Notes
Soundtrack suggestions:
Arrival at Puntarenas and the port:
- Following Godzilla – Alexandre Desplat, Godzilla (From 00:35 to 01:14).
- Jurassic Pillow Talk – Michael Giacchino, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom.
Getting out of the container:
- The rexing crew – Michael Giacchino, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom.
- The trex tussle – Michael Giacchino, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom.
-o-
When the train exited the Celeste Gorges and began to follow the Barranca River westward, Edward Torres pulled out his phone and called Commander Austin.
"Joel. What's the situation with the carnotaur?"
"We're following it with our vehicles. It's heading northwest, towards the Cloudy Head. We're going to deploy around the jungle in order to prevent it from getting out, and we'll capture him at dawn."
"At dawn?! This animal must be recaptured tonight! Go get it now!"
"My men are exhausted! I can't put them at unnecessary risk!" Austin protested. "And it's a predator, it will have the advantage over us…"
"I don't care! Use any tactic you like but I want that animal back at the Farm by
tomorrow at seven o'clock! If you fail to meet that deadline, you and all those under your direct supervision are going to be in big trouble..."
"Alright, sir... We're going now," the ACU commander reluctantly conceded.
Torres hung up and one of the guards came to see him a few minutes later.
"Sir. We're here," he told him.
The director of InGen Security looked out the carriage's windows and saw the many lights of a city: They were at the gates of Puntarenas conurbation. The Shitpiercer slowed down and soon entered the eastern suburbs, where the rail was surrounded on either side by small gardens adjoining low houses with sheet metal roofs and walls of concrete or rough masonry, inhabited by low-income households. Positioned at the top of the wagons and containers, the guards saw a considerable crowd gathered by the level crossings, barricaded by the police. Here and there, people lifted or perched children on their shoulders so that they could see the train and hope to see a dinosaur.
The train arrived at the other end of the suburbs, crossed a small wood, then a road by yet another level crossing and finally passed through the large gates of the port facility that InGen had built many years earlier not far from the mouth of the Barranca.
The facility was rather large, occupying a dozen hectares, and featured vast warehouses, concrete quays with large cranes, rows of containers, an administrative building, helipads large enough for Boeing Chinooks and other large helicopters, as well as a high fence with barbed wire on its perimeter. It was from this place that InGen had supplied Site B on Isla Sorna, Jurassic Park and then Jurassic World, and that the expeditions of 1994, 1997, 2002 and those of Operation Fallen Kingdom had left. In the middle of the facility, the rail described a loop around several warehouses. The loop was so large that the long Shitpiercer could go around it and leave through the large south-eastern gate, the one it had crossed when he arrived. When he arrived at the entrance of this loop, the train took right, going counter-clockwise. Thus, it arrived in its western part, which ran along the quays and their cranes, and almost the entire front half of the train stopped parallel to them. Shortly after, the dockers rushed to the train, flatbed trucks parked beside it, keepers and veterinarians came out of the carriages to advise and lend a hand to the dockers, and the cranes swivelled and extended before lowering their hooks towards the containers, so that the dockers could hang the containers, which were lifted before being placed on the trucks' flatbeds. As soon as a container was stabilized on its flatbed, the truck started and left for a long dock which jutted in the Gulf of Nicoya. At its end, the Arcadia had opened the rear doors of its hold and along that same dock, the Anne B was docked and the doors of its hold were also open. Soon, that large dock was the scene of incessant comings and goings of men and vehicles.
Near the front of the train, in one of the containers that had not yet been lifted by the cranes, Pierce the Acrocanthosaurus was lying on his stomach in the hay, restrained by thick straps and sleeping peacefully while he was still under the effect of the tranquilizer administered by Brice Le Goff a few hours earlier. Previously homogeneous, the layer of hay had a tendency to move towards the front of the container during the trip, especially on the steep portions such as those of the gorges, and it had ended up forming a large heap against the wall, a heap which started suddenly to move as if it was a living creature. Arms and legs appeared under the hay, then hair emerged. A short and curly dark one, a longer brown one and finally, one of similar length to the second but red and tied in a ponytail. Owen pulled his head completely out of the hay first, looking toward the hatch, the same one they used to climb down inside the container earlier, much to Franklin's dismay. The young man thought the idea of slipping through the hatch, letting themselves fall on the back of a sleeping carnivore, slide on his side and then lie down in the hay not far from its stinking jaws was a suicidal one.
The keeper sat up and his girlfriend was the first to copy his example, also looking up at the hatch. Still lying down, Franklin brushed the hay off his face and then stared in dread at the large jaws lined with sharp teeth that rested right in front of them. He got to his feet hastily, eager to leave this container as soon as possible. The three hours or so they spent under the hay had seemed like an eternity to him and when the train had stopped he had been tempted to get up and look for a way out but Owen had hissed at him to stay still and wait for the dockers to finish preparing the container for hoisting.
"What do we do?" The young man asked.
"If we go out now, we'll be spotted and arrested before we could even cross half of the facility," the keeper replied.
"We wait," Claire concluded.
Just then a winching sound began to be heard and the ground became unstable under their feet, making them stagger.
"That's indeed better," Franklin said, realizing that the crane had begun to haul them.
Preferring to have support nearby, they backed up until their backs were against the wall and watched the movement of Pierce's body. If they weren't careful, he could crush them. During the ascent, the container began to tilt slightly to the right and although the tilting was insufficient to make them fall, it nevertheless began to make them slide, Pierce included.
"This way…" Owen said, pointing to the wall towards which they were sliding.
Then the tilt was in the other direction.
"Uh no, that way..." he corrected himself.
Suddenly, the winching sound stopped and the container tilted slightly to the right and then to the left. The crane had finished hoisting them. It now had to retract its arm so that the container could be moved above the truck's flatbed next to the wagon. When that process began, the container was shaken a little and the trio, then leaning against the middle of one of the longest walls, saw the Acrocanthosaurus sliding towards them.
"Oh shit…," Owen swore.
Like a wall approaching a crash-test car, it was upon them so quickly they couldn't move in time, and the predator's rounded, scaly side pinned them against the wall. However, thanks to the straps among other things, Pierce hadn't slipped the full width, leaving a space between his side and the wall about a foot wide, allowing the trio to stand there without having their bones broken. They could breathe, albeit with some difficulty, but they couldn't move. They hoped that the container's next movements would allow them to free themselves.
"I didn't ask to be in a remake of the compactor scene from A New Hope," Franklin moaned.
"Neither did I. We're not in a J.J Abrams movie for fuck's sake!" Claire hissed.
"I guess I'm Han Solo…," Owen added.
Claire looked at him.
"No, I'm Han Solo with tits and you, you're my hot Chewbacca."
"And who am I? Luke or Leia?" Franklin asked.
"Rather R2-D2," Owen replied.
"I'm not sure he was in the compactor," Claire pointed out. "No offense Franklin but you're more of a C3-PO..."
"Oh."
"But that remains to be seen... A year and a half ago, I was no better. Trust character development, young padawan..."
The end of the arm reaching just above the trailer, the container stopped for a moment, then the hoisting noise resumed.
"Shh... We're going down," Owen hissed.
Thanks to a small tilt in the opposite direction that lasted a short time, Pierce slipped a little and they were able to extricate themselves in time, going to lean further while waiting for the container to descend. A few seconds later, he was placed on the trailer with a loud clang and the trio returned to hide under the hay, in case any dockers were looking through the hatch. Fortunately none of them did and soon after, the truck left.
The trip wasn't very long, and through the hatch's bars, the trio saw the night sky give way to the ceiling of the Arcadia's enormous hold. They waited for the truck to stop, for the driver to leave and for everyone to leave the vicinity of the truck before getting back on their feet.
"Are they putting him in the Arcadia too?" Franklin asked, looking at the Acrocanthosaurus and then at the hold's ceiling, realizing the animal would be lying like this for a week.
"Yeah, they didn't wanted to charter another plane just for him," Owen said.
"Zia would blow a fuse if she saw that."
"It's unfortunate that you don't have a camera on you," Claire told the young man. "That would have been very interesting for your documentary."
She approached the dinosaur and looked at the bars.
"It's now or never," the fallen park director said. "We have to get out of this ship."
"But it's taking us back to the United States. Wouldn't it be better if we stayed?" The DPG IT technician asked.
"It depends. Do you want to spend a week sleeping in hay and eating raw meat in the company of an animal that won't hesitate to snack on you at the first opportunity?"
"Of course, we don't have to stay in this container, but I don't know. Couldn't we hide in the engine room or somewhere else?"
"I don't know if acting like illegals is a good solution...," Owen said. "We risk being flushed out and we're not going to be welcomed on board. If we're lucky, we'll be put into a helicopter that will take us to gods knows where... If we're not, Torres will have us thrown overboard as soon as everyone is looking in the other direction. No, staying in Costa Rica is the safest option for now. But we've wasted enough time. Pierce will wake up any minute."
Carefully, the keeper climbed on the back of the Acrocanthosaurus, chose a stable position atop it, and passing his arms through the bars, he proceeded to unlock the hatch. He managed to do that and looked at Franklin.
"Franklin, you go first. You have a less conspicuous look than us."
The young man swallowed, nodded, and with even more nervousness than three hours before, he climbed up the dinosaur's back legs and side. Owen grabbed his hand to pull him up, then helped him pass through the hatch.
"Okay, now climb down the truck and see if you can open the doors for us," he asked him once he was on the container's roof.
Franklin nodded and crawled onto the roof. The couple heard him get down, grab the lever and start to open the door, trying to make as little noise as possible. Seeing that their plan was about to come to fruition, Owen climbed down from Pierce's back to join Claire near the door. It cracked open, revealing Franklin's relieved face, and the couple prepared to leave the container. It was then that they heard voices, those of two guards approaching. Franklin froze, not knowing what to do.
"Hide," Claire whispered to him.
The DPG IT technician complied and while he disappeared, the couple went to crouch behind Pierce in order to hide from the comers.
"Hey, that door is ajar," one of them noticed.
"Yes, indeed! Let's close it before there's an incident," the other said.
The guards came to close the container's door with force, making a great metallic noise which echoed in the container, and they resumed their patrol, moving away from the truck. Fearing that the noise had woken Pierce, the couple froze and almost held their breath.
"Who's the idiot who left it ajar?" The first guard wondered.
"Perhaps one of the keepers," the second replied.
Seeing that the Acrocanthosaurus had no reaction, Claire and Owen sighed softly and when the sound of the guards' footsteps died down, she went back to the door and called Franklin.
"Franklin! You can come back. Open the doors," she asked him in a low voice.
But he didn't answer and realized he probably wasn't hearing her from his hiding place. Owen looked at the hatch he had left open, and then at his girlfriend.
"Go out through the hatch. I'll be right behind you."
Claire approached the dinosaur, which suddenly turned its head to the side and pinned Owen against one of the walls. She looked worriedly at her partner, whose lower body had disappeared behind the predator's head.
"Nothing broken?" She asked in a whisper.
"I'm okay. Climb."
The fallen park director scaled the left side of the acrocanthosaurus and once on his back, she straddled the animal's hump, as if he was a monstrous elephant one would ride bareback.
Facing this quite singular sight, Owen could not help but have a stupid smile. However, he quickly regained his seriousness and motioned to his girlfriend to hurry up. Claire put one knee on the bump, then the other, and slowly straightened up, pressing her feet firmly against the bump. As if this action had provoked a muscular reaction, Pierce moved his head again in his sleep, this time away from Owen. Looking down, the Raptor Whisperer saw that drool had dripped onto his pants and shoes. Looking back up, he froze and gulped as he saw Pierce's eye slowly open, his pupil dilate to stare intently at him. A growl brewed inside the dinosaur and he opened his jaws to let out a roar of displeasure. While trying to get out through the hatch, Claire lost her balance and dropped to her knees to avoid falling next to the animal and injuring herself in the fall. Thus, she ended up straddling the predator's hump again, except he was awake this time, and irritated. As he moved beneath her, the fallen park director wondered which god was devious enough to put her into sticky situations with large theropods every time, and she hoped to not lose another limb this time, or even her life.
The Acrocanthosaurus shifted under its straps, trying to grab Owen, who had flattened himself against the wall. As the jaws snapped just centimetres from the keeper's face, Claire jerked upright and jumping upwards, she managed to grab onto the edge of the hatch and climbed onto the roof of the container without further ado.
His girlfriend out of danger, Owen considered climbing quickly on the dinosaur and getting out in the same manner as her but Pierce, which was hissing, managed to free one of his hind legs from the straps and put his foot against the wall, blocking the keeper's path. He backed away but threatened to bump into the predator's snout.
Claire climbed down the container and the truck and went to open the latter's rear doors. She saw her boyfriend trapped between the wall and the predator. As quietly as possible, she motioned for him to hurry out.
"Owen, jump!" She whispered urgently.
The Acrocanthosaurus roared at Owen's face, prompting him to cover his ears, and suddenly his foot began to slide down the wall, digging its claws in the metal as he approached the keeper.
"Hurry up!" Claire hissed while looking at her boyfriend with wide worried eyes.
As he looked at her and the snout intermittently obstructed his view, he saw a window of action. He backed up as best he could to gain momentum, and when the dinosaur's head lowered, he suddenly darted up and leapt. He first landed on the dinosaur's skull but only stayed there for a short time and leapt up again just before Pierce shook his head in an attempt to make him fall. The Acrocanthosaurus growled in frustration when he saw the keeper landing in front of him and he then stretched his neck forward, opening his jaws wide to grab him. Owen had a narrow escape because when the jaws snapped loudly, the front teeth almost threatened to wound his back. As soon as he jumped through the half-open door, Claire closed it and locked it immediately, before leaning against it to catch her breath. Her boyfriend leaning next to her, she tenderly took his hand, and they sighed deeply after this near-death experience. Another.
He looked around the truck. It was parked at the far end of the hold, by the bow, and next to it were those carrying the other large carnivores: The Baryonyx, Boomer the Metriacanthosaurus, and Asterion the Carnotaurus. Either they were still asleep, or they were starting to wake up but remained silent, worried by this new environment that was the Arcadia's hold. It resounded with voices and various mechanical noises, that of parking trucks but also that of a goods lift that was used to bring the cages and containers of small and medium-sized animals onto a sort of large mezzanine within the hold and which stretched over the front two-thirds of its length. Remembering the plans of the ship, the couple knew they had more than a hundred and fifty meters to cross before reaching the other end of the hold and the exit.
"Where's Franklin?" Owen suddenly asked.