ADAPTATIONS
35 - Back to the Bunker
'Now Entering California' read a road sign, looking as though it had seen better days. Derek took a deep swig of an energy drink, condensation still on the can, and stiffened back a burp. All around him and asleep in their seats were the Jeep's passengers. His uncle was stretched out and asleep in the passenger seat as Terrence and Pet were balled up in the back seat. It was something he had noticed and not just during the three day trip, but in general. Anytime Pet was sharing the bed with anyone, she was drawn to them. He assumed it because of her being partially cold blooded and the appeal of a heat source.
Everyone had taken turns driving since leaving the dig site, except for the hybrid. She was still partly sick, though on the improvement side of things. All that was left was nasal congestion, coughing, headaches and body aches.
The driver took another swig of his drink before setting it back down in the cup holder. Hopefully they'd be at the bunker by sunrise.
Pet rubbed her eyes at being woken up and looked around the Jeep cab, finding it morning. She was hoping to be at another truck stop because she was hungry and some chocolate donuts with apple juice sounded great. When she turned her head around to look outside her window, she grumbled and frowned. The bunker. The last place she wanted to be.
She rolled her head around on her shoulders, trying to work out a crick that had the right side of her neck knotted up. Meanwhile, Terrence withdrew his arm from around the hybrid and tried to flex his fingers. His arm hurt and his hand was numb.
Pet got out of the Jeep and stretched as a series of pops came from her back. "Why couldn't we just stay in a motel or something? No need to drive continuously."
She got no answer. She, as well as the others, got their bags out of the back end and went to the bunker door that Derek was opening. The smell of stale air greeted them as a mouse ran past the door and down the hallway.
Derek snickered to himself. "There goes your breakfast, Pet."
The hybrid didn't say anything as she shoved past the man to go inside. "This time, I'm getting one of the bunks."
Terrence called out. "I get the shower, first!" As much as the others wanted to wash off, they waited. And smiled. After Terrence got out of the bathroom, he looked highly disgusted. "I feel dirtier after a shower than I did before!"
Derek devilishly smiled. "That's because it's well water that hasn't been used in who knows how long. Sometimes the first at something isn't always the best." He got to his feet. "Thanks for taking one for the team, buddy!" With that, Derek grabbed his clean change of clothes and a towel and went for the bathroom.
Muldoon finished unpacking his duffle bag in his wall locker and sat his signature hat on top of it. "How are you feeling, Pet?"
"I hate you," she growled, rolling over where she laid on a top bunk to get comfortable.
Evening came and after a much needed long nap, everyone felt rested. And hungry. Bags of instant noodles stared back at Terrence. "We should've gotten some food before we came here."
"No worries," Derek replied. "There's a convenient store about five miles away. It doesn't have much, but it at least has a few simplicities like toilet paper, more noodles, a couple frozen dinners and maybe some milk and cereal. I'll go check it out here in a little bit.
But that wasn't happening. Derek and Terrence stared at the burned ruins of what used to be the convenient store. Nothing needed to be said as the latter looked to the younger man. Derek sighed and got back in the Jeep. "Looks like it's off to the nearest town... twenty miles away."
Two hours later, the Jeep returned and with a backseat full of microwavable foods and canned soups. Pet poked her nose into one of the bags, frowning. Her attention was taken off the bag, however, when Derek got a different bag out from the front seat. He waved it front of the hybrid, her jerking the bag away to look inside. A steak. She hoarsely squealed in delight and went into the bunker, straight for the kitchen.
The microwave chimed and the over timer went off. Everyone sat at the table eating their choice in dinner. Pet swallowed a bite of her mostly raw steak to question Derek. "When are you supposed to go get Jacobs?"
The man shrugged. "I'll probably head out tomorrow morning to get an early start. I expect the trip to be an all day and into the night ordeal, but that's mostly because of needing to wait till Jacobs gets off of work." He took a bite of his pizza and swallowed before resuming. "Once I hit Interstate five, I'll be able to travel faster. That is, until I exit the interstate and hit the south San Jose area."
For the rest of the evening and into the night, the three men continued to go over their plans while Pet slept. Once everything was good to go, Derek made sure his stash of Ripper energy drinks was cold because he was going to need them tomorrow.
Damn these late work nights! Jacobs was exhausted after coming in to work early and leaving late. He had counted up the hours as they ticked by, which was almost fourteen hours. But his day wasn't over after closing down his work station. He still had to fight the evening traffic to get back to his apartment, which usually took longer than he liked. The steady stop and go that last couple of blocks always tested his patience. It's a wonder that his Chevy Malibu's horn still worked!
The scientist reached into the passenger's seat to fetch his brief case and slid out of the car. Today hadn't been too bad of a day, despite working so late. After working alongside Dr. Wu for the while that he had, now he knew why the scientist was InGen's top scientist. Jacobs drove his apartment key into the door and gave the base of it a good kick to open it. He kept meaning to call maintenance about that as it always seemed to stick the worst in the colder months and even more after a good rain.
Muscle memory kicked in as he locked the door behind him and hung up his keys on a hook beside it. When he reached over to turn on a lamp, he found the light not working. "Damn," he mumbled to himself. "Bulb must've gone out."
"Nope," came a stranger's voice in the dark. "It's perfectly fine. Just give it a good twist, is all."
Jacobs jumping at being startled almost knocked the lamp over. Luckily, he was able to catch it in the dark and with a shaking hand, sat it back in place. He fervently felt around beneath the shade for the bulb and did in fact, find it loose. Hastily screwing it back in, he flicked on the light to see the face of his apartment's trespasser lounged out and sitting in a recliner.
Derek smirked. "What's up, Doc?"
Jacobs stared in dismay at the younger man. "What the...How did you get in here?! Breaking and entering is a serious offense, Mr.!" The scientist rushed over to his home's phone and picked it up, dialing out 9-1 before realizing there was no dial tone.
"Not happening."
Jacobs slammed the phone back down on the receiver. "You little shit!"
Derek huffed a laugh. "I get that a lot..."
The scientist spun around to face the intruder, still lounged back and proudly smiling. "What do you want? Money? Plan on kidnapping me for ransom? I'll have your ass in court for this!"
"Oh really?" The younger man laughed a bit louder and got to his feet. "And what about your little tinkering with human DNA?"
"I'm a geneticist!"
"Oh, I know." Derek began closing in on the visibly shaken-up man. "I know all too well. So does my uncle." The bounty hunter's smirk shifted to pure anger. "You might know him. Robert Muldoon? Does that name ring a bell?" The pounding of Jacobs's heart could almost be heard in the air filling the space between the two men. "What about the name Pet. Hmm? Remember her?" Derek grabbed the scientist by the collar of his crew neck shit and slammed him into the wall behind him.
The man was shaking violently in fear. "What do you want?" He cried out, sweat beads starting to form on his brow and temples.
"Pet's been sick for the past while and word has it you can find a cure."
Jacobs whimpered beneath the younger, but stronger man's grasp. He nodded his head. What was it with people suddenly coming out of the woodwork and to cure this girl? "Maybe...possibly..." Not good enough and Derek relayed as much by tightening his grip on the man's shirt and pushing him harder onto the wall. His glasses were now askew on his face. "Okay, okay I can!" The grip on his shirt loosened a bit as Jacobs adjusted his glasses. "I'm currently working on a type of cure using a viral out method on the affected chromosome she inherited by an infected parent." Derek scoffed, Jacobs swallowing his rising nerves. "In this case, the raptor DNA used to create I-10 HY. It was-"
"Pet, you asshole," Derek interrupted. "Her name is Pet!" His grip on the man tightened again.
The scientist held up his hands to show he meant no harm. "I know, I'm sorry, my apologies... Pet." He frowned and appeared as though about to cry from being shaken up. "I'm just so used to addressing her by her filed name after working with Dr. Wu and Mr. Masrani for so long."
Chocolate brown eyes became burning coals. "What? That Masrani guy knows about her?" Jacobs nodded his head again. "Did you tell him about her?"
"What?" Jacobs shook his head this time. "No! No! He first found about her through some old InGen files and from some disk he got. He also knows what she looks like, too."
Derek firmed his grip against the other man. "How? How does he know?"
"He has a picture of her."
"What?" Derek slammed a hand into the wall directly next to Jacobs' head, abruptly startling the already trembling scientist. "Where the hell did he get a picture of Pet?"
"I-I don't know! A file, maybe? That's it, that's all I know!"
"Son of a bitch." Derek shook his head to himself and clenched his jaw, for a moment, before looking back at the scientist. "Whatever. Look, I just need to know if you can cure her or not. Can you?"
Jacobs swallowed again, uncertain of the man's mental stability should he answer wrong. "By using the viral out technique, most likely. But I'll need a sample of her blood while the virus is active."
"Anything else?"
"Is...is she here? Or somewhere close by?" There was a glint of excitement in his otherwise disheveled appearance.
"Fuck no! Why the hell would I bring her here? So, you can go run off and rat her out to InGen so they can try to hunt her down again? Nah ah. Not happening."
"Yet," Jacobs began calmly. "You're expecting me to cure her? How, if she's not even here?"
Derek squared his tempered gaze down on the man. "Pack your bags and whatever else you're going to need, Doc. You're going on a field trip."
"What?" The poor man almost jumped out of his skin upon hearing the other man's words. "Uh, b-but my work at the lab! Mr. Masrani is supposed to be in first thing tomorrow morning to check on the progress Dr. Wu and I have been doing on-!"
"I don't care," Derek growled.
"W-what should I tell him, then?"
"I'm sure you'll figure out something," the younger man maliciously sneered. "Robert said you were always so good about coming up with bullshit excuses."
Jacobs clenched his jaw in frustration. "What if I do tell the police about this?"
"Then I tell the news media what you intentionally did all those years ago in Kenya. I mean, it had to be intentional, right? How else does a geneticist not notice human DNA being tossed into the mix of things? Not to mention, John Hammond's DNA at that. I'm almost certain he just didn't hand you a sample of his blood. You really had to work hard to fuck that up big time, buddy." Derek snorted a laugh to himself. "Tell me, how much trouble do you think you can land yourself in once animal activists and human rights hears about your-"
"Alright!" Jacobs braced himself against his knees as a wave of dizziness spun him in circles. "I'll figure something out."
Five AM buzzed away on Jacobs's alarm clock, but the man was already awake. He hadn't slept all night and, how could he? There was some complete stranger in his apartment and asleep on his couch! Wait...Thinking back, he mentioned his uncle being the all too remembered game warden from Hammond's zoo and lab in Kenya. This wasn't the same punk kid that came down to the zoo one summer, was it?
Jacobs shut off the alarm and wearily sat up, reaching over to a lamp on the night stand and clicking it on. When he put his glasses on, he realized he wasn't alone and yelped. Derek leaned against the dresser along the far wall, thumbs hooked around his belt loops. "Rise and shine, Buttercup."
Jacobs was furious. "Have you no sense of privacy?"
"Get dressed. The sooner you get your shit together, the sooner we can be out of here and on the road." He scowled at the scientist and left, Jacobs able to see the holstered pistol tucked in the back of the man's pants. This wasn't happening.
An hour later, the two men were parked before InGen's headquarters. Jacobs breathed to calm his nerves. "I could've driven myself."
"Yeah, and what, have you go doing who knows what?" Derek stared at the offended scientist. "I know better than that. Now get your ass in there, tell whatever bullshit story you need to...and make it believable...and be out here in fifteen minutes."
Jacobs clutched his briefcase tightly to his chest. "I need more than fifteen minutes. More like thirty, so I can get...wait, what am I to do, exactly?" He watched the younger man narrow his eyes down. "What do you expect me to do? How far are we going? How long will I be gone?"
"Two to three days?...ish?"
The scientist blinked in disbelief. "Wha...I can't do any sufficient work in that amount of time! I need my lab, my equipment…stuff I can't exactly pack in a suitcase and take with me! I need her here!"
"I can't just shove her into my duffle bag and sneak her into your lab, either!" Both men sat there and stared at the other in question. Derek sighed and reached into his pocket to get his cell phone. No need to go to his contacts list. He had his uncle's satellite phone on speed dial. "Let's just see what your old buddy, Robert, has to say about this."
Pet picked at the macaroni and cheese still steaming and heaped in a pile on her on her plate. This was supposed to be breakfast? She looked up at Terrence sitting down at the table, holding the pot in one hand and a spoon in the other. "What happened to getting cereal?" The man wordlessly studied the hybrid while munching on a bite of the cheesy noodles. "You couldn't have gotten eggs? Bacon? Waffles? Something more breakfast like?"
"What's wrong with mac and cheese?"
Pet blinked in disbelief. The familiar ringing of the satellite phone echoed down the hallway, the woman lightly snickering. "That would probably be Derek."
Distinct and profane grumbling at being woken up by the phone could be heard followed by a sharp, "Yeah what?"
Terrence and Pet looked to the other in question. A tangent laced with obscenities filled the bunker, the hybrid forcing back an eruption of laughter. Terrence stated under his breath, "He's pissed."
A minute later, the angered man wearing only a pair of sweat pants exploded from the bunk room with the phone still in his hand. He didn't bother looking at the woman when going straight for the coffee pot and speaking. "That was Derek. He's got Jacobs and will be here this evening."
"Is that what all that yelling was about?"
After pouring a cup of coffee, the older man took a hefty drink of it before responding. "I was more yelling at Jacobs just because why not?" Pet brightly smiled and started laughing, never mind how much it hurt.
"There," Derek began, hanging up his cell phone and shoving it back in his pants pocket. He gave a concrete gawk at the scientist next to him. "I'm sure I don't need to repeat what Uncle Dearest so wisely stated, do I?"
Jacobs didn't even blink as his wide eyes were magnified behind his glasses. "How could I miss it? You only had him on loud speaker!"
The bounty hunter giggled. "I know! It was epic wasn't it?" He leaned over the scientist and opened the Jeep's passenger side door. "Now the get out of the car and go get your shit."
Jacobs was about to do just that, though reluctantly, until a black Mercedes drove through the circle and around to the front entrance of the multi-story InGen laboratory building. Both men watched as the car came to a halt and the driver get out to open the back-passenger door. Out stepped Simon Masrani dressed down in a grey suit and light blue buttoned-down shirt underneath an unbuttoned suit coat. He stood there for a moment, glancing around and re-buttoning his suit coat.
"Uh oh," the scientist blurted. "I'm late."
"Better get in there, then, and smile pretty for the big man."
Jacobs cut a glare down on the younger man from the corner of his eye and slid out of the car. He slammed the door behind him, drawing ire from the Jeep's driver and unintentionally catching Simon's curiosity in his chatting with a company greeter coming to meet him at his Mercedes.
The slamming of the car door was, in fact, a bit loud and a universal sound for being irritated and angered. Simon slimmed his eyes down on the fluster faced Jacobs fumbling with his brief case. His gaze then gave a quick glance to the equally angered expression of the driver staring straight at him in return.
The eye contact lasted far too long for Derek's comfort. He already knew this foreigner was calling around trying to find him, but did he know what he looked like? Derek mumbled under his breath, "Just walk away, buddy... just walk away. Nothing to see here...Go about your business..."
For Simon, he was not aware of who it was he was staring at. Several moments later, the intense eye contact was broken and Simon followed the greeter into the building.
Derek rolled down the Jeep passenger window and growled in demand, "What the fuck, man? Get your ass in there! You're going to get me busted!"
Jacobs scoffed. "Maybe that's not such a bad idea..."
The younger man withdrew his pistol and cocked it in view of Jacobs. "Get your ass in that building and get your shit, now!"
The scientist did his best to force as normal composure of himself as possible and strode past the Mercedes and into the laboratory building. Standing at the front desk and chatting away about the morning news to the security detail was the one person Jacobs really wasn't wanting to see at that particular moment.
Simon faintly smiled at the scientist's arrival. "Ah, Doctor. There you are." Jacobs nervously smiled and accepted the man's outstretched hand. "I was beginning to think I was going to have to inform security of a possible situation in the parking lot."
The geneticist awkwardly laughed. "No, no, sir, it's fine. I'm just a bit irritated this morning. Car wouldn't start and had to have a neighbor drive me in. Hence why I'm a little late getting in, this morning." His forced laughter slowed to discomfort when seeing the CEO appearing a bit disbelieving. Now to come up with the biggest and most believable lie of story he could think of.
