THE LOST WORLD

3 - InGen's Team

Pet sat on the roof of a camouflaged painted Mercedes SUV and watched the five people in annoyance. Her attention remained on one person in particular. Of all the people she expected to never see on the islands again, and here he was; a walking theory to the madness within his head. Chaos.

She could hear the other two men in the group chat quietly amongst themselves and barked a hiss for the amusement of watching them jump at the sound. She wickedly smiled at the men staring at her wide-eyed in nervousness.

Ian frustratingly tapped the satellite phone on its case in a typical attempt to get the device to work. "Eddie?"

The bald man seated on the back of the vehicle Pet sat on answered. "What?"

"Why in the hell doesn't this thing ever work?" Ian violently shook the phone tightly clutched in his hand.

Eddie sighed and stopped what he was doing to answer the flustered man. "It's not a landline. You're not in a phone booth. You got to wait for a decent signal." Ian continued to bang on the phone and Pet huffed a laugh. Oh, the enjoyment she was getting out of watching the chaotician's circumstance.

"Unpredictability is a bitch, isn't it Dr. Malcolm?" Pet sneered.

The darkly clad man grumbled under his breath and hit the phone again. His trying to get the phone to work more resembled a child having a temper tantrum because his favorite toy wasn't working. Eddie sighed. "Violence and technology do not make good bedfellows."

"Take Jurassic Park for example," the hybrid added in.

Ian pointed a finger at the mud splotched hybrid in warning. "Enough..." Her cocking a taunting smile made the man roll his eyes and refocus on what he was he doing.

Her hearing what Sarah had to say peeked her interest, and she ripped her attention off Ian. "Hammond wants the equipment as close to the animals as possible."

Pet snorted. "I don't think so!"

Ian helped, more like dragged, the little girl from the hood of the second car. "Great idea," he mumbled, "and why don't you smear on a little sheep's blood?"

"Good luck finding a sheep on the island. Might I suggest-"

Ian interrupted the hybrid. "Shut it!" Pet shrieked a hiss in response. "Look, I'm taking my daughter out of here. Anyone coming with me, this is your last chance to get out."

"Better now while the going is good then later when-"

Ian held up a finger to silence Pet yet again. "So help me, if you even think about finishing that sentence..."

Pet sat up and slimmed her raptor eyed stare down at the man. "You'll what? Hmm? What do you think you can do to me that hasn't been attempted already?" Eddie slowly turned to study the hybrid as ideas of what she could possibly mean flooded his thoughts.

Sarah, feeling the urge to change the topic, spoke up. "So listen, when you're out in the field, and there's nothing you can do-" her voice was drowned out by Ian's ramblings.

Pet slid off the top of the vehicle she had been perched on and made her way to the forest's line. She could care less about the people arguing and disappeared into the foliage. The hybrid could only imagine how this was going to work out. She was convinced Ian Malcolm almost lost his sanity on the first island before everything went straight to hell. Here, the dinosaurs were wild, free and stronger than ever.

Pet's walking came to a slow and finally a halt. She didn't like the sound of what she was hearing. It sounded like thunder in the distance, low and rumbling, but there were no storm clouds in the sky. Gradually the noise became louder and most distinct. A sharp shriek of a bark escaped the hybrid. Helicopters.

"You've got to be shitting me," she mumbled under her breath and spun around where she was standing to return to the cliff side where the others had set up. She erupted from the tree line in a furor of animalistic growls and shrills. "What the hell are you people doing now?"

A parade of helicopters carrying crates of equipment and vehicles came into view. Eddie was confused and pointed to the aircraft that passed by. "I don't get it. It says InGen on the side of that chopper!" He gestured to the one he was referring.

Pet grabbed the binoculars from the man to see for herself. "Shit."

"I don't get that. Why would Hammond send two teams?" He looked to the unnerving woman next to him.

Pet brought down the binoculars to look at Eddie and then to Ian. "You mean you didn't know about this?" She pointed a clawed finger to the sky. "This isn't any of your doing?"

Ian took a look for himself as Sarah called out. "Doesn't Hammond trust us? We haven't even gotten started, yet!"

The doctor and hybrid looked to each other in a mix of worry and confusion. Ian shoved the binoculars in Eddie's chest and brought himself to face the hybrid fully. "What are you not telling us?"

"Excuse me? What am I not telling you?" She neared the man and curled an upper lip, growling. "You're the ones who barged in on my island unannounced and uninvited. I should be asking you the same thing!"

Nick cut in. "We should go see what they're up to."

When Ian turned his attention to his friend, Pet liked the sound of the man's idea and retreated from the scene. Ian realized this and yelled out at her. "Hey come back here!" But it was no use. She wasn't going to listen to him.


Pet was running the fastest she could through the jungle, leaping and bounding over fallen trees and ditches. Stegosauruses bellowed and strewn from the charging predatory woman as she continued to follow the sounds of the helicopters. Judging by the amount of vehicles and equipment being sent in, they weren't out for a casual hunt in the park. There was some other motive to their visit, and she wanted to know what.

The sounds of helicopter rotors seemed to accumulate at a specific region Pet remembered an abandoned airport being. She slowed her pace down to a jog and finally a crawl as she lowered herself to the ground. Two company helicopters touched down on the landing strip grown over with tufts of grass and littered with bits of leaves. Several men began unloading from the aircraft before the helicopters took back to the sky. Replacing them were vehicles secured via special harnesses and suspended from Chinook helicopters. Several of the men unsecured the diverse assortment of heavy-duty off-road vehicles.

One of the men made themselves clear as the director of the group. He seemed a bit more well dressed and wore small shades perched across a nose wrinkled in squinting against the sun. He tugged his brown ball cap further over his face to shield his eyes from the sun and directed orders to the workers.

"Careful, now! That's expensive equipment!" Peter Ludlow's focus shot over to a large, metal pallet descending before two men. "Make sure that makes it to the campsite coordinates undamaged!"

Pet snorted to herself. How could she forget that face? Peter Ludlow; John Hammond's nephew. She had seen pictures of him and thought back to Terrence Mitchell telling her how it was this man who paid to see her brought down. The animal in her wanted to strike out at the man and tear him apart via tooth and claw. But she refrained. All around him were men she knew were most likely armed. Human reasoning kept her rooted where she knelt, hidden in the bushes. It was only a matter of time before she was found, given the amount of men the area was starting to attract.

She was about to leave the scene to return to Ian's campsite when she saw yet another familiar face. A man wearing a safari-styled on top of a bald head approached Ludlow. "Relax, Peter, my men know what they're doing. This isn't the first time they've done something like this."

Pet choked out a gasp and brought a hand to her mouth to silence her shock. There, standing amongst the many InGen hired hands was her godfather, Roland Tembo. How could he side with that vile scum, Ludlow? Did he have any idea what that piece of shit tried to do four years ago? If Ian Malcolm had gotten word of her apparent demise, then surely Robert did too. It would only make sense for Robert to tell his longtime best friend of the news as well.

Pet felt overcome with the feeling of betrayal and squeezed her eyes shut. Her other hand clawed at the ground as her body quaked with unbridled fury. She opened her tear-glazed eyes and knew she'd have to get somewhere safe, out of their way and out of their view. Roland was a damn good hunter and highly skilled tracker. She'd have to be careful in everything she did to avoid him finding her. She knew she needed to run, to hide, but couldn't.

As dangerous as Peter Ludlow and his associations were, Pet wanted to keep close tabs on them. She might even get the opportunity to rid of him should he venture off. Nothing would satisfy her savage taste for blood than this man's. He had ruined her life by ordering men to hunt her down. He was undoubtedly the reason why she wouldn't be able to leave the island and return to a semi-normal life whether it be in Kenya or elsewhere. All she wanted was to rejoin Robert, wherever he was.

As fast as she had run to the helicopters, she ran just as quickly away from. She could hear the spark of engine life fill the vehicles and jumped into a washout to take cover. Thirty yards away was what remained of a paved road leading from the landing strip and further into the unchecked wilds. Motorcycles roared through followed by specially modified off-road trucks and Jeeps. In the back of one was Pet's target; InGen's newest CEO. Unfortunately, he was riding in the same vehicle as Roland. Pet stayed hunkered down and out of sight till the last of the vehicles passed by and the thunder of helicopters diminished. Once the coast was clear did she poke her head up and over a fern to watch the last of the dispatched vehicles become obscured in a dust cloud. What were these men up to?


As mentioned in the chapter, Pet is Roland's goddaughter. This is a change Raven included in her revisions some time ago. I'm not altering anything. I know she wrote one chapter in the BEGINNINGS stuff building on it and started another to further go into it. Right now, the BEGINNINGS revision is a mess of confusion so no idea when I can get around to figuring out that mess...