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.
Comments, criticism and suggestions are always welcome, I always love reading them. This story is still self-proofread so any mistakes are my own.
Once the car made it clear of the foliage, they came across an old paved road. Parts of it were covered in undergrowth but the metal track running through it was unmistakable, this was the one used in the original park tour.
Zara turned to the two boys in the back seat, "And here we are, you're looking at what used to be the greatest theme park in the history of the world."
"Doesn't look like much..." Zach said, looking around. He could only some trees and a bit of road.
"Well, not all of it was preserved. The new park uses a lot of space that was part of the old one, but they did manage to keep a few things, like this road. It's the exact same one used in the original tour. The metal trackway running through the middle here guided the remote tour cars."
"Whoa, really? That's amazing!" Gray said excitedly.
"It is isn't it? And I think we're coming up on our next monument right about now." She said.
Up ahead, there was a massive stone arch, it was weathered and overgrown with vines and the wooden gate was gone, long since harvested to be used for the current one but no one could mistake the sign at the center of it. Though the color faded over the years it still clearly read: JURASSIC PARK in red lettering, outlined with yellow.
At the back of her mind, Zara could almost hear Richard Kiley saying Welcome to Jurassic Park as they passed through it.
The SUV passed through a grove of trees, prehistoric cycads and ginkgoes stood next to more modern trees such as pine and fir trees. Gray noticed that the old electric fences were left standing, though the poles and wires were now rusted and sagged due to the extreme elements they endured and some sections were collapsed entirely.
Royce stopped the car near a section of road, where a break in the trees provided the group a clearer view of the jungle, to the right some distance away were a pair of Dilophosaurus, currently eating from the corpse of an animal.
"If you look to the right, you'll see a herd of the first dinosaurs on our tour, called Dilophosaurus," Royce said, doing an impression of the late Richard Kiley as he looked at the beautiful but deadly dinosaurs.
"Didn't know you could do impressions," Zara said, eyebrow raised questioningly.
He could only shrug, "Who knows, maybe if the ACU thing doesn't work out, I could go into acting."
"Sweet, Dilophosaurs!" Gray grinned from behind the window, face pressed against the glass. Only the head area of the dinosaur was visible from behind the carcass but it was enough to pique his interest. Two Large crests ran along the top of the head from the eyes to the nose. The crests made a V shape above the dinosaur's head and were green with a black stripe that had a white outline. Their mouths were filled with rows of sharp teeth, gleaming ruby red with blood.
Near the neck, he saw a collar of loose skin that lay flush against it. This was the frill that extended when the animal would spit its venom when hunting.
When the pair noticed the tour group, they stopped eating and gave a series of squeals and hoots to each other, like owls.
"What are they doing?" Zach whispered.
"I think they're trying to figure out if we're a threat," Royce said.
The hooting continued, drifting towards them through the afternoon air.
"Is it safe for them to be here? The broken gate is just a mile away, they could break out."
"They won't, the Dilophosaurs never move outside of the restricted area and besides, I don't think poison spit can do much against an angry Brachiosaur." Zara reassured him.
The dinosaurs stopped calling to each other and slowly approached the car, spreading their frills open wide in a threatening gesture, the vibrant red and yellow coloration a stark contrast against the green jungle around them, their frills rattled while they screeched at the vehicle.
"I think that's our cue to leave."
Royce put the car into gear and drove off further into what remained of the old park.
Back in the control room, everyone was in full blown panic. It was only mere minutes after the wholesale slaughter of the ACU team that was sent to capture the Indominus and the control room was already in chaos as staff members scrambled back and forth across their consoles trying to get the situation under control.
They were only into phase one of park shutdown and already numerous complaints from the operators about angry guests began pouring in from the Gyrosphere valley and the Cretaceous Cruise.
Claire stood next to Lowery's console, nervously pacing back and forth. She felt as if the weight of the world were on her shoulders. As operations manager, the staff looked to her for what they would do next but right now, the stress of the situation was taking its toll.
An ACU squad massacred, the Indominus was running loose, the park was going to be in chapter 11 by the next morning and everything landed squarely on her. She was going to go jail and Zara was going to be alone. Then her eyes widened and she gasped as realization struck her, her girlfriend and her nephews were still in the park, the three of them were in danger.
Hurriedly, Claire pulled out her phone and punched in Zara's number. She needed to know if they were alright.
"Come on, pick up, pick up."
The phone dialed twice before she heard Zara pick up on the other end of the line.
"Hello?" Zara said.
She breathed a sigh of relief, Zara was okay.
"Zara, are the boys with you?"
"I'll do you one better." She could hear her move the phone away and say, "Boys, Claire's on the phone, say hi!"
A chorus of "Hi Aunt Claire!" reached Claire's ear.
She heard Zara put the phone back to her ear, saying, "Did that answer your question?"
"Ok, I need you to take the boys and get back to the hotel right away. It's an emergency, the Indominus broke containment and it's headed for the park."
"Claire, hello, you're breaking up, hello."
"Zara, Zara? Can you hear me?"
"We're near the valley."
Then the line went dead.
In the car, Zara couldn't make out what Claire said, all she could hear was boys, back to hotel, and emergency.
"So, what did she say?" Zach asked.
Sighing, she turned to the two of them. She really didn't want to be the bearer of bad news and the boys were having such a good time.
"I'm afraid we'll have to cut the tour short. Claire told me to take the both of you back to the hotel, said it was some kind of emergency."
"Aww man." Gray groaned.
Zach cut in, trying to reassure his brother "Hey, I'm sure Aunt Claire wouldn't do this unless it was a serious emergency, right?"
"Of course and don't worry, we'll pick the tour back up tomorrow." She reassured them, then turned to Royce, "You know a shortcut to the park from here?"
"Yeah, there's a gate to the Cretaceous Cruise up ahead. From there, it's just a short drive to the east gate, then I'll drop you guys off at the hotel, shouldn't be more than a half hour drive."
"Zara? Zara! No, this can't be happening." Claire frantically redialed the number again, fear rising in her chest with every dial, hoping that Zara would pick up but to her dismay, the phone replied, "The number you have dialed is not reachable."
She dialed again.
"The number you have dialed is out of coverage area."
She rushed to Lowery's station, "Lowery, can you check the valley, are all the gyrospheres accounted for?"
"Yeah, all Gyrospheres have returned to their stations."
Thank god, she thought.
Then her head snapped up, "But wait, the Gyrospheres only seat two, and we weren't supposed to go on them till tomorrow, how can they be in the valley?"
Lowery swiveled in his chair to face her, "Well, there was a car that went in there half an hour ago, could be them."
"Wait, what?"
"Yeah, I think it was for a tour." He said, calmly taking a sip of his soda.
"And I'm hearing this now because?" She tapped her foot impatiently and waited for an answer, giving him a pointed glare.
Lowery flinched and sunk further into his chair, "Umm…..you were checking the Indominus paddock at the time, remember?"
She took a deep breath and exhaled, trying to keep herself calm, he was right.
"Ok, can you remember the vehicle number? I need to check the camera to be sure that it's them."
"Yeah, hold on a sec." He pulled up the vehicle cams and began sifting through the footage, searching for the vehicle in question.
Claire meanwhile, tried calling the ACU garage to see if they had any info on the ranger that took the car.
A cheerful New Jersey accented voice greeted her, "ACU Garage, Coop speaking." That was the ACU's head mechanic, Harold Cooplowski. Better known by his nickname Coop.
"Mr. Cooplowski, do you mind if I ask you a few questions?"
"Sure bosslady, what can I do you for?"
Claire groaned at the nickname, pinching her nose in frustration. Coop had a severe disregard for the rules. One time she caught him trying to toast bread with a blowtorch of all things, but he was one of the best mechanics in the world and the troopers enjoyed his jolly nature so she let it slide, and right now she had more pressing matters to focus on.
"Did anyone happen to take a car out of the garage around half an hour ago?"
"Yeah, I saw someone drive out of the garage when I went out for lunch."
"Oh, can you identify who it was?"
She heard him scratch his head in thought for a few seconds before replying, "I think it was Royce."
The name was familiar enough to her, there was a trooper named that Zara always used to escort all those VIP tours, but she had to be sure.
"Royce, do you mean Adrien Royce? Tall, black hair, used to be in the military, that Royce? "
"The very same."
"Did he happen to have any passengers?"
"Don't think so."
She continued, "How about the car number, did you see that?"
"Ummm…..I'm not sure, think it ended in an eight, but that's all I have. I just happened to glance at it when it drove out."
"That's alright Mr. Cooplowski, thanks for your help."
"No problem, Boss." He said before dropping the phone back into its cradle, ending the call.
The operations manager turned back towards Lowery, who was currently looking through the camera footage on his command console.
"Lowery, we have a lead. Can you look for a ranger named Adrien Royce?"
"Ok, checking all the scanners." The technician began scrolling through the ID scanner history.
"Here it is, Adrien Royce, his ID was last used to enter the valley thirty minutes ago." Then he continued, "And the car he took was number G18."
"Bring up the interior camera." She had a sinking feeling in her stomach, expecting the worst to show up on the main screen.
To her relief the camera showed that they were okay, but that sense of dread crept into her again as she realized that they were still out in the open. She needed to get them out of there, fast.
With that in mind, she walked over to Vivian's console.
"Vivian, send a team of rangers to the valley, we need to bring them in."
The blonde technician nodded and contacted the ACU headquarters.
"Security, we need a search and rescue team in the valley."
"It's gonna be a while, we have our hands full here." the operator spoke in a rush, a flurry of activity could be heard in the background.
Something inside Claire snapped.
She had enough problems on her plate and this was the last thing she wanted to deal with. The park manager angrily grabbed an earpiece and put it up to her ear, "NO NO NO, there's a tour group missing, you need to make this your TOP priority, do you hear me?!"
"Ma'am, there are a lot of guests missing, we're doing everything we can."
"GODDAMN IT!" she screamed and flung the earpiece into a corner of the room, chest heaving and nostrils flaring with rage. Her eyes glared at the broken device intensely as if it personally offended her.
An uneasy silence fell across the control room as all the personnel turned their eyes to her, not used to seeing the normally calm and controlled park manager this angry before. The stress of the situation seemed to affect her more that she let on, this was the first visible sign of rage they saw from her in years.
When she realized that everyone in the room was looking at her, Claire took deep breaths and clenched her fists open and closed to calm herself, mind racing a mile a minute as she tried to solve her current situation.
Then she heard a familiar voice coming from the main screen and looked up to see Owen yelling at a security guard who was demanding to see his ID.
Relief flooded through her. That was it! Owen could help her look for them. He was a Navy SEAL, used to traversing extreme terrain and would know how to track someone, and he was good friends with Zara so that meant he had to help her. Claire calmly walked out of the control room, the staff quickly resuming their work as if her outburst never occurred.
The car screeched to a halt.
"Sorry." Royce said.
In front of them was a Mercedes Sprinter, one of the vehicles used to transport ACU squads. It was turned on its side, torn open by something. It was also blocking the road and that meant they couldn't go anywhere until it was moved, the undergrowth here was too thick to traverse.
"What the hell happened here?" He asked, looking ahead.
"Looks like something big attacked it, a carnivore maybe," Zach said.
Zara replied, "No, we don't house any of the larger predators here." As far as she recalled, the only large carnivore here was the Indominus. A shiver went down her spine at the thought of it escaping, recalling the last time she encountered the dinosaur.
"Was it one of the herbivores?"
"No, those look like claw marks." She said.
"Whatever it is, it's blocking our way. I'm going to check it out." Royce exited the car, taking the tranq rifle with him and took stock of their surroundings. The air around him felt hot and humid, a thin layer of mist hung in the air, insects chittered and there were trees all around, typical atmosphere for a tropical jungle.
Ahead, he could see the dirt road used by the park staff to travel around the restricted area, and walked over to the wrecked vehicle, rifle trained on the area ahead, dirt crunching underfoot.
The group was so focused on the trooper as he made his way to the wreck that they did not notice the camouflaged Indominus pushing a tree with its head, sending it crashing down onto the path behind the vehicle with. Then it quickly and silently disappeared back into the jungle.
All heads turned towards the fallen tree. Royce snapped his attention to it, gun sweeping left and right for threats. Minutes passed but nothing happened, the ambience of the jungle continuing despite the momentary intrusion.
Once he was sure that the area was clear, he relaxed his grip on the rifle. He pointed it down, took a deep breath and cursed to himself. That was the only other way out of the restricted area. But, there was nothing he could do about it now so he pressed on to the sprinter.
As the trooper clambered over the side of the vehicle, he could see the tear more clearly. Bending down to examine it further, he ran his hand over one of the three horizontal slashes that ran from the top of the vehicle to the bottom, it was caused by a large predator alright.
The Baryonyx was the only likely culprit, it had the claws that could have caused the damage but it was housed in the Cretaceous Cruise, there was no way it escaped. The only other answer was the Indominus but he was there when ACU tested the fences yesterday, the concrete and electric barrier was rock solid. It couldn't have escaped, could it?
Ahead of the vehicle, he saw a set of tire tracks leading away from the scene, which meant this ACU team came in two vehicles. But if one group made it, what happened to the other?
"I have a bad feeling about this." He muttered.
The trooper clambered down from the vehicle and began inspecting the tire tracks ahead of it. The tracks were still wet, so the attack happened pretty recently.
He picked up his radio, pressing the talk button and spoke into it. He had to tell the control room about this.
"This is Predator 2-1 to control, come in control."
Inside the control room, Vivian's head snapped up as she heard the message coming through her earpiece.
"This is Predator 2-1, requiring immediate assistance. Currently stranded in the restricted area with three passengers. We have a wrecked vehicle and a downed tree blocking our exits, over."
The name sounded familiar to her, wasn't that the call sign of the ranger that brought Zara and Claire's nephews into the valley? Out of curiosity, she opened the ranger tracker program on her console and went to Royce, A.
She gasped at what came up on the main screen, he was at the location of Hamada's ACU team. Fear rose in her chest, She had to get them out of there. The technician hurriedly contacted his radio.
"Predator 2-1 this is control, leave the area immediately—I repeat turn around and leave immediately. Do not investigate further, over." She spoke urgently, hoping the message got through.
But unfortunately, the jungles of Isla Nublar were notorious for having poor reception, so only a few words got through to his radio, punctuated by static.
"…..Immediately…..investigate further…."
"Come again, control?"
"…Investigate….further."
"Negative control, I have civilian passengers, we require immediate evac, over."
He released the radio's talk button, but this time no answer came out, just static.
"….."
"Control, come in."
"….."
"This is Predator 2-1 to control, require immediate exfil—I repeat we require immediate exfil, do you copy control?"
In the control room, Vivian groaned and dropped her head onto the command console in frustration, stupid signal issues.
"Spared no expense my ass," Royce sighed, storing the radio in its pouch. Management knew that the jungle had bad reception and yet they still hadn't fixed it.
With nothing else to do, the trooper walked back to the passenger side of the SUV, Zara exited the car and closed the door, eyeing him curiously.
"What's going on?" she whispered, not wanting to alarm the boys.
"Looks like we're not going anywhere for the moment."
"Why not?"
"Seems like control won't send out a team until they know the area is secure."
"What?!" She said, utterly bewildered.
He put his hands up in a defensive gesture, "Calm down, it'll just be a quick sweep. I go in, tell Control what happened and before you know it, we'll be back in the park."
She looked at him doubtfully, something really didn't feel right about all this. It's as if they were walking into a trap.
"You trust me, don't you?" he said.
The British woman stared at him for a few seconds, analyzing the situation in her mind. He always made the right calls before, what reason would she have to doubt him now?
She could only sigh, "Alright, you're the expert. But I really don't like this, we're Putting Claire's nephews in danger."
"I don't like it as much as you do either, ok? But orders are orders, and I'm sure whatever it is, it should be nothing I can't handle."
In the rear passenger seat, the two boys looked at them, curious as to what they were talking about.
The trooper went to the rear of the SUV, opening the trunk to take out the case containing his AA-12 and unlocked the latches securing it. Once it was open, he picked up the weapon, snapped the drum magazine into place and unlocked the safety. He pulled back on the charging handle and it chambered a round with a satisfying click.
Royce closed the trunk and went back to the driver side of the vehicle and opened the door, flipping a switch next to the steering wheel that activated the car's invisible fence system.
"Ok, now no animal can come within 15 feet of this vehicle without getting shocked."
"So, we're supposed to just wait here while you go investigate?" She said as she entered the passenger side of the vehicle.
"That's the plan, I'll be right back in a sec." He said, a confident grin spread across his face.
With that, the trooper closed the door and walked off into the jungle, shotgun drawn and aimed forward. The passengers watched him closely as he disappeared further and further into the brush before disappearing from view entirely.
But Gray wasn't focused on Royce, he was staring at a particularly high spot of the jungle, near a tree. Was it just his imagination or did that leaf just blink?