Notes

Hypothetical casting:

Michael Herbig as Mark Vogiel.

-o-

They took to their left, exiting the building through an emergency exit and then taking an alley which made them pass between several small aviaries and further ahead, two domes rose above the dense vegetation and housed the largest pterosaurs.

A few minutes later, they left this sector dedicated to flying animals and arrived at the entrance to the Predators' Camp, which they also visited, more thoroughly than the couple earlier. Owen and Claire tried to see Blue in her paddock, in vain.

When they came out of the camp, the group saw that a pickup was waiting for them and Juan told them that they were going to drive to the mining station and the railway line, in order to, among other things, avoid meeting the press and councillors' group guided by Jocelyn Hodgson. The head keeper found the keys on the ignition and the group climbed in the back, with the couple sitting on one side and the DPG members on the other.

Skirting the aviaries' area and passing again in front of the Mussaurus' paddock as well as the car park by the old canteen, they followed a gentle slope and the path made them pass between the buildings of the old farm and a curtain of trees which more or less concealing an octagonal enclosure delimited by concrete walls six meters high, the observation enclosure sometimes used by the veterinary team.

They arrived in sight of a fleet of transport trucks and a few crane trucks, parked in a meadow. Driving past it, the pickup passed first in front of the gate of the Ark's warehouse, then in front of the entrance to the driveway that led to the ACU garage, located under the Prow, on the lowest level. Shortly after, they passed through the estate's western gate and headed north, driving along a forest road.

"We're almost there," Juan announced more than seven kilometres later, as the pickup came within sight of a bridge.

They took an exit on their right and descended into a small valley, crossed in its center by a railroad. They followed the latter in the direction of the upstream and two hundred and fifty meters further, a group of wood and sheet metal buildings appeared. Just before this cluster, the track split in two, to describe a large loop that surrounded this century-old station as well as part of the surrounding plot. Not far away, at the very end of the valley, they saw the sealed-off entrance of a mine, dug into the side of the mountain which overlooked the area.

Approaching the station, the group discerned the silhouette of a guard, seated inside a wooden shed which acted as a sentry box. Juan honked his horn, startling the guard and recognizing the pickup and its driver, he didn't move and just waved at them.

As they circled the station, the group did see a few wagons parked near one of the warehouses, but the train which would carry the bulk of the animals was nowhere to be seen.

"The train isn't here?" Franklin asked.

"It's coming on Monday," the head keeper replied. "They still had some maintenance work to do on it."

They turned around, returned by the bridge and took it, passing over the railway. Further ahead, they turned left, as the right junction led to the entrance of the Pillar of Heaven Nature Reserve, and soon enough, they passed over a river and its rocky bed, the Celeste. Shortly after, they turned left again and the railroad reappeared under the bridge they were taking. Looking to the right of the pickup, the couple and the DPG trio noticed that after stretching westward for three kilometers, the track turned southward by that bridge and then continued more or less in a straight line through jungle, plantations and pastures, straight towards the gorges. Following a cliff road they then drove along the eastern side of the track and at one point they passed through a short tunnel and as they descended towards the track, Juan was asked if the tunnel they had just passed through was dug under another railway line. He replied affirmatively, explaining that once, a project aimed to connect Burgo Nuevo's mining station to San Rámon and even San José by rail, but that it had been abandoned due to a combination of unfavourable economic conditions and an accident that occurred fairly early on during the construction of this new rail, something about a viaduct which collapsed before it was even finished. Only two kilometres of track had been laid and without the local farmers' goats, it would have already disappeared under dense vegetation.

After driving for a while just beside the rail, they steered west to climb higher and a few minutes later they were back at the western gate of InGen's Site D. It was already mid-afternoon and they ended their tour with the Ark, parking right next to the warehouse entrance.

In addition to the supplies needed to keep Site D running smoothly, there were also shelves full of Jurassic World merchandise boxes, small and medium sized crates and cages, and even a few stuffed animals, including a Styracosaurus. The latter, a brick-red male, stood on a cart held in place by wedges.

"Ah, Iiníí…" the head keeper said. "I would advise against touching him. Some people did things on him… They were inspired by some video game about a white-haired monster hunter."

They then moved on to the other sections of the building: The vivarium, the aquatic animals tanks, the two-level kennel, the ACU headquarters and security offices and the helipad just above, the disused laboratory and its hatchery very reminiscent of Site B's in Isla Sorna, the nursery which had still recently been used, the veterinary premises...

"Because of that little incident with the velociraptors, we have to shorten the tour if we don't want to be behind schedule," Juan told the group as they headed for the door near the old canteen. "But the only part left was the large carnivores paddocks, at the very back of the estate, and their feeding is planned for soon. I therefore invite you to come and help us prepare it."

As they left the building, they turned to their right as if to go towards the parking lot and the old canteen's unloading area, where Marisol had taken Claire and the DPG trio earlier. Carried by the wind, an acrid odour reached the group's nostrils and soon enough, they discovered a pile of plastic bags full of meat, pieces of carcasses and corpses of sheep, goats and even calves, piled up on a lawn next to the car park. Not far away, a tractor with a trailer and a Jurassic World van were parked and three keepers were waiting for the group next to these vehicles. Allison, Marisol and a middle-aged man of average build with a clean-shaven face and short brown hair, whom they had seen earlier in the hacienda's canteen and whom Owen knew: Mark, a German who tended to medium-sized carnivores back on Isla Nublar.

As they got closer, the group also noticed the presence of a cow's lifeless body a few feet from the cadaveric heap, and Franklin suppressed a retching.

"That's horrible..."

"When one of their animals dies, the farmers in the area gladly call the Farm, since giving the corpse to us is much cheaper than summoning the butcher, while the slaughterhouses, butchers and supermarkets are very happy that we take some of their leftovers and unsold pieces," the head keeper explained. "For InGen, it's more economical than dealing with a wholesaler and in this period, you can imagine that there are no small savings."

Having seen Claire take off her silicone glove a few moments earlier, Juan said:

"I exempt you from the activity, Claire. It would be a shame to dirty or even damage your prosthesis, I guess it must have cost a fortune. Let's see if Franklin is okay with handing you his camera so you can take whatever footage they might need while he gets his hands dirty instead of you."

"Are you sure you want him near the meat?" She asked him in a low voice. "He seems very nauseous to me… The smell is unpleasant, I agree, but I faced worse."

Walking by her side, Owen looked at the prosthesis and then at the head keeper, also fearing that she would degrade it during the activity.

Claire had been lucky that her father, Tobias, had helped her finance her prosthesis, as he couldn't support the thought of having his daughter being crippled and one-armed for the rest of her life while her disfigurement was horrible enough. If that hadn't been the case, she would have ended up with a mediocre prosthesis that could only perform much more limited functions than the one she had.

Owen had only met Tobias Dearing once, when she was in the hospital in Nicoya, and with his appearance and attitude, he had evoked the unlikely mix between Ron Howard and Tywin Lannister. Once greatly proud of his daughter, Tobias was uncertain about what to think of her due to the premature end of her professional career as well as the crimes she was accused of and the death, during the fall of Isla Nublar, of one of his wife's grandsons, whom he also considered his own and greatly appreciated, had not helped, and once Claire had recovered, he had distanced himself from her, like many of her relatives and former colleagues and friends.

Owen disliked Tobias, mainly for ideological reasons, as he was an executive in a pharmaceutical corporation, the kind of people the keeper usually despised and he had even thought that he wouldn't have been out of place among InGen's board of directors. Tobias had returned him that dislike, for also ideological motives and he was disappointed that his daughter's boyfriend was just a simple mountain man from the Sierra Nevada, a barbarian in his eyes, but for some strange reason, Tobias had implied to the keeper that he trusted him in taking care of his daughter.

"I've been a fop for too long, Juan. I want to get my hands dirty as you say. Just give me something to protect it. Do you have a spare trash bag or something like this?"

"Better, veterinary gloves long enough to cover your whole arm. We'll get you some in a minute."

"Thanks."

They joined the three keepers and they were told what to do. At the end of the afternoon, the keepers had to feed the predators, including those in the camp, and the group's task was to help Juan and Marisol collect the meat intended mainly for the larger species. For this, they had to put in the tractor's trailer a number of carcasses and bits. Meanwhile, Allison and Mark were going to prepare the meal of the smaller predators as well as those of the baryonyxes, Kaprosuchus, dilophosaurs and the omnivorous synapsid Estemmenosuchus, as these four rather large species were never fed with livestock or rarely but rather with fish, poultry, rabbits and rats.

"I need two of you in the trailer to grab the pieces we'll hand them and spread them, two with Marisol to choose from the pile, and finally one to help me cut up this cow," Juan told the group. "Split up."

Owen walked over to the cow, tying his hair in a bun for convenience; Claire to the trailer; Alexander, who didn't want to go with her, chose by default to help Marisol; while Franklin was hesitant. On the one hand, he too was reluctant to be paired up with Claire, but on the other, the heap's stench was unbearable to him. He turned to Zia but before he could speak to her, she chose her task:

"I'm going with her," she said.

He watched in surprise as she headed to the trailer and then he turned back to the pile.

"Oh fuck…," he muttered in disgust, knowing that they were going to ask him to help them once he got the footage.

Shortly after, the five were given pairs of gloves suitable for their tasks. Owen had a pair of thick gloves, the DPG trio latex gloves, and Claire another of these gloves for her left hand and for her right arm, a long transparent glove, similar to those used by veterinarians when they had to insert an arm inside a large animal for insemination or prostate examination operations. She put it on, pulling it up to her shoulder, and she and Zia climbed onto the tractor's trailer.

While Juan held one of the cow's legs outstretched and Owen struck it with the axe to separate it from the body, Alexander and Marisol picked up one of the sheep and brought it to the trailer.

"Step back ladies!" The keeper said to Claire to Zia, then at the edge.

They complied and the body was tossed the next moment into the trailer. Listening to the instructions they were given, they then moved it to the opposite end of the trailer and waited for the next one.

"Looks like I have to thank you for pulling the strings with Mrs. Hodgson," the veterinarian said to the fallen park director while Franklin filmed the meat's preparation from a good distance.

"Don't claim victory just yet. It is to be hoped that she has not forgotten and that things go well between you and Mr. Le Goff. And it was the least I could do. After all, I brought chaos into the lives of most people here."

A second sheep was tossed into the trailer and they put it next to the other.

"I'll be honest and not take you for an idiot by admitting that I don't really like you," Zia confessed, "but I'm not ungrateful and I had to say thank you."

Claire nodded.

"I'm not asking you, Franklin and Alexander, to like me. I'm just asking for some respect."

A goat landed in the trailer and since it was not very heavy, Claire picked it up and brought it alone near the sheep.

"Understandable," Zia said. "Know that you have at least my respect. Theme park directors who can touch corpses without flinching are rare."

"Let's just say that's not the most disgusting thing I've done."

The vet's eyes widened slightly in surprise.

"I don't want to be indiscreet," she began a little more hesitantly, "but what was more disgusting for you than this?"

Claire looked her in the eyes.

"Can I tell you a secret?" she asked.

"Yes," Zia replied with a nod. "My lips are sealed."

"The most disgusting thing I've done... is snogging a fat beer-drunk sea lion."

A look of surprise appeared on the younger woman's face but before she could say anything, Owen joined the trailer. Carrying one of the cow's legs on his shoulder like a club, the two women thought he looked like a Cro-Magnon returning from a hunt.

"You kissed Steven Seagal?" He asked his girlfriend, adopting a falsely surprised and shocked tone. "Oh, the horror!"

"Don't be a fool, Owen," Claire said. "I've already told you this story and even shown the pictures."

He gave them the severed leg and they put it at the back of the trailer.

"A sea lion drunk on beer?" Zia repeated. "How? You're serious?"

"It happened one summer some fifteen years ago. A friend had invited me to spend a holiday at her house. She and her colleagues had organized a party at their workplace, which happened to be an oceanarium. It was a boozy evening and we started making bets. I lost one and had to kiss Andre, a seven hundred pound male California sea lion. I was drunk and so was he. He had knocked back several bottles without our knowledge. That bastard was smart and had developed bad habits with his former trainer. I stank so much for the rest of the evening and the following days that I was nicknamed Herring mouth."

As Zia laughed softly, they saw Mark, Allison, and a third keeper coming out of the kitchen, carrying together a two-meter-long Arapaima to put it in the back of the van.

A few minutes passed and the trailer was gradually filled with more goats and sheep, the carcass pieces designated by Marisol and brought by Alexander to Zia, those cut from the cow, and even a calf while buckets of rats, others of trout and tilapia, another Arapaima as well as chickens and rabbits were brought to the van.

But Franklin was still filming and Claire noticed that.

"Will he have enough battery left to last until the end of the day?" she asked Zia.

The vet sighed and hailed her colleague:

"Franklin! You've got enough footage. Come and help us!"

Reluctantly, he stuffed his camera into his bag, put on the latex gloves, and approached the pile, which Alexander and Allison were rummaging through, opening the bags of unsold material in search of prime bits for the predators. The DPG founders showed him several pieces of carcasses that they had to bring to the trailer or the van.

Grimacing at the unbearable stench that prevailed, the IT technician complied.

"I want to puke…," he moaned.

Mark heard him.

"Avoid doing it on the meat. Otherwise we'll have to throw you into the paddock instead, poppet," he said while he, Owen, Juan and Marisol were carrying a beef carcass towards the second van someone parked there in the meantime.

Chasing with his hand some of the pestering flies, he picked up one of the pieces and brought it to the trailer, handing it to Claire while Alexander gave the pieces he had to Zia.

When he returned to the pile, he discovered with horror a decapitated calf's head between two bags.

"Is that normal?" He asked Allison in a worried tone.

"It happens. We'll take it."

But seeing that the IT technician was slow to grab it, Owen arrived, took it and turned to the trailer.

"Claire! Catch!"

Waiting to be given another piece, she looked up and saw him throw the calf's head in her direction.

When she caught it mid-air, she surprised the keepers and some applauded, impressed.

"I see you trained her well," Marisol pointed out to Owen jokingly. "The Claire from two years ago would have never have done that."

"You don't give me a rat?" Claire asked her boyfriend, looking at the bucket of rats in the back of the first van. "And where's your clicker?" She added, making the keepers laugh.

"Although you are as fierce as them, you are not a raptor, Claire!" He replied.

She turned to Zia.

"We almost became like Mike and Kathryn, a couple of trainers and former colleagues from Ocean World in Florida," she told her. "Due to professional tics, they adopted a certain fetishism..."

While watching Franklin, the veterinarian saw Mark uncover a cow foetus, hidden until then within the heap, and approach the DPG IT technician with it. Alexander noticed this too, but before he could warn Franklin, Mark mimicked a mooing, making the young man turn around. The latter almost had a heart attack when he ended up face to face with the closed eyes and the naked body of the stillborn calf and the German, satisfied, began to laugh loudly and uncontrollably, while Alexander looked at him askance, thinking his joke was of bad taste. Mark's hysterical laughter was peculiar, sounding like that of a hyena and unpleasant to the ears of Franklin and several others. He handed him the foetus.

"Take it," he told him while still chuckling.

"Uh, no thanks..."

"Take it…" the German insisted.

Franklin looked at the other keepers.

"What do I do with it?" he asked them. "We're not going to feed them that, are we?"

"Oh, we'll give it to Clafoutis, the Estemmenosuchus," Marisol told him. "That beast is a dumpster on legs."

Mark motioned again for him to take the foetus but Franklin backed away.

"Don't be a faggot and take that foetus," Zia urged him.

"Calling people faggots is wrong, Zia," Alexander said. "It's an offensive word."

But she shrugged and the other keepers rolled their eyes. Franklin finally grabbed the stillborn calf and joined the trailer but seeing him hesitant about how to give it to Zia, Owen moved closer.

"Take it by the armpits and lift it up, in the same manner as Rafiki when he show Simba to the animals of the savannah in The Lion King," he suggested.

The young man nodded weakly and lifted the foetus, turning his head, afraid of suddenly receiving some fluid in the face. While Zia put it in the pile, Juan grabbed one of the bags they had emptied and turned it over, in order to pour out the blood that remained at the bottom.