed just on her periphery no matter where her head was turned. In the unplumbed depths of her subconscious, she longed for Alan.
.
.
Outside, the rainfall tapered and eventually stopped. The moon hung low and bloated; blood glinted black under its sick, papery glow.
.
.
Miraculously, they survived.
Though Misty did not remember doing so, she had pulled Lex off of her back during their fall and trapped her in an awkward embrace. As Misty laid in the bank of mud, stunned and breathless, she theorized that she had experienced some sort of instinctual urge to move Lex out of harm's way. It was the same inexplicable tug she had felt when the Rex first courted the kids' Jeep. She was getting a little annoyed by it.
She cautiously rolled over and promptly swore as the nozzle of her inhaler carved meat from her hip; Lex stared at her with bright, terrified eyes. In the dark of the night, her mud-shrouded form was almost indistinguishable. The pale of her face flashed like silverfish in a murky pond as she looked to Misty. "Are… Is the aminal gone?"
Misty was so out-of-sorts that she almost didn't notice the wonky mispronunciation of the word "animal". It deeply disturbed her. Twelve-year-old girls didn't arbitrarily lose vocabulary. "Yeah, Lex. It's gone now."
The words had scarcely left the older girl's mouth before Lex dissolved into a sobbing fit. Tears carved stripes of whites through the filth rouging her cheeks and her chest hitched as she drew in breath after shaky breath. Misty could only watch her helplessly, too shaken by the incident to intervene.
A circle of faint, buttery light appeared in the greenery a few yards away. Misty saw it and followed its path up to the sprawling, gnarled tree that hunched menacingly over the paddock. The Jeep was dangling precariously from its uppermost branches, looking for all the world like a toy car stuck up on a rose garden bush. For a minute, Misty couldn't remember much of anything from the road: her recollection of the scene was muzzy and fragmented, as if it were a video that had been rewound and rewatched too many times.
He was still trapped in there.
Misty suddenly felt like throwing up. She had rescued Lex from the demolished Land Cruiser, but not Tim. If he was alive, he was still in the car. If not…
Tears of her own sprang into being. In the heat of the moment, she thought of Roger, who had tried to jump off the playground swings and ended up slamming his head against the slide. Her father had said better nine than ten while the nurse patiently put nine stitches into Roger's forehead and his mother—the last of the Malcolm women—hadn't thought that was funny at all. In two weeks, she would be gone. Misty hadn't been there at the time, but she still found herself restaging the scene in her mind, plotting where she could have been to keep Roger from getting hurt.
She was here. She didn't have to plot a strategy. She could save these kids.
Misty twisted to Lex and placed her hands on the girl's shoulders. "Lex, Lex… it's okay. It'll be okay. The Rex is gone and you're alright."
Though the words felt unbearably stiff in her mouth, they managed to quell at least some of her tears. "B-But what about Timmy?"
"I'm going to get him," Misty said confidently and just by saying the words, she knew he had survived. "While I'm up there, I want you to go over to the pipe over there and hide. Just in case. Be brave for me and we'll get back to the resort before you know it. We'll have Coke and watch R-rated movies. I won't tell your grandpa."
Lex smiled wanly. "Okay."
"Good girl. Now go on."
Misty watched Lex's receding form disappear into the mouth of the storm pipe before approaching the tree. It was big, perhaps the biggest tree she had seen outside of the national park's Sequoias, and excellent for climbing. She grabbed hold of two long-hanging boughs and heaved herself up onto the trunk, repeating better ten than nine to herself like a mantra.
The climb was arduous, but Misty was still riding a seemingly endless wave of adrenaline. She could feel her heartbeat thrumming in the alcoves and corners of her body; the sensation brought a small grin to her face. Nothing felt quite as good as her heart and lungs pushing themselves to their limits. It made her entirely self-conscious of the fact she was alive.
As she neared the now vertical Jeep, Misty was able to assess the collateral damage. Only one headlight still worked. The hood and, most likely, the engine inside were crumpled beyond repair; one massive cobweb crack marred the windscreen. Its eyesore of a shell was streaked with mud and pockmarked with dings and dents. Every one of its windows was either shattered or completely missing. It was through the gap of the driver seat door that Misty was able to see Tim, who had sought solace in the lap of the passenger seat.
She pulled herself up and grappled with the door handle; it creaked open, admitting a rush of rainwater. The Jeep's interior still smelled strongly of the Rex's hot, visceral breath, along with the green scent of wet earth and something milky like vomit. As it turned out, there was an indiscreet splatter of vomit on the console; Misty tried not to look at it.
"Tim." He didn't look up. Misty tried to examine him from a distance for wounds and found nothing more than a few gashes, most of which were probably superficial. It was the glassy absence in his expression that made her skin crawl. "Tim. It's me, Misty."
Still no response. The boy looked pitifully small and afraid in the dimness, so afraid that Misty hated herself for being so frustrated with his silence. She was then struck by the memory of something she'd overheard between him and his sister. He thought she looked like the Terminator because of her muscles. While Misty had found the sentiment cute earlier, she now saw it as a chance to get his attention. She cleared her throat, extended her hand curtly, and said: "Come with me if you want to live."
It was a piss-poor Schwarzenegger impression, but it got the job done. A glimmer of recognition returned to Tim's eyes and he tilted his head up to her. "M-Misty?"
"Yah," she said in the same hideous accent. "Dat is me."
To her immense relief, a soft wisp of laughter escaped him. But the humor of the situation quickly dissipated as the gravity of the situation returned to Tim. "I threw up," he said, clearly embarrassed.
Misty had already connected those dots; still, she made a noble attempt at sympathy. "I'm sorry, honey. It's okay though, we'll be fine. We'll get out of the tree and see Lex and get back to the resort to see your grandpa. Would you like that?"
He stirred from his spot. "Lex is okay?"
"Perfectly fine."
This seemed to clear the last vestiges of haze from his mind. Tim moved hesitantly towards Misty, who halfway climbed into the Jeep to get him. She placed an absent hand on the steering wheel and gasped in surprise when it jerked out from under her. The car's tires shrieked and the whole thing seemed to buckle beneath them.
Misty decided they had spent far too long in the Land Cruiser and made a grab for Tim. She pulled him into her arms just as the Jeep crashed down to the next level of branches, almost taking them with it. Gripped by a sudden premonition of the car toppling over onto them, Misty practically leapt onto a neighboring bough. No sooner were they out of its path did the Jeep plunge down the length of the tree and crash noisily. They both listened to the drip of oil and rainfall, too relieved for speech.
Tim finally spoke, his voice a touch quieter than she remembered it being. "I guess we won't be driving back."
"The car's not just destroyed," Misty said. "It's terminated."
They were still laughing wearily at her awful joke as they touched down on solid ground.
.
.
Wu shrugged on his jacket. "I'll see you tomorrow, sir."
"Of course, Henry," Hammond said dreamily, gazing out at the passing storm, "of course."
a/n: I cannot believe I called wu being kinda "hey I did this park thing all by myself y'all couldn't have done shit without me". that new movie was actually pretty good, yes? entertaining af. I've adopted gray and Zach. more good ol' Jurassic park vibes to come your way soon.