Jurassic World: Apocalypse – Chapter 18: Dr. Sorkin's Field Lab
A/N: We'll be going all over the island in this chapter, so get your Jurassic seat belts on! By the way, thanks to everyone who's been writing reviews for this story! I truly enjoy reading each one! Please enjoy this chapter as Jurassic World officially goes haywire!
Disclaimer: I don't own anything related to Jurassic Park except the very characters I've made up.
Brianna clung tightly to Tom's arm as the roar of the monstrous theropod echoed somewhere behind them. She, Tom and Alaina had been since left the underground bunker (after recovering from the shock of the events that just occurred) and had started heading in the direction of the shed. More gunshots sounded somewhere in the jungle; another human scream was heard as well amid the never-ending rain of this tropical thunderstorm.
"W-what do you think's happening back there?" Brianna asked.
"Maybe they're taking that monster down," Tom offered.
"We don't know that for sure though," Alaina said. "If there's anyone at this shed we're heading toward, we need to let them know about that...that dinosaur so they can do what needs to be done with it. It wasn't supposed to be in Gyrosphere Valley. I'm positive of that!"
Tom frowned. "Something's just not right about that dinosaur."
"Can it track our scent?" Brianna whimpered.
"Shh," Tom shushed, giving her a reaffirming pat on her shoulder. "It's OK. We'll be fine. That dinosaur's a long way behind us and soon we'll be at this facility Alaina found."
Alaina looked at her phone again and nodded. "We should be there...right about...now."
Looking up, the teens saw that they had made their way to a clearing where a large shed-like building was located. It was situated beside a small lake with a waterfall that in turn led to a river. A dirt road from the jungle was connected to the laboratory via a bridge. About fifty or sixty feet from the building was what appeared to be a paddock of some kind.
"Well, the map was right, Alaina," Tom acknowledged. "We're here!"
"Great," Alaina said, "now we can get out of this rain!"
The three of them hurried across the bridge and toward the shed. They found a large garage-type door to be open and two people inside – one was a woman in her early to middle forties with glasses, blond hair and a lab coat, while the other was a young man – certainly younger than 30. The woman was talking as she pointed to a large crate. The man nodded and picked it up.
"Oh thank goodness!" Brianna commented.
Tom called out, "Hello!"
The two people looked up in surprise.
"Hi," the woman responded. "What are you kids doing all the way out here? Come in the garage, out of the rain."
The kids obeyed and introduced themselves. The woman nodded. "My name's Dr. Laura Sorkin."
Alaina's eyebrows rose. "Dr.?" she asked.
"Yes, I'm a paleogeneticist to be precise. I work for InGen, one of the companies that owns Jurassic World." She turned to the man. "And this is my assistant, David Banks. He's a college graduate majoring in genetics."
David sat his crate down and nodded politely. "Pleasure to meet you kids."
"So how did you guys get way out here?" Dr. Sorkin asked.
"Well," Alaina started, "we were in a gyrosphere near the perimeter fence, watching a herd of Apatosaurus when this humongous dinosaur – a theropod – came running out of the trees. It was terrifying."
Dr. Sorkin and David looked at each other, hoping the dinosaur Alaina described wasn't what they thought it was. "What did it look like?" David inquired.
"A little like a T. rex," Brianna answered, "but larger and pale-colored. It had these little red-colored eyes, spines going down its neck and strong arms with long claws. It must have been really powerful, because it brought down six Apatosaurus!"
Dr. Sorkin winced. "Six?"
"Yes, it only killed five because that's when it saw our gyrosphere and chased us into the woods near the perimeter fence. Then it used our gyrosphere to break a hole into the electric fence and destroyed it. We escaped just in time by hiding in this underground bunker type of thing. I didn't think we'd survive."
"And don't forget that it had four fingers," Tom added. "I thought it was a Giganotosaurus or some similar carnosaur, but none of them ever had four fingers. Do you know what it was?"
Dr. Sorkin nodded. "I do I'm afraid. The dinosaur that attacked you was an Indominus rex."
The teens exchanged glances, clearly confused.
"I didn't think that kind of dinosaur existed," Tom confessed.
"That's because it doesn't, at least it didn't. No such dinosaur has ever been found in the fossil record: that's because Indominus rex is hyrbid."
Alaina's jaw dropped. "A hybrid? You mean like a liger or a mule?"
"Sort of," David began to explain. "Indominus wasn't bred like a typical hybrid. She was designed; the geneticists in the lab created a brand new species by combining the genetic information of at least four different species of real dinosaurs."
"Why didn't we see that displayed in the park?" Tom asked.
"Indominus rex was going to be released to the public in three weeks," Dr. Sorkin told him. "She's nothing but a tourist-attractor – in fact, her very existence is to bring more tourists into the park..." she paused, "...like so much else in this place."
"So where are we now?" Alaina asked her.
"This is my field lab."
"Field lab? Why aren't you in the Creation Lab with the other geneticists?"
"It's a long story. If you'd like a little background, I can tell you all about it while we feed my dinosaurs."
"Sure, we could definitely use some information right now."
"He's not by the vending machines!" Anthony declared as he entered the Control Room. "I don't know where that guy went."
Masrani scowled. He turned to a random Control Room technician and said, "Go tell park security to find Nedry and bring him in."
"Yes sir," came the reply.
Arnold furiously punched in computer keys and groaned. Masrani and Hammond took note of this and realized something was wrong.
"What's wrong now?" Hammond asked.
"These fences keep failing," Arnold answered.
"Yes, we know that," Claire said.
"No, not only on Isla Nublar. We've got power failures in Universal Studios Orlando, where Jurassic Park: Orlando is, and entire system failures in Jurassic Park: Orlando, Jurassic Park: Europe, Jurassic Park: Japan and the only place that's not having problems is–" Arnold's computer made a beeping noise. "No, never mind. Jurassic Park: San Diego's system is on the fritz too. I don't know what's happening here."
"Well do something," Ludlow urged from the background. "We're making lots of money on the Triceratops encounter attraction at Jurassic Park: Orlando and I don't intend a little power failure to damper its success."
"We're handling it fine, Peter," Hammond said.
Arnold got up from his chair. "The failure has something to do with something Nedry did on his computer." Quickly, Arnold went over to Nedry's desk and took a seat. He grimaced at the empty soda cans, styrophome cups, candy wrappers, pizza box (containing a few slices of a cold pizza) and other junk cluttering the desk. "This workstation! What a complete slob." Disgusted, he shoved garbage off the desk to allow him some room to work.
"Wait," Owen said, "check the raptor fences, would you? I hope those aren't out too."
"I'm checking...no, they're still on."
Hammond frowned. "Thank goodness for that...but why would all the other fences in the park be going off?"
Claire bit her lip as she came to a startling revelation. "That means there's no power going to Rexy's fences either; shecould escape at any moment!"
"The other dinosaurs should be fine though," Anthony reminded her. "Remember, the Aviary is strong enough to keep the pterosaurs in–"
"I wasn't worried about the pterosaurs."
"...the herbivores are kept in their area by the invisible fence system we installed, the prehistoric arthropods are contained within the Bug House walls and the other carnivores, Suchomimus, Dilophosaurus, Acrocanthosaurus...wait those fences are out too right?" Arnold nodded glumly. "Drat."
"Let's not loose our heads here," Henry said. "Remember, all the carnivores that could potentially break out right now have brushed up against the fences more than once. They anticipate the electric shock. I'm sure they've learned to keep away from the fences by now and probably won't even break out."
"I hope you're right," Owen said.
Arnold typed in a command in the computer: ACCESS SECURITY PROGRAM.
Access denied.
He tried: ACCESS MAIN SECURITY.
Access denied.
Then, he tried: ACCESS MAIN PROGRAM GRID.
Access denied, and...
Suddenly, another box appeared on the computer screen showing a cartoon version of Nedry himself. The cartoon grinned in a cheeky, almost mocking way, and shook his pointer finger. He said, "Uh, uh, uh! You didn't say the magic word! Uh, uh, uh..."
"PLEASE!" Arnold bellowed. "For Pete's sake! I hate this hacker mess!" He slammed his fist on the desk as the cartoon continued to mock his efforts for trying to get into Nedry's computer.
"Great," Hammond sighed. "Not only do we has the most dangerous dinosaur in the park escaped, but the park system is on the fritz. Wonderful day."
"And three missing kids in the Restricted Area," Anthony added.
"They're beautiful!" Brianna exclaimed. The three teenagers, Dr. Sorkin and David had walked over to the Parasaurolophus Paddock where four hadrosaurs were being contained for research purposes.
"Yes, they are," Dr. Sorkin agreed. She turned to David, who was still trying to contact the Control Room to tell them that they'd found three teenagers in the Restricted Area and that the I. rex had escaped. "Anything yet, David?"
"No, not yet." David tried calling again. "The humidity, cloud cover and lightning must be interfering with my signal."
"So what were you going to tell us?" Alaina said.
Dr. Sorkin smiled. "OK, here it goes: my story begins back in 2002 when I was hired by InGen to serve as the company's chief geneticist. It was my research and knowledge in the realm of genetics that helped move the company forward. Though I made many great breakthroughs, our greatest achievement was going to be bringing the dinosaurs back from extinction through the miracle of cloning."
"But you succeeded, didn't you?" Alaina asked.
"Not exactly. See, another geneticist, Dr. Henry Wu, Claire Dearing, a biologist, and myself were extremely close to accomplishing our goal, but we hit a snag: complete dinosaur DNA strands didn't exist because the little bit of DNA we obtained from dinosaur bones and mosquitoes in amber was so old that the genome had begun to deteriorate. While I believed that with enough time and research we could find a method of filling in the genome gaps with dinosaur DNA. Dr. Wu had other ideas: he believed we should use the DNA of unrelated living species, specifically frogs. It was a risky move and we still don't know all the side-effects of this method, but the Board of Directors decided Dr. Wu's method was the best way to go. I wouldn't go along with them, so I was demoted and Dr. Wu became chief geneticist. Since then, I sort of started doing my own research."
"So why do you have these Parasaurolophus here?" Tom inquired.
"For study. However they're also the guinea pigs for my latest cure to another one of Dr. Wu's cruel ailments on the dinosaurs: the lysine contingency."
"What's that?"
"All animals need an amino acid enzyme called lysine to survive. So in order to prevent the spread of the animals in case they got off the island, he altered the dinosaurs' genes and made them incapable of producing the enzyme, so unless they receive lysine supplements from us, they will slip into a comma and die. It's a really cruel and unnecessary method that I've never agreed to. So what David and I have been doing is creating a special lysine concoction and releasing it into the dinosaurs' water supply. Once the dinosaurs drink it, they should be cured from the contingency."
Tom nodded. "Wow, everything about this park's starting to feel different now."
"You have no idea."
Just then, birds took to the sky from a nearby tree, squawking as they flew into the afternoon rain. Brianna shivered.
"Do you think the Indominus will find us?" she asked. "How will we know when she's around."
"She's not around now," Dr. Sorkin said. "I'm positive."
"How can you tell for sure?"
"Two reasons. One of which is that it would be extremely unlikely for a predator to be in these parts of the island because we're geographically cut off from the rest of Isla Nublar here. The second reason..." Dr. Sorkin pointed to a Parasaurolophus standing in the center of the paddock on her hind legs while the rest of the herd was feeding nearby. "See that individual there? She's the lookout. Its her job to spot, hear or sniff out predators if they're anywhere nearby. When she feels threatened, she'll emit a danger call." Brianna listened, noticing that the Parasaurolophus was making a low, almost-silent cooing sound.
"What call is that she's making now?"
"That means she's calm and the coast is clear. See, while studying these hadrosaurs, David and I have been able to interpret some of their calls."
"That's neat," Alaina said.
"So they have a wide variety of sounds?" Tom asked.
"Yes," said Dr. Sorkin. "Parasaurolophus produce sound from their hollow crests on their heads that are connected to their nasal passages. The sounds are modified in the crest and the animal's mouth to create a myriad of haunting, but beautiful cries."
"I can't raise the Control Room," David said, "or anyone else for that matter."
With a nod, Dr. Sorkin said, "Well, it looks like you kids are stuck here with us until this storm clears up. How would you like to help me give my lysine contingency cure to the parasaurs?"
"Would we ever!" Alaina exclaimed.
Claire stepped away from the others and retrieved her cellphone, looking under her contacts for Zach's number.
"Where are those two?" Claire asked, not really looking for an answer.
"You don't know where your nephews are at a time like this?" Owen inquired.
Claire sighed. She and Owen had a very convoluted and, as some might put it, "interesting" relationship in the past. Claire never actually disliked Owen, but there was always something about him that made her cringe. "I've got a million things on my plate, Mr. Grady–"
"Owen. What's with all the 'Mr. Grady' lately?"
"Owen, I've got a million things on my plate right now. When you're in a position such as this, it's easy to loose track of things."
"Things? You refer to your nephews as 'things'?"
"I wasn't specifically referring to them." She put her phone down and looked Owen in the eyes. "Look, Mr. Grad–"
"Owen."
"Owen. I'm really busy at the moment. If you'd like to be of help, let me continue carrying on business like I've been doing."
Smirking, Owen said, "Come on, I'm not as bad as you're making me out to be."
"Look, I'll stick to managing the park, and you stick to controlling your raptors."
"See it's all about control with you. We both know I don't control the raptors; it's a relationship based on mutual respect." Owen began slowly walking away, which allowed Claire to ease up. But as he left, Owen said, "That's why you and I never had a second date."
Claire put her phone down and looked over at him, giving him a glare that stopped him dead in his tracks. "Excuse me! I never wanted a second date."
"Speaking of that, who prints out an itinerary for a night out?"
"I'm an organized person."
"And what kind of a diet doesn't allow anything sugary?"
"I'm not on a sugar-free diet, it's a low-sugar diet. I'm trying to loose a couple pounds. And what kind of a man shows up to a date in board shorts?"
"It's Central America, it's hot."
Claire shook her head. "You know what, whatever. Just...I need to call my nephews."
Without waiting for a response from Owen, she disappeared around a corner to allow her some privacy. Owen strolled back to the others crowding around Nedry's computer. Arnold seemed even more frustrated than before.
"Another problem?" Owen asked.
"Problems, problems and more problems!" Arnold answered. "Now the gyrospheres that were returning to the station are malfunctioning and the ones already at the station are offline. The same computer bug that's affecting the rest of the system must have been fed into the gyrosphere internal computers too."
Intrigued, Claire reappeared. "What's going on?" she asked.
"We've got gyrospheres on the fritz."
"Well how many are left in the valley?" Hammond asked with concern.
"Two. One's empty and the other has three occupants inside."
"Who are they?"
Arnold slumped his shoulders, dreading the answer. "Gennaro, Ian Malcolm and his daughter."
"Oh dear," Hammond said. "Out of all people to be stuck in a malfunctioning vehicle...it had to be Malcolm." Sarcastically he added, "I can't wait to hear what he's going to have to say when he gets back."
Malcolm, Kelly and Gennaro's gyrosphere came to a stop en route to the Gyrosphere Station through the torrential downpour. The thunderclaps were loud and lightening lit up the stormy sky. The vehicle had stopped between two slightly-wooded areas. Tree branches swayed back and forth in the wind.
"Why are we stopping Dad?" Kelly asked.
"Maybe the storm's causing the vehicle to malfunction," Malcolm guessed. "I'm only theorizing of course. I don't know anything about this kind of technology." He patted his knees a few times before looking out of the glass ball to watch the rain fall. "They didn't mention this in the brochure."
"It's not normally this rainy here," Gennaro told him. "I hope it lets up soon though."
Outside, the three of them noticed some movement – a flock of Laquintasaura was resting under a grove of trees, seeking shelter from the rain.
"Looks like we're not the only ones left out here," Malcolm noted.
"Dad, what are we going to do once we leave the station?" Kelly asked. "Are we going to meet up with Sarah and the Hardings?"
"They're probably not back yet," Malcolm told her. "First we need to find Cheryl and Billy and–"
Gennaro tried to move the joystick forward, left, right, and in reverse, but none of it did them any good. He then tapped on the screen.
"Welcome to the Jurassic World Gyrosphere ride!" announced the speaker. "Be on the—Apatosaurus, meaning 'Deceptive Liz—here at Jurassic World, your safety is our number one priority–
"Like I said, it's a malfunction," Malcolm said. "Which, now that I think about it, is kind of unpredictable...kind of like what we should expect in the Chaos Theory."
"DAD!" Kelly moaned.
"What's wrong with the Chaos Theory?"
Gennaro noticed the Laquintasaura rise to their feet and stand absolutely still, save their heads which darted left to right as they scanned the immediate area intently. It was as if they were looking for something. They seemed nervous.
Maybe it's just the storm, Gennaro thought. But a moment later, he was sure he felt the gyrosphere vibrate, just slightly. The little rain drops on the glass jiggled. The vibration came again, slightly stronger this time.
"Is it just me," Kelly said, "or do I actually feel something?"
"You definitely feel something," Malcolm said.
The Laquintasaura wasted no time. Squeaking amongst themselves, they darted out of sight. Something was scaring them...something big.
"Say, maybe it's one of those long-necked dinosaurs," Gennaro said, trying to look on the positive side.
Malcolm shook his head. "No, the sauropods wouldn't be in the forested areas like this. They can't move around without bumping into the trees. And that wouldn't explain why the little dinosaurs were scared."
Kelly gasped. "Dad!"
"What is it, honey?"
"L-look over there!"
The two men looked in the direction Kelly indicated and saw a hideous sight – a head, clearly of a theropod, poking out of the foliage ahead of them and to the right. The 40-foot dinosaur moved forward, allowing the rest of its body to be seen. Behind its five-foot skull and jaws lined with banana-sized teeth was a strong neck, compact chest, tiny two-clawed forelimbs and well-muscled legs that ended in feet tipped with three sharp talons. A long tail balanced the rest of the creature's body. Rain drops rolled off her body as her eyes pierced through the darkness.
"T-that's not supposed to be in Gyrosphere Valley!" Gennaro uttered in fear.
He was right: this was Rexy, the park's nine-ton Tyrannosaurus rex. As she stepped out of the foliage, she opened her jaws and roared into the afternoon air. It was like the roar from another, bygone age.
"Boy I do hate being right all the time," Malcolm muttered.
A/N: Yes, Rexy is getting more limelight than she does in the Jurassic World movie. Now don't get me wrong: I like that Rexy didn't make a true appearance until near the end of the film IN THE MOVIE. This is my fanfiction story, obviously, and it needs to be different from the movie in some respects. Also, I decided this was as good a chapter as any to bring up Claire's relationship with Owen, something I haven't touched on too much in previous chapters. I also might be bringing Gray and Zach into the story more than I initially thought I would, but we'll have to see. Well, that's it for chapter 18! Please be sure to favorite, follow and review on this story and I'll publish the next chapter in two weeks! Spare no expense!