SURVIVAL
8 - What They Don't Know
The faint silhouette of Isla Sorna became more prominent and brighter the closer Pet got to it. She'd probably have been there by now but had to take the time to mess around with a transport boat. Due to the storm and its waves, this particular boat, as well as several others, had become pushed against each other and almost landlocked. Little by little she moved each boat out of the way to allow access to the one she wanted. Though there was another that could've been freed much quickly, it offered less fuel. At least with this one, it was almost full.
Then came the issue of starting it. After starting it was steering it. It was much more awkward to navigate compared to the smaller recreational boats she had operated in the past. This one was more along the lines of a fishing boat. It was much smaller than a deep-sea fishing boat but more substantial than a shrimp boat. On the deck of it was a cage used to transport smaller dinosaurs and even juvenile medium dinosaurs.
The island was closer, now. Pet wasn't sure what to expect when she arrived as she played several scenarios through her head. Could there be a hunting party waiting for her there, too? Seeing how the second island wasn't linked to the first one as far as computer control went, perhaps this island was still operable. By now it had been pushing over three weeks since the incident regarding Jurassic Park. Slowing down the boat's engine speed, she casually trolled the coast to search the shore for any signs of the island's fate.
In less than thirty minutes, she was steering into the docks and up to a post to tie up. She turned off the engine and went to the deck to secure the boat. The dock was empty of any other watercrafts. Strange. Pet got off the boat and quietly walked down the pier and to the parking lot where a vast assortment of parked vehicles was located. She chose one of the SUVs and opened it, finding the keys in the visor. It was one of Hammond's rules; all park vehicles must remain open and the keys placed in either the visor or center console when not in use. She cranked the vehicle and made way to the central office.
Driving to the compound was haunting and eerie. The power had been shut off here, too, for the electrified fence status lights didn't glow. Had someone pulled a Dennis Nedry here, also? While continuing to drive to the second island's intermediate compound, more profound thoughts busied her mind.
Finally, she was at the compound and pulled up to the main complex. Turning off the car and getting out signaled something Pet wasn't expecting. In her scaling the stairs to go inside the building, she heard it. A familiar hissed bark. She stopped in her tracks and feared to turn around. Her curiosity got the best of her, and she caved, slowly glancing over her shoulder to face a Velociraptor not but just twenty-five feet shy of her. She gradually spun around to fully face it as she watched others come in through the open gate to join the first.
This was not good. Her eyes studied the five young raptors coming towards her only to stop at the first one's snorting a bark at them. They recoiled as though falling back upon order. A pack had been established amongst these creatures. The apparent alpha neared her and began lowering itself to the ground the closer it got to where she stood.
It was challenging her. Pet snorted a shriek, knowing the only way to survive the island was to become the animal within. She lowered her gaze at the approaching creature and growled, curling her upper lip. Just as the raptor charged at her, she charged at it, both leaping at the other and colliding in mid-air. To the ground, they fell, a tangle of clawed limbs and toothed jaws trying to bite and maim at the other. This was only to going to end one way; one of the two being victorious over the other.
Terrence knew, one day, he'd have to be the bearer of bad news to the family of a missing co-worker, but not like this. He traced the etched lettering of Pet's collar with his thumb and heaved a sigh. If it was one thing the man hated the most, was lying to someone no matter the circumstance. He had already lied to Hammond and felt torn about it, though it seemed the older man saw through the ruse. Anyone who knew the hybrid well enough knew better than to believe she was killed by a Rex, despite what the reports said and the 'evidence' presented. He just hoped the one person who mattered the most regarding the cover story knew this as well.
Knowing he had already wasted enough time, Terrence straightened his composure and rang the doorbell belonging to a brick, three-story, London townhouse. There was a moment's wait before the scurrying of movement approaching the door got his attention. As the door slowly opened, Terrence politely smiled to a much younger man in his early twenties.
Brown eyes matching a head full of brunette hair studied the visitor questionably. "Something I can help you with?" His eyes slimmed down on the collar in the visitor's hands and then back up to the eyes of the obviously nervous man.
Terrence shifted his stance uncomfortably in the intense stare and nodded. "Yes, I uh...I'm here to speak with Mr. Robert Muldoon. I was told this was where he was residing following the, uh..." He cleared his throat. "Following his hospital release."
"And you are?"
"A previous co-worker." Terrence struggled to smile against the heat forming under his button-down shirt.
The younger man looked down at the collar again. Behind him, a woman's voice called. "Derek, who's at the door?" She came into view and studied the newcomer from around the doorway. Terrence quickly saw the resemblance between her and the young man at the door and came to the conclusion they were mother and son. "Don't tell me you're here on behalf of InGen for another report." Judging by the sound of her voice, he wasn't the only one who had stopped by.
Terrence shook his head. "No, no... I'm here on behalf of a good friend. I wanted to speak with Robert in private, if that was alright."
Derek cut in. "Is this about her?"
The woman was confused. "Her? Who's her?"
"It's alright, Mom, I got this," Derek said, in a hushed tone, over his shoulder. Skeptically, the woman nodded and left. Once she was gone and out of ear range did Derek continue. "Well?" Terrence nodded. "Good news or bad?"
"That's between Robert and me."
"Look, whoever you are...I don't care. My uncle has already been through enough, and the last thing he needs is some ass hat coming by to make it worse." Derek's jaw clenched in anger.
"Either way, he deserves to know."
The woman's calling out got their attention. "Derek, let him in." Terrence sneered at the scowl he was receiving from the other and pushed his way inside.
He went to the room the woman gestured to down the hallway and paused in the doorway. There, seated in a recliner chair and highlighted by the glow of a muted TV was Muldoon who appeared worse for wear. Even though it had been closing in on almost four weeks since the park incident, and some of the man's injuries mostly healed, he was barely recognizable. A series of three, what Terrence could only guess were claw marks, stretched from the top right part of his face to his lower left. One scar came just over the right ear and ran along the cheekbone to the corner of his mouth. A second, and more severe of the three started beyond the hairline and down the forehead, over the bridge of the nose and to his cheek. The last cut just shy of his left eye and down to his jaw.
Despite knowing how he must look to the newcomer, Muldoon's fearful gaze was distant and unblinking. There was still a lot of pain wrought by emotion in his features.
"I know why you're here," Muldoon stated through a hoarse grumble. "Hammond told me everything after your visit with him." He reached for a glass quarter full with a dark drink and finished it off in a gulp. The closer Terrence got to the troubled man, the more he could smell the noticeable odor of whiskey. "Is it true?"
Terrence reluctantly nodded and set the collar down on the coffee table at the foot of the recliner. "I found that in what I could only guess was a large creature's waste."
Derek strode into the living room and past the visitor as he returned to where he had been sitting in a second recliner. Muldoon's weary-eyed gaze settled on the precious object, knowing Pet never took it off for anything. Not even during the times her illness flared up and her throat swollen did she remove it. He balled up a fist laying on an armrest and clenched his jaw in a surge of mixed emotions.
He growled behind gritted teeth. "They hired you to hunt her down and kill her, didn't they?"
Without being asked, Terrence took a seat on the couch adjacent to the occupied recliner. The visitor cleared his throat and awkwardly looked away. "I took the job on a bluff. Yes, In-Gen hired me to bring her in dead or alive, but I only accepted it to protect her. I had heard what she had done to help save not only you but the others as well and knew after personally working with her that she wasn't just some fucked up experiment to put down. She was a human, for the most part, and had my respect."
Muldoon never took his gaze off the collar when he spoke. "Leave."
The man knew better than to stick around and calmly got up to retreat to the hallway. He stopped for a moment and called back over his shoulder. "It's better, this way. At least In-Gen will stop hunting her down." Which was true. As long as the company thought the hybrid was dead, why continue hunting her? The only problem was, the hurt it would cause everyone else in the process.
Once Terrence left the house, the sound Muldoon yelling in rage and the breaking of glass within the house startled him. It deeply pained him to witness what was happening but knew that as long as anyone significantly close to the hybrid knew she was still alive, her life was at risk. Biting back his anger at himself and swallowing back the threat of tears, he walked away from the townhouse.
