I hope everyone has or is enjoying their end of the year holidays.
As the Majungasaurus marched straight toward the tree she was hiding in, Yaz pondered what she should do. There were no tree holes to hide in and if she climbed any higher, she would also be in trouble with the leopard.
There wasn't any time to run for another tree. Her only advantage was that Major had vestigial arms like his ancestors. All the other cloned theropods had more pronounced front limbs.
Whoever cloned Major had created him to be as pure as possible. This made him unpredictable. The dinosaurs of Jurassic World displayed behavioral traits associated with both the source and filler DNA.
If Yaz were to base her assessment on physicality, she would be unsure what Major's behavioral response would be. He could go for a direct attack or play around if he sniffed her.
She leaned against the trunk and curled up, trying to make herself as small as possible. A clump of leaves hid her slightly. Yaz begged the universe to keep her concealed.
Within seconds, Major converged onto the tree. It took every ounce of willpower for Yaz to sit still. She didn't even dare to breath.
She could feel Major's hot breath as the dinosaur smelled the tree. It was stretching its body up to get closer to the canopy. Was it after the leopard?
That's when Major grabbed the trunk with his teeth and started shaking it. Yaz tried to hold on as she watched other animals fall out of the tree. The shaking got worse and the trunk abruptly snapped!
Yaz plummeted to the ground as the tree fell over. She screamed upon impact. She struggled to move only to discover she was pinned under the trunk.
Above her, she could hear Major as he continued to bite off branches and get to his prey under the trunk. If she didn't get out of there, then she was going to be his meal along with any other animals trapped.
No, I won't die like this! Yaz thought to herself. She needed more strength to get out and speed to get away. At least her hands were free.
She patted her neck and found the pendant. Prying it open, she swallowed the rest of the dose she had taken earlier. As the transformation started, her whole body felt like it was on fire.
She could feel her bones stretching and cracking. Her skin itched as feathers sprouted from her arms. By now Major was almost on top of her.
Without another thought, she pushed on the trunk. It wouldn't budge. She repositioned her hands and pushed once more.
Yaz managed to push it up enough for her to roll out. Getting to her feet, she saw that Major had paused and was swinging his head towards her. She took off running at 37mph in the opposite direction.
She had scarcely made it a quarter of a mile when she heard Major coming after her. Yaz started to push herself harder as she turned slightly towards the right. Her night vision saw fewer obstacles that way.
Darting onto the path, she pushed her senses as she listened to how near Major was. She could hear him getting closer but that wasn't all she could hear. She could hear the river!
Major wouldn't risk going into the river with those small arms of his! Her friends were also waiting for her somewhere down the river. She had to get there!
At the river, Sammy was endeavoring to remain calm. They had anchored the boats in a shallow dip about six feet from the shore. The tarps had been set up and the others were trying to sleep on the floor of the boats.
"Where are you, Yaz?" Sammy whispered as played with her pendant. "You have to be alright. I can't lose you too."
She was unaware of Zayna observing her. She had started to suspect Sammy and Yaz were more than friends. There had been subtle signs, such as the way they acted during the attack.
It was none of her business if what she thought was true. The only thing that was her business was to warn them to be more discreet. The police were almost worse than the dinosaurs.
A massive roar was heard causing everyone to bolt up. The Nublar group froze as they remembered who made that roar. A Majungasaurus couldn't possibly be here as well.
Kenji aimed the flashlight at the shore. The roaring was getting closer. Ben and Darius got ready to start the boats when something, no, someone burst out of the jungle.
Zayna screamed when she saw the monster racing towards them. She was caught off guard when she heard Sammy yell out Yaz's name. That creature was Yaz?!
"Start the boats! He's right behind me!" Yaz shouted. They could tell by the tone of her voice she was reaching the limits of her speed. Kenji and Ben lifted their anchor as they started rowing closer.
At that moment, Major emerged from the jungle. Seeing even more prey to devour he increased his speed. By now, Yaz had reached the edge of the river and was about to dive in.
The water erupted as the Suchomimus from before lunged for Yaz. Only her enhanced reflexes prevented her from being bitten. The Suchomimus pounced at her again.
This time, Major body checked him. He snapped his jaws at the other dinosaur. The Suchomimus wasn't going to steal his prey.
It seemed the Suchomimus was just as determined to keep its territory. Neither dinosaur was backing down as they started to circle one another. Yaz was edging her way towards the bank.
Kenji and Ben were determined to get to Yaz before the dinosaurs started brawling. Major and the Suchomimus stopped circling and started attacking each other. Sharp claws met sharper teeth as they brawled against one another.
Yaz broke out into a sprint. She could see the guys nearing her. The battle was coming her way and she leaped into the water. She winced as her transformed legs scraped across the bottom of the shallow riverbed.
"Quick, grab this!" Ben shouted as he held out the quarterstaff.
Yaz half swam/half stumbled through the water as she grabbed the weapon. Once she had a grip on it, Ben ordered Kenji to back them up into the deeper part of the river.
The boat slowly moved away from the fighting. Yaz dug her claws into the quarterstaff. As she had suspected, her wet feathers were starting to make her very heavy.
Once they had reached the middle of the river, Kenji cut the engine. He helped Ben pull Yaz into the boat. Looking at the riverbank, they could still see the two dinosaurs fighting.
"Let's put some distance between us and the dinosaurs. Yaz can change back once we're safe," Kenji called out.
"On it!" Darius responded as he started steering the boat down the river. Kenji quickly followed Darius as they left behind the fighting dinosaurs.
They went a mile down the river before they stopped the boats. Ben braced Yaz's shoulders so she wouldn't slump during the transformation. Yaz took the cure and waited.
Zayana watched in both disbelief and horror as Yaz turned back. The girl's feathers molted right off. There was a slurping sound Yaz's spine straightened back up.
The claws on Yaz's hands and feet retracted as they turned back to keratin. Her eyes dimmed as her vision returned to normal. In five minutes, Yaz was back to herself.
Darius pulled the boat closer until they were side by side with the other one. Sammy practically leaped into the other boat. "Oh, Yaz. I was so worried about you!"
The couple embraced happy to be together again. Breaking apart, Sammy demanded that Yaz never scare her like that again. Yaz promised to do her best.
Yaz looked at Zayna and gave her a half smile. "I guess you're astounded by what just transpired."
"If you are referring to your relationship with Sammy, no I'm not. I suspected it but it wasn't my place to say anything. As for the ability to change into a monster, no I didn't expect that," Zayna stated dryly.
"Yaz is not a monster!" Sammy snapped. Then she looked flustered. "Apologize, I shouldn't have yelled at you."
Zayna commented she shouldn't have called Yaz a monster. She asked if Yaz's ability was related to the smugglers.
The Nublar group gave Zayna a quick rundown on their secret. They emphasized how important it was that she keep this information to herself. The teenager nodded in awareness.
Ben inquired how bad the crisis was for Yaz to use the gel capsule. Yaz explained her story to them. The others were stunned that a tiny sliver of the capsule could alter one small part of their body.
Ben stood up abruptly. "Guys, there's something I have to tell you. Something you might not believe."
Taking a deep breath, Ben spoke. "Brooklynn is still alive."
The others looked at him as if he was crazy. Kenji took great offense and shouted at Ben to stop lying. If Brooklynn was alive, she would have contacted them.
"I'm not lying. Remember, when we first arrived and I was looking up stuff on Dark Jurassic?" The others nodded and Ben continued. "There was a video posted over a month and a half ago from the DLN. Brooklynn was in the video."
"That's impossible, Ben. It could have been someone who looked like her or had plastic surgery to look like Brooklynn. What you're saying is crazy."
"I'm not crazy. Take a look at this video. Zoom in on the top right corner. You'll see for yourselves that it's Brooklynn."
He passed his phone to Sammy and she played the video. She did as Ben instructed and focused her attention on the top right corner. She let out a gasp as she recognized Brooklynn.
The phone was passed around. Ben was right. It was, Brooklynn!
After taking back the phone Ben told them about the message he sent. "I wanted to give her a chance to explain herself. She responded in a coded message."
"Apparently, she's been working covertly to figure out who the Broker is. Her last message indicated something had gone wrong. I tried to contact her, but her account disappeared."
The others went quiet for a full minute. Then Kenji asked the dreaded question. "Do you believe she's dead? I mean truly dead?"
"I don't know, honestly. What we do know is that if she was able to remain hidden for a year then she knows how to survive on the run. We have to believe that she's alive until proven otherwise."
"The facility we're trying to track down belongs to the Broker, right?" Sammy asked. The others nodded and wondered what she was getting at. "There has to be a computer somewhere in the facility. We could try to find out if the Broker has any information about her."
"But none of us are really computer savvy. It's not like we can access classified files or figure out where the Broker is hiding by tracing an IP address. Do any of you know how to do that?" Yaz asked.
"I can help with that," Zayna said startling the group. They had forgotten for a minute that she was there. "I'm the best at computer science in my school. I know a few hacking tricks that might help."
"Does your mother know you can hack?" Sammy asked.
"NO! I'm not a hacker! I just know a few tricks because the computers at school tend to glitch."
"Now all we need to do is find the facility," Darius declared. He was going to ask Yaz if she saw anything in the jungle when he noticed something. "Hey, isn't that the Majungasaurus container?"
The others looked in the direction he was pointing. Next to a small tributary was the large shipping container from the boat. That meant the Majungasaurus they saw was the same one from the boat.
"Captain Lang and the others must have transported the dinosaurs down the river in a smaller boat. I bet the Majungasaurus must have found a way to get the crate open and escaped," Ben said.
"Lang probably ordered Sullivan to get it back. The Suchomimus most likely caught Sullivan off guard and killed him," Sammy surmised.
"The restaurant is only two and a half miles down the river. The facility can't be too far up this tributary. Before the fire on the boat, I heard Lang receive orders to get the shipment to it by the morning of today."
It was still a few hours until daylight and the group was exhausted. They decided to rest for now before resuming their quest. A few minutes later everyone was sleeping soundly.
In Dubai, Soyona entered her apartment. As cliché as it was, she had gone on a walk to clear her head. If she was going to unlock the secrets of the Nublar Six, then she needed to look at the problem with fresh eyes.
She was going to close her curtains when she realized that somebody else was in her apartment. She looked at her studio area. Brooklynn was sitting on the pedestal.
The young adult tossed something at Soyona, who reflexively caught it. It was a flash drive. "That's all my research on your operation. Also, the information I used to track you down."
"Am I supposed to believe what you tell me? I do not doubt that you planted a virus on this flash drive. Shouldn't be too difficult considering how you broke into my apartment again despite the upgrades."
"I hoped that it would serve as a gesture of goodwill. You said you admired loyalty. What's more loyal than giving up any blackmail material I had on you to you?"
Soyona snatched the remote from the stand. She pointed it at Brooklynn and pressed the button. But the beam of light didn't come on.
"Word of advice for the future. Don't leave devices around that need batteries to run," Brooklynn remarked as she held two button batteries in her dinosaur hand.
"Is there a point to all this? Even without the laser, I assure you Red will still attack you if I give her the command."
The two hair toned girl stated she knew that. "Did you know about the local dinosaur fighting ring, here? I managed to slip in and get a few tranquilizers. Your raptor friend is asleep for the next few hours."
It was clear that Brooklynn had sought to guarantee Soyona couldn't use her best weapon against her. Soyona hadn't expected Brooklynn to outsmart her so quickly. Yet, something else was going on here.
"You obviously came here for a reason. What do you want?" the woman asked with her arms crossed.
"To make a bargain with you to protect my friends," Brooklynn replied in a clipped voice.
"You said you admire loyalty very much. My friends and I, also value that. I'm volunteering to give you my life and loyalty to you in exchange for you revoking your hit on my friends."
Soyona started laughing. The absurdity of Brooklynn's bargain was unheard of in her line of work. Did this slip of a girl truly believe that Soyona would revoke a hit because of a few words?
Brooklynn didn't appreciate being laughed at. Casually, she leaned over and dragged her dino fingers across one of the paintings. It left deep gouge marks on the canvas.
"Even without claws, I can still be deadly with my left arm," Brooklynn warned the woman. "Should I keep destroying your art or will you hear me out?"
"I admit, I'm intrigued enough to listen to what you have to say. Explain exactly why I should agree to your bargain and not kill you where you sit?"
Brooklynn held up her left arm and twisted it back and forth. "You're a businesswoman. You desire to know everything you can regarding how this is possible."
Brooklynn plucked her flower decoration out of her hair. "The answers you seek are in here, but you won't get them if you kill me. After all, I need to have a pulse to make the bio-electrical lock open."
"Oh, before you think about killing me and cloning me, ask yourself this question. Cloning gives you the same genetic template. But can it give you the individual's muscle memories, environmental factors, and, experience needed to use this?"
Unfortunately, the answer was no. Soyona had been in this business long enough to know that even clones acted differently than the originals based on their own experiences.
Cloning could also produce mutations in the chromosomes. This meant that even if she cloned Brooklynn, the clone had a chance of not being able to use the dinosaur limb.
"Oh, did I forget to mention the process that gave me this has several risks involved? Gangrene, insanity, and death to name a few. Then even if it works, there's only a fifty percent chance an individual could return to being human."
"Why would anyone who uses what you are offering want to be normal?"
"Being human has some advantages. We have opposable thumbs for one thing. There are also times when you can't get in and out of places because of your size and weight."
"A fair point. Still, are you willing to become an experiment for my scientists? I'm sure it will be painful for you as they try to unlock how this process works."
"Are any of them as intelligent as Dr. Wu? He developed the process and still has all his notes. The only other copy was on the computers in his private lab in the Visitors Center on the island."
Soyona stood still as she thought over what Brooklynn said. Her scientists were excellent at cloning and doing their best to keep the dinosaur pure. Yet, she wasn't confident they could replicate Wu's work within a time period to make a profit.
She didn't doubt other individuals were trying to accomplish what Wu had already done. If she wanted to corner the market then she needed the results as quickly as possible.
Of course, that would be impossible if she allowed the other members of the Nublar Six to be killed. Her trainer had witnessed all of them transforming. Each member was a gold mine of data.
"You're right about what you said earlier. I do value loyalty which is why I'm questioning the fact you are even trying to bargain with me. You just betrayed your friends by offering yourself to me."
"They say laying down your life for the ones you love is the greatest act you can do. I love my friends, and my family, enough to bargain for them. Even if they see it as a betrayal, I'll know I'm doing the wrong thing for the right reasons."
"Your bargain is fascinating, but there's still the fact that I can't completely trust you're not going to betray me. After all, I wouldn't put it past you to be using this chance to bring me down."
"Look into my eyes, Ms. Soyona. They'll tell you that I'm completely serious about this."
Soyona locked eyes with Brooklynn. They told her the girl wasn't bluffing and that she would do anything to protect her friends. "I'm inclined to agree this bargain. But first, a gesture of good faith."
Before Brooklynn could react, the woman grabbed her by the arm and spun her around. She felt something pressed against the base of her neck followed by a clicking sound. Soyona then forced the girl to the floor.
Brooklynn was confused until she suddenly felt the worst migraine in her life. Her brain felt like it was on fire and melting from the inside. She was screaming and crying in pain simultaneously.
The pain ceased and Brooklynn whimpered as she struggled to sit up. This time, she locked eyes with Soyona and saw the ruthlessness in them. "What…did you…do to…me?"
"As a member of the Nublar Six, I'm sure you recall the mind control chips Mantah Corp developed for dinosaurs. I managed to acquire a few before they were confiscated and destroyed."
"I wondered if they could control more than just dinosaur brains. My scientists haven't had much success in that department. The only discovery they have made is that when inserted in a mammal, say human's brain stem, it causes significant pain throughout the body."
She took a few steps nearer and leaned down until she was at eye level with the young woman. "If I wanted to, I could activate the chip until you either received significant brain damage or you would simply die."
A shudder went through Brooklynn's entire body. She had not foreseen this happening. "How is this an act of good faith?" she questioned in a trembling voice.
"Because it guarantees your cooperation without the risk of you betraying me. I wasn't lying when I said I'm intrigued by your bargain," Soyona remarked nonchalantly.
"You're going to assist me with a situation with one of my facilities in Senegal. You do well enough on the mission and I will withdraw the hit on your friends. If not, well I will presume your own body will give me everything I want to know about your little talent."
"How can I be certain you're going to keep your word?" Brooklynn hissed. The young adult pushed herself upright and put her hair decoration back on. "What about an act of good faith towards me?"
To her surprise, Soyona informed Brooklynn she could keep Red's targeting remote. "I'll even key it towards your prints exclusively. We will literally have the other's life in our hands."
Soyona told her they would be departing first thing in the morning so Brooklynn should get some sleep. Brooklynn crawled onto the couch and pulled a throw blanket over her body. Pleased, Soyona went to her room to sleep.
Brooklynn squeezed her eyes shut and waited a few minutes. When she was sure Soyona wasn't coming back, she carefully removed the contact lens from her right eye. The lens had a tiny camera inside it and it had recorded everything.
The device was powered by her own bio-electrical energy. It was part of the latest spy gear in the USA. She had been fortunate to obtain one from the black market without raising too much fuss.
The young investigator reporter was determined to save her friends while bringing the Broker to justice. She hadn't planned on being chipped and hoped someone could get it out. Until then, she would keep playing the Broker's game.