ADAPTATIONS

34 – The Final Plan

No sooner did Jacobs sit down in one of the two padded chairs situated before Masrani's cherry wood office desk then a wallet sized picture was slid in his direction. Jacobs' eyes enlarged and he gasped. "Where did you get this?" His attention bounced between the picture and the intense brown eyes across the desk.

"I came across it shortly after integrating InGen within my company. How old would you say she is in that picture?"

Jacobs shrugged. "Late teens, maybe early twenties? It's hard to say, really, since I haven't seen her in so long."

Simon looked at the picture and sat it down on his desk. "In one of your video documents, you stated discovering her sick with a reoccurring illness she was created with." Jacobs inhaled a deep breath and nodded, slowly exhaling. "Were you ever able to find a cure?"

"Unfortunately, no." There was a deep regret in Jacobs' eyes. "Not before she was transferred to the islands to help finish getting Jurassic Park ready. I know there was supposed to be another genetics team, there, to finish working on what I started but I have no idea how that came out."

Simon's brow subtly lowered, his eyes still fixated on the picture. "Do you know who was leading the team on that research?"

Jacobs shrugged and shook his head. "No, I don't. I know Mr. Hammond's all-star geneticist Dr. Henry Wu was on Jurassic Park and leading the charge into the whole dinosaur recreation thing. Maybe he can tell you more."

"If I am able to get a copy of the scientist's notes pertaining to their possible work in finding a cure for her then I want you to continue it." Should the scientist who was ordered to research more on Pet's cure be Dr. Wu, Simon already had plans for the brilliant scientist regarding his Jurassic World. He didn't want to take him away from that planned work; not when there was already a capable body of doing so right in front of him.

Jacobs knew he wasn't being asked and nodded in acceptance. "Yes, sir."


Dr. Henry Wu stared at the headquarters that had once belonged solely to InGen. Now it shared a space with a branch of Masrani Global Corporation. The scientist stood there on the sidewalk, thinking back on the reason for his being asked to come to Palo Alto, California. Business. The CEO of the corporation empire wanted to speak with him about serious matters and how he, a leading geneticist, could help. The Chinese American strode up to the double glass doors, tugging one open and going inside.

After a few minutes of venturing through the building, the man found himself face to face with Simon Masrani within the man's spacious office. The wealthy CEO motioned to a comfortable looking chair situated before his desk. "Please, sit." Wu did so, eager to know what business was needing to be discussed. "Thank you for meeting me on such short notice, Doctor." Wu nodded in acknowledgement, Simon continuing. "I've been keeping track of your accomplishments," he thumbed through a manila folder on his desk, "since integrating InGen with my company and I must say, I am very much impressed."

"Thank you, sir," Wu politely replied.

"Your work on Karacosis wutanis is quite remarkable. No doubt, a stepping stone towards much larger plans?" Simon arched a brow expectedly for an answer.

The geneticist wasn't sure where the other man was going, but went along with it regardless. "I have a few in mind, yes."

"Ah." Simon drummed his fingertips against the back of the folder and studied the brilliant scientist with an intensity that made Wu a bit more anxious. "Hopefully my business proposition, then, will not keep you from achieving your plans." He politely smiled to which the scientist returned.

"What would that be, if you don't mind me asking?"

Straight to the point, Simon noted, and smiled wider because of. He liked this guy. "To return you to a lead geneticist position in cloning prehistoric animals." Wait, what? That wasn't the answer Wu expected to hear and wrinkled his face in absolute bafflement. "I admire the idea and devotion John Hammond had and wish to... build... on that."

"You're wanting to make another park? To remake Jurassic Park?"

"Not just a park, Doctor. A world." And with that, Wu fell completely quiet in contemplation. Something in the way the CEO had said world brought a shudder to the geneticist. This man was up to something that he expected was going to be much grander in the scheme of things compared to Jurassic Park.


Two hours passed and Dr. Wu was exiting the glass doors of InGen's headquarters. He was so caught up in what he just learned and had been offered that he didn't bother to notice if someone was coming out of the building behind him when allowing the door to close in his wake. He only thought about it after reaching the first stair leading down to the driving circle in front of the multi-story building. When he turned around to look behind him, he found himself in relief. No one. Good.

His mind found itself back on the idea of there being plans for another dinosaur themed park. Wasn't the continuous disaster after disaster leading up to the first park's failure not enough to deter the man? Or maybe the felled amphitheater the once mighty Peter Ludlow thought so highly about? San Diego? Even people in third world countries had heard about the San Diego Incident; the final nail in InGen's coffin, as in company employees knew it as.

And yet, here was another individual thinking they could master what the others had failed at. But for some reason, he had said yes to the proposition. Why? Why did he agree to help create prehistoric based animals for another park? Thinking back on his previous experiments and specimens created, he was making improvements each time he created a new species of animal. Every time a 'glitch' or 'bug' was found in one of his creations, he would always pull his team together to figure out what to do to make the next animal better. As he recalled, he was on version 4.4? That was so long ago and technology had advanced so much.

Maybe this time, he could create the perfect specimen. Before Jurassic Park's downfall, he had been working on a way to create dinosaurs without them becoming sick on a regular basis. He used a blood sample from a sick Triceratops, and worked on a way to viral out the affected chromosome. After having successfully achieved this on three different dinosaur species came the actual specimen creation. He was never able to get that far in his research on Isla Nublar as everything went straight to hell shortly afterwards.

This was a topic that was discussed with Masrani. It seemed, he was wanting to use this viral out method on a long forgotten and since presumed dead sabotaged experiment Wu remembered as I-10HY. Regardless, Wu planned to use this same viraling out research going forward into this world Masrani mentioned.

Wu shook his head to himself as he strode through the headquarters parking lot and to his rental vehicle. So much work laid before him. Whether for the good or the bad, Wu was sure something could be learned from his re-recreating prehistoric animals. Hell, maybe even a new species of dinosaur, too. Afterall, what else was left to create that wasn't offered by prehistoric DNA extraction from mosquitoes, already? Wu slid into the driver's seat of the rental car and started the engine, wearing a smile on his face. He had just been promoted. What wasn't to smile about? It was a smile he was sure wouldn't falter during the private flight back to San Diego, where he primarily conducted his lab work.


Christmas crept up on the dig site as volunteer workers decorated their trailers in holiday cheer. At night, the dig site took on an early Christmas Wonderland appearance as multicolored Christmas lights filled the otherwise bland atmosphere. It looked even more so when snow blanketed the ground. One middle aged man, a rather friendly but lonely individual, made a fairly tall snow man outside his trailer using what snow he could collect from around the dig site.

Even the tent covering and protecting the fossil had a string of rainbow-colored lights tacked onto it. Grant didn't mind it, as it helped with moral amongst the remaining volunteer workers, but he sure hated the extension cord. Didn't matter how many times he told himself to watch out for it, he always managed to get tangled up in it or trip over it whether coming or going from the tent. That also went for the other collections of extension cords running across the ground throughout the site.

Generator powered space heaters were placed in the work tents where people frequently worked. The fossil preparation tent, the plastering tent and the primary fossil excavation tent all had a heater in them of a sort to help keep workers warm. Pet, however, chose to stay mostly indoors and opted to work on what she could from there. She hated the cold and could only tolerated it for a short time before having to retreat indoors to warm up. It was times like now that she really missed Kenya and the islands.


January and New Year's passed by in a drunken blur for Quarantine's residents. February came and with a bigger bang than New Year's, just in a different way.

Crying. Who was crying and why? Was it that brat kid, again? Muldoon woke in the middle of the night, irritated at the unwanted disturbance. Damn kid. Wait, that wasn't a kid. That was Pet. She was crying and it sounded like from inside the bathroom. What had happened?

"Bloody hell," he grumbled and slid out of bed. His grumbling and Pet's crying woke up Terrence, as well. As for Derek, well, it would take a lot to wake him up. Muldoon lightly tapped his knuckles against the bathroom door. "Pet?"

The woman fell silent, sniffed back a sob and weakly called out, "Yeah?"

"Is it safe to come in?" He tried the handle, finding it unlocked.

"Sure. Why not?" Pet buried her sickly face in her clawed hands, refusing to look at the man curiously poking his head into the bathroom.

It didn't take a genius to see the woman was sick again and from what the man could assume, was another nasty flare up. This hadn't happened in quite some time. "I would ask if you're alright, but obviously not." He knelt down to feel of her flustered, sweaty body and felt she was feverish. "Lovely."

Muldoon sat against the wall next to the hybrid and sighed. "How long ago did the attack hit?"

"Sometime when I was asleep." Pet wiped at her eyes. "I woke up feeling hot and like shit. I was going to come sit in the tub for a bit, but yeah..." she gestured to the toilet. The woman choked out another sob. "I'm tired of this, Rob. I'm tired of being sick all the time. Tired of not knowing if or when it's going to flare up and how bad it'll be. What I'll be doing at the time when it decides to kick me in the ass."

Terrence, who had been struggling to wake up Derek upon hearing something was wrong, stood in the doorway of the bathroom. "That time again, huh?" He frowned.

Pet continued. "I wish it'd either kill me or -"

"Don't!" Muldoon barked out. "I don't want to hear you talk like that."

The hybrid's glossy raptor eyes met her guardian and best friend's stern grey ones. "You don't understand how bad this makes me feel all the damn time! I can't be happy because as soon as I am, boom," she threw her hands in the air. "I'm sick again!" Pet buried her face in her hands again. "I just want this shit to go away so I can live a somewhat normal life. I'm afraid to stay the night at Alan's for fear of this happening and scaring the hell out of him, just like it did Billy the times he stayed here." After a heavy exasperated breath, she got up and sat on the side of the tub and started the water. "I'm going to sit in a cool tub of water for a bit."

Knowing it was her way of telling him to go away, Muldoon got the message and left. Terrence closed the door behind him as Derek, leaning against the kitchenette bar, questioned. "Now what?"

Terrence answered. "First, we tell Dr. Grant. He should know." And with that, he left.

Muldoon sat heavily down on the couch and rubbed his face with his hands. Derek sternly watched his uncle. "I think it's time to make the final call, Rob. Pet's not getting any better."

"As she won't," he sighed out. "Not until she's cured. That is, if there's even a cure." The two men sat in silence for the time it took Terrence to arrive back with Grant.

The paleontologist entered the trailer, still looking as though half asleep. Dark circles ran under his eyes from all the nights of traveling on top of all the other sleepless nights due to stress keeping him awake. Now this. The man looked to the closed bathroom door and frowned. Muldoon spoke. "I'm making the call." He looked over to Derek. "What are the chances for you being able to locate Jacobs?"

"Already beat to you to it," Derek yawned out. "Last time I was in Cali for a couple well-paying jobs from Mike back last August, I did a little poking around to find him." He shifted his weight to his other foot in his leaning and continued. " I have a friend, a police chief named Cal, that I frequently work with in the San Francisco PD that I knew wouldn't mind lending a hand. I just went to him, gave them the info of the person and he worked his magic. Cal's like a virtual Sherlock Holmes when it comes to finding people online. Doesn't matter where in the world they are, if they can be traced, he'll find them...and he did." Derek nodded. "He's great."

Terrence arched a brow to urge the man to continue. "So? Where is he? Jacobs?"

"In Palo Alto. He works out of InGen's headquarters' lab."

Grant looked from Derek and over to Muldoon seated on the couch. "What's the plan, then? Since we know where this guy is?"

Muldoon answered. "It's not advisable to take Pet anywhere near Palo Alto or San Jose. That's too close to InGen and as far as we know, Masrani is still after her."

"The bunker," Derek cut in. "I've been thinking about it. Say Jacobs does agree to help Pet, she's going to have to be close by so he can effectively help her. Yeah, I agree...her being in the city near InGen is too close for comfort. So why not bring her to the bunker? That way she's closer to the doc for help, but not in InGen's back yard."

Terrence nodded. "Sounds good to me."

As much as Muldoon didn't want to admit it, his nephew was right. "It's a plan, then. As soon as Pet is well enough for travel, we take a little road trip."

The hybrid could be heard weakly calling from within the bathroom, "I'm not going back to that concrete shithole!"

Muldoon roared back, "No one's asking you!" He stood up, scratching his balding head. "Before Roland left to go back to Kenya, he asked I keep him updated on Pet. I'm going to go give him a call on the satellite phone."