FIRST EQUATION
'When trying to determine the answer, skipping ahead will get you nowhere. It is best to know what you're up against.'
Ian Malcolm
Chapter 1
Parasailing Incident
'Who the hell would be flying around here?' Enrique Cardoso thought as he stared at the plane through his binoculars. 'The better question is why the hell did I take these tourists out here?'
Enrique Cardoso had been told the legends. He knew them well. They were part of Costa Rican history, after all. There wasn't a single local that didn't know the truth about the island chain that had been named Las Cinco Muertes. He had been doing this parasailing business for nearly a decade, and had taken tourists, and even locals, all over, but never had he been asked by anyone to actually come out here, or even specifically to one of the islands. It surprised him that the man had actually known the name of the exact island that they wanted to see, forget the fact that Enrique knew which island it was, but it wasn't hard to keep in mind the position of each one: Pena, Tacano, Sorna, Muerta, and Matanceros.
Just barely, Enrique could make out a logo on the side of the plane. It looked like some kind of creature, but the words that were under the creature were just too far off. He tried to zoom in, but his binoculars were cheap, blurring the image to where it was unrecognizable. He would need to purchase some better ones in the near future.
Pulling the binoculars down, Enrique looked to his driver, Luis Gomez, and patted him on the shoulder. "Let's go Luis," he told him in Spanish.
Luis nodded, looking nervous as hell.
Enrique turned his patting into a firm grip. "Hey, it's alright."
Luis looked back and forth between Enrique and the looming island: Isla Sorna.
"I know," Enrique began, "but it's just stories."
Luis finally revved the engine and moved the boat onward.
Enrique moved to the back where the man and the boy sat. "Nearly there, my friends. I hope you know what you're doing. This is a… cursed island chain."
"Las Cinco Muertes?:" the boy asked.
"The Five Deaths," the man stated proudly.
Enrique nodded. "Old legends. We don't like coming here, but business is still business."
"Just make sure you get us as close as you can," the man told him. "I'll give you something extra if you make it a good trip."
Enrique chuckled as the two stood up, preparing the straps that would hold them to the boat. "I'll get you close, my friend, but not too close, eh? You don't want to end up facing one of the five deaths."
The man chuckled. "Sure. Sure." He helped the boy to get strapped into the front of the harness.
Enrique moved behind them, securing the parasail. "Just pull when you're ready." He moved back toward the front of the boat and Luis.
As the boat neared the island, Enrique turned back to them, seeing the wide grin on the boy's face and the clear excitement on the man's. One thing was for sure, they definitely loved a good thrill.
"Ready?" Enrique asked with a thumbs up.
"Yeah!" the boy exclaimed, giving a thumbs up as well.
"Ready!" the man exclaimed. "One… two…three!" With that, the man pulled the string, the parasail shooting out behind them, pulling them up into the air.
Enrique grinned, showing his thumbs up high into the air before turning around to Luis. "Alright, let's give them a good time."
The boat moved at faster speeds, coming upon a fog, moving off the island.
"Let's try not going into the fog," Enrique suggested, gesturing in a different direction with his hand.
"I'm trying, but the current is pulling us toward it," Luis informed.
Enrique took the controls from where he stood and tried himself. "Boats get too close to the island chain and never return. I should've known better."
"Do we wheel them in?" Luis asked.
"Yes, get them," Enrique replied. "I've got the controls."
Luis stood up, allowing Enrique to take his seat. He moved toward the device that would wheel the rope back in and stopped. At first, he didn't entirely know what to make of it. It appeared to be a shark fin moving toward them, but was that really a shark's fin? It looked too ridged and much larger.
"Enrique," Luis stated. "Enrique!"
Enrique looked away from the controls for a brief moment. "What, Luis? I'm trying to…" He stopped mid sentence and stood up, shock crossing his face. "What in God's…"
But he couldn't continue as a large, long snout popped out of the water, followed by slit yellow eyes. Then there was the teeth. Oh, God, the teeth.
Both men crossed themselves, unable to think or even move from where they stood. The massive head swiped forward at them, and before Enrique Cardoso or Luis Gomez could scream, everything went dark.
Ben Hildebrand pulled up the camcorder that he'd taken from Amanda before they set off, filming the beautiful island. Having fancied himself an Indiana Jones type, Ben enjoyed this a great deal, and it was refreshing to finally have someone in his life that felt the same way. He would've hoped for Amanda to be that type, being able to share adventures with the woman he loved, but settling for her kid would do in a pinch.
There was no doubt in his mind that Ben liked Eric a great deal. He saw a lot of himself in the boy: stamina, speed, excitement, and a good amount of drive to solve the world's mysteries. Having studied Archeology in college, achieving his doctorate at the very young age of twenty-one, Dr. Hildebrand spent years in the Amazon and Egypt primarily, studying ancient cultures, learning what he could from societies long since gone.
However, nothing intrigued him more than the chance of finding a true lost world. It didn't seem possible to him, what Eric had said, but if he was right about the involved parties, it was likely that there was at least some semblance of truth to the conversation that Eric had overheard. Ben knew Richard Levine, but he stayed clear of him. The guy was an absolute dickhead, and the most entitled piece of shit he'd ever met, but he knew Paleontology like the back of his hand. Some even thought he was cooler than Alan Grant in that way. Not Ben, but some. If Levine had been on this island recently, there had to have been a logical reason behind it, but Ben assumed that Eric had misunderstood and that there were dig sites here, discovering fossils. There was a chance that they'd find Levine's team doing just that somewhere on shore.
"You see anything yet?" Eric asked.
"No, not yet," Ben responded.
"They're out there," Eric said. "They have to be. There's no way they were lying."
"I want to believe you," Ben began, "but it seems pretty farfetched."
"Then why did you want to come out here?" Eric asked, glancing up toward him.
"Cause you're my bud, and I love a good mystery just as much as you," Ben responded.
Suddenly the rope got tight and pulled against them.
"What was that?" Eric asked.
Ben lowered the camcorder. "I don't know."
Then came the thrashing of the rope and they were bounced all around in the air.
"What's happening?" Eric asked, scared out of his mind.
"Just hang on," Ben told him, concern finally entering his voice as he looked down. Fog covered the area below them.
"I can't see anything," Eric said for him. "What's going on down there?"
"We're almost out of the fog," Ben told him. "We'll see when they -"
The horror revealed itself as the boat left the fog, blood splattered everywhere, the top of the boat in shambles.
"What happened to them?" Eric asked in horror.
"I don't know," Ben responded, quite literally having no clue. A few thoughts made their way into his mind, like primarily a shark attack, but this looked way too brutal, unless the movie monster Jaws had done it.
Eric looked further out, seeing huge rocks approaching from the distance. "We're going to crash! We're going to crash!"
"Just hang on!" Ben exclaimed. "I'm going to let us loose." He fiddled with the hook attaching them to the rope. "Let go of the rope! Let go of the rope!"
Eric finally released his grip on the rope.
"Move your hands, Eric," Ben said. "Come on."
Eric finally lifted his arms up as high as he could, so Ben wouldn't have to struggle as much.
Finally the hook released and Ben grabbed hold of the handles on the parasail. "Okay, here we go!"
The parasail moved off, away from the boat as it crashed into the rocks, going airborne and landing on top of them.
Ben steered the parasail toward the island. "It's going to be okay, bud."
Eric nodded his head frantically. "What are we going to do?"
"We'll figure something out," Ben said, as they moved toward the interior of the island. "Maybe there's a settlement here or something. I bet Dr. Levine left some people here. He could even come back to continue his research. We'll look for a…" He pointed in the distance. "There! It looks like a village or something."
"It's so far away," Eric said.
"I'll try to steer us toward it," Ben told him. "I don't know how far I'll get us, but it's our best bet."
"Okay," Eric simply responded.
"I'm going to take care of you," Ben told him. "Don't worry about a thing. We're going to be fine." However, Ben himself wasn't honestly sure he believed his own words, let alone that Eric would.