Disclaimer: Jurassic World and the Jurassic Park franchise are the property of Universal Studios, Michael Crichton, Steven Spielberg and Colin Trevorrow. I own nothing from this story aside from the plot.
Author's note: Hello again readers and welcome to another exciting installment of this story! Apologies if this is late but finals were a bit stressful on the old noggin so this came out a little bit later than expected.
TigerCritic: Well, I do kind of agree with you, reading it again from the beginning, Zara and Claire's relationship does come off as a little bit shallow. I'll expand on their relationship a bit more in the later chapters but for now, I'm focusing more on the tour. Actually I did read that story before on AO3, I liked it aside from the ending.
Rockyrose13: Thanks for the encouragement! I think I did pretty well all things considered.
Kyranol1: Well, I'm a dude, so you can just call me dude I guess and it's all good, just don't go overboard. Good catch on that Predator reference, though it isn't Arnie's Dutch in this fic, sorry to disappoint. The character is from the same franchise but a lead from another Predator movie. Thanks for giving me a cool idea for a one shot I could write though.
For all the people who are wondering if Zara is going to end up as Mosasaur chow, don't worry, she's not. Maybe, probably, who's to say at this point?
And thanks again to the regular reviewers Invader Johnny and Rockyrose13, and all of you readers for the faves and follows, it's awesome and seeing solid feedback really motivates me to write better.
As always, comments and constructive criticism are very much welcome, always looking for ways to improve and I always love reading the comments, once again this story is still self-proofread so any mistakes are my own. So now onto the story, hope you enjoy.
"The Mosasaurus rose late in the history of aquatic reptiles. The largest of the Mosasaur family, it lived alongside its cousin the ferocious Tylosaurus and the graceful and beautiful Elasmosaurus."
The Mosasaurus was one of the most impressive specimens the park had to offer. Clocking in at a monstrous 15 tons, she outclassed even the mighty T-Rex and could cut through the water at an astonishing 30 miles an hour if she ever got into the open ocean.
She was a big crowd pleaser of course, drawing thousands upon thousands of visitors when she was first unveiled to the public but as with any animal she came with her own set of problems. The first issue they faced was containing the animal, her tank had been constructed for a sixty foot long Mosasaur but she grew to almost eighty feet in a year and had to be placed in a temporary holding tank away from the main park while the engineers rebuilt it. Which was a big hit to the parks profits that year when all the preordered tickets had to be refunded.
The next problem came from the visitors, who found her boring, for lack of a better word. While attendance was never a problem for the feeding show, people still came in numbers to see it, but they found the animal herself to be lacking, feeling that she was a one trick pony and Visitor's rarely if ever wrote down the Mosasaur as their favorite attraction at the park in surveys.
But Zara always found the Mosasaur tank to be one of her most favorite exhibits in the park, finding the sight of the aquatic reptile drifting lazily in its crystalline waters relaxing and she often sat by herself on the stands late at night, either trying to get her work done or just staring into the tank to clear her mind, it was her own place of solitude.
But this time, she saw the creature in its full glory breaching the waters to feed on a shark carcass hanging overhead from a crane and the sight was awe inspiring, like an ancient leviathan emerging from the deep. The Mosasaur clamped down on the Great White with its massive jaws and dove back into the water, splashing everyone in the audience.
After drying off, the three of them went to one of the parks food kiosks to stop for lunch.
"So, where are we going after this?" Gray asked over a mouthful of fries, which came out sounding incoherent. Zach could only shake his head at his antics.
"Gray, please swallow your food first before you talk." She chided him.
He swallowed the fries down, then took a sip from his soda. "I'm sorry, what I meant to ask was where were going after this?"
"Well, let's see," she pulled out a park map and a pen from her handbag and began to inspect the attractions. "We've been to the petting zoo, the T-Rex kingdom and the Mosasaur tank," she said, crossing them off the map.
"We can't go on the Gyrosphere yet because Claire's wants to come along tomorrow to keep an eye on you two, and the aviary isn't until tomorrow as well.." she trailed off.
"So, what can we do?" Zach asked.
"Well, it would be very remiss of me to not give you the full park experience while you're here, so I could arrange something today."
"Oooh, what is it, what is it?!" Gray asked, excited at what she had in store.
"Jeez Gray, can you stop acting like a kid for one second?" Zach grumbled. "So what are we going to do?"
"It's a surprise, but I take it both of you are interested?"
At the boys' nods, she told the boys to finish their lunch and stepped away for a while.
She had a call to make.
In the break room of the parks Asset Containment Unit headquarters, stood a tall, muscular ACU trooper of thirty seven. He was clad in the standard uniform: a dark blue Neptune pattern Vertx Kryptek gunfighter shirt, storm grey 5.11 Tactical vest, Charcoal 5.11 Stryker pants, a pair of storm grey 5.11 recon boots and various Velcro patches on his uniform: a large ACU on the front of the vest and an ACU Isla Nublar shield on the right shoulder.
The trooper added his own personal touches as well, eschewing the Neptune patterned baseball cap for a similarly patterned boonie hat, black and grey Giro Bravo fingerless gloves in place of the all black tactical gloves the rest used and a grey Condor tactical belt encircled his waist, which carried various pouches for his equipment.
His focus was currently on reassembling his gun, an Atchisson Assault automatic shotgun aka the AA-12. A marvel of modern firearm engineering. Made of stainless steel, the weapon required no cleaning, had no recoil from the spring system in its shoulder stock and had a monstrous firing rate of 300 rounds a minute. The only drawback to it was the firing rate meant the gun chewed through shells like nobody's business, finishing the standard 8 round box magazine in a matter of seconds on full auto.
His was customized, it had a drum magazine with a capacity of 32 rounds, firing solid slugs that could stop a rampaging bull elephant, a Surefire weapon light foregrip and was painted entirely in jungle camo.
But despite his love for the weapon, his job first and foremost, was to pacify the animals in a non-lethal manner, they did cost a pretty penny after all. So live rounds only came in as a last resort. He was just finished attaching the foregrip when his phone rang from inside his pocket, Long Tall Sally blaring from its speakers, He took it out and put it up to his ear.
"Hello," he said cheerfully.
"Hey Royce, Zara here."
"Ah, Miss Young, how can I be of service today?" He asked, always used to getting calls from her, being the more jovial and approachable member of the park's security force, she usually approached him whenever a VIP wanted a more up close and personal look at the dinosaurs that the parks attractions couldn't offer. He was fine with it for the most part, protocol did say that any special guests who wanted to venture outside the secure zone required ACU escort at all times.
What he didn't like was how lax the rules had gotten, it used to be a full squad escort, but when the animals proved to be relatively safe to deal with, upper management changed it to just one person. He was shocked to say the least when he heard this, they apparently forgot or didn't realize that these were still wild animals that they had to deal with, animals that could go off at the drop of a hat if provoked.
But despite the numerous complaints that he sent to that no good head of security of theirs, he always got the same damn reply, 'will put under consideration' and after 5 years of that, he just gave up. Still though, he loved the job, it was challenging work, out of doors and it always kept his mind sharp and on alert, so these kind of calls weren't entirely unpleasant.
"I need a tour arranged today, preferably an area with some of the more docile animals." Zara said.
"Alright, let's see." Royce pulled out a map of the park from his locker and inspected it "That'll put you somewhere in the valley, just sauropods, trikes and galli's there."
"Excellent, can you get ready and meet me at the west gate?"
"Sure, no problem."
The trooper hung up, then took his gun and brought it down with him to the armory, swiping his ID on the scanner to enter. Gun racks lined the interior. He took two drum magazines for his shotgun, storing one in a magazine pouch located on his belt and the other one in a metal gun case along with the weapon itself, locking it shut. He also took an M1911A1 pistol and a large machete, storing the gun in his thigh holster and storing the blade in a sheath on his belt.
Opening another gun locker, he grabbed a Lindstradt tranquillizer rifle, a standard issue gas propelled dart gun that was used by zoos to sedate animals and some dart magazines, loading one in the rifle and storing the rest in an ammo case. Slinging the rifle across his back, he took both cases and left the room, the doors sliding shut automatically behind him.
The trooper took the elevator down to the garage, which was filled with a dozen silver Mercedes-Benz G Class 4X4s with blue stripes running along the sides and adorned with the park logo. These were all gasoline powered and customized by Mercedes to handle the rough day to day operations the parks staff performed: the frame was made from reinforced steel, a roll cage was retrofitted to the interior of the car and they were equipped with a set of Pirelli run flat tires, INGEN spared no expense when they commissioned these.
He set the metal cases down near one of the cars, taking a mental note of the number 18 stamped on it and walked to the back.
In the corner were two jungle green six wheeled G63 AMG 6X6s. Royce moved past them, going to a key box to retrieve the keys for the car and walked back to it, unlocking it to store the cases and the rifle in the back of the vehicle.
He entered the driver's side, starting the car and driving out. But as he drove out of the building, he couldn't shake the bad feeling in his gut that told him something wasn't right today.
Meanwhile, Zara and the boys were walking through a maintenance alley, which the staff used to quickly get to any point in the park with little to no obstruction.
"Aunt Zara, when you mentioned that you were going to give us the full Jurassic World experience, I imagined there would be a lot more I don't know, Dinosaurs, involved." Zach quipped behind her, having gotten tired of all the walking they were doing for the past 15 minutes.
She chose to ignore that and looked ahead, noticing that they arrived at the exit to the west gate. She scanned her staff ID to unlock the door and was pleasantly surprised to see Royce already there, leaning against the side of the car waiting for them.
"Royce, thank you so much for coming on such short notice." Zara said as she walked up to him.
"Well, it is what I'm paid to do," He replied, a cocky grin plastered on his face, "I'm guessing these two are the VIP's?" He looked over her shoulder to greet the two boys. "Hi there!"
"Yes, I'd like you to meet Zach and Gray, they're Claire's nephews." She turned to them to introduce him, "Boys, this is Royce, he's with the parks Asset Containment Unit and our security for the day."
The ACU trooper leaned forward slightly to shake their hands, smiling while he does so "Nice to meet you."
His smile disappeared as he delivered the pre-tour brief to them. "Before we get this show on the road, I'm going to lay down two major rules that you have to follow," He said, locking eyes with the two of them.
"First rule is, these are wild animals, and caution is heavily advised. You might be safe in the park behind 15 inches of bulletproof glass, but when you're past that gate..." He pointed to the gate, a black rolling shutter door, it read: NO ENTRY, AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. "It's a jungle out there, and just because some of them are docile, don't do anything to provoke them, got it?"
They only nodded in response.
"Good, second rule. Each of you will need one of these ," he pulled out four devices from his front pocket, each about the size of a flash drive and handed it to the three of them, keeping one for himself, "These are personal tracking devices, so that the guys at HQ and the control room can keep track of us at all times."
"You clip it to your belt like so," he slid the tracker onto his belt. "And then turn it on," he continued, flicking the switch and checked his smartwatch, satisfied to see that all of the trackers were flashing on his tracker app, indicating that they were working.
"Now, if at any point one of you are separated from the group and/or face immediate danger, don't worry. All you have to do is press this button," he pointed to a red button at the center of the tracker "and the tracker will send out a distress signal, so just sit tight and we'll come looking for you."
"So, anyone have any questions before we set off?" It was mostly aimed at the boys, this being their first time and all.
Gray's hand immediately shot up, "What are we gonna do exactly?"
Royce walked up to him and squatted down so he was at eye level with the boy, "Well my friend, what you are about to experience is a close encounter of the prehistoric kind."
That seemed to pique the boy's interest, even his older brother was intrigued, so he continued, "You and your brother are one of the very few people that are going to be given an unfiltered view of the park's amazing specimens, no bulletproof glass, no fences, just you and the dinosaurs, up close and personal, now doesn't that sound exciting?"
The boys, could only respond with an excited "uh-huh."
Royce smiled and clapped them on the shoulder enthusiastically, "Then what are we waiting here for? Let's go!"
He stood and walked to the car, opening the rear passenger door so the boys could enter. He then got into the driver's seat, starting the car as Zara entered the passenger side.
"I'm gonna have to call this in first," he told her and picked up the cars radio mic from the radio console and spoke into it, "This is Predator 2-1 to control, requesting permission to leave the secure zone, passengers are two guests and one staff member, over."
"This….park…leave….over."
"Come again, control?"
"This…..control…over." the voice again came out garbled and was filled with static so the trooper tried changing the frequency and repeated the message only to be greeted again by static. He gave up and hung the microphone back on the hook.
"What's wrong?" Zara asked.
He turned to her, "Oh nothing really, the radios busted. I'll just fill in a work order when we get back, for now I'll just have to use my normal one."
The trooper reached down to grab the handheld radio from his belt and said the same message again, this time the answer came more clearly.
"This is control to 2-1, you are cleared for exit, raising the gate for you now."
"Roger that control, over and out."
The black metal gate raised itself, revealing a lush tropical rainforest, "Hold on to your butts," he said as he put the car into gear and drove off into the green wilderness.
A major plot element throughout the movie is how some of the park staff have become way too overconfident regarding some of the parks failings. Hell, when you have Pachys regularly breaking their shock implants and busting out of their enclosure, that's a major security problem. But Claire just seemed annoyed by it. I added a little bit of that in with the broken radio, Royce could go back to the garage and get a new car with a working radio, but that's a lot of work and this was just another routine tour, what's the worst that could happen? Right?