You Didn't Say the Magic Word

A Jurassic Park Fanfiction by Sassy Lil Scorpio

Summary: Dennis Nedry doesn't discriminate. He has a bad attitude with everyone all day, every day. Even the lizards, er, dinosaurs feel his wrath! A collection of fics centered on Nedry's character and his (mostly unpleasant) interactions with Hammond and the InGen staff, Dodgson and the Biosyn team, the personnel at Green Hills Federal Correctional Institution, and a certain lizard.

Rating: T

Disclaimer: Dennis Nedry, Lewis Dodgson, and other characters mentioned are property of Michael Crichton and Steven Spielberg. A handful of characters (George Lawala, Raúl Lopez, and Sonya Durant) are from the Topps comics. No monetary profit is being made from this work.

Author's Notes: 30 Bad Attitudes is a LiveJournal writing community that provides thirty writing prompts about bad attitudes. The prompts can be written in the dialogue or be the underlying theme of the fic. Sometimes they are used briefly, and other times I take creative liberties to write the fic around the prompt. The fics in this collection are one-shots, ficlets, vignettes, and drabbles (100 words). These fics are not in any particular order, although a few can be connected together.

Dennis Nedry is my all-time favorite character in the entire Jurassic Park universe (Jurassic World included). He doesn't get enough love and attention in the fandom, so I fix that by writing fics centered on him. I enjoy blending both novel and film traits for his character. I especially love exploring what might have happened to Nedry if he succeeded in dropping off the embryos at the east dock.

Some fics in this collection take place before the events of the novel and movie, and a few take place during the canon's events. Other fics take place during my canon-divergent AU series Reign of Chaos in which Nedry successfully delivered the embryos during the park inspection, and Muldoon and Arnold catch him red-handed later. In that series, he ends up incarcerated for his crimes against InGen, and eventually joins Dodgson's team. These fics are unseen scenes that fit in with the trilogy and its sequel. It is helpful, but not necessary to have read those (very long) fanfics. One fic in this collection involves the novel canon of Nedry's death—I won't say which one, you'll know when you read it, even if you haven't read the novel (which I highly recommend!) All the fics in this collection can still be read and enjoyed on their own!

Dedication: This collection of fanfics is dedicated to Wayne Knight. Thank you for portraying my favorite JP character so wonderfully. It's an incredible and memorable performance, and you did a fantastic job!

Prompt #1 Why do I even bother?

You're Talking, but I'm Not Listening

John Hammond drummed his fingers on his desk in Palo Alto, California. He had asked Dennis Nedry to meet him here, at InGen's official headquarters, to review the systems for the park. Nedry was already an hour late. It wasn't anything new. Punctuality was not his strong suit. Just then, the phone on his desk rang. Hammond grabbed the phone, his fingers whitened from holding it in such a tight grip. Before his secretary had a moment to tell him who was present, he had already cut her off.

"Send him in this instant."

Before he put down the phone, the door swung open and Nedry lumbered into his office and plopped down on the seat across from Hammond before being offered the chance to sit. He dug in his pocket for a candy bar and produced a half-eaten Snickers.

"What do you want, John?" Nedry asked after taking a hearty bite. Still talking with his mouth full, "you demanded I come down here, so speak your peace."

Hammond's chest heaved as he tried to hold back his temper. Everyone else he had hired for Jurassic Park was an excellent fit and aligned with him in his vision to create a unique theme park of genetically engineered dinosaurs. Robert Muldoon was a skilled hunter and exceptional park warden—even if he drank a tad too much. Ray Arnold was an anxious mess, but he was detail-oriented and experienced. Henry Wu was young and ambitious, a true visionary. Gerry Harding was compassionate and thorough in his line of work. Dennis Nedry…well, he was Dennis Nedry. The word that came to mind when describing him was the same one Hammond and everyone used: slob. Nedry was a genius in his own right, but Hammond chose not to praise his brilliance. Instead, he found everything wrong with Nedry's work.

"It's your systems."

"What systems?"

"The systems you designed for the park. The control systems—"

"I know what they are, thank you very much." Nedry crumpled up the candy bar wrapper and aimed to throw it in Hammond's wastebasket. He missed and the wrapper landed on the floor. "What about them?"

Hammond dove right in. "You need to make changes, Dennis."

"Again?! How many times have I made changes already? The security systems, the perimeter fence…it's like every other week you're moving the goalposts." Nedry grabbed a dinosaur figurine off Hammond's desk. The dinosaur was a Spinosaurus. "What's the name of this beaky looking lizard?"

"Put it down and pay attention—please."

Nedry laughed loudly. "That's the first time I've heard you use the magic word. Guess there's a first time for everything."

Hammond sat back in his swiveling chair, watching Nedry play with the Spinosaurus figurine. An entire minute of complete silence passed as he waited patiently to see if Nedry would put down the figurine and engage him in a conversation about his work. When it was apparent that nothing would get done, Hammond threw his hands up in the air, frustrated.

"Why do I even bother? I should've hired a first-rate systems analyst with a better reputation and a strong work ethic."

"You didn't tell me what you wanted the systems for from the get-go. You want last minute changes, a complete overhaul, and you're not willing to pay me for the extra work."

"We're not having this discussion."

"Actually, we are."

Hammond's eyes narrowed. "There are bugs in the system that you created. If you'd done everything right the first time, we wouldn't be having this conversation!"

"Because I didn't know what I was creating the systems for. We've had this discussion so many times, John! You didn't tell me anything, I did the best I could, and yes, there's gonna be bugs. Now you want even more changes?!"

"Those changes were in the original contract."

"No, they weren't. I worked in the dark for you since you wanted to be so damn secretive. I created systems with no parameters—from the ground up—"

"Three billion fields of data records aren't enough parameters for you?" Hammond stood up behind his desk. He only did that when he was ready to end a meeting.

"That's not the instructions I was originally given. It was 'design a module for record keeping'."

"Sounds specific enough to me."

"That's vague, John. I needed more information from the beginning, more details. Information technology isn't something you should take for granted. You've asked me to create a huge database without any specific instructions. There's so much involved that you don't understand, like the user interface, that I still need to work on. I'm designing operating systems for memory, storage keeping…"

Hammond's eyes glazed over as Nedry went on and on, speaking in technical jargon. Information technology, computer programming—all of it was a foreign language to Hammond—one that he had no intention of learning. Nedry noticed that Hammond wasn't listening and stood up. Tossing the Spinosaurus figurine on Hammond's table caught the older man's attention.

"You're not listening to me, but what else is new? Why do I even bother?"

Before Hammond could respond, Nedry stormed out of the office and slammed the door behind him.