Notes
Soundtrack suggestions:
- The World Beneath - Trevor Jones, Dinotopia.
- On the Beach - Bear McCreary, Black Sails.
-o-
When they went to the hacienda for lunch, Claire noticed that Franklin was already there, seated at one of the tables, but that the others hadn't arrived yet. While waiting for Owen, Claire sat at another table and pulled out her phone. She went to an online mapping service and entered the address of Site D into the search bar. Satellite pictures of the compound appeared and Claire compared them to the escape map she had photographed on the way, in order to try to spot any differences and begin to establish a search strategy. While she scribbled a diagram on a sheet of paper, Zia and Alexander arrived with their respective pairs of keepers.
"So Franklin, what did you do this morning?" Alexander asked his colleague as he and Zia sat next to and across from him.
"Cleaned cages and fed their occupants. Damn Compys… They almost bit me!"
"In San Diego, a few of us got bitten by Compys during our training," Zia said, "and in Nublar, it must have happened a lot I guess. It's like being bitten by a grass snake or pinched by a bird."
"Venomous birds!"
"You might have been high for a while due to the toxin in their saliva, but nothing too serious," she reassured him.
"You saw Caerbannog?" Alexander asked.
"What, the Pegomystyx?" Franklin replied.
"Pegomastax," Zia corrected him with a hint of annoyance.
"Yes, quickly. Alex took care of it. This thing is so ugly that it looks like a chupacabra."
Owen finally arrived, followed by Juan and Mark. As they walked to her table, Claire put away her unfinished diagram and turned off her phone before pulling out her lunch. While they recounted their respective mornings, Claire saw one of the administration employees joining Jocelyn Hodgson, who was seated further away. She handed her a key attached to a chain.
"Did you close?" The manager asked her colleague.
"Yes."
Jocelyn grabbed the key and its chain and put it around her neck, hiding it under her blouse. Then she turned back to Claire's table and the fallen director pretended to be more interested in her lunch than in the manager's every move.
Once they had finished eating, they returned to the keepers' office and at one-thirty, Juan encouraged his subordinates to get back to work and asked the group to follow him to the shed, where the keepers stored various tools. The head keeper pointed to the tools needed for the scything work that awaited them:
"We need the scythes, the rakes and the pitchforks."
"There's no strimmer?" Claire asked.
"They're all out of order and management is dragging its feet to buy new ones."
She nodded and they also took two wheelbarrows, put them and the tools in the back of a pickup truck and went to Ariadne's and Asterion's paddock. Juan and Mark gave the instructions and then let the group divide the tasks between them while they headed to the other paddocks in the sector.
"You were drawing something when we arrived," Owen reminded his girlfriend as he scythed the tall grass in front of him. "A map for our search?"
While pulling out of the strip with a rake the scythed grass he left in his wake, Claire turned her head towards him.
"Yes." she replied, "I'm trying to determine the areas where Wu's secret lab might be located. But I have to finish it first..."
Hearing the clink of Juan's big bunch of keys, she turned and saw the head keeper walking towards them.
"Is everything alright?" he asked them.
"We're getting there," Owen replied.
Juan looked at the entire area they had already scythed and nodded with satisfaction.
"Good."
He then headed to the side of the paddock that was being scythed by the DPG trio. Claire put down the rake and grabbed the pitchfork to start putting the scythed grass into their wheelbarrow.
"We can't search today," she said, "but we absolutely have to start tomorrow."
"At lunch break?"
"Yeah, we eat quickly and we go straight after."
"Okay, let's proceed like this."
While joining the DPG trio, Juan was confronted with a vision that amused him.
"Hey, you're doing alright you backseat drivers?" He asked aloud in Spanish.
Franklin, then scything and startled by the sound of his voice, raised his head and turned to the keeper. But he noticed immediately that not only had he not talked to him or his two colleagues, but that they were also looking in his direction. The IT technician then looked behind him and jumped when he saw that Ariadne and Asterion were just behind the fence, only a few steps away from him, and they were watching him with great interest. As he had stared straight ahead as he scythed, he hadn't seen them approaching. And of course, Zia and Alexander, respectively pulling the grass and putting it in their wheelbarrow, hadn't warned him...
After this brief interruption, the trio got back to work and Franklin continued his task, but the carnotaurs followed him, moving step by step.
"But go away...," the young man complained. "You're stressing me out by looking at me like that!"
The next day, the couple put their strategy into action, having a quick lunch before starting their prospecting. Using the map Claire had completed the previous evening, they went to the southern part of the estate, the one occupied by the plantations, and explored it in search of some place that could house a clandestine cloning laboratory, but the only structures they saw in this area were small sheds and one or two open storage spaces.
In the evening, after dinner, Claire crossed out this area on her map and studied the latter, calculating the time needed to explore all the areas.
"We'll never be done by Monday!" She grumbled, almost throwing her pen on the table in their bedroom. "I think our friend the Ocelot can say goodbye to his intel!"
Owen, then lying on the bed, stood up and leaned over her shoulder.
"It's not Monday yet. We'll find that fucking lab by then."
"I would like to believe you, but we only did a part of the plantations today. We still have all that to search!" She showed him on the map.
"Let's forget the plantations, I'd be surprised if we found anything there. For tomorrow, I'm in favor of searching the area near the bamboo grove, along the eastern border," he pointed. "The bungalows are nearby, maybe Wu and his team stayed there."
"Maybe they did, maybe they didn't. I have no idea…"
He put his hands on her shoulders and began to gently massage her.
"Leave that map, okay? Relax… We'll work on it tomorrow."
"You're right. Maybe things will clear up if I take a step back."
She put the map away and he led her to the edge of the bed to continue their massage session more comfortably. He felt her muscles relax little by little and as she relaxed, keeping her eyes closed while occasionally letting out small moans of satisfaction, she tilted her head back and leftwards, exposing her neck and inviting him to kiss her. As he kissed her skin, she grabbed his right hand and guided it under her T-shirt, gently passing it over the long scar she had on her sternum and right breast so he could fondle her left breast. He didn't need to be asked twice and as his hand groped her, Claire shivered with excitement, desiring nothing but him at the moment.
Each seated on their respective beds, Zia and Franklin were discussing the footage that the latter had taken in the afternoon when they began to hear the bed in the couple's bedroom moving and then the sound of their throes of passion, as their rooms' soundproofing were of questionable quality. Ignoring how long this would last and wishing to end the awkward silence that prevailed in their room, Franklin spoke up:
"Do you have movies on your laptop?"
"I've got Sexcrimes," Zia replied, looking at her laptop screen.
"I never heard of it."
"It's an erotic thriller, a bit like Basic Instinct," she said, turning towards him. "Have you seen that one?"
"I only know by name."
"You didn't saw it? Seriously? You should."
"Not my kind of movie."
"Oh, maybe you'll like Sexcrimes. There is a certain scene between Denise Richards and another girl in a swimming pool if you know what I mean… So hot that if you were a girl, I would say that you would be very tempted to caress the dilophosaur's crests while watching it."
"What else do you have?"
"What, you don't like movies where you see naked pretty girls?" She asked him in a surprised tone. "You don't know what you're missing… Tell me Franklin, have you ever seen a naked woman?"
But while he hesitated about the content of his answer, she added:
"No, your mother doesn't count..."
The couple realized they had been heard when they saw the two DPG members imitating them at lunch break the next day:
"Oh yes! My virile Elk, harder!"
"Oh my doe… You're my queen… You're my queen…"
Sitting several tables away from them, Zia and Franklin thought they were far enough away and speaking low enough to not be overheard. In a more or less discreet way, Alexander and the few keepers seated at their table gave the couple a sidelong glance while sporting a grin. Meanwhile, Jocelyn Hodgson was out on the patio to take a phone call. Being only a few meters from it, the couple heard her:
"I told you I don't know when I'll be back from Costa Rica," she replied irritably. "…Yes, most of the animals are leaving on Monday but there is still a whole lot of stuff to do here before they let me go home… No, the dinosaurs are not going to escape and eat me. We take security very seriously and you don't repeat it but HQ is sending us not only Edward and his men but also a private military company as reinforcements... I know that you and the children miss me but you'll have to be patient… What do you mean, you've been patient enough so far?! Damn, but we're not going to have the same conversation every time! Oh fuck, you're pissing me off with your whining! I'll call you this weekend..."
She hung up and sighed.
"What an idea to have married such a moron...," she muttered.
Then she returned to the canteen and having finished lunch, the couple got up and left the hacienda.
"The last thing we needed was our sex life becoming a big topic of conversation," Claire said later as they walked to their prospecting area, the one near the bamboo grove. "Lucky for us, we were more or less discreet back on Nublar because otherwise, I think we would have been entitled to a special section in Radio Nublar."
"Alec's show, the one he was broadcasting from the Administration?"
"Yeah, Alec Rath. As soon as there was the slightest gossip, that pasty little jerk came forward. When we started fucking, he had even declared "Our deputy director mated!" and in another occasion, he even implied I was pregnant all because some saw me puking in the bushes after a boozy evening. I even went up to his studio to advise him not to spread another rumor about me."
"I remember that time. I freaked out like hell after listening to his show because we had split up shortly before. I don't even know what I would have done if it had been true..."
"I would have summoned you anyway, even if seeing you again would have made me furious. But you would have come before to talk about it with me, I'm certain. After all, you know what it's like when a woman raises a child alone."
"Unfortunately yes…"
She took his hand affectionately.
"According to what your mother said, your father would have made sure that I went to live in Wisconsin with my parents if he had been in your place, whether I was pregnant or not. You did not ask to be a father and yet you respected my decision to keep our child, fully accepted your role as a father and above all, you took me in when everyone turned their back on me, my own family included."
"It was the least I could do..."
They stopped for a moment and she said to him:
"You are not your father, you are better than him, better than many men..."
"I was too late to save you during the Fall. It's my fault if you're in this condition..."
"Hey, we've had this conversation a hundred times already. It wasn't your fucking fault! It was only mine! I had the opportunity to join you and Zach, and I didn't take it. The only thought on my mind was to have an honorable death, like if I wanted to dine alongside my ancestors in Valhalla. If there's a weak link in our couple, it's me."
He leaned down to kiss her tenderly.
"Bullshit," he told her. "You are stronger than you think. Let's agree that there is no weak link in our couple. Just you and me, two alphas."
She sketched a smile and they resumed their walk shortly after.
"What were we talking about two minutes ago?"
"Of Zia and Franklin who heard us having sex."
"Ah yes... Come on, I have the right to have sex with my boyfriend, yes? I shouldn't give a fuck about what other people think!"
"Absolutely. And when a couple of alphas copulate, it's often good for the pack's cohesion. I have nothing to blame myself for, I am not the most immodest in bed…"
"Fuck you!"
Finishing crossing the bamboo grove, they passed into the wooded area along that part of the estate's eastern boundary and searched the area, even going as far as the peripheral fence.
"There could be a cellar or even a secret bunker just below one of the bungalows, and a hidden entrance in the slope," Owen imagined.
"Do you think Wu and co. stayed in one of the bungalows and that a lab was built under it? Yeah… I'm not sure he wanted to be seen by the keepers and the workers living in the others," Claire replied, sceptical.
"It was just a guess."
"The best we can think of…because I don't see where they could have built a clandestine laboratory and housed Wu and his team. Unless there is a Civil War bunker hidden somewhere in the middle of the woods?"
"Highly unlikely. It only lasted a month and a half, they didn't have the time to build one. And this part of the country hasn't been affected by the conflict."
Then they heard leaves being trampled. There was someone else in the woods and not only was he or she close but they were getting closer.
"Someone's coming…" she hissed.
"Wherever we go, we'll be heard," he said after looking around.
"Our presence here might be considered suspicious. Fuck…"
"We have to come up with a bogus excuse..."
"Yeah something, quick!" She urged him.
"I don't know… Absolutely no idea."
Running out of solutions, she then suddenly pinned him against the nearest trunk.
"Unbuckle your belt!" she hissed.
Guessing her idea, he complied, letting her pull down his pants and kneel before him, but he suppressed a sound of surprise when she pulled down his underwear without warning. The security guard, who was none other than Valentine Taylor, surprised them like this and believing he had interrupted them in a moment of intimacy, immediately looked away and apologized:
"Oh, sorry…"
As the guard retraced his steps and walked away, Owen, somewhat embarrassed, pulled up his boxers and pants and he and his girlfriend resumed their search. But there too they drew a blank, finding only a few sheds and not the slightest door or hidden hatch...
When they returned to the keepers' office a few minutes late, Alfredo and Pasqual turned to them and the second looked at his watch and then tapped it with his index and middle fingers while looking at them.
"Well then, it couldn't wait this evening?" he joked. "You're lucky Juan is late too."
The head keeper arrived in the room the next moment and the couple separated to go to work in their respective sectors.
In the evening, after dinner, they updated Claire's map and their rate of progress worried them.
"Okay, we're actually in trouble. We won't be done by Monday!" Owen said minutes later, before drinking some tequila from a glass. "If only Jocelyn could give us the maps she promised. We would see a little more clearly…," he added the next moment.
"The maps…" Claire repeated, remembering the ones Jocelyn had taken from them at the first day's meeting.
Kneeled until then in front of him, she put her hands behind his back and stood up, rubbing her naked body against his as she rose. He placed his hands under her buttocks, lifted her up and sat her on the edge of the table.
"We need access to those maps," she said, spreading her legs before grabbing the glass of tequila and taking a sip, "the ones she would have given us if Austin, that asshole, didn't intervene."
She lifted the glass to the level of her upper torso and tilted it against her skin, gently pouring some of the alcohol on it, with drops trickling down her chest and abdomen, toward her pubic hairs.
"How?" he asked, rushing forward to lick the drops on his girlfriend's chest and kiss her breasts. "They must be in his office… We aren't going to break in, right? How would you explain why we broke down the door or the window? It would be highly suspicious and Lockwood is likely to hear about it."
"We need the key…" she said, shivering a little while he delicately kissed the area around the scar on her right breast.
"The key to her office? She has it on her all the time. I'm sure she showers and sleeps with it."
"And yet we need it."
"And how?" he asked as he gradually moved down on her stomach. "We can't show up, grope her, steal the key and run away with it."
His head stopped between her thighs and she began to stroke his mane.
"Indeed, we must be subtle Owen, subtle...," she said before letting out a moan of pleasure.
Gods she enjoyed making love with him! When he honoured her, she no longer felt like a scarred pariah with a bionic prosthesis, a walking corpse, but like the most desirable woman on Earth, the Claire not from just before the Fall but rather the one from a time anterior to their breakup three years before the latter, when they had their secret romantic idyll and when no shadow seemed to hang over Isla Nublar, before the Indominus' spectre and everything that was associated with it began to corrupt her...
Arnold Mountbatten, her predecessor, had warned her of the power that came with being the director of Jurassic World, but she barely listened to him. What a mistake! She was then just an arrogant and ambitious young executive, seduced by the opportunity of power and who was too young when she became head of what was practically a microstate. If she had known she would have been nothing but a puppet, both some kind of colonial governor under Masrani's orders and a disposable slave of InGen's board of directors. Ironically, only the Fall had allowed her to break those chains... If Jurassic World had never collapsed, that she had kept her position and that she would have climbed the ranks of InGen's hierarchy even more until ultimately integrating its board of directors, thinking to acquire more power and independence to ultimately become the slave of other desires and even more overwhelming and corrupting powers, would she have ended up becoming another Susan Lynton? Whatever the answer was, it didn't matter anymore.
She was never going to know another position of power again. The only thing she could aspire to was a quiet but peaceful life with Owen and Sigurd. And even that was an uncertain thing...unless she managed to gather as many allies as possible on her side. Forging an alliance with the Ocelot's employers would be a good start, but they had to succeed in the mission he had given them, they had to find Wu's damn clandestine laboratory. For some reason, she was sure that the first map Jocelyn gave contained clues which could lead them to the latter. But how could they put their hands on her key? They had to get closer to her... Get closer...
Of course, Claire had no chance of getting closer to Jocelyn, whether it was in romantic or just friendly terms, but Owen… She remembered the argument the Farm manager had on the phone with her husband and remembered the way she had looked at Owen the first day. He had better chances than her. No wonder, how could a woman not be attracted by his tall strong body and his rugged beauty? Several conversations with her female colleagues at Nublar had taught her that many of them would not have said no to a night with him. But how could Owen get closer to Jocelyn?
While his mouth and tongue were making miracles in her lower districts and were going to make her come at any moment, her eyes looked down at him, a mischievous smile formed on the corner of her mouth, then she looked back straight ahead of her.
"I've got a cunning plan…"