Notes
Soundtrack suggestions:
On the airport's parking:
- The call of the riled - Michael Giacchino, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (from 01:09 to 01:26).
- Sunrise O'er Jurassic World - Michael Giacchino, Jurassic World.
The trip to Burgo Nuevo:
- Alan goes - Don Davis, Jurassic Park 3.
- Las Gaviotas.
- Mariachi & Los Camperos de Nati Cano - Tres Dias.
-o-
"See Franklin, it was alright," Zia Rodriguez pointed out. "Like I told you, you're more likely to have a fatal horse-riding accident than dying in a plane crash."
"Well, I've never ridden a horse and I don't intend to start," Franklin Webb replied. "Not interested. I'm glad that we'll take the boat for the return trip."
"Have you already traveled by boat at least? Because if you also tend to get seasick..."
The Dinosaur Protection Group's veterinarian and IT technician stood in the middle of the parking lot of Juan Santamaria airport, near San José. As the sunrise occurred shortly before, the entire Central Valley of Costa Rica was bathed in the golden light of dawn and the morning temperature was pleasant, neither too hot nor too cold.
Zia, Franklin and Alexander had departed from San Francisco the day before in the late afternoon, had a stopover in Los Angeles during the night and had landed in Costa Rica shortly before daybreak, arriving before the couple. When the trio had crossed the airport's main hall, they had seen that the plane from Dallas-Fort Worth, where Claire Dearing and her boyfriend had their stopover, had no delay. However, Claire had instructed Alexander to not wait for them in the arrivals hall if they arrived before them, but rather in the parking lot outside, where she had arranged to meet the taxi for Burgo Nuevo. The DPG members had found it without much trouble and their luggage was already stored in the trunk of the van brought by the driver, a short, chubby-faced man dressed in shorts and Hawaiian shirt.
While Alexander was talking with the latter, Zia and Franklin saw a man and a woman in their mid-thirties walking towards them, each carrying a backpack and a large duffel bag slung over their shoulders. The couple was made of a tall, muscular bearded man in a black singlet and whose brown mane fell freely over his shoulders, and a red-haired woman, dressed in jeans and a white tank top, and decked out in a wide-brimmed fedora, a pair of aviator sunglasses, and a white half mask that covered the left half of her face.
"Here they are…" Alexander said, joining his two colleagues.
Zia and Franklin had trouble realizing that the woman was the former director of Jurassic World because she was absolutely unrecognizable to them and looked more like a cross between a rancher and a character from an eighties action film. At least that was what the vet thought and looking at her friend, she saw that he had taken a step back, intimidated by the arriving woman. Poor guy, Claire Dearing was probably reminding him of some comic book villain with her half-mask and the bit of scar visible by her mouth and chin.
Alexander waved at the couple.
"Hello Claire," he greeted her.
"Hello Alexander," she replied before turning to the other two members of the DPG. "Miss Rodriguez, Mr. Webb."
The trio and the couple then shook hands. While those between Owen and Alexander's two colleagues were friendly, those between the keeper and the DPG founder as well as those between Claire and the three members of the NGO were colder and made only out of politeness. Claire, aware since the internship's beginning that the DPG was unlikely to like her, tried to ignore the prevailing unease and went to meet the driver.
The latter, satisfied that all his passengers had arrived, opened the trunk of the van and allowed the couple to put their large duffel bags inside. Claire gave him the address of the hotel in Burgo Nuevo where they would be staying, but as they were about to climb in the vehicle, Alexander spoke to her:
"Claire? Do you mind if I sit at the front? I'm car sick you see..."
"No problem."
Alexander sat next to the driver, the couple sat in the back, and the youngest of the group, Zia and Franklin, sat in the middle row. Finishing settling in, Claire removed her sunglasses and hat along with her silicone glove, revealing her bionic prosthetic to the eyes of Franklin, who was seated in front of Owen.
"I'll put it in my bag before it starts to stink...," she said to her boyfriend while opening her backpack placed at her feet.
The van exited the parking lot and as it left the airport behind to reach the entrance of the nearby highway, Claire remembered the first time she came to Costa Rica, when she was about to become deputy director of Jurassic World. It was more than six years ago and she was then full of dreams and ambitions, and of a certain naivety too.
They headed west at first and next to the highway they saw a large billboard with a ramshackle bill of Isla Nublar and Jurassic World still hanging on it, as if they were there to remind the fallen park director what she had lost, and further on, as they drove along the outskirts of Alajuela, the eyes of the group were drawn to a huge mural, painted on an entire wall. The mural depicted the Ghost of Nublar, defying, with nothing but a sword, the Indominus and the raptors and proceratosaurs which acted as her minions. Claire was amazed to see, if only for a moment, that the artists had depicted the Ghost as a noble figure standing upright with a resolute attitude, brandishing her sword gracefully like a Tolkienian hero and fearlessly defying the gaze of Masrani's Bane. She thought it was quite an embellished portrait because she remembered her nearly uncontrollable shaking, her guts and her bladder put to the test, her desire to turn around and run away at full speed, the tears that flowed down her face behind the helmet's visor…
"Did you film the mural?" Zia asked Franklin, snapping Claire out of her memories.
"I don't know. I'm afraid I didn't. We went too fast."
Claire saw that the DPG IT technician was holding a camera and filming the surroundings.
"Franklin, what are you doing?" she asked him.
"Taking footage for the report."
"The report?" Owen repeated in surprise. "What report?"
"Franklin's job is to film the operation," Alexander said. "With the footage he will take, we'll edit a documentary that will be posted online by the end of the year."
But before she could ask him if they had the permission of the Lockwood Foundation and even InGen's, he added:
"Benjamin Lockwood gave us his blessing. And Mrs. Hodgson has been briefed."
Claire tensed. She hadn't been told about any documentary and resented being left in the dark whereas everyone else involved in the operation seemed to know about this.
"Odd, no one told me about that," she said in a slightly annoyed tone. "Alright... Shoot whatever you want. Everything except me. You'll see with the Farm's folks and InGen for the rest."
But as Alexander turned to speak to him, the young man was still filming the highway and its surroundings.
"Franklin," she called out.
He lowered his camera and turned around. With a small head gesture, Owen encouraged him to listen to Claire.
"You're not filming me," she repeated. "Have we an understanding?"
"Uh yes ma'am," he mumbled while his eyes were looking at the bit of scar visible under the fallen park director's half-mask.
"Good."
She leaned back in her seat.
"Damn it," she sighed. "I'm knackered… I hardly slept during the flight and people back home pissed me off with the looks they gave me… Next time I go to an airport or some equally busy place, I think I'm going to put on a bloody burqa. Sure, I'll still get weird looks but at least they won't look at me like I'm some kind of freak."
"If you're going to wear a burqa, I'll have to wear a djellaba so we can be believable as a couple," Owen pointed out. "Don't think about it... Seriously, you're picturing me in a djellaba? I would look like one hell of a clown... And besides, I like to have a ham and cheese sandwich before a long transport…"
While Claire chuckled softly, Zia and Franklin looked at each other and Alexander turned around for a brief moment. Given his frowning expression, the couple noticed that their last exchange had not been to the liking of the DPG founder.
"I think we're going to have a lot of fun with him," Claire whispered to her boyfriend.
"Poor guy…" Owen said. "He must be thinking that we're huge rednecks."
She took his hand and said:
"I'm glad you're with me. I'd be lonely otherwise..."
Seeing that the DPG members were busy watching the road, chatting or listening to the folk songs on the radio, Claire tilted her head forward and took off her half-mask, which she put in her backpack. She then took her hat back and put it on her head, slipping it over her eyes in order to hide her gash the best she could. Since she was seated on the left side of the vehicle, her gash was on the side of the window and the only amongthe DPG trio who could have seen it was Franklin, who did not turn to face her for the rest of the trip. She sunk into her seat and finally finding a comfortable position, she prepared to take a nap.
"Wake me up when we get there," she asked Owen.
He let her take her nap and watched the landscape go by outside. The suburbs and the industrial, business and commercial areas were gradually giving way to the countryside and its fields and woods. Soon, they were going to take the direction of the northwest, and that of the city of San Ramón at first.
He studied the attitude of the veterinarian and the IT technician. Whereas Zia seemed excited about seeing dinosaurs, Franklin was more nervous.
"Relax," the keeper told him, "it's not like we're going to Sorna or a post-Fall Nublar illegally. You will sleep in a hotel bed every night and have the eventuality to go to the bar. Some didn't have that luxury when they participated in missions involving dinosaurs…"
Shortly after, while they were discussing the DPG, he asked them:
"Are you familiar with the Coalition for the Liberation of Itinerant Tree-Dwellers? I have a friend, Justice, who's part of that organization."
"I don't know that NGO," Zia replied.
"Never heard of it," Franklin said.
"It's okay," Owen told them. "They're not very famous. I wonder if it's not defunct by the way."
As soon as the two DPG members turned away from him, he smirked.
"Coalition for the Liberation of Itinerant Tree-Dwellers?" Claire repeated, surprising him as he thought she was already asleep. "C.L.I.T...," she added in a low voice. "Subtle Owen, subtle..."
He let out a quiet chuckle.
"They don't even know Jay and Silent Bob," he whispered. "Late millennials..."
The keeper leaned back to the side to talk to the two DPG members.
"According to the short interviews in the video on your site, you also worked at InGen, Franklin?" he asked.
"Yeah, at HQ. In the basement with the other geeks from the IT department."
Zia turned to Owen.
"Since you were a keeper at the park, you've been to the San Diego academy I presume?" she asked him.
"Yup, Fall 2012 class. Do they still have the Kentrosaurus? I remember they were bloody mules which freaked out for nothing."
"They were still there when I was doing my training. They really were lily-livered..."
"Have you ever been to Jurassic World?" Owen asked them a few moments later.
"Never," replied Franklin. When I was younger, my parents weren't wealthy enough to take me there and later, after I was hired, a trip to Isla Nublar was still quite costly, despite the ticket discounts we benefited as company employees."
"And you Zia?"
"I asked for an internship there," she began, adjusting her glasses, "but then the Fall occurred… Some of my classmates got lucky at the time by getting places at the academy itself but the others were left high and dry because aside from InGen, organizations hiring paleovets are very rare. Some even tried to ask the Tula Pleistocene reserve, but the Russkies told them that they were reluctant to take Americans and that working with large mammals was not the same as working with dinosaurs and other reptiles…"
"And the WDMC Field Veterinary Hospital in Caer Draig? I thought they took interns from time to time."
"One of the students got a place there, but after the Fall and the deterioration of relations between InGen and the Grey Guard due to the insurrection of those who were on Nublar, his internship was canceled and the training managers told us that it was verboten to do an internship there. They said that the Grey Guards might lash out at us, that Caer Draig and all places controlled by the Guard were not safe."
"Damn…" Owen swore. "In terms of propaganda, InGen's current management has nothing to envy the Nazis…"
Zia shrugged.
"From what I've heard, the Grey Guards aren't all victims and innocents either. Anyway, a few months after the Fall, InGen closed the doors of the academy and kicked us all out, so you must imagine that we didn't even get our diplomas. And the animals which lived there have already been sold."
They became silent and three quarters of an hour after their departure from the airport, they left the highway by San Ramón to take a first road which crossed the countryside northwest of the city and entered the Ismaloya Mountains, whose foothills were close to San Ramón. Since the latter was located at an altitude of around one thousand one hundred meters, the eastern slopes of the range didn't rose dramatically in this sector and its roads were known to be gentler and less vertiginous than those of the western slopes, and the ascent was therefore gradual for the rest of the trip, first in the middle of pastures then among a thick and misty jungle.
Seeing Franklin filming the scenery from time to time, the driver became curious and began to ask him questions in Spanish about the report they were making and what they were going to do in Burgo Nuevo, but the young man, who had only elementary notions of Spanish whereas his four companions spoke it fluently, had difficulty answering him, especially since the driver was as good in English as Franklin was in Spanish, and Alexander came to his aid, acting as a translator. The driver listened to them attentively and even asked if he could appear in the report, which they accepted, filming him driving.
A bit more than twenty kilometres after San Ramón, just before the road descended towards the village of San Antonio, they turned right and took another road, which climbed higher in altitude and led straight to Burgo Nuevo. Between this intersection and the surroundings of Burgo Nuevo, there wasn't a single village or hamlet, just a road that twisted gently along a line of ridges in the middle of the jungle.
Claire had finally fallen asleep in the meantime, but when she moved in her sleep, Owen knew she was probably having another nightmare. Having seen on a sign earlier the number of kilometres left before reaching Burgo Nuevo, he looked at his watch and gently shook his girlfriend to wake her up.
"Claire"
She woke up with a start and looked at him.
"Claire, we're almost there," he informed her.
She nodded and put her half-mask and silicone glove back on.
"You were fitful. You're okay?"
"I'm fine," she replied in a tired voice. "Just a stupid nightmare."
The van arrived on the top of a slope and the town of Burgo Nuevo appeared farther ahead, at a slightly lower elevation.