Sorry for the missing last week, but work has just been so crazy busy. I'm also behind on where I had hoped to be in writing this story, so I may move to an every other week schedule (just depending on how quickly I can get writing again). We'll see. Either way, I will continue to post until it's finished, promise.

Chapter 7

"She's getting worse, Claire."

It was the pain that Claire could hear in Owen's voice that nearly did her in. It felt like he was giving up hope. That he'd already accepted that this might be the end.

"I thought they had said that the episodes weren't hurting her," Claire said, desperately searching for some hope.

"They did. But that was before. They're getting more frequent. And they're getting worse. She's not recovering as quickly, anymore." Owen let out a sigh. "It's affecting Olive, too. She doesn't like us coming in, refusing to budge from Grape's side."

"Not to be insensitive," Claire started, already wincing at how her words may be taken, but then pushing ahead nonetheless, "but are you physically okay? What has Olive managed to do?" She was already picturing numerous scrapes and bites and gashes along his arms. If there was one thing she was grudgingly starting to accept, it was that Owen was never going to think of himself first when it came to his raptors.

"I'm fine," he immediately replied. "Honestly, Claire. No scratches or anything. We keep the gear right at the gates now, so whoever goes in can don it immediately. And the first one in has to go for Olive."

"Which I'm guessing is you."

"Yeah, it's usually me," he agreed. "But Olive knows me. I think she'd react worse if it was someone else. Except maybe Barry. And if it's not me, it's usually him."

"I can't help but worry," she sighed.

"I know. But I really am being careful. And I'm never alone. There's always plenty of backup."

"Do they have any ideas for what else they can try?" she asked. She knew it wasn't worth continuing to talk about his safety. It wouldn't change anything, and the most she could hope for, or expect, was for him to be careful. Zia and Barry would let her know if he wasn't, and since no one had said anything, she'd take him at his word.

"The diet changes haven't helped at all," he answered. "They seem equally baffled by how quickly it's progressing. No one expected it to go this fast. Especially since there hadn't been any collapses or any other incidents for the first few months of her life. But they're happening every few days now."

"What about–?" Claire started, but she didn't actually have a suggestion. "What about the genes? I mean, instead of the vets, instead of people like Zia and Dr. Holloway, could the scientists do anything? Could Dr. Barnes? I mean, they're working with DNA all the time. This should be their area, right?"

"They're looking into it," Owen confirmed. "But they're not having any luck. I mean, they said if we started over, they would know how to fix it. So that a new batch wouldn't have the problem…"

Claire winced. That sounded… horrible.

"Ouch," was all she said. She could imagine his reaction when he'd heard that. She really hoped it hadn't been communicated directly to him, or if it had, it had come from someone like Zia, who would have known to predict how he'd respond to that.

"Yeah." He let out another resigned sigh. "I hate thinking about Grape dying, but it's almost worse to think about what will happen to Olive if she does."

Claire felt herself frown. "What do you mean?"

"She needs a pack," Owen explained. "She can't be alone. As it is, only having the two of them is unusual. I mean, all the wild raptors we've recorded so far have travelled in groups of at least three and usually four. If Grape dies, what do we do with Olive?"

"Well, first of all, let's not assume that Grape is going to die."

"I'm not assuming. I'm still hoping for… I don't know, a miracle or something, but I also need to be realistic."

"Could you put her in with the others?" Claire asked, grasping for ideas. "Would Blue, Charlie and Echo accept her?"

"Hm, maybe," he said. She waited to see if he would say anything else. There was a long pause, where he must have been considering it all. "It'd be tough, because she's so much younger and still so much smaller. It might work, but, the thing is, she'll probably outlive them all. And then she'd be back to this position."

"Owen, that's always going to be an issue," she reminded him. "It's not like Blue and the others will all–" she cut herself off, not wanting to go there. This whole conversation felt too morbid. There had to be something else they could do. Something that hadn't been tried yet. "Hey, have they looked at Henry's notes? Maybe there's something there. I mean, Grape and Olive share DNA with Blue, right? And Blue doesn't have this. Maybe it's something he did."

"Olive doesn't have the issue either," Owen pointed out. "But, like I said. They know how to fix it if they were creating a new batch. They just said because it's genetic, and it requires changing DNA to solve, they can't do anything. Or they don't have a way to do anything. All they can do is try to deal with the effects. And, well, considering it seems to be getting worse, it doesn't even feel like they can do that."

"Well, what about–" Again, Claire cut herself off, but this time it was because she didn't think Owen was going to appreciate her suggestion. Actually, she wasn't sure she really liked what she was about to suggest.

"What?" he asked.

"Nothing."

"No, what were you going to suggest?"

"Um."

"Tell me."

"Maybe we need to reach out to Henry." She waited, holding her breath, to see how he was going to respond, but there was just silence. She gave him another few seconds before asking hesitantly, "Owen?"

"I… I'm trying to think of how I want to respond to that," he said.

"You don't have to like it," she said. "I don't even really like it. But… I also know that we've never had anyone as good as Henry. He really is why the park even exists. I mean, obviously others were helping along the way. But he was the one who put all the pieces together. The one who got it to click. If anyone would know how to fix this. Or who may have an idea."

"Yeah," Owen agreed. "But I hate the idea. I hate thinking about that man. I… But I know we're running out of options. Running out of people to ask. But also, he's a psychopath."

Again, Claire waited for him to say more, but he stayed silent.

"Is that a yes, we should reach out to him?" she asked, not entirely sure how to interpret his answer.

"It's a…" Owen paused, and even though she couldn't see him, Claire was picturing him running his hand over his face, trying to get his thoughts in order. "It's a… do I have to?"

"Have to? No. And it doesn't have to be you," she said. "We could have Dr. Barnes reach out. Someone who may actually understand it all. I'm not sure you, or even I, could explain it all that well."

There was another pause on the line. Longer this time.

"Do you think he'd even talk to us?" Owen asked at last. "I mean, it's not like we left things on good terms."

"Right, but he's still also in the middle of his trial. Maybe we can use that. He'd probably like to show he's cooperating and helping."

"So he can get a lighter sentence?"

Honestly, Claire had no idea. She had read bits and pieces about the trial, but had honestly tried to ignore it as much as possible. She didn't like knowing he was receiving any of her attention.

"I doubt anything we ask will affect that," she said honestly. "But, from my understanding, there's a good chance he's not going to really do any real time. Not behind bars, anyway."

"What? What do you mean? I thought–"

"And so did I, at first," Claire said, interrupting him. She knew where Owen was going, considering they'd had this conversation so many times before. "And Hoskins will be spending time in jail. But Henry's crimes are different. And the punishments are different. It's more likely fines and maybe continued house arrest. And losing his ability to do any scientific studies and his medical license."

"That doesn't seem like enough," Owen grumbled. "He should rot for the rest of his life. Especially if he's responsible for what's wrong with Grape. Wait, actually, why would he even help? He probably caused what's happening. He must have wanted this."

"Owen," Claire said, trying not to groan. "I know you don't like him. I don't either, not after everything. But if there's one thing I'm sure of, it's that he'd never purposefully make a change that he thought would make the animal less viable."

"Less viable? Really, Claire?"

"You know what I mean. I don't agree with the paths he went down. You know I never liked the Indoraptor project. But he was always aiming for viability. Everything he worked on was about improving their success. What's happening with Grape? That's the opposite. He wouldn't do that."

On the other end of the line, Owen snorted.

"You have more faith than me."

"I don't think of it as faith, exactly. More I can't see what the benefit would be for him. Animals that fail to thrive he would see as harming his reputation. So it's not how he would act. But, back to the original question. Do we even reach out?"

"I want to say no. I really really want to say no," Owen said.

"But?"

"But I'm grasping at straws at this point. And I guess he's as good as any of the other options I have. Maybe even better."

o-o-o

"Hey, Owen?"

At the sound of his name, Owen pulled his attention away from the raptors, turning on the catwalk to see who had called out to him. Generally everyone was really good at staying quiet and not interrupting when he was training. So for someone to do so, something had to be going on.

Foster, who had been on duty as security at the paddock while he trained, was looking at him, holding up his radio. Owen gave him a brief nod, before turning back to his raptors. Surprisingly, Blue, Echo and Charlie hadn't drifted away and were still watching him.

"Okay, girls, let's end it for now," he told them. He gave them the signal to disperse. Echo started to head away, while Blue just continued to study him. Charlie, however, let out a frustrated shriek. "What's wrong?" he asked, looking at Charlie.

She looked up at him, letting out a series of chitters. When he didn't immediately respond, she let out another shriek, before clawing at the ground, clearly frustrated.

"Um," he looked over at Blue, wishing it'd be possible for the other raptor to translate. Charlie wasn't one who usually got upset. In fact, she was usually the most even-keeled.

"I think she wants her rat," Foster supplied, and Owen looked up to see that Foster had walked a bit closer. "Sorry, I probably should've waited until after you gave it to her before I interrupted."

"Oh!" Owen had completely forgotten he'd been in the middle of doling out the rewards from their last exercise. Echo had received hers, and so had Blue. But not Charlie. "Sorry, Charlie," he said, quickly pulling one out of the bucket. "Yes, you get one too." He tossed it down to the raptor. She let it fall to the ground in front of her, snarling at him once, before finally reaching down to eat it. "Thanks," he told Foster, as he pulled out the rag he kept in his back pocket. He wiped his hands. "So, what's going on?"

"Right," Foster seemed momentarily flustered, the whole episode having temporarily distracted him as well. "Austin needs you in security."

"Me? What for?"

"Something about the wild raptors," Foster said with a shrug. "I'm not too sure what, but he did say I should fetch you right away, training or not."

"Okay, tell him I'm on my way," Owen said. While Foster radioed back to Austin, Owen glanced around, but didn't see the paddock tech who was working out there. "Hey, can you take this bucket back to the shed?" he asked Foster, pointing to the bucket with the remaining rats. "You can just stick it in the fridge."

Foster easily agreed, and Owen headed for the stairs, descending them two at a time, before starting across the open field towards the security building at a light jog. It wasn't far, and a minute later he was pulling open the door and entering the building.

"What's going on?" Owen asked as he walked into the security room. While he'd expected Austin to be there, and he wasn't surprised to see Jacobs and Maynard, he almost groaned out loud at the sight of Kathy. Why was she there?

At his entrance, Austin immediately turned away from the screens he'd been examining. "Oh good. We have a problem."

"A problem? With the wild raptors?" Owen moved farther into the room, focusing his attention on the screens, trying to decipher what may be going on. He could see the dots representing the few wild raptors that they'd tagged on a map on the main screen.

"Jacobs, can you zoom it out a bit?" Austin asked. After Jacobs nodded, Austin turned back to Owen. "Look where they are."

The moment the map changed, Owen immediately understood the issue. "Oh. Have they ever been that close before?" The dots representing the raptors were about one and a half miles away from the compound. Uncomfortably close given the raptors could pick up a scent from up to a mile away.

"Not since we've been tracking them," Jacobs said. "We're worried, because they seem to be still headed in this direction." He clicked a few buttons, and then the most recent tracking history for the dots showed up. While the raptors hadn't travelled in a straight line, the general direction they had been going would put them on a collision course with the compound.

"Okay, hm," Owen said.

"From what we understand, the goal is to not interact with them, right?" Austin asked.

"It is," Owen confirmed. Before he could continue, Kathy spoke up.

"Then we don't need to do anything, right? Why is this a problem?" she asked.

Again, Owen suppressed a groan. Instead of directly answering Kathy's question, he continued what he had been about to say. "But, we also don't want them to get too close. While I don't know for sure that they'd head in this direction if they know we're here, I don't think we want to find out."

"Why can't they get close?" Kathy asked. "If we're not supposed to interact, why can't we just leave them."

"Because we have raptors here," Owen reminded her.

"And?" she pressed.

"They both don't know that the other group exists. And we don't want them to know. We don't want them communicating." Owen hesitated before wondering aloud. "I wonder if we can deflect them somehow. Get them to turn back the way they came from."

"Like scare them?" Austin clarified.

"One possibility," Owen admitted. "But we don't have to scare them exactly. Just something to distract them and get them to turn around. Although, yeah, that may be the easiest."

"How would we do that?" Jacobs asked. "I mean, they don't scare that easily." He paused. "Do they?"

"We know there are sounds Blue and the others don't like," Owen reminded them. "Think of how they act when the perimeter alarm goes off."

"That's true," Jacobs agreed. "Except, I don't know if they'd run. Or if they did, what way."

"They didn't like the drone," Maynard, the third guard in the room, spoke up. "Remember? When they saw it move, they freaked out and ran the other way."

"Do we still have that drone?" Owen asked. He hadn't thought about it in what felt like years, since they had initially used it. They'd never run another field test. Although, now that it was crossing his mind, they may be able to use it with the wild raptor research. Provided they didn't spook the raptors every time.

"What drone?" Kathy asked, but everyone ignored her.

"I think so," Maynard answered. "I mean, I haven't seen it since, but I think it just got put back in a box and then mostly forgotten."

"Where would it be?" Austin asked. "Can we find it?"

"Um, probably?" Maynard said. "I can go look." He was already standing up, ready to leave.

"What drone?" Kathy pried again.

"Yeah, see if you can find it," Austin agreed, and Owen nodded too. "What do you think, Owen, would that work?"

"It might," Owen conceded. "But we better have a backup plan."

"Any other ideas?"

"What drone?" Kathy demanded this time, finally causing the remaining three to look at her.

"From the field test," Owen just said, not explaining any more. He returned his attention to Austin. "I guess we could always tranq them and move them ourselves," he said, hating his own suggestion even as he was offering it. "But that means we'd have to get close to them, which is risky."

"Especially since we know we don't have them all tagged," Austin added. "While we can see three trackers showing up here, that doesn't mean there's only three."

"Yeah, that too. But I do think it's probably our best backup," Owen said with a sigh.

"Why do we have to move them?" Kathy asked.

"Because they'd still be too close," Owen answered.

"Right, but when they wake up, won't they leave then? And how is this keeping human involvement away from them?" Kathy continued to press.

"It's not," Owen said, mostly dismissing her concerns. "But we can't rely on them leaving after waking. If we have to go that far, we need to go all the way."

"And if we do that, we're going to need the helicopter," Austin added, thinking aloud. "So that we'd be able to move them. I don't have enough guys for us to do so on our own." He sighed heavily, before moving towards a phone and picking it, dialing. "Let's hope the drone works." There was a pause, before he spoke into the receiver, "Hey, it's Austin from Sorna. We've got a bit of an issue…"

o-o-o

It was late and Claire knew she should turn off her laptop. There was a storm expected to arrive tomorrow, which would pretty much guarantee her a long day. Storms always resulted in the guests being extra fidgety as they were confined to a smaller area of the park and thus packed closer together. Inevitably, tempers would flare and they'd have to deal with angry and upset guests on top of the regular effects of the storm (like potential power outages). So the best thing for her to do was to get a full night of sleep. Except… well, she had gone down a Twitter hole.

She'd gotten into bed (with her laptop, since Owen wasn't around to complain about that), and had started what had become her new nightly routine: checking up all the DPG social media accounts. Normally, she'd spend twenty minutes to half an hour doing so. Seeing what people had posted and scrolling through the replies. If she saw any new accounts she'd check them out, to see if they were just random people getting sucked in, or bots, or possibly a new lead. She knew, at some point, someone at the DPG was going to mess up. They would finally leave a string she could pull on, something that would help her start unraveling what was going on. Something that would lead her to the names of the real people behind it all.

The DPG actually had put some names forward, but Claire didn't recognize any of them. And she'd also learned some other names based on the people who'd been arrested (both at the park and from the protestors on the dock that one day). But none of those names had led her anywhere.

And even though no one else agreed with her, Claire was still a firm believer that the DPG had to have an "inside man" (or woman). Someone who was feeding them intel. Someone who was behind why they were so well-informed. It wasn't just the words on the signs that they'd used, but also in some of the statements they'd given to the media. It was the fact that they'd leaked her nephews' names. This was all information they couldn't have just accidentally stumbled across. No, Claire was positive that someone was in on it all. She just had no idea who.

Tonight, as she followed post after post, clicking from user to user and scanning over their social media profiles, she was starting to lose hope. Clearly there were too many people in the world with too much time on their hands who were just looking for a conspiracy theory they could sink their teeth into (although, Claire had to admit that it wasn't really a conspiracy theory, what the DPG was claiming).

A glance at the time reminded her that she should shut it off. And she was just about to do so, when she noticed a new reply that was quickly gathering likes. Last one, she told herself, as she clicked on the user to check out their profile.

Their name was similar to all the others, nothing immediately identifying, as it was just a relatively "generic" first name (this time Chris) followed by a random string of emoji characters. The short bio didn't add much, just stating that the account owner was American, loved the Houston Astros, and was an adult amusement park enthusiast. The last bit made Claire groan. While she knew it was good for business that there were adults who loved to visit amusement parks (they couldn't exist solely on the fees they got from families), there were too many of these adults that she thought took it too far—spoiling the experience for others in their pushiness and expectation that everything should cater to them over anyone else.

Pushing aside those thoughts, Claire started to scroll through the person's feed, looking at the tweets they'd made and those they'd retweeted. Nothing immediately jumped out at her, as it was a lot of retweets of MLB clips and commentary, along with retweets of laments, rumours and rants about potential changes happening at various theme parks. The type of stuff she rolled her eyes at. Who cared if a wall got repainted blue instead of green? But there was little actually written by the user themself.

Scrolling back to the top, she switched over to the tweets and replies feed and started scrolling down again. Here the feed looked completely different, as it appeared that this "Chris" was actually quite prolific, just via replies and not original posts. And the most recent replies were all about Jurassic World and the DPG. Chris seemed to be in a bit of a twitter spat with another user over whether or not anyone should believe what the DPG was saying, considering they'd never provided any proof to back up their statements.

The twitter spat was actually pretty ordinary, and Claire was about to click back to the main feed, when she stopped, her mouse hovering over one of Chris's replies. "If you'd seen what I'd seen when I was there, you'd believe everything the DPG is saying." It wasn't the first time a user had talked about their own visit to Jurassic World. Far from, really. Many of the people commenting on the DPG (both for and against) had visited, and a lot of discussion often came from their own experiences. However, this was the first time she'd ever seen someone claim that they'd seen something that would back the DPG up.

Moving on to the reply, she wasn't surprised when the other user asked what he'd seen and if he could provide any proof. They followed their question immediately with another tweet, calling out Chris for just trying to get attention, that everything the DPG was claiming happened, had happened outside of guest view, and that there was no way that Chris could've seen anything. Claire found herself nodding along, mentally cheering the poster on. She eagerly looked for a reply from Chris, but there wasn't one. Well, it had probably been too good to be true, she reminded herself. He probably didn't respond because he couldn't.

Scrolling back up his feed, she wasn't that surprised when she saw that there were new replies, Chris apparently active at the moment, and she refreshed the feed. And that's when she saw it. Chris had replied, but only just that moment.

Who said anything about witnessing it as a guest?

Her eyes wide, Claire froze, staring at the tweet. Was he claiming…? Could he have been…? Surely he wasn't…? Except, employee turnover at Jurassic World was actually pretty high just because of the nature of the work. It was the type of place where people liked to come and work for a few years after high school or university before moving on. There would be plenty of people who had been working at Jurassic World during any of the incidents who would no longer be here. And, actually, what was to say that this Chris was no longer even an employee?

Switching over to viewing his feed by media, Claire skimmed down it quickly, trying to see if there was anything that actually identified where he lived. She'd assumed from his bio that he lived in Texas because of the Houston Astros, but plenty of people cheered for teams they didn't live near. Could this be a current employee?

While there were a few pictures he'd posted, none of them gave anything away, and none were of the user themself. And the profile pic was actually a pretty generic looking theme park picture, not centered on any one individual.

About ready to give up, Claire took a final look at Chris's profile, for the first time actually looking at his username, not just his display name: ChrisB1983. The name actually looked like it could contain real information. First name, first initial of last name, and probably birth year, based on what so many people did. Could she…?

No, she shook her head. That would be stepping over a line, if she tried to search the employee records. And off a single tweet? And it's not like this user was claiming to have done anything. Just that he'd potentially witnessed something. She was being crazy. It was probably all just someone's attempt to get a little internet fame. To have some attention thrown their way. It was probably nothing.

Reaching out, Claire closed the lid of her laptop, before moving it over to Owen's side of the bed. She needed to snap herself out of this. She had no proof of anything, and even if she did find a worker (current or not) with that name and birth year, it didn't mean anything. No, she was better off going to sleep.

Turning out her light, she lay down and closed her eyes, willing her brain to turn off, but it didn't. Opening her eyes again, she stared at the ceiling, refusing to cave to her impulse to re-open her laptop. No, she wasn't going to. Not tonight. Grumbling, she turned on her side, staring out the window, her back now to the laptop. As she looked out the window, for the first time she noticed that it was now wet, the storm that was supposed to arrive in the morning had already made landfall. Watching as the water streamed down her window, Claire let the image soothe her mind, quieting her thoughts.

Tomorrow, she told herself. She could look more into this Chris B person tomorrow…

o-o-o

Waking up to rain lashing at the windows wasn't abnormal–on Sorna or on Nublar. Both islands got their fair share of tropical storms and cyclones. And this was the storm everyone had been expecting. It had been building for a few days, and so both islands had been on high alert, making sure to be as prepared as they could be.

In fact, everyone had been so concerned, that they had been making sure that Sorna was well stocked above normal, with extra food and fuel shipments having arrived every day. And not just that, but they had actually decreased the number of employees on the island, with a goal of keeping it at the bare minimum.

Personally, Owen thought that they were overreacting. They had gone through numerous storms before this one, and he didn't expect this one to be any different. They'd get rain. Probably a lot of wind. Maybe some lightning. And that would be it. Sure it would be very soggy for a few days and dealing with the raptors wouldn't be his definition of fun (although the raptors couldn't care less about the rain). But it all felt like overkill.

When he'd seen the amount of food arriving, Owen had just scoffed to Claire. "Are they thinking we're going to be completely cut off from civilization for weeks on end or something? Even if we lose power for a bit and take some damage, it won't take us long to get back up and running. There's not a lot of systems here and they're all closely located. And not just that, but you guys aren't that far away. Worst case, you can always send a helicopter."

Claire had just replied that all of this was being done at Kathy's request, and if Owen had a problem, he should take it up with her. He wasn't actually entirely sure if Claire had been honest with that, or if she'd known that laying it on Kathy would mean that Owen would shut up, because she knew he tried to avoid Kathy at all costs. Either way, it had worked, as Owen hadn't wanted to press it, knowing that Claire would probably double down that he should take his concerns directly to Kathy.

Even though he'd been expecting the rain, hearing it and the wind howling when he woke immediately put Owen into a bad mood. He'd been really hoping it would hold off until later in the morning, so he could at least squeeze a small session in with the raptors and do their first feeding without ending up soaked. So much for that.

Getting up, he grabbed his phone off his nightstand, checking to see what messages had arrived. He almost always woke up to something from Claire, since she was always up before him. This morning was no different. Already raining here. I hope you're right and this one blows over quickly. Either way, I think I'm going to be stuck in control all day. Hope you don't get too wet. Love you.

Raining here, too. Was hoping it'd wait until after I had fed the raptors. I guess today will be a report day. :( Love you. Owen quickly typed out his own message and hit send.

His phone had already beeped with a reply by the time he'd got dressed, and he read it as he headed out of his room. Wish I could catch up on paperwork. Lucky you. :P Say hi to all the raptors for me.

The smile that had emerged as he read her message was quickly wiped away when he found himself struggling to push open the door to exit the housing building, the wind beating against it. Grumbling, he used his weight and managed to slip out, immediately being blasted face first with a wall of rain.

As he started towards the dining hall, he found himself having to lean into the wind, trying to battle his way forward. Yeah, today was going to suck.

As always, if you have any thoughts or comments or anything, I'd love to hear from you. I just realized that ffn changed their policy on emailing updates (eek) and so sorry if I missed anything. Hopefully I'll get them now.